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Stories from the Verse
In Verse Proportion
Chapter 48: Kondor 188
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Brown 210
As Kondor was beginning to awaken, through a thin euphoria he felt a warm, soft weight pressed against his side and resting on his arm and chest. He turned his head slightly and opened his eyes, to see a familiar set of green-flecked light brown eyes gazing at him.
He ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth, hoping to negate any halitosis from the night, then spoke. “Good morning, Missus Kondor.”
The smiling young face answered, “Good morning, my lord.”
He scrunched his face for a moment.
“I’m sure that’s all very proper, but let’s find something else for you to call me. I’m not your master; I’m your husband.”
With the raising of her left eyebrow, she asked, “Well, what would you like me to call you?”
He hadn’t really thought about that.
“Well,” he finally said, “people call me a lot of things--Captain, Doctor, Kondor, Joseph. In one world they called me Jo-Suede Candor.” She giggled at that. “I don’t usually argue, as long as I know they mean me and it’s not intentionally insulting. But why don’t we try ‘Joe’, and see how that fits, and I’ll call you,” and he realized that the one-syllable nickname that came to mind would raise Zeke’s eyebrows, so he more hesitantly said, “‘Leah’.”
“Joe,” she said. “I just wanted to say, about last night--”
“Are you alright?” he asked.
“Oh. Well, a bit sore, I think. But I wanted to say, it was wonderful.”
He smiled. At least he did all right his first time. “Are you glad you married me?”
She smiled teasingly. “Well,” she said, stretching the word, then, “yes, of course, very much so.”
They gazed at each other for at least another minute or so before Kondor spoke again.
“I see daylight. Did you want to go down for breakfast?”
“Oh! Oh. Well, we could,” she answered. “Or we could stay here in the bed a bit longer and go down for dinner this afternoon instead.”
He smiled. “I think I like the sound of that,” and he rolled up on his side and gave her yet another of those kisses.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with twenty other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #440: Changing Worlds. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
