Isabel Burning

~ a fronte praecipitium a tergo lupi ~-4

*

“Ready, love?”

Those were the words he spoke in my dream that night.

I nodded quickly. ‘Love’? He called me ‘love’, but then again, so did everyone in these parts.

“It’s nothing more than an affectation. It doesn’t mean he loves you, Kate.”

“And please…I told you not to call me that. It’s not my name. You’re my mother, you ought to know that.” I looked around only to see the doctor. “My mother…she’s not even here is she?” I felt ashamed and confused.

“No, love. She’s never been here.” He smiled. “There is a gown for you on the chair...I’ll give you a moment.” He turned his head away.

I undressed in haste and slid onto a sleek red chair with chrome stirrups. “All right then...” I chirped in a ridiculous high-pitched tone that echoed around the cold room. He turned back and I was afraid to look at him directly. Instead I found his reflection in the steel tray table.

He smiled and said, “You can look at me. You won’t turn to stone, you know.”

He wasn’t wearing a white coat like I had anticipated. Just his usual grey trousers and a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up. There was a pin on the collar of his shirt. It was a tiny red flag.

His forearms were thin and strong with large blue veins at the surface. One wrapped itself around the muscle of his entire arm. It was punctured with holes that only carpenter’s nails could have made. I followed it until it disappeared under his shirt. I still couldn’t look at his face.

He instructed me to lay back and try to relax. I could feel my heartbeat in my stomach and I wanted to be sick. I flinched as he put his fingers to my neck and began to palpate.

“Don’t tell me that hurt.” He smiled.

“Oh no, I just...”

“Merely checking for pearls,” he replied.

“How’s that?” I asked.

“Swollen glands. I said I’m checking for swollen glands.”

“Oh. I thought you said pearls.”

“Well, that would have been an odd thing to say, don’t you think?”

He moved his hands down to the ties on the gown and wove the ties apart as he informed me that he’d be checking my breasts for anything unusual…like pearls.

I felt my face and neck go hot, which made me blush harder still.

He moved his fingers around the tissue; his face remained stony.

“Everything seems to be in order here...let’s move on, shall we?”

I nodded in agreement and closed my eyes as he slipped the latex gloves on his hands and made his way to the end of the table. I felt his powdery hand glide across my foot, pulling it further into the stirrup, adjusting and positioning me before resuming the exam.

I awoke in a breathless fury, drenched from head to toe, and not yet able to identify the quivering in my stomach and throat as a sign of arousal.

*

I would have given anything to disappear that day. I hid in my room trying to make sense of what I was feeling and how I could have become so depraved. Granted, it had been a long time since I had been intimate with anyone, but this was ludicrous. After hours of shame, I grew tired of feeling the blood rush to the surface of my skin and finally crawled to some make-believe place of resolution. It had just been a dream after all and Dr Grace was the only man I interacted with any more. It was not so strange that certain feelings should arise, despite that fact that he was my employer and possibly a junkie. Really, it was just the way those feelings manifested that left me disturbed.

I knew I would have to face him that evening and decided the best approach to this would be no approach at all. Dinner would be business as usual, as this was some inane, personal drama he did not share with me. Any bizarre behaviour I might exhibit would only serve to make me look like a dolt, a hazard I carefully avoided in the doctor’s presence.

Dr Grace was more congenial than usual that night. I felt a twinge of pity in his words as though he sensed my discomfort. He was cool and proper but a bit more approachable than usual. I was making far too much of a stupid dream.

On his way through the kitchen he invited me to join him at the kingly dining table when I finished with the plates. He grabbed two glasses and retreated to the dining room with a bottle of Merlot. Of all the nights to indulge our casual relationship, I thought, but perhaps he could distract me by talking of Africa. He was so descriptive at times that I felt I had been there. I could see the orange landscapes and the great dome of a sky. I could see the villages and hear the sounds of the people. I could hear the ocean on the jagged coast and hear the screams and shrieks of creatures hidden by the canopy of the jungle. Once, I saw a nature programme on the Serengeti. It showed a sunrise over the plains, scored only by a quiet swell of violins. Maybe it was the light or the melody, but it moved me to tears. It felt like the way you cry when you suddenly realise what you’ve lost.

I thought about Africa a great deal, especially at night. It would be some time before I realised that his stories left me with more than just an active imagination. I would eventually discover that his words were sparking the creature in my stomach to ignite many fires. Of course, by then it would be far too late to contain them. My red flags of warning were incinerated with each passing day.

