Ruby didn’t use the butter. Didn’t even look for something to smear over her slice. She used to tell her mother she was selling butter. Instead, she’d lather her own lunch in it and scrape the rest out, covering the taste, the smell of her shared sin in it. She still didn’t like to eat butter when others were watching. It tasted like shame and secrets.

She used to tell herself it was not as great a sin because she didn’t enjoy it. But then she slept with women, and told herself there was no harm in it because no law forbid it; the emphasis was a man laying with another man.

Then she went out of her way to seduce a client’s wife when he went off to check on some colony. The butter had been bitter on her tongue since.

But Ruby was not thinking of butter. Instead she was doing her best to puzzle out … oo-see?

“Yes!” she said, not entirely sure what she was agreeing to. “Bread for Ruby,” she said, and took a bite of hers, stuffing it into one cheek to still talk before swallowing. “Bread for Chéri. Bon appetit!”

When he asked … something, Ruby tilted her head. She put the bread between her teeth, crossed her arms and shivered.

“Brr? Cold? Are you cold?”