A/N: so, trigger warnings for lactation kink, whipping and just lots of weirdness, per usual.
Because I feel that, in the Heavens above,
The angels, whispering to one another,
Can find, among their burning terms of love,
None so devotional as that of "Mother,"
Therefore by that dear name I long have called you-
You who are more than mother unto me,
And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed you
-to my mother, edgar allan poe
"My mother, are you?"
This is his way of inverting the question.
James sizes her up in the darkness of the ship as she takes a few bow-legged steps. She's holding her arm around the crutches Atticus carved for her.
There is still a faint pink stain on the promenade where her shoulder meets her arm.
He is cruel now, though earlier he had shown kindness. Truly, she doesn't know if he's ever cruel or ever kind. It seems to her he is like those funny little picture houses where you put a lamp in the middle and the shadows reflected on the wall move like living creatures. He is a carousel of flesh. And whatever is underneath - whatever lamp – doesn't really matter.
He yanks the crutches from under her arms and pushes her – not violently – back on the bed.
"Rest, Mother," he commands.
Mermaids come to see her in her dreams. She is standing on deck in nothing but a flimsy night gown and below, between the waves, she sees fluorescent smiles. Green teeth like glow-worms. The mermaids' hands are webbed as they call to her to come join their reel. She can see their breasts in the foam and they have no nipples, no aureole. They have no children to feed.
She stretches to meet them, standing on her toes.
A giant wave lambastes her and carries her over the mast.
She is in the sea, and Zilpha is there, dragging her by the gown. She grabs her face roughly, fingers like pincers, skin ice-cold, and she presses her dead lips over hers. The kiss sticks to the roofs of their mouths it's a you-will-never-get-rid-of-me kiss. I will always be a taste, I will always have a tongue inside you, Zilpha murmurs in the waves.
There is a farm on the Sound, a farm like no other. It's sprawled, disjointedly, over land and water, and it falls between the border of Canada and America. It is called a "farm" for convenience's sake, but it looks more like a wild park, a barbarian freehold.
In the midst of this tamed wilderness, there rises a house, right above the shore. It's walnut and ash, wood that you can chew on. One day soon, he says he'll replace the wood with solid red bricks. Until then.
When Lorna didn't need to walk on crutches anymore, she gave them to the pile that later built this house.
She wraps the Indian shawl around her shoulders and steps out on the wide porch, watching the Pacific as if it were nothing but a rambunctious stream in her back yard. It does feel that way up here.
Then she sees Dee, Helga's shy girl, coming round the bend with a little basket of berries she picked out at dawn.
Lorna waves her hand with a smile. Dee waves back with energy, but when she reaches the porch, she gives a little bow and says "Shall I stir the sour cream too, Ma'am?"
Lorna taps her chin with her forefinger. "Yes, but no sugar. James hates it when you add sugar."
Everyone around these parts calls her "Ma'am". James made sure of that.
There was a question of age; how can this young woman be the mother of a bearded burly man who smells like he's lived two lives already? Rather she might be a daughter fathered too young, or a ruined sister who cut open her belly and gave her shame to the sea.
What tickled them more than anything are her artistic aspirations.
They say she was an actress in the capital. You know what that means.
I'd love to hear what she got up to backstage, if you catch my meaning.
One young woman lost a tongue, while two men lost their thumbs. The Natives carried their severed limbs in buckets and threw them in the sea.
James' men walked down the muddy streets with sickles in their arms, hunting down the talking roosters and the tattling hens.
Yes, she is "Ma'am" to everyone now.
James licks his fingers, stained white with sour cream.
"Just as you like it," Lorna intones, flapping a cream-colored fan in front of her face.
He prefers to undress in the lumber yard and chop the tree stumps himself. His chest inflates, his abdomen thickens like the cogs of a furious machine. A metal horse, he is industry made flesh. But of course, that is the real savage. The ever adaptable creature who swallows progress and spits back animal profit.
