my beta boy | ✎

Pleasure House

I wish I could tell you why I made this decision, it hasn't been the easiest, but it has been the best decision I have ever made. I am a culmination of experiences thrust upon me like a flower that reaches for the sun, not born of a desire to bloom, but a desire to survive. - Sistine

That night, R16 heard the window creak open and she was up in a heartbeat.

"Where have you been?" Her voice pierced the silence in a hissed whisper.

"You're still up!" The other girl sounded giddy and breathless.

"I came back from the excursion with Orion and found you gone," accusatory tones laced her words but R18 didn't seem to pick up on them. She wore a smile on her face, her ebony hair in tousled waves though they are usually pin-straight.

"Why, while you were out having fun, I decided to have some of my own," Aem clapped her hands gleefully together, swinging her legs into the window and grabbing a handhold installed on the wall so that she was able to catapult herself into the lower bunk.

Sistine grabbed the railings on the top bunk and executed a perfect somersault, finding a seat next to her friend.

"Fun?" Sistine asked with a furrowed brow.

"Yes! You didn't think that you were the only one allowed any fun, did you?" There was something prickly in Aem's voice that Sistine didn't like. Heat rushed to her cheeks and neck, as if she had been hanging upside down for far too long.

Immediately, she let go of her annoyance that the younger girl wasn't around when she returned to the academy. They didn't share all their classes, but Aem was nowhere to be found during dinner or before lights out, either. She must have slipped out right after lessons ended. But where? With whom? There was only one person Sistine could think of but she swallowed any questions she wanted to hurl at Aem, instead, she forced herself to think about how Aem might react if the tables were turned.

"Well, tell me!" Her voice was unnaturally high, "how was your night?"

"It was incredibly splendid!" Aem said, "I found the Pleasure House with R12. It was the most magnificent sight. She said that the sunset was even more breathtaking than she could have ever imagined."

Sistine bit back her the sour taste that rose in the back of her throat. She let the acid burn the words that she wanted to say: I thought we were going to find it together? She refused to acknowledge the stinging in her eyes. Gone for less than half a day and R18 had dropped her like a hot potato. The acid seemed to have numbed her face, because the smile on her face felt oddly stiff.

"Really? I must see it for myself, one day," the words fought its way out of her constricted throat.

Aem giggled and tossed her hair to one side as she lay down on her pillow, "Oh, yes, you should... and bring a boy!"

Sistine was frozen to the spot, everything she had wanted to tell Aem had vanished from her mind, leaving a blaring question that demanded to be answered.

"A boy, huh? You were with B73, then?" She tried to go for a light tone but the stiffness of her tongue made her words come out fragmented and strained.

The dark eyed girl peeked up at the blonde, "What if it was?"

There it was again, the prickly tone that rippled through her, enticing a surge of adrenaline to surge hotly to her face. Sistine couldn't have recognized the fight or flight biological reaction that was currently coursing through her, how could she? Society is a place of unity and peace. She could barely think of the last time she was caught up in a confrontation and she couldn't think of how to sum up the depth of the betrayal she felt or how to explain why she even felt betrayed.