Slave of Darkness

by Francesca Lewis

  She began to cry. ‘Please, Steve, come up and talk to me! Don’t do anything stupid! You’ll only regret it afterwards!’

  ‘I loved you.’ His voice was full of torment. ‘I loved you and trusted you. Didn’t you stop and think of me at all?’

  Marianne slammed the window shut, her mind in a total spin. She just had to get out of the house. But only a minute or so later she heard the key turn in the bedroom door and Steve was there. She watched him cautiously, and knew he was struggling to suppress his seething anger, as he locked the door and slipped the key into his pocket.

  ‘I want just one answer,’ he said. ‘Did you ever think of me when you were with him?’

  ‘With who?’

  ‘Don’t take me for an idiot, Marianne,’ he sneered. ‘That man I saw. The same man who was in the drawing – the one who’s taken you away from me.’

  ‘No one’s taken me away from you,’ she said firmly, knowing she had to pacify him if she was to get out of the room safely. He had a wild look in his eyes, and was quite unlike the Steve she’d always known.

  He looked longingly at her, as though wanting to believe her but unable to. ‘I saw the way you were looking at him,’ he whispered.

  ‘Looking at who?’

  ‘Stop playing games with me,’ he shouted. ‘I don’t know who he was, I don’t understand a thing about all this, but I know what I saw and I’ll never forget it.’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Marianne, abruptly changing tack. ‘I should have been honest with you before but I didn’t think you’d believe me. Now you’ve seen him for yourself it’s different. I have been possessed, but against my will.’

  ‘Possessed? Against your will?’

  ‘By the man you saw, the one in the drawing. I think he lived in this house long ago and for some reason he wants me. I’ve tried to fight him but I felt so helpless on my own. Perhaps together we can banish him once and for all.’

  Steve hesitated. ‘What you’re saying sounds totally unbelievable. And if I hadn’t seen what I did, I’d have thought you needed locking up.’

  ‘But after what you saw, you believe me, don’t you?’

  Steve wavered, and then nodded. ‘Do you mean what you say about wanting to get rid of him?’

  ‘Yes!’ cried Marianne, putting her arms round Steve’s neck and pulling him towards her. It wasn’t true. She didn’t want Steve. In fact, she felt nothing for him any more. However, she had to make him believe that she did want him.

  She kissed him, tugging at his shirt buttons and unfastening his trousers. With a groan of desire he buried his face in her neck. ‘I want you so much,’ he said huskily. ‘Watching you with that man, seeing the way you were behaving, it drove me out of my mind. I want it to be like that for us.’

  ‘It will be,’ she promised. She was edging him towards the bed, but just before they reached it she was gripped from behind by a pair of strong hands, lifted into the air and thrown into a corner of the room.

  Edward stood over her, his eyes furious. ‘How dare you?’ he demanded. ‘Is your wanton behaviour now going to extend to other men?’

  Terrified out of her wits, Marianne looked up at Steve. He was facing Edward with a look of rage and jealousy. Suddenly, he reached out and grabbed hold of the other man, but his hand passed straight through Edward’s arm.

  Marianne realised that, although Steve could see Edward, Edward hadn’t fully materialised for him. He wasn’t flesh and blood, which meant Steve could do nothing but watch as he began roughly caressing Marianne’s breasts.

  ‘Let go of her,’ Steve yelled. ‘She’s mine!’

  Marianne felt a tug on her hair as Edward pulled her upright, his hands buried in the long curls at the nape of her neck. ‘Yours?’ he roared. ‘You lost her the moment you moved into this house.’

  ‘It’s me she loves,’ cried Steve.

  Edward laughed. It was a terrible sound, full of such dark depravity that Steve recoiled from it. ‘She may have loved you once,’ he sneered. ‘But that ended once I taught her what real pleasure is. She despises you now. You’re pathetic. Even if she stayed with you, you’d never be able to satisfy her. Not after the things we’ve taught her.’

  ‘I don’t want to know about the things you’ve taught her,’ cried Steve, clapping his hands over his ears.

