Gothic Blue

by Portia Da Costa

  Although it sounded rather silly when framed into words, she knew she had to ‘save herself’; to conserve the sexual energy and the desire within her so that tonight she would be ready for, and want, André. The ritual demanded a willing partner, and more than that, it needed her to genuinely need and care for him. If she satisfied a simple and fairly low-key bodily itch with Jonathan now, she could destroy the last hopes of two desperate people later. It was not too much to ask of herself, she decided, letting her fingers drift dismissively across her crotch.

  But that didn’t mean Jonathan had to suffer.

  Rising gracefully from her lounger, Belinda took the couple of steps it required to stand before him, then sank on to her knees, her floaty skirt drifting out around her. Jonathan watched her over the rim of his glass, his eyes filled half with lust, half with awe, as he sipped nervously at the ruddy fruit-filled cocktail.

  With a confidence that felt new to her, Belinda took the glass from him and set it aside. He started to protest but she laid a finger across his lips and he subsided, then obediently lifted his bottom when she reached for the waistband of his shorts.

  His penis sprang up bouncily as she slid down the garment; a column of hungry flesh, prime and vigorous.

  ‘Belinda!’ he moaned almost querulously as she cupped his balls in one hand and with the other delicately enclosed his straining shaft.

  ‘Shush!’ she said, then settled her lips around his glans.

  Chapter 15

  The Freeing

  BELINDA STARED AT her reflection in the mirror, already feeling her identity start to blur. The soft, periwinkle-blue dress she wore couldn’t actually be Arabelle’s, she knew that, but instinct told her it was a good facsimile.

  ‘It’s no wonder he misses her,’ said Jonathan, moving up behind her and slipping his hands around her waist. ‘If she looked like you she must have been very beautiful indeed.’

  She met his eyes in the mirror. ‘Thank you, Johnny.’

  ‘My pleasure,’ he murmured, smiling shyly. ‘It’s true.’

  She put her hands over his. ‘I’m scared.’

  ‘I know.’ His smile turned to a small frown.

  ‘But I can’t back out. He may never find anyone else who can do it. You understand that, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I do,’ he replied, his fingers flexing against her waist. ‘And I want you to help him … them. If there was anything I could do myself I’d do it. I just wish it wasn’t so dangerous for you!’

  Belinda was about to reassure him, to lie to him, but just then there was a sharp rap at the door, and before they had time to react, Michiko swept into the room, an expression of concern on her face. She was wearing what looked like a sumptuously elaborate kimono, which she hadn’t had time yet to fasten, and on her feet were bifurcated white socks. Her elegant Oriental face was heavily painted in purest white, her lips were crimson, and her eyes were lined with black.

  ‘She’s coming!’ she cried, hurrying towards them, her steps silent in her socks. ‘We must be ready. And Jonathan, you must help us!’

  ‘What do you mean?’ demanded Belinda, feeling Jonathan’s embracing hands drop away. ‘Who’s coming? What’s the matter?’

  The Japanese woman reached out, took each of them by the hand, and squeezed hard. Her eyes were burning coals in her whitened face. ‘Isidora is on her way here. I sensed her. I think she may well arrive within the hour.’

  ‘Can’t we just lock the gates or something? Or lock the house itself?’ suggested Jonathan. ‘What about Oren, can’t he stop her? He’s big enough.’

  ‘Poor Oren is helpless against her powers,’ said the Japanese woman. ‘He would surrender his life to protect André, but it would do no good. Isidora would find some way around him.’ She squeezed Belinda’s hand again, then released it, taking hold of both of Jonathan’s hands. ‘You, on the other hand, I can protect. And you must act as a diversion while we complete the rite.’

  ‘Why would she take any notice of me?’ demanded Jonathan. Belinda saw doubt in his face, and real fear. It was clear he now believed completely in the supernatural.

  ‘Because she is approaching in disguise. I was able to catch a glimpse of her mind without her detecting me,’ said Michiko intently. ‘She is using subterfuge. Hoping to get close enough to André to act, before anyone even realises she’s here, and she knows her new face is welcome at the priory, because she has an invitation!’

  Belinda had a horrible thought. She remembered a phone conversation, just yesterday. ‘Paula!’

