The Devil’s Anatomy: A Novella
The first four chapters of a Gothic horror tale
1
THE tenth verse of the first book of Ecclesiastes embodies the futility of the dreams of man:
The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be;
and that which is done is that which shall be done:
and there is no new thing under the sun.
And the dream of Jonathan Kinski always begins the same. His folly is that he dared to change the outcome.
Jonathan’s soul glides across a pristine snow blanket as “Le Veau d’or” from Charles Gounod’s Faust resonates across the wilds of Putnam/St. Mary’s Cemetery in Greenwich, Connecticut. As the tombstones give way to a marker and its occupant, renowned New York Metropolitan opera singer Ezio Pinza, Jonathan realizes the outcome to his dream lies in the distance — within the walls of St. Joseph’s Mausoleum. As he draws closer to a stained glass window pane, his soul passes through the glass, down a chair-lined corridor that leads to a mahogany and bronze-trimmed casket surrounded by red and pink oleander floral arrangements set against a burgundy tapestry. Jonathan gazes into the casket and sees the youthful, yet ossified, thirty-something body of his beloved Barbara; she rests on pristine, snow-white bedding — the white of the bedding overwhelms Jonathan’s sight.
Before Jonathan can reach to touch her cold, stone flesh one last time, he finds himself pulled across the pristine snows once more, towards a 1931 red-brick Georgian planted in the center of the eleven pastoral acres of the Kinski Family’s Greenwich estate. As he passes through a basement window pane, he sees his thirty-something self perched over an electron microscope inside his clinical research laboratory.
As Ezio Pinza’s tale of “The Golden Calf” echoes through the lab, Salamanders and Newts live a life of luxury inside two large terrariums. Four more terrariums support floral habitats of White, Pink, Yellow, and Blue Nerium Oleanders. Four computer monitors display 3D animations for the chemical structures of Extracellular Matrix, Alpha-Neoendorphin, and Beta-Endorphins. The final monitor displays the chemical structure of the Female Endocrine Glandular System — with a map of the pineal and pituitary, thyroid and parathyroid, thymus and adrenal glands, along with the pancreas and gonads.
His eyes pressed into the scope’s optics, Jonathan adjusts, and then speaks into a fiber optics headset. “Repair mechanisms continue to reconstruct affected areas with more bone tissues. However, the ossification rates indicate a deceleration. Regeneration remains incomplete and the necrotic tissues come fibrosis.”
As Jonathan pulls away the headset, he stretches and rubs his eyes; he concentrates on a salamander’s slither as it swims to break the surface waters.
In the upper floors of the Kinski Estate, meditative, harp and wind instrument-inspired new age music fills the master bath. A vanity mirror reflects the flickers of scented candles as a twenty-something Elizabeth Kinski sips from a burgundy wine glass; her firm, silky body soaks in marble bathtub contained waters.
Off the master bath, Ana Nicols, the Kinski’s young maid, exits a walk-in closet; she places a pair of designer shoes on the floor, then smoothes over a dress on the bed in the master bedroom.
“Ana,” Elizabeth calls out from the master bath, “I’m ready to get out.”
Draped in an open robe, Elizabeth sits at the vanity and rubs lotion on her skin. Ana unravels and brushes Elizabeth’s hair, while admiring the fresh aroma and the sight of the damp, supple breasts of her mistress.
In the lower depths of the Kinski Estate, The Fall of the Rebel Angels, a painting by Hieronymus Bosch, hangs beyond the floor-to-ceiling glass partition of a personal wine cellar. Jonathan, out of his lab wears, lounges in one of two chairs at a tasting table. He peruses his prize-winning collection of 1,395 wine bottles.
In the gourmet kitchen, raw, pink salmon drops onto an antique china plate. Fresh spinach pasta cascades from a pasta maker cranked by the almost forty-something hand of the Kinski’s quintessential gentleman’s gentleman, Charles, Jonathan’s personal valet, who also serves as the estate’s butler, chauffeur, and master chef.
Beyond, in the family room adjoined to the gourmet kitchen — sets an elegant dinner set for two on the dining table.
Down in the wine cellar, Jonathan extracts an Argentinean Burgundy Syrah from the wine rack and contemplates the bottle. He picks up the phone receiver on the tasting table.
“Sir?”
