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He occludes my sight. He makes me near blind so he might see with my eyes.
He offers me a slit through which I can see Sir Malcolm’s worried face across the room. Sir Malcolm may as well be on the other side of the earth.
I’ve awoken as someone not quite myself. I breathe a different breath and my heart beats a different cadence. But it is not just the demon inside me this time. We have company. She is here with us. I feel her stroke the inside of my cheek with my own tongue. I feel her stretch my muscles out long on the sofa. Her presence startles me. My fingers wrap around the cushions of the couch on which I’ve woken upon, but her fingers wrap around the hilt of a knife. She intends harm.
With my voice, she speaks. “To be beautiful is to be almost dead, isn’t it?” She twirls a lock of my hair as Malcolm starts at the sound of my voice, which is not really my own, but I’ve no way to tell him. I’ve no way to alert him to the presence of his ink-eyed daughter and her black, velvet paramour.
“Vanessa,” he murmurs. “Do you hear me?” His lips are close to mine as he bends down to examine my face.
“Of course,” I reply, only it is only partly me.
Sir Malcolm offers me tea. Mina makes my lips smile and uses my fingers to plop a cube of sugar into the cup. She uses my lips to sip and my throat to swallow. Dearest, would you make me your puppet? I ask her. She hushes me gently and suggests we shall have a bit of fun. But I don’t want to have fun. Look at your father. He is fraught. Please, let us set his mind at ease. Please let us show him some compassion, my love.
The Dark One silences me more harshly and threatens to seal my sight entirely, which I do not think I could bear. I want to resist these malicious forces within me, but even more, I want to spare the damage the intend to inflict upon Sir Malcolm. Would that I could shelter him from whatever trauma they will sow in this parlor, but with these beasts crawling inside me, I’ve no place to retreat, no place from where I might fight.
I am utterly trapped within myself.
I try to focus on Sir Malcolm’s mouth as it makes words. He describes the un-natural nature of my “spell”. What an oddly fitting word, I suppose. I want to bite my lips and apologize, but Mina insists on smiling and teasing him.
“Who dressed me?” She demands. She glances down at my Oriental silk pajamas with wonder.
“I did,” he replies. He clears his throat and shuffles his eyes around the room, then adds, “Myself and Sembene,” as if somehow the fact his servant also saw my vulnerable nudity would make it seem ever so slightly less unseemly. For a moment, my eyes clear and I glance at him and then around the room. I see the tea set on the table. In my confusion I ask if he made the tea. Way back in the recesses of my mind, I seem to recall a late night as a girl when he made me tea and we sat and spoke until the sun rose. I recall the chaste touch of his hand and the not so chaste touch of his lips as he awkwardly bade me good night. Does he remember this too, I wonder, as I ask if he made the tea? “What? No, Sembene made the tea.”
“And you dressed me?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, like when I was a child,” she taunts. The bars slam shut over my vision as Mina takes control once again. I peek out and see him wince and scowl with a hint of confusion. Touch me, hold me, wake me from this, I beg, but I am wrapped so deeply inside layers of the Dark One. My Malcolm cannot hear me. Not that his ears would care to hear my voice, stuffed as they are with hatred of me. I don’t blame him.
I don’t. But she does.
Mina, I plead.Mina, please, please don’t do this to him. He’s done nothing but love you! He’s done nothing but try to save you! Hate me if you must but please do not torture this man.
The demon hushes me with a blinding rap on my head. I twist my neck to try to still the dizziness and ringing that his blow inflicts. She licks my lips and smiles. It is not what I want.
But what I want matters not. “Amunet, girl. Listen to the dark whisper. Hush now. Do not fight us.” My eyes roll as I try to focus on something, anything that might make sense to me. I hate the serpentine voice that slithers through my brain, black and slick. It weaves back and forth, hypnotizes me into silence. “Soon, child. Soon.”
Sir Malcolm has come to sit close to me. To her. To us.
He wants to know what we know. He takes my hand. I feel his warmth as though through the layers of a woolen mitten. I yearn to strip it off so I can feel his flesh on my flesh, so I can assure myself of our reality.
“Is there anything more pathetic than a fat woman weeping,” she whines and then giggles. She continues to tell him the story.
“Mina?” He asks. His voice is so weak it makes me want to weep. But Mina and her Demonic Lover do not weep. No, they revel in his tremble.
“Somewhat,” Mina replies. She cocks my head at a strange angle and regards him with curious eyes. As she opens herself wide to examine him, I am offered a bit more sight as well, but it is not the familiar face of Malcolm I am allowed to view. No. What I see is the dark interior of my sweet Mina, how she has rotted almost entirely into a creature of death.
“My daughter, where are you? Where are you, Love? I will come. I will save you!” He proclaims. He reaches out and touches my face with the most tender hand I’ve ever known. He gazes into my eyes that pool with darkness and pain and I haven’t a clue how he cannot see that I am here, hiding deep inside with the demons.
He also cannot see what I see; that our beloved is beyond saving.
