AN: Thanks for the reviews! All typo point-outs are welcome, as is all critique.
Anyway, the chapter! The next should be up... I don't know when. Definitely by next weekend. Hope this one... satisfies... in the meantime. ; )
Part Two: Ayem
The door opened noiselessly on the room's dimly glowing lamplight. The incessant winds of winter had for once ceased; the chill air did not whirl into the chandler's home. It breathed. Maissel closed dusk's purpling bruise sky out behind him as he stepped inside. Maela looked up at him briefly as he appeared, and greeted him with a tiny, silent nod. She was at the stout, gleaming table as she usually was, leaning her plump cheek on her hand and staring morosely down at the swirling amber grain. One hand itched halfheartedly at the ash rash spreading on her wrist. So had she sat for much of the past three days, morning, afternoon, and evening, staring down with ever increasing melancholy into the ancient table's hypnotic oiled pathways. Lonely days, by herself in the chandler's chandler-vacant home. He had vanished, with mumbled explanations, into the forbidden confines of Vos proper; into its people. He rose early, returned late and exhausted; she barely saw him. He was taciturn in his tiredness, when he was there. They barely spoke. In silence, she was cloistered.
And she was strangely, disturbingly susceptible to the treatment. Maela was not a girl accustomed to sadness, or melancholy; she had a forceful will, a will that was much more inclined to bowl over an obstacle than to allow it to wound her. Through all her short life it had been her practice to banish almost without effort any weakness of humor. Yet as she sat alone in the fat-smith's house day after day, trailing her fingers over his table, trailing her gaze over the place's bare bones, snagging on the glaring protrusions of the thousand tiny changes Chana had wrought on the place, remembering the warmth and fullness of welcome and work, the dolefulness in her eyes grew ever more pronounced. There was no comfort for her, save the bits of contented remembrance she nibbled in the night, the bits of Jelly that gave her hope.
Her situation was not improved by the fact that the chandler was quite unchanged, on the surface of things. He spoke less to her, it was true, but he had always been reluctant to initiate conversation; and truth be told, she spoke very little herself, even when Maissel was in the room. It was too frightening; too much daring was required to do what she knew she would have to do, and for the first time in her life she found herself lacking in boldness.
But the chandler was changed. That he appeared not to be, that he appeared to hold in his oily heart no mutations from the simple villager she had first met, was simply his nature; with Maissel there was always a skim of a barrier around his inner self, a skim most took as the inner personality in fact. Maela had penetrated that skin, for a time, but it had been turned against her. Too, Maissel's character was one of those which obeyed a simple psychological law to match the physical; the weightiest matters sank to the bottom, into depths invisible even to the possessor.
There were no large jobs being conducted by anyone in the village. The chandler had lied. The first morning after his long prayerful vigil, he dashed from his door to the home of Saravel Llothas and offered his services almost forcibly to the mer's distillery. Llothas did not need assistance, but he accepted the chandler's offer under the pressure of his fearsome red eyes. Such was the case with the Elvuls on the second day, and Vuroni Drenim at his apprentice-forge on the third. These were awkward jobs, for the employers. The chandler did not normally assist them with their own work; only butchering, when he came to collect the fat. He had never offered himself out like a young hired hand; why did he now? They were puzzled, and so they watched, with weighing eyes, as Maissel threw himself into the work. Indeed, more puzzling than the work itself was the ferocity with which he approached it, launching himself at the simplest of tasks with the industrial enthusiasm of a Hlaalu farm boy. He worked hard, at everything, using more than energy than he needed; hard enough to numb and freeze his mind, hard enough to fall into dreamless sleep when he at last returned home long after the fall of night. He rose before the sun, attacked his work, and returned in the dark. So it went for two days after Maela's confession. On the third, Arasea Drenim saw him in the yard with her son. She ordered him home, and there was no question of disobeying the tough old womer when she had hammers in hand.
So there he was, standing in his own warm, snug house with dusk just falling and his muscles barely aching, staring at the girl seated at his table. He tugged the grey cloak from his shoulders, hung the oiled fabric on its hook by the door. His hands were cold; the skin was tough and inflexible with the chill, and ashy tendons stood out tightly, skeletally. He strode silently across the room, in front of Maela, to kneel on the hearth by the small fire and warm himself. The girl said nothing, did nothing; her only movement was the slight bob of her messy bun. Her black hair was clean, but dry and rough.
