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so much as envious. Envious of the boy who had engaged
Niall’s attention in Dominic’s absence.
    “Oh, I don’t know,” Niall said, drawling out
the words. “Sometimes pornography can be most beneficial to the
circulation.” He winked at me, knowing I at least understood
him.
    Dominic had spent so much time here looking
after me that Niall was bound to feel neglected. He had seduced the
boy, no doubt had enjoyed the experience of being hero-worshipped,
playing the man of the world to the boy’s virginal admiration. But
the purpose had been to arouse Dominic, the telling staged so as to
make the most of what may have been a rather unexciting incident. I
suspected Niall was now as eager as Dominic and I were to get away
home, to shake off what was proving to be the burdensome adoration
of a boy for his first love.
    Dominic was being deliberately obtuse. “If
the boy was seven years at a monastery, and as eager for experience
as you claim, I doubt very much that you were the first.” Dominic
had often commented on the absurdity of scores of men and boys
living in one house and expected to be celibate; his memories of
Christian school encompassed more than scripture. “For all you know
he might have used that line on everyone with a hard-on, students
and monks alike.”
    “Wait until you see Justin,” Niall said,
“before you say a lot of things you’ll regret.”
    Dominic lowered his eyelids in a look of
disdain. “I’ve seen him. Pudgy blonds do nothing for
my—circulation.” He waved his hand, equanimity returning. He, too,
had come to see what Niall was after. “Run and kiss him good-by. As
Amalie said, we’re leaving at first light tomorrow, and I think
I’ll keep you out of trouble until then.” He put his arm around
Niall’s slim waist, lowered his hand to grab a firm buttock.
“Amalie’s ready for an early night, aren’t you, beloved?”
    “Yes,” I said, although I wasn’t. Three days
of sleep had left me refreshed and wide awake. Dominic leaned down
to kiss me goodnight. He was in a good humor again, and his kiss
was affectionate if quick. We were in accord now.
    It was a godsend, I thought, no doubt
blasphemously, that Niall had indulged in a little tomcatting.
Niall’s provocative behavior might distract Dominic from his
vengeful activities during these last hours of our stay. And if
Dominic found relief with Niall, it would benefit all three of
us.
    I am an empath as well as a telepath; I can
experience other people’s feelings, not merely know of them, but my
early life on Terra, isolated among the ungifted, had made me build
a self-protective wall in my mind around such an area of
vulnerability. Only with Dominic do I truly empathize. When Dominic
makes love to his companion, so can I, in communion, from my own
bed in my own room. I can share Dominic’s own active pleasure, a
brief, fantastic excursion into the masculine being and sensations,
returning to the safety and familiarity of womanhood when I have
had enough.
    A man with fewer scruples than Dominic might
command wife and companion to share his bed simultaneously and
expect us to obey. For Dominic, brothel acts have no place at home;
besides, this communion is not quite the same thing. But the double
communion of love completes the triangle of our marriage, proves
its strength and truth.
    When I am joined with my companion, body
and mind, Dominic told me once, whispering his thoughts
directly that he would not say aloud, and I sense you with me at
the same moment, it is unlike any other lovemaking. It is
like—
    Like sorcery, I had finished the
thought. Magic. What crypta is to the ungifted, this
unusual connection seems to us.
    “Not magic, beloved,” he said.
“Perfection.”
    I had discovered this manifestation of our
communion early in our marriage, because I must share all my
husband’s strong emotions. Later I had come to admit that, though I
had the skill and more to separate my mind from Dominic’s at
moments