“Gods below, her husband’s a big man. He’s thought about it but she’s too soon recovered,” Walegrin said, trying to force humor into his voice.
It worked better than he’d expected. Kama’s lips twisted into a lewd, lopsided smile. “There’re other ways than that, my man.”
Walegrin was grateful that such light as reached down into the room fell on her rather than him. His face burned and his groin tensed. He hadn’t always known, hadn’t really suspected much one way or another until recently. Chenaya took far greater pleasure from her ability to astound and stupefy him than she did from any of his own exertions.
Sensing either his embarrassment or his detachment, Kama made ready to leave the room. “I’ll talk to him, Walegrin, but you’re still his only eyes and ears out at that place and he won’t want to lose you. Maybe we’ll take the priest; I’ve got the stomach for that, but we can’t touch her. Even if she didn’t have some sort of divine protection, she’s still Kada-kithis’s cousin and he’ll crucify anyone who rids him of her.”
“I know that. I tell it to myself over and over whenever I’m with her. She’s using me all the while she pretends to listen or care. When we’re alone there’s hate and disgust. It’s unnatural.”
Kama paused at the foot of the stairs. “The only thing unnatural about it is that she’s a woman and you’re a man- otherwise many men think it’s a most natural, and satisfactory, arrangement.”
Bitterness and anger had pushed the taste of bile into his mouth. He almost asked about the men of the 3rd, or the Stepsons, or her father who could not lie with a woman, only rape one. In the end, though, he swallowed and stared out the casement, away from her.