by Edward Lee
“Little whores, the both of you,” a man’s voice blacker than coal croaked. “Look at you. You’ve let men fill your bellies with their seed—men who work for me, men who take my money and then betray me behind my back. But what should I have expected, with a harlot mother as abominable as yours? We must not suffer harlots to live…”
Collier clenched his teeth.
Don’t listen! Just get down to business!
A young girl: “Please, Father, no!”
“Oh, no, I won’t kill you. I’ll let the earth do it…”
The voices seemed to come from everywhere in the room.
Then he heard the sound of shovels biting into dirt.
Don’t listen!
Then muffled children’s screams…
He looked up again, and this time, saw Jiff standing in the doorway: naked, aroused. Then, he, too, climbed onto the bed…
Just as Mrs. Butler, Lottie, and Jiff’s hands all began to caress him, Collier grabbed his robe and lurched for the door.
“Where you goin’!” Mrs. Butler yelled.
“Aw, come on, Mr. Collier,” Jiff complained. “We can have us a four-way the right way…”
Collier ran out as if fleeing a blaze. Without a candle now, he stumbled in the nearly lightless hall. He blindly got his robe back on and felt his way to the atrium. What’s happening to me?
Then the answer came to him.
Not me. It’s the house.
He stopped when he found himself in the middle of the atrium. The storm seemed to be dying off now, the lightning less intense. But in each diminishing flash, he caught himself looking up at the portrait of Gast.
The house…
Was it merely suggestion, or had Harwood Gast changed his posture and expression? The plantation baron seemed to be grimacing now, and instead of looking out at the tree, he was looking to his left…
Collier looked left.
And saw the old writing table…and the smaller portrait of Penelope.
Slow steps took him over, his eyes widening. The next throb of lightning was all he needed to discern the small painting’s only necessary detail.
The oil painting only showed a landscape of trees in the background—the image of Penelope Gast wasn’t to be seen, as though her likeness had never been painted in it.
Was the rich Southern accent in Collier’s head?
“It’s not the house,” it whispered from everywhere.
Collier stumbled for the stairs.
“It’s me…”
Both of his hands let the banister guide him up. His eyes had barely adjusted—after feeling his way through more grainy darkness, he found his room.
He closed the door and leaned against it. I’ve really had enough of this place, he thought, almost hyperventilating, but in only a moment, he sensed something wrong.
The candles…
There’d been two lit candles when he’d left the room earlier. Now there was one.
He grabbed it, dipped it toward the bed.
Dominique wasn’t there.
Collier cursed himself. Damn it! The storm probably woke her up; then she saw that I wasn’t here so she got scared and left!
But—
Her work slacks and blouse were draped over the chair. Then he noticed with more alarm that her silver cross was hanging off the bedpost.
And so were her bra and panties.
Collier made the cold, unbelievable deduction. She’s not here but all her clothes are. Which means she’s somewhere in the house…naked.
The storm had faded. Collier tried to think—
Then he heard something like a long splash, like a bucket of water being emptied.
Collier had heard that sound before.
It came from the room to the left. The bath closet…
By now, Collier knew the drill.
When he blew out his candle, he wasn’t surprised to notice a dot of light on the wall: the peephole. He got to his knees and looked in.
Candlelight flickered, not much, but enough. Dominique’s beautiful pubis appeared, the triangle of dark thatch ever apparent. She lowered herself into the hip bath.
Collier watched, his eye frozen open on the hole.
It wasn’t a bar of soap that she held in her hand, it was Collier’s can of Edge Gel. Her finger squirted a few curls into the plot of hair; then she began to massage it into a thick white froth.
She’s going to shave her crotch, came the slow acknowledgment. That was fine with Collier but…
Why shave your crotch in a goddamn Civil War hip bath, during a power failure!
Another sound he’d heard came to his ear next.
scritch-scritch-scritch
But it wasn’t Collier’s disposable razor she was using. It was an old-fashioned straight razor.
When the task was complete, she got out and patted herself dry with a towel.
Even in the candlelight, the clean, hairless crotch seemed to radiate its fresh whiteness, but…
What’s she doing…now?
Now something else occupied her fingers, a small flat box that she quickly snapped open.
It was eyeliner.
Collier could bear no more. What’s she doing NOW?
Then—
thunk!
The power snapped back on; the room blared in light. Reason returned. Collier bolted out of the bedroom and turned right into the bath closet.
“Dominique, what the hell are you—”
She stood facing him but with her head pitched down; she hadn’t noticed him enter.
But Collier was too taken aback by the shock of seeing her naked. All he could do was stare, his mouth drawn open.
The bright lights brought out every detail of her curves and feminine features, the sleek legs, wide hips joined by a flat white stomach. Plump white breasts jutted outward firmly as implants.
And what was she doing?
Two fingers wielded the tiny eyeliner brush, dabbed it into the circle of dark makeup, then very daintily left one single tiny dot on her pubis, about an inch above the clitoris.
She dropped the plastic box and looked right at him.
Collier—thick in the throat—got the effect. Shaved pubis? With one tiny freckle above the opening?
