girl-loser.com

He grew up on a farm. Has seen things most men would consider improper, but it's the sight of those thighs shifting in the sunlight, half-hidden beneath the book, that breaks him. Makes him feel like a voyeur for the first time in his whole life. Like a man starved. Aching.

He wants his hands on those thighs more than anything he's wanted in his whole life. Wants to squeeze the meat of them until she's whimpering, begging him to stop—

Run his claws down the length, splitting pretty skin so he can finally leave a mark. Bite down on the insides that she keeps rubbing together. Make her feel it each time she squeezes her thighs together—a permanent imprint of his teeth. A claim that anyone who has the privilege of peeling her knees apart will see.

(and he'll have the privilege of tearing them apart so they'll never get to see it again—)

He doesn't know her name, but that doesn't really even matter because he knows, in his bones, that he wants the taste of her on his tongue for as long as he's alive. Wants her beneath him, clawing at his back until the ugly, twisted scars there are overwrought with her own claim, her struggle to get away—

(wants her buried in a shallow grave beside him, those fingers that keep shaping out looping little figureeights forever knotting tight around the ribcage that tried to swallow her whole—)

It would be a lie to say he's never wanted anything in his life before when he's spent most of it up until now hungry. Starved. But he's never felt compelled enough to have. Never sated the ache in belly because it always seemed so pointless when it would just start grumbling again in a few hours time; but as she rubs those thighs together, he realises that he's just never wanted something badly enough to take it. To have. To sate the ache, soothe the beast.

And it's just instinctual, really, when he wanders up to the open window, nose in the air, scenting the musk of her perfume that clots into the stench of sun-scorched earth and gasoline. Hands clenched tight by his sides, joints tense and ready to spring open and snap shut. To grab, and hold as he drags her into the bushes across the street and disappears into the canyons below, her ensnared in his grasp: a gazelle in the jowls of tiger. Conquered and caught.

She'll get used to him with time. Grow accustomed to the only taste, the smell, she'll ever know again. Ache for it, too, maybe; when he's gone hunting for food with the key to the chains he'll have to lock around her ankles tucked in his back pocket, yearning for his touch and shaking until he comes home. Pries her open, stuffs her full—

(—so full, she'll always feel empty when he isn't inside her. incomplete. unmade on the sheets he'll steal from the motel down the road where holidaymakers stay when they come to gawk over the canyon rim, shifting those pretty, scarred up thighs together like she is now, begging for something to fill the ache he left behind—)

She looks up quicker than he'd expected she would, catching him as he's only five steps away from her and the forever he's building in the back of his head. The look in her eye is flat, but not surprised. Like she was waiting for him the whole time—

"Hello," she says, low and sweet; a voice full of honey as her eyes widen and her lips curve into a small smile. And it would be, should be, but he can taste the sour poison buried in the sugar. Something that sets his teeth on edge. Stops him dead in his tracks. "You look lost. Can I help you, honey?"

Honey.

Nothing about him would make a woman call him honey. Would have them fluttering their lashes at him like she is, lips curved into an artless smile; eyes lidded. Heavy with desire as they rake up and down his body, from the dusty workboots they shipped him home in before the war ended, to the overalls that don't quite fit anymore because he's no longer that eighteen year old farmboy he was when he turned them in for a green uniform. Everything about him is borrowed. Handed down. Stolen, too, because no one is interested in hiring someone like him when the war has been over for months now, and corporate America is ready to move on from the mayhem and misery, and reclaim some sense of normalcy before the haunted, angry faces of men torn from an era that left them behind can leave a permanent scar—

like what the shrapnel did to his face.

The war he was thrown into far too young left him a scarred, mangled mess of a man; a patchwork calamity some sympathetic doctor had the misfortune of putting back together in a humid, disease-ridden tent. Left him twisted and ugly; spare parts that should have been used on someone else, someone better, but we're instead sewn to the empty shell they called a body, held together with fishing wire and rusting staples.

He's all jagged, craggy tissue; missing pieces and healed over pockmarks because there was no flesh left to spare in a graft—one that wouldn't have done much to fix the damage anyway.

He knows she can see his canine through the jagged split of his upper lip where molten metal dripped down from beneath his eye, leaving a path of gnarled scar tissue in glossy, pale pink, a hideous burr, before it burned clean through his mouth, turning it into a cave. The nose that was broken more times than he can remember now sitting in a crooked angle that no doctor is willing to even try and fix. A gash across his brow. A chunk of skin taken out along his jaw, the wound, the indent, so deep, some people swear they can see bone through the thin slip of skin.

Honey, he knows, is the last thing that usually comes to mind when people see him, and it's this misstep—her sticking to the script even when he must make her skin crawl—that picks apart the artlessness of her lure, laying bare the artifice of her carnal design in broad daylight.

She's a trap.

A lure.

Something shiny and sweet dangling deep in the ugly abyss. Gleaming so bright, it's easy to overlook the curved hook poking out underneath.

"Are you okay, honey?" Her head tilts, lips pulling into a pretty little pout, and he's struck by how good she is when he feels the burn of it in his guts. The urge to unravel himself in front of her, lay himself bare for her to gawk at brims, and it takes everything inside of him to swallow it down. To not give in.

To what, he isn't sure—

Not until the bell chimes, and he suddenly understands her game when the door of the shop opens, and he strolls out.

He's tall. Not as tall as Simon, granted—but still big. Brawny. Broad shouldered, thickened up around the waist and thighs. Bearish despite the expensive linen and gold. The simple brown trousers and starch white button-up likely costs more than anything Simon owns, but he thinks that's supposed to be the point.

Through the glare of the bright sun sitting in the passenger seat of a sleek car, a picture begins to take shape. A businessman on holiday with his pretty, younger wife. The image of American luxury—something that is meant to fill him with greed. With anger. With want. Wanting the car and the pretty thing inside of it is natural, isn't it? Jealousy. Desire. That's what this is. That's what they're selling.

Envy and awe.

On the surface, anyway.

"Oh, right," she chirps, slipping out of the passenger seat as the haunting notes of the song follow her out (if i didn't tell her, if i didn't tell her, i could leave today—), and in the spill of daylight, she's even prettier. A plump, preening little bird grinning wide and bright at him. Begging come take a bite. "My husband said he was looking for someone to help him on our ranch. Do you happen to be looking for work? If you don't have any family around here, we have a room available, too—"

When Simon looks back at the man, he catches a dangerous edge in the cerulean eyes that assess him silently from the driver's side—a hiccup in the facade, he's sure; silence in place of a razor sharp speech about a ranch he can't run on his own while his pretty little lure chirps in the front seat, prying apart his life story so sweetly in this feigned song of concern. 

The pieces fall together pretty quickly after that because if there's one thing Simon knows more than hunger, it's a predator. A killer.

Danger.

His gaze drifts back to the pair of birds dangling beneath the rearview mirror, and he snorts. Shrikes. He should have known—

But the thing is, he can see this ruse working for a lot of people. Ensnared by the designer watch on the husband's wrist and the big, pretty gem on the lovely wife's finger. The sweet way she speaks to him—honey, won't you come help us? We'll pay you, of course—could put anyone at ease, lulling them into a false sense of security, and maybe even the bite of opportunism. They paint themselves as easy targets—a dumb, rich couple who can't see the plan forming in the back of the strangers head: go with them. Rob them blind. Maybe even fuck the wife, too. And then leave them for dead.

The landscape aids in this plan, too. The Grand Canyon is only a few hours away. The perfect place for someone to go missing and never be found.

He can see them taking a bite. Climbing into the car—

Only to be met with the flat, dead eyes of a predator. Hunters. The wife sings a sweet song as her husband aims a gun at their heads and tells them to behave. 

Or that’s how it should go. 

But he knows by the way she keeps glancing back at her husband that he's not following the script. That this isn't part of the plan. That this pretty little bird has bitten off more than she, than they, can chew.

The man—John Price, he grunts after some prompting from his pretty songbird—just watches Simon silently for another moment, eyes too sharp, too knowing; assessing in a calculative, deadly way that a lesser man (and maybe even just a whole man) might flinch at, shudder under the weight of, and try to run away before he hums, cocking his head to the side, and all at once the weight in his gaze changes. Shifts. Like a predator sighting something across the field—

Shedding skin.

There's a flicker of intrigue. A disturbance rippling across the stagnant pond, shaking the cool, flat blue of the abyss, and Simon has to imagine that this, this, is the last thing all of the men who stood in this same spot as he is now, half-dazed by the sweet song of the siren in the passenger seat, saw before the bear dressed in beguiling tweed—a man on his way to a country club, who has never known hunger a day in his life—sunk his teeth into their jugular.

(that pretty bird still chirping away in the front seat—oh, honey, c'mon on now, you're gettin' blood all over the seats, baby—before she turned that razor sharp beak on them, sinking it deep into their soft, exposed belly—)

But the bubbling gleam in John’s eye is that of a different sort of hunger—something different from killing, from fucking. 

"Sure, sweetheart," he says, lips twitching under the thick moustache, curving up into a too-big, too-tight Duchenne smile. And all at once, the game changes. Shifts when you let out a happy little laugh—

Simon knows he isn’t another spoil to be impaled on a spike anymore, but a pawn to be used against a spoiled little bird who is too blinded by the thrill of the hunt to see the way John’s lips twist in displeasure—pretty bird, in trouble for biting off more than they, than she, can chew. 

"Whaddya say, mm? Interested?"

The hunter becoming the hunted, the punished, is really nothing new, but he’s willing to bet that this is the first time you’ve ever been at the mercy of a man who wasn’t your husband. 

Left to fend for yourself as John leans back in a chair, and watches the man you wanted so badly to become your prey, a shared soil impaled on a spike, forcing your pretty, bitten bloody thighs apart until they’re split wide around his hips, shoving his cock into your sore, messy cunt over and over again as you plead for mercy, for help—

(sorry, John, sorry—please—!)

Grasping fingers only inches away from the knife John tossed on the bed when Simon dragged you back inside, downstairs, kicking and screaming because this wasn’t the way the game was supposed to go.

And he keeps you there, perched always within reach of the knife, but never enough to be able to close your fingers around the hilt as he takes his spoils in the soft give of your body. The sticky, slick slide of your wounded thighs squirming around his hips, leaving smears of blood on his skin. A trophy he'll keep for as long as he can because there really is nothing sweeter than the way you beg him for mercy, to please, please, take his cock out because it hurts, and it won't fit, it doesn't, and—

Easily the sweetest song he's ever heard as he acclimates himself to this new dynamic, this shifting, evolving game John is playing a game where he pretends to teach his wife a lesson in proper victim profiling with the thick split of a stranger's cock battering her poor, sore cunt, and tosses out his own lure for Simon to bite down on:

“Come on, sweetheart. You wanted to play, mm? So why aren’t you playin’?”

because the thing is, John has always been more of a pack animal, preferring to hunt in a group, as a unit sharing the spoils, a than a solidary predator.

safety in numbers, Simon supposes, and as he stares down into your tear-filled eyes, and those pretty lips that, only hours ago, were blissfully popping bubble gum now caught in a whimper as he does what he wanted ever since he saw you and stuffs you full, he can't help wondering if you ever knew you were never the hunter, but always the prize.

the pretty bird that drew in hungry monsters like him—

Put you on the spot in front of six busybody retirees with no chance to argue or protest. You couldn’t, not with their hopeful and excited faces behind you, not as his wife. How could you fight or be ungrateful with the end looming over the horizon? 

So you took the backpacker’s pack, an ugly, lumpy, weathered plum-colored thing, and forced a smile. You shrugged it on to let John play the ever-attentive husband and adjust the straps. Then came the repacking, your whole life upended again, with the women hovering at your shoulder, clucking and suggesting more trades. You gave in, because you had to, and John knew that.

He knew you couldn’t keep everything. That your broken suitcase had to go. That even your commuter backpack would get left behind, because why carry two?

