Indigo, or, the Swordswoman's Tale

5. A Resolution is broken--How to Begin--The Perils of Eating in
   Bed--The Bawdyhouse of Memory--The Tower, and what Came of it--
   A first Glimpse of a Strange Country-- Maids in the Garden, and
   a Bawdy Air--


I was born in the first year of the reign of the Child Queen, the
Glory Queen, the only viable offspring of the loins of old
Charles III, when all the world.

I was born somewhere in the alleys of Cydonia, the Great City,
shining on the hill, the Jewel in the Crown of our Empire, the
Foul and Choking Smoke, the Open Sewer, Cesspit-on-the-Slough,
City of Jacks and Gulls, in a time of great.

The woman who calls herself my mother has always maintained.

I was born.

I--

I have no idea where to begin.

This is the third attempt I have made at starting this account of
the story of my shadow life. The first lies in shreds beneath the
bed, there, where I ripped it with great, satisfying jerks. The
second--

The second I began quite floridly. The last days of King Charles.
The Limehouse Butcher, terrorizing Sloughness and Limehouse and
that charming neighborhood known as My Lady's Hole. Rumors that
Charles had sired a by-blow somewhere in that squalid Hole; that
the Butcher was, in his own brutal way, working on behalf of the
Royal Chamberlain to remove from this sorry Earth said by-blow,
and all who knew of her existence-- Yes, "her"; for I then wove
in all manner of hints and innuendo that the Butcher failed in
his task. For that by-blow was, indeed, myself.

Royal birth, no matter how squalid. (Better to be a bastard than
have no father at all, eh?) A place in history, no matter how
secret, affecting events in the world, shaking the halls of the
mighty, even before I had been born--baptised in blood and
thunder. Best of all, I'm not spinning this tale from whole
cloth. I first heard it from the lips of Julien Haywirth, of,
yes, the Harrowdale Haywirths; that courtier we most uncharitably
called "Donkey Boy" for his unbecoming habit of unconsciously
curling his upper lip beneath his nose, sniffling up the last
little crumbs of snuff invariably caught in his thin and ill-
advised mustache. It is, apparently, a popular speculation as to
my origins; Tenemus himself could do no better, I am certain. It
is, the load of it, poppycock; balderdash; a cheapshow with which
to gull the gullible. But it made for a most wonderful beginning
--blood and thunder, as I said, and what better way to make the
gallery sit up and take notice? But then Clarissa awoke with a
sudden jerk, her legs kicking beneath the coverlet, upsetting my
writing-desk and tipping my inkpot over, spilling ink across
parchment, coverlet and maid.

(She stands at the foot of the bed, naked, her breasts swinging
with the effort of scrubbing the ink from her shoulder and
back--a little more heavy than I like, to tell the truth. Her
legs are too short, as well, with what one might call "powerful"
ankles, were one feeling charitable--and I am, this morning. Her
mousey hair is mussed from her restless sleep, from our--
enthusiastic--lovemaking last night. --My Clarissa is a lusty
girl. I would never have imagined her powerful thighs clamped
tightly about my ears, her fingers almost shoving their way
inside me, in her frantic need to slake my desire. She is such a
meek and quiet thing, in her maid's uniform and cap. Then, she is
of peasant stock; coarse, earthy; unabashed, really, and I should
therefore perhaps not be quite so surprised by the relish with
which she attacked my fundament, fingers and tongue--hammer and
tongs? --But I am digressing, procrastinating, as you might well
have noticed; no matter how pleasingly sore my bottom may be this
morning--and it is pleasant, but it is sore--it has no real
bearing on this story of my life. Not, at any rate, the point of
my life I'm trying to illuminate this bright and sunny morning.

(She's just asked-- "What are you doing?"

("Writing," I said.

("What are you writing?" she asked.

("You," I answered.

(She grins. She blushes. "Naw," she says. "Really. What?")

Here I sit, then, in ratty old silk pants which cost more to
purchase and bring with me from Maliq than it would have taken to
keep me in a year of coneys and a Solstice goose, when first I
scampered about the Hole in a whore's cast-off chemise. My
writing-desk is teakwood, from the Outermost Isles. The pillows I
rest upon are watered silk, in what Mrs. Woolf assures me is the
latest pattern; doubtless she would be appalled at the tobacco
burns, the crumbs of cheesed crackers, the wine stain, there, the
smear of rouge (Clarissa's--again, the word is "enthusiastic"--
joy upon discovering my old, unused palette of cosmetics)--and
now the puddle of ink, black, by my leg--

There was a point to all of that, I am certain.

