Free Butterfly by Paul Foewen Page A

aloof even as I was consumed with desire.
    But my detachment deserted me as the evening advanced. By eleven I had bathed and made myself ready; I tried to read, for I did not expect her quite so early. At midnight I gave up any pretense of being occupied: she should be there, she would be any minute, and I was waiting. On the stroke of one I opened the door and left it ajar so that she could be guided by the light. Then it was two, and three, and four, and still she did not come. I stretched out on the bed, but I could not sleep. The slightest sound made me want to jump up, but each time I resisted and lay as if asleep so that I could nonchalantly ask the time when she woke me and then exclaim, “Goodness, I've been sleeping for hours!” Minutes would go by and at last I would rise to confirm what was only too clear: that the noise had been something else, and that she had not come.
    I dozed off with the intention of going down early for breakfast to demand an explanation. When the alarm rang at seven, however, I did not feel up to a confrontation and procrastinated until it was too late to catch Marika alone; then there seemed to be little point in going down at all. It was very late when I finallyrose; I could think of nothing better than to lounge around on the terrace in the hope—vain, I need hardly add—that Marika might appear. After dinner I retired immediately on the pretense of a headache. Again I secretly hoped—since Kate seldom went up before ten or ten-thirty—for a visit from Marika, although this was unrealistic, for how should she know that I had gone to my room? At midnight I found myself once again holding an involuntary vigil.
    The following morning, bursting with recriminations, I made sure that I was the first in the breakfast room. I had my breakfast brought to me; despite a conscious effort to eat slowly, I was finished in no time. I wished I had taken along something to read. At last footsteps sounded. I drew a deep breath and made myself ready. To my disappointment, it was Kate who entered. When Marika came a few minutes later, she as usual took no notice of my existence. After failing several times to catch her eye, I seethed in bitter silence. But as I was stepping out after the girls, Marika motioned for me to return.
    Why was I not at breakfast yesterday? She had come down early to wait for me. The night before Kate had been indisposed and had kept her; last night, too. Perhaps this evening she would be able to slip away. But she had to be very careful, because Kate would sometimes ring for her in sleepless moments. “She will kill me if she know I go out to fuck you,” she whispered in melodramatic earnest.
    She had put her hand on my breast and rubbed it gently up and down while we talked, so that I could not refrain from taking her in my arms and kissing her. She returned my kiss with ardor but soon pulled away. Her mistress would be waiting, she had to go. Her eyes, as I looked into them, glowed with promises, while her hand closed firmly where my passion was most assertive. “Keep it for me,” she breathed, her eyes still locked with mine.“Don't let it out.” As if to seal the injunction with a gage, she drew my face forcefully to hers; a jet of liquid as from a spring spurted into my mouth. She turned quickly and was out the door by the time I had swallowed the poison liquor that would make my blood furiously itch.

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    Neither of them could sleep. They had lain together for a good part of the afternoon, then they had bathed, dined, and loved inexhaustibly into the night. Spent and famished, they had gotten up for tea and norimaki ;Butterfly had proposed sake and brochettes, but Pinkerton had developed a taste for rice rolled in seaweed—lately he had veered sharply in his tastes—and wanted to have it once more before departing. It was close to five, Sachiko would be coming in with their breakfast in an hour, for Pinkerton was to be at the ship by