CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
Got a bit confused about some characters, sorry about that!
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The Blood, Continuing where we left off with The Beasts
- Thread starter ChrisGibson
- Start date
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Well, there area lot of them.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
PART THREE
N I N E
MAINLY
ABOUT
WITCHES
AND
VAMPIRES
Beware therefore! Love all, lest perchance is a King concealed!
-The Book of the Law
Levy Berringer was in the back of a car. He was with his foster parents, Lewis Dunharrow, a witch, and Chris Ashby, his lover, who had killed Levy Berringer’s persecuter, his mother’s boyfriend, and then whisked him off in the middle of a winter night six days ago. Levy had received the news that he would be living with a witch and a vampire with, not stoicism, but a measured joy. His life before hadn’t been much to talk about. But almost as soon as he’d come to them, they’d had to leave to sort out something about werewolves that was too dangerous to take him into. So they had left him with vampires, and the vampires had left him with Dan Rawlinson. And then those vampires had decided to go to exactly the same place Lewis and Chris had gone and so Lewis and Chris had returned for him.
Levy had traveled on Dan Rawlinson’s back, through the sky, from Chicago to northwest Ohio in the space of five minutes. He hadn’t been there very long when an other gang of vampires, captained by Chris’s sister, had attacked them, but Levy had pushed them back with his power, only he didn’t know he had power, and Dan had killed Chris’s sister who would have been glad to kill him, who, Levy imagined, looking at the back of Chris’s head, must have been his foster aunt.
He had lived in the house of Kruinh up until the time when Loreal returned one night and said that Lewis was on his way. He had assumed he would live with Lewis, but wasn’t sure that it made any sense. After all, as he had said to Kruinh, he’d spent more time with the vampires, than he had with Lewis Dunharrow.
Lewis had something of the aspect of Kruinh about him. There was a simple grandeur to him. Even in jeans and a tee shirt with a flannel over it, and cracked glasses, he was something of a prince. He had taken with measured grace the cup of tea Sunny brought him, and Lewis said, “So you have a choice. You could come with me, or you could stay.”
Levy was surprised by the flat statement that he had a choice.
“Whatever you choose you will have an unconventional life.”
“Do you think they would keep me?”
“They would keep you,” Lewis said. “The only question is what kind of life you would have.”
He’d said it casually and Levy waited for an explanation which, at last, Lewis gave.
“You would live in a house full of vampires. They can’t help themselves, they have no real care for what the mortal world is like anymore. They wouldn’t make you go to school. You would haven’t to see anyone but them. You would be fit for nothing but living in a world of vampires. Only, you are not a vampire.”
“Do you think they would make me one?”
“Do you?”
When Levy didn’t answer, Lewis said, “The Gift is not given lightly, and it certainly isn’t given to children. Do you wish to be a vampire?”
“I wish to be me.”
Lewis nodded.
“And you are a witch?”
“Yes.”
“In a family of witches.”
“Yes.”
“So, if I were with you, I would be part of that family.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“You’d make me go to school?”
“Don’t you go already?’
“Most of the time. I don’t like it, though.
“I didn’t like it myself,” Lewis said. “And didn’t see much value in it. It does have some purposes. It educates. Sort of. And it socializes, Sort of. I would make sure you were schooled. You would have school. I’d make you get up every day and see people your age. Exactly how we’d handle that…” Lewis shrugged.
“But I am no vampire. You would not live in my house the way you would live here.”
“Is your house big?”
“My house is…”
And then Lewis sat up straighter. He cleared his throat.
“I’ve made a decision.”
Levy looked at him.
“It was my selfishness that told you you had a choice. You don’t have a choice. Neither of us does really. I am a middle aged Black man who is a witch and the head of a witch clan. You are a fatherless Black boy who happens to be a witch. Pack your bags. We’re going home.”
There were some very real concerns. Lewis Dunharrow had started his working life late, but when it had begun, after eighteen million years in graduate school, he was an adjunct who ended up, by processes stranger than magic, as a substitute teacher and a worker in a day care. Teaching little children was very different from teaching college students. Teaching was a matter of being. One morning, as he sat on the floor in nursery school, a litte white girl had made her crooked but intentional way toward him and climbed up onto him. Going to sleep.
“I am a lap.” he said simply. He was a lap, he was a shoulder. He was arms. He was an ear. And he was good at it. Lewis had never thought he was the type of person who would want childrten, and by the time that children were all around him he realized that, as much as he cared for them, in their littleness, and in their growing, and as much as he thought the idea of rearing a child would be wonderful, it simply meant that he have a very different life. He was single. He was poor, and he lived in a very very humble studio.
The truth was Lewis wanted a child eight hours a day. He had come to love his life with Chris, and did not want it turned into a nuclear family. In fact, it seemed almost a high jacking of their love to see it becomes this so quickly.
The night before Christmas, when Lewis had undergone the ritual to take back all of his lives, a process that reeled and bumped through him for some time, he had finally learned what Hindus and Buddhist were always yammering about when they talked about the ego. His ego was Lewis Dunharrow, aged forty-none-of-your-business-thank-you-very-much-and-definitely-not-fifty. But that Lewis crashed into the greater, longer lived whole of him, into Melek and Malachy and many others, stretching back and back and further back still. It was the greater Lewis that took Levy, not with a guilty feeling that he should, but with a certainty that he must.
As they traveled back to the hotel, Lewis told the boy. “I never planned to be a parent, and I will not be a conventional one. You don’t need a conventional parent anyway. The place we live in is far too small for all three of us. It’s barely large enough for two of us. I can’t move out of it just yet, anyway. The lease and all. You’re a family concern, and that’s a fact. With the Dunharrows it really does take a village. There’s a school I’ve looked at, and I always thought, if I had a child I would send him there. I think you’ll like it. But not just yet.”
“Huh?”
“See, you’ve fallen off the grid. kid. And at the moment we’ve got places to go, people to meet.”
“So, I’m coming with you?”
“Oh, Levy,” Lewis said. “From now on, I think it’s best we not be parted again.”
She stood before Laurie and came to him, Kissing him on both cheeks. When Dan had come in, before Laurie had seen them, he could see how boylike, boylike as Laurie had never been, Laurie was, his hand tenderly holding Loreal’s, his eyes full of her. But then, how could your eyes not be full of her? The scent of her hair that was candy and that was spice. That was like a flower, Dan settled on, yes a flower, because there was thyme in that hair and in that skin, the flesh of a twenty three year old that would one day be the flesh of a fifty year old, flesh that was not locked in time.
“You’re here!” Loreal fairly squealed, going and hugging Dan.
“Dan was not sure if he loved Loreal because Laurie did, or if he loved her on his own, and it didn’t really matter. There was no separating him and Laurie, at least not now,
“Does it ever end?” Dan had asked Chris.
“Not if you don’t want it to,” he said. “It doesn’t have to. Do you want it to?”
“No,” Dan said. “I’ve just … never felt like this before.”
“Neither has he,” Chris said. “Look at him.”
Laurie was in jeans and a sweatshirt that almost looked appropriate, joking and laughing and Chris said, “He was bound with me, but I’m not a fun person.”
Dan snorted.
“I think you’re pretty fun.”
Chris shrugged.
“But I am older, much older. When you were bound together, he became younger, gentler, happier. More like you. It’s a nice thing to see.”
But Dan, blood drinker that he was, was still not used to the feeling. He was happy, but stood aside from the happiness wondering at it. Since that first night after he had killed Evangeline and taken her blood, after he had fed from Kruinh and come back high on old blood, and he and Laurie had made love, things had changed for him. He had never thought of being with another man, not seriously, and from that night, all he thought about was making love to Laurie. All he thought about was the look of love in Laurie Malone’s dark eyes and what his older brother felt like leaning over him, kissing him tenderly. It was strange to feel this way, very strong, for they were strong, Laurie feeding on the ancient blood Dan had gained, and then Dan feeding on Laurie’s. Dan was immensely powerful as he had never been, but so vulnerable, so soft, so protected in Laurie’s arms.
He was still surprised by how he had given himself to another man, given himself to Laurie, and then Laurie had given himself to him. He was surprised by the entry where he never thought an entry would be. There was a wonder, a terror. Was he homophobic? Was everyone a little homophobic at core, and wasn’t this surrender, this being entered, worthy of a little fear?
But beyond all that, stranger than this, was Loreal.
Dan could not pretend to have ever, in his mortal life, have been in anything but a normal relationship. He knew that once he’d loved a girl and then that girl and a friend had ended up together and he had felt betrayed. There was nothing complicated in that and, indeed, Daniel Rawlinson thought this appropriate.
But Dan had known all about Loreal already, seen this girl, no this witch, in Laurie’s apartment in Chicago. Even teased Laurie about her, but the night he had come to Laurie, Loreal had not been on his mind, and all that night when he had been with Laurie, nothing else had been in his mind but being with him. In the morning, however, he had thought of her, and when he thought of her, he tried to think of her with pity, as the girl who had been cheated on. But that moment seemed false, and all he could think of was how lovely she was, see her the way Laurie saw her. He had no intentions of keeping Laurie or, if he did, no intention of keeping him from Loreal.
This had been explained to him before, the sharing that happened between two Drinkers, how sometimes it meant they were lovers in the usually sense, but sometimes it meant something else. This had been explained to him, yes, but he had never experienced it first hand. He needed to be with Laurie, but, no, that was not so. It was not like that young and codependent love.
When he was seven he’d been given a guitar, but by the time he was eleven, he knew it mattered, and he knew to make the having of it worthwhile, to understand it, for music to happen, his fingers and the guitar to become one, he must go back to it over and over, and this was how it was with Laurie, not some confusing guilt ridden thing, but something he was committed to. They had to go back to each other. In the day, in their conversations, gentle gestures and understandings of one another, and in the night, they had to sleep together and the more it happened, the more he loved Loreal.
“I have to meet her,” Dan had said in the dark. “I can’t just keep loving her through you, all three of us must meet. We have to get together.
And so had come the night when he had arrived at her room with Laurie, and though sometimes he could read the minds of mortals, her mind flowed into his and he saw himself the way she did, tall, dark complexioned, sexy, chocolate eyed and chocolate haired, a white guy who was half Arab with the desert dusk in his creamy skin.
Late into the night she had been making a fried chicken sandwich, and when she came back she sat in the chair across from them. At first Dan had been nervous, but she just kept eating while Laurie and he talked to each other and at each time, when Laurie had touched him, Dan had been slightly embarrassed. When Laurie brushed Dan’s hair from his face, Loreal said, as she put a kettle chip in her mouth, “I see it now. I get it.”
“What?” Dan almost looked stupid.
“You’re married.”
“We…” Dan began. “But…” Dan said, “No…”
“Yes,” Loreal said.
“It’s different with us, with blood drinkers. And—” Dan began.
“It may be a little different, but it’s not that different. Not for you,” Loreal said. “It’s plain to me the two of you must have always felt something for each other.”
“Well, that’s true,” Dan went on. “Because as blood drinkers we—”
“You and Laurie are married,” Loreal continued.
Dan didn’t know what to say. He frowned.
After a while he said, “You’re not angry.”
Loreal said, “They explained to me that you and Anne and Sunny are not old vampires. That Anne was an old woman, but you are a young mna. You’re actually not that much older than me,” Loreal said.
“Yeah,” Dan nodded, frowning, looking at her and wondering where she was going with this.
“So in a way everything happening to you is as strange to you as it is to me. But,” Loreal said, “It is happening. No doubt about that. I was never one to stop things that were happening from happening.”
MORE THURSDAY: TOMORROW NIGHT THE FAMILIES IN ROSSFORD
N I N E
MAINLY
ABOUT
WITCHES
AND
VAMPIRES
Beware therefore! Love all, lest perchance is a King concealed!
-The Book of the Law
Levy Berringer was in the back of a car. He was with his foster parents, Lewis Dunharrow, a witch, and Chris Ashby, his lover, who had killed Levy Berringer’s persecuter, his mother’s boyfriend, and then whisked him off in the middle of a winter night six days ago. Levy had received the news that he would be living with a witch and a vampire with, not stoicism, but a measured joy. His life before hadn’t been much to talk about. But almost as soon as he’d come to them, they’d had to leave to sort out something about werewolves that was too dangerous to take him into. So they had left him with vampires, and the vampires had left him with Dan Rawlinson. And then those vampires had decided to go to exactly the same place Lewis and Chris had gone and so Lewis and Chris had returned for him.
Levy had traveled on Dan Rawlinson’s back, through the sky, from Chicago to northwest Ohio in the space of five minutes. He hadn’t been there very long when an other gang of vampires, captained by Chris’s sister, had attacked them, but Levy had pushed them back with his power, only he didn’t know he had power, and Dan had killed Chris’s sister who would have been glad to kill him, who, Levy imagined, looking at the back of Chris’s head, must have been his foster aunt.
