Black Body
Page 56
“Your generosity is beyond words, Lady Amanda. But concern yourself not that I might be a drain on your life, as though a leech to let your blood. Currently I am negotiating for good employ with an enterprise requiring a man educated in sums, which is not beyond my ability. But I fear the legal force of my father, that he may find a way to make a marriage bond between myself and Alba most difficult.”
“We shall avert that difficulty as per our previous discussion. As determined then, the wedding will come quickly. Upon concluding with you today, I depart for the city clerk to arrange the legalities of marriage. Thereafter, will we have a schedule.”
Schedule, schedule.
“My speaking will end by allowing you to continue with Alba’s benefit and mine. Thus, with my great thanks, I depart.” Eric then bowed, the gent, though not taking the lady’s hand; for how could he kiss the knuckles that had thrashed his love?
As Eric departed, the lady quit the foyer from one direction, and I entered from the opposite. The entry door closed as I approached, but not a hair of me did Eric see. Therefore, I silently followed him out; but as I gained his side, why did I have this feeling of mad humor, and why did I need to suppress a cackle?
“I confront you, sir,” I told him, smiling as Eric halted to look toward me. “Do you seek to run from the woman you must love?”
Shaking his head like a rag to be freed of crumbs—perhaps building crumbs—Eric smiled as though mad himself.
“What a great man I am,” he said, “not to hate you till your death,” and laughed uncomfortably.
“Your passion was thus dispelled yesterday, so that your heart may think more clearly?”
“As well you know, and through your own intent, that prior day was no end, but a beginning.”
“With all my murder you can yet bear my sight?”
“All your unintended killing seems enough to kill me, but you have proven yourself as innocent as any lady, and as honest.”
Then all my humor expired as I spoke with the exact honesty Eric mentioned.
“Your suffering from me is displeasing, sir, but since it cannot be ended, I pray you might comprehend and control it through God’s aid and mine.”
“I pray equally that I never lose the comprehension you’ve provided, that mine is no life of agony. I’ve naught been raped nor beaten near death nor had my body torn most cruelly. Never have I killed a man nor had one killed through me, thereafter having to live with my murderous guilt; so who am I to do other than love you? Yesterday was the schooling you knew it should be, and perhaps I might thank you. But despite that culminated pain and passion, I have more lust for you now than ever before, and God help me, more love as well.”
Eric then turned away, toward the street and his waiting carriage; but the witch was not through with her victim.
“Sir, I’ll have another word with you,” I said, and grasped his arm to turn him toward me. “With all the passion of that prior day, did you not forget one event?”
“Pray no, miss, for no more could I bear.”
“A little thing of thine own desire I know little of, but will offer for you to learn yourself. Here, sir, you may kiss the bleeding bride.” And I offered him my mouth.
He also seized my body, Eric at once pressing his torso against mine, surrounding my shoulders with his arms, and I was entirely against him, especially the mouth. I had been ignorant before of the exact activity sinners pursue with their kissing, but from Eric I felt only his lips against me like his testicles against that other end, a soft yet firm pressure. Some movement he produced with his face, but the greater sensing for me was his emotion. That man smell I did not notice, but Eric breathed as though praying for someone’s salvation. And all his holding was not crushing, but containment, perhaps not the finest home in God’s world, but as safe as the Rathel’s compared to the jails of Lucansbludge. After all, this home was my husband; and though I found no joy in knowing that the future would bring more of this kissing, I was amazed to feel no revulsion for having this sinner in my mouth.
• • •
I rarely saw Eric those following days. The Rathel had him once for some legal signing, and again for arrangements of finance, areas beneath me as a current lady and upcoming bride. Wagons of hire came to the Rathel’s and went to the nuptial flat, Elsie a fount of accomplishment here with all her instructions and arrangements. Into the tenement thus entered Elsie’s few things (including hair not her own), but all my clothes along with their armoire set in the non-great room, for no other chamber had enough of God’s space to contain it. This thing I determined to burn with all its contents rather than have it remain in my (my?) new home, as though a monument of past death or a recently grown mountain surely containing a dank cave on one unexamined slope. And what of my personal chamber pot?
