Finally Taking Raine's Advice

Kyrie sat by herself at the slave's table, staring down at her own hands in her lap as she sat. They itched to be drawing again but... But ever since that night in the garden with Renard she'd been too scared to go out there to draw again. Too scared to draw at all, really. She just felt so much shame: shame for allowing that night to happen at all, and shame for putting down to paper things that others might wish remained hidden. Sure, she could still draw other things, like depictions of the animals in the menagerie, for instance, but even those she couldn't seem to move her hands for. Nothing came out how she wanted, and it was continually frustrating. She wanted to draw, she wanted to draw so badly, but the weight of her own guilt was so heavy that every time she even moved to go in that direction she became overcome with despondency.

She didn't like this. She didn't like this at all.

Burying her face in her arms on the table, she clenched her eyes shut. She knew that she had to pull herself together: no doubt Isaac was probably already done with his evening stable work and if she waited too long he would start to wonder where she was. She wasn't even really sure what she was still doing in here; they had all finished the dinner wrap up and had gone their separate ways, except Kyrie hadn't left. She just... Didn't feel like moving.

At the same time though, she didn't want to miss out on her Isaac time: he was one of the few outlets that she had for her negative feelings at the moment. It felt... A bit wrong to think of him like that, but when she was with him he was able to make her feel like everything was perfect, even if it wasn't. She needed that feeling: needed it to stave off both the desire to draw and her own all consuming guilt.

To that end, Kyrie sat back up, taking a deep breath before leaving the kitchen.

First thing was first, she had to go grab her nightgown. Even if it was likely to end up off before the morning, it still felt too strange not to start the evening with it on.

Quietly opening the door to the slave's bedroom, Kyrie knew that Dessi was likely to be asleep so she was being careful not to awaken the slumbering woman. As Kyrie's eyes adjusted to the room, she sent the briefest of glances in Dessi's direction, enough to know that there was indeed a silhouette in her bed, before turning her eyes towards her own bed.

Continuing into the room with light steps, Kyrie made her way over to the trunk at the end of her bed. Putting her hands on the lid of the trunk, she paused for a moment in her advance, her eyes almost sadly looking up towards her own bed. She hid her notebook under the mattress, more out of force of habit than anything else, and once again she found herself wishing to pick it up. Letting out a soft sigh, Kyrie bowed her head a little. She needed to grab her things and go up and join Isaac... But a part of her just wanted to curl up against this trunk and wallow in misery.

She just felt... so guilty about finding comfort in Isaac's arms. Every time she looked forward to some time with Isaac, she also looked backwards towards her time with Renard. She wasn't entirely the woman that Isaac had always hoped for, and she hated herself for not being that woman. There really was no need for her to have sex with Renard, yet she had done it anyway; she still didn't know why she'd done it, not even after the month she'd had since the actual event. It continued to elude her, and Kyrie continued to bottle up her feelings on the entire matter. How could she even begin to broach such a subject? With anyone?

Bringing one of her hands up to cover her eyes, she took a couple deep breaths to keep herself from crying. Everything would be fine; she'd spend the evening with Isaac getting drunk off her love for him, and that would tide her over until their next encounter. Taking one last shaky breath and moving her hand away from her eyes, she then opened up the chest.

"Kyrie?"

The voice caused Kyrie to completely freeze up, and for a moment she wondered if maybe it was just her imagination. Holding her breath, her heart was pounding a mile a minute as if she'd just been caught red-handed doing something wrong. Peering wide eyed at the lump across the room that was Dessi, unfortunately it became very clear to Kyrie that it wasn't just her imagination. Dessi shifted in the bed before Kyrie heard her voice one more time.

"Kyrie...? Is something wrong?"

Kyrie just crouched in complete silence, her mouth silently opening and closing a couple times as if trying to test what to say. Her hands shook slightly as she tightened her grip on the lid of her trunk as her gaze turned downwards. She had hoped that not looking at Dessi would help to keep all the miserable feelings contained, yet when she finally made a sound in response, all she could really do was let out a mangled whimper before clenching her eyes shut as the tears began falling. No! After all the effort that she'd put into holding her feelings back, here she was with all of her feelings rushing down her face! All it had taken was a simple little question and everything she'd worked towards just fell apart!

