Page 73 of Monarch
“I can tell,” Lex says, and although xir tone is neutral, bordering on tender, I take it as a personal offense. I curse myself for not noticing the grey half-moons under Roos’ eyes and the pallor of her skin. “Sleep,roosje, sleep.”
Lex lies on top of the sheets facing Roos. Xe strokes Roos’ cheek until her breath evens out and it’s clear she’s asleep. I stop brushing my hair and just stare at Lex and Roos. It feels impossible to hate xem when xe just soothed Roos to sleep like that.
Not that I’m going to say any such thing out loud.
“You should lie down, too,” Lex says, and xe pushes up to sitting. “I can leave, and you can sleep together. Just set an alarm, perhaps.”
It’s the last offer I expect Lex to make, and it throws me so much, I don’t know how to reply. I don’t realise how devastating that is until Lex fills the silence I create.
“Or I could stay, and I could help you sleep too,” xe suggests with slightly elevated eyebrows, like xir is already bracing for my refusal and rage.
I don’t say anything, but I’m suddenly so deeply tired, I crawl onto the bed and lie down. I settle on top of the sheets, gather my robe around my body, and close my eyes.
“Stay if you want. Or go. Whatever,” I finally say, and I leave it up to Lex, to fate.
There’s no movement from xem for a few long minutes. Sleep creeps closer and closer to me, but I’m unable to fall into its embrace fully because my feet are cold. I think about those thick socks that were lying on my dressing gown. Why didn’t I put them on? I fidget around, hoping to locate them with my feet, but I can’t find them.
“You want these?” I open my eyes to see Lex sitting up next to me and holding the socks.
“Yeah, my feet are cold.” I push up on my hands and reach for them.
“No, let me.” Lex moves them slightly out of reach. “Please?”
I can’t remember the last time Lex asked me for something like that, with aplease, with a note of need in xir voice. Even when we were together a decade ago. Even before that when we were best friends for years. Lex never gave me the impression xe needed anything from me. That they never needed me. And that always left me feeling more than a little unwanted.
So maybe I can do this for old time’s sake. Maybe letting xem put these woollen socks on my feet will help heal the part of me xe broke.
“Fine,” I say, and I look down at my feet expectantly as Lex moves on the bed, taking great care not to rock Roos too much as they position xemself at the end of my body.
Xe slips the first sock on slowly and carefully, like the wool is precious and delicate. Or maybe like I am. The warmth is instant and so is the relief. Xe seems to take even more time rolling up the second sock, readying it to put on. This time, xe lifts my foot and places it on xir lap. I wait for more warmth, more soft wool, but it doesn’t come.
Instead, I watch, transfixed as Lex lifts my foot again and brings it up to xir face. Xe looks at me and holds my eye contact as xe brings the bridge of my foot to her lips and kisses it. It’s featherlight, lightning quick, and an instant electric shock all the way up my leg and into my core. I struggle to find my breath as xe lowers it and puts the sock on like that didn’t just happen.
I want to tell xem to fuck off. I want to strangle xem. I want to beg them to do it again. But I don’t do anything. I sit there in a trance watching xem return to lying next to me.
“Roll over, Mari,” xe says in that low, sultry voice my body never forgot. “Let me help you sleep.”
I don’t have it in me to argue or resist. Or maybe I do, I’m just choosing not to tap into that power. Tonight has been a night of submitting, so maybe I’m just letting Lex finished what Roos started. Whatever the reason, I do as Lex says and curl up on my side.
Xir body slots in behind mine perfectly, just like it always did. My muscle memory is quick to relax into xir embrace after what must have been hundreds and hundreds of nights in this position when we were teens. I feel betrayed by my at-ease body and my slowing heartrate. I feel like a failure for not being able to forget.
“Go to sleep, Mari,” Lex says. “I’ll wake you up when it’s time to go.”
It sounds so ominous. Time to go? Go where? Where are we going after this – Roos, Lex, and me?
It’s too much to think about, especially when Lex’s hand is on my hip, and I can feel xir chest rise and fall against my back. It’s too much to think about, so I stop thinking, and because I want to stop feeling, I let sleep come and claim me.
*****
Lex is true to xir word and wakes me.
I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep – minutes or hours – but I know when Lex shakes my body awake, it’s not because we’ve overstayed our welcome in this room in QISS. I immediately know it’s for a different, much more sinister reason.
“Mari, wake up!” Xe says urgently. “It’s Roos! Something’s wrong.”
I jolt up and look over at the woman I know I’m falling in love with.
She’s trembling – spasming, really. Her whole body convulses under the sheets. Her head is thrown back at an unnatural angle, and her eyes are half-closed or half-open or just not right. A thin dribble of drool runs down her chin which is also protracted at an angle I’ve never seen before.
