If stinky wall man, why cute?

Thomas hears a scream while he’s out in the barn. It cuts off so quickly he damn near thinks he imagined it but if he holds perfectly still and listens, listens, listens, there are noises that don’t belong. A grunt, a smack, a mumbled curse. Knife in hand, he ventures out in search of the source. 

Out on the road there’s a car, hood up and smoke billowing from the engine. A man has a woman pressed to the driver’s side door, forearm tight against her throat and a knife poised in front of her face. Red creeps into Thomas’ vision and his fingers begin to ache around the hilt of his own knife but just as he steps forward, something amazing happens.

The woman spits at the man’s face and in that brief moment of surprise, she brings her hands up and shoves the man back. He stumbles, falling to ground. The knife falls and she goes after it, lunging across the dirt and rocks. The man wraps a hand around her ankle, tugging her down and dragging her back as she screams, fingers digging into the dirt. She kicks, once, twice, the third time finally connecting with a painful crack to the man’s shin and sending him down to the ground again. She crawls away, grabbing the knife and scrambling to her feet. Thomas can see her chest heave with ragged breaths, skin glistening with sweat in the Texas heat. 

He’s not sure he’s ever seen anything more beautiful.

She approaches the man, the knife brandished in front of her. The man rolls onto his back, holds his hands up. A surrender. The woman doesn’t care. Her boot slams into his skull, a shout echoing in the vast emptiness of the road and fields. Thomas feels himself grow hard, pants tightening around his cock. He reaches down, adjusting himself.

The man is on his hands and knees now. Blood streaks his face and drips to the dirt, baptizing the land in violence. She kicks him between the shoulder blades, knocking him flat on his stomach, and stands over him with a leg on either side of his body. The breath catches in Thomas’ throat as she reaches down and tangles her fingers in the man’s hair, lifting his head. The man stares directly at Thomas and his lips move, a cry for help, but he doesn’t hear it. No, not when all his focus is on the way the woman leans close and drags the blade across the man’s neck and the skin splits, muscles and tendons ripping with the force of it and red, red, red spilling free. 

The man’s gaze grows empty and the woman loosens her grip, his head dropping to the ground. She drops to her knees, slams the knife into the man’s back over and over and over, roaring fiercely as she does. She’s covered in the red, red, red, clothes soaked through with it, skin stained and sticky. When she’s finished, she collapses on the ground beside the man, on her back, basking in the sun.

It’s then that Thomas approaches, his shadow falling over her, broad body blocking the sun. She blinks at him but doesn’t scream. Doesn’t run. 

Thomas holds a hand out to her.

To his surprise, she takes it.

Your mind is somewhere in the clouds as you walk beside the lumbering giant that carries John or Mike or David over his shoulder like he weighs nothing, is nothing. The body bounces with each step and you find it almost comical, lips twitching as you fight a smile. Something simmers in your veins, more potent than the adrenaline of the fight or the relief that you won another day against life’s shitty hand. 

This new man, the tall man with the icy somber eyes and expressionless mask, appeared above you, haloed in sunlight like an angel. By all accounts, he was a far more terrifying man than John or Mike or David, but you don’t see evil when you look at him, when his eyes meet yours for a brief second before looking away. No, not evil, but a familiar reflection, an unkind life that led to unkind circumstances and unkind decisions. You know the look well, it’s the same one you see in the mirror.

A house appears on the horizon, a two story Victorian era farmhouse that must have been impressive once before falling into a state of disrepair. There’s a woman on the porch, arms crossed over her chest and a stern look on her face as she watches the two (or is it technically three?) of you approach. 

“Bring ‘im downstairs. I’ll tend to the girl,” she says. The man looks at you, hesitating to follow the command. You give him a nod, the slight dip of your chin enough for his shoulders to relax. His heavy footsteps rattle the dilapidated porch as he disappears inside the house.

The woman leads you to the kitchen and pulls a chair out from the rough wood table for you to take a seat. You watch as she wets a cloth before returning to your side. Cool water hits the hot skin of your face and the rough fabric drags away the dried blood. Her touch is surprisingly gentle.

“You do all that to the fella my boy was carryin’?” She asks.

“Yes,” you reply, voice cracking on the single word that claws at your vocal cords. 

“‘Atta girl.” She smiles. “I’ll get you some water.”

“Thank you.”

She sets a glass on the table and you don’t hesitate to reach for it, chugging down the cold water so quickly it makes your stomach turn. She wordlessly refills it for you, twice, before murmuring a gentle, “That’s enough now, you’ll turn your stomach sour if you keep it up.”

“What’s with this fuckin’ car out on the road?” A voice yells from outside the house. Through the window you catch a glimpse of a man in a Sherriff’s uniform, shotgun held loosely in his hand as he approaches the house. The woman stands, wiping her hands on her apron.

“You don’t say nothin’, alright? You let me handle Charlie,” she commands. You nod.

The man appears in the doorway, eyes immediately landing on you. His leery gaze traces you from head to toe and you fight back the shiver that threatens to race down your spine. Your gaze drops to the floor as he addresses the woman.

“What’s with the whore?” He spits. 

“She’s a guest.”

“A guest? This a bed ‘n breakfast all of a sudden?”

“Thomas brought her up here.” As if summoned by his name, the monster returns. He looms behind the other man, silent. There’s a bucket in his hand that he drops to the floor with a loud clang that makes you jump. The woman pats your shoulder. 

“Tommy boy is takin’ in strays now, huh? What’s next, he’ll find himself some dumpster baby and finish buildin’ a whole happy family?”

The monster, Thomas, grows tense. His shoulders lift and the muscles of his arms flex, his eyes narrowed on the man who’s giving him a shit-eating smile. 

“Tommy, honey, why don’t you bring your guest to one of the rooms upstairs?” The woman suggests. Thomas shoves past Charlie and into the kitchen and stands wordlessly by your side. She nudges your shoulder and you stand, following him as he stomps through the second door to the kitchen. 

Shouting starts up as you leave, the words muffled when the door swings shut behind you. Thomas leads you upstairs to the second floor, where the hallway dark and a thick layer of dust coats anything it can reach. With a grunt he opens a door at the end of the hall and stands aside to allow you through the doorway. 

The room is bare save for a small but tidy bed and dresser. Despite the dust in the hall, the room itself is surprisingly clean. You sit on the bed, testing the squeaky springs with your weight. You look up at the man.

“Your name is Thomas?” You ask. He nods, once, a sharp dip of his chin that has his dirty hair falling into his face. You tell him your name and his blue eyes blink back at you, the only acknowledgment you’ll get.

He lingers for a moment, eyes searching. It doesn’t feel gross, not like when Charlie leered at you downstairs. No, it’s more like he’s committing you to memory. You realize, then, that he’s not looking at you like a predator looks at prey.

He’s looking at you like you’re a prize.

Thomas slams the cleaver down, the thud of it rhythmic, soothing. His thoughts keep straying to ones of you, upstairs in the kitchen with his mama. You’ve been here for two days now and he’s having a hard time concentrating on his chores knowing that you’re in the house, knowing that you’ve stuck around for God only knows what reason. It makes him antsy, suspicious. 

The door to the basement opens and he expects to hear Charlie’s boots stomping down the stairs but he’s surprised when you appear on the last step in an ill fitting dress that mama must have scrounged up for you. Thomas stands perfectly still as you look around the room. 

“This is what you do all day?” You ask. He nods. “That must be hard work.” Mama shouts your name from upstairs, making you jump. You give him a sheepish look. “I’m supposed to come tell you dinner’s ready.”

Thomas grunts, setting down the cleaver and wiping his hands on his apron. He washes up in the bloodstained sink, scrubbing at his fingers as best he can. You’re still on the stairs when he finishes, watching him. It makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up, the way you don’t look away, ashamed of your staring. 

You turn to climb the steps and he follows, a step below you. Your hips sway in front of him and he has visions of grabbing you by the hips, pulling you against his body so tightly you can’t leave, can’t leave, can’t leave. 

Mama is sitting at the table when you both emerge from the darkness, bowls of stew set out for each of you. Thomas sits down to mama’s left and you to her right, across the table from him. The two of you chat about the chores she’s assigned you and are they too much, honey? No, you tell her, you’re happy to help. Mama smiles at you and he knows what she’s thinking, that you’re sent from God himself, the perfect addition to the family. The daughter she never got to have, only the fucked up sons she was cursed and forsaken with. 

Thomas feels something prod his knee beneath the table and he freezes. All of your attention is still focused on mama, your head propped in your hand and your elbow on the table, relaxed as can be. He thinks maybe he just imagined it but he feels it again and this time he jumps, rattling the dishes on the table and sloshing stew from its bowls.

“Thomas! What’s the matter with you?” Mama asks, patting at her dress with a napkin. “You just got us all wet.”

“Yeah, Thomas,” you chime in. “Got me all wet and messy.”

By the look on your face, he knows that you’re not talking about the soup. He’s got some dirty magazines he snuck into the house over the years, women with their legs spread and their hands tied, glistening pussies on full display or the one videotape that Charlie got him, where the woman is split open on a man’s cock, begging for more as the lewd, slick sounds of sex grow louder and louder. The thought of you like that, maybe even because of him, makes his cheeks burn. He grunts, an apology, and his mama waves a hand at you both.

“You better get changed outta that dress before it stains. Can’t be lettin’ one go to waste so quick,” she tells you. You nod, standing from the table and heading for the door. You pause, looking over your shoulder at him and give him a wink. Mama clears her throat, a stern expression on her face as she looks at him.

“And you, boy. Go get yourself cleaned up and brush your damn hair for once. I raised you better than that.”

She didn’t, not really, but he listens to her anyway, trudging back down to the basement to hose himself off and change his clothes. As he cleans up, he thinks about you, because when hasn’t he been since you appeared? His cock hardens and he tries to ignore it, tries to think of the Bible lessons mama loved to teach and how it’s a sin to touch himself but maybe God will forgive him, just this once? 

