The Princess and the Jester by C. Unphry
The small envelope falls from the stack of mail as I sort through the various bills and advertisements that the Postal Service thoughtfully delivers to me daily, the cheap and gaudy missives that wheedle and cajole – promising me wealth and happiness in exchange for just a little of my money (and then there are of course, the ones that demand it). Most of these are fodder for the insatiable, little grey shredder in my study. (My only house pet). But this small, black envelope upon my floor is different.
I place the motley bundle of plasticized, dead tree upon the hall table and bend to retrieve the interloper. The first thing I notice aside from its ebony color is its unusual size, a little smaller than my hand, like an A2 envelope only perfectly square. It is much heavier than I’d expected (impressively so) and upon inspection of its back-side – so to speak – I noticed it’s been sealed with blood-red wax. Into the wax a design is impressed – a kind of heraldic quincunx of four letters, L, C, P, and P surrounding a central image that I cannot make out but which appears in the dim entryway light to be a rather lovely pair of woman’s breasts. Turning the envelope over, I am surprised to find only my name, rather beautifully and delicately calligraphed in gold. There is no other marking upon the envelope – no address or postmark. No stamp and no indication from whom or where it might be.
Curious, I carry the envelope into my study and retrieve my long-disused letter-opener from the desk. I carefully and neatly pry open the envelope’s seal. The enclosure itself is lined in gold foil and the light from the desk lamp reflects off its surface bathing the little room in shimmering golden light. It reminds me of old movies where the hero opens some long- buried treasure. Inside is an embossed white card of exceptional quality, with words – apparently hand-typed on an ancient typewriter. It reads:
This is startlingly curious. Whatever could She possibly want with me? I am a relative nobody: no standing or position, possessed neither of physical beauty nor material wealth. I don’t even own anything close to formal attire. I am just a teacher. A former laborer whose scarred hands are loath even to don the tweed jacket or blue blazer my current job requires.
To be certain, I am not quite hideous. And I am clever, charming, and quick. I am also terribly wicked. Still. Why me? Yet, it seems, I have been summoned. Of course, I will obey. When a Princess beckons only a complete fool denies her.
There was much to do in the intervening week and I was kept busy with securing proper clothes and sadly, securing enough money to make the unplanned-for trip to New York. My boss offered me double hours in exchange for an advance and I eagerly accepted the offer. I would come home most nights and collapse in my bed or on the couch. I had almost no time to dwell upon the invitation by The Princess or its possible meaning. As Friday approached, I realized that I had eaten and slept little and had not even made time to masturbate for the entire week. I made a mental note to myself to make time on Saturday afternoon for all three glorious pastimes as I collapsed onto my bed.
Saturday, I was awakened by the sound of the phone ringing at quarter-passed nine and groggily picked it up – groaning my hello into the receiver. It was the tailor and his news was disastrous. There had been a fire in the night. A press had been left on and unattended and a number of items had been badly damaged. Among the casualties were my clothes for this evening. I generally acquit myself well in the face of disasters but this time I’m afraid was the exception. I swore. Curses flowed from my lips that have not yet been invented. I hated the world and held special contempt for people who leave things plugged-in. I felt miserable and sorry for myself. Then I got angry.
Nothing would keep me from tonight’s appointment. If I had to find and murder a man of my approximate size and build to get the clothes, so be it. I would find a way. I went to the tailor’s shop and told him a lie. I told him I was getting married at four o’clock and that my fiancé would surely kill me for destroying the happiest day of her life and that I would make sure she killed him too. I even wept. When you are at extremes it isn’t as hard as it sounds. That plus a little Brian Piccolo and a dash of Old Yeller equals bitter tears. The harried tailor called a friend at a formals, rental shop. They would do their best. I was on my way.
I was tired and hungry and I suddenly realized, very horny. But mostly I was determined. And it was with bleary eyes, growling stomach, and stirring cock – really, during an inseam measurement?! (the girl taking the measurement was cute) – that I procured chintzy but passable attire for the evening. I arrived home at four and devoured two apples and a hunk of Cabrales Blue – the only food in the house and then lay down with the intention of a vicious, self-inflicted orgasm followed an hour (or two) nap. I passed out the moment my head hit the pillow and slept for three hours.
I awoke just in time to shower dress and rush to 30th Street Station. Thankfully, I’d thought to buy my ticket ahead of time and as I made my way past the angel sculpture I was greeted with a train board that showed every train “Delayed”. That’s okay, I tell myself. You planned for this. You gave yourself an extra hour. Just stay calm. I feel anything but calm. I swallow panic.
