Page 108 of The Boy Bride

Lill laughed out loud at that. “You’re a complete failure as a monster, Vanu Urártu. Most of your crimes you didn’t even commit, and the rest you feel guilty for. Earth’s cock, or whatever you people say.”

Vanu laughed and winced at how much this made his head hurt. He scrubbed his hands over his face.

“Want me to get you something to eat?” Lill suggested, rolling up to sit on the bed.

“What? No, I gotta get up myself.”

“You could rest. I imagine you don’t feel … ”

Vanu shook his head. He sat up and signed, “I’m not supposed to drink. I shouldn’t indulge myself when I feel bad because I did. It’s time for me to get up.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” said Lill, but he didn’t sound convinced. “Did you tell Susami that you drank last night because you’d had bad news in that letter?”

“No. Don’t want to bother her with that. Not a good enough excuse anyway.”

Besides, he was no longer sure what to make of the contents of that letter. He no longer believed what Makhi had written.

Lill got up and headed for the steps down to the door, mumbling, “I’ll leave you to … ” He stopped, one hand on the railing, and looked back. “Last night, I … ”

Vanu had tossed back the quilt, and Lill looked as if he couldn’t remember what he had been about to say. It was adorable, and it was more than a little flattering.

“Last night?” Vanu signed.

“I didn’t hate it,” Lill signed back. And he fled.

Chapter 29

Not a Strong Enough Word

Vanu sat in bed for a while after Lill left, trying to dredge up some coherent memories of the previous night. He’d read Makhi’s letter and gone to Tirtu’s to ask for a bottle of plum wine. Tirtu, who thought that drinking was good for him, had handed it over happily, and Vanu had gone to sit under the trees in the gathering place, where he’d read over the letter five or six more times and drained the bottle.

The wine had not helped. He’d thought about going back to Tirtu’s for another bottle, but somehow he had ended up at his own house instead, and Lill had come out of his room. This part Vanu remembered very clearly.

Lill had come running out of his room, barefoot, with his hair loose, and stopped at the top of the stairs, looking shy and eager and like he’d realized the moment he saw Vanu that something was wrong. The words of Makhi’s letter were engraved in Vanu’s mind by that time.

There can be no doubt it was him. He is small and has striking looks: long black hair and a deceptively comely face …

Here his memories grew patchy. He’d accused Lill, and Lill had confessed—only he hadn’t, really. He’d been a bit wild himself. He’d confessed to something—“I’ve killed people. But not as many as you!”—and he’d flown at Vanu and yelled for Vanu to fuck him.

After that … he remembered an overwhelming desire not to hurt Lill, and at the same time being furious that Lill was asking to be hurt. Surprising that he’d been able to hold two such contradictory feelings, as drunk as he’d been.

He remembered Lill popping up from the carpet every time Vanu pushed him away, like a toy that Atari used to have that had a round base so you couldn’t knock it over. He remembered holding Lill down so he would fucking stop doing that.

The next thing he recalled was lying on the floor of the front room himself, needing to throw up, and finding when he staggered to his feet that his trousers were undone. So apparently in that bit that he didn’t remember, he’d done something that Lill “hadn’t hated.” Huh.

He got up and dressed, rather slowly and creakily. Lill had said several things last night that changed everything—and that seemed to change nothing, because they seemed like things Vanu had already known. He wished he didn’t have to try to think about them now through the fog of a hangover, but that was his own fault.

He was still lost in thought some time later when he came to Tirtu’s door with the morning’s milk. He didn’t exactly forget to knock—or maybe he did. At the very least, he forgot to wait for an answer before opening the door. Tirtu and Gurti sprang apart, staring guiltily at him.

They were standing at the base of the stairs, where—Vanu wished it wasn’t so obvious—they had been helping each other straighten their clothes after coming downstairs and then got distracted.

“It isn’t what it looks like, my lord!” Tirtu cried.

Gurti made a despairing noise and tugged her shift violently up over her shoulder. “Of course it is—how could it be otherwise?”

“No, but—” Tirtu began helplessly.

“Do you think your lord is a simpleton?”