We’re properly spoilt this Halloween with not one but TWO fantastic guest pieces. This gorgeous story is longer than the posts I tend to publish, but when Jaimie (of Jaimie’s Erotica – follow on BlueSky here!) pitched me this I found it simultaneously dreamlike and creepy in equal measure, and I was sucked in to it deeply enough that I reckon a lot of you will be as well. It’s compelling! So bookmark it for later if you’re at work, then grab a cup of tea or glass of wine and settle down for a long read on a dark night…
Note that this is Halloween erotica, and as such it is designed to creep you out as well as arouse you – it contains themes of blood, teeth and devourment.
The Chatelaine – “She will strip me of my innocence”
I orgasmed again as she fastened her mouth over my sex, plunging her tongue, fucking me with it. I pinched my nipples hard and moaned a stream of blasphemies as she shifted to sucking my inner labia, then suddenly her teeth; sharply piercing me. The pain and fear magnified my ecstasy to such an extent that I lost my senses and fainted away.
Everyone remembers the first time they had sex, ma chère. I do too, of course, but not for the usual reasons. In the aftermath, my life changed completely. Before then, I had been unusually naïve and inexperienced, even making allowances for my family’s circumstances. I was uniquely ill-prepared for what was about to happen to me.
The only inkling I had about the intimate act centred around my shame-faced belief that I was abnormal.
This belief began when I discovered the sepia-toned postcards which my father kept in a box under his bed. I found them when I was chasing my cat, who would not yield up the half-dead bird he had caught; its breast heaving and wings flapping pathetically as he disappeared under the iron-framed bedstead with it. I opened the box I found there, and discovered dozens of cards, printed with pictures of young women, naked or semi-naked, in lewd poses. With hands trembling, I examined them all, noting with Catholic shame the stirring I felt. I confided in my mother that I thought there might be something wrong with me, but she didn’t understand. Or didn’t want to. ‘You just haven’t found the right boy yet. It is no matter.’
We lived in Provence, a region known for its many superstitions. The atmosphere often seems infused with a dreamlike torpor, and at certain times during the year it’s said that the dividing line between the corporeal and spiritual – the without and within – is thin and stretched. At those times, if one finds the right point to apply pressure, the veil can be breached, although you would do so at your own peril. I wasn’t much given to believing old wives’ tales then, but I did know the rumours about the ancient chateau located about seven kilometres from our village, positioned on a rock promontory overlooking light woodland to one side and craggy hills and more densely forested slopes on the other.
The only inhabitant of the isolated house was its Chatelaine – the lady of the chateau – attended, it was said, by a solitary manservant. The few who claimed to have seen the inside dined out on tales of declension and decline; the once grand home now falling, slowly but inexorably, into ruin. The stories about the old chateau seemed to mirror my own fate.
In the few years after the Great War, my family struggled. Although we survived the conflict, my mother and sister died of the Spanish influenza epidemic when the second wave swept through France in autumn 1918, leaving just my father and me. The loss devastated him, and he became increasingly withdrawn. We struggled along for some time until at last, late one October, and in desperation, I told him of the plan that I had devised. I would seek an interview with the Chatelaine and offer her my services. Father forbade it, quoting the rumours of devil worship, sorcery and such, but I was now nineteen, and I pointed out that it was up to me to save us since he seemed to have given up. I still flinch when I think of those words.
I set out the following morning on my bicycle, skirts tucked up. It was the last day of October, and the last of my old life, although I had no notion of that then.
The small hamlet below the chateau had been abandoned for many years; cottage gardens overgrown with weeds, roofs sagging, doors hanging loose in their rotten frames. As I approached the chateau, along the overgrown path, I feared that it was as abandoned as the village below. It seemed at first to be unoccupied, but I was eventually greeted (if that’s the right word) by a manservant, who looked equally dilapidated, and was clearly unaccustomed to dealing with visitors.
‘The mistress is not available at present, mademoiselle, but you are welcome to wait for her if it pleases you.’
I seriously considered whether I should return home, but at that moment, spots of rain began to splat onto the stone flagging. The sky had darkened from blue to slate grey in the time it had taken me to ascend the path from the village. I accepted the offer to wait.
