Fifteen

Chan’s new wife came into our home only a few weeks later. There wasn’t as much celebration this time around, as Alasbar’s death still hung heavily over the household. All of the senior members of the Roy clan were falsely jovial, trying to force forgetfulness and normality onto the rest of us. I smiled at his new bride, welcoming her as I’d never welcomed Alasbar. Whatever her outcome, I wouldn’t be cruel to her. I’d missed my connection with Alasbar, but she’d taught me a valuable lesson. It hurt to be cruel to others. My cruelty toward my first sister wife haunts me to this day, regardless of our minor feuds.

I watched, jaded, as Mama-Roy and Papa-Roy ceremoniously performed the wedding night ritual, showing Caper, the new bride, how to receive our husband. Caper blushed prettily and looked shy, appropriately. She kept stealing little glances at me, wondering, I’m sure, what kind of household I would provide for her. The opulence of the Roy family was obvious, but I would decide the atmosphere of our inner chambers, and she looked to me for answers. I smiled warmly, encouraging her to let her guard down around me. As I walked toward the door in the side of the room, leaving Chan and Caper to make their own wedding night memories, I breathed a sigh of relief. Though his advances had become more gentle in nature since the announcement of the pregnancy, Chan had still been visiting me on a regular basis, and I hoped that the addition of a new wife would satisfy him enough that he’d leave me alone.

I closed the door and leaned my head against it, waiting. I waited to hear the gentle sighs of pleasure and the giggles that I’d witnessed on Alasbar’s wedding night, or perhaps even the abrupt yelp of shock that I’d experienced on my own, but I heard neither. Instead, I heard complete silence from the other room. I held my breath and listened harder, cursing the sound of my own heart beat for being so intrusive, but still, I heard nothing. When I took in air again, my hot breath seemed too loud in the stuffy, quiet, black room I occupied. My curiosity grew- surely there should be some sound, however strange, emanating from the room next door? Silently, I opened the door, allowing the thinnest crack to appear between my room and the wedding chamber so that I could see into the private lives of my husband and my sister wife.

I was confused. Caper stood in the middle of the room, completely naked, her wedding gown in a puddle at her feet, and Chan was circling her like a vulture, surveying his prey. My heart sank as I realized that Chan hadn’t fallen in love again- instead, he’d acquired a new plaything. I saw it then, something I’d missed completely before. Caper had a stunning likeness to Alasbar; she held the same posture, had the same wide hips and the same thin lips. Her hair was the same golden color and the same length. I shuddered.

Caper was meant to be Alasbar’s replacement.

He sat on the edge of the bed and unzipped his pants. “Turn around,” he said, and Caper did as she was told, facing him. He pulled his erection out and started fondling himself while he looked at her. The sight sickened me, but a morbid curiosity kept me from looking away.

“Stretch your arms above your head,” he said, and Caper once more did as she was told. “Arch your back,” he told her, and she did, her long, wavy hair hanging down her back in smooth rivulets. Her breasts rose as she reached her arms up higher and higher until Chan nodded his approval at her stance, and she stood there, waiting. Finally, she gave a nervous laugh and dropped her arms back to her sides.

Chan shook his head, “No,” he said. “No, back up. Put them back up, high above your head. Spread your legs, too. Further. Good. Now stay like that until I tell you to move.”

Caper smiled, thinking he was joking, but she realized that he intended for her to do exactly as she was told, and the smile faded from her face. Her raised arms faltered, but did not fall. She held her awkward stance as Chan stared at her and made quick jerking motions with his hand.

After a while, Chan told her to kneel, and as he stood over her, I pushed the door closed. I’d seen enough to prove that this new wife would be only a temporary distraction, someone Chan could entertain himself with while my body was otherwise occupied making his baby. He would try to restrain himself with me and be relatively normal, or his version of normal anyway, not wanting to disturb the process going on inside of me, but Alasbar’s death had awoken some hidden secret world in his mind, and now he sought nothing but the pleasure of his own desires.

Poor Caper. I thought sadly of the hopeful look on her face. She’d probably been looking forward to her wedding- and maybe even her wedding night- for a very long time, and now that it was here, I feared nothing but the worst for her. Her future would be a bleak one.

But I couldn’t focus on her right now. I bore her no ill will, true, and if I intended to spend any more time than necessary in this house, I would have actively tried to be her friend and a good sister wife to her, but my only concern at that point was to paint a pretty picture of domestic bliss that was believable to everyone around me. I needed to do this for only as long as it took to rid myself of my baby, and then I could take Mayla and Forrest and be gone from this place. I employed my old friend, invoking her timeless, hidden smile as easily as I had when I’d first arrived. And when things got hard and I wanted nothing more than to cry and scream, or worse, to give up and submit, I silently chanted her name, an endless whisper in my mind. Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa. She kept my face still and my thoughts hidden.