Thandeka

I had never seen a mirror before meeting my husband so even though I could recognise beauty and an appearance that entices men in other women I had never been really sure what it is about me that attracted the many that have used me through the years towards me. As early as I can remember it being something girls my age worry about I have been told I’m ugly by the other girls and their mothers and I had no reason not to believe them when they teased me.

I was still young I think first time I lay with a man and he was so attentive and adored me so completely and thought me the most beautiful he had ever seen at the time, we were both young. It was amazing and we did it again and again and through sex I realised how I was truly seen by another and though that season was bliss and birth of my confidence it was also the death of my spirit.

Girls without parents are protected by the community and the values deeply imbedded without our societies and cultures, no one really speaks of it and so I had no idea that by laying with a man I was declaring to all the men in the community that I was finally ripe for harvesting. Sizwe made no intentions of our encounters ever being more than physical, but at the time I didn’t even know whether that was something I should enquire about.

The sex became less amazing with time as he started seeing other girls but it didn’t become less frequent, I didn’t know anything was wrong until he paid his dowry and married Owethu who at the time I considered a friend. I lost my protection, a form of protection I didn’t even know I had and an Elder took me as his play thing for a number of years. There I learnt about lyfe, there I learn about men and women, cruelty, jealousy, possessiveness and misery.

Elder Madodandile made me an unofficial concubine as he took me into his household and made sure I was fed, taught to do work and protected from the advances of all the other men I had started to notice had their attentions on me. Sometimes the sex was good, sometimes quick, but other times it could be extremely painful. His two wives hated me with a hate that sometimes saw them spitting into my face if they couldn’t find other immediate means to degrade and embarrass me.

I got good at taking a beating, I got good at reading people’s moods from a distance, I got good at having sex such that the Elder didn’t feel the need to hurt me after taking his pleasure as I not only made him feel good but made him feel powerful. I learnt to fear men because none had stopped eyeing me, none had stopped wanting me and I could clearly see this with every interaction I had with a man outside that household. Elder Madoda told me I was lucky that he had taken me from the streets and brought me to his home protecting me from the other men, and I believed him.

It is when I fell with child and knew that he and his two witches for wives would kill me and my child that I got the courage to leave that place but even that wasn’t to be. I am barren now and after a turbulent life I am truly happy as I sit on the eckhart tree’s twisted branch watching my husband walk home in complete leisure even stopping occasionally to look at plants and speak to wolves.

I’ve been watching Sachihiro for years now and I find myself smiling or exasperated at his antics especially when he forgets I’m around like he seems t have now. The man is a complete contradiction of thought, behaviour and personality that cannot be easily classified in any one way. I have been used by numerous men any number of times since I left the clutches of that man’s household but strangely the first year of my marriage to Sachi I feel I had more sex than I had ever had in my entire life before that point.

How we had sex so deeply, so frequently, so beautifully I still don’t understand especially as I had to share him with so many other women but somehow he made a way to almost always be having his way with me. I thought I knew sex but I really didn’t , not before Sachi and I’m grateful for that.

He is stopped and chatted up by two beautiful women that have been waiting for him to leave the library for nearly 40 minutes now. One of the pair is part Jotnar part fae with long legs, toned muscles, exotic eyes and slightly protruding canine teeth, exactly his type. Any red blooded man’s ideal woman in fact as she is also well spoken and a warrior in her own right but he only speaks to them a moment before declining their offer to escort him home.

That’s another thing about this place that remains incomprehensible and fascinating to me even as I witness it every day. Sometimes a single woman has multiple men and will be the provider and the protector of the household. I see it every day but I really don’t understand it and the many beautiful women that approach Sachi expecting him to ever be subordinate to him don’t really see or understand him beyond what he lets people see and the rumours of his cowardice.

Unlike the rest of his people he refuses every challenge that isn’t a holmgang and doesn’t visit any of the arenas openly nor does he spar in any public setting anymore. Even I haven’t seen him fight outside the bedroom since the one time I watched him and Mira spar ‘testing’ the wards in the sparing room on the fourth floor of Deep Keep. The holmgang I heard about but never witness, apparently only a few people witnessed it but when both fighters come out with their lives rumours of his cowardice blazed around the fighting rings like wild fire.

Something that still drives Mira and Saya up the wall in annoyance both at anyone they hear bad mouth Sachi and Sachi himself as he pretends not to be fazed by the loss of face.

He stops in his slow walk home coming out of his daydreams and looks directly towards my perch before signalling the way he does when he wants me to know he knows I’m watching before continuing on his way. I’ve never known someone so intimately and understood him so little. I wish I could send , maybe if we could have a mind to mind dialogue the mystery that is my husband would finally be unlocked to me. The two women walk some distance behind him lithely talking to each other as they watch him, both completely oblivious of my presence and eyes on them.

Selah has made her intentions to mate with Sachi known to all for over a year now but my strange husband will have none of it for some reason. She has spoken with Divina, she has spoken to Shea, she has spoken to Mira, she has spoken to Kuyoki and even gone as far as to speak to Om as half the city speculates that Om is the head of the household and fucks all Sachi’s mates and buggers Sachi himself on occasion. Another rumour that he seems to completely ignore that irks Saya and Mira and his friend Ava berserk whenever they come across someone stupid enough to insinuate that in their presence.

Ava has already killed two men for that and Mira’s opponent still hasn’t woken from the War Infirmary even after months of attempted healing.

I smile to myself as I wait for them to be further away before pushing off the tree and landing lightly and silently with my dark enchanted cloak hugging tightly to my body as it obscures my presence and form from those around me. It’s my most prized possession, a gift from Iki after a dungeon dive that took her all the way to the legendary Barbarian Wolf level of the dawn dungeon.

I jog in a roundabout way following both my husband and his suitor as she glares at anyone that thinks to approach either for a challenge or more sexual interests. I grin as I watch Sachi grin to himself about something as he walks; I frown as he frowns watching one of his children fight off two other young men that seem even older than he does. Erebus eventually loses the fight and the small crowd of onlookers linger and slowly disperse once Sachihiro arrives and the two walk together towards home in silence.

Gaia and his two sons are another enigma to me but I really haven’t tried to understand them much beyond being acquainted with them through the years. The family is just too big for us to be as intimate with each other’s quirks as Sachi tries to make us be, or it could just be me...

I follow them closely all the way home practising my hunting, cloaking and bush skills as we travel through the city.