The retirees were charmed, delighted to help, fussing over you both like you were kids. Artie even dug out an old instant camera, insisting on a picture. John snaked his arm around you, snug between your back and the pack. Made you lean into him, told you to smile. The polaroid was pressed into your hand before you left, The Prices scrawled in shaky handwriting along the bottom.

For a mile you bit your tongue, letting all sorts of ungenerous thoughts fester. You waited until the campsite was well behind you before finally laying into him.

It went about as well as your first spat.

John let your complaints wash over him, unruffled. He only asked if the straps pinched, if the back support felt better. No apology for making you pare down your belongings, no remorse for forcing two bags into one. Just a remark that you were keeping pace now—and nothing more.

His dismissal rendered you quiet again.

At least until, while packing up after lunch, he handed you a wrinkled brochure he’d lifted from a petrol station he’d raided, and said you’d be in the Cotswolds within days.

The world opens up in a sweep of green and gold. The Cotswolds are a patchwork of sloping hills and hedgerows fastened together by low stone walls. Everything seems to hum out here. The greenery alive with the wind, fields dotted with poppies and cowslip, even the clouds cooperate and part to grant some hours of sun.

Villages appear like mirages between the hills, clusters of ivory and honey-colored limestone glowing in the afternoon light. Smoke curls from the distant chimneys. Signs of human life. Animals too, plenty. Sheep scatter as you cut through fields. Cows barely raise their heads. 

The air is clean. Sweet, mineral, laced with the faint scent of rain and woodsmoke. The roads curve, narrowing between stands of hawthorn and beech, and you slow to take it in. If John’s bothered by the change in pace, he doesn’t say a word.

For the first time in weeks, it doesn’t feel like the world is ending. It feels like it’s rolling out in front of you.

The grass rises higher than your head where you rest, blades bending and springing against your sleeves with each shift of the wind. 

John stashed you like a fawn while he went ahead to check a cottage he’d spotted half an hour back.

You hunch against your ugly pack, fingers combing through the stalks, eyes fixed on the sky and the slow crawl of dark clouds rolling in. Somewhere between lunch and now, the truth has settled in: you’re close to parting ways. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon. You said you wanted to wait out the end somewhere pretty, and here you are. Just about there.

You’ll thank him for the protection, pleasant as it was, and say goodbye. He’ll move on, and get to wherever he’s really going.

You’re picturing it, John shrinking in the distance, when his shape cuts through the grass instead. Long strides, rifle slung over his back, shoulders rolling loose like he didn’t just break into a stranger’s house to clear it room by room. He jerks his chin at you when he’s close enough.

“It’s empty. Safe enough to kip in tonight.”

You nod, clutching at your pack straps as you rise, brushing burrs and dirt from your jeans.

The place is nice. More importantly, it’s decently hidden. Private.

Surrounded on all sides by high hedges growing spindly up top from neglect, with a low gate. John helps you over in lieu of clipping the chain with the bolt cutters. Extra security.

It sits away from the roadway, flanked by trees and a wild garden that wraps around one side to the back. There, an old shack and a dried up man-made pond.

An older place, John notes idly as you poke around and open windows to air out the sickly-sweet smell of rotting food. So he thinks, since it’s fairly untouched, not renovated or expanded in recent years at least.

Maybe you’ll stay here.

“Don’t suppose you found anything good?”

“No. Everything’s expired or rotten. Threw it out by the shed.”

There’s one problem you discover when you climb the stairs in search of a bedroom: there’s only one. The other has been turned into a library, shelves sagging under rows of dusty books.

You stand in the doorway, staring at the bed the way you’d eye a meal you’re certain is poisoned.

One bed. Two of you. The gentlemanly thing would be for him to offer it, and under normal circumstances, you’d accept without hesitation. But you think about the ground covered, about how you haven’t gone hungry, how you’re still alive because he keeps your safety at the forefront. Yes, he manipulated you into downsizing with that damned present, but you’ve made better time since. You can’t deny that.

While you hover in the hall, weighing your options, heavy steps creak up behind you. John hovers at your back, and that’s when you spot his pack already leaning against the wall beneath the window.

He’s claimed the room.

“You don’t mind the sofa, do you?” he drawls, and you don’t need to look to know there’s a smirk tugging at his mouth. He slides past, making a deliberate show of grinding his fists into the small of his back in a stretch. “Bad back and all.”

Just like that, charitable thoughts erased.

You flash a big smile. “Of course. Age before beauty. Wouldn’t want the old man to hurt himself,” you start down the hall before he can snipe you back for that one and thunder down the stairs. You call back, “I’m going to see if there’s anything left in the garden.”

There isn’t much to find as you grouse and pick through the dirt with a stick. 

Whoever lived here must’ve packed up weeks ago. The garden’s gone to seed, everything left to rot. You come away with a courgette, a couple of radishes, some thin carrots, and a tomato you’ll have to carve a bruise from. You wash them off as best you can with the garden pump, trying not to dwell on the fact that this might be the last time you taste anything fresh.

It’s hard not to think about all your lasts. What was the last movie you saw? The last train ride? The last drink at a pub? 

You hear John lumbering around upstairs and think—when was the last time you had sex? Ages ago, your mind supplies, cruelly helpful. Might as well die a nun.

And as you rummage through the cupboards for salt, pepper, any seasoning or spice, your thoughts drift where they’ve been drifting for days—straight to John. You imagine it’d be all clinical and efficient with him: no perfunctory foreplay or tenderness, no nonsense. Just two people doing what needs doing before going back to nothing. You’d probably give him a nod afterward and send him on his way. A good final lay.

But when he finally comes down as sunlight fades from the windows, the image falters. He’s changed into a clean shirt, blue with short sleeves, forearms bare. Head uncovered, hair mussed from the day. He looks almost like a normal man. A man you might allow to buy you a drink. Save for the gun at his hip.

The two of you fix supper, though tonight seems a special occasion since he’s deigned to share a meal-in-a-bag he apparently picked up from a survival store before leaving the city. Tonight’s feast: a chicken curry with rice, with the scavenged tomato diced into pieces. You eat together at the small table in more silence.

You’re licking the sauce from your fingers when he clears his throat. You glance up to find him watching you, eyes flicking briefly to your mouth before rising to meet yours again. There’s a half-full bottle of gin in his hand.

You grin around your thumb, pulling it free. “So you did find something. You holding out on me?”

“Found it in the library.”

“In a globe?”

His lip twitches. “No.”

You huff a laugh, shove the bottle back into his hand, and rise. “I’ll get us cups.”

You end up by the soot-stained fireplace, the fire John built turning the room into a pocket of warmth. He’s settled into a worn armchair that’s a smidgen too small for him, while you lounge on the sofa that’ll serve as your bed. 

You’re deep into your second cup of gin. It’ll help you sleep, you told him. That’s what you said when initially refused you another round. And technically, it’s true. It’s just also made you chatty.

“...and I can’t even remember the last movie I saw,” you ramble, staring into the flames. “I think it was The Birdcage, but maybe not. Or the last time I clocked out of work and what I wore. Or my last takeaway.”

John hums low in acknowledgment as he takes another sip. You can tell he’s probably bored stiff, but he hasn’t gotten up to leave. Maybe he thinks you’re at least worth the entertainment.

You swirl what’s left in your cup, watching the liquid catch the light. “And then I thought—fuck me, when was the last time I got laid?”

Out of the corner of your eye, you catch him look over.

Heat rushes to your face and it’s not all from the gin. You sink deeper into the cushions. You should stop talking. You really, really should. But the words tumble out anyway, stupid word vomit, because he’s the only person around to talk to.

“Definitely pre-asteroid. Obviously pre-asteroid.” You swallow. “I passed on an invitation to an end-of-the-world orgy at some motel before we met, by the way. Just—too much for me, personally. Not that I’m against them, just—” You suck your teeth, and find the hand brake for your mouth inside your head. “I think the last fella was a perfectly fine man named Stephen.”

The pause that follows is excruciating.

Then, after a moment, a mercy: “Was Stephen…your boyfriend?”

You snort, shaking your head. “No. He was in another department. Accounting, I think. You know how work parties go—too much gin,” you raise your nearly empty glass, “and you let a man follow you home.”

“Can’t say I’ve done that.”

“No?” You feel bolder now that the tension’s eased. You twist on the sofa, facing him fully. He’s sunk into the chair, legs comfortably spread, his forearms resting on the arms, glass dangling in thick fingers. The firelight splashes his profile in orange and gold. His lap looks inviting.

“What was it you did for work again?”

His gaze flicks toward you, stern as ever, clearly weighing telling you.

“C’mon,” you coax. “I’ve got my guesses. I’ve been real good about not asking.”

“Good,” he says simply. “That what you’ve been?”

You grin, propping your chin on your hand. “I was once called the polite girl from the bakery, so.”

John looks back at the fire, cheeks flushed. “Right,” he murmurs, taking another sip before finally adding, “Army. Special forces.”

The confirmation of your first theory rolls through you in a complicated wave. Smugness that you were right, relief that at least he knows what he’s doing, and an unsettling fear crossed with certainty that he’s definitely seen and done terrible things. You peer at the healing scar on his forehead and wonder yet again what he did to earn it.

“Knew it,” you manage.

“Feel vindicated?”

“A little.”

You while away the next hour talking about little things you miss and whatnot, but nothing of great import or substance. Since admitting his old line of work, John seems to have hit his quota for personal details. Maybe that’s for the best. You’ll have to tell him tomorrow that you’re staying here, that you’re claiming this cottage until September. The less either of you knows, the easier the parting will be.

John lets the fire burn down before he stirs. He claps his palms against the arms of the chair and pushes himself up with a grunt.

“Best get some shut-eye. Enjoy the sofa,” he says, stretching and smirking. “Can’t thank you enough for your generosity.”

Back to this, then.

“You’d think if you’re military trained, you could sleep anywhere,” you retort.

“It’s because of the military my back’s bad,” he counters dryly. “I’ve earned a bed.”

You watch him rake through the smoldering wood in the fireplace so it’ll die out. Then he crosses the room toward the stairs. You wait until he’s at the bottom.

“Guess I’ll sleep alone down here and hope the bolt’s enough to stop whoever finds us if they find us.”

He stops, one hand braced on the wall.

“Didn’t think of that, did you?”

He turns to peer over his shoulder. Clearly he did not. A storm swiftly forms and passes behind his eyes as he reconsiders. He scratches his cheek.

Finally, he shrugs, “If someone comes knocking, you better scream loud, then.”

It’s deep into the night when the gin in your bladder wakes you. The cottage is quiet but for the wind rattling the shutters. You roll out from under your unzipped sleeping bag, and fumble for the bathroom. Your foot nearly catches the water bucket John filled earlier, and briefly, you think you’d trade a finger for a working toilet.

When you pad back toward the main room, you rub your arms in the cooler air. The alcohol’s worn off. You’re passing the base of the steps when a faint sound stops you. Something from upstairs.

You pause. Listen. Then, curiosity pricking at you, you start up the stairs, one hand sliding along the rough wall for balance. Halfway up, it comes clearer—not snores at all, but low, strained sounds. Stifled.

You freeze on the landing.

He’s. He’s...seeing to himself.

The realization hits and burns through you, mortifying and something else all at once. You shouldn’t be listening, but you can’t seem to move.

His grunts are low and sound almost pained, like he’s biting through his lip to keep quiet. 

You can’t help but picture him again: perched on the edge of the old bed, shirtless, neck rolling. One of those thick forearms flexing, squeezing, a bead of sweat making the journey from his throat and slipping into the whorls of chest hair and further, down his stomach. His legs probably spread as wide as they were in the armchair, with a space that’s you-sized in between. Your mind jumps to a filthy place. You wonder if he’d let you suck his dick, or if that would be too intimate for what you two are. The wandering soldier and the unfortunate tagalong he took pity on. Still, your nipples tighten under your shirt at a particularly rough noise.

Jesus. You don’t remember getting this excited over Stephen. You certainly didn’t want to suck his dick.

