ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
That damn Pamela. She is something else and so is this family, but we're going to learn some deeply surprising things as The Wicked comes to its last couple of chapters.
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The Wicked: A Love Story
- Thread starter ChrisGibson
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ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE LAST ENCHANTMENT
I am above you and in you. My ecstasy is in yours. My joy is to see your 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 made pale points of light, and the twang of spicy sweet incense burned 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, watched her 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 forever, 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 trees, through hills, and over rivers and, at last, to a field, stretching out some way to trees, and with only one defining mark, a little 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 sure 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 in 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.”
Dan Rawlinson was so recently mortal, that whenever Chris Ashby sees him, he remembers what it was to be purely human. Dan is what would be called “Good people.” The night Chris and Lewis arrive for Levy, Dan is right there. This is the night Chris has spoken to Sunny and made his amends.
“Chris, I have to tell you something.”
But Chris can already smell his sister’s blood in Dan. He can already see the moment of the execution, Kruinh’s order, Dan’s insistence on fair combat even though fair combat is not necessary in an execution, even though Evangeline had a good chance of killing him, even though, if she had, Kruinh would have just dispatched her himself. Chris Ashby knows all these things. He steps forward and puts his hands on Dan Rawlinson’s shoulders, kisses him between his eyes. His sister is there. Laurie is there. Chris’s own desire to make love to Dan is there too.
“You have nothing to tell me, Little Brother,” he says, “except for where Levy is.”
Traveling south is like traveling through time, out of the cold winter 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 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.”
MORE TOMORROW
THE LAST ENCHANTMENT
I am above you and in you. My ecstasy is in yours. My joy is to see your 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 made pale points of light, and the twang of spicy sweet incense burned 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, watched her 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 forever, 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 trees, through hills, and over rivers and, at last, to a field, stretching out some way to trees, and with only one defining mark, a little 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 sure 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 in 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.”
Dan Rawlinson was so recently mortal, that whenever Chris Ashby sees him, he remembers what it was to be purely human. Dan is what would be called “Good people.” The night Chris and Lewis arrive for Levy, Dan is right there. This is the night Chris has spoken to Sunny and made his amends.
“Chris, I have to tell you something.”
But Chris can already smell his sister’s blood in Dan. He can already see the moment of the execution, Kruinh’s order, Dan’s insistence on fair combat even though fair combat is not necessary in an execution, even though Evangeline had a good chance of killing him, even though, if she had, Kruinh would have just dispatched her himself. Chris Ashby knows all these things. He steps forward and puts his hands on Dan Rawlinson’s shoulders, kisses him between his eyes. His sister is there. Laurie is there. Chris’s own desire to make love to Dan is there too.
“You have nothing to tell me, Little Brother,” he says, “except for where Levy is.”
Traveling south is like traveling through time, out of the cold winter 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 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.”
MORE TOMORROW
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
That was a great portion! Sounds like some of the characters have a big decision to make with regards to moving. Excellent writing and I look forward to more of these final few chapters tomorrow!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Luckily, being what half of them are (vampires who can travel between Chicago and Lassador in five minutes) moving shouldn't be much of an issue,but there are all sorts of things for our friends to think about as they travel toward Augustus's home.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
CHAPTER TWELVE CONTINUED
As they travel south to meet Augustus, Marabeth and Jim continue to read Pamela's journal and learn more about the goings on at Straus House that have brought them to the present.
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, thought 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 largely unpleasant. But, despite her joy in songs from the 1970’s about the love of Jesus, often darker 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 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 American 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 happened to 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 he gripped my shoulders.
“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 growled, “Close the door!”
Silently, obediently, 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.
LIFE BECAME AS CLOSE to blissful as it ever was with Friederich. 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 more. 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 with 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, Friederich 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 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 less joy in Kristin than I thought a father should, and he had been home only a few nights when I heard tussling which I thought was romance, only for it to be followed by something breaking. 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 came here. It was 1953 and there was a car, rounded and 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 a shaft 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. They 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.
THE NASTINESS WILL CONTINUE IN A FEW DAYS. HAVE A WONDERFUL WEEKEND.
As they travel south to meet Augustus, Marabeth and Jim continue to read Pamela's journal and learn more about the goings on at Straus House that have brought them to the present.
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, thought 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 largely unpleasant. But, despite her joy in songs from the 1970’s about the love of Jesus, often darker 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 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 American 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 happened to 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 he gripped my shoulders.
“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 growled, “Close the door!”
Silently, obediently, 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.
LIFE BECAME AS CLOSE to blissful as it ever was with Friederich. 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 more. 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 with 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, Friederich 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 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 less joy in Kristin than I thought a father should, and he had been home only a few nights when I heard tussling which I thought was romance, only for it to be followed by something breaking. 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 came here. It was 1953 and there was a car, rounded and 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 a shaft 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. They 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.
THE NASTINESS WILL CONTINUE IN A FEW DAYS. HAVE A WONDERFUL WEEKEND.
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
Pamela Strauss never disappoints or fails to surprise me! Her history is very complicated and is certainly keeping me interested. Great writing and have an excellent weekend! I look forward to more in a few days.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Yes, and the scene was cut short because it has not lead up to the main thing which is going to be much of what the last book revolves around. hold on. It's coming.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
TONIGHT CHAPTER TWELVE COMES TO A CONCLUSION WITH QUITE A FEW BANGS
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 came here. It was 1953 and there was a car, rounded and 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 a shaft 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. They 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 it 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 to 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 whom 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 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 at 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 inside of 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 in that tub and drown. 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 Frye. 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 Steiger, my brother, and my son, I was pregnant with my own grandchild.
*********************************
“Where do you wanna go?” Dan asked.
He was driving. They could have gone back to Lassador, or they could have gone back to Chicago, taken up in this whole strange adventure, suddenly, he almost felt discarded.
And Laurie, sounding discarded, said, “It doesn’t matter.”
“Well, you do have to go back to work.”
“I don’t really ever have to go back to work if I don’t want to.”
Dan said nothing as they drove over the unvaried countryside, and finally Laurie said, “I’m sorry. I’m just…”
“I know,” Dan said.
“So much work for us all to be together, and now she’s gone.”
Laurie sighed, leaning back and pressing his shades on.
Dan only said, “I know.”
“I feel… strange,” Laurie said.
They drove, and Dan thought how strange was the only word for their current feeling. The moment Loreal had come, it was as if there was more room, not less, to live in, and it wasn’t that they were incomplete without her, but… no, it was that. And now, with her gone, they’d have to find a new completion. And on top of that, the strange way he had felt all morning but, damn, he had to get a better word than strange.
On that last night, they’d all been together in that bed, impassioned, but the desire had given way to sleep, the need to be together in every way possible given way to the need to rest in one another’s arms. Dan regretted that he hadn’t had Loreal one last time. That they hadn’t had each other one last time.
