Spirituous Seduction
2
J. MacTavish Feingold
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Copyright © 2021 by Lambkin-Walters Publishing Company All rights reserved This story, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without the express written consent of Lambkin Walters Lavender Publishing Company. The scanning, copying, uploading, and or distribution of this story via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the author or LambkinWalters Publishing Company is illegal and punishable by law. Printed in the United States of America
Spirituous Seduction
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J. MacTavish Feingold
Literary Noir – “This is what noir is, what it can be when it stops playing nice--blunt force drama stripped down to the bone, then made to dance across the page”. ~Stephen Graham Jones
Spirituous Seduction
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J. MacTavish Feingold
Chapter One One by one they filed past the open pine box. Even in the silence of repose she was beautiful. Her once warm golden skin had taken on the ashen hue of death. She was the embodiment of a fallen angel who had succumbed to the plague that threatened to all but eliminate the small town just south of Paris. He had painstakingly painted the lips that once kissed his, and the nails on the small hands that had held him close on many a long cold night. The ring which tied but never bound them glistened in the gloom of the small room casting strange shadows off the walls.
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The flickering flames of the gas lights bathed the parlor in an eerie yellow cast. The mood was somber, and the stale air in the room reeked of old people, old perfume, and death.
The cacophony of the spasmodic
coughing of pertussis was symbolic of the tenacious hold the disease had on the citizenry.
The attire of the mourners was as
black as the death that had claimed the life of Antoinette Bouchere. Peter Richland surveyed the room and felt his stomach churn as the elders leaned down to kiss the hands of his beloved. The strange sensation of a primal urge visited his loins. She had been his partner in the ancient ritual of the dark arts and now she was gone. 8
J. MacTavish Feingold
Although he had summoned the powers from deep within, they had abandoned him, and now he was alone, and for this he was angry. It had been more than a decade since the day they met. Her flashing brown eyes and quick smile had captivated him from the beginning and endeared her almost instantly to his lonely heart; but it was her love and knowledge
of
the
dark
practices
of
subliminal seduction that linked them forever. He was a novice and so enamored that he was caught totally unaware when he responded to a hand delivered invitation to visit the grounds of the great cathedral at dusk. The note was signed simply with an initial.
He arrived not knowing what to
expect when he encountered a woman
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wearing the habit of a nun.
Unlike the
traditional garb there was something different about this one, perhaps the fit or the fact that he could discern a female shape underneath the black cloth.
Perhaps it was only his
perception of a shape. His mind soundly denounced any affiliation with the clergy on the part of the woman.
His thoughts became lustful, and
although she remained some distance away, he could feel and smell the heat within her. His surroundings played no role in his inability to restrain himself. She did not move from her place, yet his desire for her continued to build.
He could feel the
inevitable and was loath to do anything to control it.
Like an animal he took her, 10
J. MacTavish Feingold
peeling away the layers of her faux religious garb and insinuating himself between her legs, pulling away swollen female lips to gain further access to what she hid well. He took her to depths he had never taken a woman before and allowed himself
his manly
pleasures in ways previously unknown to him. That was only the beginning. No matter what the setting, she never touched him or disrobed, she simply presented herself in a manner that was not overtly sensual but highly effective.
Once she was in the
marketplace and the harvest had only just come in. She picked up a ring of garlic and placed it about her neck. He stood there and watched her as her fingers played with the cloves. In a casually, almost absentminded
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manner she began to gently massage them, and it was as if she were inviting him to her neck and to her breasts.
He stood there
visually undressing her, imagining his tongue tracing the curve of her throat and then slowly teasing each nipple of her more than ample bosom.
He imagined his hands
underneath her skirts, stroking, massaging… In reality he was stroking himself, enjoying the hardness, thinking of
her wetness
caressing him, engulfing him, urging him on, drawing every ounce from his manhood, until he was totally drained and spent. Later, after they joined themselves in an alliance only, they understood, she would sit across the table from him and without uttering a word, take nourishment in a 12
J. MacTavish Feingold
fashion that so totally titillated him he would clear the table and take her there. He would bend her over the wooden table and enter her with reckless abandon and she would meet him stroke for stroke. He knew that he was not the only man who responded to her silent seduction. Men who looked her way on the street suddenly darted into alleyways and doorways to manually relieve themselves. She took perverse pleasure in what she did, but her loyalty and devotion made her what she was to him.
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Chapter Two The plague did not discriminate when claiming victims. Saint and sinner alike fell, and Antoinette had been among them. The mourners had all paid their respects and he was once again alone with her, perhaps for what was to be the last time. For reasons he could not explain Peter could not bring himself to place the lid on her coffin. Morning would come soon, and he could lay her to rest in the light of day. Snuffing out all but one light, he left her to retire for what was left of the night. The darkened room provided little solace. Everything was as it had been. The 14
J. MacTavish Feingold
only difference was the bed. The linens she died on had been burned as was the practice, in an effort to stop the spread of the disease. As he changed the bed, the smell of her- the lavender-
permeated
his
senses
and
heightened his sorrow. He hid it from the others,
remaining
stoic
throughout
the
viewing and accepting the condolences of those who came to pay their respects. The dressing gown he gave her for Christmas was carelessly tossed across the folding screen, and even that conjured up visions of her covert seductiveness.
