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When she thinks she can see him without crying again, she holds her baby close and walks silently back to Rana's.
The room has been replaced with - something else. She has no idea what this means. She has nobody to ask but Rana. Everything she asks places her further in his debt, of course, but it hardly matters now.
She steps inside.
Oh good. She can make a little pile of ones that she likes even more than all of the other ones and see which of those ones he likes too. But it's going to take a long time, because she has so many magazines. Probably she will just have to go on being delighted until she finishes. She likes ones that look like little wreaths of leaves and ones that look like a band of the night sky and ones that look like they have captured a little piece of forest.
It's so good how she has such correct tastes.
Even if they are settled on ones that have captured a little piece of forest there's deciding which little piece of forest. There are so many.
Eventually they can sort their big stack down to a fairly small stack.
"...we could get all of them," he says when he really can't decide.
"I don't know! Wear some on our toes? Put a string around them and wear them as a necklace? Buy more clothes and coordinate them with our clothes every day?"
Hug. "We would look very silly.
"I guess any ring that isn't magic might not last for all of eternity. So if you mean to keep me forever and ever you might need to buy a new one in a thousand years. And eventually in enough thousands of years we can go through them all."
It is an extremely pretty little piece of forest. She does not expect to grow tired of it this millennium.
"Well, traditionally there's an enormous party during which you invite everyone you even sort of know, and you wear the nicest clothes you have, and then you promise in front of everyone that you intend to love, to honor, to keep, and to comfort me for as long as I live, and I promise to love and to honor and to keep and to serve and to obey you. And I think we were pretty much decided on not listening to anyone else about this, so I don't know that inviting our entire community would really help us very much, but it still seems like there ought to be some kind of - moment, where we weren't the thing before it and after it we are."
"I suppose because women are naturally more submissive and less capable, on most fronts. It's one of the curses for bringing evil into the world. 'Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.' And it seems better for men to rule households than for women to, them being both stronger and more intelligent. So I suppose we're supposed to intend to adhere to our role.
"I don't know why only the husband promises to comfort. I suppose I'm probably expected to need more comforting."
"Maybe it's that - it's comforting when you're okay, and it's comforting when everything's taken care of. And so I've just got to - do that. And if I'm not doing that it won't really help to have you tell me it's all right, exactly."
"And anyway you can comfort me without having promised you mean to. If we run into something where it'll help."
She's so glad he likes it.
They still can't do more than kiss, but it can be some very high-quality kissing.
Yeah he is not going to try other things! Other things make her sick and sad. Kissing is nice.
Kissing makes her want other things!! This is weird because intellectually she knows that sex is horrible and that the last time he tried to take her clothes off she sort of panicked. Also she's pretty sure they're still not married and therefore they're not really allowed to do anything else anyway. Also it makes her sick, or something, that's probably at all important. It would be a bad idea on all of the levels if they did anything besides kissing.
She has never been frustrated with this before, except about, like, the abstract fact that it might keep her from getting married, but she is kind of very immediately frustrated about it right now? She's not even sure what she wants, except that it definitely involves being touched in some kind of way??
Maybe if she makes enough needy whimpering sounds he'll at least kiss her neck again. That was so nice last time.
He can do that.
He is pretty confused! Usually if someone obviously wants you and the debt from kissing is running their way you should have sex with them but last night it was a bad idea to take off her clothes! He's not really sure how much he can do without taking off any clothes. Some people can get off without being touched? Maybe that's the thing he should be trying to do? Or maybe that will also make her feel sick? Also he's not clear on the boundaries of what hurts very badly every time she tries it but it'd be surprising if it didn't hurt as long as one was wearing clothes. It's not that this isn't great but this isn't what Cecelia wants and if he only knew what to do -
- oh wait there's an obvious thing.
"What do you want?"
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