Laurie looked at him sadly, pulling off his glasses so that Dan smiled to look at those deep brown eyes.
“Where do you wanna go, baby?”
“I’m driving to Chicago,” Dan said. “Let’s just be alone there for a few days.”
Dan felt Laurie’s hand between his legs, felt Laurie’s hand close on him.
“Shit,” he murmured.
“You were already hard before I touched you,” Laurie said. “You were pitching a tent like no other.”
“I didn’t—” Dan couldn’t speak for the way Laurie was stroking him, “didn’t even know…Oh!”
Laurie kept stroking him while Dan drove.
Before the black jeep parked on the side of the winter road there was a green sign that said,
CHIGAGO: NEXT EXIT
Under the white sky, and in the midst of naked trees, where no cars passed, in the open door of the black Jeep, Dan Rawlinson, naked as the day he was born, fucked Laurie Malone on the side of the road. Teeth clenched as his hips smacked against Laurie’s ass, he just kept hissing, “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck,” as he pushed his dick deeper into him.
Laurie's teeth ground as, laying across the seat, he gripped its leather and gave into sensation. The white earth studded with brown stalks said nothing, nor the chapped grey winter road. No birds, no engines, no cars could be heard in that silent landscape, only the satisfied sounds of two hot blooded creatures who cared nothing for the cold, only Laurie as he cried out, “Fuck me! Fuck me! God! God, that’s it!”
…And then only sound in all that space was the slight creak of the springs of the Jeep while Dan, hands on Laurie’s shoulders, plowed him.
MORE IN A FEW NIGHTS
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 came here. It was 1953 and there was a car, rounded and 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 a shaft 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. They 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 it 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 to 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 whom 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 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 at 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 inside of 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 in that tub and drown. 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 Frye. 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 Steiger, my brother, and my son, I was pregnant with my own grandchild.
*********************************
“Where do you wanna go?” Dan asked.
He was driving. They could have gone back to Lassador, or they could have gone back to Chicago, taken up in this whole strange adventure, suddenly, he almost felt discarded.
And Laurie, sounding discarded, said, “It doesn’t matter.”
“Well, you do have to go back to work.”
“I don’t really ever have to go back to work if I don’t want to.”
Dan said nothing as they drove over the unvaried countryside, and finally Laurie said, “I’m sorry. I’m just…”
“I know,” Dan said.
“So much work for us all to be together, and now she’s gone.”
Laurie sighed, leaning back and pressing his shades on.
Dan only said, “I know.”
“I feel… strange,” Laurie said.
They drove, and Dan thought how strange was the only word for their current feeling. The moment Loreal had come, it was as if there was more room, not less, to live in, and it wasn’t that they were incomplete without her, but… no, it was that. And now, with her gone, they’d have to find a new completion. And on top of that, the strange way he had felt all morning but, damn, he had to get a better word than strange.
On that last night, they’d all been together in that bed, impassioned, but the desire had given way to sleep, the need to be together in every way possible given way to the need to rest in one another’s arms. Dan regretted that he hadn’t had Loreal one last time. That they hadn’t had each other one last time.
Laurie looked at him sadly, pulling off his glasses so that Dan smiled to look at those deep brown eyes.
“Where do you wanna go, baby?”
“I’m driving to Chicago,” Dan said. “Let’s just be alone there for a few days.”
Dan felt Laurie’s hand between his legs, felt Laurie’s hand close on him.
“Shit,” he murmured.
“You were already hard before I touched you,” Laurie said. “You were pitching a tent like no other.”
“I didn’t—” Dan couldn’t speak for the way Laurie was stroking him, “didn’t even know…Oh!”
Laurie kept stroking him while Dan drove.
Before the black jeep parked on the side of the winter road there was a green sign that said,
CHIGAGO: NEXT EXIT
Under the white sky, and in the midst of naked trees, where no cars passed, in the open door of the black Jeep, Dan Rawlinson, naked as the day he was born, fucked Laurie Malone on the side of the road. Teeth clenched as his hips smacked against Laurie’s ass, he just kept hissing, “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck,” as he pushed his dick deeper into him.
Laurie's teeth ground as, laying across the seat, he gripped its leather and gave into sensation. The white earth studded with brown stalks said nothing, nor the chapped grey winter road. No birds, no engines, no cars could be heard in that silent landscape, only the satisfied sounds of two hot blooded creatures who cared nothing for the cold, only Laurie as he cried out, “Fuck me! Fuck me! God! God, that’s it!”
…And then only sound in all that space was the slight creak of the springs of the Jeep while Dan, hands on Laurie’s shoulders, plowed him.
MORE IN A FEW NIGHTS
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
That was a great end to the chapter. Pamela’s life just gets more and more fucked up. Looks like Laurie and Dan are having a nice time alone together! Good for them! Excellent writing and I look forward to more in a few days!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Yes, I think at this point in the story we can go from saying Pamela's life is interesting, to it is flat out fucked up. and if you think that's the end, you're wrong. There is still more to come from our friend. Meanwhile, Laurie and Dan are having a very fulfilling time indeed and God help--or God bless--whoever might have seen them on the side of the road.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
TONIGHT WE BEGIN THE CONCLUDING CHAPTER OF THE WICKED, AND OF THE BOOK OF PAMELA STRAUSS
T H I R T E E N
DAS ENDE
IHRES
BUCHES
Yet she shall be known & I never.
-The Book of the Law
I had not been pregnant in twenty-six years, and back then it was with Steiger. Now I took the train down south carrying Steiger’s child in my body. Before I had not known where to go, but this time I never thought twice about going to Augustus. He received me and I was nearly ashamed, but he said, “What is the matter?”
“You are unchanged,” I said.
“Nothing is unchanged,” he replied.
He told me of his children, and I was surprised for I had not known him to have any.
“My brother had the children until now,” Augustus said, “and it was I who watched over the family. Susanna and I had a child once, and now I have had others without her. Susanna and I no longer see eye to eye, and she has decided to age. It will be slow, for she is as old as I. It will not happen right away, but it is her decision.”
I did not say anything as pat as, she must have her reasons, especially since I thought, if there was a way to stop from aging, I would have taken it. But perhaps, in some way it age had stopped for me.
“It has not stopped,” Augustus said truthfully. “It has done something, but it has not stopped. How is it that you are with child, Pamela?”
Once he had asked, it did not occur to me to lie to him. I began at the beginning, with Germany and Friedereich coming to a wolf in the woods to beget me, and though, often, his eyes showed interest, Augustus was beyond condemnation or puerile shock, so when I had told my tale, he said, “and Steiger has no idea.”
“Nor must he ever,” I said. “How could one live with such knowledge?”
I remained in that lush southern land my whole pregnancy, and when the child was born, Augustus said, “You know, you need never return there. You could stay here if it suits you.”
