Semi Realism Study W Gojo

mappa’s fanservice is crazy!!!!

Somerbron Lake: A Romance (Part One)

Female Main Character x Male Monster Dark Romance - Sense of dread - Creepy Neighbors - Sick husband

The white halls of the hospital always seemed to go on forever. No matter how many times I trekked them, no matter how many times I stood at the nurses’ station. The hallways were an endless void of brightness I longed to get away from. But I stayed inside them, no matter how many times I had to come, no matter how long the stays were. James was all that mattered.

His health had never been the best. Even when we first started dating in college he had his occasional maladies. After the wedding there were a few months of bliss before everything took a turn. Long stays in the white halls were nothing new. Now though, it may be a long while before I have to walk them again.

“I heard you got a new place,” one of the nurses said as she helped me gather James’ things.

I smiled at her, having come to know the nursing staff very well over the years. “I have! It's very close to the specialist James has been referred to. It’s near a lake as well, so James can fish while he recovers.”

The nurse gave a heavy sigh of relief. “It’ll be good for him to have a change of scenery.” She glanced out the window at the city skyline. “Perhaps some cleaner air will help those lungs of his.”

“That’s what we’re hoping for too.” I folded up his blanket and kept it close to my chest, looking over all the stitches I’ve made to it. “We’re lucky.”

The nurse gave me a look, a look I’m sure she’s given a thousand times in a thousand ways. How I’m able to say lucky with a straight face and not burst into tears, I’m sure she knows my tone and hopefulness too well.

“Yes. Of course you are.” She patted my shoulder. “Let me go get you an extra bag for that. Keep it clean while you travel.”

“Thank you.” I took a deep breath as she left and turned to the window. The city was all I knew. James had some experience in the country, what with his parent’s summer home. I knew this was all for the best. James would be closer to his doctor, surrounded by clean air, and better yet we wouldn’t have to remain in this hospital. He’d have a nurse come by every day to check on him.

“There she is.”

I saw James come wheeling into the room on his own. He smiled up at me, pale, frail, but still so handsome it’d take your breath away.

“There he is,” I responded in chipper joy. I went to him, kneeling down to give him a kiss. “Still in the clear?”

“Yes!” James announced brightly. He braced his hands tightly on the arms of the wheelchair, wobbling as he stood up on his feet. “The doctor said, if this keeps up, I should be back to myself by the end of the year.”

“Wouldn’t that be a miracle?” I sighed.

James shook his head. “Not a miracle, hard work.” He looked at his suitcase on the bed. “I can’t believe I finally get to go.”

I stood behind him, resting my forehead between his shoulder blades. His bones poked through his shirt, he’d lost so much weight. He’d been so burly when we first met. This gentle, hairy giant with the most handsome face you’d ever seen. Now, he was a scarecrow of his former self. Meanwhile, the stress of it all had put weight on me. I didn’t feel like the dainty swimmer he’d fallen in love with. I couldn’t even remember the last time I touched water not in a glass or bowl.

James turned and wrapped his arms around me as tightly as he could. “I love you, Lori McLeod.”

I returned the embrace, hugging him as tight as I could. “I love you, James McLeod.”

He nuzzled to my hair, chuckling softly. “Well, are we ready for this new chapter?” He stood back, looking me in the eyes. “The new house all ready?”

I nodded. “Should be. Your mother said she got everything moved in for us. By the time we get there, we should have a made bed and full fridge to take care of us.”

“See? Now aren’t you glad you married for money?” He teased.

I scoffed. “You stop saying that! It’s bad enough you got the nurses thinking I was some gold digger with all your teasing!”

James smiled, which never lost its strong allure. “I cleared it up, didn’t I? Besides, they could tell right away you were an angel.”

I just glared at him.

Kissing my forehead, James also ran his fingers through my hair. “I’m the one who married up,” he whispered into my ear.

The tears welled up and I held him again, resting my head on his chest and listening to that heart beating away as strongly as it could. Stay that way, I commanded it, stay that way.

The nurses gave us a send off, giving us cards and small packages of homemade treats to keep us satisfied on the trip to our new home. The old car was filled to the brim with what was left of our belongings. Most everything else was moved to the new home where James’ mom was getting it ready and decorated.

“What was the name of this place again?” James asked as he ate another cookie from one of the nurses. “Slumber Lake? Sombering Lake?”

“Somerbron Lake,” I corrected him. “It’s a cute place. From what I’ve seen of it I mean. Small town. Not very many people. The lake is beautiful.”

