Polygamy

I knew it was disallowed but that did not make it easier to accept its loss.

I sat on the roof of my family’s tiny house, the one we shared with two other families. The slated roof was slightly tilted, making feel like I was going to fall. I always felt like that. My beat up sneakers slid ever-so-slowly downward, forcing me to scramble up suddenly and readjust myself at the top of the roof every now and again. I was almost curious as to how long it would be before I did not catch myself in time.

I would fall.

Cars sped by on the street below me, all going somewhere without me. I did not want to go anywhere with anyone though; I wanted one person to return. I knew she would not but I would not allow myself to stop wishing. That would mean I did not love her.

Wishing was impractical. It was better to strive for reachable goals, not to dream of some unrealistic, childish vision.

Yet.

The nippy night wind carried with it the notes of a love song unheard, my silent call for one so utterly lost to me. That idiotic law that required submissives to be married off to dominants had sickened me before I had even felt the effects of it. Several submissives would be married to a single dominant in some sick kind of polygamy, except it would not be an equal relationship. It would not be love spread every which way, but a dominant in control of several different people. It was wrong; it was stupid.

It got Laira taken away from me.

She, too, had been taken by a dominant. She had always been a quiet one, just like me. We were both submissives, but I hadn’t yet been married. We knew it was only a matter of time before either the secret came out – that two submissives were romantically involved, which was forbidden – or one of us were forced to marry a dominant.

I had seen the pompous, rich-boy jerk that she’d been married to. With a flock of clucking submissives, too stupid to resist and too eager to please in that idiocy, fawning and swooning over him. Some stupid pretty-boy blond and blue-eyed prick who probably could not care less for Laira’s personality. She was easily the most beautiful submissive in attendance; she was truly a prize, yet she was more than that. Laira was not a trophy. She was a companion, a friend, a lover.

Now she was little more than a trophy. No doubt that he had taken Laira as his personal mistress of sorts. As the most attractive, she would get the most of his attention. She would live relatively well except she would most likely have to … engage in relations.

I clenched my fists as black rage slithered out of soul and ripped through my body. It hissed and spit, shouting the horrid things it would do to that bastard dominant.

I slid suddenly toward the edge of the roof and had to catch myself despite my shock. I slid so far that my sneakers dangled over the edge while my sweaty hands pressed into the roof. The frosty wind tugged gently at my feet, beckoning me with its seductive and whispery cackle.

“Fall,” it hummed. “Just let go and fall, Garrel. Rage will fulfill your desires.”

I pulled myself up, whimpering and scrambling for the trap door on the roof above my tiny bedroom. I dropped in, not even bothering to shut the door. I dove into my bed and pulled the pillow over my head, breathing heavily.

I did not sleep that night. All night the wind opened and shut the door to the roof, beckoning and promising me sweet things for a quick, easy fall.