Page 21 of The Flesh Remembers
Twilight smothered the clinic in a suffocating hush, an oppressive weight that seemed to seep into every corner of the monstrous old building.
The air shimmered and writhed with an unnatural charge, its thickness almost unbearable, a damp concoction of incense, sweat, and the metallic tang of blood that clung to Eleanor's skin like a fever.
The walls seemed to pulse faintly, their surface alive with the grotesque dance of shadows that twisted and writhed as though they knew she was watching.
Their shapes hinted at horrors just beyond the edge of perception, unspeakable acts that the clinic seemed to breathe out with deliberate secrecy, daring her to unravel its secrets.
Candles, arranged in twisted spirals, cast flickering, sickly glows that illuminated half-dressed staff and robed acolytes.
They moved as if drawn by an unseen, inescapable force, their eyes shadowed with exhaustion and feverish desire.
Whispers of impending debauchery filled the air, promising that tonight would shatter every remaining boundary, if in fact, there were any boundaries left to shatter.
This dusk ceremony, ordained by Lord Blackwood himself, would mark the clinic’s final descent into depravity.
In the clinic's heart, the library, once a place of learning, had become a sanctuary of sacrilege.
Bookshelves lined with forgotten tomes were cleared away, replaced by a massive velvet-upholstered platform surrounded by wrought-iron stands.
The stands bore a mix of tools: floggers, serrated rods, and instruments that looked like they belonged in a medieval torture chamber.
Splashes of red wine, or perhaps something more disturbing, stained the floors.
The crowd was already gathering.
Figures in varying stages of undress sprawled across the room, their bodies marked with sigils carved into flesh, the wounds fresh and glistening.
Masks adorned their faces; many etched with forbidden runes.
Some bore collars or chains, symbols of their submission, while others flaunted bruises and lash marks with twisted pride. Every corner pulsed with activity: whispered bargains for humiliating acts, muffled moans, and the sharp crack of whips.
Lord Blackwood stood at the centre of the platform, a dark beacon amidst the chaos.
His voice rang out, a low and resonant chant that seemed to vibrate in the marrow of those gathered. “Tonight,”
he intoned, “we erase all boundaries. We offer not just flesh, but our very essence. Let shame, identity, and morality die here. In their place, let only devotion remain.”
The crowd erupted into a frenzy.
Acolytes crawled forward on all fours, begging permission to approach the dais.
One by one, they were marked by Blackwood, a branding iron searing glowing sigils into their skin.
The cries of pain morphed into moans of ecstasy as the sigils pulsed, their energies feeding the room’s growing aura.
At the far edge of the platform, James stood, half-robed, his dead flesh gleaming like marble in the flickering light.
Though his flesh had been made whole by the prior ceremony, his flesh was yet the unnatural pallor of death.
However, his aura of dark charisma was undeniable.
He radiated an unnatural magnetism that made onlookers quiver, torn between revulsion and overwhelming desire.
Women and men gravitated toward him, their breaths shallow and their hands trembling.
Some reached out, desperate to touch even the hem of his tattered robes.
James’s piercing gaze swept across them, his lips curling into a predatory smile that sent a chill down Eleanor’s spine.
She watched from the shadows, her chest tight with jealousy and dread.
This wasn’t the James she had once loved.
The man who had gently teased her about her medical notes was gone.
The supportive friend who had stood by her when she faced open hostility at medical school simply for being a woman.
In his place stood a being who revelled in the degradation of others. Yet she couldn’t deny the aching pull in her own body, a sick yearning to feel his power consume her.
Eleanor clung to what little of herself remained.
She felt a profound sense of anger fill her when she thought of all she had lost in her life and all that she was still losing, losing her parents so young, and then being raised by an emotionally distant and unloving grandfather.
And then the struggles to be taken seriously at medical school, even after graduating as a real doctor.
But, through all of it had been James.
He had picked her up when she felt discouraged or defeated. He was there to support her and encourage her. But most of all, he had been there to love her.
He had made Eleanor feel like she was truly worthy of love again, which was the greatest gift he had given her.
Eleanor watched now as James extended a hand, beckoning a masked acolyte.
The young woman stumbled forward, her anticipation and excitement evident in her rapt expression.
