All Hallows' Eve at the Braidwood House
Author's note:
This is my first attempt in the Erotic Horror category, although admittedly I might have put it in Humor & Satire, Group or Nonhuman. In any case, it is also my first entry in a contest, specifically Halloween 2016. As with most of my stories, this one starts out slow, building the background and characters necessary to set up the sexy stuff. I hope you enjoy it and I hope you will give me feedback through comments and voting, especially voting. It gives me a decent idea about how well I am entertaining you, the reader.
* * * * *
I shouldn't be here,
he thought.
This was a big mistake...
It was bad enough that the old Vicky stood next to the village's original graveyard and that on Halloween the cops would be on the lookout for Juvies out larking. Plus, trespassing -- even on abandoned property -- was still a crime with very few exceptions. Breaking and entering to retrieve proof of his daring wasn't one of the exceptions. But that was exactly what he had to do if he wanted to be accepted.
Accepted into the club, that is. The Norcross Paranormal Mystery and Romance Writers Guild. NPMRWG didn't make a very good acronym, so mostly it was just called The Guild. And he wanted in. Badly.
Stewart Chamblee had dreamed of being a writer since the day they first put a crayon in his hand. He had frustrated parents and teachers alike with his "overactive imagination," as they liked to call it. When he was being honest with himself, he'd admit that he had a hard time seeing the mundane world that the others called "reality." He was always seeing beyond it, seeing innumerable worlds just off in the shadows a bit, full of excitement and adventure. Sometimes there would be a glowing portal and he could walk through it and actually go there, though he always got pulled back somehow. He loved to visit those worlds and see what there was to see.
Sometimes, it scared the shit out of him.
Others might scoff at him, but he believed... he
knew
... that ghosts and angels and evil spirits existed and couldn't resist the temptation to screw with people's lives. Just like he knew that Klingons and Romulans actually lived outside the imagination of Gene Rodenberry, and that Bram Stoker, Guy Endore and Clemence Housman were chronicling history. He wanted to write the stories of the worlds he knew. To have them accepted, he had to make them seem like paranormal fiction.
So he'd applied for membership in the Guild, because they sponsored up-and-coming writers and helped the greenhorns get connected with legitimate publishers. Their requirements were simple: to submit three examples of his writing for critical review, to submit an essay of not less than 750 words detailing why he wanted to join, and to venture into the heart of the local paranormal hell -- the Braidwood House -- and return with an item proving he'd been there. And not get caught, of course.
This last requirement was intended to weed out the faint of heart and the dispassionate wannabe's who weren't serious about the paranormal. Which is why he was here, scaling the wrought iron fence that surrounded the Braidwood House, scared stiff. To those who believed in the paranormal, trespassing on these grounds was potentially fatal.
And who the hell thought sharp, pointy spikes on the top of the fence would be a good idea, anyway?
Sporting freshly ripped pants and shirt, he lowered himself to the ground, crouched, and looked around.
Suck it up, Stew,
he thought to himself.
You can do this. You've
got
to do this. You want in the Guild.
Focusing on that thought, he eased across the spacious grounds toward the three story Victorian mansion looming out of the dark, illuminated by the full moon.
Why did the full moon have to be on Halloween?
he thought to himself, annoyed at the implications.
He had come over the fence at the back of the house, away from the cemetery. Less chance of getting noticed. Now, as he moved forward, he realized the outbuilding he was using to cover his approach wasn't the tool shed. It was an ornate mausoleum in the best Gothic tradition.
Shit!
was his primary thought.
Don't walk on any kind of hallowed ground or anything, Stew! Idiot...
He gave up on hiding and made his way quickly and circuitously to the back porch. The house's foundation was stone. The rest of the house was wood, but not the cheap 2-by-4 construction of today's houses. No, this one had been built to last forever, out of thick timbers and heavy shake siding. Rumor was, Charles F. Braidwood Esq. had the house built for his second wife and had made the frivolous promise that his love for her would last longer than the house did.
It's in pretty good shape for being over a hundred and fifty,
he thought.
Wonder if he still loves his wife... or wives...
Braidwood had been a railroad tycoon, a robber baron of the mid- to late-1800's, and had built this estate as a retreat, well away from any nearby city, after his first wife died under mysterious circumstances and he had married his second. Apparently, she too had died and he had abandoned the house. It was supposed to be haunted and hence shunned by the locals. It was rumored that some who had entered had never returned.
And I'm standing here like an id... what the fuck was
that
???
The sound of a rusty hinge echoed across the yard as if amplified by the night. He quickly looked around and saw nothing. Until...
