The gypsy smiled on her lips as he thought of her chewing wild flowers as she worked. Crazy mad woman. But, ahh, all woman. Her teeth gnashed upon his lips, tore the flesh as she screeched. How ripe and milky were her breasts! How slim her waist, and those hips ... wide, full, thick hips! They were the center of a woman, of his woman. His hands tangled in her oiled crazy hair, pulling it harshly, hurting her with his love. He shot his tongue down deep into her throat, strangling her, dipping hard, again and again against the smooth taut flesh. Finally, he came up for air, holding her tightly by the arm and hair. Her mouth was half open and her breath wet and fragrant. The oil lamps shone against the patina of sweat on her thin face. Her cheekbones were almost pointed on either side of her nose. The gray eyes softened a little as she stared at him, her face breaking into a smile as her wet lips spread and opened. He thought of her other lips. They too could smile. He moved his face towards her again, to take those delicious lips under his own.
CHAPTER ONE
The iridescent party swirled around Jake Conrad's eyes, its rainbow vapors distilled by a sudden high-pitched laugh. All the beautiful people were there, dressed in ribbons and semi-nude. All the people who looked down from their high Manhattan towers or smiled smugly from the doorways of ancient brownstones. At the very core of this small self-indulgent universe was Phaedra. Phaedra, the highest paid model in New York. Jake lit a cigarette and watched the beautiful face laugh, with its surrounding halo of black and silver-striped hair, the full bottom lip spread in amusement. His finger gripped the cigarette too tightly and it broke. He flung it to the floor in disgust. He had been after her a long time and tonight ... tonight ... tonight on the eve of her twenty-first birthday, he would have her. There was no girl that Jake Conrad couldn't have. His money and fame were like a great red carpet unrolling and unrolling. He lit another cigarette, calming his anger. She had evaded him carefully, had side-stepped the sweet traps; but tonight, filled with the white wine, with polished compliments, she would be easy. The music suddenly changed ... a sudden infusion of hard rock. The beautiful people began to shake in unison to the musical earthquake, torsos and trim buttocks vibrating with an epileptic rhythm. Phaedra danced, her long mane of black hair with its outrageous silver stiletto stripes flying around her carved white face. Her cheekbones were hollow caves filled with shadows and her beauty ... well, it was more than beauty. He grew hot watching her. She was a Romany, filled with old bloods and old mystery. Jake crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes glued to her long voluptuous body. She wore a silver gauze dress that rode past her thighs with daring, exposing her long legs as they flashed back and forth to the heady music. The dance pounded in his mind, drew his sex tight against the sleek, imported fabric of his pants. He moved in between a dancing couple and was suddenly next to Phaedra, stealing her from a feminine young man. She threw back her head, her long neck an arch of loveliness. Her laughter moved into his ears, warm, musky breaths whispering of the delights to come. Her black-wet eyes flashed as she goaded him on. Jake moved his body, whipping his thighs back and forth, his shoulder grating against the quick desire of the music. He moved towards her shaking body, touched her breasts against his chest ... an accident of desire. She laughed, bounced and moved away. It was a crazy mating dance and he followed, bound by her sweating face and midnight eyes, captured totally by his prey. Her legs spread far apart as she bent backwards, her shoulders quivering, her delicate hands clapping together.
Suddenly it was over, the music shifting into something less dramatic. Jake took advantage of this moment, moved next to her, his big hand under her elbow, guiding her to the little balcony that led into her silken bedroom. Alive with wine and the last remnants of the music, she let him, drifting under his touch like a silken barge, her full, wide mouth open and panting with exertion. She collapsed on the balcony, folding her long legs under her, small feet indenting the pink couch. The merriment was changed now and a sly smile touched her mouth.
"You have been around me a long time ... parties, dances, work."
Jake nodded at her, his own mouth dry suddenly. She was inside him, fingering his thoughts, his desire. He remembered her part in a recent movie he had made. A small part where she had kissed him for the first and last time. She remembered too.
"We live in the same social world, among the flowers and rotating colors." He wanted to impress her with his cynicism.
"Do we, Jake?" She reached for his cigarette, her eyes moving from his face, taking in the polished towers and terraces of tall New York. He could feel her dark blood stir shadows in her mind.
"Don't we?" His voice grew softer now. She left him without a role to play.
"No, not really. I make money in this social world. I dwell in it. I don't live here though." She took a puff and handed the white cylinder back to him. "I don't know where I live yet, but it isn't there. I don't like the painted flowers ... and I don't like myself now that I am one of them. I sell my face like a prostitute sells her body."
The silence stirred, drifted between them. He had no slick reply. He had never really talked to her before. His battle, the hunt, was dimming. She was not stolen by wine and merriment as he had supposed. He knew a lot of other men on the make for her, and not one victor. He wondered who. she gave herself to, if she gave herself at all. He didn't at all like the serious tone of things. Her eyes moved and clicked into place with his.
"What is it, Jake? You want to make love to me?"
He stared at her and smiled. "Yes, of course."
"All right ... this is my twenty-first birthday, and I suppose someone should celebrate it with me." She stood, perfect and tall, her breasts large and loose under the single-shouldered silver dress. The starlight twinkled on the silver streaks in her hair, making the black seem like shadows.
Was it going to be this simple? He felt let down and then the gypsy odor of her body took him. If it was easy ... so what? It was still a minor miracle. He followed her shifting buttocks into the white and silver of her bedroom, sat on the plush mattress and tried to believe this was happening at all. She began to undress, slowly, deliberately, watching his face, her tongue licking softly the hurt-looking mound of her bottom lip. Someone should celebrate ... He thought of her words. This was almost too strange and not at all like he had planned. Her silver dress fell from her shoulders, caught on the full hips, slipping down dream-slow over the flat, perfect belly.
Jake leaned back among the pillows, unbuttoning his shirt, slowly, with Phaedra's movements. His eyes, nervous with lust, touched the antique clock. Eleven thirty-five, he thought foolishly. The light from the open doors of the terrace made hushed shadows in the room.
Jake sat up in the bed, his clothes removed, his hands touching his ever-growing cock. Something about this was-he was not sure. It must be the play of shadows, or the streaks in her hair. Damn! Her eyes were so black, filled with a terrible endlessness. Her beauty was almost overpowering. She stood tall, her hands by her sides, watching him play with himself. She was white; not quick, Irish white, but white with dark overtones. Her black panties were painted against her skin, her panty-hose a silver rain down her long wonderful legs. His stomach contracted with want of her. She was strange ... but that was a part of her beauty, not a hindrance. She was the most desired girl in New York and he was sitting on her white and silver bedspread. She was a statue for seconds longer, not moving, watching him. He was glad when her hands touched the elastic on her black, black panties, began to slowly roll them down, revolving her hips as she did. He moaned, leaning forward, his hands tight around his sex, feeling the distant, blood-filled throbbing. She was exciting him on purpose, doing a weird striptease. The panties continued to be rolled slowly down her legs until they were a skinny black line just below her pubic hairs. Her pussy was black ... with streaks of curly silver. He was astonished. She couldn't dye her pussy! She smiled at his surprise. The panties were along her thighs and then at her ankles, dropping suddenly. She stepped from them with disdain and stood proud and tall for him to see. Her feet moved and she stood with her legs far apart, her weight on one hip.
"Are you pleased with my nakedness?" Her smile was gone, replaced by arrogance. This was all wrong, Jake thought. His cock moved in his tight hands, telling him it didn't matter how she came to him, only that she was there.
She floated, drifted to the bed, her legs bending, her knee pushing into the soft mattress. Her long hands touched his shoulders and she moved on top of him, stretching the entire length of her body over his. He moaned as the sweet warmth of her pussy touched his cock and pressed down. He could feel the soft, silky inside of her cunt lips as they pressed, opening over the long hard length of his sex. His hands moved around her back, stroking the perfection of skin, sweeping suddenly upwards over the great curve of her ass. His heart beat thickly in his chest, aching to fly.
"Here I am," her pink mouth whispered into his ear. He could not see for the great tangle of thick hair that covered his eyes and mouth. His breath caught in its thickness, bringing out the scent of jungle flowers. Her legs pressed against the sides of his thighs, pressed and grew hot. Her cunt grated against him, sliding up and down to the music of her moving, swaying body. Phaedra's hands were in his hair, the fingers insinuating their way into his ears. He was alive with Phaedra, being eaten alive ... hair smothering him, desire reeking in his sensitive nose. Oh god, he thought, his hands growing possessive, his thighs suddenly rock-hard, moving and returning her weight to her. She made a hissing noise in his ear and her tongue shot wet and burning, fever-hot, way down into the tiny funnel, snaking in and out as she beat her desires into his head.
"Phaedra." He spoke her name and heard the echoes of myths forecast a warning of ... something. He gave the thought a violent shove and felt her hands, quick and hot, slide down his sides, searing his sensitive flesh with warmth. Quickly and expertly they sought his huge, throbbing sex, grasped it neatly, totem-pole style and held on for dear life. Her weight was growing intoxicating, heavy and feminine. He bent his knees, raised them high, tight against her. His arms wrapped around her, felt her straining arms for the soft puddles of her breasts. Her hands guided him, two fingers pressing upwards on his heated cock. His mouth was filled with hair, his loins suffused with heat and fast-moving blood. He bit down on the hair as she dipped him into her jellied interior. He shoved upwards, quickly, driven by harsh desire. Up inside he dove, smooth. She was tight, almost virginal. He pressed against the gush of new-born juices, traveled further up. Her hips moved sideways, a tiny muscle in her contracted and he met with a fierce squish of pressure the tight elastic drum that ended her. Oh ... his mind reeled and he jerkily pulled himself out a bit. Phaedra groaned, grating against his upthrust hipbones, the soft whacking of her cunt and belly resounding in Jake's ears like African drum beats. This was no passive magazine woman. This was ... Phaedra. She was with him, taking him with a sucking noise, her legs far apart, wrapped tight as pretzels around and under his own hairy legs. Her hands were in the soft sacs of his balls, stroking, moving, nails digging into him slightly, a pressure of cats, making the insides of his belly crawl. He pounded himself in and out of her, suddenly hating her weight on top of him. He had to conquer her. He was crazy with want; with a twist of strength he pulled her over, keeping his cock wetly within her. She cried out in pain as he dropped his full weight down on top of her, wanting to hurt her for her aloofness. He drove himself within her, his hands filled with thick, warm breasts, his thighs hard, crushing her own slender flesh. Her head whipped back and forth on the pillow, a great black and silver cloud of writhing snakes. Her hands scratched his back, nails ripping out strips of translucent skin covering. He felt the slapping of her thighs against his legs. Her insides were thick with juices, pouring out over her thick cunt lips, wetting his belly, the hairy tops of his thighs. This was Phaedra the tigress. His hands gripped her breasts, then released them, slipping down to her hips, dipping them into the morass of the sexual slime. He pressed his fingers tight against the beginnings of her thighs, slipped them under her voluptuous buttocks, squeezing them with a special pressure on and off. She lifted her hips high and met him, a thick noise in the midnight room. She was twisting, turning, her hands claws, angry upon his flesh. She was greedy ... deliciously greedy! He felt much like the conqueror now, pounding her into the mattress, his hands digging in between the round cheeks, his mouth crushing against that softness that smiled at everyone from magazines-everyone but himself. He had the famous Phaedra right here, under the masculine insistence of his body, his desire. He withdrew his shining wet cock from her, slowly now, swaying over her, taunting her lashing legs that reached for him. Her belly left the bed, her thighs wet and graceful, trying desperately to suck him back up inside her. His tongue lashed into her mouth, bumping over her even teeth, jabbing the warm wet silk of her throat. She responded, sucking the red missile deeper down into the mysterious luxury. Her body absorbed him like a great sponge and he relented, unable to resist the beauty of her flesh or the abundance of her passion. He dropped into her warm dampness again, his brain reeling at the way she opened for him, clasping her thighs tight around his torso, her feet brushing against his hair in a frenzy. Her whole body seemed to swallow him, seemed to inhale him. He was lost inside her, the thick head of his cock beating against the inside depths of Phaedra. Her mouth opened and closed under his, sucking, sucking. He was wild trying to keep up with the dancing beat of her body. The shadows from the terrace flew crazily through her glinting hair, caught darkly in the hollows of her cheeks. Her great bountiful tits jellied back and forth, squeezed through his demanding fingers.
Suddenly her frenzy grew out of bounds, became an animal thing he had never before found in a woman. He heard the growl deep in her throat, her belly smashed up to meet him, swallowing his heavy cock. Again and again she smashed up to meet him, to take him, growling like an animal. He bent to kiss her again, gripping her tits tight in both his hands. He saw in the black shadowed room her teeth part, fierce and strange, gnash together over his bottom lip. His pain mingled, crashed against the hard thumping sound of her belly, her gushing, musical cunt. He felt the fire burn within him, tasted the salt-clogging taste of blood, his blood. His cock moved against the silky wall, waved wildly inside her, being flung about by the contractions of her cunt breathing in and out, squeezing his thickness with her demands. He tightened up inside, his belly a valley of snake dances. He wanted desperately to hold out, to wait out her ending, but he felt the passion run over the rim of his mind and came in great oozing droplets, spraying her vagina with his come. He held her breasts in his iron grip, his entire body shuddering with the sounds of his harsh cries.
Something happened then; her body moved, jerked strangely under him. He bent to kiss the thick bottom lip, careful so she could not again point those sharp teeth at his flesh. He held her body close, thinking it was just her passion, and his mind filled with the odor of her strange hair. Again a jerking movement beyond the line of passion. He felt his cock begin to grow with her movements, and he gently pushed it down inside her again. Jake buried his face in the masses of streaked hair, revolving his hips, his body eager to continue. He felt something prickling against his cheek, as if her hair were moving ... were coiling, shortening. He began to open his eyes and suddenly he was no longer lying on top of Phaedra. His mouth opened to scream but he could not get any sound out. He could not move! Impossible! Impossible! His mind kept repeating it like an idiot child. Her whole body gave one violent shake and she was complete ... this new creation. Dreaming! I must be dreaming! His mouth gaped and he shut his eyes, a strangled sound tied in his throat. The great white wolf growled, gnashed her teeth, struggled with the dense weight of the human pinning her belly to the bed. His cock was caught tight inside the small vagina of the white wolf. He caught a claw across the face in his struggle, the gleaming of those red and black eyes fixing him in the shadowy darkness.
"No! No!" His smile filled with noise, released it. Somehow through the shades of this nightmare, he could hear the party going on in the next rooms, faraway gaiety ... a dream sound. He screamed, his hands reaching for the long muzzle with the wicked teeth. He held the great jaws and shut them, shut his eyes as well. Somehow with a-grateful swoon he stepped into the waiting, soothing darkness of his mind, wrapped in fainting, protected from the horror of reality.
Jake woke up, slowly, the dream still eating his mind. He sat up, grateful to be awake and released from the dream. What! He stood on his shaky feet, trying to still the pounding of his heart. He looked around the room, stared at the ripped and bloody sheets. Slowly he advanced towards the full-length mirror. There was a slash across his cheek with dried blood smeared and caked. He would have a scar. His hands moved as if they too were afraid, tracing the long scratch that moved from one side of his hips to the other. There was dried blood on his cock too. He fingered the delicate instrument, his mind in a state of shock. Not a bad cut ... but frightening to look at. Teeth marks. Oh my god!
Jake turned towards the dawn-lit terrace and sat heavily on the side of Phaedra's bed, his face buried in his hands. What was real? The red eyes of the wolf haunted his mind; they would stare out at him from every inch of darkness he would come in contact with for all the rest of the days he lived. He heard the tinkle of glass breaking and suddenly became aware of the party still in dim progress. He moved across the room and dressed in his rumpled clothing, hiding the blood stains from curious eyes. Slowly he moved from the bedroom, his body heavy with the strange reality he would have to carry now. Various couples stood bleary-eyed, their glittery clothing looking out of place in the new day.
"Hey, Jake! Is Phaedra still sleeping?" A blonde girl smiled the casual question. Someone else tittered.
"Lucky man." Her partner toasted Jake with a glass of red liquid. Jake thought of blood.
"She's gone...." He was tired and the morning hour gave him the right to be sullen.
"Gone? I guess Phaedra gets around." General laughter followed the sly statement.
"Jake ... you should have been out here last night. I don't know how you could sleep through all the commotion."
Jake took a glass of orange juice from a sideboard. The Negro maid smiled at him and asked if he wanted breakfast. He shook his head and turned, leaning on the sideboard.
"Commotion?" His spine crawled.
Martha Lewis clasped her well-groomed hands behind her head. "The biggest damned dog I ever saw. All white. Fantastic!"
"' 'e chased it but lost it at the stairwell. I wonder where the hell it came from. Beautiful animal ... but vicious!"
"It looked like a wolf," someone else shouted from the bathroom.
Jake turned around, looked out the terrace doors. Slowly, his knees quivering, he walked out into the daylight. This was much more than a dream ... much more. The towers of Manhattan gleamed silver in the sunlight. Thirty floors, below the penthouse tiny ant-like people began to move. Little toy cars crawled towards a traffic jam. He wondered where Phaedra was and how a wolf could run down thirty flights of stairs.
The orange juice tasted bitter in his mouth and he gagged. How could he live with the horror of last night's memory? Who could he tell? He would be thought insane! He knew one thing though. Never again would he easily take a beautiful woman in his arms without a certain suspicious horror. Never again would he plan and seduce, lay his manly traps. Perhaps he would marry that sweet little secretary of his, settle down in the suburbs. Jake drained off his orange juice and ran towards the bathroom to be sick.
CHAPTER TWO
The dream danced ahead of her and she could not outrun it. Phaedra heard the howling in her own throat, the sad drawn-out baying at the single-breasted moon. Sad! Sad! How high and far away from her hunger was the moon. The growling ached in her throat and she shook her head. A tiny gray body flashing through the electric darkness of the trees. Without thinking or checking she took off, a flash of silver white. Quick ... and the leap took her flying through the air, landing with a joyous victorious pounce on the small screaming gray thing. And then the primary darkness sealed her inside the night's written letter. Horror and hunger were mixed, her life a singular revolving under the moon. Her belly ached with warmth and she was relaxed in sleep, was satiated with salty liquids.
The dawn rose, sweeping shadows upwards into the sun. Phaedra felt the coolness enter her sleep, felt the damp dewy grasses under her nakedness. Nakedness. She turned in sleep, licked her lips free of salt. Salt? The sun grew hot, piercing her eyes through the thin mound of eyelid. Too early to wake up, she told her half-dreaming self. Then, she was so uncomfortable. Damn covers must have slipped from the bed again. Trouble with satin sheets ... too slippery. Her black eyes flew open and she stared upwards at the wet green leaves, the fresh sparkling buds of greenery twinkled by the sun. With a lunge, she was on her feet, her hands clasped over her breasts. She looked down at her gleaming wet body and realized with a start that she was indeed naked. What had happened? Oh no! Soon the gravel walks of the park would be filled with people. There was no time to think now. She spotted a gathered collection of wastebaskets, thankfully not yet emptied. Phaedra ran, the hard bits of stone cutting her tender feet. Both her hands were in the baskets at once, flinging popcorn containers high, digging among mucky frankfurters and debris. She felt the bulge of fabric and pulled a stained man's overcoat out of the mess. Her full lips grew tight with distaste. She shook the smelly thing and quickly shrugged into it. In the distance, coming over a hill of the park was an elderly man. Phaedra turned the way she had come, planning to duck out through the grassy bushes. Her feet moved quickly, her hands grasping the torn old coat at the collar. She prayed she wouldn't meet an early-morning policeman.
In the grass and a small pool of redness was a squirrel ... a very dead squirrel. It looked as if some animal had....She remembered her dream and the excitement of the hunt. Her face grew white and drained. She forced her leaden legs to move, to carry her from the horrible reminder of the park. A cab was parked right outside the vast growth of stubby shrubs. She climbed in, ignoring the straining neck of the cabbie as he took in her appearance. She gave him her address and then changed her mind halfway there. She told him to take her to Gabriel's Fashion House instead. Her mind clicked away. She knew from past experience that her house was still filled with people. She wondered what kind of thing had happened at the party that would let her wind up in Central Park naked. She tried to block the painful remembrance of the dead squirrel out of her mind. The last thing she could recall was making love with that idiot playboy Jake. She hated actors. Why had she let him. She leaned forward and asked the cabbie for a cigarette and suddenly recalled she had no money. That was all right. She would get it at Gabriel's. Luckily she kept an extra check book there along with a change of clothes for emergencies. Then, she had never considered having to need the change of clothes for her nakedness. She was jerked from her reverie when Gabriel's cool, elegant exterior loomed suddenly alongside the cab. She told the man to wait and ran in the side door. The night watchman was just about to exchange duties with the day man. They both knew her and she didn't have any trouble. By the time she found her extra purse and returned to the annoyed cab driver, she was puffing. Slowly then, she walked back up the steps, into the long, disarrayed models' room. She sat in front of her makeup table and looked deep into her eyes. Shadows under her eyes. She scanned her mind for an appointment and found nothing there except the body of the squirrel. Damn that squirrel! She had seen dead animals before. What was wrong with her? She tore off the filthy overcoat and climbed in the shower, trying to scrub the reminder of last night from her body. She thought of calling her house and finding out what had happened; but something told her not to. She turned off the water and began to dry herself furiously. What could she do? There was no use lying to herself. Something terrible had happened last night. There were dreaming things she didn't want to remember. For some reason, she suddenly told herself her mother might know. Perhaps there was a history of sleepwalking ... even insanity in her family.
Phaedra dressed slowly, seeing the painful image of her mother, bottle of gin clasped to her dirty dress, eyes all red and wasted with alcohol. When was the last time she had seen her? Two months ago? Three months? The old guilt tugged at her. There was no reason for it. She had done everything she could. Had put her in a retreat, had lived with her, an endless life of hiding bottles and warning liquor store men not to give anything on credit. Then she had felt the hopelessness invade her heart. Now she sent money and clothes and kept her emotions as far away from her mother as possible.
Phaedra surveyed her perfect form in the full-length mirror. She didn't smile this morning. Her black eyes glared at her reflection and she spun on her heel to be free of the inquiring eyes. Her mother would know something. She had looked towards her twenty-first birthday as a final step into the world, away from the bad luck and misfortunes of her shattered family. Now this ... this thing had happened and she didn't even know what it was. The dream whirled in her head, half-remembered ... the run and pad of paws ... paws breaking leaves with deadly calm. Phaedra blinked back the tears, ran her fingers through her long black and silver hair. She had to get to Connecticut and her mother, before she went mad. She clattered down the steps of Gabriel's, hailed a cab and was on her way to the railroad station. Everything was a blur to her-the long ride by train, the taxi ride to her mother's house. Everything, every moment was soaked with the dream that she tried to pull from her mind and which, when she would almost succeed, pushed harshly back again. She slammed the little paint-peeled gate, ran up the old wooden steps and was in the disorder and stink of the living room. The smell of stale gin was everywhere and Phaedra wanted to cry as she always did, each time she saw what had happened to her mother.
"Mother?" She put her bag and gloves down on the bottle-cluttered table. "Mother ... are you here?" Her feet were little noises among the ruin of her mother's life. She moved up the stairs towards the bedroom, hoping she was not dead. Death was what she always expected when she came here. "Mother?"
She pushed the loose door open and looked at the tired, lumpy body, its gnarled hands around the neck of a smudgy gin bottle. Phaedra moved to her side, unable to stop the tears.
"Please, wake up." Her voice was close to panic. The wasted body moved, opened red, spider-webbed eyes. Still, there was that ebony pupil, the black rim. Phaedra had the match for that black look.
"Phaedra!" The old face moved back and forth and she closed her tired, disenchanted eyes. "Phaedra." The sound was tired, hopeless. "I was celebrating your birthday. Dreading and celebrating."
Phaedra felt the chill run up her spine, standing the tiny, colorless hairs on end. Dreading and celebrating? She knew something. "I'll make you coffee." Phaedra stood and turned.
"No! I don't want coffee." Her mother, black and silver hair turning to worried hapless gray, sat bolt upright in bed. Her ruined eyes stared at her daughter. Phaedra moved back by the bed and sat down. "Don't want none," the gravel voice told her, the Romany accent still strong.
"It would be good for you," Phaedra said lamely.
"Darling...." A spasm of coughing took the old woman's voice.
Phaedra waited for it to subside, felt her palms grow itchy with impatience and fear.
"I'm sorry. What are you doing here?"
"I ... I came to see you, Mother." She met the red veiny eyes and looked away. "I had a dream last nightht....It upset me."
"Nooo!" Her mother lay back down among the gray sheets, her flaccid breasts great withered pools swimming on her chest. "I knew it. I hoped it would all be over. Give me my bottle."
"Please, Mother." The pang of the request and hidden knowledge her mother possessed closed her heart, contracted its pulpiness in her chest.
"Get it, Phaedra!" the voice rose shrilly and subsided into a pathetic begging. Phaedra left the room and returned from the familiar old closet with the fresh bottle of gin. Her mother's hands reached and took it greedily. Phaedra watched, the hurting in her body unbearable as the old mouth gulped a quarter of the bottle.
"What do you know about my dream, Mother?" she asked softly. Her mother lowered the bottle, let it rest on the soiled pillowcase. She shook her head, lowered it.
"I thought it was over ... with you. You became so famous ... I was so proud. Then your birthday grew closer and closer. I felt it coming, just like in the old country. I worry so much and now ... you come to me. Phaedra...." The voice broke.
"Please, what is it?" Her mind was reeling under the weight of her mother's drunken fear. She watched the bottle tilt again and again.
"The curse of the Ethelwulfs. Our name means the noble ... wolf."
Phaedra felt the soft pad of paws cross her mind. "Tell me!" she screamed.
"I can't. I can't. Write to your Aunt Shasta. Give me a pencil and paper." Thick gurgling sobs left her mother's throat and Phaedra rummaged through a desk drawer for the implements. She handed them to the wrinkled, sobbing figure and watched her write an address. "She knows everything. In Transylvania ... You should go there."
"For God's sake! Tell me something. I can't go tripping off to Transylvania. I have a career." Phaedra could almost hear the sweat globules as they popped out on her brow. She swept them away with her long fingers.
"I won't tell you anything. You're my daughter. My only daughter! Oh please ... write her and see if you can visit. She, maybe can help!"
"It was only a dream I had. I can go tot a doctor ... a head doctor. A crazy dream that I sleepwalked." Her breath ripped her chest. "That's all ... all."
"Phaedra, the Ethelwulfs have never dreamed. No doctor can help you. Every full moon ... every full moon it will happen. I can't look at you! I'm too weak to help you. Please go away ... to Shasta! Where's my gin? I'm no good to you." She tilted the bottle and drained off a huge amount. "Every full moon," she mumbled.
Phaedra stood, the wrinkled paper with the address clutched in her hand. She backed away from the muttering wreck of a woman.
"I'm not going to Europe. I have a career. I understand you're a bit ... under the weather, but there's no need to frighten me."
"Oh Phaedra ... I do love you." The bottle tilted again.
Phaedra turned away from the sight and fled the house, grabbing her purse from the cluttered table downstairs. She was out in the open, clean-smelling air of Connecticut, her pace slowing down as she reached the end of the block. There was no hurry to get back to the city with its noise and lights. She was away from her mother's frightening words, away from the sad and pitiful sight and the slow suicide of gin. Phaedra's belly was filled with thousands of lumpy creatures, raising great warted wings against her stomach walls. She thought of her family. She and her mother were the last in this country, but she had heard of her father, locked in a great asylum in Transylvania until he died one tragic night. She had been shielded from this knowledge, but children found out things and in turn shielded their parents from their new knowledge. When she grew tired of walking with her frightened thoughts, she hailed a cab and began the dreary trip back to the city. Her apartment would be cleansed of all the beautiful people-parasites by now. She was sick of them, sick of the parade of her face across magazines and newspapers. She was sick of the homosexuals who wanted to be seen with her, of the young men and their secret, expensive bodies and their lewd offers. She had been battling her career-sickness when this thing had happened. Now she was juggling two worlds, it seemed. Her real life and her dream life. What had her mother said? The Ethelwulfs did not dream. Strange, she had never had a dream before. Never before last night.
When she reached her. apartment, it was already growing late. She was glad to see that Tillie had cleaned up the debris. There was nothing to remind her of the party and Jake Conrad. Good. Away from Connecticut and her mother, back in the familiar luxury of her apartment it all seemed like a twist of fate ... something that was gone through and was now over. She smiled at her reflection in a hall mirror, slowly removing her clothes. First she locked all the doors, closed all the windows, and then spread her body luxuriously over her bed. The sheets were changed and free of Jake. Her mind felt relaxed for the first time today. She even felt kind of good. The antique clock on her dresser said it was eleven-fifteen. Time for a good sleep, free of dreams. She was too tired to dream anyway. She closed her wide, almost circular eyelids over the dark sparked blackness of eyes, her mouth relaxing into a pout filled with intentions of sleep. Ahhh ... she felt good. With a final shove, she threw her mother and the body of the squirrel from her mind and was off in the falling depths of sleep.
CHAPTER THREE
The Transylvanian Alps rose high, disappearing into the dim, gray, corrupted sky. Belladonna Ethelwulf lay upon her heap of straw, her face touched with the soft blush of love. Boland would hurry to her side as soon as he had the farm tools put away. She had kept the secret well, but soon, very soon she would tell the cold countenance of her mother. She had been brought into the world, into this hated, dark-shadowed land, had been pushed out of the blessed womb into a family cursed from the beginning. Now, at last, in a village that hated her and despised her name she had one thing ... the gypsy peasant, Boland. She stretched luxuriously, her dark hands moving behind her raven tresses. A bright red ribbon stood out, shining against the midnight hair. She spread her lips and smiled, thinking with relish of her mother's face. She held her misfortunes against the tall, angular figure. Her mother was haunting! Her knees rose up high and the long skirt swished down to her thighs. She watched the moon rise, slowly, antagonistic to her black beaded eyes. Named for a poison flower ... having to dread the moon and her twenty-first birthday. Unless, of course, someone else in the shadowy Ethelwulf family took the curse upon themselves. No! That moon was no longer a dreaded thing. It was a romance now, that great silver ball! It was for Boland and herself. Brave Boland who took her love, despite the ugly name of Ethelwulf. She sat up straight, her hands narrow brown marks in the hay. Boland. Her heart beat wildly underneath the thin ruffle of her blouse.
He stepped from the shadows, his huge body blocking out the rays of new moonlight. Belladonna smiled, lay back among the hay, stretching her proud, eighteen-year-old body out for him to see. Her legs ached with want of his weight.
"You came early again." He moved his massive weight next to hers, the black pantaloons crawling up his knee. Belladonna touched his broad back. It was impossible to keep her hands off him. His dark hair curled over his ears, traveled down his neck. His eyes were deep brown under massive eyebrows. She loved his nose, broad and short, and his full, thick lower lip. She inhaled sharply. She could hardly look at him without the crazy desire ripping her belly.
"Boland. Boland. I love you, my dark man. Give me your body." Her delicate hands reached under the coarse collar of his shirt and he turned, his mouth twisted to one side in a smile.
"Little flower of poison cannot wait for Boland, can she?" His rich, deep laughter rocked the night. "I will let you have my bigness, little one. Yes." The smile was gone as suddenly as it had come. "First, what did you bring me? I need money badly. My crops are ugly with the blight. The devil bugs come in the night and chew on my vegetables."
"Yes ... I have money. I will give it to you after. I need you strong now, Boland. Much have I to give you ... later."
"Ahh! My little aristocrat. Little princess from the castle of shadows. Come here ... your dark little mouth." His huge hands closed around her shoulders, fingers slipping down the beginnings of her heavy young breasts. Belladonna closed her eyes and was small under Boland's administering tongue. He insisted the thick, red pulp into her throat, stretched her small lips with its weight. It was as big for a tongue as his hardness was for a sex! She knew. She had taken two men before him. She was no little idiot. She pressed her breasts eagerly into his chest, hard into the long work-calloused fingers that rested on the crest of the soft mounds. A worm coiled at the entrance of her body; she could feel it, the lust, breathing in and out at the thick lips of her nest. She sucked the thick hard tongue down into her throat, rubbing her own pink sliver back and forth over it, wanting to bruise him to mark him as her own. He shook her tongue from his and drew back his big shaggy head, smiling at her with wet lips. She struggled close to him, her hands small ravenous beasts on his chest, dropping without hesitation to his lap. She could feel it, the hard thickness of his cock. Her fingers pressed it, feeling it move up against the fabric, hungry. Belladonna struggled to her knees, pulled the elastic of her blouse down and freed her breasts. Her other hand pressed again and again at the lump of hard flesh.
"Hungry little princess, hah?" His laughter shook her, brought pleading to her eyes.
"Boland ... Boland," she gasped, moving her naked breasts against his too-slow hands. "Do not make me wait."
"Me a dumb peasant, make you wait with all your riches and finery? Of course not, little sparrow." He laughed again, standing, dropping her anxious body from his own as if it were a clinging leaf. She was on her knees, her hands helping him to undress, fingers tearing at the baggy pants. She tore her eyes away from his nakedness and searched for the belt buckle that held her skirt tight. Boland was on his knees at once, deep growls in his throat as he pushed her hands away, yanked her skirt down around her ankles. Both his hammy hands were at the tops of her thighs, jammed under her elastic panties. Belladonna groaned, gave in to the pain and sweet wonder of this hairy man. She felt her cunt lips being pressed hard, bruised, before he stretched them impossibly apart. Two giant fingersVywent hurtling up into her wet depths. She cried out, her hands tearing his skin, as he forced her body tight down under him. Her breasts bulged over the lacy rim of her blouse. She shoved her hips and brought her insides down over the two fingers. Those fingers! How they could move and grate, kneading the soft flesh within her. She sighed, whined, twisted her legs close to him. He was hurting her, his fingers growing too rough and careless within her, too hard. They pressed and the ragged nails beat and bled the hard end of her tunnel. He yelled for her to stop her whining and forced his body over hers, gave his huge hand another lunge, twisted three fingers now within her, bringing the tears to her eyes as they crashed against her taut flesh. Quickly he withdrew them, his hard-muscled arms trapping her slim torso as he pressed his hairy pubic quarter against her. She struggled, the breath riding in and out of her mouth with painful regularity. She fought to get her hands between them, her eyes closing as she found the thick weight she searched for. With one hand she opened her musky fat cunt lips wide while she jammed the meaty length of cock up into the rushing water. Her body came down with all the strength of her eighteen years, taking almost the entire length of him. Boland grew enraged with her actions; his hands shot high, pinning her arms to the sticking hay strands.
"Uhh. Boland ... wait until...." she tried to still him for a moment until she could get into a less vulnerable position. She knew she was a little too small to take the mighty Boland comfortably.
"Shut up, wench. Nobody tells Boland how to love. Nobody!"
