The Structural Silence *COMPLETE* (Book 1 of The Transition of Pinn)

Truth or something like it (Chapter 17)

Ivy:

Their embrace is passionate. The taller man is griping the blond hair of the smaller broader one and using it to smash their heads together. The man with blond hair's hands roaming, grasping, squeezing. They are making out under the shadow of the stairs. The lovers locked together don't notice me standing a few yards away.

Shit shit shit shit.

I spin around and walk away as fast as I can.

Giddean is gay. He is gay.

I shake my head and almost in a daze I walk past the stairs and around to the building with male statue throwing my trash out in a bin next to it. I walk past that building and into the wide streets around it. I need to get away. Boulevards with white polish stone, lined with trees. Green parks with boys playing tag, laughing the day away. Large sculpted stone buildings, all with the same frosted white stone. Official looking buildings with men conversing before them. All wiz by as I try to put some distance between me and the amorous scene.

Am I hurt? No...no hurt would be too much. Confused? Yes definitely. I am supposed to spend the rest of my life with a gay man. I am supposed to have children with a gay man. I don't think this will work. I don't know how this will work. It won't work.

Now it makes sense to me as to why his mother had to go to such lengths to find a woman for him. Why she is forcing the issue on him instead of him picking out one for himself at the socials. She wants grandchildren and he isn't interested in women.

With that I remember the scene: the roaming hands, the heat, the passion. Giddean almost domination of the smaller man. Yeah he definitely not interested in women. Yet it was... hot. Very hot, my subconscious asserts in my head. I close my eyes it an attempt to suppress the thought. Ugh, I definitely shouldn't be thinking this way...

I sit down on a wooden bench in a park. It's similar to many I have passed on my escape. Large leafy trees with white bark shade the park. It feels nice to get out of the relentless sun that was beginning to feel even hotter as the afternoon wore on. A green moss covers the ground, where grass would be on earth, sprinkled with a short green weed and a few small yellow flowers. Boys play on wooden playground equipment, their laughter echoing on the buildings surrounding the park. Boys that are no doubt the product of somewhat successful relationships between earth women and Pinn men.

Would I have children with Giddean? I had always wanted children, but I'm just not sure anymore. I'm not sure what raising children in Pinn involves.

I feel some sympathy for Giddean. I can now understand why he is so cold to me and so distant. He probably can't bear the thought of being intimate with a woman. At least there won't be a whole lot of forcing me to do anything. Perhaps with time we can come to some sort of arrangement. A deal so that I can get what I want and he can get what he wants.

This is almost a comforting thought. For the first time since I was kidnapped, I have a plan. I will have to talk to Giddean, but I'm positive we can hash out something that is reasonable for both of us.

With that I decide I should wander back to the square before Garth notices that I am missing. He hadn't specified when that would be, but he had commanded that I stay in the market square. Idiot, I am not a baby though and I was just fine walking around the neighborhood.

I stand. I can see the tops of the grand stone buildings that surround the square in the distance and I decide to head off. It's not the same way I came, but I'm not sure I can remember all of the turns I had made and this way looks more direct.

I walk for a little while before I notice that streets are becoming increasingly narrow and the stone of the buildings increasingly muddy in color. There is less greenery- fewer parks and fewer vines are decorating the buildings. In its place is graffiti; crudely drawn sketches of sex acts and words surprisingly often in English. The one on the gray stone wall in front of me reads 'We have betrayed the goddess' in red smudged paint.

The smell of the air has become less sweet. The smell of flowers replaced with the musty smell of old mold with a dash of garbage. I get the impression that some of the walls around me never see the sun which only a few moments ago felt too permeating. Splotches of dark mold feast on the chipped paint in the darkness of the shadows.

I am beginning to grow increasingly uncomfortable. I am really stupid. Couldn't I just find a place to hide out near the market instead of wandering so far? I can only imagine how grumpy Garth will be when I manage to get back. No doubt my stupidly confirms everything he already thinks about women. Ugh, it will be a miracle if Giddean lets me leave the house again.

Not paying attention, I nearly bump into a man passing me carrying various goods stacked in his arms and then I stub my toe in the recovery. Just great. Down another one of the narrow side streets, I see boys playing a game with a ball.

As I wander, nobody has bothered me or approached me, but the narrowness of the streets casts shadows on my path and even though the buildings are only 3 or 4 stories high I can no longer see the towering buildings from the square. I turn down one street and then another. Shit I have no idea where I am going. I am lost.