by Bryn Colvin
In the doorways and alleys Sir Jasper could detect shadowy figures. He knew they were the riffraff of London: the drunken poor, the destitute, the women of the night, the losers in an Empire that generated so much wealth.
In the doorway of Moses & Son, tailors of distinction for gentlemen, sat a huddled mass of blankets. He looked away and increased his pace. The pitiful poor held no attraction for him. A plaintive voice, sweet and sad, like a dying bird’s, sang out weakly to him.
“Spare a few coppers, Mister.”
Charity had never usually been for him, but something in the tone touched his hidden conscience. Sir Jasper stopped, searched in his pocket, and threw the miserable wretch enough to buy a drink at the Tavern. The coins hit the pavement and rolled in an arc to one side of the bundle, creating a noise of dispensed altruism. A hand stretched out and then a wan, pale face emerged. It had the beauty of a wounded and lonely cygnet. Eyes were sunk into darkened frames and the skin had a discoloration but this vision was heartrendingly pretty. It was Jenny Nightingale.
“Is that you?” he uttered, his body frozen between the remembered anger of her leaving him for that painter fellow and the pity for one he had come to realize, in absence, what love he had for her.
“Jasper?”
The voice that intoned his name was soft, the eyes gazing at him weak. He knelt down and touched her hand. It was feverish, but she shivered with cold.
“What are you doing here, Jenny?”
A coughing fit delayed her answer. Sir Jasper held her other hand as well.
“I tried to get my theatre work back…but I cannot…”
She coughed deeply.
“And Waterburn?” he asked with unmasked loathing.
“I was a…” Again she paused. “My illness, he couldn’t bear it. It was destroying him”
They remained silent–two figures in a great City, lonely, without words, both wishing for things that could not now be. Their world held still for a moment.
Sir Jasper picked her up in his arms and shouted at a passing cab to stop. He helped Jenny in and ordered the driver to make haste for his rooms at The Albemarle.
Five minutes later he approached the impressive white marble frontage. Jenkins, the porter, stood outside, splendid in his uniform. He watched in amazement as Sir Jasper Akenfield alighted from a cab and helped a young lady across the road. To Jenkins’ horror, Sir Jasper started to enter the foyer with the woman.
“Excuse me, Sir, but you know the Club rules about no women.”
Sir Jasper stopped and eyed Jenkins.
“Stand outside or I will take my cane to you, Jenkins.”
“It’s committee…” Jenkins tried to protest.
“Damn the committee. Tell them if you do not like my behaviour, then let them have the courage to come and tell me.”
He again picked Jenny up and determinedly walked into the Club, across the hall and up two flights of stairs to his room.
Inside, he placed Jenny on his bed and rang the service bell. Within a few minutes, Alderton, the night porter, appeared. He entered Sir Jasper’s room slowly, having almost certainly been told of the incident outside by his fellow porter, Jenkins.
“Bring hot water, more bedclothes and ask the cook to stop drinking the Club port and sober himself up enough to make soup and tea…and hurry, Alderton.”
The porter stood motionless.
“Alderton, would you rather face the committee’s tepid rebukes tomorrow or my anger tonight?”
Alderton decided Sir Jasper would be the greater enemy.
Soup and tea were duly delivered, Alderton escaping from Sir Jasper’s rooms as soon as he could. Jenny took the liquid with difficulty and smiled at Sir Jasper. He wondered when she had last eaten properly.
“Now, young lady, I have undressed you many times before, so you will not object if I do so again. Do not look so apprehensive, my sweet lady. I intend to tuck you in my bed and then let you sleep. I will take the sofa. In the morning we have many things to talk about.”
“I do not have much time, Jasper,” Jenny replied.
“Then we must make the time full of love and kindness, dear Jenny.”
As the baronet lay in the darkness he wondered where the kindness in his actions had come from. Had it always been there or did Jenny have the key to his soul?
* * * *
The nightmare had visited her so often that it almost seemed familiar. Her face was covered in something heavy, through which she could barely breathe. Rough hands grabbed at her arms and legs, at her body, pinning her, bundling her up and carrying her off. No matter how she struggled they never stopped. There was no one to rescue her, no one to call upon. She could not remember the names of any friends whose aid she might cry out for in this most dire of moments–and that was the worst of it; the feeling that no one would rescue her this time.
Caroline struggled weakly, more asleep than not–trapped in a mist of opiates and her own troubled dreams. She put up little resistance as the two darkly clad men lifted her from her bed and wrapped her in heavy fabric.
“All clear,” Freddy hissed from the hall. She had been playing games like this for as long as she could remember–nighttime adventures with her daring brother were an integral part of her life.
She felt a fleeting pang of concern for the cocooned woman in Charles’ arms but shook the feeling off. Now was not the time for sentimentality. She had seen many young women injured, damaged and disturbed by the activities of the Temple of Ecstasy and had thought herself immune to compassion where such creatures were concerned. Until now, however, their victims had been whores and bawds; women of the street who would trade their suffering for money and for whom death was always a danger. There were so many poverty-stricken wretches in the world, they were like lice, and Frederica considered herself a creature apart from them. Caroline Terrington, on the other hand, was a respectable woman, new money perhaps, but closer to Freddy’s own class, and thus her fate was of greater concern to the young noblewoman.
