Time's Harlot: The Perils of Attraction, Seduction, and Desire

by Brenda Kuchinsky

  “I’m listening, but what you’re saying is crazy. Why would anyone want to climb the Holocaust hand?”

  “I’ll tell you why. Because someone is chasing them up, up, up.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they want to kill them.”

  “That’s a funny way to kill someone. Chase them up the arm to the hand to try to kill them? Knock them off? Shoot them off? Oh boy. Now I’m starting to think crazy like you. Mathilde, it’s contagious. Don’t infect me.” Ada laughed at the absurdity of it all.

  “I don’t think it’s funny or crazy. Remember, I’m the queen of the acrobats. A high wire artiste. I was with the best French circus. La Cirque.”

  “You’re older and skinnier. Much older and much skinnier. I’m not the only one who grew old.”

  “I’m two years younger.” Mathilde, smirking, twirled around prettily. “And stronger.”

  “Hah. My lungs are so powerful from my singing, I could climb Mount Everest.”

  “Let’s see who wins,” Mathilde said. She swiftly produced an odd razor-sharp knife. It looked like a miniature saber. Ada stared in disbelief. The glint in Mathilde’s eye turned murderous. She jabbed the knife viciously into Ada’s fleshy left calf. She concealed the knife just as quickly as she had produced it, plopping it into her small shoulder bag, which she wore over her head, the strap crossed in front. No signature big bag for this occasion. She was prepared for the climb.

  An astonished Ada gasped in painful surprise. “What are you doing?” Ada whispered, too cowed by Mathilde’s attack to cry out.

  “You know what I’m doing. I’m forcing you to climb up the arm to the hand so I can kill you. I told you. You just didn’t understand me at first. Do what I say or I’ll cut your Achilles’ tendon. Don’t scream or shout. I have my favorite knife on you. My hand’s in my bag, where he’s sitting, waiting for my next move. He stood by me all these years. He won’t fail me. He never does. Now climb and schweig.” Mathilde began cackling maniacally like the Wicked Witch of the West.

  During the war Ada had taken enough orders from power-drunk sadists to know she had to comply, bide her time, and somehow outsmart this lunatic.

  “Climb,” she ordered sotto voce. “I don’t have much time. I’ll be meeting Max alone because poor old Ada met with a terrible accident. She got it into her thick head to climb the arm and she fell. Cracked her skull open. Left her brains all over the ground. Like an egg. The yolk poured out.”

  Ada began to climb. She stumbled, feeling the sticky blood oozing where Mathilde cut her. Luckily, she wore sneakers for the walk to the museum. Her heart was pounding so hard, it echoed loudly in her ears. She began slowly climbing up the heads of the bronze cadaver-like figures. Very slowly. She had to think. What was happening? She couldn’t believe it.

  “Faster, you koorvah. Max is mine. He comes to my bed, not yours,” Mathilde growled like an agitated mastiff. She wasn’t far behind, also in sneakers. Grasping a naked bronze breast with her left hand, she stabbed Ada’s left calf again with her right hand before hiding the knife and holding on to a child’s head with both hands, climbing close to Ada.

  More blood oozed from Ada’s calf. She was in shock now and no longer felt the pain. Did she dare scream? Didn’t anyone notice two elderly women climbing up the arm? Why didn’t she bring a bag? She could have dropped that to get attention.

  “Don’t think of screaming. I’ll stick you in your grosse tuchas so deep, you’ll fall right off. Or, maybe I’ll jump up next to you and stab you right in your cheating heart. But no. I want a slow anguish. Climb.”

  The way Mathilde’s scratchy tones pronounced “climb” was driving her mad. The clunking, drawn out “mb” at the end of the word, lingering in her ears, the “b” reverberating. Funny what sticks when you’re in danger. The world shrinks and magnifies. Ada dared to look down past the green heads and arms and legs and breasts. How had they gotten so far? Why wasn’t anyone helping? It took all her strength to refrain from screaming her heart out. Heart pumping overtime, hands slick with sweat, legs heavy with exertion, Ada was running on terror alone. “Soon, soon,” she whispered under her breath, “someone look up, call the police, save me. I don’t want to die like this.” She was wiping each palm on her long skirt before gaining purchase on the next head or whatever protuberance presented itself. Ada was right behind her. She imagined her next to her, her bouffant stiff, her evil eyes boring into her, exhaling those sharp tuna fumes and plunging the weird knife into her heart for the coup de grace.