When the edge of the ice had been taken off his bones and his hands had been limbered by warmth, Maissel pushed himself to his feet to fetch a pot and clean water. Maela remained utterly silent. She remained silent as the salted water boiled and the chandler added two large, raw kwama eggs, as they cooked and were removed in turn. She remained silent as Maissel laid the table with his humble redware dishes, as he peeled and sliced her greyish egg, as he spread the slices thickly with dark yam butter, and as she slipped the hearty fare between her firm, healthy lips. She remained silent as the chandler laid a large clay jug of mazte on the hearth to warm, as he stood by the fire to consume his own scant meal, as he poured her a clay mug full of the dark, warm liquor. She remained silent until the warmth of the mazte had settled in her stomach and tingled out along her round, itching limbs, until only the dregs swirled in the bottom of her cup and courage overpowered the fear in her heart. Then – she spoke.
"Share this with me, Maissel."
The chandler turned where he stood by the hearth, so his back faced the flames. He held a half-full mug of mazte between his large hands, still warming them. Maela had sat up straight on her chair, primly, legs crossed, her little palm outstretched simply. In it lay a thin, striated slice, like waxy cheese.
Maissel gazed down at her hand for a long moment, then up to her eyes.
"Royal Jelly?" he grated deeply. The girl's plump chin nodded. "I am surprised you have any left."
"This is the last." The rest had gone to warm her in the loneliness of those last few nights.
"Then you should keep it for yourself," replied Maissel. "I have plenty if I want it."
"I'd like to share it with you." Her red eyes were calmly implacable and otherwise unreadable.
The chandler shook his head. "I repeat; I do not need it. Keep it for yourself, girl." He turned back to face the flames.
Maela's voice was soft at his back. "Think of it as a gift. I know you gave it to me, originally, but I have so little to give, and you have given me so much. Consider – consider the sharing of the thing the gift, not the thing itself."
Maissel took a long, warm sip of mazte as he stared down into the rushing flames and let her words sink through him. If she put it that way… he had heard that Ashlanders put great importance in gifts. He had something of a suspicion that if he refused a third time, the offense would be very great indeed.
"Very well," he agreed, after a long pause. He faced the girl. "My thanks, Maela." He extended one broad palm to receive his piece of the Jelly.
Maela ducked her head in a silent nod of acknowledgement. Her small fingers tore the striated Jelly into two parts, and she rose to her feet, ignoring the chandler's hand as she moved to stand in front of him. She held one of the pieces before his lips. He frowned down at her sternly, but opened his mouth. Her fingers deposited the thin bit of fat on his tongue. She stepped back, laying the other piece on her own tongue and watching him. Maissel closed his mouth, and as he did so, the Jelly dissolved all of a sudden, and its beating, suffusing contentment spread down his spine and along his bones, radiating peace out through his flesh.
He opened the eyes he had not realized he had closed, to see Maela smiling broadly and warmly up at him. It took a few seconds to realize that he was smiling just as warmly and broadly back. Royal Jelly had that effect.
"Ahhh… truly, my thanks, Maela," he sighed. "I needed that."
"I thought as much," said the girl, her smile taking on a hint of characteristic impishness. "But come, sit down with me," she said, taking his arm and tugging him toward the table. "You have been too busy of late to talk much with me, or answer my questions."
"Oh, I did say I would answer those, didn't I?" said the chandler as he took the chair next to Maela's. "My apologies."
Maela waved them away, though her eyes went momentarily cold, like a shivering beast locked out of the stable. "No matter," she said, "you have been busy. But I have you here now, fat-smith, so now you must hold good on your promises," she added, mock-warningly.
"Well, then, what are your questions?"
Maela nodded her head approvingly. "Good. I like that, fat-smith. Well, to start, I would like to know about your family." She laid her hands in her lap, waiting expectantly. Her fingers sprang almost immediately to her rash irritated wrist.
"My family?" said Maissel, taken aback. "Why?"
"Can you really know a mer without also knowing of his ancestors?" asked Maela rhetorically. "I want to know, fat-smith. You keep saying, 'Oh, I am just doing things as my father and grandfather did before me.' Well, I wish to know about these mer. And their wives," she added quickly.
"And their wives," muttered the chandler. "Well, all right then. But I warn you, it will be a dull lecture. They are not Zainab chiefs, my ancestors."
