XI
The escapees from the dung heap walked several valleys until they spotted the lights of a rural village. They entered the quaint farming town, and village folk who eyed the mud-splattered strangers, greeted them nonetheless with a friendly wilkommen.
The town’s only innkeeper, though, at first doubted letting them stay, their smell and condition belonging to people who’d wallowed in a pigsty. However, the color of their plentiful cash soon changed his mind. To that burgermeister of the community, money made the world go round, and it was said he still owned the first deutsche mark he ever made. Besides, anyone, including his three gathered daughters, could see that under their layers of foulness, nestled refined and even alluring city folk.
Fortunately for Russell, the sooty layer served to camouflage his fast decaying condition of late season. The hut’s aroma helped mask his particular pestilence. His friends registered him and helped him up the stairs of the cordial country inn. They tended to him in his room, cleaning him and collecting his dirty clothes for the rag heap.
To clean the muck from their hands, faces, and hair, they asked the innkeeper for the purest alcoholic beverage he had, and said they wanted to relax having it in their rooms. He sent up bottles of local moonshine he didn’t know the purity of, but said it would singe the hairs from their eyelashes it was so strong. He could not have imagined that wiping their faces and hands and soaking their hair with it was precisely what they intended.
The firewater was indeed pure. The low water content induced only mild sunburn pain and redness on their skin and scalps. Because their skin never secreted oils or perspiration, washing regularly was never an issue. The following day when the innkeeper’s daughters made up the rooms, they would wonder that but for several soiled hand towels, if the guests had set foot in the clean bathrooms.
The food courses they ordered through room service, also pleased the innkeeper’s bill tally. Unaccustomed as he was to have guests in his country place order room service, he happily had his daughters bring the multiple courses to the rooms. His daughters would also consider it odd after the guests left, to find the food untouched.
For clean clothes, rather than mend and wash their crud-covered outfits, Nathan asked the innkeeper about new clothes. Again, he cheerfully obliged, and called a clothing store. The owner said he’d be glad to reopen despite the late hour. However, for some inexplicable reason, the guests refused for a car to take them to the store. A van packed with a selection of the haberdasher’s finest shirts and mountain travel attire soon arrived at the inn for their shopping comfort.
The merchant spread the clothes all around the inn’s comfortable living room decorated with traditional German knickknacks. The clothing hung or lie among the folk art, farm ware pottery, and stiff leather sofas. It hung between wall plates and plaques, cuckoo clocks, beer steins, and dried spice garlands that were supposed to ward off evil spirits.
While inspecting the clothes, Gus noticed oddly displayed bundles of gold painted twigs. “What are these?” he asked the innkeeper.
“Ah, you don’t know Krumpus. These remind young people to be good, or Krumpus will get them. He punishes naughty children. Monstrous with big blood filled mouth, horns, very ugly. Very frightening to children.”
The guests selected comfortable duds. Gus also picked out a sporty Tyrolean style hat with moss green pheasant feather in the band. He also picked out a dashing one with moulted blue feathers for Leeda, setting it jauntily on her brow. A metal, pocket cigarette lighter with raised hunting scenes he picked up from a table, the innkeeper quickly tried to sell him. “Hand carved and very old. Take it for one hundred euro.”
“I don’t smoke, thank you.”
“Sixty for you.”
“I really—”
“A gift of your visit—at forty. You won’t deny me forty euro for such a fine piece.”
Gus, thinking it wiser to appease the proprietor of where they rested, than uphold his own logic, bought the lighter. After all, it followed the same logic as ordering meals to their rooms that they wouldn’t eat. However, the lederhosen, he positively refused, as did all the males. Leeda however, could not resist an ankle length dress of calf leather so subtle that it flowed.
The innkeeper’s daughters fussed over the dress. It had been in the shopkeeper’s window as long as they could remember, and they longed for it just as long, but the price tag kept it beyond their reach. They pleaded with Leeda to buy it. They gushed over how beautifully she’d carry it—elegant and beautiful as she was. Imagining how charming it would look on her, she took it, and the young women rushed her up to her room to try it on.
“Better pick out some things for Russell,” Gus said to Nathan. “Let him stay in his room and rest.”
“Yeah. How close do you think he—” he looked around and lowered his voice, “to taking?”
“Very close, nature’s command. It’s a grave risk to be here, for all of us.”
“We need rest, especially Russell. At first light we’ll go.”
In Leeda’s room, the young women, excited to be with the ravishing woman who had stumbled into their remote village, sat her on her bed, and proceeded to undress her, pulling first on her knee-high boots. “Oh but you’re going to look so beautiful with this dress,” said the one with braided flaxen hair tied in a bun.
“We’ve all wanted this dress for so long,” said the tallest of the innkeeper’s daughters.
“It’s not one of us, but just to see it on you!” added the youngest and most excited.
“My, you’re so beautiful,” golden braids said, admiring Leeda while fidgeting to unbutton her blouse.
“Ohhh,” they exhaled, gawking at Leeda. “What breasts . . . They are so perfect. And pure. Equally leveled.”
“May I? . . .” golden braids dared.
Leeda nodded, and the admiring young woman placed her hand on a breast. “Tender . . . as freshest bread.”
