Reanimatrix

by Pete Rawlik

  This was at the time somewhat scandalous. Allan was being considered by the university medical school to fill the position of Dean, and in the time leading up to our wedding, many of his peers met to dissuade him from our union. Each went away frustrated. What had raised such strong dissension amongst his colleagues I could not say, but on the day before the ceremony Allan informed me that while the announcement had yet to be made, the board had no choice but to name him Dean; to do otherwise would be their ruin. I did not question my husband, for his confident manner left no room for doubt.

  We honeymooned in New York City, lounging for a month in the magnificent Bramford Building overlooking Central Park. The place belonged to Allan’s friend, a man who was away on business. It was a magnificent home, filled with the most stunning of architectural details, charming furniture, and an extensive library of works in Latin, French, German, Arabic, and even Hebrew. The library had a profound effect on me, for in many ways it reminded me of Father’s study. The rich cloth and leather bindings, offset by the equally fine furnishings, the silk divan, the calfskin chair, drew something sensual out of me. I ran my hand along the brass, felt the heat of the sun-warmed metal and smooth leather, and reveled in it. That night, surrounded by the books and furnishings of that room, Allan took me, the smell of old books, linseed oil, leather, and brass filled my senses as Allen filled me. He made me a woman, and I knew then that, for this man, I would do anything he ever wanted me to. For the first time, I had a hint of what it meant to be satisfied.

  My education, my seduction, began the very next day. I have read Cleland’s Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, the works of Von Sacher-Masoch, and those of de Sade, including Justine and the 120 Days of Sodom. If you think such writings to be the imaginings of a perverted mind, I can assure you that such women exist, and that they are capable of delivering to others the greatest of pleasures. I know this because I saw these women, saw what they did to and for men. I met with them, spoke with them, and with Allan’s permission, I became one of them.

  We spent a month in New York, and during that time I immersed myself in the study of the erotic arts. I learned patience, the art of seduction, and the skills to use my hands, my hips, my mouth, and my whole body to bring pleasure to another, while subverting my own needs. I learned how to use and take the tools of the trade; feathers, bindings, chains, gags, the whip, and the riding crop. I ached as the feel of the crop brought the memory of my father back to me. Every such woman must eventually find her specialty. For me, it was submission, the complete surrender of my body and soul, the leather crop caressing my buttocks and stinging with leather kisses. My sex would swell during such sessions, grow moist, unbearably hot, and I would ache for relief, for something to spread me apart, fill me up, and make me whole. I needed it, begged for it, craved satisfaction. Eventually, after suitable suffering, my husband would concede to my wishes, and he and his friends would fulfill my needs. I took them, took them all, in my hands, in my mouth, in my sex, and yes, I even let myself be sodomized, let the men and women who had trained me take their pleasures. In turn I found my pleasure in them. I took them one by one, and in groups, I let them devour my flesh just as I consumed theirs, and I lost myself amidst the heat and musk and sweat of bodies that were not my own. During such sessions, it was not unusual for me to catch sight of my husband, and see the look in his eyes, that raw wanton look, the ecstasy, the pure unbridled desire as he watched me succumb to the pleasure of violation. I had become what my husband had set out to make me, and both of us reveled in that accomplishment, for it was clear that the hunger inside me, the thing that had been missing since the death of my father, had finally been satisfied.

  Inevitably, we left New York and returned to Arkham. Allan took his position as Dean of Medicine, and I assumed the life of a lady of leisure, running his household and managing his personal affairs. We were quite well off, and maintained a luxurious townhouse less than a mile from the university. We employed a cook, and her son as a valet, but both left us each evening and did not arrive back until early the next day. In this manner, Allan and I could indulge ourselves without fear of discovery. Each night was a new exploration of eroticism, and soon I began to understand the rough desires that drove my husband, and learned how to please him. I taught myself the use of knots and ropes. After I perfected my technique, I regularly presented Allan with my body, bound and gagged on a table or chair, surrounded by implements with which to spank, choke, and penetrate me at his leisure. Those nights became a luxurious treat for both of us, and on occasion he would make me wait, begging for his touch, as he partook of food and drink, purposefully delaying his pleasure, and my satisfaction. This, then, was my life, with the occasional trip to New York or Boston or even Providence for special parties, where often I was the center of attention. I loved this life, loved how it made me feel, and loved how it made my husband’s eyes shine. With each passing month, with each exploit, I fell deeper in love with him, and he with me. We carried on, thrilled by our mutual adoration and perversions.