  “Faster, you fat pig,” Mathilde hissed. She was almost next to her, grasping a bronze child’s distressed open mouth. Another jab seared her calf. The pain went to her heart. She knew she couldn’t do this much longer.

  “Look down. They’re coming to get you,” Ada said, turning her head to look at her pursuer, wild-eyed and strong. She looked strong. Her hands probably weren’t even sweating. She was next to her. Why did Max get mixed up with a ferruckte, fercockte acrobat?

  “I’ve been looking. No one is coming. No one cares. No one looks. No one listens. We’re all alone.”

  Ada looked again. People, gazing upwards, were gathering at the base of the arm. Maybe they thought it was a stunt or a commercial. No cameras and we two aren’t exactly commercial material. No sirens.

  “Climb, ganif, climb,” Mathilde howled. She must have seen the crowd growing, heads craned in one direction.

  Ada felt another stinging, burning jab in her left calf. She heard sirens. It could be for something else. Sirens were always going in South Beach. “Ganif?” she gasped.

  “Come on. Don’t act dumb.”

  There was that pronunciation again, that lingering “mb”, grating on her last nerve. Even at a time like this.

  “Stealing my Max from under my nose. I’ve killed before to get what I want. To get revenge. I’m not stopping now.” Mathilde’s shrill siren of a voice carried in the breeze. “We’re almost at the hand. Schnell. Mach schnell. Like the Nazis loved to say.”

  Ada’s right calf received its first stabbing blow. She winced as the blade cut deep. Like a bull, incensed by the red cape, Ada reacted to the last stick with a preternaturally explosive roar. She grabbed Mathilde by the neck with her right hand while the left held on for dear life to a meager bronze arm attached to a wailing woman. She shook her with all her might. Ada lost her grip on the peculiar mini-sabre. It clattered down, down, down. With one tremendous thrust, using more energy than she imagined she had left, she knocked Mathilde loose from the scrawny bronze people and watched her fall, floating free, crying merde over and over, until she snagged on an extended arm, her sweater sleeve keeping her dangling, swinging to and fro, for one swing, two swings, three swings, like a pendulum. Her bag hit solid ground. Still she dangled, frightened into a frozen silence. Siren wails were coming closer. They stopped as two firemen ran towards the statue with a net to catch the dangling figure, looking like a scarecrow swinging in the breeze. Before they made it to her, seconds before, her sleeve ripped through, a final screeching merde rang through the air, until a splat indicated a crumpled and broken Mathilde, dying at the base of the arm, her blonde bouffant dyed blood-red.

  Forty Nine

  Sophia woke with a start. It took a few seconds for her to orient herself. She’d dreamt about Maria and Amanda. Something about Maria chasing Amanda with a butcher knife. Vague. A gruesome twosome. They didn’t even know each other. She felt guilty about Maria, but not that guilty. Sure, she’d gotten involved. Sure, she’d led her on. But enough is enough. Guilt or no guilt, she had to get out of it. Just like she had to break with Kurt.

  She slid out of bed, contemplating how hoity toity Sandy Lane had turned down and dirty. “Be careful what you wish for,” she muttered. She was apprehensive about the threesome. What if she ended up lying there, watching them get into it? Noah knew this Natasha better than he let on. She could feel it in her premonitory bones. But she was so fucking curious too. He’d wound her up. Tight.
She hated being torn in two directions. Like her patients in conflict. The tension was unbearable. I want this and I want that and I can’t have both. High wire tension.

  Sophia shook herself free from the conflict. She chose the threesome. Noah drove her wild. She had to try this. How bad could it be? She reached down absently for her flip flops and came up with only the left one. She started rummaging under the bed and her hand closed around a straw thing. Straw and cloth. She pulled it out. It looked like her. A small crude doll with a red yarn head and a reddened tuft of straw on top, cloth body with exaggerated boobs and a big butt, straw arms and legs. A rusty nail stuck smack in the middle of the forehead area, right above the two makeshift green button eyes. It was damp. She sniffed it and recoiled. The piss’s pungent ammonia odor stung her nostrils. She dropped it. She ran into the bathroom and washed her hands with scalding hot water and lots of the luxe liquid soap. Jo Malone basil neroli. She retrieved it gingerly with a washcloth, shielding her hand from direct contact, steeling herself against giving in to disgust and fright. There were faint red streaks all over the cloth. She sniffed, careful not to get too close. A barely perceptible rusty odor indicated blood. Her strong sense of smell detected it. She dropped it again. She stared down at it. She shook herself like a dog shimmying off water. She began worrying her left ear. She looked around the room. Somehow everything looked different.