The servant indicated that I could wait in the mistress’s study and led me through the ancient chateau. It was a palace of disintegration. I had only half believed the tales, but I could now see with my own eyes. The depredations of time and rot had exacted a high toll. Every window we passed was either shuttered or obscured with moth-ravaged heavy curtains; walls bore dark streaks where rain had found a way through the cracked and loose roof tiles, and patches of mould where damp had taken hold.
The servant offered me coffee, which I accepted, and while he was gone, I looked about me. There was no doubt that the services of a maid were sorely required, several in fact. And a handyman. The place smelled of age, and the wallpaper – once grand and expensive – was peeling away from the walls in places.
The rain was now driving against the panes, and I shivered.
Shelves of books covered half of the walls of the study, and being a lover of books, this piqued my interest. I thought the better of presuming hospitality, though – uninvited guest that I was – so I sat on the sofa awaiting the return of the manservant.
When he returned, I found the servant’s demeanour had changed noticeably for the better. He set out a tray for me: a pot of coffee with sugar, cream and a small plate of sugared biscuits, and apologised profusely for his mistress’s absence. He didn’t know when she would return, but felt absolutely certain that she would insist on my remaining at least until the rain had passed. I thanked him and, while he made up a fire in the grate, helped myself to the coffee and biscuits.
The fire warmed the room efficiently and, finding myself still waiting, I decided to browse the bookshelves. The task was not aided by the thick drapes of cobwebs and dust. I gingerly fingered the spines, mostly bound in fine leather and with titles which meant little to a nineteen-year-old girl. After a while, I came across a section where the dust had been disturbed, relatively recently and quite frequently it seemed. One book was a heavy textbook of anatomy, while another was a biography of Elizabeth Bathory, a Hungarian Countess. The line illustrations made me return that one to the shelf quickly – shuddering at what I had seen. Another caught my eye, and I took it quickly and retreated to the sofa.
Should I be doing this? I listened for the sound of any approaching footsteps but heard only the rain against the windows and a slow drip-drip-drip coming from somewhere.
The book was old; the frontispiece gave the title ‘Justine, ou Les Malheurs de la Vertu’, and the date of publication: 1791. The author was not stated. I read several pages then, blushing, opened the book further along and, after reading again for a while longer, closed it. My heart was thumping. I had no idea such writing existed. I lay my head back on the couch and squeezed my thighs together, breathing deeply. Shifting around in search of a comfortable position, I discovered that my cunt had become wet and slick. I lay the book beside me on the couch, stared at the logs crackling merrily in the grate and tried to refocus on what I would say to the Chatelaine when I eventually met her.
As my agitation began to dissipate, I became aware of my weariness. I was tired to my bones. The simple pleasure of reclining on a comfortable sofa, in a warm room, was so alien to me. I closed my eyes.
As I listened to the crackle of the fire and rattle of rain, the prose I’d just read insinuated its way back into my consciousness. My hand, resting comfortably on my lap, lightly stroked the worn blue serge fabric. A warm, dreamy drowsiness had overtaken me, which must have been why I did what I did next.
My dress buttoned through the front, and it was the work of a moment to slip a couple of buttons loose and pull my slip up so that my fingertips were now brushing the smooth flesh of my thigh.
My thoughts went back to the sepia postcards, as they often did when my fingers were… Ah – there! I had a favourite; two young women, both very beautiful, were arranged on a daybed with matching black woollen stockings. They were kissing whilst their fingers dandled between the legs of the other. Their nipples were prominent, and viewing the picture or, as now recalling it, caused my own to tingle and harden.
In my imagination, I was always the girl on the right. She was leaning into the other girl, reaching her arm around and cupping a breast in her small hand. My, no her, fingers began to thrum lightly over the outer lips of my cunny, each fleeting touch sending a fizzing sensation through to my core. Every repetition worked my fingertips further in, and soon they were coated, slipping through the wet and sensitive folds of my cunt. In my heated imagination, I was now Justine from the book; sweet and innocent but forced into depravity. I was surrounded by a circle of robed accusers, their faces a mask of hypocritical condemnation. If the masks slipped, they would be upon me like a pack of wolves. They would restrain me and every means of pleasure available to them would be taken; I deserved nothing better, whore that I was.
