Note from Masked Man 2: Sorry this was so late! I'll turn this over to StrongButGentle now. Enjoy!
NOTE: If you don't know what this story is all about, see my author's note at the top of Chapter 2, or else you won't understand a thing lol. I found from language-g… and . (Flute-Maniac, use these websites for help if you need it!) that in the Renaissance, "thee" and "thou" was used informally (with people close to you), while "you" was used formally (with superiors, strangers, etc.). But I decided to have Iago and Lady Macbeth address each other with "thee" and "thou" just to make it more flowy and Shakespearean-sounding...and because these two are definitely NOT strangers to each other ;)
I do not own Iago, Lady Macbeth, Othello, Macbeth, or either of the plays. They are owned by William Shakespeare. Enjoy! :D
Right then, at that very moment...a lusciously deceitful, decadent plan formed in Lady Macbeth's vile, wicked, poisonous mind. A plan that thrilled her as an impishly delighted, almost maniacal smile spread across her face. This was...a truly cold and scathing act, though. She knew it as, watching her husband, who had already walked away a few steps, she felt the tiniest prick of guilt. But still, it was one that she could hardly wait to execute, one she knew would cut her husband right to the core.
She glanced down at her left hand and spread out her thin, pale ivory fingers, which on one of them her wedding ring twinkled softly in the darkish luminescence of the chamber. Love for her dear Macbeth swelled within her for a moment, but then fell as the scheming, fiendish smile returned to her face. She ever so slightly moved her right hand to slide the ring from her finger and let it drop to the floor, the dull clink muffled by the sound of the men's footsteps walking out of the chamber. Seeing the ring laying on the floor, Lady Macbeth noticed that it had been slightly broken from the impact; the stone had chipped. A tiny shard glinted beside it.
"Well, come hither, wife, we must take our leave," Macbeth beckoned her.
"I will be but a moment," Lady Macbeth answered, quickly covering the ring with the hem of her dress. "For't seems I have lost my wedding ring."
"Ay, me!" Sudden worry marred Macbeth's expression. "We must find't."
"I will help her look for't."
All heads turned to Iago, who had spoken.
"How kind of thee, Iago, to help this lady find the token of her love," Othello noted.
A small smile played at the corner of Iago's lip as he looked straight at Lady Macbeth, his dim gray eyes gleaming with menace. "But of course."
Lady Macbeth smiled pleasantly at her husband. "Do take thy leave, darling, I will be with thee anon. I am sure this gentleman and I will find't." She reached up to kiss Macbeth's cheek.
Macbeth stared at her for a moment. "If that is thy will, my dear," he said quietly.
He and others turned and left the chamber. As they did, Iago silently approached the door and carefully started to close it. A euphoric, lustful hotness rapidly rose within Lady Macbeth. She couldn't believe this was really happening!
Iago was peeking through the narrow crack in the door, waiting until every last person had vanished, waiting like a predator in the underbrush to pounce on his quarry. When they all had faded away, he let go of the handle and let the door slam shut, the sound reverberating off the chamber walls. He then turned and strode towards Lady Macbeth, her excitement brimming as he did.
In one split-second movement, he grabbed her around the waist in both his arms, crushing her so tightly and violently she felt her breath grow shallow. She couldn't move. At all.
"What is't that you truly desire, lady?" he whispered in her ear.
Her arms came around him as she gazed up at the ceiling. "I wish but for one such as I, sir...one with a mind as vile, cruel, and scheming as mine own...and a heart just as blacken'd and poison'd," she choked out.
Iago's grip loosened. He paused, staring at Lady Macbeth for a moment, before saying,
"Thou hast met thy match, then."
With one arm still around her back, he roughly grabbed the back of her head in his other hand, clenching a fistful of her hair, and started kissing her profusely, greedily, all but devouring her in kisses. And she kissed him back just as ravenously.
After a few minutes of this, she pulled away, gasping for air. "What hast thou done to claim such cruelty, I pray thee?"
"The general, Othello..." Iago said. "I follow him to serve my turn upon him."
Lady Macbeth peered into his eyes, enraptured.
"By God above, I will bring him to ruin," Iago swore.
The corners of Lady Macbeth's lips twitched into a small smile and her eyes shone. She blinked. "Be mine, then, villain."
With that, Iago shoved Lady Macbeth flat onto the table and climbed on top of her, kissing her ferociously again as she fully embraced it. His kisses slid down to her neck and he peeled back her dress to expose the bare skin of her shoulder, kissing and sucking on it. Her arms came around him, pulling him closer, inviting him, as he did. He couldn't get enough of her.
"What of thee, lady? What is thy cruelty?" he requested.
She snickered. "'Tis of such direness that may even rival that of thee."
Iago's kisses trailed from Lady Macbeth's lips down her neck, pausing at her chest. In that moment, he ripped open the bodice of her dress, fully baring her cleavage toward the ceiling, as though an offering.
"There is no mother's milk here," Iago murmured into her breasts, his hand slipping beneath her dress and grasping her left one. "No...naught but poison."
Lady Macbeth let out a soft sigh of pleasure. "Dost thou see't yet?" She smirked.
Iago's left hand slid up to rest on Lady Macbeth's neck and his other hand tightly clenched her right breast.
"Tell me," he whispered hungrily in her ear. "What art thou?"