Until he noticed a dark, man-sized shape moving back near the mausoleum. He scrambled to hunker down next to the porch steps and to try and be as invisible as he could.
His heart was going into overdrive as he watched the figure glide... not walk, glide... up the gentle slope from the stone building, directly towards his hiding place.
Stairs. Porch. Bad
, he thought as he tried to inch away, back along the stone foundation, hopefully hidden by the globe arborvitae growing there. He lay as flat as possible and watched as the figure approached the stairs. Despite being scared witless, he was stunned to see that the figure was actually a woman, incredibly beautiful, with very pale skin and flowing silver-white hair. The cloak she was wearing suddenly shifted in the night breeze and he received two more shocking realizations.
Okay, she isn't a ghost,
he thought as the very real cloak moved in the wind.
And my God! What a rack!
Not the most elegant way of thinking it, but he wasn't thinking very clearly anyway. She was, indeed, very well endowed and the form-fitting shimmery dress she wore only emphasized it. Stewart found himself disappointed that the cloak blocked his view of the rest of her. He watched in complete fascination as she mounted the stairs, crossed the porch and approached the back door. On reaching it, she withdrew a key affixed to a chain around her neck and fit it to the lock.
Moments later, he heard the lock click and watched as she opened the latch and stepped in, closing the door behind her.
Oh, my God... who was that???
His mind raced as he tried to bring his heart rate under control.
Or
what
was that? There's somebody
living
here? How come nobody knows about it?
Many more questions surged through his brain but the uppermost was
how the hell do I get in there? I've
got
to meet that lady!
Not the most brilliant of ideas, given the circumstances, but certainly the one that eighteen-plus years of testosterone poisoning made the most insistent. And the one that got him slowly and carefully creeping out from the bushes and up on to the porch.
The porch wrapped around the back of the house, passing a number of windows on its way to a broad veranda on the left. The back entrance was directly in front of him, and to his right the sweep of the porch was interrupted by what had to be the summer kitchen, extending out on the right. He knew from researching the place in the daytime that the front of the house had a huge wraparound porch with ornate double-doors and a smaller covered entryway to the side that had served the coaches. There was a small coach house in the back, near the cemetery.
There really wasn't any good way to sneak into the house. He started to check the windows facing the porch, to see if they were unlocked, when a loud
creak!
made him freeze. Fearfully looking towards the door, he saw that it had sprung open a bit.
Probably didn't latch completely when she went in,
he thought.
Lucky break for me...
Somehow, he didn't hear the more rational and paranoid part of his brain that screamed
It's A Trap, You Idiot!!!
Stewart eased over to the door as quietly as he could. Ever so slowly, he pushed the door farther ajar. When it was wide enough open that he could slip in, he did, fishing his penlight from his pocket.
All I have to do is find something that says 'Braidwood' on it and get the fuck out,
he thought. His body was still jacked up on adrenaline, but at least his mind started out thinking clearly.
So what the hell says 'Braidwood'? Silverware? It'd be locked up somewhere, or gone... what else?
He looked around furtively, and by the feeble illumination of his penlight, found himself in a sort of scullery, with doors leading farther into the house and into the summer kitchen, and also a servants' stairwell leading up and down the back of the house.
This is all too utilitarian,
he thought.
Anything personalized would be farther into the house.
So with his heart pounding in his ears, he eased into the hallway leading towards the front of the house. He realized that he was moving down a long hall and that farther up, there was portraiture on the walls.
Damn! One of those pictures would be perfect!
he thought as he started to figure out which one would be the easiest to get out of the house without getting noticed. He had just about decided when he also realized that he was hearing voices. That stopped his plan to nick one of the pictures dead in its tracks.
"I'm sorry I'm late," a decidedly feminine voice was saying. "Without Bruno around to wake me, I overslept."
"That's okay, Victoria," another feminine voice replied. "Next time, if you want, I can come get you."
"Thank you, Marianne," the first voice -- now Victoria -- answered. "I may very well take you up on that. Is Julianna going to make it?"
"I am not sure," a third voice chimed in, with a bit of an accent. "She has said she may be late, or maybe she will not make it at all. We are to go ahead without her." Stewart decide the accent was French, or maybe Cajun.
"Okay, then, Margeaux," Victoria told her. "As soon as we've got our drinks, we can start."
"Very funny," Margeaux answered in a tone that indicated it wasn't. "You know I don't drink."
"Sorry... just teasing," Victoria apologized. "What is tonight?"
"Texas Hold 'Em," Marianne informed her. "Small Blind 5, Big Blind 10, minimum raise 10. Chip in, ladies."
