by Hall, Ian
I nodded, and lowered myself to my knees. I knew the act he wanted me to do, but I initially thought I’d ever done such a thing before. The four buttons were difficult to disengage, but as I did so, I felt his manhood harden beneath my fingers. As I pulled it from his trousers, I suddenly remembered the last night in Amos’ company, the group debauchery. A penis had been forced into my mouth then, and I sucked it with abandon. I had done this before, and I felt reviled.
I tried to switch myself off, but it proved difficult. At times I tried to grip it with my fingers, but Amos slapped them away; he wanted my mouth, and only my mouth. He leant over, whispering encouragement, and it seemed that I listened. Against my will I became excited, almost eager. His words made me strive for his release, eager to drink his issue.
“Wake up Mr. Scholes, Missus Scholes!” he called across the room. I tried to cry “No!” but of course he just pushed my head further onto his lap, and thus his penis to the entrance to my throat, gagging me. “Take a look at your beautiful daughter!” Amos laughed as he came in my mouth, pushing my head into his lap, my lips mashed against his trousers. “She’s swallowing every drop!”
As he slowly released me, I sat up, gagging and coughing, ashamed to look anyone in the face.
“Sleep Mr. Scholes!” Amos said above me as tears rained onto the floor. “Sleep Missus Scholes.”
I sat back on my heels, panting, my eyes glazed and uncaring.
“Theresa, I can make your parents forget,” I raised my head to see him fastening his trousers again. His condescending look turned into a sneer. “But if you ever cross me, I can also make them remember again.”
I nodded my head, but it obviously wasn’t enough. “I could tell you to go to your father.” Amos sat back in his chair. “And kneel again.”
“Oh, no,”
He moved like a cat, grabbing me by the hair, twisting me in his grasp, his head suddenly by mine. “Theresa? My dear?”
“Yes, sir?”
“You are mine now.”
“Yes, Amos, I am yours.” I grunted against his solid grip.
“Again!”
“I am yours!”
“After this is over, I will tell your parents to forget what has happened today.”
My hopes surged. As bad as the immediate circumstances were, they would be wiped from memory.
Amos remained at my side, whispering into my ear. “As long as you remain subservient to me, memories of today will remain closed.”
I breathed deeply, knowing that it would soon all be over.
“But, mark my words.” Amos spat, his fingers disengaging from my tousled hair. “If you ever disobey me, or rise against me, I will allow them to remember! And we shall finish this scene in a totally different way!”
I nodded my understanding, my head bouncing up and down with joy.
Amos turned to the woman at the table, who still seemed to be working furiously, although one hand had disappeared between her legs. “Why don’t you crawl under the table dear, give Angela the benefit of your wonderful mouth.”
~ ~ ~
The next few days at home were a strain for me. I watched mom and dad constantly, looking for any kind of recollection from the time in Amos’ office, but I’m glad to say I saw nothing. They were back to being just good old mom and dad. As I sat that night and had dinner, I smiled at them both, and envied their curtain of normality. Alone, I had been left with the deep vestiges of guilt, and the incredible emotions that the time had left with me.
Amos had scarred me, and I resented him with abandon. I knew the images would never leave.
Valérie called round a couple of times, but I never told her the details of what happened, I surmised she’d seen it all before.
As one of Amos’ newest subservient vampires, I got given tasks to perform. Deliveries, meetings, I even dated a couple of boys at college that Amos wanted in his fold, but I knew my heart wasn’t in it. My school work suffered, and my grades plummeted. Mom and dad tried to get to the root of the problem, but I kept my dark secret and ignored the conversations.
I acted out the role of the rebellious teenager, sulking around the house, but actually I didn’t really rebel that much. I just wistfully drifted away from all connection with the outside world; I simply didn’t care about anything anymore.
I started wearing tom-boy clothes, and discarded my usual skirts and dresses one by one.
Jeans and corduroy trousers became my norm, and any kind of bra that negated the size of my breasts. My usual pumps or high heels, I changed for sneakers.