  ‘Is that your friend?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jonathan, speaking up while Belinda considered exactly what they had done. They had created a loophole for André’s worst enemy to sneak up on him. ‘But what has she done with our Paula, the real one?’ Jonathan demanded.

  ‘Put her to sleep for a while,’ answered Michiko, her smooth brow puckering. ‘I think. I didn’t seem to sense anything that indicated permanent harm.’

  ‘Dear God,’ whispered Belinda, letting out the breath she hadn’t realised she was holding.

  ‘But what can I do?’ demanded Jonathan. ‘I don’t have any special powers.’

  ‘You have your manly charms,’ observed Michiko, her fine eyebrows quirking with wry humour. ‘If there’s one thing that we know Isidora delights in, it’s to steal another woman’s lover. She simply can’t resist it.’

  ‘But how will she know?’ persisted Jonathan, looking down at his hands which Michiko still held.

  ‘She’s not a mind reader,’ said the Japanese, releasing him with an encouraging little shake, ‘but she’s an expert at making people say more than they want to. She uses her persuasive powers. Drugs. Flattery. Her body.’ She smiled narrowly. ‘She will know a great deal about you two and your relationship.’ Suddenly, although it was well nigh impossible, Michiko seemed to blanch beneath her make-up. ‘Your friend … Would she have carried any photographs of you with her? Any image of any kind?’

  Belinda considered. ‘Not to my knowledge,’ she said, desperately trying to remember the last time she and Jonathan had been photographed. ‘Why?’

  ‘If Isidora realises how like Arabelle you are, she will stop at nothing to destroy you, as well as Arabelle’s vial.’ Michiko clenched her hands together, clearly thinking and scheming. ‘She knows about the ritual of the freeing. Even though André has her grimoire. It’s not something she’s likely to overlook.’

  ‘Look, I’m almost certain she won’t have any snaps of us,’ offered Jonathan hopefully.

  ‘And if she does,’ Belinda continued for him, trying to rationalise even though it wasn’t easy, ‘it’ll be pictures of you, Johnny boy, not me.’ She flashed him a reassuring grin. ‘You’re the one she fancies!’

  ‘Really?’ said Jonathan, momentarily distracted.

  ‘Good! Excellent!’ said Michiko, her voice suddenly strong and resonant. ‘If Isidora knows there’s a relationship to be split up, then she will be interested in you, Jonathan. Would you be prepared to have sex with her? As a distraction?’

  Jonathan went very pink and Belinda didn’t know whether to laugh or protest. The whole situation suddenly seemed to her like a kind of black, or deeply gothic blue, comedy, and she looked from her boyfriend to Michiko and back again.

  ‘It seems only fair,’ she observed, her lips shaping themselves without her permission into a grin. ‘I get to make love with a sorcerer, and you get a sorceress.’

  ‘I – I don’t know if I’ll be able to get it up,’ said Jonathan, his face so serious that Belinda did laugh. Michiko too.

  ‘Your friend, Paula, are you attracted to her?’ enquired the Japanese woman frankly.

  Belinda listened carefully for the answer, but Jonathan said, ‘She’s quite attractive, but I’ve never really thought of her as fanciable … Not really.’

  ‘I think you will find her a good deal more “fanciable” tonight, my young friend,’ said Michiko, eyeing him. ‘Isidora’s powers of seduc
tion are prodigious … I don’t even think a change of face will cramp her style.’

  He’s here! He’s here somewhere, thought Isidora, slamming the door of the car she had purloined along with Paula Beckett’s face.

  Glancing towards the house before her, which seemed to brood in the soft amber twilight, she could sense the presence of André all around her. She could already feel the delicious thrill of conquest, a sensation so erotic it almost made her knees go weak. Or it would have done so if she had been other than what she was. Her quarry – so long pursued – was almost hers for the taking, and if she had felt like it she could have sought him out immediately. But it was so much more satisfying to savour the dénouement, to stretch it out, and make the most of the build-up.

  As she walked determinedly across the gravel, a young man appeared at the top of the steps. She had never seen him before, but all the laws of probability pointed to him being Jonathan – the one a slightly drugged and very drunk Paula had admitted she was half in love with. Totally confident, Isidora called out to him. ‘Jonathan! Hello!’