“But they look firm as well.”
“May I?” tallest asked.
Leeda allowed.
“They submit like dough, but come back like fresh baked bread. So perfect . . .”
“They are perfect.”
“Mine are nice.”
“Mine are big.”
“But yours, like ripened fruit to our preserves.”
“Step into the waist,” tallest said, holding the skirt’s waist open on the floor.
Leeda stood and stepped into the opening, and they pulled the soft leather skirt up her sides. “You have the smallest waist.”
“Your figure, I’ve never seen such a one.”
“It’s a pity to hide it under the dress, but when you walk in it you’ll see and sense how beautiful it makes you feel.”
“I’ve brought you my boots,” the youngest said. “Your feet are as small as mine. They should fit.”
“You can take my high ones,” Leeda said, referring to her own boots.
“Oh I would love them,” youngest said, sliding her own tall leather boots up Leeda’s calves.
“The blouse you picked, it’s the most provocative,” the tallest one said, attiring Leeda in a low cut, strapless peasant blouse barely clinging to her shoulders. “It’s so alluring this blouse, the peasant blouse the only alluring clothing we Germans can say we have given the world.”
“Not lederhosen?” her sister teased.
“Oh yes, sauerkraut for the body,” tallest replied, and they all laughed.
“There, on the tightest button,” golden braids said, fixing the skirt’s waist button and straightening the folds, then standing back with her sisters to admire their creation.
“How does it look?” Leeda asked.
“It’s not finished.”
“The underbust.”
“It’s the magic that will lift your breasts for your man.”
Affixing a leather bodice around Leeda from her waist to the base of her breast, two held it in place while the third pulled on threaded strings along th
e back. “Breath in.”
“More, to make it as tight as possible.”
“And this,” the youngest said, sliding her fingers under Leeda’s blouse and pushing up Leeda’s breasts, “to reveal as much as possible of your allure.”
“There,” the one tightening the corset said. “It’s in place.”
“Oh . . . but you look . . . like a mountain goddess . . . of myths and legend. Yes . . .”
“And,” Leeda said, standing straight, “how do I undo it?”
They laughed. “You undo it?” they giggled. “Leave that for your man.”
Leeda concurred as if of course that was a silly question.
“Which of them is he?” the youngest asked.
“Not the oldest?”
“No . . .”
“Not the sick one?” golden braids worried.
“No.”
“They’re all so handsome, even the sickly one I’m sure, but which?”
“It’s clear,” the tall one said. “She still hasn’t conquered her lover. It’s the one that’s the handsomest of all. Yes?”
Leeda nodded a bit sadly, they noted.
“Tonight, in your new finery, you will have him.”
“Tonight go to him, no?”
“Maybe . . .”
“Yes. Tonight. The end of summer is upon us and the fields are bursting with plenty, and the Sun has warmly ripened fruit all summer long. It’s time to for the bounty to be given up.”
“It wants to.”
“And it’s waiting.”
“In the other room.”
“For you.”
“Go to him tonight without fail,” they said.
Taking the dirty clothes, the three, resplendent from her glowing presence, bowed and left the room.
Leeda walked in the flowing leather skirt that nearly grazed the floor. She smoothed the tight ridges over her flat belly. Her bare shoulders lifted and lowered. The edges of her lips dimpled.
Later that night Leeda sat wistfully on her bed still wearing her alluring attire but alone. A door latch closed in the hall, and she walked to check. Through her opened door, she spied Gus going down the stairs. It meant Nathan was alone in their room. She walked to the head of the steps and saw Gus sit in a sofa of the living area, pensive, and she turned to a hall door.
Opening the door, she entered. Nathan sat in an armchair, moonlight falling against his back. She entered and closed the door, stood and waited, and when she was sure he’d seen her, approached.
His eyes rose to her fetching face, and hers looked longing at his.
“What are you doing, Leeda?” his mellow voice said.
“I came to see you.”
“We all really need to rest.”
“Let me stay with you.”
“What’s the point?
“The point?”
“The point, Leeda. There’s nothing here for you.”
“Just our warmth, Nathan, together.”
“A blanket will do.”
She knew that if her yulen breast had contained a heart, it would be crushed. She well understood what he meant about them needing rest, and he was right, but she wanted it still, to lie together, even if only resting. Her desire for his intimate company would weaken her, she knew, but she did not care. The impossibility of his affection for her as men had for women, she didn’t care about. She knew that as yulen they were unable to love. They could not love anymore than they could hate or commit aggression against human or anyone else. But her longing for him, to be with him, wherever the strange impulse came from, it was real and it drove her, and when he declined it, it saddened her.
“You know I don’t mean to hurt you,” he said softly.
“I’m loyal to you, and would do nothing to upset or disturb you. I only sought tenderness between our bodies. Something soothing for me and for you too, to ease your concerns of what waits ahead.”
“But you really want more. You’d want more.”
“How can I? We can’t love.”
His head turned away, lips pressing.
“Have you ever wanted . . . to love, as they?” she asked.
For a moment his thoughts reached New York where not long ago he’d sought that very thing, that prohibition, that thing they did not have that he had challenged his nature’s core to gain, even risking his life, and that he had failed to gain.
