Tremble

by Tobsha Learner

  The distant peal of church bells rang in four o’clock. It began to drizzle. He looked down at the street three storys below; it appeared unchanged. Urchins, ragged in bare feet, yelled excitedly at each other as they ran by. On the corner two women, still dressed for market, gossiped while nearby a chimney sweep and his lad, both blackened by soot, hitched up his bone-thin nag ready for the weary journey home.

  Alistair watched anxiously. Sure enough, at the last peal of the fourth bell Lady Whistle’s carriage swung around the corner. It was unmistakable with its sinister black polished veneer and gold trim. Two coachmen in the Whistle livery drove the two black horses, which pranced and chafed restlessly like overbred aristocrats.

  Before it had even pulled up, Alistair was running down the stairs.

  “Mr. Alistair Sizzlehorn?” The man at the door was ruddy and saturnine with a dour sensibility and a heavy Cornish accent. Alistair nodded. The coachman picked up his bag and passed it up to his companion. “It’s a good four hours’ hard drive to Whistlewaite, weather and horses depending, sir. I suggest you rug up and garner your strength for the ceremonies ahead.”

  The servant opened the door of the sprung carriage to reveal a luxurious interior with satin padding and cushions. It was furnished with a side table holding a hamper of food and a bottle.

  “Are there to be no others?” Alistair inquired, wondering at the extravagance of sending such a vehicle to collect just one individual.

  “The rest of Lady Whistle’s guests are to be making their own way to the estate, sir. Climb in, sir, and make yourself comfortable. Dinner’s in the basket and the wine is of good vintage. God willing, we’ll make Colchester before seven.”

  The archaeologist, who had never traveled in such magnificence in his life, tried to look nonchalant as he clambered in.

  Sinking into the satiny cushions that smelled faintly of rosewater, he looked through the pleated silk curtains, each bearing ribbons in the colors of his patroness, at the grim boardinghouse. All manner of debris—rags, empty bottles, and human waste—was piled up against the iron railings and Alistair felt that the carriage was a magic carpet finally whisking him away from poverty and into a world of unimaginable ease and splendor.

  “Wake up, sir, wake up!” The coachman’s voice penetrated his sleep like a foghorn. Alistair pulled himself out of the rocking arms of his dream and forced his eyes to open. The coachman stood at the carriage door, a blast of cold air streaming in. Beyond lay the shimmering outline of a large country mansion, its windows beacons of golden light.

  “We are here, sir!” the servant shouted unnecessarily, as if the diminished light might have affected Alistair’s hearing.

  “Do I smell salt?”

  “Aye, sir, the sea’s over them cliffs. It’s all Whistle land, right down to the beach. Make yourself smart, sir—we’ll be at the door in five minutes.”

  A moment later the carriage began winding its way along the crunchy gravel driveway, the horses’ breath two jets of steam spurting into the cold night.

  The house itself looked to be recently built. Majestic, of pale stone, it was in the Regency style, the portico lined with white mock Grecian columns. The grounds (from what Alistair could see from the coach) appeared to be immaculately landscaped—a controlled panorama of topiary, ponds, and lawns. A number of avenues lined with tall elms branched out in various directions.

  Alistair, anticipating his first encounter with Lady Whistle in over two months, found to his irritation that his heart was leaping around like an overeager puppy as the coach pulled up in front of the massive oak doors. Two footmen and two maids stood on either side of the entrance, alongside glowing braziers.

  The archaeologist climbed out, expecting Lady Whistle to appear to greet him personally. Instead the older woman servant—the housekeeper Alistair assumed, for she was dressed immaculately in spotless linen—moved toward him, gesturing for the footman to take his bag (which was beginning to look increasingly pathetic next to such grandeur). She beckoned him toward the mansion. “Her ladyship is unavailable for the present, sir. She sends her sincere apologies and hopes you will not mind being escorted immediately to your sleeping quarters. She will call upon you later.”

  As Alistair walked through the huge double doors he couldn’t help noticing the replica of the travertine bas-relief of the phallus hanging above the door, with Hic habitat felicitas—Here dwells happiness—written beneath.