He had lived in the house of Kruinh up until the time when Loreal returned one night and said that Lewis was on his way. He had assumed he would live with Lewis, but wasn’t sure that it made any sense. After all, as he had said to Kruinh, he’d spent more time with the vampires, than he had with Lewis Dunharrow.
Lewis had something of the aspect of Kruinh about him. There was a simple grandeur to him. Even in jeans and a tee shirt with a flannel over it, and cracked glasses, he was something of a prince. He had taken with measured grace the cup of tea Sunny brought him, and Lewis said, “So you have a choice. You could come with me, or you could stay.”
Levy was surprised by the flat statement that he had a choice.
“Whatever you choose you will have an unconventional life.”
“Do you think they would keep me?”
“They would keep you,” Lewis said. “The only question is what kind of life you would have.”
He’d said it casually and Levy waited for an explanation which, at last, Lewis gave.
“You would live in a house full of vampires. They can’t help themselves, they have no real care for what the mortal world is like anymore. They wouldn’t make you go to school. You would haven’t to see anyone but them. You would be fit for nothing but living in a world of vampires. Only, you are not a vampire.”
“Do you think they would make me one?”
“Do you?”
When Levy didn’t answer, Lewis said, “The Gift is not given lightly, and it certainly isn’t given to children. Do you wish to be a vampire?”
“I wish to be me.”
Lewis nodded.
“And you are a witch?”
“Yes.”
“In a family of witches.”
“Yes.”
“So, if I were with you, I would be part of that family.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“You’d make me go to school?”
“Don’t you go already?’
“Most of the time. I don’t like it, though.
“I didn’t like it myself,” Lewis said. “And didn’t see much value in it. It does have some purposes. It educates. Sort of. And it socializes, Sort of. I would make sure you were schooled. You would have school. I’d make you get up every day and see people your age. Exactly how we’d handle that…” Lewis shrugged.
“But I am no vampire. You would not live in my house the way you would live here.”
“Is your house big?”
“My house is…”
And then Lewis sat up straighter. He cleared his throat.
“I’ve made a decision.”
Levy looked at him.
“It was my selfishness that told you you had a choice. You don’t have a choice. Neither of us does really. I am a middle aged Black man who is a witch and the head of a witch clan. You are a fatherless Black boy who happens to be a witch. Pack your bags. We’re going home.”
There were some very real concerns. Lewis Dunharrow had started his working life late, but when it had begun, after eighteen million years in graduate school, he was an adjunct who ended up, by processes stranger than magic, as a substitute teacher and a worker in a day care. Teaching little children was very different from teaching college students. Teaching was a matter of being. One morning, as he sat on the floor in nursery school, a litte white girl had made her crooked but intentional way toward him and climbed up onto him. Going to sleep.
“I am a lap.” he said simply. He was a lap, he was a shoulder. He was arms. He was an ear. And he was good at it. Lewis had never thought he was the type of person who would want childrten, and by the time that children were all around him he realized that, as much as he cared for them, in their littleness, and in their growing, and as much as he thought the idea of rearing a child would be wonderful, it simply meant that he have a very different life. He was single. He was poor, and he lived in a very very humble studio.
The truth was Lewis wanted a child eight hours a day. He had come to love his life with Chris, and did not want it turned into a nuclear family. In fact, it seemed almost a high jacking of their love to see it becomes this so quickly.
The night before Christmas, when Lewis had undergone the ritual to take back all of his lives, a process that reeled and bumped through him for some time, he had finally learned what Hindus and Buddhist were always yammering about when they talked about the ego. His ego was Lewis Dunharrow, aged forty-none-of-your-business-thank-you-very-much-and-definitely-not-fifty. But that Lewis crashed into the greater, longer lived whole of him, into Melek and Malachy and many others, stretching back and back and further back still. It was the greater Lewis that took Levy, not with a guilty feeling that he should, but with a certainty that he must.
As they traveled back to the hotel, Lewis told the boy. “I never planned to be a parent, and I will not be a conventional one. You don’t need a conventional parent anyway. The place we live in is far too small for all three of us. It’s barely large enough for two of us. I can’t move out of it just yet, anyway. The lease and all. You’re a family concern, and that’s a fact. With the Dunharrows it really does take a village. There’s a school I’ve looked at, and I always thought, if I had a child I would send him there. I think you’ll like it. But not just yet.”
“Huh?”
“See, you’ve fallen off the grid. kid. And at the moment we’ve got places to go, people to meet.”
“So, I’m coming with you?”
“Oh, Levy,” Lewis said. “From now on, I think it’s best we not be parted again.”
She stood before Laurie and came to him, Kissing him on both cheeks. When Dan had come in, before Laurie had seen them, he could see how boylike, boylike as Laurie had never been, Laurie was, his hand tenderly holding Loreal’s, his eyes full of her. But then, how could your eyes not be full of her? The scent of her hair that was candy and that was spice. That was like a flower, Dan settled on, yes a flower, because there was thyme in that hair and in that skin, the flesh of a twenty three year old that would one day be the flesh of a fifty year old, flesh that was not locked in time.
“You’re here!” Loreal fairly squealed, going and hugging Dan.
“Dan was not sure if he loved Loreal because Laurie did, or if he loved her on his own, and it didn’t really matter. There was no separating him and Laurie, at least not now,
“Does it ever end?” Dan had asked Chris.
“Not if you don’t want it to,” he said. “It doesn’t have to. Do you want it to?”
“No,” Dan said. “I’ve just … never felt like this before.”
“Neither has he,” Chris said. “Look at him.”
Laurie was in jeans and a sweatshirt that almost looked appropriate, joking and laughing and Chris said, “He was bound with me, but I’m not a fun person.”
Dan snorted.
“I think you’re pretty fun.”
Chris shrugged.
“But I am older, much older. When you were bound together, he became younger, gentler, happier. More like you. It’s a nice thing to see.”
But Dan, blood drinker that he was, was still not used to the feeling. He was happy, but stood aside from the happiness wondering at it. Since that first night after he had killed Evangeline and taken her blood, after he had fed from Kruinh and come back high on old blood, and he and Laurie had made love, things had changed for him. He had never thought of being with another man, not seriously, and from that night, all he thought about was making love to Laurie. All he thought about was the look of love in Laurie Malone’s dark eyes and what his older brother felt like leaning over him, kissing him tenderly. It was strange to feel this way, very strong, for they were strong, Laurie feeding on the ancient blood Dan had gained, and then Dan feeding on Laurie’s. Dan was immensely powerful as he had never been, but so vulnerable, so soft, so protected in Laurie’s arms.
He was still surprised by how he had given himself to another man, given himself to Laurie, and then Laurie had given himself to him. He was surprised by the entry where he never thought an entry would be. There was a wonder, a terror. Was he homophobic? Was everyone a little homophobic at core, and wasn’t this surrender, this being entered, worthy of a little fear?
But beyond all that, stranger than this, was Loreal.
Dan could not pretend to have ever, in his mortal life, have been in anything but a normal relationship. He knew that once he’d loved a girl and then that girl and a friend had ended up together and he had felt betrayed. There was nothing complicated in that and, indeed, Daniel Rawlinson thought this appropriate.
But Dan had known all about Loreal already, seen this girl, no this witch, in Laurie’s apartment in Chicago. Even teased Laurie about her, but the night he had come to Laurie, Loreal had not been on his mind, and all that night when he had been with Laurie, nothing else had been in his mind but being with him. In the morning, however, he had thought of her, and when he thought of her, he tried to think of her with pity, as the girl who had been cheated on. But that moment seemed false, and all he could think of was how lovely she was, see her the way Laurie saw her. He had no intentions of keeping Laurie or, if he did, no intention of keeping him from Loreal.
This had been explained to him before, the sharing that happened between two Drinkers, how sometimes it meant they were lovers in the usually sense, but sometimes it meant something else. This had been explained to him, yes, but he had never experienced it first hand. He needed to be with Laurie, but, no, that was not so. It was not like that young and codependent love.
When he was seven he’d been given a guitar, but by the time he was eleven, he knew it mattered, and he knew to make the having of it worthwhile, to understand it, for music to happen, his fingers and the guitar to become one, he must go back to it over and over, and this was how it was with Laurie, not some confusing guilt ridden thing, but something he was committed to. They had to go back to each other. In the day, in their conversations, gentle gestures and understandings of one another, and in the night, they had to sleep together and the more it happened, the more he loved Loreal.
“I have to meet her,” Dan had said in the dark. “I can’t just keep loving her through you, all three of us must meet. We have to get together.
And so had come the night when he had arrived at her room with Laurie, and though sometimes he could read the minds of mortals, her mind flowed into his and he saw himself the way she did, tall, dark complexioned, sexy, chocolate eyed and chocolate haired, a white guy who was half Arab with the desert dusk in his creamy skin.
Late into the night she had been making a fried chicken sandwich, and when she came back she sat in the chair across from them. At first Dan had been nervous, but she just kept eating while Laurie and he talked to each other and at each time, when Laurie had touched him, Dan had been slightly embarrassed. When Laurie brushed Dan’s hair from his face, Loreal said, as she put a kettle chip in her mouth, “I see it now. I get it.”
“What?” Dan almost looked stupid.
“You’re married.”
“We…” Dan began. “But…” Dan said, “No…”
“Yes,” Loreal said.
“It’s different with us, with blood drinkers. And—” Dan began.
“It may be a little different, but it’s not that different. Not for you,” Loreal said. “It’s plain to me the two of you must have always felt something for each other.”
“Well, that’s true,” Dan went on. “Because as blood drinkers we—”
“You and Laurie are married,” Loreal continued.
Dan didn’t know what to say. He frowned.
After a while he said, “You’re not angry.”
Loreal said, “They explained to me that you and Anne and Sunny are not old vampires. That Anne was an old woman, but you are a young mna. You’re actually not that much older than me,” Loreal said.
“Yeah,” Dan nodded, frowning, looking at her and wondering where she was going with this.
“So in a way everything happening to you is as strange to you as it is to me. But,” Loreal said, “It is happening. No doubt about that. I was never one to stop things that were happening from happening.”
MORE THURSDAY: TOMORROW NIGHT THE FAMILIES IN ROSSFORD
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
That was a great portion! I am glad Levy has a home he feels good about being in now. The Dan and Loreal dynamic is interesting. I hope they can get on for Laurie's sake. Excellent writing and I look forward to more of this story in a few days and Rossford tomorrow!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Personally I'm more concerned about Loreal's sake than Laurie's, and it's been a while since we've sat down with young Levy,so it was good to get back to him. We'll check back in with our friends the Dunharrows in a few days. Until then, have a great day.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
TONIGHT: A LITTLE BIT OF LOREAL, LAURIE AND DAN BUT MOST WEREWOLVES AND MOSTLY THE SHOCKING, SHOCKING JOURNAL OF PAMELA STRAUSS
That night, Laurie gently slugged Dan on the cheek, and he looked so sweet with his mildly monkey face and his sticky out ears.. His dark eyes were mellow.
“Get your guitar our like we were before.”
Dan went to get his and Laurie got his and Loreal said, “You play a guitar?
Or maybe, somehow, being with Dan had made him able to play it.
“I used to,” Laurie said. “Back in one of the wars. With my mates. And I loved it. And then I stopped it.”
So, Loreal thought, it was somewhere between what she had thought and what he had said. Most likely, she thought, as Dan began to strum, being with Dan had reawakened a gift Laurie, who never took vacations and always wore fitted suits and good cologne, had put away.
Dan began:
“If you're travelin' in the north country fair
Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine.”
And she was surprised when Laurie began to sing, when the two of them, leaning over their guitars looking into each other, and then to her, traded lines.
“If you go when the snowflakes storm
When the rivers freeze and summer ends
Please see if she's wearing a coat so warm
To keep her from the howlin' winds…”
“But I have not been honest,” Loreal said when they were together and Dan was gone.
“You’re always honest,” Laurie said.
She stood before him and held his face in her hands.
“I said I was never one to stop things from happening. But I did. I have.”
“Whaddo you—?” Laurie began.
She pulled his face to her and kissed him. She held his shocked face until he hungrily kissed her. Her hand did not rise to his face. It slipped down to his thin trousers and cupped him. He moaned low and she stroked him, feeling him grow thick and large in her hands, feeling him rise.
Please see for me if her hair hangs long
If it rolls and flows all down her breast
Please see for me if her hair hangs long
For that's the way I remember her best
“Are you…?” he began
Light, and free, young and proud of all she had to offer, she lifted up her dress and
let it fall to the floor. He looked on her, transfixed, and then she reached for his pants and unbuttoned them. She pulled them down, while he unbuttoned his shirt.
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine
As his heart thumped against his chest, and she pulled his black briefs from him, letting his cock spring out like a diving board, she said, “I have never been more sure.”
A true love of mine…
He had thought of calling Marabeth. She had simply told Jim, “Tonight, when you read, you’re going to find some interesting stuff.”
