The Dragon Griaule

She sat naked upon her bed, applying ointment to her pale skin, to the edges of what appeared in the dim yellow light of a reading lamp to be dark green slashes (not unlike a tiger’s stripes in form) that curved along her legs and torso and back. She was fleshier than she had been in her teens, her breasts larger and more pendulous, her pubic hair unruly, yet she was still beautiful, exquisitely proportioned, and thus after understanding that the dark green areas were some sort of growth, a hard, unyielding substance similar to the diamond-shaped convexity centering her tattoo, her tramp stamp, the likeness of a dragon’s scale, an implant she’d said . . . after understanding this he felt a mix of revulsion and sympathy and arousal. She set the tube of ointment on the bedside table among a phalanx of medicine bottles, opened a plastic container, and squeezed a dab of lotion into her palm. The diamond shape of the original scale (Snow now assumed it to be a scale) had lost its integrity and become a blotch occupying much of her lower back, the epicenter from which this apparent contagion had spread – as she reached behind her with the lotion, twisting her neck about so she could see to apply it, she caught sight of Snow. She gasped and fell onto her side, dropping the container and scrambling to cover herself. Snow entered the room and she said, ‘I don’t want you to see! Please!’ He perched on the side of the bed and laid a finger on her lips to mute her speech. Her eyes brightened with tears. ‘Please,’ she said again. He had questions, but knew what she needed from him. He picked up the plastic container and began to rub the lotion in, concentrating on places where the scale merged with the skin. She covered her face with her hands and sobbed, but he continued his ministrations, kneading the lotion into her skin, and felt stress draining from her body. Once he finished with her back, he turned her toward him and focused his attention on the stripes (he viewed them now as veins of a strange mineral) crossing her abdomen and fettering the slopes of her breasts, gripping and partly supporting them as would some cruel instrument of bondage. She searched his face, searching it (he suspected) for some twitch that would trigger her detectors, an aberrant expression conveying an excess of pity, a delight in the perverse, anything apart from an acceptable devotion. He maintained a calm, dutiful exterior, intent upon his task, and she surrendered herself, she closed her eyes and let him work. Before long, sighs escaped her lips, musical and daft, like the delicate sounds a contented infant might make. An urgency in her flesh manifested as a shudder, an arching of the back. Careful not to jostle her, he lay down and cupped her face in his hands and kissed her. Her mouth was slack, but soon she responded and when he broke from the kiss he saw that the lines of strain around her eyes and mouth were less deep, as if years had fallen away. He touched her belly, her nipples, the soft places between the stripes of her affliction – she caught his hand and whispered, ‘I want you, but you can’t come inside me. It’ll hurt me if you do.’ He was too riveted on her to explain that this act, born of empathy, had evolved into one of desire. His decade-long obsession had been given release and he was redeemed by her pleasure, he needed nothing else. He eased his fingers into the heated damp of her, eliciting a cry, but not one of pain. As he guided her through a prolonged and convulsive orgasm, he pressed his face close to hers and said, ‘I love you.’ He kept on repeating the words, a counterpoint to her moans, as if this inculcation were a proof of love, until her thighs clamped together, trapping his hand, and she lay with her head tight against his chest, trembling, enduring the final aftershocks.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

She nodded, but gave no further reply, her breath coming in shudders.

It began to feel awkward, holding her that way and not speaking, and he asked if she wanted him to leave. Another nod. She must be, he decided, ashamed of what had happened, or confused by it, or both.

He got up and adjusted his belt. ‘Will I see you in the morning?’

An affirmative noise.

He started to tell her once again that he loved her, but thought she might not want to hear it. He went to the door, peeked out into the hall.

‘Craig.’

She had pulled the sheet up so that her head and shoulders were visible, and – separated by an expanse of the white cloth, appearing to be part of a separate body – her right leg from the knee down, marked by dark green striations.

‘Tomorrow,’ she said. ‘If not tomorrow, soon . . . he’ll bring the women from the pink house.’

‘The prostitutes?’

‘Yes, and others. He’ll throw a party. The women will be dressed provocatively. Whatever you do, don’t flirt with them. Ignore them. Act as if you’re offended by their interest in you.’

‘All right.’