Page 8 of The Filled Vessel (Cambric Creek After Darkverse #4)

Chapter nine

Tara

T he drip seemed to echo throughout the apartment.

Drip, drip, drip. Tara tightened her grip on the sheet, wondering if it was just her imagination amplifying the noise, the reverberation underscoring how alone she was . . . or if the tunnel-like effect was a portent of worlds opening and shifting, sealing her in this apartment like a cell, at the mercy of the thing that came at night.

If it weren’t for the drops, you might hear him breathing. The thought was discomfiting and exhilarating, and she squeezed her eyes shut against it, lest he decided to leave.

The kitchen sink had leaked since the day she’d moved in, water pooling around the base of the neck every morning as she rinsed the previous night’s plate before placing it in the dishwasher, fat droplets landing in the shallow stainless steel basin as she bustled around the kitchen, retrieving her lunch bag from the refrigerator and tightening the lid on her coffee before retrieving her keys from the little hook near the door. She’d never paid it enough mind to notify the super. It was only now, as the droplets bursting against the basin seemed to rattle in her skull, that she even realized how long she’d lived with the minor annoyance.

Call tomorrow. She’d call the super in the morning from her office, would leave a message and give permission for her apartment to be entered, would have the sink repaired once and for all, removing the all-encompassing background track to her nights, freeing her mind to rest easily.

The thought cheered her, and she closed her eyes determinedly, settling against the pillow. The down filling cradled her head, the featherlight weight of the sheet just to keep her from feeling chilled as the sun-scorched city cooled, her breath slowing and evening until she was floating on the fuzzy edge of unconsciousness . . .

When she woke again, the sound of the drip had been replaced by something even wetter, and far more obscene. Her legs were raised, held open with her knees bent. Her throat seized as a tongue moved against her clit, slurping and sucking, eating her out with gusto. Tara attempted to struggle against the pillow to no avail, for her head was like an immovable boulder, as unable to shift as she was unable to ease her white-knuckled grip upon the sheets. Her eyes were glued shut, and although her throat bobbed and jaw worked, she was unable to gasp in pleasure or cry out in fear. She was frozen, still trapped in the white haze of sleep but completely aware of her surroundings and what was being done to her.

The tongue worked into her then: a long, hot spear that fucked her as effectively as any cock could, her legs twitching in the invisible vices that held them. When the mouth once again closed over her clit, licking and sucking in a way that did in her resistance, she could feel her chest expand, the pleasured moan that she was unable to let out filling her like a balloon. If there was anything in the world that felt better than having her pussy licked by an enthusiastic partner, she’d not yet discovered it, and it wasn’t long before she was coming against the hot tongue, unceasing in its assault against her as she orgasmed silently, her back raising from the bed.

She barely had time to recover before she was flipped, her fingers tightening in the sheets, a hand at the back of her neck holding her down. She was just as helpless and frozen on her stomach as she had been on her back, a heavy weight pushing against her shoulders, keeping her in place.

She was unable to cry out when it entered her. Thick and ridged, the cock slid into her slowly, as if its owner were savoring the tight squeeze of every inch, a slow drag until they pressed flush against her. When the unseen presence began to thrust, the world went white, and Tara wasn't sure if she would ever be able to see again. They set a hard, driving rhythm, chasing their release. She was able to hear them breathing, just as she'd known she would — the sound of their ragged breath, the obscene wet squelching noise of the cock pumping into her sopping pussy, and the rhythmic slap of their scrotum against her were the only sounds.

Fingers slid over her still-sensitive clit, rubbing precise circles with the skill of one that had done it a hundred times before, the tension within her winching tighter and tighter, cramping her stomach. She was not able to scream in terror, not able to moan in pleasure, not able to do any thing but be used. Used and filled, she corrected, for the presence holding her down won their race at last, groaning as they came. She was able to feel each hot spurt of their cock within her, throbbing inside of her as it pulsed out the creature's seed. She knew exactly the way it twitched as it emptied, having felt its convulsions before, against her teeth, throbbing against her lips, filling her throat. When she tightened around them, the sound of their groan blotted out the dripping faucet.