And Marabeth never put irony into her voice when she said the word “interesting.” Jim Strauss just knew that when she used certain words she meant certain things, and from what he had already read, he understood what was about to come.”
THE BOOK OF PAMELA STRAUSS
WHEN THE WAR BEGAN, there was a tenseness that settled over us. No one said anything, but we all drew together. Germantown consisted of many different people, the Catholics, the Lutherans and yes, the Jews, not to mention the black population that spanned us and the area some called Little Hungary. We waited and often Mr. Keller And Friederich spent nights in the large living rooms of the house on Dimler or the house on Williams, loading their guns, and calling their sons and the men who worked for them to form into mini militias.
But the riots did not come. The police came. The government came. They took the Grubers and Schweitzers away. They took the first generation families and I wondered if they would try and take us. I was not worried for myself and certainly not for Friederich, though he was no longer young. But what if they tried to take Claire or Maris or Jimmy? And now that we had found what we were politely calling “the medicine” for Jimmy, what if he should get off of that, be separated from it? What untold horrors could happen?
But as usual, I need never have worried about the things I feared, and the things worth worrying about, I could never have foreseen.
I had begun observing my brother and Steiger, and in the house they made movements and gestures, strange, but familiar, as if they were playing at joining the military. When, one night, Friederich made some comment about both the boys being more orderly, I assumed that this meant they truly were headed for the military, after all, they were going off to secret meetings and returning with a mixture of giddiness and manly pride I had never seen. One night, after they had left, I looked down from my window and decided to follow them.
I went up Dimler, then turned down Hull, which used to be Holstein and which people in the neighborhood had begun calling Holstein again no matter what the street sign said, and then, in the shadow of Saint Ursula, reaching Noble Street, I saw that there were others, mostly very young men, going into Youth Hall. It wasn’t a place for women and certainly not middle aged, as you would call it now, women, so I’d had no use for it. But with caution and an invisibility taught to me by Frau Inga and helped by Augustus, I made my way scross the street and to the side of the building, climbing onto a crate to look into the windows, and feeling foolish.
Deutschland, wach auf aus deinem Albtraum!
Nein, der Ort für fremde Juden in deinem Königreich!
Wir wollen für deine Auferstehung kämpfen!
Arisches Blut wird nicht zugrunde gehen!
Zu all diesen Heuchlern werfen wir sie aus,
Juda: verlasse unser deutsches Haus!
Wenn das Terroir gelöscht und sauber ist,
wir werden vereint und glücklich sein!
Wir sind die NSDAP-Kämpfer
fällt deutsch im Herzen
im festen und hartnäckigen Kampf.
Wir haben uns dem Hakenkreuz geweiht.
Sei gegrüßt, unser Fahrer: Heil Hitler!
Now, it was German, my Marabeth, but you do not have to be German to understand what was being said, and as these boys, for they were boys, removed their coats, they were all wearing red armbands with that nasty little symbol the chancellor in Germany loved so much. I had seen them before, to be sure, we all had, and there were Jimmy and Steiger, singing away, in German, though I will translate:
Germany awaken from your evil dream!
Do not give room to foreign Jews in your kingdom!
We want to fight for your resurrection!
Aryan blood should not be lost!
All these hypocrites, we throw them out,
Judah escapes from our German house!
Once the floe is cleared and clean,
we will be united and happy!
We are the fighters of the NSDAP
oath of loyalty in the heart, firm in the fight and tough.
We surrender to the swastika.
Hail our guide, Heil Hitler!
I had counted on Jimmy being weak. I had counted on him being frail. I had counted on him being, yes, a werewolf. And I had counted on being able to cure it. I had not counted on my little brother being a Nazi.
TELLING FRIEDERICH can only make it worse. The truth is, I have no idea what the old man would say. So Jimmy goes on with his meetings, but I am more troubled by Steiger. After all, Jimmy was always a fool, but that Steiger should fall in with him about this is a source, almost of anger to me. And then there was the hypocrisy of it all, and I do not claim to be any sort of saint, but the Nazis hated everyone. They hated the Blacks they had never met as much as they hated the Jews, and I, in my own way, had come to have a great love and reverence, for Augustus Dunharrow, the man hwo had taught me so much, and for the people from whom he came. Like many a white person in that time, while Jimmy and Steiger openly espoused what in this time is called racism but in those days was just the order of things, they went together to the jazz clubs, sneaking in and out of parties on the other side of Main Street where most of the Negroes lived.
They were always together.
The war seemed as if it would never end. At first we hoped it would be over in a matter of months, but it continued, and by 1944, Jimmy and Steiger were both talking about joining the army. Maris and Claire were weeping at the table every night because the Keller brothers, their sweethearts, had gone off to fight. We all had it in our heads that no one we knew would be harmed, but then Abel Steiglitz’s son was shot down in France, and we began to walk more carefully, be a little more brittle, light more candles at church.
And speaking of candles, and of church, 1944 was the year that Forger’s Row caught fire. It isn’t far from the river, and now it is a lovely neighborhood with large stylish houses, but back then it was rows of old factories, and many of them had been coopted for the making of ammunitions. It was surrounded by tenements, and the fire blazed for days. But it was not only the tenements and factories which exploded and painted the sky red. Old Saint Patrick’s Cathedral burned, exploded and collapsed in on itself.
Instantly the diocese was in an uproar. What would they do? There was no money to rebuilt Saint Pat’s. They would have to name an extant church, and so the Polish suggested their Saint Stanislaus, and the Irish suggested another one of their churches, Saint Mary’s. This was promptly shot down, though it was more a matter of racial politics than anything. Saint Mary’s, in all honesty, would have been the best church. The Italians suggested Saint Francis and we put up Saint Urusla’s while, the Blacks never even suggested Saint Agatha. Sometimes I feel it was because they knew politics was against them but other times I think, especially since the power of the Dunaharrows was behind that church, that they simply wanted Agatha to remain theirs. The rest of us did not have as much sense, and the debate went on for not as long as you might think. The bishop was a cousin of the Dashbachs, and he had grown up in the northern part of Germantown, closes to downtown. Before the year was over, it was declared that Saint Ursula would be the new cathedral and later, after the war, they would build a new church.
That never happened.
Saint Ursula was beautiful, but in a way also far from my mind and, at any road, Saint Agnes had come to mean more to me, so as excited as my younger sisters were about the event, my mind turned to other things. It was one day while I was in the house and thinking I was alone, that I pricked my ears, listening to the settling of floorboards. But, no, not the settling of floorboards at all. Something else. A sighing. I rose and I felt the settling of age in my hips. This wasn’t the first time. I was not young anymore. Slipping off my shoes, I went out of my room, and slid down the darkened hallway. It was late afternoon, and I heard sighing and moaning, and I knew, but did not know what I heard. I knew the sound, but did not know how it could be. There were only so many people in the house. For a moment I thought of how, years ago, there had been servants in the empty top floor, and how those days were gone. But today, the top floor was not empty, and so I went up. Perhaps lust was in me, and coming down the hall, I quietly pushed open the door of the room nearest the little kitchenette.
My eyes observed it all, bodies writhing together, twisting, striving, hands in hair, kissing rubbing, sighing in the dim pale light of the dying day. I stood there and watched in mingled pleasure and horror as they grasped each other, making love, as Jimmy’s hands were like claws on Steiger’s back, as Steiger rose up and tried to be quiet while he stifled his orgasm. They were lovers. I imagined they always had been.
Heart racing I turned away and pressed my back to the all, listening to them whisper, listening to the bed creak as their bodies shifted. Now, I have seen many things, and as I grow older and the world changes, I see in our own neighborhood men and men, women and women, happy. But I now know what the ancient fear was, what the hatred has been. For I felt a very simple fear at that moment. If they continued on this way, then the Strauss line would die. So I resolved to find a way to cure Jimmy of Steiger, to take Steiger from his friend as quickly as possible. It would require my greatest magic, and up until then, my greatest sacrifice.
Jim stopped reading.
He had stopped several times before, but the truth was he didn’t know any of these people. Pamela had been old and almost dead when he was just a little boy. He had never known his grandfather Jimmy ,and certainly Friederich was nothing more than a picture on the wall. But here, this was his grandfather. This was saintly old Steiger Frey, and Pamela was saying… well, first that he had been a Nazi.
Jim turned in bed and saw Seth sleeping beside him, curled up close, and he wanted to snuggle back down into the covers with him, only he knew if he tried it, he’d have no real sleep. His grandfather had been a Nazi. Oh, well, then, he had only been a boy. People changed. And, yes, the real Nazis who had done the damage had been in Germany. He knew that there were eugenicists and Nazis in America, that a lot of good hearted white people had been perfectly fine with shit like that. But that he was related to such good hearted white people, that his own grandfather, whom he loved, had believed this…
And fighting with that, also the revelation… Steiger was… My grandfather was my other grandad’s… boyfriend? They were lovers?
What happened?”
Jim had never told his grandfather or his grandmother Natalie for that matter about his sexuality. It was something more or less known but never stated. But that years ago, before he had had been born, his grandfathers had been lovers, and everyone just called them best friends…
Jim cleared his throat and pushed his brass rimmed spectacles up his nose. He got closer under the lamp and further from Seth, though he longed to touch him.
“Grandad was gay.”
Then, Jim almost hit himself.
“Grandad IS gay.”
He took a breath and turned back ot the book.
“That’s really the only reason I’m reading this shit.”
Steiger stayed at the house so often, and always in Jimmy’s room. Never had we questioned it. Now, at night, I came into their room while they slept, naked, lithe, beautiful truly, Steiger was curled up in Jimmy’s arm and I thought how fair he was, how, in some ways, he was a much more fitting heir to the family Strauss than my brother who I now had to protect. Leaning down, while they barely stirred breathed so gently, with silver sheers I cut a bit of Steiger’s hair. I had given them strong wine and I pricked him with a needle. It hurt me to prick him, He winced a little in his sleep. I wiped up his blood with the tip of my finger and mixed it with the hair before moving out of the room.
The next morning I came into the dining room and said, “Father I need a word with you.”
The way I stood at the door, Friederich knew this was a private matter and he looked at Katherine, her blond hair long greyed, and at my sisters, and said, “Leave.”
They said nothing, not even Katherine, and as they left he commanded, “Close the doors behind you.”
The glass French doors were pulled close and Freiderich said, “What is it, Pamela?”
“Jimmy is weak.”
“He was always weak. We should drown him and adopt Steiger.”
He barked out a laugh, but I knew he wasn’t entirely joking.
“I want to bring him a woman.”
“A woman? A whore?”
“He won’t know what to do with Natalie unless he’s with a woman.”
“Ah,” Friederich leaned back in his chair smirking at me. I wondered was he angry because I was no longer in his bed, because I had moved so far away from him in these last years.
“But you know I am right,” I said.
“So you would bring my son a whore?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
It was after nine o clock, and Katherine and the girls had gone to bed. This was when I brought her. She was an American, dark haired, a little too plump, with that displeasing accent my sisters had, and I brought her upstairs to my room first.
“We should talk about what I charge,” she said.,
“No,” I said, turning away from her to go to my dresser. “We won’t do that. You will take this.”
I handed her money.
“More than you’ve ever seen, and you will leave these clothes and that perfume and take mine.”
She did not argue. I left her in the room to change, and when she was gone I began the magic. I had learned some things from Augustus and some from Inga. There is some work which only a true witch can do, and then there are things which those with witch blood can always do, even if their training is small. And then there are even those things which one with no gift can do it only they listen. Augustus had told me there were many times when he had to be someone else. He told me that, as I was by my nature a shapechanger, this spell would be easy for me.
“Now your family turns to wolves, but of old you were simply changers. All changers could change to anything.”
I easily became the wolf, but whatever I might be able to change into or not, with some skill, at last, I looked in the mirror and saw, in place of a fifty year old woman who had once been beautiful, a twenty something year old plump prostitute smelling of rich cologne and wearing too much rouge. It was in this guise that I went down the hall. Steiger had stayed at home this night. I had told Jimmy a surprise was coming. I tapped on the door and his thin voice called, “Steiger.”
But I opened the door and he said, “Excuse me. Who are you, ma’am?”
“Your father sent me,” the whore said. I said.
“My…” Jimmy’s voice croaked
I closed the door behind me. I set the lock. He kept a night lantern and I turned it to the lowest light. He still sat on the bed, paralyzed with fear and perhaps something else. Out from the opening of his pajamas, his penis rose. He must not have even known he was erect. I knelt, and pushed the fabric of his pajamas away from it.
“Ma’am… his voice was still thin and a little desperate. I could feel his heart pounding against his chest. “What are you doing?”
I bent down quickly, choosing not to think, and took my young brother’s cock in my mouth, sending him into rapture. He stifled his pleasure or fear or both. I could feel his body tensing as I moved up and down on him. Soon, much too soon, there was a hot shower of his semen in my mouth. I swallowed it and was surprised by my pleasure, by my own excitement. Could it be that I had wanted to do this?”
