Lips Like Ice

XXI

Lydia wishes she'd paid better attention in grade school environmental science. Words like Anther and Filament, Sepal and Peduncle, the Hip Fruit and the Petals slip around the layers of gauze that flutter in the center of her mind. But she can't picture which part of the plant cross-section goes with which word. Except for the hip and the petal of course. She is thinking of the Prince's cock, his balls the ovary deposit, the crown leafing outwards. Did the same names apply? Even if his species is humanoid, are they mammalian? The females seemed to carry children inside their bodies, at least his explanation of sperm pools suggested it, but did they have live births? Or do they form eggs? Lay eggs?

Lydia scrubs her forehead with the heel of her hand and looks back down at the parchment on which she is making her notes. Writing down everything she's learned about his biology isn't particularly useful for anyone, she knows, because no one else but her can read the notes. All the same, it feels proactive, feels like she is doing something.

Which is better than doing nothing.

The Prince hasn't left the bedroom all morning, didn't go out when the bell summoned everyone to court, hasn't even gone into the washroom to use the toilet, as far as she can tell. He's just lain in bed.

Lydia stands picks up her parchment and quill, ink pot and tiny, useless sharpening knife, and dithers. She is torn between wanting to comfort him, wanting to care for him, and letting him suffer.

Lydia rubs at the spot between her eyebrows—where a headache is forming—with the knob of her wrist.

The Prince had grown on her, romanced her, in a way, seduced her with his need, and his desire, his pain, his suffering, his desperation for one person, just one to accept him as he chose to be. And maybe it was brainwashing, and maybe it wasn't. But that wasn't reason, really, to add to his misery. Hadn't they both been abused? Pushed into it? And taking comfort from one another in captivity was all they had, wasn't it?

Yes. No. God, Lydia doesn't know.

She doesn't even know what she is supposed to feel, even if she could feel anything. All she knows right now is that it had been pretty spectacular, as far as orgasms went, and that she is lonely without him peering over her shoulder as she writes, and that he is lying in bed radiating resentment and fear, and that he isn't taking care of himself.

Lydia's whole world is the Prince. If he throws her away, if he hates her, if he dies of resentment and starvation, what happens to her? So she can't let him.

For a moment her anger at not being able to hold on to her anger, her resentment at being denied the ability to feel her own resentment, boils up. But it is gone in the next breath. Gone, like every other intense feeling she's ever tried to dig her fingernails into.

She goes into the bedroom and puts her writing things down, not at all gently, on the bedside table, deliberately making noise. The Prince cracks an eye at her from his nest of pillows and scrunched duvet, scowling as the ink pot and knife clack. Lydia smiles softly at him, and he blinks, tucking his chin in against his chest for a moment in confusion.

She goes back to the parlor, loads a plate with fruit, cold meats, and cheeses; things already sliced and easy to pinch between her fingers. She clambers onto the bed with the plate, chivvies the Prince into budging up, leaning back against the headboard. She yanks up her skirt and throws one thigh over his, settles herself across the expanse of his smooth quads. Her pussy lips drag against his skin and they both suck in air in little gasps.

Okay, that wasn't exactly what she'd been aiming for in starting this, but she can roll with it.

"Breakfast," Lydia says.