His room was sumptuous and spacious. The ceilings were high and airy, the walls soaring up to meet it in a sort of curved dome of plasterwork fraught with flowers and cherubs that stood out in relief. The same pattern was repeated in the stone work around the fireplace, in the carved posts of the bed, even in the draperies that pooled on the glossy wood of the floor. An elegant carpet covered the middle of the room. Brian looked at it now, and noted the same flowers and cupids in the weave.
There was a symmetry to the room, to the house, to everything that his eyes fell on.
A chair stood by the side of the fire and he sat in it, drawing it closer to the warmth the flames afforded him.
A tap at the door disturbed his thoughts.
“Come in,” he called, and realized that he spoke with such a soft voice that no one could have heard him through the heavy wood of the door. Still, it opened, and one of the serving people who had been working diligently though the course of the party entered his room, tray in hand.
“Some chocolate for you, Monsieur,” the woman said in a low voice. She placed the tray on a nearby table and poured some of the fragrant liquid into a china cup. “If Monsieur would like, there is brandy and other spirits on the table.” She made a languid gesture with her hand and pointed out a sideboard that Brian hadn’t noticed until just then.
“Thank you,” Brian told the quiet woman. She moved about the room with ease, turning down the bed, poking the fire into a place and shoveling ashes out of the way so it would burn brighter.
“If there’s anything else you require, please pull the bell,” she instructed, and with another graceful movement of her hand she showed him the velvet cord that hung near the bed. “I am Colette,” she stated in her soft, lilting voice.
“Thank you,” Brian repeated. He stared at her hand on the velvet and noticed that it was the same color as the chocolate in the cup he held, and just a fragile. It caressed the fabric. He wondered what it would feel like caressing him. The thought conjured a vision, took him outside of himself and made him a spectator in his own life. While he remained planted in the comfortable chair, he watched another version of himself rise to meet the unspoken invitation from Colette.
She was ripe. Her breasts swelled under the thin fabric of her dress, fit to burst the cotton material that encased and lifted them As Brian’s fingers unbuttoned the flimsy material with practiced motions he saw that it was the natural firmness of Colette’s bosom that held her breasts upright in offering. He tugged the top of her dress from her shoulders and ran his hands over warm flesh.
Colette yielded to him without hesitation.
Brian pressed her back into the edge of the high mattress. Sinuous and animalian, she leaned on her elbows as he took her breasts into his hands, cupped and weighed them. His thumbs pushed the nipples upwards, high, then rubbed over the hardening points they made, his caresses ending with a pinch, a tug. Colette bore his attentions without a word, reclining on the bed, pulling her dress up over her hips as Brian worked his pants open.
It was quick, soundless, a simple relieving of a need that had become as basic to Brian as breathing, as satisfying hunger. He drove himself into the moist opening between Colette’s legs and took what he wanted from her. She was tight, willing; her hands gripped his shoulders as he moved in and out of her again and again, but all the while she said nothing, and he made no sound at all. His only thoughts were to his own pleasure, his own desire to have what he understood the woman beneath him was offering: unlimited access.
And all the while he watched himself doing it, seeing it as if it were the most natural thing on earth to violate this woman, yet knowing that it wasn’t a violation at all, but a service rendered.
Brian rocked his hips against Colette’s, felt the peak of his orgasm within reach, and pulled himself from inside of her before it culminated. His semen spilled itself in the soft crease of her thigh, the friction of her skin enough to bring about the desired culmination.
Brian’s eyes flew open as the cup in his hand shattered on the floor at his feet. He was no longer in the chair but perched on one of the low, broad window sills, his eyes glued to the bed where Colette was turning down the covers for his comfort. She turned at the sound of the breaking cup, clucked her tongue, then came to him and began picking up the larger fragments and cradling them in the folds of her skirt.
“Ahm sorry,” Brian breathed.
“Not to worry, Monsieur, not to worry,” she murmured.
Brian found the sound of her voice lulling. The timbre was enticing him, and he struggled not to fall into the dream state he had obviously been in. Hot blush stole over his face at the clear picture in his mind of Colette spread out beneath him. He even felt the same languor he associated with the afterglow of sexual release. At once his blush deepened and he gave a discreet glance toward his lap, just to make sure that such a thing hadn’t occurred.
