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After sunset, July 19, 1897
Sassafras Cats sat on the dock that jutted out into the muddy stream that ran through the land where the house her parents had built still stood. Her parents were both gone now. Her mama had bled to death when she had birthed Delilah. Her daddy had been shot five summers before by a poacher. Now Sassafras lived in the house with Delilah and her older brother Jesse.
She watched the two shadows in the boat. One shadow pulled the other one close. They kissed, not a long kiss, but long enough. The boat pulled up alongside the dock. Sassafras saw the cruel eyes of Laurent Cheney.
He flashed a grin, his white teeth glinting in the moonlight. “Evenin’, Sassafras. Is that your daddy’s shirt you’re wearin’?”
Sassafras stood up and adjusted the loose shirtwaist she’d put on earlier in the afternoon. She extended her hand and her sister grabbed it and stepped onto the dock. “Where you been?” she asked half under her breath.
“I’ll tell you when he’s gone.” Delilah looked back at Laurent and waved. “Good night, Laurent. See you tomorrow.”
“Goodnight, sweet cheeks. Thanks for the swamp tour. You were very instructive.” He stuck his pole deep into the muck and pushed. The women stood in silence until he was out of sight.
Sassafras glared at her younger sister. “Why on earth did you take Laurent Cheney to the swamp?”
“He’s not the way you think. He wants to learn nature healin’.” Delilah turned her head away and cast her eyes to the ground.
“Laurent Cheney wants to learn nature healin’?” Sassafras touched her sister’s chin and lifted it gently. “The boy who got his laughs by tyin’ down a kitten and pressin’ hot coals against it while it screamed?”
“He was a boy then, Sass. He’s changed.”
“For the worse from what I hear. Valerie Mason bought a love potion from him. When she used it to attract Billy Jones, he became obsessed with her — followed her home, tore her clothes right off her back. Why if her daddy hadn’t come home when he did — poor Valerie — I don’t even want to imagine.” Sassafras tilted Delilah’s chin up a notch and looked her straight in the eye. “That Billy Jones still watches her.”
Delilah shifted her eyes sideways. “He brewed it wrong, that’s all. That’s why he wants me to teach him what’s right.”
Sassafras reclaimed her hold on Delilah’s eyes. “And why did you kiss him? He’s Jumbl-iyah’s man.”
“Not no more. He broke the engagement.” A smile flared up in Delilah’s eyes. “He said he’s done with her. Sassafras, he said he wants to marry me.”
“You’ll do no such thing.”
“You got no say in what I do.” Delilah broke away and stepped back out of her sister’s reach. “I’m sixteen and if I want to get married I will.”
“Delilah, just think about what you’re doing. That’s all I ask.”
“You’re just jealous ‘cause no one loves you.” Delilah’s voice rose over the racket of the cicadas, waking a mockingbird in a nearby tree. “It’s all that pie you eat, you know. Pie and bread ain’t good for a woman’s figure.”
Sassafras dropped her voice. “Mama was a big woman. Size has got nothin’ to do with it. I just haven’t met the right man yet.”
“Well I have and his name is Laurent Cheney.” Delilah tossed her head and strutted up the dock, her long braids swinging back and forth across her corseted waist.
Sassafras watched her sister go, listening as the mockingbird’s cry was echoed from tree to tree, the message traveling deeper into the swamp, until once again only the cicadas chirped.
Sixteen years earlier
“How come your name is Sunshine if you live in the swamps?” Sassafras asked the pretty lady who sat naked on a rock, braiding her waist-length blonde hair.
“Everywhere needs a little Sunshine,” the woman said, “especially the swamp.”
“How come you’re naked?”
“I’m a nymph. We don’t wear clothes.”
“Why not?”
“If we wore clothes, it would be too hard to do this.”
Sassafras watched the nymph’s skin turn from the color of a white peach to that of a green tomato. “How’d you do that?”
“It’s something special nymphs can do. It helps us hide when people come around. Watch.” The nymph grew darker green and pressed herself against the trunk of a nearby tree. Sassafras had to study the bark to see the features of her face.
“Can you do other magic?” she asked.
“Sure I can. I can heal sick animals and plants.”
“Can you heal my Mama?” Sassafras started to cry.
Sunshine stepped away from the tree and toward the little girl. “What’s wrong with your Mama?”
