I awoke the next morning to find her asleep beside me. I rose and dressed, creeping about the room, hoping not to wake her. Just as I was taking the kettle from the fire and pouring water onto the leaves, I heard a rustle as she sat up.
"Good morning."
I replaced the kettle with shaking hands. When I turned she was standing, with a sheet from the bed draped around her, like an ancient Greek. I had no idea how to behave, but she smiled and held her arms out to me and I went to her awkwardly, but gladly. We kissed, shy at first, then her arms circled my waist, and I tentatively passed my hand over her small breasts, which were hidden in the tangle of bedclothes. I stroked her through the cotton, in gentle, decreasing, circular movements which seemed to end when I reached the centre but then somehow started all over again.
I had no idea whether she would like it; when she dropped the sheet, I hesitated, but she guided my hand back to her. Resting her forehead against mine she allowed me to touch her in this way until she was quite breathless, then she whispered, "Annie, come back to bed..." and drew me gently down with her.
Last night I had thrown my own clothes off in a desperate hurry to measure my own naked form against hers. Now, she undressed me slowly, lingering over each garment as if fascinated, and I guessed from this she really never dressed like a woman. I didn't understand why, we had not yet much time for talking. She lay me back against the sheets, and cooed over my beauty, as she called it. Then we slid back into the covers and entwined ourselves in each other. She kissed my face and neck, and dipped to take the tip of my breast in her mouth. This time, she did not ask my permission, nor hold back until I begged her to touch me, as she had done a few hours before; she slid her fingers directly between my legs and caressed and probed me there until I gasped out my joy again. I hardly knew how to please her so well, but I tried to imitate her, and everything I did she praised, only regretting that sometimes the doing of it prevented her from touching me some more.
Afterwards, we lay still and she explained her life to me. She said was chosen to do some great task, the details of which she was not permitted to share, and from it arose the necessity to conceal herself and to dress as a man.
"Because of the fighting?" I asked in awe.
She picked up a lock of my hair and arranged it around my face.
"Yes, in part. I need to be able to fight and could not do so dressed as a woman."
"And is that why..." I stopped, unsure of what I was asking.
She finished my question, "Why I wanted you, and not a man?"
"Forgive me. Yes."
She smiled, "No, I think not. I was never very interested in men. And I had lovers who were women before I was chosen."
I sighed and pulled back the covers so I could see her pale body again. Apart from her hair, and that I am, in places, a little fuller, she looked so much like me. Without thinking, I slid down the bed and pushed her legs apart, using my mouth on her as Liam has shown me how, in the kitchen at the old house, all those months before. Her small, husky cries filled the room, and I was never happier to have the knowledge of how to give someone pleasure in my life.
I think she was surprised, because when I lay back, she traced the outline of my face with her fingers in silence for a while. Then she rose and declared she would fetch us breakfast. The tea by this time was very cold, but the fire was still lit, so she started to heat the water again, and then looked around for things to eat. I had a loaf and some eggs and usually cooked by means of a pot that hung above the fire, but she looked confused by this arrangement, and finally she turned to me and remarked, "Shall we go out for breakfast?"
"Didn't you ever learn to cook?"
She shook her head. "It always looks so easy when other people do it."
"How do you eat, then?"
"My Watcher.."
"Watcher?"
"I live with a gentleman who looks after my well-being, and also trains me to fight and finds out where I need to be and why."
"A gentleman?" I try, but I don't think I keep the tone of jealousy out of my voice.
She climbed back on the bed and nestled down behind me. She stroked my hip and spoke into my hair, "He's like a father to me. They take whoever is chosen away from her parents, and give her to a Watcher. Who cares for her. But he is not free to care for her in that way; neither is she free to attach herself to him. Or strictly speaking, elsewhere," she swept my hair away and nuzzled my neck, "But that is a rule frequently broken."
"You said, where you're needed, do you move around?"
She said that she moved around a lot, hardly ever in one place for more than a year. "There's a particular purpose for being in any place. I wish I could tell you, but it isn't permitted."
"So, you're here now for a particular purpose?"
"I'm looking for someone. Someone I have to fight."
There was a knock on the door. I reluctantly scrambled out of bed and wrapped myself in a dressing gown. "Who is it?"
I heard the weak voice of the wizened old man who keeps the door. "Gen'leman left a message for you, Miss. Early this mornin'. Wouldn't come off the doorstep, arsked me to pass it to you in person, like."
I told him to leave it outside and waited until his shuffling footsteps faded away. I smiled at Joe. "It must be from your Watcher, certainly. You're the only gentlemen I know in London."
But the note was addressed to me. I tore it open. An elegant feminine hand, but my eye was instantly drawn to the powerful scrawl of the signature. Liam.