XI
The last few days were torture for Asenath. She pretended to be happy, but she knew that Zaphenath-paneah could see that it was a fake. She hoped that he might become drunk like the majority of the guests so that she could slip away from him. To her surprise, he did not even touch any of the intoxicating, fermented wine.
A week after the wedding ceremony, when the feast was over, both Zaphenath-paneah and Asenath were exhausted. Yet, there was still much to attend to.
Zaphenath-paneah called to a slave, “Take my wife to her room.” He then addressed Asenath, “Go ahead and rest. You can set up your room to your approval. If you need anything, the whole house is at your command. I must attend to cleaning up our grounds. I will see you tonight, my love.”
Asenath was tempted to spit at him.
That is what you have waited for.
Something in her argued that he was not full of lust like other men.
But, he is a man.
Zaphenath-paneah turned away, and Asenath went into her new house. It was decked with the finery of Egypt. The main hall had intricate sparkling mosaic tiled floors. The columns holding up the roof were covered in crystals, sapphires, and jade. Instead of decorated walls, the walls were hung with tall linen curtains that rippled in the breeze. In the middle was a clear blue pool. Everywhere exotic plants grew in pots. The sight took Asenath’s breath away. It was magnificent… and humongous!
I have to supervise the taking care of this estate! Well, at least it will only be for a month.
The slave led her through a hall to another room. It was overly spacious for a woman’s room, but cozy. The flat bed was the biggest bed that Asenath had ever seen. It had two turquoise padded headrests and soft linen sheets. If extra privacy was wanted, thin deep green curtain could be drawn around the bed. The floor tiles were shined glass tinted gold, and the walls again had strange dark brown hangings on them. There was also a turquoise wedding couch, a golden dressing table, a golden gong, at least seven chests, masterfully woven baskets, and alabaster vases filled with fresh lotus flowers. Oil lamps lit the room.
Asenath turned to the slave, “You must be mistaken. This cannot be my room!”
“Well, it is.”
“This…this…this looks like a master bedroom!”
“That is because it is. The master insisted that you share a room.”
“Share a room?”
This was unheard of in Egyptian culture.
“Does my lord have a harem in this mansion?”
“Yes, but he is using it for other purposes. I must get back to my duties. But, if you need anyone, ring the gong.” He left her alone.
She stood wide eyed inspecting her new room.
Even the Pharaoh’s wife could not hope for a room like this.
In the corner sat her two puny chests.
Those won’t take too long to unpack.
She had just opened the first chest when she heard a knock at the door. “Come in.” The door opened and in walked Oni. On the inside, Asenath was overjoyed.
Finally, a good familiar face.
But on the outside, she was the same stony mistress Oni had always known. Oni smiled in spite of Asenath’s distant attitude. “It is good to see you, my lady. And may I say, congratulations.”
Asenath rolled her eyes. “Enough with the formalities. There is work to be done. Unpack that chest while I unpack this one. Tomorrow, we must see about getting me a ‘modest’ wardrobe and a few other things from the traders and tailors. But before we do anything I have to get out of this outfit.”
She pulled off her waxy, perfumed wig and let her tresses of hair careen down her back like a waterfall. After changing into a simple tunic, Asenath and Oni began to unpack. Asenath noticed as she set up her perfumes and kohl that there was no image of a god in the bedroom. Nor had she seen one in the main hall.
What god does this man serve? Where is the image?
The second most important slave rushed in to interrupt Asenath’s thoughts. He bowed low. “My lady.”
Asenath’s eyes flashed. “What is your name slave?”
“Tehuti.”
“Well, Tehuti, remember this. I supervise this household. I have the most power in this household next to my lord, Zaphenath-paneah. Therefore, you will NOT just run into my room. Knock first and wait to be allowed in!”
The slave blushed. “Yes, my lady. I will not forget.”
“Now what is it?
“A present from the Pharaoh came. He wishes you to put it in your room.”
Asenath waved her hand with disinterest. “Who am I to contradict Pharaoh? Bring it in.”
To Asenath’s surprise, three guards came in lugging a full size harp. They put it by the couch. A note was attached. It said, “Please your husband with this as you once pleased me.”
He remembers! Why did he not pick me if I pleased him so much? The mysteries go on! But, no. I will not play pleasingly, if he demands me to play. If he does not demand, I won’t touch it at all! I refuse to please Zaphenath-paneah with love or music or anything else.