“Daddy says she’s dead. My baby sister Delilah brought lots of blood when she came and Mama died.”
Sunshine reached her hand out to touch the little girl’s arm. “I’m sorry. I can’t raise the dead. Even Agatha can’t do that.”
“I figured.” Sassafras wiped her nose with her sleeve. “Who’s Agatha?”
“If I tell you, do you promise not to tell anyone?”
“Not even my Daddy?”
“Not even your Daddy.”
Sassafras shrugged. “Sure. He wouldn’t believe me anyway.”
Sunshine leaned over and whispered, “Agatha is the Guardian of the Swamp.”
“Is she pretty like you?”
“Agatha is beautiful in any form, but especially when she’s an alligator.”
“A gator? My Daddy says gators eat little girls.”
“Agatha won’t eat you. I promise.”
“Can I meet her?”
Sunshine gave Sassafras a gentle hug. “Maybe someday. I’ll tell you what. I can’t bring your Mama back, but if you ever need me, sing this song.” Sunshine hummed a little tune that sounded like whippoorwills whistling to each other. “Give it a try.”
Sassafras tried to make the right sounds, but they came out all wrong.
“Let’s take it slow.” Sunshine sang a few notes and let Sassafras practice them until she had the song just right.
The morning of July 20th, 1897
Delilah walked into the kitchen without a word. She dumped the eggs and tomatoes from her skirt onto the table. One egg rolled off and broke.
“Careful with the eggs there, Delilah,” Jesse joked.
“One egg won’t make a difference,” she scoffed.
“One egg makes plenty of difference if it’s the last one you’ve got,” Sassafras looked up from the potatoes she was peeling.
“Well it ain’t.” Delilah walked to the coffee pot and poured some chicory into a cup. She sat at the end of the table furthest from Sassafras.
“Are you going to clean up the egg?” Sassafras asked.
Delilah put her cup down, picked up the mop and smeared it across the egg.
“With water,” Sassafras said. “All you’re doing is creating a sticky mess.”
“Fine.” Delilah took the bucket from the wall and walked out the door.
“What’s with her?” Jesse asked.
“She thinks she’s gonna marry Laurent Cheney.”
Jesse’s eyes grew wide. “The kid who drove a nail through his own hand to see how much it hurt?”
Sassafras nodded. “What you don’t know is that after he drove one through his own hand, he drove one through his sister’s. It was me his mama called to stop the bleeding. And when I got there, I found him sitting in a pile of muck, talking up a storm.”
“Praying?” Jesse asked. “Can’t blame him for that after what he did.”
Sassafras drew her lips tight. “People don’t pray with their pants around their ankles.”
“Sounds like that boy ain’t right.”
“Worse of all, Delilah took him to the swamps.”
“Now why would she do a thing like that?”
“He bamboozled her into thinking he wanted to learn nature healin’.”
“She took him to Sunshine?” Jesse’s eyes grew wide.
“I didn’t ask her.”
A wide grin spread across Jesse’s face. “Agatha will eat that boy alive.”
“We can only hope.”
The door closed and Delilah plopped the bucket on the floor, sloshing water over its sides. She mopped the floor, still not saying a word.
Sassafras took the pan of potatoes to the stove and put them in the pot of boiling water. “How would you like your eggs, Jesse?”
“Scrambled with a little tomato.”
“Will that work for you, Delilah?” Sassafras asked politely, but was answered by silence.
“Scrambled with tomato it is.” Sassafras cracked the rest of the eggs into the bowl.
Later that morning
Jesse cut through the row of sugar cane with his scythe, singing in his too-low voice to keep the rhythm. Sweat dripped from the two small braids he kept just above his temple, out of respect for his Jamaican forefathers. His father had worn full, long braids tied back in a bright striped bandana, but Jesse hadn’t liked the heaviness on his neck. He still remembered his father’s face the first time he’d come home with his head cropped close.
“Where are your braids, son?” his father had asked.
“On Henry’s kitchen floor.”
“Henry’s mama do this to your head?”
“I told her to. The heat makes my neck sweat.”
“You don’t know heat, son. Now in Jamaica, we knew heat.”
