“Mr. Gorenberg, welcome home,” a short man came rushing over to take Mr. Gorenberg’s hat and coat. The coat accounted for a considerable percentage of his build, and without it he was little more than a broomstick. The short man turned to Rhone and Nebanum.
“New guests?” he asked.
“Live-stock,” Mr. Gorenberg enunciated.
“Ah I see. I’ll prepare them.”
“We’re no man’s live—”
Nebanum’s outburst was met with a blow to the back of his head from one of the brutes.
“Follow me,” the short man said to them, and they were escorted under the stairs to a room with a wash basin.
“Bathe,” the short man ordered. When neither Rhone nor Nebanum moved, the short man looked to the giants behind them and Rhone was selected to go first. The water was ice. By the time they were scrubbed—roughly with coarse rags—they were shivering uncontrollably. Wrapped in finely woven gowns, they were led to the stairwell. All the while, the giant enforcers ensured that they remained obedient.
At the top of the stairs they were directed down the hall to the right. It was unlit. Dozens of doors lined the walls. From some, light seeped out around the frame; from others, hushed moaning. The short man paused, lit a candle, and continued through the dark corridor. One door exhaled the sickly sweet smell that they had first tasted in Nettleham. They were shown to a room at the end of the hall. A number “8” reflected the flame of the candle. Inside was a single bed. The short man lit a lamp and instructed Rhone and Nebanum to sit. The two brutes stood outside the door, hidden by shadow.
“You two now belong to Mr. Gorenberg. You may, or may not, know what it is we do here. That’s irrelevant. You’ll learn quickly. If you do not perform to the satisfaction of our clients, you will be sold to our friends down at the Abattoir, and I promise you, the clientele there are far more...” his tongue wet his lips as he thought of something clever, “particular.”
He left to room. The door locked and Rhone and Nebanum were alone. A scream echoed up the hall, but no commotion followed. There was a steady rocking in the room adjacent to theirs. Only a week ago Rhone had had the best day of his life. Now, with the expulsion from his heaven, the theft of his freedom—of his future—it was an effort to breathe.
It happened too fast: they arrived in town that morning and were being escorted out that night. Damn that old man. Damn that sheepskin... and damn me, too.
“Don’t say that,” Nebanum said, “It’s just as much my fault.”
“Part of me is still hoping we’ll wake up at the goat farm,” Rhone sighed.
“I just don’t understand why it didn’t work. We were there, we did everything the same.”
“Not everything.”
“What do you mean?”
Rhone looked into the dark corner of the room, “Last time you didn’t mount Mary.”
Nebanum heard the contempt in Rhone’s voice; the buried implication that it was somehow his fault they ended up here.
“And I suppose we’re ignoring that you were overzealous with the blade?”
“I wasn’t overzealous with my blade!”
Nebanum slapped Rhone across his mouth. Rhone stood and walked to the dark corner. Regret tingled in Nebanum’s hand; the sound from the strike fouled the air. In the next room, the moaning morphed into an animalistic grunting.
“It doesn’t matter anyway. It was a dream,” Rhone said.
“No it wasn’t, it was—”
“It’s over. It was either jail or hanging.”
“I don’t think this is a jail... would they really hang us for stabbing a prostitute?”
“Why not?”
“It’s not very exciting, is all.”
The grunting abruptly turned into screaming. Nebanum backed away from the wall. The wailing stopped and the light moaning returned.
“Maybe,” Nebanum began, “maybe we didn’t go far enough. In a place like this, who knows?”
“You’re not making any sense.”
“Do you need another metaphor?”
Rhone turned around. Nebanum opened his arms and Rhone slid in. They held one another in the dim room.
“They’re punishing us,” Rhone said into Nebanum’s neck.
“They think they’re punishing us.”
A cry came from down the hall.
“Listen to that,” Nebanum turned towards the sound, “what better place than this to learn how to reach the other place? Where better can we practice our faith?”
