by Edward Lee
Vanity?
Perhaps.
Everybody wanted to be special to someone. Everybody wanted to be attractive to someone else. That was only human. But in this circumstance, it seemed different. The circumstance, after all, involved two women, not a woman and a man…
And when she’d been actually doing it—actually exposing herself to Holly—Alice had been fully aware of just how wrong—how unfair and even immoral—the gesture was.
But she’d gone right on and done it anyway.
There was no time, however, to think of it further, or to berate herself further, either. A hard rapping sounded at the door, and when Alice peeked out the side window she saw a van with the city paper’s logo on it. The photographer was here to take the pictures.
Alice went to answer the door.
««—»»
No! Holly thought.
She sat on the edge of her bed, staring at the phone on the nightstand.
You’ll make an ass of yourself! She’ll know!
Staring, staring…
Early evening now. Dusk bled like a stain across the sky, and the moon was showing its white rim out her window. Canceling her day’s therapy appointments had been a good idea. She’d gone home and finally slept off the wrenching hangover. Yet, having awakened now—
NO! she demanded of herself.
Her desire to call Alice was so powerful. Holly needed to hear her voice, that was all. But what excuse could she give? She’d already apologized for getting drunk. That was just it; any reason to call was exactly that—an excuse, a fabrication. Alice wasn’t stupid; sooner or later she would realize Holly’s true feelings…
Yet all Holly could think about—all she could remember—was her drunken peeping escapade last night: spying Alice’s reflection in the mirror, savoring the image of her body, her white naked skin.
So beautiful…
The phone remained, sitting there like a temptress, beckoning her.
If you call her, she’ll know. You’ll blow it.
So what would she do now?
She recalled the moment before she’d glimpsed Alice in the shower, and how jealous she’d been, finding the notes left by Alice’s recent lovers. Someone named Micah. Some plumber named George. Just the idea of it, just the simple knowledge that Alice had been with these two men—sexually—made Holly squirm. Brute, stupid men, she thought, and then, crudely, Hairy, moronic men, fucking her. Fucking Alice. Pawing her and licking her and kissing her and coming in her… Holly could’ve screamed. She tried to blank it from her mind, but then she also recalled her secret tour of Alice’s basement, the boards she’d found as filler in the wall’s mortared gaps. H.M.S. SCRIMM, she thought. A ship of some sort. What would Alice have said if she knew Holly had been snooping?
Once she’d come home and gone to bed she’d slept in nothing but panties. She hadn’t dreamed, and that was just wonderful. After the nightmare she’d had at Alice’s, she hoped she would never dream again. Though the headache was gone, some of the hangover’s aftermath still remained. She got up falteringly, walked feebly to the bathroom. Then she turned on the faucet and gulped cold water straight from the tap to rehydrate herself. She must’ve drunk a gallon like that, like a horse at a trough, such that her belly distended and she could feel the water sloshing inside her. The dark circles were still smudged below her eyes. Her hair was a mess, and she was drenched in sweat (she’d forgotten to turn on the air-conditioning this morning when she returned from Alice’s), but at least the headache had vanished. Then she put on her robe and whisked out quickly to retrieve her mail and the daily newspaper.
More murders, she noticed the instant she turned to the local section. A clever burglar was raping and murdering women—four in only a week, and two of them teenagers. He was tying them up, gagging them, raping them repeatedly. There’s evil everywhere, Holly thought. Who could do something like that? Sociopathy was becoming an epidemic. Guns were everywhere, rape was as common as shoplifting, madness and cruelty lurked around every corner, and nine times out of ten women were the victims. What was the world coming to?
She pushed the paper away; it was just too depressing to read. She knew she was trying to divert herself anyway. In a moment her thoughts went right back to Alice.
I wonder what she’s doing right now, Holly thought.
— | — | —
27
ST. BRIDE’S BAY, ENGLAND, 1793
The grotto dripped moisture. From its first chamber, Katelyn could see the moonlight shining in the entry. She felt tinglingly fecund, hot, her breasts swollen with desire and thumping hot blood. Her womanhood beamed just like the fulgent moon outside.
