Dear Thaddeus

You will recall my fever dream of carnal union with the Widow Douglas. Only the next day, the widow herself visited grandmother's house in the late morning. Wen Chan entered my room, where I sat reading my favorite volume of Swinburne under gaslight. I paled when he notified me that Widow Douglas awaited me in the sitting room. I gathered myself together and descended the stairs. From the sofa where she sat next to grandmother, she beamed up at me with a bright smile. I froze for a moment. She was no crone or harridan. In fact, she appeared a rather pleasant-looking woman of advancing years with bright green eyes and a small pert nose. I coughed to cover my surprise and sat opposite the two women. We chatted amiably and drank the dark, aromatic tea favored by Wen Chan and the other asian domestics. Mrs. Douglas departed around noon.

"You improve measurably," grandmother noted as we sat down for lunch.

"Indeed," I answered. "I am physically restored. But, these fever dreams continue."

Grandmother nodded and continued eating in her delicate, attractive manner. As the kitchen staff cleared the table, grandmother reached into the folds of her lustrous silk dress and withdrew the vial. My heart seemed to stop and I felt powerful emotions swell across my chest. She looked at me with a sugared smile. I nodded eagerly.

Again, she dropped four or five jots of the green liquid onto my tongue. And, again, I blinked and woke in that strange, dim room with the obscene wallpaper. The door opened and grandmother led two young women into the room. One was asian, with delicate cheekbones and wide, captivating eyes. The other was negro, shorter and broader, with broad hips and prominent bosom. The room seemed to shift and grow vague as I stood, overcome with a carnal desire so powerful that I felt the last vestiges of my rational self flee down rushing waters. Grandmother gently pushed the two women before me. Without prompting, I unbuttoned my trousers to bare my supernaturally enhanced manhood. Both women gasped, the negress in evident pleasure. I leapt upon them, ripping away at their dresses and petticoats. Soon, we had become the living incarnations of the demonic couples on the wallpaper. Our bodies twisted and twined together and my cock plowed into every orifice the women made so freely available to me. Hours later, or so it seemed, I collapsed onto the women and lay there, satiated and proud, in a bower of yellow and black flesh.

I awoke back in my room. Someone had evidently bathed and perfumed me. I rose with a ravenous hunger and rang the brocaded bell rope next to the bed. Wen Chan entered shortly after with a maid and a mountain of steaming plates.

That evening, after dinner, the same events repeated themselves. Grandmother delivered the tincture to my beseeching lips and I once again woke in the dim room. This time, I shared the divan with the negress alone. She was already stripped to her corset and stockings when grandmother led her into the room. I used her with abandon and our orchestra of moans and shouts echoed through the chamber for hours.

In the morning, grandmother greeted my awakening with her cool hands. Again, I was ravenous with hunger. This time, however, the effects of the tincture seemed not so dulled or eclipsed. My body still radiated energy and desire. Indeed, when grandmother leaned down to bless me with her full, warm lips, my passions overcame me and I pulled her face to mine and attacked her lips and tongue with my own mouth. She resisted this indeceny slightly at first but then submitted to my unclean desires. She played her tongue against mine and ran her hands excitedly along my neck and cheeks. Needless to say, my satyr's cock aspired vertically beneath the bed sheets.

I confess, Thaddeus, I felt no shame in this atrocious and evil behavior. I experienced only an alien desire gripping me and prodding me forward, more and more insistently.

After several minutes of this amorous play, grandmother suddenly sat upright. Her silver hair hung in gorgeous confusion down along her collar. Her eyes shone with stellar brilliance. Her cheeks were flushed. As I rose continue my attack, she pushed me back down onto the bed with her hand and held me there. Obviously, the years of work in Salina endowed me with strength and that, plus my age, should have allowed me further mischief. But grandmother's hand seemed to emanate her will deep into my chest and torso.

"No, darling," she whispered hoarsely. "This is not the hour."

I moaned with hunger and struggled against her hand. She continued to obstruct my desires.

"My darling," she whispered, regaining her dulcet voice. "You have struggled too much against that which you desire. I understand this. Soon, your struggles will end. But not yet. There are only a few more revelations you must endure."

I fell back onto the bed, suddenly exhausted. Grandmother stroked my forehead until I drifted back into slumber.

