Work Text:
Bloofer Lady
Worktime was over.
The sun had set hours before, the late September breeze taking away the last remnants of summer, yet he preferred roaming the streets rather than going home. There wasn’t really that much to look forward to, at home. Maybe his mother had brought yet another suitor and they would “make merry” for the night – then he wasn’t welcome anyways. Or maybe it was one of the better days and she might have prepared supper, but in this case, he could just have it later. It didn’t matter much. Either way, nobody would miss him.
And, actually, he quite enjoyed his little evening walks to the Hampstead heath, all the sweet fresh air after a daytime of the stuffy stench in the machine room filling is lungs. The orange light of street lamps taking turns with the autumn darkness between them. The quiet of the nightly hours, only soft, far-away sounds, or, now and then, some small animal crossing his path.
He reached the churchyard and climbed the low wall, settling down upon it. When he was a child, two or three years ago, this had been a dare, climbing the churchyard wall at dark, but now that he was grown-up, it seemed so childish and ridiculous. Nothing to fear from the dead, only the living. Poor souls, resting from their labour. Surely, they were much too tired after a lifetime of hard work than to go after children. And even if, they'd never stand a chance with someone like him. He laid back, nestling in the ivy, watching the nighttime sky. And then he heard a sound.
He startled. There was a lady! He didn’t knew where she would have come from, but there she was. Could have been a ghost, with her white gown and white shawl. But she was much too real, and besides, only children believed in ghosts. She had noticed him the moment he noticed her and, for some while, they both looked at each other, in awe. She was very beautiful!
He didn’t really knew what to say, but knew, absolutely, ardently, that he had to talk to her. The way she looked up at him made something in his stomach feel so strangely, wonderfully warm. Like when you had whiskey. Only without the sharp stinging.
„Never seen a beautiful lady like you, Marm.”
She looked at him and then she laughed. It made him shiver, in a queer, unknown way. He jumped down the wall.
“No, no. It’s the truth.”
Argh! He cleared his throat. He hated when his voice did that squeaking thing lately. He wasn’t a child anymore! He was a worker! A man. He snuffled as if it that squeak had meant nothing to him. Play it cool.
She didn’t answer, just looked him up and down, licking her lips.
He gulped. His stomach did a little somersault. He cleared his throat again.
“What are you doing here, so late in the evening? Waiting for your sweetheart?”
Honestly, it was the only thing he could imagine. Surely, she was very well-off with a dress like this and such nice shoes. And she was so beautiful! Even in the lamplight. The idea of her having a sweetheart was, though, somehow quite devastating. But – how could she not? Someone like her?
She frowned, rolling her eyes to one side, as if she had to think very hard about it.
“I don’t know… I can’t really remember… It doesn’t really feel like it.”
This lady was quite something, for sure! How could anyone not remember such things? But, on the other hand, how charming she didn’t have one! Maybe, just maybe…
He took something out of his pocket, cleared his throat yet again, paying close attention to using a deep voice.
“Want one? I mean… a cigarette, that is.” He reached it over to her. She took it, rolling it between her pale, slender fingers, regarding it with some interest.
“I don’t think I ever had one.”
That made him afloat again. “Oh! I can show you how to do it! I smoke since I’m seven!”, he assured her.
(Well, 10, to be exact. He had his first experience with smoking when he was 7, though. And however, how would she know? But she should feel safe, with an expert to guide her. Not like his first experience with smoking. He had thrown up.)
He showed her how to light a cigarette with a match that he stroked on the churchyard wall, non-chalantly. Then he explained how to softly take it between your lips - “gently, like kissing, you know!” (he wouldn’t know, but that was how it had been explained to him), then next to softly suck to make its tip glow red, like embers in the fire, and lastly, to tap the ash off with a snip of your finger. He even told her why one had to grind the stub and that one never should smoke when in bed.
“Old Larry in Evershot Road number 8 never awoke. Burnt his whole flat. Only ashes left of him.” He had never known ‘Old Larry’ in Evershot Road number 8, but the boy who taught him how to smoke had told him those same words exactly. Good chance, even this boy himself had never known ‘Old Larry’. Maybe Old Larry had burnt like 40 years ago.
She shivered at the mentioning of ashes. Damned. Not a topic for a fine lady, for sure. He switched to a hopefully better one.
