Black Body

by H C Turk

  “And how might this be, sir, in that Mr. Wroth cannot?”

  “In that I’ve a carriage of my own which I drive as well as driving the company’s. For a minor fee, I can have your aunt departing for Wales tomorrow. If you can come with me to my own office at the agency, I shall begin the papers.”

  He then opened the carriage door, and held forth his hand.

  “Have your man leave, in that we’ve a company of coaches,” Percival stated, “and I shall return you to any locale within the City you please.”

  Being desperate or deluded, I agreed. With Eric’s coins, I paid the coachman his due without displaying my unfamiliarity with this nasty metal, receiving a tip of his hat but no thanks in that I was too ignorant to provide him with a gratuity. As I stepped from the carriage without accepting Percival’s hand, the rejected coachman departed. Somehow I believed that the driver whose employ I had ruined would not have left me so easily.

  “This way, miss, and I’ll be careful with my leading to avoid scuffing your shoes,” Percival promised.

  And so he was, looking down to the street’s surface and walkway with but the rare glimpse behind to see that I followed. Followed to the stables for horses, the garage for coaches and their repair.

  “Thank Jesus for mild winters,” the male said, seeing no snowy slush to soil me. “This way, miss,” he instructed, looking about in a manner I considered furtive, as proven by his next speaking.

  “Ooh, and we should wait here a moment, miss,” he said after peering around a corner. “An unpleasant person is there we’re best to allow pass.”

  We soon continued, Percival leading me past a massive coach with missing wheels and into the realm of horses. Other men were perceivable in the near distance, but my guide’s path precluded our being seen. The rich smell of animal bodies and their droppings were demeaned by the wooden crates called stalls retaining the horses. Through the rear of the stables to a small room with a bed, boots, and the smell of this Percival, my night sister’s fragrance exalted in compare.

  He had me enter first, then closed the door behind.

  “My, what a poor office you have,” I observed.

  “My business is simple and needs no fancy desk.”

  “Business with a fool can be simple, can it not?” I replied, and turned in a rush to the door, grasping the latch to run out, fumbling with the mechanism as usual, though I was not immediately attacked from behind. Finally, I had determined that although a certain illegality was ever expected to be part of this business, my being alone with this man meant the enterprise might be painful as well.

  Then he attacked me. Before I could open the door, the sinner grasped my shoulder as though to pull me near. Surprisingly, however, Percival after that first contact released me, standing away to rapidly speak.

  “Please, miss, you’ve come this far, please hear me out—for your own benefit.”

  I paused. Percival stood across the small room, making no move against me. Because I said nothing, the male continued.

  “I think I know you, miss. I think I know your social place is unusual to follow a stranger into the stables. Therefore was the cause for your accepting Mr. Wroth’s huge fee. And I think that when you made to get it from a bank, you would have difficulty. But my fee is more reasonable.”

  “Your fee for what?”

  “Why, for taking your auntie to Wales in a coach with my own horses.”

  “And what sum would you ask?”

  “Why, I would have you lie with me, miss.”

  Not wholly predictable was his price since he began by asking for his desire instead of grasping it as had his brethren.

  “I know little of such things, Mr. Sinner, but know I can expect no conveyance for my aunt if you receive payment in advance.”

  “But, miss, I have papers of booking,” he asserted, and stepped to a table by his bed, attacking a paper with a pen and ink well, signing and blotting his writing before handing me the form.

  “If I do not hereafter complete my agreement exactly as per my promise, miss, you are encouraged to impart my failure to Magistrate Naylor himself.”

  I accepted the paper. I could not be certain of its legal aspects, but the sinner’s mention of Naylor seemed significant. But I continued with our business because of a more remarkable fact, for this male had written the name of the selected Welsh town exactly as had Wroth.

  “And to lie with you,” I asked warily, “is this not what the criminals call ‘fucking’?”

  “Oh, and it is, miss, damned straight—I mean, I mean, so wise you are,” Percival replied weakly as though I had beaten him; and did I not sense the first odors of the male’s perturbed bottom?

