A Pigs Perals' update.

Everything in that room matched or complimented the red and gold playing through Catherine’s dress. Huge wall hangings decorated the interior in warm Indian colours and wooden beads died red and tarnished ochre and a deep brown draped themselves over high arched doorways. It was a rich room, in sight and aroma. Exotic, thick and exciting. There was Catherine’s slight hint of oranges and then a more chocking sent of lilies, Titania’s favourite flower and vanilla. I had been in his room before; in fact I often frequented it when I desired company of a friendly nature. It is a rare thing to own in this theatre. Titania was reclining on one of the sofas but as soon as Catherine entered she slowly tumbled off and straightened herself to welcome her lover and her baggage. I pride myself on knowing a small bit about each actor in this theatre. But about Titania, I know nothing more than that her raven black hair reaches the crown of her thighs, and that she looks good in leather and knows it. Her body was today wrapped in grey suede, a one-piece suit that showed off much of her torso and clavicle. It was crudely sow together with thick thread up the sides of her legs and under her arms, never quiet meeting showing more flesh in a seductive manor, like a hunting pelt. I could imagine her a hunter. She was a half cast, Casper didn’t like her. He said that he wouldn’t trust her as far as Claudius could throw her, because he, himself would never touch her. Her accent was bitter as dark chocolate as were her lips and I imagined that they tasted as such. I made a note to ask my Catherine, later if my assumptions were true.
‘Welcome home’
she said as she approached us both. I was still lucky enough to have that happy warm feeling running through my insides not to be hurt at the speed in which Catherine dropped me to the floor and embraced Titania. I lay contented on my side where I had been abandoned, and stared at the legs of the sofa. Deep dark mahogany they were, almost black, but too rich to be such a dull colour. Carved into little cherubs holding the weight of the lavish chair on their little fat shoulders, almost bent double with the burden of the chair, their miniature wings crippled. A few feathers had been engraved by their feet, one of the four was crying.
Titania kissed Catherine full on the mouth and hungrily. Suddenly Catherine was a little girl again, outside the school gates, behind the high red brick walls. Holding hands with Titania and then stealing that quick kiss. It was strange for me to watch this transformation which then dissolved as soon as it had appeared, like sugar in hot water. She burst into a fit of giggles then and made an attempt (a half hearted and flawed one, as her lips were cracked into a happy grin, scarlet lipstick slightly smudged and faded were some of it had bled onto Titania’s own lips) at being annoyed at how forward her partner had been.
‘Goodness you, we have company, and proper company at that, for shame! My father warned me against such sluts as you’ Titania did nothing but smile at her and as I did in my drunken state, allowed her to continue in her own monologue.
‘Now we must get our gentleman his fix otherwise he is likely to show our floor his dinner’
Titania again said nothing, it was against her disposition to do so, preferring to keep what thoughts she had to herself, padding towards me as silent and unnerving as a hunter. I wondered if her thoughts were as dark as those lips.
‘Oh my little jester what shall we do with you, I should be like Pilot and wash my hands of you, but then that would be comparing you to our lord and even you, though you dream, are not placed in such a high position within my favours’
I tried to open my mouth and utter a witty reply that would shock even the most cynical into a state of awe.
‘Oh shush yourself Catherine, I am no toddler!’ was dismally all that could muster from between my lips, and at this Catherine whisked me delightedly into her sturdy arms.
‘Hark at him!’
She cried nuzzling her face into mine and for a moment I was blinded by curls of hair and dusty powder.
‘Oh I could just lock you up in the depths of my heart, so when I am feeling down I could call upon you like a cadged bird and you could say such a thing and lift my spirits, oh my little favourite, you will always be my little child.’
I yelled out in indignation at being degraded so and began resisting my captor.
‘I would bite you, and kick you before you imprisoned me in such a way! I have no desire to be steeped and drowned in the chambers of your heart, I would suffocate for lack of air and shrivel up for lack of things to do, but be called upon once in every eternity. For that is how often it seems to me that you become anything short of positively glowing with happiness, or a sprite like mirth at tormenting the likes of me!’
I wriggled now like a spoilt babe in the grip of a doting mother and finally managed to slither away and seat myself in a chair that stood opposite were Titania had resumed her place, on the sofa held up by anguished angles. Catherine laughed elatedly and disappeared into a cascade of clacking beads that shivered and swayed long after she had passed through them. Sounds from the room which I suppose was most like a kitchen than any of the other rooms in this strange apartment soon accompanied her lustful humming.
‘So you have been playing with Claudus then little jester, an adventurous thing to be doing’ Titania mused and tangled her fingers through the rough plat of hair that wound its way down her back thoughtfully. She was the kind of girl Miriam and Claudus sniffed after.
‘Claudus and I are like brothers, we go way back’ I remarked with pride.
‘How old are you again funny man?’ she asked creasing her brow and fixing me with a gaze so intense for such a casual expression, that for a moment I understood why Catherine loved her. When someone asks you how old you are in this theatre, they have no interest in when you were born, or how many years you have walked this earth. Only how many you have been in the theatre.
‘Three’ was my answer, but I’d known that I would die here, the moment I stepped through the doors to the foyer. I loved that entrance, and like an old comfort blanket that I was too old for, I slipped into my memory.

