Embracing him as if she’d taken a lover, like a child would her security blanket, an overt insinuation of never letting go, Ethan reciprocated only mildly, resting his free hand on her shoulder while taking another sip of his tea. Gazing out the window behind her, a gloating smirk on his face, his apathy toward her was evident only to him.
“Can we, ya know, for old time’s sake, lay in bed a while and hold each other? I wanna try again, go back out there for ya tonight. I do. I just wanna be close to ya for a bit, love.” She was pleading for his attention and most assuredly, his money.
“Yes.” His redundant response void of emotion, he led her over to the bed while she clung onto him as if for dear life itself.
It was still early in the evening when Abigail laid down next to Ethan, the night as young as she was, fresh and full of promise. She on her left side facing him, he on his back staring at the ceiling, Abby rambled on about her struggles with money. The past few weeks had been hard on her friends, other prostitutes in the area whose business was down due to an abundance of caution from both sides of transactions. She spoke of the few times the two of them had done just this in the past, lying next to each other, holding each other and talking but Ethan wasn’t doing much talking at all. He continued to stare at the ceiling with a smirk on his face. In his mind he was a god, the aloof, virtually untouchable deity with unmatched powers to predict the future with a worshipper of his omnipotent presence right by his side, believing him to be her protector from any harm, mainly the infamous Whitechapel murderer. As he laid there faintly listening to Abigail he began drifting off to sleep, imagining the emergence of these voices he’d been hearing within the walls being more of his admirers, worshippers come to call. He knew they were there to pay homage to his supreme existence. Their hands reaching through the walls, bloodied and serrated, it was obvious to him that they were trying to make contact with his holiness. They needed to connect, if only for a brief instant with his divine presence. Though Ethan adored this attention, he felt no more compassion for them than he did for the mere mortal lying beside him. Despondent and disinterested, Ethan closed his eyes.
Nodding off with Abigail’s voice drowned out by the cheering hordes en masse, the swarm of devotees swelled. In his fantasy, they transformed into the welcoming committee upon his return to the 21st Century. Stepping through the Flicker into the awaiting arms of young Maggie, his reward, he imagined a parade being held in his honor through the center of Oxford University, there to be hailed as “A Hero”. He dreamed of being the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, creating just for him a new category of award to acknowledge his incredible contribution to humanity for: “Sacrifices beyond personal interest in preservation of historical continuity”. They had welded the surgical blade he’d used to the golden plaque: “Doctor Ethan LaPierre” in relief, boldly rising from the surface to stand out for gathering crowds of aficionados, “In recognition of his plight and dedication to duty.” Cameras were flashing, accolades coming from every direction. Standing center stage beneath the white hot spotlight of fame, Ethan was in his glory.
He’d written a full, detailed, fictional report, an extensive analysis of historical adventures, ending his treatise with a compelling, thought-provoking commentary: “Five women who have spent eternity being overshadowed by an evil man named Jack the Ripper have now had their voices heard from beyond the grave.” It was hauntingly perfect. The Consortium was so appreciative, his peers rewarded him. Anson, with the highest level of trust bestowed, decided to relocate the Flicker to his apartment on the university grounds. Whenever he fancied, whatever he desired, Ethan could walk through that doorway without fear of contaminating recorded history because he was a god and just that damn bloody good! With full control of Flicker, he could adjust the coordinates so he’d need only stick his head through to be back at the window in his room, peering onto Bakers Row, watching Abby doing her job over and over again. Perhaps he could persuade young Maggie to dress in period attire to walk through the holy time portal then go stand on the street corner opposite his window, into the dark corner of history, allowing him to watch her get attacked. Would she do that for him? He wondered then concluded: “Of course she would! Maggie loves me. She would do anything for me, no matter what I asked.” He knew she had always hoped to become a Scope. Being a god, he could make it a reality for her, a dream come true, albeit an alternate reality. It was only a dream, bizarre at best, depraved at worst.
