Miranda and Caliban(45)

Today is different.

Today there is blood and Miranda is scared and angry and shouts, Miranda runs and hides from me.

Today Miranda is not Miranda.

And so I go, I go to fetch Master, and at first he is angry, but I tell him that Miranda is bleeding and Master laughs, ha-ha, like I have told him a good thing, his face all bright and happy. “Oh ho!” he says. “Miranda is not hurt.”

I think mayhap Master does not understand. “But she is bleeding.”

“Yes, yes.” Master pats my shoulder. “It is all very natural and part of God’s plan. Do not be alarmed. Go about your business, lad. I will go to her and explain.”

But I do not go. My shoulders go tight with anger. I do not understand how Miranda can be bleeding without being hurt. “Explain what?”

Master’s face changes. “It is no concern of yours,” he says in his cold, hard voice. “Now or ever. Believe me when I say that she is unharmed and leave her be. You’re not to lay a finger on her.”

I do not show him my teeth, but my lip curls even though I do not mean it to. “I would never hurt her!”

“No, of course not. I’ve made certain of it.” Master touches one of the amulets that hang from his neck, acting as if it was me that almost killed you, Miranda, and not him. “I’m bidding you not to touch her.”

Why?

I open my mouth to say the word, but then I see in my memory the thing I should not have seen, and it is as though I am seeing it for the first time.

Miranda.

Miranda naked.

Oh, oh, oh!

I lower my head so that Master cannot see what I am seeing behind my eyes. I did not tell him I saw Miranda in her chamber, only in the kitchen.

“Good lad.” Master’s voice is kind again. “Now begone with you and do not fret. I promise you, Miranda is healthy and well.”

I go.

I leave the palace and run far and fast and hard to the high crag where Setebos awaits me, I run with my legs going pumpity-pump and my heart going thumpity-thump until my blood pounds in my ears like waves breaking on the shore. I climb the sharp rocks with hands and feet, not caring that the rocks cut me. I am trying to run away from the memory of what I have seen, but I cannot run from a thing I carry inside me. Atop the crag, I throw myself to the ground beneath Setebos’s shadow.

Miranda.

I’m bidding you not to touch her.

Oh, but Miranda’s skin where the sun has not kissed it is soft and white, as white as milk.

And I have seen it.

I have seen the curve of her little breasts hanging above the wash-basin with their tender pink tips. I have seen her slender, pale thighs and the little thicket of dark golden hair where they join together.

Oh, Setebos!

I cannot unsee it.

There is an ache deep inside me, an ache in my chest that such beauty should exist in the world.

There is another ache, too.

It is a different ache, an animal ache. The rod of flesh at my groin swells and stiffens with it, rising to stand upright beneath the rough canvas of my breeches. The twin sacks that hang under it rise and tighten, too. It is a thing that happens sometimes that I do not speak of. I do not want Miranda to know my flesh is unruly and immodest. I would not tell her any more than I would make water in front of her; but before today, it seemed like a thing with no harm in it, no more shame in it than making water.

Oh, but now it is different, everything is different. It is because I saw Miranda naked that my rod rises, and there is a wanting in me like in dreams where there is a secret pleasure that comes hard and fast, and in the morning there is a mess.

But this is not a dream and there is shame in it.

Setebos laughs at the sky.

It aches, it aches so very badly! It has never ached so before. I crouch on my feet and untie the drawstring of my breeches, then take my swollen rod in my hand. I think if I try to make water, mayhap it will not ache so badly.

(That is a lie, Caliban.)

My rod pulses to the touch, blood beating hard in my veins. The head of it has come all the way out from beneath its hood of skin, and it is hot and swollen and weeping. I feel like weeping, too.

I am ashamed.

Oh, but it feels so good to hold it! And I think, I think … no, I will not think of it, but I do. Miranda’s tender little breasts naked, their pink tips hanging. I think of touching them. My aching rod twitches like a fish in my hand, my hand slides on it, the loose skin slides under my hand, and it feels so good, so very good. I let my hand keep sliding, sliding, up and down, and my sacks rise higher and tighter, and I cannot stop. The pleasure is coming like a stream bursting its banks.

Closing my eyes, I try not to think of Miranda.

I think of Miranda.

“Ungh!”

It is a deep groan, an animal groan, that I give as a gush of milky-white fluid spurts into the air.

And then it is like a storm that has passed. The ache is gone. My sacks feel empty and my rod softens and droops, hiding its head once more.

I sigh.

“If thy bestial nature were in doubt, I should say ’tis now heartily disproved,” says a light, mocking voice.

Ariel.

Hot with shame and anger, I rise and pull my breeches over my privy parts, tying the drawstring. “You! What do you want?”

Sitting cross-legged on a cloud, the spirit ignores my question. “Thou hast committed Onan’s sin and spilled thy seed on the ground,” he observes. “Though I think that the Lord High God would surely rather it found no purchase, and will not smite thee for it.” He smiles his thin, cruel smile. “Shall I guess what has stirred thy passion, monster? Blood is the harbinger that tells the tale. Eve’s curse has come to fruition in the magus’s daughter.”