There are promises we make that however much we reconcile with ourselves over, that we know as soon as they are made there is a chance will be broken. Admitting to defeat has been the hardest part of this my greatest trial. I am consumed by my feelings, like a cat in yarn struggling against what I know, essentially, are self made threads. I am the detour, the risk, the deux es machina.

My father was a well to do man always. He had money. He had power. He had popularity. He had food. He had education. He had the pillars that make any man feel his worth. Later on, came the women, and then more money, more power and more popularity. To see a self made man of stone become dessicated by no apparent blow, at least to mine eye, is what ignited intuition and rose my suspicions, why I spied. My Father had everything to lose and yet everything to gain. Why lose it all and put himself in a position where he would be forced to be poor, powerless and unpopular. To be hungry and feeling a fool. It was as simple as that.

My Family has never had complex ties. We were all transparent with one another. It was a loving but honest and disciplined house hold.

To stand by a vine clustered wall on a suitably stormy night and overhear my Father gambling with the devil is when the chains that bind a Father and Daughter, those solid, heavy locks, was to rust our relationship in the first place. To be lied to, and exploited, was what shook them, and almost broke them.

Gaul was sudden. In everything he did. Long hipped, sullen eyed, in his shadow I am swallowed up in a melancholia, in a desire. I close my eyes in his kiss and see rain and dark fields. He has me drunk.
He climbed over all my reservations and promised me forever. And not in some romantic, wistful sense, but in the red dawn of all our tomorrows. He is my driver, and I am his employer. But behind this fa?ade I am just a little woman without fingerprints to leave anywhere any more, without a fragrance that is of my skin, something to identify me to the world as September. I am just his. All over and underneath. And I am only half certain as to what that means.

I sold the Moornigne Coast pockets to Mr. Grey for $1000.

It was done without reckoning, but the wax has set and the ink has dried and the missive has been sent and there is no going back.

Nothing is as it seems. And there is no going back.

The kitchen groans beneath the floorboards when I turn the tap. The wallpaper is peeling in the bathroom.

I began to go through the papers left behind by the deceased resident. Threw everything into the fireplace to give some warmth to the wide lounge area. I began to remove the hyacinths and carnations of the funeral from the the bedroom; the sickly sweet scent of decay was making me nauseus every time I tried to sleep, and seemed to compliment the grotesque and alarming site in my memory from the night before. In the bed I never feel relaxed. I?m worried about the faceless voices outside. I'm worried about the tea shoppe and any witnesses.

Gaul took my hand in the afternoon, timing himself to the streak of violet across the sky shaded with thunder, and led me out into the garden to where we didn't show our shadows anymore, and stood over me to snap a rose from the browned stem, and draw it under my nose. He said to learn the smell of these exquisite, fragile pieces of Life, and to commit them to memory. To touch and taste and listen more eagerly than I have before, to Experience so to the utmost of pleasure and pain.

I was bewildered, as I twirled the bud below my chin.

How could I forget the smell of a rose?

In a fortnight I am to head by the way of the steamy south to meet with the great, great grand son of Johnny, the notorious fiddler of lyric and lore, who put Yale to shame. Johnny the Third said he wants to help.

I wonder if he is as mean with the strings as his mythicized forefather.

I awoke at the Inn. I sat up from my sprawl and looked across the bed to my driver, who awake before me, which was of no surprise, nursing one of his cigarettes. We fell asleep quickly the night before, inebriated with mixed emotions, lethal as mixed drinks. The unsettling feelings of my new knowledge and prominent fear no longer swimming darkly in me, I accepted a puff of the smoke and watched the clouds pass outside. They were in messy formations, more wisp than white. I took a shower and we ate breakfast and were on our way.

I decided in the garden during the afternoon while I wandered amongst the statues that I would move us from this crypt familiar house with all its funereal reminders, and base us at the seaside residence where I had all we needed awaiting us, and more. It would give us a quicker access to the road and more anonymity. Where we were was too close to be of comfort. And for as shadowy as our lives had become, especially with a near dead girl in our care, the sea would be an escape for our senses.

Sweat and blood make one horrible smell. Sun lowers on the right side of the wrong bend and I light matches for something to do by an old tree. Watch the cars pass. Who will be kind enough to slow down and walk over. See, the bonnet of my car has fumes rising from it. Someone should oblige me. See, I know someone ought to think I'm a poor old man in a good suit troubled by bad luck on his way to a funeral. Buick's only just been shined.

I love the part the most where they don't know it's their own dirge they'll be hearing on the way to it, in the boot.

Ah, there we go. Mother of two boys...

Early this mornin' when you knocked upon my door.
Early this mornin' when you knocked upon my door.
And I said Hello, Satan, I believe it's time to go.
Me and the Devil was walkin' side by side.
Me and the Devil, ooo, was walkin' side by side.


Yale's arrived. I can smell him. I see him between the time my eyelashes fall and rise. He's the sunrise and sunset of my cause.

I once heard that when there's a sun shower it's the devil beating his wife. I never did ask Yale. There will be a time and place, won't there.