You stand there too long, pulse skittering, the heat of embarrassment creeping up your neck and buzzing in your stomach. You keep telling yourself you’re going to sneak away, but his breathing keeps hitching. Your hand curls into a tight fist against the wall, bones shaking with the force. Your jaw goes slack when you finally hear a gritted out fuck, followed by the unmistakable sound of a drawn-out groan smothered by a hand.

You swear it’s only a few seconds before the bed springs squeak—John getting to his feet. Panic jolts through you. You spin on the landing, meaning to hurry back down, but your heel finds the one treacherous board in the house.

It creaks. Loudly.

Everything goes still.

You freeze, breath locked in your chest, then quickly pad down the stairs as silently as you can manage. You dive under your sleeping bag on the sofa, tugging it up over your head. Eyes shut, you kick one foot free for good measure, as if mid-dream, while your ears strain for movement upstairs.

But none comes. John doesn’t come barreling downstairs, in fact, you don’t hear him moving at all. For all you know, he didn’t hear you, and doesn’t know that you heard him.

The air under the flannel turns humid as you try to lie still, every nerve below your waist alive and twitching. You want to think about anything else, to find a foothold in a duller line of thought. If anything, all this aching just confirms your plans. 

Tomorrow, you’ll tell him you’re staying here. That it’s time to go your separate ways. It’s the right thing. The smart thing.

You're almost jealous when you spot him.

The wind off the sea is cold, bitingly so, and the wrap of the balaclava around his face looks impossibly warm compared to the scarf you've pulled over your nose —already the wool is damp with the condensation of your breath, freezing itself to your lips with sticky crystalline spit. He tips his head when your eyes meet, regarding you with something colder than the air. You could measure the pits that form his iris in Kelvins, and you're quick to avert your staring.

You hurry past him with your hand holding tight to your camera bag, and feel the absolute zero of his gaze following you down the grey sand.

You came north for one reason: the stars.

Ever since you were little you've loved space, and while your dreams of finding alien life were discarded with your PhD, you had no reason to stop stargazing.

That was the only reason you'd come to this remote little town. The light pollution was minimal, the northern lights were shining, and the milky way spilled over the night sky like nothing you could find in the city. It was worth having to double up on gloves if it meant you could take some space home with you.

You do your best to continue your trek without looking over your shoulder, excusing the chill at your back as the night air and nothing more. You know how it looks, you tramping up the beach towards the grass pocked hill with a folding chair and a heavy camera bag, but it's not as if you're the only stargazer around here. You'd already passed one couple on your hike, and you were sure there were more around here somewhere. Keeping to themselves the same way you did.

The night is quiet, save for your rustling with the bag your chair came in. Your scarf muffles your swearing, but you're muttering anyway, and you don't expect anyone is passing close enough to comment on it anyway. If no one sees your jerking shakes of the chair bag that's just fine with you.

"Need a hand?"

You nearly jump out of your skin at the low voice, dropping the chair as you startle; turning with your heart in your throat to look up at the man in the balaclava you'd passed earlier. He stares down at you, amusement in the crinkle of his eye. You hadn't heard him follow you, the only crunch of sand for the full twenty minutes it took you to summit this dune had been your own, yet here he is. You squeeze the strap for your camera bag, as if the thin strip of canvas could be barrier enough between you and the behemoth in front of you.

"Asked you a question birdy, seems polite ta answer it." He cocks his head and nods towards the flimsy bag still half covering the folded camping chair.

"I- No, I'm- I'm alright." You stumble over declining his offer. There's nothing good that can come of having a man follow you out to an obscure location, less so when the man is as big as he is.

"You sure?" He takes a step forward and grabs two legs of the camping chair in one big meaty hand, picking it up to tug the bag off in a clean motion. You squeeze your camera strap tighter.

"Thank you." Politeness squeaks out of you, a social comfort in a situation that seems to be rapidly spiraling out of your control. The man grunts and pops the chair open with a quick flick of his wrist.

"Wot are we doin'?" He asks, settling the chair and taking a seat.

"Oh that's not-" he blinks, kelvin-cold darkness flicking to pin you in place, the words freeze on your tongue and you close your mouth so fast your teeth click. You swallow and try again. "I'm taking pictures." Another grunt.

He's quiet, looking away from you to inspect the stars. He pushes a hand under his mask to scratch at his face. Hesitantly you turn away and begin setting up your tripod. Your camera should be able to capture some good shots with a long exposure if you can keep yourself awake. That doesn't seem to be so much of a problem with the adrenaline pumping through your veins now.

"So," you draw the sound between your lips, trying to fill the air with something other than your anxiety, "You live around here?"

"Not really."

What the fuck does that mean?

"Vacationing?"

"Somethin' like tha'."

You let the conversation drop, fiddling with your camera settings. You really try not to let the silence feel too awkward, but catch yourself looking over your shoulder at the man as if a glance could tell you what his mood was under that mask. Once you finish adjusting your camera you quietly take stock of your options. The mystery man has stolen your chair, and you don't know how long he'll be out here with you. Hell, you don't know how long you're willing to stay out here yourself if you have this kind of company.

You could always ask him to move. Another quick look over your shoulder tells you that's not likely to work, he's slouched down in your camping chair, legs spread wide and hands settled on the fat of his stomach, clearly making himself comfortable. You could sit on the ground you suppose. This patch of beach has enough grass that you're not too concerned with getting sand all over your pants. The idea still isn't pleasant, especially if you're out here for a few hours. You're not leaving your camera here by itself, so leaving is off the table. Which circles you back around to asking this large stranger to move.

"How long do you think you'll be out here?" You ask, it's wrong as soon as it trips over your teeth, and you press your lips together with a silent reprimand.

"Askin' me ta fuck off?"

"No!" You could jump out of your skin with how quickly you deny yourself this out. You turn to face him, hands raised and face hot, "No of course not, no I, um-" He cocks his head and your voice dies in your throat.

"Could be all night." He grunts, rustling his hand into his jacket pocket to extract a thermos. You try not to let your heart drop, your peaceful night ruined in four words, but it does. Normally you wouldn't balk at someone else enjoying the stars, you might even find some conversation a nice change of pace, but something about this man sets you on edge. Something in the wide set of his shoulders, the blackness of his eyes, the way he's so comfortably inserted himself into your night, feels practiced, sinister. Your hackles are raised and you can't stomach giving him the benefit of the doubt.

"You want somethin' ta drink?" The question catches you off guard as much as the offered metal canister does. You glance down at it, then at him, clenching your hands into fists as instinct tells you to run.

"I don't take drinks from strangers."

"Smart girl," you can hear the amusement in his voice, "name's Simon. You wan' it or not?"

You hesitate, If you were going to get roofied by a strange man on the beach it does seem unlikely he'd do it through a warm drink. A personal flask maybe, but a thermos feels… innocent. "What is it?"

"Chicken soup." That amusement is still there, indulgent, like he's humoring your suspicion more than answering the question.

It does seem unlikely that if someone was going to drug you they'd use a thermos full of soup.

"You first." You goad, he shrugs.

"Olright."

Simon lifts the edge of his mask and you see something move before he takes a swig of the thermos, a show of good faith, and hands it to you. Your hands hesitate to take it, but he pushes it into your palms anyway.

You sniff the thermos cautiously, true to Simon's word it smells like chicken soup. You eye Simon as you tip the container against your lips and take a sip. Simon rolls his eyes, and reaches to press up against the bottom, giving you a mouthful of soup to swallow.

It's not bad.

You lick your lips as you lower to thermos and hand it back to him. Simon caps it and sets it on the ground beside the chair. He stands, stretches, and grabs your arm in an iron grip as your bones all seem to melt out of you.

You're dead weight, blinking at the ground where your head has lolled forwards as you try to will your body to move. You can feel your clothes moving against your skin, the drag of fabric pulling waves of heat across your body. Sweat is starting to bead under your hat as Simon lowers you onto your back on the ground.

You barely manage to make your sticky tongue move, your mouth drier than it's ever been, "Wha-?"

"S'a paralytic," Simon hums, leaning to tug at your eyelids and inspect your pupils, "homemade." He must like what he sees because moves lower, hands working your belt loose.

"Nng," You try again to move, focusing all your mental energy on willing your arm to move, to push him away. You don't even get a twitch. You feel the pressure of your belt loosen, fingers dipping under your waistband to open your fly, and mentally brace yourself against the ensuing cold.

It doesn't come.

Even as your pants are dragged down your thighs you don't feel the chill of the wind biting your skin. No shivers wrack you, you cold grips your bones, your body remains exactly as Simon set it, warm and relaxed.

"There she is." You try to roll your head to watch him, and are reminded again of the pointless nature of your struggle. Simon disappears from your view, and you feel his gloved hands moving over your thighs, pushing them up to rest against his shoulders as his fingers spread your folds apart.

Something- Multiple somethings slide over your skin, worming around over your cunt and between your thighs to wiggle on your stomach, moving like snakes as they coil and slither; seeking out warmth. Tentacles your brain churns out sluggishly. Mental pictures start to form as a new fear grips you. An unknown integer, a data point that hasn't been accounted for. It drowns out the idea of a strange man taking advantage of you and twists into something that feels more animal. More alien.

One of the tentacles presses against your clit, smearing viscous fluid over the bud as it strokes. Your nerve endings light up and pleasure grips you as sudden as a gunshot, ripping through your legs with trembling glee. Your clit feels like it's on fire, every stroke of the wrigling tentacle spreading that tingling burn through you. Simon damn near purrs, flicking your clit again and again, the tentacle coiling and uncoiling in an attempt to wrap around its mark and stroke more forcefully. You blink delirious at the stars, tears starting to smear the shine of them the longer that boiling fluid is laved over your skin.

Your cunt is hot, stinging, sensitive, you've never needed to be touched more in your life.

You can't make your tongue move to beg.

You don't have to.

Another tentacle pushes into your clenching cunt while the first keeps your clit occupied. It's thick, thicker than a finger and pulses as it tries to writhe inside of you, squeezing past the tight clench to open you up. Another wiggles at your entrance, smearing more of that burning fluid before it squirms in beside its twin and your muscles pull tight again. The two twist together, each vying for the limited space inside of you,trying to force their way deeper faster than the other. You clench around them, your stomach tightening and releasing with a flood of warmth as one of them knocks too deep.

The whine you let out is pathetic. Desperate, depraved, your head spins with pleasure. The tentacles inside you push against your walls, pressing apart in an attempt to stretch you out. The burn of it makes your clit throb, a feeling quickly lost in the unyeilding rub of Simon's tentacle. It must be big, you think, you hope it's big.

Something pinches, and you wince, let a pained breath escape you. Then your eyes roll, as something inside you gives way. It's like getting fucked a second time, the tentacle squirming its tapered tip past a second tighter ring at the back of your cunt, lapping that hot fluid against your cervix as it widens its opening. Your body convulses, cramps slamming your stomach in white hot bursts that leave you gasping.

It should hurt, it should be excrutiating.

You come around the tentacles inside you, your vision blurring under fluttering lashes. Your thighs attempt to clamp together and twitch against Simon's shoulders. He makes a slurping noise between your legs, and forces a third tentacle into you, stretching you wider as the first buries itself in your womb. He presses closer to you, the tapered tentacles widening, pushing your musles to accomodate them. The tentacle forcing your cervix open grows bigger as it coils into you, and releases a burst of fluid.

Your insides go numb before blazing to life.

Sweat beads on your brow, your skin itching with heat.

Simon pulls back and you muster all your strength to sob as your legs fall from his shoulders.

"Plump li'le birdy," he grunts, "finally startin' ta sing, are ya?"

You hear a zipper being pulled down, the rustle of cloth. You should be terrified, but all you can think is how good he'd made you feel. How you hope there's more under his belt than he'd had under his mask.

A tapered tip prods at your entrance before slipping in easily.

"No' so tight anymore, le'in' me in like a good girl." He chuckles at his joke, his breath sighing as he fits himself inside of you. It feels like he goes miles, pushing inch after inch into you, the taper building as the thin tip probes deep inside of you. Simon grinds his hips against you the tip of his cock catching against your loosened cervix before pushing inside. Deeper and deeper until your cunt is clinging to an impossibly thick base.