Oni went to find some dates for her mistress.
Asenath was left alone. There were two windows in the room. Asenath moved the curtains from in front of one and opened the shutters. It faced a gorgeous view of the orange trees and palace of Senusret. Slaves milled about cleaning up the tables.
Who is that?
A muscular, athletic man stooped over to pick up the pieces of shattered drinking glasses. He turned his face to talk to a slave.
Zaphenath-paneah! Why is he cleaning up? That is a slave’s job!
Asenath watched in utter shock as Zaphenath-paneah cleaned, spoke with low ranked slaves, and did hard labor, three things that noblemen were NOT to do.
Doesn’t he know proper manners?
But as he served, he did it with such dignity and resolve that no one questioned him. Yet, he had such humility that all the slaves felt like he was one of them.
Well, he WAS a slave. But he had correct etiquette at the party. Who is the man that I have married? I admire him, but he disgusts me. He must be crazy! Or maybe he is saner than anybody else.
#*#*#*#*#*#*#*
Zaphenath-paneah came into the room that evening, worn out and sweaty. He smiled weakly when he saw Asenath with her hair down.
Does he smile with joy or is he making fun of me?
He then took off his wig and headpiece. To Asenath’s surprise, he had a mop of brown hair under his wig.
“These ridiculous wigs!” he groaned. “I will never get used to them.”
A slave appeared in the doorway. Zaphenath-paneah turned. “Ah, Msrah! I suppose that you want to help me prepare for the night. Come then.”
The slave washed the vizier’s face and got him ready for the evening. He dimmed the lights and left.
Asenath had been taught how to be a good wife. She knew that she was supposed to be witty and charming and flirtatious, but she refused. She sat on the bed stiffly.
He came over and put his arms around her. She grabbed his arms to stop him.
“What is it?” he asked.
“My lord,”
“Please don’t call me ‘my lord’ in our room. And don’t call me Zaphenath-paneah either. Call me Joseph.”
“Hoseph?”
“No. Joseph.”
“J…J…oseph. Jhoseph?”
Joseph chuckled. “Close enough. What do you want to tell me?”
“Um, Jhoseph, I won’t do this. I don’t love you. You will find no joy or sweetness here.”
He looked at her, confused and obviously hurt, but not angry.
Asenath breathed a sigh of relief.
At least he doesn’t have hot temper.
He started slowly. “I can understand if you are frightened and not ready for this. I will wait. I only hope that…I can earn your love.”
That won’t happen.
He went to the couch and lay down.
“My l… I mean, J…oseph. Send me to your harem. Don’t sleep on the couch.”
“Nonsense! I don’t have a harem, and you are already settled in. You sleep on the bed. I will sleep on this very comfortable couch.”
“But!”
“No excuses. You are stubborn, but I think that you have met your match.”
“It won’t work! I refuse to love!”
“Ah, but I refuse not to love,” he said with a wink. “Good night.”
Asenath growled and got into bed.
It really is a nice bed. I might just…
The next minute, she was asleep.
#*#*#*#*#*#*#
Asenath woke up in the middle of the night, expecting to see Joseph in bed with her.
What man would not take the opportunity?
But, to her surprise, he still slept on the couch.
Thank goodness, he doesn’t snore. Joseph. Where did he get the name Zaphenath-paneah? Joseph. What an odd name! At least I don’t have to fear that he might force me. He said that he is stubborn, but after a month of me not budging, he will find a new wife. I am sure of it.
Satisfied that her plan would work, she fell back asleep.
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125,020 Literary Works • 672,731 Reviews
Timmy heeeere
One thing I notice as I go along in this novel is that many of my nitpicks take care of themselves in the later chapters. Such as the paragraphing. In the first parts, your paragraphing, well, put bluntly - it stank. Miniscule paragraphs with almost nothing to fill them. Now? Now they're doing much better, you have variation in length, you have a complete thought inside them. They're much healthier than before. Good job.
Now onto the review. That was just a random comment. xD
In this review, I think I will focus on your dialogue and see what I can do to help improve it. As it stands right now, the dialogue itself is mostly fine, but it's everything that connects it all together... those are the weak places. The actions and character taglines that indicate who is speaking and give us a picture of the scene could be improved. Right now, the dialogue sections seem like skeletons yearning for some meat to flesh them out. And many of your paragraphs in the dialogue could be scrunched together, allowing for your dialogue tags to be removed, and everything to become tighter and stronger. Let's take a look at a certain section, so I can show you what I mean.