He wraps a hand around his thick length and squeezes, almost punishing himself. His head drops back and he stares at the ceiling, eyes wide as he tugs and pulls at his cock, slow at first then fast, fast, fast, fist flying with a tight grip until stars burst in his vision and warm come dribbles over his hand. His chest heaves as he catches his breath, blinking away the dark spots as his high fizzles out.

Thomas dries himself and gets dressed before lying down on the mattress in the corner to toss and turn until the sun rises.

The next morning, Thomas doesn’t realize that you haven’t come down from your room until well into the afternoon. Mama’s gone to town and Charlie is off playing Sheriff so it’s just the two of you in the house. He debates whether he should check on you or leave you alone but ultimately the worry that something might be wrong pulls him upstairs and finds him knocking on your door, a quick tap of his knuckles to the wood.There’s no sound from the other side, no shout of fuck off like he’d get from Charlie or a quiet just a minute, sweetheart he’d hear from mama. Tentatively, he turns the handle and pushes the door open, just a crack, enough to peek inside.

You’re in bed, sprawled out on your back with the quilt kicked off to the floor. Your bare breasts draw his eye and he looks away quickly, shame clawing up his throat. The bed creaks as you shift, sleepy noises leaving your lips in the process, and panic races through his veins, worried that you might wake up and find him standing there, worried that it might be what sends you running, worried about what mama will say if you up and leave and it’s his fault, worried, worried, worried.

“Thomas?” You ask, voice raspy. He didn’t even realize that you were awake, stupid, stupid, stupid of him. He should have turned around and left, should have—

“Hey, it’s okay,” you murmur, sitting up. Thomas hesitates, eyes still fixed on the floor. You must notice because from the corner of his eye he notices the quilt get picked up and then you’re telling him, “I’m decent.”

He swallows around the rock lodged in his throat and looks up, meeting your gaze. You don’t look mad or disgusted or upset. You’re actually smiling at him, a hand held out in welcome. He doesn’t dare touch you, but he takes a step closer, body moving like a moth to a flame.

Your head tilts to the side, assessing him, eyes flaying him open and leaving him feeling more exposed than when someone catches him without the mask. You’re holding the quilt up over your chest but Thomas can still see the tantalizing curves of your shoulders, the long line of your neck with the flutter of your pulse beneath delicate skin. It makes his mouth go dry.

“You ever touch a woman, Tommy?” You ask. The question catches him so off guard that all he manages is a strangled noise. “Well? That a yes or a no?” He shakes his head. You smile, lowering the quilt just enough to expose the top curve of your breasts. 

“You wanna?” 

Thomas’ eyes drop to your chest before quickly looking away. A flush creeps up his neck, staining what little of his cheeks you can see above the mask he wears. His hand flexes at his side, fingers curling open and shut. 

“It’s okay, you can look,” you say, gentle, gentle, gentle, like coaxing a scared animal. He looks at you again, blue eyes wide. “Come closer.”

He shuffles closer, looming over the bed, back so wide that he blocks the sun streaming through the window and casts a shadow over your body. You reach for his hand and he jerks away, as if on instinct. You pause, giving him a few seconds of reprieve, then reach for him again, keeping your eyes fixed on his face. Lightly, you touch his hand and when he doesn’t flinch, you grasp it more tightly. 

You guide his hand to your breast, settling his warm palm to your chest. He holds perfectly still for a moment and the restraint of it drives you insane, makes you bite your tongue so hard the taste of copper blooms across your tastebuds. Finally, he leans a little closer, fingers digging into your skin and making you gasp. He massages one breast, then the other, playing with the weight and feel of them in his large hands. You press your thighs together, cunt aching from the attention.

“That feels good,” you tell him, arching into his touch. The praise spurs him on, makes him more confident, and he starts to focus his attention on your nipples, pinching and twisting the sensitive buds. He’s surprisingly gentle despite his size and demeanor. 

You kick away the quilt from your legs, exposing the rest of your body to him. His eyes trail down your body, hands going still. He looks up, tilting his head, asking a question, looking for permission. You nod your head quickly and your heart races as a palm slides down, down, down, until he’s cupping your pussy over your panties. Your hips jump at the friction.

“Oh, fuck,” you whine. Thomas holds his hand still as you grind yourself against his palm. You reach your hands down, holding onto his forearm with a death grip. “Please, please, please!”

His fingers slip beneath the elastic of your panties and you both groan. He plays with the embarrassing amount of wetness, smearing it over your skin. You guide his hand the slightest bit upwards until the calloused pads of his fingers swipe over your clit.

“That’s it, Tommy,” you tell him. “Right there, right there.”

Dutifully, he continues to lavish you with attention, taking every direction beautifully. Slower, faster, harder, he adjusts to every suggestion and has you moaning and crying his name in desperation, but it’s not enough. You’re right there, so close, but you feel so empty, you just need—

“Inside?” You ask. He pauses, brows pinching together. “Put your fingers inside me.”

Slowly, slowly, slowly, he eases one thick finger into your drenched hole. Your head drops back at the sensation, at the relief, and begin to grind your hips again. He starts to see the pattern, moving his hand so that he’s working with your rhythm. You look up at his face and the concentration in his eyes leaves you breathless. All he wants is to do good, be good, make you feel good. 

Thomas presses another finger to your entrance, glancing at your face to make sure it’s okay. When you don’t say otherwise, he works both inside of you in tandem, the stretch making you groan. He curls them, exploring, skimming a spot inside of you that makes you cry out and dig your nails into his arm so hard that he grunts but doesn’t doesn’t pull away.

“I’m gonna come,” you tell him. “You’re doing so good, Tommy, oh my god.”

He’s panting, sweat dripping down his neck, muscles tight with his efforts to wrench an orgasm from you. The lethal combination of his fingers inside of you and his palm against your clit and the muffled noises sneaking past his mask have you tumbling over a precipice so high you worry you might never come down. Your cunt pulses around his fingers and you babble his name and an incoherent stream of praise as your release washes over you, wave after wave of it.

Thomas waits until your body collapses against the mattress and you’re gasping for breath before slowly removing his hand. He holds it up to his face, pink tongue darting out from the slit afforded for his mouth to taste your cum from his fingertips. He groans, his other hand reaching down to press tightly to the sizeable bulge in his pants. He thrusts against his palm once, twice, before going still, shoulders shaking.

A door slams downstairs. Luda Mae’s voice shouts for Thomas and he takes a step back, head whipping towards the door and eyes wide with panic. You scramble from the bed, grabbing your dress and pulling it on quickly so that you can rush out the room, shutting Thomas inside. You lean over the banister and see Luda Mae standing at the top of the basement stairs, hands on her hips.

“I think he went out to the barn,” you call down. She looks up at you.

“Why would he be out there?” She huffs. “And what are you still doin’ in your room? You look a mess.”

“Sorry, m’am. Had trouble sleeping last night.”

Your politeness softens her annoyance. “That’s okay, darlin’, you’re still learnin’ the ropes. I gotta go find Thomas, Charlie’s found some troublemakers.”

“If I see him first, I’ll let him know.” You nervously smooth your hands down your skirt. “What kind of trouble?”

“You don’t worry yourself about that. We’ll let the boys handle it, alright?”

“Yes, m’am.”

“Good girl,” she says. “I’ll be back.”

Luda Mae leaves through the front door and you return to your room. Thomas is standing where you left him, hands curled at his sides. 

“You hear all that?” You ask him. He nods. “What’s going to happen?”

He walks to the window, peeks through the curtain. His shoulders are tense. When he turns back to you, he sets his hands on your shoulders and steers you to the bed, pushing gently until you’re sitting, the springs squeaking beneath your weight. He cups your cheek with one hand and points around the room with the other.

“You want me to stay in here?”

He nods.

“What if you need help?”

He shakes his head. He won’t need help.

“Okay. You better get down there.”

He nods again. Leaning down, he presses his forehead to yours, an approximation of a kiss. You smile at him when he pulls away. He lingers for a brief second longer before tugging open the door and disappearing from the room.

Trouble is heralded by the arrival of Uncle Charlie. You watch through the window as his cop car pulls up in the yard and he gets out, spitting curses you can’t hear. He waves a shotgun in the air, firing off a warning shot that makes you jump. You know Thomas told you to stay in your room but curiosity gets the better of you and you head downstairs.

Luda Mae is in the kitchen, sat at the table with a cup of tea. A piercing scream filters through the open window as she takes a tiny sip from her cup. 

“You need somethin’, dear?” She asks, unperturbed by the interruption. You shake your head.

“No, m’am. Just came to ask if you needed help with dinner.”

“No, no, that’s alright. I got it covered.” Another sip. “Could you get the laundry from the line?”

It’s then that you realize she’s testing you. Earlier she told you to let the men handle it, but she wants to see where your loyalties lie. Thomas told you to stay put, to stay safe, but she’s sending you out to join the wolves because she knows, she knows, she knows that you’re just like them. 

She just needs proof.

You smile. “Of course.”

On your way out of the kitchen, you slip a knife from the butcher block.

One of the men that Charlie dragged home writhes in pain, one leg bent at an unnatural angle. His friend takes off at run, pace as fast as his injured ankle will allow. They’re the last two that need to be dealt with. Thomas raises his chainsaw in the air, ready to end the animal’s suffering, but movement from the corner of his eye makes him pause.

The back door to the house opens and you stroll out into the yard, looking around frantically with a frightened expression. Thomas feels a rush of anger that you didn’t listen to him, didn’t stay up in your room, didn’t stay inside. The anger quickly turns to fear when he sees the other man, the one he intended to deal with later, rushes toward you. You take off, running across the field toward the barn.

Thomas cuts the gas, tosses the chainsaw aside. The muffled whimpers from the man on the ground piss him off and with one, two, three strikes of the heel of his boot, he silences him for good. He heads for the barn, red in his vision with every step. If the other man lays a single finger on you, Thomas will keep him alive but begging for death.

“Come on, we gotta get out of here,” a male voice shouts. “They’re goin’ to kill us!”

Thomas throws open the barn doors, the wood shaking with the force of it. You’re turned away from him and the first thing he notices is the knife held in a tight fist behind your back. The man stumbles to the ground, trying to scramble back from you as Thomas comes closer.

