He wondered if he would ever see her again. For some unaccountable reason, he was convinced that he would.
6: Lost and Found
Hunt had almost given up hope of seeing the girl again. He’d made enquiries but no-one seemed to know where she was staying. She ought to have faded to a vague memory by now: some wild phantasm dreamed up by the sick mind of a man who hadn’t had a woman for too long. But he just couldn’t get her out of his thoughts.
He had managed to find out one thing about her. The woman who normally rented the fortune teller’s booth had told him the girl’s name was Mara: Mara Fleming. At least his phantasm had a name. Somehow that was comforting – having established that she was real, and had a name just like everyone else, made him feel that he might yet track her down.
And anyhow, he had other fish to fry. Sir Anthony Cheviot, to be precise. His journalistic nose told him that if anyone deserved to fry, he did.
His main lead was the red-haired woman Cheviot was rumoured to visit on his infrequent visits to the town. Further discreet enquiries had produced a few more helpful details. A local tradesman had told him – in an indiscreet moment induced by half a bottle of Glenfiddich – that the woman was called Viviane, that she had once been one of the highest-paid tarts in London, and that Cheviot had set her up in her own house here in Whitby. In return, she satisfied his whims whenever he was in town. It was a funny old world. The word was that Viviane lived near the harbour, in one of the ‘yards’ that subdivided the old town into a maze of discreet alleyways, perfect for smugglers and clandestine assignations.
Maybe if he kept a close watch on the area he’d find her. Maybe he’d be luckier still and catch Cheviot going into the house. He loaded up the Leica just in case, and pocketed the telefoto lens. Never knew when you might get the chance of a few candid close-up shots.
The first three evenings produced nothing. A couple of brushes with local drunken yobbos and a pointed enquiry from a beat constable convinced him he needed to be a little less obvious. He lurked in doorways, waiting, watching, yawning, chewing gum, getting thoroughly pissed off – even playing with himself through his raincoat pockets when the boredom got too much.
And then, on the fourth evening – just as he was giving up and going back to the hotel – he saw her.
He was half-watching, half-dozing in the doorway of a grotty baker’s shop on the corner of Ship Street and Miller’s Yard, when an anonymous black car slid past, weaving its way with difficulty through the narrow streets. It had darkened windows and there was something sinister, something clandestine about it. What’s more, it looked very out of place in this quaint but rather run-down part of town.
The car was moving very slowly, so Hunt crept carefully out of his doorway and followed it at a safe distance. It turned into a side-street and drew to a halt outside the peeling dark green door of what seemed to be an uninhabited cottage. Hardly the place you’d expect a high-class mistress to be living, But discreet, certainly.
The car door swung open and out stepped a tall, statuesque red-haired woman in a black coat with a massive fur collar. She could have been thirty, forty – she was agelessly attractive, fine-boned as a thoroughbred racehorse, yet muscular beneath her expensive clothes. The car sped away into the night, its driver a shadow behind tinted windows.
The woman was left standing on the pavement, alone, somehow out of place in this world of everyday things and commonplaces. Holding his breath for fear of being spotted, Hunt stepped just a little way out of the shadows and lifted the camera. One shot was all he’d have time for. One shot and then he’d be running away into the night, as fast as his legs would carry him. Maybe he shouldn’t bother. Maybe he should be patient, wait until he could get a picture of them together. Yes, that was it. Be patient.
Sweating with the tension, Hunt lowered the camera and made to step back into his hiding place. But at that very moment, the red-haired woman turned to unlock her front door and found herself staring straight into his eyes.
Hunt was transfixed. For an instant, his instincts deserted him. He knew he ought to run away but his feet were rooted to the spot. His mouth was dry. His palms sweated. She looked into his eyes and all the strength drained out of him. It was as though she was sucking out his very soul, and to his amazement he felt his legs giving way, buckling under him, and he felt himself slide slowly and untidily down the wall. It was almost like fainting and yet he was conscious throughout.
