Читать книгу The Palace of Curiosities - - Страница 9

Mama and I thought the knock at the door was the man come for the collars I had sewn; but a stranger’s voice gusted down the passageway to my customary sheltering place in the crook of the door, out of sight of the street.

‘My dear madam, forgive this intrusion,’ said the voice.

I could sense Mama’s eyes creasing at the corners, the marbles of her thoughts clacking together. Who is he? Do I owe him money? The air rippled as he raised his hat; the stitching in his coat creaked as he bowed politely. I heard him say, ‘Is your sister at home?’ And Mama’s surprised, ‘Sister? I have no sister,’ and only then halting, realising it was flattery.

She brought him in, and he bloomed to the very edges of our meagre walls. He was of middling height, but held himself taller; of a middling girth, but bulged himself fatter. He pigeoned out his chin, which was shaved so close I wondered if he hated his own beard and moustaches. He looked at the small table and the sewing laid upon it; the truckle-bed huddled in the corner – everywhere but at me.

Mama stared at his waistcoat, a gaudy affair of vermilion brocade before which I could have warmed my hands. He turned this way and that, the fabric gleaming, complimenting Mama on the tidy industry of the room, the delicate embroidery of the collars, and every sentence held an apology for having so intemperately disturbed the retirement of her afternoon. His hands peeped from the tight cuffs of his shirt, soft as a midwife’s; there was a shine on the seat of his trousers, a stain of sweat creeping around his hat-brim.

Think of him peeled from his linen, his wool, his velvet, whispered Donkey-Skin.

I shushed her, and the noise made him turn, as though he noticed me for the first time. He bowed, very slowly.

‘Dearest miss,’ he breathed.

I dropped my eyes, tried to find a place to conceal my paws, and settled for behind my back.

‘Do not be alarmed, dear miss,’ he said. ‘I mean neither you nor your mother any mischief.’

Don’t be alarmed, sneered Donkey-Skin through her nose. I giggled: she was a very good mimic.

‘Have some manners,’ hissed Mama, and I was quiet.

‘Do not scold her on my account,’ he said. ‘It is fitting for a young lady to be shy in the presence of a stranger. Therefore let me introduce myself, I entreat you.’

He cleared his throat, and puffed himself out some more.

‘I am Josiah Arroner. Amateur Scientist. Gentleman of Letters. Entrepreneur.’

Taxidermist? murmured Donkey-Skin. Careful, girl, or he’ll skin and stuff you before you know it.

Mama was already bustling about him, offering him the sturdier of our little chairs, bleating excuses for the lack of tea, lack of sugar, lack of milk. He took out a sovereign from his pocket with the carelessness of finding a coat-button there and shone its little sun upon the dullness of our room.

‘Ah, the labours of a caring mother. They are never done, are they, madam? Pray do send a boy to bring us tea, and milk, and sugar – plenty of sugar.’ He smiled. ‘And a penny for the lad himself.’

‘Oh no, sir, I could not,’ Mama lied.

‘You are right. How unfeeling of me to expect you to work whilst I rest! No, it is not fitting that you should prepare tea for an unexpected caller. I observed a restaurant on the corner as I came this way. Pray, send the boy there instead, so he may fetch a can of good sweet tea ready-made, a plate of bread and butter and some slices of beef. I declare I am a little hungry and would not eat alone.’

Mama paused for precisely as long as was necessary to indicate her treasured respectability; then raced down the passage and bawled to the woman upstairs for her eldest to run an errand, now. I stared at my lap and counted the seconds before she returned and resumed fussing once more about our guest’s comfort. I was the one hairy as a dog, but I believe she would have rolled on her back and stuck her paws in the air if she had thought it might please him.

I watched him through my eyebrows, simpering at my mother, making little jokes at which she tittered. When the food arrived, Mama left the room to argue about the change and he occupied himself gazing at the tobacco walls, the empty grate, the unlit gas-bracket, the cracked picture of a cow up to its hooves in a puddle, once again avoiding the sight of me. I folded my hands, stroking the fur on my knuckles and wondering why my breathing seemed so excessively noisy this afternoon.

The boy followed Mama into the room, his right cheek glowing with the pinch of her fingers. Mama scurried like a girl-of-all-work, finding a plate here, a cloth for the table there, chasing the lad upstairs for a third chair, because our visitor refused to stay seated whilst one or other of us remained standing. At last the tea was poured, the beef slapped on to a little plate beside the bread, and all of it sitting between us, curling at the edges.

