BEAUTY STONE (CHP 1)
CHAPTER 1
Autumn 2007
In English, it’s called a beauty spot; he named it a beauty stone, but to her it was her mark and one he lovingly caressed.
Gliding his fingers along the contours of her slender frame, he watched in the awe, the fair, delicate hairs rise to his command. He’d conquered her body and cherished the power he had over it; the power over her. For she had no control over this reflex, in just the same way as she had no control over her heart recoiling with each beat that drummed with the torment of his love; a love cutting so deep, wounds gaping with the wide stare of fearful eyes appeared all over her body.
It wasn’t an unknown phenomenon for her to feel watched. In fact, her delusional mind welcomed their stares, as they didn’t make her feel so alone.
With no idea about what lay in store, he passionately kissed her, his seductive eyes searching hers, as she closed them - in case - just in case, he saw the truth.
He bit her lips with the same fervour as she lapped up his lies, sinking further into the swamp of the familiar battleground where he always won.
In the bedroom he was king, and she parted her thin legs, giving permission for his warm hand to brush across her mound, sending waves of pleasure crashing into her heart, and flooding her with the force of a Tsunami.
To avoid drowning, she kissed him back, ravenously consuming the destructive passion dripping from his mouth, into hers. Each drop unlocked the silent pleas imprisoned in the dark corners of her throat. Pleas morphing into beasts that treasured and detested the intensity of his desire. One she reluctantly shared with many others.
Her psychic gift meant that although she never saw their faces, she felt their clandestine spirits linger in his thoughts, which from time to time, she caught like a venereal disease. Thus, she knew his love would never be enough, and she could never be his.
Tears streamed down her face as he entered her and slowly made love, whispering, ‘I love you; I love you,’ into her ear. Words she’d never heard before. Words that evaporated in his breath, filling the room, and crowding her, until she couldn’t breathe.
Five lost breaths later, a loud orgasmic roar poured from his lungs, and she gasped, sucking in his toxic life force - desperate to live, desperate to die, desperate that every time he hurt her, he freed her that little bit more.
Unaware of her tentative state of mind, he stroked the side of her face, rolled onto his back, and fell asleep.
She fell into the silence that followed. A space and place like no other where nothing seemed to exist until a gentle snore purred from his being, resonating like an aftershock, and shattering her back into the present.
The purring grew deeper, and she found herself trying to breathe in synch with him. Watching his chest rise and fall with the same adornment a mother has for her newborn, she sensed her heart grow darker.
Clasping her hand over her chest as if she might prevent the darkness from seeping out, she felt her heart thump against her rib cage like a wartime hostage desperate to escape and sat up. She reached between her legs where the wetness of their lovemaking streamed over her hand, and her mind drowned with the images of all the other women who’d felt his love between their fingers.
These last visions made the next action easy, and she reached under the bed for the hunting rifle and aimed it at his head. He looked so peaceful, so innocent, so goddamn gorgeous, that her heart raced to have him forever - and she shot him.
Blood, bits of skull and brain splattered onto her face, and she shot him again and again. Breathing heavily, she held her arm out with the precision of an assassin and stared blankly. How easy it was to end it all, she thought, and how nothing of this ending relieved her pain; the only emotion consuming her for a long time.
She closed her eyes, hoping to feel something else, and heard the shrill ring of the blasts dissipate with the same tempo of his pulse, eventually giving way to a penetrating silence.
She felt something now. She felt him slipping away, and her ears rang with the sound of freedom. Its echo far off; she was still a mere observer. She was still a bird in the cage, imagining what it would be like to fly.
Time dissolved, and a light filled the room, drawing her past the crib, towards the window. Flowing towards it, her warm toes brushed across the cold marble floor, and the angels of death lifted her over the edge… Her fractured mind had already transformed her pain into bliss, obliterating the final seconds, and she fell… down… down…down…DUUF! She exploded on the ground.
In the next undefined moment, she rose higher and higher above the trees, waving her goodbye and into the clouds, whose arms opened to welcome her to the other side. Moving through their embrace, she slipped through the silky darkness of the unknown.
#
Never wanting to wake, she did. Jolted by the sound of screams, an earth-shattering cry of death filled the room with the breath of terror, and she ran to the window to look outside.
There, five floors below, she saw a crowd of people circling a twisted body with congealed blood around the head, and the face of what looked like a young girl. The girl’s hair, matted in the mess of blood, had webbed itself to the ground and looked familiar. Even from that height and through the globules of blood, it looked a little like hers.
Worry trickled like tears inside of her, and she jerked back from the window. Her instincts were never wrong, but she had to be sure of this impossibility and grabbed her camera from the bedside table. Her heart pounded with what she might find, as she hurriedly zoomed in on the scene below and scanned the girl’s body.
