Purple Robes of Passion E-Book

anonymous

• Herausgeber: Olympia Press
• Kategorie: Erotik
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Man makes the biggest mistake of his life, trapping himself into a sexless marriage. Quick divorce follows, and the beautiful, sensual Amanda swoops in. But she's got a past that neither can escape.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Purple Robes of Passion

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

Purple Robes of Passion

Anonymous

This page copyright © 2009 Olympia Press.

CHAPTER ONE

The beautiful Amanda faithfully kept the promise she made to Christopher, for not once before he was married, did she talk to John Stafford again. Neither did the man, on his part, attempt to communicate with her. From which, it is safe to judge that John was feeling slightly ashamed of himself. He devoted the whole of his attentions to Jeanne Malin; and if ever a thought or a reminiscence of Amanda so much as edged its way into a corner of his mind, he scrupulously suffocated it, and threw the corpse as a sacrifice to that hungry monster, Conscience.

That the memory of John Stafford was not entirely banished from the beautiful Amanda's mind was proved by the fact that she sent him a wedding present. That the memory of Amanda Sedgewick was not entirely banished from his mind was proved by the fact that he did not acknowledge it.

Amanda sent her wedding present direct to John. It was a pretty bauble, noteworthy for its oddity, and succeeded, in conjunction with the note that accompanied it, in disturbing John considerably.

The present consisted of a small silver statuette of exquisite workmanship. It was modeled in the form of a young girl, standing on tip-toe, with arms out-stretched, the body leaning forward slightly. At her feet lay a cloak, apparently having just slipped from off her shoulders. The attitude of the subject conveyed the idea that she eagerly awaited the advent of her lover, who was obviously supposed to be close at hand. The lips were parted in a faint smile, while the eyes were half-shaded by the drooping lids, as though the virginal figure had already abandoned herself to the exquisite delight of the moment. The whole idea was marvelously conceived and executed by a craftsman who was a master of his trade.

Yet, withal, it was an odd sort of a gift, regarded as a wedding present. The note which accompanied it was odder still, but brief and to the point. It read:

“John, dear,

“Just a small present from Amanda. Given in the belief that your memories will enable you to derive as much pleasure from having the possession of one woman as from another....”

“Now, what the Hell,” thought John, “does Amanda mean by that?”

He held the statue before him with one hand and scratched his head with the other, but still he could not understand what it was all about.

“....Your memories will enable you to derive as much pleasure from having the possession of one woman as from another.”

Which woman? What woman?

The spectres of many women immediately flickered across the screen of his mind. To which one was Amanda referring? Not I of them, at any rate. “....The possession of one woman....” Well, the silver statue was of a woman, but what of it? How could his memories enable him to derive pleasure from possessing a thing like that?

...as from another....”

Which other?

What other?

John Stafford damned the statue, replaced it in its cardboard coffin, and buried it in the drawer where he kept his evening ties. It was some considerable while before he exhumed it and removed it elsewhere. And that silver lady was the first and only virgin who had ventured into John's bedroom and came out as such.

Although Amanda's present was out of his sight, it was definitely not out of John's mind. He could not prevent himself, at odd moments, from speculating about it. And from speculating about the giver thereof. But as each thought of her, Amanda, elbowed its way into the crowded confines of his mind, he would savagely strangle it and throw the corpse to that ventripotent monster.

The marriage between John Stafford and Jeanne Malin took place in one of the most fashionable churches in the whole of the metropolitan area. The nuptial ceremony was attended by a vast concourse of the Cream and Flower of the alleged impoverished Aristocracy, and among the congregation could be observed most of the familiar faces, male and female, which leer with such pitiful vacancy from within the pages of the rotogravure. And thus, amid these faces and the smell of cosmetics and perfume, and to the strains of “Voice That Breathed O'er Eden,” were they joined together in holy matrimony, for better or for worse, in sickness in health, in riches in poverty....