‘Take some,’ Mama urged me, ‘and do not be so ungrateful.’

I took the largest slice of meat, rolled it into a cigar and placed it in my mouth where it collapsed deliciously on my tongue. The more I chewed, the more delectable it became: I could not remember when I had tasted anything so good. We dined in silence, Mama and I endeavouring to eat as slowly as possible. The plate emptied. Mr Arroner cleared his throat once more.

‘Dear ladies, I hope you will forgive such a rude invasion into the peaceful business of your lives.’

He sipped at his tea with feminine delicacy.

Donkey-Skin snorted: Why does he not growl, and toss it down his throat? Why does he not drink it like a man?

I ignored her. He turned to Mama.

‘With your permission, I would present myself as a friend to you, madam. And may I blushingly say it, to your delightful and most remarkable daughter.’

Delightful? said Donkey-Skin, pretending to search the room. Remarkable? Of whom does he speak? You? Ha!

He put down his cup and pressed his hand to his breast. ‘Ah. Dear madam, I can dissemble no longer. I am a simple man and your wits have found me out: I confess it is indeed your daughter with whom I wish to be more closely acquainted.’

Mama’s tea-cup paused partway to her lips. ‘My daughter?’

‘I have heard of her. By reputation.’ He coughed gently. ‘I have also heard of certain cruelties visited upon her person. I declare this has moved me deeply. Ah! To hear of the callous spite of those who neither understand nor appreciate that which is truly gifted, truly different, truly extraordinary! I resolved that I would visit and offer myself as a kind soul possessed of fellow feeling. One who might dare to offer his hand humbly in friendship.’

Mama blinked at this vision. He scraped his chair to face me directly. I raised a lavish eyebrow. Moisture gleamed each side of his nose and upon the thick curtain of his lips.

‘My dearest miss, I entreat you, do not dismiss me as incapacitated with impetuous foolishness. It will be clear to you that I am no longer a young man. However I do declare that it is most distracting to find myself in such an intimate setting with you.’ He took a deep breath and bowed his head. ‘I hope you might forgive such a passionate outburst.’

I picked up the last slice of bread and beef and began to devour it.

‘Ah. I have said too much.’

I looked at him, in agreement for that moment. Mama kicked me under the table, and it wobbled.

Donkey-Skin laughed, and then grew quiet. He’s lying, she whispered.

I know, I thought in return, but discovered that I was blushing. I swallowed my mouthful.

‘Dearest miss, I can see by your bashfulness that it is true. I have spoken too hastily, and have offended your modest nature.’

I wondered if he thought he could read me through my fur.

Perhaps he is not lying, suggested Donkey-Skin.

Mama’s hands trembled; she could not lift the tea-cup to her lips.

‘What a fool I am!’ he continued. ‘Why should you trust me, when you do not know who I am? When I have not shown you my recommendations?’

He reached inside his coat and brought out a folded paper with fine scrollwork at its head, declaring itself sent from the Royal Society of Philanthropic Science. Mama crabbed her eyes at the scramble of fancy letters, taking in the sealing wax and the quality of the ink.

‘Read the whole, madam. The whole, I beg of you. I have noth-ing to conceal. I am a scientist, it is true; but alas, not wealthy. My studies are of the unrecognised kind. There is a fearful prejudice against men such as myself: men possessed of intelligence and skill, but lacking the requisite high birth. It is the greatest scourge and scandal of this society we live in.’

Mama nodded as though she understood what he was talking about.

‘However, there are gentlemen who recognise the talents of a man who does not have Lord So-and-So as his father, nor Lady Blank as his mother. Upon them do I rely, and to them I turn for encouragement and honest employment.’

Mama chewed her lower lip. ‘It is a fine document,’ she pronounced, when enough time had passed that our guest might think she had read it.

I scanned it carefully; it was a fine piece of work, full of phrases praising his tact, extolling his intelligence, his application, his scholarly virtues.

‘You appear before us a paragon,’ I said, when I had read enough to get a taste of the whole.

Donkey-Skin read it over my shoulder. Too princely, she tsked. He is lying after all.

He rocked back, and I hoped the chair would not faint beneath his well-fed shoulders.

