I ran my fingers through her long, stringy black hair smelling strands of it as it fell from my fingertips. Her hazel and green eyes looked back up at me with a glazed over look and yet they seemed to be smiling at me though they had an expression of a last look. I kissed her cold bluish purple lips and ran my long fingernails across her papery thin skin on her cheeks. I looked in her eyes again and now they seemed almost scared and surprised even though the expression in them never actually changed. 
"What's wrong my love?" I whispered in her ear. 

She said nothing. Her mouth just stayed slightly ajar. 

" I know what you need." I said aloud. I went into the back room and grabbed her black London style lace and satin dress, her black mesh and black beaded and chained choker, and her red lace spider web design hair clip. 

"Here this will liven you up a bit." I chuckled.
I began to dress her. 
"You know, I remember when you first wore this dress," I said putting it on her. " We were at Queen Elizabeth I's tea party that she randomly threw just because she was bored and had no friends. Ah you looked ravishing, my love. Elizabeth was actually quite surprised that you had chosen to wear black and red to a tea party in front of royalty. You stood out like a red rose in a garden of white daisies. I looked around the room at all the other women wearing those pink, light blue, and white dresses and thought they looked like something a royal horse had thrown up but you, looked simply gorgeous. The whole room got quiet when we walked in together.  I suppose they were expecting you to be courted by a man. 'Two women? Both in dresses?' we heard people around the room whisper to each other?" I paused to laugh
" People back then were so…uptight. They needed to learn how to live a little. We sure showed them when we kissed in front of them all. It was simply out of the question for a man and woman to kiss publicly but to see two women. They fainted." I laughed.
" Too bad it made us have to skip town otherwise they would have hung us for being different. Do you remember that, my love? Both of us running past the outskirts of England in fluffed up dresses and jeweled heels?" I asked.

She just flopped her head to the right effortlessly and stared off in the distance blankly. 

"Oh come now darling!" I said tightening her choker around her neck. I picked her up and flopped her over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes. She seemed heavier now than before.  I took her into the bedroom and sat her down in the Victorian style black crushed velvet and wood vanity chair. She slumped down kind of lifelessly and limp with her legs spread apart. 
"Victoria De Lefant, is that anyway for a lady to sit before a mirror in such a lovely dress as this?" I asked closing her legs and sitting her up properly. Her eyes stared into the mirror, seeming to pierce right through it with her gaze. 
"That's better." I said picking up the brush and brushing through her muddled stringy hair. 

	Now that I had seen her in the light I noticed her extraordinary pale skin. It also seemed to have a bluish gray tone to it. 
"My darling, have you eaten something foul?" I asked frowning at her and grabbing her arm.
Yet still she did not answer me. 
"Never mind that…look at us together. Aren't we gorgeous?" I asked staring into the mirror at both of our reflections.  Her long, straight, black hair looked simply great with my shoulder length, extra curly, red hair. My green eyes glistened in the reflecting light from the ivory chandelier. I smiled for a second at the sight of us together, only to be distracted by the realization that Victoria's mouth was still slightly ajar. I frowned at it.
"Victoria, my darling, your lack of speech is appalling and I think it has given you a severe case of lock jaw." I said almost jokingly, "Now I insist you respond to me right this instant!" I said sternly. Then realizing how illiberal I sound just then I quickly changed my tone of voice. 
"Please, just the smallest sign of communication will do. A simple hand gesture. My love, don't leave me longing like this." I begged.
She slid off the chair, hit the vanity table with her head, and lay on the floor like an old torn up throw doll.
I gasped and put both hands on my cheeks. 
"Oh honey I'm sorry." I gathered her body, which was beginning to turn stiff, in my arms and placed her on the bed. I kissed her cold lips hoping that somehow my kiss would breathe life back into her thin, papery body.  I straddled my self over her. My burgundy Elizabethan dress, which was out of date (but I didn't care), covered the lower half of her body. I collected both her hands within mine. 
"One day my love, we will shock them all again. We will lie together on flowing green hills of England. We will dance at balls before the Queen and make sure everyone gets a good gasp when we kiss before them all.  Shamelessly, we will walk about the land, together forever in love." 
I lay down beside her and she flopped her head over to look at me. Her eyes saw right through me. 
Just then, Sathan, our butler, walked in.
"Oh I'm sorry madam!" He said covering his eyes. Then he gained a sudden spurt of confidence. " Madam, I thought it wise to finally bring this to your attention if you didn't already know. Mistress Victoria is already dead! No matter what you do to that rotting corpse Orenda, she'll never come back."

