Читать книгу Lust Ever After - Rose Fer de - Страница 6

‘Sir? There’s a gentleman here to see you.’

Frankenstein looked up from his desk, frowning. He didn’t like being disturbed when he was working and Justine would never have dreamt of it if the man hadn’t been so persuasive. She opened her mouth to explain but the visitor brushed past her and strode breezily into the room. To her surprise, her master’s face broke into a broad smile.

‘Pretorius,’ he exclaimed. ‘How delightful! I never thought to see you again, old friend!’

The visitor had introduced himself to Justine at the door as Doctor Pretorius, so she assumed he worked at the hospital. He was a handsome man with a soft, mellifluous voice and a pleasant demeanour and he wore a coat of extravagant purple velvet. Indeed, he had quite charmed his way into the house, despite Justine’s insistence that her master did not like to be disturbed.

‘My dear girl,’ he’d said, ‘I can assure you he’ll want to see me.’

And so she’d smiled sheepishly and let him in, hoping he was right and that Frankenstein wouldn’t tell her off for interrupting him. It was the only time he was ever cross with her. He spent hours up in his rooftop laboratory working with strange contraptions that she assumed he must intend for use in his practice and he got so consumed by his work that sometimes he even forgot to eat. She’d made the mistake of disturbing him one time when he was up there and he’d smashed a glass bottle on the floor and shouted at her to get out. Afterwards, he had brought her a little cake to make amends but she’d never dared to enter the laboratory again. Tonight, however, he was in his downstairs study. If Pretorius had wanted her to bother her master in the laboratory she’d have certainly stood her ground.

Pretorius set his case down on the floor and the two men shook hands warmly. There was clearly nothing more for her to do here, so she bobbed an awkward curtsey which neither man noticed and slipped quietly out of the room, closing the door behind her.

She listened at the keyhole for a few moments but they were drinking brandy and reminiscing about old times, nothing of interest to her. Apparently they had known one another at medical school and she gathered from the conversation that Pretorius was an expert on something called ‘nymphomania’. He said that his practice had been successful enough to allow him to retire early and devote himself entirely to research. Then there was a lot of technical talk that Justine couldn’t follow. She soon grew bored with eavesdropping and wandered off to the kitchen, where it was warm.

Her legs still ached from her exertions the other day, when her master had shown her the Alleviator. And shaved her. She blushed to recall it, although the memory excited her too. She wasn’t sure whether it was wrong to feel that way, but surely something that made one feel so good couldn’t be bad. After all, the procedure was meant to be a sort of therapy, wasn’t it? And ladies of good standing flocked here to the house and paid handsomely to receive it. In any case, he’d reassured her that there was no impropriety and she trusted him completely.

Justine was well aware how lucky she was. She knew of maids who toiled day and night for far less than she earned. Her duties were very light by comparison with stories she heard of other houses.

Indeed, Ralph had told her just the other night of one house he knew of where the maids were all got from the workhouse. He said that the master of that house was a high court judge who was on a crusade to reform ‘fallen women’ by his own unorthodox methods, which included tying them down and birching them when they displeased him. But that wasn’t even the worst of it, according to Ralph.

The judge had a special room in his house where the miscreant had to wait until he came to see her, to reprimand her for whatever she’d done wrong, and then she had to ask him very nicely to punish her. Ralph seemed to know the names of all these unfortunate maids and all the details of the elaborate disciplinary rituals they were subjected to, as though he’d somehow managed to insinuate himself into the house and watch. He had seemed especially fascinated by the plight of a girl called Sally, who had stolen some sherry from the butler’s pantry one evening and been made an example of before the entire household.

‘The judge made her wear a special uniform after that,’ he’d said, ‘with her skirts pinned up and her drawers removed entirely. So the other girls could see the stripes he’d painted on her arse and know that they’d suffer the same fate if they got out of line.’

Justine had blanched at the thought of being whipped for such trifling offences as spilling tea or dropping a fork while laying the table, to say nothing of the added humiliation for a crime like stealing. Which of course Justine would never commit. But Ralph had seemed peculiarly intrigued by the whole business. He had asked Justine if Dr Frankenstein was ever so strict with her and what happened to her when she displeased him. He didn’t seem to want to believe her when she assured him that her master was nothing like that terrible judge, that he was kind and gentle and very forgiving of her faults. He had never raised a hand to her and she held him in very high esteem. He was a perfect gentleman.