*

At the far end of the dining hall, beyond the great mahogany table stood a cabinet decorated with turn-of-the-century heirlooms. The theme was the Hunt, depicting riders in dark greens, bone whites and browns. A small bronze fox sat erect in the midst of the decorative china plates, and a set of crystal brandy snifters occupied a corner of the cabinet. Above the cabinet hung a relief of the Green Man. His face reminded me of Bacchus on my bedroom wall. I stared at his stone face to avoid the doctor’s. This was always the darkest room in the house.

“Are we all right?” His voice was delicate, cautious. It struck me painfully like a needle on bone.

“Why wouldn’t we be?”

“You seem tense.”

“Oh, no I’m fine.” I could feel tears of embarrassment pooling in my eyes.

“Have I done something inappropriate?”

“No, you did nothing, really.”

A tear dropped down on to the table. Why can’t we be talking about Africa or the weather or anything except what’s wrong with me?

“What is it then?”

I watched his dark eyes and his thin face. The lines were perfectly placed. The word ‘beautiful’ entered my mind, softly at first, then violent and sharp, screaming. “I really don’t know...”

“You don’t know or you don’t wish to say?”

I thought about all of the shameful pieces of myself that were surfacing these days. The condescending revelations, the delusional ideas of my purpose, the underlying feelings and desires that laced my sleep and the truth about how little I actually knew. The tears came quicker as I went through the list. For once I hadn’t wished to give a mysterious response, but I simply couldn’t find an answer that wasn’t vague.

“It’s just...I’m not really like this. Really, I’m not.”

“Like what?”

Self-righteous, maybe. Or a stupid, insipid brat. But all I could manage was, “A bad person.” I quickly covered my face.

“Of course you aren’t a bad person! Why ever would you think that?”

I stared at my distorted reflection in the tabletop and shook my head. “I don’t know. Please, just never mind what I said. I’m really tired.” I wiped my face and promptly forced a weak smile. I regretted leaving Dr Grace feeling responsible for my discomfort and I went to bed that night full of wine and guilt.

**

e remains at the table for some time, drinking and petting the little bronze fox. He holds it close to his eyes until it is a golden blur. He puts it to his lips, savouring the cold metal; then touches it with his tongue. To keep from laughing he bites down lightly on it’s muzzle and holds it there in his teeth until the urge is gone.

*

I am sick of dreaming.

I was choking in the dust, waiting on a dry plateau under an orange moon. I could taste the grit in my teeth. A tent stood in the distance, the tarp shivering in the freezing desert wind. Red sequined flags whipped violently around on their poles. The stars were brilliant. I pulled my only covering around my face. It was the tapestry from the doctor’s wall. When the sandstorm died, I found myself inside the tent.

Dr Grace sat in the corner behind his desk. He asked me what the problem was. I told him I didn’t know and I was confused. I’d been trying to write down the song that the violins were playing, the very same one from the television programme, but I couldn’t get it right. I don’t even know how to play the violin.

He beckoned me to the exam table and took the tapestry from me, leaving me naked and exposed. “There’s the problem,” he said, pushing my knees apart. This time he wore no gloves.

Between them, pink viscous fluid covered my thighs. With my hand I followed the trail up to my groin. The substance coated my hand, pulsing in its thickest consistency. I looked to him desperate for an explanation.

“It’s simply too soon,” he said, “You weren’t ready yet. Do you remember how it goes?”

“How what goes?”

“The song. How do you expect to write it down when you can’t even remember how it goes?”

He collected an ounce of the fluid in a vile, took out his syringe and turned away.

“I remembered it yesterday. What’s happening to us?”

He turned to face me, moving in very close. On his arm a series of track marks, red and flared, were exposed. “Don’t trouble yourself with it, love. I’ll get what I need,” he said as he pressed his hand between my legs. A fire burned outside the tent and another red flag went up in flames.

*

(April)

Dr Grace disappeared into his papers again. I delivered two plates of food to his study each day. More often than not, the plates would return to me untouched. Nothing personal, he offered. This irritated me more than usual as I was suffering from a lack of sleep. The dreams were growing stranger and getting harder to recover from. At least three times in the past few months alone I’d had the canyon dream and now these disturbing scenarios featuring the doctor seemed to be the newest trend. I was losing my appetite as well.

“Are you sick?” he asked one evening.

“I’m just tired. Should I bother to leave this plate or should I just take it away now?”

“You look thin. Are you eating enough?”

“Why? Am I foiling your secret plan?”

“What do you mean by that?” he snapped.

“The one to fatten me up and cook me in a stew?” I grinned. “What did you think I meant?” I could feel the smile fading from my face.

“I asked you a question.”

“Why are you so bloody concerned about my health? Are you trying to insure that I’ll be well enough to care for you when you’ve wasted away to nothing!”

“You can take the plate away now, thank you, I’ll get something later,” was all he said.