“I never fancied myself the religious type.”
“We can be each other’s religion, our bodies are the church and the other place is heaven.”
“Who’s God?”
“I don’t know.”
“What about the lambskin?”
Nebanum bit and kissed Rhone’s neck, pulling their warm bodies together, “Don’t worry about that now. Let us pray...”
Thirteen
In the morning they were summoned to eat by one of the towering thugs. Their meal was surprisingly good—leaps and bounds ahead of what they’d had in town the previous day. For the first time they were able to see the other people who stayed at, and were bound to, the home.
There were two distinct groups mixed among each other: those wearing the fine white gowns and those not. Rhone and Nebanum wore the white gowns.
The clergy of white robes was comprised of not only men and women, but a few young boys and girls. A robed man came walking into the hall. He walked stiffly, his shoulders back. He winced when he sat down a few seats away from Rhone and Nebanum. All who were dressed in the white gown appeared to be beaten, not only, or necessarily, physically, but spiritually. They feigned smiles when the normal-clothed patrons approached them, proposing mundane or heinous acts under the pretense that the cattle could refuse. Such a scene happened to the stiff man right after he sat down: a portly woman of middle age approached him. The stiff man, who seemed in a great deal of discomfort nevertheless smiled. He was handsome and young with thick black hair. He took her hand and escorted her, slowly and painfully, back through the hall and up the stairwell. It wasn’t even noon.
A young girl sat down across from Rhone and Nebanum. Her eyes were large and green. A smattering of freckles was slapped across her nose and cheeks.
“You’re new?” she asked.
“Leave us alone,” Nebanum said.
“We arrived last night,” Rhone answered.
She couldn’t have been more than ten years old, but her face was hardened; her gaze daring and unafraid.
“I’ve been here for two years,” she said.
“Is that so?”
“I know everyone who works here. I work here too.”
“And what is it you do?” Nebanum joined in.
“We all do the same thing.”
“And that is?”
Nebanum knew the answer. He knew it, Rhone knew it, the tablecloth knew it. There was a vein of juvenile nastiness in him that often surfaced around children. Rhone knew he was abused as a boy, but little more.
“We please the guests,” came the tactful reply.
“I see.”
“Have you ever tried to run away?” Rhone whispered.
“You can’t. They lock the doors. They’ll put the dogs on you if you try to run.”
“We heard the dogs last night.”
“I saw Tom Foresight get eaten by the dogs. One jumped on his back and bit his neck. When he fell, the others bit his arms and legs.”
“There’s no way to escape?”
“They say Miss Rolly escaped.”
“Really? How?”
“Davidson told me that she drew lines on herself.”
Nebanum chuckled. Rhone leaned back. His eyes met with the towering corpse of Mr. Gorenberg.
“Making new friends, honeysuckle?”
“Yes, daddy.”
“Run along, I need to speak with them.”
The girl stood. Her brown hair floated after her as she walked away in he
r white dress. Mr. Gorenberg sat in her place, smiling his horse teeth at Rhone and Nebanum.
“I suppose you’ll be having us call you ‘daddy’ next.” Nebanum said.
“You’d be surprised what people do when they’ve got nothing left. How did you sleep?”
Neither answered.
“This was delivered to me this morning,” he withdrew a small wrapped object from his coat and placed it on the table. He unwrapped it slowly, green scintillating from under the dull cloth; it was Nebanum’s amulet.
“It was found, apparently, in poor Annie Woolsward’s clenched fist. She died last night.”
Nebanum reached cautiously across the table and retrieved his gem. The wrapping unfolded—it was the lambskin.
“I’m hoping that this act of kindness on my part will draw your ear,” Mr. Gorenberg stuffed the lambskin into his coat pocket.
“I don’t think we have a choice,” Nebanum said. Mr. Gorenberg cleared his throat; his Adam’s apple leapt.
