07-20-2018, 05:37 PM
bent unto sin, and only unto sin; and that continually. Men are easy, she’s learned. It’s a lesson she’s learned time and time again. They were not so easy, once (once - when she was alive and Herd sent her to that man, that beast who left her bruised and pregnant, that beast who was sorry, in the end, when she took her revenge, when her lips stained red in his blood). That, though – that was a very long time ago. She’s changed – god, she’s changed – and now she knows what to do, how to move. Now, she’s half-mad (she was always half-mad, truly, but she revels in it now, she does not scrabble for normality). He touches her, and she feels so little as his warm lips trail over her skin. Still, she fakes a shiver, as if charged, as if this is something more than whim. “An honor,” she coos back, a hair short of mimicry, “I never thought myself worthy of much honor.” She touches him. He is warm. She imagines she can feel the beat of his pulse. It’s a rhythm she knows well, the mechanics of the living. She’s taken enough of them apart to know. “What’s your story, Arithmetic?” she asks. It’s a vague question. She doesn’t care. She is more interested in the imaginary pulse, the flutter of heartbeat she imagines she can make out. The mechanisms of his body. how original a sin. |