Alternately tapping on his white shirt, you, me, you, me, tapping like those toy birds that can be set to endlessly dip their beaks into a glass of water, dip, dip, dip, we bracket in an abstraction of the fantasy. Symbolizing in the mereness of our bracketing the full need of woman. If a man is large, he requires more, a matter of scale. Some are such that the need is endless. The seraglio infinite. The vault too vast to escape.
And at every moment the odalisque is suspected of betrayal, she is watched carefully, is she mocking? If he owns, by god, he will own. If he suspects she mocks, suspects she knows too much, suspects she may love another. . . . if he owns, by god, if he. . . .
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