A Fair Maiden

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Katya thought, He wants to get me drunk. That's a good idea. She drank; she hiccupped and laughed and wiped her mouth on the edge of her hand. She said, "You must know what a naked—nude—female looks like, Mr. Kidder. Why d'you need me?" and Mr. Kidder said, "Because you are you, Katya," and Katya said, "My body could be any girl's body, Mr. Kidder. It's just something I was born into," and Mr. Kidder said, "Well, yes—as I was born into the body of Marcus Cullen Kidder. This is so. You are quite the Platonist, Katya! Yet Plato would argue that your body is but a vessel for your soul: your perfect body is the vessel for your perfect soul. And it is your soul, Katya, that I wish to portray. You come to me at a crucial hour of my life, as it is a late hour of my life—you are my soul mate, and I will never give you up."

  Katya was moved by this speech, and made uneasy by it. She drank from the wineglass, not sipping but frankly drinking as if thirsty. The dark, feral wine taste seemed delicious to her now. Like Roy Mraz's open-mouthed kisses, sucking and gnawing kisses, like Roy Mraz's rough hands on her body—you wanted to scream for Roy to stop what he was doing and then you screamed because Roy might be about to stop. Helplessly she thought, I won't do this—I will walk out of here. More reasonably she thought, He will pay me more than he has paid me yet. He loves me.

  As if something had been decided, and in his favor, Marcus Kidder began whistling. Shoved his arms into a paint-splattered smock to wear over his gentleman's clothes, and prepared his brushes. Chiding Katya, he said, "We must use the ever-diminishing time that remains to us, Katya! Time is the enemy of lovers. Worse even than the frank light of day."

  Katya laughed and set down her emptied wineglass, clumsily, so that it toppled over onto the floor. On unsteady legs she went into the whitely gleaming bathroom to remove her clothes. The beautiful white cashmere-and-silk shawl she took with her, to wrap about her nude body.

  He is the only one who loves me. And I love him.

  He's a dirty old man, a pervert. You must know.

  Marcus Kidder! Not ever.

  A gentleman-pervert. A rich-old-man pervert.

  He adores me. He adores Katya, he believes in her.

  He gave me money for Momma when no one else would. He pays me, and he loves me. And I love him.

  For his money, bitch. We know.

  When Katya reappeared, moving awkwardly—drunkenly?—in the shawl wrapped about her, which fortunately was the size of a child's blanket, Mr. Kidder behind his easel no more than glanced at her with seeming casualness. He instructed her to lie down on the sofa, as she'd done before, and this time to lift and cross her arms behind her head—"In the most natural pose you can manage. And relax." He seemed not to care whether Katya fastidiously covered herself with the shawl or not. Stiffly she tried to obey him while keeping the shawl over her breasts and keeping her knees pressed tightly together; she had a horror of the sharp-eyed artist seeing the ugly little black spade tattoo on her inner thigh and guessing at once what it was.

  The claim of another. A crude sex-claim.

  Or had it been one of Roy Mraz's jokes? He'd been high, and Katya had been so dazed she'd barely remembered afterward the stinging pain of the tattoo artist's needle...

  "Katya, eyes here! Please don't lapse into your mysterious melancholy. We are here, it is now. All else verboten." After this, Mr. Kidder fell silent. Katya could hear just the comforting sound of his brush against the canvas and in the background the rippling harp music. In a kind of floating dream she was aware of the cozily lit studio, Mr. Kidder's beautiful, tasteful things: wicker furniture, hardwood floor, elegant venetian blinds shut tight against lattice windows, the tick of the mantel clock. Glittering clusters of fossil flowers, so lifelike you might mistake them for living flowers encased in glass, their beauty suffocated and preserved.

  And, from outside, the slap-slap-slap of the surf.