Belladonna closed her eyes tight. Her legs were torn wide apart by Boland's thick knees. He climbed in the open vee and jabbed his more than huge meat up into her. She shrieked again as he continued to ride deep within her. Her body was balled with sweat. His hard hand on her two crossed wrists was cutting off the blood there. Still, it felt good, felt rich and warm behind all the pain, behind the animal craving of Boland. She had never been loved like this before, hard, masculine and punishing. She loved it. She screamed again, tearing through the stillness of the night with her joyous pain. His free hand grappled with her swelling breasts, pinching too hard the upthrust nipple, mashing the thickening flesh through the bars of his outspread fingers. She tossed, trying to move over the thickness that grew and grew inside her. There wasn't a tiny place he did not touch. She shot her eyes down between them, seeing that there was still a great thick base he hadn't pushed inside her yet. His mouth took her attention now, great animal wet thing with white moon-bright teeth closing suddenly over her own. She took his tongue, sucking the breath from him. Her teeth bit down hard on the pulpy flesh and his hand left her breast, stinging across her cheek.
"Boland ... Boland! More!" Her eyes were wet with the sudden slap but she hardly felt that pain. It was all mixed up now. It was too mixed up to separate. Pleasure and pain. His flat muscled belly hit her hard as she felt the rest of the thickness swell inside her.
"Wait ... wait! Ahhhh." Her legs shot up around him, crossing behind his neck. She could see the taut nipples of her breasts as his chest lowered suddenly over hers, the thick black hairs scraping her sensitive flesh. He pumped her now that she was loosened, pumped her whacking against the thin covering inside her. For a blinding second she thought she felt it breaking under the assault of the hard red head. She fought against this new pain. It was almost too much. Boland laughed at her wince of anguish and assaulted her again, his thrusts gathering more and more pressure behind them. It was as if he wanted to hurt her more than love her. She pulled her hips back as far as she could, her hands trying to hold his weight away for a moment. He pushed her hands away as if they were made of rags.
"Come on, little princess. Can you not take me?" His voice was a ragged breath, taunting her. Belladonna spread her legs wide, rebelling against his taunts. She could not stand for him to think so of her. Her thighs ached and the insides of her cunt were throbbing with the pain. But she knew she could sacrifice pain, could sacrifice anything just to keep him. He was the first real man, the first big and thick man she had ever had. He laughed at her new bravery, his hands hot and rough against her pampered flesh. She put her arms around his ass and pulled him close again. His smile vanished, his hard juicy cock ramming her again. His great body twisted, corkscrewing the wet cannon inside her. This time the pleasure outran the pain and in a moment she forgot the wounded flesh inside her. She pressed her body hard up against his, feeling the wide base tear at her smallness. Still she pressed, her fingernails eating at his back. His grunts vibrated inside her ears and the madness of the moment whirled her mind around and around, a hairy black carousel. She could feel his weight burying her, could feel how much bigger than she he was. Her slender ability was a snake through a quick darting, licking phantom. Her belly revolved, lunged back and forth, capturing him with sideways movements. The pink head slid dangerously, its hard ridge making a suctioning noise as it slid free of her. With an angry cry, he rolled, his hand taking his sex and shoving up into her again. Belladonna cried, screamed, her face a frenzied mass of sweat and sticking hair as it flung itself back and forth in madness. Her body was breaking! She could feel it strain as the gush of juice ran down her thighs, as the big cock rammed again and again against her intestinal beginnings.
"Boland! Boland. Yes!" Her cry was smothered by the piles of hay as she threw the entire weight of her body upwards against the wall of his body. With a sudden movement that was a part of the great thudding rhythm of the universe, he pulled her upwards, hauling her weight as if she were nothing but a slender balloon won at a festival game. Belladonna's beautiful head fell back, her masses of curling hair dragging straw needles. The weight of Boland's cock stayed in place, sweet and warm, gorging her flesh. She shoved her body down painfully tight over it as he gave another tug at her weight, lifting her high into the air. She bounced, her small breasts plumping against him as he carried her. Her eyes rolled towards the destination. A full horse trough. A cry fluttered uselessly from her pouting lips as he dumped her, legs hitting the sides of the shallow bin painfully. The cold muggy water flowed up around her belly and breasts. She turned and inhaled the dirty water.
"Boland!" She sputtered, coughing his name in anger. The insides of her knees were pressed against the sharp wood and her hands pushed downwards as she raised herself up.
"No you don't little girl!" His black eyes slitted against his dark skin, the moon bright and dog-like in his pupils. His weight came crashing down on top of her, this time with a new pleasure. His long fat prick slid gracefully inside her, spurting water up between them. Little gushes of water streamed down the sides of the trough. Belladonna could feel the cold water gush ahead of the monstrous prick, cooling her shattered insides. She struggled, passion and anger curling together like two amorous worms. He was an animal, yes, a dirty animal ... but he was her animal. Her belly was shot through with hot flashes, each stabbing movement of his cock building against the pressure that churned inside her. She wriggled, squirming snake-like under him, the water sliding their two bodies across each other with a sensual delicacy. He was grunting like a pig, ramming her body, his hands coarse lumps bruising her small plump breasts. She swam upwards against him again and again, with as much strength as she could muster, sending a waterfall sprouting up from both sides of the trough. He had his knees tight against the splintery wood, using it to give him more leverage. He was hurting her, she thought, and then felt the lust, the maddening desire overtake the feel of thick blood within her. Great mountain of a man, drowning the silver fish that was herself. Slithering, gliding back and forth under Boland's bristling hairs. Splash ... Her hips bruising against his; her fingers bony spirits pulling his hair, pinching his hard ass. Pig-like he fucked her, squeezing her nipples into hard little black and blue pinpoints, again and again, thick manly weight crushing her with relish, grunting against her pain, smiling against her return moans. She could feel the sticky warmth inside her, her mind repeating again and again a special incantation that would unlock her desire and send it swarming to the surface of her cunt. Her hips were moving so fast, her body wracked with a beat that moved in her skull, repeating and repeating itself. She could feel the sensual, bloated swelling of his cock. He was fast reaching that peak. Her nails dug deeper; her teeth were bared like one of the wolves in the forest. She tried desperately to move her knees where they swelled against the splintery wood. Boland gave a sideways lunge that drove himself up into her ending and beyond, stretching the delicate fabric. Her scream pierced the night and she punched him as hard as she could on the side of the head. With an answering cry of pain and rage he pounded her back into the trough, sending the remaining water over her face as she gulped it down. She was strangling, was going to die here, in a horse trough. Choking, her eyes blind with stagnant water, she fought him, unable to still the passion. Building and building, it fought its way to the jumbled pit of her belly, down into the ivory and pink structure of bone and membrane. He bashed his body against hers, drove himself hard up inside her, his enormous prick swelling, unbearably painful. She could almost hear the rumble that began at the thick base of his sex. Sputtering, her hands claws in his hard flesh, she beat her hips up around him fast, pumping away, trying to meet his onrushing fluids. She gagged, her legs limp and sore, fluttering from either side of the bin like crows' wings. More ... more ... more, she thought frantically as his mouth opened and hung limp, releasing the horrible aching cry that drowned out her thoughts. The last of the water left her throat and all she could think of was that cock. It filled her mind, more than filled her cunt. She was being drowned not by the water, but by that great sex that threatened to split her in two. Yes ... yes, she was unable to stop it now. Her slender body gave a great shudder and she was crying, screaming, beating the night with sounds and squeaks, her body shaking and shaking, forever shaking around , him, feeling every convoluted curve of her body jammed full of Boland. His hands held her shoulders tight, his eyes closed, showing only the fringe of curled, jungled eyelash. Oh! Oh! Her body gave another violent lunge and she came again, a fluttering of insects, the heavy drone of bees in her cunt, jerking around him, her tender ass scraping against the bottom of the bin as she began to go limp. Boland was still full inside her, not yet growing small. He was very still, holding her tight, sucking the last of her body's pleasure from her. Belladonna closed her eyes, spread her sore legs far apart and relaxed under the weight of Boland. She felt so delicious, so passive ... as if she had just been used, had been taken and eaten, and enjoyed. Now she was being digested in the great manly mind of Boland, was being whispered about inside his stomach. She smiled, hearing the gurgling noises grow loud in his belly.
Soon the weight became oppressive. She gave him a playful shove, panting at him, dog-like, telling him how very too big he was. So strong and so much man to be on top of a little person like herself for so long. He did not smile, but lifted his weight from her nakedness. His big hands reached down and pulled her up from the trough, twinkling water off into the blackness of the night. She stood, shaking the water from her hair and body with quick motions. A chill snapped at her from the sudden changing sweep of wind and she ran back to their original bedding, the thick bulky straw heap. She heard Boland behind her with his heavy, slow feet. She smiled to herself and dressed, using the yards of skirt material for a towel first.
"Look at how full the moon is." She turned at his voice, followed his hand up the inky stairwell of the sky. She shivered, knowing at once what he was thinking. Her eyes left the great silver balloon and met his deep brown eyes, narrowed with suspicion.
"I know what you are thinking." Her voice sounded so young, so small. She sat down on the straw next to his feet, her hands busy with her belt.
"Do you, little one?" He lowered his body next to hers, his twisted smile mocking her in the darkness.
"Please don't, Boland. We have just lain together. Do not ruin it." Her voice held that tone of pleading she found she used often with Boland. Her narrow hands touched his thick arm.
"So big, that moon. Do you know what would happen if you were to make the ugly change? I would kill you. That is what. I take a great chance even being with you. I could catch the curse by permitting my body to even touch yours so intimately."
"No! I do not have the curse I will not get it. It is taken by another. My mother did not have it!"
"So? Your mother did not ... but your uncle who died...." His hand pointed towards the gray-black outline of the asylum, and Belladonna felt the cold shiver dance along her neck.
"Please ... It makes me ill to speak about it. I love you."
"Ahhhhh." His breath hissed like cold air, distilling the fear that moved within her breasts. How many times had she prayed to the saints, had she cried from early darkness to dawn, awaiting the dread curse of the Ethelwulfs. But she would not have it; only one member of the family would get it. It was like that game of Russian roulette-one bullet, six chambers. Her mother, sunken-faced creature that she was, had promised her she would not carry it. But what other promises had her mother broken? She had handed down the ugly name, and made her stay close to this land where she was despised and feared, so she could be watched for signs.
"My crops ... all eaten away by the ugly bugs! Aggh! It is unfortunate I do not have your family's money. Not that I would take the other inheritances with it ... but...." His voice penetrated her anguished thoughts and she turned, knowing what he wanted, fumbling in the long pocket of her skirt. Her brown hand produced a wad of currency. The numerals seemed to shine, reflecting in his glinting pupils. She thrust it towards him, watched him smile, his thick fingers unrolling the bills, his tongue counting them with little clicking licks at his lower lip.
"Do you love me?" She pushed the question over his current occupation. It wasn't just the money he liked. He loved her ... her body. "Do you?" A note of anger crept into her voice and he stopped counting, staring at her. The money disappeared into his belt. His shirt was draped over his arm. She waited, wondering how he could not be cold. It was freezing now. She shivered and he reached out, taking her in his arms, his rough chest hot through her thin blouse.
"Of course I love you. Of course." His mouth touched her shoulder, her lips brushing lightly, almost preoccupied. "Only...." He drew back, grinning. "I must go now. I have to cover my young plants against the frost, against the bugs. I do not have your wealth and time." He stood, blocking out the moon's great eye. She opened her mouth to stop him, to beg him to stay awhile longer, but the dryness crawled up from her belly. He was gone, stepped backwards into the black curtain. She stood, stepping forward, her arms reaching outr her lips moving over silent words. He was gone. The aching returned, nibbled at the insides of her belly. Far off in the surrounding forest a lonesome sound began. The singular howl of a wolf. She shivered and the sound grew louder, closer. It was a familiar sound here; but to her it was even more than familiar. It could be her someday, crying her anguish to the moon. Her feet tickled on the straw and she turned, running blindly from the fate that might await her. Her heart drummed in her throat; her feet ached with the momentum of hitting the rocky terrain. Far up ahead lay the house that was almost a castle, turreted, stoned-by eyes as well as construction. No villagers walked near that house. No one came to visit that house. This then was the heritage that her mother had handed down to her. Run ... run ... to the shelter of death.
She reached the great house and stopped on the lower steps, pausing a moment to desecrate its outside with her hatred. Then slowly, very slowly, her feet moved up the one hundred steps, feeling ice and sweat on each step-the tears of cold slime, laid there by those who had lived here and died here before her. How many padded paws had traveled up and down these steps? How many of the old stains ,were bloodstains? Her entire body shook; her feet were slimy with the moisture of the stones. She threw open the great carved wooden doors and stood, letting the faded yellow oil lamps flicker onto her from the high walls of the Ethelwulf mansion.
CHAPTER FOUR
Shasta, her face once beautiful, now sunken with years of waiting, with the onrushing death of all creatures, sat in the old library. Her feet curled in their black slippers, gripping the faded flower pattern of the rug. In her brown, worn-silk hands was the letter, wrinkled and stained from re-reading. Her black eyes traveled over the high ceiling, tracing each pattern of the yellow molding again and again. To be so torn was bad. She was filled with gladness, because Belladonna would not be the one. Then, too, there was the sadness for her niece. But Belladonna would not carry the curse; her mind kept repeating that single sentence over the face of all her other thoughts. She could not help it. Of all the things she had promised her beloved daughter, this one promise she could keep. The disintegrating leather of the books filled her nostrils with a sudden pungence. Oh! The wind carried the smell. She smiled, lay the letter down on the vast mahogany table and walked to the twin spires of the open doors. She must have just come in. Softly, the way a cat would carry himself, Shasta followed the long hall towards the drawing room.
"Bella?" Her hands touched, caressed, wiped each ornate bit of wood she walked past. She could become blind and still dwell here, among known and friendly bits of wood and stone.
"Bella?" Her high, soft voice echoed up and down the halls. She bit her faded pink lower lip, wiping her long hands on her black skirt. Why didn't she answer her? Did she resent her own mother so much that she could not even answer? Shasta felt the heat in her eyes, the familiar, onrushing tears. She would give the rest of her life if only ... if only ... It was useless! The gap was there and each thing she did to bridge the gap now only served to widen it. Her feet denied this, carried her into the drawing room. Her heart leaped past the sadness. Belladonna sat at the long table, a glass of milk between her lovely hands. She looked up and then lowered her eyes back to the milk glass.
Ahh ... she was so lovely though, the way she herself had once been. Shasta pulled a chair out and sat next to the girl. Slowly her eyes traveled over the quiet form. Her blouse was torn and dirty. Bits of straw still clung to her skirt. Shasta felt her throat contract as she tried hard to swallow over the sudden lump. She must not cry-not now when there was already so much space between them. The lovely black hair hung in thick, still wet ringlets. She must
. not notice these things, she told herself. She must now be blind. She fought the anger that told her that her daughter wanted these very things to be so obvious. She would have gone up to her room and have straightened herself up if it were otherwise. A tapping sound invaded her thoughts and she hastily withdrew her nervous fingers from the table. Belladonna looked up at her. Hatred, pure hatred in those eyes. How could it be? She had done nothing on
, purpose to her daughter, would have given anything she possessed to have made life easier for her.
"Well?" Belladonna threw her head back defiantly, the long black curls licking her shoulders. The mouth was set, a long line of redness that irritated and hurt Shasta at the same time.
"What do you mean?" She hated to grow nervous in front of her own daughter, but it was so. The die was already cast and it was too late to change it now. Too late-and how that thought tore at her mind.
"You sit there inspecting me so....Now I guess you desire to ask me questions-about my wetness of hair, my torn blouse?" Each word was a deliberate taunt, flung out at her by the hating mouth.
"I would not have asked," she said quietly.
"Ha! You sit there tapping your fingers, waiting to ask, dying to ask. Now you lie to me again and deny wanting to question me." The head shook again, tossing curling tendrils over the softly rounded shoulder. "Well that is nothing new ... the lying."
"Please!" Shasta's voice shook, the trembling within her breasts increasing. "All right ... where have you been?"
"With a man!" Belladonna smiled. "A man I love."
"So...." Shasta lowered her eyes to her hands, watched the alien creatures hold and twist each other. "Sooo," she repeated. "Is that where my money disappears to? Do you have to pay a man to make love to you?"
"Be quiet!" The high-backed chair scraped harshly in the still room. From far away, there came the baying of a wolf. Both women froze at the sound. Belladonna recovered first.
"Yes, I give my money to him. It is my money too, isn't it!"
"Yes." Shasta met sadly those burning black eyes.
"Well then! I am going to marry him. I give him my body, my love. I am lucky he will have me at all after my unfortunate name was made known to him."
"Who is he, Bella?"
"Boland! The tall, handsome Boland."
"The peasant farmer? He works for us."
"So?" Belladonna retreated towards the doorway.
Shasta could not contain herself any longer. She knew Boland, was familiar with all the people that worked for her. They all hated her and her name-and her daughter, but they gladly took her money. Boland ... she knew him well. He was trouble, a prostitute among men. He made love to women for money, sold his body like a woman.
"He only wants your money. He has a woman-Geldaine. He will take all the money you give him, asking always for more, and then one day when there is no more money he will go home to Geldaine."
"Shut up! You do not know everything. He loves me. I love him."
"Oh, he may marry you so he can get his hands on the rest of the money, but Geldaine will have him in the end. Tell your Boland that I will see to it that he does not get a penny, not one penny, and then see how much he loves you." Shasta felt the coldness flood outwards from her voice. She loved her daughter, but she, too, had much anger. "Bella, Bella ... I want you only to be happy. This man will crack your young heart ... will ruin you."
"It is none of your business, my mother. None!" Belladonna walked suddenly out of the doorway.
In the heavy silence of the drawing room with its mocking, ancient tapestries and portraits of the past, she sat, her hands folded. There on the wall were her relatives and ancestors. Poor, sad bearers of the name I Ethelwulf. There in his great plumed hat was Harlande the pirate, the one who received the original curse. She bared her teeth at the likeness and stood, rushing past the other Ethelwulfs, their faces a blur of dream stuff, of nightmares chiding her eyes.
"Bella! Bella!" She rushed down the winding hallways, took the carved staircase steps two at a time, calling her daughter's name. She stopped, out of breath, in front of the closed door. She turned the large brass doorknob. Locked. Damn the girl!
"Let me in. I forgot to tell you! I have news ... good news for you."
Slowly, the lock clicked back. Belladonna stood naked and gleaming in the doorway, her face impassive, cold to her mother's eye.
"What news? I am very tired." She stepped back and sat on her bed, one leg folded underneath her supple body. Shasta placed herself in a hard-backed chair.
"Your cousin is coming to visit us."
"Cousin?" The disinterested tone. "The one who lives in magazines? Phaedra?" Belladonna shrugged. "So ... I am tired."
Shasta wanted to slap her all of a sudden. "Listen to me, foolish child. You will not carry the curse! Do you hear me? This is one time I promise you the truth. Your cousin has the curse. I have her letter downstairs, poor child. But at least you are free."
Belladonna stood, the news sinking slowly into her mind. She whispered, "I am free ... free of the wolf sign!" The smile began on her face and grew into a grin. She even danced forward and touched her mother as she whirled into the center of the room.
The child was indeed crazy. A little girl still and she thought she knew of love, of life. A child. Shasta smiled at her joy. It was sad for her sister's daughter; but it was the way soldiers must feel when a buddy dies next to them. Better him than me. Better Phaedra than Shasta's daughter.
"Ahhh!" Belladonna whirled around and around, her nakedness shining in the lamplight. Suddenly she stopped, all at once, the grin fading as an billess lamp would die. Her body was suddenly rigid with anger. "She ... the cursed one is coming here?"
"Yes. She seeks help."
"There is no help for the curse! The love of a male wolf....No real wolf would choose one of the accursed." She spit the words out. "And there is no werewolf left in this blighted land now. There is no cure for the curse. Write her and tell her not to come, tell her there is no help. I do not want her here with her dark soul! This land is already filled with shadows and hatred." She caught her breath. "You will write and tell her?"
"No." Shasta stood up and faced the cold countenance of her only child. "She will come and I will tell her about the breaking of the spell. I will try to help her all I can."
"Fool! There is no help! The spell has traveled down our bloodlines for a hundred years!" Rage and tears spun her daughter's face about in her mind. She was disappointed in her child. She had spoiled her too much, had coddled her. Now this selfish creature throwing tantrums was no longer a child. No, now she was a spoiled woman. Shasta had not planned on a child to carry out the curse. She and her husband had planned sadly to end the line for their part. But one night ... one starry night just before his death ... there was no holding back. Now she faced the screaming brat-woman tiredly.
"I will not discuss this with you any further. You are still a ruthless child and not a woman at all. You are devoid of pity and love. You, my daughter, have only lust." Shasta turned to go.
"Fool! I'll show you. Now that I am free of the curse, I will marry Boland. I will! You taunt me further with my heritage by bringing the bearer of the curse here! I hate you."
Shasta, blinking back the tears, paused at the door, her hand on the cold knob, feeling that same coldness travel up into her heart.
"Before you marry Boland, tell him there will be no money. Tell him, indeed, that I am changing my will this very night. Tell him all this before you marry him, cold child." The door slammed behind her and she stood, shaking in the hallway, her breasts heaving with the effort of her heart to still her pain. She pulled a red bell-cord and stood in the darkness, the flicker of oil lamps flapping across her face, listening to the horrible screeching crying coming from behind the closed door. The sterile figure of the old maid padded softly up the carpeted hall.
"You called, Madam Ethelwulf?" The hooded old eyes hated her from behind the politeness of words.
"Yes. Turn down the lamps now. I'm going to retire." Shasta met the hatred with an ice of her own. She could not live with hatred and be untouched. It would have been the same with devotion and love. She could not be untouched by those either. She would have returned whatever she had received. It was sad that it was hatred.
"Is that all, Madam?" The cold eyes watched, vulture-gray.
"No, that is not all. I have told you before not to speak my name when addressing me. Madam will do. This is the last warning. If you speak my name again, you will be fired and replaced. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Madam, I understand." The coldness waited politely until Shasta turned, beginning the long walk to her cold, loveless bedroom. She could feel the old peasant's hatred following her like a vile cloud of putrescence.
CHAPTER FIVE
She was set against the morning sun and endless blue water like a painting he had once tried to capture, an idea he had once let eat his mind. He ran his broad hands through his gold-red hair. The sun hurt his eyes, hurt the left eye with the slight cast in it especially. Still, it felt good on his craggy face, felt good on his mouth, like the lips of a woman, warm and sweet. He watched the girl again. Oh yes, now he knew. That striped black and silver hair should have told him sooner. International cover girl ... the infamous Phaedra. He felt immediate dislike with this association. Models made him sick. Any phony female made him sick. He would count her out. She was first class and he was baggage. Not that he felt that way inside. It was just a facade-and a cold fact. He smiled, running his hands down his tight, worn levis. He shouldn't even be on this deck. Hell, it felt like the Titanic; the rich slobs on top, the poor slobs below. The poor slobs always sink like rats with the ship. Phaedra, he thought, trying to take his eyes from her. Dawn was too early for a phony to be out of bed, especially without her makeup on. How sad she looked. Dark shadows under her black, wet eyes. She didn't even know she was being watched.
Rick took his eyes away from her and squinted out over the blinding expanse of sea and sun and cloudless sky. He could stay here. The view was no one's, but everyone's. The Imperial Ship Line did not create that. No man could or ever would. He looked back at the girl. No man had created that either. She turned suddenly and saw him. Her eyes were almond-shaped and huge. Very black and mysterious. He smiled and she looked away, back at the sea. That wasn't exactly an invitation. He watched her now, expecting her to grow nervous under his stare the way most women did. He wore his sexual prowess on his sleeve and he knew it. Phaedra did not grow nervous. She gave no sign that he was alive. She just sat on the railing, dressed in her long purple dress with the slits up the sides, exposing her long and lovely legs for him to see. No, she didn't even know he saw. She did not care. He felt annoyed with her. He stood slowly, flexing his muscles, drawing himself up to his full six feet. Making no sound, he advanced, his arms crossed in front of him, his grin in place as usual. Sometimes he thought he could not stop grinning. But then, life was very funny. Sure. When he reached her he leaned against the rail, waiting for old shipboard recognition. When it did not come he pulled himself up and sat next to her.
"What do you want?" she asked without turning to look at him.
"That's a big question. What are you doing out here naked?"
Now she turned, her eyes puzzled and annoyed at the same time.
"What kind of naked?" she asked softly.
Rick ceased his grinning. "Your face is naked. I never saw you without makeup on before."
"You never saw me before," she answered, looking back at the hypnotic sea.
"On magazines from coast to coast and across the blue, blue waters. I saw you. You are Phaedra?"
"Yes. Those are only faces. They are not me.
Those are paper."
"Yes, I suppose they are only paper. Where are you going?"
"You will laugh."
"I might, but so what?"
"Transylvania ... land of the horror movie."
"So am I. I'm not laughing."
"You are not a Romany."
"No, I am a good guy struck with wanderlust. Transylvania calls me now. Its mystery and legends. I paint and write and bum a lot. I make just enough money to get somewhere and sometimes back. I have bus fare both ways this time, knowing that Transylvania is no place to make money. There now, you know all about me."
"Yes, I do, don't I?" It was good to see her laugh. Her whole face was lit and the hollows of her cheeks warm with pinkness. Her cheeks were little pretty pouches of roundness when she laughed.
"You are from Romania?" he asked, wondering why the question should cloud her eyes so suddenly.
"Yes." Just as suddenly she brightened, fixing him with her candid stare, her lips curling in a smile. "I like you. You're straight ahead ... no hidden corners. Am I right?"
He nodded, then turned towards the movement he had perceived from the corner of his eye.
"Oh, oh," she whispered. "I promised to have breakfast with them. Morgan Rask and his sister Pallo."
"I've met them. She wants my body. Promised me a gold piece for it." He smiled as she tried to hide her laughter.
"What cabin are you in?" she asked, suddenly.
He swam in the luxury of her eyes for a moment before he answered her. "Twelve ... B-deck."
"I'll see you later. I'd like to have a friend where I'm going. Besides them. You're more like me. You know?"
He nodded, perplexed. He was more like her. Yes, he knew. She was carrying something that was much too heavy for her. He slipped away before Morgan Rask and his voluptuous, ten-carat sister could reach them. The murmur of voices followed him as he returned to his cabin via the metal stairwell. Below, he told himself. All deck hands and third-rate travelers. He slipped inside his cabin, glad that he had escaped the prying, hungry Pallo. Not that he was all that turned off by her. She was a dish. She was okay to ball, but she wanted him. Just how much beyond the bedroom, he did not know. What he did know was hunger. Womanly hunger, and the blind, sexual assault! He hated it. He stretched himself out on his bunk and thought instead about Phaedra. She was different from what he had expected. This would teach him not to judge so quickly. His thighs ached as he remembered her sensual bottom lip and her dark, full eyes. He too was hungry. She had just invited herself to his cabin ... just like that! He snapped his fingers. A friend. She wanted a friend. The more he thought about her, the more he ached inside. He hadn't had a choice bit of ass since he boarded this ship. He closed his eyes, her face under his closed eyelids with him, keeping him company as he drifted off to sleep. Phaedra....
He was dreaming again ... listening to the plaintive sound as it once more creased his black nightmares. Behind the dream there was a persistent knocking. Which one should he answer-the wildness that hid from and inside him, or the very soft knock? The knock turned away from softness, grew demanding. He opened his eyes, glad to be saved from his recurring nightmrare. He was out of the bed in a second, opening the door, remembering who it must be.
"Ahh, the lady with the paper face." She had changed her clothes again. Now she had on a simple, clinging jersey dress of pink. The dress hid nothing of her magnificent body, only emphasized her perfection. He closed the door behind her, and she walked slowly through the small space, looking at all his little possessions that were strewn about with masculine sloppiness.
"A mess!" She shook her head up and down. "Doesn't the maid come in here?" Her mass of black and silver hair swirled around her face and she turned to glare at him.
"She did, until I barred her. I can't stand a woman messing around with my things."
"Then you are a confirmed bachelor. How old are you anyway?"
"A young and virile thirty." He grinned and sat down on the bed. He wondered if she were going to make love to him. She had no aggression about her. He liked that. He liked the way she spoke her mind, liked the way she examined everything about his room. No aggression of a sexual nature anyway, he corrected himself.
"I like your things ... guitars and paints ... messy ... typewriter and tons of paper. Do you get any work done?"
"Not work ... play. Sit down. Are you nervous to be in my room alone with me?"
She stopped, stood still and fixed him with those eyes. She was holding his antique paperweight.
Carefully, she laid it down.
"Not nervous. I can smell your sex though. From here-really. I've never met anyone so sexual. You aren't the handsomest man in the world, you know." She grinned at him.
"I know." He lit a cigarette. "You smell me, huh?" He stretched his body out on the bunk and bent his knees, watching her.
"Yes, I smell you. It's nice."
She was growing nervous ... or was she? "You want to confide in me? You said you wanted a friend."
"I do ... but I have no wish to confide anything." She shrugged her beautiful shoulders. "I just want a friend. I'm getting nervous now," she confessed. Rick burst into laughter.
"Come and sit here, Phaedra. It's less nervous here."
She crossed the room and sat down on the bed, her back to him. Her hair hung in long striped curls, covering her breasts as she studied her sandaled feet. "I'm afraid it's that smell that's making me so nervous." She turned, her face very serious. "I think ... I think I want you to kiss me." For a moment she looked like a little girl, her eyebrows knit together over her soft eyes. He moved, took her shoulders in his hands, pulled her close to him, his mouth opening to cover hers. His heart skipped a beat, then settled down to a quick thud in his chest. He could taste the roundness of that bottom lip, could feel it emerge, puffy and honeyed under his tongue. He examined every nook and cranny of her mouth, tasted the minty mouthwash and the warm saliva, poking her shiny teeth, dipping into her silken throat. He pulled her closer, moving his chest over her full thick breasts, crushing them under his insistence. His hands traveled down her back slowly, feeling her warmth through the jersey dress. He gathered the material little by little, lifting it from her ass. His hands slid down, moving underneath the elastic of her black panties, feeling the hot, soft flesh. Her tongue answered him in his mouth, dipping, rubbing sensually against his mouth roof. He twisted his head, sucking her entire mouth inwards, nibbling at her silky red flesh with his teeth. The desire moved, an animal turning over in his belly as he pulled her closer, moved his hand down her ass, his fingers sliding in the wide-apart crack. Her cheeks were tight-packed globes of flesh, soft and yet very firm. He moved one finger down the entire rounded path between those cheeks, feeling her body react, jerk tighter against him with a sudden shivering movement. Ahh, she felt good. All rich silk and perfumes. She moved away from his mouth, rotating her head, her pink dart of a tongue licking him from that delicate turn of bottom lip. She stared at him now and stood, her knees in their nylon stockings sliding with a swish from the bed. He watched her undress, quickly and yet with the kind of grace he dreamed of and never could find. Her nylons were rolled down her legs, her black electric panties. Her pubic hairs were silver-striped too!
"That's your real hair color."
She nodded. "I'm unusual." She smiled and then seemed to remember some other facet of her unusualness. The smile covered that up quickly though, and she stepped, naked, a tall beautiful goddess, towards him. He reached up and pulled her down to the bed. Her long legs shot out, wide apart on the bed. Rick kneeled over her, his hands busy at his own clothing as he watched her watch him.
"Yes, you're unusual ... and probably the most beautiful girl I have ever slept with." He tossed his clothing to the floor and kissed the frown from her mouth. Her hands were suddenly up around his neck, her mouth hungry. They kissed long and romantically. His hands moved down her wonderful body, examining the stretched silk that covered her, felt and pressed all the little round places. Her breasts were so large and full ... so very full. He bent his head down and sipped at the little brown nipples. His eyes watched her over the white moon's rim. Her head was thrown back over the pedestal of her long swan's neck, while loose, wild hair sparked in silver and black from around that perfect face, lit with radiance. The eyes half closed and that pointed tongue licked with pleasure her own bottom lip. He bent back to the nipple and showed her what he knew and where he came by that sexual smell. His teeth were soft and fierce on her breasts, possessive, holding the warm upturned cup with his hand as he bit and nibbled. His other hand roamed her body, curved downwards over her flat-lake belly, walking the fingers slowly down into that furry, striped valley of fever. He felt the warmth rise up to meet his sensitive fingertips, smelled with his equally sensitive nostrils that musky perfume of her body. The fingers moved down, the middle index finger tasting suddenly the dampness. She was wet already. She wanted him as much as he wanted her; and baby, he wanted her. His eyes grew steaming, their hazel color going to grey. His tongue left her breast and traveled down to the place where his hand moved, fingers parting slowly and carefully the fat little mounds of outer cunt lips. Further apart he pulled them, using both his hands. He dipped his head down and tasted her, his tongue flicking over the clitoris, dabbling in the dent of her inner lips. She writhed, her belly rolling like a snake dancer's, her mouth issuing forth gibberish sounds. He moved his head and licked again, this time spiraling his tongue around and around in circles over her clitoris, pressing hard into the little indentation on either side of her cunt lips. She tasted good down here, slightly musky, dabbed with perfume. His belly contracted and he could feel himself begin to grow larger and larger, expanding against her satin flesh, wetting her thighs with a drop of clear fluid that dripped from his cock. He bent further down, slid his tongue around in a crazy fierce circle and took a bite, catching the clitoris between his teeth. Oh ... yes baby, he told himself as her belly rose straight up into the air, her cunt pressed hard against his face. Her hands were in his hair. Oh, she was a wild one. Her desire matched his own and that was good. Very good because he was hot. His teeth bit down hard and her answering yelp made him smile. Her thighs whacked back and forth around his head, her hips rising, pumping her cunt up into his face. He opened his mouth wide and took her entire cunt in one gulp, sucking strongly against the tide of striped, curled hairs. Her juices flowed into his mouth, sparked golden down his throat. Then with a quick motion he left her cunt, buried his teeth in the soft flesh of her inner thigh. She cried out and pressed the thigh tighter into his mouth. Her hands were pulling him upwards, grappling with his hair, hurting the sensitive area of his scalp, exciting him. With a lunge he was on top of her, revelling in the warmth of her entire length of body stretched endlessly beneath his own. God! Her heat was fantastic. She reached down and weighed his balls, squeezed them as they hung heavy against her. Her mouth was open, inviting his lips. He stretched out, tasted her lips again, marvelling at the way she moved them, sliding them with wet magic over his own mouth, biting his lower lip, driving him crazy. Her hand was still crushed between them, tightly holding his balls. He moved, slid his hands down, two fingers jamming up into her cunt, moving around and around, widening her cunt. She would need it. He lifted his body high and her eyes opened wide when she saw his length and width.
