Page 22 of His Bride

Arthur reads on his tablet as we eat, catching up on the news, I suppose. I chance a few glances over at the words on the screen. The emblem of The State appears on quite a number of what look to be communications. I probably shouldn’t be seeing these things. They look important. That only makes me more curious, of course.

He clears his throat.

I look up at him under my lashes. I have been tucked up against him, not quite under his arm, but very close. I am not hiding what I am doing.

“Are you enjoying the reading material?” He asks the question dryly.

“Not really,” I say. “I don’t know what half of it means.”

His brows rise. “You don’t know what it means that the West is falling?”

I shake my head in a silent no.

“Do you know what Soma is?”

Again, I shake my head.

“You are aware that there are those in this world who rebel against and reject the authority of the Artifice?”

“Yes!” I say. “I knew that one. Terrible, isn’t it!”

It’s good to know what to say in a certain situation. I don’t know if I really do think it is terrible, but I know I should be saying that.

“Well,” he says. “It is all related. In some ways, it is three different ways of describing the same phenomenon. Soma is part of the cause of the rebellion, which in turn threatens the stability of society in general. The drug spreads the rebellion’s message. Much of the enforcement of law and the art of war these days is around controlling the spread of that dangerous substance.”

“What is it? Soma, I mean?”

He hesitates for a brief moment before answering me, almost as if he is wondering what sort of answer to give. “It is a powder that once ingested, infects the mind. You have spent a lifetime learning how to be in the world, the rules of proper society, so on and so forth. You understand your place, and sometimes, I presume,” he says, his voice dipping into a hint of censure, “you know how to behave yourself.”

“Mhmmm…”

“Soma destroys all of that,” he says. “It gives the user the sense that there are no rules whatsoever. The rebels we suppress are mad on the notion that they should choose which laws theyfollow, and which they do not. They are erratic, unpredictable, disorderly, and dangerous.”

I like listening to him talk like this, with passion and stern gusto. I can just see him laying down the law to these feral rebels who dare reject the Artifice.

“Soma is also very valuable as a traded commodity, in large part because of how potent its effects are,” he continues. “What you were just peeking at are reports that the West Coast production of Soma has…”

I accidentally interrupt him with an ill-timed yawn. “I’m sorry,” I say, catching his glowering glare. “I didn’t mean to… I’m just tired. This is very interesting of course. Please tell me more about Sonma.”

“Soma,” he corrects me. “You should understand the basic underpinnings of our economy and society. At the bare minimum, it will allow you to participate in conversations when we socialize.”

“Women speak of such matters among themselves here?” I ask the question in surprise.

I have not been educated in the traditional manner. My parents are old-fashioned, and believed that a woman’s role was to bear children and to tend to them. Knowing too much about the world could only lead to being worried about things over which one had no influence whatsoever. I was raised to be somebody’s match, and to put my womb to the service of their seed. I was made to be happy as a wife, a homemaker, and a mother.

“Women speak of many things,” he says. “Some say the women control more than the men do through their social machinations.”

“I thought the Artifice was the ultimate authority,” I say, parroting the old line I have been fed since childhood. It is a safe and proper thing to say.

“Indeed it is,” he says, his expression closing. I wonder if it was not the right thing to say. Back home, we would make polite little comments like that to one another and that would ensure that conversation flowed smoothly. Here, I feel as though my repeating that line put a barrier between us. Whatever he was going to share, he no longer seems inclined to. In fact, he turns the screen of his tablet off entirely.

A moment later, I realize that I have not offended him at all. He didn’t turn the tablet off because I’m too slow. He turned it off because he wants something else from me.

His large hand slides across the side of my face, turning my head toward him. He kisses me deeply, possessively, driving all thought of society and women and Artifices out of my head as I become acutely aware of nothing besides my body.

Arthur manhandles me atop him, the light clinking of discarded plates and sauces on an abandoned tray providing background to the spreading of my legs and the slow impaling of my sex in the morning light.

I like lying on top of him this way. I can feel the length and strength of his body beneath me, the heat of his skin warming my own tender curves.

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