Futile Flame

by Sam Stone

  ‘Senora,’ the nurse said. ‘It’s just not done. It’s not dignified for a lady in your position.’

  ‘I’ve often wondered how peasant children can be so robust,’ I said to the nurse. ‘Surely a mother’s milk is the best for her child?’

  The nurse didn’t know how to reply. She turned away as I uncovered my breast and placed it against Isabella’s small mouth. She floundered for a while opening and closing her lips with an almost audible smacking sound. Soon she was suckling. The sensation was both strange and soothing for me. The pain I’d experienced in ridding myself of milk after previous births was immediately relieved as my child fed. This is natural, I thought. This is how it should be. So, I had learnt something, finally: The value of my children. I had loved the others but not like this, not with this same intensity. Isabella must survive, must grow strong. Must have a better life than I had. With these revelations came the realisation that I didn’t want her life ruled by the evil legacy of my family. I didn’t want her at the mercy of my brother.

  ‘Nurse,’ I called and the woman came to me. ‘Help me.’

  ‘Of course, Duchess. What do you need?’

  ‘Take Isabella and leave.’

  ‘Duchess?’

  ‘Take her to the others. My husband will care for her now.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ The nurse lifted the baby from my breast Isabella howled in protest. ‘Besides, your husband’s location is a secret.’

  ‘There is one here who knows, so he may convey news.’ I gave the nurse a huge purse. ‘Go to see Abenito, the groom. He’ll take you to my husband. Hurry. Caesare will be back any day now. I’m afraid for her.’

  The nurse nodded. ‘I’m afraid for you when he learns the children have gone. Especially this one.’

  ‘He won’t kill me.’

  When Caesare returned ten days after her birth, Isabella was safely removed and I was ready to defend her life with all the strength I had left in me. Even if I died in the process.

  Chapter 13 – Lucrezia’s Story

  Rebirth

  Smoke from the candles sent trails up into the air, giving substance to the almost tangible force of power as the circle closed. I lay in the centre. I learnt later that the circle was supposed to provide protection. I never knew what Caesare was protecting himself from.

  ‘It’s a game,’ he said.

  I always played his games, even though they often repulsed me but this one was different. He’d carved a symbol into the floor, a five pointed star. It was cut deep into the wood panels, grooved at least an inch wide. Caesare had spent a whole day alone with a set of carpenter’s chisels to achieve this, time that I was relieved he was not with me. At each point of the pattern a metal ring was embedded into the floor.

  ‘A pentagram,’ he told me as though I should know.

  The word and the shape meant nothing to me. He spread my naked body within it, tying my hands and ankles to the rings. The thin rope bit into my wrists with burning intensity and the rough scarred wood under my back dug splinters into my soft white flesh. I was afraid, but didn’t object. Instead I forced my face to remain still and impassive with every rough pull and chafe even though my body tensed and winced in protest.

  I was expecting punishment for my crime of sending the children away. So far he had said nothing. He barely noticed their absence, but he did ask me about the unborn baby.

  ‘A girl. It was stillborn,’ I said.

  He grew strangely quiet at this information. His mouth drew into a sharp, stern line.

  ‘I see.’

  He tightened the ropes further and I couldn’t hold back a small whimper.

  ‘I’ve found a way to keep us together beyond death.’

  The mask of my face broke for a second. Terror lurched up from my heart to my throat and I could taste bile. What insanity was this?

  ‘Brother,’ I cajoled, ‘come... love me. That’s what you want, isn’t it?’

  My seductive voice failed to move him as he stood looking down at me. His eyes studied my blonde curls as they spilled over the straight lines of his hewn pentagram. He knelt again, lifting my head roughly as he pushed the stray hairs back and away, towards the nape of my neck. My hair felt like a velvet pillow but it tilted my head up at an unnatural angle. I watched as he stood, looking once more around my head. I realised he was ensuring that the lines of the pentagram were free from obstruction.

