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It’s her eyes. They’re always so wide, so unguarded; they personify her ingenuousness, her endlessly inexhaustible hope. She has green eyes, the color of the lush foliage that flourishes in the morning dew in those moments before the day’s blazing heart withers them away. Like her, they are seemingly incessantly expectant, and each day, that optimism is crushed, burned and useless. Irulan’s hope never wilts or dies, and though she never says a word of it to Paul, it infuriates him.
She’s green and gold, like a vine; and like a vine, she grows around him, twisting, curling into the cracks of his marble façade. She is no fool; she knows the shape of things, knows that Chani will always and ever be his one love. Irulan is unnervingly trustworthy, she speaks only words that she means or believes in, and as Alia grows, she grows contemptuous of her sister-in-law. She urges Paul to get be rid of her, and it frightens him that his own sister is suggesting by any means possible. And yet, as always, Chani looks at him with her resigned and even stare. She understands, and that makes Paul hate Irulan all the more.
Chani knows that Paul goes to her; he keeps it no secret for there are no secrets between them. She knows that only she will bear him children, though she is becoming increasingly concerned at her inability to do so since their first was killed. He sees it in her eyes, that, though she understands that Paul has never strictly consummated his marriage to Irulan, needs be as needs must. Paul needs heirs. And Paul hates Irulan for it.
But that is not why he goes to Irulan, on those lost and lonely nights when Chani is away, in the desert, home to what had been her seitch before the palace, to whatever errand is in a woman’s heart when she is feeling disheartened. He knows she’ll be waiting for him when she sees Chani depart, knows that she will be in her sumptuous bed unclothed, her golden hair tumbling over her perfect, milky skin. She does not tan, not even on Arrakis; she burns, displaying just how very foreign she is to the place.
She lets the sheets fall away from her breasts as he climbs onto the mattress, small pink nipples pert, perfectly rounded at the tips of her modest bosom. He touches her there, first with his hands and then with his mouth. She’s content with his caresses, moving to allow him to find more flesh, his fingers sliding into the cleft of her sex, feeling her wet and ready. His own cock his free and he places it against her from behind, swallowed up by those swollen and sultry lips; back and forth, his shaft running along her, the head bumping the taut nub at the uppermost of her velvety folds.
She moans, so sweetly it could break a heart. He is oiling himself, making himself ready. He will not penetrate her there. She is already on her stomach, her body relaxed, waiting. There is a soft pillow beneath her hips as he mounts her. He presses the bulging tip of his manhood into her, the opening between her backside’s cheeks. Only the tip, gently, in and out. Each time with her, he was gentle, careful not to just storm in. Gradually, he invades her more deeply and, with patience, they reach a rhythm together.
His hand reaches around to cup her breast, to pinch at her nipples, tweak them between thumb and forefinger. His fingers glide down her belly between her thighs and find that button, the center of her feminine sensitivity. He pays it the same attention, circling it with the pad of his thumb and then flicking at the bud peaking from its hood of flesh. He reaches up to cover her nipples with her own wetness, letting them peak and pucker in the soft, arid evening air. He returns to her clitoris.
She reaches heights of ecstasy, and comes tumbling down, her entire body trembling under him. She tenses, her muscles jerking of their own accord and grasping him as she achieves climax. A desperate groan escapes his parted lips and he’s pulling out of her as he himself fulfills his pleasure. She doesn’t bother with the feel of his seed, even back there; he knows she will never complain.
He rolls over away from her, and she doesn’t attempt to nestle into him but only lays where she was, avoiding the wet spots, watching him with her wide, green eyes. And he hates her for it.
Because a hate so fervent flourishes only from passion; it is a misnomer, he thinks, that the two are wholly opposite. The tendrils of her vine have grown into him, no matter how he has tried to prune them. But there is an understanding that this is all that will ever be. And he hates her because she is satisfied with that.