The Persian Boy Read Online Free PDF Page A

which his black curls fell down, just touched with henna. He sat down on the bed. “For the slippers, go on both knees, sit back a little, and take each foot on your lap in turn, always beginning with the right. No, don’t get up yet. He has loosened the waist of his trousers; you now draw them off, still kneeling, with your eyes cast down all the time.” He lifted his weight a little, so that I could do this. It left him in his linen underdrawers. He was extremely graceful, with a flawless skin; the Median, not the Persian beauty.
    “You have not folded them. The chamber-groom will take them away; but there must never be a moment when they lie about untidy. So, then, if this room were set out properly, you would put on the night-robe (my fault, however did I forget it?) under which he would slip off his drawers, in accordance with propriety.” He covered himself modestly with the sheet, and tossed them onto the stool.
    “And now, if nothing has been said beforehand, watch carefully for the sign that you are to remain when the rest retire. It will be nothing much; just a glance-like this-or a small movement of the hand. Don’t stand about, but o?ccupy yourself with something; I will show you, when all the right things are here. Then, when you are alone, he will motion you, like this, to undress. Go now to the foot of the bed, take off quickly and neatly, and lay them down there out of sight; he does not expect to see a pile of your clothes. That’s right, take off everything. You may now allow yourself to walk up with a smile, but don’t make it too familiar. That’s perfect, perfect; try to keep that touch of shyness. And now-” He opened the bed, with a smile so gracious and commanding that I had got there before I knew it.
    I started away, reproach and anger in my heart. I had liked and trusted him; he had tricked and mocked me. He was no better than the rest.
    He reached out and caught my arm; his grasp was firm, but without anger or greed. “Gently, Gazelle-Eyes. Hush now, and listen to me.” I had not said a word; but I sat still and ceased to struggle. “I have never, all this time, told you a word of a lie. I am just a teacher; all this is part of what I am here to do. If I like my work, so much the better for both of us. What you wish to forget, I know; soon you can do so forever. There is a pride in you, wounded but still unyielding; it is perhaps what shaped your prettiness into beauty. With such a nature, living as you have lived between your sordid master and his vulgar friends, you must have been holding back all the while. And very right. But those days are gone. There is a new existence before you. Now you must learn to give a little. I am here for that, to teach you the art of pleasure.” He reached out his other hand, and gently pulled me down. “Come. I promise you, you will like it much more with me.”
    I did not resist persuasion. He might indeed possess some magic, by whose power all would be well. So at first it still appeared, for he was as skilled as he was charming, like a creature from another world than that I had been frequenting; it seemed one could linger forever in the outer courts of delight. I took, all that was offered, neglecting my old defenses; and the pain, when it swooped on me with all its claws, was worse than ever before. For the first time I could not keep silent.
    “I am sorry,” I said as soon as I could. “I hope I did not spoil it for you. I couldn’t help it.”
    “But what is it?” He bent over me as if it really concerned him. “I cannot have hurt you, surely?”
    “No, of course.” I turned my eyes to the sheet to blot my tears. “It always happens like that, if it does at all. As if they brought back the knives.”
    “But you should have told me this.” He still spoke as if he cared, which to me was wonderful.
    “I thought it must be the same with us all-with all people like me.”
    “No, indeed. How long ago were you cut?”
    “Three