Into the Dark Wilds

by Lizbeth Dusseau

  “When I’m finished with Duchet, I’ll take a look at them.”

  “But Ivanov wants to see you.”

  “I’ve had three talks with him already today,” he grumbled. For a moment I thought he didn’t remember I was there to see his anxiety so obvious.

  The phone rang and he answered. After a few quick comments, he looked up at me, and then put the receiver down.

  “You can return to your desk,” I was informed.

  “Someone overrule my dismissal?” I asked in a voice sounding like sugar.

  “Yes,” he replied directly. “Unfortunately, it would be a liability.”

  “Who decided that?” I asked.

  “Out, get out now,” he ordered me. “Your telly’s been altered so there won’t be any more of yesterday’s temptations. Now get your work done and go home. You’ll pay for this there.”

  I was only slightly smug, still unsure what the final assessment of my rash act would be.

  I was in my room reading Rowena’s journal when Max came to see me that night. Unlike his earlier mood, his wrath was subdued or at least set aside. Replacing it was a cool not unlike him, but it was an eerie feeling that moved in me as he sat down at my side. I had the feeling that he could strangle me as easily as he could talk peaceably.

  “Your efforts to dissuade me as your lover will not work, Chloe. You’ll move into my room, sleep with me, eat at my table and serve me as I choose. As well, you’ll be my personal assistant in the newsroom If you do it out of duty as a slave it doesn’t matter, that will be the nature of our relationship. Your early morning whippings will continue, as well as others at my discretion, any time of the day I choose.”

  “I’m not obliged to give you that much,” I reminded him.

  “That is true. But you will, unless of course you’d like to take this up with the council.”

  “We all know they’d rule in your favor,” I reminded him and myself.

  His smug smile couldn’t be contained. “It is still your prerogative, but I’d warn against it. Those slaves who have tried that method not only lost their case, most lost their dignity in the process. If you thought the auction was demeaning …”

  I didn’t need to hear anymore; I knew it was useless to fight him. Though I couldn’t help but wonder why it was so important that I succumb. Why would he want me when all I could feel for him was disgust and fury? I suppose he knew there was something behind those feelings that he wanted; but at best, it was a shot in the dark to think I’d ever have any regard for him. I couldn’t respect him. At least that is what I thought.

  When he left me, my heart was so heavy I wanted to cry. But for some reason, there were just no tears. The only peace I might have was in the pages of the journal under my pillow. But I was almost afraid of even picking it up again, being so close to the end. I knew it wouldn’t be a happy one.

  10/5 - I sit here now writing, my body limp, my heart torn into pieces.

  I know I should chronicle this last horror exactly as it happened, but I’m afraid of the pain that is going to surface. I can already feel it rise in me. The ache is so deep …

  We were on the way out of the mountains. After I washed my psyche clean of my father’s ghost, we decided to stay a few more days than we originally planned so I could heal the associations I had with my homeland. I regret that now, wondering if I might have saved us the peril into which our train and our lives were headed. Nearing the Prussian border I was beginning to feel some exhilaration over leaving the dour feel of this territory. Despite the good that the journey had brought me, I knew my life would be happier spent outside my homeland. And yet returning to the home I knew with Boheme, I wondered if my second sense and yes my visions didn’t already suggest the major change that was abruptly on us. For days I’d had trouble seeing with the same clear vision that I’d been seeing the future. I know now that I’d been looking in the wrong place, looking for a life with Boheme, an extension of the months we’d spent together with our growing affections.

  As we continued through the small hamlets and cities toward the border, we stopped at regular way stations to have our papers checked along with all the other travelers. The procedure seemed routine, though at each stop I was anxious from the moment the train halted until it started again. The anxiety became more pronounced until atop one small mountain pass where the train was detained, I sensed a presence, like a cloud suddenly passing over my heart. The anxiety ceased but was replaced by a heaviness descending all around me. The feeling was soon explained when two men with pistols entered our cabin. There, before my shocked eyes, they aimed their guns at Boheme, and while he looked at them, not in horror or even surprise, but with an odd look of peace, they shot him in the chest. Two bullets pierced his suit, and with his soft eyes staring toward me, he slumped against the side of his seat.

