Behind the Iron Gates

[ocea]

OOC: first in best dressed to play my sexy rugged gardener (I'm thinking Lady Chatterley's lover).

When I look out through the diamond panes of our salon window, the world before me is refracted into a myriad of different shades.
The garden, stretching outward over miles of untamed land, is splashed with eerily disfigured roses of pink and purple, cropped together in a pool of dark green. But if I shift, standing on my tiptoes so that the knees of my denim jeans rub on the thick upholstery of the window seat, a kaleidescope of different colours spill across the foliage turning leafends indigo, treetops blue.
Since I have been here, shuttered away by the isolation of my grandmothers home, the only thing which changes is the shift of colour and light through the panes of this window. Everything else stays the same... no one comes, no one goes. The house, silent as a mausoleom, is as cold in Summer as it is in Winter, reflecting back neither homeliness or hospitality. As dull and uninviting as the rank corridors of a hospital ward, echoing with the steady tick tock of an unseen grandfather clock, I feel I am in a prison, slowly stripping away all my fervour for life and leaving an empty shell of an eighteen-year-old girl.
My skin is pale, my mind inert, my body restless and passionate for change. The rooms and corridors I wander through, dreaming up fairytale stories of some other life, some other mode of existence, are the only witnesses to the needs and desires growing daily within me. The faded wallpaper and heavy antique furniture sit a silent watch over my bent form as I scrawl pages and pages of impossible stories and improbable realities.
It seems that though the view outside the window changes, everything inside remains the same...

 

[horacethe3rd]

Wes Marrick

The sound of the housekeepers shoes on the floor tiles grow distant as she goes to find the keys for the garden shed. I wait for her return suddenly growing self-conscious at how out of place I am amongst the oak-panelled splendour of the house. Standing here I shift my weight from foot to foot matching time with the grandfather clock in the main hall. Looking upwards I spy the vaulted ceiling studying the cornices and the chandelier. I wonder if the old woman does the dusting so high up there.

The heavy wooden doors leading off the hall are all closed and no sound permeates the house except the clock, which marks the passing of time. I hate coming up to the house it is such a grim place the finest house for miles and miles, yet my little house has heard more laughter in an afternoon then this place has heard in a 100yrs.

Footsteps approaching, I recognise the studied careful walk of the housekeeper as she returns. The keys jangle as she walks the sound piercing the quiet of this joyless house. Solemnly she hands them to me without uttering a word or a glimmer of kindness in her eyes. Taking them in my hand I put them in my pocket, replace my cap, doffing it to the housekeeper and turn to make my leave.
"You." The sound jolts me I turn to the housekeeper; "Don’t you be coming up to the main door again when you return those keys."
"Yes ma’am." I remove my hat quickly as I reply.
"Know your place lad, don’t be getting above your station."
"Yes ma’am."

Closing the main door I hurriedly make my way across the raked gravel, happy at being able to breathe again I go to the shed to get the tools and whistle to myself as I make my way down to the copse near the lake.

 

[ocea]

The still water of the dark blue lake ruffles lightly as a whisper thin breeze skips over its surface. The cool, sharp drop in temperature slips past the gauzy fabric of my white blouse, prickling my skin into goosbumps that abruptly soothe away with a parting of clouds, a little shower of warm sunlight through the willow trees.
I stand on a flat rock, looking out across the expanse of solid colour, and can barely make out the thin grey line of the stone wall bordering the property. It troubles me to think that such an insignificant mar in the pristine landscape is strong enough to forge the walls of my captivity. If I could recreate the bars and linaments of my living prison it would be miles high, oceans wide, built of solid diamond and gateless.
I know what my mother would have said... she would have murmured to me the truth that there is no prison except that which we make in our minds. Though I am confined to this garden and this cold, unfriendly home, with my thoughts, dreams and aspirations I am limitless.
So for her sake I pull the band from my hair, letting the heavy scarlet coils drop to mid-back, I push my face upward into the clear air and inhale the calm, frosty breath of spring zephyr sliding silently off the surface off the lake. I drop my shoes on the muddy ground, holding my skirt up to my knees so that I can wade in the shallows and press my toes into the gritty sediment on the bottom of the lake. Tiny fish dart around my calves, fronds of slimy reed lick at me as I move carefully, watching the smooth surfaces of pebbled ground, towards the shadowed overhanging bower of an enormous weeping willow.

