Letters

I have learnt something from blogging and that is what people understand you have written is not what you intended to write, it is not even what you write but only what they understand you have written. I will say no more, at the moment. Ponder this and if you don't know what I mean, then you are allowed to ask me what I wanted to say with it.

Anyway, I will plod along with my stories and my writing and my fantasies. Here is a story, completely devoid of spankings. Take care, Dear Readers.

Dearest Elinor,

How could you be so cruel? My soul still aches from your leaving. Why did you have to leave? Education and universities are all important, I know, but why did you have to leave me here?

Dearest sister, dearest soul sister, life here is bleak without you around. Only three days have gone but they are like years to me. How will I live?

I do my chores every day and I visit your mother. I play with little Will and he is such a sunshine. But no one here is like you, no one comes close.

I hate you, Elinor, I hate you. I can hardly bring myself to write that but why did you have to be so cruel? Why couldn't you just embrace me or just leave and wave or leave me a note or something? Why did you have to kiss me?

I curse the moment you kissed me and I curse the moment I turned my face to you. My lips still burn with your kiss. Still after three days, I can feel the heat of your lips and words cannot describe the fire they have caused.

My father, my dear father, is worried about me. He asks about my health all the time and no reassuring words can rid his brow of the clouds that seem to have gathered there. I think he knows how much I miss you.

Will you come back to Christmas? I will count the days. Please, don't forget me? How could you? If you feel a fraction of what I feel it will be impossible for you to forget me.

Yours

A.

Dearest Elinor,

I think of you every day. I think of you every hour. It is an eternity before I see you again but I am sure I will survive.

Your letter was a blessing. I think everyone saw that. My father looked pleased and he said he had not seen me this happy for ages. I know he meant for three weeks but it seems like ages, indeed.

Dearest, sweetest, soul sister, please forgive me for what I write here! I am sworn to honesty even if it will make you hate me forever. I fear writing it but I have to.

My thoughts about you haven't been pure. Since you kissed me I have been burning, burning for you.

But when I think of you, I don't just think of the things we spoke of, the strolls in the park, the stories we told each other and the secrets we shared.

My mind has turned to improper thoughts. I think of how you kissed me and how your lips touched mine. I think of the fire in my frame and how I long for your lips to kiss me again.

I am sad and lonely. I cannot talk to anyone about my feelings. They will tell me they are forbidden and wrong. I have to tell you. I will wither and die if I don't tell you.

Tell me you forgive me! Please tell me you forgive me. I promise I will never ever kiss you again, when I see you, if I will. If you still want to see me.

I would rather live my life in solitude than to be dishonest with you. You see, I had to tell you about my thoughts. Please forgive me.

Yours, ever

A.

Dearest Elinor,

Dearest, sweetest Elinor, I am so happy. You have no idea how happy I am.

Your letter arrived three days after I sent you my letter. You said nothing about forgiveness and my heart sank. I thought you had ignored me and my only consolation, my only hope was that you hadn't read my letter before sending me yours, that they had passed each other on the way, not knowing about each other.

Now I know you have forgiven me. I even know you feel the same. My heart is flying, it takes turns around the house and returns only occasionally to my bosom.

When you stood outside my room, in the night, outside the open door I was frightened. You must have seen that. Then I realised it must be you, although you were not there in body but in soul. I realised it was you and I felt no fear.

To my eyes you looked real, although I never saw your face. That scared me but I knew it was you and when you asked me to invite you I never hesitated.

I feared you were angry and had come to tell me how wrong I was, how horrible I was. But when you held me in your arms I knew I was forgiven.

You felt different, strange and alien but I know it wasn't your body but your soul who had come to visit me so I knew it had to be different.

When you kissed me, I knew I wasn't just forgiven. I knew you felt the same. It was kind of you to not kiss my lips, the kiss on my neck was still the sweetest thing on earth. I knew, then, that you felt the same.

Oh, Elinor, I am so happy. You heard my call, across the space that separates us and your soul travelled the distance just to tell me that my feelings were answered. I am so happy.

