Provocateur
Chapter 1 |
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Louis' legs hugged the sides of his horse as he flew through the clearing.
"Faster," he breathed under his breath, "Faster!" he yelled at Paul and Jamie trailing behind him. His stallion flew from a gallop into a smooth, graceful run. Leaning his head and torso against the animal's neck, he enjoyed the sense of lightness and pride he felt in the strength and speed of his magnificent steed, Satan's Thunder.
Paul and James trailed behind him.
"Your brother is quite the show off," Jamie muttered under his breath.
Jamie wished he could dig his naked feet into the slanty boned sides of his elderly horse, inducing the nag to dash out with a furious speed past Louis' champion racer. His rough hands held lightly on the horse's reins. Jamie smiled lovingly at Paul who chose to keep pace with him rather than race after his handsome, and often reckless brother.
Paul was a sturdy, white, young boy of fifteen. Jamie, who was seventeen, thought him to be something more of a spirit than a mere mortal boy.
Paul seems to be able to close his eyes and leave the world of nature and man made structures behind him for a universe which I can only vaguely imagine. A universe closed to me, so why bother speculating? Jamie, a colored boy, thought.
"What did you say?" Paul asked. His eyes had the very aspect of the sky--large, lightly blue, and reflective.
"Nothing, master Paul. Just talking to nobody but myself," Jamie replied wistfully.
Jamie's horse stumbled. Paul pulled his horse back to trot along side with Jamie. Jamie was his, his? Paul actually wasn't sure what Jamie was. He was the family mystery.
Thirteen years ago, Paul's father came back from to trip to Paris on a hot sultry summer's day. His father had been away on business. During his stay he visited with his wastrel brother Alexandre. Along with presents of fine cloths, fancy buttons, laces, silks and sewing patterns for the house slaves to make into fashionable frocks for his wife and daughter, and formal wear for his sons, Paul's father brought to Pointe du Lac four year old Jamie. Alexandre swore the child might be his. Couldn't be sure really. Alexandre asked his brother to raise him. He simply could not afford the boy's nurse any longer. The boy was giving Alexandre's poor nerves the fidgets. Marguerite, a quadroon, died in giving birth to the child in question, or her death may have been the result of her partaking of a too dangerous of a dosage of opium soon after the delivery. Marguerite, had the unenviable station in life of being Alexandre's young mistress. Due to her habit of falling in love with this and that dandy, anyone who had a purse ripe enough for the servicing of her pursuits in gambling, little gifts to herself, and trinkets, spoiled, irresponsible Alexandre wasn't particularly sure who Jamie's dear papa was.
All Alexandre knew was he had on his hands a pissing, bawling, scoundrel of a pretty boy with golden speckles in his light brown eyes, skin the color of cedar, and brown tightly curled hair tinted with blond high lights, and with an African nose and lips on his small face.
The child, by God, did seem to at least to process the de Pointe's celebrated cheek bones and pointy chins. Jamie was beautiful to his father Alexandre when his father thought to look at him which was but rarely.
Jamie having been born the child of a free woman of color, and his being at least thought of to have a possible share in the family blood should have been a free boy of color.
Louis' father,Valcount de Pointe du Lac decided the Jamie was more of a bastard than not, so he made him a house slave.
Jamie was not taught how to read, or how to do figuring with numbers. Louis' mother, Marie was scandalized by the boy's neglectful treatment by her husband who had such a tough, unsentimental view point of the world. Valmount didn't feel he had any duty to his brother's child whose blood was suspect, other than that of keeping Jamie alive and forcing him to be useful. Marie took pity on the child and made sure he was included in Paul's fencing, and art lessons along with his religious instructions Her husband with exasperated fondness considered her to be a fanciful and romantic creature in her spoiling of Jamie. To her delight Jamie turned out to have a keen talent for the harpsichord. It was his task, along with working in the kitchen, to entertain his masters after he helped serve their meals.
He was a boy who learned how to do the activities gentlemen passed their idle hours away in, along with how to spit and polish, and how to say, "Oui, monsieur, and non madam."
Rebellion often crept in Jamie's mind, he knew because of his background he was deserving of quite a lot more than slavery. His master's children by his octoroon mistress enjoyed their white father's dutiful indulgence of providing them with an education. In New Orleans a yeller boy born of a white man's mistress was educated, then went to Europe to go to a university there. He was not supposed to be a slave to so called gracious masters.
Jamie learned early how to keep his facial _expression_ servile and his comments bordering on near idiotic in the presence of Valmont When as a young boy he ever tried with a child's insolent pride to be like one of them, to look them in the eye like he used to look his father white father Alexandre in the eye. Valmont would take a strap to him, beating the insolent devil out of his hide.
