The Mammoth Book of Short Erotic Novels (14 page)

He awakes, squints at his watch in the darkness, grunts (she’s late, but just as well, time for a shower) and, with only a moment’s hesitation, tosses the blankets
back, tearing himself free: I’m so old, he thinks, and still every morning is a bloody new birth. Somehow it should be easier than this. He sits up painfully (that divine government!), rubs
his face, pushes his feet into slippers, stands, stretches, then strides to the windows at the far wall and throws open the tall curtains, letting the sun in. The room seems almost to explode with
the blast of light: he resists, then surrenders to, finally welcomes its amicable violence. He opens wide the glass doors that lead out into the garden and stands there in the sunshine, sucking in
deeply the fresh morning air and trying to recall the dream he’s just had. Something about a teacher who had once lectured him on humility. Severely. Only now, in the dream, he was himself
the teacher and the student was a woman he knew, or thought he knew, and in his lecture “humility” kept getting mixed up somehow with “humor”, such that, in effect, he was
trying, in all severity, to teach her how to laugh. He’s standing there in the sunlight in his slippers and pajama bottoms, remembering the curious strained expression on the woman’s
face as she tried – desperately, it seemed – to laugh, and wondering why this provoked (in the dream) such a fury in him, when the maid comes in. She gazes impassively a moment (yet
humbly, circumspectly) at the gaping fly of his pajamas, then turns away, sets her bucket down against the wall. Her apron strings are loose, there’s a hole in one of her black stockings, and
she’s forgotten her mop again. I’d be a happier man, he acknowledges to himself with a wry sigh, if I could somehow fail to notice these things. “I’ll start in the
bathroom,” she says discreetly. “Sir,” he reminds her. “Sir,” she says.

And she enters. Deliberately and gravely, as though once and for all, without affectation, somewhat encumbered by the vital paraphernalia of her office, yet radiant with that
clear-browed self-assurance achieved only by long and generous devotion to duty. She plants her bucket and brushes beside the door, leans the mop and broom against the wall, then crosses the room
to fling open (humbly, authoritatively) the curtains and the garden doors: the fragrant air and sunlight come flooding in, a flood she now feels able to appreciate. The sun is already high in the
sky, but the garden is still bejeweled with morning dew and (she remembers to notice) there is such a song of birds all about! What inspiration! She enjoys this part of her work: flushing out the
stale darkness of the dead night with such grand (yet circumspect) gestures – it’s almost an act of magic! Of course, she takes pleasure in
all
her appointed tasks (she reminds
herself), whether it be scrubbing floors or polishing furniture or even scouring out the tub or toilet, for she knows that only in giving herself (as he has told her) can she find herself: true
service (he doesn’t have to tell her!) is perfect freedom. And so, excited by the song of the birds, the sweet breath of morning, and her own natural eagerness to please, she turns with a
glad heart to her favorite task of all: the making of the bed. Indeed, all the rest of her work is embraced by it, for the opening up and airing of the bed is the first of her tasks, the making of
it her last. Today, however, when she tosses the covers back, she finds, coiled like a dark snake near the foot, a bloodstained leather belt. She starts back. The sheets, too, are flecked with
blood. Shadows seem to creep across the room and the birds fall silent. Perhaps, she thinks, her heart sinking, I’d better go out and come in again . . .

At least, he cautions himself while taking a shower, give her a chance. Her forgetfulness, her clumsiness, her endless comings and goings and stupid mistakes are a trial, of
course, and he feels sometimes like he’s been living with them forever, but she means well and, with patience, instruction, discipline, she can still learn. Indeed, to the extent that she
fails, it could be said,
he
has failed. He knows he must be firm, yet understanding, severe if need be, but caring and protective. He vows to treat her today with the civility and kindness
due to an inferior, and not to lose his temper, even should she resist. Our passions (he reminds himself) are our infirmities. A sort of fever of the mind, which ever leaves us weaker than it found
us. But when he turns off the taps and reaches for the towel, he finds it damp. Again! He can feel the rage rising in him, turning his gentler intentions to ash with its uncontrollable heat. Has
she forgotten to change them yet again, he wonders furiously, standing there in a puddle with the cold wet towels clutched in his fists – or has she not even come yet?

