“I do not know.” I hid my face. She was of this knowing yet should not be of this knowing.
“The words are clouds, my love, the act a mountain. The clouds must not obscure the peak. The words are apparitions, but the deed is all.”
That same day I plucked a rose and placed it lovingly in water in a vase and gazed upon it long. Many were the words that crowded into my mind about it. I thought, as father said one would, of love, romance, of garden parties and flounced skirts, of bright bouquets and promises of sun. The rose yet stood in its unknowing of such things, yet much as I tried to divest myself of the entrapments of words the less I succeeded.
Father then entered my room and found me unclothed to my chemise and stockings, couched upon one elbow on my bed and said, “You must not lounge so in your contemplations, for you will be conscious of your lounging and your attitude. Sit upright with your legs crossed under you, your back straight and the back of your right hand resting before you on the palm of your left. Let your mind-”
Alas, my mother interrupting at that moment by her footfalls on the stairs, my father withdrew and closed the door on my unshielded bottom. I would fain have had him return and explain more to me, but he did not, nor was I bold enough to place questions to him on the matter for I feared some mental exercises that I might not then attain. So withered the leaves of my longing. Mama was not of his mind nor caring and so could not have answered my questions. Whether my paternal aunt could so have done I do not know. Backward in my probings, yet also kind in my intentions, I wished perhaps not to embarrass her by asking that which she might not know. I was close then upon marriage and other matters were to the fore. More frequently than ever she would caress me all about my bottom-cheeks and sigh. Kissing me, her tongue would protrude, gliding around my own, and she would tickle my rosette and make me wriggle.
“You must return, Laura, return. We shall wear saris as of old and make our devotions.”
I had not known until then that she had worn such a garment, but my grandmother-as she explained-had been amused by having been twirled about and rendered naked from her cocoon and would have it so 'twixt meditations, exercisings, and further meditations, so that my aunt and her sister-who had since died-were equally thus treated and brought naked to the view.
“Were you not rumpled and ridden then? Was it not coarse?” I dared to ask.
“Coarseness is the manifestation of vulgar minds, “she replied. “My room was ever darkened, candles lit. There were no routs upon the carpet of the drawing room. Such, surely, would have been an abomination. Ever was all silent and solemn, majestically performed in utter privacy. Once my bottom had been tapped, full flooded by the sperm of one or other, then did I bathe, re-don my sari, and descend to continue my meditations. My nipples being erect, warm water was sprinkled on them through the silkened cotton and my brow perfumed.”
“May I not do the same?”
“There is no time, my love, no time. I was not married until twenty-five. I had more years than you for such fulfilments. Mama graced the house and saw to all. I went maiden to my marriage bed even as shall you. My rosette, though well nurtured as it had been, was silent in its musings, played not traitor to me, was unsuspected, though frequently well-fingered. My husband, however, took not to the sport, and I in my modesty made no mention of it. When he was killed early in the battles around Delhi, I returned home clad in widow's weeds, presenting myself much as a nun. Attired completely in black, my bottom uttered thus its gleaming promise, lambent in fleshly glory as the moon. Mama saw this, however, as provocation, for I was prone to leaving my bedroom door opened in my unveilings, my skirt well girded up and knickers cast aside. Seeing me thus, she bound my wrists and caused me to be paraded, upstairs and down, with all my clothes upcast. Naught was said but many eyes reproached me. I had offended, you see, against the conventions. The veils of privacy were torn. She desisted, however, from casting up my widow's veil, hence it was said I looked a perfect houri, my bush displayed on gleaming white framed by black stockings and black skirt. Having been so paraded, led about, I then was taken to the stable and there cropped. Mama taking pity on me in my writhings, however, I received the noble cock between my burning cheeks and thus was partly assuaged. Upon dear Mama's passing, I became then a prey to lusts for she was not there to monitor events.”
“I was not monitored, have not been, never been.”
“It was not necessary. By not monitoring, your own dear mama most visibly monitors. Even so, I saw to myself, came fast to my senses, wore veil and stockings for the last time on my bed, restored the benedictions, the convention-all. Yet it was pleasant to be threaded occasionally upon the rug, a winter's fire warm-roaring at my head. You must not disdain such proclivities, on your return, on your return.”
I answered not, as was my wont. I would promise nothing and yet would withhold nothing. The trees do not move when the breeze stirs but let it pass through their branches. Constance was chased by trees. Perhaps now she and the others lay still all about the room, gyrating hips, the penis entertaining. On the morrow Carrie and Helen will go quiet to chapel. Upon dark landings, ever fumbled, fondled, led to bed, legs held akimbo to the throbbing thrusts. Penetrations, rivulets, balls slapping at their bottoms fast. Dark will curve the circles 'neath their eyes. The rugs will receive them, dust at their nostrils, in the conservatory shall they be ridden, blinded by wonder, the becoming of orchids. I shall not be as they in my quietnesses. Even so I might capture one such, toy with her, observe her in her toilings, flushed of face, small velvet O of mouth receiving tongue or bulbous nose of prick. I shall have gilded cages. Their bottoms shall be annointed first with wine, glistening with Eastern promise of delights.
“Charlotte!” I find the door-unguarded, not obscured. My voice shakes a trifle in my excitement. The handle, rusty, rattles to my touch, squeaks, moves, and draws its iron tongue from the latch. I open. I am come upon it, the room so immense that it would seem to reach out into space. Upon the floor garters, cornets de bal, a withered flower or two. Far from me at the further distance is a dais, empty to its empty metal stands that now no music hold save for one sheet that lies forlorn.
Everywhere tall mirrors, dust blown, gird the walls. I am a thousand of myself, veiled in the dust and at all angles seen. My footsteps sound loud on the fretting floor that none perhaps should tread upon again. An arched and plastered ceiling, white and gold, takes all the echoes high, there comforts them and draws them into silence. Yet the silence beneath, around my feet, is deeper than above. I feel it as a slow breeze to my ankles turn, insinuating up my calves. I should become a rock beneath the sea and listen to the world above.
“Charlotte!”
I am at the centre of the room. The space disturbs. But one door stands before me far, left of the dais, brown and quiet. I venture there and feel my tremblings rise. The paint is cracked upon the panels. A brass knob lies limp. I shall turn it, shall I turn it, turn?
“Open it, Miss, for I cannot.”
Her voice! I burst within, she sits forlorn, as one abandoned at a table there. The room itself is small, clothes lie about, a sea unmoving of cast vestments, trousers, laced chemises, drawers. Shoes, boots lie skewered amid unheaving weaves. The table, rough and small, is deal, as is her simple hardbacked chair.
“How long have you sat there? Long? How long?”
She stands up, casts herself into my arms and sobs. “They confounded me, Miss, said I was not of them and thrust me here within. When the music stopped I knew them gone, heard ever onwards the quick pattering of feet. The door would not open to my touch. I slept and dreamed and woke and dreamed. They were all naked in their lewdness.”