He trails a hand over your stomach, wedging his fingers between your thighs to thumb your clit, as he stills.

"Wha ya-?" Your tongue still isn't cooperating, but he must get the gist because he cuts you off.

Or, something cuts you off.

The base of his cock swells and then moves, stretching your entrance thin before forcing its way inside. It's a firm lump, rolling against your sweet spot to make your body jerk before continuing deeper. Your body clenches, tries to force it out, and it jerks further down Simon's cock, pushed by a second lump already stretching out your entrance. You brace for the pinch that had followed the tentacles as you feel the lump nudge against your cervix. The lump presses, and stops. Behind it the second lump nudges your sweet spot, rolling into place behind the first.

Simon's cock twitches, pulsing, before the first lump pushes hard against your cervix.

"Big stretch." It almost sounds like he's making a joke. You try to wrap your head around his tone, and then you feel the lumps move, pressing into you, stretching that pit in your stomach and settling heavy inside you. Tingling electric shocks zip through you, your body trying to find the right nerve endings to activate for a hole that isn't meant to be fucked like this. It's intoxicating, making your eyes roll and your brain melt. The second lump kisses your cervix as a third stretches you open, each one rolling down the line like a conveyor belt.

Simon draws his fingers from between your legs, pressing his hand against your stomach hard. Feeling for whatever he's pushing into you. You can't bring yourself to care, tongue unstuck and babbling as whatever you'd ingested starts to wear thin and give way to the hot fluid that had been pumped into your cunt. You can't keep track of anything but the number of things in your cunt, can't add that to the number already settled in your womb. Two, then three, then two, each one knocking against its siblings to massage your inner walls until you're spasming around them, unable to find relief from the constant stimulation. Another at your entrance, another fucking its way past your cervix, two in your canal, more deeper. Too many to count with your brain mush.

No more.

Please.

You babble without knowing what you're saying, your brain shoving syllables together that it can't comprehend, your mouth complying because it has no other option.

The stars over your head double and spin, your vision blurry, your body heavy. You jerk, coming again on Simon's strange cock.

You wake up to an unfamiliar ceiling.

Your first thought is for your camera, the poor thing abandoned on the beach for some shut-eye after.

After…

Your head throbs.

What the fuck happened last night?

You sit up in the large bed, clutching your head and then your stomach when something shifts inside you. Nausea rolls through your stomach before you adjust to the feeling. You glance down, your stomach heavy and lightly distended. You rub a hand over the usually soft skin and find a firm point. Bloating maybe? It makes you clench your teeth painfully hard.

The bedroom door opens and a man in a black medical mask blinks at you.

"Made breakfast." He announces. You narrow your eyes at him until some piece of last night comes back to you. Simon, you think, you met him on the beach. For some reason the idea of taking food from him makes you want to crawl and hide.

"Not hungry." You mumble.

-

Even the flies are dying in the thick summer heat this year. It’s clogging up your lungs, waking you up in the night, sweat slicking every movement.

It’s the type of heat that you think that you’ve lived in your whole life, fogging up your mind, dragging your limbs down.

Valeria is a rush of cold water, doused over your head and you blink awake for the first time, wide eyed and shaking like a new born lamb.

She arrives on a Tuesday, late into the evening. Her husband - now deceased - had some kind of business with your father that she has inherited and must now sort. The details are lost on you, irrelevant with the knowledge that there will be another woman in your home.

Half-cooked daydreams of linking arms with another young girl, braiding each other’s hair. You imagine that she will have all of the same interests as you, and there won’t be any gaps of conversation, not when it can be filled with the sounds of both of you laughing or whispering.

You and your father stand outside, waiting to receive Lady Valeria. Your father supports your arm. It’s hot, but you could still take a chill like it was easy. A servant waits just behind you, ready to rush you back to bed if you have another dizzy spell.

The carriage rumbles up the path, a dark black thing pulled by horses that you can already see huffing.

“Has she travelled far?” you ask, but your father shushes you, giving you a vague pat on the back of your hand.

Your palm is crushed in the curve of his elbow, but you don’t say anything further. There have been a few times that you’ve gone down and only snapped away from the ground by the grip that your father has on you.

Your father wants the image of a dutiful daughter beside her father when he receives his visitor, so you know what to do. You ignore the pinch of an oncoming headache as it needles your temple, holding yourself still and quiet beside your father.

The carriage finally reaches you both, kicking up dirt and muck.

A woman steps out of the carriage and daydreams of a girl who will giggle with you at dinner flee your head.

She’s beautiful, in the way that you imagine a man would want his bride to look. Coy eyes peer out from beneath a dark veil. She’s older than you, most likely your father’s age, but her hair is still dark under her bonnet. Your father gets a cursory glance, but she lingers on you as a slow smile stretches across her face.

“Apologies, for the late hour,” she drawls. You feel your father bristle beside you. Her tone is hard to place. The words are correct, but she speaks like a cat with a mouse in its paw.

Your father waves her apologies away, ever the diplomat and guides her inside. A servant takes your arm in his place and helps you back into the house.

Valeria looks over her shoulder, and you see one of her eyes beyond the veil. Dark and sharp, honed in on you. She gives you a conspiratorial smile, before she turns back to your father.

You aren’t sure what to do with it, bowing your head and stepping lightly up the steps into the foyer.

The two of them disappear into the sitting room for a drink before bed but you are guided past to head up to your room.

Frozen in time, you peak into the doorway as you walk past. Your father’s strong back as he walks towards the table. And Lady Valeria, looking right back at you as if she knew that you were watching.

You keep walking and the sitting room drops out of sight, but you feel her gaze chase you up into your room.

-

Valeria sets herself up in your home like a spider in the corner of your room. You go downstairs for breakfast and startle at the sight of another person at the table.

Your mother has been gone for years, breakfast is usually spent quietly as your father reads the newspaper and you lightly sip some tea.

Early morning sun usually warms the space, beating on the back of your neck to chase away any of the chill that lingers at night.

This morning, the curtains are drawn sharply over all the windows and the candles are lit earlier than usual. You blink, wondering if you’ve slept in, all the way to dinner.

“Good morning,” Valeria greets, standing up and gliding over to you. The veil is gone, giving you complete access to her face. Her eyes crease at the corner, her lips still painted that same shade of red they were yesterday.

“Good morning,” you respond, able to remember your manners at least. You don’t think you’ve seen anyone as beautiful as her before, unsure what to do with yourself now in the face of it.

She reaches over and clasps your hand in her own, guiding you over to the table. “I was saying to your father that I’m grateful to you for opening your home to me,” she says, her mouth twisting with a smile.

“Of course, whatever you need,” you say, eyes darting toward your father who nods.

“So kind,” Valeria muses, her thumb on the back of your hand. Her skin is dark but colder than you think it should be. You could outline the shape of her thumb without looking given how distinct the cold is from your own skin. She smooths it over and you feel it, as sharp as a smear of acrylic paint.

You take a seat and she sits next to you. She isn’t meant to, the rare guests that you’ve had are meant to sit next to your father, across from you. You glance over at your father, his mouth set in disapproval but he stays quiet. “If there is anything I can do to help you settle in, please let me know. We rarely get visitors out here,” you tell her, tucking your skirts under your legs.

Your hand is still clasped in her own but she lets go when your fingers flex nervously. “It was the same in my estate. I think my husband brought in a visitor once every few years if we were lucky,” she replies, giving you a smile when you giggle.

You cannot gauge what age she is meant to be. She’s older than you, and you had thought her close ages with your father outside, but under the flick of candlelight, and when she smiles, she transforms into someone younger.

Her and your father take their leave after breakfast. “Is there anything I could help with?” you ask, placing your fork down.

“Nothing to concern yourself with,” your father tells you, patting your hand as he stands.

You hunch your shoulders before you force them back, refusing to cause a scene in front of a guest. You turn and catch Valeria watching you with keen eyes as your father leads the way out of the room.

She follows and you’re left in the dining room, alone. Valeria’s plate sits, full, next to you. Perfect triangles of toast, jam on the side. The knife, freshly cleaned and untouched.

You take the toast and bite into it, leave it on your plate and cover it with a napkin. Each crumb is like grit in your gums and you feel it even after you wash your mouth out later.

-

A servant is found dead in the woods next to your home. A young man, someone who worked in the gardens. You barely knew him, but you feel your vision swim when you hear the news.

You almost go down, your father banging his knee against his desk when you stumble, but it’s Lady Valeria who catches you. Your arm yanks, caught in her grasp. There’s an inane moment where you feel like a fish caught in a reel, your father’s office turned liquid around you while you try to steady yourself.

“I’ve got you, there we go,” Valeria murmurs, pulling you back up to your feet.

Your father rounds the desk, holding up the back of your shoulders. You can barely see, vision thick with tears, but you feel Valeria’s grip dig into your arms when your father tugs you closer to him. Fingernails into skin, past it and into flesh where no one has touched you before.

Then - gone, and your father is holding you. “There we go, let’s get you to bed,” he murmurs and you’re guided away and up the stairs. Rag doll, your feet useless and catching on each of the steps.

“I don’t understand, what happened?” you try to ask, but your father just shushes you and lays you down. You try to cling to him but he shushes you again, making your cling to yourself instead.

“She’s very sensitive,” you hear him murmur and you curl up on your side. The door shuts and you’re left alone, staring at a spot along the side of your wall.

The door cracks open but you don’t look at him.

A pressure on the bed, dipping it behind the curve of your knee. A cold hand on your hip and you stiffen up. Valeria clucks her tongue at you, leaning over you to peer down at your face. “What has made my girl so upset, huh?” she asks, bracing her other hand on the bed, caging you in.

You blink, unsure what to address first. “Someone died, that’s horrible,” you say, confused.

Her hand slides up your waist, smoothing down the wrinkles of your gown. “And why does that upset you so much?” she asks, thumb along the seam of your gown.

She sounds genuinely curious, and when you turn your head to look at her, there’s none of the mocking look she usually has. Her eyes peer down at you, wider than you’ve seen them. “His life has been cut short?” you reply, trying to match her genuine question, but unsure how to explain why death is upsetting.

She doesn’t look as if she has heard your response. Her hand comes up to your arm, thumbing at the flesh there. Pointer finger on the soft skin beneath your upper arm. Holding the thud of your pulse there. “All that caring, no wonder you’re so poorly,” she coos, leaning down and pressing a kiss to your forehead. She lingers, lips dragging. You inhale shakily, level with the hollow of her throat. “Such a sweet girl.”

You don’t know what to say, open your mouth to speak but nothing comes out. Valeria pulls back, just enough to look you in the eye, your face level with her own. She raises a perfect brow, but you flounder, closing your mouth and swallowing harshly.

Her hand comes up, cupping your cheek. You flinch a little at the touch but you’re caught in the web of her fingers. She smiles at your skittishness. “Your father said you were sensitive,” she muses, eyes flicking between your own. “And you are, aren’t you, cielo?”

You don’t want to agree, even though you know that you are. It feels like a failing when your father says it, but it sounds sweet coming out of Valeria’s mouth. You nod, despite yourself.

She leans in and presses a kiss to your lips, pulling back before you can register it. It feels wrong but you don’t know why.

“Why don’t you rest for the day, alright? I’ll get someone to bring up some dinner for you later,” she tells you, and you find yourself nodding again, mindless until she’s up and away.

The heavy heat sweeps in after she leaves, clogging up your pores and leaving you listless. The curtains are drawn over your window even though they were open this morning, but you don’t have to strength to get up to get the sun on your skin.

Your lips tingle, a chill lingering. You lick them and it tastes like cold metal.

-

Your father is vague about what it is he and Valeria need to sort. “There’s some issue of the land lines,” he tells you, frowning over a piece of paper in his office.

You shuffle your feet and stop because you know he hates when you do that. A terrible habit from when you were a girl and would sit in this office with him for hours. Precious little else for a child to spend their time when everyone is too hold to play with. “How is it being sorted then?” you ask.

