Dreaming In Darkness

by Chamberlin, Adrian

  Cautiously, I moved closer, the shape coming to greater clarity as I approached, and a man-made cave emerged from the gloom before me.

  I had seen many such grottos before, half-hidden in the grounds of a dozen stately homes across the country. All the rage among the landed gentry in the eighteenth century, they were facsimiles of dramatic Mediterranean caverns created by the likes of ground-breaking landscape gardener Capability Brown.

  My objective clear now, the chanting drifting from the grotto between the trees, I approached with growing confidence, excitement and the natural curiosity of the writer – the “What if?” factor having birthed every story I had ever written – causing me to cast care and caution to the wind.

  Circling the eighteenth century pleasure cave, I halted upon reaching the western face of the rock. The entrance to the cavern beyond was distinguished by the faintest of glows coming from somewhere below ground.

  Just as Catrin had enchanted me, so now the glow from the grotto drew me in.

  Had I stopped for a moment to think, I would never have taken a step inside. But I was foolish – another Prometheus challenging the gods with my arrogant hubris – and before I knew it I was descending into the depths of the pit itself.

  XXII

  For miles around, this landscape was riddled with river-cut limestone caves and the grotto clearly connected with one of these extensive subterranean networks.

  The grotto itself was not large but from it a set of steps, rough-hewn from the bedrock of the hill, descended deeper. The ruddy glow emanated from below and so, with cautious yet excited footsteps, I followed them down.

  The chanting was louder now. I could make out a host of voices repeating the same phrases over and over again, although I could not understand the words formed by the strangely sibilant syllables. They were gobbledygook and so became nothing more than a murmuring background hubbub. Nonetheless, something at my core bristled, as if the ancient animal instinct buried deep inside was reacting to something primal that needed neither language nor reasoning thought to comprehend.

  But even as my heart began to race – as my physiology responded to the sense of threat, releasing a rush of adrenalin to prepare my body for either fight or flight – something else within me responded to the chanting in another way entirely and drew me on, the cave adding its own unsettling acoustics to the polyphony.

  Before I knew it, having followed the curve of the steps downwards, I found myself bathed in the glow of burning braziers. Smouldering sticks of incense gave off a limpid coral-coloured smoke, shot through with golden sparks that spun and danced within the swirling vapours.

  The smoke filled my nostrils with its heady, musky aroma – a strange melange of ambergris, pot-pourri and sweat.

  Suddenly aware of how exposed I was, I ducked behind the stump of a stalagmite, and not a moment too soon.

  I felt dizzy, my head swimming from what must have been the narcotic effects of the musky incense. My heart was pounding against my ribs, and I took a moment to focus on my breathing in an attempt to bring my racing pulse under control.

  But I could not quell my natural curiosity for long, having come this far. Peering from behind the broken stone pillar of the stalagmite, I looked down into the natural bowl of the cave.

  By the blood-red light of the braziers, I could see that it was almost perfectly circular. The steps led right down to the bottom, the gently curved base of the cavern.

  In the centre of the cavern’s sandy floor stood an incongruous block of stone, its four faces covered by what looked like weathered carvings. Set into the walls were more of the ammonite fossils, such as the ones I had seen inside the dusty glass case in the library, although these were much, much larger.

  Through the billowing clouds I saw a dozen bodies – or maybe more, it was hard to tell – writhing in contorted agony or ecstasy – or was it both? – eyes closed in discomfort or rapture, heads thrown back, their chanting punctuated with yelps and groans of pleasure – or was it pain?

  Writing about it now, I can barely believe any of it actually happened, that it wasn’t another of my unsettling erotic nightmares, no matter how much I might wish it had been.

  Naked flesh glistening with sweat, diaphanous robes clinging to heaving flanks and gyrating hips. Buttocks moving up and down, breasts shuddering with rutting delight, thrusting loins, hungry mouths taking rigid members within.

  The orgy’s participants cavorted with each other, not seeming to care what sex their partner was, nor whether their partners were involved in more than one coupling at a time.

  Was this really happening, or was it some nightmarish hallucination?

  I observed it all with almost dispassionate disbelief, as if I was watching bad internet porn. But then I saw something that shocked me out of my narcotic reverie. One of the cavorting figures threw back his head, his back arching, and despite his eyes screwed shut in orgasmic ecstasy I recognised the face of my host, Lord Tristam Lambton himself.

  The spell broken, I stumbled to my feet, seeing the sweating, cavorting participants as they really were: the warts, cellulite, stretch marks, sagging bellies and breasts, unsightly paunches, liver spots, emaciated arses and swollen, wobbling thighs, the lot.

  I recognised other faces now, the faces of people I had passed on my sojourns to the village and elsewhere – a local police officer, one of the domestic staff from the castle, the vicar of St Cyprian’s church. Here they were, everyone who had ever given me a suspicious, sideways glance as I passed them by, when they thought I couldn’t see them looking. I was only thankful that Catrin wasn’t among them.

  Lambton’s eyes flicked open in a moment of ecstasy and he gave a grunting cry at the moment of orgasm, his arse quivering as he ejaculated inside the maid crouched on all fours before him.