“Go ahead,” she whispered. “Don’t be shy.”
“Aw, I ain’t shy, miss,” the soldier muttered, obviously embarrassed. He was young; so many of them were. Somehow Katelyn knew that this was the boy’s first time with a woman, but she daren’t mention it, for it would only embarrass him further. “Such a handsome young man you are,” she said instead. “So young, so virile.”
Katelyn had snuck out of the house round about midnight, as she often did, safe in the knowledge that her husband’s drinking had spirited him off to sleep. Before coming to the grotto, again as she often did, she bathed in the pond, luxuriating in the cool water, musing. Unabashed, she touched herself, standing hip-deep, parting her legs to let her fingers pet her sex. Her other hand ran up and down her cool, wet skin, feeling the new body that was the gift of her dream woman. Katelyn had lost so much weight; she knew she was as pretty now as she’d been a decade ago, or even more so. She felt young and vital. She felt warm with her new desires.
(Katelyn? Katelyn?)
It was the angel! Katelyn rejoiced at the sound of her soft voice.
“I’m here!” she whispered. “Can’t you see me?”
(Of course I can see you. You’re so beautiful now… )
“Thank you! Thank you!”
(But you mustn’t thank me. You have only yourself to thank. In learning to love yourself, you’ve changed yourself.)
“Yes, oh, yes!”
The night throbbed in its splendid sound. The moonlight glowed white on her skin as the gentle water rippled.
(A lover’s coming, Katelyn…)
And suddenly he was there, coming ’round the bend and standing there to look at her. Katelyn smiled at him, then glided both hands upward to enticingly caress her breasts. She stepped out of the water, dripping and naked, and scurried into the grotto.
“Come along!” she said.
The young soldier followed without hesitance. Katelyn waited for him just inside the grotto’s maw, and when his shadow appeared she walked up to him. He set down his wheel-lock rifle and powder satchel, doffed his cap. He was nervous, she could plainly tell, nearly shivering when she reached out and began to unbutton his smart red tunic. “How was your watch?” she asked innocuously.
“All right, I suppose,” he answered. “It’s easy duty. Thought I’d be mindin’ the depots forever, till they offered me the watch. Lots of the fellows have up an’ skipped off.”
“What do you mean?”
“Went AWOL, miss. The King’s shipping lots of men off now, lots of Cornwallis’s men who came back from the Colonies. The Frenchies are having a way with us bad, ’least that’s what we’ve been hearin’. Lotta men skippin’ off ’cos they’re sick of fighting, I guess.”
Katelyn ran her hand smoothly up the boy’s bare and nearly hairless chest, then caressed his groin through the front of his tight, white trousers.
She lay back on the quilts she’d brought so many weeks ago and parted her slim legs invitingly in the dark.
“Come on, come on,” she breathed. “I want you to make love to me now.”
Eventually the nervous boy struggled out of the boots and tight trousers and lay down with her. They embraced on the soft quilts, kissing, and then her hand wended its way to his bare groin, to feel him there. Yes, the poor boy must be nervous, she conclu
ded, for the member in her hand remained shriveled.
“Relax,” her whisper in his ear assured him. “You needn’t be nervous.”
His breathing began to race as her kisses trailed down his chest to his groin, whereupon she took the flaccid member into her mouth, gently sucking it. In no time at all it hardened to respectable size, and she pulled him atop her, helped him slip it into her sex. “Yes, yes,” she cooed. She kneaded his firm buttocks as he drove into her. He was panting in her ear, and she had to keep urging him, “Slower, slower, there’s no hurry to spend yourself.”
