Beautiful Freaks Read Online Free PDF

boy, Adrian ; the one they found in Shaftsbury Avenue . The crueller I was to him, the more he pursued me. He was sweet and kind but most of all he made me laugh – it had been such a long time since I’d laughed. We spent more and more of our days together, visiting the galleries, going to the opera, taking tea. Then one night, when we were walking home from the theatre he suddenly spun on his heels and stole a kiss. The moments in which we kissed were wondro us. I’ d almost forgotten what it was to share another’s breath – to feel their life force within your own body and then stop …
    Thinking there was nobody around, I circled his ice-entombed body. I had seen it too many times to still be horrified by it. Where once there had been fear, now there was just sadness and curiosity. The smog , which had disguised our tryst , had also c oncealed a witness to my crime.
    A voice cut t hrough the grey, swirling gloom. “ Fascinating! Truly fascinating.”
    It belonged to a tall , dramatically dressed woman. Her black silk skirts were flamboyantly large for her frame, which gathering from her nipped - in waist was slim. She wore a waistcoat and a black cravat in the fashion of a man. And if all of this wasn’t eccentric enough, she wore a monocle over her left eye and a small miniature top hat perched on a mess of auburn curly hair. 
    As she stepped forward I saw that she was much younger, and far prettier than the first impression suggested. I stood firm, my legs slig htly apart and my eyes hard on hers.
    “ That’s a n interesting character trait you possess,” she said as she circled the boy. It was just as if she were a patron of the arts at an opening night. “Exquisite ! P oetic , one might even say .”
    “Pardon? ” I stammered.
    She turned from the boy and fixed me with a twinkling eye and a crooked smile, “I believe I said, ‘exquisite ’ and ‘poetic,’” she paused before concluding, “Yes, really rather beautiful! ”
    I understood immediately it wasn’t the boy s he was talking about. I blushed; surprised to think that maybe she was flirting with me.
    “An abomination, you mean,” I whispered.
    “We’d better go. The theatres are closing soon and the alarm will be sounded.”
    She held out her arm and I took it.
     
    *
    We made our way through the city, coming out in the Haymarket. We passed drunks and cutthroats, prostitutes and missionaries , and each one tipped their head and greeted my companion with a knowing smile and a passing courtesy.
    When at last we stopped, I turned to her and asked, “Who are you ? ”
    She winked and smiled, “My name is Ev e. You must be Alicia. Welcome home.”

 
     
    3
    BIRTHDAYS & MYSTERIES
     
    Kaspian still lay in bed even though it was well past ten o’clock. It was the morning of his eighteenth birthday ; a Wednesday. He sighed, knowing that he ought to get up and play the part of the birthday boy, but he didn’t feel like stirring from his bed. He hadn’t slept properly in over a week ; not since he had seen the strange woman outside the church. There had been something about her that had left a haunting impression, and he was now plagued by images of her in both his daydreams and his sleep. It wasn’t an unpleasant disease as far as diseases went. One of the main symptoms was being unable to last for more than an hour without imagining her in various situations and stages of dishevelled undress. Whatever attraction there was to her, his body seemed to be quite literally going mad for it.  He smiled to himself at the thought and allowed himself at least another twenty minutes in bed – it was his birthday after all.
    A knock at the doo r broke the silence of the room and caused Kaspian to snap the covers of his sketchbook together . In a flurry of tangled sheets, he shoved the book under the lip of his mattress. Even though he was now a man, it would not be fitting for his patron to be informed that he had been caught spending his morning