I no longer have the stomach for floridity, I find. I cannot
begin again that spew of lies and rumors and half-truths; I am
glad Clarissa spoilt it with her sudden, precipitous shift in
bed, no matter what Mrs. Woolf will have to say on the subject.
But it does leave me with a dilemma: Where do I begin? My blood
all leached away, my thunder stolen...I do not know the exact
date of my birth, where I was born; my father a mystery to my
mother--and I do not even know for certain whether the woman who
claims that office is telling the truth about her place in my
life; Lady knows she's lied enough about everything else. Why not
that?

I am left with the simple statement: I was born. Which is
self-evident: how else could I be writing this, here and now?

How to begin.

Well. It seems the answer is to look up after scratching that
fragment of a sentence, see Clarissa standing before the full-
length silvered mirror that leans precariously against my
armoire, smoothing her chemise as she turns one ankle, then the
other, half-curtseying her reflection coquettishly with wide eyes
and a small smile; to then set aside this--thing, this book, this
mass of paper and ink masquerading as a memoir, toss it all to
the floor, parchment, pen, writing-desk, pillows and all (though
careful of the inkpot, to be sure, setting that aside on the
night-table first); to bound to the edge of the bed, laughing, as
she spins, alarmed; to sweep her into my arms, pressing kisses to
her face, her neck, as she ducked away, giggling, her arms raised
up, pressed to her breasts, her fists by her cheeks, murmuring
"No, oh ma'am, please, what" as I kissed her again and again, and
again, my momentum carrying us both against the wall with a thump
hard enough to knock the Maliqan temple painting which dominates
my bedroom from its hook, to bounce to the floor and lie flat
(hard enough, even, to shiver the mirror)--but no time to worry!
She could not move her arms, but she turned her head up, meeting
my lips for a quick kiss, but I had already dropped to my knees,
spreading her thighs, I knew what I wanted and I was not to be
denied. Clarissa has a tangle of dark hair enfolding her cunny,
thick enough to grip with my fingers, which I did, pulling her
hips forward as I found her lips and spread them with my tongue.
My other hand squeezed her full buttocks; they shivered at my
touch, even as her chemise fell to tickle my forehead, my
eyelids. And I didn't care. She was excited, was Clarissa; her
tang was thick, her smell overwhelmed me, her heat palpable,
enflaming my tongue, my mouth; I kissed, I sucked, I gulped, I
licked up the loose skin of her lips, her nub, took them in my
mouth and sucked, flicking quick and light until I felt her
quiver, then backed off, licking long and hard from bottom to top
and back again. She moaned and cried, her hips bucked, pounding
against the wall, smashing my hand against the padded cloth,
nearly shaking me loose, and I grabbed her hard and held her
still and ate her until she shrieked and came and cried my name.
The only time she ever calls me by my name is when she comes.

So that is an answer to "How to begin," it seems. Find yourself a
willing girl and make her cry your name. I cannot wholly
recommend it, for, once done, once my blood was enflamed, there
was nothing to do but rip her chemise from her shoulders and drag
it down her body until she was once more naked, as her hands
reached shaking for the ties to my pants, undoing them and
letting them fall. She came into my arms then, and we kissed,
pressing our naked bodies against each other, and her mouth
opened under mine, her breath hot on my lips. And though she is
short, and--speaking charitably--powerful; though her hair is
mousey and thin and not at all the golden splendor of my girls,
my Eliza, my Lucy; though she is too heavy in my hands, her mouth
too eager, her tongue thrusts into my mouth too quickly and too
hard, there is no teasing, no skill, no artistry--just
enthusiasm, and that in plenty--despite all this, she is alive,
and warm, and here, an armful and more of girl to kiss and lick.
A girl's mouth to suck at my breast, both of them, hard, fast,
insistent, fingers to demand that my cunt open up for them, rough
and quick, a girl's thumb to squeeze my nub, spearing my belly
with pleasure and pain.

