Manuela Cardiga's Blog, page 76
February 14, 2014
LOVE BE THOU BLIND: VALENTINE WAS JUST ANOTHER SHITTY SELFISH SCHMUCK
The reason
We have a day
That will stay
Forever
Dedicated in the
Collective mind
To the sublime
Experience
Of romantic love,
Is because
The poor girl
Who loved
Valentine
Was blind.
Manuela Cardiga
We have a day
That will stay
Forever
Dedicated in the
Collective mind
To the sublime
Experience
Of romantic love,
Is because
The poor girl
Who loved
Valentine
Was blind.
Manuela Cardiga
February 9, 2014
PART 13: The Man Who Had Everything and The Woman With No Art
The Man Who Had Everything laughed exultant and raised his hands to watch the flickers of fitful fire lighting his fingertips.
"Desire...Oh Mia! Desire! Have you been so long alive that your senses are dead?"
"No Michael, I have bled out my heart on a hundred true loves, watched children age and die before my eyes. I am as alive to love and pain as I ever was; and the only true hunger that survives and sustains is the need to see mirrored in another soul that very precious spark, and to hold in your arms someone from whom you can at least dream nothing in this life can part."
"Love? You have such power and you dream of love."
The Woman With No Art tilted her head in that odd feline cant: "Go out Michael and seek the truth. Or rather, go in. Go into yourself now. Tell me why you who had everything were so unsatisfied."
"Because...That's easy! Because..." The Man Who Had Everything stopped. "I cannot remember why. I just know whatever I did get did not satisfy."
"Look at me...Look. I am in myself the greatest mystery you will ever see. And do you know why?"
"You are Fae, immortal, magical."
Mia laughed softly and moved closer, placing a gentle hand over his chest.
"Nay Michael...none of that. Simply, I am the woman who will love you so completely that you will never survive without me. I am the woman who will take your soul apart, and devour your heart."
She moved closer and there was nothing in the world but the dizzy scent of her perfume, her lips, her eyes. Mesmerised the Man Who Had Everything watched her move closer; felt the first burning touch of her mouth, sweet and gentle as a child's. Oh such a kiss he'd not had since he was twelve and had kissed Betty Larsten behind the chapel after Sunday School Class. Her mouth...There was nothing left in the world but her mouth, and the Man who had Everything lost himself in that kiss; in that one kiss.
And in that moment was his heart set alight: a conflagration of such passion, such desire; that his new magical flesh caught fire. The woman clasped him closer, his flaming frame clutched to her flesh; absorbing him, devouring each spark, leaving to the very end his incandescent heart.
It ended, as do all such feasts, with a nostalgic sigh.
The woman licked one last flicker of passion from her forefinger and smiled. "Sweet Michael, such a flame! So bright! Oh I will love you so very, very much; such a perfect complete love: from me you will never, ever part."
Somewhere in her spasmed an ache like a distant memory; something that had once been a man aware of himself.
The Woman With No Heart smiled: "Hush now, Michael, be at ease.This eager unsatisfied heart of yours will last me a long, long time..."
Manuela Cardiga
"Desire...Oh Mia! Desire! Have you been so long alive that your senses are dead?"
"No Michael, I have bled out my heart on a hundred true loves, watched children age and die before my eyes. I am as alive to love and pain as I ever was; and the only true hunger that survives and sustains is the need to see mirrored in another soul that very precious spark, and to hold in your arms someone from whom you can at least dream nothing in this life can part."
"Love? You have such power and you dream of love."
The Woman With No Art tilted her head in that odd feline cant: "Go out Michael and seek the truth. Or rather, go in. Go into yourself now. Tell me why you who had everything were so unsatisfied."
"Because...That's easy! Because..." The Man Who Had Everything stopped. "I cannot remember why. I just know whatever I did get did not satisfy."
"Look at me...Look. I am in myself the greatest mystery you will ever see. And do you know why?"
"You are Fae, immortal, magical."
Mia laughed softly and moved closer, placing a gentle hand over his chest.
"Nay Michael...none of that. Simply, I am the woman who will love you so completely that you will never survive without me. I am the woman who will take your soul apart, and devour your heart."
She moved closer and there was nothing in the world but the dizzy scent of her perfume, her lips, her eyes. Mesmerised the Man Who Had Everything watched her move closer; felt the first burning touch of her mouth, sweet and gentle as a child's. Oh such a kiss he'd not had since he was twelve and had kissed Betty Larsten behind the chapel after Sunday School Class. Her mouth...There was nothing left in the world but her mouth, and the Man who had Everything lost himself in that kiss; in that one kiss.
And in that moment was his heart set alight: a conflagration of such passion, such desire; that his new magical flesh caught fire. The woman clasped him closer, his flaming frame clutched to her flesh; absorbing him, devouring each spark, leaving to the very end his incandescent heart.
It ended, as do all such feasts, with a nostalgic sigh.
The woman licked one last flicker of passion from her forefinger and smiled. "Sweet Michael, such a flame! So bright! Oh I will love you so very, very much; such a perfect complete love: from me you will never, ever part."
Somewhere in her spasmed an ache like a distant memory; something that had once been a man aware of himself.
The Woman With No Heart smiled: "Hush now, Michael, be at ease.This eager unsatisfied heart of yours will last me a long, long time..."
Manuela Cardiga
Desire's Detective: A Novella by Jacqueline Sapphire Chapter 10
Chapter 10
Noelle laid the thick sheaf of paper on the King’s desk.
“And so, your Majesty, the mystery is solved, your Court is at peace.”
“But what of the pretender, Lady Marmaduke? You did not find him, the man with the Fleur de Lys tattoo, the man who can threaten my throne!”
“We believe him to be deceased, dead in infancy, Sire, and no threat to you. It is over. The killer is dead. We suggest the Dowager-Princess be encouraged to more suitable pursuits, dog breeding, perhaps? On a personal level, I would like to beg your Majesty’s leave to absent myself from Court, to journey with my husband to England.”
Louis frowned. “Absent, but for how long? And who will I entrust my more sensitive matters to?”
“Sire, if you will allow me to be so bold as to make a suggestion, my cousin Desiree was instrumental in unraveling this mystery. She is bright and tenacious, and completely trustworthy. She would be perfect for the job.”
The King nodded thoughtfully. “Yes….Bring her to meet me tomorrow, she will be the new Royal Investigator of Court Mysteries, my Detective. You have done well, Noelle, and been most discreet - as I trust you will continue to be. You will find your King generous in his gratitude.”
With a deep courtesy and many profuse declarations of sincere delight, Noelle left the Royal presence, clasping to her bosom the title and deed to a charming little estate with a pretty Chateau and an adjoining forest in Bordeaux. She was eager to get back to Humphrey and show him just exactly how much being a titled land-owner excited her. She licked at her lips. Perhaps tonight they could play at Serf and Feudal-Lady…
*****
After Noelle had left him, the King summoned his Chamberlain and had him write out a Diploma attributing Desiree a generous stipend and a spacious suite in the Royal wing.
He sent an invitation to the Queen for a private dinner, and summoned Jeanne de Pompadour to his chambers immediately.
Madame de Pompadour was shown into his private sitting room an hour later. She entered with her eyes lowered and her hands modestly clasped before her. As the King spoke, pouring out his heart, his desire for her: not just her body, but her mind; his pleasure in her company, her eyes filled with tears.
Here at last was the love she’d dreamed of as a young girl, a passion of the mind and body. The King vowed to her his love, and swore that that very night, he, Louis, would present her to the Queen as their Royal lover. Together, the three of them would share a relationship such as few dreamed of, their mutual passions serving the State and their own personal happiness…
In her new apartment, Desiree hung the delicate ivory Cross Reverend Mother Clementine had sent from St. Cyr over the small devotional altar. It really was quite lovely. She was well pleased with her new setting.
