Addicted

by Charlotte Featherstone

  “Well, guv? How about it? A little pleasure, for a little opium?” The man—a boy, really—leaned forward and whispered, “I can give you mouth play. And from the looks of yer trousers, yev got something big beneath that fancy fabric.”

  Lindsay dropped the pipe to the ground. He stood and saw the boy’s eyes go wide and begin to shine. “I knew that’s what ye wanted, guv’ner. A strong man likes to have his cock mouthed from time to time, isn’t that right?”

  “Have it,” Lindsay growled and turned away to reach for his jacket.

  “What’s that, guv?”

  “You may have it. I’ll fix another.”

  Lindsay left his spot and motioned for Tran to set him up with another kit.

  “How about back room?” Tran motioned to a pair of crimson satin curtains with gold embroidered dragons. He had never gone to the back room, preferring the decadence of his own opulent den. Smoking with others had never been a priority to him. For so many, the company of other habitués is what drove people to the dens. For him, he had never wanted to be bothered by other people. It was the solitary moments of dreams and blissful surrender to the opium that seduced him.

  Tran parted the curtain, and Lindsay followed him through. It was another world. One of Eastern decadence. There was flesh everywhere, writhing and moving. Smoke tendrils rose and danced, curling along bodies. The scent of the alluring vapors drew him in.

  This is what he wanted. Escape. To run and never feel. The back of his brain throbbed with the need for opium. The smell of it had raised his pulse made his breathing harsh and short.

  A black-haired beauty, naked, walked toward him with her hand outstretched. “Come. I take care of you.”

  Blindly, Lindsay followed her, obeying the call of the opium.

  24

  “Vallery, go to bloody hell,” Lindsay snarled as he pressed his face into the pillow, trying to shut out the lights and sounds of life that surrounded him.

  “I’ve been there for the past three days, with you.”

  “That’s what I pay you for,” he grumbled. “Now get me another pipe. Please,” he added when he peered through his lashes and saw his valet scowling.

  “You’re killing yourself,” Vallery grunted beneath Lindsay’s weight as he rolled him onto his back.

  “Good. P’raps the memories will finally die, too.”

  “Listen to me,” Vallery spat, taking Lindsay’s face in his big, leathery hands and giving him a good shake. “You do not want to die. You might think so now, but you’ll regret it when the deed’s done.”

  “Not likely. I’ve other regrets I find more pressing, I’m afraid.”

  Vallery glared at him as he pulled him up from the pillows to stand. “I find your humor lacking, milord.”

  “Do you? I thought I was lightening the mood. It’s gotten rather morose in here, what with you constantly prophesizing about my bad end.”

  “What other end can come out of this?” Vallery snapped.

  “I’m not trying to do myself in, if that is what you’re insinuating. Good God, that’s far too dramatic for me. Besides, it reeks of a bad opera that one might see in Covent Garden. Tortured Aristocrat Turned Opium Fiend,” Lindsay drawled with a dramatic flare, “it’s like those Minerva novels my mother used to read, all melodrama and more hype than content.”

  “If you’re not trying to kill yourself, then what the bloody devil are you doing?”

  “Trying to survive, Vallery,” he murmured, “the only way I know how.”

  “I’ve never seen you in such a bad way with the opium before.”

  “That is because I’ve never used this much before. I believe this is what is meant by the downward spiral. I’m spinning in a vortex, Vallery, and it feels so bloody good. So good that I can’t stand to think about not having it.”

  “A truly disconcerting notion, milord.”

  Lindsay eyed his valet. “Did you ever just stand in the grass with your feet bare and the sun shining upon your face as you held your arms out wide and spun until you were so dizzy that you fell to the ground? And when you opened your eyes the blue sky was above you swirling, so, too, were the treetops and the clouds. And you would just lay there, watching the world go by in a pleasant twirl that made you smile. God, I remember such peace when I did that. And that, Vallery, is what the opium gives to me. Tranquility. A sense that everything is innocent and uncomplicated.”