As I caressed, I found myself fighting against a heaviness of the limbs. The other from my daydream was now holding me in a steely grip. Her face was obscured, and I began to feel a sense of deep unease. The air itself seemed heavy, dreamlike; like pictures I’d seen of opium dens, and an incapacitating lassitude overtook me. I was helpless, and unease began to turn to fear, yet the chief effect was to amplify the erotic feelings which were beginning to sweep me away. I craned my neck as my mouth lolled open, the orgasm swelling through me, blooming slowly. A weight bore down upon me, and I was transfixed, able only to shudder as the glowing climax – and an abstract sensation that I recognised yet did not feel as sharp pain – coursed through and out of me.
I lay afterwards in drowsy comfort. The sensation of heaviness ebbed away, but I had no desire to move. I would liken the feeling to having drunk too much wine, but only the good sensations: the relaxation of limbs, the unfocused sleepiness, the numbing of discomfort.
I awoke with a start. The fire had gone out, and the room had grown colder. The heavy velvet curtains had been drawn shut. They had certainly been open when I sat down with the book, which was still on the sofa alongside me. I sat up, groaning, cold and stiff and with no idea how much time had passed. Instead of feeling refreshed I felt tired and weak.
‘Good evening.’
Stepping from the gloom came a figure, and I started in fear. I’d been unaware of anyone else present. They must have been there watching me sleep, wake, stretch. I wrapped my arms around myself as the figure approached.
‘No, please, don’t get up. You must be so very tired. I looked in on you earlier and decided that you must need the rest. I returned just now and was delighted to find you waking. I so seldom have the pleasure of receiving guests.’
She crouched in front of me, and I thought for a moment that an angel was addressing me. She was slender, with the palest skin I ever saw, her hair was long and a curious blend of blonde and red; so unusual that I had never seen its like – everyone I knew had Mediterranean colouring. Her eyes were blue crystals, and her mouth was red and dark as ripe plums. She spoke with the faintest accent… German perhaps. Picking up the book from beside me – did I notice a faint smile? – she returned it to the shelf.
I was invited to dine with her. She insisted it was no trouble – in fact, she often longed for feminine company; it would be a delight for her, and of course, there was no question of me returning home on such a foul night. She simply would not hear of it.
Dinner was served in the cavernous dining room, the two of us at one end of the huge dark oak table. It was as run-down as the rest, but the soft glow of candlelight threw a discrete veil over the degradation. The Chatelaine was an attentive host and, despite the unease which would not fully leave me, I found myself chattering away, telling her my life story, and she, leaning forward in rapt fascination. Alcohol, and glimpses of the curve of her breasts beneath her dress, warmed my cheeks. I felt my strength slowly returning.
The heavy red wine had loosened my tongue, but it wasn’t the only cause of my effusiveness. Her ethereal beauty, at first intimidating, had a mesmerising effect on me. She wore a simple ivory silk gown in the modern, fitted style that accentuated her otherworldliness but also the lines of her figure, and I found myself wondering how it might feel to place my hand on her waist and have my flesh and hers separated by no more than a layer of fine silk. She appeared not much older than I; how had she become the lady of this house? She was skilled at evasion and would say only that she was of Hungarian descent.
By the time dessert was due to be served, I was besotted. She ate little – barely picking at her food – and seemed chiefly interested in watching me eat and in learning every mundane detail of my dreary life. I never stopped to wonder that her solitary manservant could not only prepare such a feast but serve and clear down each course as well. My hostess suggested that we take dessert, coffee, and brandy in the cosy environs of her private drawing room, part of the separate suite that included her bedchamber. A fresh burning of my cheeks accompanied my assent. She cannot have failed to notice.
As with the rest of the chateau, it was impossible to overlook the dilapidation of her private rooms. Still, the lighting was subdued enough – church candles on black stands – to mask the shabbiness. Most notable was the proliferation of oriental lilies, in vases arranged about the room, filling it with their heavy, somnolent perfume. The effect would have been like a funeral parlour, save for the heavy crimson furnishings that were more suited to a bordello.
I don’t remember our conversation at this point of the evening, but I do remember her reaching across the small table at which we sat and removing a smudge of chocolate from the corner of my mouth with her finger. She held my gaze and licked her finger clean, and I think I almost fainted away with the ferocity of my desire for her; it felt… animalistic, carnal. Sinful. I wanted her more than life itself.