  ‘Haven’t you noticed a change in her?’ asked Edward, his voice silky. ‘She’s a disgrace; a brazen, lascivious young woman who needs constant discipline in order to control her unnatural lusts.’

  ‘Marianne, come with me,’ cried Steve, holding out his hand. She tried to move towards him but Edward’s arm tightened round her waist and it was impossible for her to get free.

  ‘I can’t,’ she exclaimed.

  ‘Of course you can. He’s only a ghost.’

  ‘He’s more than that to me.’

  ‘I don’t think you want to get away from him.’

  ‘I do,’ she shouted.

  ‘You little liar,’ whispered Edward. He pinched her nearest nipple until she howled with the pain. Then she gasped because, as the pain died away, already aroused by the fact that Steve was watching, she was shaken by a tiny orgasm.

  ‘Stop it,’ Steve begged her. ‘Quickly, we’ve got to get out of here.’

  ‘Even if she goes with you, she’ll never belong to you again,’ jeered Edward. ‘I’ve put my mark on her and you’ll have to live with that for the rest of your life.’

  Marianne watched Steve’s face as his brain registered what Edward was saying. After a few moments he looked at Marianne, but this time his expression had changed and there was no affection in it.

  ‘He’s right, isn’t he?’ he said miserably. ‘He’s changed you and you’ll never be free of him. You like what he does to you. I’ve just seen that for myself.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ whispered Marianne. ‘I never wanted this to happen. I didn’t understand what he was doing to me until it was too late.’

  ‘Don’t listen to her,’ said Edward. ‘I didn’t change her; I simply showed her what she really was.’

  ‘But I don’t want to live without you,’ muttered Steve.

  ‘You don’t have to,’ said Marianne, struggling to escape Edward’s grasp, terrified of what Steve was going to do. ‘We’ll move away. In time we’ll forget all this.’

  Steve shook his head. ‘No, he’s right. We’ll never be free of him. There’s only one solution.’

  ‘What?’ demanded Marianne, the crazed glint in his eyes filling her with a dreadful foreboding. ‘What are you going to do?’ But Steve didn’t reply. Turning, he bolted from the room, again locking it behind him.

  Edward manhandled Marianne over to the bed, throwing her down and roughly caressing her trembling body. ‘We’re well rid of him,’ he said shortly. ‘Your place is with me. You don’t need him any more.’

  His fingers moved delicately over her flesh, but just as she started to respond she smelt something burning and leapt to her feet. ‘He’s set fire to the house!’ she screamed, and at that moment thick smoke crept under the bedroom door. Rushing over to the window and wrenching it open she saw Steve outside, the empty can of petrol hurled on to the cobbles. ‘What have you done?’ she shouted despairingly. ‘What the hell have you done?’

  ‘Let’s see how the pair of you get on without this precious house,’ he yelled up at her. ‘He’ll have a job to haunt you with his home gone.’

  ‘Steve, get me out of here,’ she pleaded. ‘You haven’t thought this through. Do you want me to burn to death?’

  ‘What am I supposed to want?’ he called back. ‘Don’t worry, if you’re lucky Sandra and Graham might see the smoke in time to call the fire brigade, but I’d be surprised if they wanted to after the way you’ve treated them. You never cared about anyone but yourself did you, Marianne? So why should anyone care about you now?’<
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  She began to weep, screaming desperately at Steve to fetch help, but Edward pulled her away from the window and slammed it shut. ‘Leave him alone,’ he said contemptuously. ‘What does it matter? Now you’re free.’

  She stared at him, at the brooding face. He could give her such incredible pleasure, but she knew there wasn’t an ounce of kindness in him and she panicked, realising that if Moorhead House burned down she would never again be able to escape his clutches, no matter what Edward did to her.

  Frantically she dashed back to the window and flung it open again.

  ‘Help me!’ she screamed at the top of her voice, but then Edward dragged her away again, pushing her on the bed. Smoke filled the room, and as Marianne’s spinning mind tried to work out whether it truly was smoke or the mist that always preceded her journeys into the past, everything vanished.