She likes to watch him from a careful distance as he wields the ax and wipes his brow.
His beauty is viscous, it sticks to your throat. She's got her shawl wrapped around her tight and she gazes longingly at her son. His toils and travails inspire such love in her bosom. Not love for him, but for the design of him. The grizzly man who wipes his boots when he enters the house because he knows she can't abide his dirt on the floor.
She's not a little lady, but she likes playing her part, for old habits die hard, and the theater dies the hardest.
James looks up briefly, sees her watching. And he stretches his muscles for her pleasure. Her son is hale and strong. The ax rings like church bells.
If he's ever mad at the world and its folly – which happens quite often – he marches straight for home. He stomps on the ground with each step, mad that he can't get there faster. He mutters curses and pushes people out of the way, he cuts the mud in half. Lorna has developed a sense for him. She's sitting readily in the parlor and waits for him to tumble in with his furnace-temper. The ritual is never altered. He will throw his boots at the pictures hanging on the wall and call out "Mother!" in a rough brogue.
Lorna will deposit her book to the side and accept him. He will sit down on the sofa and lower his head in her lap. And she will run her fingers gently over his face, smoothing the furrows, the trenches, the wrinkles. Rendering him younger with each she will comb his wet hair until his grunts turn into soft sighs. After which, he will open his lips and lick clean his mother's fingers.
"There, James, is that better?"
"Mm."
Sometimes, she has to unlace her bodice and give him a breast.
Just one, always the left one. He will tuck it between his large hands and kiss it senseless, lick and suck on the nipple until the flesh is numb. He will press his thumb down the way small animals do when they demand milk.
Lorna will tip her head back and stare at the ceiling, her mouth a candid "o".
She will grip his hair with sharp claws as he fastens his mouth around the nipple and tears at the sensitive flesh with baby teeth.
One cold summer evening, the Pacific roils and boils and slams itself on the shore, and her breast does give milk.
It's raining outside, thin needles scratching the window panes, and her nipple spits warm milk into his mouth. It bubbles, froths, like lace upon his lips. James' eyes widen as Lorna screams, but she does not push him away and he starts to drink, hesitantly at first. Then, eager and afraid it might vanish. He latches his mouth to her breast until he can feel his throat close up with milk. He grips her to him, for she must not escape, she must not spill it on the floor.
Lorna is keening. She is beating her heels against the carpet. She cradles him to her with a vengeance.
She is bleeding milk.
The aboriginal children point at her soaked blouse. She is walking with James on the shore, collecting seashells, when the little urchins all gather and scream and laugh at her.
James grabs them fondly by the head and pushes them away, hollering imprecations in a different tongue. But when he looks at Lorna, he sees the milk stains on her stays and he shudders.
She is redolent, and she will cascade.
He grabs her by the neck and his mouth speaks against hers, "lie down".
"I don't think we should –"
"Who's to watch?"
She gazes at the sea and she runs her fingers over her lips. She can still feel Zilpha's kiss there, a burgeoning tusk.
But she lets herself be dragged to the sands. He rips her blouse to shreds, greedy hands cupping her breasts and guiding them to his hungry mouth. His body weighs down on hers like a death sentence, and she closes her eyes and feels the grind under her spine and his beastly constitution, collapsing her rational thought.
She clutches at him, running her fingers down his back, sinking her nails in the scarab ink of his tattoos.
She feels so good – not just because his tongue is stimulating – but because releasing the milk lifts a burden from her shoulders. She is free. He frees her of the mother's bane.
If anyone should see their figures from above, they would certainly think they are copulating shamelessly, like animals. But nothing could be further from the truth. Their loins are sacred. The lower half of their bodies - unused. He is only a good boy, taking his supper.
He lets the milk run over his eyes. There are rivers of silver on his cheeks. The lait burrows deep in his pores, digs trenches in his flesh. He moans and rubs himself against her thigh, his cock hard, but his instinct removed of sexuality. He does not wish to enter her. He is baptized. He is mothered. The crow-woman let him starve. Now he is fed.