James nodded, chewing a mouthful.

“I’m glad to see you have an appetite again,” I said with relief.

“I’m starving.” He then reached into his shirt pocket. “Look what Nurse Grant gave me?” He pulled out a clear baggy filled with muted green.

“James!” I nearly swerved off the road. “Really? Pot?”

“She said it would help.” He looked over the bag. “What are you so shocked for. We did it in college.”

“I wish you had told me you had that on you!” I snapped. “If you mother sees you have that on you, she’ll-”

“Oh, hush.” He tucked the baggy back into his pocket. “What’s she going to do, have Dad take the house away?”

I remained silent, a little flustered he would spring that on me.

“It’ll be nice to relax,” he said.

“Maybe,” I grumbled.

He reached out and petted my thigh. “It’s been a while since we shared a bed together. Man and wife and all that.” He squeezed and it tickled.

“James!” I laughed. “Your doctor said-”

“I don’t want to fuck him,” he said in a low, sultry voice.

I almost drove off the road again. “James!” I was squealing with girlish giggles.

Somerbron Lake took a dirt road that was well worn by years and years of travel. The road was surrounded by large trees and lush greenery. Then, it opened up, revealing the large, sparkling lake surrounded by willow trees.

“Looks creepy,” James murmured.

I scoffed. “It does not.”

His face shifted, getting a somewhat serious glint. “You don’t think it looks haunted at all? All those trees around it-”

“Those are willows,” I chuckled. “We’ll get to go swimming! You can fish all you want. It’s wonderful.”

James kept quiet. “I’m sure when the sky clears up, it’ll look much better. The gray and clouds don’t do it any favors. It doesn’t look very swimmable.”

As we drove around the lake I slowed the car down and pointed. On the opposite side you could see a few houses along the shore. “Okay, wait for it,” I said softly. “There. That’s one. The yellow one. See it?”

James rolled down his window and leaned out. “The little one?”

“It’s bigger than it looks. But that’s it, that's our new home.”

“I didn’t realize it was that close to the lake,” James breathed out. “I can literally walk out the door to it.”

“Right?” I giggled. “We can probably get a dock built if we wanted.” I sped the car back up while James remained fixated on our little house.

We came upon the town, where the road was roughly paved. I had already taken note of the shops there, everything was pretty basic and small. There was a large general store, but if James and I wanted to get most things we’d have to drive out of town.

“Quaint,” James said.

“Huh?”

He leaned towards the windshield. “The town. It’s quaint. I guess that’s the best word for it.”

“It’s charming for sure. There’s a tool store if you want to start back building dollhouses. I think there’s also a fabric store.”

James furrowed his brow as he watched shops and faces pass us by. “Won’t have the shopping you're used to.”

“Shut up,” I sneered at him. “If anyone is the shopper around here, it’s you! Spoiled little mama’s boy.”

“Offensive!” He mocked clutching pearls.

We both laughed, coming out of town and onto a narrow little road which would take us to our new home. Along the way we passed the park, where there was a small playground and a fake beach for swimming. It was empty, save for a man standing before the swings, pushing an empty one and watching it go forward.

“That’s weird,” James muttered.

I was driving, so I didn’t get a very good look at the man. “Don’t judge. He could be waiting on his family to get there.”

No one was at the house when we arrived. But James' mom had left a note saying she’d be back by the end of the day.

“Good! We’re alone.” James smirked as he read over the note.

I was holding a couple of bags in my hands. “Well go on, use the key then.”

James unlocked the door then stopped. He looked at me, his eyes flicking up and down before a smile came to his lips. “Set those down. There’s something I should do.”

“James, no-” I tried to stop him, but he was reaching for me. He tried to scoop me up to carry me over the threshold. “James! James, wait, you’re-!”

He managed to get the door open while holding me. He stumbled, bracing against the doorframe. “I’ve got you. Don’t worry.”

He was weak and healing, I had gained all this weight. He got me inside though, and despite his best efforts to keep me aloft, he had to set me down just barely inside the doorframe. He was huffing and puffing, frustrated with how his body no longer worked the way it once did.

I looked at him, waiting for him to raise his head again and walk inside. He didn’t look me in the eye, but he stepped into our new home. I grabbed the bags and closed the door.

“Let me give you the grand tour.” I took hold of his hand as he stood in the foyer. “It’s a beautiful place.”