"Of course not, Maissel," said the girl. "I do not expect them to be." One hand was tugging subtly at the hem of her blouse, pulling the fabric across her back to scratch the irritated skin there without being obvious.
The chandler nodded gruffly, then began.
"My father's name was Aravel Sarethi. He was the chandler of Vos about one hundred and fifty years ago, for oh, say seventy years. I took over when he died, when I was still just a boy; only twenty three years old."
"How did he die?" asked Maela quietly.
The chandler shrugged. "He wasted away," he answered simply. "Lost the will to live. Grew weaker and weaker day by day after my mother died. One day I came home and –" he clapped a hand on the table loudly, "there he was. Laid out solemn and peaceful like he knew it was coming."
Maela's eyebrows rose. "He loved your mother very much, then? You think he simply wished to join her in the spirit world? What happened to her, anyway?"
"She died in a raid by the Ahemmusa," replied Maissel gravely, answering her last question. "The battle was between them and the Zainab, of course, as it usually is, with us the 'soft' little bonus prize in the middle for the sea-drinkers, but our sentries and guardians were out to keep our homes and lives mostly safe. I was there myself, just old enough to don armor and keep watch on the roof, a bow in hand. Mother was there, too, one of our warrior-womer who held the gates." His eyes were far off, staring down at the mushroom table. "That was all they were supposed to do, mer and womer both – hold the gates. But for some reason my mother ran out into the battle, her skirts tied up around her thighs and her blades waving. Some who were closer say she was screaming something loud enough to deafen the battle. She vanished into the chitin-mold fray, but she must have called on the ancestors for protection because she was alive when I next saw her, and her blades were red. She was running up the path to the heights as fast as she could go, and then she was screaming, so loudly I could hear her myself, launching herself and her blades at one of the Ashlanders fighting among the Zainab yurts. She never reached him, whoever he was; an Ahemmusa arrow from below took her in the back."
"An honorable death," said Maela softly, touching Maissel's hand gently. "You are wrong to call your family's history dull. Her death was worthy of any Zainab. What was her name?"
"Ghanimah," he grated. "And I know that her death was honorable; that is not what bothers me, not after so many years."
"Then what is?"
"They couldn't find her body," he growled through gritted teeth. "One of the Ashlanders must have taken it by accident. She is not interred in our chapel, as she should be. It just – bothers me that she did not go to rest with her ancestors, that the Zainab or Ahemmusa may have left her for the nix when they realized she was not their blood –"
"They would not have done that," Maela broke in sharply, but soothingly. "Not even the Salt-Mouth Velothi. They would have interred her according to our customs; separately, but with respect."
"According to your customs," repeated the chandler flatly, "but not according to ours. Well, be that as it may, I have never been able to commune with her, no matter how many candles I light. That, and the disturbing silence of my father, as well, whose remains are interred in our chapel – well. It was distressing, at first."
"Of course," said the girl, sounding horrified. "To not have your ancestors to call on – I am sorry, Maissel."
The chandler cracked a smile at her. "Don't sound so upset, girl. I have lived so many multiples of time without my parents as I lived with them that at times it seems I never had them at all."
"Then… you do not remember much of what they were like?" whispered Maela, still horrified.
The chandler shrugged. "Not really. Neither were particularly warm parents, as I recall. Father, mostly because we could not understand each other, I think. The only way we could talk was through the fat. It made things – difficult. Mother – well, Ghanimah was warm enough, when she was home, but she spent so much of her time at the chapel. That's part of what makes it so bitter that she could not be buried properly." He shook his head roughly.
"I am sorry, Maissel," repeated Maela earnestly. She sat in silence for a moment, watching his downcast eyes, rubbing her wrist slowly on her leg, then visibly shook herself out of solemnity. "But you have only answered half of my question, you," she said, poking the mer's arm sharply. "What of your grandparents?"
"My grandparents I know little enough of," he answered, rubbing his arm and frowning briefly. "Theirs is a silent rest in the ash pits as well. Still, I suppose I can tell you what I know. My grandfather was called Gare Sarethi; his wife, Elnet. It is said that Gare was extremely brave and foolhardy in his youth, though I never heard explained how so. As for Elnet –" He shrugged. "I know even less. Mother would not speak of her, so she was not spoken of."
"Interesting, fat-smith," mused Maela. "It seems you have some family mysteries."
"Hardly," replied the mer dryly. "Even common knowledge dies after nearly three hundred years, and it has been that long at least since my grandfather died."
