Taming the Dragon

Dear Readers,

Over the last few weeks I have been absent from the blog post, resting my hands and taming the Dragon. I now have at my disposal software that is talk to text. While the doctors try to figure out what's happening with my digits, I've been training the software in my computer to follow my voice correctly. Much like taming a Dragon would likely be, there have been many bumps along the way. However, I am getting better at enunciating and learning how to produce works by staring at a computer screen. This is not my favorite way to go, but the life gives you Dragons, you have to learn how to fly or get burned.

On a much lighter note, we've reached my favorite month of the year. October is full of festivals, fun and fantasy. It is the month of Oktoberfest, the transition to fall, the best seasonal drinks at Starbucks, and the peak of tourism for Salem, MA (one of my personal favorite little towns I've visited thus far). It all culminates with my favorite holiday, Halloween. When I was a child, my grandmother's house was always the most sought after haunt in neighborhood. Cobwebs, dancing ghosts, witches, and tombstones adorned our lovely little residence it all made a great impact on my creative side.

The story that I will present you in segments over the next few weeks was one that I wrote during a particularly productive part of my life. Not only was I attending my second year of college in the fall semester of 2009, I wrote three full-length novels and one short story. It is the latter that will serve as entertainment for you this month.

In my theology in literature course we read the infamous Dante's Inferno. For those of you who have read it you may see some similarities or at least the inspiration. For those of you who have not, I highly recommend it, if anything just to enjoy the poetry of a well-written and very haunting tale of Dante's tour through the nine circles of hell.

The short story to follow is significantly darker than most of my other works thus far presented and may be disturbing for some; reader's discretion is advised.

"Her Very Own Demons"

An Original by S. Faxon

It was half past two in the morning when finally she made it back to her apartment. The day had been long and strenuous, precisely as all before, yet still she would receive no peace in the safety of her keep. They were there.

They were always there.

“Oh, look who’s home!” the certainly more physically frightening of the two who always haunted her thoughts mockingly chimed. “If it isn’t Miss Queen back from the university.”

Miss Queen locked the door behind her even though the closed aperture could not guard her from the evil that lurked among her at all times. The stench that filled her nostrils that her company brought made her stomach ill, but she had no choice but to bear it. She did not respond to the demon who addressed her, she hardly ever did. She instead immediately made ready for bed.

“Why so quiet tonight?” the terrifyingly ugly demon with pointed black wings, fangs, horns and all asked as he lay out on her bed. “Didn’t she see him today, Luci?” Malacoda asked the other shadow that accompanies Miss Queen, but singularly stayed with her today.

“Oh yes, yes she did, of course,” Luci, in her sleek and her tight fitting robes of black and white answered as she hovered over near the bed. Her voice was velvety, but it was neither male nor female in tone. “Are you kidding? She could find him anywhere. Her heart is full of love.” Luci scoffed and rolled her eyes. The very thought of love was a foolish waste of time.

“Aw, that’s sweet,” Malacoda teased with a wicked smile, all of his sharp and yellow pointed teeth glaring unmercifully towards Miss Queen. “If indeed she caught a sight of he, why so blue?”

“HA!” Luci cried. “Why do you think? She –”

“Hush, Luci!” Malacoda commanded even though he was hardly the more powerful of the two. “Again you answer for her, let the queen of the universe answer us tonight. Miss Queen? Come now, why so quiet? Speak!” the demon commanded, his voice was ever a cross between a growl and a vicious hiss.

Miss Queen no longer immediately shivered from the very sound of her demon’s voices, for she was beginning to grow jaded of their awful presence no matter how frightening they seemed, but still, she hated it when they made her speak. She finished changing from her work clothes, stained with the cleaning liquids she used to wipe down chalk boards, into her thin long night gown. She timidly answered without looking at the red eyes of Malacoda, “I did see him, and I talked to him briefly, but that is all.”

Luci rolled her wickedly dark blue eyes as she internally laughed at this weak creature before her. Time and time again had shown that this thing of flesh and bone could never achieve her dreams, yet still had the audacity to hope. “Do not lie to us, pet,” Luci sternly cut through the silence as she stared poor Miss Queen down nearly into nothingness. “For false witness will send you to a different circle from that which you belong.”

“I am not lying,” the poor young woman defended. “That is all that happened, you were there! Why must you continue to condemn me falsely?” Miss Queen burst out, for the weight of her sadness and depression had finally sprung back. “What have I done?”

Both the demons looked to each other and laughed most cruelly. This was a topic they had been over with her repetitively, almost even diurnally, and it never failed to bolster their nights.

Miss Queen hated them, but, she feared that she was stuck with them for life and maybe even indeed into the next one after this. However, she was strong. Their daily beatings of her conscious and occasionally of her body would have proved long ago to have condemned many others to challenge fate by seeking their own rapid escape, but not her. Her heart was determined to see this curse through.

Malacoda leapt from the bed, his muscular body and wings flung themselves at Miss Queen. He pinned the young lady to the wall with his forearm across the front of her neck, it was time he finally drove this point into her heart with a long and resolute nail. He had to do this. Even though her smell was unbearable to him, he had to torture her in this way. “Why do you not believe us when we say that you’ve ‘ad a seat waiting for you in Hell since the day you were born?” Even though he was nearly choking her, his other hand pushing his sharp nails painfully into the flesh of her chest, Miss Queen was still able to say, “I was baptized! Why from the day I was born? I ‘andn’t done –”

           

But Miss Queen could not finish her sentence, as Malacoda shoved his arm slightly deeper into her jugular making her gag and choke.

