When the exodus of tall, athletic men clutching clothes and weapons trickled to a stop, Rafael offered me his hand. “Shall we?”
What else could I say but “Yes”?
Claudia insisted on going through the doorway first, even though we were supposed to be safe as houses down here. There were bodyguards I might have argued with; she wasn’t one of them. Benito trailed behind his king and incidentally me, but I had no illusions about whom he’d protect if the flags went up, but then I had Claudia, so I was good.
4
THE SHOWERS WEREN’T completely empty, though; Pierette was still in there with her dark hair still damp and her only clothing one of the supersize towels that we kept in there for everyone. The towels were designed to cover people close to seven feet tall, like Claudia, so for Pierette, who was only a few inches taller than me, the towel covered her to the ankles like a formal evening gown. On me I had to fold the top of the towels down, so I didn’t trip over them. One size does not fit all.
Pierette dropped to one knee and managed to make the movement look graceful, as if the towel were a real dress. I’d have knelt on it wrong and ended up flashing if I’d tried it, but then I hadn’t had hundreds of years to practice being graceful and she had.
“My queen, King Rafael, how may I serve you?” She looked at the floor as she said it, so I couldn’t even see her expression, which might have helped me know what the hell was going on.
“Pierette, I told you I didn’t like the whole bowing and scraping thing,” I said.
She raised her face up to look at me then, and without any makeup at all she was still pretty. Her eyes dominated her face even without eye makeup, but without eyeliner or shadow the brown of them seemed paler, lighter than mine or Rafael’s. Her face was a delicate triangle with her lips pale but still kissable without the red lipstick that she usually wore to match mine, but then I wasn’t wearing any right now either. I thought about leaning over and giving her a kiss, but I wanted to know why she was kneeling before I did anything. She was my lover and I liked having her in our poly group, but sometimes she puzzled me.
“You did, my queen, but I was not certain how to approach both you and King Rafael, so on my knees seemed to be a good place to start.” She looked up at me as if that made perfect sense.
“Approach us about what, Pierette?” I asked.
“For joining the two of you in the shower.” Again, she said it as if I should know what she was talking about, and I was getting a clue, but I wasn’t happy about it.
I felt Rafael’s stare on the side of my face before I turned and met it with my own. He raised eyebrows at me and said, “What is going on, Anita?”
“Give me a minute, okay?”
He nodded but let go of my hand, as if I might need both to handle the woman kneeling at our feet. “First, get up off the floor,” I said, and offered her my hand. She took it and even let me take some of her weight as she stood, though she didn’t need a hand up any more than I would have.
She stood with us still holding hands, and again I had that urge to kiss her. If Rafael hadn’t been standing right there, I might have, or if she’d been one of my primary partners, or . . . oh hell. “I want to kiss you, Pierette.”
She smiled and started to lean in toward me, but I stopped her, using my hand in hers to sort of stiff-arm her. “But first I want to know why you think you’re joining us in the shower.”
She stopped trying to lean into me and looked puzzled. “I thought those of us that wished to sleep with King Rafael were supposed to make that known to him.”
“What did she just say?” Rafael asked from behind me.
I sighed, closed my eyes, and tried to think of a good way to say the next part; nothing came to mind. I let go of Pierette’s hand and turned and faced him. “So, I was wondering why you don’t date more.”
“Are you trying to say that you’re tired of me?” he asked, face blank, but I knew the tension in his shoulders well enough to see it.
“No, not at all; God, this sounded way less awkward in my head. I love being with you, the sex is great, the friendship is, as it has always been, wonderful. I know that you have not just my back, but all of our backs, as we have yours.”
“This sounds like a ‘let’s be friends’ speech.”
I made an exasperated sound and tried again. “It’s not, I swear, but you’re great and I sort of assumed that you were dating other women in a more serious way, but that you were just very private about it.”
“You thought I was sleeping around on you?” he asked, frowning, clearly puzzled.
“No, no, that’s not what I meant. Fine, I talked to my poly group about the fact that you were only having sex with me and I couldn’t give you more time because I’m already sort of overcommitted relationship-wise, so I asked the group if they’d be okay with you maybe sleeping with any women in our group that were interested in you that way.”
He looked even more puzzled. “Have I done or said anything to make you think that I need more sex from you?”
“No, but . . . I would need more sex. I would want more, so I was going to talk to you about it, but I wanted to make sure that some of the women in the poly group were okay with it first.”
Pierette dropped back to her knees. “My queen, I am so sorry, you have not spoken with him yet.”
“Nope,” I said.
She started to try to press more of herself to the ground at my feet, but I caught her arm in time. “Please don’t grovel, Pierette, that really bugs me. We’ve talked about this.”
She got up without me telling her to this time. “I am sorry though, truly. I did not know that you had not spoken to him.”
“I just talked to all the rest of you two days ago. I hadn’t seen Rafael yet.”
“My deepest apologies to both of you,” she said.
I sighed and turned back to the man in question. I couldn’t read the expression on his face, because it was a new one. “You’re fighting for your crown tonight; I wouldn’t have brought it up today.”
Pierette started to drop back down, but I yelled, “Pierette!” It stopped her in midmotion, and she stood there with her towel, looking truly contrite, and still sort of adorable. It was weird for me to think of other women as adorable, but there it was; I was starting to think I might owe some men an apology for getting angry with them when they’d called me cute or adorable over the years.
“I am sorry that I do not please you, King Rafael.” She said it eyes down so she couldn’t see the emotions that flew across his face.
He smiled. “You are beautiful, and I am sure delightful in many ways; please do not think that it is lack of charm that makes me hesitate.”