snuffles at my nose.
“Get it out for me, Jenny. Undo the buttons.”
“Oh, you're hard-he isn't half hard!” A giggle of a sort, though rather a puffball of a sound.
“All right-I've got her. Let's have you, Laura.” A growl in his voice, chasing at the heels of his words.
I am poised, at pillage, my legs straight in their brown stockings, laced boots. I see not Jenny nor Edward nor the woman, for I carry no images of them in my mind. A smack! My cheeks ripple and contract under the impact of his palm.
“Come on-get your legs open-you know I like your legs open.”
There have ever been ceremonies until now. Persuasions at the least by rote of words-masterful-quiet- by annotations and exegeses of hands moving with irresistible certainty up my legs. Silence is itself a ceremony when two move in concord. Even though I have tremored, hid my eyes, been turned about, bent over, and stilled, it has never been before others. That there might be a certain excitement in the prospect I do not in this moment deny. The moment, however, is not propitious. Insnorting of my breath. I feel his pego at my groove.
“Go on, Jenny-let Edward do it to you.”
The woman from the background speaks. Must the woman speak now? I care not for their invisible circus. A clattering of plates. Knives clink. How absurd the circumstance. A whine from Jenny: “Edward! Not so quick!”
Mouth open, I am entered, the knob thick-pulsing, surging up. My fingers on the cushion straighten, stretch. A yielding of my rubbery, my wrinkled, my receiver. A moan. I am undone upon that moan. A cry would fly from me-he rams full in, my cheeks in homage to his belly pressed. I hide my face, grimace, rotate my hips, then shamed at passion's loosing, still myself while Jenny is agog, at sea, something invisible is breached.
“I got you now-you know I got you now. Tight as you ever was. Hold still!”
Flirt-fumbling of his fingers at my quim-I, butterfly, the known, the unknown, am pinned. My prodder pants, groans-utters groans-draws out his steaming rod, re-enters, jerks. He has no stateliness nor poise. No fluttering of pigeons' wings, no gathering of aunts upon the stairs- not here-my bottom bulbing to his belly made to smack.
A knock sounds! Rattles echoe through the hall, pervade the dark suburban sanctuary of sin. A squall from Jenny, then a coarser cry.
“Oh Jesus Christ, oh gawd, oh lawks-now who'd be coming here?”
We like automatons are stilled. He hesitates in palpitating plunge.
“Edward! Get off her, off! You fool, it ain't the time for it, I'll go. Gawd, close the door, the door I tell you!”
The panic amuses. I had begun to enjoy. He, nervous, has withdrawn, as Edward has. I feel my emptiness- rise, turn, survey. Long have I wished to see the male in this condition, this pausing, this attrition. The view is sordid; not without excitement. Jenny all a-tumble totters, falls. Into a chair, her feet awry. Her face bears evidence of sin-the table an abandoned, ugly look, uncared for. As looks the man. He is in mid-life, as suspected, his prong a barber's pole of lust. His face is lined and heavy jowled. His eyes, black browed, are meaningless, dark holes in snow that crumble to the woman's quick return. She leans against the door as barricade.
“A gentleman, that's what. Says she's to go.”
“Ho yes?” He hesitates as if chewing upon the matter, then moves into the dining space, stands over Jenny, penis impudent. An insolence of superiority comes upon me as I watch. Seated, head inclined, she gapes.
“I ain't going to have it in my mouth, though, I ain't. Shut the doors. She ain't never seen us at it-you know she ain't.”
Her nod is to the woman and not I. His shirttail flaps, his trousers held. The condition of the male so seen is best not seen. It inclines to comedy, yet has its fascinations. There is a ruttishness about it which invites. Edward stands as one neither admonished nor praised, his erection viewed. I regard it not with favour. The doors are closed, I in a small space bound, smaller than our linen room at home.
“Nothing untoward happened. You wont say anything untoward happened? You was always all right before- here before you was.”
The woman tugs at my sleeve.
“My trunks must be removed. See that it is done. Summon the cabbie.”
“Nothing untoward-eh? What do you say?”
She is best ignored. Whether I leave in brown or black is of no moment. I restore my drawers more slowly than she would wish, before her going. The doorhandle rattles loose to my grasp and is not easily turned. There is grease upon it in addition to its looseness. The light in the hall is extinguished-an invasion feared. I advance without and encounter my uncle, who waits as might a postman on the path.
“They are coarse people.” Uncertainty tiptoes in his speaking.
“Shall we sit within-in the cab? I shall change upon arrival. Do you know where to go?”
A hotel close by Harrods. It is known to your aunt and I.”
“The Dover off Southampton Row would suit me better.”
“If you prefer it.” He nods, fumbles for a cigar. I have not questioned his coming, nor he my presence. He has not forgotten perhaps that he was summoned once for the birching of his factory wench.
CHAPTER SIX
The gold glow of the city rings my eyes, embellishes my expectations. I am free to choose whether it is tomorrow or today-this hour or that.
The guardian of the door at the hotel is as I recall him, sturdy in a long stiff coat that speaks of old Napoleonic wars. He brandishes a profession of remembering.
“Nice to see you again, Miss.”
I incline my head to his bowing. His eyes in following tilt up my skirt.
“You have visited here recently?” My uncle intends no rudeness, but curiosity.
“By no means. Over two years past. Papa brought me. It was a business occasion-an occasion for business. There was busyness.”
My uncle's hand once brushed my bottom. A donation of affection rather than one of lechery, as I then thought. It was seen, though my aunts issued no public admonishment. One does not do such things. There are rooms where those who err may be drawn aside, where even a humming of voices may not be heard.
We approach the desk. I arrange the despatch of a telegraph message to my father. My uncle listens gravely, escorts me up. I have worded my message in signalese, but his understanding is immediate. The need for explanations, were there to have been any, is deleted. We come upon a suite. The bed is a double one. Ornate mirrors guilded with cupids-a flourishing of plaster flowers on the ceiling-a redolence of thick and soundless carpets. All that surrounds comforts.
“Shall you stay also here, uncle?”
A maid enters and, upon permission, betakes herself behind the closed doors to the bedroom where he unpacks my trunks. Indolent in his ways, my uncle has the bearing of a captain rather than a major.
“It were perhaps best, Laura. Some wine before you change?”
His eyes work all about me, remarking with silent curiosity the rather pedestrian nature of my dress. I have walked the Brighton seafront. I am known. I take to a chair rather than a chaise longue, though his eyes would guide my feet hither. My fingers shape the rolling of the arms, voluptuous. A gold, bunched semblance of a fist is at the termination of each arm. I perceive no menace in this. Light falls upon them. We are not alone.
“I am also upon business, Laura.”
“Very well. If you are.”
Meanings are exchanged, gathered inwards, dissected, examined. We speak in parables since parables become us here. Private languages have been learned, the whisperings in the long grass and the murmurations in the conservatory, the fingering of flowers while the lips are seen to move through glass-wild runnings of streams and the walks through the orchards. I do not propose, however, to convey to him the inner core of my knowings, my Chinese box of secrets. The past withers not in the warm palm of my hand, yet as to this day, this night I know my unfulfilments. Ejaculate, ejaculate, ejaculate-the word so repeated comes to my inner ears as the wheels of the train while my tongue assuaged the whimperings of Jenny. I shall go no more among the habitations of the poor. My
