She did not know the words for forgiving. She didn’t know if it was true, but she knew she couldn’t live here with him with all this awful hurt and unhappiness between them. When she finished her blackberries, she ate a few mushrooms. When she was done with that, she started in on the bread. Halfway through that, he also began to eat.
They finished the meal in silence and Olivia stood up.
He flinched back, as though expecting her to strike at him, but she just moved past him and took a candle to the washroom. She washed her hands, her face, the blood-scabbed marks he had left on her flesh, and dabbed again at the aching bruise of her vagina just for the gratification of the cool, damp rag on that place of pain.
He was still crouched by her alcove, looking at his hands, when she returned to the pit room. She contemplated the black outline of his body, backlit by the dying embers and tried to feel something for him that she could live with for the rest of her life. At last she went to him and touched his back between his great, spreading wings.
He glanced at her and she stepped around him to touch his arm, tug him gently towards the pit. He resisted minutely, then gave in with a sigh and followed her to the pit. She faced him, holding his gaze, trying to tell him with her eyes alone that she didn’t understand, but she could cope, and that was all right. Slowly, deliberately, she removed her shirt and stood naked.
They looked at each other in the firelight.
Olivia lay down and turned on her side. She heard him remove his loincloth, felt the bedding shift as he lay awkwardly beside her. She looked at her watch, counted out thirteen minutes before his hand brushed lightly over the claw marks on her hip.
She lay her hand over his, sighed, and placed his arm around her waist.
He pulled her slowly back against him and draped his wing around her.
He owned her. She was his. It wasn’t horror anymore.
It was despair.
5
How long did it take to come back from that to some semblance of normalcy? For days, Olivia stayed in the pit and indulged her sore muscles and self-pity. Her captor brought some thick, white paste wrapped in leather to daub onto the worst of her wounds and they healed up okay. The mental hurts took longer, but what were her options? She couldn’t be just be afraid all the time, not of the only other person she ever saw.
So she lived with him. She came naked to his bed at the end of the day, not easily or happily, but she went there. They were back to that first night in both their minds, to that same nervous, untrusting truce. They lay beside each other without speaking, without touching, and the days somehow passed.
Somehow.
And one day, lying there pretending to be asleep while he got up and quietly left her, she decided things had to change and it had to be her that did it. She made her way stiffly into the washroom, voided for an eternity, washed her face and upper body, wet her towel in the cold running water and pressed it to her sex, thinking of ways to try to bring the two of them back together. When she took the towel away, there were dark stains upon it.
Her first baffled thought was that she must have missed some gash and gotten it infected, an idea that in these circumstances surely meant a horrible, horrible death. Already breathing hard, biting back panic, she probed inside herself and inspected the blood that coated her finger.
It took another thirty seconds for the meaning of this to sink in.
“Oh ugh, now what?” she muttered and glared around the small washroom as though a box of tampons would appear by magic. Of course, it didn’t. She had always been a private person when it came to the unmentionable workings of her body; she had thought nothing could be worse than begging for a place to pee, but now she was going to have to have her damn period right out in the open.
She stood there in the middle of
They finished the meal in silence and Olivia stood up.
He flinched back, as though expecting her to strike at him, but she just moved past him and took a candle to the washroom. She washed her hands, her face, the blood-scabbed marks he had left on her flesh, and dabbed again at the aching bruise of her vagina just for the gratification of the cool, damp rag on that place of pain.
He was still crouched by her alcove, looking at his hands, when she returned to the pit room. She contemplated the black outline of his body, backlit by the dying embers and tried to feel something for him that she could live with for the rest of her life. At last she went to him and touched his back between his great, spreading wings.
He glanced at her and she stepped around him to touch his arm, tug him gently towards the pit. He resisted minutely, then gave in with a sigh and followed her to the pit. She faced him, holding his gaze, trying to tell him with her eyes alone that she didn’t understand, but she could cope, and that was all right. Slowly, deliberately, she removed her shirt and stood naked.
They looked at each other in the firelight.
Olivia lay down and turned on her side. She heard him remove his loincloth, felt the bedding shift as he lay awkwardly beside her. She looked at her watch, counted out thirteen minutes before his hand brushed lightly over the claw marks on her hip.
She lay her hand over his, sighed, and placed his arm around her waist.
He pulled her slowly back against him and draped his wing around her.
He owned her. She was his. It wasn’t horror anymore.
It was despair.
5
How long did it take to come back from that to some semblance of normalcy? For days, Olivia stayed in the pit and indulged her sore muscles and self-pity. Her captor brought some thick, white paste wrapped in leather to daub onto the worst of her wounds and they healed up okay. The mental hurts took longer, but what were her options? She couldn’t be just be afraid all the time, not of the only other person she ever saw.
So she lived with him. She came naked to his bed at the end of the day, not easily or happily, but she went there. They were back to that first night in both their minds, to that same nervous, untrusting truce. They lay beside each other without speaking, without touching, and the days somehow passed.
Somehow.
And one day, lying there pretending to be asleep while he got up and quietly left her, she decided things had to change and it had to be her that did it. She made her way stiffly into the washroom, voided for an eternity, washed her face and upper body, wet her towel in the cold running water and pressed it to her sex, thinking of ways to try to bring the two of them back together. When she took the towel away, there were dark stains upon it.
Her first baffled thought was that she must have missed some gash and gotten it infected, an idea that in these circumstances surely meant a horrible, horrible death. Already breathing hard, biting back panic, she probed inside herself and inspected the blood that coated her finger.
It took another thirty seconds for the meaning of this to sink in.
“Oh ugh, now what?” she muttered and glared around the small washroom as though a box of tampons would appear by magic. Of course, it didn’t. She had always been a private person when it came to the unmentionable workings of her body; she had thought nothing could be worse than begging for a place to pee, but now she was going to have to have her damn period right out in the open.
She stood there in the middle of
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