by Steve Moore
All breathless then she laughed and squirmed away from tickle-probing fingers that had so slippery-slipped where never she commanded but mayhap she desired. A pink and panting sweetheart, all a-drip with slick white bubble-foam as if quite covered (no surprise) from head to foot with all that old Uranic spume that, spread upon the sea, gave birth to golden Aphrodite, she tottered out to deeper water, tremble-legged and barely able any more to stand aright… then sank down in the cooling waters with a soft and lovely sigh.
A little longer yet she sat there in the bathing pool, while dreaming Lee looked on, more roused up in his heart and cods than he had ever, ever been. And then her little hand rose up and summoned help; her nymphs advanced and took her wrists and raised her to her feet. And then, a trio mutual self-supported, they made their way back to the beckoning nearby shore.
More pinkish yet she then became, as all her dearest nymphs competed with the towels. She laughed, she squealed, she wriggle-giggled, and yet they would not stop their tickles, command them as she would; a sweet revenge for misdemeanours of their own. Her skin all dry, her eyes as big as dinner-plates, she could but squeak as next they put their long and lickerish tongues to work, and sucking lips that drank up sweetness from the darling tender gooseflesh of her trembling childish form.
Those squeaks of hers brought forth a moan from him, although no sooner was it sounded than he wished it back twice o’er.
The sudden silence that ensued quite filled him up with horror.
She sat up, casting nymphs aside, and looked in his direction. Expecting fury, spite and imprecations, he found then something worse instead. For in her eyes and on her face he only saw then pity, tenderness and vast compassion.
And in that glance he felt his soul was damned, for secret looks had stolen something which, he knew, upon the mere request, she would have given freely. And so he turned and fled; and all the time he knew it was not his beloved that he fled, but rather he and all his secret self.
And yet besides he knew, it was not he, but rather yet the other one with whom he shared the dream, from whom he fled and execrated in his flight. Not part of him, or of his soul (or so he hoped and prayed), and yet the whole temptation of them both; an evil twin called Actæon, whose love had turned, mistook, to lust.
Bounding through the thickets then, he wondered at his four-foot gait; wildered more at silvered antlers on his head, and whimpered in his mind to see the short white fur that covered all of him. His cloven hooves clicked sharply on the ground, he sprang and leaped, and far behind, he heard his own hounds howling, now quite fast upon a scent he knew was all his own.
And so he ran about the hill he loved so much, and knew before the hour was out that sweet Diana’s arrow-head would strike, and striking then, absolve him of his sins. And all his heart was full of bliss, to think of death and resurrection, knowing that with each rebirth he’d nearer draw to fair Diana of the Moon and all the blessings of her sweet celestial love.
And thus he barely heard and quite ignored the faint and saddened voice that called him back, and then lamented softly in the moonlight, of lessons that remained unlearned.
Wednesday, 3rd October 1803
Yesterday morn I woke so late (my sleep a-boil with dreams of spired turrets erupting silver-glinted all about the hill-top, like talons reaching for an overripely golden Moon) that Cynthia banged upon my door; told me I would miss my dinner; asked if I was quite alright. I thought it rather sweet of her to ask; got out of bed and opened up the door a crack, while still dressed in my nightshirt. She laughed and said I was a naughty man, to address her while I was so under-dressed. I said that she provoked me.
I ate my dinner, swift and eager, ready to spend the afternoon just reading to dear Cynthia. In this I was completely disappointed. I sought her out and found her putting on her hat; she told me then she had to go to Charlton village for a while to see a jewel-smith. I offered to escort her; made the excuse I’d like to see the Jacobean mansion standing close at hand. She told me it was completely out of the question. And then, I was not quite certain why, she told me I should be within my room before the sun set, and smiled, so mysterious. And then she left the inn, and left me desolate behind.
Refusing young Tom Watkins’ eager guardianship (though still he got a sixpence), I made my way along the lane to the burial mound that had so much caught my fancy some days since. The autumn afternoon was glorious, low-sunned and lacking any sign of clouds at all. I gathered sweet chestnuts as I walked, split and peeled them with my pocket-knife; sat upon the mound and threw the cases in the air, trying to hit them with my cane. I knew it was a childish game; yet I’ve no desire yet to be old beyond my years. It reminded me of perhaps the one true thing I remember my father telling me. It was the same year that he died. Embarrassed by some childish prank (quite blotted from my memory) I had remarked that I would grow up one day soon. He told me not to hurry. Strangely, I cannot remember a single other thing he told me.
