They're Not Lobsters

A soft sploosh sounded to the couple’s left. The young woman clutched her paramour’s arm. “What was that?”

“Just a gator.”

“Aaa---gator?”

The young man held the shivering woman in his arms closer to him, his plan was going splendidly. Her breath was rapid and hot in his ear. “Look. See there,” He pointed towards what appeared to be a log with luminous golden eyes just over the surface of the lagoon. “He’s just off hunting for his supper---frogs and eels and whatnot.”

“Not people?”

He laughed. “Not people. They pretty much avoid us on land.” He laughed again as she tried scootching further up the dock, her skirt had caught in her heels, revealing stockinged calves. He reached out to place a hand to her thigh.

She didn’t seem to notice though her eyes were huge and round. She was not looking into the water but staring over his shoulder into the darkness beyond their lantern. He turned his head and she screamed as the club knocked the man’s head nearly around backwards. The crack was like a tree breaking in a storm, so loud in the silent night. His body pulled hers down and she struggled to escape the weighty confines of his limp dead arms.

She tried to stand but her dress tripped her up, she went down to her knees and looked up. The silhouette in the lantern light was man-shaped…but bent over and twisted, “GAAAARRRRghhh!” it cried as it fled back through the trees.

The girl fainted and dreamt of alligator-men with white teeth gnashing and blood spurting.

“Beatrice!” Mother said sharply, “manners please.”

Mother’s face was white as parchment, with crimson spots on her powdered cheeks, her grey-blue eyes clouded with disdain as she glared at me.

I giggled. This had not been a singular incident, as the guest at our table has not been my first suitor. We were entertaining number six.

He was tall and dressed impeccably: tan breeches, white stockings, silver embroidered waistcoat...lovely cornflower blue jacket that brought out the color of his eyes. He was cute in a boyish way. My sister Joanne, sitting across from me, was ogling him like a rich dessert topped with whipped cream. She was lucky to be too young for this ritual.

My brother, Justin, sitting to my left, was even younger and found my antics the most amusing of all. He ripped a large mouthful of the crusty bread and chomped loudly with crumbs falling to the tablecloth in heaps---he was doing a good job of imitating me.

“Justin!” said Mother, “do not encourage her.”

The young man had a wry smile on his chaste face which he tried to stifle by dabbing the corners of his little mouth with a napkin. “Come now. She’s quite amusing…nothing she could do would diminish her noble stature.”

I had heard sentiments as this before. I pushed my chair back from the lavishly laden table, spread my legs under my heavy skirts and tugged at my bodice. “Whew. I am stuffed…like a big fat whale in a little tube.” I squirmed, letting my decollete jiggle over my corseted torso. I pulled a cheroot from my bodice and leaned over the table to light it by one of the dozen candles there.

Mother nearly fainted. “Beatrice. Smoke that outside if you must smoke at all.” Whoa. How diplomatic. I nodded and stood, smoothed my pink and gold skirts, and went to the balcony overlooking the bayou. I would have clomped but that’s not possible in dainty pink satin slippers. Behind me Mother was apologizing profusely. Eventually, the young gentleman came to join me. He placed a crystal brandy glass on the railing next to me. “Nothing like a little cognac to go with a smoke.”

“I can’t agree more.” Without toasting his raised glass, I swigged half the elixir like a sailor. “Oh, sorry.” I clinked his glass with mine and took a demurely small taste.

Pierre said, “I get what you are doing. I know I’m not the best-looking suitor. But I do find the antics amusing. I promise you that over time you will grow to love me.”

He was a dear.

Pierre continued, while lighting his own small cigar, “You do not wish to marry at all. I’ve heard the rumors---the stories of The Bayou Princess…”

“It’s not that really,” I said, hating the moniker. “It’s just that I don’t want to be a pawn in my mother’s game. I wish to choose my own mate. Someone who makes my heart strings sing.”

He was a complete gentleman as we smoked and drank. The understanding between us was serenely mutual.

I walked him to the door, shooing my sister away with the fan at my sleeve.

He said, “It was a lovely dinner.”

“Yes. Mother was quite pleased with your appreciation.”

“I’ve never had lobster like that before.”

“Oh. Those weren’t really lobster. They’re called crawdads---or crayfish. They’re freshwater. A local on the Bayou farms them. His are the biggest, sweetish…oh, well…you tasted them yourself.”

“Oh, they were wonderful.”

“He’s at the market every Wednesday and Friday. Find him early, he always sells out.”

On Friday I went with Mother and Joanna to the market by the docks. She asked me to pick up some shellfish while she went testing the vegetables. Joanne went off to play with the local children. I bought two large crabs and two dozen mussels. I saved the crawdad vendor for last.

I spied him across the crowded street; his vendor’s stand was the last one before the livery dock. He was bent over talking with a young woman with beautiful golden hair. From the back, I could see she was in the simple, drab garb of the working class…a housemaid perhaps. But as she turned into his embrace, I saw she was quite beautiful. I was about to turn away, my face burning and my teeth grinding like a millstone…when he looked up and spotted me.