“Undress me.” I commanded.
Jimmy did so, and then buried his face in my breast, sucking on my nipples like a young wolf cub. Though he had already spent himself, quickly he was erect again. I opened my legs and he buried himself in my, fucking me savagely, with no tenderness, sweat running down his frail, sixteen year old body. I had never know this, how I had wanted to be battered by this frail boy, this boy I considered so unworthy, Friederich’s son, and in some ways, Hagano’s too, the newest generation of their family. We both screamed as he came, my arms purpled with the bruises of his fingertips. That night we slept together exhausted, and early in the morning I crawled out of that bed, redressed and crept back to my room. My cunt ached. After the celibacy, after no longer feeling beautiful, after, in truth, never having been with a young man, not even when I was young, my cunt ached for Jimmy again, and I knew I would go to him, not simply for his good, whatever that meant, but for my pleasure.
“Jim?” Seth stretched and looked up, concerned at Jim, who was sitting in the chair on the other side of the room, the lamp above fully on him.
“I didn’t want to wake you so I just moved into the chair.”
Seth stretched, turned over and said, good Lord, it’s so… do you have any idea what time it is?”
“No,” Jim said, yawning. “And my eyes hurt, but I just can’t stop. Not yet.”
“What have you learned about your family?”
“That we’re a sick bunch of fucks.”
“Well,” Seth said after some consideration, “I imagine that’s what everyone learns about their family somewhere down the line.”
“My great aunt had sex with her father.”
“Oh,” Seth said, distastefully. he lay on his side and scrunching up like a child, shuddered.
“And apparently she slept with my grandfather Jimmy, Marabeth and Kris’s granddad. She slept with him because he was gay and she wanted to make him straight.”
“That is the very opposite of conversation therapy,” Seth observed, and suddenly James laughed, and then Seth began laughing, and then Jim laughed harder and then they were both laughing and, at last, Seth said, “But how did your aunt… Pamela?”
“Yes?”
“How did she know your grandfather was gay?”
“Oh. Because she found him in bed with my other grandfather.”
LATER ON: PERHAPS EVEN WELL AFTER MIDNIGHT: MORE OF ROSSFORD
That night, Laurie gently slugged Dan on the cheek, and he looked so sweet with his mildly monkey face and his sticky out ears.. His dark eyes were mellow.
“Get your guitar our like we were before.”
Dan went to get his and Laurie got his and Loreal said, “You play a guitar?
Or maybe, somehow, being with Dan had made him able to play it.
“I used to,” Laurie said. “Back in one of the wars. With my mates. And I loved it. And then I stopped it.”
So, Loreal thought, it was somewhere between what she had thought and what he had said. Most likely, she thought, as Dan began to strum, being with Dan had reawakened a gift Laurie, who never took vacations and always wore fitted suits and good cologne, had put away.
Dan began:
“If you're travelin' in the north country fair
Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine.”
And she was surprised when Laurie began to sing, when the two of them, leaning over their guitars looking into each other, and then to her, traded lines.
“If you go when the snowflakes storm
When the rivers freeze and summer ends
Please see if she's wearing a coat so warm
To keep her from the howlin' winds…”
“But I have not been honest,” Loreal said when they were together and Dan was gone.
“You’re always honest,” Laurie said.
She stood before him and held his face in her hands.
“I said I was never one to stop things from happening. But I did. I have.”
“Whaddo you—?” Laurie began.
She pulled his face to her and kissed him. She held his shocked face until he hungrily kissed her. Her hand did not rise to his face. It slipped down to his thin trousers and cupped him. He moaned low and she stroked him, feeling him grow thick and large in her hands, feeling him rise.
Please see for me if her hair hangs long
If it rolls and flows all down her breast
Please see for me if her hair hangs long
For that's the way I remember her best
“Are you…?” he began
Light, and free, young and proud of all she had to offer, she lifted up her dress and
let it fall to the floor. He looked on her, transfixed, and then she reached for his pants and unbuttoned them. She pulled them down, while he unbuttoned his shirt.
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine
As his heart thumped against his chest, and she pulled his black briefs from him, letting his cock spring out like a diving board, she said, “I have never been more sure.”
A true love of mine…
He had thought of calling Marabeth. She had simply told Jim, “Tonight, when you read, you’re going to find some interesting stuff.”
And Marabeth never put irony into her voice when she said the word “interesting.” Jim Strauss just knew that when she used certain words she meant certain things, and from what he had already read, he understood what was about to come.”
THE BOOK OF PAMELA STRAUSS
WHEN THE WAR BEGAN, there was a tenseness that settled over us. No one said anything, but we all drew together. Germantown consisted of many different people, the Catholics, the Lutherans and yes, the Jews, not to mention the black population that spanned us and the area some called Little Hungary. We waited and often Mr. Keller And Friederich spent nights in the large living rooms of the house on Dimler or the house on Williams, loading their guns, and calling their sons and the men who worked for them to form into mini militias.
But the riots did not come. The police came. The government came. They took the Grubers and Schweitzers away. They took the first generation families and I wondered if they would try and take us. I was not worried for myself and certainly not for Friederich, though he was no longer young. But what if they tried to take Claire or Maris or Jimmy? And now that we had found what we were politely calling “the medicine” for Jimmy, what if he should get off of that, be separated from it? What untold horrors could happen?
But as usual, I need never have worried about the things I feared, and the things worth worrying about, I could never have foreseen.
I had begun observing my brother and Steiger, and in the house they made movements and gestures, strange, but familiar, as if they were playing at joining the military. When, one night, Friederich made some comment about both the boys being more orderly, I assumed that this meant they truly were headed for the military, after all, they were going off to secret meetings and returning with a mixture of giddiness and manly pride I had never seen. One night, after they had left, I looked down from my window and decided to follow them.
I went up Dimler, then turned down Hull, which used to be Holstein and which people in the neighborhood had begun calling Holstein again no matter what the street sign said, and then, in the shadow of Saint Ursula, reaching Noble Street, I saw that there were others, mostly very young men, going into Youth Hall. It wasn’t a place for women and certainly not middle aged, as you would call it now, women, so I’d had no use for it. But with caution and an invisibility taught to me by Frau Inga and helped by Augustus, I made my way scross the street and to the side of the building, climbing onto a crate to look into the windows, and feeling foolish.
Deutschland, wach auf aus deinem Albtraum!
Nein, der Ort für fremde Juden in deinem Königreich!
Wir wollen für deine Auferstehung kämpfen!
Arisches Blut wird nicht zugrunde gehen!
Zu all diesen Heuchlern werfen wir sie aus,
Juda: verlasse unser deutsches Haus!
Wenn das Terroir gelöscht und sauber ist,
wir werden vereint und glücklich sein!
Wir sind die NSDAP-Kämpfer
fällt deutsch im Herzen
im festen und hartnäckigen Kampf.
Wir haben uns dem Hakenkreuz geweiht.
Sei gegrüßt, unser Fahrer: Heil Hitler!
Now, it was German, my Marabeth, but you do not have to be German to understand what was being said, and as these boys, for they were boys, removed their coats, they were all wearing red armbands with that nasty little symbol the chancellor in Germany loved so much. I had seen them before, to be sure, we all had, and there were Jimmy and Steiger, singing away, in German, though I will translate:
Germany awaken from your evil dream!
Do not give room to foreign Jews in your kingdom!
We want to fight for your resurrection!
Aryan blood should not be lost!
All these hypocrites, we throw them out,
Judah escapes from our German house!
Once the floe is cleared and clean,
we will be united and happy!
We are the fighters of the NSDAP
oath of loyalty in the heart, firm in the fight and tough.
We surrender to the swastika.
Hail our guide, Heil Hitler!
I had counted on Jimmy being weak. I had counted on him being frail. I had counted on him being, yes, a werewolf. And I had counted on being able to cure it. I had not counted on my little brother being a Nazi.
TELLING FRIEDERICH can only make it worse. The truth is, I have no idea what the old man would say. So Jimmy goes on with his meetings, but I am more troubled by Steiger. After all, Jimmy was always a fool, but that Steiger should fall in with him about this is a source, almost of anger to me. And then there was the hypocrisy of it all, and I do not claim to be any sort of saint, but the Nazis hated everyone. They hated the Blacks they had never met as much as they hated the Jews, and I, in my own way, had come to have a great love and reverence, for Augustus Dunharrow, the man hwo had taught me so much, and for the people from whom he came. Like many a white person in that time, while Jimmy and Steiger openly espoused what in this time is called racism but in those days was just the order of things, they went together to the jazz clubs, sneaking in and out of parties on the other side of Main Street where most of the Negroes lived.
They were always together.
The war seemed as if it would never end. At first we hoped it would be over in a matter of months, but it continued, and by 1944, Jimmy and Steiger were both talking about joining the army. Maris and Claire were weeping at the table every night because the Keller brothers, their sweethearts, had gone off to fight. We all had it in our heads that no one we knew would be harmed, but then Abel Steiglitz’s son was shot down in France, and we began to walk more carefully, be a little more brittle, light more candles at church.
And speaking of candles, and of church, 1944 was the year that Forger’s Row caught fire. It isn’t far from the river, and now it is a lovely neighborhood with large stylish houses, but back then it was rows of old factories, and many of them had been coopted for the making of ammunitions. It was surrounded by tenements, and the fire blazed for days. But it was not only the tenements and factories which exploded and painted the sky red. Old Saint Patrick’s Cathedral burned, exploded and collapsed in on itself.
Instantly the diocese was in an uproar. What would they do? There was no money to rebuilt Saint Pat’s. They would have to name an extant church, and so the Polish suggested their Saint Stanislaus, and the Irish suggested another one of their churches, Saint Mary’s. This was promptly shot down, though it was more a matter of racial politics than anything. Saint Mary’s, in all honesty, would have been the best church. The Italians suggested Saint Francis and we put up Saint Urusla’s while, the Blacks never even suggested Saint Agatha. Sometimes I feel it was because they knew politics was against them but other times I think, especially since the power of the Dunaharrows was behind that church, that they simply wanted Agatha to remain theirs. The rest of us did not have as much sense, and the debate went on for not as long as you might think. The bishop was a cousin of the Dashbachs, and he had grown up in the northern part of Germantown, closes to downtown. Before the year was over, it was declared that Saint Ursula would be the new cathedral and later, after the war, they would build a new church.
That never happened.
Saint Ursula was beautiful, but in a way also far from my mind and, at any road, Saint Agnes had come to mean more to me, so as excited as my younger sisters were about the event, my mind turned to other things. It was one day while I was in the house and thinking I was alone, that I pricked my ears, listening to the settling of floorboards. But, no, not the settling of floorboards at all. Something else. A sighing. I rose and I felt the settling of age in my hips. This wasn’t the first time. I was not young anymore. Slipping off my shoes, I went out of my room, and slid down the darkened hallway. It was late afternoon, and I heard sighing and moaning, and I knew, but did not know what I heard. I knew the sound, but did not know how it could be. There were only so many people in the house. For a moment I thought of how, years ago, there had been servants in the empty top floor, and how those days were gone. But today, the top floor was not empty, and so I went up. Perhaps lust was in me, and coming down the hall, I quietly pushed open the door of the room nearest the little kitchenette.
My eyes observed it all, bodies writhing together, twisting, striving, hands in hair, kissing rubbing, sighing in the dim pale light of the dying day. I stood there and watched in mingled pleasure and horror as they grasped each other, making love, as Jimmy’s hands were like claws on Steiger’s back, as Steiger rose up and tried to be quiet while he stifled his orgasm. They were lovers. I imagined they always had been.
Heart racing I turned away and pressed my back to the all, listening to them whisper, listening to the bed creak as their bodies shifted. Now, I have seen many things, and as I grow older and the world changes, I see in our own neighborhood men and men, women and women, happy. But I now know what the ancient fear was, what the hatred has been. For I felt a very simple fear at that moment. If they continued on this way, then the Strauss line would die. So I resolved to find a way to cure Jimmy of Steiger, to take Steiger from his friend as quickly as possible. It would require my greatest magic, and up until then, my greatest sacrifice.
Jim stopped reading.
He had stopped several times before, but the truth was he didn’t know any of these people. Pamela had been old and almost dead when he was just a little boy. He had never known his grandfather Jimmy ,and certainly Friederich was nothing more than a picture on the wall. But here, this was his grandfather. This was saintly old Steiger Frey, and Pamela was saying… well, first that he had been a Nazi.
Jim turned in bed and saw Seth sleeping beside him, curled up close, and he wanted to snuggle back down into the covers with him, only he knew if he tried it, he’d have no real sleep. His grandfather had been a Nazi. Oh, well, then, he had only been a boy. People changed. And, yes, the real Nazis who had done the damage had been in Germany. He knew that there were eugenicists and Nazis in America, that a lot of good hearted white people had been perfectly fine with shit like that. But that he was related to such good hearted white people, that his own grandfather, whom he loved, had believed this…
And fighting with that, also the revelation… Steiger was… My grandfather was my other grandad’s… boyfriend? They were lovers?
