Lolita spotted the exchange.“Who is she?”
“My personal guard,” Micah said.
“Is she also your lover?”
“She is not.”
“Will she remain your guard if we are to be married?”
“Six years is a long time, Señorita,” Micah said.“The focus for you, if that shall be the case, is to complete your studies as you learn who I am, my interests, and what will be expected of you in your role as my life partner.”
She pouted.“Let me see your hands, please.”
He pulled his hands from behind his back and held them out for her inspection.She took them into her own, turning them over, looking at his palms.Lolita spotted the callouses on the fingertips as well as inside the palms.She looked up and into his eyes.
“You're really handsome,” she told him.
“Thanks,” he said, knowing she was fishing for compliments.
“Oh, you have nothing to say back to me?”
“Your dress is cut too low for a young woman of sixteen years,” he said.
“I was going for something like ‘You're lovely,’ or ‘I think you're pretty,’” Lolita said.
“Fishing for compliments makes you seem, what is the word,ah si, thirsty,” he said, looking away.
She released his hands, still remaining in front of him, demanding his attention.“My father said something is wrong with you, but you're really smart.”
“I have Asperger's.”
“Is that like bad headaches or something?”
“No, it means I am on the spectrum.”
“You have issues with your eyes?”
“Señorita, it means I am neurodivergent,” he said, knowing she wouldn't know what that meant, but hoping.
“I'm sorry, Micah; I don't know what it means,” she said honestly.
“It is a form of Autism.I am autistic, but in my life, I have learned to lean into it and use it to my advantage,” Micah said.
“Is that some form of being retarded?”
He was bored of her already.As certain as he was that her father had informed her of all of Micah’s achievements as well as his financial status, it panged him to know the man didn’t bother to inform his daughter of his medical condition.All of it felt...tiring.
“If so, you would marry a man with such a condition and bear him children, knowing, your children may be impacted by his mental state?”Micah asked, curious as to the plan.
She shrugged.“Would you take care of your wife and children, providing love and care if they came out like you or even normal?”
“I would,” he said, holding out the same hands she’d just held.“These calluses and scars on my hands...I earned the brawn of my muscles working this land.I ride these fields and oversee the harvesting of crops with my father.I round up and move cattle when I am in Argentina with my grandfather.Anything I have I earned and so will my children.”
“Then, there you go,” Lolita said.
“Señorita,” he said softly, “in such a pairing, you would risk your happiness to be prepared to live a life with such a man?”
She blinked a few times.He saw tears come to her eyes as she spoke.“The men my father has picked for me to marry are not kind men,” she said.“There are a few who wish to marry me now before I complete my schooling this year, offering me no other future.Being betrothed to you, I would get to attend Uni and have room to breathe before becoming an incubator for a houseful of children I may or may not want.I am wearing a low-cut dress, yet you have not sexualized me.I could do a lot worse than a man who is on the spectrum.Some of the sons of Czars are really bad people as if you didn't know that yourself.”
