Little Red Riding Hood is a fairy tale that has been embraced by pop culture—from Sam the Sham’s rendition in song to the brilliant Neal Jordan film The Company of Wolves, which combined several Angela Carter stories from The Bloody Chamber. Generally, the wolf is seen as predator, and Little Red Riding Hood and Grannie are viewed as helpless victims dependent on the woodcutter for rescue—or justice, depending on which version you read. In this version, Grannie is present only in memory. The tale takes place in twentieth-century Chicago, and the wolf is quite urbane, a very dapper and knowing wolf. Chilling.
I think it began with the hat.
Helen had seen it in a shop on the way to our third rendezvous. Back then, we were still meeting in hotel rooms. She unbuttoned her shirtwaist dress as she told me about the hat and how it would look on her daughter, becoming all tittering and giddy, her pale face colored with something more than just anticipation of our lovemaking.
At this stage in my adventures, I enjoy making the grand gesture. “We’ll go back together and buy it for your little girl,” I’d said. “Afterward.” I remember how dark my hand looked on her white shoulder. My swarthiness usually pains me; I have even plucked the black hair from the backs of my hands. But during these moments of passion, I find contrast only whets my appetite.
Helen had nodded, fingers to her lips, shivering from gratitude— or anticipation. The fresh smell of her was like an intoxicant. She didn’t smoke or marcel her hair like some other women of my acquaintance. The planes of her neck and collarbone above the bodice of her white slip had seemed achingly fragile. White slips have always excited me.
Later, after we drove in my new black Studebaker over to the store in one of the older sections of Chicago, I could understand her enthusiasm for the hat. When the shopgirl lifted it out of the window, I took it from her myself before Helen could even reach out a hand. I caught my breath at the texture and plushness of the yarn.
“And such a darling color, too,” breathed Helen. “The crimson will look just stunning on Regina.”
It was a beret sort of style, hand-knit in Italy according to the tag. The wool had a clean, animal scent. I turned it around in my hand and saw the thing that was to fire my imagination.
On the side, a tiny red bud, so cunningly crocheted it almost looked alive. A flower as red as the hat itself, but with a slim green stem and two diminutive green leaves. Those tightly curled petals held an almost unbearable promise.
“How old did you say your daughter was?” I asked.
“She’ll be fourteen in two weeks,” said Helen, taking off one of her white cotton gloves to stroke the beret. Her nails were plain and unvarnished. She usually didn’t even wear lipstick unless I asked her to. “This will make a wonderful gift.”
I handed it to her. “With my compliments then.”
Helen blushed and shot a look at the shopgirl. “Oh, I can’t let her know it comes from you. But thank you, Josef. I will accept it on her behalf. You—you’re very generous.”
As the shopgirl wrapped it up, I saw her unobtrusively stroke the tiny red bud. That caught my attention and made me look more closely at her, at the olive complexion free of makeup, the plain black dress, the dark hair pinned severely back. But there was hint of fullness to the bottom of her lip, a certain set to her eyes. I fought the appetite that flared in me, tried to become totally the cultured man I truly am.
Still, I found a way to let my hand linger in hers as she returned my change.
Soon after, Helen and I began to meet at her mother’s two-story brownstone on Bois d’Arc Street. Helen had inherited it upon her mother’s death almost half a year earlier, but was unable or unwilling to do anything more with it than air it out every few weeks. Every piece of wax fruit, every antimacassar, every ceramic cat was left just as it had been when her mother died. I hated the dusty, old-woman smell, but stifled my discomfort to save the cost of hotel rooms.
It was here I saw my first photograph of Regina.
The picture sat with two others arranged on an ecru doily atop the Victrola. The pristine condition of the ornate frame told me this was one thing in the house that still received regular attention.
The girl in the photograph wore an antebellum costume with yards of lace and ruffles around a sweetheart neckline. Her back was arched and one hand toyed with her dark ringlets. And the face, the face was so … knowing. Dark eyes and brows (painted for the photograph in some middle-America version of stage makeup), a full lipsticked mouth, even a dimple in one cheek. This girl was born to wear the red hat.
“She’s lovely,” I had murmured. That tiny bud so tightly closed.
Helen was flitting around the room like a bird frantically beating its wings against a glass pane. It is the gentleness in women that speaks to me most. I missed that quality when Helen got so agitated.
