As always, it is a pleasure to write for you rose. I felt that this asignment was somewhat more difficult than the last three but what I wrote seemed very good to me. I hope you feel the same.






Bernard paused outside the door and listened; Clarissa was talking to herself again. The padded walls swallowed most of what she said but he was pretty sure that it was along her usual lines. He guiltily looked left and right before he quietly slid the food chute open so as not to break her from her hallucinations.

He had thought that he had seen it all: Violent psychotics, screaming madwomen, schizophrenics, delusionals and, his favourite kind of patients, catatonics. He had had some of those would-be Caesar’s that the papers liked to write about and Napoleon was slowly coming into fashion, too. The screaming madness of all of east London pushed into the tiny, dirty cells of overcrowded Pembroke House.

But this one was different. Unlike the rest of the inmates and even most of the staff, she tried to stand above the grime that seeped into everything, and everyone, in Pembroke house; reasoning that her master wanted her clean. She had refused to wear the dirty linen that all the inmates wore and preferred to go naked. But even the dress that the good nuns had provided so that she would cover her nakedness lay discarded in the corner. Bernard watched her kneel in her cell, naked safe for a small piece of cloth that she wore wrapped around her waist, indecently exposing her firm breasts and long white legs. His manhood started to rise and he opened the food chute wider to get a better view, wondering if he should include this into his next confession.

The madwoman begged for mercy and whimpered apologies to her unseen master, kissing the floor in front of her. Her limbs were thin and elegant and her skin was white as snow. Even on her knees she retained that noble deportment that set her apart from the common lunatics next door, or all women in Bernard’s life for that matter. They whispered behind closed doors that she used to be a lady of fine standing, a young widow who had withdrawn to her country house after her husband’s untimely death and turned mad over her books.

She knelt back on her haunches and her face lit up. Sometimes, she had to be restrained to stop her from beating herself to death but this time, it seemed, her imaginary transgression had been forgiven by her imaginary master. And she wasn’t slow in thanking him, worshipping his imaginary feet and steadily working her way up. Bernard gulped as he realized what she was implying to do with her mouth and cherry-red lips.

On its own accord, his hand found its way down into his uniform trousers as the lewd spectacle played out before him. No, he concluded, this certainly was too far outside of socially acceptable sin to be part of his next confession.

A sin that was his duty to repeat every morning at nine and every evening at five, he thought with a smile as he reluctantly turned away to continue his rounds.



Caesar’s slave. That certainly was new.





PS: I gave the story the obvious title "Ceasar's slave" but later realized that it gives away too much. Any suggestions?