Published Stories
The Spark
Because I have known you so long, dear Camille, and you have never betrayed my confidences, I can leave you with an honest answer.
I loved Percy. In his presence I was truly alive, and even when he was absent, he was a giant in my imagination, always present, sometimes draped languidly as if in drugged torpor and sometimes erect, indecent, outrageous, but, always beautiful. He was as soft as mushrooms to the touch and smelled as fresh as mountain air, night, or day. From the moment my eyes alighted upon him I was mesmerised and it felt as if my cells turned to mush, to leak in places where I thought there was no avenue. At that moment I wanted to reach out and cup him in my hands like I would a featherless baby cuckoo, were I to find one abandoned, and protect him from harm.
Even on our first night under my family’s roof I felt him touch my inside thigh and should have raised objection at such audacious behaviour, yet couldn’t. I had nothing to compare, being barely sixteen and having never spent time alone with a man not of family. My father, a poet, was want to promote the alternatives of life, of morals decried by others as sins, of a spectrum of friends both casual and intimate, so that I was unaware of boundaries, apart from those detailed by the good church fathers. On the surface, Percy was upper-class affable and, even to dear Mama, he presented in such a manner she would speak fondly of her delight in his company, and how good it would be for my future should we become further acquainted. At the right time of course, which remained understood but unspoken. I’d never heard her refer to such matters before, even though she acted as if it were a common topic shared between women.
For father there was a common thread; him being a man after all, and a man of letters, wooed by a younger Percy, and was want, in his company, to pontificate, and supplicate in equal parts, due to the charm of Percy’s wealth. Percy could be bought and so, too, it appears, could father.
The spark, ignited on my inside leg as referred to earlier, was impermeable. I feel it to this day. The cheek of the approach; the power of that delicate touch. I wonder if our consciousness is no more than a spark: An energy that motivates us? My addiction.
Percy quizzed me on my beliefs about freedom and marriage, love and emotion, reason, and church. He was pleased to hear my teenage proclamation that individuals should be free to love whomever, and not be tied to tradition or blood-lines, like an automaton or a stud animal. He was the great romantic poet after all and saw love, romance, lovemaking as the engine of life itself.
When father was speared by Percy’s audaciousness in promoting his literary prowess over father’s and refused to subjugate his ambition to that of the great professor, then the apprenticeship was brought to a sudden end. I was torn between worshipping and defending Percy, and obeying dear pater. I had met secretly with the former on numerous occasions and knew of his obsessions, ambitions, and desire for me, and his wish to seek father’s permission to wed but, now, sadly, that opportunity had been truncated.
Percy begged me to follow him. He didn’t promise anything but I’d placed a ransom in my mind. Romance, love, sexual pleasure, freedom with Percy, versus suppression, boredom and living my parent’s dreams. I discussed my predicament with younger sister, Claire and she urged me to leave, and follow my heart, so long as she could accompany me. She couldn’t imagine a life, alone, in the family.
To date, Camille, I’ve spoken of the heart but, during our enlightened age, reason and science reigned, and electricity was a mysterious power touted by scientists, and entrepreneurs, alike. One evening, not long after Percy was forbidden to contact me, Clair and I attended a lecture, and witnessed a magical presentation, which claimed to be proof that electric current could animate the lifeless. In a darkened room the presenter, encased within a metal cage, demonstrated the faraday effect by passing massive charges of static electricity around himself, and used such currents to light a filament held at some distance from the source. Clair crushed my fingers each time the lightning bolt arced, but I was so fascinated I remained unperturbed.
At one point the illusionist paraded a dead frog, its legs akimbo, pinned on a small wooden display board to convince us that it no longer lived. Many of us gasped and muttered as it was passed around, but the decaying odour that accompanied the package, dear Camille, was sufficient to convince me long before I had sighted it.
The entertainer placed the frog beneath a strong spotlight in the darkened room and using a black cloth, rhythmically, and vigorously, stroked a glass rod for thirty seconds. With a flourish he ran the rod over his assistant’s head and her hair leapt upright to follow it, leading us all to gasp. The spotlights were lowered and after rubbing the rod again, he placed it on the frog’s groin. Sparks flared and the frog’s legs kicked and retracted as if alive. We were stunned to witness the frog’s reincarnation and the auditorium doused in silence.