Twelve year old Louis was awkwardly nice to him. As the eldest he always felt he had to please his father, emulating his ways as much as possible so he too could be a man other men admired. He only consciously differed from his father in his treatment of Jamie. After Louis came back from visiting his uncle Alexandre in Paris, Louis was more distant to Jamie. Really except for his immediate family Louis was extremely passive and cold in his relationships with other people, preferring to be adored or to go unnoticed rather than to be the one to adore anyone. Louis was not empathic about the feelings of others. As if having empathy for anyone would be too painful of an issue for him to face. After his Parisian trip, Louis had monthly occurrences of nightmares which he couldn't remember. The slaves on the plantation knew he was a man being courted by the supernatural. They rubbed their gris-gris charms to avert the evil eye they knew was on Louis. They didn't want the evil eye to take it's attention from Louis and take a good look at their own fates.
Only Paul would come to Jamie later after a beating, and put his arm around him, sharing with him his baby talk, then years later his young boy's voice, always his words were of gentle friendship and consolation. Occasionally, back when he had been a small boy, Jamie resented Paul. Wishing Paul would stay away from him after had had been whipped. He felt if Paul would stop treating him like a human being then the beatings and the ignominy of his life would hurt his feelings less and less. It would have been easier to be the faithful animal his master wanted him to be. Indeed, when he acted more like a dog than a confident child his master Valmount showed him the same gentle, but stern affection he showed all his slaves, horses, and hounds.
Rivalry between Jamie and Paul's growing devotion to Christianity cooled the warmth of their relationship. For a very long time Paul had once been the only family Jamie had in his lonely childhood. His father, Alexandre, never asked about him after he had given him up, sometimes he wondered if Alexandre hadn't actually sold him to Valmont. Families drift apart. But real love never did. He cherished Paul still, and for always.
Louis pulled up on his reins, waiting for Paul and Jamie to catch up with him He horse idly bit at the turf.
His hair is a radiant sun above his pale face, Louis thought affectionately. Too pale, he moaned inwardly. His mother and sister may have wished Paul would deign to go to balls with them; Louis would have been over joyed if only the child would go outside more and capture some of the sun's warmth into his school boy's face. His brother's face was that of a pale acolyte's who was kept cloistered and starved from nature. Louis couldn't help but feel a despotic love for the little saint Paul in his family, and he couldn't help but despise Paul a little too for his inactivity in practical manly pursuits.
A lake shimmered in the hit of the sun's rays. It laid apart from the ground seeming to be a piece of sliver heaven placed upon the earth's rude surface. Reeds moved about in the heat. Stirred up some folks would say by an invisible loving hand.
"I'm glad I talked you into being out here with me," Louis said smiling. Paul dismounted from his horse. Wiping his brow with his arm.
"I'm glad too brother," Paul said in a timid rejoinder, really wishing he was far away, banished from the roast of the merciless sun. Paul wished he was back in his oratory kneeling on the cold stone slabs of the floor, praying to his crucifix. God's eyes looking down upon him through the little wooden doll's eyes on the cross. He could feel the searching glaze of those eyes on him, like he could feel the touch of an invisible entity's lips pressed against his lips. Those lips hurt, stung him to a kind of passion which pushed him to an unfathomable sexual ecstasy of the soul. Unseen hands moist with what only could be blood from wounds left by nails, caressed Paul's chest as he relentlessly prayed and chanted. There was no sun, no blasphemous sun, the very sun Egyptians once worshipped and now various New World heathens still worshipped. There was only the Son casting a cooling glow throughout Paul's imagination in the close of darkness. He knew himself to be an object of Christ's loving sighs.
In dreams. Why does your eyes always have to look as if they are looking into a dreamscape Jamie wondered. A treasured feeling of awe ran through Jamie's heart for his master, his cousin.
Louis lounged on the ground gracefully. Louis was a stretched out feline on the grass. Paul sometimes fancied his brother had cat paws in his calf length boots rather than the feet of a mortal man.
"Paul," Louis said gently, "I would like to have your company to myself more often."
"You have my prayers," Paul said humbly. The harsh metallic shine from the lake burned Paul's eyes, forcing them to shut themselves away to the familiar shelter of darkness.
"But prayers are not enough to appease me," Louis gently coaxed, brushing his finger against Paul's face, "Paul though I appreciate the prayers you say for me, listen to me. The prayers I love most to hear is found in the lapping of water upon the earth. The drone of insects between the reeds and between the thin blades of grass. All of this, the voices of our horses, the sounds of our mother and sister, your sounds Paul, your laughter, I miss it. I miss you."
"You miss father," Paul said sympathetically.
"The prayer I miss most of all," Louis sighed, "Is the sounds of father's footsteps going down the hall. The candle he once held in his hand to light his way. His voice as always inquiring, never intrusive or threatening, always engagingly interested in our lives," Louis said sadly, "I miss my father's voice which held my father's prayers for me most of all."