What had attracted me to Helen that morning half a year ago was her hands. She’d come into my jewelry shop to resize her wedding ring, but the sight of her hands on the glass countertop, small and white and gentle, pious palms together and fingers laced as if in supplication, caused me to look again. When we began meeting at her mother’s house, to calm her a little, I took to bringing a bottle of wine each time we met—that and cake. Helen loved Gateau Robert.
Now she paused in front of the photograph. “Yes, yes, she is. Boys just look at her and fall in love.” Her smile was one of victory. “That was taken last year at the All-City Pageant. She won second place in that dress. I made it myself.”
I knew about Helen’s husband, The Right Reverend Henry Hunter of Malletown Diocese, a pillar of the Episcopal church. I had even seen them together, he in his clerical garb and she kneeling on the benches before him. How had they managed to engender such a charmer? “You only have the one child?” I asked.
“Just Regina.” The words were said with pride. “I was the oldest of four.” Helen began her flitting again. “The only daughter. I had responsibilities at an early age. My mother kept me at one task after another. None of that for Regina. I’m raising her differently; she’s a perfect beauty.”
The records in the Victoria cabinet, I noticed, were all ballroom tunes and German lieder. My own taste runs to Verdi and Puccini, the Great Masters.
When I moved my fedora from the overstuffed couch and sat down, eddies of dust puffed up from the thick green carpet. I had to clean my shoes with my silk handkerchief. Helen’s words irritated me a little. She should complain, I thought. Precious little mother had done for me. “Yet your mother left you this house.”
“Yes, the house.” Helen almost spit the words. “My brothers would have friends over, lots of boys, and not all younger than me. They’d laugh and play their music, then they’d go off, leaving me on the front porch with my chores. I was invisible to them. Invisible.” She tugged at a brown damask drapery as if she wanted to tear it down. “I hate this house.”
I knew my cue. “You invisible, ma chère? You’re much too beautiful.” I stood behind her and put my hands on her shoulders. Her agitation had warmed her, making her perspire with a scent that excited me. In her dark gray dress, no jewelry, no lipstick on her mouth, she was like a shadow in my hands. Another man would have passed her by, would have considered her too plain, too timid. I knew better. I can see the fire even when it’s banked deep within.
I pulled the pin from her hat and tugged at the coil of pale brown hair beneath. “Show me the bed we’ll use,” I breathed in her ear. Though it was only two in the afternoon, my beard was already heavy enough to scratch her. It gave me a moment of chagrin to see the red abrasions on her skin, then I decided I liked leaving my mark on her, and nuzzled her again.
Helen’s pulse leapt in her neck. Later, I would kiss her there, open my mouth and feel her heartbeat against my teeth.
After I saw the photograph, I turned conversations with Helen more and more toward Regina. Helen had had her schooled in dance. She enrolled her in theater classes. Regina had taken charm courses since the age of five. They were considering voice lessons. Her mother was insisting that Regina wear lipstick now that she had turned fourteen.
And Regina loved the hat I bought her.
“The little minx almost never takes it off,” said Helen. “Why she’d wear nothing but that hat if I let her.”
I think it was this mental picture that set events on their course.
We were lying side by side on her mother’s cherry-wood fourposter bed. Helen was stroking the hair on my chest—my pelt, she called it. After some weeks her distress at trysting at her mother’s house had turned into something else. Now she seemed to relish having a lover in her mother’s very bedroom. I was counting myself lucky to have found a woman like Helen, so proper outside of this room and so wanton inside it.
I was still smarting from a discussion I’d had earlier that day with Madeline, the manager of my jewelry store. She’d raised her penciled eyebrows, blown cigarette smoke from the corner of her mouth and asked in a loud tone, “Where are you off to now, Josef?”
Madeline is a hard woman; some would call her a harpy, although she does have excellent business sense. But her hands! Large, veined and muscled, with blood-red nails. I almost shudder when she touches my sleeve. “An appointment with a special customer, Madeline. Shouldn’t be more than a few hours.” I always smile when I talk to her; it’s the best way to deal with strong women.
Madeline had all but thrown some diamond brooches back into their case. “You have too many ‘special customers,’ Josef. I suggest you pay more attention to the clientele that comes into your store.” She took another drag on her cigarette and watched me through narrow eyes. I wouldn’t know, but I’m sure Madeline is the type of woman to take many lovers. She has that brittle quality.