“No. We’re going to kill you,” you tell him. You spring forward, jumping on the man with a feral scream that sounds like music to Thomas’ ears. Your arms swing up, up, up and then slam down, down, down, burying your knife into the man’s chest over and over and over.

Thomas can’t wait anymore. He approaches you from behind and wraps an arm around your waist, lifting you away from the mangled body. You struggle in his hold and he hauls you over to a work bench, swiping the tools to the ground with his other arm and setting you on the surface.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” you say immediately, head shaking side to side. “I just wanted to help, I just—“

Your rapid apologies morph into a choked off moan when he lifts your legs, wrapping them around his hips, grinding his painfully hard cock against you. He buries his face into your neck, licking at the blood that stains your perfect skin, the taste of salt and copper opening a pit of hunger in his belly that could never be filled by food.

“Tommy,” you whimper, head dropping back. He licks and bites at all the skin he can find and when he runs out, he drops to his knees and begins anew on the muscles of your legs. 

He pushes the fabric of your dress up, bunching it around your waist to expose your pussy, still covered by the same panties you wore earlier when he made you come on his fingers. Wrapping his fist in the elastic, he pulls until it snaps under the pressure, fabric falling away and leaving you completely bare. 

Thomas pushes your thighs apart, spreading you open. He leans closer, biting at the soft flesh of your thigh, a little harder than he should. The tiny indents his teeth make in your skin are proof that this isn’t some dream. You’re flesh and blood, just like him.

Just for him.

His mouth waters as he nears your cunt, the earlier memory of your taste making that hunger grow to near starvation. His tongue slides over the slick flesh, exploring the dips and folds that taste so sweet it hits him like a sugar high, like when he’d steal a handful of candy from the corner store and eat it all at once, afraid of getting caught.

There’s a quiet thump and Thomas looks up to find that you’ve collapsed onto the table. Hands reach down and your fingers tangle in his hair, pulling on the strands. He remembers the spot that he rubbed with his fingers and searches for it with his tongue, knowing he’s found it when your thighs press against his ears and you moan his name like you did in your room.

“Oh, god! Just like that, Tommy,” you say, holding his head in place. “So good, so fucking good.”

He licks and sucks and grazes his teeth against you to his heart’s content and you writhe beneath him, bucking up against his face so fiercely he has to hold you down with an arm across your lower belly. He grows braver, dipping his tongue into the warmth of your cunt and drinking you from the source until you’re shaking. When he pulls away, he’s awed by the mess he’s made of you, your lips puffy and skin slick and shiny from your cum. He uses his thumbs to spread you apart, admiring the way your hole clenches around nothing.

Thomas stands, unsure of what to do next. You sit up from the table, expression dazed. Tear tracks stain your cheeks and a brief strike of worry hits him. Did he hurt you? Was that too much? Are you—

“Come closer,” you whisper. His thoughts go silent as he obeys. You reach up, cupping his face, hands trailing down to the strap of his apron. You lift it over his head and drops down, hanging limply. 

Your arms wrap around his thick middle, working the knot of strings loose behind his back. It falls to the floor in a heap now and he stares at it, pulse racing as your hands roam to his chest. His breath stutters as your touch traces lower, lower, lower, until your palm presses against his cock and his mouth drops open at the pleasure of it, so different from when he touches himself or ruts his hips into the mattress. He can feel the heat of your skin even through the thick fabric of his pants.

You’re popping the button and dragging down the zipper, wrapping a soft hand around his cock and pulling it free. Thomas groans, loud and rough, as you slide your hand up, thumb swiping over the clear fluid gathered at the very tip. 

You tug on his cock, hard enough that he stumbles forward, pressing closer. You look up at him as you rub the flushed head through your wetness and his shoulders shake at the sensation. You feel so good, so warm, he just wants to—

You notch him at your entrance and on instinct he thrusts forward the slightest bit, just enough that the fat tip of him sinks into tight heat. You gasp, eyes going wide and he’s once again struck with the fear that he could be hurting you, maybe he’s too big, too much of a monster, but when he tries to pull away you’re grabbing his shirt in a tight fist.

“Don’t you dare,” you hiss. “Keep going.”

Thomas obeys, just as he always does, pushing his hips closer, shoving his cock deeper, deeper, deeper. He watches his length disappear, your body stretching to accommodate his size. You look beautiful, with the tears that gather in your eyes and the blood smeared on your chest and the way your thighs shake with the effort to take him, that his chest aches, that last thread of control keeping him slow and steady snapping like his hips as he buries himself inside of you, completely and thoroughly.

You’ve never been this full before. You fall back on the rough wood of the work bench with a gasp, stars in your vision as your body adjusts to the sheer size of the man, the thick length of him splitting you open and leaving you breathless. He leans forward, the angle changing and tears spilling from your eyes as you stare up at the hulking monster above you.

“So big,” you gasp. “God, you’re so fucking big.”

His cock twitches inside of you and you moan, back arching off the bench. He feels so good, even through the burning stretch. You give a tentative wiggle of your hips and his eyelids flutter, a moan escaping him. When the pain eases into a dull ache, you lift a shaky hand to his face, settling your palm against the cool leather of his mask.

“I want you to fuck me, Tommy,” you tell him. “I want you to ruin me.”

His pupils grow impossibly wider and a shadow falls across his features, his demeanor changing in the blink of an eye. Gone is the man who was worried he would hurt you and in his place is the ravenous beast that matches the one clawing at you from the inside, just beneath your ribs where your chest aches with need. He draws his hips back until the tip is barely inside of you before thrusting forward. Your mouth opens, a scream ripping from your lungs but it’s cut short when a large hand wraps around your throat and squeezes. 

Thomas is a man possessed, pounding into your body like it’s nothing more than a toy for his pleasure, filling your pussy to the limit with each stroke. The hand on your throat holds your body steady and he uses his other arm to lift one of your legs, then the other, your thighs pressed to his thick belly and your ankles by his ears. His moans mix with the lewd sound of skin against skin, a soundtrack of hedonism that you want to listen to on repeat until God calls you for judgment and sends you straight to Hell.

Your orgasm is quick to build, a pressure in your tummy that grows tighter and tighter until it bursts, all your muscles going taut with the force of it. Thomas roars, hands gripping your hips and holding you impaled on his cock as he floods your pussy with his release. You feel untethered, like you’re floating, and it’s not until you’re squinting into the Texas sun that you realize you are floating. Thomas is carrying you through the field, back to the main house, one arm supporting your back and other under your knees, holding you close to his chest.

Luda Mae is on the porch when he reaches the door, hands on her hips. He pauses and her keen gaze assesses you both. Finally, she smiles.

“Get yourselves cleaned up. Dinner is almost ready,” she says. 

Wordlessly, Thomas brings you inside and down to the basement, where does exactly as he’s told.

Just as he always does.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed, please consider reblogging or leaving a comment.

John and Linda died at the house, where the man dragged the three of you after forcing you into his truck. He took Linda away, and she screamed a lot, and you knew what was happening to her even before it all ended with a distant gunshot and terrible silence. 

You and John had been tied up to the ceiling of the garage and you wondered, almost numb but not quite, if the man was going to drag you away like he did Linda. If you were going to end up violated and murdered in some rotten bed in some rotten house in some rotten town.

All of the nerves in your body sparked at once when the man shouted something in the house–

“Tommy! Go take care of that garbage out there! Make sure you clean up after!”

And what came through the squeaking garage door was not a person, surely, but a big hulking monster of a man. Like the kind you saw in horror movies you weren’t supposed to watch, that greasy-faced guys with unshaven faces told you were like, actually snuff films disguised as movies, man. His hair was greasy but that’s not what stood out, no. It was his size and bulk and a mask strapped over his face, revealing only his eyes, wild but determined.

It must be Tommy, you thought, dimly, your feet scrambling for purchase. As if you could get away. 

This is where John died. It was not a nice death. Tommy had grabbed an axe from the wall and–you began to heave, throwing up a diner breakfast onto the floor–chopping at John’s body like he was a tree to take down. Whacking at his stomach, his legs. His flesh flapped down like so much meat. 

Chop.

Chop.

Chop.

The screaming came from John. And you, too. And maybe the whole wide world had been screaming this whole time and it took watching your friends die in front of you to finally hear it.

John was dead. You knew it, because his torso was hanging from the ceiling now, and his legs had fallen to the ground in a tangled heap. If you had more time, maybe you would have been able to process the full horror of this. But as it was, all you could do was think about what was about to happen to you.

It was your turn.

Your friends were dead, and now, you were going to die. Horribly, probably. Getting axed to death or worse. 

The thing, the creature, the murderer approached you, bloody axe in hand, and you squeezed your eyes shut and began to murmur some prayer you’d learned as a kid and hadn’t said in years. A pitiful thing that you couldn’t even fully remember. But what did it matter, when your life was going to be nothing but a heap of blood and viscera in mere moments? 

“Please make it quick,” you whispered, to the killer, to God, to yourself. Then you went back to your mumbled prayers, hoping it would all be over soon. 

You waited for death.

And waited.

And waited.

And death never came. 

Someone was breathing, hard. It couldn’t have been John–he had no breath left to give. It could’ve been you, but it was lower, harsher, and when you let your eyes slowly open he was standing right in front of you.

Tommy. The killer. With an axe in his hand. Breathing. Staring. 

Maybe he wanted you to watch while you died? 

Maybe he–

He swung the axe suddenly and your heart soared and some half-assed last word pushed itself out through your mouth, but the axe didn’t hit. At least, not you. Instead, it hit the ropes above your head, and you crumbled to the ground like John’s lifeless legs.

Later, you will turn it over in your head. Why didn’t he kill you? Why did he cut you down? 

At the moment, though, nothing went through your head but renewed terror as he grabbed your jelly-like leg and began to drag you away from the garage. Away from John’s mangled body and the blood still dripping from his torso, over rough ground, kicking and yelping like the scared little animal that you were.

A house of death and grime, a house where Linda’s body still lay, somewhere, probably just as faceless as dear Mary Ann’s.

The house would, later, be called home.

–

You’re still on the floor, leg held tightly by the man who killed John without a hint of remorse, when an older woman with glasses looms over you and tuts.

