Page 38 of Omega Chattel
“Yes, and yet it’s not like it’s some magic number when everything changes and you are suddenly whole, all that you can be. A legal adult and an adult are two different things.”
“You’re making fun of me.”
“No.”
“It’s a magic number for Alphas, though. They get their first Burns within days or a week of turning eighteen. Just because we don’t get the fever doesn’t mean it’s not a rite of passage for us as well.”
I heard his breaths, short and tight.
“You want to talk about rites of passage?” I asked.
He let his computer slide off his thigh and onto the bench beside him. Then he pulled one leg up, hugging his knee. “You mean the Burn?”
“Yes. The Burn. What they teach and how it really is—two different things.”
“How?” The curiosity slipped into his question along with the downward slope of his shoulders; he was waiting for me to talk more. For the words I would say.
It was a mistake. It would only make things more intimate between us if I explained. But it was what he needed.
“My first Burn experience. You really want to hear it?”
“Yes! Was it good? Was it everything they say it is for Alphas?”
I let out another half-laugh. Ah, the exuberance of youth.
“Hmm. Let’s just say that for me, it was underwhelming.”
“Why?”
“The Omega, for example, was extremely experienced.”
“A farm Omega?”
I nodded.
“Isn’t that good? Isn’t that what you like?”
“Well. I really didn’t know what to expect. I was almost exactly your age. And a virgin. And he was impatient. Expecting me to be something else—I don’t know—a certain way, when in reality I had little clue. All I knew was I was burning up, wanting release. But he didn’t smell quite right, and in fact it was bothering me, the scent, not right. Not sweet, but sort of dry and oily at the same time. Acrid. I later found out he wore a perfume I hated. Maybe I was even allergic.”
“Oh wow.” Alli breathed deeper now, slower.
“I didn’t find him enticing at all. I couldn’t really remain close enough to him to do any good. In the end, he ordered me on the bed and, well, used his hands and mouth until the Burn was done. He wasn’t at all satisfied, and I came away thinking I was the worst failure the world had ever known.”
Alli said, softly, “Oh. Gods.”
“So there you go. Rite of passage. How does it sound?”
“But it got better, right?”
“Of course. You grow up. You mature. You learn.”
“That’s why you don’t want me, then.” He looked up. “You said it before to me. You don’t like virgins.”
My heart twisted. I closed my eyes. Why did he have to talk like that, in a voice that was so sweet, and deep, and pure? Why did he have to smell like my favorite summer day from childhood, like longing and rain which I loved, and night all wrapped up, tidy with a red bow, as if waiting for me to unwrap?
I had never encountered it so right before. Not like this. The scent, the want, the sweetness. It was too much.
“It isn’t you,” I finally said. Keeping my voice low. “It’s everything. Timing. I wasn’t expecting--”