Terror leapt into her throat with the validation of the beauty spot proudly visible on the girl’s right inner thigh. She dropped her camera and looked down at her own beauty spot, fading.
Panic swarmed through her like an army of rebels, empowering her to run to the bathroom. In a split second, she was there resting heavily against the sink. Everything around her felt different; as if the objects were as alive as she, or perhaps she was as dead as them. She had to know. The mirror never lies, and she took a deep breath to brace herself for the worst and lifted her head. Glancing in the mirror, she found nothing looking back. Her knees buckled, and she fell to the floor.
Her instinct drove her back to the window. A near impossible feat, since all strength had seeped from her body like glue to slow her down and make every second seem infinite. On all fours, she struggled to crawl through the echo of her breath, resonating like a death march throughout the room. What the hell was going on… surely, she thought, she must be dreaming?
Reaching her destination, she clutched the ledge and pulled herself up to she peer out of the window. Her eyes zoomed in on the scene below, as a cold layer of fear descended from the crown of her head.
Slowly, she made the connection and gazed down as her beauty spot vanished at the same time, a cover was placed over the girl on the ground below.
#
He felt a slight breeze against his foot, carried by the spirit of the girl he’d loved. Having stirred to waking by her transitioning spirit, he lay in their bed and felt an unusual peace. Not even the sounds of the sirens roaring in the distance disturbed his state of equanimity.
As the vehicles got nearer and the sirens louder, their dissonance polluted his calm condition, and he tried to peel himself away from the bed to investigate. He found it hard to move. His head was heavy, as if some force was pressing it onto the pillow, and he wondered how he had a hangover after only a few glasses of wine.
Placing his hand onto his throbbing brow, he felt drops of moistness fall into his palm. ‘Sweating in October?’ he thought, cursing at the misfortune of having a fever on a day when he had to impress his VIP clients. He groaned and wiped his face with his hand. Drawing the wetness down across his cheek and lips, he was welcomed with the taste of blood.
Struck with a sudden fear, he garnered the strength to move and lift the earthly weight holding him down. Once upright, he saw the outline of his body marked by the blood surrounding him and was surprise that he felt no pain despite his loss of blood.
What he did feel was panic - and lots of it. He looked down at his Adonis-like body, still intact, and breathed a sigh of relief. Where was the blood coming from? he questioned and desperately followed the contours of his face, like a blind man trying to identify a person, and to his horror, found a hole.
He rushed to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. Only a faint blur of his reflection looked back. Before it faded, he just made out the shape of his eye hanging down his cheek, and a space like a bloody ditch where his nose had once been.
He trembled, backing away in the same place his lover had been moments before. Retracing her faded footsteps, he crumpled to the ground.
He’d never believed in an afterlife, in retribution or redemption. Death was the end, and once he saw it, he accepted his defeat.
#
She was in a place of darkness, a space filled with voices circling her like crazy people she couldn’t escape from. Torturous screams ripped through the air, slicing her reality, and she did not know where she was or how she’d got there.
Her twenty-one years flashed before her like they did in movies, or when people had near-death experiences. When the film was over, she found herself back in her living room, in ‘their’ living room.
Everything looked the same, except it was filled with strangers: women, lots of them, at least forty, moving furniture, making tea, and gossiping in a way that people often did when they hadn’t seen each other for a while.
She stood aghast, watching this flurry of activity as rows of chairs appeared from nowhere, facing a table with one leather executive business chair, placed behind it. She wondered who would sit in that chair, hoping it had been placed for her. Deciding to take the chance, she moved towards it and was almost stomped to the ground by an old lady who pushed past her.
“So, you finally got ‘ere then... about bloody time too.”
Though quite frail in appearance, the old lady’s strength sent her flying back, and she fell into the arms of a little girl.
“Hello Lucinda,” said the little girl, her words slipping from her fragile lips, “thank you for bringing me here.
“Err hello...” replied Lucinda. The little girl giggled and ran off to chase a ball that appeared only from her desire to have it.
Lucinda? So that was her name... how could she forget? Her flat had not faded from her memory, and yet her name sounded as if it belonged to somebody else. It felt bizarre to exist and yet have no actual sense of her identity.
With nothing to ground her, Lucinda’s anxiety rose with the noise level in the room, swirling its notes around her head until she felt dizzy with despair.
A serious-looking girl of about twelve-years-old, appeared and held up a file. A hush grew upon the women as they took their seats.
“Welcome again everybody,” said the girl.
“Again?” questioned Lucinda.
“Don’t look so shocked. You, my dear, have been here before,” replied the girl.