Your father looks at you, blinking in confusion in the same way that you do. “That’s what we’re discussing,” he says, a tick in his brow. “I thought you would appreciate the companionship.”

You do, or you think you do. You’re not sure how to feel. Everything has muddied since Valeria has arrived. It’s only been a week, but that’s what your father had said she would be here for, and the time has come and went, unmarked.

You say this to him but he just blinks, heavier, as if he’s just woken up. “That was an estimate,” he sighs, rubbing a thumb along his eyes before replacing his glasses. “I’m sure it will be sorted soon, but these things are complicated.”

It doesn’t seem as if it is. His room is dark, no light peering in through the windows. The candlelight needles at your head, so you excuse yourself rather than sit in that stuffy room.

You step out of his office and into Valeria. She catches you, hands firm along your waist. “Ah, mi vida,” she says, thumbs along your ribcage. Her eyes are dark, you almost cannot tell where her pupils are.

“That was me, I wasn’t looking where I was going,” you say, flushing with shame.

She hums, contemplative, lifting one hand to smooth some hair out of your face. “Well, what do we say?” she prompts, leaning toward you.

“I’m sorry,” you say, after a moment, heart ticking up. Her hand still on your waist squeezes, as if to catch it before it runs off.

“Good girl,” she says, cupping your cheek in her cold hand, thumb on your bottom lip before she pulls back and steps into your father’s office.

If your father saw anything, he doesn’t remark on it. Valeria shuts the door behind her with a resounding thunk, closing you out in the dark hall.

-

You find a mouse, dead on its back on the path back up to your house.

You frown, staring down at its small paws, stuck up in the air, small snout still. There isn’t any physical damage, no blood. You’d have thought it was sleeping, curled up to face the sun.

Another one of God’s creatures, you scoop it up in your glove and place it in a flowerbed, nestled between the roots of bluebells.

Valeria watches you from the dining room window as you walk back into the house.

You step back inside, exhaling roughly. It’s still so hot, even later into the evening as it is now. The heat leaves its mark, lingering in the stone slabs, hot even through the soles of your shoes.

“Should you be walking outside alone?” Valeria asks, making you jump. She smiles when you turn to look at her, a flash of teeth as she bites her bottom lip. She always has red lipstick on and you never know how she doesn’t stain her teeth with it.

“It’s alright, it’s close enough that if anything should happen, I won’t be far,” you say, embarrassed. This is like the woman that your father wanted for a daughter. Capable, assured. Able to walk for more than a few metres without a dizzy spell. You feel like that mouse in the pathway in comparison. So fragile, so easily squashed.

Valeria hums in response. “Still, I worry. How about you let me know and we can walk together, yes?” she offers, her head tilting. Her hands reach up, smoothing the collar of your dress down. It’s an older gown, perhaps fashionable over a decade ago, but Valeria has a fascination with it.

Her hand on your chest, above your breast and into the bone. Your heart flutters, unsteady and half-working as it always is. “Yes, that would be nice,” you reply, trying to smile, but painfully aware of how wide-eyed you must look.

A finger tucks into the collar of your dress, nail dragging across your skin. Just on the edge of where the flesh turns from skin to breast. An invisible line, but one you feel keenly as her nail rasps over it as if it doesn’t matter. “You are a delicate creature,” she muses, demeaning and strangely flattering at once with the way she says it.

You wonder how she was with her husband. Your father has raised you with the understanding that you will one day marry a man and he will run the estate while you mind your children. Valeria doesn’t seem like the type of woman to have listened to any man, and she smiles, amused, as if she can read your thoughts.

She releases you, her hand out of your dress. The fine chill that had been spreading dissipates, almost knocking you over with its abruptness. “I have to speak with your father, but don’t go out without me, hmm?” she asks, and you almost knock your head off with how fast you nod.

She sweeps away, the dark cotton of her dress swishing around her ankles. You swallow harshly, your throat rough. You step out into the hall and when you wander to the sitting room, you don’t see anyone else.

-

The heat breaks finally, a hard rain that batters against the roof and the windows, chasing away any memory of warmth.

You sit in the library and watch the rain wash away summer. Your father had been listless at breakfast, the corner of his paper in his tea and he hadn’t noticed until you had pointed out.

He’d stared unblinking at it for a few moments until Valeria had gestured for a servant to come over and help him up. “Maybe a lie down for a few minutes would help, your colour isn’t very good,” she’d said, squinting at his face.

Sitting in the library, you worry, You’ve never seen your father sick your whole life, and wonder what it could mean.

“You know, I get so sad to see you not smiling, pretty girl,” Valeria says from the doorway, making you jump.

“Sorry, I was lost in a dream there,” you say, trying to give her a smile.

“A sad one, by the looks of it,” Valeria muses, joining you at the other armchair.

“Yes, I’m just a bit worried about my father,” you admit, watching her expression. It doesn’t move, frozen perfection, looking back at you with a curious smirk.

“You love him,” she says, and it sounds blank, like she has no familiarity with what she is saying.

“Yes, he’s my father,” you answer, confused.

She tilts her head, and you get a queer sensation as if you are a bug in her palm. “Even though he disregards you?” she asks. It’s pure curiosity, but you take it like a slap to the face.

“He doesn’t - that’s not,” you splutter, staring at her in disbelief.

She blinks back at you, face placid. “He doesn’t include you in any of our conversations, even though you are his heir and old enough. Is that not odd?”

You shut your mouth with a click, chewing on your words. Her words sear, and her still face as she regards you is the final nail in the coffin for your anger. “Excuse me,” you say, voice barely on this side of polite, standing up. She is your elder, and a guest, you cannot argue with her and act like a schoolgirl.

She doesn’t move, although you see her hand twitch on the arm of her chair. You leave and though she doesn’t follow, you get the queer feeling that she knows every step you take before your foot connects with the floor.

A bug in her hand, scuttled off and in the garden, but she’s planted each pot and she knows the one you call home.

-

You wake up in the throes of a nightmare one night and there’s a knock on your door.

Heart pounding, you stumble up and open the door enough to peak your head out.

Valeria stands in the hallway, face flickering in the candlelight that she has brought with her. “Are you alright, I could hear you screaming?” she asks, pushing a hand on the door until you open it wider.

“I was?” you ask, rubbing your forehead to force back a headache starting to force its way forward.

She steps toward you, the chill of her hand on your shoulder as she enters your space. Closer than anyone who isn’t family should be, her chest brushing your own before she shuts the door behind her back. “Yes, has something happened?” She asks, her hand lifting to push your hair out of your face. A sweeping chill, cooling the sweat on your face.

“It was just a nightmare, I don’t even remember it now,” you admit, leaning into the cool of her palm before you catch yourself. “I’m sorry for waking you.”

“Sweet girl,” she coos, setting her candle on your dresser. “Nothing to apologise for at all. As long as you’re alright.”

You nod, fervently. “I am, I swear,” you promise, trying to give her a smile.

“Still, maybe I should stay, make sure you sleep through the night,” she offers, but there’s no lilt in her voice to signify a question. Her hair is tucked behind her ears, down for once, a sight that you feel like you shouldn’t be seeing.

“Oh, you don’t have to do all that, I’ll be fine,” you stammer, watching as she turns towards your bed and pulls the sheet down.

“Nonsense, it’s not an issue,” she replies, and that seems to settle the matter.

You aren’t left much choice but to go along, letting her into your bed as you lie stiffly next to her.

The anger of the day before has dissipated since you haven’t seen her. Besides, she isn’t wrong. Your father thinks you’re too weak, too fragile to truly regard you as equal to the task of managing the estate. With no marriage prospects, you suspect that you are looking down the barrel of the rest of your life, following your father around as he manages everything, perhaps even from beyond the grave.

She sighs as if you’ve irritated her, and you feel like a small, shameful thing. “Mi vida, surely that is not how you sleep, huh?” she asks, kissing her teeth when you shake your head but make no other movement to readjust yourself.

She kisses her teeth again and reaches over to roll you onto her side facing her. These are the moments that you had daydreamed about, curling up like girls under the same sheet and whispering to each other into the little hours of the night.

There isn’t anything innocent about this, it’s stepped shy of intimacy and into danger. Like you’ve placed your hand on a hot stove and your body doesn’t know to pull it back yet. “You sleep with your eyes open?” she asks, and laughs, rough and deep when you immediately squeeze them shut.

You don’t know how you’re able to fall asleep, but it happens at one point. Her nail drags up and down your inner arm that lies in the space between you. When you dream, you dream of her hands as she outlines you on an autopsy table. You’re made up of a loose heart, broken ribs and the rest of your organs are on a tray next to you, but when she runs her hands along each part, you take shape and breathe a hacking cough into life.

You wake up and she’s gone, sitting at the table for breakfast as if nothing had changed.

She comes over in the middle of the night now, knocking on your door just before you sleep.

“Just checking that you are sleeping well, cariño,” she says, stepping into your bedroom. “Do you want me to stay with you?”

You always say no, but she ends up in your bed anyway, watching you until you fall asleep.

These days, she doesn’t bother with the pretence of going to her own room, just walks with you into your own.

“I don’t know if father would want us to,” you start, one night, shuffling uncertainly in your nightgown.

Valeria is taking her hair down in front of your mirror, her eyes cutting over to you with a raised eyebrow. “What is the issue?” she asks, placing a hairpin down with a faint clink. “We’re like sisters sharing a bed, no?”

You aren’t overly familiar with siblings, but you have read books where girls share a bed and no one bats an eye. But, there’s that tone of Valeria’s again, teasing as if she means the opposite. “We’re not sisters though,” you point out, voice weak as you’re afraid to offend her.

She lets her hair down, shorter than it seems when it’s up, a silky dark wave down her back. “You’re right, we’re not,” she grins, her teeth sharper than you remember them being. You shiver, and turn away, embarrassed for some reason.

Her nightgown is black, silky and rippling with every move she takes around your bedroom. You feel dressed for a different occasion, standing in your pale cotton shift.

“We’re friends, aren’t we?” she amends, and you can see the flash of her tongue behind her teeth as she reaches you, taking your shoulders in her hands. She’s cold still, hands carrying a chill that worms into your skin.

“Yes,” you say, uncertainly. “I’ve never had a friend like you before,” you add, confessional.

“I’d certainly hope not, cariño,” she tells you, rounding your shoulders to clasp your upper arms. Like she was moulding you, shaping you out how she wanted. Loose heart and broken ribs.

Everything is exactly how it was last night and the night before when she stayed here. You lay on your side, watching as she pushes her hair back behind her shoulders. “Your hair is lovely,” you say.

You’re rewarded with a smile, her eyes crinkling at the corners. “Sweet girl,” she responds, leaning down and giving you a kiss.

Nothing overly strange, she’s kissed you enough that you don’t flinch at the brush of her mouth on your own. But this time she lingers and you freeze, inhaling sharply as she leans closer.

Pressure, then her lips part and she kisses you again, her hand framing your jaw to hold you in place. You stay still, like a scruffed kitten.

Intimacy is like a bubble around you until her tongue touches your bottom lip. Then, intimacy is a shackle, forcing you back into the bed, flat on your back. Like some deep buried animal instinct, your eyes shoot open as you’re pressed down with your vulnerable belly up. “What -?” you start, tucking your chin to look up at her, bewildered.

“Have you never been kissed before?” she asks, as if it were a perfectly normal thing to do. She doesn’t have a hair out of place, but you feel dragged up, flushed and messy.

You have been kissed, by her no less, but never like this. “Well, yes, but -”

“Then there’s not an issue, right? You worry so much, sweet girl, just relax, yes?” she says, voice firm in that way that you know will disappoint her if you don’t obey.

Her mouth drops back on to your own and her lips part your own. Her tongue dips into your mouth and brushes along your own and you swallow a strangled noise that she seems to try and chase.

This is beyond innocent, there’s nothing like that in any of the stories that you’ve read. Just as you try to gather the strength to pull back and try to push her back, she tilts her head with a sigh that sends a bolt of heat through you.

