The Contestants

Author's Notes:

Intro:

To get the most out of this story, I recommend that you read the first chapter, which can be found here:

http://www.literotica.com/s/the-contestants-ch-01

Although Anna is in the focus of the conflict, she will be made aware of that she once unleashed the fury and is responsible for the escalation of it. Until now, she has been blind to the suffering of others, but now she will learn that there are consequences to reckon with.

The background now is the American Civil War.

A couple of warnings:

There is an element of incest in the intrigue. Strictly speaking it is not incest in the pure physical sense, but through the nature of the relationships of the participants, incest is implied. Those readers, who are very sensitive to this aspect, should refrain from reading further.

Love described here is very explicit, so no underage reading please.

Copyright:

This story is a work of fiction, an erotic fantasy/romance written by thomcats. I reserve the rights to be listed as the author of this story, wherever it is posted. Please do not copy/redistribute the story, in part or in total, without my permission.

thomcats AKA VoyaMariner 2014

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THE INDIAN BRACELET

One would think that it might be something to strive for — to be able to live in two worlds at the same time — but Anna wasn't inclined to agree after having tried it out for so many years now. Instead, she thought that it sometimes gave her a slightly schizophrenic attitude towards life.

Anna had been very bewildered and uncertain about her situation when she started to travel the world obeying Gareth's commands. She had lived the better part of her life in the security of Inis, always relying on an escape into this sanctuary in case of danger, and now she had to start to rely on her own means of solving the problems she came across. Of course, there was always the possibility for her to run to Gareth in the end, should the problem turn out to be life threatening, but she promised herself to use this last resort only if matters proved impossible for her to come to terms with.

In the beginning, when she started to live in the parallel world among the humans for longer periods, she was tempted by the easy way out, which meant using the shortcuts Inis provided. She realized however that this was no longer possible in all situations. If she wanted to appear "normal" to her new acquaintances, she would have to abide by the rules governing their lives. Only in utter emergencies would she use this facility now and rely on such a way of escape.

Likewise, she had to carefully hide that her senses of hearing and seeing was so much sharper than that of an ordinary human. She had no trouble picking up a normal conversation between people at a considerable distance and even through walls and closed doors. She could determine a person's state of mind, she could hypnotize and put a person under a spell, and she could invoke a curse on anyone or anything around her. All these skills she had to use with great care in her new life and only when absolutely needed.

Then there was a question of how both Anna and Celia appeared officially to strangers. Although they were like mother and daughter today and both owed her life to the other, they realized that it wasn't possible to let the new surroundings know anything about this fact. When traveling, they always showed up as master and servant so as not to cause suspicions and unnecessary questions. The only place where they fully relaxed and met each other on true and equal ground was the house in New Orleans, and Anna had decided to make this place her safe haven. She didn't entertain her new friends there, and none of them knew that her home was in New Orleans.

A crucial point in the new routines came when Anna had to decide what to do with the problems caused by their longevity. She realized that they couldn't go on living in the house, however inconspicuously, without finally arousing suspicion. The neighbors saw them often enough and would start to wonder about the young girl, who never grew old and the older servant, who never died. She didn't find a solution to this problem on her own so she decided to consult Gareth about it. He told her that it hadn't been a frequent issue during the years. Usually the humans connected to Inis either stayed there forever like Ibn Ben Akbar in the Library, or they were used for a specific mission and didn't have to be in contact with the parallel world for more than a limited time. Thus, the problem didn't have to occur, but Gareth had decided that he wanted Anna to be his eyes and ears in the parallel world at least until he decided otherwise, and he agreed on that the matter had to be solved. He also told her that former rulers of Inis — he carefully refrained from mentioning his father's name — had been using a method involving making a person anonymous, like wiping the slate clean. It meant that both Anna and Celia had to come to Inis to be put to sleep for a certain time. During this interval, their former "history" was removed and when they re-entered the parallel world no one would recognize them and associate them with the previous inhabitants of the house. Anna was apprehensive about the method, but she acknowledged that she didn't have much choice.

The first time she had to go through this cleansing of the past, she had a hard time relaxing. Gareth reassured her that she would feel nothing that could be experienced as pain or hurt. She was just to turn herself over to him in complete trust. He put her to rest in the bed himself, and he sat by her side talking soothingly to her, caressing her forehead, mesmerizing her with his eyes.

"You are going to have the most wonderful sleep," he whispered and finally she drifted off.

When she woke up, she felt enormously refreshed and happy, and it didn't seem as if she had slept for a long time at all. She tried to remember if she had had any dreams, but no details were clear to her, and she only experienced a feeling of great contentment. Gareth came to her room and asked her if she felt good, and she had to agree.

"A lovely breakfast is waiting for you," he tempted her smiling.

"How long have I been sleeping?" she asked.

"Well, not as long as the Sleeping Beauty," he answered, "but long enough."

She learned later that both she and Celia had been gone for roughly thirty years according to human standards. In the meantime, their house had been guarded and lived in by Gareth's servants.

