Coldness deep inside

Why should he have to forget? Is it not natural to fall in love? Something humans have been doing since human copulation was even possible?

“No,” Raymond told himself. “I cannot be in love. It is against all the rules. It's against everything I believe in. It would not be respected. I need to be cleansed.” He repeated these things to himself over and again.

“Jueqel is not worth it. He doesn't even like the Yogan. How can I think he would reciprocate friendship, let alone love?” He stopped himself from digging the emotion deeper. Even thinking about the possibility made it that much harder to stop.

Raymond looked inside himself and dove into his psyche. He reached for the emotional thread that was causing him so much trouble, and tracked it to it source. He set to work on repairing the damage. Rewiring his mind, emotions, and even altering his own memory, not changing the facts, but changing the perspective. He didn't want to have to deal with this again, and it would also make it easier in the cleaning process.

It took some time before he accomplished the task, but he was sure he had the emotional baggage wrapped in a nice little package for easy retrieval.

He opened his eyes. Nita was staring down at him, “everything fixed?” She said this with artful warmth. Unusual for her, he didn't like it.

“Packaged up,” Raymond snapped.

“We'll see,” she snapped back.

“When do we leave?”

“In thirteen minutes,” she answered.

“Just in time then,” he admonished.

“Indeed,” she said coldly.

That was more like it. Nita was cold. That's who she was to the core. He needed to be cold like she was, always in control. With these new emotions packaged away for the House to remove, he felt much closer to the coldness that dwelt deep inside him.