A Tautology of Tarts

In the dark, one country road much resembled another, thin black macadam streaks cutting through jungles of foliage.  To a city gal, the drooping willows and skeletal oaks seemed more spectral and threatening than any alleyway back home.  The service had never sent her out this far, and she’d already decided it was too late to keep her appointment.  It was sheer luck that she found the right road before reaching the highway back to town.

The house itself wasn’t hard to find.  Squatting ponderously behind big iron gates, the gray limestone structure looked huge even across a vast expanse of lawn.  The bars on all the windows made it seem like a prison, but then rich people were always security conscious.

    “Hi, I’m Felicity Fatale.  I’m from the out call service,” she said into the intercom set into the stone column beside the gate.

Her name was actually Marjorie Brown, but how sexy did that sound?

    “You’re very late.  I almost had to start without you,” the intercom replied.

The voice sounded old and shaky.  Felicity prayed the man was trying to be funny and wasn’t a sicko.

An electric motor swung the gate open, and Felicity started driving up to the mansion.  She noticed the lawn was pocked with mounds.  In several spots, the earth had recently been overturned.  The grounds had the unmistakable appearance of a cemetery.  Felicity would have driven right back out again if she hadn’t seen the gate close behind her.

    “They said he’d pay five hundred,” she kept telling herself.

The front door opened before Felicity knocked.  The woman standing in the threshold was a mess, smeared makeup, ratted hair, terrified eyes.

    “Thank God you got here,” the woman screamed and bolted past Felicity and down the drive.

Felicity turned to watch her.  The thought crossed her mind that she was going to end up like that.  She and the woman were two of a kind.  Both wore slinky, low cut party dresses.  Only she doesn’t fill hers out as good as me, Felicity noted.  Each had on the same sort of spiky heels.  They made the woman look comical as she ran to her car parked beside Felicity’s.

This ain’t worth it, Felicity thought and started back down the steps.

A gnarled hand gripped her wrist and stopped her.

    “I’m glad you came.  Come in.  Forget about her.  I didn’t want to have to do it with her again,” she heard a man say.

He was a real old geezer.  Felicity stared into his clouded rheumy eyes.  They were the same color blue as the tracery of veins that stood out all over his bald head.  At least he didn’t look strong enough to hurt her.  In fact, he looked too frail for sex.  What the hell, Felicity thought.   Five hundred bucks wasn’t so easy to come by for a high school dropout who’d already begun subtracting years from her real age.

Besides, the gent might be good for more.  He had to be loaded with digs like this.  The walk to the living room winded him.  They went down a long hallway lined with statuary, through a dining room big enough to seat both sides of a football team, past a poolroom, a library, a conservatory, a gymnasium and a kitchen before coming to a cavernous salon.

It was two stories tall, and tapestries and landscapes adorned each side.  Two monstrous crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, and china filled cabinets and intricately carved armoires lined the walls.  Three black leather couches formed an inner square before a massive fireplace roaring with flames from five-foot long logs.

    “Sit down, my dear.  Let me have a look at you,” the man said.

He introduced himself as Maxwell Taylor and offered her a drink of brandy.  Felicity was used to such inspections and had nothing to fear in that regard.  While she was at the far end of twenty, her chest measurements were at the far end of thirty, and her bright red dress advertised the fact.  Her skirt was slit up the side, and as she coyly crossed her legs, Mr. Taylor got a good view of what all those aerobic classes were for.

    “Sorry to have to rush, my dear, but it’s already a quarter to twelve so I’ll get right to the point.  I’ll give you a thousand dollars to make love to me right now,” Mr. Taylor said.

He was already reaching to unzip her down the back.  Up close like this, he seemed even older.

    “Not so fast, honey.  Let’s see your money first,” Felicity said pushing his hand away.

Normally, she wouldn’t be so rude, especially with so much money at stake, but the man was repulsively ancient.  He appeared to age further as he got excited.  His hands were palsied, and it was ridiculously easy to knock them away.

    “Of course, of course,” Mr. Taylor mumbled as he fumbled through his pockets.

    “Here you are,” he said while pressing a load of bills into her hand.

Then he went back to working on her dress.  This time Felicity did not resist.  In fact, after slipping the money into her purse, she began to help him.  She didn’t think he’d be able to manage on his own.  He was wheezing, and his whole body seemed to be collapsing in on itself in spasms.

    “Hurry, hurry,” she heard him pant.

Felicity wiggled out of her panties and lay back on the couch.  Mr. Taylor didn’t bother to undress, just crawled right on top of her.  For that, Felicity was grateful.  His wrinkled skull rubbing against her face was bad enough.  There wasn’t any foreplay either, and she was thankful for that as well.  She wanted the deed done as fast as possible, and it was over very quickly indeed.

