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Jude.
I hate everything about her. From the snarl her mouth forms whenever she sees me to the shape of her name. I hate the way my tongue is forced to curl when I say it, the space each letter occupies from the roof of my mouth to the roots of my teeth.
A low fire burns at the open hearth. I am writing her name with a blistering anger that expands like the burning flames devouring thick pieces of wood and turning them from deep brown to ash gray, until the ink of my pen starts to spill, splattering the page. I am angry at the mess and it confuses me, to feel this way at the ruination of her name. I shove the paper to the side, and—
And that is when I hear the knock on the door.
It is a hesitant knock, but also the kind that drags. I hear their knuckles scraping the door carefully. I know immediately that it is one of Balekin’s many ensorcelled mortal servants. My fist clenches. I do not like seeing the way they wander around Hollow Hall, hapless little creatures with no sense of will. Balekin’s little toys to play with and abuse; his means of abusing me as well. What do they want at this hour of the night? Does Balekin mean to bother me? I glance at an emptied goblet of wine that sits near my bedrest. Had I sent for another bottle and simply forgot? That would be the most plausible explanation, because as of now my mind is entirely too sober, and I wish for it not to be.
They knock again and I sigh. I stand and arrange the cuffs of my spider silk shirt; I smooth out the collar and button up the top so that my chest is appropriately covered. This modesty is unusual of me, yet I deem it necessary whenever these mindless mortals are in my presence.
“Come in,” I say.
A male servant opens the door carefully, one of his arms looped around a bulky arm that belongs to someone else. He pulls them in with him, walking to approach me. I stand up straight in front of my bed with my arms crossed, trying to look miffed at his intrusion. Then I see her, and my breath nearly stills.
Her dark brown hair is twisted in an updo of horns, clipped back with a golden hair piece that is shaped like daisies. Her lips, full and pink, rest in a straight line. Her walnut-colored eyes hold a blazing fury that I have come to know intimately.
At that, I smile.
“This mortal came to our halls requesting an audience with you. Balekin himself ordered me to escort her to your rooms. Will you grant her?” The servant asks.
My eyes do not move from hers as she stands before me. For a moment, my mind does not even register the servant’s words, but I answer thoughtlessly, because I want him gone.
“Yes, whatever, now leave.” I wave him off. With no choice but to obey, he is off.
When we are alone, revulsion and wonderment billow in my chest like fumes.
Jude Duarte is here in my bedroom. Woman of my dreams; temptress of my nightmares.
She is not clad in her usual uniform. Tonight, she wears a silk robe with a shade of brown that matches her eyes. She favors the tones of the earth and they favor her back; her creamy skin radiant like sunlight. My eyes flicker to the way the robe parts down the middle, the roundness of her breasts that teases out from the sides. I ball my fists and my eyes are on hers again.
“Jude,” I say, oddly polite. There is satisfaction here; in having her at Hollow Hall with a look of displeasure on her face. Good. For all the misery she has wrought me, anger is the least of what she deserves. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Her lip trembles, like she is trying to keep herself under control. My smirk widens.
She mumbles it at first. Her words are indecipherable, mushed together like peas. I strain to hear what she is saying.
“What?”
Another mumble. Another “what?” in response. This goes on for what feels like hours before I stomp my foot impatiently.
“Speak properly Jude. Or leave my room.”
“I… I want a truce.” She spits out the words indignantly, as though they are poison. “Leave me and my sister alone. I no longer wish to fight.”
I raise an eyebrow, “You are calling a truce? Now?”
“Yes.” She nods, ashamed. I feel like a giddy child.
“Why?” I ask, though the answer is obvious. She is humiliated by the fact that she must stand here and explain it to me, how in the end despite her “willpower” and her farce display of strength, she simply cannot handle the pressures of my antagonism.
“Because of Taryn,” she says, surprising me. “She is utterly miserable because of you all. Let her be. Let both of us be.”
She is here to admit defeat, yet she speaks as though she is commanding me, and it irks me more than words can describe. I hate it.
It also amuses me. I never harbored much love for any of my siblings. They hate me, as they should, for my destiny is nothing but destruction. I am a sore mark on the Greenbriar name. Now Jude is here, willing to throw out the last of her pride for her measly sister. How nice it must be, to care about someone and be cared for like that. I scowl.
“I do not take orders from you.” I say plainly. “You must convince me that you are worthy of my mercy. What do I get in return?”
