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The Bastard Ch. 01

By: H. Jekyll



Chapter 1 : The Game 

I saw her again today, just this evening. It's a small world, I know, especially our little world, but that's twice now, in a week. If I didn't know better, I'd think she was setting them up, going to places she thinks I'll be, but I do know better. She can't stand me.

I tried not to look at her, or even to notice her too much. I can at least make an effort not to intrude, and get away once it's possible. I tried not to pay her any attention, but I couldn't help myself, and then there was how it ended.

She's even lovelier. She seems to have bloomed away from me. She's wearing her hair differently, and I think using some makeup, and her clothes show off her body more. That body. The things I did to it. To her. I've got to stop thinking about that. I've got to get out of her life. I have to remove myself.

She was working both times. That's why I know she couldn't have set anything up. She simply had gigs at places I was working.

The first time was far out toward the end of the line, in a residential neighborhood. I spotted her at the T stop because she was carrying her cello, and I got onto a different car—as far from her as I could, so she wouldn't see me. But then there was that terrible coincidence of our going to the same place, so we ended up walking almost together. That's how it goes. I tried to lag, but she stopped on a hill to rest and check her directions. In the end, it was impossible not to catch all the way up to her.

"Hi, Elizabeth."

Try to keep your voice even. Be cordial. Don't be pushy. Just say hello and keep on moving.

She looked at me and didn't say a word. She'd heard my footsteps and glanced back down the walk at me, and she may have startled a little, but by the time I got to her, her face was flat, hazy, uninterested. Finally,

"What are you doing here?"

Jesus! Maybe she thinks I'm stalking.

"I was invited to a party."

Neither of us said anything else. She has a right.

"Well," I fidgeted, "I guess I should be on my way." Hurry on, Ed.

Later I saw her at the place. Part of a string quartet playing Vaughn Williams. I recognized everyone in it. He was in it. The first violin. I bet he has fingers that can work magic on her—but then even mine could. I stayed away from the quartet as much as I could but, while I talked and joked with donors and tried to pretend I was having a good time, we'd drift through. I saw her put her hand on his arm when the group took a break, and laugh at something he said.

I'd like to be glad she's over me. Oh, I am. I am. I'm so goddamned, fucking glad.

* * * * *

The cello was a big part of whatever it was we had. She was playing it the first time I saw her, in one of those anonymous string quartets at a Friday evening reception in Brookline.

She wasn't special. Another musician. Of course she was dressed all in black except the white blouse: black skirt, black tie, black stockings, black shoes. She wore a tiny, ruby pendant on a fine gold chain. They were the only things of color about her. She herself is pale. She had no makeup. Oh there were nice touches. The clothing set her skin off well. So did her dark brown hair—it was parted in the middle, and braided down her back almost to her waist. A slight imperfection in her nose made her face almost perfect. So she was lovely, sure, but I wasn't interested in another Emily.

An Emily. Anyone could spot them, at least anyone from New England. A woman who channels Emily Dickinson. They're everywhere. It could be worse, I suppose. They could all be California Valley Girls, but Emilys all want to look serious and thoughtful and creative and shy. Elizabeth really is shy, though I didn't know it then. I wondered: Mount Holyoke? Sarah Lawrence?

And then I was interested. There was a passage where the cello took the lead. I wish I could remember what they were playing. It doesn't matter. Suddenly she took over. Oh Lord… I hadn't heard anyone play cello like that in a while, certainly not in a gig at a gallery. I could almost feel the throb coming off the body, and then I watched her and saw how she worked it, how her left hand was almost a blur as it went up and down the neck, how she held it between her knees like she was pleasuring it, how her back and neck adjusted to the notes and rhythms, and how she moved her ass on her stool.

That's what did it. Her ass. She was perched on a little musician's stool. It was too small for her really—the sort of thing a gallery might think was adequate—and her ass was constantly in motion on it, so of course I fell into a fantasy. What if? What if it weren't a stool? What if I were on the stool, and she was sitting on me and playing? What if she was naked, impaled on my dick, her ass open to me so I was penetrating her, all the way up to the end of her rectum as she played wonderfully while being sodomized, knowing the more she played the closer I came to spurting deep inside her? What if?

I'm such a shit. Even now I like the thought.

When I complimented her vibrato, she didn't take it well. "Oh," she said. You've known people like that, haven't you? She looked down and her smile, what there was, showed no pleasure at all. Yes. Just like that. She took refuge in the wine. Did she make a tiny, sour face? It was industrial strength Chardonnay, after all. And did she try to hide the grimace? She was hiding everything about herself. All I learned was her name: Elizabeth Peabody. A perfect Emily name, no?

"Oh, one of those! So why are you slumming in a quartet?"

She laughed with her hand half-covering her mouth. "No, not one of those. The other ones." She's shy, not backwards.

It was an opening, not as wonderful as her openings below, but I got to talk with her, and compliment her, and make her uncomfortable. We told a few things about ourselves. I lied only through omission. I made myself fascinating. I learned she was new.

Would you like some more wine? Some veggies and dip? Play her like the cello. Here's the wine. Have a sip.

Stop it! Get on with it.

"The cello is richer than the violin," I said. "Not that I've got anything against violins!" God, I'm a whore.

Bill Hamilton came by and I introduced them. She definitely wasn't his type. Even Bill could tell how she held onto that little smile and stood half a stride out of the conversation. There was more. She was too ectomorphic for him. Not for me. I've always liked them on the lean side, the Kate Hepburns of the world. I once told Bill any woman who wasn't absolutely ectoplasmic was fine by me, but he didn't get the joke. Tonight, he left pretty quickly to pursue a big-breasted woman of means across the room.

I decided then and there to have her.

This would be fun: plotting the conquest of the attractive woman with the old-fashioned name and the talented hands. She wasn't fast. Not a player. Hell, she was all but virginal. She could be had, but I'd have to be patient. How long would it take? I thought five, maybe six dates if all went well. Unless…really a virgin? No, not likely. But not very experienced. Any ass play? Doubtful. I could be the first. Be the first in the ass of the woman who can make that kind of music. Blessed be.

We got more wine and talked more about music, and we agreed on composers we both loved, though of course I agreed with whomever she mentioned. It forms a bond, and it wasn't hard to do. They were all good. I popped the phone number question when she to get back to playing. Then I went back to my business. There was money to be made.

* * * * *

How did it come to this?

You have to remember that Elizabeth was just a project, something to occupy my mind. She wasn't my first priority. I tied up and fucked Brooke Something that very night.

"God, you push it, don't you Ed?"

Brooke 'Something' was better than Brooke 'Trout,' which I'd considered. Yes I know her last name. Now.

"I push because it's hot. I want to tie you to the bed and blindfold you. I want to see how far I can take you. I want to see how high you can get."

"I don't know."

Oh, she'd do it, all right. She was a player. Bill would have liked her, but I hit the jackpot.

"I'll play with your body, as long as it takes. I'll make you want it. You won't be able to see anything, so your attention will be on what I'm doing to you." She liked me to talk like that. Her eyes grew squinty and excited

"I don't know. It makes me nervous."

"Good." I held up some neckties and black pantyhose. "Now why don't you lie down and spread yourself out?"

"What will you do?"

"I'll only hurt you a little."

I tied her and used a blindfold while I tickled, slapped, kissed, and caressed her, but the entire time I was thinking I wanted a new playmate. Oh, Brooke was fine in bed. I was enjoying myself. I spanked her vagina and she let out some hybrid of a whine and a grunt. That wasn't the problem. I leaned down to lick a wide swath around her clitoris, and she writhed. There wasn't, in fact, a problem at all. This was nice. I sat up and pinched a nipple. She grunted again. Now the other nipple. I simply wanted a new one, someone different, someone more femme, someone who wouldn't bore me after sex, who I wouldn't have to share with all the GQ types. Brooke was more Bill's variety. She whimpered, "Ed!" Oh, it was good! I was kneeling over her, playing with her, my penis tumescent as all hell and swinging with my movements, and I thought I just didn't like her very much. I ran my fingers between her oily, fat labia and my mind wandered. I saw the dark-haired cellist in heat, sizzling. What would she be like?

* * * * *

I wasn't thinking of her at all the next Monday, when I had a business lunch with Bill and a co-worker of his, Aaron Something. No relation to Brooke. Bill can get me access to people who think their names as arts donors are among the keys to mobility, today's replacement for nobility. Today, Bill wanted to talk about women and sex, and why he had struck out with the big-breasted woman of means. I never talk about women and sex.

"How do you do it, Ed? You're always getting into their pants."

"Who told? I try so hard to do it where people can't see us." Aaron laughed and took a sip of beer.

"You know what I mean. I saw you making moves on that little fiddle player Friday night. I bet you've got more notches on your belt than you can count."

"It wasn't a fiddle and they're not on my belt." They both laughed and I thought: You useless son of a bitch.

"Well, I've got more money than you, a Hummer, a damned nicer place, better clothes, and I'm better looking than you are. Where do I go wrong?" Now I laughed. "I bet it's because I aim higher. Your fiddler girl didn't seem to have much in the way of tits." 

You're worse than a useless son of a bitch. You're a complete putz.

"Oh? I thought she had a pair of them. Are you looking for a trifecta?" He laughed again. "Anyway, I don't give away trade secrets. You'll have to hire me as a consultant."

Aaron said, "I think you should pay him, Bill. I've seen some of the local talent you settle for. More tits than brains." Sharp boy, that Aaron.

"And who fucks their brains?" So of course we all laughed, though frankly it was pretty lame, and I tried to figure how to get out of there quickly, before I got sucked into his type of conversation. I'd almost asked, "Who fucks their tits?" but then I've done that a couple of times.

"Well, does the master here have any advice for me?"

What should I tell him? That women are serious business, and I'm good at my business? That if you pay attention it's pretty clear what works? That my reputation exceeds me?

"Sure. You talk too much. About yourself."

"Yeah. Right. You talk all the time."

"Only with the quiet ones, Bill. Otherwise I go with the conversation. And I don't focus on myself. Pay attention, grasshopper." Aaron laughed again. "Anyway, I don't think you do all that badly. That'll be the cost of lunch, please." I couldn't afford to annoy him, but he wasn't getting any more.

"Why don't you write a how-to book? You could make a mint."

"I just have my rules of engagement. Now, about that bill…" I grinned.

I could explain Bill's problem to him in detail, but he wouldn't understand and he'd think I was being insulting. Which maybe I would be. It would depend on whether I could restrain myself from having fun being pedantic. My boy, there are rules to follow. I dress well. You dress rather too sharply. Dear me, we aren't in the pages of Esquire. I let the wenches know I'm good at what I do. You dwell on it. Tsk. I drop names, too, but not nearly so often and never so obviously. And you have a no repertoire of topics to discuss beyond sports, money, and the big one: Bill the Jerk. They always know what you're after because you're so, ahh, single-minded. I never let them see what's going on inside me.

He picked up the tab. "Your turn next time."

* * * * *

Bill absolutely wouldn't understand my interest in the fiddler girl, but shy women are a great challenge.

Fiddler girl. Shit! I need to stop talking like him. Cellist. Shy cellist. Shy cellist with chapped cheeks from Chappaquiddick.

There I go again. Get back on track, Ed. I don't know if she's ever been there, and being with me wasn't like drowning with Teddy Kennedy. Not much.

Girls like Brooke enjoy the play and the flirting, the chase. You can get away with a lot, and there's no real conquest. You just…oh, you just come to an understanding. Shy ones, though, they'll spook. There's more likelihood of losing. With shy ones you go slowly. Be a horse whisperer. Be soothing. Let them get used to you, relax around you, grow accustomed to your looks, whatever. They're hesitant to open the door, but, once they do, you're in big time. They'll follow your lead. I like shy women. I like the pursuit, and I like the surrender.

Don't go looking like that! It's not foxes and hounds! She, too, wins when she's brought down. With really shy ones, it's the only way they can win. Would you rather they be lonely and unsatisfied? She'll be grateful. She'll let you into her heart and into her body. She may deed them over to you. She'll be happy to. Anyway, I wasn't out to hurt her. She was my little Elizabethan project. I had to scribble reminders about her in my day planner. I had it worked out, in rough form: talk, touch, kiss, caress, fuck, then push her further. A time-honored plan.

I did it the normal way. I took her to a string concerto in the Faneuil Hall area. Shy young woman, not talking much, not knowing what to say or to do with her hands. You'll use them on me soon enough. I can usually carry on a conversation all by myself and keep it interesting as long as needed. I know what to ask to bring them out. She didn't talk on the way to the hall, though, almost at all. I have the patience, Elizabeth. I also have orchestra seats, the better to impress you with, my dear, but she didn't seem to like the performance. I began to think I'd need some help to make progress, and I got it. The gods of seduction were looking out for me.

The first thing was that I happened to wave at Robb Rennick and his wife across the way. Robb auditions strings players for the symphony.

"Him? He's the one I was told to see!"

"Well, I'm pretty sure they're going to the party." That was when she began to open. There's a point for almost anyone.

The other thing was the party itself, and what happened there.

As these parties go, it had a nice location and interesting people. It was in one of those bungalows from the `30s and '40s that are full of gingerbread. The first time you see them they evoke some ur-memory of a past you've never witnessed. Most of those still around are inhabited by students, or have been converted into vegan restaurants, or maybe they house the Socialist Lesbians' Alliance. This one had been grabbed for an honest-to-God residence that had extra charm because it was walking distance from Harvard Square.

It was packed with arts types and profs and museum administrators, people in turtlenecks or plunging necklines or open-neck, button-down shirts and wrinkled jackets, all in black or in odd combinations of colors, with outré piercings and offbeat tattoos, their hair either perfectly cut or perfectly bad. Elizabeth couldn't take her eyes off a woman in a burqa who could almost have been from Saudi Arabia. Nothing of her showed except her left breast, which hung out through an embroidered hole and had a nipple ring. Attached to the ring was a little sign that read, "Don't look."

It was a perfect place to get a sweet newbie interested in me.

There was another thing about the party. It let me introduce Elizabeth to Robb. Two steps forward. "Liz, this is Robb. You saw him at the concert." At first, she looked star struck.

"Hi Liz."

