Read Online Governing Passion by Don Gutteridge - Free Book Online

building.”
     
     

FIVE
     
     
    Sarie Hickson made her way carefully through the
snow-clogged alleys of Devil’s Acre. Her feet read the way as a
blind person reads Braille. She was humming a merry tune to herself
because tonight was an evening when she would be free of the
brothel, of its smells and its animal cries and its dialogues of
despair. Sure, she was still a prostitute and was going to continue
that service when she reached her destination, but there would be
much more than a mere groping in the candle-lit dark, and such a
reward afterwards. And she would be called upon to use skills she
had learned as a child in pageants and tableaux. Thinking of this,
she unconsciously put her hand up to the big blond wig she was
wearing and felt the swish of her long gown against the drifts
beneath her. She was ready.
    She came out onto Jarvis Street, swung south
to King, then east again to George. Here she soon found the house
she was looking for. It was a brick mansion of two storeys with a
portico in front and a set of elegant steps leading up to the front
door. She did not use them, however. Instead she went around one
side of the house along a well-worn path until she reached the
tradesman’s entrance. She knew from past episodes that her lover
would have liked her to have made a grand entrance into the foyer,
but that discretion forestalled this regal gesture. She rapped
discreetly on the door. Carswell, the butler, answered it, and
without looking directly at her, waved her inside. She followed him
down a winding hallway until they came to the master’s
sitting-room. She entered and the door closed softly behind her.
Secrecy, she knew, was paramount, and only Carswell among the
servants knew what she was up to. The mistress of the house, as
usual, was visiting her sister in Streetsville.
    “Come in, Madame La Marquise.”
    The voice was orotund and excited. Sarie
looked across the room, past the roaring fireplace and the silver
candelabrum on a polished mahogany table to where the gentleman
stood awaiting her arrival. And this was no ordinary gentleman, for
he had a crimson cloak trimmed with ermine drooped over his
shoulders and falling in folds around him to the carpet below. Upon
his head there glittered a jewel-encrusted crown – at least it
appeared thus in the flickering light. The rest of him was attired
in an Elizabethan doublet and hose, with a conspicuous
cod-piece.
    “Please remove your cloak, Your Highness,”
the royal gentleman commanded.
    Sarie smiled. “Yes, my dear Louis.” She
removed her coat to reveal the full splendour of her evening dress,
fluffed and ruched and cut low to reveal two-thirds of her bosom. A
string of fake pearls – courtesy of King Louis – graced her neck,
and upon her head sat a glorious blond wig.
    “Madame de Pompadour, how thoughtful of you
to grace the royal presence,” intoned Gardiner Clough, smiling as
Madame de Pompadour curtsied before him.
    “My wish is your command, Your Highness.”
    “And you know what the king wishes of you
tonight, don’t you?”
    The Marquise de Pompadour began pulling the
gown away from her breasts. “To be ravished by royalty, Your
Highness.”
    The king jerked his cod-piece aside and moved
– in not too kingly a fashion – towards her . . .
    Later they play-acted a scene they had
performed several times in the past. In bed (the folds of a rug),
after spirited love-making, they nibbled at fruit and Louis told
her of the many battles he had fought in and the many soldiers he
had dispatched to Heaven or Hell. Then he pulled out a sheet of
paper and read one or more proclamations, glorifying his power,
while his mistress stroked his penis and lavished epithets of
praise upon him. Sarie was particularly proud of this part of the
performance, never missing a cue and feeling quite cosy and safe
from the various terrors of the world outside.
    “Would you like me to read a proclamation?”
she said this evening, deciding to improvise a