It did suit me, and I did wish to stay but I said, “I may come back. I would be pleased to come back, but for now I feel I am needed. There are certain things to be worked through and I am not entirely sure anyone is ready to work them through yet who is not me.”
I was on a train fourteen hours and returned to Lassador in the night. It had never even occurred to me to hide the baby. It was a delight to hold her to my breast. I was full of milk and loved to suckle her, and her hair was red, much like Caroline’s. I thought to live in the coach house, the place where, really, Jimmy and Natalie should live, and I was setting myself up there, and putting the baby to bed when I decided to cross the yard and enter the townhouse. It was empty except for my sister Claire and her son, and she said, “They’re all at the hospital. Caroline isn’t well at all.”
“Caroline?”
“She went into labor.”
“Tonight?’
“Yes, Pam!” Claire nearly shouted.
“What hospital?”
“St. Joseph.”
“I’ll borrow your car.”
I took the baby with me. I did not trust Claire to watch her, and could not leave her in the carriage house, and it was a different time, a time when, if an old woman showed up to the hospital asking for someone sick and she had a baby, there would be someone to take the baby and watch it, some place she could put the child. So I went up, and here is all the family, weeping and strange, and here is Steiger looking heartbroken, and see, I go into the room, and Caroline is not merely sick. She is drained of color. Caroline is dead, and it is all too much, and they say, “Look, the baby died too, and its hair was red like hers,” and they take me into a room too large where there is, like some grave and sweet doll, a baby, like graying porcelain lain on a table, its blue veins showing through white skin, and then, like a miracle to a family so distraught, no magic worked at all, hardly any, I produce a living, lustrous red headed child and put it in Steiger’s arms and say, “Here is your baby. This is your baby, see?”
The baby who died is taken away and buried, and that baby is never named, but I have the Negro priest put water on its head and name it, make it ready for heaven. This is that same night, and I take my red headed baby from the weeping Steiger’s arms. He is so grateful. I take my daughter and Steiger’s daughter to my breast and continue to milk her.
“Delia is your name,” I croon to her. I thought of it in the warm air of the south. “Delia Frye.”
“Well, goddamn,” Marabeth put the book down.
It was so far removed from anything she had known about these people. Steiger she had known her whole life, but as a very old man. Pamela, she had known, but she had been an ancient woman. Grandmother… but Grandmother was always old and there had been no knowledge of her grandfather. Caroline, as the record told, had always been dead and Delia…
But I knew Delia. I knew poor mad Delia. She was Mother’s best friend. She was… she is Jim’s mother. Her own mother was Caroline Dashbach who died in childbirth. She was… But… it wasn’t possible.
“But it changes everything. It explains everything,” Marabeth said, conscious that she was walking around in the motel room talking to herself.
“That’s why Jim never had the Change. Why he’s different from Kris.”
All of their lives, Jim was their first cousin, the son of their Uncle Byron—someone Marabeth just barely remembered—and their Aunt Delia, the daughter of Steiger Frye, their grandfather’s best friend. But if this journal was true, and it was, then Delia was not just the daughter of her grandfather’s best friend. No, Delia was…
“Pamela’s daughter, the granddaughter of Friederich.”
And, and now she had to bend her mind, a child of deep incest, begotten by Pamela on Steiger who was not simply her grandfather’s best friend, but…
Pamela’s son. Friederich’s son. Delia was Friederich’s granddaughter twice over. Pamela’s daughter, Pamela Strauss’s daughter, and her granddaughter.
“And niece,” Marabeth murmured with a shudder.
“She was always so kind ot me,” Jim had said about Pamela. “I was never afraid of her. She used ot take me on her knees and tell me stories…”
Jim was Pamela’s grandson. He was Pamela’s great grandson, her soul scion. He was the only one of Friederich Strauss’s descendants who was….
But her mind did not go to incest.
“He is the purest descendant of Friederich. He is the only descendant of Pamela, several times over. He is… the only one of us who comes from the mating of Friederich and the wolf that created Pamela.”
It was the reason Delia had died insane, probably, but it was also the reason Jim of all the men in the family without the female female barrier, did not change, did not manifest the curse… or the ability.. in the same way.
Marabeth reflected that what she was thinking was so very German. A little too twentieth century German.
“He is the purest one of us all.”
It never occurred to her not to tell him. She went down the hall before she let the thought of protecting him come. Too many people were kept from knowing things because people wanted ot protect them. She rapped on the door and then thought, God, I hope he and Seth weren’t—
But the door opened, and though Seth looked sleepy, he smiled at her. He was a good guy. He was.. yes… just what Jim needed. Jim was sitting up in bed and he pulled a tee shirt on and came out of the covers, joining them.
“You guys have to read this,” Marabeth said, entering the room, and putting the book down on the bed.
“What?” Jim began. “Is it that important?”
“Yes. And you need to read it yourself. How far did you get?’
“Good God, Mara, until I had to stop., It’s more than I really ever wanted to know, but…”
“But where did you stop?”
“I dunno. When Grandma got married to Granddad Jimmy.”
“Well, then you have to get to 1955.”
“1955?”
Marabeth nodded.
“When your mother was born.”
MORE TOMORROW?
T H I R T E E N
DAS ENDE
IHRES
BUCHES
Yet she shall be known & I never.
-The Book of the Law
I had not been pregnant in twenty-six years, and back then it was with Steiger. Now I took the train down south carrying Steiger’s child in my body. Before I had not known where to go, but this time I never thought twice about going to Augustus. He received me and I was nearly ashamed, but he said, “What is the matter?”
“You are unchanged,” I said.
“Nothing is unchanged,” he replied.
He told me of his children, and I was surprised for I had not known him to have any.
“My brother had the children until now,” Augustus said, “and it was I who watched over the family. Susanna and I had a child once, and now I have had others without her. Susanna and I no longer see eye to eye, and she has decided to age. It will be slow, for she is as old as I. It will not happen right away, but it is her decision.”
I did not say anything as pat as, she must have her reasons, especially since I thought, if there was a way to stop from aging, I would have taken it. But perhaps, in some way it age had stopped for me.
“It has not stopped,” Augustus said truthfully. “It has done something, but it has not stopped. How is it that you are with child, Pamela?”
Once he had asked, it did not occur to me to lie to him. I began at the beginning, with Germany and Friedereich coming to a wolf in the woods to beget me, and though, often, his eyes showed interest, Augustus was beyond condemnation or puerile shock, so when I had told my tale, he said, “and Steiger has no idea.”
“Nor must he ever,” I said. “How could one live with such knowledge?”
I remained in that lush southern land my whole pregnancy, and when the child was born, Augustus said, “You know, you need never return there. You could stay here if it suits you.”