What happened?”
Jim had never told his grandfather or his grandmother Natalie for that matter about his sexuality. It was something more or less known but never stated. But that years ago, before he had had been born, his grandfathers had been lovers, and everyone just called them best friends…
Jim cleared his throat and pushed his brass rimmed spectacles up his nose. He got closer under the lamp and further from Seth, though he longed to touch him.
“Grandad was gay.”
Then, Jim almost hit himself.
“Grandad IS gay.”
He took a breath and turned back ot the book.
“That’s really the only reason I’m reading this shit.”
Steiger stayed at the house so often, and always in Jimmy’s room. Never had we questioned it. Now, at night, I came into their room while they slept, naked, lithe, beautiful truly, Steiger was curled up in Jimmy’s arm and I thought how fair he was, how, in some ways, he was a much more fitting heir to the family Strauss than my brother who I now had to protect. Leaning down, while they barely stirred breathed so gently, with silver sheers I cut a bit of Steiger’s hair. I had given them strong wine and I pricked him with a needle. It hurt me to prick him, He winced a little in his sleep. I wiped up his blood with the tip of my finger and mixed it with the hair before moving out of the room.
The next morning I came into the dining room and said, “Father I need a word with you.”
The way I stood at the door, Friederich knew this was a private matter and he looked at Katherine, her blond hair long greyed, and at my sisters, and said, “Leave.”
They said nothing, not even Katherine, and as they left he commanded, “Close the doors behind you.”
The glass French doors were pulled close and Freiderich said, “What is it, Pamela?”
“Jimmy is weak.”
“He was always weak. We should drown him and adopt Steiger.”
He barked out a laugh, but I knew he wasn’t entirely joking.
“I want to bring him a woman.”
“A woman? A whore?”
“He won’t know what to do with Natalie unless he’s with a woman.”
“Ah,” Friederich leaned back in his chair smirking at me. I wondered was he angry because I was no longer in his bed, because I had moved so far away from him in these last years.
“But you know I am right,” I said.
“So you would bring my son a whore?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
It was after nine o clock, and Katherine and the girls had gone to bed. This was when I brought her. She was an American, dark haired, a little too plump, with that displeasing accent my sisters had, and I brought her upstairs to my room first.
“We should talk about what I charge,” she said.,
“No,” I said, turning away from her to go to my dresser. “We won’t do that. You will take this.”
I handed her money.
“More than you’ve ever seen, and you will leave these clothes and that perfume and take mine.”
She did not argue. I left her in the room to change, and when she was gone I began the magic. I had learned some things from Augustus and some from Inga. There is some work which only a true witch can do, and then there are things which those with witch blood can always do, even if their training is small. And then there are even those things which one with no gift can do it only they listen. Augustus had told me there were many times when he had to be someone else. He told me that, as I was by my nature a shapechanger, this spell would be easy for me.
“Now your family turns to wolves, but of old you were simply changers. All changers could change to anything.”
I easily became the wolf, but whatever I might be able to change into or not, with some skill, at last, I looked in the mirror and saw, in place of a fifty year old woman who had once been beautiful, a twenty something year old plump prostitute smelling of rich cologne and wearing too much rouge. It was in this guise that I went down the hall. Steiger had stayed at home this night. I had told Jimmy a surprise was coming. I tapped on the door and his thin voice called, “Steiger.”
But I opened the door and he said, “Excuse me. Who are you, ma’am?”
“Your father sent me,” the whore said. I said.
“My…” Jimmy’s voice croaked
I closed the door behind me. I set the lock. He kept a night lantern and I turned it to the lowest light. He still sat on the bed, paralyzed with fear and perhaps something else. Out from the opening of his pajamas, his penis rose. He must not have even known he was erect. I knelt, and pushed the fabric of his pajamas away from it.
“Ma’am… his voice was still thin and a little desperate. I could feel his heart pounding against his chest. “What are you doing?”
I bent down quickly, choosing not to think, and took my young brother’s cock in my mouth, sending him into rapture. He stifled his pleasure or fear or both. I could feel his body tensing as I moved up and down on him. Soon, much too soon, there was a hot shower of his semen in my mouth. I swallowed it and was surprised by my pleasure, by my own excitement. Could it be that I had wanted to do this?”
“Undress me.” I commanded.
Jimmy did so, and then buried his face in my breast, sucking on my nipples like a young wolf cub. Though he had already spent himself, quickly he was erect again. I opened my legs and he buried himself in my, fucking me savagely, with no tenderness, sweat running down his frail, sixteen year old body. I had never know this, how I had wanted to be battered by this frail boy, this boy I considered so unworthy, Friederich’s son, and in some ways, Hagano’s too, the newest generation of their family. We both screamed as he came, my arms purpled with the bruises of his fingertips. That night we slept together exhausted, and early in the morning I crawled out of that bed, redressed and crept back to my room. My cunt ached. After the celibacy, after no longer feeling beautiful, after, in truth, never having been with a young man, not even when I was young, my cunt ached for Jimmy again, and I knew I would go to him, not simply for his good, whatever that meant, but for my pleasure.
“Jim?” Seth stretched and looked up, concerned at Jim, who was sitting in the chair on the other side of the room, the lamp above fully on him.
“I didn’t want to wake you so I just moved into the chair.”
Seth stretched, turned over and said, good Lord, it’s so… do you have any idea what time it is?”
“No,” Jim said, yawning. “And my eyes hurt, but I just can’t stop. Not yet.”
“What have you learned about your family?”
“That we’re a sick bunch of fucks.”
“Well,” Seth said after some consideration, “I imagine that’s what everyone learns about their family somewhere down the line.”
“My great aunt had sex with her father.”
“Oh,” Seth said, distastefully. he lay on his side and scrunching up like a child, shuddered.
“And apparently she slept with my grandfather Jimmy, Marabeth and Kris’s granddad. She slept with him because he was gay and she wanted to make him straight.”
“That is the very opposite of conversation therapy,” Seth observed, and suddenly James laughed, and then Seth began laughing, and then Jim laughed harder and then they were both laughing and, at last, Seth said, “But how did your aunt… Pamela?”
“Yes?”
“How did she know your grandfather was gay?”
“Oh. Because she found him in bed with my other grandfather.”
LATER ON: PERHAPS EVEN WELL AFTER MIDNIGHT: MORE OF ROSSFORD
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
That was an excellent portion! Lots of information and a lot to process. More gay characters revealed which was very interesting. Great writing and I look forward to more in a few days and some Rossford later. I hope you have a wonderful Easter!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
More gay characters, more incest, more Nazis.... just... more!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
THE BOOK OF PAMELA STRAUSS
You mustn’t believe that I felt bad about the turn things had taken or, at least, I did not feel as bad as one would expect. My main feeling was surprise, surprise that I could have such feelings for Jimmy, or for what I encountered with him in the night. Friederich, in his increasing old age and meanness, did not ask many questions. Katherine knew nothing. In the course of time I brought four other women to the house, making with them the same trade as I had with the first. So I had five forms into which I changed, though the transformation were not full, and after a while they were only little more than glamours. In the early morning I felt a special and indescribable way about Jimmy, but he was still Jimmy, my sixteen year old brother, though I could see traces of the man in him. I reminded myself that, in the end, he thought he was with a whore, with several whores. He had no idea as he made love to me with increasing skill, that I was his austere older sister he had always half feared. In the nights that went on for three years, as I surrendered to his mouth sucking my nipples, sucking me, his hands tracing the sides of my aging body, as he began to teach me things, burying his face between my thighs and pleasuring me in ways that had been gone for me for so long, I reminded myself that, in no real sense were we lovers.
Almost as soon as the war ended, and the Keller boys were home, my sisters married. Claire said, a little ungraciously, that since Maris was the oldest, she should marry first. To be sure, Maris was only twenty-two at the time, but in those days people thought this was approaching old. She had enrolled in Wallington College, partially, I know, because she thought she might be an old maid and she wanted a profession. She did what I had never done, and dropped out without even earning her degree. Even with the beer factory closed, the Strausses were still a family of means, Katherine Dashbach’s fortune had seen to that, and the early spring of 1946 saw a lavish wedding at Saint Ursula’s for Maris and Peter Keller. Later that year, near the autumn, Claire married Peter’s brother Andrew and Katherine said, looking meaningfully across the church to young Natalie and her sisters, “Well, three is not a crowd in this case. Three is exactly how it should be.”
I did not see the look on Steiger’s face. Once I had begun coming to Jimmy, I did not wonder about his relationship to his old friend. It was not that I believed that the sex I gave Jimmy had driven him from Steiger. It was only that, now that he could be with a woman, would be with a woman, whatever happened between him and Steiger didn’t matter. Perhaps I told myself they grew out of it. I didn’t know, but as it had always been almost set in stone that Jimmy would marry Natalie, I thought it best to go about finding someone for Steiger.
“You are a very nosey woman, Pamela,” my father said. “It is enough we find someone for Jimmy.”
But Katherine said, “Pamela is kind, and she is right. I have a cousin. It would be a nice thing if we made it official, you know, Steiger’s tie to the family.”
Friederich, though, was so concerned about Natalie marrying Jimmy, that I didn’t have to worry about it. In 1946, Jimmy was just turning eighteen. He was tall, handsome in a very slender slim way, golden, in skin and hair, with a part down his scalp. He was still inseparable from Steiger, who had a more robust and golden beauty beside Jimmy’s bronze and boy’s looks. We had invited Natalie over for tea and Katherine set up white gardenias in the living room. The curtains were open to bring in sunlight from Dimler Street, and there she was, at the door, her hair almost black, her eyes wide and always a little , not sarcastic, but careful. She reminded me not so much of Frau Inga, as a wolf, as someone with Inga’s blood. Looking at this American girl, I thought of the old bent over witch in the woods in Bavaria, her great grandmother who had loved and nursed me so long ago.
“I’m told we’re supposed to be married,” Natalie said as she put a cake onto her plate.
You could have heard a pin drop as she sat there, in her chair on the other side of the parlor table from Jimmy.
“Of course,” Natalie spread jam on the cake, “I don’t really even know you.”
She looked around the high walls of the living room, eyed the cornices, openly assessed the lace curtains. “I don’t even know if I like you, James Strauss.”
“Ah… no,” Jimmy said. “That’s true.
“Do you know ,we’ve never even spent any time alone together,” Natalie continued, and then she said, “Alone together. Now, that is what they call an oxymoron.”
“Oxymoron.”
“A long word for things that don’t fit together. I’m at Wallingon right now.’
“Do you like it?’
“I like it a lot,” Natalie said. “I’m going to be an English teacher.”
“You could always get your degree and then get married,” Katherine said.
“I could,” Natalie admitted, sipping her tea, “and depend on a man for the rest of my life.”
“All women depend on men,” Friederich almost snapped.
“Do they?” Natalie said, unimpressed.. “I don’t think Miss Strauss does,” she nodded to me. “And I don’t think I will either.”
Freiderich frowned over this, and I imagine he was reassessing the value of his son marrying Natalie Keller when, suddenly, she said to Jimmy, “Can you drive?’
“A little.”
“I drove over here.”
Ah, Grandma! And she’s just like Grandma. And I can hardly stay awake. My eyes are like rocks. God, they itch. Grandma! The one bright thing about all this shit.
“I DROVE OVER HERE.”
“You drove?” Friederich said.
“Yes,” Natalie said. “It can be done. My car, well, it’s my father’s car, is on the corner. What if we were to go driving? Would you like that?”
“Can I drive?” Jimmy asked, eagerly.
“Not if you’re no good,” Natalie told him. “My father would kill me if you ruined his Roadmaster. I’m not afraid of any man in this world, but I do fear Peter Keller.”
She took him out, certainly not the other way around, and they were gone for several hours, and when Jimmy returned he was flushed with excitement. How Natalie felt, who could say?
That night, when I went to jimmy, he held me down fiercely, and as he fucked me with more earnestness than I’d ever felt, he kept growling, “Natalie! Natalie! Natalie!” Until her name melted into a growl and an exclamation, and he flooded me as he collapsed and passed out.