  “During which, as I understand, you are to insert your man-stick into my child port and rub it about a time.”

  “Oh, and yes, miss, how wise you are, and how grateful I would be for a bit of this rubbing.”

  I thought of mother’s description of procreation, that it was harmless to witches, though the mad sinning men were ludicrously enthralled with the activity, their women disappreciative beyond the production of children, which seemed sensible to me. Then I thought of Marybelle’s examining my innards, and recalled the considerable pain.

  “Show me this thing you would insert within me,” I ordered.

  At once the man began tearing at his pants, tearing at a lump recently formed beneath the fabric, this growth in a male’s clothing one I had sensed before. So prejudiced was I as to consider Eric’s sex smell more decent. And though I had never seen Eric’s sex flesh, I next observed Percival’s; for he pulled forth a part of his body resembling a large finger made red and tender from the nail’s being ripped away; and it was moist, this little limb attached to a patch of body hair beneath the man’s belly. Compared to Marybelle’s hand, this extremity seemed of no consequence.

  “At least the thing is of no ponderous size,” I mentioned.

  “Yes, miss. Thank you, miss,” Percival returned.

  I thought of stealing valued items from the Rathel and attempting to pawn them. I thought of walking to that burnt part of London, thought of being discovered by Rathel with her clock, thought of failing at these miserable activities again and again. Therefore, I asked this sinner:

  “What further process do we now commence?”

  “Why, why, why you lie on the bed with no clothes and I lie on top of you.”

  “That is preposterous,” I exclaimed. “I will not have your odorous bulk upon me and squashing.”

  “Well, well, well…,” the male continued, thinking at the greatest rate possible as he stared between his man-stick and the floor. “You might lie on the bed’s edge and I will kneel before you upright.”

  “I see,” I returned. “But since you have use for only one restricted part of my person, I shall expose no more than that area,” I conveyed, and proceeded to fulfill my notion. All of these garment layers I pulled up, my pantaloons going down. Then I waddled to the bed’s edge whereupon I sat, partially reclining with most of my weight supported by my elbows.

  “Oh, yes, miss,” the sinner cried as though moved by a great minister’s sermon. Then, as described, he knelt before me. Because of the impediment of my underthings collected around my ankles, I found it best to lift my feet above the sinner’s head to allow his access. As the man moved near, I viewed his sex stick through my vertical thighs, saw a drop of sticky liquid at that tiny hole or slit in its end, and thought of the baby fluid Mother had mentioned; and from stuff like snot Lord God makes babes?

  With some groping of a shaking hand, the driver grasped his pinkish limb and poked that body hair of mine corresponding to his. After tiny, curled hairs loose from my person inadvertently adhered to his stick due to its viscid liquid and the master’s inaccurate aim, the sinner managed to gain the proper receptacle; whereupon this portion of me he entered with some force—and some discomfort on my part, until I understood that the muscles there should not be constricted. Thereafter, I had no
pain, though Percival seemed about to die; for he proceeded with his rubbing, moving his limb-stick to and fro as though unable to determine whether it should best remain within or be removed. His face was a passion I had never seen on a grown sinner, more like a child at play having harmed himself, fearing additional pain from a parent’s castigation for having played with the wrong item and using it incorrectly. Then the sinning male leaned heavily against my legs, reaching about to grasp my bosom.

  Harshly I shoved his shoulders and gave him my greatest scowl.

  “Sinner, leave go with your hands! Lean against the bed if you fear collapse. Your lust shall not be my peril, so fall on the floor, not me!”

  As though drunk, the unsteady driver complied, his hands going to the bed’s edge for support.

