With unsteady gait but a pristine conscience, I navigated back to my car and drove, very carefully, to my parents’ house. Safe in my old room, with its comforting momentoes of a more innocent time, I briefly considered flushing the contents of Virginia’s magic bag, but decided that it had not been the pot-pourri’s fault - the scents that came from it were all pure and sweet and powerfully evocative of the finest nights I had ever known. No; the problem was the context in which I had impulsively opened it, creating a violent dissonance of mood and triggering an allergenic sensitivity in all those fifty million olfactory receptors. I put the pot-pourri bag on my dresser and went to bed. I did not sleep well.
* * * *
1965 came in clear and cold; there was a New Year’s Eve party, but I stayed at home with my parents and watched the big ball fall in Times Square. The decade –mygeneration’s decade - was at midpoint and history was at a watershed. Even my parents sensed as much, for during our last dinner together, the night before I was scheduled to return to college, my mother casually enquired as to whether or not my draft deferment was still in good shape. I assured her that it was, as long as I adhered to my plan of entering graduate school, and as long as I kept my grades up, there would be no problem doing that. My dad grew uneasy during this conversation: he had been in the Navy in World War II, executive officer on an LST in the Pacific, and was fittingly proud of that service, but I knew from our conversations during the holidays that he had grave misgivings about the unfolding adventure in Vietnam. Crushing a peasant uprising was not easy to equate with stopping Hitler or avenging Pearl Harbor.
Six days into the new year, I returned to campus and began my final semester. At first, things were as they had been at the beginning of my affair with Virginia: our first night together, after the unaccustomed abstinence caused by the holidays, was memorable - we all but devoured each other. Whatever doubts I had about the longterm implications of the relationship, whatever inconsistencies and quirks there were about her secluded life in The Gardens, all were swept away from the moment I embraced her and inhaled the new and potent aromatic cocktail she had prepared for our reunion.
But by the end of winter, there were troubling occasions; not when I was with her, of course, but during the week, when I strove to complete my undergraduate responsibilities and to lead the normal life of a Senior. I began to have periodic flashbacks, like the one that had ambushed me on the night of the party. These could be triggered by something as ordinary as the chance whiff of fresh dog turds near a sidewalk, or the body odour of a passing student who hadn’t had a shower in five days. I would become dizzy and nauseous, overpowered not by seductive, floral, sensual aromas, but by sharp and disturbing signatures of decay, filth and the lesser functions of the human body. The episodes might last a few seconds or a few minutes, but they always left me uneasy, oddly insecure, and plagued with severe headaches.
I understood, logically, that my long and regular exposure to the rarified olfactory banquets of Virginia’s world had sensitised me, rendered me vulnerable to the baser, uglier odours of the world as well as its finer, subtler essences. It was as though I had developed a peculiar set of allergies to complement my heightened senses.
From these episodes there surfaced an unwelcome awareness of the sheer weirdness of Virginia’s existence. All my invitations to go on a ‘real date’ - to a movie, a dance, an off-campus party - she deflected adamantly. There were rules to our relationship that now seemed confining rather than deliciously exotic. A year ago, I had fantasised about marrying her and settling down with her, learning something of her family trade, making a secure and hermetic life for us inside her world. Now, I began to feel somewhat boxed-in. Her seeming indifference to the greater world outside The Gardens puzzled and, on occasion, irritated me.
Everything was beautiful and serene so long as we stayed within the pattern that had been established. I still read to her from my manuscript, and she was still the perfect audience - attentive, rapt, flattering in her reactions. ‘Your writing makes me sad for things I can never know,’ she once remarked, after I had read a particularly Kerouacian rhapsody.
‘Why can’t you?’ I asked, a little more sharply than I intended.
‘I’ve told you,’ she answered with bland indifference. ‘I have to stay here and help Mother with her work.’
‘Seven days a week?’ I said, raising the ante. ‘What’s so important that you can’t even go out to dinner with me? And where does your invisible mother do this work of hers?’
Virginia gestured vaguely towards the house. ‘She has her own workshop, her own place, in the house.’
‘Yeah, okay, but what the hell is she working on, a cure for cancer?’
For just an instant, the youthful innocence of her features hardened and her eyes, still the loveliest and most expressive I had ever seen, flashed with impatience.
‘I told you once before, there’s been hereditary sickness in our family. It killed my father not long after I was born, and my older brother when he was still a baby. Both Mother and I are working on therapeutic compounds to counteract its effects. In addition to the things we do for our customers.’
‘Why don’t I ever see any of these customers?’
‘Because everybody in these parts knows we’re only open for business during the week. The weekends are for ourselves. And for you,’ she added quickly.
Before the conversation could evolve further along these patently uncomfortable lines, she removed my arms from around her shoulders, stood up, and quickly added a big dollop of compound to the censer that was smouldering on a nearby lab table. Quick as flashpowder, a cloud of powerful aroma filled the air, and as it reached my nostrils, she watched me closely, observing with almost clinical detachment, waiting to see what effect it would have.
