Chapter summary: Well, Rosalie did say she'd ... God help me! And she want me to be grateful that she ... God. I'm in hell. I'm in hell, and she does whatever she wants to me, and I have to like it, or else she'll get really angry at me ... and not kill me. Help. Please, God, help! NSFW.

"Rose, ..." I said hesitantly.

"Hm?" she asked looking down at me.

I was resting with my head in her collar bone, and — ask me now, and I'd answer I'd stay right here like this, forever, and gladly, but ...

But ...

I smiled shyly up at her. "Are we going to ... get dressed now, or ...?"

I actually didn't know the 'or.'

Rosalie looked down at me, holding me into her, and it was almost as if she were cuddling me, I felt so ... okay: mothered.

And her hair had snuck around her shoulder and provided a little bit of modesty for me and for her, covering her exposed breast, and mine.

It tickled a little bit, actually, and that was what made me aware of my — our — state of undress, because, otherwise, just looking up into her eyes of pure black pools of water ...?

I was lost in them. I was lost to myself in her gaze.

Because ... well, because ... anything. Who cares? I didn't. Because in her eyes I felt cocooned, sheltered, protected and even like it were that I was the object, the pool of water that she drank and drank from with her gaze, her reverent gaze.

Do you know what I mean?

But her hair ... it tickled. A little bit. And kept reminding me that, hey, Lizzie, that's your boob that Rosalie's hair's brushing against. And that was something I tried to ignore, but it was an irritation that kept intruding in on me and our moment until I had to acknowledge it and, doing so, I got really shy and embarrassed.

I mean, come on, face it: I was in her arms, warm bottom and all, as naked as the day I was born.

So that's why I asked. So, you know, she wouldn't be embarrassed holding a naked girl in her arm. Although, she didn't seem to be embarrassed nor to notice at all, herself. It didn't even register at all on her face or posture. She held me, her 'little one,' and I was held by her, and that was enough.

Or it should have been. It was enough for her: this moment and nothing else.

But for me ...

I felt the heat of my blush on my face, and I felt my ... okay, my, ... okay, my boob, okay? my boob! blushing, too, and ... reacting to her touch.

Even if it were only her hair brushing against me.

Reality seemed to come to Rosalie, of our situation. It was like she were clueless about what any of this meant. I mean, again, c'mon! Two girls? Naked? In bed?

I mean, it seemed like, it was, like, kinda ... unusual? You know what I mean?

Kinda improper. Maybe.

You know?

Well, for Rosalie, it was like, I saw in her face, that she was, like, ...

Okay, it was like she frankly didn't care, and so she was measuring in herself whether she cared enough to pretend like she cared about it, but just for my sake.

And I think ...

I bit my lip.

I think she didn't care that she was supposed to care about this. The propriety of this.

You know?

She thought all this, I could see it in her face, and then she just got annoyed at it all, what she cared about and what she was supposed to care about, and the pretense of it all, even if this pretense protected my ... well, you know, okay, my innocence, okay?

Okay. Was there like layers of embarrassment? Levels to it? And what happened when you broke the scale that measured these levels?

Rosalie flicked her head sharply in annoyance, whipping her hair around to her back, as if she were angry at her own hair for calling attention in me to myself and my nakedness.

But I wasn't the only 'recalcitrant' one in the cabin. Her hair whipped back, yes, but then it slid right back around her neck and came to rest, and right on my boob, again.

Before it was my butt, and now it was my boob. She just couldn't help but touch me, could she, that minx, and in the most embarrassing places, too.

Well, this time, at least, she was aware of what was going on. When she was grabbing my butt, it was always for some 'other reason,' like she was carrying me or hugging me, but, whether she knew or didn't know her butt-grabbing inclination, I sure noticed some grabbing going on back there, and don't tell me otherwise!

AND she kept me over her knee for way longer than necessary ... with pauses to lecture me, and where were her eyes — huh? — as she delivered her lecture? That she said she wasn't going to give me? But she did anyway? I ask you!

So, there's that. The butt-grabbing. And now this: her hair that, okay, oh-so-conveniently snakes around her neck to rest on my, okay, you know, my boob, and then when she flicks it away, it comes right back, and that's coincidence?

'Oh, Lizzie, I didn't do that! Gravity did.'

Yeah, right. Gravity. Right.