She enters once and for all, encumbered with her paraphernalia which she deposits by the wall near the door, thinking: it should be easier than this. Indeed, why bother at all
when it always seems to turn out the same? Yet she cannot do otherwise. She is driven by a sense of duty and a profound appetite for hope never quite stifled by even the harshest punishments: this
time, today, perhaps it will be perfect . . . So, deliberately and gravely, not staring or turning her head either one way or the other, she crosses the room to the far wall and, with a determined
flourish, draws open the tall curtains, flooding the room with buckets of sunlight, but her mind is clouded with an old obscurity: when, she wants to know as she opens wide the glass doors to let
the sweet breath of morning in (there are birds, too, such a song, she doesn’t hear it), did all this really begin? When she entered? Before that? Long ago? Not yet? Or just now as, bracing
herself as though for some awful trial, she turns upon the bed and flings the covers back, her morning’s tasks begun.

“Oh!” she cries. “I beg your pardon, sir!”

He stares groggily down at the erection poking up out of the fly of his pajama pants, like (she thinks) some kind of luxuriant but dangerous dew-bejeweled blossom: a monster in the garden.
“I was having a dream,” he announces sleepily, yet gravely. “Something about tumidity. But it kept getting mixed up somehow with –”

But she is no longer listening. Watching his knobby plant waggle puckishly in the morning breeze, then dip slowly, wilting toward the shadows like a closing morning glory, a solution of sorts
has occurred to her to that riddle of genesis that has been troubling her mind: to wit, that a condition
has
no beginning. Only
change
can begin or end.

She enters, dressed crisply in her black uniform with its starched white apron and lace cap, leans her mop against the wall like a standard, and strides across the gleaming
tile floor to fling open the garden doors as though (he thinks) calling forth the morning. What’s left of it. Watching her from behind the bathroom door, he is moved by her transparent
earnestness, her uncomplicated enthusiasm, her easy self-assurance. What more, really, does he want of her? Never mind that she’s forgotten her broom again, or that her shoe’s unbuckled
and her cap on crooked, or that in her exuberance she nearly broke the glass doors (and sooner or later will), what is wonderful is the quickening of her spirits as she enters, the light that seems
to dawn on her face as she opens the room, the way she makes a maid’s oppressive routine seem like a sudden invention of love. See now how she tosses back the blankets and strips off the
sheets as though, in childish excitement, unwrapping a gift! How in fluffing up the pillows she seems almost to bring them to life! She calls it: “doing the will of God from the heart!”
“
Teach me
,
my God and King
,
in all things thee to see
,” she sings, “
and what I do in any thing
,
to do it as for thee!
“Ah well, he envies
her: would that he had it so easy! All life is a service, he knows that. To live in the full sense of the word is not to exist or subsist merely, but to make oneself over, to
give
oneself:
to some high purpose, to others, to some social end, to life itself beyond the shell of ego. But he, lacking superiors, must devote himself to abstractions, never knowing when he has succeeded,
when he has failed, or even if he has the abstractions right, whereas she, needing no others, has him. He would like to explain this to her, to ease the pain of her routine, of her chastisement
– what he calls his disciplinary interventions – but he knows that it is he, not she, who is forever in need of such explanations. Her mop fairly flies over the tiles (today she has
remembered the mop), making them gleam like mirrors, her face radiant with their reflected light. He checks himself in the bathroom mirror, flicks lint off one shoulder, smoothes the ends of his
moustache. If only she could somehow understand how difficult it is for me, he thinks as he steps out to receive her greeting: “Good morning, sir.”

“Good morning,” he replies crisply, glancing around the room. He means to give her some encouragement, to reward her zeal with praise or gratitude or at least a smile to match her
own, but instead he finds himself flinging his dirty towels at her feet and snapping: “These towels are damp! See to it that they are replaced!”

“Yes, sir!”

“Moreover, your apron strings are dangling untidily and there are flyspecks on the mirror!”

“Sir.”

“And another thing!” He strides over to the bed and tears it apart. “Isn’t it about time these sheets were changed? Or am I supposed to wear them through before they are
taken to be washed?”