You feel hot, burning up and wild. She seems to know if the way that her mouth curls against you is any indication. Her nails drag over your scalp and you hiccup a sound, your tongue brushing against her own.

There’s a winding movement and you feel yourself lulled into it. Her tongue, slippery against your own, licking against your own, pulling away but coming back again. You reciprocate, thighs flexing at the wet sound of your mouths as they separate again and again. She always comes back, something needy and wanting opening its eye deep inside you.

She pulls back and you lean up, chasing her mouth. She laughs at you, and you’d be hurt if she didn’t give you another slick kiss to tide you over before she pushes you back again. “Such an eager puppy,” she croons, rubbing a thumb along your bottom lip, a spark of pain as you realise how swollen it’s gotten. “You look warm, do you feel well?”

“I don’t know,” you answer, truthfully, heaving in a deep breath just to sigh it out.

She tilts her head at you, eyes sharp and cutting. She brings her hands down and you jump when she cups your breasts. You start to fuss and she cuts you an annoyed look that has you settling down. You’re rewarded with a thumb on each of your nipples where they poke through the fabric.

You inhale shakily, the point of contact enough to fry your brain and leave you a mindless, panting thing.

“There’s a girl,” she coos down at you. She reaches a hand up to cup your face, her thumb on your bottom lip. “Now, are we going to be good?” she asks, her thumb slipping into your mouth and pressing down on your tongue.

Your eyes widen, looking up at her hovering over you. A slip of time, felt in the ripple after you saw her carriage coming up the path. Maybe you could shake your head and have it be done with, but you aren’t standing on the edge of a cliff anymore, you’re already off of it, smacked into the hard dirt and looking up at Valeria, dazed.

More importantly, in the faint candlelight and the quiet of the house, even though you know you shouldn’t, you find that whatever she wants to do is what you want to do.

You nod. She smiles and pulls her slick thumb out your mouth and leans back to smooth your nightdress up your thighs.

All bravado leaves you, your hands clenching in the sheets beside you.

Valeria pushes your skirts up to pool at your waist and pushes your knees apart. “Valeria, I don’t know if we should…” you start, thighs flexing as you try to close them, but her arms don’t even shift, keeping them apart effortlessly.

She says your name, sharp and quick, which has you cringing back down. It’s louder than she’s been with you, her voice lighting up the room for a second. “You’ve been so good up to this point, do you want to spoil this?” she asks you, and you look away, ashamed, the pinprick of tears in your eyes.

You stop trying to close your thighs and listen to her sigh to herself, her cold hands sliding up and pressing into the crease where your thigh meets your sex. “You are so jumpy,” she murmurs, almost to herself, spreading her hand around the tendon in your leg. “Now, be a good girl for me.”

There’s not a threat at the end of it, but you feel it implicitly as her nails drag up your sensitive skin.

She shifts down your bed, crouched between your legs to peer at your sex. It’s shameful, having someone look at you in such a way, but she seems endeared. Her hand comes up, and you can hear the wet sound as she spreads your folds. “Oh, mi vida, what a pretty pussy you have,” she murmurs, her wet thumb touching your hole and dragging the wetness there back up.

You jump as her thumb connects with your clit, trying not to buck her off. “S-Sorry,” you mutter, so red in the face that you feel feverish.

Her other hand wraps around your leg and braces across your belly. Your apology mollifies her. “Sweet girl, you just need to be eased in, I’ve got you, don’t you worry.”

She lowers her head and you can barely believe what you’re seeing. Half of your view is blocked with the bundle of fabric around your waist, but you see the crown of her head lower until you feel her tongue on you.

You have half a mind to protest, biting down on your tongue hard to stop yourself from saying anything that may anger her in any way. All thoughts are exhaled sharply when she tongues your clit. “Oh Christ," is all you can manage, hips jolting but not getting anywhere.

You try to hold still, but your hips twitch, wriggling in her hold. She doesn’t seem to mind, her arm becoming a band over your hips, stone that is immovable. You’ve touched yourself in the night before, known that it was something dirty and you shouldn’t do it. This is something else. Valeria lets the flat of her tongue against you, easing up enough so you’re bucking against her for a moment before she stills you again, arm pressing you back down.

She ducks lower, her tongue dipping into your hole and your vision goes red. You squeeze your eyes shut, almost sobbing as she presses her tongue in as deep as she can get but one thumb rubs at your clit. Behind your eyelids is a spiderweb of your veins, burst apart and brought back together.

“Valeria, I can’t,” you cry, heels digging into your mattress.

She hums in response, and you feel it vibrate into you.

There’s a building of heat, the pressure point of fever, curling in a ball in your groin. She pulls her tongue out of you, taking your clit back into her mouth and sucks harshly.

The fever breaks, the snap of a band, and you slap a hand over your mouth to catch your shriek as you back bows. 

She chases after each wave, relentless, until you’re panting to catch your breath.

She lets your clit go, giving it what feels like a sweet kiss before she laps up the wetness that you can feel gathered at your hole.

“You taste lovely, mi vida,” she tells you, lifting her head as she crawls up to meet you. She dips her head to slide her tongue against your own so you can share it. You’re boneless, at her mercy and she laughs, nudging her nose against yours. “Poor puppy,” she coos, degrading but you can barely twitch in response.

She tugs your night gown down and pulls you onto her chest. You throw your arm around her waist, settling down once she smooths your hair back and pets you.

“I’ll teach you, don’t you worry,” she murmurs, her hand lulling you to sleep. You have half a mind to ask what she means but you’re gone before you can find your voice.

The next night, she has you between her thighs as she instructs you to slide two fingers into her.

She’s pretty down there as well, her curls dark and soft beneath your palms.

She tells you to curl your fingers and she curses sharply when you do. “Good girl,” she murmurs, and something deep and rotten in you lights up.

-

Father doesn’t come down for dinner for a while, a fact that has you fidgeting. “How is he eating?” you ask, looking around the room, but no one will meet your eye.

“He’s having his meals brought up to him,” Valeria says, unfolding a napkin before she looks up at you. She kisses her teeth at your worried look over at the door. “You should let him be, mi vida, he needs his rest.”

“If I could just see him,” you say, looking at her pleadingly.

She sighs, resting her chin on her folded hands and regarding you. A thorough exam, the seconds stretch and elongate, turning terrible and long. “I’ll see if he’s up to it, but today he is too tired, alright?” You nod, agreeable and she smiles. “Good girl. Now, please eat, I don’t want you to get sick as well.”

You eat your dinner and the two of you head up the stairs. You glance over to the side of the house where your father will be, but Valeria steers you towards your room with a firm hand. Two paths, split on the stairway.

That night, Valeria has you suck on her breasts while she works herself over and she rewards you with her head between your thighs.

The next morning, she finds you waiting in the dining room, standing. “Is he up for visitors?” you ask, hopeful.

She looks at you, mouth twisting in a frown. “I’m sorry, cariño,” she says, catching you before you can turn away, your expression collapsing. “He’s a little worse today, he doesn’t want you seeing him like that.”

“Did he say that to you?” you ask, trying to swallow the shake in your voice.

“No, he told one of the servants not to allow any visitors, even I cannot get in,” she answers.

You lower your head, defeated. You don’t want to speak, know that you will cry if you do.

“You must eat, you cannot be poorly as well,” she says, an echo of the day before.

You let her steer you towards the table, where someone has already left some porridge.

You eat while she watches you, her eyes intent on you. You barely taste anything, only doing it so she will be pleased with you.

The two of you spend the day in the library, although she excuses herself in the middle of the day. You wander outside, not far, close enough that you wouldn’t even consider it a turn around the garden.

You feel as if there are less and less people around. Standing still in the opening of your home, you realise that mostly everything is deadly silent, no footfalls, or shuffling as people work.

You turn the corner to the stables, catching sight of another soul and smiling.

The stable-boy greets you, letting you look over the horses and feed them from your palm.

He’s a nice young man - you remember nurturing a small, childish infatuation with him that you haven’t thought of since.

The sun on your face is invigorating, the breeze cleansing in a fresh way that leaves you feeling renewed. It’s early Autumn now, and you had barely noticed the change in the weather, still warm, but chill enough that you would need a coat in the later hours.

A prickle on the back of your neck and you turn, catching sight of Valeria at one of the windows. She turns before you can catch sight of her expression, but you feel the drop in your stomach as if you’ve been caught doing something you shouldn’t.

You excuse yourself, heading back inside. The house is quiet but you can feel her irritation as if it is vibrating through the walls. The doors shut behind you and the sun is firmly closed out, dosing you back up on candlelight again.

You climb the stairs, your head lowered in the picture of a bashful, misbehaved pet.

You open the door to your room and find her standing in front of your mirror, re-applying her lipstick.

“Valeria -” you start but her hand cuts through the air to stop you and you halt, trembling.

“Go lie on the bed,” she tells you, voice waspish.

You do as she says, tucking your shaking hands under your back.

She finishes re-applying her lipstick and studies her own reflection for a moment before she turns to look at you. Although her face is still, you can see the fine crease of anger around her eyes, pinched.

She leans over you, knocking your head back roughly so your neck is arched back. “Is that what you want?” she asks, glaring down at you. “Some fumbling stale-boy?”

You whimper, horrified to find yourself titillated by the curl of disgust around her mouth. You did like the stable-boy, didn’t you? It had been innocent, a childish fancy. But, there’s something vicious in the way that Valeria says it, like it’s dirty and wrong.

Her hand slides under your skirts, sure and steady as it always is. A cold balm for your fever. You flinch as if struck when she cups your sex, thumb sliding down, skidding through slick. “Is this for me, or at the idea of him?” she asks, her voice genial enough but her eyes are sharp.

You’ve displeased her at some point, and you don’t know when. You reach for her wrist, fingers seeking comfort but only find cold and unfeeling flesh. She is stone, scowling down at you until you wither. “I’ve never thought of him like -” you start, squeaking when she slides two fingers into you, her other hand pushing your thighs apart to make room for her. “Like this, never, I swear, only you.”

A heavy pause, her gaze hard on your face. Then, like melting ice, she leans down and nudges her nose against you. A thumb rubs the peak of your sex, a spike of heat that shudders through you. The treat at the end of the rope. “I believe you, darling, you wouldn’t lie, would you?”

You shake your head so hard that your teeth rattle and you’re rewarded with a smile that she presses into the soft flesh under your chin.

She works you over until you come, thumb relentless until you’re shaking, then she stops leaning back to look down at you. “Take these off,” she tells you, tugging on your skirts.

With legs like jelly, you stand and fumble with the stays on your front, loosening them and yanking them off.

You toss everything behind you, all of your skirts and linens in a rumpled pile. You hesitate on your shift, but when you look over, Valeria is also undressing. Slower, folding her clothes over your foot-board, but her eyes keen on you even as she pulls out each stay. She’s using the finger that had just been in you, a fact that has you shuddering.

You toss your shift away as well and step back towards her. Even though you’ve seen her bare a few times now, the sight always gives you a dry mouth. Dark nipples, the curve of her belly and the dark curls beneath the crease of her thighs.

She places her hands on your hips, admiring you in return before she tugs you over until you’re flat on the bed again.

She drapes her leg over you, straddling you sideways and you shudder when she presses her sex to yours.

“You know,” she says, winding her hips and you whine as the slick grind between the two of you. “This isn’t the most effective way for us.” She grins when you start to frown, any words cut off when she grinds down on you and all you can feel is heat for a moment. “But it’s a little bit of fun, and you’ve been good, haven’t you?”

You nod, almost knocking your head off. “Yes, please, I have, I have.”

Her grin is fierce and she rolls onto her back and you feel flung up until you’re the one straddling her instead. “Then take what you need, pet,” she tells you, reaching a hand up to pinch your nipple and make you cry out.

Your movements are clumsy. You try to mimic the sultry grind that Valeria had, but you don’t know how successful you are. You lean down until you feel the bump of your clit against hers and drag them against each other.

You’re rewarded with her chest rising and exhaling out, slow and pleased.

