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excerpt from the book of the month: The Fox
He had been sawing logs for the fire in the afternoon and
his entire body had been, at one point, covered in a fine sheen of
perspiration. What remained now was the scent of his exertion and the lingering
effects of the satisfaction that comes across a man when he has done a hard job
well.
Darkness came very early. It was still a cold, raw mist. It
was getting almost too dark to see. A pile of short sawed logs lay beside the
trestle. March came to carry them indoors, or into the shed, as he was busy
sawing the last log. He was working in his shirt-sleeves, and did not notice
her approach; she came unwillingly, as if shy. When she bent down he saw the
firmness of her muscles and the easy way her strong arms moved the logs. She
was a fine prey, indeed and they both knew it. He saw her stooping to the
bright-ended logs, and he stopped sawing, letting his probing gaze rake across
her. A fire like lightning flew down his legs in the nerves and he was more
aware of March than he ever had been. Everything about her called to him, her
scent, her body, her essence. It was not enough to be near her. He needed to
possess her. Indeed, master her.
"March?" he said in his quiet, young voice.
She looked up from the logs she was piling.
"Yes!" she said.
He looked down on her in the dusk. He could see her not too
distinctly and he struggled to see what he could of her. If only she would stop
shrinking away from him and expose herself to him as she ought to.
"I wanted to ask you something," he said, feeling
that lightning fire burn in his limbs.
"Did you? What was it?" she said. Already the
fright was in her voice. But she was too much mistress of herself. And it was
that control, he realised, that he most wanted to take from her. She would
weaken and give herself to him. He would see to it. As he felt that was what he
wanted, he knew she must want it too.
"Why"—his voice seemed to draw out soft and
subtle, it penetrated her nerves—"why, what do you think it is?"
She stood up, placed her hands on her hips, and stood looking
at him transfixed, without answering. Again he burned with a sudden power.
"Well," he said, and his voice was so soft it
seemed rather like a subtle touch, like the merest touch of a cat’s paw, a
feeling rather than a sound. "Well—I wanted to ask you to marry me."
March felt rather than heard him. She felt him everywhere—on
her face, across her breasts, deep inside her, filling her and taking her soul.
She was trying in vain to turn aside her face. A great relaxation seemed to
have come over her as she had known this moment was coming and finally it had
arrived. She stood silent, her head slightly on one side. He seemed to be
bending towards her, invisibly smiling as he came for her. It seemed to her
fine sparks came out of him, ready to jump across to her and burn through her
skin.
Get Your Copy of The Fox, revisited by Isabelle Drake