But he didn’t budge as I tried to lead him. He was looking around the foyer, his eyes unfocused, still breathing heavily.

“James? Are you alright?”

Focusing his eyes, he looked back down at me. “Maybe we could rest for a bit? I trust you in that the house is perfect for us. We have our whole lives to look at it. Right?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Uhm…I had your mom renovate the living room to be a bedroom. Just over here.”

“Downstairs?” James balked. “What for?”

“Well, just in case anything were to happen. It would be easier for you to-” He opened the french doors into the room and I stood there.

“I appreciate the thought,” he mumbled. “But I was looking forward to that bit of normalcy.”

I followed him into the room, which was dark with all the curtains closed. The once large living room was now sectioned off, with part of it taken up by the king bed, another which his mother had turned into closets for us both. I had asked the walls to be painted a dark color, and luckily she had listened to me. The dark green was wonderful. Our apartment had bright white walls like the hospital. I wanted to sleep somewhere dark.

“Isn’t it nice?” I asked.

James sat down on the edge of the bed. “I am not going to be like this forever,” he muttered. He looked down at his hands. “I promise you, I’m not. I’ll be better by the end of the year. I’ll be strong again. I won’t be this sick, disgusting-”

“Stop right there!” I growled at him.

There was silence between us, and then there was a knock at the door.

James huffed. “Already?”

“You stay here. I’ll go see who it is.” I closed the bedroom door behind me as I went back to the foyer. From the frosted glass I could see the person who was standing there looked quite tall.

“Hello!” She sang from the other side. “It’s your new neighbor.”

I opened the door a crack to peek outside. The woman there was tall and strong looking. She had thick arms and wore heavy duty overalls with dirty gardening gloves in the pocket.

“Hi! I’m Jane Lancaster. I live right over there.” She pointed to the big blue house that was up a road from us, barely hidden by the willow trees. “Welcome to Somerbron.” She held out her hand.

“Hi,” I murmured. “I’m Lori McLeod.” I took her hand, which was shockingly cold.

Jane shook my hand heartily. “Your mother in law has been telling me about you.” She looked into the house. “Where’s that husband of yours?”

“Resting.” I said. I found it a bit strange how she was trying to use her grip to push me into the house. “I uhm-” I then noticed behind Jane, on the road to the house, there was a man standing there. He was quite tall as well, had long string hair, and a pale, stark face where the eyes were shadowed.

“I bet it was a long trip,” Jane chuckled. She finally let go of my hand and sighed. “Well, I just wanted to let you know if you or your husband needed anything, you can sure as heck count on me.” She smiled and I couldn’t help but notice how perfect her teeth were. They were eerily white and straight.

The man had gotten closer, standing at the foot of the porch. He was holding onto the banister with both hands, which were long and bony.

“Oh, Lachlan,” Jane’s tone sounded less cheerful, more surprised. “What are you doing out this way?”

The man stepped onto the porch, and the way he moved made me think he was not of this world. There was a strange grace to him and a hindrance in the air that carried his limbs.

“I came to meet our newest resident.” He turned to me, seeming to not even acknowledge Jane’s presence. He turned to me, holding out both his hands. Tilting my head up to look at him, I saw his eyes, set deeply and wide in his head. They were the most stunning blue I had ever seen, surrounded by long, thick lashes. His cheeks were sunken, and his chin jutted out. Something about him, I’m not sure what it was, stole my breath away. I was struck by some realization or dawning as I gazed at him, and it made me uneasy.

“Hello,” I murmured. “I’m Lori.” I placed my hand into his and he took it with both palms.

“Lori,” he drew it out as if savoring the flavor. “So that’s what it is now.”

I shook my head. “Excuse me?”

“Nothing,” he let out a raspy laugh. “Just compared to the last owner of this house.” His hands were also very cold, much like Jane’s. Maybe I am just hot. “I am Lachlan Mortimer.”

“Nice to meet you.” I found myself reciprocating his grasp. “I’m sorry, I’d invite you both in, but my husband and I are wanting to rest a bit.”

Lachlan seemed shaken. His eyes widened and he took a step back. “I see.” He still didn’t release my hands. “Well, moving can be a difficult task.”

Jane looked Lachlan up and down. “You should introduce us to your husband when he’s up to the task.”

I looked between them. “Are you two-”

“No!” Lachlan seemed offended and Jane took a few steps away from him. “No. No, of course not.” He muttered and mumbled something else under his breath. “I am unattached, you see.”