“What is this evening’s dinner, Charles?”
“Grilled Salmon, along with a spinach pasta side dish in a seafood sauce and a medley of fresh vegetables.”
Jonathan hangs up the phone. He inserts the Syrah into the rack. He selects a Pinot Noir, inspects the bottle, and then walks off. He stops, turns, and pulls an additional bottle of Pinot Noir.
In the family room off the gourmet kitchen, Jonathan pokes the flames of a fire’s glow that illuminates an 18th century Flemish painting, Mother and Child with Harlequin, hung over one of the home’s eleven masonry fireplaces.
The shelves and wall decor of the family room feature Jonathan’s prized collection of Edo Period Japanese Mechanical Clocks, known as “Wadokei,” a framed assortment of stringed, antique citterns, bandoras, pandoras, and orpharions, along with rare broadsheet music. A photograph of Ezio Pinza as Mephistopheles playing a cittern in the opera Faust, along with an 1828 oil portrait reproduction by Joseph Karl Stieler of a seventy-nine-year-old Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, are displayed on a wall above a Grand Piano.
As Jonathan racks the poker, he takes a seat at the piano. He pours the Pinot Noir from a crystal decanter into a burgundy wine glass. He swirls the bowl and partakes the aroma, gulps, swishes and swallows. He beings to play “Piano Sonata №4 in E-Flat, K 282. I. Adagio” by Wolfgang Amedeus Mozart.
Elizabeth enters. She absorbs the music, kicks off her designer shoes and echappes-on-point. “Those are the hands of concert pianist, Jonathan. Not a scientist.”
“Ah, to be in Munich on tour with an enraptured audience,” replies Jonathan as he receives a neck kiss from Elizabeth. “Charles Gounod was right: ‘Before Mozart, all ambitions turn to despair.’”
“Maybe I can tempt those hands to play in the devil’s workshop, Johnny,” says Elizabeth as Jonathan’s fingers glide across the keys.
In the gourmet kitchen, Charles removes a pink cake box from the refrigerator and removes its blue and yellow-decorated, three-layer cake. Ana carries a silver service tray with two aesthetically dressed Salmon dinners from the kitchen into the dining room.
And Jonathan’s Mozart ambitions end.
Later, in the dining room, Ana removes two crumbly cake plates, set next to a partially eaten Happy Anniversary cake on the dining room table. She walks into the gourmet kitchen. She stops, then steals a peek into the family room — and gazes at Elizabeth.
Elizabeth lounges on a couch as she caresses a wooden, antique cigar box restored as a personalized Memory Box.
She opens the lid to expose a French Memo Board with theatre ticket stubs and notes tucked behind, and commemorative scholastic pins stuck in the box’s pink ribbons woven against a pink paisley cloth. She removes a small stack of photographs.
Jonathan jabs the poker into the roaring fire.
Elizabeth approaches from behind and wraps her arms around him. “I can’t remember if I was ever this young, Jonathan.” She shows him a photograph. “Besides, my legs are out of touch with the rest of my body.”
“Maybe a jump into the fire will renew you,” tempts Jonathan as he inspects the poker’s red-hot tip.
Jonathan sprawls his nude body in front of the roaring fireplace.
A nude Elizabeth kneels over his waistline, arches her spine backwards, and bounces. As she thrusts Jonathan deep inside her body, his excitement entails a blank stare at the ceiling.
Then he stares at the empty burgundy wine glass and decanter on the piano. His gaze then turns to an ornate, white closed door in the rear of the gourmet kitchen. A sexy, vibrant woman with the free will to fuck him to his heart’s desire and all Jonathan can think of is what lies beyond that ornate, white door.
In her private maid quarters, behind that white door, Ana stands in front of a vanity mirror. She caresses her breasts cupped in a red lace bra, closes her eyes and dreams of her heart’s desire.
Elizabeth rises from the tub waters into her robe. Ana admires the soapy bath waters that cascade from Elizabeth’s breasts. As Ana gazes into Elizabeth’s eyes, she gently cups her hand under Elizabeth’s breast. Ana’s hand navigates towards her mistress’s abdomen.
Elizabeth’s burgundy wine glass falls from the edge of the tub and shatters across the marble floor. The wine splatters into a five-petalled floral pattern: The Rosa Canina — a dog rose.
Elizabeth emits a moan.
