by Oscar Wilde
As she spoke, she felt warm and united with her love. It was a brilliant idea! But Dorian became cold and solitary.
“I can never sit for you again, Rosemary,” he said.
He got up from the bed and went before the mirror, where he stared at himself, brooding. Rosemary rolled into a fetal position under the covers. He was being so strange! She felt she would surely die if he continued to act in this unloving way. She wasn’t asking for much, was she? Really, he should be willing to do anything for her since she was here in his bed despite all that had transpired. She sniffled when she thought of how he had hurt her in the past and how he had made her suck his enormous member and then how he made her feel as if she’d done an insufficient job. After they had first made love, it had been impossible for her to sit in proper posture for three days. And here he wouldn’t even sit for her at all.
“It is impossible!” he cried.
“I don’t understand why you are so adamantly opposed,” said Rosemary. She was well aware that she was starting to nag at him, which was something she had never done before. She took a moment to revel in the honor: The first man she’d nagged was the gorgeous Dorian Gray! If only she had a friend to brag to about it. Oh, dear, that was another thing to be upset about: She had no friends. The one friend she’d had she’d lost because of Dorian. She would have to nag him about that later.
“Rosemary, I have my reasons. Please respect them,” said Dorian.
Watching him watch himself reminded Rosemary that he was the perfect man. For a moment, she wanted only to lie down with him and have him take her again. But, no, she scolded herself—she had to hold her ground. If there was to be any future between them, she had to know why he acted as he did.
“We must talk about this,” she persisted.
“I don’t care to discuss it,” said Dorian. “Let us change the subject or not talk at all.”
They made eye contact in the mirror, and Rosemary softened. She remembered how much of a struggle it had been for him to sit still for his portrait the first time. And now she wanted to put him through a second sitting? Maybe this was all a matter of him not wanting to put up with the posture and the long hours. The first painting had been all about seduction anyway, hadn’t it? Yes, and now they had each other. Why put this sacred god of a man through more suffering?
“All right, I’ll let it go,” said Rosemary, and then, to keep her nagging power, added, “For now.”
“Thank you,” said Dorian. His eyes resumed focus on themselves in the mirror. Oh, he was so beautiful! Rosemary felt giddy. She clapped her hands like a little girl.
“On another subject,” she began with a childlike grin, “Well, sort of another subject, it’s still somewhat the same subject—but, anyway,” she batted away her annoying Rosemary-esquenes. “I have good news about the portrait!”
Dorian whipped his head around.
“What news?” he asked.
“I am going to exhibit it in Paris in the autumn!” she cried, clapping again.
Dorian’s eyes narrowed. He looked as if he could strangle her. This made her shamefully wet between the legs.
“Are you proud of me?” she said, flinging the bed covers off. She lay stretched on her side like a model she’d seen in a dirty daguerreotype and put her finger in her mouth suggestively.
“Georges Petit is giving me my own show,” she said in a kittenish voice. “I’m the only woman to be featured. He’s going to collect all my best pictures for a special exhibition in the Rue de Sèze this coming autumn.”
She crawled to the edge of the bed and held her hand out to Dorian, reaching for his pant leg. He was but a foot away, yet refused to come any closer. All tenderness had deserted his face. Oh, but wasn’t he mysterious?
She sat up, feeling acutely self-conscious, and wrapped herself back in the creamy satin sheets.
“I promised him the portrait,” she said, speaking plainly. “And since it will only be away a month, I should think you could easily spare it for that time.”
“To exhibit it?” asked Dorian, stunned. “You want to exhibit it?”
“Yes,” Rosemary said. What a perplexing man he was! “Which means I shall probably need to give it another coat of varnish, which I can take care of at once. I can do it today, even!”
“No!” cried Dorian, leaping onto the bed beside her as if to stop something from ringing—or a bomb from going off.
“What is the matter?” asked Rosemary. “If you always keep it behind a screen, you can’t care much about it.”
Dorian sat up and passed his hand over his forehead, where beads of perspiration had gathered.