The sitting room’s French-windows opened out over the tranquil side-gardens: rose-bowers and herbs-gardens for simples.
There was a dressing-room equipped with a large claw-footed bath-tub, a sleeping-chamber with a four-poster bed, and even a small room for a chamber-maid. The King was being most generous. She would stay here, at Versailles, at least until Noelle returned from London, and took up her duties again, then she would decide where to go to next, what to do.
She might decide to return to St. Cyr to teach, or to go to Tunis as a Missionary and rescue Christians enslaved by the Moors, or to Istanbul dressed as a man to learn the mysteries of the East…
A knock on the door startled her from her thoughts. She opened it, and was surprised to find Jean d’Orleans there, looking lost and a little frightened.
She hesitated a long awkward moment before inviting him in. He strode in, hands clasped behind his back, and stood studying the view of the herb-garden from her window for a long, long time. Desiree sat down quietly and waited.
“Desiree…I wanted to speak to you…about St. Cyr.”
“Yes?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And I wanted you to know…that I…I was ashamed that you saw me like that.”
“Oh.”
“I wanted to apologize.”
“Why should you apologize? I am not your wife, or your confessor. You are free to act as you will, and as your conscience dictates.”
“I wish you were!”
“You wish me to be your confessor, your spiritual advisor?”
“NO! I wish to marry you! I want you to be my wife.”
“No.”
“NO? You are refusing me? The King’s brother?”
“Yes.”
“Why? Don’t you love me?”
“Yes.”
“Then WHY?”
“You don’t deserve me.”
Jean stared at her, his eyes popping out of his head in fury and frustrated chagrin.
“DESERVE?”
“You are selfish, vain, lecherous, immoral, inconstant and lazy. I want a generous, modest, loving, ethical man I can admire and respect. Love is not enough.”
“If I can prove to you I can be all those things, will you marry me?”
Desiree was about to reply when a shriek rent the air of the Royal wing. They stared at one another for one long moment, then sped out the door and down the long corridor to the Queen’s Dressing room from whence the hideous sound came.
They opened the door and were horrified to see hanging from the window sash - dripping blood messily onto the priceless Persian silk carpet - a man’s severed hand sporting an enormous ruby Cardinal’s ring.
Of the rest of the man there was no sign. A hysterical lady-in-waiting – of which there seemed to be an endless supply – was endeavoring to faint, but being frustrated in her ambition by the massive farthingale of her gown. Her towering wig had fallen off SPLAT into a pool of blood, leaving her thin brown hair and splotchy pink scalp exposed to unkind eyes; all in all, not a pretty sight.
Murder and mutilation, it seemed, were still the norm in the Court of Louis XV, King of France and Navarre by the Will of God Almighty.
Desiree sighed. A Detective’s work was never done…
The End, maybe...
SPRING WILL BE FAIR AND MAD AS A MARCH HARE
My Oracle said
It is the best
And worse of times,
With the Moon rising
In the empty quarter
Of every heart;
The season of goodbyes,
When Constellations align
And spin in the skies
And in our minds.
She drew me
The card of Science,
Swords plunged
In the heart of a Rose;
Oh but then
Her fingers caressed
The Nine of Cups,
Joy and abundance
Flowing out,
And cried:
“The Happiness Card!
It is the Sun
In Splendour
Rising high
To herald
A new beginning
And bless
The Ides of March!”
Manuela Cardiga
It is the best
And worse of times,
With the Moon rising
In the empty quarter
Of every heart;
The season of goodbyes,
When Constellations align
And spin in the skies
And in our minds.
She drew me
The card of Science,
Swords plunged
In the heart of a Rose;
Oh but then
Her fingers caressed
The Nine of Cups,
Joy and abundance
Flowing out,
And cried:
“The Happiness Card!
It is the Sun
In Splendour
Rising high
To herald
A new beginning
And bless
The Ides of March!”
Manuela Cardiga
February 8, 2014
DADDY'S GIRLS III
DADDY'S GIRLS III
Good daughters
Make bad wives.
And that, my child,
Is a great truth.
(or at least the daughters
of good fathers do)
They see
Too clearly
For comforting lies,
And whatever
Billy Joel says?
Honesty does
Not strengthen
The ties
Of passion
In the same
Adorable fashion
As saccharine
Smiles.
Anouk, now,
She had it right!
Screaming
Snarling
Spitting
“Nobody’s WIFE!”
To give you
A perfect example
I once said
To this man
As frankly
As only
The daughter
Of a good
Father can:
“Darling ,
Do you know?
As a man,
I thought you
Stood taller!”
As you can
Imagine
That marriage
Did not get
A single day
Older...
So daughters
Of good fathers,
Take my advice:
Good daughters
Make bad wives.
Manuela Cardiga
Good daughters
Make bad wives.
And that, my child,
Is a great truth.
(or at least the daughters
of good fathers do)
They see
Too clearly
For comforting lies,
And whatever
Billy Joel says?
Honesty does
Not strengthen
The ties
Of passion
In the same
Adorable fashion
As saccharine
Smiles.
Anouk, now,
She had it right!
Screaming
Snarling
Spitting
“Nobody’s WIFE!”
To give you
A perfect example
I once said
To this man
As frankly
As only
The daughter
Of a good
Father can:
“Darling ,
Do you know?
As a man,
I thought you
Stood taller!”
As you can
Imagine
That marriage
Did not get
A single day
Older...
So daughters
Of good fathers,
Take my advice:
Good daughters
Make bad wives.
Manuela Cardiga
Desire's Detective: A Novella by Jacqueline Sapphire Chapter 9
Chapter 9
Jeanne de Pompadour was in a mesmerized state. Her marriage was a farce, and had been from the very first day. She and Monsieur de Pompadour had never consummated their union. The marriage had been arranged when she was eight, and on her sixteenth birthday she had been wrapped in silk lace and delivered up like a lamb to the slaughter. When her much-older husband had not come to her bed, she had been relieved. Monsieur kept separate sleeping quarters where he entertained his young friends most nights: young handsome friends, and all male.
Jeanne had always been an intensely cerebral woman - given to the arts and literary pleasures- and all her passions had been of an intellectual nature. When her friendship with Maria Karolina had blossomed into the physical realm, she’d been entranced by the pleasure they’d shared, addicted to her own body’s capacity for ecstasy. Since the night that she lost her virginity to the King she could think of nothing else but the novel sensation of his invasive manhood filling her. She had initiated intercourse with the King in a mixed haze of unfulfilled desire for Maria Karolina and jealousy at seeing her with another.
She now felt horrendously guilty at the thought of lusting after her beloved Maria Karolina’s husband and she could not face her trusting best friend. When the queen requested her company she came up with one excuse after another, and when she could not avoid her, made sure they were not alone.
She spent sleepless nights contemplating what she was going to do about her predicament. She decided it was best to keep her distance from Maria Karolina until she could unravel this confusion of feelings and desires in her heart, her mind, her body.
Her loyal heart was torn: how could she desire both? Love both?
*****
The king was enjoying his wife’s company more and more of late, her conversation and sharp mind he’d always appreciated. Now he found himself desiring her too. He missed her on the hunt, missed her vigorous presence. He asked her why she was not riding her horses and she declared that her back was still a little sore from a fall she had taken a few months before.
