w. araigneut
"never taking your fill:
what glorious pleasures take shape within you."
intro Illuminated by ambelic flame and armed with thin, silver shears, the apothecary moved confidently over the workbench where his roots and clippings lay. in his concentration, Each gesture betrayed his past spent elsewhere. Penitence in the elegant and obedient curve of his back. Pleasure in the way he handled the sticky green fronds that clung to his fingers. Pain in how he shifted his weight onto a bothersome hip to pressure it against the counter’s edge. “Please,” he whispered as he looked up from his work with a black smile and eyes to match.through the censor smoke and from behind the shop curtains where you had been hiding — waiting — you saw a red mote twinkle in his eye.“Come in.”
| scent: extinguished candle, almond flour, bitter cherry skins, thurible smoke |
| physique: short stature, more bone than body. moves like oil spilled from an ewer |
| secrets: vessel and collector of vessels. indulgent of daydreams and his dolls |
| address: "he," situationationally "she" : may be addressed by dame, lady, sister |
| scars: flesh made archive / relic : his is a map for pilgrimage. follow the red river |
🝥 alchemy of being [timeline] :
calcination [beginning] : souffrant spirit raised in the abbey faire penitence, a prodigal chirurgeon and sineater. survived the seven miracles that would make him a saint. "this is my body which is given for you."
sublimation [middle] : a courtesan chaplain who served the courts in mind, body, spirit. his flesh was a vessel for unspoken desires. his mind was a vessel for information. his heart remains empty. "this is my body which is given for you."
projection [contemporary] : accomplished alchemist, apothecary, and attendant, walkelin services the body of his kingdom. he sups and sells their secrets — he keeps their bodies soft and sound. pleasurer, purveyor, poisoner, perfumer, penitent. a submissive sanctified through sin.
shrines
ephemera
information, images, inspirations
"Sola dosis facit venenum" : the dose makes the poison — paracelus, 1538
WORDBANK:
hormesis : a two-phased dose-response relationship whereby low-dose exposures have a beneficial effect and high-dose amounts are either inhibitory to function or toxic. from ancient greek hormáein — to excite. apotheosis : the elevation of a person to divine status. heirodule : a historical or mythological term for a temple slave, often associated with religious or sacred prostitution in the ancient world. sin : a moral transgression, from *es- meaning to be. apophatic : describes a method of defining something by stating what it is not rather than what it is. used to describe the divine through what is absent, unknown, or beyond human comprehension.
bibliography: “Whatever you do is a delight to me!”: Masculinity, Masochism, and Queer Play in Representations of Male Martyrdom
January 2001Exemplaria 13(1):1-37
DOI:10.1179/104125701790499263 Hart, L. (1998). : Between the body and the flesh: Performing sadomasochism. New York: Columbia University Press. : Meiners, E. (1999). Sick and twisted: Reading revolting research. Qualitative Studies in Education, 12(5), 565-586.
| on desire, hadewijch the beguine, 1250: "At that time I was so terribly unnerved with passionate love and in such pain that I imagined all my limbs breaking one by one and all my veins were separately in tortuous pain. This much I can say about it: I desired to consummate my Lover completely and to confess and to savour in the fullest extent--to fulfil his humanity blissfully with mine and to experience mine therein, and to be strong and perfect so that I in turn would satisfy him perfectly: to be purely and exclusively and completely virtuous in every virtue. For above all gifts I could choose, I choose that I may give satisfaction in all great sufferings. |
| on intersexism, eustache deschamps, 1340: “a soft chin, son of hermaphrodite. effeminate, a defect of nature. faint in heart, devoid of all virtues, but full of vice, which tends towards nothing but filth. a woman out of a man, who should be bearded —man without hair, this is an insult to everyone. to meet them is nothing but misfortune, and their gaze can be pleasing.” |
| on mortification, st. gemma: The flesh would like to command, and instead I wish to make it serve me as it ought, now and forever. |
mend : break
"I dressed him, god healed him" : the physick ambroise paré in 1540
biography: and so the child arrived at the abbey door, soaked through with rain. "rien," he replied when asked his name by the sister. nothing. that night he sorted through his small trunk of belongings, his patchwork skirts and bedtime stories, and held fast to his doll. "manon," he said her name and quickly recalled the pamphlet she came delivered in. walkelin had been the name of the retainer in the short story, mending manon's hems and milky limbs. by morning over gruel and well water, he had become him — that devoted servant. over the years, he honed the art of service : slavery : submission. the boy, soft-shaped and painted, became a mercurial vessel. man's burdens were transformed in him, and when he tipped over — out came bounty. gouts of healing, hedonism, horticulture : he was bloodletting manifest, to adjust mankind's humors in service to the gods. he is the earth that connects man to the spirit : the rootsystem of witness. the succor and the sickness. he is what is, and what never was. could he be?
pray.
commandment : undress soul and flesh before holy altar. open oneself to goddess by knife in a fashion thrice. in silver dish, combine penitent lifeblood with milk of her breast and honey of her spit. the transference of burden is complete at faded flamelight. in depletion, seek restoration through communion. indulge in the sweetness of god, spirit, and man entwined. keep the silver unwashed : retire to cot hungry. ardor will take as seed in empty stomach. be the plot where spirit is sown. cultivate.
diary entry, cipher: I find company again with the viper. it is only so much cause for concern that his presence suits me like theophany. as private and careful in my indulgences as I might be, his company alone finds my thinning ribs like butter. it seems the gods made him like a cask, impenetrably wooden but filled with wine. in this self awareness, he seeks to drunken whosoever trespasses him enough so that he might trespass them in kind. I bear witness to it as he directs himself in imitating the righteousness of creation. there are so few on the land who know they are of the land and wield it to their advantage. as the gods gave me alone the serf's burden to toil in these fields, I do not seek forgiveness in joining in his harvest. I see the saplings of unconsummated lust in the thicket of his soul and will cut them as my own. may it only be before brushes with the unworthy shade-starve my claim. I would not have fate be so wasteful.
sit.
perfume an extrait born of the northern vale. bitter fruit skins left to dry overnight in the chapel's thurible. worship infuses them — makes them sticky. the smell of candle wax over hot iron roils from the bottle's lip. you may not feel compelled to pray : but those in your vicinity notice obligation in their knees. "bend for me," says the bottle. you are glad to inherit its perfume. forty gold coins
poultice the sound of mortar and pestle grinds in your ears. it could be plant, or bone — it does not matter. the wound on your hip weeps pus. you have put your faith in the unloveable. twenty gold coins
poison made of hand harvested bedroot from the foothills where the last dragon mated. his lust dribbled spit into the aquifer, causing a copse of malignant flowers to grow along the smaller slopes in specks of green and blue. in small doses, this ampoule contains aphrodisiac properties. takes one sennight to stop recipient's breathing. best administered through baked goods. fifteen hundred gold coins.
penitence. his or yours. a firm hand.
personhood you watch as the apothecary moves, tending to you and the vials in tandem. for a moment you have forgotten why it is you came (to have someone killed) — in his care, you are reborn. intention fades like fog, gone beneath his skirts. what are beneath his skirts? the next time he approaches, you notice the paint on his lips. you feel a boy before a dollhouse — your sister's, the one you were reprimanded from ever playing with. childish, you ask for another hour in the smell of honey and herbs. your murderous heart aches. a secret.