Viviane’s spiky red heels clicked across the cobbled street and Hunt struggled to tear his lifeless head away from her stony gaze. Without success. He could feel nothing save the burning sensation from those glittering dark eyes – jet-black and fathomless in the cold moonlight. And he offered no resistance as she bent down, took hold of his limp arm and drew him to his feet, supporting him with her own strong arms as she half-walked, half-dragged him, unprotesting, across the narrow street, unlocked the door and led him inside.
Mara was finding it difficult to sleep. Every time she managed to doze off, she was troubled by the same disturbing dream.
She stood by the window and gazed out on to the moon-reflected sea, trying to clear her head of the vision which haunted her and would not go away.
Somewhere, very far away – perhaps far away in time as well as space, she could not tell – a young woman was in the grip of a terrible fear – knowing that her sweet-fleshed young body was about to be violated by sinister, sallow-skinned men with shaven heads. The men had cast aside their robes and the girl was screaming in terror as they held her down on a cold stone slab and ripped off her white gown.
Some were young men, rampant and hard-muscled. Others were old, bent, with flaccid erections, dribbling and salivating with disgusting desire. But all wore the same expression of cold-eyed vengeance. This was no ordinary rape of a young girl. This was a sacred rite. A punishment.
Mara held her head in her hands, as though by some effort of will she might be able to reach inside her mind and tear out the nightmare, the unwanted guest; claw it out of her ailing, aching brain and fling it over the sleeping rooftops, into the depths of the cold, glittering sea far below. For she knew this was no ordinary dream. It was a vision of something real: something faraway in space and time, yet something which would in time come to pass, or which had already been played out in some part of history, some far-off land . . .
But why was she being tortured with this vision? Mara was a true seer. Others might mock, but the Tarot spoke truths for her. When she gazed into a crystal ball, she had no need to invent what she saw. She saw the future, and had often wished that she did not. Her gift was also a curse. And now she had been forced to suffer this vision of terror and pain. Why her? What possible relevance could it have for her? And what was the girl’s fate? Up to now, all she had seen was the girl’s terror of anticipation. Maybe she would be spared the rest.
She sighed and got back into bed, drawing the light bedcovers up under her chin. A pleasant, late-summer breeze was drifting in through the open window and played gently across her naked skin. Mara always slept naked, even in the winter. She loved the world of sensations, and her extraordinary abilities made her hyper-sensitive to every stimulus. Sex, for her, was as natural and as indispensable as breathing.
She missed them now, her three erstwhile companions. She missed the hardness of their pricks in her hands, running over her flesh, burrowing into her every nook and hollow. She missed it all so desperately.
Her nipples were hardening, and her fears melted away as she began to caress the perfect fullness of her golden breasts; letting her fingers glide expertly over the firmness, the divine heaviness, and lingering on her nipples just long enough to tantalise, and very nearly enough to bring her to sudden orgasm.
She gave a little shiver of delight and stretched out in the bed, thoroughly enjoying the cool, insistent caress of the silk sheet against her flawless skin. It felt as though some feather-light, ethereal being had lain down on top of her, making love to
her as only spirits can, caressing almost without touching, bringing her exquisite lovemaking in a whisper of smooth black silk.
Her desire grew, and she felt herself growing hot and wet between her legs. Her breath was coming in little urgent gasps, and she slid her right hand down her belly and began to toy with the jet-black pubic bush that crowned her tawny thighs. It was dew-spangled and she rubbed her fingers in it, then brought them up to her face to savour the strong taste and heady fragrance of her womanhood. Then she began to caress herself, working her fingertips slowly and luxuriously between her protuberant cunt-lips and scooping up the abundant, frothing cunt-juices which she then used to lubricate her throbbing clitoris.