"I am but as devilish as thou must be," Lady Macbeth whispered, her voice thick, hot, and laced with sweet, seductive poison.
"Where is it," Iago snarled. "The dark place within thee."
Lady Macbeth laughed out loud. "Canst thou find't?" She was bantering him quite willfully at this point. And damn, he was going to put this minx in her place.
He slapped her hard across the face, leaving a burning red mark on her cheek.
But just as he knew it, this woman was not going to go down without a fight.
With unpredictable strength, she shoved Iago off of her, sending him tumbling backwards off the table onto the floor.
He jumped back up, grabbed her, and pulled her onto the floor beneath him, all but smothering her in intense kissing. Her arms wrapped around him and, casting her skirt back, her legs wrapped around him, too. Her rich brown hair was sprawled on the floor as Iago ran his hands through it.
When they pulled away, Lady Macbeth spent a few moments gazing into Iago's light gray eyes, which, although appearing dim and mysterious, seemed to hold all the wit, cunning, and evil in the world in them. She reached up and lightly traced the scars on his face, which somehow seemed to make the man appear even more sinister...and she loved it. She sighed. She truly had finally met her match, just as he said. A kind of mixture of contentment and thrill rose within her, just at the sheer joy of having finally found him. A sense of completeness filled her soul.
Iago picked her up and lifted her back onto the table, burying his face in her hair and kissing the side of her neck again. She held him close to her and her legs came around him, as if to take out of him as much as she could. She felt one of his hands clasp her bare thigh, the other hand running through her hair, and his warm breath as he sighed into her.
"Never once ere tonight did methinks I would meet a woman such as thee," he said softly into where her neck met her shoulder.
"Verily, I am as thou sayest, for I am no fair flower, no gentle lady, but one who may perform vicious and bloody deeds with not a drop o' mercy," she said to him.
The words were like music to Iago's ears. "Thou art the rarity of woman, to be such a way." He started kissing her intensely again.
"Were it that I could stay with thee till morrow," Lady Macbeth said sometime later, neither of them having any idea how much time had passed. "But I should take my leave, lest my husband wonders whither I be."
Iago sighed. "Ay, indeed."
She leaned in to whisper to him, "When shall I meet thee again?"
He faced her, stared at her for a moment, then placed his hands on her shoulders, and said softly in her ear, as though telling a secret, "In two nights' time, at the banquet. Find me there."
Meeting his eyes, she said, "I will."
His gaze dropped to the floor. "There lies thy ring, that thou lost." He smirked at her.
Lady Macbeth's head spun to face the floor. "Marry! There 'tis."
Iago let himself snicker at her as she slipped off the table, reached for her ring, and slid it back on her finger. He also took note of a tiny shard sparkling on the floor, that he had no doubt must have been part of the ring, broken off from the impact of its bearer dropping it.
After Lady Macbeth smoothed out her dress and hair, Iago took her arm to lead her out. Lady Macbeth knew this gesture was to appear towards her husband as polite and protective of a lady, but she, and only she, knew from his tight hold that it was really one of lust and possessiveness.
"Didst thou find thy ring?" Macbeth asked when they reached him.
"Ay, here 'tis." Lady Macbeth held up her hand.
"My thanks to thee, sir. I bid thee good night," Macbeth said, shaking Iago's hand.
"A kind good night to thee as well." Iago's eyes turned to Lady Macbeth. "And to thy wife." With that, he reached for Lady Macbeth, who readily offered her hand. The moment his fingertips just lightly touched her hand, a tingle jolted through Lady Macbeth at lightning speed. Iago pressed a kiss to her hand, his devious gray eyes smirking up at her all the while.
"Fare thee well, sir," Macbeth said as he sent Iago off.
"And to thee," Iago said in return, sending one last glance at Lady Macbeth.
"What hast torn thy gown?" Macbeth asked, eyeing the gash that tore down the bodice of his wife's dress.
"Oh...'twas torn by a tree branch on my way," Lady Macbeth quickly lied.
"Ay, well...let us to bed, my love. I have since grown most weary." Macbeth put his arm around her waist. She realized only just then how instinctive it was for Macbeth; the affection and intimacy he showed towards her, even in the smallest ways. Yet she knew still that, despite having a husband who loved her, there was another man out there who was the most perfect companion for her, alike in a shrewd, insidious, depraved mind and heart. This was a place that even the most loving man in the world could not fill without these qualities to satisfy her.
"As you will," she said, a bit coldly.
"How now, wife," Iago said calmly when he returned home, not wanting to appear at all suspicious.
"How fares thee, Iago?" Emilia asked in her low, monotonous, indifferent voice. Iago knew she actually cared not a jot about him. He couldn't say he cared for her, either.
"Very well," he replied.
His wife was resigned, bitter, jaded, a woman truly hateful of men, especially her own marriage and probably her own husband. There was not a drop of passion or excitement between she and Iago; the romantic state of their marriage amounted to little more than that of a traditional arranged marriage. They might as well be strangers to each other...actually, more often they were nuisances and afflictions to each other. Emilia was...really nothing more than dull and tiresome to be around as opposed to that devious, beguiling, fiercely wicked woman.
Though Emilia was to accompany him to the banquet, as she was his wife, Iago was free to, and actually sort of expected to, socialize with other women, even if for the sake of courtesy and politeness. He normally would dread this, but...that woman was a definite exception.