Drowning Ophelia (Immoral Dracula) (5 page)

Ophelia widened her eyes, everything he said was so outrageous. She didn’t know where to begin. She looked at the man standing before her. Blood dripped from his dark, chiseled jaw. Sweat glistened off his chest and little beads of crimson shone from where she scratched him. He was strongly intimidating. He looked like a dark force, a shadowy beast out of folklore. She didn’t know what to think anymore. She craved him like she had never thought possible and yet… Thoughts were rushing through her head like bullet fire. “What do you mean only once a a year? And could have? What are you?”

He reached for her snowy palm. “A horrible accident happened to me and now I crave human blood. It must be fresh. I have tried… everything.” Casimir sighed, “Blood banks,
 
animals, I even tried criminals, but there is too much red tape… and who is to say whether they deserve it more anyway.” Casimir let go of her hand. Ophelia’s arms hung limp and lifeless. She was not entirely shocked. This was a fairy land; surreal, a little bit of a wonderland. It had to turn into a nightmare, no thing good could ever last. Sweets staled, pumpkins rotted, and milk molded. “I would never hurt you…”
 

“But what
would
you do to me? What would you do to them? Have done… What are you saying, Casimir?”

Casimir leaned forward on the edge of the bed. He looked carved by Augeste Rodin, an immortal stone Thinker. A gloomy complexion befell him as he stroked a strong hand through his sable hair.
 
“You are not a dumb girl, Ophelia.”

Ophelia wreaked. “I’m not a
girl
either.” She stood off the bed, her blood soaked silk hanging wet off her body. “I haven’t been one since girlhood. I’m sick of you all treating me as such! As a plaything, as a patient, as something to be treated for and after; lusted after like I’m not already here. You treat me like I’m not in the present, like I’m a third person, well that’s really confusing when I’m trying to live in the first. I’m a woman. I’m Ophelia, and I’m here goddammit! Now kindly don’t follow me.” Ophelia walked out the door, her dress leaving a thin line of blood across the floor. Casimir’s eyes followed the trail, stunned, his mouth agape.
 

Ophelia ran from Casimir more confused than anything. Somewhere in the great, palatial grounds Nina was walking alone and confused, and possibly frightened. Should she go find her?
Ophelia had left Casimir more than once, though, and to find herself someone else. Who was she? She’d been on a bus to her seedy apartment in a seedy lakeshore town filled with endless possibility of dead ends, and now here she was, trapped in a choice.
 

She wandered through the garden. Nothing made sense. It was all surreal. Somewhere in this garden she would find a great tree with an even greater hole that she would fall in to and then, maybe, everything would make sense. Instead, Ophelia plopped down in to the mess of wet, dead flowers.

She closed her eyes and relaxed, the bright sun lit the insides of her eyelids red. She let the scent of dying posies fill her nostrils. She knew Casimir was watching as she had watched from the window.
 
She could imagine her reflection in the clear glass window up high, but she knew now it was Casimir’s face in that window.
 

She slowly inched up her silk dress. Next to her was the cucumber patch and she plucked a cucumber from it. She knew Casimir was watching and with that thought her cheeks flushed in anger. She moved her body to her side, shielding her body from view. She slid the cucumber up between her thighs. Her body quivered.

Slowly, she pushed the cucumber deeper inside herself. She inched it up inside her. As her lips covered the last of the green shaft, she was filled with salacious wanting. She rolled over so that she was in full view.

Her body faced the sky, and anyone walking by the garden could see her, or any someone with a deep, widespread view of the garden…. She pulled the cucumber out, and pushed it back in, moaning in pleasure. She was in a burlesque, lasciviously dancing among the frozen flowers. She moaned and trembled, rolling around the flowers as she twirled the cucumber inside her. Inside her mind the windows were fogged and condensed with sweat and breath. Around her people watched, groping and wishing. She was getting close… her body quivered and her mouth exhaled uncontrolled moans, gasps,
 
and screams! The world was hers.

“Yes…Yes!…YES!”
 

 
A shadow moved, darkening the inside of her eyelids. Ophelia moved the cucumber inside her that it was invisible to the naked eye and quickly lowered her dress. She felt a warm wickedness knowing the cucumber was still inside her. She fluttered her eyelids and opened her white orbs to descry the shadowy perpetrator. It was Nina; her face was bent over Ophelia’s, completely eclipsing everything over head.