"Elizabeth." She shot me a look and I couldn't help laughing a little.

"Elizabeth. Sorry. You know Ed's not completely housetrained yet. He tells me you're a cellist."

"Yes." That was all. Uh-oh.

"Ah, what did you think of the concert?"

"It was…okay."

"That's certainly open to interpretation."

"Well. It was very good. I just thought the first violin was a little…oh…thin." So she was opinionated. There was hope.

I don't know how their conversation went after that because I was grabbed by Paul Derindorf, who was already piss drunk. Shit. There was no avoiding him now.

"Fuck, Ed! Who do you have to puke on to get money these days?"

"One of the Guggenheims?"

"Christ on a crutch, Ed, it's not funny! Fucking Arts Council turned me down again. Fuckers!" Paul's wife, Anne, looked ready to die. "Fucking Ed thinks it's fucking funny!"

"I'm sorry, Ed." Anne said it quietly. People were edging away. Paul causes that. It's very impressive.

"Quit fucking interrupting!"

I didn't want Paul to get completely wound up, because there was no good way to unwind him. It was time to short-circuit his crap. "I apologize, Paul." Take the bullet. It's small. It'll be rewarded. "It's not funny. What happened?" I touched Anne's arm while I held his eyes. I imagined touching her breast.

"Who the hell knows what happened? They turned down my fucking grant. Again!" He yelled the word 'again.' I thought Anne was going to lose control. Time for some misdirection.

"I tell you what, Paul. I can't promise anything, but Monday I'll make a few calls and at least try to get some info." I had to yell so he could hear me. "Okay? You hang in there. Maybe we can go out and get a drink next week."

"Thanks, Ed! You hear that, Annie?" he looked at her as though he had proven her wrong in a very important fight. Happy and sneering. The asshole. As it was, he didn't even wait to finish talking before he was bumping through the crowd on the way to the bar. I took Anne's hand and put my mouth near her ear. I was close enough to have stuck my tongue into it.

"Has it been like this a lot?"

"It keeps getting worse." Her eyes were about to spill. I hugged her and then gave her my handkerchief, which she used with one hand while I held the other. In a few seconds, she was ready to talk again. "He drinks all the time. He doesn't meet his classes. He won't show me his writing. I don't know what's going to happen."

"Do you have any support?" She shrugged. "Look, I'm butting in, here, but maybe a support group would help?" She shrugged again. She was still dabbing her eyes. "Well, I'm going to call you and take you to lunch. It'll help for you to get out for a bit." She gave a tight smile and handed me back my handkerchief. I could hear Paul's voice, loud again, across the room. It stood out above all the rest of the party noise. "Do you want me to help get him home?"


The Bastard Ch. 01



"No. I'll do it. But thanks." I gave her a little kiss.

"What was that all about?" It was Elizabeth, right at my elbow. She's so quiet, so unobtrusive sometimes, that I hadn't noticed her.

"A pillar of the writers' community, come crashing to earth."

Later I ran into Robb again. He was chatting it up with a potential contributor I'd been trying to see for weeks, who slipped away when he spotted me. Robb enjoyed seeing me lose one. "Your Elizabeth is pretty sharp," he said while he got another brandy. "But I can't imagine you dating a musician. I bet she hasn't got a cent to donate."

"Cynic. I tell you, what she's got is talent." He gave me a look. "No. Not that type. Not that I'd know. Musical talent. She makes the thing hum like lime cello. Didn't she talk about auditioning?"

"No. I thought she was just someone who played."

"Yah. I guess she wouldn't. Well, she's got it, Robb. The real thing. You ought to audition her."

"I take it that's your professional opinion?"

"You really oughta."

"And you're the expert?"

"Have I ever steered you wrong?"

"You've never tried to steer me at all."

"Well, there you have it!" I put my hands out, palms up, like the magician who's just made the naked lady disappear.

Robb swirled his brandy. He put a finger in it and tasted the finger. High class. "Are you sure you're not just trying to look good to her, to get her in bed?"

"She'll never know we had this conversation. Not that I would mind going to bed with her." We both laughed. "Look. Let's make it interesting. If you don't like her playing, I'll buy you lunch."

"And if she's good?"

"You'll be happy to treat me. And none of your damned chowdah. I want Thai." He laughed again.

* * * * *

Afterwards, I drove Elizabeth to the Commons, where it was quiet, and we walked along the edge, sipping coffee from Styrofoam mugs. Being alone with her gave me the best odds, and it was a romantic night—clear, chilly, and still. Nice for a walk. She was thrilled because Robb had told her to call for an audition.

"You have interesting friends, Edward."

"It makes up for my not being interesting myself." She looked at me. "I'm joking! I'm joking! I'm the most interesting one of all. Anyway, my job lets me meet a lot of arts people and get invited to their parties."

"You have to be careful. Sometimes I don't get the joke."

"Tell you what. I'll wear a red flashing flower in my lapel, to warn you." She scowled and punched me on the arm. That was certainly unexpected. "Don't make me spill my coffee."

After a minute, "Tell me about your drunken friend."

"Not a friend. Not really. Really not. The drunken part is right. That's his usual state, that, or getting drunk, or coming down from a drunk, or planning to get drunk. I don't know if the drinking ruined his writing. It's a chicken-egg thing. He was very talented. Wrote a wonderful novel based on his sex life with his first wife and some of her friends."

Elizabeth scowled at me again and I raised a hand. "That's not a joke. It's beautifully written. Seriously. Text like Pinot Noir. It was nominated for a National Book Award. Well, that was then. Now he can't write, and he's driven away his friends, and I think Harvard may force him to retire. And Anne bears the brunt."

We waited at a curb for a line of cars to go by. We were near the Cheers bar.

"She's a lot younger than him."

Yes, and you're younger than me, my dear. Does that mean I can't fuck you? How will it feel when I'm sliding inside your pristine pussy?

"He looks older than he is, but yah, she was his grad student."

"You're close to her?"

You'll never know how close.

"Oh, I love Annie. You'll like her if you get to know her."

"You were really good with her."

"Well, I'm trying to get her to go to bed with me." Elizabeth frowned at me yet again, and I gave her my best, boyish smile. "Red flower flashes!"

She hit me on the arm again. "Just take a compliment, Edward."

"Yes'm. You're going to leave a bruise." I tossed my cup into a trashcan. "The fact is she should leave him, but she won't."

"And his grant application?"

My turn to frown. "Everyone knows why he doesn't get grants anymore. What I don't know is what I'm going to tell him." Time to change the subject. "So how did it go with Robb?"

"Well, we had a nice conversation. Then later he just mentioned the audition out of the blue."

"Excellent! He sees talent." I rubbed my fingertips together like Montgomery Burns, and Elizabeth stepped back and looked at me strangely.

"You didn't have anything to do with that, did you?"

"No. I'm teasing. Red flower flashes now!" I made some firecracker motions in the air with my hands. "Don't hit me, Mistress Elizabeth! I didn't mean to make you suspicious. I'm just glad for you. You know I like your playing."

I got a goodnight kiss, a sweet one. One date down. No, no sex, but progress made. I was sure it was going to happen. And thank you, Paul.

How could I know that it was the end of it all?

End of Chapter 1



The Bastard Ch. 02



Chapter Two: Conquest 

The new life was Elizabeth, but I didn't know it yet.

"He hated me." It was lamentable, her meeting with Robb. That was good for me.

This was the next time I saw her, in a coffee shop just around the corner from her place, with a kosher bakery and sidewalk tables. Picture her face, wind-chapped cheekbones, a wool peasant sweater, the sky only partly cloudy, a beret pulled far down while she sipped cappuccino. I was happy because women who need you are vulnerable.

"I can't believe that. Tell me what happened."

"You know him. I don't. I just want to know what I did wrong."

"So?"

"Well, he was there with two other people. I started to play but he stopped me after a few bars and began correcting me!" She looked half humiliated and half angry. She shook her head. "I had to play the same passage over and over and he kept pointing out things. One of the others, the woman, asked me why I held the bow like I do, and suggested I change it. Edward, I hold it the way you're supposed to! It's not something idiosyncratic about me!"

She sighed and looked away. I waited.

"Then Mr. Rennick brought out sheet music and made me work on that. He never let me finish anything! Finally he said they didn't have any openings. He gave me the name of a teacher and told me to see him."

She stopped again.

"And?"

"Well what was I doing there? Am I that bad? They could have told me straight off they didn't want me, but they let me think I might have a chance!" I shook my head, sympathetically. "It was the worst experience in my life!"

It's dicey, Ed. Be careful how you handle this. She might be wrong. Or she could have blown it. She's feeling rejected, not thinking the experience through. Don't answer right away. Talk her through it. Get the details. Get the whole picture, so you can be her hero, her confidant, the man she thinks about in the evening. Ready? Go.

"How much time did they give you?" That much?

"And who else was in the room?" It's what I thought.

"Who did Robb send you to for lessons?" I know of him. It's okay. Almost certainly. Let her know. Yes. This will score big with her. You're on your way in, Ed Hyde.

"Okay. Okay. I see. Elizabeth, I think they liked you."

"You weren't there, Edward! He hated me!"

"Have you ever seen A Chorus Line?"

"This isn't Broadway!"

"It's still show biz, schweetheart. People can be cold."

"He hated me!"

"Look, I can find out. Do you mind if I call him?"

"No! I couldn't stand that."

"Just to check. He doesn't know we're having this conversation. I'll bring it up in the middle of something, an off-the-cuff question."

"What if he really did hate me?"

"Don't you want to find out?"

She paused. "I don't know."

In the end I sent Robb an email. "Do I get lunch? The divine Ms. Peabody thinks you hated her. Ed."

He answered that evening: "you get lettuce wraps and peanut sauce, ed -- a few months working with georgie s. and she'll be good to go -- and tell your friend this business ain't for sissies."

* * * * *

So now there was movement. You could feel it. Immense power. Momentum. Unstoppable. Panzers moving across the countryside, though I have no idea of the significance of that particular image. I got an enormous hug when I gave Elizabeth the news, and I parlayed it into a series of little kisses. And the rush continued. In the end, getting to fuck Elizabeth Peabody was far easier—and quicker—than I had expected.

I took her to Salem. That's 'witch-haunted Salem' for the tourist trade, and she was a complete tourist. I couldn't believe she had never been there, it's so her kind of place. Of course she was happy to go with me. It was sunny when we left Boston but there were clouds to the West and the breeze was starting to kick up, so it was going to have the right atmosphere. It was already chilly by the time we arrived.

I was careful. We didn't hold hands on the way up, or in the kitschy museums or the restaurant where we had lunch. I didn't push anything. She liked the little shops, especially the witchy and New Age ones. "If you like these, what about Nathaniel Hawthorne's house?"

"That's here?"

"Are you sure you're from New England? I bet you've never seen the Miskatonic River either." She got that joke. "We'd best hurry. It might rain." I checked the tourist map.

The house was perfect for her, as old as lust and full of shadows, especially so with the clouds now coming in low on the wind and the air turning cold. You could imagine witchcraft and demons about the place, and curses, and timeless romance. You could imagine anything. I could imagine Elizabeth sighing while I played with her body in a 17th-century attic. The sky fell just before I took a photo of her under the moss-covered roof at one of the doors, so her hair flew and she had to shiver against the wind. I told her how exotic and lovely she was there, how other-worldly. I showed her the pic so she could see it was true.

"You haven't read The House of the Seven Gables?" Again I had a hard time believing it. "You belong in a story like that, full of mystery and romance and ghosts." 

Whoa! That's romance-novel dialogue. Unless she's a complete innocent she'll laugh at it. 

But she didn't. That should have told me something.

I pulled her away from the house, out into the sky. Of course her hand was cold and she was glad for me to take it. We walked into legitimately old places, away from the tourists, away from the main streets, down lanes where people still live in houses built in the 1600s, across alleyways, got lost, somehow looped by the bay where the water was choppy and there were whitecaps, and finally wound up back in the tourist district, near the statue of the Puritan that people mistake for a witch.

We held hands almost the entire way. From time to time, really heavy gusts would hit us, and Elizabeth would hug her arms to her front and huddle against them. During the second one I gave her a bear hug and blocked the wind with my body, and she leaned into me until it passed. We did it again. She laughed during it. She sounded childlike, joyful, while we stood firm against the spirits of the wind. The next time I gave her a sneak-attack kiss to surprise her. The time after that, she waited for the kiss. After that we walked with our arms around each other between gusts.

On the way home she fell asleep. I could tell she was nodding off. "That's okay," I told her. "I'll wake you if we ever we get back to town." She smiled and said "No, I'm okay," but a few minutes later she was out, her cheeks red from the wind, her legs splayed open, her knees and inches of her thighs teasing me. I thought I could slide my hand up between them, but I wasn't stupid enough to let it take control right then.

* * * * *

"Wake up, Elizabeth." It was already dark because of the overcast, so dark the street lights had come on, but the clouds broke at the horizon and red light poured over us.

"I'm awake. Isn't it beautiful?"

"Mm-hmm. Would you care to stop for a bite?"

"Let's go to my apartment. I can fix us a quick meal." So I was being invited in. "Is that okay?" She sounded like she was afraid she had offended me.

"I'm honored."

She lives in an old, completely ordinary apartment building. The hall floors are covered by those tiny hexagonal tiles you see in almost all such buildings, and there are the plaster walls covered with seventy-two layers of ivory-colored paint. Her apartment, though, is something else. It is an Emily's home, tiny and chill, with dark oak floors and wainscoting. She had added wall-hangings, cloth carpets, small nineteenth-century prints, candlestick holders, and dark wood furniture to match the floors.

The first thing I noticed was her cello. It was resting on a stand with the bow hanging behind it, in front of a little gas-log fireplace that she lit, in a living room that was hardly an antechamber. She went around the place lighting candles everywhere. I couldn't be sure—not yet—If she was making it romantic for me, or if she always kept it like that, like an Emily would. I went to use the bathroom while she began preparing dinner. It shouldn't have surprised me to find two candles burning in front of the mirror. They made me want to leave the lights off entirely.

Back in the living room I brushed my fingers along the body of the cello. The finish was so old it was textured instead of perfectly smooth, and the fire shone only dimly on it, reddish, dark gold, in auras that shifted with the flame. When my arm touched the bow it swung back and forth.

