“Yes,” said Tuvo Ausonius.
“This is your room?” she asked.
“For now,” said Tuvo Ausonius.
“It is dark,” she said.
Given the nature of the room, its smallness, its lack of furnishings, its need of repair and paint, the limitations of its tiny windows, even in the daylight it would have been, at best, dingy.
“I will turn up the lamp,” he said.
He went to the wall and rotated a dial which increased the illumination of the single swivel light in the ceiling. By means of a small wheel he then adjusted the beam of the swivel light so that it fell on the woman, illuminating her, rather as though she stood in a spotlight.
She blinked a little, and stood there, in the light, clutching the cloak about her.
“I was afraid in the streets,” she said. “I had difficulty finding this place. I did not dare come in a conveyance. Men called out to me from the darkness.”
There was a tiny jangle from within the cloak.
This sound intrigued Tuvo Ausonius.
“Perhaps they smelled your perfume,” suggested Tuvo Ausonius.
“What sort of woman did they think I was?” she asked.
“Perhaps you can guess,” he said.
“Do you like it?” asked the stewardess.
“It is appropriate for you,” he said, “though perhaps it might be more obvious.”
“I am wearing it for you,” she said. “I hoped you would be pleased.”
“I think it will do nicely,” he said.
“Where are your things?” she asked, looking about.
“Do not concern yourself with them,” he said.
He noted that her hair was lustrous. It had doubtless been washed, treated, brushed, combed, such things.
“Have you no light supper prepared?” she asked.
“I see that your feet are bare,” he said.
“I thought you expected such things,” she said.
He put his hands to the borders of her dark cloak, closely clutched about her.
She lifted her eyes to his, pleading.
“You are here,” he reminded her. “Surely you do not wish to be reported to the line.”
“You cannot do these things to me!” she said.
“Oh?” he asked.
“I am a same!” she said.
“We shall see,” he said.
“It was only a minor violation of the regulations,” she said, “and the ship was terribly uncomfortable.”
“Such an infraction is surely sufficient for dismissal,” he said. “And what, too, of your intolerable discourtesy, your flagrant insolence, your provocative impropriety?”
“You cannot say such things!” she said.
“Surely I shall,” said Tuvo Ausonius, “for they are all true.”
“I will do whatever you want,” she said.
“Let us see what we have here,” he said. He then parted the dark robe.
Surely it was the stewardess as none others had ever seen her.
Then he dropped the dark cloak to the floor, behind her.
“Stand straighter,” he said.
Her dark hair was lustrous, as it fell, glistening, behind her, about her shoulders. About her throat, twice twined, were beads, and a necklace of threaded, tiny coins. The lovely sweetness of her upper body was haltered high, snugly, in scarlet silk. The sheen of her beauty descended then, with perfection, to a narrow waist, sweetly slender, which was encircled closely with a tight black, cloth cord, that sustaining the two overlapping sheets, front and back, skirtlike, of scarlet silk. Beneath this silk could be sensed the rounded joy of her belly and the flare of a love cradle that might have driven men mad.
“Loosen the belt a little,” said Tuvo Ausonius.
She did so, and the rounded sweetness of her belly was then more than hinted at, and the scarlet silk then was low on her hips, held there only by the sweetness of their flare.
“Kneel!” said Tuvo Ausonius.
Immediately the stewardess knelt before him, in the pool of light.
Tuvo Ausonius then suddenly felt sensations, and feelings, which he had never felt before.
He sought to rid himself of these feelings.
They were not in his plans.
She was incredibly beautiful, kneeling before him.
There were several loose bracelets on her right wrist, and an armlet on her upper left arm.
They might appear to be of gold, but would not be so, no more than such things affected by street women, or coin slaves.
It was the jangle of these bracelets which Tuvo Ausonius had heard before, shortly after she had entered the room, that delicate sound which had earlier intrigued him. She smoothed the silk a little.
There was, again, the tiniest sound from the bracelets. Yes, it was an intriguing sound.
The silk, as she now knelt, was between her thighs, thus contrasting with their milky white softness, and, of course, that they might be bared to him.
She knelt back, her hands on her thighs, the bracelets on her right wrist, the armlet on her upper left arm.
Tuvo Ausonius was not insensitive to her charms.
“You lack only the brand and collar,” he muttered to himself.
She looked up at him, her eyes half closed against the light.
“It is nothing,” he said.
“I forget your name,” he said.
“Sesella,” she said. “Sesella Gardener.”
“Do you think you are a same?” he said, angrily.
“No,” she said. “I do not think I am a same, truly. I have never thought, really, not for years, that I was a same.”
He glared down at her, unwilling to see her, but yet unable, it seemed, to remove his eyes from her.
He had realized what a woman could be.
He must remain strong, he must remember his purpose.
“Stand up,” he said.
She complied.
“No,” he said, angrily. “I do not think you are a same.”
The only good women, he reminded himself, forcibly, were sames.
How small she was, compared to him, and her shoulders, so small, so soft, so white, so exciting.
Suddenly, to his anger, he realized that she must have some inkling of the effect she had on him.
“I had a hard time finding this place,” she said. “It is not in one of the better districts.”
“I suppose not,” he said.
“It is a poorly lit area,” she said.
“Perhaps,” he said.
“It is a shabby district,” she said.
He did not tell her what sort of district it was.
Fitting for you, he thought.
She looked about, at the room, at the floor, the walls.
She did not seem overly pleased.
She looked up, toward the ceiling, toward the peeled paint, the irregularly concentric brownish rings.
Her eyes were half closed, against the glare of the swivel light.