The Queen’s suspicions were slowly becoming a certainty. Her gowns were becoming decidedly tighter and she requested that her chambermaids loosen her stays. Her already generous breasts seemed even larger, and were marbled with delicate blue veins. Her nipples seemed broader - and softer, too - and seemed to be ever so tender. She knew with certainty she was pregnant when her period did not show up. From her first courses as a young girl she had been consistently regular. She decided to keep the news to herself until her Physician returned from a journey to Martinique where he had gone in search of tropical plants with medicinal properties, and could confirm her suspicions.
The King reflected on the fateful night of the ménage a trois. It was, without a doubt the most erotic scenario he had ever participated in, and his interlude with Maria Karolina and Jeanne the most intense sexual encounter of his life. He had never been a faithful man: growing up in Louis XIV’s Court had hardly instilled in him monogamastic aspirations. Faithful to one woman? How was that possible? His life would be alarmingly dull if he ever relied on one woman to fulfill him, and yet, none of his usual partners appealed to him. He hungered for Jeanne and Maria Karolina, thought of the night he’d shared her with the Queen with her constantly. He woke up in the middle of the night from dreams of plunging into their hot wet cores, walking around all day with a painfully rampant erection. A hunger no-one else could satisfy.
He was determined to summon her to his presence, to ask her to be his Official Mistress: to forgo all other lovers and cling only to him - and to his wife, of course. With Jeanne in their bed, he felt sure he and Maria Karolina would produce many children and fulfill their duty to France.
*****
In Noelle’s drawing room an astounded silence reigned.
“You mean to say the King seduced his own grandson’s little child-bride?”- She cried.
“Yes, according to Sœur Clementine, he was obsessed with her.”
“The old King was obsessed with Mamma? But Papa loved her, and she loved him, and the King was supposed to love Madame de Maintenon, why; he’d married her in secret!”
“From what I gathered, the Petit Dauphin adored his little wife. So much so, that when he discovered the goings on he was enraged, and blamed only his grandfather: labeled him a disgusting old lecher, a child-rapist. Marie Adelaide was infatuated, dazzled by the charm and power of the Sun-King. She was too young to know better, and too lonely. Sœur told me that after the baby was born, the Petit Dauphin came to St. Cyr and wooed his Princess: when they left her heart was his and his alone, and would be for the short time God saw fit to allow them to live.”
Noelle frowned. Something odd was going on. Jean and Desiree sat as far apart as possible and avoided looking at each other. They addressed all their comments to her, a far cry from their former easy comradery.
“So, now we know who his parents were, so who is the secret Prince? Where is he?”
“I’m going to speak D’Artagnan. If anyone knows what the old Musketeer did with the child, he does. We are old friends, I’m sure he will confide in me.”
Desiree held out the gold button-“Well, see if he can find out who this belongs to, while you are at it.”
*****
Noelle was perplexed by her husband's sexual behavior: he obviously desired her, and enjoyed cataclysmic orgasms as long as their lovemaking did not involve actual penetration. His eagerness only faltered at the fateful moment she attempted to draw him into her body.
She reflected back to his past and how difficult it must be for him to finally be with a woman. How could she entice him to intercourse? She decided to visit her closest friend and confidante, Jeanne de Pompadour. It was time to open up with someone else and get another woman's perspective on the matter. She knew with certainty that Jeanne would be discreet, God knows she had enough indiscretions of her own.
Jeanne poured from a delicately-patterned pot of tea. She had a feeling they would both need the refreshment. Noelle blurted out her problem, revealing all of it. Jeanne never batted an eyelid. Calmly she set down her precious bone-china tea-cup.
“If I were you...Well, as a boy he suffered much, and was aroused to pleasure in a brutal setting... You’ve tried everything I’d have suggested except one: beat him.”
“BEAT HIM? My dearest, gentle Humphrey?”
“Yes. Tie him up, beat him, slap him, spank him.”
Noelle was horrified, and she was to be even more shocked.
“You could try blindfolding him too, or try sticking a cucumber up his bottom...or a zucchini, or a carrot. There’s a lot of good in root vegetables, Monsieur de Pompadour swears by it.”
Noelle pondered over Jeanne's advice on her way back to the Chateau, and concluded that it made perfect sense. Her style would be entirely different from now on; she would ensure her husband remained erect through the entire performance.
She walked into his Study without waiting to be announced. Humphrey was sitting at his desk and his face lit up at the sight of her.
She grabbed him by his cravat and dragged him to the contiguous bed-chamber.
She pushed him back onto the bed, and grabbing the ropes tying back the heavy drapes, lashed his wrists to the bed posts. Ignoring his inquiries as to her actions and well being, she started cutting his clothing off with a dagger.
She roughly tied a scrap of his shirt around his eyes, effectively blindfolding him. Noelle stared down at his body sprawled helpless on the bed before her. A wave of lust and tenderness overcame her at his vulnerability. She raked her nails cruelly down his chest and bit sharply at his nipples. Humphrey cried out in pain, and begged to be released, but Noelle noted with satisfaction the swelling of his manhood. She continued biting and scratching at his exposed body, never allowing him to know where her mouth or her nails would fall next: his belly, his thighs, his throat, or his now hugely erect penis.
She took his engorged member into her mouth, sucking hard and feverishly, lapping eagerly at the milky fluid oozing from his swollen gland. He was moaning and gasping, his body twisting frantically under hers, straining to break the silken cords tying his wrists. Her hands moved up and down his shaft in at a punishing rhythm, and then she mounted him. She thrust down fiercely, pounding on him, feeling him still erect and throbbing inside her pulsing wetness. She was screaming out in her arousal and her delight, and his hoarse cries joined hers, until his body convulsed as he erupted inside of her. Noelle heard her own cries of ecstasy at distance, proclaiming her love, and her desire for him.
Breathless she lay on his supine body. She untied him and removed his blindfold and they lay in each other's arms in exhausted delight.
Noelle had their dinner brought up to their room on trays and ravenously they consumed the food, between long and savage bouts of passionate lovemaking.
*****
Desiree and Jean walked to the Musketeer’s wing of the Palace and had themselves announced at D’Artagnan’s quarters. The Musketeer had them shown in, and greeted them with enthusiasm, kissing Desiree’s hand and exclaiming over her delicate beauty.
“Darling! You need a new seamstress! With your looks and the right clothes...That grey does NOTHING for your complexion! And that neckline! Makes you look like a nun!”
“Monsieur D’Artagnan, you are so wise, and you know so much about clothing...Can you tell me who this might belong to?”
Desiree stretched out her hand cupping the glittering Fleur de Lys gold button in her palm.
“But it’s mine! Where-ever did you find it?”
Astounded, Desiree and Jean stared at each other.
“The question, D’Artagnan,” cried Jean “is where did you lose it?”
The Musketeer’s eyes slitted, his body falling unconsciously into the swordsman’s waiting stance, but he smiled and fluttered his hand flirtatiously through his long black ringlets. Desiree noticed that the left hand dropped casually to his rapier’s grip. “Jean, my dear...you ask the most indiscreet questions...A boy unbuttons in all sorts of places...”
“Drop the act, mon amie, I’m not buying it anymore.” Jean’s hand dropped to the hilt of his own foil. “You are protecting the old King’s secret, doing your grandfather’s work; but you are hiding a killer, D’Artagnan.
The Musketeer frowned. “A killer? You know me, Jean. I would never act dishonorably, not even for my grandfather.”
Desiree stepped between the two men.“We went to St. Cyr, Monsieur. We know about the Prince, about the secret your grandfather helped to hide.”
“You know...” The man’s head dropped forward, the long dark ringlets veiled his face. “I was too late, then. You found Jacques’ little box of memories.”
“It was you who struck me?”
“Yes, forgive me. I had no idea you would be there, and I needed to find that box.”
“Where is he, where is the killer? And why is he killing the Jesters?”
