Read Online Cinnamon by Emily Danby - Free Book Online Page A

can you stay so defenceless to the storm of pleasure? You haven’t yet tested this for yourself, you haven’t felt yourself overflow and the flame die out before you sense that deep inside boiling up. Do you know what crocodiles are like? They have thick, dangling penises and their smell is like death. Have you seen the face of my old crocodile? You’ve seen him? But you haven’t smelt him. That smell, it’s not old age. He’s always smelt like that. Then and now. Do you know what it’s like to lie beneath an old crocodile – a foaming, drooling, panting crocodile? I had to do it all the time... I would be lying beneath his flesh, in this terrifying place where there’s nothing but shadow – between the crocodile’s skin and the sound of his breathing. That was before I discovered my own fingers, growing in the crocodile’s pool, before they led me to climax and I stripped away my lizard’s skin – I was a lizard, used to a man who never cried. Crocodiles don’t cry; their eyes are forever glazed. Do you know, he never cried. Not once. He has that smell of the dead about him – the smell of beings who feed upon your lifeblood and then, at dawn, withdraw in defeat to their beds. His bed covers were made of velvet. Can you believe it? Coffins are lined with velvet. Red velvet. Smooth fabric doesn’t suit the brittleness of death. Why can’t they line coffins with cotton instead? I adore your fingers – look how upright they appear! You don’t know your fingers, and they don’t know you either – but I know them. I adore them and I adore the way your skin feels. I certainly don’t love my crocodile’s scales. Do crocodiles have scales, or are they little needles concealed between the folds of the skin? Will you play with me a little? Look, the water’s warm. It’s... colourless. White, or the colour of the bath tub, white and hot? You’re so beautiful. Your fingers are so long and... When you were little did you ever try to take refuge from your loneliness in your fingers? Nobody ever understood me. I would look to my fingers for shelter, in a house full of gloomy spirits and wide windows, inhabited by everything but life. You’ve never learnt to speak your body’s language – I’ll teach you. You’re still a child; you haven’t yet discovered your secret power source. If you had, you would have grown up faster. Are you going to stay a child for much longer? When will you grow up? Little mute. Are you mute? Do you not know how to speak? That’s the worst thing about you, and the most beautiful thing too. You will be a part of me. No, you can’t be – you’re a being of flesh and your eyes are so sly. Never mind, I’ll make you a part of... well, maybe even... Perhaps you can sit in front of me on the comodino, like a mannequin. You don’t look much like a mannequin. What do you look like? I’m not sure. You’re so delicate and soft and obedient, like a cat. No, you’re not soft – not yet. But you will be.’
    Aliyah was afraid of Hanan. She felt alarmed as Hanan calmly investigated her body. Hanan’s fingers played over the little body, moving them over her eyes like a pianist. She twisted the girl’s hands and looked lustfully at her fingers. The little girl didn’t understand much of what her mistress was saying; she was completely overwhelmed upon finding herself in this magic realm. Aliyah never concentrated much during those long sessions in the bathroom, as she spread oil and foamy soap over her mistress’s body, in accordance with her instructions. The most beguiling thing was the ornate copper tea pot, which boiled continuously, on top of a peculiar basin. Later, she discovered that the pot was heated electrically, keeping the tea warm quietly and consistently. Hanan would steady the pot on a marble ledge next to the bath tub, then