Defiled Earth and other tales Read online

  “Lick it off my fingers.” It was both an invitation and a demand. My eyes closed and I feasted like an Olympian god.

  ~ ~ ~

  The week happened to straddle the midsummer solstice and I was caught in a twelfth night madness that swept away any sense of propriety. You will no doubt wonder if I was, at this stage, hopelessly in love with this most sublime of creatures. Having had my fair share of dalliances with the fairer sex over the years, I was not a stranger to that ‘disquiet of the heart’ which the romantics speak of. There were echoes of this with Cyprian, true, but as the mornings blended into afternoons and the afternoons into nights I could only describe my actions and words as a form of adoration, of worship. I think she knew this too. In those rare moments I found myself apart from her I wondered—has she performed this role with others before me? Mandrake said her kind were guileful.

  One thing was certain—I was hopelessly besotted.

  One evening, after dinner (I cannot remember which evening, as the days merged one into another) I took Cyprian to the rooftop terrace. It was a perfect night, the stars seeming to hang from the dark vault of heaven. I showed her the Plough, Orion’s belt and the Seven Sisters, all displaying their glory as if only for us. I delighted in picking out all the major constellations for her like a modern day Gallileo.

  “Are the stars the same in Neverwhere?” I asked.

  “They are more blue than white,” she replied and took my hand. It had become a natural gesture, neither offered nor invited—just accepted. “They maketh different patterns in that world. Our lion constellation holdeth many more sons, and there is no north star to guide our way, but our kind doth worship them. We prayeth for clear nights in which to hunt. When the air stills we heareth and feeleth with the senses of an owl—and we are equally silent.”

  Her eyes were no longer white as she said this. They were pools of oily darkness. Voids displayed in the light of the full moon. I felt a tingling sensation ripple across my skin. A warning or preternatural reaction I couldn’t tell. But I covered it in a blanket of denial.

  “My Lord – “

  “Please. I keep telling you. Call me Charles. I find it hard to think of you as my servant or my ... what did Mandrake call you?”

  “A familiar.”

  “Well, that’s nonsense seeing as I’m not a necromancer or any such thing.”

  “And yet thou hast charms.” She turned to look back at the moon. “I confess that thou hast enchanted me, Charles. My tongue darest not speak of such a thing as I know it is forbidden, yet ....”

  “You don’t need to explain.” I circled my arms round her waist and smelled the rich fragrance of her hair, like heather in a moorland breeze.

  “But we are of different kinds,” she said, “and Mandrake’s contract ...”

  Two competing forces grappled inside—love and reason, Dionysius and Apollo. And as she turned to face me once again, I knew which would be triumphant this night.

  “You know,” I said, “Mandrake’s contract is the furthest thing from my mind at the moment.” I brushed aside a wisp of hair from her face, looked into her once more snow-white eyes, and pressed my lips against hers.

  ~ ~ ~

  It happened in the Viscount room. That moment when the rope is tossed overboard and the swells of desire sweep ships of fools out to an open sea.

  There was a hunger in both of us. Mine, the raw passion of a red-blooded male; hers a voracious appetite for union and all it would bring. For a moment, our eyes met and I felt her gaze probing me. Then, as if an unspoken invitation had been given and received, I pulled her towards me, feeling her soft breasts yield against my chest. She took my mouth with a violence that left my senses reeling. Every nerve was sensitised to her explorations as she ran her fingers through the hair on my chest and sent her tongue searching into the deep recesses of my mouth.

  She pushed me onto the bed, panting like an animal, climbing on top of me, tearing my shirt and trousers away with fingers strong as talons. I held on to a vestige of practicality and reached across to the bedside table for a condom. She didn’t take this well when I tried to explain; even attempting to snatch it away. But I kept my resolve, pulling her forward again and allowing the silky weight of her hair to slide over her shoulders onto my face. She kissed me with a punishing sweetness as I felt the sudden perspiration on her back and between her breasts.

