What Begins with an Apple, Part 13b
Inara is furious.
Saffron stared at her next escort. "Really?" she said. "You're going to keep me in line?"
Inara arched her eyebrows. Don't underestimate me. "After you."
After a quiet moment, Saffron spoke. "I was surprised to find you still aboard this ship."
"Why is that surprising?"
"I really would have thought…well, you don't need any advice from me to know what you're doing to your career by remaining here."
"You're right. I don't need any advice from you."
"I hate to see you ruining your career like this."
"I'm sure you do," Inara replied, matching Saffron's insincerity exactly.
"I'm sure by now that you recognize it was a poor business decision to free-lance aboard a scruffy cargo vessel like this, but I really expected you to have more intelligence and savvy than to…" She trailed off.
Inara did not give her the gratification of asking for clarification. Saffron was left to carry the impetus on her own.
"What I really want to know, Inara, is why you're willing to ruin your career for a loser like Malcolm Reynolds? Really, what are you thinking?" Saffron looked at her with a slight smile and a little shake of the head, and continued as if she were Inara's best buddy. "Really, Inara, you're a better player than that. You could keep your career, keep company in the best of society, keep the income, and still indulge your taste for low life with Mal Reynolds if that's what you really want. He wouldn't be any the wiser."
Saffron had unknowingly hit her target with that shot. Inara knew she couldn't have known what happened on Beaumonde. She kept her reaction to herself.
"You're smarter and better than that, Inara. You could play him like a dulcimer; he'd never know. Just tell him you have…oh, appointments with the dentist or the doctor or the hairdresser or something…he wouldn't know, and wouldn't think to ask. You could still do him on the road between planetfalls, if that's what you want."
Again, Saffron's chance shot had hit home. Inara kept her face serene and gave no sign.
Saffron was certain that Inara's composed silence concealed something, so she kept on the same tack. "I'm sure he wouldn't say no to a freebie. It's not like he can get it by paying full price. Income like his, it's not as if he has a lot of…options. He really doesn't have much to offer a woman, except his body.
"Ah, but his body," Saffron continued, allowing herself a fond little shudder of ecstasy, as if recollecting more than she possibly could know. "Now that body is worth a little risk, isn't it? I suppose that's why you're risking so much for a man like Mal—because ordinarily, a poor-as-dirt, skunk's-luck petty thief and 琐细 suǒxì smuggler just wouldn't be worth the effort, would he? Not worth the sacrifice of a successful career in your chosen profession.
"But that's assuming he remains faithful to you, isn't it?" Saffron carried on. She thought she detected the smallest hint of a response in Inara's features, and decided to mine this vein for all it was worth. "And that's a big if, let me tell you. Why, when I married him—" Saffron flung the word freely in Inara's face "—he confessed to me…well, maybe I shouldn't say."
Saffron kept silent for a long moment, but it was clear Inara was not going to ask, so eventually she took up the thread again.
"On our wedding night, he confessed to me about all the flings he'd had at Serenity's many ports of call," Saffron confided. "Basically, a girl in every port." Inara snorted, and Saffron rounded on her. "Oh, you can scoff all you want, but do you really know? Do you have any idea, Inara, how Mal spends his time in port when you fly off to receive your clients? Sure, he says he has a job to do. How often do you actually stick around and watch him do the job he says he has?" Inara sniffed, and Saffron was quick to react. "I'm not saying he's making it all up. Of course some of those jobs are real: that's the only way he can pay the bills. But do they really take as long as he says they do? And what does he do for the rest of the time? And who does he do it with?"
They walked in silence for a bit as Saffron let that last thought sink in. "He plays the puritan pretty well. All his lectures about what's morally right, pretending he doesn't know the first thing about carnal desire. But I learned better on our wedding night." She paused for a moment to set the shaft of the wedding barb in the wound she knew she was making. "Don't think for a moment that this is just me taking out my resentment of his betrayal on you. I don't envy you. He may have married me, but I've come to terms with the idea that I'm better off without him." She paused as if trying to make a decision. "You know, as an act of charity, I really should tell you what I learned about him on our wedding night. If only to save another woman from having to go through what I did….
"He's a man of experience. You know that. Despite the puritan act. On our wedding night, he proved it, by doing all manner of naughty on me…Oh, you can laugh all you want, but I'm perfectly serious. I had to fight him off."
"That's not what I heard," Inara said, goaded at last into responding. "You knocked him out with a drugged kiss."
"Did he say that? Did he mention why? Have you thought about why I had to resort to such a measure? He may not have succeeded in the final act of penetration, but you never heard what he did before that. All kinds of…you know, at first I thought it was foreplay. I'll admit it, at first I welcomed it. It was my wedding night, after all, and I was expecting…."
Inara couldn't believe the nerve of this woman, persisting with her "innocent bride on the wedding night" act. It was beyond comprehension. But Saffron wasn't finished.