With her left hand, she pinched her right nipple between finger and thumb, groaning with pleasure at the electric shocks of pleasure which shot right down to her cunt, and sent floods of love-juice coursing down the walls of her vagina, flooding out on to her thighs. With her right index finger, she skilfully manipulated her clitoris, stroking, circling, massaging, rubbing harder and faster now, faster and more boldly, triumphantly, as at last she felt her pleasure approaching and cried out with the sheer joy of it. Her thighs spread wide to accept the tribute from an imaginary penis, her back arched and she threw her head back in ecstasy, catching stars and sliding down waterfalls.
In the afterglow, she snuggled down under the sheet and, through half-closed eyelids, watched the constellations move in stately procession across the night sky, towards dawn.
And as she lay there, she drifted down, down once more into sleep. Sleep filled with disturbing images . . .
The young woman was screaming still, her face turned away from her tormentors. Mara saw them more clearly now. It took four of the men to chain her to the stone slab: heavy irons at wrist and ankle held her fast to unyielding iron rings at each corner, splaying apart arms and legs in a parody of a lover’s open-armed embrace. One man, taller than the others, stepped forward and, with a razor-sharp dagger that seemed hewn from pure flawless crystal, slit the girl’s diaphanous robe from ankle to throat. He tore away the flimsy fabric and bared her slender nakedness.
The young woman became suddenly silent, surprising her captors. Her skin glowed amber in the unearthly light from the flaming torches hanging on the walls. There seemed a nobility in her, despite her humiliation and powerless though she was to resist the vile caresses of her torturers. She refused to turn her head; refused to look at them; as though to acknowledge their existence was also to acknowledge her subjection. She lay still and almost lifeless, showing her defiance in the only way she could: by detaching herself completely from her own violation.
The tall man flung himself upon her without the slightest pretext of gentleness, ramming into the girl as though she were some piece of meat, some common whore. Mara knew that this woman was no whore. This woman was something special.
He rode her like a stallion covering a mare: with no more consideration for the woman than an animal has for the female he couples with and then deserts. She lay unmoving as he shot his load of sperm into her unwilling cunt and climbed off, panting slightly but emotionless.
Others followed. Many others. Mara wanted to cry out, to struggle for the girl, to help her escape from her torment. It angered and pained her to see her so passive, so silent – thighs wrenched apart and robbed of every last vestige of her modesty. But, like the girl, Mara was utterly powerless.
It was over. The last of the men climbed off the inert body of the girl and they began to chant in some strange gutteral language which Mara did not recognise. It sounded like a religious chant. The girl lay motionless on the stone slab, head still turned towards the protecting shadows, and a flood of semen trickling out of her on to the cold surface beneath her.
The vision faded, and for a moment Mara almost relaxed, believing it had left her and would not return. But the picture came back into focus. She saw the same dark, torchlit chamber, the same stone slab. And on it, a body. A body, swathed, tightly bound in bandages. A dead body, yes, that was what it was. A corpse prepared for burial, intricately bound and ready for the afterworld.
An Egyptian mummy . . .?
The same dozen men were there, still chanting. But now they were dressed in long, white robes with exquisite serpent-crested head-dresses. They looked somehow familiar, and yet Mara could not quite recall . . .
They were bending over the table, putting the finishing touches to their handiwork. Four of them appeared, bearing an ornate wooden coffin, in the Egyptian style, which they placed upright against the wall so that Mara found herself looking right inside it. Then the men lifted up the corpse from the slab and carried it over to the coffin, placing it reverently inside, so that it appeared to stand motionless with its hands crossed in prayer across its breast. It was the body of a young girl, the face bandaged and unrecognisable.
Then they fetched the painted lid of the coffin and fitted it on to the base, nailing it shut then gliding away into the shadows, chanting their long and baleful litany. Only the coffin remained: propped up against the wall in the half-light.
Mara awoke screaming hysterically. Outside, it was a beautiful late summer’s day and the seagulls were wheeling overhead. Everything seemed perfect. She leant out of the window and breathed in the crisp morning air, dizzy and sick with the shock of the vision.
