“Victor mentioned that he constructed you to be quite well endowed,” she said with a snicker. “Or in his words, large enough to make any stallion envious. I wish to see your cock. Show it to me.”
Frankenstein’s hold on me extended to his guests. I was powerless to disobey her, and as if unseen strings were controlling my hands I opened my cape and lowered my trousers. She made a gasping sound and then proceeded to amuse herself with me. I stood there helpless, unable to move or command my hands to throw her away from me. Soon one of Frankenstein’s other female guests joined her, while several of the male guests entertained themselves by watching. Perhaps it was my imagination, but it seemed to me as if several of the waltzing couples within the mural were now smirking at me.
I was required to join them for dinner, and Frankenstein seated me next to himself. Their conversation quickly grew tedious as it revolved around the same tired themes that Frankenstein had brought up to me earlier. I attempted to drown them out by drinking glass after glass of brandy. They were too involved in their pontificating to notice, and after a while the brandy did help to dull out their voices. After dinner ended, I found myself drawn once more to the amphitheater, and this time there was no denying that the scene had changed. The couples were no longer happily waltzing, but now the men were displaying an animal savagery as they ripped the dresses from their partners and threatened their throats with the blades of knives. I blinked several times, wondering if I was seeing what I thought, or if the brandy had left me so intoxicated that I was merely imagining this sight.
“My friend, you are beginning to understand the nature of my mural.”
Frankenstein was smiling patiently at me. I did not wish to ask him anything but I couldn’t help myself.
“How?”
“If I can bring you back to life, why not a painting?”
A sickening feeling filled me as I turned my gaze back to the mural and the evil it represented.
“They are very sly devils,” Frankenstein said. “They will not move while being watched. Later, at midnight, they will, but not now.”
I knew Frankenstein wished me on my own accord to come back at midnight so that I could watch how the actors within his mural would play out their drama, and for that reason alone I avoided returning to that room that night, as much as my morbid curiosity begged me to. Instead I took several bottles of brandy to the bedroom that Frankenstein assigned to me. The bed that he had constructed for the room was almost twice the size of a normal bed, and so it fit me, as did the silk sheets and enormous blankets that he had specially made. Frankenstein also had a special armchair constructed to hold my size, as he also did for the dining room. I sat in this chair and drank the brandy that I brought back with me, hoping that it would dim the self-hatred that raged within me. I tried to remember my life when I was still Friedrich Hoffmann. I tried desperately to think of Johanna, but my thoughts kept reflecting back on the horrors that I had experienced since awakening inside of Frankenstein’s laboratory. My execution and rebirth as a hideous abomination, poor Charlotte existing only as a disembodied head, wolves turning into vampyres, devil worshippers and their human sacrifices, this castle and the utter depravity within it, complete with a living mural of horrors. My thoughts eventually slowed as the brandy succeeded in dulling my senses, and a heavy weariness fell over me. I closed my eyes and before too long, mercifully, I fell into sleep.
This time Frankenstein’s black magic did not invade my dreams, for there was no purpose since he had already compelled me to join him at his castle. Instead I found myself drifting into a peacefulness that seemed almost foreign to me. At first it was as if I were being rocked back and forth within a gentle breeze, and then I saw Johanna. She smiled contentedly at me, with only love and admiration in her expression, her long yellow hair flowing down her back. But she was naked, and I blushed deeply and looked away, and saw that I too was naked and my body was that of Friedrich Hoffmann’s.
“Friedrich, my darling, there is nothing to be ashamed of. I have waited so long to visit you. Please look at me.”
Johanna’s voice was as a balm soothing my soul. I turned toward her and found myself instantly lost within her gentle hazel eyes. She held out her hands to me, and I grasped them hoping to never have to let go of her.
“I have missed you,” I said.
“As I have missed you, my darling. I have tried so many times to visit you previously, but something strong and oppressive kept me from doing so.”
My eyes misted quickly, but I did not dare to let go of her for even a second to wipe away my tears.
I said, “When I think of what was done to you—”
“Please, Friedrich, don’t.”
“But the villains responsible must pay for what they did. The crime that was committed against you is too horrible to even think of. It must be avenged! Justice requires it!”
“Let God worry about punishing the guilty,” she said. “All I care about is being able to spend eternity with you, and I am afraid that that will not be happening.”
Her own eyes had become liquid with tears and her smile troubled, and it tugged at my heart to see her like that.
“Do not be concerned,” I said. “I will be seeing you soon, and then we will have the rest of this lifetime together and eternity afterward.”
She did not say anything, but her brow turned more troubled and a darkness clouded her delicate features.
“Embrace me, Friedrich,” she said in a hushed whisper, “for I am afraid that this will be our only opportunity.”
I embraced her, our naked bodies touching, my hands resting on her slender hips, her own arms wrapped tightly across my back. I had never felt more joy than I did right then, but also an intense sorrow as I realized that this would soon end. Johanna began to weep, and she buried her head in my chest, her tears hot against my flesh. I tried to soothe her by stroking her hair and whispering sweet words into her ear. After a while she stopped her weeping. She pulled away slightly so that she could look into my eyes.
“Friedrich, you must leave this castle,” she said.
“I cannot,” I said with despair. “The fiend, Frankenstein, has employed black magic to hold me here.”
“You must find a way, my darling. And you must also find a way to rescue the girls that they’re imprisoning here, for the plans that they have for these innocent girls are even more vile than what was done to me.”
I could not answer her. I knew she was right, but I did not know how to do what she was asking.
She kissed me then on my lips with an intensity that made me dizzy. As she pulled away, she whispered to me, “I am so afraid of losing you, Friedrich. Please do not be lost to me.”
I wanted to answer her, to promise her that she would not lose me, but before I could I was jolted awake, my body having crashed to the floor from falling out of the armchair where I had fallen asleep. As I lay on the floor, I did not want to believe that I had woken, and I desperately tried to hold onto the dream I had of Johanna, but her image proved to be as elusive as vapor. She was gone, and as I looked at my hands, I had to accept that I was no longer Friedrich Hoffmann, but once again a repulsive abomination. I began to weep as I lay where I had fallen, and felt the full weight of all I had lost sinking down my heart.
Later, when I could stop weeping, I cursed Frankenstein yet again for all that he had stolen from me.
CHAPTER
20
Each day I would be left alone to wander the castle as I pleased. My enemy was too busy with his plans to pay much attention to me, as were his guests, and his black magic kept me imprisoned within the castle walls as surely as if bars had been placed across the main gate, although even without his spell I did not know if I could have left with the prospect of seeing my Johanna being brought back to life.