Ana stares at herself in the vanity mirror. Her own hand travels below her red-laced panties. Ana moans in ecstasy.
2
CLAD in maroon silk pajamas, Jonathan stares at his reflection in a dresser mirror in the master bedroom. He pours from a decanter. He gulps his burgundy wine glass.
Adorned in a pink ballet body suit, white tights, and pink satin Pointe shoes, Elizabeth kneels on a padded base, restrained in a back stockade. Shackles secure her wrists behind, to the main spine. Shackles on her ankles connected by chains run to the back corners of the base. A pink leather blindfold encases her eyes. She kneels in silence.
Jonathan saunters to the bedroom window. He gazes at his distorted reflection and runs his finger down the icy pane. He gazes downward, onto the symmetrical patterns of the geometric box topiary gardens bisected with cobblestone pathways at the rear of the estate. Two small, leaf bare rounded trees rise from each topiary box filled with Boxwood Plants.
Jonathan returns his gaze to Elizabeth. He places the full burgundy wine glass to his waistline and positions the glass to her lips. She tries to reach out with her tongue.
Jonathan quotes Yeats’s “A Drinking Song”:
“Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That’s all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to your mouth,
I look to you, and I sigh.”
Jonathan tips the glass. Elizabeth drinks, but does not swallow. He kisses her and sucks the wine from her mouth; then spits the wine back into the glass. He sets down the glass, cleans her mouth with a deep kiss, then kisses the toe box of her Pointe shoe. “You are in your kobako, tiny dancer.”
“You are the landscaper. I am the ornament,” says Elizabeth. “Shape me, Jonathan.”
Jonathan grasps a pink muzzle to encase Elizabeth’s cheeks and chin. She moans in ecstasy as he secures the buckle; her abdominals spasm; her chest heaves. Jonathan then locks a metal collar around her neck to the stockade’s spine. He steps back and, with his hands, mimes a box around her body.
He goes to the dresser and sets a Wadokei in motion. He presses the record buttons on three tripod-mounted digital cameras that capture Elizabeth from every angle. As the Wadokei ticks, Jonathan saunters out with the glass of backwashed burgundy wine.
Elizabeth heaves to the close and lock engagement of the master bedroom door.
Jonathan breaks the seal of the ornate, white door at the rear of the gourmet kitchen.
Ana lies swaddled under white satin sheets. He kneels on the bed; his nostrils consume Ana’s aroma. He swirls the bowl, inhales the wine’s aroma, then rips away the satin sheets. He straddles Ana and gulps the burgundy wine glass dry. Jonathan retains the wine in his mouth, then kisses Ana.
She gulps. A burgundy bead drips from the meeting of their lips. The white satin sheet absorbs the fermented juices.
Upstairs, snow fall collects on a windowsill of the master bedroom where Elizabeth kneels motionless, bound against the back stockade. The three digital cameras continue to record. The Wadokei ticks away the time.
In the maid’s quarters, Jonathan stares at Ana’s breasts bounce; however, according to his eyes, the flesh drapes the body of Barbara Kinski. Vivacious and vigorous, Barbara pants and groans over Jonathan.
As Ana thrusts Jonathan up into her body, his excitement entails a blank stare at the ceiling. Then he stares at the empty wine glass on dresser.
A sexy, vibrant woman with the free will to fuck him to his heart’s desire and all Jonathan can think of is the pangs of the past.
Charles offers his assistance to the hunched, arthritic Barbara Kinski, as he escorts her from the master bathroom into the bed of the master bedroom.
“Be sure to check on Ana. Whatever she needs, Jonathan can script it. She needs to be helping me, Charles.”
“Yes, Mrs. Kinksi.”
Charles dips and twists a hand towel into the basin on the nightstand and refreshes Barbara’s skin. A medical tray with a syringe sits nearby.
“And no matter how late Elizabeth returns, please wake me, Charles. I must hear all about her recital.”
“Yes, ma’am. Doctor Kinski will be up shortly to dispense your medications.”
Barbara touches his arm. Charles cradles and kisses her crippled hand.
And the creak of key crank wound on a music box fills the master bedroom.
The lid to a pink, wooden music jewelry box opens. A clockwork ballerina springs upright and pirouettes to the tinkling of an eighteen-note movement of “Over the Rainbow” from The Wizard of Oz.