The daguerreotype glared in his mind.
She made herself look like her…
“Who are you?” she asked as if put off.
Dominique didn’t have a Southern accent, yet the voice that came out of her mouth did.
“I asked you a question, sir. Who the blazes are you, standin’ in my house uninvited?”
“Come on!” he gruffed and shoved her out of the small room.
“This is no way to treat the lady of this house, and you can be assured—”
“Shut up and get in there!”
Collier hauled her back into his room. “We’re getting out of here—” He grabbed her clothes and heaved them into her arms. “Put those on!”
“These are not my clothes, sir! And if you’re one’a my husband’s workers, you can wager that he’ll hear about this unmitigated intrusion!” She dropped the clothes. “In fact, I am going to tell him right now! And where is Jessa, damn her? Did she let you in the house?”
She brushed past him, stark in her nudity, but when her hand landed on the doorknob…
“Oh, dear, well now…maybe I am being hasty.” She turned back around. When she leaned against the door and straightened her posture, her bare breasts stood even more erect.
Holy moly…
Her eyes drilled right into him. “And, if I may be so forward, you are a handsome man. I’m sorry we haven’t previously met. Are you one of my husband’s foremen?”
Collier could have wept when he forced himself to look away from her magnificent body. “Dominique, we have to leave.”
She raised a delicate finger. “You must work for Mr. Cutton, am I right?” She pronounced “right” as “rat.” “Or perhaps you work over him. He is a marvelous man, I must sa
y…” She slowly traipsed over, her innocent expression shifting into something sly. “So tell me, sir. How marvelous are you? And by what manner?”
Collier cringed when her warm hand slipped into his robe and slid up his chest. Her touch electrified him, and next she was kissing him…
The voice of his id returned, Looks like you gonna get a slice of the celibate weirdo after all…
Her mouth sucked his tongue.
It’s not her, it’s not her, he insisted to himself.
You better haul this one’s ashes right now…
But Collier knew he couldn’t.
Just then her hands slid down to his groin.
“Mmmm, yes,” she murmured. “You’re clearly a man who senses the needs of a lady.” Then she opened the robe and pressed against him. Her nipples felt like hot coins.
“But this is my daughters’ room—and God knows where they are at this hour. Out being little girls, I suppose, with that annoying dog of theirs. But we had to get them the dog. They don’t have any friends to speak of, and don’t mix well with the other children in town, due to our elevated social standing.”
Collier shivered with his eyes closed as her hand kept playing with him.
“Oh, but I’ve digressed,” she whispered into his neck. “Let’s retreat to the next room, shall we? It’s my…secret room, reserved for my pleasures alone.” She tried to pull him toward the door.
“No,” Collier said through gritted teeth.
She paused through a sigh. “You might be a bit nervous, which I understand—many of my men are at first. But you needn’t be worrying about my husband. He’s halfway to Maxon right now, and only comes back every month or so.”
Now she pressed harder against him.
He could sense the outrage of his darker self.
Listen to me, buddy boy. If you don’t ball the daylights out of this hunk of angel food cake, you’ll be a disgrace to all of masculinity—
“Put your clothes on,” he told her, pushing her back. “We have to leave…”
“All right.” She ignored him. “If you don’t want to go into the next room, we’ll do it here,” she said, then started to take off his robe.
Collier whipped her hands away. “We’re leaving!” he tried yelling at her. “Now!”
What a loser, his id conceded. I give up…
Collier grabbed her shoulders and shook.
“Your name is Dominique Cusher! You’re a brewmaster and a celibate Christian! Your name is NOT Penelope Gast!”
Had Dominique’s eyes…yellowed? Hatred and disgust tightened her face and next—
flump!
—Collier was thrown to the bed. Her bare thighs fastened his hips to the mattress as securely as a metal girder, and her hand—
Collier began to choke.
Her hand squeezed his throat so hard he thought his vertebrae would separate.
“You will indulge my fancy, sir, or I will kill you—”
Her strength was beyond fathoming. When he grabbed her forearm, it remained firm as a steel post. The hand was digging into his trachea.
“Jesus Christ, you’re killing me!” he gagged.
“Um-hmm.” She lowered her crotch. “Unless you fuck me right now…”
For a split second, she released his throat and Collier dragged in a breath just before he would’ve passed out. He tried to lurch up—
In an inhuman blur, she grabbed one of the pillows and was now vising it against his face with both hands.
Sightless, Collier felt his lungs start to expand.
Her accent sounded so sweet around the ultimately profane words: “You will fuck me, sir, and then you will void your bladder—”
Collier was convulsing.
“—or I’ll smother you right now.”
Collier wasn’t sure if he’d passed out or not. Some reflex hooked his fist in an arc; then he felt his knuckles crack into the side of her head.
Dominique fell off the bed.
He jerked to a sitting position, wailing as he sucked in air. Black spots before his eyes began to dissipate. He saw Dominique sprawled on the floor, but—
Something unidentified seemed to cover him. The pillow she’d been smothering him with had torn open…
Feathers?