  The dark-tasting wine had made Katya sleepy. Her thoughts came slow and silent and remote as high cumulus clouds. By degrees the white shawl slipped open, exposing her hard, rounded, creamy-pale little breasts with their nipples like mashed strawberries ... In the bathroom earlier Katya had removed her clothes with fumbling fingers, avoiding her reflection in the mirror, her flushed face, her shamed eyes; quickly she'd wrapped herself in the shawl to hide her nakedness. For there is no fear more primitive than the fear of being naked in a strange place. But now, so relaxed, her eyelids drooping, Katya was thinking that Mr. Kidder was right, as usual: the human body was a subject for art. In The Female Nude there were dazzling works of art, centuries-old paintings of surpassing beauty; the female nude was a revered subject for the greatest artists, and Marcus Kidder was of this lineage. For this was true art and nothing like the lewd, lurid billboards looming above the Garden State Parkway featuring exotic dancers at the Atlantic City casinos...

  No shame to it, if you are paid. Models are paid.

  The higher the payment, the less shame.

  What time was it? Katya tried to make out the clock face, which was obscured by shadow. Tried to see through her eyelids, which appeared to be shut, her eyelids so heavy she could not lift them. And her arms, and her legs, leaden, impossible to move. Her knees had fallen open; the black spade tattoo must have been exposed. The shawl had slipped from her entirely, or had been drawn away by invisible hands. The black velvet cloth crinkled beneath her, chafed the sensitive skin of her back and buttocks. Her breath had grown husky and labored, as if she were sleeping, though—Katya was sure!—she was not sleeping but alert and awake. And now someone was leaning over her, and a man's lips lightly touched hers. And she felt a yearning to be kissed, to be held and to be kissed, to be loved, protected. For there is no fear so primitive as the fear of being not-loved, and not-protected. The slap-slap-slap of the waves was hypnotic, and yet: the fact of the ocean is that it is harsh and inhuman, and wading out into the surf, you can be overcome by an abrupt crashing wave, picked up, thrown down, your mouth filled with salty water and sand; within seconds you can drown if you are not-loved, and not-protected. My darling! My beautiful girl!—as she lay unable to move, unable to open her eyes, sinking further into darkness which was both suffocating and comforting. She felt her nipples lose their childish softness and become taut like hard little berries, sensitive when touched. A man's wet lips were on her breasts, he was sucking her breasts; Katya could not see his face, she squirmed in protest, tried to speak but could not speak, she was laughing because it tickled so, there was a sudden sensation in her belly, between her legs, a kind of tickling yet quivering tight; the man's breath was warm against her belly, his breath was warm against the crinkly hairs that sprouted between her legs, of which she was embarrassed, the fuzzy little bush at which Roy Mraz laughed. Don't, no, please no I don't want this, Katya was pleading, for he'd seen the little black spade tattoo on the inside of her thigh and this too he was kissing, licking with his tongue, between her legs he was licking with his tongue and sucking and Katya tried to push him away but could not, and could not raise her voice, could not protest for she was so very tired, her arms, her legs were so heavy, unresponsive to her will. Her thoughts came too slowly now to be grasped, like clouds passing so slowly overhead you can't discern their movement, and still there was, in the distance, the teasing slap-slap-slap of the waves. A sudden piercing sensation gripped Katya, a concentration of nerve endings like charged wires; she began to whimper, like a young child whimpering, helpless and thrashing from side to side, as if impaled, yet slowly, for she could not wake herself fully—the soft black muck of the Pine Barrens held her fast.

  In a kingdom by the sea dwelt a Fair Maiden. And the King of this kingdom was aged and yearning to die, for he had lived a very long time and was ripe to die yet feared Death, who boasted to him: "You are soon to die, old man! You are not royalty to me but just such an old man as any commoner in your kingdom—you are no one special and will fester and rot and stink like all the others." Death was an unshaven lout with a face crude as a boot, bulging bloodshot eyes, wild sprout
ing whiskers, warts on all his fingers, and a smell of garlic on his breath. Who was Death but an alehouse proprietor lacking all dignity!

  And the aged King was bred to dignity, vanity, and pride and could not bear so crude an execution. He was a lonely King who had outlived his wives and even his children and took little solace in the pleasures of his elderly life. And he feared there was a curse on him, that though of noble birth he was destined for a commoner's death, and such festering and rot as Death promised. And so the King had but one final request: he must die at the hand of the fairest maiden in the land, for then his death would be delicious to him, and not sordid.

