43.4 Cold
Her skin is cold. He knew it before touching her, the way he knew fire was hot. It was just a fact. Not surprising. Not like it would be if she were fevered.
Her skin is cold but it is not like the dead bodies he’s handled in the past. Their skin is thick and waxy. No hint pulse or living process beyond those illusions left by ceremony and makeup. His fingertips barely need to brush the thin skin of her wrist to feel the blood rush beneath her skin. She’s supple, soft, full of life. But her skin is so cold.
Her skin is cold, but not like the kid who came in from the desert with hypothermia. His body was slowly shutting down and coming apart. There was something about her body that said she would last long after his own was moldering in the ground. It was like touching something out of time. She is proof the cold preserves.
Her skin is so cold that the silk dresses she wears cling to her curve and legs. He watches her when stands up to go, thankful for the gifts of static cling. He wonders how much of her skin is so cold. What it feels like to hold a breast as cold as the first frost of morning. To kiss lips that makes his breath a warm fog. If even those last most intimate inches of her are cold.
Her skin is cold. He knows it because of the passing handshakes and times she comes to talk to him. He knows he’s not the only doctor contracted to study the effects of iron on Fae blood and how to treat the toxicity. But he knows he’s one of the few who actually believes the truth of what she says even after being confronted with the truth of the matter.
He knows he’ll never know more, even after she stops wearing the wedding ring. But when he calls the professional house he visits when his wife is out town, he asks. “Can her skin be cold?”
Mab
Original Character
347
Her skin is cold but it is not like the dead bodies he’s handled in the past. Their skin is thick and waxy. No hint pulse or living process beyond those illusions left by ceremony and makeup. His fingertips barely need to brush the thin skin of her wrist to feel the blood rush beneath her skin. She’s supple, soft, full of life. But her skin is so cold.
Her skin is cold, but not like the kid who came in from the desert with hypothermia. His body was slowly shutting down and coming apart. There was something about her body that said she would last long after his own was moldering in the ground. It was like touching something out of time. She is proof the cold preserves.
Her skin is so cold that the silk dresses she wears cling to her curve and legs. He watches her when stands up to go, thankful for the gifts of static cling. He wonders how much of her skin is so cold. What it feels like to hold a breast as cold as the first frost of morning. To kiss lips that makes his breath a warm fog. If even those last most intimate inches of her are cold.
Her skin is cold. He knows it because of the passing handshakes and times she comes to talk to him. He knows he’s not the only doctor contracted to study the effects of iron on Fae blood and how to treat the toxicity. But he knows he’s one of the few who actually believes the truth of what she says even after being confronted with the truth of the matter.
He knows he’ll never know more, even after she stops wearing the wedding ring. But when he calls the professional house he visits when his wife is out town, he asks. “Can her skin be cold?”
Mab
Original Character
347