  The young man’s smile seemed a little guarded as he came down the steps, and in the few seconds before he reached her, Isidora studied him.

  Was something wrong? Did he know something?

  ‘Hi! So you found us all right,’ he said. ‘I was a bit worried with it being so late.’ After a moment’s hesitation, he slid his arm around her. ‘Boy, am I glad you’re here!’

  ‘I’m glad to be here,’ replied Isidora, rather liking the feel of his arm. She had not expected much of the gullible Paula’s most likely just as gullible friends, and had been prepared to simply brush them aside now she was here. But this dark, wiry youth was quite tempting. A tooth-some morsel she could toy with while anticipating her triumph.

  ‘Where’s Belinda?’ she asked, as Jonathan led her up the stairs, his arm still around her. ‘I thought she’d be here to meet me too.’

  ‘God knows!’ he replied, sounding cross. ‘She said she had a headache and she wanted to lie down. But … well …’ He faltered, his face tight.

  ‘What is it?’ demanded Isidora, stopping in what was a most impressive hall, with – she noted gleefully – several portraits of her prey upon its walls. ‘Something wrong between you?’ She reviewed her memory for things Paula had said. ‘The holiday spirit not bringing you together after all?’

  The young man appeared to hesitate, then his words tumbled out in a jerky rush. ‘I – I’ve been really exhausted since we got here … I think I was ill or something, and I slept a lot. And I thought Lindi was taking it easy too, but it turned out she wasn’t.’ His expression looked set, and his rather seductive mouth was tense. ‘She was … She was … Bloody hell, I think she’s been playing around with this fucking André … this Count Whotsit … Our oh so gracious, oh so generous host!’

  ‘Oh, that’s awful!’ exclaimed Isidora, putting her arm around him, her loins almost melting with pure delight. ‘How could she? You poor thing!’

  It was too delicious. Dissent in the camp. Perhaps she could set about seducing both of these delightful young things? Deprive André of his comforts, and flaunt a fresh pair of conquests in front of him, before she finally took away his freedom? The slut Belinda obviously deserved punishing rather than pleasuring, but perhaps there would be time to do both?

  ‘Come quickly! We must hurry now,’ urged Michiko, leading Belinda down a narrow back staircase. The Japanese woman was negotiating the narrow stone treads with the greatest of ease, despite the fantastically elaborate beauty of her clothing. In her traditional geisha garb she was almost unrecognisable.

  Hurrying as best she could behind Michiko, Belinda knew now what had been in the boxes delivered this morning. A many-layered kimono in sumptuous brocade; a sash or obi, which fastened in an immense, folded bow of enormous complexity; a formal wig, shaped into high, stiff coils and adorned with flowers and delicately beaded combs. All these elements – combined with her white, painted face and her peculiar clog-like footwear – seemed to transform Michiko into a creature of even greater mystery, and of complete refinement and total femininity, yet they detracted not one whit from her power.

  The foot of these particular stairs led out into a small courtyard at the back of the house, which was only a few strides away from the chapel. With any luck, Jonathan had already steered Isidora towards the library – luring her with his sob story and his willingness to be seduced – but it was still not wise to linger long outside.

  The heavy door of the chapel was pushed to, and when Belinda opened it and entered with Michiko, she felt a frisson of cool excitement ripple through her. In the gathering twilight, the old nave looked very different to the way it had looked when she had last visited the chapel.

  There were hothouse flowers everywhere; their scents heavy in the air, their brilliant colours muted in the strange light. Candles were burning in various candelabra and torches stood in wall sconces, but the radiance they all exuded was fuzzy. It seemed to hug itself unto itself; and Belinda realised she hadn’t seen the slightest hint of it outside. There was nothing visible to alert the predator to their presence.

  The heavy oak table had been moved – by Oren’s massive strength, no doubt – and now stood more or less in the centre of the chapel. Its surface was covered with a beautifully embroidered quilt and a selection of cushions, and the very sight of it made Belinda’s loins clench. It was there that she would lie entwined with André.

