The Black Train

Instead of resisting…Collier did as she’d instructed.

“Yeah, you like that, don’t’cha?”

Regardless of her age, these were the best breasts he’d ever seen. He entered a dream world now, where nipples equated to deliverance.

Then he snapped again: This is crazy!

She began to pull him down onto the bed.

“Mrs. Butler, this is crazy!” he yelled. “We can’t do this!”

“We’se already doin’ it, hon…”

“There’s some serious shit going on here. This house—”

“Shhh…” She was already on her back, her hands pulling at him.

No! “Mrs. Butler! You said you heard a voice before. What did you hear?”

Her legs were parting. “Voice? Aw, don’t mind that…”

Collier was about to bolt until her hands touched him more urgently…

“Come on, come on…”

Collier shivered, then let himself be pulled down atop her. At one point he looked up and saw Lottie standing naked in the doorway. She was watching, eyes fixed. She was touching herself…

Yeah, man! his id celebrated. Looks like it’s gonna be a two-fer night!

The idea frenzied Collier. He tried to get up, but…

The house wasn’t letting him.

Collier’s face fell back down into the old woman’s bosom. Then the bed creaked, as Lottie climbed on.

“Little whores, the both of you,” a man’s voice blacker than coal croaked. “Look at you. You’ve let men fill your bellies with their seed—men who work for me, men who take my money and then betray me behind my back. But what should I have expected, with a harlot mother as abominable as yours? We must not suffer harlots to live…”

Collier clenched his teeth.

Don’t listen! Just get down to business!

A young girl: “Please, Father, no!”

“Oh, no, I won’t kill you. I’ll let the earth do it…”

The voices seemed to come from everywhere in the room.

Then he heard the sound of shovels biting into dirt.

Don’t listen!

Then muffled children’s screams…

He looked up again, and this time, saw Jiff standing in the doorway: naked, aroused. Then, he, too, climbed onto the bed…

Just as Mrs. Butler, Lottie, and Jiff’s hands all began to caress him, Collier grabbed his robe and lurched for the door.

“Where you goin’!” Mrs. Butler yelled.

“Aw, come on, Mr. Collier,” Jiff complained. “We can have us a four-way the right way…”

Collier ran out as if fleeing a blaze. Without a candle now, he stumbled in the nearly lightless hall. He blindly got his robe back on and felt his way to the atrium. What’s happening to me?

Then the answer came to him.

Not me. It’s the house.

He stopped when he found himself in the middle of the atrium. The storm seemed to be dying off now, the lightning less intense. But in each diminishing flash, he caught himself looking up at the portrait of Gast.

The house…

Was it merely suggestion, or had Harwood Gast changed his posture and expression? The plantation baron seemed to be grimacing now, and instead of looking out at the tree, he was looking to his left…

Collier looked left.

And saw the old writing table…and the smaller portrait of Penelope.

Slow steps took him over, his eyes widening. The next throb of lightning was all he needed to discern the small painting’s only necessary detail.

The oil painting only showed a landscape of trees in the background—the image of Penelope Gast wasn’t to be seen, as though her likeness had never been painted in it.

Was the rich Southern accent in Collier’s head?

“It’s not the house,” it whispered from everywhere.

Collier stumbled for the stairs.

“It’s me…”

Both of his hands let the banister guide him up. His eyes had barely adjusted—after feeling his way through more grainy darkness, he found his room.

He closed the door and leaned against it. I’ve really had enough of this place, he thought, almost hyperventilating, but in only a moment, he sensed something wrong.

The candles…

There’d been two lit candles when he’d left the room earlier. Now there was one.

He grabbed it, dipped it toward the bed.

Dominique wasn’t there.

Collier cursed himself. Damn it! The storm probably woke her up; then she saw that I wasn’t here so she got scared and left!

But—

Her work slacks and blouse were draped over the chair. Then he noticed with more alarm that her silver cross was hanging off the bedpost.

And so were her bra and panties.

Collier made the cold, unbelievable deduction. She’s not here but all her clothes are. Which means she’s somewhere in the house…naked.

The storm had faded. Collier tried to think—

Then he heard something like a long splash, like a bucket of water being emptied.

Collier had heard that sound before.

It came from the room to the left. The bath closet…

By now, Collier knew the drill.

When he blew out his candle, he wasn’t surprised to notice a dot of light on the wall: the peephole. He got to his knees and looked in.

Candlelight flickered, not much, but enough. Dominique’s beautiful pubis appeared, the triangle of dark thatch ever apparent. She lowered herself into the hip bath.

Collier watched, his eye frozen open on the hole.

It wasn’t a bar of soap that she held in her hand, it was Collier’s can of Edge Gel. Her finger squirted a few curls into the plot of hair; then she began to massage it into a thick white froth.

She’s going to shave her crotch, came the slow acknowledgment. That was fine with Collier but…

Why shave your crotch in a goddamn Civil War hip bath, during a power failure!

Another sound he’d heard came to his ear next.

scritch-scritch-scritch

But it wasn’t Collier’s disposable razor she was using. It was an old-fashioned straight razor.

When the task was complete, she got out and patted herself dry with a towel.

Even in the candlelight, the clean, hairless crotch seemed to radiate its fresh whiteness, but…

What’s she doing…now?

Now something else occupied her fingers, a small flat box that she quickly snapped open.