The usual remarks inseparable from such an occasion were perpetrated by the usual people. All Jeanne's friends told him he was a lucky man. All of John's friends told her that she was a lucky girl. All their mutual friends told them both together that they were lucky people. Privately, everyone said, “God help them both,” and took another glass of champagne in payment of their wedding presents. Only one guest made himself at all objectionable, and all that the garrulous old gentleman did was to resurrect a nearly-forgotten scandal, in which, unfortunately, Jeanne's mother had been involved. It had never got into the papers, nor the courts, but there it was. Jeanne Malin's mother had been a very odd woman, so people said. Very odd indeed.... And, well, that was that. Why trouble to go into details?

The bride and groom vent to Virginia Beach for the honeymoon. To hasten the journey, not unusual in procedure when on considers the average bridegroom's natural impatience, the trip was made by a chartered plane and in no time at all the happy couple found themselves alone together in the suite especially reserved for them.

John waited long enough after being installed in the rooms to permit the bell-boy to gain the corridor before taking Jeanne into his arms. She grew tense in his arms, not unusual for brides, at least a small minority, and her lips did not respond one hundred percent. He excused her on the grounds of natural modesty, and attempted the rite once more. The body in his arms grew more tense, and the lips against his, more timid.

He murmured, with all the ardent fervor of a bridegroom, “Darling, it's so good to be here together — alone. How I've yearned for this privacy — to have you all to myself...”

Jeanne pulled free from his arms and busied herself before a mirror, and her face was not lighted with the same flush of expectancy that was in her husband's.

“John, dear,” she said, “it's been such a hard day....”

Disgruntled John stared at the back of his wife's pretty head for a moment and then sat himself down in a chair near the windows. But he did not see the landscape upon which the pre-administration million or more dollars had made possible, nor the blue of the sky and the sea which God had thrown in gratis. All he saw was his own impatience and a flushed reflection of his own desires in the chilled form of his new wife of a few hours. Once again he made allowances, a typical habit with bridegrooms under similar conditions, and blamed his disappointment upon her innocence, and her modesty, and possibly her nervousness.

He murmured, “Poor darling Jeanne, it has been a hard day, hasn't it?” Which was the right remark to make according to all accepted forms, but which in no way appeased the hunger of her in his blood. She had held him aloof for so long, and she was so sweet, so pure, so innocent, and so desirable. Jeanne was like a sun-ripened southern peach, so round and firm, and so delicately colored with the matured bloom that John's fingers ached painfully for the privilege of caressing her soft outlines. The engagement period had been difficult enough, with its meager ration of timid kisses and caresses, but now he lover was fatigued with battling the urgent longings of his inner nature. No victor likes to fight after the battle is won. Likewise, no lover likes to spar, and parry, and maneuver for possession of all the spoils of love after an acknowledged surrender. And John was the winner. John, also, was tired of being the winner with the prize still an elusive will-o'-the-wisp sort of thing.

His heart sounded in his ears as he shammed an easy air of matter-of-factness when he moved towards his bride once more. Jeanne saw his reflection in the mirror and turned suddenly with her back to the dresser. Her face was expressive with anything but the ardor which typifies, or should, the impatient bride.

“Please! Oh, John dear, it has been such a difficult day — and so trying on my nerves. Can't we just be — considerate of each other?”

John was stopped in his tracks and dropped his arms from about her body, a torso that was taut with inner tenseness. Strategically, he decided to retreat gracefully and to renew the attack at a more propitious moment; after dinner, for instance. That, too, was a bore, for when once more in the suite, alone from all of the world, the condition became more trying than ever.

“Look,” he said earnestly, after several rebuffs, “we are now married, Jeanne. We are man and wife, do you understand? Why do you treat me like I am even less than a total stranger to you? Or a plague, or something?”

The bride sat stiffly within the recesses of a deep chair and stared coldly into his eyes, and there was no physical love in them.

“You're not going to be — a typical — ah, uncivilized sort, are you?” she countered, her voice trembling.

“Uncivilized?”

John kneeled at her feet and looked deep into her cold eyes.

“Yes, — I thought — you'd be different from the average man.... I thought our love — would be — on a higher plane....”

John could not have been more shocked had he touched a high-tension wire carrying thousands of volts. He sat back upon his haunches abruptly.

