VESTAL VIRGINS AND POOL ROOM WHORES
A collection of short stories exploring the dark and dysfunctional feminine
A LOVE LIKE BLOOD
Whatever the nature of love, whatever its boundaries and limits, it remains an arid wasteland unless riddled with lust and desire. This is no place for the mundane or half-hearted, it is the crepuscular domain of shadows, inhabited by those who cannot or will not exist outwith extremes.
You might think me just another storyteller trying to stir a little controversy to upset the righteous and the holy. You might think me a literary whore, prostituting my limited talent and selling it on as sexual titillation. You might consider me as a self-indulgent, hedonistic fool and you’d be unerringly close to the truth, whatever that may be. You’ll automatically assume I’m possessed by a passion better described as insanity, and that I should be locked away for my own sake. Well, you don’t have to sit here and listen, but I know you will. Because like everyone else you long to visit that realm where madness and desire collude with one another. You long to visit, but you wouldn’t want to dwell, let alone become one of its subjects. After all, we all enjoy a fairy tale, don’t we?
Whatever the nature of love, whatever its boundaries and limits, it remains an arid wasteland unless riddled with lust and desire. This is no place for the mundane or half-hearted, it is the crepuscular domain of shadows, inhabited by those who cannot or will not exist outwith extremes.
You might think me just another storyteller trying to stir a little controversy to upset the righteous and the holy. You might think me a literary whore, prostituting my limited talent and selling it on as sexual titillation. You might consider me as a self-indulgent, hedonistic fool and you’d be unerringly close to the truth, whatever that may be. You’ll automatically assume I’m possessed by a passion better described as insanity, and that I should be locked away for my own sake. Well, you don’t have to sit here and listen, but I know you will. Because like everyone else you long to visit that realm where madness and desire collude with one another. You long to visit, but you wouldn’t want to dwell, let alone become one of its subjects. After all, we all enjoy a fairy tale, don’t we?
LIBERTY BELLE'S LAST HURRAH
Some of you will know me, I am sure, as Lupita – or ‘Little Wolf’ as it translates into English. Of course, out on the high seas I go by an entirely different nom-de-plume, Liberty Belle, the Beautiful Liberator, and I think it fair to say that the mere mention of the name sends a shiver down the spine of my enemies – and they are legion.
Perhaps you are thinking, ‘Lupita, she doesn’t really look like a pirate’ or you are wondering how it is possible for me, a mere woman, to take charge of a Spanish Galleon with its crew of bloodthirsty males and set sail for the deepest waters of the furthest oceans. Or perhaps you are thinking, this girl looks like she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth and has never spoken an angry word in her entire life. Listen my friends, and listen hard. Allow me to blur the thin line between fact and fiction, between imagination and reality and let me tell you a tale of a world turned upside down.
I was certainly born into the aristocracy, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. But as for the silver spoon, I spent most of my childhood polishing them in the scullery, or cleaning the fireplace whilst it was still hot from the night before, or mopping the kitchen floor before my elder brother charged in from the hunt with a crowd of his muddy, filthy companions immediately in tow. My darling brother, what is it with the first born? My sympathies have always been with Herod and one night, when he had drunk just a little too much of my stepfather’s wine, I found him fast asleep, sprawled across my spotless floor onto which he had vomited profusely.
Not for the first time in my life, nor the last, either, my vicious temperament got the better of me. When I rubbed the locks of his curly black hair into the puke that surrounded his sleeping head he began to stir from his drunken state. He spat and swore in a most vile manner that did not do justice to a man of such ‘breeding’; but then again, his blood was never blue, it ran red and thick like the dregs of society whence he came.
Did I say curly black hair? Take a look at my own proud head of russet locks, not a dark tress or strand to be found anywhere. How do you think it feels to be usurped by the son of a Spanish cuckold when my own father is still fresh in his mouldy grave? I am no Cinderella and I am quite prepared to deal with matters of life and death with my own, innocent hands. Or not, as the case may be, for now they are stained forever with his sweet and sickly blood.
Perhaps you are thinking, ‘Lupita, she doesn’t really look like a pirate’ or you are wondering how it is possible for me, a mere woman, to take charge of a Spanish Galleon with its crew of bloodthirsty males and set sail for the deepest waters of the furthest oceans. Or perhaps you are thinking, this girl looks like she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth and has never spoken an angry word in her entire life. Listen my friends, and listen hard. Allow me to blur the thin line between fact and fiction, between imagination and reality and let me tell you a tale of a world turned upside down.
