Everyone in this fantasy is over eighteen, and so should you be! I originally thought
to post this in ' erotic horror' but my previous effort in that category seems to have had little response. Anyway, this is longer – I hope it holds together and is a bit of fun.
Laura Crane considered herself a normal enough young woman. She was twenty two, and worked in the computer department of a major City bank, earning a good salary, which enabled her to run a car, to wear good clothes, and to go on nice holidays. She had had a few boy-friends, attracted by her slender body and pretty face, framed by a cascade of long, very blonde hair. None had lasted, and, to tell the truth, she wasn't sure what she wanted in that department, anyway. She had found herself attracted to both sexes, almost equally, in recent years, and, although she had yet to sample Sapphic love, she knew there would come a time……
That, however, is another story, and it was an interest of Laura's well outside the realms of romance that concerned her as she scanned the newspapers one Sunday morning in her dockside apartment. Her eyes lit on an announcement which set her mind racing:-
FOLLOW IN VLAD'S FOOTPRINTS!
Check out the real history behind Transylvanian Terror!
Stay in Vlad's original castle – not for the faint-hearted!
There was a good deal more, in the same vein, but the point was – she could afford it! She had long been a vampire movie buff, having seen all the old Hammer Horror films, and the copies spawned around that time, and even had an extensive collection of videos and DVD's of many of them. The chance to stay a fortnight in a real Transylvanian castle was too good to miss. There was an email address, and she booked, there and then, paying the full amount by credit card – she wasn't an impulsive Aries for nothing, she thought!
Surprisingly enough, the confirmation returned with remarkable efficiency, a few days later – she wasn't due to go until three weeks later – and was full of information.
Besides her booking confirmation, there was a Romanian phrasebook, and a booklet giving helpful advice and instruction. She read with interest that the climate was 'alpine' and the nights could be cold. She was slightly surprised to see that guests were 'required' to dress formally for dinner, which 'would be taken in the elegance of the baronial hall.'
The only thing which struck an odd note was a tear-off slip at the bottom of the introductory letter, which the letter asked her to sign and return in the reply-paid envelope. It was basically a disclaimer, absolving the organisers from any claim against them for anything which may arise. It also asked for a photocopy of her passport, one of which she just happened to have handy. Reading the letter again, she saw that the travel insurance was conditional upon her signing, so she signed it, without really reading the small print, sealed it up in the envelope, together with the photocopy, and slipped it into her bag to post on her way to work. By return mail, her tickets arrived, with an odd little letter, saying that her booking had been 'accepted.' She put it down to translation, as it was signed by someone called Ivanescu, and thought no more about it.
The days dragged until it was time to pack and go to Gatwick Airport for her flight. When she eventually joined the queue, she found herself stood next to another girl of about her own age with a similar luggage label. Not feeling like entering into conversation with the studious-looking brunette, she hid behind a copy of the 'Independent' she had bought at the kiosk on the concourse.
The Boeing 757 was not full, and she had no immediate neighbour on the four hour flight, which suited her fine, as she enjoyed a nice view of the Alps, a decent lunch, and quite a good snooze.
When the plane landed on time at Mihail Cogliaceanu Airport, near the Black Sea coast, Laura wondered if she should have brought some more summery clothes, as it was scorching when they descended onto the tarmac.
After the usual ghastly wait for luggage, and customs formalities, she saw a darkly beautiful blonde in a dark blue business suit waiting at a stainless steel rail, holding up a board, on which her name was printed, as Miss L. Crane, along with those of three couples, Mr & Mrs Hanson, Mr & Mrs Epstein, and Doctor and Mrs White, and two other single women, Miss V. Turner, and Ms. M. Srivanath.
Laura went and introduced herself to the woman, who shook hands languidly, showing extravagantly long, dark red fingernails on the ends of equally long, artistic fingers.
'I am Ilona,' she said, in heavily accented English, 'I will be with you very much.'
It turned out that Laura was the first to clear customs, and had to hang about for almost half an hour until the whole party was assembled.
As they showed up, and made themselves known to the guide, she had the chance to give them the once-over.
Miss V. Turner, as she thought, was the bespectacled young woman who had been next to her in the check-in queue. When she spoke with the guide, her face lit up, showing a row of even white teeth, and that her denim travel gear might well be concealing a nice figure looked possible. Mr and Mrs Hanson spoke loudly, in upper-crust accents, which sounded as if they wanted all and sundry to hear. He was tall and blond – a 'chinless wonder,' thought Laura – and she was skinny and blonde, but elfishly attractive, though wearing a wholly inappropriate grey tailored suit. They were around thirty. Doctor White came next, with his wife absent, in the toilet. He looked to be in his mid-forties, slightly overweight, and pleasant-looking, with a northern accent, and going bald on top. When his wife put in an appearance, she was much younger than him, an attractive honey-blonde in her late twenties.
