The Vorrh

different kinds of leather, he asked, ‘When will we practise mating?’
    She hoped she had misheard. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked, with caution.
    ‘When can I put my man tube inside your cleft? For pleasure and practice?’
    She blushed and became tongue-tied, her hands over-gripping the chamois in her clutch. She averted her eyes, looking down and noticing, with surprise, that his trousers were unbuttoned and gaping.
    ‘It’s been a long time now, and I miss it.’
    ‘We can never do such a thing,’ she hissed. ‘It’s unnatural and shameful.’ She was about to explain the moral codes and the potential genetic disasters, when his words finally arrived at her understanding. ‘When did you do that before?’ she asked slowly. ‘And who with?’ Even as the question formed, she knew the answer, a picture of it assembling in the furthest recess of her mind.
    ‘With Luluwa,’ he said. ‘Many times before.’
    The shock hit her in the strangest of ways. An unknown taste entered her mouth; her spine shivered, and she had the overpowering sense of being very far away, of being tiny while her body bloated, expanding to become the size of a continent. A flapping edge of swoon treacled her eyes, making everything peripheral to her speeding distance. And worst of all, in this ocean of disgust, fright and repulsion, delight quivered, on a far-off island, on the other side of the world: in her womb.
    It was two days before she could bring herself to return. She did not know how she had escaped that last afternoon; her memory had been rinsed to make space for her imagination. The image of their unholy coupling had crowded into her skull, the elbows, knees and heels knocking against the bone. When she opened the door, he was standing by the shutters, picking at paint. He turned and anxiously began to speak. She put her finger to her lips and hushed him.
    ‘Say nothing,’ she said. ‘Say nothing.’
    She crossed the room, taking his raised hand away from the shutters and holding it tightly in hers. Quietly, she led him through the room into the adjoining bedroom, guiding him onto the edge of the bed, and unbuttoning her long raincoat. She stood before him, naked and trembling. He undressed quickly, fumbling with the buttons while she sat next to him. His last garment discarded, he placed his hands on her shoulders and felt her shudder. He was startled by her softness and warmth, and she shivered in the excitement of wrongness, the fear of the unknown and her commitment to the untold levels of power she knew she would wield from that point on. He ran his hands along her body, feeling the curves swell against his touch. She had the same contours as Luluwa, but his first teacher’s cool hardness had never moved under the pressure of his body and her rigidity had been the height of his eroticism. Now, the heat and pliancy was transferred; she was like him, and they exchanged pressures by exquisite degrees. His fingers touched the inside of her legs, leaving tiny flakes of paint from under his nails. There was a jolt when he brushed against her pubic hair. He lowered his head and looked deep into her nakedness. An unmapped cog turned in the pale engine of his near-humanity.
    They coupled for two hours, shifting positions and angles until every aspect had been achieved. He fell into sleep while still inside her, his weight balanced across her. She looked down across his back at his breathing. He was drawing out of her, leaving a glistening trail across her thigh, in the shadow of his body. His penis had an anti-clockwise spiral, and turned as it retracted. In future couplings, she would find herself watching it in fascination, but for now the motion was hidden and proclaimed itself in a tickling sensation that made her squirm, waking him from his total slumber.
    It had been Ghertrude’s first time with another. She felt tired and exhilarated. There was no blood – she had taken her own virginity many years before. She had learned the conclave joys of auto-satisfaction through hours of practice, and used the secret acts to inform her clandestine ways. She was proud of her self-sufficiency, the way it elevated her above common appetite. The day was a fissure in her containment, one that she would monitor with precise care.
    Ishmael lay sprawled across the bed, ecstatic and soothed by his own pleasure, feeling his male dominance rise for the first time on the third floor. He reached out for her as she moved away