The courtship of Natalie Keller had begun that day, but my affair with Jimmy did not end. Natalie had very definite ideas about life, and she was going to finish college before she married. Not only that, but she insisted jimmy go as well. Jimmy was lacking in ambition, and he did not travel very far. He and Steiger both went to Ancilla, the little Catholic College started by the Jesuits that was just on the far north of town, near the suburbs. Natalie finished up her four year degree and wanted to go onto graduate school, but was willing to wait until after her marriage. Jimmy did his two years, though Steiger stayed on. The day came when Jimmy went down on one knee and Natalie accepted the proposal. She seemed happy, but not surprised and not….grateful, the way my sisters had been. This was the wedding the Strausses and Kellers had been waiting twenty years for, Some might even say the wedding I had been waiting for since we’d first come to America thirty years ago. Natalie’s train went down the entire aisle, and was born by Keller and Dashbach and Steiglitz cousins. Steiger was best man in his black tuxedo. The maid of honor was Caroline Dashbach, Katherine’s younger cousin, but also the girl I had found for Steiger, and if his eyes were not exactly on her, then hers were on his. She had her own money, and we would make sure Steiger had his. The marriage of James Strauss and Natalie Keller was a success, and soon after, in 1950, though it was a smaller affair, so was that of Steiger and Caroline Dashbach.
***********
More or less in the present, now, in regards to the history of his family Pamela was composing, reading about people he had known, or at least people he almost knew, Jim. Was too red eyed to read on, and every time things began to be somewhat normal, Pamela entered in all of her madness and her incest, and so, eyes red and aching, James B. Strauss stretched, closed the book, and, flicking out the light, moved for bed, and the comfort of Seth Moore.
You mustn’t believe that I felt bad about the turn things had taken or, at least, I did not feel as bad as one would expect. My main feeling was surprise, surprise that I could have such feelings for Jimmy, or for what I encountered with him in the night. Friederich, in his increasing old age and meanness, did not ask many questions. Katherine knew nothing. In the course of time I brought four other women to the house, making with them the same trade as I had with the first. So I had five forms into which I changed, though the transformation were not full, and after a while they were only little more than glamours. In the early morning I felt a special and indescribable way about Jimmy, but he was still Jimmy, my sixteen year old brother, though I could see traces of the man in him. I reminded myself that, in the end, he thought he was with a whore, with several whores. He had no idea as he made love to me with increasing skill, that I was his austere older sister he had always half feared. In the nights that went on for three years, as I surrendered to his mouth sucking my nipples, sucking me, his hands tracing the sides of my aging body, as he began to teach me things, burying his face between my thighs and pleasuring me in ways that had been gone for me for so long, I reminded myself that, in no real sense were we lovers.
Almost as soon as the war ended, and the Keller boys were home, my sisters married. Claire said, a little ungraciously, that since Maris was the oldest, she should marry first. To be sure, Maris was only twenty-two at the time, but in those days people thought this was approaching old. She had enrolled in Wallington College, partially, I know, because she thought she might be an old maid and she wanted a profession. She did what I had never done, and dropped out without even earning her degree. Even with the beer factory closed, the Strausses were still a family of means, Katherine Dashbach’s fortune had seen to that, and the early spring of 1946 saw a lavish wedding at Saint Ursula’s for Maris and Peter Keller. Later that year, near the autumn, Claire married Peter’s brother Andrew and Katherine said, looking meaningfully across the church to young Natalie and her sisters, “Well, three is not a crowd in this case. Three is exactly how it should be.”
I did not see the look on Steiger’s face. Once I had begun coming to Jimmy, I did not wonder about his relationship to his old friend. It was not that I believed that the sex I gave Jimmy had driven him from Steiger. It was only that, now that he could be with a woman, would be with a woman, whatever happened between him and Steiger didn’t matter. Perhaps I told myself they grew out of it. I didn’t know, but as it had always been almost set in stone that Jimmy would marry Natalie, I thought it best to go about finding someone for Steiger.
“You are a very nosey woman, Pamela,” my father said. “It is enough we find someone for Jimmy.”
But Katherine said, “Pamela is kind, and she is right. I have a cousin. It would be a nice thing if we made it official, you know, Steiger’s tie to the family.”
Friederich, though, was so concerned about Natalie marrying Jimmy, that I didn’t have to worry about it. In 1946, Jimmy was just turning eighteen. He was tall, handsome in a very slender slim way, golden, in skin and hair, with a part down his scalp. He was still inseparable from Steiger, who had a more robust and golden beauty beside Jimmy’s bronze and boy’s looks. We had invited Natalie over for tea and Katherine set up white gardenias in the living room. The curtains were open to bring in sunlight from Dimler Street, and there she was, at the door, her hair almost black, her eyes wide and always a little , not sarcastic, but careful. She reminded me not so much of Frau Inga, as a wolf, as someone with Inga’s blood. Looking at this American girl, I thought of the old bent over witch in the woods in Bavaria, her great grandmother who had loved and nursed me so long ago.
“I’m told we’re supposed to be married,” Natalie said as she put a cake onto her plate.
You could have heard a pin drop as she sat there, in her chair on the other side of the parlor table from Jimmy.
“Of course,” Natalie spread jam on the cake, “I don’t really even know you.”
She looked around the high walls of the living room, eyed the cornices, openly assessed the lace curtains. “I don’t even know if I like you, James Strauss.”
“Ah… no,” Jimmy said. “That’s true.
“Do you know ,we’ve never even spent any time alone together,” Natalie continued, and then she said, “Alone together. Now, that is what they call an oxymoron.”
“Oxymoron.”
“A long word for things that don’t fit together. I’m at Wallingon right now.’
“Do you like it?’
“I like it a lot,” Natalie said. “I’m going to be an English teacher.”
“You could always get your degree and then get married,” Katherine said.
“I could,” Natalie admitted, sipping her tea, “and depend on a man for the rest of my life.”
“All women depend on men,” Friederich almost snapped.
“Do they?” Natalie said, unimpressed.. “I don’t think Miss Strauss does,” she nodded to me. “And I don’t think I will either.”
Freiderich frowned over this, and I imagine he was reassessing the value of his son marrying Natalie Keller when, suddenly, she said to Jimmy, “Can you drive?’
“A little.”
“I drove over here.”
Ah, Grandma! And she’s just like Grandma. And I can hardly stay awake. My eyes are like rocks. God, they itch. Grandma! The one bright thing about all this shit.
“I DROVE OVER HERE.”
“You drove?” Friederich said.
“Yes,” Natalie said. “It can be done. My car, well, it’s my father’s car, is on the corner. What if we were to go driving? Would you like that?”
“Can I drive?” Jimmy asked, eagerly.
“Not if you’re no good,” Natalie told him. “My father would kill me if you ruined his Roadmaster. I’m not afraid of any man in this world, but I do fear Peter Keller.”
She took him out, certainly not the other way around, and they were gone for several hours, and when Jimmy returned he was flushed with excitement. How Natalie felt, who could say?
That night, when I went to jimmy, he held me down fiercely, and as he fucked me with more earnestness than I’d ever felt, he kept growling, “Natalie! Natalie! Natalie!” Until her name melted into a growl and an exclamation, and he flooded me as he collapsed and passed out.
The courtship of Natalie Keller had begun that day, but my affair with Jimmy did not end. Natalie had very definite ideas about life, and she was going to finish college before she married. Not only that, but she insisted jimmy go as well. Jimmy was lacking in ambition, and he did not travel very far. He and Steiger both went to Ancilla, the little Catholic College started by the Jesuits that was just on the far north of town, near the suburbs. Natalie finished up her four year degree and wanted to go onto graduate school, but was willing to wait until after her marriage. Jimmy did his two years, though Steiger stayed on. The day came when Jimmy went down on one knee and Natalie accepted the proposal. She seemed happy, but not surprised and not….grateful, the way my sisters had been. This was the wedding the Strausses and Kellers had been waiting twenty years for, Some might even say the wedding I had been waiting for since we’d first come to America thirty years ago. Natalie’s train went down the entire aisle, and was born by Keller and Dashbach and Steiglitz cousins. Steiger was best man in his black tuxedo. The maid of honor was Caroline Dashbach, Katherine’s younger cousin, but also the girl I had found for Steiger, and if his eyes were not exactly on her, then hers were on his. She had her own money, and we would make sure Steiger had his. The marriage of James Strauss and Natalie Keller was a success, and soon after, in 1950, though it was a smaller affair, so was that of Steiger and Caroline Dashbach.
***********
More or less in the present, now, in regards to the history of his family Pamela was composing, reading about people he had known, or at least people he almost knew, Jim. Was too red eyed to read on, and every time things began to be somewhat normal, Pamela entered in all of her madness and her incest, and so, eyes red and aching, James B. Strauss stretched, closed the book, and, flicking out the light, moved for bed, and the comfort of Seth Moore.
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
I hope you had a nice Easter! That was an interesting portion of Pamela Strauss's writing. She gets more interesting as time goes on. I am glad other people besides Marabeth are learning this history too. Great writing and I look forward to more soon!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Yes she certainly is getting more interesting and not less interesting which is more than you can say for a lot of people. There's really not a dull moment with Pamela. I had a wonderful Easter and I hope you did too. More tomorrow night, and more Rossford.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
T E N
THE LAST
ENCHANTMENT
I am the secret Serpent coiled about to spring: in my coiling there is joy.
-The Book of the Law
Dan Rawlinson woke to singing so gentle that, if he were not what he was, he would not have heard it, just a whispering, just a murmuring. The wide bed was warm, and he was in Laurie’s arms, one of Laurie’s naked thighs between his, his lovers chest pressed against his back. The covers were half off of them in the warm room, but the place where Loreal had lain was empty, and she sat in a thin black shift on the floor at that unobtrusive altar that he’d managed to miss the night before. The small candles in their brass candlesticks making pale points of light, the twang of spicy sweet incense burning as she chanted. He did not examine the altar. That was not his business. He wanted to speak, but he did not. What she was doing was her business, at least for now. She had explained magic to him.
“It isn’t like the movies. It isn’t separate from the faith. You must be aligned to the Gods, being in the palm of the Gods’ hands before their palms become your own.”
Dan watched her a while, moving her hands up and down in the early morning shadows. He longed for her until he felt the longing rise in his penis. He longed for the joy of all three of them together again, and then he turned around, not covering the back of him and pressed his body to Laurie’s and Laurie, more than half asleep, pulled him into his arms.
When Dan had become a vampire, the initial silver lining, for their really isn’t much of a silver lining in being taken from normal life and being condemned to drink human blood forevcr, was that he was already a night person. Laurie got up every day like a normal human being and went to work, most of the time. Twelve o’ clock or so was a good compromise for them both, and it was at this time that they drove Loreal over.snowy plains, through threes, through hills, and over rivers and, at last, to a field, stretching out some time to trees and with only one defining mark, a little stone a house, the stone house where Lewis and Chris were waiting with Marabeth and her brother, her cousin Jim and that strange and dreamy creamy boy, Seth.
“Is this it?”
“But at that time, Lewis, in an old brown cardigan, with a cigarette behind his ear, came out.
“It is.”
“And are you you don’t want us to come?”
“It isn’t a question of not wanting, so much as a question of how many rooms Grandfather has.”
Dan smiled at this and Loreal got out of the car with only her suitcase. She was wearing a grey dress. She caught Dan’s hand, but it was Laurie who stood with her.
“I don’t want you to go.”
Loreal said, “I don’t exactly want to go myself. But I have to learn. I’ll be back soon enough.”
“Watch after Dan. Watch after each other.”
Laurie kissed her and pressed his rough, unshaven cheek against hers. He squeezed her hand and got back into the car. Dan was looking after her, almost like a child, with his wide chocolate eyes, his chocolate hair falling in front of them before he swept it away.
“Look after him,” Loreal mouthed.
Dan mouthed, “I will.”
Traveling south is like traveling through time, out of the coldwinter and into the spring. Chris remembers years living in the south, how he told Laurie once, “We will move down south. In the south the evil is great so the killing is wonderful.”
Laurie was not as he is now. Laurie knew so little of the world. In a way, Chris couldn’t help but think Laurie Malone still knew little of the world. He told him, “Down south they treat Negroes like rabbits or raccoons. They are sport. They work all day and at night white men can chase them, terrorize them, hunt them down, kill them. You don’t understand why they come into Chicago every day until you see what they are leaving in the South.”
“And you want to go down there?” Laurie had asked.
“But it’s like I told you,” Chris said, “the hunting is wonderful. I want the hunter to understand, at last, what it is to be hunted.”
But today, with the sun high on the grass that had never grown brown, Chris thinks of the other wonderful things about that southern land, the light, the heat, the mellow winter so unlike the unforgiving Ohio, Indiana, Illinois cold they are fleeing.
Lewis has put in the little cassette, and now the 1970’s crackle and the Saint Louis Jesuits are singing.
“Wood hath hope.
When it's cut, it grows green again,
and its boughs sprout clean again.
Wood hath hope.”
Chris Ashby has heard it before. He is driving. Lewis does not like to drive. Lewis also does not ask many questions, and when Chris and Levy had returned with the great big yellow Volkswagon bus, Lewis had smiled in a sort of hippie happiness and remarked that he wished he had a joint, but he had not asked from where the vehicle had come.
Chris remembers lying next to Lewis in the heat of that apartment and watching Lewis smile as the music plays.
“Root and stock although old and withered up,
and all sunk in earth corrupt, will revive.
Leaves return. Water pure brings life to them,
and the tree lives young again.