So many of your paragraphs (so I will still talk about how you can improve them - always can improve good things) have to be ended because of your tendency to use your first person internal dialogue - something that most of the time hurts your writing rather than making it stronger. Such as with this place, the sentence where Joseph (NOW I KNOW WHO HE IS) goes to the couch could have been easily connected to the paragraph before, and added something to his dialogue, but you put the first person internal dialogue directly before, so you had to start a new paragraph. You could have just as easily said" Asenath knew that wouldn't happen. Which then would have allowed you to keep in the same paragraph, and connect the dots.
This is how I would have done the paragraph:
During dialogue sections, it is always easier to split them up and make the paragraphs super short and just having like a talking-head interview-like scene. That is the tendency. While writing them, keep a conscious endeavor in your mind to keep the scene active - keep it visual. Because dialogue scenes can fall into where we only see two heads exchanging conversation - intermixed with he said this, she said that. And while yours is better than some, you can do better. More character action, more emotions spread throughout (and less of the internal dialogue, I think). Basically, just flesh those sections out. Dialogue paragraphs will always be shorter than description and/or action paragraphs, but they need to be longer than what you have here. ^.^
Some parts in this could have been made better by explanation, not necessarily by a more in-detail narration, but by just some little clue in either dialogue or thought which would explain. So, for an example, the part where she can't say Joseph's name. That part confused me because it seemed odd, seeing as though she has said everything with a "J" just fine before. For her to have a difficulty pronouncing that letter now seems quite odd. I am sure you have a good reason for it, so just work with that and make sure you explain why she has difficulty with it. Oh, and thankyouthankyouthankyou for giving us an alternative name to whateveritwasbefore. That name was very hard to pronounce, and I gave up remembering it. xD Joseph is much better (the guy from the Old Testament?).
I enjoyed this chapter more than any of the others, because it, so to speak, opened a door for us to see into Joseph. Before, we knew he was a quiet guy - a bit unlike the other Egyptians. Now we see how much different he truly is. One could call him an entirely different species when compared to the Egyptians. Everything, everything he does is so much different from what she is used to, and how she notices that is amazing. I love how she notices it all, and isn't just surveying it with a "meh. whateveh." kind of sentiment. Putting her emotions into the story is probably your best strength, although there are so many you have, it's hard to pick one out. heehee This is going amazing. <3
~Darth Timmyjake
Hi! Cricket here for a review!
I'm so sorry, to have stopped for so long! Been offline for almost five days, so hope you don't mind.
Well my general comment for this chapter would be that I'm finding that I like this Joseph fellow. I mean, I liked him before and everything, but not as much as I do now.
For one: You showed that he has moral standards, that are above the norm.
For two: You showed that he loved her, and was also willing to respect her wishes in order to win her love.
And for three: You showed that he had will power. Most men that love a certain woman that won't love them back, would either give up, grow extremely angry, or just try and get even. You showed him as doing none of these, but instead you portrayed him as a good solid reliable man. He was somebody that, to be honest, I would be proud to call him my husband. There aren't that many men out there, that from the start of what you can see, has so many good reliable qualities. Very well done. This is their first night together, and you're already setting up a relationship, that although is filled with tension, is also giving off a glint of hope for Joseph.
I seriously don't think her plan is going to work, by the way. Just as she thinks any man won't be able to resist her, I don't think she will be able to resist him after a while. xD
Now one thing that I noticed you seem to use a lot, is adjectives. Now normally I'd say good job for describing something besides the setting or facial expressions, but here I think you have too much description of something so trivial as wine. True it adds something to the story, as she's telling us how she can't understand why he's not touching the wine, and typically that's good sign. Seeing as she saw that, and was surprised by it, I think she must have gotten a little bit of respect from that. Just get rid of some of the adjectives and you'll be good.
Alright, this is where I got really confused. The whole time I'd really been thinking that was just at some random place or at the Pharaoh's palace. I never dreamed that it was Joseph's house. I'd prefer if there was some more clarification about this earlier on in the writing. Even before she leaves to go to get married, it might be nice to do that. Just to get everything well laid out and the setting just right.
This seems to be a bit telling and not showing. It really seems like just a note, that was made and then forgotten to be taken out. Try and show this, rather than tell in the final draft.
Tell us about how the slave is second most important later on. Maybe in some thought process or dialogue.
