Even the moonlight felt hot and spicy.
Inka's poor legs and feet ached as she bounced up and down on her husband. He was on her bed in her apartment, and he was quite happy. Inka spread her fingers over his chest and purred with him.
His teeth flashed in the pale light, and he gripped her hips. "Damn, woman! You've ruined me!"
Inka bent down a little, her cunt sliding up the shaft but still quivering around the head. "Oh? And you haven't ruined me?" A kiss on his sharp chin, and then she reared back up, sinking on the erection. It made her slick little channel quiver, and her breath surged, but she was able to speak clearly. "We have no choice but to suffer together, Niti."
Again, rocking the mattress, the couple sighed and moaned.
When Inka finally felt the swelling, full feeling of his semen, she almost wondered if the sky was could fall.
In the morning, Nitishila combed her hair with his fingers, cooing to her about how beautiful the curls were. An almost expected rapping was heard at the window, and his eyelids flickered as he looked at the shutters. "Little Roshan is paying a visit." His limbs seemed so graceful as he rose from the bed. His hands pulled the shutters rather gently, as if he was afraid of startling the poor creature.
Inka rose too, and she asked, "Is our little visitor healthy this morning?"
Nitishila was quiet. He gripped the edge of the windowsill as his head pointed down. His hair was like a waterfall of black ink. His other hand moved towards the bird.
"Has he finally captured your heart today?" Inka teased. "Will you put him in a cage?"
She moved in beside him.
Nitishila's fingers were pinching something on the white bird's leg.
A knot of a cord, keeping a small roll of paper around the leg.
"What's that?" Inka asked.
Nitishila untied the cord and took the paper. He unrolled that paper and read aloud a message there.
"Everything's gone according to plan."
"What does that mean?" She took the paper from his fingers and turned it over, but she found nothing else.
Tight, scorched words. "Inka ... what have you been plotting?"
Tossing the paper somewhere, as if it meant nothing, Inka looked at his stern expression and said, "In order for me to plot, I must have a target, and I can't think of any targets." She paused and shook her head. "Unless you can provide a target, I'm quite lost."
"What am I meant to think?!" Nitishila folded his arms and turned his back on her.
She touched his shoulder. "Won't you trust me?"
She felt the muscles in his back flinch. Then she felt his body fill up with breath.
"Very well. I trust you, but tell me what the meaning of this bird is."
Inka walked around to face him. His nose was flushed. "I've never sent this bird anywhere. I'm not responsible for whatever its purpose is."
There was a flapping as the white bird left.
His posture relaxing, Nitishila asked, "Do you think someone is trying to harm you again?"
Her knuckles on her jaw, Inka hummed a little. "I don't have all the information yet, and so I can't tell you anything of value, but I will say that I don't think I'm the target here." Before Nitishila could find enough breath for a protest, she put her fingertips at his lips, feeling the petal-like textures surrounded by rough hair. "If I tell you any more, you might launch a public investigation, and that's not the best route. Always let the idiots perform, remember?"
He gently pushed her hand away. "Then what would you have me do?"
Inka smiled a little.
Only a little.
She imagined that if another person stood before her, they wouldn't be able to notice the smile.
She looked back to the open window. "Never forget who you married nor why."
***
Some days later, Nitishila was excited to visit his wife again. He had some plans concerning the new medical wing that was being created that he wanted to chat with her about. There was also the upcoming holiday of sorts on the ship he wanted to discuss with her. However, when he was at the indoor entrance to Inka's apartment, the answering servant humbly told him, "We won't refuse you, Your Majesty, but you should know that our mistress is terribly gloomy. She won't be a lively host. She won't allow any unnecessary visitors. She's even banned all the doctors from tending to her."
"I saw my mother go in this direction some hours ago," Nitishila said with a growing frown. "Was she received?"
Bowing, the servant said, "My mistress would never be so uncivil to the wise Empress Dowager. However, that fine Dowager didn't stay long. She seemed highly frustrated with my mistress' pessimism, and she left quickly."