The night was pleasantly cool and the glowing orb of a full moon gave them illumination as they made their way along the familiar paths out to the folly. Trees screened the place, hiding the light of a thousand candles set out in an ornate pattern around the perimeter of the building’s one ground floor room. They processed in silent solemnity around the exterior of the building before entering in. Charles lowered Caroline to the stone floor and retreated, letting Freddy undertake the task of stripping and preparing the woman for the rite that was to follow.
“What if it doesn’t work?” Alfred asked, nervously shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
“But, if it does, just imagine that!”
“I am not certain which prospect frightens me more.”
“Courage, man! This will be the greatest triumph of The Temple.”
“Then why are the others not here?”
“Because I do not trust them.”
Alfred nodded slowly, accepting this new insight.
Frederica carried the bundle of Caroline’s nightclothes out of the circle, along with the coverlet she had been wrapped in. She returned, anointing the prone woman’s body with scented oils, tracing occults symbols into her skin and whispering low evocations over her. She always did her best to ensure that no physical harm would befall the women and that they were well prepared for the ritual.
She took extra care of Caroline, smoothing back her hair from her face, crowning her with a garland of flowers and prying her limbs apart so that she lay spread-eagled on the cold floor. In one hand she placed an apple, in the other, a goblet. With careful fingers she massaged oils between Caroline’s legs, opening up the flower of her sexuality, making it slick and encouraging her body to relax a little. Seeing that the men were not watching her, she leaned over to press a kiss onto the round softness of the drugged woman’s stomach. When her work was done she traced her way out through the maze of candles to stand beyond the circle of the lights.
&nbs
p; Charles and Alfred were both naked when they entered the circle, the soft light serving to make their firm and youthful bodies seem almost god-like. They walked the circle slowly, gathering their thoughts and contemplating the female figure at the centre, now covered by a heavy veil.
“We come to honour the goddess Astarte!” Charles cried out. “We come to worship her with rod and staff, with sword and seed.”
“Hail, Astarte, whom some call Ishtar or Inanna, hail, goddess of the Fertile Crescent, mistress of pleasure and passion.” Alfred’s voice was less certain, but he had learned his lines carefully and carried them well enough.
Frederica watched them begin the ceremonial part of the rite with increasing unease. It was certainly true that strange things happened in her brother’s rituals, and that a girl had died last time he tried this, but some part of her had always assumed there was some more mundane explanation. She participated because it pleased Charles and because she had always been the chief accomplice in his schemes.
As the chanting began, a chill settled over her limbs and the air around her seemed to prickle and shimmer in unnatural ways. Panic began to blossom in Frederica’s normally pragmatic heart. The dark night and the ripeness of the moon suddenly seemed too potent for such games. The prone and veiled woman; the naked, chanting men with their swords and symbols; the shimmering, charged incense-laden air all combined and, although she could not say why, the scene began to inspire real fear in her.
Backing away, she retreated out of the building, leaning against the security of the stone walls, glad of their solidity as she sought to compose herself. She was her brother’s witness and she did not understand why, having seen him perform so many lewd and outrageous acts in the past, she was suddenly overcome by fear. She thought of Amelia, who she had left in the safety of her own bed, exhausted into blissful sleep.
More than anything else she wanted to be beside her lover, safe in the warmth of their bed, able to wrap her arms round Amelia’s small waist and forget all about goddesses and rituals. She did not want to witness Caroline’s fate, wanted to be able to tell Amelia honestly that she had no idea what had happened. She slipped away into the night, returning to her bed and escaping from the drama that was unfolding in the confines of the folly.
Alfred knelt, a little behind Caroline’s head, his legs splayed wide and his erect cock gripped firmly in one hand. It was his task to maintain the rhythms of the guiding chants and prayers and to fuel the rite with his own sexual ecstasy. He stroked himself in time with the words he voiced, being careful not to over-stimulate his already excited body.
It was vital that he should suspend his own release, using his own frustration to add to the potency of what they did. If he could manage it, he was supposed to orgasm only when Charles did, spreading his own offering into the face and breasts of their living Goddess just as Charles spewed his own seed deep into her body. There was something in the air tonight, he realised, something powerful and mysterious, and the sex act they had planned seemed to take on mythic proportions in his mind. This was not to be like other celebrations, when they played at worship and crowned some harlot as their Goddess. This was far more intense, and dangerous.
“Come, Ishtar; come, Goddess; come, vision, again; come grant us Your presence…”
Charles knelt before the unconscious vessel of his deity and kissed her forehead, breasts, stomach and sex through the fine veil that covered her.
It seemed to Caroline that she was floating in a warm, dark place. She could feel and see very little, and what few sounds came to her were muted murmurings. How it happened she could not have said, but she gradually became aware of a presence other than her own, enfolding her. It was a deeply sensual feeling, like the afterglow she found from attending to her own pleasure, but far more intense. It seemed to be both gentle and dangerous, feminine and powerful, wild and calm. It did not frighten her; rather it seemed as though she had been waiting for this moment all of her life–for this cocooning in potent possibility.
