Roses And Relations Reborn

Roses And Relations Reborn  

     I woo my sister. “If the lover of Prospero’s daughter were not fictional wouldst thou not be his leading lady on the stage called life?”  
    “Dost thou make oracular airs? Such prophecies are not made in jest.”  
     I reply, “Ah, just a portent of love glimpsed from afar.”  
     “Given my impeccable femininity attested to by thee wouldst thou let a bitter man’s choice fill thy shoes?”  
    “Since our womb abode was the same surely to share the same bed would be a blasphemous deed.”  
     Ro replies, “Yet brothers to sisters are like barley to mead. When you add just the right amount of honey we find the middle way between cloyingly sweet and bone dry where heaven lies.”  
     “Rowena, thou art the embodiment of feminine’s own beauty, Aphrodite made mortal but with immortal loveliness, the femme de la crème is spoken soberly from lips which long for yours.”  
     “John, for Christ’s sake, I’m your sister! Your concupiscent courtship of me is that of a rake for a coquette he met in some ungodly tavern.”  
     “Where thou walk virtue is not far behind, in fact, it is with your every footstep. You belong barefoot in a wildflower meadow far from the spoils of merchants. My adoration for you is born of brotherly love.”  
     “Oh John, my face is pink with the blush of a lass. Desist your wanton ways or I shall depart on a sly but scrupulous note.”  
     “I shall try to stay my tongue. Yet your halo is a crown fit for an angel.”  
     “John, when you deify me I feel like a precious gem. Yet the trappings of a commoner fit me better than a jeweled robe.”  
     “Rowena, you are an Aphrodite incarnate who enchants mere mortals.”  
     “John, you’re rehearsing the play of courtship with me. I can impart unto thee the words to loosen a woman’s gown. But certain rules must be observed which means no female guests overnight. The springs in your mattress proclaim your ignominy. So you may use my bed to muffle your mischief. Mine will be a voyeur’s tithe when I tidy things up upon her leave-taking. The scents of love well made will be my reward. You must cloak your cleaving from Mom who goes produce hunting at the market Friday mornings. There is no need for worry because her punctuality is true as a sundial at a solstice. When the shadows from the window shorten conclusion must be at hand.”  
     I exclaim, “By Jove!”  
     “John, whenever Mom’s churchy friend brings her daughter, Caroline, over for a visit you miss the opportunity for a turnabout of a social call because you fret with the young woman with a nervous twitch portending her hex. Methinks the cause of your flirtation with me is that self-inflicted love is your pastime which is a poor substitute for women who are eligible prospects. When the aforesaid young lady makes a social call thou hidest behind my skirt like a timid schoolboy.”  
     “No, it is because you possess the charm and wit of a socialite from London, whereas Caroline while fetching, lacks your sophistication and urbanity. One day perhaps a woman will tickle my fancy like you. Until then be assured my flirtations art practice for correspondence with the fairer sex.”  
     “Your compliments melt me. Courtship is a lost art from a more genteel age. Hold my hand and I will govern your base desires into a sturdier manhood.”  
      Rowena rendezvous with a suitor with Mom’s midnight curfew looming. My pangs of jealousy are real as the Bard’s green-eyed monster. Finally, she darkens the door. “John, my return finds me the pure virginal girl Mama raised me to be. The clock didn’t find me cavorting in opium dens or even giving up my sobriety.”  
     “Good to know staying up for you proved as pointless as Hadrian’s Wall was for keeping out the Scots.”  
     “John, were you embraced by the arms of Morpheus even long enough for a grain of sand to fall through an hourglass?”  
     “I’ll sleep well enough in the sweet bye and bye.”  
     “When the moment teetered like Caesar on his last leg, to be chaperoned by my brother was a distant dream.”  
     “Oh no Rowena, vouchsafe that you found  protection from angels on high.”  
     “Of course not, because such angels were not at hand. Therefore the shame I cast upon him was my flaming sword. However, he found my lips sweet so he said. It felt strange. I was bathing in his kisses until I used what strength a lass can muster to send away his affection. But such a peculiar feeling came over me. I felt beside myself with joy and fear.”  
     “What provoked your fear?”  
      “He might follow a path without my consent. My palsied heart skipped beats.”  
