The Tenth Gate
~ Part One
Corso
had always liked old libraries, and this one was just perfect, honey
coloured stone and mullioned windows set almost delicately between
the power and the folly of an ancient cathedral built as a
saint’s
shrine and a castle to hold back the Scots. The atmosphere of the
place calmed him, seeped inside him, reminding him of the time when
he wasn’t so cynical, when he would use books with joy and
pleasure
instead of just the means to hard cash.
In the reading room,
nine pictures spread on the desk, he read up on the history of
demonic appearances linked to the ancient saint. An oppressive and
dusty silence was mercilessly enforced. That pleased him. Verbal
communication had never been one of his strengths. He could talk up a
deal, of course, he could smile to increase a price when he sold, or
look saddened as he offered less than a book’s worth to a
seller.
But he liked this wordless atmosphere. He could watch the snapshots
of lives as they passed, lives laid out in frames of a storyboard,
and not have to comment, and sidestep involvement behind polite and
circumspect rules. He could glance up from his desk and see what
people didn’t think he could see- what they’re
really like.
He
liked watching people, guessing the subjects that they studied, but
he preferred to do it from afar. Today, Dean thought, there are
plenty here like me. He knew he was a book geek, and he recognised it
in others-the dishevelled clothes, the style that had passed, and in
his case the first signs of middle age’s decline. He wondered
if he
should warn them that it would lead nowhere. The older you get, he
told himself, the worse it becomes. Being no good at interactions
didn’t mean that you didn’t miss them. It was hard
to admit, even
to yourself, that you were lonely.
He watched as a few late
readers, the few students who were still here chasing deadlines,
scoured the shelves. Most of them seemed to be in friendly groups,
whispered arrangements to meet were being made, eye contact and
smiles exchanged. He felt oddly envious. A few women were amongst
them, dressed messily in what appeared to be well used and none too
clean clothes. But even these had a way of moving, he realised.
How
long had it been since Green Eyes? He sighed to himself. Far too
long. But sometimes a movement of a hip or the swell of a breast
against thin fabric reminded him. He thought of soft hair and
yielding skin, and the scent of female desire. He remembered the
touch of soft fingers. He looked at the women around him, and faded
into a daydream of lithe bodies and soft kisses. There was nothing,
he thought, nothing as attractive as the barely concealed. His
imagination worked pleasurably, stripping away the layers on the
women he saw, his imagined touches moving below, beneath, and
between, into a haze of hidden delights.
Jolting back to
reality, he realized how dreadful his expression must look. Wake up,
he told himself. What was happening to him? He couldn’t go on
like
this.
He grabbed his old green coat, threw his books into his
bag, and, threading his way through the musty corridors headed out
past the desk into the foggy winter night as the sodium lights
started to glow harsh and yellow. Get a grip, he told himself. Life
has changed. This won’t happen to you. Not again, never.
There
were times when he despaired of himself.
He stopped in the
entrance lobby as he realised his nicotine habit was screaming at
him. Fumbling through his bag and coat pockets, he drew out a
crumpled pack of Lucky Strikes. He’d been trying to cut back,
realising replacements would be hard to find here, but it looked like
he’d have to get to like the native brands. He flicked his
lighter
and inhaled deeply and hungrily, holding the smoke deep in his lungs
for as long as he could, feeling his head start to swim as the hit
reached him. He started to exhale luxuriously.
“Oh God,”
a woman’s voice sounded behind him, and he turned to see a
clatter
of falling books and a bag upended. She was bundled against the cold,
the collar of a long black coat allowing wisps of dirty blonde hair
to stray over her thin mascara blackened eyes. “Sorry,
sorry” she
was saying to the leaving readers as they dodged round her.
“Can’t
find my cigarettes.”
Dean was not a sympathetic person.
Empathy was not one of his strengths. But, his first nicotine for
hours fresh in his veins, he knew how she felt.
“Here.”
He passed her a cigarette, and flicked the lighter again. She had
brown eyes with a golden cast, tiger-like. Her wrist shook as she
steadied the flame, and he cupped his hands around hers. There was a
split second’s eye contact.
“Thank you.”
Dean
realised that he’d have to reply. God, he hated small talk of
any
sort. “That’s OK. At least we social lepers can
still smoke in
the street around here.”
“Yeah, but enjoy it while you
can. Soon they’ll ban that too. Bloody government.”
“It’s
worse where I come from.”
She looked at him again.
“American, yeah? You studying here?”
How could he explain
an afternoon spent chasing references to local witches and the devil
being the closest he got to relaxation? He was realising that she was
the first person he’d spoken to all day as she gathered her
things
and made to walk into the street. The little contact intensified the
dread of another evening’s isolation.
“Come for a drink
with me.” He couldn’t believe he’d said
it. His voice sounded
wrong, harsh, tense. Or desperate.
There was an awkward
pause. Time ran slowly as she looked him up and down, considering her
answer. He took a breath to anticipate the brush off that he
expected. He knew how this would look to her.
“Ok, but I
choose where. Not your tourist bars.”
A little later,
introductions made, he found himself in the smoky public bar of the
sort of English pub that he imagined only existed on the film sets of
Dickens adaptations. A weak fire burned against the increasing
December cold, and its smoke added to the tobacco and beer fumes that
hung in flat sheets in the stale air. The uncarpeted floor was sticky
with spilt drink and dirt from the sleety street. They sat on hard
chairs at a grubby table, coats still on. A few people looked
curiously at them. Some greeted the woman, she seemed well known
amongst charity-shop clothed, and strangely accented drinkers. She
reached into her bag for her cigarettes and pulled out a few books.
