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| To dream a Demon, was that what she had done? Jeannine wasn't sure, but all the same she wore the ring on the third finger of her left hand so that she would remember and never forget. The thick silver band gave her thoughts weight and dimension, a strange sort of reality, one she could cling to and set her feet upon. The memory, more like a dream, made her wonder if it had indeed really happened, but then there was the ring, solid, implacable and firmly resting on the third finger of her left hand. To look upon it was to see no discerning marks or artistry, just a broad silver band slightly dull from the scratches adorning its surface. The only thing to distinguish it at all from any other looking much the same was the inscription inside. Jeannine didn't like to read it, the inscription, for it gave her chills and an uncomfortable sense of awareness, not Jeannine's, that of something other, aware of her, almost able to hear her thoughts. With a confusing sense of relief Jeannine tore her eyes away from the band of silver gleaming quietly against her pale long fingered hand and clenching her fingers into a fist she felt the inscription press itself into the soft flesh there. Each letter burned itself into her, making itself a part of her, claiming her attention, almost she could read it from the feel of it's inscribed letters pressed against her skin. She felt it then, something waking, not from sleep but into awareness, the knowledge of this sentience washed her body in an icy chill and she forced her hand to open and her mind to turn away from the letters still burning their way into her. She had not always worn it, this strange and somehow attentive band of silver circling her finger in a cool metal embrace. No, Jeannine recalled quite well the night it had become hers and memory sang in her mind eclipsing all else with its bright and fearful song. She smelled it then, the fear of that night; it always came with the memory that scent as if the two were married, irrevocably entwined one within the other. It began in the middle of an exotic fevered dream for Jeannine, a dream in which a red haze covered her senses, and she felt the delicious sensations of long languid caresses. Warmth spread in a radiating fan from her navel and she felt her legs part, an ache growing outward from her center and with a cry she awoke. Her own breathing sounded harsh and ragged to her sensitive newly awakened ears. Ears that began to hear more with each passing moment. Jeannine thought she heard something breathing with her, the room seemed to echo with the sounds of life, noisy exhalations not altogether her own beat upon her senses. Her ears ringing with the night Jeannine strove to pierce the darkness, parting shadows with memory so that shapes resolved into their true form and the room began to make sense again. That is when she saw him, all elbows and knees, perched upon her dresser. His unruly black hair and angular shape Jeannine did not find nearly as frightening as his wild white staring eyes. |
| To Dream a Demon |
| Eyes with no pupil, just white, so that it should have been impossible for him to see, yet Jeannine knew with all her heart that he could see, that he was looking at her and through her, that her soul was as naked to him as her body was beneath the sheet. She knew then that he had been watching her dream, listening to the small sounds she had made in her sleep, Jeannine watched him smile with her knowledge, teeth showing sharp gleaming points in the over silent night. With a rustle of dried leaves he shifted his perch and before Jeannine was even aware that he was no longer on top of her dresser he was sliding across her bed in a curiously angular motion, a sensation of having witnessed joints bending backwards made Jeannine feel sick. He reached forward then and placed his hand in her chest, she watched his fingers slide through her flesh as if through water and she held her breath waiting for the pain. There was no pain only the icy heat of him, expanding inside her chest and his sharply pointed smile inches from her face. He pulled his hand free slowly, so slowly that she expected it to come out with a soft popping noise, but it was silent and painless as when it first entered her. He put his hand beneath his nose, smelling her and licked it grinning with some sort of twisted satisfaction. He reached forward again, with his long jointed fingers and in a backward motion he tore free her sheet. In one impossible move he was squatting over her naked body, one hand wrapped around his thick tumescent member the other snaking between her parted thighs. He leaned over her then and with his serpents tongue licked both her breasts while his hand fervently sought the secrets she kept and Jeannine desperately wanted to fight him while she eagerly rose to meet his touch. He plunged into her with un-natural motions and his kisses were flicks of his long serpents tongue. His seed burned a trail of fire down her leg as he grinned fiercely in her face. Jeannine knew nothing more till morning; when she woke with a foul stickiness smeared upon her thigh and a silver band upon the third finger of her left hand. She was alone in a room that smelled of hell, thoughts of brimstone and sulfur, pointed teeth and backwards joints filled her with loathing and dread. Carefully, on shaking limbs Jeannine left that reeking bower and stumbling on treacherous feet found her way at last to the shower. Turning on water as hot as she could stand Jeannine stood there under the spray shivering with a cold it was impossible to touch. Sometime later... Jeannine standing before her mirror studied her reflection and the memory. A memory of wild white eyes, pupiless eyes with no soul but an unruly and evil madness and that icy hot touch so intimate. She pressed the ring to her finger and in her fear felt it, that presence, the same as from last night. The memory, more like a dream, made her wonder if it had indeed really happened, but then there was the ring, solid, implacable and firmly resting on the third finger of her left hand. � Linda H. Lawrence |
| The Paper Dragon |
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