Lorna swims with the mermaids of the Pacific. They find an uncharted island in the middle of a storm. On this island, she sees no men nor animals. There are only tall plants, their stalks reaching up towards the sky, fat and bulbous, oozing white milk. Their heads are pink and blossoming, and they smell like burnt flesh. They are not flowers she has seen before. Vegetation she can't even fathom. But she is eager to inspect it, to touch it, to consume it with curiosity. She remembers being a baby girl in her mother's arms, staring at the strange flora of her mother's body – but that can't be right. No one can remember that far back, no one can taste the first milk.
Yet, as she walks among these stalks, as she lightly touches the sticky leaves, as she kneels down and sleeps underneath them, she understands that the body preserves everything. Even this memory.
She can't say if she ever wanted to be a mother. Lorna thinks no one really knows, or gives this question real thought, until it happens to them. You become aware you can continue, only when there is the solid proof in your hands. Yes, my seed will grow strong after I die, you say, as you hold your child. But until you do, you can never know.
And does she know now? She knows she will never have little babes; she will never push them out of her womb into the first breath of life. James is the only child she can and is allowed to have.
He has let her know, in private, that he would kill her children.
He touches her stomach and feels it flutter under his palm and he says, "Let it never quicken."
He lifts her skirts and thrust his hand up against her bare skin.
She can see Atticus through the window, smoking a pipe in the yard.
James whispers against her ear, drawing warm circles against her belly, "I'll tear their limbs apart and eat their little toes. I know a recipe." There is something mottled in his speech, something fricative. "I'll crush their skulls and drink the juice like this." He squeezes her stomach and dips his tongue inside her ear.
Lorna's eyelids flutter shut. The sensation is overwhelming.
"Yes…like this," she murmurs, feeling little toes kicking against her belly.
"You ought to have known better! That was no way to behave! I'm so ashamed of you."
He lowers his head. His anger gives off a luminous glow, he is radiating fury. But she doesn't care.
She saw the bloody teeth on the kitchen floor, and then the corpse that was hoisted on the gallows in the village, its mouth bloodless and empty. She doesn't know what the dead man did to him to deserve it, but she does not wish to know.
"No more killings, you said! No more pointless violence! Not unless it was required, and no – James, it was not. This was an extravagance. This was an indulgence."
He glares at her. "You don't understand the ways of men."
"Don't speak to me about the ways of men. I've known enough of your lot to form an accurate opinion."
"…yes."
"Yes, what?"
"Yes, Mother."
"I can't bear to look at you. Go over by the bed and lie down on your stomach."
This is not the first time she's asked him this, but it's not a habit. She likes to dole out punishment in small portions, knowing very well he's grown fond of her ministrations.
No, fond is not a good word. Greedy would be better.
He steps slowly towards the bed, like a sulking child, but it's only another indulgence - he's hoping to prolong the discipline.
Lorna walks to her dresser and opens the drawer. She removes the bullwhip from its confines. It was given to her by a Nootka Native who said it matched the shade of her hair. The popper is indeed the color of autumn hay. The grip has been wrapped in silk for her benefit. A Christmas gift from James.
James unlatches his breeches quietly as he buries his nose in the coverlet and waits for the whip's caress.
"Will you do it again, James? Will you?" she asks querulously, as she inflicts the popper on his bare flesh.
"No…mother," he growls, stretched thin with pleasure and pain, as his mind screams a blessed yes, yes, yes, I will always do it…always…
His flesh flinches and jumps with each ministration. His cock hardens to despair.
After she's turned his flesh raw, she touches the red buttocks with the tips of her fingers. James groans and thrusts forward. He seems to fuck her very bed as he sinks further down into the pillows.
She applies the whip once more, a goodbye kiss.
Zilpha runs her hands through the popper and glides it skillfully over Lorna's glistening cunt. Little spider shocks are left in its wake.