And never-you-mind the fact that I was pressed against her boob the whole time, too, naked, because why? Because 1) I said so, and 2) she was holding me into her chest, so I couldn't help where my body pressed against, yummy and comfy as it was, and 3) I didn't even notice this until you pointed it out, so this isn't my fault anyway, it's your fault, dear reader of my journal, and 4) yes, you did point it out, so don't argue with me, and-AND 5) so there.

AND by the mirror, she gave me a little squeeze, and you know where, too, and don't think I didn't notice that, either.

So, that leaves me only one conclusion.

GF's a total perv.

But don't tell her that. Nor that I said that.

Not that I mind the occasional butt-grab, so long as it doesn't get out of hand, but ...

Um.

Actually, butt-grabbing isn't 'out of hand,' it's totally in hand, ... hers! I just realized this, and ...

Okay, how the hell can I get off this tack? Because, like ...

Ugh.

But the ... okay, she said my, okay, tits are hers, but she just can't come up and grab'm any old time she wants to, you know? A girl has boundaries.

You have to ask nicely first before you cop a feel there. And you can only ask when I want you to ask, because otherwise your face is gonna be burning from the very strong and clear message from my hand. And if you don't get the message the first time, I so totally don't mind repeating myself, my hand across your face, until you do get the message.

I know there's got to be a rule about this somewhere. You know? Like rule number one is: "no saying the 'v' word," so maybe there's a rule number two: "No touchy! My boobs, that is. Unless ... well, never mind the unless, 'cause me saying I want you to touch them? I'd probably die first of embarrassment before I could get the first half of a word out, so that ain't gonna happen."

See? Rule number two. There.

Uh...

I thought I was done with this.

Okay, I was wrong.

See, rule number two didn't exist because it didn't apply until Rose dragged me in front of the mirror and said if I was gonna insult my tits, then I may as well go up to her and slap her face and then start insulting her tits. I mean her boobs. I mean her breasts.

Oh, God!

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is so not going to happen. Ever.

So, now: rule number two, no meanies-thoughties to my titties, 'cause Rosalie says so.

Okay, NOW I'm done with that.

Okay, where were we? Again?

Oh, yes: me, naked, in her arms. Naked. Her naked that is, not just her arms.

"What did you just say?" I asked, because she did just say something, I think, and I think I kinda missed what she said because I was thinking to myself thoughts about ... oh, never mind!

"I said, 'We'll come to that,'" she answered.

I felt my brow crease in confusion. We'll come to what? Then I realized that I had asked her a question, about when we were getting dressed, and that was her answer.

Okay, that still didn't make sense. 'We'll come to ...' what? when it came to getting dressed?

"We'll come to that?" I asked, confused and incredulous.

"Yes," Rosalie looked and sounded distracted, and this was another annoyance to her.

And we were so ... peaceful just a moment ago, just lost in each other.

Why couldn't we stay just like that?

"Do you remember," Rosalie asked, "what I said I would do with you having said what you did?"

"Oh," I said, and I shivered, shrinking into myself.

Rosalie raised her eyebrow at me, waiting.

"You said..." I whispered, my throat suddenly dry, "that you'd spank me, then you'd wash out my mouth with soap, then you'd ground me."

Rosalie nodded. "Yes," she said.

"But ..." I said.

Her face was stone. I found it almost impossible to talk to her when she got like this.

"But," I tried again, "Rosalie, I really, really learned my lesson with the spanking ..."

That is to say, I really thought I was going to actually die while she was beating me to near-senselessness.

"... so," I continued weakly, "you don't have to do the other things, really. I got the message. I won't do that again. I promised." I added hopefully.

"Yes, you promised," she said, but without force.

"So you don't have to do the other things," I said.

"You're right, Lizzie," Rosalie said, "I don't."

She became quiet. "I don't have to do what I said I would do."

Uh, oh. I thought darkly, knowing where this conversation was going, and not liking the turn one bit.

Rosalie always gets her way, no matter what, and her arguments are always airtight.

"Do you want me not to be a person of my word?" she asked.

"No, but ..." I said quickly.

"'But'?" I felt Rosalie's penetrating eyes sear me.

"But," I pressed forward, desperately, hopelessly, "this one time, Rosalie, this one time you can just, you know ... let it slide, you know?"

