“Let me not see it for I do not wish to see it again. How you heaved upon her at the hotel! I have sealed letters on the matter at my bank, held in trust, in secret vaults, that you might not betray me. Keep it covered with my drawers and rub yourself within them.”
“What a torture you put me to!”
“Is it not divine? Look into my eyes while you do it. Speak-you may speak. There is no record kept upon the matter. We are over the Thames, shall soon enough be upon the pastures, among the meadows, the quietudes of poverty and want, rising of smoke from simple chimney stacks. Let your own belch, for I would see the cotton bubble.”
“I would speak of your thighs, your breasts adorable, your bottom. Have you not been approached-by stealth, perhaps? Has It not been put to you? Were there no corkings, uncorkings there-magic of bulbing to the manly stem?”
He has not the albums of my thoughts, no leaves to turn, no likenesses of shadowed minds to gaze upon. Only the mirrors of my eyes reflect his dreams, the tattered banners of his purposes. His jaw sags. He having thus spoken, his jaw sags. There is about his face a desperation of purpose, ugliness. Better that I had in my past, in my beginnings, been turned about, put over, than having done it face to face.
“Go on. You may think of it. Some chance encounter in the summerhouse, perhaps? Go faster in your thinkings. Well might you then have seen me clear unveiled, flower-. dust of morning on my riven cheeks. Do you come much-expel powerfully? Would you be upon me, if you could, back arched, receiving your wickedness? A maid might watch while polishing the silver, performing mundane duties as her plight demands. Mama might enter and say prayers. Kneeling behind us, would she not see all? My aunt would draw the curtains against the sun.”
“Hah! What thoughts you have! How unbearable that I cannot see your garters.”
“In the dusk, in the middling ways of Time, when I was sprinkled…Ah, you are coming, I perceive. What a fine strong bubbling there is of it!”
“Kiss me, pray!”
“I will not! How dare you entertain such thoughts!”
His face softens. The veins pulse less, the pale of cock-flesh sheathed within my drawers. How much more easily women flow in their unceasings! Their limbs are more lithe, expressions more angelic. Their eyes do not snag my eyes like thorns as men's eyes snag. I have uncovered my aunt's breasts-known her plentitude, rasping of nipples rubbery to mine, the entertaining warmth of thighs to thighs, bush brushed to bush and moisture found.
His shoulders sag. He is confounded, done. The sperm that smears my cotton slowly dries. It will turn to dust and become fireflies. The wheels of other carriages have all but brushed our own. Out towards Epsom now all London flows. The drivers curse and yell as drivers must. We are drawn by four horses, are majestic in our passage. A mile or two beyond, the dwellings thin. The rough-clad country folk, smocked yokels, stand and note with awe the passing of the toffs.
Are we then such? Furtive beneath my gaze, he hides his penis. The worm has died or gone to sleep, now hibernates beneath his sticky shirt. My drawers are fondled, folded, put away. He has nothing to say, nothing to say at all. I, changeling as Charlotte, have mocked his dreams. The yokels copulate no better or no worse. Who, then, are toffs beneath the heaving sheets?
“You speak? You do not speak?” I speak and spy a pretty girl. Pail held in hand, she turns and stares. The passing of our carriage moves her skirt. I would know her mind, her heart, her bottom's bounce. There is no time for it, alas. He grunts, feigns sleep, into a corner sags. Pale pictures tease the corners of his mind. Resentment clouds his mouth like soured wine.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
We are late upon it. It does not matter that we are late upon it. The crowds in their bright merriment are all, guzzlings of beer and summer wines, the conjurations of the conjurors, tumblings of tumblers, and the wistful songs of ballad singers in their midsts. The bookies slap their satchels crying out what they will bet, what they will not. All shall be gone when darkness falls, some into secret hollows of the Downs, minding with care the folding of their few possessions, awaiting salvation, nibbling at crusts and half a loaf put away for the morrow.
In a marquee we are feted with feastings. Upon entry, a footman inspects my uncle's regimental card. It ensures our acceptance. The Duke and Duchess of Manchester entertain in this wise only officers and their ladies. Vats six feet high distil the best champagne; our goblets gob with bubbles served by servants. We are greeted here and there by none I know, my uncle having light acquaintance of them. If I am my uncle's lady I should perhaps sleep with him. His penis ejected furiously in the carriage. Had he not lain upon another in my sight, I might accept him-might, I know not.
After the feasting there is the racing to be seen, though I care not for it. Between races the unseemly climb the rails and loll upon the track, making of themselves pathetic masters of the moment. They are cheered, reciprocate, vulgar in their exhibitions until controlled, commanded, cudgelled by police. Then, too, the jockeys, butterflied in suits of multi-coloured silk, perch as birds upon their stately steeds.
Much thundering of hoofs! The noise astounds. I would be gone from such and take my uncle's sleeve. His glance takes in the contours of. my thighs-my own his trousers where a promise swells. We are for a moment one in sensuality, a suddenness of passion in the day. I would be mounted on a sward, within a clearing circled half by trees. Slave girls in Grecian white would hold our horses. When we were done, and they impassive watching, I would rise unwashed, feel warm sperm trickle in my drawers.
“Do you wish to come again?”
I am become in this moment my own apparition, yet am clothed in body. Bizarre my words and yet controlled in tone.
“There are booths, places for pleasures, entertainments, here.”
“Be not too urgent in your endeavours, uncle. If it is not I, then it will be another. Are there girls to be had here, among the gypsies perhaps, the nondescripts whose blouses veil full breasts, whose mouths are sullen with desire?”
“Would you have one such? Are you more fond of women than of men? How controlled you are! Were you taught thus?”
“Question upon question!”
My laughter is released. An excitement of confession is upon me, yet I catch at hooks and covers of discretion. Perhaps it does not matter, does not matter at all. One is bound to silence by understanding rather than instruction. Among the caravans on the slope we wend. The country Arabs stare, dirty upon wooden steps that lead with brevity to small worlds of the indescribable. The crowds recede behind us. Planted here and there in grass some loiterers stand. I am eased within myself, know not the reason for my jollity, a fragrant juice of love upon my lips. The air is open here and haunted by no ghosts.
Perhaps I never was, have yet to be. The sun has warmed my bottom, glossed and round.
Behind a tent my hand is taken-I am of a sudden turned, breasts to his chest.
“I am your kin, Laura, possess the ceremonial, ancestral rights.”
“What? There are none such! Are there such? What a wanton you would make of me! Am I to have belief in things that cannot be or yet in solitude should be conducted? Dark in the night and whisperings of wind, creakings of shutters and the candles fast extinguished? Such is a poetry of movement, motion, and desire surely not too subtle for imagination.”
“At least then you have imagined!”
“Should I not? I have seen the swelling of breeches at my approach and yet have ever guarded my avenues betwixt my cheeks, between my thighs. Once, being come upon the garden, half asleep as I lay with my skirt raised, I parted my thighs, allowed all to be seen. Feeling languorous, I fondled myself, impressed the batiste of my frilled drawers to my nest, the better that the lips might then be viewed. But then Mama came and I was forced to cease my fretting. Through the fluttering fronds of my eyelashes in the sun I had seen the stiffness of his stalk so clearly outlined that it were as naked.”
“What a pretty cock-teaser you are, then! Is that the truth of it?”
