Re: Promenade; Elevator
The concubine expected no savior. Saviors were for the people who breathed air and felt the crisp coolness of winter grasses beneath their feet. Things made in fire and filth did not expect to be saved. They did not know to be saved. It didn't hurt, because it was all there had ever been, and the concubine was not surprised to see that passivity looking back at her. It was better than the gleam of excitement that could have been in its place. The gleam of desire engorged by pain, that was worse.
She watched the match fall. It was not incandescent. It was not uplifting. It was underwhelming, and she wondered if God would listen if she steepled her fingers and turned up her face.
"Fingers."
"As you say."
A prayer on her blasphemous tongue, she stepped forward and licked her lips in anticipation. Uninhibited, and she was a thing made for this. She longed for it in the way the earthly addicts yearned for fixes.
She dropped to her knees, and she moaned as the oft-bruised skin cried out, hematomas layered upon themselves and pleasure in the pain. Anathemas, but she did not care. And she knelt, if only for fingers. She moved forward on those knees, the pain making everything in her body focused there. She tugged down the shift and the top of the bodice, and the fabric sagged past pallor and to her navel.
She reached out her hands, and she rucked up that dusty pink fabric.