Gathered Dust and Others (7 page)

Your Kiss of Corruption

I leaned against the cool wall of stone and listened to distant music.  My brother had squandered his inheritance by purchasing the ancient Gothic church that was now our home and the show place of his vast collection of esoteric art and
objets d’art.
  I had inherited father’s magnificent library, and thus I spent my time alone, in my chilly chamber, reading and dreaming.  The fortune that had been bequeathed to me was the money on which we lived; and it was also that which financed Christopher’s lavish galas, the events that bored me but which I listlessly attended because I my brother decreed that it be so.  It was at the last such affair that my brother had unveiled his latest acquisition, an ancient full-length mirror encased in a frame of white gold.  Never before had such an unveiling been more successful; for the idiots who were his conceited friends lined up so as to admire themselves on the surface of polished glass.  The sight of their uncouth cavorting, and the sound of their nonsensical shrieking, was too much for my nerves, and thus I walked out to the strange and venerable burying ground, to the queer and time-worn arched entrance of a buried mausoleum.  Above its cavity of ingress was chiseled this curious inscription:

Mors Janua Vitae.

I leaned my brow against the cool rough stone of the neglected tomb and listened to the cry of night-birds.  Quietly, I whispered the words of the inscription into the absolute darkness beyond the arched entrance.  I felt the cold lips that kissed my neck; I felt them press against my ear and sigh the Latin epigraph.  I could smell the bourbon on his breath. 

“You’re a naughty wretch, Agnes, to exile yourself from our company.  Come, let my friends adore your beauty; you look fetching in that tight dress, which clings to you like second skin.  Come.”  His cool hand touched my arm.

“I’m in need of air.  I’ll join you anon.”  I looked up at the yellow moon and my flesh chilled at how macabre that sphere looked, casting its morbid light on the dismal place wherein we stood.  Had the atmosphere grown cooler, or was it some psychic premonition of what was to come that caused my flesh to creep?  When I finally turned to gaze into my brother’s eyes, I saw within their luster a kind of craziness; and when his hands were suddenly pressing my arms against the cold surface of the mausoleum I suddenly panicked.  “No,” I told him.

“Be not afraid,” he whispered.  “I know you abhor the darkness.  It’s such a childish fear,” he mocked.  “Darkness is our friend.  Here, let me lead you into this depth of blackness, and you’ll find that you have naught to fear.”  I cried in pain at the tight hold of his hand around my wrist.  “Come, Agnes, don’t fight me.”

“Let go of me, brother.” 

“Come, it’s just a few steps down, and then you’ll stand again on solid ground.  We can lay together on one of the oblong tombs that hold the remains of some long forgotten sod.  Come, follow me.”

He had stepped into the shadow and was tugging my arm; yet still I resisted, and when I yanked my hand from him he tripped over his feet in trying to pull me to him.  We both fell – I onto the cold hard ground, he down the rough-hewn steps into the place of darkness.  Nervously, I clutched at the stiff dead grass and listened for his curses, but there was no sound, excepting the distant crying of a night-bird that pursued its prey.  I looked up at the moon and winked at it, and I could feel its alchemy pour onto my eyes.  It felt like a moment of magick, and I arose in lunar light  like some dark goddess.  “Rest in peace, my brother,” I whispered, sighing my hot breath into the cavity of blackness.  How strange that I could see that emanation of breath spill from me like some sentient thing and float into the deep darkness of the quiet tomb.  What a sweet fragrance it had as it wafted from me and spilled into the hidden place.

I returned to the gaiety of my brother’s party, and when a servant offered me a glass of dark red wine, I took it and drank.  Passing the crowds, I smiled at the idiots who ignored me, who knew me merely as my brother’s moody sibling.  Sauntering past them, I went to the corner where stood the marvelous antique mirror.  Sharing a secret smile with my reflection, I brought the glass of wine to my lips and let the warm liqueur trickle sweetly down my throat.  Laughing, I hurled my glass to the floor and watched it shatter.  I turned to grimace at those who stood nearest me, those frowning denizens of my brother’s insipid world.  They stood before me, like so many monsters of mediocrity, whispering as they watched me.  I licked my lips and tasted a remnant of the delicious wine.  Mouthing drunken mirth, I clutched at the tight fabric of my gown and ripped it apart, then tore my arms free and let the top portion of my gown fall around my waist, where it hung like some discarded skin.  Motioning to a servant who stepped toward me with concern playing in his eyes, I demanded wine, and when he brought me another glass I turned to study my reflection in the mirror.  I breathed heavily as I watched the rise and fall of my manumitted tits, and I laughed as I baptized them with a splash of rich red wine.

