BOOK TWO — FLIGHT

He drew her closer, till he felt her breath coming full in his face. The wind swept against the windowpane and the building, whining, then whispered out into silence. He turned from his back and lay face to face with her, on his side. He kissed her; her lips were cold. He kept kissing her until her lips grew warm and soft. A huge warm pole of desire rose in him, insistent and demanding; he let his hand slide from her shoulder to her breasts, feeling one, then the other; he slipped his other arm beneath her head, kissing her again, hard and long.

“Please, Bigger….”

She tried to turn from him, but his arm held her tightly; she lay still, whimpering. He heard her sigh, a sigh he knew, for he had heard it many times before; but this time he heard in it a sigh deep down beneath the familiar one, a sigh of resignation, a giving up, a surrender of something more than her body. Her head lay limp in the crook of his arm and his hand reached for the hem of her dress, caught it in his fingers and gathered it up slowly. His cold fingers touched her warm flesh, and sought still warmer and softer flesh. Bessie was still, unresisting, without response. His icy fingers touched inside of her and at once she spoke, not a word, but a sound that gave forth a meaning of horror accepted. Her breath went out of her lungs in long soft gasps that turned to a whisper of pleading.

“Bigger…. Don’t!”

Her voice came to him now from out of a deep, faraway silence and he paid her no heed. The loud demand of the tensity of his own body was a voice that drowned out hers. In the cold darkness of the room it seemed that he was on some vast turning wheel that made him want to turn faster and faster; that in turning faster he would get warmth and sleep and be rid of his tense fatigue. He was conscious of nothing now but her and what he wanted. He flung the cover back, ignoring the cold, and not knowing that he did it. Bessie’s hands were on his chest, her fingers spreading protestingly open, pushing him away. He heard her give a soft moan that seemed not to end even when she breathed in or out; a moan which he heard, too, from far away and without heeding. He had to now. Imperioulsy driven, he rode roughshod over her whimpering protests, feeling actutely sorry for her as he galloped a frenzied horse down a steep hill in the face of a resisting wind, don't don't don't Bigger. And then the wind became so strong that it lifted him high into the dark air, turning him, twisting him, hurling him : faintly, over the wind's howl, he heard : don't Bigger don't don't. At a moment, he could not remember, he had fallen ; and now he lay, spent, his lips parted.