Love

A.

Dearest Elinor,

My heart is sad today. I am feeling weak and weary. My feet feel like lead when I walk. The walk through the woods, the one we used to take, feels like many, many miles and I am exhausted when I come back.

My father is worried but I know it is a sickness of the heart that has befallen me.

You forgive me. In your letter you forgave me, and that means the world to me but I am no longer sure you feel the same. I am ashamed, ashamed of my impure thoughts and my outpourings. I know you forgive me and I know you still love me but my heart was singing when I believed you felt the same. But now the bird, that my heart had become, has plummeted to the ground.

Elinor, my sister, please forgive me for I felt anger with you for your letter. It contained words of friendship but not of love. But your friendship is more valuable to me than any love. My anger will abate and my love for you will remain. But why did you come to me in the night? Why did your soul travel the distance between us to kiss me like that?

Still forever yours

A.

I am sick. A strange kind of illness has befallen me. I didn't recognise it first. I thought, perhaps, it was just my heart, my saddened heart that made my body ill but now I am not sure any more.

I am weak and cannot walk many steps without feeling ill and dizzy. Could it really be just my longing heart? Can you long so much that your body dies? I feel as if I am dying.

You still come to me in the night. I don't understand. You love me enough to send your soul to whisper in my ear about your eternal love but your letters are so different.

Why do you never show your face? You feel different. I am still glad you visit me. I need you to visit me. I miss you so. I am sure I would be well in no time would you come back, although I know you can't.

Christmas is still so far away.

Yours, ever

A.

Dearest Elinor,

My blood is cold, cold as ice and I feel steelhard fingers squeezing my heart. I know now that it is not you who visit me in the night. I don't know why I am now so certain, I just know. But who is she?

I cannot walk at all now. I am confined to my bed. I do sit up some hours during the day but I am exhausted from doing that.

Father is worried and the doctors are worried. I know now that I am truly ill. I am fading away. Can it be the heart, my aching heart?

I wish you could come home but I know you cannot afford it. It is a long journey. Your letters lighten up my day, though. Knowing that you cry for me in your pretty little room makes me both sad and happy.

I dream such strange dreams. They are both beautiful and frightening. I see endless vistas of woods and rivers and I see dark castles in the moonlit night. I fly through those lands to one of those castles. It seems as if she, the spectre that visits me, lives in one of those castles. She is calling me and I want to go there but I won't go because I would have to leave you.

Those are only dreams but when I sleep they seem real to me. I am comforted by ordinary things in my room, the chairs and the rugs and the clock on the mantle piece.

Don't worry, my dear Elinor, I will be here when you come back. I love you.

Love

A.

Sweetest Elinor,

I am scared now. Strange things happen to me. It seems so dark around me. Even when the sun is shining I have to close my eyes.

In the night I hear those calling voices that want me to come to them. I am weak. I cannot resist them. I have to resist them.

Still, my body is stronger now. I awakened quite refreshed this morning. I think the worst is over. My illness is fading and I grow stronger.

I am stronger but my dreams are worse. I dreamed this night that I went walking. It was strange because I could see despite the darkness. I walked up to the big house by the river, the yellow one where the Jones live.

I met Clara, you know her, the eldest daughter. We talked for a while and she was very polite but I could tell she was scared of me.

I remember we struggled and I held her down and kissed her, on the neck, like the spectre did with me.

It was the oddest and scariest dream I have ever had.

Please, come home, soon, I know the dreams will be all sunny and good when you come back.

Yours, ever

A.

Dearest Elinor,

Your last letter was so full of sorrow and sadness I could hardly read it. It made me so sad. You wrote as if to say goodbye. Have you met someone? Have you forgotten me? Do you want to forget me?

I need you to be strong for me. I don't know what darkness engulfs me but I am lost. I struggle to stick to what I know is real but it is all fading.

I am scared. Please, Elinor, don't leave me now.

Love, ever

A.

