The Little Red Chairs Read Online Free PDF Page B

along her veins, the heat just this side of burning, her insides warm and gooey and as a precaution, she uttered a quick ejaculation to her Corpus Christi and the Holy Innocents.
Sing, my tongue, the Saviour’s glory,
Of his flesh the mystery sing,
Of the blood all price exceeding
Shed by our immortal King.
When the time came to turn her over she felt happier, it was more private, away from the lights that pulsed from the orifices of the wooden gods and goddesses. Away from his eyes also, that were so penetrating. She jumped at the feel of something warm in the palm of her hand and then realised it was a stone and she met its grasp as she would that of a trusted friend. Then heplaced different ones down the length of her body, as he massaged her legs, held her ankles and gave them a quick, smart swivel in both directions.
She did not want it to end. But end it soon would, as she could tell by the diminuendo of the pressure and the stones falling away off her body, onto the bed and onto the floor. Lastly, he placed the chinks of freezing marble over her lids and the thrill of the cold penetrated to behind the eyes and to her mind itself and she felt a flash of blinding light and was transported to the ethereal. Then, from a censer, he sprinkled water over her, like raindrops, but smelling of musk, which was meant to waken her up, except she longed to linger.
He left her alone to dress. The holy chant still filtered from the four corners and all the stones that he had applied to her lay in a rugged heap.
When she paid him, she was impressed by the fact that he refused a tip and moreover, escorted her down the steep stairs to the door. There with folded hands he wished her good health: repeating the word Namaste, Namaste , until she was out of sight.
Five women were waiting for her in the coffee shop that was known as the Parlour. A rustic room with basket chairs and a slab of slate for a table, it was where locals could exhibit their drawings, or their etchings, or leave stories they had written, to be read by others. A Book Club organised by Fidelma, the draper’s wife, held their meetings there once a month.
She would tell them about the coloured lights slicing the air in the room, and the effigies of gods and goddesses and she would tell them about the sacred music, the offer of the paper panties and the marvellous splay of his hands. But she would not tell them that when she got up from that treatment bed and he hadleft the room, her energy was prodigal, a wildness such as she had not known since her youth, out in the fields when she pissed against trees, the way men did, pissed unashamedly. She would not tell them that.

Upcock
Upcock Upcock Upcock.
The beaters were flushing out the birds in the wood opposite, their cries high-pitched and faintly hysterical, coming near and far and intermittently, the sound of gunshot muffled by distance along with the joyous yelping of the hounds.
It was Fidelma’s favourite walk, a winding path by the river in the Castle grounds. The Castle with its turrets and ivied walls was a five-star hotel which attracted celebrities and regulars who came for the fishing and shooting. She could do that walk in her sleep, over the bridge, down three steps, by a sign that read Please Close the Gate and all of a sudden the sound of the river, squeezing its way under the bridge and then bursting out as it opened into a wide sweep, making its way upstream, girdling the small islands that it passed. The sound was like water bursting in childbirth, or so a woman who had had many children once told her, and she remembered it.
She loved those woods, especially in winter, trees without leaf, trunks sombre and grey, fallen boughs caught on one another and a hush, despite the roar of the river and the far-off sound and yodel of the hunters and their gillies.
It was where she could be most herself, more than in her own garden with its verbena and its roses, or in the rooms which she had so lovingly furnished,