“Oh,” I murmured. I looked to Jane who was dusting off her overalls. “Do you live nearby then?” I asked him.

“Close,” he nodded, but I got no real straight answer. “Close enough to hear you call should you ever need me.”

I chuckled. “Oh, I see.”

Lachlan let go of my hands and bowed to me. “Consider me your newest friend here. I will do all I can for you, Lori.” He said my name in that savoring way again.

“Yes, well, it was nice to meet you both,” I waved. “But I should get back and check to see if my husband is alright. Thank you.”

Lachlan smiled, revealing those almost too perfect teeth, just like Jane had. “Have a good day. I hope we will get to spend more time together as you live your happy life here.”

I smiled at him, gripping the door in my hand. “Yes. That sounds very nice.”

I shook my head, trying to shake the unsettling weight that had rested on me the moment I met Lachlan. How strange it was, because for some reason, with no explanation at all that I could give, I felt as if I knew him. From the moment I saw his eyes I could have sworn I knew him all my life. But it was impossible. I had never met a man as unearthly as he appeared. Yet still, it lingered, that feeling. I wanted to see him again.

But why?

hopelessly devoted — sukuna

one deal struck, two lives ruined. after a scandal that rocks the entire nation, itadori 'ryomen' sukuna is forced to marry a girl chosen by his brother in order to straighten him out. but, what jin doesn't expect is how much he's willing to destroy everything he knows just to get his freedom back—even at the expense of breaking his wife's soul.

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 arranged marriage, fem!reader, artist!y/n, enemies to lovers, slow burn, business drama, inheritance!au, gambling, court cases, legal ramifications, heavy topics, mentions of m/urder, d/rug abuse, toxic codependency, mentions of d/eath, mentions of injuries, mentions of gang activity, dark content, good ol' HEAVY ANGST, mentions of drugs and alcohol, verbal degradation, emotional a/buse, heavy tones of cheating, explicit smut, y/n is 27, sukuna is 29, jin itadori supremacy, misogyny, hurt/comfort, childhood trauma, family drama, sexy older twin!sukuna, hot mess!sukuna, pressures to conceive, mentions of pregnancy, mentions of miscarriages, more tba...

𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐗

EPISODE 1: THE WISTERIA WOMAN

EPISODE 2: WAVING AT THE SHIP

EPISODE 3: FOOL, FORGET HIM

EPISODE 4: TOKYO LOVE HOTEL

EPISODE 5: STARS IN HER EYES

EPISODE 6: OLD HABITS DIE SCREAMING

EPISODE 7: FISHBOWL WIFE

EPISODE 8: SAFE AND STRANDED

EPISODE 9: HOPELESSLY DEVOTED TO YOU

EPISODE 10: CHICAGO, WELCOME

more tba...

your hopes, his to break 𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 playlist

©️ lalunanymph. do not copy, repost, change the sentence structures, translate across any other platforms

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possessed!scholar husband x reader |18+| 3.8k

in an act of self-preservation, your family marries you off into an exorbitantly wealthy family. it's a loveless marriage to a reclusive and reticent man. one day, he informs you of leaving to handle the last affairs of his deceased uncle's estate. when he later returns, you're convinced this man is not your husband...

story warnings; dark content, dubcon, explicit sexual details, masturbation (mc), mirror sex, implications of sadism, classism, animal death (mentioned briefly), grotesque details + body horror, murder, pseudo-victorian setting, I am well aware that this is not how Victorian marriages would've gone — bite me 👊🏻, detail + prose heavy, roughly proofread

this is a concept piece #1 for my upcoming project: the lord of phantasm. please let me know if you'd like me to post the other concept pieces!

sequel piece: root rot

reposted from my deleted blog: theoxenfree.

if you enjoyed, please leave feedback + reblog to help your girl out 💓

In the airless dark of your bedroom at night, you knew the man lying next to you under covers was not your husband. Once he had been, but now he no longer was.

The revelation had come to you before noticing the stillness of his broad frame in bed, certain stiffness which seemed more alike to rigor in a days old corpse rather than a man wrapped in the comforting spell of deep sleep.

His breaths were silent, if he even breathed at all, reminding you of childhood where the floorboards wouldn't creak so loudly if you sucked all the air out from your lungs into your throat, snagging it, holding it firm. Suddenly, you'd be lighter; effervescent; floating across the wooden slabs towards the kitchen past midnight, or out the front door during the years where testing your parent’s patience and fraying the head maid’s nerves was your favorite thing to do.

