Reynard and the Lady
Dave Fawcett
Note: This story was written for a magazine competition. I was given five sentences from five different people and challenged to incorporate them into one story.
The sentences were:
.
.......................... ***********************************************
“That girl has Chinese women on her skirt” the small boy said to his mother pointing excitedly at the streetwalker standing on the pavement outside the Grey Nags Head. The woman, flustered and embarrassed by her sons comment hurried him along, trying to ignore the object of his curiosity.
Madeline stood forlornly against the pub wall, a damp breeze caressing her bare shoulders. She was bra-less and wearing a white off the shoulder blouse that complemented the elaborately patterned black and white skirt that she had fallen in love with when she saw it in the charity shop window. She had left her flat with a black lace shoulder wrap that had complemented the ensemble but that had been lost somewhere in the blurred memory evening of seedy bars and seedier back lanes.
The skirt had been on display in the window of the Oxfam charity shop a few doors from where she now stood. She had seen it a couple of weeks earlier. The black silk had shimmered in the afternoon sunshine, highlighting a white ‘willow' pattern of Chinese concubines seated in pavilions, strolling beside bubbling streams or admiring distant pagodas. Even for Oxfam it was a bit pricey – twenty pounds and Madeline hadn't been working too successfully of late, but as soon as she saw the sheen of the silk and the wonderful contrast between the black and white she just had to have it. Wearing something as swish as that couldn't do anything but good for her image and that would help to attract the punters. Anyway it was a perfect match for her best jewellery; the black onyx pendant and three inexpensive but very pretty rings.
These days though nothing seemed to work. Madeline was no longer the pretty young thing who had started working the streets of Tyneside three years earlier.
Three years was not really a big chunk out of a lifetime, but it was an eternity of torment; of impersonal sex and self loathing.
Madeline had become a prostitute for all the usual reasons; a violent childhood of sexual abuse that led to a life of casual boyfriends, drugs and petty crime and prostitution that never got her quite enough to feed her habit. Joe had come along at just the wrong moment, catching her at her most vulnerable and depressed.
Joe was a pimp with a stable of three girls. He had charmed and persuaded Madeline that life with his protection would be a piece of cake and that he could be very generous. She soon found out that the only thing he was generous with was his lies and his violence. She had been beaten, raped and abused by Joe and her punters for over a year now. The life had aged her almost beyond recognition and as she became less desirable and less profitable Joe had found less and less use for her, finally dumping her for a younger girl.
The purchase of the skirt with the Chinese women had been one last hopeless attempt to salvage something from the ruins; one last assault on the ravages of time; one final endeavour to attract a better class of punter and a little more money.
For a few days things had seemed to get better then Madeline got drunk and mainlined the proceeds of a particularly lucrative days work. Now she stood on the street outside the pub, blowzy and crumpled in the dirty silk skirt with the Chinese women. She had finished a blow job on her last punter in a lift in one of the blocks of flats behind the High Street a few minutes before. The man was old and scruffy and she remembered him smelling of drink and piss; no better and no worse than the other three ‘johns' that day. Madeline didn't normally work in the daytime but she had to have some money.
Madeline needed one more punter to be able to score enough for a decent fix; a fix she desperately needed to get her through the night. She knew deep in her mind that anyone would have to be desperate or syphilitic to pay for sex with her in her present state but she still hoped that someone – anyone – would come along.
As people pushed by, ignoring her, Madeline continued to stare glassily at the traffic cruising by a few feet away and almost didn't notice the van that screeched sharply to a halt a few yards past her. The driver reversed expertly against the flow of traffic until he was opposite her pitch. The passenger window slid down and he leaned across, beckoning with his finger. Her luck was in for once!
................................******************************************
It was a jolly afternoon when I first came upon the naked harlot from hell. Actually I ought to qualify that statement in a couple of respects! When I saw her she wasn't naked and I didn't know she was a harlot from hell. Also it might have been jolly for the rest of the world - the sun was shining and the crowds were in a festive bank holiday week-end mood - but for me it had been a lousy day; another one in a long line of bleak mornings, painful afternoons and lonely evenings. Evenings were always the worst part of the day. This particular day was no better and no worse than any of the others had been since Rebecca had died so suddenly; so tragically.
They say life goes on. It doesn't always. Sometimes it stops swiftly and sickeningly.
Life had stopped for Rebecca the previous November when she had fainted and fallen from the platform at Chester le Street station seconds before the inter-city train had come thundering through at over one hundred miles an hour. The emergency services had spent hours scouring a half mile stretch of the line picking up pieces of her body. Her left hand, complete with engagement and wedding rings was not found for several weeks. It was eventually turned up by a farmer digging out a family of foxes who had been raiding his chicken coops. One of them had obviously found that the hand made better fodder than the farmer's chickens. It was well gnawed!
Life almost stopped for me when I caught sight of the harlot cruising the street. Or at least my heart jolted with shock, my guts knotted up and my concentration went as I slammed on the brake, almost causing a pile-up behind me.
Life would stop swiftly and sickeningly for Madeline later that day!
I was driving down Gateshead High Street when I saw the woman standing outside the pub. Prostitutes have never been my style and normally I wouldn't have given this one a second glance. This time however the sight was so unexpected that I had to find out more. Reversing through a momentary gap in the traffic I slipped the car into a parking space opposite her, wound down the window and beckoned her over.
“My name's Madeline” the woman muttered, sticking her head through the window and smiling uncertainly at me. “Are you looking for a bit of company?”
For a moment I sat there immobile; stunned! I knew why I had stopped but I didn't want to admit it even to myself. I roused myself. I had to go on; had to know.
