She hid from him most of that day sitting with her knees drawn up on a patch of peach-colored silk near the hole at the center of the colony’s floor, immersed in the bustle and gabble of the Feelys as they promenaded in their decaying finery. Though for the most part they were absorbed in their own pursuits, some sensed her mood and gathered around her, touching her, making the whimpering noises that among them passed for expressions of tenderness. Their pasty doglike faces ringed her, uniformly sad, and as if sadness were contagious, she started to cry. At first her tears seemed the product of her inability to cope with love, and then it seemed she was crying over the poor thing of her life, the haplessness of her days inside the body of the dragon; but she came to feel that her sadness was one with Griaule’s, that this feeling of gloom and entrapment reflected his essential mood, and that thought stopped her tears. She’d never considered the dragon an object deserving of sympathy, and she did not now consider him such; but perceiving him imprisoned in a web of ancient magic, and the Chinese puzzle of lesser magics and imprisonments that derived from that original event, she felt foolish for having cried. Everything, she realized, even the happiest of occurrences, might be a cause for tears if you failed to see it in terms of the world that you inhabited; however, if you managed to achieve a balanced perspective, you saw that although sadness could result from every human action, that you had to seize the opportunities for effective action which came your way and not question them, no matter how unrealistic or futile they might appear. Just as Griaule had done by finding a way to utilize his power while immobilized. She laughed to think of herself emulating Griaule even in this abstract fashion, and several of the Feelys standing beside her echoed her laughter. One of the males, an old man with tufts of gray hair poking up from his pallid skull, shuffled near, picking at a loose button on his stiff, begrimed coat of silver-embroidered satin.
‘Cat’rine mus’ be easy sweetly, now?’ he said. ‘No mo’ bad t’ing?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘No more bad thing.’
On the other side of the hole a pile of naked Feelys were writhing together in the clumsiness of foreplay, men trying to penetrate men, getting angry, slapping one another, then lapsing into giggles when they found a woman and figured out the proper procedure. Once this would have disgusted her, but no more. Judged by the attitudes of a place not their own, perhaps the Feelys were disgusting; but this was their place, and Catherine’s place as well, and accepting that at last, she stood and walked toward the nearest basket. The old man hustled after her, fingering his lapels in a parody of self-importance, and, as if he were the functionary of her mood, he announced to everyone they encountered, ‘No mo’ bad t’ing, no mo’ bad t’ing.’
Riding up in the basket was like passing in front of a hundred tiny stages upon which scenes from the same play were being performed – pale figures slumped on silks, playing with gold and bejeweled baubles – and gazing around her, ignoring the stink, the dilapidation, she felt she was looking out upon an exotic kingdom. Always before she had been impressed by its size and grotesqueness; but now she was struck by its richness, and she wondered whether the Feelys’ style of dress was inadvertent or if Griaule’s subtlety extended to the point of clothing this human refuse in the rags of dead courtiers and kings. She felt exhilarated, joyful; but as the basket lurched near the level on which her rooms were located, she became nervous. It had been so long since she had been with a man, and she was worried that she might not be suited to him . . . then she recalled that she’d been prone to these worries even in the days when she had been with a new man every week.
She lashed the basket to a peg, stepped out onto the walkway outside her rooms, took a deep breath and pushed through the curtains, pulled them shut behind her. John was asleep, the furs pulled up to his chest. In the fading half-light, his face – dirtied by a few days’ growth of beard – looked sweetly mysterious and rapt, like the face of saint at meditation, and she thought it might be best to let him sleep; but that, she realized, was a signal of her nervousness, not of compassion. The only thing to do was to get it over with, to pass through nervousness as quickly as possible and learn what there was to learn. She stripped off her trousers, her shirt, and stood for a second above him, feeling giddy, frail, as if she’d stripped off much more than a few ounces of fabric. Then she eased in beneath the furs, pressing the length of her body to his. He stirred but didn’t wake, and this delighted her; she liked the idea of having him in her clutches, of coming to him in the middle of a dream, and she shivered with the apprehension of gleeful, childish power. He tossed, turned onto his side to face her, still asleep, and she pressed closer, marveling at how ready she was, how open to him. He muttered something, and as she nestled against him, he grew hard, his erection pinned between their bellies. Cautiously, she lifted her right knee atop his hip, guided him between her legs and moved her hips back and forth, rubbing against him, slowly, slowly, teasing herself with little bursts of pleasure. His eyelids twitched, blinked open, and he stared at her, his eyes looking black and wet, his skin stained a murky gold in the dimness. ‘Catherine,’ he said, and she gave a soft laugh, because her name seemed a power the way he had spoken it. His fingers hooked into the plump meat of her hips as he pushed and prodded at her, trying to find the right angle. Her head fell back, her eyes closed, concentrating on the feeling that centered her dizziness and heat, and then he was inside her, going deep with a single thrust, beginning to make love to her, and she said, ‘Wait, wait,’ holding him immobile, afraid for an instant, feeling too much, a black wave of sensation building, threatening to wash her away.
‘What’s wrong?’ he whispered. ‘Do you want . . .’
‘Just wait . . . just for a bit.’ She rested her forehead against his, trembling, amazed by the difference that he made in her body; one moment she felt buoyant, as if their connection had freed her from the restraints of gravity, and the next moment – whenever he shifted or eased fractionally deeper – she would feel as if all his weight were pouring inside her and she was sinking into the cool silks.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Mmm.’ She opened her eyes, saw his face inches away and was surprised that he didn’t appear unfamiliar.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘I was just thinking.’
‘About what?’
‘I was wondering who you were, and when I looked at you, it was as if I already knew.’ She traced the line of his upper lip with her forefinger. ‘Who are you?’
‘I thought you knew already.’
‘Maybe . . . but I don’t know anything specific. Just that you were a professor.’
‘You want to know specifics?’
‘Yes.’
‘I was an unruly child,’ he said. ‘I refused to eat onion soup, I never washed behind my ears.’
His grasp tightened on her hips, and he thrust inside her, a few slow, delicious movements, kissing her mouth, her eyes.
‘When I was a boy,’ he said, quickening his rhythm, breathing hard between the words, ‘I’d go swimming every morning. Off the rocks at Ayler’s Point . . . it was beautiful. Cerulean water, palms. Chickens and pigs foraging. On the beach.’
‘Oh, God!’ she said, locking her leg behind his thigh, her eyelids fluttering down.
‘My first girlfriend was named Penny . . . she was twelve. Redheaded. I was a year younger. I loved her because she had freckles. I used to believe . . . freckles were . . . a sign of something. I wasn’t sure what. But I love you more than her.’