  Sophia dropped her frantic hand from her ear and ran to the phone. “Has anyone been in my room?” she asked when the desk person wanted to know how he could be of assistance.

  “No, Mum. Not today,” the polite, impartial voice intoned.

  “I know not today. I hope not today. I just got up,” she said, exasperated.

  “Yesterday, Mum? Only housekeeping when you were at breakfast. No one else. Unless, you had a massage scheduled?”

  “No, I did not,” she snapped. Noah was in her room all afternoon, but it wasn’t a massage and it wasn’t scheduled.

  “That is it, Mum. Housekeeping in the morning. I’m looking at the book.”

  “Are you sure? No one with a delivery? No one trying to sneak into my suite?” Her voice was climbing higher and higher. Panic was setting in.

  “Mum, Sandy Lane is very secure. I can assure you, no one is sneaking about these premises and no one unauthorized is getting into your rooms.”

  She wanted to shriek, Then how did a fucking blood-stained, pissed-up voodoo doll get under my bed? It didn’t walk there by itself on its teeny straw legs. She calmed down. Noah? A disgruntled employee? Someone just walking up the private beach to her suite? No other possibilities came to mind. All she knew was she didn’t want anyone involved. “Okay. Just checking,” she said lamely, ending the call.

  She knelt down, looking under the bed for any more surprises, but saw only the forlorn right flip flop, which she retrieved.

  Sophia picked up the phone for room service and ordered soy cappuccino, Greek yogurt with mixed berries, and Perrier. She had to think. No sooner had she sat down on the patio, when she jumped up and dashed to the liquor cabinet to pour herself a stiff Courvoisier.

  She jumped at the knock at the door. “Room service.” Of course.

  She screamed, “Come in.”

  The polite sweet woman from yesterday set up her breakfast. Was she looking askance at her generously filled brandy snifter?

  “Thank you, Gwen.” She couldn’t resist. When Gwen was almost at the door with her elegant cart, Sophia called out, “Hey, Gwen.”

  “Yes, Mum?” Gwen turned smartly and looked at her with a half-smile on her discreetly painted pink lips.

  “Any voodoo in these parts?”

  “Why, Mum. This is Sandy Lane. Do you require anything else?”

  “No. Sorry to bother you.”

  “No bother at all. Enjoy your breakfast.”

  “Thank you, Gwen.”

  Why, why did she ask? What the fuck was wrong with her? She had to think. She stared out at the blinding sugary sand, the picture perfect aquamarine sea, and the azure sky, dotted with milky-white clouds, distant and benign, blanketing the heavens with a cotton ball puffery. This place was so safe, so clean, and so luxurious. Why did she have to wish for schmutz? Well, she got herself a shitload of schmutz. Santeria, voodoo dolls, and a threesome with a modern day Felix Krull.

  Sophia sipped the brandy, unable to eat her breakfast. She drank some of the coffee. She licked away the soy foam mustache on her lip. When the brandy snifter was empty and the cappuccino down to the dregs and the berries floated in an untouched pool of dissolving Greek yogurt, she’d made up her mind. Noah didn’t do it. Yesterday was so perfect. He was fucked up. Yes. He was a heartless womanizer. Yes. But, a voodoo doll? Not his style. Noah reminded her of her husband, Morton. Always up for the next woman. Always looking. Until he got himself killed. Why shouldn’t she go for the pleasure prize? All those near celibate years watching Morton have all the fun. Waiting for an occasional bone from Morton. She was going for the threesome. It must be some miserable, resentful employee trying to scare a rich lady with his or her Santeria tactics. The hell with him or her. She wasn’t biting. She flung the doll in the trash and put it out of her mind.

  The day passed slowly. Sophia tried reading, but couldn’t concentrate. She went for a long beach walk in the opposite direction from the primeval forest. She contemplated a trip to the animal sanctuary to see the green monkeys, exclusive to Barbados, castaways from Africa. She loved their monkey madness, their mischievousness. But, she wasn’t really up for it. She could catch up with someone back home. Maria, Ma, Ta, Amanda, Jack, Jonathan. No one knew where she was staying. Only Jonathan. It was all his fault. If only he’d gone off with her or promised to visit her, she never would have gotten herself mixed up with Noah.