  I screamed. I wanted to fly to my lover to take hold of a piece of his withering spirit, but I was denied my passion. Grabbing me on either side, the two men drug me from the cabin and pulled me out of the train. Forced into a car, I was whisked away to another fate I cannot even now begin to see.

  If my vision was opened perhaps I could see what lies ahead for me. But as I lay now on a cot high atop the mountains in a rebel stronghold, I am blocking that vision. I suppose I am afraid. Afraid of the power, the ugliness, the pictures that might challenge all that I have hoped for. The papers have said that I’ve begun a revolution. I can see that I’m a part of it.

  Right now, everything is so bleak and vague. I know that is because I’m grieving for my Boheme, my master and my love. Even writing this on a piece of scrap paper with a pencil I’ve had to chew down to find lead to write, I’m worried that my work is lost forever, that the journal is gone. I’ve told my captors that I need my personal papers back, but I have no hope they’ll be found.

  10/7 - One small glimmer of hope. My journal was returned to me. Ruel brought it. I’m sure he’s the only rebel that would value it. Having heard of my appeal, I was impressed that he went out of his way to see that it was in my hands again. He brought it to me just an hour ago. I suppose I’m glad it was Ruel who kidnapped me, but that means he also had Boheme murdered. Taking the life of both my father and my lover, I wonder what that means?

  “I’d suggest you keep writing your prophesy,” he told me. “People have come to expect it.”

  “Even if it is something against you?” I asked.

  “Is it?”

  “I can’t say. Since I’ve been kidnapped, I haven’t had the visions,” I said.

  He looked worried.

  “You’ve said they are sexually inspired?” he asked.

  “In the past.”

  “Then perhaps that’s the way to begin them again.”

  He left me not saying more than that. So far no one has come to abuse me, make love to me, or even speak with me. The only abiding prophetic thought I have is my fear for this journal I hold now on my lap. As soon as it is possible I’ll see if there’s a safe way I can have it returned to France, to the underground paper, even if I cannot accompany it.

  10/8 - Ruel came to me last night. He wanted me as his lover. Of course I was compliant. That is my station as a slave, and I am now his. I thought I’d be hateful to him considering how he’s twice ripped my life apart. Though I can’t claim all that much grief over my father’s death, he certainly has driven the light from my once bright and gladdened heart having ended my days with Boheme. With the grief of that master’s life still with me, I thought I’d rebel against Ruel’s desire to have me. Strangely though, I was surrounded by his arms and by a body, fully virile, his loins fused to me alive with fire and fight. Locked inside his overbearing presence, the satisfaction and the climax moved me in ways I remember only rarely with other lovers including my dear Boheme. There was nothing harsh, or vile or painful, simply demanding; though I found myself as demanding of him as he was of me. With his erection driven deep to my core, we roved about the bed like savages. Clutched so
tightly, there were times I could hardly breathe, and then others when a cool wind whipped through the atmosphere around us and my lungs filled with fresh air. All the grieving seemed to cease. I remembered Boheme’s face as he died, seeing bliss there not fear, as if he knew that moment was the right moment for his days to end.

  Such feelings tearing through me, I more eagerly devoured Ruel’s body, relishing every place my lips tasted. I traversed each delicious piece as though I were being treated to a grand feast. He was pleased with me, giving me everything, seeing to it that my climaxes were brilliant, and the smile on my face was at peace. When we were finished, he stared into my eyes, and then kissed me quietly, compared to the many other raucous ones.

  “You may be in the midst of your sorrow, Rowena, but you are where you belong.”

  I have no doubt he is right in that appraisal.

