O9A: Jenyah

Jenyah

The warm Sun of middle-Spring warmed her as she walked down Broad Street in the county town of Ludlow to the entrance of the Feathers Hotel with its early seventeenth century timber façade. The oldness - the dark oak beams, the never-quite-straight walls, the sense of enclosing dimness - still pleased her, although the changes made during the decades of the last century did not, and she resisted the transformation that would have made the young man at Reception, in his shiny ill-fitting inexpensive suit, follow her unbidden to her room.

Instead, she kept her appearance, and the accent, of an attractive - but not too attractive - mature lady of the County set who probably owned a horse, or three, stabled somewhere in the grounds of her large country house, and the registration procedure lasted no more than a dull five minutes. He was too young, anyway, unable to provide the diversion, the passion, and the acausal-energy, she needed, for already the faint trembling in her hands had begun: the first reminder of her enduring timeless need. And even as she walked up the stairs alone, carrying her small travel bag, she began to feel the centuries weighing down upon her, ageing her ever so slowly.

But she had planned well, as she always did, for there would be men, tonight, some eager - as they almost always were - for that thrill of a tryst in the long evenings following their meetings or conference or whatever it was that drew them away from their homes and their wives. A few lies; one betrayal - first, or one among many - it did not matter to them; for there was their pride, their lust, their still living animal nature. No evolution, upwards: except for those few whose wordless perceiving bade them walk away, or those few who though enticed still had strength enough to resist. No, no evolution, upwards - she knew, except for such few. And she smiled, remembering the delightful dreams she gave to those few.

So she prepared herself as she always prepared herself while she sat in her room alone, knowing that her long-serving servant would tidy her room and see to all formalities after her chosen task was complete. Thus did she prepare: her dress suited to the young woman she was, as were the shoes, and the make-up which she, with expert ease, applied to her face and which reflected the times which had changed this particular chosen and familiar Hotel. And when she was ready she descended the stairs to enter the recently refurbished Bar where gathered some of the already alcohol-soaked conference-attendees.

The room - with its low ceiling, its carved oaken-bar, its discreet lighting - did not particularly displease her, and she sat alone, in a plush wooden armchair, at a table in one corner, already noticed by several of the Bar-thronging men. Perhaps it was her esoteric perfume. Perhaps it was her short purple dress, which seemed to scintillate in the light and which clung to the voluptuous contours of her youthful body. Perhaps it was the way she walked in her stiletto shoes. Or the red lipstick upon her lips. Or her long red hair that fell around her shoulders. Whatever it was, it was not long before a man came to greet her.

His suit was not inexpensive, as his blond hair had only just begun to recede and - to any ordinary woman, perhaps - he would have appeared as not unattractive; a fairly prosperous youngish family man, making his way in the Corporate world.

"Hi, I'm James," he said, self-assuredly and by way of introduction as he stood by her table holding a flûte of champagne. "Can I get you something to drink?"

It was not the worst gambit she had heard, and she smiled at him. "Yes. A Tom Collins."

"Certainly!"

So he left to place her order to return to ask,"May I join you?"

"Why yes! Are you here for the conference?"

"Hmm," he muttered.

"You do not seem particularly enthusiastic."

"I'm not. Bloody boring."

"But necessary and required."

"Unfortunately, yes." He drained his glass, and signalled to the barman to bring him more. "May I ask your name?" he enquired as he sat looking at her nipples, which - erect - prominently impinged upon the thin material of her dress.

"Jenyah," she breathed, softly, letting the scented warmth of her breath touch his face as she leaned toward him.

He smiled then, sure of his success, but began fumbling with his wedding ring.

"Perhaps," she said, now knowing and having sensed enough, and as loud laughter from the three men standing at the Bar reached them, "it would be agreeable to you if we went back to my house?"

"Why, yes. Of course. Certainly!"

"My car is outside."

"Splendid!"