Clutching it to his
chest he laid down on the bed and prayed that sleep would overcome him. The room seemed empty and cold and even the warmth of the featherbed was small
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comfort.
He was used to her warmth.
Despite his struggle to remain awake, Peter fell into an uneasy sleep.
Memories and
images seemed to dance through his dreams like jesters in a king’s court. He could see her there, that irrepressible smile teasing the corners of her mouth as she too danced the dance in her shroud of death. As the others faded slowly away, she moved closer to him, her tongue circling his mouth before darting inside nearly smothering him with kisses. In his dream state he could feel her nipples pressing against his chest with their hardness.
Her skin was cool but not
unpleasantly so. He felt her slither down the length of his body, slowly licking him as she made her way. She made no sound as she 16
J. MacTavish Feingold
openly seduced him, coaxing him to a full state of arousal. Resisting her advances was an exercise in futility. Her hands kneaded his weary muscles as her mouth worked its magic. He could “feel” her tongue lick his inner thighs and the warmth of her hands on his hardness, stroking him, her mouth succoring him. He railed against continued sleep as the slow deathly torture of pleasure continued. Pleasure derived from a spirituous visitation from a dead lover seemed the epitome of madness, even to Peter. He knew that
Antoinette’s
body
needed
to
be
committed to the earth, but he could not bring himself to do it. To seal away forever what was between them was more than his
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heart could bear.
Three days of nightly
visitations had taken its toll and on the fourth day he buried her. No amount of drink or good wishes eased the loss he felt. Sick and stuporous he once again fell into a deep uneasy sleep. The dream came as always only this one seemed more real than the others.
She was there
across the room just standing there in her soiled and unattractive raiment, smiling the smile, and creating the urge- the urge for sexual gratification; the urge to feel her and love her just once more. He wanted to warm her in her coldness, to feel that primal urge and to firmly plant his manhood inside her one final time. He wanted to feel her hot 18
J. MacTavish Feingold
wetness surround him as his joined with hers and filled her. Rising from the bed Peter walked towards Antoinette’s apparition. The stench of decay was overpowering yet he continued on. His mortal mind had lost all control of his senses.
He imagined her mouth, her
hands. He felt her as she mounted him and rode him, her sardonic grin present as the corpse sought his release. Three days later Peter Richland was found dead in his bed, a victim of the same plague that took his beloved Antoinette. His arms were locked in a grotesque hug and there were signs that he had recently been visited by a woman.
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The gas lights flickered as Peter Richland was mourned by those who knew him. The eerie yellow light cast shadows of a small ring he wore on the fourth finger of his left hand-the one that tied but never bound.
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Chapter Three Moonlight was Hugo Montvailles’ best friend, just as time was his greatest enemy, and for as long as he could remember, the little cemetery on the edge of town had been virtually neglected save for a few sporadic burials of old people in family plots. The recent outbreak of the plague had created far too much traffic making it difficult to do what had to be done. The window of opportunity was closing quickly and tonight would be the last opportunity for the rescue. Holding the lantern high he glanced around,
making
certain
no
mourning
stragglers were present. He also made sure he was at the right plot. Once he made a
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mistake and there was literally hell to pay for it. This time there would be no mistakes. Setting the lantern down beside the marker, Hugo picked up the old shovel and began to dig. The night air was cool, but he was drenched in sweat.
His efforts were
beginning to pay off as the shovel hit something solid.
Lying on the ground he
used the business end of the shovel to brush the remaining soil away from the lid of the coffin. He tugged gently on the little bell and met with no resistance.
His heartbeat
quickened and his stomach felt as if it had become the lamp to a hundred moths. Using the tip of the tool to gently pry open the lid 22
J. MacTavish Feingold
he tried to prepare himself for what he would find in the pine box. No one in the small town just outside Paris was ever certain of what fate had befallen Hugo Montvailles’. A caretaker at the cemetery reported finding his remains in the coffin belonging to Madame Antoinette Bouchere. His arms appeared to be in an embrace and the remains of Bouchere were not in the pine box.
Madame
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Chapter Four Several fortnights had come and gone since the plague claimed the last of the victims in the small town of Clochere, France. The air was still and there was no hint of the plague that had claimed the town. Slowly new tenants began to occupy houses on the outskirts of town, and Jean Louis Robere among them. Standing a hundred yards or so from the courtyard of the great cathedral, Jean Louis watched as a woman dressed in the flimsiest of black garments danced about.
Her
movements were sensuous, and beckoning. Fascinated by the mysterious woman he began walking towards her. There seemed to 24
J. MacTavish Feingold
be urgency in her dance. It was not until he was fifteen feet or so from the woman that he caught a whiff of the stench that was akin to rotting flesh. The sound of invisible music changed tempo and Jean Louis watched as the woman approached him. He was strangely aroused, and the ache was pronounced. Making the sign of the cross he became transfixed as she continued
to
walk
outstretched arms.
towards
him
with
When she was within
three feet he watched as skeletonized arms removed the shroud to reveal the remains of a woman predicate with child. Visible through her distended shell was a full-term fetal skeleton.
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As Jean Louis took his final breaths, the beads of his crucifix slowly fell to the ground in a series of small “plinks” as Antoinette Bouchere once again engaged in the dark art of spirituous seduction. The End
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