Sweet Revenge

you. He resents me, what I am, what I’m not. You’re mine. He sees only that when he looks at you; he does not see the part of himself, maybe the best part of himself, that is in you.”
    “I hate him.”
    The fear grew sharper as she looked quickly around. They were alone in the garden, but voices carried and there were always ears to listen. “You mustn’t say that. You mustn’t even think that. You can’t understand what’s between Abdu and me, Addy. You aren’t meant to.”
    “He strikes you.” She drew back, and now her eyes weredry and suddenly old. “For that I hate him. He looks at me and doesn’t see. For that I hate him.”
    “Shh.” Not knowing what else to do, Phoebe pulled Adrianne back in her arms and rocked.
    She said nothing else. It had never been her intention to upset her mother. Until the words had been spoken, she hadn’t even been aware she’d held them in her heart. Now that they had been voiced, she accepted them. The hate had been rooted even before the night she had seen her father abuse her mother. Since then it had grown, nurtured by his neglect and disinterest in her, the subtle insults that set her apart from his other children.
    She hated, but the hate shamed her. A child was meant to revere her parents. So she no longer spoke of it.
    Over the next weeks she spent more time than ever with her mother, walking in the garden, listening to the stories of other worlds. They continued to seem unreal to her, but she enjoyed them in much the same way she enjoyed her grandmother’s tales of pirates and dragons.
    When Meri gave birth to a girl and was summarily divorced, Adrianne was glad.
    “I’m happy she’s gone.” Adrianne played a game of jacks with Duja. The toy had been allowed in the harem after much discussion and debate.
    “Where will they send her?” Though Duja was older, it was understood that Adrianne had a way of ferreting out information.
    “She is to have a house in the city. A small one.” Adrianne chuckled and scooped up three jacks with nimble fingers. She might have pitied Meri her fate, but the ex-wife of the king had made herself disliked among the women.
    “I’m glad she won’t live here.” Duja flipped back her hair as she waited her turn. “Now we won’t have to listen to her brag about how often the king visited her and how many ways he plants his seed.”
    Adrianne missed the ball. She glanced quickly around for her mother, but since they were speaking Arabic, she decided Phoebe wouldn’t have understood. “Do you want sex?”
    “Of course.” Duja let the jacks fall, then studied the outcome. “When I marry, my husband will visit me everynight. I will give him so much pleasure he will never need another wife. I will keep my skin soft, my breasts firm. And my legs open.” She laughed and plucked up jacks.
    Adrianne noticed one of the jacks shivered, but let the infraction pass. Her hands were quicker and more clever than Duja’s, and it was her cousins turn to win. “I don’t want sex.”
    “Don’t be stupid. All women want sex. The law keeps us separate from men because we’re too weak to resist it. We stop only when we are as old as Grandmother.”
    “Then I am as old as Grandmother.”
    They both laughed at that and went back to the game.
    Duja wouldn’t understand, Adrianne thought as they continued to play. Mama didn’t want sex, and she was young and beautiful. Leiha was afraid of it because it had given her two daughters. Adrianne didn’t want it because she had seen that it was cruel and ugly.
    Still, there was no other way to get babies, and she liked babies very much. Perhaps she would get a kind husband who already had wives and children. Then he wouldn’t want sex from her and she could care for the babies of the house.
    When they tired of the game, Adrianne found her grandmother and climbed into her lap. Jiddah was a widow, and had been a queen. Her love of sweets was costing her her teeth, but her eyes were dark and clear.
    “Here’s my pretty Adrianne.” Jiddah opened her hand and offered the foil-wrapped chocolate. With a giggle Adrianne took it. Because she loved the pretty paper as much as the candy, she worked slowly. In a habit that never failed to soothe, Jiddah picked up a brush and began to draw it through Adrianne’s hair.
    “Will you visit the new baby, Grandmother?”
    “Of course. I love all my grandchildren. Even ones who steal my chocolate. Why does my Adrianne look so sad?”
    “Do