The Ripper's Wife(41)
He opened a door. We didn’t stop to look around or make small talk. He led me straight to the bed. He lifted my veil. I flinched and lowered my eyes, so ashamed I couldn’t even look at him. I was half-afraid I’d never be able to face myself in the mirror again, that this burning shame would never leave me. But then I felt his fingers beneath my chin, so lovingly, so gently, tilting it up, to make me look at him.
“Darling”—there was that sweet, sweet word again, and I was drowning in those crystal-blue eyes, hot and cold all at the same time, my heart dancing madly, whirling like a dervish inside my breast—“must you tantalize me so?” he whispered. And then he kissed me. In that instant I forgot everything. The whole world could have perished and starved, the whole city could have been in flames outside, but as long as I was in his arms it didn’t matter.
We fell onto the bed, kissing hungrily, tugging at each other’s clothes. Soon they were scattered carelessly upon the dirty floor and we were all naked need and greed, giggling and wiggling like eels, bucking and thrusting on that squeaky, shaky little bed. I was half-afraid either we were going to bang the headboard through the wall or else the whole bed was going to collapse under us and maybe even fall through the floor.
The second time was softer, slower, exquisite in every way. Passionate, yet so very peaceful. In his arms I felt safe, fulfilled in a way I hadn’t been in a very long time. I had taken the precaution of inserting a sponge before I left Flatman’s, so I wasn’t worried about conceiving and could surrender myself entirely to pleasure. His touches were so tender, so beautiful, they made me ache and cry.
This was everything I had been longing for all my life, but because I was married to Jim it was accounted a sin and would be quite the scandal if it was ever discovered. Just like Hester Prynne, I would be ruined in society’s eyes, judged by a bunch of hypocrites who were, in reality, just as guilty as me. In the Currant Jelly Set, while the children played innocently at musical chairs their parents played musical beds. Everyone knew but pretended not to, and as long as there was no scandal, no courtrooms or damning articles in the penny press, feigned ignorance was a veil for bliss. The real sin was ripping the veil away.
When at last Alfred and I had to leave, I turned to him impulsively as he was standing behind me, fastening my dress, and took both his hands in mine. “Will it always be like this?” I asked.
“Always,” he promised, and kissed me again.
“Promise me”—I clung to him—“that we shall never lose the wonder of it! That every time shall be as perfect as this!”
“I promise,” he said.
I took his hand and laid his palm on my chest. “Here is my heart, beloved. Feel it beating, just for you, the one it belongs to now.”
He moved his hand to cup my breast, then pulled down the dress he had only half-finished fastening. He knelt and began to suckle like a starveling baby, while I grasped his hair, wrapping my fingers in those curly coppery gilt strands. I threw back my head, sighed, and shut my eyes, lost again in ecstasy.
Why did I not remember, when I looked so deep into his eyes, that blue can be such a cold color? Why did I not notice that while I was saying so much, he was saying so little? I was a fool; I saw only the charmer and missed the snake entirely.
When we returned to Flatman’s Hotel, daring to linger, touching hands, for one last discreet kiss in the corridor, before going, alone, to our respective rooms, I discovered that Jim hadn’t returned yet. I had been so worried that he would be there, lying on the sofa, waiting for me. I wasn’t ready to face him. He’ll never know, I kept reassuring myself. And what if he did? Did I really even care anymore? It was just a case of the goose paying the gander back in kind! But no, it was more than that. I had found someone kind to love me, someone who truly was the man I had taken Jim for only to discover, after our marriage, that I had been mistaken. Alfred truly was a gentle man. I could not, for the life of me, imagine him raising his voice or his hand to me.
I went and stood before the mirror; I wanted to see if my sin showed. Would I forevermore divine scarlet As spelled out in the capillaries of my blushing cheeks? I had gone from being Daisy Miller to Madame Bovary in one afternoon, and there was no turning back, and the truth is, I didn’t want to.
I kept watching the clock and waiting for Jim. Restlessly I walked the floor, butterflies in my belly, too nervous to sit still or even try to eat. Finally, I decided to call for a maid to help me get dressed. The tickets were already bought, they were right there, lying on the mantel, and I had a magnificent new dress of port-wine red velvet trimmed with tufts of dyed-red ostrich feathers, rolled velvet roses, and crystal beads that I’d bought especially for this occasion. The moment I saw it, it made me think of the theater, all that gold leaf and crimson plush velvet, and the roses tossed up onstage to the actors and actresses when they took their final bow. And Jim had given me a necklace and earrings of heart-shaped garnets shimmering dark as red wine in golden cups and a pair of matching clips for my hair to wear with them.
It would be a shame to waste such a spectacular gown and those tickets and Jim had carried on so about this being a special treat for me, so why should I miss it just because he wasn’t here to escort me? Unless he was lying dead in a gutter somewhere there really was no reason why Jim couldn’t have sent a message if he was unavoidably detained. The tickets were just lying there, so why shouldn’t I go, with or without him? After all, there was another man who would be only too glad to squire me anywhere I wanted to go, and I rather relished the thought of holding tight to Mr. Brierley’s hand when the man on the stage became a monster.