  Lindsay smiled faintly, remembering those days of ease. There was no opium, no regrets, no betrayals between them. There had only been him and Anais. He had been much too old to keep spinning beneath the sun, but he kept indulging in the activity because Anais would laugh and squeal, and he would watch her, then she would tumble to the ground—on top of him—and he would lie beneath her, pretending to be watching the sky, when really, he watched her and felt his body come alive beneath her lush form. She had thought him a knight in shining armor, a slayer of dragons.

  Innocence and wonder. It was all lost now, save for the times when the opium ruled him. More and more, he allowed his mistress to govern his mind and body. He was dependent upon her to take the pain away. He needed her, not to die, but to live—or at the very least—exist.

  Gone was the shining knight, replaced with a tarnished dragon chaser.

  “You’re treading very deep and dangerous water, milord. You need to get yerself out of this.”

  “Never tell an addict what he needs, Vallery, unless it is to tell him he needs more of his fix,” he snapped, irritated with Vallery and his lack of understanding of just how much Lindsay needed the opium. Not just mentally, but physically, as well. “Which, by the way, is exactly what I need. Now get me my opium or sod off and find yourself another job. I can have a Chinaman in here to do the task faster than you can say yen-shee boy.”

  “You don’t need any more of that Shanghai poison. Now get cleaned up and clear yer head.”

  “How the bloody hell do you know what I need?”

  “I know you don’t need any more of that. You’ve been chasing the dragon for days.”

  “And I still haven’t caught him.”

  “Milord—”

  “Vallery.” Lindsay placed his hands on his valet’s wide shoulders and stared down at him. “I need more opium.”

  “No, you do not.”

  “The price of my mistress’s pleasure is a complete and utter rapture. She has my mind and now she rules my body. She is calling me forth, Vallery, and she’s a painful little bitch when she doesn’t get her way.”

  Vallery’s expression saddened. Lindsay looked away from it, not wanting to see his pitiful reflection in the dark brown gaze of his valet. “I feel ill, my friend. The effects of it are waning, and now I need more to feel good, to feel at least that my bones will stay within my skin and that my tremors will melt away. I need a little more. Just enough to take the edge away.”

  “Not now, milord. Lord Wallingford is here.”

  Lindsay shut his eyes and prayed for patience. In a few minutes the point would be moot, for he would be able to light his own spirit lamp, and heat the black gum on the silver needle. He could fix his own pipe, like he normally did. He did not know when it was that he had started to need Vallery to sit with him and fix his pipe so he had a steady supply of smoke.

  “Did you hear me, milord? Lord Wallingford is here.”

  “I heard you.”’

  So Wallingford was still around, was he? Lindsay had done his damndest to turn his longtime friend away. Pity was something he abhorred. He didn’t want anyone’s trifling pity. He didn’t want any speeches, or bloody heroics or cajoling demands to clean himself up. All he desired was a well-seasoned pipe, a never-ending supply of red smoke, and to drift off to the heavens where he didn’t have to think or feel anymore. And Christ above, he didn’t want an audience as he did it.

  “It was Wallingford who helped me get you out of that rat hole in order to bring you home.”

  “He needn’t have bothered,” Lindsay groane
d. Scrubbing his face with shaking hands, Lindsay eyed the bamboo pipe with the jade inlay handle. His brain was throbbing, firing in pulsations that screamed, I need opium—now.

  “That hedonistic den will be the death of you.”

  “As far as opium dens go, Tran’s is a virtual paradise. Have you not seen the pleasure to be found beyond those crimson-colored curtains? What a Garden of Eden. You can smoke, be fucked by an Asian whore and robbed while you idle away the hours in a fog, although I do not partake of the whores. The pickpockets, I cannot say.”

  “I don’t let anyone near you,” Vallery said, “even though the women want you enough. Found one climbing on top of you the other night, her greedy little hands were in your pockets, and it wasn’t a six pence she was looking for.”