The lobby was dusty, wonderfully dusty. The red carpet and grand luxurious curtains framing doors that lead to a world outside of reality had faded, had been worn with the thousands of hands brushing past, idly feeling the texture of it against their millions of fingers. The doors were set like a painting in gold frames their stained wood rich and dark, smelling slightly of the cinnamon and dreams. The tassels, which I knew had been gold, were now a dusky twilight, sunset yellow and the staircase. I had never seen such a staircase. There was a door to our left and a door to our right and leading up to the centre, double doors on the second floor was a staircase to heaven. Solid creamy marble slabs carved into a story of Greek gods fighting titans wove its way up and up. The mortals on the bottom most step, and Zeus king of all that he surveyed took the second step from the top. The top most step was plain.
Looking back it never occurred to me that I didn’t pay, or show my ticket to any steward. It seemed natural to me that everyone should be inside eagerly awaiting for the play to begin. I just knew that I was going to go up those stairs that I was going to take that step higher than the gods and join the actors.
The door handle was cold and smooth under my touch; it too carved into something it was not, a lion’s head, the guardian of the playhouse.
I was now in the upper circle, I didn’t even remember the door closing behind me.



‘Three’ she exclaimed.
‘Well then you ARE but a babe!’ she laughed, throwing her head back violently and almost shouting her hilarity to the heavens. It was short and sharp, like knives.
‘And for your information little funny baby, the chambers of my lovers heart are were I first learnt to live, and I did not suffocate because it was her breath that was my air, and I did not die from boredom, or lack of things to do. Far from it, but you are to young to know of such things’ she shot me with a contented smile that was like a sturdy arrow with a strong shaft and sure flight feathers. It wasn’t warm, but then she saved all her warmth for only one person.
Catherine came in carrying a tray with three small cups on it carefully watching were she trod to avoid falling. Though she was so sure footed, I had never seen her stumble one step, on or off the stage. Titania rose to take the tray off of her and lay it down just as carefully onto a low table. The tray itself was beautiful as were the cups that adorned it. The rim of the tray curled up into an intricate woven pattern that reminded me of eastern gods. The tray was of course a deep dark mahogany. The cups themselves had no handles, and were a yellowed white, like teeth. The yellow becoming more prominent in the cracks and extenuating the carved detail, showing off the age of the cups, and their history. The surface of the cups had been cut into deeply so that they had not one flat surface, but many fluctuating, rolling, peaking spiking swirls about them, and scattered across these frozen yellowing oceans were tiny flowers painfully engraved by hand. They were beautiful and I longed to have them as much as I understood that they belonged in this room and nowhere else. The liquid inside it was, as much as any liquid could be an imitation of the room it was in and the person who had made it. It was a brown not as dark as the weeping cherubs, but still almost black, and it had a glassy surface, though it was thick as sludge. It’s sent was bitter and sharp and on the whole a dangerous one. Catherine had known to nock people out with her cocoa, though no one ever refused it.
‘Drink up drink up’ Catherine started enthusiastically, but then faltering as she forgot how the rest of the song went.
‘Drink up me harties yo ho?’ Titania offered but Catherine looked puzzled and pulled her heavy eyebrows down.
‘No, no I don’t think it went like that’ but then the expression had been blown away and replaced by an easy smile which she offered to everyone and anyone and with that both she and Titania downed the potent chocolate. I only hesitated a tiny bit before I myself gulped it down. It was more like eating than drinking, I felt it, ice cold slip down my throat leaving a huge taste of raw cocoa husks and orange rind which made my tongue prickle and cheeks sting and made me salivate as it went. It was delicious and it made my eyes water, but it also woke me out of my drunken stupor and for that I could not help but feel a little bit of sorrow for.
‘Oh see how his eyes light up after that’ Catherine giggled
‘Witch! I was quiet content in my own happiness, why would you rob me of it?’ I cried in vain for the warmth in my legs that had all but fled and the rose tint that had crept so easily into my world. At this a black and motherly cloud spread ominously over my Catherin’s brow which made me immediately regret my words.
‘Someone should teach you some manners little one, you are too young to be drinking as Claudius does and I thought that you had the sense to know it too’
‘Catherine’ sighed Titania stroking her arm lovingly
‘He is a boy, I would have thought that you had the sense to know that boys have none of it’ I felt unsure as to whether I should be thanking her, or meeting her clear jibe at me.
‘True, true’ Catherine resigned and the cloud evaporated leaving her looking very old and tired, something which scared me in more ways than I could express, but it was gone as another scarlet smile split her features, and though still unnerved the feeling slipped to the dark shadows of the back of my mind.
‘Away with you, I have neglected my other favourite for too long and I see that the devil of drink is no longer dancing upon your slight shoulders’ with that she stood up briskly, the sent of oranges faintly clinging to my heels as I was rushed out of the door but before it closed I caught a glimpse of red smearing over Titania’s dark lips, and I could still taste the bite of the chocolate in the furthest reaches of my throat.


The hallway was cold again as I had no merriment to warm it for me and the torches burnt low in their sockets like guilty eyes. I wandered aimless and surprised to find that each corridor I turned down yielded nothing but empty air and shadows. Not a soul did I encounter in my undestined journey through the wallpapered catacombs and my footsteps were unaccompanied as they dislodged the dust that had settled on the stained floorboards. You could get so easily lost backstage, as you could get so easily get lost in a story or a play. Tumbling blindly through the intricate workings of the authors mind and dreams. So it did not worry me that I was. Very much alone.
It stayed like this for a while and I was satisfied with the company of my own musings, trailing my hand along the walls feeling the rips and tears in the worn wallpaper. It had been tattered by the thousands of people like me, running their hands along it absentmindedly, catching their rings on it and destroying it slowly so that now it supported a great streak of grime rubbed deep into its fabric at hand level. The floorboards were knarled and uneven, chipped and wonderful. A varnished pine that had been pounded and battered by the feet of the gods and mortals of this play house