Arc d'X (Steve Erickson) читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги

7

IT WAS, ACTUALLY, the soothing coolness between her legs that awakened her. When she opened her eyes and saw him, she lurched. Then she didn’t move.

Her hands were untied, the blue ribbon back on the post where it had hung. Blood still streaked the bed. Beside the bed, he knelt on the floor. He held in his hands the cold rags she’d brought for his head the previous afternoon. Sitting on the bed beside her naked body was the peach-colored porcelain bowl. He touched the rags to Sally’s thighs and wiped the blood from her, rinsing and squeezing the rags and putting them to the new wound between her legs, holding them there for a long time. He went on applying the damp rags until finally she stopped shuddering.

When she heard him bury his face into the rags between her legs and sob, she went back to sleep.