Ethan awoke from his narcissistic fantasy wearing an ear-to-ear grin. It had only seemed like seconds since he was out, but it must have been much longer. He awoke alone in his room. Abigail had left. By the silent atmosphere echoing from the street below, it was much later in the night. Wondering if she’d been put off by his lack of dialogue before and after they had gone to bed or how quickly he’d fallen asleep, he wasn’t being rude; his dream was simply more interesting than her words. Still, the girl was the only true physical contact he had anymore and it was rare to have his worshipper present, alive, flesh and blood succumbing to his every whim.
He stood from the bed and walked over to the dresser to retrieve his watch from the top drawer. Before he could do so, he heard a familiar voice coming through the window. Even though he never lit the candle at the desk he knew Abigail was aware of his presence from the shadow play. Ethan, or Arthur to her, stood beyond range, out of sight, the man behind the curtain. She was speaking with some false bravado to another working girl passing, complimenting each other’s dresses and hair, just another night on the streets of Whitechapel spent among friends. Ethan had stepped away just briefly to recover his now ice cold cup of tea, so to quench his dry palate. Covertly returning to his vantage point, cup in hand, he sat at the desk peering out on the activity below. Though the hour was later, the Saturday night traffic was still bustling with the sights and sounds of typical characters he had become accustomed to during his visit.
Abigail may have been small in stature but she had powerful lungs. Her voice pierced the ambient noise around her. He could almost make out her conversations with various people seemingly familiar and unfamiliar to her. Both Ethan and Abby knew it would still be some time before all the street attendance subsided. Once the audience was gone the play could proceed. Plenty of time remained for another cup of tea. Slipping downstairs for some refreshments before the start of the show, his anticipation was building.
Returning to his room, fresh cup of hot tea in hand, Ethan went to the desk chair to peer at impromptu performances by the ghosts of the 19th Century milling around below. In his mind he heard Mozart’s “Marriage of Figaro” loud and clear. Peeking out from behind the curtain, he observed the ballet of street performers entering and exiting, stage left, stage right, as each end of Bakers Row was draped with shadows functioning as theatre curtains. Gradually the supporting actors disappeared into the ether, penetrating the dark vapor of night, making it all the more mysterious as they walked off stage. More and more of those with smaller roles, bit parts, finished their scenes with little fanfare, never to be seen or heard from again. And so it went until, eventually, only the star of the show remained.
There she was, center stage, following her cues, improvising as she always had. Standing on her mark beneath the gaslight lamp, it illuminated Abby like the vision of a ghostly apparition. Mesmerized, almost breathless, he watched and waited right along with Abigail from his unique perspective, the window on his own little world. Abby was as anxious as Ethan for an entirely different reason. She could sense the time approaching for her duet with the stranger. Then she’d put on the performance previously scheduled for an audience of one, namely Arthur.
An old vendor’s cart had become a makeshift trash heap left on the street, just enough of an obstruction from anyone passing along Bakers Row to see her. It gave her a bit of privacy. Even from street level the view was prohibitive. The innkeeper below was prevented from seeing Abby while he occupied his office window. Only Ethan had a direct line of sight from HIS
Mount Olympus.
After a time, his cup of tea finished, Ethan stood from the desk chair to recover his timepiece to determine how late or early the hour was at the moment. Before he took two steps he heard Abby’s prominent voice rising up from the street. Leaning back over the desk to look out in time to see a man approaching her, the gentleman was wearing a long black coat and short brimmed hat. Ethan wasn’t watching when the man first entered the lit area so he never saw his face, the only clear view being of his back as he spoke to Abby. He seemed about five-foot-ten with a stocky build, maybe late thirties or early forties. Obviously inebriated, judging by his inability to hold a steady stance, his animated behavior another telltale sign of his condition. In an attempt to hear their conversation, Ethan leaned over the desk, propping himself on the windowsill. Hoping and expecting that this was not just another trick, another con, he didn’t have that sense of it this time, considering the amount of time Abigail had spent alone in the cold, on a corner, waiting for the right time and man to come along. It certainly appeared spontaneous, unrehearsed, possessing the hint of danger he’d craved as peril for the woman. Ethan found it exciting to be the sole spectator. A sudden surge of virility swept over him, primal to the core. He removed his shirt to feel the cold night air bathe his body.
