Page 66 of The Flesh Remembers
The stillness of morning did not last. The scent of wilted blossoms and sweat lingered in the air, the memory of unrestrained ecstasy still imprinted upon the ground. But as the golden glow of dawn stretched across the clinic’s ruined gardens, an intrusion disrupted the uneasy peace.
City officials arrived in force, uniformed officers accompanied by men and women in long coats, their expressions a mixture of scepticism and barely contained revulsion. They had heard the rumours: whispers of impossible flora, of bodies entwined in unnatural rapture, of the fevered aftermath of an orgiastic rite that had shattered the limits of human pleasure and pain. What they found was worse than anything they could have imagined.
The survivors of the night’s ceremony still wandered through the overgrown ruins, their eyes unfocused, their bodies trembling with the aftershocks of the ritual’s lingering grip. Some curled into each other, unable or unwilling to part, their limbs entwined with what remained of the sentient vines. Others lay on the ground, murmuring incoherent prayers, their skin still glowing faintly with the traces of necromantic pleasure. Some watched the newcomers with languid, knowing smiles, their lips still parted in moans, their fingers lazily exploring their transformed bodies as if unable to stop indulging in their newfound hunger.
The officers hesitated, uncertain whether they had stepped into a scene of devastation or divinity. The air itself was charged, thick with something unspeakable, and despite their training, some felt an undeniable pull, a whispering promise of sensation beyond mortal comprehension.
Then one of the cultists stepped forward.
She was beautiful in a way that defied nature, her skin luminescent, her breath slow and measured. She smiled, a dreamy, sultry thing, as she approached the nearest official. "You don’t need to fight it," she whispered, her voice curling around his resistance like one of the creeping vines. "You’ve come this far. Why not taste it?"
He staggered back, but others were not as strong. Some officers found themselves drawn toward the remaining cultists, their gazes growing distant, their bodies leaning forward, caught between duty and the raw, overwhelming hunger still thrumming in the air. One woman let out a soft gasp as a cultist traced a finger down her arm, the touch igniting something deep within her. Another officer trembled, his jaw slackening, his pupils dilating as a whisper of phantom pleasure coiled through his spine. A groan escaped one of them, low and shuddering, as though something had slipped beneath their skin and rewired their nerves for pleasure alone.
James watched from the ruins of the clinic, his luminescent veins pulsing subtly beneath his skin. He did not move to interfere. He did not need to. The cult’s power had not entirely waned, and those who had witnessed the ceremony, even from the periphery, were now marked, tainted by the echoes of its rapture.
Eleanor stood beside him; her expression twisted with guilt and undeniable yearning. She could not ignore the truth of what they had done, what she had helped to create. Her hands clenched into fists, her nails biting into her palms. "They’re going to kill us, James. Or worse."
James turned to her, his smile lazy, knowing. "Not yet."
She felt his weight, the way his presence curled around her like an unseen force. Even in the face of impending disaster, she could not shake his gravitational pull over her. James traced a slow, deliberate touch down the curve of her spine, his fingers leaving a trail of tingling warmth in their wake. A single touch, and she felt the ache blossom between her thighs, a whisper of the night before igniting deep inside her.
"I can’t keep doing this," she whispered, her voice cracking. "I can’t"
James reached for her, his hand sliding to her throat, cradling it with the perfect balance of control and tenderness. His fingers, once merely flesh and bone, now pulsed with something deeper, something ancient. "Eleanor," he murmured, his voice low, soothing, dangerous. "You can. And you will."
A tear slipped down her cheek. She wanted to hate him. She tried to tear herself away. But the bond was too deep, the love too poisoned. And deep inside, she feared what she would be without it. This dangerous love was like a drug, and she was the addict who could not tear herself away. Though Eleanor grieved for the life she might have built with Jamesand the joy they once knew, she shivered at the uncertainty of the future awaiting them in this unfamiliar world.
The air grew heavier. The cultists no longer just stood in place, but moved toward the officers, their bodies slow and fluid, like dancers caught in a dream. Their movements dripped with something beyond seduction, a force of nature, a law rewritten. Some officers stiffened, trying to resist, but their limbs betrayed them, their breath coming quicker, their pupils dilating.
One man gasped as his partner pressed against him, fingers gripping his collar, his lips parted in a silent plea for something he could not name. Another officer, a woman, found herself on her knees before a cultist, trembling as ghostly fingers traced her jaw, lifting her chin as if to drink in the sight of her crumbling resolve. She should fight. She should resist. But all she wanted was to feel it.
A moan escaped another officer, one who had tried to pull away but was now pressed against a cultist’s body, breathless, shaking, sinking into the helpless inevitability of it all. The vines curled at their feet, like patient lovers waiting for submission.
A sudden commotion broke their moment. An officer, one who had managed to resist the pull of the cultists, raised his revolver in the air and fired a warning shot. "Everyone, stop where you are! Now!"
Some of the surviving cultists obeyed. Still drunk on the vestiges of power, others only laughed, their bodies too lost in pleasure to register the authority’s command. The officials had not come prepared for this. They had expected madness, debauchery, something they could suppress with force. They had not expected the pull, the temptation, the sheer unnatural seduction that still radiated from the remnants of the ceremony.
One of them, a man whose hands trembled like dead leaves in the wind, turned his gaze to James. His lips cracked as he whispered, “Whatareyou?”
James only smiled.
Something flickered beneath his skin, a ripple of movement that was not wholly human. Eleanor saw it.Feltit. A pit of unease coiled within her stomach, cold and deep. She had known, hadalwaysknown, that the ceremony had changed him, that something ancient had threaded itself into his being. But here, in the thickening silence, she could see it.
The glow beneath his veins pulsed like a heartbeat, slow, deliberate, waiting.
The vines at his feettwitched.
Then, moved.
They stretched toward him, coiling like desperate hands, recognizing something in him. Something that was no longer separate, no longer bound to mortal flesh.
Their true master.
Eleanor swallowed hard. “James,” she whispered, horror tangling with something else. Somethingdangerous. Something she dared not name.
He touched her, fingers gliding along her jaw, tilting her face upward. Her breath caught. His smile sharpened.
“I told you,” he murmured, like silk over steel. “It’s only just beginning.”
