Page 71 of The Flesh Remembers
Eleanor clenched her fingers so tightly that her nails cut into her palm. The mirror version of her relaxed its fingers. It was not copying. It was choosing.
Eleanor bit down on the tender flesh of her cheek to keep from screaming. Then, very softly, her reflection lifted its hand. She hadn't moved. She wasfrozen. But in the mirror, her hand rose slowly, tenderly, as if offering comfort or mockery. The fingers touched the glass from the inside—not her hand, but theirs.
She took one step back. The reflection didn’t follow. It stayed, hand pressed to the mirror, mouth parted, like it was about to say something. Like it wasrememberingwhat it used to be. Or deciding what it wanted to become.
Eleanor whispered, “Stop.” The mirror smiled wider. And mouthed a single word.
“Mine.”
Eleanor watched in horror as her mirror image stared at her from inside the glass, that same knowing smile on her lips. The unnatural doppelganger then reached up and unbuttoned her dress, working quickly and efficiently while her eyes were glued to Eleanor’s.
Mirror Eleanor was now standing only in her cotton chemise, her hands, those same hands that Eleanor could see if she looked down at herself, slowly drifting up her torso, running over the mounds of her breasts. She smiled wantonly, then slipped the chemise off her shoulders and let it drop to the floor. She was now completely nude, and Eleanor gasped to see that they were indeed identical in every way. The small mole on her stomach was there in the mirror. The scar on her thigh from where she had fallen out of a tree as a child and badly cut her leg was there just where it should be.
Mirror Eleanor’s hands returned to her breasts, and she began to rub them slowly, her fingertips pinching her pink nipples until they were hard. Eleanor wanted to look away; she wanted to run screaming from the room, but she was mesmerized by this diabolical version of herself and found that she could only stand and watch the lewd display before her.
Then something strange happened. In the mirror, behind the nude version of Eleanor, a shadow appeared. The shadow seemed human-sized and shaped, but no features could be seen. Eleanor could not determine if it was a man or a woman, but she knew in her heart. She knew who it was.
“James,” she breathed, her eyes widening as she watched the misty shadow form reach for Mirror Eleanor and grab her by the throat. She watched her counterpart scream silently as the shadow lover threw her to the ground, forcing her before the mirror on all fours, splayed open and aroused and ready for him.
Eleanor watched as the shadow spread her open and seemingly began to thrust himself within her wet cunt. Eleanor, no longer shocked by the vulgarness of her own thoughts, felt her own arousal grow as she watched herself being fucked by the disembodied shadow of James.
Mirror Eleanor was thrusting back against the shadow, her head tossing from side to side as she cried out in a silent ecstasy. She was feral, lustful, becoming something primal. It aroused Eleanor as much as it frightened her.
Then the candles snuffed out behind her. The reflection of Eleanor and her shadow lover disappeared. But the mirror stayed warm as if something had just stepped away.
She knew she had gone too far when she turned and saw James watching her from the shadows of her bedroom.
His gaze locked onto her, burning, unreadable, dangerous. The weight of it slammed into her chest, pressing down, curling tight around her lungs.
“You’ve changed.”
His voice was low, dark, a purr of something dangerous, something possessive.
Eleanor exhaled slowly, her pulse still erratic from the pleasure, from the pain, from the raw energy that still sizzled beneath her skin.
“I have.”
A muscle in his jaw ticked.
He was in front of her instantly, his hand wrapping around her throat, tilting her chin until their lips nearly brushed.
“You think you can wield this power against me?” he whispered, his breath hot, his grip firm, unforgiving.
Eleanor smirked, the heat between them suffocating, unbearable. “I don’t think,” she breathed. “I know.”
Something snapped.
James crushed his mouth against hers, a brutal, possessive kiss that stole the air from her lungs, devoured her whole. She fought him, biting, clawing, teasing, but she didn’t want to win.
She wanted this.
She gasped against his lips as he pinned her to the wall, his body pressing against hers, hard, unrelenting. His fingers curled around her wrists, pinning them above her head, holding her there as though she might slip away.
“You don’t get to take what’s mine,” he growled against her skin, his teeth scraping along her jaw, her throat, his hands leaving bruises in their wake.
Eleanor laughed, breathless, wicked. “Then take me back.”
The words sent fire through his blood.