To deny Ethan’s trueness to himself regarding what this visual stimulation did for him would be more damaging than to simply accept the fact. His body and mind were telling him he had a Schadenfreude extremist’s appetite for the macabre. Yes. He liked watching her squirm in discomfort as the drunkard moved in closer to her. He imagined the man’s alcohol laden, spirited breath in her face, refusing to allow her any escape from its pungent aroma, trapped as she was against his hefty frame. No exit from his intoxicated binge, the unwelcome, intermittent spray from his lips spattered her cheeks, remnants of his overindulgence as he spoke. He took pleasure in seeing her languish over this physical advance, not too unlike the man a week ago who also began taking liberties with her body by use of his hands, rough in manner, in drunken abandon. Ethan took some amusement in analytical comparison, noting that there was not much imagination in most men, or so it seemed by their fumbling and feeble attempts to explore the female form, something far beyond the awkward clumsiness of a creature with no opposable thumbs trying to dine with silverware.
“Look into her eyes, dammit. Her eyes!” He spoke emphatically, if softly.
Willing the man to do his bidding, to help the bloke enjoy their encounter more, he’d make it a memorable scene if he would only follow his stage directions! With his god-like powers of persuasion, Ethan wanted to direct him from a safe distance but it wasn’t working. He wanted to pull the man’s strings like a puppeteer as Time had been doing to him, so both might have a better experience with the same girl. A hundred men could show up, line up to take their turn with her, one after another, groping feverishly, grabbing at her breasts and bottom, yet to grab her heart through her eyes would be the masterful manipulation. The reaction was the same. Whether the bi-product of the connection made was through love, fear or in anger, she would ultimately surrender her control to anybody. Not that literal anatomical muscle but the proverbial heart was the door to supreme power over her and the key to unlock it was the locking of their eyes. Ethan had acquired that knowledge and power with his first two victims, Polly and Annie, and was deprived of that with Elizabeth and Catherine. If the man accosting her possessed this rarified knowledge, his own level of intoxication would rise considerably. He would become drunk with power over her, far exceeding the potency of any liquid libation.
Ethan was jolted out of his attempted mental assertions on the man when, quite unexpectedly, the dark stranger reached up for her throat with both of his hands. The look in her eyes was priceless, worth every pence he had spent on her. Abject terror. It was beautiful. He wondered if he’d truly guided the man with his will. Had he tapped into his mind? His dirty fingernails gouging into her supple neck, choking her larynx, she was overcome with the fear of death. So many women had known this sensation but Abby was having her first turn with it and finally understood what she had heard described. The tightness in her throat and the inability to breathe, the clutching grasp of this brute cutting her free from life, she committed an act of self-preservation. It was over in mere seconds, as she’d managed to dissuade this assault with a target rich knee to the man’s crotch, yet Ethan knew Abby would, no doubt, remember that sensation for all the rest of her days. All three parties involved were frozen in time, remaining motionless for what seemed an eternity, enough time for Ethan to take notice of what was happening to his own body. There was a growing, stirring stimulation as he felt himself becoming aroused.
Though the candle on the desk wasn’t lit there was residual light from the candle on the dresser. Gaslight lamps glowing from the street below provided Abigail with enough light to look up to see Ethan leaning over the desk. As they locked eyes, he nodded with approval, not of her defensive knee jerk reflex to a man’s genitalia but to the allowed victimization. She nodded in understanding, a nonverbal agreement struck to provide him with the visual pleasure he was seeking. Knowing what was to come but not taking her eyes off of her Arthur, she braced herself for the drunk’s own reflex reaction from receiving a knee to the groin. He raised back up from his buckled position and, in one sweeping motion, backhanded her in the mouth. She froze in shock as she turned her attention and her eyes toward the stranger’s eyes. Just as Ethan hoped, finally, they both had absolute power over her. Only then did Abby take notice that the combination of excessive drinking and ramming a knee hard into his crotch caused him to wretch all around the ground between them. The splatter was clinging onto his unshaven chin as he began attacking her verbally, the odor of cheap liquor and vomit nearly suffocating her. Abby almost welcomed his hands around her throat again if only to avoid inhaling the unbearable stench.