Something in Ralph’s expression had disquieted her. He almost seemed disappointed, as though he’d wanted to hear tales of harsh discipline at her master’s hands. Later he’d tried to get her to lift her skirts and show him her quim and her eyes had widened with fear, which only seemed to confirm what he suspected about Frankenstein’s cruelty.

‘Come on, Sally, let me see the marks,’ he pleaded, his voice low and hoarse.

‘Sally?’

‘Sorry, I meant Justine of course. It’s only that I was just telling you about Sally and … Oh, let me see. Just a peek.’

Justine didn’t dare let him see what her master had done to her, however pleasant it had been. The embarrassment would have killed her. So instead she put him off with chaste indignation and he became annoyed and called her a tease.

But she didn’t want to be a bad girl like the kind who ended up in the workhouse to be spirited away by cruel judges. She would be happy to show him everything on their wedding night. Justine was a good girl and she was determined to remain so. Ralph had stewed for a while and then cooled off. And if he was a little less enthusiastic when he said he would call on her again in a few days, well, that was fair enough. Once married, she would never deny him. She knew he would understand.

Justine wasn’t worldly wise but she did know that men had needs of a kind that women couldn’t understand. Her friend Daisy had told her all about it. Once, she had even shown Justine some drawings in a book, when her father had left her in charge of the bookshop for the day. Now there was a girl who was overworked! And she wasn’t even a maid – just a shop girl. Justine felt sorry for her, shut up in that dusty, gloomy shop all day, never allowed out for a walk in the park. Justine’s life was one of leisure by comparison.

Her thoughts turned from Daisy back to Ralph. Perhaps by the time she saw him again, the shaved hair would have grown back. Dr Frankenstein had said it shouldn’t take very long. Perhaps then she would let Ralph see. Just a little peek. Surely there could be no harm in that. Not if it was true love.

Justine warmed herself by the stove for a while before becoming curious once more about the unexpected visitor. Dr Pretorius had had a strange sort of case with him. At first she’d taken it for a medical bag but now that she thought about it, it had looked more like a birdcage under a cloth. Yes, and hadn’t she heard a little squeak of some kind when he set it down?

Knowing full well that it was none of her business, but also knowing that there were unlikely to be any consequences if she were caught (no matter what Ralph wanted to believe), she tiptoed back to the study door and crouched down to peer through the keyhole. Dr Pretorius was just unveiling the case and she was right; it was a cage! But what it contained was certainly no bird.

‘What on earth –?’ Frankenstein gasped, staring down at what Justine first took to be a doll.

Pretorius beamed with pride as he unlocked the door of the cage and coaxed the little creature out. ‘I call her Cleo.’

Justine clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her cry of shock. What emerged from the cage was either a living doll or an extraordinarily tiny woman. Only a few inches high, she wore a filmy white dress that revealed more than it concealed. Her feet were bare and her long red hair cascaded down her back. She crept hesitantly towards Pretorius’s hand before climbing into it. He lifted her up and held her out for Frankenstein to see.

Her master shook his head in bewilderment and Pretorius gave a good-natured little laugh as he stroked the woman’s flowing red hair with a fingertip.

‘She’s a homunculus,’ he explained, ‘or homuncula, if you prefer. She is, after all, most assuredly female.’

‘But where did you … How did you …?’

Pretorius moved closer to the fire, presumably to warm the tiny creature. In doing so he provided Justine with an even better view of the proceedings. She could see that Cleo was quite lovely. Her minute hands and feet were exquisitely formed, as were the delicate features of her face. Around her neck she wore a gleaming gold band, very like a collar one would put on a pet. Justine was certain she could make out the glittering of a tiny gold chain attached to it.

‘Isn’t she splendid?’

Frankenstein simply nodded. He seemed quite unable to speak.

‘You see,’ Pretorius said with a touch of pride, ‘while you were skulking about in graveyards in the dead of night looking for specimens, I went to the very source of life itself. This little pet of mine was created wholly by me, grown in my laboratory as one might grow and tend a rare flower. Of course, in this case the flower has been given a rather special diet of aphrodisiacs. It is a formula I’ve been perfecting for years.’

Cleo wrapped her arms around Pretorius’s thumb as Frankenstein bent down for a closer look. She drew back as he reached out a finger to poke her.

