Scenes From An Unusual Marriage, 3

[Galen]

“So, love....” My wife, Joylah, was laughing at me. “Let me get this straight.”

“Oh no.” I knew exactly what was coming, and I dreaded it all the more because I knew she was right.

We were on the porch, sitting on the floor together. She giggled more. “No, no, I just want to make sure we're clear...You flirted more or less openly with just about every girl you've met here. Are now you're openly keeping a mistress. Through all this, you also talk about me openly. You make no attempt to hide that you're married. And, after all that, you have the reputation...Well let's see. You have the reputation of being someone who can keep a wife and a mistress and flirt openly with every girl he sees, which is exactly what you've been doing. And you're upset about it?”

I sighed. “Actually, that's about it.”

She giggled again. That giggle was worth a lot to me, and petty much made up for the humiliation I was feeling. She was absolutely right, of course. The result of my behavior was predictable. It was not to my credit that I somehow hadn't predicted the obvious. It was foolish of me to expect anything else. The way I was being thought of was exactly in line with how I'd been behaving.

She straddled me, kissed me softly. “You're not cut out for that life, love.”

“What life.”

“The life of...of a cad, a womanizer.”

“You think that's what I'd have been, melamin?”

“You mean without the decision you're making right now even though you don't quite know you're making it? No, melamin. You'd have been about as different from the other men who do such things as you think you'd have been. But you would have had that life. And the reputation to go with it. The difference would have been within. The results would've been the same.”

I nodded. I knew what she meant. And she was right.

“I saw her the other night, you know, through the window.” Joylah's eyes twinkled as she spoke. “Your mistress, Aranel....She's quite beautiful, though I don't think she knows it.”

“I'll tell her you said so. It'll mean a lot to her.”

Joylah smiled. “You, my husband, are a very strange man,” she said huskily.

“You have no idea.”

“Oh, but I do, melamin....Better than you!”

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It's funny, the kinds of things a man will be remembered for. And, for that matter, the kinds of things a man will remember about himself.

Really, my reputation should have been the last thing I should be worried about. There was so much going on. I felt silly, guilty, selfish for worrying about my reputation in the midst of all this.

Things were quiet in Factions, the never-ending Civil War for the Felucca facet. That was Aranel's fight anyway. I'd never be anything more than an assistant, and I was fine with that.

There seemed to be the understanding among everyone involved in that fight that its days were numbered, that Factions was in its twilight. Whether the end would come next week, next month, next year, or whether Factions' twilight would be long and slow like mine, no one knew.

The Shadowlords were dead, partly by my own hand. The Dark Enchantress Minax was dormant, save for her incoherent correspondence with Travesty in the Tokuno Islands. I had a strange feeling that Minax may not remain dormant forever.....But she at the moment had almost nothing to do with the Faction that carried on her own and Mondain's legacy. There was, as far as I could tell, nothing left of the Council of Mages save for the Faction that bore its name. And Lord British would probably spend an eternity in the Ethereal Void, guarding some powerful item against an enemy that, quite likely, would never come. Old ideologies must sooner or later give way to new ones. Everyone knew this.

And every year there was less and less of Felucca to fight over. Less people, less trees, less water, less everything. We'd all thought of the devastation wrought by Minax as a one-time thing, at least at first we did. Now, though, we'd had years to see that it was an ongoing process. A decay, a downward spiral whose bottom was always just out of reach and whose top had passed so long ago no one remembered what it looked like.

Which would be harder. Letting go, or holding on? Even for the casual Faction fighters like me, to say nothing of the truly dedicated, like Aranel and her mother and sisters?

But there were threats in Trammel, too, and they were many. They were of course my primary concern.

The girl Meleria had gone missing during her daring, and successful, play to rescue Chancellor DaKaren from the Temple of Mondain, and from her own seemingly-traitorous god. That the Temple had taken her during the fight was an easy guess. Whether or not she was still there, though, was frightfully unknown.

