Am I Awake?

Once I got the hang of the car in the area around the front of the house, it became a joy to drive. It was a bit like driving a fairground dodgem, almost silent except for the slight whir of the electric motor and a very responsive acceleration.

Having decided I was ready to head out, I stopped for a moment to rearrange the orange sailing holdall in the passenger seat. As I did so, a figure in the window of the neighbours house caught my eye. Just for a moment, it looked as though the woman from the night before was looking down from her first floor room straight at me. As I looked back up and raised a hand in a wave she was gone, the curtain just fluttering where she had passed it. I remembered for a moment her dancing from the night before and resolved to get myself back in time for what might well be wine hour.

It was a little bracing but overall really pleasant to stride out in the little marina down at the bottom of the hill where Kelvin kept his boat. The warm air of the afternoon mixed with the chill coming off the sea. There was a slight breeze setting up in the early evening sunshine. The boat, 'Aia' sat moored peacefully. It had taken me a while a few summers before to work out that the name was just an acronym for another of Kelvin's 'Am I awake?' questions. Two small serpents intertwined around the lettering on the bow and there were intricate wooden carvings down the running boards that ran all the way to the stern. New white bow and stern lines still looked taut in their springs around the big iron mooring posts out in the middle of the newish wooden pontoon. Her wooden mast and deck trim shone with this years varnish in the sunshine above the white paint of the hull. There was a bit of rainwater in the well deck but nothing to really suggest that she had been neglected recently. I guessed Kelvin had likely sailed her only a few weeks before.

I breathed out a soft sigh of relief and hauled the orange holdall over the railings and onto the deck seats before hopping aboard myself. I undid the padlock and opened up the wooden slats that led into the cabin. It was a bit musty but all seemed generally ok. It was nice to sit for a moment on one of the two long parallel sofa-berth seats that run either side of the little table and look back up at the lush green hillside through what was a cleanish porthole. All around the varnished wooden interior of the cabin were ornately carved symbols, reminiscent of some long-forgotten language. God only knows what it had cost Kelvin to get it built.

The battery down at the back of the cabin seemed to have a pretty full charge so I flipped it on and went back out on deck to check the engine. The old diesel chugged into life at the first time of asking and there was water coming out of the bilge so all seemed well. I was a little sad that the handheld radio I had brought didn't have any battery life. It was a little weird that a boat of that size didn't have another inbuilt radio in the cabin but I guess Kelvin never felt like he needed one. He had really only used it for inshore days out, I'm not even sure he had slept on it. Anyways, either way, it wouldn't have been smart to take her out for a little spin right there and then without a working one. I decided to bring Debbie down on the weekend to at least drink some wine on the deck, if not take her out for a little sail, if not show her the berths.

I switched off the engine, closed up the cabin and took a contented look back at my beautiful new boat in the evening sunshine as I strolled back up the floating gangway.

Back at the house, I was quick to make myself some instant noodles for dinner. I ate it sitting at the breakfast bar, watching a little bit of trashy TV on the set installed in the corner wall. I finished it quickly and moved on to desert which was to be a bit of dark chocolate and a glass of Malbec. I took the bottle with me as I ascended the stairs up to the red room. It seemed a natural place to go for an evening glass of wine. I have to admit that I searched for my neighbour in her window across the way but there was no sign of her. It was another unseasonably sultry evening over the garden, quite unusual for September. I settled in for an evening with my book on the sofa and a view over the garden.

Gradually the shadows drew in and the golden light over the lawn tuned to red and then after to the blue hues of night time. It was in stark contrast then, as the lights in the large room opposite my window flicked on and my neighbour passed the window quickly to some unseen area. The light and movement caught my attention immediately and I looked up from my book, pinning my thumb to hold my place.

She glided back into view and over towards the back of her room. An empty wine glass in hand, held upside down by the stem. She filled it at some bar that I couldn't make out and then sauntered back into view by her bay windows. She swayed gently by the glass, looking out towards the garden and pushed one of her dark locks out of the way of her eyes, pinning it up over her ear. With her hair lifted, the light reflected off her high cheekbones and long neck. I raised my glass to her in appreciation of an imagined communal drink but if she saw me then she didn't acknowledge it.