  “Really?” How disturbing. He didn’t remember a blasted thing. But then, that was the point of smoking until he passed out—nothingness. Numbness. Had he been aware of her, he doubted he would have been able to rise to the occasion. He had never been one for whores.

  Still, after all this time and everything that had happened, there was only one woman he wanted crawling all over him, and that was Anais. God help him, he was a reprobate, but he could not stop thinking of how damn exciting it would be to be high on opium while he fucked her. Oh, yes, it would be beautiful to take her like that, endless hours of loving her body. Smoking and stroking, his body on top of hers, hers on top of his. His hips moving slowly at first, then with determined strokes. What a beautiful rhapsody it could be watching her back arch, seeing her expression as she came for him. She would look utterly stunning coming and shivering as he watched her through the smoky vapors that would curl around them like a gossamer cocoon.

  Christ, he needed another hit of the pipe. He was beginning to feel, to experience the thaw around his heart, the heart that still beat with the faintest glimmer of hope that one day things might be like they once were.

  “Lord Wallingford brings a letter from Lady Anais. She is in the district once again. Home from her aunt’s.”

  Lindsay froze. It had been weeks since he had seen Anais. No, that wasn’t entirely correct. He saw her every night in his opium-fueled dreams. She was a vision, a fantasy come to life amongst the curling smoke. His dreams were all he had now. The opium was all he had.

  How dramatic his fall had been. To sink so low. To actually physically tremble with the need to take his pipe in hand and obliterate himself in a haze of vignettes that involved Anais and him, and a physical joining that could never be.

  “No doubt she is staying at The Lodge with Broughton and his family?” he asked, venom dripping in his voice.

  “I do not know, milord. Lord Wallingford has the news.”

  “Tell him I don’t want it. Send him away, Vallery.”

  “I’m not going anywhere, old boy.”

  Lindsay whirled around and saw Wallingford standing before him, holding a letter out to him. “Drop the missive and leave. I’m busy.”

  “Busy doing what? Sinking deeper into an addiction that will leave you broken?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes.”

  Wallingford shook his head. Lindsay saw disgust in his eyes. “I can’t stand to see you destroy yourself like this.”

  “Then don’t watch.”

  “Damn you, Raeburn, you selfish bastard!”

  Lindsay blinked, startled by the outrage he heard. “If you came here to preach about the opium, you can save your breath. I’m not giving it up. Ours is an equitable love affair, my friend. I understand her and she understands me.”

  “And no else does, is that it?”

  “That is correct.”

  “What do you think Anais would do if she saw you like this?”

  “She won’t, will she? She’s gone. It’s over.”

  “It doesn’t have to be.”

  “Piss off, Wallingford. You don’t know anything about what passed between us. Stick to your absinthe and leave me the hell alone.”

  “I’ve been by your side in that godforsaken den, Raeburn. I’ve watched as women have crawled over to you, desiring you, their hands all over your body. And all you care about is the pipe. You don’t even glance at them. There is only one woman you see. One woman whom your body will come alive for. It’s not over.”

  “If I could get hard,” he sneered, “I’d have an orgy with those women, but the opium—my mistress—doesn’t allow for fornication with others. That is the cost of being her disciple.”

  That wasn’t true. He could still get aroused. And while he hadn’t been physically aware of the whores in the den, he’d been aware of the sexual desire in his blood. But only one woman could fulfill those needs, however much Lindsay hated to admit it.

  There had been one night, however, right after he had left Anais, with a beautiful Asian woman at Tran’s. She had been delightfully curved and seductively naked. Her long black hair had skated over his naked chest as she lowered herself down the length of his body. He’d been so high from the opium, flying above the clouds, waiting to feel her mouth on his cock.

  It wouldn’t get hard.

  “It’s no good, darling,” he had said, pulling her away from him. “He knows what he wants, and as lovely as you are, you aren’t what he needs.”

  He had cried then. He was completely ruined. Physically. Mentally. Spiritually.

  He hadn’t bothered with the women at the opium dens after that. Instead, he concentrated on his visions of Anais and pleasured himself in the temporal plane while the physical plane withered away.