He brushed the unpleasant substance off his face.
What IS this stuff? He almost threw up when he realized it was human hair.
Mostly brown but with swathes of blonde and some streaks of red…
Next, he threw himself off the bed, revolted, but he moved like a madman. Dominique was out cold. He hauled on his clothes, then flopped Dominique around on the floor and redressed her. He skipped the hassle of putting her underwear on but when he paused and noticed her cross twinkling on the bedpost, he put it back around her neck.
Collier’s adrenaline more than made up for his negligible physical strength. He flung Dominique over his shoulder and plodded out of the room.
Oh, Christ…
The stench of urine in the hall choked him like tear gas. He took a few steps, blinking hard, and then suddenly Dominique’s unconscious body felt heavy as a sack of bricks. Collier stopped a moment, to reestablish his balance…
Did he hear these words?
“Come inside…”
He looked to find himself standing immediately before the door to the next room.
Room two.
The room that was always locked.
“Come inside my secret room,” came the plush accent.
Collier’s eyes were riveted to the doorknob. Very slowly, it began to turn.
Something clicked…
The voice started to warble.
“Come inside, sir, and oblige a lady…”
The door swung open, revealing a black void. The stench quadrupled and slammed Collier in the face so hard he could’ve staggered backward and flipped over the rail with Dominique still on his shoulder.
He trudged away just as he thought he detected a shapely nude figure stepping out of the room.
Senseless, Collier tore off like someone wading through mud. He almost fell down the stairs but probably wouldn’t have minded because it would’ve gotten him to the bottom all the more expediently. The stench followed him as though it meant to run him down.
Only a few yards to go! his mind yelled when the vestibule doors surfaced in the murk.
“But, sir,” a squawky male voice rose. “Why did you not sign your check? You must know that cash money cannot be rendered without your signature…”
The scrawny man sitting at the writing table looked perturbed, wearing an odd red hat.
A gold nose flashed.
Collier actually used his head to bang open the vestibule doors. Then he banged through the next set and was scrambling out into the night.
Before the doors could close behind him, her wanton voice beckoned him one more time:
“It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Collier. I trust you’ll be back to see me again very soon…”
Collier flopped Dominique into the car, then drove away from the house. In the rearview, he thought he glimpsed four figures standing between the pillars of the front porch, two of them short, and two taller.
The sound of a dog yapping faded as he sped away.
He parked in front of the restaurant. The town lay dark and silent before them.
But it seemed normal.
Dominique murmured something in her unconsciousness, then curled in the seat, asleep.
A final silent throb of lightning marked the end of the storm. Collier’s adrenaline rush finally drained. He fell into a black and gratefully dreamless sleep.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I
Collier awoke to a wall of sun in his eyes, and an agitated rapping sound.
Ugh. What the—
A frowning man in a police uniform was knuckling the window. Collier rolled it down, shielding his eyes.
“Oh, it’s you, Mr. Collier,” the cop said. “I heard y
ou were in town. I’m Sheriff Legerski. Here’s your ticket.”
Collier tried to shake off his grog. “Ticket for what?”
“Not even big-time TV stars can illegally park.” The sheriff indicated the sign right next to Collier’s lime-sherbet fender. NO PARKING 9-5.
Collier looked at the ticket. “A hundred bucks?”
“Usually it’s twenty-five, but you get the celebrity rate.” The sheriff guffawed. “Just kidding. But thems the breaks, you know, Mr. Collier?”
Jesus. Collier signed with a proffered pen.
“Just send your hundred in anytime you like. Check, money order…or, you can just put twenty-five in my hand right now, you know, if it’s more convenient.”
Collier gave him the cash, head aching from the sun.
“Thanks. Say, is that Ms. Cusher in there?”
“Uh, yeah.”
The sheriff winked. “I won’t ask.” He tore up the ticket. “But I really love your show! Hope ya have a great day. Oh, and move the car, huh? And you might want to get it painted a better color, too. Something more…manly?”
Collier moved the car several yards to another sign that read FREE PARKING ALL DAY. Beside him, Dominique roused.
She blinked around. “What the hell?”
“Good morning.”
Her hands felt around the car as if in disbelief. “What am I doing in this weird-looking car? And—what time is it?”
“Quarter after ten.”
“Damn it!” She brushed a tangle of hair out of her face. “I was supposed to open at ten! How could you let me sleep so late?” A fretful look at the restaurant’s front doors showed several employees grinning at them. “Damn it!”
She smirked down at her shoes. “Where are my socks?” A hand came to her bosom. “Where’s my bra?” Then her eyes bugged when she briefly slipped her hand below her belt line.
She gave him a long, hard look. “Justin. Where’s my pubic hair?”
Collier leaned back and sighed. “You shaved it off last night. In the bath closet. By candlelight. With a very old straight razor.”
He could see her mind churning behind her eyes.
“I…think I…remember,” she said. When she touched the side of her head, she glared. “I also remember you punching me in the head!”
“It wasn’t like you were giving me much choice, Dominique.”