The Monster's Wife(67)

58


Something sank inside Eve, a beast giving into a riptide. The door opened slowly. The grey-eyed man stood, hands in pockets. His face was cut into squares with knives of moon. Eve clenched her hand, pushing the penknife back inside her gauze windings. The tip bit into her and she prayed that it wouldn’t bleed much. She must distract him before the bright red blooming on the bandage gave her secret away.

“Do you have something hidden in your pockets?” She moved her face in what she hoped was a coy smile.

He stepped forward, forcing her back. “I was nearly ready to lay my head down when I had an idea.” He laughed, closed the door behind him and turned the key.

“You mean the mouse?”

Shaking his head, he walked over to the machine and drew from his pocket a pointed piece of metal. With great delicacy, he fitted it into a screw in the middle of the spine. He turned the tool round a few times. There was a crack like breaking bones. He took hold of the device and pulled sharply. The two halves came apart, a single copper wire the only thing that held it together. He picked up his pincers and with a small snip the thing was broken.

“In order to make something work properly… sometimes you have to take it apart.” He was still hunched over the thing, squinting, the tool poised as if the cogs might whir into motion without him willing it. But it was just scrap. He turned to her. “Now, off with your gown.”

She looked at the tools still clenched in his hands, then past him at the tangle of wires. His eyes followed hers and he laid down the pincers, smiling. “I’m only going to examine you, Eve. It won’t hurt.”

She thought of how strong she was, how he couldn’t keep pace with her now, of the way her heart galloped. She thought of the knife sticking in her fingertips, how easily it sliced. She looked at the shuttered window and wished she could see outside. But she couldn’t imagine it and she was afraid of the world outside.

Gulping back the sour taste in her throat, she lifted the hem of the loose white gown and pulled it up. Here and there, it caught on her bandaged body and when she got it around her head, the rough cloth jammed on her elbows. Her clumsy hands tugged and twisted, palms sweaty. She was a fish in a net until the man’s hands untangled the knot and soothed her.

When he’d laid the gown aside, he knelt in front of her and took her foot onto his lap. He unpicked a pin from the gauze around her toes and stuck it between his lips. The furthest edge of her cocoon unfurled in his hand. Gathering more pins in his mouth, he slowly unwrapped her, moving along her foot and upwards, revealing her ankle and calf. Every inch of the pale skin was new to her and she watched him with an excited flutter.

When his hands climbed to her thigh, she knew why she’d been afraid – there the skin puckered like lips bound in silence. It was coarsely stitched. She closed her eyes. She was afraid to breathe as his hands freed her hips and waist, paused at her breasts. He was standing now and she could feel the warmth of his steady breaths when he unpinned her wrist and unravelled the last of the gauze. She opened her eyes. He was so close to her, his eyes strangely blurred as if he’d just woken. He wetted his lips.

“I must check the rest. Keep still.”

His hand skidded up her thigh. His touch was rough between her legs. His eyes met hers, the gaze intent and the curve of his lips cruel. He jabbed his fingers inside her. It burned. She felt something break, heard something snap, like the back of the metal beast. For a long time, his hand moved against her, breath quick, brow slick with sweat. After a while, his hand dropped from her. He stood and drew out a handkerchief and wiped the blood from his fingers.





59


Between her legs, the thing he’d done to her felt raw. Gingerly, she parted her thighs and peered down at the coil of coppery hair between them. Her eyes were drawn to black stitches running between fair, freckled skin and a darker area. The grain of her skin changed at the seam, downy hairs becoming long, fine ones that gleamed gold. She was a stocking darned with the wrong wool. Dark blood mottled the patchwork. She brushed her fingers over it, feeling their tenderness now they were free from the gauze. The blood had dried. Four bruises ripened on the top of each thigh. She fitted her hands over them, felt the rest – the puckered flesh between her breasts, the lurid skin puffed up between black stitches. A scream was building inside her, but she hardly dared breathe.

In a moment he’d return. Meantime, the door was locked again and she was a prisoner still. With a sigh, she rose and went to the table to look at the roll of red cloth he had left on the table for her. In the light of the taper that burned from the wall, Eve spread out the softly shining cloth and found the slippers nestled inside the dress. Something else fell out - a string of dark gems like drops of blood.

She emptied the shoes and jewels onto the table, ruched up the sides of the dress and slipped it over her head, relishing the fabric’s cool slither. Smoothing the gown against her breasts and hips and turning in the candlelight, she saw how it shaped itself to her body. But the slippers pinched. Her feet were rough and broad and she had to squeeze them and pat them as if she was shoeing a horse.

When she’d dressed, she looked at the other thing the man had left - a square thing that gleamed. It made her think of the sea at night when the moon is on it, a pool of silver light. It drew her to it as the moon draws the tides, her heavy limbs inching towards the light.