Fairy Circle (27 page)

His head snapped up. “Yes, of course!” he blurted without eloquence. He would marry her right here, right now, if only she would say yes. He had waited all this time just for her.

Her eyes were half-mast, and clouding with desire.

Jethin felt himself respond. The work-worn and mud-stained cloth that barely passed as his pants grew unbearably tight. It was all he could do to restrain himself and not close the space between them, to not smother her with all of the love he had been caging for these many years. He had rutted with many a willing slut, but to have Molly would be to express his love. This was the first time Jethin felt joy swoop into his heart and hope lift him high. She wanted him! He could see it there, in her eyes. She wanted him as he had always wanted her! He bit his tongue to keep from crying out.

Molly shifted. Slowly, she leaned forward to place her ravaged sketch in the sparse grass. As she did so, she tugged almost imperceptibly on her bodice, pulling the cloth down just a little more to give Jethin a better view of her bosom; those two perfect breasts as high and round and hot as melons ripening in the afternoon sun. She enjoyed the way Jethin’s mouth hung in naked awe. “Come to me, Jethin,” she whispered as she reached for the ties on her bodice.

Jethin felt his limbs go weak. He fell to his knees and scuttled forth. He didn’t feel the stones pressing into his kneecaps as he went. When he was directly in front of her, he sat back on his heels.

She had finished with the last tie. She opened the cloth and the most glorious breasts Jethin had ever laid eyes on tumbled out; massive and creamy-white, with two perfectly hardened nipples. Molly smiled like a Cheshire cat and arched her back so her breasts would stand higher.

Jethin sucked at his teeth. A million thoughts rammed through his head as he thought of the many things he could do with those breasts.

“
Do you want to touch them, Jethin? Suckle at them like a little pig?”

He began to sweat; the ache in his groin was growing painful. But, before they began he had to know, had to hear the words of love from her own mouth. He would have chosen a better time, but she gave him no choice. “You will marry me then, Molly?” He decided he wanted to kiss her first on her soft, petulant lips before grabbing those breasts.

Molly frowned. “What are you saying?” Her words were sharp and flat.

Pop! Gone was the amorous bubble of his love. It was as if the world slammed to a halt. The breeze vanished, the noise of the crickets in the lawn hushed, and the church bells ceased tolling.

Molly noticed the subtle change and looked around to see what the disturbance was. Was someone coming? Was it about to rain? What? What? It was the sun. The sun hid behind a massive and churning cloud, and caused the air to chill by measurable degrees. Her shoulders drooped, her nipples now pointed south. “Marry you, Jethin?
You?”
she hiccupped.

Jethin didn’t know what to say.

Molly let out a howling laugh. She leaned back against the arbor post, and in vulgar display, kept laughing as her breasts jiggled. She wiped her eyes and stared at him. “My God, Jethin, when did you come up with that idea?” She fanned her face, tried to calm her hilarity.

Jethin didn’t move, just kept staring and staring at her. His pupils had constricted.

“
I just wanted to have some fun with you.” A curious look crossed her gleaming eyes. “You don’t suppose this is my first time, do you? That you are my first?”

He didn’t answer.

She took that as a yes and laughed again, a forced sound that was wry and full of bitterness. Still, she didn’t bother to cover herself, but sat before him splayed like a Jezebel. “What a fantasy world you are living in. Fancy that,
me
, a virgin. Me, your wife!” The words were harsh. Her expression changed in a split second; it hardened and became grotesque with spite. “I was with child before my thirteenth birthday. I lost, it of course, and have been careful since not to repeat that vile scene. I have been sullied these three long years, Jethin. Marry you.” She sniffed and flicked a fly from her breast. “I just wanted to have fun with you, teach you tricks as I have always done.”

A single tear slid down Jethin’s cheek. His face was placid.