“She’s filthy, Tommy.” A look of horror in her eyes, not because you’ve got blood and brain matter on you, not because this man–Tommy–is covered in blood and she had surely heard all the screaming from your dead friends. But because you’re messing up her kitchen floor with your filth.

Is she going to help him kill you? Thoughts try to land inside but nothing sticks in your brain. The shock is too much. 

But then something seems to click with this strange woman, and she sighs, murmuring, wringing her hands. She looks up at Tommy and he jerks your leg towards her, making one of your muscles cramp. She sighs again, nodding along. “Well. Alright. No need to beg now. If she’s going to stay, she’ll need a bath.”

He drops your leg to the ground. It hits the kitchen floor with a thud but you don’t have the presence of mind to really feel the pain; there’s too much terror coursing through you, unable to properly think about what’s happening at all. 

“Well,” the woman says, hands on her hips. She’s talking to the man, to Tommy, not you. “Help me get her up now. She’s got to get a bath before anything else.” 

Something that might be a protest bubbles out of your dry lips as the man reaches down and scoops you up by the armpits. A thought claws its way up–he’s going to take you into the bathroom and strip you and hurt you and then you’ll be with your friends, dead, some bloodied silent corpse that no one will ever discover. 

So when he begins to haul you away from the kitchen, you struggle, kicking your useless legs and struggling against the rough rope that still keeps your wrists bound. 

“Don’t–”

You don’t get the rest of the words out before your head smacks against the kitchen doorframe, and there’s a dull grey buzzing in your head as you’re slowly dragged up a flight of stairs. 

Thump, thump, your body thumping all the way. You’re aware enough to see the woman following behind, mumbling one thing at Tommy, tutting something else at you. 

The pain in your head fades away as you’re dragged down a wooden hallway, which is, at least, some small relief. It was shock from the sudden pain, then and not a serious injury. 

The bathroom he drags you into wasn’t as dirty as it ought to have been. That’s the strange thought that comes to mind as you’re leaned up against a cold porcelain tub, as his rough hands finally move away from under your armpits.

Yes, you think. The bathroom is all wrong. A bathroom in a house of death should be filthy, grimy. There should be blood caked into the grout that wouldn’t come out even if you scrubbed for years.

Instead, it’s a modest bathroom that reminds you a bit of your grandma’s house. Blinking, you can see a decorative soap sitting on the sink, next to the well-worn pump soap filled with the stuff people actually use. There’s a doily on top of the toilet tank. A bowl of potpourri. 

The only sign that anything is amiss is the bloody killer with a mask covering his face standing over you, breathing. 

Is this where he takes you? Where he forces himself on you, and kills you after? 

“Tommy, you git now–” The woman is in the bathroom, too, hands back on her hips. “Ain’t right for you to be in here with us ladies.” She waves him on and it’s the strangest thing to see him nod, to hear some sort of grunting mumble in response. He leaves the bathroom like a puppy being told to stay out of the kitchen.

You’re left alone with a woman wearing a floral print dress, hair pulled back into a bun, wisps of hair framing her face in an achingly familiar way. She looks like anyone’s grandma, the type of woman you’d see rocking on her porch in the evening, drinking lemonade and watching fireflies.

Instead she’s living in a house of horror and has no apparent problem with it. 

“Well,” is what she says eventually, looking you over like some wayward child come in covered in mud before Sunday dinner. “Best to get you cleaned up before supper.” 

Cleaned up? Supper? Maybe you did hit your head harder than you thought. Because what the hell is she talking about? What the hell is going on? Why aren’t you dead like the rest of them?

Your frantic thoughts and potential concussion don’t matter, though, because all she does is ignore the unanswered questions written all over your face and lean over the tub. A moment later, the sound of rushing water bombards your frazzled nerves and makes you flinch.

A bath. She’s going to run you a bath.

Her arm hooks under your armpits and she hoists you up with surprisingly little effort. Some noise escapes you, but if it was a protest, her suddenly stern expression shuts it up. She sits you down on top of the toilet seat and begins to pull off your dirty jeans.

“Don’t fuss,” she says, not that you have much energy to continue fighting her movements. “I’m not gonna have you in my house in these filthy clothes.” She holds up your loose jeans like they’re something truly awful and chucks them in the trash. 

It’s impossible to take your shirt off with your arms tied, and she hums about it for a while. Finally, she says, low and slow. “I’m gonna take these ropes off you, honey. But if you do anything but sit there nice and pretty, I’ll have Tommy come and break your neck. Okay?”

You can’t do anything but nod.

So your shirt comes next, the swirling floral print looking almost obscene now, with blood on it. Mary Ann’s blood. John’s blood. Your own, probably, from the scrapes you got being dragged around like some ragdoll.

And then it’s your socks and underclothes and really, you ought to fight. But something dull and heavy and numb takes over as she helps you out of your clothes, gentle as anything. Like the way your mom used to give you a bath.

The way she leads you to the tub is familiar too, as is the way she bids you to hold onto her as you step inside it. The water is warm and achingly inviting and you sink down into it. Your body does, anyway. You’re not entirely sure if your mind is actually inside it now, because none of this can be real.

Only it is. Because the woman turns off the tap and hands you a washcloth with a faded embroidered flower and a well-used bar of soap. 

“I’m going to grab you some clothes,” she says, standing in the open doorway. “You just wash up real good. Get all that muck off you.” The muck is your friend’s brain matter, but you don’t say that. “There’s shampoo on the shelf there.” 

She leaves you alone and it’s the pure, unadulterated desire to rid yourself of the blood sticking to your skin that propels you to begin scrubbing.

By the time she returns with a pile of clothes in her hand, the water is a startling mixture of brown and red, all bubbling with soap. Little flecks of brain, the last remnants of Mary Ann’s thoughts and everything she ever was, float with the bubbles. 

You don’t say anything when she helps you out of the tub. You don’t say anything when she sits you back down on the toilet seat and begins to dry you off. It’s only when she starts rubbing at your head that something escapes you–

A hiccup. A whimper. The beginnings of pitiful, whining, childlike tears. 

You expect her to yell at you. Tell you to shut your fucking mouth, like that man probably would have.

Instead, she coos in the back of her throat.

“Oh, sweet girl. Hush now, hush, hush.” She murmurs that plea over and over as she dries you off, and you lean into her touch, gentle, almost familiar, if you can ignore everything else. 

By the time she’s pulling a loose dress with a floral print–from her own wardrobe, you think–over your body, you’ve managed to bring yourself down to the occasional sniffle. She dabs at the last of your tears with the rough towel and hoists you up again.

“I think you ought to take a nap before supper. Or just lie down for a spell, if you can’t fall asleep. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

It does, in fact, not sound nice. It sounds like she means for you to stay here. Or maybe supper is the place where you’re going to die, maybe in some more fucked up way than your friends. Wash you, dry your tears, then tie you to the dinner table and sacrifice you to Satan.

Satan worshippers were real; you knew that much from TV.

But that numbness overtakes you as she leads you, your newly socked feet warm and toasty, out of the bathroom and down a darkened hallway. 

The room you’re shuffled into looks like a guest room. Impersonal, with ironed sheets and doilies on the side table and a generic alarm clock ticking away on top of them. 

The bed is hard and not terribly comfortable, but you let her push you down onto it, let her lift your legs so that you’re curled up on your side.

She leans down and presses a kiss to your forehead.

Would she kiss you, if they were going to kill you later? You didn’t know how these things worked. Or how anything in life worked, apparently, because you never thought a road trip would end with your friends brutally murdered and you laying in some woman’s guest bedroom wearing a dress that smelled faintly of mothballs. 

“When I call for supper,” and her voice is all matter of fact, “you just come right on down.” She takes a step out the door, then stops, looks straight at you. “And honey?”

When she doesn’t continue, you force yourself to make some sort of questioning noise in the back of your dry, horrified throat.

“Don’t do anythin’ stupid.”

–

“Supper’s ready!”

You’re not asleep–how could you be–but the shrill words that come from downstairs startle you anyway. There’s lead in your body as you force yourself to slowly sit upwards. One foot in front of the other–then you think about John’s legs laying in a heap on the floor and the lead turns into helium, tingling and numbing.

Are you going to be laying in a heap on the floor soon? 

A noise in the doorway turns you into a startled animal, even more so when you see what the noise was:

Him. The killer–well, one of them. The one who killed John. Tommy, the older man had said. 

Maybe they sent him up because you were taking too long. Or maybe he was your escort down into hell, where you’d be sacrificed to Lucifer or whatever terrible god these people worshipped. 

“I–I was sleeping.” A lie. “S-Sorry,” and the words stumble out. “It just took me a minute to get up.” Not a lie, at least. 

If this bulky man with an obscured face hears you or cares about your excuse, he doesn’t say anything. He just stands there, breathing, staring. His eyes seem to linger over the dress the woman gave you as you awkwardly walk towards the door, and there’s a few brief awful moments where you’re face to face before he sidesteps and lets you out–

Only for you to stumble over the threshold, nearly flying into the floor. A strong grip lands around your upper arm and you’re suspended, balancing on one shaky leg, taking a moment before you realize that he’s kept you from smashing your face into the wood below.

“Um,” you manage. “Thank you.” Because it is probably a good idea to be polite to a serial killer. And you’re not even sure if your mind is being sarcastic with that particular piece of advice.

Tommy says nothing. Maybe he stares at you for too long, and he might say something. Instead, though, he gestures for you to go down the stairs before letting go of your arm. He stares at his hand for a moment and you don’t think much of it, now. That will come later. 

For now, you take the staircase one step at a time, out of fear, out of necessity–your body aches all over and your hands grip the rickety railing as hard as you can to keep from slipping or tripping or flying and smashing your nose against the ground below.

The dining room is homey, set just off the kitchen. It seems that everyone but you and the axe-wielding murderer behind you are already seated at the table. There’s the older woman, of course. A man you’ve never seen before. And–him. The one who killed Mary Ann. Who hurt Linda. Who ordered you and John to be killed. 