So she led him out from the side entrance of that Hotel to where her car was parked among some others - elegant in its refined blackness and whose tall muscular chauffeur - her servant, his eyes hidden behind designer sunglasses - held open the rear door for her and her chosen companion of the evening. Thus were they conveyed in comfort on that long journey through the dark of the country night until they reached that steep hill of the narrow lane and her house above a valley.

He did not see much of its old-fashioned but clean and fastidiously tidy interior, and neither did he desire to, for his already intense sexual desire had been heightened by the luxury of her car and the wealth so obvious from her dwelling, and he willingly let himself be led along a narrow skein of corridors to a panelled room whose only light can from a burning, large, coal-fire. Even the oppressive heat nor her strength did not concern him as she roughly pushed him toward the large Oak bed to salaciously rip away his clothes and remove her own.

Her beauty of body - her voluptuousness, her sexuality - was everything he imagined, everything he desired, and her intoxicating scent seemed to increase until he was wrapped, cocooned, within it. She was upon him, then, holding him down, his arms outstretched and pinned to the silken covering of the bed by her hands wrapped around his wrists while she manoeuvred her body to place his erection inside her where he felt the warmth of her warm sensuous wetness. For what seemed a long long moment he experienced an intensity of joy, of physical pleasure, such as he had never known before, making him close his eyes in exultation as she moved upon him. But then - then as he arched his back again in sheer physical exultation and delight - intense pain followed by agony engulfed him and blood from his severed penis flowed out of her.

But she was laughing, laughing, still holding him down, overpowering him as he writhed in pain, until she moved to lick his bloody wound - cauterizing it with her strange oral fluid - to kiss him, and it was in that briefest of brief moments before he fainted - weak, and overcome with the shock of this, and of his seeing - that he saw not a young sensuous woman but something else, not quite human, draining away the acausal-energy of his life through her blood-soaked kiss.

She, satiated, left him then to the ministrations of her servant who effortlessly carried the limp and bloodied but just-living body down stone steps and along a short brick-lined dimly lit tunnel to an unlit cell whose thick and still sturdy iron door bars were pitted with the seeping rust of age. There was a bed, a bucket, a stained blanket - but nothing else - and it was here, amid the cold dank stifling blackness, that he would hours later awake, shivering, lying on the slimy cobbles of the floor, while she - freshly bathed and dressed - walked outside, smiling, happy, renewed, among the wind-speaking moonlit trees of her dark ancestral hill.

There, in that unlit cell, he would live, for a while, while his usefulness lasted. And it was there in the first of his many many days that he would cry out into the darkness for hours, until exhaustion overcame him. There did he languish, lamenting his stupid choices, his lies, his betrayal of his wife and family. There he would briefly vainly plead to God, to any god, deity, for release, and there he would eat and drink the little that was provided him, pushed through the bars of his door by her servant, as it was there - in that unlit blackness - he would hear, or thought he heard, the weak sighs, the cries, of another, until, one day or one night, the soft sighs, the soft distant muffled cries, came no more to torment him.

There he would he close his eyes, sometimes, in sleep when what little strength remained failed him. And there: there were the nightmares, the pitiless nightmares of how she still enticing and scented would come upon him in the blackness to kiss him to suck from him the remaining drops of the life within. He would sleep then, peacefully - but only for a while, only for a while: longing after that short moment of rest never to awake, again.

The hot Sun of late Summer warmed her while she sat outside the trendy Café, waiting. Her chosen and familiar Hotel was nearby, and she would retire to it soon, as darkness descended upon the city. But, for now, she was content enough to let the warm Sun please her, as if almost always did as its healthy rays reached her youthful face, arms, hands and legs while she sat, fashionably if skimpily dressed, as were the other young women who passed, there on that evening in that city by the river whose water flowed, as her life, from one beginning to another: a precious gift, finding its own level, its own way, while bringing death, to some.

Algar Merridge
March 119, Year of Fayen