The girl shrugged in grudging agreement. "True enough, I suppose, unless you have an evil Telvanni around to act as historian. But anyway – so these two mer were your predecessors, hmm? Aravel and Gare Sarethi. And they were great, skilled smiths of fat?" Maissel nodded. "Well, what did they teach you?"
Maissel frowned. "What do you mean, what did they teach me?" he grumbled. "Have I not shown you plenty of that already?"
Maela waved a hand airily. "Oh, you misunderstand me," she said. "I meant, what else did they teach you? You have shown me this lovely Royal Jelly – surely there are other things you know of equal wonder, things more suited for one of your opulent Houses than to this village or my people?" She stared questioningly at him, her hand rising absently to scratch the back of her neck, brushing aside a few frizzled strands of hair loose from her bun.
Maissel snorted. "What do you think I am, girl? I am a chandler; I make candles, not luxuries. Although –" His eyes had caught on her hair, on its dryness and roughness, and he fell silent abruptly. His eyes bored into the table; his wide mouth was tight.
The girl caught his hitch immediately, eyes sharpening as she lowered her arm to scratch her leg. "Although –? Although what, fat-smith? What are you hiding?"
Maissel exhaled roughly, muttering unwillingly under his breath. "There is… one thing I make," he answered reluctantly.
"What? Tell me, chandler!"
A muscle twitched in his haw, but he answered, albeit in a low, gruff tone. "An oil, girl. Something exotic and strange, from the Empire. The scraps of the humans' silk fabrics are ground into a fine powder and used with plant oils and fats. Women in the west use it to make their hair smoother than skin and as shining as the waves at sunset."
The girl laughed lightly in the chandler's face. "They grind up their clothes and put them in their hair?" she laughed. "What a strange notion, fat-smith. You are very inventive, but you did not have to lie just to entertain me." She giggled again to herself.
Maissel's brow drew down in a frown. "Lie?" he growled. "I have not lied, girl. That it is one of the strangenesses of humanity I will not deny, but it is fact. If you will not believe, I – I will show you." His voice hitched at the end, as though he spoke more than he had intended.
"I do not believe," replied the girl stoutly, eyes sparkling, "for how would you know of it, hmmm, chandler?"
"I know of it because a Hlaalu agent visited me a few years ago, wanting me to experiment with the composition," he growled, jumping to his feet and glowering. "And don't ask me why a Hlaalu was here; I don't know any more than you of the strange minds of that House. I did as he asked, and he left, paying me a pittance. But I still have a sample of the product left here somewhere…" His hands were busily shoving things aside on the shelves by the wall, holding others up to the light. His forehead was creased, but his eyes were distant, filled with a confusion that was more internal than it was associated with locating his object.
"A likely story, fat-smith," began Maela with a grin, "but –"
The clunk of a large glass bottle on the table cut her short. Blueish liquid sloshed viscously inside, sealed in with the dreugh wax Maissel so often used.
"This proves nothing," she went on after a hitch, full lips curved in distaste. "You have a thousand bottles of oil in your home, chandler."
His lava eyes narrowed. "Very well," he grated, and unsheathed his belt knife. His hand quivered ever so slightly. "A demonstration is the only – the only thing, then." His blade bit into the wax seal viciously, but his eyes were wild, staring down at his hands. A part of him was horrified by what he was doing, but the warmth and the contentment instilled in him by the Royal Jelly kept it a powerless onlooker.
"Huh?" Maela gasped. It came out as a squeak. "You don't really mean to put that stuff in your hair, do you, Maissel?"
"Of course not," he rumbled. "My hair does not need it; we settled people already treat our hair properly, though with a different oil. You, though – yours needs it." He pried the glass stopper from the bottle's neck.
"Mine?" she said, gasping again. Her hands flew to her head protectively. "Oh, NO!"
"Relax, Maela," grated Maissel soothingly as he poured two large drops of the blue, gel like substance into the palm of each hand. "There's no need to be scared." So he said, but his own eyes stared down at his palms in helpless horror.
"Scared?" squeaked the girl. "Who said anything about scared? I might have been a little bit concerned, but that's not the same thing." She had to visibly pry her hands away from her head.
"Good," grunted the chandler, moving to stand behind her chair, "then you are ready?" His hands were poised, and shaking.