I could run dressed like that, and I did. Every morning, I took to the streets, and quietly ran out of sight of the house, then gradually picked up speed till the houses were just a blur. I got myself a watch with a second hand, and timed myself. I could run a mile in thirty seconds; that worked out to 120mph. I pretended to be a superhero, racing to some rescue or other.
Then on one of Amos’ ‘errands’ I heard a bit of communication between vampires at my destination.
“It’ll make McCarthyism seem like a match in a house-fire…”
Despite my innate desire to get out of the area, I lingered, bending down to first loosen, then slowly tie my shoelace.
“And they’re all communist, you say?”
“You betcha! Five thousand strong, all from behind the Iron Curtain, ready to rip through this country like a plague.”
I stood up and beat a hasty retreat.
The conversation created conflicts within me. I mean, until a few months ago I swore allegiance to the flag, and to the God of the good ole USA. Now I’d swore an oath to a seedy little vampire and whatever plot he’d concocted. I had a good shower when I got home.
Feeling a little on edge, I took the car into Rutherford, and fastened my gaze on a likely subject for my teeth: I felt antsy, and put it down to a need to feed. He sat on a porch in a bar near the more run-down side of town, smoking a self-rolled cigarette.
“Hello,” I said, leaning over the rail.
“Hello girlie,” he grinned far too widely for my taste.
Looking around for witnesses, I jumped the small fence and made to throw him over my back. A second later I’d ran the few blocks to leave all buildings behind me.
“You want me,” I said to his face, but was shocked to see no reaction on his face, no clouding of vision. This wasn’t going to plan.
“You don’t recognize me do you?” he said. When I shook my head, he ripped my shirt apart in seconds, exposing my breasts. “You want me,” he said, glibly licking my cheek, and I felt a stirring in my groin. I turned to flee, but he threw me against an old rusty car and tore at my trousers. Only when he brushed my resistance aside did I realize he was vampire.
I did try to fight, but his musk clouded my judgment and as I opened my legs, I ripped the shirt from his neck, biting down hard. As he rooted inside me, I punched his head hard, not for fight’s sake, but just because I felt like it.
Bu the time we’d expended ourselves, his face looked bloody and bruised.
Then he clasped his hands around my neck and squeezed hard. In seconds my head clouded and I remember slipping down onto the dried grass.
The SS Coronata
Valérie Lidowitz, 1873, Mid Atlantic, To New York
When next allowed to come to my senses, the padded walls of my room had changed to bare wooden planking. Instinctively I knew that Italy lay far behind me, the air smelled full of salt, and the floor beneath my bed rose and fell rhythmically. I tried to sit up, but of course, I lay bound by stiff canvas and leather again. I looked down my body and became instantly alarmed by the new version of strait-jacket presented to me. I struggled within my bounds and felt strange lumps of flesh strain against the hard canvas.
In my time away, I had grown breasts.
As I slowly shook the last vestiges of the drugs from my body, waves of despair swept over me. Because of the changes in my body, I knew years had passed since my days in the garden with Dr. Fabri
ni. I thought of my savior within the woods, long forgotten. Determined to win whatever game was presented to me, I took in the details of my new world and wondered exactly how much time I had slept through. The door opened and my eyes darted to the movement, my head held firmly by the cloying mask. A woman entered, stiffly dressed in black from hat to toe.
“Ah, you’re awake.”
I nodded as much as I could, knowing my speech would be hampered by the mask’s bit drawn through my mouth.
“My name is Sarah, and I am your nurse.” She walked over to the bed and leant over me. A cold look passed over her thin serious face. “If I unfasten the mask, and you misbehave, I will whip you. Understand?”
Again I nodded. I had no doubt of her conviction to carry out her threat.
Carefully she unbuckled the mask, and removed it completely. The old one in Italy had been part of the restraint; this new elaborate mask sat separate from the canvas suit.
