Amorette's Offenses

What is Owed

What is Owed

Everyone staying in this place – a clinic, Amorette learned it was called – were fed different things depending on their needs, and at different times as necessary. Most of them received three meals a day – which was already incredible to Amorette's mind. How did they eat so much?

That was nothing, however, compared to Amorette's feeding schedule. She was fed no less than six times a day, including one midnight meal that she was woken to enjoy. All of it was purely liquid soup and in much smaller portions than her neighbors.

Free food was free food, however, and she didn't complain, eagerly eating all of it. The first time someone caught her licking the bowl, they gave her a weird look. The uppers had so much extra food, they didn't need to do such a thing. In order to fit in and not draw attention to herself, Amorette resisted the urge to do it again.

Her liquid soup was soon supplemented with potatoes that had been boiled and mashed and mixed with spices. Spices! Amorette had never enjoyed spices before. She hadn't been aware that food could taste so good. Like the blue sky, it almost brought her to tears.

By her second day, she was being taken out of her bed by random people who would ask her to do a variety of pointless tasks. Walking. Stretching. Some very light lifting. They said that they needed to help get her strength and appetite back up.

They didn't know about her true strength.

Amorette had always been ridiculously strong in comparison to the people around her. She could lift another person with one arm and throw them with ease. While being trapped and starved had left her weakened, her strength built back incredibly quickly.

It was another secret that she kept to herself. After how those other women had reacted to her strength when she met them subplate, she didn't want to draw attention to her abilities while she was hiding amongst the uppers. She simply lifted what she was told and walked as directed and tried not to make it look as easy as it was. She must not have been a good actress, however, because everyone just kept saying how impressed they were with the speed of her recovery.

After three days of being kept in the clinic, Amorette had become used to her strange schedule. She had been allowed to have very small pieces of meat and vegetables in her soup, finally giving her something to chew. She was bathed every day, not always dunked in the tub, but at least scrubbed down, until she could do it herself. Her medicines were eventually taken out of her diet, for which she was unspeakably grateful.

It was instead replaced with regular tea. And usually a different blend, a different flavor, each day, depending on what they had decided to make for their enjoyment. The assault of flavors was overwhelming and Amorette found herself quickly falling in love with tea. She told herself that it was a bad decision and that tea wasn't available subplate.

But the servants that took care of her quickly realized her love for the drink and were only too happy to foster it with bright smiles. Every tea came with the offer of cream and sugar and, when her preference for sweets became clear, they got used to adding them without even asking.

Cupid usually came to visit her once a day. It usually wasn't a long visit. Often, it was a quick exchange of words as he met with her and the other patients. Amorette didn't mind. Since she had expected him to demand her body as was his right after claiming her, the distance he kept between them was as surprising as it was welcoming.

Maybe he was waiting until she was healthier. That would be nice of him. He was an attractive man and quite kind. She didn't think she would mind laying with him. After all the work her father went through to make sure she never needed to make that deal, she felt a bit guilty about her rather flippant attitude towards it happening.