It did suit me, and I did wish to stay but I said, “I may come back. I would be pleased to come back, but for now I feel I am needed. There are certain things to be worked through and I am not entirely sure anyone is ready to work them through yet who is not me.”
I was on a train fourteen hours and returned to Lassador in the night. It had never even occurred to me to hide the baby. It was a delight to hold her to my breast. I was full of milk and loved to suckle her, and her hair was red, much like Caroline’s. I thought to live in the coach house, the place where, really, Jimmy and Natalie should live, and I was setting myself up there, and putting the baby to bed when I decided to cross the yard and enter the townhouse. It was empty except for my sister Claire and her son, and she said, “They’re all at the hospital. Caroline isn’t well at all.”
“Caroline?”
“She went into labor.”
“Tonight?’
“Yes, Pam!” Claire nearly shouted.
“What hospital?”
“St. Joseph.”
“I’ll borrow your car.”
I took the baby with me. I did not trust Claire to watch her, and could not leave her in the carriage house, and it was a different time, a time when, if an old woman showed up to the hospital asking for someone sick and she had a baby, there would be someone to take the baby and watch it, some place she could put the child. So I went up, and here is all the family, weeping and strange, and here is Steiger looking heartbroken, and see, I go into the room, and Caroline is not merely sick. She is drained of color. Caroline is dead, and it is all too much, and they say, “Look, the baby died too, and its hair was red like hers,” and they take me into a room too large where there is, like some grave and sweet doll, a baby, like graying porcelain lain on a table, its blue veins showing through white skin, and then, like a miracle to a family so distraught, no magic worked at all, hardly any, I produce a living, lustrous red headed child and put it in Steiger’s arms and say, “Here is your baby. This is your baby, see?”
The baby who died is taken away and buried, and that baby is never named, but I have the Negro priest put water on its head and name it, make it ready for heaven. This is that same night, and I take my red headed baby from the weeping Steiger’s arms. He is so grateful. I take my daughter and Steiger’s daughter to my breast and continue to milk her.
“Delia is your name,” I croon to her. I thought of it in the warm air of the south. “Delia Frye.”
“Well, goddamn,” Marabeth put the book down.
It was so far removed from anything she had known about these people. Steiger she had known her whole life, but as a very old man. Pamela, she had known, but she had been an ancient woman. Grandmother… but Grandmother was always old and there had been no knowledge of her grandfather. Caroline, as the record told, had always been dead and Delia…
But I knew Delia. I knew poor mad Delia. She was Mother’s best friend. She was… she is Jim’s mother. Her own mother was Caroline Dashbach who died in childbirth. She was… But… it wasn’t possible.
“But it changes everything. It explains everything,” Marabeth said, conscious that she was walking around in the motel room talking to herself.
“That’s why Jim never had the Change. Why he’s different from Kris.”
All of their lives, Jim was their first cousin, the son of their Uncle Byron—someone Marabeth just barely remembered—and their Aunt Delia, the daughter of Steiger Frye, their grandfather’s best friend. But if this journal was true, and it was, then Delia was not just the daughter of her grandfather’s best friend. No, Delia was…
“Pamela’s daughter, the granddaughter of Friederich.”
And, and now she had to bend her mind, a child of deep incest, begotten by Pamela on Steiger who was not simply her grandfather’s best friend, but…
Pamela’s son. Friederich’s son. Delia was Friederich’s granddaughter twice over. Pamela’s daughter, Pamela Strauss’s daughter, and her granddaughter.
“And niece,” Marabeth murmured with a shudder.
“She was always so kind ot me,” Jim had said about Pamela. “I was never afraid of her. She used ot take me on her knees and tell me stories…”
Jim was Pamela’s grandson. He was Pamela’s great grandson, her soul scion. He was the only one of Friederich Strauss’s descendants who was….
But her mind did not go to incest.
“He is the purest descendant of Friederich. He is the only descendant of Pamela, several times over. He is… the only one of us who comes from the mating of Friederich and the wolf that created Pamela.”
It was the reason Delia had died insane, probably, but it was also the reason Jim of all the men in the family without the female female barrier, did not change, did not manifest the curse… or the ability.. in the same way.
Marabeth reflected that what she was thinking was so very German. A little too twentieth century German.
“He is the purest one of us all.”
It never occurred to her not to tell him. She went down the hall before she let the thought of protecting him come. Too many people were kept from knowing things because people wanted ot protect them. She rapped on the door and then thought, God, I hope he and Seth weren’t—
But the door opened, and though Seth looked sleepy, he smiled at her. He was a good guy. He was.. yes… just what Jim needed. Jim was sitting up in bed and he pulled a tee shirt on and came out of the covers, joining them.
“You guys have to read this,” Marabeth said, entering the room, and putting the book down on the bed.
“What?” Jim began. “Is it that important?”
“Yes. And you need to read it yourself. How far did you get?’
“Good God, Mara, until I had to stop., It’s more than I really ever wanted to know, but…”
“But where did you stop?”
“I dunno. When Grandma got married to Granddad Jimmy.”
“Well, then you have to get to 1955.”
“1955?”
Marabeth nodded.
“When your mother was born.”
MORE TOMORROW?
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
Wow that was a big surprise from Pamela about Jim! It does explain a lot but I did not see it coming. Excellent writing and I look forward to more tomorrow if you’re posting then.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
What can I say but ah yes! The moment we've been-or I've been--waiting for. Cousin Jim is so much more than cousin Jim. I don't know what else to say.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
TONIGHT'S FINAL PORTION OF THE WICKED WILL BE IN TWO POSTS
THE BOOK OF PAMELA STRAUSS
THE YEAR THAT DELIA was born was full of happiness as well as sorrow. Of course, Caroline was gone ,and this was a great sadness for Katherine and for Natalie. She and Natalie had been close, and from then on, Natalie would never have such a close friend. But the truth is, I cannot say that Steiger was overly moved by his wife’s death. He was sad. Sadness was there. I do not mean to make him seem worse than he was. But he had Delia, who was the pride of his lfie, and after all, his true daughter, and he knew that I would care for her. I was glad to do it.
Steiger was the only one who could keep Jimmy from his drinking. Steiger did not seem to suffer from the dreams Jimmy did, and there were times when Jimmy either forgot or chose to forget to take his pills, and then he was locked in the basement causing terror to all above. Kristin and Byron were just babies, and I thought that life in the house on Dimler Street would always be like this, alternating between the joy of the baby, whom Natalie loved like a second mother, and the sadness and occasional terror of Jimmy and his fits of drunkenness. And then there were the times when he descended into being a monster.
Jimmy’s rages subsided in Steiger’s arms. Steiger, having brought a child into the world and been married once, never felt the need to be married again. Whatever complicated business had gone on in the two marriages, now Jimmy came to Steiger the way I came to Friederich. Steiger and Delia had moved into the coach house, and Jimmy would spend his nights there.