I gave as good as I got. I rolled her over on her back, grunting,
hissing as I drove my own fingers into her, one, two, then three,
slapping her thighs, her buttocks in my drive to saw faster,
faster. My free hand pinned her free hand above her head; our
eyes locked, our mouths set in sneers, grimaces; I used my weight
to pin her, drive myself further into her, even as she thrust
herself up, digging her heels into the rug to lever her hips in
the air to meet mine. It was rough and hard and frustrating, we
moved too quickly, too harshly, we were trying to overpower each
other, to wrestle, not to fuck. I bruised my thigh, burned my
knee with rubbing it against the rug, knocked an ankle against a
bedpost, strained my wrist. She cried out under me as I slammed
into her again and again, and she struggled against the strength
of my grip, and tossed her head from side to side. But her hips
still rose to meet mine; her fingers slowed within me, but did
not still, and as her gentler ministrations began to take effect,
I let the langour climb inside me, until without noticing it we
had begun to move in concert, our thrusts meeting each other, our
fingers churning less frantically, but with a will, a rhythm, all
their own. We stopped fighting it. It was out of our control.
Grunting; groaning; slapping together, our bruises forgotten,
moving together, our antagonism--however joking--completely
forgotten, without our even noticing its passing. I came first,
hard and fast, overwhelming, shuddering above her, falling to
catch my weight on my elbow, gasping for breath, sweat dripping
down my nose, my temple. She moaned. She whined. "Ma'am. Please.
Please..." I barely heard her over the ringing in my head. I fell
to my side, my fingers yet within her, but stilled; I could
barely think, much less move. Greedy, she humped against me,
flopping almost obscenely in her desperate need to follow me
down. "Please..." My fingers slipped out of her, chilled by the
relatively cooler air of the room; cooler than she, at least. She
rolled over then, suddenly, laying me out on my back, until I
looked up at the ceiling with a giddy grin on my face; her own
hand jammed into herself, she ground her hips against me, my
thigh having ended up somehow between hers. Grunting; groaning;
slapping against me, the tip of her tongue protruding from her
lips, eyes closed with the effort. I lay on my back, out of
breath, too overwhelmed to do much of anything but watch and feel
her weight pushing, pushing, pushing against me. Greedy.
Grunting. Obscene. Flopping. Desperate.

She came, and she fell over me, her breasts flattening against
mine like soft pillows. Her breath was hot and sticky on my skin.
She breathed like a bellows, but to no effect; my fire was out,
and hers, I knew, was dying, slaked; banked, for now. I pushed
her off me, climbed to my feet, steadying myself on the foot of
the bed. Shaky.

I can't recommend it, then, as it tends to quite distract one
from the actual task of scratching words on parchment--the
ostensible goal, of course. Nonetheless, there is a point to all
of this, I swear. As she dressed herself, pulling on her chemise
(ripped only a little, and she was embarrassed by my half-hearted
show of concern), her dress, her breast board and apron--no
knickers of any sort for our Clarissa, it seems; rough woolen
knee-socks would have to do--I loosely belted a dressing-gown,
lit a cigarette, then asked, out of the blue--the question popped
as if from the aether through my lips almost before my brain had
time to register it-- "How did you get started in all this,
Clarissa?"

"Ma'am?" she asked, tugging her fingers through her hair.

"When did you begin?"

"In service, ma'am? When I was twelve. After my brother turned me
out of his home. His wife expecting, and all."

"That's not entirely what I meant, girl."

"Oh?" she said, her brow furrowing. Then unfurrowing, her eyes
going wide-- "Ooohh," she said.

"Well?" I said.

"It was," she said, ducking her eyes away, "a girl I met in my
first house. We shared a room. It had only one bed."

"Yes..." I said, drawing the word out.

"She told me-- It was a way to keep warm, nights. Have a little
fun."

Speaking about this was obviously uncomfortable for her, somehow.
She wouldn't meet my eyes, and looked down, or away to the
corner, or out the window. "Do you enjoy it?" I asked.

She blushed, and prettily, too. "Oh, yes," she said. "Ever so
much. It's, it's--"

"Wonderful," I said.

"Yes," she said.

"How did you talk about it?" I asked. "What did she tell you?"

She shrugged, still looking down. "I don't know. That it was
fun."

"But how did she tell you? What did she say? How did you talk
about it with her?" But she stammered, and clutched at her breast
board, and wouldn't look at me, and that was when Mrs. Woolf
knocked at the door, looking for Clarissa, wondering what service
had been keeping her so long in my rooms. Her eyes took in
Clarissa's dishabille, my legs bare beneath my dressing gown, and
her mouth pinched more than is its wont.

"Ma'am," she said.

