Master of the Crossroads - Madison Smartt Bell [325]
32
In that close, blind, secret room of the Cigny house, Captain Maillart tumbled with Isabelle—his Isabelle again, or soon to be. It was midday, but no way to know in that windowless room with its shrouded lamps, except for the heat. Bathed in slicks of heavy sweat, they slithered against each other like eels. The thrill, so long deferred, bulged in the back of the captain’s throat. It took him some time to realize that the excitement was not reaching the rest of his body and that the most salient part of him had declined to respond to this great occasion.
He sat up, more puzzled than distressed; he’d never, ever had such a difficulty—well, not since his first inexperienced fumbling which now seemed several lifetimes in the past. Isabelle plunged her face in her hands and began to cry, her fingers knotting in her black curls, her pale shoulders heaving.
“It’s my fault, my fault,” she choked. “I wanted to use you . . .”
“But what?” Maillart laid his hand on her back. “I don’t understand you.”
“Oh, it’s all hopeless, I don’t know—only I am in such trouble.”
Maillart’s hand kept dropping on her back in a slow, steady rhythm; some hollow within her answered, like a drum.
“But tell, my dear,” he said. “What is your trouble?”
Isabelle straightened and turned to him her tear-streaked, distraught face. Her hips were caught in a pool of her skirt, her small bare breasts still alert from their unconsummated encounter.
“I’m with child.” She collapsed on his neck.
“Well now,” Maillart murmured. Their position was awkward. He sat on the edge of the divan where they’d struggled, with both his feet on the floor, his upper body twisted to support her. He glanced down at his numb and shriveled member. Could this portend some sudden vocation for the priesthood? He laughed, silently, at the absurdity. “Well, now,” he repeated. “How terrible can that be?”
“Oh, you don’t know.” She snuffled against his collarbone. Maillart’s fingers counted up the knobs of her spine. He rubbed her bowed neck. The chain was gone. He recalled the pendant that had shocked him before—that stone phallus more dependable than his own.
“Where did you get it?” he said absently. “That . . . thing, which you’re not wearing now.”
Isabelle pulled a little away from him. “I took it off for you,” she said. “It was a gift, from Joseph.”
Vomit squirted into the back of the captain’s gullet. He clapped both hands over his mouth and forced himself to swallow it back. His mind went through a series of sickening swoops. Flaville’s constant proximity, the quiet concentration of his power, like her shadow. Only because it was unthinkable had he failed to think of it before. An eruption of images fumed up at him like bats emerging from a cave: black limbs intertwined with white; her mouth on his, the red yawn of her nether lips. He gagged again, and with an effort calmed the convulsion of his belly.
“You see?” Isabelle was huddled in her own arms. “Even you reject me. The whole world will.”
“No,” said Maillart. “No.” The sweat on his face and forehead had turned chilly. “I don’t mean that . . . It’s something of a shock.”
He straightened his spine and looked at her carefully. She was still herself, still Isabelle. “You do have a difficulty,” he admitted.
Isabelle rocked forward, with fresh sobs.
“And your husband?”
“He’ll murder me,” Isabelle said simply, cutting off her tears. “Oh, there is much he overlooks, but he has his limits, and I know them.” She sat up, wiping her eyes on her forearm. “Incidentally, our children are his own.”
“Well, then,” Maillart looked away from her. “How far is it along? There are ways, I’m told . . .