But Natalie was jealous, and what woman would not be? In her way she feared Steiger, or respected him, and she said nothing around him, but one night when he was gone, I heard her screaming at Jimmy, “Your sisters don’t go through this with my brothers. Caroline had to live like this. That’s why she died! That’s why she was so unhappy. How dare you shame me this way, always running off to him! How dare you.”
When Steiger came back, Jimmy went to him, but only for a little while. Natalie spoke to him and left him changed, and a few days later Steiger announced that he and Delia were moving.
“We are going to do a bit of traveling, see the country. I’ve seen the world, but not much of the country, and this little lady should experience the same thing.”
I could have killed Natalie for taking my son and granddaughter, ah, my daughter, from me. I almost did. I contemplated it. And she had separated Jimmy from his best friend, all to have a man who could never really be hers. She paid for it however. With Steiger gone, there was no sobriety, many fights, thrown furniture, though no black eyes, and the medicine was gone, that is to say, Jimmy refused to take it, and so the rest of the family did not come during the full moons when Jimmy was chained below, screaming.
Natalie came to me later that year, and I was put out with her.
“What do you want?’
“Pamela, I am pregnant.”
“With whose baby?”
“Jimmy’s!” she almost shrieked. “What kind of question is that?”
“A very good kind considering my brother is as mad as a hare. Or a wolf? Didn’t you see that when you married him?”
She didn’t answer, and I said, “So it is Jimmy’s”.
“Yes?”
“You’re married to a homosexual werewolf and still you manage to have children, while Claire, married all these years to a man who loves her has only one son. Marriage is a mystery.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“You’ve had two children already, I’m sure you know just what to do.”
Was she coming to me woman to woman? Even if she had not known that Steiger was my son and that Delia was our daughter, even if she had not known how much I loved them, she knew that I loved them, and what was more, she surely must have known I had little sympathy for her current situation. Was she looking to me to ask if she should have the baby?
“I’ve heard that you know of… herbs… ways.”
“You want to kill your baby.”
“I don’t WANT to kill my baby.”
“You are coming to me, having the audacity to ask me to kill your baby.”
“I don’t want to do this. Have a child that could be like Jimmy. It’s bad enough Byron will be! I don’t want to do this! I don’t want to do this!”
She kept screaming until I slapped her. The second time I slapped her because I wanted to hit her. She sank down in the old chair in the corner of my room and I said, “Stop your crying. Go back and have your baby. He is a Strauss. He will not be like Jimmy or Byron. Jimmy was weak. He was always weak. You knew that when you married him. And Byron is deficient.”
Natalie’s eyes flashed, but hadn’t she been the one to say she wanted an abortion?
“Byron is…not right in his head,” I said, firm. “Go back and have this baby. He will be different.”
I think that all that summer and autumn, as Natalie grew, her womb was filled with sadness and sorrow. She swelled with misery. There was no joy in her pregancy, and the truth is, Jimmy was barely lucid for it. The January night that Nathan Friederich James Strauss was born, I was in the room with Natalie and my younger sisters. We lifted the child and held him to us, counting his toes and kissing his feet, and the sorrow in Natalie seemed to lighten. Her brothers were in the house as well, waiting to see their nephew, but no one said anything about Jimmy, who was passed out drunk in the library.
“I always thought I could own Jimmy,” Natalie confessed, “that if I just had him to myself he would be a proper husband. But now I see that isn’t so.”
As she drifted off to sleep she said, “Pamela, bring Steiger and Delia home.”
Of course, outside of the house on Dimler Street, life for the Keller Strauss family went on. The next big happening took place in 1960. Maris came to the house, shaken, and sat down in her chair in the living room, trembling and drinking glass after glass of bourbon. Nathan was moving around the house with his brother and sister and Delia, and Natalie looked at him, then at her sister-in-law.
“If you don’t start speaking, I’m not going to let you have another drink, Maris.”
“Ed’s in the basement,” Maris said.
Ed was Edward Keller Junior, the oldest of my father’s grandchildren, and Maris said. “He had told me he wasn’t feeling well, but I didn’t think. I was so foolish. And we are always watching him.”
“So he’s made the Change,” I said.
And Maris nodded.
“Well, when you say down in the basement…” Natalie began.
“Edward’s father built the same thing in his basement that he built in Father’s for Jimmy. He said there was a chance of it happening. We all knew there was a chance of it happening, but I thought,” Maris shrugged, “maybe because I was a woman, maybe it would skip or something.”
“Well, then this means we have to watch out for Fred too,” I said.
“And Granger,” Maris said, thinking of her little boy, young Peter’s father.
“I can’t believe we’re having this discussion,” Maris said, taking the bottle of bourbon out of Natalie’s hand.
“We should have had it a while ago,” I said. “And we will have to send a bottle of the elixir to the house for him.”
“Pamela,” Natalie said.
I looked to my sister-in-law.
“We need to tell Claire so she can be safe from Fred.”
“If it happens to Fred,” Maris said.
“It’s going to happen to all of them,” Natalie said, matter of factly. “It’s even going to happen to my boys. There’s no point denying it. There’s no point denying anything. We just have to be prepared.”
Natalie was right, of course. Fred went through the Change the next year, and the next came Dillard, Maris’s second son. We were on the watch for Byron, a boy who was, in many ways, more sickly looking than his father had been at that age. But if Byron was a sickly child, then Jimmy was sickly as a man. In the end, even Steiger couldn’t keep him from drinking. The sorrow that tore through Natalie began to tear through Steiger, and I had heard him telling Jimmy, “Delia is my daughter. If you’re going to be drunk, you can’t be drunk in the coach house around her.”
“This house is mine! Everything here is mine! If you want to make rules about a house, you’d better get your own.”
Jimmy tried to fight Steiger, but Steiger only took one wrist, and then the other and stood sadly watching Jimmy try to struggle against him in his drunkenness. One morning in 1962, Jimmy went to the coach house, weeping, and not incredibly stable, and the next morning, Steiger came in white faced and stricken,
“Delia’s asleep,” he whispered to me. “Delia’s in bed. I can’t wake her up. She’s got school at eight anyway. She’s got school, and we’ve got to get her to school. School is what matters. School is all that matters.”
“Steiger!” Natalie interrupted, “what’s going on?”
“Oh,” Steiger looked at her as if he’d just waken up. “Oh, what’s going on? Jimmy’s dead. He’s dead in my bed upstairs in the coach house. My brother, my best friend, my broken best friend. He’s dead, Natalie. Your husband is dead.”
This was the first Strauss funeral we’d ever had. You would have thought it would be Father, or even me. All of us Strausses and Kellers escorted him to Saint Ursula, traveling in a line of black cars, behind Jimmy’s hearse which moved with a slow elegance Jimmy had never possessed in life. All of Germantown, including the families who had moved to the south side, were present. There was the picture of my brother as a soldier, smiling and proud on his flag draped casket, and for a time our grief was public.