"Mrs. Woolf," I said. She knows my proclivities--even were they
not famous throughout the land, it would be foolish to expect to
keep such secrets from the staff of one's own house (though I
have known many who thought they could, to their detriment, my
benefit). --But she does not approve of them. Nor, I think, does
she approve that I have meddled in what she rightly sees as her
world, allowed my passions to interfere with the closely ordered
realm over which she presides. These days, it seems, I am
breaking all manner of tabus--this, in a life many would have
said had already broken all that could be reached. It is,
perhaps, a good thing I am not so enamored of Clarissa; pursuing
her with any ardor might well end up disrupting this well-ordered
house, and though my door may well be smashed in by deVere at any
moment, I would still have the Devil's own time replacing a
housekeeper as fine as Mrs. Woolf. --But I cannot resist teasing
her. Before she could make up her mind whether she wished to say
anything rash, I gave her a more permissible target: I pointed
out the ink stain on the coverlet, which yielded a sharp though
mercifully brief tongue-lashing on the perils of staining watered
silk, and on why only a thoughtless cretin, unmindful of the
hours of unceasing labor which made her leisure possible, even
comfortable, would do something so rash as to write in bed. To
say nothing of eating in that same bed. I endured it with as
straight a face as possible, and managed to resist all
opportunities for double entendre. A small price to pay; at the
end of it, she had taken her leave, soiled bedclothes in hand,
Clarissa in tow, and I am now left alone to continue this work.

"How did you get started?" The very question I have been asking
myself--how to begin?--but I did not have the meaning right until
I asked Clarissa. This is to be my other journal, my shadow
history, an account of all those many things I've done and said
in bed, and to get to that bed, those things so many of us do and
say but never speak about, or write down. Clarissa so obviously
takes great pleasure in what we did last night, and this morning,
what she did with my girls yesterday; she has been schooled in
numerous arts, widely if roughly, and takes them up with great
pleasure when she knows they will be well-received. But she
cannot speak about them; she can barely put their existence into
words. I doubt she even knows the names of the things she does,
the desires she feels. What she is, when she strips off her
clothing and climbs into bed with her mistress, her fellow maid,
my girls, when the world is nothing but skin and sweat and mouths
and the sharp, sweet tang of sex, thighs and bellies and breasts,
hair and eyes and kisses in the dark, and whispered names.
Another world; quite literally, it seems.

How did I get started? When did I first get a glimpse of this
strange country we all visit, but so rarely write home from?

It did not, I am certain, occur in the manner you might think.

The first home I can remember? A bawdyhouse. This house no longer
stands--destroyed, doubtless, in the Great Fire almost twenty
years ago, though no records of these things are kept--and I
doubt the one in my memory ever really existed at all: a vast,
sprawling thing, filled with billowing colored scarves and
tumbling, half-dressed whores and gulls, staircases climbing
every which way and too many enormous painted doors. What is
built in my mind is made of three or four such houses, I am sure,
as I moved from one to the other, in the care of whomever was
looking after me at the time--a whore's accident, an occupational
hazard, cute enough, it seems, to tug the heartstrings, and be
spared the usual fate of kittens, puppies and whores' babies (a
burlap sack, a moonless night, deep waters). --No single such
house, so fantastic, so large, so full, could ever really have
existed. A weird and wondrous backdrop for the giants who loomed
through my days, doing and saying such mysterious things. There
were three women, I think, who were most in charge of keeping me,
and none of them my mother: Cindy, whom I remember most as a
smile and a warm hug smelling of pale powder and cheap perfume,
though she got so angry whenever I meddled with her paints; and
Jack's Jess, who was as casual about a whore's business as anyone
can be, I suppose-- Once, I was told, I tottered into her room as
she was about her business beneath a gull, and I was complaining
most bitterly about, I suppose, the condition of my diaper; the
legend has it she waved me over, yanked the thing off, cleaned me
up and bundled me into a fresh cloth, as all the while her gull
pounded away at her, oblivious. But this occurred, if it ever
really happened, before my memory was strong enough to retain any
impressions of my experiences. --The third was a woman whose name
I do not recall, and Jack's Jess was never able to help me
remember; there were, she claims, any number of whores looking
out for me then, any of whom could have been this third, whom I
remember for her cloud of dark hair, her eyes, and the song I am
certain she sang to me, cosseted away in the drawer of some
battered armoire stuffed with filmy garments of silk and satin
and lace. (Years later, years ago, I came across words that fit
the tune that I remember. I do not know if this is what my third
motherly whore sang to me, then, but I shiver every time I hear
them; I offer them up, now, as an echo of what might have been:

(When that I was and a little tiny boy, With a hey, ho, the wind
and the rain, A foolish thing was but a toy, For the rain it
raineth every day...)

There was a man, dressed all in black. I know now he must have
been one of Codlatan's ravens, got up all in black and come to My
Lady's Hole to preach to the bawdyhouses, to try and bring us,
whores and gulls and all, back to My Lady and Her Lord, back to
the realm where relations between men and women are sacred, used
only to bring new life to this world; a duty carried out, not a
pleasure to be indulged--much less paid for. (And as for
relations between women and women, or men and men, these, of
course, are not enough acknowledged even to be condemned.) All I
knew at the time, though, was this man, dressed in black from his
collar to the floor, to his fingertips, with a great long mane of
black hair unhidden by hat or wig, and black flashing eyes that
made any room he entered suddenly silent, that made the very
colors in the air sputter and fade and die in his presence. I was
scared of him, and Cindy or Jack's Jess or my dark angel would
sweep me up into her arms and carry me off whenever he came to
frown and harangue and drive off business for an hour or so.

