A tinkling of cups and saucers, indrawing of breaths. The husband, if such he is, has seated himself with a tentativeness given to those who know not whether to stay or leave. Upon a pianola stand several portraits rudely framed in wood. The likenesses are of none known to me. One frame lies facedown as if placed so by design, for it does not have a tottered look but has a waiting to be lifted, raised, revealed.
It irritates, as might a broken flower set in a vase of blooms immaculate. Measuring my movements, I rise and move between their chairs to raise and turn the frame about. It is larger than the rest-a silverpoint. Its lines are delicate and finely etched, producing shades of grey and gloom and light. Beside a woodland ride a girl kneels on a bed of leaves, her hands placed forward in a doglike pose, her skirts upraised and bottom pale revealed. I mark the bulbing of her breasts, the angled placing of her hands, the lack of strain within her arms, the passive waiting of her attitude.
Beside her on the hoof-marked path another, older, sits upon a stallion whose penis stems down longer than my arm. Her hair is tumbled and she wears but a chemise too short to sit upon her stocking tops, as if from bed at daybreak drawn, there led, and there ordained to wait. Bereft in turn of drawers, her bottom perches on the saddle's rim as might an apple on a plate. Set with the stallion's quarters to one's view, she gazes far along the narrowing ride. Its gloom and emptiness presage yet a coming. Her eyes hold an anxiety that I fain would soothe.
The woman rises. Her hand rests light but questing on my shoulder.
“Have you been ridden? Ridden in your riding?”
“There are pleasures and displeasures.” I turn my eyes to hers. Her eyes do not hurt as some eyes hurt, yet there are no threads between us, or I catch at none. “I will purchase it.” I clutch it tighter as though it might be snatched from me-as might a child who steals her sister's doll.
“There is no need. No need to purchase. There are ever others. Do you collect such? We have more upstairs?”
The door invites my leaving. I would that she had not spoken of others.
“There is wine upstairs. You may see more etchings there. Come. Come in your coming, come.”
“They will be wrapped. Wrapped for me?”
It is not what I mean to say at all.
CHAPTER TEN
The staircase being so narrow, the walls have bumped my elbows. The paper is grey, mottled with age, snagged here and there as if the walls sought air.
I am risen-come upon a room that leads upon another and that in turn upon another, or perhaps they are mirror images of the first, for each contains a bed identical, washstand and mirror, the surprise of a dressing table upon which loll phials of perfume, pots of rouge, of kohl, of musk.
“Fortune awaits you here. We are of one mind. Thomas-close the door-let her be settled. Where are the other drawings, where?”
Found, they are spread upon the bed, which, large enough, accommodates us all. The girls, I see, are the same.
“They are known to you.” Her voice a purr, perhaps yet hopeful and yet still discreet.
“No, they are not known.”
“They were known, but you have forgotten. They are sisters, were sisters once at least. Perhaps now they are no longer so. They were long in their training-each peak depicted. The younger was taken first, and then the elder who was brought to watch. There were difficulties, of course. You see here…”
The first is turned. The delineation of the lines is ever fine, no cloudiness of aspect mars the scene. I catch my breath, not having seen the like. The elder hangs suspended, chains to wrists, being seated and yet not for there is no support beneath her in the stable, as I judge the place to be. Her feet, gripped by iron floorhooks, are held apart. Perhaps at some time she was able to stand but slowly sagged until the chains strained down. Before her and between her thighs a man of bullish aspect holds her nose, his truncheon penis urged between her lips. Behind her with a birch a woman stands.
“How churlish!”
My legs being over the side of the bed, I rise to my feet. A sense of dismay is upon them.
“Is it not an entertainment? Come, you have not seen the rest.”
“I do not wish to.” My feet would move and yet will not.
“One must not be of one philosophy. There are pleasurings and displeasurings, even as you have said. Hannah was not so cruelly treated as you might surmise. No more than you have been. In her summers she ran through meadows, touched the clouds. There were laughings, gaieties, voices in the shrubbery. Iced lemonade was poured. The ladies spoke of Titian and Botticelli. See you not how later she waited for his coming?”
Her nod is to my drawing, which still I hold. I perceive a little truth in the matter-have been too fretful.
“Come-you were ever in part shy. It is a good thing. Thomas, pour the wine.”
“Yes, my dear.” He ambles off the bed. I am reseated, my hand taken, soothed, caressed, the fine veins felt and traced. Glug-glug of wine, our glasses filled. It is the white kind which I prefer. “Some are prettier.” His voice lulls.
Downcast, my eyes fall on a second drawing turning. The sisters, standing, clutch together. Their eyes and lips are wide, but there is a merriment about them. I note the straining tendons on their necks as each receives a strap across her derriere. Booted and stockinged, they are yet naked, hands to hands, cheek to cheek, titties pressed.
“Was there ever aught to fear but salvation?” The woman speaks and draws me close. Her lips are velvet to my own.
“Perdition.”
I force the word between my lips as if ejecting a small cork that pops in turn between her own.
“Ah, we are come upon the truth of it,” she laughs, “Was it thus?”
Our mouths part stickily. Another drawing is revealed. The room is as my own, yet different, yet the same. Her drawers, my drawers, lie puddled to her boots. Each fine crease of her upraised skirt is burned into the paper even as her eyes, regarding me with wonder. Or perhaps the curtains stirred, for thus the light falls soft upon her face. She is the younger, thighs full-fleshed, calves slender, bottom orbing out. The strap has burned its last, is fallen, coiled. His penis is presented, stark and veined.
“Drink your wine. You will do better to view the others later.”
“Yes.”
Obedience observed, I work my throat, a glittering cascade upon my tongue.
“Did it not intoxicate? At the first urging, burning thrusting in? Turn about. Your wine is finished. There will be more later. Little cakes perhaps. Lie upon your belly that I may raise your skirt. We are come to this now, are we not? Were you ever perceived, put upon, observed before?”
“I will not say, I will not say!”
The bedclothes hide my face. I am positioned, feel my pulchritude unveiled, skirt slithered up, my drawers untied, chemise upfolded.
“The strap, Thomas! How exciting to see her at last! Between what marbled surfaces he worked!”
“No!”
My little cry forlorn. I am become recalcitrant, move fretfully, and held.
“You fool-he has a good cock for it. As good as you had at first, I swear. Hold still! Would you have struggled thus before? Answer, girl!”
I shake my head, wild in my shaking. My drawers are peeled, drawn down and made inert. My legs are spread.
“What were you told, now? What told? What?”
Her voice is soothing, her hand upon my hair. Her other, less incautious, on my back.
“The silence.” I have no other words.
“Was in the words unspoken, yes. Hold still now-bulb it out!”
The strap stings broad across my naked cheeks. So long, so long I have not felt its sting, the first insurgent licking tongue of fire that snakes between to tease my rose.
“Theeee-ooooh!”-the second strike has come. I sob, I blubber, twist my hips-am shamed to hear my cry thus sounding out, yet suffer no remonstrance save the strap which, coursing left to right and right to left, brings me to churn my bottom to its flail.