“Beatrice! You look ravishing,” the young man said, while standing erect, the young woman stepped away hastily from his arms. Fransico eyed me up and down like a hungry wolf before a tender young lamb, I knew the red dress was his favorite. The hazel eyes gleamed in his handsome, chiseled face. A lock of pale brown hair fell over his cheek as he bowed. While low, he looked up through the hair that had escaped his long queue, my heartbeat was loud in my ears, my harp strings were being plucked. He reached for me and I stepped away, my eyes on the lovely woman…on closer inspection, she was but a child still, perhaps fifteen or sixteen. Her large green eyes glistened with unescaped tears, and I wanted to slap him.

He looked between the two of us and said, “Oh! Um…Bea…meet my sister, Posy.”

She elbowed him lightly in the ribs and smiled while wiping at her eyes. “It’s really Persimone. He likes to call me Posy…” she held out a tiny pale hand and after only a hint of hesitation I took it in one of my silk gloved ones and smiled.

I said, “Well, you certainly are pretty as a posy. I’m Beatrice. Um…are you alright?”

“Yes. Fine. I’ve got to go.” She turned quickly and started away but turned her head and said, “Was nice to meet you.”

I turned back to her brother with brows raised.

He said, “A friend of hers has disappeared. He hasn’t been seen for three days. She’s quite upset.”

“He? A paramour? She’s awfully young…”

“Yes. She is. Anyways…”

He handed me our regular order: a dozen crawdads wrapped in burlap sacking. “Saved them just for you.” He said this every time we met here by the docks. And he winked just as before.

“I don’t know how you raise such creatures as these…these mini lobsters. They are so delicious.”

“Just crabbies…er, crawdads.”

“Hmmf.” I took my change and my sack. Francisco bent again and whispered, his searing breath in my ear made my legs quiver, “Tonight. Midnight. Full moon. Come.”

I fanned my face, trying to breathe. Mother and Joanne were coming through the crowd towards us. “Yes,” I said, placing a gloved hand against his stubble-grizzled cheek. I turned to face my mother and sister, but he grasped my wrist, pulled me closer, and flicked his tongue against my earlobe. A minute moan escaped my lips, heard only by this man.

I was very good at escaping our villa. All these rules and manners and decorum had created in me a very good sneak. In my comfortable riding breeches, man’s shirt and waistcoat, I mounted my mare bareback and headed to the crawdad farm to meet my lover at midnight.

We sat on the porch overlooking the farm in the bayou. His arm was around my shoulders, and I leaned into his warm, firm body. The moon was full, the night seeming more like twilight than midnight. I was comfortable in the riding clothes I was forbidden to wear. (Mother said once, “You may as well be out there in your bedclothes!”) I had come before in my bedclothes underneath my heavy woolen cloak. Francisco wrapped his long arms around me, his lanky body curved over mine, and I felt safe. We kissed passionately. His hands---firm and rough and hot---pressed onto my thighs, my neck, my breasts. Those heart strings sang an aria.

I opened my eyes…and gasped.

Over my lover’s head swung a long black shadow. It hissed.

Francisco pulled away from me, saw my face, and without missing a beat, grabbed the long black snake, it’s wide jaws opened, its black forked tongue flicked out, glistening in the moonlight. I screamed. He gripped the snake in his hands and twisted. I heard the snap of breaking bones, and sat in horror as he flung it into the bayou.

“What the hell?” I said. “Was that an---”

“Anaconda. Yes. Quite deadly. All done now.”

Though shaken, I felt I was in good hands. Francisco hadn’t hesitated or ran away…or heaven forbid, screamed… like all those prissy gentlemen would have. He took care of business. He would take care of me.

He said, “Just wait, dear Beatrice. This is not so terrible a place to be living. With a little skill and intuition, we can rule the swamps.”

I always figured he would want to leave this place and move onto our property if given the chance. The idea of me becoming A Bayou Queen was not so sparkly in my eyes. I lay quietly in his arms as we talked throughout the night. Of course, one thing led to another…

We woke as the sky turned lighter. I rose, re-placing my vest and jacket and coat. I felt my heartbeat in my loins, as I looked upon my sleeping lover. As I tugged on my boots, Francisco said, "Come look…”

Intrigued, I went with him to the dock. We looked into the greenish, muddy water and he pointed, “There. You see?”

I did see. The snake was no longer a snake. It was a long skeleton, with two hundred rib bones, and pointed white skull head.

“Wow. Yes. I do see.”

“Those little crabbies are carnivorous.” He always called them crabbies. As I watched, four crawdads remained but were backing away from the skeleton of the snake. I shuddered. My mind was reeling. I kissed my love goodbye and made it home just as Bertie, the housemaid, was announcing breakfast ready. I filled a plate before my family came down and retired to my room.

