Honestas
by Mersault

You should thank me, my dearest Lucy. What would you do somewhere else, trying to be respectable? What right has the good Doctor Jekyll to send you away to that sort of life? A new start, so you can pretend you've never sold yourself to passers-by. Even now you wear white - what do you pretend to, Lucy?

Should I tell you, Lucy, about the great ladies who hide their painted faces behind fans, whose very appearance is a lie, who are proper and polite and have the fangs of vipers? Why on earth would you want to be like that, my dear, when you can hate me and not have to hide it?

You're alive, Lucy, something real and rare. That cologne you wear blends so beautifully with the sweat and the dirt; your cheap lace scarcely holding together, too often mended. On you, it looks better that way.

Cheap and tawdry as you are, Lucy, you are mine. You are the one honest creature to be found in this city. Jekyll is the worst of them all and the only one I cannot touch, but I'll not let him take you away from me, Lucy dearest.

You should not have worn white. You make it absurd, and it makes you a liar.

Red is more your color, I think.

You should thank me, my dearest Lucy. And I will forgive you for wearing white.
 


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