It takes me all morning to even approach the house, clearing a two-yard path. I hardly notice, measuring the time only by the regular refills of my gas tank. I’m off in my own little world, thinking over stuff while my body carries on: supplies to pick up, an advert to go in the local free magazine, the tax form to fill in before October. My sandwiches get eaten in the cab of my truck, the radio tuned to a station playing halfway decent stuff from the eighties. Then I pick up my voice mail. Among a scattering of customer enquiries I’ll deal with tonight is a message from Charlene: Whoa! Just got up—You should have been there last night. It was wild! Miss you, lover. I’ll phone tonight for a proper chat, yeah?
I smile. Charlene’s in Ibiza, partying to the max with her girly mates. I could have been there, too, but there’s just too much work in my line of business come summer. I wonder what they’ve been up to and think it’s probably best I don’t know. I’m looking forward to hearing her voice tonight though: a “proper chat” means a bit of dirty talk and some long distance sexplay. I’m already imagining her whispered words, the luxury of settling back on the sofa and listening to her breathy giggles growing sharper and her responses more broken as I describe all the things I’d like to be doing to her, while my right hand leisurely stokes my imagination.
Jeez. My cock’s already filling out impatiently: there’s a firm bulge growing in my denims. It must be the heat. And I do miss Charlene, even after only a few days: the soft small body in the bed beside me, the smell of her hair, the way she wriggles joyfully under my casual caress. I give myself a brief squeeze, promising more tonight, and climb out of the cab to start the afternoon shift.
It takes another hour to reach the house and get a good start on clearing a perimeter strip. It’s the hottest part of the day now. The brickwork is the color of dried blood and reflects the heat back at me; there’s not a breath of air down here with the bricks on one side and the wall of thorns on the other. There are wild roses growing among the brambles, I notice, their falling petals as pink as my Charlene’s nipples. The smell of roses and mulched greenery is almost choking. My feet crunch the big dried stems underfoot. The ground floor windows are boarded up, I see, though in a few places the boards have rotted or slipped and the bramble stems have tried to climb into the house though the gaps.
The strimmer roars louder as it hits fumes at the bottom of the empty petrol tank, and then the engine cuts. I push my visor up and cock the pads over my ears back, grateful for even those slivers of cool air on my skin. My shirt is stuck to my back and my arms are covered in scratches; I wonder why bramble scratches always burn like that. Lifting the shaft of the cutter erect I turn in that narrow space and trudge back toward the porch where I’ve left the petrol can.
But while I’m crouched over, refueling, my eye falls on the porch. It was filled with long thorny whips of bramble of course, until I came along and chopped the lot into splinters. Plenty of severed stems still hang from the angles of the peeling woodwork though. Leaving the brushcutter where it lies, I get up and start clearing these tendrils away, folding the cruel ropes into shorter lengths and throwing them aside. It makes a change from strimming, just for a few moments.
That’s when I finally notice that the front door is ajar; only by a finger’s-breadth, but the line of darkness seizes my eye. I feel a twinge of concern that’s close to annoyance; if the place wasn’t locked up properly last time then I’ve just demolished its only line of defense, and I don’t want to be held responsible if it gets burgled or torched. Then a flutter of curiosity rises to the fore. Putting my hand on the wooden door, I give it a gentle push. Paint flakes off under my hand, but the door swings stiffly open a little way.
It looks temptingly shadowy in there. I’ve been out in the sun all day, and my jeans are clinging to my legs with sweat. Quietly, I step over the threshold into the blessed shade.
It takes a minute for my eyes to adjust to the gloom. I focus on the tiled floor first: leaves have blown in over the years and made little heaps, but they’ve progressed no farther than the bottom of the stairs, which still boasts a carpet of an indeterminate murky color. The place smells a little damp, but I’ve known worse. I look round, but there’s no light switch in sight on the wall—not, of course, as I remind myself, that the electricity would still be on. No switches and no sockets and no light-fitting overhead. I wonder how long it has been since this place was inhabited.
