Trouble is, her sultry hostess Selena had more than cute portraits in mind when she persuaded her to pose for the lens. Can Helen ignore the steamy fantasies which this blue-eyed Circe is fanning in her heart?
Confused by her own unexpected desires, the angel-faced bride is trying so hard to remember who she is, and where she came from. So hard. But sometimes, trying is just not good enough. Especially if a gorgeous sorceress wields the tempting hand.
Her head is spinning real bad. Damn. She should have gone easier on the wine. Her eyes zigzag to her watch, but the hands on the bijou dial are blurred, unreadable. She has had too much to drink, definitely. It has been a fun evening, but it is time to leave. Time to leave. She repeats this in her mind, very slowly, moving her lips in silent encouragement.
Tiiiime-toooo-leaaaave.
The words float up before her like distorted, meaningless pictograms, then swirl into an almost perfect circle and start dancing. Weird. She usually does not see sentences drifting and cavorting like this when she is tipsy. She tries to get up, but her legs are stubbornly unresponsive. With every new second, they seem to become more deeply rooted to the floor.
‘Can you … Can you help me up?’ she asks.
She was feeling euphoric only moments ago. Euphoric, and so relaxed, so loose, so free, she was laughing at everything. At the jokes he was cracking, all of them uproariously funny. At the little papier-mâché pumpkin dangling from the ceiling – that toothless Halloween grin had her in stitches. At the old calendar on the wall, hanging lopsided from a single pin – who had ever seen anything quite as farcical? At the stain of wine on her jeans, just above the knee, for its blobby shape was so, so extraordinarily comic.
But now it is as if an invisible, vexatious sandman had cut open a hole at the base of her neck and was doggedly filling her up. Like she was some sort of hollow puppet to be stuffed bit by bit to the brim and made utterly passive.
‘Can you … help me … up?’ she repeats. The words seem to be catching in her throat.
‘Help you up? Why?’
‘I … I should get going. I’m feeling a bit … dizzzzy.’
‘Come on, you can’t go now, just before the real fun begins.’
‘The real …?’ She looks up at him through the mist in her eyes. Bizarrely, his head does not look like his head anymore.
‘Why … Why aaare you looking … like a hoooorse?’ she slurs. She must be hallucinating.
He responds with his own question.
‘Don’t you like my Trojan horse look? Just a quirky little mask I picked up at the corner shop. It rather increases my sex appeal, don’t you think?’
That was an awful lot of syllables, and she struggles to grasp them all.
‘Your … your sex appeaaal?’ she echoes. It is so difficult to get the words out.
‘Horses are usually well-hung, you know.’
She wants to get up, but the sand keeps seeping inside her, without remorse, and has reached up to her chest. She is not going anywhere.
‘Aren’t you sitting comfortably?’ he asks.
‘I’ve … I’ve had too muchchch to drinnnk.’
‘Nonsense. Anyone can stomach a little Gamma Hydroxybutyrate.’
‘Gam … hxybtr …?’ What is wrong with her? She can’t understand a single thing coming out of his mouth. Perhaps because he has a horse’s head.
‘I thought that might relax you nicely. You’ve been a bit tense lately. Nothing like two grams of Liquid X to start looking on the bright side of things.’
She has no idea what he is going on about. Confusion is shrouding her mind.
‘As I said, horses are well-hung. You’ll enjoy my demonstration.’
He unzips his flies and pushes down his trousers.
Her eyes drift down, listlessly, to the cock in his grip. A rather large model, already fully primed. He moves closer, bringing the rigid intruder within an inch of her face.
‘Your mouth. Open it.’
Wooziness is blunting her panic.
‘Noooo … Pleaaaase …’ she manages, drifting further and further from herself.
‘Oh, but you will, honeypot. You will.’
She cannot move her legs. Cannot move her arms. Cannot push him off. The cock is floating before her. Floating, dancing. She is so confused. She should feel fear, helplessness, revulsion too, but everything is dulled, jumbled, losing focus.
‘Open your mouth!’
A tear collects in the corner of her eye. But it does not roll down her cheek, cannot roll down her cheek. Even her tears are frozen, like her arms and legs.
‘Forgive me,’ she pleads weakly, through her lethargic thoughts.
She does not see the camera which the devious horse man is holding above her head. She does not, cannot see its light flashing.
Blip, blip, blip.
She does not hear the door clicking and strange male voices whinnying in derision.
Forgive me, Karl.
She parts her lips in a daze.
Tiiiime-toooo-leaaaave.
The words float up before her like distorted, meaningless pictograms, then swirl into an almost perfect circle and start dancing. Weird. She usually does not see sentences drifting and cavorting like this when she is tipsy. She tries to get up, but her legs are stubbornly unresponsive. With every new second, they seem to become more deeply rooted to the floor.
‘Can you … Can you help me up?’ she asks.
She was feeling euphoric only moments ago. Euphoric, and so relaxed, so loose, so free, she was laughing at everything. At the jokes he was cracking, all of them uproariously funny. At the little papier-mâché pumpkin dangling from the ceiling – that toothless Halloween grin had her in stitches. At the old calendar on the wall, hanging lopsided from a single pin – who had ever seen anything quite as farcical? At the stain of wine on her jeans, just above the knee, for its blobby shape was so, so extraordinarily comic.
But now it is as if an invisible, vexatious sandman had cut open a hole at the base of her neck and was doggedly filling her up. Like she was some sort of hollow puppet to be stuffed bit by bit to the brim and made utterly passive.
‘Can you … help me … up?’ she repeats. The words seem to be catching in her throat.
‘Help you up? Why?’
‘I … I should get going. I’m feeling a bit … dizzzzy.’