“For those whose taste is unique, who crave pleasures they mustn’t speak, they come to Gorenberg’s house of love, to indulge their thirst from the Lord above.”
Rhone and Nebanum sat in silence.
“And who are we in your ‘house of love’?” Nebanum asked.
“Chattel.”
The short man came waddling over.
“Ah, Davidson. How are we this morning?”
“Well, Mr. Gorenberg. Two checked out but we have three coming in this afternoon.”
“Wonderful. Any wolves?”
“Two ravens and one black wolf.”
“Excellent. We can break in the new men.”
The ghastly visage of Mr. Gorenberg was lessened, to an extent, by the daylight. Rhone still felt his skin crawl when the man smiled, bowed slightly, and floated away. Davidson’s subservient smile faded when he addressed them:
“After you have eaten, proceed to the day room. I don’t suspect you’ll be chosen today, but I won’t have men idle.”
The room was large, towards the rear of the massive house, and flooded with window light. Outside, birds sang zealously while the dogs slept in the shade of the ancient yew trees. Inside, a pungent perfume burned their eyes (earthy and musky, it reminded Rhone of nights sleeping in the woods). The jeweled decor grew on the wooden walls and tabletops like golden fungus. Rhone and Nebanum shared a lush couch, watching the other chattel mingle on the auburn rug.
It was a meeting of ghosts; white robes swaying. There were men and women of all shapes and ages. From staggering statuesque amazons to meek, shuffling squirts of Adam. There were young boys and girls, both younger and older than the girl who had approached Rhone and Nebanum at breakfast. The one thing they all shared was the underlying numbness which glowed like a gray aura around them. It oozed from behind their dead eyes as their bruised mouths smiled, it lagged their reaction when spoken to, it tugged on their dark eyelids. The children didn’t play, like children should. Instead, they stood around like the adults—beaten and tired. The multiple conversations laid on one another, not one louder than the rest; a steady bleating of banality from the livestock in the House of Love.
“Did you see that, Rhone? He has the hide.”
“I saw. Do you think he knows what it is?”
“A man like that? He probably made the damn thing.”
“Why would he give you back your amulet?”
“He’s messing with us.”
The young girl, Mr. Gorenberg’s honeysuckle, came into the room. She stood out in her white dress; each person meeting her gaze quickly looked away. It seemed she had something about her which the others respected or feared. Slowly she wound her way through the forest of white robes, scanning her domain. She found Rhone and Nebanum and her hard face seemed to faulter. She made her way towards them.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hello,” Rhone said.
“My name’s Fayette. What’s yours?”
“I’m Rhone and this is Nebanum.”
“Do you want to look up my dress?”
“No.”
Fayette shrugged, looking somewhat rejected, and sauntered back through the day room where she joined a group of other children.
“I don’t like that,” Nebanum said when she had left.
“What?”
“The children. They’re not old enough to understand.”
“She seems like she can handle herself.”
“It’s an act. She’ll go mad otherwise.”
Rhone turned the idea over in his mind and changed the subject.
“What do you think was all that business about wolves and crows this morning?”
“The raven thing? I don’t know. He probably meant the people who pay to stay here. The guests.”
“I don’t want to go with someone else, Nebanum.”
“I don’t want you to either. The thought of it makes me sick. We’ll get our key and get out of here. I promise. We just have to be steady.”
A cloud drifted across the sun and the room darkened as the first guest wandered into the day room. The hushed conversations continued; the guest was all but ignored. In his nice clothes, he walked through the room, wringing his hands. He had the face of a mouse. Briefly he glanced at Rhone and Nebanum but their contemptuous gaze scared him away. He approached a woman who was seated with her back to Rhone and Nebanum. He bent down and whispered to her. She giggled and stood. Her breasts were larger than her head and hung down to her midriff. He was shorter than her by a foot and half as wide. He followed behind her, hand resting above her large buttocks. Her billowing flesh swayed under the robe. They left the room.