Wood hath hope.
But ah, strange thought: if we could rise again,
called home to a loving land,
we would have hope.”
“That was my childhood. This song. This album,” Lewis says. “Son of David have pity on me. Mighty Lord…
“My mother grew up Methodist. My father was Baptist. But my mother was brought up by Uncle Owen, and she always went to Saint Jerome’s with him. Back then, her not taking Communion was no big deal. Lots of people didn’t. But by the time I was born, she wanted to be Communioned and Confirmed. That was my childhood. Not some old religion that came from Irish great grandparents burdened with white peoples’ guilt and superstition. My parents were young and gung ho and the Church seemed young. Everything was so fresh, and I knew God loved me. I knew that I loved God. Heaven was so close.”
“We would have hope.
Like a tree we'd grow green again,
and our boughs sprout clean again;
we would have hope.”
“The first three years of Catholic school are all you need,” Lewis said. “They teach you everything about love and God you need to know. That and a Glory and Praise hymnal. Everything else just sort of ruins it.”
Not that it would have mattered to Lewis if they had minded, but Kristian, Marabeth and Jim had grown up more or less the same and all knew, at first reluctantly, and then with greater enthusiasm, the lyrics to all the songs by the Saint Louis Jesuits. Seth, Jim and Kris shared the seats behind Lewis and Chris, and in the third row Marabeth stretched out, waving a finger about and feeling more girl like than she had in some time while she sang:
“For he is might—ee Lord!”
Behind her, in a space large enough for a bed, Levy Berringer was reading a book and ignoring them all, and Marabeth leaning over the seat to look at him though he was the smartest person in this van, or at least smarter than any Strauss in this van. After all, she had reading to do, regardless if she wished to or not, and she realized that she did. Jim had stopped. Who could blame him. The information was dense and large unpleasant, but, despite her joy in songs from the 1970’s about the love of Jesus, often things called to her, and those thrills were found within the pages of the Book of Pamela Strauss.
THE BOOK OF PAMELA STRAUSS
BY THEN, MARIS AND CLAIRE had already settled into married life, and Friederich was a grandfather, if not a proud one. It was Katherine who cooed over the grandchildren and held them to her, baked the sweets and made the cakes and would, in time, attend every function. By the time Jimmy married Natalie, Claire had already had Edward and Dillard, and if Friederich was not watching them, wondering what might happen when they hit puberty, I was. Claire only had one child so far, Richard. He, like his cousins, was dark haired and not blond, and though Claire would, for several years, try to have other children, Richard would be the only one who survived. The rest were stillbirths or miscarriages and, at last, it seems she stopped trying. I had never cared for Claire, but in those later years, a sadder Claire, a sister resolved to what her life was, was someone I came to respect rather than pity for, in time, Claire revealed a strength that would not bear pity.
Jimmy and Steiger were barely married when there was a new war, and though most of us shook our heads and thought, another war, do people never grow tired of wars, Jimmy and Steiger, like boys, signed up. They said it was their patriotic duty, but they also said they just wanted to get a taste of the war.
“We missed the last one!” Steiger said. Jimmy nodded in agreement, and in anger I hit them both on their heads hard.
“You’re fools,” I said, and headed upstairs, slamming the door behind me.
“It is our Americna duty,” Jimmy declared, but even old Friederich pronounced:
“You are idiots. It is your duty to be husbands to your wives. Not run off to a war.”
But it was too late, Jimmy and Steiger had already signed up, and by the end of the summer, they were on their way to Korea.
Jimmy and Steiger were gone for a year. In that time Caroline remained in the house with us and Natalie lived here though, looking back, she could have just as well stayed with her parents. She was pregnant with Jimmy’s first baby, something she hadn’t known when he left, and now she grew bigger and bigger, and while Katherine rejoiced for another grandchild, Friederich became more and more cross, constantly unpleasant.
One day I asked him, “What has become of you? Why are you so cruel? Why are you so mean?”
“You shut up, you bitch,” he told me. “You shut up, you who were supposed to be a wife to me, you who once loved me, but now have no room for me? Am I too old for you? Do you see an old and helpless man? But I am a big man. I am a strong man!”
Friederich was an old man by now. I was never exactly sure how old he was when I was born, but surely by now he was seventy. No, more, all white, face grizzled. And yet even in those suits he wore, he was still a powerful man.
“What do you want from me?” I demanded as his shoulders gripped me.
“What do you want?”
He slapped me. My eyes stung.
Suddenly, sharply, with rhe back of my hand, I slapped him back, my ring finger making his face bleed.
“If you want it, take it you old bastard. Take it if you can.”
My father ripped down the front of my dress and put me on the table while we both jerked down his trousers. So, suddenly, as if he were young, he was on me, the candelabra knocked aside as he crushed me to the surface of the table, its stout wooden legs jouncing while he planted himself between my thighs. I watched the chandelier shaking over us as he fucked me.
“You…” Friederich grunted, “slut…” he fucked me. “You,…” with each thrust a word growled from his mouth, “horrid…. Wicked… slut.”
The table creaked, and now the doors to the dining room flew open, I could see over Friederich’s back the face of Katherine. The old woman looked horrified.
Without looking back, Friederich kept fucking me and shouted, “Close the door!”
Silently, obedient, “Katherine did so, and as the glass doors, covered in lace closed behind Friederich, I heard her walking away.
He did not stop fucking me until he came.
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
That was a very interesting portion. I am liking where the story is at the moment. I wonder what will happen with Pamela next? I guess I will have to wait and see. Sorry I don't have more to say but a lot went on in this section and I am still processing it. Great writing and I look forward to more soon!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Pamela definitely leads a lot to process. I would say she's up to her usual shenanigans, but nothing about her shenanigans are usual (except maybe fucking her family). I was just thinking, and things with Pamela are actually about to get A LOT more interesting. However, they won't be interesting until Wednesday night. Tomorrow night we post Rossford. Oh, by the way, Loreal and Dan and Laurie are certainly having an interesting time!
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
Loreal, Dan and Laurie are having an interesting time. I don't know what is going to happen with them next.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
But I do. : )
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
TONIGHT PAMELA WORKS SOME TRULY STRANGE VOODOO AND A DEEP, DEEP SECRET IS REVEALED
LIFE BECAME AS CLOSE to blissful as it ever was with Friderich. The bear was soothed, and something in me was soothed as well. Katherine, who had long since stopped sleeping with my father, and had never enjoyed it anyway, moved to the bedroom downstairs by the kitchen, and I began to sleep in Friederich’s room. I came to him at night, when the house had gone to sleep. In those nights, I, who had begun to feel old, began to quicken again. The skin which was only firm and soft to Jimmy when he touched it under an enchantment, began to, indeed, feel firm and supple to me once again as well. And Friederich, who had been growing ancient, seemed to become a lion once again. Making love to him was, in many ways, like making love to Jimmy. Neither one of them seemed to have much in common, the father or the son, and both of them seemed beyond such passion. But each ran the backs of his hands down my sides in the same way, each kissed my nipples the same way, and it was in the same way, that each of them buried their face between my thighs and sent me into paroxysms with their tongues.
Not long after Christmas, Natalie gave birth fo Kristin. Friederich was in love with her the way he had never been in love with any of his daughters save, perhaps, me. When Katherine suggested she be in pink, Freiderich said no, such a girl should be in lavender, lavender, lavender. And she was all in white with lavender bows and the smell of lavender was in her nursery.
“It is good to have a child in the house again,” Katherine declared, and when Natalie said something about maybe she and Jimmy should move once he got back from the war, and get their own place, both Friederich and Katherine vociferously disagreed.
“I have been waiting for such a long time,” Katherine rocked the child, “for Natalie to give me a little granddaughter.”
Jimmy and Steiger came home. They had not arrived in the country at the same time, but had come on different planes and different days, and there was a bit about how soldiers had to spend some time…. Soldiering at the soldier place…. This was beyond me, before they were returned to normal society. The boys came home on the same day, and though there was joy enough, and though neither one of them ever spoke of that war, they were changed. Jimmy began to drink, and not as the silly young man who went to parties. There was a shadow behind his eyes, and though Friederich said it was because he was now a man, I knew that was not it. It was far more. Or less.
Jimmy took would could be called enough joy in Kristin, and he had been home a few nights when one night I heard tossling which I thought was romance, only to hear the breaking of something. The next morning Natalie had a bruise under her cheek, and Jimmy had a flat out black eye and a wound on his right cheek.
I do not think he ever touched her again.
By the end of the year, Natalie was pregnant again, and you could see in Caroline’s face that she longed for a child too. There was an anger in her, not at Natalie though, a frustration that I noted. I cared for Caroline Dashbach, certainly more than I had for her older cousin, my stepmother, and I knew what it was to be a woman smoldering with anger, choked with upset.
Long after everyone else had gone to bed, I stayed up singing to myself and staring into the fire. Augustus had taught me how to do it, but Frau Inga had done similar things before, and I dozed off. When I awoke, flushed, and having slept far too long, disturbed by a dream I could only halfway remember, I thought how Friederich, waiting for me, must have become so irritated before going to sleep. I would go to him, for I wanted him too. But now I rose and took up the little lantern I was so used to even though the house was full of electric light. Passing through the living room I looked past one of the curtains and thought how different things had been when first we had come here. It was 1953 and there was a car, rounded a gleaming like a beetle, in front of every house. Some of the houses were shabbier and poorer and Germantown was not so German as it once had been. I turned my back on these rambling thoughts as I turned my back on the first floor and went upstairs.
But I did not stop on the second floor. I left my lantern in my room and then continued upstairs to the third floor. I needed no light, but only my wolf eyes which had become stronger to me since I’d returned. The strength and silence of my wolf walk had returned as well, in truth, since I had begun sleeping with Father again.
On the third floor I saw the creak of light. Here Caroline stayed with Steiger, but now I saw the door open, and Natalie was walking out of the room. As I looked into it, I saw Jimmy and Steiger lying naked together. The were not boys anymore, their limbs were powerful, well muscled, downed with hair, and their square jawed faces, even in sleep, bore care. I pressed myself to the wall and watched Natalie close the door behind her and go to her room. She knew, and Caroline must know as well, but for Caroline there was no help. Caroline must, every night, I now knew, sleep alone.
THERE IS NO REAL justification for what came next. There is a reason, and if we leave the reason at that we can say, this is why it happened. It happened because I had always loved Steiger more than Jimmy, because I thought he was so much more worthy than my little brother. Later, after Jimmy became my lover, I changed that assessment. I knew that Steiger was just golden, just beautiful, and I wished for him to have his desire. I was almost relieved that they were still together, but even in my relief, I began to understand something else about myself.
I came to Caroline. She was, by now, frequently anxious and frequently angry, and Natalie was growing large with her second child. I told her, “Do not worry. Things will be well. You will have your child. I promise you will have the marriage you desire.”
She looked at me with such love and such relief. She said, “Miss Strauss, the truth is, I always feared you.”
“Believe me,” I told her, “I want to help you. Will you look at me, child? Will you look at me, and believe me?”
And then Caroline, with her wonderful red hair, looked at me and broke into a smile, nodding.
I wondered if she was a virgin.
I told Jimmy I wanted to see Steiger, and when Steiger came to me he said, “Yes, Aunt Pam.”
He was so fresh and so handsome, his voice always gentle and gentle to me because he knew I loved him.
“Caroline is heartbroken. I need you to go to her tonight.”
Steiger opened his mouth to protest, but I said, “I do not care what is in your heart. I understand you better than you think. But tonight, go to your wife. Try. Try for me. I will give you something to make is easier.alright?”
Steiger looked at me for a while. I could see him seeing me, understanding that I understood.
This was really my last enchantment. It was late in life that I took to reading stories again, and I remember reading a novel about the wizard Merlin, and the last book was called The Last Enchantment. It was the end of his career, so to speak, not that he died, he just ceased being the Merlin that everyone knew, who made things happen, and in a way, this was my last great work, the last time I would be the Pamela Strauss people had known and, perhaps, sometimes feared.
There was no fear in this meal, only desire, only passion, only a want for all the things we desired, and at that meal there was only Jimmy and Steiger, only Caroline and myself. The meal was humble, of soup and bread, and I had sent Katherine and Friederich out with Natalie. All through the last few weeks I had blended animal hearts and kidneys into strong broth and then sweetened it with honey and molasses, and nectar, with stewed apples, and I had sang old songs over it taught to me by the black women of the neighborhood and put in herbs from Augustus, and mostly, I had put in my desire.
