The Unchaste

Resurrection.

Shock clapped at Delilah and everything quietened around her at once. Thoughts stopped assailing her mind. She was suddenly empty. She was suddenly tired. The oncoming tears froze. Delilah froze; her heart and breathing and shivering stopped alike, only to start with a brand new, aberrant-deviant vitality. The powerful focus of his eyes had turned sharper, more scrutinizing now.

He knew.

He knew. He knew. He knew. And it was all over now.

"What else do you know?" She demanded; her eyes hardening like glass balls, shiny prettily on that fiery little face. "What more?"

"Of you?" He ventured one step closer. He didn't seem one bit drunk. "That you are a rather sickening woman."

"Remorselessly so." She observed, balked in frenzy. "I am only sorry it sickens you so. How long have you known?"

"What does it matter?" He let his eyes spare a cursory glance towards her hand, which was now clutching the wooden bedpost. "All this while pretending how you were appalled of me for commanding two, reasonable deaths and how high and mighty you were_ while in truth_ you are no paragon of virtue yourself, are you?"

She backed a bit more from him. His proximity was unnerving. "I will not regret behesting a dozen of girl a future that does not contain mindless whipping and hourless fucking. Forgive me if that offends your principles, your grace_ I cannot help saying things the way they are. Your gold-gilded world has blinded your eyes to disfavored miseries."

He did not wince, nor flaunted signs of derision on his easy face, but his eyes showed just how thoroughly revolted he was of her. It maddened Delilah way more, his looking at her the way you look a centipede emerging from dirty clogs.

"Ainsworth deserved charges." Delilah persisted edgily. "Law was unusually helpless. He was a protected man_ like a rose_ rotten one, in the heart of a hedge, cosseted by miasma of thorns all around it, saving it despite its worthlessness. His father had influences. The officers from Scotland yard_ many and most_ who dared waging inquiries on him, died. Rests were dragged into enticement of one sort or another. Ainsworth himself was outwardly unapproachable."

"And so this benevolent lady took it upon herself to bring him down?" He jeered at her, his voice pricking at her in a sinister way, as he drew closer like a snake to canary. "How, Delilah? Sold your soul to Devil?"

"Someone had to provide for the devil." She laughed carelessly. "Not everyone can desire paradise. Not all can have it. I do not see with what right are you accusing me of the crime you yourself are adroit at."

He didn't even shift. "I never have killed a man with my hands. You? You, Delilah, used your own nails to claw the life out of your transgressors. Do not contrast us. Your fingers have blood and your nails are clogged with rotting flesh. Mine are spotless."

Wood creaked under her lithe, forceful fingers. "I am not sorry!"

"Yes." He chuckled, again eyeing the hand she had used to grab the wood. "What should be done with you now? You are a murderess, a witch. Devil, disguised."

"Then slay me, set me afire or shun me for all I care." Delilah spoke with mocking simplicity. "Men like Ainsworth have to die. Must die. Justly or unjustly, may God forgive me or may he discard me to darkest jowl of hell, I care not. I care not to live or die in this abyss of sin_ with its malicious morals and its odd logic of right and wrong. Killing me will only set an example to the other, unfortunate woman out there, who have been buried alive under the glares of your alike's Oligarchy."

"Oh, just how moving!" He laughed, making Delilah stare at him through her wet, bunched lashes. "I have never seen someone harboring such empathy for their own selves as you. The truth is that because you knew no one else would, you yourself have forgiven the deed you know is unpardonable. You have excused yourself. Your fear, Delilah, has made you indifferent, cruel. And though you say so_ that you do not care to live, or die in this abyss of sin_ you very much care to be here. To live and laugh. You look at those other, happier women out there and you envy the uncomplicated life they lead and you wish that you could have done that too, smiled such simple smiles too. Your failure in that has made you bitter and hopeless of happiness. Of love."