Zane Pella - Fanchon_s Book

The peak moment, her peak moment. And mine too. Simultaneously. Predictably. Divinely. In its own mysterious manner, the arcane alchemy never failed.

She slid from her perch and patted my smeared eyelids dry. Then, blithely, with barely a break for rest and rehabilitation, "Fanchon, you ought to see this. Come and watch."

"Hmm? You-you want me to… "

But she was already flitting across the floor. Racing to keep her date with Rosalba. I shuddered at the thought and whimpered in exhaustion, but I knew I had to follow her. To watch it-obediently-because she had told me to. And to see it for myself, once and for all, to satisfy my queasy curiosity.

The bathroom door was ajar and I sneaked toward it furtively if somewhat feebly, anxious to remain inconspicuous. But Rosalba couldn't have spotted me anyway; arched backward in a grotesque contortion over the toilet bowl, she had her head poised and her face hidden under Kristi's half-squatting body and could only have been staring up at the well-kissed crotch that I had just brought to orgasm. She too would offer her mouth to that crotch. But not for kisses. No. I heard Kristi chuckle coarsely, more like a cackle, and then the noises from down below, the ugly liquid noises echoing hollowly, splashing, gurgling, oh, obscene! and she leered at me (gloating?) and shrugged and lowered her gaze pertinently, slipping an attentive hand between Rosalba's gaping thighs to fondle and finger the luridly exposed meat in a lingering gesture of blandishment that appeared both tenderly erotic and benignly complimentary.

"Hey, baby, you're getting good. Too bad you won't be around to take care of me in the wintertime. On a cold night I'd never even have to get out of bed."

Some compliment. Ugh! And she was still chattering and cackling and carrying on about it. But I couldn't look at her artfully animated hand without a hot flutter of envy: she seldom touched me like that. So tantalizing. I started feeling sexy again-incongruous-sexy, sexy, much as I hated to admit it; how could I let myself become aroused by such a loathsome spectacle? Oh, but it was fascinating in a repulsive way; the sheer hypnotic horror of it turned my insides turbulent-and right then and there if she had beckoned and motioned me to lick her busy finger (and Rosalba!) I might have fallen to my knees and done it. But after that one leering glance she scarcely seemed aware of me, no, she was in a giddy heaven of her own, giggling deliriously, twittering and squealing and jabbering in a transport of garrulous glee, babbling near incoherent pagan raptures of appreciation and encouragement to the greedily gulping girl beneath her. And I could only shake off my ridiculous fancy and stagger away in forlorn indignation, mollified at least partially by the assurance that I had seen the last of that slobbering cesspool-mouthed creature who had the capacity to make my gushing little Kristi-heathen so happy.

Fascinating in a repulsive way-but nonetheless fascinating, and I felt pretty qualm-sick whenever the spellbinding evil of that sordid bathroom scene recurred to me. More atrocious than the atrocity itself was the recollection of my own mesmerized state of mind: the emotional warp, the licentious abandon that had almost dumped me into the middle of the unholy mess, the fit of jealousy afterward, perverse, irrational, so blindly stupid-sulking and slinking away like an outcast-ugly, all of it, a stain on my mirror of memory.

On the brighter side, though, it was the last I saw of my intolerable rival; again, trust clever Kristi to make the necessary arrangements. Rosalba's quiet departure was dealt with as deftly and discreetly as the first-act details of her farewell performance. No fuss, no embarrassment; nor was her name even mentioned between us-as if she had become an exiled non-person in the rewritten history of a totalitarian regime.

Anyway, we were too engrossed in the enchantment of our revitalized romance to dwell upon past differences. With the house all to ourselves, we renewed the rapport of our hotel holiday, the wonderful time of togetherness; a second honeymoon, it was like, and we lived in a deliciously private totalitarian regime of our own. The little dictator was cruel and capricious and oh, how she loved me for loving her! Cruel-but with that impeccably dainty angelic tenderness of yore-a petulant cherub who knew when to bristle and when to bend and could enhance both the bristling and the bending with her bizarre flair for mischievous benevolence. And we made every precious minute count.

There were a few sober interludes, of course, as we discussed the serious business to come. Not that I had much to say about it-the terra incognita of subtle poisons and post-mortem procedures and the farsighted avoidance of police investigations-but Kristi spoke with surprising sophistication and I listened in awe and caught the contagion of her bravura; apparently the dark deed would be accomplished more adroitly than I had imagined. And far more slowly, what with long-drawn-out plans and rehearsals that might go on for months. There was just no hurry. The first step she outlined seemed a simple if somewhat tedious one: I had to be seen with Oliver in public often, regularly, with increasing frequency-and thus impress the populace as a loyal and loving wife to my distinguished and venerable husband. Aside from that, nothing, no change; the clandestine continuum could go on undisturbed. And so the grisly raison d' etre of our strategy conclaves-murder for money-took on a rather remote aspect.

So much for plots and intrigues; meanwhile the precious minutes became the accumulated hours of 24-carat-pure golden days. I considered working on my novel, but that was as far as it went-I merely considered it. Besides, I was getting close to the finish and hadn't yet come up with an idea for a plausible ending; nor could I recapture the creative urge when there were so many amusing delectations to distract me.

Amusing-hah!-the ingenious imp had more creativity in her little pinkie that I had in my entire plenum; oh, the whimsical concepts, the extravagant improvisations! She even went shopping and bought a maid's outfit for me, the sexy kind with the low-cut bodice and high-cut skirt (two sizes tight and I had to use a waist-cincher; perfectly scandalous!) and I couldn't figure out where she had gotten such a droll notion, but I was just infatuated old fool enough to put it on and wear it and love it and practically live in it; I curtsied to my exacting mistress and lit her cigarettes and served her breakfast in bed and brushed her hair and bathed and dried and powdered and perfumed her beautiful body and bowed to her demand for a daily manicure and pedicure-ah, what joy to kneel at Miss Kristi's feet and paint her toenails and then kiss them, one by one, in the hope that I might be permitted further liberties-and only after our sweet holiday-at-home suffered its eventual disruption (the return of Oliver, alas!) did I realize that throughout my tenure and observance of a maidservant's rank and customs and duties I hadn't once thought about the "acting game." Not once-even though I was actually playing it.

But the golden days were gone and I laid away my naughty costume and settled down to the grim business at hand. Although I couldn't call it grim, exactly; I dropped in on Oliver at the ministry and teased him into taking me to lunch and we both drank a little too much and fell into a festive mood. Like old times, he told me gaily, radiating sentimental charm-and so it was, really, just like old times, except that my husband was famous now and we got the plush-carpet treatment from the people in the restaurant. A bailiff is not without honor in his own bailiwick, I was pleased to note, and I felt pretty good just being there with him. I gazed at his kindly old face across the table and wondered how I could even think (if killing such a nice person, and yet I knew I would-because I had to-because she willed it; and wasn't I her slave?