I woke later in the day. Again, the thick, ponderous fog clotted the windows of my bedchamber. Who knew, I mused to myself, if the world really existed out there? Perhaps, as de Fronde writes in his magnificent poem: "Only by submitting to the maelstrom within can the cuffed and manacled soul escape its ribbed sepulchre." I pondered this until Wen Chan entered my room. He gestured for me to dress and I did.

The Chinaman waited outside my bedroom door. He motioned to me and I followed him down the hallway. We descended the main staircase of the house. All was silent. The gas jets had been turned low. Through the front parlor, I could see the midday sun struggling to penetrate the miasma of fog. The tiny, bent figure proceeded to a bookcase in the parlor. He withdrew a volume from a low shelf and the bookcase swung open to reveal a dark passageway. Again, Wen Chan motioned to me and we descended a narrow staircase.

The staircase debouched onto a wider hallway. The flickering gas lamps along the walls projected dancing shadows up and down the length of the corridor. We proceeded for more than a dozen feet when the servant held his hand up to halt me. He twisted a slight convex knob in the wall and pushed. The hidden door opened onto a darkened room. Two rows of red velveteen chairs faced away from the ingress we had just crossed. Wen Chan again raised his palm toward me. He proceeded alone to the far wall. A single brocade rope hung on the right side of the wall. He tugged on it. A tall panel that stretched across from end-to-end of the room slowly rose from the middle of the wall.

I gasped.

The secret panel opened to reveal a smaller room with a divan at its center above which hung three unlit gas globes. I rushed to the what was now discovered to be a long single pane of glass. Pressing my hands and face to the window, I spied the obscene wall paper that marked this as my chamber of savage pleasure. Obviously, I had been the unwitting spectacle for the dozens who had gathered in this room.

I gasped again and turned to Wen Chan. He had disappeared.

I rushed to the door, knocking over chairs as I stumbled to the egress. I paused, panting and clinging to the door frame. Shame doused my mind like an icy deluge. Then, outrage stirred my limbs and I raced back up the hallway to the stairs, bellowing for my grandmother. I raced about the house, shouting and cursing. It was empty. Driven by the need to escape, I assaulted the front door but the heavy brass knob remained impervious to my frantic efforts. I began pounding against the door, alternately sobbing and shouting. Finally, I collapsed there in a whimpering heap.

Some time later, two pairs of hands pulled me slowly to my feet. I was turned around to encounter the man with the ginger hair. He opened his mouth in a wicked grin, revealing a row of teeth that had been scrimshawed with the same runes that decorated his lapels. He brusquely pushed my head backward. With his other hand, he withdrew a vial from his coat pocket and flicked it open. I could not struggle. I was trapped. I had surrendered. He poured the contents of the vial into my mouth.

This time, I awoke on the sofa in the parlor. My shirt and shoes had been removed and I wore nothing but my chemise and trousers. My head felt sluggish and my body barely stirred when I commanded it to rise. My grandmother entered the room. I lazily rallied myself to a sitting position. She was dressed in a silver, satin robe with rich lace trimming along the lapels. She seated herself next to me and drew my hand into hers.

"We are prisoners," she murmured to me. "Prisoners within our own bodies. Entombed there by rule and law and custom. We struggle day and night to find freedom. But, our struggles only push us further, deeper into the dungeons of our selves."

She sighed and squeezed my hand.

"All of this you see - - my house, my furnishings, my jewelry - - these are merely the just rewards for my efforts."

She gazed down at me with her dark eyes.

"I am the emancipator." She raised her hand to my cheek. "I come to deliver the innocent from their unjust imprisonment. I show them the way of their true desires. Do you understand?"

My eyes widened in horror and I swatted, ineffectually, at her arm.

"No, darling," she purred and gently grasped my wrist. "You too have struggled. I read it in your face when you arrived here. You have carried a burden for too long. And, now I have eased that burden. I have lifted the heavy stones from your back."

I swallowed and recalled my episodes with Mrs. Douglas and the other women. I had blamed my bestial behavior on the tincture. But as grandmother's sweet voice uncoiled in my ears, I recognized my own complicity and identity with these depravities. I relaxed back onto the couch. Yes, deep within me there had always been dark, murky forces, currents of some stygian river that pushed me onward without my conscious knowledge. That night in Salina that had forever broached my connection to family and friends. That night when Elizabeth had disrobed for me and uttered her execrable words, the words dripping with slime and guilt that I had obeyed.

