Throwaway Dream Sequence

By Mr. David R. Dorrycott

Molly Procyk, Helen, Amelia & Maria copyright Mr. Simon Barber.

Molly Procyk’s eyes snapped open in the rooms near absolute darkness. There had been no sound to wake her, only her own recurring dream. Around her she could sense the bodies of her classmates in their beds, gathering much needed sleep for tomorrow’s school day. Or was it today’s school day? A glance at the radium coated hands on her clock told her at least that answer. Today’s. Raising her right paw to cover her heart she found it racing like a tommygun at full throat. It had been that dream again. That dream she still was not certain was a dream, or a nightmare.

She had been with Shiba Granite, the mad ship Captain’s fur entwined within Molly’s own after nearly a full night of bedgames. It was the night Shiba had whispered her admission of love to the doe. Had whispered, because just outside the Captain’s door stood a guard. One who would have heard, and having heard would have gone to the crew with such news. Molly had not been uneducated about the ships laws by then. Shiba’s admission of love to a captive automatically placed her in the same position. Had the crew known, the vixen would have joined Molly as nothing more than a body to be broken, then sold to the highest bidder.

She had known, and knowing had power over the Captain who’s bed she shared every night of her captivity. A word from her and her enemy would be taken down forever. Yet even in the worst of her treatment, when several crewfurs were enjoying her at the same time she never said anything. Why not? Why hadn’t she? Why had she started looking forward to those nights with Granite? Nights she had lain awake watching her captor sleeping. Could have killed her. Had she truly caught the illness of Sapphic the doe had once wondered. Was she doomed to suffer from its effects forever? Yet even Doctor Riverstone had laughed when Molly had brought that idea up a few days ago.

“Dear Miss Procyk” the otter had explained. “Being sapphic is not an illness. You can’t catch it any more than you can catch being left pawed, blackfurred or blue eyed. You are, or your not. Its how your born.”

“I heard that you and Oharu” Molly had begun.

“Dear doe, some of us are very open hearted. We’re rare, we can accept love offered by anyone with the same fullness. But me? Yes. Yes I was in love with that mouse for a while, but she pushed me away. Kept me from falling fully in love with her. So now I have a new suitor and believe me. Major Hawkins is no woman by any means of the word.”

“Oharu is in love with me” Molly admitted.

“Of course she is. And you are why I had no chance with her. In a way I envy you, to have someone love you without reservation. And in some ways I hated you. Because you kept me from her heart, and you don’t want her. But that isn’t your fault either is it dear. You didn’t ask her to love you and you’ve done nothing to encourage her. Nothing at all. Anyway, you’ve nothing to fear from her. She would never approach you knowing you’ve no interest. It would be dishonorable. Now lets get those stitches out. That cut has healed with only a little scar.”

Then there was the letter from Granites mother. It had arrived a month after the vixens death. Almost to the day. It still remained unopened. Sitting up in her bed she raised her paws to her face. She had Lars, and he did love her. He did want her, and Amelia too. Still with her face in her paws Molly tried to work that out as well. When she and Amelia were with Lars they did things together. Things Molly had only done with Granite. Things that when she was alone she felt were evil. Was it the herding instinct the doe wondered. Why was her will so subservient to Lars when they were together? Her mind was confused about this, but she knew no one to turn too that she could really trust. Certainly not Amelia, though there was nothing between them outside of Lars.

Bending forward Molly opened the desk drawer that was hers. From it she withdrew that frilly yellow diary she had taken from the THREE MOONS safe. Picking up her flashlamp she turned it on, opening the diary to a well marked place. It was the page where Granite was grappling with her love for Molly.

