This is a white settlement on the coast of Puerto Rico. In this world, Puerto Rico is MUCH bigger than you'd think; it's somewhere between a large island and a small subcontinent.

This white settlement doesn't do as well as many of its competitors throughout the Isthmus and West India. Here, the rate of imports seems to meet the rate of exports in the middle...and that's just the best case scenario. To sum it up, people leave a lot, and return to the Roman Union. Speaking of what, it's about to happen again.

And this is the estate where it'll happen. It's a rather generous one. A few hectares of cane are raised here. As tempted as I am to elaborate on how it's raised...I won't.

Besides, that's hardly the main focus here. The main focus happens, as we speak, in one of the upstairs chambers. Atop the foot of a Guanajuato king-size bed, someone in a black robe sits. It conceals her entire self. Around her, the windows are closed.

She doesn't usually do this. And she certainly doesn't do it for sport. Or rather, it certainly didn't start out that way...in case that's what this is now. Alas, this isn't Ms. Conte's first divorce. It's sad, really; one wouldn't expect a sculpture model to be a divorcee as often as she's been...desirable though that might make her.

Her pageboy comes upstairs. He's a rather horny creature...from the Basque Country. He barely taps on the door, and asks his boss if she summoned her.

Like a rising phantom, she stands before him. She smiles, and removes her hood.

"I need you to do something for me, Basil," she tells him. "I don't care how you do it; just don't not do it."

With that, she lets her robe fall to the floor. Beneath, she's completely nude.

Naturally, Basil gapes...and stands still. He's still...as he now knows that his boss is Goddess...if not a mere sculpture model.

Ms. Conte grins. "You see that mess just beneath my navel? I need you to clean it up...best you can. Don't worry if you can't get it all."

Basil crawls under her legs, and rubs against her thigh gap with his newly-shaved head. Ms. Conte melts, as her page does such a perfect job of attending to her lonely parts.

She knows that her page has had a crush on her. Up until now, she never did anything about it. But then, of course, she would've been married to an older Frenchman up until now. In this moment, Ms. Conte starts to question her own avoidance of younger men. Basil, after all, seems to respect her a LOT more than a lot of older men have...

As Ms. Conte basks with her eyes closed, with a boy sweeping her bush, someone appears in her doorway. Moments pass before Ms. Conte opens her eyes, and sees she has an audience. An awkward moment ensues, when she sees who it is.

She's not sure how...but she stops Basil, and sends him to work on other things around the house. She leaves her robe off while addressing her ex-husband.

"Sorry," she stammers. "I...don't want you to think that I...do that all the time."

Raoul smirks. "I don't blame you. I would to."

Silence follows.

"I'm...going back to Marseilles, after all. You don't have to come with me, but... I implore you not to."

She shrugs. "I could still be your post-divorce mistress over there. I promise never to hound you about remarriage."

He sighs. "I've got an image to preserve. If we do this a lot, people are always going to expect us to get back together. And I think we both agree that that cannot happen."

"Of course. But...couldn't we find a way for it to work out?"

He shakes his head. "From the public eye, there's no refuge. I'm sorry, Phoebe; either you stay here, or you return to France on a separate ship...if at all. I...also wouldn't recommend settling down in Marseilles in the short-term. I might move to Paris later, but that's a big if."

Ms. Conte gapes. "Well, what the hell am I supposed to do if I stay here?!"

Raoul sighs...and grins. "Please forgive me; I've always wanted to say this." He presents himself, and reenacts a sequence from Gone With the Wind. (The movie, not the book...if it's not in the book.)

"Frankly, my dear...I don't give a damn."

Ms. Conte gapes. "You've waited your whole life...to recite THAT movie quote?!"

Raoul shrugs. "What can I say? I'm a man. Weaponry is my being." He gazes upon her nude beauty one last time. "So long, Ms. Conte. With reverent regard to your goddess-like appearance...I only wish what we had could've been longer-term...if not terminal."

With that, he leaves her...for the last time. If Ms. Conte's not in tears now...she will be about an hour from now.

Ms. Conte scoffs. "Terminal?!' What did he think I was to him, a cancer?!"

Over the settlement, the sun gets low. Lucky for Ms. Conte, her home is near the frontier. Beyond it, the dangerous and only semi-reliable Taíno red race thrives.

Back in her black robe, Ms. Conte makes her way past the estate wall, and into the wild. Tonight, she leaves her sheltered life behind. Tonight, she surrenders to the dark forces of divorce. For her, it's grey skies from now on.

It's just as well. Puerto Rico has a tropical climate; hence, it rains most days.

Out here, fungus grows. Mushrooms sprout. Vampires creep. Snakes slither. Spiders crawl. Poison dart frogs hide in devious places. Carnivorous plants tempt suicidal pollinators.

It takes Ms. Conte a while, but she finds somewhere to sit. Here, she sheds her robe...and is in the nude once more. Now, she sits.

In the dark of the jungle night, few see her. Either way, something that gorgeous belongs with nature...and not somewhere where divorce-hungry men will make waste of it. She might, very well, get eaten by a jaguar instead...or something MUCH more devious... But then, Ms. Conte should be used to it. After all, she didn't see her divorce coming until Raoul caught her with her panties down...as much as she would've normally liked that, before he ever said those dreaded Four Simpler Words; the dreaded nemeses of those Three Simple Words.

Ms. Conte flinches, as bats make noise up in the jungle canopy. Ever since settling in the settlement, she's had more nightmares about being in the cave while on the wrong side of a bat exodus.

But then, from what she's heard, bats leave guano in their hideouts. Hence, BOTH sides of a bat exodus are the wrong side.

Indeed, it seems Ms. Conte will be here for a while. And if she dies here...she probably won't mind at all...

High in a tree nearby, a caracara cock has retired to his roost. With luck, he'll have a new quarry in his territory by morning...