"God ... you're so big. So big," she repeated, her eyes questioning him. "I've never seen anyone so big."
"I will fit," he assured her, and took the great thing in his hands, pressing it against the new moisture. She spread her long legs wide apart, lifted her hips high for him. He grunted, pressed the thick red head inwards. A little pressure, he thought ... There....Slowly he began to slide in. Her mouth hung open, her eyes closed tight. Her cunt was tight too. She didn't ball much, not much at all. She felt good, too good. She surrounded his prick with wet pink flesh, closed around his member like a police line. He was trapped-but what a trap! She was crazy with want, lifting her hips, grunting with each bit of force she exerted. He was going in ... oh yes, and she grew tighter and tighter. More, baby, he thought, yes more! He looked at her wide-apart thighs, the sweet soft valley between her breasts. Her hands held a breast each, squeezing them painfully. He grew even more excited, watching her fingers dabble on her nipples. With a surge of strength he drove his huge prick the rest of the way within her. The great thick base balked and then entered. Her mouth gurgled, babbled, then released a sweet grunt of pain. Rick lowered his body to hers, waiting for a moment until her body grew used to the bigness. She felt good around him and under him. Her cunt was burning hot, contracting around his cock. Her thighs tried to close and his own hard legs shoved them further apart. His belly ached and he began to move, slowly withdrawing, little by little, giving short little lunges deep up inside her. Her body was a wild animal, lunging. He could feel her tight little ending and rushed inside her again, meeting that feminine place of restraint. She gave a cry and he beat harder and harder against that place. Her insides were jellied now, were growing used to his maleness. He wrapped his arms around her and held her fragrant body close, fucking her steadily, in and out, not wishing to be at all tricky, only wanting to please her and himself. First they would get to know each other. There would be other times, he knew. She was good in bed. Her hips bounced against his own. He liked a girl who could work ... and Phaedra could work! His hands moved down her back, grasped her ass cheeks, one in either hand. As he fucked her she pulled at them, knowing it felt good. A kind of suction feeling. He shoved himself hard inside her just as she was growing used to the rhythm he had set up. Then again and again, hard, whacking her insides. His hips cut into her slender delicate bones and still he beat on. Saliva dripped from her open mouth and she moaned his name over and over.
"Feel good....Feel good, baby?" He panted, feeling the gathering of semen in his belly. The heady rumble of the dance.
"Yes ... don't stop. Oh god ... I think I'm going to come ... so soon. Can you ... Oh god!" Her jaw went slack then and he beat a ragged tattoo inside her. How plump her breasts felt under his weight, Phaedra was all woman. Could he, she had asked, and he felt the ragged answer, almost painful inside him. Oh yes, he could. It would take some hard work not to. His cock lunged, grew painfully hard. Her body was wild, was insisting itself higher in the air, the hips shaking, dancing back and forth, charming his hard pink snake. She took him and wanted more. He whacked up against her inner wall, again and again, feeling the damp sweat on her body, his belly walked on by crawling things. Hard now! He came crashing down inside of her, his belly smashed up tight against hers. Her legs shot out on either side of him and she grabbed his ass in her hands.
"Ooooh!" she cried out, her thighs growing stiff.
"Okay baby ... okay!" He rode her now, feeling her vibrations begin to jerk the thick liquids from his body. In and out, hard and hard and hard! His mind vanished behind a red wall and he shot her full of the priceless serum, the rumbling in his loins matching the inner rumbling of her cunt. Her mouth opened wide and she cried, begged and screamed, her voice finally lowering itself to a soft drone as her body relaxed.
"Ahhhh." Rick lay quiet on top of her, his hips moving slowly, sensually over her own answering ones. Phaedra filled her hands with his hair again, only softly this time, no more trying to yank it all out by the roots. There was something about this woman, more than her well-known and accepted beauty....Something in her answered him, calmed him. He could feel the new desire begin and he calmed it down. Let her rest a moment now; just a little while. He didn't want to frighten her away with his lusty nature. His hands moved up her delicate flesh, touched her breasts. He turned and looked up at her. She smiled at him, lazy and well pleased.
"I have never been loved like that before," she confessed.
"No?" His hands touched her lips as she talked.
"No." She shook her head. "I have only been with two other men and I didn't care for either one of them." She sighed. "But then, I am just twenty-one, you know."
"You don't say. Well, I'll teach you all I know, lady."
"Good." She was serious, not seeing his smile. He turned off his grin and bent down to kiss her again, tasting her bottom lip. He withdrew and looked into her eyes.
"Yes, lady, that certainly is good. Yes, indeed." His hands were on her breasts again, his body softly pressing his weight against hers. Slowly she began to respond, her eyes alive with wonder.
"So soon? I feel so....Can you again?"
"Oh yes."
"Really?" she asked, and then all he could hear was her breathing, darting in and out, racing inside his ear from the full funnel of Phaedra's mouth.
CHAPTER SIX
Phaedra lay upon her lounge chair, a Madras shawl wrapped tightly around her shoulders. The warm memory of lovemaking still lay coiled and sacred in her belly, held in place by her majestic thighs. Now that she recalled her few other sessions of love, she realized that this was the first time, the very first time she had ever really made love. Her bottom lip grew taut as she smiled, thinking of the bohemian Rick with his amusement at everything. She went over and over their meeting, trying to organize it in her mind. It had been so easy. She had felt his sexual vibration, had been beguiled by his crooked grin. Even the way his left eye kind of wandered brought a tender sensation to her throat. It would be nice to have a lover among her secrets. Could she juggle them both? Phaedra felt the thought blot out her new interest. No, there could be nothing for her. Nothing. She was a ... Her eyes closed tight as the ugly thought filled her heart and brain. What time was it anyway. She held up her slim wrist and examined the clock that ticked softly and steadily, a warning repeating its silver message into the very vortex of her brain. Almost time. My god!
She would have to learn her new disease well, would have to be much more careful. She stood up and made her way back to her cabin, knowing the moon, full and hateful, followed her over her shoulder, watching its dreadful effect on her. She hated that moon, cause of poetry and lovemaking. For her ... yes, for her it was another thing entirely.
The cabin door closed behind her, the Do Not Disturb sign swinging back and forth madly on the outside door. She stood on tiptoe, her long fingers patting the top shelf of the closet, reached around a hat-box and found her ugly treasures. Coils of strong rope, a professional gag, and last but not least a padlock. She had practiced for hours at home. The cabin clock seemed loud, a round metal monster glaring at her with its stupid glass face. Droplets ran down the sides of her long straight nose as she worked the rope, tying it and wrapping it, making it ready for the slip knot that would fix her to the immovable table. There was also the knot that would free her with a simple tug. Something a wolf could not figure out. Once she was changed, she did not have the same intelligence. She was two people. No, not even people. Phaedra wriggled into the bonds, slipped the gag into her mouth, fixing it at the back of her massed hair. Sweat dripped and ran, curling fuzzily the little hairs at the nape of her neck. What had she done to deserve this? One more adjustment and the padlock clicked into place with its round combination face. She sat now, trying not to look at the moon that stared at her through the invisible porthole window. She would not look. Maybe it was gone....Hard to accept this kind of fate. She had an itch on her leg, growing ticklish. She tried to move the leg, rub it against the table. No good. Should she chance unlocking the combination? She looked at the clock. Five minutes to twelve. No good. She would not do it. Go away, itch! It didn't and she turned her mind into other channels. She tried to recall the first time. Funny how she could not remember what really took place. Only fuzzy dreams. Then there was that sad night she had returned from her mother's house. She had felt almost good then, had fallen carelessly asleep on her bed, telling herself that her mother was being robbed of her sanity by gin. Almost good. Phaedra closed her eyes, her long lashes marking her high, vaulting cheekbones with lines. A bit of salty water marched solemnly down her face. How did one pray, she thought, and then moved away from that. She had been raised without God and he certainly would not answer her now (if He existed) after all these years of neglect. The clock taunted her, moving its metal hands slowly. Come on, she thought, get it over with. Get it over with. Her bonds cut her flesh, hurt her. The gag made her mouth dry. Her tongue stuck to its rubber lumpiness unpleasantly. Come on! Sweat dripped, mingling with the tears, rivers plotting courses on her beautiful face. The itch grew painful, nibbled at her flesh. Something inside her body screamed for release.
Plan thoughts ... plan....Where had she been? Lying on her bed at home, after the sad journey to Connecticut. All she could remember was sleeping and the dream, the awful dream of animal things-the heavy snarling, the cold, wild call, impossible to answer. The moon screamed bright through the interior of the dream and a great furry head beat against the terrace doors, sprinkling glass. Mixed up ... it was too mixed up to even remember. The dream that could not be a dream! She had awakened, had opened wide her puffy sleep lips and had screamed and screamed until neighbors pounded on her door, yelling about a mad dog and the poor girl. She remembered the torn clothing, ripped sheets, slashed furniture covers. Her foot still hurt from glass deposits and her face was clouded with blood-because an animal had beat its face against walls to find release and freedom. Her belly jerked her from her remembering with its fluid pains. It was coming ... was coming. Her teeth bit her gag, and she felt the change for the first time. Felt the hard wracking at her body as it grew shorter and more compact. Felt her ears tingle as they pointed, her teeth hurting, but strong against the rubber of the gag. It felt....It hurt....And suddenly with only one last memory she was gone. Phaedra did not exist.
"Owwwwwww." What thing? Kalli the wolf, her red eyes luminous with moonlight, bit against the ugly thing that tasted so foul in her mouth. The rancid smell and taste of human saliva brought her belly fluids to the top of her throat. Panic filled the red eyes. How could this be? There was the moon, great call in the sky. Oh the yearning. Terrible yearning in her white furry breast. Free, she thought, must be free. The white body snapped back and forth, its silver tail lashing against hurting things. Free! The great moon called her, Odessa, goddess of the sky. She was Kalli, was Kalli the adored. Kalli, the great huntress. Panic brought another taste of bile to her mouth and she struggled, the growl born deep inside the long throat. Hate and anger filled her belly. She was hungry. Meat....Her terrified eyes cast around the confining walls. Again ... again she was here in a human place. She could smell the false odor of furless flesh.
The moon called her through its round frame. Kalli ... Kalli, the prey awaits you in the forest of your mothers. Kalli ... Kalli, the opossum hangs delicious with its children on the lower branch. Hunger growled, rolled, coiled inside her, demanding. She could remember a tiny forest where the game was gray and small. An unnatural place surrounded by marching upwards monsters. Panic and more panic. Wings beat at her breast. Oh, freedom and the hunt. Mournful eyes stared back at the moon's single pupil. Odessa, wolf goddess of the moon, help me, Kalli, your huntress. Help me.
The hunt ... the hunt ... the moon called back. Fat raccoons washing fish in the river ... fat with fish, tastes of fish. Kalli, there is little time. The last night of light ... the last night of Odessa. Succulent beaver platting mud with wide black tails.
The hunger called back at the moon. There was more strength, and her great, jaw muscles snapped, bit through the foul rubber thing. Her mouth opened, free, she tried to reach the confining rope, snapping her powerful jaws again and again. She could not squirm, nor bend nor reach. Her mind flashed with her many hunts, called for a mate ... all the while the terrible gnawing hunger creased her belly with privation.
Kalli ... Kalli ... I bathe the land in light for your hunt. Kalli....The meat is red and sweet ... sweeter than ever before. I shine my lamp upon the river bank and you will easily find the deer ... young and freshly weaned. Kalli, the hunt, the hunt.
The white muzzle lifted, sadly pathetic. She was tied, was bound with these human implements! The sadness and yearning had filled her, had stamped her wolf's soul with terror and fear. She could not hunt, nor feed. She lifted higher the beautiful silver muzzle towards Odessa, wolf goddess of the moon, and sang to her of her yearning, sang sweetly and clearly the fears and terrible hunger.
"Owwww...." It began and changed as her fears changed, grew as her yearning grew, up tight in her belly. Her children could not be born nor cubbed, could not be planted, could not be fed. She was captive, her wildness closed like her jaws had been. Odessa ... Odessa ... I pain and hunger....She sang, a great wave of misery that filled her powerful lungs.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Pallo Rask leaned her full hips against her brother's bed, watching him take off his tie. Old Morgan was in a bad mood.
"So Phaedra didn't show up for dinner. So what? The ship is filled with beautiful women."
"I don't want to talk about it, Pallo. Damn bitch. She could have at least told me she couldn't make it."
"Who wants to eat dinner at midnight? It's really your fault, you know. You said a late dinner, not an early breakfast."
"Hanging that damn Do Not Disturb sign out on her door and not answering my knocks. Then all that damn howling noise. She's a real nut."
Pallo smiled. She had never seen her handsome brother so upset before, and over a woman at that! It was really amusing. Pallo moved behind her brother and helped him untangle the annoying knot in his tie. She glanced at her reflection, all sisterly helpfulness. It was nice to have a rich brother. Especially one who shared his sudden good fortune with you. Besides, she loved him. If he wanted Miss Model-face, he should have her. It would keep her away from that handsome Gypsy, Rick, anyway. She smiled at him, displaying the family's perfect teeth. Her hair curled in the latest fashion around her soft face, a blonde halo setting off her big round blue eyes.
Her voice caught as she spoke to Morgan. "Hey, big brother ... do you remember that little rat-trap we spent a year in, in Brooklyn? This whole cabin is bigger than that was."
Morgan grinned. Why not? He was proud of his accomplishments. He had taken the two of them from blinding poverty to this; and now the sky was the limit. Pallo was proud of him too.
"You're a boy wonder, darling." She stood on tiptoe and kissed his nose. His hands ruffled her curly hair playfully as he walked over to his bunk and stretched out.
She watched him drift back from his sudden amusement into his wearing frown. Damn, she thought. It was bad enough to be going to Rumania, but to make the trip with a mournful brother was going to be too much. How hung up was he on this chick anyway? She sighed and whirled in front of the mirror, adjusting her long, sky-blue dress. Very simple, in accordance with her new life, her new wealth. A wealthy lady should always understate, in clothes and in....No, she grinned at herself. She was still hungry Pallo-in some ways at any rate. Sex was no understatement. Her belly crawled as Rick crossed her mind. Her tastes still ran to rugged men, still were pinpointed by a crooked grin. She would have to learn to be wealthy. The same way she had learned to be poor.
"So you think she's beautiful?" Morgan's voice held a dream-like quality. Pallo turned and stared at him. There was no need to ask who he was talking about.
"Well ... if you like them weird. I mean silver stripes in her hair and all that. I wonder what kind of dye she uses." She could not resist that catty remark. After all, if the girl was just concerned with her own brother ... well, she would be great friends with her. Maybe not, though. She was too beautiful to be great friends with. Every man on the ship leered over at Phaedra when she dined or danced or drank. It was disgusting! Pallo reminded herself that she could have and should have gone to London as Morgan had told her. Trouble was, she was still too afriad to be out in the big, big world alone. Money in her pocket and fear in her heart. She wanted to tag along after him for a little while longer ... just a little while longer, until she learned the ropes. She sighed, bit her lips. She had to learn.
"Bitch...." Morgan was saying.
"Excuse me. What?" Pallo moved from her worried back to the malevolent look of her brother.
"I said, you were a little bitch. She doesn't dye her hair. I asked her. What if she did anyway?"
"Nothing. I'm sorry. Girls are like that."
"Not Phaedra. You know I might marry her. I just might. Would you hate that, Pallo?"
"She won't marry you." She frowned at her brother's grinning face.
"How do you know? I'm wealthy, handsome. Come on, how do you know?"
Pallo shrugged. She was getting annoyed by this conversation. "I just know. Call it intuition. She's ... I don't know, strange, I guess. Something's not quite right with her. Some kind of ... I don't know." She could not explain the feeling that she got from Phaedra and she felt annoyed. All the men thought she was tops, was just too much. She wasn't being girl-nasty now. She really felt some kind of....She shrugged.
"Jealous, that's all." Morgan informed her.
"No, I'm not jealous. Well, maybe I am, but I do feel some difference in her." Pallo gathered up her evening bag and gave her brother a sarcastic wave, letting him know she had had enough of this Phaedra talk. She slammed the cabin door behind her and walked through the ship, making her way towards the sun deck. The night was dark now, the full moon gone back to its place behind the clouds. She passed Phaedra's cabin and paused by the door, listening for more of the crazy noise. Nothing. Phaedra, locked in her room, making strange noises. What kind of excuse could she offer for that? Something, Pallo was sure. With a wry smile Pallo adjusted the crooked Do Not Disturb sign and moved on up the stairs, the metal clicking of her heels making her more annoyed.
She stopped, standing on the cold deck, her arms wrapped around herself, too small a protection against the chilled night air. How cloudy the sky was. It would be daylight soon. Not a soul stirred on deck. She felt a tendril of nightmare clutch at her and turned to go back below where the gay bands played soft pop music and expensive couples danced in each others' perfumed arms. She stopped at the stairwell, hearing a rustling noise. She turned her head around and peered through the darkness. Someone else was here, braving the cold. It looked like....She smiled to herself, bringing her shy dimples into effect. It was Rick. She could tell just by the outline of his shaggy, ill-kept hair, his dungaree jacket bunched, patched and shadowed around his broad shoulders. Her heart leaped, keeping pace with her desire. Something about the man brought out every bold thing in her, made her downright aggressive. She walked quietly towards his back. He was just leaning against the rail, issuing great streams of cigarette smoke upwards from his mouth. Pallo's silver slippers glittered as the moon crept from behind a cloud. She felt suddenly giggly, silly like a school girl. Her hand reached out and touched him. At the same time the dawn appeared, almost without warning. His face glittered strange and iridescent in the new light. Haggard and worn, as if he had been up all night employing some great emotion. He had not been dancing ... nor with Phaedra. He had been alarmingly absent all evening. The last strains of music reached her ears as the tired members of the band announced that the party was over.
"Pallo." He spoke her name, bland statement in the quiet dawn light.
"Are you ill? I didn't mean to frighten you, Rick." God, how worn his features were. Some trick of morning light, perhaps. His clothes were disarrayed, as if he had hurriedly pulled them on in the darkness of his cabin.
"I'll?" He laughed, amused at some bit of irony she had no clue to. She moved next to the rail. She was suddenly sure he had spent the night with the illustrious Phaedra. Hatred for her rival reeled in her mind, scratched like a ruined wind-up toy.
"I'll go. I didn't mean to disturb you. Really."
"No, don't." His hand touched her arm imploringly. "I'm the one to be sorry. I was just throwing a silent kind of tantrum when you disturbed....I mean ... well!" He laughed and she was suddenly making that shared noise with him. He blundered with words and then took them from painful existence with his unquenchable sense of humor. His humor was sexy too, a large part of his appeal. It rode in his face, struck you front-first, telling you he had nothing to hide and the world was an ironic, funny place. Sex was natural, like laughter, and he had both.
Pallo grew aware of the heat from his hand as it held her arm. Her blue eyes opened wide as they pinned the hard source of heat. She lifted her eyes and met the hazel, smiling eyes of Rick. The cast in his left eye, even, gave him a sexy look. Her heart pumped, fluttered in her breasts. Surely he could hear it.
"Rick ... you make me dizzy, very dizzy."
"Do I? It's nice to make you dizzy. If you made me dizzy first, we might just stand here swaying back and forth all night long." He laughed, squeezed her arm and released it, leaning his back against the rail, watching her, amused by her reaction to him. He almost made her angry.
"Well!" She smiled foolishly, wrapped her arms around her breasts, her dimples filled with moonshine. "Instead of swaying back and forth with dizziness ... what might we do?" She grinned impishly, overcoming his wild effect on her as well as she could. She had to match his scintillating manner, had to be as good as he was, at whatever game they played. She had to, she told herself truthfully, match Phaedra-and being honest with herself, that was a lot of matching.
"You have a battle plan?" He mocked her aggression. "Do you want to take me by force, or turn your back while I sneak up on you?"
"That's not so funny." Hurt was quick in her mouth, bitter to the taste of her sensitive tongue. "Not ... funny." Words stumbled, caught in her throat. She turned, tears blurring the dark dawn path down the ship's blue deck. Bastard! Bastard! Attacking her desires so suddenly. She ran, stumbled, and found herself in an ungainly swan dive towards the deck. Her mouth struggled with a scream that would come too late, her arms pushing downwards in horror as the deck rushed upwards at the same time. Riiiiiip! The fabric of her gown's neck tearing and the quick, hard arms pulling her back up on her feet. Wild with shame, anger and pain, she struggled, tears hot, blurring her eyes and what they might reflect of her shattered mirror image in his hazel irises.
"Let me go! Let me go! I hate you ... hate...." Sobs lunged, throbbed and finally choked her into a coughing fit. The arms held her, filled with the silence of his tongue. Soon, finding it impossible to regain composure and freedom, she quit her mad struggle, burying her blue-eyed face instead in the easy comfort of his shoulder. Unashamed now that the worst was over, she cried. She could not do more to embarrass herself in front of him now, and there was nothing for her but great sobbing tears and wretched release. Arms held her tight, fingers splayed protectively across her back.
Finally he spoke, his voice filled with what she had supposed was her shame.
"Please....Please. I hardly ever get nasty. It was a hard night for me, a very hard night indeed." His voice grew husky and Pallo buried her head deeper into the crevice between his shoulder blade and neck. "Cruelty doesn't become me, Pallo. Please say you forgive me. I smelled your cat-and, well, I didn't react like a man at all. Just too immersed in my own silly grief." His breath caught on the last words. "Say you forgive me."
"I do. I do." Her mouth was dry from sobbing. She let his voice wash away the dying fragments of her anger and hurt. He had been pushed by some trouble ... perhaps by Phaedra. She moved her body closer to his with the thought. She wanted him badly, the way she hadn't wanted anyone for a long time. She needed him, as Morgan grew away from her and more into his own personal life. She wasn't a child any longer and she had needs.
"Hey?" His big hand moved within the soft halo of her blonde curls, gently, with a familiarity and softness no one but her brother had ever used. It felt good coming from an outside source.
"You feel good, very good." His mouth leaned towards her neck, dripped nectar onto the tiny hairs there, standing each barely visible bit of blondeness on end. Her nipples strained, growing taut against him, reaching through the confines of the blue dress.
"Come with me?" It was a question. She tried to stand her shaky voice upright, but the syllables tottered and scattered into fragments.
"Yes, Pallo. I want to. I need you right now....Yes, need."
She wouldn't suspect his needs. He wanted her for herself. That was all. She would think no further than that. Once in bed she would capture him. Her head moved and she met his strange eyes. Without another word they began walking through the foggy dawn light. Noise still traveled up from the ballroom. Her shipmates were determined to get all they could from this trip. So was she. Rick's hand closed around her arm, promising with its terrible heat what was yet to come. The hazy light made everything look dream-like, as if wraiths flew around her smiling at her sudden good fortune. They walked quietly down the first set of steps onto A deck. They were coming near Phaedra's door. Pallo pursed her mouth as they passed, her eyes watching in secret his reaction. Worry. Just an instant's look of worry. He bit his lip and pulled on a new face as they moved past the door. Pallo looked straight ahead of her now, trying not to wonder what was happening. She had him now. Ever since they had left port she had wanted him. It had been so obvious, her great desire. Now....
"Here." Soft voice from her mouth as if she was afraid of frightening him away. He waited with his tender, crooked smile while she unlocked her door. Rick moved into the gray silence of the room ahead of her, seated himself in a big comfortable chair, his eyes gripping the round vacancy of the porthole. Outside, the sun, a gilded red apple, began its miraculous ascent from the water's edge. Pallo stood and watched too, trying not to look at him. Thunder in her breasts.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" he asked, his voice touched with awe. "It chases all the shadows of the night away, makes them disappear so quickly that you wonder if they were real or not."
She let him talk, having no idea what he meant and not really caring. She placed her purse on the large table, kicked her silver shoes under the bed. Should she sit on the bed? My god, what was wrong with her anyway? There was no other place to sit. She sat down heavily, hating her little-girl fears. She was two-parts aggression and two-parts child, in terror of the day. She felt uptight, hating for him to think she was coming on, but knowing that was exactly what she was doing. She heaved a sigh and stretched out on the bed, watching the big globes of braless breasts relax seductively under the crepe fabric. Her little hands folded directly under the breasts. She would not look at him, but wondered if he were still staring out of the porthole, eaten by reverie.
"You're very pretty." His voice answered her question.
Pallo stared up at the ceiling. "Thank you. So are you."
He laughed and moved over to the foot of her bed, easing his bulky body next to her legs. Tender, amused eyes.
"You have a crush on me, don't you?" He reached out and stroked her legs, his fingers trailing up her thighs.
Pallo shut her eyes tight and lay rigid. "Yes ... I'm sorry for being so obvious. I know you hate it."
"No ... I don't hate it. If you mean before ... well, I explained as best I could." She could feel his coarse skin through the dress. What should she do now? Give vent to her first aggression? Continue acting like the uptight child? She bit her bottom lip.
"You seem to be between moods. Pallo, open your eyes. Stop being afraid to act yourself. Give in ... come on." He lifted her up by her soft shoulders, pulling the top of the dress down over the great roundnesses of her breasts. She watched him feeling the hotness in her eyes, the breath begin to tear, to catch in the leaves of her dry throat. Oh yes. Her fingers curled into talons on the bed as he bent, so gently, taking a large pink nipple in his mouth. Pallo closed her eyes, the sucking noises climbing in her ears, stirring the pulse so she could hear her heart beat wildly, thick and slow. His mouth revolved slowly, sucking, teeth pressing into her tender flesh again and again, a mouthing, wet message that sent its golden arrow deep down to the blonde curling vee between her legs. Her thighs ached to hold him and her hands lifted to his lap, fluttering indecisively at first, then with a sudden impulse, pressing against the hardening lump of masculine flesh. She let her eyes fly open, her bottom lip hanging wet, an invitation. Underneath her hand his cock pulsed and moved, growing bigger and bigger. Her hand clasped its thickness, traveling up the long, hidden cylinder. Oh, how badly she wanted him. His face did not smile now, but watched her closely, lifting its wet suction mouth from her taut, shining nipple. His hands squeezed her breasts, weighed them individually. Then with a slow, maddening movement they slid down her sides, gathering fabric in handfuls until her round pink thighs were exposed. Pallo watched all this, inhaling and exhaling, hissing steam towards his calm face. He licked his lips with his thick red tongue, sliding his hands up her thighs, moving with sweeping gestures to her inner thighs. She gasped, held hard his thick cock, unable to believe how good it felt, never wanting it to end. Inch by inch, his hands traveled up the silky thighs until they reached the tight elastic band of her panties on both her legs. Then with slow deliberation each hand lifted a panty leg, letting thick fingers walk softly over her crawling flesh into the jungle of her pubic hairs. They stopped there, not yet searching for the cunt lips that were hidden under the massing hair, just stopped, fingers lifting and falling like a marching band. Up finger, down finger, heating her cunt so slowly, with such fiery infusion that she could hardly stand it. Pallo realized she was keeping time with his movements by grasping and releasing his great iron cock.
"Rick ... Rick, shouldn't, shouldn't we get undressed?"
"Should we?" His mouth bent towards her, licked her lips, the long tongue trailing down her tortured neck to the valley between her breasts. Darting pink animal, it tasted and swooped, lapping nipples, drawing wet circles.
"Should we?" he grinned, taking his pink tongue back into his mouth. He stood, easing his cock from her hands. He smiled. She hadn't realized how tightly she had been holding it. She shrugged from her dress as she watched him undo his belt buckle, drop his dungaree pants on the floor. She smiled at him, slowly unsnapping her garters, rolling her stockings down her round, well-shaped legs. He was out of place on this ship, dressed or undressed. He was from another world, a world where clothes and manners had no place. She moved her wide blue eyes up and down his thick, well-proportioned body, unable to take her eyes from his cock as it swayed, pointed directly at her, thick, rounded head swaying like a snake at one end of a fakir's flute. Her breasts rose and fell steadily, her hands gripping the bedspread in little madras mounds.
"Well, here we are naked." His grin walked with him to the bed. She felt desperate, like a child being played with. With a sudden movement she spread her two legs wide and he climbed between them, planting his knees close to her furry cunt so she could feel the heat of his body. His cock rested delicately heavy on her belly. Her hands sought him, grasping him firmly now, marveling at the difference this unclothed cock held now that it was alive and warm between her rolling palms. She felt the droplets of sweat stick the instrument between her fleshy mount of Venus and her thumb. She wanted him, wanted him in every way, wanted to please him, to top whatever Phaedra had done for him. Her head swooped towards the hypnotic cock, her hands sliding with wetness down to the incredible thickness of the base. His hazel eyes flashed out at her as her timorous pink tongue reached from her small pouting mouth and licked it across the slit, twisting, the pointy tip of her tongue moving against the tight flesh around the slit opening, widening the crevice. Good! She had the very tip of the point in, moving in little constricted circles. Her hands grew hot and restless on it, pressing and releasing it, hard then soft. She felt crazy, filled with intoxicating blood that rushed to her head and swam endlessly in a carousel, whirlpool circle. Her mouth opened and she sucked the cock head into her teeth-lined cave, biting it where it ended outside her mouth. Rick's hands grasped her shoulders, squeezed, played upon her breasts, slipping back down to her panties, two fat fingers parting her cunt lips. She could feel the squish of juices as he slid his knuckles over her clitoris. Her body obeyed her heart, wanted him as much. She felt the gurgled noise of new moistures cream down her tunnel into the waiting net of her panties and Rick's probing fingers. A finger screwed itself around and around in her cunt, scratchy nails ripping lightly at her tender-wet cunt walls. She moved her mouth, sucked deeply the great length of bony flesh, swallowing it up to where her throat suddenly dipped on its. slippery way to her belly. It had a salt taste about it and suddenly all her hungers were released, were wanton, grabbing little savages goading her darting tongue, clamping her teeth against the rubbery-ridged penis. Her hands touched his balls, felt there hair-covered silk. Fine skin covering large containers, containers that held the future of the race. What was she thinking of? Her mouth sped backwards, leaving a trail of saliva in its wake. Rick's fingers stirred her cunt, probing, examining every reachable inch of her. Pallo closed and opened her thighs around the rich sensation, aware that they wouldn't be enough by themselves. There was a yearning thing inside of her, a thing that ate at her desires, pushed her forward in a rush of passion. She twisted, her mouth zipping over the great beast of a cock head. The cock waved, slapped against her cheek as it exited. Without warning, Rick was on top of her, was heavy and thickly masculine, pressing his hot flanks and flat, muscled belly against her own roundness. Upwards, her head whirling, she thought and felt her body following her silent, pleading command. His cock found her easily with no assistance from his hands. Besides, they were too busy probing at her ass cheeks, jabbing warmly into the wide-apart crevice that divided her rear end. Her mouth gaped as the fleshy rod continued sliding upwards until it hit roughly against the dead end. Her mouth opened and closed like a fish's. Warm strands of silvery saliva dribbled from her chin. Rick's smell assailed her nostrils, warm musk and clean sweat. Her body jumped upwards to meet him, to take and keep every inch of him. His balls danced on her back portions as he rode her in and out, fucking her expertly, setting a musical pattern in her body that she began to answer. He was a vast plunger, sucking up her body fluids, clearing the clogged drain of her sex. Pallo held his shoulders, scratched him in her frantic passion, pulling him closer, tearing at his flesh so he would give her all ... everything! It felt good. Oh damn, but it felt good. He was so thick and heavy. There was no room inside her for anything else, not even a molecule. There was hardly room enough for all of him. His hands strayed, moved, while he fucked her steadily, pounding up against her wall ending, withdrawing until just the throbbing red head remained in. She swayed, snapping that head in and out of her vagina, over the thick lip-like circle of the ledge. He groaned his pleasure, then stabbed her hard with his cock, dive-bombing her cunt, growing enraged with his needs. His hands bit into her thighs as he tugged her along with him. He was still fucking her but making his way to the edge of the bed, until she could see his calves drop off into the nothingness. He grinned at her, giving her body one last great tug.
"Hey...." Pallo exclaimed as her knees bent over the edge of the bed. Rick was standing now, his hands clasped around her ass cheeks. Pallo felt helpless and feminine. Her legs dangled, just missing the floor. She looked at the wet cock as it dipped into her, slowly sliding down inside of her again. Rick lifted her high by her buttocks and her legs dangled insanely. She felt so helpless. Her hands reached towards him, then fell backwards, her arms helpless victims behind her. Rick laughed and slowly withdrew. She felt almost annoyed inside. She was so horny! She wanted to come, wanted to utter the long cry of completion. Her eyes tried to catch his, but he was not seeing her or anything else. His eyes were shut tight and slowly, maddeningly, he drove himself in and out, drifting his bulky body from side to side and he entered and exited. Pallo threw her hips from side to side too, trying to capture the thick point of his pleasure, trying to make him stay put for a moment. His eyes still shut tight, he ignored her, riding slow, even slowing down some more.
"Rick ... Rick, please, hard. Hard!" she pleaded, grinding her hips against his while he continued on his slow way. It was useless, but her pelvis didn't stop. God, he moved so slow. She could feel her pubic hair curl and uncurl around him as he kept his snail's pace. Even the gurgle of juices was slow, as if they unrolled from a high, slow, slow tidal wave. She pleaded, cried, pushed her body as far back into the soft bed as it would go. Her legs dropped down on either side of her. Damn! He had her fixed; she could not move a single inch. She shut her eyes tight and felt with her whole body the maddening slowness of him. Every inch of his ribbed and ringed cock told her vagina its presence as it climbed up inch by inch, meeting her cunt walls, pressing on, still slow. Oh god! She couldn't stand it. Slime dripped down the crack in her ass hole, itched her. Her eyes shut tight, seeing red dots in the blackness; she felt him sway, from side to side. The head of his cock pressed against the left side of her tunnel ... the right side. It felt as if her pink inner flesh closed around him, tried to swallow him. She tried to move, to keep him in one place. He was gone again, withdrawing until the head quivered, undecided whether or not to leave completely or enter again. Sweat popped out on her brow, dripped down her face. She felt the irritation in her belly, felt the quivering answering spasms of muscles. If only he would ... Oh, she felt it happening. The slow build-up of pressure, the long-awaited climax. If he did not move, if he stayed so slow and turtle-like, she would not ... Did he know what he was doing? Her hands reached up, touched his shoulders. Her eyes flew open and she looked into the great pools of hazel, amused eyes. He knew.
"Rick ... I ... I...." It was happening, despite the slowness, or perhaps because of it-the rumbling dance in her belly that set her legs to quivering. She could not speak....
