She wanted to taste blood. There was a certainty about her mortality which consoled; no lie; no obfuscation; no false hopes. Just the simplicity of blood. And the strange thing about her certainty was the relief that she felt when she had known that this was all she needed to know:
‘Tell me something you know to be true. ‘
Henry James’ cousin had asked for some proof of tangibility and katherine wanted the relief of unlayered, untextured reality where nothing hid beneath whatever passed( and she was not sure it passed) for something that could endure. Give me that above all else she said and she felt fierce. Suddenly, lovingly, fierce.
And then she knew that this must be love. It had arrived without the comfort of shadows or structured cleverness…..and didn’t she abhor all these things? She did. But her secret and she was sure this stranger had smelt it on her the first time they had met was that she needed blood; blood tenderness and bloodied connection.
Life and death and conjuring images. For the woman was a conjurer and the trick was less sleight of hand than knowledge that everything could be.Everything could be held. Here.And without this, there was no there or here.
She wanted blood. Bloodied connection. Intimacy without convention. Pulse deep. Lupine fierce. Rest. The length of an arm about her head. Her hair. The fold of skin. Elbow and knee. Dissolving me and you.
Just an us.
There.
Here.
There…