She noticed, of course. The tipping point had been reached. She’d intentionally provoked this moment from the instant I was left in her study with those books: her library of prurient carnage.
‘You’ve never had a lover, have you?’ she asked, and all I could do was mutely shake my head.
‘I look very young,’ she said, ‘but I have had many lovers. I would be honoured to be your first.’
She stood, slipped the shoulder straps off, and her dress slid to the floor, pooling about her feet. She was naked underneath.
She beckoned, and I rose and went to her, frightened to the point of tears but utterly consumed with desire. Her hands were upon my waist, then, pulling me to her, I felt her breath upon my cheek and her lips on mine, so soft and seeming insubstantial but – ah! What big teeth you have!
‘All the better to eat you with, my darling.’
Oh, that you would! I want you to consume me, to devour me so that the concept of separation ceases to have any meaning. I want to become borderless, with no demarcation between your most intimate self and mine.
She leads me to her bedchamber, which is also filled with lilies. She will strip from me my patched and darned dress, my virginity and my innocence. She will replace them with the integument of womanhood.
I arched my back, involuntarily, as her tongue found its mark, first teasingly light, but later, when I was so wet and aroused that I felt I was losing my mind, she applied more pressure. I was being devoured. Until now, my hostess had been the epitome of gentle hospitality. In her bed, she increasingly resembled a predator. Her nails, impeccably manicured at dinner, were now like talons, gouging painfully at my flesh even as her tongue penetrated me. Her teeth – Jesus succour me – when did they become so sharp? Would I be allowed to orgasm before my flesh was ripped and torn from me? The two things seemed in that moment to be identical in intention: I wanted to lose myself in oblivion with her.
My knees were drawn up and had fallen apart, leaving my thighs as wide as they could be. I was fully exposed. I had given myself completely to her, holding nothing back. I’d already come once, but she was determined, it seemed, to add to that number. Her tongue raked through my soaking cunt, rasping at me, sucking and swallowing with relish the fluids flowing freely from me. She was a gourmand, ravenous for the meal laid out before her now, even as she had not been at the dinner table earlier.
As I have previously related, when I climaxed a second time, in ecstasy and pain, I fainted away.
When consciousness returned, I found that I was exhausted, washed out and unwell. I had no point of reference with which to compare my experience with the Chatelaine. Masturbation had been my sole sexual outlet, using the cards from under my father’s bed as inspiration, but I’d never had sex with another person. For all I knew, what I was feeling was entirely normal. There was a light burning sensation from between my legs, and I gingerly put my hand down to explore, bringing my fingers back to examine in the dim light. Blood. I sat up and looked at the bedsheets between my legs. Where I had lain was a dark patch. My first thought was that this was my menses, but it’s too early; I’m not due yet, and there’s far more blood than usual.
The candles had been extinguished, and the only illumination was the oil lamp on the nightstand beside the bed. From the flickering glow, I could see that I was alone. I shuffle to the edge of the bed and shakily rise to my feet. I’m sore everywhere, and I notice now that my neck aches; the effort of holding my head up seems almost too much. I run my fingers over the smooth skin of my neck and flinch again. There is a soreness… I go to the other side of the room, sitting heavily at the dressing table to examine myself in the mirror. The mirror is turned on its rotating stand to face the wall. I grasp it and turn it so that it’s facing me. My reflection is washed out, less… solid than usual, but I can see, clearly, two small puncture wounds on my throat and dark staining – possibly a bruise: the purple standing out clearly on my pallid skin.
Where is my lover? These other questions can wait. I must find her.
I don’t have to look far; she’s in the adjoining room where we had dessert and brandy and where she bared herself to me.
She’s sitting in the armchair that faces the window. She’s troubled and leans forward, her head in her hands, motionless. I go to her, but I don’t know what to say, what to do. I try to thank her. Until yesterday, I believed that my desires, my yearnings, were a sinful aberration. Now, instead of a lifetime of weeping self-denial, I can see a path forward, a path of happiness, with her.
Instead of the hoped-for joy, she seems even more distressed. I’m at a loss and decide to wait for her to speak. When she does, what I hear is a dagger to my heart.
