Free The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan Page B

as the small-faced parlour maid crossed the doorway carrying a vase of white roses. “That love’s no match for the whispers of English neighbours. Marlowe’s American whore. Do you remember laughing about that? Do you remember calling it
quaint
?” I did remember. I remembered how that “quaint” had liberated me into superior benevolence, how with that one word the harness constricting the world—Blake’s
mind-forged manacles
(the erotic revolution had resuscitated dead pictures and poems)—had dropped away. Now she believed I wanted something else. How could she not? I did want something else.
More blue-veined, more soft, more sweetly white / Than Venus when she rose / From out her cradle shell
. Together we’d celebrated the bliss of the Fallen flesh. Now I knew there was a Fall further, into the bliss of devouring it. (And a fall further than
that
. Or so the moon told. Or so the moon withheld. Not yet. Not quite yet.)
    “Where are you going?” Arabella said. I’d risen from the chair and crossed to the French windows. “Jacob? Will you not look at me? For God’s sake.”
    My legs gave. I went down slowly onto my knees, one moist hand slipping from the door handle. She rushed to me—or the creature did; the ether tore a moment and I couldn’t tell which. Then her arms and orange blossom perfume were around me, my face close to her white breasts
take her life take her life take her life please God make it stop let me die take her—
“Don’t,” she said, as I pushed myself upright. “Don’t try to get up.” But I was on my feet again as if a spirit had hoiked me by the armpits.
    “I must go,” I said. I knew how insane that sounded to her. “I’ll go and see Charles.” Her detachment, I now saw, had been an experiment, a toe dipped in the emotional waters she might have to enter. In fact she was still waiting for me to return to her. And still I hadn’t. She stared at me, forced into her eyes suspicion, anger, concern, potential forgiveness; to admit outright incomprehension
would
be a death. A few drops of sweat showed above her top lip. I thought of the look she gave me when I came inside her: sly welcome that segued into infinite calm relished confirmation. For a man a woman has no greater gift to give. And here I was destroying it. “It’s not you,” I managed to get out. I’d opened the door. The smell and weight of the lawn was a gravity I could flow into. “It’s not you. I love you.”
    “Then why—”
    “Please, Arabella, as you love me believe me there’s nothing … I must be …” I stepped out onto the terrace—and vomited suddenly in one hot gush and splatter. The sound was a gash on the still afternoon.
    “Jacob, for pity’s sake come in. You’re
sick.
” Some relief, naturally, at the recurrence of a physical symptom: Better my guts than my soul, than
me
.
    “I’m all right,” I said, straightening, searching for my handkerchief. “That helped. Disgusting. Forgive me. Please, just let me be awhile. Let me walk over to Charles’s. I’ll stay there tonight and tomorrow everything will be different, I promise. Just give me this one night to clear my head.” I could hear the precise degree by which my voice didn’t sound right. My body laboured under invisible soft weights. With a superhumaneffort I hauled the version of myself she needed to the surface, turned to her, saw hope ignite in her eyes, took her hands in mine. “Don’t think what you’ve been thinking,” I said. “You wrong both of us in thinking it. Something is troubling me, something … On my life, Arabella, I can’t stay here tonight. You must let me go. Tomorrow everything—I swear everything will be different. Please. Let me go.”
    For days I’d been unable to meet her eye. Now I did and saw she was still warm and open to me. Her look was of steady entreaty, to return to collusion, to renew the silent vows, to
recognise
her. Summer had brought out a sprinkle of freckles under