Herbs and Spices

Herbs and Spices(louis dalton) Herbs & Spices by Louis Dalton

Business was never good. These people who dropped into my inn never had coin. To what investment is this? To none, I tell you, but of my own. Some things are quite certain in Cornwall. In this day and age of 1812, riddles and old wives tales that reach the ears of gossiping locals never forgot to mention the previous owner, Old Greg and his great oven.

Sunday. Rain drowned all life outside the cottage. Embers hissed in the fireplace, screaming skyward with rage. Heat radiated from it, warming my aged face. A crack of light shone through the curtain and illuminated the mirror opposite me. I smirked devilishly at my appearance. My fine lips had maintained their delicate shape, two curved points at the top which were slightly bigger than the bottom. The jaw line promised carnage, a stern look any gentleman of my grand age should own. After a long week of no customers, a remarkably pretty, young woman had found herself at my door. She was half drowned by the punishing rain.

"I'm going to help you in, my dear," I hissed through the icy air.

Taken back by my own politeness, the rain applauded me. I offered her a seat, towel and beverage. She had taken to the pillows in desperation. Lonely in this tomb I prayed for company, when it finally arrived I was reluctant to let it slip away.

The weather had beaten the woman, she was barely conscious when she arrived. Folding the towel underneath her naked thigh, we ascended toward the bathroom. I allowed her the chance to shiver, jaw clambering against my chest. A lost lamb a long way from home.

Hot water plummeted from my new Victorian pipework and the richest bath soaps imported from India accompanied her. The room was walled with satin silk from Persia. A rage bubbled in my blood. This ungrateful woman would feel my wrath; she was in my clutches and I was the puppet master. Why had she not begged for my sympathy? A beautiful face, yes, but what do I owe her? It did not matter.

I set her down in the bath, still listening to her feminine groans, and paced downstairs to preheat the oven. My footsteps invaded the silence of the room, only accompanied by my thundering heart. The corpse floated in an unforgiving red sea, the water pulled her down and entrapped her in the bath. I had placed the body there. I had cracked her skull against the bathroom tile and proceeded to treat her with intense care and affection.

I was fixated in euphoria and my bone riddled kitten was emotionless, unaware of the full scale war I was about to wage on her corpse. I became increasingly infatuated in the thought of being in complete and utter control over this once animate object. She was mine because I took her life, so her body belonged to me.

I held her by the hair and examined the exquisite features. My lips pressed against hers, a last hope of symmetrical romance before I released my grasp and allowed her head to fall back. I sliced her throat. Blood started to gush everywhere and splattered in my face, I tasted it, the taste of control. I wondered how long her body would stay that way, her pale, slender skin buried deep underneath the water which was now a haunting colour of chalk white. Soon her body would rot and her insides would progressively decay, but her face still glowed with beauty beyond boundaries of which I could not imagine.

I approached her thigh with extreme caution; I had to be careful not to spoil the moment. I could not wait any longer, the flesh looked so inviting. Rain tapped at the window. Strikes of lightning flashed in her eyes.