"I thought you were a nonbeliever," she bantered, enjoying his weight and the slide of his skin as he lay half on her, half on the bed.
"You're a sight likelier to turn me than any preacher ever was," he managed, swallowing hard. His chin pressed into her shoulder. "Mmm, darlin', that just gets better 'n better."
Repeat customer, she nearly said, but settled for smiling and pressing her cheek against his damp hair. He'd ended up here somehow for the first time a couple of weeks ago: she wasn't sure who'd kissed whom, or whose hands had been the first to find skin, but she had no regrets. Mal was gentler than she'd imagined, easily coaxed to ardor, and it was a novelty waking up to someone so many days in a row. She kissed his temple, his breathing as soothing as the gentle fall of rain at the Guild house. She couldn't remember ever wanting someone so much, ever waiting so long for them. Love was like a new dress, elaborate and difficult to get into, but Mal's rough hands had buttoned her into it and she thought it suited them both.
"Mmmm," he mumbled, his lips slow and sleepy against her collarbone. "'m glad you're givin' this up."
"Giving what up?" she asked, hardly enough energy in her to inflect the question.
"'mpanionin'," he said.
Shock sizzled through her and she sat up, dislodging him roughly. "I'm what?"
"Ain't you?" he said, on his back and craning his neck, his face all sleepy confusion. "'Nara, this thing we've got goin' - I ain't playin' this for kicks."
"And you just assumed that taking you into my bed meant giving up my work?"
"Sure," he said, his brow puckered in that way that made her want to kiss or slap him. "I thought you were done with that."
"For God's sake, Mal, it's my work!" She turned away. "You're a gorram fool. We haven't so much as seen a planet for weeks. That's the only reason I haven't been choosing clients."
The confusion was turning to hurt and anger. He pushed himself up onto his elbows. "Now hold on just a damn minute."
"You assumed I'd stop being a Companion? Because what, being a whore means you can't fall in love?"
"No," he said, and she could hear the anger tinging his voice. "Because being in love implies, to my mind, a certain brand of faithfulness that's just a little bit incompatible with what a Companion does."
She laughed, a brittle, bitter sound in the warm little room. "You are so naive. You've always hated my work, but that feeling is mutual."
"I was right," he said to the curtains. "None of it means a damn thing." He shifted, started to move off the bed. She grabbed for his arm.
"Mal. Listen to me."
"This whole thing was a bad idea," he said, twisting his arm in her grip.
"Dammit, Mal, just listen to me!"
He settled back cooly, drawing the coverlet over his nakedness. "Speak your piece, but I'll remind you I ain't accustomed to takin' orders on my own ship."
"I appreciate that." She took a deep breath, her back stiff with anger. "I was born on Sihnon. It's called the Companions' planet: everywhere you look, they're there. On the core planets there's room for us, a need for us. The people are prosperous and healthy and a Companion provides a great deal of aesthetic pleasure in addition to physical and social pleasure. On the core worlds, a Companion is an honorable thing to be. The social structures that support us are established and intact. That's the surface of it, anyway. Underneath, it gets more complicated. Companions receive a lot of training and education in psychology and politics. The Guild isn't strictly speaking a political entity, but the Companions are sometimes encouraged to further certain interests. It's not espionage so much as a means of survival. The Guild supported Unification not because it was the best thing for the worlds, but it was the best thing for the Guild. A centralized power structure is more convenient and safer for the work we do."
He snorted, sneaking a look at her bare breasts, and she ignored him, not bothering to pull the sheet over herself. She was comfortable in her body. It wasn't her fault if he wasn't.
"I was pledged to the Guild at the age of three. My mother wasn't certain that she'd be able to provide the life she wanted for me, but a Companion's security is assured, so when she was approached by the house mistress, she agreed. She raised me along the guidelines that the mistress left. I learned how to speak nicely, how to walk smoothly, difficult tasks for a young child. When I was seven, I was taken to the House and began my training. Etiquette, history, government, grammar, posture, dancing, music: a hundred lessons a week, it felt like, and even when we weren't at lessons, we were still in training. At the age of twelve, I started the real training, learning how to manipulate a man or a woman, how to please them in non-physical ways. I was taken to stores and to balls along with the others, but it was never unsupervised. We only read approved books and listened to approved music. Our education and progress were strictly monitored. At fifteen, the lessons began for the bedroom. Every moment was a sort of practice, every one of the girls trying to be more ladylike, more Companionlike than the rest. All we had was each other and the structure of our lives: our families were only allowed to visit on certain days. The grounds owned by the guild on various planets are extensive, and my House is the largest and the most prestigious. It was even more self-contained than, well, than Serenity is."
