I'd thought I'd hated it, but I'd loved
it. Loved the people and their dialogue and their clothes and their
mysterious errands and the shops full of goods and every shopper hunting
for something for someone, every one of them part of a story that I
would never be part of, but I could be *next to* the stories and that
was enough.
I was going to live in an attic again.
I started to cry.
He came to me. he put his arms around me. He nuzzled my throat and
licked up the tears as they slid past my chin. "Shhh," he said. "Shhh."
He took off my jacket and my sweater, peeled down my jeans and my
panties, and ran his fingertips over me, stroking me until I quietened.
He touched me reverently still, his breath hot on my skin. No one had
ever touched me like that. He said, "I can fix you."
I said, "No one can fix me."
He said, "I can, but you'll have to be brave."
I nodded slowly. I could do brave. He led me by the hand into the
bathroom and he took a towel down off of the hook on the back of the
door and folded it into a long strip. He handed it to me. "Bite down on
this," he said, and helped me stand in the tub and face into the corner,
to count the grid of tiles and the greenish mildew in the grout.
"Hold still and bite down," he said, and I heard the door close behind
me. Reverent fingertips on my wing, unfolding it, holding it away from
my body.
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