“You don’t sound sincere,” Nillin comments behind my ear in our spooning position on our marriage bed still.

The alcohol stench is suffocating.

“I am the spouse of a man who is also a man. Of course I don’t believe the honey like words from a homophobe.”

His arms around my waist loosen and then tighten again.

There is this awkwardness on the marriage bed like it’s not a real marriage bed.

So the silence carries forward as I pretend to slowly but gradually fall asleep in Nillin’s arms.

“When you’re in Jge, you do things like the Jgeons do. Sorry if I hurt your feelings for being a homophobic in front of Cassiopeya, then a homosexual in front of your father… I—I lo…”

How does any of the things Nillin said matter when he waited for me to fall asleep before saying them? Albeit pretending?

Or how he says it in his drunken state where he may meant it but won’t remember any of this.

I spend a large portion of my night thinking about what he could possibly achieve by apologizing to me?

Wait. Does he know I’m that girl he saved like how I know he’s my rich boy?

I unclamp his hands and wait for him to do something, but he’s like a dead fish or a cutdown log.

Somehow I feel disappointed.

It’s not the kind that is like ‘I wish it turned out differently,’ but the ‘oh’.

I return to my seat next to the window where the rain and thunder compose music.

My skin tighten once again due to the cool weather. I close my eyes—my ticket to another possibility.

Just a dream.

The morning jays already found their breakfast when I once again unable swift pass to another dimension since Nillin is asleep on my bed.

In the hall outside my room, I can hear multiple footsteps rushing back and forth along with hush whispers like any other day.

Which I completely blame my mother for…

Then an image of her face appears front and center. I know she’ll lose face if there is no blood and semen on the sheets for anyone to clean.

Since that’ll mean I have failed to lose my virginity, bringing shame to my family for being unfavored by my husband.

And yet a part of me want the whole world to know that Nillin is a homophobe since he didn’t touch me.

A dilemma. Is it only either or, this or that?

I think my problem is not that I dislike Nillin since I learn of him also being my rich boy, but rather that he disapprove of me simply for my sex and gender.

Maybe last night could’ve gone differently if he disliked the part or parts of me that I can help. So I guess it is a ‘oh’ covering for a ‘I wish it turned out differently’ disappointment.

But am I so selfish, so greedy that I am willing to soil the faces of the family that took me in?

“Fuck. Quit being so pragmatic!” I whisper to myself. Then I caught myself. This must’ve been what Nillin referred to as high morals last night.

I suck my lips trying to think of a few possibilities and decide on the best one—the one that would better most people and better me more than hurt me in the long run.

Once I analyze the outcomes, I turn away from Nillin sleeping on the bed and try to fucking masturbait thinking of the motion.

Luckily, I am young with lots of hormone problems.

I walk to the bed and smear the substance onto the sheets. Then I dig at my bicep for blood to also smear onto the sheets.

“What are you doing?” Nillin’s eyes are open as if he was awake the whole time, or at least for a while now.

I look straight at him with a snarky smirk, “Faking the lost of my virginity? I’m the one being penetrated, right?”

The confused look on his flawless face is pure water from the fountain of youth.

“Yeah? Yes! There is no way I’m letting anyone do me from behind.” He nods a little as he convince himself so.

“That’s what I thought before I met you,” I mumble through a cough.

“Then why don’t we just have sex? Wouldn’t that be a lot easier?” I notice the canning spark in his eyes.

Can I even refuse this?

Is he this nice, or this sexually frustrated?

“Um, but I’m a dude,” I hear the pitch of my voice reach an unusually high… Well, pitch. “And I’m saving my first time for my girl.”

It’s a white lie.

I’m saving my first time with my rich boy who is now my husband. Actually, I don’t know where I am going with this.

“Then do whatever you want,” he gets up from the bed.

“Wait.” I stop him. I suddenly have a genius idea.

Nillin stands there where he patiently waits for me to give myself up—which is not going to happen.

I pull some layers off of him, “To fake it, I need you too also look like we did I it.”

Since he is much taller than I am, I tiptoe a little—just a little, alright—and suck on the skin on his neck for a hickey.

Apparently Nillin didn’t comprehend the ‘fake it’ part of my words and pulls my pelvic against his.

His hands run all over my body. From my inner thighs to the back of my head.

“What are you doing?” I announce slowly.

“Don’t you need hickeys too?” His alcoholic hot breaths are against my skin as he tears away some of my clothes as well.

I let him give me the hickeys, but something just don’t feel right. Like it’s as if he’s not stopping.

However, my body is also swayed by his actions. Who doesn’t like a nice looking man giving them pleasure? I am but also human.

“S...stop. I know we both don’t want to regret anything.” I want to try it with him, but the idea of it scares me. I’m such a hypocrite.

Nillin cups my face and we try to find one another in each other’s eyes.

My emerald greens in his ocean blues.

I feel taken out of my shell like I want to give him everything. I want to say, ‘All of me belong to you,’ or something along those cliché lines.