“Be gentle with my pet,” Luci almost indifferently commanded to Malacoda. “She may be a worthless fool whose head is blinded with love for that man, but she still belongs to me, and what good is damaged property?”

Malacoda held his arm to Miss Queen’s neck for a moment longer before he released her. Miss Queen coughed violently for a moment as air returned to her lungs. She clutched her ringless hands to her throat and prayed to her true Creator to save her from these creatures of absolute evil, as she did every night.

           

Luci saw the words run across Miss Queen’s mind, even though she could not hear the girl’s thoughts. The act of her pet running to God was something Luci could not allow. A dark shadow and heaviness fell across the room. Though only two candles flickered on the only piece of furniture Miss Queen had aside from her bed, the subtle lights were extinguished by the weight of the pronounced presence. Both the demon and Miss Queen felt it as Luci’s anger grew to a startling evanescence that filled the home of the single lady. Malacoda backed away from Miss Queen’s side to let his master do with the pet as she pleased.

Tall, thin, and terrifying, Luci, with her wavy black hair hanging down loosely around her long face slowly walked to Miss Queen’s side. Miss Queen did not dare to blink, for she was not at all aware to the full powers that Luci possessed and this petrified her beyond all reason, more even than losing the man she loved.

Luci saw the fear streak across the face of this stubborn preferred daughter and she absorbed absolutely sinful delight from its presence. The Creature of evil lifted Miss Queen from the ground without ever laying a finger on her small body, dangling her at least a hand above the floor. Though she was not being touched, it felt as if a clutch of ropes were tightly wrapped around her abdomen and arms, making breathing or subtle movement nearly impossible.

Luci smiled to see the pain of Miss Queen as she softly said, her pallid skin glowing in the darkness, “Why do you persist, Gwendolyn, dear, in praying to that ‘God’ of yours? He does not love you. He does not even exist.”

“That’s not true,” Gwendolyn Queen said as vehemently as she could, given the circumstance. “If He did not exist, neither would either of you.”

Malacoda and Luci laughed with one another again. “Oh, you really are just a stupid girl, aren’t you, pet?” Luci asked Gwendolyn with her shrill and teasing voice as she continued to restrict the lady high against the blank and bland grey wall. “You’re naïve, trusting, and dull, but at least you’re pretty.” Luci smiled wickedly again, her own smile of sharp, but perfect white teeth, glaring menacingly at Gwendolyn. “You’ll be the shining piece in my collection someday indeed.”
           

Luci released her grip over Miss Queen and let the lady drop without warning to the ground.

Luckily this time Gwendolyn landed without injury, but last time Luci did this to her, Miss Queen landed incorrectly and broke two toes. Remembering that injury from the first night of their official meeting rattled Miss Queen all over again. It had been a full two years since she was first removed from her happy world in which she assumed it only to be bad luck that was the cause of her misfortunes, but no, it was fate. How could she ever forget that starless night in which the lands shook and the ground split before her? What evils from that crack emerged she could not have dared to guess in a thousand years. She did not even then think it possible, nor could she now believe that these demons really were true. But yes, yes they were and, for the time being, they were here to stay.

“If you do not mind, Luci, Malacoda, I have work tomorrow and it is quite late,” Gwendolyn quietly, but firmly reminded as she nonchalantly went to her bed as though entirely unaffected by their persistent harassment.  

“Oh yes, and she must get her beauty sleep if she is going to see ‘im tomorrow anyway,” Malacoda teasingly reminded Luci though she needed no reminding.

As Gwendolyn pulled her sparse and scratchy blankets over her body she was not at all surprised that Luci sat on the bed right beside her, though, as always, Miss Queen was annoyed.

“Why do you stare at me so?” Luci asked as she sensuously ran the back of her long nailed fingers down Gwendolyn’s soft cheek. “You know that I do not hate you, pet. It does not have to be this way. You know what you must do to make Malacoda and me go away. Why, pet, do you continue this charade? All you have to do is say four simple words and this nightmare will end.”

“I will never say them,” Gwendolyn said with a heart full of conviction. She had lived with these monsters for two years, how bad could another fifty be? Besides, she could not betray her God like that, never.

“My, we picked a ‘ard one to crack,” Malacoda chuckled as he looked out the small window that looked out onto the sleepy university’s grounds where Miss Queen was employed. “Sure makes it fun though, don’t it?”

Luci resisted the urge to say “yes, but we did not choose her,” as she lowered her face an inch over Gwendolyn’s. Luci let her pointed nose touch Miss Queen’s as she whispered, “Good night, pet, sweet dreams.” Luci kissed Gwendolyn’s forehead hoping for a chance that lust might be what takes the girl under, but the strong heart of Miss Queen was not at all interested. She knew what game Luci was playing at, and she was not willing to throw her cards in any time soon.

The Creature whose heart longed for nothing more than presently winning this girl’s soul, stood from the bed while running her hand down Gwendolyn’s stomach that burned in pain from the soft touch, “Don’t forget, pet, whether you need us or not, we’ll still be here.”

Gwendolyn ignored the cold and bitter chuckling of Malacoda and Luci as she rolled over in bed away from them. In her thoughts she was safe. She clung to her pillow as though it was the body of the man she loved but had never dared to touch, using its body as a bulwark between her heart and her very own demons. 

~*~*~

Be sure to tune in next week to see what happens between Miss Queen and her very own demons.

Your humble writer,

S. Faxon

PS - It's good to be blogging again. :)