Week! Eternity.
A soft air fans the cloud apart; there comes
A glimpse of that dark world where I was born.
Once more the old mysterious glimmer steals
From thy pure brows, and from thy shoulders pure,
And bosom beating with a heart renewed.
Thy cheek begins to redden through the gloom,
Thy sweet eyes brighten slowly close to mine,
Ere yet they blind the stars, and the wild team
Which love thee, yearning for thy yoke, arise,
And shake the darkness from their loosened manes,
And beat the twilight into flakes of fire.
--Tennyson; from Tithonus
It’s clear to anyone who would notice that Audrey Gould never really left her house, and even to those who did notice, it didn’t matter. It doesn’t matter to Audrey, either, and that was something that no one had ever cared to ask.. The windows of Audrey’s row-house faced East and West, so she could watch the sun rise and set every day, and the world was perfectly placed so that she could watch it, carefully analyse it, without ever being seen, which is exactly what she’s doing right now: Interspersing staring out of her Easterly window with writing some rather incredible pornography.
She gasped loudly as he bit her throat and she arched away from the bricks to press up against him, a thrill running through her that he might draw and drink her blood.
He chuckled darkly against her skin, “Quiet now, darling. We wouldn’t want some tramp to see you and have your virtue so publicly compromised.” He then tilted his head down to suck her left nipple into his mouth, lashing it lewdly with his tongue and raking over it with his teeth.
“Wouldn’t we?” Her voice was breathy and high and she was arc
There’s a fucking knock at the door.
“What the Jesus?”
She trudges downstairs and whisps past the shelves, brushing her fingers over the spine of a Woolf biography as she passes it.
The sun is setting, obviously to the West and to the far, dark side of her street, but it’s still too bright for Audrey’s eyes. She blinks wildly behind her glasses as that bloody stupid girl comes into focus.
“If you stay in the dark for three days, you go blind.”
“Oh, God, shut up.”
“It’s true! I read it in my Encyclopaedia of Facts.”
“I see you’ve already taken it upon your dear little self to preview this week’s selection.”
“You never know what’s in envelopes, you know.”
“Well, now you do. Why do your employers even use envelopes?” She is secretly wondering what it would be like to drink this girl’s blood. She is earnestly beginning to hate her.
The girl’s voice is idle. “Just for appearances, I guess.”
“Go away.”
“Whatever.” And she obeys.
Audrey huffs and turns her back and slams the door. She soldiers back upstairs, files the opened envelope in her bedside table for the future, and returns to her seat in the window.
This is her life, in perpetuity. It will never change. Every night, her only prayer is that God will let her die in the night before He lets her face another day of her life.
Three days later when she remembers and reads the question, she cackles loudly, startling the six customers and the resident mouse whom she’s only recently discovered and taken to calling Alice.
“God,” she sighs loudly, uncaring who hears, “just fuck everybody. I’m dusty enough as it is.”
A glimpse of that dark world where I was born.
Once more the old mysterious glimmer steals
From thy pure brows, and from thy shoulders pure,
And bosom beating with a heart renewed.
Thy cheek begins to redden through the gloom,
Thy sweet eyes brighten slowly close to mine,
Ere yet they blind the stars, and the wild team
Which love thee, yearning for thy yoke, arise,
And shake the darkness from their loosened manes,
And beat the twilight into flakes of fire.
--Tennyson; from Tithonus
It’s clear to anyone who would notice that Audrey Gould never really left her house, and even to those who did notice, it didn’t matter. It doesn’t matter to Audrey, either, and that was something that no one had ever cared to ask.. The windows of Audrey’s row-house faced East and West, so she could watch the sun rise and set every day, and the world was perfectly placed so that she could watch it, carefully analyse it, without ever being seen, which is exactly what she’s doing right now: Interspersing staring out of her Easterly window with writing some rather incredible pornography.
She gasped loudly as he bit her throat and she arched away from the bricks to press up against him, a thrill running through her that he might draw and drink her blood.
He chuckled darkly against her skin, “Quiet now, darling. We wouldn’t want some tramp to see you and have your virtue so publicly compromised.” He then tilted his head down to suck her left nipple into his mouth, lashing it lewdly with his tongue and raking over it with his teeth.
“Wouldn’t we?” Her voice was breathy and high and she was arc
There’s a fucking knock at the door.
“What the Jesus?”
She trudges downstairs and whisps past the shelves, brushing her fingers over the spine of a Woolf biography as she passes it.
The sun is setting, obviously to the West and to the far, dark side of her street, but it’s still too bright for Audrey’s eyes. She blinks wildly behind her glasses as that bloody stupid girl comes into focus.
“If you stay in the dark for three days, you go blind.”
“Oh, God, shut up.”
“It’s true! I read it in my Encyclopaedia of Facts.”
“I see you’ve already taken it upon your dear little self to preview this week’s selection.”
“You never know what’s in envelopes, you know.”
“Well, now you do. Why do your employers even use envelopes?” She is secretly wondering what it would be like to drink this girl’s blood. She is earnestly beginning to hate her.
The girl’s voice is idle. “Just for appearances, I guess.”
“Go away.”
“Whatever.” And she obeys.
Audrey huffs and turns her back and slams the door. She soldiers back upstairs, files the opened envelope in her bedside table for the future, and returns to her seat in the window.
This is her life, in perpetuity. It will never change. Every night, her only prayer is that God will let her die in the night before He lets her face another day of her life.
Three days later when she remembers and reads the question, she cackles loudly, startling the six customers and the resident mouse whom she’s only recently discovered and taken to calling Alice.
“God,” she sighs loudly, uncaring who hears, “just fuck everybody. I’m dusty enough as it is.”