She let go without hesitation, feeling it was the most obvious and natural thing to do. It was all too easy, opening herself to the force around her, letting it rush through her senses like fine wine. Warmth became burning, and the flame within her was dazzling with its brilliance. It felt to Caroline as though every last artifice and pretence in her soul was being burned away, reducing her to the secret essence of her being. For the first time in her life, she had a sense of her true self–strong and laden with possibility.
Her perceptions shifted, making her aware of her body once more. Her mind was present and awake but she had no control over herself. She was no more than a spark of consciousness in the deep recesses of her own mind. Another force controlled her limbs, a force that seemed to remake her very flesh in its own image. Every part of her anatomy seemed alive to sensuality and contact: her skin wildly sensitive, her thighs wide and yielding. There was a hot, pulsing sensation deep in her body, one that sent wave after wave of sweet delight through her, fuelling the force that had overtaken her being.
It was beyond anything she had known before–filling her and answering the need of hidden places deep within her that she had not known itched for satisfaction. Realization came slowly to her intoxicated mind: there was a man; his weight pressing down upon her; his rigid member working its way deep into her flesh. This was not the brief, discomforting indignity that her conjugal experiences with Josiah had been. This coupling was ecstatic and she revelled in it, not caring who the man might be or how she had fallen into this strange and deeply sexual trance.
The power that controlled her limbs grew stronger with each stroke, its presence more established within her psyche. Caroline knew that she was powerless to resist it but did not care. This surrender and loss of control was bliss and freedom from the restraints that had bound her throughout her twenty-eight years. She wanted to fall into this other mind, to be consumed by it and let her fragile sense of self dissipate utterly in pleasure and release. The sensations that came to her were beyond the simple delights her own tentative fingers had created; wild surges of feeling coursed through her, giving her a sense of wholeness, of completion and confirming her total subjugation to the other force within her mind.
She felt herself drifting, as though slipping into sleep, feeling that she could let go of everything now: her life, her body, her mind. There was no further need for any of it, she could simply float away and none of it would matter any more. Oblivion seemed like a joyful thing to her and she welcomed it utterly.
* * * *
Frederica had not slept. Throughout the night she had lain with her arms wrapped protectively around Amelia as though, by this measure alone, she could protect her lover from whatever dark magic the world beyond contained. During the long hours she began to believe that the night would never end, that light could not possibly come to free them from this cloying blackness. In the darkness all things seemed possible and all nightmares took substantial forms in her imagination.
When at last the first hints of dawn began to touch the room, bringing the familiar shapes of furnishings out of the impenetrable gloom, she felt as though she had survived some terrible ordeal. Amelia turned in her sleep, snuggling more tightly into Freddy’s embrace before opening her eyes to greet her lover with a warm and trusting smile. The weight of guilt and uncertainty hung heavily on Frederica, and some part of it must have shown in her face, prompting Amelia to say, “What ails you beloved?”
Frederica bit her bottom lip, not knowing how she could confess to the betrayal of trust she had participated in, nor having any sense of how she might pass this off with a lie. She had hoped to wait until it was done and see what had befallen the unfortunate Mrs. Terrington. She wished then that she had never entered into this demented business. Amelia sat up in the bed, unconscious of her exposed breasts.
“What has happened?”
Freddy buried her head in her hands, closing her tired eyes and praying for this nightmare to end, even as
she feared that it might truly be only in its opening stages.
“I have done a terrible thing,” she confessed.
Amelia touched her shoulders lightly.
“You know that my brother is an occultist–that he studies the relationship between sexuality and magic. It has long been his ambition to evoke an ancient love goddess into the body of a living woman.”
“I thought this was just foolishness, an excuse for the sex games you told me he enjoyed?”
“I believed that myself. He had always worked with whores and women of no account in the past.”
Amelia winced at these words, but said nothing.
“What has changed?” Amelia asked, her stomach knotting with apprehension.
“He wanted a purer vessel for his endeavours, and I helped him procure such a woman. Last night, while you slept here.”
“Freddy, what have you done?”
Frederica looked up, her eyes rimmed with red and her face pale.
“I helped him to take Caroline.”
Amelia reacted without thinking, fury and fear blending in her. She struck Frederica in the face, knocking the woman back into the pillows and splitting her lip open so that blood trickled over her alabaster skin. For a moment or two neither moved, but then Freddy rolled over, turning her back on Amelia and pulling herself into a defensive sitting position. Amelia grabbed her shoulders so that she could not escape.
“What have you done with her?”
“They…we took her out to the folly last night, Charles uses it for most of his rituals here. The Temple usually meets in some folly or another. We drugged her with opium; he intended to use her as part of his rite. I did not stay to watch.”
Amelia cried out in frustration and horror, pushing Frederica away from her and rising from the bed to dress.
“And now?” she asked angrily.
“I don’t know,” Frederica replied.
“Then I shall have to find out. If they have hurt or harmed her… believe me, I will not be held responsible for my actions.”
“You love her very much, don’t you?” Frederica asked, her tone filled with anguish.