‘There’s no need to be afraid,’ Pretorius told her. ‘Despite her fragile appearance she is surprisingly robust. And ever so … talented.’

Frankenstein blinked at him for a moment and then he broke into a hearty laugh. ‘You old devil! Are you telling me you’re corrupting this poor creature?’

Pretorius snorted. ‘My dear chap, she is no innocent maiden. She is as nature – and science – made her. Wholly in thrall to her baser urges and refreshingly uncontaminated by the strictures of this prudish society in which we live.’

Justine blinked in confusion, not understanding a word of what they were saying. If they meant that the fairy-like woman was some kind of animal, she didn’t understand why Frankenstein found it so amusing. And what was that about graveyards?

‘Is she perfectly formed?’ Frankenstein asked.

‘See for yourself. Have you a magnifying glass?’

‘I have.’ He went to fetch it from the desk while Pretorius set Cleo down on the low table, between their brandy glasses. She could easily have fitted inside one. He whispered something to her that Justine couldn’t hear. But suddenly Cleo was undressing. She slithered out of the sheer garment and stood naked in the flickering light from the fire.

Frankenstein returned with a large magnifying glass and proceeded to look her over in detail, prodding her and turning her this way and that, while Pretorius looked on, smiling. Cleo seemed quite unconcerned by this intimate attention but it made Justine blush to the roots of her hair. The tiny woman did as she was directed, bending over, spreading her legs, displaying herself in a variety of positions. It almost looked as though she was enjoying herself, adding little flourishes to her movements. At Pretorius’s instruction she caressed her breasts, pressing them together to accentuate their fullness as she smiled up at both men.

‘You see she has no reservations about her sexuality,’ Pretorius said. ‘She is as free as you or I.’

Frankenstein quirked an eyebrow at his friend and grinned. ‘Free?’

‘Well, of course not “free” in the sense that she may go anywhere she likes. She is my creation and she therefore belongs to me. Don’t you, my pet?’

Cleo stood on tiptoe and stretched her hands up to her master. She bounced happily on her heels by way of response, like a puppy.

‘But she is happy. And she keeps me happy. Her arms and legs are just the right length to fit round – well, I’m sure you can picture the scene. Naturally, I cannot have her in the normal way, but I’m working on a device that will allow me to alter her size at will.’

Frankenstein laughed, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘You were always the more decadent of the two of us.’

‘Yes,’ Pretorius said. He took a sip of brandy and his eyes glinted in the firelight. ‘And just imagine what we might achieve together, Victor! Your first experiment was not, after all, a complete success.’

‘You are too kind, old friend. A wretched failure would be more accurate.’

‘Whatever became of the creature?’

‘I never found his body. My old laboratory was completely incinerated, along with all the equipment. It has taken me years to replace everything but I’m nearly ready to begin again.’

‘And this time,’ Pretorius said, as though making a grand announcement, ‘you shall have my help. Together we will achieve goals undreamt of by the little minds of men who dare to call themselves scientists.’ As he spoke he swept Cleo up into his hand and slipped her into his coat pocket. Her head peeked out and she gazed contentedly up at Pretorius.

Justine pressed her thighs together, suddenly struck by the fantasy of being small enough to fit inside a man’s pocket. She thought of the fun she could have with ordinary objects. For some reason the image of a butterfly collection came to her and she pictured herself spread and displayed behind glass, one of many tiny specimens to be admired.

What would Ralph think if she were suddenly only six inches high? He could bathe her in a teacup and dry her with his handkerchief. And she could wrap her tiny naked arms around his cock and not be ashamed to let him peer at her charms through a magnifying glass. Her face burned as she imagined all the possibilities.

Pretorius raised his brandy glass to make a toast and Justine decided it was a good time to slip away. She had no idea what the two men were talking about or what experiment had gone so horribly wrong for Frankenstein. It must have been before she entered his service. But what little she had understood, not to mention the extraordinary reality of Cleo, had set her mind spinning with what her master in his professional capacity would call hysteria. She knew a way to relieve it herself but she didn’t dare. If he should ring for her and she arrived looking flushed and dishevelled before them both … Well, the possibility was too embarrassing to consider.

As she crept back down the hallway, she heard their glasses clink together. It seemed to herald the beginning of a new world.