Page 29 of The Flesh Remembers
Excerpt from the diary of Dr. Eleanor Ashcroft
My lust for James is overwhelming, far greater than anything I felt when he was alive. It’s as if the air here is charged with a manic passion, pulling me under. I can’t explain it, but I know it’s not entirely my own. The pendant Blackwood gave me feels like a conduit, amplifying these dark emotions—lust, guilt, and desire—until they consume me. Its silver symbol seems to focus everything back into me, twisting my thoughts and my will.
I can’t ignore the possibility that Blackwood is controlling it all, manipulating me through this cursed object. He sees me as nothing more than a pawn in his game, a tool to achieve his ends. But I won’t let him win. I’ll endure his schemes until James is fully restored, and then we’ll leave this place forever.
Still, a part of me wonders, are these feelings truly mine? Is the pendant merely revealing what I’ve buried deep within myself? The thought terrifies me. If this is who I am, what I want, then perhaps Blackwood isn’t the only one I should fear.
But I can’t falter now. James needs me, and I need him. Whatever it takes, I’ll see this through. And when it’s over, I’ll reclaim my life, choices, and freedom.
Science and Depravity
Eleanor gasped as his lips found her neck, his teeth grazing her skin in a way that sent a shiver down her spine. The boundary between love and possession blurred as his touch grew more insistent, his movements charged with an unsettling need.
The silver disk at her throat flared with light, vibrating in time with the crackle of the galvanic apparatus. Sparks rained down around them, illuminating the twisted carvings on the dais, figures writhing in ecstasy and agony, their expressions frozen in time.
Dr. Fairfax turned away, his face pale. “This… this isn’t science,” he muttered, his voice shaking. “It’s depravity.” Though he wanted success and had dreamed of it for years, hecould not hide his disgust at the graphic sexuality now on display right in front of him.
Marian remained rooted in place, her lips parted as she watched the scene unfold. Her clipboard slipped from her grasp, clattering to the floor. She flinched but didn’t pick it up, her eyes fixed on James’s hands as they moved across Eleanor’s body. The look in her eyes was a mixture of fear and longing as she tried unsuccessfully to quiet the sound of her rapid breath. She did not want to expose her lust to Dr. Fairfax. She didn’t want him to see her that way.
Frye’s face twisted in disgust. “This is filth,” Frye snarled, lunging toward the apparatus. “If we don’t cut this off now, he’ll rip her apart and drag himself down to hell with her.”
But Blackwood blocked his path, his expression calm and commanding. “You will not interfere,” he said coldly. “They are forging the bond that will stabilize him. If you disrupt this now, you’ll doom the entire experiment.”
Frye hesitated, his fists tightening. “He’s bloody feeding on her!”
Frye looked imploringly at Eleanor, his eyes softening momentarily as he called to her. “Eleanor, you don’t have to do this. You can still leave and save yourself.”
Eleanor felt a tremor of hesitation, even admiration for Frye at that moment, but looking back down at James, she knew she could not leave, no matter what the result.
Blackwood smiled faintly. “Perhaps corruption is the price of creation.”
James’s movements grew more frenzied, his breathing a mix of growls and gasps. His arousal was undeniable, an obscene blend of love and feral hunger that radiated from himlike heat. The galvanic coils surged, their energy crackling in wild arcs, making the air hum with electricity.
Eleanor cried out, her body throbbing as the sensations overwhelmed her. The coldness of James’s touch, the intensity of his gaze, the raw need in his movements, all of it blurred together into a storm of ecstasy and agony.
James roughly pulled at Eleanor’s black velvet dressing gown. He seemed desperate to touch her flesh, but not just to touch, he needed to bruise, to hurt. It was a brutal love that he was giving her, and yet Eleanor could not deny him. This man was her love, the man she had sold her soul to bring back, and she would not stop now. She could not.
James’s rough, cold fingers ripped at the fabric frenziedly, desperate to expose the white flesh beneath. Eleanor slipped her arms out of the fabric and shed the ragged remains of the dressing gown. She was nude beneath, and her body seemed to almost glow with an eerie, unnatural light as she gave herself over to this one final act that she hoped would cement her lover’s return. They had to become one. They would become one.
James let out a garbled moan at the sight of Eleanor’s white flesh. His black tinged fingers reached up and cupped her breasts. The ragged, yellowed nails scraped against her flesh hard enough to leave pale red scratches along her skin, but Eleanor paid them no mind.
“Yes, James, take me, take what you need from me.” Eleanor closed her eyes and leaned closer to her reanimated lover. She lifted one of her breasts in her hands and brought it to James’ lips, slipping her pale pink nipple into his cold mouth. She shivered at the feeling of his icy tongue as it began to lap at her nipple. He was so cold, so unnaturally cold. Still, as he continued to touch and taste her, Eleanor felt the familiar burning passion return to her, and the wild, feral feeling of losing control bubbled up to the surface.
James’s bit down on her rough nipple, causing Eleanor to cry out in a mixture of pain and intense pleasure. She wanted it, right or wrong, her salvation or damnation; she wanted this done. She opened her eyes to look down into those of James. Where once they had been the blue of a cloudless summer sky, they were now a much paler, milky blue, the edges rimmed with red bloodshot veins. He was a horror, it was true, but she loved him. She wanted him. She would always want him.
James raised his head from her breast and smiled at her, her blood staining his lips and teeth from where he had bitten her. James pulled her down to him and kissed her wildly, his lips devouring her own with the ferocity of an animal. The coppery taste of her blood filled her mouth as James pushed his tongue inside. His cold hands snaked up to her hair and began to grab fistfuls of it, pulling harder and harder as he groaned into her mouth.
“Take me in your mouth, my darling,” James moaned as he pulled back from her, pushing her back. “I need to feel your warmth.”
Eleanor slipped back down between James’s legs, and the evidence of his unnatural arousal was before her. His erection was thick and stiff but pale. His cock throbbed and jerked as James took it in one hand and grabbed Eleanor by the throat with the other and pulled her closer to it.
“Take me in your mouth, Eleanor. Let me feel your mouth's sweet, warm wetness once more.”
Eleanor gazed down in a lustful haze at the visage of the man she had loved so much. Whatever repulsion she might have felt faded as she saw the sweet and gentle man he had been, still somewhere within the ravaged corpse before her.
“Yes, my love, anything you desire.” Eleanor smiled down at him, completely entranced now, seeing only her golden-haired lover lying beneath the branches of that oak tree where they had first made love that summer afternoon.
Eleanor bent forward and took the icy head of his cock into her mouth. It slipped between her soft lips, and James gave a rasping cry. His rock-hard cock was smooth and cold and slipped so easily between her lips. Her tongue ran up and down the shaft, and she thought only of the pleasure she was bringing him.