She blinks at me with uncertainty, like she is weighing out her offer, trying to decide how much value it will hold to me. Her hands line the side of the robe, fingers reaching inside to play with the fabric.
“...Me.” She says meekly.
I tense. Instinct tells me to reach for her, but pragmatism roots me where I am.
“And what am I to do with you?”
She bites her lip, eyes downcast. “Whatever you like.”
It feels wrong and right at the same time, to hear her say that. I am more aware of the flames at the hearth, the way they crackle and spatter, the heat that emits.
“What are you wearing underneath the robe?” I ask.
The question startles her, and her expression morphs into apprehension. “Nothing.”
The answer is what I fear but also crave.
This time when I speak, my voice is gentle. “May I see?”
I do not know why I am asking. She is so laughably far beneath my station; the scale of power between us an aching chasm that she can only dream of crossing. I am a prince, and she is a bastard daughter to a pair of dead mortals from the human realm, fostered by the redcap who murdered them. I could simply command her, or glamor her into taking the robe off. But strangely, I do not want to do either.
“If that is what you desire.” She says warily, like she expects it. She probably thinks me to be perverse, probably expected a courtier or two to be here already with me in my chambers. Her eyes fall on Balekin’s wooden carvings of bare-chested women that sit along the headboard of the bed and she grimaces. She knows a bit about what I like; it is not hard to guess. But what she cannot imagine is that when I am in the throes of lust, mouths and tongues and hands scouring my body, it is her that clouds my mind and heightens my arousal. I think of her constantly, against my own wishes, and I cannot stop. What is worse, is that a part of me also does not want to stop. And I hate that feeling far more than I hate her.
“Take it off, then.” I say, folding my hands together so that she cannot see the way they tremble.
Wordlessly, she undoes the soft straps and the robe slinks down her shoulders, pooling up at the floor, a vision of layered silk. My exhale is audibly sharp. The last time I saw this much of her bare skin was when she had been drugged with everapple. Only this time, there are no garments to cover her breasts, or the supple skin that rests between her thighs.
She starts to trudge towards me upon seeing the desire on my face, like it is a job she is contracted to fulfill, but I hold a hand up to stop her.
“No,” I say. “Get on your knees.”
Her mouth falls open dumbly, as though she is making to protest, then she clamps it shut, remembering what she has come here for. She slides to her knees and watches me carefully, waiting for my next set of instructions.
“Crawl to me.”
Any smugness I felt before is now long gone, replaced with ache and anticipation. I lick my lips at the way she leans forward slowly, her large breasts swaying beneath her, and she crawls to me with an unreadable expression, her wide hips swinging from side to side like a pendulum. She dons her mortality like it is armor, but at the same time wields it like a weapon. And, like everything else she does, she is exceptional at it. Exquisite.
Once she reaches me, she sits up on her knees, chin tilted up as she stares at me. The first thing I note is that there is no longer any fury in her eyes. Only the glint of a challenge, like she knows. She knows that there is a visceral part of me that wants her, and hates myself for it.
Her hand reaches up to grip my leg. Her voice is lowered and husky. “Now what?”
Provocateur.
I grab her hand and watch her for a moment, twining our fingers together. This sight before me is a beautiful one, one that I have been waiting on for ages. My patience has finally paid off. To see her beneath me, whether she wishes to be there or not. But I do not dwell on it, because my body hungers for more. I pull her up to her feet. My arms encircle her waist, and my tail brushes the side of her thigh. There are so many things I want to do to her, I scarcely know where to begin.
“What about Locke?” I ask, hesitant. I am not sure why his name formed in my lips. She does not yet know of Locke’s true intentions; of how he secretly courts her sister. But for now, she engages in a dalliance with him. Monogamy is unusual in the higher courts, but not completely unheard of in Elfhame. Most mortals, on the other hand, are monogamous. I considered myself to be the same way, when I was in love with Nicasia. I cannot help wondering how committed Jude is to Locke, if she feels like she is betraying him by showing up to my chambers like this. But if she does, she composes it well.
Her lips curl up in a twisted smile. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous.” She teases. And I blush, more out of anger than anything else.
I do not like this; I do not like that she has come to surrender but finds a way to be arrogant about it, to dangle the power she holds over me like a vine of grapes. That is my job. I cannot string together the words to tell her to stop, because she is here in my arms, naked and soft and so disgustingly beautiful, and I am weak, weaker than I have ever been before.
