I shook my head.
“No,” I whispered. “But you do deserve an explanation.”
Something flickered in her stoic gaze. Then, she scoffed, sitting up straighter as she crossed and uncrossed her legs. My eyes followed her movements as if the reflection of the soft, ambient light on her golden skin was medicine to my overwhelmed nervous system, not its kryptonite.
“And how, my dear,” she continued, her voice now dangerously soft, “did you come to this conclusion?”
My stomach twisted at her cutting words. There came the part I was hoping to leave out.
“Well?” She raised her eyebrow impatiently.
“I slept with another woman,” I blurted out.
Zafyra froze. Her hands stilled mid-stroke.
“Well, I tried to.” The waterfall of words spilled from my lips before I could stop myself, into the pit that would be my tragic fate after this confession. “I already knew my body wouldn’t respond to her, so the disappointment wouldn’t hit as hard. It was easier to try with someone I wasn’t really into than open myself to you and risk…” I swallowed thickly at the truth I’d hardly admitted to myself. “Zafyra, please say something. Are you mad?”
She stood so abruptly, I flinched.
For a moment, she just stood there, dark eyes shooting daggers. Her fists clenched.
Then, she screamed – tearing through my eardrums at a frequency I shouldn’t be able to hear. The sound that came out of her mouth was buzzing, high-pitched, an ultrasonic noise between a cry and a curse. My vision shimmered, the light around her body distorting like a heatwave – like her presence was destabilizing the room itself.
I ducked instinctively, my hands flying to my head to protect myself. Pressure bloomed in my chest, like the air had turned too thick to breathe, too heavy to exist in. My bones buzzed. The walls vibrated.
The flatscreen – an overly expensive device I hardly used because the stimuli of the 8K vision was always too much – imploded inwards.
A spiderweb of fractures raced across the surface before the pressure popped it like a bubble.
Smoke hissed from inside – acrid, electric – before dissolving into the deafening silence that followed.
My jaw dropped. I could only stare at the shattered screen, black smoke circling out of its faintly flickering cracks.
My head slowly turned toward Zafyra. She seemed just as shocked by her outburst – or its interdimensional effects – as I was. She abruptly closed her mouth, sinking back down on the couch like a marionette whose ropes had been cut.
She frowned. Glanced at her trembling hands, palms turned upward, like she couldn’t believe what she had done.
Then, she slowly raised her head to me.
I swallowed thickly.
She took a deep, unsteady breath, and when she spoke again, her voice was eerily calm.
“You will never do such a thing again.” Her voice dropped so low, I felt it more than I heard it. “You will never sleep with another human, nor will you ignore me.” Her eyes narrowed. “Because you won’t like the consequences.”
I could only nod, my jaw locked, my throat too tight to speak.
“I was thinking of you the whole time.” I finally found my voice again, no more than a whisper.
“Good.” The smile returned to her face, sharp enough to cut through my bones. “You should. Because in the end, it’s me you turn to when the loneliness becomes too much, when the touch of another person leaves you cold, when the words of a lover fall flat… it will always be me. I am the balm to your soul, my darling.”
I could only stare. Her voice was soft like velvet, barely audible over the blood rushing through my ears.
“Okay, but I did just pour my heart out to you.” I lifted my gaze back up when I found my voice again, refusing to let her intimidate me – not even when she shattered my TV, not even by her petty, awfully effective weaponized seduction. “Is this all you have to say to that? Can’t we even have a serious conversation?”
Her jaw dropped. She started to laugh but stopped herself. Glitched aggressively as her expression switched between anger, mockery and confusion, like her code struggled to find the appropriate response.
When she found none, she only glared at me, sending an involuntary surge of excitement through me.