I grapple with Mina and the Dark One so I might grunt and hiss, “NO!” Into Sir Malcolm’s face. It comes out in a feral growl that frightens him back on the couch. My eyes roll up to the ceiling as I whimpers and starts to shake. “I cannot! Not any of you! Get out! Get out of me!”
“Vanessa,” he shouts angry to have been so startled. “What are you about?”
“I ca-,” I start. “I can’t.” I want to tell him I can’t breathe now. Mina and her Demon Lord have a grasp on my throat. I fall back on the cushion and the room goes completely black. Without even a slit to see through, I cannot see his face. I am filled with shadows. Ghosts flood my veins like ice. I wasn’t ready. I want to open my eyes. I want to see again. I want to see his face, even as angry as I know he must be. I do not care if the Demon and Mina steal my last breath, but I beg them to open my eyes one last time.
They allow it. The splinter of light they allow me to peer through offers a glimpse of Sir Malcolm staring down at me with a stony expression I interpret as a mix of confusion, fear, and fury. Even still, a small part of me, somewhere deep within sighs at the sight of him. My hand reaches for his sleeve, but Mina holds me back. Mina forces my nails into my palm.
Dearest, why?
Mina and the Demon scoff. As for me, knowing that the one Sir Malcolm hails is beyond saving, that our beloved has married herself so deeply to darkness her blood runs foul with it, my own heart beats savagely with its own destruction.
“Tell me about the women,” the Demon commands. Mina hasn’t the stomach for this, so the Obsidian Prince takes over for her. He wants to rake Sir Malcolm over the proverbial bed of coals. I am already there, writhing upon the searing embers. Malcolm’s cheek twitches and his shoulders stiffen. “Not Mrs. Ives; I already know all there is to know about her. Could you have possibly picked a more boring cow? You lustful, vainglorious, old sod. In my opinion she was a foul choice, but I suppose your prospects were slim back there in the country. Still, you could have at least gone to her funeral, even if just for appearances!”
Enraged, he springs from the couch and goes to shut the parlor doors, least our conversation be overheard. The Demon chuckles at the effect he’s had. Whether he’s pleased to have enflamed Malcolm or to have weakened me, I know not. “You’ll stop this right now.” Malcolm orders.
I want to stop. I want with all my heart to weep and tell him how sorry I am. Would that I could kneel before him, take his hand and kiss it. This is not what I want at all. I wish the Demon had stolen my breath after all, rather than allow me to be used for this foul interrogation. Oh, how I want to stop, but I cannot.
They make my nostrils flare as they demand to know about his sexual prowess among the tribal women in Africa. It hurts me to hear. Part of me always knew, but another part of me never wanted to see him engaging in acts of congress with natives on the dark continent. But the Dark One, he makes me see it all. He makes me view it in an instant that lasts for an eternity inside my mind. It is lurid.
“Oh, Malcolm,” I whimper and reach for him on the cushion. His eyes are harsh on me. He does not know.
I see him pin the woman against the rough wooden wall of a hut. Her feet are bare and her toes grasp in the mud. He wears his boots. Her legs are exposed and her skirts are up around her torso as he plunges himself into her. She turns her head and bites her lip. He throws his head back in ecstasy. He clutches her ass. He bites her ebony neck. He comes hard in her, with as much anger as pleasure. When he is done, he wipes himself on her skirts, buttons himself in his trousers and throws a few coins in the mud at her toes.
“They loved the arduous attentions of the white explorer. Made them feel special, or at least that’s what you told yourself as you fucked your way across Africa. It wasn’t really rape if you paid, was it? After all, even if they didn’t want your hot, hard cock between their legs, they wanted your cold, hard cash in their palms.”
The Demon cackles at my reaction. He allows me to gasp and rasp, “Why?” But I already know the terrible, honest answer. He did it because he could, and he did it because he wanted to do it. Malcom regards me, knowing that I know this, and knowing that I know he knows no remorse for the things he has taken in distant lands.
My heart would break, were it my own.
Mina and the Dark One coil around each other and dance in their delight at Malcolm and my despair.
Stop this, Mina. I beg, but to no avail. She caresses her Prince against the black satin pit of my mind.
“Join us,” they offer in unison.
“Never,” I growl. The teacup on the table begins to tremble against its saucer with the energy flowing in the room.
“Vanessa, you have crossed a line,” Malcolm says. His jaw is tight. His voice is stern. His brows knit together as he glowers at me. “You will desist. As is fitting, I am concerned with your health and well being, but I will not stand for this abuse in my own home. You will desist.”
They grit my teeth in a grin that is more grimace. I feel them fill my belly with their heat and I beg them to stop. They are embracing one another in lust filled victory. Their pangs of desire shoot through me light lightening. I do not want to feel this. Stop! I state.
“Foolish, Child,” the Devil whispers. “Your body will betray you, just like all those women in Africa who became wet under that foul conqueror’s fumbling fist.”
My resistance shakes the furniture. It conjures a tornado of paper off Sir Malcolm’s desk which flies around him. He looks about wildly, his mouth open but unable to speak. A book comes off a shelf and narrowly avoids his head. The rest of the shelf tumbles to the floor. The tea cup shoots up from the table and shatters against the chandelier. Malcolm looks up and then back at me with a mix of shock and fury in his face. I can see he wants to hit me. Mina and the Demon would love for him to hit me, to prove once more what a terrible specimen of human he truly is. They arch into one another, trying with all their might to make me feel their glorious fucking, trying to make me join in their pleasure.
