Notes: This piece explores the darker side of Maud.
Feedback: archaeobard
The Faustian Play
By Archaeobard It is a kind of torture to want and do nothing. It is an exquisite yearning; a pulling and a pain. But I could let it lie upon me at night, flowing over me like her touch, her lips. I think she fancied that terrors would sieze me in the night. It was not terrors. My murmurings were not of fright but of desire, thinly disguised. She was oblivious. She would wake and calm me, her hands upon me, stroking, soothing; soft words were spoken. And I wanted and did nothing. It would have been easy to hold her, to take her. I could have her a dozen ways. I had, in my dreams; dreams she thought fright. If she touched me I would jump. If she whispered to me I would tremble at the feel of her breath. She was innocent. Yet she too jumped, she too trembled. I am not so blunt, so obtuse not to see, for I am my uncle's creation.
So it became more of a torture to watch her, to see in her what I saw in myself. And then it became easier; easier to have her touch me, dress and undres me. I could bear the fever of her when I could note her blushes for what they were. She wanted and did nothing. It became a folly to me. Something secretive and wrong. So I trapped her in this as I did in the other. I cornered her with innocence and made her love me. I made her touch me with more than clinical fingers. I made her kiss me. I made her want me with more than desire. And then, like in one of my uncle's books, I made her believe it nothing, a dream, a fancy. She thought me a pearl. I am not a pearl, nor even a jewel. I am a barren oyster, a stone that holds no yield. For want can be dealt with by other means. She was frightened by what she had done. She kept to her room at night. She became the maid she never was. She was hiding. But when my eyes would droop in sleep I saw her face, her smile. I remembered her warmth, her feel. I had caressed the gentleness of her, embraced them memory. Something had changed. Something had grasped hold of me and twisted the heart from me. Something that was not countered in my uncle's books. For those were unfeeling, mechanical like pistons pushing and plunging under pressure. This was something that gripped me, possessed me like a curse. I could not escape me. I could not pull her to me. I could only whimper in the night. I could only fear the nights to come. Then, there were no more nights. Then there was Richard. Cold, hard, horrible. I needed her. I needed her touch, her lips, her trembling form. Like a sickness I possessed her. I took her, made her mine with a hot, wanton fever. She thought me mad, but she too was ripe for the mad house. I would send her there for my own salvation; a purging, a Faustian undertaking. A confession of freedom. If I had only known. What might it have changed? There could have been no other resolution knowing it all now as I know it. There was no other way. A marriage, a broken heart, a death. These were the things that would bring forth truth. These were the things that would let me have her wholly. These were the things that occurred. My mother thought she had cheated us all. In the end she cheated herself. In the end, I cheated her. END