Elizabeth had arranged her music in a little shrine—the cello, the chair, and the sheet music stand placed around the fireplace. It fit the rest of the apartment, the whole thing being archaic and isolated. She could come home, I thought, and close the door on the horns and sirens, the stores and the people, the T, the noises of the city, to her own little magical place. Was it the arrangement of someone who didn't want to notice how alone she was, or who wanted to imagine she was part of some enchanted world where she wasn't alone? Had it ever been shared with outsiders? It affected my imagination. I could see her playing the cello before the fire, practicing a tender melody to hold off her loneliness and—for the moment—being content.

"Edward…" She stuck her face through the doorway. "Will you open the wine? The tilapia's almost ready."

At the table she held a tiny bit of fish on her fork, a few inches above her plate, and watched me take my first taste. "Is it okay?"

"Yes. It's wonderful."

"Is it spicy enough for you? Sometimes I don't use enough."

"It's fantastic." Now I couldn't add salt.

"I hope it's not too bland."

"Elizabeth, the heavens will tremble to the taste of your tilapia, and stars will sigh in sorrow because I get to sup."

She smiled and looked down at her plate. "You're teasing me."

"Uh-huh. But it really is good eats." She had fresh cut pears, and had made a small salad of greens and sliced almonds and canned tangerines, and had prepared a wild rice dish. It was very good, even the wine, but she only picked at hers. "Aren't you hungry?"

"Oh, I'm ravished."

When she realized what she'd said looked down again. 

My, my! Is that on your mind? Time to change the subject, to let you off the hook for now, to let you get comfortable with the idea.

"How old were you when you first knew you had it?"

"What? Had what?"

"It. Talent. On the cello. The hands. The feel for it. When did you know you were so good at it?"

"Oh, I'm not that good."

"Shit." She started. 

Be a little more careful, Ed. Try again.

"Excuse me, but you know that's not true. You have it."

She stared at me a moment.

"Well. I was about fifteen. The school strings program needed a cellist, and I was only second violin, so I volunteered. I loved it from the very first time. It feels different—the position and heft of it, and it has such a wonderful timbre. For the first few months I used the school's old cello, and I even loved it."

Bingo! She changed right in front of me—her face, her voice, everything about her. There wasn't time enough in the day for her to tell me about her instrument. We cleared the table while she told me how she'd finally mastered vibrato, how it had come to her over a weekend. While I washed and she dried, she told me how much trouble she'd had because her hands were tender, how she'd broken a blister and bled during a school concert, and how she has this thing for Yo-Yo Ma. 

Hell, I have this thing for Yo-Yo Ma! We all do. Miss Elizabeth Peabody, you are a complete music geek. Can we talk about sex, instead? Will you take it up the ass for me?

When she stopped for a breath I asked her,

"Play something for me."

She froze. "Oh, you don't want to hear that." The air came out of that balloon quickly enough.

"Yes I do. Come on." I took her hand and pulled her into the living room.

"No."

"It's waiting for you."

"No, Edward."

"Play."

"Play what?"

"Anything. Some solo."

"Well, I guess." She sat on the cello chair and adjusted it, took the bow, tightened and rosined it, took the cello from the stand. I stood next to the fire, leaning against the mantle. She was looking around. "I know! Bach's First Suite for Cello. The Prelude is wonderful." She looked for the music. Once she found it she futzed with the tuning, doing this and that, and I found myself cocking my head at her and raising my palms in a question shrug. Finally, she started. But she made a mistake. She started over and made another mistake. I was certain I had her. Second date!

"You think that's gonna get you off the hook?"

She began again, and yes, it was as good as the other night. It was better. She played the same way, her left hand moving up and down, her fingers almost ectoplasmic. So maybe I could like a ghostly woman. Elizabeth would glance at the sheet music and then half close her eyes, but she really didn't need to look. Like the other night, I could feel it. She was right about the timbre. The cello is warmer than the violin, but its solos are so damn somber. They sound as though they're waiting for all the other instruments to come back and cheer them up.

After the first few notes I recognized the music. The Bach Prelude is an Emily sort of piece, rich and sad, with the performer alone in the world, waiting for something, offering the barest hint of a promise. Or a hope. A hope of what? Of love?

It was time.

I leaned away from the wall and walked around her to where I could see the sheet music, as if that interested me. She played through this, but the moment I put a hand on her shoulder she stopped. I had barely touched her.

"Keep playing."

She started at the place she'd stopped, but now she stared at the sheet music. Or at least she stared toward it, away from me, as though trying not to show she was aware of what I was doing. I moved my hand to her cheek. She concentrated on the music. Playing. Concentrating. Playing. There was color in her cheeks. I moved both hands to her shoulders, right at her neck, and she kept on, showing no notice whatsoever. I leaned down and touched my mouth to the top of her head and held myself there. The only way I could tell she felt this was from the way her shoulders went tight.

It was when I bent over further and kissed her ear that she stopped again. She was panting. I kissed her cheek. I moved a hand under her chin and raised her face upward, and twisted around to kiss her mouth. She kissed me back. Her breathing was uneven. I stepped around in front to kiss her better.

"Wait." She gasped it. "I can't."

"Can't?" Could I have miscalculated?

"Not like this. Wait." She broke away from me so that she was leaning toward the stand and she placed the cello on it. She was careful. She loosened the bow and hung it and then finally turned back toward me and stood up. "Okay." Only then was I able to kiss her properly.

* * * * *

I didn't touch her body, not for the longest time. We kissed in front of the little fire, changing the pressure and the suction and the motion while we did it, touching the tips of our tongues, then sliding cheeks across each other. I pulled her to me with my right arm and used my left hand to touch her cheek, eyelids, her neck, her mouth. At one point we pulled back and I trailed my middle finger across her lips and she sucked it in. I let her suck it for a minute, pushing it in and then pulling it part way out. Her eyes never left my face. I let her fellate my finger, or was I finger-fucking her mouth? It doesn't matter. It was to let her know I liked how it felt and liked what it represented. Now I could take the next step.

I pulled my finger out and placed my hands on her breasts, over her blouse. I just touched the tips. Her breasts are oval and soft, all natural, what there is of them. I grasped the tips and squeezed a little, and she closed her eyes.

"Loosen your hair." I didn't let go of her nipples.

Elizabeth opened her eyes half way, to look up at me through her lashes, shyly. She raised both her arms to pull the pins out. She didn't step back or try to break free, and I squeezed her nipples the entire time. When the pins were gone she shook her head and ran her hands through her hair to spread it and take out the tangles. That finally pulled one of her breasts free, so I had to catch it again, and while I hunted it Elizabeth's hair fell below her shoulders and over my hands, dark, smooth hair, almost black in that room, but with reddish tints from the fire, all curls and waves from the braiding, making her look almost like another person. I released her breasts and grabbed her hair in my fists, close to her head, pulled her to me, and kissed her again. 

"My God, you're a lovely woman."

It's a wonderful line. Would Bill Hamilton ever think of it? And it's true.

Elizabeth reached to take my hands from her hair. When she had them she turned, holding on to one, and without looking back led me into her bedroom. I thought it again: Second date!

* * * * *

A CD played in the background the entire time.

Elizabeth's body fit her face, and the furniture, and the music. She has black, perfectly triangular pubic hair that I plunged my face into as soon as I could. I could tell right away she hadn't experienced this before. She kept staring down at me, looking worried, moving her hands randomly at her side, just off the bed, as though she didn't know what to do with them. But Edward Hyde isn't easily dissuaded! I worked her hood and then her nub, and finally Elizabeth lay her head back on the pillow and began to pant again and move her hips. I think she had three little, rolling crests. I could feel her body change, especially her belly get hard and jerky, and she'd vocalize, making louder "O" sounds before going back to panting.

"Come here." I'd crawled up to her face. She had that dreamy post-coital look, but she didn't just lie there. Down she crawled, and sucked me right into her mouth. This was nice, but I wanted it right. I pushed her face off me and knelt up. "Do it this way." Elizabeth rose to her knees and bent herself at the waist. She sucked me in. Her hair fell onto my penis, almost hiding what she doing, so I gathered it and held her by it. She began again, down and up. It was almost a bobbing, a slow bob. She wasn't very good. She didn't know how to suck or how to keep her teeth off me, but it didn't make any difference. I was close anyway. I began moving my hips and hissing, whispering, "Yes. Like that. Like that."

But she pulled back again, off me entirely. She pushed her hair back with her hands and looked down at my prick. "Do it all the way, Elizabeth." 

Push the point. Make the effort.

"I'm sorry. I can't."

"Can't?"

"I've never done it before. I'm sorry."

"I'd like you to try. You feel wonderful."

"I'm sorry." She turned her face away. "Are you disappointed?"

"My God." I pulled her up and kissed her. "In you? Elizabeth! I'll take a little disappointment to be with you." 

Damn, I want it! Fuck it all! It was almost enough to make me push her too far. Instead I pushed her only a short distance, down, onto her back, and knelt between her legs, then lay on top of her and kissed her. She kissed back, and we were all lips and tongues for a moment before she broke the kiss off and panted up at me.

"I know men like it."

She was back on fellatio. 

Drop it, Elizabeth. Don't bring it up if you're not going down. 

She panted some more and put a hand on my cheek. "I don't want to disappoint you." She hugged me as hard as she could and burrowed her face into my neck. "Maybe another time? I'll work on it. Is that okay?"




The Bastard Ch. 02



It was hard to work free, she has holding me so tightly. "Here, Elizabeth. Here. Later is fine. We have world enough and time. Let's do this." I lifted off her a little and felt for her vagina. She was slippery. I took my penis and put the head to her opening and pushed. Ahh! The first contact, the flower being pushed open. The best contact. I watched her while I did it, and her eyes closed completely. 

Elizabeth, you're a delicate flower yourself, almost untouched by man. I'll touch you and change you. I'll enslave you.

Later, after we had dozed, I turned to see the clock. Elizabeth stroked my back. "Can you spend the night? I have an extra toothbrush."

Sorry, Elizabeth. There will be bigger disappointments than your new lover departing after sex and leaving your bed empty. Much more profound ones. Please accept this tiny regret. "I can't. I have an early appointment." Of sorts. But then I never stay. Only if the party is going to continue.

"On Sunday morning?" She was playing with my hair, looking up at me. She still had hope.

"Yes."

"Is it in a church?"

"Not nearly as much fun." Not for the client. Much more for me. I dressed and left quickly. Yes, I gave her a good-night kiss and told her I would call. I drove to my apartment, got on line, and ordered a floral delivery. A single, long-stemmed, red rose would be perfect. The card would read:

"To Preludes. Yours, Edward."

That should hold her for a few days.

End Of Chapter 2.



The Bastard Ch. 03



Chapter 3 of 5: Sodomy  

I arrived, at 9:17, at the residence of Mr. and Mrs. J. Carlton Brevard.

"He's gone," said Mrs. J. Carleton. "His flight just left." She was wearing a dressing gown.

"I hope he has a nice trip, Erica. The Folk Arts Museum thanks you both for this generosity. Did he sign the check?"

"Oh he signed it, Ed. But you have to earn it. And in honor of Sunday, all the servants have the day off." Here we go, I thought.

Erica Brevard thinks she's something special, and in her own way, she is. She has a lovely body. Men still hit on her and she loves it, but that isn't what makes her special. It's her enthusiasm. Bill would be disappointed, I think, because I did nothing to get into her pants except have a wiener and work the Brevards up for donations. Her type seems to be represented among the arts people and the moneyed elites—how to put it?—disproportionately. She isn't the only one, although she's the only one I'd call a nymphomaniac. She's probably the least discreet. Once I asked if any of her friends knew about me. "I couldn't ever let anyone know I did something like this," she protested. "I have a reputation to protect." But I had inside knowledge. At least one of her friends knew—one who liked the same forbidden fruit.

She hit on me the very first time I went by their estate, and she let me know she expected good service. She flirted right in front of J. Carlton, who thought it was funny. After he left she came on seriously. "We help you, Ed Hyde, you help me." She pulled my face down and gave me a wet kiss. She wanted to be in charge. That time I did what she wanted. Afterwards, while we were lying tangled in each other and the air was permeated with the smell of cologne released by the sweat between her breasts, I told her what I liked. She breathed rich, hot air into my ear and said, "I pay the bills, dear, and I call the shots." She is a challenge.

"What if I have HIV?" I had asked that when she first asked me to strip. She wanted me naked while she was still dressed. An interesting power game that I decided to win.

"I have condoms."

"Many?"

"Dozens of all kinds. Colored. Flavored. Ribbed."

"I don't use condoms."

"You have to."

"If you want me, you take the risk. I tell you I'm clean, but you have to trust me."

"I don't know."

"What about toys?"

"Vibrators, beads, dildos, whatever you want. I need condoms, Ed, but I like to play."

"Silly me. I was always told women didn't like sex all that much."

"Whoever told you that doesn't live where I live."

Erica wants orgasms almost every day, but she doesn't like to masturbate. She's obsessed with having men make her come. Unfortunately, she's limited by her social position, which is especially tough for a woman who wants to dominate. So she took me on without condoms. Poor girl, we all have our problems. This Sunday morning it was time to use that against her again.

We went up to her bedroom and stripped. While she pulled out a box of her sex toys I played with myself to keep it up, and I palmed a plastic ointment tube. This whole thing could fall apart. It could lose me a big donor. Well, life should be played on the edge.

"Come here, sex-goddess. We're going to play 'The Master and His Slave Girl.'"

"You mean 'The Queen and her Page.'" She lay down beside me on the bed and tried to pull me down to her.

"Oh? I get what I want. Who got you to give up condoms?"

"You know I get what I want. I made an exception because I felt sorry for you."

"Not anymore. Now you get to learn how to serve." I knelt between her legs. "Try this new lotion." I put something from the tube onto my fingers and spread it up and down through her lips, all around her hood. She began cooing but it changed to a yelp.

"Oh! That burns!"

"It's just for a minute."

"Ed! What are you doing?" She sat up and pushed me away.

"Be still. Wait." I held her. "There. Is it stopping? I told you." I pulled her arms behind her back. "Kneel down. You have something to do." Erica sat cross-legged. "On your knees." She did. "Now, today you get to give pleasure, not get it."

