Discworld, Polly/Mal, taboo
"Mal, are you...all right?"
It should be clear that the answer is no. Maladict has gone well beyond the ideal paleness threshold for his kind, and is shaking as though he actually feels cold. He doesn't.
"If you haven't any coffee, please...don't try to talk to me. It's dangerous. For you, I mean."
Polly knows she should back away. She knows it, in her mind. But something south of her mind, somewhere around the region of the socks she's about to tremble hard enough to lose, which would be bad since they are now performing a dual function, suggests--in a most insistent way--hesitating. For Maladict's unfocussed eyes have gone sharp and bright and the gloom, and there is a hungry sort of sniff, and then a terrible, gleaming alertness.
Polly knew that Mal knew. And if he hadn't known before, for sure he did now.
Mal is coming closer, convulsively, pale elegant finger shaking on the black ribbon round his throat compulsively. Reminding himself of the promise he'd made.
"I...I don't have coffee," Polly confesses, not backing away but making a movement very like backing in its portentous tininess, except that she's doing it forward. "But I have..."
"I'm trying to quit," Maladict moans, resolve failing as Polly takes his small hand, leads it to her belt.
"It won't hurt me," Polly says. "You know. I know you know. I might as well..."
Then they are on the grass, Polly muffling her high-pitched sounds, Maladict growling softly into the wet, coppery, life-giving taboo of girl's blood on his fingers, on his tongue, on his lips, teeth teasing Polly's slim thighs. He's joyously drunk on what she gives him, on the tingle of rules shattering, on her taste and smell as he sucks and she grinds into his face, legs tightening around his neck.
They are soldiers now and have seen more than they wanted to of wound-blood and death-blood, but there is only nature and life in this. Polly's cramps disappear as she comes.