I reflected that this was a pointless, futile exclamation, but before I could make my respectful observation, even as I slithered along the ground in the direction of her voice, she added plaintively: "Down here. You don't know what's been going on in the world, how terrible things have become. Of course not. How could you know, but, France is not what she was. There's been a revolution and it's dangerous out there for the rich and for those with property or title. There have been changes that you wouldn't believe, so many changes. And there's been bloodshed. The king is dead and our nation has become a republic, and everywhere is terror."I stopped, my fingers and toes curling in the gravel, caught in the middle of their journey, my belly hovering and hesitating in mid air. What could I say? Incredible? Bizarre?I never would have expected it and I was in awe: silenced.A revolution? I tilted my head. What kind of revolution did she mean? I didn't know because the world on the other
For some minutes we sat in separate kaleidoscopes of emotion, not knowing what either should do. Her expression was cautious yet careful - although unfortunately not lustful - yet it did contain angst and the beginnings of empathy, and I sensed that it was born of something hidden within her soul that maybe I could foster. I was a brute and she was a lady, and yet there was an unspoken contradiction that connected us - something indeterminate, intuitively innate and incandescent, something spiritual, and because of it, she seemed to relax.She took the weight from her leg and sat upon a large boulder. She was still a little distance from me but she was calmer, lighter, but still half in darkness and half in reflection of the light. "I know what it's like to lose someone you love," she sniffed somberly, looking around and studying the layout of my home, admiring its domed ceiling and its thousands of dagger like stalactites.The fact that she was looking at it made me look too, and as
But this stranger wasn't my daughter. My Christine was dead, and as I moved towards her, this one retreated and my hands instantly withdrew from the past. She and I were poles apart in a place where I was King and France was no longer a Republic.We were trapped in a claustrophobic underworld where there were no genteel ladies or polite tetes a tetes over tea. Here, my laws and decrees held sway, and women were whatever I wanted them to be: maids, gypsies, or nuns. Even aristocratic ladies were fit to be eaten. They would be befriended and conversed with. They could be charmed and seduced. They could be undressed and fucked, but in the end they'd be turned into meat.What else is a dead woman fit for in a Kingdom such as mine? What else can be done when there's no food apart from the rats, a few lizards and a handful of spiders. If I were squeamish then my prized flowers would wither and dry and become something pitiful and wasted and covered in maggots. They would become ugly, gaunt
She trembled, cowering in front of me, and she glanced hopelessly towards the locked door. "Please!" she murmured. "Don't do this! Have mercy! You're better than this. Far better. I'm a lady!"I could smell her fragrant perspiration. It was running down her cleavage and mingling with the aroma of sandalwood in the damp, stale air of that cave. I could smell her nakedness and her fear."Christine!" I growled, worming my fingers between her arms and prodding her breasts. "I'm not playing with you! Quite the contrary. I'm going to fuck you and I don't care how long it takes. So first I want you to take off your things!"Still she didn't do anything, so I snarled at her, pretending to be angry. I grabbed her neck and twisted her around, using her neck to hoist her from the ground; and up she came, her veins bulging and her feet clawing at thin air. I raised my other arm with the rock and aimed it at her forehead, wondering how much force it would take to open her skull.Not much, I know f
Louez l'Eternel!I was in turmoil. I was confused. What kind of beast was I riding? They say that the Almighty blesses the faithful and the righteous. They say that the humble fly comes to the spider and the beetles to the lizard and dear Jesus, I'd hoped and never doubted, not even once.All this time, and now ... she'd come to me!That's why Christine had seemed so familiar; the reason that from the very beginning I'd imagined her acquaintance!She drew back from me when I dropped her. She fell to the ground - collapsing and coughing and spluttering and clutching her neck.There were rows of pearls and pins fixing her hair, and a broach upon her dress. I saw delicate embroidery and red pearl slippers peeping and teasing me, weeks - perhaps months of painstaking work in each of them.Dear, wonderful God, what wonders you perform!Oh my!She was the daughter of the Marquis de Lyons!The Marquis!The man who'd condemned me to this tomb and who'd decreed I should be eternally imprisoned
"Drink, my love! Drink! Keep drinking! Keep drinking!"The wretches were soon unable to walk, or talk, and the soldiers liked it that they were naked and insensible. The soldiers slapped their breasts and tickled their ludicrous backsides. They pressed sticks between their legs searching for holes; and they laughed because the women were incapable of connecting two meaningful words, too drunk to grasp the sticks penetrating their pussies, too drunk to know what was causing their pain: too drunk.And what had either of them done? Nothing. That's what!The soldiers were blinded by this comedy. It was farce, a good show, public entertainment, for there is nothing more ridiculous than a naked woman attempting to run while drunk and being unable to find her own feet, or hands, or tits; and these were dangerously drunk.The Marquis was the organizer. He was the villain.I stared impassively at these women's breasts and nipples as the men poked them with sticks, and I saw in place of bold re
At this point, several memories merged and played games. They danced and they fought; and gradually they fused and combined.In the first, I saw a nun who had been brought from the prison by the Marquis and who'd been horribly tortured. She was still dressed, although only of a fashion, for her tattered habit clung to her body by instinct rather than design.Her once beautiful skin was bandaged with strokes emanating from three hubs that were her breasts, her stomach and her thighs. She'd also been crying, but not because of the whip, but because she was going to die.There had been no judge, no jury. The Marquis had decided that she was an accomplice to my "crime", whatever that meant, and therefore she was in conspiracy and that's what counted.So the Gens d'Armes made this nun stand with her hands behind her back in the middle of the square and confess it. She was facing us. The remnants of her habit were dislocated upon her shoulders, leaving her neck effectively naked, puffy and
That secret knowledge of my presence tided her over many long evenings and it led frequently to nervous and guilty confessions to the priests and painful absolution.But what did that matter?This was her fix.And now - all this time after - she'd confessed it under terrible torture. She revealed that she'd been seventeen years old and not long at the convent. I'd been sixteen and she'd known me since I'd been only two and only just able to walk. That's why she'd done it.Slowly, piece by piece, they'd dragged it out of her, every morsel of information pulled from her heart at terrible cost, and now, her back was stiff and her knees were bruised but the soldiers insisted that she bend down and they tugged at the remainder of her clothes with the tips of their swords. As they did it, she didn't resist them. She let go of her habit and suddenly her religion was plucked from her and dangling at the end of a sword. Then came her veil and finally her wimple and she was naked, her nipples