"What do you mean?"

"Suck me. Do me all the way."

"You know I don't do that. If you want that check you do what I want." 

I slapped one of her breasts. It knocked into the other one. Knockers. I had a flash of Elizabeth's small breasts. It would have hurt her to slap a breast like that, but Erica hardly gasped.

"This isn't about money. It's about you. And sucking. If you want to play it your way we can stop all this right now. You can always find some pussy-whipped guy like J. Carleton, who'll do just what you want. You want me, you play by my rules."

"Do you want that check?"

"Don't be too impressed by your money. There are other donors, or I can get it from hubby at the office. He likes me. I'll tell him you and I have had a disagreement. That will have the advantage of being true. And remember—your precious reputation is hanging by a thread."

That threw her.

"Ed! Don't!"

"So do it now."

"Ed!"

"Do it."

"Maybe. I'll think about it. But will you get me off, first? I was thinking about it all night."

"Today you only give."

"You've got to help me get off!"

"I don't think so. Feel your pussy. Go on. Feel it."

Erica touched herself. She got the most dumbfounded look and felt again. She jerked her head down toward it, then looked back to me. "It's numb! What did you do to me?" She rubbed herself again, hard. No good.

"Anesthetic cream. You don't get off this morning at all."

"Ed! You bastard!"

"You can frig in a few hours. Or, if you're a very good girl, I'll take you all the way there tomorrow. But you have to wait."

"Ed!" By now Erica was almost crying, a big change for a blousy, arrogant woman used to getting her way. I could almost like her like this. She has enough breasts for Bill, and enough brains for me. She simply needed an attitude adjustment to make things worthwhile.

"Now!" And in the end she did it. She leaned forward and pulled me into her mouth and began jacking me. She has a wonderful mouth, hot and wet, all lips and tongue and throat. Whatever she said about not sucking, she has plenty of technique. It took awhile to get me there, since I'd just done Elizabeth the evening before, but I didn't mind. 

Let her get used to working at pleasuring someone, the bitch!

 

In the end I had a satisfying orgasm. Dear me, yes, Ms. Erica! I held onto her hair and ejaculated nicely . I had her hold me in there for a few minutes, catching the dregs while I caressed her face and told her what a sweet, obedient little bitch she actually was. I found excuses to use the word 'bitch' about three times. I half thought she'd be vicious afterwards, but everything worked out perfectly.

"Can I come to your place tomorrow? Ed? Can I? I need you to help me get off! Please?"

Her eyes were wide and her voice was shaky. Do dominant women have a submissive side? I'd always been told that, and it could be true.

"Will you be a good girl?" I folded the check carefully.

*****

I didn't call Elizabeth Sunday or Monday.

*****

Monday morning Erica came by my apartment. I made her strip and kneel in the middle of the kitchen floor while I puttered around. This was better than I had imagined. I made her stay that way a full half hour. Damn, it was hard to wait! No pun intended. After a while she called to me: "Ed? Honey?"

"You want to get off?"

"Ed?"

"Then you'll be a good girl! When I'm ready for you, you're getting punished!" What a great game. Erica didn't seem to realize we really were playing 'The Master and His Slave Girl.' After I'd spanked her and reamed her out and let her have her orgasms, she lay curled against me with her face to my chest, licking my nipples, and she said, "Ed, you're such a complete asshole." What could I do but laugh?

*****

I didn't call Elizabeth Tuesday morning.

It had been long enough now, with no word, to make her worry, even with the flower. The tactical question was: should I let her twist in the wind a couple more days? The flower would have held her most of Sunday. By Sunday evening she would have begun to get concerned. 

She'd think, why doesn't he call after we made such sweet love? I thought he liked me. I was sure he did. Maybe it's because I didn't use my mouth? 

 

It wouldn't be long before her heart would fall into her stomach. I know a guy who will torture women with uncertainty about his feelings, who will string them along, make them wait, and generally cause them to obsess about him. He swears it addicts them. Maybe so. There's a fine line between not letting them take you for granted, and being cruel.

*****

I told you. Elizabeth was just a girl I was using. I wasn't done with her yet, but she didn't get in the way of other things. Tuesday morning, Anne was at the door. Poor, dear, desolate Anne. I sucked her in.

She hadn't buzzed my apartment and I hadn't heard the elevator. She must have crept up all six flights, avoiding people, ignoring the old fixtures, missing the ceiling lights reflected in the hall floors. No light heart or dancing feet for sweet Annie. She probably stared at the stairs the whole way. I put my mouth to her head to inhale her, ran the fingers of one hand through her hair, and stroked her back with the other one. We stood in the hall, just holding. How many times has that happened, maybe at this very door? How many people, filled with lust or need, people who are now aged and decrepit or dead and largely forgotten, people who once spilled into each other, who came alive with flesh on flesh?

"My Annie." I wanted to comfort her, and I wanted to fuck her. "Come in."

"I shouldn't." We were still holding and rocking a little, back and forth. I was half erect. She couldn't miss it.

"Do you want to go to lunch?"

"I'm not very hungry."

"Then come in."

Inside I held her hands. I kissed her forehead, a cheek, finally her mouth. "Don't Ed. Please. We can't." I ignored her, and this time she kissed me back, but then she broke it off. "Ed! I shouldn't. I can't."

"So you can continue your joyless little life?"

"You know why I can't."

"I know why you think you can't." I pulled her back in and kept giving her little kisses. She looked up at me.

"Please don't." More kisses, all over her face, a different spot each time.

"When was the last time he made love to you?"

"Oh, you're evil! Don't take advantage of me."

"How long has it been?"

"I don't know. It's been so awful."

"I'm going to take advantage."

"You know I can't resist you, not now. Please don't."

"Yes, I'll please you."

We went into a deep, sweet, slow kiss. I sucked her tongue in. I remember caressing her face. She was brushing her palms on my chest, the pads of her fingers touching my nipples, pushing her body against my penis. She finally ended the kiss and rubbed her cheek on mine. Her cheek was wet. So much for giving her comfort. She spoke in a sigh: "Why didn't I stay with you?"

"Because I'm the Devil." I didn't say, "And I'm not a novelist." 

I played a memory of being with her. I've never run across another woman who'd fuck so hard or so long. I could still hear her growling and panting while she jerked her mound at me. She was the first truly multi-orgasmic woman I'd known, and she'd wanted them all.

"At least the Devil pays attention to his subjects. He seduces them and holds on to them. Not like Paul." She wiped her face against my shirt. I didn't mean to make you cry again, Annie, just to sex you.

In a minute, she was better.

"I play with their desire. You were always one of my best subjects. I'll capture you again and again, whenever you're weak."

She laughed this time. Maybe I could make her happy for a while. "Only one of them? You evil man. I could be your best subject." She brought her hands up to my cheeks and pulled me down into another slow kiss.

We went into the bedroom where I took off Anne's clothes, slowly, one piece, another piece, until her soft body was completely available to me. I fucked her the rest of the morning. She slammed her pubis against me, again and again and again.

*****

"Edward!" Even on my cell, I could hear Elizabeth collect herself. "Hi. How are you?"

"I've been thinking of you."

"Me too."

"You've been thinking about yourself, too?"

"Edward! If you were here I'd have to slap you."

"Then I should come on over, shouldn't I? To get my punishment? I'd like to see you."

"Now's not a good time."

"Oh." I let it dangle.

"No, I want to see you. I just have a job tonight. I have to leave in a little bit."

"Can I drive you? I could pick you up afterward and we could get some coffee."

"Okay." There was hesitation in her voice. Maybe she was worried I only wanted sex. Or maybe I was a complication.

"Or we could go out, maybe this weekend? The Museum of Fine Arts has an Art Deco exhibit."

"We could do both…"

But she wouldn't let me in. Was she more into games than I'd thought? Was it more complicated? After her gig, after coffee and a pastry (on which she scarcely nibbled), after the drive to her apartment, holding hands all the way and feeling her up at stoplights, Elizabeth left me at the front door.

Oh she didn't reject me there. She didn't put me out like old newspapers or beer cans for recycling. That's not what I'm saying. Something was amiss. And amiss is as good as a mile.

I'm sorry. These things just come out. My mind generates them on its own, little word plays that help take it off…what I want my mind taken off. Elizabeth is what I want my mind taken off. I'm sorry. It comes like a flood. Not about that night. No. That was funny in its way. I could tell she was concerned well before we pulled up. What I don't want to think about is later, long later. I do things to forget, but it's no good.

That night there were leaves skittering across the streets and the street lights had that glittering quality they get when there's ice in the air. The look was perfect, but Elizabeth had her own look, a worried one, while she told me she had work to do and had to get to bed early.

"So you're sending me away?"

"I'm sorry, Edward. I love being with you. It's just…I can't tonight."

"Then let me make out with you here."

"On the steps?"

"Against the wall will do nicely."

Making out was nice. There was nothing cold about her except her cheeks. I can still see it, feel it, remember the whole experience. Everything. I can see so many scenes from my time with her. My left arm was between her neck and the wall and my right was—usually—at her waist. I ran my mouth up and down her neck and I felt her up some more, and she pushed her body out against me. Her breath was tinged with coffee when we kissed. She broke the kiss to move her mouth over my neck, to give me back the chill bumps I'd given her, on the way giving me a hickey, then licked me all the way up to my ear. Her breath was loud, rich, full. It shared my ear with her tongue, and then with her voice. I had a hard time making out what she was saying, with that susurrus. "My Edward. Think of Saturday. We'll have so much more time then." It was the most sensual rejection I've ever experienced.

*****

I didn't call her the rest of the week, to punish her a little for Tuesday. I had to maintain my advantage. Don't let her get too confident. I began to think she was more experienced than she'd seemed. Almost everything made sense, except for the two words she'd said that would have been fine if they'd been separated from each other: "my" and "Edward."

Saturday happened. Elizabeth loved the exhibit, and the dinner, and the drive through Beacon Hill at dusk. Her hair was unbraided, pulled back in a long ponytail she used to tickle my face while I drove, until I grabbed her hand to make her stop. After that she lay her head on my shoulder and rested her hand on my thigh. The evening was building toward the inevitable. I was ready to push far beyond where she thought she was willing to go. Step by step it was unfolding, up the steps to the porch, to the door. Then,

"I have to tell you something. I don't think we can…you know…tonight."

I must have looked stunned.

"I'm sorry. You know how much you mean to me. And I want to do things with you. It's just that I'm…well…I'm…" And I knew.

"Having your period."

"Yes!" She hugged me. Wait a minute!

"Since Tuesday?"

She stepped back. "Well, I was spotting then."

"Why is that a problem?"

"Edward!"

"Elizabeth!" I put my hands on my hips like I was going to scold her. "We can do everything."

She gasped. She really was inexperienced.

"I can't!" She got a look almost like panic.

"There are other things we can do, too. Hot things." 

We're going to have fun, you and I.

"I don't know…"

"Trust me." I tickled her neck with my lips. "We'll lay a towel across your bed, to protect your sheets."

She looked away, then back, then away, considering something. She gave me a one of those sweet kisses that mean something, if you could ever interpret them properly. Finally she took my hand. "Come in."

We kissed all the way up to her floor, in her tiny elevator. I didn't try to touch anything. Sometimes you make more progress by letting things develop on their own. Direct things by indirection.

Elizabeth went around lighting candles again. I poured two glasses with a Riesling and turned off the electric lights as I followed her.

She insisted on stripping me. She was as inexperienced at this as with everything else. She unbuttoned my shirt, then had to stop to unfasten my belt and slacks. She started pulling them down but had to stop again, to untie my shoes. She didn't want me to help, except to lift my legs or shift my body a little. When there was just my underwear she stared at the impression of my penis. Had she made her decision yet? She pulled them down, getting my dick caught in the elastic for moment. When I was finally completely naked, standing almost on top of my clothes, she asked me to climb onto the bed.

"What about your clothes?"

"I'm keeping mine on tonight."

"Oh, no, cello girl. We don't do it like that."

Finally she gave in. She stripped for me while I watched, but she stopped at her panties.

"They go too."

"No. I can't."

I knew why. "You're wearing a pad." She colored as she nodded. It was almost as though the movement of her head, atop that lovely neck, set off the coloring. Yes, that was it. A pad. It embarrassed her to know I knew about it. Damn, she was sweet!

"Next time, use a tampon. It won't get in the way as much."

Eventually we knelt facing each other. I'm sure Elizabeth was working up her courage. When she thought she was ready she pushed against my chest with both hands, and leaned down to take me in her mouth. She did it like the other night. I held her hair and pushed my meat into her a little and we set up the dance of face and cock.

She began to jerk me. "Don't." She looked up, my penis still in her mouth, the question coming from her eyes. "Slow down. Suck more. Yes. Like that. Slower. Yes." Shit, yes. I told her to go slowly because I wanted to stretch out the time.

Her mouth grew hot and so wet she occasionally slurped. It was coming, it was coming, much better than the other night. I gave her warning. Just as the pleasure took over I grunted to her. "Now," and it came over me and I came into her.

She handled it smoothly, no cough or shudder, no noises. I thought it had been easy for her. But when she let me slip from her lips and raised up, she had an odd expression. She was opening and closing her mouth, and pursing her lips. She held the back of a hand in front of her mouth and looked me in the face.




The Bastard Ch. 03



"Was I okay?"

"You were wonderful!"

She laughed, suddenly, into her hand.

"Here, love." I handed her the wine. She sipped it and swallowed. She had a bizarre grin. She laughed again, something between a giggle and a guffaw.

"I did it, didn't I? I gave you a blow job!"

She put the glass down and launched herself at me, her face to my shoulder. Whoa! I grabbed her and held her while she hugged me. She moved her head back and forth and talked into my chest.

"Oh, Edward! I was so afraid! I didn't know I could do it. I thought I'd get sick, or I'd be terrible."

She laughed a third time. It was a laugh of relief, wasn't it? I felt her soft flesh, her mouth, her little breasts, her eyelashes, but then it all changed. I couldn't be prepared, and I wasn't, when she began snuffling. By the time she sat back she was teary-eyed. It was as though something terrible had happened.

"Elizabeth?"

