She stood as an insult to the place below. Her dress - the color of water - a pale green-blue, too simple and expensive, its pleats exact like edges of glass -her thin heels planted far apart on the boulders, the smooth helmet of her hair, the exaggerated fragility of her body against the sky - flaunted the fastidious coolness of the gardens and drawing rooms from which she came.
She looked down. Her eyes stopped on the orange hair of a man who raised his head and looked at her.
She stood very still because her first perception was not of sight, but of touch: the consciousness not of a visual presence, but of a slap in the face. She held one hand awkwardly away from her body, the fingers spread wide on the air, as against a wall. She knew that she could not move until he permitted her to.
She saw his mouth and the silent contempt in the shape of his mouth; the planes of his gaunt, hollow cheeks; the cold pure brilliance of the eyes that had no trace of pity. She knew it was the most beautiful face she would ever see, because it was the abstraction of strength made visible. She felt a convulsion of anger, of protest, of resistance -- and of pleasure. He stood looking up at her; it was not a glance, but an act of ownership. She thought she must let her face give him the answer he deserved. But she was looking, instead, at the stone dust on his burned arms, the wet shirt clinging to his ribs, the lines of his long legs. She was thinking of those statures of men she had always sought; she was wondering what he would look like naked. She saw him looking at her as if he knew that. She thought she had found an aim in life - a sudden, sweeping hatred for that man.
This is an excerpt from a novel by a well known author. Thought this resonated with Jane's advice that writers can really benefit by reading great books.
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