Something hot twists inside your stomach as you hover in the doorway. When you’re finally spotted, the woman smiles, and gestures for you to come inside–but the man who killed and hurt your friends scowls. 

“What in the hell is that dumb bitch still doing here? Tommy, I told you to–”

The woman steps in, hand on her hip. “Charlie Hewitt, you will watch your mouth at the dinner table.” 

To your surprise, he ducks his head–murmers, “Sorry Mama.”

She begins to dole out spoonfuls of steaming food from a pot onto his plate, and so on down the table. “Tommy thought she ought to stay, so she ought to stay.”

The man–Charlie–only shakes his head at this. “Since when does Tommy make decisions?” He wipes the back of his hand against his nose, and the woman bats his arm with the spoon. “She ought to be tied up, at least.”

The woman sighs. Your wrists ache. 

A compromise is made, and your ankle is tied to the chair. Not that it makes your situation any less horrifying–any less difficult to comprehend, as you find yourself seated between the woman (Luda May, she says, finally) and the man who killed Mary Ann and Linda (Charlie, Luda May addressed him as Charlie) and another man who didn’t object to any of it (Monty, Luda May calls him). 

You expect the hulking, breathing Tommy to sit down at the table. There’s almost a curiosity that prickles in you–will he take off the mask to eat? What would he look like, sitting down at this deceptively cozy dinner table?--but to your surprise, he leaves, footfalls heavy as he skulks outside the dining room door and simply stands there and watches. 

The food that night is not well seasoned, not that it matters. You’re eating it only to stay alive. The hastily chewed globs of it sits heavy in your stomach along with the sight of your dead friends, along with the knowledge of Tommy standing outside, watching all of you eat.

“Now, sweetheart,” Luda May begins, interrupting the buzzing of your thoughts. “Why don’t you tell us your name, seeing as you’re fixin’ to stay?”

–

Charlie and Luda May argue that night about letting you stay. About letting you live. They do it right at the dinner table, with you, captive, ankle bound in rope to the table. It’s hard to do anything else but feel the way your scalp tingles, wondering if this will be your last night on Earth. If Charlie will grab a knife from the kitchen and simply stab it through your chest. Or your head. He seemed to like the violence of it all.

“Well,” Luda May offers, pointing at the open doorway where Tommy still stood vigil. “Tommy thinks she’s sweet. Don’t you, Tommy?”

All heads–yours included–swing doors the doorway. 

You almost, stupidly, because what do you have to lose at this point in your short life, ask how  Luda May even knew what he thought. He didn’t talk. But fear bites your tongue for you, and you simply stare with the others at the strange, unkempt man who, hours ago, lopped your friend’s top half from his bottom half with an axe.

Tommy grunts–

Luda May smiles and claps her hands together and Charlie rubs the back of his head with his hand.

“Well,” he says, a drawl. “If Tommy wants to keep her, then he’s responsible for her.” He gives you half a glance and shrugs. “Like taking in a stray dog, is what I say. A stray dog…”

Stray dogs, you think, sometimes get put down.

–

They let you live. A compromise is made, though, after Charlie insists that they can’t trust you not to attack them for a good while. “Wouldn’t let some roaming mutt sleep with your baby, would ya? Same damn thing.”

So you get tied up at first. By the ankle, usually, and you’re at least a bit grateful for that. Even if the skin around your ankle starts to rub raw, and Luda May (“Call me Mama,” she says, and you do not) rubs cream on it after your weekly bath.  Luda May is the one who takes you to the bathroom, to pee or bathe or whatever else you need to do–and you’re at least a bit grateful for that, too. 

The soap always gets in your eyes when she washes your hair, dunking water over your head from a filled up gas station cup; you don’t mind, because when it burns and stings and you start to cry, it’s easy to pretend that you’re crying from the pain, and not your new normal.

What is normal, anyway? Normal is what you become used to; and you do become used to–this. This life. Or whatever it might be called. 

Because after a while, it gets easier. 

You don’t get tied up to the table for breakfast (or lunch or dinner) and Luda May hovers outside the bathroom door and finally lets you pee and bathe all by yourself. Though she still likes to help you wash your hair, humming and drying your hair for you afterwards, and you don’t fuss about it.

Because she’d only get mad–and because, well. Because it feels nice to be cared for, sometimes. Because it’s easier to pretend this isn’t a horror house when she’s humming and talking about how you’ve been so good lately, so helpful, as she pours a dollop of cheap strawberry shampoo into her hand. 

The chores come with your newfound freedom, freedom that doesn’t extend past the threshold of the front or back door. Do the dishes, pick up after yourself, help fold the laundry when Luda May brings it in from the clothesline outside.

They keep you busy. They keep you from pretending that you don’t hear the screams, now and then, of people that they kill. Usually Charlie. Sometimes Tommy. They die, all the same, and what happens to them after that–you don’t want to know. 

Sometimes you think about running. But where would you go? You wouldn’t make it past the front yard, anyway. Charlie would get you. Kill you, surely, after telling Luda May that he was right all along.

Or–maybe Tommy would grab you first. 

Tommy’s always there, it seems. At the edge of your vision. Watching from the doorway at meals, only dipping in to grab his own plate and wolf it down once you leave. The thought came to you once, when he’d shook his head at Charlie encouraging him to come on in and grab his plate–

Maybe he’s shy.

The thought hit you like a shotgun to the face. Shy–shy? The hulking man who killed your friends? Who could break you like a branch, if he wanted. Who might still kill you, if you step out of line. Who–

Who is the only reason Charlie Hewitt didn’t murder you right then and there in the kitchen.

And who is the only one in the house who hasn’t threatened you at least once. 

(Even Luda May has her moments, when you aren’t being a good girl. She threatened to box your ears once, when she caught you swearing. At least she didn’t threaten to cut out your tongue like Charlie, or say you ought to be taken over someone’s knee like Monty. Though at least a spanking wouldn’t have resulted in the loss of a body part.)

But not Tommy. (He cut Johnny in half–but not you. Not you.)

So.

So this morning, when you’re sitting alone at the table eating a late breakfast because Luda May let you sleep in, and you see Tommy standing in that doorway again, his own plate cold and untouched on the table, you clear your throat. 

He doesn’t stir.

You clear it again.

“Thomas?” You ask, then, feeling stupidly formal, correct yourself. “Tommy?”

There’s a loud shifting sound. The thud and tread of his shoes on the floor. And there he is, standing in the doorway, awkwardly staring to the side like there’s something particularly fascinating there that only he can see.

What are you doing? The question repeats itself in your buzzing brain, but, fuck if you know. Being in this house has made you… something. Crazy. Stir-crazy. Itching to do something, anything, to get yourself out of this tension-filled rut you’re in. Maybe being nice to the sort-of-shy quiet (killer, a small voice pipes in, he’s a killer) will change things. 

Everyone needs kindness, after all. 

“Do you um,” you start, digging up the courage like it’s stuck in the mud. “Do you want to eat breakfast with me?”

There’s a noise from behind his mask. A sort of breathy thing–like surprise. 

He hesitates. Then he stalks forward and leans down, ready to wolf his food in a minute like you’ve caught him doing before, being a sneak in the doorway yourself. But you swallow–

“I mean, do you want to sit down with me?” 

He pauses. Another sound, this time, like wariness.

“If–if you want–I mean, you don’t have to,” you correct, suddenly feeling stupid and anxious rolled into one. What were you even thinking? That you owed it to him, maybe, because he did save you. You’re alive, because he wanted you to be–but why?

And then he moves. Stalks forward, like he’s unused to the idea of simply taking a seat, yanks the chair so hard that you flinch a little. Then he’s sitting, legs parted too wide, with a plate in front of him. 

He stares at it. Then looks at you–and it’s maybe the first time you’ve looked eye to eye in a while. He blinks and looks away first, and again, that word comes to you. Almost stupidly, but still: Shy. 

So you look away, now, and it’s only then that he parts his mask and scarfs down the pancakes. You don’t look–he doesn’t want you to look, and neither do you–but you can hear the sound of it. 

It’s a bit startling, really, the sound of his eating; the weight of him so close, and not hovering in the corner of your life. 

When he’s done, he takes his plate to the sink, and there’s something so normal about it that you almost laugh. 

He goes back to the doorway and you get another idea. A silly, weird, stupid idea. But it’s something different. Something to shake up the tight, tension-filled world you live in.

“Tommy?”

He stops.

“You can help me do the dishes, if you want.”

He turns. Questioning. When you get the nerve to look into his eyes it makes you feel a bit dizzy, how human they are. Because he is a person, after all. Even in this house. 

You lick your lips, and your voice is too dry, but you ask anyways:

“I’ll wash… you dry?”

There is a long awkward moment in which you think you’ve finally lost your damn mind. And then, slowly, Tommy moves to stand to the side of the kitchen sink, still filled with breakfast dishes.

And after you wash them up, with the same hands that once chopped your friend in two gory pieces, Tommy Hewitt carefully dries off Luda May’s breakfast china. 

–

The next morning, you wake up to find flowers at the threshold of your bedroom door. Not particularly pretty ones. Wild ones, the kind you find on the side of the road, the kind that will tickle your palm while you walk on hot summer days with friends, eager to find trouble or fun or something in between.

They’ve been pulled up right from the root, dirt clumps, beetles and all. And there they sit, adding a splash of white and purple to the dull wooden floor. All wild and dirty, with a touch of rot underneath. 

Just like this house.

Still. Still–something in you flutters at the sight.

There’s only one person who could have left them. As if on cue, you hear his footfalls, edging down the hall. Was he watching while you opened the door? Maybe. And maybe that’s partly why you smile, just a little, and reach down to scoop them up. 

In the kitchen, Luda May is frying up bacon–though it has a funny smell, this week, and your brain takes a moment to connect the smell to the screams you heard a few days ago before shutting off that train of thought–and only turns away from the hot stove when you clear your throat.

You hold out the clump of flowers, like a kid presenting dandelions at lunchtime. “Um. I found these–on the floor.”

She smiles a crooked smile, but it’s not a mean one. “I think someone’s got a shine on you.” Something seems to cross her mind, a thought that wants to stick, and she shakes her head. You don’t dare ask what she was thinking.

