The Evil Seed by Joanne Harris Read Free Book Online Page B

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once, afraid she might see his trembling hands. She was not kind, his lady; she
knew his weaknesses and laughed at them. Sometimes, in his moments of lucidity,
he wondered why he needed her so, knowing as he did that all she had ever
offered him were the joys of fear and humiliation and the dark exhilaration of
the fairground, rank with the scent of sweat and the beast which was himself.
She had no love for him. They had nothing in common, never talked like friends.
And yet, her step on the landing, quick and light as a cat’s, set his pulses
racing, his head spinning, and he ran to open the door as eager as a schoolboy.
    So slim, so frail; even
now she never ceased to amaze him, that so much perversity could be contained
in such a thin white vessel. She stood before him in the semi-darkness, sensing
his feelings, mocking him. She was wearing the black plastic raincoat, tightly
belted at the waist, the collar turned up to frame her face. She had pushed
back her hood, and the thick curls of her pale red hair spilled out on to her
shoulders. Her mouth was very red; he felt dizzy with his proximity to her,
felt as if he were falling towards that mouth, saw the lips part very slightly
to allow him to fall … She untied the belt of her raincoat, shrugged it open;
dropped the coat on to the floor of the landing where it lay in a pool of rain,
smiled. She was naked under the raincoat, her body opalescent in the reflected
light from the street-lamps, her hair a wild cascade, her eyes, her lips, the
tips of her breasts, the dark delta of her pubic hair like holes in that pallid
body, holes from which cables of mystic night winched him closer and closer to
her, powerless in the face of her irresistible attraction.
    ‘Not here …’ he
mumbled. ‘Never know … the porter …the others…’
    He stooped to pick up
her raincoat; caught the scent of chypre and rain from her body, caught a
dizzying glimpse of waterdrops on a slim thigh, and stumbled in his eagerness.
She gave a low laugh of contempt.
    ‘My little gentleman,’
she murmured. ‘So much concern …
    She stepped lightly into
the room, shedding her low shoes at the door, as graceful and as unconcerned of
her nakedness as if she had been fully clothed. He shut the door hastily; not
even lust could blind him to the possible consequences if she were seen; he did
have his position to maintain after all; he had to be discreet. He hung up her
raincoat by the sink, where the water could drip without harming the carpet,
turned, almost afraid now that everything was ready.
    She was sitting in his
armchair, legs crossed, hands clenched wantonly in her hair, and smiling.
Despite himself, he began to tremble, and he turned away to hide the movement.
    ‘Drink?’ His mouth was
dry as he topped up his own glass.
    ‘Whisky, no ice,’ she
said, and as he poured, he was suddenly certain that she was laughing at him,
knowing that hers were the strings which set him dancing, that with her, he was always the whore.
    ‘There,’ he said,
handing her the glass, thankful that his hands had stopped trembling.
    She drank the filthy,
oily stuff as if it were water, in quick little gulps, the thin reed of her
throat moving up and down like a swan’s. Another of her tricks, he thought.
Didn’t he know them all by now?
    She was only a woman,
almost a child; he had picked her up out of the gutter; she had been half-dead
with starvation, half-poisoned with cheap gin and forbidden drugs. He had
settled her in a nice little apartment where nobody would ask any questions …he had spent more than half his generous study grant on her, on her
clothes, her lodging, her pills and powders, her doctors and therapists …had
asked nothing more of her than this, this little comfort. Damn it, he thought: he loved her. She should have belonged to him body and soul.
    ‘Are you brave enough
yet?’ Her voice roused him out of his reverie. ‘You stink of whisky. Have you
managed to drown your bourgeois