  Satisfied, he turned and stepped from the circle, backing away. His eyes gleamed as though on fire. I saw the excitement he was feeling in the quiver of his hands as he turned to his makeshift altar, a small wooden trunk covered in a red satin cloth. Glinting metal pieces were spread between a pair of black candles, which stood in two ornate gold holders he’d taken from the family chapel.

  I shivered, but not from the cold. Something akin to arousal rippled through me as he slowly removed his robe. His naked body pleased me; it always had. I licked my lips.

  Maybe if I show I am willing? Maybe then he won’t hurt me so much.

  I was tired of the pain he inflicted, tired of the torture, all in the name of his love for me. I was still weak from the birth of Isabella.

  My attention was drawn to his erect penis as he turned to me. The least of it all was the rape. That happened frequently enough for it not to hurt anymore. If you are constantly in a state of terror then fear becomes the norm. Caesare played at pagan rituals. He played at rousing Satan. This was just one more role-play to survive.

  I didn’t see the dagger until it was too late.

  He slashed down at my wrist. Sharp hot pain drew a gasp from my lips and my eyes glazed with shock. I lay numb, scared, as he slashed my other wrist.

  ‘Whaa...’

  ‘Don’t be afraid,’ his eyes were fierce now. Something feral lurked there, something I hadn’t noticed until now.

  My body trembled. Tears leaked through my tightly shut eyelids. Incoherent words poured from his lips as I felt my blood trickle slowly into the deep curves in the wood. The knife slashed again at my ankle, deep but not life threatening. I tried to scream but my mouth, throat and tongue wouldn’t work.

  The grooves filled with my blood as he chanted and I felt a strange surge of energy as though the pentagram circle was somehow channelling it. I was floating above myself looking down on my outstretched body, watching the blood seep from my limbs in a parody of the crucifixion. This was no Christian rite and certainly no Christian home despite outward appearances.

  The candle smoke turned red as the blood seeped around my head. Or did I imagine that change? Perhaps blood had leaked into my eyes. The air shuddered and fear soaked me with perspiration as I collapsed back into myself, once again fully aware of the pain in my body. My limbs throbbed dully. My neck hurt from the forced, uncomfortable position and I tried to turn it.

  Caesare’s voice, still chanting obscenities, boomed into my throbbing head in time with the steady pulse of my life’s blood. He lowered himself down, lying between my legs and took me. No thought or consideration to anything but his own pleasure. The fear had evaporated with my will. He wouldn’t let me die; he enjoyed hurting me too much.

  Let him play this game out and then tomorrow we will be the picture of propriety at the Sunday service.

  ‘My darling sister. I said you could never escape me.’

  My vision was dull as I opened my eyes to look at him. I’d heard this so many times, believed it. I would never be free of him, unless... His parted lips frightened me, though I couldn’t tell why. My eyes were too blurred. I blinked. Yes. I was sure now. He was different. His teeth glistened in the light and I saw that his canine teeth were extended, longer than usual, and that they tapered to long sharp points. They horrified me even more than the dagger he’d used to spill my blood.

  He began kissing my neck with a strange tenderness I hadn’t experienced since the days when I had been his willing lover. His lips sucked at my throat drawing strange gasping noises from my lips. Even in this situation
his touch was exciting. Nausea clenched my stomach pushing away the fleeting feeling of arousal. In some deep intellectual recess I knew that I was slowly bleeding to death. I quashed the thought as quickly as it surfaced because I didn’t want to fear it anymore. Death would be a welcome respite. Death would be freedom.

  ‘I made a pact,’ my brother whispered against my throat; his voice was distorted as my senses dulled. ‘I can make you one with me. You’ll pleasure me forever, sister. How would that suit you?’

  The sickness intensified. The horror of ‘forever’: my greatest fear realised. It wasn’t possible. He was insane, wasn’t he? He lifted above me. His hands had rested in the blood pooled at my wrists and he licked it from his fingers. And his teeth! They reminded me of the sharp points I had seen in the mouth of an ancient tiger brought to Rome by a visiting Mongol king.

  It’s a game. Just a game. As Caesare’s sharp, pointed teeth plunged into my throat he continued to ravish me. I knew without doubt that he had never said anything truer. Forever existed, forever was real. Forever was prison in the arms of my abusive, cruel brother.