“Where am I?” My voice sounded so strange, I almost didn’t recognize it. There was a low earthy timbre to the tone. I dreaded the next question, but I had to know. “What year is it?” My question felt strange on my lips, but I knew I would not like the answer.
“We are aboard the Coronata, and it is June 3rd, Eighteen Seventy-three.”
I lay for a second, letting the information settle in my confusion. Even allowing for my questionable dates in Italy, I wondered if it was possible to live for four years and have no memories of its passing.
Sarah gave me a questioning look.
“It’s been almost four years since I remember anything,” I said softly.
“Well, Valérie, you are now under the care of Doctor Bruno Mortence, and I am taking you to him.”
“Where are we going?”
“We are sailing to his home in Providence, Rhode Island; to the United States of America. We shall be on the ship for about four more weeks, and I have no intention of having you bound and gagged all the way.”
I gasped. “You’re going to free me?”
Sarah gave a smile that betrayed her misgivings. She bent down low, so close that I could smell her breath. I glimpsed that beneath her pleasant demeanor lay a heartless side that I did not care for. “I’m no novice at this, girl. I will free you by stages. I will trust you until you deceive me once. If you abuse that trust, I will bind you for the duration.”
I nodded. “I understand.”
“One more thing, we will cease conversing in Italian, and begin lessons in English.”
I nodded meekly. It would be one more arrow to my bow. If I intended to break free in this new country, it would serve my purposes to learn the language quickly.
The single bed in my cabin consisted of an iron frame, with a hard mattress. Sarah pulled me more upright, and arranged pillows under my head and shoulders. She then fastened a collar round my neck which she padlocked to the metal headboard. I looked down in wonder as she pulled the leather from my chest, but resisted the temptation to touch my new body parts. I allowed her to secure my wrists to the headboard, then began to unfasten the leather buckles of the lower part of the strait-jacket.
As my legs came free, I flexed my toes, and gasped at the shooting pains. My legs were much longer than I remembered, but thinner, and covered in nasty red sores.
“Oh, we shall have to do something about that,” Sarah said, her fingers moving my legs apart, looking with some displeasure at my condition.
It took a week of bathing and lotions to ease the sores, but it took longer than that to get any significant strength back into my legs. Four years of being bound to a bed will atrophy the muscles to a significant degree. Over the weeks at sea, Sarah’s ministrations got results, and I kept to my side of the bargain, not letting my rage manifest itself. Our English lessons were constantly apace, and we used little else, except when I did not know the new equivalent.
In two weeks I walked fairly steadily, and I got permission to walk on deck for thirty minutes each day.
Despite the lost time, the confinement, and the unknown destination, I stood at the rail, and became fascinated by the sea. Once my time in the fresh air increased, I watched it for hours, its constantly changing moods and colors. When the sky held blue, the sea reflected the color, but when clouds overcome us, the sea turned dark greens and browns. It was my constant on the journey, and I truly enjoyed our union.
One evening, after supper, I noticed a rat in my cabin. I put my novel on the bed and moved to trap it in the corner. It raced back and forth, but I found it no match for my speed. I pounced on it, and broke its front leg clean off.
My nostrils flared with hunger as I smelt fresh blood. I bit into the flesh behind its head and sucked the fresh blood into my mouth, almost crying out with joy. The warm liquid tore through my body better than any drug I’d ever had, and I felt ebullient beyond belief.
It proved a brief episode in an otherwise boring journey, but I repeated it three more times before we reached America. Each feeding built my strength, a fact I kept hidden from Sarah. I had terrific plans for the day my feet once again touched dry land and I became ever more certain that their restraints could not hold me forever.
Sarah injected me with a sleeping potion as we pulled close to the harbor, and promised me when I woke, she would convince Dr. Mortence to continue my earned freedom.
I still felt groggy when Dr. Mortence made his first appearance. I’d pictured him exactly in my mind’s eye: squat and balding with scrubs of white hair above each ear, as well as a thick bushel growing out of each. A pair of round, gold-trimmed spectacles perched at the end of his bulbous nose, which glowed red, marred by enormous pores. Despite a thick German accent, he spoke to me in decent English, “A pleasure to meet you, Valérie.”
