Who Said You Could Break Our Engagement (2)
1.
Psyche did not dance.
Her untouchable aloofness only made the nobles gathered from every nation that much more desperate. They came before her armed with ever more elaborate flattery, pleading their cases, and Psyche declined each one with a gentle smile and impeccable courtesy.
Libido could feel Psyche's eyes on him. It was the look of someone asking, Are you watching this? His head sank toward the floor. There were so many people who wanted Psyche. Too many to count.
Psyche could live without him.
He couldn't bring himself to ask her for a dance. How could he, after angering her earlier — and with her swarmed by admirers besides?
He didn't ask any other woman, either. Libido simply slipped away to a balcony and stared blankly at the sunset. On the next balcony over, someone had arrived first.
Mwah. Shlup. Mmm. The sound of kissing — unmistakably vulgar, even at a distance.
Libido swallowed hard. He had no taste for spying on a stranger's loveplay, and yet he couldn't help tucking himself out of sight and, before he knew it, straining every nerve toward what he heard.
Libido was nothing but size — still a boy, really. By custom a man became an adult upon completing his coming-of-age ceremony, but as with anyone, being called an adult did not make it so.
And where loveplay was concerned, he was hopelessly green. His fiancée was Psyche, and Psyche was a princess of the royal blood. There could be no touching before the wedding.
And so— Libido held his breath and listened. The whisper of fabric sliding against skin. Wet, smacking kisses. A suggestive catch of breath…
"Shall we finish what we started?"
"Yeah. One look at that bitch and I was raring to go."
"That bitch… you mean Psyche?"
Hah. Hah. Libido had never known the sound of held-back breathing could be so obscene. Without meaning to, he found himself fussing at the front of his badly swollen trousers even as his insides pounded like a drum.
Psyche. They were talking about his fiancée. It had to be one of the men who'd asked her for a dance earlier — quite possibly a prince from a neighboring kingdom.
Over the sound of flesh slapping against flesh, the prince growled low.
"That little bitch. Prettier than the rumors, even. The finest thing I've ever laid eyes on. Hnngh… Once I've confirmed she's a virgin at her coming-of-age ceremony, I'll put in a marriage offer. I'll make her cry like a bitch in heat."
"Ahhn…! But I heard she already has a fiancé…"
"A fiancé? Some noble of this kingdom, no? I'll have the engagement annulled. No — I won't even have to. She'll do it herself. When a crown prince asks for her hand, she'll come crawling, grinning like an idiot. Hnngh."
Thud.
It felt as though something heavy had dropped. His mind dissolved into a haze — flesh striking flesh, a strange musk spreading through the air, strangers daring to speak filth about Psyche, all of it flickering past in a blur.
Thud. Thud. Thud. His heartbeat was deafening.
The pair finished coupling as hurriedly as beasts in heat, straightened their rumpled clothes, and slipped back into the banquet hall. Libido stood there the entire time, fists clenched, teeth sunk deep into his lip.
The taste of blood crept across his tongue. His head was a snarl. He wanted to beat that bastard to death on the spot. But he couldn't. And besides, by now he didn't even have the standing to step in.
Hadn't Psyche… been the one talking about breaking off the engagement?
Libido leaned back against the wall, his face blank. The man's filthy ravings kept replaying in his skull, snarled into a chaotic loop.
"I'll bind her wrists, drag her around like a dog, spank that ass, grind her face under my heel, wedge my cock between her lips and fuck her mouth, then force the wailing bitch down and take her. No — maybe she's a pervert like you, maybe she'll wag that ass for me—"
Huurk.
Libido gagged, over and over. Nothing came up, but he wanted to spit out something long and thick and foul. He walked back into the banquet hall with bloodshot eyes.
2.
Through those bloodshot eyes, Libido could still see Psyche ringed by men. For a single instant, her beautiful figure looked to him like a naked woman sitting sprawled and shameless.
Psyche naked, hemmed in by men. Psyche smiling, saying yes. Every last one of them nursing base desires—
The filthy flash of fantasy hardened Libido's face into a mask. Psyche must have spotted him, because her gaze swung around. A look that said, Well? Saw that? — arrogant, cast down from on high.
