Jane Unrue - Love Hotel

However there was not a body in the bed.

Just shake the boy!

clock ticking again

When I got back on board the ferry

leaving behind the honey colored stony clusters of the fallen gables

crumpled towers

toppled

candy wrappers

walls

no longer high

dilapidated

broken bottles

heaps of rock

surrounded by the weakened but remarkably undestroyed stone battlements encircled by a moat

tin cans

I thought about my feelings as with all of my belongings with me I had walked the pamphlet in my hand around that castle.

I was not its only visitor although I might as well have been. The cool fall air that heralded the onset of the winter winds intensified the feeling of desertion. Isolation.

Crushed.

Save pigeons

seagulls shrieking

wheeling endlessly through ruined walls

the moat long since closed in with tall weeds thick reeds grasses rippling over what according to the pamphlet had at one time been the widest smoothest lawns

was anything but inviting. Watching from the ferry little could be seen except a wall of overgrowth

the garden wall was smothered by the saplings.

towers soaring

plunging

Though it was apparently inanimate I feared that I had managed to awaken it that day igniting a continuation of the terribly steady stalled slow process of its creeping crawl upon the surface of the earth. It carried all its emptiness

its endless infestations

with it.

As the ferry pulled away I half expected I would see that castle coming after me.

What do you think you’re doing coming all the way down here? she said.

Next morning

Which one?

Doesn’t matter. There would be no others after that.

That night I took the elevator up.

THE NIGHT WE MET

THE NIGHT I ALSO MET A MAN who asked if he could drive me home

if I had answered otherwise I might have ridden IN ANOTHER CAR out to another mansion facing an enormous courtyard organized around a flame. Upon a balcony above a central entrance might have hung a bell. That bell will ring

as he

my new companion

might have told me with his hand so gently at my back

whenever we want to celebrate . Above the entrance left of center might have stood a bronze winged female figure arm extended toward a garden on the other side of which there might have stood a little gallery containing

Souvenirs.

as my companion would have said.

Mementos.

Various outdoor sections of the grounds would link by patios connecting by vine covered archways to a networked garden whose main artery

a hall of blooming flowers

would have led INTO A HOTHOUSE.

IN THE MANSION HIGH ABOVE THE STAIRWAY

seen upon first entering it

there might have hung the mural of all murals.

Just to see it there

together

my companion

I

to see them all up there

a panorama into which his image

my companion’s

You will too my precious. Someday.

would be added

might make my companion very sad escorting me through the spacious rooms devoted to

The greatest most enduring name in all these lands .

Their crest would show on crystal vases furniture in paintings porcelain dishes silver serving pieces china

No there are no casual encounters he would later whisper as we walked INTO THE HOTHOUSE where exotic blooming sweet intoxication had awaited us.

At times

although I would not want to let him go

because of my companion’s deep felt sadness for his many loved ones lost

including

someday

me

I’d wish for nothing more than I would wish for his immediate departure from this earth.

702

The paper on the walls a dingy peeling floral pattern was at one time surely very happy looking against crown molding that had once been white but now was not. Above the fireplace there was a mirror hanging opposite another mirror neither of them new. The windows had lace curtains on them. Underblinds on both. Upon the dresser there were two brass candlesticks. No candles. On a little table near the door there was a shiny Chinese serving tray that looked as if it had been brought in there then left there. On the bed there was a simple yellow bedspread .

I put down my things then laid a towel across the bed .

I started to unpack but then I stopped.

I put the serving tray upon the towel took out my dinner from the sack looked over at the wall .

THAT NIGHT

THE NIGHT I TOLD HIM NO

If I had told him yes I might have found a way to get

What do you think of all of this he asked me. She had gone to check on dinner. It was chilly out there in the moonlight on a pathway hugging the periphery of the mansion where he had been taking me on a stroll. He pointed out the KITCHEN then adjacent to its outdoor ENTRANCE

KITCHEN

was the SCULLERY

outdoor entrance: none

Then turning there we passed the ENTRANCE

SERVANTS’

followed by the DINING ROOM

no outdoor entrance

followed by

still talking

so much telling

asking

surreptitiously

no touching yet

not yet

the ENTRANCE

NORTH

MAIN

which contained the secret

On my neck there was I thought just for a moment heavy breathing.

entrance to the STUDY. Then we turned the corner on the DRAWING ROOM’S no entrance skirting around to the VERANDAH

outside entrance

No of course there was no outside way of getting into the

VERANDAH.

after which we passed the STUDY

followed by two darkened rooms

dark windows

then the outside of an even darker room he called THE PRIVATE ROOM.

We stopped.

He stared straight through my coat my shirt my bra.

They all had bars. The basement windows. They although so low were visible on all faces of the mansion.

So it’s under everything I told myself as we reversed our course then headed for the ENTRANCE

MAIN our having seen her through the windows. As if naked I began to tremble. She was in the STUDY looking out.

WITHIN THE DREAM IN WHICH I LOOKED DOWN AT THE BED IN WHICH THE LITTLE BOY IT HAD BEEN LEARNED WAS MEANT TO BE ALIVE I cried.

I walked back through the vine entangled doorway in the cottage stepping on the scattering of little flowers

dropping tears onto the floor

those flowers

pieces of a broken plate

Of course the body wasn’t there. I had observed the body’s vanishing on the plate. Of course the fucking body wasn’t there.

He takes the elevator up.

702

Right after eating my spaghetti I began to peel that floral paper back.

The following morning we were in the DRAWING ROOM. She said And it was such a large and leafy plant it wasn’t anything that any of the children in my neighborhood had ever seen .

It was a story whose beginnings somehow had skipped over me. I felt distracted. Frightened even. Strange.

He said It had a giant jelly blob of orange right in the center of it .

She said And I was among a group of children standing around the plant and I

Around the big orange blob you mean he interrupted.

She said And I felt upon that day what I will now refer to as

Exquisite nausea he interrupted.

No she said. Exquisite

He poured

coffee in our cups as she described this feeling as a feeling that can serve as someone’s introduction to the act of linking that occurs

That must occur she said because one cannot bear the picture that is current. She said And that linking into other pictures will continue for as long as we