Instead, you sheepishly ask if you can borrow a cup to keep the flowers in. To make your room brighter. (To make your life brighter, too, but you don’t say that part out loud. Though maybe with the expression on her face, you don’t need to.)

“So they can live a while longer,” you add, as if you need to explain. 

“Of course, honey.”

It makes her smile, and she stands on her tiptoes to retrieve a dusty cup from the back of the cupboard. The kind she won’t miss when it inevitably stays upstairs. She rubs off some of the grime with the back of her shirt and hands it to you.

She really is kind to you. All things considered. Washes you up and gives you extra helpings of vegetables if you don’t eat much meat and tells you that you look nice in her dresses, though you probably don’t. 

“Thanks, Mama,” you say, quick, easy as she hands you the cup; the words come without thinking, as you turn away to head back upstairs with your flowers and dusty cup.

“Oh,” is the sound she makes, and you can’t see the hand that goes to her chest with your back turned, but you imagine it all the same.

As you walk up the stairs, you realize–and don’t, at the same time–you can’t ever go back now. Not all the way. Even if someone finds you and a sheriff-at-arms kicks down the door to rescue you, you can’t ever go back. Not with Tommy’s flowers in your hand and Mama on your lips and the way you’re actually looking forward to supper tonight. 

After filling the cup with water from the bathroom, you drop the flowers in–not before shaking them over the sill so the bugs fall out, landing on your windowsill and immediately crawling away to find a safe spot.

You wouldn’t want to drown them, after all. 

–

Thomas Hewitt watches you while you sleep. You know this. You don’t know if he knows you know this, but you’ve woken up more than once to sense him standing in your bedroom. There’s a certain presence about him, one you can never miss. 

That presence used to be something you’d feel in the corner of this new bizarro world, while you did dishes or tidied or read one of the battered romance books Mama let you borrow and shut your ears to whatever you heard outside. 

Something you could almost-but-not-quite ignore. 

But not anymore. Not when he’s taken to finishing up the dishes with you, or sitting in the same room with you and Mama while you work on embroidery or drink tea and watch her stories. 

And now–

When you sleep–well, when you wake in the middle of the night–that flicker of a shadow in the corner is something far more looming. More heavy. 

Once, you carefully peeked, letting just the slits of your eyes flutter open, and saw him. Or the outline of him, his shadows, what was visible from the bit of moonlight that made its way through your bedroom curtains. 

Tonight, you brave it again. Letting your eyes flutter just enough to look. And there he is, standing over you, watching. You can just make out his fists clenching and unclenching, wavering, like he wants to reach out–for what?--but doesn’t. 

You squeeze your eyes shut again and by the time you fall back asleep, you’re alone again.

–

The first time Tommy touches you again–after that first day, when he dragged you into the house–you flinch. Not because he’s being rough or hurting you, exactly. But because your body remembers the feel of his hands. Remembers the way you were dragged, remembers the way you thought, body and soul, that he was going to kill you.

But now?

“Sorry,” you mumble, drawing yourself inward in apology. Someone you used to be screams inside you, a whiny, tiny noise like a tea kettle: You’re apologizing to a fucking murderer?! And you tell her to shut her mouth, because the person you are now has to survive, and surviving means that this has to be normal.

It has to be normal, it has to be right. 

So when Tommy’s rough, large hands reach back up, you will your body to stand still. Will your face to remain neutral. Will yourself to think of this as okay.

All he does is brush at your cheek, at your hair. It’s a strange sensation. Rough and soft–rough in the texture of his callused fingers, used to killing animals and much more besides, and soft in the way he seems like he’s afraid you’ll break you.

He could break you. But he didn’t. And he doesn’t. And that’s something you can hold onto. 

His other hand reaches up, and soon enough he’s cupping both your cheeks, staring straight down at you, his mask obscuring the bottom half of his face. It’s rough-hewn, like him. Maybe he made it himself. (He has other masks, worse masks–you know this. He doesn’t wear them around you, but you’ve seen them all the same.)

That tea-kettle of a voice says: Maybe he’ll carve your face off and make it into a mask, you dumb bitch. You push her down, down, down where she belongs, just as Tommy pulls you against his body.

He’s warm. There’s musk about him. Sweat and butchering and oil. He holds you firm; not to where it hurts, not like when he dragged you into the house over all the bumps and grooves and you hit your head and went fuzzy for a while. 

But firm. He won’t be letting you go, and maybe–maybe that’s okay. 

It must be normal. It must be right. 

If it wasn’t, you might lose your fucking mind.

–

Thomas Hewitt doesn’t watch you sleep anymore. Now, he gets into bed with you. And you let him. Not every night. But enough that it becomes enveloped into your slowly broadening new-normal. Enough that you go from trembling all night from a sick feeling in your stomach to almost looking forward to the warmth, the tightness, the way it shocks your system into forgetting the world before. 

Because when Tommy’s in your bed, you can pretend. Pretend that you’re really part of this family and weren’t brought here by an awful, blood set of circumstances. And that makes it nicer, makes the world blur around the edges.

Is it so bad to want to feel good?

He holds you like a teddy bear, all cradled and close against him. If you needed to get up in the middle of the night, you couldn’t; so far, at least, you haven’t had to figure out the logistics. All you know is that by the time you wake up in the morning, he’s gone.

His chores start earlier than yours, after all

–

Mama notices that the two of you are getting closer. Of course she does. She sees just about everything that goes on under this roof; at least, that’s what she says, hands on her hips, confronting you in the kitchen when the two of you actually walk in together for breakfast.

She tsks at you. She hums at Tommy. A word or two starts to come out, get stuck, and she sucks them back down her throat. 

“You two mind yourselves,” she says, finally. 

Charlie notices, too. Of course he does. But he doesn’t swallow down whatever his mind thought about saying. Instead, he chuckles, folds over the newspaper you are sure he doesn’t actually read every morning.

“Took a real shine to her, didn’t ya Tommy?”

Tommy doesn’t answer. So Charlie prods on. 

“Not saying I blame ya. She’s a pretty little thing, ain’t she? You got to second base yet, Tommy?” He shakes the newspaper. “Better watch out. Pretty sluts like that from the city…” He clucks his tongue, a sticky sound. “Don’t know where she’s been.”

It’s enough to make your cheeks burn hot as humiliation coils in your stomach–and in an instant Tommy grabs your arm and yanks you right out of the kitchen, pulling you down the hall into the living room and its dull, dusty draperies.

“Aw c’mon, I was just fucking around!” Charlie says from behind you, voice softened as you’re being dragged further from the kitchen.

And then, Mama. “Charlie Hewitt, you watch your mouth.”

Tommy stops with enough sudden force that you almost topple over, but he steadies you. When you look up, his eyes look wider, wilder. His breath comes out more jagged. Not because he’s exerted himself, you realize, but because he’s upset.

About what Charlie said?

Yes. About what Charlie said. Because he doesn’t like it anymore than you do. Because he… likes you? Wants you? It’s hard to know, when there aren’t words between you.

Sometimes you don’t need words.

“I don’t like it when he says things like that,” you finally say to him. Soft, quiet. The first time you’ve ever had the courage to say anything about your treatment here. “Or-or when he calls me a bitch or slut,” you add, feeling stupid and brave. 

Tommy nods. Then his rough hands, clean at least because he hasn’t left the house yet, cup your cheeks and stroke downward. He hums–or tries to, it comes across more guttural, less of a sweet sound and something earthier–and it’s you, this time, who pulls closer to him.

You may be fucked in the head. But at least you’re not alone in the house, anymore. 

–

“I’ve still gotta finish the mending,” you say lightly as Tommy lifts you up as easily as a sack of potatoes and sets you down on a dusty work bench in the barn. “But Mama said it’s okay if I stay out here for a little bit.”

It’s nice to be with Tommy. Especially in the mornings, when the air is cooler and Charlie tends to leave the house. Not that he says anything too awful lately–he’s not nicer, exactly, but you haven’t been called a bitch, slut, or anything close to that in ages. Not since Tommy made it clear that he doesn’t like it.

Plus, when you’re alone, it feels nicer. Without the weight of other people on him, Tommy feels different. Lighter, you’ve decided. Like he’s capable of being more than this house and this family. 

Sometimes you watch while he works. Butchering dead hogs on the table, rending the skin from the flesh, processing the meat into slabs or tossing it into containers to be ground up later. It’s messy work. It’s why Tommy always smells, vaguely, of blood, of butchering, of death.

Sometimes what he butchers are human beings. Sometimes they are still alive. Sometimes they are not dead corpses in the barn but are living, wriggling people hung up in the garage like you and John all those months ago. But none of them are dragged into the house and made part of the family. They all die.

You don’t watch–you’re not allowed, and you wouldn’t want to, even if you were–but you hear it. Even with cotton stuck in your ears, upstairs in your bedroom, a pillow over your head. You hear it. 

The nights when Tommy kills people, he holds you tighter. You wish you had the guts to ask why–

Why does he kill them? Why didn’t he kill you? How can he hack someone else into pieces and come upstairs in the evening and act the same around you–caress your cheek and hold you at night and let you, slowly, tentatively, touch his face above the mask.

And how do you bear it? Why don’t you act differently towards him, knowing he’s just killed and butchered and Charlie doesn’t care and Mama cares, maybe, but won’t say much about it. Why do you still want to hold him, despite the blood underneath his fingernails?

But you push all of that down into your stomach with the person you used to be. 

Because “hows” and “whys” are luxuries that you can’t afford anymore. It’s best not to think on them for longer than a moment in the night. 

–

Mama could use some fresh flowers for the vase on the dining room table, and she left some sheets on the clothesline in the back that will be too heavy for her. It’d really help her out if you brought them in without asking. Heaven knows the men in this house won’t do it.

It’s taken time–there’s a new calendar tacked up on the wall–but you’re finally allowed to go outside. Not into town or even to the neighbors or even to the end of the street, heavens no. But in the backyard and to the barn. The backyard is mostly you helping Mama with the clothes, and the barn is mostly you going to visit Tommy, but still–you take what freedom you’re given.

