Sweet Is Evil

 

                “I’m still not sure about the train.” Adele craned her graceful neck over her shoulder and made a pretty little moue of dissatisfaction.

                I snorted delicately. “Why, pray tell, are you unsure about it?”

                “Well…” she acted flustered, but I could tell it was mostly for show. “Maybe it’s too much.”

                I laughed out loud. “Little sister, you can’t fool me. No Vorrutyer has ever been overly concerned with moderation. ‘Too much’ are words traditionally not found in our vocabulary. And I know the blood of the Vorrutyers runs true in you.”

                Adele covered one cheek with a kid-gloved hand, as if in bashfulness, but the skin beneath was as pale as the cream colored leather. Rarely had I seen Adele blush. Her pride was too great and too fierce, a steely warrior’s pride impermeable to self-doubt. Vor to the core, Adele was, and not just any Vor, she was a Vorrutyer. But she had been taught from an early age that such total self-confidence was unfeminine, that pretty young ladies should blush and act surprised when offered a compliment, and so she had learned false modesty. I’d always thought it fitted her ill.

              We were in my suite at Vorrutyer House, where I had spent all morning nursing a fine excessive Vorrutyer hangover, and composing poetry that aimed for the sublime but quickly veered into the obscene. All of it was for Aral. None of it was good, but I thought I could smooth out the crumpled pages and show them to him and both of us could have a laugh. That, I thought, would be more intimate than any moment of high-flown romance that the most perfect sonnet could prompt.



              Count and Countess Vorrutyer had tolerated my desire to lie abed late, since, after all, I was continuing a long family tradition. They understood that I had only a few weeks while I was on leave to repair my reputation as a town clown, which had been somewhat tarnished when I entered the service.



                Or perhaps their indulgence towards their son was due to the fact that their daughter had spent the morning as the center of attention, being fitted for her wedding gown. Being cooed and fussed over must have worn on her limited patience, but I’m sure she conducted herself with her usual cool dignity in front of the seamstress and our other underlings—that is, right up until the moment when the beastly thing was finally on and everything more or less in place, when she’d swept that absurd train neatly over her arm and bolted up the stairs to show me, her beloved big brother.

               She’d been all excitement when she first entered the room, as near to giddiness as Adele would ever come, but now she stood before me quiet and serious, her smiles fading, her eyes grave, her posture upright. There was something in her bearing of a soldier reporting for inspection.

               I took a step back and fell into a parade rest, my chin high, my hands interlocking firmly behind my back. “Well,” I said sharply, in my best officer voice, “Turn about.”

              She did so, pulling the heavy skirts and train into a spiral, cream-colored satin encrusted with pearls and gold embroidery dragging reluctantly along the floor. The material clung to her hips and upper thighs, mermaid-fashion, accenting her slender form, only growing full and heavy with ornament just above the knees. Her waist had been nipped in with a corset to a tiny stem that I thought I could encircle with my two hands. The bodice was cut low and off-the-shoulder, a whisper of lace rendering her bust line slightly less scandalous. Her arms were bare, save for the long kid gloves that stopped above the elbow. The veil was very sheer, and short, coming only to the middle of her bare white back, and was held on with a circlet of tiny pink roses. I was genuinely lost for words when she turned back around.

              “Well?” She asked finally. “How do I look?”

              I smiled, and dragged my voice back out from where it had caught in my throat. “How do you think you look?”

              She opened her mouth to say some dissembling thing, then shut it firmly. She was with me, her brother, and between us was no need for such games.

              “I am stunning,” she said with quiet fierceness. “I saw it in the mirror and I saw it in your face. Even Aral will be speechless when he gets a look at this.”

              “Aral is more frequently speechless than you might imagine,” I said, thinking of last night, of my philosopher reduced to monosyllables. Looking up, I saw in Adele’s face that this last remark had been interpreted as a dig against her, and I suppose on some level it had been. I amended quickly, “But I agree. Dear Lord Vorkosigan won’t know what hit him.”

              She smiled—that cool, perfect smile that is all Adele—and went over to a mirror to admire the vision that was to stop Aral Vorkosigan in his tracks. Slyly, silently, I stepped up behind her, careful not to tread on her train. I put my arms around her, first resting my hands on her waist, then letting them lightly travel up along satin and lace to cup her breasts. Adele’s eyes met mine in the mirror, cold and wary. She made no move to push me away.

              I decided that I liked her in this gown. I wondered that I had never considered the erotic potential of wedding gowns before, with their heavy-duty symbolism of chastity, virginity, the untouched, and the untouchable. Taking a woman in her wedding dress would be like desecrating a place of worship. I imagined Aral pushing up those skirts, Adele on her back with her veil askew, trying to fight but hindered by her heavy clothing, his hand on her throat, her white petticoats stained with blood. My grip on her breasts tightened convulsively. Adele let out a gasp of pain.

              “Stop it, Ges!” She cried, and slapped my hands away. “We aren’t kids anymore!”

              I captured her wrist as she tried to pull away, and planted a kiss on her pale and naked throat. “No, Adele,” I murmured in her ear, “You’re quite a woman now.”

              “Let go of me!” She tore herself away.  A small ripping noise was heard. “My gown!” she moaned.

              “Look at me, Adele.” I was surprised by the domineering tone of my own voice. Adele must have been, too, because she obeyed, albeit  with eyes full of rage.

              “You should be married in scarlet,” I told her. “You and I both know why.”

              She stared at me for a few more seconds, fuming, then dealt me a slap in the face. It hurt, she was quite strong. I couldn’t stop laughing as she stormed from the room. 

              She was angry now. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand why. Just because we loved each other didn’t mean she couldn’t marry Vorkosigan. Conversely, just because she was marrying Vorkosigan didn’t mean I couldn’t have Aral. As I saw it, there was no need for any of us to hate each other. On the contrary, we loved each other, all three of us, and there was nothing to prevent us from being together all three, save for some stuffy traditions. But rules could be bent, and appearances could be kept up. Adele could be Lady Vorkosigan, and bear children, and everyone would believe that all of them were Aral’s. We were all of fine Vor blood anyway—what could it matter? In time, I would get myself a wife, and perhaps she would close the circle once and for all. What had been unbalanced would be balanced—she and Adele could comfort each other while Aral and I were away on duty, and we? We would conquer the universe side by side. It couldn’t be more perfect. Even Aral, with his occasionally prudish ideas, could not fail to see the reasonableness of my plan. Could he?

              I sighed, and let my head hang forward on my chest, abandoning the fantasy. I’d had a taste of galactic life, and had learned that relationships such as I craved were indeed possible, that monogamy was overrated, jealousy was optional, and taboos were only good for breaking. But we were on Barrayar. Here, it was not so. Here, duty was everything, and pleasure for pleasure’s sake was considered degenerate. Indeed, as far as I could tell, sex was strictly not to be enjoyed. Women submitted to penetration with trepidation, already anticipating the pain of childbirth. Men did not marry the women who made them feel, but shunned those as whores, taking to wife prudes who left them cold. And men did not kiss men. Not ever.

              Despite all of that, which I knew full well, I continued to cherish hope. Aral and Adele, I felt sure, were unlike the others. I was certain that they could be brought around to my point of view. It would just take a little persuading.