Calculating the angle of refraction was quick and comfortable. Marveling at the hidden details all over the room so distracting she almost forgot her body's needs.
First, the toilet, then a shower… both moments done without any interruption. Not that Brenya did not watch the strange door, waiting for the Beta to intrude.
But he didn’t.
And as he said, there were clothes. Loose-fitting trousers that cinched with a simple string at her belly, and a shirt. Jules' shirt from the smell of it.
Nothing chafed, though it was breezy and unfamiliar. Most of her was modestly covered aside from where the shirt parted at her throat.
She used his comb.
Brushed her teeth with the second, waiting toothbrush.
When all was done, she studied her cheek in the mirror. The yellow of iodine had faded between sleep and bathing, the skin pink and outlined on one side by a reddened scar and the other by ordinary bruises.
The patch on her neck had been removed before bathing, and Lucia had been right. With the abscess drained, there was finally a normal scab.
And every morning, it looked a little better.
He never touched her, though they shared space many hours of the day. The closest he came was his day-old shirt on her back each morning, and the bed they shared each night.
Though even that had become something that no longer looked like any bed she’d ever seen. It started with little additions he’d placed here or there. More blankets, extra pillows in a variety of colors beyond the red of the room.
Nothing was white.
The man only wore black. No embellishment, no embroidery, a stark opposite of what Brenya had seen in Central. Imagining him standing before Parliament in such pristine starkness, it was easy to see that the other men would look even more foolish beside the Beta who had taken power.
Brenya never left the room.
The first time he had, she had followed procedure upon his return. Arms around his neck after he entered, she’d asked which chair he might find most comfortable. When she had reached for the fastenings of his trousers, though he was obviously hard, he had taken her wrists and pulled her hands away.
He did not look pleased as he demanded, “What are you doing?”
What was she doing? Embarrassed and oddly insulted, she had given no answer. After all, she had clearly asked him that first night not to use her mouth while she had stitches… and he had not.
Throwing off her touch, the Beta walked away. “Go for a walk.”
“I’m sorry. A walk?”
“Leave the room, Brenya. Walk anywhere you want. You have your own guards waiting to escort you.”
“Anywhere I want?” It was a trick. It had to be a trick. The one and only walk she had taken since coming to Central had almost started a riot.
It was like he could read her mind. “Standard protocols have been put in place to move unmasked male populations away from areas Omegas want to stroll from noon until four. As you are my wife, and as I trust you not to abuse your people’s schedules, I expect that you will do your best not to inconvenience those who are working should you wish to leave the grounds at other hours.” Back to her, his voice barked a stiff, “Areas can be suggested for you to tour. No one will touch or bother you.”
She did not want to go.
Life had been somewhat palatable in the Red Room. The food had been simple, the hours had been quiet, and there had been no buzzing pliarator or bruising grip.
“Get out!”
Her skin might have been left behind she ran so fast. Throwing open the door, dressed only in his shirt and another pair of plain drawstring pants, she found the guards—biosuits, armed, reliant on canistered air—waiting.
“Greetings, Mrs. Havel.”
Before she might untie her tongue and form some kind of reply, a shot of pleasure spiked right between her legs. On a gasp, she put her weight against the door at her back and felt an uncorked wave of slick go right down her leg.
Lightning struck her spine, a tiny pool growing at her feet as electricity spread from leaking, empty cunt to every extremity.
Seconds away from blinding orgasm, fighting the urge to reach into her pants and ferociously rub her throbbing clitoris, Brenya pointed at a door across the hall. “What is in there?”
“Every room in this quadrant of the Palace is vacant.”
Perfect. She ran the short distance, throwing the door closed and locking it before any of the men might see her fall to her knees. The scream of her climax was trapped, Brenya having bit down on her forearm until she tasted blood.
Dazed when it was over, finding herself sprawled on hands and knees—fully presenting—she rolled to her back and panted at the ceiling.
Projections of this very fresco were available in the museums. The story of the Red Consumption and the lovers torn apart. Cloaked Death pulled naked women from their reaching men. Women from women. Men from men. No love had been spared.