But once--

Once I came upon him, lying out on Jack's Jess's bed. I was
seeking her, for what I cannot remember: some childhood want or
need or fear that she and she alone could assuage. I don't know
where she'd gone; professional enough to have the tools of her
trade at hand, I doubt she'd suddenly needed to fetch a Stilean
letter, or a bit of cloth. Perhaps Nature called, and this dark
man did not fancy the sound of a whore making water, and he sent
her away. Perhaps she did not even know he was waiting for her,
in her bed; I do not even now know what arrangement they might
have had, if there in fact had ever been something so formal as
an arrangement. I walked into Jack's Jess's room, and there, on
her bed, the dark man, on his back, one hand over his eyes, and
rising from his middle, from the black robes rucked and wrinkled
oddly at his waist, was an improbable little tower of pale
pinkness, leaning at a precarious angle. Such an odd sight,
something I'd never, at that point, seen, or seen with enough
time and force to press itself into the hard young wax of my
mind. I thought it was something he was balancing there,
something not of himself, a game he was playing, as unfathomable
as anything else these ghostly giants did; whatever did not
involve my food, or my comfort, or my fears.

He lifted his hand from his eyes suddenly, and those dark eyes
burned straight through me. He rolled onto one side, and I
gasped, certain that his little tower would fall, that his game
was spoilt--but it stayed, wobbling only a little, pointing
straight at me with its red cap, a dark little eye piercing its
center. He sat up on one elbow, those eyes still burning, and he
beckoned me closer with one hand. Did he speak? "Come closer,
girl," he might have said. Perhaps. Maybe his lips moved; maybe
words came out. Maybe I stepped closer on the strength of his
gesture alone--that, and his eyes.

He rolled again over onto his back, and again that tower did not
move or fall; again, it wobbled a little, still leaning back
towards his head at that impossible angle, its red cap now
pointing to the wall above him, rather than at me. I stood beside
the bed, and his eyes turned away from me, gazed down at that
thing that fixed us both.

Did he speak? He must have. He did not touch himself, and I must
have gotten the idea from somewhere; it would never have occurred
to me on my own, unbidden. His voice, rough, hesitant, so unlike
his sermons: "Go on, then. Touch it. It won't bite."

It wasn't till I laid hand on it that I realized this thing was a
part of him, like a finger, or a toe--this tower grew up from his
skin. His robes were open, unbuttoned to his waist, though tucked
between his legs, so nothing but this strange protuberance was
bared. And it was warm, almost hot, and it pulsed under my
fingers. "Grip it," he said, "hold it tight, like your mother's
hand," and I did. His eyes did not look at me, and so I could
look him in the face: his narrow nose, his thin-lipped mouth, his
mane of hair haggard in the dim light, his eyes hooded, downcast.
He shifted, lifting his hips suddenly; surprised, I might have
let go-- "No," he might have rasped, his eyes flashing onto me,
but dimmed, banked, his force, his essence elsewhere. Nonetheless
I was moved by a mixture of fear and curiosity to do as he
wished, and I gripped this odd member again, round and fat in my
little fingers. What was happening? What would happen next? --And
besides, when I gripped him, let him move and shift beneath me,
those eyes looked elsewhere. I found myself torn, between this
chance to look upon his face, unnoticed by his blazing eyes, and
the chance to examine the mechanism of this strange thing I held
in my hand. What I'd thought was an eye was a hole, but it wasn't
a hole that pierced the red cap; it was more as if the cap itself
were folded in half, forming two small, fat lobes, and the eye,
the hole, was at the very crease of that fold. There was a lip of
skin came up and around that cap, skin that moved and slid in a
most alarming fashion--I watched it, full of fear that it would
slide down and down and that red cap would be released with a
fleshy pop! to fall, red, wet, into his black-clothed lap. It
didn't, of course. The skin pulled down to reveal the cap was of
a piece with the little tower, and he groaned, and pulled his
hips down, and the skin of it rolled back up over the cap as if
it were a turtle's head, pulled back into its shell. The skin of
it was smooth, and soft, yet netted with blue veins, like the
underside of Jack's Jess's wrists; it was a darker and duskier
skin than that of his hands, one of which was spread flat against
the wall before me, pale and distant, and I could see peeping out
from the cloth opened about his hips a sudden sharp thicket of
black hair, and I was frightened a little, perhaps, of what
creature might be hiding within it.

