Choices (7 page)

A love based on our gifts, on
crypta
, Edwige had said. Something greater than ordinary
love, if such an emotion can ever be called ordinary. Edwige was
right about that. Dominic loved me because of this connection. This
overpowering love had come to him, as to me, by chance, the meshing
of our complementary minds. It was not my beauty, such as it was,
not my face or my body, which had begun this attraction. Dominic
would not have been looking at me in the dressmaker’s mirror unless
this irresistible compulsion in the brain had given him the desire
to do so.

On my side the allure was perhaps more
complex. I would have noticed Dominic, with or without
crypta
. He was outstanding, so tall and slim, with the
contrast of dead-white skin and dark brown hair. His face, even in
repose, had a fierce, predatory look, with his narrow beak of a
nose and pale gray eyes that gleamed silvery and opaque when his
inner eyelids came down; when enraged or on the hunt, his shields
turned translucent as glass. At our first meeting I had had the
sensation that he was seeing into me, beneath the clothes, under
the skin, into my brain and my bones. If he had not liked what he
had seen, I would have felt flayed alive.

But for all Dominic’s striking appearance,
without our communion I would have avoided him. I would have been—I
admitted it—frightened. Dominic was a type of man I could not have
known on Terra. He had power: not just
crypta
, but also
political authority and physical strength. He was the Lord of
Aranyi, one of the Twelve Realms of ‘Graven, responsible for a
large territory in the northern mountains, with vast acres of land,
tenants and villages under his stewardship. Only the Viceroy could
command his obedience; and a man like Dominic, with a highly
developed sense of honor, would never submit unquestioningly, but
would need to respect his overlord. If all that weren’t enough,
Dominic was the best swordsman among the ‘Graven, no minor talent
in a world without ballistic weapons, and where dueling and the
vendetta are the customary ways of settling disagreements, even
serious, major quarrels, between individuals and families.

I was not so desperate that I would allow
myself to be dominated by such a man, no matter how romantic he
might seem. And Dominic was not romantic. He had a rage inside him,
a hunger for cruelty that had led to the incidents with Tariq and
the others, that Edwige had thrown at me as reasons not to trust my
lover. This was Dominic’s one major flaw, the result of a tainted
genetic line and childhood trauma, and it was unrelated to his
orientation except that it was necessarily expressed in his sexual
activity. If Dominic were not
vir
he would have directed
this violence against women, as his own father had done.

What kind of pitiful communion did Edwige
think we shared, that she must warn me off him like a child from a
hot stove?
Dominic had not hidden this damaging truth from me,
although he must have wished he could. I had felt it there at the
edges of his mind, had run a mental finger along it as on a knife
blade honed to lethal sharpness. It was because of Dominic’s
honesty, and because I could tell that this brutality had no part
in his feelings for me, that I trusted him and loved him and felt
no fear with him, only shared desire.

I smiled to myself. I was like a teenager, as
Edwige had been so disgusted to learn. So long as I did not feel
endangered I would love Dominic, even if he had murdered people or
tortured them for ransom. At least it wasn’t as bad as that.

There was a similarity in us after all. We
were both troubled by our respective aberrations, I by the
isolation I had felt all my adult life, Dominic by his pleasure in
coercion and inflicting pain, to the point where they had become
intolerable. I wanted to break free of my solitude, and I knew
Dominic’s vice was causing him distress, not just because he had
been “caught” with Tariq, but because he, like me, ultimately
preferred reciprocated love to one-sided domination or
obsession.

Unlike me, Dominic was basically virtuous and
proud, born into a caste that observed a masculine code of honor as
its highest law. He could not forever rationalize or hide his
shameful behavior, as I could my own. He had been trying to change,
had enjoyed a more equal relationship for a few years now with a
young officer, not a boy cadet. It was the recent ending of that
affair that, Dominic worried, was allowing his temporarily buried
weakness to resurface.

