Lion Head Mesa after while, crocodile

lust! it sounds like the name for some wicked spell. less kind and sweet than passion. do you think that… one such as Khusobek could inspire lust, in the fellahin? she asked not for herself now. she worried what sort of game might be played here, if any.
but she realizes too her mind has run away with her. the stories she has been told by travelers, and their plots, interwoven with elements of her life. but it need not be so. but it was only that… she did not want her fellahin ruled by it. answering to this lust he evoked, over their own wisdom. 
and over her! but it was a silly, fantastical thought. still, it felt important to ask, to say—to think aloud to feel how the theory resonated in the heart of Eset, of Tuna, the two she trusted most. 
while she had only a suspicion Eset might have lay with him from the jewel, there was no judgment there… and anyway, perhaps it only was a gift for her diligent work. Toula sighed. I am overthinking. all this thought of passion has me… confused, she admits now with a laugh. I have thought much on our conversation. and now I find myself thinking of each of my suitors, perhaps even when I should not be,