Dark Love: Part One

by JB Duvane

  “This isn't all.” He rested his hand on my shoulder.

  “No?”

  “No.” He laughed. “You can have the entire western wing. Every part of it, consider it yours. It’s your place and I want you to feel welcome here. I want you to …” He sighed and the bright mood he'd conjured just a moment ago seemed to slip away.

  “What?”

  I moved closer to him and as I felt him near me I thought about what my life could be like here. The house was spectacular and Raymond was beyond intriguing. I wondered if it could work. If I could let myself be held by him for the rest of my life.

  “I just hoped that if I could do more than just welcoming you into my home … if I could give you a place. It all seems so silly now.” He seemed so lost. His guilt was palpable. As I wrapped my arms around him I realized that I couldn't hold him close enough. But why? He had kidnapped me.

  “But you know it's not enough, Raymond. It is beautiful, but—”

  “It's all for you, Charlotte.” He pulled back, renewed and dignified, and I allowed him to take my hand while he led me through another corridor with an endless series of rooms. They could have easily been used as bedrooms, studios, or offices by ten or twenty people. I found it hard to believe he was the only one who lived here. I also found it very sad.

  Is he here all alone in this enormous mansion every day? Does he ever talk to anyone? I wondered as I watched him move past the countless rooms.

  Each of the rooms had its own unique eccentricities. And as opposed to the library, the rooms down this hall looked like they hadn’t been cleaned or touched in decades. In one there was an ancient sewing machine with a pedal, encrusted with dust and spider eggs. In another, there was a desk, made in the classical style, with an inkwell and a crumbling feather.

  One had bedpans stacked to the ceiling, another an ancient bed that reminded me of something I'd seen in a hospital in an old World War II movie. Nothing new. They were all filled with ancient artifacts, entombed with the wistful memories that were locked deep within the walls.

  This entire floor seemed to be charged with an electric energy, just like Raymond’s eyes. Everything felt raw and intense, like the panic that ensued during a medical emergency. Several rooms had concrete walls and ancient chains. In one room, I saw a tall, human-shaped structure and realized it was an iron maiden.

  One of the rooms, the one with the hospital bed, had the unmistakable stench of death. It was ancient but pungent. I didn't know how I knew it. Probably some unspoken instinct telling me to stay away. That room sat on the right side near the end of the hall and had a thick metal door and whitewashed walls. And there was a hook screwed into the ceiling in the center of the room.

  “If you want to use any of these rooms they can be cleaned,” Raymond said, his eyes watching mine as I examined the dark and dusty room. “This next room is why I brought you down here. This room is for you, Charlotte.”

  We approached a room that had obviously been fixed up very recently. The hardwood floor shined from the reflected light that came in through a wall of windows. I walked into the center of the room and spun around with my hands clenched to my chest.

  One entire wall was covered in a floor to ceiling mirror with a barre running along the entire length and in each corner stood a coat rack with hooks that held countless tutus and feather and jewel-encrusted costumes. This room had been made for a ballerina.

  “Raymond …”

  “Do you like it? I had planned on showing it to you much later, maybe after you became comfortable here. But …”

  “It’s perfect! ” I walked up to one of the racks of costumes and picked up a black feather boa, then slipped it around my neck.

  “It suits you.”

  “How did you know, Raymond?”

  “I didn’t. Not when this room was built. This used to be my mother’s studio. Before I was born. I only saw her dance once or twice when I was very young.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. She would never talk about it. It’s yours now, Charlotte. I want you to be happy here. I want you to have everything you could ever dream of. Whatever you ask for it will be yours.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Say that you’ll stay. At least for a little while. So that we can get to know each other better. You’ll see. I’m not such a bad guy.”

  “I don’t think you’re a bad guy, Raymond. I just … I do want to know more about you. You do seem to know a lot about me. The room and my clothes—how do you know so much?”

  “Some of it really is a feeling, Charlotte. I can’t explain it. There’s something about you that feels so familiar to me.”

  I knew exactly what he meant somehow. Even though I didn’t understand him I feel like I knew him. I didn’t have any other explanation as to why I felt so comfortable with someone who was holding me captive.

  “Plus one of my men was in military intelligence.”

  “Oh.” So I had been under surveillance longer than I realized. “Tell me about your family. I'm willing to bet that this is the only nineteenth-century mountain estate in eastern Arizona.”

  “I wouldn't doubt it, but there were mountain settlers, and some of them were rich.” He took my arm as we left the room and walked back down the corridor toward the library.

  He stood in the center of the room, pointing at a painting of an elderly woman with a fop of gray hair and a black, brocade dress staring down at them. “Her name was Angeline Beauchamp. She was originally a French socialite who relocated to Louisiana. She was well known and feared at the time for having amassed a large knowledge of the occult.”

  “Voodoo.”

  “Yes. You’ve heard of her?”