  “Let me just put this on,” I said, fumbling to open the foil packet that stubbornly resisted any attempt to tear it open.

  “I want you,” she said, and her eyes glazed over with that inky blackness I had witnessed before. Either through fear or lust, I rolled her over, vaguely aware that the tatters of my clothes had fallen away. I watched as a scratch on my chest dripped blood onto her ivory skin. She ran her finger through it, licked off the crimson liquid and closed her eyes in ecstasy. I felt rather than heard a low rumble in her throat like that of a panther and an icy finger of fear ran down my spine.

  She seemed to sense this and said “Fear not. Thou art my lover, not my prey.” Trembling arms chose to give way at that moment and my naked chest melded to hers once more. I could feel her heart, like thunder pounding against mine. I tried to shake off the notion that I was her plaything, counting out my last seconds to the time of my arteries’ pulse.

  In a comforting movement, she placed my hand on her breast and I found myself exploring its soft curves.

  I lowered my lips onto the taut dusky-pink nipple and caressed it with the tip of my tongue. She released a gasp of pleasure and I found my ardour returning.

  I meandered down her belly, tasting the musky residue as I was drawn inexorably toward her downy delta. My tongue moved inside her with strong, impelling strokes and she began to writhe, her husky cries raising my temperature still further.

  I couldn’t stand it any more. I felt her legs fall willingly apart to receive me as I climbed on top for the grand finale of our dance. She moulded herself to me as I began my steady thrusts of possession. Her body understood my rhythm as her back arched, hips moving with mine until the earth fell away, taking me to a place of rapture, utterly consumed.

  I opened my eyes to look into hers. The feral darkness had gone, replaced by the tender, innocent look of a child.

  After a long time; time spent listening to her heartbeat; time lost and gained simply bathing in her essence, I rose to go to the bathroom. I looked down at my spent manhood, but couldn’t see its protective sheath.

  “Art thou looking for this?” she said, holding up the empty, pink envelope.

  Chapter 4

  I awoke late next morning, the melody of the Electric Light Orchestra’s Evil Woman turning over repeatedly in my head like a tape loop.

  Cyprian and I had engaged in a fruitless to and fro until the early hours of the morning, picking over each other’s bruised and mistrustful egos with the relentless fingers of recrimination. I tried to establish a meeting of minds, an agreement accepting the premise that our partnership, however defined, could not be based on one person using the other.

  This she couldn’t comprehend. It was as if there was a blind spot in her code of ethics, an amoral stance that viewed shared respect as an irrelevance. Grasping the nexus of this problem and presenting it to her was like trying to hold on to a freshly-caught fish with hands dipped in oil.

  In the end, I retired to my room, exhausted.

  Now, in the kitchen, with Cyprian nowhere to be seen, I tried to assemble my jumbled thoughts.

  It was no good. There were too many conflicting emotions and unanswered questions. Was I simply a pawn, used in a game where victory was marked by the conception of a child destined for consumption? Had she, even now, taken her leave and dissolved into the morning, seeking out a new sanctuary in which to hide? And what would Mandrake say if he found out?

  I switched the coffee machine on and left it brewing while I went to check her room.

  The bed had been slept in but C
yprian was absent. I called out on the landing, checked every room on the first floor and scoured the ground floor too.

  No sign of her.

  My stomach flipped several times before I quelled the rising panic and told myself to think rationally. She may have risen late too, gone to seek food in the woods.

  I threw on some jeans and a t-shirt and ran outside, calling as I went.

  I found her at the bottom of the garden, sitting by the fountain. She was holding a rose, plucking at its petals, one by one, then throwing them into the bubbling pool.

  “There you are,” I said. “I was scared you might have ... that maybe you’d –”

  “I cannot leave thy domain,” she replied without looking up. “My bond with thee is unbreakable. Even if I wanted to leave, there would be consequences if I tried.”

  “What kind of consequences?”

  “No matter, thou wouldest not comprehend. It is something that only Lamia knoweth.”

  I folded my arms and absently swept lumps of gravel off the slabs with my foot.