Nuts all gone, I lay there in the sunshine, thought of many things: of who was buried in the mound; of Endimion Lee and how, at least in fiction, he wrote upon the Moon-Goddess, some two hundred years gone by; of myself, who wrote about her now; and of that other author, two hundred years to come, and wondered then if (perhaps in just my fancy) he might write of that sweetest deity as well. No, I knew it; did not wonder.
A triumvirate of authors then I thought us; though who was Caesar, who was Pompey, who was Crassus, I could but hardly tell. I think that all of us would have liked to be as rich as Marcus Licinius Crassus; though none of us would have liked his death. Nor Pompey’s, nor Caesar’s, it must be said. The ancient world, for all it does delight me, had its horrors, I confess. But Crassus was a man who could rule a third the world, and still weep the passing of a favourite fish. More human then than both the others; until one thinks of Spartacus’ revolt: six thousand rebel slaves all crucified along the Appian Way. Humans are too complicated; by comparison, a divine simplicity shines upon the brows of Gods. And is simplicity then a sign of Godhead? And are we humans in the world of matter, human just because we are so shattered? One part here and one part there, one above and one below; and myriads more that we simply do not know? I thought perhaps there was a hint of some religion here: that if we could but strip away, or meld together, all our most conflicted parts, we should be Gods. Or, at least, the fewer parts we had, the nearer we would be to the divine.
I tried to think of Diana in her simplest form; or rather more of Greek Selene, for when she’s mingled with Diana then already she takes on complicated other parts. I thought of Selene and Endymion, how she kissed him in his never-ending sleep; I could not think that there was anything more essential there than one quite simple thing: her kiss. That simple kiss, it seemed to me, contained her essence: the love the Moon has always had for Earthly things below; while at the same time reflecting the reversing path: the yearning love of matter for the divine; of all-too-material human for the Goddess; of humble man, for sweet soft woman, who is the nearest to a Goddess that he is ever like to find.
And after that I thought of Liz, my dear young sister; of that fair queen for whom she’s named; of Cynthia Brown-eyes who captures up my heart a little more each passing day; of Diana Regina, the perfect sweetheart of my imagination. And thinking then of essences and simplification, I thought to put them all together as lovely-limbed Selene of the sparkling eyes, the naked Goddess of the dreaming Moon. And if there was a path to find her, then I knew that it was love. Not the love that demands the subjugation of the marriage and the legitimated copulation; but the love that is expressed quite simply in the kiss. The kiss that says: ‘I love you’; the kiss that cannot quite exist unless it is a sharing; the kiss that, offered, asks for nothing in return. I know somewhere there must be wiser heads than mine; and yet upon a sun-declining afternoon, cool breezes rustling fallen golden leaves, sat upon an ancient mound and resting on the long-dead bones of someone now so utterly forgot their existence was no mor
e than merest imagination, I thought, and all my thoughts, I thought they were religious. I offered up a fervent prayer to dear Selene then: I thought her young, and sweet, and loving, a charming girl of wide brown flashing eyes; and at the same time a Goddess too divine to look upon, an essence of the world of heaven. And if I could not know her as herself, I asked, perhaps she might at least allow me to know her in these lesser forms, both real and but imagined, who I would try to merge together in her likeness.