With eyes gone cold and flat, Libido strode through the crowd. Gruff voices told him to wait his turn; he paid them no mind.
Because at least for now, Psyche was still his woman.
"…Come out. Psyche. We're going home."
The voice startled even Libido himself with its coldness.
A voice sunk in ice, enough to raise gooseflesh. Psyche's brow creased — she plainly couldn't fathom what had gotten into him. Libido seized her hand and dragged her along.
Psyche dug in her heels, but she had no hope of outmuscling him. As she was hauled stumbling in his wake, the men nearby stiffened and moved to intervene.
"Hey. Laying hands on Her Highness's sacred person without knowing your place?"
"I don't know who you are, sir, but manhandling her without a shred of courtesy… is hardly how one treats Her Highness."
"And who the hell are you?"
Infuriating. It took Libido a full beat to realize he was angry. He so rarely lost his temper that recognizing it came just as slowly.
He drew a long breath, bowed with perfect formality, and announced himself.
"I am Libido Monte, Psyche's fiancé. My partner is here, so I came to take her home. It may have looked somewhat rude. With that, I take my leave."
"Now hold on — fiancé or not—"
"Should anyone present consider my honor a trifling matter, I invite you to formally remove your glove."
It was a pointed provocation, but the men who'd been ready to complain merely shrugged and fell back a step.
They could hardly bar a fiancé from escorting his own betrothed — and there was no sense in picking a quarrel with House Monte. Least of all with the son of Monte himself. Best to steer well clear.
Psyche, though, wore a sullen scowl the whole way, hauled along by the hand. She looked considerably hurt.
"Psyche. Just now—"
"What was that, Libido?"
The way out of the banquet hall. The moment Psyche confirmed the corridor stood empty, she rounded on him.
Her voice was sharp and brittle. But it trembled at the edges, and glistened wet — she seemed a little frightened, too. Psyche looked up at Libido.
Amber eyes, wide and dark as a deer's, fixed on him.
"What you did was rude. Do you have any idea who those people were? Every last one of them was somebody. We needed good relations with them for the sake of this kingdom's future, and you might have ruined it all— Mmph?!"
Libido shoved her back against the wall. His arm hooked around Psyche's waist and lifted. Her toes left the floor without her willing it. Lips met lips.
Her first kiss. She had never imagined it would be like this.
Psyche's eyes flew wide open.
Her breath stopped — mmph — and only after his lips left hers did the trapped air escape, slow, on the exhale. The two of them, neither knowing up from down, simply held mouth to mouth for an instant and then drew apart.
His lips were soft. But he had come in greedy for that softness, so close that gum bumped gum through the skin of their lips — which made it, somehow, awkward and clumsy too.
Psyche's face flared scarlet. Even her words began to stumble. You— you— you. Never, not once, has this ever—
Well, of course she'd be furious. Libido looked down at her in silence. Flustered past the point of speech.
Then it registered — among the voices that had protested earlier, one had been familiar. The man who'd held a woman on the balcony and tossed Psyche's name around like a joke.
There was no world in which he could stand by and watch that man chat calmly at Psyche's side.
Libido looked at her. Gulp. Spit tangled up with desire sloshed, brimming, down his throat. In his eyes it was as if— as if he could see Psyche, naked.
Down on all fours, like a dog… The man's blasphemous boasts swam through his head and conjured her body before his eyes. Psyche, sobbing—
Libido's blood boiled.
"W-wait. Wait a minute. What are you trying to do? Seriously."
Desire surged up like bile in reflux. It heaved through him, turned his stomach inside out, and went circling round and round the inside of his mouth. Libido kissed her again.
Psyche staggered backward.
Instinct — or the refluxed want thrashing to force its way in. Libido's tongue slid out between his lips like a serpent and tapped at hers.
Psyche's lips flinched and shrank away. Her back met the wall. Libido's knee pried between her legs and drove her body up against it. Tears welled in her eyes.
This kiss lasted far longer than the last. Psyche pushed at him with all her strength, but Libido did not budge an inch.
