Disillusionment [Prime Thread]

===32 Wintertide 1378==========

I stood shaking on Curry’s kitchen step, arms crossed and hugging myself nervously, hoping desperately that he was home, and hadn’t decided to get a pint with somebody from the Fourth, or some other kind of detour. But he answered the door after only a few seconds, his face stretched into a happy, tusky grin at the sight of me. “Gods, did I miss you—” he said, with customary enthusiasm, “—wasn’t it the longest day?” he asked, but I couldn’t give him any answer in kind because the first ragged sob was already bursting out of me.

Curry stared at me, stunned, for just a moment, then guided me into the foyer and quickly shut the door behind me. “Fuzzy?” he asked in alarm, except I was already crying too hard to answer him, so instead of pressing the matter he pulled me into a tight hug and held me there against his big, reassuringly solid frame. I threw my arms around his middle and wept messily against him, knowing I was getting his shirt all snotty but unable to help myself.

I cried for what felt like a long time, but in reality must have been only a couple of minutes, and despite how worrying he must have found this, all Curry did was hold me. When I managed to slow my tears to a more manageable steady stream, I was still shaking so hard that my teeth were almost chattering. He let go then and led me into the kitchen, pulled my shoulder bag off and set it on the low table, then maneuvered me to a seat there.

“First things first,” he said, and took a bottle from the top cupboard and a liquor glass from the lower cupboard. Then Curry poured what was clearly far too much whiskey for me to drink in one sitting, but since his drink-pouring judgment had never failed me yet in the season and a half we’d been partnered, and also because I couldn’t yet speak, I made no objection. “Drink that,” he said, sliding it over, then sat down in the chair next to me.

I had to hold the glass with both hands not to spill it. It was a smokey whiskey, which I disliked, and it burned going down, but it did make me feel a tiny bit less unhinged. After I was about half through, I moved to set the glass down, but Curry said, “Actually, maybe go ahead and finish it? Unless you think it’ll make you sick to your stomach.”

I nodded obediently and picked it up again. By the time I finished the glass, taking the unpleasant liquor in big gulps to get it down quicker, I was still shaking, but my hysteria seemed now to be slowly subsiding. The whiskey was settling in my gut, unfurling its hot glow through me, and dropping a protective mantle between me and the events of this day. “Do you want to tell me what happened?” Curry asked after I’d set the empty cup down and we’d sat there in silence a moment.

I shook my head a vigorous no, then added, “Later,” so he wouldn’t think I was refusing outright.

“That’s all right,” he said. “Don’t worry about that. Can I do anything?”

“Are those clothes I forgot over here still around?” I asked in a tiny voice, not even caring how young and babyish I sounded. “The leggings?”

“Yeah, I think Nan put them in with our washing and then folded them up in your chaunceyhorse quilt for you. Do you want them?”

“If it’s not any bother.”

Curry stood up and went into the front room.

I eyed the door to the water closet across the hall, trying to decide if I was steady enough to walk the few steps on my own and clean myself up more thoroughly, but then but I heard the lid shut to the chest where they kept the crazy quilt, and Curry’s returning footsteps.

When he handed me my clean leggings—and very considerately, since I hadn’t thought to ask for it, a clean pair of my underwear—the garments smelled so pleasantly of his grandmother’s comforting presence that it made me start to cry all over again. “Thanks,” I snuffled, wiping ineffectually at my eyes, then stood and began peeling off my ruined clothes. I’d hadn’t thought to warn Curry that since I was too rattled to be alone just now, I was stripping down right here in the kitchen, but instead of acting awkward about it or trying to usher me away to go do this somewhere more proper, he just turned his back politely and waited for me to finish.

I was still shaky, and it took me a bit longer than it ordinarily would have to shed my torn, piss-soaked leggings and bloody underwear. I was confused at first by the latter, because it wasn’t the right time for my period, until I realized this was just regular blood. There wasn’t much of it, though, and it was partly dried by now, so that probably wasn’t very serious, I noted mechanically as I stepped into my fresh underwear, steadying myself against the table. Lydell was one of those people who took such conspicuously poor care of his hands that their appearance always suggested he didn’t wash up enough. That was probably why I still felt a little tender—he had probably just snagged me with one of his ragged, filthy fingernails.

Before I realized it I had lurched several feet to the water closet and was kneeling next to the privy, throwing the lid open and retching violently. Curry jumped up and followed after me, kneeling at my side and pulling my hair out of the way so my sick wouldn't get all over it. I fumbled absently, one-handed, and somehow, mystifyingly, he understood what I was looking for. He caught my hand in his and gave it a hard squeeze. I was so, so grateful right now to be with someone who despite our short acquaintance as partners knew exactly what I needed. He sat there quietly with me, holding my hair with his other hand, politely saying nothing about how badly the privy bowl stank of smokey whiskey and bile, while I finished vomiting.

“Do you feel done?” he asked when I rested my forehead on the cold porcelain bowl and didn’t move to throw up again for several seconds. I nodded heavily.