"Kyrie..."

There was nothing but sympathy in Dessi's voice as she sat up and pushed herself off her bed to move over towards the younger girl. Gently helping Kyrie up from the ground so that the two of them could sit on the bed, Dessi pulled Kyrie in close. The comfort was eagerly accepted by Kyrie, and she clung to Dessi and just let out muffled sobs against the older woman's torso. For so long she'd been struggling to deal with her emotions completely alone; now that she was caught, she was finally getting a chance to let it all out and she had to admit that it felt good to just cry like this. Dessi didn't try to prod anything out of her for now, and Kyrie was rather thankful for that, she just hugged Kyrie close and gently ran a hand through her hair.

Eventually the sobs slowed down into soft hiccups, but still Dessi didn't say anything. She'd already asked Kyrie what was wrong, she likely didn't feel any need to ask it again. Feeling like Kyrie owed her at least a bit of an explanation, Kyrie's mouth opened slightly, but her lip trembled. Should she just... should she say it? Perhaps out of all of the people in the house Dessi had the most chance of being understanding about it, but Kyrie still wasn't even sure what it was! Plus she... She didn't want to admit that she'd done something so heinous to Isaac.

Still though, it had been so painful keeping this to herself for the past month. And if someone asking her how she was was enough of a trigger to make her cry that wasn't good at all for helping her continue to keep this secret! Perhaps telling Dessi would help.

With that thought in mind, Kyrie softly mumbled what she'd done to Dessi, but Dessi either didn't hear her or couldn't believe what she'd heard.

"What?"

"I slept with Renard!"

Kyrie's voice came out notably louder now, and she devolved into a fresh wave of tears to have the words so openly spoken. Oh it felt so awful to say it out loud like that! Why had she thought that it would help her feel better?! There was no doubt in her mind that Dessi was judging her now, all it had taken was the glance she'd gotten of how utterly shocked Dessi's face had been. Even as she cried though, she couldn't help thinking how much she wanted to draw that expression, and she bit her lip hard at the thought. Had she not learned her lesson enough already?!

Dessi's voice cut through her silent berating of herself.

"How did that even happen?"

For a moment Kyrie hesitated, but then she clenched her eyes shut for a moment before almost violently reaching under the covering of her bed and pulling out a notebook.

"Because I saw him out in the garden when I wasn't supposed to."

There was a bitterness to her voice as she said this, as if her own inability to draw at the moment was entirely Renard's fault. And how was it not, really? It was because of him that her life was a mess right now and she couldn't stand it.

Almost with a desperate fervor to her actions, she flipped through the pages until she found some of the pictures she'd drawn of Renard out in the garden: him angry, him quietly smoking his cigar, him tenderly looking at flowers, all the things that wouldn't be seen of him normally. Even if they were a bit hard to see with only the light of night filtering in from the window, the sheer number of pages Kyrie paused on made it clear that this wasn't a one time thing.

"He found out and when he did he... He confronted me. He turned through all of my drawings and then pushed me down. But the worst part? The worst part was that I didn't stop him! Why didn't I stop him?!"

Here Kyrie once again lost herself to tears, and Dessi silently stared at the notebook that Kyrie had set down beside them. As one of Dessi's free hands reached down to bring the book up closer to her face, she no doubt was able to actually see the lines on the page now. Kyrie flinched a bit with nervousness to have her scrutinizing it so closely, it made her think of that night in the garden, and Kyrie clenched her eyes shut to try and block it out again. She had to say something, anything to get Dessi off thinking about how awful Kyrie was for drawing him secretly like this.

"I still love Isaac though, I know I do. It feels right when I say it to him, I still enjoy being with him, and he's still the best at making me smile and laugh but... but if that's the case then why? Why did I let Renard have sex with me?"

Kyrie looked up at Dessi then, desperation in her eyes as she practically begged the older woman to give her some insight on this matter. Dessi set the book down when she heard how desperate Kyrie was: in the older woman's mind, the well-being of her fellows was much more important than whatever curiosity there was towards Kyrie's drawings.

"Do you think you also love Renard?"

The question earned an appalled look from Kyrie. She echoed the words briefly, but then promptly scrunched up her brow.