Dearest Elinor,

I am lost. I have lost. It is all over. I cannot struggle any more. It is all lost.

They are all scared of me now. I am too dark. I have to leave.

I will write to you.

Love you

A.

Sweetest Elinor,

My heart is in darkness. I know I cannot see you any more, ever. I am lost in darkness and no one is here. I am alone but that is for the best.

I cannot see my family, I cannot see anyone I love. I cannot keep it back. They will be harmed. I cannot allow that to happen.

Goodbye, my sweetest, dearest soul sister. I have no soul but the one I had was yours, sister. I love you still, with all my heart and all my body. I dare write that now, now when it doesn't matter any more, now when all is lost.

I cannot see you. I cannot ever be with you. Please forgive me.

A.

Dear Elinor,

I am so happy. My illness is gone. I am feeling stronger than ever.

Elinor, I will see you. I will travel the long way to your university. I will be educated, I will see the world. I am so happy.

But better than the world, better than any education. I will get to see you my love, my beloved Elinor.

And when I see you I will give you the sweetest kiss you ever knew.

Yours

A.

The Grey Story

Dear Readers, I am, again, sorry I have taken so long to get another post up but here is a brand new story. I have to warn you though, that this is a dream story, not a spanking in sight, no nudity and no dropped knickers. Those of you who know your H. P. Lovecraft will see that I am, indeed, inspired by the master.

By the way, the picture is a close up of the electric ring from our cooker, after the explosion. It is a very old cooker, I believe it is from the 60s or 70s.

"No eye had seen, no hand had touched that book since the advent of man to this planet."

(The Shadow Out of Time, H. P. Lovecraft, 1936)

In the first dream she found herself flying over a strange and frightening landscape. Before her eyes endless vistas of dead and tormented wasteland stretched to the horizon. The colourless landscape appeared moonlit but there was no moon in the sky. Nor where there any stars or planets. She moved swiftly through an empty sky across an endless wasteland.

The wind hit her face but she sensed no joy, no pleasure. The air seemed stale despite her speed and her whole being was in agony, her soul oppressed by the weight of inevitable doom.

She wanted to cry but there were no tears, she wanted to take a deep breath but she could not fill her lungs.

In this wasted land there appeared a strange city. She knew it was an ancient city, she knew it had not been seen by humans. It was older than man, older than time. It lay there on the surface of the blistered earth, like a blasphemous prayer cut in rock.

She circled the city and in the gloomy light she started to discern some details. She saw a grand edifice in the centre of it. It had the outline of a gigantic dome crowned by a high spire. When she got closer she saw that the dome was not round, not arched but made of gigantic rocks cut in odd angles and placed in a way that made them seem to be thrown there by a giant.

Around the angled dome there lay low grey buildings. She saw no pattern, no order among the buildings, there were no streets, no plazas in the city, only oddly angled open spaces between the houses that were built in strange shapes. It appeared to her as if the whole city consisted of randomly placed shapes that seemed designed by some madness.

She saw that the shapes were not random but built deliberately as they were planned but she could not see a reason or a purpose for the strange shapes. She felt dizzy as she circled the odd city with its distorted grey buildings.

There were no windows and for a moment she thought they were only stones and this was not a city but some odd freak of nature. Then she saw that there were doors. Every building had a square, jet black openings to the interior of the buildings.

She felt herself lowered towards the city. A great horror came over her and her mind was full of fear of having to come close to those distorted structures, to have to see what dwelt inside them

Then she fainted.

She screamed as she woke up and her husband came rushing to her. She was held by strong arms and her mother and the maid came in. She cried and talked as if she was delirious for a long time before she started to calm down.

She wanted to speak of the dream, to tell about the horrible city and the doom that she knew was there but she couldn't. She could not tell anyone. She had no words for what she had seen.

She fell asleep again and this time her husband sat by her side. He was worried about her but did not know the nature of her fear, the cause of her agony. He silently prayed the it was not the madness that had fallen upon her.