I looked deep into grandmothers ebon orbs. There was truth there. She smiled and, weakly, I returned that smile.

"The spectacle in which you have participated is eleemosynary. You have given your witnesses a glimpse of freedom. Of a life lived beyond the bars of their cells. This is the truth of the Barbary Coast, the truth of vice, and the truth that I have offered you."

She paused and raised both her hands to my cheeks. "Do you accept my truth?"

I screwed my eyes shut and then opened them. She had withdrawn her hands from my face and now held the vial clasped in them like a holy sacrament. I glanced at her eyes and then the vial.

I nodded affirmatively.

She bussed me gently on the brow and then withdrew the spoon from the vial.

"Soon," she murmured. "You will no longer need this aid. Soon, you will be able to fly on your own wings."

She emptied the vial into my upturned lips. I drank it down until I felt its mysterious power grasp my soul and animate my body. Grandmother dropped the vial and wrapped her arms around my neck. Our mouths met in a deep, blissful kiss and our tongues twined together like happy and hungry serpents. Grandmother rose, our mouths still fastened to each other. She folded my hand in hers and tugged me forward into the parlor. There, she pulled her lips from mine and removed the secret volume from the bookcase. The concealed door slid open and we proceeded downward, jostling together hungrily. My arms around her waist, hers around my neck. Our lips mumbling together passionately, our tongues lashing and spinning together.

At the bottom of the stairs, I slid my hand over grandmother's and pulled her eagerly toward the door to the chamber of pleasure. We practically ran together, our feet slapping against the hard floor, as we made our way to the entrance. I twisted the knob and shoved the door open. I swept grandmother off her feet into my arms and her lips met mine again.

As we entered the room, I glanced to the wall to see that the window panel had been withdrawn. Though I could not see them, the presence of our witnesses drove me to even deeper passions. I bestowed grandmother gently onto the sofa and stood with my chest thrust forward. I ripped off my chemise and popped the buttons on my trousers with one rough yank of my hand. My extraordinary cock stood at full mast. The massive, rounded head mounted atop a thick, adamantine shaft. I stood there - - resplendent, naked, proud - - like some savage but royal beast.

Grandmother trilled on the divan and parted her silk robe. Her pale voluptuous body revealed itself to my hungry eyes. Her large, heavy breasts arched heavenward surmounted by wide, dark-colored nipples. She ran a hand down along her deliciously swelling belly and into the valley between her pale, abundantly-fleshed thighs. She spread her legs to allow her slender, ringed fingers access to her swollen pudenda. She stroked her quim and gazed into my eyes as I approached her. As I neared, she rose slightly to wrap her fingers around my hard manhood. Smiling rapturously, she guided it to her lips. I groaned as her tender, moist lips parted and she sequestered my cock with unabashed exuberance into her juicy mouth.

The sensations of this, my first experience of the ancient Roman art of fellatio, were indescribable, both for the pleasure that throbbed up and down my shaft and for the sight of my grandmother, her silver hair spread in a nimbus around her beautiful face, gorging herself on my rampant cock. I stood above her as she lay on the divan, feeding my cock into her mouth and inhaling it deeply into her throat. Her light delicate hands fluttered over my scrota like butterfly wings.

She drew my cock out of her mouth and licked its bulbous head. Saliva glistened along the flanks of my beautiful monster. Grandmother pushed my cock downward, toward her breasts, and began playing the tip of it across her wine-colored nipples. She was gasping and panting with pleasure. I circled my fingers around the base of my manhood and aided her efforts. She released me and drove her fingers downward, back into her pudenda. Soon she was writhing below me as I smacked my cock against her luxurious breasts and she wiggled her hands deep into her quim.

With a savage shout, I pushed her muscled thighs wider apart, crouched between her legs, and divided the silky lips of her quim with the head of my cock. Grandmother groaned. I sailed my monster deep into her thoroughly moistened cavern. We began rocking together on the divan as my cock sawed in and out of her. She reached up with her hands and pulled my face close to hers. Her deep, rapid respirations mingled with my own. Her tongue flicked out of her mouth with wanton abandon and I darted my own tongue against hers. Our tongues danced together faster and faster as I thrust my cock into her more and more insistently.