"Lizzie," Rosalie reproved me, and not so gently, "'this one time' justifies every other time, a person's word means something, or it doesn't, there's no 'this one time,' there's only 'this time,' every time."

"But don't you forgive me?" I dared.

I actually didn't know if she did. Could she possibly forgive me, especially if she had to live with what I said to her always being right in front of her?

Could I forgive her, if what she did was always right in front of me, relentlessly?

"Yes, Lizzie, I forgive you," she said.

And I believed her.

She forgave me.

"But you're still going to do this? You're still going to wash my mouth out with soap and ground me?" I asked sadly, resignation weakening me so powerfully that I could barely say the words, or see anything but her, everything else fading from my sight.

"Yes," she said, "but we'll come to all of that presently."

I looked up at her.

I didn't ask 'why?' I didn't have the strength to. Curiosity had left me, along with my will to fight this injustice.

Rosalie could have her way, and she could even have her way with me, and there was nothing I could do to stop her.

"Lizzie," she said, "get up."

I looked up at her.

"I can't," I said.

Rosalie frowned at this. "Can you stand on your own?"

I wish I had a 'yes' for her.

But I didn't.

I shook my head.

Rosalie gently lifted me, and sat me next to her on the bed.

I hissed and winced with pain when my butt came to rest on the blanket.

Rosalie ignored this.

"Lizzie," she said, "what does 'being grounded' mean to you?"

I looked down at my lap, and put my hands there, to give me a tiny bit of modesty.

"Nothing, I suppose," I said dully.

"Have you ever been grounded?" she pursued.

I shook my head. "But, I suppose," I said, "if Pa wanted to ground me, he'd send me to my room, but ..." I shrugged. "Why would I care? I don't like going out, anyway, unless it's with him, and where did we go? To the bar so he could hang out with the guys or to a baseball game. Boring! So I'd always take the book I was reading with me then, so if he sent me to my room, I'd just read, and in peace at that, so ..."

I didn't know what else to say.

"So, ..." Rosalie said quietly, "you'd expect he'd exile you to your room, but that'd be ineffective because the loss of the privilege of going out didn't mean much to you. What if he took away your book?"

I sucked on my bottom lip at that.

"That'd mean something," she said knowingly. "A grounding is a loss of privileges. Lizzie, what are your privileges?"

"You mean," I said cautiously looking at her, "like, here ... now?"

Her face was inscrutable.

"Yes," she said, "Here and now, and everywhere at all times."

"Uh," I said hesitantly, "I guess reading at quiet time?"

I tasted bitterness as I said those words: I didn't like losing that. It was the only pleasure I had. I smiled to myself: reading was my only luxury in the world now. What does that say about me? How sad is that?

"Yes, that is a privilege, ..." said Rosalie, but she didn't sound like she was agreeing with me.

She paused. "Let me pose it this way: what is a privilege, in its quiddity, that is: in and of itself?"

I'm glad she explained that word, because looking stupid to Rosalie was just so fun for me.

It had to be, as I looked that way all the time to her.

I thought about this. What is a privilege? "Well," I said slowly, "a privilege is something you like, ... it's something you're given or you've earned, I guess."

"Yes," she said.

I looked at her.

She was very, very still.

I didn't like this, at all, the sense of dread was building in me the more and more unreadable and remote she became.

"Lizzie," she said quietly, "What are your privileges? That is to say: what are you given, and what is yours?"

"I don't think I understand, Rosalie," I said very carefully, my heart beating a mile a minute.

"Lizzie," Rosalie said again, and she very carefully wrapped her right hand around the back of my head.

I couldn't back away from her now.

She brought her left hand to my throat, and pressed lightly.

"Do you have a right to your next breath?" she asked. "Or is it something I'm giving you, each and every breath?"

Then, before I could answer, she pressed her hand firmly against my throat, closing it.

She looked at me intently, seeing if I got her point.

I got it, all right, but what could I do? I just looked at her helplessly as she strangled me, gently, firmly ...

Relentlessly.

I thought she was just making a point, but then things started to get fuzzy around the corners of my eyes, and it started to hurt, wanting to breathe, but not being able to.

I panicked. My hands went to my throat, trying to move her hand away.

As if they could. I knew they couldn't, but knowing something is one thing, telling your body struggling for the next breath, ... that's something else entirely.