His father had made him work hard alongside him that day. As they’d worked he’d told him stories about his ancestors and how they’d made the finest rum in Jamaica, how their sugar cane fields stretched forever and only had to be planted every ten or so years. His father had raised those unfamiliar names as gods in Jesse’s mind. And as Jesse’s bald head had sprouted nappy hairs, he’d let some grow into long braids: one at each temple, one behind each ear, and a long thin braid on each side of his neck. Sassafras adorned the braids with beads she’d carved herself from sassafras bark and stained with herbs.
Jesse turned to start up the next row. He wrung the sweat from his braids and looked toward the stream. A flat-bottom boat pulled into the shallows. A thin black man with a long goatee sat inside. The corseted shape of his little sister scooped her long skirt over her arm and waded out into the weedy water. The man held out his arm and helped her into the boat. At least he’s a gentleman, Jesse thought to himself.
As the boat pushed off and disappeared into the swamp, he thought over the strange way Delilah had acted at breakfast. Sure, sometimes she and Sassafras didn’t see eye to eye, but Delilah had never been so outright defiant. Something about that Cheney boy, he guessed. Maybe she’s really in love. How old is she? Fifteen, sixteen? Not too young to be thinkin’ about marriage. Why my own best friend married a sixteen-year-old a few years back. And that incident with the nail was a long time ago, maybe the boy’s changed. Jesse looked over the row of sugar cane cut low to the ground. The crop was strong this year, and it’s a good thing. If Delilah’s in love, we’ll be needing some special ceremonial rum.
In the swamp
“Thank you, Agatha. I appreciate your help.” Sassafras sat on a rock, surrounded by murky water.
“You’ll return the favor someday.” The words came into her mind as thoughts instead of sound, the way they always did when Agatha was in her gator form. “You really think the boy is that bad?”
“There’s something wrong about him, that I know for certain. Something cruel I don’t want my baby sister near.”
“I always thought Delilah would become a nymph.” Agatha shook her large head, spraying water all around.
Sassafras wiped the water from her face. “I don’t understand it either, as vain as she is about her looks. That shape of hers won’t last forever if she stays human.”
“She doesn’t have your power, but I’d welcome her just as I would you. Why don’t you reconsider, Sassafras?”
“I raised Delilah, but it’s not the same as having a baby of my own.”
“You’d waste that power of yours to raise a mortal child? Of course, nothing says a nymph has to be young or virginal. Why don’t you get yourself a man, have the baby, and then come back and I’ll make you a nymph?”
“We’ll see when the time comes. Right now I have to worry about Delilah.”
“Why don’t I ask one of my nymphs to seduce the boy? That’ll get his mind off Delilah. I’ve never known a mortal man to refuse a nymph.”
“And get Delilah angry at the nymph? I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
“I have a new nymph — one Delilah’s never met. You dress her up and arrange for the boy to see her. She’ll seduce him away from Delilah and then leave him after he’s broken her heart. You just try to find Delilah another man — a good man to keep her mind off the boy.”
“Last thing I want is to put your nymph in any danger.”
Water shot up from Agatha’s nostrils as she roared with laughter. “A mortal boy is no match for a nymph, even a new one. Misha has fangs and claws and she’ll use them if she needs to. You just worry about getting her a fancy dress. She’s a little smaller than Delilah, but large bosomed.”
“Somethin’ about this just don’t sit right.”
“You worry too much, Sassafras Cats. It’s been a long time since I’ve meddled in a human love affair and to tell you the truth, I’m looking forward to it.” Agatha pulled up alongside the rock. “Climb on. I’ll give you a ride to the mouth of the stream. No use you wading all the way back.”
Sassafras kneeled on the rock, hitched her loose dress up around her thighs, and straddled the gator’s back. Agatha swam steadily through the waters of the swamp and let Sassafras off at a sandy beach just at its mouth. Sassafras gave Agatha a small hug before she stepped onto the sand. She retrieved her shoes from the rock where she had left them and went in search of fennel. She planned to braid a wreath to put on the door. As she passed the elderberry bush, she picked some dried berries and put them in her pocket. She’d slip them into Delilah’s pockets when she wasn’t looking. A little extra protection never hurt.
In the flat-bottom boat
Delilah watched Laurent Cheney’s arms grow taut as he pressed the pole into the muck and pushed the boat away from the shore. He was wiry, but not weak, and she wondered what his arms would feel like when he clenched her to his chest. So far he’d been a little too respectful for her liking — just that brief goodnight kiss before he took her home. But maybe today would be different. Today she would introduce him to the nymphs.