  Through the swirling mists, in that moment, it seemed to me that our wildly-staring eyes met.

  Unable to bear the force of his pupil-dilated gaze, I turned and fled.

  The ruddy light from the braziers transformed the walls of the tunnel-stair from fissured stone into the oesophageal tract of some monstrous, subterranean serpent. As I ran back up the steps and out of the grotto, it was like I was being regurgitated by the earth-snake.

  And then I was back into the woods, and the darkness embraced me again.

  XXIII

  I plunged through the autumnal undergrowth that lay thick on the ground between the trees, half-running, half-stumbling, the claw-like twigs of branches tearing at my face. My lungs heaved, my breath no more than panting gasps, ears straining to hear any sounds of pursuit, eyes searching the night ahead of me, seeking the moonlit lawns below the castle.

  Looking back on the events of that night now, I could almost believe it had been nothing but a nightmare, if it wasn’t for the scars on my cheeks I still bear.

  There wasn’t a single light visible in any of the windows of the grand house; only the bulb of the antique lamp by the front door cast its eerie glow across the tarmac, illuminating the entrance.

  Stumbling up the slope, lungs burning now, legs screaming with lactic acid pain, I glanced behind me, expecting to see half a dozen naked cultists chasing me, feral fury contorting their faces into gargoyle leers. There was no one there, but I didn’t stop or slow my flight.

  Fumbling the keys from my pocket, I skidded across the tarmac, past my car, to the front door. I scrabbled at the lock, heedless of whether anyone who might be lurking within the house would hear me, and managing to open the door at last, fell through into the atrium of the entrance hall.

  Shutting the door firmly behind me, and bolting it for good measure, I took a deep breath and headed upstairs, the carpeted treads deadening my footfalls, until I made it safely back into my room.

  I bolted and locked that door behind me as well, and simply stood there, catching my breath. Several long seconds that felt like hours passed, my ear pressed to the wood of the door, listening for the creak of a floorboard or any other sound that
might indicate someone approaching from the other side.

  But what would I do if they were? What would they do, if they were really determined to get to me? I sprang back from the door, images of Jack Nicholson’s “Here’s Johnny!” popping into my head.

  Retreating from the door I sat down on the bed, listening to the darkness and the silence. After a few minutes, when no sounds came, I moved to the window and cautiously peered out. Once I was certain that no one was following me from the direction of the woods, I got undressed and into bed, trying to persuade myself that not one of those present at the orgy had actually seen me at all. But even then, with the duvet pulled up to my chin, I could not sleep. I lay there, eyes wide open, staring at the cracks in the paint on the ceiling, imagining that each one was in fact the fractured entrance to a yawning abyss.

  XXIV

  I must have slept in the end, although I don’t remember when I finally dropped off, or what I dreamt about when I did. But I must have slept, because I was woken the next day by the sunlight streaming in through my still-open curtains and the polyphonic songs of a dozen choirs of birds as the dawn chorus lay claim to the wooded areas of the estate.

  In fact, my morning was so ordinary I seriously began to wonder how much of what I had witnessed the previous night had been hallucinations brought on by the incense smoke, or even just bad dreams brought on by the burger, crumble, and Worm’s Hill ale I had consumed at the pub. Perhaps the orgy had been a conjured figment of my imagination and nothing more.

  Having convinced myself that none of it could have been real I stumbled into the en-suite bathroom to take a shower, and that was when I saw the scratches on my face.

  Certain now that I hadn’t imagined any of it, but with there still being no indication that my night time adventures had aroused any suspicions in my host or any members of his staff, I showered, dressed, and warily made my way down to breakfast.

  Upon entering the dining room, I was slightly taken aback to see Lord Lambton, who I had last seen in the throes of sexual ecstasy with the girl who I now believed was the one who cleaned my room.

  I hesitated, but I couldn’t just make my excuses and leave now.

  Tristam Lambton put down the paper he was reading – a local rag bearing the headline “Tremors threaten site of new supermarket” – and greeted me with an innocent smile.

  “Good morning,” he said cheerily. “Sleep well?”

  “Y-yes,” I stammered, still taken aback. Judging by my host’s demeanour, I had been wholly mistaken the night before. He couldn’t have seen me. And that again made me wonder if I really had seen what I thought I’d seen.

  “There’s porridge this morning,” Lambton said, nodding to the buffet laid out on the side board. “And the new sausages cook’s got in are absolutely delicious.”

  I couldn’t face sausages, not after what I thought I’d seen twelve hours before. I settled for a bowl of fruit salad – feeling the need to purify my body – and decided to get out of there as quickly as possible.

  After breakfast, rather than settle down for another day’s writing in the library, or work on the next chapter in my room, I set out for the village. I had to see Catrin.

  As I followed my usual route through the estate – happy to steer clear of the woods and the grotto that I now knew lay within – I kept a wary eye out for the gamekeeper, or signs that I was being followed – glancing back over my shoulder several times – before passing beyond the borders of the estate. After that I began to relax a little.

