I light the oil lamp on my vanity so I can see better.
The outline of my Godstone is sharp against the thin material. I slip the nightgown’s straps from my shoulders and let it fall to the ground.
I study my naked reflection, curious. I try to see myself through someone else’s eyes. Would someone else look past the welted red scar, the faceted blue of my Godstone to notice the slight softness in my lower belly? The way my inner thighs just brush when I stand? My legs will never be willowy and elegant like my older sister’s, but they’re straight and strong.
Finally I allow my gaze to drift toward my breasts. They are the softest part of me, heavy enough that during the day, it is more comfortable to have them bound in a bodice. Unbound, they swoop low and full, enough to balance my hips nicely. Staring at them, I become acutely aware of cool air against their dark tips.
Ximena always told me men would notice my breasts. I’ve never noticed anyone noticing. But maybe I wouldn’t. Mara says I’m pathetically ignorant in matters of love.
Slowly, face flushing, I lift my right hand to cup my left breast. I squeeze gently, and it is a tiny battle to decide what I want to understand most: the feel of a hand on my breast or a breast in my hand.
“Elisa?”
I whirl, hand dropping.
It’s Mara. She stands in the doorway to the attendants’ quarters, her hair mussed, her eyes heavy with sleep.
“I thought I heard something. Are you all right?”
She’s seen me naked a hundred times, but I have a vague sensation that I’ve been caught at something shameful. “I’m fine. Couldn’t sleep.”
She regards me a moment as if considering. Then she beckons with one hand. “Why don’t you come sit with me awhile?”
I crouch to grab the puddle of silk at my feet and hurriedly slip my arms through the straps. I stand and follow Mara into her room.
Mindful of her wounded stomach, she lowers herself onto one of the bottom bunks and pats the mattress beside her. “Sit,” she says, as if she were the queen and I the maid.
I sit.
“You can tell me anything, you know,” she says.
“I know.”
A shaft of moonlight edges through the high window and hits the opposite wall above our heads, leaving us in shadow. It is the darkness and her patient silence that give me the courage to ask, “Mara, have you ever had a lover?”
She doesn’t hesitate. “Yes. Two.”
“Oh.” How can someone so young have had two lovers already? I’m desperate to ask about them, about what it was like, if either of them broke her heart. But I can’t make my mouth say the words.
“I’ll tell you about them, if you like,” she says.
Oh, thank God. “All right. Yes.”
“The first was when I was barely fifteen. He was two years older, a virgin like me. We flirted for a week or two. He was the handsomest boy I’d ever seen. One day I took my father’s sheep to a high canyon to graze. He followed, and I thought it was the most romantic thing in the world. We started kissing, and then we were taking each other’s clothes off, and then I realized that the rocky ground was poking into my back, and it was very cold outside, and the sheep started drifting away. . . . I changed my mind about what we were doing. But I didn’t say anything. I just endured. It was over after a few painful seconds. The next day in the village, he ignored me. We hardly spoke to each other during the next year.”
I stare at her shadowy outline in horror. “That . . . I’m so sorry. It sounds . . . terrifying.”
She shrugs. “It wasn’t so bad. You know, my father was the priest of our village. Very strict. He used to say he could tell when a girl had lost her virginity by the way she walked. And I walked around very carefully for days after, terrified that he would know. But he never did. I was exactly the same person after as I was before. Just, maybe, a little wiser.”
My heart is pounding. “Was it awful afterward?” I ask. “To be ignored like that?”
“Yes. I wish I’d waited, had the courage to say no or push him away. But the awfulness didn’t last. We both met someone else.”
“Oh?”
She takes a deep breath, releases it. “Julio was a little older. Not as handsome, but so much kinder. I used to make a goat-milk scone with pine nuts that I smeared with honeyed apricots. I sold it at market every week. He always bought several, and he always lingered to talk. It was months before he kissed me. Months more before we made love, which by the way was wonderful. We made love a lot. As often as possible. He was going to ask my father for my hand.”
Softly I ask, “What happened to him?” Though I think I know.