The Box

...from the Black Book
found under the hand of

Pentæng

Priscillæng soar'd high above the simple room in the heavyworld where her naked body sat cross leggèd on the carpet; yet she heard, as from on high, a knock at her door -- or rather she saw the image of a hand knocking -- for in the wraithworld seeing and hearing and tasting and smelling and feeling were not the separate things that they would be again when she reänimated that rigid nude in order to answer the door. She would not do so yet, however, for she knew the caller, and had instructed her to wait outside. The hand that she saw knocking in the wraithworld was disembody'd, cut off at the wrist, and fitted with a golden cap on the cut end. The sever'd hand was her own, and it bare on its back the marks that had for many months had markt her as a gelder. She lookt at her wraith arm: -- Yes! It ended in a stump with a golden cap to match the cap on the hand. It was perfect. Now she would reänimate her heavybody, and answer the heavy door.

She felt again the sensuous nakedness of her heavybody as she arose from the floor. She took hold of the door latch with her right hand. Yes. Her heavybody still had a right hand -- but not for long. Her heart pounded. She was about to receive the box that would be its casket.

The girl whom she welcomed was also naked. She was smaller than Priscillæng, and perhaps prettier, but they were the same age to the day, about a month short of 20. Pentæng was an artisan as well as a courtesan. She shared all of Priscillæng's passions, and often shared her bed as well. She now held forth a box of lacquer'd ebony, with hinges, corners, and clasp of finely wrought and polisht silver. It was just about a foot long, and so perfectly proportion'd that when closed its width and depth were exactly equal, and each equal to half its length.

Priscillæng beheld the box with delight, first with her eyes, and then, almost reverently, with her hands, holding it with the hand that she plan'd to keep, and opening it with the hand that she intended to amputate and to place in its keeping. She found it lined with plush black velvet, and fitted with a sumptuous little cushion of the same. She toucht this cushion, and felt a fearfull tingle in the fingers of the hand that would soon be reposed upon it.

<<This is perfect!>> she whisper'd. <<Oh yes, and so are these!>> she extol'd, lifting out the matching gold stumpcaps that Pentæng had so lovingly set with rubies. Each was shaped like a sort of stylised crown. She set the box down, and holding them together end to end, measured them against her wrist to shew the smaller girl how they would fit once the hand had been sever'd.

<<How meanest thou to cut it off; and when?>> askt Pentæng in a husht tone, as her small, naked body shiver'd in excitement.

<<It would please me most to cut it off myself,>> she affirm'd in a hissing half whisper, <<but that must not be. No, I must appear a victim when we are parted, must I not, my lovely hand?>> She smiled down at the doom'd hand, playing the fingers sensuously across one and other. <<That will require a bit of arranging, and thus a bit of time. Besides that, my little anxious one,>> she said, fondly caressing Pentæng's nakedness with the hand in question, << this hand hath yet one or two more tasks to preform before we lay it to rest in that pretty box: It must find and harvest one more pair of testicles, a pair that I myself shall have the pleasure of eating; and I think it also fitting that it take part in a forthcoming scandal, for which I intend to forfeit it on the block.>> She smiled wickedly. <<But now,>> she whisper'd, as she began a more intimate caress, <<feel the gratitude of the hand that thou hast wrought so well to honour. Let us make love.>>