‘Knock knock knock’ and as usual, my mother entered without me acknowledging her.

“We have another dinner tonight. Eight. Come wearing your green dress. He’s an avid bird watcher; green will work on his psyche.”

“Really Mother?”

“Beatrice. Please behave. This is the last of the suitors worth our prestige, he’s visiting our town from up north.” The way she stressed the last…she meant New York.

I was in for a lashing if I thwarted this one. New York was the land of Eden for my mother…an Eden with ripe fruit dangling from every tree within her reach and laden with birds of paradise; they’d serenade her as they adorned her hats with their opulent plumage.

“Oh Mother,” I started, but then saw the sadness in her face. I felt badly for my behavior then, because of how it all looked to outsiders. But damned if I’d be betrothed to someone I didn’t like, just filling in a slot in her plans. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll be nice.”

I wore my blue gown.

As usual the corset was too tight. I’d be eating very little.

The suitor was very handsome. I tested his intelligence and humor qualities throughout the evening. I only nudged at bad manners this time, testing him.

He only smiled at me and let me play out my ‘bad manners game’, the only sign of nervousness or irritation was the turning of a signet ring on his right pinkie. He actually guffawed at my mouth full antics. He was a prince of some sort, I never really listen to mother when she goes on and on. But---he was appealing. By the end of dinner, I had him not turning the gold pinkie ring anymore. Joanne was silent and goggle-eyed and Justin grinned as he ate all his green vegetables without even looking at them much less sneering at them.

I followed Robert outside for a smoke and a cognac. We chatted for some time. I actually liked this one. He was smooth but had a ruffian soul---like he’d been through a lot. I appreciate that. He too, had lost his father at a young age.

As usual, he complemented the lobster we’d eaten. Well, he’d eaten three while I nibbled on a single buttery tail. I should have worn the green dress. I said, “They’re actually crawdads---”

“Oh! I have read about them. In New York we have many fine monthly publications, my mother saves every one for me,”

Robert’s mother lived in a large, gated manor on an immense estate. Reading was my favorite pastime. As the sun set over the bayou, the familiar calls of the marsh birds faded as they went home to their nests. A blue striped one whizzed past, “K-K-K-K-kaw!”

I said, “Belted Kingfisher.”

Robert smiled and nodded as another bird thrilled songfully nearby. He said, “And that one?”

“Marsh wren. Smallest marsh bird.”

“I hope to see one in daylight.”

“They are adorable,” I said, then added, “Why not come ‘round for breakfast tomorrow? We can take the boat out. There’s sure to be plenty of the wee pretties out…?”

“I’d like that.” He kissed my hand and left, ducking through the Spanish moss on the cypresses lining the path to the main road.

In my green dress I waited on the porch. Mother brought me a cup of tea and left us to our privacy. Our housemaid only worked three days a week now. I knew mother was watching from the upstairs window and only grew more anxious as the sun rose higher over the banyans clustered between the bayou and the big river.

I was sweating and near to tears as noon approached.

I thought of all the suitors the past year I’d turned away; I now felt shameful about my behavior. It had been hurtful and childish. I deserved to be thwarted in such a painful, humiliating way such as this. How stupid I’d been to give myself to Francisco as I had---like a right Godawful trollop.

‘I’ve thrown away not only my life, but those of my siblings and dear mother too.’

Robert was not coming back.

At three in the afternoon, I went back into the house and straight to my room. I cried myself to sleep and awoke after dark to find a plate of food on a tray on the table by my bed. A Louis salad with poached crawdad tails. I pushed it away.

I’d stopped going to the market. I tore up the notes from Francisco that Joanne secreted to me when she returned from there. I behaved myself and did my chores like an adult and took on additional responsibilities around the place. I did the cleaning, the clothes washing, the cooking…meh…well, I was trying. Our housemaid, Bertie, came only once a week now---for Sunday dinners, it was then she would teach me.

One Tuesday, three months later, Bertie came with armfuls of flowers that she placed in vases in the dining room. She hadn’t done that since our dinner with Robert. Mother was humming her favorite tune to herself, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. And Justin was wearing his blue jacket.

We had another suitor coming. For good luck, I wore the green dress.

His name was Percival. He was of average height, slight of build, brown hair, deep chocolate eyes like those of a basset hound. Nicely dressed and very polite. He was charming in a subdued way, very nervous. Joanne and Justin were them silly selves and mother laughed at all his witticisms. I nodded to her over our entrees and she relaxed.

The broiled crawdad on my plate was big and fat. No wonder our visitors always mistook them for lobsters. I turned the bright orange-red thing over and sliced it open from head to tail. As I raised a small chunk of tail meat to my mouth, I saw a glimmer of something odd in the juices puddling under its body. I fished the chunk out and picked up the foreign object in my fingers. The others at the table stopped eating when I screamed.

I held in my fingers a gold ring, a signet with a finely flourished ‘R’ upon its table.