Dara

by AnonYMous

  When the full effect of what had happened sank in I punched the air and flung myself about shouting, 'I always knew that swine was as crooked as a dog's hind leg but you, Lionel, like a fool, trusted him. God help us; what are we to do now?'

  I looked at the new owner of the institution.

  'I'm sorry for you folks,' he said, 'but you'll have to leave now. And when I say now, I mean today.'

  Taking Lionel by the arm I got him outside then went back to drag out his bed. Stopping a man who was passing I offered him two dollars if he would carry the bed to my room near 'The Dog's Head'. After a little bargaining we settled the arrangement for three dollars.

  When I got Lionel installed in my room we considered his finances and found that there was enough money to get him to Newport with a little left over. I was in much about the same position but still had some jewellery to sell if I needed more. Most of my money had gone for rent and food for Elmer. After Elmer and I had been parted I earned enough at the health institution to keep myself without dipping into my savings.

  Within two days we were on our way to New York. The journey was tiring and a strain on Lionel. He became steadily worse before we reached Albany where we rested for a week with Lionel in bed the whole time we were there.

  He was so thin and haggard you could clearly see the shape of his skull beneath the skin. His graveyard cough shook his weakened frame and left him breathless and sweating profusely. He was just skin and bones by the time we got off the boat that had brought us down the Hudson River to New York. A cab took us to a hotel just off Broadway where I engaged two rooms as I was unable to get any sleep with Lionel coughing all night.

  After settling him in bed I purchased from nearby shops sufficient food and drink to keep us going for a few days. When I returned I ran to his bedside to see how he had fared in my absence. He lay like someone dead but he was still breathing so I prepared a meal, looking in on him from time to time to see if he was alright. I was ravenously hungry and wolfed down my food and then prepared a plate of cooked chicken that would be ready for Lionel when he should awaken from his sleep.

  Going to my bed I lay down for a little rest but sleep must have overtaken me for it was getting dark when I next opened my eyes. Making my way into Lionel's room I found him sitting up in bed and talking to someone, but there was no one else in the room. Nodding and smiling and looking intently first in one direction and then in another, he seemed to be in conversation with several invisible people standing around his bed. Bringing a chair alongside his bed I sat down and held his hand trying to claim his attention.

  'Lionel,' I cried, looking around nervously and fearful as he spoke seemingly to someone behind me. Pulling at his hand I tried once more to gain his attention. He suddenly exclaimed, 'Mother! How good it is to see you again.' His voice quivered emotionally in his excitement. The air in the room seemed to become eerily cold-and frightening. I withdrew my hand from his and backed towards the door looking fearfully around the room as Lionel's voice greeted more relatives and friends from the past.

  There was a creepy sensation across my skull as if hundreds of small spiders were crawling through the roots of my hair. It was as though the bedroom was filled with phantoms of the dead who had come to welcome Lionel to their ethereal life. The room was in complete darkness by now but I could sense the presence of spirits from another world moving about in animated conversation with Lionel.

  Sinking to the floor, I huddled up with my hands about my head. In my childhood when the wind brought pieces of brickwork rattling down the chimney my mother used to utter the words of an old folk prayer to ward off the evil spirits and I found myself begging the intervention of the Deity in the same manner as I shivered in fear. 'From ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties and things that go bump in the night, the Good Lord, deliver us.' The last words of the prayer had just left my lips when something seemed to brush past me. In a choking agony of terror I struggled blindly with the door handle and with blessed relief managed to open it and escape down the stairs into the lamp light of the street.

  I didn't know where I was or in which direction I was going. Emotionally stunned and stumbling like someone who has had too much to drink in one of the numerous beer houses on Broadway, I sought only the well-lit areas where there were many people to keep me company. As I walked the streets seeing myself, as you might say, under the all-seeing eye of eternity, I felt desolate and very lonely. In this pitiable condition I could see no future for me in America or for that matter in England.