Unlike Mayor Willa, Meleria had no particular value to them.

The unknown is sometimes more to be feared than the most fearful of the known.

The matter of Meleria and Raven, her sentient spear whom Meleria had claimed was an aspect of a deity of hers, was one instance where I should have followed my instinct. Instinct had told me that Raven, having been in spear form for much of Meleria's life, having seen her grow up and mature, had become overwhelmed with lust, and maybe even love, for the girl. It had made Meleria dress up “girlishly,” made her strip in that vile bar in Tokuno, had sexualized her.....Often in ways I even at my most predatory would find....distasteful. Ways that would probably make even Joylah blush a bit.

Meleria had claimed something else was going on. She seemed to trust Raven, a god of her people somehow imbued into the form of a quite respectable spear. But given Raven's behavior in attempting to kidnap Chancellor DaKaren and enlisting the aid of the Temple of Mondain, I was more likely closer to right about what was going on than Meleria herself was.

But I'd said nothing.

Did that make me responsible? Why was I even thinking about that when she was still endangered? I should worry about practical matters now, philosophical matters later, if at all.

And then there was the matter of Leif, the Grand Marshal's and Willa's son, and the murder he was accused of. Whiskey McGinn, the barkeeper. I had to remember that name. I absolutely could not allow myself to forget it. I must not allow the fact that the, likely innocent, accused was more famous than the victim to make me forget the victim. This was as much about avenging Whiskey as it was about vindicating Leif.

Or, at least, it should be. Or, at least, it was to me. My guild was named the Legacy of the Fallen. The hapless Mr. McGinn and those like him were the fallen; the forgotten, nameless victims of crime and evil. We were their legacy. Their means of retribution. I thought of Emily Conner. That's where my mind always went when these thoughts entered it.

And Willa....Her condition was unknown save through talking to her sister, whom I trusted about as far as I could throw her Cu Sidhe underwater. Nothing I could do about it, though.

The Royal Spies...So much going on there....But, somehow, I couldn't think about that right now. That was all too “big.” Right now my thoughts were about matters closer to home. Whiskey, Leif, Meleria.....My guild and I had our work cut out for us.

And about the women in my life. Joylah and Aranel. My wife, my mistress, and the unusual circumstances we'd found ourselves in.

We were, I thought, all happy. I loved them both, and felt privileged to have their love in return.

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“No...No, that's not you at all.” Joy said to me. Her voice was breathless. We'd just made love, and we'd both been vigorous, even for us.

“What isn't, love?” It was sometimes a point of pride with me that I kept my faculties after we were together, even when she couldn't. Tonight I didn't bother to try. I was more breathless than she was.

“Being a cad.”

“I know....”

“Mmmhmm...You do. Or, at least, think you do....”

“How do you mean, mela?”

Her breath somewhat recovered, she slid on top of me, stared into my eyes. “Can you make love to a woman....And see her only as flesh, as pleasure?” She kissed my neck. “Can you truly see her as an object? Even if you respect the person, can you forget about the person, and take only the pleasure, adore only the flesh, and move on?” She slid down my body and kissed my chest.

“No.”

“Can you leave her on the bed...Even if tomorrow you'll treat her with respect, can you tonight leave her on the bed, full and empty at the same time, having sated yourself, and simply move on? Knowing that tonight she meant nothing to you beyond that?” With exquisite slowness she slid lower and kissed lower.

I sighed at her words, and gasped at her attentions, at the same time. “No.”

“Have you ever, every in your life, really wanted that? Not counting when you were drunk and horny and lonely and would have taken anything, and why oh why couldn't you have been that way the first night I came onto you....”

“No. Not really, not once.” I remembered the night she meant. If I ever forgot, she'd remind me. And then remind me again. And again.

“Then there you have it. You shall enjoy your wife and mistress, and be content. Two women are more than enough for most men, after all....” Her breath had returned. Mine hadn't. But I didn't need breath for what she had in mind.