The Musketeer stared at them in surprise: “I have no idea! Why would you think I know?”
“You know! You are hiding him, hiding his identity, his secret!”
D’Artagnan laughed. “I’m hiding the old King’s secret, yes. I’m hiding an identity, too; but I know nothing about the Jester’s killer.”
“They are one and the same: the secret Prince is the killer.” cried Desiree.
“Ah, mon petit, I can assure you that they are NOT.”
Jean’s dark eyes snapped cold fury. “Enough of this, I demand, in the name of the King that you reveal to me this so-called Prince’s identity.”
A sad smile curved the Musketeer’s lips, and he twirled his pencil-thin mustache in a parody of his old panache: “Can you not guess, my dear brother? When you look into my eyes do you not feel a surge of brotherly love?”
The Duc d’Orleans gasped.“YOU!”
“Yes, my grandfather was privy to many secrets. He was a trusted retainer of the old King’s mother. More than that, he had been her lover. He could not bear to see Anne of Austria’s grandchild thrown away; his grandchild, too. You see, Louis XIII died childless, and still, there was a Son for France... There are secrets within secrets here, dear brother, and the old King himself did not know all.”
“But if you did not kill the Jesters, who did?”
Desiree pressed her fingertips together. “What did they have in common, besides being Jesters, these six? They were all of different ages, four came from different parts of France, and one came from Spain, another from Bavaria…so what else? They were male...”
Jean slapped his forehead, “Of course! You hit the nail on the head, Desiree! They all served my grandmother’s Court.”
“Then, mon amie, that is where you must look for your killer.”
*****
The Dowager-Princess was deep in her cups. She sprawled in unlovely disarray on a chaise-longue, Black Berry crouched beside her, covering the heavily bejeweled hands with moist kisses. The paint around her small deep-set eyes was smudged; tears had carved tracks through the thick make-up covering her small-pox scarred skin.
She patted absently at the dwarf’s head and extended her wine glass to a lady-in-waiting for a refill.
“Jean, dear Jean...what brings you here tonight?”
Jean leaned over to plant a gentle kiss on the raddled cheek.
“My dear Grand-mamma, I came to see you, I missed you.”
“Another one of my Jesters has left me, Jean, fled in fear for his life. They will all desert me. Soon I will be alone.”
The horrendous dwarf slobbered on her hands, “Black Berry is here, always, always...”
Jean ignored him and drew Desiree forward. “Grandmamma, I wanted you to meet a Lady who is visiting us from St. Cyr: Desiree de Jouissance, whose father served Great-grand-papa in the Spanish Wars.”
Desiree curtseyed gravely. The small piggish eyes ran over her face and her slim figure.
“How lovely, and how young. I was young too, when I came to this Court, but not so lovely. They mocked me for my plainness, let’s be honest…my ugliness. My husband the Grand Dauphin -who, I’ll have you know was far from grande- ignored me once I’d produced my two lovely boys. So I had my Jesters, my little Court of Fools, my court of joy, and then my little Princess…so lovely…but they took her away.” She peered up at Desiree blearily. “They took her to St. Cyr, and I never saw her again.”
“Grandmamma, please concentrate…what did the six Jesters have in common?”
“In common? Why, they made me laugh, they gave me pleasure…They pleasured me. They served and serviced me most faithfully” A sob erupted from the trap-like mouth, “I loved my Jesters, I miss them…”
“But you have me, ME…Black Berry, your favorite, your little black bundle of joy, you called me…”
The old woman stared down at him in drunken contempt. “You were never very funny, and have not been a pleasure for many, many years.”
The black eyes dilated in the grotesque face. “I have loved you faithfully these forty years, I lost my manhood over you, I have killed for you…and still you do not love me.” The dwarf leaped up from his crouch at her feet, tiny hands extended into claws, aimed at the woman’s face, and screeched in agony as his flight ended on Jean’s rapier.
The Dowager-Dauphine’s Court was in an uproar, at Jean’s feet the tiny grotesque breathed his last, his eyes still fixed on his ex-lover’s raddled face.
Desiree knelt down beside him and closed the staring eyes with gentle hands. It was over.
TO BE CONTINUED....
Jeanne de Pompadour was in a mesmerized state. Her marriage was a farce, and had been from the very first day. She and Monsieur de Pompadour had never consummated their union. The marriage had been arranged when she was eight, and on her sixteenth birthday she had been wrapped in silk lace and delivered up like a lamb to the slaughter. When her much-older husband had not come to her bed, she had been relieved. Monsieur kept separate sleeping quarters where he entertained his young friends most nights: young handsome friends, and all male.
Jeanne had always been an intensely cerebral woman - given to the arts and literary pleasures- and all her passions had been of an intellectual nature. When her friendship with Maria Karolina had blossomed into the physical realm, she’d been entranced by the pleasure they’d shared, addicted to her own body’s capacity for ecstasy. Since the night that she lost her virginity to the King she could think of nothing else but the novel sensation of his invasive manhood filling her. She had initiated intercourse with the King in a mixed haze of unfulfilled desire for Maria Karolina and jealousy at seeing her with another.
She now felt horrendously guilty at the thought of lusting after her beloved Maria Karolina’s husband and she could not face her trusting best friend. When the queen requested her company she came up with one excuse after another, and when she could not avoid her, made sure they were not alone.
She spent sleepless nights contemplating what she was going to do about her predicament. She decided it was best to keep her distance from Maria Karolina until she could unravel this confusion of feelings and desires in her heart, her mind, her body.
Her loyal heart was torn: how could she desire both? Love both?
*****
The king was enjoying his wife’s company more and more of late, her conversation and sharp mind he’d always appreciated. Now he found himself desiring her too. He missed her on the hunt, missed her vigorous presence. He asked her why she was not riding her horses and she declared that her back was still a little sore from a fall she had taken a few months before.
The Queen’s suspicions were slowly becoming a certainty. Her gowns were becoming decidedly tighter and she requested that her chambermaids loosen her stays. Her already generous breasts seemed even larger, and were marbled with delicate blue veins. Her nipples seemed broader - and softer, too - and seemed to be ever so tender. She knew with certainty she was pregnant when her period did not show up. From her first courses as a young girl she had been consistently regular. She decided to keep the news to herself until her Physician returned from a journey to Martinique where he had gone in search of tropical plants with medicinal properties, and could confirm her suspicions.
The King reflected on the fateful night of the ménage a trois. It was, without a doubt the most erotic scenario he had ever participated in, and his interlude with Maria Karolina and Jeanne the most intense sexual encounter of his life. He had never been a faithful man: growing up in Louis XIV’s Court had hardly instilled in him monogamastic aspirations. Faithful to one woman? How was that possible? His life would be alarmingly dull if he ever relied on one woman to fulfill him, and yet, none of his usual partners appealed to him. He hungered for Jeanne and Maria Karolina, thought of the night he’d shared her with the Queen with her constantly. He woke up in the middle of the night from dreams of plunging into their hot wet cores, walking around all day with a painfully rampant erection. A hunger no-one else could satisfy.
He was determined to summon her to his presence, to ask her to be his Official Mistress: to forgo all other lovers and cling only to him - and to his wife, of course. With Jeanne in their bed, he felt sure he and Maria Karolina would produce many children and fulfill their duty to France.
*****
In Noelle’s drawing room an astounded silence reigned.
“You mean to say the King seduced his own grandson’s little child-bride?”- She cried.
“Yes, according to Sœur Clementine, he was obsessed with her.”
“The old King was obsessed with Mamma? But Papa loved her, and she loved him, and the King was supposed to love Madame de Maintenon, why; he’d married her in secret!”