  Pausing for breath before a billboard with the words 'Pfaff's Beer-Cellar' I felt a great desire for a warm, cosy atmosphere and quickly descended the steps to find myself amidst a crowd of people of both sexes, some sitting at tables, others standing talking noisily in groups filling up the space before the bar. There was an under-swell of conversation that confused the ears. Overwrought and ready to tumble to the floor with tiredness, I have only a blurred recollection of pushing past people to an empty chair placed at a small table occupied by a young gentleman. Sitting slumped in the chair, with that awful hopeless exhaustion that comes when you are drained of all emotion, I slowly became aware that the young man sharing the table with me was attempting to claim my attention.

  'If you don't mind me saying so, you look like a young lady who is about to swoon. May I suggest a glass of brandy? The recuperative powers of brandy would be just the thing if you are feeling ill.'

  His speech had the accent of the well-bred Englishman who had lived at a high social level. As he bent over me with an expression of concern on his face I couldn't help noticing a birthmark on his neck that looked like a spotted red ladybird.

  Sipping the brandy, I viewed him with curiosity. Elegantly dressed in a dark blue frock coat, a pleated white shirt topped with a fine white muslin cravat and a pale blue velvet waistcoat, he looked every inch a gentleman of fashion and good taste. Beneath the fair curly hair his sensitive features still showed anxiety for my health.

  'Feeling better?' he asked. 'Allow me to introduce myself: James Richard Kennet at your service,' he said with a slight bow.

  'Miss Dara Tully,' I replied with a faint smile. 'Like yourself, I am also from England. How do you do?'

  PART FOUR. WEDDED BUT NOT BEDDED

  Shortly after my arrival in New York I was sitting in Pfaff's Beer-Cellar pondering idly whether to have another beer or move on to a theatre when a young girl approached my table and flopped into a chair opposite me. She was obviously ill and in a state of extreme distress. Although all types of people frequented Pfaff's, they were mostly representatives of the arts and the theatre. In other words, a motley crew of cultured and well-educated idiots, living under the illusion that they had within them that spark of genius which would make them famous some day.

  The girl intrigued me. She was respectably dressed, pretty, obviously without a male escort and afraid. But of what, I asked myself, as she sipped the brandy I had given her. I introduced myself and she in turn informed me that her name was Dara Tully. Although she spoke with a slight American accent, she proclaimed that England was her native land. The brandy loosened her tongue and upon discovering that I was a fellow countryman she unburdened the cause of her distress. Troubled by some experience which had shaken her somewhat, she was almost incoherent on occasions as she gave an account of her journey from Chicago accompanied by a doctor dying from consumption. From what I could gather she had sat in a darkened room listening to this man talking to his dead relatives until something had snapped inside her and she had fled from his bedchamber.

  It sounded a very eerie affair to me-not the sort of thing to be inflicted on a delicate, sensitive young lady. I offered to accompany her back to the hotel when she became agitated at the thought that she had deserted this doctor when he most needed her.

  When we arrived at the hotel, Dara was very reluctant to enter the building but I insisted on her showing me which room the doctor was occupying. It was in total darkness. Pionee
ring my way with outstretched hands and following Dara's directions, I managed to locate the gas jet to bring some light to the bedchamber. I must confess it was a bit of a shock for me, seeing the head of the recumbent man slouched down on the pillow, jaws agape, and staring straight at me with unseeing eyes. I am always nervous in the presence of the sick or the dead. Trying to move him onto his back brought forth from him a loud, stinking belch of wind which sent me scuttling back in haste to the, door and Dara.

  She asked in a hoarse whisper, 'Is he dead?'

  'I don't know,' I said doubtfully.

  Ashamed of my sudden loss of nerve I straightened my shoulders and walked back to the bed, determined to find out whether the man was dead or alive. The body was still warm but, after putting my hand on his chest and feeling no movement or heartbeat, I decided the good doctor was indeed dead.

