Chapter Twenty-One
He let out a groan that sounded equally hungry and dangerous.
Seraphina kept still as Rune shuffled around like a cat, on his tiptoes, barely breathing. She was barely breathing herself, her heart throbbing in her throat and in her core at the same time, her body trembling with the effort to not move, to not make a sudden gesture that might send him running.
He placed the bar of soap on the edge of the tub, by her elbow.
“There’s also a washcloth,” he said.
She exhaled, her lips touching the surface of the water from how she was bent over her knees.
“Can you wash my back?” she asked. “I can’t reach.”
She heard him swallow heavily. The relic showed him standing behind her, looming over her diminutive frame. It didn’t matter that her head was down; the bone aided her brain in always calculating distances and dimensions.
“All right,” he said, and he knelt by the tub.
He dipped the washcloth in the water and took the soap from where he’d put it. Seraphina held her breath when he ran the washcloth over her spine. She shuddered and flexed her fingers, gripping the backs of her knees tighter.
“You’re cold,” he said.
She gave a short laugh. “No. Keep going.”
He ran the soapy cloth up and down her spine, then she felt his hand hover over her shoulder blade for a few seconds before he slipped it underneath her curtain of hair and pulled it out of the way to expose her nape.
Seraphina sucked her lower lip between her teeth and bit hard.
She remembered when Matteo used to do this.
It would be late at night, and she would be hunched over her work, cutting and filing bone shards, and he’d bend over her shoulder to assess her work.
He’d gather her hair in his fist and push it over her other shoulder, so he could see better, and she’d close her eyes and clench her jaw to suppress a moan.
Once, she’d asked him to kiss her. Right there, below the ear.
He’d breathed heavily against her skin and said he could never.
A purist was never going to touch a woman that wasn’t his wife. Seraphina didn’t ask again.
Rune ran the washcloth from one shoulder to the other, then back down her spine. He kept his distance as he did it, his back straight and his body away from her, leaning no more than he had to.
“What are you afraid of?” she asked.
He froze, and she felt cool drops of water run down her back as he squeezed the cloth without meaning to.
“Afraid?” he echoed.
“It seems like you’re afraid of me,” she pushed, though she was aware she might be making a mistake.
“I’m not afraid of you.” He dipped the washcloth into the water and soaped it up again. When he ran it over her skin, she noticed his hand didn’t shake as much as before. “It’s just that I’ve never done this before.”
“Given someone a bath?”
“Been with a woman...”
Seraphina lifted her head a little. “You’ve never been with a woman, and you’ve never seen a woman naked?”
“No, never.”
She hummed deep in her throat, considering her next move.
She didn’t know what she’d expected. Nothing in particular, since she hadn’t planned this conversation.
It didn’t surprise her, since he’d told her he’d been sheltered, and then he’d suggested he’d been locked up before, but what about his life up to the point when it all went wrong? Had he not experienced anything at all?
“How does it make you feel?” she asked. “If not afraid.”
“I don’t know. It feels...”
He didn’t finish the sentence, and instead focused on scrubbing her back thoroughly, a little too hard, if she was being honest. She could feel her skin turn pink from the hot water, the coarse soap, and his attention.
“Well?” she prompted him after a minute. “How does it feel, Rune?”
“It feels like it shouldn’t happen to me.”
That was an answer she hadn’t expected.
“Why not?”
“Because no woman would want to be naked with me. It’s unnatural.”
She sat upright and inclined her head, which led to two things happening at once: strands of her hair rolled down her back, and the upper part of her body became exposed to him.
Seraphina heard him take a sharp breath.
He dropped the washcloth, which sank with a splash, and drew his hand away.
She could’ve covered her breasts with her hands, but she chose not to.
“Why do you say that?” she asked.
“I’m not...” He swallowed, as if his throat were dry. “I’m not someone people want to be close to. Especially women.”
“I want to be close to you, Rune. We’ve been close for a while now, and I don’t believe I ever let you think that it disturbed me. I admit it was different at first, when they put me in your cell, but that was because I didn’t know you. Now I do.”
