Chapter 31 Unbearable
The next morning, Malachi met with Steve for a few minutes. He wanted to make sure Tamar and he could explore the facilities without having to worry about how they would be treated. He didn't want anyone being hurt if they tried to give them any trouble.
"He told me that everyone here's been told about us. No one's going to give us a hard time. That is, as long as we don't go into anyone's personal space, their private rooms and stuff like that." Malachi told her when he got back.
"I wouldn't want to go into anyone else's room. Why would I want to go there?" She asked as she pulled her mass of black hair together in her left fist and tried to wrangle it with a hair elastic.
"Grrrrr!" she growled. "I can't get this thing to work. Where did these women get these things? They're all too small?" She complained a second after she got it wrapped, then her hair bounded free, splitting the small elastic like a piece of flax.
"I always like your hair down." Malachi said from the side of the room.
"Easy for you to say," she looked over at him, hair nearly obscuring her vision. "I have to keep this stuff out of my eyes. But I haven't found anything I can tie it back with."
"Maybe if you washed it, it would be more manageable." Malachi told her without thinking.
"With water on my head." Tamar stared into the mirror without blinking. "That's not going to happen."
"Sorry, I forgot about that." Malachi walked over to stand behind her. "What if I washed your hair? Would that make it any easier?"
"As long as that suit comes off along with the bargain, then sure." She spun around, her hair forgotten.
"Hey, I was just going to help you with your hair." Malachi raised both hands as if to ward off an attack.
"Yeah, sure you were." Tamar smiled up at him. "But that still doesn't help my current situation, does it?" She flung both hands through her hair, which cascaded down over her and Malachi's head, trapping both in a dome of black.
Taking a deep breath, both of Malachi's red eyes shut to just slits. Tamar knew what that meant, so she waited, holding her breath. Malachi took a step backwards and placed a hand on her chest. Tamar watched in fascination as a red glow connect both of their bodies. He then stepped back, placed both of his hands flat together, and gradually drew them apart. In between them, a tiny black strand appeared. The strain on his face told Tamar all she needed to know, so she just stood by and watched.
At last, he was finished. A glistening black cord was held in his hands. Hands he stretched towards her.
"Here, I hope this'll work." Tamar took it in her trembling hands, not knowing just what it was.
The instant she touched it, an electric thrill went through her.
"What is it?" She asked when she was able to speak.
"It's a part of this suit. It won't break, and you don't have to worry about losing it. When a piece of this suit is separated from the whole, it will always find its way back, unless it is forcibly severed."
"Wow, you did this for me. I could have just found some string. That's what I always used before."
"I wanted to give you something, and besides, it can adjust to fit whatever amount of hair you choose to put up, and no matter how thin it gets, it will not break." Tamar looked at it as if it were made of gold. To her, it might as well have been.
"Here." Malachi motioned for her to give it back to him, and she gave it back to him.
Spinning her around, he gathered all her hair into one of his hands. With all of it in his hand, he could barely make a fist to hold it. Taking the black cord, she wrapped it around three times, then let go. The cord held all the hair, even moving up and down a little so that it made a straight length of her hair about three feet long.
Turing to look in the mirror, Tamar saw the fit and squealed.
"It's perfect! I could never get anything to work like this thing." She spun in a circle, a jet black cascade trailing her.
"There, now we can go." She grabbed Malachi's hand and headed for the door.
"What do you want to see first?" Malachi asked as they continued into the hall outside their room.
"What is there? Not all of us have a map in their heads."
"It's not in my head, it's in my suit. There's a big difference."
"Whatever. So what is there to see down here?"
"There's a huge cavern that was used to store all the company's mining equipment. They brought it all down here and when they moved out, they left it. It's like a huge jungle gym in there."
"Lets go there first!" Tamar began to prance around Malachi like a cat with a mouse it had just caught.
He watched her for several moments, wondering about the change in her. She was a young woman, not some beast they'd tried to make her into, but a young woman who wanted to have fun and explore a world that had been kept from her her entire life.
When she grabbed his hand and began to drag him forward, he let her. She was having fun, and Malachi was more than willing to go along for the ride. After several minutes of dragging him around in circles, she stopped, turned to Malachi, and asked.
"Where exactly is this place we're going?"
"Oh, I was wondering when you were going to ask."
"So where is it?"
"Are you asking me to lead, or are you asking me to show you where it is?"
"I'll lead. You just tell me how to get there."
"Then that's not leading, is it?"
"Works for me." Tamar puffed out her chest and started back down the corridor.
"Oh no, you don't." Malachi growled, ran forward and snagged her around the chest, picked her up and threw her over his shoulder.
Her screech echoed off the walls. She beat on Malachi's back, bit on his back, even sank her fangs in the shoulder. Tamar flailed with everything she had until she slumped over his back, beaten.
"Okay, you win." Malachi continued as if she'd said nothing.
"You can put me down now." she grumbled.
"There, we're here." He slipped her off his shoulder to the floor and walked through a small opening in the wall.
"Hey, where are you going?" She asked, following Malachi through the slender doorway.
"This is where we were going." He swept his arm outward, showing her the first row of equipment.
"Then why didn't you let me get us here?" Tamar stopped moving, refusing to let him change the subject.
"Because you didn't know where you were going." Malachi took a step towards her. "And getting directions from someone, then taking credit for getting them, there is no leading. It's taking credit that you don't deserve."
"You are impossible sometimes, you know that, right?" She almost shouted back.
"I know, aren't I."
How could this, this man, intrigue her so much one second, yet make her want to scratch his eye balls out the next? Tamar glowered at him, she really hated him some times.
Because he will not be controlled by you or anyone else. He draws you like a moth to his flame. That tiny voice in her head had been getting stronger for a while now, and it always told her what she didn't want to hear. Tamar fumed. Why was she drawn to a man that was everything she was brought up to despise? She shrugged to herself. She had no way of controlling what her heart wanted, and the more time she spent with him, she was beginning to come to the conclusion that the people who had taught her had been horribly mistaken.
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