  I had heard somewhere that in a situation like this one must straighten the limbs while the body is still warm for, once it gets cold, they remain fixed as at the point of death, creating problems for those responsible for getting the corpse into the narrow confines of a coffin. Removing the pillow so that his head was in line with the rest of his body, I then brought his legs together and placed his arms by his sides. Taking the cravat from my neck, I placed its middle under his jaw and closed the gaping mouth by tying the ends at the top of his head. His eyes were still wide open.

  I remembered, as a boy, being taken to the home of one of our grooms to pay my respects to his three-month-old daughter who had died the previous day. When the baby had expired they had placed, as was the custom, a penny coin on each of the eyelids but, unfortunately, one of the coins had fallen during the night. The body had got cold and nothing they could do the next morning would close that child's eyelid. It gave me belly wobbles seeing that baby with one eye closed and the other with a fixed stare heavenwards. What made it worse was that I was asked to kiss the little monster on the lips and to say a prayer for its soul.

  The picture of that baby's wide-open eye staring eternally upwards remains vivid in my memory to this day and makes me shudder whenever it comes to mind. I, therefore, took care to see that the coins that I placed on the doctor's eyelids were firm and secure. Having performed these necessary tasks for the corpse, I was extremely nervous and trembling when I returned to Dara and desperate for a reviving glass of brandy. We made short time in getting back to Pfaff's where I quickly downed two glasses of the restoring liquor while Dara was still sipping at her first brandy.

  A few more drinks brought the colour back into her cheeks and her hazel eyes lit up with interest when I told her of my wish to join a theatrical company that was about to be formed at the National Theatre under the direction of a well-known New York actor-manager, Jonathan Ede. Dara, I discovered, had a warm, expansive sense of humour and was soon giggling as I described the antics of some of the players that I had met on my first interview with Jonathan Ede.

  We were both in a merry mood by this time and, to my astonishment, when I informed her that rehearsals had commenced for Shakespeare'sHamlet, she cried, 'Ah! Ophelia. Do you think as I do that she was “as chaste as ice, as pure as snow", a character of simple unselfish affection, or are you of the opinion that she is not all she seems on the surface, secretly harbouring lewd thoughts and desires behind her madness?'

  In truth, I didn't know how to answer the girl and was given no opportunity to do so as she commenced to quote various passages from the play. Although her speech was slurred by the brandy that she had drunk and interrupted occasionally by giggles, I knew she was word perfect as recently my time had been taken up studying the play and learning the lines of the part I hoped would be given to me when next I met Jonathan Ede. As I listened and laughed at her I couldn't help thinking there was a lot more to this girl than what first appeared.

  It was midnight when, with arms linked in support of each other for we were not too steady on our feet, we made our way back to her hotel. She balked at the hotel entrance again, refusing to go in, declaring that she would rather walk the streets than sleep next to a room with a corpse in it. My modest two-roomed apartment above a leather shop was but a block further on so without any further discussion I took her along with me. The thought of sleeping on a hard floor while she occupied my bed wasn't a pleasant prospect, but I resigned myself to the inevitable outcome of an evening I was now viewing with mixed feelings.

  As it happened the floor was not to be my bed for the night. Dara, on hearing my intentions, would have none of it saying, on seeing the bed, 'Why, it is big enough for three people never mind two,' at the same time looking at me quizzically. Getting no response from me she said, 'I can't let you sleep on the floor. Not after all you have done for me.' Then she got all maudlin, going on and on about how kind I had been to her. Flinging her arms around my neck, she burst into tears and then slumped to the floor saying, 'No, I won't deprive you of your bed, James, I'll sleep out here in the lounge.' Rolling herself into a ball and, with eyes closed, she murmured drowsily, 'Good night, James, and thank you.'

  Confused, I asked myself what could one do with such a contradictory girl? With brain somewhat hazed by the brandy fumes, I stumbled around the bedroom, dropping my clothes in a higgledy-piggledy mess all over the floor. Getting into bed, I was about to put out the light when Dara walked into my room stark naked. 'I've changed my mind,' she announced. 'It's cold out there; please let me share your bed.'

