Yrene✨’s Reviews > The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy > Status Update

"You brought me a flower," said Mordaunt, holding up Élodie's allium.

There were tears in his eyes. Aurienne did not correct him, given that he might actually cry. She, however, was fighting down the bubbling of hysterical laughter.

"You may keep the flower if you finish this," said Aurienne.
She helped Mordaunt higher onto the pillows and tilted the mug towards him.
Mordaunt—unusually docile-drank.

After three or four sips, he grimaced, and said, "I've got to tell you, darling, this is awful."
💕
"It's bhreue—it's very nutritious. It'll help you recover. Don't call me darling."

Aurienne put together an impromptu IV stand by removing the shade from a tall lamp.
Mordaunt gave Aurienne what she interpreted as an eyebrow wiggle. "I found your note."
"My note?"
"Well, your diagram." Mordaunt fished about on the table upon which Aurienne had dumped her ill-gotten gains. He held up the napkin. "Is this... what you want to do?"
"It's what I did," said Aurienne. "I was explaining the procedure to Cath."
"The procedure?"
"Yes."
"You've already done it?"
"Yes."
"With me? Last night?"
"Yes."
Mordaunt looked pouty. "You might have waited until I was conscious, so I could enjoy it, too."
Aurienne stopped untangling tubing, because it dawned on her that she was, once again, being haunted by the tit wank. "It's not a tit wank."

😂😂

"It's a tit wank," said Mordaunt.
"That's not a penis," said Aurienne. "It's a blaecblade. And those are semilunar folds, not tits."
Mordaunt, argumentative even in delirium, said, "The tits have got nipples."
"Those are omental appendices, not nipples."

Mordaunt's eyes were closed. His voice had gone soft; he was fading into sleep. "I'd do it if you wanted to—"
"I don't want to."
"—but I'd really rather be suffocated by your thighs."

He fell asleep. Aurienne bustled about with the homemade infusion stand.
Hundreds, thousands, of idiotic things had been said to her by half-conscious patients over the years.

This marked the first time she felt the warmth of a blush on her cheeks.
🥰

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When Osric next awoke, Fairhrim was beside him. She had returned to her usual whites, but in the form of a soft, high-waisted dress.
Her hair was in a loose, curling knot at the base of her neck. Her edges were still there, however—her posture was perfect; her shoulders were square beneath gauzy fabric.

Fairhrim saw that he was awake. With a surprising lack of edge, she said, "Someone once told me it's rude to stare."
"Not sure I've got the strength to turn my head," said Osric. It was mostly true. "Are we alone?"
"Yes."
"What time is it?" asked Osric, his voice a weak rasp.
"Half past two, two days after. How are you?"
"In grand fettle," said Osric.
"How's your pain?"
"Feel like I got filleted."
"You'll have a new scar for your collection."

"What's all this I'm tied up with?" asked Osric, lifting a hand from which tubing emerged. "Why am I so tubey? Why am I entubed?"
"Plasma volume expanders. Intravenous antibiotics. I'll take you off them soon."
"Lucky your parents had all this handy."
"They didn't," said Fairhrim. "I stole it from Swanstone."
"You stole?"
"Don't be smug."
"You're the common thief."
😅😂
Fairhrim gave him the sort of look that could skewer a man fifty paces out.
Osric ceased his teasing, given that he already suffered from one grievous injury.

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"Thank you," blurted Osric.
He didn't like that. The blurting. He preferred his words, like his murders, nice and premeditated.

Fairhrim folded her hands together. Then she moved them to her thighs. Then she brought them together again. She, who always decidedly knew how she felt and did not hesitate to express it, seemed to not know how to feel or how to express it.

Finally, she sat herself at the foot of the bed and said, "I'm the one who owes you thanks. My deofol told me what he saw. So—so thank you."
She looked as uncomfortable as he had felt with thanks—only his had been expelled, like thanks-vomit, whereas hers had needed to be pushed, like thanks-constipation. He ought to propose a stool softener to her, for her mouth.

Anyway, Osric was gratified. "All in a day's work."
"You're mad," said Fairhrim. "You killed one of your own Order."
"Fairhrim?"
"Yes?"
"Sometimes violence really is the answer."
✨
Fairhrim didn't disagree with him. Perhaps she was being nice because he was still convalescing. She did have a weakness for invalids.

"Though, to be technical about it, he landed the finishing blow himself," added Osric.
"Will you explain what happened, from the beginning?" asked Fairhrim.

She sat straight backed and attentive as Osric explained, starting with the gargling of the baubles, and ending with Brythe's spiteful suicide.

Fairhrim stared at him for a long time, expressionless save for a new, peculiar gravity in her eyes.
"I will never reject your deofol again," said Fairhrim. "And I'm sorry I did."

🥺💖

Osric felt that he had won something—but what it was, he wasn't sure.