“If you try to look at it, Rosemary, on my word of honor I will never speak to you again as long as I live,” he said. “I am quite serious. I don’t offer any explanation, and you are not to ask for any. But remember, if you touch that screen, everything is over between us.”
Rosemary was struck into silence. She had never seen him like this before. He was actually pallid with rage. His hands were clenched, and the pupils of his eyes were like disks of gray fire. He was trembling all over.
“Dorian, you must stop this behavior, or explain yourself!” cried Rosemary. She felt as certain as ever that she did not know the least about who Dorian Gray was. What made her so sure then than she loved him—that he loved her? She folded up in the sheets and, hiding her face, began to sob quietly. Dorian rushed to her side.
“My dear child,” said Dorian, embracing her. Rosemary resisted, but he pulled her onto his lap, and she hugged herself up in a ball. Dorian spoke to her calmly.
“You told me a month ago that you would never exhibit it. You can’t have forgotten that you assured me most solemnly that nothing in the world would induce you to send it to any exhibition. You told Helen exactly the same thing.”
“Ah!” cried Rosemary, crying harder at the mention of her former friend.
“I’m sorry,” whispered Dorian, rocking her in his arms. “Helen is meaningless in this. She’s got nothing to do with it.”
“But the painting is marvelous,” she wailed. “I don’t understand any of this!”
And that’s when it occurred to her that maybe the painting wasn’t marvelous. After all, other than herself, no one but Dorian, Helen, and her father had seen it. And they all had reasons to lie to her. What if Dorian was embarrassed by it and, in turn, by her, his wife-to-be?
“Dorian, do you mean to say you don’t like what I did?” she asked. “Let me look at it. I must know if it is the best work I have ever done or not.”
“Shh,” said Dorian, kissing her forehead. His mood was again altered. It seemed as if he wanted to make love to her, and he fondled her breasts, continuing to hush her.
“It was your best work. . . . Now, shh . . . oh, how I must bury my head in these gorgeous breasts!”
“Was my best work?” Rosemary shoved her way out of his arms and got down from the bed, nearly landing on all fours. She stood up, naked, crossing her legs and pinning her hair down over her nipples.
“Has something happened to it? If there is damage, I must assess it!”
“My dear, there is no damage,” he said, and held his arms out to her, smiling—an invitation to that ultimate event leering in his grin. Don’t give in, thought Rosemary, as a droplet of lust trickled down her thighs.
“If there is no damage,” she went on. “Then let us hang it above the fireplace as we planned!”
“No!” he cried and snapped back in anger. “We can’t hang it above the fireplace like some cozy family.”
Rosemary started back toward the door.
“Not hang it? Why? And why be so cruel? Let me see the painting.”
She ran out and flew down the stairs. Let the valet see me nude, she thought, her fury gaining momentum as she charged through the palatial foyer. Let them all see me! Though as far as she knew, there was only frail, old Victor.
She sprinted into the dining hall where she’d last seen the painting.
There was a stampede of steps behind her, and she was briskly whisked off the ground—abducted by her Prince Charming! She kicked her legs and spat.
“Stop,” Dorian cried, shaking her. “Stop!”
She began to hyperventilate, so he slapped her a couple times on either cheek. The physical scolding eased her. She went limp in his arms. He set her down on the floor, but did not remove his hands from her shoulders, holding her firmly in place.
“Easy,” he murmured. He turned her around to face him, then brought both her hands to his lips and kissed them.
“You must not see the painting,” he begged. “Please, I don’t wish you to. My sweet girl, let us go back into the bedroom. We will make love like angels. I will coddle you and kiss your sacred hairy parts.”
His kisses, mingled with his seductive words, caused her to quiver with desire. Her vagina came alive again, throbbing, desperate for his touch. He kissed her neck and grabbed her breasts, kneading them gently until her nipples hardened. Oh, she was his no matter what! She would let him lead her back to the bedroom. As she started to get up, he pushed her back down on the plush Oriental rug, then stopped himself.