A commotion went through the crowd behind me, and I watched in the mirror their reflected horror as they fled the place in terror.  One figure stood alone in the golden chandelier light.  The doors leading outside had been left open by the mad crowd, and the night wind that rushed through those doors pushed the smell of blood and death through the room, to me.  I shut my eyes to the macabre image in the mirror.  I felt the cold lips that kissed my neck; I felt them press against my ear and breathe into that organ a soft exhalation that smelled of the fragrance that had slipped from my mouth when I had stood before the mausoleum and bade my brother peace.  Turning, I faced the ungodly thing and touched a hand to where its head was split.  Its face was sticky with coagulated blood, and I pressed the little bit of brain that peeped through where the skull had cracked after the figure’s violent fall.  A stream of blood spilled from where my finger had pierced into the dome, and as the thing bent to kiss my breast, it baptized my bosom with blood.  I felt the carrion tongue that lapped the spill of wine that stained my flesh.  The shattered face rose before my own, and although the maw that was its mouth moved, no exhalation floated from it.  There was only the uttered lonesome gagging, a hungry sound.  I bent to that mouth and kissed it, and breathed my hot living air into it.  The dry dead hand that wrapped around my wrist tugged as I was led out of the edifice, into night, toward the moonlight mausoleum where I would lie with kindred.

Yon Baleful God

How pale the sapphire of the central night,

Wherein the stars turn grey.

–Clark Ashton Smith

I sat within a moonlit glade on a summer’s night.  The air was very still, and the starlight over Sesqua Valley seemed sad and pale.   I was staring into that melancholy light when, from out of woodland shadow, a figure limped toward me.  I took in his lean disheveled form, the shock of unruly hair, the emaciated face.  How odd that the moon’s glow played strangely on one of his eyes.  He knelt in front of me and bent his mouth to mine.  The taste of his kiss was familiar.  I pulled him to the ground and made love to his throat, his mouth – his chilly cheek.  Lifting my head, I looked more closely at the pale dead eye that had replaced his socket’s living orb.

“What’s this?” 

“It’s something I had fashioned in Prague.  Oh, Adam, I have found the lair of the forgotten god!  I discovered the place where innocence was slaughtered in his name.  I found the place where uncanny gems were offered to his mystery.  I took one such gem and had it shaped so as to replace the eye that I have sacrificed in his name.  There it is, snug in my socket, the jewel that he loved to look at, the surface of which caught his reflection in flickering torch light.  His shadow became a living stain that adhered to the gemstone I had purloined.  Look closely at that ornament, my love, and see the wonder that it adds unto me.  Gaze deeply into its surface, Adam, and you will see him.”

I touched the stiff and chilly flesh that was nearest to the artificial eye.  I leaned nearer to that flesh and kissed it with my hot mouth.  My lips touched the jewel’s smooth surface.  When I lifted my head and gazed steadfastly at that pale orb, I saw within it a swirling shadow that slowly took on form.  I saw the visage that pierced that shadow with its majesty, that broke through and gazed at me with inhuman eyes.  My lover raised his mouth to my ear and whispered one unholy name.

“Tsathoggua.”

# # # # # # #

That night, in bed, he spoke of forgotten deities, gods formed in chaos beyond the known dimensions; things that pulsed in alien spaces between the stars.  I listened, enthralled.  We had spoken often of such things.  I had shown him books and sculptures, bas-reliefs and tiaras on which were depicted the likenesses of unimaginable things.  He wore himself out with talking that night.  The pain in his injured leg began to throb.  I held him in my arms and sang him to sleep.  His head pressed against my chest, and the texture of the flesh near to the daemonic eye chilled me to my heart.  That cold sensation slowed the pounding of my organ and seemed to seep into my veins, where it flowed toward my brain and blessed me with unholy vision.  I squatted within a vaulted chamber.  Strewn before me were the dry bones of offerings devoured long ago.  In lethargy I sat and dreamed, recalling a time when I had known the succulent taste of sacrifice.  Near to me was the dry husk of one long-dead offering, its skeletal hand stretched toward me.  Within the palm of bone were pale gems that had been offered in obsequious veneration.  I discerned upon their smooth surface my hoary reflection.  I gazed for an eternity at the semblance of a forgotten god.  And when at last I shut my weary eyes, I dreamt of sacrifice, of cindery human substance.  And when I awakened it was to the scent of living flesh, which I but vaguely recalled.  I gazed at the empty palm of bone, from which my gems had been pilfered.  Sniffing air, I found a fragrance of mortal flesh and tangy blood.  It brought to my senses a memory of sacrificial slaughter. 