It might have been that fear, or it might just have been that his
movements were rough--so rough that I lost hold of him--his tower
wobbling like a branch in a wind. His hand crashed down suddenly
upon my shoulders. Again, he must have spoken: "Keep hold, you
careless little thing!" or some such. I started, but I did not
begin to bawl. For though his hand was huge and heavy on my
shoulder, and his eyes were fixed on me, black and fierce, there
was something in them that I could see. Could read, though I knew
even less of letters then than I did of the giants around me. A
need that I could see, sparked deep within him, a need as strong
as my own for milk, or food, or a caress, for someplace safe from
Cindy's rages when I ripped her silks, or made a mess with her
paints, a need somehow tied to me, to my little hands, to that
odd, weird tower he'd built of himself. I stood there, letting
his words wash past me, his hand try to bear me down, until he
was quiet, breathing heavily, and there was nothing between us
but the look in his eyes. Then I took both my hands, and I
wrapped them about his little tower, and I rocked the skin up and
down, up and down, for all the world as if I were pumping up
fresh water from the well out back. So I was not so surprised as
I might have been when he groaned, and shivered, and liquid
leaped up and out from that eye, a single spout from a well long
dry. Pearly white, and shining in the dim room, like wet teeth in
a smile, and it stained his black robes where it landed.

"Damn you," he muttered, sitting up slowly. This I do remember,
clearly. He fumbled about the table by the bed for a rag and came
up with some scrap or other, with which he daubed at himself.
"Careless little bitch. Whore's get. Don't you know what that's
for? Hasn't your mother been keeping up with your schooling?" But
for all the gruff harshness in his voice, it was low, not at all
like his thundering sermons, and his eyes did not peer at me,
through me; they looked down, at his hands, at the stuff he was
blotting up. Gluey stuff, I was surprised to see; not like water
or milk at all. It clung to the cloth, pulling free only
reluctantly, in shining, wet strings.

He paused a moment, his hands trembling above his lap, his tower
wilting, pointing down towards his feet, nestling its red,
weeping cap in the black folds of his robes. Then he looked at
me, but his eyes were gentle, and quiet--though there was
something in them I did not like. A ghost of a smile, and not a
nice one, at that.

"I was your first, then, was I, girl." I said nothing, but I
looked him straight in the eyes, and did not look away. Somehow,
I knew--doing to him what I had done, what he had made me do,
seeing him in that state--I had earned the right. He beckoned me
close, and I took one slow, dragging step. "There's more than
this," he said. "Much more. And you're damned to learn it all,
aren't you?" His fingers rustled in his lap, drawing my eyes to
look down. He had unfolded the rag, finding the puddle of spew
he'd daubed up, and the middle finger of his right hand, long and
thin and pale, he dipped into it, coming out with a pearl of the
stuff clinging to its tip, trembling as he trembled. I looked
back to his face, his eyes, still gentle, though that smile, not
nice at all, was crinkling up the corners. "You've earned the
taste, then, haven't you?" he said. "Haven't you?"

I took another step. How could I know what was coming? How could
I possibly have had any idea what to expect?

His free hand, the one that did not have a queer, half-living
jewel clinging to a fingertip, reached out, caressed my soft
hair, curly then, and dark. A soft and gentle touch. His fingers
tightened about my head--his hand so large, he could almost cup
it all. I opened my mouth to say something, perhaps to call out
for Jack's Jess, and quick as a snake he struck, that finger
flashing towards me, stabbing my mouth, my cheek, the pearl
mashed warm and wet against my lips. His hand let me go and I
stumbled back. The stuff stuck to my mouth and chin, warm,
clinging; I raised a hand to wipe it away, licking my lips
unknowingly.

The fire was lighting in his eyes, then; the gentleness gone from
his face. "Well? Whorespawn?" he rasped. "You lick your lips as
if it were candy. And is it to your liking?" It wasn't, and I
shook my head, slowly. I'd expected something sweet, like cream.
It tasted like nothing at all. It reminded me of the taste in the
back of my throat when I was sick with fever and sniffles.

He did not seem to like the fact that it disagreed with me.
"Little bitch!" he roared, climbing to his feet, swelling up from
the bed to the enormous black-clad height I knew and feared so
well. But summoned, perhaps, by his cries, or perhaps it was just
her errand was accomplished, Jack's Jess swung into the room,
grabbing me by one arm and yanking me, stumbling, behind her
skirts, even as she slapped his face with an open palm. He fell
back onto the bed, tangled in his half-opened robes, bellowing
something incoherent, as Jack's Jess swung me up into her arms
and bustled out of the room, through a corridor lined with half-
naked whores and gulls, even as his words followed us: "Bitch!
Cunt! Whore and whorespawn! All the plagues and curses of Her
Lord upon your heads! I swear it!"