  Chapter 13

  When she opened her eyes she was lying on the moors. It was early evening and the wind was cool. Edward was standing nearby holding his horse’s reigns. ‘You’ve been sleeping,’ he said.

  Marianne gazed about her. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘They’re late,’ he said casually.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘My friends from London.’

  She frowned. ‘I’ve never met your friends from London.’

  Edward smiled. It was not a kind smile. ‘No, but you’re about to.’

  At that moment three men arrived on horseback, dismounted and greeted Edward enthusiastically, before looking over to where Marianne was sitting amidst the purple heather.

  ‘You didn’t exaggerate,’ said one. ‘She’s certainly a beauty.’

  ‘And she has no living relatives?’ asked a second.

  ‘None,’ said Edward smoothly. ‘That was one of the reasons why I employed her.’

  Marianne got to her feet, clutching a thin cloak around her. ‘Why are they all looking at me like that?’ she asked nervously.

  ‘Don’t feign innocence,’ said Edward. ‘You know very well why they’re here. I told you I wanted to share you with my friends.’

  The three men were advancing on her and in a blind panic she began to stumble back away from them, but her ankle turned and she fell. The breath was knocked out of her and while she was still gasping, one of the men pushed her skirts up around her waist and unfastened his breeches.

  ‘Edward says he finds it hard to control you,’ the man leered, staring down at her and licking his fat lips. He dropped to his knees, his hardening penis bobbing obscenely from his breeches, and began to fondle her through her undergarments while, at the same time, another of the men knelt over her, unfastened himself, his erection sprang out and then he lowered himself over Marianne’s face.

  ‘Open your mouth,’ Edward ordered abruptly. Instinctively she obeyed him.

  As her lips closed around the stranger’s gnarled cock and her tongue began to move hesitantly over the straining flesh she felt the first man’s fingers fumbling at her sex. His touch was crude yet undeniably exciting, and soon she was sighing around the stalk that pumped back and forth between her stretched lips.

  ‘You spoke the truth about her,’ the man grunted to Edward, his voice thick with arousal as his hips drove back and forth. ‘Such a sweet mouth to fuck!’

  ‘Then take her, my friends,’ said Edward calmly. ‘Savour her to the full.’

  Marianne wanted to protest, to say she didn’t want these men, that it was only Edward she wanted, but she couldn’t speak for obvious reasons. In any case, she was so excited by what was happening she wasn’t even sure her protest would be true.

  ‘What about me?’ called the third man.

  ‘Take her from behind,’ said Edward.

  Soon all three of them were possessing and invading her, and despite the shocking depravity of it all she nearly went out of her mind with excitement as Edward stood watching, smiling enigmatically.

  ‘You greedy little whore,’ he said softly. ‘You’re loving this, aren’t you?’

  At that moment she felt her mouth filling up with hot sticky fluid and swallowed convulsively until every drop had gone and the man slumped away. The other two were still thrusting and they came within seconds of each other.

  When they withdrew Edward pulled her to her feet, ripped off the cloak and removed her dress, leaving her with only her dishevelled undergarments for protection. ‘Do you realise what you’ve done?’ he asked angrily.

  ‘I did what you wanted,’ she whispered.

  ‘You didn’t ask my permission, did you?’

  ‘There wasn’t time,’ she protested, then screamed as he raised his riding whip and curled it round her waist with full force.

  ‘Once we’re in London I shall really take you in hand,’ he warned, tugging savagely on the whip and jerking her towards him. ‘Believe me, in the end you’ll learn to control yourself.’

  ‘They’ll love her at the club,’ said one of his friends.

  ‘The club?’ Marianne didn’t like the sound of that.

  ‘I belong to a club in London – a very special club. We have nights when we can take guests of the opposite sex, although I’d hardly call them ladies.’ His friends laughed. ‘I think you’ll provide excellent entertainment for all the members.’

  Marianne shook her head. ‘No, that’s not how it was meant to be,’ she cried.

  He chuckled sarcastically. ‘How it was meant to be?’

