12 Arsen There is something bothering me, a niggling sensation in the back of my mind that just won’t go away. I know it has to do with Fiore. It must. If I’m honest with myself, which I normally am, I spend entirely too much time and energy focused on her when I’m here. It’s kind of sickening, how much easier it is to obsess over her budding sexuality than it is to worry about whatever problems I have back in New Orleans. There is a whole empire waiting for me there, with all the challenges and stress of any growing republic. Here, though? Here, there is only her. It’s much simpler to wonder if I can make her actually enjoy the blend of pleasure mixed with pain that I savor. Or maybe, being as inexperienced as she seems to be, she will just assume that everything I do is normal. That