The Staunton Set

Zulema - Giving Up

"Then put down the feather and approach me" she suggested, her eyes solidly meeting Kenneth's own watery gaze. Kenneth faltered for a moment, unsure wether this leap was too far into a fate from which he could never return, quite detached from all the grace and manner he had hoped to convey in his preparations for the meeting. She slid her fingers over a knight, as if to throw him off guard, letting Kenneth wonder what possible attack she might launch from this secure vantage point so late into their exchange. A faint humming sound rose and fell somewhere outside in the darkness, while the occasional draft toyed with a clanking venetian blind. Kenneth remembered to breath just as his sultry opponent's fingertips chanced over one of her less conspicuous pawns buried deep among his higher ranks. "What are you saving all these pieces for? I shall relieve you of this castle, I think" she told him, bringing Kenneth's attention back to those members of his own court he had quite forgotten about, seeing now how vulnerable he had left his back row. Suddenly it seemed that the whole game was to be a crashing defeat from this point on, that he was sure to make one mistake after another just so that this infernal shifting of little wooden monstrosities could draw to a close. Of course, she could see as well as any onlooker might, that Kenneth's cautious game against her rash and frivolous manouveurs had left him with the advantage, save for one or two obvious blunders. But Kenneth had played a wearying sequence of avoidance tactics up til now, and he was all out of ideas. He stared for a while at the square now occupied by her remaining pawn, listening to a new rustling that accompanied the hum. "It's your move, Ken" she reminded him.