Tanith Lee by All Birds Of Hell

Author:All Birds Of Hell
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-12-12T02:16:50+00:00

He opened up the parlor off the ballroom. It too had a chandelier dripping prisms. He turned on the fire and lit the tall white candles in the priceless candelabra. He was not supposed to do this. But against Argenty’s tremendous gamble it was a small gesture.

Everything sparkled in the room. It was now only like an overcast snowy winter day in the country. Perhaps before some festival. And the lunch was like a celebration.

Argenty ate doggedly, drank quite sparingly. She ate only a little, but with interest, excitement. She sparkled up like the room, her personal lights switched on.

In the middle of the meal, the dog, Bella, came padding in, her coat thick with rime and water drops. Tchaikov got up, thinking Tanya would be afraid of the dog. But Tanya only laughed with delight, and went straight to Bella, ruffling her fur, and drying her inadequately with linen napkins from the table.

As Bella stood before the fire, and the slight woman made a fuss of her, Tchaikov could see the swelling shape of the dog’s belly, her extended nipples.

She was definitely pregnant from the wolf. And the girl-woman bent shining over her, caressing and stroking-kissing the big animal on the savage velvet of her brow.

Argenty said, “Tanya used to live on a farm. They had dogs, cats, horses, everything.”

Tanya said, lightly, “I came to the city to sell stockings. Isn’t that ridiculous.”

When the meal was finished, they drew the large chairs to the fireside. They sat drinking coffee and brandy, and the dog lay between them, glistening gold along her back from the fire.

Outside, the dusk of the afternoon seemed only seasonal through the openings of the heavy drapes.

They were sleepy, muttering little anecdotes of their pasts, quite divorced from their present. In the end, Tanya fell asleep, her head gracefully drooping, a lock of her hair like dark tinsel on her cheek.

“When she wakes up,” said Argenty, “we’ll be going.”

“Why don’t you stay tonight?” said Tchaikov. “Leave early in the morning.

There’s another bedroom in the suite. Quite a good one— I think it’s for visiting VIPS. By tomorrow the power failure will be over, probably.”

“That’s kind…you’ve been kind…but we’d better get back.”

They looked at the sleeping woman, at the sleeping dog, and the fire.

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