Persinette

When the red sun sets on the open water, the waves that crash against the foot of the tower could very easily be mistaken for blood. So flushed are they with the menses of Arinna that they seethe crimson foam.

From her window, Persinette could see miles of sea. Every day, she knitted, and brushed her ever-extending hair, and stared at the ocean – for what else was there to do? Stairs allowed travel in both directions, and so there were none. The room she lived in was the extent of her domain, the tower her enclave. All this she knew, and yet she longed for more. She longed to dip her toes into the sparkling ocean she had only ever seen and heard and smelled. She longed to drink wine, to kiss boys and girls, and sing.

She was confined here “By order of Orca” and that was all she knew. For twenty years, she waited.

The night that electrified Persinette was in April, and the sea was biddable, teasing the base of the tower like a lover’s tongue. She was brushing her hair, which by now extended so far as to coil round her waist and nuzzle her ankles like a cat, when she heard the sound. She had lived here long enough for her very heart to beat in concord with the lapping of the tides. Her hearing was attuned to the slightest change. She heard the thud of wood against wood and the splash of water disturbed, faintly at first, and then louder. She scanned her vignette of ocean and saw him.

A man rowed a small boat towards her tower. His knuckles were white as he gripped the oars; Persinette’s whitened as she gripped the window ledge and leaned out. Though he was far away, she could see him clearly as he approached, and he looked up and saw her too. There was an uncanny stillness that lingered in the air as the man wordlessly advanced upon her fortress. He moored his boat at the foot of the tower and now she could see him clearly, and she shuffled her feet impatiently.

The man was agile. He could scale the wall to Persinette’s window, climbing her bountiful blonde hair she had offered from the window. He was strong. He could pick Persinette up by her waist and throw her upon her bed. No names; no explanations. None were needed. Persinette knew that he had come to rescue her: to sail her away to freedom and to love her. She sank into rapturous sleep on the bloodstained sheets, wrapped in the arms of this wayfaring stranger.

Morning came. The harsh light of day stirred Persinette, its rays like ejaculate. She shielded her eyes and rolled over to find herself alone.

Her lover had departed while she slept. He had left no calling card, but had taken a souvenir of his own: a precious pearl she kept on her windowsill. She had sliced it from the belly of a fish she had once caught from her window. Now it was gone. The stranger had left, and taken his boat, her pearl and her heart, as if this bounty was what he had really sought on his voyage across the sea.

Persinette wept. Days passed and her lover did not return. The days stretched into weeks and into months. Her throat became dry from the whimpering; her eyelids became leathery from the tears. She grew hard like a stone. But something else was growing inside her. She had tasted the outside world on her visitor’s skin and a once-perfunctory desire for freedom swelled into a ravenous hunger. In the days, now, she knitted as she had always done, and she stared out upon the ocean as she had always done, and she combed her long, long hair as she had always done. But now, her breathing came thick and fast and to its own rhythm. She had hope once more.

When the stranger returned, a year had passed. Persinette looked down on his face, drenched in the evening sun, and she felt her heart throbbing in her chest. He smiled and said he had missed her. She had missed him too, she replied. She let her dress fall from her shoulders to entice him with her breasts and unraveled her long hair for him to catch hold of. As he started his ascent, she smiled hungrily; she had been waiting for this for a long time. She reached for her knife. She remembered how it had sliced the fish’s belly and exposed a pearl. With a giggle, she brought the knife to her cheek, and looked into the eyes of her lover as she sliced through her hair.

When the red sun sets on the open water, the waves that crash against the foot of the tower could very easily be mistaken for blood. Persinette watched the tower shrink into the distance, a crudely knitted ladder hanging from its window, as she floated out to sea on her lover’s boat. He lay at its foot, entangled in the locks of her hair and lapped at by the crimson waves, his head dashed to pieces on the rocks.