"The Other Wife" by: E. Marie E-mail: Emw712@aol.com

Author's Note: July 1, 2003: My thanks to everyone who sent me reassurances that "Inuyasha" is not (truly) being unceremoniously being yanked from the Adult Swim line-up; though waiting until August will be an arduous endeavor, watching new episodes would be like finding the Holy Grail as the prize in your cereal box.
My inner child would offer thanks to the faithful reviewers for all the "soul food", but she is napping contentedly, giving me, once more, the attention span to create! Keep reading! Keep writing! The tantrums of an inner child are not pretty!

Disclaimer: I still don't own a Volkswagen Beetle. What would make people think I owned Inuyasha? Do I look insanely rich? Do I look deliriously happy? Well, I do look happy, but that's only because I'm writing and my inner child is at peace. Oh, well, no, I cannot claim Inuyasha as my own- *sigh*. Disclaimers are very depressing!

Chapter Eleven: For Every Action.
The kiss began almost as an act of desperation, an unconscious bid from my mind to my body to give Inuyasha the proper answer to his proposal. I had never kissed a man before; all I knew of love came from French novelettes and my early remembrances of my parents, holding hands and kissing affectionately every morning over toast. In that moment, I just acted upon a basic impulse, a feeble instinct, perhaps, to show this man and reassure myself of my love for him.
I knew he was shocked at first. I was being very forward, breaking every rule of proper decorum, and for a brief instant, my mind implored me to pull away, to end this act of impropriety.but then Inuyasha responded with instincts of his own, darker and more primal than my own romantic guise. At first, when I felt that deep growl resonate within him, when his strong arms closed around me and drew me tight against his chest, I felt a pang of fear.but an even more overwhelming wave of excitement. When Inuyasha licked at my lips, his tongue asking for entrance, I gave away to his desires, willing in my passion to let him taste all of me in that moment and cast me aside the next. My own reason melted as he began trailing his kisses down my neck, his hands ripping the fabric of my aging duster aside, revealing the full column of my neck and the juncture of my shoulder.
"Kagome." Inuyasha murmured my name as his teeth grazed my pulse point. I let out a gasp, sure that I would die in that moment from sheer ecstasy, when another voice, certainly less seductive, bellowed my name somewhere in the world outside the bungalow. Sitting upright, I looked about, confused, for I had forgotten for the past few moments that anyone other than Inuyasha and I existed. Trying to ignore the sound, I turned back to Inuyasha-
'My Inuyasha', echoed my mind, trying the feel of the words to be very agreeable.
Unfortunately, the voice and its sheer decibels would not allow us to forget the obligations before us, and though Inuyasha looked somewhat homicidal, I eased myself away from him to straighten my countenance as much as possible. With a sigh, I realized I would not be able to leave the bungalow with my dignity in store. I was certain my hair and my travel cap were in complete disarray. I had been on the verge of tears before, but luckily for me, make-up was a commodity I could ill-afford, so there was no damage to my face, save for my lips, swollen from kissing.but my clothing.that was another matter entirely. Covering myself as best I could, I turned to leave the bungalow, my seedy paradise, to answer another, less appealing question.
After placing a hand reassuring on Inuyasha's chest, just over his heart, I turned to leave, when he seized my hand and holding it fast, pulled me back to face him.
"You ain't facing her alone, you know," he growled, bearing his teeth slightly, to show me that there was no room for argument.
My eyes narrowed. I was not about to let him think that a few kisses had made me a helpless fool. Opening my mouth to begin my protest of independence in this matter, Inuyasha pulled me completely into his embrace and spoke into my hair:
"Just shut up and let me protect you!"

