*Gertrude*
I sat with my mother in her room, the two of us quietly sipping tea. Father was away at the castle, and my brothers were still somewhere out at sea, leading our fleet. The social season had barely begun, but already every conversation seemed to circle back to Ruby. Even Mother couldn’t help herself. I felt bitterness settle in my chest as I listened. Ruby, that girl who had stolen Janus from me, now walked the streets as if she were some kind of saint. It stung to watch her hold her head high, as if she belonged here. She was just a healer, no family name worth mentioning, yet she acted as though she had always been one of us. So what if she had given Janus children? That was expected of any noblewoman. Nothing special about it, no matter how much everyone wanted to pretend otherwise.
A thought crept in, quiet and persistent. What if I gave Janus children of my own? Would that be enough to turn his gaze back to me? The idea felt desperate and strangely hopeful, but I couldn’t help wondering how I could ever make it happen. Then a possibility flickered at the edge of my mind, tempting and dangerous.
“Mom, could I borrow your marriage moon necklace for the mask ball? I need it for my costume?” I lied while hiding my mouth behind my teacup.
“My moon necklace?” She quickly glanced over her shoulder at the top of her wardrobe before saying, “Sorry, sweetie, that necklace is nothing to play with.”
I let my lips fall into a pout, pretending to give up, but I didn’t miss the way her eyes flicked to the top of her wardrobe before she answered. I tucked that detail away for later, letting the conversation drift to safer topics as my mind already wandered ahead.
“Mom, I heard something from my friends recently that I need your help with.”
My mother easily answered, “Sure, sweetie. What is it?”
“We were talking about men, and we got to the topic of size.”
“Oh, right. I always had a thing for shorter guys. Just look at your dad.”
“No, not that size, the one below.”
At first, my mother didn’t know what I meant. Then she realized, and her face turned redder than the red velvet cake on the table.
“That… Why do you want to know about that? You are just…”
“I’m seventeen years old, Mom. Soon I will have to get married, so I’m curious.”
“Sigh. Fine, what do you want to know?”
She was clearly unwilling, but when I said I had to marry soon, she relented, still scarlet red.
“My other friends said that they could be too big that it might hurt. But can that really be true? One of them said that they could be as big as an arm.”
“As big as an arm, she must have seen it on a horse. No, they aren’t that big. How would that even work? All the ones I’ve seen were about as big as my index finger.”
It matched what I’d managed to find out myself. The books I’d snuck from the library never mentioned anything about size, so I had to rely on my own curiosity. I knew Theo’s habits well enough to catch him in the bath, and when I peeked through the keyhole, I was almost relieved. It wasn’t frightening at all, nothing monstrous like the stories whispered among girls. It was almost endearing, really, not so different from when we were children, except for a bit of black hair that seemed to have spread over his entire body. I watched, feeling oddly warm, as it changed shape while he soaked, his eyes closed, but even at its highest point it wasn’t much bigger than my finger. The rumors about arm-sized things seemed laughable now. How could that ever be true?
Satisfied with my little investigation, I slipped quietly back to my room before any of the maids could notice. Still, the image from the bathroom lingered in my mind, leaving me flushed and a little breathless. Those broad shoulders, the water trickling down over his hairy chest, the defined muscle and prominent butt. Especially that image of his groin, cute and small and twitching, just wasn’t leaving my mind. I didnt know what this feeling was, though this wasn’t the first time I felt it, yet it made me twist and turn as I tried to sleep.
Even now, as I sipped my tea, the memory of Theodore standing there, bare and unguarded, drifted back. I let Janus’s face slip into the memory, and warmth crept up my cheeks, a secret smile tugging at my lips.
“But enough about that. If you want to know more, you can ask your teacher.”
Mother had always been prude. She never had anyone else except Father. I couldn’t even picture her with anyone else. Even now, she gets weird when they are together, as if they had just married.
We lingered in conversation a little longer before I excused myself. The next day, while Mother tended to her garden, I slipped into her room and reached for the box she’d glanced at. Inside, I found a bundle of old love letters from Father, long-faded pressed flowers, and portraits of them in their younger days. Beneath it all, nestled at the bottom, was her wedding moon necklace.
I hurried back to my room, heart pounding. From my drawer, I took out the white strand of hair I’d stolen from Janus’s coat during the hunt and tucked it carefully into the locket before fastening the necklace around my neck. When I lifted the hand mirror, it wasn’t my own reflection that met my gaze, but Ruby’s red eyes staring back at me.