Her voice grows clearer, kinder. She yawns. ''What is it?'' she says. She rubs her eye. She pushes the hair back from her brow. If she were any girl but Sue! If she were Agnes! If she were a girl in a book—!
Girls love easily, there. That is their point.
Hip, lip and tongue—
''Do you think me good?'' I say.
''Good, miss?''
She does. It felt like safety, once. Now it feeis like a trap. 1 say, ''I wish— I wish you would tell me—''
''Tell you what, miss?''
Tell me. Tell me a way to save you. A way to save myself. The room is perfectly black. Hip, lip—
Girls love easily, there.
''I wish,'' I say, ''I wish you would tell me what it is a wife must do, on her wedding-night
And at first, it is easy. After all, this is how it is done, in my uncle''s books: two girls, one wise and one unknowing . .. ''He will want,'' she says, ''to kiss you. He will want to embrace you.'' It is easy. I say my part, and she—with a little prompting—says hers. The words sink back upon their pages. It is easy, it is easy .. .
Then she rises above me and puts her mouth to mine.
I have felt, before, the pressure of a gentleman''s still, dry lips against my gloved hand, my cheek. I have suffered Richard''s wet, insinuating kisses upon my palm. Her lips are cool, smooth, damp: they fit themselves imperfectly to mine, but then grow warmer, damper. Her hair falls against my face. I cannot see her, I can only feel her, and taste her. She tastes of sleep, slightly sour. Too sour. I part my lips—to breathe, or to swallow, or perhaps to move away; but in breathing or swallowing or moving I only seem to draw her into my mouth. Her lips part, also. Her tongue comes between them and touches mine.