CHAPTER I: Stages
Holliston, NC
July 22
nd
, 1912, 10:15pm.
With little more than the hazy moon to light his way, Charlie parted ways with Enos and Tom, his friends from the cannery and followed his own street home. The chilly night air was unusually still; Charlie couldn't hear any crickets chirping, only the dull, regular beating of his own boots upon the ground.
He would've liked to be home much earlier, but Enos and Tom had insisted that he join them for drinks in the saloon. It had been their simple-minded attempt at cheering him up and it had failed. Charlie, normally a fun-loving, likeable guy had been on edge the last week or so, although he was at a loss to explain why. He just had this gnawing feeling that someone
or something
was watching him. Whatever was happening, Charlie didn't like it.
By the time Charlie finally reached his modest cottage, he was almost running. He couldn't wait to escape from the sinister darkness of the outdoors. He bounded hastily up the cheap concrete steps and immediately reached for the doorknob, for he never locked his door. Charlie had only opened the door a crack when a sudden whooshing noise caused him to freeze. It was like a sudden, strong gust of wind, though Charlie hadn't felt any such thing. Then, he got that feeling again; that feeling of being watched, stronger than ever this time.
He looked to his left, then right.
"Who's there?" he demanded, trying to conceal his fear. Again, he checked his left-hand-side, then right behind himself and then his right. But there was nothing unusual in the shadows except a pervasive sense of malevolence. His gaze darted back to the left once more. There was a figure standing there that wasn't there a second ago. Charlie was so startled that for a moment, he forgot how to breathe. He pressed his back to the doorframe and began to sink as his knees went weak. His eyes remained locked on the stranger as if his very life depended on it; he didn't even blink.
Bit by bit, the figure's features became clear to Charlie. The first thing he noticed was that they appeared to be shorter than himself by about three inches. Then he noticed that the figure's outline was rather slender and curvaceous, as opposed to bulky and muscular. It was a woman... who was topless! Charlie knew so because he could see the bare skin of her pert breasts in the moonlight!
Discovering that the stranger was just a harmless woman should've put Charlie at ease, but it didn't. There was something about her, some subtle quality that made him uncomfortable. Perhaps it was her brazen indecency, or perhaps it was the eerie way she just stood there, silent and motionless. Yet against all reason, Charlie could not bring himself to retreat indoors. If anything, he felt drawn to the mysterious female.
Charlie jumped when the shadowy silhouette eventually approached him. By the time the woman began to ascend the two steps before him, Charlie's heart was pounding wildly; his blood saturated with adrenaline.
The stranger joined Charlie on the top step, leaned over and kissed him. The first kiss was gentle, but the second was amorous, with the woman softly sucking on Charlie's lip. Her mouth was warm, but only just. Kissing her was like sipping a cup of tepid coffee that had been sitting for a while. Charlie found no joy in the encounter, even though it made him stop trembling.
By now, Charlie had realized that the woman was not merely topless, but stark naked. Attracted to and perturbed by the shadowy female all at once, Charlie reached towards her, but before he could touch her, the woman broke off the kiss and slinked backwards. She stared down at him with dark, imperious eyes and smirked. Somehow, she got him to move away from the cabin door so that she could open it and step inside.
Charlie watched as the eerily seductive figure slowly disappeared into the pitch darkness of his home. He felt like he had been in a daze and he needed a moment to take stock of what had just happened.
The stranger was inside the cabin. The foreboding knot in his stomach was telling him to walk the other way; to run from his violated home and never look back. But Charlie had seen her smooth, inviting backside in the moonlight as she had stepped through the doorway. He wanted to look at it some more, he wanted to test that lithe flesh with his hands and he wanted to taste those enthralling lips again. It was a compulsion beyond reason. So Charlie entered the cabin.
He scanned the shadows of the main living area as he cautiously advanced. Nothing seemed out of place. But the windows offered little light and it would have been easy for the stranger to conceal herself.
BANG!
The door suddenly slammed shut behind him. Charlie assured himself that it was just the wind, but in the back of his mind he was well aware that there hadn't been so much as a breeze all night.
Charlie had instinctively turned around in response to the noise. When he turned back into the cabin once more, the dim orange glow of the gaslights was radiating from the doorway to the small bedroom. He could've sworn that they hadn't been burning a second ago.
Like a hapless moth, he was drawn towards the flames. The bedroom's gaslights made it much easier to see; though much of the room was still veiled in unusual darkness. Charlie looked around for his unusual houseguest, but once again couldn't find her. A moment later, she seemingly materialized out of the darkest shadow and came towards him with a scheming smirk upon her face.
He could see her clearly now: her gentle feminine features framed by a mane of flowing ebony hair, her full lips and her perfect pink nipples (that seemed unaffected by the frigid night air). Her eyes were wide and captivating, with irises so dark as to be indistinct from her pupils. A swaying shadow covered her private region as she walked, but it was quite clear that there was no clothing there.
She cupped his face between her hands almost tenderly, and kissed him again. Charlie began to feel giddy as his blood pooled in his groin. Whoever, this mysterious woman was, Charlie was now under her spell. He willingly succumbed to his desire to touch her, at first by caressing her smooth shoulder and then by taking one of her firm, nubile breasts in his hand. As the woman led him over to the side of the bed (which comprised of a hay-stuffed mattress upon a simple cast-iron frame), Charlie felt his belt loosening. Her hands were so skilled; he hadn't even felt them at work.
Shortly after his trousers had dropped to the floor, the woman layed down on the mattress. She locked her unblinking eyes on his and began stroking her nether regions the way one would stroke a napping pet. Her legs were parted just wide enough to accommodate Charlie's hips. Charlie hesitated. He knew that it was a sin to fornicate out of wedlock and he had been courting Estelle Jafferty whom he honestly adored. But this mysterious woman had filled him with irresistible lust.
Already regretting what he was about to do, Charlie kicked off his worn shoes and removed his shirt and underwear. As he climbed on to the bed, he leaned over and gave the woman a kiss, which she reciprocated. He kissed her again once he had lain down on top of her. Then, without any further foreplay, he pressed his fully erect shaft into her private place.
Her insides were just as tepid as her lips, though far more moist. The sensation wasn't unpleasant, but neither was it remarkably satisfying. Nonetheless, Charlie continued to lie with the wanton woman. It was not that he enjoyed what they were doing so much as he couldn't bear the thought of stopping.
The stranger silently gasped and writhed with growing intensity as Charlie ground his hips against hers. He began to pad kisses upon her cheek and neck, as if pandering for at least some emotional warmth, but she did not return them.
Then, after many minutes, the climax he had felt building within finally burst forth. His anonymous lover arched her back and grinned in ecstasy. Cum that was thicker than any Charlie had ever felt before surged through his maleness and into the woman's center. At first it almost felt sublime, but then his racing heart slowed rapidly, until it was beating in time to his ejaculations. Charlie began to feel cold... very cold.