So I kiss her instead. She sighs into my mouth, bringing her fingers to tangle in my dark curls. As though she has been waiting for this as long as I have.
Her skin is smooth and soft and out there in the open, for me to touch. All of it. For me. It is priceless. Almost too good to be true.
“Have you truly come here—” my mouth is now on her neck, whispering to her in between hot kisses, “—to let me have my way with you?”
“Yes, you lecher,” she responds, biting my lip.
My mouth separates from her skin briefly to laugh at her words, but Jude doesn't look interested in laughing.
Or talking.
She pulls me to her by the collar and kisses me again, roughly. I let her grab at me, hoisting her up so that I can carry her wherever I please. Her legs wrap around my waist and I stagger around my room aimlessly, finally going to my desk even though the bed is the far more convenient choice. I swipe the pens, books, and stray pieces of paper off of it. My inkpot shatters on the floor, but I do not care. Balekin’s servants can clean the mess up later.
I arrange her on the desk like a meal prepared by the finest of chefs, pressing her back against the wood and lifting up her legs as I position myself between them. She watches me with surprise as I sink to my knees.
“What are you doing?”
I kiss and nip at her inner thighs.
“As I please,” I respond.
She seems puzzled.
“This is what you desire?” She asks. “I thought you would want me to service you.”
I stare up at her, content with how she shivers when my lashes brush against her skin. I cannot help the way my eyelids lower when I inhale the scent of her. She smells freshly bathed; of rosewater and spearmint. She knew what she came here to do, and she prepared for it.
“You think I am wholly self-indulgent.” I say, extending my tongue to lick the side of her. I slide the rings off of my fingers and press my thumb to her clit. She gasps, then promptly covers her mouth, mortified at the sound I baited from her mouth. “That my pleasure hinges on your misery. You are not entirely wrong about that.”
I roll my thumb in rhythmic circles, lapping up her wetness like it is water in a bowl.
“But Jude,” I say, smirking at the way she squirms. “I am not as cruel as you think.”
She whimpers and the sound harries my composure; nearly destroys it.
I slide two fingers inside.
“You can hate me for the rest of your short, pathetic life, if that is what you want. I, personally, do not wish to be your adversary until the end of time. All I asked of you was to submit to me. If you could do that, then maybe we could be friends.”
When I say it, she seems troubled at the fact that I am telling the truth. It troubles me too. But I do not like fighting. I do not like working towards things. Jude, in all of her wretched glory, has changed that. All my efforts to drag her down has made this moment in time so rewarding, so succulent. But more than that, I realize that if I can allow myself to like her, it’ll quell the disquiet that stirs my mind whenever I think of her. I do not have to feel disgusted at how badly I am drawn to her, or of how deeply she gets under my skin.
I drag my tongue up and down, teasing her clit. Over and over and over again. Slowly. Edging her, tasting her, savoring her. She is the sweetest poison I have ever tasted.
“You came here for a truce. You gave me what I wanted. In the end, I always get what I want, Jude. And when I get what I want, everyone prospers. Now, you can see me for the gracious and benevolent prince that I am. Do you not enjoy your reward?”
Her back arches and she pulls her hand away from her mouth, letting herself moan. Her voice is unsteady when she speaks, “You don’t do this with your other courtiers.”
That remark gives pause to my actions briefly. What would she know about what I do with my courtiers? She scarcely had a reason to attend the same revels as I, until Locke. We never had much interaction outside of school, or terrorizing one another. What is more unsettling, is that she is not completely wrong. I have slept with many fae—Seelie and Unseelie, pixies, imps, goblins, redcaps who nearly turned my pale neck purple with their bruising hands—and rarely, if ever, do I attempt to pleasure them like this.
I have had all sorts of sex—of love, of pure desire and attraction, but never have I had sex out of spite or hatred. It breeds a different kind of pleasure, to lay with someone who doesn't like you at all. Because I know how to use my tongue, how to make Jude, who hates me more than anything else, like what I do. And I love watching her so torn and conflicted, trying to deny how good I make her feel.
Instead of giving her a vocal response, I start to lick her again, applying just the right amount of pressure to her clit, pulsing my fingers inside of her, coveting the way she clenches around me, how her legs shake from the pleasure. I feel it building up, the way the sensation crests until she is aching and ready—
And then I pull away. She nearly cries, her large thighs falling on my shoulders to anchor me there.
