Each time we kissed, I tasted the corruption.  The sickly-sweet odor of decay seemed to have woven itself playfully within the underside of every hot and thickly-panting breath my darling took.  I loved her–Lord knows I loved her!  But the death was fast upon her from the first.  In the otherworldly chill her touch possessed, even on the hottest summer days; in the cool and bloodless pallor of her cheeks; the purply-blueness of her lips; the glazed and vacant stare of her dark eyes–the death was there.    He's everywhere, of course–but usually one must look for him.  One must consciously attempt to seek him out–in wrinkles round the corners of your eyes, a gray hair by your ear, an extra cracking noise when you stretch your back.  It isn't so terrible that way.  You get used to seeing death . . . gradually. But when you're forced to stare him in the face–and his face is the face of her you love. . . God only knows  how I managed to keep from going mad.

I used to think I was in love with death–but that isn't so.  For myself,
yes.  But not for her–never for her.  She was yet too young to feel
death's presence on her own.  Still the death was there.  His claim on her was scratched across her forehead.  His mark.  Cruel and harsh, in letters bold and red. But she was beautiful–and remained so throughout the long ordeal.  Did I say long?  No, it was not so long.  The time seems longer now that it is done.  Her life was brief, her death was briefer still.  Although, I think, for her it was too long–the death, that is–or, more accurately, the process of dying.  I'd say that none should have to suffer through such pain and degradation as my love–but such must everyone endure.  Sooner or later, the death comes to us all.  A few of us–God's chosen ones–perish quickly and, one guesses, without pain.  At least without any lingering sensations of pain.  Had I known then. . . had I known the day, the hour our two lives met. . . I would have spared her spirit from the ragged days of agony to come.

She was a flower–to be plucked while in full bloom.  To be loved and be cherished for a few, fleet, halcyon days–then pressed away beyond time's withering grasp.  Had I known then, I'd have killed her in her prime.  But I didn't know.  I couldn't have imagined the unholy ravages the spectre of death would wreak upon her flesh.  I couldn't have known how very much I loved her at the start.  I was like to a greedy savage then, and would have eaten her alive if my passions went unchecked.  I savored every moment in her arms; each flick of her hair; each brush of her flesh; each heartbeat of her breast pressed to my own.  I had to have her then–fully and completely–each waking moment God and the Fates allotted me.  Had I loved her better, such things would not have come to pass.

There is an Evil force inherent in all the physical world. The Ancients
called her "Tiamat," and her name is recorded in "The Book of Dead Names".  Solomon believed that Evil dwelt within the hearts of men–but he was only partially correct.  It  is  the  very  heartbeat  of  the  universe.  The true horror lies in the all-pervasive corruption to which each thing that lives must be subject.  The world, indeed the fabric of our beings, is built upon corruption and decay.  Thus, are the world and the flesh of Evil wrought.  But the serpent Tiamat, she is the force of life itself.  It is upon her back that this great city stands.  It is her breath that was reflected in the odor of my love's.

How then, could I love her so?  Why was it that my ardor for her–and my desire!–grew more passionate, more all-consuming as the marks of her affliction grew more and more pronounced?  Each day I'd eagerly search her paling face for new signs of her illness' advance.  Our friends and family thought I did so out of worry for her.  Poor innocents!  How could they ever guess the lurid depths to which my wretched soul had fallen?  I swear I loved her more than life itself–and yet–I tell you that I looked on her with feelings less of pity than delight!  I thrilled at the appearance of each dark vein upon her forehead, arms and breast.  I was enraptured by each living bone that seemed so near to burst its veil of flesh.  Salome's legendary dance could not have enthralled me more.  You think me morbid?  Maybe so.  How can we judge of such a thing now that she's gone?

She was never more beautiful than in her death–her long and lingering, darkly glorious death.  Never was her Spirit more glowing, more alive, than in the final weeks of her disease.  I ached for her.  At times her beauty seemed so overpowering that I could not bear to look upon her face, but averted my eyes as if in the presence of an angel.  Beauty–indescribable, unimaginable beauty–radiated from her lovely, dying form.  Even at the very end when she lay in a coma, her otherworldly beauty seemed to grow.  Then would I pass long hours beside her bed.  Caressing her.  Beholding her.  Admiring her.  I'd gently wipe the sweat from off her brow, and kiss away the blood drops from her lips.

You call me fiend?  You do not know the half of it.  A love like mine was never before granted to a mortal.  I worshipped her with ever-growing fervor when other men would turn away repulsed.  How dare you call my love for her obscene!  It was obscene, but not as you would have it.  My crime lay not in the fact that I loved my wife with a husband's longing right unto the end.  Indeed I do believe this brought her
comfort–even joy.  My attentiveness to her every need and whim.  My attraction to her so obviously real.  What wife could wish for better reassurance of her husband's love at such a time?  My sin was in the selfishness of my love–in my inability to free her from her suffering with one final, merciful act.