I go to the bookseller’s shop to take my mind off of my predicament. I wander the aisles aimlessly searching for something that is not mass-market fluff. I find the Lit section. To my left, in the back of the store I see a girl. She is sitting on the floor. Red haired, freckled, short skirt, tank-top, legs crossed, glasses, reading. It takes a moment to register that her hand is between her legs. She is reading a book of erotic stories and rubbing herself beneath her skirt. Two things happen: I freeze. My cock springs to attention. I try not to let her see me watching her. I stare at the book spines in front of me intently while I spy upon her from the corner of my eye. O’Neill, O’Reilly, O’Shaughnessy, O’Sullivan…Oh God, did she just pull the crotch of her panties aside? I move closer. Thackeray, Thayer, Thorndike, Thurber…The fucking store smells like her sex – The slightest touch right now and I will cum and she looks to be no better off.
I turn to face her and she hunches over as her orgasm rolls through her. She is gasping. She balls up her left fist and bites down to keep from crying out. I am transfixed – turned to stone both figuratively and literally. On a scale of one to ten with ten being an orgasm, I am a nine-point-eight. She comes for another six seconds before jumping up, adjusting her panties and skirt, and placing the book of erotica back on the shelf. As she rushes past me – I am still rooted in place. She pauses. She raises her right hand still wet with her juices. She rubs my lips, my beard, my mustache and nose with her nectar. She looks thoughtful and happy – like a child who has just found out what finger-paint is for. She kisses me quickly on the lips. Her breath tastes of mint. For a moment the universe is mint and pussy. I feel light-headed. Oh, God. Nine-point-nine. I teeter there on the edge. The world is red. It’s hard to breathe. There’s a bell clanging in my head.
I finally draw a breath. The bell in my head is a train arriving. The board dispatcher calls, Train 158 – making stops in Cornwells Heights, Trenton, Princeton Junction… I ignore the rest of the list. I only care about one stop – the stop that brings me nearest The Princess: Penn Station, New York City.
I look down. Precum has soaked thru both my underwear and pants and has left a wet stain there. Suddenly, I am sixteen again – running to catch the school bus – the ridiculous, imperious thing in my pants bobbing as I hurry. It’s a bouncing baton conducting La Symphonie Érotique. It’s conducting me, just as it has for the last thirty years. It leads, I follow.
I’ll do now just what I did then – I’ll ache for release. I’ll hold my coat in front of my crotch. I’ll pray that nobody notices.
I’ll run.
The train that takes me to you is forty-five minutes late. That still leaves me twenty-one minutes to spare if all goes well. I am used to planning things. I used to plan things like a General. But that was another career – a different life.
The ride is anything but smooth and the conductor advises us that number-two track is undergoing maintenance from here to Trenton. We’ll lose about ten minutes in travel time and the ride will be a little bumpy. I have eleven minutes to spare now and the ride is excruciating. Every few seconds the car is jarred by the uneven track and the mad creature in my pants pushes and nuzzles at the bars of its cage. It doesn’t help that all I can smell is the redhead’s pussy. I am reminded of a Viagra commercial: If you have an erection lasting more than four hours, call your doctor right away. A second timer starts in my head. I try to sleep.
I awaken somewhere under the Hudson River. We’ve entered the North River Tunnel – nearly Penn Station. Miraculously, my cock is limp in my pants and I quickly think of something else so as not to awaken the creature. I check my watch. It is almost ten-thirty now. Just enough time to freshen up in the restroom before I grab a taxi. I seriously need to do some trouser-related maintenance and my face still smells like pussy. My breath tastes like middle-age and sleep. The lights of the station platforms fill the windows of the car. Nearly there.
I bathe like a Parisian whore in the station’s restroom. I splash water on my face, rinse out my mouth and drink water from my cupped, calloused hands. On my way to the cab stand, I buy a pack of mint gum. The taste of mint alone causes my cock to stir lazily.
Thankfully there are cabs on 7th Avenue (and cops) and no signs of the hustlers that like to pounce on the rubes coming into New York from the hinterlands. In my cheap tuxedo I look like a rube. Or a lounge singer. I allow myself a single glance uptown towards my beloved New York Public Library with its sentinel lions. I give the address to the driver and we make our way down 7th Avenue to 14th Street. We turn left on 14th Street and then right onto Broadway. I love coming to New York. It is simply “more” than anywhere else I have ever been. Turn left onto Houston – I wonder what you will be like. I imagine you’ll be beautiful. You always have been to me. Right onto Suffolk – less than four blocks to go now. It is 10:53 PM. My heart begins to pick up speed as I get closer to you. Go right onto Delancey and then a quick right into narrow Norfolk Street. I have arrived.
