Demon Stories

Josephine: Love, Beautiful, 1874, England

Josephine

Love, Beautiful

1874, England

It was a cold Spring night, perhaps early April. It was a night of strange occurances. I pulled my thin blue shawl over my shoulders to ward away the cold. 

To look at me, one would never guess my profession. My dark red dress was from Paris, my ginger colored hair done up in the latest style. I had to look like I had come from a high class party maybe. Perhaps I was someone of high standing's wife walking.

But then the questions, on a second glance. Why would such a wife be walking so late at night? How late at night was it now? Two A.M? Three? What would such a woman be doing out so late at night? 

These thoughts caused me to hustle faster and my boots clicked as I quickened my pace.

I was not someone of high standing. Knowing this, knowing my profession, hoping no one could see or guess, caused a blush to rush to my face.

Long ago was the time when I had been called upon to escort men to whatever function they needed to go to. A party, perhaps a woman friend to entertain with them while they took in a show, maybe even to a restaurant just to be seen by society as someone normal. It was not well respected or even dignified. No good woman would be seen in such a profession. All good women were trying to find a husband. But me. What was I? 

It had descended into something else. Too many men with hands which wandered. Too many did not understand what my service was. And then the rest. I became known as something which disgusted me and made me nauseous. 

Here I was now, walking and rushing home after a night of such misdeeds. But how else to survive? How else was one to survive when one can't be in society, only the edge? 

Thinking about all of this, my tears began to come. But I could not let them come, for the red of them would cause passersby to really look. It was then as I tilted my head up, that I saw something which shocked me and caused me to stop in my tracks as if my legs had forgotten their ability to walk.

High above me, clearly in a window, was him. My brain drew images up quickly of him staring at me with certain, silvery glow of eyes earlier in our history. His small bird-like hands in mine. The slender woman-like finger over his plump Asian lips, quieting me silently as he glided into a dining room where he would murder twelve people at once. 

Yet here he was, eight or nine years later, looking completely different to me. It was those silver glow of eyes only which caused me to recognize him immediately. If he had not possessed them, I would have walked right past. He was up there in a window, the room dark around him but for a candle he held while he stared down at the street below. But the most striking thing was this: he wore a long light purple dress, his shiny black hair done fashionably in long ringlets with quite a bit piled on top of his head in the back. He was dressed completely female. But for those eyes. Those eyes showed an intensity which was completely masculine. Mr. Crane. There he finally was, inexplicably.

In an instant, a man appeared behind him, and the one I knew as Mr. Crane looked up at the mystery man, his neck extending beautifully in a distinctly masculine way. I stood transfixed, watching them. The man behind Mr. Crane wrapped his arms around the feminine cinched waist and began feeling around. Mr. Crane's slim arm wrapped around to the back of the man's head as the man kissed his neck.