Page 35 of Guiding Desire
It was tempting, but also not. That erection wasn’t going to go down if Orrey stripped in front of Senlas, and it would make everything even more awkward between them.
“No, I’m fine. Just have coffee ready for me.”
Orrey stood. He almost expected a wave of dizziness, but instead, the drugs kicked in, mellowing out the world around him. He headed back to the guest room he’d occupied—the night before last.
It really hadn’t been that long, and yet everything was still backwards: Orrey had dreamed of being a protector for a long time. He wasn’t one anymore.
A dull longing to be in the space and with the people he was used to filled him, his old colleagues, his room in the protector unit he shared with them, but anger and despair weren’t there. Even the anxiousness about the custody-ship situation had lost its heat.
Just before Orrey opened the door to the guest room, he wondered whether it was because too much had happened or because he was, despite everything, comfortable around these people. It wasn’t that he really belonged with them—Guardians and Conduits were too different—but that unconditional acceptance he had experienced so far, it felt nice. It might be temporary for all Orrey knew though.
Or it’s the meds, idiot.
Orrey pushed the door open, and his jaw dropped.
All his things were here now, or at least all the things from his room in the protector housing. There wasn’t that much with a lot still remaining with his parents. Still, he’d gathered art prints, possibly too many art prints, which he’d crammed on the walls of his room in the protector housing unit, a room smaller than this one.
The prints fit much better on the wall in this room. They had not been arranged like Orrey would have done it, by artist, but instead, someone had managed to match them by color, creating a gradient from blue to burnished red, something in this arrangement bringing out facets in the individual pieces Orrey had never noticed before.
He looked at the prints for a while, following an abstract skyline with puffy clouds hiding spires to wide-open fields, the kind of thing you only ever saw on a documentary stream, to mythical beasts, fire cats and shadow sooks, their backgrounds overgrown nature far removed from anything human.
Apart from that, a small desk had been moved against the wall opposite the bed. On it, his private computer sat, the framed family photo he used to keep by his bed right next to it.
“Wow.”
Orrey walked over to the desk, having spotted a pretty, plastic envelope leaning against his fancy, mushroom-shaped nightlight.To Orrey, from your former apartment mateswas written on it in clean, angular letters.
Orrey picked the envelope up, ran his fingers over it, then opened it carefully so as not to damage the thick, silver-sparkling plastic.
Inside, there was a card, the expensive paper kind, and Orrey pulled it out.To the late-blooming Conduit, it read, the calligraphy the beautiful, swirling kind that meant they’d gone through the trouble of commissioning it from a lettering artist. Orrey teared up just a little bit.
Inside the card, there were bills, the plastic of them unwrinkled, meaning they’d gotten these printed out from a bank to put into this envelope, just like you would for when someone entered a family union, graduated, or moved cities.
Well-wishes had been written on the notes, ranging fromgood health and a thousand smilestopleasures above and beneath the sheets. The phrases were the appropriate types you might have found on any money bill for well-wishing, but what really got Orrey were the names of his colleagues and the amount, the numbers on those bills. He went through each, taking the time to recall a face or a conversation, difficult in some cases, because not all were from close colleagues.
When he was done, Orrey folded everything back up and put the envelope away in one of the little drawers of the desk where he found his drawing materials as well as the sketchbook his mother had gifted him.
Orrey checked the closet too, and sure enough, recognized his own clothes, those few at least that weren’t his day-to-day uniform. He assumed the protectors had taken those back, and why wouldn’t they? It wasn’t like he would be wearing them anymore. Orrey didn’t particularly mind that.
I didn’t need a uniform to know that person yesterday had planted a bomb. Didn’t need it to save lives,he thought.
From what Orrey could see, everything he’d taken with him when he’d moved out of his mother’s house—not much, but enough to make a home—was here, even that glitchy alarm bot someone had put on the little table next to his bed. The bot’s droopy eyes had a forlorn look as the thing stared at the empty pillow.
Orrey couldn’t account for his watering eyes. These strangers had neatly folded his clothes and aligned his data discs, had made him look at the art he loved in a new way.
In the bathroom, when he set the control panel to a medium warm bath, he found more of his things, his toothbrush, even his own towels, now rolled rather than folded, his comb.
No textbook or documentary ever said custody-ship would be this,Orrey thought. A traitorous thought entered his mind: things would be better now, easier, life more enjoyable. Wasn’t that what it was supposed to be for a Conduit who’d been imprinted upon?
His train of thought was derailed when he saw himself in the mirror. His burned cheeks, forehead, and nose were red, the healing skin wrinkly, and the stem cell growth around his eye looked like an infected insect bite. He turned to the side.
“On the positive, my neck’s okay,” he mumbled, brushing his fingers over the skin there. The burn patch seemed to have done its work at least.
He stripped out of the unfamiliar clothing and the ridiculous underwear, got into the tub, which filled conveniently fast. His mom’s house had a tub, but his protector unit had only showers.
Orrey got lost in his own thoughts until he could no longer discern society’s expectations for him from his own dreams. He washed with his own soap, forgetting everything for a little while, surrounded by the soothing water.
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