Then she gently pushed him off, turned on her side. “Like this now,” she said. “Like this…”
He re-entered her from behind, and in this position she could touch herself as he stroked. In an instant, the pleasure began to sear her as the inner waves began to swell. Steadfastly, her fingers continued to tend the nugget of her sex as his thrusts drew slowly in and out, and it was only a few more moments before her climax claimed her, wringing pleasure out of her flesh like juice being squeezed from a sweet, ripe fruit. Her loins spasmed on as her moans rose, her legs flexing, her toes pointing to the moonlit entry. The boy picked up his pace, his arms wrapped desperately around her from behind.
“Aw, God, aw God,” he panted. “I’m gonna go now, I’m gonna go off…”
“I want you to,” she whispered back, her hand now gently squeezing his testicles, goading their seed. “Don’t hold back; let yourself come. I want you to come off in me, I want to feel your juices pour…”
And this she did a few seconds later. The boy shuddered behind her, the last thrusts stabbing her sex in an almost loving violence. His seed, one warm spurt after the next, eddied into her sex, and as he came, Katelyn continued to gently squeeze the constricted testicles as if to urge out still more of the precious, thick seed.
His body slackened behind her in exhaustion. She disengaged herself, rolled over, and pushed him onto his back. He moaned as she next, without any reservation whatever, began to fellate him again, tasting her own salty fluids which glazed the drooping member. She swallowed, then sucked for more, cradling the drained testicles, but when none was forthcoming she pulled away, smiling, and decided to let him rest, to give him time to ready himself again.
He moaned lazily, returning her smile. “Rest now,” she whispered. “I’ll be back in a little while and we can do it again.”
“What a love you are,” the boy replied, grinning like a sated cat.
She got up then, and traipsed out of the grotto, leaning back against its entryway to gaze at the moon. Afterwards she always felt so good, so beautiful…
So complete, she thought.
(And that you are, Katelyn) the dream woman’s voice assured her. (A complete woman now. Whole and vibrant.)
Katelyn smiled at the voice, her eyes closed. She could feel the boy’s seed, given to her in plentitude, trickling warmly down the insides of her thighs. Her hand lowered to touch it, and she rubbed it over her skin like a rare balm, a precious lotion, licked it off her fingers and then rubbed some more, building a frothy lather into the dark thatch of her pubis.
(Katelyn) the angel’s voice returned. (Katelyn?)
“Yes?”
The voice paused then.
(You should rest now. You must be weary. Come back into the grotto and rest awhile.)
This was a fine idea. Suddenly Katelyn did indeed feel wearied to the bone. She left the moonlight and went back in. The young soldier was asleep among the quilts. Katelyn lay down beside him and—
(Go to sleep.)
—closed her eyes.
(That’s it. Go to sleep now …)
Katelyn draped her arm about the young, slumbering soldier. The warm air felt lush, tranquil. Cricket sounds from without the grotto gently throbbed. Katelyn was asleep in a matter of seconds.
««—»»
She dreamed of the angel. The angel was taking her places, showing her things. She was showing her all the other women just like Katelyn, women who hated their lives, who were abused by their husbands and men in general, spat upon, exploited, raped, and with the help of the angel had been transformed, had been plucked out of their despair and allowed to unfurl anew into beings of beauty and life.
It was a wonderful dream…
(Katelyn?)
She stirred, rousing in the tinted darkness.
Was she being nudged awake? Gently, as if by someone’s hand?
(Katelyn? It’s time to wake up now. It’ll be light out soon.)
Katelyn’s eyes slowly opened. She was still in the grotto, curled up in her quilts. The soldier was no longer by her side; he was gone, and so were his clothes and musket. When Katelyn looked toward the grotto’s egress she could see that it was still dark, but the edge of the horizon was beginning to glow. It would be dawn in less than an hour.
(It’s time to go home.)
“Yes, yes, I must get home before my husband wakes!” she exclaimed. She blinked sleep out of her eyes, rose quickly to her feet, and headed for the grotto’s exit. How could she have slept for so long? She didn’t have much time. If her husband was awake when she got home, he would—
She dare not complete the thought.
(Don’t worry, Katelyn.) the angel’s voice assured her. (He won’t know.)