“From what I gathered, the Petit Dauphin adored his little wife. So much so, that when he discovered the goings on he was enraged, and blamed only his grandfather: labeled him a disgusting old lecher, a child-rapist. Marie Adelaide was infatuated, dazzled by the charm and power of the Sun-King. She was too young to know better, and too lonely. Sœur told me that after the baby was born, the Petit Dauphin came to St. Cyr and wooed his Princess: when they left her heart was his and his alone, and would be for the short time God saw fit to allow them to live.”
Noelle frowned. Something odd was going on. Jean and Desiree sat as far apart as possible and avoided looking at each other. They addressed all their comments to her, a far cry from their former easy comradery.
“So, now we know who his parents were, so who is the secret Prince? Where is he?”
“I’m going to speak D’Artagnan. If anyone knows what the old Musketeer did with the child, he does. We are old friends, I’m sure he will confide in me.”
Desiree held out the gold button-“Well, see if he can find out who this belongs to, while you are at it.”
*****
Noelle was perplexed by her husband's sexual behavior: he obviously desired her, and enjoyed cataclysmic orgasms as long as their lovemaking did not involve actual penetration. His eagerness only faltered at the fateful moment she attempted to draw him into her body.
She reflected back to his past and how difficult it must be for him to finally be with a woman. How could she entice him to intercourse? She decided to visit her closest friend and confidante, Jeanne de Pompadour. It was time to open up with someone else and get another woman's perspective on the matter. She knew with certainty that Jeanne would be discreet, God knows she had enough indiscretions of her own.
Jeanne poured from a delicately-patterned pot of tea. She had a feeling they would both need the refreshment. Noelle blurted out her problem, revealing all of it. Jeanne never batted an eyelid. Calmly she set down her precious bone-china tea-cup.
“If I were you...Well, as a boy he suffered much, and was aroused to pleasure in a brutal setting... You’ve tried everything I’d have suggested except one: beat him.”
“BEAT HIM? My dearest, gentle Humphrey?”
“Yes. Tie him up, beat him, slap him, spank him.”
Noelle was horrified, and she was to be even more shocked.
“You could try blindfolding him too, or try sticking a cucumber up his bottom...or a zucchini, or a carrot. There’s a lot of good in root vegetables, Monsieur de Pompadour swears by it.”
Noelle pondered over Jeanne's advice on her way back to the Chateau, and concluded that it made perfect sense. Her style would be entirely different from now on; she would ensure her husband remained erect through the entire performance.
She walked into his Study without waiting to be announced. Humphrey was sitting at his desk and his face lit up at the sight of her.
She grabbed him by his cravat and dragged him to the contiguous bed-chamber.
She pushed him back onto the bed, and grabbing the ropes tying back the heavy drapes, lashed his wrists to the bed posts. Ignoring his inquiries as to her actions and well being, she started cutting his clothing off with a dagger.
She roughly tied a scrap of his shirt around his eyes, effectively blindfolding him. Noelle stared down at his body sprawled helpless on the bed before her. A wave of lust and tenderness overcame her at his vulnerability. She raked her nails cruelly down his chest and bit sharply at his nipples. Humphrey cried out in pain, and begged to be released, but Noelle noted with satisfaction the swelling of his manhood. She continued biting and scratching at his exposed body, never allowing him to know where her mouth or her nails would fall next: his belly, his thighs, his throat, or his now hugely erect penis.
She took his engorged member into her mouth, sucking hard and feverishly, lapping eagerly at the milky fluid oozing from his swollen gland. He was moaning and gasping, his body twisting frantically under hers, straining to break the silken cords tying his wrists. Her hands moved up and down his shaft in at a punishing rhythm, and then she mounted him. She thrust down fiercely, pounding on him, feeling him still erect and throbbing inside her pulsing wetness. She was screaming out in her arousal and her delight, and his hoarse cries joined hers, until his body convulsed as he erupted inside of her. Noelle heard her own cries of ecstasy at distance, proclaiming her love, and her desire for him.
Breathless she lay on his supine body. She untied him and removed his blindfold and they lay in each other's arms in exhausted delight.
Noelle had their dinner brought up to their room on trays and ravenously they consumed the food, between long and savage bouts of passionate lovemaking.
*****
Desiree and Jean walked to the Musketeer’s wing of the Palace and had themselves announced at D’Artagnan’s quarters. The Musketeer had them shown in, and greeted them with enthusiasm, kissing Desiree’s hand and exclaiming over her delicate beauty.
“Darling! You need a new seamstress! With your looks and the right clothes...That grey does NOTHING for your complexion! And that neckline! Makes you look like a nun!”
“Monsieur D’Artagnan, you are so wise, and you know so much about clothing...Can you tell me who this might belong to?”
Desiree stretched out her hand cupping the glittering Fleur de Lys gold button in her palm.
“But it’s mine! Where-ever did you find it?”
Astounded, Desiree and Jean stared at each other.
“The question, D’Artagnan,” cried Jean “is where did you lose it?”
The Musketeer’s eyes slitted, his body falling unconsciously into the swordsman’s waiting stance, but he smiled and fluttered his hand flirtatiously through his long black ringlets. Desiree noticed that the left hand dropped casually to his rapier’s grip. “Jean, my dear...you ask the most indiscreet questions...A boy unbuttons in all sorts of places...”
“Drop the act, mon amie, I’m not buying it anymore.” Jean’s hand dropped to the hilt of his own foil. “You are protecting the old King’s secret, doing your grandfather’s work; but you are hiding a killer, D’Artagnan.
The Musketeer frowned. “A killer? You know me, Jean. I would never act dishonorably, not even for my grandfather.”
Desiree stepped between the two men.“We went to St. Cyr, Monsieur. We know about the Prince, about the secret your grandfather helped to hide.”
“You know...” The man’s head dropped forward, the long dark ringlets veiled his face. “I was too late, then. You found Jacques’ little box of memories.”
“It was you who struck me?”
“Yes, forgive me. I had no idea you would be there, and I needed to find that box.”
“Where is he, where is the killer? And why is he killing the Jesters?”
The Musketeer stared at them in surprise: “I have no idea! Why would you think I know?”
“You know! You are hiding him, hiding his identity, his secret!”
D’Artagnan laughed. “I’m hiding the old King’s secret, yes. I’m hiding an identity, too; but I know nothing about the Jester’s killer.”
“They are one and the same: the secret Prince is the killer.” cried Desiree.
“Ah, mon petit, I can assure you that they are NOT.”
Jean’s dark eyes snapped cold fury. “Enough of this, I demand, in the name of the King that you reveal to me this so-called Prince’s identity.”
A sad smile curved the Musketeer’s lips, and he twirled his pencil-thin mustache in a parody of his old panache: “Can you not guess, my dear brother? When you look into my eyes do you not feel a surge of brotherly love?”
The Duc d’Orleans gasped.“YOU!”
“Yes, my grandfather was privy to many secrets. He was a trusted retainer of the old King’s mother. More than that, he had been her lover. He could not bear to see Anne of Austria’s grandchild thrown away; his grandchild, too. You see, Louis XIII died childless, and still, there was a Son for France... There are secrets within secrets here, dear brother, and the old King himself did not know all.”
“But if you did not kill the Jesters, who did?”
Desiree pressed her fingertips together. “What did they have in common, besides being Jesters, these six? They were all of different ages, four came from different parts of France, and one came from Spain, another from Bavaria…so what else? They were male...”
Jean slapped his forehead, “Of course! You hit the nail on the head, Desiree! They all served my grandmother’s Court.”
“Then, mon amie, that is where you must look for your killer.”