  “I’ve read her name somewhere. I did a lot of research when I was creating one of my characters, one of the ones I used at Red’s—“

  “Marie Laveau.”

  “Yes! How did you know?”

  “You were wearing that costume that night … in the private room.”

  “Oh yeah, I was.”

  “She’s a lot like you. I think Marie Laveau is a big part of your personality.” My scalp tingled as Raymond pushed his hand through my hair. “Only with this gorgeous hair.”

  I stepped away from him and his hand fell down to his side. “Why don’t we go back to your family,” I said with a slight shake in my voice. I wasn’t ready for him to get that close to me again. Not yet.

  We sat down in armchairs across from one another, the window in between us.

  “Can you imagine a world where alcohol took the place of water, nobody lived past fifty, and ninety percent of infants died? They were all out of their minds and they needed hope, so they used magic. That woman was considered by some to be an accomplished sorceress. But ...”

  “What?”

  “From what the old books in this library say, she used the servants to conduct grotesque experiments. One she called The Beast was given the head of a lion that she had sewn on. Another was said to have had his arms and legs cut off so he could walk on fours with animal legs.

  “The servants gathered together one night with a Mambo, a voodoo priestess, to hold a ritual. Possessed by Marinette, the spirit of scorned slaves and the tortured, the priestess took a torch and burned the house down. They said she danced and shrieked the whole time, and that the slaves danced with her.

  “Angeline survived, but the servants had control of their master. They wanted to go west to build a home, but she told them that she would have men hunt them down and kill them unless she was allowed to come with them.”

  “They let her come?”

  “They stripped her of her clothes and gave her nothing but a thin white shift, then they made her walk barefoot. She survived, barely, but her feet were cut up from walking barefoot and her knees were giving out. She had to be carried on horseback a good portion of the trip, and it's believed that they inflicted pain on her, branded her, and tore out her hair. I don't know how she lived, but
I suspect the accounts in the library were exaggerations.

  “The journals say that when they got there she looked like a corpse. She was sunburnt and dehydrated and her skin was the consistency of leather. They said that the servants were so happy that she'd been maimed that they named this house the Beauchamp estate, even though the Valices who served the Beauchamps were the ones who took possession of it.”

  “And you're a Valice?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you part black?”

  “My family is originally from the south. The white men, I swear to you, slept with everything from sheep to goats back then. We're all part black. But no, the servants were white.”

  “Are the Beauchamps still here?”

  “Yes. They became the new servants and have been kept on over the centuries. Angeline's family was allowed to live so long as they served the household.”

  “So … your family … they are the descendants of the servants who are now the owners of the estate?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wow. That’s quite a twist. Well,” I said as I looked around. “Where are the servants?”

  “They have their own secret hallways and passageways and rooms. I rarely see them unless I need something. When I was a child, I never saw them once. Not until I was presented to the head of household when my mother become bedridden.” I could see a sadness come over his face at the mention of his mother.

  He stood up and ushered me down an arched corridor with windows lining the wall.

  “The story of the background of this house is very interesting, but I’m afraid that’s all it is. A bunch of tall tales and myths.”

  “It’s fascinating, though.” As I looked out onto the desert I imagined that we were in a giant snow globe that was just about to be shaken. The window was so close to the edge of the cliff that I felt like one wrong step and I'd fly down, straight through the thin layer of dust onto a rocky surface where my whole body would instantly vaporize into a pile of sand and blow away.

  “You don't like heights?” he asked.

  “I've just never seen any place built quite like this.”

  “There's a lot to it.”

  “Is there?”

  “Layer upon layer. See that ceiling there?” He pointed up. “It's a bridge one floor up. It leads from one set of rooms to a catwalk which you'll see when we pass into the study here.”

  The study was another library with a more somber tone. There were ancient desks with green gas lights attached to them and were surrounded by shelves of books. I wandered over to the shelves, which were smaller than the ones in the library and started going over the names.

  “Gray's Anatomy: A Study of Microbial Infections, Epidemiology...” I said aloud as I scanned the shelves. “These are all medical textbooks.” I looked to Raymond, who was sitting at one of the desks. “Did a doctor live here?”

  He didn't answer. “My great-grandfather, Lawrence, used them to try to recreate some of the old woman's experiments.”

  “So some of these rooms ...”

  “Were used to house the people he experimented on.”

  “And my room.”

  “For study after operation.”

  I leaned against the shelf to steady myself. It shouldn't surprise me that something this mystical and strange would be in Raymond’s blood.

  “The servants had him murdered after his first year of experimentation, but the damage he did was left here.”

  “What damage?”

  “The smell obviously. It’s in some of the rooms in this wing, ones that I haven’t shown you and that will remind locked. There are cells in the attic and in the cellar. And the spirits.”

  “Spirits.”

  “Memories. Whatever you want to call them. You live here long enough and you'll feel it.”

  “The suffering and the pain and heartache they went through? You think it's all part of the house now?”

