eyes that looked away from me now in disgust. But this was madness. These were not the reasons to grant eternal life.
"And cruelly, surely, I said to leer,'Did you love this child?'
"I will never forget her face then, the violence in her, the absolute hatred.'Yes.' She all but hissed the words at me.'How dare you!' She reached for the locket even as I clutched it. It was guilt that was consuming her, not love. It was guilt-that shop of dolls Claudia had described to me, shelves and shelves of the effigy of that dead child. But guilt that absolutely understood the finality of death. There was something as hard in her as the evil in myself, something as powerful. She had her hand out towards me. She touched my waistcoat and opened her fingers there, pressing them against my chest. And I was on my knees, drawing close to her, her hair brushing my face.
"'Hold fast to me when I take you,' I said to her, seeing her eyes grow wide, her mouth open.'And when the swoon is strongest, listen all the harder for the beating of my heart. Hold and say over and over, "I will live."'
"'Yes, yes,' she was nodding, her heart pounding with her excitement.
Chapter 26
"Her hands burned on my neck, fingers forcing their way into my collar.'Look beyond me at that distant light; don't take your eyes off of it, not for a second, and say over and over, "I will live."'
"She gasped as I broke the flesh, the warn current coming into me, her breasts crushed against me, her body arching up, helpless, from the couch. And I could see her eyes, even as I shut my own, see that taunting, provocative mouth. I was drawing on her, hard, lifting her, and I could feel her weakening, her hands dropping limp at her sides.'Tight, tight,' I whispered over the hot stream of her blood, her heart thundering in my ears, her blood swelling my satiated veins.'The lamp,' I whispered,'look at it!' Her heart was slowing, stopping, and her head dropped back from me on the velvet, her eyes dull to the point of death. It seemed for a moment I couldn't move, yet I knew I had to, that someone else was lifting my wrist to my mouth as the room turned round and round, that I was focusing on that light as I had told her to do, as I tasted my own blood from my own wrist, and then forced it into her mouth.'Drink it. Drink,' I said to her. But she lay as if dead. I gathered her close to me, the blood pouring over her lips. Then she opened her eyes, and I felt the gentle pressure of her mouth, and then her hands closing tight on the arm as she began to suck. I was rocking her, whispering to her, trying desperately to break my swoon; and then I felt her powerful pull. Every blood vessel felt it. I was threaded through and through with her pulling, my hand holding fast to the couch now, her heart beating fierce against my heart, her fingers digging deep into my arm, my outstretched palm. It was cutting me, scoring me, so I all but cried out as it went on and on, and I was backing away from her, yet pulling her with me, my life passing through my arm, her moaning breath in time with her pulling. And those strings which were my veins, those searing wires pulled at my very heart harder and harder until, without will or direction, I had wrenched free of her and fallen away from her, clutching that bleeding wrist tight with my own hand.
"She was staring at me, the blood staining her open mouth. An eternity seemed to pass as she stared. She doubled and tripled in my blurred vision, then collapsed into one trembling shape. , Her hand moved to her mouth, yet her eyes did not move but grew large in her face as she stared. And then she rose slowly, not as if by her own power but as if lifted from the couch bodily by some invisible force which held her now, staring as she turned round and round, her massive skirt moving stiff as if she were all of a piece, turning like some great calved ornament on a music box that dances helplessly round and round to the music. And suddenly she was staring down at the taffeta,