She had been kept immobile and silent for so long that the sound of her own breath was overloud in her head when she was finally able to hear it, her gasp like a thunderclap of sound, and she realized she’d not appreciated that she’d not been able to hear anything but him. Him and that damnable faucet.

When she was dropped, the water was cold enough to seize her lungs. No! She did not want to disappear into the sucking black depths that awaited her. She twisted in the water, reaching out to grasp at the long-fingered hand that was still extended. He had dropped her, and as she sank, Tara watched him rising, wide wings stretching in the water, rising up to the gold-lit surface.

She woke to the soft, melodic chime of her phone alarm, shifting on her pillow, stretching languorously. It had been a lovely dream, she thought with a sigh, still feeling the phantom throb of her orgasm. She couldn’t quite remember it, not really, only that she’d been in bed with someone she cared for deeply, and the bed had been bobbing in an endless sea, the sunset a brilliant crimson-gold hue to the surface of the shimmering water.

She had a meeting with the principal that morning and several IEP meetings later that afternoon, but the clutching nerves that would have gripped her several weeks ago were curiously absent. There was much in her that was curiously absent, when she thought about it, which she rarely did. The compulsion to pick apart her life had faded. Her thoughts had slowed, no longer tripping over each other, and for the first time in she couldn’t remember how long, she didn’t feel as if something was fundamentally broken in her.

You sound like a fucking self-help video. What would your therapist say about this? You feel better about yourself because you have terrible dreams, how is that healthy? She grinned at her inner voice, haphazardly making the bed. The voice in her head wasn’t wrong . . . but it wasn’t quite right.

Her dreams of late had been, in a word, bizarre. It seemed to Tara as if her subconscious had decided to bully her into reliving the most humiliating moments of her life over and over again — public embarrassments and private tortures, all jumbled and reset.

There was the high school dance where she’d not only been stood up, but forced to watch her would-be date entering the school with her traitorous best friend instead. The girl had shared the hushed confidence with the rest of their friend circle that she and the boy had sex after the dance in the backseat of his car, and that his main motivation in taking someone other than Tara had been his determination to lose his virginity and that her friend was a better option.

In her dreams, the car shifted out of park, rolling downhill out of the school’s parking lot, the faithless friend and would-be date trapped in the backseat, too intent on their juvenile fumblings to realize they were moving until it was too late, being taken out by a well-placed eighteen wheeler. Another time, the school itself had caught fire, the happy couple burning to death along with a bevy of her classmates.

In another dream, she’d been in the car with the aunt who always belittled her, when a road sign had fallen from its spot on the overpass, conveniently crushing only the passenger’s side of the car. So long, Tía Barbara.

The undergrad professor who had overlooked her contributions to every group project the woman had ever assigned had fallen down the university steps, her head landing at an unnatural angle, her lifeless body crumpled in a heap.

Tara saw it all. She was somehow always there, always a witness, but removed and safe. Unfriendly coworkers, catcalling bus drivers, the man in her building who stood too close in the elevator, always making her uncomfortable, they had all received some sort of karmic retribution in her dreams.

That elevator dream had been especially terrifying. It had seemed so vivid, even now Tara could close her eyes and see it playing in her head like a movie. It started out as so many of her interactions with the strange man in her building did — she entered the elevator in her building’s lobby, and he materialized just before the doors slid shut, even when she’d been positive he’d been going in the opposite direction. He stood too close, always. Close enough that she was able to feel the heat of his breath on her shoulder, close enough that he would be able to lay a hand on her hip, close enough to be a danger. That was par for the course and she had been dealing with that for as long as she had lived in her apartment, too afraid to say something when he stepped closer to her, ignoring the way she edged away.