The pot came as well, though not my bloody bed, since one adequate for a close couple and their close coupling sat in the spouses’ chamber. Apart from this bed, the flat contained scarcely more than straight chairs; so the pseudo-mother of mine insisted that my very secretary accompany me, as well as a fine divan from the basement, two stuffed chairs, some low though not lowly tables, and so on, including the girl’s pot, which was a comfort in that it had her smell, similar here to certain parts of Eric.
A pair of hired sinning males transported our belongings, Eric coming and going about the flat with no kissing, only anxiety. I attended only those journeys in which Elsie complained least about the upcoming ceremony’s being too curt for a London lady. One junket revealed a more intense ceremony at the homestead, Elsie and I observing a quartet of bulky sinning men heave a great oaken bed up the stairs to find the door locked.
“Ah! and it’s a most beautiful wedding bed—how much the lad does love you, miss!”
After her effervescent bubbling, which included commentary on Eric’s devotion and expense (thank the Rathel’s funds), Elsie leapt up the steps in no ladylike gallop to insert herself between the bed and God’s plain air twenty feet above the alley, thereafter opening the door so that the sinners might enter with the bed before either dying from holding it interminably or dropping it upon me and the carriage below. The next ceremony was the males’ eventual success in passing through the doorway with this furniture, the stairs nearly smashed flat, but all survived except the meager great-room, which disappeared once the bed was situated therein, so monumental was its girth, especially considering the previously residing armoire mountain.
Next in the progression of ceremonious buffooneries was these bulky sinners’ removal of the current bed from its place and past the latest monument without destroying the household, my burly armoire, or especially unburly Elsie, who near lost her heart as a functioning device as the men threatened the kitchen walls, the bedposts, our best front window, all the divans and wing chairs that were no longer the Rathel’s, but mine, and therefore Elsie’s. Nonetheless, through manipulation that seemed more happenstance than expertise, the men succeeded; and there sat two beds in one room, scarcely any of God’s space remaining for mere persons.
The males would continue after breathing tremendously for minutes. Finding that they either had to sit or drop as though dead, the ravaged men began to lower themselves upon the new bed until Elsie emitted such a screech that up they leapt before contacting wood as she came at them in a fury enough to frighten them heartless, though each had sufficient bulk to squash the miss with but his fingers. But Elsie would have neither these commoners nor even Jesus sit upon this bed that would hold the newlyweds and no other breathing souls, the men shooed to the floor, and there with relief they settled.
After a sinners’ instant, Miss Slave Driver shooed them up to their deadened legs and into the bedchamber with the bed hulk, the previous scene repeated but in reverse. Then the males descended the stairs with the older, smaller bed, their sounds of distress similar to those of my dreams, though drier, and no mention did the sinners make as to aiding the young couple in any further way, never stepping near
enough me to gain a whiff of my particulars, a good day one and all, then gone.
Within the bedchamber, Elsie began fondling and cooing over the grand oaken creation, the soft surface for sleeping and nightmaring. I noted to the miss that although large, the bed was not expansive enough for husband, wife, and pet. Therefore, the dog would sleep with her. Elsie, however, would not allow my paltry humor to mar her next ceremony, which was lavishly coating the mattress with our finest bed coverings from the Rathel’s.
So gracious was I as to wait until Elsie completed her pleasing task before dragging her into the kitchen to demand the whereabouts of my spider.
“And I’m setting the beast outside, I did, by having it crawl on a stick with no harm. And I’m not seeking it, Miss Alba, nor replacing the thing, no matter how many dogs I’m forced to sleep with.”