The Oz Box.
One of the many curios displayed in Elizabeth’s Doll Room — a room of forgotten tools, paints, and doll parts. Curio cabinets and shelves display collections of antique porcelain dolls, vintage Irwin and Wells Brimtoy Clockwork Dolls, along with an assortment of Mechanical Ballerinas.
On the rear walls stands a custom made, room-high mahogany chest with four 24-inch wide by 12-inch high drawers stacked two-by-two at its center. Each drawer has its own polished brass handle and engraved I.D plates with (unintelligible) names of “dolls” on them.
A pair of white-gloved hands pushes a collapsible, mortuary body transport trolley towards the mahogany chest. A white-gloved finger caresses the chest’s grain and the I.D plate for “Ana Nicols.” A cloth-encased hand clutches the handle and pulls out the drawer — to reveal a self-contained box. The gloved hands place the box onto the transport trolley.
The lid opens on the 36-inch by 24-inch by 12-inch box to reveal the ossified body parts of Ana Nicols. Her head, torso, feet, upper legs, lower legs, hands, upper arms, and forearms each set it their own compartment. The white-gloved hand caresses the waistline of Ana’s torso and lifts the body part from its compartment.
The lid to the Ox Box closes and silences its clockwork ballerina.
Jonathan stirs; springs up in bed — in the master bedroom. He turns to Elizabeth, who stirs, snuggles in and continues to sleep. Jonathan picks up a multimedia remote control from the night stand and hits play: “Someone’s Always Singing,” a 1971 ballad by Shuggie Otis fills the room; the soulful resonance awakes Elizabeth. A smile breaks across her face as she lies quietly in bed and bunches the pillow under her head. Jonathan saunters by the unbolted shackles of the unoccupied back stockade. He pulls back the drapes and exits on to the balcony.
Outside, he enjoys a light snow on his face. He stares upward at a winter rainbow set against clear, blue skies.
3
THE morning rainbow’s spectrum dances on the walls of the Calligraphy Studio on the first floor of the Kinski Estate. The studio’s curio cabinets and shelves display antique books and boxes. Pens, brushes, inks, vellums, and parchments populate a large worktable. Framed watercolors, vintage maps, European and Eastern Asian calligraphy, along with frottage and stone rubbings pepper the walls.
The blue of the clear sky that fills the window panes matches the framed gravestone rubbing of a German calligraphy transfer in blue rubbing wax on snow white paper. Topped with an encircled gothic cross medallion, and two wheat branches on the bottom, the gravestone honors the memory of a brave soldier and local hero who died for the Fatherland: Wilhelm Schroter.
Zum Andenken
Anden Krieger
Wilhelm Schroter
Gest Furs Vaterland
RIP
The bleeps of an office phone catch the attention of the studio’s proprietor. “Good Morning, E.K.S Studios. Elizabeth Kinski, speaking.”
“Elizabeth. It’s Bianka Behrami.”
“Yes. Hello, Ms. Behrami,” says Elizabeth as she removes two burgundy cloth gilt novels with patterned end papers and the title of Dead Souls in gold leaf lettering.
“Please, it’s Bianka. Did you receive the Nikolai Gogol works?”
“I’ve been assessing both volumes, replies Elizabeth. I see no problems on the detached cover board or the spine repairs. Their condition, overall, is very impressive.”
“They should be. Cost me enough.”
“An 1886, first edition English translation in original cloth gilt is exceptionally scarce. It’s quite a find, Bianka.”
“Are you familiar with the story, Elizabeth?”
“Yes. No one captures the flaws and faults of man’s mentality and character quite like Gogol.”
“I agree,” says Bianka. “Man is a silly creature of petty evils and self-satisfying vulgarity.”
“True. But we still love them,” says Elizabeth.
Bianka and Elizabeth chuckle in unison.
“Let’s just say we girls enjoy our boy-toys,” says Bianka, “and leave it at that.”
“Well, I’m really excited about this restoration.”
“I’m glad. As I said, the antiquities dealer I referenced in Germany spoke very highly of your studio’s work, Elizabeth. It’s worth the shipping cost to America.”
A fresco of clouds engulfs the high-vaulted ceiling of the dance studio inside the Kinski Estate. “Faust Symphony S. 108” by Franz Liszt fills the room.