But then we retreated to our necessary privacy. No sooner had Jimmy been buried than Kristin went into the first of her depressions, and Byron made his first Change. That very first time he stayed locked in the basement and Friederich, shouting only in German, would not let anyone go to him.
“Get out of the way you stupid old man,” Natalie snapped, reaching out to slap him across the face. But it was her brothers who pointed out that they must wait till the next morning to give Byron the elixir. Amazingly, Natalie had been pregnant again, but she miscarried a child who was so new the sex could not be determined. In the midst of this, Steiger came to me.
“Pamela, I feel like I will kill myself if I stay here.”
I didn’t make him ask. I simply said, “Go and do what you need to do and return to us when you can. Leave Delia here. We will care for her.”
“No one in this house is fit to care for anyone,” Steiger said.
“I am,” I said, “I am, and Delia will be like my very daughter. In fact, I will move into the coach house with her. Now go.”
Steiger leaned forward and embraced me, and I could smell his cologne and the sun in his hair.
“Go,” I said, and he whispered into my ear, “Pamela, you have always been a mother to me.”
I, who never cry, wept for a day after Steiger left, and that same evening, I moved into the coach house to be with Delia and pay little attention to the madness in the large house on Dimler Street.
MORE LATER
THE BOOK OF PAMELA STRAUSS
THE YEAR THAT DELIA was born was full of happiness as well as sorrow. Of course, Caroline was gone ,and this was a great sadness for Katherine and for Natalie. She and Natalie had been close, and from then on, Natalie would never have such a close friend. But the truth is, I cannot say that Steiger was overly moved by his wife’s death. He was sad. Sadness was there. I do not mean to make him seem worse than he was. But he had Delia, who was the pride of his lfie, and after all, his true daughter, and he knew that I would care for her. I was glad to do it.
Steiger was the only one who could keep Jimmy from his drinking. Steiger did not seem to suffer from the dreams Jimmy did, and there were times when Jimmy either forgot or chose to forget to take his pills, and then he was locked in the basement causing terror to all above. Kristin and Byron were just babies, and I thought that life in the house on Dimler Street would always be like this, alternating between the joy of the baby, whom Natalie loved like a second mother, and the sadness and occasional terror of Jimmy and his fits of drunkenness. And then there were the times when he descended into being a monster.
Jimmy’s rages subsided in Steiger’s arms. Steiger, having brought a child into the world and been married once, never felt the need to be married again. Whatever complicated business had gone on in the two marriages, now Jimmy came to Steiger the way I came to Friederich. Steiger and Delia had moved into the coach house, and Jimmy would spend his nights there.
But Natalie was jealous, and what woman would not be? In her way she feared Steiger, or respected him, and she said nothing around him, but one night when he was gone, I heard her screaming at Jimmy, “Your sisters don’t go through this with my brothers. Caroline had to live like this. That’s why she died! That’s why she was so unhappy. How dare you shame me this way, always running off to him! How dare you.”
When Steiger came back, Jimmy went to him, but only for a little while. Natalie spoke to him and left him changed, and a few days later Steiger announced that he and Delia were moving.
“We are going to do a bit of traveling, see the country. I’ve seen the world, but not much of the country, and this little lady should experience the same thing.”
I could have killed Natalie for taking my son and granddaughter, ah, my daughter, from me. I almost did. I contemplated it. And she had separated Jimmy from his best friend, all to have a man who could never really be hers. She paid for it however. With Steiger gone, there was no sobriety, many fights, thrown furniture, though no black eyes, and the medicine was gone, that is to say, Jimmy refused to take it, and so the rest of the family did not come during the full moons when Jimmy was chained below, screaming.
Natalie came to me later that year, and I was put out with her.
“What do you want?’
“Pamela, I am pregnant.”
“With whose baby?”
“Jimmy’s!” she almost shrieked. “What kind of question is that?”
“A very good kind considering my brother is as mad as a hare. Or a wolf? Didn’t you see that when you married him?”
She didn’t answer, and I said, “So it is Jimmy’s”.
“Yes?”
“You’re married to a homosexual werewolf and still you manage to have children, while Claire, married all these years to a man who loves her has only one son. Marriage is a mystery.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“You’ve had two children already, I’m sure you know just what to do.”
Was she coming to me woman to woman? Even if she had not known that Steiger was my son and that Delia was our daughter, even if she had not known how much I loved them, she knew that I loved them, and what was more, she surely must have known I had little sympathy for her current situation. Was she looking to me to ask if she should have the baby?
“I’ve heard that you know of… herbs… ways.”
“You want to kill your baby.”
“I don’t WANT to kill my baby.”
“You are coming to me, having the audacity to ask me to kill your baby.”
“I don’t want to do this. Have a child that could be like Jimmy. It’s bad enough Byron will be! I don’t want to do this! I don’t want to do this!”
She kept screaming until I slapped her. The second time I slapped her because I wanted to hit her. She sank down in the old chair in the corner of my room and I said, “Stop your crying. Go back and have your baby. He is a Strauss. He will not be like Jimmy or Byron. Jimmy was weak. He was always weak. You knew that when you married him. And Byron is deficient.”
Natalie’s eyes flashed, but hadn’t she been the one to say she wanted an abortion?
“Byron is…not right in his head,” I said, firm. “Go back and have this baby. He will be different.”
I think that all that summer and autumn, as Natalie grew, her womb was filled with sadness and sorrow. She swelled with misery. There was no joy in her pregancy, and the truth is, Jimmy was barely lucid for it. The January night that Nathan Friederich James Strauss was born, I was in the room with Natalie and my younger sisters. We lifted the child and held him to us, counting his toes and kissing his feet, and the sorrow in Natalie seemed to lighten. Her brothers were in the house as well, waiting to see their nephew, but no one said anything about Jimmy, who was passed out drunk in the library.
“I always thought I could own Jimmy,” Natalie confessed, “that if I just had him to myself he would be a proper husband. But now I see that isn’t so.”
As she drifted off to sleep she said, “Pamela, bring Steiger and Delia home.”
Of course, outside of the house on Dimler Street, life for the Keller Strauss family went on. The next big happening took place in 1960. Maris came to the house, shaken, and sat down in her chair in the living room, trembling and drinking glass after glass of bourbon. Nathan was moving around the house with his brother and sister and Delia, and Natalie looked at him, then at her sister-in-law.
“If you don’t start speaking, I’m not going to let you have another drink, Maris.”
“Ed’s in the basement,” Maris said.
Ed was Edward Keller Junior, the oldest of my father’s grandchildren, and Maris said. “He had told me he wasn’t feeling well, but I didn’t think. I was so foolish. And we are always watching him.”