"Well, it started out fine. Pleasurable. He was sweet and attentive, long enough for me to drop my guard. But it kept going. It turned from naughty to nasty." She shuddered, as if in recollection. "Listen, Inara, I may look like an innocent—"
Oh, you most certainly do not, Inara thought.
"—but I've been around the block. A woman has to take measures to protect herself…"
Inara recognized perfectly well that Saffron was systematically detecting her insecurities and trying to play her on them. It was nonetheless disturbing to listen to Saffron's monolog.
"—and when she's alone, at the mercy of a…man like that, she has to be prepared to defend herself. Particularly when that man turns out to be a maniac rapist, a deviant sexual pervert."
Well, didn't that just take the cake? Inara knew, better than anyone else—certainly better than that 狐狸精 húli jīng Saffron—exactly what Mal did in bed, and she knew without a doubt that the most adventurous acts he had ever performed were the ones that she herself had encouraged him to try. Saffron had missed the mark completely, and her transparent falsehoods were offensive. It made Inara angry on Mal's behalf. What a load of 鸟话 niǎohuà.
That was it. Inara's blood was boiling. She knew, rationally, that Saffron was just shoveling on the 马屎 mǎshǐ. The woman could spin lies and falsehoods faster than Arachne spun her web. But she'd guessed and prodded and found Inara's weak spots. All the doubts and insecurities Inara had ever had…it was as if Saffron had been privy to her internal debates. She'd touched all the raw nerves. She was 不要脸的东西 bùyàoliǎn de dōngxi. As Saffron opened her mouth to add another outrageous lie to the pile, Inara had suddenly had enough. She spun and kicked hard, catching Saffron off guard, and Saffron was down on the floor, her body curled in pain. Inara glared down at her, breathing hard, her mouth pulled into a snarl of rage.
"What did you do that for, Inara?"
She looked up to find Mal watching her warily from the door of the dining room, as Saffron writhed on the floor. Apparently he had heard none of their conversation. It seemed to Inara that he looked at Saffron like she was the victim of an unprovoked attack, while he looked at Inara like she was an enraged maniac.
. . .
Inara turned and fled to her shuttle, where she locked herself in. She was heedless of Mal calling her name as she left. Mal summoned Simon, who examined Saffron, pronounced her injuries to be minimal, and saw her seated at the table for her meal.
For her part, Saffron played up the injury. She knew the Companion was trained in martial arts, and, since she'd set out deliberately to provoke her, she'd been prepared for an outburst—although the exact moment and form of it had taken her by surprise. She sat at the table pushing food around on her plate listlessly, making a show of her lack of appetite, while she surreptitiously concealed pieces of sausage-style protein lumps filched off the platter at Jayne's elbow for later consumption. The pitiful act worked like a charm, with the doctor and the young scientist openly expressing their concern, and the Captain and the mechanic unable to conceal theirs. Only Zoe regarded her with hard suspicion, while Jayne, oblivious to all, shoveled food onto his plate and thence to his gullet.
She was already planning how best to take advantage of the little wave of sympathy and pity. She determined to milk the supposed injury for all it was worth. If she feigned physical incapacity, she'd have a better chance at taking them by surprise again. As she prepped the most important part of her mission for deployment, it was best that they all believe she was barely capable of moving.
. . .
Despite the way she had teased Mal when Saffron was first discovered aboard, Zoe knew it to be a fact: that woman was damned dangerous. She didn't believe for a second the pitiful act that apparently aroused Mal and the doctor to sympathy for the 贱货的 潑婦 jiàn huò de pōfù. Saffron didn't need rescuing. It was another trick of hers, to throw them off guard. Inara was right on target when she'd detected Saffron's skills in seduction, manipulation, and divisiveness, way back when they'd first encountered her on Triumph. Skills that seemed especially effective with the Captain. Saffron had the capacity to twist Mal around like few other women Zoe had seen. In fact, only Inara could top her.
So. Fight fire with fire. Inara's influence over Mal would trump Saffron's any day. Inara had the power to end this. She simply needed to stop opposing Mal herself and kick him into gear. And to do that, Inara needed to be willing to talk to him.
Mal and Inara had wasted enough time not talking, not working through this misunderstanding of theirs. And even though Zoe had made no secret to Mal that she thought he'd behaved like an ass, it was Inara who needed a good talking-to at this point. Mal had tried. Zoe had seen him, making his attempts at reconciliation, apologizing, agonizing, trying. Ham-fisted attempts, granted, but he'd given it the effort. It was Inara's turn.
While she'd been thinking, Zoe's steps had directed her toward Inara's shuttle.
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glossary
琐细 suǒxì [petty]
狐狸精 húli jīng [vixen, bitch (lit., "fox spirit")]
鸟话 niǎohuà [bullshit (literally "bird speech")]
马屎 mǎshǐ [horseshit]
不要脸的东西 bùyàoliǎn de dōngxi [shameless and less than human (lit.: "a thing that has no shame")]
贱货的 潑婦 jiàn huò de pōfù [cheap floozy]
Inara and Saffron head-to-head...and Zoe has had enough of this nonsense. Please leave comments and reviews.