The Gothic Study

The Gothic Study

A Story by Delmar Cooper
"

In the 'fiction" genre by default. It skirts near Horror though. Maybe.

"

                                           The Gothic Study

 

She lay upon a couch of deeply tufted leather; leather dyed a color darker than spilled burgundy, lighter than clotted blood.  Although the air in the study was almost chilling, a thin film of perspiration formed on her back, buttocks and thighs.  This effect, more of adhesion than lubrication, held her transfixed to the smooth leather, somewhere behind her the mechanical punctuation of a pendulum clock monotonously accented the silence.

 Through slats of eyelash she saw a muraled ceiling arrayed high above her in curving panorama.  The scene, an innocent harvest festival, where frescoed nudes of fat, jolly Rubenesque proportions once reveled, was now overlaid by grime.  Decades of ill trimmed wicks and poorly laid hearth fires transfigured maidens and nymphs into hags and crones, and corrupted a naïve Saturnalia into an obscene witch’s Sabbath - a Faustian Walpurgisnacht.  The cheerful pinks and blues the artist once tinted into summer were hoar-frosted over by beady, gray-green hues she associated with lichens, or the backs of toads.

A shadow imposed across the ceiling and her eyes followed intemperately, opening perhaps a millimeter.

 “You are awake at last.” The cello voice of the shadow caster resonated in the room.

“Am I alive?”  Her voice hung in the air. “Why am I so cold?” 

“What a poor host I must seem. I am standing between you and the fire.”

            He moved to her feet, draping one arm languidly over the marble shoulders of a Greek statue, his pose a study in conviviality.

“You fell faint in the ballroom. The air is cooler here, revivifying.   I took the liberty of loosening your clothes, they are here…somewhere.”

This was the same man who had whirled her around the brilliantly lit ballroom as the phonograph hissed the waltzes of Strauss. Yet somehow he was not the same man at all.  The ballroom youthful giddiness matured in the gloom of the library. The untamed wheat straw hair was darkened by water and swept back into a semblance of order.  The ruddy athletic complexion had blanched to a scholarly pallor almost matching the bust of Athena he now adorned. 

“Why am I so weak?  I feel helpless to move, as though oppressed by some great weight.”

“Rest a bit more, your strength will certainly return soon.”  He wandered at her feet not taking his eyes from hers as though remaining in her field of vision was reassuring.

“You have done this to me.  Some drug or potion…”

“You affront me,” he said.  “How could that be true?  You touched nothing on my table; your champagne flat and untasted remains in your glass.  A good year too -shame.”  He continued to pace as might a polymath who weighs solutions but finds each wanting.  “Ah,” he said, pausing his stride.  “Perhaps I placed this drug upon my own lips.  No, that answer will not serve!  You have sampled none of my offerings.”  He smiled at own joke.

Her head moved slightly to follow him.  “Yet here I am, despite your words.  You have poisoned the very air, some mist or vapor that when breathed…”

“Rest from these speculations. What miasma could I compose that would captivate you while it invigorates me? This is no alchemy that so affects you.  Mark my word.”

“If it is not science then you work through some darker art - some necromancy that gives you this power over me.”

He looked pointedly away from her.  His splayed fingers caressed the books that lined the study walls as if all answers were hidden there.  “I too sense such a power.”  He ran a fingernail slowly down the spine of a volume of Mary Shelley.  “It is an animating force - one that cannot be resisted.”

Fluidly as water he poured his body over hers until only a shadow’s thickness separated them.  His mouth sought out the unresisting alabaster flesh of her neck.  The warmth of a long blue vein flushed under his cheek.   She felt herself levitating to meet him, levitating until only her shoulders and heels seemed to press upon the couch.

He raised himself on locked arms and looked into her, past his own reflection in her eyes.  “I am not such a fool as to believe any force of mine has brought us here.  It is you. Your power has brought us to this place.”

Her hand flew, swift as thought, and slapped him with a red sound that reverberated like gunfire though the room.  “DAMN YOU!” She screamed.

The single tear which fell from his face coursed between her breasts and finally came to rest like a diamond in the navel of a slave girl.

“Damn you.” She said.  “Damn us both.” 

Then, with fingernails raking his scalp, she pulled him down to her.

© 2021 Delmar Cooper


Author's Note

Delmar Cooper
Comments welcome

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Featured Review

Although I prefer writing that's less wordy and more to the point, I do recognize the skill and knowledge you've employed in writing this. As others have suggested, the style is reminiscent of Poe and perhaps other classic writers of the genre. With all the damning going on between them, I do hope intimacy can still have its way. If Burton and Taylor could cease eye scratching and get it on, there must be hope for these two. Excellent writing, for sure.

Posted 2 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

Delmar Cooper

2 Years Ago

Thanks for reading and your comments. It was a departure for sure.



Reviews

Okay, Delmar - you have me hooked! I'm now compelled to read more of your stories. I enjoyed this very much.
Take care - Dave

Posted 2 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

Delmar Cooper

2 Years Ago

Thanks Dave hard to get a confirmed poet to come over to the dark side and read stories. Thanks muc.. read more
Although I prefer writing that's less wordy and more to the point, I do recognize the skill and knowledge you've employed in writing this. As others have suggested, the style is reminiscent of Poe and perhaps other classic writers of the genre. With all the damning going on between them, I do hope intimacy can still have its way. If Burton and Taylor could cease eye scratching and get it on, there must be hope for these two. Excellent writing, for sure.

