Zane Pella: Fanchon_s Book

Then-that extra aperitif, perhaps?-Oliver's sentiment went from mellow to maudlin, and before I could surmise the tragic trend of his maundering, he hemmed and hawed into the macabre theme of his possible assassination. While I sat in congealed stupefaction with a curdled smile on my face; assassination, what a shock!-did he suspect something? But no, his concern was genuine but only in a general way: these recurrent political crises were putting him in considerable danger, he informed me gravely, and with agitators from abroad fomenting revolution in every corner, he had judged it prudent to provide a small sub rosa reserve fund for the future. My future, not his-and he sincerely wished he could have done more to insure my financial security. But come what may, there was some money for me in a foreign bank, not much, certainly no great fortune, but sufficient to ease the immediate burden of my bereavement. So even if the worst happened and his death caused a collapse of the government, well…

But I hearkened no longer, I was too busy worrying about how Kristi would react to the news. The money involved wasn't enough to commit murder for. Hardly. Compared to the millions we had dreamed of, it amounted to little more than a widow's mite. Kaputt were our cloud-woven castles in the air.

Castles?-nay, dungeons! Reserved for me. That most dreadful of dungeons once occupied by Rosalba-mine now? No, my rival's reality hadn't yet evaporated; I had bartered her dismissal for a promise I couldn't keep. No murder, no money-and I had a debt to discharge. What could I do but take Rosalba's place in the horrid dungeon? Take her place (literally!) and tilt my head back and" open my mouth and-ugh!-but what else did I have to offer?

It preyed on my mind as I headed homeward after lunch. Doomward. And yet I was already attuned to the inevitability of it-as if I had known all along that such a degradation would some day be my destiny. Kristi owned me. Didn't I have to be whatever she wanted me to be? Yes, even a murderess, if things had worked out that way, and was this any more monstrous?

Then again I may have been magnifying my misfortune somewhat or so it appeared, at least, after she heard my verbatim recital of Oliver's jarring disclosure. The news upset her, of course, but she remained less than rabid; no tantrum, no trauma, nor did she take me to task over the Rosalba-trade. Just the same, though, I sensed the terrible tension and was aware that somebody (guess who!) was going to pay for the bursting of her hope-bubble-and I had few doubts about how and where the propitiation would be made. I just didn't know when. And without even a threat-by-innuendo to guide me, I could do nothing but cross my fingers and wait.

So I waited. But I didn't need any squall-warnings to tell me that a cyclone was brewing, and I clung desperately to my attitude of premeditated acquiescence; after all, it was just another case of taking the bitter with the better, and if I kept myself expecting it-composed, prepared, actually primed for it-then maybe I wouldn't mind so much when the storm broke. Perhaps I might actually find it inoffensive. Or even quaintly intoxicating: the spirit of Rosalba, as it were. Hah! Some joke. The spirit of Rosalba. Gallows humor-a bit of dry wit gone soggy. Ho-hum, into each life a little rain must fall.

Only it didn't. Nary a drop. The impending storm just went right on impending and my unpredictable angel went into a sulk. A solitary sulk, dismal, endless, the kind that hurt, hurt deep down inside (how could she act so distant toward me?) until I couldn't bear it any more and in a wail of wistful impatience I asked if there wasn't some way I might cheer her up.

"Thank you, Fanchon. But it's my own problem."

"You're sure I can't help, darling? Oh, it's such torture when you're brooding all the time, it makes me feel so estranged from you. And guilty, too, I guess, even though it couldn't have been my fault. Are you blaming me because my stupid husband really turned out to be the poor-but-honest type of politician?"

"No. I hate him, but you're not to blame."

"Then why are you angry with me?"

"I'm not angry."

"Indifferent, then, and that's just as bad. Darling, you've got me so confused; won't you even talk about it? If you're annoyed with me then there has to be a reason, isn't that so? Please, sweetheart, I know you're disappointed about the money, but why are you taking it out on me? Is it, uh… oh, I just don't understand-could it be because of Rosalba?"

"Huh? Rosalba?" A smirk, momentarily quizzical; then her lips recovered their permanent pout. "Whatever gave you that idea?"

"I'll bet you miss her. And I made you get rid of her."

"Fanchon, don't tell me you're still jealous."

"Well, I do worry about it once in a while. Some times I just know you'd like me better if I were more like her. And maybe I could be, you know, if I thought… uh… "

"Hmm? Could be what?"

"More like Rosalba. The same thing."

"Stop talking in riddles, Fanchon. What same thing?

"Oh… you know. Your-your toilet slave."

The green eyes surveyed me dully and yet I was sure I had seen a flash, a sudden sheen, a hint of the vivid emeralds they used to be. As if my laborious bid to play Rosalba's role had tapped a hidden lode. But only the listless torpor prevailed in her vague murmur. "Umm, well, perhaps. We'll see."

"Darling? You-you're not interested?"

"I didn't say that."

"Then what's the matter? Must I beg?"

"No. Just be willing."

"Willing? Oh, but I am, I am. That's what I'm telling you."

"Are you, Fanchon?" And again, cryptically, in a tone of mild exasperation undoubtedly calculated to exasperate, "We'll see… " End of colloquy; just like that, with loose threads dangling all over the place and nobody around to reweave them into the tapestry. Nobody but yours truly. And rightly so, since I now recognized that the denouement of the unfinished drama had to be of my own delineation. Little Miss Sulkylips was leaving it strictly up to me.

No, she didn't want me to beg. Just be willing. Simple enough in substance but surely ambiguous in intent, and I could interpret her instruction only in the light of previous controversy. To me it implied something far more formidable than a mere display of docility in the playing of a difficult role. I had to learn to enjoy it, somehow, to desire it, crave it-and yes, in a sexual context, to lust for it with a fiery thirst that could be quenched at but one fountain. (But of course; hadn't I always thought of her as the. source of my rejuvenation? my own providential Fountain of Youth?) There was no other way to placate the determined little debauchee. Sensuality was the sole approach to the kind of willingness she demanded. The final stitch in the pattern of my conquest: if I could accept this ultimate humiliation joyfully then the design would at last be complete-and the weird and wonderful tapestry of our love would remain eternally inviolate.

Joyfully? So be it! With a bang, not a whimper. Eagerly-that was how to go about it-ardently, voluptuously, even if I had to hit myself over the head with a hundred intellectual arguments to gain one such emotional-erotic response. Arguments like the fact that I owed it to her in payment of debt, the grinding exigency of it-trapped, helpless-didn't I feel a "no way out" tingle of excitement? Arguments like the sublime beauty of her body; I could shut my eyes and behold the naked splendor in detail, the intimate fluff-on-flesh, fascinating! and hadn't I once seen that soft cynosure as a gold-fringed chalice? Ah yes, a chalice, exquisitely wrought, a sacramental chalice by Cellini, and wouldn't I swoon in aesthetic ecstasy just sipping from such a treasure? Arguments, arguments, but I had already convinced myself and now it was only a matter of temporizing watchfully and selecting the perfect moment to show my willful one just how willing I could be.