Maybe even wanting more.
"Good morning," I say, keeping my voice neutral, casual, giving nothing away.
"Morning," she mumbles, still not meeting my eyes directly.
She takes her usual seat across from me, wraps her hands around the coffee mug Mrs. Silva sets in front of her with motherly concern.
Her hands shake slightly.
Just a tremor, but I notice everything about her now.
Can't help it.
We eat in silence for several minutes, but it's different from the silences of the past week.
This one is charged.
Electric.
Heavy with everything we're not saying, with the memory of her body arching beneath my hands, with the sound of her gasping my name.
I can feel the questions building in her.
Can sense her working up the courage to speak, to break the silence that's becoming unbearable.
I wait. Patiently.
Finally, she sets down her fork with a soft click against the plate.
"Can I ask you something?" Her voice is quiet but steady, braver than I expected.
"Of course."
"Last night..." She stops. Swallows hard. Starts again. "Was it real?"
The question surprises me.
Of all the things I expected her to ask, this wasn't it. "Was what real?"
"What I felt. The—the pleasure." Her face burns brighter. "Was it real or was I just... I don't know. Imagining it? Wanting it to be real so badly that I convinced myself it was? Because the Sanctuary always said?—"
"It was real, Eden." I set down my coffee, giving her my full attention. "Every second of it. Your body's response was completely genuine. That's what pleasure feels like. That's what you've been denied your whole life. That's what they stole from you with their lies."
"But the Sanctuary said pleasure was?—"
"The Sanctuary lied. About everything. About your body. About desire. About what you're capable of feeling. All of it waslies designed to control you, to make you small, to convince you that your only value was in submission and childbearing."
She's quiet for a long moment, processing, her fingers tracing patterns on the coffee mug.
"And—" She stops. Takes a breath. Forces the words out. "Will it happen again?"
There it is.
The question I've been waiting for.
The question that tells me everything I need to know about where her mind has been all night.
I set down my newspaper, meet her eyes directly, holding her gaze until she can't look away.
