Prologue
Diaphanous lavender twirled around Cynthia’s eyes, ecstatic in its uncambered freedom. It thawed her very soul, entering her eyes, her mouth, swift in its glorious embrace.
“Mary, Mary quite contrary. How does your garden grow? Does it bow under the lavenders like mine?”
‘A stunning poem, my dear. Pray enlighten me with more of your art,’ chuckled a smooth voice, crisp in its tenor like the whiskey she had downed an hour past. It’s citrusy tartness resting rogue upon her tongue, tantalizing in its vigor.
‘For sooth fair maiden, reveal thy eponymous face unto me, ‘she said, joy laced into every word.
‘I think you more deserving of this gracious title, ‘came the bemused reply as a lithe figure revealed itself from under the felicitous tapestry.
‘And I had thought you handsome, but now I find myself in the midst of grave error. Alas fair maiden is there no wondrous magic to correct my folly.’
‘I am afraid that the time has passed, but I shall endeavor to prove myself worthy of thy company, regardless of my cursed visage.’
‘Come,’ Cynthia said as she patted the embossed eiderdown she was perched at.
‘Sit, I am gentleman enough to offer a lady rest, regardless of her monstrous visage’.
‘Kind sir, you flatter me. I’ll surely ruin myself in your company,’ Matthew uttered as he fell on the eiderdown. Utterly graceless.
‘So, mysterious stranger how do you find yourself at Nottingales menage a trois.’
‘I believe you mistaken, …Miss.
‘Fie, such deviance, whatever has the world come to.’ she emphasized with a great fluttering of delicate hands, a petite cigar innocently thrown in her great enthusiasm.
Sublime hands rushed towards her wicked lips, to be met with fatal disappointment.
The cigar was gone.
‘Darling be a pet and fetch me another cigar, my throat is absolutely parched.’
He of course could not deny this beguiling creature such a simple request. Another cigar was out and ready in a second, trembling in sweet exhilaration at being graced with such divinity.
She leaned in languorously, seizing the offering between rosebud lips, her eyes locked firmly with his, stagnant green pools laden with promises. Their magnetism undeniable, everything and simultaneously nothing offered in one. The intensity was too much. He tried to look away, afraid of the ancient ravenous creature in his midst.
Damp air brushed against ear, hot against his skin, sulfuric in its felicity.
‘Run little lamb’
‘Run’
“Mary, Mary quite contrary. How does your garden grow? Does it bow under the lavenders like mine?”
‘A stunning poem, my dear. Pray enlighten me with more of your art,’ chuckled a smooth voice, crisp in its tenor like the whiskey she had downed an hour past. It’s citrusy tartness resting rogue upon her tongue, tantalizing in its vigor.
‘For sooth fair maiden, reveal thy eponymous face unto me, ‘she said, joy laced into every word.
‘I think you more deserving of this gracious title, ‘came the bemused reply as a lithe figure revealed itself from under the felicitous tapestry.
‘And I had thought you handsome, but now I find myself in the midst of grave error. Alas fair maiden is there no wondrous magic to correct my folly.’
‘I am afraid that the time has passed, but I shall endeavor to prove myself worthy of thy company, regardless of my cursed visage.’
‘Come,’ Cynthia said as she patted the embossed eiderdown she was perched at.
‘Sit, I am gentleman enough to offer a lady rest, regardless of her monstrous visage’.
‘Kind sir, you flatter me. I’ll surely ruin myself in your company,’ Matthew uttered as he fell on the eiderdown. Utterly graceless.
‘So, mysterious stranger how do you find yourself at Nottingales menage a trois.’
‘I believe you mistaken, …Miss.
‘Fie, such deviance, whatever has the world come to.’ she emphasized with a great fluttering of delicate hands, a petite cigar innocently thrown in her great enthusiasm.
Sublime hands rushed towards her wicked lips, to be met with fatal disappointment.
The cigar was gone.
‘Darling be a pet and fetch me another cigar, my throat is absolutely parched.’
He of course could not deny this beguiling creature such a simple request. Another cigar was out and ready in a second, trembling in sweet exhilaration at being graced with such divinity.
She leaned in languorously, seizing the offering between rosebud lips, her eyes locked firmly with his, stagnant green pools laden with promises. Their magnetism undeniable, everything and simultaneously nothing offered in one. The intensity was too much. He tried to look away, afraid of the ancient ravenous creature in his midst.
Damp air brushed against ear, hot against his skin, sulfuric in its felicity.
‘Run little lamb’
‘Run’
And so he ran.
A blood soaked smile laden with complacency.
After all the prey that ran was far more delicious than the docile, unmoving victim.