“She’s gonna sit on him,” Nebanum said, nudging Rhone with his elbow. Rhone smiled weakly. It hurt Nebanum to see him dismayed.
“Where do you suppose that old man sleeps?” he asked, trying to distract Rhone from his worry.
“One of these people might know.”
“I don’t necessarily want everyone to know what we’re up to.”
“Think they’d warn him?”
“‘You’d be surprised what people do when they’ve got nothing left.’”
“Careful who you mimic.”
A boy was looking at Rhone, mouth agape.
“I’ll gouge out your eyes if you keep staring at me little lamb,” he hissed at him. The boy turned and walked away.
“Was that necessary?”
“He was staring at me.”
“We’re new here; we’re an attraction.”
“That little girl didn’t stare, she introduced herself. That’s how it should be. I remember when I was very young, my mother and I were at market. A lady was staring at me, I was sickly, you know. My mother started to yell at her, ‘What are you looking at? Haven’t you seen a sick child before?’ I was so embarrassed. I was a boy, but I knew it was wrong.”
“‘Careful who you mimic.’”
“You should write a book with all the quotations you know.”
Another man entered the room. His face was sharp and his eyes beady. He wore a smirk and looked hungrily from body to body. As he walked past a group of children, he patted a girl on her head. There was spring in his step, a liveliness in his demeanor. He nodded at each pair of eyes he met. He approached a plain looking woman with short hair and, without speaking, escorted her from the room.
They sat on the fine couch watching the herd thin with the arrival of each sybarite. It was not only men that came; lone women, pairs of men and women, groups consisting of three, five, seven individuals—all giddy and smiling, selecting the numb children, the beaten women, the abused men.
Sunlight ran flat through the windows. All day they had been confined to the day room; their stomachs rumbled with hunger. There were four of them left: Fayette, a woman past her prime, Rhone, and Nebanum. Fayette had been stealing glances at them ever since their decline to see what she had up her skirt. Rhone was rolling his lip when she returned to their couch.
“Do you have a wif
e?” she asked Rhone.
He sighed, “No.”
“A girl?”
“No.”
“A boy?”
“What is this about?”
“I could be your girl.”
“Sit here.”
Rhone moved so that there was room between he and Nebanum. She happily sat down, stuffing her dress to either side of her legs. Her icy demeanor had melted, allowing the little girl to surface.
“I don’t need a girl, but we can be friends,” Rhone said, “You, me, and Nebanum.”
“Your hair is pretty...” she said, looking into her fidgeting hands.
“Thank you. So is yours. What about Nebanum?”
She giggled. Nebanum shook his bald head. Rhone chuckled.
“Would you believe that he’s never had hair? Not any place on his body.”
Fayette giggled again, then scooted closer to Rhone.
“You can look up my dress if you want to.”
“I’m alright.”
They sat in silence for a while on the couch. The other woman in the room looked at them grayly then walked out.
“That’s Vira. She used to be popular but now she’s old and no one wants her.”
“Know everyone do you?” Rhone asked.
“Yes,” she boasted.
“Mr. Gorenberg is your father?”
“Not my real father. He makes me call him that.”
“Is he nice to you?”
Fayette fidgeted, folding the edge of her dress and unfolding it. She didn’t answer.
“Do you know this place very well?” Nebanum asked her.
“I know everyone’s name,” she said proudly.
“What about where things are? If I needed something, could you find it?”
“I don’t know... what do you need?”
“I don’t need anything. I’m just wondering.”
“I know everything.”
They sat in silence for a while. A guest wandered in the room, looked them over and, not seeing anything he wanted, walked out again.
“Nebanum, do you know how a horse eats corn?” Rhone asked, grinning.
Fayette looked to Nebanum for his answer. Nebanum smiled, “Oh yes, I know how a horse eats corn.”
“Fayette, do you know how a horse eats corn?”
Bound by Rites Page 9