Up a flight of steps, and down another, through doors and
curtains, strings of beads lashing against me, and finally
stopping in a dark, soft room, smelling of spices and dead
candles. Jack's Jess running her fingers over my head, my hands,
my arms, throwing up the skirt of my chemise and feeling my legs,
my belly, my little slit, my bum, and all the while her voice
half-weeping telling me what a little fool I was, and worse, and
what had that horrible man done to me? The examination puzzled
me. I did not know what I know now--that there was far worse he
could have done. That his tower, his prick, his yard, his thing
could have been stabbed deep into my belly through my slit or my
bum, which seemed so small; could have been forced between my
lips to make me drink the whole mess of it down, and not just the
bit I'd tasted. That was what she was feeling for, some sign of
these things I didn't even know were possible. Finding nothing,
she pulled me to her, sobbing a little in fear and relief, but I
was silent, and still. "Don't ever speak of this," said Jack's
Jess suddenly, holding me at arm's length, shaking me to drive
the words home. "Never tell anyone what he did, you hear me? You
will never see him again. You hear me? You will never have to
worry about him doing that to you again." I felt a vague
disappointment in that. I knew that I had done something to him,
as much as he had done to me; I knew that for all his rage and
bluster and hate, there was something deep inside him that he
couldn't deny. A need. Something he needed others for. Me.

For the first time, I felt like I had some grasp on the world of
the giants around me. I felt some power, beyond the petulant
demands I might make for food or entertainment. It was heady and
frightening. It made the air sharp in my nose, and it made my
heart beat more quickly. I had no idea how it worked, how I might
summon it forth, bend it to my will. But I was going to learn.

That night, curled up in my silk-lined drawer (that I was rapidly
outgrowing, to be sure), for the first time I pulled off my
nightgown and lay naked under the blanket. Ducking my head under
it, I spread my legs, peering at my slit. Would a tower grow from
there? The folds of skin to either side, hairless and smooth,
looked somewhat like the lobes of red flesh at the cap of his
tower, but they lay flat, and were pale. I touched them,
cautiously, wondering what he had felt when I touched him. How
had he made his tower grow? What would I have to do to make mine
leap up?

And now it is late afternoon. I have eaten a late lunch, rung for
Clarissa, who brought it, cold meats and cheeses, warm wine, and
she simpered and smiled and pressed against me, her breasts nigh
to tumbling out of her bodice, her fingers trailing against my
arm, my shoulder. Last night I had snatched at her hand suddenly,
pulled her to me, pressed kisses to her cheeks and throat and to
her delighted mouth, but today I am cool and firm and distant to
her, and she pouted as she left, unhappy, and she shut the door
heavily. --Monsieur Orphe had returned from the Ladysmith, and I
took his report as I ate.

I was sipping the last of the wine as the two of us spoke idly of
one possibility or another, hatches that ought perhaps be
battened in the event of a sudden storm, when we heard the peals
of laughter from outside. Girls' laughter. Though Orphe's face
did not so much as twitch, I could read in his blankness, in his
cool, dead eyes a rebuke. Here is a weakness, those eyes said.
This is a way we can be struck. But he would say nothing; we both
know his place. Still. Perhaps I wanted to make something clear;
perhaps I wanted to reinforce that he served me, though there is
no real need. Perhaps a morning spent scribbling away about my
first memories of that strange country, perhaps not responding at
all to Clarissa's advances, had set lust loose in my blood, and I
wanted to see my girls enjoying themselves in the sun. I stood,
smiling, and walked to the window, where I could hear someone
singing.

Lucy was there, wearing one of Clarissa's simple dresses, sitting
in the small swing I have, near the fountain, a stone's throw
from my windows. But behind her, holding her close, was Clarissa,
her arms around Lucy's waist, her chin on Lucy's shoulder,
singing a terribly bawdy song. Clarissa, not Eliza. Lucy's skirts
were hiked all the way up to her hips, and her legs bare the long
pale golden length of them, down to her little toes curled up in
the grass. Her thighs were closed tight upon Clarissa's hands
that were busy between them, their lewd motion setting Lucy to
swinging slowly, one way, then another, and Lucy's eyes were
closed, and even from my window I could read the tiny smile on
her lips. Clarissa sang, her voice flat, but strong nonetheless:

"There is not in this wide world a valley so sweet, As that vale
where the thighs of a pretty girl meet: Oh, the last ray of
feeling and life must depart, 'Fore the bloom of that valley
shall fade from my heart."