Without warning he was rammed down inside of her, bringing a sharp cry to her mouth. She was coming ... Oh ... her mind swam in blackness as he beat her with his thick cock again and again, stirring her passion, pumping her answering quiver and gobs of watery slime from deep inside her. Without mercy, hurting her and delighting her, he rammed her again and again. She felt her body lose itself, quiver, shake, again and again. She could hardly stand it. There didn't seem to be an end to her long-shut-away desires. As soon as one spasm was over, there was another one right on its tail. Her belly swam in water, gushing between them. The mighty weight of his balls thumped hard against the bottom of her ass and still he assaulted her until with a hard grunt he was packed tight inside of her, his whole body shaking. Pallo was crushed under his weight, her arms flinging themselves around his back and holding him tight while she shook her hips and pelvis around his cock, tearing the last of his desires from him. All at once he was still, his breath rushing in and out of his lungs, his mouth. She could feel the heat of his pleased body, relaxed against her flesh. She felt warm and safe. Safe? Yes ... yes she did. Her arms closed around Rick's broad back and Pallo closed her eyes, daydreaming. He felt right ... the right size and shape, the right weight. If only she could keep him, could hold this moment, safe with her. She felt him move and break away, gently disentangling her arms. Her fingers locked behind him. She knew she was doing wrong, was frightening him, but she could not help herself. Soon, very soon, Morgan would begin his own life. What would she do then? If she had Rick ... she would not be alone.
"Pallo ... let me up," was all he said, but in such a deadly, calm voice that she grew ashamed. Her fingers unlocked behind him and her arms dropped unhappily to her sweating sides. She blinked her long-lashed blue eyes as he stood staring at her. This was all different from the way she had planned, was all wrong. After they made love they should talk, should touch each other gently. Should she begin? She watched him settle in the single armchair of the cabin, cross his legs, and stare at her with those mischief-filled eyes suddenly touched with ... pity. No! She denied this, was across the room in a moment, her knees touching the carpet as her head buried itself in his damp lap. She began to cry softly, ashamed for her vast and terrible needs.
"Stop ... stop, baby." His large hands stroked her hair, the way her brother might do-but not the way a lover would.
"Don't...." His voice was tinged with the terrible pity. "Don't make more of this than it is. I like you, baby ... I'm just not what you think you need. Pallo ... I'm not."
She heard his words as if they rolled around on the bottom of a dark and hollow drum. She was too ashamed to look up and meet his eyes. Her sobs stopped, dropping down to the bottom of her belly. She would not give him any more of her pain.
"Look up," he told her and lifted her face by its masses of blonde curls: She met those dazzling, strange eyes. Rick smiled at her.
"You're a lovely lady, Pallo. I misjudged you from the start, and now I see why and who you are. There's someone out there for you."
"But not you." The bitter edge dyed her voice a hard color.
"No." His two fingers wiped away the ledge of wetness under her eyes. "Phaedra?" she asked.
"No ... no one, Pallo. I move alone and always have." His eyes filled with distance. "And recently I've become aware of just how alone I really am." He smiled with bitterness and then moved from within its ugly circle.
"Aren't you tired? We've been up all night."
"Sure ... I'm tired." She leaned back on her bed, naked, the sweat drying with the sudden daylight coldness in the room. She watched him dress, unable to accept his words. There had to be a way. There were many men who thought they would move alone forever. And she needed him, no matter what he said. Morgan would be gone forever soon. As long as it wasn't Phaedra, it could still be her. Pallo pushed reason away. He could, after all, learn to love her. She closed her eyes, listening to the rustle of his clothes; and then the cabin door softly opened and closed. She began to run, sleeping, towards the dream of tomorrow.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Shasta watched the large clock, its gold pendulum swinging methodically back and forth. The color of the motion glinted in her black eyes, hypnotized her frantic thoughts into steadiness. She pulled back the disintegrating red drapes with her thin hand, looked out at the dusky afternoon sky that was already unveiling the moon's great wheel. Her eyes grew darker as she stared up at it, sign of horror. When she had given birth to the baby she had not expected to bear, that moon had hung in all its fullness right outside her bedroom window, mocking her, promising vile and horrible things. She had waited all this time, worrying about her daughter's coming birthday, and now she was saved those three extra years of dread. But at what price, Shasta? she wondered. Her poor niece was coming, was due here any moment. She turned and again stared at the clock she hadn't fully recognized before. A sigh hissed from her mouth and she compressed her thin lips. A few minutes and her driver would be returning from the docks with Phaedra.
The swish of heavy skirts turned Shasta's head toward the carved oak door. Belladonna stood there, glaring at her. How fierce those black eyes. How filled with hatred and death. As much as she tried to hide the thought, she could not; Belladonna was a likely candidate for the curse, with her lack of sensitivity. How had she missed it? Shame filled Shasta's heart. Regardless of anything else, she was Belladonna's mother and could not safely harbor such thoughts.
"So ... she's on her way?" The hissing, hatred-filled voice of her only offspring.
Shasta turned back to the window, watched the driver open the rear door. Shasta's lip throbbed with pain where she bit it. The girl who left the car was lovely; she could have been her own daughter. She was even more beautiful than her pictures. Shasta let the drapery's thick velvet fall back across the window where it danced, a shadow of the past. Belladonna stood, her weight on one hip, her eyes defying her mother.
"I'll make her miserable. I'll make her as unwelcome as I can. You brought her here and I'll be the reason she will go."
"No you won't. She may lift the curse from the family so you may marry ... so you may bear children."
"I can now. I will not receive the curse. You didn't! I can have a pure child-with Boland."
"Foolish girl!" Shasta felt her voice tremble with rage. "You think because neither you nor I bore the weight of the curse, that we are free. We are just as tainted as she is. The curse leaps wildly back and forth through our family strain, from cousin to cousin, from sister to niece. Fool! Most likely your child, if a daughter, would bear the curse. The child of a werewolf never wears the malignant force. The spell is fair; each member bears some of the weight."
"Shut up! Shut up! I do not want to hear any more. Stop!" Her hands clapped around her ears and Shasta stepped towards the stricken girl to comfort her.
"Get away from me! You did this to me. You willingly brought me into a world where I would suffer ... gave me a name I cannot carry!"
"No ... no." Shasta shook her head, denying the inflated truth.
The door opened softly and the girl stood there, her eyes moving back and forth between the two distraught faces. Garron held two heavy suitcases in his hands. With a flicker of a smile he set them down behind the girl and was gone, most likely to share his gossip with the other servants.
"Aunt Shasta?" The beautiful mouth trembled.
"Yes ... Phaedra, my child. Come here." Shasta held out her hands and collected the soft shoulders of the girl. Phaedra received the kiss, her eyes worried by her fate and by the argument she must have overhead. She glanced at Belladonna, who stood stiff and erect, her face chiseled out of stone. With a rude motion of her head she left the room, not even acknowledging her cousin's presence.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring my troubles here. Was that my cousin? She knows about me?"
"Phaedra dear ... sit down and make yourself comfortable. I'll go and get some tea." Shasta folded her hands across her breasts. "Then we will talk. Don't mind Belladonna. She blames the whole world for its harsh presence. She is still a child, I fear."
"I don't blame her." The voice was quiet, accepting even this tragedy that had cut sharply into her life.
Shasta quietly left the room in search of a servant. She stopped in the hallway and rang the bell.
In a few seconds, Anna, the maid with the hooded falcon eyes, padded in her old slippers down the long dark hall.
"Tea, and something to eat. Please serve it quickly, in the drawing room."
"Yes, Madam," the old feet turned the withered body and shuffled off down the hallway again. Shasta watched the old crone go, knowing that she soon would be that old and that gray. She had spent a life here alone, growing from her young widowhood and young beauty into this-this bag of bones, rotting among the ancient grandeur of this mansion. She returned silently to the huge room and pulled back the door on its well-oiled hinges. Phaedra sat at the small round table near the window, looking up at the sliver of moon as it glinted through a crack in the curtain. Her hands wrestled with each other in her lap. Shasta felt her heart reach out to the girl, embrace her as a daughter. Perhaps as the daughter she had been cheated of.
"Aunt Shasta?" The luminous black eyes entreated her as she moved through the room. She sat in the chair opposite Phaedra and searched her mind for a way to begin.
"Tea will be served shortly, dear."
"I don't care about the tea ... Aunt Shasta...." Hands wrenched at each other in the lovely lap, nails bit into knuckles, and Shasta blinked her eyes against the sudden streaks of blood on the girl's fingers. "Talk to me ... please. What is happening to me? There is a moon in the sky tonight. The first one since the boat. What is this thing that eats at my life?"
"There, there. I will try to explain. I had hoped you would settle down here first, try and relax."
"The moon...."
"Yes, yes." Shasta tried to keep her eyes from the crack in the curtain. "As you say there is a moon tonight ... the beginning of three days for you."
"Why ... what is it? The dreams I have afterwards
... the things I do while I am ... am ... changed."
"What do you remember about those times, Phaedra?"
The huge black eyes with the tired circles underneath stared back at her, helpless as a wounded child's. "I do not really know. I remember little pieces ... the padding of paws, the sounds of howling. Desires following me into my regular life ... to ... to...." The head hung suddenly, hair swimming in stripes down to the girl's lap. "Hunt, yes, to hunt."
"No need to despise those feelings, my dear. They are a part of you now ... unless ... unless you can dispel the curse."
"Why do I have it in the first place?" The voice raised, towering towards nameless hysteria.
"I never hurt another person. I never did anything that would warrant this! This is out of nightmares, stolen from horror movies! This is the twentieth century! I'm a model ... I work and make money. I ... I was so happy ... or at least I was doing so well...."
"Hush! Hush, child, and I'll try to explain. Hysteria won't help. You must keep your sanity about you."
Phaedra laughed and it was an ugly, tortured sound to Shasta's ears.
"Please ... you must listen. Try to relax." Phaedra stood and walked towards the hateful eyes of the portrait of Harlande. The eyes of the painting seemed to move as her thin body swayed towards the painting. Her long, exquisite hands went out and touched the painting and then withdrew. She stared at her fingers.
"Wet ... my hands are wet. The painting is sweating."
"It is always wet. Taste it."
The girl raised the fingers to her mouth and her tongue touched their tips hesitantly. She stared across her fingertips at Shasta. Shasta felt a cold chill sweep up her spine. She had forgotten the first maddening discovery of horror. When you had lived with the supernatural all your life, it became commonplace.
"It tastes salty." Phaedra, her eyes wide, turned from the portrait and walked down the line of family portraits, touching each one.
"You won't find anything amiss with the others. It's him, Harlande, who sweats." Phaedra walked back to the painting again and touched it, her whole body convulsing.
"Why?" She asked the simple question that would lead into detailed explanation.
"He is the bearer of the curse. He sold slaves and trained wolves he had raised from cubs to keep them in line. He took the daughter of a proud medicine man and took the man's curse as well. One daughter from the family line should carry the same life as his wolves, until her death. Then another daughter, when she reached the age of twenty-one, would inherit the curse. One member of a family at a time. His daughter was twenty-one." Shasta looked from the glaring portrait of Harlande to Phaedra, who stared at the lines around the painting's mouth.
"But a slave trader ... Didn't he live here?"
"He lived nowhere. He was a pirate, a Gypsy who belonged to no one and no thing. He married, though, not believing the curse. His daughter was the first. There has always been someone."
"A hundred years ... and no one ever cured. How ... There must be a way to break it."
"Oh yes. The love of another werewolf, or a male wolf."
"The love of a wolf?" Phaedra shuddered.
"Is it so strange, dear? You yourself become a wolf on the nights of the moon. The only trouble is that a real wolf would never choose you for his mate. You smell too much like a human. Even after you change you carry the smells of the day with you upon the pelt of your covering. And there are no werewolves left in Transylvania."
"It is hopeless. I knew it." Phaedra buried her face in her hands and walked, dejected, back to the chair.
"Madam?" Anna entered the room and served the tea, her eyes opening wide at the sight of Phaedra. She knew; Shasta could feel it. These old peasants could smell horror, could strip it of its disguise.
"That is all, Anna. You may go."
The old woman shuffled out with a veiled look at Phaedra, who sat on the chair, muffled sobs creeping from between her fingers.
When the door had closed behind the old hag, Shasta turned back to her niece. She was a stupid old fool. She had taken the hope from the girl before she had given it. She had traveled thousands upon thousands of miles to arrive in a hopeless land.
"There is hope, Phaedra. I am an old fodl. My own life is so hopeless that I reached out and tainted yours. There is hope. You have to carry the faith with you. Listen, it is true. Every spell like that has an out and can be broken."
Phaedra lifted her wet, streaked face. She inhaled deeply several times, her face composing itself.
"Thank you Aunt Shasta. I ... I have a method for tying myself down during these times. Perhaps you could help me with my bonds tonight."
"No...." Shasta shook her head. "That was clever of you ... and right for the big city. Here though, if you are to embrace hope, you must always embrace chance. There cannot be one without the other. I will put you in the East wing. It faces the forest and no one can see you come or go during your stay. You will live out your separate lives, and during your metamorphosis work out your solution-live as a wolf."
"I might hurt you. It's too risky."
"You do not understand. Because you have been raised on your Hollywood's brand of movies-and I have seen some here-you assume the worst. No, my child. Wolves do not kill man without good reason. You will not harm man while you are a wolf. You will hunt for small game. That is natural and as it should be. I accept the risk, as you call it. You must be tired and your mind heavy after all I have told you. I will put you to bed."
"Yes." Phaedra stood and watched her as she rang for the male servant to carry her bags. The tea cooled on the table, untouched.
"Come on and I'll show you to your rooms." Shasta walked towards the door as the servant entered. She pointed towards the luggage.
"Aunt. Shasta, there's a man I met on the boat. He has little money and I was wondering if he could stay here."
What was this? A young man already involved? Her heart wrenched as she saw the look in Phaedra's eyes. She wanted to warn her, tell her how dangerous it was to love when so afflicted, but she could not bring herself to. Phaedra's eyes had lit for the first time since she had entered this ancient and shadow-filled house. I
"Of course, my dear. Where can I locate him?"
CHAPTER NINE
She was alone now, her back resting against the bumpy raised texture of the wooden door. Shasta's soft tread upon the carpeted hall floor faded. The apartment was large, consisting of a bedroom, a sitting room and a bath. A large ornate terrace with spired doors faced the rugged, wooded terrain. The mountains rose high in the moonlit sky, their tops covered ... no, shrouded was more suitable to them. Yes, shrouded in mist. Tall, arched mirrors crowded the apartment's walls. Burning brightly on the little table next to the bed was an oil lamp. Her eyes were attracted, moth-like to the wild flickering dance of shadows. What things dwelled in this land, in this very house? She shivered as the shadows danced across her face. This entire land oozed in slime. She walked around the rooms, examining the ancient lustre of them. It was a house of spectres, she decided. This wing hadn't been used in ... how many years? A patina of dust lay on everything. She could see some areas that had been hastily wiped clean, but others ... Window ledges and old sullen furniture still held the residue of the past. She thought of New York with its million and one lights, the gaiety of night spots and the laughter of the glittering people. She thought of her own apartment and almost smiled, before she remembered that the curse had laid its stricken hand across the face of that place, too. But here! She whirled around, her eyes sneaking into every corner of this room, of this vaulted, secret place. Here it all fit. Somehow it was seemly that she should bring her grief here where it was no stranger. It lived here ... had begun here. She should stop thinking like that. She had to! She left the dancing shadows and moved out onto the lovely, old little terrace. She was one level above the ground. Her heart stopped for a moment, thudding violently against her chest. Shasta had given her the right room, all right. A long ramp descended from the terrace, sloping off into the darkness, aimed at the woods. Phaedra's eyes widened in horror as she stared at the ramp. Yes, she had been given the right room. She knew suddenly what the nature of the room's last occupant was like. It was like her own. She ran from the terrace and from the laughing moon, threw her body violently across the bed. A room with a ramp! a room filled with the vibrations and energies of others like herself. A room with all the feminine accessories for a hundred years worth of females ... wolves. She shut her eyes tight and wondered what time it was. Should she just go to sleep or should she stay awake for the pain of transition, in order to bring the reality of the problem home to her? As if she wasn't aware ... as if she ... Her mind babbled on and on. A soft insistent knocking at her door made her sit up in bed, wiping her eyes with the back of her hands.
"Come in." She smiled past her fears as Rick, his big grin wiping away the vaulted terrors of the old house, entered. He looked around her apartment and whistled.
"A fine old mausoleum, huh? My room's right down the hall." He moved out onto the balcony and looked. Phaedra hoped he would not ask about the ramp.
"Funny, that ramp out there. An invalid must have lived here."
"Yes ... probably that." Strange that she had not been permitted such a rational thought. No, it was no good. She knew now. There was no more of the useless, senseless hiding from herself any more.
"Phaedra, thank you for this favor. I won't forget."
"It's nothing. I adopt all the Gypsy types I meet. After all, I come from Gypsy blood." She smiled, but felt its thinness show itself to Rick. He leaned over and kissed her goodnight on the cheek. She watched him go, wishing she could seek help from him. As the door clicked shut behind him she rolled over on her side, staring helplessly out the terrace doors at the gray clinging mist of the night. She closed her eyes, felt the lashes tickle her sensitive skin as they swept along the iridescent ridge of her cheekbone. The trip across the ocean had been long and she was tired. The weight of this house and her ancestray was heavy ... very heavy. Sleep descended upon her soul. Sleep, blessed escape, the long run from worry into nightmare. Sleep, change disguised as blessing. The darkness flooded her soul, as if it were poured from an inky bottle. Her last thought was, did it flow down from the tops of the mountains? Was sleep the distilled shrouding of the Alps?
Kalli, the white wolf, tossed in sleep, a high pitched whine running upwards from her long throat. She was uncomfortable. More of the binding things. No ... She wrenched her body once, twice. Garments of some unnatural fibre suffocating her body. She twisted in the throes of panic, wide awake now. The full moon called, sang through the window. Must get free. Growls fought in the curved hollow of her throat, pushed against one another in sheer anguish.
Such rampant desires, the same as in the other strange place where she was tightly held. She could get free from this place, though. She had to. She could smell the sweet woods, the heavy overgrown tangle of the forest, could smell young rabbit fed on wild carrots. Her strong jaws opened and raged against the thin fibres of cloth. Yes! Two more jagged tears and she was free. She leapt soundlessly to the floor and followed the silver puddle of moonlight out onto the balcony where its origin filled the sky with light. She opened her mouth to sing to Odessa, ancient goddess of the moon. No ... Her tight jaws clamped shut with a dangerous click. No, not yet, not while she still had the stink of humankind on her pelt, not when she was in the artificial building, the cave of people. Wait, Kalli, she promised herself. Wait just a hair longer. She found the ramp and did not wonder about it. It was there and it led to freedom. That was all. Quickly now. Kalli whiffed the sweet grass, dipped her nose into its dewy fragrance as she ran, scraping it on a bit of twig. The trees seemed to reach out twenty feet ahead, their leafy arms wanting to embrace her, for was she not Kalli, child of the woods, daughter of the earth? She could not remember her beginnings, but then she was a wolf and a wolf had no desire to dwell in yesterday. Strange things had held her and now she was free. What else could matter?
She was in the woods, tasting the earth with her sensitive nostrils, tasting, too, the dampness that began as sweetness on her tongue. The great hunger rumbled in her belly, made demands upon her body. She reached the heart of the woods and stopped standing stark-still, a white shadow among darknesses. She raised her muzzle, opened wide her glinting jaws. Odessa hung in space, round and clever above the tree tops. Kalli sang, a song of joyful freedom.
"Ow wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. Owwwwwwwww." Odessa, Odessa, I am free. Rejoice with me. The mighty coiling of my spring demands its solace. Show me, Odessa, with your silver light, the insides of shadows where the game plays. Guide me with your streaking, opening light. Unlock the darkness for your favored-Kalli! Kalli sang, higher, lilting pitches of song that flattered the wolf goddess, that fed the ego of the moon.
"Kalli ... Kalli, my daughter, most favored one, follow now my shining shadow and I indeed, with silver pleasure, unlock the forest for your eyes. Most favored daughter who shares my color ... run now, run in my dry waters. "
Kalli lowered her muzzle, her loose red tongue lolling out the side of her mouth. She ran as light travels, smooth and fluid, covering the ground with her silver feet and hardly touching it. The smell of rabbit shot into her nostrils, tinging her senses with hunger. A sweet, spiced smell, a smell of fatness and plumpness, a smell of furred covering.
Odessa kept her promise, her silver fumes investigating the underbrush. A quick scurrying flash of brown, the underside of a white tail bouncing upwards against shadows. Kalli was off, her feet swift with decision. Now, fleet, light as air ... up ... up, Kalli! Her muscles uncoiled from their long rest, and she sprang through quietness, drifted like a white bird through the air. Snap! Crack! and hunger was redness, was filling, was scrawling its prophecy on her throat, dripping gently into her belly. Her sharp teeth were the only sound in the forest then as she relaxed from her small hunt, as she filled the hunger of many long and strange hours.
When she was done she thanked Odessa with a sweet sound that echoed from the tree tops. Odessa smiled upon her child, blushed with the sound of the mournful praise as a shadow crossed her face, veiling it. Kalli licked the stain from her white, pure jaws, turned to further investigate the woods. Before the night was done, she would be hungry again. Night-birds picked up the sound of her recent song and returned it to her with sharp shrilling. Kalli smiled, her tongue lolling from the glad corner of her long muzzle. The forest earth held her silent, padded feet as she ran for sheer joy, smelling and distilling the wind in her fine, wet nostrils. Freedom, and the forest to accept her. Never again would she be so foolishly captured. She was free for always now. How could they, whatever they were, find her here? Odessa uncovered her face and chanted in Kalli's eyes, silver among red pupils, running along with the quickness of the wolf's body, chanting, chanting.
CHAPTER TEN
Boland waited by the straw heap for Belladonna, his fingers digging through the slightly damp straw. The moon was full tonight and he felt the old and clawing fear of his ancestors. He felt something his grandfather and father had spoken of. It was in the hallowed air, the changing shapes of the mists that draped the mountains. There was something of the old horror about tonight. He could feel it in his bones. He could sense it by the laughing face in the moon. He cleared his throat of the fear and stretched his big body, feeling the tight muscles in his thick calves ache. He was sitting here waiting for that little fool. He had never waited before. Perhaps she couldn't get any more money. Then he would have no more to do with her, of course. Geldaine was still up, stirring her pot. He could see the tiny pinpoint of light in the far distance. He grinned, feeling the foolish quivering he had once tried to deny. Agh! This though ... this was work! Ramming his prize into that little nitwit a few nights a week. She had no seduction about her. She was animal, and would someday be a good vulva; but she was stupid like a child. A woman without wiles was no better than a sheep.
"Boland? Oh Boland!" And her entire willow weight was thrust into his body. His stiff arms went around her, playing the game. What was wrong with the little idiot tonight?
"Stop this crying, woman! What is wrong?" His voice tried to grow soft but could not. He felt put out, annoyed. He was ready for an hour's work, fucking the idiot and then taking her money, but this lover comfort she wanted ... he did not have it!
"Stop it, I tell you! What is wrong?"
"My cousin ... my cousin. She is here from America and my mother lets her into the house ... My mother even invites her!" Sobs took the prettiness, the vacant femininity from her face, made her ugly to him. "She has the curse. She is a werewolf!"
Boland felt his fingers press her bony flesh, grow tight and ache in her skin. He shook her violently.
"What do you say? Here now? The female devil?"
"Boland ... It means too that I am safe. I will not receive the curse on my birthday."
"Yes...." He admitted slowly, hardly hearing that part of what she said. The werewolf was in her home, was a relative of hers! It had been many years since the man-animal stalked this land. He felt the anger rise in his broad chest. It was anger he had inherited from his family, and their line was long, traveling far backward. His was very old stock and his hatred was as old. He pushed the girl away from him, feeling her name taint his flesh. He fought for some control of himself, wanting the money she had brought first, before he left her on this bleak night. Werewolf. The word ate at his intestines. The urge to kill began as a tiny seed in his belly and grew, blotting out all the little thoughts in his mind. He faced the girl, his dark eyes boring into her trusting ones. She moved close to him again.
"We can be married now, Boland. We can be married."
Married? Yes, he had planned on that and then a quick divorce, taking her blessed money. He could then dress his Geldaine the way she should be dressed. She would look like a movie star. But this! The girl was tainted with her name. He could feel it crawl from her soft flesh to his own work-hardened body. With a shudder he thrust her away again. She stared up at him blankly, not yet understanding what he felt.
"Boland? What is it? Why do you push me away?"
"The werewolf is in my mind, descending through the shamed ranks of your family. I do not know what to feel tonight! Except that the old terror stalks the land ... and you are a part of it."
"Do you not love me and wish to marry me now?" Pathetic sad voice, a child's voice. He turned away from her.
"Did you bring me money this night?" he asked, knowing he was rushing things but unable to help himself.
"Yes." She reached into her skirt pocket and unrolled the wad of bills she had hidden there. Gently, she pressed them into his hands. "My mother knows about us." She paused, seeing the victory brighten his eyes. He tried not to smile. "She said to tell you she is changing her will tonight and that I will not get a penny. I told her it did not matter." She stood, fumbling with her hands, watching him for signs of response.
Tonight was an accursed night! He glared back at her, his hands great beasts filled with hatred. He shoved the money into his pocket and met her wet eyes.
"That was stupid. We cannot live on our love! She must reconsider!"
"But you do love me?" She begged with her words.
"I must go tonight. I worry about your ancestors, about your cousin. I must go."
"Make love to me first. I am worried and confused. Boland!" her hands reached, tried to capture him.
"I must go. Your news has upset me. I will contact you shortly."
"I'll make her change her mind about the money! Boland. I will."
He hesitated. "Yes, you must do that. I will see you later."
His feet took him quickly across the meadow. He did not look back at the forlorn, weeping shape of Belladonna. Werewolf ... and the blocking of his plans by the old crone of the mansion. He spat viciously on the ground. Geldaine's light burned brighter as his feet began to run, carrying his massive body along. The little cottage loomed up ahead like a warm, known greeting. Little red curtains guarded the windows where a crucifix dangled in each pane of glass. He pushed the creaky door open and filled his eyes with the lush, full curves of Geldaine's backside. She wore a long red skirt and a yellow blouse that exposed the thick brown curves of her breasts. He nodded his head at her form. She did not yet know he was there, and continued stirring the huge black cookpot that hung in the fire. He cleared his throat and she turned, slowly, sullenly. She fixed her gray eyes on his face and shrugged, returning to her cookpot. Her beautiful black hair was pulled back from her heart-shaped face with its narrow nose and clear, slanted gray eyes. It hung in clusters of thick flowery curls down her back. He could almost forget the news he held next to his heart-almost, but not quite.
"So?" She shrugged the word off her shoulders at him. With a thick sigh she covered the cookpot and turned towards him, her long fingers set on the full shelves of her hips. Her naked feet were covered with dust. She lifted one now and scratched lazily at her calf, lifting the red skirt so he could peer up her thighs.
"What do you mean, so? My news is more than so ... more than you will care to hear."
"Yes? Did you bring me money ... money from your little Ethelwulf? Did you ram your presence inside her and make her cry with fever? And you come now into my house, where I sit for many nights and listen to her joyous pain travel across the field to my ears. Perhaps I am busy tonight. Perhaps I am sick of you and your princess. Hah?"
He grinned at her. She looked so full of fire, standing there like that with her hands on her hips. No, he would not tell her about the news yet. He would not tell her of the murder in his heart. It. would ruin the wriggling thrusts of her full, chocolate body. He licked his lips and moved heavily towards her. She turned her back on him suddenly. Her assi swayed under the full skirt, shook itself delicately at him. She lifted the cover of the pot and peeked in.
"You ignore me, wench? You make believe you have nothing to do with the ugly seduction of that brat! Hmmmm?"
"So?" Geldaine shrugged her rich shoulders.
Boland could feel the heat in his loins. How he thirsted for her! How she beat between his legs, a wildcat. His hand pressed flat against the sides of her hips, tightened their grasp.
"I am cooking dinner, brute! Leave my rear portions be. Leave my body free of your cheating hands." She cracked her hips in a wild swinging movement and threw his hands off. Boland laughed at her, reaching in his pantaloon pocket for the fat wad of bills. He pressed his body tight against her back and reached his full hand in front of her, pressing the dirty-smelling money under her nose. Her body grew quite still then and she covered the pot, moving back from the fire, licking her arm where the stew had stained her brown flesh. She wiped her hands on her skirt and took the money from him.
"And I did not even hear her screams this night. I will put this money with the other. We grow fatter with each conquest Boland. You are a fine stud."
He sank into a thick chair and removed his boots.
"What is it you wish to tell me, male whore?" Her disdainful voice called from the bedroom, where he knew she was hiding the money in the mattress.
"I will tell you after, you slut of a woman. After you do my bidding." He grinned. This then was the way they spoke to each other. She knew, that proud arrogant Gypsy, just how he really felt.
Geldaine appeared in the narrow doorway, an American cigarette dan'gling from her lips. "And what makes you think I will do your bidding? See this cigarette? I got it from a rich American today. Perhaps I will marry him and cross the big ocean. There is no law that tells me: Geldaine, you will stay with that pig of a male whore."
He felt angry, jealous at this talk. He knew too, that she provoked him on purpose.
"No American could do what I do for you." He spat on her floor and wiped the spittle from his lips with the back of his dark hand. This woman knew how to infuriate him! If she was now playing the old game he would ... why, he would kill her. If he did not possess Geldaine, then no other man would. It was a different thing for him to make love to wealthy women for money; but for Geldaine! The thought drove him across the room towards her. His hands caught in the thick swaying fabric of her skirt, and he jerked her towards him. She turned her smug face and made the gesture of spitting over her left shoulder. Her smile was tinged with sarcasm. Boland brought his hard lips down on top of her mouth, his teeth biting into the dark red flesh. She struggled, moans garbled in her throat. The fever was rich within him. It was a flame that only Geldaine could ever light. Her body pulled away from him and he spun her back towards himself, his hands hard on her arms. Again his mouth crushed hers, as he used all his wind to suck in her breath, to smother her with his tortured love. He tasted the stew on her tongue along with the perfume of wild flowers. Boland smiled on her lips as he thought of her chewing wild flowers as she worked. Crazy mad woman. But ahh, all woman. Her teeth gnashed upon his lips, tore the flesh as she screeched. How ripe and milky were her breasts! How slim her waist, and those hips ... wide, full, thick hips! They were the center of a woman, of his woman. His hands tangled in her oiled crazy hair, pulling it harshly, hurting her with his love. He shot his tongue down deep into her throat, strangling her, dipping hard, again and again against the smooth, taut flesh. Finally, he came up for air, holding her tightly by the arm and hair. Her mouth was half open and her breath wet and fragrant. The oil lamps shone against the patina of sweat on her thin face. Her cheekbones were almost pointed on either side of her nose. The gray eyes softened a little as she stared at him, her face breaking into a smile as her wet lips spread and opened. He thought of her other lips.
They too could smile. He moved his face towards her again, to take those delicious lips under his own.
"How do you think I feel, knowing you are with that other woman?" she whispered at him, her right eyebrow raised. Her hands slipped around his back and the thin fingers kneaded his spine. "I am growing crazy with jealousy! I dream of ripping her eyes out."
"You wanted the money too. You agreed. We could never live the way we wish without the extra money. You agreed."
"That was before. We have enough now. I do not wish for you to marry her. I am decided that I am not that greedy."
Boland felt glad at her words. He wanted to tell her about Belladonna's mother, the mistress of the manse. Not yet, though. There was still that in his mind that said he could convice her that a marriage would be the most beneficial thing. He could work on the old lady. He could threaten to take Belladonna away forever. The thought repulsed him. His eyes were filled with Geldaine. This was not the time for money thoughts, nor talk.
"You are greedy, my woman. I feel your greed threaten to swallow my whole body. Is that not greed?"
"You know what I mean Boland. You know. Tell me...." His mouth clamped over hers, banishing the words. No talk now. He twisted his lips, sucking, tasting, chewing her flesh. His hands brought her entire body up against his with a dull thud. Her thighs bulged against him and he grew, straight and thick, right up against her fat mound of pussy. Geldaine wriggled her hips, pretending escape, but really intent on further exciting him. She had forgotten about talking, too. Boland shifted his weight, swooped low and picked her up, his strong rope-muscled arms under her plump ass and her fleshy back. She was of a weight, a certain weight. Not light like Belladonna, who was all bone and twigs with only plump breasts to redeem her body. No. Geldaine was heavy in his arms. Her ass pressed against his arms, thick and promising. He moved into the cottage's only other room and dropped the languorous Geldaine on the bed. Her red skirt flew up around her legs, exposing her pubic hairs. The woman was always ready. She never wore panties. The thighs were very round and fleshy but not fat on top, tapering into the most lovely legs he could ever remember seeing. She wet her bottom lip with her tongue, an invitation. The round arms curved upwards as she lifted her head and made a pillow of them. How fine were her breasts, he thought, how thick. Even reclining, they loomed upwards, maintaining their fat shapes, two dark mountains with almost black peaks. He bent over her and lifted her thighs, parting them so he could move his knees between them.
"Boland ... Boland, I grow hot. Here!" She grabbed his right hand and pressed it tight against her hairy mound. He groaned and dug his fingers into the oozing juices of her body. Geldaine gasped and pushed her body upwards with all her might, burying his hand. He lost three fingers in the perfect hole, the thick, extraordinary lips closing around his knuckles and then around the lower phalanges of the fingers themselves. She released his hand and fumbled crazily at his pantaloon waist, untying the heavy cord that held his pants up. Her fingers worked, undid the rope and pulled the fabric down around his knees. With an animal cry, both her hands were on his, twisting, pulling, trying to tear the meaty apparatus from him with lusty grunts. Her mouth hung open and hollow, the gray eyes glazed with her quick passion. Boland squirmed, pressing the cock against her belly as her hands devoured his flesh, moving with lightning speed from one part of his phallus to another, caressing, kneading, tickling him. It was as if her hands were thousands of. stiff feathers. Geldaine rolled her lush hips back and forth, tropical female that she was. Her whole face was flushed with pinkness, suffusing the brown, glistening with oil and sweat. How lovely, how desirable she was. He went mad all of a sudden, his hands plunging up inside of her, twisting with wanton lust. He ripped at her skirt, dragged it down from her waist, lifted her lush legs high and freed her of her encumbrance. Her thighs twisted, gripped savagely around his broad waist. He paused for a second, breathing harsh ragged noises that growled in his throat as he lifted his peasant shirt over his head. Geldaine grabbed the garment and flung it to the floor with a wild whoop. She struggled from her own blouse and let it fly after the shirt. Boland lunged on top of her body, his wet sticky hand leaving her cunt, rubbing its slimy covering upon her hips. Her breasts leaped upwards without their thin veneer of civilization. Boland's hands were suddenly filled with those breasts, his mouth popping a dark nipple into its pink container. They tasted different from the breasts of other women. They tasted like Geldaine. His tongue rolled, snapped back and forth over the pointy bit of flesh, aware that it was all at once covered with tiny goosebumps. His thick cock snapped against her wet, hot pussy, parting slightly her wet-beaded furry lips. Boland straddled her and his weapon slipped, only tasting the sweet inviting dampness.
