EVIL BLESSING

J Payette

Within a mansion where George Hearn was recently hired, a girl not quite living drifted toward him in the form of a mist. Lovely was her voice as she spoke to him and soon he followed her wispy form to the second floor of the great house, pausing at the door which she said was her room, the very room where the old lady who owned the place slept.

Her lovely voice said, Come to me.

He didn’t know her words registered in his mind, not in the fabric of the air. “Where did you go,” he asked, “why can’t I see you anymore?”

The real me is on the other side of the door, and I am oh so lonely.

“But this is Ruth’s bedroom. Do you want to get me fired?”

Oh no, not for anything in the world. Don’t worry. She sleeps with Prince Valium. You’d have to shake her to wake her up.

“Are you sure?”

Absolutely, it’s perfectly safe.

That’s it, either he answers her summons or he doesn’t. He turned the knob, opening the door which was light enough, wondering if he was out of his mind. George saw two things on the quick: the first was a gorgeous nude girl with her back to him, the second was the slack face of Ruth Kempter. Kempter had precedence. He shrank from the very idea of invading her bedroom, sticking out his neck as though for the headsman. He didn’t even want to think what would happen if she awakened. That thought was signed, sealed, and deep-sixed. Ruth lay on an enormous fourposter bed, the pink curtains fastened by tiebacks. Ornate lilies were carved into the dark wood. Her face was unusually smooth for her advanced age and yet somehow forlorn, a lean trickle of saliva made a path from the corner of her loose mouth, wetting her weathered arm which supported her head on the pillow. She didn’t snore but the bedding over her stomach moved regular and slow. He exhaled, not realizing that he’d been holding his breath.

George closed the entrance quietly; the latch, oiled and in sound condition, slid into place.

Now he could afford to devour the girl. Lord have mercy she was beautiful. Her hair had a resplendence that was very close to glistening gold, a cascade of curls offset by other streams cut in a seemingly random pattern, though no hair was out of place. She stood very still in her splendor. Three gallery lights, angled from above in their tracks, illuminated her so attentively that the rest of the room appeared dead by comparison. He ignored all but her, and although she was not completely washed by the light, where the lamps chose to bathe her, her skin had the shine of milky satin under the sun.

George dearest, this is me.

She posed before the sleeping woman, still not moving, posed so that one graceful arm was lifted forward to begin a gentle stroll, the other slightly to the rear as if to complete the motion. He looked down at her feet. She was raised six inches by a pedestal.

A woman can live and yet not live, my George. She can damn herself out of her vanity and weep where there is not comfort. The sculptor did not flatter me. This is my image at the age of nineteen. This has been my vessel for thirty-four years. I used to shatter hearts. I would date a man, only to dump him when I thought there was someone better. I didn’t care. I’d do it again and again, but none was ever good enough. They adored me and I gave them wreckage. But who was to salvage me?

She was playing a joke; there were minuscule hairs on her back, her arms, and the lights reflected off them as effervescent little prisms. No statue was ever this alive. She would move in a minute. He was willing to wait, examining her magnificent curves, her ankles rising to well-proportioned calves, the calves melding to knees which were not gapped, fitting together perfectly.

May God forgive me, but I am still vain. Even as I am, I adore the thrill when a man looks at me longer than he should, the way he sneaks glances to make sure we are alone, the way he touches me. I can feel the faintest touch and it’s maddening. Am I horrible?

If she had been ardent about his physique, her comely derriere sent him past the gates of heaven. A preacher might gag but he would much rather revere her firm cheeks, which were rounded like honeydew melons, a deep cleft between them to emphasize their firmness. He would rather worship this than an unseen deity. Perhaps one day he’d burn for that one. Perhaps. But for sure he would burn without it. He began to walk around her, waiting for her to break her pose, noting long thighs that begged to be kissed. He barely heard her words.

