Three hundred inches of rain a year! Poor Gilly ecstatic if it got a princely fifteen, while here as much as three hundred fell, two thousand miles from Gilly.
"Doesn't it cool off at night?" Meggie asked as they reached the hotel; hot nights in Gilly were bearable compared to this steam bath.
"Not very much. You'll get used to it." He opened the door to their room and stood back for her to enter. "I'm going down to the bar for a beer, but I'll be back in half an hour. That ought to give you enough time." Her eyes flew to his face, startled. "Yes, Luke."
Dungloe was seventeen degrees south of the equator, so night fell like a thunderclap; one minute it seemed the sun was scarcely setting, and the next minute pitch-black darkness spread itself thick and warm like treacle. When Luke came back Meggie had switched off the light and was lying in the bed with the sheet pulled up to her chin. Laughing, he reached out and tugged it off her, threw it on the floor.
"It's hot enough, love! We won't need a sheet."
She could hear him walking about, see his faint shadow shedding its clothes. "I put your pajamas on the dressing table," she whispered. "Pajamas? In weather like this? I know in Gilly they'd have a stroke at the thought of a man not wearing pajamas, but this is Dungloe! Are you really wearing a nightie?"
"Yes."
"Then take it off. The bloody thing will only be a nuisance anyway." Fumbling, Meggie managed to wriggle out of the lawn nightgown Mrs. Smith had embroidered so lovingly for her wedding night, thankful that it was too dark for him to see her. He was right; it was much cooler lying bare and letting the breeze from the wide-open transoms play over her thinly. But the thought of another hot body in the bed with her was depressing. The springs creaked; Meggie felt damp skin touch her arm and jumped. He turned on his side, pulled her into his arms and kissed her. At first she lay passively, trying not to think of that wide-open mouth and its probing, indecent tongue, but then she began to struggleto be free, not wanting to be close in the heat, not wanting to be kissed, not wanting Luke. It wasn't a bit like that night in the Rolls coming back from Rudna Hunish. She couldn't seem to feel anything in him which thought of her, and some part of him was pushing insistently at her thighs while one hand, its nails squarely sharp, dug into her buttocks. Her fear blossomed into terror, she was overwhelmed in more than a physical way by his strength and determination, his lack of awareness of her. Suddenly he let her go, sat up and seemed to fumble with himself, snapping and pulling at something. . "Better be safe," he gasped. "Lie on your back, it's time. No, not like that! Open-your legs, for God's sake! Don't you know anything?" No, no, Luke, I don't! she wanted to cry. This is horrible, obscene; whatever it is you're doing to me can't possibly be permitted by the laws of Church or men! He actually lay down on top of her, lifted his hips and poked at her with one hand, the other so firmly in her hair she didn't dare move. Twitching and jumping at the alien thing between her legs, she tried to do as he wanted, spread her legs wider, but he was much broader than she was, and her groin muscles went into crampy spasm from the weight of him and the un- accustomed posture. Even through the darkening mists of fright and exhaustion she could sense the gathering of some mighty power; as he entered her a long high scream left her lips.
"Shut up!" he groaned, took his hand out of her hair and clamped it defensively over her mouth. "What do you want to do, make everyone in this bloody pub think I'm murdering you? Lie still and it won't hurt any more than it has to! Lie still, lie still!"
She fought like one possessed to be rid of that ghastly, painful thing, but his weight pinned her down and his hand deadened her cries, the agony went on and on. Utterly dry because he hadn't roused her, the evendrier condom scraped and rasped her tissues as he worked himself in and out, faster and faster, the breath beginning to hiss between his teeth; then some change stilled him, made him shudder, swallow hard. The pain dulled to raw soreness and he mercifully rolled off her to lie on his back, gasping. "It'll be better for you the next time," he managed to say. "The first time always hurts the woman."
Then why didn't you have the decency to tell me that beforehand? she wanted to snarl, but she hadn't the energy to utter the words, she was too busy wanting to die. Not only because of the pain, but also from the discovery that she had possessed no identity for him, only been an instrument. The second time hurt just as much, and the third; exasperated, expecting her discomfort (for so he deemed it) to disappear magically after the first time and thus not understanding why she continued to fight and cry out, Luke grew angry, turned his back on her and went to sleep. The tears slipped sideways from Meggie's eyes into her hair; she lay on her back wishing for death, or else for her old life on Drogheda.
Was that what Father Ralph had meant years ago, when he had told her of the hidden passageway to do with having children? A nice way to find out what he meant. No wonder he had preferred not to explain it more clearly himself. Yet Luke had liked the activity well enough to do it three times in quick succession. Obviously it didn't hurt him. And for that she found herself hating him, hating it.