James pulled her close without a word, his pale lips brushing against her ear.
The crowd fell silent, as if holding their collective breath, as James’s hand traced the acolyte’s spine.
Then, in one swift motion, he sank his teeth into the soft flesh of her neck.
The acolyte let out a gasp, a sound that was equal parts pain and ecstasy.
Her body shuddered as James drank the blood he had spilled, the act so horrifyingly erotic that even those watching found themselves quivering with arousal.
The air crackled with an electric charge as James released the acolyte, her body collapsing in a quivering heap.
James smiled down at the young woman; his lips stained with her blood.
The girl knelt before him, her arms out before her in supplication.
“Please, sir, please…”
Her voice was a small, frail whisper. Was she begging for mercy? Restraint?
“What is it you desire, my dear?”
James asked her, his dead hand reaching out to lift her chin so that he could meet her eyes. “Tell me.”
The girl quaked but with something other than fear; goosebumps pebbled her flesh. Her dark pink nipples were hardened and erect, and her eyes had a glassy, fevered look to them.
‘Take me, please. Please.”
Tears slipped down her pale cheeks as she begged James, this living thing of nightmares, to ravish her.
“I shall not be gentle,”
James said softly and with a smile that was horrifying in its sweetness.
“Indeed, there is no softness left within me. Are you still so eager, my sweet child?”
The young woman, tears still flowing, reached up her arms to James, her hands touching his arms, stroking the pale, smooth flesh there.
“Hurt me as you see fit,”
she whispered.
James smiled, the dried blood on his lips giving him the look of a feral animal.
“As you wish, my sweet.”
James yanked the girl up by her long brown hair, half pulling and half dragging her over to what appeared to be an ordinary bed, except the chains at each bedpost and the leather cuffs that dangled from the end of each chain.
“Tie her down!”
James ordered no one in particular, but he knew everyone would rush to obey his commands.
The young woman lay down on her back, her arms and legs spread wide apart and shackled within the tight leather restraints. She looked both terrified and enraptured. Soft moans came from her already, as if anticipating what would come.
“I am going to make you bleed some more for me, my dearest. You would like that, wouldn’t you? You would like to give your last drop of blood for me, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, yes!”
The girl cried out.
“I would give you everything.”
Her unquestioning devotion had a mania to it as though something else had taken hold of her and was working through the girl.
James approached the bed with something in his hands that glinted in the dim candlelight.
The group of acolytes had all stilled their activities to watch with bated breath as James blessed this lucky young woman.
It was a dagger.
The blade was short but no less lethal-looking, and the bone handle had been intricately carved with exquisitely detailed thorny vines and roses.
It was truly a work of master craftsmanship, but on this night, no one seemed to notice the delicate beauty of the piece.
All were watching in hungry anticipation of what James would do with it.
James held the dagger up to the young woman’s face, letting her see the delicate features, the glinting, fierce blade.
Fear shone in her eyes as she watched James bring it closer and closer to her face until it was mere inches from her tearful eyes.
James laughed softly at the fear he saw in her face, taking it into himself and feeding off of that fear.
He moved the point of the dagger down to her pale, tear-stained cheek and let it prick her ever so gently.
The girl gasped as the sharp tip of the blade stung her skin.
James dragged the blade ever so slowly down her cheek, leaving a thin trail of red behind as the blade gently cut her skin.
Not enough to bleed yet, but just enough to know that he was in complete control of her.
He let the blade wander down her naked body, pressing slightly harder the further down he went.
A drop of blood at her throat, a bit more across her chest.
Then he pressed harder still at her pink rosebud of a nipple, causing a little stream of blood to trickle down her breast and stomach.
The girl cried out in pain, but also something else.
As James flicked the sharp blade against her nipples, her arousal intensified. It was as though the pain she was feeling made the arousal only that much greater.
James bent his head and, with his cold tongue, lapped at the blood that pooled upon her breast.
He teased her nipples, biting down on the wounds to cause fresh blood to well up to the surface.
He drank her blood like some horrific creature from a nightmare, and indeed that is what he was.
But the girl only closed her eyes and moaned, pushing her breasts up to meet his mouth, silently begging him for more.