We all have our silly dreams, I think. Mine is to be whole again, to live freely. I’d welcome my birthdays until my vanity had gone, along with my looks. Maybe a man would love me and, with his years, wouldn’t mind my ruin. We could rest on a park bench. We could talk about funny little things that only we knew. He could look at the pretty girls. I wouldn’t care for I’d do the same with the boys, and we’d pretend they passed, unnoticed.

And so that’s me, George. I’m pretty and I’m horrible. I tell truths and the opposite and I connive like a bitch. I have room for lust but none for pride. What have I done to be proud of? I don’t pretend to have shame. I can talk like this because tomorrow you won’t remember a thing.

He gazed at the tuft between her legs, noting that unlike the current fashion she didn’t trim the edges. There was no requirement anyway. She had a natural, pleasing diamond shape. She was also a natural blond.

My silly man, are you listening?

No, he was not. Her words skipped like a flat rock hydroplaning over an idle lake, leaving negligible ripples behind. He drank her in while she continued this silly game of standing still, his eyes drifting from her pubis to her navel, rising to the perfected beauty of her breasts, the very ones guaranteed to drive him mad.

George!

In a moment he would cup them, in a moment but why hurry? It was so hot for her to remain as she was while he took her in. Surely she saw the look in his eyes. Her neck resembled that of a model, thin and a bit high, and was straight with the delicacy of youth.

Stop it right now, you idiot!

Was she blabbering something? Did it matter? He’d kiss her neck first. See how long she could stand that! Make it nice and lingering. Let his tongue trace its way down her throat, feeling the sharp intake of her breath. He could hardly wait. His eyes continued looking up and she made some kind of screeching noise but he wasn’t about to stop. He passed chin and killer lips and then her scream did get through just before the slam of the most scintillating green eyes he had ever seen. Like incandescence they burst into him and he had to break away as his heart betrayed him with a hard, single thump that threatened to be his last. But it wasn’t. An after-image of her sensuous mouth had simultaneously seared itself into his memory, and the resultant strike gave him no choice but to snap his eyes shut as if cracked by a whip.

And yet part of him yearned for more.

‘Young, dumb, and full of cum.’ She sounded tired, worn, resigned. Come, my George.

He was reeling on his feet and didn’t see the air above wisp into a cloud and begin drifting down to settle about him, and nowhere else. He was not aware of her enveloping need as such, but he did know a shiver when she whispered toward the auricles and ventricles of his heart. She murmured sweet nothings from his ear to his brain, which couldn’t compare to the love she had for the contact of his body. She lied with great sincerity when his lids moistened, as his eyes glazed over, and promised the delight of refulgent pleasures, both spoken and unspoken, normal and forbidden. Pleasures to crave but wise to shun, for never once did she mention the price of the ticket. Her offer was a bouquet, slow-acting but oh so good.

Come and breathe me.

No, said the remnant of a flicker.

His reply changed nothing. He would lose tonight, like the night before, and before, and before . . .

The wisp gathered in the direction of his resting mouth and clear nose, gathered as it collected into a denser form. It abandoned the balance of his person as unimportant. It condensed and where it came to rest, it remained patiently to be drawn. His breathing was not affected when he inhaled the essence of Belladonna, pretty lady, perfume of nightshade. She was sweet in the humidity of his lungs, kind to the tissues that welcomed her, and gentle to every cell she hushed into a comfortable sleep. Pliant he was as she permeated him more effectively than the presence of oxygen, huntress of the night diffused into delectable George.

And in the moment when she awakened him, George knew he would someday come to her, consumed with desire as much as she, and hold the mounds of her backside while he sealed his mouth over her lips and greedily sucked her. A handsome man, a solid man lowered his head like a marionette, and his fingers writhed as if inhabited by snakes. The belt of his robe began to loosen by itself and he knew what he wanted her to do.

Touch me, my dear George.

His hands were her hands; his lust was her lust; they rode a crest together, rising as strong pectorals and hills, well swollen, were combined into standing waves.