It was unclear to the voyeur whether it was his witnessing a man’s control over Abby or his deity-like power or just fulfilling his role as a Scope but something had aroused Ethan, exciting him in a way he’d never felt before. During that time spent viewing them he’d undone his trousers, dropping them with his undershorts, though he did not even remember undressing. Masturbating with primal abandon, erection firmly in hand, he stroked himself into a frenzy just off the edge of the desk. Fully extended, his torso bent over the surface, resting his stomach and chest on the desk, his free hand bracing the bottom frame of the windowsill for balance and leverage, Ethan was delirious with pleasure. Chills running through his extremities as electric shocks pulsed through his veins, he momentarily closed his eyes. Faster...faster his hand moved of its own volition as the performance continued on a sidewalk below. Ethan opened his eyes again, staring down as the drunkard ripped open her blouse, tearing off the buttons. He spun Abigail around like a top, as if he had read the same playbook as the man a week ago, pressing her up against the cold, moist stone wall. One hand reaching in from behind over her shoulder then down her blouse, crudely pulling at her tender breasts, pinching her nipples, his other hand was firmly around her throat in a threatening posture. He let her know. If Abby screamed or struggled, if she tried to defend herself, his attack would be the last. She had no choice but to remain submissive to his will or possibly pay the ultimate price. He’d snap her neck.
Ethan continued to pleasure himself at the sight of it. Breathing became labored. Sucking the air in more deeply, from sheer exertion, beads of sweat began forming on his forehead, making immediate contact with outside air rushing in on a breeze. Droplets of perspiration flinging off the tips of his hair, it dripped from his scalp to his shoulders then down the small of his back. His body was on fire, fully engulfed in the flames of his passionate solitude, alive with delightful sensations. Juxtaposed with the stark contrast of cold night air, it was rather striking, an unexpected feature of a surreal experience. It was a sensation he welcomed, serving to heighten Ethan’s awareness of all things sensual in or arou
nd him. He wasn’t trying to imagine being down there in the assailant’s place. He was not proficient imagining scenarios, not adept at fantasy role play. It was a live action visualization that had him turned on. Scope trained and safely shrouded by the cover of night, in the shadows, it was the fulfillment he’d always anticipated.
The bloke pressing against her body appeared right-handed as all of the difficult actions taken were with that extremity. Groping at her breasts, he kept his left hand securely on her throat as he withdrew the right, using it to pull up her layers of skirts from behind. Kicking her legs wide apart, he violently thrust his fingers inside her, releasing his grasp on her throat, using the same hand to cover her mouth, muffling the guttural outcry of pain, silencing her alarm. In a drunken stupor, enraged by his own lack of balance, the man shoved her head into the stone then attempted to enter Abigail from behind in a remarkably unskilled manner. Bracing herself against the wall, preparing for an unwelcome and painful penetration, her head was twisted to the left, her right cheek forced against the stone but she could still see Ethan out of the corner of her eye. There was her Arthur, gazing down upon them. He could see her struggling to turn her head enough to watch him watching her feel the pain. And then he noticed his own. The sweat had run down his arm to his hand clenching the full erection, throbbing between his fingers. That moisture was value added, a much needed lubricant for the chafing repetitiveness of his rapid strokes but the agonizing ache in his forearm was becoming unbearable, more than mere muscle strain.
Lifting his upper body from the desk to determine why the throbbing in his arm was so excruciating, Ethan discovered that, in his lustful rampage, while he stroked himself in pleasure, he had blistered his arm. Unaware that he was likewise rubbing it against the desk’s edge over and over to well past the point of the blisters bursting, blood was freely flowing from the ruptured skin. It wasn’t sweat lubricating his full blown erection, it was his own blood. Possessed by the stunning visualization of an open wound, the crimson stream combined with an impending climax in his role as the voyeur, elevating him to new heights. Nearly collapsing with the realization, he leaned back over the desk to continue observing the rape of his little Maggie clone. The pain did not subside. He didn’t dismiss it nor did he attempt to put it out of his mind. Instead, Ethan embraced it, accepting pain as part of the pleasure, part of the plan, awakening him to a whole new comprehension of masochistic stimulation. It was sublime, twisting and turning in his head, transforming into some visceral bond between himself and the beleaguered girl below sharing in his sordid pain-pleasure experience. He was one with her from the shadows.
In A Flicker Page 39