She first kisses his belly, then begins to nuzzle. Finally she mashes her mouth into his flesh. Passion tears through him.
Gradually she ascends, pleasuring the stack of his ribs, then the thick meat of his chest. Her tongue slips in and out, moistening his skin, making it glisten as she glides along.
Her body now smothers his. Her hair tickles his shoulders. Her head bobs as she works at his neck, sucking, biting, savoring. Her breasts mash against his chest. Delicious sensations make him shudder.
She pulls away, pushing herself up, going to all fours again. She then settles down, straddling him, like a dove resting on her eggs.
Now his hands move forward, roaming along her thighs. He feels their firmness in the dark room, the weight of her body atop him, the ache of pleasure beneath the golden towel.
She stares down at him, measures him. Then, with a deliberate slowness, she leans forward, seeking his lips.
Never before has the dream progressed this far. Never before has he seen it so clearly. This time he will have her, without resistance, without denial. Finally, mercifully, Portia will be his.
Her lips pause just beyond his own. His eyes fall shut, sealing off all sight of the mirror. His mouth parts, waiting to taste her lips, to feel the contentions of her tongue. He strains upward, trying to meet her, smelling the sweetness of her breath, sensing the heat of her mouth. And then…
CHAPTER 12 – LET ME SHOW YOU
Something changed.
Jack could still feel the cushy warmth of Portia’s body as she straddled him, but the dream’s blazing sensuality had suddenly dimmed. Its uncanny illogic now seemed to have been replaced with a chilling rationale, its pleasing vagaries with the cold hard lines of reality. Yes, something had definitely changed.
He opened his eyes, expecting the mirror to hold the answer to this riddle. To his surprise, however, he could not see the mirror at all. What he did see was Portia’s dark and silhouetted form perched atop him. Beyond that—and no less surprising—was what appeared to be the murky outline of his bedroom.
“Portia?” he asked looking up, suddenly uncertain whether he was dreaming or actually awake.
"Not exactly," he heard her reply.
She sat unmoving for a moment, and then began to slowly lean forward. As she did, her face gradually came into view, gently illumined by a hazy swath of moonlight coming in through the window. Jack balked when he saw it, for it was not Portia’s face hovering before him, it was Rose’s.
He gasped sharply. Realizing who—or what—was sitting atop him, he bucked his body wildly, launching her to his left. He then rolled in the opposite direction, stumbling out of the bed and staggering all the way to the wall. He leaned against it with his hands outstretched. A gush of adrenaline made his heart pound. His breath came in exhausted heaves.
“No! No! No!” he exclaimed, burying his face in his elbow and beating the wall with his fist. He tried to assure himself that what he’d just seen had been nothing more than a delusion, just a byproduct of the erotic dream he’d been having. “It’s not real,” he decried, trying to calm himself. “It’s… not real.”
He took a few more deep breaths, these intentional, and when he thought that he’d finally relaxed enough, he slowly began to turn around.
What he’d hoped to find was a dark but very much empty bedroom, one devoid of the phantasm that had so violently aroused him from sleep. But to his dismay, that was not what he saw. Rose was sitting below the gallery at the base of the wall. Her legs were drawn up slightly, and both palms were flat against the ground. A diagonal swath of pale-gray moonlight sliced across her torso, irradiating the red dress to a fierceness matched only by a signature scribbled in blood. Above her, perched like a crow, was the painting, which was once more devoid of her form.
Staring with both fear and amazement, Jack now tried to convince himself that this too was a delusion. He must be having another bizarre instance of sleepwalking, dreamwalking, as Gabrielle had called it. But believing that seemed like the height of absurdity. He absolutely was not sleepwalking, and no part of the woman gazing so curiously at him had its genesis in a dream. Everything about this was too sure, too certain, from the feel of her body against him when he’d first awoke, to the present coolness of the floor beneath his feet. Somehow all of this was happening. Somehow all of it was real.
Jack became deeply concerned then, not because Rose had appeared to him yet again, but because for the first time in his mortal life, he simply had no idea what was happening to him.
“You weren't expecting me, were you?" Rose said.
Jack stared, blinked, then only shook his head in resignation.
"That shouldn't surprise me.” She paused, gazing up at him. “But it does."
Jack’s tongue felt like it was made of lead. "Why?" he asked in a voice barely above a whisper.
"Because I thought that after what happened at Magnolia’s, you and I would have come to... an understanding."
Jack grimaced, looked away, and then looked back. “That was your doing?”
“Of course,” she said, a hint of frustration in her voice. She peered at him a moment longer, then said: “Seems I’ve got what I wanted."
"What’s that?"
"Your attention." She grinned hellishly.
Jack shuddered.
“You don’t have to be afraid, Jack.”
“What’s... happening to me?”
“Something good. I’m not here to hurt you.”
“What are you here for?” he asked bitterly.
“I have something you want.”
“Something I want?”
“Yes.”
“And what is that?”
“Consummation,” she said simply.
Jack shook his head, not understanding. “What are you?”
“That’s not important, Jack. It’s what I have that’s important, what I came to give you.”
“Are you a ghost?”