The sun was shining as she woke up and slowly the terrible dream faded. She deliberately averted her eyes from the images that still lingered in her head and soon the sun and the green lawns of their house and tea that was served made her heart beat slower and the darkness dissolve.

Although she forgot about the dream the grey fear lingered. She was suddenly afraid of the dark and could no longer stand when the sun was shaded by clouds. She could not explain and she could not tell and she saw in the eyes of her mother, her husband and the maids that they feared for her.

The second dream came some weeks later, when she had started to feel at ease again and when she no longer felt that she had to leave the candle burning at the bedside to be able to go into dreamland without fear.

This dream was different. She was inside a building. The walls were grey and seemed to be made of stone, not blocks standing on each other but smooth stone as if the whole room was cut from the bedrock.

She knew she didn't belong. She knew that she should not be there. She knew she was a stranger. And she knew she was in that city, that horrible city she had seen from the sky.

She was in one of those oddly shaped buildings and when she looked around she saw that the room had more than four walls. She could not count them; five, six or even seven, she could not say but there were more than four.

She was standing on a stone step and she was holding her hands in a kind of basin that seemed to be cut from the same stone as the walls. It had the same grey colour or lack of colour. Her hands were immersed in some strange substance. She found she was kneading a repulsive kind of dough. She imagined it to be made from flour made from the rock, inedible and horrible and forbidden for humans.

Then she realised she wasn't alone. There were others in the room. She knew she could not show her surprise. She had to stay calm. She pulled the hood down over her face. The shapes, the figures that stood around her were cloaked and hooded as she was but she felt her whole body freeze, her breathing stop because of their presence.

They moved in odd, smooth movements but said nothing, gave no sound. She glanced at them from under her hood but she could not make out their shapes. She knew, though, that they were not human.

She was then forming a rounded shape from the dough that seemed to set and become hard under her hands. The ordinariness of her movements and the strangeness of the dough filled her with terror.

She saw an odd kind of instrument lying beside the shape. It had a crooked handle and an edge that had the same grey colour as the walls. She took the instrument with trembling hands and before the dough had become hard as the stone she cut the surface of it with the instrument.

She knew she had no time and felt an overwhelming urge to finish the job before the doom came over her. She cut the surface and struggled with the strange material and marked the shape with a letter, the letter K for her first name. She knew she had to do this, to mark as hers this strange shape she had created.

She didn't scream as she woke up. This time she lay panting and staring at the ceiling. She felt strangely calm. She had gone back to the city and she knew she wasn't done with it.

She could not speak of it. She could not explain and share what she had experienced and in the company of her lovely friends and family she knew that it was only a dream, only a dark shadow that came in the night and scared her.

Her husband had asked her cousin to come visit and he managed to keep her occupied with parties and theatre and all sorts of activities. She knew he was worried. She knew he did it for her, to drive away the evil he feared had come to her. He didn't understand but he knew something was amiss.

She couldn't hide her fear. He noticed how she seem to be startled by any sound when they were sitting together by the fire in the evening and how she never went to bed alone or left the room without company. He knew she was afraid of something. He knew not what it was. She didn't know what it was. Her dreams had faded but she had kept the fear.

When the third dream came she was almost prepared, almost waiting for it. She was back in the city. This time she was in one of those open areas between the houses.

She was moving among those cloaked and hooded creatures. She felt the same fear of giving away she was not one of them. She was carrying the strange loaf or shape she had made the last time she visited the city. She looked at it and saw the letter she had carved in it.

The throng of creatures seemed to move in one direction and she followed, moved among them, tried not to touch them but followed the flow of them. She saw that they were carrying things. Everyone of them were carrying something. Some of them had round things like the one she was carrying, others carried small spire like sculptures crowned with spiked spheres, others carried glowing orbs.

It was at that moment she realised that these creatures had arms and hands. This familiar detail filled her with an unexpected fear and she felt like she was about to faint. She wanted to faint. She wanted to go back to sunshine and husband and green lawns.

She moved among the oddly angled streets and more and more of the cloaked figures joined the crowd. She realised that they were moving towards the angled dome in the centre of the city.