"I… suppose so," she answered, but his hands were in her hair before she finished, snatching out the bone pins that held up her bun. Her long black locks fell loose to her shoulders. Then his huge palms were pressing against her scalp, and cold oily liquid was squelching through her hair and along her skin. She shuddered, stiff backed and uncomfortable in her chair, but the chandler paid no attention. His rough fingers worked methodically through her hair, suddenly solid and sure, rubbing and threading and spreading the thick oil along every frazzled follicle. And bit by bit the tension eased from her, coaxed away by the fat-smith's fingertips' rhythmic massaging, and abruptly transformed into something quiet, warm, and languid. She closed her eyes, let her neck bend, her head fall back unresistingly into the chandler's wide palms. His breath was a deep bellows by her ear; she could feel his stomach expand against her skull with each too-careful breath. His hands moved more slowly, more hesitantly as they gathered the hair that was so rarely let loose, pressed it close against her skull where the oil was thickest, rubbed lock on lock between grey thumbs.
He tipped her head forward gently without a word, and she let loose a long breath. Her eyes slid half open; the room was gold and amber, lanterns swaying above, flames flickering behind, the long, stout table glowing under her hands.
"Well, are you satisfied now?" rumbled the chandler at her back. His hands quavered, poised behind her head, but his voice showed none of the overwound tension in his flesh. By Almsivi, her hair, loose, free, unbound, curling against the smooth skin of her shoulders…
Maela's glistening, full lips curved slowly. "Satisfied?" she murmured. "As to this human oil thing, you mean, fat-smith? Well, it isn't the horrible thing I thought it would, but as to whether or not it does what you say, this adding of silk to the hair… how could I be satisfied when I have not yet felt it for myself?" Her words were long, slow, languorous.
The chandler grunted. "Then feel for yourself," he snapped, and he watched, wide eyed and impotent as one of his hands reached over the girl's bare shoulder, as it enveloped one of hers and pulled it up. His own fingers pressed a lock of silk-smooth black hair into hers, and he did nothing to stop them.
"Oh, my," gasped the girl as the smooth, oily lock curled wetly about her finger. She craned her neck around to see it for herself, glistening blackly like dreugh ink on the tide. The line of her jaw creased against her twisted neck. "You really were not making stories, Maissel," she said. He did not reply. Her blouse had creased on her back as she turned, and gapped down her spine.
"Maela," he murmured. "What is this?"
His rough finger brushed the skin of her back, and the touch was a hot-cold shock down her spine, across her scalp, and suddenly she had to make herself breathe.
"Oh, that's nothing," she said, putting lightness in her voice despite the sudden fluttering in her stomach. "Just a rash."
"How long have you had it?" grated Maissel behind her. He stared down at the fingertip that had touched her.
"A few days. But it is nothing, fat-smith."
"Does it itch?"
She hesitated, and the chandler took her silence as confirmation. One rough hand on her shoulder pushed her gently forward, and the other brushed across the white, ashy patch of skin in the middle of her back. She bit her lip tightly.
"It is not nothing," rumbled Maissel. "You have ash-rind, Maela."
"Ash-rind?" she choked out.
"Yes," grated the chandler. His hands moved over her bare shoulders, searching for more patches of rash. "It is not a disease, but a simple physical response our bodies have without water. The price we pay for being able to do without it for a time. It can become very debilitating, given time. You were very dehydrated when you came to me, Maela. You no longer are, but your skin is paying the price for its resilience." He pulled up one of her arms, tugged back the sleeve at her wrist to examine the spot at which she had been scratching; the skin had broken, and scabs had begun to form.
"So… my body still thinks it is thirsty," murmured the girl, staring straight ahead, unseeingly. "What can be done?"
"I am no healer," answered the chandler, dropping her arm and moving away from her to one of the shabby wooden shelves along the walls. "I only know one cure. Fat. As it happens, though it will work for this case." He pulled a large clay bottle from one of the shelves and set it on the table before the blank-faced girl. "This is simple scathecraw oil. Your skin needs protection and nourishment while it heals itself, or the ash-rind will cover – all of you." He paused a moment, staring down at her. His heart pounded in his chest. "Rub that in," he grated in a sudden rush, "all over, every day for a week, and you should heal. I will withdraw to my chambers. It is best you start immediately." He strode hurriedly to the stairs, without waiting to hear her reply, without being able to help hearing her disappointed gasp of breath, his wide fists clenched at his sides, his jaw clenched as his mind whirred furiously, incomprehensibly, overstimulated and overpowered.
