At his touch her blood ran hot in her veins. She remembered thinking, at the time, that such a thing only happened in novels, but she actually felt a sudden surge of warmth go through her.
He went on talking, holding her hand lightly in his. Meeting his eyes, she saw that he had finished playing with her. He was serious now. She saw an eagerness that had pushed the jeering look into the background.
He rose to his feet abruptly, and took her through the back of the restaurant, through a doorway screened by a bead curtain. Together they went down a dim corridor that smelt faintly of sandalwood.
She followed him, her knees feeling weak, into a little room which was beautifully furnished, lit by rose-coloured lanterns. She was quite unable to say anything.
As she lay there in bed she could see those lanterns very clearly. She shut her eyes and she could see them even more clearly. She could feel him drawing her down on the divan, his hands taking the weight from her breasts. His hands there made her suddenly want him with an urgency that terrified her.
She had said, a little wildly, “Be kind to me—be kind to me,” and she remembered trying to find his mouth with hers.
She did not know how he undressed her. She was conscious of her clothes leaving her smoothly as he did everything. Then he suddenly lost all his smoothness, and treated her shamefully.
She lay staring at the rose-pink lanterns, feeling a sick loathing of herself. Her desires had gone away from her the moment he took her. It was all so sudden, so brutal, so unexpected—so filthily selfish. So she lay looking at the rose-pink lanterns until he stood away from her.
He had said, a little impatiently, “It’s getting late, we had better go back to the boat.”
She had said nothing. She couldn’t even cry.