Rose giggled. "Ghosts don’t exist, Jack.”
"A demon then?"
The giggle quickly faded. "No.”
“Then what are you?”
She paused, then responded: “I’m your gift.”
“My what?”
“Your gift.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The painting Portia gave you is not the real gift, Jack.” She met his eyes. “The real gift is me."
Jack frowned. “And exactly what am I supposed to do with you?"
Rose slowly leaned her leg to one side, in such a way that the dress slid down, exposing the tender flesh of her inner thigh. "I think you already know."
Jack reared in disgust. Whatever fear he’d had now moved toward anger. "That’s absurd. Portia sent you here,” his face soured terribly, “to sleep with me?"
"Yes.”
“And why would I ever do a thing like that?”
“Because you want it, Jack.”
“Want what?”
“Consummation.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You want consummation, with Portia. You’ve wanted it for some time. And I can give it to you. I can give her to you.”
He was about to speak, but what she’d said made him hesitate. “You do want her, don’t you?” Rose asked.
Again, Jack hesitated. He did want Portia. His recurring erotic dreams were evidence enough of that. But the idea that Rose could somehow get Portia to go through with it sounded absurd. “And just how do you intend to give her to me, drag her back here kicking and screaming?”
At that the woman stood to her feet. She sauntered over and stood in front of him. He couldn’t help but notice that she looked even less like Portia than she had before.
“Let me show you,” she said.
Jack peered at her a moment, not fully understanding what she meant. Then his eyes drifted beyond her face to the back wall, to the picture of Gabrielle in the gallery. He peered at it for a moment… and then felt something w
ithin him, something that he had not even realized was there, lift away. It was replaced by a stronger feeling, that same overpowering sensation that had made him caress Gabrielle’s face the night before.
Then a soft hand took hold of his chin. Rose was steering his head back in her direction. “Let me show you,” she repeated.
Jack grabbed her wrist and forced it down. “Don’t touch me.”
Rose seemed surprised. She looked over her shoulder, trying to detect what it was that had distracted him away. She quickly identified Gabrielle’s picture, then turned back. “She can’t help you, Jack. Only I have what you really want. I have Portia.”
“And what if I don’t want Portia? What if I refuse?”
“Can you?”
Rose had spoken this with such high-handed arrogance that Jack found himself suddenly enraged. “What are you trying to say? Just who the hell do you think you are?”
“Give me a moment, and I’ll be glad to show you.”
“No, thank you. I think I’ve seen enough. I’m afraid Portia wasted her time bringing you here. I don’t need a gift,” he paused, gazing at the picture of Gabrielle, “when I feel like I already have one.”
Rose glanced over her shoulder at Gabrielle’s image once more, and then turned back, incredulous. “You would refuse Portia… for her?”
“In a heartbeat,” Jack said.
Rose studied his face, her eyes darting back and forth. “No,” she said, seemingly reassured. “You’re lying to me again.” She moved closer, raised her hand to his cheek, and whispered once more. “Now let me show you.”
“No,” he said so sharply, so assertively that it came out like a sneer.
Rose gazed at him for several moments, and then, as if she’d suddenly become aware of something, her lips inched toward a smile. “Gabrielle, she’s special to you, isn’t she?”
“Maybe.”
“And Portia isn’t… special?”
“No. She isn’t.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. That’s so.”
“Then tell me, Jack Parke, who were you dreaming about before I woke you? Who were you making love to?”
“Who says I was making love to anyone?”
“I do.”
“And just how the hell would you know what I was doing in my sleep.”
“I know because I sat there watching you for some time.” She leaned in slightly. “And your body was telling on you.”
Jack scowled.
“Now who was it?” Rose asked in an unmasked taunt. “Who were you making love to? Was it Gabrielle? Or was it Portia?”
Jack felt a bulge of rage growing within him. “Shut up.”
“Gabrielle,” she repeated mockingly. “Or Portia?”
“I said shut up!”
“Don’t worry, Jack. You’re secret is safe with me. But I would like for you to answer something. If it wasn’t Gabrielle that you were dreaming about, then tell me, just how special could she be?”
Thoroughly enraged, Jack grabbed Rose’s arms and drove her back until they’d fallen on the bed. He forced himself on top of her, pinning her arms above her head. He said, “You’re my gift, right?” He could feel Rose’s legs straighten in a clear effort to keep him from forcing himself between them. She turned her head to the side, seemingly unable to face him, apparently terrified at the prospect of what he was intending to do. “You’re here to sleep with me, right?” He buried his face in her neck, sampling the flesh there, before raising up. “What’s wrong? This is what you came for, isn’t it?” Rose strained her eyes shut. He went at her neck again, kissing down toward the soft tissue of her breasts, then came up once more. “Answer me, dammit! This is what you want, isn’t it?” She finally snatched her head back to him. But when she had done so, Jack found himself gasping sharply, for the face now staring up at him was not that of Rose’s, but a perfect representation of Portia’s.
“No, Jack,” she said softly, with Portia’s perfect diction. “It’s not what I want. It’s what you want.” She slowly relaxed her legs, spread them, and brought her knees up along his sides.