In this manner, our home was prepared. For days, the process continued, Elsie in charge, Rathel plotting, Alba disinterested. I became more aware one morning upon finding all the sinning women of the Rathel household attacking me with fabric as though a new bed, no particular day except that it would see me wed. And there I was in a coach with the mistress, exiting at a small chapel with a roof not high and pointy enough to impress the God of mountains. Into the chapel where sinners normally begged the greatest Lord forgive their iniquities on their way to promulgate their further sins. The holy business that noon, however, was a witch.
I was made to enter a nave full of Elsies. Eric’s family was not present, but all of Rathel’s countless servants. Had I been more the lady, surely their presence would have impressed me as unseemly, since their station was in some rear room with grease. At least they had been conveyed in their own carriage—brown, if any justice existed on Earth. But being a mere person and no lady, I was pleased at their attendance, for they reeked of satisfaction. No astonishing joy attacked me, but I was only the bride. Nearby stood my mother weeping to lose her daughter; but, no, this was Elsie; and I could not determine whether she wept because the event was most joyous for her dear lass, or because the occasion was not worthy of the lady same.
Eric was then hied along to stand beside me, the Rathel also proximate; and being so near the pulpit, would we be allowed to preach? Evidently not, for here was the minister, who commenced to provide Eric and me with a personal sermon directly at our faces. Since the man had been eating onions, I allowed him to breathe in my vicinity without questioning any secret allegiance of his toward Lutherans. The service provided was most odd in my experience, for Eric and I were quizzed, queried, and made to answer. As though this chapel were the wilds beyond London, I found myself in another contest not of my choosing nor comprehension. Certainly our (our?) Rathel was the ringleader of this animal faire with its exotic creatures. As well, she seemed the seller of tickets (as made obvious by the audience), and purveyor of rules. But no more challenges would I accept, so this one I abandoned by answering the minister’s questions exactly as I thought he desired, regardless of the consequences to follow. Yet to my most ironical bemusement, I found myself victorious, for I won Eric. All he got was to kiss the bloody bride.
Elsie I removed from the chapel via the medium of her pinched and pulled ear, such a fussing of tears she effected as though a contest not to end until she drowned from the weeping, as though proving herself the witch in the river of her face. Scarcely less pleased was the Rathel, who was gloating enough to choke, nothing hidden. But whereas Rathel I could leave, Elsie I was required to take along, for she was the additional prize I had been connived into accepting. The contest, I discovered too late, was for the ownership of a pack of sinners, and foolishly I had won. Then home to a domestic situation.
• • •
“God help me against the devil who attacks!” Elsie shrieked as she retreated from Randolph, who graciously wagged his tail, presenting his snout for Elsie’s petting as she stepped against the window, thereafter either to cease her retreat or learn to fly.
“Whyever would this dog’s presence be such a terror, Miss Elsie?” the master of both dog and household inquired.
“Because dogs are hating me, sir, long have and ever shall—as proven by this beast’s latest attack!”
The “attack” was Randolph’s rearing upon his hind legs to paw the air scant feet from Elsie’s heart. As Eric produced a talented snapping sound with his fingers, Randolph proceeded to his master’s side, receiving a fine scratching for his obedience. The identical gesture on my part and firm pointing toward my feet eventually brought Elsie to my vicinity. Pet her I did not, though I urged the woman to become friends with this creature, who was surely no more wild than I. Grumbling that she might best have remained with Mistress Amanda rather than suffer a toothy death at the mouth of a demon, off she shuffled, but away from the dog.