“You’re looking very handsome today, Laurent.” She smoothed her hands down her corseted waist and batted her eyelashes.
“You’re lovely too. Are you sure you’ll be able to find the nymphs?”
“I call them and they come.”
“Can you teach me to call them?”
An image of the red-haired Nymeria and blonde Sunshine resting naked on a rock as Laurent poled his boat toward them rose in her mind. What if he finds them more beautiful? “Now why would you want to do that?”
“In case I needed their help and you weren’t around, honey buns.”
“You said we were partners,” she pouted. “Why wouldn’t I be around?”
“I don’t mean not around at all. I mean busy. Suppose you were busy with our baby. You wouldn’t want to come out in the swamp just so I could ask the nymphs for some herbs, would you?”
“You want me to have your baby?” Her heart skipped a beat. She felt a tiny ache in her groin and wondered if it was the desire she’d read about in the penny dreadfuls.
“Well, someday, sure.” He averted his gaze. “After we’re married, of course.”
“I’m sure by then you’ll have learned to call the nymphs.” She rested her hand just above his knee. She caressed his denim pants softly, feeling the urge to let her hand drift up his thigh.
“Do you want me to pull in over there behind the tree?” he asked.
“Do you want to?” She felt the twinge again. She ran her fingers gently up his thigh and rested just shy of his bulge.
“More than anything.” He unbuttoned his jeans and placed her hand over his white cotton shorts. “Just keep it warm until I get us there.”
She ran her fingers over the fabric. His lower body writhed and he let the pole fall to the floor of the boat. He moved her hand and pulled his long, stiff manhood through the gap in his shorts. The boat lurched and her hand clasped around it.
“Ouch!” he cried. “Your nails!”
She looked at the shrinking, shriveled flesh and pulled her hand away. “I’m sorry,” she said. “The boat moved.”
“Damn gator moved the boat,” he said. “Here, stroke him again and he’ll come back to life.”
She saw a ripple in the water and a huge alligator head not fifteen feet away. She still felt the twinge in her loins, but it was tempered by fear at what she had almost done. Sure he’d promised to marry her, but she knew too many girls who’d had that promise broken and ended up with a baby or even two. And here she had almost gone too far on only their second date. Delilah moved her hand away. “I’m sorry, Laurent. I don’t know what came over me.”
“Don’t you want me, sweet cheeks? Because I want you.”
“Of course I do, but not here in the middle of the swamp. I want you in our marriage bed, lying between the sheets I embroidered with white doves and roses when I was just thirteen.” She kissed him lightly on the cheek. “You can wait that long for me, can’t you Laurent?”
He surveyed the edges of the swamp and spoke without looking at her, his voice cracking a little in fear. “Of course I can, honey bun. You just got me all worked up. I’m sorry for pushing you.”
Delilah’s eyes followed his and saw the ridges of two huge eyes peeking above the waterline. Two more ridges rose up a few feet to the left and two more a few feet to the right. Agatha. “I think we’d best go to the swamp another day,” she said.
Laurent nodded and picked up his pole, still keeping his eyes focused on the gator. “I’d have to agree with you. Gators seem to be thick in these parts today.”
“Why don’t you take me to New Orleans?” Delilah asked. “We haven’t really been anywhere together.”
“Is that what you’d like?” Laurent looked over his shoulder to make sure no alligators were following as he poled the boat upstream.
“More than anything.”
“Anything?” he arched his eyebrow.
She felt that ache in her groin again, but pushed it away. “There’ll be time for that when we’re married. I’m not Jumbl-iya, you know. Just pull alongside the dock so I can go change clothes.”
“Can’t you wear what you have on?”
“Now Laurent Cheney. You don’t expect me to go to town looking like a swamp rat, do you?”
“I think you look beautiful,” he put his hand out to touch her cheek.
A thrill shot through her; goose bumps stood up on her arms, making them look like a fresh-plucked guinea hen.
“Cold?” he asked.
“Not at all,” she giggled. “You do that to me.”
“Good.” He drew her face toward his and they kissed. His lips were warm and moist against hers. His tongue licked her upper lip. She shivered. He bit her lower lip gently. She gave a small gasp. “Do you like that?”