“There are two ways to smoking: whiffing, like this…” he puffed his cheeks to show her, “and the real smoking: you take some smoke in, like this… and then you’re like: ‘oh no, don’t let mum see!” This, too, were exactly the same words he was taught. He gasped, taking in a large portion of smoke that scratched his throat terribly. He had a hard time not to cough.
He handed her the cigarette.
She tried his method, and mastered it much better than he had imagined. “You’re quite the fast learner!”, he praised. He felt great, having taught her that well. Better than he had felt in very a long time, actually. Knowledgeable, protective. Grown-up.
She seemed to sense this, in a way. She smiled at him, with her lips still parted, looking him up and down. Did she admire him? His stomach somersaulted again.
“Do you have a sweetheart? I mean, maybe you are my sweetheart? Having waited for me?”
His heart pounded so hard that he thought she must hear it. He couldn’t bring himself to answer out of fear he might squeak for joy. It took all his strength to maintain what he hoped was a mostly blank face.
She chuckled. “We could play a game. Play that we are sweethearts. Do you want to?” She bit her lip with a canine tooth and snipped at the last bit of the cigarette.
He nodded, spellbound. “Yeah. Let’s.” And then he gasped: “You know, or, I mean, I could be your sweetheart for real, if you want to?” He almost couldn’t hear his own voice from the blood roaring in his ears.
“I’d be good to you! I would never cheat on you with other girls! Or…” Hit you, he had wanted to say, but the idea to hit such a beautiful, fine lady was absurd. “ahem… force you to do something you don’t want to do!” Better. He took a deep breath.
She looked at him, very observant now, fixating him with her dark eyes, smiling still – yet somehow, he didn’t know if he liked this smile of hers. She casually grinded the cigarette.
“Of course you wouldn’t! Such a good man like you. But… do you know yet what sweethearts do when they’re alone?” The lamplight caught in her eyes in some way, so that they seemed to glow now.
“Ahem… like… kissing… and stuff?” Actually, he wasn’t very sure what she alluded to. Getting engaged? He felt the slightest bit uneasy now.
She nodded, though. “Exactly! We should try it, don’t you think? Kissing… Have you ever kissed before?” She drew close to him. Very close.
He shook his head, unable to speak. Her lips were so near. He had to fight the urge to jump, to run – yet for some reason, couldn’t. And why would he even want to? Escape a kiss from such a beautiful lady? He squeezed his eyes shut, forcing himself to remain still.
“Then let me teach you. That’s only fair, isn’t it?” Her voice was so soft, so alluring. “You taught me, I teach you. You said yourself, it is just like smoking… just gently part your lips…”
And, in a way, it was a lot like smoking for the first time. Her perfume smelled weird, a lot like wilted flowers, or was it a breeze from the churchyard? It made him sick, or was it only his nerves? That was his first kiss, after all! He would be a man after this! All his friends would be so jealous! And from such a beautiful lady…
“Good boy”, she purred. “And do you know about love bites?”
She didn’t wait for his answer and her lips proceeded to go down his chin and neck, where she must have felt his heart pounding in the veins, but when she made the love bite stuff, it hurt. It hurt! He hated it, he wanted her to stop, it was so awful, everything, the sound of her sucking on him, the stench of decay, the pain, the dizziness… Yet this meant that he became a man! And so, somehow, he endured it to the very end, until she was finished. By the time, not only his neck hurt, but he had a terrible headache, too.
He opened his eyes with great difficulty. While he felt awful, she seemed to glow from within.
“Little darling”, she kissed him one last time, on the brow, “will we meet again, tomorrow? You have so much sweet kisses left. I want them all.” He could only nod, weakly. And then she was gone.
He must have fallen asleep, somehow. When he woke, he threw up, just like with smoking, and didn’t make his way home before the early morning hours. Neither mother nor supper were waiting for him there, but he wouldn’t have had been able to eat anything anyways.
Even if he was dog-tired all day, come night time, after work, he went straight back to the churchyard, waiting for her till after midnight, like sweethearts do – yet she didn’t come. And she didn’t come the day after, and didn’t come the third day.
He never knew if he was meant to be sad or glad about the fact that he never saw this beautiful lady again, and he felt ashamed about it. If he would have been a child still, maybe he could have made himself believe she had been some kind of ghost or make-believe, this beautiful lady, and forget all about her.
Yet he never could.