Page 30 of The Flesh Remembers
James clenched her hair in his fists and began to pump himself in and out of her mouth using those handfuls of hair as leverage. Eleanor felt his cock hit the back of her throat and she tried to pull back, but James held her firm, not allowing her to retreat. He bucked his hips upward forcing as much of his cock into her mouth as he could. Tears streamed down Eleanor’s face as she tried desperately not togag as the hard cock rammed into her throat again and again with a ferocity she had never known from James. For a moment he even seemed to revel in her discomfort for she could hear a strange laugh coming from him now as he again and again pumped his cock in and out of mouth.
Finally, when she felt she could stand no more, James relented and released her. Eleanor pulled back and gazed at him. Her eyes glazed with the unnatural desire that filled the room, and she knew she would offer him any part of herself. She was his to use, to take, to claim.
“I need to be inside you, my darling,” James moaned as his hands snaked around her neck and began to squeeze the air from her lungs.
“Yes, James!” Eleanor let out a strangled cry as the grip on her throat tightened. She wanted to be entirely devoured by him until there was nothing left. She had given herself up completely, and the only thing that mattered now was this moment, this union with James.
Eleanor lifted herself and straddled him, positioning James’s still rock-hard cock at her entrance. “Fill me, James. Fill me up and become one with me.” Eleanor could feel her arousal slipping out of her and down her thighs as the head of the cock slipped inside of her. The intense cold was like being speared with ice, hot and cold at once. Eleanor moaned loudly and began to move her hips rhythmically as she took more and more of him inside her until the burning, icy shaft was buried entirely within her wet heat.
James groaned, grabbing her hips with rough, bruising fingers, but Eleanor didn’t care. She didn’t care what happened to her at this point. All she cared about was this union, this needs to become one to release their shared passion. She began to ride him, her hands roaming over the cold plains of his pale chest as she found the right spot to bring her the most pleasure.
The room was dead silent as the others watched this unnatural union with a lustful awe and horrible fascination. But then Eleanor felt James’s tense below her, and she knew he was close to releasing himself inside her. Using her hand, she found her sweet spot and began to rub herself, her breath coming in quick pants. The orgasm washed over both of them together as if they shared one mind and body. It was more potent than anything she had ever felt. Her muscles contracted so powerfully that it almost caused pain, and both of them screamed out in a way that sounded like a perfect blend of pleasure and torment. Eleanor felt a flood of icy cold fill her, wave after wave, and she realized it was James’s seed. He was coming inside of her, but whereas once it had warmed her insides so sweetly, it now made her shiver from the cold that she thought might never leave her.
“Stay with me,” she whispered, tears streaking her face. “Don’t leave me again.”
James’s gaze locked onto hers, a flicker of humanity shimmering beneath the feral hunger. “I’ll stay,” he rasped, his voice trembling with a chilling finality. “Forever.”
Suddenly, the galvanic apparatus erupted in a blinding flare, arcs of electricity snapping violently and bathing the room in chaotic light. Then, all at once, the blaze vanished into suffocating darkness. James collapsed against Eleanor, his body convulsing as life clawed its way back into him.
The silence that followed was deafening. Staff members stood frozen, their faces etched with shock and something darker, anticipation, perhaps fear.
Eleanor cradled James in trembling arms, her tears streaking onto his lifeless, clammy skin. She had done the impossible. She had brought him back. But as her eyes searched his, she saw only a shadow, a faint, distorted remnant of the man she once loved. He was alive, but the hunger within him was devouring what remained.
A sickening realization flooded her; there was no undoing what she had unleashed. James belonged to her, but so too did the darkness he carried.
The room seemed to close in, and every face watched her like vultures circling prey. Marian stepped forward, her face tense, her hand extended as if to offer solace or something else entirely.
Eleanor knew she had reached the edge. And beyond it lay madness.
Excerpt from the diary of Dr. Eleanor Ashcroft
I hardly recognize myself anymore. I did things I once thought unimaginable tonight, which should have filled me with shame, yet I felt none. Instead, I craved it. Every debased act, every humiliating moment under their watchful eyes, was something I wanted. No, something I needed. It terrifies me to admit how much I enjoyed it.