‘So do men find me. I would not be so bold as to heap such compliments upon myself.’

He bent forward, bringing his face very close to mine. The chair groaned.

‘My dear miss, I desire most earnestly that you might trust me.’

He smelled of tea and beef and something else, some underlying spice I knew but could not name.

‘In some small way I know what it is to face the hurts of the world. A world which turns aside that which it does not comprehend. I offer you the hand of comradeship, and a fine understanding of the world’s wounds.’

He made one of his deep inhalations and my breath was sucked into his nostrils.

‘I know what it is to gird on a sword and buckler to withstand the onslaughts of society. I know the daily battle – the loneliness of the fight!’

He leaned back then, and I steadied myself from tumbling into his wake. Could he be the prince Donkey-Skin told me about? She wasn’t answering. I glanced at Mama, her tea growing cold in its cup, and saw the famished look written on her: hungry to be rid of me, to walk out of the house without the thought of me warming the shadow of her steps. She seethed with hope, and guilt, and fear; and though he saw less than half of it, I knew he saw enough to wet her, stick his thumb into her innards and spin her like a pot on a wheel.

‘Dear ladies.’ He stood, squeaking back his chair. ‘I have taken up too much of your valuable time. I will leave you now.’

He stood before me, and I dropped my eyes to the floor. His boots gleamed. I thought of his elbow, in and out, in and out, pumping a shine into the leather. He lifted himself on to the balls of his feet, lowered himself, and then rose again. My neck ached from staring at the rug.

‘Madam,’ he coughed. ‘You have a jewel here. A pearl of great price.’

I lifted my head at last, to snort a laugh into his face, but a fire had been lit in his eyes and it quenched all my sharpness. I had a sudden fancy he intended to swallow me up, then and there, thrusting his teeth into the pit of my stomach. I found myself quivering.

‘I have stayed too long. I should not wish to tire you or your esteemed mother any longer with my tiresome chattering.’

Mama jumped up, begging him to stay, but he would go with the most earnest politeness. I stayed seated, and did not speak a word to hold him. Still he paused, holding my eyes with his.

‘I beg your mother’s permission to leave you a small gift. Perhaps you would look upon it kindly after I have gone?’

He did not place it into my hand directly, but laid it on the table.

‘This token is for you,’ he said. ‘Open it later and think of the giver.’

Mama stood behind me and twisted the hair on the back of my neck so that I had to grind my teeth against the pain.

‘Thank you, Mr Arroner, for your kind attention,’ I squeezed out.

‘Dear madam,’ he said to Mama over the crown of my head. ‘I thank you for permitting me to visit you and your enchanting daughter today. Most devoutly I hope you might permit me to call upon you at a future date? If that does not inconvenience you overmuch?’

I felt the tremor of Mama’s frantic nodding. He gripped the brim of his hat and tipped it to me, flapped the tails of his coat like a ringmaster. I looked down straightway.

‘Dear ladies. I will now take my leave, and wish you a pleasant afternoon, and a more pleasant evening.’

His feet crossed the floor; the door opened, he stepped through it, and the door closed.

I hovered my hand in the empty space where he had stood only a few moments before and felt the air that had just now lapped his cheek.

Mama returned. ‘Well, then?’ she whispered.

‘Well what, Mama?’ I yawned.

‘The gift. What has he left you?’

‘I had almost forgot it,’ I lied. ‘I suppose I must see what it is.’

I stood and walked to the table very slowly, for all that Mama would not stop clucking for me to hurry. It was a kidskin pouch, glazed to a top-of-the-milk sheen, the breadth of my palm and containing something square and unforgiving: a piece of slate, perhaps. I lay my hand where his had been and took the pulse of whatever lay within, testing the beat of its tiny heart. I undid the string and ferreted my hand into the smooth dark burrow, soft inside as it was outside.

Donkey-Skin was whispering: Tight as a purse and you are the coin inside. Are you so ready to be spent?

My palm dampened inside the tight grip of the bag. It could almost make me believe I was hairless. I felt him watching me, so close his breath warmed my ear. Slip in your hand, he said. Discover what is within the suppleness of this little pouch. Think of me as you do it; for I am watching the expression in your remarkable face as you draw out the treasure I have given you.

Blood crackled in my veins; my fingers closed around a hard object and I pulled out a looking-glass. It froze at the sight of my face and leapt away from me, clattering against the skirting board.