Dean was interested to see that the spine of one read A Local History
of Witchcraft.
“Is History your subject? I’d guessed at
Politics.” What a pointless comment. He was dreadful at this
sort
of situation. He ought to take classes or something. Interaction for
the socially challenged, maybe.
“No, more a kind of hobby.
Similar to you, I saw what you were reading in the library. The local
tradition of demonology. Many of us here have found that topic
interesting." So much easier, he thought as he listened to her,
to believe in the Devil than in God. "Not that I was watching
you or anything.” There was something sly about how she said
it,
but her eyes remained fixed on his. She was drawing something on the
table with a few drops of spilt wine. A circle, a star within it. A
few sweeps and swirls that could have been a foreign script. She
whispered something which didn’t sound like English, but he
couldn’t quite hear it above the conversations in the
increasingly
busy bar.
Perhaps the drink was kicking in too quickly. He
hadn’t eaten for hours, and the atmosphere was getting
thicker.
Feeling slightly sick and light-headed he heard her say “Come
back
to my flat. It’s not so far, and you can see the rest of my
books.”
He found himself following her out into the dripping cold,
the wet pavements beginning to be muffled with snow. The streets were
empty now, and she took his hand as they turned down an ancient
terrace of poorly kept houses and found a paint-peeled door.
Something was happening to him, and he shivered as he realised that
he was no longer entirely in control. He was in a strange town, he
didn’t know where, and he wasn’t sure about with
whom. Perhaps he
should run? But something about he compelled him to stay, held him
with a unspoken promise.
Inside, she threw a few logs
expertly onto the dying fire. Sparks flew, and they crackled and
hissed with blue and scarlet flame. The smell of woodsmoke welled
into the room and mixed with his tobacco. The room was dim in the
firelight, and she lit some half burned candles which lay about the
grate. Dean relaxed a little in the warmth. This seemed a fairly
normal place, as far as he could tell.
“Take off your coat,
and I’ll go and get us a drink” Her voice was
honeyed, but it
seemed more a command than a request. His unease crept back, but he
did so and, pushing away a resident sleeping cat, lay back on the
threadbare sofa and watched the fire grow. A pile of books lay
scattered on the couch, and through habit or nerves, he leafed though
one. The text was old, and described the lives of witches. The old
woodcut prints showed a face he thought was familiar. The reddish
firelight suffused the room, and the yellow eyed cat coiled itself
about his feet. This was a place where witchcraft still lives, he
realised. The crack of the wood, the incense smells, the books, the
strange and organic atmosphere were part of a world he’d come
across in his books, but until now had never experienced. The sound
of glasses and of a cork withdrawn brought him to his senses. He
turned to see her return.
She had taken off the coat, and he
saw that she was both slimmer and more curvaceous than he’d
imagined. A long black skirt of dusty velvet swayed as she moved
closer. The wine that she had tasted had reddened her lips, and her
tongue licked their corner. Again, the half-smile. He suddenly knew
that he was lost. A miasma of desire hung in the very air about her.
As she slid down next to him, she handed him a glass, and he
took an anxious mouthful. He was about to make some comment about the
books. He wasn’t ready for such closeness, even though every
part
of his being wanted her. The fear of making some clumsy mistake, of
clutching and grabbing, of not being able satisfy either himself or
her paralysed his mind. As she leaned forward, opening the deep cleft
of her unbuttoned shirt, he tensed and leant back. Her hand slid
snakelike, relentless, along the seat and onto his knee. Her mouth
was nearer, and he could feel her breath, smell her perfume, the
cloying scent of want. He could only surrender. He felt, with a gasp
of relief, the tension leave his muscles, and knew that she had
somehow given him the power to respond….
Night crept
onwards, but neither of them noticed.
********
The
cat watched silently from the hearth, as they lay, satiated,
exhausted, in the dying, flickering light.St ill holding him, she
opened her eyes. Her glass was on the floor beside them, and she
dipped her finger in the wine. Drawing on his chest, she whispered
“Some religions think that wine can turn to blood. They
took that from the witches.” Her finger shaped a damp
pentagram on
his chest, her sharp nail drawing a tiny drop on blood, and she
kissed the centre. There were a few muted words, again in a tongue he
didn’t know. He felt elated. Her words made him feel
different,
satisfied. He knew he was changed now. She had given him a
confidence, a belief in himself that had been lacking. A counterpoint
to his cynicism, a belief in the sensuous.
As she curled
close to him, he lay dazed in the dying firelight. There was a smile
on his face, This time his pleasure had been real.
“You
understand, Dean, this act is a spell: It forges the ties that
bind”
Somehow he did. He knew that he would meet her again, and
that the witch in the black dress would be both his saviour and his
downfall. He looked closely into her yellow-brown eyes, and ran his
hand over her face, and into her dirty blonde hair.
“Yes.
And I know that when you call, I’ll come. But not how or
why.”
He also knew that in the morning they would part. He would
rejoin his murky realty, and she would fade into the strange mix of
truth and legend that her history sprang from. Satiated, they lay
back on the old sofa, his hands continuing their languid journey over
her skin. She drew a cover around them and, as the embers died and
the familiar cat watched, they slept, until the grey dawn light with
both its promise of the future and its curse of leavings crept across
the room.