Bone of My Bone
When Ursula finally stops, I slide to the ground, feeling spent and empty, but pleasingly so. I rest my cheek against the smooth bark of the tree and try to catch my breath.
Ursula kneels next to me. She is flushed and heaving, the twigs broken and bloodied in her hands. Her eyes glitter something fierce.
“There,” she says. Then, she shudders and drops the twigs to the ground, wipes her hands on the grass.
I take them and bring them to my mouth. I suck on her fingers one by one.
They taste of metal and of salt, and faintly bitter.
When they are all clean, I rub my cheeks against them like our cat used to do.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
She swallows. Something clicks in her throat. “Whatever sin you think clung to you, whatever has you feeling so ashamed, sad, and angry, I have scrubbed it away and beaten it out of you now.”
My mind rights itself, and my thoughts come running back, eager to climb back into my skull. “Oh, Ursula, that’s not how it works. Certain kinds of suffering stain forever, and—”
Ursula grabs my upper arms, then digs her nails into them with such force, I gasp then hush.
She brings her face close to mine and hisses, “You once told me you had your belly full of God and that you didn’t want my papist prattle.
Well, I have my belly full of your ungodly prattle now, and I shall have none of it anymore.
Mark me, and mark me well. Whatever sin that soldier may have committed as he used you, it is his to bear now, and his alone.
You are free of it, and of all other horrible things you may have done to survive.
I have cleansed and claimed your soul for God, whether you believe in Him or not. ”
This strict Ursula stirs something inside of me. There’s this pull in my belly, this tug, as if she has wound string around me and is gathering it up. I look her boldly in the eye. “What about my body?”
“What about it?” she breathes. There’s less than a handspan between us; if I were to lean forward a little, I could kiss her.
Which I want to, very much so.
I do.
I do.
I do.
Say I, “Gottfried claimed that for his own when he used me.”
She swallows; again, her throat clicks. “We can’t have that, now can we?
” she says. She lets go of my arm. The skin burns as if branded.
She takes my hand instead, brings it to her mouth.
Our gazes are snagged on each other as she kisses the palm of my hand.
It’s a chaste kiss at first, cool and dry.
She keeps kissing that same spot, and soon, her mouth grows warm and wet, and I feel, softly, the press of her teeth as her lips part.
The beating she gave me was unexpectedly hard, savage almost. To have her kiss me now with such calm and such tenderness breaks something inside of me.
When she lets go of my hand, I touch it with the other, rub the spot she kissed and sucked, as if I can spread the feeling of it.
“That bit of skin is mine now,” she says.
“Is that all you want of me?” I ask.
She doesn’t smile. Her eyes burn hot. “No,” she says.
In the hours that follow, she claims every last bit of me.