I nodded slowly. I could do brave. He led me by the hand into the
bathroom and he took a towel down off of the hook on the back of the
door and folded it into a long strip. He handed it to me. "Bite down on
this," he said, and helped me stand in the tub and face into the corner,
to count the grid of tiles and the greenish mildew in the grout.
"Hold still and bite down," he said, and I heard the door close behind
me. Reverent fingertips on my wing, unfolding it, holding it away from
my body.
"Be brave," he said. And then he cut off my wing.
It hurt so much, I pitched forward involuntarily and cracked my head
against the tile. It hurt so much I bit through two thicknesses of
towel. It hurt so much my legs went to mush and I began to sit down
quickly, like I was fainting.
He caught me, under my armpits, and held me up, and I felt something icy
pressed to where my wing had been -- I closed my eyes, but I heard the
leathery thump as my wing hit the tile floor, a wet sound -- and gauzy
fabric was wrapped around my chest, holding the icy towel in place over
the wound, once twice thrice, between my tits.
"Hold still," he said. And he cut off the other one.
I screamed this time, because he brushed the wound he'd left the first
time, but I managed to stay upright and to not crack my head on
anything. I felt myself crying but couldn't hear it, I couldn't hear
anything, nothing except a high sound in my ears like a dog whistle.
He kissed my cheek after he'd wound a second bandage, holding a second
cold compress over my second wound. "You're a very brave girl," he
said. "Come on."
He led me into the living room, where he pulled the cushions off his
sofa and opened it up to reveal a hide-a-bed. He helped me lie down on
my belly, and arranged pillows around me and under my head, so that I
was facing the TV.
"I got you movies," he said, and held up a stack of DVD rental boxes
from Martian Signal. "We got *Pretty in Pink*, *The Blues Brothers*,
*The Princess Bride*, a Robin Williams stand-up tape and a really
funny-looking porno called *Edward Penishands*."
I had to smile in spite of myself, in spite of the pain. He stepped into
his kitchenette and came back with a box of chocolates. "Truffles," he
said. "So you can laze on the sofa, eating bonbons."