“Aye, I’ve a whole pile here.Want to see them?”
“I’d love to.”
We sat together on the mat, Dinesh in his all-together and I in my drawers, and examined the fine shells and rocks.It was so lovely to share them with him, and to watch him look closely at each object and ask what I liked about each one.He leaned in and nuzzled my neck, and to my own horror, I made a sound resembling the giggle of a schoolgirl.
“It’s you!”I exclaimed, pulling back and aiming a glare at him.“You’re doing this to me!”
“Doing what, my precious rooster?”
“Turning me into a simpering, quivering fool!”
“Oh, I do hope so.”He leaned in and licked a line from my ear to my clavicle.
“Stop it,” I sighed, hopeless to make any genuine protest.
“But Rooster, you make such a lovely bride.”
His lips stilled against my skin.He pulled back and coughed.Then his gaze met mine as I held my breath.
He blinked, coughed again, then said, “Well, I suppose we might as well be married.”
All of my breath left me as my eyes went wide and the implications of his words hit me like a slap to the face.My brain whirled as I contemplated how to respond to this.Then I felt affronted.
“Well, if that ain’t the most insulting proposal I’ve ever heard in my life!Christ, Dinesh, what the fuck is wrong with you?”
Dinesh’s gaze was intense.He reached down and took my hand, lifted my fingers and kissed my knuckles.
“Very well.Simon Bartholomew White.Will you marry me?”
“Will I—will Imarryyou?What the fuck, Dinesh?Have you lost your bloody mind?”
He didn’t say a thing, only kept staring at me with a moony look in his eyes.I actually thought he might have caught some kind of island-borne disease that had addled his brain.
“We can’t getmarried,” I sputtered, my heart going like a tiny bird’s that’s found itself in a trap.
“Why ever not?”
“Because…because that’s not permitted!”
“Marriage?”
“Marriage between people like us, I mean.”
“Ah, well.So you’re going to let one little detail stop you from making me the happiest fellow on Talamanca and across all the oceans.”
I blinked.“Kind of an important detail, don’t you think?”I said, my voice sounding far away and my heartbeat deafening in my head.
“I’m not saying our marriage will be legal.Of course, not.But perhaps we can be married in the eyes of the most important people, which is ourselves and our closest friends.”
All of a sudden I wondered why I was fighting the idea.Why did a proposed marriage to Dinesh frighten me?Because the practice wasn’t permitted?Well, neither was piracy, or calling up magic to smite people down.Or sodomy, of course, in which I had a vested interest.
“I don’t know…”
Dinesh’s expression changed in an instant, and he coughed.“Well, of course, if you don’t feel the same way, I understand completely.”
“No.I mean, yes, I do, but…I need to know what this means before I give you an answer.”
“Means?”