There’s no effective word for your movements. You hump against her, desperate to feel good and to make her feel good in return. You’re a sick dog, mindless and huffing, dragging your hips up then down, again and again until there’s a pearl of heat in that you’re nursing.

Valeria’s breasts rock with the aggression behind your movements. She reaches up, cups both of them in her hands while she watches you. You wonder if this is doing anything for her, but one grind has her hissing out, eyes impossibly darker.

You curse, feel a sick hand as it works up your spine and holds you by the back of your neck. Fevered dog, you work for it, the pearl inside you getting shinier and shinier until it pulses.

“Oh, Valeria, can I, please, can I -?” you stutter, dragging your cunt up again and almost whiting out your vision with the strength it takes to hold back.

“Go on, you’ve earned it,” she coos, and with your eyes on her breasts as her wrist twists to pull on her nipple, you erupt.

Liquid heat pulses out of you and you ride it out, gasping and whining, almost sobbing as your cunt wrings you out for all you’re worth.

Finally, you stop, panting for breath, sweat in the dip of your back and there is a string of slick between you as you lift up.

“C’mere, lovely,” she tells you and you stretch up to bring your face closer to her own. “You were beautiful.” You glow, almost reaching down to kiss her but you’re stopped with her fingers on your chin. “Now, clean up the mess you made.”

Her legs spread. You nod, and lower yourself back down her body until you can kiss her cunt that’s covered in your come and her own wetness.

She sighs, stretching out on your sheets, watching you as you take her clit into her mouth. Her mouth opens with a sigh as you curl your tongue around it. Desperate to please, you set to work.

-

Everything spirals out of your control, a ball of yarn tumbling round and round and out of your palms. You rush after it, always too slow and fumbling to get it back to its original shape.

Your father stops coming down for dinner and you feel sick at the sight of his empty chair. Valeria smoothes her cool hands down your back, comforting and confronting all at once.

Your dinner is already on the table, but you didn’t see who lay it there. In fact, you haven’t seen anyone but Valeria in days. You try to jump up, wanting to see whoever has been bring your father his meals, but Valeria’s hands become restraints on your arms and you aren’t able to buck further than an inch away. “Please, cariño, don’t fuss,” she says, voice like iron until you still.

“Please, I don’t -” you start but she shushes you, grasping your hands in her own.

She snaps your name until you go quiet. Her jaw works, a physical effort to be patient with you. “I know you are worried, but you are worrying yourself sick as well. Settle down and eat your dinner,” she tells you, strained as she places your hands next to your plate.

“Please, is he dying? I have to see him please, I have to,” you sob, trying to grasp her hands back but she snaps them away from you, her chair screeching as she pushes it back.

“Enough!” she snaps and you do as you’re told, whimpering. You always have been a beaten dog, head on someone’s lap, looking up imploring and lasting yourself on scraps. “Perhaps I have been too soft on you, and you’ve forgotten how to behave like a lady. But, this type of behaviour is unseemly, you will not embarrass me as well.”

She sweeps away from the table, a swirl of dark cotton. She slams the dining room doors closed, and when you try to open them after her, they’re locked.

No one is in the room with you. You throw yourself at the door, crying yourself sick. “Valeria! Valeria, please come back, I’m sorry, please let me out,” you sob, ratting the doorknob over and over uselessly.

Nothing from the other side of the door. The servants that you have been raised with are all gone, the house may as well be empty and you are a sick girl haunting it.

Your father’s empty chair taunts you, dust along the back of it. You sit in it, looking down the length of the table.

You are a terrible heir, you hate the view.

You crawl into your own chair and stare down at the broth that has been made for you. Chunky vegetables float in it. You lift the spoon with a shaky hand and swallow a few mouthfuls, a few tears still running down your face.

You push the bowl away and lay your head in your arms, and stare at the crack in the table that has been there since you were little.

Time chases itself away until you imagine hours must have passed. Maybe you slept, or perhaps you are just lulled into a stupor, your tears drying on your face and making you feel like a husk of yourself.

The door creaks open, but you don’t even stir at the sound.

The click of heels until they reach you, then Valeria’s face appears as she bends down to look at you. You imagine that she must consider saying something, but you’re so listless, she decides it’s not worth it.

With a strength that surprises you even as you can’t express it, she reaches down and lifts you up.

A new born babe, you let her carry you up the stairs and back to your bedroom where she lays you down, smoothing your hair out of your face. “I know you are upset, cariño,” she tells you when your eyes focus on her. “But, I will not tolerate any more tantrums. You rest up and tomorrow you will be good, yes?”

Her nails dig into your hairline until you nod. Her thumb on the delicate skin beneath your eye, she leans down and gives you a sweet kiss on your forehead.

For the first time in weeks, you spend the night alone and you wake up in the morning and try to be normal.

You keep darting glances up the stairs to your father’s bedroom, but you eat when Valeria bids you to and answer her when she speaks.

You’re rewarded with your legs folded into your chest and Valeria between your thighs as she makes you come over and over again until you can’t bear it anymore.

You pass out and wake up to her sucking on your nipple, her thumb still on your clit, rotating in light circles.

You try to tell her that you can’t do it again but she drags her teeth on your nipple and you come again, liquid heat spraying out of you and soaking your lap.

You sleep like you’re dead through the night and you barely remember to worry about your father when you wake up to Valeria kissing your neck.

“You’re warmer than anyone I’ve ever known,” she murmurs, her hands cupping your breasts. “It’s maddening.”

You moan and she takes that as well, sucking your tongue into her mouth as she grinds down on your thigh.

You sleep through the day with her, both of you not bothering to get dressed. You dream of cutting your heart out and presenting it to her. With a hand under your skirts, you watch her take a bite out of it and you come when she kisses you and makes you drink your own blood.

-

Your desperation is glass and it finally breaks when Valeria leaves you alone one afternoon. You disobey Valeria and go up the stairs to your father’s room. There are no servants in the hallway, none in the kitchen, none in the stable.

No one to catch you and report back.

You knock on the door lightly, pressing your ear up against the wood. Silence from the other side.

You are a young girl again, leaning up and straining for the door handle. Peering through the key hole into the world of grown ups.

You are a woman grown now and you don’t have to strain yourself when you reach for the handle.

The door swings open, soundless and the room is darker than everywhere else in your home.

You can make out the faint line of a bed, a dresser, where the curtains are pulled over the window. The sun is a force outside, you can see it bearing down against the other side anyway, creating a slight glow.

The room is still silent, no breathing or signs of life.

“Father?” you ask, stepping inside. If he hears you, he doesn’t respond.

There’s a shape on the bed, and you creep towards it, freezing as it shifts. There is the rattle of an inhale, held then released again before stillness reinstates itself.

You feel tears in your eyes but you aren’t totally sure why yet. You reach the edge of the bed and peer down, eyes burning as they try to adjust as quickly as they can.

You know your father’s face, the only face that you know better than your own. You know every expression he’s ever made.

You don’t know this one.

His mouth is open, his eyes are blank and staring up at the ceiling. You hover your face over his, try to line up his eyeline, but he doesn’t even twitch.

Then - that rattled inhale, in through his mouth, held then released. Then he’s as still as a corpse.

It sounds painful, like he’s sick with something that you can’t understand, some foreign virus rending up him mute and still.

“Father?” you ask, reaching a hand up to his cheek. You try to hold him, but even the lightest pressure of your hand sends his head rocking to the side and with a sickening crunch, it rips.

You barely comprehend what you’re seeing, grateful for a moment for the dark. Then your mind catches up to your eyes, rationale catching up and an explanation is provided. Your father’s neck in front of you, the inside, with all of his veins and his throat. His head is still connected on side, but you can see the skin straining.

There’s a hunk of flesh missing, that’s what caused this, the start of a tear on his throat. There’s no blood, not like you would expect given his head is about to fall off of his shoulders.

That’s all you’re able to comprehend before you start shrieking, a rip of a sound up your throat and dragging out of your mouth.

You fall backwards, trying to scramble away and your heels get caught in your skirts and you’re tangled for a heart-stopping moment before you can get friction again.

You throw yourself up, slamming against the door, your hand smacking senselessly until you can grasp the door handle and wrench it open.

The hall is still empty but you’re still screaming, even as you end up in a pile on the floor.

The door is left open, but the bed is shrouded in darkness. You can picture the horror in there perfectly now, as if there is a candle in your mine to illuminate it.

You crawl away, screams petering off until you’re heaving, retching as your body tries to exhume everything that you’ve ever put in it.

You give up at the top of the stairs, clinging to the bannister. Sobbing without sound, tears hot and fevered on your face.

That’s how Valeria finds you, staring through the bannister, listless. She kisses her teeth, irritated.

“Stand up,” she tells you, but you can’t make your body obey her. There’s a growl of frustration, and her hands on your arms, yanking you up. “You are a silly girl,” she snaps at you, perfect face cracked with anger. You barely have it in you to respond, staring back at her, empty.

She drags you down the stairs and you barely have the wherewithal to stop yourself from falling down them. The doors to the dining room are open, and she drops you in the bottom chair, opposite your father’s chair.

The doors shut behind you, a loud slam that wakes you up. “Do you enjoy disobeying me, huh?” she asks you, kicking your chair out to make you look up at her.

“What have you done to him?” you ask, giving voice to a horrible fear that you’ve been nursing under your breast.

She pauses, eyes flicking around your face. “He was alive when I left him there,” she tells you, pointed.

“What was wrong with him?” you ask, voice thick.

She rolls her eyes and you smart at her irritation, flinching back into yourself.

“You know, your home is better placed than my late husband’s?” she asks, a question she doesn’t want any answer to. She walks away, the click of her heels as she runs her hands over the back of the dining room chairs. Covered in dust if the way that she flicks her wrist after is any indication. “Smaller, sure, but the land is richer. I made the mistake of going for marshland before. Your father has tenants, but my husband didn’t.”

You blink away tears as you stare back at her. “So, you never wanted me, you just wanted my father’s house?” you say, voice little and pathetic. You meant it to be an accusation, but it comes out as a question. A plea. Horrible, to think about yourself in this moment, but you can’t claw the words back into your mouth so you try to stand by them.

Valeria regards you, as still as she always is. Before, you had thought that it was the good breeding of a lady that caused the frozen flesh. Now, you recognise it for what it is. A predator, knelt in short grass, watching you. Still, even when you spot her, but you can see the power belying her flesh.

“Well?” you demand, wavering but righteousness forcing you to speak.

“I don’t understand why it has to be one or the other,” she muses, eyes dark on you. She crosses the room in less steps than you know it must take. She takes your chin in her hand and you hold back a whimper as her nails dig in.

“Can you bring him back?” you ask, voice small like a child.

She tilts her head, faux-sympathy. “No, mi vida. He’s gone now.” You feel your chest contract with a sob at her words. She scrapes her nail against your chin.

“What was wrong with him?” you ask, not wanting to know but understanding you have to ask.

Valeria regards you, her other hand dropping to your neck, where the missing flesh on your father’s neck was. “You were so upset about that gardener,” she muses, thumbing over your pulse, holding the fat thump of it in her palm. “I didn’t want my sweet girl crying herself sick over the help. If you’d left your father be, he’d have been back to himself in a few days. Human blood comes back so quickly,” she tells you. That mocking twist in her tone, but you hear the bare honesty as well.

You don’t know what to do, barely able to comprehend as a monster tells you the nature of what it is. Your mind is a muddled mess, anger and hurt and disgust as her hand caresses your throat and pulls forward arousal just as it did before.

You’re frozen by it, unable to function as your mind trips over itself. Valeria gives you a pitying pout. “You’re the heir to the land now,” she tells you, taking a seat on your lap, leaning her face closer to your own.

“I don’t want it,” you sob. You’d thought that you had run out of tears on the stairs, but they’re back, hot and heavy, dripping down your face and you had barely noticed.

She grins, and you can see the sharpness of her teeth. “Well, sounds like something we can negotiate then.” Her head drops down to your neck and when you sob, she licks the jump of your throat as if to taste it.

