Chapter One Hundred and Nine
The footman arrived at Voot’s office, and Voot was required to follow him to the duchess’s room and service her, lovelessly. Still did the duchess travel merely halfway to her destination, but the journey was enjoyable, and she had company. While it lasted, images of Mifkin and Bartoff arrived, uninvited, in his mind. He wondered what that must be like. Could it be any less moving, any more pointless, than what he was doing now? Furthermore, why did Mifkin fancy Bartoff so, when he had always held Voot in such low regard? Not that he would have wanted to be subject to such attentions, you understand—but it would have been nice to have been made the object of a repulsed seduction attempt, at the very least.
The duchess, for her part, while Voot was exhausting his soul into her vagina, fought back the suggestion, coming from somewhere within her, that none of her emotions was real, but rather a smear of cleverly applied face paint.
When it was over, she offered him a bauble, which he politely declined, until she insisted, and he accepted. He had no opinion one way or the other over his being thus used for sport, but was growing increasingly sensitive to her insistence that her footman watch their goings-on, be allowed to make occasional, needlessly snide, comments, and even serve her drinks, tipping the glass’s rim to her lips whilst he, Voot, sweated overhead. Voot wondered if the footman secretly held him, Voot, in contempt for prostituting himself, as he supposed it could be interpreted, to her highness for trinkets. When the footman was off taking the soiled sheets to be laundered, Voot had a word with her:
“I really think you ought to discharge him,” he advised.
“Whom?” She took Voot’s hand and replaced it on her stomach, from where it had fallen; this post-coital embrace was all part of the bargain, and had to be observed.
“Your footman, of course. I certainly wouldn’t employ such an impudent person on my staff.”
“Sniggly’s a dear, and you treat him far too harshly. He’s seen me through many a bad time in my life.”
“Well, I don’t know. I still don’t see why he has to always be hovering about us, even in the most delicate, private moments.”
“Oh, he doesn’t mind.”
“I wasn’t particularly concerned about him minding, you know!”
“I’ve always seen Sniggly like he’s part of the family.”
Voot grunted. “That just makes the whole thing more strange, not less, if you ask me.”
She giggled, thinking of something. He turned her head to him, gently, with his fingertip, and she batted her eyelash mischievously.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Well. . .he’d hate me for telling you this.”
“What?”
“It’s just that. . .Sniggly mentioned once that he quite admires your manhood.”
“Do you mean—my masculinity?”
“No, your penis—silly man!”
“Well, it’s no matter to me if he does. I can’t see how it’s any of his business, any way you look at it.”
She giggled again. “What will you do when the snow clears?”
He thought. “. . .I suppose the same old thing, you know. I haven’t much else to do, really.”
“Would you consider. . .” She’d turned her face back away from him. She shifted a little in the bed, so his limpness could snuggle comfortably along the cleft of her aristocratic backside.
“Yes?”
“Coming along with Sniggly and me?”
“Really? Where?”
“Wherever we might go. I don’t usually plan that far ahead. I come across the name of a town in a novel, like its sound in my mouth when I say it, mention it to Sniggly, he books passage and—voilà!”
“It sounds lovely.”
“So come with us.”
“I really don’t know. I. . .this hotel is all I’ve known, for so long. I don’t know if I could cope anyplace else. I don’t know if I could function! It’s pathetic, I know. But I’m a weak man, your highness.”
“Please. . .no more ‘your highness’, or ‘duchess’.”
“What is—pardon me, but—what is your name?”
“Call me ‘Marie’.”
“Very good. I would be honoured to go with you, Marie. I pray I can prove worthy of your trust.”
“Then it’s settled. I’ll tell Sniggly as soon as he gets back.”
“Yes. Sniggly.”
“Don’t you worry about him. You two will become fast friends, I have every confidence. You’ll see.”
Give up the hotel? Voot was thinking. Why not? Indeed, why not? Leave it to Mifkin, turn my back and think on it no more.
Indeed—why not?