Elizabeth Kinski completes a series of fouette turns in a bath of wintery sunlight that beams through oversized, tympana-styled windows.
In Jonathan’s study, a compact disc case for Faust Symphony by Franz Liszt, as inspired by the play Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, sits on a Bose Wave Music Center. A William Dowd 1969 model harpsichord sits in the corner next to the fireplace. A cello sets on a stand, next to a stand with sheet music. Gothic art reproductions of Francisco Goya’s and Peter Paul Rubens’s Satan Devouring his Sons, along with Jean Baptiste Greuze’s Filial Piety and Wicked Son Punished, adorn the walls.
Jonathan reenters the study in lounging wears. He thumbs a copy of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s 1774 novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther. He approaches the room-length bookshelves filled with grimoires, witchcraft books, occult literature, and antique bibles. As he slips Werther into its proper place, he pulls out a copy of Goethe’s 1805 novel, Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship. He takes a seat in a plush leather chair. A brandy decanter and snifter sits on an end table.
Upstairs, in the master bedroom, Charles packs men’s clothing into suitcases.
Meanwhile, Jonathan relaxes in the study as Liszt’s Faust fills the room. As he sips from the snifter, he now reads a red covered, 1633 edition of Poems by J.D by John Donne, with the book’s page opened to “The Flea”:
Mark but this flea,
and mark in this
How little that which thou
deny’st me is;
It sucked me first
and now sucks thee,
And in this flea
our two bloods mingled be.
Jonathan catches a glimpse of Charles in the hallway. “Are my bags ready for Germany?”
“Yes, sir,” says Charles as he pokes his head into the study.
“Do you have a favorite metaphor,” says Jonathan as he closes the book, “from John Donne’s erotic poetry and elegies, Charles?”
“‘By pictures made and marred to kill. How many ways mightst thou perform thy will.’”
“Yes. ‘Witchcraft by a Picture.’ That is a good one. But I find Donne’s comparing a flea biting two lovers, to the act of sperm mingling in the worm, quite arousing.”
“Yes, sir. I agree with your assessment of the text.”
“Could you explain why these were in your room, Charles?” Jonathan holds up a pair of pink leather split-soles ballet shoes — to Charles’s shock. “I am quite fond of this particular pair as well.” Jonathan inhales the aroma of the well-worn leather and adds, “They’re like a well-aged brandy, no?” then rises from the chair and waves the shoe under Charles’s nose. “If not for my diverting your indulgences over my late sister and mother, you’d be turning down cum-stained sheets in some flea-bag hotel.” Jonathan dangles the shoe on his fingertip. The shoe falls to the floor. “Gogol and Goethe were right. We are never satisfied. Are we, Charles?”
“No, sir. We are not.”
“There’s always that one, elusive desire,” says Jonathan as he lifts the snifter and sips, “that weighs us down like Prometheus to a rock,” and gives his valet a reassuring shoulder pat. “Don’t worry, Charles,” adds Jonathan as he slips a red flash drive into Charles’s pocket. “Just be a bit more careful in your indulgences.” With a whisper into Charles’s ear, he adds, “Remember. Our two bloods, mingled be.”
4
ELIZABETH and Jonathan walk hand-in-hand through New York City’s J.F.K International Airport. Charles keeps pace as he clutches a carry-on bag and a briefcase. They approach signage that indicates “Lufthansa Check In” with directional arrows to the First Class area.
As they approach the check-in desk at the First Class lounge, Jonathan presents his ticket to the hostess.
At the First Class bar, Charles nurses a beverage and thumbs a Wall Street Journal.
In the dining room area beyond the bar, as Jonathan and Elizabeth finish lunch, the blue and yellow tailfin logo of a Lufthansa Airbus taxis beyond a glass curtain wall. Jonathan reads a European science magazine article: “The Super Apple: Could Apple Tree in Switzerland be the Fountain of Youth?” His eye reads:
. . . derived from a rare 18th century species of apple tree, the plant stem cells of the Uttwiler Spatlauber . . .
“I need to freshen up,” interjects Elizabeth to break his concentration. “I’ll meet you in the lounge, say in five?”
Jonathan nods. As Elizabeth walks off, his iPhone illuminates. A smirk cuts across his face.