How did she get in? Lorna wonders feverishly as her back arches from the bed.
It doesn't matter, she decides, as Zilpha strokes her clit with webbed fingers.
In the morning, there are puddles of water under the window facing west, the one which opens to the sea.
James' men catch a giant haddock. The village folks claim it must be some devilry, for no one's seen a haddock before around these parts. It's not the kind of fish that swims west. Its size is also unwieldy, grotesque. Its mouth is so large, it could seize a grown head.
When Dee rips the bowels open on the cutting board, she gives a terrified scream.
They all gather in the kitchen to see.
Lorna peeks at the carnage over James' shoulder. The fish's belly is full of small, white bones. Human bones, one would say.
There is a great fire on the beach, a great exorcism. The whole village has gathered to watch the fish burn. The Natives have claimed the bones for themselves. They are to be buried. But the dark spirit might not be vanquished in one night.
Inside the house, Lorna clutches weakly at her crucifix. She looks in the mirror where her hand grips the silver cross.
James stands in the doorway. His green shirt billows in the soft breeze coming from the window. His tattooed legs look like black flames.
"Do you think," she begins uncertainly, "it's a sign? That we have been misbehaving?"
He cocks his head to the side. "How have we misbehaved?"
She gulps. "I don't know. Maybe…" She touches her breasts through her robe. Even now they are swollen with milk. "Maybe we are not a good family."
"Of that I'm sure," he laughs, rubbing his chin.
Lorna turns in her seat. "I thought we were supposed to be better than Horace and his clan."
"We are better," he clarifies. "Just not good."
She shakes her head obstinately, the curls framing her face. "It takes a while to settle in…but I know we will find peace, eventually."
James walks to the window where a blue wisp of smoke rises from the fire.
"Eventually," he echoes with a smile.
The old women sit around the fire, holding hands, chanting the same song, over and over again. Their tongues peek out from their lips like lizards. Their thoughts are scattered, they are thinking of the peas they have not shelled. But it doesn't matter what they are thinking. What matters is the song.
The blue smoke rises and the stars blink shut.
Get out, evil trickster. Leave your carcass behind. Get out and never come back. We expel you.
Lorna kneels on the floor, her mouth open, demanding milk.
She wets her lips with a lizard tongue.
"Yes...slower, James, slower," she whispers, her soft hands cradling his cock, but never quite touching him.
She can't distinguish between his iris and his pupils; his eyes roll to the back of his head. He strokes his shaft deliberately, trying to master his urge.
"Yes…James, very good. Like that."
Her approval shoots pleasure into his distended cock. The veins bulge like swollen wood. He is a boat in the middle of the ocean and he is about to tip over.
She opens her mouth wider, staring up at his hard length, eyes seeing and unseeing the past, the present, the future. She knew from the first moment she saw him at the docks that there would be so much ungovernable power between them. That they could never be lovers, outright, but would have to be joined some other way. That they wouldn't enjoy their bodies like man and woman, but would only reach each other in symbol. That theirs was a desire too intense to survive in the realm of sexuality. That it was a mutual hunger for the fathomless destruction.
"Yes, James. Come for me, love. Come in my mouth, give me every last drop."
Feed me your milk.
He groans and groans and groans and groans.
Thick jets of cum run down her face as the stars blink back into existence. She drinks.
There, that would be the last time. She tells herself so as she laces her blouse and runs a comb through her hair. It's a new day and the sun is shining on their small piece of heaven. It must be heaven, or at least a land which forgives and forgets. Nothing here can't be re-forged from the ashes.
The haddock has been burnt, the bones have been interred. And nothing like last night shall happen again.
They must begin their search for peace, for happiness.
She weighs her sagging breasts in her palm. There is still some residual milk to be spent, but she will let it waste in a bucket. There must be no more drinking, no more joining of lips and nipples. There must be no mortification. They must be good.
James hangs his hat by the door and wipes his feet on the mat.
There is a glass of fresh milk, waiting for him in the dining room.