"That's a fascinatin' insight into your strange little life," said Mal with a dry, cynical edge to his voice. "A grand speech on the history and gentrification of the 'verse's oldest profession. Your elocution teacher would be proud. Guess I'll be goin' now, 'less you got any other lessons to offer." He swung his lean legs over the side of the bed again.
"I'm just trying to explain," she said, frustration creeping into her tone. "Mal, the House was my whole world. Every single thing I did from the age of three was to prepare me for this life. Every minute of my life that I can remember has been spent being a Companion. I'm not a mechanical genius like Kaylee or a fighter like Zoe: however shameful you find what I do, this is where my talents lie, and I'm extremely good at it. I think Nandi told you I would have been House Mistress if I had stayed."
"Bein' the best whore still ain't much of a qualification in my book," he said, reaching for his breeches. She felt the blood flood into her face.
"There will always be whores," she snapped. "At least this way we keep our self-respect. I have control over whom I contract with, and when. The service I offer isn't a common or a tawdry one, unlike some people I could name."
"Well," he said, slapping his knee, "we all do fill a need, don't we?"
"Mal," she said, schooling the tremble out of her voice. "It's my i life /i ."
"Here's a thing I can't wrap my head around," he said, turning to her, and the candlelight pooled in the hollows of his throat and collarbone. "If you was all lined up to be the next head whore, why'd you leave? Why'd you contract with me for my shuttle? There ain't a doubt in my mind you could have gone with a classier operation than mine, found a lot more work elsewhere."
"I'm not sure," she said. "Just that ambition was never my watchword: it's not a quality we work at cultivating. Things changed when Nandi left. The other girls were restless. I wanted to see the universe."
"Ain't you just to good to be true," he drawled, dragging on his shirt. "Here's another thing: why didn't you go back to work when you left the first time? Why'd you go to the training house?"
"I was in love with you," she said, looking up so that his eyes met hers. "I am in love with you. And I didn't know what to do about it."
"So you figure the solution is pickin' up clients again?"
"I don't want to be planetside without you," she said, miserable. "I love Serenity and I love you, and there's no way I can talk you out of this life. I've got no right to. But I have to support myself, and this is all I've got, Mal. I have my training and my body, and I hoped to have this...thing with you. I thought you'd understand."
"Ain't that sweet." He leaned forward, gazing at her. "You are just crazier than a bugbat, woman. You ought to know me better by now than to think I'd be pleased by your notion of good works."
"I thought you loved me." The words fell like spent bullets onto the covers between them. His mouth softened.
"I do," he said. "A good sight better 'n I ever meant to like you at all. You're beautiful, you're cultured, you're tough, and you complicate everything. But I can't be with a woman who's always out with other men. Can't stand that kind of lyin', you actin' like you're glad to be out with them and the way they treat you. How'm I supposed to trust a woman like that? Knowin' all your wiles, and what happens to my crew if you get a notion to use 'em on me?"
"So what," she said, an edge in her voice. "You thought you'd support me? Mal, you barely keep this ship running. Every last credit you can scrape up goes into Serenity and she's still on the verge of falling apart. How on earth would you keep both of us fed and clothed?"
"You're right," he said. "I should just give it all up, let someone else keep you. Or hey, I'll just park in the core a while and let you whore until you've got the credits to keep me. That'll solve all my problems right there." He stood up, his suspenders slack against his thighs and his hair ruffled. He had his boots in his hand and his bare feet looked so vulnerable, even on her lush carpets. She thought of how the metal of the catwalks would press cruelly into the soles of his feet, cold and unyielding. The line of his shoulders as he moved across the little room was heartbreakingly lovely, strong and sorrowful.
"Don't leave," she said. He turned his head and addressed her over his shoulder.
"Inara, I put in an honest effort for you. If that ain't enough, well, I ain't got the time or the energy to spare fightin' over it or workin' out some kind of clever plan." He looked exhausted. Her heart gave a pang. With Wash and the Shepherd gone, he was holding the crew together with hope and the promise of better days. None of them had had better than a tenuous grip on contentment for a long stretch of time.
"Don't leave," she said again. "Please, Mal." His mouth quirked in a grimacing imitation of a smile.
"I can't go far," he said in a tone she couldn't identify, and disappeared through the door.