Anonymous - Laura

“Go, Sutcliffe, go. You do not watch, nor wait!” Her voice imperious, and he is gone, I unregarding of his form or face, his dangling root, his emptied balls. My rose seeps, my bottom glows. She strokes my hair. I am a child upon her breast.

“So it was, was it not, ever for you, Laura? You are free in your speaking here. There is no one to listen here. Should I have strapped you first? It always came before, did it not?”

“Place your words carefully that I may step across them.”

I have risen in my speaking from her arms and all is in my seeing. Her hair is mussed, awry upon her forehead, bleared with moisture. I restore my drawers, my rumple-ruffled skirts.

“Such poise!” She makes to laugh, to mock. My look stills her.

“Are you understanding? How did you know my name?”

I had not asked this of Jenny nor the others nor Charlotte.

“Was I not ever understanding? As to your name, you would not have it changed?”

Her hand makes to take my own, is repulsed. Wedging her legs behind me, I sit back. The pleasures of tightening and relaxing my riven globe are as intense as ever. Shall I stay here, in this netherness, this place of unknowing, unknown, yet hinted at by stray tendrils of thought that move within me as weeds sway in ponds?

“It was not given to you to watch. Have you no beliefs,” I ask.

Her gaze is one of awe-incomprehension. She flounders in the waters of my mind, reaches for shores I never thought to own yet whereon lie the imprints of my feet.

“When one is taught what one must believe then one accepts the teachings, Laura. Even as we were taught. So long ago perhaps, yet you cannot have forgotten? Did his prong not please you? I tease him unmercifully, you know. You will stay? You must! You have not yet gone upstairs, visited your old room where lie the bandoliers of thoughts, the paper chains of Christmas, the flowers we pressed. There was ever a doing of such things, was there not-the pressing of flowers and so on. I found two cobnuts in one of your drawers the other day that you had forgotten. How dried and bitter they were, as all my tears have been.”

“I may stay for a while. You understand that I may stay? No-wait. There is Charlotte. She came before, or in between. I do not know.”

“Charlotte?”

“She came before or in between. Is gone again. Do you not recall her? It was not here, though. The certainty of that grows fast upon me. The house was older and stood more alone. The doors to the cupboards creaked. In winter it was cold, so cold.”

“What strange fantasies possess you sometimes, Laura! You were always thus. The grass must be cut now. We shall have gardeners again as we did before. The blackbirds changed their songs to the changing seasons. I ever remember that. Father made us listen closely and taught us. He said that the warmth or cold upon their bodies made it so.”

“Father?”

“Did we not learn such wisdom from him at all the turnings of the hours? When there was too much butter on the muffins we licked our fingers and were scolded. Mother scolded us. Did he come much in you?”

“Sutcliffe? Yes.”

“You may ask him to take you, of course. At your whim, your wish, your requiring. You never asked before-before Sutcliffe was known here. I speak of our younger years, you know. You were always quiet, compliant, waiting to be taken. Yes, you may ask Sutcliffe. Not to strap you, though. The servants were never permitted such save once-you remember-when Aunt Sylvia struggled overmuch. She was put to all the males that evening as a penance. It was our first watching. You remember.”

“No. Do I?” I am drawn down again upon her. A titillation of tongues.

“How perverse you are, Laura, but it was ever your way. It was said to be an attraction in you, as was my own struggling. Sutcliffe was not wasted on you, though. And besides- pouf! — I saw nothing. Only your shoulders and your lovely face. I did not wish to regard his. The males are ugly in their lusting. It is only we…”

“Yes, only we.”

I interrupt her, rise, look all about, examine paintings, cases, knick-knacks-salutations in the main to mediocrity. It is not a fine house as was mine, is mine, is Mama's and Papa's. Things here, within the enfolding of these walls, have not been sufficiently looked at, lived with, regarded, nurtured, taken up and touched. They come not to my eyes as gestures but as distant objects who in their humbled indifference know the disinterest of distance, the uncaring of the ones who move around them in their stillness. All should be touched and known and entered-as was I–I entered, tickled, teased, and warmly spermed.

“You are thinking of it, Laura. I know your eyes. It was ever said in this very room ofttimes that if you had not done it then at least you were thinking of it.”

I scarce hear her. Something beyond, unknown, unseen, attracts. Rising and crossing the pearl-grey sea of the carpet, I draw the curtains apart. The garden has changed, the grass shorter, the plants no longer clutched at in their growing by the weeds. The scythes, unrested, gleam again. The rollers, drawn away, brood on their heaviness of purpose.

“All changes, is gone, returns.” Her hand is on my shoulder. Silently across the room she has come, the long room, silently as Sutcliffe came. Her fingers caress my neck beneath my hair.

“If the sea comes, we shall become part of the foam.” I turn, have kissed her. Mouth to mouth have kissed her.

“How appropriate! But utterly, as Mama used to say! The foam that once frothed on your bush-and mine!” Her laughter is a falling of sequins, glittering. “Yet would you wish it so? Better by far to stay upon the beach in its slow sloping, waiting for the fall of light, the light's slow merging into dusk. Have you electricity in your hotel? It would spoil it. Does it not spoil it? One cannot diminish the intensity of electric lighting as one can gas or oil. No, do not answer-it matters little. Here, when dusk fell and the sea stayed far, we knew our surrenders. Ever in the dying light. Close your eyes and you will remember. Cover your face with your hands.”

I do so. She leads me back, as one faltering over unseen tufts of grass, to the divan. I am pressed down, seated. I must not peep. It returns to me now, a little.

“So stay and then tell your thoughts. Each thought and every thought. Then whatever you are thinking, it shall be done. Do you remember the game? We called it Tell'-Tell and receive'.”

“I must not peep, must I? It returns to me a little-the dusk, this room.”

“No, you must not speak now-you know you must not speak. One was never asked to speak until one was ready- until one had walked the plank of thought, stirred the smooth knots of desire with one's toes, then plunged.”

Through my fingers I cannot see. A quiver runs through me like a rabbit lost. Yes, there was watching here- I in a white dress…pink…no, blue. I had thought and risen, and even though my legs trembled I had raised my dress. My thighs were lustred, my drawers of cotton tight.

It had been my first telling. All waited in silence to hear me to know my purpose, to make it plain. Elizabeth. I know her name now. She sat among them; we were all of a oneness. Their calm waiting for the confession of my desires was the magnet that exacted the penalties of my sensuous thoughts. Bridges had fallen twixt one phrase and another as I spoke. I was made to return to the gaps and repair them.

Speak the words, Laura. You must. Confess. Speak your exactitudes. Diminish not desire. Lower your drawers, girl.

I uncover my face at last, here now. Sutcliffe enters, suave and dark, removes our glasses, bows, and retires. Fragmented pictures in my mind, a scattering of rose petals. It was not he then, in that faraway, but a maid. In the very midst of the enactment of my desires she had entered to light the oil lamps and had looked for a moment, for I felt her looking.