 

[horacethe3rd]

Amidst the dappled light that punctuates the gloom of the canopy, my body is remade into an automaton my limbs the instrument of change. My mind an empty chasm whilst I work at clearing the path through the copse, cutting back Mother Nature’s tendrils which might reach out to snag any unsuspecting heart. My brow furrowed with sweat and dirt I am occasioned to stop and bask in the splendour of my solitude, scanning the boundaries of my area my eyes look through the bows of the Witch Hazel and the Hawthorns alighting on an extraneous addition to my sphere.
Mesmerised by the shock of red hair against her white blouse at once she appears both diaphanous and devious. Emboldened to encroach and touch upon her fantasy I quietly move to the edge of the copse, picking my way lightly through the undergrowth careful not to make a sound that might break the spell or cause the nymph’s flight.
A silence descends on me a resultant gift of my want for empathy. She trips her way to the edge of the water bending down to remove her shoes and dropping them on the muddied floor. Her limbs so limber and delicate each movement shatters my afternoons solitude. Stepping in to the water the ripples spreading out past waters edge and touch me. She stands in the water studying the world around her or her world within, whilst I begin to flounder.
Acorns grow in my mind but die before the sound of a summer lark has touched the green shoots of what I might be able to say to her. She must be from the house but I have never seen her and from what she wears and how she holds herself she definitely is not one of the help. An impetus from within which will not be quelled or stymied urges me to make an equal splash upon her afternoon, I pull my neckerchief and walk boldly from my hide towards the waters edge. She stares past me untroubled by the invasion of her tranquil isolation, hers eyes like lapis lazuli.
"Afternoon Miss, a strange outfit for bathing in?" wishing I had hacked back those word before I have finished uttering them.

 

[ocea]

The first thing I noticed were his hands, strong and callused with veins of dark dirt split over the palms. The rivers of soil clung to the weathered, tan skin of his knuckles but brushed off in shattered clumps from the smoother, white flesh of his wrists.
When he noticed my detailed study he instinctively crouched by the riverside, moving his hands back and forth in the shallow water setting billows of murky colour to blossom amongst the reeds. From this position he raised one hand for me to shake, unconcerned about the drops of water which ribboned down his arm to leap off the edge of his elbow or sink into the scratchy fabric of his shirt.
"Wes," he said.
I slid my hand into his, the skin beneath the sheen of river water was hot to touch, the fit of his fingers around mine inexplicably perfect.
"Katherine," I murmured.
He nodded, leaving his hand in mine a moment longer before turning it over and examining the snow-white colour of my almost sickly complexion.
"Hmm... this is no good," he said in a low, husky voice. He traced one, slightly damp finger down from my elbow to the tip of my pinky. Though it left no mark, the path was indelibly printed in my mind. "Spending so much time inside can kill the soul."
"How would you know?" I said sharply and pulled my arm from his. For some strange reason that, I suppose, I was too young to understand, the intimacy of his touch disturbed me. I felt bare and exposed beneath his deep, knowing gaze and the revealing nature of the smile reflected in both lips and eyes was too close to being something I fantasised about.
"Anyone can see it... the golden colour of health fades away into a paler white than life is ever painted with."
"Well, there wasn't much life around here to begin with," I told him. Before I could turn away, heading back to the cell-like confines of my room so that this intimacy could be broken and I might instead watch him through the safe barrier of my window, he took my hand once more in his and pulled me face to face and near to him.
"You're wrong about that..." He said. There were little buds of pollen stuck in his dark, messy hair. "Come here tomorrow and I will show you how."
I did not reply, I simply removed my hand from the closeness of his, leaving my shoes by the riverside, to run barefoot over the rolling lawns, only later realising that somehow I had become a bird too accustomed to its cage.

 

[horacethe3rd]

Katherine I repeated her name quietly three times to myself as my eyes traced her flight. The core of my being followed running alongside her matching her every heart beat and every foot fall as she speeded all the way home. To sit with her in her room, be by her side and keep her company in her prison. To gently gnaw away at the foundations of those crumbling walls that hold her fast to what she knows and what is safe.
Looking down upon the relic she had left of our encounter by waters edge, proof positive that she was no apparition. That her touch although fleeting was real. How might I be able to impinge upon her dream? And wake her into a realm of reality. Somewhere where her heart would no longer have to subsist on sepia touched photos and feast upon a reality involving me. Picking up her shoes not really knowing what exactly to do with them I returned to the darkness of the copse to continue to cut a path through.

 

[ocea]

That night I faced the mottled mirror on my wardrobe door, pushing away the folds of clothes usually shielding its surface from my critical gaze. The night breeze, as it slithered under heavy lace curtains over an open bay window, stirred the fabric of my silky gown, lifting up the hem to expose a slope of pale thigh.
As I studied myself, observing the body of a woman in her little girl petticoat, I realised how right he was. My face was whiter than moonlight, paler than the insubstantial glow slanting out beneath my bedside lamp. The exposed thigh and detailed collar of gently jutting bone was as smooth and white as it was soft. The pink on my cheeks and lips so faint as to look like a misty rose hued haze drifting near the skin, but not of it.
The gown came off easily, plucking bobbypins from my hair as the straps dragged over my head, easing free talons of red curl which further set off the ghostly apparition I was horrified to associate with my naked body. The areoles were deeply pink, the golden curls at the apex of my thighs startling red on their canvas background. The insubstantial nature of my neglected flesh brought tears to my eyes and a burning ache inside me that somehow I might find a way to change this reality.
I pulled on my nipples, rubbing them into hardness, watching this girl in the mirror squeeze her full soft breasts between slender hands. I dropped two fingers to my slightly parted thighs and grazed them over the moist curls. I dipped one finger between the folds of my sex and circled my clitoris, pressing on it a little harder as the warm belly of enjoyment grew heavy from pleasure. In this way, touching myself with my simple, innocent hands, I could paint away the pallor and dress myself in naked roses.
With my hands still roaming my body, colouring in the gentle curves and slopes with each sensual caress, I walked to the window and opened my mouth against a fold of lace. The grainy surface slipped between my lips and I imagined it was him, I replaced my hands with his, the taste of dusty fabric on my tongue with the flavour of his mouth, I rocked from a quiet orgasm into the heavy lace curtain, rubbing my nipples over hard eyelets, dragging my breath in with the musty curtain, and imagining... imagining with detail only the lonely can recollect... that it was him.