You’d learned later on, after the loveless vows and complicated legality behind joining your two families, that your husband had a knack for slipping away at night as well. Only, he wasn't at all the sort for flirtatious gallivanting and loquacious rendezvous with secret lovers in dim rooms, smells of mildew masked by a numbingly sweet, perfumey fog.

He was reclusive and reticent; one of those outstandingly brilliant scholars who believed the rest of the world was below him because he hadn't found an equal in conversation or thought. Social obligations—no matter the occasion or person—pained him to where he intentionally brought you as a buffer between himself and whomever was trying to speak to him.

Some of the talk was so astronomically beyond you that parroting the long-winded answers he spoke softly into your ear back to his audience made you burn under the collar from embarrassment and his proximity to you. His peers could not understand why he simply wouldn't talk for himself; meanwhile, they also wondered why someone without their level of formal education had even accompanied him.

At night, he became one with darkness and retreated to the depths of his study across the massive house you shared together. It was part of one of his family’s various estates dotted across the country and his favorite, due to its location near the university where he worked (at his leisure), and its closeness to his only relative he actually cared about.

“My uncle—he has passed. Of complications caused from tuberculosis, I've been told. I was the only family member placed in his will, therefore it falls to me to settle all remaining affairs he may have overlooked,” he said, letting you help him into his heavy, wool coat he left on a hook near the front door. At his side was a hulking suitcase; one he often used for trips that were days—weeks away from home, from you. “He was a far more private man than I, so there's no telling what I'll come across while I'm there. I cannot tell you how long I'll be away. I'm sorry.”

You expected nothing less from him. This man who had only ever touched you once, on your wedding day. He did everything that he was supposed to: tonelessly regurgitate scripted vows he committed to memory, hold your hands, and kiss you at the altar for more than two seconds but less than five, and then gently lead you away once both families were pleased with the performance.

Right after, now as newlyweds, he poured bourbon into exquisite crosshatch crystalware and examined the glistening amber under wan lamplight. He apologized for kissing you, that he wouldn't have had at all if it hadn't been so important for your families.

At the time, it made you feel very ugly and undeserving of the silk and ornate lacework decorating your body. The gold band fitted around your finger was a lofty symbol of acquired wealth, heavy and unforgiving.

“Write to me every once and a while,” was all you could think to say at present, managing your composure well enough as he gripped the handle of his suitcase and leaned into its heftiness on that side. “It'd just be nice to know how you're doing. If you find anything interesting. When you'll be coming home. It gives me something to look forward to.”

“I'll try to,” he said, but looked through you, pierced you, as though trying to see something else. You saw this look most often at events or parties where he'd fixate on a specific point (usually you) and seem to recede inside himself, into his thoughts, perhaps trying to dissect them or make them congeal into something linear.

“Uncle was an eccentric man. There's no telling what he's left behind for me to find. I must go. Be well, my dear.”

Once again, he left you behind without remorse.

Four months passed with agonizing, gripping slowness from the crisp mornings of late autumn into the icy vise of winter and a shimmering white-blue landscape outside your windows. In those days, you occupied yourself as best you could with guests and alcoholic merriment, whisked yourself away to parties and dinners after wringing out the invitations from friends, and spent many sleepless nights sprawled across the floor beside the fireplace coveting self-pleasure.

You imagined it was your husband there with you, immediately a renewed man after his return and finding you boundlessly desirable, fucking you with his cock rather than the freezing metal dildo you thrust inside yourself.

Even once you were finished, fucked out by your own hand and the object gaping you wide, you kept masturbating until you lost sensation, the motions and metal numbing you inside—until the intimacy and thrill of self-discovery had lost meaning to you.

Sometimes, you were found the next morning by a maid like that: thoroughly debauched with the phallus having rolled away nearby or still shallowly pressed inside. You only needed to threaten her livelihood once for her to never speak of it, pretend each time she hadn't witnessed a regrettable case of personal depravity.

It'd eventually become a frequent enough sight to her that she knew better than to look directly at you when she entered the room. Rather, now, she carried a laundered pair of trousers in with her. They were draped neatly over a bent arm, along with a warm and soapy rag in her hand, which she used to lightly clean you of dried fluids. Afterward, she helped you into the new garment.

“You have received a letter from the Master,” she said unexpectedly one morning, after fastening your pants and tucking your blouse inside them. “It's strange, though, because it doesn't feel like a letter. Not enough… substance. Shall I open it for you?”