-

You bury your father just as Autumn takes its leave for Winter. The men you hire struggle to dig into the earth that is starting to freeze but it gets done.

The service is exactly what your father would want, the priest reads from the bible.

You are the only one in attendance, given all of your staff are gone and none of the tenants were told. If it’s an odd procession, the funeral workers don’t say anything.

Afterwards, you stay, looking at your mother and your father’s joined gravestone. There is a space at the bottom for your own name one day.

You place your hand to the cold stone and whisper a prayer to yourself before you leave. There isn’t anyone in the stables anymore to saddle your horse or drive you a carriage, so you walk.

The wind is crisp, even in the early afternoon. Winter is creeping in, nipping at your heels. You taste the air and it tastes like snow that will fall soon.

Your house is quiet and still when you get back, all of the curtains are drawn, with only candlelight to aid you as you make your way around.

You set about getting dressed for the evening now that it’s dark out, discarding your coat and your shoes and your funeral dress. There’s a dress laid out for you on the bed, a deep crimson with a low neckline.

As soon as you step into it, you can hear the front door as someone knocks on it.

You step down the stairs, your skirts held up with one hand. It’s an old fabric, but beautiful and rich, thick layers that sweep as you move. You catch sight of yourself in a mirror and you look like the lady that you wished you would be when you were a girl. There is a bite mark that has bled a little with your movement but you leave it be.

There isn’t another knock, but you can sense her impatience in the back of your mind.

Your arm strains as you reach for the door handle and pull it open.

Valeria stands there, in her black gown and her black veil, smiling at you to see you wearing the right dress.

Your car breaks down on the outskirts of Opaskwayak—somewhere north of the long stretch of road between Root Lake and Wanless.

She sputters over an uneven patch of pavement—with you weakly, desperately, encouraging her along—before her breath tapers off into a guttural, ratting choke, dying in the middle of nowhere. Far from help, and utterly unsalvageable—leaving you stranded without even her warm corpse to protect you from the elements after you were forced to abandon her in a shallow ditch before grabbing out your suitcase—and everything you own packed inside of it—from the back before the hacking plumes of black smoke she spat into the aether erupted into flames. 

(Fitting, you think, considering it was the smoke that made you run in the first place.)

But running is the furthest thing from your mind as you lean your luggage against a broken fence post on the side of the road. In fact, running seems incredibly stupid in hindsight when you're forced to wander out into the middle of the pavement, hand cupped over your brow, as you glare, desperately, down the empty road. 

A pointless thing, really. 

With the town you fled from being colloquially known as the gateway to the north, you give up, quite quickly, on expecting someone to happen down this lonely stretch of highway between the sprawling, dark green depths of the lakes and the jagged tops of black spruce and jack pine. Not when it just leads further north to sparsely populated lands mauled with rivers and lakes. 

There's only so much of the road left before it curves sharply into Flin Flon and then cuts into Saskatchewan, leaving the rest of the province untouched and sparsely occupied. Everything beyond this point meanders into small towns, unorganized hamlets, and communities only accessible through boat or airplane. A rugged, untamed sort of wilderness. 

And that's the thing about Manitoba, you suppose. So much of it is tucked away, hidden and inaccessible, that the beauty lay in its belly—

(but you've never found Winnipeg to be very pretty at all.)

Despite the futility of it, you still stand guard in the middle of the pavement, glaring at the unmarked branch of the road as if expecting a lone hunter or fisherman to come up from the lake and save you. But it’s a pipedream. Everyone is back in town, the Pas. Waiting for the evacuation notices to trickle in, or bunkering down for another humid, smoke-clogged summer in the north that burns itself to the ground every year. The other intersection—Provincial Road, if you're guessing correctly—is just as barren, but that's to be expected. All it leads to is a bible camp and other campgrounds.

Between the unrelenting heat of a mid-June swelter, and the stench of fires scorching the earth somewhere in the sprawling cluster of gnarled pine and dry spruce a little too close for comfort, the air is choking. Dense with tendrils of smoke that clot into a thickened paste of trapped heat from the pale, hazy sun, and smog. 

You're not sure it's even safe to breathe when it's this thick, but the only alternative is to go back to your car, potentially getting trapped inside as it burns. Death by fire or smoke. It's a little more ironic than you want it to be, edging like a knife across your sternum as it viciously reminds you of your stupidity. 

And it really is just that because despite what the shadows on your wall at night, and the heavy thump of boots pacing down your hallway wanted you to believe, ghosts are not real. They can't hurt you. 

not anymore—

(but something has been leaving snuffed out cigarettes littering the ground outside your window, and the muck, the sour pinch of stale smoke on your sheets when you're at work—)

Running, up until three hours ago, made sense. 

Somewhere in the slurried recess of your mind, still dripping with the thawing puddle of heavy, draping depression, clarity needles through the gap, leaving you almost breathless at your own stupidity. Nauseous, too. And it's mostly the ache of hindsight that feels like a battering ram to your gut, reminding you cruelly of what listening to voiceless shadows and submitting to paranoia has left you with. 

But you can't blame the entirety of this mess on panic and delusions alone—not when there was something almost instinctual about the urge to flee. An atavistic fear taking root in the last three weeks leading up to this sudden escape, making you look over your shoulder more and more each day. Checking your lock thrice in one night. Peering out of the curtains. Mistaking shadows for men in the dark. 

But really, it all began to blur together into a hazy, humid smear at the start of spring. 

It was the faint scent of old cigarettes haunting you whenever you went, lingering like a bad memory outside of your work, your house, until it ended up inside your home, on your sheets. That sickening smell of stale smoke and mouldering nicotine that left a sticky, greasy film across everything you touched. Smoke congealing in the hollow of your throat, rotting between that slip of skin where air breathed in from your nose pools on the back of your tongue. Thick, clogging. Unearthing bad dreams and memories buried under a scab. Things you kept locked tight inside of a flooding box. 

But something had disturbed the ghosts—the heat, maybe. 

It had been an unusually warm spring, one that slipped, syrupy and thick, into an unbearable summer. A scorching, oppressive thing that burned the pavement and singed the grass. Dredged up heat mirages, and made puddles of sweat drip down your back, slickening the skin on the crook of your elbow and the backs of your knees whenever you were outside for more than a minute. 

An inescapable, miserable heat. 

One that makes your skin grow slick, damp. Itchy. It made you scratch at the scab on your chest, the place where you keep your ghosts locked up tight, until your nail slipped under a small crack, and a piece flaked off. It's where the smell of cigarettes leaks from, you’re sure. The unease of being watched. Shapes in the dark. Spectres that haunt you in the balmy drape of another sleepless night—

It—this numbness—settled in the crack. Sealed it over so the ghosts had no way to back inside. A restlessness that hums under your skin—the urge to fight, maybe; to live—but it's overwhelmed by the anchor around your ankle, pulling you deeper into the depths. Drip, drip. 

Like rainwater filling a bucket, a box, while you just stand in the middle and let it soak you to the bone as it rises up to lick at your chin. 

It was the same slough. The same march. A familiar dance that no one tries to escape. Stigmergy, you thought in a moment of keen awareness that lasted as long as the whispers in the hall, clocking out amid the idle chatter, vague, broken whispers—shitty weather, can't believe they let that monster out in April, wildfires in Flin; think we'll get the Evac notice, printers jammed, use the one upstairs—as you make the familiar trudge up the street and back home. 

It made you dream at night about slipping quietly into the lake just a little ways away from your house. All the lakes, really. The rivers. The ponds. Your home is mostly scar tissue: muskeg, infertile soil, and wetlands. Swamp-like. Cradled in the basin where the lowlands of the shield meet the gaping maw of the bay. 

At first, most of it was half-formed images drenched in the haze of a confusing dreamscape; wisps of colour splashed across a sepia background. Shapeless and distorted; inkblots that disappear into a gaping emptiness when you wake the next morning, unsettled by something you can't remember. But each night, the picture grew clearer, more vivid, until you could make out the muddied shores of the lake. See your bare feet sink into the mudflat, toes squishing against the dry algal mat covering the rugged shoreline. 

The waves came after. Playfully licking between your toes before growing bolder, coyer, and curling around your ankles, every ebb and flow pulling on you lightly. But it's neither urgent nor forceful. It just is. A gentle lull. A soft come. 

You give in. Always. Ankles. Knees. Hips. Chest. Neck. Until your toes can't touch the bottom anymore, feet padding into a murky abyss opening up beneath you like a great, wide maw. 

Birds-eye-view: ink puddles under you. Black and unfathomable. You sit in the centre of this black hole ready to eat you alive and tread water obliviously. Kicking, kicking—struggling to keep your head above water. 

You're always wearing white. A long, flowing nightgown that spills around you in the dark water. A buoy at first, it keeps you up in a plume of soft satin, but the deeper you go, the more it drags. It pulls. Your own anchor of spun silk. 

Every night, you slip below the waves and into that maw. Swallowed whole. The fading white of your nightgown is all you can see billowing in the murky depths until it, too, disappears into the abyss. Down, down, down—

Waking with a gasp, choking, choking—water in your throat, in your lungs—but it's just the leaking ceiling dripping over your face. Drip, drip. 

You heave over the side of the bed, and spend the rest of the night staring at the shadows that dance across your walls until sunbreaks and they scatter. Your alarm goes. It takes every ounce of willpower to peel yourself off of the starchy sheets, eyes burning. 

And then the haunting began. 

The sound of your door handle ratting. Footsteps down the hall. The stench of cigarettes that reminded you of your childhood. Nicotine, the acrid stench of smoke, shouldn't be a nostalgic comfort in the same way people look back on Sunday morning cartoons, halcyon days. But it does. Reminds you of mid-mornings when you were a child, dunking your spoon into generic brand cereal (cheap knockoffs of the real thing, all we have the money for, don't be selfish, it's the same damn thing—) and watching reruns of old 90s shows on the big, black television in the living room. 

Your mom wouldn't leave her room until noon, but you could still smell the smoke from your spot on the living room floor, hear her sigh in bed, groaning from a narcotic hangover. From a real hangover. 

Unfamiliar boots tipped over on the worn mat in front of the door. Mud smeared on the sides. You eat your cereal, absently wondering if you'll have to call another strange man dad for a week until the police show up again—domestic disturbance, they'll say, and one will bend down to ask if you saw anything bad happen. You'll shrug like you're not standing in the eye of a storm, expertly weaving around broken dishes and upturned furniture. Feet covered in drywall from the fist-sized hole in the wall. No, you'll say. I was watching cartoons. 

With mascara smeared down her wet, tear-stained cheeks, your mother will light a cigarette with shaky hands—uncuffed, don't do that to the kid, don't let ‘em see that, Christ’s sake—and hoarsely spit, leave my baby alone. 

It was hard to ignore how everything had a fine, greasy film of nicotine dusting across it, itching at your skin. Choking you. Smoke clogging your throat. Walls yellowed, jaundiced. The air is a little misty, hazy, from the two packs inhaled everyday. 

You think it would have gotten better. That you might have adjusted to it, but it still trickles down your throat like tar whenever you smell it. A piece of broken nostalgia from your childhood. 

Until it became too much. 

Until the ghosts started leaving cigarette butts outside your window, and you woke up to the sharp snick of a lighter in the dark. 

You packed your things into the scuffed up suitcase leaning against the post last night. 

Maybe that, too, was a delusion. Some grandiose dream dredged up from madness and sleepless nights, spinning all these terrible, wonderful fantasies of escaping and leaving the scab behind for someone else to find. A snuffed out cigarette in an ashtray in an empty home. Freedom from the echoes that lingered in your head like smoke, whispering terrible things to you in the dark. 

But it left you little in the way of a plan, and as the fog that slunk into your gyri like the fires devouring the prairies begins to dissipate into ash and char sinking to the depths of your grey matter, you think it probably would have been better to just go to the police even it went against everything you were taught as a child. 

Or to your landlord to complain about the other tenants leaving their litter outside your bedroom window.