"Lizzie," Rosalie commanded coolly, "put your hands down."

My eyesight was going away, and I was struggling, trying to wrest her hand from my throat, trying to swallow a sip of air somehow.

"You don't put your hands down, you don't get that next breath," she said. "You don't have a right to it; I'm the one who gives you this next breath, I'm the one who gives you every single breath, and you won't get it until you obey."

BREATHE! I screamed in my head. BREATHE! BREATHE! Oh, God! BREATHE!

But I couldn't.

I was losing it. Would she strangle me still even if I were unconscious?

I didn't know anymore.

I put my hands down, surrendering. Begging the blackness seeping into me through my eyes to give me just one more second, please just one more second of life, because I was drowning and ...

Rosalie eased the pressure on my throat, and I sucked in air through tiny, tiny air hole now reopened, sucking in hot, life-giving painful gasps of air.

Rosalie hand rested on my throat as she watched me suck in grateful gulps of air, my hands on my lap.

"Lizzie," she said, "this breath of air you're breathing? The breath of life in you? It's mine. I own it. I'm giving it to you now, and at each and every breath you take. And I can take away this privilege from you, just like that. Do you understand me?"

I nodded, my chin touching her hand grasping my throat. "Yes," I gasped quickly, afraid that she would do just that.

Rosalie frowned in acknowledgement. "When you're grounded, you lose your privileges. Why? Because you've abused what was given to you. In your case, I'm giving you your life and everything in it, every second of every day, and you chose to look upon what you were given as entitlements, as something you had a right to, and furthermore to use these things to hurt me, the giver."

Rosalie removed her hand from my throat. "I'm not a patient person. I never was, but you trespassed on even the little patience I have. You lash out at me? Lizzie, you're a better person than that, and I think a period of reflection on what you should be thankful for will give you a better perspective."

She gave me a hard look. "So, you're grounded, which entails a loss of all privileges, including the very next breath of air you wish to take."

She placed her hand back on my throat, and I involuntarily gasped, the sucked in as much air as possible, holding my breath in anticipation of her strangling me again.

Her hand did not press itself against my throat.

"And," she said, "you get your very first privilege back: I will permit you to breathe."

She put her hands back down to her sides. "... for now," she added darkly. "Don't abuse this privilege, yes?"

"Okay," I said humbly.

Rosalie's eyes narrowed angrily, and she twisted her head to one side, regarding me through slitted eyes.

"Yes," I added quickly, as 'okay' didn't seem to be the right answer.

"Good," she said.

"So, I'm grounded," I stated, and asked, but I knew the answer already.

"Yes," she said.

"For how long?" I wondered. Was it for a week? a month? a year? the rest of my life?

"For as long as I want," she said coolly.

I looked down at my hands. She sounded ... distant, cold. Angry.

"Rosalie," I asked, ashamed, "are you angry with me?"

"Fur-i-ous," she said quietly, but enunciated each syllable with a particularly forceful emphasis.

She was quietly fur-i-ous.

"Oh," I said.

I bit my lip, and closed my eyes for a second.

I knew this feeling. I tried not to think about it, about me. Don't cry, I told myself. Don't cry.

"Will you ..." I asked. "Will you ever forgive me?"

Her answer surprised me. "I already have," she said calmly.

I looked up from my hands into her eyes. "You have?" I asked, confused.

"Yes," she said.

"But you're angry with me?"

"Yes," she said, "furious with you, in fact."

"But you ..." I looked down at my hands again. "Me confused." I said humbly.

Rosalie reached up gently and brushed my hair out of my eyes. "You are such a child!" she murmured, sounding awed.

I shrugged, but it was helpless, not nonchalant, and a tear fell into my hands. I wanted to say a sarcastic 'thanks!' to show I could be flip about my inadequacy, but I couldn't even manage that.

"My baby," Rosalie sighed. "I am angry with you, but I am not ruled by my anger. I can be angry for what you did, and I can weigh that in balance, and forgive you, in spite of my anger, even in my anger."

"But you do forgive me?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"And I'm still grounded?"

I just had to check.

"Yes," she said.

"Okay," I said. "Uh, ... may I get dressed now, please?"

Rosalie tilted her head to one side.

"No."

I looked back at her.

"No?"

I could feel myself breathing. I could hear her talking and me talking. Some of this should have made sense, right?

