Page 79 of Sky Song
“Lyle.” Her breath hitched.
“Shh.”
“I want to… I wish I… to make you feel better. As good as I feel.” She wanted to be the one to make him wild, crash and burn. She wanted to feel him come.
A small half-smile tugged at the corner of his scarred mouth. “I feel good now. You’re beautiful.” He kissed her other breast. “I could look at you for hours and not get tired. I could touch you for hours.” His hands slid up and down her ribcage. “Such pure pleasure.”
“But what about… like a man?”
He chuckled. He knew what she was trying to ask, and he purposefully avoided the question. “What do I feel like to you?”
“Just… you. Lyle.”
“There you go.” Carefully, he pulled the top down to cover her breasts, and his energy flared a little, tight and serious. “But to answer your question, no, I can’t get aroused like a man.”
Cricket’s shoulders slumped. “Is it because of that drug?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me.”
“Not much to tell. The drug has changed my body chemistry. That’s all.”
She slid off his lap and awkwardly pulled her pajama pants back in place. “That’s all…”
“Yes.” He lounged against the wall, indolent, and seemingly unconcerned about being chemically neutered.
“Who did this to you?”
“A doctor did.” He smiled slightly. “They shot me up full of it in a clinic. It was very, well, clinical. I felt nauseous and feverish, and barfed all over the floor for a few days.”
She stared at him. “But… why?”
“I told you, to combat anger issues.”
Out of nowhere, tears formed and leaked down her face.
Lyle drew in a ragged breath. “I’ll say this to you,” he didn’t sound very steady. “I’m better for it. Everything has slowed down. I can enjoy simple things, like wind and starlight without the urgency that drove me. I no longer look at men as rivals and threats. I can look at you and drink in the lines of your body, the graceful way you move without suffocating from the need to spread your legs and rut. So, no, I’m not sorry to have lost my drive. And you shouldn’t be - you wouldn’t have liked me before.”
“Stop,” she shouted hoarsely, swallowing tears. “Don’t tell me what to feel. I bleed for you, the man who’s been changedso drastically at his most basic level, and more so because you embrace it. I want to understand you, what drove you to take that drug.”
He hesitated for a small moment. “I was in prison.”
Taken aback, Cricket sat down next to Lyle. “A prison?”
“Yes.”
“On Enzomora?”
“On Enzomora.”
“Did they… force you to take the drug?”
“It was a bargain.”
“For freedom?”
“Sort of.”