If Mr and Mrs Epstein had been wearing traditional Jewish garb and eating salt beef in Bloom's, they wouldn't have looked out of place, but they were a stunningly beautiful couple. He was a tall, graceful man with liquid, almost black eyes, and a spare, hard-looking body, and looked vaguely familiar, whilst she was also tall and elegant, with long, straight brown hair, streaked with blonde. She wore a long, flowing, cotton dress, and Laura caught herself thinking that she wouldn't mind going to bed with the two of them, together!
Before she could dispel that disgraceful image, Ms. Srivanath completed the party. She turned out to be a quite dark-skinned Indian girl, mid-twenties, petite, with long black hair. She wore western clothes, jeans and a leather jacket. As they were piling their luggage into a trailer, which was to be towed behind the rather smart-looking mini-bus that was to transport them, Laura wondered, just for a moment, about the make-up of the party. Far from complaining, it was nice to see she was going to be with people her own age, but it
did
seem a little strange that all the holidaymakers, with the possible exception of Doctor White, were below forty. All-in-all, she mused, they looked more liked a
Club 18-30
set!
They boarded the bus, which had pleasant air-conditioning, and Ilona introduced the young driver, Goran. She told them to relax, as it was a long drive, and off they went, through sparsely-populated, rolling farmland, with few trees, the odd shepherd tending a massive flock of sheep and goats by the roadside the only human being in sight.
After a small town an hour into the journey, the scenery started to change, and they stopped at a roadside tavern, where they could stretch their legs and drink thick Turkish coffee, or sample, as in Laura's case, the rather nice fruit 'nectar' – all in a wooded setting, with rocky hillsides rising around them.
When the journey resumed, they were on mountain roads, hairpin-bends and steep inclines slowing progress, with beetling drops by the roadside, and a deteriorating surface making driving hazardous. Laura found herself gripping the rail on the seat-back in front of her, and hoping they met no oncoming traffic. Only once did they have to make way for a huge logging truck, Goran pulling in his rear-view mirror in order to pass, the nearside wheels scrabbling on the edge of the precipice. Higher and higher they climbed through dense pinewoods, once stopping to allow two wild boar to cross in front of them.
'If we are lucky,' said Ilona, 'we see bears, or a wolf.'
But they were not, apparently, lucky, and darkness was starting to fall when Goran suddenly turned the bus off to the left, up a well-maintained, stony track, almost as wide as the road. After about a kilometre, he stopped at a gate, which barred the way, got out and pressed a button attached to a microphone. A buzzer sounded and he spoke rapidly into the gauze. There was a click and the gate swung open. Goran got back in and drove through, a further kilometre, Laura guessed, to where a huge pile of a castle, just like you imagine a Transylvanian castle should look, all turrets and crenellations, rose out of the dark, forbidding forest, against a backdrop of harsh, rocky mountainsides. He pulled up outside. Laura, ever the romantic, couldn't help thinking they should really have arrived by horse-drawn coach.
'Please leave your luggage,' said Ilona, 'It will be bringed.' – she had difficulty with the tenses.
She mounted two wide steps and a huge oak door opened simultaneously. Disappointingly – to Laura's eyes – there was no sinister hunchback in the doorway, but a darkly pretty girl in maid's uniform.
They all trooped in, and stood in a huge entrance hall, Laura's eyes huge with wonderment at the vast scale of the place. There seemed to be no formalities – rooms had already been allotted, and they were asked to follow the maid, who silently – apart from the clicking of her heels on the marble floor – led the way, across the massive hall and up a wide, elegantly curved staircase to a corridor, flanked by statues, the walls bearing huge portraits and gloomy oil-paintings. Heavy oak doors led off to left and right, each marked with a roman numeral.
The couples were given rooms, in turn, and Laura was the first of the girls to be shown into one of the rooms, which bore the number 'VIII.' The maid flicked on the light switch, and closed the door behind her, so that Laura was alone, cocooned in a high-ceilinged room, surrounded by dark-oak panelling, containing an overstuffed sofa and a big, ornate, four-poster bed, draped with lace curtains. When Laura explored, there waas a small but adequate en-suite bathroom, and when she opened the shuttered windows, she thought she would have a view of forests and mountains in the morning, though only a hint of shadowy skyline could be seen in what little was left of daylight.