“So he’s made the Change,” I said.
And Maris nodded.
“Well, when you say down in the basement…” Natalie began.
“Edward’s father built the same thing in his basement that he built in Father’s for Jimmy. He said there was a chance of it happening. We all knew there was a chance of it happening, but I thought,” Maris shrugged, “maybe because I was a woman, maybe it would skip or something.”
“Well, then this means we have to watch out for Fred too,” I said.
“And Granger,” Maris said, thinking of her little boy, young Peter’s father.
“I can’t believe we’re having this discussion,” Maris said, taking the bottle of bourbon out of Natalie’s hand.
“We should have had it a while ago,” I said. “And we will have to send a bottle of the elixir to the house for him.”
“Pamela,” Natalie said.
I looked to my sister-in-law.
“We need to tell Claire so she can be safe from Fred.”
“If it happens to Fred,” Maris said.
“It’s going to happen to all of them,” Natalie said, matter of factly. “It’s even going to happen to my boys. There’s no point denying it. There’s no point denying anything. We just have to be prepared.”
Natalie was right, of course. Fred went through the Change the next year, and the next came Dillard, Maris’s second son. We were on the watch for Byron, a boy who was, in many ways, more sickly looking than his father had been at that age. But if Byron was a sickly child, then Jimmy was sickly as a man. In the end, even Steiger couldn’t keep him from drinking. The sorrow that tore through Natalie began to tear through Steiger, and I had heard him telling Jimmy, “Delia is my daughter. If you’re going to be drunk, you can’t be drunk in the coach house around her.”
“This house is mine! Everything here is mine! If you want to make rules about a house, you’d better get your own.”
Jimmy tried to fight Steiger, but Steiger only took one wrist, and then the other and stood sadly watching Jimmy try to struggle against him in his drunkenness. One morning in 1962, Jimmy went to the coach house, weeping, and not incredibly stable, and the next morning, Steiger came in white faced and stricken,
“Delia’s asleep,” he whispered to me. “Delia’s in bed. I can’t wake her up. She’s got school at eight anyway. She’s got school, and we’ve got to get her to school. School is what matters. School is all that matters.”
“Steiger!” Natalie interrupted, “what’s going on?”
“Oh,” Steiger looked at her as if he’d just waken up. “Oh, what’s going on? Jimmy’s dead. He’s dead in my bed upstairs in the coach house. My brother, my best friend, my broken best friend. He’s dead, Natalie. Your husband is dead.”
This was the first Strauss funeral we’d ever had. You would have thought it would be Father, or even me. All of us Strausses and Kellers escorted him to Saint Ursula, traveling in a line of black cars, behind Jimmy’s hearse which moved with a slow elegance Jimmy had never possessed in life. All of Germantown, including the families who had moved to the south side, were present. There was the picture of my brother as a soldier, smiling and proud on his flag draped casket, and for a time our grief was public.
But then we retreated to our necessary privacy. No sooner had Jimmy been buried than Kristin went into the first of her depressions, and Byron made his first Change. That very first time he stayed locked in the basement and Friederich, shouting only in German, would not let anyone go to him.
“Get out of the way you stupid old man,” Natalie snapped, reaching out to slap him across the face. But it was her brothers who pointed out that they must wait till the next morning to give Byron the elixir. Amazingly, Natalie had been pregnant again, but she miscarried a child who was so new the sex could not be determined. In the midst of this, Steiger came to me.
“Pamela, I feel like I will kill myself if I stay here.”
I didn’t make him ask. I simply said, “Go and do what you need to do and return to us when you can. Leave Delia here. We will care for her.”
“No one in this house is fit to care for anyone,” Steiger said.
“I am,” I said, “I am, and Delia will be like my very daughter. In fact, I will move into the coach house with her. Now go.”
Steiger leaned forward and embraced me, and I could smell his cologne and the sun in his hair.
“Go,” I said, and he whispered into my ear, “Pamela, you have always been a mother to me.”
I, who never cry, wept for a day after Steiger left, and that same evening, I moved into the coach house to be with Delia and pay little attention to the madness in the large house on Dimler Street.
MORE LATER
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
I think in light ot things we'll just post the last part tomorrow
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
Sorry I am only getting to this now, had another big day at work. Pamela’s life is certainly never dull and I look forward to reading the end tomorrow! Excellent writing and I hope you had a nice night!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
It's never boring. And rarely happy.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
For reasons I could not discern, Friederich took to hiding Byron’s elixir. I think he wanted to see Byron become strong as a wolf, and then I also think a part of him enjoyed locking his weak grandson, who reminded him so much of Jimmy, in the basement. Every month, for those three days we had to go through the drama of Friederich, an increasingly old and unlovable man, trying to find the elixir and hide the elixir and, at last, I kept one bottle under lock and key and Natalie kept another the same way.
But the trouble began the year that Nathan made the Change. For him it happened earlier than we thought. He was only eleven, and it was 1967, When he made the change, Friederich did not call any of us. There were signs. He could have. And by the time we came it was to the sounds of growling and snarling. It was Natalie who understood even as I did.
Friederich had chosen to transform and fight Nathan.
Even I could do very little, and I had left Delia in the house, But it was Natalie who made the decision. She had never seen Friederich transform, but she knew I had, and looking from a dark almost black slender wolf to a grizzled white one, nipping at him and drawing blood, she said, “The old one is Friederich, right?”
I nodded dumbly,
And then, just like that, Natalie pulled out her pistol, and before I could say anything, she shot him in the head, and with a whimper, Friederich fell over. The young wolf was caught unawares, and stood blankly staring at Natalie and she said, unmoved. “Go. Through that door. Go down into that basement.”
Was it that Nathan knew his mother, or was it that she was the great granddaughter of Frau Inga, and that witch blood was coming through her? Natalie had always been an amazing if infuriating woman, and now she said, “Come, my baby. Come, my baby, and we’ll fix you tomorrow. I will have just the thing for you tomorrow, but tonight you need this. Come with me.”
She led her son downstairs, and as if he were a puppy, Nathan made snuffling noises. I could hear them. Down below, sadly, Natalie harnessed her own son and stayed with him. Up above, in the living room, I stood with Katherine, and we looked at the great form of Friederich Strauss, restored to human shape and still large in his old age, his mouth open and his eyes open, a great red black bullet hole in his temple. How old had he been? I imagined him as at least thirty years older than me, He was certainly well past eighty. For sixty years his presence had swallowed all the light from this house and overshadowed every woman and child in it, and now he lay dead on the floor, his life ended by a mother who would not see an old man who had become increasingly evil harm her son.
