Percival novel · Chapter 12 of 24
Chapter 12: The Mark
Percival's bedroom is at the end of the east corridor.
The brass number on its door is now screwed on the right way up.
I had been in it once, in the dark, and I had never really seen it.
By lamplight it was a long stone room with a hearth you could stand inside.
A huge old bed stood against one wall, hung with dark green curtains, and the sheets smelled of cedar.
There were books on every flat surface.
There was a violin on the mantel with a string missing.
"You play," I said.
"Badly. It was a hobby in the seventeen-nineties."
"You have a hobby."
"I have several. I have simply not had anyone to show them to."
He took my hands.
The silver thread on each of our wrists had been steady for days, and tonight it pulsed with the beat of his heart.
"Tell me what you want," Percival said.
"Slow."
"Slow?"
"After the closet, and the roof, and the moon," I said. "I want to take my time."
"Yes."
"I want to look at you, and I want you to look at me."
He was quiet for a moment.
"I would like that more than anything," he said.
I undressed him myself.
I started with the waistcoat, and the shirt, and the brass watch, which I laid on the mantel beside the violin.
I knelt to take off his boots.
I stood to push his trousers over his hips, and he stepped out of them.
I put my hands flat on his chest and walked him back until his knees met the bed.
He sat.
I stood between his knees in my cardigan, and he looked up at me with his whole face open.
"Undress me," I said.
He did it with the same dreadful patience he had shown the first night.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of Percival are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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