*****
The Dowager-Princess was deep in her cups. She sprawled in unlovely disarray on a chaise-longue, Black Berry crouched beside her, covering the heavily bejeweled hands with moist kisses. The paint around her small deep-set eyes was smudged; tears had carved tracks through the thick make-up covering her small-pox scarred skin.
She patted absently at the dwarf’s head and extended her wine glass to a lady-in-waiting for a refill.
“Jean, dear Jean...what brings you here tonight?”
Jean leaned over to plant a gentle kiss on the raddled cheek.
“My dear Grand-mamma, I came to see you, I missed you.”
“Another one of my Jesters has left me, Jean, fled in fear for his life. They will all desert me. Soon I will be alone.”
The horrendous dwarf slobbered on her hands, “Black Berry is here, always, always...”
Jean ignored him and drew Desiree forward. “Grandmamma, I wanted you to meet a Lady who is visiting us from St. Cyr: Desiree de Jouissance, whose father served Great-grand-papa in the Spanish Wars.”
Desiree curtseyed gravely. The small piggish eyes ran over her face and her slim figure.
“How lovely, and how young. I was young too, when I came to this Court, but not so lovely. They mocked me for my plainness, let’s be honest…my ugliness. My husband the Grand Dauphin -who, I’ll have you know was far from grande- ignored me once I’d produced my two lovely boys. So I had my Jesters, my little Court of Fools, my court of joy, and then my little Princess…so lovely…but they took her away.” She peered up at Desiree blearily. “They took her to St. Cyr, and I never saw her again.”
“Grandmamma, please concentrate…what did the six Jesters have in common?”
“In common? Why, they made me laugh, they gave me pleasure…They pleasured me. They served and serviced me most faithfully” A sob erupted from the trap-like mouth, “I loved my Jesters, I miss them…”
“But you have me, ME…Black Berry, your favorite, your little black bundle of joy, you called me…”
The old woman stared down at him in drunken contempt. “You were never very funny, and have not been a pleasure for many, many years.”
The black eyes dilated in the grotesque face. “I have loved you faithfully these forty years, I lost my manhood over you, I have killed for you…and still you do not love me.” The dwarf leaped up from his crouch at her feet, tiny hands extended into claws, aimed at the woman’s face, and screeched in agony as his flight ended on Jean’s rapier.
The Dowager-Dauphine’s Court was in an uproar, at Jean’s feet the tiny grotesque breathed his last, his eyes still fixed on his ex-lover’s raddled face.
Desiree knelt down beside him and closed the staring eyes with gentle hands. It was over.
TO BE CONTINUED....
February 7, 2014
Existential shit I just spout once in a while
What wears us out, both the physical and spiritual heart, is bending under burdens the soul cannot accept.
Our will enforces the bearing of crushing weights, and so we hitch those traces to our shoulders and take another, and then another dragging step.
We deem ourselves strong, we revel in the fortitude of our will, our unflinching dedication to thankless duty; and all that time, our hearts wear out.
Manuela Cardiga
Our will enforces the bearing of crushing weights, and so we hitch those traces to our shoulders and take another, and then another dragging step.
We deem ourselves strong, we revel in the fortitude of our will, our unflinching dedication to thankless duty; and all that time, our hearts wear out.
Manuela Cardiga
Snippets from MANscapes by Manuela Cardiga
“When we have been abused, as you and I were, Clara; some part of us learns to believe we are unworthy and undeserving of love. So we give ourselves to people like Walker. Who will love us, oh yes…But…It is not good love, Clara. It is vampire love. Love that will hurt and burden us; that will syphon off our energies, feed on our souls.” Sylvine’s gentle fingers stroked back Clara’s hair from her forehead and her temples, where it clung, damp with tears. Her voice dropped to a whisper, “So we tell ourselves the story of unconditional love. We will give, and give unstintingly; and then one day, that magical love will transform the undeserving into deserving.” She paused, “But you see, Clara, the undeserving we wish to transform by that giving is ourselves.”
Clara turned her face deeper into Sylvine’s cradling form,
“No…”
“Yes. True transformation will only happen –happiness Clara!- when we learn to accept someone else’s gift. When we finally accept we deserve that very same love we so doggedly give and give with no return.”
from MANscapes
ManuelaCardiga
Clara turned her face deeper into Sylvine’s cradling form,
“No…”
“Yes. True transformation will only happen –happiness Clara!- when we learn to accept someone else’s gift. When we finally accept we deserve that very same love we so doggedly give and give with no return.”
from MANscapes
ManuelaCardiga
BE QUIET, I'M TRYING NOT TO CRY
I want
To go home
And watch
The tugging wind
Play tag and tumble;
And fumble under
The skirts of
The blushing
Namaqualand daisies,
Shedding their petals
By the side
of some road.
I just want to go home.
Manuela Cardiga
To go home
And watch
The tugging wind
Play tag and tumble;
And fumble under
The skirts of
The blushing
Namaqualand daisies,
Shedding their petals
By the side
of some road.
I just want to go home.
Manuela Cardiga
February 6, 2014
Desire's Detective: A Novella by Jacqueline Sapphire Chapter 8
Chapter 8Jostled together in a four-horse carriage, Jean and Desireé sped towards St.Cyr and the unraveling of a mystery. Desiree was silent, watching the landscape trundle by. A week ago she would have been overjoyed to be returning to her spiritual home, eager even.
What was the matter with her? The idea of taking up the veil was less and less appealing, but why? Her faith was unshaken, her devotion to her religion as strong as ever. She glanced over at Jean, napping against the velvet upholstery. His long fingered hands lay still against his thighs, framed by the crisp folds of his lace cuffs; his head was thrown back, soft brown curls escaping from under the edges of his elegantly powdered court-wig. He looked young, peaceful. His edgy restlessness absent, his mouth was softened into a child-like curve. He looked like another man, one untainted by cutting cynicism, or cruel appetites: a gentle man capable of kindness. Fascinated Desiree watched perspiration bead his upper lip in the stifling heat of the carriage. Impulsively she leaned forward and wiped away the salty film, and found herself inexplicably licking at her fingers, savoring the taste and the scent of him on her skin.
Horrified, she frantically wiped her hand on her wide skirts. Her sudden movements woke him, and Desiree was looking into his wide brown eyes, still hazy with sleep.
“Desiree? Is all well?”
“Yes...We are arriving...At St. Cyr.”
The carriage swept up the majestic drive, into the elegant quadrangle, and drew to a stand-still in front of the imposing main entrance. As they alighted, a bevy of young girls swept out. Tall, short, pretty or plain they all wore brown muslin gowns, the solemn faces framed by prim bonnets edged with white lace. The only distinguishing feature was the colored ribbons adorning the stiff white-canvas bonnets: red, blue, yellow and red.
A few of the older girls stopped with cries of delight and made mention to greet Desiree, but were sharply called to heel by a diminutive girl, a few years older, and even more soberly attired in black.
The older girl gestured her charges on with an imperious gesture, and turned towards Desiree with a smile. Tenderly she embraced her and kissed her on both cheeks.
“Jeanne! Dear, dear Jeanne! Are you still here? But wait! I am being rude... Monsieur le Duc d’Orleans, allow me to present my dearest friend Jeanne Bécu de Quantiny.”
At the mention of his title the girl’s eyes glittered, the rosy lips pouted seductively. Even wrapped in that horrendous black muslin she was singularly attractive, with a tiny voluptuous form that exuded a dark sensuality. She licked at her lips and lowering heavy lids over her amber eyes, she swept Jean a deep courtesy.
“Monsieur, it is an honor.”
“My dear Jeanne, I need your assistance. Would you escort Monsieur d’Orleans to the Guest Parlor and ask that he be served refreshments? We have had a long and tiring journey from Versailles. I must speak with Mother Superior, and as you know, she will not receive men.”