I’d shrugged, at a loss for propitiating words, but the salesboy Peter had called out from the back of the store with a question, and I was able to slip away. During the whole drive to Bois d’Arc Street, however, I remained outraged.
I do take pride in my store. It is a small place, but in a very good location, and I carry only the highest quality merchandise. My business is the confirmation that I can deal successfully with the wealthy, the cultured. I’ve spent most of my life perfecting that knowledge. Yes, I have petites amours, but they are the prerogative of a sophisticated man. As long as you don’t allow your appetites to rule you, these small adventures add piquancy to life.
Helen’s pliant nature I found delicious. I could lead her in whatever direction I pleased. “What does your husband think of Regina?” I asked her now. “Does he know what a lucky man he is? Doubly lucky.”
She sighed. “Henry listens to the Words of the Lord, Josef. With such competition, neither Regina nor I can attract much notice.” She put both arms around my neck. “But then, I’m a wicked, wicked woman.”
To her thinking she probably was, though I had courted her almost half a year before I’d won her. How these quiet ones loved being pursued! I bent to kiss her. “You’re not wicked,” I said. “Just not appreciated. Neither you nor Regina.”
When I asked her later to meet me on Wednesdays and Saturdays as well as Tuesdays and Fridays, she hesitated only a moment before agreeing. I would have to cut back time with my other women, perhaps drop one or two. I was not too concerned about their reactions. Part of the adventure, after all, is that grand dramatic scene at the end.
And I’d already decided that Helen and her little family deserved my special attention.
Helen was surprised when I met them on the street in front of Regina’s school; in her eyes I was still her illicit lover. She stopped dead in the sticky Chicago air. But I had decided it was time to see Regina for myself. Enough of just imagining those knowing eyes beneath the red hat.
I knew the school, I knew the street, as I knew most things about Regina. I stood leaning on my Studebaker as they stood at the top of the steps, Regina and her mother, hand in hand.
Regina was indeed a tender young thing. Her black hair, unlike the ringlets in the photograph, was naturally wavy. She wore a green cardigan over an embroidered blouse, green plaid skirt and saddle oxfords. Perched at a captivating angle atop her head was the red hat. With only lipstick for makeup, her face seemed younger, but that didn’t fool me. I knew utterly what type of creature she was.
I doffed my black fedora. Helen’s cheeks were blazing. She moved forward again, but Regina had already noticed something amiss. Her dark eyes looked around until she saw me. As her glance swept over me, over my black pinstriped suit and red tie, my white silk shirt, my polished shoes, I felt an inarguable crackle of electricity.
“Come along, Regina,” said Helen, as they descended the steps. “Head up.” She tucked the girl’s arm closer to her. “And walk decently.”
“But, Mama, this is the man you meet at Grandma’s,” said Regina in her charming clear voice. “Aren’t you even going to stop and say hello?”
Helen was speechless at that, but I recovered the situation for her. “Hello, Regina. May I call you Regina? I’m Mr. Volker. Yes, I’ve been consulting with your mother on her property, boring grown-up stuff. How was school today?”
Regina stopped. She put her head to the side and gave me a practiced smile, her dimple winking in and out. Yes, this was one knowing little female. “Just fine, thank you for asking.”
Helen had finally recovered. “I—I’m surprised you know about our meetings, Regina. They’re really nothing, nothing at all.”
Regina patted her mother’s hand. “I got curious when you brought me a cake every day. And wondered why you always had sherry on your breath. Do you like horses, Mr. Volker?”
“Regina!” said her mother.
I ignored her. “Why, yes. Yes I do, very much. Do you like horses Regina?”
“Oh, yes! I would much rather take horse-riding lessons than go to silly old ballet class. Mama says we can’t consider it, though. It makes me so sad.” Regina rolled her dark eyes and sighed.
“Regina is a very gifted dancer,” said her mother through clenched teeth. “In her lovely costumes, all the boys adore her. Please stop this nonsense, Regina.”
Regina thrust out her bottom lip. “Those costumes are silly, mother. I wish you would buy me riding boots and dungarees. I could get those all muddy and no one would say anything.”
I opened my car door. “Well, I have no horse for you to mount, but I do have this black steed. Helen, may I offer you two a ride home?”
Helen shook her head but Regina was already stepping inside. “What a lovely car! Thank you, Mr. Volker.” I caught a flash of calf and thigh in the swirl of green plaid skirt. Pale skin, like her mother. Tender, young, untouched skin.
