"That?" Kanik asked, stepping only far enough into the room to lean against the door frame.

"Sex," Zasen told him. "Ayla says it's painful."

"Mhm..."

"I told her I'd had sex with Lessa," he explained. "I thought it would explain how we don't have to get married."

"Okay?"

"Do you do it?" I asked, lifting my chin to glare at Kanik. "Do you hurt women like that for fun?"

Zasen gave Kanik a look I couldn't quite make out. Kanik lifted his hands as if he was holding me off. The pair glanced at each other, clearly sharing some thought.

Then Kanik asked, "Ayla, have you ever had sex?"

"No!" I huffed. "I stabbed Mr. Saunders with a fork before he could hurt me like that."

He nodded slowly. "Okay. So do any women enjoy sex in the compound? Harlots? Sluts? Whatever term I'm sure the Moles would use for them."

I shook my head. "No! Wild women are the harlots, but they're minions of the Devil. Eve's curse doesn't affect them anymore."

"What?!" Rymar asked before he was even in view. "Eve's curse?" And then he too stepped into the room.

I backed up, feeling like I was outnumbered. "That's what the Bible says. Eve ate the fruit, so she was cursed with pain. Now it is women's duty to be fruitful and multiply. The act is enjoyable to men because they didn't commit the sin, but women must suffer. We must tolerate it whenever he wants - "

"No!" Rymar said, waving his hand through the air to cut me off. "That is not how it works, Ayla."

"But..."

"That's a lie. That's how those men down there kept you under their thumb. That, Ayla, is something they never want women to know, because they don't want to love you. They want to hurt you, and sex is an easy way to do it. They get off on hurting you. It makes them feel powerful when nothing else does, and the weaker they keep you women, the less you can do to stop them."

"Really?" I asked.

He nodded slowly. "Which is why the three of us never have sex with a woman unless she wants it. Unless she thinks it will feel good. It's her decision, Ayla."

"Always hers," Kanik assured me.

Zasen nodded. "Otherwise, it's called rape, Ayla."

"But a married woman can't be - "

"Yes," Kanik said, cutting me off. "It doesn't matter if she's married, or 'asking for it,' or any other excuse a Mole might use. If a woman doesn't want to have sex, then it is rape. Ayla, rape hurts. Sex doesn't. The acts may have similar mechanics, but they are not the same."

"Oh," I breathed.

So he held out his hand to me. "Maybe we should take a walk and talk about this more where you aren't trapped in a room alone with a bunch of men?"

"Fuck," Zasen grumbled before shoving to his feet and heading for the door. "Didn't even think about that."

"Take her shopping," Rymar suggested. "Maybe for some... vegetables?"

Kanik looked over at him and smiled. "Now that's a good idea." Then he looked back at me. "What do you think, Ayla? Want to see the market and maybe pick out some new food to try for dinner?"

I just nodded, feeling like my head was about to explode. "Yeah. Is it okay if I put my clothes away later?"

"Definitely," Kanik said. "And it also means Rymar and Zasen can lift the crap upstairs. I need a break." And he offered his hand again.

This time, I took it.

Sixty-EightKanik

Ayla put on her sandals, but her entire body was tense. While she put her hair up, I headed for the living room, wanting to know what exactly had happened. There, Zasen sat in one of the chairs, bent over his knees.

"Help me out here?" I begged.

He looked up. "Sex hurts."

"Give me more?" I told him.

He sighed heavily. "Kanik, that's why she didn't want to get married. All this time, we've been thinking it was the ownership and abuse, right? But no. She said sex is pain. Men enjoy it, but Eve's curse makes it hurt women. Then, just to top that off, the women are bred over and over, producing children until they die."

"In childbirth," Rymar said as he came out of the kitchen carrying a pair of beers. "Now stop and think about what Ayla looked like when we found her."

"Skinny," Zasen said. "Malnourished, weak, and not in a state where she could safely deliver a child."

"So what do you want to bet they're all like that?" Rymar asked. "I mean, if the men eat first, most, or whatever shit they do, then all the women are going to be in bad shape."

"And pregnancy would then become fatal," Zasen said. "Either from a lack of muscle to push, being pulled down by the demands of the fetus, or a million other things. Mom would call that a high-risk pregnancy, and most likely do surgery instead of natural birth."

"Mm..." I murmured, taking all of it in. "But why did you tell her you slept with Lessa?"

"Because she keeps saying things are improper," he muttered, sounding ashamed. "I thought that if I showed her it wasn't, let her see a woman who doesn't care about the opinions of others, then it might help her reconsider what she's allowed to do."

"Like fuck you?" I asked.

Letting out a sigh, he reached up to scrub at his face. "I was actually thinking more about touch. I mean, yesterday she actually touched me. Okay, she was feeling my scales, but it was the first time she's ever really, I dunno..."

"Been personal," Rymar finished for him.

"Yeah," Zasen agreed. "So I thought I'd double down. If sex is allowed simply because someone wants to, then all those other little things she's scared of would be okay too, right? But yeah. I didn't see this coming."

"Although it makes sense," I pointed out.

Rymar gave me a confused look. "It does?"

"We've known their marriages aren't consensual. We've known women are traumatized down there. We're well aware rape is a common thing, buried under layers of their screwed-up religion. So why is it shocking for her to believe sex would be torture?"

"Just..." Zasen tossed himself back in the chair. "Kanik, make sure she knows we're not going to do that to her?"