Chapter 265
"Just a deviant thought—not reality. Keep yourself under control, Theo."
His head moved slowly from side to side, a shake that spoke more of inner exhaustion than of refusal.
His right hand lifted, no longer to touch or clean, but to cover half of his face.
That palm pressed firmly against his temple and right eyelid, as if trying to shut down an image that had already burned itself into his retina.
Behind the darkness he created for himself, an internal mantra repeated again and again in his mind, words meant to calm the storm and rationalize everything that had happened.
This is just an illusion, he whispered to himself, a clever and insidious mirage born of hot steam, fatigue, and long-suppressed bodily thirst.
That all the burning sensations, all the temptations crawling beneath his skin, were not truth, but subtle traps designed specifically to ensnare a man's primitive instincts.
He tried to convince himself that Aldraya standing before him, with all her deadly simplicity and ignorance, was nothing more than a projection of his own desire.
That the wet fabric clinging and revealing the lines of her body, the empty stare that felt more intimate than passion itself, and even those innocent sighs of satisfaction, were all part of a trial scenario conjured by his own exhausted mind.
The cramped bathroom space transformed into a psychological stage, where every element—from water droplets trailing along the curve of her neck to the humming silence—was polished by his hungry imagination into a perfectly seductive composition.
By closing his eyes and shaking his head, Theo tried to rebuild the dividing wall between reality and fantasy, between moral obligation and surging desire.
"Before we continue, allow me to ask something rather personal, Aldraya.
Throughout your countless cycles of reincarnation, have you ever experienced menstruation?Formally speaking, a menstrual period?"
Across from him, behind the thickening curtain of steam, Aldraya could respond to that unspoken confusion only with a small, spontaneous motion.
Her head tilted slightly, a wordless question etched into the gentle angle of her jaw and neck.
The movement was innocent and natural, like a bird reacting to an unfamiliar sound, yet it did nothing to disturb the flat surface of her expression.
Her face remained a frozen lake in the height of summer—no ripples, no waves—reflecting Theo's unrest without fully revealing it.
In that silent confusion, she became a paradoxical statue of purity, as though all worldly concepts—panic, shame, even deep curiosity—had been washed clean from her through infinite cycles of time.
Witnessing that unreadable demeanor, something strange shifted within Theo.
The shock that had earlier gripped his face slowly melted away, replaced by a heavy, deliberate calm.
He drew a deep breath, the long, trembling exhale clearly audible amid the constant trickle of water.
The warm, humid air filled his lungs, as if he were gathering not only oxygen, but the courage to pose a question that crossed the boundaries of their usual exchanges—a question that plunged straight into the paradox at the core of Aldraya's existence.
That breath was a dramatic pause before firing a verbal bullet, an attempt to pierce that wall of untouchability with the most basic, most worldly weapon of biological knowledge.
And then the question came, slicing through steam and silence with unexpected sharpness.
Theo's voice, though still wrapped in lingering tremor, sounded clear and direct.
He asked—almost clinically in this tension-heavy atmosphere—about a biological cycle that marked mortality and organic life.
Menstruation.
He invoked her countless reincarnations, cycles not even classified by transcendental ranking systems—Berkeley cardinals included—only to then ask about the most grounded, most finite bodily experience, one that sharply distinguishes the living from the dead.
This was no longer about bathing or touch.
It was a metaphysical inquiry wrapped in the language of flesh and blood, an attempt to find a meeting point between the eternal and the temporary, between a spirit that may have traversed all ages and the body now standing drenched before him.
"No. I have only just learned of that concept from your mouth."
Fuaaahhh!
"Is the shock you experienced earlier related to one of the parts of my body right now?"
The answer came not through elaborate explanation, but through the simplest motion.
Aldraya's head moved slowly, shaking gently yet firmly—a silent denial more effective than a thousand words.
From behind her expression, still flat like the surface of a windless lake, radiated a fundamental ignorance.
The concept Theo had mentioned was foreign to her, as alien as the names of stars in galaxies she had never explored.
She stated, in the same innocent, emotionless tone, that this was the first time those syllables had ever formed meaning for her through Theo's voice.
The words "menstruation" or "period" had no place in her vast archive of knowledge, which nonetheless contained a very specific, very earthly gap.
Yet ignorance was not where it ended.
A subtle change appeared in her clear eyes.
Their emptiness suddenly focused, sharpening into a deep point of concentration.
She accessed something far greater than ordinary memory or learning—an Authority, a direct channel to an ocean of knowledge that might encompass the laws of the universe down to the heartbeat of an ant.
In the vibrating silence that followed, the search occurred in an instant, yet with intense density.
And when understanding arrived—when biological data about monthly cycles, uterine lining breakdown, and reproductive function was absorbed into her awareness—for the first time since they had entered the room, an unfamiliar expression appeared on Aldraya's face.
Her smooth brow creased, forming faint lines of confusion and, perhaps, a distinctly human kind of wonder.
That crease was a small revolution upon her face, a fracture in the ice plain that had long remained untouched, proving that there were concepts in this world capable of stirring even an apparently eternal consciousness.
That confusing new understanding immediately led to a logical connection.
Aldraya's now faintly furrowed eyes shifted from her inward focus and looked directly at Theo.
The confusion she had just experienced manifested in her next question, delivered in a flat tone but carrying a deeper core of curiosity.
She asked, directly and without preamble, about the causal link between the biological concept she had just learned and Theo's intense reaction moments earlier.
Was the shock, the panic, and the sudden withdrawal related to a particular part of her body right now?
"Yes. What I'm trying to say is… it seems you're currently menstruating."
Ssssssh!
"But this is highly unusual. Because the fluid coming from your body closely resembles ordinary male semen.
It's thick, sticky, and elastic. The difference is—it has no odor at all."
Theo stood like a statue carved from confusion and disbelief.
Only a brief blink broke his fixed stare at his left palm.
To be continued…