“We’ll drive the long way,” I said to Helen, ushering her to the car door. “Through the park to see beautiful flowers.”
Before she climbed in, Helen looked in my face as though something in my smile disturbed her. “I’ve never noticed what white teeth you have, Josef,” she murmured. “So large and white.”
The flower beds at Littleton Park were so lush we decided to park the car and walk around. I was as charming to Helen as I could be, which mollified her quite a bit. As we strolled across the grass, Regina ran ahead of us, her sweater flying behind her.
“Regina, stop that!” called her mother. “Act like a young lady or we’re getting back in the car.” She rolled her eyes at me. “She has five young men calling her every day. She’s a real heartbreaker, but that’s not her fault. I’ve told her be polite but don’t let them get fresh.”
“Gonna pick some flowers, Mama,” called Regina, already tripping from bed to bed.
“Where’s her lipstick?” said Helen, hand shading her eyes. “Is she wearing her lipstick?” She finally shrugged and sighed. “You gave me a terrible shock, Josef.”
I took Helen’s arm and led her to a bench. “I just had to show you how cozy we could be together,” I said. “I didn’t mean to distress you. I would never hurt you and Little Red.”
Regina had returned with an armful of gladiolus and daylilies. Her cheeks were pink and her hair wild as a hoyden’s. It was difficult accepting this girl as the alluring creature in the photograph. But I see beneath the surface. “These are for you and Mr. Volker, Mother,” she said. “Because you are so special. Who’s Little Red?”
I brushed my fingers against the crocheted bud on her hat. “You,” I said.
“I worship you and Little Red,” I said to Helen. “You don’t belong with him, that desiccated old crow. You deserve passion in your life. You didn’t even know what passion was until you met me, did you?”
Helen lay spent across me. In my nose was the acrid scent of our cooling sweat. Her naked shoulders were pink with love bites. I could tell she was weakening. I’d been at her for almost a month to leave Reverend Hunter. She was in love with me, I could tell.
“But Regina …” she said, avoiding my eyes.
Regina was at the forefront of my mind. Regina and I spent several afternoons a week together, always in her mother’s company, of course. Regina never took off the hat, and I would find myself sometimes almost hypnotized staring at that bud.
“I couldn’t separate a child from her mother,” I said, encouraged that it wasn’t a flat no. “Little Red must live with us. She adores me, too, Helen, surely you can see that. I’ll take care of you both, I promise.”
Helen smiled. “She likes your name for her.” She rolled away. “Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know. I was such a good wife, such a good mother. I took pride in my home, I was a tireless worker for the church. What am I now?”
“A woman,” I whispered in her ear. “A passionate, beautiful woman. Your mother tried to keep you from it, your husband wouldn’t acknowledge it. But that’s what you are. I know that. I see that. Say yes, Helen. Say yes.”
She curled on her side, for all the world like a kitten or a dressed hare. How delicious she seemed. “Maybe,” she said.
Taking a wife was something I’d planned for someday further in the future. I’d achieved most of my other goals: my own business with a select clientele, handmade suits, an apartment (true, a tiny one) in the most exclusive high rise in Chicago. Having a wife would limit my adventures, but surely it would make it easier to keep my passions at a more cultured level.
My breeding, or lack of it, is something I’ve overcome. It’s more than just shaving my beard twice a day or having stray hairs on my eyebrows tweezed. I’ve read the complete works of Shakespeare, I’m a self-taught student of philosophy, I attend the opera and know all the words to “La Donna e Mobile.” Some might call my predilection for adventures a weakness, but to that I say what better pastime for a man of taste.
And Helen would never be the kind of wife my mother was, though my mother had been a devout woman, too, in her own way. Her only halfway sober times had been Sunday mornings or confession. I could still see her sitting at our kitchen table wearing one of the white slips that had been her daily costume for most of my childhood. With each year, with each bottle, her pale skin had grown puffier, her red hair frowsier. She was always shrieking, always reaching out those big Irish hands of hers to grab at you, turn your head so you had to kiss her or, worse, pull you into her lap so she could pinch and maul you. All you could do was smile and duck away as fast as you could.
Six babies she had; me last. One right after the other, like some dog with a litter of pups. Disgusting. I could picture her lying on her side, six flat dugs on her chest to suckle us all at the same time.
