RYST

  “What is it about the clothes, Nayth? I know I’m missing something. Does your culture value chastity? Did I just despoil the Sturm Minister of Hospitality?”

  We'd moved to the bed, and my cheeck was against his bare chest. Best place in the Known Cosmos to be. Nayth’s tank top made an excellent nightie, and he was in undershorts.

  At least those didn’t have buttons.

  “There’s nothing chaste about it. It’s a game of seduction,” his chest rumbled with amusement.

  “Seduction?” Well, it had worked on me, hadn’t it. Desire this man? Let that desire get stoked into a blaze whilst you unbutton him.

  “Mmm hmm,” he agreed, languid and content, and enjoying telling me. As if it was a relief to get to be this way with me, his Methela. “Your lover sees you, partially unbuttoned, and knows it’s a signal: ‘I’m interested, if you are.’”

  There was more. It was about the tank top. I could sense that, but I couldn’t tell what.

  “And the tank top?” I asked.

  “It’s about the color, Ryst,” he whispered tenderly into my hair. And there was something wistful in his voice, gentle like a kiss.

  “The color? Your lover guesses what the color is signaling?”

  I could feel him smiling against my hair. “The color is what I was thinking of when I got dressed,” he whispered softly, wishing me to know something, to see something.

  “Dusty turquoise? It’s important to you? Is there a tradition about colors like martial arts levels?” Thinking of my Tindin beads and the colors associated with each level, I raised my head and looked into his eyes.

  He gazed into my eyes, intently, focused and peering at my eyes.

  I couldn’t hear his thoughts, but he wished for me to know something. I could feel my eyes darting back and forth across his, left eye, right eye. He looked pointedly at my eyes. Pointedly at my eyes.

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  My eyes.

  “My eyes?” His face broadened into a smile. I smiled back. “You got dressed thinking of my eyes?” I asked, with wonder.

  He kissed me. Again and again and again. I wasn't gentle. He wasn’t patient.

  “What was that at dinner, Ryst? When you kept shuttering yourself off? You never said,” Nayth asked while his lips worked their way down my neck and shoulder.

  “Oh, I kept picking up your stray thoughts and had to make sure I didn’t merge my mind completely with yours. If my emotions got too invested in you, then I kept feeling myself being pulled to you. And I didn’t know who you really were, so I had to be extra careful. But you know what?”

  Something dawned on me, and I wasn’t sure I liked it. “That stopped happening once you knew who I was.”

  “Stray thoughts?”

  “Yes, you were laughing to yourself about how many times we were going to bow to each other.”

  “You saw that? How, Ryst?”

  I studied his face. “I don’t know what it is, Nayth. It’s just me now. This is how I am, and it started in the coma. But it’s not happening right now. Something changed. I think it’s you. I’m not shuttered at all! It’s you. And I think I’m finally, finally seeing something that started 4 years ago—I think the other person has a choice in the matter. If you don’t want me to know something, I don’t know it. I think. I’m not certain of that, but it’s a theory I’ve been working on."

  "And for some reason, once you knew I was your Methela, then you stopped leaking thoughts out. Arrhh! I still don’t fully know how this works! I mean, I thought for sure that we’d be having sex, and we’d be merged—like in the dreams and the visions. Like there was that time you were crouched on the floor laughing.”

  At that, he laughed fully and deeply.

  “And you thought it was so funny. Well, maybe we weren’t fully merged then because I didn’t feel everything, but I did know how hard you were laughing and how turned on you were. What the heck were you doing anyway?”

  He shook his head, still laughing. “I was trying techniques from a funny book so I could reach you. I’ll tell you about it later, but explain this about the shutters. You can turn it on and off? What is it?”

  I rolled my eyes, eternally frustrated that I had no answers. “It’s an ongoing exploration to try and figure it out. But finally, I was able to use it to find the real you the other day. I mean, that really happened with the candle building and—“

  “Oh, that was real. I was in a meeting, on stream, but I knew you were there. That’s the only time it’s ever been that strong, though. Hmm. I see what you mean about picking up thoughts. But I only get that from you, or,” he paused with his head cocked.

  “What happened to us before, before we met last night, that isn’t happening, is it? Hmmm. So, it’s happened with other people?”

  I nodded, “Oh yeah. At first it was horrible. I was terrified I was loosing my mind after I got out of the hospital. And I slowly got better after getting to Shurwinn. Denten was my Tindin teacher before we became adopted family, and he wanted to see the full range of my Talent, to let it all out when we were sparring. So, I merged with him. I could sense everything he was going to do before he did it. The only other people I’ve been that merged with are you and Peydran—wait! Peydran! Ren! We’ve got to tell them, Nayth!”

  I looked down and saw I was wearing only Nayth’s tank, and I didn’t care. My best friends needed to know.