  So long the aged King had dwelt in his castle high above the sea and the town below; his subjects feared him, for the King had such powers to peer into their hearts and to know them as their neighbors and even their families did not know them. But the aged King was a wise man and a seer and took little solace in his powers, which left him chastened by melancholy and lonelier than before. In the King's troubled sleep the Fair Maiden was revealed: she who was but a child, not yet a woman, in the care of her aged grandmother, a beautiful shining blond child, and pure of heart like no other maiden in the kingdom.

  And the King's heart, which had long been brittle as stone, was rent in two, and the King woke as from a magician's enchantment, and joy and purpose filled his heart, and for the first time in many years the King wished to leave his castle and descend into the town and walk among the common people, in disguise so that they should not know him, and fall to the ground in fearful homage to him. And the King was jostled by the crowds in the town square, seeing how some persons were rude, and others were courteous; some were loud and coarse as brutes, and others were warm, sympathetic, and friendly; and the King saw that these were his subjects, and he could not judge them.

  "These are my subjects. I have the power to bless."

  And so the King entered the church, and knelt and prayed with the congregation; and even the priest did not recognize who had come to worship in their midst. And among the communicants appeared the Fair Maiden, exactly as she had appeared in the aged King's dream; and the King knew her at once, and knelt before her. And the Fair Maiden shrank from him, in modesty and alarm, and ran away to her home; and the King bade his servants to seek her out and to bring her to him, to pay to the girl's grandmother whatever sum of money was required, to fetch the Fair Maiden to his castle to be the aged King's last bride. And in his bedchamber the aged King prayed: "She who is the Fair Maiden must come to me—the King's executioner must she be."

  And so the grandmother was offered a sum of money for the Fair Maiden, and in vehement pride said no. And yet again the grandmother was offered money, a higher sum, and in vehement pride said no. And a third time the grandmother was offered money, a yet higher sum, and this time the elderly woman said yes.

  And so it happened that the Fair Maiden was brought to the aged King, and in a private ceremony in the castle they were wed by the priest, who blessed them, though the Fair Maiden, who was very young and knew little of the ways of the world, was stricken with fear of her aged royal bridegroom, as of the opulence of the castle, and could not cease weeping; and the King vowed to her that he adored her and would never wish to harm her: "For you are my soul mate, my dear bride—no more would I wish to harm you than I would wish to harm my own soul."

  And when all others were banished from their presence, and when the King and the Fair Maiden were at last alone in the King's bedchamber, the King explained to his bride that it was not an impure, carnal love for which he had wed her, but that his bride should be his executioner, that the King might thwart Death. For the King had outlived his life, and wished to die while he yet retained some measure of youthful dignity. Her reward would be great, not only wealth and property and the most exquisite jewels, but her knowledge that she had fulfilled the King's great wish, and she would be known in all the kingdom as the King's soul mate, and so revered and envied. In their bridal bed, the aged King would lie with his arms folded across his chest, and very still, and the Fair Maiden would lie beside him, unclothed; by glimmering firelight the Fair Maiden would spread her long golden hair over the King's face, and coil it around his throat, and tighten it, and press her soft lips against his with all the force of her young body, and suck the very life from him, that the King's agèd heart would quicken, and strain, and burst in very rapture. And the King would pass from this vale of tears and strife into the next life, with no pain; his soul would expire and be released of all torment; the King would escape the crude alehouse lout Death, left thwarted outside the gates of the castle, in mud and pelting rain. In the firelit bedchamber, the Fair Maiden would summon the priest to bless her husband, and she alone would prepare his gaunt, aged body, tenderly washing it and wrapping it in the raiments of the grave, and a final time kiss the King's cold lips and bid her royal bridegroom adieu.

  And so it came to pass that the aged King died happily in the arms of the Fair Maiden; and the Fair Maiden, who was both bride and widow on her wedding night, came to be known through all the kingdom as the King's soul mate, and revered and envied by all for the remainder of her life.

