Obsession: Tales of Irresistible Desire

by Paula Guran

  But she still didn’t write after returning home. Her second visit to the hospital lasted longer. She knew, though she resented being told, that she had brought this illness upon herself. Her publisher extended her deadline, urged her to take some time off, get away, relax. Their kindness, of course, was based on the fact that her last two books for them had been national bestsellers.

  But their kindness—not to mention patience—was wearing thin by the time she realized that she would never finish this book.

  She hadn’t written a word in over a year, and when she looked at the first few chapters of the book, she had no idea what she had planned to write after that.

  Grace absently traced the scars on her wrists. Such a dramatic thing to do. So classical a method. Why hadn’t she simply taken pills or used a gun?

  She sighed and took a healthy swig of scotch. An owl hooted, crickets chirped, a truck drove past the house. Country sounds, soothing sounds. But she would not be soothed.

  After her release from the psychiatric hospital, she told her editor she would write a different book, a better book. She’d have to, she realized, since the advance money they’d already paid her was trickling through her fingers very rapidly: hospital bills after losing her health insurance, psychiatric treatment, expensive prescriptions, a couple of vacations to help her relax and gain a new perspective, legal fees, old debts . . .

  By now, of course, her editor realized that, some three years after signing the contract, Grace wasn’t going to write a book. The publisher wanted the money back. According to the terms of the contract, Grace had to give it back. The problem was, she didn’t have it anymore.

  Burnout. Hospitalization. Psychiatric treatment. Public humiliation. Professional death. Personal hell.

  None of it, though, had prepared her for this. For today. Could anything hurt more than hope? Had anything ever wounded her as much as that first tantalizing sentence, the promise of a paragraph to come, the hint of a story blossoming in the wasteland of her imagination?

  “Oh, God.” Too deep for tears, too deep.

  What the hell did that sentence mean, anyhow. He came again last night . . . He, who? Where did he come? Who did he come to? What had sparked that fragment, that notion, that shadow of a thought? “Shit.” It taunted her, flooded her with anger.

  “Fine. If thy right eye offends thee . . . ” If the sentence wasn’t going to go anywhere, wouldn’t lead to anything, she’d erase it.

  Right now. She pushed herself to her feet. “Fine.”

  A cry arose from the woods, a desolate cry that would not be ignored, that echoed through her mind and made her turn to search the darkness with a wide-eyed gaze. Something about that sound was hauntingly familiar. It stirred a response in her belly that was almost sexual in its heat and immediacy.

  She stood at the edge of the porch, peering into the night. She thought she saw a dark flank catch a flicker of light from the sickle moon before disappearing into the woods. A dog? An incredibly big one. It howled again, calling to her, and she had to steel herself not to run across the lawn and follow it into the woods. She reached for her drink, hand shaking slightly. She was breathing fast. She hoped that thing out there wasn’t dangerous.

  How long had it been lurking around the house? When it cried out again, she backed quickly toward the door and entered the house with more speed than grace. She slammed the door shut behind her, locked it, and stood with her back pressed against it, listening. There was no sound from outside. The howling had ceased. The black dog had gone away. But somehow, she knew he would return.

  Yes, like the night itself, he would come again; and she would be waiting for him.

  Grace was still asleep when Jo arrived on Saturday. She awoke to the sharp sting of her friend’s palm against her face.

  “Ow!” She opened her eyes in time to see another blow coming. “Stop it! What are you doing?”

  White-faced and breathing hard, Jo snapped, “What did you take?”

  “What?” Grace touched her tender cheek and winced.

  “What did you take?” Jo practically shrieked the last word as she shook Grace’s shoulders.

  “You’re hurting me! What is the matter with you?” Grace shoved the other woman away. “Jesus, I took nothing. Nothing! Why are—”

  “I’ve been trying to wake you up for five minutes! I thought you were drugged or in a coma or something.” Jo glanced suspiciously at the empty glass on the bedside table.