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Their first time of absence took place when Anna's mother Marie had died in 1824; that incident being a natural breaking point in a manner of speaking. It wouldn't seem out of the way to anyone, who had come to associate Anna and her household to the New Orleans home, if she left it after her mother's death.

Anna wasn't at all prepared for the trauma that Marie's death proved to be to her, not so much because of grief as of feelings of guilt. Anna had never been able to come to terms with her relationship to her biological mother. Celia had reproached her and tried to make Anna see that Marie had been young and vulnerable when she lost Anna to the Inis King. Maybe Marie would have acted differently, had she had someone to support her. Marie was after all only a young mother in a foreign country where only the hard and ruthless survived, but Anna couldn't forgive and now — when Marie was finally dead — Anna was hit by the most awful feelings of guilt for not having tried harder. Under the circumstances, it felt almost like a relief to retreat to Inis for a while and put her worries and doubts on Gareth's shoulders for a moment. She was totally drained of strength, and the long sleep felt like a new start. She regained her will to live again.

Anna eventually came to look on these moments of rest and rejuvenation as something vital and necessary in her life if she was to go on living at all. She realized that she could burn herself out otherwise, and she now looked forward to them and jokingly talked to Celia about her "holidays," the only moments nowadays when she would be totally free of responsibility. She had wondered during the years what means Gareth used to recharge himself, and she had asked him once, but he had smiled and said that he couldn't reveal that secret to her.

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So between these moments of rest, which was the condition for her future, Anna led a daring and hectic life wherever Gareth's whim took her in the world, and it was a world of great unrest.

The first decades of the 19th century saw the modern Europe emerge. The fall of Napoleon and his empire left a wake of power in the continent that every state tried to fill to their best intentions, but the result of their fight was indeed very different. Austria had moved forward as the new center of power, Italy and Germany consolidated their new status as sovereign states and France, by way of the new Emperor Napoleon III, again challenged everyone in the quest for domination and influence. England, having had to give up the battle to keep its influence over the States, had now turned to enlarge its empire on other continents. All the same, none of the states — be it a new or an old one — seemed to be prepared for the most spectacular events that took place during this period. The revolutionary movements in 1830 and 1848 shook the fundaments of the states to the bone. They sent a ripple of fear through the establishment of what the masses of people were capable of if driven too far and oppressed for too long. The eternal and internal squabble over power also made the European states practically blind to the rising unrest in the States and the consequences that would emerge out of this conflict.

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Anna couldn't resist accepting an invitation traveling to Paris in late 1860. The city was the seething focal point of Europe for the moment, and the season had just started. She came from London, where she among other things had visited the World Fair in 1859 and where she had met the influential French diplomat, who had implored her to join him in France. It proved to be an easy choice to go to Paris because Anna was curious about the newly rebuilt splendid city, and it was also in Gareth's interest to learn what was going on in the French Imperial court. Anna knew of course that the diplomat — a young count belonging to a noble and old family in France — had an amorous interest in her, and she played coldly on the fact that his infatuation with her would open the necessary doors.

Anna had no qualms about using her beauty and body if that served her purpose. She was an extremely beautiful and alluring person by now, looking as if she was around 25 years of age. Her pallid skin was flawless, her mass of blonde hair looked like spun gold, and her brilliant blue eyes were shrouded in mystery and temptation. Sometimes she thought with amusement on what she called her school and her days of learning — the brothel where she had once met Celia. All her skills in seduction and the means she used to keep herself unattached and aloof while offering her body to a stranger, she had learnt there.

Love was a word that Anna didn't use anymore. She had painstakingly buried her feelings so deep inside that she thought she could get by without getting into contact with them again, but of course that wasn't true. When she stumbled upon something that brought back the memories again, something she saw or heard, Conaill was instantly present before her eyes, and the memory of him was a scorching white-hot pain almost unbearable to endure. She succumbed to the onslaught, which left her shaking and crying and sick to the soul. Celia tried to comfort her, but it was in vain. Anna rested in her arms with closed eyes, unmoving for hours.

In London she got hold of a new and potent drug that had just been brought there from the new colony in the Far East, Hong Kong. It was called opium and promised to solve all the problems, alleviate all pain, and ensure her a dreamless sleep. She vividly remembered when she came back to the house she lived in for the moment, carrying the poison securely in her hand. It was a late night, and she hadn't more than entered her rooms when she stumbled into Gareth. He was livid with anger, and his face was almost translucent with fury. He got hold of her and pulled her so close that his burning eyes were the only thing she saw.

"Give it to me!" he demanded sternly.

She pretended not to know what he was talking about and cringed and tried to work herself out of his iron grip, but his hands clasped her wrists like handcuffs.

"Give it to me instantly!" he repeated and when she still didn't want to obey him he let go of her hands, but he motioned a blow in the air towards her, paralyzing her, forcing her to open her hands and drop the glass vial to the floor.

He bent down and picked it up, and it disappeared in his hand. She started to scream, and she fell down on her knees.

"You have no right to do this to me!" she cried. "If I want to sleep until I'm unconscious, that is my business. Why do you interfere? What do you care about my feelings? Let go of me!"