  As I slipped once more into the black abyss of nothingness the idea of ‘death’ was a fervent prayer, a dream, an unattainable fantasy that would end all my suffering and give me the peace I deserved.

  Chapter 14 – Lucrezia’s Story

  Death Of An Innocent

  When I awoke I was back in my bed. The house was eerily quiet and I lay immobile, afraid to move. It was mid-morning. The light shone through the corner of my velvet drapes and as always my maid-servant, Lena, would not enter until summoned. Every morning she was afraid of what state she might find me in. I contemplated ringing the bell to call her but thought it best to examine myself first. It was an odd standard to have when I knew that all the servants were aware of exactly what had been happening to me at the hands of my brother. I had my pride, even when brought so low. I didn’t wish to see the pitying gaze in Lena’s eyes today. I didn’t wish to imagine the gossip that would occur later in the kitchen.

  I stretched in bed, testing my muscles gingerly. I expected pain but felt nothing but the satisfaction of the stretch. Before Caesare’s return I had been recuperating from Isabella’s birth. Now I felt intensely fit and strong again. Curious. I stood, expecting to be overcome with nausea brought on by the blood loss of the previous night. I felt well. The postnatal bleeding which had plagued me since the birth had also stopped. I glanced down at my naked body, expecting to see scabs and bruises. I examined my wrists, and saw to my astonishment no sign of the cuts that Caesare had inflicted on me. They had healed. No matter how closely I looked I couldn’t see even the slightest mark to indicate that they had been slashed. I felt better than I had in years.

  I began to think that maybe Caesare’s return had been a dream. I had been ill and feverish after the birth. It could have been some sort of crazy hallucination. Now I was well again and my fever broken. I breathed a sigh of relief and shuddering slightly, more from the memory of my nightmare than from the coolness of my chamber. As I crossed the room, I reached for my robe and pulled it on around my body, lifting my hair and dropping it down over the collar.

  I bent my head from side to side, stretched out my arms and legs, testing my limbs still further. I felt different, renewed. I caught sight of myself in the full-length dressing mirror and froze. My expression was a parody of exaggerated shock. Following the birth of my daughter I’d been weak and gaunt. The stress of a difficult birth and the months of abuse at my brother’s hands had left me emaciated and aged. However my cheekbones now held the full bloom of a woman years younger. My body had been changed and marked by pregnancy and yet I gazed down to discover a now flat belly showing through the open robe. All the stretch marks and sagging flesh had disappeared. My waist was small and tight, my breasts once again firm and pert. I fell to my knees.

  Sorcery. My hands flew to my mouth, stifling the scream that threatened to spill out. It couldn’t be true. It was impossible. I had finally lost my mind! Yet, as I let my hands drop, the full ripe lips that pouted back at me from the polished glass proved I was sane. I had been regenerated in some way. I was transformed. My eyes had been hazel, and now they were intensely green. My fair hair was now a whiter, more silver blonde. The curl that had become lank and thin with age and childbirth was now buoyant and full. My fingertips touched my face, following all its natural curves, confirming that the wrinkles around my eyes had disappeared along with the frown lines from my brow.

  I needed to think. It hadn’t been a dream after all. Caesare had performed some kind of magical ritual. I looked around the room. Where was he now? I checked Caesare’s room but it was empty. His trunks lay open ready to be unpacked by the servants. He was here, somewhere.

  ‘Oh my God!’ I crouched on the floor and wrapped my arms around my legs, rocking back and forth

  He would continue his control of me. Everything he had said came rushing back. Blood coloured my cheeks as panic surged into my head. My breath huffed and I gasped in mouthfuls of air, clawing at my throat in a subconscious reaction to suffocation.

  ‘Forever...’

  Caesare’s whispered promise echoed in my head along with the memory of his frenzied rutting. His gasping orgasm poured into me, as his words permeated my brain; which both possessed and stole a little more of my soul.

  ‘Oh my God. Oh no.’ I sobbed into my hands.

  It was all true.