Her chin began to crumple.

"Elizabeth?"

"I'm sorry." She wiped her eyes. "I'm happy. Really." She smiled brightly, much too brightly, tearfully, and rubbed her eyes again. "I wanted this to be special for you." Her voice went to a higher pitch. "What if I couldn't do what you wanted?" At the end of the sentence her voice broke entirely and she began crying.

Oh Jesus, no! How did that happen? Come here. Hold her close. Pet her. Murmur to her. Tell her how wonderful she is.

I could feel her damp face, feel my chest getting wet. 

Oh shit, Elizabeth! You're not ready for the bigs. I brought you up too soon.

She couldn't seem to stop herself. "I'm sorry I'm being such an idiot." 

Shh, my fiddler girl, my little cocksucker. Cry if you want to. I love your mouth. I love every part of you. I want to do everything with you, over and over. If only this weren't so strange.

We lay together on her bed for over an hour. I kissed both her eyes, her forehead, her nose, an ear, a cheek, her mouth, and I told her she was beautiful. She calmed. I tickled her with my fingertips and sucked on her nipples and gave her a nip just below her navel. I petted her through her pad. When she grabbed my hand to stop me I rushed back to her face and held her arms beside her head and planted kisses on her face all over again. She grew happy, really happy, and content, so after awhile we could simply lie side by side, looking at each other and talking about nothing while we held each other. I began to doze and had to rouse my self to leave.

*****

What did I think of her? 

That's what you want to know, isn't it? 

I don't know the answer, not exactly, not clearly. She was unstable. Or she was wonderful. I didn't know. I couldn't tell. I thought something. I don't know what. I can't say it. I don't know how. I once made a girl cry by breaking up with her. I'd gotten any number of blow jobs. The two don't exist in the same universe. No one had ever cried over sucking me. No one had ever cried because she thought she might not be able to please me. Not that I know of.

What had I gotten into? When we were done, would she stalk me? Or would she wither away in that apartment, be a recluse, a ghost, a hermit, announcing her presence only by the occasional, despairing sounds of a cello sifting under her door? Would it kill her? 

She's too fragile, Ed! What should I do? I don't know.

*****

I called her Sunday morning. I had some paperwork but would come over mid-afternoon. I didn't want her to be alone.

"I have to practice, Edward." That was all right. I'd bring food and would read and cook while she practiced. I'd make dinner. "I don't eat red meat," she said. Fine. Ed Hyde isn't dissuaded. I'd leave the ground chuck at home.

I stayed out of her way while she did her exercises. She played the same set of cello parts, over and over, the music following me through the apartment, rich, sad strings. I baked a salmon casserole and read some funding reports while it cooked. I read the reports and I drank tart Rhine wine, surrounded by the smell of baking and her music, and sometimes I'd put down my papers to look into the little living room, to watch her practice in front of the tiny, gas-log fire.

*****

After dinner I led her to the bedroom.

"You have to trust me."

I lay a towel across the bed and stripped her. She already had a tampon. "Take it out." Then, "Lie down." I played with her body and we kissed, and then finally we had sex. There wasn't any blood to speak of.

She has the sweetest, lean, pale body, small breasts, and dark hair but not too much of it. I ran a single finger everywhere, while she rested. I got a slippery mixture of juice and semen out of her and drew sketches on her stomach, sketches that dried into invisible art before I finished them. Sometimes there was a faint red tinge. "Turn over. Onto your stomach."

I played with her bottom, an innocent, white, smooth bum, massaging her gluteus before going between her cheeks. I played with her anus, letting my finger go around and around it, then taking the finger down to her vagina and getting it slippery, then back up and pushing it into her. She tensed but didn't say anything. So it was. I'd gotten into the back door. I'd get further. Take the next step. I pushed my finger all the way in. Her anus was tight around it. She still didn't say anything. I finger fucked her anus for a minute, nice and slow, all the way in and out. Hold it there.

"I'd like to be in there." I pushed my finger in again.

"Not your finger?"

"No. My penis. I'd love to be inside you here." She thought about it for a minute while I moved my finger around in her.

"I don't know."

"Oh, you might try it. It could surprise you." I got my finger slippery again and ran it around her rim, and while I did I told her why and how she might do it. I didn't tell her the big reason, the one I was relying on. I told her the other things. "You think it will hurt."

"Uh-huh. That's part of it."

"But it doesn't. Not if you do it right, not if I lubricate you and play with you a long time and let you open slowly, and especially if I play with you up front too."

She didn't answer.

"And you think it's dirty."

"Yes."

"But it's usually not." I drew more slippery circles around Elizabeth's anus. She got goose bumps on her ass, and clenched it. "And it doesn't have to be at all. I can clean you, so your ass will be pristine." She lay still while I played with her slippery anus some more. "Do you want to know how?"

"I'm not that innocent, Edward. I know how. When would I do it?"

"I'd do it. It would be part of the playing."

"You wouldn't go into the bathroom with me, would you?"

"Not if you didn't want me to." I had a thumb in her ass now, and the other one in her vagina. I was hard again, all the way up.

"I don't know." But she would. She would, for the big reason. Women, almost all of them, want to let their guys do things, especially when the blossom is fresh on the vine. That's the one reason you stay silent about, or you ruin it. As things go I could have done her right away. She raised her hips to let me thumb fuck her, and I got up behind her and fucked her vagina from behind. I kept a thumb up her ass the whole time, all the way in. She was tight and elastic. Exquisite.

*****

*****

"You don't want to get as old as me."

Mrs. Chandler was almost ninety, and frail. Not like those hearty octogenarians you run across these days. No, she was the old fashioned type, all sticks and parchment. There was almost nothing there at all—no body, rheumy eyes, wispy hair, whispery voice. She was completely desiccated. I had thought working with her, of all people, would stop Elizabeth from running around inside my head. She sat hunched over in her wheelchair, but she was alive in there somewhere and she wanted to change her will to leave three-hundred thousand dollars to keep the music flowing.

It was ten days before she would die. Of course I didn't know that. I did know she had a clear mind and no one to hold her. This was a nursing home for well-off folks, so she had brought some old furniture with her, and the walls were covered with paintings and with photos of mostly long-dead family members, but she was seldom visited by the living ones. I felt sorry for her.

"I didn't have sex until I was twenty-six, and it was so good I did it six days in a row. I rested on the seventh." She laughed, which was a sound like two blocks of wood being rubbed together. "It was like I'd created a whole new world. I wanted to do it all the time. I did everything. Everything!" When she said "everything" the second time she opened her eyes wide and gave me a look that was almost insane. I hadn't brought up the subject. She got around to it in her own way, and on her own schedule. It was what she wanted to talk about, and she was the patron.

"I wish I hadn't lost those years, but back then you didn't do that sort of thing, and who knew we were wrong?" I nodded. "I had so many lovers. I had one-night stands. I knew more about men's bodies than most call girls, and the whole time almost everyone thought I was Miss Goody Two-Shoes." I nodded again.

"Then I met Mr. Chandler." Here a sigh came out from some place inside the shell. "He courted me, and he was a millionaire. What would you do?"

"I don't know."

"You're not shocked, are you?"

"No."

"I knew you wouldn't be. Well I decided I wouldn't be young forever and I needed to settle down." She was silent for a minute. I waited her out. "Sex with him was terrible. He was flabby, and his breath was always bad, from cigarettes, and he didn't know anything interesting to do."

"I'm sorry."

"Thank you, Mr. Hyde. But feel sorry for my letting age catch up with me, not for Mr. Chandler. After all, it wasn't his fault. Not all of it. And he was sweet, and generous, and he really loved me." That sigh again. "I found ways to have my men on the side, just not as many. And when my husband died he left me almost everything, though by then his family had found out some things about me and didn't approve." She paused. "I think he knew those things too, but he never showed it." It was the first time she'd called him her husband.

We sat in silence while I thought of other people, of my mother and how she'd withdrawn from the world when my son-of-a-bitch of a father died, and of Elizabeth. Why hadn't my mother gotten a second life, like so many other widows do? What would Elizabeth be like when she was ninety? I tried to imagine something else. Finally I asked Mrs. Chandler if she wanted to discuss her bequest, but she didn't.

"Don't get old, Mr. Hyde. You're young and vigorous. You don't want to lose it. You don't want to be like me. I haven't experienced desire, the physical part, for years, and I miss feeling it. Do you have a young woman?"

"I'm not sure I can answer that."

"Yes." The carved head nodded. "It's often like that. I had many I wasn't sure of. Some of them were sure of me. I was sure of only two. One died and the other broke my heart. It was easier getting over the broken heart." A tear formed in a mottled eye and wandered an inch down the face, where it spread among all the crevasses. It was as incongruous as a tear on the face of an old, carved, cigar-store Indian. "But there were always more young men to play with until enough years had passed that my body fell apart and they weren't interested in me except for my money. Then there were older men. Then there were only impotent men. And then I lost my sexual appetite. It just happened, Mr. Hyde, all by itself, like sand through an hourglass." Silence again. "It's terrible to have only your memories."

"I'm sorry."

"That's all right. I'm not a believer, but sometimes I convince myself that when I go I'll join my one, dead love, my dear Jer, and we'll be young like we once were." She changed the topic, and it was abrupt. "Well, Mr. Hyde, my attorney has already drawn up and filed the papers. The bequest is set. I won't change it. But I have a request for you, and I can understand if you refuse."

"Refuse?"

"Once more before I go I'd like to taste and feel a man."

"Taste and feel."

"There are rumors you can be generous with yourself, and that you are creative." She gave another little block-on-block laugh, which turned into a cough. She couldn't get the phlegm up, so for a minute or two it sounded as though it were vibrating in place while she tried to breath. Finally, "I haven't tasted a man in years. Or felt a swollen Kadiddlehopper." She cackled at her choice of words, and for a moment I thought the phlegm would come up again. Finally, "I can still taste a little. If you would indulge an old woman in this, it would give me a fresher memory. The old ones are so tattered, I don't know what I have forgotten."

"You aren't joking, are you Mrs. Chandler." It was a statement, not a question.

"No. Will you?"

I didn't have to consider it long. I stood and loosened my belt. I got close to her face so she could watch me work it up. She seemed absorbed by the sight. "All right Mrs. Chandler. Will you do me the honors?"

"Thank you, Mr. Hyde. And it's Dorrie." She sucked me into her mouth. I was surprised at the heat and moisture, and how supple she was inside. Getting to orgasm without the desire wasn't very interesting, but it wasn't hard to do, and after I finished she said, "I had forgotten so much of what it was like, Mr. Hyde, what the real experience was. Now I remember. It took me back so nicely. Thank you."

Is it too hard for you to believe I did it as a gift?

*****

*****

I conquered Elizabeth's ass at my apartment because she got a roommate. "I can't afford the apartment by myself, Henry." That was her explanation, and I guess it was true. Of course it was. She's no daddy's girl. The roommate would have the dining room, which could be closed off. We would still have the bedroom, but not the whole place. I hadn't a clue about Justine until she moved in.

Yes. Justine. And yes. I'm not the only one who's read de Sade, am I? She isn't that Justine, though, the virtuous girl abused by others. Not a chance. This one could be the abuser. You could see it in her eyes. I could almost smell it on her. Sometimes you can tell when you first meet them, but Elizabeth couldn't. Justine presented worlds of possibilities. I knew she wasn't worth the risk.

So I took Elizabeth to my place. She loved it. It's the opposite of hers. She loved the polished brass and polished, wood floors, the marble insets, and the windows that reached from the floor. It was light, bright, with carved touches along the halls. She loved that my furniture was so different from hers, my square, pale oak pieces, the mixture of old American and modern Danish. We aren't alike in anything, or not much. I was hoping we were complementary in sex. I had let her know at the beginning of the evening what I had planned for us. She hadn't said a word about it, but she'd been quiet. My fear: would she cry again?

You've experienced it, haven't you? Being on a different plane than your lover. She goes along but isn't swept along. It isn't quite right but you don't want to step back from it. So it goes. I kissed Elizabeth and touched her and licked her, to bring her over, but what she wanted was to get on with it. Me? I was pulled by my lust for her ass, going fast, too fast to consider slowing down. It speeds through me like riding the mile-high slide at the water park.

Play with her ass, Ed. Push your slicked fingers into her. One, two, three. I'm ready for it, Edward. She was so tense her anus had tightened right back up, but I was filling her with water. God bless it! Her head was down on her arms, her hips up high, such a beautiful pose of submission for me. Go empty yourself, Elizabeth. Then: ass up again. Refill her. The bag went from fat to flat and Elizabeth made a sound in her throat I couldn't interpret. Her belly muscles shimmered. My Elizabeth. My trooper. Empty yourself. I'll slick you up again. Lie down here, legs off the bed. Here's my erection at your anus. Push.

I held it all the way inside her, as deeply as I could. Hold it. Hold it. Don't move. God damn just feel it taking in the whole depth of her. Elizabeth was grabbing breaths and holding them. Now pump. Out, in. She made a noise, something different, some kind of cry. Out, in. Ah! Out, in. Keep it up. Fuck that tight, rubber, smooth ass. Do it! Pump again. That's what it was like.

She made another noise, a real cry. "Edward, please!" Don't stop. Finish it! Here it comes. It's coming. Push. Push.

It was as good as it could be. I lay atop her for minutes afterwards, my erection becoming a penis, my penis shrinking, lying there until I was sure I had pumped everything that I had.

*****

"How are you?"

Elizabeth smiled up at me, my Mona Lisa. I could tell she was going to dodge the answer. "Was I okay?"

"You were wonderful." That's my good girl. Keep that attitude.

 

I was too enervated to think about what I would do to her next time—something exciting, I'm sure—but she turned the tables on me by changing the subject.

"Can I spend the night?"

Oh my! You're learning, aren't you? Quid pro quo. I owe you, don't I? I'm certainly not going to kick you out. I don't want to disappoint you, especially not now. Let's get you a T-shirt and a toothbrush.

The tee hung to Elizabeth's knees. She held her hands like a ballerina and made a pirouette.

"Is Madame ready for a snack?"

She followed me to the bathroom, then out to the kitchen and living room. About halfway out she said "You're it!" and began touching and poking me from behind. I slapped back at her fingers. I intended to lock the door and turn off lamps and close the plantation blinds, but while I did it she poked me again. "You're it!"

