Letting Off Steam

[Oriena]

“Sure.”

Ori smirked, though it was an expression mostly to herself. If Mia wasn’t going to at least make the conversation interesting, then Ori had no real desire to fill the silence with inanities just to be polite. The answer smelled of bullshit. None of it was Ori’s business of course, and neither did she have much inclination to make it so. Not for secrets anyway. But maybe to expose some pain.

She leaned a little closer. “I let a guy fuck me, because I liked him and I liked the moment. It was a shit lay, actually, except that he was very keen to please. I passed out. When I woke up he was gone, and he’d left payment, like I was some kind of cheap fucking whore.” She gave a short, bitter laugh. It cut deeper than it should have done, but then it was a wound the ijiraq had been pressing on since their possession of her. Ori’s use was transactional; she was easily reduced to worthlessness.

She tilted the vodka glass, still mostly full. “That’s my excuse, sweetheart, and I’m not the one down one and onto the second already.” It wasn’t from kindness she spoke; Ori wasn’t a confessional, and neither was she confessing. It was pure goad. A smirk twisted her lips as she took a slip and placed her glass back down. “I’ve seen that kind of look before. Pure rage. Nothing human. It’s not something pretty squatting in your head.”