“There you are!” Nina spoke to Ophelia's wakening white eyes and fluttering lashes. “I was alone and confused, and frighted.”

“Really?”

“No—Oh my god, are you okay?” Nina lent Ophelia a hand, worried by the blood on her dress. Ophelia pulled Nina down in to the flowers. Nina landed softly on her back among the flowers. She laughed, sultry like rich wine. It was intoxicating. Ophelia laughed with her, taken over. Ophelia laughed because she was utterly blissful. When she laughed the cucumber inside her moved and that made her laugh harder; she screamed as it glided. For the first time in her life everything was sparkling. She was with someone new, in a field of flowers, in a ridiculous circumstance, and nothing made sense; but everything was brilliant, beautiful, and most importantly, happy.
 

The sun shone a bright pale across the sky, that the whole sky was a brilliant white. The two women hadn’t said a thing in what seemed like hours. They sat with their fingers intwined, staring at the sky.

“Have you ever thought about killing yourself?”

“Jesus christ, what?” Nina pulled her eyes from the sky and her hand from Ophelia.
 

Ophelia spoke with a quiet tranquility, her eyes still transfixed upon the sky. The cucumber moved inside her and it gave her a morbid salaciousness as she spoke. “Have you ever thought about killing yourself? I think I was pretty clear…”
 

“No. Be quiet.” Nina looked back at the sky.

“Why not? I mean, it’s the same ending whether you choose to get out early…” The cucumber twitched, sliding a little between her lips.
 

“Hush.”

“Sometimes I think my brain is trying to kill me. It will say, ‘Ophelia, kill yourself.’ Other times, I know I agree with it.”

“Ophelia, quit it.”

“Nina, listen.” Nina stopped protesting and grabbed Ophelia’s hand once more. “I could live, theoretically, until I’m eighty. And then what? What do I say? I survived. Yay, me. I survived so I could die. What a splendid accomplishment.”
 

“So do something!”

“No matter what I do it will all turn to dust. And upon that realization, I also have this: While I’m making my glorious piles of dust, I do it struggling. I’m doing it while life piles debt, and debt collectors, and sickness, and hate, and heartbreak. Why not say, ‘I cheated you life, I found death?’”

“That’s so short sighted. There is love. Why not say, ‘I cheated death and I found life?’ Can you really say these past few days haven’t made it worth it?” Ophelia laughed causticly, causing the cucumber to dance between her lips. “What?” Nina curiously watched Ophelia laugh. Ophelia stopped laughing and said, “Can you even say that? You don’t want to be here. I’d say it’s the worst thing in the world to try and give someone hope that you don’t believe in.”

Nina sighed. “I have a home and a son, Ophelia. I can’t stay here forever.” Ophelia nodded, listening. “You must understand, on some level.”
 

“I worked at a bar— I’m, you are so resplendent. You are a character from a fairytale. You know… I was going to kill myself when I got home. Then I realized while I was waiting for the bus that I didn’t have a
home
I just had a point ‘a’ and a point ‘b’ so I thought … I’d like to say you saved me.” The cucumber’s girth was between Ophelia’s lips now. It was an uncomfortably pleasant experience, one that made her want to reach down between her thighs.
 

Nina creased her brow, “What is this about?”

“I wish I could fade away. Fade without ever having hurt you people.”
 

“People?”

“Never mind,” Ophelia said, squirming as the cucumber slid in and out of her. “ Did you know the french call an orgasm ‘la petite mort’ because they believe with each one there’s a little death and new life?”
 

Nina sighed to herself, “Oh my god…” She turned to Ophelia, “What are you going on about?”
 

“You just wanted a quick fuck didn’t you?”

“Well I didn’t want to die, little or big.” Nina pushed herself up from the now melted and mushy flowers. Ophelia pulled her back down and grabbed her by the neck, kissing her. She was filled with devilish ardor and instinct. Ophelia ripped off Nina's sweater and jeans. She tore them off without anymore words or questions. Nina stuttered but Ophelia only kissed her harder, placing her hand between Nina's thighs so that she moaned. Ophelia ripped her own clothes off. Under the pale sun they pressed their bodies together.