Grandmother's fingers tightened in my hair and drew my mouth ontoto hers. Her throat and lips vibrated with words from some ancient, primitive language of carnal delight and, like a star bursting deep within my groin, my cock vomited forth a river of hot semination. I felt my groin pumping dram after dram of masculine fluid deep into grandmother, who was madly guzzling my tongue and lips.

Echoing the figures silhouetted on the wallpaper, I raised my head from grandmother's lips and howled a final exclamation of joy to the four walls of the room. Grandmother's fingers dug into my shoulders and she heaved her hips upward, attempting to retain my manhood within her velvety walls. I exhaled and collapsed onto grandmother, my body floating atop her pendulous breasts.

Her lips found my cheek. And, her hands roamed without license up and down my back and buttocks. Recovering my senses, I rolled onto my side and nestled on the divan next to her plush body, now mottled with crimson blushes. She cuddled me in her arms and kissed me sweetly along my cheeks and neck.

Yes, Thaddeus. I had descended well past the most atavistic and barbarian sanctions. Millenia of proscriptions and taboos lay like shattered wreckage along the path which led to this moment - - my head resting on my grandmother's breasts, my now-soft and beslimed cock draped atop her thigh, the taste of her lips and tongue lingering on mine. I felt no shame, no remorse, no perturbations of guilt. Grandmother was right. I had been released, emancipated, freed, liberated.

Nor did the occasion of my moral destruction end there. For that day continued into the night, refreshed and reinvigorated at intervals by Wen Chan's appearance with food and drink. Like a stallion roaming a verdant pasture, I sampled every square inch of grandmother's soft, snowy flesh . . . and she mine. Like some puzzle of the physical sciences, we united our bodies in every position amenable to pleasure and human anatomy. Quiet moments of sleep overcame us until my hand crept to grandmother's breast or hers advanced to my cock.

At some point near midnight, exhausted and bathed in sweat and the body's solutions, we retreated from the chamber to bathe and sleep.

I woke the next morning under the gauze canopy of grandmother's four-poster bed. Her luscious, ripe body was flung atop mine. I suffered no more dreams. Nor any doubts. Confident in my actions and trusting in grandmother's wisdom, I woke her with a long kiss upon her tender lips.

I am consigned to damnation, but I shall make a heaven of this hell!

August 15, 1899

Dear Thaddeus,

I hope this finds you well. I would have invited you to the wedding, but that of course would be impossible. You no longer exist. You see, grandmother's ministrations have finally resolved the paradox of my fragmented, confused memories of those final days in Salina. Elizabeth tempting me. My submission. And your discovery of your wife's infidelity. Of that final night and the moonlit confrontation in front of Thayer's. My return home and your retreat to your office where you were discovered the next morning - - a slug of iron delivered by your very own hand and pistol to your temple. The note found on the desk next to your shattered cranium. My father's imprecations. My mother's weeping. My acceptance of the need to flee Salina to salvage what honor I could for my family. I remember it all now. I pray for you now. I pray that you have found ultimate release from guilt and indignity.

As for me, I have found that release, and without the necessity of pistol or lead. Grandmother has served as my guide from purgatory to paradise.

After our rapturous sojourn in the secret chamber, we clung to each other through days and nights. We ascended from grandmother's bed only to bathe, change the linens, and exercise our eliminatory functions. Wen Chan and the maids served us meals and drinks there, resting the trays of meat and bread and wine on the bed and then retreating solemnly from the room.

After three days of residence in heaven, and at the end of a long afternoon of amorous play, grandmother rolled on top of me and kissed my eyes, my nose, and my lips.

"I want you for eternity," she whispered to me, dampness gathering at the corner of her eyes.

I smiled and returned her kisses.

"But you have me for eternity," I replied sleepily.

Grandmother tugged my earlobes playfully. "Even in the world of limitless pleasures, there are rituals."

Sensing my puzzlement, she continued.

"Silly. If there is holy matrimony, then according to the moral physics of the world, there must be unholy matrimony!"

Realization swept through me. I smiled.

"I request . . ." I cleared my throat sanctimoniously. "I request your hand in marriage. Will you marry me?"

Grandmother giggled and wrapped her hand around my cock.