  “One glass,” Grace said clearly. “That’s all I had all night. The dregs of my bottle. It was too late to go out for more.”

  “Then what’s the matter with you?”

  Grace blinked and sat upright. “Did you say five minutes? Really?” She looked around, disoriented. “I must have been really tired.”

  “Tired?” Jo repeated incredulously. “You weren’t—”

  “What time is it?”

  “What does . . . ? Never mind. It’s almost noon.”

  Grace rubbed her cheek again and looked around at the tangled sheets. “I was having this wild dream.”

  “Uh-huh.” Deflated, Jo sank into a chair.

  “Really . . . erotic.”

  “Oh?”

  “Kinky.”

  “Oh?”

  “Something about . . . ” She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to recall the details. A frisson of remembered sensation shivered through her. Dark, elusive images. “Something half-man, halfbeast,” she murmured.

  “Sounds more scary than erotic.”

  The memory quivered and faded. Grace opened her eyes with a sigh. “Maybe.” She studied Jo. “Why don’t you take a nap or something?”

  Jo looked surprised and shook her head. “Let’s go out for lunch.”

  Grace clenched the cotton sheet between her hands. She was ready to write it down: her daily sentence. That’s all she was being granted so far, but it was more than she had hoped for. A special gift from whatever capricious gods had chosen to torment her. Each day she awoke with one perfect, crystal clear sentence in her mind; and each one followed the previous day’s sentence as perfectly as ripples on a lake’s surface.

  She yearned to turn on her laptop, write down the sentence, and study the way it linked with the four previous sentences. My God, a whole paragraph! The steep, square shape, with its irregular edges and strange gaps; the flow and development of one idea, smooth as glass, changeable as a dangerous current. To see nine rough-edged, word-filled lines on the screen. Nothing could equal that feeling—except possibly knowing where the story was going, which she didn’t.

  Patience, she reminded herself. Just let it happen.

  “Okay, Jo,” she said at last. “Let me just shower and dress, and we’ll get out of here.”

  “You’re sure you’re all right?”

  “I’m fine. Go unpack or something.”

  The moment Jo left the room, Grace found a pen and a sheet of paper at the desk and wrote down her sentence before it could escape her. She’d add it onto the others later.

  “Do you know anything about a black dog?” she asked Jo after lunch as they strolled around the quaint streets of the local town. Antiques shops and galleries, handmade chocolates and designer boutiques attracted visitors in droves.

  “How do you mean?”

  “I keep seeing one around the house.”

  “Really?”

  “He’s very shy. Only comes round after dark. I’ve put some food out for him, but he never touches it.”

  “You’ve put food out? You don’t like dogs.”

  “I feel sorry for him. He sounds lonely.”

  “He talks to you?”

  Grace gave her a look. “I wonder if he’s feral or if he belongs to someone.”

  “I’ve never seen him.” Jo shrugged, then after a moment said,

  “Maybe he belonged to that Racinet woman. She used to live about a mile away, at the edge of the woods.”

  “Used to? She left without her dog?”

 
“She died. About two years ago.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, it was weird. She was only about thirty-five. She was a completely unknown artist when her husband bought a weekend home up here. Not even a very good artist, I gather. But living up here had a profound effect on her work, and she quickly decided to live here full-time. She and her husband separated a few months later, and she got the house in the divorce settlement. She didn’t live for very long after that, though.”

  “What happened?”

  “Nobody knows. They found her in the woods one day, naked and dead. It was January.”

  Grace stopped walking and stared at Jo. “What was she doing naked in the woods in the middle of winter?”

  Jo shrugged. “No one knows. Insanity, I suppose. Apparently she just walked out there one night and died of exposure. No signs of physical violence or trauma. Just dead.”

  Grace resumed walking. “What makes you think this dog I’ve been seeing might be hers?”

  “Apparently she had this enormous black hound she was very fond of.”