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"Now, if you want to get better quickly, you need to rest. I'll leave you."
"I'm sorry about your dress."
"It doesn't matter."
"At least it wasn't one of your usual perfect white ones."
"Haelan whites are made of an impermeable polymer. They don't stain."
"Oh."
"Sleep," said Fairhrim.
She strode towards the door.
"Fairhrim?" called Osric.
"What?"
"What's an episiotomy scissor?"
"It's used in childbirth."
"A scissor? In childbirth? What for?"
"Cutting the perineum, between the vagina and anus."
Having delivered this newest eight-word horror story, Fairhrim quit the room, taking whatever was left of Osric's innocence with her.

😅😂😂

Page 328



Osric watched the goings-on from the shadows of the balcony.
Fairhrim's parents had invited him to attend, but she had flashed him a look that said Don't you dare, and Osric had declined.
They sent Tartiflette up with bites of food from the party, as well as a pity bottle of Scotch. Fairhrim had flashed Osric a second look, and warned him that he could have two drinks, and not more. It was a miracle that he hadn't gone blind from all these flashes of hers. She was a bloody heliograph.

It was a tranquil way to pass an evening, anyway: eyeballing the jewels on the hands of various aunts, watching Fairhrim, counting how many drinks Uncle Pilheard downed, watching Fairhrim, assessing the string quartet, watching Fairhrim...

Why was he watching Fairhrim? Oh, many reasons. Because it was interesting to see her outside the usual context of dusty clinics. Because she danced unexpectedly well. Because there was nothing better to do.
Because he actually had brain damage from the Syndrome.
😂
If it wasn't for the fact that it was Fairhrim whom he was observing so attentively, he could almost think he fancied her. What a joke that would be. What a celestial irony.

It was clear, from Fairhrim's spinning about the garden in the arms of others, and kissing cheeks, and laughing, that she was well liked, even well loved.
Fairhrim bestowed swift smiles on all who asked her to dance (point of interest: she never bestowed swift smiles on Osric) and left behind her a trail of discarded adorers as she moved from one to the next.
They were all underbred youngbloods with nothing to recommend them; Osric was far more handsome. And richer.

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Osric watched Fairhrim release the chinless wonder she was dancing with and move on to another. This one was tall. Admittedly good-looking. Love-light in his eyes. Presently dancing with Fairhrim for a third time. Osric was taken over by a savage jealousy.
It was the Season of Betrayal.

No. One couldn't get possessive over a thing that wasn't one's to begin with—and that one had no desire to possess anyway. That would be ridiculous.

Osric went back to watching the aunts to decide if anything was worth stealing, due to a sudden, unrelated-to-Fairhrim, urge to join the party. A solid gold tore caught his eye, as did a jewelled lorgnette.
He stress-ate chocolate.
Where had Fairhrim got to?

There she was—at the door of the bedroom, rapping her distinct knock.

Osric had known, of course, having watched her below, that she was wearing a lovely champagne gown, and had gathered her dark hair in a crown braid with orchids tucked into it, but it didn't lessen the shock when she came in looking not at all like the Haelan and looking, in-stead, fresh, sylphidine, and very much beautiful.
Not beautiful. Just pretty.
Just pretty.

Osric did not want Fairhrim to be beautiful. He was susceptible to beauty. He was an Appreciator of beautiful things. He wanted to acquire them. He wanted them to be his. Now, as Fairhrim neared, he fought a momentary panic that his beauty-loving heart would want Fairhrim in any way, that her loveliness tonight would trigger some latent kleptomaniac urge.

He hated Fairhrim. Ergo, she was not beautiful. This was the only solution; the cognitive dissonance would be unbearable otherwise.

He conceded a vast prettiness that took her to the very edge of beauty. Besides, this was temporary. Soon the night would be over, and Fairhrim would return to the choke of her high-necked dress and her usual froideur, and be the Haelan again. This was a moment as ephemeral as the orchids in her hair.
Also-also—he wouldn't be attracted to her because she wasn't attracted to him. One-sided attraction was a power differential he used to his advantage, and he did not wish to be on the receiving end of any such thing from Fairhrim.

There was a totter in Fairhrim's step. She was loose limbed from a few drinks. The flush of the dance was on her cheeks. (Most certainly the dance, and not the influence of the Tall Good-Looking Other Man.)

She joined Osric at the railing and, with unlooked-for familiarity, put a hand on his arm to hold herself up as she took off her shoes.

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Fairhrim never troubled to flirt with him, but her dark look, the amused press of her lips, and the brush of her elbow against his all had much the same effect on Osrie; all mingled with the drink, was more potent than the drink, warmed his blood, threatened to heat his face.

He thought forbidden thoughts about her lips again, what they had done in his imaginings, what he would like to do to them.

She was a thing between desire and impossibility.
Was he becoming one of those pathetic men who found a woman more desirable in direct proportion to how unattainable she was?

She held up her glass and said, "Well done."
Thank you, and I would like to die suffocated by your thighs did not seem an appropriate response at this time.
Osric said, "I serve at your pleasure," and held up his glass to hers.
She pressed her flute of champagne to his Scotch with a smile hidden in the corner of her mouth.

No, there was nothing worth stealing at the party below. But up here?
It occurred to him that he would like to steal a dance.