As I looked at his eyes, a flash of memory tore through me; little wonder this odd toad of a man seemed so familiar to me. Immediately, I felt swept away in a rush of déjà vu, each vision more clear than the last.
The new room around me fell away and I remember being restrained in a heavy, wooden chair. Some metal contraption engulfed my head and I could feel the sensation of a million stinging tentacles abrading my skin while the buzz like a hive of wasps dug into my ears. Only one sound rose above the insistent hum: a man’s demanding voice, “Recite.”
Instinctively, I flinched back onto my pillow, as far away from Dr. Mortence as my new headboard would allow. “What happened to Dr. Fabrini?”
By his deflecting posture and elaborate exhale, I suspected I’d asked this very question on many occasions. He slid a glance to Sarah, who remained stiff-backed and expressionless at my side.
“We are back to square one, I see.” He said more to the nurse than to me.
“Traveling has had an ill-effect on her, Doctor.”
Dr. Mortence waved off her excuse and leveled a pair of red-rimmed eyes on me, “The question serves only to deny the answer. You know the truth, Valérie. Now admit it to yourself. Recite.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” My voice trembled as if to betray a lie.
“But, you do, child,” His eyes narrowed, seeing through the casing of my skull and into my mind, “Think back to the day in the garden. Think of the locket.”
As he said the word, my fingers searched for the necklace and found it, miraculously, still in place. Time ran backwards, pulling me through the lost years to my last lucid moment before waking on the ship, Dr. Fabrini holding my wrists, the heavy orderlies pressing down on my shoulders, the needle boring into my muscle. Strange images, more surreal than any dream, blinked through my consciousness and faded again like the snuffing of a flame. I reached for the trail of memory as it wisped through my fingers, only to leave me empty. But like a blackened wick, a dark truth remained where the fire had sparked. Alvise Fabrini was dead.
And I had killed him.
As the potent sedative pumped through my body, I had surged forward, slashing his throat with my teeth, and sucked his blood. The orderlies’ hands tried
to separate us, but my strength proved greater with each swallow, locking us in a final embrace as I drew his life-force from him. My last image before the drug closed my eyes was father at the window, his hands on the glass, shaking his head and crying.
Fear is worse than death itself.
Death is but a cheat on the life it replaces.
Life is fleeting, a vision of Heaven.
Heaven is the lie that replaces fear of the unknown.
I don’t know where the words came from, but Dr. Mortence narrowed in on me, moving so close he could touch. “I know that you can hear it, Valérie,” he said. He circled me, looking over his glasses, staring into my eyes. “Recite!” He stopped in front of me. “I know you can hear the voice!” he roared. His spittle hit me across my face. “It follows you now, much more strongly than before. In fact, the farther you get from its source, the stronger it will become.”
Despite my strong will, I still shook at his words.
Fear is worse than death itself.
The English words made perfect sense to me, the accent of the speaker, somewhat French in origin. I wanted to tell Dr. Mortence of my revelation, but shied away, keeping my information close to heart. He leant closer. His nose now touched my own.
“I know you can hear the voice,” The vibration of his speech entered my head. “You have told me before, many times. I don’t know why you resist this one small thing. There’s no need to worry.” His words were becoming sickly sweet, trying to tempt me.
“The voice is in English,” I said. I watched as a slow smile invaded his face. Gradually he stood away from me. “She has a French accent.” Dr. Mortence walked backwards until he bumped into the wooden paneled wall. He tilted his head slightly, as if he still heard echoes of my words. “Perhaps middle French, near Lyon perhaps.”
I gasped in recognition of the truth as it flowed into me: mother’s family came from Lyon, her roots in the Massif Central, in the house of Berthier.
“Ha!” Dr. Mortence rushed to the bed and grabbed my face in his sweaty hands. I tried to limit the scale of my knowledge, but he saw my attempted deception. “You recognize her! You recognize her!”