She knew she had to go there, she knew she had to be there among those creatures and move to that dome, to that temple and there she knew she had to do what was required of her. She knew now that the round shape, the strange loaf she had baked and marked was an offering. It was a gift to that which dwelt in the dome.

She knew she should not see what was in that dome. She knew she would not return should she see it. She knew she could not give her offering to it. She looked around but she could not turn around. She had to follow.

She had come to the gigantic dome and she stood at the foot of the stair. She saw the odd angled dome towering over her head and she saw the grey steps leading up to a black opening. She saw the cloaked and hooded creatures scrambling up the stair and entering the dome. She fainted.

This time it took more than an hour before her husband could understand her ramblings. He held her close and felt the fear that held her in its grip. He held her and loved her and wanted her to be safe with him.

She was exhausted and stayed in bed the whole morning but in the afternoon she was well enough to dress and join the others. She tried to smile and say she had had a headache and not felt well but that she now was much improved. They saw that she was still shaken but they reassured her.

Later they went to the museum, the museum of natural history. Her husband knew she loved it and there was an exhibition of fossils that was new to the museum. Anything to keep her mind from wandering, the husband thought.

It was a strange place for the change to take place. She was forever changed when she fainted in the museum. It was inside the new exhibition and no one noticed what happened until she sighed and fell to the floor. Her cousin managed to hold her so she didn't hit the floor too hard and she recovered as she was carried out into the sunshine again.

Those around her didn't noticed the change at first but her husband felt it immediately. It overwhelmed him and it was the fear of that change that made him leave her side, as he had never done before and go back into the museum.

He went back to the place where she had fainted and stood in the place she had stood and he looked at the showcase she had been looking at. There was nothing special there, just a round grey rock with a fossil in its surface. He looked at it and found it odd that the fossil, black against the grey looked very much like the letter K.

Horror

To cite David Bowie (again):

Inspirations have I none
Just to touch the flaming dove
All I have is my love of love
And love is not loving

Fantasies are about inspiration so this is a sad thing...innit? What to do then? I may write about something that interests me. Yes, what a splendid idea!

This is something I haven't said anything about before, I think. I do love a good horror story. Yes, that is true. A good horror story makes me fascinated, intrigued and excited. Not scared. I don't like really scary stories, the ones with blood and terrible crimes in them. I don't like gory stories. No, I like the subtle ones, the mysterious and fantastic ones.

One of my favourite authors is Howard Philip Lovecraft (isn't it a lovely surname for a writer of horror fiction?). He may not be the most brilliant writer in the sense of literary style but his imagination surpasses most writers I know about. I will not be dismissive about his writing style. It is brilliant in its own way. He is known to many people nowadays through role playing games and computer games and as the creator of the so called Cthulhu mythos. Read about it in Wikipedia but be aware that HPL never talked about a mythos and would, most likely be quite bored with it had he known about it.

His are stories about cosmic horror and the dangers of knowing too much. What we know about the world is just a fraction of what there is to know. There are hideous truths hidden and we are better off not knowing them. They are too hideous to know for human minds.

Another writer worth mentioning is Arthur Machen, a Welshman with a very vivid imagination. He thought that all good writing is about creating ecstasy in the reader. I know what you are thinking and I am sure his definition of ecstasy is more subtle. He wrote some really good stories and I can recommend The White People, without doubt one of the best short stories I have ever read.

A third name that springs to mind is Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, an Irish writer who created such stories as Uncle Silas and the short but brilliant Green Tea. If you ever want to read a great vampire story, far better than Bram Stoker and many modern writers, read Carmilla by Le Fanu.

So why haven't I said anything about Edgar Allan Poe? No, it is not because he is Merican. Lovecraft was Merican too. No, it is because he is not a particular favourite of mine. He has written some brilliant pieces, such as Ligeia and Berenice, so maybe he is worth mentioning after all.

I will stop now without telling you what it is I find fascinating with good horror stories. Maybe I will return to the subject later.