After dog was poorly met by servant, husband and wife received a guest, for Lady Amanda Rathel presented herself to conduct the glorious couple to a wedding party at a dining hall resembling St. Nicholas Cathedral. Within were all the persons Rathel had ever met in her universal career as a London lady, though scarcely an acquaintance of Eric, and none of his family. None. Thoughtfully had Rathel designed the meal, for the witch and her brood were served a casserole with no fat, a bride’s pie with no meat; whereas the remaining sinners inhaled puissance of partridge and so on. Then came a toast by Amanda, whose convincing sentiments connived the audience into standing and cheering for the newlyweds, though no males made their way toward me for breast grasping, a rare lack for a British crowd, an assault made more difficult by my recent reduction of upper body mass. A fine toast wherein I found myself sipping this liquor champagne that made me sneeze and made me consider spitting. Eventually Rathel delivered husband and witch to their flat with little speaking but a certain volume of gloating. Therein, the pets were supping, Elsie for the first instance in her arduous existence with me explicitly obeying my request; for the dog and she had become fast friends, the former because of the tremendous bone he had received, the latter due to the furry affection lavished toward her in return.
The marrieds then practiced nuptial boredom, though Elsie became anxious, fidgeting around the household, needing to straighten each drape and attack dust in every crevice with a wad of feathers on a stick. Chatter away she did, but who was to hear with our lugubrious ears? Not misplaced Eric nor the dog so bored he fell asleep, not the wife who secretly laughed at the sinners’ discomfort. Heaven this was compared to the boredom and anxiety their witch had suffered in previous lives.
What a brief eternity till nightfall when the sinners’ apprehension intensified, Elsie’s tiny, quick breaths supplying her insufficient air for endless chattering, Eric’s slow, shallow respiration fit for a river’s bottom. Eventually Elsie’s twitching and fidgeting peaked, for after rubbing her apron till her fingers were surely worn, she reached around the apparel for the strings to remove the item and fold it scrupulously before describing her plans.
“And it’s home I’m go—. It’s to Mistress Amanda’s I’m leaving, now, to return the morning—please.” Then she stepped to the door.
Having been seated on one of the countless divans with sleeping Randolph as Eric and Elsie respectively dragged and flitted about the tenement, I responded to the servant’s departure.
“No coach will you find at this late hour, miss, and no need for an exit regardless.”
“Aye, but the walking is brief, miss—mistress—for a hearty sort such as myself.”
“Yes, I have noticed that the heart is quite significant in your system, but less of a purpose I discern in your fleeing. Have you some explicable cause?”
“I—I can’t be staying your wedding night, I can’t be staying,” she reported, and hurriedly made to exit.
“What a tremendous coward I find you, miss, to abandon me alone with such a swarthy male.”
“I—I cannot remain, lass—mistress—not on this night,” Elsie repeated, and through the doorway she stepped, only to be followed by Eric.
And so he did. The traitorous dog followed. Not even a spider had I for companionship.
• • •
Late was the hour of Eric’s return. I had not moved, Randolph regaining his place as though never having abandoned me, and no mention was made by either party of treachery toward the new mistress. Eric’s reply to my inquiring of his tardiness was of a walk longer than predicted.
“How strange that a daytime distance increases at night,” I responded. “Perhaps your having wandered across half the city is a factor. So fearful are you, sir, of one thin witch? I am the same woman you fully possessed but days before while receiving no damage to your person. I bite, sir, no more than the dog.”
“Through good fortune, I am at my new employ tomorrow,” Eric replied with unconvincingly tempered emotions. “Truly I feel uncomfortable at being in debt to Lady Amanda.”
“Because she is a woman and your wife’s relative, or because she is the person who beat me bloody and to this moment longs for your death?”
“Please, Alba, not tonight with this talk,” he sighed, and stepped across the room. “All your truths I shall bear, but grant me some interval before I acquire your bold manner of acceptance.”
“What a pity to be so burdened by the potentials of an improved life. But the present that remains is that of your wedding day, sir; and to extend those felicitous nuptials into this connubial evening, shall we hereupon not fuck the master dry to remove his bloody pouting?”
I stood to remove my nonbloody clothing. Though Eric understood, he remained confused, looking at me as I had Marybelle upon finding her eating a lizard. Did Eric so fear I would consume him?
“Your visage is scarcely one of passion,” I remarked as my velvet vest dropped beside the dog. “But even now I smell lust rising from between your legs.” Then the unique bosom was exposed, and soon, all the pale body.