Today, you’re taking your sweet time getting to the backyard. Taking the long way, a way that probably skirts the edge of where you’re allowed to be–but unless someone tells you otherwise, you’ll stick to sneaking out the side door of the garage and walking around the front of the house. There’s sometimes little patches of pink wildflowers near the front, and they look the nicest on the table.

Only this time when you step out the side door and walk down the three rickety stairs into the garage, you are not alone.

A young man is hanging from the ceiling, his arms bound in rope–you’ve known that same rope, the tightness of it, the burn–that keeps him on his tip-toes. Based on the groans coming from his mouth, he’s been hanging up there a while. His muscles are probably screaming at him.

Your eyes lock together and his go from squeezed and pained to wide and–afraid?

“Don’t hurt me,” he says. “P-Please. I just want to go home. Please!”

“Don’t… hurt you?” The first words you’ve spoken to someone outside the family in more than a  year. You blink at this stranger, tied up, and now that you step closer you can see he’s got bruising. And he’s bleeding. A gash on his cheek, some sort of wound on his stomach that’s clotting blood on his polo shirt.

“Um,” you say, feeling small, voice small to match. “I won’t hurt you. I don’t–I haven’t hurt…anyone.” It sounds stupid. But he seems to believe you, because his eyes go from widened in fear to something else.

Something you recognize that you once must have had, before. Hope.

“You’re not one of them? Then untie me–quick, before they see!”

Untie him?

The thought has never crossed your mind before and honestly, honest to God, it didn’t cross your mind even when you stepped down those stairs and saw him. Because it would only cause trouble, and no one in that house would be happy about it if you did. You were a good girl, a good daughter, who did her chores and ignored the screams and listened to what you were told.

So. So you fiddle with the sleeve of your dress, all nicely hemmed in now that you were allowed to use the sewing machine, and refuse to look at his man’s face anymore. 

“I”m not even supposed to be in the garage,” you murmur, though it’s probably a half-truth. “So I can’t…” Can’t untie you. Can’t help you. Can’t spare you from a butchering. 

Your name is suddenly called from inside the house–by Charlie. Loud. Then louder.

“Sorry,” you finish, and you put a spring in your step when your name is yelled out a third time. You barely hear what he says, though you can tell it ends in “fuck you.” Not that you blame him for the expression.

When you reach the kitchen, only Tommy and Charlie are waiting for you. They're both staring with something different in your eyes that makes your stomach feel all tight and gummy.

 "You didn't let the fucker go, didja?” Charlie asks.

You shake your head at once. “No, sir.”  It's not often you call him sir, and he doesn't really bother you about it anymore outside of teasing, but the situation feels serious enough to warrant it. You lower your gaze and try to look as respectful and meek and small as possible. It's not even really pretending anymore.

He tsks, spits something into a cup. “Well, good. Gonna have Tommy here take care of him. Ain’t ya, Tommy?”

Tommy breaths out something hard, and you do look up at him this time. You bite back whatever it was that some part of you, some long forgotten smashed down girl, wanted to say: Why do you have to kill him at all?

But that part of you doesn't surface. She's not strong enough. You're the strong one, the one who survived. The one who's adapted and come to make a life here. And if that life comes with the caveat that sometimes the man you snuggle with at night cuts people in half, well. That's life, isn’t it?

“Bet that guy thought you were a looker,” Charlie muses, cutting through your thoughts. “Did he flirt with you?”

Your brain itches to leave but you know better. So you shake your head. “No, sir.” The truth is as sweet as honey. Or so you hope. “He just asked me to untie him. So I said I couldn’t, and came back in.”

Charlie hums, and it’s not as sweet as honey. “Bet he thought about it, even if he didn’t say nothin. Don’t you think so, Tommy? He probably wants to make a move on your girl.” There’s a sadistic chuckle in his voice, all sticky tar; something you’ll never understand.

It’s Tommy that worries you more, now, though. His breath gets harder, and he suddenly moves too quickly. Stomping right past you and outside and down those three steps so hard that you think they might break.

Even from a distance,  the sound of something metallic and sharp being grabbed from the garage wall catches your ear. You know what’s coming. Charlie does too–he laughs. But not you. It’s not funny, will never be funny, to hear people dying. 

At the first scream, the first sound of metal hitting flesh, you dart further into the house, upstairs and away from it all. You find yourself in the bathroom where Mama is busy putting the clean towels away and you offer to help, to keep yourself distracted.

“Ain’t you a sweetheart,” she says, and gives you a kiss on the cheek.

Downstairs, a man is taking forever to die. 

-

Tommy comes to you that night, smelling of blood and something you can’t place. Something sharper and heavier than usual. He crawls into bed but this time he does not slot himself against your back and hold you close.

No.

Instead, he grips your shoulders, and abruptly rolls you from your side to your back.

Oh. Oh, now, you think–is it now that this happens? After he's killed someone and some sort of jealous fit? Is that what it took to push this (whatever ‘this’ could be called) from cuddles and touching to something more? It’s a detached curiosity that you force youself into; to keep yourself from agonizing over it. 

He smells of sweat and hard labor. Of butchering. Of the dead man.

You smell of cheap shampoo and musty nightgowns and Mama’s cigarette smoke from rocking together on the back porch before bed. 

Tommy leans down and presses his face against yours, through the mask. Gentle and not gentle all at once. A bit of flesh and mostly fabric meet your chapped liips.

A kiss. A kiss that makes your guts feel all hot and strange, like they want more and also want to unzip your stomach and roll on the floor to get away from it all.

But you won’t let them feel that way for long. You can’t feel that way for long, if you want to live–if you want to stay intact. 

So you lean forward and move your lips against the mask, pushing out something that might be a pleasant sound, vibrating against the fabric. It forces pleasantness inside you. If you think it, it becomes real. Doesn’t it? 

“Tommy,” you murmur, in the night, in the dark, as he begins pulling at your nightgown with his butchering hands.

Tommy, who saved you all that time ago. Who decided you were worth keeping alive and worth protecting and worth–worth whatever this has become. 

Tommy, who heaves you up on the work bench in the barn as you laugh and ask him to show you how some of the tools work, when they’re being used on pigs and not people. Tommy, who brushes your cheeks when you can’t take it anymore and go to bed crying. 

Tommy, who is kissing you and whose hardness is pressing against your thighs. Tommy, who is making you feel good, making some spark light in you.

It’s normal to feel this way. For warmth to spread from your mouth to your gut, burning out the words of that someone-you-once-were. For you to move your hands against him, wondering what you might find underneath his clothes in the end. Wondering if he’ll take off the mask or keep it on and you’ll never kiss more than cloth.

Robert Eggers tells us that the themes of sex and death are at the core of his story, it’s a “demon lover story”, and it’s Count Orlok and Ellen psychosexual connection that makes his adaptation different from the rest.

Ellen is our female gothic protagonist, and, like similar characters of the genre, she’s a persecuted heroine fleeing some a villainous outside force, personified by Count Orlok, the archetypal Death. Metaphorically, she’s a young woman haunted by her own mortality, by Death itself. She also has a sense of Doom looming over her, the heavy hand of Fate; can we outrun our destiny? “Providence!” Herr Knock screams throughout the film; as in a supernatural force, commonly God, guiding humanity destiny.

Ellen is no typical young woman, though. As she tells Von Franz, she had occult powers since childhood, being able to perceive glimpses of the future and suffering premonitions (knowing the contents of her Christmas gifts and when her mother would die). Her father called her “his little changeling girl”, as in the European folklore of human children kidnapped by supernatural creatures (fairies, demons, etc.) and a substitute being left in their place. Herr Knock also compares Ellen with a “sylph”, when he informs Thomas he’s to travel to Transylvania. “Sylphs” are air spirits from 16th century Germanic folklore and alchemy, a sort of nymph connected to air element in hermetic literature; throughout the centuries they have been culturally associated with fairies, too. We have two characters in the story connecting Ellen with a fairy-like creature. Interestingly enough we, the audience, see her floating in the opening scene.

“You are not for the living. You are not for human kind”, Orlok tells her, and calls her “enchantress”. Von Franz also said Ellen could have been a priestess of Isis had she been born in pagan times. Isis is one of the major Egyptian deities, considered the goddess of magic and healing. She was also connected with the Dead and funeral rites, since she was the sister-wife of Osiris, ruler of the Underworld. Pagan priestesses also entered trancelike states as Ellen “hysterical seizures” or “epilepsies” when communicating with the spiritual world, which is what Von Franz, the occult and alchemist student, recognizes in her. Ellen is a supernatural force, too.

Eggers Orlok was a sorcerer in life, a practitioner of Black Magic. He was one of the Solomonari, wizards from Romanian folklore, believed to be students of the Devil, who learned to ride dragons, and control beasts and the weather. In Eastern European tradition, the Solomonari were believed to be recruited among common folk and disguise themselves as beggars, Orlok is a Romanian nobleman who sought to achieve immortality, to conquer Death. As the abbess tells Thomas, the Devil preserved Orlok’s soul that his corpse may walk again in blasphemy, as a vampire feeding off the blood of the living and spreading plague.

However: who was it who awoke Orlok in “Nosferatu”? The Devil or Ellen?

At the prologue, we see Ellen crying and begging for companionship. She prays for a guardian angel, a spirit of comfort, a spirit of any celestial sphere, anything, to hear her call and come to her. She’s summoning some occult force and inviting it into her life. Orlok answers her call. And why is she doing this? She feels lonely, isolated and misunderstood by those around her. As she tells Von Franz, she’s no longer her father’s “little girl” and he recoils from her touch, because she’s no longer a child. As she grows older and enters womanhood, she starts to feel ostracized and put aside by 19th century society who has rigid gender expectations of her.

According to Orlok, it was Ellen who awoke him: “O’er centuries, a loathsome beast I lay within the darkest pit… ‘til you did wake me, enchantress, and stirred me from my grave. You are my affliction.” Which Ellen later confirms to Thomas: “I have brought this evil upon us” because she sought companionship and tenderness. This is a belief Von Franz also shares: it’s Ellen who “wills it”, and she’s the one who unleashed this plague upon the world.