In the First Class Lounge, Charles reads a French-language newspaper. In an adjacent seat, Jonathan reads a piece of correspondence from his opened briefcase — addressed from Merck Pharmaceuticals and signed by a “Dr. Bianka Behrami.”
Jonathan’s iPhone illuminates with another pleasant text. The message inspires — Charles also takes notice — Jonathan to trade stares with Charlotte Jungen, a German Lufthansa Air Hostess, who struts through the lounge with her iPhone in hand — and winks at Jonathan.
Elizabeth, consumed in her own iPhone activities, approaches. She sits down and hooks Jonathan’s arm. “The weather reports don’t look promising, Jonathan. You think they’ll cancel the flight?”
“Good afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen,” opens the public address system with the voice of the hostess from the check-in desk. “Flight 401, with non-stop service from New York to Frankfurt, is now boarding.”
“Well, apparently not,” says Jonathan. “I’ll miss you, tiny dancer.”
Elizabeth flashes a smirk. “I won’t. I have things to keep me occupied, Johnny.”
“Just don’t hurt yourself, Beth.” They share a kiss. “Enjoy your Christmas shopping. I’ll call before I change planes to Leipzig.” Jonathan pulls a billfold from his coat. “Take good care of her, Charles.”
“Yes, sir. Of course. As always.”
“Merry Christmas, Charles,” adds Jonathan as he hands his gentleman a Saks Fifth Avenue Gift Card. “The sky’s the limit. Always within reason.”
“Yes, of course. Thank you, sir. Happy Holidays and a safe flight.”
Jonathan sleeps, tucked away in the first class cabin of the Lufthansa A380 Airbus, with the window sunscreen down and the security screen between the seats, rose.
A majestic clock tower’s distorted reflection mixes with the summertime sun onto the architecture of a blue illuminated, steel-lattice glass pyramid.
Medical professionals stride by a ground-level Merck-entrance sign to the right of the pyramid that serves as the Visitors Reception Center for Merck Pharmaceuticals in Darmstadt, Germany. Jonathan strolls by the Merck entrance sign, into the lobby.
The lobby interior boasts a promotional display in a red typeface set on a paisley background with matching pink flowers and butterflies for a female, blood anemia drug: Sangobion. Another red, pink, and pastel banner advertises the endocrine disease, growth hormone disorder medication: Saizen.
He approaches the reception desk. One receptionist answers incoming calls on a headset. A second receptionist greets in-person visitors. In perfect German, Jonathan says, “I have an appointment with Doctor Bianka Behrami.”
“Yes, Doctor Kinski,” in German, replies the in-person receptionist. “Please have a seat. I will call Doctor Behrami’s assistant.” Before the receptionist can complete her task, Jonathan’s stare turns from the pink pastels of the Saizen promotional display towards the voice of —
“Doctor Kinski.” And Jonathan’s eyes lock on a pair of firm, thirty-something, sheer-hosed legs set in stiletto heels that lead to a curve-fitting business-professional dress and long, cascading dark hair.
Jonathan stands. He tugs at his trousers to conceal his arousal.
“It is so nice to finally meet you,” says Bianka. Without warning, she strokes out Jonathan’s suit jacket breast and pins a visitor’s badge to his chest. “Welcome to Merck Pharmaceuticals.” Bianka’s intoxicating aroma causes his eyes to flutter in ecstasy.
An Audi R8 Coupe in white Ibis body paint speeds westbound along the A38 Bundesautobahn, west of the city of Markkleeberg.
Bianka jams the shifter.
Jonathan stirs from his slumber. His eyes immediately travel along Bianka’s sheer-hosed legs to the stilettos riding the accelerator and clutch.
Jonathan stares through the windshield and notices the blue and white interchange sign for Exit 31 Leipzig-Sud. Then, another sign for the B2 Bundesstrasse, appears. “Leipzig?” says Jonathan. “Uh, why are we going to Leipzig?”
“I personally see to it that all fellow wine connoisseurs and students of Goethe visit Leipzig’s best known and second oldest win bar,” replies Bianka, as she notices Jonathan’s indulgence of her legs. “Besides,” as she plays under her skirt, “I know the desires of my little Faustus. And I always look for an excuse to take an extended road trip to ride the stick and open it up.” She jams the stick shift.
Her stiletto digs into the accelerator.