  “We need to talk about what happened last night,” I said finally.

  “If thou art concerned that I am with child, then thou canst throw thy worries aside.”

  Was this more subterfuge? I dared not embrace the brightening ray of hope this awakened. “How could you possibly know?”

  Cyprian looked up, the sun’s morning glory lighting up her pale face. Two lone tears adorned her cheek, like finest diamonds. “We sense the heat of our prey in the forest, the scent of our kindred on the breeze. It is a small thing to know the cycles and inner shifts of our bodies.”

  I wanted this to be the truth, but it seemed too easy a change of circumstance. “If you had conceived. Given birth. What then? What would have become of your ... our child?”

  She had stripped the rose bare. All that remained were the calyx and stem; these she discarded into the fountain’s waters. “I knowest thou wilt not accept this. But our children are more precious to us than thou couldst imagine. The Lamia are born to pain, rejection and humiliation. To taste of our offspring’s flesh, to absorb their essence, is a great sacrament, holy to our kind. We are thus sustained through the vale of tears, and they are spared this cruel journey.”

  “This is too hard,” I said. “If being true to your nature means this, then I cannot see a future for us.”

  “I heareth thy words and knowest that this is grievous to you. It was not my intent. Doest thou believeth me this much?”

  “I need time to think,” I said, and walked with leaden steps back to the house.

  ~ ~ ~

  I stared at the phone. Mandrake’s number was in front of me. I reached for the receiver when it came to life with a shrill alarm. I jumped with shock, then, once recovered, wearily lifted the receiver. I heard Oscar’s plummy voice at the other end. “Charles, you old woman’s blouse,” he said. “Where in God’s name have you been hiding this last week? We all thought you’d taken a trip abroad. Even your staff weren’t answering the phone.”

  “Ah, Oscar. I’ve been a bit tied up.”

  “Is it to do with your visit to Mandrake’s?”

  I contemplated spinning him a yarn, but I was too emotionally drained to weave such a deceit. “Yes, I -”

  “Did you buy one of his ... monsters?”

  “I did, but Oscar, you can’t really call them -”

  “When can we see it?” If Oscar had been any more effervescent he would have bubbled through the earpiece. “I can’t wait until Tuesday night. What say I round up the boys and we pop over after tea?”

  “That’s not -”

  “Excellent. It’s decided then. We’ll be round at sixish. Get your best brandy out, there’s a good chap.” He hung up, leaving me looking at the receiver as if it had turned into a rubber bone.

  ~ ~ ~

  Mrs Halfin usually prepared nibbles and bites for my soirees, but, with her being away, I had to put on the small spread myself. Cyprian helped, but I was halfway through cutting the crusts off some prawn and scallop sandwiches when I changed my mind.

  “Sod it. Why should I be so hospitable? Clear it all away, Cyprian.”

  To be frank, I hoped against hope they wouldn’t stay long. I wasn’t in the mood for socialising and felt awkward about how to present Cyprian. I reflected on this mood. It wasn’t like me. My whole motivation initially, was to acquire oddities in a collection to impress the very friends I wished would now leave me alone.

  “Thou art vexed, My Lord.”

  She’d adopted her subservient language again.

  Vexed wasn’t the word. Frustrated, bewildered, impotent maybe. My emotions were compounding and conspired to give me a headache.

  “I’m going to lie down,” I said. “Wake me up when they arrive.”

  “As you wish, my Lord.”

  Before slumping onto my bed, I double-dosed on paracetamol and ibuprofen to damp down the pain threatening to crack my skull open.

  I don’t know when I dozed off, but a knock at the door brought me round far too early. I opened my eyes and felt immediately unsettled in the darkened room.

  It was Devonshire. “Rise and shine,” he said, holding out a balloon of brandy. “The party’s in full swing and here you are dozing like a dormouse.”

  I ran a hand through my hair and looked at my watch. “Christ, it’s seven o’clock. I told Cyprian to wake me.”

  “We convinced her to let you be, old chap.”