  Alistair was led through room after room, each seeming to open into a larger version of the previous one. Much of the furnishings were eclectic, a strange combination of antiques and the Oriental—here a King Louis XIV gilt table, two Ming vases atop it; there, the massive head of a water buffalo beside a medieval suit of armor.

  “Is Lord Whistle in residence?” Alistair asked, curious to meet the patriarch of the household.

  “His lordship is in the Orient on business,” the housekeeper replied curtly, the keys at her hip swinging as she marched him swiftly through the labyrinth of chambers.

  “And the other guests?”

  “Retired for the night. My lady likes to keep a strict eye on her visitors. She has a very heightened sense of the proper, particularly when her guests are here for a very particular purpose.”

  Her gaze, seemingly devoid of irony, settled on him as they arrived at a door after climbing what seemed endless flights of stairs.

  “Well, Mr. Sizzlehorn, I am sure you will enjoy your stay here.”

  She gestured to the footman who opened the bedroom door then carried in Alistair’s bag. After curtseying formally, the housekeeper retreated back into the shadows.

  It was a spacious room with curiously circular walls—the walls of a turret, he guessed, wondering why he hadn’t noticed this architectural feature from the exterior of the building. The walls were painted a light lilac. In the center stood a four-poster bed with a high mattress covered in a matching lilac quilt. The bed had heavy drapes, presently pulled back, which Alistair knew would serve nicely to prevent drafts. A curious crossbow hung on one wall: inscribed with Arabic, its bow tipped by horn, it appeared to be made of a copper-colored ore he had not seen before.

  On the opposite wall was a long plait of black hair tied at the bottom by a single lilac bow. Much surprised, the archaeologist stared at it, wondering what on earth the symbolism of such a curious wall hanging could be.

  “My lady’s, sir, from when she was a child. She’s got a strange sense of humor, Lady Whistle has,” the footman volunteered, then gratefully pocketed the threepenny tip Alistair gave him and departed.

  Alistair rested on the bed. As the rocking sensation of the coach journey faded from his limbs, the atmosphere of the mansion wrapped itself around him, a susurration of sounds. The howling wind outside he imagined came off the turbulent ocean; then there was the dulled rhythm of servants running up and down various staircases, carrying irons and other warming nocturnal paraphernalia to petulant guests, and a trickle from the water closet. As Alistair sat there, the condensation still drying on his boots, he realized that he had never felt so alive, as if the dreary half-life he had lived since his college days, the drudgery of London Town with its beggars, rakes, and hussies, was all finally behind him. Everything seemed brighter, infinitely more vivid.

  He pulled off a glove and stared at the pulse in his wrist where the life force pumped incessantly. This is what I am surrendering to, he thought, blind impulse, a deeper existential joy.

  “Alistair?”

  Lady Whistle’s alto voice was unmistakable. Embarrassed to be caught in a vulnerable moment of introspection he stood up.

  “I trust the room is to your satisfaction?”

  She was at the door, dressed in an evening gown of burgundy crepe. The twin mounds of her breasts were visible through the purple lace that finished in a high collar framing her face, thus giving her the appearance of being ornately dressed and yet somehow naked. Around her neck glittered another choker only this one was of diamonds:
four impressive crystals set into a black velvet ribbon. Priceless no doubt, Alistair thought; if he were to live three lifetimes he would never be able to purchase such an item.

  Lady Whistle moved forward, her dress swishing against the floor.

  “This was my bedroom as a girl.” She smiled at Alistair’s perplexed expression. “I was Lord Whistle’s ward before he married me. He is a good twenty years older than I and prefers the company of men to women.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Do not be; it is a perfectly amiable arrangement. We share trust, companionship, and, most importantly, freedom.”

  She sat on the bed beside him and ran her hand along the counterpane. “To think that I slept here too, in this bed, when I was as innocent and as pure as you,” she said, smiling again.

  Nothing deflates the ego more than a patronizing woman, Alistair thought, his confidence collapsing like a tower of stacked playing cards. As if she could read his thoughts, Lady Whistle lifted his hand and placed it in her lap. Despite his anxiety the archaeologist hardened instantly.

  “Trust me, there is nothing more alluring to a libertine than innocence. Now come, I wish to show you my temple. It will be a tantalizing prelude to the fully orchestrated work tomorrow.”