Paul felt awkward, his shoulder pressed against his brother's. He wished he could tell Louis of the prayers he heard. Beautiful, musical voices petaled like roses around a core of sacred holiness. The voices alive with prayer. Saint Anthony of Egypt. His voice tiny and rasping, but so proud. Saint of solitary places, who lived on salt and bread. The saint who had a visitation from Satan himself. Satan who was dressed in the hide of a beautiful, alluring woman. A woman wearing a black wig, smelling of musk oil, Satan's man's face smiling, breasts on his chest, and his hips moist and womanly as Eve's ever were to touch. His cock hanging from his vagina like an exotic fruit to pluck. Satan's blood a seductive drink. The devil had no gender; and he had all the delights of the two genders. Saint Anthony in the desert scorned the devil's delightfulness, and the devil went away, nervously adoring the saint.
Paul heard the voice of Saint Catherine of Alexandria who resisted a pagan emperor's attentions. Her lovely virgin body was to be impaled to a spiked wheel. The spikes flew out and though they did not hunger to taste and bite into her flesh. These spikes were thirsty for the blood of pagans. They flew off the wheel into the flesh of her tormentors.
And most dear of all Saint Michael, the archangel who defeated Satan, his voice was of brass trumpets and the crash of cymbals. These Saints all caressed Paul with the sacred sacraments of their voices. Undressing Paul to be naked from his flesh, bones, and offal till he was nothing but an exposed beating heart. His bride groom, Jesus was bodiless but for his heart too. Christ's sacred heart, would come to lay by his heart on their stone floor bed.
And Christ's thorny, bleeding heart would stab itself into Paul's heart till they beat together joined as one in a song of drums, voices of saints, and trumpets.
Paul couldn't tell his brother of his visions. His brother loved him and humored him. Him and his mother. His dark haired mother, her hair pulled back from her magical face now too old to be a charm of a youthful face. Louis humored her holy water, little statues of virgins, stories of mystical saints, little charms of crosses, and rosemary sewed in green velvet pouches to ward off devils. She would regale Paul with her stories. Once upon a time Louis too would sit with her and listen to her tales of angels flying across the sky to catch the smallest hatching falling from their nest. Nothing missed the notice of angels. With time he turned completely into being his father's son. No matter she had Paul. Still, she couldn't help but resent her oldest son's contempt for her. Contempt Louis tried but could not keep hidden from her. Any more than his father could.
"I'm going in," Louis said, unbuttoning his cotton day shirt which cling to his flesh.
Paul was startled by the pale skin of his brother's chest, the pinkness of his small nipples, the way his muscles rippled, and his slender waist. Slowly, Louis pulled off his boots, stockings and breeches, he stood before Paul more sensual than Saint Anthony's devil
"I do not understand you Paul," Louis said, "How can you worship and live in the dark like a mole? Look around you my brother, you should fall into a trance glazing upon the fresh growth of indigo in the field. The small sprouts whiskering the furrows. This is God, not some abstract deity born from your hopes. You're a fool, my poor brother. Everything has mystical significance for you. Doesn't it? Everything is a sign of God for you. A branch shaking, surely it cannot be the current of the wind making it move, non, it must be the work of an an angel's hand, trying to signal to you. There is no revelations to be found in the movement of a branch, the appearance of an animal, a comet. The only meaning found in nature for man is how perfectly wonderful it is to be alive."
"How can it be so perfect when nature is so cruel? Don't you remember the dogs cornering a deer? The carnage." Paul whispered.
"Ah, but even so, it was perfect cruelty. Take off your clothes. Join me. It's hot."
"Non, I'll stay," Paul said softly, his eyes avoiding his brother's nudity. His crotch felt uncomfortable, his organ straining against the buttons of his breeches.
"Have it your way," Louis said tenderly.
Paul watched his brother wade into the water, finally once he was in waist deep Louis dived under.
He turned to Jamie who had been silently listening the whole time.
"I, you," Paul said weakly. He could feel the bake of the sun, the humidity pressing into his mind whipping it up into a state of sweltering, sinful bewilderment. He knew Jamie would probably love to join Louis in the water. Such familiarity between a slave and a master was unthinkable.
"I'd rather stay here with you," Jamie said, afraid of being heard. Before fear could warn him to stay away, Jamie's hand impulsively closed around Paul's hand. Paul quickly tried to pull away. Jamie's face was too close to Paul's. Paul felt a sanity of emotions which almost broke the spell his beloved Christ had on him
Before Jamie and Paul knew it their lips almost touched. What should have been an act of innocence was corrupted by the world. Innocence was forced to wear a mask of lies and superstitions. Their spontaneous gesture had been watched by Louis' observant green eyes.
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