I felt something hot welling up in me, but not the lust that had
been sleepily bubbling in my veins--something angry, something
petulant. Had Clarissa the gumption to feel spurned, by me? To
think she might avail herself of my girls when I turned her down?
And how had she suddenly become so eloquent, this serving girl
who could not this morning tell me much beyond the fact that "It
was fun"? I fumed as she kissed Lucy's neck and began the next
verse:

"Yet 'tis not that Nature's spread over the scene, The purest of
red, the most delicate skin, It's not the sweet smell of the
genial hill; Ah, no! it is something more exquisite still."

Monsieur Orphe, stealing up behind me, silently, touched my arm.
I looked up, my eyes flashing. He nodded down, to one side. I
looked, even as Clarissa giggled that "Ah, no!" and Lucy sighed,
and a shudder passed through me.

There, in the kitchen gardens, peering over the screen of basil
growing from the waist-high trough, stood Mrs. Woolf, secretly
observing the girls on the swing. One hand pressed to her bosom,
the other raised, lightly touching her lips.

"'Tis because the last favors of woman are there, Which make
every part of her body more dear."

As Clarissa stumbled into the last verse, laughing with delight,
as Lucy doubled over suddenly, kicking her feet as she came,
"Oh," she cried, "oh!" Mrs. Woolf took in a short, sharp breath
that sucked in her chest and lifted her shoulders, and she bit,
lightly, at her fingertips, and I felt that rage, that jealousy
evaporate. Mrs. Woolf. Never before could I have imagined passion
seeping its way through the cracked and wrinkled armor of her
skin, to look out with even the most tepid warmth through those
narrowed eyes. I would have sworn her cunny sealed shut from
years of disuse; that her thighs would creak in protest if spread
beyond the span required to climb a stair. And yet it was
suddenly clear to me that she not was only aware of my
proclivities, but shared them, and felt some tremulous echo deep
within of the great gong which crashes within me, shivers my
belly, sends me to my knees, my lips parted, my thighs damp, my
breath shallow and desperate; that she had perhaps felt something
like that this morning, in my rooms, when she fetched Clarissa;
that she longed to feel it again.

Clarissa freed her hands as Lucy hung, panting, from the ropes
that held up the swing. Clarissa reached up and began to untie
her breast board, finishing her song with a smile:

"We feel how the charms of Nature improve, When we bathe in the
spendings of her whom we love."

And she raised her fingers to her lips and licked them.

Monsieur Orphe took his leave. Such things do not interest him,
not anymore. Mrs. Woolf stayed, watching as I watched, as
Clarissa shucked herself of her clothing and stood as naked as
she'd been this morning at the foot of my bed, and then knelt on
the grass between Lucy's knees to press kisses to my girl's
cheeks and lips. I returned to these pages as they tumbled
together, the swing dangling empty above them, as Lucy's clothing
began to peel away from her limbs, her hair tumbling about them,
and I set down these words while the sight was still fresh in my
memory--though looking it over, now, I see I have not got it
right; the song was not nearly so smooth as I have it,
interrupted by laughter, by murmurs I couldn't catch from my
height, and I don't think Clarissa knew all the words (I do,
myself); I've left out the gleam at Mrs. Woolf's lips, and the
way her fingers shook. Enough of these pale paper ghosts. I can
still hear them below me. Their cries pealed up entwined to my
window a moment ago, like bells, like doves; now they murmur,
quietly, and one or the other laughs. What are they speaking of?
What are they saying? "Well?" says one of them. I think. Well?

I shall join them, raise up their appetites to raging fires and
then quench them, ask them "Well?" and "Well?" and "Well?" again;
find Eliza and fling the three of them naked into the fountain,
and I do not care if Mrs. Woolf watches, or spends in a sudden
frenzy at the sight of it, weeping a dozen years' worth of love
unrequited into the loam of the garden to launch a sudden
wildfire of late summer flowers, her heart breaking with the
effort-- Would that not be a magnificent way to die?

And besides, though I would have the Devil's own time, and though
she is now dearer to me than I had ever supposed--one can always
find a new housekeeper. But where, oh where, would I ever again
find girls such as these?

--n.

http://www.asstr.org/~nickurfe/
http://www.ruthiesclub.com/
nickurfe@yahoo.com

This story may be freely circulated by anyone, anytime, anywhere.
Lyrics from "Twelfth Night," by William Shakespeare, and "The
Meeting of the Waters, a parody on Moore's Melody," an anonymous
air from the pages of The Pearl.