Jonathan’s natural reaction: his penis shifts under his trousers in admiration of the flex of Bianka’s foot and calf muscles.
The Madler Passage. A three-story shopping arcade located in a historical shopping district along the street of Grimmaische Strasse 2. Shoppers patronage outdoor vendor booths selling wares at an art fair held along the plaza.
In a crowd, Jonathan and Bianka observe puppeteers who bestow life to German-language marionettes depicting Faust and Mephisto on a booth stage.
“Faustus, what is your desire?”
“Disclose to me what weakness you possess, Mephisto.”
“There is no weakness inside of me, my dear Faustus. By mere thought alone, I can create, a human.”
Bianka, disinterested, glances at her wristwatch. “Our table should be ready.” She takes Jonathan’s hand.
They navigate the crowd, through the Grimmaische Strasse Entrance Hall, a cavernous, three-storied structure bathed in sunlight by way of the hall’s skylight of ribbed concrete and glass that runs the length of the passage. Shoppers patronage an array of distinctive specialty shops and boutiques.
A scarlet passerine, adorned in a gown and corset, feathered headdress and mask, flaps her crimson and yellow wings in a hypnotic dance between the bronze sculptures of Mephisto and Faust and Bewitched Students — displayed on two staircase parapets. The passerine bows before Jonathan as she waves an opened wing towards the Mephisto and Faust sculpture. Jonathan cradles Bianka as he assists in their downward descent of the left master staircase that leads into Auerbach’s Keller; its stairway entrance adorned with a crimson, renaissance-style flag.
Jonathan and Bianka sit under the Faustian designs displayed inside Goethe’s Zimmer (“Cellar” for the non-German folks), a wine parlor rife with gothic, arched ceilings and two semicircular wood paintings depicting Faust Drinking with his Students and Faust Riding out the Door on a Wine Barrel. While Goethe indulges in drink, overhead —
Bianka rubs her silky, sheer-nylon foot along Jonathan’s trouser leg, nudging the cuff upward, ever so slightly.
A waiter approaches, ready to serve two bulbous flasks — with syringes attached to the necks. His arrival cues Bianka to expose her other leg outside of the table’s cloth and dangle the other stiletto to his delight.
“Doctor Behrami. So nice to see you,” says the waiter. “Your usual. Two Auerbach Witches Trunks.”
Bianka nudges a linen napkin onto the floor.
“So, your idea of a ‘usual’ is a Mephisto’s Elixir?” Jonathan removes the flask’s syringe to mix his brew.
The waiter gasps privately, enraptured by the possibilities waiting at the end of that napkin on the floor.
“It’s the only way to toast Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister,” says Bianka, as she sinks the syringe’s plunger. “May we have a more fulfilling life.”
And the waiter fulfills his desires, as he positions his nose near Bianka’s foot.
“Uh, when you’re done, Heinz?” says Bianka as Heinz enjoys the curvature of her leg. “Add a porcelain and chrome Goethe Pillbox on my bill, please.”
“I’ll bring a fresh linen, madam.”
“So, Jonathan. You’ll escort me,” says Bianka as she pops the stiletto back on her other foot under the table, “to the Paris conference in September,” and rubs the shoe’s toe box along Jonathan’s leg, “and protect me from the wolves at the wine festival in Bad Durkheim.”
“But who is protecting me from — .”
Bianka drops the stiletto under the table and pushes her stocking foot into Jonathan’s crouch. His penis shifts. A damp spot appears on his trousers.
Jonathan awakes in the First Class cabin of the Lufthansa A380 Airbus. He knocks a water bottle across the blanket and soaks his trousers. As he brushes off his pants, he presses buttons to raise the window’s sunscreen and lower the seat’s security screen.
Charlotte Jungen approaches. “Did you have a nice nap, Doctor.”
“I had a slight accident, Charlotte.”
Leaning into Jonathan to collect the damp blanket, she whispers, “Was it about me, Johnny? I give a good Christmas gift-fuck, don’t I.”
“Granting all my fantasies at twenty thousand feet, as always, Ms. Jungen.”
“I’ll get a fresh linen, Doctor.”
You can read the full eBook — also available worldwide at all eRetailers for all eReaders/platforms — at Amazon and Smashwords. You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis at his Facebook Author’s Page.
This novelization is based on the copyrighted screenplay of the same name.