That night Caroline waited in a room, and though she saw the loving husband she wished to see, it was Jimmy who came ot her. Jimmy wished to be a loving husband, and he saw in her Natalie. What happened in that room I know well enough, but it was, in the end, so that I could go to Steiger. As he came to me eagerly, taking down my gown and kissing my mouth hungrily, I do not know if he saw the wife he wished he could love, or if he saw Jimmy who he always had. His blue eyes were fevered with desire, and I hurt, just a little, that the desire was not for me. But, I thought, maybe it was. Maybe it was because, after all, he had always loved me and known I had loved him. I
I had longed for him so long. I had longed to feel these strong hands, the smoothness of these golden arms, to see, close, his lightly muscled chest, squared shoulders, to be taken up in Steiger’s arms and throw my arms about him, running my hands over this strong back which, in many ways, reminded me of Friederich, reminded me of Hagano. I lay under him, gritted my teeth, closing my eyes while tears came from between the lids at the joy and something else I could not explain. I had longed for this. I had needed this. I had wanted this from Steiger Frye since, perhaps, he was a boy of sixteen, maybe even fifteen. He gathered up my thighs and, grunting, drove himself into me until, at last, while my hands were clutching his damp hair, he came.
Steiger Frye had me three times that night. He had me while the bed creaked without mercy, and when I left him, both of us exhausted, the bed was damp, and I ached so I could barely reach my own bed. I hadn’t known he was capable of giving such passion, or I of receiving it.
I did not trust myself to a bath. I thought I would fall asleep. I showered quickly, still feeling the ache of Steiger inside of me. In bed I dreamed of him, wanting him again, knowing I could never do this again, that it was use of him, and though I did not regret it tonight and never would, to do it again would be a rape, a discredit to him. Perhaps it had been now, but I did not wish to think of that.
There were, at any event, other things to think of. Only a few months later, Natalie gave birth to Byron, her second child and first son, and Caroline announced that she was finally pregnant with her first child, a child which could not be Steiger’s, but how could she know?
Steiger seemed perplexed, but I was far more perplexed. I was, in fact, panicked for the first time in a long time. I had said that since I had returned to Friederich’s bed my body had changed, I had felt younger and more youthful. I had felt alive and supple with him as I had with Hagano. This was true, and I continued to feel stronger still, but I was a woman long past fifty, and Friederich, getting old, could not have me very often, indeed, had not had me for some time. And yet, though I wished to deny it, here I was, pregnant again, and with Steiger’s child.
Steiger, I looked to him with a mixture of love and protection, and yes, desire hard to explain unless I explain to you, Marabeth, everything that I never told a soul, that, perhaps, now you yourself may have to find a way to tell others. For Steiger Frye, the last child of the old and now dead Frye family, was not only their last, but their adopted one, and they knew to keep the secret. I had sent the child to them, ahead of me, the child I had born in a convent in 1928, when I had lain with Friederich not knowing Katherine would bear Jimmy. I wanted to have my son near me, growing up as much a part of the house as possible. Perhaps I even wanted him to replace Jimmy if my frail brother should die. But in the end he had become Jimmy’s lover, his blood so strong that he did not make the wolf Change as Jimmy had. Now, I realized, I was so clear on him being Friederich’s son and Jimmy’s brother, and my son, I had never paused to realize I had given birth to my own brother. And now, having lain with my brother, and my son, I was pregnant with my own grandchild.
LIFE BECAME AS CLOSE to blissful as it ever was with Friderich. The bear was soothed, and something in me was soothed as well. Katherine, who had long since stopped sleeping with my father, and had never enjoyed it anyway, moved to the bedroom downstairs by the kitchen, and I began to sleep in Friederich’s room. I came to him at night, when the house had gone to sleep. In those nights, I, who had begun to feel old, began to quicken again. The skin which was only firm and soft to Jimmy when he touched it under an enchantment, began to, indeed, feel firm and supple to me once again as well. And Friederich, who had been growing ancient, seemed to become a lion once again. Making love to him was, in many ways, like making love to Jimmy. Neither one of them seemed to have much in common, the father or the son, and both of them seemed beyond such passion. But each ran the backs of his hands down my sides in the same way, each kissed my nipples the same way, and it was in the same way, that each of them buried their face between my thighs and sent me into paroxysms with their tongues.
Not long after Christmas, Natalie gave birth fo Kristin. Friederich was in love with her the way he had never been in love with any of his daughters save, perhaps, me. When Katherine suggested she be in pink, Freiderich said no, such a girl should be in lavender, lavender, lavender. And she was all in white with lavender bows and the smell of lavender was in her nursery.
“It is good to have a child in the house again,” Katherine declared, and when Natalie said something about maybe she and Jimmy should move once he got back from the war, and get their own place, both Friederich and Katherine vociferously disagreed.
“I have been waiting for such a long time,” Katherine rocked the child, “for Natalie to give me a little granddaughter.”
Jimmy and Steiger came home. They had not arrived in the country at the same time, but had come on different planes and different days, and there was a bit about how soldiers had to spend some time…. Soldiering at the soldier place…. This was beyond me, before they were returned to normal society. The boys came home on the same day, and though there was joy enough, and though neither one of them ever spoke of that war, they were changed. Jimmy began to drink, and not as the silly young man who went to parties. There was a shadow behind his eyes, and though Friederich said it was because he was now a man, I knew that was not it. It was far more. Or less.
Jimmy took would could be called enough joy in Kristin, and he had been home a few nights when one night I heard tossling which I thought was romance, only to hear the breaking of something. The next morning Natalie had a bruise under her cheek, and Jimmy had a flat out black eye and a wound on his right cheek.
I do not think he ever touched her again.
By the end of the year, Natalie was pregnant again, and you could see in Caroline’s face that she longed for a child too. There was an anger in her, not at Natalie though, a frustration that I noted. I cared for Caroline Dashbach, certainly more than I had for her older cousin, my stepmother, and I knew what it was to be a woman smoldering with anger, choked with upset.
Long after everyone else had gone to bed, I stayed up singing to myself and staring into the fire. Augustus had taught me how to do it, but Frau Inga had done similar things before, and I dozed off. When I awoke, flushed, and having slept far too long, disturbed by a dream I could only halfway remember, I thought how Friederich, waiting for me, must have become so irritated before going to sleep. I would go to him, for I wanted him too. But now I rose and took up the little lantern I was so used to even though the house was full of electric light. Passing through the living room I looked past one of the curtains and thought how different things had been when first we had come here. It was 1953 and there was a car, rounded a gleaming like a beetle, in front of every house. Some of the houses were shabbier and poorer and Germantown was not so German as it once had been. I turned my back on these rambling thoughts as I turned my back on the first floor and went upstairs.
But I did not stop on the second floor. I left my lantern in my room and then continued upstairs to the third floor. I needed no light, but only my wolf eyes which had become stronger to me since I’d returned. The strength and silence of my wolf walk had returned as well, in truth, since I had begun sleeping with Father again.
On the third floor I saw the creak of light. Here Caroline stayed with Steiger, but now I saw the door open, and Natalie was walking out of the room. As I looked into it, I saw Jimmy and Steiger lying naked together. The were not boys anymore, their limbs were powerful, well muscled, downed with hair, and their square jawed faces, even in sleep, bore care. I pressed myself to the wall and watched Natalie close the door behind her and go to her room. She knew, and Caroline must know as well, but for Caroline there was no help. Caroline must, every night, I now knew, sleep alone.
THERE IS NO REAL justification for what came next. There is a reason, and if we leave the reason at that we can say, this is why it happened. It happened because I had always loved Steiger more than Jimmy, because I thought he was so much more worthy than my little brother. Later, after Jimmy became my lover, I changed that assessment. I knew that Steiger was just golden, just beautiful, and I wished for him to have his desire. I was almost relieved that they were still together, but even in my relief, I began to understand something else about myself.
I came to Caroline. She was, by now, frequently anxious and frequently angry, and Natalie was growing large with her second child. I told her, “Do not worry. Things will be well. You will have your child. I promise you will have the marriage you desire.”
She looked at me with such love and such relief. She said, “Miss Strauss, the truth is, I always feared you.”
“Believe me,” I told her, “I want to help you. Will you look at me, child? Will you look at me, and believe me?”
And then Caroline, with her wonderful red hair, looked at me and broke into a smile, nodding.
I wondered if she was a virgin.
I told Jimmy I wanted to see Steiger, and when Steiger came to me he said, “Yes, Aunt Pam.”
He was so fresh and so handsome, his voice always gentle and gentle to me because he knew I loved him.
“Caroline is heartbroken. I need you to go to her tonight.”
Steiger opened his mouth to protest, but I said, “I do not care what is in your heart. I understand you better than you think. But tonight, go to your wife. Try. Try for me. I will give you something to make is easier.alright?”
Steiger looked at me for a while. I could see him seeing me, understanding that I understood.
This was really my last enchantment. It was late in life that I took to reading stories again, and I remember reading a novel about the wizard Merlin, and the last book was called The Last Enchantment. It was the end of his career, so to speak, not that he died, he just ceased being the Merlin that everyone knew, who made things happen, and in a way, this was my last great work, the last time I would be the Pamela Strauss people had known and, perhaps, sometimes feared.
There was no fear in this meal, only desire, only passion, only a want for all the things we desired, and at that meal there was only Jimmy and Steiger, only Caroline and myself. The meal was humble, of soup and bread, and I had sent Katherine and Friederich out with Natalie. All through the last few weeks I had blended animal hearts and kidneys into strong broth and then sweetened it with honey and molasses, and nectar, with stewed apples, and I had sang old songs over it taught to me by the black women of the neighborhood and put in herbs from Augustus, and mostly, I had put in my desire.
That night Caroline waited in a room, and though she saw the loving husband she wished to see, it was Jimmy who came ot her. Jimmy wished to be a loving husband, and he saw in her Natalie. What happened in that room I know well enough, but it was, in the end, so that I could go to Steiger. As he came to me eagerly, taking down my gown and kissing my mouth hungrily, I do not know if he saw the wife he wished he could love, or if he saw Jimmy who he always had. His blue eyes were fevered with desire, and I hurt, just a little, that the desire was not for me. But, I thought, maybe it was. Maybe it was because, after all, he had always loved me and known I had loved him. I
I had longed for him so long. I had longed to feel these strong hands, the smoothness of these golden arms, to see, close, his lightly muscled chest, squared shoulders, to be taken up in Steiger’s arms and throw my arms about him, running my hands over this strong back which, in many ways, reminded me of Friederich, reminded me of Hagano. I lay under him, gritted my teeth, closing my eyes while tears came from between the lids at the joy and something else I could not explain. I had longed for this. I had needed this. I had wanted this from Steiger Frye since, perhaps, he was a boy of sixteen, maybe even fifteen. He gathered up my thighs and, grunting, drove himself into me until, at last, while my hands were clutching his damp hair, he came.
Steiger Frye had me three times that night. He had me while the bed creaked without mercy, and when I left him, both of us exhausted, the bed was damp, and I ached so I could barely reach my own bed. I hadn’t known he was capable of giving such passion, or I of receiving it.
I did not trust myself to a bath. I thought I would fall asleep. I showered quickly, still feeling the ache of Steiger inside of me. In bed I dreamed of him, wanting him again, knowing I could never do this again, that it was use of him, and though I did not regret it tonight and never would, to do it again would be a rape, a discredit to him. Perhaps it had been now, but I did not wish to think of that.
There were, at any event, other things to think of. Only a few months later, Natalie gave birth to Byron, her second child and first son, and Caroline announced that she was finally pregnant with her first child, a child which could not be Steiger’s, but how could she know?
Steiger seemed perplexed, but I was far more perplexed. I was, in fact, panicked for the first time in a long time. I had said that since I had returned to Friederich’s bed my body had changed, I had felt younger and more youthful. I had felt alive and supple with him as I had with Hagano. This was true, and I continued to feel stronger still, but I was a woman long past fifty, and Friederich, getting old, could not have me very often, indeed, had not had me for some time. And yet, though I wished to deny it, here I was, pregnant again, and with Steiger’s child.
Steiger, I looked to him with a mixture of love and protection, and yes, desire hard to explain unless I explain to you, Marabeth, everything that I never told a soul, that, perhaps, now you yourself may have to find a way to tell others. For Steiger Frye, the last child of the old and now dead Frye family, was not only their last, but their adopted one, and they knew to keep the secret. I had sent the child to them, ahead of me, the child I had born in a convent in 1928, when I had lain with Friederich not knowing Katherine would bear Jimmy. I wanted to have my son near me, growing up as much a part of the house as possible. Perhaps I even wanted him to replace Jimmy if my frail brother should die. But in the end he had become Jimmy’s lover, his blood so strong that he did not make the wolf Change as Jimmy had. Now, I realized, I was so clear on him being Friederich’s son and Jimmy’s brother, and my son, I had never paused to realize I had given birth to my own brother. And now, having lain with my brother, and my son, I was pregnant with my own grandchild.
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
That was a well done portion! A lot of goings on in the writing of Pamela Strauss indeed! I can't believe she is pregnant again and with her own grandchild! I look forward to reading what happens next with her and am enjoying this story. Great writing and I hope you are having a nice night!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Could you believe that she was Steiger's mother?
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
That was surprising too!