Instinctively, I held my breath, but the scent got into me nevertheless, not just through my nostrils, but through every pore of my flesh. In seconds, all my doubts and questions faded into a muddled vagueness, and I was once more helpless with desire for her. My hands ached to be filled with her breasts, my mouth would shrivel and turn to dust unless moistened by her lips and tongue. She smiled as my arousal became visible, then slowly, tantalisingly, removed her clothes and came to me with open arms. I surrendered, as I always did, to the ecstasies of the moment.
* * * *
One Saturday evening in May, when The Gardens were flooding with the urgencies of spring, I drove up to the house and was mildly surprised to see that Virginia was not in her usual place of welcome on the front porch. I closed the car door forcefully, figuring that she would appear as soon as she heard the sound. But she didn’t, not this time. In the softening light of late afternoon, the house loomed immense and shadowy. The atmosphere of The Gardens, usually so rich and verdant this time of year, seemed preternaturally still, as though a vast breath were being held.
Curious, I climbed the front stairs and knocked on the door. Then I called her name. After a few more minutes of strained silence, I shrugged and went inside. My first intention was to go straight down the hall and into the kitchen, where I expected to find the usual well-prepared dinner on the dining table. But when I peered into the kitchen, I saw only empty plates and glassware; no food had been set out, although there were simmering pots on the stove and the aroma of a roast browning in the oven. I coughed politely. There was no response.
For a moment, I was at a loss; so unvarying had been the pattern of our trysts that I did not know what to do next. I retreated down the hall and observed as I did so that the living room door was ajar - at least, I presumed it was the living room, although the door had always been closed before as we made our ritual journey from the front porch to the kitchen. It occurred to me that I had never before seen that part of the house and just now, for some reason, I wanted to. Feeling a little bit guilty, I went in.
It was a perfectly ordinary living room, with comfortable but nondescript furniture that looked to have been bought in the late forties or
early fifties. There was no TV, but then, I had not expected to find one. There was a telephone, however, on a table near the front window, which was covered with curtains. The telephone was not surprising - after all, these people ran a business - but the fact that Virginia had never given me a telephone number was. Beside the phone was a notepad, with a list of crossed-out orders jotted down. The last one read: ‘Granny Wilkerson: quart of jasmine tea - grandson will pick up Thursday a.m.’
I felt vaguely disappointed, as though I had expected the contents of this hitherto sealed-off space to reveal something important about Virginia’s family. I made a quick circuit of the room, through dim subaqueous light. Only one thing caught my eye: a line of framed photographs on the mantelpiece.
Here at last were some images of my beloved’s family, about whom she had only spoken in generalities. I examined the older pictures first: stern-faced men with muttonchop whiskers and handsome women in late-Victorian gowns of black. A man in the puttees and campaign hat of a World War I doughboy. And a newlywed couple dressed in the style of the 1940s: the woman was tall and blonde, with eyes and cheekbones that resembled Virginia’s. Her expression was one of satisfaction and repletion, as though she had just achieved some major goal in her life.
The stiffly dressed man beside her bore rather a different expression: one of resignation, I thought, rather than newlywed bliss. A man who took his duties, whatever they might have been, very seriously indeed. These, then, were Virginia’s parents; of that, I had no doubt.
But the longer I stared at the image, the more disturbing it was. The dutiful husband bore at least a generic resemblance to me - his features seemed a fast-forward projection of my own as they might turn out to be in full manhood. The same dark eyes and rumpled hair, the same jawline and aquiline nose. My older brother, perhaps, if I had had one. With renewed interest, I went back and examined the older photos. Despite the dramatic changes in dress and facial hair, all the men were at least of the same general physical type as myself, just as all the women bore a passing ancestral resemblance to Virginia. Either I was looking at a record of true Southern Gothic inbreeding, or a remarkable case of coincidence. What was it Virginia had said to me on the first night we made love? Something about how the women in her family picked their mates instinctively, at first sight? Perhaps there was more to that remark than I knew.
Lost in thought, I did not hear her enter the room. When she spoke my name, I jumped. And as I turned to greet her. I could not help noticing that the manteltop space next to the photo of her parents was occupied by an identical, but empty frame. Was it reserved for a similar newlywed image of us?
She was not pleased to find me there, but she hid it well and quickly, distracting me with as warm an embrace as any she’d ever given me.
‘Mother and I were working on something important,’ she quickly explained, ‘and the time simply got away from us. Come on back to my place while she finishes making dinner.’
I hooked my arm through hers and let her steer me towards the porch again. We always went from the kitchen to the porch, and then around the house on the outside; we had never gonethrough the house in order to reach her lair. This time, I balked.
‘Let me help in the kitchen.’
She tugged on my arm impatiently. ‘No, no. Mother has everything under control.’
‘I’m sure she does, Virginia, but I also think it’s long past time for me to meet her.’
‘I told you,’ she insisted, ‘Mother’s very self-conscious about her condition. Please, let’s just go to my place and relax until the food’s ready. I’ve got something special for you tonight.’
Her face was so extraordinarily beautiful in the twilight, her expression so pleading and insistent, and the promise of ‘something special’ so alluring, that I yielded and followed where she led.