It didn't. It felt, to me, like I was on a stage in a play written by somebody who had taken too many hits from his opium pipe and had totally lost grip on reality.

I was in a surreal play, and I didn't know any of the rules, and nothing made sense anymore.

"Lizzie, the clothes you wear, are they yours? No. I bought them, and I gave them to you to wear. Have you been grateful for this privilege?" she asked pointedly.

"Yes, Rosalie, yes, I was ... I am ..." I said quickly.

"Were you even aware that they clothes you have been wearing, each day, were a privilege, or did you just assume them as a right, provided to you after you bathed, in whose water? using whose shampoo and soap? dried in whose towels?"

I felt her eyes on me.

"I ..." I said weakly. "I'm grateful, Rosalie. I'm grateful."

"All these things I provided. Did I have to? Did I have to provide a single thing for you?"

The way she pushed her point was like she didn't hear me at all.

I looked away. "No," I said.

Her hand reached out to my chin and turned me to face her.

"And you were aware of this?" she demanded.

"Kinda," I said. "I guess."

I bit my lower lip.

Rosalie frowned. "So you were 'kinda' aware of this, but you definitely took these things for granted."

"Rosalie, no!" I said quickly. "I ..."

"Tut!" Rosalie scolded.

I tutted. Which means, I guessed what I should do is keep my mouth shut.

"Well, now you won't," she said firmly.

"Oh," I said.

I breathed in a breath of air.

"So this is what you meant by 'later,' I guess." I said sadly.

"Yes," she responded with equal gravity.

"But Rosalie," I said. "I'm naked..."

I could barely whisper the words. I felt so exposed. So small. So ashamed.

"Yes, you are," she said so calmly.

And the thing is ... she was, too.

But the difference between us was that she was absolutely beyond caring about the fact that she was naked. No, she was actually clothed in her complete self-confidence. If I said to her, 'Rosalie, you're naked ...' she would've just shrugged and said, 'So?' ... like what did that mean to her and why should she care, but when I said that I was naked, all I wanted to do was to shrivel up and die, and each second I didn't just wither away and disappear was a second of agonizing shame and embarrassment to me.

"I..." I said finally.

Rosalie waited.

I looked away.

Her hand again, on my chin.

"Yes?" she demanded, looking into my eyes.

"I don't know what to say," I said.

"Yes, you do," she said.

"The thing is, ..." I said, "I don't. I can't say, 'you can't do this!' because ... you can."

"But it isn't fair, is it, sweetie?" she asked gently.

"But you know that already, Rosalie, and you just don't care, do you?" I said, swallowing.

"Hm," she said, considering. "Yes, and no. Yes, I already knew this, and no, I do care, otherwise I wouldn't bother to do any of this."

I blinked. "So you're doing this to me because you care?" I asked in shock.

Rosalie nodded. "More precisely, I'm not doing what's fair."

"Uh, what?"

She just said she's not being fair? And she knows it? And it's because she cares?

Rosalie blew out a long breath. "What's fair, baby?" she whispered.

"Well, firstly, ..." I began angrily.

Her hand flashed up.

"Baby," she said softly. "Fair is this: if you had said 'fuck you,' to a fellow student at your school — let's say your nemesis, Kristen Kuntz, yes? — what would your school principal have done?"

I looked away. "Expelled me," I said eventually.

"Yes," she said, "just like I would've been expelled from the Columbia academy for girls back in Rochester if I were caught saying those words. But that wouldn't've been all, would it've been?"

I shook my head. "No," I said.

"They'd call in your parents, wouldn't they?" she prompted.

"Yeah," I said, "they'd tell Pa."

I shuddered.

"And your father," she said, "would he have punished you? grounded you?"

She said these words so ... sympathetically, so understandingly, as if she knew the pain I would've caused to Pa, doing what I did.

"No," I said finally.

"He wouldn't have?" she asked, surprise creeping into her voice.

"No," I said sadly, "he wouldn't have, because ..."

I swallowed hard.

"Because ... he would've said ..." I breathed in a huge breath and said the words he would've said.

"'No daughter of mine would ever say that. I don't know who you are. You aren't my daughter.' And then he would've ..."

I swallowed again.

"He would've ..." I shut my eyes, and ...

The work, all this work of keeping in my tears, ... it wasn't working anymore. I sniffed, and felt two tears fall.

