I’m a wretch, a rake, a Lothario. I seduced another man’s wife and I lov
ed it. I am the worst kind of man, the kind of man who isn’t really a man at all. I’m the kind of life that isn’t fit to draw breath and I hate that fact but I adore her and I adore it – the danger, the stolen glances, the whispered phone calls, the long, slow murmured words and curled fingers and leaping in the chest like a child.
And didn’t they used to whip scoundrels like me? Didn’t they use to stick me in the dock and flay my back and brand my forehead? Wasn’t I, in nobler times, sent into exile penniless, my head shaven? Didn’t I scavenge among the wild hounds and seek sanctuary from the winter’s wet in some hovel, rejected by God and men, desolate, cast down into the pit of Hell on Earth? And didn’t I deserve it and didn’t my craving for her burn still?
But wouldn’t I then be at least besmirched in the minds and mouths of honest gentry? And wouldn’t my ignominy suit the lowness of my choosing and wouldn’t I be truly foul and fit the ugliness of my soul to my blasphemed body and wouldn’t it be as it should be if I were cursed and beaten and damned?
In other times, by better men, mightn’t I be shot? Mightn’t I be dragged into the night through mud and brush and bramble and mightn’t I hear the stallions snort and stamp the ground blue and flare their wild eyes red and frenzied heed their riders’ whoops and pull me by my bloodied wrists to some hidden glade where I might be strung up, my heart cut out, my face broken, my balls sliced off and shoved into my mouth, a hand-scrawled sign hung round my neck reading, “CHEAT?”
And in more civil times mightn’t I be brought before the bar and found wanting and mightn’t I be forced into a life of disgraceful service for what alms I could glean from the lowly tasks befitting a scoundrel like me, cast off by virtue and forced to scrabble from the soot and filth the means of base existence? Mightn’t I be friend to none, reviled by all, scratching with the drunks and whores and monsters of the night in some darkened doorway for one stale hunk of bread?
But ours are not such times. In our times someone has taken decency and hidden it behind fidelity. In our times someone has taken passion and hidden it behind commitment. In our times someone has taken virtue and hidden it behind austerity. In our times someone has taken love and sunken it in matrimony. And I love her, scoundrel that I am, and I love her madly, truly, deeply. And she loves me.
Of course, that isn’t it. I love a wisp of a thing, a breath, a notion, an inkling, a phantom of the mind plucked from the depths of all that is her without picking her in her fullness. And she loves me, but then she doesn’t. She loves and she yearns, but not for me. She loves that I can do what I do and her loving it so makes me love it. I exceed my talent and surpass my own proclivity for shameless indulgence and pursuit of vice for her and there is love in doing so. And in culling her from the herd and in loving her with words and breaths and sighs and longing in the breast I make the planets leap rejoicing in their encircling paths. She feels the touch of a hero and I leave behind my box of craftsman’s shoddy tools and humble pine and build for her a castle of rich oak atop our greening hill and she soars with hawks above the cliff and she knows love and it is mine.
She begs me on her knees sobbing to tell her of other conquests in my scoundrel’s past and I write of a girl from New Jersey who I would not let speak to me while she wore my shirt and she cries and feels awash in dangerous desire. I tell her of a young thing who hides her accent poorly and how I clutched her long, full, smoky, black hair in my fist and I ran my mouth along her quivering throat and smelled the hot blood in her veins and felt her heart quake with anguish and anticipation and my darlin asks me to tell her what I will do to her. And in time I do, scoundrel that I am.
And I write of our time on the island and our time in the desert and I add a line just now to the latter to fan the flame of her unquenchable lust:
The thin, crisp, ragged air could not sustain our cries so they settled down upon us and mixed with us and soaked us in a symphony of our own rapacity.
I know that she will read my words and hear them in my voice and although I won’t be there I will ravage her as surely as if I’d taken her down to Lorca’s river and all of Spain will know and she will cry aloud and press her thighs together, crossing her knees, pushing down the death inside with clutched heart and deep swallows. Scoundrel.