And then the scene melted and became dark.  I lay within a shadowed chamber with my lover in my arms, his throat pressed against my mouth.  I sucked at his salty flesh and bit into it.  He moaned softly as I moved my tongue into the new wound.  Outdoors, the night was haunted by the undulate song of numberless toads.

# # # # # # # # #

He awakened me before dawn and took my hand.  Naked, we walked into woodland, to a ring of sacrificial stones.  Legend told that the poet and sculpture William Davis Manly has chiseled the large rocks into the likenesses of things seen in disturbed dreaming, faces that called for blood and death.  I had brought my lover to this place when first I lured him to Sesqua Valley and taught him our ways.  He had been a dreamy boy, lonely and forsaken by those he loved and on whom he had depended.  I nurtured his wounded psyche and taught him of the Old Ones who would not desert him.  He did not disappoint me.  Alone, he journeyed to the places outside the valley where he could find the arcane things.  Now he had returned, to share with me the lore that had educated him.

Together we knelt within the ring of stones, and he whispered to me the unwholesome name.  “Tsathoggua.  I can see him, waiting patiently for when the stars come right and he will grow strong and liberated.  Ah, how he hungers for cosmic freedom, to seep toward starlight and find his home.   But he is weak – only sacrifice will make him strong.  Let us assist him, Adam.  Look, this discarded stone here, it’s heavy and will do the trick.  Hold it high above my head as I lay down my life for the thing that begs for veneration.  Let us offer him a new sacrifice, my love.”

I took the heavy stone from his hands as he reclined upon the ground.  His smile was a beautiful thing.  I took in his handsome face and then smashed that beloved visage with the weighty rock.  Sighing, I took from the remains of his pulp the filthy gem that had usurped a living eye.  I gazed hard at the shadow within its pale surface and saw the bestial face that smiled.

Time of Twilight

(For Quentin Crisp)

The small apartment smelled of age.  A single window allowed a partial view of a city bathed in mellow late afternoon sunlight.  I went to that window and watched the setting sun as the elderly man removed his velvet hat and jacket, his scarf of white silk, his battered cloth shoes.  I turned and watched as he stopped before a mirror so as to reapply lipstick to his painted face.  He wore his withered beauty well.  “This is a wonderful rouge,” he told me, “moist and creamy, and the color stays vibrant for hours.  Would you care to try it?”

I laughed.  “No thank you.”

“Ah, well; your lips wear youth’s beauty, but at my age I need assistance.  Not that I wish to look young.  I’ve had my sunlit years of golden youth.  I’m rather glad to be rid of them.  The charm of old age is that one may overact appallingly.  One is free of youthful vanity.”

“Oscar Wilde would disagree.  What did he once write, that the tragedy of old age is that one is young?”

He tossed to me a splenetic frown.  “He never lived to see fifty.  I’ve never been in agreement with Mr. Wilde.  I doubt that he believed half the things he so cleverly uttered.  He was performing for an audience that would eventually destroy him, poor sod.  He expired because society turned its back to him.  I prefer honest rebels, which is why I frequent the youthful society at the club where I encountered you.  I see there such honest wildness, an anarchy that I can believe in.”

“And were you a wild young thing?”

“I was a rebel, absolutely.  In my day it was a scandal for a woman to wear crimson nail varnish, unless she was a punk.   For a man to do likewise…”  He saw his past in daydream, and then swept the memory away.  “I had to pay a price, naturally.  All wonderful things demand sacrifice.”  Joining me at the window, he studied my face in dying light.  “You are quite lovely, dear boy.  How I adore you young men who dress in black.  It’s my favorite shade, is black.  Looks very good on you, with your wild hair and wounded eyes.  At times I behold such awesome beauty and momentarily mind that I’m so aged.”  He stood back some so as to admire my figure.  “Now, what does it say on your tight shirt?  I can’t quite make it out.”