|
The arches and the spires of St. Patrick's rose before me.
St. Patrick's.
And beyond, the wall of the Olympic Tower driving upwards, itsglass like polished stone, seemingly invincible, its height monstrousas if like the Tower of Babel it was trying to reach directly to Heaven.
I stopped, my heart about to burst.
"Dora! Dora!"I reached the doors of the lobby, the dizzying lights, the slickfloors, the press of mortals, solid mortals everywhere, turning to seewhat moved too swiftly to be seen. Woozy music and lulling lights,the gush of artificial warmth!
I found the stairwell and rose like a cinder going up a chimney inmy flight, and crashed through the wooden door of the apartment,staggering into the room.
Dora.
I saw her, smelled her, smelled the blood from between her legsagain, saw her tender little face, white and stricken, and on either sideof her like goblins out of nursery rhymes and tales of hell, Armandand David, vampires, monsters, both staring at me in the same starkwonder.
I struggled to open the left eye that was no longer there, thenturned my head this way and that to see the three of them distinctlywith the one eye, the right eye, that I still had. I could feel a sharptiny pain like so many needles in the empty tissues where my left eyehad been.
Oh, the horror on Armand's face. In his old finery, he stood,heavy shopwindow velvet coat, modern lace, boots spiffed like glass.
His face, the Botticelli angel still, torn with pain as he looked at me.
And David, the pity, the sympathy. Both figures transfixed in one,the elder Englishman and the young fine body into which he'd beenlocked, smothered in the tweed and cashmere garments of winter.
Monsters clothed as men but earthbound, real!
And the shining gamine figure of my Dora, my slender, yearningDora with her huge black eyes.
"Darling, darling," Dora cried, "I am here!" Her small warmarms went round my aching shoulders, oblivious to the snow fallingfrom my hair, from my clothes. I went down on my knees, my faceburied in her skirts, near to the blood between her legs, the blood ofthe living womb, the blood of Earth, the blood of Dora that the bodycould give, and then I fell backwards onto the floor.
I could neither speak nor move. I felt her lips touch mine.
"You're safe now, Lestat," she said.
Or was it David's voice?
"You're with us," she said.
Or was it Armand?
"We're here.""Look, look at his feet. He's got only one shoe left."".. . at his coat, torn . . . the buttons are gone.""Darling, darling." She kissed me.
I rolled her over gently, careful not to press her with my weight,and I pulled up her skirt, and I lay my face against her hot nakedthighs. The smell of the blood flooded my brain.
"Forgive me, forgive me," I whispered, and my tongue brokethrough the thin cotton of her panties, tearing the cloth back fromthe soft down of pubic hair, pushing aside the bloodstained pad shewore, and I lapped at the blood just inside her young pink vaginallips, just coming from the mouth of her womb, not pure blood, butblood from her, blood from her strong, young body, blood all overthe tight hot cells of her vaginal flesh, blood that brought no pain, nosacrifice, only her gentle forbearance with me, with my unspeakableact, my tongue going deep into her, drawing out the blood that wasyet to come, gently, gently, lapping the blood from the soft hair onher pubic lips, sucking each tiny droplet of it.
Unclean, unclean. They cried on the road to Golgotha, whenVeronica had said: "Lord, I touched the hem of your garment and myhemorrhage was healed." Unclean, unclean.
"Unclean, thank God, unclean," I whispered, my tongue lickingat the secret bloodstained place, taste and smell of blood, her sweetblood, a place where blood flows free and no wound is made or everneeds to be made, the entrance to her blood open to me in herforgiveness.
Snow beat against the glass. I could hear it, smell it, the blindingwhite snow of a terrible blizzard for New York, a deep white winter,freezing all beneath its mantle.
"My darling, my angel," she whispered.
I lay panting against her. The blood was all gone inside me now. Ihad drawn all of it from her womb that was meant to come. I hadlicked away even what had collected on the pad that had lain againsther skin.
She sat up, modestly covering me with her crossed arms, bendingforward as if to shield me from their eyes桪avid's, Armand's?
|
