Soft rustling movements reminded him reality
continued beyond his closed eyes. He opened them, his
human brown eyes a colour match for hers.
She reached for the broad hairbrush and he
abandoned his roost to take it from her hand. He lifted her
hair, raising it behind her like a bridal veil and conducting
rhythmical strokes, andante, from root to tip. He sank his
nose into the dark, waist-length hair as the silver-backed
brush cleared the wavy ends and they curled and
contracted behind the bristles.
Her eyelids descended and her breathing lulled
him… elsewhere. His gums ached as he challenged the
descent of his canines.
“Continue, please.” The touch of her hand startled
his attention back into her bedchamber.
“You see me, although I instructed you not to.”
He studied his bloodied, triplicate face in the mirror.
“Evidently.” She leaned forward and picking up a
folded embroidered handkerchief, passed it to him over
her shoulder.
“How is it possible?” He rubbed at the savage
evidence of his recent meal, drying, cracking, around his
mouth. Caking his chin.
“Because you are there to be seen, felt,” she said,
gesturing to the hairbrush.
The brush rose, descended, repeated.
“Will you tell me your name?”
“Mercy.”
“In abundance?”
“In deficit.”
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