I should go. I’ve no business in here, despite enjoying the relief the shade offers. What stops me leaving is a sound.
Running water.
I lick my parched lips. I’ve got a flask of tea back at the van and a third of a plastic bottle of water left over from my pack-up dinner. That thought’s not nearly so compelling as the trickle of liquid coming from inside the house. Somewhere on ground level, I think, turning my head. Somewhere toward the back of the house.
I open the door wider to admit more light before stepping carefully down the hall and turning into a large back room. There’s some light in here, too; directly opposite me is a sash window. The upper half has slid down—presumably the cords have rotted—and the topmost board nailed to the frame beyond has vanished, allowing a narrow wedge of light to enter and diffuse through the damp air. Severed bramble cords droop into the room. Directly under the window is a big stone sink with a single tap. That’s where the sound is coming from. My eyes are still adjusting to the gloom but I get the impression of benches around the wall and white tiles. It’s a kitchen, obviously. Approaching the sink I strip off one glove and poke my finger cautiously under the tap. The flow is wonderfully cool. I lift the finger to give it a sniff, but it doesn’t smell stagnant or anything. I taste the drips with the tip of my tongue.
It’s just water. It’s running out of the wide bronze mouth of the tap at a steady rate. I can’t help wondering how long it’s been flowing. Let’s hope they’re not paying for this on a water meter.
My helmet goes off and on the floor. Both gloves go inside it and I wash my hands, splashing the water up to my elbows, making the bramble scratches sting. It’s cold on my skin, bloody lovely. I dump my harness with a click and a shrug, then pull off my T-shirt and soak it under the tap; wringing it out I swab down my bare chest and throat. My skin thrills; I don’t think I realized how uncomfortable I was in the heat until now. Slinging the wet shirt over one shoulder I cup my hands—careful not to touch anything, mind—and take a drink. Afterward I grope for the tap, but it’s too stiff to turn and I don’t try to force it closed.
Only when I turn away do I realize how much more of my surroundings are visible. It’s definitely a kitchen; there are pots hanging off hooks and a laundry creel like my gran used to have overhead. In the middle of the room, though, there’s a bed with a curved wooden headboard. And on the bed there’s a body.
In a split second my own body goes from too hot to so cold I’m frozen in place. I feel the gather of sweat at the small of my back form a slow trickle that slides down under the waistband of my jeans like a chilled fingertip. I hear the sound of my voice, echoing a little as an expletive falls from my lips.
It’s a body. I can make that out clearly; it’s pale against the dark bedding, slim, a woman or a kid. My head swims. All I can think, bizarrely, is that I’ve been drinking out of a tap in a room with a corpse. Why the hell didn’t I notice it? How come I didn’t smell the thing?
Because there is no smell. This room isn’t even as musty as the hall. There’s no hint of an odor, except the faintest smell of wild roses and wet stone. I look back to the kitchen door and the hall beyond. My mobile is locked up in the van. I’m going to have to call the police. And then tell them why I was in here to find the corpse. The day’s just turned to shite.
I need to be sure. I’m having problems believing even my own eyes in this light. Inch by inch I shuffle across the flagstones, holding my breath, until I’m close enough to get a proper look.
It’s a young woman. She looks perfect. Her hands are resting ne
atly on her torso about at the level of her diaphragm. Her bare feet point at the ceiling. Her head floats in a sea of long dark hair and she has dark brows. I can’t begin to guess what she’s doing laid out in the kitchen of a deserted house. How long has she been left here?
Then I see the soft rise and fall of her breastbone, and I realize she’s not dead after all, and the relief is so immense I feel drunk.
“Ah—hello?” My voice is hoarse. The scene makes no more sense now of course: what’s she doing sleeping in this place? If she’s a squatter, how on earth did she get in? The only means of entrance I can imagine to the Gables involves a helicopter and a skylight. “Hello?”