  Our erotic adventures were not without risk or injury, and from time to time bruises and welts, particularly around my wrists and neck, were the cause of much gossip amongst my social circle. I am thankful for the modest modes of dress that have dominated our society for the last few decades, for without such fashions, the concealment of the evidence of our exploits would have been more difficult. We did, however, face other hurdles. As a medical man, Allan was not unaware of the risks associated with casual sexual contact with multiple partners. To alleviate these fears, to reduce the risks, Allan assured me that all of our partners underwent a full medical examination. We also used a variety of prophylactic methods to prevent both disease and pregnancy. Though many of the methods seemed strange, and were often officially decried by proponents of the Comstock Act, my continual good health is proof that such methods are effective.

  It was in 1905, just three short years after my marriage, that Allan was taken from me. A plague of typhus had come to Arkham and swept through the city, sparing neither the rich nor poor. Allan sent me away, and I spent the summer of 1905 in a cabin near Aylesbury. Allan tried to stay with me, but his sense of civic duty forced him into action. He organized the hospital and the medical students to combat the outbreak. In this he was aided by the most capable of students, including Herbert West, Daniel Cain, and his personal assistant, Stuart Hartwell. All these men, so much younger than my Allan, worked feverishly against the plague, and Allan was always at their side, but the pace took its toll. Allan, my sweet love, fell victim to overwork, and suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. There was little time to mourn and fewer facilities to provide a proper ceremony or service. He was buried before I even knew he was dead. I did not even get to see his grave until a week after the wake.

  Officially, it was shortly after this that I realized I was pregnant. I spread the story that on one of his visits to me in Aylesbury, Allan and I had found the time, and we conceived a child. A child whom I chose to give birth to in that remote cabin in Aylesbury where she was conceived. To all those who would care, you, my daughter, were born on March the fifth 1906.

  Furthermore, following your birth it was discovered that Allan’s legacy was insufficient to maintain his widow and daughter, and David Griffith came to my rescue. It is said that your stepfather had never stopped loving me; that he loved you as if you were his own daughter, and proved it by giving you his family name. My friend, Amanda, became your aunt, and came to live with us, to be my constant companion while David toiled at the family business. For almost a decade we dwelt in the great house that Allan left to me, and all was well.

  Our contented life was shattered when, in May of 1915, David was lost. He was traveling abroad on business, en route to Great Britain, when the HMS Lusitania was sunk by a German submarine. At the age of thirty, with a ten-year-old daughter, I had been tragically widowed not once, but twice. The disgrace was too much for me to bear, and together with your spinster aunt, I slowly wi
thdrew from society, choosing to limit my contact to select friends and family. When you came of age, I sent you to The Hall School for Girls, but I remained hidden behind the walls of our estate.

  David’s story about our love and his death is, I confess, a fabrication, a lie meant to protect us from a society that would never have accepted the truth. I hope that you can.

  It is true that, after Allan left me, I found love once more, not with David Griffith, but rather with his sister, my dear friend Amanda. I implore you not to judge our relationship too harshly, she was as much a spouse to me as was my dear Allan, and she loves you as much as I do, cares for you as much as any mother could. The insufficiency of Allan’s legacy was a farce as well, an engineered impetus to make David appear gallant. David had suffered badly, from gambling, from bad investments, and his character was in need of rescuing. Amanda and I provided him the perfect manner in which to repair his reputation. We placed him on a strict allowance, coordinated his social calendar with our own, and we lived happily in the web of lies we had spun, always careful to conceal from you, and all others, the truth.

