#eoswom

Mokuba watches Yugi while he sits backwards in her little chair, hands atop the back and chin resting on those. He's fascinated, observing her hold up different dresses in front of herself in the mirror. The blue? The red? "If you don't like either of those, why don't you just go shopping?"

"It's not a matter of not liking them, Mokuba. Besides, I can't buy a whole new outfit for every event."

He tilts his head to the side. "Why not?"

"Well," she hangs them both up on the armoire door and sits at her vanity once more. "It isn't thrift-"

"You get an allowance, don't you?"

"I like to send as much of that home as I can, but more importantly, one shouldn't become spoiled about these things. Moderation is the soul of virtue."

"Hm." He rolls his head on his neck and makes some passing attempt at studying, but he's never very interested in the book. "Doesn't make sense to me. Why marry a rich family if you don't spend the money?"

Yugi's fingers tangle on her lap. "I wish you wouldn't say things like that."

"Why not?"

"I just wish you wouldn't. Anyway," she puts away the jewelry she'd gotten out for comparison and joins him at her writing table. "There's certainly no point in thinking of shopping for anything, until I know if your brother will be available to accept the invitation."

"You can't go to a dance by yourself?"

"It's different when you're married," she waves at him, sighing over the beautiful, engraved invitation. "This isn't a public dance, it's a private party. It would be awkward to go by myself."

"I don't understand," Mokuba shakes his head. "What does Seto have to do with that? Weren't you invited to private parties before you were married?"

"Well, yes-" She gives a flustered huff. "Alright, tell me about a dance you've been to, and I'll explain what's different."

"I haven't been to a dance."

Yugi almost falls out of her chair. "What- never?" Mokuba shakes his head. "Well, I know you're a little young, but- never?"

"Never. I don't even really know how to dance."

"Oh goodness." Without waiting for further instruction, Yugi gets up, flips on the radio, and holds her hands out to him. "Alright. Come here."

Mokuba stares at her, face going pink. "I-I can't dance with you! What if I step on your feet?"

"Better mine than some girl you fancy. Up you get, Mokuba Kaiba." As if he suddenly has two left feet, Mokuba is reluctant and awkward getting up from his chair. His face is burning red, and he can barely seem to look at Yugi as he takes her hands. "Not quite, your right hand should be on my back, like this." Steam is about pouring out of his ears as she adjusts him. "Now, we won't do any formal steps, but after that, you just sort of bounce along to the rhythm." She begins to bounce slightly, smiling at him. "Just loosen up a little, that's it. Now when your right foot goes forward, my left will go back, and so on."

He has a very difficult time of it, and he does trod a little on her feet, always with hasty murmurs of apology. "It's fine. Try not to act so scared to death." The back and forth motion is getting easier, so she starts to turn them in a circle. "And then you just go around the room this way, and you'd get through just fine."

"B-but I wouldn't know what to do with a girl in my arms for an entire song!"

Yugi snorts. "You'll figure it out, believe me - by which I mean, it's the perfect opportunity to have a conversation, just between yourselves."

"Is that what you and Seto do when you dance? You talk?"

It's Yugi's turn to go a bit pink. "Some, yes."

"What els-"

The door between Yugi's room and that of her husband is thrown open. She stops, still in the brother's arms, a jaunty tune playing along on the radio. "Seto-" He actually came home tonight - and he looks like a storm cloud in a tweed jacket.

He does not acknowledge her. "Out, Mokuba."

"Seto, Yugi was teaching me how to da-"

"I said out." The young man looks hurt, letting Yugi go with a parting glance - before scurrying out her door to his own room down the hall. Seto locks it behind him. "Well, this is a pretty little picture I interrupted."

"I was teaching Mokuba to dance," she continues where he left off, fingers knitting together without anything else to do.

"I'll bet, and a few other things, too."

Yugi's brow furrows. "Such as what?"

"'Such as what,' don't play innocent little girl games with me, Yugi." He's ripped off his jacket and thrown it onto her bed with its white-and-pink coverlet. "What kinds of games do men and women play alone in a bedroom!"

"Given that Mokuba is a boy, and not a man, I would imagine that would eliminate those games as choices."

Seto only snorts. "Fifteen is old enough for plenty of people."

She hates this. She sits here all day, aching to see him, hoping he'll say they'll go to this dance, and it's his arms she'll be in - and then he comes home, and makes everything so horrible- "I think you'd better leave, Seto." Yugi turns toward her vanity. "I don't like talking to you like this, so I think we had better just go to bed."

She only just gets warning of his movement from her mirror, that fuming face suddenly behind her and his fingers digging into her arms. "It's a capitol idea, my wife - at least the bed part."

Yugi can only give half a scream as she's lifted up and almost slammed onto her bed. Seto is yanking his tie loose. "Seto! Stop it, what are you doing!"

"My matrimonial duties." He's so incensed, he's gotten his shirt off without undoing the cuffs. Yugi yells again when he grabs her by the ankle and drags her down the bed, his mouth crashing over hers. Seto swallows the sound and ravages her mouth, turning any noise to confused whimpers, leaving her breathless. He looks like he wants to say something else, some angry thing, but he can't, or can't decide what, so he only fumes as he strips off her dress.

"I don't like you like this," Yugi tries to wriggle away, but not very hard.

"You don't like me at all." He is plodding kisses up her neck, across her collar, hands spreading over every inch of skin he uncovers. "So what else is new?"

But that isn't true, not at all - it's him that's decided he doesn't like her, with his late nights in the office, the cold responses to her attempts at closeness. If she asks to spend time with him, she's needy and clingy and demanding; if she gives up and tries to keep busy by making friendships or improving his brother's cold life one iota, she's some kind of...of slattern, or-

"Yugi." He sounds breathless, feverish, as he pulls off her various stays and ties. Seto himself is only in shirtsleeves, but he's unfastened his trousers. He seems anxious to see her bare, but in too much of a hurry to undress himself. "He's a boy. Whatever you think someone younger could give you, he can't, I'll show you. It takes a man to truly, deeply satisfy a woman." He suddenly is kissing her there, and Yugi just about lifts off the bed. When his tongue isn't making tight circles around her clit, he pulls back, panting. "I make it good, don't I? Does anyone else?"

"Seto-" Her fingers are in his hair, tears at the corner of her eyes, shaking her head. "I-I wouldn't know- there isn't anyone else-"

"Yes..." He sounds desperate, fingers replacing his mouth and slipping within her. "Yes, because she wants to be a good wife. No one else gets to taste or to touch, do they?"

"Mm!" She shakes her head, biting her lower lip.

"You want me, don't you, Yugi, my sweet little girl?"

Her hands grip the sheets as if she might lift from the earth without them there to ground her. "Yes!" Her voice is sobbing.

There's a sound of parting fabric, his belt dropping to the floor- and suddenly Seto is above her and within her and all around her. His arms wrap her, and his mouth plods hungry kisses at her neck as he takes her - over and over and over again-

And she doesn't want it to stop, not now, not ever. Horrible as he is in these moments, she'd rather have her husband like this - than never at all.