I thought the more of love, then, of both its forms, unconsummate and consummate. At twenty years of age, I know that many men far younger than myself have long begun to consort themselves with ladies of the night; but the syphilis and its mad incurable death, it frightens me so much. The clap I’d much avoid as well. And so I am a virgin man; Elizabeth, at just eighteen, I sincerely do believe a virgin too. Too many thoughts they then occurred to me: that I hated to think of darling Liz in any other arms than mine, but worse to think of her with lover or with husband who’d give her a disease (to think on this is absolute unbearable). But that if she were mine, and we were virgin both upon our wedding night, all this could be avoided (our parents, they were cousins, after all; and if the church does not approve of brother wedding sister, then neither Liz nor I approve the church). Yet, the law, I know, would keep us both apart as well, and if I’d keep my sister free of scandal and the courts, then kisses chaste are all I have to offer. And Cynthia Brown as well, she has a husband, though I think upon the instant that this could be annulled, for sure as hell it is not cold, she could not sleep with him. And yet, in law, she could not sleep with me besides. And so I see myself a virgin evermore with thus two ‘virgin loves’, and realise just why my Goddess is Diana. She looks through Liz’s eyes, and out of Cynthia’s too; she says ‘how sweet it is to want me; but sweeter yet it may well be, that you can never have me, unless it is in dreams.’ In dreams, and fantastiques, and sweet imagination… but not, it seems, in base, material flesh. Only in the sweet Selenic kiss. The kiss of lovely virgins.
And mayhap there as well I have a way to think of what I wrote last night of Actæon; for all it overheated and aroused me, it tells me this besides: I should not wish for what I cannot have, but just accept what I am offered. I’d wondered if the passage might be too erotic; but looked on in this light, I think I’ll let it stand.
And then I remembered how before I’d thought this mound the breast of dear Diana. I rolled me over then and, in the spirit of my new religion, kissed it. And then, the sun a-westering, I walked back to The Bull.
Returning to my room at last, I found that Cynthia Brown-eyes had arranged to have two bottles of claret, a cold venison pasty, and a mushroom-and-potato tart, delivered to await me. A little note (I thought the hand quite lovely) said: ‘Eat and drink and watch the east horizon. And if you love the Moon enough, then who knows what will happen.’ I raised that note up to my lips and kissed it; and as I did I knew that I kissed Cynthia, Diana, Selene and my Liz.
I almost had forgot, but last night was the fullest autumn Moon; and when the Moon is full, of course, it rises simultaneous with the sunset. I realised then that Cynthia Brown-eyes knew this well enough; knew besides how much that this would mean to me. I kissed her note again to show my appreciation.
The sky began to darken. I ate my supper; knew that somehow I could taste dear Cynthia’s hand in every bite I ate. Then the first bottle I uncorked. A little glass I poured, then poured it out the window: a libation to Selene who now, to me, was most essential of the Goddesses. Another glass I poured, and raised it up; offered a toast, quite madly, to the sky; told Selene that I loved her, and blew her nine whole kisses. And then I sat me down to wait.
The sky was perfect.
As if she thought that punctuality was a virtue, the lovely Goddess of the Moon began to raise her golden gleaming head above the Kent horizon. I looked and at the first I thought her but a jewel of night; and then I realised she was my love. Another libation, another toast; and then I settled down to drink and watch her rise. I thought I understood a little of old Actæon then; for if the horizon that I looked upon was not quite flat as water, at least my dearest Goddess rose up gleaming naked.
And, oh, she was so lovely.
The ‘Man in the Moon’ was long forgot, for now I knew her woman. Her eyes then broke the horizon; I thought they winked at me, so saucy. Kisses then just poured out from my lips, arising from my very soul.
And then she leapt up free, from Earth to sky; so round, so golden-pink, so huge. I thought her big and bright as ever I saw Lizzie’s eyes. And more, my vision blurred (I know it was not drink; I’d barely had a glass); and suddenly the ‘Woman in the Moon’ was my darling sister Liz, all sweet-eyed, and all-smiling, all-lovely as the nymphs of stream and tree and mountain. She smiled and then her lips were full of kisses; she was the very vision of my most complete desire. I wept to see my lovely sister in the Moon. I wished that she was with me then, to see herself a-smiling through my window. And more, I wished I had a huge and golden net, to throw up into the dark-blue sky; to capture her and draw her down, and take her off to bed.
I poured another glass and looked again. Now Cynthia Brown-eyes, she was all the orange Moon. She looked at me so knowingly, I think my every thought was writ upon my face in letters of desire. Her eyebrows lifted up; she gave a lopside pout. I raised my glass to toast her fragrance and her beauty. I whispered things to Cynthia-as-the-Moon I’d never dare to say to Cynthia-the-woman. I thought I heard her chuckle; I looked around to see if she was in the room behind me. Most certain she was not; that laughter came down from the Moon.
