Chapter 1
The night was thick with the damp, silent fog of autumn and the moon was a sickly spot behind the mist. Its tendrils seeped through the walls of the London house, its soot-laden breath making the servants shiver in their ragged clothes, as they slept huddled together for warmth in their meagre quarters.
In the master bedroom, the young man moved sluggishly under his comfortable covers, the room still warmed by the embers glowing in his own fireplace. His pale, handsome face was less than peaceful in his sleep, his closed eyelids flickering with swiftly passing emotions.
The house was silent, apart from the usual night time sounds of creaking boards and the hiss of the night air as it slipped through the oak doors connecting his room to the corridor outside. The sleeper was still unusually disturbed. His long fair hair was loose around his neck, wisps tangling across his cheeks as he shook his head in denial of something that no one else heard.
For a moment his strong, slender body tensed, and arched up gently from the mattress. His lips were moist with saliva, moving silently, forming the shape of words. They were full lips, though drawn back in a grimace as they struggled with phrases that were both unintelligible and unspoken. The sheets rustled underneath him and the cord of his dressing gown slid off the end of the bed on to the floor. Then his hand moved slowly up under his silk nightshirt, and a soft gasp escaped his mouth.
The voice was within him again; he knew it as certainly as he knew he dreamed. It carried the sweetness of a caress and the aggression of a cancer. There was no recognizable form to it, nothing but the warm slipperiness of naked skin, and the hot, fragrant whisper of breath on his neck. He couldn’t have explained how a voice could be incarnate, but he knew that it was. The wet imprint of lips suckled at the sinews of his body, dragging at his flesh with a dark, damp desire. The illusion of sharp teeth grazed at his throat.
None of this was new to him. Every night a new assault; a fresh seduction. Every night the anticipation of its approach, mixed with the despair of its arrival. Its possession of his mind and body brought with it the unwelcome gifts of climax and conflict. He struggled, and yet he succoured it, too.
He pushed his nightshirt away impatiently, the fingers of one hand sliding down between his bare muscled thighs, probing at the soft, sensitive skin behind his sac. He cupped and kneaded the tight balls, tormenting them. A moan slid out from between his lips, mixed with a thread of saliva. His other hand fisted firmly around his weeping erection, squeezing the blood-red, swollen flesh, and tugging the sheath of its skin up to the top and back down again. His hips started to buck gently in rhythm with his pumping, his buttocks lifting up from the linen sheets, his heels digging in to hold his body taut. His mouth still formed its silent pleas. He lifted the fingers of his other hand to his mouth, sucking until they were wet, then he reached them back down between his legs, probing further back, seeking and teasing at his puckered entrance.
The voice responded to his movements. The deep, firm call commanded him, its low tone vibrating through his hot veins as if embedded in his own belly. It could demand; sometimes it cajoled. And sometimes it begged.
Touch…touch me…
His finger slid carefully into his entrance, seeking a spot that would conquer his resistance, demanding his surrender to the coil of lust that was creeping relentlessly through his limbs, deep and irresistible in the pit of his groin. He moaned again, and his body shivered from the unerring stimulation. He knew what he wanted, what he liked. How he liked it.
The voice hissed its approval, for it knew his weakness too. He felt its need like a corporeal presence, its lips like suckers, its hands like the sticky tentacles of a flytrap. He keened for its caress, even as he cried in protest.
And then he was over the brink, the s****l climax wracking through him with hot, angry bursts. His body shuddered, and his hand gripped at his c**k like an anchor to the real world. His legs stiffened—his neck bared itself for an imaginary predator. Thick white seed spattered from him, catching in his palm, dribbling across his heaving belly and spilling on his carefully laundered covers. The sound of his panting was very loud in the room now, drowning out the whisper of the wind at the window. His hand lay damp and sticky on his thigh. The muscles of his legs shook with the release of tension.
In his dream, he struggled to wake, but was never allowed. He thought he could hear the echo of his own harsh breath. The fog blanketed the sky outside the window and the room was becoming chilled. There was no other voice now. He was alone again.
As always.