She is enraged, and I can only laugh, because she is helpless.
“Why—why would you stop…”
I rest my cheek along her thigh. “You ask a lot of questions.”
She hisses. “Cardan.”
“...Oh. I like that. Say it again.”
She doesn’t, but only because she seems embarrassed that I like it.
“You like it. The way my tongue feels on your skin.”
She remains completely silent.
“Just this once, tell me what it is you want, and maybe I will grant it to you.”
It is a most generous offer. This is supposed to be my moment, to revel in my victory, to use her for my own fulfillment. But I find that my pleasure derives from hers, and right now she is more sensitive than ever, so tender and vulnerable. So decadent.
“You, ugh, you know what I want.” Jude replies, grunting when I start to rub her again, slowly, easing her ache ever-so-slightly, but not bringing her to release.
“Tell me,” I repeat, pressing a finger inside and curling it up.
“Ah,” she moans, “I… I want you to finish…”
“Me to finish? Or you?”
“Yes… no… b-both…” she murmurs, sounding a fool, grinding her hips against the desk to move with my fingers.
“And what if I don’t want to?” I ask, grateful that she is so distracted by my ministrations that she cannot think to call me out on my words. Because I want to help her finish, and if she were to ask me directly, my intent would be unraveled.
“Cardan,” she says my name again hoarsely, “please.”
That is the word that undoes me, the word that drives my hands to lift her legs off of my shoulders and spread her completely, until she whines from the tautness.
“How oddly befitting is it,” I goad, “that I am the one on my knees and yet it is you who begs?”
My hands skim her hips, legs and thighs with feather light touches. I put my tongue to work again, swirling, kissing, sucking, all the while keeping her still enough so that I can finish the job. She puts her hand on my head, forcing me to stay in that spot, grinding herself into my face so that I cannot even think of leaving. All the while I am smiling, digging my nails into her legs, scraping them along the sides of her thighs.
She lets out a muffled cry when she comes, her hand once again over her mouth as she tries and fails to hide her pleasure.
Her grip on me loosens, and I take the chance to shimmy out of her grasp and untangle myself from her legs to climb over her on my desk.
I dip down towards her breast, popping a nipple in my mouth while I scoop her up into my arms. The desk is not big nor sturdy enough to support our combined weight, and there is not enough room for me to do what I want. Soon enough, I have her swept up again, carrying her to my bed.
I look at her face and can’t stop myself from smiling. To my delight, she smiles back, coyly, evidently satisfied with everything that has transpired.
This no longer feels like retribution. It is celebration.
“We should have been doing this a long time ago,” I say. She mumbles in response, and I can’t make out if she agrees. Perhaps she will resent me even more when we are done. Perhaps I should feel embarrassed that I have admitted how much I wanted this. Perhaps I shouldn’t overthink it.
I toss her onto the bed, amused at how she bounces on the mattress. Then she lays out, lips parted, legs spread, hands squeezing at her breasts, her eyes brightening when she sees what it does to me. I rip my shirt off, rather dramatically, let the buttons pop as I shrug out of it as quickly as I can. Jude starts to unbutton my breeches, tugging them off for me hastily. My mind falters for a moment, because I mean to undress quickly because I cannot bear another moment of not being inside of her. But does she hurry because she wants the same? Or because she wants to get it over with?
There is no way for me to know what she thinks, and that upsets me.
She hates you. She has always hated you. I remind myself, disappointed that I am overthinking when I told myself not to.
“Cardan?” My name comes out of her mouth like a gentle croon; and while I hate the shape of her name in my mouth, I love the shape of mine in hers.
She must notice how I have frozen, how bothered I am by the warring voices in my head. I kiss her temple and she cups my cheek, eyes intent on my face as I ease my breeches off, until I am as bare as she is.
“Yes, my dove?” I ask, pressing myself along her thigh. She flinches, if not from the pet name, then from how hard I am. The look on her face when our eyes meet is not unlike fear.
It occurs to me that while she and Locke have exchanged hugs, kisses, and furtive touches, she has likely never done something like this. It comes as a surprise, because of how boldly she carries herself, how she waltzed into my room practically bare, ready to offer her body to me.
She seems positively mortified as she sees me piece it together. She knows that I know.
“You’ve never been green gowned before, have you?”
Mute, she shakes her head.