  “You truly are beyond help now, aren’t you? You’re lost to it. You’ve let it beat you.”

  “If I wanted to hear a goddamned sermon, I would go to church,” Lindsay snarled as he turned back to the silver tray that housed his elaborate opium spread.

  “That, Raeburn, is precisely where you are going.”

  “What the devil do you mean?”

  Wallingford broke the wax seal and opened the letter before handing it to him. “I promised Anais I would make certain you read this. Now, read it and get yourself into some semblance of shape. Smoke whatever you’re going to need to sit through an hour of church, and don’t argue with me any further.”

  Lindsay looked at his friend with raised brows. “You think communion and prayers for redemption are going to save me now?”

  Wallingford snorted, “I don’t know what the hell will save you, Raeburn. I don’t know what can open your eyes to the life surrounding you. I just pray that when we find it, it is not too late.”

  “De Quincey was in his late teens when he started using opium, he lived to be seventy. I have a few years yet. It’s a bit premature to be picking out my casket and tombstone.”

  “Confessions of an English Opium Eater,” Wallingford said with a shake of his head. “De Quincey’s great claim to fame, other than his opium habit. I hope you don’t think that book an exemplary way of life. He struggled with that addiction his entire life, Raeburn. Is that really what you want, to live your life like this day in and day out?”

  Lindsay looked up from Anais’s letter. “Do you want the truth?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then, yes. Yes, this is how I want to live. Not feeling a damn thing. Not caring about anyone or anything. Now, leave me alone. I need two pipes before I can even think of getting dressed.”

  Slamming the carriage door shut, the cracking sound echoed through the crisp morning air. Lindsay sprawled out on the velvet bench, his gloved hand curling into a fist as it lay upon his lap. His gaze stayed transfixed on the snow that was slowly beginning to melt. Occasionally, he would see the lure of green beneath the white stuff, teasing him with the idea that spring and warmth were not too far away. The naked branches, which a fortnight ago bowed with the weight of ice and snow, were now upright. He could see the faintest beginnings of leaf buds swelling along the wooden stalks. Soon the vale would be in bloom. Everything would be green and alive—full of wonder and life. He half wondered if he would l
ive to see it.

  The carriage wheels rolled along the roads, which were thawing and filling with mud and snowy slush. Soon they would be traveling over the bridge that crossed the Severn River, bringing them to the village.

  “When was the last time you slept?”

  “I sleep every night.”

  “Without the opium drugging you.”

  Lindsay did not glance at his traveling companion and instead kept his gaze on the scenery outside the carriage window. When was the last time he had slept the night through, and without opium? The night he’d slept with Anais, in his bed. They’d made love. Passionate, beautiful love.

  “You look like hell, you know,” Wallingford mumbled as he reached inside his jacket for a cheroot.

  “I’m fine.”

  He saw the bridge directly ahead and mentally calculated how many minutes he had left before he found himself in church, suffering through a ceremony he had no wish to witness. Bloody hell, why had he even bothered to read the letter from Anais?

  “You don’t look fine to me,” Wallingford said between a cloud of smoke. “You look as if you have not slept in weeks. You’re gaunt. When was the last meal you took?”

  He rounded on Wallingford who sat opposite him, leisurely enjoying his smoke. Wallingford’s fathomless eyes studied him intently from beneath the rim of his beaver hat and Lindsay had the irrational urge to plant a punch on Wallingford’s handsome visage. “I don’t want to hear another word! Do you understand? I’m fine!”

  “If you say so,” he shrugged. “But you are only lying to yourself. Any fool with eyes can see that you are not.” Wallingford exhaled, blowing a cloud of smoke between them. “Perhaps it is not wise for you to go to this…this service, after all. I might have erred, insisting you go.”

  “I must,” he whispered, averting his gaze so he was once again seeing beyond the glass to the outside.

  “Why must you? Because Anais will be there?”

  “It is personal.”

  “Why is this particular Sunday so damn important? Why, when you have not stepped foot in a religious house since you arrived back in England?”