He said, “I — don't think I understand, darling. What are you trying to tell me?”

Jeanne dropped her eyes and stared at the pink terminals of her fingers, and by the droop of her lips he could tell that some form of an unnatural mood had possessed her.

“I think that love, that is a real love, is something divine, — holy, — so spiritual that it thrives and lives upon something more fine and beautiful than — kisses, and — lustful hands pawing all over — a person's body.” She sucked in her breath and held it for a spell, with lips trembling. “That's the kind of love I have in my heart for you, John, dear, — and I thought—I thought....”

The groom laughed deep in his throat, and a compassionate hand caressed her cold one tenderly.

“Jeanne, — darling, darling Jeanne,” he murmured gently, and with much tenderness, “of course that's the kind of love I have. All love is spiritual and holy, and all of that. But, — is there any reason why — we shouldn't share the beauties of mutual kisses, and the other forms of expression — normal for — married folk?”

Jeanne did not withdraw her hand from under his, but it still trembled at his touch, like a little frightened being.

“I know — but, I thought our love was of a higher type — than that....”

John rose to his feet, still chuckling deep within his throat, for there was nothing in his heart to make him feel that matters were hopeless, and pressed his lips to hers.

“Come, Jeanne,” he said considerately, “your nerves have got the best of you. You're tired. Let's retire and get some rest and you'll feel better about everything.”

John was sincere in his feelings over her consideration. Of course, he was frustrated and disappointed, but when a man waits until marriage and in the meantime permits himself to be satisfied with kisses, well, marriage being a lasting sort of an affair, he can console himself to a little further waiting.

They undressed in separate rooms that night.

They undressed in separate rooms every night of their honeymoon, and what was more, slept in separate rooms, too.

The honeymoon was short lived.

Jeanne Malin and John Stafford returned somewhat abruptly from their honeymoon, and arrived in New York unheralded and unannounced. In fact, it might truthfully be said that they crept back to New York, courting privacy and positively discouraging any welcoming gestures from their multitude of friends and acquaintances. For a married couple, they were a singularly glum and gloomy pair.

Jeanne Malin lay in her bed, ravishingly beautiful in pale blue silk pajamas. She stared straight ahead of her, with her gaze riveted to some vague point on the wall opposite. There was a suspicious trembling around her lips, and a vague mistiness about her eyes, which proclaimed that Jeanne Malin was almost on the verge of tears.

John Stafford was seated in an arm-chair beside the bed. He lounged thereupon, absentmindedly smoking a cigarette and staring reflectively at his wife.

For some time there had been silence between them. At last, he said, “What are we going to do about it, Jeannie?” He added somewhat inconsequentially, “After all, you are my wife....”

But still the girl said nothing. She stared right at the wall with a taut, intense look. Her thoughts were seemingly elsewhere than in that room. Miles and miles away.

“Nobody could say,” said John, “that I have tried to rush you — into anything.... We've been married over three weeks now. I love you Jeanne; you know I do. And all the while, I try to — show you — that I do.”

“Yes,” agreed Jeanne, in a tiny, trembling voice, “you have certainly done that. But only with one object in view.”

“I have been patient, Jeanne.”

“I know. But that is nothing to be proud of. Your patience, like your kisses and everything else, is only a part of your — beastly love....”

“Beastly, Jeanne?”

“Yes,” she returned passionately. “Just beastly! Nearly every loving word you have said to me, and nearly every kiss you have given me, has been for the — physical me. I want your love for myself — for the spiritual me!”

John was quiet for a few moments, pondering deeply over his wife's strange words. He was quite unable to appreciate this invisible line of demarcation which apparently meant so much to his wife.

“But, darling,” he said softly, (for after all, she was only a girl), “I love you as much spiritually as I do physically. Those two loves, with me at least, are welded together to form one. My love for you is a — complete love. The one is incomplete without the other.”

And John, although he did not know it, was echoing the substance of a conversation that the beautiful Amanda had once had with Christopher. The beautiful Amanda had long ago discovered the fact that John was now so laboriously attempting to explain to his wife. Maybe she had taught it to him; who can say?