  Meditation was the ticket. She tried sitting, but it was no good. She kept trying to visualize the threesome. She kept trying to picture how Natasha would look. Would they leave her out?

  Finally, it was time to go. She wrapped her head in a turban, using a striking, multicolored scarf with butterflies and dragonflies scattered throughout. She put on a new transparent white bra and sheer white panties. Then she donned a silk, alabaster jumpsuit, clinging to her breasts and buttocks in a flattering caress. She had paid a small fortune for the scarf and jumpsuit in the SandyLane clothing store. Looking in the full length mirror, she deemed it was well worth it. She didn’t bother with footwear.

  She welcomed the long walk in the purple twilight, softening the edges, preparing the way for the moist tropical night to descend seamlessly, enveloping her in its warm, fragrant embrace, soothing away some of the anticipatory anxiety. As she walked, she began to feel beautiful, free, weightless, and open. Apprehension fled on tiny, fleet feet.

  When Sophia reached the clearing, she saw the towering, wispy Australian pines breathing with her, inhaling and exhaling, brushing their feathery needles against the night sky, illuminated by a mist-enshrouded, nearly full moon. She heard their sighing. The ancient world’s alluvial breath, muddy, stony, fishy, entered her nostrils. She moved to a tree to touch its bark, scaly and satisfying. She rubbed her hand up and down a section of trunk, taking away small pieces of bark, crumbling with each stroke. She returned to the center of the clearing, knelt down, picked up a pine needle encrusted with sandy dirt. She ate the salty, gritty earth, chewing slowly before swallowing, and began nibbling daintily on the pine needle. It released an exhilarating smell, bracing and astringent. She knelt again. A pine cone caught her eye. She retrieved it, turning it slowly and marveling at its intricacy. A small rusty red and ebony insect climbed out of one of its folds. Everything was alive. Time changed, letting Sophia in on its eternal thrum.

  “Garlic?” she asked, puzzled. The potent odor of garlic obliterated the other scents. She sank to her knees before sliding down to the pine needle carpet, the pine cone tipping out of her unconscious hand to the ground.

  Intense pleasure vied with excruciating pain for center stage when
Sophia regained consciousness. A warm, pulsing well-being was spreading throughout her naked body, climbing up her legs, up her groin, up her breasts, and a rosy flush was creeping up her neck to her cheeks. “Noah, you naughty boy.” Her clitoris was being sucked relentlessly while expert hands roamed across her belly and breasts, but her wrists were bound tightly, too tightly with rough ropes to a stake driven into the ground over her head. She was writhing with pain and pleasure. In spite of herself, her confusion and disorientation, a wicked orgasm roared through her like a high-powered express train thundering through a local station.

  “I’m not your naughty boy this time. Tasha is the naughty girl down there,” Noah said, coming into her consciousness behind her, testing her harsh bonds.

  “Tasha? I don’t even know her. What’s going on? I thought it was your mouth down there.” Sophia blinked away tears of frustration and pain.

  “Oh, I’d say you know her now. Her masterful tongue and hands, anyway. Tasha is the mistress of pleasure and pain. Isn’t that right, sweetest?” Noah asked.

  There was no reply. She was still between Sophia’s legs, pleasuring herself.

  “My arms are tingling and my wrists are killing me. Why am I tied up? Why am I naked? Is this your idea of a threesome?” Sophia asked.

  “Whoa. Too many questions. Tasha gave you a taste of paradise. Don’t be such an ingrate. When we arrived, you were out cold, so we started without you. My little priestess has quite an appetite. You could say she’s insatiable,” Noah said.

  “I must have had a seizure. I’m epileptic. Priestess?” a dazed Sophia asked.

  “Santeria darlin’. The Cuban kind. You were right. I’m into the Santeria. I just gave you a cock and bull story to shut you up. You’re way too suspicious.” Noah knelt down beside her and kissed her passionately, taking his time, probing her tongue with his, ignoring her vigorous head tossing, her vain attempt to avoid his kiss. He came up for air, panting. “These situations my sweetie gets me into sure turn me on.”