Mama shrank away. ‘It is a vile thing!’ she cried. ‘What a cruel gift. Throw it away!’

I bent and picked it up. It had not suffered the smallest chip. I looked at it more carefully: it did not jeer ugly, ugly, ugly. Did not wink its broad silver eye and hiss, Who are you to crack me from side to side? How dare you look into a glass? Leave mirror-gazing to pretty girls with plump pink cheeks.

Instead, it shimmered with admiration at my hair: how it waterfalled down each side of my nose! See the curls twirling on each temple! It admired my beard: oh, the softness! Those honeyed lights shining like a twist of caramel sugar!

Who gave you that? asked Donkey-Skin, peering over my shoulder. She picked at a lump of mud in her hair.

I smiled. ‘No one important.’

She laughed, and her teeth rattled in my ears. The Cat-Faced Girl has got a beau! At last, at last, Beast has got a Beau. Let Heaven rejoice! Ma can be shot of you.

I had to smile. She was my friend. ‘I think it’s time for you to go,’ I said, not taking my eyes off the mirror.

When I was a child, I had Donkey-Skin for my friend, a thing sewn from raw-headed scraps of dreams and rag-tag stories, knitted out of all the words my mother could not say, from the grandmothers I never met, the fag-ends of fathers who never stayed long enough for me to know their names. Now I was a woman. It was time to put away childish things.

Me? Go? she hissed. Now? Not likely. You need me more than ever.

That night, as I lay in the bed beside Mama, I was glad that it was warm; it meant that she curled away on to the far side of the mattress, and I desired greatly to be alone. I stretched out on my back, listening to her mutter herself to sleep, about how hot I was to lie next to, why did I heat the bed so, it was impossible to sleep with such a hearthrug next to her, and over and over, ungrateful child, thoughtless and uncaring, to forget all the years I have protected her from mirrors, until the words drifted into deep breathing.

I allowed my thoughts to creep out and fill the room: thoughts so thrilling and wicked I was sure they would wake her. I imagined Mr Arroner coming back into the room, standing at the foot of this very bed. He shucked off his clothing, piece by piece, and I watched him the while, my excitement growing. Then all at once he sprang: leapt on to me, pressing his face deep into my belly and biting me fiercely, teeth sharp as knives, but not fiercely enough to satisfy; not fiercely enough to tear my hide. I wanted him to rip me open, and my voice begged him, Harder. Bite me, my love, harder. Harder.

In the morning Mama sighed and held her aching places, as though the holding might make them sting the less. I feigned sleepiness, which was not difficult, because I had had so little in the night. She called me lazy.

‘Do you wish the world to wait upon you?’

She was angry. I did not care. I was courted. I offered to rub her feet.

‘I am not helpless yet,’ she grumbled.

‘I will have him,’ I said to her and tried to make it sound like submission and not greed. ‘If you will allow it.’

I tipped my head to one side, playing the shy maid at the thought of marriage, a ring on my finger, a handful of hurled rice. A wedding night.

‘You’ll leave me,’ she said. ‘Then what will I become?’

I had stopped listening. I dreamed of a priest with a swim of lace around his throat, four white horses pulling my carriage, hymns sung, bells rung, a fat cushion of orange-blossom in my arms; breakfast after, with beer for the men, tea for the ladies. I pictured myself swathed in a sumptuous gown of the latest organdie, primped with tulle so fine as to be almost invisible, a veil of tambour lace floating around my head.

Donkey-Skin leaned on her elbow, yawning at my fancies.

‘Are you not excited?’ I gasped.

Lace tears easily, she said, digging in her ears with a long fingernail. And you can never get the stains out of organdie. I’d rather have a sturdy pair of boots and a five-pound note tucked inside them.

‘You don’t have a breath of romance in the whole of you,’ I sulked.

Good thing too, she said, drily.

‘Won’t you be happy for me?’

There was no answer.

‘Glad to see the dirty back of you!’ I shouted into the emptiness. I would not let her spoil my day.

Mama begged and borrowed plates and saucers from every room in the house, so that my wedding feast was served on a higgledy-piggledy mismatch of crockery and all of it chipped and cracked. I barely noticed. I believe Mama could have poured tea from a leather bucket and I would not have cared.