She doesn’t stir. I edge closer. Before I reach out I make very, very sure that I can see her breathing, that it wasn’t just a trick of my eyes. She’s wearing a long dress of gray lace that doesn’t really hide that much of the pale body beneath. I can see the peaceful expression on her pointed little face. I can see the curves of her waist and hips and thighs. I can see her breasts, flattened a little by gravity but embarrassingly distracting still. They rise and fall slowly and for a moment I’m mesmerized. Black and sticky thoughts crawl in my skull before I shrug them off.
Gingerly I touch her shoulder. “Hey?”
No response. Her flesh feels cool but not cold.
Stoned, I think. Or drunk. She’d have heard me otherwise. Grasping the curve of her shoulder more firmly, I give her a little shake. “You okay?”
She doesn’t answer. All that happens is that her breathing deepens audibly, and the lace catches on my calloused hand and shreds as I lift it. The lace is actually rotten; the threads fall almost into dust. I blink stupidly. Then I reach over to take her by both shoulders and I shake her harder, lifting her an inch from her bed. She falls back upon the dark velvet coverlet with a sigh, and as I withdraw I somehow manage to snag the garment across her breast and tear it open; it offers no more resistance than cobweb.
Fuck, I think witlessly. And I see that where the fabric has pulled and torn across the sweet pale curve of her right breast, her nipple has responded to the stimulus. As I watch, it hardens visibly, rising like a pale pink bud from its areola. I watch as my fingers steal back to brush that swelling mound and it stiffens to dimples.
My head is spinning. This is all like a dream. It can’t be real. There can’t be a young woman asleep in a house that’s been locked up for ten years. She can’t be impossible to wake. I can’t be watching my fingertips touch her—softly, so softly—so that the cushion of her breast is topped by a flushed pearl. I can’t be hearing a gentle moan in her throat.
For a moment I think she’s woken, and I withdraw my hand an inch. She arches a little as if in pursuit of my touch, her breasts rising. Then she relaxes with a ghostly whimper of loss.
It’s like a dream, or a story. An old, familiar story. I moisten my dry lips, knowing what I need to do. Gently I sit on the bed—it’s actually a horsehair couch and almost unyielding—and I lean forward to kiss her. She has full, provocative lips for such otherwise delicate features. They feel cool under mine.
But all she does is smile in her sleep, faintly.
A second time I bend to kiss her, and this time I cup both her breasts, feeling their soft mounds yield beneath my hot hands. She’s as cool as earth and as velvety as a flower petal and she tastes of rosewater. I tug at her nipples until they’re both stiff like beads. I hear her whimper.
Then I sit back. Nothing has changed: her eyes are still shut, their dark lashes etched on her pale cheeks. I’m awash with confusion and shame and arousal. Under my jeans my cock is kicking angrily at its confines, swollen with selfish need. Her pale breasts shine through the shreds of her garment like moons rising through clouds. Without letting myself think I run a fingertip down the length of her body, tearing a furrow through the old gray lace. If it’s so fragile, a part of my mind asks, how did she put it on?—but I ignore the question. She’s just too much of a temptation. I reach the slight swell of her pubic mound and slide my fingers under and through the lace, cupping her.
She’s hairless, peachy, as soft and cool as mounded flour. No stubble. Just velvet petals of flesh hiding a liquid heart, and as I squeeze softly her hips tilt, pushing her sex up against my fingers. Her head tilts back a little and her lips part as she breathes a hungry moan. I nod as if answering a question and curve my fingers in, searching deeper. She’s wet, though surprisingly cool still. I can smell the intoxicating sharp musk of her sex now. It’s on my fingers. My fingers are stroking up and down that furrow, finding the source of the wet, finding the stud of her clit. I like frigging Charlene; I’m good at it; this is easy.
That memory of Charlene is as insubstantial as old lace, a thing belonging to the sunlit world. This girl’s body, the stretch of her throat as she tilts her head back and the sharp rise of her breasts, the satin slipperiness under my hand—they’re all that count in this twilit dream. She’s extraordinarily responsive to my touch, as if she’s waited a hundred years for this. Maybe she has. I can see the shudder of her hips, the tautness of her flat belly as I stroke her, a single finger making her dance. I can see her fingers flex and pull at her own flesh but she doesn’t open her eyes; her questing is blind. She needs me. She needs the hand that’s working between her thighs.