The lights of the old tenement windows are dark and there appears to be nobody around – a rarity in the city. I try the two red doors of the building. Both are locked. The only indication that I am in the right place is a white sign, hanging on the rusting gate that leads down a flight of stairs and into a forbiddingly dark and narrow alley. The sign reads, Lower East Side Toy Co. It is 10:59. Out of options, I try the gate. It creaks open like a tomb.
The city doesn’t freak me out much but this feels weird. I descend the ten stairs into the narrow alley and find it is lit by dim blue and green lights. Ahead is a plain metal door without markings or seemingly any way to open it. I knock. A moment later, a man’s voice calls out from behind the door. “Name?” Remembering the instructions on the card I say, “Cordell…” The voice cuts me off as he says, “Unphry”. He pronounces the name oddly, putting the emphasis on the second syllable – so that instead of rhyming with Humphry it almost sounds like he’s saying un-free.
The door creaks open and the tall, bald man motions for me to enter. The only area that is lit is the vestibule we’re standing in. It looks Victorian with warm wood and flock wallpaper. There are banquettes on either side of the small stairwell leading…where? He speaks to me directly for the first time, “Mr. Unphry if you would turn around sir. I will blindfold you and take you to the Princess.” “I’m not sure I like the idea of being blindfolded by a stranger”, I say hesitantly. “Mr. Unphry”, he continues, “It’s now 11:01 PM. In a minute it won’t matter what you want. You’ll be walking back out that door. So, what’s it gonna be sport, blindfold or back to the provinces?” I turn around. I fucking hate being blind!
He guides me up the six steps like I’m an invalid – counting each one as we go. I am taking an intense dislike to this man. He stops me and informs me he is going to spin me around in order to disorient me – as if I weren’t already disoriented. I am dizzy and stagger a little as he leads me by the elbow. We stop and I hear the click of a latch releasing and the sound of a door opening. We take a number of steps into the room. A woman speaks, matter-of-factly, “He’s late.” The bald man speaks now. “My fault, Princess, forgive me.” “It took me a couple of minutes to get the door.” I begin reassessing my opinion of this bald-headed man. The woman (you?) speaks again. “No matter, James, thank you.” “There will be no other guests this evening.” “Leave Mr. Unphry to me.” She says the name just the way James had said it with the odd accent on the second half of the word. I hear James’ footsteps as he walks away. I hear the door open and close with its oddly muffled click. I stand there in my rented suit with my rented smile hiding what I feel inside. After all the effort and trauma of trying to obey your simple request, the first thing I have done is disappoint you. I am indeed, late. I am crushed.
The first words you will ever speak to me are my name – my real name, Matthew. You say it like you’re singing – like there’s no better name a man could have and no word that could make you happier. I feel your hands, soft upon my cheek as you say my name. Your hands tilt my face upward. My heart leaps. You have forgiven me. You are close enough now that I feel your warmth and pick up your subtle scent – something deep and clear – like the way the air smells at sea and another, lightly floral quality I cannot place. The hem of your garment brushes against my thighs and is light as silk. I feel the beginnings of arousal and try to maintain my composure. My thoughts are interrupted as you say, “You did such a good job getting yourself here, Matthew – and after so much difficulty. I really am quite proud of you.” My mind races, How could you have known? I suppose it was my face – the part that you could see at least – that gave me away.
“Oh Matthew, my dear, smartie-boy. You always think you’re the cleverest one in the room and I suppose that’s often true. But…not always.”
“Come”, you command, clasping my hand in yours. “You’ve worked so hard to get here in order to please me.” “Let me do something to please you.” You lead me a number of steps – I am guessing, into another room. We stop and you guide me to my right with both your hands on my hips. For a moment you brush against me and my body feels an electric jolt at the touch of yours. “Why don’t you have a seat, Matthew?” – you say, pushing me downwards onto the large high-backed chair. You follow me down so that you are straddling my thighs. “I think this will please us both, very much”, you say softly into my left ear. You take my left wrist in your hands and tie it to the arm of the chair. My cock hardens in my pants. Your body feels soft and warm and your scent is stronger now. I begin breathing you in as you tie off my right wrist. “You like bondage games, don’t you, Matthew?” “Yes”, I reply. “Good”, you say, getting up from the chair taking your warmth and your scent with you and leaving me bereft of both.