  “So, you’ve met her?”

  “Indeed I have, and a dazzling little beauty she is too.”

  I took the brandy from him and swallowed a gulp. “This isn’t good at all.”

  “What isn’t?”

  “Her having to introduce herself. I wanted to present her in a controlled environment. Is everyone alright?”

  “Why of course, you numpty. What did you expect her to do, bite our heads off?”

  I saw her again in my mind’s eye, scaling a hundred foot pine tree, her eyes turning crow-black. Devonshire wasn’t going to understand my unease. “No, of course not,” I said.

  “There you go then. We’re all having a game of snooker and she’s quite a natural. Come on down and join in the fun.”

  “Devonshire?” He turned back to face me. “Promise me you won’t breathe a word of her existence to anyone outside this house.”

  His mouth turned down in puzzlement. “But I thought she was the first in a collection you were prepared to show to the world.”

  “My aspirations have … changed. Tell the others they have to keep schtum too.”

  “OK, you’re the boss.”

  I followed him out, thinking how dare they enjoy themselves in my absence; then reproved myself for allowing resentment to build.

  In the games room, Cyprian was just finishing off a frame. I watched her lean across the table expertly and sink the black in the corner pocket with a satisfying click. She rose to her full height again, dwarfing even Geoff, who stood at least six foot two. An endearing, crooked smile was painted on her face. She looked triumphant.

  “Well box me backwards with a bratwurst,” said Oscar. “Are you sure you’ve never played before, my darling?”

  “I learneth quickly,” she said, stealing a glance at me. “Hast thou rested well, my Lord?”

  “Yes,” was my curt reply.

  There followed an awkward silence, finally broken by Oscar. “Your, erm … newest resident has been quite the charming hostess. I congratulate you on your impeccable taste.” He raised his brandy in a toast of sorts and knocked it back in one. “Do you fancy a match, Charles? We’ve been playing two a team, but I can sit this one out and referee if you like.”

  “Whatever,” I said.

  Oscar lined up the balls with the triangle while Geoffrey won the toss and decided to break. Devonshire sidled up to me, whispering “She’s incredible, Charles. A veritable amazon. I must admit I was put off with the unusual eyes
at first, but they sort of add to her charm. Now I know why you wanted to keep her under wraps.”

  I swallowed a generous mouthful from my glass. “Yes, I’ve been very fortunate.”

  “So, she’s what kind of creature?”

  “A species called the Lamia.”

  “I was expecting to witness one of your climb-downs where you give us excuses about late delivery, or lost interest or something. But you’ve actually pulled this one off. I keep pinching myself like I’m dreaming. Monsters really do exist.”

  “She’s not a monster!”

  Oscar’s face dropped. I picked up my snooker cue and walked away, leaving him chastened.

  I was teamed up with Geoffrey. Devonshire partnered with Cyprian. Geoffrey hit a lucky streak and potted a couple of reds from his break, together with some high-scoring colours. However, his luck drained out when he narrowly missed a side-pocket on his fourth shot. Devonshire sent the cue ball to the top end, playing safe. He needn’t have worried. My mind wasn’t on the game and I scattered the balls ineptly on my turn.

  It was Cyprian’s turn to play. Oscar leaned over to give her some advice, pointing to the surface of the nearest red. “If you tip it in the middle pocket, it’ll set you up for the blue,” he said. “Nice and gentle though.”

  Cyprian gave him a reserved look and knelt down to view the possible trajectory that Oscar had suggested. She shook her head and circled round to the other side of the table. She seemed satisfied with her position and aimed the cue ball at a side cushion.

  “What’s she playing at?” said Geoffrey to me, whispering so as not to distract play. “She’ll not sink anything from that position, she may even go in-off.”

  All conversation stopped as Cyprian leaned over to take her shot. Her hair did little to hide her breasts. Oscar took a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his brow. The surreal thought crossed my mind that if Mandrake’s words were true, then my friends were each seeing a different, but equally intoxicating vision of matchless beauty.