@crowntipped, for rita
“I cannot let you stay,” she says, “If you do not join our work. The girls will see it, and question. And I cannot be questioned, Rita.” And she cannot be suspected of this... This dalliance, either. All the women here have no knowledge of her predilections. She must keep it that way, else lose their trust, and she must stamp out any notion that she plays favorites amongst them, that she would keep Rita here like a housepet, and never send her out into the world to further their cause. She strains to hide it, but cannot fully disguise the edge of pleading in her voice: “Do you understand me?”