This is very fitting with the Gothic female novel, where the supernatural connects with female societal status of this time period, generally women’s discontent with patriarchal society, difficult and unsatisfying maternal position (in “Nosferatu” we see this with Anne’s character, where she equals being pregnant with being drained of her life force) and their role within society (fear of entrapment in the domestic sphere, their bodies, marriage, childbirth, etc.).

Eggers’ Orlok is a combination of several Romanian folklore creatures, associated with vampirism: strigoi, moroi (these two are the “classic” vampires) and zburător (a ghost-like creature, usually handsome, and only visible to young women, attacks at night, usually newly-wed ladies and does “indecent” things with them). The influence of this legend in Ellen and Orlok story is evident.

Ellen tries to summon a spiritual companion in her teenage years, most likely when she reached puberty and her sexuality was starting to awake. A demon who’s a personification of appetite, devourance, sex and death is the one who answers her calling. They end up in a sexual spiritual connection, as Ellen experiences her sexual awakening with him, as shown in the prologue and later confirmed how Orlok took her as his lover. She also reveals to Thomas it was “sweet” and she “had never known such bliss” at first, until it turned into torture (seizures and nightmares), when her father found her laying unclothed and called her a sinner and it’s implied she might have been institutionalized, as she tells Von Franz. This episode might be a metaphor for masturbation and the historical shame associated with it. Hence her connection with Orlok being her “melancholy” (depression) and her “shame”, symbolic for the sexual urges 19th century society forced women to repress.

Count Orlok is the archetypal Death; which culminates with the “Death and the Maiden” motif at the end. This was a very popular Art History archetype around the so-called “Plague years” (14th to 16th century) in Europe, and it’s often connected with other motifs like “Danse Macabre” and “Memento Mori”. It has several meanings depending on the author intent, usually a reminder of our mortality, but also a meditation on sex and death, as in the French “la petite mort” (“little death”), the post-orgasm sensation, sexual release potentially causing temporary loss of consciousness (fainting) or dizziness. In the Medieval Ages, physicians believed orgasms could lead to death because they drained the “life force” from the body. This was when the term “petite mort” was created, and this belief persisted into the Renaissance and beyond. In “Nosferatu” this probably translates in the sexual pleasure that Orlok imprints on his victims as he drains their life force.

Ellen’s “hysterical seizures” miraculously stop once she meets and marries Thomas Hutter, our tragic romantic hero. This can also be a nod to Gothic Bildungsroman (“coming of age”) genre; where the female protagonists grow from adolescence to adulthood in the face of the impossibility of the supernatural, and come to the conclusion there’s a rational explanation. In Ellen’s case, it’s medical, as she’s diagnosed as a melancholic somnambulist hysteric (in another words, a depressive hyper-sexual sleepwalker).

At the beginning of the story, Ellen and Thomas are newly-weds fresh out of their honeymoon, which means sex (historically necessary to consummate marriages). With Thomas, Ellen is “free of her shame”, as she says so herself. Because, her sexuality is safely contained within marriage, as it’s socially acceptable. But Thomas dismisses her concerns about his well-being, and doesn’t believe her until he experiences the supernatural first-hand, having an homoerotic encounter with Orlok himself, which also causes him great shame. This is probably a Easter egg for Bram Stoker possible closet homosexuality and “Dracula” being a metaphor for that.

Thomas’ main concern, throughout the story, is to fit into the patriarchal ideal of his genre, as a provider for his wife, and he aspires to be like his long-time friend, Friedrich Harding, the “perfect patriarch” with the perfect religious and dutiful wife, Anna, and their precious children. The Hardings are the perfect Victorian family; they are everything society expects them to be. Friedrich even chastises Ellen for her nature, and it’s clear he resents her for what she represents: “otherness” and “deviance” to societal norms.

However, soon enough, Ellen’s seizures return, symbolizing Thomas cannot sexually satisfy her. She’s “too ardent” as Harding calls her. “More! More!” She begs Thomas when they have sex to scorn Orlok. Not only her sexuality is too strong, but Thomas also shares with Friedrich his desire to wait to have children with Ellen because he wants to gain financial stability first. This in a time period when contraceptives weren’t widely spread, meaning abstinence.

Symbolically, Ellen’s seizures can also be connected with her fear of childbirth. Her “epilepsies” return while she’s staying in the Harding household, where they are children and Anna is pregnant. Children is what is expected of Ellen next, after all. But it’s sexual pleasure that Ellen seeks, and this causes her great shame and torment, because 19th century women weren’t suppose to known “such things”. “Sin! Sin! Sin!” as Ellen’s father screamed at her when he found her naked.

Fear of entrapment represented as Ellen tries to rip off her corset and “free herself”: this happens during one of her Orlok induced seizures.

As Robert Eggers tells us, Orlok both disgusts and attracts Ellen, she loves and hates him at the same time. He’s repulsive, rotten, animalistic and lustful, both literally and metaphorically. His character design is meant to invoke contradictory feelings in the audience: overall he’s foul and monstrous, but he appears almost handsome in some shots. This is intentional. Not only he’s a personification of Death, but of Ellen’s repressed sexuality by 19th century society. He represents the monstrous and dangerous female sexuality the Victorian era sought to contain. He’s the transgression and taboo theme in this Gothic story, as well: necrophilia. Which is probably Eggers “gotcha” moment to “vampire lovers” everywhere, as he forces his audience to confront their own bias.

Ellen herself is a medicalized character, as we see her being institutionalized, drugged, bound to her bed, forced to wear a corset to bed, and used as a scientific experiment by physicians. She’s not in control of her own body, and has little agency over it, overall. We see her being contained, literally and metaphorically, too. This is probably meant to symbolize women as a whole in 19th century Western European societies. The “disability of being female” is one major theme in Gothic female novels, after all.

And if Ellen unleashed Orlok unto the world and he’s connected with her what does this mean for this story? The obvious interpretation of the ending it’s Ellen sacrificing herself to save Wisburg from Nosferatu’s curse, like every other adaptation. But this appears to be somewhat disconnected from the overall themes of this particular retelling. Here, it’s Ellen who unleashed the curse, and only her can put an end to it.

We see Ellen summoning Orlok in two occasions: at the beginning and at the end of this tale. At first, she did it unconsciously, she dabbled with the occult and wasn’t aware of what she was inviting into her life. However, does this indicate Ellen has some degree of control over him? Orlok himself says she’s “his affliction”, and they are bound to one another. She’s not only a seer, she’s compared with a priestess of a Goddess associated with funeral rites and with the ability of resurrection and looking after the Dead (Isis). We can almost interpret her as a necromancer.

Here, we can have a different interpretation of Orlok unleashing a plague upon the society who ostracizes Ellen for her nature. Symbolically, he’s her reckoning, her vengeance upon society norms and expectations of gender. He’s the “plague carrier” and brings a “blood plague” transmitted by rats (symbolic of the Black Plague; the medieval ages terrorizing the modern world of science and rationality) upon Wisburg, and the “good Christians” who contain and shame “Pagan” Ellen.

Orlok’s most notorious victims are the Hardings, the perfect patriarchal Christian family model Ellen can never fit into; the patriarch Friedrich, the pregnant Anna and the two children. This also fits the Gothic female genre of the supernatural menace as a metaphor for women’s status in 19th century society. Ellen doesn’t want to be married to a patriarch like Friedrich, she doesn’t express any desire to become pregnant nor have children of her own. Consequently, we see Orlok killing all of these archetypes in the narrative.

Interestingly enough he spares Thomas and saves him for last when he should be his first victim once he arrives at Wisburg, because he’s the husband. However, Thomas is a character Ellen loves and cherishes, as he somewhat accepts her nature and represents her chance at a “normal life”. He’s also determined to save her from Death/Orlok, but is unable to. Symbolically, Ellen chooses death over conforming to gender norms and expectations.

However, we can’t forget Ellen’s supernatural nature, nor her connection with Orlok. She weds Death at the end, she’s no longer terrified of him, and she fulfills their covenant, and her dream premonition of marrying Death: “standing before me, all in black… was… Death. But I was so happy, so very happy. We exchanged vows, we embraced, and when we turned round, everyone was dead. Father… and… everyone. The stench of their bodies was horrible. And - But I never been so happy as that moment… as I held hands with Death.”

A “covenant” is a pact, both a religious and a occultist practice. This is a “blood covenant”, as their flesh becomes one and he drinks from her. “Blood is the life” is a quotation from the Bible, where “blood covenants” are also mentioned, because a “blood covenant” has the power to either destroy or redeem. For instance, Christ’s sacrifice redeemed humanity according to Christians. “Redemption” as Von Franz says, because only Ellen, like Christ, can redeem the habitants of Wisburg. He uses the expression “with Jove’s holy light” before dawn redemption will come to them: “Jove” is Jupiter, the “King of the skies”, and its energy neutralizes Saturn’s, connected with “melancholy” (depression).

However, that’s not what’s happening here, because Orlok is a servant of the Devil, and a literally un-dead “warlock”. So, what is Ellen pledging herself to here, exactly? Her covenant with Orlok has nothing to do with God or Jupiter, for these are forces of good, when Orlok is a force of evil and darkness.

Ellen also fulfills her role as “priestess of Isis” at the end, as she guides the un-dead Orlok to his physical death; like Isis, she resurrected him, and is now taking him into the Underworld with her. Because, like Orlok also told her, she’s “not for the living”, that’s her fate, the destiny she accepts at the end; she’s meant for Death, as Isis for Osiris.

“Our covenant is fulfilled. Your oath re-pledged.” Orlok tells her. But what was Ellen’s oath? We have to look into the prologue scene “You shall be one with me ever-eternally. Do you swear it?” And in the ending “As our spirits are one, so shall be our flesh. You are mine.” They fulfill their pact both in the physical and the spiritual worlds, and both make the ultimate blood sacrifice, by physically dying for “self-renunciation” is essential for blood covenants.

And a deity is always summoned to bless such a pact… but who was blessing this one? Ellen and Orlok indeed, died in the physical world, but are joined in the spiritual world forever, as decreed by their covenant, so where did their spirits go?