"He wudda, ..." I whimpered.

"He would have done what, Lizzie?" Rosalie asked gently.

"He woulda ..." I gasped then pushed it out of my so-tight chest, "He woulda put me out of the house, and closed the door behind him, and ..."

I couldn't continue.

"And cast you out, Lizzie, yes? Disown you forever, his own daughter? He would do that, just because you said two little words?" Rosalie asked again, so gently.

"Rose," I shook as I gasped in a sob of air, "you don't know us, our ... people ... out here, ... you just don't say that. Nobody says that. You say that and ... nobody will ... nobody would ..."

"You'd be shunned," she said.

"Yes," I said, sniffling, and I wiped my eyes with the back of my arm.

"You'd be cast out of your home, mid-Winter, and nobody would take you in," Rosalie said. Then she summarized so ... clinically: "You'd be dead within the week, if not that same day."

"Yeah," I said.

"Just because you said those two little words to someone else at school, yes?"

I looked away. She knew the answer already.

"So, Lizzie," Rosalie said. "This is not fair, me grounding you, me stripping you of all privileges, including ones you thought you had a right to. It's not fair. But this is."

She picked me up abruptly, and we were outside in a flash.

And she threw me to the ground.

I hit the snow hard, and that hurt. But then, where the snow touched me? It started to burn, it was so cold. Montana weather? In February? It was cold, and the pain was instantaneous.

"This is justice, Lizzie," Rosalie said, standing over me, looking at me shiver in pain.

Then she turned on her heel, and went back inside, and closed the door, firmly.

And I lay in the snow, shivering. Dying.

And I got a feel of what 'fair' was.

It felt terrible.

The the door opened, and Rosalie came out, fully dressed in jeans and a button-up flannel shirt.

And I looked at her, and she looked as dressed as she did seconds ago when she was naked, because she was dressed in the aura of her own nobility.

She owned her own confidence, she owned her own sense of worth, she knew who she was, and she was completely herself, at every moment.

She sat now next to me in the snow, Indian-style.

"This, Lizzie, is mercy," she said kindly.

"You're ..." I shook violently.

What scared me now, and I was scared, was not the pain and the cold. No, what scared me now was that I was starting to feel numb.

I know what that means.

"Are you bringing me back inside?" I asked hopefully, hoping to God this lesson was over.

"No," she said sadly, "I'm being merciful by sitting beside you, watching you die."

"How ..." I asked utterly lost, "how is that merciful?"

"You won't die alone," she said simply. "You will have somebody with you until the end, instead of that that terrible, terrible loneliness that Royce consigned me to when he and his friends abandoned me in that alley to die."

"Oh," I said.

I looked up at her, shivering.

And I felt it, my life draining out into the snow.

And I thought: this is what I deserve. I say those words in school, I get expelled and disowned. I say those words as an adult to another adult, then he would have a lock-tight defense for him drawing his pistol and emptying his clip into me.

You don't say that.

I said that to Rosalie.

And here she was, sitting next to me, watching me die.

"So, Lizzie," Rosalie looked down at me. "Do you want justice? or mercy? You have both, right now."

"I ..." I said.

I couldn't curl up any tighter that I was.

It didn't do any good. The wilderness was a million times stronger than I was, and it couldn't be reasoned with.

And nor could Rosalie.

"I don't know what to say, Rosalie," I said. "I'm sorry, but ... I don't have anything."

I swallowed, looking up at perfection. "I couldn't say it's not fair, and ... Rosalie, you ... my life is in your hands. You get to decide. I can't even beg for your mercy, because ... that won't save me. Will you ... will you please ...?"

I didn't know how to ask her to save me. I didn't deserve her to. I saw that now.

I couldn't ask her to save my life: it wasn't fair and it wasn't merciful, so how could I ask?

Rosalie scooped me up out of the snow and brought me back inside.

The heat of the cabin was like a furnace, and I sucked in every drop of it through every inch of skin in my body.

"... and this is me being stupid." Rosalie said.

I shivered and clung tightly to her.

She put me on the bed.

"Lizzie," she said softly, "let go of me."

My arms wouldn't. They couldn't.

And her tone was unyielding.

Which one was going to win?

Which one was going to lose?

"Please don't ..." I begged, "please don't let me go."