Previously, she explained through tears, she would have delivered the coup de grâce and thought nothing of it. This time, she could not. She is dazzled by me, and I stand now at a crossroads where I still have a choice. I don’t understand and kneel, naked, before her, taking her hand, so translucently pale I can see the outline of her bones and veins, and kiss it. I hold her palm to my cheek. We’re lovers now, and that changes everything, surely? She need not continue living in darkness.
But she cannot pick and choose; she cannot save one aspect of her true self and discard the other; it’s all or nothing, you see? I didn’t see, but I understood that she was tired of this half-life; the countless men she had taken to her bed, who had bled out to satisfy her, yet could not fully; never could. She must have blood, and if I’m close, as I would be, she cannot trust herself.
Can a cat choose not to be a cat? When he spies his prey – all alive-oh – can he hold at bay the impulse to murder?
She’s tired, she’s ready now, and if she lives, I will become like her. She does not want this fate for me. If she dies, she says, I’ll be free to choose a different fate, but I know this is not so. I can see now what she cannot: that the parts of my true self are indivisible as well. For my lover, I will do as she asks, yet I cannot expect acceptance or forgiveness for myself and the choice that I make.
This is a pious country.
We embrace, and her lips press against mine. The sharpness of her teeth is still evident. I’m moments from death if she chooses it, but she wishes only to join her savage ancestors now, and I will give that to her. She will fade in the sunlight of my love and the new day, the first of November – ‘la Toussaint’ – when saints and martyrs are honoured.
The morning air is sweet and clear as I pull back the curtains and swing open the long shut windows, and the sunshine, replacing the heavy rains of last night, sends clouds of mist rising from the landscape.
When I turn to her chair, she’s gone. Her silk and lace nightdress has fallen over it as if she passed right through, and evaporated like last night’s rainfall.
I’ve also made my choice. My choice is not to live in darkness, hiding my true self.
I send for my father, and he comes.
Leaving the village and the ghosts of my mother and sister gives him a new lease of life, and the chateau, now mine, seemingly, provides a new sense of purpose. He attacks the job of mending and restoring with a vigour that I cannot remember seeing in him since I was a little girl, since before the war. All is well.
Epilogue
I stretch a little as I awake.
I turn my head to my left and see that she’s sleeping there. The slow rise and fall of her breasts, and soft breathing. She’s naked. I reach my hand across, allowing my fingertips to trace a line from her sternum down the soft belly to the light curve of her mons pubis.
I recall waiting outside the chateau in the courtyard for her car to arrive. She emailed about the position she’s seen advertised. ‘Maid wanted – light domestic duties.’ The internet is a wonderful invention. By means of it, I can undertake a preliminary filtering, and I know that this one has a social media presence that suggests that our cravings are aligned. I dress provocatively for her, in the modern style, to make her choice simple. I will plant the urge, then give her the opportunity to satisfy it fully, and, in return, I will give her a new urge, one which cannot ever be fully sated.
On top of her, now, two fingers are penetrating her. She’s moaning as if in a dream, as I thrust in and out, in and out. My thumb – on her clit – slips back and forth, lubricated by her emissions. Her fingers are in my cunt, but she’s so close to her own orgasm that she can’t concentrate. It is no matter.
The first time I lay in this bed, I had no experience to draw upon. Now, I’m an expert; my clever fingers find just the right spot within, making her cry out. She is undone.
My mouth is only an inch from hers, and as she exhales between gasps, I inhale deeply, sucking in her hot, moist air, filling myself with her, absorbing as much of this living thing as I can before she’s no longer living. Her limbs stiffen, and her breast heaves in that way that communicates she’s about to climax. When she does, right at the peak of her ecstasy, I will fasten my mouth about her pulsating throat and bite down, severing skin, sinew and puncturing arteries, like a cat taking a bird. Although neither of us is a virgin, this consummation will be evidenced in the age-old way with blood spilt on white bedsheets.
Soon she, too, will cross over and be consumed by the same lusts that have had me in their thrall since I first came here in 1922.
Do you think me monstrous? Very well then, but I choose all of myself, as I did then, as I always will – without shame. I know who and what I am.
The Chatelaine is dead.
Long live the Chatelaine.
If you enjoyed this gorgeous story you’ll be delighted to hear there is more! Check out the companion piece – This insatiable disease of the blood – over on Jaimie’s website. And go follow her on BlueSky!