Space after the ellipsis.
Well seeing as it's their first night together and she's succeeded in ruining it, I'd say you did a good job at that. You've set the playing field, to where we now know that there's going to be a steady amount of drama and possibly some romance later on. xD For now, I think Ansenath will hold her ground for a few chapters, and then bend slightly, and then give in. At least I hope that's what she does. I'd hate to see it otherwise, and if it isn't like that, then I'd better not be disappointed! As it sits, it's doing amazing with keeping the plot moving and the tension and suspense high. Keep it up!
Spoiler
Keep writing!
~Cricket
Here's how I would word this: "The main hall's intricately mosaic tiled floors sparkled as she walked by." Something like that, anyway.
Two things:
-Add a comma after "thin"
-Add an s to the end of "curtain."
You should insert two commas here: one after "stood" and another after "eyed." Also, you might want to put a hyphen in between "wide" and "eyed."
You just need a little comma after "name."
Wow!!! This is so interesting!!!! Joseph.... hmmm.... I am liking this story even more!! And he clearly doesn't worship a god. Does he worship the God? I think you mentioned that this story is in the Bible... So that makes sense! I haven't heard this particular story before, but there are hundreds of stories in the Bible!
And the sleeping arrangement that is un-Egyptian... This also makes sense!
Great chapter! I can't wait to read more! It looks like I'll be caught up before Review Day is over!
Hi, I thought I would review this chapter as well since I have a little free time.
First off, the beginning of this chapter drags a bit. Don't be afraid to start your chapters with dialogue. It moves the story along at a good pace and gives us information without being boring. Dialogue is your friend! If you struggle with writing dialogue I would suggest you read this article by beckiw.
I'm so confused. The party was held at their house, is this correct? And yet in the next paragraph she describes the house as if it is the first time she has seen it. Have they not been there for a whole week? The description of the house needs to come sooner than this if they have the wedding party at their residence. If I am mistaken, then why is Joseph cleaning up the grounds and why is it relevant to the story line?
I agree with wtppowers. Decked is just not the right word for this description. Perhaps, decorated or adorned would work better.
I like this description but I think it could be reworded to flow better. For example:
Instead of walls of stone the walls were formed by tall linen curtains that rippled in the breeze
Why a month? What made your character determine that she only needed a month to destroy her marriage? Can you maybe show us her thought process so we can understand her a bit more?
Why is it relevant that this is the second most important slave? Just have the slave rushing into the room. If his status is truly important then introduce it in at a later time, perhaps in dialogue between Asenath and Joseph.
For me, this statement left me with questions. What does she admire about him? Why does Joseph disgust her? Because she assumes he is like all men? Because he was a slave at one point and now he doesn't behave properly? I feel like you are making her think things simply because it fits in the plot as opposed to having her think things because that is the way she thinks. Does that make sense?
I love this section of dialogue. I like that you have her stumbling over the pronunciation of his name and how he reacts to her attempts.
First off, let me say that I adore Joseph. You've done an excellent job of making him a really nice guy. That being said, be careful that you don't have him slide into the character of "Mary Sue". Mary Sue is an annoyingly cliched character that is perfect in every way. Make sure that Joseph has some flaws so that he is a believable character.
That concludes my review. I hope it was helpful and as always pm me if you need any assistance.
Woah. This was a while ago. I'm sorry that I am just now getting back to you. Thank you so much for your detailed reviews! They are very helpful!
Hello, Aravis! It's Mr. Powers here, with another fun and exciting review!
Let me look past the weird names and take a minute to read this bad boy.
*reads*
Okay, done. Quite an interesting piece. Good enough for anyone to just be able to jump right in, for the most part.
When you're describing Asenath's house, try to change some of the wording. "It was decked" should be changed to... "equipped" or something. I just don't like "decked", unless you're gonna use "decked out".
Oil lamps? Really? When does this story take place?
While reading the harp part... is this Asenath a former prostitute of sorts? "as you once pleased me" doesn't really make her out to be innocent.
Well, Joseph/Zaphenath-paneah sounds like a really sweet, humble guy. And this Asenath character sounds like a rotten brat. But really, Joseph? Is he an immigrant or something? I guess that's what I get for not reading earlier chapters.
I like this. But why is Asenath so terrified on her wedding night? If anything, Joseph should be.
Keep up the writing, Aravis!
I'm sure it would be a little confusing without reading the other chapters. But thanks for taking the time to review!