  I knew I was paranoid, I always had been, but I just couldn’t quite believe I hadn’t been seen by someone as I observed the orgy in appalled voyeuristic fascination, no matter how lost in the moment they’d all been.

  And as I’ve said before, just because you are paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.

  Little did I realise then, in my arrogance, that it wasn’t me the cult were out to get.

  XXV

  I arrived at the shop not long after ten, rather earlier than at my more usual visiting time of mid-afternoon. My unexpected appearance clearly took Catrin by surprise.

  “Hi,” we greeted each other.

  “I’m sorry about last night,” I began, my heart racing with nerves rather than the fear I had experienced the night before, but she cut me off with a wave of her hand.

  “No, I’m the one who should be sorry,” she said, nervously playing with a strand of that luxurious chocolate brown hair. “I over-reacted.”

  It was as if the weight of anxiety had been taken from me then and my heart almost skipped a beat, clichéd as that may sound.

  “And I shouldn’t have been so presumptuous,” I said. “So, shall we try again?”

  Catrin hesitated before answering. “Okay.” She smiled, a flush of colour coming to her face and neck. “But do you mind if we go somewhere other than The White Worm?”

  Delighted as I was that I hadn’t blown my chances with the gorgeous girl, my thoughts were preoccupied with more than just our date the previous night. No matter how my clumsy apology might have been received, I had another reason for dropping by to see Catrin.

  “It’s not like you to pop in so early,” she said, as if reading my mind.

  “No, it’s not,” I confessed.

  “Are you all right?” Her concern made my heart rise.

  “I…” Now that I had been presented with the perfect opportunity, I didn’t know quite where to start.

  “It’s all right. You can tell me.”

  “I don’t know where to begin.”

  She watched me with patient, piercing eyes. I felt like she was scouring my very soul for the source of my unease. “I saw something last night, on my way home.”

  “Home?”

  “The castle, I mean.”

  “Go on,” Catrin said, encouragingly. “There’s no one else here, as usual. Tell me, what did you see?”

  And so I told her.

  She listened with a serious expression as I told her all that I had witnessed –what I thought I had witnessed. I mistook her silence to mean that I had shocked her with my tales of orgies and sex cults on the Lambton Estate, but then she surprised me by saying, “Then it is as I feared. Did anybody see you?”

  “I thought Lord Lambton saw me, but after everything that’s happened since – or that hasn’t happened – I’m starting to think not.”

  “You should leave.”

  I started. Catrin’s words had taken me by complete surprise.

  “Today. Right now. Just drive off and never come back.”

  I looked at her, aghast. “Is that what you want?”

  She hesitated. “No. But it doesn’t matter what I want. That’s not important.”

  I railed at that. “Of course it’s important. I want to stay. Here. With you. What could be more important than that?”

  “Your life.”

  “What?”

  “You should leave. Go,” she said, emerging from the protective barrier of the counter and pushing me towards the door of the shop. I resisted.

  “Go!” she screamed at me. “Pack your things – in fact, don’t even bother to do that. Just get in your car and go back to London, and don’t ever come back here!”

  “I can’t,” I said. “Not now.”

  We were face to face, the sweet scent of her as intoxicating as the incense smoke in the cave. Our souls were bared in that moment, our emotions exposed.

  We kissed, as furiously and as passionately as had been our exchange of words. We stood there at the door, running our hands over one another’s bodies, me clasping her callipygian arse in mine, she running her hands through my hair and massaging my scalp, shooting thrilling impulses through me that lifted me into a state of high arousal.

  I pressed my body against hers, feeling the firm yet compliant flesh of her breasts pushing against my chest, so that she could be in no doubt as to how I was feeling. She responded by moaning, caressing my leg with the inside of her thigh while we kis
sed.

  I reached under her clothes to cup her breasts in my hands, my fingertips brushing the frilly fabric of her bra. She pulled away from me then, the two of us breathless as we stared into each other’s faces, panting for breath, the blood quickening in my veins.

  Biting her lip, a cheeky, lustful smile on her face, her pupils dilated, she skipped past me, turned the lock on the door leading into the shop and flipped round the “Open” sign to “Closed”.

  “Barely get any customers anyway,” she said as she took my hand in hers and led me behind the counter and through to the room at the back of the house.

  We were only halfway to the stairs when we could hold back no longer and were all over each other again. I pressed her against the back of a sofa, pulling her sweater up over her head as she raised her arms compliantly, our mouths barely breaking contact.

  She pulled at my trousers, undoing the buckle of my belt as I fought to release the hooks of her bra, which we both managed to accomplish in the end. Her heavy breasts swung free of the restraining undergarment and she tugged at my hardening resolve as it rose upon being released from the tightened denim.

  I never had acted on the lustful feelings she’d stirred in me the night before, and, as if still hard from that evening, the realisation only increased the fullness of my erection. It was like I was fifteen all over again.

  Her fingers caressed my rigid member through the fabric of my boxers and I closed my eyes, imagining what might happen next: imagining her on her knees and taking me in her mouth, or opening her legs so that I might penetrate her.

  I felt her breath in my ear and my body thrilled in anticipation of what she might do next.

  “Come on”, she said, taking me by the hand again. “This way.”