The woman with the derby hat I see a bit said to me that fire smells like nothing. Smoke is the scent of fire. But fire does smell. It smells of fresh cologne and whiskey breath. I've walked alongside the devil too many times to not recognise it.

I can't sleep tonight.

I feel so unlike myself.

I'm beside myself..

Laylanie, I hope that she is okay.

Cast shadows through the day
And swing the night and come with me.
There's nothing to believe in here
So just believe in me.
Your sense of apprehension suits you,
You wear troubles well.
I've nothing left to hide from you,
I've got no God to sell.
Just put your hand in mine,
Then cast your doubts aside.


We can hide away for days,
Pretend the world has ended.
No more drama, no more pain.
Pretend the world has ended.
We can run away tonight,
Pretend the world has ended.
No matter what they say we'll work out fine,
Cause you and I know this is heaven.


Hungry eyes that look like lust.

You feel but you can't trust.

Time disappears inside you,
'Till there's nothing left but us.


{Breathe in, breathe out. Take your time, you got all of it.}

She takes him up the stairs that wend like beanstalk branches in the ruins of the mansion. Crumbled stone, last vestiges of a once grand court. His breaths making her turn and almost fall down the flight, pressing him into the brick and kissing him madly.


I have a sequin for an eye
Pick a rose and hide my face
This is a bandit's life
It comes and goes and mends the breaks
Under a molten sky, beyond the road, we lie in wait
You think they know us now?
Wait 'til the stars come out..
You'll see that
Well, I made you and now I take you back
It's too late but today I can define the lack

I made you and now I take you back

{Take your mind off what it is. If it feels good, just do it}

She's unsure about this. So much could go wrong. But he didn't have matches, or silver or stake.

She sinks her teeth into the skin, pushed up against the wall, nails running down, eyes misted with the purple of crushed grapes and skylines at twilight. He bites at her neck, a lovers kiss, but she takes his life, she takes, she takes, and she takes...
until he is limp and dear against her waist, clutching on, somewhere between pain and pleasure, heaven and hell.


Tears and blood fall from her face. Taking his own in her cold hands she crouches before him, forehead to forehead on the spiral stairs, and tells him it is okay. She's full now. She's full. Blood apple. And she feels Lost, in this delapidated Eden. In the courtyard beneath the arch the Devil stands in his faded tuxedo with a cigar. Whistling.

She's shushing the man, holding his head to her chest, he kisses her, despite what she has done, and runs his fingers through the lengths of her hair, curtains of curls, hiding in them from the world, his wound and his terror and his lust.

"What are you?"


Blinkingly, still, she stares at the man. His crinkled shirt, his ice blue eyes.

"I don't know"


The whistle grabs her attention. She looks over the fallen granite and pulls herself up against it, letting the body roll away. It's agony up here, she thinks. But she feels good. She's full, 'I'm full", "You're full, Kid. Bad as me", says The Devil.

"Never" she answers, and flees. Guilt and shame and wanton. Best she not take the route back into town, so she heads for the seaside, and there, throws herself into the waters, running until it is up to her waist, and screams, splashing the water. Crying.


The Devil watches from the dark side of the moon. He shrugs and takes his leave; into buick and creep of car back into town.


When she has collected herself, she returns to their room. Wet, tired, horrified, aroused, confused, furious, she falls onto the bed and into dreams.

I awoke not long ago to the sea. It's a ceaseless acoustic in my mind, even when I am away from it. It's what I hear when I close my eyes and the rush of blood is overpresent. It is what I heard taking the blood of a young gentleman this evening. Lapping, lapping.


My sleep was long and dreamless. At first I had thoughts, that were like dreams, but were just worries. I know I woke many times.


I can't get back to sleep. My bones feel sore. My neck hurts. My gums.

Gaul is nowhere my eye can find. I haven't been out to the lounge, the bathroom, the hall. But I can't feel him here anyway. Strange, that I can ever. I don't like to admit to it, but my charm with him and what has happened is waning. Not that my anger consumes me to a point where I am irrational, but what can one do to channel this riveting energy away from the Urge, the Lust, The Hunger, to something constructive, without ripping my hair out.

I know I'll go back for his body. I have to bury him. I feel awful. Absolutely and totally horrible. It came over me and he had soft eyes. I knew I had him. And all I could focus on was the thrum of his heart. It was like mine own heart, loud in my head. I had a heachache from the loudness of it. Putt-um. Putt-em. And everytime I smiled at him, or offered him a wine, it fastened. Putt-em em. Putt em em. It's a comforting, enveloping feeling. However nauseas I grew.

I'm trying for sleep again. I can't focus on any one thing long.


And so September laid out across the bed, over the sheets, in her dress wet with the ocean. Like some strayed mermaid, hair in saltcrusted ringlets down her shoulders and back, across the pillow. Wayward, so far wayward. Alas, proving true that the Road to Hell is paved with good Intentions. Thrown off course, in shark infested, turbulent waters, all to save her Father.