“With me, John, that is not so. Spiritual and physical love should be separate and apart. The one should not be dirtied by the other.”

“It's all very well, Jeanne, to talk about spiritual things. But a spiritual thing must have some physical manifestation, or else we would not know that it even existed. And, anyhow, I did not marry you for lessons in spiritualism, but because I wanted a wife!”

“You beast! You cad!”

Jeanne buried her face in the pillow and cried. John looked remorsefully at the girlish shoulders that were shaking with sobs, and at the small boyish head, covered with its crop of brown curls, and he felt very, very mean indeed.

He got up and sat on the edge of the bed, placing one hand on his wife's shoulders.

“I'm sorry, Jeanne,” he whispered, “awfully sorry. Really I am. It was a rotten thing to say.”

After all, she was only a girl. He must be gentle with her.

“Take your hand away!” sobbed Jeanne. “I hate you!”

“Do — you hate me, Jeanne?” he whispered in mock sternness.

“No — not really,” sniffed Jeanne. “But you mustn't say a thing like that again.”

“I won't Jeanne, I promise you that.... Poor Jeanne, look here, we've had enough of this,” said John in contrite tones. “It's no good us going on arguing. Go to sleep darling, and forget it.”

“No, John, I shall not sleep. Nothing of the sort. For three weeks now, we have been dodging and postponing this subject. Now that we're on it, let's get done with it, once and for all. Things can't drag on like this any longer. We must come to some understanding.” Jeanne smoothed her ruffled hair with one hand, and rubbed her left eye with the knuckles of the other. “It's ridiculous, John, — it really is....”

“What more is there to say?” asked John resignedly. “You say you won't; and, well, that's that,” he added lamely.

“It is not that I won't John. It is because I — can't.” She thought for a few moments. “I must be constitutionally incapable, I suppose....”

Jeanne Malin was not quite sure what she meant but it sounded all right.

“Well, why won't you — or can't you, rather?”

“For many reasons, John. Partly because, well....”

“Go on, be frank. Don't mind me,” said John generously.

“Well, partly because I am frightened to death at the thought of having a baby. You're a man and you can't understand. It would kill me.”

“I don't see why it should,” argued John. “You're healthy enough; vulgarly healthy. And lots of other girls have had babies and live to boast about it.”

“I thought you would not be sympathetic. I don't think you have any imagination, John. As I say, you are a man, and you don't realize all that childbirth involves. The pain, the fear, the agony of it....” She sighed fretfully and all of her body revolted at the thought in a spasm of convulsion. “Especially the first time, when a girl doesn't know all that is going to happen.... The — agony, the beastliness — of it all....”

“Mmm,” mused John. “Mmm, I know. It's pretty grim. But, after all, if —that is all you are scared of, there is no reason why you — should have babies, is there?”

The girl stared at her husband thoughtfully, her tiny hands folded across her breasts. “I think,” she said slowly, “that that is the most disgusting thing about your so-called love.” Her slim fingers toyed nervously with the delicate blue fabric beneath them. “Are we animals,” she almost whispered, “that we must sacrifice all that is clean within us? Can we not I keep our bodies — inviolate?”

It was her lips that spoke, but it was her eyes that bore silent witness to the disgust she felt.

“Have you no — desires, Jeanne?”

“Desires? I? No, I have no desires.” She shook her head in solemn denial. “Thank God, I am at least above the brutes that perish in that respect!”

“But, Jeanne, we humans are only animals ourselves. Educated animals, certainly. Elevated animals, by all means. But still we are animals, with an animal's instincts and passions.”

“I have no passions.”

“Well, I don't know.... It beats me,” sighed John hopelessly. “I can't understand you.”

“No more,” retaliated Jeanne, “than I can understand you....” She fidgeted restlessly on the bed, and gazed as though hypnotized at an untidy little pile of ash which he had let fall from his cigarette to the floor. “There is such a — really tremendous difference between us, John. Fundamentally, I mean. According to my view, you ask of me something filthy that I have of got to give....”

“Probably you don't care for me that way.

“True, John, I don't!”

“Then it was a mistake for you to have married me. You picked on the wrong man Jeanne.”