“Yes.”
He pulled her closer and pressed his mouth against hers. She let her tongue explore the inside of his mouth. He ran his hand over her arm and she felt the prickles rise beneath his touch. He bit her lip again, this time harder. She cried out and backed away, still feeling the throbbing in her groin.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked.
“Yes. You bit too hard.”
“Sorry.”
She noticed his hand was rubbing his crotch and wished she could touch her own for some relief. But she couldn’t do that here; it wasn’t ladylike. She crossed her legs tight and tried to stop it. “Take me to the dock,” she said. “You might think I look fine, but I can’t go to the city with bare feet.”
“Alright,” he said and poled the boat more quickly. He pulled up alongside the dock and Delilah stepped out. As she ran up the gentle slope to the house, she heard the sound of a zipper and Laurent moan as she slipped inside the door and hurried to the room she had shared with Sassafras until their father was killed and Sassafras moved into his room. She hiked her skirt and laid down on the bed, rubbing her hand across her privates, thinking about the way his lips had felt on hers. The pulse radiated up her belly and down her thighs. She imagined his teeth on her lip and her hand became his, stroking, stroking until the throb engulfed her body and finally subsided.
In the garden
As Sassafras passed the vegetable garden on her way to the house, she saw Delilah emerge wearing an almost new lilac dress, embroidered with pink and white roses at the neckline, and ornamented with a bow on one side beneath the knee. The sleeves puffed a little at the shoulders and then narrowed to hug the wrists tightly. The skirt was slim in the front and at the sides, but puffed a little in back. She noticed that Delilah carried a matching umbrella and wore a delicate flowered hat that seemed awfully formal for a stroll around the swamps. “Going to New Orleans?” she called out to her sister.
Delilah tossed her head slightly and kept walking down the flower-lined path and outside the gate.
“Will you be home for dinner?” Sassafras called.
Delilah turned back. “Don’t count on me. I have a date.”
“With Laurent Cheney?”
“Of course with Laurent Cheney. I told you we’re engaged.” Delilah closed the gate behind her and walked down the grassy hill toward the dock.
“Be careful then.” Sassafras called after her. She was definitely not comfortable with Delilah going to New Orleans with Laurent Cheney, but didn’t see a way to stop her. She watched Delilah’s hips sway as she walked down the hill and noticed that her walk was different. Was it because she wore a bustle or something else? She wished she’d had a chance to slip those elderberries into her pocket before she’d gone. Well, what’s done is done, she decided. All I can do is pray she keeps her wits about her. She went inside, got herself a glass of chamomile tea, and sat at the kitchen table. She spread the fennel out in front of her and started to braid, chanting the words of protection Sunshine had taught her as they sat side-by-side on a moss-cushioned rock, dangling their feet into the black waters of the swamp.
In the swamp
Agatha lumbered onto her sunning rock and mentally called out to her young nymph Misha. The nymph didn’t answer. Agatha was not surprised. Misha had only come to the swamp the week before, so her transformation was not complete. It would be a month at least before the mind link Agatha shared with her nymphs became louder than a whisper. She would need to shift into her human form to speak with her. She let out a deep roar and began to shorten her body. She roared again and pulled her spine erect, pain shooting through each vertebra as it bent into its unaccustomed shape. She pulled her long snout inward and flattened her face, feeling the rows of razor sharp teeth compressed into her too-small human mouth.
“Misha!” she yelled, her voice like heavy footsteps on a gravel path.
A flash of red hair peeked between the trees. A woman with pale green-tinged skin stepped out. “Misha is with Isabella, learning the art of camouflage.”
“Thanks, Nymeria.”
Agatha touched Isabella’s mind. Bring Misha to my sunning rock.
We’re coming. The response came into Agatha’s mind, along with a rush cypress leaves. Agatha batted her long tail back and forth and waited. Eventually, the chestnut-haired Isabella and the dark-skinned Misha appeared on the rock.
“Did you see me coming?” Misha asked.
“Not at all. You’re learning well,” Agatha said.
“It’s easier for you though,” Nymeria said. “You don’t have poppy-colored hair to give you away.”
“Enough banter,” Agatha said. “Nymeria and Isabella, go amuse yourselves somewhere else. I need to talk to Misha alone.”