  “What do you mean, apparently?”

  “I never saw him. No one ever did. He wasn’t in her house or yard when her body was found. But everyone knew about him. He was in all of her later paintings.”

  “She put a dog in all of her paintings?”

  “Yeah. Painting her dog made her famous.” Jo smiled. “You never know what’s going to become fashionable, do you? She did about twenty paintings of this dog the year before she died. They were snatched up like that.” Jo snapped her fingers.

  “A dog,” Grace repeated, shaking her head.

  “Come on, I’ll show you. She’s a real celebrity around here, especially since her death. Most of the local galleries have prints on display. Signed, limited-edition. Ridiculously expensive.” Someone recognized Jo as soon as they entered the gallery and came over to say hello. Grace glared at her friend when she introduced her to the woman. Jo knew perfectly well that she would have preferred to melt into the depths of the shop and forego meeting anyone. And, of course, this turned into a worst case scenario.

  “Grace Wedeck? Ohmigod! This is such a thrill! I’ve read every single one of your books. Destiny’s Hand is my absolute favorite. How on earth do you come up with all those ideas?”

  “Damned if I know,” Grace mumbled. “Nice shop. Is that an original?”

  The ploy didn’t work. “Oh, I wish I had one of your books here for you to autograph. When is your next one due out? It’s been so long since your last book. I just can’t wait to see the next one. It’s going to be terrific, I just know it is.”

  “Oh, thanks. We just came in to—”

  “What’s it about?”

  Grace blanched. Whereas she had once enjoyed the effusive praise of genuine fans, she now felt like an imposter. The Grace Wedeck they so admired was dead but not buried. As for discussing the future—it was hard enough to admit to herself and her analyst that she was terrified she’d never write again; there was no way she was going to tell total strangers.

  “What’s it about?” Grace repeated. “Uh, you know, it’s . . . ” Christ, this was why she avoided people. After three years, she still hadn’t found any easy responses to the unwittingly cruel questions everyone asked a burned-out, washed-up writer. By now, Jo was having the good grace to look guilty for having instigated this disastrous conversation, and she intervened. “Oh, that’s top secret. Grace won’t even tell me. You know how writers are.”

  “Oh? Oh. Of course.” The woman smiled, apparently trying to put Grace at ease. “Can I at least know the title?”

  “The title?”

  “I’m going to tell my bookseller that I want the very first copy that comes in.”

  “The title. Well, it’s . . . ”

  “It’s still untitled, isn’t it?” Jo piped up.

  “It . . . ” From nowhere, a warm wave of calm washed over Grace, and she heard herself say, “It’s called The Hound Lover.”

  Both women looked at her with surprise. “The Hound Lover?” Jo repeated.

  “It’s just a working title.”

  Jo stared. “Do you mean you’re actually writing . . . ” She glanced at the other woman and stopped awkwardly. “I mean—”

  “Yeah,” Grace admitted. “It’s something I’m, you know, working on.”

  “But that’s wonderful! Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Has your visit here inspired you, or did you come here because of Louise Racinet?” the gallery owner asked.

  Grace frowned. “Because of Louise Racinet?”

  “You know. The Hound Lover. Her last painting.”

  “Her what?” Grace snapped in surprise. “Surely you knew? No? What an extraordinary coincidence. I’ve got a print on display over here. Personally, I think it’s her best, though opinions do differ. This is it. Here.”

  The woman rattled on for some time about form and influence and substance, but Grace didn’t hear her. She heard, saw, knew nothing except the picture before her.

  This vision was an echo of the strange words that had started flowing through her fingertips recently. It was a reflection of the darkly erotic dreams which held her in their grip all night long, leaving her disoriented and unable to grasp the elusive fragments of memory and sensation. He was much more than a hound, this thing that Racinet had painted. He was a bestial intelligence, a poetic monster. He summoned spirits, he defied logic, and he dominated a submissive feminine form whose presence was more suggested than portrayed. He was a demon lover, powerful, merciless, and irresistible, neither real nor imagined, but existing somewhere between fantasy and reality in an eternal purgatory of the imagination.