     “Rowena, remember the phrase ‘frailty thy name is woman.’ Here I hold the sarcasm for a paternal tone if it is my right. But promise your brother that you will leave haste to the gallop of stallions in matters of the heart.”  
     “John, when you are a knight to my lady I feel a warm sugarplum melt inside of me. You’ve been the David to the Goliaths of my life. But I slew your giant. I trace a path to your twenty-first birthday. You proposed to drink a deuce of hootch bottles or meet a fate of ashes trying. I stalked you all the way to the Pub where I hovered outside like a policewoman on a stakeout ready to haul you into the drunk tank. You swaggered in like a swashbuckler whose only sword was the one between your legs.”  
     “My purse didn’t hold enough coins for the high-grade liquor but I surmised that the cheap stuff would be proficient to the point.”    
     “You staggered out like a sacrificial Druid with one foot in the grave. When you collapsed on the street whether you were having a heart attack or just stone-cold drunk was beyond my perception. So for the first time, we pressed lips.”  
     “You breathed life into my frail and dying body.  Your exhalation was like a spring breeze.”    
     “My requital to your compliment is that while your breath wasn’t the essence of mint your compliance was most satisfactory. Even most wives couldn’t withstand those whiskey fumes for their very own husband.”  
     “I faced the grim reaper betwixt the eyes. In his cold embrace, my heart became a weir that stymied my corpuscles so that death was a mere stone’s throw away. Then, I felt your hands rub my face with the liquor of your touch to remedy the fermented corn.”  
     “Someday, you’ll meet a woman who will warm you in ways I can’t.”  
     “Celibacy comes naturally as it did for Adam and Eve before the fall in our garden of love.”  
     “Me, be chaste? Our heredity is Biblical in its begats. Growing the family tree is as much a family tradition as singing Samhain carols. My body cries for babies. I was born to make babies. It is in my blood” she breaks to me.  
     “My future wife must have your regal bearing.”  
    “John, are there no women at the castle where you serve the queen?”  
     “Of course the nannies are women.”  
     “Are any of those lasses as fetching as me?”  
    “You are a pink flamingo among mallards.”  
     “You are a peacock among geese. But my confession spills from lips which have prayed upon the altar of your manly charisma. If you weren’t my brother I’d marry you.”    
     “Rowena, what did I do to earn such affection from my very own sister?”  
    “You make me feel like the woman I could become.” She kisses me on the cheek.  
     Rowena sets John up on a hot date with her best friend. To have his biscuits warmed for her friend she spikes his aperitif for sex with Spanish fly. But she also puts some in her own drink to share in the fun. She toasts John, “To your gift to womankind. You are not such a man as to hide your candle under a bushel. May your candle drip as the flame burns to return your gift tenfold.”  
     John says, “To the most favored sister for whose honor a brother would face the sword with death’s motto to recite.” So John invites Marjorie into the room his sister prepared for just such an occasion. Soon John and Marjorie are in the throes of passion. But John feels a strange sensation emanate from his sex to his heart.  
     All the while Rowena is in her neighboring room making love to herself by the light of her lamp. Little does either of them know that their shared lineage makes them allergic to the Spanish aphrodisiac Ro used to make their night special. And so they find themselves washing out to a sea of bliss until the water swallows them.  
     But the ocean turns into the Mediterranean Sea where his sister and he swim underwater not to die, but to find something in the sea. There are shipwrecks under the water where they are swimming. Upon surfacing they are thrown life preservers and hoisted on board a galleon.  
     A crusty old man with a grey beard says, “My alchemy turned you all from the pallor of corpses back into the pink of health.”  
     Rowena addresses Prospero, “Do you have any spirits onboard? Silly question all sailors drink.”  
     Prospero answers, “Why yes of course. We have rum from Barbados and made all the sweeter by the native ladies upon whose service you shall delight.”  
     “We are a pair of millennia aged leeward of five score years. Would an ID assure our petition?”  
     “Please, you’ve been properly vetted. It be but sailor’s grog yet enjoy.”  
     They are assigned the same bed to sleep in. John says, “But she be my sister. We shan’t share a bed.”  
      “Consider yourselves actors in a new play, a traveling production if thou wilt, wherefore thou art part of a cast whose roles art never reprised for the playwright signs his folio finis,” Prospero says.  
     Rowena tells John, “You can fawn on me to your heart’s content. We are no more siblings than birds are frogs.”