Tumultuous

My name is Virginia and I live at the edge of the world.

I don´t belong here. I never did. It was all a mistake.

I thought I was in love. I thought he was mine.

We fooled them all.

He fooled me.

I thought we were happy, and then, I was cast aside for reasons unknown.

Pushed away, I was thrust into a place in which I had no business being, to save face of honor against the indignity of separation.

They said it was custom, still, among those of old lines to be given to the father if found ill suited for the son or upon his decline, and if the father´s status allowed him such actions.

I could do nothing.

My parents did nothing. They no longer held sway.

My brothers were helpless as I.

The day after the separation, I became a bride again.

I had hoped he would find me disagreeable, that he would uphold the old hostility toward my family´s name. Better to be cast away then treated as some intricate bauble slightly flawed in the eyes of one owner.

But there was no protestation. And the ties were bound, the rings placed.

He laid a medallion on my breast, lifted my hair to fasten the chain. When he kissed me, I would not relent. His teeth came, sharp and unyielding, tearing, biting hard until I gasped and allowed him inside. His tongue burned.

I knew I was claimed.

I saw the shadow of my former husband moving away in the faceless tide of the many guests come to watch the vows.

It had been planned.

In his chambers, docile handmaidens tended me. They guided me into a perfumed bath, poured rose scented rainwater through my hair, softened my skin with salves that smelt of spring, and, once through, dressed me in a fall of strategically cut satin as green as eyes I once adored.

It was fully dark when he came, and I hoped somehow, that the shadows would conceal me, but his hands sought me out. He found me beneath the landscapes of sheets. His hands shaped and molded my body, hard in some areas, soft in others. He was brutal in his slowness. His mouth on me left tears in my eyes, and when he took me it was hard, and feral, and I sobbed his name in rhythm.

Inducted into a world few knew about, I played a role, dutiful wife, hostess to an endless array of galas patronized by the powerful and beautiful, who shone like frozen jewels in their black clothing, as well as the plain and ineffectual, whom the others still catered to.

I knew the gatherings were a cover.

I knew where he went at the evening´s end.

But death never touched me directly. He always cleaned his hands.

And in the night there were teeth, and hot mouths, hard caresses, and rasping cries.

It always came back to the cries and the shivers in his embrace.

I walk the line of the ocean sometimes, during the day. I can see the turrets of the manor from the shore. Looming above the sea, stark and almost silver against the sky.

I started a letter to my mother the other day. I tore the quill apart after the greeting. I burned the mangled feathers and the parchment. What could I say? I was no longer the little girl they once knew.

I was hostess to decadent things, beaten by my wantonness.

Shamed by my own pleasure. I no longer fit into that warm and tender cove.

I walk the line of the ocean.

I watch the turrets against the sky.

I listen to the waves and think about losing myself in their shadowy depths.

My name is Virginia and I live at the edge of the world.

End