Listening to Alex, my head tips back in mild surprise at her explanation.  "Egypt..." I had some vague understanding of that country from bible tales.  Stories I'd come to take with a grain of salt in the light of recent events.  The name rings up images of pyramids, big stone points of wood-cut lines on a stippled blotter page in a book from my mama's shelf.  Men without shirts, wearing strange hats and weilding whips.  Kind of a nice thought if you're into that kind of thing.<br/><br/>I listen when she explains.  She's obviously gone to some lengths to make me comfortable... offering lotions and oils and things I haven't the faintest clue how to use properly.<br/><br/>"Three years..."  The timeframe leaves Baptiste inoccent of filandering with me.  I just nod, but I can't really hide that there are gears turning.  If she's telling the truth, then it'd been two years since she stayed here when I met him.  So she hadn't been shacking up with him.<br/><br/>I look over at her, the way she's leaning on the dresser with that soft robe falling on her body like water.  My eyes cut away to the basin, then flick back to her eyes.  I'm not entirely sure where to look with this girl... although along her body is a pretty tempting place to start.<br/><br/>It's rare that I see another woman in such intimate quarters.  Some women, I'm led to understand, dress before each other in shared quarters, or help each other with grooming tasks that bring about a specific intimacy that's understood to be genuine and superficial.  Some even do what I enjoyed a couple times with my goddess... they have vulgar terms for it, which I don't apply to such a thing that meant so much to me.  I even shared a similar comfort with a couple others in my time.<br/><br/>When I dream or lay awake at night, or when I'm alone and lonely, those are the thoughts that bring me to comfort or help stir the pleasures of the flesh... Baptiste's long, creamed-coffee body sliding down mine.  My lady's fingers in my hair, encouraging and tender, when she guided me between her thighs and whispered to me.  Then, there was that schoolteacher outside of Tulsa who had invited me to stay with her after I cleared out a nest of twenty-foot rattlers that had sprung up outside of town and started eating heads of sheep... I thought she was so proper and polite, letting me stay in her bed and all, until that night when she'd turned over and planted a kiss on me that set me off like a lightning bolt...<br/><br/>Well, this girl sprung thoughts of that like into my mind.  I could tell that she and Baptiste had been like that.  Somehow it was bothering me less and less at the moment, and I found my eyes wandering back to her slippered feet, where they roamed up her with the unashamed study of one invited.<br/><br/>She was, perhaps, inviting me to look.  Was she showing off, or just... well... being friendly..?<br/><br/>"Flinchum."  I draw a quick sharp breath, snap my gaze to the walls for a moment before meeting her eyes again.  Her confession shocked me, stirred a twinge of shame and embarassment at my selfishness.  "His men--"  I didn't want to repeat it, for doing so might worry the still-stinging wounds.<br/><br/>I swallow and hang my hat on a simple hook by the door.  I draw one hand through my black hair, let it hang there at the base of my neck.  "I'm sorry," I manage to say under my breath, not wanting to insult her but unable to resist showing some sympathy.  "It's not easy."  It's all I can really say, but I think maybe she shares some of the understanding of what I've known.<br/><br/>Wringing my fingers out of the black leather gloves then, I want to ask about her father, but I refrain.  Part of me wants to investigate and learn what other contacts she knows, in case there's more hunting to be done, but I push it aside.  I notice something else though... I'm fairly inclined to notice things, especially in a close up situation like this.  I notice that her body seems to be responding, whether to me or to the memories I can't be sure.<br/><br/>There's a flare of self-conscious shame in me as I realize that I like it.  That it kind of excites me having her here.  Although I don't know her, I don't know that she tells me the truth, and I don't know what she wants from me... in spite of that, she's a flame.  I can't help but feel her heat, want to warm myself by it.<br/><br/>I don't feel entirely myself.  Her beauty, her responsive body, her vulnerability, her history with Baptiste-- I'm sure it's there-- all of it draws me into some dark hole in myself and I feel some core of me open up.  Something deep in my body opens up and responds to her, and suddenly I realize that my heart's faster, my body's tingling.<br/><br/>Fingers numb, I work at the laces on the vest, watching her.  Wanting to quell her vulnerability, to let her expose herself to me more.  Letting it hang open, the shirt beneath unbuttoned to my navel, I'm barely modest as I lean against the bedpost, my ass in the denim pants settling gently onto the brass footboard rails.  "You..."  and my words fail, so I just cross one leg at my thigh and slip the boot off one foot, then reverse my legs and repeat the gesture.  I may not be a rose, but I'm clean, and somehow I feel like matching her openness with a trust of my own.<br/><br/>"You seem stronger for it," I manage, but the words seem hollow.  My chaps fall to the floor as I loose my belt, the denim beneath them darker than the faded, exposed parts of the cloth that still clings to my legs.  The gunbelt goes with them, landing with the resounding of metal and hard leather on the small golden-flowered rug.  Without intending to, I realize, I've held on to my pistol, slid it straight from the holster.  I'm not handling it to weild it, simply wrapping my fingers loosely around the guard and barrel so I don't seperate from it.<br/><br/>"It's nice here."  I sniff lightly, still holding the gun as I stand barefoot, my small feet working the carpet, the softness of it so unlike the grass and moss I love... different and good.  I'm wearing just that open shirt and vest, my pale-gold skin visible to my navel in a long, thin V, the hints of my girlish breasts there in demure shadows.  The jeans ride low on my hips without the belt to support them.  I might look a little odd with the gun still in my hand, but I can't seem to let it go far.<br/><br/>After a moment of this, I take a few steps, circling the bath to set my revolver on the basin-stand-- immediately next to the tub.  It looks like an elegant cannon sitting there.  In doing so, I move so close to Alex that she can feel the heat of my skin.  "It's gonna be just fine, isn't it."