Read Obsession (9780061887079) for Free Online Page B

ORK , I would wake each morning and lie looking up at the chandelier, sun filtering through the windows, following rays as they hit prisms, my heart pounding. I placed a hand across my eyes straining to shuffle the shards of glass into a different kaleidoscope so as to divert me, postpone the torment awaiting me as I opened the drawerby my bed, knowing I would do nothing, see no one, but read and reread the letters, each time lashed into fury that Bee had known of my existence for years, while I had not known of her until the discovery of the letters.
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    A LTHOUGH ALWAYS DEVOTING an inordinate attention to her appearance, making herself look as seductive as possible for Talbot—Priscilla took brief respites from tormenting herself by looking in the mirrors lining the walls of her dressing room to reassess her body and the passion it had once provoked in Talbot.
    Reflected back—a woman with copper-burnished hair swirling into patterns as if by mild breezes, which Talbot had loved running his hand through, watching as it settledback into a nimbus of light. Her complexion translucent, and, most unusual, the same texture as the skin of her body. Her eyes (although she wished for green) were the blue of true sapphire, set rather too wide apart in a triangular face of haunting delicacy, hinting at something off-beat—something you can’t quite catch. A curious juxtaposition when devoid of makeup, her long eyelashes were jet black contrasting with the fairness of her hair, and without her having to fiddle with an eyelash curler or mascara they naturally swooped up into a sooty fringe accentuating those eyes. The nose, delicate, slightly retroussé. The lips suggesting a smile, and when it came it was as if a lightbulb had been turned on in a dark room. Priscilla dwelled on her broad shoulders curving down to the waist, imagining Talbot’s hand circling, butshe could not deny her breasts are those of a youth’s, and as he cups them they are not hers; she imagines they are Bee’s full ripeness, mocking herself as she thinks of Maja, agent who discovered Bee. She muses on another courtesan, Ninon de l’Enclos—hadn’t it been she who said, “One needs a hundred times more esprit in order to love properly than to command armies”? Priscilla thought she’d had both—bitterly she speculates on why Maja knew instinctively what would appeal to Talbot, wondering if, in Maja’s place, instead of Bee she would have promoted the plump Rowena or perhaps the shrewd Nadine? But she could not deny that the image reflected back appeared appealing—outwardly there was nothing cold or hard—only a yielding femininity that belied the coldness of her frigid heart.
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    My Darling Talbot,
    I can hardly write as tears fall on the page. But of what use? You will never read this letter. Alone now as I was when premonition of death came, I write to anchor myself to you. I was in our bedroom reading and drinking my nightly ginger herbal tea when suddenly a ghostly presence made itself apparent emerging from the gate leading into our enclosed garden, approaching, covering the room in darkness. Something terrible had happened. Later when I told Rowena and others of this event, no one gave it credulity. But I know it was true.
    The Rules—no more. This as it is the last letter I will ever write to you and so I am free to speak at last of my bitter jealousy of Priscilla, who has now once and for all claimed you. She—Wife to carry the flame of your genius. Wife to have the acclaim and respect of the world, Wife surrounded by loving friends to cosset and protect, Wife, the admiration of the life you and sheforged together. Wife and the World do not know that I even exist. The Rules you now obey are hers: continuity of order, resolve, singleness of purpose bound into day-to-day truths of the so-called real world, while The Rules you chose for us were only a game and in death have no