  ‘That’s not why I’m here. I wanted to be with you, like I was before. In the house, with you and Judith. I don’t want to go to London.’

  Edward put a hand on her shoulder and turned her in the direction of Moorhead House. ‘We’ve nowhere else to go,’ he said quietly. ‘And as for the others, their spirits died with the house. It was their only home. We have to move on.’

  Marianne froze as she stared across the moors, barely hearing his words. Moorhead House was a charred ruin. Sandra and Graham were talking to a policeman, while close by sombre medics were carrying a covered stretcher to an ambulance. ‘It... it’s all gone,’ she said, her quiet words barely audible above the wind.

  ‘And that’s exactly what I wanted,’ Edward said triumphantly. ‘Now you’ll never leave me again. We’re together for eternity.’

  ‘No...’ whispered Marianne, barely able to comprehend what she was seeing. ‘I don’t want to go to London with you. I don’t want to be with you for eternity. I want to go home.’ She waited for the words of denial to work, for everything to return to normal, hoping against hope that everything that had happened had been an awful dream, but she remained in her old undergarments with the wind raising goosebumps on her flesh.

  ‘You can’t return,’ Edward insisted. ‘Don’t you understand, my dear? You died in the fire.’

  Marianne felt her chin trembling, and then the awful scene around the charred and smoking house blurred as she began to cry. ‘H-how can I be dead, when...?’

  ‘Don’t ask any questions,’ he said. ‘This is what you really wanted, you know it is.’

  As she continued to weep, he pushed her into the shelter of some nearby bushes, laid her on the ground, pulled down her underwear and began to fondle her sex. He touched her lightly, gently, until she felt the liquid warmth spreading through her and her sex opened invitingly, longing for him. Never before had he been so gentle, so caring, and her clitoris swelled beneath his fingers.

  ‘In a moment your pleasure will spill,’ he whispered as he moved away from her for a second. Marianne closed her eyes, anticipating the delicious moment of release. Then, with no warning, Edward brought down the whip and she screamed in anguish, but as the scream died in her throat her body was racked by an incredible orgasm that shook her from head to toe, her pleasure triggered by the flashes of agony.

  ‘You see,’ said Edward. ‘I’m the only man who can truly satisfy you. You need no
one but me. Now get dressed. It’s time we set off for London.’

  Still weak from her orgasm, Marianne obeyed, and when she was dressed he heaved her up astride his horse before climbing up behind her. As the horse began to move Marianne remembered what Steve had said when he’d first seen the picture of Edward and Judith. She realised she was now heading for a life of excess and debauchery, a life that would be controlled solely by what Edward did or did not want. It was a terrifying thought.

  The horse began to trot and Marianne was stimulated by the movement of the beast beneath her. Leaning back against Edward, she heard him laugh. ‘I thought you might enjoy this,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t have any choice,’ she retorted. ‘There’s nothing I can do any more.’

  ‘I don’t want you to do anything,’ he replied. ‘All I demand from you is obedience.’ As the horse broke into a canter and her body rose and fell against the saddle she sighed with relief, realising that at last she was totally free to enjoy herself in the ways she liked best. Suddenly London and the life she would have there with Edward promised to be the best thing that had ever happened to her.

  ‘I’m sorry, Steve,’ she murmured, ‘wherever you are.’

  Edward gripped her tightly around the waist with one arm. ‘I never want to hear his name mentioned again,’ he said firmly. ‘Is that understood?’

  ‘Of course,’ Marianne conceded submissively, and she knew it would be no problem for her. Nothing would be a problem for her any more, for all those traumatic events which had taken place since she’d moved to Moorhead House had only been the means to fulfil her dark destiny.

  Also Available

  Enjoy more BDSM erotica by Francesca Lewis in Selina’s Submission, and writing as Frances Allan in Games of Obedience, both also published by us at Chimera:

  Selina’s Submission

  She couldn’t imagine why she had to kneel there, but continued to stare in fascination at the first male erection she’d seen in her life, and once again she felt a hungry pulse beating between her thighs.