"Oh, Boland ... my man. Give me now what is left." Her eyes narrowed with sudden remembering. Boland resented her words. He loved her and made money the easiest way he knew. He did it for her. His hard member slapped against her belly and he took it firmly in his hand and inserted it, his mind reeling with the smell of her fishy substance, the warm sticky way it felt inside of her. Slowly he slid in, counting the paces as his cock strayed its fat bulbous head against her slithery walls, pressing against the sides. His arms braced themselves up against her breasts and he plunged in, cracking against her ass. Geldaine gave, throwing her weight up against him, her legs flying wildly around his waist, her feet beating his ass with their work-hardened heels. She snapped his cock inside her with a sudden sideways twist, and then again and again. She knew how. She felt like an inferno, so hot, so molten was she. Her eyes fluttered open and then closed sharply, as her hips leaped upwards against him. Panting, clawing him, she demanded his filling love, and he knew no one else could fill her so. She was too hungry for most men. He thought himself the ultimate in man-power and so did she.
"Boland, push your fingers up my ass ... push them." Her tongue licked the words from her mouth, and her teeth bit the tip of the words from her tongue. She was like the belly dancers he had seen at the carnival, her hips revolving so fast he could hardly tell they were moving. So fast did she churn his great sex, make his prick head itch, aggravate the subtle ledge of his round cock head. Up and down, she was wriggling her ass, lifting it for the finger. Boland played his hands over her hips first, teasing her, pulling his cock half way out of her. She hated that! She wanted him full inside her at all times. Geldaine thumped forward trying to swallow him, her thighs spread wide, inviting his diver's plunge. Laughing, he pulled further back as she took an extra inch of the shining wet sex. His hands squeezed her flesh, pinched her ass cheeks as they wandered under her lifting, lilting buttocks. The crack of her ass was smooth, was wet with body moisture that dripped down from her cunt. His fingers slid up and down the crack as she lifted, grunting, trying to bring her thick cheeks down hard on top of his probing fingers. No ... let her wait. He slid up and down, up and down, his thick cock keeping time with his moving fingers, tormenting the impetuous woman. Her mouth opened and growled at him, flinging curses upon his family. She struggled, her hands reaching down and squeezing tight his balls, hurting him into submissiveness. Boland cried his pain and jammed two fingers up her asshole, his body falling flush against hers with a whack. She pulsed underneath him, raised his heavy chest up with just her breathing, full, hard breasts. Her hands tore at his back, drew demons in blood. How fine was this woman who belonged to him. He fucked her in and out, strong and hard, his mad fingers pulling her tiny asshole, stretching it with thick, hurting sideways motions, as if he stirred something back there. Indeed, there was much to stir. Steady and quick he rolled his cock, meeting each time that rubbery, giving ending she had secreted away up there. Hot water moved before his thick rod, sprayed her sides as he parted the floods. Thighs, acres of lush, fertile thighs vibrated against his flesh, moving, thrusting forward and backward, taking and giving sensation. She quivered as the jelly mass would, swallowing him time after time. Her ass lifted with a regular rhythm that was a part of his riding cock, jamming hard down upon his stirring fingers. Noises filled his ears as the blood swayed, moved within its red vortex in his mind. Fuck her, he thought. Thumping noises and his smooth, long fat cock riding her in and out, from side to side, at the mercy of her body, which never once ceased its crazy, abandoned movements.
"Whore!" he shouted at her, his mouth filling with a thick breast. "Whore ... she-devil!" His body smashed against hers, clanking against bones. With a mole's digging motion he burrowed deep inside her, his cock up tight against her wall, his fingers swaying, pegging her asshole. Up tight against the rubbery wall he moved, not taking his cock out but an inch. Boland used that inch the best way he knew how, fucking her at close quarters. She loved it, squirming, moaning. Her feet beat upon his hard-muscled cheeks. Claws dug into his scalp, pulling hair, dug into his brain itself, he was sure. Her shouts of passion and madness rained upon his ears. How fast her breasts moved, slapping back and forth under his crushing weight. Her ass rose and fell around the entire length of him, grinding against the fingers, her belly plumping into his. She felt so good, so warm and swarming around him. His mind staggered with the impact of Geldaine, swam in lazy circles. The beast moved within his belly, a silver eel, uncoiling from long sleep. All his cock protected, covered, held in safety by her long, luscious insides. Slowly now, he probed, pulling her stretchy walls from slow side to slow side with his hard iron rod. To the left ... and then to the right. His mouth drooled on her breasts as he lifted his teeth from them, the tiny bite marks, indentations of his hunger, circling her nipples. Her eyes were glazed, were coated as if she were insane.
The fabulous body was wracked with spasms that might have been orgasm in most women. Not in Geldaine though! Shuddering hips, shaking his slow, tantalizing cock, breasts jiggling like a plum pudding. Boland was dizzy, was incensed with his desire and rage. He loved this woman blindly. He pushed himself up from her body, leaving his cock full inside of her, moved his fingers from her asshole with a plucking noise. In each hand he took a thick, ripe-fruit feast and moved that one inch out and then back in, until her body caught his music and reacted, pulling back when he pushed forward, then reversing the wet procedure. Her eyes closed now, lost in the sexual dream. She was ripe, her body quivered with the secret it would soon expel. He withdrew his sword, silver with wet, feminine dampness, and then without warning jammed his meat full into her, racking hard up against the wall. He felt the silver eel laugh in his belly and he was all at once blind to the universe. He was an animal with its mate. All he could hear and feel and smell were animal things-waters and hotness, hell and brimstone. In and out, in and out! Her cries spun in the convolutions of his ear, around and around, as if they were tossed by a whirlpool, spinning into the center of his brain. Fucking her, plunging in and out, gushing fluids over her belly, lost in a spasm that rocked his body, shot his ever lengthening cock straight up inside her. He shot her full of himself, thickness moving from the slit in his cock; felt her quiver, scream with rage, scream with the new thickness that pained her. Good. She gasped inward, as if she were sucking the air from the entire cottage, and her body gave violent shake after shake, her nails a quarter of an inch into his flesh.
Boland heard the noise and knew it was their two voices raised in a great sexual folksong. A Gypsy lover song. The last spasm rocked his loins and was answered softly, dreamily by her. They were smooth and elastic creatures, two puddles of flesh becoming one. Geldaine's hands softened in his black coarse hair, pulled each strand gently. He could taste her hot, pleased breath in his ears and smiled to himself, his big handsome face buried in her thick breasts. How good and peaceful it felt to be like this with your woman. Nothing in the world could taste as good as this.
Werewolf....All at once the thought moved within his mind, threatening to steal the evening from them both. The reality moved within his angry heart, and love was metamorphosed into hatred-a long, long hatred passed on and on for generations. Then too, there was the money and the foolish Belladonna. He was a man, a big strong man and had to face these things.
"I want to give you a son, Boland." Geldaine's voice, soft with pleasure, whispered to him. "Let us leave our greed behind, Boland. I am past twenty-six now and I don't want to wait any longer."
"Geldaine, I must tell you. I waited until we had our love-until we had lain together."
"About the silly girl, Belladonna? I do not want to wait, Boland! I will leave you. You can have the money, marriage, and the idiot child." Anger pitched her voice higher.
"No ... it is not even that." He lifted from her body with a sucking noise caused by the mingled sweat and juices, his hands holding hers, looking into her eyes, ready to calm the fear there. "There is a werewolf again in our country." He waited and watched the smoke curl in her yes, the ancient fear widen the pupils.
"No ... The Ethelwulfs," she whispered, not wishing to believe. "It is Belladonna, the one you wish to marry ... the name of death!" She struggled with him as he had expected her to, wanting to escape him, for he would be tainted too.
"No Geldaine. Not the girl-her cousin. From America. She had come back here to the beginning, seeking an answer."
"Sooooooo." Air hissed in the lovely mouth, pressed outwards by the space between her front teeth, nudged into the room; a horrible, fearful sound. She stared at him. "I have heard about her. She is famous in America ... a movie star. She comes here, bringing the change of death to us. You ... you want to marry that family for its money. You want to marry the dread name! No money can buy off the blackness, the scurvy of that name! Nothing is worth it! I will not touch you any more, Boland. I will go far away with my donkeys and packs. You will never see me again!"
Boland held her hands tight and thought of how confusing this all was. He had known ... yes, he had known he could not continue with the plan when he had heard about Belladonna's cousin. He would not lose Geldaine for anything. She meant her words and was not playing the game of love now. He knew. Her eyes glittered up at him. She turned her head and spit upon the bare floor three times to ward off the black curse.
"I will not continue, Geldaine. We have money saved, it is true. I will not continue."
"You will never see her again? This Belladonna? Make a promise, cross your eyes!" Her mouth was strong and serious. Boland crossed his eyes and made the hex sign with his fingers. Her body relaxed under his and he removed his weight from her. He lay next to his woman, feeling relieved, yet hungering for the money. The hatred and fear seethed, crawled like a thousand ants under his flesh. All his plans were gone. He had Geldaine and some money, but the big plan, the all-consuming plan of satisfaction....Money enough for them to live the way they had dreamed. Money to dress his beautiful woman in silks and flower cloths. A real house....All gone. Instead, there was a bleakness to this night when all had died. He looked from the tiny window and saw the darkness move over the mountains, hanging like funeral curtains, a forecast of doom. The werewolf had done this, had made good its claim to the Ethelwulf name. His own family had killed two of the human wolves. Even Shasta, mistress of the land, did not know it was his family. He would carry out his family's name. He, Boland, would kill this one himself. He would rid the land of the curse and would get even with fate for cheating him.
"You think of the lost money?" Geldaine's voice was deadly calm. "Think of me, instead. I too love money and there is little I would not do for it. Still, I would not share the black death."
"Not the money. I think of the accursed one. I will kill her, as my father killed an Ethelwulf before me."
"Yes. Yes, that is right, Boland. I could not live with the fear that outside is the changed one. It is right to kill her. It is even fortunate for her." Geldaine paused, then raising herself up on her elbows she looked into his eyes. He felt her move within his soul and reached for her body again.
"Wait, Boland. Promise me you will be careful when you do this thing. The old woman controls our destiny. She is our bread. They must never know who killed one of their ugly kind."
"Foolish woman. Of course I will take care. As my father and grandfather did. Come to me now. The night is ripe and very young still. Tomorrow we must work hard for the cursed ones. Tonight...." He reached for her lushness, a shining brown shadow of warmth, but she recoiled and instead reached for his hand.
"I must look first, Boland." She turned his right hand over and smoothed the flesh down.
"No!" She opened wide her mouth as he pulled his hand back. She was too eager to believe everything. He knew about the shortness of his life line. His mother had told him long ago. He had spent his life denying the length of the silly little crease in his hand. Geldaine would be eager to believe.
"What is it? Let me see, crazy fool!" She jerked his hand open again and stared at his palm, her eyes wide as they met his.
Outside, the mournful sound of the wolf creased the land with legends and chilled spines.
Geldaine shook her head from side to side, shaking her black curls over her breasts. Her hands were deathly cold as they held his right palm.
"You must not kill the wolf. Someone else must do it."
"Silly woman. If you believe in palmistry, then you know my fate is sealed. I must follow my ancestors. Come to me. Forget this nonsense." His mouth crushed the fear back into her throat.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
On the second night of the full moon, Kalli ran free, no longer fighting the horror at awaking in human trappings. She accepted her strange wakings, as she accepted the hunt. If it was, then it was. How fierce the forest this night, fierce, yet alarmingly tender. Her belly had been warmed over an hour ago and she felt hunger stir again within her. The songs of the pack reached her ears and she longed to join them. There was something though, something that held her back, a fear. There was risk but ... she was lonely. A wolf needed a pack. She had lost her own tribe somewhere. She withdrew her long and lolling tongue, curled it inside her mouth, laid it flat and comfortable. The howls increased in numbers. There was a tribal song they sang, a song of fierce hunting and mating. Kalli sniffed the air. Yes, it was time. Her desires rolled among her other hungers, circled instinct into a nesting place among her thoughts. She lifted high her muzzle and howled at Odessa, who smiled and promised completion. Kalli muffled the howl in her throat. She turned her head to the left and then to the right, her red eyes gleaming with moonshine and fear. All at once she was stiff, was erect. He was near, was stalking her the way he had done last night. The gray wolf whose shadow she had caught time and again. He brought fear to her throat, brought the taste of her stomach fluids. Her tongue was dry with its heavily creased middle parted by the bile taste. He was not the one. His smells were mixed and strange. She leaped into the air, a flash of silver, and was gone, running with a hidden instinct towards the pack that was not her own. It was better, was natural compared to the stalking gray wolf. She saw with her clever eyes the barricade of nature, rocks stacked by long-dry waters. The voices of the pack drifted and oozed with mumblings and growlings, with snarls and soft mothering wooings from in between the rocks' wide spaces. Kalli stopped short, fleeting terror widening her eyes. She could smell the gray male very near, could even hear his soft tread as he crackled leaves under his careful paws. His smell confused her, was arid in her nostrils. Her long, thick-furred neck twisted around, looking for escape. There was the strange but drawing pack just beyond the rocks, and there was the gray wolf. She chose the pack, whose smell she could understand. Bravely, with much show of courage, she trotted under a natural rock bridge and stood, silent and proud in the midst of the strangers. As if the winter thaw was upon them, all grew terribly silent. Kalli was frightened. Not because of physical danger. She was a slie-wolf. She could fight as fiercely as any male. But, if they chose, they could descend upon her and rip her to shreds. Kalli, not letting her fear get to the point of detectable smell, stood proud, let her tongue loll out the side of her mouth. Slowly, as if they didn't move at all, they began to gather around her, circling her, forming the traditional ring. Two old wolves, male and female, approached her. Behind them was much snarling, beginning as if upon a signal. Mother wolves stood fierce in front of their cubs.
"You are alien here." The old female spoke, her eyes glinting dangerously in the moonlight. "You have the stink of man about you."
"I am a wolf. No man has me tamed. I am a wolf." Kalli bit her words the way she bit the rabbit's tender neck, with a crackle of pride and fierceness.
"Still your tongue, female. There may be a reason." The old male looked her over carefully. "I am Jeekel, and why do you have the smell of man about you?"
The female snarled and the pack picked up the sounds. Kalli ignored the harsh sounds and looked into the old male's eyes. "I do not know." Her nose pointed proudly with the denial. Jeekel pawed the damp earth, accepting the angry growling of his old mate as justified.
"I, Crow, know the reason. I have smelled others like you in my life."
"Do we kill her?" Jeekel asked his mate.
"No, there is foul contamination in biting such meat. There is a taste of human flesh about her. Bitter and too sickening-sweet for tastes such as ours."
Kalli leaped towards the old she-wolf's throat, but was intercepted by Jeekel, who blocked the way.
"Fool. We would kill you for sure if you dared to attack my mate. You must go alone without protection, without a mate. You are the scorned one." Jeekel's words moved on the same plane as his body, for his long white-flecked muzzle moved against her body with each mincing step he took. She, Kalli, daughter of the moon, was being pushed from this gathering place as if she were a mongrel dog. Her anger grew from some deep buried place, rolling and uncoiling, pushing its way up into her throat where it crushed against her teeth, bursting into a guttural sound that sent Jeekel back next to his mate.
"Listen ... listen, you lice-infested dogs! Look up into the dark skies and see the single light of the night. See the goddess Odessa and know that I am born of her. Know that I am Kalli, daughter of the moon. You dare to treat me so! I will steal the shadows of the rabbits. I will sing Odessa away from the river banks and carry her light alone with me!" Kalli snapped her jaws shut and listened to the single sound, the silent calling of the moon. Fear swept the anger from Jeekel's old eyes. Crow, his worn mate, pawed the earth, her mouth closed around the low whining noise. The fear was a contagion that swept through the pack, silencing them except for the hidden noises of wonder and horror. Odessa was singing, a current within a current, shadowing their bravado with her silver taint.
"I am filled with yearning. I am a female and the time is ripe for mating. I seek one among yourselves." She split the impatient silence, tasting her sudden victory. They knew the moon had sired her.
"No. It is forbidden. You are not one of our kind. You are...." Crow paused in her quiet anger. Kalli could taste the copper smell of fear.
"The daughter of the moon," she finished, joining her ending to Crow's indecisive sentence. Crow lowered her head, her red-rimmed yellow eyes watching Kalli closely.
"No wolf would choose you." Crow turned towards the pack. Her throat rumbled with sounds. "Narca! Step forward now. Smell this female devil."
Kalli watched as a handsome wolf parted company with the pack, his shoulders rippling as he slowly slunk towards her. His nostrils quivered as he pointed his muzzle at her rear flanks, the wetness touching her there. Impatient, she waited while the wet bit of blackness moved completely around her entire body.
Sniffing and whining, he examined her, finally drawing back, his eyes narrowed as he reported to Crow and Jeekel his findings.
"I could not. She is lame with the smell of man, her fur, her skin, and not only the outside-the inside as well." The silence flooded his mouth all at once. Only anxious paws, digging at the constant earth, made noise. Narca spoke again, a wispy note of slyness in his guttural voice. "I admire her beauty. I would not hesitate to claim her if only...."
"Accursed non-animal," spat Crow.
Tempted to smear the moonlit earth with Crow's blood, Kalli stood, fighting her desires. She withdrew from the throbbing silence of the pack, from the lecherous eyes of Jeekel and the hatred of Crow. Narca and his yellow-lit eyes followed her departure. He called after her.
"Female of Odessa. There is another who stalks the forest, one who is outcast too. He smells as you do. Might two accursed join in ceremony?" The entire pack laughed after her, their howling prank engraved on her ear-drum.
Still there was no shame. These creatures were not her pack. She had known that. Odessa held her above all the other wolves, singled her out with her silver eye. They were not wolves but jackals who scavenged the woods and tasted human flesh tossed to them by accidents. Her body moved slowly until she was free from the prying curiosity of the pack, and then with one mighty bound she was free of the earth and free of eyes. The air received her and the earth bounced her back into the air again. Bounding shook the bewilderment from her mind, leaving only the need to hunt, to feed. A streak of moonlight swam off in front of her, bending to the left where the mighty river coiled around buried roots and green plots. Kalli grew clever, her feet softer and her smell streaming backwards in the sweet night wind. The young buck danced by the waters, priming his young antlers as they grew from the roof of his cranium. Leaves clung to the furry bone structure. A young doe, suffering from the first pangs of love, admired him and his dance. Kalli leapt behind a leafy shelter, staying carefully downwind from the young couple. Kalli could taste the ripe venison, her mouth waters running through the furry bristle that surrounded her jaws. Saliva grew thick and saccharine on her taste buds. She had not hunted deer yet, and the sweet adventure of the hunt plied her heart with thunder. Slowly now she moved, knowing Odessa guided her path, knowing she could not miss. The dry leaves under her feet did not dare to crackle. It would sound like thunder in the young buck's ears. Creeping gently past oak trees, her furry body slithering against wet bark, she made her way to a spot directly behind the two amorous deer. Every nerve in her body tensed, getting ready for the spring that would carry her to the back of the young buck. There was a tightness, a drumming, a grinding of gears, and she was ready.
The wild growling howl of wolfdom interrupted her, blinded her with anger. The two deer scattered, took to the air as if they were comprised of feathers instead of fur. Uselessly Kalli ran after them, pounded the raw earth in her anger and fierce denial. Her game gone! The two shadows disappeared, gone from the light of Odessa, tossed into the dense covering forest. Kalli brought her back legs up short, dirt flying against her dry, mud-splattered nose. Her howling shook the trees, vaulted against the lit skies, her pain and hatred a part of her song. Odessa sang back the sadness, stroked Kalli on her heart that burned with fierce sadness. The great white head swiveled around, searching for the intruder who had spoiled her hunt, who had ruined her sweet-tasting game. From the cropping of trees he stepped softly, mildly assured, into the white shadow of Odessa. His fur was thick and full. He was no cub, but a prince in the middle prime of his life. Black-gray fur thickened his flanks. Kalli stepped towards him, every sense alerted, a low and dangerous sound issuing from her throat.
"No, female; I had good Cause for that. Follow me." He turned his back bravely upon her and walked back into the outcropping jungle of trees, walking softly. Kalli's first desire was to leap upon his back, twist her neck around and catch the soft bag of his throat. To kill him! But she was shaken by his calm, was ransacked by his uncaring manner. To turn his back on her after ruining her hunt! Confused with her wolf thoughts, she followed him and his silence into the thickest of woods, making turns with him, traveling four feet behind him. The wind moved and she caught his smell, strange and pungent. He was the one who followed her, was the one who hid in shadows watching her. Hadn't she known it all the time? The black wolf stepped into a clearing and stopped, moving aside so she could clearly see his offering. Kalli moved inside her pride, gave the hulking form of the wolf a sidelong glance and peered into the moon-swept meadow. A full-grown doe lay slaughtered, her stomach neatly slit with sharp teeth, her throat bleeding onto the new grass.
"I leaped from behind. She did not even know she embraced death, so quickly was it over. Her meat is not marred by the tensing muscles of fear. Eat, female."
Kalli battled with her pride and her hunger. Hunger won as always. He let her taste the meat first, clean the stomach of its tasty delicacies, before he joined her. Over the thick blood meat she watched him, not letting his presence spoil her treat, but more out of curiosity than anything else. He was the watcher, she kept thinking. He was sharing his hunt with her, was sharing his meat. She knew the reason. It was the oldest one, the one of mating. But his smell ... With a start that made her drop her mouthful of bloody meat, she realized where she had smelled that before. On her own body. Her mind was confused, but she picked up her meat and continued eating. When she was done, she stood up, proud again, and walked quietly, her back to him, into the forest. There were no sounds needed to express thanks. They would meet again tomorrow, by the light of Odessa. They both knew that. She had the greatest of yearnings within her-to bear fruit, to nurse new cubs in their helpless smallness, to hunt for other reasons beside her own hungers. This strange and silent male desired her. The male who smelled like herself. As she trotted through the forest the sky shifted and changed, the first rays of false dawn unpeeling from the moon's silver core. Odessa would give way to the maleness of the sun. The sun that Kalli never saw completed.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Rick sipped his coffee in the hotel restaurant, ignoring the dark intent faces that stared at him over polite tables. There were a few Americans here too. The wall clock said the time was much too early to be out. Nine o'clock in the morning. He was insane! Anything was better than that house and the drawn face of Phaedra as she refused her breakfast. The handle of the cup cracked off in his hand just as he sipped the last drops of coffee. It went crashing to the table top, spattering the spanking white cloth with nasty grains of brown. A waiter bounced over and cheerfully cleaned up the mess, returning with a fresh, unasked-for cup of coffee. Rick lifted the cup to his lips, dismissing the waiter with his hand. His widened as Pallo entered the dining room. Her smile reached ahead of her, caressing him. An ungodly hour to fend off a woman. He should never have balled her. The circumstances of that quick love offering flashed across his mind, reminding him that there had been little choice. He was not a callous idiot. Pallo was ... well she was a pretty and groovy girl. She just wasn't his girl.
"Rick." She pulled a chair out and sat across from him, signaling for the waiter. She ordered coffee, her eyes never leaving Rick's face. It was hard to be polite this early in the morning.
"It's nine o'clock." He couldn't keep the dryness from his tone.
"I know. I just got up to go to the bathroom and peeked out the damned foggy window. There you were, on your way in. I didn't want you to have breakfast alone." She grinned at him.
"I cannot play this morning. I'm in a bad mood."
"To be forewarned is to be forearmed." She took her coffee and sipped it delicately. "How come you're here at all? Don't they give breakfast at Grim Mansion?"
"They don't get up as early as I do. P didn't want to wait. Any more questions? I'd like to drink my coffe and muse a bit."
"There's no reason to be so grumpy. It's lousy here. I just wanted some company. Do you mind so much?"
Trapped. He answered no with a shake of his head. What else could he do? It was too much like the first trap that had put her into his not-so-safe keeping. He could taste her desires over the bland coffee. He knew too that she had not listened to him when he had carefully explained everything to her. When he had told her in very gentle tones that she cOuld not capture him. In one ear and out the other. Inside, under the mass of blondeness, behind those twin blue lenses, she was plotting, was laying her sticky net. If she were so eager to have him, he would consent to another session of lovemaking before he dismissed her. That would be it. Phaedra with her slimness floated before him, circles under her eyes, horror in her face. His heart wrenched, a pain in his chest, sharpness and heat.
"Your face is dreaming. What are you thinking of anyway?"
"Yes, I'm thinking of anyway," he answered into her laughter. She shook her head at ,him and he thought, Oh you kid. What a kidder. Yeah, he's a funny guy.
"You're funny. What are you doing after your coffee?"
"Eating breakfast," he answered as the waiter brought a tray of eggs and toast. He reached for the goodies and eased them on the table while Pallo watched him, amused at his annoyance.
"Ha ha," she answered. "How about after breakfast?"
"You want an invitation?" The fork entered the edge of his mouth and returned empty.
"Yes." Very definite of her, he thought, at the single, begging word.
"Okay, I'm going to climb a mountain; just a little wee mountain, though. You get dressed. I'll go and collect my stuff and then we'll be off."
"Really?"
He lowered his head back to his coffee. "No. No, Pallo. I don't feel like it today. I just don't. Later maybe, we'll play." He got up swiftly, deserting the remainder of the eggs, and made his way back to the great gray house. His feet took him further and further away from Pallo's wounded eyes. Why the hell didn't she just leave him alone, with her traps? He would ball her when he felt like it. He would ball her with no nasty edges, but not like that, not with begging and oh-my eyes. His feet stomped up the stupid, stained one hundred steps, hating their bleakness.
Her face, the tinged-with-darkness face of Phaedra, haunted him, called to him for help. He paused in the main hall, listened for sounds and morning movements. There were none. Quietly, with much stealth, he moved towards their wing, his and Phaedra's.
Should he knock? Impatient, he thrust the door open on its silent, well-oiled hinges. This house was filled with secret oil! Oh Phaedra ... Oh Phaedra. His mouth moved over the sad, unspoken words. She lay naked, sideways across the bed, her hair tangled with tiny twigs and burrs. The sunlight snuck in from the terrace, but was slimy and malodorous. Rick sat next to her head. She was snoring softly, gently, a sound of discomfort. Her lips were parted, exposing white clean-edged teeth. How well he knew her dreams now. He reached his hand along the indented curve of her naked back and parted her dreams down the middle. She made a suffocated noise in her throat and sat up, disengaging his hand, all at once wide awake, her black-coal eyes glistening with fear, with terror. When recognition chased the fear away, she smiled, a soft wounded thing, and leaned her full weight against him. She felt so right. It was dangerous how right she felt. Rick smiled, giving up the wisp of Gypsy smoke in his loins. He had known the first time just how it would be. Perhaps all his life he had known that it would happen like this one day. On the other hand, he wondered who had devised the insanity of their meeting's reality? His arms embraced her, held her close, letting her early-morning warmth fill him. His desire moved, thrust itself down the corridor of his belly, shot straight into the cylinder he carried for love's interpretation. Phaedra leaned her head back and bored into his eyes. Her mouth smiled, sleepy and thick, moved against his own tongue-licked lips. She tasted of little, tortured flecks of sleep. Milk was still foremost on her tongue, and-yes-blood. Rick didn't wonder about that taste, simply sucked it into his mouth, rolled it on his tongue. Her neat teeth probed his bottom lip, tasting him with quick little bites until she released him with suddenness. Her eyes were worn-looking, containing many Phaedras.
"It's been a while since the boat. Is anyone up yet?"
"No. Just you and me. Who else needs to be up?" He filled his hands with her round breasts, rolled the sleep-heated nipples between his thumbs and index fingers. They stood up and grew stiff under his knowing touch. All the while his hazel eyes watched her, digested her, swallowed her beauty and held it captive. How she moved her lips while letting him fondle her breasts! They were separate creatures, sliding back and forth across each other, opening and closing, the top lip pressing almost imperceptibly against the full, puffy bottom lip. She was a dangerous woman. Every gesture was heated, was the holder of musk and sexual deliberation. Slowly, as if she were on a slowed-down movie reel, she lowered her body, back first, onto the bed. Her legs and full thighs pressed against each other methodically, beginning a quiet music in his mind. He remembered loving her, three separate and different memories engraved on his loins. His hands moved, tasting with swollen fingertips the delicacy and yet permanence of her breasts as they rose and fell with her breath. Her mouth expelled air as if it were to be swept out to sea, with salt and air.
"I missed you, Rick. I need you too. Chase away my nightmares now. Hold me and I promise I'll never try to capture you or hold you still." Her breath, perfumed with milk, drifted warmly into his nostrils and his hands tightened on her breasts with the words. He lowered his entire body over hers, fitting snugly in between her wonderful long legs. Her eyes were wide and dark-circled, frightened and yet wanting. Rick bit his bottom lip as the warmth of her body ran through his flesh, igniting him.
"Foolish lady. Don't you know you've already captured me? By standing still, by never asking, by existing. I could never even be a Gypsy again-not without you. Not a Gypsy, nor a cook nor a bandit. Whatever I shall be, it must be with you. If you'll have me?" That was part question, he knew, and now he waited, smothering her wondrous body with his own hot eagerness. He was a man and she lay under him, passive, heated creature of want. He felt strong and yet weak at the same time.
"I love you, Rick. I love you. I don't think there can be anything beyond this love, though. I thank you for this anyway." She closed her mouth and her eyes left him for a moment, were stolen by nightmares. The vee-shaped vein stood out distinctly on her high forehead. "It's not within my power, Rick." She was close to tears, but he heard what he wanted to. Nothing else beyond I love you mattered to him. He brought his mouth down hard and victorious on hers, not wishing to hear anything else. Her words returned unspoken to her mouth, ran down her silver throat. Warmth and long legs lifted around his waist and her body turned from left to right, from right to left, softly pressing against him, driving him wild with his glory. Her hips were so smooth, were so tight and well-boned, were so hot! His weight bore down on her and he moved his hand to his cock, lifting it, weighing its thick value. He rubbed it over her clitoris and her inner lips, up and down, the backstroke of the paradox, up and down, easy, feeling the little clit expand under his administering ride. Sweet adventure. How different it all was when you cared. Care ... He could not even explain the feeling that drove his heart and body into such new dimensions! Her long, thin fingers were at his back, were moving in patterns, dallying on his rib cage, counting ribs, then dropping smooth and sure to his ass. A long finger slipped up and down in the sweat of his crack, dabbled in wetness and moved again. Once more he rubbed himself against her clit and then spread open her entrance hole with two fingers, moving those same two fingers back and forth, stirring her foaming contents. Her stroking finger moved with this pleasure, pressed against his tight asshole, drove its firm, long self up into him. It felt good, super-sensual. And he, he reminded himself, was a sensual pig! He lifted against the sensation and felt her go deeper. Her neat, round hips rose, swallowing the fingers that stirred her into wanting, then drew the fingers back and forth with her as she moved, crunching her hips bones against his as she sought to please herself. He could hear his heartbeat pound in his ears, his Adam's apple slipping up and down inside his loose neck-skin. With a small shout of want, he slid the fingers free of her and injected his hard, stiff prick all at once, sliding it up and up and up, slowly, because she was so small and compact. Every rib of his sex was being counted, it seemed. She was so tight and narrow, her inner skin caught on his outstanding cock, snagged him, would not let him plunge to the finish line so quickly.
Not that she didn't work hard, because she did, groaning and pressing, pulling his ass down tighter on top of her with her buried finger and hard, spidery hands. He shoved, groaned and grunted, using all his weight to sponsor him. It was no use. Little by little she took him, bit by bit, her hips crazy and her insides wet-to no avail. The long, slow swallow of love, he thought. It was maddening, to be drawn up inside her so slowly. Her belly vibrated hot against his, her hips pressing. Phaedra's legs rose around his waist, clamping themselves to his hot, sticky flesh, pressing in and out with her wanting. Those claw-like hands ripped at his backside, the long fingers wild, pumping his tiny brown ass hole with abandon. He groaned and pushed with all his might. Yes ... Yes ... his mind beat at him with the word. He made it, was fat and hard inside her, the tiny bit of ending skin pressing back at his massive cock head. Phaedra twisted her body, riding her gentle slippery inner tube over him, cavorting madly to the left, sliding back from him, his cock slipping out from her, and then ramming her entire body up tight against him. Pumping her like this felt good, felt intoxicatingly good, but-they had made love three times before, and now was the time to change, to teach, to give and to take. Gently, his arms tight around her slim body, he lifted her high, keeping his cock heavy inside her as his feet touched the floor. Phaedra shifted her weight, her finger leaving his sore ass hole so she could grab his back securely. Rick could feel her tense around his, capture with flesh, his hard length of sex. Her thick masses of silver-streaked black hair swept across the sheets as he lifted her high, feeling her tightly packed thighs grasp him around his waist. Rick carried her across the room and sat her on the musty old dresser, the exact height of his loins. Her legs stayed tight around him, her arms pulling him by the back towards her hot, sweating flesh. How fine and thickly opulent were her breasts as they pushed against his chest. He could feel the upstanding little nipples joust, indenting his breast with her presence. Now, he thought, beginning slow, tasting with the tongue of his sex her inner delights. Foam squirted past his swaying instrument, splashed out on her belly, on his thighs, dripping like little coursing rivers down his legs. He began now, building up a tempo, tucking Phaedra in and out, slowly, quickening into a spasmodic leaping, each thrust taking him deeply inside her, tearing at her sensitive silken skin. Phaedra was wild under his attacks, swaying her hips towards each thrust, swallowing him with little muscles that expanded and contracted around his bulge.
Rick could feel his balls joust against her inner thighs as he moved, dipping into the tiny plotting rivers, running down her thighs. Her mouth hung open, saliva glimmering on her full, red bottom lip. He was crazy with want of her, the great churning in his belly feeling like an electrical storm. Phaedra-her softness, her willing posture, her crazy black and silver hair flying madly about her gleaming, sweating face. Her cunt was silvered like her hair, all wet from his thrusts, from his love. Each thought made him wilder, made his thrusts more dangerous, more desperate. His hands twisted, climbed beneath her sweet, soft ass cheeks, spreading them apart at the crack, and straining his fingers inside their hot dampness. Two of his fingers rammed themselves up her asshole. Her lips parted with the sudden pain and he drove himself harder and wilder inside of her, taking her mind away from that end of her desire. A smile glimmered across her face before it again slipped into a classic pose of ecstasy. She liked it. Rick swayed, moved up inside of her, strained, stayed there.