“I didn't,” said Jeanne indignantly. “You picked on me.”

“You should have rejected me then, if you knew that you could never love me in the way I mean.”

“I could never love any man in the way you mean.”

“You don't know, Jeanne, Not yet, anyhow. Maybe you could. You see, you're young yet, and you have met comparatively few people. Somewhere — and you'll meet him some time — there must a fellow who could rouse feelings in you that I am apparently incapable of doing.”

“There is — no man,” replied Jeanne, shaking her head slowly, “who could do that.... You see, I have not — got those feelings.”

“You mean to say, Jeanne, that you are entirely devoid of all these feelings?”

“Yes.”

“You never feel any impulses — any passions?”

“Never!”

“God Lord!” There was a silence.

The man stared intently at the toe-caps of his red leather slippers, a ragged procession of disconnected thoughts marching leaden-footed across his mind.

That Jeanne Malin, of all people, should be like this! So pure, she always seemed to him, and so clean. But he had never dreamed that her purity and her cleanliness were that of the Arctic snows.

He contrasted her with Amanda. It was like comparing a lily with a poppy. Heavens! How well nature balanced things. If “she” laid it on too thick somewhere she left another spot bare. The law of compensation, he supposed. He had loved Amanda. Undoubtedly, he had loved Amanda. And he had also loved Jeanne Malin. What a contrast between the two! The lily and the poppy; and he'd got it all right, too. By God, he had!

He might just as well had fallen in love with a beautiful statue.... A statue! Good Lord, didn't Amanda send him a statue? A silver statue!! “Given in the belief that your memories will enable you to derive as much pleasure having the possession of one woman as from another....”

Well, he'd be damned! Amanda must have know all the time. Why, — why, — why did she not tell him? But she wouldn't; not Amanda. Just like her to keep quiet about it, and let him go and make a fool of himself as he had done.

Well, well.... He'd done it now. What a mistake! What a ghastly mistake! And what on earth could be done about it? What was there to do about it?

And all the while Jeanne Malin lay still and quiet on the bed, staring at the opposite wall. So very still and so very quiet.

“Oh, Jeanne,” cried John, and there was anguish in his voice, “why — didn't you tell me?”

“How could I know,” she replied dully, “that where my love was clean; yours was like dirt?”

“That is unjust, Jeanne.”

“It is true.”

The man paced uneasily up and down the room.

“I can't stand it,” he said nervously. “It's no good. I can't do it.” The girl made no reply, but watched him idly as he paced about before her. “I love you, Jeanne. I swear I do. But I cannot stand this daily association with you in intimate surroundings, unless....”

“There can never be — unless —, John.”

“Never?”

“Never! Never! Never!!” cried Jeanne passionately.

“Jeanne, why — didn't you tell me? Don't you see what a terrible position has arisen?”

The girl nodded. “Yes, I see.”

“What are we going to do, Jeanne? This is impossible; for me it is, at any rate.”

“You can have the marriage annulled, I believe.”

“A nullity suit? Good Lord! Surely there's some other way? There must be....”

“It is the only way out, John, for you....” The man stood still for a few seconds and peered thoughtfully at the ceiling. All the congested flood of passions dammed up in his loins, all the fire in his blood, suddenly metamorphosed to something that left him weak as water. All the beauty of their love, all the joy, and all the happiness of anticipation of love in its highest form, seemed to melt like mist in the morning sun.

He muttered, “Yes, I suppose you're right. There seems to be nothing else to do, unless,....”

“I told you, John, that there could be no — unless—.”

Despair showed in the man's face, and his body trembled fitfully.

“Oh, Jeanne, darling,” he cried in desperation.

She just looked coldly at him. “Jeanne, how do you know? How can you be sure?” He knelt beside her and placed a fevered hand upon a bare shoulder. His whisper was low and terribly, terribly sincere, “Let me — love you just once Jeanne, darling.... Let's prove to ourselves, first, that it is impossible.... I promise not to hurt you — or to let anything happen....”

Her cold eyes bored into his brain. She said, “I'd rather die — than let you — come in contact with my body — in the manner you mea [...]