  She led him by the hand down a plain back staircase, obviously used exclusively by the servants. It ran through the mansion like the hidden backbone of some huge animal, the rest of its body—the rooms—pulsating with invisible intrigue behind the wood paneling.

  Lady Whistle held a candlestick high above her head as they passed landing after landing, each with a barely noticeable door set into the wall. They had descended five flights when the stairwell opened out into the dark cavern of an underground cellar.

  “Wait here,” she murmured, plunging him into darkness as she disappeared behind a door with the candle. A second later she pulled him into the chamber.

  He stood there shivering slightly, the scent of wine hanging heavy in the air. Suddenly the room was illuminated as Lady Whistle lit a candelabra. A vaulted ceiling suggested it might once have been a crypt long ago, the remnants of an earlier building. Now it was clearly used as a cellar: one half was filled with wine racks holding row upon row of dusty bottles.

  “As you will appreciate, I had to construct the temple far away from prying eyes,” she laughed. “Come.”

  She pointed toward a door on the far side of the chamber. Alistair followed her across the stone floor. The door was ornately decorated with copperplate and embossed with a series of hieroglyphs that Alistair recognized as Sanskrit and some Latin.

  “Within lies the temple of Dionysus. May all who enter feel joy in their souls and bodies,” he translated. “But why the Sanskrit?”

  “The Pompeiians were also worshippers of the goddess Isis. Such writings were found in the Villa of Mysteries—of which this room is an exact duplicate.”

  She pulled out a key, its handle phallus-shaped, and unlocked the door.

  It swung open to reveal a large chamber that was octagonal in shape. Lady Whistle lit eight torches, one in the center of each wall. Their wicks were encased in bronze statues of stunning nude youths with erect penises—Alistair instantly recognized them as duplicates of the ithyphallic figure he had documented for the catalogue.

  The floor was a tiled mosaic showing the bearded figure of Dionysus. On his head sat a wreath of snakes intertwined around vines and he stood upon a bull and a lion, one foot planted firmly on each beast’s back.

  “He is standing over the planetary formation for the spring equinox.” Lady Whistle lowered her voice in reverence, as if she were standing at a sacred altar.

  In the center of the room were twelve stands, each holding a yellow robe and a gilded mask. Some had goat horns, some had bull horns—Alistair imagined the masks would cover half of the wearer’s face.

  “These are the masks all the worshippers will be wearing, except for the thirteenth participant—you.”

  “I will be unmasked? What about my reputation, my anonymity?”

  “Trust me, Alistair, after this you will be part of a secret but powerful sect; one that will facilitate great opportunity, I promise.”

  Uncertain, the archaeologist studied the painted walls. If it were not for their contemporary dress, he might have been transported entirely back to first-century Pompeii. The satyrs—half-goat, half-man—seemed to leer at him as they thrust into an abundance of succulent flesh. It was an amazing sight: the mural he had been staring at for all those months on the scroll, now recreated with astonishing accuracy in this chamber—all except one wall, which was mysteriously blank.

  “Why is that panel empty?”

  “It represents the unknown future; a depiction of the philosophy that although our actions might influence our destiny, nothing is ever truly fixed.”

  “You have the correct configuration of worshippers?” he asked, his voice now throaty with desire.

  “Seven men and six women. We will begin and you will watch. You will only be drawn into the formation for the fourth stanza—the climax is clearly marked upon the floor; my people know exactly the position to take. Eros shall flow in a slow, controlled ecstasy. And I promise, it will be ecstasy.”

  She took his arm and walked him to the fourth panel. He stared at the mural. The priest lay in the center of the orgy mounted by a goat woman, her breasts thrust forward, her head thrown back in bliss, as she was simultaneously taken by a bacchant from behind.

  “This will be you tomorrow,” Lady Whistle whispered, pointing to the priest. She placed her hand firmly on Alistair’s tumescent organ bulging under his breeches. “Until then you must save yourself.”

  She turned swiftly and walked away, disappearing behind a panel that vanished as mysteriously as it had appeared. Toby stepped out of the shadows.