Lady Yura was not very pleased with me at that particular moment. From what I gathered later from various hotel employees and local gossip, she had arrived at the car a full twenty minutes after she had planned to leave, and because milady was "completely on time", her servant's disobedience was especially irritating. After offering a rather polite tongue-lashing to the driver, Lady Yura pulled her enormous, fur clad body from the backseat and stormed into the hotel lobby. The concierge cringed when he saw her enter the gilded door and set her puffy eyes upon him. Temper and terror floated thickly through the air.
In the tacky travel garb milady had so 'graciously' provided me, I had been very conspicuous, and the smoke billowing from Lady Yura's cigar and the flames in her eyes were motivation enough to make the concierge direct her to the pool; even though the poor man was deathly afraid of angering the great Inuyasha, Yura was certainly a more present, pressing danger.
As Inuyasha and I were just beginning our romantic tryst in the decaying bungalow behind the pool, Lady Yura's stormy gaze scanned the crystal waters and the faces of all the bathers. At this point, a lady of the true upper class, a woman of good breeding, a person with dignity or sensibility, would have returned to the concierge and politely requested a bellhop search the premise for a lost servant. Lady Yura, as a great lady greatly angered by a servant and in preparation to leave the country, would have been completely in her rights to leave my note of dismissal at the front desk, along with the pay that was due me. She could have even left me in silence, without a written note or a bank note to sustain me.
But milady would not be satisfied with merely turning me out into the world. The prospect of truly embarrassing me in front of an audience add greater fuel to her fire. Seeing the large lady bathers that had driven Inuyasha and I from the pool's edge only added to her boldness, and seizing the opportunity to appear as a "true task mistress", she began to call my name, to summon me for my punishment.
Answering her summons, I returned her call and stepped forth from the bungalow. In the instant Lady Yura saw the disarray of my hair and the ruin of my clothes, her mouth opened even wider to release verbally all of her fury.but when she saw Inuyasha take my hand and follow me out into the sunlight, her jaw nearly became unhinged from her face, so great was her shock.
The laughing women in the pool silenced their prattle and scrambled to the steps at the edge of the pool. Heaving their large, white forms from those pristine waters, they stood a safe distance behind Lady Yura, to support their compatriot and to catch every detail of what was sure to be enough gossip to last a month over tea and a game of bridge.
Knowing that she had a captive, sympathetic audience at her back, Lady Yura's dumb-founded expression slowly creased itself into a wicked smirk, hatred for both Inuyasha and myself steaming in her black eyes. With a reassuring squeeze of his hand, I implored Inuyasha quietly to stand back. Reluctantly, he released my hand and I moved to stand before my employer. Drawing a deep breath, I began the first words of my resignation when milady drew back her hand-and I was struck in the face, for the first time in my life. Reeling from the surprise attack, I stumbled back a few steps. Inuyasha drew in his breath in a furious hiss, but I stilled him with a small wave of my hand. I would deal with this bitch in my own fashion.
"Slut!" cried milady, glancing over her shoulder to make sure that the elitist bathers still remained behind her. Gaining confidence from her eager audience, she continued her tirade.
"How dare you betray me! Disobey my orders! I'd say that during all that time, when I was practically at death's door, you were nowhere near the archery range! You, benevolent whore! I should have left you to rot after your grandfather keeled over-the wretched man didn't even have the decency to finish my portrait before he died.and now you seek to draw yourself up in this world by whoring yourself to this, this bastard!"
Gathering my resolve, my pain from all those years of verbal abuse, I moved quickly toward the lady, Yura. Standing less than a foot from her person, my posture was erect, and I looked down on her, unimpassioned. Shocked and, perhaps, afraid of how I might repay her for her previous kindness, milady grew silent.
I formed my words calmly, shaping each syllable well, for this was the moment I had been waiting for since my grandfather first introduced me to this pale, stinking lump of flesh.
"I seem to recall, milady, a string of gossip that circulated the entire country and all levels of society over thirty years ago, a sordid tale that is still repeated today.about a boorish, overbearing young woman from an old family that had fallen from grace. She was already swollen with child when she married her lord, and after developing a taste for cigars and world-trotting, quietly introduced a certain powder to his drink that ended his life...now, mind you, that last part is still speculation, but it seems a certain "traveling companion" of this now aged and decaying "society lady" happened upon a journal, (full of all sorts of spelling errors, mind you) that would serve as a complete and full confession.."
Milady's red-rimmed eyes widened with fear.fear of me and what I could do to her. I had found happened upon her journal in preparing for our journey to Monte Carlo.but the prospect of revealing Yura to the world and being alone terrified me. But with my Inuyasha behind me, I was stronger than ever before.
Stepping past the stammering Yura, I pulled back my arm and, with all my strength, pushed milady head first, in all her jewels, fur and finery, into the waters of the pool. As Yura broke the surface of the water, spluttering and cursing, Inuyasha picked up a fur wrapper she had dropped and tossed it into the pool, to be ruined with its brethren. As Lady Yura's audience of boisterous ladies dove to her aid, he took my hand and led me into the hotel lobby, calling over his shoulder with a laugh:
"And no, you aren't invited to the wedding, you stupid bitch!"