- Here.
He grabbed my hand and put it on his belly. He was breathing deeply. It was very dark, I could barely see the window sill in the distance, where the night light was reflected. Everything was dark blue almost black. I felt the tough skin and hair on his belly. The frigid air filtered through the metal flakes hanging from my main.
- I like to feel your hand on my chest.
He pressed my hand against his belly so that if I had wanted to run away I knew his reflexes were sharp enough that I couldn't even get up. The self-sufficiency he displayed was undoubtedly due to a long military career. He would never have gotten to where he was if it wasn't by force. However, his body did not give off the slightest aggressiveness towards me. He released my hand.
- Caress me with your hair.
His body disgusted me. He was big, strong, hairy. It had nothing to do with the types of beauty that he collected in the harem. I thought maybe he didn't like himself very much.
I began to move on the cold ground making my hair brush his chest. I didn't understand why he wanted to do it on the ground. Over time I understood that he was an ascetic, when I learned what that meant. It didn't make sense to me to want to be on the ground when comforts were available, since I had spent my childhood on the ground. I remembered the bunk in the lighthouse, which was a luxury we enjoyed as such, because in Duga's houses there were no walls, no mattresses. We slept in community and on the floor of the cabins, which was made of hemp. The floor of the royal rooms is marble. I had never seen marble before. It seemed to me that it was a floor made of precious stones that I had heard about in Marcela's stories. My knees and palms were frozing against the ground, but Aythor's body radiated so much heat that I could feel it in my torso and between my legs as I tried to run my hair up his body.
- Can I ask you something?
I didn't know how to interpret him asking me a question, so I kept silent.
- Answer, can I ask you something?
- Yes.
- I want to feel your breath. Could you bring your mouth closer and open it close to mine?
I was absolutely convinced that his breath had to be stinky. He was a weathered guy, not at all charming, who only dressed sumptuously for public occasions out of respect for hierarchies. When he was not busy with institutional affairs he devoted himself almost exclusively to physical training. The image of him mattered to him, but he wanted to appear fearsome. He used to boast that his gaze was that of Cronos on Saturn devouring his son by one of those ancient painters he admired. His mouth also reminded me of that painting, which he had hanging in his bedroom.
I did what he asked me to. He opened his mouth to mine. His breath certainly wasn't fresh, but it wasn't as unpleasant as I'd imagined. You could tell that he took care of these details more than he would ever admit publicly. I felt something leave his mouth and enter mine. It was a heat, a shape, a dense smoke. The smoke went up my throat and started down my windpipe. I remembered the tube that had been opened in the cave and how my face was breaking up in bunches of sponges. But this time my face and knees and icy hands felt like lacquered glass. A gust of air moved throughout the room. My skin stood on end and the inside of my body was a cold glass full of warm smoke. He kept me in this position for a long time. Soon I began to feel that a breath was also coming from the inside of my body that passed towards his mouth, but I did not feel the presence of his body. I started to get sleepy.
- Do not move.
My breathing began to become softer. His speeded up. As I fell asleep on all fours in this long exchange of something I began to see many figures of the harem people in my mind. In the background of all the sound that reached Aythor's quarters was groped the faint vibration of the party that continued in the palace.
When I woke up I was under the many duvets on the bed, perfectly warm and in comfortable clothes I had never worn. Aythor was not there.
