Page 23 of A Soul to Steal

“Don’t go touching my nipples, Duskwalker,” Gideon warned half-heartedly.

To be honest, he found the whole conversation awkward, but it couldn’t be helped. Aleron was probably getting the best demonstration he could, and it would only make everything easier for the Duskwalker that he had someone to explain it.

Gideon wished sex education had been so easy for him.

Shit. If someone had just explained it all to me...

He may not have lived with regret and shame.

Chewing on the inside of his cheek, he wondered if it was... okay to let those feelings go now. Why should he be burdened by the actions of his past when he no longer lived?

This current situation, having to listen to those people enjoy themselves while Gideon answered whatever question Aleron had, only made him remember. Reflecting on his past made him wince, and cringe, and wish he could go back in time and change things.

He wouldn’t have made so many mistakes.I wish I could have told my younger self that it would all be okay.

Losing his virginity had been unpleasant.The only person I ever told was Beau.His partner – ex-partner, really – had been the only person he gained enough courage to tell.

It wasn’t my fault, though.And, if he’d just known the truth about himself, and revealed that truth to his parents, they wouldn’t have made him feel cornered. It wasn’t their fault either.

In reality, it was no one’s fault. Just a string of events that led him to a brothel on his eighteenth birthday.

But... he could still remember that stifling chokehold his fears had on him. They refused to dissipate, no matter how much he tried to let them go. The bridge of his nose bunched as he cringed once more.

Before his birth parents had died from a disease when he’d been eight, they’d been close friends with Emerie’s. There had been talks of an arranged marriage, so long as both he and Emerie agreed to it when they were older. She was only five at the time, but he often played with her at their house because it was in a nicer part of Fishket. They’d known each other basically her whole life.

The moment she could confidently walk, he had this little girl following him everywhere. With big, round blue eyes of awe, he’d been helpless but to befriend her.

Until one unfortunate day, she became his little sister. Not by blood, or relation, but due to him being adopted into their family. They werehisfamily for sixteen years.

I barely remember my birth parents.

Although there hadn’t truly been any pressure from their parents from then on that they would marry, Emerie had it stuck in her head. She’d grown up loving him, but his feelings towards her grew platonic – or rather, had always been innocent.

He’d tried. With all his might, he’d tried to see her in the same way she did him, but just...couldn’t.

He grew older, became a teenager, and her fantasies became more stifling for him. The more this little girl kept telling him about her wishes, their wedding, and how happy she knew she would be with him, the more he felt like he was being strangled with a leash.

He thought something was wrong with him.

Yet, it wasn’t only Emerie he couldn’t love. Although he’d found women beautiful for the alluring creatures they were, none of them... enticed him.

So, on a mission to change that and kindle his desires, on the week of his eighteenth birthday, he’d walked himself to a brothel. His friends had all slapped him on the back as they walked him inside.

He’d gotten hard simply because the situation was sexual, and the woman knew her way around a man’s body better than he did, so he came. Yet, a ball of disgust at his actions had firmly lodged itself into his gut. He’d hated what he’d done, hadn’t truly enjoyed it, and he’d just grown more confused than ever.

He felt like he’d betrayed Emerie... and himself.

He didn’t know why.

For a long while, he’d contemplated if perhaps he was just asexual. It explained a lot of how he felt, or rather,didn’t. Which only made self-loathing eat at him. Emerie deserved someone who could fully love her, in all ways, and not someone who would be forcing themselves to shape to her will. She deserved someone who could give their entire heart.

She was beautiful, kind, a bit of a brat – which just made her fun – and she would have made a wonderful wife. So, who was he to be a shell of a husband, just playing pretend?

He’d considered it, hoping he would fall in love with her when she came of age. He’d wondered if the problem was simply because she was just too young at the time. Any time he tried to look at her in that light, she’d still been a teenager and he’d felt like a creep.

Even now, it gave him repulsive shivers.

That all changed when she turned sixteen and he was well into his nineteenth year.

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