Katelyn wasn’t convinced. Her husband, a rogue and a drunkard, was horrendously suspicious and, like most men if not all, insanely jealous. She knew she must get home at once; every minute she lingered only increased the chance of getting caught, and if her husband ever found out about the soldiers she’d been sleeping with—
But again she daren’t finish the thought.
Still naked, she made to leave, to retrieve her nightdress from where she’d left it at the edge of the pond, and scurry home, but just before she left—
(Katelyn? Don’t worry.)
Katelyn turned at the entry, the twilight at her back. She squinted into the dark and…
It’s…it’s her, she thought.
The angel.
Finally, after all this time, Katelyn could see her.
The angel stood at the rear of the cave, just a shadow: sleekly curved, well-bosomed, with long, shiny hair like black tinsel.
A beautiful, beautiful woman…
(Don’t worry, Katelyn. I’ll always protect you.)
Katelyn sensed the angel’s smile, and the love and honesty and warmth that wreathed her head like a halo. She felt better at once.
(I’ll see you soon. I’ll see you tonight.)
Katelyn, reassured now, left the grotto for the pond. She found her nightdress, which remained where she’d left it, hanging on a thornbush, and slipped it back on. And then she went home.
Without ever once noticing the most diminutive trace of blood on her hands.
— | — | —
28
“I mean, I don’t mind telling you right off the bat,” the man said, “this is the most beautiful house I’ve ever had the pleasure of photographing.”
Alice couldn’t have been more delighted. His saying so must mean that the rest of the houses in the paper’s upcoming feature would pale in comparison to the Taylor Watch House.
“Earlier today I shot a middle house just off Cornhill Street. The Society has sold off lots of middle houses recently. And this one was nice, and probably close to a hundred years older, but your watch house here…blows it away. This restoration is immaculate.”
The photographer’s enthusiasm astonished her. His name was John Suit, and he had short, sandy hair, a trimmed goatee, and stood tall and slim in tan Dockers and an opened shirt with the sleeves rolled up—attractively disarrayed. Two bulky cameras were slung around his neck, which he used alternately, snapping dozens of pictures. It was so amusing, the way he would fuss with the lighting, making minute adjustments to the angle of the furniture, and crouching in any number of positions for shots.
“There aren’t many watch houses left,” he commented then, changing lenses. “Only on
e other in the city limits, off Back Creek, and a few off the bay on the Eastern Shore. But they’re all so run down; it’s a tragedy. Yours, though—I’d say it looks exactly as it did two centuries ago. What you’ve got here, Miss Sterling, is a work of art.”
“Call me Alice,” Alice said.
“Oh, yes, of course,” he said, and went on snapping more pictures with a longer lens. So far he’d shot every room in the house, and had taken multiple shots outside. “Did you know,” he went on, “that the street you live on used to be the biggest port in the area?”
“Yes, the realtor told me that.”
“From here the watchmen, who generally worked for the suppliers, would take turns monitoring the estuary for freighters. There’s a lot of history here, Alice.”
She smiled at the comment. His sheer passion for the authenticity and background of her home was extraordinary, and…
Well, Alice found it to be very attractive, too.
Not that the rest of him wasn’t. He was a different mold from George and Micah, a different physical type, and a different personality, nearly professorial in his diction and enthusiastic recounting of knowledge. Yes, she thought obliquely. She had noticed it the minute she opened the front door for him. He’s very attractive…
But she halted these contemplations at once; she knew she shouldn’t be thinking along those lines.
Or should she?
Christ, Alice, there’s nothing wrong with being attracted to someone. Just because you find him attractive doesn’t mean you want to jump his bones.
She knew what the crux of the matter was, though.
Holly.
More psychiatric back-flow. Outdated sentiments coming home to roost. Holly would no doubt dismiss this as more compulsive behavior, wouldn’t she? Suicidal retro-activity or some such psychobabble. And how legitimate could that be, considering Holly’s own attraction for Alice?