I looked again and lost my breath; for now up in the sky was dearest Diana Regina. All reddishness was gone, and now she was but pure gold; yet stars were all around her now, and they were jewels all set about in heaven, to make her far more beautiful than any man could think. And there was blue so deep, and gold so bright, and there was music in the Moon: lute-notes, so bright and sweet and full of light and, I know not any other word, so liquid in the charmful smile of a sweetheart-girl or lovely Goddess, who did no other thing but love me.
I looked upon the Queen of Night and Dreams. I wept. I moaned. I sobbed. I cried out loud: ‘I love you!’ And ‘I love you!’
And then she was Selene. And I simply have no words with which to speak of dear Selene. Selene is too perfect. She is more beautiful than beauty ever quite described. And more, I love her so much that love’s a word that’s simply quite inadequate.
At last, all silver-white, she rose up slow, and all-too-sweetly-stately, and vaulted upwards into the dark-night sky. I looked and wept, and loved her all-amazed.
And then I looked the more, and simply fell into a trance. I could not move; I could but sit and stare. Selene silvered all the world around me, and all of alchemy was sparkling in her light. She shone into my eyes, and quite transmuted all my brain. My blood it then was quicksilver, my limbs were carved of crystal.
I could not move an inch.
Four hours or more I sat there gazing; though for me all time had stopped except the motion of the Moon as up she climbed and soared toward the zenith. No other thing was in my world except that slow and stately progression, a pavane of grace and charm in which the Moon was partnered by the Night, as up she danced across my window-panes. And every second passing by, it made me more her lover.
The ancient Gods were static statues, worshipped by their living, moving adorers; now I was just the statue, and how my Goddess moved; and moving, how she lived.
At last, she rose up beyond the window-frame and vanished from my sight. And only then could I begin to stir. The clock it said eleven’d come and gone. I’d hardly drunk at all. I poured myself a largish glass and tried to pull myself together. The inn was closed and quiet then; I began to wonder how I’d spent the evening.
There was no time for that, for Cynthia knocked upon my door. She wore a cloak of darkest black, and on her lips a mystery-smile; in her hand she held a lantern.<
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I gaped. She ruffled up my hair. I was too stunned to kiss her. And when she put a finger to my lips, I knew I could not say a word. She whispered then to take a coat and put on boots, to gather up the pages I would have read to her that afternoon; and when I had she took my hand and led me down the stairs. We went outside and crossed the road.
I protested then, for though she might be safe enough by day, I thought by night that this was madness. She laughed and kissed me oh-so-hotly; all her eyes were full of sweet excitement. She asked me if the Moon was bright; I told her that she knew it was, for I could see it flashing in her eye. The next she asked me, how I liked adventuring, and whether I thought the night exciting, and if I thought her beautiful enough to be the queen of all my dreams. I told her that I liked it very much, and yes I did, and so she was; and before she could say any else I hugged and kissed her till she could not breathe. She laughed and called me naughty, told me to behave; and yet her eyes were so enormous. I almost could not bear it.
She took my hand and kissed my palm (her little warm and rasping tongue, it made me tremble so), then wrapped my arm around her waist; and so we set off through the woods and came again to Severndroog. She had the key; she told me that she’d paid a silver crown to have it for the night.
We entered: found the crone had left us goblets, too much claret, half a pound of cheese, two fresh loaves and a candle. The door securely locked behind us, the candle lit, we made our way up to the roof. At last she drew me up the little wooden stair that led from the roof to one of the minor turrets. We stood there for an instant, looking up at cloudless sky, at sparkling stars and, most of all, at gleaming silver Moon. I hardly can describe what happened then; my hand it shakes to think upon it.
She turned to me, all brilliant-eyed and smiling-lipped, demanded my firm acquiescence to all her simplest conditions: that I should treat her in the way I would if she herself were Diana Regina, Queen and Goddess quite inviolate, and that nothing more I’d offer her than kisses and embraces. I told her yes to everything, for even this seemed more than I deserved. And the Moon, by then, it had deranged my brain so much I wanted nothing more than just to hold a warm sweet woman in my arms. And hold her till the dawn.