Let Us Dream by Alyssa Cole

Author:Alyssa Cole [Cole, Alyssa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Alyssa Cole
Published: 2017-02-26T16:00:00+00:00

Bertha was behind the bar, looking through her ledger. Amir was stocking glasses he’d brought out from the kitchen. They’d practiced for a bit, his non-encounter with the man in the alley causing him to lose his train of thought a few times, and then they’d sat and talked. It had been comfortable; her on the couch with her legs tucked up under her, Amir beside her. The length of a cushion had separated them, and though he’d just been nearly pressed against her as he’d instructed her, he wondered if he’d ever be able to cross that gap on the sofa. It may as well have been the distance from his sleeping quarters in the bowels of the Kandahar to the officers’ quarters above.

Then they’d gone downstairs, and his opening duties had brought him out to the bar and hers had brought her into the kitchen. Neither of them acknowledged the fact that the bartender would have stocked the glassware when he arrived or that Cora preferred doing the kitchen inventory herself. They’d done the same the previous day, and the day before that. They were performing a different kind of dance now, seeking each other out and then retreating, but he wasn’t sure she noticed. It could be that she just needed a friend; she had men after her all the time, and Amir wouldn’t be one of them.

“What did men do for pleasure while out at sea?” she asked abruptly. She didn’t look up from her book and continued making notes as she moved her pencil down the column.

Amir fumbled a glass and almost dropped it, catching it at the last moment. “Pardon?”

She glanced at him. “I’m just wondering. What do men do, stuck out in the middle of the ocean with no woman around for a thousand miles? I’m sure some of them have no need for a woman and do quite fine for themselves, but what of the others?”

“Is there anything in particular that prompted you to ask this?”

“It’s just that you mentioned how long your journeys were when we spoke earlier. Every night, I see men acting like goddamned fools because there are women around that they might have sex with. I wondered what they do with that energy when there aren’t.”

Amir placed a highball glass down on the shelf, carefully, and tried not to think about the word “sex.” Allah give him strength, he didn’t need to think of that any more than he already did when it came to Bertha.

She looked at him innocently, but the very primness of her expression—brows raised, mouth a contemplative pout—tipped him off that she knew she was toying with him.

“It depends. The officers did…officer things, I suppose. Sitting around, looking important while they smoked pipes.” Her lips twitched at that. “With the lascars, some men prayed a lot more. Some kept themselves busy with work. Some were too tired to do much of anything. I imagine they thought about sex a lot, and…relieved themselves when the opportunity arose.

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