Author's Note: This was originally an essay I wrote for school as a short story about Merchant of Venice. This version is slightly edited from the original version. Some sexual content was added were it was formerly hinted at.
Rated T for sexual content.
"Ten thousand ducats! Ten thousand ducats! She took from me a ring worth ten thousand ducats!" was all Shylock could say after discovering the ring missing. It baffled Shylock that his daughter could ever take from him something so valuable to him, but take it and sell something of Leah's was appalling. The ring was his life jacket, not only for his finances, but also his last connection to Leah.
Leah was a shaky subject for Shylock. He preferred not to talk about her, but she materialized in his mind more often than he felt she deserved. Leah had been Jessica's mother, and Shylock's former wife. But in his past, she had played a different role as sister.
The two were so inseparable all throughout their youth that people would always say that they acted as if they were stitched together at their sides. Their relationship had started out as a health siblinghood, but the progression to lovers took place in steps as they aged.
It started out through curiosity. The same type of curiosity that brought Pandora to open the box, and unleash all of the horrible things in the world. Shylock had experienced confusions about the difference between him and his sister's private places. The two started to investigate these differences through touching.
That innocence disappeared when the two reached adolescence. They noticed the changes in each other's bodies, and a hunger for them arose. Their sexual relationship, led to a love, and that love brought upon matrimony.
They got married when Shylock was eighteen, and Leah was sixteen. The couple had been happy, in love, and rich. They had been married little over a year when Jessica entered their lives. Leah focused on motherhood, while Shylock met the devil: money and greed.
Although they had good fortune, Shylock's love for money surpassed his love from his wife, and his young daughter. Their relationship started crumbling, as Shylock worked long hours, and after his tiresome days of work, he had no energy to please Leah the way that she desired. The only company Leah had was her daughter, but that was not the type she so desperately desired.
Leah had not been searching for a lover, but rather, a lover had found her. The idea of betraying Shylock was immoral to her, but when she met Antonio, the immorality of the matter started to diminish.
She had met Antonio at a dock when she had wandered out there on a walk, taking her young daughter to see the argosies. As much as she loved her husband, it was not her fault their relationship was falling apart. She could not resist Antonio's endless charm, and the two started to see each other when Shylock was at work, and Jessica, was sound asleep in her room napping. Leah was always careful to make sure Shylock would be busy at work when the lovers met, but no matter how careful she was, she could never predict him forgetting his glasses at home, and coming home to retrieve them.
Shylock turned the key in the door, expecting to find his wife cooking behind it, and diligently fulfilling her duties as his wife. Instead, he did not find her in the kitchen. He called her name a few times, before deciding to look for her. He opened doors to their sitting room, and dining room, and found not a soul inside them. The last room to check was their bedroom.
He twisted the knob, and opened it. He found Leah, cloths off, in his bed with another man. However, it was not just any other man, it was Antonio, a Christian. His wife was cheating on him with a Christian.
"Shylock!" Leah exclaimed in complete shock. Why would he be home right now? He wasn't supposed to be home for hours!
"You! Get out of my house!" Shylock pointed to Antonio, who stood naked, trying to retrieve his cloths that were scattered on the ground beside her bed.
Shylock was bursting with anger like a fire with gasoline poured over it. His anger scared Leah. She wondered what he would do. Kick her out of their home? Hit her? Kill her? She hoped it wouldn't come to any of those things, but at the same time, she wanted to be out of their dead end marriage. The only reason why she had stayed with him was their daughter. She could not bear to leave Jessica, or take her away from her father, as distant for her life as he was.
"What have you done?" Shylock asked her.
"I was lonely and all you ever do is work!" Leah explained, defending her affair.
"Our daughter is in the room next door and you are sleeping with some Christian!" Shylock bellowed.
By the next day, Shylock's anger had subsided, but he did not change in order to keep Leah in his life. Leah felt that there was no reason that she should have to live unhappily with him, and wrote to Antonio planning to run away.
She packed her bags, and took off her wedding ring placing it on the note she would be leaving for Shylock. Although she felt horrible, she knew that it was only right to leave Jessica with Shylock, who would always be able to support her financially.
The plan was for the lovers to depart on one of Antonio's ships. They were not yet sure of where their destination was, but they knew they had to leave Venice in order successfully get away from Shylock.
She planned to leave hours before Shylock would return home in order to make sure that she would not be stopped on the ship, but to her disadvantage, she left the house only to realize she had completely forgotten what she was going to do with Jessica until Shylock got home. She feared her plan had crashed and burned. There was no way she could leave a three year old Jessica alone and unattended for three hours.
She walked around her neighborhood claiming to the housewives she knew that she had a sick uncle who needs to be tended to and that she needed to leave Jessica with someone for her to go and give him care. After two hours for searching, she had finally found an old lady who she had talked to a few times to watch her.
After finding Jessica a place to go, she ran back to their home to collect her bags, and add to the note who she had left their young Jessica with. She realized how off schedule they were and how fast she would have to leave to prevent Shylock from stopping her getaway.
Jessica had gotten to Antonio's ship as fast as she could, but knew they still had little time. She told Antonio that they had to leave immediately, but to her dismay, they were still loading merchandise onto his ship.
She sat on one of the ships ledges near the dock waiting to go. She tapped her fingers nervously and waited, her heart was thumping and she did not want to go back to Shylock and the loveless house.
"We're ready!" Antonio told her. As he said it she felt the boat jerk as it started to move, but then a pull on her shoulder.
Shylock stood on the dock, trying to pull her off of the boat.
"Come back home with me!" He begged her, although she could see the undeniable anger within his eyes. "I can change!"
It was too late though, the boat was moving, and set her off balance, and Shylock's hand was still on her, pulling her down. She fell into the water gracelessly, head clunking against the side of the boat. Waves lapped over her lifeless body, as the undertow pulled her down farther into the sea's continuous depth.
Although Shylock had pulled her, and was angered, he had never meant to kill her. He only had wanted her back. Her death was Antonio's fault, for if they had not had the affair, Leah would have been alive, and been his. From that day on, he would always hate Antonio for what he had done to his family.
From that day on, Shylock tried to block Leah from his thoughts. He had loved her, but had lost her in his lust for money, and her betrayal.