The lovely Jeanne Bécu dimpled an inviting smile at Jean.
“Dear Desiree....Of course, rest assured. I, myself, will see to it that all of Monsieur’s needs are met.”
*****
In the Mother Superiors study, Desiree knelt with respectful affection at the gentle Lady’s feet to receive her blessing.
“Ma Soeur, I’ve missed you, I’ve missed the peace and tranquility of this house.”
The Sœur Clementine’s dark face lit up with a mischievous smile.
“Peace and tranquility, with these minxes getting into trouble at the drop of a bonnet? Your memory plays tricks on you, my dear.”
“Ma Soeur, I come for your help, and at the behest of the King.”
Carefully Desiree unfolded the linen in which she’d wrapped the letter, the Birth Certificate, the curls of hair and the tiny bonnet.
The Reverend Mother took up the documents first, and silently perused them. She gently caressed the curls, the dark and the fair with trembling hands.
“So many years: so many, and now it falls to me.” The Reverend Mother raised dark troubled eyes to Desiree’s face, “why do you bring this to me, child, why now?”
“Someone is killing to keep this secret, Ma Soeur. Six men have died, and I myself was attacked. We need to know why, so we can discover who the killer is.”
The Reverend Mother leaned back and closed her eyes. Long silence reigned.
“I was once a pupil here once, like you. Young, hopeful: but unlike you, there was no choice for me. I was placed here by my family.You lost yours, but mine threw me away.” The Reverend Mother scraped a nail along her own dark skin- “I was an embarrassment, to be hidden away,” an old bitterness tinged her voice. “I was a born a Princess, you see, born to the Grande-Dauphine. I was grand-daughter to the King, so my fellow pupils drew away from me, from my status, my colour.”
“Then, one day, the Royal Court came to St Cyr in state. They came to bring the new Princess: Marie Adelaide de Savoy. She was to marry my older brother, the Petit Dauphin. You must understand how very lovely she was, how charming, how young. She was twelve, five years younger than I. She became my sister, my baby, my doll. To all who saw her, she was precious: the Dauphin, Madame, and of course, the King - most of all the King.”
“She would be here with us for months, studying and praying; then she’d go to Court to be spoilt and adored and fêted. She grew more and more beautiful, more enchanting, and more womanly. One night she returned to St Cyr alone, without her entourage: she was pregnant, she was fourteen.” The Reverend Mother clasped her hands together in remembered distress.
“Pregnant: and that was not the worst of it. Three days later, Madame arrived. Madame de Maintenon, our founder, the uncrowned queen of France. I was taken into their confidence. They believed that I, as “family”, would protect this secret. I did, but for love of Marie Adelaide, not for them, my family.”
“At first all seemed well, though she was quieter than was her wont, then in her fourth month; she fell into a deep melancholy from which nothing could arouse her. I wrote to Madame, and her answer was to send me a Jester!”
The Nun-Princess giggled girlishly, “Madame was wise. Jacques could cheer up a stone, and better than that, in his luggage came a packet of letters. Love letters and poems from Marie Adelaide’s secret love. Who, I can see you ask yourself: who’d dare seduce the precious Daughter of France; the Princess of Savoy, destined to be Queen of France? Who’d dare face the Sun-King’s wrath?” Reverend Mother paused –“Except the Sun-King himself? He loved her: that I do know. Madame Maintenon told me herself - with some bitterness - years later when she was dying in this very house. The only two people the King ever truly loved in this world were his Mother - Anne of Austria- and Marie Adelaide, Princess of Savoy, his grand-daughter in law.”
“He loved her so much - so blindly – that he believed my brother could be convinced to pass of his Grandfather’s by-blow as his own son. He wanted the child to be his heir, you see, so he ordered the Royal Midwife to attend the birth and had the Royal mark placed on the child. Who could gainsay him? He was King... But my brother refused: the scandal - were it known - would have ripped France apart, made us the laughing-stock of Europe. So the boy was spirited away, given to a trusted retainer and Madame made sure that the King and Marie Adelaide were never alone again.”
Desiree listened in horrified fascination.
“Who is the boy, Ma Soeur, the man, now? Who is he?”
“My dear, I don’t know. He was days old when last I saw him: a blond boy, pretty as an angel. All I know is he bore the Royal mark, and he was taken away by an old favourite of Queen Anne of Austria’s: D’Artagnan. He was a canny old man, and proficient at hushing up the Royal family’s amorous adventures.”
“D’Artagnan!”
“Yes, D’Artagnan, the Musketeer: I believe he passed away a few years ago, but he had a son, or was it a grandson? They might know what became of the Prince.”
“If our suspicions are correct, Ma Soeur, the Prince became a killer.”
*****
Leaving the good Lady praying in obvious distress, Desiree exited the Reverend Mother’s chambers and went in search of Jean.
She entered the Guest’s Parlor and stood shocked at the sight that greeted her.
Her dear delicate little friend, Jeanne Bécu, was bent forward over a bureau, her black muslin in disarray baring her breasts, her skirts gathered up around her tiny waist, while a panting and groaning Jean d’Orleans energetically mounted her from behind, much as she’d seen the Convent roosters mounting the hens.
At her cry of distress, Jean ceased his frantic pounding and the two attempted to disengage. In his haste, Jean tangled in his breeches and tumbled to the Persian carpet at her feet, his “tumor” glistening and stubbornly erect under Desiree’s horrified gaze.
Jeanne Bécu, calmly dropped her skirts and drew her bodice closed. Her composure thus restored, she raised tranquil eyes to Desiree’s face.
“You are under a vow! A vow!” Desiree stumbled over her own reluctance to voice her feelings, “you swore your virginity to Reverend Mother!”
“Oh, Desiree, I am a virgin.”
“I saw. I saw you co-co-copulating! I saw it: you had that...that thing in you.”
“Well, not exactly. I mean, yes it was in, but in a passage a little further back. Technically, I’m a virgin, so go ahead and call Sœur Clementine, if you like. I’m saving myself for a King, at the very least.”
The ride back to Versailles was silent and most uncomfortable. Jean had never felt this way before. As he sat in the carriage, he kept his face carefully averted from his travelling companion. Waves of heat washed over him at regular intervals. Again and again he kept seeing Desiree’s astonished face at the sight of him rutting with swinish abandonment with that little St. Cyr slattern in the Guest-Parlor. Then it struck him. He was ashamed.
TO BE CONTINUED...
What was the matter with her? The idea of taking up the veil was less and less appealing, but why? Her faith was unshaken, her devotion to her religion as strong as ever. She glanced over at Jean, napping against the velvet upholstery. His long fingered hands lay still against his thighs, framed by the crisp folds of his lace cuffs; his head was thrown back, soft brown curls escaping from under the edges of his elegantly powdered court-wig. He looked young, peaceful. His edgy restlessness absent, his mouth was softened into a child-like curve. He looked like another man, one untainted by cutting cynicism, or cruel appetites: a gentle man capable of kindness. Fascinated Desiree watched perspiration bead his upper lip in the stifling heat of the carriage. Impulsively she leaned forward and wiped away the salty film, and found herself inexplicably licking at her fingers, savoring the taste and the scent of him on her skin.
Horrified, she frantically wiped her hand on her wide skirts. Her sudden movements woke him, and Desiree was looking into his wide brown eyes, still hazy with sleep.
“Desiree? Is all well?”
“Yes...We are arriving...At St. Cyr.”