He was overtired. He decided that as Colette retrieved a rag from some hidden nook in the room and began wiping up the small dribble of chocolate and the remaining shards of the cup.
“I’ll just go fetch you another cup,” Colette told him.
“That’s all raght,” Brian told her, with a shake of his head.
“No trouble at all,” she insisted, but Brian offered her a wan smile, another shake of his head, another soft ‘no thank you’.
“Ah think Ah’ll just go to bed,” he told her, although he knew as he uttered the words that no explanation was necessary.
“As you wish.” Colette placed the rag and broken china on the tray and left the room on silent feet.
Brian stayed at the window. His heart was pounding in his chest and he put his hand over it in a reflexive gesture, as if it would somehow reach inside and sooth the rapid beating. He took deep breaths of the thick, humid air outside. The moon had fallen and the sky held a certain color to it that heralded dawn, although sunrise was hours away. A mist was skirting the edges of the woods, slipping up from the river, over the rolling hills and the planes of the old fields.
Something howled off in the woods.
Brian closed the windows, locking them tight and pulling the heavy drapes close over them, so as not to allow any light, anything, in from the outside. He undressed and slid between the cool, clean sheets on the bed, where he quickly fell into a dream filled, fitful sleep. And not once had the thought of his wife, who he had lost somewhere in the crush of people at the party, crossed his mind.
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Kevin was surprised at how quickly the house cleared and quieted. He had been in the midst of the party one moment, but it seemed that within the next a hush had descended, and it was most welcomed. The strains of music continued to ring in his ears. At first the Cajun and zydeco tunes had been pleasant. He had danced with various women; had enjoyed the odd, discordant sound of the music. Now, sitting in the darkness of some parlor room, he found the memory of it grating on his ears. It seemed mangled, coarse.
The longer he sat there in the dark the more discontent he became. Dissatisfaction filled him. There should be light in the room, a fire, something. It was, in some way, a disrespecting of the house and of him that he should be sitting alone in the dark, yet he made no move to rise and build a fire or light one of the many tapers and lamps that were scattered throughout the room.
Bidden by his thoughts a silent form entered the room, sliding the immense doors to the room open on their well oiled casters. Small, female, walking on bare feet that gave off no sound, the figure began to light the candles as quickly and unobtrusively as possible. Yet Kevin was hyperaware of the presence in the room and when it was through building a fire in the immense hearth, in a hearth that should have never been allowed to grow cold, Kevin reached out and grabbed the tender wrist of the girl.
“You there, where have you been?” he asked, not recognizing his own voice, not hearing it as his own but as some disembodied echo. He watched from inside himself as his very own fingers crushed the tiny limb in a painful grip that elicited not even a wince.
“So sorry, Miche, so..”
Kevin felt his free hand draw back and watched in horror as it swiped across the girl’s narrow face, making her head snap back on her neck. Still, the small girl responded to the physical abuse with nothing more than lowered eyes, as if it were nothing more than a routine occurrence that she was used to.
“Don’t you dare ever let me catch you waiting to light the fires this time of the evening, you understand me girl?”
Kevin fought a losing battle with himself to stop the onslaught of invectives and threats that spilled from his lips, some of them in a language he neither knew nor understood. The cowering figure of the child before him nodded and assured him of her comprehension of his orders, her willingness to serve; her remorse at having failed at her assigned household tasks. It was only after he had satisfied himself that the girl was in complete fear of him that he let her go, and she made quick work of the remainder of her job before leaving the room as soundlessly as she had arrived.
Kevin stood up and stretched his long, lean legs with a brisk walk to where whisky and rum decanters graced a sideboard of highly polished rosewood. The crystal bottles were heavy in his hand; gleaming and full. He poured himself a generous portion of the whisky brought south by his brothers-in-law. The burn of the alcohol warmed him inside like no fire could and took the edge off his anger. If there was one good thing about the two men who were now ensconced on the floors above, it was the never ending supply of the amber liquid in his glass and the occasional bit of horse flesh they left behind during their infrequent, and unwelcome, visits.
