At first she did not protest, thinking it was a mere surge of gratitude, awareness of life instead of death; but his embrace grew quickly more demanding, more personal.
“Do you have any idea how much I want you, need you, how damnably I’ve missed you?”
Gently she tried to put a little space between herself and his demanding caresses, but he whispered against her throat, “You feel it, too, I know you do! You want me as much as I want you, or you’d never have come so far for me.”
Against her will she felt herself responding; but a cold rational voice was saying in the back of her mind: Now that you are free of him, do you truly want to start the whole miserable thing over again? The excitement of the festival, a few drinks, the general atmosphere of license and the straitlaced rules relaxed for once, the fact that he’d been alone a long time and wanted a woman-that’s what it was and that’s all it was. She wouldn’t be fooled into thinking it was more than that. Gently, but inexorably, she removed his hands from her.
“I’m sorry, Peter.”
“Mag, Mag, I need you so. Don’t you know we belong together?”
“I’m sorry, truly I am,” she said with a sigh. “Until a little while ago, I thought so, too. But now I just don’t feel guilty about you anymore. Now I’m just sorry I can’t give you what you want.”
“Is there someone else? That Darrill-”
“No, no. Nothing like that. Don’t be foolish, Peter. I haven’t seen him since I was nine years old!”
There had never been anyone else. Until now she would have sworn there never could be.
“Mag, you know there can never be anyone else, not for either of us, not on this world.”
That, she thought, was partly true; they had shared the Darkovan childhood, the isolation from their peers, which had kept them from finding satisfactory mates elsewhere; drawn together by the knowledge that they were the only ones available for one another. Now she resented this; and resented, even more, how much he took it for granted.
“No, Peter. Whatever you’re asking-no.”
“I want you,” he said, as if in pain. “I want you for always. I want to marry you again. And I want you now. Magda, Magda, come with me now! Our rooms are together, it’s as if it had been intended-”
She said quietly, “You know I am not free to marry. Now.”
“Oh, that! This Amazon game you are playing-”
“It’s not a game.” The very softness with which she spoke accentuated the finality of the words.
His voice was bitter. “Have you cut off your womanhood with your hair?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t think so. But I don’t think womanhood means I have to go to bed with you just because you’re lonely”-she had begun to use a ruder word-“and want a woman.”
He touched her softly, intensely, and she hated her own arousal. He said, in triumph, “You want me, too. You know you do!”
“If I do,” she said, suddenly angry, “that is my affair and not yours, unless 7 choose to make it so! Oh, God, Peter, why can’t you understand? Do you want me just to be kind to you?”
He said, trying to hold her, “I’d settle for that,” but she wrenched herself free.
“But I won’t, and that’s final! Peter, let me go. Jaelle is watching us!”
She moved away; only a few inches, but with such finality she might as well have been on one of the moons. Seeing the angry flush of offended pride lying along his cheekbones, she felt almost regretful; but nothing kinder would ever have made him believe her. He swallowed hard, and turned away; she watched him go toward Jaelle, saw the girl hold out her hand, with none of the shyness now she had shown earlier this evening. Peter took the slender fingers in his own, and although Magda could not hear what they said, she saw them move away together.
She watched them circle the dance floor, with a certain sadness. She was really free of Peter now. And suddenly, with her new dimension of awareness, she knew what she had done.