He gazed at her stunned, his eyes wide, his mouth parted. She was peering back at him, no longer with those black, listless eyes, but with two deep and terrible blue pools, with Portia’s eyes. Everything about her face was identical: her lips, her nose, even the velvety taper of her chin. The only remaining remnant of Rose was the black hair—but that seemed to matter little to Jack’s body. Already he could feel the beautiful bloom of passion in his loins. Already it was eager to join with her. Already it was fully convinced that the woman beneath him really was Portia.
She slipped her wrists out of his grasp—a grasp that now held all the strength of putty—and let them roam up the length of his biceps, finally over his shoulders. Looping them around his neck, she urged him toward her, clutching him tighter with her legs.
For a moment, he lost himself, almost giving in to the passion swelling within him. But he closed his eyes, and through sheer force of will, began to push himself off of her. Her legs clamped even more tightly, trying to prevent his departure, but he forced them down with his hands. He slowly backed away from the bed, then turned and went to the wet bar, leaning against it and staring at the floor. When he had looked back, Rose was sitting up in the bed, her face once again bearing its usual, although increasingly unfamiliar form.
“You see, Jack,” she said. “I can give her to you.”
Jack remained silent for some time. When he finally did speak, his voice reflected great contrition—and also a touch of wonder. “I… I don’t understand. I broke Portia’s heart. Why would she give me someone like you?”
“Because for the last two months she’s done nothing but agonize over what went wrong between you two. Now she understands. Now she knows what she put you through. And now she wants to make it up to you.”
Jack stared off absently, still dazed. “But why send you? Why not come herself?”
“She wishes she could be intimate with you, Jack, she really does. But she is still bound by her convictions. Her mother always told her it was best to wait, and she promised herself that she would never turn from anything her mother ever told her again. She won’t compromise, not even for you, Jack. But what she can’t do, I can.”
“Where... where do you come from? What are you?”
“I exist by Portia’s hand.”
“You mean she painted you?”
“Yes.”
“And that… what, brought you to life?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“That allowed me to pass.”
“From where?”
“From my world into this one.”
Jack blinked at her, and then something in the gallery caught his eye. He squinted and realized that once more, the painting had changed.
He walked over and began to examine it. The man on the left, the older one, was staring with a vicious scowl. Jack found him amusing, because he distinctly got the impression that the man was actually trying to browbeat him.
“What’s wrong with him?” Jack asked. Rose did not respond, and when she didn’t he turned to see why. She was still in bed, but was now lying on her stomach, having assumed the posture she normally took in the painting.
“I don’t think he likes you,” she said matter-of-factly.
Jack returned his gaze to the man… and then everything went black.
CHAPTER 13 – THE STAIN
Gabrielle arrived at the Galeão International Airport in Rio de Janeiro at 9:45pm on a Gulfstream G550, the larger and more luxurious of the two jets owned by Jack Parke. The occasion was an eight-page spread for the premier edition of Clique magazine. Three shoots were planned over the next four days: one at the prestigious Merlona Pavilion, another on a private beach in southern Rio, and the last in a secluded area deep within the city’s rainforest.
After landing, a small but eager entourage had greeted her, including Paul Alderman, o
ne of the magazine’s co-founders, a publicist named Samantha Biel, and a small horde of less identifiable hosts and helpers.
She was escorted by limousine to the JW Marriot, a ritzy resort hotel located along the Botafogo beach line and known for the radiant crystal chandelier that beautified its extravagant entrance hall. The hotel also featured an exclusive rooftop swimming pool, four-hundred individual rooms, most of which went for no less than five-hundred dollars a night, and three presidential suites, one of which had been reserved for Gabrielle herself.
A concierge had escorted her to the twelfth floor, where she was given a walking tour of the suite. It was comprised of three spacious rooms (a bedroom, living room, and personal lounge), each of which was immaculately décored. When he’d left, she spent the next fifteen minutes unpacking, then undressed and took a shower.
After toweling off, she dressed again, slipping into a yellow tank and green beach pants. The concierge soon reappeared with a waiter, who rolled in a small platter of shrimp, herbs, rice and a bottle of red wine. Ignoring the platter for the time being, she spent the next fifteen minutes on the bedroom balcony, peering out at the brilliantly illuminated crescent of Botafogo beach. Even at night the view was like nothing she’d ever seen: crystalline green-blue ocean water, made visible by towered flood lights that ran all along the beach line; green-leaved palm trees; a white sand beach, which curved snake-like into the distance; and, out in the midst of the water, jutting high into a dark sky, the ominous half-melon-shaped spectacle of Sugar Loaf Mountain.
When she’d gone back inside, she approached the platter, pulled away the red wine—a bottle of Cabernet—and poured herself a glass. She took it with her as she strolled through the suite, briefly testing the comfort of the sofa in the living quarter, exploring the polished stylings of the lounge, and peering into one of several large closets. She then wandered back into the bedroom, sat the wineglass on the bed’s elegant headboard, shuffled through her purse for her cell phone, and dialed Jack’s number. It rang six times before going to voicemail. She tried his number twice more in succession before becoming discouraged and hanging up.
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