Deprivation- The Feast and the Famine

Chapter 16- A Tasty Arrangement

Philomela’s house grew, loomed, and swelled as the carriage approached.  Claudia’s stomach ate at itself seeing the horrible specter in the daylight.  She felt as though she gazed upon something obscene and that anyone else looking must inevitably see the same thing.  These things so lovely and blameless in the dark would shrivel and die in the condemning light.  

God understood she knew he did, but they did not.  Her eyes slid over across the empty seat beside her.  To come here in the daylight was a sacrilege that tempted fate.  How was she to say that she did not wish to take her lessons?  So she sat still on the seat, and she watched as the houses’ eyes saw her.

Eyes falling closed, she allowed herself to remember. Her stomach fluttered with the nervous butterflies of that night.  Though she had believed when she invited him that Bennett would come, sitting on the ground in the night she was no longer sure.

“You came,” Claudia said to the shadow that moved around the hedge and stepped into the gaping darkness at her side.  It was him because it could be no other.  She did not need sight to know her devil.  Feeling him so close, her body and mind woke and spun into a still, bright inaction.

“Did I have a choice?” Bennett asked.

Claudia’s eyes stared hungrily up at him though all she could see was a vague outline.  “There is always a choice.”

“A naked willing woman is not a choice.”

“Ah, but I am not just any woman.”  Claudia wrapped her arms around him. “I am willing whenever and wherever you decide.”

His hand was violent as it enmeshed in her hair and pulled her toward him. “What am I supposed to do with you? You come to me like an experienced lady of the night and tempt me with vulgar words, but you are just a girl. That night you came to my sister’s house, you had never lain with a man before that?”

“No, I am yours. Only and always yours.”

“Careful, I am not the gentleman your fiancée is. I use the things that are mine. I do not have his views of propriety nor enforce them by placing my belongings on a high shelf to avoid all earthly damage.”

“Use me, I believe I have been abundantly clear on that point. Even if you break me, I am yours to shatter.”

His mouth crushed hers and after a moment, the tight hold he had on her hair loosened and his other hand reached down to tear away the offending cloth around her neck.

Her teeth ground against each other as the carriage stopped, forcing her mind away from this memory.  Her hands shook, and she felt every little scratch she’d acquired climbing her trellis.  They pulsed, and doubtlessly they bled, cracking open at the sight of that fence and that garden.

She took the driver’s hand tentatively, unsure if he would feel her guilt through her gloves.  Maybe, he would see the night collide with day in her eyes and then he would know.  Only, just like every other day he did not meet her eyes. She did not enter his little world of concerns and cares.

And once he was out of sight, he no longer existed in hers.

A maid opened the door without even a knock to signal Claudia’s arrival. Philomela was playing upon the piano.  The sound was eerie and strange.  Never had Philomela played while alone.  She was not a being of music or had never seemed so to Claudia. But now the notes welled over her, crashed around her and brought her further onto alien soil.

This world only seemed like home, but it was not.  Soon the roof would break open, and the maw of some great unknown beast would drip its acid upon her before, gently almost playfully, its teeth would close around her.  For a girl is a great delicacy to a monster.  Or perhaps a shower of petals that smelled of summer and love would descend and bury her in their soft fold.  What wouldn’t happen, she was sure, was that she would enter the music room and take a music lesson.  

No one hurried Claudia or ushered her on.  This was another sign that she was not in the world she knew.  It did not take long for Claudia to decide the only thing to do was go on.  She could not run away.  So, she moved across the floors and entered the music room to find that, much as she suspected, nothing was as it should be.

Bennett sat at the piano.  His hands created line upon line of music.  It could not have been Philomela.  Philomela could never have played something so authentic.  Yet, Philomela was there.

She stood against the wall with her arms folded under her bust.  Her tight mouth seemed folded as well as her figure.  Her eyes were already on Claudia.  The air tightened as if Philomela’s gaze was strangling her.

“Off with both of you.  I’ve enough of this,” Philomela said with no prelude.  Her voice cut through the song, which somehow seemed to come to an end of its own accord at that very moment.

Claudia’s mouth opened, but nothing emerged.

“Claudia,” Bennett said.  He stood. He was different in the daylight, her memories of him didn’t seem to fit him, they were like a dress outgrown by a young girl. He was more than her memories now.

“The little fool does not understand.  Did you tell her nothing?”  Philomela said.

Bennett laughed.  Were his teeth rather sharp? It would only be fitting he was the devil.  Claudia clasped her hands at her heart.  “You are frightening her, Sister.”

“And you are damning her soul to the pits of hell, Brother, I think I harm her less.”

Bennett came and took Claudia’s hand.  It was to be Spring then, Spring and flowers.  Philomela could do nothing.  What could all her righteousness do against the devil?  

“She knows?” Claudia said, not because she needed the answer, but because she wanted to add her voice to the chorus of this strange world.  Perhaps, if she didn’t, she would wake and leave it behind.

“My sister is talented at keeping my secrets.”  Bennett smiled.  “I keep her nicely here, and all I ask in return is a little discretion. She feels slighted now, I believe because it pains her to watch a woman with any breeding have fun. She much prefers killing your soul one drudging note at a time.”

“So now I will learn to play only the music I like,” Claudia said.  “And, of course, whatever music you like.”

Philomela turned, loudly, though how someone could turn loudly confounded Claudia and left the room.  “May heaven be lenient with you both!”

Bennett placed his hand at an indecent place on her backside.  “Phil doesn’t want heaven to be gentle with either of us, you know.  Any punishment would be to light to please her.”

“We will have to make the pleasure of this world worth it.”  Claudia slid her hand over his chest.  It felt miraculous.  This feeling inside her could exist even in the light of day.  “For what it is worth, I do not think any punishment could be more than this is worth.”

“And I will strive to meet those expectations.”

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