I would have sensed it, I knew now without a
doubt, if Dominic had intended any of that cruelty or humiliation
with me last night. If he had, my mind would have shut to him
automatically, in self-protection—and my legs would have closed,
too, I reflected with an inward laugh. I am not one of those people
who enjoy pain, mental or physical. But I must still talk with my
lover, I reminded myself, must tell him of the choice I faced.

On one level my choice seemed clear. I had
made this crazy, spur-of-the-moment decision to leave my entire
Terran existence behind because of my
crypta
. Coming to La
Sapienza was a way to make use of it, to derive good from it, to
change what had been a curse into a gift. After being here a week I
had begun to have a greater appreciation of what my abilities were
worth. How could I contemplate any other option than to stay at La
Sapienza as long as possible, making the most of what I possessed,
perhaps reaching the top of this new career? Only a mad woman would
throw away this education and the chance of becoming a sibyl.

I must be mad, I thought, forced to
acknowledge another aspect to the situation. La Sapienza, for all
its mystery and the sense of accomplishment it gave me in learning
to use my gifts, was a job, and I had held jobs all my life. I had
been good at them, had enjoyed aspects of them, had earned money,
been promoted. I was sure I could do as well with this one, despite
its differences. I knew how to work hard and I was smart. This kind
of success was normal for me; I anticipated nothing less.

Dominic represented something I had never
had: love. Whatever Edwige called it, our connection was the most
profound change that had come to me since arriving on Eclipsis. It
was not something I had earned, was not something I could work for.
It had simply been given to me, and paradoxically, for that reason,
I valued it more. Choosing between Dominic and La Sapienza was
impossible. I needed both love and meaningful work to give my life
proper balance.

I woke from my dozing meditations. The whole
day had passed while I rested and pondered. I had not been called
to midday prayers. Even the afternoon eclipse had come and gone
while I lay on my bed, windows covered by thick curtains, my inner
eyelids unaffected. The only interruption had been my aide bringing
me dinner, which I ate almost without noticing.

The other seminarians trooped past my door,
tramping up the stairs for the observance of sunset. None of them
let slip so much as a thought in my direction. I sat up and
stretched, refreshed from the day of leisure. Later, after supper,
Dominic would visit me and I would ask my questions, make my
choice. I would have to tell him of Edwige’s ultimatum, let him
help me decide. It never occurred to me not to. Dominic and I were
long since one mind, if not one flesh. Perhaps Dominic could think
of a loophole, a way for us to be together while I continued my
training at La Sapienza.

Inspiration struck. Up to now, Dominic had
initiated all our visits, so that what had happened last night had
taken place “here,” at La Sapienza. Why could I not visit Dominic
instead, and be with him “there,” in Eclipsia City, away from
Edwige’s power and the prying minds of La Sapienza’s inhabitants? I
had no idea how to do this, but with a week of training under my
belt I thought it wouldn’t be that hard to figure out.

I lay on the bed and emptied my mind of
everything except Dominic. Nothing happened. I had to make my
consciousness travel and, not knowing any other way to do it, I
pictured to myself the long winding trails Edwige and I had ridden,
trying to run my thoughts along them in reverse, leaving by the
gate of La Sapienza and progressing slowly, through forests and
villages, across fields and plains, to the city. Dominic would
probably be at the ‘Graven Military Academy, so I remembered where
he had pointed it out, a section of ‘Graven Fortress, and sent my
mind along.

Somehow it worked. I could sense Dominic, was
in his mind, thinking,
My love
, with the joy that always
comes at the communion. Immediately I was seeing through Dominic’s
eyes—seeing a handsome, nervous boy of about fifteen wearing the
black-and-gray uniform of the Royal Guards—and I knew that I had
come in on Dominic with one of those cadets Edwige had warned me
about. A gifted young man, who could respond fully to Dominic’s
passion, mind and body, as I had. Even so early in our love I
understood that Dominic’s satisfaction of one desire, as with me
last night, increases his appetite for the other, as with this boy
now.