She’s close to coming.
And my other hand goes to uncinch my belt buckle, unzip and reach into my jeans. My cock bounces free, scorching hot against my palm. I’m aching for release. I swear I only mean to touch myself, to jack off as I watch her climax. But without thinking I find myself climbing on the bed, kneeling over her, parting those slim thighs without regard to the tearing of the lace, slipping into that wet furrow like into a pool of clear water, quenching my burning cock in her cool grip. She’s exquisite. My thrusts are deep but slow as, dream dizzy, I savor each moment and each move.
I feel her arch beneath me, and I hear her plaintive little moans turn to gasps. I feel the shift of her hips as she lifts her legs and digs her heels into my ass, pulling me in deeper. Her arms furl about my neck. And then I start to ride her faster as the lead in my balls turns molten and starts to rise, as that tight grip clenches and I hear the unmistakable quivering cry of her orgasm.
She opens her eyes and smiles at me. Her eyes are dark, without reflection.
I’m right on the edge. Nothing’s going to stop me coming now, not even the sight of her teeth as she peels back full lips to reveal fangs like a snake’s that she sinks deep into my throat.
Not even that.
I come and come and come, and I scream as I do. But there’s a bit of me that isn’t shocked at all.
I mean, what else can sleep for a hundred years?
HER HAIR IS A NET, WOVEN
Shanna Germain
When he sees her at the market, although he knows what and who she is, he wants her anyway. He always wants her. It’s her face that catches him first, as it often does, makes his gaze focus and puts that steady beat in his breastbone. She half turns and there it is: her pale face, round and unlined as a rivered stone, as the year’s first full moon, its circle caught against the dark sky of her straight, wet hair. The sight of her washes over and through him, a tight pressure in his head that he can’t shake.
She’s not buying anything. She’s watching the baby chicks cluck and fluff in their cages; putting a lean finger to the curled side of a cabbage covered in dew; canting her head at the puppeteer playing his wooden figures for the flock of children.
He knows he shouldn’t go to her, not here, but she draws him in without meaning to, the way the sea calls to sailors. He moves himself to stand behind her, not close enough to touch, but close enough that he can see the dampened hem of her pale green skirt. Close enough to see the bits of algae and water bugs and roe caught in the tide of the fabric as it rises and ebbs around her bare feet. Her hair is long and black, smooth as glass or ice. He wants to fist his hands around the length of it and pull it upward to his nose, inhale the b
rackish, living smell of her. Instead, he watches her watch the puppet man, each of his wooden figures caught on the end of a string, moving up and down, striding and speaking at the manipulator’s command. She doesn’t laugh or smile. Her expression rests in the shift of her hips, in the soft wiggle of her fingers as they flutter against her face.
He says her name three times. This, he knows, is how you catch the daughter of a waterman.
Once, at the place he stands.
Again, a step forward.
Third, as he touches two fingers to the side of her waist, feeling the gauzy fabric and the curve of her hip shimmy and flow beneath his hand as he captures her.
She doesn’t make a noise or step away. She barely moves. Only the dress shifts as she leans back to rest against his chest, the fabric parting to expose the smoothed inner curves of her breasts, the cool length of her neck.
“What are you doing here,” he asks in her ear. He swears he can hear the liquid slide through her veins at the side of her neck, crystalline pulses beneath her pale skin.
“Buying butter.” Her voice catches the water in the wind and shakes it out like tiny droplets. “What am I always doing here?”
There is no butter in her hands. He wonders what omens that might signal. The tales tell of the waterman’s daughter: when she buys high, the markets flood like spring rivers. Low, and everything dries up, hard and hurtful. What, he wonders, does it signify, when she doesn’t buy anything at all?
He brushes his palm up the side of her hip, the place where the swell crests over the bone. “Where are your red stockings? I almost didn’t recognize you.”
They both know this is a lie.
“Those are not for you,” she says, and there is flint in her voice.
Fairy Tale Lust Page 8