"Won't you do it, Maissel?"
Her voice snagged him and his mind both into immovability. He froze with his foot on the first of the warped wooden stairs. His head turned slowly back. She sat there, stiff backed, nervous, watching him from the stout table, with her bare grey shoulders, her huge eyes, her full breasts. She stared at him, lava look to lava look, and there was a great overflowing in her eyes, of challenge, of fear, of want and will and loneliness. The determination of a warrior; the uncertainty of a girl; the curves of a womer; the fat of a babe.
And Maissel said what the core of his nature willed him to say.
"Very well."
The fluttering in her stomach burst up like a flare, and Maela gulped a breath. His eyes had not left hers as he spoke, but she could feel them on the rest of her body, growing hotter and hotter. And then he had crossed the room in three strides and seized her up from her seat, wrapped his unnaturally large hands around her upper arms and pressed his wide, tough lips down on hers, and she was kissing him back with her greased lips, forcing her long smooth tongue to the back of his mouth. The itch burst into flame all over her skin as he held her immobile in the air and she ransacked his mouth by force.
He pushed her back, hands tightening around her arms, and stared with wide eyes down at her. She surged impulsively back toward him, to tongue him again because that was GOOD, but he held her away. She gave a keening growl, but then his hand slid down her back to cup her buttocks and hoist her atop the table, and that was good. He pressed his narrow body up against her, between her thighs and – oh, that was even better. Her head fell backward with a low grunt, her bare heels hooked together in the small of his back. He palmed one of her breasts through her shirt; the two were perfectly sized.
But then she pushed him away, remembering. She sat forward, back arched, inches from his mouth and his hot breath on her lips, and whipped her thin kresh linen blouse over her head. The skirt soon followed, though she had to support herself on a groaning Maissel to wriggle her way out of the fabric. She was naked, a smooth grey-blue body speckled here and there with rough white, richly curved and exquisite, laid out on that gleaming, supersaturated table, looking up from those womerly eyes, her oily black hair making tapered curls on the wood. Maissel stared down at her, at her young body, and his old flesh flooded with a fire he had not felt for decades. It panted like a forge through his lungs and his loins. The girl quirked an eyebrow at him, held the bottle of oil playfully across the dark nipple of one full breast, and his hands tingled as he took it from her; he half thought she would vanish if he touched her. But he filled the craters of his callused palms with warm, red brown oil, and pressed them quickly to her breasts. The girl squeaked as his callus rubbed across her nipples. Her hips squirmed wantonly on the wood.
She was a thing of dimples, that girl, no matter where he looked; her cheeks, her belly, her muscular thighs and petite calves, her smooth shoulders, the small of her back. He ran his rough-smooth hands over all of them. His touch was hungry, but slow and sure; savoring, as his fingers explored her flesh, leaving a gleaming grey-blue sheen in their wake. He did the front of her first, massaging her breasts, her thighs, rubbing oil into her skin from neck to crotch to ankles, till she shone like polished metal in the firelight and the scant hair between her legs had curled into clinging ringlets on her skin. Then he turned her over, and her breasts pooled against the wood, oil to oil, and he worked her other side. Her eyes drifted almost shut in the warm tense languor of his touch, her plump cheek smashed against the table, only the glimmer of the fire visible between her slitted eyelids. All she knew was the comfort of his huge hands on her, thumbs rubbing the muscles to near soreness down her spine, cupping and squeezing her bottom.
Then their warmth was gone, but she did not want, for she heard the soft sounds of her mer's clothes falling to the floor. He pushed her thighs apart, slid his fingers to their tender, inner flesh to pull her up her hips. She rested supported on her knees, the long smooth crease of her spine shadowed like the dimples above her bottom, her breasts pressed against the wood, and sighed in anticipation, staring peacefully along the golden gleam of the table into the amber flames. At last.
And so it was done, in that snug, goldly glowing room. The ripe young body, saturated and gleaming with oil like the table on which she knelt, staring contentedly into the flames; the rawboned old mer behind her, with his grey hair and flabby skin, his wiry muscles and saggy bottomcheeks, his too-large hands glistening as they gripped her soft hips, the flesh dimpled and sheening under his long fingers. In all its folly and uncertainty, its obscenity and perversity, its futility and longing, the act was done. Maissel was known.