“So you wanted love.”
He nodded.
“And?”
“And it didn’t work out. It was another time, place. It came to ruin. I was not . . . right.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m fine, Leeda.”
“You just seek something else.”
“No. Not the same. Back then it was because of the memories.”
“No bad memories now, anymore?”
“I forget them now. I learned, accepted, how to forget them. I made peace with yulenhood.”
“Not exactly, Nathan.”
“True. Not exactly. The difference is that I now don’t seek to be reborn outside of what I am. Now I only hope to turn stronger, stronger as who I am, without shame, without excuses, and knowing that I do so in the right and in the family of my own. The old memories and the new ones, of takings, I forget them now like dreams on waking. Do you forget yours?”
“Memories of takings? No, they never haunt me to begin with.”
“Then there’s nothing much for you to dread.”
“But love, it would be lovely I suppose, to know. To know love.”
“It’s not worth thinking about, or talking about, or wanting.”
“Not want it anymore, you mean.”
He nodded. “You’re beautiful beyond anyone, Leeda. Just be happy with that and with the other gifts that are ours, and leave to men and women the things that belong to them.”
“But we must have been created for more, is I think what you embody, your stand and challenge to oppose your nature. It may be strange but my feelings for you are still part of what we are. Not love but just a tenderness for you, and maybe you for me. Is that so wrong or impossible? Let me come to you.” She moved closer, and lowered to place her allure in the moonlight.
“Leeda, you know that pleasure isn’t ours to enjoy.”
“Let’s try.”
“There’s no point to this.”
“Try lets, just once.” She took his hand and brought it to her waist.
“We’re in need of rest, and with who knows how much trial ahead.”
“I had a taking just before leaving, and you, you told me you took several days earlier. We can spare the energy it will cost us to lie together.”
“Leeda, it’s unfair to spend of our counted energy on this. True, you and I had taken soon before leaving, but it looks like this trial will take much longer than I understood.”
“You shouldn’t have undertaken it then.”
“There’ll always be an excuse to not act, or to wait, and some of us will always be close to their calling and taking.”
“I would’ve come in any condition, Nathan.” Her hand let go of his.
“Why did you come?”
“You have to ask? Yes, I want to gain dignity from The Book and no longer be defiled by men without mercy. Yes, I would wish to no longer remain a weak yulen lass who must defenselessly submit to them. But really I came to be with you, Nathan. Is it so hard to understand?”
“I understand, Leeda, and I’m flattered. Truly.”
He looked cheerless, she thought, her fingers brushing back her long hair.
“When we’re done, Leeda, or closer to our task’s completion, if it won’t sacrifice us having enough strength to make it to our goal and our next takings, then, then we can do what you want. I promise.”
“Alright, Nathan. Maybe before summer’s end, who knows. You’ll still shine golden for a while. But whether in ugliness and pain of this cycle, or at the beauty of your zenith in your next, my tenderness for you will remain the same.”
&nbs
p; “And mine will be the same for you, Leeda.”
The room door slowly opened.
“Oh,” Gus said. “Is that you, Leeda?”
“Yes, Gus. I was leaving.”
“Yes, you must rest,” he said, as she passed.
“Goodnight Gus.”
“Goodnight Leeda,” Gus said, as she left.
At the foot of the steps downstairs, the innkeeper listened waiting for movement from his guests on the second floor. The older one had now returned to his room with his roommate. The other two men sharing one room had been quiet for some time. He heard the woman go to her room and close her door. The sickly one, alone, in the last room of the hall must be deep asleep after going to his room and not appearing again the whole night.
Stepping quietly upstairs, he passed to the end of the hall and listened outside the feeble one’s door, turned the doorknob with his key, and entered.
In the darkened room, he made out a sleeping figure completely exhausted on the bed. He could go through the guestroom without concern of waking him. But what was that horrid smell in the room? Had his daughters failed to remove the man’s manure sodden boots?
He checked the nightstand first, and found only the inn’s yellowed postcards in the draw. Next, he slid his hand slowly under the sleeping man’s pillow, but drew it back empty. He turned to the closet, and as he did, almost completely white bloodless eyes in the sleeping creature’s head slowly opened.
Finding nothing in the closet, the innkeeper turned to the dresser. Russell’s trunk rose, his breathing soft and steady. His pale pupils and irises almost matching the whites of their eyes, watched the man’s back at the dresser.
The innkeeper pulled each of the dresser’s low draws and slid his hands between the blankets and pillows in each, searching for a wallet, watch, coins, jewelry. Guests sometimes hid their belongings in the linens and things during their stays.
A rumbling started in Russell’s gut, and in an instant, as if a furnace switch lighted, the whoosh of burners sounded. He began walking to the man bending before the mirrored dresser.
Becoming disappointed with his lack of findings, the innkeeper checked in the jars and decorative boxes on the dresser, shaking or turning them over. So absorbed and desperate not to leave empty handed, he failed to notice the fulsome smell of decay behind him, or see the guest approaching.
Yulen: Return of the Beast – Mystery Suspense Thriller (Yulen - Book 2) Page 11