His hands lifted from his sides, hands with calluses and masculine strength, strength pulled to her nipples that were as sensitive as the cap of his penis. Whether he rubbed her or himself, it felt the same, was the same. He stayed with her and knew she was but wood, could be pinched very hard as there was not flesh to deform or bend. And she felt pleasure instead of pain, her nipples begging for more, and the more he pinched, the closer she came, they came.

She was already groaning. Give it to me; give it to me now.

His robe parted wide and something yanked his briefs down, and then writhed over the fuzz of his abdomen. He could take anything now, see anything now, he couldn’t wait to come into her and merge.

Look at me, my George; look and have what you want.

He opened his eyes and was lost to sumptuous red, focused yet drowsy upon parted lips. He wanted to feel the kiss, share the kiss of connection, but all his mouth could do was open to the air. Her elegant cheeks, flaring exquisitely, ached to be stroked by his willing hand. It was not to be.

My eyes, my eyes, look into my eyes. Don’t stop; hurry!

They were almost out of time. His eyes which would not obey him locked into the unending gaze of the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her eyes were preternaturally lit from within, shimmering greenly with a touch of emerald fire, caring deeply for him and yet not, captivating far beyond the point of endurance. There was a fathomless depth here, drawing from him as though she could not possibly get enough but must get enough--a soul pulling from his core life and breath, not caring. In his mind he saw her head suddenly twitch like a woman under the influence of an electric current, and her eyes widened in surprise as if she had quite forgotten the phenomenal power of a man.

Like a wrap she clung to him, her perfect lower teeth becoming more visible, an utterance forming from deep within her throat. Her hands released him from above in order to grab him below, and her voice dropped two octaves into a most unusual sound, a guttural moan which shook to the cadence of her hands. She took one long blink to savor the beauty of her pleasure, alive to how good it was and how bad it was; what she was doing and what she would soon be feeling, very soon now, the feeling of a conduit connected directly to his groin. Her voice rose as she sensed him quivering and the corners of her pretty lips flared into little peaks of victory, eyes fastened to eyes. Her dark pupils were enlarged with her craving, smoky embers of glory and ice. She heard a distant sound, up and off to an impossible scale, a voice too high for a man but too frenzied for a woman, the wailing of an animal in awful heat.

His throat felt stuffed as though by the medium of cotton; he found it impossible to cry although he wanted to, ramming his penis forward to leave it there, a mindless organ spitting into her churning hands. Upon his shove an ancient spasm convulsed her so hard that her head snapped back and the whites of her eyes rocked up to be passed by her heavy lids coming down, and her red lips contorted like the pain of the gored. The shudder of pulsed rapture struck as waves from the very pit of her, and in that instant forced the cry of her unendurable pleasure to the four walls which were deaf to the sound of her ecstasy, the room only hearing the calm blanket of night.

And through it all, past it all, there was a promise unkept. She had lied. All of this they knew as they imploded into a single fusion--her lies and meager good, his zest and attitude of a slut--they knew each other completely.

And kept shuddering in place.

#

The room did not quell nor did the surface of the earth touch them in the long moments that followed. Her still form remained as it was, as it always was. A beautiful young woman about to take a walk, her chin high and body firm with the suggestion of toned muscle, perfect posture. Her nipples were as fresh as the day the sculptor had carved them, her figure clean as though painted yesterday. No sign of ejaculate was on her. In her heart there was a peace. She said nothing to George who now lodged within a special place she had fashioned for him, a dwelling of raven black which was brightened by her occasional aftershocks. They were few in number, but when they quaked it was like the roll of wicked thunder. She floated high and was far too filled with her pleasure to notice that the atmosphere of the bedroom had subtly altered. The older woman lying on the Lilium bed wasn’t breathing deeply anymore.

Ruth Kempter’s eyes weren’t focusing all that well, but she was alert enough to barely part her lashes. She studied the male who was breathing strangely, his robe still open.