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Prologue
Adam
“WhereonearthisAlfred?” I wonder aloud. My manservant is absent on the most important day of my life, as though I should bear the burden of dressing myself.
Today, I marry Agatha, with hair like the morning sun and skin like the winter’s snow. She’s the only woman who quickens my heart and heats my bones. Just a kiss from her lips is the greatest treasure. And tonight, on our wedding night, I will be allowed to sample something even sweeter.
She has always been meant to be my wife. It’s something we’ve always dreamed about, even when we were children, glued to our mothers’ skirts, on their promenades through the town’s gardens. To fill the time, we would speak about what it would be like if we were to marry and as we grew older, what was only childish musings made way for something more mature. As soon as we became of age, I’ve been urging the time along.
This morning, I can hardly contain myself but now, my mood is ruined by my manservant’s absence. He’ll make me late for my wedding if he doesn’t appear immediately. Though, I suppose, this moment of solitude might not be a complete waste. It allows me a stolen moment with my bride-to-be, to share a kiss before the wedding. My mood has chosen to bloom again.
It is said that the groom may not lay eyes upon his bride until they’re being pronounced man and wife. But a man with my luck can afford to take these chances. That luck has awarded me access to many of life’s pleasures: Fortune, land, properties, servants, livestock and when I became of age, women who dedicated their time to a man’s pleasure. But Agatha, her lips alone are sweeter than any berries I’ve ever tasted. I can only imagine that the rest of her must be even sweeter than all the other pleasures I’ve ever held dear, combined. For her, I’m willing to trade everything if it’s ever asked of me.
We’ve had a long engagement. We’re both in our twenties, and I’ve bore the long stretches of time before now. But she has been worth the wait.
Nevertheless, I cannot be faulted for the urging and hunger in my loins as I’m aware that tonight, if heaven allows… even this afternoon, as soon as we’ve exchanged our vows, and the rings are upon our fingers, I shall claim her and her, me.
That very yearning has me hurrying into some clothing, racing through the long hallways, past the drawing room, and up the staircase, cursing it for being too far away from our bedroom door. Our bedroom. We’re soon to share one bed, and the thought thrills me. She’s been sleeping in that room for the past week and soon, I’ll join her.
There is no loud chatter of excited servants seeping out from the cracks in the door. I imagine they must have been preparing her for the day ahead, but I’m wrong. Is she still asleep? I must have woken too early. The sun is only just beginning to light the windows.
My enthusiasm gets the better of me. I’m not ashamed. I’m filled with the flutters of a heart in love and seek to make haste to make her Mrs. Molotov.
With my hand on the knob, I ready myself to greet her with soft morning kisses, to restrain myself in the process, though a mere few hours would separate us from her ruin. I’m quiet, taking my time to open the door. The image of her face lighted when she wakes up to my lips burns through me.
But like an arrow whizzing through the air and striking me in the heart, I’m shot dead. The grin that sweeps my face falls quickly away as soon as I enter. A dream so wondrous becomes a monstrous nightmare in only a few seconds.
The thick red and yellow curtains surrounding our large bed shakes. The legs creak and moan beneath the weight of her treachery. My heart crumbles, and the crash of it startles me, lighting a spark that demands release. They don’t see me watching them. Agatha and the numb scull who has stained my silk sheets with his soiled behind.
Her hair sweeps across her back and reddens, strong fingers sully her skin, pulling on her rolling waist. Shock stiffens me in the doorway, and I don’t move for quite some time. The longer I stand here, watching her betrayal, and hearing sounds I’d not been allowed to hear flowing from her lungs, the more awakened I become. A woman is nothing more than a whore. Like all the other women before.
She dresses in modern clothing to trick men who are foolish enough to love her. She lies of virtue to maintain her false honour. She is deeply evil, a jilter.
A whistling tea kettle compares naught to the heat seeping out of my pores as I keep my eyes on the ignorant fools. Like a hairy beast, I stalk toward them, silent but deadly. My bones force their way from my tightening skin when I catch a glance of the traitor beneath the woman I was soon to marry. The woman who has made a mockery of my affections, of my steadfast devotions. There is no other woman I’d ever think to marry before her and now; there will be no other woman after. They’re all unrighteous, worth nothing more than a quick lay. Fiends, all of them.
A lightning bolt strikes through me, and my hand is upon her hair. Ripping her from his body, I watch as his pink prick quivers when he catches sight of me.
“Sir!” he yells. He darts his eyes between me and Agatha who I’ve just tossed across the room, naked and folded up in a corner, holding her burning scalp.
“Sir!” Alfred backs up toward the head of the bed, but there’s nowhere else to run. “My apologies…” he starts, and I scowl at him, spitting my disgust.
“How dare you defile my bed and my betrothed,” I roar.
“Adam! Please! Forgive me,” Agatha screams from the floor. “It’s not what it looks like. We can fix this. Please, Adam…”
But through the blur of burning tears, I dare not allow to fall, else she’ll only succeed in ridiculing me more, I see nothing.
“Shut up, wench!” I yell, reaching for the naked man whose head I throw into the wooden supports.
There’s a crack, and his head swings from his shoulders.
“Adam?!” Agatha gasps. She creeps upon me silently before grabbing me around the shoulders. “Please stop!”
“You beg for him?” I ask, turning around to look at her.
His stink is all over her, the marks of him still on her skin. Her nipples are red, no doubt from the defilement of his mouth. She looks at me and becomes a stranger before me. She’s dirty, loose, and deceitful. A filthy whore. A dirty rag.
“You think me a fool, do you?” I ask, as I consider the disgrace this marriage would have brought upon me. “You seek to ridicule me? Make me a mockery to my servants?” My face burns and hardens as I close in on her. She backs up against the door until there’s no more space between us. The bones in my face knock against my teeth. My heart has been murdered, and I have nothing else to lose. She was my everything and with this, she has slain me.