“Get in!” I ordered. She complied without hesitation. “Have you got a place we can go?” I asked a bit more gently. I didn't want to frighten her; at least not yet.
She nodded. “Go to Coatsworth Road ” she instructed and proceeded to give me directions.
Madeline's flat was above one of the shops in Coatsworth road but it looked out onto a quiet tree-lined back lane. Once inside she turned to me without any preliminaries. “I don't do anal sex and I don't do bondage” she informed me “but apart from that I'll consider almost anything for a price”.
I stared at her for a moment, making her squirm slightly under the intensity of my gaze. “Take your skirt off” I ordered finally.
Madeline considered my request for a moment. “We haven't agreed a price yet” she countered finally. I don't normally bring anyone back here so that will have to be included in the fee”.
I nodded curtly. “I don't want your raddled old body. I only want that skirt. Where did you get it? How much do you want for it?”
Madeline bristled angrily for a moment, then she gave me a cold smile. “Jee-zus Christ! If I didn't need the money so bad you'd be out on your arse by now. Are you a pervert or something? What business is it of yours where I get my clothes?”
“Just answer the question” I snapped “and you'll get something for your trouble.”
“Keep your hair on!” she retorted, nervousness showing in her eyes. “I got it in the Oxfam shop in the High Street a couple of weeks ago. It cost me tw.... thirty pounds Bloody expensive when I think about it but I fell in love with it on sight.
“So that's where the old cow dumped everything” I muttered to myself. Looking at Madeline I no longer saw a woman standing there; just a tailor's dummy draped in a skirt patterned with Chinese concubines. Again I ordered her to strip.
Madeline had backed into the bathroom doorway; uncertainty; fear even; reflecting in her eyes. “I don't think I want to do that” she whispered, groping behind her for the door-knob. “I think you'd better leave now. My boyfriend will be back in a few minutes.” The lie was obvious; just a ploy to get me out of the flat. “I want that skirt” I snarled, grabbing her blouse and pulling her towards me. Her groping hand found the knob and she turned it, throwing herself at the door and into the bathroom. The door slammed shut, leaving me outside with part of her blouse in my hand.
Angry and thwarted I threw myself at the door. The thin wood splintered easily and I fell inwards, ending up flat on my face on the floor. Above me Madeline was trying to climb out of the bathroom window. The curtain, blowing in the breeze, had wrapped around her legs, entangling her in its embrace.
Struggling to my feet I lunged upwards, grasping her by one ankle. Madeline fell backwards into the room, kicking, spitting and clawing like a hellcat as she tried to struggle free of my grasp. A scream had barely reached her throat before my free hand was over her mouth, stifling it. As she fell on top of me her head hit the corner of the sink, stunning her.
Seizing my chance I tore at her belt, breaking the buckle in my haste. Once the belt was free the skirt came off easily. Cradling it to my cheek I caressed my skin with the soft silkiness of the material, absorbing the familiar feel and the faint aroma of the well remembered scent. Then I felt something else; something that had no place there. A wet patch!
Dropping the skirt from my cheek I inspected it more carefully. At last my fingers, then my eyes found a dark wet stain. Blood! The bitch had bled on my precious dress.
As I turned back to Madeline she began to stir in the corner where she had landed. Her legs were splayed out and her panties were stained with red; the red of menstrual blood.
Something snapped in my head; the something that had been building up ever since I had seen this woman; this harlot from hell wearing Rebecca's favourite skirt. Completely out of control I grabbed the nearest thing to hand; a large brass statuette that had fallen from the window ledge during the struggle; and began to beat Madeline about the head with it.
Blood splattered the walls, the bath, the toilet and the curtains as her skull caved in under the onslaught. Slowly as my arm began to ache I regained control of my anger. The body and the blood were unimportant at that moment. What mattered was the skirt; the haute couture outfit I had bought my wife for her last birthday; the skirt that had been disposed of along with all my wife's other clothes by my battle axe of a mother in law shortly after Rebecca's death.
Seeing the treasured skirt on the body of a streetwalker had given me one hell of a shock. I had thought never to see it again. Now that it was back in my hands I folded it carefully; lovingly; and carried it from the bathroom, away from the blood and the gore.
I was about to leave when an idea struck me; a payback on the woman who had ruined my darling Rebecca's favourite skirt; the one that she had taken from the wardrobe but decided not to wear on the day of her death. She had said that it would be spoiled if she wore it to the office.
I knew what I had to do! Returning to the kitchen I began to hunt round for the items I would need for my task. It would be poetic justice after all.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,******************************************
Reynard had almost finished hunting. It had been a very poor day. His usual haunts; the chicken coops and duck-ponds in the area had all been secured against him. His depredations had been too severe; too destructive for the local farmers – not that he thought in those terms. After all foxes are animals of instinct not logic and poultry is easy and tasty game. Today had been a day of sparse pickings though and unsuccessful, disappointed and hungry he turned for home.
Suddenly something attracted his attention; something delicious and aromatic; something that smelled of blood. His senses were aroused. It was something that he had only ever tasted once before as a cub. Squinting its eyes the fox slowly poked its head through a gap in the hedge. Cautiously he forced his way through the thicket and advanced towards the scent. Carefully he sniffed around the lump of meat before picking it up in his jaws. Then he turned for home and his mate. It would fill her belly at this important time; the time of pregnancy and imminent birth.
Reynard turned and loped back towards his den. Gripped between his teeth was a piece of flesh; a hand severed cleanly at the wrist. A bloated, bejewelled hand; rings on three fingers.