Mr. Taylor rocked inside her for just a few seconds, then uttered a sharp little cry, and became a deadweight atop her.  Felicity ended up having to push him off.  Only the couch was too narrow to roll him anywhere but off onto the floor.  He lay there still, staring up at her, a glassy expression in his eyes.

    “Mister Taylor?  Max?  Honey?  Hey.  Oh my God!”

Felicity was on the floor beside him.  She pressed an ear to his chest and listened for a heartbeat.  Nothing.

    “You crazy old fool,” she shouted and started giving him mouth to mouth resuscitation.

It was more repulsive than their lovemaking.  His lips were dry and cracked, and they had a stale taste to them.

    “God, I’m going to be sick,” Felicity moaned and ran off looking for a bathroom.

She barely made it in time.  The vomiting left her feeling weak, left her feeling like…  No, that couldn’t be.  But then why was her stomach swelling?  In the full-length mirror on the door, she watched her abdomen bulge out like a balloon.  Back when she was young and foolish, Felicity had had a child.  Morning sickness had felt just like this.

    “No, it can’t be,” she said feeling the unmistakable thumping of a fetus kicking inside her belly.

Then her back did a slow slide down the mirror as gut rupturing labor contractions began.  Squatting down on the bathroom floor, she watched the baby’s head emerge in the reflection from the mirror and helped coax the little body free.  She could cry, but couldn’t deny what was in her hands.  Felicity cut the umbilical cord with a razor from the medicine cabinet, swaddled the squirming form in a towel, and laid the squalling infant in the sink to examine him.

The baby didn’t look all wrinkly, wet and unformed like a newborn.  He was cute, cuddly and already cooing.  The noise made her aware of an aching in her breasts, and she realized she was lactating.

    “All right, kiddo,” she said holding the infant to her breast.

He sucked greedily for the longest time, and when she switched him over to the other side, he gurgled something that sounded suspiciously like momma.  As she walked back out to the living room, she felt him growing heavier in her hands.  Cradling him, she sat on the sofa above the corpse of Mr. Taylor.

There was a phone on the end table beside her.  While she debated who to call and what to tell them, the baby crawled off to the far end of the couch.  At the armrest, the child hoisted itself up and stood.  When the infant turned and smiled at her, Felicity saw that hair was sprouting out of his head.  The baby slid off the couch and walked towards her.  He didn’t just look bigger because he was coming closer; he was growing while she watched.  By the time he reached the end table, he was big enough to reach up and disconnect the phone.  He took it with him as he confidently walked out of the room.

    “I’m getting the hell out of here,” Felicity said.

But the front door was locked and so was the back door and side door.  There was no way out through the windows either.  They all had bars across them.  Felicity knew because she checked every last one, and in a house this size, that took over an hour.  By the time she made it back to the living room, she was exhausted.

Her son walked in then.  He looked to be about three or four, and he was just darling in his little sailor suit.  It was already too small for him.  He’d have to change soon, or he’d burst through the fabric.  He approached her holding a glass in his hand.

    “Here mommy, drink this.  It’ll make you sleep.  You look so sleepy,” he said.

    “Sure kid, sure,” she said accepting the glass.  “Say, what am I supposed to call you?”

Felicity had no thought of naming him herself.  Now that she’d stopped lactating, she felt no responsibility towards the boy whatsoever.

    “My name’s Maxwell Taylor,” he said.

    “Well, here’s looking at you,” she said and downed the glass.

The mixture was very fast acting.  Felicity fell back on the couch.  She awoke to the sun streaming through the windows.  Her son was laying a plate of bacon and eggs in her lap.  Overnight he’d become a tall, gangly teenager.  He started filling out as she ate her eggs.

    “So, what’s going on here?”  She asked between bites.

    “No time to explain now, ma.  I got to bury dear old dad,” he replied.

Felicity watched the lad drag the old Maxwell Taylor out of the room.  Crossing to the window, she saw him carry the body out onto the lawn.  He was strong enough to lift the corpse now.  As he began digging into the grass with a shovel, she noticed muscles begin bulging through his T-shirt.  He was fast becoming a fine figure of a man.

Felicity walked out the front door and across the lawn to him.  She considered making a run for it, but the estate was fenced, and he was big enough now to catch her if she tried.

    “What are you going to do with me?”  She asked as he rolled the body into the hole he’d dug.

    “Nothing, I hope.  Say mom, do you think you could fix me up with a date for tonight?”  He asked.

He was leaning on the shovel and smiling at her.  Felicity could see laugh lines forming at the corners of his mouth, and his hairline was beginning to recede.

    “I don’t think there’s anyone I dislike that much,” Felicity said.

    “Aw come on.  Be a sport,” he said.  “I don’t want to have to make it with my own mother.”