In her dream he had been especially horrid. His breath had been putrid, like something dead, his heavy pant felt hot over her neck, his hands twitching, barely able to keep themselves from reaching out and snatching her. The rest played out as if in slow-motion. Eventually, the man’s tenuous self-control lost the battle and he would spring toward her, arms out, hands grasping. She would scream, the lights in the elevator would flicker, and then the cable failed.

The sound of the steel box scraping against the chute as it plummeted to the basement was always louder than her screams. She fell against the far wall, and the light stayed out, giving her no idea where the horrible man was.

The only thing that kept her certain it was, in fact, a dream, was the length which they fell. She had been going up to her floor from the lobby, but the elevator always fell from the top of the building, moving backwards. It would stop abruptly, jolting her until her teeth rattled, the light coming on and the door gliding open serenely as if nothing were amiss, the bell digging on her floor. She would make eye contact with the man, pulling herself to her feet as he stared up beadily from the floor, springing at her again as she lunged for the open doorway. Tara would feel the clammy clench of his sweaty palm around her ankle as she stumbled out of the car, the man grasping after her. And then — the light would go out again, his wide, empty eyes fixed on hers as the cable failed once more, the elevator plunging down, chopping his body at the waist where he hung out of the car holding onto her.

It was horrible and gruesome and she woke up screaming every time. She hated having the dream, hated how her heart felt as if it were somewhere up in her throat when she woke, hated that it would take her close to an hour to calm down, still able to feel his clenching grasp around her foot, his empty white eyes as the lower half of his body was severed from the rest of him, wanted to expunge the horrific movie from her mind . . . but it had changed the way she interacted with the man. She no longer remained silent as he crept closer to her.

"Excuse me," she said sharply one afternoon, shortly after she’d had the dream for the second or third time. She had done the same thing every time she had the misfortune of riding in the car with him since, and those occasions were becoming fewer and further between, she noticed. She was no longer silent, and had lost a bit of her appeal for him.

It was the same way at school. The administrator who seemed to ride her for no reason had avoided her since the day she snapped back at his unnecessary sharpness. The man in the bank just a few days prior had been another change. He had shouldered her heedlessly, smashing into her as if she were invisible as he turned away from the little stand holding the deposit slips, seeming shocked when she did not dodge out of his way.

"You slammed right into me," she accused him harshly, refusing to be cowed into silence as she normally did, blocking his path. "Why don't you watch where you're going. You don't own the whole aisle."

She was more assertive at work, stood up for herself on the bus, and had been less willing to simply go along. Tara didn't know why she was having these gruesome, violent dreams that frightened her so much, and she wanted to examine the conundrum of why they seemed to be helping her even less.

The other change had been her relationship with what she had called for years The Craft . She had no desire to return to the Cat feathers she curiously found everywhere she went, even once or twice in her own bedroom.

She'd come to the conclusion the ritual she'd been duped into wasting entire paycheck on it actually worked quite well. She did feel clearer, almost as if she were being sucked clean of everything that had bogged her down for the last two decades, and although she had not opened her inner eye, Tara decided that was a silly notion anyway.

When she wasn’t experiencing those blood-curdling nightmares, she had lovely, languorous dreams of a lover she couldn't quite make out, and strangely enough, it filled the hole that existed in her heart, that gnawing emptiness within her sated at last. At least, for now .

Her grandmother had been right. Black washed her out, and it was no longer what she wanted. You should go shopping this weekend. Plum would be a good color on you, maybe a smoky mauve. The color of twilight, that’s what you need. Throwing open her closet, she looked for the deep purple dress she liked. Dark, nearly ink, the color of the night sky over the dark sea just before the stars began to wink within it. Diaphanous and sheer, she loved the way it wound around her as her hair wavered in the deep.

Tara stopped short. What the fuck are you even talking about?! Your hair wavered ? What does that even mean? You don't even have a purple dress!

She needed to get one, she decided. Chiffon, something that hugged her curves but still gave the impression of unwinding shadows. Shopping that weekend was an excellent idea. She could see the dress in her mind's eye, certain she had worn it before . . . But it must've been in another dream.