  But David became careless, reckless, and foolish. Our arrangement could have lasted indefinitely. He had no need to gamble, but he did, and to excess. One night, after a week of heavy losses, we found his body on the steps of our home, beaten to death. Fearful that any investigation would expose our secrets, we buried him in Billington’s Wood. We bought passage on an ocean liner under David’s name, and then found a man to take his place. He had no clue that David was dead, only that he was leaving his own debts behind. Had things gone as we planned, we would have claimed to have lost contact with him, then after years of being missing, declared him dead. The loss of the RMS Lusitania was a convenient tragedy, one which resolved things much faster than we ever could have planned.

  Such deceits do not yet explain why I have had to leave you, but I assure you that this long explanation lays the basis for the crux of the matter, your birth, and why so many years later, it forces my hand.

  Following Allan’s death, I returned to an Arkham still recovering from typhus and ripe with rumor. The plague had only recently burned itself out, and much was made of the so-called Plague Daemon, the simian thing that had been the perpetrator of horrid acts of violence and murder. Some laid the whole of the recent pestilence on the beast, suggesting that it had brought the dreaded typhus with it, and now that it had been captured, and locked away in Sefton Asylum, the danger was past. I scoffed at such things, but could not deny other whispers that came to my ears. Many were those who came to offer their condolences for the loss of Allan, and amongst them were a few that suggested that the rumors finding their way out of Sefton could not be true. When I pressed them for details, they blanched and tried to avoid the subject. It was only after the most persistent of demands that the rumors swirling about were revealed to me. The subhuman murderer that had been confined to the asylum, the thing that could not speak, that shrieked in near-constant agony, that did not walk like a man, they said that it bore an uncanny resemblance to none other than my recently departed husband!

  I tried to ignore such ridiculousness, but the idea grew in the back of my mind like a corrupting worm. I had not been present at his death, I had not seen his body, and I had not seen him buried. What proof did I have that he was actually gone? These thoughts gnawed at my reason, chewed on it, weakened it bit by bit, until I had no resistance left. In early October I finally gave in, and discretely visited Sefton Asylum. The assistant administrator was cordial and polite; he listened intently to my questions and concerns. He apologized for the rumors that had found their way to me, but he refused my request to see the thing in the cell. I pressed him, appealed to his sense of honor, and then offered him a substantial donation. It was only after I went down upon my knees and performed a task for which I had been well trained that the man relented and conceded to my request.

  The thing that was once a man was kept in a padded cell, wrapped in a straitjacket, chained to the wall. The hunched, bestial thing drooled incessantly, and howled and moaned in apparent agony. It was a pitiful monstrosity, and that it was somehow related to the human species was only indicated by the number of fingers on its hands and the manner in which its feet rested on the floor. Its face was all but lost in the shaggy mane of gray hair and thick beard. All that I could see beneath that unkempt hair were the thing’s eyes, eyes that I knew well, eyes that could only belong to Allan. This thing, whatever it was, had once been my husband. I ordered the assistant administrator out; he balked at first, but I promised him a significant reward if he complied.

  Once we were alone, I called out to the bound creature, which did little more than snarl and snap at me, but I persisted, and after some time, a look of recognition came over him. He calmed, sat back on his haunches, and whimpered pitifully as he grew to understand the state he was in. I went to him, held him in my arms, unbuckled what straps I could, and caressed his damaged body. He was cold, warmer than the room, but colder than a human being has a right to be. Even though he was bereft of speech, he responded to my touch, and although the jacket and chains made it difficult, we found a way to enjoy each other’s flesh.

  He took me, violently, but not without restraint. He spread my legs, and mounted me. His thick, icy member impaled me, and his buttocks pounded into me faster than they ever had before. I whimpered in delight as his hands tore through my clothing and ravaged my breasts, as he tore at my nipples with his shattered teeth and rough tongue. It had been so long, my despair at his loss had been so great, that to have him back, even in this decrepit form, was in itself a revelation. That he was still able to perform, able to bring me pleasure, was simply too much for me to handle. As his hands closed around my throat, I felt his pace quicken, I wrapped my legs around his body, and together we climaxed, letting loose a howl of preternatural ecstasy that echoed through the halls like some demonic banshee, as we collapsed in satisfaction.