She pushed open her patio doors and then turned and swayed back inside. Her hips moved rhythmically to some slow French Quarter melody that I could just about hear. I sat transfixed as I watched her writhe to and fro, her back to me with her long black hair just grazing the curve of her wonderfully rounded bottom. Her toned shoulders rippled in time as her back arched one way and then the other. She seemed oblivious to all but the music and the glass of wine perched at the end of the long fingers of her extended right hand.

I lay my book down open on the cushion next to me and stood up. I kept my eyes on the gorgeous dancing woman as I padded to my own French Doors and opened them. I stepped out with my glass of wine on to the the wooden balcony and strode over to the balustrade. Now that I was outside in the night air, her jazz number was all around me again and thick, sweet vanilla and wood perfume filled every pore. It was completely enveloping. I was caught in the ebb and flow of the music, utterly bound to the perfect dancer in front of me.

She twirled to face me, arms open, full body still gyrating to the rhythm. Her hair was falling back down over her face with the movement. Strands of bangs swayed in front of her eyes which looked to be closed. She was almost cat-like in her actions, entranced by and lost to the melody.

Back she span again, once more facing away from me. I fixated again on her perfect rounded bum as it twisted and flowed from side to side in perfect time. That was, until she raised her arms and unknotted the black velvet shoulder straps of her dress in a single, deft move. She let them go, dropping the dress to the floor. It lay puddled in a ring around her heels as she stepped out of it and continued dancing, resplendent in only a black thong and heels.

My heart jumped and I gripped the railing of the terrace. I had simply just never seen such a perfect rounded bottom and it was apparently just swaying alone. I was unable to look away. It took me a moment to register what it was but there was a dark shape running from under one of her arms, up her back and looped over her shoulders. I think I did just realise what it was but then a moment later she twisted around again and faced me directly out through her open doors and I was able to see for certain. She was a vision of utter perfection, full breasts with large, dark, upwards pointing nipples which were bisected by what looked like a long snake tattoo running between them. It was the tail that had passed under one arm and across her shoulders before plunging straight down between her boobs and then a slight coil at her waist before it disappeared into the front of her black thong. The head was hidden. I was instantly rock hard in my shorts but incapable of moving at all. Adrenaline coursed round me and I was very much a rabbit trapped in the headlights.

She swayed and gyrated her way towards her open doors, the movements seemingly becoming more lewd as she faced me. The gyrations more centred on her thong covered pussy. It was thin enough that I could see she was shaved on either side but I could not see what lay in the middle. Her legs bent as she thrust forward and her free hand stroked the front of her thong. Then for the first time of the evening she locked eyes with me and raised her own glass. Her beautiful red lips turned up in a smile and a flash of white teeth behind them. I could but raise my own glass in returned salute. Then she held my gaze as she gently drew her curtains back shut in front of her, hiding herself from my view. The curtains did not quite meet the ground and I could see just the bottoms of her calfs and heels. Heels exchanged places and span away from me as she pirouetted out of sight. I gasped as I saw the thong hit the floor. She stepped out of it and walked away, leaving just the sight of the discarded undergarment laying on the floor, visible under the hem of the curtain.

My heart fell off a cliff in an instant. I was left alone standing out alone in the night which had become dark, especially now that the light from her room had been closed off save for the thin strip at the bottom of the curtains. I don't know how long I stood still but it was certainly many minutes. After a little while it became clear that the show was over and she wasn't coming back so I walked back inside and topped up my glass as I sat back down on the sofa.

I tried to read my book but I couldn't concentrate. Every few minutes or so, I couldn't help but look up to see if there was anything more going on at the window but there wasn't. I topped myself up a few times and eventually finished the bottle. It was with a little frustration that I saw her light spilling under the curtains finally go out. I paced around the room for a few moments, noticing how late it was and poured myself a nightcap from Kelvin's cupboard. It was thoroughly unusual for me to drink that much and especially when alone but I wasn't ready to go to sleep and the repetitive addictive habit of the voyeuristic glance was hard to say goodnight to after what I had seen. I sat back on the sofa with the whisky and turned off my own lights, enjoying the soft night air flowing through the open double doors from the terrace. Gradually my eyes became accustomed and I was able to enjoy the night view of the garden, moonlit save the border of large, dark trees.