“I am so sorry!” he said, burying his head in her neck. “If you want to get up, you may, of course.”
“No, this is quite fine,” she said, thankful that the rug was so expensive and thus easy on the elbows. But what a paradox! Here she was, liking his enormous weight holding her down, liking being pinned helplessly beneath him. Oh, she was just a lamb! She was meant to be fallen prey to the lion. But she wasn’t so sure that the lamb and lion should be doing anything outside of the bedroom. She looked around nervously. What if the valet stumbled upon them?
“You wish to stay in here?” she asked.
“Is it so terrible?” he asked. The color came back to his cheeks, and a flirtatious smile played on his lips. He gestured to the bay windows. The shutters had been pulled up. The glass gushed with sunshine.
“The light is superb,” said Dorian. “I can see you.”
He swept her hair behind her shoulders and leaned down to kiss and suck her breasts.
“So beautiful,” he said as he raised his face to kiss her on the lips. He maneuvered his hands down to her thighs and spread them apart. Rosemary lay back into the carpet and moaned as his fingers felt through her dark, wet folds, finding her clitoris. He began to rub there slowly. Yes, thought Rosemary. Oh, please don’t stop. He did stop, but only for a moment—a near-eternal moment—that saw Rosemary writhe in suspense. He replaced his massaging fingers with his full, generous mouth, and flecked her clitoris lightly with his tongue. This was too much. She cried out, and in response he began to suck and brought a finger inside her, rubbing in probing circles. She could hear his tongue lapping up her juices and it aroused her more. She dug her fingers into the carpet as she felt the orgasmic seizing begin.
Dorian came up from her legs and mounted her, easing his cock into her. Oh! She remembered the pain the first time and held her breath, preparing herself. But there was no pain this time, only a deep, grinding pleasure. She exhaled in a moan.
“Open your eyes,” said Dorian. Rosemary hadn’t been aware that she was keeping them shut. There was a part of her that was terribly embarrassed to be watched by him, but she opened her eyes and found in his a most moving look of adoration.
“I love you,” he whispered, their eyes locked. He loves you! Dorian Gray loves you, Rosemary Hall! Oh, she could die of happiness. He thrust deeper into her and brought his lips to hers, lingering there. He bit ever so slightly, then stopped himself.
“It’s all right,” she whispered.
“No,” he said.
Her climax resumed as his rhythm picked up and she knew she would come soon. Her toes curled in anticipation. She grabbed his shoulders as he dug harder into her, feeling she would shatter at any moment, if he would just keep going. She pictured his cock inside of her, activating all the tight and trembling nerves. Dorian was soon going to come, too—she could feel it in the spasming of his cock. They came together in a shared cry of relief that echoed back to them in the wide hall, where the screen stood protectively, knocked a little askew by the kicking of a foot in erotic rhapsody.
CHAPTER XII
Half awake, eyes still closed, feeling the tail end of an erotic dream crawl back into its hushed hideout, Dorian felt along the mattress for the warm body of his love. He expected to find her curled beside him, the precious doll, and he patted and patted, but there was just bare sheets, a chill running through them. He opened his eyes and shot up, panicked. He tore out of bed and into his robe.
“Rosemary!” he called. “Rosemary, darling?!”
“Monsieur?” came a rusty reply.
It was Victor, passing by with a tray.
“I was just bringing your dinner. If you had plans to go out to dine, I’m afraid it is too late.”
“What o’clock is it?”
“It is nearly nine o’clock in the evening.”
Dorian gasped. He never slept for more than a couple hours at a time. Even before his thrill-seeking exploits with Helen—after which he awoke sweating beads of gin and trembling from opium withdrawal—he was a troubled sleeper. Since childhood, he could not manage a night that was not clawed at by nightmares, infested with fear. He saw his mother in his dreams, under an empyrean canopy of sunlight laughing. He ran to her outstretched arms. But before he got there, a demon force lunged between them, and she was gone again forever. But Rosemary. Rosemary quelled his tormented heart and was the cooling medicine for a fever he’d always suffered.