But then, it really is the thing, this – I love her. And she in return. And it is the love that quickens the pulse and sends the spike of hot desire into the chest and seals for all eternity this scoundrelous pursuit and makes the prowler prowl and the pursued get caught of her own device and catches the heart in the throat and shakes the soul and scares even the angels in their quarters and sends up the alarm call to the beasts of damnation. And so finally, and scoundrelly, I will fuck her in that stairwell and I will consign my soul to perdition for that thing that is not mine and it will be a price worth paying, for a scoundrel also loves.
ed it. I am the worst kind of man, the kind of man who isn’t really a man at all. I’m the kind of life that isn’t fit to draw breath and I hate that fact but I adore her and I adore it – the danger, the stolen glances, the whispered phone calls, the long, slow murmured words and curled fingers and leaping in the chest like a child.And didn’t they used to whip scoundrels like me? Didn’t they use to stick me in the dock and flay my back and brand my forehead? Wasn’t I, in nobler times, sent into exile penniless, my head shaven? Didn’t I scavenge among the wild hounds and seek sanctuary from the winter’s wet in some hovel, rejected by God and men, desolate, cast down into the pit of Hell on Earth? And didn’t I deserve it and didn’t my craving for her burn still?
But wouldn’t I then be at least besmirched in the minds and mouths of honest gentry? And wouldn’t my ignominy suit the lowness of my choosing and wouldn’t I be truly foul and fit the ugliness of my soul to my blasphemed body and wouldn’t it be as it should be if I were cursed and beaten and damned?
In other times, by better men, mightn’t I be shot? Mightn’t I be dragged into the night through mud and brush and bramble and mightn’t I hear the stallions snort and stamp the ground blue and flare their wild eyes red and frenzied heed their riders’ whoops and pull me by my bloodied wrists to some hidden glade where I might be strung up, my heart cut out, my face broken, my balls sliced off and shoved into my mouth, a hand-scrawled sign hung round my neck reading, “CHEAT?”
And in more civil times mightn’t I be brought before the bar and found wanting and mightn’t I be forced into a life of disgraceful service for what alms I could glean from the lowly tasks befitting a scoundrel like me, cast off by virtue and forced to scrabble from the soot and filth the means of base existence? Mightn’t I be friend to none, reviled by all, scratching with the drunks and whores and monsters of the night in some darkened doorway for one stale hunk of bread?
But ours are not such times. In our times someone has taken decency and hidden it behind fidelity. In our times someone has taken passion and hidden it behind commitment. In our times someone has taken virtue and hidden it behind austerity. In our times someone has taken love and sunken it in matrimony. And I love her, scoundrel that I am, and I love her madly, truly, deeply. And she loves me.
Of course, that isn’t it. I love a wisp of a thing, a breath, a notion, an inkling, a phantom of the mind plucked from the depths of all that is her without picking her in her fullness. And she loves me, but then she doesn’t. She loves and she yearns, but not for me. She loves that I can do what I do and her loving it so makes me love it. I exceed my talent and surpass my own proclivity for shameless indulgence and pursuit of vice for her and there is love in doing so. And in culling her from the herd and in loving her with words and breaths and sighs and longing in the breast I make the planets leap rejoicing in their encircling paths. She feels the touch of a hero and I leave behind my box of craftsman’s shoddy tools and humble pine and build for her a castle of rich oak atop our greening hill and she soars with hawks above the cliff and she knows love and it is mine.
She begs me on her knees sobbing to tell her of other conquests in my scoundrel’s past and I write of a girl from New Jersey who I would not let speak to me while she wore my shirt and she cries and feels awash in dangerous desire. I tell her of a young thing who hides her accent poorly and how I clutched her long, full, smoky, black hair in my fist and I ran my mouth along her quivering throat and smelled the hot blood in her veins and felt her heart quake with anguish and anticipation and my darlin asks me to tell her what I will do to her. And in time I do, scoundrel that I am.
And I write of our time on the island and our time in the desert and I add a line just now to the latter to fan the flame of her unquenchable lust:
The thin, crisp, ragged air could not sustain our cries so they settled down upon us and mixed with us and soaked us in a symphony of our own rapacity.
I know that she will read my words and hear them in my voice and although I won’t be there I will ravage her as surely as if I’d taken her down to Lorca’s river and all of Spain will know and she will cry aloud and press her thighs together, crossing her knees, pushing down the death inside with clutched heart and deep swallows. Scoundrel.
But then, it really is the thing, this – I love her. And she in return. And it is the love that quickens the pulse and sends the spike of hot desire into the chest and seals for all eternity this scoundrelous pursuit and makes the prowler prowl and the pursued get caught of her own device and catches the heart in the throat and shakes the soul and scares even the angels in their quarters and sends up the alarm call to the beasts of damnation. And so finally, and scoundrelly, I will fuck her in that stairwell and I will consign my soul to perdition for that thing that is not mine and it will be a price worth paying, for a scoundrel also loves.
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