He seemed to be avoiding her. For days, after what had amounted to rape, Ruby had lived in a constant state of anxiety, shame and self-loathing. She had done so little to stop him; perhaps she had unintentionally given him some kind of encouragement? She hated him for what he was and what he had done to her and yet, deep down and to her eternal shame, Ruby had to struggle with the knowledge that her treacherous body had responded with a passion that she could never have imagined. It must, she thought, have been some kind of devil within her that allowed Jonas to play with her senses, exciting her body to a fever pitch over which she had no control. Ruby lay in bed night after sleepless night unable to banish the memory of Jonas’s hands caressing her bare flesh, his mouth demanding her response and the shameful climax when she had cried out, not in pain but in ecstasy. Mum had always told her that the intimate relations of the marriage bed were the curse that women had to bear, and that the act of procreation was not supposed to be pleasurable.
What do You think about The Dollmaker's Daughters?