It seems, when I think back, that something had changed for her, that she was able to shed her old skin, to be playful with me, to be at home. I wouldn't have expected that, not with her ass chafed by my dick and my semen swimming through her bowels. Not after her sweet submission to my wants. I hadn't expected her to be kittenish, but here she was teasing me. I tried ignoring her, but she grew bolder, so I turned without warning and roared.

She shrieks well.

I was hungry. Well, sure. Sex does that. So I made us a snack of fried egg sandwiches, on a sliced baguette, with mayo, and I found something else had changed. Elizabeth had more appetite. There was no more picking at her food. She finished her sandwich and a tall glass of milk. There was some sliced cantaloupe in the refrigerator, and she ate two slices. 

By golly, Miss Elizabeth! Stick with me and you'll gain weight.

After we put the dishes away, she followed right behind me to the bathroom, poking and pinching me, until I turned and roared at her again. She hadn't forgotten how to shriek. In the bathroom, she insisted on our brushing our teeth at the same time, in the single sink. Then to bed. 

Let's snuggle down, Elizabeth. I'll lie here quietly, until I'm sure you're asleep and won't be bothered by my leaving. Then I'll read out on the couch.

About a half hour later she said "Edward?" from the bedroom doorway, and I almost jumped. Jesus! She was only half awake, and I was only half a step from a heart attack. "Couldn't you sleep, Edward?"

"I don't sleep very well. I didn't mean to wake you."

She came over and sat beside me, blinking and yawning but not wanting to sleep alone, wanting to be with me. She put a couch pillow on my lap and lay down. Okay. Wriggle around until you get comfortable. I took the afghan from the back of the couch and folded it over her, working downward from her shoulders. I leaned far down to tuck it in around her legs. When I sat back she was smiling up at me. My girl. Never in my life had anyone slept on my lap. You were the first one, Elizabeth. I beeped her nose.




The Bastard Ch. 03



"Time for Elizabeth to go back to Neverland." I petted her hair, then picked up my book with my left hand so I could leave my right hand on her hair. In a few minutes she was gone.

I never did get any reading done. I couldn't concentrate on it, not with her breathing so softly and regularly, the occasional tickle of her breath, the shape of her hand resting in front of her face, or her face itself, as serene as a cat's, her closed eyes, her lashes resting just above her cheekbones, everything. I stared down at her for a long time, and every few minutes I caressed her hair, very softly so I wouldn't wake her, until finally I grew sleepy, too. It must have been nearly an hour. "Come on, Elizabeth. Let's go to bed."

End of Chapter 3



The Bastard Ch. 04



Chapter 4: "Love" 

It's hardest at night, when there's nothing to distract me.

In the night I'll remember sleeping with Elizabeth, or not sleeping. I'd be on my side and she would push herself up against my back. I'd be almost asleep and then I'd feel her breathing, first her chest, then her stomach, moving rhythmically against me. Sometimes her face would touch me straight on, and her breath would heat a spot in the middle of my back. Her breath was the warmest thing in the bed.

She wasn't always like that, not nearly so romantic or dreamlike a sleeper. I found out that first night. I awoke at one point with her arm across my face. She was sprawled almost diagonally, spread all over the place. Later I woke up cold. She had pulled the comforter away and wrapped it around herself. It was nearly morning, but way too early to get up. Should I wake her? Hellfire. Not for anything. She was so damned cute, wrapped in my pilfered comforter. I walked around to her side of the bed and pulled it free. Gently. I spread the comforter out, then tucked it around her to make sure she stayed warm, but she corkscrewed back into it before I even got back to my side. Oh well. I pulled it back over, far enough to cover me, and gripped the edge until I fell asleep.

The next time I woke up it was morning and I was lying on my back. Elizabeth's head was pressed against my shoulder and she was squeezing my arm. She was already awake, and grinning at me, looking about as superior as you can. "You were snoring, sweetie."

"I'm afraid to tell you what you've been doing."

She moved in with me that day. Or we moved back and forth with each other. Her place. Mine. It didn't matter. We slept together almost every night. That morning she wanted to show me she could suck me without crying, and she could. We spent hours in bed, sipping hot chocolate and reading the Sunday papers and bothering each other.

Once we finally got up, she stood at the living room window, looking over the mass of alleys and buildings and the occasional tree. You could see a bridge in the distance.

"This is so beautiful."

"Well, maybe if you're going to stand there all morning you should put some clothes on."

"Don't you like me like this?"

"Everyone will like you like that."

"Aren't you proud of how your girl looks?"

"Yes, but I don't want to show you off that much."

"Why not?"

"A nice lesbian couple lives across the way. We're friends, so I'd rather not have to fight them off."

Elizabeth spread her front all the way across the window. Shy girl.

*****

When did I ruin it?

It wasn't the day I passed an antiques shop in Brighton and saw an Art Nouveau lapel pin in the shape of a cello. Oh, she'll love that! I bought it, though it was more than I could afford. While the shop owner wrapped it in tissue and put it in a small, white box of folded cardboard, I plotted how I'd give it to her. I finally decided to place it atop her pillow and let her find it. I could hardly wait.

It wasn't that soon.

It didn't happen a week later, when we sat for forty-five minutes over lunch, in the middle of a park on the Charles, in bitterly cold sun, bundled under the comforter and drinking hot tea from thermoses, because Elizabeth missed the sunlight. I didn't ruin it then.

*****

You want another scene? Imagine this. We're naked, as usual, on my couch, nuzzling each other, and I'm stroking her puss. One finger quick down the middle. Caress. Repeat. We're kissing and I like how her breath goes just so. I'm affectionate, but there's her ass, and I want it again.

You'd think it was only her ass. You'd think it was only the sex. No, but God bless, to be in there. Why do I want that? Why do you want to know? Why does anyone want anything? I play with her crack, with her rim. I wet her and slip a finger inside, then two.

"Do you want to be in my anus again?" I can't tell from her voice if she's curious or disapproving.

"You have such a sweet ass, sweeter than any other." And it feels so fucking good.

She turns toward me. There's a look to her.

"Have there been many others?"

"None as sweet as you."

"Have there been many other asses?"

"None like yours. I love being in you."

"How many have you been in?"

"You're the sweetest, every part of you. Anyone else was just practice, so I wouldn't fumble too much with you."

She looks away, and I keep petting her. Curly black fuzz pushes back against my palm.

"Sometimes fumbling can be good." Her breathing has changed. I don't care if she complains. It's almost time.

"When you fumble with me."

"Isn't that good?"

"Yes. When you fumble. My girl should learn on me." How did the lines go? "Rapidly backwards and forwards, the early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers."

"I know that one. 'The Naming of Parts.'" She puts her face to my throat and her breath wets me. Now.

"You do the fumbling. I'll name all your parts and assault your flowers, rapidly, backwards and forwards."

I make her get up and walk to the table. She can use a pillow for her face and arms, for cushioning. She glances at an empty beer bottle as she leans forward from the waist. The bottle is sitting on the side of the table. She's careful not to touch it. Spread your legs. Hold yourself for me. Two fingers with slippery jelly go in easily. In, out, and around. Next my penis, nice and fat, just for her. I want to stretch her completely today. I'd like to go too far. Yes, I would. Don't ask me why, damn it! If I could shove too far, force more than she can bear, and still have her take it, I would! I love her, but I would.

Take it, Elizabeth! Take it! 

 

When she opens I slide right in and she goes "Ohh!" and it's to the hilt. Yes, yes. Stay in. Play with her puss again. Fingers in. Pull on it. Thumb goes around in a circle while she holds herself for me.

Now for the beer bottle. I think Elizabeth knows what I'm going to do with it. I've been thinking about this ever since I used it in on Erica. Put it to her flower. Push it in. She grunts wonderfully. What is it like for her? I push the bottle in hard, and twist it, and hold everything tightly inside her, together, so she can experience all the pressure before I use the bottle on her. I'm still holding my dick motionless so I don't come too soon. I think I can bring her off first, but she's perfect no matter what. She'll let me do anything.

*****

Then there's what happened after the scene. Once we were cleaned, and rested. She had put on her undies, in case there was seepage, and a Red Sox sweatshirt.

"I was thinking of you," she said, "and it came to me. It's just a little thing."

She took down the cello, dressed in sweatshirt and panties, in front of the fire, and she started playing. She began with four notes. She repeated them, as in a round, three or four times, then she played four higher pitched notes, then introduced variations on the rounds, and finally she spilled seamlessly to a lilting sequence that took her back to the original notes, where she began again. She had been thinking of me. It was something simple, and lovely, and for me.

What can you say? What can you do? She looked down shyly when she was done. She wasn't sure about showing off. I wanted to pick her up and whirl her around until I could run off with her someplace. Instead I told her it was the nicest thing I could remember anyone ever doing for me. Nothing cool came for me to say.

*****

How did I ruin it?

It wasn't that she found I had set up her audition with Robb.

"What makes you think that?"

"He told me. You got lunch out of it, didn't you?"

"Maybe."

"Edward!"

"Maybe. Maybe I happened to let it slip that you were talented. You know, wonderful on the cello, far more wonderful than any musicians I'd heard recently. Wonderful enough to need an audition. Maybe. Or maybe not. Maybe Robb was lying."

"Edward! He only auditioned me as a favor to you."

"Maybe. But I wasn't the one who passed the audition." I waited a second. "Are you angry?"

"Maybe. Maybe just a little peeved. But please don't do that anymore."

"Would it help if you punished me?"

"What did you have in mind?"

"Well, I could…" I moved my tongue up and down, slowly.

"Is that a punishment?"

"Maybe not."

*****

I'll tell you how I did it. I ruined it by carrying out the fantasy that first attracted me to her.

I did it twice. No, that's not right. It'd partly right, but it's also true that I didn't do it even once. Even that's not correct. I experienced it any number of times, over and over, while jacking off or screwing her. That's the nice thing about fantasy, isn't it? There's no limit to it. The downside is that it's not real. It isn't flesh. You need flesh to make it real. And that's what did it, when the fantasy was made flesh. Yes. Then it cancelled itself out. But no, that's wrong too. It more than cancelled itself. It destroyed us. That, at least, is completely true.

I did it with Elizabeth in her apartment. Or I started to. I'd told her what I wanted. My pliable girl, do this for me, do it, do it now. Justine's away, let's play, let's play. I'll sit on the stool, the firelight warming me, my dick curving upward, while you hold your cello and squat down toward me. That's right, my dear. Oh Lord, your bud is tight. Sweet Jesus, come down. Carry me over. Take me to the Promised Land.

"I can't do it."

I was too big tonight, too excited. It was too much when she sat on me.

"Come down some more."

She was trying to hold the cello and lower herself, and I was guiding her. She squatted. I lined up the head on her. "Come down a little more." Her legs were trembling. I found her hole, moved around until it was pressing into her.

"Oh!"

"Come down some more."

"It hurts."

"Just a little." She lowered herself some more and I was wedged in her. The sensation was incredible. "Some more."

"It hurts!"

I grabbed her hips and pulled her downward to me, far enough down that I was halfway up into her, and I was feeling her wonderfully soft flesh slide along me, when she cried, "Ah! No!" and jerked. She tried to bring a hand back to her rear, and the bow went flying, and she leaned first left and then right to get off me, pushing with her legs, and suddenly she was off me and lost the cello, which banged as it hit the floor.

She cradled the cello like a sick child.

Oh, we didn't really fight. I apologized and said I'd pay to have the fiddle fixed. I don't think there was anything really wrong with it. But after we'd dressed and she'd played with it for a while, she sent me home.

*****

What bar is this? Oh. Yeah. I have more of a buzz than I should. I'm almost folded over the side of the chair. El foldo. You have to know when to fold 'em. I keep seeing her fold. Fold, fold, folderol, what the hell did you do to your doll?

Someone is talking. Mickey. What's he been saying?

"That musician. I hear yer going with her. The fiddler."

"Elizabeth Peabody."

"Yeah. Her. Bill told me."

"Okay?"

"So I know those two chicks over there. One's a spare. Want to help me out?"

What fuck's he talking about? The bar is smoky. It's breaking the law, but who cares? It reminds me of a pub in London, one that Dickens used to use. It has the same low roof, the same smog. Did Dickens have woman trouble? Mickey's girls are smoking. Not their looks. Cigarettes. I think they belong here.

"Sure. Which one do I get?"

"I just thought ya might not wanna."

"Because?"

"On account of yer girl. I shoulda knowed you'd help me out."

Shit. Fucker.

"Why shouldn't I help you out?"

"Well, ya got a girl. But everyone knows ya wouldn't let that stop ya."

Shit. Fucker. Shit fucker. Fuck shitter.

"What's that supposed to mean? I'm no different from any other guy. You chase tail all the time. Everyone does."

"Well, yeah. I didn't mean to imply nothing, Ed. It's just that ya got a girl."

"So?"

"Well, I shoulda knowed that wouldn't stop ya. Not you."

"Hell. I'm just diligent. I work at it harder. Anyway, she's not my girl. Not anymore."

"I was just sayin'..."

Does the ceiling need to be that low? You can't breathe in here. The smoke is so thick. I can't stay. I need some fresh air. I need to get out of here.

"Yah. Sure. Well, I have t' go, Mickey. You'll have t' do both girls yourself."

*****

I don't want to get to the next part. I've been avoiding it. It was soon. A day. Two. Whatever. Elizabeth had told me anal was out. She wanted to be fair and tell me during the day so it wouldn't come up in the middle of something. No pun intended. She was so correct about it all that she enraged me.

"I get sore, Edward. And it's not…it's not nice for me." She had looked away, then back, and had hurried on. "We can do everything else, honey. Really. Just not that."

How do you respond? Are you going to force it? The unstoppable force meets the immovable object. I don't know. Let's just stroll down the path that ends where we're doing it like missionaries, Tuesdays and Saturdays, whether we want to or not. I exploded. I surprised me that it happened, but I shouted and we had a fight and I left. When I came back the next day, she was out.

But Justine was there.

"She's gone to visit her mother for a few days. I think that's what she said."

"Oh. I see."