"Rick ... darling. Rick ... yes, stay there, stay there, love." Her ass shook over his moving, dancing fingers. How thin the skin that stretched and pulled under those fingers. Sharp nails dug into her soft membrane flesh, pulled. Phaedra groaned, brought her ass down hard, hurting his hand. His cock felt as if it were flowing, were melting away, running down a dark hole somewhere. Inside Phaedra, inside this long, curving woman was a holocaust of movement. Muscles jerked, moved, swayed around him. A sucking as she spun him to the edge of dizziness and then back again. She was panting, her mouth open, her body swinging back and forth against him madly, with a thick, smacking noise. His eyes were filled with stripes, silken stripes of black and white, swaying across his vision, hiding the sight of her open, gaping mouth. Sweet Jesus, but she was wild! Her breath slid in and out of his ear, throbbing against the drum covering, pounding a tattoo. Her thighs were slippery, sliding back and forth around his legs. The different rhythms and slapping noises formed a pattern in his mind, a pattern that drew him closer and closer to the brink. Between the parting curtain of her hair were her lips, thick bottom lip, bowed top lip, curved with her silver-smooth breath. Even her breath beat with the mad music, tore from him the first vicious stirrings of ending. Crazy quilt, crazy quilt, he repeated silently, and then she did something, some little thing that snapped his cock, bent it quickly with such suddenness and emotion that his mouth threw out a noisy sound, guaranteed to awaken anyone still sleeping. He could not help it; the merging pattern, the flesh, sliding, pounding, blinding his mind. The slick hair sliding around and around his face. Her feet and ankles knocking into him again and again. The sucking of her interior muscles as she pulled the thick sweetness from him. He could not stand to be still any longer. He pulled his thick cock out wildly and let go, thrusting it deeply and wetly within her, withdrew, and then once more; and now pounding her, his belly thudding darkly against hers, his instrument the cause for her pleasure and for her pain too. Her mouth screamed him on and he thrust inside her from a left angle, then switched blindly, instinctively, to a right angle.
"Rick ... Rick ... Rick...." His name was a chant and her body was butter melting, flowing, flooding his cock, shuddering on and on, sucking from him his manly essence. He came and then came again, one sweet drop of syrup on top of another filling her every inch of inner space with his word, with his law. Then the magic of that tiny cone of time was gone, was drifting by a natural accord back into the ether, and what was left, now that they were in love, was something else, something of a more tender, more complete nature. His hands held her, fragile warrior-woman, held her soft and composed beyond the ragged remnants of his breathe
"Phaedra ... Phaedra." Was her name not an after-image of her own lovely self? Was she not the spirit of hope left in the dark inner world he constantly struggled with? And then, again, was she not the composing first notes of a new and more strident symphony? Phaedra....And that name was an explanation of herself and himself too, now.
"I feel as if I dwell for just a fragment of time in a cave. All protected, all safe. It is too bad that it's only an illusion. Only a small....Well, like a trip to a movie." She waited to be probed, to be dissected, screened and interviewed with questions. Rick smiled into the soft fabric of her shoulder. He would not give her that which she expected, that which she dreaded.
"Don't you want to ask me now? Don't you want to know why I feel like that? Don't you want to know why T have circles under my eyes and why I feel so tired?" Her voice was rising to a high pitch, was spiraling upwards into a dangerous land. Panic. Rick tasted of it and recognized it as something very familiar, something he had learned so well that it became a familiar thing, like a hat rack or a radio.
"No....No, my Phaedra, I don't want to know until it's time. It isn't time yet."
"Rick ... I love you. I wish ... I wish that forever was at least a lifetime."
"I trust words." He smiled again, most secret, into her ear.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Phaedra had worn the day like a gossamer shadow, light and flowing, fragrant and suspended as if by an invisible spider-web strand that spun her dizzily around and around. As she passed each moment by, she would remember, there might be nothing worth remembering but those few sacred moments with Rick. Later on in the day he excused himself, said he wanted to see some of the countryside. He had asked her to go with him, of course, but she had declined. She would spend the rest of the afternoon recalling the morning and their love, their walk in the surrounding gardens, the way he had handed her a rose and had declared allegiance, laughing. She had not laughed then and she would not laugh now as she dwelled in moments already taken, stolen by the thief, time. Then too, she might change while they were on their way back. What if he saw her like that-turned from the spring of her beauty into a something, an animal he would be afraid to see without bars between them. Phaedra wrung her hands and pushed the thought away with a violence that was not a known part of her nature. God knew what she was and what was a part of her nature when she was ... changed. She was back in the morning again, walking through the garden or tossing beneath Rick's big body.
"Phaedra, can I speak with you?" It was her aunt, climbing down the long black arched halls like some black widow spider, thin black covered arms and legs.
Clothed from neck to toe, as if she did not possess any flesh but that on her face. Still, those thoughts were unkind. There was some special thing about this woman who was part of a family that had shared the curse for years, but had not owned it herself. She wanted to help too. Phaedra was sure of the kindness the old woman extended. Of course she was glad her daughter, no matter how spoiled, had not inherited the foul thing. But that was part....
"Of course, Aunt Shasta." She felt the thin arm curl against her own; such coldness and sharp protrusion of bone. Phaedra moved with the mental image of the spider down the dank hallways, following Shasta's slow pace.
"My room, Phaedra." Shasta released her arm and entered the tall doorway ahead of her. Inside, she crossed over to the window seat and straightened her long dark skirt under her. So neat. She patted the empty space beside her and Phaedra moved next to her, feeling the chill mahogany under her naked thighs. Her tiny skirt rode up to her crotch and Shasta eyed the receding fabric with a distasteful eye. She looked up from the riding skirt and met Phaedra's eyes.
"Your dreams, dear. I want to know if you remember anything. Is there anything of your second life you can recall?" Shasta's eyes penetrated Phaedra's and she looked away. She had a sudden headache, a blinding streak of pain that forced her eyes closed. She placed both her hands against her brows and pressed.
"What is it?" Shasta's cold hands touched her shoulders.
"I don't know. A pain ... Terrible pain. There, its going away."
"Defense. The hiding. Yes, I have lived through other changelings. Your conscience does not want to recall the other life. It is hiding out in pain. Phaedra, you must remember. Perhaps you are near the breaking of the spell. Perhaps you are doing things that will harm your current life, things that will seep into your existence as Phaedra and change you there, "No ... I can't. There are dreams ... only half-remembered things. Animals ... dark and shaggy ... a pack of...." How she hated saying that word.
"Wolves." She bit the ugly sound off, spit it from her lips. Vile, horror-touched word! The pain touched her again. "A pack of wolves!" She was shouting. Tears were hot and swimming in her eyes.
"That is good. You have met others. You may break the spell. That is good. What else can you remember?" It was Shasta probing, examining her so carefully.
"No ... I remember hatred for me. And something else ... a hunt that ... I can't! I can't remember any more. It's not real. It's not! I have to get out of this house. Please, please excuse me...." She moved from her aunt's hands, backing up towards the door like a trapped animal intent upon escape. Animal! Was she not an animal?
"If you do not break the curse, you will be able to remember. After a while you can remember every-thing. Try ... try so you can be aware of what is happening, so you can be in control of it."
"I don't want to remember! Isn't it bad enough to have my night-tides taken, part of my life eaten by this malady? My mind could not withstand the torment of ... of knowing!"
Shasta stood, skeletal shadow of pitying eyes. "No, my child, your mind is living with this much and can live through countless trials and tortures. I only want to help, to perhaps rid our family of this ugly blot."
"I know. I know!" Phaedra wiped her eyes, shook her head desperately at Shasta and was gone, her long legs speeding her down the hall. She needed to touch something else besides this house of her ancestorship, besides the living reality of nightmare. She would find Rick, would find Morgan, even Pallo who hated her. Hatred was reality, was commonplace. It did not live in the belly of the supernatural.
Before she realized where her feet were taking her, she was out the great cathedral-like door, her feet tapping the hundred steps. One step for each year of the curse. Perhaps it was a sign. When the hundred years were up, the spell would be gone. Sure ... Her mouth was bitter in the afternoon waning sun, was dry. Sure, Phaedra, she told her inner voice, cling to any shadow, cling to any little string or straw or sunbeam. The night will still steal you, turn you into an ugly demon. She took an old brown bus to the hotel and entered the fading elegance of the lobby. The main salon was empty and a panic, a need to be near her fellow travelers, her fellow Americans, screamed upwards from her belly. Rick was gone. She picked up the lobby telephone and called Morgan's room. His voice reassured her at once. She exhaled a sigh of relief into the receiver, suddenly feeling terribly foolish. Her hand clasped itself over the black ceramic phone while she collected her senses and Morgan repeated his hellos over and over.
"Morgan?" She removed her hand. "Hi ... are you busy?"
"Never busy when you have time for me." Phaedra tried to laugh. "Well, how about taking a walk or something. Rick is out examining the stale countryside and I ... I feel lonely, in need of small talk."
"Five minutes, Phaedra." And the phone clicked desolately. She held the blackness of the receiver in her hand for a few seconds, staring at it to keep the impending loneliness away. Five minutes. She moved her eyes up the large, towering lobby clock and then looked away. Her palms were sweaty. People were entering the lobby for early dinner now, dressed in elegant finery. How slow the clock's hands were moving. They reminded her of the ship and the ropes and locks. She walked back and forth quickly, pacing like a lioness.
"Phaedra, are you all right?" Morgan's voice. Phaedra hugged him quickly, presented him with a gold-plated smile and led him swiftly from the hotel lobby. The air was fragrant with sweet flowers, moved through by another smell altogether. The grimness of death.
"I just felt as if I were kind of floating away. You must have had that feeling in your life, Morgan. I needed to make contact."
"And Rick wasn't around and I would do in a pinch. Is that it?" Phaedra let his petty jealousy take her entirely away from the grim reality of her life. She smiled.
"Morgan, stop that talk. Come, let's walk. There are some lovely features to this otherwise desolate landscape." He was silent, letting her pull him along. Just the touch of another human's hand, just the smile of a man and she was released from fear.
"Are you in love with him?" The quiet voice of Morgan, probing her affections. They crossed a wide road and were out of the tiny little town. A great meadow lay to the west, expanding and rolling as far as the eye could see. Trees dotted the far horizon of the yellow field. Wheat. Morgan helped her over the little wooden stake fence and they walked. Phaedra ignoring his last question. It was funny, but she hadn't known that Morgan placed any special attention on her person. She turned to him as they walked and studied his eyes. Yes, he was in love with her.
"Yes, I am in love with Rick." Her answer dimmed his eyes and he faced the meadow ahead. It was selfish of her, but she could not help but be glad that she had this silly, human trouble to consider. It was sad for Morgan, but then it was sad for her too. She, a changeling in love with a man she could never have. She could not even have a man she did not love.
"A guy like that ... a nobody. A guy with no ambitions, no honorable intentions, one chick after another." He paused. "I sound corny, don't I?"
"Yes, yes, you sound corny." She smiled at him. They were halfway across the meadow. A giant pile of hay lay about twenty feet from the woods. Morgan shrugged his shoulders, his hand suddenly possessive on hers. When they reached the hay he sat down, pulling her gently beside him. Phaedra thought she heard a noise and stood again-the slightest rustle of straw. Morgan raised an eyebrow at her.
"Nothing," she told his quizzical look. She sat down again.
"You're not going to marry Rick, are you? I mean he would have to live off you-a leech."
"Morgan!" She had been pushed. She was annoyed now. "I'm not going to marry him, but not because of the reasons you give against it. I would rather you didn't talk about him like that any longer. Please?" she added with a softer tone.
"I'm sorry. Jealousy does strange things to a man. It takes from him his pride, his strength. Even his character and his image of himself and again, strength." Morgan laughed. "I guess I should just be a graceful loser. I wish you luck, Phaedra. I do mean that."
"Thank you, Morgan." She did not add that she would need it. Overhead the sky was growing darker and darker. What if Rick were to discover she was in a meadow, sitting in the middle of a haystack with Morgan. Good god! That was a petty problem. What if ... Yes, the moon was already peeking through. Who knew when the change would come earlier, would overtake her daily life, too.
"What was that?" She whirled around, struggling to her feet. "Morgan, I heard something. Let's get started back. I ... I'm afraid." She must be silly in the head. What else was there to fear besides her crazy duality? Nevertheless, she pleaded. "Morgan now, let's get back to the lights, back to the hotel for coffee."
He stood, puzzled at her actions. "Certainly, Phaedra. I hope you aren't thinking I would force myself on you. That would be the furthest thing from my mind."
"No, no, nothing like that. I just got the willies. I heard noises."
"Field mice." He grinned at her, his hands on her shoulders. "Silly woman." How serious his eyes were all of a sudden. His mouth moved towards hers for a kiss. "One time ... one time to touch your mouth, Phaedra, and-then I won't-bother you again," he whispered through her fears. She felt his mouth touch gently down upon hers and felt idiotic and out of place. This was no time for such things. Something was near, something dangerous. She could smell it, could smell fear with her new animal sense. Of course. That new sense ... that heightened sense of smell! She could have trusted it in the first place! She pulled back from Morgan and grabbed his shoulders.
"Listen ... trust me. There's danger here. We have to get out of here now! Right now!" Her features were contorted with fear. From off in the forest came a terrible howling noise, came the yearning of wolfdom. She began to run, pulling the stupefied Morgan along with her, like a leaden fishing sinker. Hurry. Hurry. Hurry.
The crackling noises dotted her panicked breathing. She did not look back until her arm was roughly shaken, until her entire body was fallen upon by hooded crazy executioner masks with slit, demonic-looking eye-holes. Madness ripped her heart, her brain. She screamed for Morgan and saw one of the hooded men raise a thick stick and clunk Morgan on the head. There he went, toppling to the ground, a limp rag doll!
"Morgan! Let me go. You bastards!" She was crying, kicking, her screaming sounding too small to ever be heard by anyone who could ever help. "Help me." Half crying now. They had her legs, her feet, spreading them apart, each of the four men holding one of her limbs off the ground, suspending her in air. They stood silent, grim spectres. Weren't they smiling under those horrible black hoods? Her heart pounded in her head, throbbing, reddening her mind.
"What are you doing to me? Why? Why? Why?" She twisted in the uncomfortable, airborne posture, cried out again and again, her mind filled with black hoods and slitted, staring eyes.
"A werewolf must die," the biggest man said. Then, like some kind of horror movie, the other three picked it up, stretched it into a chant. "The werewolf must die, the werewolf must die, the werewolf must die," until she heard herself screaming against the drowning wave of voices.
"No! No! No! In the name of God!"
"Do not dare to use the name. A creature like yourself has no time in the sight of God. Foul creature!" She saw then what the biggest of the two men held aloft. A silver phallus ... No, a stake! Good good God! Her screams took her then, drove her into a terrorstricken place of red and black. With an outburst of adrenalin, with a sudden mad strength she was thumping heavily against the ground, clawing the earth with her fingers as she crawled away, an animal without changing! The men cursed her. In a matter of seconds they had her again, scraping her face against the prickly wheat as they heaved her upwards by her ankles. She opened her eyes for a brief second and saw a dash of blond-red hair, saw the anger-mottled face of Rick. She must be dreaming. Three of the men dropped her and ran, black-hooded demons disappearing through wheat and hay into the shadow-land of darkness. The other man held her tight, lifted the stake with one hand and plopped down upon her breasts. She saw the flash of silver and closed her eyes, her heart already tensed for the driving force that would kill her. Rick's warmth brushed her legs, set on fire by his anger. The murderous weight was torn from her body. She kept her eyes closed tight through the sounds of violence, through the cursing rage. She would not open them! She would not! Rick might lose and then death would come anyway, would even be desired, embraced. For Rick was the one thing she could cling to, the one responsive center of her sanity. Love was valid.
"Rick. Rick. Rick," she sobbed behind her hiding hands. The tumultuous noises reeled in her mind, sent her spinning in and out of dizziness. A heavy thud rocked the earth under her and silence spun its thick web around the meadow. She did not dare take her hands from her eyes. There was no noise, nothing but breath, hers and anothers-another who did not speak to her, nor reassure her. Slowly, she took her hands away, her teeth biting her bottom lip. Rick sat next to the fallen body of one of her attackers, the black hood pulled from his face. The face that rested in the composure of death. A rock lay directly under the man's head and little trickles of blood wound their solemn way down the rock, dripping the life, slowly, drop by lonesome drop onto the yellow straw. Overhead the moon was high, was whispering to Phaedra inside of her mind.
"Do you know him? Rick asked quietly, his breath too quiet for a man who has just killed.
Still touched by shock and thankful thoughts, she shook her head slowly from side to side.
"I don't think so." His eyes were so clouded in the darkening night, as if he had glanced at the underside of hell and it had taken everything he contained. Phaedra turned her head away from him and felt sick, her belly churning, rising and sinking. There was something else. Her eyes were drawn up towards the moon and she thought she heard a song from some far-off place. A downward, falling song.
"I ... Rick, I have to go." She stood, her eyes riveted on that same round ball, filled with ever-increasing awe. A song, dancing like a chant on her brain, dancing and dancing. She could almost hear the words, could almost define the song. It was very familiar and yet so alien, so distant that it frightened her beyond her comprehension. She felt the sharp sticking straw under her feet and turned her eyes full on Rick. Did she look as crazy as she felt? What did one say to a man who had just saved your life? That song ... that maddening song dancing on the mirror floor of her mind. She clasped her hands to her ears and pressed, holding out the song. Rick sat still by the dead stranger, his hand trailing on the man's chest. His eyes were the same, fogged, staring. He shook his head tiredly, as if he wanted to deny that all this had happened.
"I have to go," she repeated, hearing her words loud behind her tight hands. She took her hands from her ears, feeling foolish.
Rick didn't notice. He didn't notice anything. She turned away from him with a rambling thought about death, about suddenness, about curses and following years. Crazy wild thoughts that shifted, changed gears and were vapors, giving birth to new particles of thought. She began to walk, hearing the song now, clearer and stronger than before. This time she didn't clap her hands over her ears, didn't mind the strange lyrics that were becoming more and more understandable. A calling, sweet, caressing sound. A mothering noise.
"Phaedra! Phaedra!" Rick called, and her name on his tongue rolled alien, stabbed her heart with fear. She was running, the breath pumping in and out of her mouth, easy as she ran-loped. His voice shrieked around her ears like wind howling at a cave entrance and still she ran, gaining speed, towards the woods, towards safety.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Morgan stood at the Ethelwulf entrance, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, waiting for the answer to his heavy-handed knock. He stared at the door knocker he had used, the head of a wolf. He searched his mind for the meaning of the name and smiled to himself. Of course, the noble wolf. That was its meaning. How quaint. It must be a fine thing to have an old family, and an old name. An insignia, a coat of arms. Perhaps he would invent one, a suitable background for his wealth. He heard the wandering fall and tap of feet, small, quiet feet. Phaedra? She had acted so strangely, and then-the thing that had happened had happened in the meadow. He had awakened to find Rick there, his face contorted, staring at the body of the dead man. The footsteps paused on their way to his knock. Rick had assured him that Phaedra was fine, that she had gone home to rest after the frightening brush with death. Then Rick had vanished-had mumbled something about Morgan getting the police and had just walked away, into the darkness, leaving Morgan with the loathsome dead man.
"Yes?" The door swung back suddenly and Phaedra....No, not Phaedra, but....
"You are Phaedra's cousin?" he asked, moving within the door frame.
"I am Belladonna Ethelwulf, yes. If you seek my cousin ... she is...." Her eyes glanced darkly at him as she bit her bottom lip, struggling with some thought. This was all very confusing.
"She is sleeping." The stern voice flowed over the beautiful girl's shoulder and an old, unhappy version of the girl, with sallow cheeks and burning eyes, stared at him, a floating mask in the dark hallway.
"Won't you come in, Mr. Rask. Phaedra told me about you."
"Yes. I came to see Phaedra, but if she is resting, after what happened...."
"I would rather we speak about it alone, Mr. Rask." His eyes touched the girl, who shrugged, her shoulders rich with disdain.
"What concerns my cousin is no concern to me." Belladonna pulled her shoulders back and made a proud exit. Morgan's eyes followed her. She looked so much like Phaedra-but without the fearful eyes, without the nervous body. He turned back to the black-clad woman. She was already walking down the great hall, last remnant of the old name he was so envious of? Perhaps she was the family skeleton. Well, he thought, it was good to know that he could still encounter humor after all the strange and awful things that had taken place this night.
"In here please, Mr. Rask." She held the door for him and closed it solidly behind him. He was in a gigantic library, its walls stacked up and down with moldering volumes.
"I am Shasta Ethelwulf and I am afraid I know why you came, Mr. Rask." A bolt of lightning lit the dark lamplit room, whitening the windows, igniting the woman's deep black eyes. Morgan felt a sudden chill creep up his back, nudging tiny hairs into poses of attention.
"You do?" She lowered her thin body into a straight-backed chair and he followed her example, feeling so stiff and so out-of-place. It must be this old house, filled with creaks and cracks, with dampness and chills.
"A man tried to kill Phaedra tonight."
"A number of men."
"Yes, and he-the one who persisted-was killed by Mr. Lloyd. You see, there is nothing that happens that I do not know. People take a great delight in running the dark words along the quick rail, Mr. Rask. I did not want my daughter to know ... for special reasons. I will carry that desire a step further and ask you not to tell her, in case her curiosity is whetted. You do understand?"
"No, I don't understand. But I won't tell her anything about the incident. How is Phaedra?"
Did she pause, unknowing? Or was her face always so vacant, always such a skeleton-with the exception of those burning, fierce eyes? She stood up slowly and walked to the door, holding it open for him again.
"She is sleeping. She is all right, Mr. Rask, and now, I am very tired. If you do not mind?" Her eyes indicated the door.
"Did Rick-Mr. Lloyd see the police?" He felt as if he were being given the big brush-off. This was the final touch to a perfect evening. The girl he thought he loved had told him of her love for another. He had been conked on the head and had left her to the cruel hands of four men who wished to kill her, it seemed. Now he, Morgan Rask, was being thrown out with the stiff good manners of Phaedra's aunt.
"He will see them in the morning. Please, Mr. Rask. Thank you for your consideration, but...."
"Yes, I know. Goodnight, Mrs. Ethelwulf." He turned his back on the black shroud of a woman and passed alone through the dark hallways, finding his way to the old entrance hall, stepping from shadowed hall to shadowed hall, a maze of horror. This ugly old house. He had money and he did not envy this house at all. His house would be all white, white inside too, and red for bright color. Phaedra's manner and her strangeness and streaked hair matched this mausoleum. They did not, after all, match him. He remembered with shame the incident, being knocked out. What a fool he must have looked! What the high and mighty Phaedra must think of him! He pulled the thought of his money around him like a comforter. He pressed the big door open and stepped out into the darkness, the chill of the many stone steps seeping through his thin-soled Italian shoes.
"Mr. Rask!" The whisper sounded urgent-but he could not find the owner of the hushed voice. Another bolt of lightning bristled in the heavens and a torrent of rain drenched his upturned face. Morgan pulled his collar up high and cast his anxious face around.
"Here! Mr. Rask!" Belladonna stepped from the shadows and then back in again. Morgan moved after her, around the house, wondering where in the hell she was taking him. He entered the shadow of a towering garden gate and his feet were swallowed by thick vegetation.
"Where are we going?" he demanded, forgetting to whisper. He would never forget this nightmare day!
"Quiet!" she whispered. "We are almost there."
Morgan let himself be led up clinging, steep little garden steps, wound around and around with blood-red roses that announced their colors even through the darkness. Belladonna's small feet bounced up the narrow vine of staircase ahead of him. By the time he reached the top he was panting, rich with irritation. Every man, even a man as gentle as himself, had a boiling point.
"We are here. This is my balcony. Wait ... I will put a lamp on inside." She left him in the darkness, watching the rain. A cement canopy kept him dry. At least it kept him from further wetness.
"Come in," her voice called sweetly. He wanted to hit her, wanted to take out the shattering events of the day on her person. A light flickered on inside the huge apartment and he walked in. His anger left him in one great whoosh. God! She looked so much like Phaedra, but with a child-like quality that he found pleasing. His palms itched. She was sitting in a huge armchair, her thin arms crossed over full, un-child-like breasts.
"What did you want with my cousin?" she demanded, her bottom lip puffy with demands. Morgan studied her and smiled.
"Nothing important. Something between Phaedra and myself."
"You may be lying to me, but it is no matter. As I said, nothing that concerns my cousin is any concern to me. I simply want to warn you about her." She leaned forward, intent upon the impact of her words.
"Warn?" He felt himself smiling. He could not help it. Suddenly all he could think about was the girl's beauty, her breasts, the dark eyes shared by Phaedra and the girl's withered mother. He could conquer her. He knew it. There was no wall apparent, no wall like the high ugly barrier that Phaedra carried with her. There was no hippie type of idiot either. No Rick here!
"Yes! My cousin carries a dark secret with her. She is not ... not really human."
Morgan laughed. "Really? She looks very human to me.
Belladonna stood, her shoulders proud with anger. She advanced towards him, her feet stamping the floor.
"You are like all the rest! You think she is a goddess! She is not! She is dark and filled with ugliness. Look at me! Am I any less beautiful than she? Is my body any less soft-any less curving in woman's places? Yet I am not accursed like her."
Morgan's breath rasped in and out of his open mouth. Wasn't this an invitation? Provoked by jealousy perhaps, but...."No." He spoke and stood, his arms capturing the girl quickly, his mouth coming down hard and dry on top of hers.
"Uh!" For a brief second she struggled and then her body relaxed in his arms, her chest moving up tight against his. He had waited so long to hold Phaedra, and this-this was the same. Her breasts were plump, the nipples tight little points pressing into his hard flesh. He could feel his cock leap against his pants, right for freedom. The canopy of the bed shone white in the dark, flickering room. Outside the rain and thunder pounded the earth and sky. It was all a part of some wild magic. He twisted his lips over hers, sucking her mouth, his tongue swirling in her sweet saliva. With a gasp she drew her small, perfect head back from his mouth. Her eyes danced with mystery and pleasure.
"Am I any less?" she asked, stepping back towards the bed, her hands on his forearms.
"More," he whispered and followed her back. "I want you," he told her, bumping into her hips as the bed met the back of her legs. Belladonna smiled and fell softly back on the bed, her legs parting, causing the full skirt to dip between her open thighs. This was happening, this wonderful sexual adventure. He had waited for this with another likeness of this woman. It did not matter which one! He moved his hot eyes up and down the stretched-out body. Her arms were under her head, her eyes taunting him, promising much. Slowly, he undressed, unzipping his fly, moving his summer trousers down his long, muscled legs, afraid of breaking the steamy spell. Oh, she licked her lips, wet them with her tongue, did all the quiet, sexual things, goading him on with hardly any effort on her part. Her thighs moved under her skirt, back and forth, swaying slowly, tantalizing him.
He dropped the shirt on top of the pile of clothes and moved towards her stretched-out body, his legs creeping in between her dangling legs. The heat of her thighs through the skirt blew a fuse in his mind. He had always been such a gentleman, had always been careful in bed. Not now-there was something about her that compelled him to treat her roughly, to take her with much force. He followed this instinct now, trusting it. His hands ripped her blouse from her full, lunging breasts, tearing it down the middle, exposing her dark, glistening skin.
"Mr. Rask...." she moaned up at him, tongue darting, licking lips, her hands creeping around her full, dark-nippled breasts. She squeezed them, pressing them in and out. She was hurting herself. He growled, wondering at the sound. Never before had he....His hands twisted over her own slim fingers, ripping them away from their covering attempt, replacing them with his own hot, pressing fingers. Oft she felt like sweat, smelled, no reeked, of musk and desire. He fell neatly on top of her, his hips hurting hers, pressing even tighter, creating more hurting forces. She squirmed underneath him, her hands grabbing at his naked ass, her fingers jabbing in and out of his ass crack. Those huge ball-like breasts leaped under his fingers, leaping away from him as if they had been fed with helium. The nipples snapped under his fingers, tall and almost black. He could not get enough of them, pressing, biting them, lowering his full mouth over them, taking turns with each one, his mouth filling and refilling itself with breasts, right, then left, sucking, sucking. Morgan's mind reeled around and around. Never had he felt so free. These were the things he had never done and now he knew he could. She was open for him, would permit anything! He did not wonder how he knew-he just knew it. His hands moved from her breasts and drew open the two hair-covered lips below her belly. Hot liquid dribbled down his fingers. He pressed his hand up hard against the juicy place, pressed harder, while Belladonna raised her" pussy up against his hand, snapping her furry pot into his flesh.
"You will give me everything. I will give you more than my accursed cousin ever gave you. You will forget her and remember me." She spoke between clenched teeth, her lips red and sarcastic as they moved. Morgan moaned and brought his mouth down over hers, biting her so hard-too hard. He could not help himslef. He had been contained so long, had been held at bay. A man needed sex, needed to empty his built-up serum. "Now ... give me your manhood!" Her fingers pushed his face away, reached down between their sweating, molded bodies, taking his long prick in between her hard fingers. She began to press him, stroking him up and down, pulling with both her hands down the long, long length of him. When one hand had reached the thick head, the other hand was at the base. Sweat trickled down his belly like a dabbling finger of time. He could not stand it anymore. Her wild, sweet fingers pulling on his prick, pulling, pulling, rubbing, nails digging against his hot, throbbing flesh. His thighs pressed hard and moved her round fleshed legs far apart, almost hearing the muscles crack, protesting against such treatment. He grunted, pressing his full-grown sex with her hands wrapped tight around it against her hard belly.
"You will fuck me now," she hissed at him. "Do to me what you do to her and I will return anything. American sex I have never before tasted."
"Ohhh," he moaned, bit his lip, knocking her hands away from his cock, replacing them with his own long powerful hands. He rubbed himself two more strokes and held himself with one hand. His fingers shot into the thick soup of her cunt, hurting her, pressing against the fleshy inner lips, his nails scraping her flesh until she cried with pain and pleasure. Gushing liquids shot past his fingers, plopping jelly on her belly. Two, three, four fingers moved within her wide, greedy cave, twisting and turning, fucking her in and out, using long, manicured nails to probe and dig. With a sucking noise he jammed the dome-shaped fingers as deep as they would go, right up to the knuckle, then out just as quickly. The girl twisted her body, moaned, her hands clutching at his prick, pulling it towards her greedily. He growled, the animal within his throat, losing all his worldly sophistication. He lunged at her, forcing the meat into her open, soggy hole, pressed it, feeling it slide down and down as if it were being sucked up within her, never to return. She felt hot, wet and hot, and now she was the entire world to him. He would fuck her, would die and drown, would lose himself in that sticky hot quicksand. He lunged up within her until his belly was flat against hers. Her thighs raised themselves, tightened around his flanks, her body plopping itself up tight against his. Her mouth was red and wet, open to him, emitting little gasps and moans. He could taste the elastic band of her ending, feeling her throb all around him, a subtle vibration. He pressed staying within her, swaying his lean hips over her, back and forth. The firm belly quivered and shook, dancing under him. Morgan pulled himself from her jerkily, humping her when he was halfway out, teasing her into a bout of want. She cried out and lunged upwards, her hands and claws on his shoulders, scratching a long red line down his ribs as she sought to pull him down, capture fully his long cock. This was richness, was wealth was all that mattered. Oh she could fuck. She could! He drove himself sharply within her and then out again, thumping against the elastic ending, fucking her steady, hard, the way he and she wanted it. He knew. Her legs bounced against his sides and her breasts jiggled with her effort. She would not stop moving, would not stop quivering inside. He would come too fast. He hadn't fucked for so long he would come, and come and come, and she would not yet be ready. He lay the length of his body against her, humping her, raising his ass up and down while the torrent of rain outside pounded in his ears, driving him on. He reached his hands around her, under her plump ass cheeks, biting into the tender flesh with his nails, digging at her asshole, pressing, scratching. She lifted herself tight against him, swallowing his hungry prick, letting him jam his fingers into her ass. A thought crossed his mind and he raised himself from her sweating, sweet musky body, removing his fingers from her asshole.
"What are you doing?" Her mouth was open, her eyes red with anger. "Stop ... stay there!" she commanded him. Smiling he drew his cock slowly from her, holding it in his hands, wet and jellied. It throbbed dully, announcing its hunger. Belladonna bared her teeth at him, sitting up on the bed.
"Is this the American way, to stop like this, leaving me hungering for you!" Her shrill voice raised itself against his ears, cursing him.
Morgan smiled, reached for her hips and turned her over neatly, leaving her long slim legs dangling over the side of the bed. Her ass lay there plumply, inviting him. She squirmed, trying to right herself, but it was too late. His weight was against her, holding her there, pinned over the side of the bed. She was captured, a prisoner of his desires-and he had a lot of them. He stroked his cock up and down against the ass crack, wiping the gummy wet body lubricants on her ass hole. The cheeks parted under his greedy fingers, exposing the tiny aperture, brown and crinkled. She cursed him, struggling, her ass looking even more inviting as it raised and bumped against his legs, trying to right itself. What a beautiful ass, so round and dark. The inner crease was more of a pink tone, but sweaty, oily wet. A sexual ass. An ass made for just such loving. Her thighs were even plumper from behind, creased under the large, sweet buttocks of her cheeks. Her back swooped down, narrowing into her waist, then wham, a sudden flaring into ass and hips. His fingers moved up and down along the inner valley of cheeks, opening them and closing them around his warm, probing digits. His cock pressed stiffly into the valley, the thick head pressing against the impossibly small opening. Her oaths began to hush and a whimpering began in her throat. He smiled as she raised her ass against him, bumping his prick off the target. Morgan was on top of her, his thighs trapping hers, his hand hot around his cock as he insisted it against the tiny opening. He spit on his fingers and rubbed the thick head with the muck. He pressed it against the opening again and grunted as it slid, opening the tiny entrance as it flowed jerkily inside her. Belladonna cried out with pain and he shoved his hands under her, digging his fingers into her cunt slime, tickling and moving her clitoris, playing heavily with her parts. Her pain-filled cries turned quickly into pleasurable sounds, little noises that flickered from her mouth as she drooled on the bed, her hands claws gripping the bedspread. He was moving deeper and deeper within her, the way paved by the slime from his mouth. He pressed, trying to hurry the process. It was better than fucking a virgin, much better. There was a tightness around his cock like a tight, hot hand that held him. He pressed, feeling the skin crinkle and fold, resist him. He stopped, moving his hips plump against her, nudging the thick cock in and out, loosening the tight entrance.
Her hips raised, pumping the ass against him, her moaning sounds following her thumping. She swayed from side to side, drawing circles in the air, pressing backwards, flattening her ass against him, almost bending his stiff cock backwards. With a sudden violent lunge he was inside her, complete and finished, his angry hot cock throbbing, the burning flesh all around him right up to the base. Never had he felt such heat, never had he endured such pleasure. Grunting, sweat pouring from his face, he moved, not losing his hard-gained entrance, just probing, pressing, fucking her softly, without taking his heavy cock out of her.