“But, sir, I just put new –!”

“What?
WHAT
–
?!
” he storms. “Answering back to a reproof? Have you forgotten all I’ve taught you?”

“I – I’m sorry, sir!”

“Never answer back if your master takes occasion to reprove you, except –?”

“Except it be to acknowledge my fault, sir, and that I am sorry for having committed it, promising to amend for the time to come, and to . . . to . . .”

“Am I being unfair?” he insists, unbuckling his belt.

“No, sir,” she says, her eyes downcast, shoulders trembling, her arms pressed tight to her sides.

He is strict but not unkindly. He pays her well, is grateful for her services, treats her respectfully: she doesn’t dislike him or even fear him. Nor does she have to
work very hard: he is essentially a tidy man, picks up after himself, comes and goes without disturbing things much. A bit of dusting and polishing now and then, fold his pajamas, change the
towels, clean the bathroom, scrub the floor, make his bed: really, there’s nothing to complain about. Yet, vaguely, even as she opens up the garden doors, letting the late morning sunshine
and freshness in, she feels unhappy. Not because of what she must do – no, she truly serves with gladness. When she straightens a room, polishes a floor, bleaches a sheet or scrubs a tub,
always doing the very best she can, she becomes, she knows, a part of what is good in the world, creating a kind of beauty, revealing a kind of truth. About herself, about life, the things she
touches. It’s just that, somehow, something is missing. Some response, some enrichment, some direction . . . it’s, well, it’s too repetitive. Something like that. That’s
part of the problem anyway. The other part is what she keeps finding in his bed. Things that oughtn’t to be there, like old razor blades, broken bottles, banana skins, bloody pessaries,
crumbs and ants, leather thongs, mirrors, empty books, old toys, dark stains. Once, even, a frog jumped out at her. No matter how much sunlight and fresh air she lets in, there’s always this
dark little pocket of lingering night which she has to uncover. It can ruin everything, all her careful preparations. This morning, however, all she finds is a pair of flannelette drawers. Ah: she
recognizes them. She glances about guiltily, pulls them on hastily. Lucky the master’s in the bathroom, she thinks, patting down her skirt and apron, or there’d be the devil to pay.

Something about scouring, or scourging, he can’t remember, and a teacher he once had who called his lectures “lechers”.

The maid is standing over him, staring down in some astonishment at his erection. “Oh! I beg your pardon, sir!”

“I was having a dream . . .” he explains, trying to bring it back. “Something about a woman . . .” But by then he is alone again. He hears her in the bathroom, running
water, singing, whipping the wet towels off the racks and tossing them out the door. Ah well, it’s easy for her, she can come and go. He sits up, squinting in the bright light, watching his
erection dip back inside his pajamas like a sleeper pulling the blankets over his head (oh yes! to return there!), then dutifully shoves his feet into slippers, stretches, staggers to the open
garden doors. The air is fragrant and there’s a morning racket of birds and insects, vaguely threatening. Sometimes, as now, scratching himself idly and dragging himself still from the stupor
of sleep, he wonders about his calling, how it came to be his, and when it all began: on his coming here? on
her
coming here? before that, in some ancient time beyond recall? And has he
chosen it? or has he, like that woman in his dream, showing him something that for some reason enraged him, been “born with it, sir, for your very utility”?

She strives, understanding the futility of it, for perfection. To arrive properly equipped, to cross the room deliberately, circumspectly, without affectation (as he has taught
her), to fling open the garden doors and let the sweet breath of morning flow in and chase the night away, to strip and air the bed and, after all her common tasks, her trivial round, to remake it
smooth and tight, all the sheets and blankets tucked in neatly at the sides and bottom, the upper sheet and blankets turned down at the head just so far that their fold covers only half the
pillows, all topped with the spread, laid to hang evenly at all sides. And today – perhaps at last! She straightens up, wipes her brow, looks around: yes! he’ll be so surprised!
Everything perfect! Her heart is pounding as the master, dressed for the day, steps out of the bathroom, marches directly over to the bed, hauls back the covers, picks up a pillow, and hits her in
the face with it. Now what did he do that for? “And another thing!” he says.