"Of course the course of true love never did course through someone's ass." I stared. "The apartment is small," she explained, "and you were pretty loud."

"'Grandmother, what big ears you have,' said little Red Riding Hood."

"They're not the best part of me." Justine drew me in with a little smirk. Her eyes were large and round and luminous green. She knew she had my attention when she raised her arms and brushed her fingertips over her breasts. She hardly touched them. Women don't really do that. I'd never seen a woman actually do that to attract a man, and I'd had seen enough women work to attract me. It was over the top, but Justine did it, and my penis started swelling before her arms fell.

*****

It happened. Have a drink and I'll tell you. I'm sure you would have predicted it. I guess I half knew it would happen. I knew it was a chance. I should be careful, but I wasn't.

Justine was a player, and she was someone new, and I was furious at Elizabeth. In less than an hour we were naked and I was diddling her. Oh, I was more than diddling her. I was fucking her ass—doing it like I wanted to with Elizabeth. How is this day different from all other days? The edge is where I like to be, so there I was and I fell into a crevasse.

I fell because Elizabeth walked in on us. Out of town, Justine? Is that what you said? Did you plan this, or were you oblivious? I guess it doesn't matter. The important thing is that one minute I'm fucking Justine and the next minute Elizabeth is staring at us.

It wasn't as instantaneous as that. Not nearly. I knew what was going to happen before I actually saw Elizabeth. I heard the key and knew immediately. I could tell everything that would happen, but I couldn't do anything about it.

Here's exactly how it went down: I'm in Justine's ass when I hear the key. Justine is sitting on me, impaled on me. She likes it. She'd grown excited when I explained it. Her violin, the music, and the pressure as I'm pushing all the way to the end inside her. "Oh! God! Oh!" It was a chance, and I took it. I'm pulling hard on her hips. These things can always be arranged, if you want them badly enough. That's how much I wanted it. But there is the sound of the key and then there's Elizabeth. I can't get out of this! I start pushing on Justine, but it's far too late. I know before Elizabeth does that she will find us, and what she will find. It's maybe a ten-second head start, but that's time enough. Time enough for a thousand regrets, but not time to lose my erection, and certainly not time to hide.

Maybe if Elizabeth hadn't come in that day I'd have got over it. I'm sure of it. Fantasies go, as well as come. It needed a little time, that's all. I'd have worked through it. You need to see it from my side.

No. No. No you don't. There's no 'my' side. I have no side at all. There's just Elizabeth at the door, taking another few seconds to realize what she's witnessing. She can't seem to grasp it at first. There's no 'my' side. There's no 'Let me explain -- I can explain.' It's not, 'Ha-ha, we'll look back on this one day, and laugh.' Because I can't, and we won't. There won't be a later. There's only Elizabeth with wide eyes and mouth open in an 'O,' and I can tell the exact instant it all becomes clear to her, the moment her heart is torn from her chest.

When is that? It's when she folds like a chair. One hand goes to her mouth, the other to her stomach, and she leans back against the door frame and slides to the floor, going down, down, down, until her ass touches the floor right behind her feet. Justine is off me by then, her naked, gap-assed housemate, and there's nothing I can do to keep Elizabeth from seeing my shit-smeared dick. What can I do now? I don't have a plan. I just stand there until she starts screaming at us to leave. There isn't much more to know.

Please, Elizabeth. Please. Let me explain. But you know the answer to that.

It's worse because I can't simply walk out. I have to wash off and get dressed and then walk right past her. She's crying the whole time. I can hear her all the way from the bathroom, and she's still there when I come back out.

Please Elizabeth. Don't cry. Get angry. Please.

I need to step half over her. We almost touch.

There's one more thing. I keep seeing it, seeing her folded against the door frame, down on the floor. I can't make it go away. I can't stop seeing her. When I blink she's still there. I can't make it stop. I try but I can't.

*****

People think it's romantic, losing her, losing him. They're wrong. There's nothing romantic about it. Nothing at all. There's just my apartment growing dimmer. I'm sure it isn't my imagination. I'm sure it was brighter before. There is no end of books and films about the poor, romantic, bereft loser. Chick lit. Chick flicks. Why do women like them so much? Whatever was inside you, whatever made you alive, drains away. All the meaning of the world circles down. Maybe women want to imagine the happy ending, so much happier when set against misery. Maybe they hope against hope the true-love ending will come to them. Maybe that happens sometimes, but not here.

I've been staying home a lot, wishing my apartment was haunted by her, that I could feel a presence, but there's nothing there but nothing. I thought of the window Elizabeth looked through, the time she told me the view reminded her of Mary Poppins' London. I stood at that exact spot today, straining, looking at what she saw, but I couldn't sense her. I tried leaning against the couch where she slept nestled against me. She isn't there either. Even when I can stand to go out I do a phantom tour in my mind. Here is where we slept, on this bed, where she let me use her even when I knew she didn't want me to, where she slept pressed against me and stole the covers. Gone. Look! Out here! She opened that refrigerator door, looking for butter and milk. Remember how happy we were? Can I feel her hand if I touch it? If I pull the handle? Not even her ghost is here. In the entire apartment, though I've walked around and around it through the days and into the evenings, there is no Elizabeth, no anything of hers, no presence at all. She is as gone from my world as you can be.

*****

I ran into Anne Derindorf the other day. She left Paul and she looks better, more rested, more content. I tried to have a conversation, but it didn't work.




The Bastard Ch. 04



"What's wrong, Ed?"

"It's nothing. Girl trouble."

"You?"

"Me? Yah, me. It's okay. The Devil loses too, sometimes, y'know? I'm fine."

"Is it the cellist?" I just looked at her. Let's not do this conversation. So she changed the direction. "Why don't we get some coffee?"

"I'm sorry, Annie. I can't. Not now. I'm sorry." I just wanted to get away.

"You're not okay at all, Ed. It's not like you. You need to talk with her."

"I can't do that. It's over. I'm sorry, Annie. I'll call you later." I hurried up the sidewalk.

My world keeps getting smaller. It'll disappear completely, soon enough.

*****

This evening was the second time I saw her. I guess I already told you that. It will be the last time. I can't chance running into her. It's too hard. I'm sorry Elizabeth. I'll fix it. I'll do what I can.

It was just another reception. I've begun to hate them. If I'd been able to go out earlier I could have had coffee with the benefactor and skipped it entirely, but I couldn't make myself do anything. As it was I was late. The streets were full of slush and it was supposed to snow some more, heavily, bad driving weather and worse parking weather, so I took the T and walked the rest of the way. Maybe it would clear my head.

I should have known better. The moment the door opened I recognized her playing. No one could mistake that for anyone else's. I stood in the doorway, thinking I should leave, wondering how to get out of my appointment, wondering what to do, making a muck of walking through a door, so that people behind me began pushing. "It's cold out here!" Somehow I got inside and found myself more or less standing around. A hostess offered to take my coat. 

You dumb shit. You're not sixteen anymore. Get over it!

I can't remember it straight. Different parts of the memory jostle each other, so the moment I begin playing it through, my mind goes to a different part. I know there's an order to it. I even know what it is. I just can't follow it. To my left, in a large corner, they were playing. Elizabeth was concentrating on her music. She wasn't interacting with her new guy, and he wasn't talking to her. It was all music, all professional.

The donor found me. He just wanted to talk. He seemed to be a nice guy, ill at ease though, wanting to be friends, as though he weren't rich as Croesus and about to make the day of the Museum of Fine Arts, the Boston Ballet, and the Huntington Theatre in one swell foop. I would get the commission. I just had to make it through the next half hour. We got drinks. I tried to stay on topic, but, from the corner of my eye, I saw Elizabeth glance around. She saw me! I turned my back so I wouldn't have to acknowledge it, and I felt chills and burns on my back where she must be looking. 

Witchy woman, please don't do that. Look away from me. Ignore me. I'm not here.

I introduced the benefactor to the appropriate people. "I'm sorry," I apologized. "I'm under the weather. I can't stay long."

I remember Anne Derindorf was looking at Elizabeth. That stands out. When did Anne get there? I hadn't noticed her before. Where did she come from? You know where this is going. Do I have to walk you through it? She was considering something. I knew what she was considering. 

Don't do it Anne! For the love of God don't do it! 

She walked toward Elizabeth in little, hesitant steps. 

Annie, don't play angel here! You can't fix everything! 

But they were talking. I excused myself and went toward them as Anne got to the subject and Elizabeth's faced changed. Where was her guy, to protect her? I yelled, "Anne! What are you doing?" They both turned toward me, but for Elizabeth it was only for an instant. She stared directly into my face, then turned and walked away, with that stiff walk you use to show finality. "What did you do, Anne?"

I half ran to the coat rack. I couldn't wait for the crowd. I couldn't catch my breath. Hurry! "I'm sorry. I have to hurry. Please, let me through!" Anne came up from behind and touched me on the shoulder. "Leave me alone!" And I was out the door.

*****

The snow is sporadic.

I stopped at a bar back down the street. Some people were there—Mickey and some others—but, I couldn't stand to be with them. That's how I ended up in here. Now I'm going to walk all the way home through the snow. The better to think, though thinking isn't going to help now, any more than it did before. I'll listen to the slush splashing. At least I'll have some time to sober up and to plan.

So that's it. Good-bye to Elizabeth Peabody. Anne wanted to earn me a second chance with her. There isn't a second chance for Ed Hyde. I don't even want one. Anne was just trying to help. I know she loves me and wanted to make it better for me. I'd like to thank her for trying, but I don't think there's time.

I was happy before I met Elizabeth. Not happy. That isn't exactly it. I was interested. Aware. Focused. I was focused on the game, and I was good at it. I played it right until something happened. What happened, Ed? She became my Elizabeth. That ruined it. Elizabeth the music nerd. The shy one I sexed on our second date. The lonely young woman with the H. P. Lovecraft apartment. The artist. The one I could listen to practicing for hours. She became mine. I'm so sorry. She thought I was sensitive. I sure disabused her of that, didn't I? My Elizabeth. The one who would do almost anything for me, who liked pleasing me, who would take on my kinks as acts of love.

My sad little Emily. She really was mine to lose. At least she won't have to see me anymore.

End of Chapter Four



The Bastard Ch. 05



Chapter Five: "Elizabeth" 

I was wrong. Something else happened.

It happened that Elizabeth came to see me late. Very late. I must have fallen asleep, because I woke to pounding on the door. I don't know how she got into the building. I thought I heard her voice calling in a dream, but she pulled me out of the dream and through the dark hall and the living room. The only light was the yellow gleam from the street lamp in the alley, streaming up through the windows to project drops of melted snow onto the walls and ceiling.

She was standing almost inside the door frame, and there was snow on her shoulders, on her coat, in her hair, on her shoes. There was at least a sprinkling on everything that was hers, and she was shaking.

"You bastard!"

Even in the dim light of the hall she was paler than usual.

"You bastard!" Shaking with rage. There was nothing I could say to her about it. It didn't matter anyway. 

Don't say anything to make her feel bad afterwards. Just take it and let her go.

"You could have waited until morning to tell me that," I said, thinking shut the fuck up, Ed. "No reason to go out late in the cold."

"You bastard! You're all the same!"

Something different in that. What's going on, Elizabeth? There's something else going on. And your face. It's too pale. Your lips. It's shadowy here, but I think they're tinted blue. Jesus! She wasn't shaking with rage but with cold.

"Where are your hat and gloves?"

"You bastard!"

"Where are they? You're freezing!"

"You…I don't know. I left them."

"Left them?"

"With him!"

"Oh, shit! Come in and warm up."

"No!"

"You're freezing! At least get warm."

"No."

"Come on in. Let the bastard do something right for a change!"

Elizabeth didn't pull her hand away when I took it and led her across the room. She shook terribly, like someone in a fever. Her hand was dry ice. I thought it might be frostbit. She was quivering, shuddering. She must have been outside a long time. She hunched over the radiator and held her hands to it.

"I'll get you something hot."

She didn't answer, so I went out into the kitchen and made hot chocolate. Hurry, damn you! When I returned the only difference was that her coat was lying on the floor. Her hands and face were almost touching the radiator.

"Here." But she couldn't. Not at first. Her hands shook so much she spilled some chocolate.

"Let me help." I held the mug to her lips. She didn't try to stop me. She sipped a little then after a minute took it back from me and held it herself, even though she would shake every few seconds. She stood over the heat, sipping and looking out the window, never at me. 

There wasn't much to see out there. The snow wasn't deep enough, not yet, to cover the tar paper or roofing cement of the buildings along the alley, so it was a gritty, cold scene. The lamp made everything yellowish. Steam came from some pipes, whipped around in the wind, and disappeared.

Outside you could hear the wind. Inside there was just a tiny whistle in some spot that needed caulking. The snow was now mixed with sleet that ticked off the base of the window. Elizabeth stood and sipped, and I just looked at her standing against the window and thought, and the only regular sound was the occasional ticking of sleet on glass.

"You're a bastard. All of you."

I began to have an idea what had happened.

"What did he do?"

Elizabeth turned toward me and put the mug down.

"He's just like you."

"What did he do?"

"What didn't he do? What you all do. His own version."

"Did he hurt you?"

"Hurt me?" Elizabeth laughed. It was an awful laugh. "You hurt me! He disgusts me. He wants me to do a girl." She closed her eyes. "He wants a threesome. What doesn't he want? Is there anything you don't want?"

She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around her stomach as though it hurt. I knew that look. She waited—it was obvious—for me to answer, and finally looked back up. There was nothing to say. There was nothing for her here. She shouldn't have come.

"I'm sorry."

"You're sorry? What are you sorry for? Because you're not getting any of it?" 

It was here that she began crying. Don't do that. Please don't. Not again.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry you were hurt again. I'm sorry I hurt you. I'm sorry for everything. I'm sorry I'm such a bastard."

She was still crying. Quietly, like everything else. I could hear more ticking of sleet against the window than I could hear Elizabeth cry in little sighs. I reached out to touch her shoulder.

"Don't!" She swung away from me, to the window again. After a minute I took the mug to the kitchen because I couldn't stand it.

When I came back she wasn't crying. She began talking almost right away, in flat, tough-sounding tones, without looking at me.

"Tell me something."

"What?"