“No! No, that's alright.” You took the long, pale envelope from her once she revealed it to you, realizing that she was right. There was nothing to it. Light as a feather, but completely sealed on the back with his personal emblem hastily stamped, or more appropriately, smeared, with red wax dribbling away from center towards the bottom of the envelope as if sudden jerkiness had unsteadied his focused pour.

You flipped the thing front to back several times, testing the way the opposite ends fluttered from nothingness within, and glanced aside to your maid.

She looked to be just as thrown.

“You're sure this is from him?” you asked, bemused. “Who delivered this?”

“Why, a courier on horseback, of course!” she said with conviction, so you knew she wasn't lying to you at that moment. It wasn't her habit to weave tales to get a rise out of her employers, anyway. “I even spoke to the courier for a while because I made a comment about it being so light. He wasn't sure about it, either, but the description of the man who hired him matched the Master almost exactly.”

You had found a letter opener on the desk nearby and made a quick cut under the wax to break the seal without ripping the envelope itself.

“Almost? What does that mean here?” you raised the intact flap with the messy seal attached, freeing all of the residual tracks of wax from the paper so that they fell to the hardwood below like pebbles shaken out of a shoe after a stroll through the yard. “The man was either my husband or he wasn't.”

The maid tried to subdue her intrigue of the envelope, turned, and moved onto bunching up the soiled sheet you'd spread out on the floor last night. “Please don't misunderstand. It was him. But, the courier described him as ‘a very interesting and friendly fellow to converse with’.”

“What?”

You were responding to two things simultaneously right then: what your maid had just told you, and the fact that the only content inside the envelope was a single shred of paper torn from an unlined journal.

The maid fluttered back over to your side as you plucked out the slither of paper, letting the envelope fall freely from your hand to the floor. Leaning into your proximity, she read aloud the same three words that your eyes skimmed:

“Father Marius DuMonde.”

Just as you had done before with the envelope, you flipped the scrap back and forth as though trying to magically flip something into existence. Your husband's handwriting was recognizable in the lettering, but it was impatient; scrawled across a page in one journal in his vast collection like he hurriedly walked past, and then ripped it out.

Nothing else was revealed to you in the seconds after, nor in your long, contemplative stare.

“Who is that?” you asked the maid to alleviate a fast yawning gap of uneasiness beginning to make you fidget and fluster. “A priest?”

The maid beamed in awe of your fast deductive skills and nodded eagerly. “It would seem that way! The city has more places of worship than it does homes for the hungry and sick. Although, I suppose a church offers some of those services.” However, the lightness sank out of her face when you didn't reciprocate that enthusiasm whatsoever. “You’re unhappy? What's wrong?”

“My husband is a scholar. A rigid man of science,” you said, bending over to pick up the discarded envelope to closer examine the disastrous wax seal. “He denounces faith in all forms. Why did he write a priest's name to me?”

That maddening thought followed you for days afterward, sufficiently distracting you from all the regular vices you'd come to rely on to fill the void of your husband's absence. Fulfill the needs he'd never tried to meet even while he was around.

You spent your days brooding in the window seats in whichever room was warmest, molding against their domed shape while leaning a cheek flush to frigid glass, eyes bloodshot and watering against the sun’s searing neon reflecting off of a lawn of undiluted, glittering white.

Seldomly, a finch or small vermin would come into your view—hopping or lunging through the snow, making tracks, digging holes, disturbing your beautiful wonderland and almost arousing you into unreasonable outbursts which then inevitably became the servants responsibility to contend with, should any be nearby to provoke you.

It was the early evening during one of your normal watches, just after dinner and a glass of red wine, when a great clamor carried swiftly to you from the foyer of the main entrance. The servants’ voices were a feverish amalgam of nonsensical babbling, high-pitched, and accommodating in a way that made you think of groveling dogs with flattened ears, wagging and tucked tails, bellies upturned to their masters.

“Come! Come quickly!” called your maid from the sitting room door, her shrill, excitable voice a violent jostling in your head, scrambling your thoughts and anger with it. “Master has returned! He's asking for you.”

You delayed the reunion, waiting several minutes after she had gone before standing. You realized that the anticipation you felt swelling in your chest, rising like growth—a malignant tumor into your throat, thickening your tongue and fouling your taste and smell, was because you were uneasy, haunted by the cryptic message he had presumably sent you weeks ago.