I was certainly born into the aristocracy, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. But as for the silver spoon, I spent most of my childhood polishing them in the scullery, or cleaning the fireplace whilst it was still hot from the night before, or mopping the kitchen floor before my elder brother charged in from the hunt with a crowd of his muddy, filthy companions immediately in tow. My darling brother, what is it with the first born? My sympathies have always been with Herod and one night, when he had drunk just a little too much of my stepfather’s wine, I found him fast asleep, sprawled across my spotless floor onto which he had vomited profusely.
Not for the first time in my life, nor the last, either, my vicious temperament got the better of me. When I rubbed the locks of his curly black hair into the puke that surrounded his sleeping head he began to stir from his drunken state. He spat and swore in a most vile manner that did not do justice to a man of such ‘breeding’; but then again, his blood was never blue, it ran red and thick like the dregs of society whence he came.
Did I say curly black hair? Take a look at my own proud head of russet locks, not a dark tress or strand to be found anywhere. How do you think it feels to be usurped by the son of a Spanish cuckold when my own father is still fresh in his mouldy grave? I am no Cinderella and I am quite prepared to deal with matters of life and death with my own, innocent hands. Or not, as the case may be, for now they are stained forever with his sweet and sickly blood.
LE MONT DORE
October arrived like a razor, sharp and with a sweet glint in its eye, laden with ice. The town now lived in shadow; would do so till spring when the roaring torrents of melting snow tumbled down from the mountains into the river that splits it in two.
Under the mountain wall life slowed to a silent slumber. The roofs that once caught the midday sun and turned the steep, narrow streets into baking ovens now lay under an ashen grey cloud of chimney smoke. The frost began to persist in the darker declivities of alleys and passageways, the only warmth came from the fires in the town’s overflowing bordellos; it is said, after all, that a man's chilled libido is fired only by lust.
Meanwhile the elegant Contessa stretched under her silken sheets as her maidservant, the orphan Isobelle, coaxed a damp and reluctant fire into life. Still weary from wine and waltzing at the final ball of the season, she drifted in and out of her tropical dreamscape until she picked out the flickering shadows of the flames on the bedroom wall.
The Contessa, refined and demure though she was, wished the winter and all its comrades would go to Hell. She'd looked on in a mixture of resentment and envy as her friends, Madame Lejeune and the dear Baroness de Provence, had slipped their icy moorings for the warmer climes of the Riviera. As always, they had thrust countless invitations her way.
"My darling Contessa, why do you always spend the winter in this dreary little place, alone and frozen. You know you are always welcome at our chateau, and Fabrizio would love to see you. He always says ..."
But they would notice how well, how fit and healthy she looked; how her skin shone with an unseasonal lustre and how resplendent her white gown appeared in the icy light. And it wasn't as though she was pinched or drawn, a waif straying through the deserted streets. Oh no, the colour she had cultivated all summer remained fast in its hue, there was a twinkle in her eyes and her lips bulbed in deep crimson as she bustled about in the snow.
"She certainly does well on the winter", remarked the Baroness to her valet, as he geed up the horses to take the carriage down to the station. "Though I can't think what it is that does it."
"Neither can I", he replied, "neither can I."
Under the mountain wall life slowed to a silent slumber. The roofs that once caught the midday sun and turned the steep, narrow streets into baking ovens now lay under an ashen grey cloud of chimney smoke. The frost began to persist in the darker declivities of alleys and passageways, the only warmth came from the fires in the town’s overflowing bordellos; it is said, after all, that a man's chilled libido is fired only by lust.
Meanwhile the elegant Contessa stretched under her silken sheets as her maidservant, the orphan Isobelle, coaxed a damp and reluctant fire into life. Still weary from wine and waltzing at the final ball of the season, she drifted in and out of her tropical dreamscape until she picked out the flickering shadows of the flames on the bedroom wall.
The Contessa, refined and demure though she was, wished the winter and all its comrades would go to Hell. She'd looked on in a mixture of resentment and envy as her friends, Madame Lejeune and the dear Baroness de Provence, had slipped their icy moorings for the warmer climes of the Riviera. As always, they had thrust countless invitations her way.
"My darling Contessa, why do you always spend the winter in this dreary little place, alone and frozen. You know you are always welcome at our chateau, and Fabrizio would love to see you. He always says ..."
But they would notice how well, how fit and healthy she looked; how her skin shone with an unseasonal lustre and how resplendent her white gown appeared in the icy light. And it wasn't as though she was pinched or drawn, a waif straying through the deserted streets. Oh no, the colour she had cultivated all summer remained fast in its hue, there was a twinkle in her eyes and her lips bulbed in deep crimson as she bustled about in the snow.
"She certainly does well on the winter", remarked the Baroness to her valet, as he geed up the horses to take the carriage down to the station. "Though I can't think what it is that does it."
"Neither can I", he replied, "neither can I."