I don't know. Disconnected, somehow. Unraveled." What makes you say that?" Lots of things." She sighed. "We've been through a lot. But we broke up, an... then we got back together, and almost immediately after that, you got beat up. Then, we barely get through that, and I decide I want to experiment with my sexuality--and I feel guilty about it, so I talk you into having a couple of flings." She sighed again. "It just seems so crazy." Honey, we got through it. We did." Yeah, but what do we have. They seized his assets, too, of course. I still think that this was a light sentence, though, given his crimes against us. Oh, and that, I think, was why the legislature passed that cap on the number of concubines one could keep on one’s property, for fear that more would be treated so horribly, due to this incident.“Anyway, while I haven’t changed my views on most things, it did sour me on the whole concubine-sponsor arrangement. It had me convinced that all sponsors were cruel masters and all. And, now I had a decision to make and I made it. It had taken me three days. I made the call. We’d be meeting at the Blue Boar.The woman of the house ushered her in to the library. Blake was seated and waiting, nervously waiting.“Bea,” he said raising from his seat to greet her. He motioned her to have a seat. Ava was already taking hers; he retook his. A moment of quiet reigned.“I proposed to him,” said Bea.“Huh?” said Ava. Bea snickered.“Yes, exactly,” she said. “He’s thinking things over.. Some of them were extremely persistent and rather blatant in their offers. He thought he never wanted to see an accidentally revealed breast again.Martha’s friends’ reaction was different; they shunned her, as though losing a parent might be a transmissible disease. Only a couple of the boys still wanted to date her, but they also assumed that with her mother gone, her knickers would come off much more easily than before. She had no time for them at all; she had given up all idea of.