All morning she was a fury of bread-buttering, slicing it so thin you could have hung it at the window and seen through to the houses opposite. There were three vast pots of tea, a whole cup of sugar. She kept muttering ‘Friday for losses’ until I had to tell her to keep her empty-headed superstitions to herself. I was gaining a husband.

I stood at the window, pulling on my gloves only to draw them off when my paws grew too hot, which was very quickly. I kissed the soft lilac leather, for surely he had touched it when he picked them out for my trousseau. There was no extravagant gauzy bridal gown, but he had bought me a pleasing and practical costume: a going-away dress in dark lavender, a pretty hat and new boots made for me alone. It was very kind of him.

I paced up and down so that I would not sit creases into my new skirt, screwing my head first to one side and then the other so that I could keep my eye on the street. It had to be the most long-drawn-out morning in the history of the world. Surely the moments had never ticked by so slowly.

‘Mama, I think the priest is late.’

‘Eve, sit down. You are making me dizzy with all this to-ing and fro-ing.’

‘I cannot be still.’

‘It is unladylike to bustle about, and in such a nice dress. You will become overheated.’

She could not bring herself to say the word ‘sweaty’, but it was true: my fur was clinging to the inside of my blouse.

‘Mama, do not fuss.’

‘Do you want to faint away? That’d be a fine business, if the priest asks you to say “I do” and I have to fan you awake with a hymn sheet.’

At last the wedding party arrived, to a fanfare of much rapping at the outer door. I fought to stand still while Mama went to greet them. Mr Arroner was first through the door, greeting my mother with loud declarations of apology for his lateness. He burst into our room and bowed deeply, heaping me with tender compliments and presenting me with a small posy of violets to match the dress. He was followed by a priest and two plainly dressed strangers who stared at me and my not-quite-yet husband back and forth until I thought their heads might grind their necks down to their shoulders.

There was no Order of Service, no hymn sheet, no hymns of any kind; only the briefest of prayers and I do not remember a word of them. The only words worth treasuring were the ones which dropped from his lips when he said he would have me as his wife.

‘Do you take this woman?’ said the minister, too hastily for my liking.

‘Indeed I do.’

They were the sweetest sounds I had ever heard, so delightful I half expected doves to fly out of his hat. He could have stood before me in sack-cloth for that vow clothed him more royally than any king. Then the minister blinked at me.

‘Do you take this man?’ he said, unable to keep a curl of distaste from his lips.

‘I do,’ I said, boldly.

Holy eyes flickered between my husband and myself.

‘Yes, she can speak for herself,’ said my new man, and I squeezed his arm for the champion he was.

I went to throw my arms around his neck, but his eyebrows climbed so far up his forehead I thought they might drop off. Mama also shot me a look, and I tempered my behaviour. We would be alone soon enough: I could wait for marital embraces a little while longer. I dropped my head and made a courageous attempt to behave decorously, as befitting a bride. I clenched and unclenched my fingers around the spray of flowers so often that I quite strangled them.

My mother did not cry. We signed our names and my man gave a coin to the witnesses: they were quick to leave and I did not see them again. It was not a grand ceremony, but it was good enough. I had the greatest prize, a husband who had already taken up a shield in my defence against the world. I loosened the word ‘girl’ from my shoulders and dropped it at the side of the front door.

Mr Arroner took me then into my new home, our new home: a palace with high ceilings and five steps leading up from the pavement to the door and a pink-and-white maid who bobbed her head and called me ‘mum’.

‘You will want to prepare for bed, Mrs Arroner,’ he said as soon as we were through the door. ‘As shall I. I shall be in my dressing-room.’

‘Yes, Mr Arroner,’ I said, delighting in the words.

He was mine. I followed him up the stairs; he showed me into the bedroom and left me there. My head swam with the notion that he had an entire room in which to dress and undress, for it was thrilling enough that there was a room set aside for sleeping. Of course, not only for sleeping: there were the other things husbands did with wives in their bedrooms.

I flushed beneath my fur and began to undo the buttons at my cuffs, but discovered those running down the back of my blouse were out of reach. Mama had fastened me into my clothes that morning, which seemed a very long while ago. I was not sure what to do next. I looked around the room: a small fireplace, a jug and basin on the chest of drawers, the window shutters closed tight, a cheval-glass leaning into the corner.