  With a shudder Katya woke from her heavy, stuporous sleep. What time was it! What had happened to her! Her mouth was parched, as if she'd swallowed sand. She was lying on the sofa in a stiff and contorted posture, as if she'd fallen from a great height; beneath her the velvet cloth was bunched, and chafed against her skin. The white shawl was covering her again; someone had drawn it to her chin. Dimly she saw, seated in a chair only a few feet away, a male figure. The shade of the lamp beside him had been tilted to throw light on Katya's face and not on his own, and the panicked thought came to Katya, He has been watching me in my sleep.

  Yet more panicked: He has done something to me in my sleep.

  "Mr. Kidder! What t-time is..."

  Clumsily Katya tried to sit up. Something was wrong; her head seemed to swirl. She was naked beneath the shawl and—had someone lain beside her, on the sofa? While she was naked? Vaguely she remembered his arms around her, his mouth on her; her effort to throw him off, and her gradual submission; the strange tale he'd told her, as you'd tell a child at bedtime, which had sounded like a fairy tale, of an aged King yearning to die and a Fair Maiden chosen to be his executioner...

  Katya was shocked to see, by the mantel clock, that it was nearly 2 A.M. So late! Mr. Kidder must have put something in her drink. Must have drugged her. Half pleading, she said, "Mr. Kidder, what did you do to me? I—I feel so strange. My head is so strange. I—I want to leave now..."

  Still Katya was very groggy and could barely sit up.

  Weak as if she'd had a sudden attack of flu. Yet with maddening calmness Mr. Kidder sat in his wicker chair regarding her with his shadow-eyes, as he'd regarded her from behind his easel. There was something wrong with Mr. Kidder: the handsome ruin of a face now looked ghastly, ghoulish. Most shocking was the absence of his snowy white hair ... In a cajoling voice he said, "Dear Katya! Juan is gone for the night, but of course I will drive you. As soon as you are ready to leave, it's back to the Mayflies, to whom you seem so perversely attached."

  Katya could not bear it that Marcus Kidder was trying to make a joke of this. She was furious with him, trying to stand: "What—what did you do to me? It was more than just wine, wasn't it! Made me fall asleep, so you could do nasty things to me! I—I hate you—"

  Mr. Kidder pressed a forefinger to his lips. "Katya, not so loud. This is Proxmire Street, at nearly two in the morning. I assure you, everyone else is asleep, for this is an elderly neighborhood. We do not want to attract the attention of the local police, do we? You are perfectly all right, as you must know. Dear Katya Spivak of Vineland, New Jersey, whom someone, a lusty lover I would guess, has branded as his own in the tender flesh of your thigh. Surely you are much safer with Marcus Kidder."

  Katya managed to teeter to her feet. Bare feet, her toes clutching at the hardwood floor. She held the shawl against
her as she willed herself to stand, not to give in to a weak sensation in her knees and sink back down on the sofa. "I can't believe you would do this to me! I trusted you! You said you l-loved me—"

  Mr. Kidder protested: "Katya, of course I love you. Though knowing now more about you, yet I still love you. As I've said, you and I are soul mates, and that will never change. Frankly, I didn't intend to reveal myself to you so openly so soon. Before our bond of intimacy had deepened. But I have decided I don't want to wait much longer. As you see, I am not quite the person you thought I was." With a smile, indicating his nearly bald head, for the snowy white hair must have been a wig. Katya could see that Mr. Kidder's head was covered in a scruffy, tarnished silver down and looked shrunken, pitiable. And his eyes were the eyes of a death's-head. The vertical lines on his face seemed to have deepened, bracketing his thin-lipped mouth, which shaped itself into Marcus Kidder's familiar mock-wistful smile: "I am the aged King, dear. You are the Fair Maiden. To be blunt, I am asking you to assist me in a very pragmatic act of ... I believe the clinical term is euthanasia—mercy killing. Not by strangulation, nor by sucking away my breath—don't look so alarmed, dear Katya. We will be more civilized, more merciful. I have amassed a generous store of painkillers—opiates—and we will drink champagne in our bridal bed. Not immediately, my dear—but soon, I think. Once my financial affairs are in order, and on both sides we are in agreement about how you, dear Katya, will be rewarded." Mr. Kidder paused as his smile became more pained. "You would not make me beg, would you? For it is exactly as the doomed old King wished, to die in the arms of the Fair Maiden, and not at the hand of crude Death."