"I have every right to interfere and I must interfere when you are about to hurt yourself. You belong to me, and I decide what is good or bad for you, don't you ever forget that!" His voice vibrated with rage.

She crumbled to the floor in front of him and started sobbing in utter despair.

"I want to die," she whispered hoarsely. "What a punishment to let me live like this. What have I done to deserve it? What have I done to all of you?"

Gareth kneeled, coming level to her. Then he gathered her in his arms. He lifted her up and carried her in silence to the hidden entrance to Inis, and he brought her with him to the palace and to his rooms eerily quiet in the night.

He held her in his arms the whole night, he rocked her and caressed her, and he let his strength and warmth seep into her, trying with all his might and power to will her to gather courage to go on. She finally fell asleep, and when she woke later — still securely gathered in his embrace — the first thing she saw was his soft and peaceful eyes.

"Feeling better?" he asked.

She nodded. Tears filled her eyes, but she didn't cry, and he brushed his lips over her face.

"Promise me that you will never ever try to drug yourself out of a problem or a situation again," he said. "It doesn't solve a thing; it only makes the matter worse. If you can't cope, come to me instead. I don't know how many times I've said to you that I'm here for you forever. Promise me now, won't you?"

Anna nodded again. She started to cry all the same, but it was silent tears running over her face, and he softly licked them away. Then he put his hand on her forehead and made her go into a deep sleep and when she woke up hours later, she was back in her house in London.

She kept her promise to him. When the moments came when she couldn't endure the pain any longer, she ran through the darkness and sought him out. In wordless agony, she fell into his arms choking on her cries, and he showed no surprise when he saw her. He gently wrapped his presence around her, and he took her and made lazy, soft and sensual love to her all through the night until she was physically exhausted, and the pain had finally gone. They rarely talked to each other on these occasions. Once or twice she could whisper "Is he still alive?" and he would nod in answer.

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In Paris, Anna was received like a queen. In the city, which was under its greatest reconstruction ever, the old center being torn down to give place to the new and spacious boulevards, the count had evacuated a whole house not far from the Imperial palace on her account. He had filled the house with everything from new furniture to servants and even a chaperone — an elderly aunt — that he thought was necessary if she was to appear at the Opera or any other official occasion. She wasn't yet introduced in any of the prominent families or at the court. Anna couldn't help smiling at his youthful eagerness and enthusiasm when he showed her all this. He reminded her very much of a child setting up his first dollhouse.

The count had rented a box for her at the Opera. She went there almost every night, knowing that she was as much a spectacle to see for the hungry public as the ballet or the opera on program. She knew she was the ultimate gossip for the moment and that everyone was dying to meet the wealthy heiress from New Orleans, this being her present "history." One night, the count managed to have her introduced to the Empress. During the first intermission, she received summons to the Empress's box, and she went there with her chaperone. The count was not present himself; that wouldn't have been proper since they were not related. The Empress was mildly curious and talked with Anna for a rather long time. They talked about New Orleans and the reconstruction of Paris. Before Anna left the box, she received an invitation to a soirée later on in the week, and she sank to the floor in the most exquisite reverence, being secretly happy that she had had time to practice this special skill many times before.

When she left the Empress and returned to her own box, a strange transition took place. It was as if she suddenly had become visible to the audience in the Opera. Everyone wanted to greet her and talk to her, even total strangers, and she got more invitations to balls and soirées than she could manage. The count came to her box, flushing with excitement. Now he could stay there for the rest of the evening. He showed himself off like a proud peacock to the rest of the public, knowing how much envy he triggered at that moment. Anna smiled in secret, not minding at all to appear as his price.

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The soirée at the palace proved to be a rather sumptuous affair; an opera singer was to entertain and apart from that, the evening consisted of being introduced and seen talking to the right people. Anna was considered very lucky to have been invited, and she was even introduced to the Emperor Napoleon himself. She didn't inform him that she had overheard his council concerning the Italian problems. Long before he entered the salons, she had heard him through the walls, and she knew that he gave his strong support to the future Italian King, Victor Emanuel, although that meant a confrontation head to head with Austria. When she at last managed to withdraw from the soirée, she hastened back to her house and informed her servants that she was retiring for the night. Instead, she locked her bedroom doors and slipped silently through a painting on the wall and hurried to meet Gareth to give him the information she had gathered. He pondered her news in silence for a while.

"I'm most interested in what is going to happen to Venice," he said. "If the Italians mean to include it in the coming new kingdom, we will have to prepare for the changes, but there is nothing we can do for the moment but wait and listen."

"By the way," he continued, "news have reached me from the States the there is a strong possibility that the South will break out of the Union if Abraham Lincoln is elected president. Is this fact mentioned at all in the councils in Europe, I wonder?"

Anna answered that she hadn't heard anything in particular as of yet, but she thought that it was discussed in England at least. The news filled her with apprehension, and she thought instantly of Celia left in New Orleans.

In March 1861, the news reached Anna that the southern states of America had formed the Confederation, leaving the Union. Again, she thought with great worry of Celia, living in their house in New Orleans, and she longed to go back to her; she must remember to ask Gareth if it would be possible for her to return to the States now.