  She giggled nervously as I stared wide-eyed at her nude body. There was good reason for my gaping at her as this was the first time I had seen the female body completely naked. Suddenly, going all modest, she bent over and covered her genital organ with her hands. 'Well?' she questioned impatiently. 'Do I stand here all night shivering or can I get into your bed?'

  Moving over I raised the bed clothes on her side and she slid in beside me. She patted the pillow two or three times before snuggling down to sleep with her back to me. It took me sometime to regain my composure and settle down for the night.

  I awoke late in the morning to find Dara languidly resting her head on her arm, looking at me with a mischievous smile on her lips. 'You are like a beautiful, innocent cherub when you are asleep, James.'

  Her perfectly shaped breasts were but only inches from my face. They were two pearly globes, tipped by nipples that invited loving kisses. Reaching out, I hesitantly covered one of the breasts with a hand. It felt as cool and as smooth as the surface of a piece of alabaster. The firm nipple tickled my palm as I caressed the proud breast with the tips of my fingers. Some biblical words from the Song of Songs came to my mind:

  'Your breasts are as two fawns,

  Twins of a female gazelle,

  That graze among the anemones.'

  There was a softness in Dara's eyes and a warm smile around her mouth as she looked down at my upturned face. She slowly ran her fingers through my hair as I gently sucked the nipple of her breast. It seemed to grow and harden in my mouth as I pressed my lips deeper into the soft flesh and when I withdrew to pay my attentions to the other breast it was glowing cherry red. After a little while I raised myself to kiss her on the lips. The warm, moist breath from her mouth was an open invitation to taste further delights as her tender ruby lips parted to welcome my kiss. The silky tip of her tongue snaked sensuously into me arousing my desires with affectionate caresses. Surrendering lips to me, her slender body gradually followed suit, moulding the feminine curves into an intimate embrace of my flesh to become a perfect union that made us as one.

  I had always thought that a girl's body would never have any appeal to me but I was now feeling a bliss and a joy that I had never experienced with a man. There was a warm affection in the yielding breasts and soft thighs as they pressed against my body and sent the blood rushing through my veins in a lust of feelings that was new to me.

  Dara eased herself from me and, with her lips on mine, brought her hands to my dicky and smoothed the wrinkles out of it until he proudly stood up thick and hard. Her finger
tips played sweet melodies on his taut skin until I was ready to cry out in an agony of pleasure.

  Sliding under me she brought up her knees and opened her legs wide. Still caressing my stiffened dicky she guided him into her moist vent. Consumed in a fever of passion I thrust him up her as far as he could go. Dara, warm and submitting, clasped me to her uttering little cries as she gasped for breath. Hugging me with her soft, rounded thighs, she wriggled and rubbed hard up against me until her swizzling, rising hips brought forth a delirious sigh of deep satisfaction from her.

  To see her overcome by fervent, storming emotions was flattering and gratifying but I had urgent desires of my own that also needed to be satisfied and I set to with a will, humping into the soft feminine flesh beneath me with forceful thrusts. As the tension of my pleasure increased I instinctively held my breath when my passions came to a head and the sap of my loins pulsated through my throbbing dicky into her womb. In excited exultation there came from my lips a sound of triumph, a long drawn out 'Ye-O-O-e'. The exquisite sensation that released me from my passion held me in a trance as I lay heavy on Dara's soft curves.

  Within minutes of finishing off a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs at an eating house opposite my apartment, we were on our way to Pfaff's for I was in a mood to celebrate.

  'Be a man, my son,' my father had shouted at me before I left our ancestral home for America and then working himself up into a rage that bordered on a fit of apoplexy, 'and don't come back here until you have proved your manhood, you filthy, bare-arsed, pederast, milk-sop!' The old man could be quite vile when aroused.

  On this occasion he had some justification for his choice of words, as the day before he had caught me bare-arsed in the stables with a young lusty groom bending over me.

  Well! I had now proved my manhood. For the first time in my life I had been a rampant lover between a beautiful girl's legs and I got the impression from the fond looks Dara was giving me that I had done all that was required of me.