I failed her.  I stood by and allowed her fragile body to know of more
inhuman pain than any Hell-born dæmon could inflict.  Therein lay the Evil of my deeds.  I let the black-toothed worm gnaw at her breast.  I let corruption fester in her loins.  I sacrificed her comfort to my need.  A coward–perhaps.  A weakling–decidedly.  But a fiend–nay, anything but that.  A murderer, you say?  Yes, that is what I should have been.  That act alone would have expressed a semblance of divinity in my love.  But I couldn't bear to face the consequences of such an act.  Not the legal consequences, mind you.  What were that in comparison to the irretrievable loss of she who was my life?  Even now, the pain–the sense of deprivation–is more than I can bear.  If I've managed not to take my life as yet, it is only through the expediential benefits of morphine.

And yet, was her pain any worse than mine?  Her pain was physical, nothing more.  I saw to that–however inadvertently through my increased fascination with both her and her mortality.  My pain, on the other hand, is that of the boundless and neverending torture of the Spirit.  Her toils at last are at an end.  If the human Soul transcends the physical body's death–which is doubtful–it surely is deserving of a place in Paradise.  If not, at least she's quit this horrid plane and spends the ages in a state akin to dreamless sleep.  Not so for one whose throbbing heart still cries each waking moment with unstilled desires.  For now my love for her exceeds all bounds–all sense, all reason, and all without hope.

I must be mad.  Not with despair or grief–that would be too simple.  At any rate it would never sufficiently explain my motives for helping to create the situation in the first place. No, no.  I didn't poison her.  Her illness was an act of God or fate.  One might argue that my increased devotion to her might have contributed to her wishing not to recover her health.  But as her prognosis was incurable from the outset, I cannot look on such an argument as anything other than idle and malicious speculation.  My complicity lay not in the nurishment of my lady's malady, but rather in the creation and sustenance of my own.  For I encouraged the unnatural yearnings to stir within my
innermost being.  I encouraged them, I say, to take possession of my every waking thought, full-knowing what the inevitable outcome must be.

This, I tell you, is my greatest crime.  In harboring a secret, guilty love,
I've not only destroyed my usefulness to the world at large, but turned my life into a living Hell.  A masochist, you say?  Perhaps, but I believe it stems from deeper shafts.  I can't be certain, of course,  why I knowingly chose to take this morbid path–but I suspect that there is something of self-hatred at its core.  No, not the mere hatred of my own individual personality–there's still some hope in that.  My hatred seems more of the very lifeforce itself, and my loathing more directed at the miniscule part I unwittingly play in it. Indeed, were I of a religious bent, I'd mortify my flesh as saints and monks.

Forgive me, gentle father, for I have sinned–and shall this midnight sin one final time before I bring life's sojourn to its close.  It has been, as you know, near three months since my lovely bride's demise.  Throughout which time she's lain in state, in open casket, in my family vault.  Each night after the servants have retired, I visit her within the moldering walls.  And, God forgive! I swear I love her still!  Nay father, do not turn away your face in abject horror at my godless deeds.  It isn't desecration of her corpse–but love!  Eternal love, in all its breathless splendor, which does not cease within the charnel hold but flourishes beyond life's little span.

You wed my darling to me in this life–making us one before the Lord–till death.  But the silver ties between us which you'd wrought stretch far beyond the confines of this world.  Am I to blame that death has not diminished my desire?  The very scriptures teach that flesh is weak.  Damnation?  What are threats of Hell to me?  What fate could e'er be blacker than the life I'm forced to lead?  This crystal vial I wear about my neck contains my passage from this wretched sphere.  Tonight I'll pledge my marriage vows anew, and join my love within her final bed.  There, once again, I'll press her body fast against my breast–and taste the sweet corruption from her lips.  And once the precious poison's done its work, I'll keep my place beside her at the dawn.

And in the years to come, when–if ever–the dark crypt is unsealed;
there shall our yellowed skeletons be found locked fast within one last
embrace–as man and wife–in silent testimony to our wedded bonds which even hoary death cannot negate.
 
 

Michael Pendragon is the Editor/Publisher of Penny Dreadful: Tales & Poems of Fantastic Terror and Songs of Innocence; two small press magazines of some note.  PD has published  stories & poems which received Honorable Mentions in the last two editions of Datlow's Year's Best Fantasy & Horror.

Michael's writings have been widely published (over 450 pieces in over 150 different magazines & journals).  He was twice awarded the Supreme Terror Scribe award (for short stories appearing in the first and final issues of Terror Tales, a perfect-bound, semi-pro U.K. journal).  Other publications his works have appeared/will appear in include: Enigmatic Tales, The Visionary Tongue, Strix, Fantasque, Masque Noir, Malevolence, Black Petals, Mindmares, The Catbird Seat, The Dream Zone, Saccade, Scared to Death, Gathering Darkness, At the Brink of Madness, Morbid Curiosity, Nasty Piece of Work, The Bloody Quill, Event Horizon and many others.

BJM Press recently published a collection of 10 of Michael's tales, entitled Nightscapes (look for ads for it in upcoming issues of Fangoria, Carpe Noctem and others!).  He is currently putting together an anthology entitled The Bible of Hell, (it's under consideration with a major publishing house at this time) which contains entries by many of the most respected names in both the small and large presses (including poet laureate, Robert Pinsky).  Please visit the
Michael Pendragon Website where you will find links to Penny Dreadful, Songs of Innocence, The Bible of Hell and more photos of the handsome devil himself.