Saint James Infirmary #1282: “Trust and Will”

Just as an aside... I think we were in Mallory's bedroom in 1279 when Adrian, while speaking with Laurel on Mallory's phone, told the completely naked Mallory to get Marliese. However Mallory went about acheiving that task, it seemed to necessitate leaving the room at least. When she re-appeared with Marliese in 1280, she was still naked, apart now from a pair of high heels. Marliese, on the other hand, was appropriately dressed for the outdoors. I'm going to assume that Mallory used a landline, or emailed, or something. But I like the idea that she went out and fetched Marliese, and her only concession to the cold winter evening was to put on the heels.

Anyway, it's only to be expected if Marliese's breasts are about to start expanding here. But... panel four is interesting (and at the very least a really good bit of work). And it does have me wondering if something else is going on.

I've noticed Adrian has been a bit touchy-feely in the last few pages as he's been feeding encouraging words to Dani. It looks as though Marliese's discomfort occurs when he tries the same thing on her here. It could simply be that Adrian's touch reminds her of her enslavement to him, or arouses her for some other reason, and that somehow hastens the expected breast growth. (And yes, I did use the word 'simply' there.)

But for some reason we're shown that moment reflected in Mallory's glasses as she looks on in apparent concern, or alarm, or perhaps even sadness. And in the final panel we have Mallory's heels in the foreground as Marliese is about to remove her jacket (with Adrian suddenly nowhere to be seen).

Who knows? Maybe Mallory is feeling the urge to be dominant with Marliese. That might fit with the tooltip text. Even though I don't understand it, it feels to me as though she had to put those heels on just for the final panel here.

I can think of all kinds of reasons why the last two panels might focus on Mallory like this, and many of those are not incompatible with Marliese's breasts being about to inflate. But as I said, it did make me wonder if something else is going to happen. And, hey, maybe that was the only intention. But either way, I like it.