“Is it because of her beauty? Oh if that were only the case. I could then simply ignore this feeling. Yes. Oh so very much yes her beauty drew me into her grasp, but that beauty has faded these weeks while she has played ships entertainment. Still I love her. More today than yesterday. It is her. He soul, her heart, her mind. Oh God if only you had given me to her before father broke my soul. Before I became the filth I now am. I have nothing to offer her. Nothing to bargain with. Though she now comes to my bed willingly, and surprises me nightly with her energy, her experimenting, I cannot hope to touch her heart. She does things to me no woman ever thought of, she plays my body like a fine instrument, draws my soul to places I never thought possible. Yet I would give up all that I am, all I ever was, simply to hear her once say that she loved me. All I can do is help her escape when we are near her destination. I must be careful, for should the crew suspect they will stop me and I will join her. But does it matter? One day they will decide that I am no longer needed. One day I will awake in that cage as ships cat. As I truly deserve. But not my Molly. No, she will never stand upon a block to be sold. I will not let that happen. No matter what the cost is to myself.”

That page had been written just four days before Molly had discovered the rusty knife in her cage. Had then cut the cord holding her cage closed. Had found the hatch lock broken and escaped, to swim to freedom and back to Songmark. That blade had not been there the morning she had been dragged out for the crews amusement, but it had been when she was thrown back in. “Why do women fall in love with me” the doe whispered.

Then there was that letter. It now marked the page Molly had just read. Weeks and weeks it had been in her paws, remained unopened. With a shudder of fear at what it may contain the doe slit open that paper with one sharpened claw. No matter the truth, she had to know.

“My dearest Molly” she read. “If I may call you that. My name is Ohanna, you may call me grand mother should you wish. You see, I am Elizabeth’s mother. Since that paper she filled before her death this makes you her daughter, a member of my family. We both know the truth, one my society would never accept. She wanted you to be her wife, didn’t she. I think that I could have accepted that. I would at least have tried as much as I could.

Molly, please understand that I never knew what my thrice damned then husband was doing to my daughter. What he did. Not until she ran off. Leaving his naked gutted body in her bed. By that time of course it was much to late for any intervention by myself. Other than with my ex-husband. I believe that Elizabeth, and you would be delighted to know that his casket contained an old log. That his body was buried in the cities garbage dump.

Many times Elizabeth would write me. At first only short missives from strange places. Many times I attempted to write back. Yet every letter was returned as unknown. At least until those last months after your entry into her life. I feel that my last two letters did manage to reach her paws, though the third returned much after news of her death. You see Molly, you were the first, the only bright thing my daughter spoke of since leaving home. Understand please that she hated her life, but had accepted it as her due ‘for seducing her father.’ She truly believed that her life was Gods punishment for her sin of being with her father. Oh if only I could have had her for a few minutes before she ran off.

What I am trying to say my dear is this. Elizabeth accepted you as her’s. Oh I much doubt that you returned the feelings, at least she never mentioned such. Yet you gave her the only true mature pleasure of her life. You helped her realize that she could love again. In her last letter she mentioned turning herself over to the authorities in Spontoon. In the hope that before they killed her, for her crimes truly demanded the death penalty. Even I understand that. But she hoped to one last time to see you. To explain, to beg your forgiveness. To tell you that she loved you so much.

Molly, you are now a member of my family as much as if you were my own daughter. We two know the truth, you are not my grand-daughter but my daughter in law. I have decided to accept you fully in both positions. To the public you are my granddaughter. In private, you are my daughter in law. Please come visit. I would like to hear from you about my daughter. Not simply the good things, the bad as well. For she never hid from me the evil she did, never tried to justify it. But she was my daughter, and nothing could ever take that away from me. I hope that nothing takes you away from me either.

Please come home. I wish to hear you call me mother.

                                                                             Ohanna Marie Rose Cabot

Rose Cabot Molly read, remembering. Shiba’s real name had been Elizabeth Diane Rose Cabot. Folding the paper she slid it back into its envelope, closing the diary upon the envelope. Only then did she look up, to find Helen kneeling in from of her.

“Would it help if yah talked about it. To friends” the Texan wildcat asked softly. Behind the wildcat Amelia and Maria watched in silence.

The doe’s answer was to start crying.