What has become of me? Is this who I truly am, or has that wretched pendant Blackwood gave me hollowed me out and replaced me with someone or something else?
And James… my James. I’ve brought him back to this world, but at what cost? His presence is both my salvation and my damnation. When he looked at me with that flicker of humanity, I felt love and an unspeakable hunger mirrored in my own. Was it his hunger? Or mine? I can no longer tell.
This may be what Blackwood intended all along. He thinks he owns me now, that he has stripped me of my will and bent me to his purpose. But he’s wrong. I may have submitted to his ritual, but I will not be his pawn forever. I’ll endure whatever degradation is necessary to see James fully restored. And then… then I will make Blackwood regret ever underestimating me.
But for now, I feel trapped between what I’ve become and what I fear losing. James, my love, my soul. I’ve tied myself to him, and there’s no cutting that thread now. God help me; I don’t know if I even want to.
Dreams of the Grave
The storm outside lashed against the windows, its rhythm a distant echo of the feverish heartbeat that pounded in Eleanor’s ears. She had been utterly exhausted after the process of reigniting James’s lifeforce. Her body was bruised and aching all over from the experience, and she had collapsed entirely after the orgasmic shock had flooded both of them. Dr. Fairfax had assisted her back to her chamber to rest for a few hours while Blackwood prepared his followers for the next step in his dark rites. Though Eleanor was mentally and physically drained, she was as resolute as ever. She had not come this far to fail now.
Eleanor slept perhaps three hours, but it was a fitful sleep full of disturbing dreams. She dreamt of James, of course, but in the dream, instead of bringing her to intense pleasure, he seemed intent on taking her life from her. He choked herviolently and with unnatural strength until she could barely see, and then James dragged her prone body behind him as he shambled along into the night. This horrific nightmare version of James dragged her behind him until they reached an old cemetery. It was then that Eleanor saw where he was taking her. James stopped in front of his own open grave, the large hole where James had once slept now a yawning chasm into muddy darkness. Eleanor began to struggle against James's grip, trying in vain to pry his cold, ashen fingers from her throat. James let out a low rasping laugh at her pitiful attempts to free herself.
“This is where you belong, my darling,” James gurgled, his voice sounding as though his lungs were full of something thick and viscous.
“No! James, I love you! Please don’t do this!” The words were but a whisper from Eleanor’s blue-tinged lips, for James still had an iron grip upon her throat. But James merely laughed again and then tossed his lover into the deep grave with a jerk of his hand.
Eleanor screamed but fell at an unnaturally slow pace as if falling through water, drifting rather than falling. It felt as though time had stopped, and the depth of the grave seemed endless, and she fell and fell and fell. She clawed at the sides of the grave, her fingers sinking into the thick mud, and she noticed in horror that large, wet worms slithered out of the rivulets her fingers made in the dirt. Those disgusting things slithered down her hands and arms, slipping beneath the sleeves of her dress and burrowing ever deeper beneath the layers of her clothing. Eleanor cried out in unbearable disgust as she felt the slimy creatures writhing against her bare flesh. She could feel them beneath her undergarments now moving with a demented frenzy.
At last, Eleanor came to rest at the bottom of the impossible grave. The opening was so far above her head now that it was but the tiniest pinprick of light. Eleanor layin the muddy ruins of the grave that had once housed the body of the only man she had ever loved. She sobbed, her tears streaking through the dirt that encrusted her cheeks. As she cried, Eleanor began to hear a strange sound. It sounded like someone was digging. She could hear dirt being displaced again and again. At last, someone was going to save her!
“Eleanor,” came a faint whisper. The whispering increased until it was on all sides of her now. Many voices converged together, all whispering her name. Eleanor tried to move and somehow get away, but there was nowhere to go, and herlimbs felt so heavy like massive tree trunks that she could not even lift them.
Then a hand clasped around her right ankle. Eleanor looked down at her feet and saw that something had dug into the grave. A hole had formed in the side of the grave, and she could see a shadowy, pale figure emerging from the filthy hole.