Once we reached her quarters, she busied herself (with what would later seem to have been unusual haste) mixing some new compound in her favourite thurifer. She chatted nervously while she bustled, moving some large, extravagantly flourishing potted plants close to our chairs. (‘These will increase the effect,’ she explained, and as always, I accepted her explanation.) I tried to relax; a considerable portion of me was already feeling that wonderful erotic ache for her. But some recalcitrant part of my mind remained tense and on guard, and compelled me to say: ‘Why do all the men in your family look like me?’
‘Do they?’ she forced a laugh. ‘Well, I guess it’s a predilection for brown eyes and curly hair. Just like some men get turned on by redheads more than brunettes. You’re my type, my love, whatever that means. Just accept it as I have. We’re together because we were destined to be. You’ve said so yourself, many times.’
Of course I had. Because our love had indeed seemed predestined, and because I was young enough, romantic enough, and horny enough to find the idea marvellous.
So I remained silent and willed myself to relax as Virginia performed her alchemy and the room began to fill with yet another new and potently effective scent. She settled into my lap, hugged me close and began kissing my closed eyes with hot, delicate lips. My erotic response to her was by now Pavlovian, and I was damned if I would let my doubts and unanswered questions spoil what promised to be an exceptional sexual adventure, even by our standards.
Whatever she had concocted, it was one of the most powerful recipes yet. After a few minutes of breathing a tart, slightly mossy fragrance, none of whose ingredients I recognised, I began to feel warm and tingly, disembodied, anchored to reality only by the intensely arousing sensations she was giving me with her full yet subtle lips, the satiny tip of her tongue. I no longer cared whether I ate supper or not. Nothing mattered except her caresses.
I have no idea how long we kissed and petted and fondled before I lost consciousness. I was never aware oflosing unconscious - the erotic or dream was its own continuum, and I did not know, until I woke up from that dream, that I had passed out. The last thing I remembered, for certain, was Virginia unbuttoning my shirt, running her fingernails through the hairs on my chest, and swirling her tongue around my nipples.
Considerable time had passed, because I opened my eyes to darkness and a pale column of moonlight streaming through the windows that faced the depths of The Gardens. At first, I thought she was still beside me: I felt a pleasant tingling in my arms and chest, as though her wonderfully skilled hands were still caressing me. The scent of her potion lingered in the air, but it was stale and faint. Instinctively, I tried to raise my left arm and look at my watch, but something restrained my movements. In an instant, I was fully awake, and alarmed to feel myself enmeshed, everywhere, by thin filaments that clung to me like ropes. Had she been planning a little bondage as part of the evening’s scenario? That was a specialty she’d never mentioned before, albeit an intriguing one.
Outside, a cloud moved past the moon and by the sudden brightness, I could see my arms, legs, and torso covered with vines that had grown, with unnatural rapidity, from the plants she had positioned around my chair. I was immobilised, like a bug in a spider’s web. When I struggled, a dozen flashes of pain erupted from my exposed flesh, and I saw that the vines not only bound me in place, but their tips had penetrated my skin, and from the obscene sucking sensations that accompanied the pain, they seemed to be feeding on my blood, either that or - and this seemed even more horrible - they were passing some hideous substance from their barbed tips into my flesh.
Shouting and cursing, I began to tear at the vegetation. It was as though I sought to pluck a horde of leeches from my skin, for as each vine tore free, it left a raw, bloody puncture-wound. The vines began to writhe, like a nest of snakes, with a hideously malevolent awareness. As I freed myself, they lashed at me, furiously trying to regain their purchase on my flesh. I kicked over the pots and stamped on them. When I was finally free of their ghastly embrace, streaming blood from a dozen lesions, I grabbed a hoe and smashed the pots, chopping each wriggling worm of vegetation until I saw no more movem
ent. Then I fled. Past the dark and now-sinister house, into my car and back to the campus.
As the cool night air streamed over my raw face and arms, I began to feel like a man who has broken free of a strange and terrible enchantment. What Virginia’s purpose had been in subjecting me to such a horrible experiment, I could only guess. But now that her spell was irrevocably (or so I thought) broken, I could see that, from the moment of our first encounter in The Gardens, she had been cultivating me as she did her exotic plants and essences. Oh, yes, she had instinctively ‘chosen’ me, because I was indeed ‘her type’, just as those sombre-faced men in the photographs had been her mother’s type, her grandmother’s type, and back through all the generations that had lived on that land. And what of the mysterious ‘sickness’ that had plagued the males of her clan? Had it been the by-product of some cruder but equally unholy symbiosis between their flesh and the plants that, for whatever loathsome reasons, required human blood or tissue to complete their life cycles?
How long would she have kept me there? Was there some terrible bargain to be made for continued access to her body? If I had stayed with her, married her, would the price of that union have been the periodic loan of my body to her damned plants?
By the time I reached my dorm room, I was one mass of heartache. Not to mention the fact that I looked as though I had been mugged by a giant octopus. As I was unlocking my door, a friend stumbled by on his way to the bathroom.
Dark Terrors 5 - The Gollancz Book of Horror - [Anthology] Page 60