Molly eyed him coldly. “Did you really suppose I would marry you, Jethin?” Lilt sprang in her voice. “I am the daughter of an Earl. An
Earl
, Jethin
!” She spat his name out so hard that strings of spittle came with it, illuminated for a fraction of a second in the beams of the setting sun. “You are a potato boy, for God’s sake.” She looked him up and down. Disdain made her lip quiver. “And a dirty one at that.”

In one quick movement, Jethin was upon her, having leapt from his docile position with blinding speed. He grabbed for her smooth neck. As black rage blinded him, he found her throat and pressed, his elbows pushing on her breasts for leverage.

She started, her arms flying like the spastic flapping of a bird’s wings. Fear replaced the sardonic cruelty that had been in her eyes.

He could see nothing as the black blinded him, but he could hear her and he listened to the sound of her gurgling lessen and weaken till at last she was still. When it was over, he slumped on her perfect breasts and sobbed into her shiny, corn-silk hair…. He didn’t move from the spot for a very long time.

Besides the acid burn in his gut, Jethin was also suffering from his memories. He hated Li. He hated thinking of her and remembering that time, hundreds of years ago, when she caused his life to become a living hell. Funny thing about time, when you had it in limitless supply, you took it for granted, and it became a non-entity. What happened over three hundred years ago may as well have been three days ago or three thousand years ago. When time had no meaning, the pain lay always available.

Under the shadowed arbor, Jethin waited for some measure of control while Molly lay unmoving before him, her lips parted, eyes wide with disbelief, and a trickle of spittle running out of the corner of her mouth. He raised his head, and wiped frantically at his snot which was sliming her perfect breasts. He looked around. As usual, there was no one about. Her father was off mating with the throwaway of the moment, and her mother was stuffed deep within the walls of the stone mansion on the other side of the hedge.

She never came out of there. She was a strange woman, Molly’s mother, and she was often the subject of discussion at the pitiful meals Jethin’s family shared around their rickety table. Closed-in and protected by stone and mortar, Molly’s mother whiled her days away in silence.

Jethin stood on shaky legs. He struggled to lift Molly and her breasts. He carried her to the old well. It had long since dried up and was kept neat and pretty for show. He shifted her body to his shoulder as it lolled and pulled at what little strength he had left.

This was the most shocking afternoon of his entire life, he thought, as he attempted to stuff her into the well. She didn’t fit. He made the mistake of bending her in half and tried to shove her rear-end first. Her body filled the hole like a plug, her head bent forward, her legs sticking up, her swirl of yellow hair obscenely catching the last of the afternoon breeze. With Herculean effort, he grabbed her under the armpits and hauled her out again. He decided to tip her over, grab her ankles, and shake her head-down into the well. Her hands and skull thudded on the old rock. Her arms kept getting in the way. So he brought her back up and tucked her hands into her sash. He ripped the hem of her dress and tied her legs together. Now she couldn’t cartwheel down the well like a starfish. (She was aerodynamic, he thought, when he considered the scene in modern times.) His arms were just about to give out as he stood in the moment of final decision. He shook with fatigue as he held her by the ankles. He let go, and gave a small, strangled cry as she shot down the black hole. He made the sign of the cross.

***

Molly’s mother stood before Jethin. On the threshold of his dilapidated homestead, she stood cowering, ringing her hands as she told him mournfully of her child missing these two days and nights. He listened to her story in stony silence as her frightened eyes flitted round the inside of his shack, seeing nothing. Her missing child had forced her from the protection of her home. He imagined she was panicking, being out and so exposed, and wishing only to crawl back into her hole to hide and cry and pray to her strict God for the safe return of her only live-born child.

Such a waste, Jethin thought, as she babbled on. Her hair fell in an unruly tumble, cascading over her shoulders and glowing like waves of red fire, sparking and glossing in the afternoon light. “You are such a good young man, Jethin. Such a good friend to my girl. Might you know, perhaps, where she is?”

Jethin screwed his face up. He wondered, as he gauged his facial expressions, how best to get rid of this pathetic woman, and fast.