"Then I must go to her." Nitishila gave the servant an expectant look, and the servant was properly intimidated. Nitishila was led into the apartment, but not to the reception room. He was taken to a room with a large window that had a decorative screen rolled across it. The screen was of wood, with an open framework that had shapes of leaves and huge flowers. The sunlight put an interesting pattern out on the floor, and on Inka.
The young empress was lounging on a long sofa, making the most sensational exhales. A stack of texts were on a nearby table and her fingers listlessly clung to a corner of one of them. On a second and larger table, there were trays loaded with so many edible things that it was amazing. Savory and sweet. Meat and vegetables. Fruit and nuts. Beans and leaves. Sugar and spice. Meal-worthy, and dessert-worthy. Their contrasting scents overloaded the area.
Indu the dog sat at the end of the sofa, close to Inka's feet, and she whined and whimpered, as if she thought she'd be given a treat soon. Jorun sat at her post with her hand on her tight lips, her eyes weak as she watched her mistress put bite after bite of food away in her stomach. She bowed in her seat when she noticed Nitishila and said, "Your Majesty, we're all highly honored by your presence, but I'm afraid Her Majesty's too bleak to recognize that."
Nitishila tried not to roll his eyes. He knelt down before the sofa, close to Inka's upper body. She looked at him and sighed again. "Oh, my pitiable husband is here." She put a bittersweet looking thing, coated in orange sauce, past her lips and loudly chewed.
"What nonsense is in your head?" He thought this was more humiliating than anything she'd ever shown him during copulation. "When you were last in a malaise, your appetite decreased. Now you're eating as much as an elephant, or a mouse, even a shrew. What's caused this?"
Inka's lips trembled, and it was so strange to him that he assumed she was putting on a show. Her voice lacked strength. "Husband, my sweet husband, I've ferreted out as much information as possible in these texts. There is no answer to our problem. We'll remain childless."
"That's not unquestionably true." He let his fingers caress the wrist of the hand holding a text. "There's still hope. We're young and healthy."
Inka's eyes closed for a moment as she wailed some statements, actually wailed, as if she wanted everyone inside and outside the apartment, and maybe in some of the palace's hallways, to hear her. "My youth will expire before we have any children!! And I'll have no support in this empire! I'll never have children and there's nothing for me to do but enjoy what limited time I have in my exalted position!!" Then, after Nitishila finished cringing at the sudden and uncharacteristic volume, Inka took a heavy swallow of tea and a few more bites of food.
Nitishila shuffled back a few inches. "My Darling, I doubt you can each so much food without becoming ill." He had to wait for her to force down the food so she could speak clearly.
"Let me be ill!! It matters not!! I want to eat all the fine foods I'll never see in Eiragla!!"
Nitishila cringed again.
Then he studied her eyes.
Unlike the rest of her face, Inka's eyes were frigid.
And he trusted her.
He used the back of his hand and his knuckles to caress her shoulder and arm. Dark against light. Henna against henna. Oddly, he thought of Jaya from an incident years ago. She'd been unusually hungry that day, and she ate everything given to her. She hadn't been depressed, or not to Nitishila's knowledge, but he still thought of her. He imagined she was doing very well, a happy and maybe plump mother with children.
"Rest well, Dear, and try not to eat yourself to death." He patted her arm and rose to his feet. "But try to find some more happiness. I'd hate for you to be miserable on your birthday trip."
He left his wife alone, and on the following days he only visited for a few minutes at a time. On one late afternoon, he thought he might try to be rather intimate with Inka, but she screamed, literally screamed, that there was no point in joining and he might as well leave. Her face had turned red. Her maids gawked at her. Jorun put her hand to her throat and looked away. One of the guards outside peeked in a window to make sure everything was alright.
Nitishila couldn't say he understood whatever scheme was being carried out, but he knew he didn't want to interfere. Whatever Inka wanted, if it was reasonable, she'd have it.
Even his mother agreed to leave Inka alone, although she didn't seem to understand that something peculiar was going on. "That poor child is so miserable," she'd said to Nitishila on one morning. "Torturing herself with her thoughts. We must think of a way to soothe her."