James continued with the dagger, leaving long red wounds upon her abdomen, deeper wounds that bled freely.
When he reached her thighs, a collective sigh seemed to rise from the room as everyone watched eagerly for what he would do next.
The sexual mania in the air was thick and cloying.
It would not take much to push every person in that room over the edge.
James dug the dagger into the girl’s pale thigh, causing her to let out a long, thin cry.
He left an equally impressive wound on her other thigh, blood running down her legs, staining the bed beneath her.
James then brought the tip of that blade between her legs.
The young woman was very wet, her arousal evident.
Her juices mixed with her blood on her thighs.
James, using his cool, pale fingers, spread the girl apart and brought the very tip of that blade to that swollen centre of her pleasure and very gently prodded it.
She cried out louder this time, thrusting upward wildly, begging him for more.
“Oh, my dear, you are giving me such sweet suffering!”
James’s blue eyes seemed to darken as he watched her closely.
“But I think you can give more.”
“Yes, my lord, I will give you everything I am!”
The girl cried out, her eyes closed, her head thrown back.
James pressed harder on the dagger, flicking it back and forth across the swollen centre until she screamed in both torment and ecstasy. She bled freely from there now, her blood and her arousal running together in a pool beneath her.
James smiled as he watched her become completely undone by the pain and the intense arousal that was consuming her. He knew only one way to consummate this intense moment. He lifted the blade and in one swift movement he grabbed it by the fine gilt blade and then proceeded to push the intricately carved bone handle deep inside of her.
James felt no pain at holding the blade, though it did slice into the flesh of his hand, though no blood seeped from the wound. He just watched her intently as he pushed the handle deeper and deeper into her until the entire handle was encased within her warm, wet flesh. He pulled it out brutally and quickly, plunging it back in again with even more force. The girl screamed as the blade handle penetrated her again and again, her hips rising to meet each thrust.
“Please, my lord, please!”
She screamed as he continued his assault, showing no mercy. James laughed coldly as she begged him for release. He bent his head to her bleeding groin and began to tongue that wounded centre of her pleasure, lapping up her blood and juices with a tongue that felt like ice. The girl bucked wildly as the onslaught continued, not knowing where pain ended and pleasure began. One sensation flowed into the next so perfectly that it seemed they were but the same in that moment.
At last, when it seemed the girl could not take more, her body seized and she began to shake and twitch as she cried out louder still. Her release was not a sweet one. It was brutal and harsh, just as the sex itself had been. Her body jerked and twitched, her muscles contorting painfully, but the pleasure she felt was unlike any she had ever known.
James stood up then and smiled down at the utterly spent young woman.
“What a good, obedient girl you are,”
he said with a smile, her blood and juices still staining his lips.
Nurse Marian Collins had tried to avoid the ceremony, retreating to the clinic’s outer halls. But James’s presence was inescapable. It pulled her like a magnet, her feet carrying her to the library despite every instinct screaming at her to flee.
When Marian had started working with Dr. Fairfax, she had genuinely believed in the goodness of their work, the nobility of it. They were trying to do something good for all humankind, for what is worse than growing old and dying? Marian had shared Fairfax’s passion and grew to feel more than simply admiration for the man. She had been willing to follow him anywhere just to be a part of his brilliance and devote her life to him, hoping he might notice her as more than a nurse someday.
But now, as Marian stepped into the room and her gaze locked onto the grotesque, reanimated form of James, a chilling realization clawed at her: there were fates far worse than death. She should never have followed Fairfax down this abyssal path.
Tears blurred her vision, clinging to her lashes as she whispered, “James, please…”
Her voice fractured, a desperate blend of fear and yearning.
James turned with agonizing slowness, his smile stretching unnaturally wide. The crowd shifted, a sea of silent, eager faces parting to make way for the clinic’s most reluctant participant, their next sacrifice.
Marian stumbled back, her trembling legs carrying her until her spine collided with the unyielding edge of a bookshelf. “Don’t,”
she whimpered, her voice barely audible, a plea even she couldn’t believe.
James’s laughter was low, resonant, and laced with a dark, magnetic power. He stepped closer, his presence suffocating.
“You can’t resist me,”
he murmured, his voice a velvet snare, dripping with necromantic allure.
“You don’t want to.”