I hate the way I stumble now, how my conscience weighs in like rocks. There is a heart somewhere within, kind and considerate, but I have stowed it away because it brought me nothing but pain and emptiness. How ironic, that my nemesis is the one to stir it once more. But what I also cannot quell, is the part of me that is selfish. The part of me that gave is the same part of me that must now take. Take, take, take. Conquer, like my great-grandmother conquered the isles of Elfhame to become the first High Queen. If I do not green gown her now, Locke will do it later.
I won’t give him the satisfaction.
“Think of it like a form of training. You and Madoc do all sorts of drills, right?”
“Yes, but I’d rather not talk about my father at this very moment, if you don’t mind.”
I snort, “Right, right.” Then I shift, preparing myself to enter. “Relax. It’ll feel better if you aren’t so stiff.”
She obeys and lets herself loosen up; becoming pliant in my arms. There is dependency in the way she looks at me. She obeys not because she must, but because she seeks my guidance. It is inconvenient now, how I second-guess myself, wrestling between my wants and her needs.
“You’re afraid.” I state.
She thinks I am mocking her, pointing out her inexperience at her expense. Her brow furrows. “No, I’m not.”
“Jude, I don’t mean to belittle you—”
“Then don’t take pity on me. This is what you want, right?” She reaches down and grabs me. Squeezes. The sound I let out is not very regal.
I cannot say that it isn’t, but it doesn’t bode well with me to say that it is.
“You always get what you want, that’s what you said.” She rubs herself against me and we both shudder. “So take it.” She says with startling finality, and quite literally shoves me inside of her.
We gasp, and from the flutter and protuberance of her eyes, I can tell that it is more than she bargained for. But she won’t back down from a challenge.
She pulls me in some more by my backside. The bed groans underneath the pressure of our bodies. This is new for her, but I am able to slide in with ease, and that is enough for me to know of her arousal. She wants this. As much as I do.
I find my rhythm, careful strokes, a graceful roll of my pelvis while her legs are spread, propped up. Her thighs slap around my hips and her chest bounces with every thrust. I have not seen anything like it before. Faerie bodies are lithe and relatively flat. Jude’s body is uniquely rounded, like the shapes of the letters in her name. Most folk would find it hideous and highly unwonted, but I yearn for it. I press one hand to her lower belly, and cup her by the chin with the other.
“Are you okay?”
She nods, teeth grit. Still angry. Still untrusting.
“Faster,” she commands as she acclimates to the size and shape of me. I am so clouded by lust that I listen. Moving inside of her is the easiest thing in the world. I was worried I would bruise or hurt her, but the training scars that span along her torso, arms, and legs remind me that pain is her companion.
She gets comfortable enough to change positions, and one hand is all she needs to shove me beneath her. She straddles me, our bodies still entwined as they were before, and then she rises and recedes, learning the new variation of steps to our same, lewd dance. I reach up to touch her but she pins my arms down with both of her hands. All my mind processes is the strength she wields. In a brawl she would easily overpower me, and if she wanted to—and I am sure she does—she could kill me.
She fucks me aggressively instead.
Her head is bowed over mine, brown eyes lit up like flames, her face contorted with anger and ecstasy. I see the way her throat moves, holding in her sounds of pleasure, like she is ashamed of what she feels. I stare up at her with the same dreaded horror, confused at the push and pull of my emotions. At how I can hate her in one moment, then smile and kiss and dote on her the next.
“Jude,” I groan as her hips slam into mine mercilessly. Her hands keep mine from exploring the slopes of her body. Not fair. She is supposed to be at my mercy.
The carefully plaited horns made of Jude’s hair come undone, brown waves crashing to the sides of her face like the tides of the ocean. She is glaringly mortal now, nothing to help her blend or resemble fae. The most magnificent sight I have ever seen.
“Jude,” I say it softly, still hating the shape of it in my mouth. It comes out like a plea. She is rocking against me, increasingly desperate. I feel like my soul will untether from my body; the pleasure is unlike anything I have ever felt.
“Jude, please, unbind me. I need to touch you.”
The laughter she gives in response is almost maniacal. Her grip tightens for just a moment and she leans down, her breath scorching hot against my cheek.
“How oddly befitting is it,” she hisses, “that I came to you in surrender and yet it is you who begs?”
My eyes widen at how she razors me with my own words. My chest thrums with desire, because I am probably supposed to be angry but I am not.
She is smiling now, and I much prefer it to seeing her glare.