  I would not look to him further, not caring to see signs of his unusual pleasure, but the man was sickening me. After seconds of his pumping, I grew weak, collapsing upon my back, head lolling to one side, my feet and their surrounding apparel falling before Percival as though a curtain shielding an operatic actor from his suffering audience. And though my torso was limp, my bottom felt hard, all my blood seemingly collected there to surround the attacker, for the flesh was hot. My baby region felt like stone, and there my pain gathered and intensified, for the muscles around my pee hole and buttocks grew tight, then cramped, so cramped I felt agony, frightful agony. This pain was not from the male’s limb moving coarsely within me, but due to my own response, for my muscles would not relax despite my effort to go calm about my crotch. The tightening and the pain increased until I could not even attempt to shove the sinner away. I became delirious, my eyes unable to focus, for all my energy was stolen by this sex. And here was a dream, a nightmare from Jonsway instantly, acutely returned to me, one of a male with more authority but equal agony. But here I suffered reality, and I prayed for the crushing spasms to subside; for if the torment did not soon end, I felt I would die.

  Finally, the agony—the acute, concentrated agony—subsided, only firm contractions of my baby muscles continuing, leaving me with a dull pain that was filling, though not murderous as the former sensation had been. After a moment of deep breathing, I sat, then noticed that the male had pulled away from me, now reclining on the floor, apparently asleep on his face. If his pain had been as great as mine, his fainting was understandable. Impossible to comprehend, however, was how sinners could seek such activity, could enjoy this procreating. If the activity were not agonizing for the male, but desirable as alleged, why had this man collapsed? But no intellection was within me, merely fleeting thoughts passing unclearly through my delirium as I stood unsteadily, determining to quit the sinner before he called out for aid or understanding. From my own distress, I had no concern for the sinner’s: he could heal himself as had I. Thinking only enough to take the signed paper, I folded the form and left. Through the door, the stable, I reversed Percival’s path to gain the street.

  That initial surge of energy for escape was soon expended, and I felt my true state. So weak that I could not lift my head, so pained throughout my body that I could not avoid a grimace, I walked with weak legs, seeing my feet shuffle, my breath coming as gasps. Once upon the walkway, I achieved clear deliberation with difficulty, and halted. Nearby people noticed me and murmured, but I could not change my disposition, my distress. I had to rest, I had to recover, I had to leave; but how much walking would I have to undertake? No carriage awaited me, and I saw none for hire. The sex sinner had promised to convey me home, but I would rather die than return and ask him. And I could not ask Mr. Wroth, for how to explain my illness? I am sick, Mr. Wroth, from being unaccustomed to fucking your drivers. So I remained, leaning against a storefront without idea or energy until a man approached, reaching out to kindly touch me as he inquired of my health.

  “I am well. Be away, sinner,” I growled, and leave my sight he did.

  I remained leaning against the cut clapboard of a building until a pair of finely dressed elder women approached with the same concern as the previous man, but without his faint odor that I would never again accept. So when they asked of my health, I feigned no strength, but replied weakly, truthfully.

  “Ill I am, madams, and in further difficulty beyond health.”

  “What is your problem, dear child, for of course we would aid?” one lady returned.

  “I am out of the household without my mother’s permission. My carriage is departed, and I find none to hire, and in fact feel that I’ve scarcely the strength to hail one regardless. I would walk home if not so distant, but it seems I can scarcely stand.”

  There would be no walking as long as they had a coach. They had a coach from their own stables as though a company for conveyance themselves. As though angels, they insisted upon conducting me home and summoning a physician if need be. With all honesty, I told them I praised God for their gracious concern, but no physician would be required, only my own bed. The ladies assisted me into their vehicle, understanding when I closed my eyes that I was truly unable to respond to their inquiring as to my difficulty. Therefore, these sinners as kind as any witch asked nothing further of me. Once before the Rathel’s, they insisted upon guiding me to the doorstep, but I had strength enough to convince them of impossible difficulties to befall me if discovered by Mother. Only assist me from the coach, please, and God’s graces and my greatest thanks go with you forever.

  I stepped away from them with better strength, turning to wave at the departing women and forcing myself to smile, for a kindly expression was the least they were due. As the sinners moved along the street, I moved through the rear gate, then to the basement and within. Beneath covered furniture I concealed my papers, cloak, and bonnet, then lay on the cold ground, which soothed my hot illness, falling asleep with no concern for punition.