I knew then, that if Clair and I were to have a life, we should pack and leave our lifeless home without hesitation.
We joined Percy in a run-down apartment in inner-London the following day; the apartment a far cry from what I was used to, and imagined, and far short of the lifestyle he’d promised. It was evening by the time we’d eaten and we were exhausted. Clair had selected a couch in the hallway for a bed, and set about undressing as unselfconsciously as if we were a married threesome, and turned in to sleep. Percy and I retreated to our room.
I’d waited weeks for this occasion and I longed for Percy’s touch as much as I’d ever longed for any treat, such that I trembled with desire. He hugged me the moment the door closed and I calmed. We kissed deeply and I was surprised when his tongue pushed mine aside and I accommodated it, eagerly. I hurried to reciprocate. I’d imagined a kiss would be exciting but I was so surprised how readily its effect translated to other regions of my body, and made me so compliant to his desire.
‘That’s how they do it in Paris, Mary,’ he’d whispered, as he’d sensed my surprise.
You may be wondering, my dear Camille, why I’m offering so much detail, but it is central to answering the question you posed. It’s important you understand what happened for posterity, although in our lifetime, in the interests of promoting science and the advancement of women, I hope we retain the official version.
Having kissed and gloried in the tingling sensation of his hands exploring my body, I felt languid. I slipped off my shoes and he undressed me, lay me upon the bed, and followed suit. I was thoroughly emboldened and didn’t divert my eyes for one moment, relishing the opportunity to stare at this beautiful creature in all his glory. His desire for me was physically rampant and I wondered if I would be able to accommodate him, but a flutter deep within me dismissed any doubt.
Percy approached me on his knees from the foot of the bed, then paused to examine my nakedness in detail. I wondered if he liked what he surveyed, but I noticed his erection now pressed flat against his stomach, so assumed he did. I smiled, raised my arms to draw him close; perhaps lie upon me. He parted my legs. I’m embarrassed to admit an image of the illusionist’s frog flashed across my mind as my knees flopped apart, to be instantly replaced by an image of Percy leaning forward and kissing me lightly. This time my tongue sought his.
We kissed for what appeared an age, then he nibbled my neck; traced a line to my breast with his tongue and, in turn, took each nipple into his mouth. I wanted to grind myself against him but his hips continued to hover, while he teased my breasts to a point, they sweetly ached. He then kissed his way to that most intimate of spaces, between my legs, his tongue finding no resistance, forcing itself between my saturated lips and affording, thankfully, an opportunity for my hips to move against it.
Within moments I was overwhelmed, about to burst and unable to understand what was happening to me. It was meant to be pleasant but not this pleasant, not this exciting. I needed him inside me. I pulled his hair, grasped his chin, and dragged his face towards mine in order to kiss him. He tasted saltier than previously. I felt his glorious weight upon me. I placed both hands upon his buttocks, whispered in his ear:
‘Where did you learn that kiss, Paris?’
He nodded. I raised my knees to better accommodate him. Within moments his hips moved in a delightful manner and I could push against him as my intuition demanded. As he probed, I could feel the static electricity mount within me. It had an energy of its own, dear Camille, each wave building on the previous, until it would have enveloped us both in a sparking Faraday cage, had one been available.
At this point I couldn’t resist. Percy, the great illusionist, had turned the switch. I lost myself; let go; heaved internally, as If I was about to expel his electrostatic rod. I bucked; my knees twitched savagely like the frog’s. My legs flailed either side of Shelly with a life of their own, driven by the sweet charge within me. Where I was once flesh and blood, and flowing moisture, I was now an infinite being, an electric pulse, free of all earthly burdens and rational control. When, earlier, I’d watched the entertainer-illusionist at the theatre, I was not convinced of galvanism but, now, I was. Life, one day, may be generated and passed to the inanimate. To answer your question, it was there and then, while our Shelly rushed to his dénouement, Camille, I crafted the first lines of my novel. The secret, now, is yours. Your dear friend. Mary S.
(Ed Note: Mary Shelly wrote the novel Frankenstein dealing with the limits of technology, like modern concerns about ChatGP.)