And she understood for the first time that the horror would never leave her. For she knew, with a terrifying, sickening certainty, that the girl in the coffin had been the girl she had seen violated on the stone slab. And that when she had been put into the coffin she was still alive, silently screaming and powerless to escape her terrible fate.
And she had seen the face painted on the wooden coffin.
And that face was her own.
Far away, beneath the secret halls of Winterbourne, where naked men and women slept in shameless disarray after wild, untrammelled pleasure, the Master sent out his ever-growing spirit into the world and revelled in his newly-restored gift of sight. He could see across the miles, into hearts and minds, into the souls of men and women.
And as he roamed the astral plane, looking down upon mortals and searching for what he knew he must inevitably find, he once again encountered the timid, yet wondrous soul of Mara Fleming and knew that in her, he had found the missing key to his eternal freedom and the eternal damnation of mankind.
When Hunt came round, he felt dizzy and disorientated. He blinked his eyes and tried to shake his head but, although there was nothing there to impede movement, it felt as though was held fast in some contraption of iron and steel. He tried to cry out, but the breath hung, frozen, in his throat as surely as if he had been gagged. He could hardly breathe, and realised with a start that he was lying on his stomach on some sort of bed or couch, untied and yet fixed to the spot as securely as if he had been tied there with straps and manacles. He was stark naked.
Memories rushed through his head in mad procession: waiting in the darkness; the car; the woman; her hypnotic gaze; being dragged through the open doorway . . .
So where was he now? Was this all the woman’s doing? And if so, what was the secret of her strange power over him? How could she imprison him here like this, without chains or physical force? He struggled desperately to free himself, but the force that held him spreadeagled on the bed was far, far stronger. He gave up and lay there, panting with frustration.
A silken voice behind him cut through his thoughts:
‘Who are you? You must speak the truth. In the name of the one true Master, I command you.’
The pressure on his mouth and throat lessened, and he was able to gasp his reply:
‘My name is Hunt.’
‘And what do you seek?’
Hunt had every intention of lying, but somehow he could not. That same force that had given him back the freedom to speak was also denying him the freedom to lie. In horror, he found himself blurting out the truth:
‘I’m a newspaper reporter. I’m investigating Sir Anthony
Cheviot. I wanted to speak to you because I have been led to believe that you are his mistress.’
The woman laughed. It was a soft sound, but not a pleasant one. There was a mocking quality to her voice, laced with a hint of sinister power.
‘And what have you discovered about Sir Anthony?’
‘Nothing. No-one will tell me anything.’
‘What of me, then? What have you learned about me?’
‘That you are called Viviane. And that you are very beautiful.’
Hunt could not believe he was hearing himself say the words. And yet they were true. Lord knows, they were true. The force acting upon him refused to allow him to speak anything but the truth. And it was an incontrovertible truth. Viviane certainly was a beautiful woman, and Hunt was a connoisseur of beauty . . .
‘Do you desire me?’
‘I desire you.’
‘Do you wish to have sexual congress with me?’
‘I do.’
‘I warn you, Hunt. In approaching me, you thrust your hand, unprotected, into a white-hot flame. It is a flame which few can resist. It may well be that you will be destroyed, or transformed, or consumed by this flame. Only the very strong can take the flame into their hearts and feed upon it. Now answer me this question, and mark me well: your answer must be true. Are you willing to risk your soul for sexual union with me, to perform the sacred rite and enter the flame within me?’
Despite himself, despite his natural caution, Hunt found himself unable to hesitate or resist. It was as though a voice spoke for him, from the very centre of his soul:
‘I am willing.’
He was afraid, blindly afraid as a child is afraid of the dark. He could not even see the woman. What if she was not alone? What if all this mystical nonsense was just so much hocus-pocus as a prelude to doing him some very serious wrong?
Kiss of Death (Modern Erotic Classics) Page 8