Kade thought for a moment. “I’ll show you a Polvron dance called ‘Rise of Summer.’ The changing seasons are very important to their culture.” He tapped on his comm for a few moments, then a soft melody began to drift through the room. He stood on one leg, the other tucked up on his thigh, placed one hand over his chest and bowed his head. Then he began to move. The movements were slow and sweeping, reminding me of Tai Chi. There was an old man who taught it down at the local park on weekends, and I’d sometimes seen him there with a handful of people, all moving in unison. Kade’s movements were somewhat more exuberant and less precise, but the overall feel was similar.
“What do they use this for?” I asked, when he came to a stop some minutes later. “Is it for entertainment, or some kind of ritual? Does just one person dance, or a group of people?”
“Usually a group, for rituals at various times of year. This one would be performed at the spring solstice, to welcome the summer season. The Polvron would hold a feast, play music, and have their dimari and other servants perform the dance.”
“It was beautiful,” I told him. “Did it take you a long time to learn?”
He smiled and shook his head. “The Polvron dances were easy. The Anicrian ones were a lot harder. They’re quite long, and I…” He ducked his head and looked away. “I didn’t always have the patience to practice them all the way through.”
“You seem to have immense patience now,” I said, a little surprised by that announcement. “You sat on a rock in the cold and stared at the desert for two hours straight.”
He shrugged. “Watching for danger that I need to kill is more interesting to me than dancing for a bunch of annoyed aristocrats. On Anicrios, the dances are performed for the entertainment of royalty.” The unspoken opinion that he didn’t much care for the whims of royalty was loud and clear.
“Do you ever miss it?” I asked, the stray thought popping out before I could think better of it. “Being on Eumad, I mean. The training? Being with other dimari?”
It would have been vastly different from being here, on Rendol 4. But even so, I was honestly expecting him to say no. His desires and focus were so wrapped up in me now that I didn’t think he’d give the idea much thought. But a wistful expression settled on his face. “Sometimes. Being a teenager, mostly. It was a lot of fun. We were always learning new things and playing games to test our abilities. We got a lot of rewards. It was nice.”
“What kind of rewards did you get?” Not sex, I assumed… and then immediately wished I hadn’t asked. How old were the dimari when they started being trained for sex?
But Kade’s answer quelled my fears. “Nice food. Some really soft blankets. Sometimes we got to listen to music or watch videos. Or sometimes they’d take us for walks through the hills when the flowers were out. Most of the landscape was very dull, but for a few weeks in summer, it was beautiful.”
“I never actually asked you before, but… do you want to go back? I assumed you’d want to stay here, but maybe I was wrong.” Kade had seemed so distressed when I’d told him I wasn’t his intended master. But being distressed at my supposed rejection of him was not the same thing as not liking his childhood home.
Kade looked at me quizzically. “Do I want to go back? I don’t understand. You are my master. Why would I leave?”
“Because you enjoyed your life there. Maybe it was simpler, or more peaceful? It would be totally reasonable to want more of that.”
Kade frowned. “Dimari are not taught to think in terms of what wewant. We obey. That is all.”
Now it was my turn to frown. “But you enjoy things. You said you find our missions satisfying. Did you like the baking?” That was the impression I’d got from him.
“Yes, I did,” he confirmed.
“So doesn’t it make sense that if you enjoy something, you want to do more of it?”
I was treading on rocky ground here, effectively trying to goad my dimari into arguing with me. But as usual, he took a neat sidestep around the issue. “If I offered to cook chicken for dinner, I would enjoy eating it. But if you told me to cook fish instead, I would be equally happy to eat that. I enjoyed dancing for you. But if you were not here, I would not be dancing.”
Was it pure stubbornness that had me not believing him? Was I shooting myself in the foot by trying to force an opinion out of him, when he really didn’t have one? I considered my next move carefully. Then, slowly and deliberately, I stalked towards Kade, backing him up until his shoulders hit the wall. I leaned in close, but stopped short of kissing him. “What if I told you I want to suck your dick right now? Would you enjoy that?”
The scales over Kade’s face fluttered to a faint purple, then faded back to blue. I was learning his tells now, having caught a few stray changes of colour at various times over the past week; when he was pleased, when he was frustrated, when he was aroused.
“Yes, sir,” he said, his voice a touch breathless. “I would enjoy that.”
What I was about to do next was cruel, to a certain extent. But if Kade and I were going to have a healthy, long-term relationship, I needed to get a better handle on what really made him tick. “And if I just wanted to watch you wash the dishes instead? Would you enjoy that just as much?”
He opened his mouth to answer… but no words came out.
“If both things please your master, then it shouldn’t make a difference.”
“Y...yes, sir,” he said, though he sounded far from convinced.
“I think that you do actually want things. But you’re so accustomed to not being allowed to say so that you’re not even aware of them. Take some time to think about that.”
With that, I walked away, aware that I was leaving him hard and frustrated, but hoping that with enough time, and the right amount of pressure, he might learn to realise his own thoughts and desires, rather than solely waiting for cues about mine.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Aiden