And that, perhaps, was the true cause of his malaise that evening; those two men were here to welcome home Alex. And deeper yet, more to the point, perhaps it was Alex’s very return that was at the root of it all.
The hand that clutched the glass compressed and compressed until the fine crystal of the tumbler cracked and shattered in his hand. Kevin looked at it, at the way the shards cut into the pad of flesh at the base of his thumb, how the broken pieces cut into him as if through butter before they sprinkled themselves across the wooden parquet of the floor. Thick, maroon blood rose quickly to the surface of his hand, mingled with the stinging acid of the whisky and broke him from his thoughts.
“Shit,” Kevin said, looking at his hand as if he were seeing it for the first time.
“Shit,” said Howie, who had surveyed the scene from a vantage point on the veranda. He had been sitting there watching the sky, watching through the open doors of the large study, and had seen the very moment when Kevin had broken the glass in his hand, but had hesitated to make his presence known. It had been fascinating watching Kevin sit in a chair by the fire, watching him twitch and call out in his sleep, then rise up to pour himself a drink as if he hadn’t been asleep at all. But at the sight of thick drops of blood falling from Kevin’s outstretched hand he had been jolted out of his reverie and moved into the room.
There was no towel, no rag to be seen, so Howie reached for Kevin’s arm to raise his hand and help staunch the flow of blood.
Kevin, without thinking, backhanded Howie and knocked his friend to the ground.
Their eyes met. Howie was stunned to see the look of venom in Kevin’s eyes, at how cold they were, at how they hated him. In a split second it was over, but Howie knew that the memory of that glance would linger in his mind’s eye for quite some time; much longer than the bruise he could feel rising on his cheek.
“Oh, man, Howie, I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there,” Kevin lied. He had seen him and such a wave of revulsion had filled him that he had been powerless to stop his arm, his hand, from reaching out and making contact, making sure that Howie didn’t touch him in any way. It was an instant replay of his scene with the nameless girl, held the same condescension, the same haughty arrogance of having the right to lash out on a whim. He lied and he knew that Howie knew it was a lie.
“You have to get that taken care of,” Howie said. He pulled himself up from where he had sprawled on the floor. The cut was running freely, helped by the wash of whatever Kevin had been drinking. There was a rivulet of it making a webbed pattern down Kevin’s arm, a web that glistened in the light of the fire and candles.
“It’s nothing,” Kevin said, not really lying now, but hoping that this wasn’t going to be something that required stitches because they were nowhere near any place where he could get them. His hand was throbbing. So was his head.
The doors to the room opened again and a young woman came in. She was vaguely familiar looking, and Kevin was sure that he had spoken with her earlier in the evening during the course of the party.
“What happened?” Elle went directly to where the two men stood, noted the blood, the broken glass, and the bruise on Howie’s face. A fight. They were fighting and for some reason it filled her with fear that bordered on terror. Still, she didn’t hesitate to whip off the robe she was wearing over her long nightdress and reach out to wrap it around Kevin’s bleeding hand.
He jerked away from her and without a word left the room, cradling his hand to his belly to let his own shirt catch the stream that was now slacking off. He didn’t want her to touch him, he wanted nothing to do with her, with Howie, or with anything else in handsome house he was in.
Howie and Elle watched Kevin’s abrupt departure, then Elle turned to him and touched her fingertips to Howie’s cheek.
“Are YOU all right?” she asked.
“Yes,” Howie said, but he didn’t know if he was all right or not. What he did know was that he ‘knew’ this woman’s touch and welcomed it as something soothing, familiar, and erotic; an eroticism tinged with the illicit and more than a little fear. It made him shiver, yet when she withdrew her hand, he longed for it to touch him again.
“Then I’ll go get someone to clean this up,” Elle murmured, and she left the room, too.
Howie felt the weight of the house bear down on him. It had been that way all night, and he had spent the better part of it outside on the surrounding grounds, exploring the smaller buildings and enjoying the party from a distance. He decided that was how he preferred things at this house, and made his own retreat across the lawns and away, back to the cabins where he felt the most at ease, where he could forget about Kevin and everything else to do with Vieilles Chantantes.
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© 2002, 2003 Chandrah, Inc.
© 2003 (*> Baby Bird Productions, Inc.