“Let’s go see if the Swampy’s around,” Nymeria chimed. “He can entertain us.”
“Good idea.” The two nymphs disappeared into the trees.
“Did I do something wrong, Great Mother?” Misha cast her eyes down.
“Not at all. You’re skills are coming along nicely. I need to ask a favor of you.”
“Anything you wish. I am your servant.”
“I need you to wear the coverings of mortal women and distract a mortal boy.”
“Distract?”
“Seduce him – or at least pretend to.”
“What man?”
“His name is Laurent Cheney. Sassafras Cats will provide you with clothing and arrange for you to meet.”
“How….um…intimate?”
“Whatever it takes to convince Delilah Cats she has lost him.” Agatha noticed the color rise in Misha’s dark cheeks. “Virginity means nothing to a nymph. You know you can no longer conceive a child.”
“I know, Great Mother. It’s just that I have never loved a man before.”
“And I don’t expect you’ll love this one. Just play with him like you would a toy and throw him away when the game is over.”
“I will make you proud, Great Mother.”
“I have no doubt you will,” Agatha grinned, showing her compressed rows of sharp teeth. “Just don’t let Delilah know you’re a nymph.”
“I won’t,” Misha smiled. “I’m getting very good at camouflage.”
In New Orleans
Delilah took Laurent’s arm and stepped onto the dock.
“Would you like to get some lunch?” he asked.
“I’d love to,” she beamed. “There’s a wonderful bistro in the French Quarter.”
“I was thinking somewhere a little more private.”
“Private?” She felt the now-familiar ache in her lower abdomen. “What did you have in mind?”
“Have you heard of the Charlington Hotel?”
“Laurent Cheney! I will not pose as your wife.”
“You wouldn’t need to.” He wrapped his arm around her waist. “But I was thinking we’d eat in the restaurant.”
Delilah felt the color rise to her cheeks. “I knew that’s what you meant. I was just teasing.”
“It’s in the Irish Quarter. Let’s take a carriage.” He waved his hand to flag down a topless carriage drawn by a pair of speckled horses. He stepped up first and then put a hand under Delilah’s arm to help her up. She positioned her umbrella so that it shaded them both. She felt his denim thigh brush against her crinoline skirt and felt proud of the man beside her. She had dated boys her own age before and they did not know how to act. Laurent was older – nearly as old as Sassafras – and knew how to treat a woman.
“Where are you headed?” the driver asked.
“The Charlington Hotel.”
“She doesn’t seem the type.”
“She’s not.” Laurent gave him a a thin-lipped smile.
The driver cracked the reins and the horses started trotting.
“I’m not what type?” she whispered.
“The type to pretend to be my wife,” he teased.
“Oh…you think he thought…Why wouldn’t he think we were married?”
“You’re not wearing a ring.”
“Hmmm. You’re right. You asked me to marry you, but never gave me a ring.”
“I will.” He brushed his finger across the back of her hand. “We’ll go shopping for a ring after lunch.”
“I love you.” She leaned over kissed him on the cheek.
He turned his face toward her. She let her lips meet his, gently at first. Her lips parted and his tongue lapped the edges of them tenderly. He ran a fingertip slowly along her cheekbone and down the side of her neck. The pleasure ache traveled from her belly to her groin. She crossed her legs and pressed her thighs together, but it only made the ache more intense. “We’d better get married soon,” she whispered.
“We will.” He put his tongue in her mouth and she tasted chicory. His sweet, sharp scent rose up around her and mingled with her jasmine perfume. Their tongues darted in and out, teasing and stroking, accompanied by the clip-clop rhythm of the horses. And then they stopped.
“The Charlington Hotel,” the driver said. “That’ll be a penny.”
Delilah straightened her hat as Laurent stepped onto the sidewalk and handed a coin to the driver. He offered her his arm and helped her onto the sidewalk. The hotel was a three-story building with an ornate front door. A black man wearing a red coat stood to the left of the door, smoking a pipe.
“Can I help you?” the man asked.
“We’re just here for lunch,” Laurent said. “I know the way.”
“Suit yourself,” the man opened the door and pointed the mouth end of his pipe to the left. “Dr. Chamberlain is in the bar.”
“We might stop by and see him after we eat.” Laurent led her through the door and to the right.