"Lizzie, ..." Rosalie said, she had bent over the bed, holding me, letting my body rest on it. "My embraces ... do you have a right to them? or are they a privilege that I give you?"

My sigh shook my whole body.

"Lizzie," she said again, "let go of me. Now."

I let go.

That hurt more than the snow burning into my skin.

She wrapped me in the blanket, and sat on the bed beside me, as I shivered, as my body warmed itself again in the confines of the blanket.

Her hand rested on my forehead.

"Which is colder, Lizzie? The snow, or my hand?"

I shut my eyes.

I knew what answer she wanted me to give.

So I ignored it.

"Rosalie, why did you say you were stupid to bring me back inside?"

I felt her smile sadly.

"What do you learn, sweetie? You learn that you can ..."

She broke off suddenly.

"I wouldn't learn anything if I were dead, though," I offered timidly.

"Because you should, and do, know better, yes?" She shot right back.

I felt my body warming, and the warm air warming my insides.

I tried again. "I learned that you can, and do, forgive me?"

"Yes," she said quietly.

"That's something," I said.

"Yes," she said. "Something about which to be grateful."

"I'm grateful for that," I said.

"Warmer now?" she asked.

"Yes, thank you." I said.

"So," she said, "then I'll take this blanket of mine."

Then she pulled the blanket off me.

"Oh,"

I didn't so much say it, as the air left me in a rush.

I grabbed the pillow and wrapped myself around it, cocooning it, collapsing myself around it.

"That pillow is mine, too, Lizzie," Rosalie said.

"Oh," I said.

I didn't let it go.

Rosalie placed her hand on my arm.

"Lizzie, ..." Rosalie prompted gently, and then she waited.

I breathed in a huge breath, and breathed out a helpless, 'Oh, God!' and uncoiled myself from the pillow.

She took it. "Thank you," she said softly. And I felt her walk away with it and the blanket to the pile of clothes, ... that is: to the pile of her clothes, no matter who they fit.

I wrapped myself into a ball, and started to cry as the full impact of my situation hit me.

I had nothing. Not even a blanket to cover my nakedness, and not even a cry of injustice, because justice was waiting for me right outside the cabin door, and mercy? It would be there to watch me die.

I had nothing but my misery.

Rosalie sat back down next to me.

"Lizzie, turn around. Face me now," she commanded gently.

I turned.

She reached out her hand and brushed my cheek.

"Who's tears are these?" she asked, bringing her hand to her lips, and sighing in my tear.

"Yours," I said, beaten, defeated, at a total loss.

Her eyes blazed golden, and she looked ecstatic and agonized, and so, so sad as she looked at me sadly, sympathizing with my sorrowful state.

She was never more beautiful, as she was, all the time, as she breathed me into her.

"Yes," she sighed, not so much here and fierce anymore, but floating on the bed beside me, lost to her ecstasy. "They are mine."

She smiled down at me. Her smile was beautiful and terrifying.

"Lizzie," she said, "stop crying."

I sniffled.

"Stop crying now."

I wiped my face with the back of my hand.

She smiled down at me, just glowing with happiness.

"Your tears are a privilege that I allow you to have," she told me. "But not now. Now, I am going to have to hunt, and you are grounded. No privileges, and you are ... Lizzie, I know you. You are going to want to entertain thoughts. You are going to want to indulge in your indignation or wallow in your self-pity. However, your thoughts, even your thoughts, are now mine, and I will not allow this."

Then she asked: "What did I tell you to do while you are grounded, Lizzie?"

"Um, ..." I said.

I actually don't remember what she told me.

"I told you," she said, still glowing, "that you are to be aware of the privileges you have received and that you will receive, and to be grateful for them. So, no self-indulgent 'This isn't fair!' no wallowing 'I hate this! I hate myself!' No. Gratitude. 'I'm thankful for the air I breathe. I'm thankful for the food I eat. I'm thankful for ...' and you think of everything you can be thankful for, and then you be thankful for these things. And when your thoughts turn away from that toward other things, you just say to yourself, 'Rosalie doesn't want me having these thoughts. Rosalie wants me to be grateful. I'm grateful for ...'"

She gazed down at me, lovingly, so under the spell of my tear she breathed in. "Do you understand me, Lizzie?"

"Yes," I said quietly.

"You will do this," she ordered.

"Yes." I said.

She smiled. "Good."

