Kalos takes every opportunity he can to pull me away from work. The moment Omos is out of earshot, he’s kissing me or dragging me towards the nearest bed. Or chair. Or desk. Yesterday I’d gone into the root cellar to put away some of the vegetables from the garden and Kalos had followed me in and not let me out until I’d orgasmed at least three times. I’d screamed his name while clutching handfuls of carrots and leeks, and I wasn’t able to look Omos in the eye for hours afterwards. Perhaps I should have protested that he was disrupting my work.
It’s just…I really, really like being sidetracked by him. He knows just how to touch me. He knows just where to put his tongue, and what makes me want to crawl out of my skin with need. After weeks of wondering if he liked me or not, the answer is clear. Boy, does he like me. If anything, he might like touching me too much. I never get a chance to reciprocate because he’s far more interested in my responses than taking pleasure for himself. By the time I’m done coming and reach for him, Omos is returning, or Dingle needs to be fed, and I feel like I’ve been in a whirlwind for the last week.
I keep waiting for hedonism to wear off. Omos said it would take a few days for him to “absorb” the other Aspect that’s been destroyed, and he would return to his old ways. But Kalos just seems like…himself. Just a bit hornier.
Okay, alothornier.
This might be his new normal, which is alarming and yet makes my pulse race.
I clear my throat when I realize Metta is watching me expectantly. She doesn’t need to know I’ve been daydreaming about the man currently outside walking our pet goat and letting Dingle chew on her garden. “All right. We’re starting with some super-common ailments. Now, what do you think this picture is for?”
I point at the stylized person with wavy lines radiating from their head, the way I decided would be easiest to figure out what a headache was.
She scrunches up her face, turning the book slightly and studying it before glancing back up at me. “He’s been struck by lightning.”
“That’syour first thought when I say it’s a super-common ailment?”
She shoves the book back at me. “I don’t know! I told you I can’t read!”
I recover the book, opening it back up again. “I’m sorry, Metta. I’m not mocking you! I was just genuinely surprised by your answer. I picked symbols that I thought would be meaningful but just because they’re meaningful in my culture doesn’t mean they work for you. That’s why you’re so integral to this project. Please, sit down.”
Metta paces around the small cottage, scowling, and thumps back onto the seat next to me again.
I need to remember that they haven’t grown up seeing the same symbols I have. Just because a stop sign or a man or woman like the kind they have on bathroom doors is ubiquitous back home, it doesn’t mean it’d be interpreted the same way here. I smooth the page again and tap a finger on the man with the lines radiating from his head once more. “Okay, let’s start with the basics. Does this look like a person’s head to you? Or is there a better way to draw it?”
She leans over and eyes the picture, then me. “It’s fine, I guess.”
“Great.” I point at the radiating lines. “What sort of easy symbol or drawing would make you think that this man is having a headache?”
Metta blinks repeatedly, clearly thinking her answer through. After a moment, she says, “A devil dancing on his brow.”
I want to ask if she’s serious, but clearly we’re on very different wavelengths. “Okay! We’ll take that into consideration.”
She smiles at me and points at the next drawing. “What’s this?”
“It’s the plant. This is what it looks like, and these little areas that are circled are the parts you want to use for your cure. The next page shows you how to prepare the plant once you’ve gathered it.” I’ve painstakingly drawn little hands dropping herbs into steaming pots, tiny kettles, and people drinking the results. I brace myself, waiting for her to tell me that these look wrong, too.
But Metta just grunts and flips to the next page. “There’s a lot of pictures here.”
“There will be, yes. This corner will show you the season for the plant,” I say, pointing at the terrible snowflake I’ve drawn. “If it’s the wrong season for this plant, you look forthis next one here.” I flip to the next page and demonstrate the season, then the plant. “See?”
She turns to the next page, and the next. Her eyes grow wider. “These are all for headaches?”
I nod. “Among other things. But I’m trying to keep it simple. If you have a headache, you look here. If your stomach hurts, we’ll do a drawing of a man with…with a devil dancing on his belly. If it’s your throat?—”
“Devil in your throat,” she finishes. She touches one of the drawings, fascinated.
“I want you to feel like you have control when someone’s sick,” I say. “So you feel like you can do more than just send up prayers and hope for the best. These won’t cure everything, but it’ll give you things to try so you don’t feel helpless. A lot of medicine is just knowing what tools to use.”
She gives me a sly look. “Does the god know you’re giving us all his secrets?”
“They’re not secrets, I promise you. All this information is available in books already. I’m just trying to make it easy for you to understand without having to learn how to read and write.”
“And the god is fine with this? You must have convinced him.”
What exactly does she think is going on between us? The smirk on her face tells me exactly what she thinks…and she’s not entirely wrong. I’m not fucking him for information, though. We’re not even fucking. He’s just going down on me.
Like…all the time.