I’d spent my life putting all that behind me.
Helen didn’t say yes, however, until I asked her in Regina’s presence. We were discussing whether or not to have lunch at a certain café where French dancers in berets and striped pullovers performed those semi-violent taxi dances. Helen was curious I could tell, but worried about Regina.
Regina was all anticipation. “I want to see them. I’ve heard about those men and women, Mother; it’s not so terrible. Maybe they’re in love and that’s why they dance like that.”
“I’m in love,” I said quickly, my hand on Helen’s back. I felt her stiffen.
“With who?” asked Regina. Again, she was wearing the red hat.
“Helen, please,” I whispered in her ear. “I love you and want you to marry me. I can’t go on like this.”
“Oh,” she moaned. Her eyes were closed.
“You love my mother,” said Regina. She moved close to us; I could smell her floral perfume. “This is so romantic, isn’t it, Mother? My father almost never spends time with us. Would you be like that, Josef? Would I live with you too?”
I drew Regina closer to us. “I want you both. What do you say, Helen?”
She opened her eyes and looked at my hand, so darkly hirsute against Regina’s skin. I barely heard her breathe a “yes.”
I know I can offer Helen and Regina a life of richness and culture. And they will start me on a new road of respectability and propriety. I will conquer my appetites and be the man I’ve always known I could be. Unfortunately, my apartment is a tiny place, too small for three people. We’ve had to begin our life together by moving into Helen’s mother’s house.
Regina seems to have taken all the changes with grace. I know she loves her father, all girls do, but I have faith that I can replace him in her heart. My optimism is fed by how at ease she seems to feel with me. Her curiosity today, for example.
After a few hours of moving various boxes and bags, I bathed and came out of the bath dressed in my black silk robe, and sat down to read the paper. Helen was out, buying supplies of whatever one runs out of in a closed-up house. I put the paper down to find Regina sitting on the ottoman at my feet. She was staring at my legs.
“You have much more hair than my father does,” she said. “But I notice you have more muscles, too.”
“Thank you,” I said, then daringly added, “and what do you have under your dress.”
She stroked her bodice, but said with an innocent look, “Just my chemise. Your face looks so dark this morning.”
Embarrassment flamed, then I leaned forward and took her hand. “You’re right; I still need to shave. Feel.” I put her small hand on my jaw, then laughed as she shivered at the roughness of it.
“Do you love my mother very much, Josef? Do you kiss her a lot?”
I nodded, and kissed Regina’s palm.
“You will take care of me, won’t you?” she said, looking into my eyes. “Now that I’m your little girl, you will take care of me?”
Oh, yes, I thought. Oh, yes, my darling little bud. I know what you want of me. I will take care of you.
Helen came through the door then, arms loaded with packages. She saw us sitting close, Regina’s hand on my cheek, then turned back to shut the door. “Lots of yummies for my family,” she said. “Come help me put these up please, Regina.”
Tonight I left the bedroom door open. Helen didn’t notice; the change in her circumstances has distracted her beyond belief, but she’ll be fine once we start her divorce proceedings. She crept into our bed fairly shaking with tension. I cooed to her, and held her, convincing her to drink another glass of sherry from the carafe we now kept on the nightstand. It was important we make love on this, our first night as a family.
I calmed Helen, then, with stroking, began to excite her. Helen cried out, as did I. The sounds created curiosity down the hall, as I knew they would. I was certain I heard footsteps outside the door. First lesson, I thought. Big eyes watched us from the doorway; big ears listened to everything.
It made me even more ardent. I kissed and nibbled, plunged and reared. I could almost smell the blood beneath Helen’s skin. Delicious, so delicious.
When we finally lay quiescent, a patter of feet retreated back down the hall. Helen started awake. “What’s that? Mother?”
“No, no, nothing.” I calmed her. “Just the settling of this old house. Go to sleep now. Go to sleep.” She dropped off in no time, thank God.
I can finally slip out of bed, my hunger only whetted. This is the reward for my role soon to come, husband and father. It’s what I deserve.
I’ve been reading the looks. I know when she talks what the words really mean. I can see the fires banked deep within.
The black silk robe drops around my shoulders like a caress. The door swings open without a creak. Beneath my feet, the old hall carpet feels like the grass of some deep wood. I touch her bedroom door; I see the white hand in the moonlight beckoning me so gently. I hear her breath.
I’m all appetite.