needs.”
He was puzzled by her refusal to acknowledge his descent into the first person, which honored her, which was supposed to make her swoon with joy, which was his newest discovery and his declaration of love. Puzzled, and a little put out.
“How many men have you known, that you are so knowledgeable,” he said, frowning, approaching her. “Did you dream up men for yourself while ‘I’ was away, or did you find men to pleasure you, men who were not dreams. Are there men that ‘I’ must kill.” Surely this time she would notice the revolutionary, the erotic newness of the pronoun? Surely now she would understand what he was trying to say?
She did not. She believed she knew what aroused him, and was thinking only of the words she had to say to make him hers.
“Women think less about men in general than the generality of men can imagine. Women think about their own men less often than their men like to believe. All women need all men less than all men need them. This is why it is so important to keep a good woman down. If you do not keep her down she will surely get away.”
She hadn’t dressed up to receive him. “If you want dolls,” she said, “go over to the dollhouse where they’re waiting for you, prettifying and squealing and pulling one another’s hair.” This was a mistake. She had mentioned the other queens. His brow furrowed and his eyes clouded over. She had made a false move. The spell had almost broken. She poured all the force of her eyes into his and he came back to her. The magic held. She raised her voice and continued.
She didn’t flatter him. “You already look like an old man,” she said. “Your sons will imagine you’re their grandfather.” She didn’t congratulate him on his victories. “If history had gone down a different path,” she said, “then the old gods would still rule, the gods you have defeated, the many-limbed many-headed gods, full of stories and deeds instead of punishments and laws, the gods of being standing beside the goddesses of doing, dancing gods, laughing gods, gods of thunderbolts and flutes, so many, many gods, and maybe that would have been an improvement.” She knew she was beautiful and now, dropping the thin silk veil, she unleashed the beauty she had kept hidden and he was lost. “When a boy dreams up a woman he gives her big breasts and a small brain,” she murmured. “When a king imagines a wife he dreams of me.”
She was adept at the seven types of unguiculation, which is to say the art of using the nails to enhance the act of love. Before he left on his long journey she had marked him with the Three Deep Marks, which were scratches made by the first three fingers of her right hand upon his back, his chest, and on his testicles as well: something to remember her by. Now that he was home, she could make him shudder, could actually make his hair stand on end, by placing her nails on his cheeks and lower lip and breasts, without leaving any mark. Or she could mark him, leaving a half-moon shape upon his neck. She could push her nails slowly into his face for a long time. She could make long marks on his head and thighs and, again, his always sensitive breasts. She could perform the Hopping of the Hare, marking the areolas around his nipples without touching him anywhere else on his body. And no living woman was as skilled as she at the Peacock’s Foot, that delicate maneuver: she placed her thumb on his left nipple and with her four other fingers she “walked” around his breast, digging in her long nails, her curved, clawlike nails which she had guarded and sharpened in anticipation of this very moment, pushing them into the emperor’s skin until they left marks resembling the trail left by a peacock as it walks through mud. She knew what he would say while she did these things. He would tell her how, in the loneliness of his army tent, he would close his eyes and imitate her movements, would imagine his nails moving on his body
He was puzzled by her refusal to acknowledge his descent into the first person, which honored her, which was supposed to make her swoon with joy, which was his newest discovery and his declaration of love. Puzzled, and a little put out.
“How many men have you known, that you are so knowledgeable,” he said, frowning, approaching her. “Did you dream up men for yourself while ‘I’ was away, or did you find men to pleasure you, men who were not dreams. Are there men that ‘I’ must kill.” Surely this time she would notice the revolutionary, the erotic newness of the pronoun? Surely now she would understand what he was trying to say?
She did not. She believed she knew what aroused him, and was thinking only of the words she had to say to make him hers.
“Women think less about men in general than the generality of men can imagine. Women think about their own men less often than their men like to believe. All women need all men less than all men need them. This is why it is so important to keep a good woman down. If you do not keep her down she will surely get away.”
She hadn’t dressed up to receive him. “If you want dolls,” she said, “go over to the dollhouse where they’re waiting for you, prettifying and squealing and pulling one another’s hair.” This was a mistake. She had mentioned the other queens. His brow furrowed and his eyes clouded over. She had made a false move. The spell had almost broken. She poured all the force of her eyes into his and he came back to her. The magic held. She raised her voice and continued.
She didn’t flatter him. “You already look like an old man,” she said. “Your sons will imagine you’re their grandfather.” She didn’t congratulate him on his victories. “If history had gone down a different path,” she said, “then the old gods would still rule, the gods you have defeated, the many-limbed many-headed gods, full of stories and deeds instead of punishments and laws, the gods of being standing beside the goddesses of doing, dancing gods, laughing gods, gods of thunderbolts and flutes, so many, many gods, and maybe that would have been an improvement.” She knew she was beautiful and now, dropping the thin silk veil, she unleashed the beauty she had kept hidden and he was lost. “When a boy dreams up a woman he gives her big breasts and a small brain,” she murmured. “When a king imagines a wife he dreams of me.”
She was adept at the seven types of unguiculation, which is to say the art of using the nails to enhance the act of love. Before he left on his long journey she had marked him with the Three Deep Marks, which were scratches made by the first three fingers of her right hand upon his back, his chest, and on his testicles as well: something to remember her by. Now that he was home, she could make him shudder, could actually make his hair stand on end, by placing her nails on his cheeks and lower lip and breasts, without leaving any mark. Or she could mark him, leaving a half-moon shape upon his neck. She could push her nails slowly into his face for a long time. She could make long marks on his head and thighs and, again, his always sensitive breasts. She could perform the Hopping of the Hare, marking the areolas around his nipples without touching him anywhere else on his body. And no living woman was as skilled as she at the Peacock’s Foot, that delicate maneuver: she placed her thumb on his left nipple and with her four other fingers she “walked” around his breast, digging in her long nails, her curved, clawlike nails which she had guarded and sharpened in anticipation of this very moment, pushing them into the emperor’s skin until they left marks resembling the trail left by a peacock as it walks through mud. She knew what he would say while she did these things. He would tell her how, in the loneliness of his army tent, he would close his eyes and imitate her movements, would imagine his nails moving on his body
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