  Such a ruckus did not go unnoticed, and within moments what I had done was made plain to all of the staff. I fled through the halls, half naked; the evidence was dripping down my legs, while the thing that was once Allan Halsey roared in frustration. How I made it home, I cannot remember. The next day the director of Sefton Asylum called on me, and despite the exorbitant bribes I had to pay to assure that the staff never spoke of what had occurred, it was made clear that I was never again to visit the institution.

  It was not long thereafter that I learned that my spontaneous and unprotected tryst had born fruit. Flabbergasted by my condition, I retreated to the cabin near Aylesbury. More than once I considered using an herbal concoction to put an end to my pregnancy, and equal were the number of times I considered taking my own life. In the end I did neither, and instead enlisted the help of a local midwife named Latimer to aid me. It came as some relief that on the fourteenth of April, 1906 you were born normal, without disfigurement or defect. I returned to Arkham, lied about your date of birth, and with Amanda, raised you the best I could. I thought that any relationship with your father was forever beyond my reach. That apparently was not true.

  It had been many years since I had been to Sefton Asylum, and I was not privy to what happened within its walls, but I knew that the thing they called the Plague Daemon, the reanimated form of my beloved Allan, still was imprisoned within. That is, until that fateful night, the fourth of February, 1921. I do not fully understand what happened, nor do I think the police have any better comprehension. What is clear is that on that date, the asylum was visited by an unknown group of individuals who somehow or another were able to convince the director to release one of its patients into their care. Initially reports failed to identify the prisoner, but soon the papers made clear what I had come to suspect. The Plague Daemon was no longer a guest at the asylum; he had been removed, and by all accounts, by men that apparently suffered from the same horrific condition as the monstrosity himself.

  I waited, and hoped that he would come home to me, and h
e did. He came to me, and I welcomed him, grateful for the opportunity to once more satisfy my desires. It has not been easy to hide him from Amanda, but the house is large and Allan can be quiet when he needs to be. Today we leave for the cabin in Aylesbury; from there we depart for parts unknown. I beg you to not attempt to find us. It would not do for us to be returned to the world. Let your father’s reputation and mine stand without blemish. I think perhaps someday, when circumstances allow it, I may find it possible to return to you, but not now.

  Please understand, your father is controllable, but insatiable, and so am I. His cold touch is like a fire to me, and I ache for each brutal ravaging that he subjects me to, but he is no threat to you; he would never harm you. But his companions, those who share his strange affliction, one that has left them neither dead nor alive, they are not so reasonable, not always controllable. I leave to keep you and Amanda from them and their desires. For the time being they will have to be satisfied with me, with my body alone. I think perhaps I shall be enough to satisfy them, and at last, perhaps, under their cold, hungry bodies, I too shall once again find my own sense of satisfaction.

  Yours,

  Elizabeth Halsey

  CHAPTER 14

  “On the Staff and Members of Porgy’s Fish House”

  From the Diary of Megan Halsey June 9 1925

  It has been more than a year since that day in Arkham when I was given control of my own fortunes, and therefore my own destiny. It is a rare thing, even in this modern age, for a woman to be given the freedom to do as she pleases without answering to some man one way or another. Yet despite the odds here I was, suddenly the mistress of a small financial empire, complete with dowager aunt. Those first few days after I had been granted my inheritance, my life was a whirlwind of spending. Aunt Amanda had let the house go for too many years and I brought in workmen to repair the roof and windows and two others to update the plumbing and electrics. I also brought in a team of cleaners to do what Molly and Julia had in their complacency neglected to do. While this work took a significant sum it barely made a mark in the ledgers. Nor did the monies I spent purchasing a wardrobe suitable to my station, though my accountants did express some concerns that I had purchased a number of outfits from shops normally frequented by men. These included rugged linen trousers and shirts, leather boots and jackets made out of a waterproof canvas material. When I traveled, I wanted to be prepared, and I had no intention of visiting only the more civilized portions of the world.