Arc d'X

9

THE NEXT TIME HE came to her she was awake. She heard the door open and let herself go limp in his hands. He took the blue ribbon from the post and tied her wrists. But instead of taking her from behind, he knelt on the floor by the bed as he’d done when he washed her with the cold rags. On the ceiling above her was the riot of light through the window, a blazing crescent-moon in the black. When she had almost lost herself in it, she was shocked by the feeling of something she’d never imagined. It was several seconds before she realized it was his mouth she felt on the small red hinge of her thighs. It didn’t hurt at all. It didn’t hurt in the least. She lay transfixed by it, not daring to look down at his hair the color of fire brushing against her in the dark. She felt his tongue slip inside her. Her inner mutilation hummed to it; the shudder she felt from it was unlike the one in which his first depravity left her. The crescent-moon grew on the ceiling above her. As he continued with her the furor of the streets outside retreated to the low hum of her inner passage. The next shudder took her by surprise as did the one after, and when she felt herself plummeting into the blaze of the crescent-moon, when she felt herself grab the fire of his hair and pull him to her, she knew, with rage, that her violation was total: when she came she knew, with fury, that this was the ultimate rape, the way he’d made her give herself not just to his pleasure but to her own. Then he turned her over and plunged himself into her. But it was too late. If he’d intended to make his own possession of her complete, she had also, if for only a moment, felt what it was like not to be a slave.