It was probably good that he had gone out of Tasha’s earshot. If she were to hear her husband loudly explaining to me that he had licked her genitals this morning, well, I simply could not believe that her reaction would have been at all conducive to the health of her heart.
“Are you speaking about cunnilingus?”
“Of course,” he replied. “That is what I said.”
“While I am terribly glad for you that your morning’s nutritional needs have been adequately met-”
“They have, thank you!”
“-this does not help me with my own problem.”
“If she’s sleeping, just let her sleep,” he said. “I do not see how that is a problem. Humans are more delicate in constitution. They injure easily and need more rest than we do. She is likely just fatigued from her journey.”
This was perhaps the most sensible thing he’d said so far. It did not soothe me much.
“That, or she’s got one of those grain things that Shiloh gets sometimes. When Shiloh first arrived, she went straight to bed and did not emerge for the entire day and most of the night.”
“Because of a grain?”
“Yes. A grain in her head. It was causing her quite a bit of pain.”
“Is this grain toxic? How did it get in there? Did she inhale it?”
“I know nothing about the source of the grain,” he said. “I only remember Tasha telling me a bit about it a while ago. Apparently, it is harmless to Shiloh. But when a grain attack comes on, she needs quiet and rest until the pain passes.”
I did not see how being attacked by a poisonous grain could be harmless, but I had even less experience with human women than he did. At least he had the expertise of his wife to fall back upon. I had nothing but a book that I was beginning to think had not adequately prepared me for any of this at all.
“Noted.” I ended the call without another word. I had decided that I would at least look in upon her. If she really was just tired, hopefully the sound of the door opening would not wake her.
Or…
I could look in upon her another way.
My boots carried me off the porch in long strides. I went around the side of the house, following the path I’d kept neatly shovelled all through the season so that I could easily access theouthouse and other parts of the property during the winter. I reached the backyard, staying close to the house.
The room Lualhati occupied had a window. I would look briefly into it, and make sure that all was well.
This explanation seemed perfectly reasonable to me, though the action did not. I frowned at myself. It was foolish to feel like some kind of perverse interloper when all I did was peer into the window of my own blasted house.
Three things surprised me when I looked into that room.
One: she’d brought many of her things into the room. Based on the state of the kitchen, I’d assumed she’d left it all out there.
Two: she was awake now, sitting up in the bed and stretching.
Three: she was wearing my shirt.
The third thing was the hardest to reconcile. I meant to move away from the window at once, but did not. Found I could not. I was stuck fast, like a wagon wheel made useless by mud, watching her yawn and brush her sleep-mussed hair back from her shoulders. Shoulders encased inmy shirt.
It was much too large on her, the gray fabric sagging loosely. But when she stretched again, pushing her chest forward, the heavy curves of her human breasts made the spaces between front buttons gape. I did not have time to even think of averting my eyes before she was scooting out of the bed. Her pale brown feet landed on the floor, and she stood.
She was wearing my shirt. Andonlymy shirt. The lusciously lines of her legs were entirely bare. The hem of the garment came nearly to mid-thigh on her. However, when she turned with her back to the window, bending over the bed as if to make it, it rode up considerably, revealing the generous curves of her backside, and…
Empire preserve me.
I could see her cunt like this. Soft, frilled flesh within, lined with curling hair on either side.
I had never before understood the appeal of cunnilingus. No matter how many illustrations appeared in Tasha’s book, or how many times Warden Tenn mangled the word in his attempted explanations, it had just seemed such a strange concept to me.