“
Rosemary! Why, you look just terrible! Whatever is wrong?” Jethin’s mother had come in from the fields, and entered through the hole at the back of the shack. She approached the two standing in the front entrance, her cracked and dirty hands clutching at her filthy apron heavy with potatoes.

Jethin’s mother stared at Molly’s mother in plain shock. Never had she seen this woman out of her home. Jethin’s mother had been to Molly’s home on many occasions offering homemade recipes and medical concoctions for a fair price. Rosemary had always treated Jethin’s mother well and took care to make a purchase every time, though Jethin’s mother had a queer feeling that Rosemary never really made use of her purchases. Rosemary was a sweet woman, so quiet, yet friendly to the extreme to the few that came peddling at her doorstep.

“
My girl,” Rosemary rasped, “she has been gone these two days and nights. Do you know nothing of her whereabouts?” Her hands were still kneading and pressing; the fingers seemed to strangle each other with unfathomable distress.

Jethin’s mother stared at her blankly.

Just then, a bird flashed past Rosemary’s head and flew into the shack. It bumped against the opposite wall, fell to the dirt floor, flew up again, crashed and bashed into walls and beams, and finally fell into a crude bowl of potato soup on the wooden oddity that the family used as a table. Then it swooped yet again to continue its desperate, bumbling search for a way to escape, all the while scattering feathers, which floated down to the dirt floor.

Jethin’s mother watched the flailing creature with burgeoning horror. Rosemary’s mouth formed a large ‘O.’ The women knew what this meant, the bird entering and crashing about the premises. It was an omen of death. The two took it as gospel that this small, trapped creature confirmed the fate of the missing girl. Rosemary let loose a howl and fled down the lane, back to her walls of stone and mortar.

These were Jethin’s real memories in as much as memories can be real. These memories were tainted as well, of course, as he envisioned Li/Molly, after so many centuries of brooding, to be something akin to the Antichrist. When Saffron was Rosemary, he had no idea what kept her confined to her home; maybe it was her fool husband. He vaguely wondered what kept Saffron now. It didn’t matter. He would use her as he saw fit.

Chapter 16

I
n time, the sun warmed the earth. Tender green shoots shot up and tiny blue speckled eggs appeared in the robin’s nest in the tree outside Saffron’s window. It was warm enough to leave windows open all day and throughout the early evening. Infrequent gusts of wind rifled throughout the house, setting the curtains to dance and papers to fly.

On one such windy night, Jethin said, “Saffron, I want to talk to you about something very important.”

They were in their usual seats in their usual poses. She rested on her tuffet next to the window, her feet poking out of her thin cotton pajama bottoms. He sat perched on the roof, his feet supporting his weight on the downward slope. She had once asked him if that hurt his butt, sitting there that long. He remarked that her company made all his pains unnoticeable. She had blushed. He always knew what to say to her; he always made her feel so special. He listened to her talk. She felt like she could tell him anything. Her mother was wrong; she didn’t need to leave the house to have a social life.

Sometimes he got a little moody if she steered the conversation toward the rocky cliffs of love and emotion. As long as they weren’t talking about these things, he was fine. Saffron found she could easily avoid those subjects. They had always embarrassed her anyway, why not drop them completely? Sometimes, she still felt guarded. Her caution made her feel foolish. He would never hurt her. Even though he got mad at her sometimes, she just knew he would never hurt her.

“
Here goes.” He was picking rocks out of the sole of his shoe.

“
Hmm?” Her eyes were locked on the green star to the right of Venus as it twitched and sputtered.

“
You’re
so
amazing.”

Saffron frowned. Whenever Hollywoodites were asked to describe their peers they always said, “he’s
so
amazing,” and “she’s
so
amazing,”
as their go-to cop-out phrase. She suddenly felt very uncomfortable and equally unamazing.

“
You mean so much to me. I would hate to lose you.” He gulped once and gazed at her. “Oh, Saffron. If you only knew how wonderful my life is...I am like a god. Don’t you want that? Don’t you want to live…without fear?”