  10/10 - This is the last entry. How apropos considering that there are just a few more sheets in this volume to write on. Ruel tells me we’re going further into Prussia, back into the deep mountains. There his band will regroup. There have been some skirmishes where he’s lost many fighters. I tell him I see peace about to break, but that is all I see. I have no idea who will win the battles or who will win the war. The blind man still looms in my thoughts. But I still haven’t connected him to the unfolding. Ruel is anxious for me to give him something more concrete, but I cannot. He asks who this blind man is, and I tell him he’s not a single man, but many. That he is a spirit that can take us to beyond what we see with our eyes. I’m not sure he understands, though I’m not sure I do either.

  Ruel’s made love to me each night with the same furor as he did the first time; and I’ve responded with the same passion, as if he, not Boheme, was meant to be my life’s love. I cannot explain this but I know it is so. I will go with him without a protest, knowing that even though I considered Boheme’s home mine, it does not belong to me and there is nothing there for me now.

  I have asked that Ruel see to it that this journal gets back to the editors of the underground papers. I fear that it might be lost forever if it goes with us into hiding. He’s in awe of me enough to do that, so I am finishing this with the prayer that it will make a safe passage into the hands of someone who will treat it with due respect.

  I have been plagued these last few days with just one vision. It continues to gnaw at my brain though I want to shake it off. Boheme would whip me for that, but then he’s not with me, and I haven’t yet begun to share what’s in my mind with Ruel. This vision is a personal prophesy. Unlike those that have had to do with the wide world beyond me, this one touches my soul and mortality. I see pictures of myself, some of the present, while others reach far into the future. What I know for sure is that, in another lifetime I’ll return … my words will live beyond this life, they will touch many. There will be those who will revile them, even as I’m reviled now. However, the truth of sexual power will outlive my life, and I will return, if not once, many times. But certainly, I will return.

  I’ve feared this vision, afraid it means I’ll be the next murder victim of this revolution. Though as we prepare to make the trek inward, I have to let go that worry, and remember that I’ve not in any way planned this life of mine, or my visions—at least it’s not been a conscious planning. Neither am I a victim. I embraced this life somewhere at the beginning of my days. The rebellion from my father, the sexual quest for my body’s pleasure and the great dreaming and visions that have followed. I’ve denied none of it. I feel at peace now, knowing that whatever end these next days take me to, death or a new and different life, I have done the work that I was meant to do, been the person that the reigning gods intended for me to be. I will greet whatever happens with the same peace with which my dear guide, Boheme, faced his last adventure. If the world hears nothing else from my pen, it can know that I am grateful to all who appeared on my unholy path of lust, as I’ve sought to make lust holy. I retreat into the dark wilds of the broken lands with my spirit high.

  Remember only that I will return … To all who read this, I speak affectionately, Rowena Dulciat, daughter of Elibris and Johanna Dulciat, Darthganton’s child.

  I wept at the end. I knew I would. Closing the dog-eared cover my tears dropped to its surface. More than ever I felt Rowena speaking to me at this particular hour, faced with the dilemma of my servitude to Gatov, to Max. I couldn’t fathom how she so freely accepted Ruel as a new lover. I think she was a saint to be so honest and willing with her love. If she could do that, when her entire life was in ruins, then perhaps I’d have to take another look at my master and understand what it was that my contract with him really meant.

  When I read the words, I will return, repeated in the journal, it struck me, knowing the bond that I have with this woman. I must admit the many times I’ve wondered if I wasn’t my mentor come back to life. Except that if that were so, I wouldn’t be as hesitant as I am, as suspicious, and so inclined to control every step I take in my life. If I was Rowena I’d be seeing visions, and so far that hasn’t even been my wish, the way I fear them.

  ***

  Just as Max informed me, his rough treatment of me continued. Every morning as I was still in his bed, Marchan came to play havoc with my flesh. And then, nearly every day, Max would call me from my desk just outside his door where I sat at my new post. Taking me to a place in some vestibule, or up to the deserted tenth floor of the building, he’d make me disrobe in front of him and whip me himself. Twice there was someone watching. Once, another man did the honors. I handled the beating without passion. Oh, yes, I cried because of the pain, but I tried not to let them effect me. I tried remaining cold to the threatening passion.