A while later, you entered the foyer to see most of the staff had already dispersed and the ones left behind were your husband’s most loyal. There among them, speaking so unremarkably, so casually in a way you'd never witnessed, was your husband. His good spirits and animated gestures as he handed off all his things to many hands were an odd sight, staggeringly unlike his typical dour.

So, the rumor was true. There was something discomforting in that.

Whatever topic he'd been engaged in fell wayside once he took sight of you: standing, waiting, subtly shifting your weight, picking your overgrown cuticles to remedy how nervous you truly felt in that moment. You'd always been a little uncertain of how to deal with him as he was hardly affable, but this—

“Oh my… there you are, my sweet!” his voice was exactly the same, but his way of speaking was too jarring, almost lilting. Unnatural. No one else seemed to notice. “I was worried you may have been cross with me for being away for so long. As it turned out, uncle had far more beneath the surface to find than I once thought. But, all is well! The old man has been laid to rest forever. The estate is in the right hands. I've come back to you.”

Could this man really be your husband?

He came to you in brisk strides with a certain clumsiness to the way he moved, somewhat off. You thought about seasoned drunkards who could walk along a path, but never on a straight line without gently swaying on and off of it. Mostly in control, but never so well to appear normal.

But, you didn't detect that stiff, hot, fermented reek of alcohol on his breath nor any subtle odor sticking to his clothes as he gripped you tight in an embrace. The only one he'd ever given you. Where you should have been over the moon in joy at his profound change in heart, the little sweetness was like an anchor—arms of a sinewy willow pinning you to an even stronger trunk.

“God, you're breathtaking.” He even sounded winded as he spoke, lifting your face up with both hands to see his dark, dark gleaming eyes. You startled from his cold touch, fingertips pinpricks of pure frost and ice as they pushed into your skin, but you felt trying to reach much deeper than that. “Come with me, my love. Let me show you just how much I've missed you.”

As if fantasy had become real, he fucked you relentlessly that night next to the fireplace, consuming you so completely that every orgasm made your insides churn in agony.

He laved at you with his entire mouth, tongue and teeth hardest at work while his hands bruised and fondled you, fingers thrusting up into your tight hole oozing his saliva and your arousal. It was shameful to think that it took this sort of handling from another person to get you off, squeal like a sow.

He fucked you however he could, wherever he could. Rutting you from behind and against furniture, pressing your bare chest flush to frosted over window panes to make your nipples erect and ache from the cold biting them. Then, you were settled on his lap in front of a mirror hanging adjacent across the bedroom, his thighs spreading you wide open before your own reflection where you watched his cock plunge deep, filling you to the base of his shaft, balls slapping your sticky skin.

“Touch yourself, darling.” His throat rumbled, turning over stones and shards of glass, overall sounding very husky. There was something of wheeze that trailed the end of his every word, like he’d been patched for a long time. “Touch yourself. Watch yourself while you do it. Fuck yourself like the whore you are.”

Although the things he said were horribly uncouth, unbefitting of a man of his status and who you'd known him to be, there was great allure in hearing him, obeying his wants. You'd only had one glass of wine that evening, but your head and body warmed and buzzed like you'd had several.

His voice was a raspy whisper in your ears, seeping deep into your mind; spreading; fitting the grooves of your brain like the slow sprawl of sap through the gaps in bark. You were hardly yourself those minutes, those hours onward where you witnessed your reflection stroking throbbing parts, moaning, weeping, cumming until it hurt, and then doing it all over again.

The person in the mirror seemed to be someone completely different, whether simply disassociation from yourself or some hallucination evoked by exhaustion and ecstacy. Your husband had faded into the background, his voice creating sounds and noises, holding the cadence of language while seeming entirely unprobable, unknowable to you.

You couldn't understand him, yet you could, and the things he said were vile and disgusting and moralless. He told you of every way he'd like to fuck you, watch you be fucked; but, mostly, he wanted you to fuck yourself with the bulbous bedposts, the metal phallus held under lashing flames to be inserted next to his own cock.

He suggested orgies where the servants could take turns with you. He had almost convinced you to call for your maid so he could watch you suck on her breasts and lick her clit, while he rammed you from the back. He suggested drugs and whores, robbing the mortuaries, and worse and worse and worse and worse…

The next morning, you were stiff and immobile, bedridden unless two servants came into your room to help you squat on the commode. Your abdomen was tender and your genitals were untouchable, forcing you to lie in bed without undergarments to alleviate the raw chafing that could happen with fabric.

