I never want to leave Harry’s home, because it already feels like my home, too. Which I know isn’t fair when I’ve commandeered the big bed in the only bedroom. But Sadie is a gentle horse, though a little obstinate, and the small plot of land is just the right size.
Soon, I start to feel… almost human again. Almost like a woman, perhaps, and not a hollowed-out shell wearing grooves into the mortar of her prison. Which means that I start to have wants.
Needs. Desires.
Yes, I desire Harry. When he arrives home from work in the dawn hours, I always get up to say hello, even if I was in the middle of a dream. Though tired, he is stillhandsome, and his white teeth are always visible when he smiles behind his beard.
“Would you like dinner?” I ask, hoping that this time he’ll let me cook for him. I want todothings for him, to thank him for all he’s done for me. But he simply shakes his head and ushers me back off to bed, then tends to cooking his meal alone.
So I wash his clothes, and feed his horse, and trim back the hedges. I do everything I can to show him how I feel, how I ache for him to touch me again, just once. But he has never been inappropriate with me, never even suggestive. If anything, he keeps his distance.
Which sometimes leads me to wonder other things. Perhaps he does not like women. Or perhaps I am not appealing to him in that way.
That thought, to my surprise, dampens my mood. Surely that is the reason I can’t detect anything beyond friendship between us. He saw me at my worst and cared for me, and maybe he will never wash that image of me, sick and filthy, from his mind.
And so, though I dread the thought, I begin to look for a place to live. I’ll have to get a job if I’m no longer living off Harry’s good nature. But it’s the right thing to do. He should be free to find someone else, and he can’t do that while I’m taking up space here.
While I sit at the table poring over the newspaper, looking for what housing might be available, I find a room in a women’s home. That would probably be ideal—inexpensive, but surrounded by other women.
I grow more and more sour the longer I look, though, so I put the newspaper away and try to think about something else.
I’m getting quite warm, despite the cool early spring weather, so I take off my leggings and sweater. And yet, even when I do that, I’mstillwarm. I can’t remove any more layers and be decent, though, so I will just have to bear it.
Then I squint when a cramp hits me in the gut. But it isn’t the same as the cramps I remember from when I used to get my monthly blood. It’s something else—lower, more acute.
Feeling miserable for myself, I retire to the bedroom, close the door, and strip off all my clothes so I can finally be cool again. Then I lay atop the bed, cringing whenever another cramp hits, wishing I could be what Harry wanted.
6
HAROLD
Ithink about her day and night, night and day. Every moment I’m awake, Selene is at the center of my thoughts. Even in my dreams, I see her, though there she is often naked. Sometimes underneath me, and I am naked, too.
That is when I feel the most guilty. The most depraved. She trusts me as her friend, and to dream about her moaning my name is, though she’s not aware of it, a transgression of that trust. Still, that doesn’t seem to stop my subconscious mind from imagining it whenever possible.
No longer do I ponder philosophical questions while on patrol. Instead, I picture Selene in every state of dress. I think about how she looked basked in sunlight while she cooked today. I think about how her rear has filled out, rounded and soft. I think about her eyes, over and over, and how they always match what she wears because there are so many vivid colors in them.
“Harry?”
I blink as a voice filters through my thoughts, and I glance up from where I’m packing up my bag to go home. It was a long night, and I’m ready to get back to the house and make sure Selene is where I left her.
“You alright, mate?” asks Greld. “You have a weird look on your face.”
“I’m fine. Just tired.” I sling my bag over my shoulder.
“A woman at home now?”
Damn. How does he know? I scramble for what to say, and his lip rises in a knowing smirk the longer I’m silent.
“That’s all I needed to hear.” He waves at me over his shoulder. “Go get home to the missus. See you tomorrow.”
I’m relieved that he didn’t ask more questions.
When I return home, it’s to the sound of quiet whines coming from the bedroom.
I rush to the doorway and peer inside. Selene is in the bed, her eyes squeezed closed, both her hands gripping the blankets. Another whimper escapes her, and I rush to her side, panicked about what might be wrong. I’ve worried for some time that her blood hasn’t come, and wondered what it means—if perhaps she’s been ill all along.
“Harry?” she whispers, one eye opening. “Is that you?”