"That... No... That doesn't feel right. I think he's more interesting when I see more sides of his personality, but I don't think I'd call that love. I think he's more fascinating to watch."

"Hmm... Then do you think you were curious what sex with him would be like?"

"I..."

Here Kyrie once again hesitated. Was that really it? Did she let him push her down because she wanted to know what it would feel like to do something forbidden and taboo? Not just forbidden, but something that felt completely different from her usual? Something that had mixed exposing her heart as well as her body?

"Maybe..."

Her voice was small as she said this, and the slightest smirk rose to Dessi's features, almost a knowing one.

"Then don't think of your time with Renard as sex with another man."

"W-what?"

It was clear that the suggestion that Dessi made didn't even seem like an option in Kyrie's mind, so Dessi tried to explain her reasoning.

"What I'm saying is that it sounds like you weren't looking for sex from Renard specifically, just a different kind of sex. It probably wouldn't have mattered if the man was Renard or someone else, you still wouldn't have pushed them away because you wanted to know what it felt like. If you still love Isaac then don't beat yourself up about who it was you last had sex with. You could even imagine it was Isaac if it makes you feel better. If sleeping with other people really bothers you so much then don't do it again and try to experiment more with Isaac."

"Is... Is that what you'd do?"

Dessi chuckled softly at that question.

"No of course not. If I loved a person I'd still have sex with other people because each person brings something different to the table. But I recognize that not everyone is like me. Really though, Kyrie. If you're craving something different and want to stay solely with Isaac, then tell him that. I'm sure there's a part of him holding back for your sake, it might not be conscious on his part, but it's likely still there. If he knows that you want more then you'll likely notice a difference in his behavior."

Kyrie was quiet as she mulled these thoughts over. Her crying had stopped at this point, but she still felt vaguely unsettled by Dessi's words. Did it really not matter even remotely who was having sex with her? She wasn't sure that made her feel better, and she wasn't even sure if that was right. When she tried to imagine someone else having sex with her aside from Isaac or Renard, her hair stood on end with discomfort. If it ever came down to it though, would she enjoy sex with a stranger? She just didn't know. Dessi took her drying face as a good sign, and the older woman gently wiped at Kyrie's face with her own nightgown.

"Feels good to let out your tears, doesn't it?"

Kyrie let out a soft hum of affirmation at that, and she leaned a bit heavily against the older woman again.

"I'm sorry, Dessi... For bothering you with my problems."

"It's never a bother, my dear. I like seeing the inhabitants of this house happy and that includes you. If you ever need someone to talk to I'll always be here."

Kyrie gave Dessi a grateful smile at that before wrapping her arms around the older woman. The two of them stayed like this for a few moments more before Dessi lightly pat Kyrie's back.

"Feeling better now? If so you should probably head up to Isaac, he might be starting to wonder where you are."

A rather submissive nod was all the response that Kyrie gave, and so Dessi helped Kyrie stand back up. She almost... She almost felt like she didn't want to go to Isaac right now, not when she was so confused. At the same time though, the thought of being in his arms was something that she absolutely craved: it made her feel so comfortable and good that she really didn't want to stay here for the night. Turning her eyes to Dessi for a moment, she soon looked down again, almost in embarrassment.

"Thank you, Dessi. I... I really appreciate you listening to me like this."

Smiling up at the younger girl, Dessi nodded.

"You're welcome. Don't forget though, Kyrie, tell Isaac about wanting something different. I'm serious. I don't care how embarrassing it is to bring up, you do it anyway. Is that clear?"

Kyrie blushed from this effective command, but she slowly nodded her head in response. Dessi gave Kyrie more of a critical look at that, but ultimately she took that response.

"Alright then, run along now!"

Gently giving Kyrie a push towards the door, the younger woman stumbled forward a little towards the door. Sending one last look back to Dessi, Kyrie gave Dessi a soft smile before heading out.

She did... She did feel a little better though. She wasn't sure if Dessi's conclusions were at all correct, but she felt lighter as she headed up to see Isaac. Maybe she did just want something more from Isaac... Something that felt... Different. Her heart fluttered at the thought of the most recent time that they'd spent out in the garden. Perhaps she'd be able to tempt him into more things like that... With a hopeful heart, she opened the door to the guest room they so often shared.