“I'm sorry, my darling. I—I lost control of myself. I got carried away,” your husband confessed later on, his sallow complexion keeping a weird, waxy sheen to it. A mask that fits, but not quite perfectly. Some of his former somber nature had returned to him as he sat on the edge of your bed, caressing the side of your face. He was still ridiculously cold. “Forgive me. I never meant to hurt you. I didn't realize just how desperate I was to see you again until you were in my arms. And then—and then, it was like it was all a dream.”

You thought the very same. You could believe he forgot himself in an uncharacteristic blaze of lust, as men were never taught to be any other way, and most men couldn't fathom the level of restraint he’d had until last night.

Everything else, you'd wanted to believe, was simply imagined after drinking more than you once thought and getting inside your own head full of sinful indulgences.

Still, one thing bothered you: Father Marius DuMonde.

“I need you to go to the city and find him. And show him this paper. Explain to him everything that you know, you hear?” You'd handed your maid the old envelope and scrap of paper, and handed her a generous bag of coins from your own safe. She looked at you, everything else, in bewilderment. “Don't ask questions. If you're able, bring him back here. Beg him if you must. If it's all nothing, he will simply be an honored guest we feed well, house, and send off gracefully the next day. Should it be something…”

“Are you afraid of him? The Master?” asked the maid, perhaps out of faithfulness to him. Perhaps out of devotion to you the most. “What do you think happened at his uncle's estate?”

It would all be speculation and unjustified gossip without proof, of which you had none. So, you told her that you couldn't be sure of anything right now. “Wait until sundown. Take the old pony in the stables, the one that usually lags behind all the rest. Be silent. Be careful.”

The maid did as you asked and left right before the final light was extinguished by indigo nightfall. You were able to move to one of the windows, seating yourself gingerly, watching her lead the sluggish old pony into cover of tree tops and then nothing else.

But, five days later, the maid hadn't returned from her mission, nor had you received any correspondence from her, nor the priest that she was supposed to retrieve.

A week after that, it was revealed to you that neither she or the old pony had made it out of the woods. The details of the old pony were so gruesome you couldn't bear to remember them. But, the maid was found nearly decapitated, head twisted around to face backwards, her pale skin hideously purple and black and swelled where it had been stretched like a strap of wrung leather. It was mentioned she had been disemboweled as well, but you promptly burst into tears and ran from the room before the visiting coroner could finish speaking, leaving him to discuss the rest with just your husband.

That night, you lay next to your husband in bed. The deep silence of night filled your ears with static and crunching cotton, whereas a hum resonated inside your head, your chest, seeping into your bones like a cold blanket of rainfall. The black air took on weird shapes: imagined appendages curling, reaching across the ceiling towards the bed, towards you. Your eyes couldn't focus enough to ward them off, nor the depth of dark your husband's silhouette had at your side.

He was faced the other way, his clothes back to you, completely unmoving. You ventured closer to listen for the thin breathing of sleep, the automatic rise and fall of his body, and yet he could've been mistaken as one of the dead. As dead and gnarled as your maid.

“Who are you?” you asked him. Asked the swirling nothingness in the room. “Where is my husband?”

“You've nothing to worry about, my sweet,” he said readily, so clearly anticipating to have your voice ring out at some point in the night. “He is here with me. Such a selfish, unlovable man. I am the one worthy of this vessel and you. Not he.”

Then, he rolled on top of you and kissed you deeply. Your bedclothes were shucked from your bodies and he pushed your thighs apart to seat himself inside of you. He took you with greedy thrusts, face fitted against the arch of your neck where his breath left a moist film across your skin, but the rest of him was freezing.

Your whimpers of pains were dwarfed by his hot moans into your flesh, teeth suddenly sharper and sinking deep when he bit into your neck. You were trapped staring at the ceiling, wrapped in agony and pleasure, feeling his body under your fingertips beginning to distort and change into something far more monstrous.

a/n; the upcoming story is meant to be my take on the whole possession subgenre in horror. if you're interested in reading it, I suggest you stick around my blog bc I do intend to start working on the actual story here in the next month or so!!

also, father marius dumonde is the same priest from my vampire priest x reader fic—of flesh sin. so, father shaw will be making a reappearance in it.

evanescence bring me to life and britney spears toxic are sisters to me

Well shit 😌

part eighteen spoilers. alexa play you right by doja cat.