Dominic unbuttoned the boy’s tunic and shirt,
caressed and kissed him while murmuring erotic images into his
mind. By inhabiting Dominic’s consciousness I felt Dominic’s
sensations directly—his arousal at the boy’s firm young flesh, the
red lips and the tiny buds of nipples on the hairless chest, his
enjoyment of the boy’s combination of excitement and fear, his
mastery over the hair-trigger reactions of teenage sexuality.
Dominic,
vir
and sophisticated, with twenty-five years of
adult experience behind him, could initiate this boy into the
pleasures of sexual communion, as I had been last night, and I
could share in it if I wished…

I knew I must not continue with this
observation, knew that I was stimulated by Dominic’s same-sex
activity and that it was another reason for our intense communion,
but that I must not spoil things by trespassing. I tried to
withdraw, to slip out of his mind undetected, traveling back along
the trails to La Sapienza, flying now over fields still damp from
the morning’s snowfall and frost, over villages and fields,
farmhouses and barns, orchards and pastures, but Dominic caught up
with me halfway along and we hurtled through the remaining distance
at the speed of thought, landing together, in my mind, on my bed at
La Sapienza.

Dominic was laughing.
Amalie
, he
said,
you mustn’t be so frightened. It’s not as dreadful as all
that
.

But I didn’t think
, I said.
I
came in on you without warning. I intruded
.

Yes
, he said.
And you see, the
world has not ended
. He kissed me, like last night but without
as much passion.
What is so urgent that it drove you all the
way to find me when I was—busy?
He was still chuckling a
little.

I couldn’t tell him then. With all my concern
for myself, I had a new worry, one that took precedence. I was
afraid that Dominic would think I had deliberately intervened, that
somehow I had known he was alone with the boy and that I had
interrupted on purpose. Dominic might believe that, after last
night, I was trying to change him, that I did not accept his true
nature. He would think I felt that I had a claim on his innermost
being, that our love gave me the right to manipulate him or force
him to be different. I suspected already that if Dominic were not
vir
I could not love him as unconditionally as I did, but
that was another touchy thought I did not wish to bother him
with.

It was nothing
, I said.
I wanted
to see if I could visit you. Why should you do all the work?
I
tried to make a joke of it. There was some truth to this, after
all.

Dominic was silent, wanting to penetrate
behind my explanation that he guessed was not the entire substance,
but not liking to presume. We were both constrained by the need to
show the other that, although last night had been a definitive
moment, we would respect each other’s privacy. Absurdly I began to
wonder what that poor boy in the barrack room was seeing. Was
Dominic standing in front of him, eyes rolled up in his head in
some kind of trance? Or was Dominic now invisible, having faded out
slowly as he followed me in mind to La Sapienza?

These notions made Dominic laugh again.
It’s not like that
, he said.
He would see nothing
different, although he might sense your presence in my mind. But I
dismissed him when you broke in on us
.

Which brought me back to my new problem.
I am so sorry—

I should be sorry
, Dominic said.
I’m sorry you saw that
.

I knew he was beginning to have all those
thoughts I had hoped would never cross his mind.
Please,
Dominic
, I said.
Please don’t think for one moment that I
would change you, that anything about you is repugnant to me
.
I was crying, tears running down my face.

Dominic felt the tears, sensed something of
the emotion behind them.
My love
, he said,
I am not
worth such unhappiness
. He touched his lips to my face, his
tongue tasting my tears, then kissed my open mouth, and we entered
our deep communion of the previous night. And all my trouble
spilled out of my mind into his: how everyone had heard us last
night and whether Dominic had known, the low opinion Edwige had of
Dominic and, worst of all, the terrible choice I was supposed to
make.

Dominic’s mind surged with conflicting
emotions as he learned of one problem after another. Surprise was
followed by sympathy and indignation, even laughter—his first,
masculine response to the fact that we had been overheard.
I
never thought
, he said.
I wanted you; I thought of nothing
else
. He was Eclipsian, in many ways more accepting of sexual
activity than a Terran might be, and he had an aristocratic
unconcern with other people’s reactions if he saw nothing shameful
in his own behavior. Eventually anger took over, anger at himself.
I should have thought.
Edwige was right. I went to
seminary; I should have thought. My love for you, like all my
loves, has been selfish
.