  “This is what he looks like,” Grace murmured at last.

  “He who?” Jo asked.

  He came again last night . . . like a great dark hound come to devour me . . .

  “How much does this thing cost?” Grace asked, reaching for her checkbook.

  The sentences turned into paragraphs which turned into pages. Each day saw Grace’s output increasing until she found herself writing nearly twenty pages a day, every day—more than she had been used to writing even at the peak of her professional productivity.

  The impulse had become an idea, which had in turn metamorphosed into a situation and finally developed into a story. She still didn’t know the ending, an extraordinary position to be in after having written over two hundred pages. She didn’t particularly care. She clawed her way out of a dazed, drugged sleep each day to virtually fling herself at the laptop, filled with exhilaration and passion. She turned off the computer each evening, worn, drained, and terrified that she had finally depleted her reserves in this last, brief burst of glory and would now wander through the empty days and hollow years with an unfinished book clutched in her arms like a dead child.

  She kept the Racinet print near the table she worked at, studying it every time she lost her train of thought. Though they were separated by time and death, she and the artist shared a vision, for this was the thing that haunted her dreams with increasing clarity. This was the creature that filled her nights with a hot twist of erotic rapture and dark horror. And this thing was both hero and villain in the novel she worked on feverishly day after day. The Hound Lover. This was his story as surely as if he whispered it to her with his cold lips during the nightly rape of her unconscious mind. She didn’t know how; she only knew it was happening.

  Shaking with fatigue, she poured a large glass of orange juice and took it out onto the back porch as twilight enclosed the yard and filled the woods with the shapes and shadows of another world. She hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol since she had started writing again, though her throat was raw from smoking one cigarette after another.

  Jo hadn’t come up last weekend, but she’d be here again on Saturday. Grace sighed and let her mind turn to mundane matters. She supposed she’d better tidy up the house, get some groceries, and do a couple of loads of laundry. She’d been wearing the sa
me clothes, right down to her underwear, for three days. It wouldn’t be smart to let Jo think she was cracking up just when she was finally getting her life back on track.

  She had learned to expect the howling to come soon after dusk, so it didn’t surprise her tonight. She had never caught more than the faintest glimpse of Racinet’s dog—for surely that’s what it was— nor did the poor thing ever eat any of the food she put out for it. She had ceased to worry about its lurking in the woods, though. Hadn’t the black hound brought Racinet good fortune, turning her from an unknown painter into a famous artist?

  Arthur Conan Doyle’s Hound of the Baskervilles notwithstanding, mysterious black hounds weren’t necessarily evil. There were numerous stories of black dogs in folklore, tales of ghostly hounds who protected children, haunted battle grounds, and guarded sacred sites against the Devil. There were legends about shapeshifters, too: werehounds, canine demons, and men who turned themselves into black dogs to woo maidens, wreak mischief on local communities, and avenge wrongs.

  Well, if that thing in the woods was a creature from the Other Side, she could only welcome its presence in her life. Haunting and possession were a pleasure after the hell she had been through these past three years.

  Jo knew her too well to interfere with her work. Nothing else had ever mattered to Grace—which was why she had few friends, no hobbies, and one ex-husband who was now happily re-married to a normal person. Jo was openly happy about Grace’s breakthrough, a little surprised by her refusal to let her friend look at the manuscript, and plainly worried about the way Grace was driving herself.

  “Now, I’ve never tried to tell you how to run your life . . . ” Jo began as they sat on the porch one evening.

  “Bullshit.”

  “But I think you’d be well-advised to pace yourself. Isn’t this exactly the way this whole burn-out thing began? You were working too hard, never exercising, never eating anything but junk food, never relaxing or socializing or taking time off.”