The carriage swept up the majestic drive, into the elegant quadrangle, and drew to a stand-still in front of the imposing main entrance. As they alighted, a bevy of young girls swept out. Tall, short, pretty or plain they all wore brown muslin gowns, the solemn faces framed by prim bonnets edged with white lace. The only distinguishing feature was the colored ribbons adorning the stiff white-canvas bonnets: red, blue, yellow and red.
A few of the older girls stopped with cries of delight and made mention to greet Desiree, but were sharply called to heel by a diminutive girl, a few years older, and even more soberly attired in black.
The older girl gestured her charges on with an imperious gesture, and turned towards Desiree with a smile. Tenderly she embraced her and kissed her on both cheeks.
“Jeanne! Dear, dear Jeanne! Are you still here? But wait! I am being rude... Monsieur le Duc d’Orleans, allow me to present my dearest friend Jeanne Bécu de Quantiny.”
At the mention of his title the girl’s eyes glittered, the rosy lips pouted seductively. Even wrapped in that horrendous black muslin she was singularly attractive, with a tiny voluptuous form that exuded a dark sensuality. She licked at her lips and lowering heavy lids over her amber eyes, she swept Jean a deep courtesy.
“Monsieur, it is an honor.”
“My dear Jeanne, I need your assistance. Would you escort Monsieur d’Orleans to the Guest Parlor and ask that he be served refreshments? We have had a long and tiring journey from Versailles. I must speak with Mother Superior, and as you know, she will not receive men.”
The lovely Jeanne Bécu dimpled an inviting smile at Jean.
“Dear Desiree....Of course, rest assured. I, myself, will see to it that all of Monsieur’s needs are met.”
*****
In the Mother Superiors study, Desiree knelt with respectful affection at the gentle Lady’s feet to receive her blessing.
“Ma Soeur, I’ve missed you, I’ve missed the peace and tranquility of this house.”
The Sœur Clementine’s dark face lit up with a mischievous smile.
“Peace and tranquility, with these minxes getting into trouble at the drop of a bonnet? Your memory plays tricks on you, my dear.”
“Ma Soeur, I come for your help, and at the behest of the King.”
Carefully Desiree unfolded the linen in which she’d wrapped the letter, the Birth Certificate, the curls of hair and the tiny bonnet.
The Reverend Mother took up the documents first, and silently perused them. She gently caressed the curls, the dark and the fair with trembling hands.
“So many years: so many, and now it falls to me.” The Reverend Mother raised dark troubled eyes to Desiree’s face, “why do you bring this to me, child, why now?”
“Someone is killing to keep this secret, Ma Soeur. Six men have died, and I myself was attacked. We need to know why, so we can discover who the killer is.”
The Reverend Mother leaned back and closed her eyes. Long silence reigned.
“I was once a pupil here once, like you. Young, hopeful: but unlike you, there was no choice for me. I was placed here by my family.You lost yours, but mine threw me away.” The Reverend Mother scraped a nail along her own dark skin- “I was an embarrassment, to be hidden away,” an old bitterness tinged her voice. “I was a born a Princess, you see, born to the Grande-Dauphine. I was grand-daughter to the King, so my fellow pupils drew away from me, from my status, my colour.”
“Then, one day, the Royal Court came to St Cyr in state. They came to bring the new Princess: Marie Adelaide de Savoy. She was to marry my older brother, the Petit Dauphin. You must understand how very lovely she was, how charming, how young. She was twelve, five years younger than I. She became my sister, my baby, my doll. To all who saw her, she was precious: the Dauphin, Madame, and of course, the King - most of all the King.”
“She would be here with us for months, studying and praying; then she’d go to Court to be spoilt and adored and fêted. She grew more and more beautiful, more enchanting, and more womanly. One night she returned to St Cyr alone, without her entourage: she was pregnant, she was fourteen.” The Reverend Mother clasped her hands together in remembered distress.
“Pregnant: and that was not the worst of it. Three days later, Madame arrived. Madame de Maintenon, our founder, the uncrowned queen of France. I was taken into their confidence. They believed that I, as “family”, would protect this secret. I did, but for love of Marie Adelaide, not for them, my family.”
“At first all seemed well, though she was quieter than was her wont, then in her fourth month; she fell into a deep melancholy from which nothing could arouse her. I wrote to Madame, and her answer was to send me a Jester!”
The Nun-Princess giggled girlishly, “Madame was wise. Jacques could cheer up a stone, and better than that, in his luggage came a packet of letters. Love letters and poems from Marie Adelaide’s secret love. Who, I can see you ask yourself: who’d dare seduce the precious Daughter of France; the Princess of Savoy, destined to be Queen of France? Who’d dare face the Sun-King’s wrath?” Reverend Mother paused –“Except the Sun-King himself? He loved her: that I do know. Madame Maintenon told me herself - with some bitterness - years later when she was dying in this very house. The only two people the King ever truly loved in this world were his Mother - Anne of Austria- and Marie Adelaide, Princess of Savoy, his grand-daughter in law.”
“He loved her so much - so blindly – that he believed my brother could be convinced to pass of his Grandfather’s by-blow as his own son. He wanted the child to be his heir, you see, so he ordered the Royal Midwife to attend the birth and had the Royal mark placed on the child. Who could gainsay him? He was King... But my brother refused: the scandal - were it known - would have ripped France apart, made us the laughing-stock of Europe. So the boy was spirited away, given to a trusted retainer and Madame made sure that the King and Marie Adelaide were never alone again.”
Desiree listened in horrified fascination.
“Who is the boy, Ma Soeur, the man, now? Who is he?”
“My dear, I don’t know. He was days old when last I saw him: a blond boy, pretty as an angel. All I know is he bore the Royal mark, and he was taken away by an old favourite of Queen Anne of Austria’s: D’Artagnan. He was a canny old man, and proficient at hushing up the Royal family’s amorous adventures.”
“D’Artagnan!”
“Yes, D’Artagnan, the Musketeer: I believe he passed away a few years ago, but he had a son, or was it a grandson? They might know what became of the Prince.”
“If our suspicions are correct, Ma Soeur, the Prince became a killer.”
*****
Leaving the good Lady praying in obvious distress, Desiree exited the Reverend Mother’s chambers and went in search of Jean.
She entered the Guest’s Parlor and stood shocked at the sight that greeted her.
Her dear delicate little friend, Jeanne Bécu, was bent forward over a bureau, her black muslin in disarray baring her breasts, her skirts gathered up around her tiny waist, while a panting and groaning Jean d’Orleans energetically mounted her from behind, much as she’d seen the Convent roosters mounting the hens.
At her cry of distress, Jean ceased his frantic pounding and the two attempted to disengage. In his haste, Jean tangled in his breeches and tumbled to the Persian carpet at her feet, his “tumor” glistening and stubbornly erect under Desiree’s horrified gaze.
Jeanne Bécu, calmly dropped her skirts and drew her bodice closed. Her composure thus restored, she raised tranquil eyes to Desiree’s face.
“You are under a vow! A vow!” Desiree stumbled over her own reluctance to voice her feelings, “you swore your virginity to Reverend Mother!”
“Oh, Desiree, I am a virgin.”
“I saw. I saw you co-co-copulating! I saw it: you had that...that thing in you.”
“Well, not exactly. I mean, yes it was in, but in a passage a little further back. Technically, I’m a virgin, so go ahead and call Sœur Clementine, if you like. I’m saving myself for a King, at the very least.”
The ride back to Versailles was silent and most uncomfortable. Jean had never felt this way before. As he sat in the carriage, he kept his face carefully averted from his travelling companion. Waves of heat washed over him at regular intervals. Again and again he kept seeing Desiree’s astonished face at the sight of him rutting with swinish abandonment with that little St. Cyr slattern in the Guest-Parlor. Then it struck him. He was ashamed.
TO BE CONTINUED...
