He pulls a feather from her bodice
She laughs and turns a coy cheek.
The boa, all but bare, looks ragged.
Like her smile when she's feeling anxious.
She feels the heat of his eyes, feels his intensity.
Her fears belie her desires. She wishes she could see.
See what he sees. See this thing that he calls beautiful.
He seems to look to look right through her skin.
But all she can focus on is the curves and the scars.
The strange shape of her body. The embarrassment.
The awkward turn of her mouth. The knit in her brow.
Her conflicts with pleasure, her repulsion for needing to submit.
The memories that bite at the back of her moans.
The shadows of abuse crawling out of the seams.
Ugly, twisted devils that sought to steal her innocence.
Returning to feed again, to taint the morrows of adulthood.
All of these things color the love she makes.
Tar and feather it. Blacken it with shame.
He senses her discomfort. Internalizes it. Confuses it.
He shrinks back, recoiling from the slap of rejection.
But it isn't him at all. Him, she craves. Salivates for.
But like the ringing of Pavlov's bell, they've built a deeper path.
Men she never knew; Can't even remember. Faces obscured.
Yet she can trace the footprints they've left on her mind.
Tracks set with iron spikes running through the bedrock,
Through the deepest layers of her psyche. Below the surface.
To where thoughts exist without consciousness, without effort.
The symphony of tragedy continues to play on.
She has no words to express this to him.
She can only hope that he senses it.
Senses the murky bubbles of awakening as they arise.
Senses her need for him. Her need for his patience.
Senses her need for silence, for distance and recollection.
Senses her need for his quiet embrace. For understanding
For her troubled state of mind and damaged sense of self.
For a self that she has barely even begun to understand.