She got up, took a step toward the door, but then stopped.

"Lizzie, ...?" she said to the door.

"Yes?"

She turned back.

"You will do what I say?"

"Yes?"

I 'asked' my answer, because I was confused. I already said 'yes' ... why was she making doubly sure now?

"Lizzie ..."

She just stood there, staring down at me.

Then she joined me in the bed and wrapped me in her arms, putting my head into her shoulder, the flannel felt soft, and her sweet scent of the slightest hint of rose amid the powerful smell of honeysuckle was intoxicating.

Intoxicating, like my tears were for her.

And she wrapped me in her legs, and the denim felt ... well, rough, but it felt real, solid, reassuring.

"When I go hunting, I come back and find you dead, strangling yourself in your sheets, and I really don't like that at all," she said quietly, an undercurrent of anger rumbled in her voice.

"Is that why you took away the blanket?" I asked.

"No," she said, "I took it away because there is nothing to hide you from yourself now. There is nothing you can say is yours, so everything you receive is now palpably a gift to you. But that's not my point now. My point is that if I come back and you are dead ..."

Silence.

Silence for a long time.

"Rosalie, ..." I said quietly. "Rose, I didn't do that on purpose. I woke up, and the sheets ... I was choking. I couldn't help it."

"I don't care," Rosalie said forcefully. "You have no privileges now but the air you're breathing, yes?"

"Well, ..." I said.

"Yes?" she demanded harshly.

"Yes," I said.

"No," she said.

I sighed.

"You do not have the privilege of breathing now," she explained. "You have the responsibility to do so. I am giving you the privilege of breathing, but it is mine to give you, and you had better take care of what is mine, because otherwise, I will be very, very angry, and you will feel the brunt of that anger."

"Even if I'm dead?" I asked carefully.

"Again, sweetie, I don't care," she enunciated slowly and forcefully. "I will wake you from the dead if I have to, and then you will really regret your disobedience for quite some time. Am I clear?"

She held me tightly as she said this.

I held her tightly back.

"Crystal," I said.

I tried not to be snide.

"Excellent," she said.

She sighed into my hair.

"Baby," she said with regret. "One more thing."

She extricated herself from me, and easily at that, no matter how tightly I tried to hold onto her.

She went to the bathing supplies and got the still-wet bar of soap.

And came to me.

I hung my head.

"Baby, ...?" she said.

"No, Rose," I pleaded, "please!"

"Baby, open your mouth," she said.

I closed my eyes, shaking my head.

"I won't ask again," she said, finality ringing in her voice.

I hugged myself into myself. I ducked my head between my knees. I wasn't trying to be rebellious, but I couldn't take anymore.

Rosalie's hand snaked to the null space between my chin and my chest and my knees, and she grasped my jaw, lifting my head up and forcing my mouth open.

"Nawwwhhh!" I whined, but I was silenced immediately by the soap going into my mouth, all the way.

Then Rosalie pulled the soap out a bit, then pushed it back in.

She was washing out my mouth. Literally.

I felt the lather from the soap building up in my mouth and coating my tongue.

I swallowed, involuntarily, a big gulp, and then the soap coated my throat and I felt it oozing down into my tummy.

Now I know what soap tastes like. It tastes awful!

With one firm shove, Rosalie pushed the soap all the way into my mouth, forcing it wide open around the soap and my back teeth clamped down onto it, locking it into place, locking it into my mouth.

I swallowed another involuntary gulp of soap, and the tears of disgust flowed from my eyes.

I looked up at Rosalie towering over me. So imposing. So righteous.

"Baby," she said, "you leave that soap in there. I'll be the one to take it out when I return, do you understand me?"

I nodded sadly. "Yehhs, nndurstannd," I mouthed around the soap as best I could.

Tears didn't hit the pillow, because Rosalie had taken that away from me.

"Stop crying," she ordered firmly.

I nodded again and sniffled.

"Baby, I ..."

Rosalie placed her hand, gently, on my forehead.

I looked up at her, and swallowed another huge gulp of soap and grimaced as I tasted it and felt it slide down my throat.

Rosalie's eyes shifted away.

"I have to go," she said finally. "I'll be back ... as soon as I'm able."

She removed her hand from my head, and she moved to the door, quickly.

She was out the door, closing it behind her.

She didn't look back.