She kept her lips sealed tight, refusing to yield the inside of her mouth to his tongue. Something in her said she must not. She hated it. This. Being taken like this.
"Psyche, I lo—"
"Stop."
3.
"Stop it. Libido."
Psyche's voice sank, cold and even.
Thud. Thud. Her hammering heart — was it racing because a romantic moment with the man she loved had set it fluttering, or thrashing in alarm at something strange and terrifying? She could no longer tell.
It hurt. Psyche bit her lip hard and glared up at him. Libido's eyes. She had seen those eyes before. No — she saw them every time. How could she not know—
The eyes she had always seen.
Lewd. Filthy.
"Are you… lusting after me right now?"
"…"
"So that's it? You suddenly kiss me? Shove your body into mine, force me down with your strength, and take my lips? Without even asking whether I wanted it? Without a shred of consideration? To you, I'm—!"
"Psyche. I—"
I— I was scared of losing you. I got impatient. I'm sorry. I won't ever again. The words came flooding up all at once, and Libido tried to spew them out in a rush.
This is bad. A chill ran down his spine. Which means— which means this is—
But nothing crossed his lips.
The tears streaming down Psyche's face packed Libido's mouth shut, tight as a gag, and refused to move aside.
Psyche was sobbing. Psyche was.
"To you…… am I someone who can be treated like that?"
"…No, that's not—"
Hic. Psyche was crying. Crying ugly, tears and snot streaming down her face. Psyche, who had always shown Libido nothing but grace and beauty, came apart into a complete mess.
Libido understood, with terrible clarity, that whatever had gone wrong had gone catastrophically wrong. The heart that had pounded so impatiently now lay cold and still, screaming at him that he had to somehow undo the frost that had settled between them.
"Let's break off the engagement. This time I mean it."
"Psyche!"
"All this time — yeah, today too — it was actually a lie, every single time. Break off the engagement? I didn't want to. Not even a speck of me ever wanted to. I just… I liked how you'd go to pieces and whisper that you loved me when I said it. I guess I was too cruel to you."
"…Psyche, it's not like that. So— really, it's not. I— I don't know why I did this, but I. I love you. Truly. Truly. I love you more than anything, Psyche."
"But— but I really did like you. I always liked you, liked being by your side, liked that you were my fiancé. I hate this. What even is this…! When you kissed me, I thought I might scream, and yet—"
"No, no. Psyche. Don't say any more. I'm sorry, I was wrong. So please, Psyche. Please…"
"You scare me so much right now…!"
Libido fumbled to wrap her in his arms. But Psyche squirmed away from him, hating it, and shoved. Hard. She pushed him off with everything she had.
And Libido, fool that he was, thought — she really does hate me, she's really pushing me away — and let himself be pushed. Just then, a wind swept through the corridor. Psyche shivered at the sudden chill.
Without the warmth of an embrace, what remains is a cold conclusion.
"Let's break it off. I'll tell Father tomorrow. I think this is where we end, Libido."
"Ps…yche?"
"You tried to rape me. Here. In this corridor, where anyone could have been watching. Look. Look at me, Libido."
Only then did Libido look at the state of her.
The dress hung in ribbons. The corset was one tug from tearing away entirely.
"Is this what a wife is? A plaything."
Psyche covered her chest as best she could with her frail arms, clutched the remains of her dress to her, and walked away — leaving Libido behind her.
Her snow-white back lay bare to the corridor air. Libido felt as though he might lose his mind. What was I about to do? What was that, just now? And underneath it all, waah— the sound of Psyche crying.
He stumbled after her, calling her name in a daze.
But Psyche kept darting glances back over her shoulder and fled, sobbing in a terrified voice — no, don't— don't follow me— In the end she did take his coat, but only after Libido begged her to at least accept that much…
Libido crumpled where he stood.
It was over. Probably. All of it.
"…No. No, it's not."
Libido, collapsed on the floor, murmured blankly to no one.
"Sh-she said she'd talk tomorrow."
Which meant it was still too early to call it the end.
Libido's eyes flickered — a queer, dark, dreary light kindling in them.
"If I could just stop the annulment— just stop it— then somehow…"