  • • •

  “Ah, girl, and you’re in the basement again all day like a mole, and I know you’re not eating. Lying on the ground in this cold will be taking all your warmth and make you, ill, child. Are you never learning even that?”

  Above me was an oil lamp attached to Elsie, who was shaking me awake. Again, it was effortless to tell a tale when truthful and beneficial to me.

  “Miss, I have grown ill, so much that I am unable to climb the steps.”

  As though angered, Elsie placed the lamp upon a box and turned my face to peer carefully at my features, thereby determining my state.

  “Aye, and you’re sagging in the face and nearly panting, lass. It’s your eating, it is. Either you’ve had nothing for too long or else you’ve been eating too many of those scallions. Or—pray God no—you’ve been eating some crawly to upset a person. Whatever, child, you’ll be throwing this nasty stuff up worse than you throw up the meat you hate, and then you’ll be feeling better. Come, then, you’re making it up the steps with me aid, are you not, child?”

  “With your aid, miss, I am,” I responded, and together we moved to my chamber.

  We passed the Rathel. She inquired as to the difficulty, and Elsie conveyed her presumptions regarding bad food. The mistress asked whether a physician should be summoned, but the healer Elsie was offended, replying in the negative. Neither had she need of further servants, for Elsie had always managed well with me.

  “We have no spare girls in this household,” Rathel countered. “I have no extra daughter and you have no extra lass. I believe you would agree with this assessment, and therefore I hope your justifiable pride in your own fine abilities would not disallow your having me send for a physician if one is truly needed.”

  With her supporting arm around me, Elsie looked to the Rathel more intently than I had ever seen, and between these women long together I viewed an understanding they well accepted yet seldom displayed.

  “I have no extra lass, mistress, and you’ve no extra daughter. And there’s not enough pride in God’s world to keep me from begging for any help needed to cure her. So she’ll be coming along fine for me, or I’m running for the doctor myself.”
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  Into my chamber with the irreplaceable lass, who was disrobed by a sinner finding blood on me in a private place. This wise woman was aware of the situation.

  “Aye, and you’ve become a woman, Alba. This is no aid to your bad feeling, likely much of the cause.” Then she departed, returning with a warm, wet cloth with which she cleansed me.

  “We’ll be talking more of this later, child, and I’ll be showing you how to dress so as not to be staining your clothing when this next occurs.”

  She then had me drink some nasty syrup to draw a grimace from me, which of course pleased nurse Elsie.

  “The worse it tastes, the better it’s working,” she crooned. “You’ll be feeling better when this clears your stomach.”

  Though the servant physician was satisfied to leave, I stopped her at the door. I thought of the ladies on the street. They had received true expressions of my gratitude. Elsie now received further truth, perhaps too much.

  “I hope you do not mind, miss, but I find I have to love you.”

  Here was my syrup for Elsie, for it drew from her a grimace as well as tears. And she left like the sinning man against me, so pleased yet seeming in misery.

  Into the night I reposed without sleep until the healer’s material began to function, for I felt a rising within me, an uncomfortable swell as though from food’s sickness. So I rose to move to my chamber pot, voiding myself of such material that part of my innards seemed rejected. But Elsie had been correct, for her syrup and my vomiting delivered a true improvement in my feeling, for thereafter I was well enough to sleep. Sleep too comfortably, too deeply.

  My only dream was horrible, for it was virtually real. Therein I had a friend to gain, my greatest friend. Unseen she was yet smelled by me as I walked in the dark, traversing caves that were tunnels to lose me even when well, but I was not. In my illness, every step increased my pain so greatly that without ever approaching this friend, I became so agonized as to faint and fall asleep as though dead. Despite my great desire to rise, I was unable to awaken, remaining alive in my mind but dead in the body. When finally I awoke, however, it was not within this dream but from my true sleeping, and outside was morning light. Then I knew the dream to be genuine, for that lost night held the sister whom I had vowed to meet and to save. And though I leapt from bed and ran to the window, further moves would be useless, for all my sense and every perception told me that the witch outside was gone.