“I will not,” I hiss at them. “And I do not care. I’ve forgiven him everything. Everything!”
I stare at Malcolm as the glass doors of another book shelf fly open and the contents spew themselves into the air. The shelf then crashes onto the floor in front of him. He jumps back. Wind gusts through the parlor and he squints as it creates a hurricane of havoc in his precious sanctuary. His telescope. His clock. Framed pieces of art and photographs. They all smash themselves at his feet. A book cuffs him on his chin and he backs away from me into a corner. A pair of green glass lanterns shatter against his desk. I do not for a moment look away from him, do not relinquish the sliver of sight I have on him as I resist the terrible temptation in my gut. They try with all they have to drag me into their darkness, but I resist.
Malcolm’s charts fire off of a ledge, where they are twisted into tidy scrolls. One after another they come at him like white missiles. I see him silhouetted against his great map wall. His face is awash with horror. This is unlike anything else. He does not know what to do.
Finally, Malcolm fights his way through the gale to me. He is not so much angry now, but frightened. He raises his hand and still I do not look away.
His first blow is not hard enough. Mina and the Dark One have me pinned against the blanket of my own mind and they touch me everywhere. I am afraid they will have their way after all, that this psychic storm will be for naught. But Malcolm hits me again, and his second blow renders me safely and soundly unconscious.
…………………
I wake with the steely taste of blood in my mouth. He’s carried me up to my bed. It must be late; the room is dark but for the fire and a dim lamp. I attempt to sit and look around as my eyes adjust to the low light. My mouth is so dry. I lick my lips with a tongue dry as sand.
“You’re awake,” Sir Malcolm murmurs. “You’ve been asleep quite some time. I apologize for needing to sedate you in such a harsh manner.” He sits in a chair close to the bed.
“You saved me,” I whisper. My throat is scorched. I reach for his hand. He looks confused. “Please?” I ask. He takes my hand.
“Do you remember?” His voice is higher than usual, nearly meek. I cannot understand how he is not furious with me.
“I remember,” I say.
“Vanessa, you were in a sort of trance, and somehow it was as though Mina spoke to me. Can you feel her now? Can you reach her?”
Sighing, I turn my head and close my eyes. Tears seep onto my cheek. Mina and the Demon are not inside of me at this particular moment, I realize with a sigh of relief, but I also know they are not far off, and that they might return at any time. Their lusty breath fogs the windows of my room and reminds me I exist at their whim.
“No,” I say to Malcolm. “I cannot feel or reach her now.”
“Please, Vanessa. Please try,” he begs. He squeezes my hand and strokes the hair back off my face. He clears his throat. “You know things now, perhaps you’ve always known them. I don’t know how, but you know them regardless. You’ve always known I’m not a good man, and now you know a broad spectrum of details I’d rather you not know. I cannot say I am sorry for what I have done because I am not worthy of absolution, although I regret that you have come to this knowledge. It pains me, in a way.”
“Enough,” I say. “Will you get me some water?” He does as he has been asked. I drink and the cool liquid bathes my burning mouth. “Please do not be pained, Malcolm. Not on my account. We are neither or us worthy of absolution or deserving of forgiveness. And yet, here we are. I believe by now you know you could reach into my chest with your bare hand, pluck out my heart and throw it on the fire there and I would still offer you both my love and loyalty, unconditional and undying whether you would accept them or not.”
“Is that so?”
“It is.”
“Then, will you try? For me?” He regards me with eyes utterly void of anger. They are misty with unshed tears.
“You saw what happened, downstairs, in your parlor. It was destroyed, and I was nearly destroyed along with it.”
“Yes.”
“Very well,” I say. I bite the corner of my lip and suck on it so blood floods my taste buds with its feral taste. “I will try.” His desperation is so ripe it rings his eyes with purple. I can practically smell his need to place my heart upon the pyre so that he might again glimpse his heart’s desire. I am not exempt from his willingness to murder the world.
I don’t blame him.
In fact I smile as he lets go of my hand and stands to leave. “Thank you,” he says.
“Malcolm?”
“Mmmh?” He’s already started for the door, but he turns back to me. I reach for him and he comes. He sits on the edge of my bed. “What is it?”
“Kiss me?” I whisper my price and watch his face for a tell. He offers none. He bends his death mask and brushes his dry lips against my forehead. “No.” I demand my coins, my gold, my pound of flesh. My hands are weak, but I clutch the sides of his face. I lick his lips to moisten them. He catches his breath in surprise. I waste no time pressing my mouth to his. My tongue wants to force him open. Demonic foreplay has made me supple with longing, but I stop short.
My breath. His breath.
Our pain throbs in our mouths like a tooth ache.
I want to swim in his soul, but he does not want me. He shuts the gates before his eyes. He occludes my kiss. I gulp back my sob as he breaks away.
I don’t blame him.
Demons lurk behind both our eyes.