Somewhere Ophelia wondered if anyone could see them. Ophelia slowly pulled the cucumber from between her thighs; it was covered in her juices. Nina's eyes widened and then she smiled wickedly.
 

Ophelia pushed Nina back in to the flowers and entered her with the cucumber. She placed the tip just against her lips and Nina moaned, her curvy, olive thighs quivering. Ophelia pushed the cucumber in farther and Nina grasped for the flower beds. Ophelia played the cucumber in and out of Nina, making her dripping wet. Nina was mesmerized with pleasure.
 

Ophelia slowly placed the cucumber back between her thighs and Nina held her toe to help get the cucumber deeper. Both Nina and Ophelia howled with pleasure as the cucumber entered them.
 
Ophelia pulled them both up and the cucumber went so deep that it was invisible. They writhed as their soft skin was rubbed against each other. Their skin rubbed slick, trailing wet juices down their thighs.
 

 
Nina lay back and let Ophelia ride her, the cucumber still inside them both. Between their thighs was soaking wet and Ophelia reached a finger down and brought it back to her mouth to taste them both. She put the finger back and rubbed Nina, riding her furiously. Nina screamed, grabbing hold of the flowers. The girls both howled, climaxing together.
 

Nina removed herself from the cucumber and put her mouth to Ophelia’s wet lips. She pushed the cucumber in and out, simultaneously sucking. Ophelia quivered in pleasure, she couldn’t take that much pleasure. Her whole body was pulsating, her blood was throbbing. She screamed and the birds flew.

Nina came up to Ophelia and cuddled in her arms. They fell asleep like that, the sun waning against the autumn hills.
 

Ophelia waked and Nina was lying naked on her stomach. They were in the garden still. Night had come and the sky was so clear that the stars outnumbered the black.
 

“The master wishes to see you.” Ophelia jumped. Abigail was leaning over her and Nina, whispering. “Well the master can go to hell,” Ophelia whispered back, stroking Nina's hair as she stirred.
 

“In the event that you would say that he wanted me to give you this.” Abigail handed her a letter.

Please.
 

Ophelia turned it over, there was nothing else.
 
His last recourse was please?

“Is he serious?”
 

“If you said no he believed nothing else would change your mind. His first and only entreat is that you stumble over whatever obstacles his stupidity built and listen to your heart and mind and come to him.”

“That’s much better than
please
.”
 

“You are beautiful.” Abigail returned the dress Ophelia had arrived in, only freshly cleaned. Somehow, she felt more comfortable in her own clothes.

“Is that why you have a coffin?” Ophelia jumped right in with the questioning. She thought of a few when she left Casimir. Of course when she saw him most of them went flying out her head, but the coffin had stayed.
 

“What?”

“Do you sleep in a coffin as well?”

“No, of course not,” Casimir laughed. “Am I not allowed a few kinks?”

“Can’t you just… store the blood? Get it from a blood bank?”

“It has to be fresh.”

“So only take a little. Take some and then let them go… People would be receptive to your disability.”

“That would… It’s impractical! Don’t you think I’ve thought of everything and then some! Do you think I just became this way? That this accident happened to me and all my humanity poured from me like water out of a teakettle? I thought, ‘great, what a wonderful excuse to become a serial killer!’”

“No of course not—“
 

“I have considered every possibility. In every blink I make and in the slumbers of my nighttime these possibilities are with me, and so are their failures. There is no other way. It is the most humane.”

“How on—“
 

“If I drink this much at a time I can go years without ever feeding again. I’m off the map. To feed a little and then let them go… it would take a constant supply of fresh blood that is just not there.”

“This much?”

“Ophelia…” Casimir moved to her. Ophelia shoved him away. “When you meant we’re here for you, that
I’m
here for you. You meant as a
snack
.”
 

“I would never hurt you.” Ophelia couldn’t breath. She stumbled back in to the seat. “I didn’t hurt any of them. I sent them away… I’m honestly surprised you didn’t figure this out. Especially with how we…” Ophelia glowered. “With how we
what
?” Ophelia’s breaths were fluttered, she was angry and shocked. Casimir sat below her knees. He gently stroked her hand and face. Ophelia shook her head. “I’m just a fool. I’m the virgin jester for everyone here.”