  “I know it is. I hate it. I'd have the place burnt down if it weren't for the fact that it's my home … and my mother’s …”

  “Is your great-grandfather the only killer in the family?”

  He shook his head. “Abortions, a child locked in the attic for having a birth defect, surgeries, and experiments not unlike the ones performed by Angeline back in the day. There are countless examples of abuse and bloodshed here by other members of my family. And at night, when you walk around, you can feel them. I think that's why my mother never let me leave my own small wing of the house.”

  “What was she like?”

  He paused for a long moment as if he were choosing his words carefully. “She was kind but firm. And she was a strong woman who would fight if she needed to.” When he spoke he looked intently into my eyes.

  “I remind you of her.”

  “In a way.”

  “Is that what you want? Someone to take the place of your mother?” I had to ask. The question had been on my mind for days.

  “No. I … there was a time when I couldn’t even imagine anyone taking her place in this house. But now,” Raymond took a step closer to me. “I want you, Charlotte.”

  I didn’t have any way of knowing if he was telling me the truth, but I felt like he was. I wanted more than anything to believe him.

  “But there’s something more to this, I can feel it. The way you look at me. The way you fucked me. There’s more to you than a man who saw a girl he wanted.”

  “I didn’t think I could have you.”

  “Are you joking? Look at you! You’re gorgeous! I’m nothing compared to you. I’m not anywhere near your league. You are different, I’ll give you that. But you can’t expect me to believe any sob story about not thinking you were good enough.”

  “No, I can’t.” He sighed deeply and looked down at the floor. “You don’t know me, Charlotte. There is more, and most of it I don’t understand. I don’t know why I’ve done some of the things I’ve done. But some recent events have caused me to see that I’ve been …”

  “What?”

  “That I’ve hurt you, and that’s the last thing I wanted to do.”

  It’s possible that maybe a man like him, who grew up in a place like this, might go to the ends he went to get a woman. But why me? It didn’t really make sense, but it was starting to make more and more the longer I was with him, and the more I felt this mysterious connection we seemed to have.

  “What would happen if I tried to escape right now? What if I got down the mountain?”

  “I'd bring you back up.”

  “And if you couldn't and I got out onto the highway? What if you couldn't find me? What lengths would you go to bring me back here?”

  “I don't know.” He was honest. “Whatever it would take.”

  Fire seemed to stream behind him through the window as he moved toward me. When he took two steps forward I took one step back, but before I knew it he was surrounding me. His scent of sandalwood and something rich like leather seemed to wrap itself around me. Then his forehead pressed against mine and his arms wrapped around my neck.

  Sensing my apprehension, he pulled his face away and asked, “Would you please dine with me tonight?”

  I held my breath, unable to allow myself to be taken in by his scent. I wanted to say no. I wanted to jump out the window rather than face what I was feeling for him. But there was no way I could possibly say no.

  I closed my eyes. “Of course.” His lips met mine, then were gone before I could fully savor them.

  16

  Charlotte

  I was a messy pile of self-shame and glowering masochism when I finally found my way toward my room. I realized when I entered the corridor that the air was old and the bricks were, in fact, ancient. Closer inspection showed that the other doors were made of reinforced steel, built no doubt so they could house tortured prisoners.

  No wonder nobody rebuilt the stairs. Who would want to come down here?

  I walked into my dungeon room alone, free now to come and go as I pleased. Free t
o wander as far as he would let me. But still in a cage.

  I had to be honest with myself and truly confront my feelings before I became lost. Why did I care about him? Why was I comforting him? And why was I a comfort to him? There was something strong inside him, something I knew could get him past whatever came his way, but he seemed tormented, and it tormented me to see it in him.

  Why was he this way? What atrocities had he faced that had shaped him? He seemed driven by something, and even though he wouldn’t admit it, some of it certainly seemed to be lust. He clearly had everything he wanted. The man lived in his own palace. And why, if he could have any woman he wanted, had he chosen me?

  I was the girl that would have chopped his cock off, and I made a point of letting him know that before I saw him. So why was it suddenly easier for me to give in and care for him than it was for me to fight? Was I really that shallow?

  Maybe it was his innocence. He had the essence of it anyway. His curious attitude, his roaming eyes, and his ravenous need to admire me—there was innocence in that. But he knew what he was doing. He even had his men corral me on the highway. If he was anything, he was calculating, but oddly that was just as enticing.

  I loved the mystery and the danger. That's one of the things that made him exciting. But it wasn't just that. It was the fact that I'd never met a man that admired me; not like him. They admired the image I set up for myself, not the real me. That's what he wanted, the real me. He seemed to adore the things I hated about myself.

  My head was spinning as I removed my clothes and stepped into the bath. All of the things Raymond had told me about his family and all of the things I was trying to figure out about him whirled together into a maddening spiral of words and images that didn’t clear anything up for me. I tried to let it all melt away while I soaked in the fragrant, hot water in the bathtub and let the tension in my muscles go.