I looked at him, appalled that he even had the aplomb to say such a thing in my face without shame or doubt. 

" You disrespectful little bastard! Do you think in any way that death would keep me from my love with Victoria? Do you think anything in this mortal world would keep my undying affection for her from being expressed? Yes, yes, I realized that she was dead when it happened I'm not daft! Let me tell you something Sathan Waterhouse, my love for Victoria is something that is immortal, and just because she's dead doesn't mean that our love is dead." I rambled on, outraged. " Death, it's merely a small pebble in the way of a stamped.  It means nothing to me! And let me tell you another thing, no more will I hear any of this talk of ' The mistress Victoria is dead madam' those words better never cross your lips 'lest you relish the taste of wet soil in the consequence of your death!" I glared at him evilly. 

I watched him squirm; twisting his handkerchief round his fists repetitively.  

"Do we have an understanding?" I said pointing to a noose hanging outside the window on an Oak Tree in the stormy rainy weather.

"Yes, Madam Welsh."

"Now what was it you came in here for in the first place?"

"Actually I came in here to ask when it was you would like me to depose of," he paused looking at Victoria's corpse, trying to think of the right words to say " mistress Victoria."

I could feel my eyes widen in utter anger.

"Dispose of? Dispose of my love?" I screamed throwing a rose red pillow across the room, breaking an expensive vase.

"But Madam, it's been 20 years!"

" I don't care if it's been 100 years!" I yelled jumping up from our bed and stamping toward Sathan. 

He recoiled.

"Ma-Madam I did not mean to aggravate you."

"Aggravate me? I'm going to ring your fucking neck you little bastard!" I yelled throwing things at him.

I finally got up close to him…so close I could feel the heat radiating off of his body. I wanted to kill him for disgracing my love for Victoria, and her love for me. I began to choke him with my bare hands. I wanted to feel his organs give way at the mercy of my grip. But I looked at Victoria's corpse. I saw how beautiful she was even in death. But I also saw that she was dead and I realized that it was time to give her up and that I couldn't have her body here with me forever. My grip loosened around Sathan's throat. I drew back.

"Perhaps it is time to let Victoria's corpse rest in peace." I said. I walked over to her stiffened body with a new perspective. I saw her now as dead. My dead love. 
"Sweet princess, I love you now and forever." I said as I leaned over her. I kissed her cold lips one last time. 
I looked over at Sathan who was in tears but curiously looking back and forth between Victoria and I.

"Madam Orenda?" Sathan said looking at me, puzzled.

I threw Victoria's body over my shoulder once more, hiked up my dress, and headed outside.

"Sathan, come with me."

He followed me like a lost puppy.

"Madam Orenda, what are you going to do?"

I didn't answer him I was too enthralled in my task. We marched out into the storm to where the rope was hanging outside on our Oak Tree.  I positioned a box beneath the noose. I stepped up on it bearing the weight of Victoria on my shoulder. Once on top, I sat her down on the box and wrapped my arms around her neck so that her head, and mainly her eyes, looked up at me directly in my eyes. Thunder and rain blanketed us on that box and it seemed like the moment lasted forever. 

"Victoria my love, in this rain we will be blanketed and make love in natures bed together in death forever. I love you." I said 
I stood her up with my arms still wrapped around her neck.

"Sathan, promise me this, our corpses will not be disturbed in this position 'til the Oak Tree has lost her leaves. "

"But Madam!" he said terrified.

"Shh!" I hushed him; " I go to join Victoria now in deaths embrace now promise me!" I cried.

" I promise." He said hanging his head in shame.

"Grab our hands death. We come to you with love." 

With that I jumped from the box, locking Victoria and my corpse looking somewhat like a chain; a link of love that went on past death. My last sight was within Victoria's eyes, and once again she was alive. I zoned back into the tea party with Elizabeth. To the first time we met. The first time we kissed and made love. And then I saw us laying on a hill in Northern England. Staring up at the clouds. A moment that will never come to pass and I let go. I saw Victoria then, and we left…we walked off into the storm and there we lie in our eternal love.

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