Her face had obviously been in recent contact with more than just a touch of makeup and was accented in such a way to enhance the severe expression lining her features. She continued looking down at me, and I started trying to convince myself that I wasn’t really awake.
After a long pause she gave her head a toss then giggled and said, “That’s better.”
Even though the sentence was no more than two words, the uncharacteristic geographical drawl was obvious and intact.
Following the utterance, she placed a cigarette between glossy red lips and drew on it hard. The end grew bright, sizzling audibly as I watched the paper and tobacco slowly burn a full one-half inch down the length right before my eyes. In a fluid motion, she pulled the cigarette from her mouth, flicked the spent ash at my face, then pursed her lips and blew out a long stream of smoke.
Never once had she taken her eyes from mine, and now her mouth spread into a contented smile. I started upward again; knowing suddenly that telling myself this was a nightmare simply wasn’t going to make it so. Fear was definitely starting to work its way into my spine.
Again I found myself unable to go far and realized that my arms were outstretched to the sides and above my head. I cast a quick glance to the right and saw my wrist encompassed by a wide, leather-looking cuff that was securely fastened to the bedpost. I didn’t have to look to the left to know it too was similarly bound. I didn’t feel anything around my ankles so I tried to move my legs, only to find they were bound in some unseen way.
I instantly regretted being a heavy sleeper.
“What’s wrong, little man?” my wife asked.
Actually, it was the voice asking the question. It just happened to be coming out of my wife’s mouth.
“Felicity?” I questioned out of reflex.
I didn’t catch the blur of motion, but I definitely felt the sting of her palm against my cheek as she slapped me hard enough to crank my head to the side.
“And, who, pray tell, is Felicity, little man?” she asked.
“You are,” I replied with a groan as I turned my face back to her.
Judging from the force of yet another slap that immediately followed my reply, apparently, it was the wrong thing to say.
“You will call me, Mistress Miranda, little man,” she commanded.
What I had earlier thought to be fear was just a trial run of the emotion. In the grand scheme of things, it had been nothing more than a shot of anxiety with a confusion chaser just to get the ball rolling. Hearing the sentence just spoken by the evil inhabiting my wife’s body was the catalyst, and now true horror set in.
At this stage of the game, I wasn’t sure what this Lwa feasted on, but it was a good bet that pain played into that picture, and I suspected fear was at the very least an appetizer. If that was true, judging by her satisfied grin, I was apparently serving up the first course at this very moment.
“Oh, what’s wrong?” she asked, feigning concern. “Am I scaring you?”
“No,” I returned.
“Liar.”
“Guess it’s your word against mine,” I said, mustering whatever semblance of calm bravado I could.
She sat back and regarded me coolly. Felicity truly didn’t weigh much more than one hundred pounds, but with the panic starting to well in the pit of my stomach, even that amount of weight on top of me was making it hard to breathe.
After taking another long drag on the cigarette, she pulled it slowly from her mouth and smiled then let the smoke out in a thin stream.
There was no way I could read what was going on behind the still pretty, but frighteningly severe, mask her face had become. In retrospect, given what I knew from the crime scenes, I should have been able to at least predict what she was going to do. Unfortunately, a by-product of terror is that one doesn’t always think straight.
I suppose that’s why it came as such a complete shock to me when, without a word her smile grew even wider, and she began to slowly grind out the burning cigarette against my bare chest.
CHAPTER 26:
Something kept me from screaming out in response to the pain. I wanted to in the worst way, and in fact, I even tried. However, the yelp instantly caught in my throat and remained there, emitting little more sound than a soft groan. The only reason I could imagine for the abrupt stifling was that I knew the spirit was feeding on my pain and fear, and I supposed it was just my subconscious attempting to deny it the meal. Of course, whether or not I screamed probably was a moot point. It knew I was afraid, there was no doubt of that, and my body definitely betrayed me in the pain department.
I tensed in reflex even as the sound stuck in my windpipe, gurgling quietly through my clenched teeth. As she continued to grind the burning ember into my flesh, I sucked in a quick breath, steeling myself against whatever might be yet to come. I couldn’t help but notice the odor of singed hair and skin. If that wasn’t bad enough, it had joined the spicy scent of her perfume, mixing on the air to become a peculiar, sweet funk that did little for my already queasy stomach.
Even though I was fighting to deny anything to the evil that had invaded our home, the look on my wife’s face told me I was losing the battle before I had even started fighting back. No longer was she wearing the wide, mischievous grin. She had gone far beyond that. Now, her face was molded into an expression of near ecstasy. Her eyes were closed; and her lips were slightly parted as she slowly tilted her face upward. She began to pant, and suddenly a bizarre moan filled the room. It was something I could only describe as a poorly synchronized disharmony of sound, both human and inhuman. The worst part was that I knew they were both coming from deep within Felicity. One of them the product of her own hijacked voice, the other from somewhere on the other side of the veil, dwelling in an inky darkness that was blacker than I ever wanted to imagine.
She arched her back as the sigh of pleasure grew louder, and its jarring duality grew even stronger. Her posture served only to make her look like a player in an adult movie acting out the generally accepted portrait of an earth shattering orgasm for an unseen camera.
Unfortunately, I knew all too well that this wasn’t acting.
This was for real.
My wife began to sink as she literally allowed herself to slump backward. Her breathing grew shallow, coming in rapid pants as the unearthly sound continued trilling through the room, joined by a rapturous whimper of corporeal origin.
The initial shock of the lit cigarette against my chest had now faded to a dull burn that took up residence in the background, hiding behind my many other ignored pains. Lifting my head, I watched as Felicity tensed and twisted, all but writhing in unfathomable ecstasy. She was still straddling me but was pitched backward at an angle, bracing herself with one hand on the edge of the bed while the other roamed her body of its own accord. Had I not been fully aware of the why and how this was happening to her, it would have been an immensely humbling sight, being that I wasn’t responsible for it. However, my prowess in regard to pleasing my wife was the furthest thing from my thoughts at the moment. What lived in the forefront was the horror of knowing that by succumbing to the ethereally dispensed pleasure, Felicity was only cementing her bond with the Lwa.
Of course, her ability to resist had been negated the moment the spirit had assumed control, and even in my present state, I recognized the power of what I was witnessing. Though I had no doubt that my wife had not initially given herself over to the Lwa willingly, I almost wouldn’t have been able to blame her if she had. The apparent reward she had just received in return for what was, in the grand scheme of things, a fairly mild act of cruelty, was one that could not be easily refused.