“You do?”
“Yes, I know you, Rune.”
He shook his head and let it hang low. Seraphina couldn’t feel his eyes on her anymore.
He was probably staring at his hands in his lap.
Those hands that she wanted to feel on her skin more than anything.
The desire had been like a low thrum vibrating through her flesh before, but it was starting to develop into something burning and unbearable.
“No–” he started, but she interrupted him.
“You told me what you see when you look at me. I can’t look at you, I can’t see you, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t know you.
And I know that...” She paused to gather her thoughts.
“I know that something bad happened to you and it made you doubt yourself. I know that people called you a creature and said that you were ugly, and you believed them. I know that you don’t function well in the world, and you think you’re undeserving because of it, but you’re not.
None of it is true. Not what they called you, not what they said about you, none of it. ”
“What is true, then?” He sounded defeated, as if he didn’t expect a positive answer, and if the answer was positive, he was ready to dismiss it.
Seraphina turned to him and gripped the edges of the tub. His shadow was hunched over, and he wasn’t looking at her. He wasn’t even aware her chest was facing him now, her round, firm breasts bare and dripping, her nipples hard peaks.
“You’re a gentle soul who was forced into this terrible world, that is true.
I was forced, too. I didn’t ask to be born, did I?
Now I understand why you said I’m your mirror.
You’re my mirror, too. We’re the same, Rune.
They ruined us, humiliated us, then threw us away like trash, and told us we’re filthy and despicable, and we deserved it.
They told us we’re ugly, but we’re not.”
She was panting now, the words spilling out of her, and she realized she was telling him all this, but she was telling herself, too, trying to convince herself for the hundredth time that her disfiguration didn’t change who she was inside.
And the lack of eyes didn’t make the rest of her body less desirable.
She was young, smooth and firm everywhere, and she wanted to be touched.
She hadn’t wanted it in a long time, and she’d thought she’d never heal – maybe she hadn’t – but now she’d met him, she knew him, and she wanted to be touched again.
“You’re not ugly, Seraphina. But I am. You just can’t see it, and that’s a small mercy God has granted me.”
She laughed. “Do you really believe in God?”
He huffed and said, “I’m not sure”. And then he lifted his head and looked up at her, and Seraphina felt his eyes burn into her skin.
Down the length of her throat, over her clavicle, until he found the swell of her breasts, and he let out a strangled cry.
He scrambled to his feet, hit the three-legged stool in the process, and hurried to disappear on the other side of the screen.
“I’m sorry,” he panted. “I’m sorry.”
She heard him knock into the table, then the scrape of the chair against the floor told her he’d resumed his position in the corner. She was dumbfounded. She didn’t know how to react, or what to say or think, for that matter. The man had gotten a glimpse of her breasts and made a run for it.
As she sank back into the water, she realized she felt hurt.
She’d bared her soul and chest to him, and he preferred to stare at a wall.
Her hand found the washcloth at the bottom of the tub, and she proceeded to wash herself quickly.
To wash her hair, she removed the scarf first and draped it over the edge.
She scrubbed at her roots thoroughly, allowing herself to enjoy feeling her hair clean for the first time in too many weeks.
She washed her face and gently prodded her empty eye sockets with her fingers.
The skin was tender, as usual, but it had healed perfectly, in great part due to the relic.
Before implanting Saint Vivia’s bone, she used to get small tears and infections.
The sisters had done their best to clean her wounds and help the tissue grow, but her eyes had oozed pus and tears for months after.
Once the saint’s bone had been implanted, that all stopped.
It was well known that implanted relics strengthened the body and prevented illness.
Given the prison conditions and how she’d had to live on the streets of Ingolstadt, in the cold and damp, Seraphina should’ve become sick many times over.
Her healthy, balanced humors were due to the relic.
She got out of the tub and dried herself off with a towel, then slipped into her cotton shift. The scarf went back around her face, the strip from Rune’s shirt back around her wrist, and she padded into the bedroom, barefoot and with her long, blond hair hanging heavy down to her waist.
“The water is still warm,” she told him. “It’s your turn.”