That night, while Natalie stayed below with her son, above my sisters and her brothers arrived at the house. They came with Mr Stenger the mortician. Maris and Claire said very little, and white haired Katherine sat in her chair, wrapped in a shawl. None of them had ever loved Friederich. He had been the monster of their lives, and now he was gone. He had been the man who had come in and sucked all of Katherine’s life away. That very night she went into the library, and pulled down the portrait of him. She took it to the attic and locked it away. That was her only commentary on the death of Friederich Strauss.
And I, who had been his partner for all of my life, his lover even, the mother of his son, how did I feel? I wished that Steiger had been there. I wished that I could tell him that this man was his father. I wished that I could tell Delia that this family was hers, that she was no guest, and that, no matter how she felt about Friederich, he was her grandfather the same as he was all of these others. And we were not a small family now. Maris had several children, many of them girls, and we would have to watch out to see how their children faired, what were the new rules of this genetic family game?
Friederich was buried out of Saint Ursula’s, and the procession was long. I wished, vaguely, that some people could remember what things had been like sixty years ago, before the wars, when Germantown was still filled with Germans and the language and the pride, not that ugly Nazi pride, but true pride, and the Blacks of Williams and Buren Street were just beginning to build their beautiful church. I wished they could remember a time when to the south and the east there was forest and Friederich Strauss had been, if a monster, also a savior, when he had been broad and tall and handsome, and come in and married Dr. Dashbach’s daughter, and the world had been wilder. But Germantown was old and tarnished now, and so many people had left, and the street names had changed and half the beer factories were empty husks. Even though the sun was shining the day my father was buried, everything seemed bleak and black, and that was probably because of all our bleak and black clothing.
“Aunt Pam,” Edward asked me, “Are you coming?”
“I am coming in a little bit,” I told him. “I will remain here a while.”
He nodded and went down the hill to leave me with the fresh grave of my father, and the headstone of my brother Jimmy.
“I hope none of them forget,” I said to myself, and then I heard a voice speak to me.
“Do not let them.”
I looked up, and for a brief moment, there was Hagano, standing before me, and before I could step forward, he was gone. It was the last time in my life I, who was now an old woman, well into my seventies, would see him. And then I realized I was indeed an old woman, and this was why Edward had looked at me anxiously and was now waiting on me to come down the hill.
I came.
But the trouble began the year that Nathan made the Change. For him it happened earlier than we thought. He was only eleven, and it was 1967, When he made the change, Friederich did not call any of us. There were signs. He could have. And by the time we came it was to the sounds of growling and snarling. It was Natalie who understood even as I did.
Friederich had chosen to transform and fight Nathan.
Even I could do very little, and I had left Delia in the house, But it was Natalie who made the decision. She had never seen Friederich transform, but she knew I had, and looking from a dark almost black slender wolf to a grizzled white one, nipping at him and drawing blood, she said, “The old one is Friederich, right?”
I nodded dumbly,
And then, just like that, Natalie pulled out her pistol, and before I could say anything, she shot him in the head, and with a whimper, Friederich fell over. The young wolf was caught unawares, and stood blankly staring at Natalie and she said, unmoved. “Go. Through that door. Go down into that basement.”
Was it that Nathan knew his mother, or was it that she was the great granddaughter of Frau Inga, and that witch blood was coming through her? Natalie had always been an amazing if infuriating woman, and now she said, “Come, my baby. Come, my baby, and we’ll fix you tomorrow. I will have just the thing for you tomorrow, but tonight you need this. Come with me.”
She led her son downstairs, and as if he were a puppy, Nathan made snuffling noises. I could hear them. Down below, sadly, Natalie harnessed her own son and stayed with him. Up above, in the living room, I stood with Katherine, and we looked at the great form of Friederich Strauss, restored to human shape and still large in his old age, his mouth open and his eyes open, a great red black bullet hole in his temple. How old had he been? I imagined him as at least thirty years older than me, He was certainly well past eighty. For sixty years his presence had swallowed all the light from this house and overshadowed every woman and child in it, and now he lay dead on the floor, his life ended by a mother who would not see an old man who had become increasingly evil harm her son.
That night, while Natalie stayed below with her son, above my sisters and her brothers arrived at the house. They came with Mr Stenger the mortician. Maris and Claire said very little, and white haired Katherine sat in her chair, wrapped in a shawl. None of them had ever loved Friederich. He had been the monster of their lives, and now he was gone. He had been the man who had come in and sucked all of Katherine’s life away. That very night she went into the library, and pulled down the portrait of him. She took it to the attic and locked it away. That was her only commentary on the death of Friederich Strauss.
And I, who had been his partner for all of my life, his lover even, the mother of his son, how did I feel? I wished that Steiger had been there. I wished that I could tell him that this man was his father. I wished that I could tell Delia that this family was hers, that she was no guest, and that, no matter how she felt about Friederich, he was her grandfather the same as he was all of these others. And we were not a small family now. Maris had several children, many of them girls, and we would have to watch out to see how their children faired, what were the new rules of this genetic family game?
Friederich was buried out of Saint Ursula’s, and the procession was long. I wished, vaguely, that some people could remember what things had been like sixty years ago, before the wars, when Germantown was still filled with Germans and the language and the pride, not that ugly Nazi pride, but true pride, and the Blacks of Williams and Buren Street were just beginning to build their beautiful church. I wished they could remember a time when to the south and the east there was forest and Friederich Strauss had been, if a monster, also a savior, when he had been broad and tall and handsome, and come in and married Dr. Dashbach’s daughter, and the world had been wilder. But Germantown was old and tarnished now, and so many people had left, and the street names had changed and half the beer factories were empty husks. Even though the sun was shining the day my father was buried, everything seemed bleak and black, and that was probably because of all our bleak and black clothing.
“Aunt Pam,” Edward asked me, “Are you coming?”
“I am coming in a little bit,” I told him. “I will remain here a while.”
He nodded and went down the hill to leave me with the fresh grave of my father, and the headstone of my brother Jimmy.
“I hope none of them forget,” I said to myself, and then I heard a voice speak to me.
“Do not let them.”
I looked up, and for a brief moment, there was Hagano, standing before me, and before I could step forward, he was gone. It was the last time in my life I, who was now an old woman, well into my seventies, would see him. And then I realized I was indeed an old woman, and this was why Edward had looked at me anxiously and was now waiting on me to come down the hill.
I came.
HERE ENDS
THE BOOK
OF
PAMELA STRAUSS
And here ends The Wicked.
After a brief rest, we shall conclude
our tale of dark love and deep magic with
The Blood.
THE BOOK
OF
PAMELA STRAUSS
And here ends The Wicked.
After a brief rest, we shall conclude
our tale of dark love and deep magic with
The Blood.
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CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
That was a really excellent ending! Pamela has had a complicated and sad life but it was interesting to read about. The way Freiderich was killed was a big surprise! Great writing and I look forward to The Blood! I hope you have a wonderful weekend! 
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Thank you, Matt. I'm sure we'll talk about all of this soon.