Posted 2 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

Delmar Cooper

2 Years Ago

Thanks for reading and your comments. It was a departure for sure.
You do a great job of developing an eerie sensation by writing in this cold & calculated way, as if the narrator is inherently evil & devious & unemotional. His creepiness drips from the page. Excellent storytelling, compelling, easy to follow (((HUGS)))

Posted 3 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

Delmar Cooper

3 Years Ago

So glad you read this story. To me it is the most nearly erotic thing I have written if only by imp.. read more
this is a great story,enjoyed it

Posted 3 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

I like stories that make use of allusions. To me, they are like intellectual spice to a verbal dish. The way you create mood is quite masterful, I think. There's enough suspense, and it can be inferred early on that he is a vampire. By the time I got to the end, I thought this was the ultimate male fantasy. :)

Posted 3 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

Delmar Cooper

3 Years Ago

In a previous give and take about some of your work we concluded that a work becomes the reader's pr.. read more
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wtp
I haven’t read Edgar Allen Poe for some years, but always loved his treatment of gothic and horror. This story brought him to mind immediately. I am less sure of why, but the Picture of Dorian Gray also came to mind. Anything I read that makes me think of Poe and Wilde is appreciated!
From the first paragraph, where the woman adheres to the couch, the writing paints clear and compelling images. I was especially intrigued by the description of the muraled ceiling, where maidens and nymphs had been transformed into hags and crones by the ravages of time. I also liked the closing image of the slave girl with a diamond in her navel.*
I liked the evolution of the two characters, where clarity dissolves into ambiguity. From the beginning, she clearly appears to be the victim. This seems certain when we learn the host has disrobed her. His familiar pose with the marble Athena seems to confirm his debauchery, as do the ominous changes in appearance between the ballroom and parlor(?).
The following passages made me wonder if my assumptions about the protagonists can be trusted, keeping me engaged. While she accuses him of drugging her, in line with my assumptions, the revelation that she has not eaten or drunk anything before fainting complicates the picture. Since she can not dispute that fact, she retreats to accusations of magic.
Magic seems to be the right answer, as her body levitates – or does it? Her heels and shoulders remain on the couch, so it is unclear which of them is lifting her body, and how. When the host reflects the charge of magic upon the incapacitated woman, she suddenly regains the ability to move (at least one limb). Evoking the image of the slave girl with the diamond in her navel calls into question who is the master and who the slave. As she strikes him, then pulls him to her, we wonder who is really in charge?
The ambiguity of your ending suits me as a reader, but I wondered if there was a deeper meaning that I am missing. There were a number of references to art: the decayed harvest festival; his familiar pose with Athena; the hiss of Strauss; and fingering the spine of Shelley. I wanted to compose these images into some deeper thought, but failed.
All in all, The Gothic Study was a fun and thought provoking read. Thanks for sharing it.

* One minor nitpick: As I picture her, arching from the couch on her shoulders and heels, I don’t see the tear rolling from between her breasts to her navel. That seems like it would be rolling uphill. If she is levitating, rather than arching under her own power, then the picture could be different and the physics could work. I am probably overthinking this one, but it was the one minor criticism I could offer…


Posted 3 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

Delmar Cooper

3 Years Ago

I really appreciate your comments about this story. Thee are a great many references to classic hor.. read more
wtp

3 Years Ago

The situation itself implicates the host, so the starting point makes her the more trustworthy. When.. read more
I liked the beginning so much! The way you describe the setting gives it a mystical atmosphere and builds a bit of suspense. It gives the whole scene a sense of macabre beauty.
Throughout the story certain questions rise, such as where is she or who is the other person? Not getting a clear answer, I think, was a bold move but it surprisingly works well with the story.
The ending was a bit disappointing. A certain sense of danger builds up and when she gives in at the end it feels rather unsatisfactory. She seemed to have a stronger fighting spirit throughout.

Posted 3 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

Delmar Cooper

3 Years Ago

Thanks for reading and taking a moment to let me know. I failed to illustrate who was dangerous in .. read more
I used to read a lot of 30s pulp horror short stories as a kid. I used to love Robert E Howard, Lovecraft, and the like. This reminds of those. Is it faulkner? F**k no, but it sure was entertaining. I value my short collections of Conan and Solomon Kane as much as I do my first editions of Rockwell Kent. I can't dig down too deep on the the mechanics of a short story because I feel I do not have the right to do so, but I can tell you I like this one a lot, even if it was meant to be campy. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Posted 6 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

Delmar -- what fun! You've left me with lots of questions, making me re-read the story for more hints, but the answers are well hidden. The suspense is taut throughout. For a moment -- when you talked about her blue vein, I thought he was a vampire, but the vein was passed up! Sensual in detail, unsettling but not in a negative way. Your deft hand has done it again!

Posted 9 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

Delmar Cooper

9 Years Ago

I am please that this was fun to read. It was fun to write also. I have for a long time believed m.. read more
"it was a dark and stormy night" ... right!?! :)
who is the vamp says i ..
must confess your story caught me ... tho i will not deliver my neck .. it is much too scrawny anyway ;)
as far as cliche's go ... i think they are well hidden for a virgin :))) its a blood trail from head to foot .. i think you had a great bit of fun writing this one .. i had fun reading!
E.

Posted 9 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

Delmar Cooper

9 Years Ago

Noodle, I had a critic here who raked me over the coals for "banal" dialogue. I couldn't disagree w.. read more
Einstein Noodle

9 Years Ago

i like it ... we all know we can never please everyone .. but thats the great thing about life after.. read more

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Added on March 13, 2014
Last Updated on May 20, 2021
Tags: Mary shelley, Frankenstein, Dracula, Stoker, Poe, Raven, Pallas Athena, Gothe, Faust., Marlowe

Author

Delmar Cooper
Delmar Cooper

Trussville, AL



About
I write- a little. I don't write to reinvent the wheel, or discover fire. I just drag along from sentence to sentence hoping for a spark. more..

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