"Did you ever care for me at all?"

I didn't answer. I wouldn't. I don't think she really wanted an answer. Let her talk, then go.

"Did you? Or was it all a plan to get what you wanted? Was it just your way of getting into my pants, of getting into my ass?"

I didn't answer. I couldn't.

"You're really good at it, you know. You can make a girl feel all excited. Get her all warm and shivery. You're good. Do you have lots of practice? You know how to make her think you're the one, the real one. I bet you get to screw any number of women that way."

I stayed mute. Don't be drawn into it, Ed. Let her talk herself out.

"Well?"

There was nothing to say. Nothing that would help.

"Was I just the rectum du jour?" After a minute. "I bet you thought I was awfully easy. But you see, I never fell for anyone before."

When she said that she dropped the tough-girl act and started crying again, in the middle of the last sentence. A tear meandered down her face, through the drops projected onto her from the window.

"You were the first one."

Oh Jesus. Have you ever really hurt anyone? I did her good. I'd known, but it's different knowing it and seeing her keep hurting in front of you. It was as bad as when she caught us. No time had passed. Something, a song lyric, some words swirling around in here about the one you always hurt. You son of a bitch!

She began wiping at her face.

"Well, I'm sorry to ruin your perfect night. I'm sure I've completely embarrassed myself. I'll be going now." She picked up her coat and started for the door.

"No!" Don't say it!

"Good-bye."

"Don't go!" Shut the fuck up, Ed!

"Why not?"

"Don't go." Run! 

"Why not? I'll be fine, once I'm away from you."

Give a reason! Think! "You'll never get a cab, not here, at 2:30, in this weather..."

"You bastard!" she yelled.

She ran at me and tried to pound me with her fists. Her coat fell to our feet. When I grabbed her wrists she struggled and kicked and tried to yank a hand free to hit me. "You bastard, you bastard, you bastard!" And then she collapsed against me and was crying on my chest, and my face was down next to hers, and I was talking to her again.

"Don't leave. Stay. Please, stay. Please."

I was crying too, and kissing her hair, and holding her up.

We stood like that for several minutes. I don't know how long. She never struggled, never tried to get away. Her face was against my chest, her arms at my waist, my arms around her, my cheek on her hair, and we were swaying together. Our shadow against the wall in the yellow light was swaying along with us, looking warm and affectionate. Spots and trails of melted snow projected onto the wall and ceiling.

And I was sick at heart.

I was sick at heart because I was so weak. I had given her hope. I had to crush that hope. I had to hurt her all over again. At least maybe I could spare her the big hurt.

*****

Finally we separated, pulled back half a step from each other, our hands finding each other and holding on. Elizabeth was looking up at me. I think she expected us to kiss, but I had to resist or I couldn't go through with it, and that would mean stringing her along. I had to cut the string. The light was on my face now. She could see my face was wet and, thinking of these things like I do, I decided I could use it to help get through. I pulled her toward the couch.

"Sit down, Elizabeth. Please. I have to say something."

I sat on the coffee table and wiped my fingers over my eyes. How to start? Get it out fast.

"I'm a monster. I'm a bastard. What you said about me, it's the truth. You're better off leaving."

She didn't look startled.

"If you'd asked around, you would have found I have a reputation." She started to say something, but I waved a hand and went on. "In your circle there are people who know. I've done things with some of them. I'm surprised no one warned you. So yes, when I started taking you out, it was for the sex. Not just. But, yes, mainly for the sex. No! It was all for the sex! It was calculated. I'm attracted to talented women. The more talent, the more the attraction."

"Why are you telling me this?" She was backlit by the street lamp.

"Because you have to know. I almost never lie." What never? Hardly ever. And I'm hardly ever sick at sea. Stop it! Go on. "But I don't tell the truth, either. I let people draw conclusions. I need you to know. If I don't tell you now, I won't ever be able to. I'm a monster. I'm sure I'd enjoy doing all the things that other guy wanted to do."

Her voice never got hard. "So. So is this where you tell me I was right and you never cared for me?" What do you say? There was my opening. Miss Straight-Line was setting it up. "Did you? Did you ever care for me?"

"No. I never cared for you."

Please believe me. Don't. Please do. The sun is filled with ice and gives no warmth at all. That much is true. But Elizabeth didn't believe or disbelieve. She shuffled, kicked her coat. She bent to get it, but stood back up instead.

"Then why did you ask me to stay?"

"I thought we might sex." And it don't snow in Boston, Mass., in the wintertime.

"Then why are you telling me to go? Edward, tell me the truth! At least give me that!"

She knew. She must, something, somehow. 

"I always wanted sex with you. I wanted your ass. I wanted it the very first time I saw you, before we ever talked." I stopped for a breath. Let me try some truth, the whole McGillicuddy. Maybe. "Then it became different. It wasn't one-sided. You weren't a fool. I wanted to be with you when we weren't having sex. I thought about you during the day. I even had little daydreams about our being together, having kids, the whole nine yards. Me." I shook my head. I'd said "me" ruefully enough to make it believable.

We sat for a few minutes not looking directly at one another. I was waiting for her to ask the obvious question, and finally she got around to it.

"If you cared for me so much, why did you do that with Justine?"

"Because I'm a monster."

"What do you mean?"

What do I mean? I don't know how to tell you. The words come out all knotted. I can't say them straight. It used to be easy with you.

"It means I'm bad news. It means I wanted to, and I could, so I did it. I loved you, and I still did it. You wouldn't do what I wanted, and Justine would. She seemed to like it. But I probably would have done it with her even if you did like it. I like variety, too, and she was someone new. I always do that. Always! There were others while we were together, too. That's what I mean."

After a moment: "What am I? I don't understand. Am I your mother confessor? Do you want my forgiveness?"

"No. I don't expect you to forgive me. Why would you? You're better off without me."

"Why are you saying this? What do you want? I can't tell what you want!"

"Elizabeth. What I want, is I want you to be happy. That's what I want. And that means forgetting about me."

We sat facing each other in another silence. The sleet had stopped and the snow was heavier, almost obscuring the building across the alley. From the stairwell there was the sound of a door slamming, some steps, the screech of the elevator door, a click, and then the whine of the motor.

"This is one of those 'It's not you, it's me' speeches, isn't it?"

"Yes. But it's the truth."

"I don't believe you."

After a moment: "I guess it doesn't matter."

"You never cared for me! You couldn't and talk like this."

"It doesn't matter. There's no reason for you to believe what I say."

"So then tell me the truth."

"I haven't been lying. It's…complicated."

"Tell me!"

"Okay." I shook my head. "Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. I cared for you. I still do." You dumb idiot, Ed! "I hate it that I hurt you. I miss you."

Elizabeth didn't respond. She turned away. I held my breath, but she turned back. "Then why didn't you try to get me back? I would have come back, after a while. You had to know that."

I walked over to the window to watch the snow. How do you answer, say the thing that is dead solid perfectly true but absolutely wrong? It would make me too sympathetic. I couldn't make her see me from the inside. There's no way.

"I had to let you go. I had to. It would happen again. And again. And again. I know myself, Elizabeth. I'm not an idiot. I thought you would get over it and find a nice guy. I thought he might be the one. Hell, I was sure wrong about that. But there are nice guys out there."

She had turned around on the couch to look at me. I couldn't get a take on her.

"Why couldn't you tell me this before?"

"Shit! I couldn't stand to have you even see me! And what if? What if you wanted to get back together? I'd just hurt you again." I'll hurt you when the wolfsbane blooms, and the moon is full and bright.

It was quiet once more. We'd be through with this in a minute. She'd finally understand, and leave. She'd get on with her life. I could do what I needed to do. I waited for her to tell me to fuck myself, and to gather her things. I was expecting almost any sign of outrage. What I wasn't expecting was no sign at all, and I never expected what she actually, finally said.

"Wouldn't that be my choice?"

"Elizabeth!" 

"Did you have to abandon me?"

This was never going to work. "Shit! Damn it Elizabeth, I know myself! New fantasies are always there, always floating around. Always! Whatever the fantasy is, I want it! I want it with you, or this woman, or that one, or some other one! It doesn't matter. Shit! I want it! It grabs me. Even here, right now, they're here, even when we're talking. Right this minute!"

She didn't do anything. Maybe I was getting through. But no.

"What fantasy are you having right now?"

"Don't go there."

"You brought it up, so you have an obligation. Spell it out. You want to be so honest." She twisted the word 'honest.' "Well, tell me!"

"Okay. Okay. I noticed the frost on the window…No! I won't! Just go."

"Tell me."

"Get out of here!" 

"Tell me! You owe me that!"

"All right. You want to know. I wondered what it would be like to sex you, with you naked, up against the glass. In the fantasy I hold you against it so you can't get away, and you have the shock of the cold all the way up your back."

"You're having that right now?"

"It comes and goes. Little snippets of it. Parts of the scene." I saw the whole scene in Technicolor. Lush, beautiful, sensual. Fucking my girl against the window. Making her take it. Making her love it. God, it was good!

"And you want it?"

"I already told you." After you leave, I may jack off to it. 

"You'd force me to do it? I don't believe you!"

"Don't be so sure. If the fantasy was good enough."

"You'd rape me?"

"I might."

"No you wouldn't!"

"You don't know that."

"You wouldn't! You're trying to scare me, to make me hate you!"

"I'm trying to warn you! God! Damn! It!"

"You're trying to scare me away!" Elizabeth came toward me.

"I'm warning you!"

She walked all the way up to me. She pushed herself against me. That body. Take it away! Don't let me touch you. She was looking me right in the eyes.

"Then do it! Rape me! Do me against the glass! I couldn't stop you!"

"Stop it!"

"Do it, if you're man enough!"

"Stop it."

"Do it!"

"No!"

"Do it!"

"God damn you!" I grabbed her arms and whipped her around so she banged against the window. There was a cracking sound. I pushed her arms up beside her head. Fuck it all. I'll teach you! Let's end it all, get it over with. First you, then me.

I put my hands around her neck and squeezed. Her eyes flew wide. She brought her hands up to mine, tried to pull them away, but she was right. She couldn't stop me. Her mouth came open and the tip of her tongue protruded. She made little rasping sounds. I squeezed harder, to stop the sounds.

I leaned my face down to hers, and stared in her eyes while she struggled to peel my hands away. It was useless. Finally I whispered, "You don't know what you're asking!" I dropped my hands, and stepped backwards, away from the window, and found myself sitting on the couch, where I stared at her shadow on the wall. My God. Yah, mine. Fucking asshole of a God.

*****

If I blinked my eyes enough, or wiped them enough, I could see Elizabeth's shadow sprawling back against the window and holding its hands to its throat. Its head was half bent over. I watched the shadow massage its neck. I could even see fine lines where wisps of her hair etched their own shadows on the wall. I wanted to cover my eyes, but if I did I couldn't see even her shadow. That time would come soon enough.

Elizabeth huffed a little while she rubbed her throat, but she didn't cry. She cleared her throat three times. She rubbed for a while. There were moments when I could make out the shadows of her hands, of some fingers. She turned sideways and there was the outline of that flawed nose on the wall. Her shadow began to dissolve. There were steps that came right up to me.

Maybe she had found something heavy and hard to smash on my skull. Nothing happened. Then there were her real, flesh-and-bone hands on my shoulders.

"You're crying." She was hoarse.

"I'm sorry." I couldn't stop it.

"Shouldn't I be the one who's crying? I was the one who was choked." She cleared her throat again.

"I'm sorry."

"You really did scare me for a minute."

"I'm sorry."

Go away. Get a life. Don't feed the monster. 

"Did you enjoy it?"

"No."

One of her hands left my shoulder and played with my hair. She cleared her throat again. She did it every few seconds.

"I'm glad. Are you going to try to scare me again?" 

"No."

I wiped my face again, shook my head, took a breath.

"Good."

Both her hands went to my head. I could feel her lean over the back of the couch and place her lips to my hair. She stood like that a moment. I could feel her breath. Finally she lifted off and walked around to the front of the couch and sat down beside me. She took my hand and leaned her head on my shoulder. Her other hand touched my arm, just below my shoulder.

"I'm so tired, Edward."

"I'm sorry for everything, Elizabeth." I could control myself if I took deep breaths. "So…so…so…you take the bed. I'll help you get home in the morning."

She looked up, her eyelashes opening like butterfly wings.

"You do love me."

For a minute I couldn't respond.

"It can't work."

"But you do. Your friend Anne told me, but I didn't believe her. I didn't know what to believe."

"It doesn't matter. I love you, but you don't understand. I don't think I can be good for you."

"But you'll try?"

"Aren't you even listening?"

"Will you?"

Please don't ask that. "You don't know what it's like and I can't explain it."




The Bastard Ch. 05



"Just promise to try."

"God! Don't you ever give up?"

"I don't want to lose you."

She pushed her head into my arm. Your head is round and hard, Elizabeth.

"I'm not worth it."

"That's my decision, not yours. Do you promise?"

"Oh Jesus!" I had to laugh. It came out right in the middle of everything. Why not? Why? Why? Why not? "Okay. I promise. For you, you idiot. I'll try. I want to be good for you, and I promise I'll try. But I really am afraid."

"Well, Mr. Ed, I'm a big girl, who finally knows what she's up against. And I'll work on it too. For you. I promise. Maybe we should start with sex."

"Maybe not tonight."

We sat quietly for a while. Neither of us said anything else. My head was resting on top of Elizabeth's, and after a few minutes I couldn't keep my eyes open. She said something I didn't quite make out.

"What?"

She yawned. "Let's go to bed."

*****

I woke a few minutes ago. Elizabeth is still asleep. Her head is pressed against my left arm and she's wheezing. The snow has stopped and reflected sunlight is washing the wall. It should wake her soon, but I'll let her sleep as long as I can and try to ignore my bladder. Even with the wheezing she seems tranquil, at peace. My Elizabeth. Christ! My Elizabeth has a bruise on her throat! What does it mean? That I have a second chance. For what? To ruin her life. 

My Elizabeth. I don't know if I can do this. I can't do it. I can't.

Well fuck you, Ed Hyde! You take this thing one day at a time, starting now!

Okay. Deep breath. Time to wake you, my darling. I have to start trying to be good.

End.