Suddenly a stool was pushed up beside mine, I turned and before me was a sight I did not expect. Such an unexpected and beautiful image that I almost choked on my drink.
A woman as pale as a ghost with shocking red lips stood eyeing me. Her eyes were a dance of green jade. Her cheekbones where highly set and she had jet-black hair, which was unusually for those times, free flowing, straight and to her waist. Her breasts were plump and pale and the kind that were earth shaking to any warm-blooded man. She wore such a spectacular, highly fashioned and beautifully designed dress that if it were not for her beauty too, the dress alone would have made her stand out as a surprising patron in this seedy place. Her dress was obviously not made locally. It was black with delicate Italian lace. Under it she wore a corset that gave the most to her fantastic hourglass figure and accentuated even further her ample breasts.
She sat herself down on the stool and ordered two glasses of red wine from the landlord. When she spoke her voice sent a shiver down my spine, it was not a local accent although I could only begin to wonder at where it was from. I know now of course that she was from France, and that French accented English tongue instantly sent boiling blood coursing through my veins.
I jolted forward uncontrollably, as a spasm of white heat rampaged violently through my innards. In pain and ecstasy, I reached out a hand to grasp the other edge of the wooden bar, nearly toppling my ale, as a very obvious erection erupted like a volcano in my loins.”
The door to the dark room where Teravoc was writing suddenly swung open, breaking his reverie, his head snapped towards the door but he kept his eyes lowered. For a split second he saw her. She stood, gloriously silhouetted in the light from the hallway, his heart lifted, as it always did, at her presence.
“I thought I’d find you in this disgusting room. The party’s starting soon Tera and I see you’re still not ready. Why you are so obsessed with writing this pathetic journal I’ll never know. You have only a few hours to get yourself sorted out, be ready Tera or I’ll be leaving you hungry again and you and I will not be playing any games for a while.” Her words were clipped, sharp, and tailed off as she travelled back down the unseen hallway to another door.
Now that she was gone, Teravoc’s eyes rested a while on the empty space in the doorway as if she was still standing there.
“I’m sorry mistress, I’ll just finish this passage and then I’ll get ready at once, I won’t let you down.” He spoke loud enough so that his voice carried to the next room.
His mistress shouted back in a less aggressive manor “That’s ok, but we can’t be late to this one, we have some important people coming and you know how badly I want to make a good impression.”
Teravoc smiled to himself, he felt that excited warm flow of anticipation. “I know, I can’t wait to meet Ravan. It’s a long flight from New York. I hope there’s enough on the menu tonight, how many guests have we?” Teravoc dipped his quill back into the inkpot as he spoke and turned the page. He loved all forms of modern technology except when it came to his writings. In this regard, he always preferred to write in keeping with the old ways, with quill and ink. His mistress did not object to this peculiarity.
His mistress must have been distracted, readying herself for this most momentous of occasions as she remained silent for some time. When she eventually answered him, her words stopped now and then in mid sentence. “There’s plenty. There are at least twenty-three replies from people who have agreed to obey the special instructions on the invitations. They think it’s a secret fetish masked ball, so they are not surprised to be asked not to tell people where they’re going.”
Teravoc looked up again towards the still open door. “Are you sure no one is suspicious at that request?”
His mistress seemed less distracted now, answering straight away. “Well, as a matter of fact, a few have called me to ask for more information. But don’t worry, I told them that we were hosting a special surprise party and that the beneficiary of the surprise party is a clever person and would suspect we’d arrange such a thing and track down attendees and try to pump them for every detail. And so everyone invited has agreed to sign a contract stating they would be discreet and also that they agreed to be in the dark about who the party was for, so the surprise could only be revealed at the very last minute.”
"That's terrible! Teravoc threw his head back and laughed, "It's so bad it's bound to work. Most of them have no one to tell anyway. Just as well we paid enough to get suitable guest names. I'll be ready soon my mistress."
Teravoc looked back at the page of text but his mind was suddenly alive with excitement about the meeting that was going to take place later that evening. How would he feel meeting Ravan for the first time? What would he be like? Would he like him? Was he as evil as his reputation would have him? What would his mistress be feeling? He smiled to himself and refreshed his quill in the inkpot.
“To my surprise she held out one of the glasses and offered it to me, I was stunned and trying to conceal my erection for fear of offending her, I could feel my face flush with shame. She was looking at me steadily, the drink still in her hand. Automatically I looked around, thinking maybe she was offering the drink to someone behind me but there was no one within a few feet of us. When I looked back at her a smile was playing on her red lips.
“Don’t you want to drink a Yuletide toast with me sir?” Again that accent, my god how it affected every cell in my body. I nodded slowly and took the drink and eventually found enough composure to speak. “Of course miss, a toast, of course.”
We raised our glasses, but neither of us spoke, we sipped the red wine, we held each other’s eyes for a very long time but I’m not sure I saw her, not in her physical form, I think I saw inside her. Her eyes were hypnotic wells and held me hostage for what seemed like an eternity. She eventually relinquished her hold on me and I remembered my manners and averted my gaze to a grubby beer stain on the floor. “Sorry miss, I didn’t mean to stare.” I muttered; I felt sure I was unworthy to behold such a lady.
Then she reached out a gloved hand and touched my chin, lifting my head, our eyes met once more and she spoke to me like she knew every inch of my being. “Don’t concern yourself with such inane protocol, you may look at me when you wish, if I didn’t want to be eyed, why I’d lock myself away in a nunnery and be done with it.”
She had such an unexpected warmth about her, her eyes, her voice, her smile it was suddenly all too easy to feel relaxed in her company. I continued to sip her wine and watch her while she continued to smile at me and read me with her eyes of green. The silence seemed to deafen me.
Then abruptly she coughed subtly and I knew by this that she was about to break the silence. I sat upright feeling sure I’d want to hear every word she had to say.
“You know I’ve been watching you? Every week you come by here on your dray, and every week you leave your cargo and every week you never notice me.”
My jaw dropped open as her words jolted. My mind began to spin off into spirals of incomprehensible possibility. It took a moment for me to quiet the thousands of thoughts raging wildly in my head. It took me a good 30 seconds to reply. “You mean…you…noticed me?”
She confessed that she had noticed me from across the street one night a few months earlier. It was such a staggering revelation; I had to know more. I sat silently in awe as she continued to explain. She had seen me pulling up with my delivery. She had worked out the day and time of my arrival and she had soon begun to wait for me. Watching me unseen. She waited for me to absorb this unexpected information then she proceeded to quiz me with all kinds of questions about my life.
She began by enquiring as to the personal aspects of my life. Was I married? Did I have a sweetheart? Did I have family? The questions went on and on. I was stunned at how completely interested in my life she was. Also, I found I could not lie to her, could not hide even the most basic truth. I told her everything. She had such a way with her words that she would probe without seeming to probe, she would question without seeming to question.
She was ravenous for information, hungry to be satiated by knowledge of my life style, she questioned every aspect of the way that I was living. This interrogation lasted for several hours and it took me a while to realise how one-sided it was, how she knew practically everything about me yet I knew nothing of her. Then I realised the strangest thing of all, that we had not as yet even exchanged names.
I raised a hand to indicate I wished to speak, she smiled and bowed her head to let me know I should speak. “We have talked so openly miss, I feel you know me so well but there burns inside me a question as to your name. Please, miss, introduce yourself.” She nodded and spoke her name, a name, wholly unheard of, before this day. Her name was Rapsodomy. I assumed it to be Latin or French, I spoke it aloud for the first time, and a shiver rocketed up my spine as I let it roll off my tongue.