‘Come on, you can’t go now, just before the real fun begins.’
‘The real …?’ She looks up at him through the mist in her eyes. Bizarrely, his head does not look like his head anymore.
‘Why … Why aaare you looking … like a hoooorse?’ she slurs. She must be hallucinating.
He responds with his own question.
‘Don’t you like my Trojan horse look? Just a quirky little mask I picked up at the corner shop. It rather increases my sex appeal, don’t you think?’
That was an awful lot of syllables, and she struggles to grasp them all.
‘Your … your sex appeaaal?’ she echoes. It is so difficult to get the words out.
‘Horses are usually well-hung, you know.’
She wants to get up, but the sand keeps seeping inside her, without remorse, and has reached up to her chest. She is not going anywhere.
‘Aren’t you sitting comfortably?’ he asks.
‘I’ve … I’ve had too muchchch to drinnnk.’
‘Nonsense. Anyone can stomach a little Gamma Hydroxybutyrate.’
‘Gam … hxybtr …?’ What is wrong with her? She can’t understand a single thing coming out of his mouth. Perhaps because he has a horse’s head.
‘I thought that might relax you nicely. You’ve been a bit tense lately. Nothing like two grams of Liquid X to start looking on the bright side of things.’
She has no idea what he is going on about. Confusion is shrouding her mind.
‘As I said, horses are well-hung. You’ll enjoy my demonstration.’
He unzips his flies and pushes down his trousers.
Her eyes drift down, listlessly, to the cock in his grip. A rather large model, already fully primed. He moves closer, bringing the rigid intruder within an inch of her face.
‘Your mouth. Open it.’
Wooziness is blunting her panic.
‘Noooo … Pleaaaase …’ she manages, drifting further and further from herself.
‘Oh, but you will, honeypot. You will.’
She cannot move her legs. Cannot move her arms. Cannot push him off. The cock is floating before her. Floating, dancing. She is so confused. She should feel fear, helplessness, revulsion too, but everything is dulled, jumbled, losing focus.
‘Open your mouth!’
A tear collects in the corner of her eye. But it does not roll down her cheek, cannot roll down her cheek. Even her tears are frozen, like her arms and legs.
‘Forgive me,’ she pleads weakly, through her lethargic thoughts.
She does not see the camera which the devious horse man is holding above her head. She does not, cannot see its light flashing.
Blip, blip, blip.
She does not hear the door clicking and strange male voices whinnying in derision.
Forgive me, Karl.
She parts her lips in a daze.
♥ Click on the image to learn more ♥
Born in a cosy village in Brittany, France, Mael D’Armor has worked as an academic, cartoonist and young children’s author. He came to Australia in search of wide spaces and exciting life forms. For reasons as yet unclear to him, this prompted his move into fiction and his first, award-winning short story was published in 2012. He writes about the complexities of desire, frustration, hope, love and French kissing - though not always in that order.
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ReplyDeleteWhat advice would you give to your younger self?
ReplyDeleteSounds like a sweet read
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for hosting my Awakening trilogy today! I really appreciate the trouble you went to to present it in a very attractive way.
ReplyDeleteA word of explanation perhaps about the teaser excerpt. Though it is the prologue of Book 1, it is only in Book 3 that readers can understand what is truly happening here. Books 1 to 3 were meant initially as one novel, not as three separate entities. Just saying that because one reader was surprised that the prologue was left unresolved by the end of Book 1 (Velvet Trap).
To answer the previous post (not sure if it was meant for me but well…), that’s a tough one because I’m not sure my younger self would listen to anything my older self would have to say. I was a bit too stubborn I think – still am, by the way. And nothing beats trial and error, discovering what works, what doesn’t and then slowly building up your own experience that way. It’s just not the same if someone else tells you, is it? Even if that someone is you with a few more expression lines. And that's especially true in matters of the heart. As for my other life choices (my job, where to live, which colour pet rat I should get – yes, I have 2 of them, or to be more precise my daughter has, but they’re often running all over my keyboard and making interesting additions to my writing, so I feel I have a special bond to them), I probably wouldn’t have done things that differently in hindsight.
Fiction, for example. Now that’s one thing which I’d had at the back of my mind for a while but I don’t think I was ready for it until recently. Had to come in its own good time.
The Awakening is indeed my first proper foray into fiction of any kind and certainly a sharp departure from the academic papers and articles I usually write. Also a 90-degree turn from my other creative endeavours – cartooning and coming up with the odd children’s book. Which by the way explains the pen name, but then isn’t secrecy half the fun? The other half was putting that story together.
So yeah, I tried to make that narrative not just darkly titillating but also humorous at times, and uplifting in a weirdly "mythical" sort of way. As the title suggests (it’s a big hint really), The Awakening is a coming-of-age story about a (relatively) innocent young woman discovering the tortured meanders of sex and love. There's the good guy that turns out to be bad, the bad girl that proves not to be so bad after all, and naturally the heroine who finds out she is not so good as she thought she was, but not so bad as she feared she might have become. Life is complicated, but we knew that already, didn't we?
I've now been back in my native Brittany in Western France for a while and when I’m not lecturing or concocting new class material (or enduring one of those interminable departmental meetings - sigh -), I’m working at a new erotica novel. This one starts in Sydney and ends - where else? - deep in the heart of Celtic Brittany! There'll be romance, mystery, humour, thwarted love, a few muscular knights, a lot more magic than in The Awakening, a sprinkling of suitably hot French phrases and – obviously – lots of very steamy scenes.
The book should come out in a few months, curtesy of Harper Collins Australia again. In the meantime, I hope readers enjoy this little caper on a Queensland island.
Beautiful cover. Thanks.
ReplyDelete