He did not return. I did not know what mysteries husbands engaged in to prepare themselves for their wedding nights, and the room into which he had retired was very quiet. I thought of how he had looked earlier that day, not yet my husband, and I not yet his wife: his polished hat, new stiff collar, bright waistcoat and gloves so fresh they were not yet rubbed from holding the head of his cane. I had tried diligently to be as nervous as a virgin should be, but I could not stop my eyes from wandering over his body, even when Mama pinched me.

Still he did not come. There was no clock ticking, but it was my opinion that enough time had passed for him to remove his clothing. Perhaps he was smoking a cigar; perhaps he thought me so timid that he wished to give me time to compose myself. But I was not composed: I was sitting with my cuffs open and no other preparations made. I tried once more to reach the buttons laddering down my back but failed. It was easier at home: my clothes were simpler and I had Mama to help me. I slapped away the ungrateful thought. I was wearing the beautiful clothes he had picked out with his own hand. They were just troublesome to get out of.

Then it came to me: perhaps he did not want me undressed at all. He wanted to do it himself. I was deeply stimulated at the thought of him standing behind me, unlooping each pearl button from the nape of my neck down to the dip where spine flares to hip, pressing his palms on to my unclothed shoulders, weaving his fingers into my hair and pulling me towards him for our first wedded embrace. My pelt prickled, imagining itself ruffled up under his hands. These imaginings were no longer sinful, for I was a married woman and such thoughts were permitted.

My stays were very tight. I hoped he might come soon, for I needed loosening and a tickle of sweat was stirring between my breasts. I wondered if he was shaving himself; I thought how grand it would be to say to him, Now you are my husband, I wish you to grow a beard. I itched for him to open the door.

My delicious dream returned, that he had chosen me because he was hairy too, just like Donkey-Skin said he would be, but he shaved and kept it secret. Now he had me, he would no longer need to do so for I would throw away his razor, tie up his wrists with his handkerchief and feed him soup as I waited for him to sprout the bristles hidden in the gift-wrapping of his skin. Days would pass, and he would sigh, Oh, untie me, do. Set me free, my love, but not angrily, and each day with less conviction.

I imagined his hair set free from the confines of his clothing: wandering up and down his breast from navel to neck, spreading its paw-prints over his shoulders and down his back to the sweet damp crease of his buttocks. He would be my faun, my Pan, the Lord of my Woods, and I would be his maenad for he was the strange prince Donkey-Skin had told me to look out for. He must be.

The handle of the door turned; my heart leapt. I looked into my lap, I looked at the bedspread, at the ewer, the bowl, the wallpaper, the window-shutters. At last I looked at my husband. The dark rug between us seemed the width of a continent. He smiled.

‘My dear wife!’ he said. ‘Dear little wife!’

He crossed the space in three strides. He was dressed in a smoking jacket which reached past his knees, his oiled-down hair catching the light from the candle. His chin was smooth.

‘Dear little wife!’ he said again. ‘Or should I call you Mrs Arroner?’

‘Wife is a very good word.’

‘Is it not? A capital word! To me you are wife; to the world you are Mrs Josiah Arroner. What status! What gravitas!’

‘Yes, my dear.’

I thought it a little overwrought, but tonight I could allow him any of his fancies.

‘Come now, Mrs Arroner.’

He took my hand and patted it; I lifted my golden wrist to his chin and he pecked at it with dry lips.

‘My name is Eve, dearest.’

‘It is indeed. The sweetest of names to my heart from the day I met you.’

He leaned forward and pressed his mouth to the velvet of my forehead. A deep thrill swept from that spot down to my inmost parts until I was running over with richness, churning instantly from milk to cream.

‘Oh, Josiah,’ I breathed, and snatched at his coat, pulling him towards me.

The weight of his breath warmed the crook of my neck, perfumed with coffee and tobacco. I wrapped my arms around him and we rocked backwards and forwards. I rubbed myself against him, purring. Unsheathed my claws and dug them into his back, chewing on his neck.

He shoved me hard; my eyes sprang open to find him breathing in short bursts, his collar awry where I had torn it. He staggered to the mirror where he examined the spreading wine-stain of my mouth on his throat, and began to tie his cravat very high, to cover the dark spot. I watched the way his fingers slipped the silk over and about until he was satisfied with his handiwork, devouring his every gesture. However, I was confused, for I would be proud to have his mark on me – would parade our passion without shame. Then I understood: he did not want to share our secret. I giggled.