“Who’s Dr. Chamberlain?” she whispered.
“A physician. His specialty is the soul.” He took her elbow and led her through the door. “I’ll introduce you after we eat.”
“How do you know him?”
“We’ll just say we share a common interest.”
Laurent led her to a room filled with low tables and piles of ornate pillows. There were no diners in sight, but a girl’s high-pitched laugh came from behind a curtain. He sat at the table furthest from the laughing girl and fluffed the pillows next to him. “Come sit by me.”
“On the floor?”
“It’s like a picnic, but inside.”
“Alright.” She lowered herself to the stack of pillows and sat with her legs folded to one side, covered by her skirt.
“Comfortable?”
“Yes,” she lied.
Laurent rang a bell and a black man entered the room and stood by their table. Like the man outside, he wore a red coat. His eyes were strange, like they were missing something.
“A bottle of your best champagne and some cucumber sandwiches.”
The man nodded briefly and disappeared.
Laurent pulled a cord she hadn’t seen and a billow of velvet fell around them, hiding them away. “I told you it was a private place. Now where were we?” He reached out to stroke her cheek.
“Shouldn’t we wait?” she asked.
“No need. He won’t notice anything.”
“Is he blind?”
“Of course not. He’s just trained to look the other way.”
“Did you notice anything strange about his eyes?”
“The only eyes I’m interested in are yours.” He kissed both her eyes gently. He ran his fingernail down her throat and along the scooped neckline of her dress. A shiver ran through her. He touched his lips to hers gently and she opened her mouth to welcome his tongue. They kissed urgently and she felt his hand slide under her skirt and brush against her stocking-covered thighs. The pleasure-ache returned and his hand moved higher, stroking the naked gap between her stockings and her pantaloons. She arched her back. “Like it?” he whispered.
“Yes. Very much.”
“You’ll like this more.” He stroked the silk of her pantaloons, lightly at first and then with more force.
“Oh!” The flesh under his fingers pulsed.
“Sshhhh.” He kissed her lips. “I’ll take care of you.” She felt a finger slip inside her pantaloons, caress her softly in places that had only been touched by her own finger. The pleasure-ache became everything and it carried her as the riptide had the weekend she’d visited the ocean as a little girl. And then it flung her suddenly against the shore. She lay panting. A champagne cork popped. She struggled to sit up.
Laurent poured champagne in two tall flutes. “Did you enjoy yourself?”
“How did…Oh my…the waiter.”
“Shhh. Remember, they are trained not to see.” He offered her a cucumber sandwich. “Have something to eat.”
She took the sandwich from him. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.” He handed her the glass of champagne and raised his in a toast. “To us.”
She clinked her glass against his and took a sip. She had never had champagne before and found it crisp like green apples. She marveled at the way the bubbles tickled her nose. “This is wonderful.”
“So are you.” Laurent stroked a braid that had come loose and was resting on the full bodice of her dress.
She felt her nipples grow hard. “You’d better stop.”
“Why?”
“Because you make me want to do things we shouldn’t.”
“Why shouldn’t we?”
“We’re not married yet.”
He took a sip of his champagne. “We can be.”
“How?”
“I’ll show you. But first, let’s eat. You must be starving after writhing around like that.”
She blushed.
“Don’t be shy. Your agony was beautiful to watch — almost as entrancing as your release.” He picked up a sandwich and studied it for a moment before he bit it in half. “These are good, although I do wish they’d leave the crusts on.”
“I like crusts too.” She took a bite of her sandwich, relieved that he had changed the subject.
After they finished the sandwiches and champagne, Laurent led Delilah to a windowless room with padded booths upholstered with jewel-tone floral designs. A single candle glowed from the center of each table. A dark cherry bar with a mirror lined one wall. A white man with shoulder length blonde hair stood behind it, busying himself wiping a cloth across the dark wood. Another white man with long curly black hair sat on a stool, an odd-shaped glass in front of him. A spoon rested on the glass, a single sugar cube in its center. The man poured clear liquid from a tiny pitcher over the sugar cube. Delilah watched the clear chartreuse liquid in the glass turn opalescent.
“Lord Psyche.” Laurent nodded at the man, as he led her to the bar.
Delilah eyed the man’s ruffled silk shirt and his plush burgundy velvet coat. He looks like a lord.