Belladonna's body danced, whirled, her cheeks quivering with want. His hands were buried within her cunt, fingers jamming in the messy, delicious slime, swirling around and around, resting heavily with thumping movements against her clit. His mouth bit into her shoulder as he moved his cock, finding that the entrance was now ready. He could really fuck her now. His teeth bit heavily into her and he slid his tightly held cock from her and then back up inside her again, meeting the tiny entrance to her bowels as he fucked her. Her ass raised, meeting him firmly each time, swaying in crazy, wild directions, her hands ripping the bedspread as her face moved restlessly from side to side. This was heaven! He shafted her, diving in and out, parting the slimy tightness of flesh as it sought to trap him. His cock ached, hurt with the tightness, the pain of virginity. Still, it felt more pleasurable than painful. The black and red swirling moved like a carousel in his brain and he fucked her again and again, meeting the raised ass, delighting in the pain and the heat and the lust that quivered, ready to dispel itself, in his belly. He called her name to her, sucked her shoulder, bounced his balls against her lower buttocks. He felt the buzzing in his belly and knew he would come any minute. His fingers pressed in her pubic hairs, pulled the tiny black-curled filaments, dug into her clit, fingers moving up inside her, one, then, two, then three, four....He fucked her crazily with his hands, rammed his cock up inside her ass.
"Come on! Come on!" he yelled into her ears, taking a bite of the brown lobe as he did so. Her thumping ass answered him, swallowing his long prick again, crushing her cunt down around his hand, sucking the many fingers up into the thick juicy morass. She was bouncing on him, up at him. She was complete, was his, was everything a woman should be in bed, wild and dancing, lustful! A whore in bed! He rammed his round-headed cock inside her again and stayed, his fingers moving with abandon, with new speed inside her, pressing, pulling the pink flesh, digging into it with fingers, with nails, until her cries became shrieks and he felt his cock quiver, hurting as he made ready to discharge his load of semen.
"Come on!" he screamed in her ear, feeling her ass rise and stay put. He raised his hands, moving his fingers with her upward thrusts, and felt her jerk against his hands. His cock grew taut, grew harder and longer as he sprayed her bowels with his angry white speckled come, knowing the yellow jelly lay among her intestines, wasted in some ways, but not in others.
"I am done. Are you, too? Yes, you are. I felt you paint my insides." Her face turned to him, straining against his pinions. She smiled, her breath heavy and fulfilled, entering and leaving her red mouth as if it were a private storm. Outside thunder crashed, as if with his thoughts. He removed his withered cock from her ass, gently, aware that tomorrow it would be covered with little blisters. Belladonna groaned as he moved from within her, turning her body over on its back.
"You made me sore." She smiled with the words.
He lay next to her, stroking her hair, watching her beautiful face. He felt so close to her; not from the sex alone, but from some other thing. His business was taken care of here and he should leave. He thought of being without her passionate sex, knew how hard it would be to replace her lust and her beauty. Her hair hung in thick, sweat-twinkled coils, covering her full ripe breasts. A tender pang rose in his chest. Phaedra was gone from his heart now. This girl had none of her sophistication. He could teach her, could watch her wear her beauty, unassuming, undefended. His fingers took a curl and wrapped it around and around his finger.
"Am I better than Phaedra?" she asked, her eyes suddenly dark and serious. The long hands touched his shoulders, pressed against his wet flesh.
"Yes ... Yes, much better." He told himself the lie did not matter.
"Do you have any ... ties?" he asked, afraid of the answer.
"Lovers? Yes, I have one. I was going to marry him." She watched his reaction, already triumphant. "Boland ... a Gypsy." She grinned. "I may not marry him now. I have two lovers, don't I?"
Boland....Was that not the name of the dead man? He stroked her hair, angry with himself for his thoughts. Shasta had not wanted him to tell her about the dead man. No wonder. He buried his head in her soft hair and did not say anything. She would be his. There would be pain in her heart when she found out. She would scream and beat her breasts. After her rage was over, after her heart was emptied of its sadness, she would be his. He knew that now. He knew that fate had brought him here, had led him to this place for one reason. He had needed a woman for so long. Phaedra had only been the bait, but Belladonna the catch.
"America is a big and wonderful place. There is a kind of life in New York City that is hard to imagine if you have never been there."
He could almost feel her lips widen under his cheek as she smiled what she thought to be a secret smile.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
There was no harsh awakening, trapped in human garments. There was no ugly connection with her human trappings. One minute she was nothing and the next she was loping through the tangled woods, listening to the song of Odessa as she burned the cloudy heavens on her brightest night, shining through clouds and lightning, that same single eye probing the world with vision.
The rain pelted her fur, matted it close to her flanks. She ran, her mouth opening to drink in the sweet waters, tasting animal life in each droplet. Hunger was the same, demanding from within her belly. The game hid from the rain, in burrow, in briar patch and high grassed meadow. It would be hard. She was traveling fast now, her legs quick, her paws meeting the soft mud, spraying her beautiful white coat with dirt and filth. It did not matter. The rain would wash her clean again. It would not wash her hunger from her, though. Nothing would nor could. Now it was a sheet, blurring her vision, blinding her, waves of water that closed her eyelids. There was a cave on higher ground, an opening cast in the side of a mountain. She headed for that memory now, her feet padding into thicker mud, mud that chugged up around her sides. She made a wild attempt and freed herself, moving into the grasses, keeping herself high. There was more speed in her body, hidden machinery in her loins that she must use. With a tensing of muscles she called upon that speed, howled once to Odessa and was a white bit of lightning, as fierce as that which drove the sky, crashing over and through the high grass on her way to the cave. She could smell nothing and each attempt only brought more water painfully into her nostrils. She snorted the water out and made a great bounding jump. She was above the sleek mud now, was moving on years and years worth of pine cones, her paws not clinging to the soaked earth.
Odessa sang to Kalli, urged her on with a lilting, musical chant that swarmed her brain, promising much more than this night offered. Odessa had never lied to her. A goddess was incapable of lying. Kalli traveled smooth and fast now, the carpet of pine needles lifting her, urging her into new realms of speed. The cave loomed, a large black mouth directly ahead of her, swallowing the night as it moved past.
She sped towards it, her flanks aching with too much use, and then skidded to a stop, her front feet lifting muddy pine needles onto her fur. Did she smell something that hid within the cave? There was no bear she wished to tangle with this night. A bear could grip the mud, could hulk in it, using it for a spring, while it would bury her, tie her down. She sniffed, drawing in only more water which she quickly expelled. Her muzzle ached with burning pain. Her eyes were sore from constant pelting water. There was nothing she could smell out here. She would enter the cave and take a chance. She would be ready for the long run; she had distance on a bear, anyway.
Slowly now, she made her way to the mouth of the cave, sticking her cautious head in first.
"There is no bear here," the gray-black wolf told her, his head proud. He looked away from her and sat back on his haunches, staring out at the rain. Kalli's first impulse was to leave, to put distance between this impertinent stranger and herself. Then she recalled the hunt he had ruined and why. The taste of meat was thick on her tongue with the memory. The wolf paid her no further attention either, just stared out at the pelting, washing rain. A whining noise rose from her throat before she could stop it.
"I would not harm you, female. There is no reason." He still did not look at her yet. He was a very large wolf, very thick-furred too. If it came to a battle he could easily win. Still, she was a female and she was fierce for that reason.
"I am not afraid of you," she growled, staring past him at the rain.
"Aieee? You are not afraid and you are ungrateful. Do you not remember the feast I delivered you to?" His red-rimmed yellow eyes turned on her and chided her behavior.
"Fool! Do you not remember the hunt I was stolen from?"
"To kill a mating pair when they will produce more game is foolish, especially when there is food available. Only a vicious female would...."
Kalli was pushed to the end of her patience. Fear was banished from her mind and her spring took her across the cave, landing her on his broad back where her sharp moon-colored teeth gripped his thick fur. The skin was not easily available. He was concealed by his fur, protected. She growled, enraged with this turn of events. With one mighty shake he freed himself from her, flinging her body across the cave floor, landing her unpleasantly on her pointed ears. Kalli struggled to get up but the gray-black wolf was already there on top of her, his mouth ugly and open, fangs dripping saliva, threatening her life.
"Kill me. It is your right ... if you can," she flung at him, at the same time tensing her front muscles for the last spring-the movement that would save her life or take it.
Teeth bared, his growl spun up from his barrel chest, defying her, "I know you tense for a spring ... and it will be your death if you do."
"And it will be my death if I don't," she spat at him, shaking her head with rage.
"No, female, it will not be. Feel what is in your loins, feel the craving in your belly-besides hunger. Listen to your body!"
Lips curled, she began to listen to that which she had been feeling for a long time. The insistent plumbing-cubs asking to be born. She knew what he meant. Hadn't the other wolves, Jeekel and Crow and even the haughty Narca, told her that she had the smell of humans? This wolf had a strange smell too. Not exactly like hers-or was it? The hunger of the body, demanding food and children, churned her belly.
"And so?" she growled, not giving him anything he did not pay for.
Anger directing him, his mighty jaws opened and closed around her loose neck skin, biting her, scratching her skin's surface, and yet not hurting her. She was a prisoner though, unable to move without ripping her neck and exposing the inner flesh that would bleed her slowly and softly to death. She would drip away, hating him, defying him to kill her. Any minute now she would twist, destroying her own life. Rather that, than giving in to this hungry male. Still ... the mating call within her.
"Will you mate with me, or shall I put you to rest, so Odessa can soak you upward into her round circle?" His teeth moved, getting a better grip. Gently he shook her, the threat ugly in his eyes.
"You may kill me now, or I will lunge, ripping my own neck."
"Proud, proud and stupid female!" Disdain in his eyes, he spit out her fur, loosened his teeth from around her tender skin. She was free, not understanding him, crouched low on all fours, the cave meeting her belly coldly. He walked back to the spot he had chosen long before she had entered and stretched himself out. The fool! He had let her go and was now staring out the cave entrance at the pelting rain. She could leap upon him and kill him now. He was not even glancing at her to see what she was up to. The fool! She crept up to him, wanting to strike at his loose underskin, grab his neck hanging where he had captured hers. Odessa sang past the rain, entered the cave and lilted her chant directly into Kalli's ears. He heard it too. She was angry with Kalli, singing a song of sorrow. Kalli raised her muzzle and sang back, asking advice.
"Odessa, Odessa, you tell me to mate, tell me to stand still for this period of time. Must I choose him? He is too strong, too proud and vain for me." Kalli sang on and on, her eyes on the amused yellow red pinpoints of light that were the male wolf's.
"Vanity, my Kalli, all is vanity this night. His pride and anger are only a match for yours, and his patient way with your devilish daring is more than you would give him back. His is the only match for you and his pride an equalizer. Bend like the saplings in the wind and you shall not break, my Kalli. The hunt is waiting for a pair who earn their way together. Bend, Kalli, bend." So sang Odessa, causing Kalli's eyes to burn with shame. Behind her she could hear and feel the silent waiting of the male. She whirled on him and to her shame he was ignoring her. Outside there came a sound so loud that Kalli turned, amazed to find that the absence of sound was the loudness. For the rain had quit, had simply stopped, not shedding one more drop of water upon the earth. The only part left of the splendid downpour was the wet, tiny drippings of trees, the shining greenness everywhere she looked. She could not decide what to say to the gray-black male. The words of Odessa were in both their ears and shame was backing the words she had heard. When she finally turned back to see him, he stood, still not looking at her. He moved and was out of the cave, trotting towards the thickest part of the forest ... without her.
Confusion moved among her heartbeats. He was leaving her, no longer daring or desiring her. Just leaving her as if she were not worthy of his mating, as if he had been sadly mistaken about her. Good! Good! She could not obey Odessa now. He had left her. Left her? Left Kalli, daughter of the moon? Who did he think he was? Good! she reminded herself. Yes, she did not want any part of him. Yet her belly hummed, sang of its desires. Only hunger-and that thought was a self-lie, the worst kind for a wolf. It was more-the nibblings of need, the terrible unquenchable thirst for a family, for a litter of soft balls of fur, sucking at her many tits. Yes ... She leapt into the open, damp, clean air and followed the padded prints of the male. She found him, his face lifted high towards the moon, his body stretched out as he made ready for a song. He felt her there and clamped his jaws tight shut. He turned, a figure of arrogance and pride.
"What do you seek, female?"
"I obey Odessa." She bit off the growling sound and flung it at him. The moon sprang down on them, great pools of light. A touch of anger leaped into his eyes, like a tiny set of fires. She stepped back, frightened.
"Liar, female! You obey the song of your body, not the voice of Odessa. The moon goddess only serves to remind you of that! Speak to me of truth. I love your fire and your pride ... if I am not drowned in it. Further than that I will not beg of you. I will not beg of you at all. Now be gone from my vision or remain honest with me." He turned his head away from her and sang to the moon, a sweet lifting and falling of sound that jerked Kalli's heart within her breast. Slowly she spproached him, her pride broken at last.
"Yes." She lifted her muzzle to his and smelled deeply of his scent, drawing the odor down deep within her, where it touched her heart and was united. She turned her rear flanks towards him and waited for his mounting. Time passed and her pride nudged her again, telling her that perhaps he was so sick of her that he no longer cared about their mating. She almost turned to see, and felt him nudge her rear end, his heavy wolfish weight on top of her back, his wild thrusting sex jabbing at her in the moonlight. She waited for the pain and received it, taking its essence and distilling it into pleasure, felt him move and lock inside her. Together they waited, together they explored each other's needs and moved, half struggling, half drunk in the pool of moonlight, mating in full view of their mother.
When they unlocked, she turned, feeling ripped and sewn by pain and pleasure. Her eyes met his and she no longer found it hard to dwell within his vision. There was no other kind of communication needed. They silently moved together off into the realms of the forest, very hungry now that they had fed all the other needs.
Kalli moved within his smell, tasting him as they ran, wanting him as they leaped, glad to belong to something, glad that they would have a pack, a place, a pride, a time together. There would be cubs and they would grow old. Not alone. Not alone.
The fluffy snowdrops of rabbits leaped in the density ahead of them and together they ran with the odor of the hunt, slavering jaws and mouths, tongues lolling, tasting the plumpness, the ripeness. He was Creedo, the king of the forest, and she was Kalli, the queen. He leapt high into the air and, barking, cornered the fat rabbit, stepping aside so she could make the kill. A true king. Her great jaws snapped around the poor creature's neck, tasted the blood, and she handed him the plump warmth for the first tasting. There would be many more rabbits this evening.
"Here, my mate." There was a snapping noise and he pushed a rabbit paw into her mouth. Kalli lay it gently on the grass and snapped the other paw from the front of the rabbit's remaining parts, handing it neatly into Creedo's mouth. The pact was sealed now and she was full, with meat and with ... love ... yes, that was its name. Kalli leapt into the air and was flying through the woods, her mouth tight around the token, her mate fierce and following.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
This was becoming all very boring, Pallo told herself tiredly. It was bad enough that her brother was involved in this stupid affair, but to have to sit for four solid hours in the office of the sheriff, or whatever he was. Commissioner of police. It did not matter, the title. He was a hick. He was the prototype of a dumb Southern sheriff. He was Romanian, and that was the only difference. Even his English was a horror. One thing was plain to see. He hated Phaedra and was trying to implicate her. Of course that was impossible. Rick had killed the man. For Phaedra, Pallo reminded herself. It was plain to see that she had never even had a chance. He loved Phaedra. To have a man kill for you though ... Pallo shuddered. That was a compliment that even she hoped never to receive. Murder. Self-defense or not, it didn't matter. A death on your soul was a death on your soul. Pallo crossed her legs. This had gone on and on. She looked at the fat, greasy-looking policeman, watched him searching the books, going over and over the testimony, trying to trap poor Phaedra. Poor Phaedra! Pallo smiled sarcastically to herself. Sure, poor girl. She had known there was something ugly about the girl from the start. At least her brother would be spared the horror of having one so ... so ... cursed, yes, that was the word.
"Miss Ethelwulf, I find it strange that four men should want to murder you. Do you not think so?" The commissioner was smirking.
"I find it strange, too," Phaedra replied, but her face did not back up the words.
Pallo leaned on the arm of her chair. Why didn't Phaedra think it strange. Was one of those men her lover?
Loud sobs threw the fat commissioner off the scent. Belladonna, Phaedra's lovely cousin, was leaning on Morgan, her tortured face hidden in his shoulder. Well, now she knew who was the lover of Boland, the dead man. Why was Phaedra....
"You!" A violent woman stood at the door, dressed in black skirts and a red shawl. Her eyes shot hatred at Phaedra as her Romanian words caused the girl to bury her head in her arms. Belladonna was glaring up from Morgan's protective shoulder. Pallo told herself that the plot was definitely thickening. The angry girl switched to broken English.
"Warwoof! She-dog of the stars. For you my man was murdered!" The beautiful fireball advanced towards Phaedra, her mouth spitting forth words and vile curses.
"Liar! He was not your man! He was mine. He was mine!" Belladonna's tears had hiddin in anger now, burned by hatred into steam. Pallo grinned, she could not help it; and the two women faced each other, two cats ready to go at it.
"You lie, Geldaine! Boland would have married me. Me!" Belladonna hit her breasts for emphasis. Geldaine placed her hands on her full, voluptuous hips and smiled at the girl.
"Little fool. At whose word did you think he would agree to marry you? He thought of you as a little idiot. He said so many times! He would marry you and take your money and then leave you so I could-look!" She thrust her belly out for Belladonna to see. "I carry now his inflated seed, his child. I was the moon to him. I was his woman! Do you hear? His only woman. Many times he begged me not to make him love you, not to send him off to the haystack to meet you. No, I was the one! I said go! Go and bring back the folding money. Go to the little simpering rich girl so we can be free of her family's land. Even now, I have much of your money hidden away."
Belladonna backed away, stricken, ran from the room with Morgan on her heels. Morgan and Belladonna. Pallo felt sick. What a crazy place. The commissioner stood, called out the door after the two. A guard asked if he wanted them retrieved and the fat commissioner shook his head.
"Geldaine! Did your man set out to kill this woman?" He indicated Phaedra. "Did he?"
"Yes. Of course. The villagers will finish her off now, though. Of course he was to kill her. She is from the cursed family."
"Get off my land today." The cold voice of Shasta, Phaedra's aunt, chilled the room. "Go and pack your things and leave today. Take all your relatives and friends too." Shasta turned to the commissioner and her voice retained the cold tone.
"I will take my poor niece and her friends from here at once. I will have your job otherwise. You have caused her enough silly pain, for no reason." She led Phaedra from the shocked view of the policeman, without one more word.
Pallo sat still, staring at Rick, whose eyes cast around the floor. Her heart ached. She would leave here tonight. She must! First, could she not do something for him, could she not soothe him a little?
"Mr. Lloyd, you may go." The fat commissioner did not look up from his book. His eyes bored into the records, ashamed of his recent insult. Pallo cleared her throat and touched Rick on his knee, lifting his hand, then his arm up. He stood and walked out the door with her, his eyes far away. The old sidewalk moved like a conveyor belt underneath them. She did not look at Rick for a long time, just kept on walking like a machine, afraid of breaking the spell and losing him before she knew she could handle it.
"I am sorry," she told him, her eyes watching trees glide smoothly by. "I'm leaving tonight-taking a train out of Romania." There was no reply and she did not speak again. The day was brilliant, much too brilliant for the day after a murder. The sun sparkled and gleamed, bouncing from everything, filling Pallo's heart with a bleak sadness. What right did it have to shine so when she was leaving Rick, leaving her brother? She would be out in the world with no one to lean on.
Of course she had money. Lots of it. She would make it. She knew that. It was just a matter of getting used to being alone. It was frightening, the world so big and she so small. Morgan would marry Belladonna. That too was inevitable. The girl looked so much like her cousin, and she accepted Morgan. Rick pulled her hand, leading her across the meadow. She glanced at his face and saw that it was no longer grieving over the thing he had done. It had been necessary.
"I will remember you, Pallo." He turned his conquering smile upon her and she saw in him the god-like thing that had captured her ... and, yes, Phaedra. The sun --edged his reddish hair in gold and his hazel eyes went further and further back into themselves, out of reach. Even the cast in his left eye was gone.
"Rick, your eye...."
"Yes." He turned away from her, shadowing the light that exposed him so. "It's gone. I don't know how, but it is gone."
"Are you lying to me?" she asked, feeling the hidden something move against her logic and instinct.
"Yes, I am....Don't ask anything else."
She bit her lip. "Okay, Rick." The meadow stretched on. In another part of this same meadow he had killed a man. She shoved that thought violently out of her mind and held on tighter to his hand, letting him lead her to a shady pine grove. He lowered his big body onto the mat of pine needles and leaned his back against a tree.
Pallo stared down at him, feeling strange and far away. What had happened to the cast in his eye? Why had those men tried to kill Phaedra?
"Rick? What does warwoof mean?"
"Pallo ... talk about something else, please. Sit down next to me, and tell me your dreams, your plans. Don't talk about last night and cruel fate. I know there are things that puzzle you, but I can't dwell in them any more. You understand how I feel about last night. I know I was supposed to do as I did. Luck or fate had me there to save Phaedra's life. I know that. That does not remove the fact of death, though. It does not remove the fact that I killed a man."
"All right, Rick. I won't pry. I'll leave this godforsaken place with the reeking mystery clinging to my clothes. I won't ask, though."
"Good. What about your plans ... your dreams?"
"There are none. I'm in love with you." She faced him with those words. Why not? She was leaving, unless he asked her to stay or went with her. She could gamble when she had nothing to lose.
"I'm sorry you think you love me, Pallo. You have your brother's money and the world stretches on and on. You will find someone. I know this."
"Oh? I asked you once if you loved Phaedra. I put that question to you again, even though I know the answer well."
"We belong together, Pallo. When you fall in love, you have little choice in the matter. I love her, yes. Come closer to me, Pallo. I'll hold you, imprint you with the mark of love, so the man you meet will know, and will also know you are worth loving."
Pallo moved towards him, her eyes swarming with unshed tears. This was so sad. All the things she had hoped not to hear, she had heard, and now, out of pity, or just for goodbye, he was going to make love to her. Her shoulders shook with the raging battle her body was fighting. She wanted to scream at him, demand from him, and yes, even beg him for one grain of his love. She turned away from him, unable to stand the probing hazel eyes, the eyes that had once held a cast. His big hands touched her shoulders, gentle and firm, pulling her little dress from her round arms. She let him, closing her eyes, feeling every motion, every movement he made, stashing it all away for remembering's sake-for later. She would ride a train, torturing herself with this last memory, and yet she could not find the words or the wanting that would make him stop.
"Rick. Rick. Rick." Her mouth ran over and over his name, whispering it to herself as he pulled her dress down around her hips, then worked it over her legs. He stood, removing his own clothes, watching her nakedness gleaming in the sun. She felt almost shy now, covering her breasts in the classic pose. She had never made love outdoors before; she felt exposed to the elements. The sky was too wide and endless above her. The sky would go on and on while she would expire, perhaps alone. Rick's shadow blocked out the sun as he bent down and lifted her in his arms, grabbing up their clothes as he hoisted her weight. Now she studied his face, losing all fear. There was cragginess in his features, roughness in his size and balance. His eyelashes shot out from the ridges of his eyelids, probing the dust motes before they reached his vision. He was carrying her through the shaded grove of pines, walking with her up the mountain trail, then leaving the trail, jogging along with her until he reached the riverbank.
Gently he lowered her to the plush, damp grass, kneeling beside her, his hands smooth as they traveled over her breasts, down her sleek, plush sides, in between her long, round legs. Rick's hands smoothed her flesh, touched her and flew to other parts of her body. His face held a boyish grin the whole time, changing occasionally to quick flashes of tenderness. Pallo moved close to him, pulled him by his shoulders in between her legs, down, heavy on top of her. His weight rested on her belly, against her full white breasts. Remember ... remember, she told herself. His smell swam up her nostrils, traveling darkly, deep within her head curling around and around, creating a whirlwind, a twister inside her ... around and around. Pallo let her eyelids fall gently closed, brushing her cheeks with feathery lashes, listening to the swish and scrape of his calloused hands, feeling their slowness, their intent and purpose. How well they understood woman, those hands, knowing her dips and ups, downs and sudden curving slides.
"You're a map, pretty Pallo. A map of all the wonderful places and continents you will see and explore. Here...." and his hands swept the-long, smooth expanse of her sides, dipped where her hips suddenly expanded into fullness. "This is Rio and the mad, mad carnival. You'll dance and sing, meet a dark prince of a man and make passionate love while the drums throb and lilt. And here...." his right hand walked with finger-tip feet up onto her round belly. "This is the domed sky of Paris under whose diamond glitter everyone falls in love, with leaves and strangers, with dogs and rivers." His hands moved together over her rising and falling breasts. "The pyramids of Egypt where you will go on camel-back into the desert, feeling the single-minded sun evaporate your body fluids. Dark Arabs will water your beast and admire these breasts. You'll feel time stop here, let your mind wander back into time, back into those years when magic was every day. You can bring it out of the past, Pallo. There are more things than mortals dream of. Many more." His voice had grown into a whisper and his hands had ceased their game of mapping her explorations into the world. She moved her hands to his face and held him, looking into those hazel eyes, into those revolving pupils. What in the world was he hinting at? His eyes held some of the darkness of this weird land, held some of the mystery and terror, although she knew he was not a part of this land. He was a part of Phaedra, though. Perhaps that was enough, perhaps the strange things that swam in her eyes were somehow fed to his. He was looking through her now, wondering at some invisible something. She smiled at him and brought him back to the present, and most importantly, to her. She let go of his face and rubbed her knuckles over his neck, behind his ears, wanting to have him, all of him, this last time together. The reality tugged at her heart. Perhaps she could change his mind. No, that was a false hope. That was the lie and she had no more room in her life for lies. It was truth, harsh or not.
"Rick, love me. Love me soft. Make it last for ... forever." She pressed her nakedness against him, crushing her soft breasts into his hairy chest. Strong arms wrapped themselves around her, hands hard with struggles pressed at her sides, moved down to her ass cheeks, tempering the flesh with pressing and molding motions. She closed her eyes and then opened them again, aware of his every movement, of his every breath and blink of eye. She stretched and lay back on the grass, letting him touch and finger her, his hands probing every inch of her body, running like little elves down the soft, damp patches of flesh on the inside of her thighs. Fingers dipped into her hairy mound, parted soft pink-wet flesh and left, then entered again, running up and down the slippery pink membrane. Pallo moaned softly, wanting the agony of wanting to go on and on. When it ended it would be done for always, so it must last. Time must draw to a close, for a short, short eternity. Softly, gently, fingers moved inside her, pressing upwards to the place where she would hold him tight, safe within her contouring pinkness. She could feel the roughness of his fingers, even up there, even through the damp wet walls. Rick moved, swerved within her, pressing, tugging at the damp flesh walls, pulling the flesh to the left and then to the right, gripping its substance between two giant fingers. Pallo spread her legs, urging him to climb between them, to press his legs tight against her thighs. How did he gather her fleshy walls like that? It felt good, felt terribly sensual, almost too sensual, too much to bear. She closed her eyes and felt him, his walking, pulling fingers inside of her, then cried out with a little moan as he removed his fingers, wiping them carefully on the insides of her thighs. Pallo rolled over and got to her knees, presenting him with her round, white buttocks, her ass, swinging it slowly and sweetly back and forth.
Rick wasted no time; his body presented itself to her swinging quarters, gently, not pressing, just touching and releasing her flesh with his huge aimed phallus. She bit her lip as he swung against her, his chin resting on her neck, his hands moving under her, touching her breasts, then capturing them completely, one bulbous ball in either hand, taking the little nipples between hard fingers, working them between knuckles until they stood up firm and painfully hard. Pallo pressed backwards, moving her ass upwards over his hard, suddenly stiff cock. Rick laughed, aiming himself gently towards her pussy, pressing softly against it, again and again, until she could feel and hear its squishing wetness. Moist droplets ran down the insides of her thighs, plopped softly to the wet grass where they were lost amongst the thick dew. Again and again he pressed against her wet cunt, until it was ready. He knew just when, the way he knew everything. Soon, when she could almost hear the juices churn inside her cunt, he pressed and pushed with a little of his strength, the thick head sliding easily into her, making room for the rest of the fat, hard cock. Pallo groaned and slid backwards, down over the masterpiece of a cock, hard, squatting backwards, her hands pressing the muddy loam. Her eyes opened wide as he slid up within her, a hot rod. Satan's, the major demon's, could not be hotter. It moved up and up inside her, going on endlessly, it seemed. Rick was big. There would be few men who were bigger, few men that would fill her up the way he did. She tried hard not to think that this was the last time, the last sexual or any other contact she would have with Rick. She could hardly breathe as he grew up in her vagina. There was not a breath of space between his cock and her pink inner walls. Pallo swung her ass hard from side to side, beginning a rhythm that would snap him back and forth, bringing him pleasure. She would not let him forget her. Rick moved forward, his thick balls jumping against her ass as he rammed the remainder of his thick mass of cock up against her drum-like ending. Pallo cried out with pain as he kept on going. She had a vision of him stretching it on and on, breaking it and continuing past the sexual parts of her body up among her entrails. This vision disintegrated as he began to shift his weight against her and within her, riding her smooth and creamy flesh, smacking his belly against her back, hustling her breasts with long hungry fingers.
She moved with him, shifting her weight when he moved his against her, continuing against the grain of his actions. How sweet and thick he felt!-He was sex and she was love. Rick, Rick, she cried inside her head, if only, if only you loved me. Her teeth drew blood from her bottom lip as she pressed tight against him, lunging suddenly backwards, drawing her hot flaming pussy over him, unsheathing him like a rapier. Then she crawled forward on the grass until he hung, stiffly, just the thick head left in her torpid pussy. Rick moaned, laughed a short cynical creation and crawled towards her, capturing her neatly, shoving his hot cannon prick inside her again, hurting her this time, smacking harshly up against her until she collapsed in the wet grass, her breasts lunging among sharp blades of green.
Rick's crushing weight fell on top of her, the hard cock jamming her insides together, contracting her muscles inside her until she felt as if she could bear no more. This was Rick, and she could take anything he could give. She could take anything that Phaedra could take. She shoved her ass hard backwards and took the full, gigantic length of him, swallowing him up inside of her pink wealth, sucking him even further up with a suction of her muscles. Her thighs quivered with the inner weight of Rick, ached with want. He filled her so and yet she still wanted more. There was something he could not give her and its name was love. He whispered her name and began to , fuck her gently now, a steady, completely tender thing, moving, stroking her insides with his member, calming her tensions, her tightness. She felt wonderful now, steady and part of a celestial movement, in and out, in and out, again and again, until her cunt was a mass of taking and giving jellies.
Pallo felt as if she were floating, the steady beat of stars behind her propelling her through space, taking her through the loose skies. Rick continued, fucking her steady and soft, his movements growing into a fast thing, but still soft, still tender. With a whoosh he was out of her turning her over. Pallo let him roll her over on the cold grass, let him explore her body with his mouth, watching his tongue as it flicked over her nipples, hurting them with its stiff wet licking. Pleasure rode so close to pain it was hard to tell the difference sometimes. She was on her back looking up into the endless wonder of Rick's eyes, watching him with her mouth open, filled with hungers she had no name for. He pressed his cock into her again and lay the entire length of his body on top of hers. His ear lay across her mouth and she licked it as he humped his firm ass into the air, pumping her full of his wonderful self. Pallo held him tight, too tight perhaps, but then, he had already got away. She closed her eyes against the sunlight that swam down from the trees and felt Rick inside her, moving his body tight against hers, his hip bones pressing into her, his legs tight and heavy, holding her down against the green wet grasses. Pallo held his back with her hands, held him tight against tomorrow's loneliness. He was all fire and wetness inside of her, moving slowly in and out, pumping her liquids from within her, fucking her as music danced in her head among her terror of tomorrow.
"Rick." She whispered his name once and answered his body, sliding her wet belly around and around against his, withdrawing her hips and then slapping them hard against his, taking his greedy sex in and out of her with some far distant drum beat. It was her heart, her desires, beating a delicate rhythm in her bouncing breasts. She drove her belly now, fast, meeting his new pace, swallowing his cock and disgorging him, fast, too fast, because it would soon be all over and he would be gone. His name swam in her mouth and she began to quiver inside, churning her way to completion. How her thighs ached with the constant straining, her toes curling with the pressing need. Rick grinned down at her and then stopped, his body working fast, filling her with its large barrel-like existence. The slap, slap of flesh meeting flesh, the wetness, all drove her to the end. She screamed, her hands tearing into his shoulders, gripping him as her body moved without her mind telling it. Again and again the slow building rumble of spasms rocked her body. Rick worked on and on, plunging into her climax, until he too stiffened and opened his mouth in a thick groan.
Pallo felt like crying, felt too empty now. She held him tight but he rolled over, taking his sex with him, taking his mind and body far, far away from her. She would never retrieve it. Her fists doubled on her belly and she lay, staring up at the blinding sun, feeling sticky and dirty in the grass. She would go on alone from here. It would be all right, she told herself. Everything would be all right. She would find a love, would look at the world. The tears began to dribble down her cheeks. God! She felt so empty.
"Goodby," she said, not looking at him.
"Goodby, sweet Pallo." His hand touched her doubled fists and she knew her goodbye had been a way of asking him to stay ... stay.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Shasta knocked softly on her daughter's door, the pain in her breast a hollow wound. Belladonna was hurting, was hurting with the pain of death. She knocked again, softly, trying not to let her soul be taken by the things that had happened in the last few days. Boland dead. Hadn't that been her wish? Her daughter was free and a terrible price had been paid.
"Belladonna?" She waited, feeling locked out of more than her daughter's room. She was locked out of her daughter's life as well, locked out of the world. Shasta turned around and stared up and down the long darkness of the hall with its flickering oil lamps. The carved wood reliefs smiled at her with old and dear sympathy. She loved this house, loved it as some people loved each other. It was all she had left now. Her only love had shared this house with her and he still lived here, not only in her portrait, but in her presence. She felt him in the library, felt him when she walked the long silences of the hall.
"Mother?" The door creaked open. Strange that the well-oiled hinges should suddenly show neglect. Shasta walked into the softly lit room, not looking at her daughter.
"I'm all right, mother." Belladonna touched her shoulder and she looked up with the shock of that touch. What had happened to the pattern?
"Bella ... I'm so sorry for ... for what happened. I am afraid to use other words, afraid of adding to your pain, or taking you further away from me."
"I know. I didn't answer your knock right away because...." Her daughter's face was tortured with words she did not know how to say. "Because...." She wrung her hands and Shasta ached with her daughter's stolen pride. It was so hard for her, hard indeed, for anyone to admit to things that had long been denied.
"You don't have to say anything, Bella. Not anything. We will let it all go if you desire. I will leave and see you at breakfast."