“Beautiful demon,” I snarl, snatching my hands out of her grip the moment her hands loosen. My hands find her hips and I sink my fingers into her skin, like claws.
“Oh,” she gasps.
Now, I meet her hips with my own, hands grabbing and squeezing wherever they want.
Now, we move like the animals we are.
We are beyond subtleties; were beyond it far before she came to my bedroom. The carvings clatter, the bed creaks, my study books bleed black from the ink that spreads across the darkening floor. Voices in the midst of conversation buzz outside and I can hear their awkward pauses when they realize what is happening here, in my chambers. I never bother to learn the names of the fae I play with. But now I all but scream Jude’s name, having lost count of how many times she has dragged it out of me.
We make a mess of each other.
I take her from behind.
Against the wall.
We stumble our way back to my desk, nearly splintering the fragile wood.
The wall again.
The floor, dangerously close to loose pieces of shattered glass.
The closet.
“I hate you,” she says when she comes again, with my fingers on her clit.
My mouth does not let me say the same.
When we are done, we have made it back to my bed, flat on our backs, bare for anyone who may enter to see.
She wraps herself up in my blankets with a shiver, and all I want is to wrap her up in my arms, but I keep my distance. Why does it not feel right to take all that I can of her?
She astonishes me with her next words. “Do I repulse you?”
No.
“What?” I ask.
“I thought you found mortals to be disgusting.”
“I do.”
“But you’ve bedded one. Tonight.”
“Yes.”
I turn to my side so that I can face her. She is already looking back at me.
“Come here,” I tell her, beckoning her to me with my arms. To my delight, she does not protest. I tangle myself up in the sheets, and cradle her to my chest. This is what unnerves me, more than the sex. I never tarry with my lovers. When the pleasing is over, so is the company.
“Yes, I think mortals are disgusting. And frail. And hideous.” I say, clasping her hand. “But not you.”
“So I am the exception?” I would think her smug if I didn’t see the shock in her eyes. I nod.
“But you hate me.” Her expression hardens into steel once more.
I sigh. “I cannot fully say that I do. Not all the time, at least. There are many things about you that I despise. But that is not to be mistaken for how I feel about you.” She opens her mouth quickly, but I stop her, pained and vulnerable. “Don’t. Don’t ask me how I feel about you.”
She pouts.
“Then I’ll ask what it is about me that you hate the most.”
“Aside from how often I think of you? The fact that you can lie.”
She scoffs. “Oh, right. Probably the one boon I have over a faerie. Let’s pay no mind to the fact that you all have the ability to enchant, a lifespan that far exceeds a human’s, boundless beauty—”
“—and you think you do not have that as well?’ I ask, before I can stop myself. Her face falters, eyebrows scrunched. Her hair falls into her eyes. I push it away.
She kisses me gently. Parts my lips with her tongue. Her hands wrap around my neck. I am confused and warm and malleable in her hands. I am whatever she wants, whatever she needs.
“It isn’t jealousy.” I confess. “It is unrest. It is me tossing and turning in my sleep, wondering if you could ever be fond of me. Wondering if you said you were, whether or not I could trust the words from your lips as truth.”
“You think too much.”
“How can I not? You destroy me.”
She kisses me again.
“Would you like me to tell you a sweet lie?” She asks. My heart clenches, then flattens.
“No. Tell me something you think I would like to hear. But do not specify whether it is a truth or a lie.”
She thinks. Then she leans in, her mouth covering the shell of my ear.
“I could be fond of you.” She whispers.
When I look at her, her face is guarded. I know not what to believe; her kind words leave me with more troubles than satisfaction.
“Stay.” I say sullenly. “I can have soldiers sent to Madoc’s household before dawn. They’ll craft a good enough excuse for your absence.”
“How so?” Jude asks.
I bite my tongue. “Whatever lie you can think of to pass on to them. They’ll believe it to be true.”
She considers my proposal for a long while. I know that everything that has happened between us is not real, merely my cruel and vivid imagination, when she nods compliantly and says “okay.”
But still, I hold her closely, and kiss her until she cannot bear to be kissed any longer, until we drift to sleep.
I awake at my desk, the wood covered in drool. My books are spread out messily. The inkpot perfectly intact. I am not on my bed.
I never was.
When I glance at the bed and the floor, a sinking knot forming in my chest, I cannot find Jude’s silky brown robe. I cannot find Jude. She is not here.
She never was.