A number of things will happen now. My blindfold will be lifted from me and yet I will be nearly blinded yet by the light shining in my eyes. Then I will see you. You, bathed in even brighter light – perched upon the black platform. Something like an enormous ottoman or a trundle bed dressed in soft, black leather. You are wearing black too. A sheer black chemise or babydoll or étoile – I never know what these things are called – sheer black panties and sheer black stockings – black against your pale skin – translucent like your skin and the auburn waterfall of your hair against your shoulders. I will not deign to further describe you to you – except to say that you are voluptuous. You are radiant. You are beautiful. I reach out one hand as if to touch you and am quickly reminded that I am bound in place, unable to touch that which I desire most.
My eyes begin to adjust to the brightness now and I might see (if I could see anything else but you) the mahogany mantle and fireplace behind you, the red and cream-flocked wallpaper, the tin ceiling, the big chandelier, the enormous overstuffed crimson chaises and couches – Oh, and the twenty-odd people in the room with us. Each is dressed beautifully – tastefully decorated in their own right in silks and wools and hundred other fabrics that I will never know and so never bothered to learn. I would have seen the many white, pillar-candles about the room and the bar against the back wall, as tastefully attired as the denizens of the establishment. It is a scene from another century and for me, another world.
I see all these things and see none of them. I am blind to everything but you. I feel the ache between my legs and a stronger ache, this time in my chest where my heart heaves and struggles to touch. And fails; bound there by its own set of cords. I watch the fingers of your right hand – the nails bright and red and perfect, graze over a breast and your dark eyes locked upon mine – two infinite wells that draw me into you. You say the word, “closer” and two men lift the chair I am bound upon and bring it up to your perch – your throne so that the toes of my shoes touch the platform’s base. The entire room seems to lean inwards as your hands begin exploring your body. I breathe out, audibly – part sigh, part moan, part plea as your hand slips beneath the lace to caress one gorgeous breast.
You slide towards me parting my thighs with your feet and scissoring your legs open. A hand trails over your ribs, downwards towards your belly and caresses just beneath the top of your panties. You are using your toes to tease the insides of my thighs — stroking gently – pushing them apart. Opening me. You smile and sit up for a moment and in a single movement, the chemise is floating above you and spinning and fluttering to the ground like the seed from a maple. I look at you. The blue veins beneath your white skin make a pattern in my brain that binds me to you more surely than any cord and your hands play across your breasts, your belly, and flanks as if signing a language that only another body – my body – might speak. The room quivers around us. Little movements everywhere as thighs part and hands steal furtively to secret places in pallid mimicry of your bright hands. Even my hips begin to move as if in your sway, desperate to reach you – to find the source of you.
You gesture with one elegant hand and a woman bends over me. Her hair is brassy, red, familiar. She reaches down and tugs the zipper of my pants forcefully and then delicately releases my tumid member from its confinement. She holds the shaft gently in her fingers for a moment as if considering something. Then she turns her head and smiles, a single raised eyebrow, as I look upon her face for the second time that day. Red hair, freckles, glasses, and the smell of mint.
Your hand slides into your panties and teases along your sex. You raise your hips, as do I. Around us there is sighing and the soft, scratching of fabric against fabric and skin on skin. You tease my balls and the base of my shaft with your toes. The others move towards us gathering around your throne – each one stares at you with hunger and reverence. Your hand is drawing circles over your pussy and I feel dizzy. I am like a man lost in a desert. The word “water”, escapes my parched lips and a woman tilts a cup to my lips. I drink the entire contents as though dying of thirst. “Easy honey”, I hear her say in my ear, “that’s gin.” Your scent reaches me and mixes with juniper and citrus and angelica. Around us, the stroking and caressing increases in tempo and intensity. Your moan is low and song-like and reaches my ears just as mine begins in harmony. You clasp the soles of your feet around my cock and slide them deftly over its length. In my head, the scribe of my dreams scrawls the words, and this is what silk feels like just as my hips begin to writhe and buck – just as yours do – just as every-body in our intimate, red room imitates us.
The room moans. Then there is nothing more.
∞
I awaken not knowing what time it might be or where I am but I do not open my eyes. I don’t’ want time to start again just yet. I am in a bed. It feels soft and luxurious. My body is naked and pleasantly warm and I realize I have been bathed, though I have no recollection of a bath. The room smells like you. I breathe.
I do not know what my life will be like here. I’ve no idea what you might want of me or how long I’ll be allowed to stay. I only know I belong somewhere for the first time in my life. I want to obey this need. Your need. My need. I want to live blind.
I have always been blind. It is only now at last, that I am blind of my own choosing.
A voice in my head asks a question, “Where are you?”
I answer aloud, a single word,
Home.
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