“Come on,” he said, helping me up and pulling the chain to flush the privy on our way out.

“Sorry I wasted that liquor,” I said a moment later, while Curry knelt beside where I was standing and let me use his shoulder to brace myself while he held my leggings for me to step into.

“Don’t be silly,” he said with a little shrug, resuming his seat as I pulled my leggings the rest of the way up and smoothed my tunic down. “We both hate that whiskey.” He cut me an ornery little smile. “Let’s be honest, it’s shit whiskey and it belongs in a toilet.”

I surprised myself by giggling at this. “I didn’t know you hated it too. Sorry I ever bought it. I thought it'd be grand to try something new but look how much is still left.”

“Yeah—I guess we really do get what we pay for. I was going to get us something better next wage day.”

“Me too.” I smiled, then sank back to the chair and began unexpectedly to cry again, because him mentioning getting paid had suddenly reminded me how terrible it would be not to work with such a splendid person every day when I had to quit the watch. “Sorry,” I said, barely keeping myself from whimpering it. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” I heard the chair scrape over the slate floor as Curry moved over to hug me again.

“I don’t know if I can stay in the watch,” I confessed between sobs, because it seemed best to get out in front of that. “If they can just loan me out to the other wards like that.”

That couldn’t have been easy to hear after the pains he had taken to ensure we got matched as partners, but to his great credit Curry only said, “Whatever you need,” and tightened his arms around me.

When I was a bit calmer he said, “So… I have some idea what might have happened.” I looked up and tracked his worried eyes to the floor where I’d dropped my partially wadded-up leggings with the crotch torn out and the bloody underwear still stuck to them. Under other circumstances it might have embarrassed me, for my watch partner to be so inescapably confronted with such awkward physical evidence that I possessed girl parts, but right now, it didn’t seem very important. “Do you need a healer?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

Curry nodded, then chewed his lip, considering how to approach his next question. “Do you… need me to go get you some emergency birth prevention?” he asked after a moment.

“Oh,” I said, realizing what he must think. “No. He didn’t—um. He only—uh, it was only his fingers,” I said, moving to sit up on my own, face burning with how uncomfortable I felt being that specific. I looked hesitantly up at Curry, then added apologetically, “I think I made it seem worse than it was.”

“Yeah, well… let’s not attach degrees of value to sexual attack,” Curry said, his brow furrowed with distress. “Was it… did it happen after your shift?”

“Yeah.” I sniffed hard, trying to clear my sinuses, but they were too stuffy. “The locker room.”

“The watch house locker room?” Curry was so visibly startled at this that it was a bit gratifying to see that somebody else also hadn’t expected any of us should be wary of attack from other guard officers.

I nodded numbly. “I didn’t know to be careful. I wasn’t even paying attention.”

“Another officer did this?” Curry asked, in a tone of absolute shock. “Who?”

When I didn’t answer right away he changed tack and said, “Do you want me to go with you to the Fourth to help file a report?”

I shook my head. “I don’t… think I should report it. Well, maybe. I don’t… think I should do anything official.”

“Uh—right, that’s all right. We can check in about that later.” Curry squeezed my arm, then said hesitantly, “Does it hurt? Can I do anything for you—willow tea? A warm bath?”

I shook my head again, hard. “No bath,” I managed, starting to snuffle feebly again. “It would be really nice but I don’t want to be alone that long.”

“That’s what a bathing curtain is for,” Curry said, standing up. “Come on. Nan doesn’t pay the city for premium hot water service, only for us not to use it.”

I followed him upstairs, even though I wasn’t sure precisely what a bathing curtain was, and stood awkwardly in the corner of the upstairs bathroom while he started the cold water spigot filling the large, enameled iron tub. A bathing curtain, I now guessed, must be the floor to ceiling installation of gauzy drapery which let light in when drawn, but afforded the bather some privacy.

At first I was a little puzzled how the hot water came into all this, until Curry took hold of a handle set into a recess in the wall and began pumping steaming hot water into the tub.

“Is this temperature all right?” he asked after a minute or two, and I went over and swirled my hand in the warm water, marveling at how it would feel to take a bath in a real tub, without a line of other boarders outside all pissed off that anybody would use the warm-water bathroom for more than filling a bucket to take back to their own room and use with one of the banged up tin washtubs.

“It’s good,” I said, certain that I had never taken a bath anywhere half so nice before. “I can’t believe how much hotter yours gets than at the boarding house,” I added, feeling a bit ridiculous at how unaccustomed I was to such minor luxuries.

Curry gave me a little smile, then let me take over the pump handle when I motioned that I could manage it. “Will you be all right if I go downstairs and make us something hot to drink?" he wanted to know. "Nan’s playing cards with her friends tonight but if she were here that’s what she would do.”

I nodded, and once he was gone I removed my clothes and folded them neatly before stepping into the tub and drawing the curtain only about a quarter closed, just enough to spare modesty when Curry came back, but to let me still see most of the room.