  I staggered to my feet crying so hard I could barely see. I stumbled over to the dressing table, my blind fingers searching frantically. A jar of cream fell from the dresser and thudded to the floor. My fingers brushed a bottle of perfume, tipped it over, sending wafts of flowery scent up into the air. Then my fingers found the knife. Its sharp point pierced the tip of my finger. I ignored the momentary pain. I gripped the handle.

  ‘I wish I was dead...’

  It had to end. My death would help my children; what further claim could Caesare have on them thereafter? My death would absolve my husband of all guilt. My death would be the rightful ending to the sins I had committed. I had started this. It was my fault. After all I had once been willing in my carnal love for my own brother. Only I could finish it.

  ‘Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned...’

  I slashed down on my wrist. I felt the knife slice me, saw the blood well up and pour down my arms. I took the knife weakly in my other hand, and sawed at my other wrist. The knife was sharp and it cut through my fine flesh with little effort. My arm burned, I cried with the pain. Then because of shock, or maybe because my mind just couldn’t take anymore, I slipped into blessed blackness. I like to think that a smile curved across my lips as I slumped to the floor.

  At last I will know peace.

  ‘Lady. Oh my dearest lady,’ Lena stroked the back of my hand. ‘Please wake.’

  My eyes fluttered open to see my handmaid. She sponged my face with a cool damp cloth. Her dark brown eyes were wide with fear as she soothed my brow.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know. There was a lot of blood on the carpet, but you seem uninjured. You seem...’

  I lifted my arm. The wounds were gone. My heart pounded in terror; my chest heaving painfully. I closed my eyes and shut out the world once more.

  I roused slowly. A new calm flowed through my limbs. I felt relaxed, refreshed and strong, as though I’d had a long and restful sleep. Lena held my hand now. I watched her concerned expression change to wonder as I met her gaze. She scrutinised my face.

  ‘Duchess. You look wonderful.’

  Lena helped me stand, but I didn’t feel weak, just shaken.

  ‘I’m alive...’

  ‘Yes of course, Duchess.’

  I glanced down at the carpet and saw the blood just as the coppery smell hit me. I staggered against Lena. She led me to the bed, throwing back the covers. Pains wracked my stomach. I felt the nausea of intense hunger, a feeling I had rarely experienced. The smell that filled the
room, that soft metallic, salty odour, was the most desirable aroma I had ever experienced.

  ‘I feel... hungry.’

  ‘I’ll get you something. Please rest though, Duchess.’

  ‘It hurts!’

  I tried to stand, but Lena’s kind hands guided me back onto the bed. She swabbed my face once more. She thought I was feverish. The pains rolled through my body and I caught her hand in irritation. I pulled her closer with one small, very strong, movement. Her eyes widened.

  Under her skin I felt the ripple and beat of a ruby river. I looked at her skin. I could almost see the flow of blood through her blue veins. I breathed in; she smelt so good. There was an enticing odour around her. I rubbed my face against her arm, listened to the beat; a steady drumming that sped up at my touch. Instinct drove me. I bit her wrist.

  Blood gushed into my mouth. The ecstasy was orgasmic. Food, addiction, sexual attraction. Lena swooned in my arms as though I was her lover. I felt strong and invigorated. I pulled her lips to me, kissed her, leaving traces of blood all over her mouth; then trailed it down to her throat. I kissed her neck, suckling the vein that throbbed beneath her porcelain skin. Licked it. The veins under her skin shifted and swelled, as though the blood was drawn up to my mouth. She groaned in my arms. I turned her, pulled her over my body and reversed our positions. She lay beneath me on the bed as I nuzzled her neck and showered kisses all over her face and throat. I was the seducer, not the seduced. For the first time in my life I felt the supremacy of the sexual aggressor. I wanted her. It was eroticism. It was hunger. It was power. She moaned, thrashing beneath me. Hands clawing at the sheets as I kissed her. Two sharp needle-point teeth now protruded over my lip. I had my own phalluses. My gums ached and throbbed as my fangs extended farther. Growing, hardening, like a male member.