"No, my mother. It is time I faced up to many things. The trouble between you and me is but one of them. I must now speak like a woman, accept blame like a woman ... and then perhaps I will begin to act like a woman, too."
Shasta felt her tired eyes flood with tears. A joy ... but still it was sad, the beautiful kind of sadness that clutches the heart and tears some old black strings there. She lowered her head, staring at her lap to see her daughter's words dance there in poignant pictures. She could not look at the face that spoke yet. She could not watch the struggle Belladonna was having with her heart and her mind.
The girl twisted her hands, staring out at the sun-dimmed balcony. "I thought he loved me so." Belladonna's words flew from the room, drifting out over the balcony rim, like sad, brown starlings. "I was so blind with first love, so fooled with my own passions and hatred ... for you. I blamed you for everything, the way a child blames the world. Boland lied to me and I accepted his lies gladly, needing something outside of this house and the curse." Her voice failed her for a few minutes and Shasta waited, the hurt constricting her own throat so she could not even offer consolation.
"I hated you who loved me!" She was crying! Shasta stood and crossed the desolate space towards her daughter, crossing, too, the barrier that had grown over the vast insurmountable years. The girl was warm and still familiar to her mothering arms. Oh, but it felt good to hold one you loved, felt good ... And then Shasta was crying too, the tears mingling and flowing together, closing forevermore all the old and ugly gates of hell.
"Hush ... hush, my child. I still love you more than God. I still need your love, no matter where you go." Belladonna drew back and met her mother's sure, exact knowledge. Of course ... of course she knew. The man Morgan was falling in love with her daughter. There was only joy in that knowledge.
"I know about your new love, my daughter. He is a good man."
"He will take me away." The testing stick, Shasta thought. Belladonna thought she was out to capture her for always, hiding her in the tower of the old castle. Shasta smiled.
"Nothing can take away the bond of love. I will even leave this old place to visit you."
The sun vanished altogether, chilling their embrace. Belladonna huddled closer to her mother.
"Phaedra ... Mother, the villagers are plotting to kill her. I was wrong about her, too. My hatred was only my relief. She was the ruined one and I was safe. My safety became cruelty."
"She will have to depart then. The boat comes at dawn."
"With her curse. What about my-the daughter I might some day have? What about...."
"Hush, sweet child. I have strong feelings. I will not know yet. I have strong premonitions that the curse will be far gone as Phaedra rides the boat across the sea. You will follow her boat's trail in joy, with no fears."
"What do you know, my mother?" Belladonna's eyes were black with thirst. "Tell me."
"Tomorrow ... when I am sure. Now I must go and make plans for the boat. I must do many things."
"Yes...." Belladonna squeezed Shasta hard, the pressure admitting to Shasta what mere words could not do. She pulled back and looked deep into her daughter's eyes, knowing that the blurred beauty of her daughter was caused by tears, many tiny drops forming an ocean of long-hidden emotion. She pulled away from the girl and wiped her sharp features with the back of a withered hand. Still they came, tiny morsels of her past grief, flooding her features, drowning her voice. The shadowy outline of Belladonna watched her, not knowing how to administer the words or touches yet. So many years and hatreds had passed and wasted the time between them. Finally, with jerky movements, Belladonna reached out her hands and cleaned the water away from her mother's eyes.
"There," she said, as if she had made the movement and now could fix anything, could admit to and join anything. One movement, one action and all the others would be easy. "I love you ... mother. I have always loved you. Will you ever be able to forgive me completely, accept me ... without remembering the way I've made you suffer?"
"It is all over, darling. Forgive these foolish tears. They are made more from the parts of joy and relief than from any sadness."
"I know." The quiet statement on her daughter's tongue. There was honey in that mouth, honey that she, the girl's mother, had never suspected.
"I'll go now. There are things to do. Phaedra must depart. Tomorrow will be a new day for you. Morgan Rask ... he is staying here for a long time?" Belladonna nodded, unable to conceal a soft smile.
"Perhaps we will invite him to stay here with us." Her wet-rimmed eyes glanced around the ancient furnishings and towering ceilings. "Perhaps a bit of love and the warmth of lovers is what this old house needs. Some of the gloom might vanish forever."
"If the curse does not taint this too."
"I think not. I think that this house has seen the worst of all it will ever see." Belladonna locked eyes with her and she turned away from the softness. It would be like letting your eyes grow accustomed to a bright light, after the gloom of darkness.
"Tomorrow, my daughter." Shasta filled her eyes once again with the bright new light of her daughter. Then, softly, she pulled the door shut behind her and began her long journey down the hallway. She stopped in front of two huge dark windows, pushing them outwards so she could peer up at the beginning of the moon's silver sliver. Her breath rushed from her mouth, relief heating her upper lip. Even if the curse was not dispelled, it was at least over for a while. Down in the gardens, wandering in the darkness, voices drifted slowly upwards, plotting and scheming. Shasta leaned over the window frame, trying to hear the hatching of plans, the evil of peasantry. Nothing, no clearly defined phrases reached her. Only the malice, the knife-edged tones drifted towards her straining ears. She heard the shuffle of feet and whirled about, her hands icy cold on the wooden frame behind her. Old Anna stood humped in shadows, her hooded falcon's eyes hating through the glimmering flicker of oil lamps.
"What do you want?" Shasta asked, drawing herself up to her full height, proud in front of this minor and offensive servant.
"Merely to ask if there is anything else my mistress desires before retiring." The mouth barely moved with the words, so turned under, so dry and vanishing was it.
"Nothing, Anna." She turned her back on the woman, and then turned around again. Her words hesitated in her throat. "There is something. You will help Mistress Phaedra pack."
How suddenly alert were the old eyes, and was that a smile playing at the crinkled corners of the old mouth?
"She is leaving. The dawn boat?"
"You question me? How dare you!" She advanced upon the old crone. "Just what is your interest, anyway?"
"Nothing, nothing mistress. I will help her pack now."
"No! No, you won't! I see! Yes, I see too clearly now. You are a part of the hatching! My own servants. Within the walls of the old wolf's house you see and use many things, don't you!" Her fingers were in the musty clothing of the old woman now, anger driving her words as well as her hurting hands. There was terror in the old bat's eyes and it was good to see. Very filling, after the long years of hatred that had passed the time between them.
"Pack your things. You're dismissed. Did you hear me? I said...."
"I heard, Madam. Let me go! You're choking me!" Anna withdrew into the shadows, hissing her voice out, the horrible pleading of a leper. "Yessss ... I heard Madam and Madam must know I will not forget this. I will personally pass on the knife that bleeds your family's fine blood. I know of the sin and horror of this house. I know about your pretty, pretty niece. I know the howling sounds that seep from the forest are not all animal. I know...."
"You know that you will depart this place at once, or you will know sudden death. I can get away with taking a worthless, evil life such as yours."
"Death to your niece and to your name!" The old hag spit on the thick hall carpet and fled, hobbling, fading down the long hall.
Shasta leaned against the open window, her breath the only sound now. The sound of her argument had hushed and warned the whispering voices below. She looked down the brick wall, seeing only the bright blood-red roses.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
She tossed and swam in her nightmare vision, faced the onrushing hordes of portraits with their blistery, paint-swollen faces, pushed out her long gentle hands and tried to protect herself. The past was an oyster of blackness, of despair. Through the mist and rough-edged faces he came, his boyish grin hung crookedly, a star lighting his face. The name she had worn since her birth clung to his mouth, pushed out at her and became sad, became worn. Try! her mind screamed at her. Try! Her hands reached up and tried to adjust the smile, tried to hang the crooked star back on his face before it slipped free and was lost in the abyss. Oh Rick ... Rick ... Her body lifted, floated upwards. Rick ... I didn't mean to involve you in my sickness ... I didn't mean to....
Through her dream and within her dream the spider web of the curse wove itself, in and out, reckless and exact. One daughter from each generation. The dead man, his mask half torn from his broad handsome face, floated before her vision, back and forth, as if he were tied to an invisible swing. Rick walked beside the swinging man, his face dripping with blood. The man had tried to kill her, had tried to kill her out of superstition, out of stupidity-fear, the nameless terror. Warwoof ... Warwoof ... There was a name, an old name. War ... meaning, to beware of him who bears the curse. She swam upwards through the blood-colored slime, swam away from the swinging dead man and from Rick who had a fading smile. Gone ... wet and wet.
"Phaedra. Phaedra. Get up, child. You're having a nightmare."
She was sitting up, stiff and cold, the sweat drying on her body, rusty and dry. Her tangled hair blurred her vision and she cleared it from her eyes with one dry, loathsome hand. Shasta sat on the edge of the bed, reminding Phaedra of a crow sitting on a telephone wire.
"What is it?" Phaedra pressed her temples hard with her fingertips. Her aunt shouldn't be here. She might change at any moment, might become a wolf. "Shasta ... Aunt Shasta. Please go. I might...." Even now she could not bring herself to say out loud what was uppermost in her life's reality. It was as if she could keep some part of the dark thing away from her if she did not speak the words. She recalled an old Egyptian proverb: What is said out loud three times, is true. She met the bright black eyes of her aunt, felt the cold hands of Shasta as they brushed the stray hairs back from her forehead.
"You will have to leave in secrecy. There is a boat this morning."
"What time is it now?" Phaedra felt the horror clutch at her. She did not want to change....
"Stop your worrying. The time of the moon is over. You are safe."
"For now, you mean. Why do I have to go? You told me yourself that if I am to beat the curse, lift it from my soul, that this is the place."
"Phaedra, use your common sense. You have almost been murdered. There is another plot stirring, probably hatched by my servants in this very house. You cannot do anything about the curse if you are dead, my child." The words were knife-sharp. Phaedra felt them in her belly, the twisting of the cold instrument.
"Oh, my god! Oh, my god. Please help me." She bent over, resting her pained forehead on her knees. What had she ever done to receive this much torment? Was being beautiful a part of this? Did she have to pay for her beauty all her life? "I can't stand it, Aunt Shasta! I can't! Perhaps it is better for me to die now. I can't return to the city, to my career. I can't even love fully the man I most want. I'd just as soon die!" Phaedra threw back the quilts and leaped from the bed, her feet carrying her out on the balcony where she leaned against the pain in her belly, against the dark ending of the night. She could not bear it any more. If she had some normal kind of problem, something that could happen to anyone else, she could run to Rick, could cry on his shoulder. She was alone, tossed out into the terrifying cosmos, alone without a way or means, without a safe corner to hide in. Shasta's soft feet padded after her, the cold hands filled with pity, pulling at Phaedra's back. Phaedra felt loose, feather-light. She leaned against the wiry frame of her aunt, crying with an ugly, rasping noise that began from some desolate place in her belly. The noise filled her head, its waters her eyes, and yet she could not stop, could not find an ending for her pain's sound.
"There ... there. It might all be over. Phaedra, I have a feeling that it might be over. Can you recall anything about your ... other self? Anything at all?"
"No ... No!" The solid sound of that single word blossoming up from the coiling intake and outtake of noise. "There is nothing to save me. I might as well let them kill me. Perhaps they are right in wanting me dead!"
"If they were right, they would have succeeded. You were saved by a miracle. By your love. Stop that talk." The harsh anger of Shasta squelched the pain in Phaedra's chest. She stopped crying with a gasp and stared back at the angry figure. Shasta softened, glanced down at her hands as they twisted against her flat black belly. "Listen ... there is purity of spirit about you. There are things that you contain, things you are not even aware of. They are good things, Phaedra. Our family is a long line of blackness. Not many of us were worthy enough to ... to pray. Do you understand? Hope ... and believe in your own self. Now pack. It is almost dawn. I have spent hours planning your trip. I ordered your tickets and will have the cab waiting for you. The boat will leave at seven o'clock. Trust me, my child. Please. Have faith. I cannot say for sure, but I think ... well, I feel that you are safe." Phaedra waited for more of the comforting sounds, her eyes pleading with those chilled orbs of Shasta's.
"Is there something you know for sure? I would have felt it if I was cured. Something like that, well, I would know. You are just trying to assure me and I appreciate it. I do, but it's hopeless."
"Pack, my dear. I have a few other things to arrange. Oh...." She paused. "Be careful until the boat leaves. These people here are ignorant and passionate. That is a dangerous combination anywhere in the world. Here, in this land creased with superstition and valid horror, it is even more so. You will watch yourself."
Phaedra nodded, watched the black clad figure drift through the doorway. She was so confused, so tortured. All of this was like some nightmare. It had started off like a particle of hell and had grown into this ... this demonic existence containing murder and love, blood and hatred. Death leered at her from every corner of this ugly land, even this house where her family had begun. Phaedra turned slowly around and around, watching the shadowy corners of the apartment, waiting for some ugly monster creature to leap out at her, intent upon spilling her blood, carrying her off to the hairy hordes. A pain shot through her head, jagged lightning cleaned out hidden particles of thought. Once again her fingers sought to erase the pain from her brow, a gesture that was becoming too familiar to her. What was it? There was something she should remember! She moved to the bed and stood, wiping her long hands up and down the sides of her nightgown. She should be packing. But there was something. She got to her knees and looked under the dusty bed. A little fluff of white took her attention. Her hand reached through the balls of gray matter, retrieving the rabbit's foot. She was repelled and attracted at the same time. It was not the sort of rabbit's foot one bought in a store. It was raw, bitten at the joint. A red stain, turning to brown, blended through the white fur at the severed end. She held it, revolving its furry shape slowly between thumb and index finger. A wastepaper basket stood a few feet away from her and she crawled to her feet, determined to throw the grisly memento of her other life away. Still, there was something about it. It wasn't really that awful. No more awful than the other realities of her life. People carried them all the time. Of course those rabbits' feet had little metal rims around the joint, civilizing them, she supposed. She walked toward the wooden basket and dropped it in. She was being stupid. Then she bent down and retrieved it, gathering her purse and dropping it in. She could not explain her actions, and she did not want to try. The pain in her head dimmed now, covering something she had almost remembered. Her door made a noise and she widened her eyes, staring blankly at the carved wooden monster. How stupid and foggy she was. Someone knocked and she was in another dimension.
"Are you all right?"The knocking grew louder and she reached out and turned the brass knob.
"Phaedra? Your aunt said you had to leave this morning. I'm going with you." He stared at her suitcases, still untouched in their little corner. "Haven't you started packing yet?"
"Did she tell you why I have to leave so suddenly?" Her voice sounded strange, even to her. He paid her no attention, just snatched her bags up, opened them and threw them across the bed. She watched him rummage through the dresser drawers, throwing her clothes helter-skelter everywhere. "Rick!" The high sound shrieked in her ears like discordant violin music. "What did she tell you?"
Rick sucked in his breath and stood, facing her, his two hands filled with her underwear. Some other time and it would have been a funny sight; now it was only part of an ever-growing nightmare.
"All right. She told me there's a plot to kill you if you stay. Stop acting like a little fool and pack. Come on!"
She shook her head, opened her mouth several times, like a fish breathing strange air. Her hands moved at her sides, clenching and unclenching themselves. This was all crazy, was mad, insane!
"Rick!" she found her voice and it was a loud, loud one. "Stop!" Her mouth opened and water stained her dark pupils. "Don't, don't you wonder about that? Don't you wonder about an entire village wanting me dead?" Hysteria gripped her heart but she could no longer control it. She was going insane. This whole journey into the unknown was snapping her mind. "You already killed a man for me. That's on your soul ... because of me! I'm not worth that. I'm not! Why don't you ask me what's happening? Why I, a stranger here, should suddenly be the target for their hatreds." She sucked air between her teeth, and felt her spit, cold a'nd death-like, wrap her tongue in a cocoon. He stood there, his face impassive, the grin she loved so well vanished from her sight. His eyes turned suddenly away from her and he returned to the dresser, removing the last of her clothing. From behind dream-like blurrings, she watched him move toward the single closet and throw the doors open. She could not move. Why didn't he ask her what this, was all about? Why didn't he? She was crying now, not making a single sound, but crying, the long, long drops running down her high cheekbones, sliding into the furrows around her mouth, catching on the pout of her bottom lip.
"You could help me pack, Phaedra." His voice was cool, chiding her as if she were a child. Some of the calmness about him touched her and she moved from within her foggy dream, began to toss her belongings into the cases. She found a white dress with a little hood attached and laid it on top of the case. While he continued packing, she removed her nightgown, standing naked, her vision stolen by the remaining sliver of moonlight trickling in through the open terrace doors. She was no longer aware of Rick's movements or the sounds of packing, the soft swish of silken dresses. The moon called to her, sang something she could almost understand. She remembered having this feeling before, when Rick had ... had killed the man. She took three jerky steps toward the balcony and glared fiercely up at the moon, wanting to understand the inner music, the strange waltz with its animal secrecy. There was a farewell note in the song, a goodby.
"Phaedra." The sound of his voice drew her back from the moon, as if he had suddenly sucked her up into his being. His hands touched her shoulders, warm and knowledgable. She met his eyes and noticed something different.
"The cast is gone from your eye."
"Yes ... it just went away." He smiled at her, his eyes warm with the reflection of herself. If he only knew. How would he feel then?
"Pity, I liked it. It was you, too. Like your smile." Sadly, she trailed her fingers over his lips, watching the mouth open and bite one gently. "Rick ... perhaps you shouldn't come with me. Perhaps you should take a later boat. There are things about me you don't know. You haven't even asked. You killed a man...."
"My darling, will you please shut up?" He turned his grin on her full force and pulled her body close to his. Her naked breasts rested against the woven texture of his shirt, the nipples hurting with the rough texture. He felt so warm and masculine. If only she could tell him. Would he believe her though, and then, how would she say it? Rick pulled away from her, holding her at arm's length.
"You're worrying again about all those deep dark secrets. There's no need for that. You know what? We have another two hours before the boat leaves. I know just the tranquilizer for you."
She smiled as he lifted her lovely body from the floor, swinging her from side to side as he carried her to the bed. This was love, the first "time in her life and very likely the last time. And just look at the circumstances that gave way to love. Even she could not help but smile at that thought. Gently, Rick lowered her to the bed, removing his warm arms from around her. She lay with her hands folded across her belly, her eyes bright with him as he removed his clothes. He was slow, the way she had undressed for him, unbuckling his belt in slow motion, removing his shirt with a sexual shrug. Grinning, he watched her eyes dance, and unzipped his fly, jerking the little train over its four inches of rail bit by bit, exciting her. She reached her hand down and touched the thick curling mound of her pubic hairs, pressing with her fingers. His cock leaped into view, already full grown, bulging like a thick fat worm from the zipper opening. In a few minutes he was naked, his big hands running up and down the huge length of cock, his eyes riveted on her body. She inhaled, pushing her thick creamy breasts outward reaching her hands up to finger and toy with the tiny little buds of nipples. Her tongue licked her lips again and again, leaving a sweet slime for him to lick clean.
He knew ... he always knew. He buried the small space between them, kneeling in between her lush thighs. If only for a short space of time, she could enjoy her love. Who knew if there would be a tomorrow, or another spark of desire from Rick. Once he found out.....
"Rick. Rick. Love me." Her hands clawed at his shoulders, bringing his wonderful, craggy face down on hers, his full mouth closing tightly and wetly on top of her sucking, wanting lips. There was a desperate thing in her chest, controlling her hands, making them claws, controlling her legs as they wrapped around his long, hair-bristled thicknesses. She spoke his name over and over again inside his mouth, breathing it in, sucking it deep inside of her where she could hide it, protect it from the ugly truth. Hot lips, twisting over hers, melting, burning into her damp flesh. His smell was all man, no sissy perfumes, no foppishness, not like those magazine men she had posed with and dined with. She held him tighter, taking draughts of his breath and saliva down into her throat. Her tongue grew stiff like a tiny erection, ramming into his throat, circling over his mouth roof like a bird of prey. Even his mouth burned, was wet with fire where her tongue branded it with her own special initials. She twisted her body under him, scraping against his chest hairs, rubbing her thick breasts up and down under him, squeezing her nipples painfully tight into his hard flesh. His hands were suddenly released, were wild, grabbing, hurting, pinching the soft lady-like flesh of her inner thigh.
"Rick ... don't wait. Don't wait." She pulled back from his mouth with a thick, wet suction, spoke heated air against his nostrils, rubbing her cheek against his rough face skin. His eyelashes tickled her cheek as he clicked his burning hazel eyes open and shut. His fingers moved from her thighs, taking bits of flesh with them, parted her hairy cunt lips, examining their contents with his rough, jagged nails.
"You feel so good, so hot, baby. I love you, love the way you feel. You know that, don't you? That's all that matters. That's all." His lips pressed hers again and his full weight pressed, bolted her to the bed, while he spread his knees further and further apart, stretching her thighs until she could almost hear them crack. Her hair tossed, covering her face, sticking to the sudden popping sweat globules there. His hands! Those thick, calloused hands were examining her, stretching her vagina, two, three, four fingers, moving, spreading themselves inside her body, pressing, tugging the soft pink flesh there. Hardness and maleness. He played so rough tonight, as if he, too, tasted the hard, bitter draught of danger and wanted to make the most of their precious minutes together. Those fingers and their wonderful pain. They felt like many small phalluses of leather, like hot leather. Scraping her insides raw. There would be so much sensitivity, so much readiness.
"I can't stand it. I can't stand it. Rick give me you ... now." Her fingers pleaded with her voice, her wet lips trailing across his hot cheeks. She could feel his thick cock, straining against her belly, its burning head pressed against her bellybutton. The swinging movement of his big balls thrashed against her thighs. Still those fingers moved, pressing and urging impossible things from her flesh. The scrabbling reeling of gushing lubricant rolled down her legs. Even that was hot, like boiling gobs of oil. Phaedra lifted her legs, strained, tried again to reach his hips. He held her too tight, stretched her legs too far apart. She could not stand the wanting inside of her. His fingers were thick and wonderful, but they would not do it, would not fill her greedy body to bursting. Her hands scraped away his back flesh as they reached for him, feeling him pull away, laughing.
"We have time, baby. We have time, enjoy it." He dangled his cock on her belly, slid it down to the wet oozing place between her legs, evading her reaching hands again, scrambling up her body to plant his big thickness between her breasts. Just the sight of that thick pink object drove her wild. She bent her head down and sucked it neatly up into her mouth with one clean motion, her tongue flicking into the tiny, expanding slit, licking it free of the clear liquid. It tasted salty, like the clean smell of the ocean. Her mouth closed over it like a glove, swallowing and swallowing until the thick red head was buried in her throat. She could feel its contours, its heated embrace, as if it were a baby thing and her throat the cradle. Gasping, she contracted her throat over it, pressing her tongue upwards against the heavy bulge. Rick moved out a bit and then back in, beginning to fuck her steadily in her throat, his eyes watching her full lips swill over his cock, taking him in and out. Saliva gushed down her chin, saliva and that taste of salt. Rick's face was contorted with pleasure. He was lost in his pumping. His hand twisted its many fingers in her cunt, drove her skin up and down as it clung to the fleshy walls. Phaedra stretched her thighs, sucking the thick cock in and out. She would come without experiencing him inside of her. She could barely hold out now, could hardly stand the constant churning in her cunt, the straining, tugging fingers. His other hand moved around her ass and quickly plugged her there, working its fiery way inside her tiny ass hole. Phaedra choked on the thick cock. The finger in her ass wasted no time, but drove itself up to the knuckle, burning its way in and out of her. She couldn't move now. She was filled from every angle, given over to the maximum of pleasure.
With a jerking movement, Rick drew his thick, red, mottled prick from her mouth, leaving only the thick head beyond the ridges of her teeth. Phaedra nibbled, bit, fondled him with her tongue, lazing it up and down the fat pink ledge of him. Rick groaned, snapped the instrument from her mouth. She watched him slide down her body, taking his hands from her ass, sucking his moving, writhing fingers from her oozing cunt. She gasped as he wiped his hands on her body, felt the heat and boiling of her own body fluids. She drove her weight up against him, her hands grabbing his thick wet cock and sliding up and down in the muck. Rick laughed, his breath a steamy fluid against her neck as he let her guide his thick cannon to her more than ready cunt. His legs pressed her thighs further and further apart, so that when she took him, thick head first, then the entire slimy treat, she felt unhindered, felt unprotected. He slid up and up and up, his long cock moving slowly, tantalizing her with his lack of immediacy. It seemed like forever until he crashed against her pained ending, snapping his fat round cock head up against the thin rubber coating of flesh and driving on. She gasped, pressed, then tried to draw back under the weight and insistence of him, but found she could not move. With a quickness she could not even conceive, his big hands were under her, worming their way to her cheeks and the deep valley between them. She was being lifted up against the pressure of his stiff, pressing cock. Her head trailed along the bed, her long hair swimming behind her. He had her where he wanted her now, and it was where she wanted to be, at the mercy of her man. She relaxed, moving her hips up against him, moved as much as she could. She could feel his hard hands holding her ass, the jagged nails cutting into her there. Her arms dragged the cold sheets.
Rick began to move hard down inside her, jabbing her fleshy walls-with sideways thrusts, snapping his hips back and forth, his buttocks driving the huge, fleshy rod in and out of her. So much moisture had been raised by his probing fingers that he slid easily in and out, pounded up and down. Her hips danced crazily, slid up hard against his, banging against his bones, slap, slapping, against his belly. How hot and heavy were his balls as they jiggled against her upper thighs! Again and again the hot missile slid within her and met her ending. He seemed to grow thicker and fatter, seemed to grow wider and wider. Heat claimed her mind, turned her vision to red, blood red. She was gasping, thrusting like an animal, like a great furry animal. But she was not. She was a lusty human female, not an animal! God, how could she think like that when she was so near to the edge, so near to coming! Rick's face glistened in the oil lamp's light, shone with sweaty beads. Up inside of her, there was a burning, on its way to the core of her body. His fingers jerked, working their hot, burning way into her asshole. Hard, slamming, they drove themselves up within her, tearing the puckered flesh. Insanity was claiming her now. Not the insanity of what had been happening, but of what was happening right now-sexual lust, passions unleashed. Never had they loved so hard, so fierce! Screaming, crying her torment and need, she smacked her body up through the air, swallowing his big monster cock, sucking him in and out of her as quickly as she could contract her inner muscles. Rick gave a short bursting cry and grew stiff, his entire body aiming his sex. Phaedra met his final thrust willingly, feeling as if all the tiny little doors of her body had been broken open, releasing a flood of warmth and finishing. Again and again the rumbling noise and shudder of her body surprised her. Each time she thought she was finished, there was a new release. All the storm gates of-heaven or hell? She wondered. Finally she was done and Rick was laughing at her, wiping her sweating face with his cheek as he lowered her back on the bed.
"There will be many more times, Phaedra. Many more." He pulled himself free of her body carefully, wiping his cock on the bedsheets. From far off down the hall came the padded feet of Shasta to see if they were ready. They dressed like little children, quickly, with much laughing and secrecy. Phaedra tried not to think of what was really happening behind the sugar-coated protection of love.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
He did not feel sorry for the big sweltering bruise on the girl Geldaine's cheek, and he did not feel sorry for the ugly human misconception of a man he had killed. But this one, Phaedra would not know about. Rick ran his fingertips across the sharp knife and listened to the official announcement in three languages.
"All ashore who's going ashore." Again and again it repeated itself. Geldaine sat across from him, her eyes flashing hatred, her pretty hands strangling each other in her peasant's lap.
"I must get off the ship," she spat at him.
Rick grinned, kicked the door of the cabin closed. It hadn't been much of a struggle. At the last minute he had exchanged cabins with Phaedra, sensing something like this.
"I might have you arrested," he told her, running the knife's sharp edge up and down his dungarees' fabric. "I might even wait until we are out to sea and tell them you are a stowaway and that you tried to kill me with this." He pointed the knife at her. Once again the announcement was made, bringing panic to the girl's face. She had been the lover of Boland, the man he had killed, and yet she had not tried to kill him, only Phaedra. Even when she was leaving, getting on the boat that would carry her across the ocean.
"Why didn't you just let her go? Why did you have to try again?"
"Thou shall not suffer a witch to live." She stood, her skirts in her hands, spitting at him in rage. It was useless to try and speak to her. He knew that, and, in some knowledgeable way, he even understood.
"Get out of here, before I slice you into ribbons. Get out of here, you ignorant fool. You killed Jesus Christ! You built the funeral pyres of a million innocent men and women. You offered babies for sacrifice! You and your kind, down through the bloody ages. Well, I curse you now for your ignorance! I curse you for your black heart and I curse you for your ugly soul!" He advanced across the room, wielding the knife, wanting to use it, wanting to slice away that black and corroded part of her. "You had better run, stupid woman, and you had better never stop running. You will follow your man into the grave. The grave is where ugly, soulless monsters like you belong!"
Geldaine gathered her skirts and flung herself against the door, her mouth open in a scream. She twisted her terrified features around at him, scrambling for the knob. He stopped his advance and watched her bolt from the room, scurry in the hall, searching for an escape. He tried to untighten his tense muscles. Had he really been that close to killing the girl? No, no he hadn't. It was stupidity he wanted to murder, lack of understanding he wanted to strangle. Not human flesh. He had pity for humankind. He had pity for himself and for Phaedra, especially for Phaedra. She had taken him from his wandering, had freed him, even as he had freed her. The long, dense whistle blew and the ship glided from its moorings. He sat for some time on the edge of his bunk, recalling the darkness. He carried Geldaine's knife to the porthole and saw the fresh water break against the ship's side. So much had happened. So much unraveling and then ... freedom. He had never hoped to see it, had not expected it to call on him, to untie the knots around his heart.
The knife under his arm, hidden in his armpit, he made his way on deck. People were just heading back to their various cabins and pleasures now. He waited until he was alone and then bent over the railing, releasing the knife, watching it drift quickly, catch the wind and finally cut the water, disappearing as soon as the glinting steel blade had touched. He leaned over the railing still, dangling his hands, feeling the salty moisture cling to his fingers. He was crying-and he had never cried before. He was crying because he was clean, because he was free and because he was in love. Rick stood up, straightening his big shoulders. He couldn't let her suffer any more. She had gone through the whole thing alone, the way she had to. She had suffered and had held her sanity around her, her hope and love, tight around her darkening heart. The early sun moved closer to him, touched his face with glowing warmth. He turned his full face up and took the entire fleet of golden rays, revelling in the discovery of worldly heat. He was whole, was wonderfully everyday, even mundane. He would embrace all the little troubles that would befall him, would argue with Phaedra about the kids, would make love and make up in bed. He would fight with her about what to put in the steak sauce, would argue which lettuce was better. She would cry. He would hold her. Rick opened his mouth and laughed. A young couple, strolling down the deck, looked at him strangely and began to whisper. He bent at the waist and bowed gracefully to them, swirled around and ran down the metal steps, down the padded hallways until he reached Phaedra's cabin. He didn't knock, but threw open the heavy door. She lay across the bed, her cheek resting on her arms, her eyes fogged with misery. She sat up quickly when he came in.
"Rick. Rick I have to talk to you. You won't believe me, but...." She ran her long, white spider fingers through her mane of two-toned hair. He watched her, smiling.
"Yes?" The bed and her soft body invited him so he moved next to her, running his hands up and down her sleek body, feeling very possessive. "You can tell me anything you want now, my darling." How she was suffering, wondering at the strange words it would take, knowing he would not believe her. Well, he could not help her there. She had to come out of this alone. It was the last lap in an incredible race. A race they had won.
"Did you hear what Geldaine ... that man's woman ... said about (me in the Commissioner's office? She said the word, warwoof. Do you know what that means?"
"Of course, darling, you're a werewolf. Right?" He grinned and her face blanched, her mouth wet and shaky, ready for the salty adventure of tears.
"It's not funny, Rick. I'm not playing with you." She pulled at her hair, the thick waters gushing from her eyes. "It's true. It's true."
"Darling, darling, I know. I know." He held her in his arms, rocked her slowly back and forth like a baby. "It's all over, baby."
She pulled back from him and glared at him through the veil of water. "You're humoring me. You think I'm crazy!" she accused.
"No, baby." He reached into his pocket, feeling silly and overdramatic. Well, it was dramatic. He couldn't help that. "Here, baby." He pressed the little object into her hands and she took it, turning it over and over in her hands. She reached behind her and opened her pocketbook with shaking, nervous fingers. Yes, they matched. He nodded at her, his eyes suddenly wet again.
"Do you remember now? Let it happen." He winced as she grabbed her head and rocked back and forth. Yes he remembered how it had been for him. It had taken him years and years to be able to recall his wolf life.
"You ... and me. I remember. Rick ... you and me," she repeated.
"I lived with it for nine years, baby. I never thought it would have an ending. I never thought I would fall in love either. I knew about you right away, on the way to that dark country. You were inept at playing double life. I was well-schooled. I could put off my changes until the very last minute, learned to get dressed in one minute flat. You were so clumsy, darling. I love you. I loved you before I knew ... and when I knew ... well, I loved you more."
He took her in his arms then and pressed her human body to his. He remembered how beautiful she had been as Kalli, too. There was nothing he wanted to hide from. Not even the long years of the curse, not even the young witch woman in Haiti who had cursed him when he refused her love. All the pain and suffering had brought him her and it was the only place he knew now.
"It's over, Rick. It's all over?"
"Over and beginning, baby. The bad is over and we're beginning."
CHAPTER TWENTY
Shasta closed the drawing room doors against the silly giggling of Belladonna and Morgan, shaking her withered face from side to side. This house had never known such a thing. A high-pitched shriek followed her from the drawing room, seeping through the cracks in the door. There was some knitting she wanted to finish, now that things had the white flag of peace covering them. She lowered her dry body into a loveseat and brought her sewing bag from under the little table. She gathered her wool, winding it around and around her fingers.
Crack ... ssssst. She put the needles on the couch and stood. What was that sound? Once again the crackling, sifting noise moved her head around the room, searching for the cause.
In a dream she walked to the sound's origin. The portrait of Harlande. She stood in front of the oil painting-the painting that had been wet for a hundred years, the sweating portrait of the curse's beginning. It was cracking, splitting down the middle, crumbling into dust. The floor already held a pile of sad dust. More followed, again and again, shifting down the remaining canvas until there was nothing left of the painting but a pile of gray dust on the floor. Shasta kicked the dust with the pointy toe of her black boot, thinking about the young couple who rode their boat home. She had been right. There had been two wolves in her house. You could not live with something so dark and not know it, even in disguise. Belladonna and Morgan laughed together on their way to the garden, and Shasta went back to the couch and her knitting. She was working on a new black shawl. Smiling, she began to unravel her work. There was a ball of bright red wool in her bag somewhere. She was planning to make Bella a sweater with it. She would make a new shawl for herself instead. Something bright, something that would remind her of the new life and something that would not remind her of the old life. Yes ... Yes ... she smiled, contented. She would buy some new clothes tomorrow, some bright prints, something with flowers ... She began to hum, keeping time with the clicking of her knitting needles.