Lucinda opened her mouth to object, but the girl’s icy stare froze the words in her throat, and she let her mouth close. The girl reminded her of The Chair at a committee meeting, and so Lucinda named her, The Chair. This amused her somewhat as the girl sat down in the leather chair, she’d hoped was for herself.
Whilst following the circle of the room with her arm, The Chair remarked, “I see Martha is not amongst us anymore. Her last session freed her to be born again.”
“Lucky caww,” squawked the same old lady who’d earlier pushed past Lucinda and now stood a few feet away, bitterness oozing from her like a poisoned, shrunken oak.
Lucinda perused the old lady’s face, looking for the secrets of life that old age might bring. Instead of a revelation, she became lost in the maze of her many wrinkles marking the paths of destruction she’d walked upon.
“I’ve been waiting for blooming years to go back,” the old lady continued whilst pushing another woman off the seat she was sitting in, sitting down in it herself.
“Ha! Well, you should have thought about that before. You had many chances, and you blew each one,” spat the little girl who’d first greeted Lucinda.
“Ah shut it! You stupid little....”
“Enough!” demanded The Chair. “We have several stories and trials to go through this time round. Our agendum is tight.”
“Erm, excuse me,” said Lucinda, trying to sound brave despite feeling fearful. “I’m not sure what I’m doing here.” She paused, hoping somebody would say, ‘Yes, quite right, dear, you can go straight on through.’ The room remained silent, and her voice shaking, she continued, “I think there’s been a mistake. Am I dreaming?”
Lucinda’s question echoed in the room as a backdrop to the roar of cackles, laughter, and tears that burst forth from the crowd, plunging each woman into a maddened frenzy of exaggerated responses, epitomising their deepest traits and psychoses. The young girl giggled as if she were being tickled by an octopus; the old lady, whom Lucinda named, ‘Old Caww,’ screamed, “Whores! Cheats! Scumbags!” as if plagued by Tourette’s. A very sophisticated-looking woman twisted her head, laughing; another woman pulled out her hair; whilst yet another attempted to strangle herself with her own hands.
“STOP!” screamed The Chair.
Quickly the women returned to their previous state as if nothing had happened, and The Chair continued, “I think we need to offer Lucinda a little guidance.” She sized her up and said, “This place you’re in now is your creation, and all the people here are present to assist your growth. Though that may not be their intention, because you drew them here today, through their stories you shall be revealed. It is time to take away the mask and see yourself.”
She took a sip of water from the glass on her desk and swallowed. The sound of her gulp resonated like thunder throughout the room. She placed the glass down and opened the file she was holding, leaving a shocked Lucinda to absorb what she’d just heard. Her heart was racing, and mind struggling to keep up with the tempo. One thing she was sure of by now was that she wasn’t dreaming, and even though it made no sense, she had no choice but to accept she was there in a place that was of her making.
The Chair slammed shut her file interrupting Lucinda’s internal turmoil and addressed the room at large, “Today we shall hear from Magnolia. A name so pretty for a woman so cunning... hmm, don’t you think?” The women nodded in agreement, and the room filled with an eager anticipation of what was to follow.
All eyes fixed on The Chair as she moved away from her desk and towards a girl Lucinda could only see the back of. The girl’s long black hair struck her as a little familiar. At the same time, it brought up a nasty sensation from within. That must be Magnolia, the girl who will tell her story, she thought. Something about that name made her feel uneasy, and she questioned where she’d heard it before, wondering if it had been her least favourite flower.
The Chair addressed Magnolia, “My sweet venus fly trap, pray, tell of your evilness? Don’t be shy and tell it all as it is or was, should I say.” The emphasis on the past tense forced Magnolia to accept her fate in death, and she turned red with anger. The Chair, satisfied with this genuine reaction, continued, “Remember, forgiveness comes from understanding and from feeling. Have you learnt, my dear, how to feel beyond your own narcissistic image? Or does your ego still suffocate your heart?”
Smiling to herself, she walked back towards her desk and sat down, nestling the side of her small head into the folds of the leather chair. Once comfortable, she spoke, “Now, Magnolia, we are ready to hear your story.” Before Magnolia said anything, The Chair turned towards Lucinda and requested, “Lucinda, please be seated. You look like a peeled cucumber standing there.”
Lucinda scanned the room. After finding the nearest seat, she sat down a few rows behind Magnolia. There was something dark about her she found both unnerving and exciting. Even though she could only see the back of her, she felt Magnolia had the power of a Greek Goddess with many secrets buried within the sexy stature of her body; secrets she felt were about to reveal themselves like demons in disguise.
Magnolia enjoyed being the centre of attention and stood up, her tumbling dark hair falling to below her waist and resting on her voluptuous bottom. She pulled out a folded bundle of papers from her pocket, straightened out the pages and read.