“Prince de Sade.” The man smiled and motioned for them to take the stools next to him. “Who is this lovely lady?”
“This is Delilah Cats, my betrothed.”
“Cats? Is your sister Sassafras Cats?”
“You know my sister?” Delilah was surprised and a little suspicious.
His smile widened. “I’ve bought potions from her. You see I’m a medical doctor, but sometimes my patients require more primal treatments.”
“Why did you call Laurent Prince de Sade?”
“We are both members of the Society for the Deliverance of the Soul. Those are our societal names and denote our rank. I am the founder of the group, so my rank is Lord. Your fiancé can administer certain rites, so he is called Prince.”
“Is it some kind of religion?”
“Here, sit. I’ll tell you all about it.” He patted the stool next to him. She sat down and Laurent sat on her other side. “Would you like some absinthe?”
“What is it?”
“An alcoholic beverage that has visionary properties.” He held the glass to her nostrils. “Smell it.”
“Smells like fennel.”
“Very good. Your sister taught you well. Absinthe is made from fennel, anise, and the flowers of Artemisia absinthium.”
“We’d love to join you for an absinthe,” Laurent said.
She looked over at Laurent and mouthed, “I don’t like anise.”
“Like her sister, Delilah is acquainted with the nymphs of the swamp,” Laurent continued.
The bartender set a glass with a large globe at the bottom, a narrow waist, and a wide flute in front of them both and filled its bottom bowl with the chartreuse liquid. He placed a spoon with slots carved out of it over each glass. He put a sugar cube on each spoon and placed a pitcher of ice cold water between them. “You have to drip the water manually here,” the bartender explained. “We don’t have a fountain like they have at the Old Absinthe House.”
Laurent picked up the pitcher and let the water drip slowly over her sugar cube. Tiny opalescent trails spun down through the liquid until the full bowl shown like a huge opal. She watched the gold and red flames sparkle in the candlelight. When her sugar cube had melted, he began dripping water onto his own spoon. Lord Psyche removed her spoon and placed it on a tray. “Taste it and let me know what you think.”
She took a cautious sip and shivered.
“It’s an acquired taste,” Lord Psyche said. “You’ll get used to it in time. Take another sip, you’ll see.”
“I’d rather not. Laurent can finish mine.”
“It’s impolite to refuse a drink,” Laurent scolded. She thought she caught a trace of malice in his voice.
“Give it a chance,” Lord Psyche urged. “Sometimes enlightenment emerges from bitterness.”
She took another sip. “You’re right. The second sip is better.”
“And the third is better still,” Lord Psyche took a sip from his own glass and gazed at Delilah, as if measuring her. “Have you ever wondered about the essence of a person?”
“What do you mean?”
“The spark that makes a person who he is. The part that lives on after the person’s body decays and dies.”
“I haven’t given it much thought.” She took another sip and was surprised to find she liked it.
“That’s what the Society investigates – how to isolate the very essence of a person and, maybe someday, to allow it to live beyond the confines of the body.”
“How do you do that?” she asked.
“A number of ways. You see, we feel the essence is the part of a person that can experience emotions like pleasure. So we study the effects different experiences have on a person’s mind and also how different combinations of herbs and medicines affect a person’s ability to experience those emotions. It’s all very theoretical at this point. But someday…”
“Someday we’ll be able to really help people, even more than your sister does.” Laurent clasped his hand over hers. “Won’t you join us, Delilah?”
“Well, I really don’t understand it all, but if you want me to join, I will.”
“None of us understand it all, but we’re honored to have you join us in our quest. “ Lord Psyche touched her arm lightly. “Let’s refill our glasses and drink to our new member.”
The bartender poured more absinthe into each glass and Lord Psyche raised his in a toast. “To Delilah Cats and the knowledge she can bring.”
“To Delilah’s passion,” Laurent lifted his glass.
Delilah touched her glass to theirs, took a tiny sip and shivered. “Would you mind if I fixed mine with a sugar cube?” She noticed that the men had drained their glasses.
“Not at all,” Lord Psyche said. “Miles, get a sugar cube for each of us and pour a bit more absinthe for me and Prince de Sade. We have only begun our search for enlightenment.”
——-
Rips in the Weave is available as a print book or an ebook at the following locations
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