  While I slept every night in my master’s bed however, he did not have sex with me. Every night I wanted to crawl to his warm body and allow him to caress me as he had that one night. Though I could sense my own resistance to him breaking down, I was afraid he’d reject me. It had been a mistake to have created this awful impasse. But even though Rowena’s example, giving herself to Ruel, haunted me with its conviction and beauty, I remained reluctant.

  More than a week after this new routine began Max called me into his office. I supposed that it was for another whipping, but I was mistaken.

  “You need to write something else for the paper. Something to augment your Rowena story.”

  “A retraction?” So far the paper had not responded to the frenzied reaction to my story. I knew the call for a response was more necessary.

  “Not exactly. Something more in line with a toning down of your message. Something that will soothe the waters not get the public riled again.”

  “I see.”

  “You do know your antic has been of great concern to the upper echelons,” he said, almost looking amused by the fact.

  “I don’t regret it.”

  “Perhaps you shouldn’t.” His odd look of amusement became more obvious to me.

  That was the first indication from Max that he didn’t see things quite the way the hierarchy of the paper did. I was buoyed by the notion that he might have an independent mind. I don’t know why for sure, but I suspect that little break in his cold facade was just enough to send our relationship along another path.

  That night, when my body ached for him, when I thought I wouldn’t be able to stand another night in his lonely bed, he came to me and made love. Even from the first grab he made for my flesh we seemed like two lost pieces of a puzzle fitting together. The ropes that held my bound mind loosened, knots disentangled. In my loins, heart and head, I felt freedom replace the nagging tightness that I’d nurtured since Max purchased me from Sergei. Rowena’s surrendering words appeared to me over and over in that first hour; and then they simply remained as part of my essence. Perhaps Max Gatov was my Ruel, perhaps my Boheme. In either case he was the destiny I was to follow and it was time for me to accept that fact.

  Our first coupling was as passionately wild as the first time we’d made love in his bed. But wh
at followed was something quite different. Though the night was dark, so dark I could hardly see my toes at the end of the bed, I could see Max’s eyes, the disquieting glimmer of them as they peered at me out of the blackness. While he held me transfixed, he tied my hands above me to the head board of the bed. Likewise, he secured my feet. Gently, he ran a many tailed cat over my flesh, between my parted thighs and across my breasts. Dangling the talons above me, his face poured out as savage as the inky blackness around him that seemed fed by demon’s breath. A quick jolt of his wrist and the talons struck like cat’s claws, the bitter ends driven into my skin. The leather landed everywhere, and no where special. And though I jerked hard in anguish, I still held on to his eyes, as if I were safe inside them. Safe perhaps from what was happening inside my head. Again and again, the cat bit my body to tease and cause me pain. To the edge of a climax, to the point of the peak, then he withdrew so the surge would die. Again the build-up, again the let down. Only when I struggled with it, begged him to finish, swore to him my allegiance, “Max, my love, more,” I urged sincerely. Only then did he let me soar over the edge. When my eyes closed I was flying low inside my mind, careening through the spasms like a boat careens through the white waters of a raging river that flows into dark canyons.

  Opening my eyes, Max’s held me tenderly. This Max Gatov was not the man I believed him to be, but gentle, passionate, with me every instant of the climax, every instant of the finish and every instant of that glorious end, where just the simple touch of fingertips sent another orgasmic wave on its way.

  “Sleep, Chloe Duchet, sleep sweet,” he murmured in my ear as he undid the ties on my feet and hands. He didn’t untie me altogether, however, but kept my hands bound all night so I’d remember the freedom of sex at his hands. He slept next to me, his last words remaining in my thoughts. Sleep, Chloe Duchet, sleep sweet… .