  “Good evening, sir. I have the last of your instructions. Firstly, if you care to look above you, you will notice a skylight set into the ceiling. This is placed so the sun’s rays will hit the ritual at the exact moment Pisces moves into Aries, when Dionysus will be reborn as the New Year. You are to time your climax to that moment.”

  The valet grinned at Alistair’s worried expression. “Don’t concern yourself, sir, Lady Whistle is an expert at such matters. There is an herbal concoction by your bed to ensure that you get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow a maid shall come to you at eleven o’clock. She will bathe you and anoint you—an initiation during which you are to remain chaste. At quarter past eleven you shall be dressed in your costume and brought to this room, where all shall drink a ceremonial goblet of wine. Then the ritual will begin. And, sir, a tip from an expert: try to banish all intellectual thought from that point on. You are here to live completely within your skin, to harness a power that stretches far beyond the civilized mind.”

  The archaeologist woke the next day to a room flooded by a mauve luminosity. His head wasn’t as cloudy as he had expected after the sleeping draught. Before he could climb out of the high bed a pretty maid hurried in and pulled open the curtains. She was dressed in a tight pinafore, a crisp white apron stretched over her voluptuous hips. Was this his test, he wondered, as she instructed him to strip entirely while she ran a hot bath for him in the adjoining bathroom.

  She emerged ten minutes later, her face flushed from the steam. Alistair stood there shivering, his dressing gown clutched to his groin. The maid, smiling mischievously, walked across the room and pulled the gown away from him.

  “My lady was right,” she murmured, glancing at his quivering yard.

  In the bath he lay like a child while she washed him, running the sponge over every curve, into every crevice. Alistair shut his eyes and concentrated on declining every irregular Latin verb he could think of. He must not spill his seed, he must not—the phrase ran like a chant through his head as the maid’s hand tracked its seductive path across his skin.

  Afterward he stood, legs apart, while she dried him, running the towel between his buttocks, patting
him dry under the scrotum, exquisitely encircling his erect organ. He caught sight of himself in the looking glass. There was something sacrificial about his nudity: his pale body with the golden hair running down between his nipples to his groin, his yard maintaining its proud stance as the maid delicately continued her task.

  When he stepped out of the bathroom a saffron silk robe lay on the bed. The maid slipped it over his shoulders. It fell in pleats to the ground, loose around his naked torso. She fastened it with a cord of plaited silk, then, standing on tiptoe, blindfolded him.

  Despite the daylight outside, the temple had been transformed into twilight by three blazing oil lamps, held by glinting bronzes of male nudes. The flickering flames illuminated the painted walls and the heady scent of smoldering spikenard, myrrh, and ambergris filled the air. Alistair was led to the center of the dome. Fingertips brushed his face as the blindfold was pulled off.

  He stood in the center of a circle of twelve people, each masked, each one’s body oiled and adorned with a girdle of leather. The men’s shoulders were draped in purple silk—the royal color. There were, as promised, six men and six women; he was the seventh man. Through the glow of the flames he saw that the men varied in age. Three seemed of middle years, their torsos solid and covered in the body hair of the mature man. One, over six foot in height, looked as if he might be an athlete, his muscled belly and chest a progression of cambers, his penis lolling heavily under a short fringe of goatskin.

  Another Alistair recognized as Toby; he was wearing the halfhead of a goat’s mask and his oiled flesh was nude except for two anklets of gold chain. His body was as beautiful as his face; his tumescent yard, delicate in shape, a stark contrast to the rest of him, which still held the physique of a youth with narrow shoulders, smooth buttocks, and slim hips.

  But it was the women toward whom Alistair’s eye was naturally most drawn. Three of them were young, very young, no more than eighteen he guessed—one was a petite blond, her long hair cascading over the mask of a lioness, her breasts small and round with large pink nipples, her hips wide and full, her sex a golden bush. Beside her stood a tall brunette with olive skin, older, her physique a stark contrast to the girl, with full high breasts and impossibly slender hips. Her sex appeared naked, without hair at all. On the other side of the circle stood a Negress, her skin a glistening polished ebony over abundant curves. It was as if her flesh cascaded down from her neck, breasts trumbling down onto an ample belly and full hips. Her eroticism lay in the very bountifulness of her.