Haggopian and Other Stories

“Bottle? Oh, yes!” Harry suddenly remembered the two bottles of wine they had brought with them from the Schützenfest. He reached into the back seat and found one of them. “But we have no glasses. And why should we drink here when it would be so much more comfortable inside?”

She laughed briefly. “Harry, I’m a little nervous…”

Of course! French courage!—or was it Dutch? What odds? If a sip or two would help her get into the right frame of mind, why not? Silently he blessed the manufacturers of screw-top bottles and twisted the cap free. She took the wine from him, and he heard the swishing of liquid. Her perfume seemed so much stronger, heady as the scent of poppies. And yet beneath it he sensed…something tainted?

She returned the bottle to him and he lifted it to parched lips, taking a long deep draught. His head immediately swam, and he felt a joyous urge to break into wild laughter. Instead, discovering himself the victim of so strange a compulsion, he gave a little grunt of surprise.

When he passed the bottle back to her, he let his hand fall to her breast once more—and gasped at the touch of naked flesh, round and swelling! She had opened her blouse to him—or she had removed it altogether! With trembling fingers he reached for his mask and the handkerchief tucked behind it.

“No!” she said, and he heard the slither of silk. “There, I’m covered again. Here, finish the bottle and then get out of the car. I’ll lead you…”

“Cassilda,” he slurred her name. “Let’s stop this little game now and—”

“You may not take off the blindfold until we are in my room, when we both stand naked.” He was startled by the sudden coarseness of her voice—the lust he could now plainly detect—and he was also fired by it. He jerked violently when she took hold of him with a slender hand, working her fingers expertly, briefly, causing him to gabble some inarticulate inanity.

Momentarily paralysed with nerve-tingling pleasure and shock, when finally he thought to reach for her she was gone. He heard the whisper of her dress and the click of the car door as she closed it behind her.

Opening his own door he almost fell out, but her hand on his shoulder steadied him. “The other bottle,” she reminded him.

Clumsily he found the wine, then stumbled as he turned from the car. She took his free hand, whispering: “Ssh! Quiet!” and gave a low guttural giggle.

Blind, he stumbled after her across a hard, faintly familiar surface. Something brushed against his leg, cold, furry and damp. The fronds of a bushy plant, he suspected.

“Lower your head,” she commanded. “Carefully down the steps. This way. Almost there…”

“Cassilda,” he said, holding tightly to her hand. “I’m dizzy.”

“The wine!” she laughed.

“Wait, wait!” he cried, dragging her to a halt. “My head’s swimming.” He put out the hand that held the bottle, found a solid surface, pressed his knuckles against it and steadied himself. He leaned against a wall of sorts, dry and flaky to his touch, and gradually the dizziness passed.

This is no good, he told himself: I’ll be of no damn use to her unless I can control myself! To her he said, “Potent stuff, your local wine.”

“Only a few more steps,” she whispered.

She moved closer and again there came the sound of sliding silk, of garments falling. He put his arm around her, felt the flesh of her body against the back of his hand. The weight of the bottle slowly pulled down his arm. Smooth firm buttocks—totally unlike Julia’s, which sagged a little—did not flinch at the passing of fingers made impotent by the bottle they held.

“God!” he whispered, throat choked with lust. “I wish I could hold on to you for the rest of my life…”

She laughed, her voice hoarse as his own, and stepped away, pulling him after her. “But that’s your second wish,” she said.

Second wish… Second wish? He stumbled and almost fell, was caught and held upright, felt fingers busy at his jacket, the buttons of his shirt. Not at all cold, he shivered, and deep inside a tiny voice began to shout at him, growing louder by the moment, shrieking terrifying messages into his inner ear.

His second wish!

Naked he stood, suddenly alert, the alcohol turning to water in his system, the unbelievable looming real and immense and immediate as his four sound senses compensated for voluntary blindness.

“There,” she said. “And now you may remove your blindfold!”

Ah, but her perfume no longer masked the charnel musk beneath; her girl’s voice was gone, replaced by the dried-up whisper of centuries-shrivelled lips; the hand he held was—

Harry leapt high and wide, trying to shake off the thing that held his hand in a leathery grip, shrieking his denial in a black vault that echoed his cries like lunatic laughter. He leapt and cavorted, coming into momentary contact with the wall, tracing with his burning, supersensitive flesh the tentacled monstrosity that gloated there in bas-relief, feeling its dread embrace!