“What do you mean?” I thought you might be regretting our intimacy. Perhaps I’d triggered some bad memory from your past. I knew I should have gone slower with you.
“Using Bobby like that. It’s fucked up what we did, Henri.”
I relaxed a little. You weren’t dying, only suffering an episode of guilt—utterly, incurably human. But it manifested so profoundly. I was capable of feeling remorse as well, but I’d used human bodies for both survival and diversion for so long that I tended to rationalize it to myself. Compared to my demon brethren, I was a saint, and even a Malakhim gave little thought to their host’s well-being beyond the body’s care and maintenance.
“Yes, it was,” I said as a deep sadness overcame me, for how could we ever bridge this divide?
“He was really kind to me. I didn’t deserve it. What we did…” You shook your head like you were trapped in a fever dream. “I’m just like Roger.”
“No, Orlando, you’re not.”
“I am.” You sat up in the bed and dragged your hands down your face. “I kissed him and touched him without his permission. I mean, I asked, but he was in some kind of trance. It was like he was drunk or something. I took advantage of him.”
“Wetook advantage of him.”
“Yes, we did. And what’s worse, he can’t really remember it, so he was just… terrified. Like, imagine if someone did that to me.”
I tried to calm you with seduction, but you resisted.
“Don’t do that,” you snapped and jerked away.
“Do what?”
“Don’t try to slow my heartbeat or mellow my energy. I deserve to be sick about this. Ishouldbe punished.”
I thought you were overreacting, but suggesting it would only upset you more.
“It looks like you’ve been punishing yourself already. When’s the last time you’ve eaten?”
“I haven’t been able to keep anything down. I keep throwing up. Everything tastes disgusting. I can’t stand it.”
You gagged, then made an effort to swallow. No wonder your throat was raw.
“I can’t have you depriving your body of nutrition,” I said. “That won’t benefit anyone in this situation, and it won’t undo what we’ve done. What did you think acquiring a body meant, Orlando?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I thought about it in the abstract of course, but seeing Bobby face-to-face, knowing the effect we had on him… It wasn’t like what happened with Tyrell and Derek. He didn’t deserve it.”
“Then we won’t do it again,” I said with some finality. I couldn’t let you tear yourself apart. I took on a sharper tone of voice, one I used when you were especially recalcitrant. “Now, you’re going to get out of bed. You’re going to take a shower, or a bath if you’d prefer. Then you’re going to go out to the kitchen and make yourself some tea with honey and lemon to soothe your throat.”
You scowled and dragged your feet, but you did it. When you were seated at your small kitchenette with a cup of tea, I laid down the rules.
“You are human, and humans make mistakes. You are not to punish your body for your errors in judgment. Do you understand?”
You leaned back in your chair with your arms crossed, pouting.
“Answer me, Orlando.”
“Yes,” you said like the sullen teenager you were.
“If anyone is guilty here, it’s me, because I inhabited—”
“Body-snatched,” you interrupted.
“Because Ibody-snatchedBobby without his permission.”
“And I went along with it,” you said.
“Yes, you did. If you were religious, I’d suggest you go to your place of worship and repent, but you seem utterly faithless, so what acts of service can you do to absolve yourself of this sin?”