“Victor, where is Rosemary?”
“Madam left hours ago, Monsieur,” answered Victor, his face a placid mask of servility.
“Hours ago?” cried Dorian. He slammed his foot down, causing old Victor to jump. The tray wobbled in his grasp. He cried out as he nearly dropped it.
“Specifics, Victor!” cried Dorian. “At what o’clock did Miss Hall leave?”
“Why, why,” Victor’s voice trembled. Nearly dropping the precious tray had taken its toll on the old man, and now he was being asked to recall something he likely had not made record of in the first place. His face twisted as he tried to remember, fingering through the fog of a tired mush that was the relic of a once-competent human mind. One less thing Dorian would have to dread . . . senility.
“Did she say anything?” he asked. “Anything at all?”
Victor shook his head frantically. “No, Monsieur, not a word. She was upset. I just assumed there had been a quarrel. I did not impose myself, nor did she seek my service. She let herself out. Monsieur, she was quite upset.”
“Yes, Victor,” cried Dorian. “You already said so!”
“I am sorry,” said Victor.
Dorian shook his head and started out of the room, pushing Victor out of his way. The old man let out a scared cry. The tray clattered to the floor, the lid taking its time as it spun down the hall.
Dorian ran downstairs and into the dining hall. Oh, he should have hidden it better! Now everything was at risk!
But the screen was just as he had left it. He peeked behind it and was assured that the painting was still there, hidden from sight. He fell down on the rug before it, where just hours ago he’d mounted his bride-to-be. He touched the screen fearfully. Oh, how he feared this portrait! He must not remove the screen ever, at least not while it lay in open sight as it did now. He quieted his movements, listening for Victor. He heard him still clearing the mess upstairs.
Had Victor seen the painting? If he had, it may not matter much, since he had not seen the original. Still, he had to keep his guard. It was likely that the portrait would continue to decay with time and sin, and Dorian could not risk Victor seeing any of that. If he did, he would have to . . . Dorian’s heart thundered at the thought. Would he murder Victor? Whatever was he thinking? And if Rosemary had seen it, would he murder her?
“Ah!” he shrieked at the thought. No, he would just hide the painting more
efficiently. He could not run such a risk of discovery again. It had been mad of him to have allowed the thing to remain, even for an hour, in a room to which anyone but he had access.
He went into the library where on an arm chair lay a large, purple satin coverlet heavily embroidered with gold, a splendid piece of late-seventeenth-century Venetian work that his Uncle Kelso had found in a convent near Bologna. Yes, that would serve to wrap the dreadful thing in. It had perhaps served often as a pall for the dead. Now it was to hide something that had a corruption of its own, worse than the corruption of death itself—something that would breed horrors and yet would never die. What the worm was to the corpse, his sins would be to the painted image on the canvas. They would mar its beauty and eat away its grace. They would defile it and make it shameful. And yet the thing would still live on. It would always be alive.
He shuddered and for a moment regretted that he had not told Rosemary the true reason that he had wished to hide the picture away. The love that he bore her—for it really was love—was not that mere physical admiration of beauty that is born of the senses and that dies when the senses tire. It was such love as Michelangelo had known, and Montaigne, and Winckelmann, and Shakespeare himself. He was determined to have her to himself. If she had seen the painting, how could she blame him for its disgrace? It was a creation they had born together, and really it was probably more her fault than his, given that she was so obsessed with him while painting it.
He took up from the chair the great purple-and-gold texture that covered it, and, holding it in his hands, passed back into the main hall and behind the screen. Was the face on the canvas viler than before? It seemed to him that it was unchanged, and yet his loathing of it was intensified. Gold hair, wintry gray eyes, and rose-red lips—they all were there. It was simply the expression that had altered and was horrible in its cruelty. But what of the revelation that he loved Rosemary? Wouldn’t that appease the painting some, take some of the sinful weight off his soul? He loved her and had every intention to do right by her. He would marry her. It was not his fault that the painting was demonic. Rosemary would have to forgive him now for not letting her exhibit it.