 

[horacethe3rd]

She walked into my dreams last night and beckoned me to meet her on the lake, I waited upon the appointed hour down by waters edge where we had first ventured to collide into each other’s realm. Then Katherine appeared to me there, a ghostly white apparition that stepped out of the mists. As she walked towards me I understood that her flame red hair was not just a piece of genetic heritage but was a fissure onto her consciousness, she pollinated the earth in swathes of fragrant blooms as she came onto me. I drew her close when she came into reach and in spite of the ghostly visage she presented I was overwhelmed to find her body was burning and her desires did not falter to consume me complete.
She confided to me that her stilted desires haunted her at her every waking moment and although she strove to subsume them she knew she had drunk too long from the poisoned chalice of empty dreams. I drew away and sat down by her side not daring to touch her anymore for fear of the flames. There I sat my eyes idolatrised her as her melodious words composed a chorus of her passion that radiated from deep within and the words anointed me as the man who might lead the child out of the garden.

The next two days a torrent broke over the countryside as if to dissuade me from pursuing her any further. The charcoal fire that I tended a manifestation of my desires which did not and would not go out and the smoke plume that rose from the stack I hoped she would see as a signal of my intent to storm those walls that held her still. My devotion was not quelled despite not having her to gaze upon or a vision of her stealing into my dreams. I hoped she would see the phoenix arise from these flames and that she would come to me in the night like illicit lovers do.
Old Charlie Ketteridge the master gardener scolded me for keeping the fires too fierce, "Wes my lad, you have to treat her like a lady, low and long son, the secret to women and charcoal." His weathered face winked at me. Sitting in silence deep in dream and thought.

 

[horacethe3rd]

"Wes, go get me some tea from your house will you? We’ve run out here."
"I can stay" I offered
"What? And have me come back to a pile of ashes?" half chuckling as he said this. "You go and get wet I’m as snug as a bug." Rubbing his hands over the fire to illustrate it further.

Shutting the back door to my cottage with the teabags tucked under my waterproofs. I hopped over the Manor wall that bound her in but also backed on to my home, which wasn’t really mine as it was tied to the Manor and my job. I casually walked back through the rain occasionally cursing each large drop of water that had congregated upon a branch that chose to drop on me as I passed under a bough.
Then I spied her up ahead her face shielded from me by the brolly she carried but her graceful movements were unmistakable, as they had been imprinted upon my mind like a footprint in wet cement. My step quickened so I might draw alongside and steal another moment with her.

"Afternoon, Miss Katherine." She looked at me her wet hair framing seraphic features, she said nothing and walked on, neither did she slow down or speed up. Not wishing to lose her again or allow this moment to be too fleeting I slipped in with her stride, slipping my hand towards her free hand and the easy way with which it rested there made me believe she had indeed come to me in my sleep.
"Your shoes, Miss, I have them at my cottage."

 

[ocea]

"Oh," I said, glancing across at him. "well... I don't really need them..." And yet the idea of him keeping something which belonged to me was somewhat unsettling. It felt as if he was privvy to personal knowledge about me whereas I was entirely in the dark as to his own life.
When he didn't say anything more I forced myself to steal another glance. His lips were hard in their sharp contours, a crimson slash on his stubbled jaw, but there was a suggestive plump fullness, almost tugging them into a cupid's bow, which seemed in discord with the rugged, mishappen texture of his features. They were lips, I thought, meant for kissing, sensual in their ambiguity between sharp and soft.
"We couldn't meet..." I murmured quietly. "The other day you said I should meet you."
"I wasn't completely confident you'd remember." He replied.
"What were you going to show me?" I asked.
He arched an eyebrow and tapped one finger on his lips.
"That's a secret... you'll have to find out later when the weather's warmer."
We stopped by the door to the kitchen, the thick aroma of baking bread assaulted our senses and nearly consumed the tangy scent of wild jasmine crawling up the wall. Wes stepped past me, his shoulder grazing my jaw as he reached up and snapped off a twig of jasmine to pin in my hair. He didn't mind that the petals were wet, leaving prints on my temple and a soggy patch in my braids. The glimmer of dew was a feast for his eyes as much as my parted lips at his relative nearness, the warmth of his scent in association with baking bread.