  She did not at first see her prospective paramour; it took her a moment to notice his presence in the shadows. He was sitting on the gleaming old pew where Michiko had sat, only last night, to inflict punishment. He was wearing what appeared to be a long cloak of lustrous silk, decorated with stars picked out in silver thread, and his head was bowed as if in private contemplation. On his lap he had a small rosewood box, the one Belinda had seen in his tower chamber, and as his fingers moved across it, it seemed to glow. When Michiko called his name, he looked up slowly, his hand still possessive on the box and its intricate carvings.

  ‘It’s time,’ said Michiko gently, gliding towards him. ‘We must do it now, before Isidora detects our purpose.’

  André rose, still cradling the box, and stepped forward in readiness, but when his eyes met Belinda’s own, they mirrored her fears.

  Jonathan trembled as Isidora’s cool arm slipped around him. This was the most terrifying thing that had ever happened to him in his life, but what was so astounding was that the danger seemed to rouse him.

  Charged with one of Michiko’s spells, he seemed to be seeing things. It was Paula’s familiar face before him, and for some of the time he could see nothing untoward in it; her features were the same as they had always been; pretty but to him not particularly exciting. She was just his friend. But every now and again, reality seemed to slide sideways somehow, and he would see something he could only define as a doubling. Paula was still there but behind her was a presence that was infinitely threatening. A face more beautiful – by far – yet hard and deadly as a shaman’s painted mask. The face of a woman with seductive powers that made all others seem like pale impressions. Jonathan instinctively loathed her, but his penis ached like fire.

  ‘She’s been hanging around him, throwing herself at him at every opportunity,’ he said, trying to make his voice poignant with complaint, ‘but when I tried to make love to her she didn’t want to know.’

  Of course, some of it was true, he thought wryly, as a look of carefully crafted sympathy appeared on his companion’s face. Belinda had been with André, but by the same token, so had he, as well as with Feltris and Elisa. The difference was that their various combinings had been consensual and free. He didn’t resent Belinda’s involvement with André, but here on the front line, he had to pretend it hurt a lot.

  ‘The bitch!’ he cried, looking down at his clenched hands, then feeling Isidora tighten her hold. ‘How could she do that to me?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she answered, r
eaching over to stroke his hands, then his arm, and then his thigh. ‘I really don’t –’ She paused, and Jonathan felt her fingers edge a little way towards his groin, their pressure insidious. ‘Although, sometimes … just sometimes, I’ve wondered about Belinda. She’s a little bit fickle. She doesn’t always think. And –’ She paused again, her face drifting closer to his, her perfume somehow thickening and becoming mesmeric, ‘– I’ve never mentioned it before, but I’ve seen her with other men too.’

  ‘The bitch!’ repeated Jonathan, feeling full of a peculiar unfocused resentment, as if he genuinely had been cuckolded.

  ‘Don’t let it upset you, Jonathan,’ came the silkiest voice in his ear. ‘You’re a handsome man. Intelligent. You don’t have to take such treatment. You could have any woman you wanted.’

  As she kissed his neck, so delicately he almost didn’t feel it, Jonathan fought to retain a hold on reality. This was the enemy, the creature who would damn his new friend, his first and possibly only male lover, for ever. He was supposed to seduce Isidora, or to allow her to seduce him, but it seemed quite wrong to feel so attracted.

  ‘Jonathan,’ she whispered, planting kisses along his jaw and across his cheeks. ‘Forget her.’ Her hand slid the last few inches up his thigh, out of the neutral zone, and became a positive caress against his groin. ‘I’ve always been attracted to you. I’ve always wanted you. I’ll make you happier than Belinda ever could.’

  Her touch was so light yet so commanding that Jonathan groaned. His cock leapt in her cradling hand, as if trying to burrow out of his jeans and get at her. He felt her lips settle at the corner of his mouth.

  Realising now that he would have no trouble feigning or generating desire for this woman he knew and yet didn’t know, he lifted his hand, cupped her cool chin, and angled her face to his for a kiss.

  Immediately, her tongue shot into his mouth, brooking no resistance as it explored and moistly probed. Even as he yielded, he could feel her deft fingers tackling his zip, whizzing it down effortlessly, then parting his fly. Within seconds his cock was in her hand.