Be careful what you wish for
A wintery night closes about the ill-lit streets of Prague; winds trample coldly through, where hours before horse-drawn traffic, street merchants and shoppers did the same. Above a kitchenware shop off Havelská , an old house on an old street, Rebecca bathed. She lay back, hot bath water lapping at her neck, nipples two small islands breaking the surface, her knees too. Steam dappled the candlelight, and lying back, she wondered, as she had each night for months, when had it all changed?
The house servant's heavy footsteps echoed downstairs. Rebecca could place each as he moved about the room. Outside, the deep, monotonous rumbling of the last few carts accompanied the alto wind rattling at the thin glass of the shuttered window. Below, the heavy footsteps paused at what Rebecca knew to be the stove, then resumed, moving slowly and predictably up the stairs. Thirteen wooden steps; two, three and nine creaked. Then, as usual, the footsteps approached, and stopped before the bathroom door. Rebecca held her breath, listening as the handle rattled, picturing thick fingers curling about the polished brass globe, hands so heavy and cold.
Her breath bated, sanctuary ruptured, the door eased inwards. The candlelit gloom barely illuminated the dark form of the servant as he placed a fresh towel, hot from the stove, on the chair at the foot of the bath. The servant did naught so much as glance at the naked woman in the bath. Rebecca had long ago stopped covering herself. The servant silently retreated, retracing its route down the stairs. Cued, upon hearing the it in the kitchen below, Rebecca heaved herself out of the water, rivulets tracing the valleys and contours of her body, dripping into the bath, her skin flushed pink with heat. For all of the ceremony, the towel did feel good, hot and scratchy against her skin. Perhaps this wasn't so bad after all.
Two years ago, as a wedding gift, Rebecca's widowed father, a potter, gave the newly-wedded daughter and Son-in-Law a truly unique wedding gift. Spending huge amounts of time and effort, he made for them a golem. The science and art behind golem animation was still unknown, so that the golem came into being more by luck than anything else. However, it was the skill of the man as a potter that gave the golem its near-human features. As the vodka and wine flowed at the wedding, the potter boasted that he'd taken his inspiration from Michelangelo's David, though it carried more Czechoslovakian build. Nevertheless, David is what they called it.
The gift was a godsend. The couple bought their house for a song, as it had been lying empty for some time. Dust blanketed dirt, crumbling plaster and dark stains patterned each surface. As the couple moved into their new house, the golem cleaned rooms, carried things in and out, and whilst repairing the roof, it bore the weight of the ceiling upon its clay shoulders, so that the roof itself did not need to be removed. It never broke a sweat. Then, as married life settled down, the golem was put to chores while Rebecca's husband went out to work. The golem remained indoors, though, and Rebecca enjoyed leisurely days of shopping or meeting friends.
Initially the golem would have proved useful to the husband at work, though being a creature of magical origin, they decided to keep it secret. Shortly afterwards the husband gained a promotion which saw him desk-bound, though for better pay, and at work wholly unsuited to the golem's abilities.
At home, however, the golem took on the brunt of the chores, leaving the couple plenty of time to enjoy newly married life. They enjoyed it as all honeymooners do, making memories that Rebecca often returned to during her evenings alone.
Evening after evening Rebecca found herself alone, again, save for the bulky mud reminder that she was, indeed, married. Her husband's long hours made her a little concerned of his fidelity, though deep down she knew that this wasn't the case.
Rebecca spent every day by herself, and now most evenings too. Her husband returned from work late, and tired, with no energy or appetite for anything that wasn't sleep. Instead, she tried talking to the golem, but the conversations were one-sided. She whiled away an afternoon, once, by putting it in a suit, then a dress, then by inserting amusing commands into its mouth; "dance", "carry me about the house", "talk". But though it performed every instruction to the best of its abilities, and looked fantastic in a ballgown, it lacked the capacity to speak. And what would it say, anyway? Rebecca was bored, and lonely.
And night after night she lies awake, staring at a ceiling she can't see, while her tired husband sleeps soundly beside her. He will wake quietly in the morning, so as not to disturb her, and she will see him again the following evening, maybe.
Tonight the sun dyes the evening sky orange, bells across the city strike six and the golem, cued, begins its evening routine. Predictable and metronomic, it prepares a bath, bringing up pot after pot of hot water, its hands do not feel the heat. Does it feel anything? It was hard to spend so much time around something that looked and acted in a human manner, but lacked the conscious, that she may as well just have a really useful cat.
Rebecca would usually decorously wait for the golem to finish pouring the bath before undressing, but this time, without thinking, she undresses first. Although she knows it is magically animated, and couldn't possibly leer at her, she still felt embarrassed to have the humanoid golem stand close as she wore nothing, that her privacy had been violated somehow, or that she should at least tell her husband. She covered her breasts and her dark pubic shape with her hands and arm, and although she felt silly for doing so, they remained.
Eventually the oblivious golem left the bathroom, leaving Rebecca free to relax into her bathtub. Tonight, more than any night alone so far, she felt an insistent tingling in her genitals. Rebecca had never learnt to masturbate properly, though her hands would often linger over her pussy during her baths. She wondered if she could make herself come. Would the golem hear, or understand? And did being naked in front of the golem bring on the desire?
Back downstairs, face flushed from her hot bath, and dressed in a cream silk nightdress, Rebecca takes in each item of furniture in the room: each one either a gift, new or old, or bought, new or old, the paintings on the wall, the vase, sideboard, and recalled the stories given with each gift. She watched the clock, its pendulum swinging back and forth, and recalled the benefactor. Her mind wandered further still, looking at the sofa, the table, each place where she and her newly wed husband had enjoyed their honeymoon passions, the poorly glued vase that had been knocked over and cracked in an early, but now rare, fit of passion. Rebecca thought back to each time that she could recall and realised that the most recent was almost a year ago. Did she resent her husband? It was hard to justify it, if she did, as she watched him return, exhausted, from work most evenings. But the flicker of doubt was there, all the same, illuminating dark thoughts of infidelity and hedonism.