I finished the whisky and lay back on the sofa, tucking the glass under it. In the drunken decadence of the evening I resolved to just sleep there, rather than go back to my own room. I felt a little bit unsteady and in some level of inebriated dizziness, it took a little while for the dark, high vaulted room to settle down around me. There was a certain excitement and comfort bedding down with Kelvin's strange antiques all around me in the gloom. The air was hot and sultry and I enjoyed the frisson of peeling off all of my clothes and dropping them in a pile on the floor next to me.

As I settled back into the sofa, my eyes traced the dark shadows and patterns cast over the large, white ceiling. It was old, uneven plaster with a lot of detail in the coving and, a little bit like with clouds, it was easy to make out all sorts of imagined foreign shapes. As I drifted into sleep, I imagined a large black serpent like shadow rolling in through the open doors and billowing on the the ceiling. It elongated and seemed to part flow and part slither its way across the ceiling towards me. I fancied in the darkness that I could see a flash of sparkling green eyes making their way towards the middle of the room above where I lay. All around me was the musky wood scent again, encircling my body and almost lifting me into it.

As I stared up, the snake seemed to morph into a plume of black smoke, impossible to make out above the shadows of the room. Then, from out of the ball of darkness, two dancing hands started to descend towards me. Fingers and wrists twisting and writhing, as if in time to some unheard rhythm. Following the hands were white arms and then a mass of dangling black hair, occluding all else that followed from my view. The hair twisted and turned until out of it lifted the beautiful face of my neighbour, green eyes twinkling, dark red lips appearing black in the half-light. She descended slowly down towards me, her entire body softly dancing upside down as she did, eyes locked on mine. Lifted by the scent and the hot night air, I strained my rigid cock up to meet her. I felt my hips buck upwards to gain any small number of inches in her direction as she dropped down towards it. A foot or so above me she stopped and deliberately opened her full black lips wide. I saw glistening sharp white teeth, beautiful but serrated. Her eye teeth slowly extended into snake-like fangs as her long tongue unrolled from between them. I willed her to touch me with it and she again looked up at me with her green eyes as her tongue wrapped around the head of my cock and then slithered down it.

The sensation was exquisite. Euphoric adrenaline pumped through my veins as she dropped further, engulfing my length between her two fangs and into the depths of her soft sucking mouth. I started to try to talk to her, to will her on and let her know how wonderful it felt. I was desperate for her to drop down fully and let me meet and taste her pussy for the first time. The words however, as often happens in dreams did not come out and I was unable to see or touch her lower half which was still hidden in dark smoky shadow.

I bucked in time with her increasingly firm ministrations, I could feel a soft purring coming from her throat which brought me closer and closer to the edge. Trapped somewhere inside my head, I willed unspoken words to come but they would not. I tried to sit up to grab hold of her but I could not. The feeling of ecstasy from the milking throat became tinged with panic as I asked myself, "am I awake?" I felt that something was not quite right but I could not be sure where I was in the realm of consciousness. The slick hardness of the fangs gently rubbing on either side of my cock added to the fear and wonderfully heightened my arousal. As she gently bobbed up and down on me, my fingers idly traced around the sharp metal points of the fangs in the mouth of the carved snake inset into the back of the red chaise-longue on which I lay. I was in heaven but with a rising sense of entrapped fear.

She saw me fondling the teeth of the wooden snake and a firm white hand came out to grasp my wrist and stop me. She pinned it down by my side, widening her mouth into a half smile as she did so, exposing a row of jagged side teeth behind the fangs. The warning was clear. I could no more lift my pinned hand than I could cry out or sit up and the fear swept over me. With my other free hand I knew what I had to do and in one movement I impaled my forearm on one of the fangs of the wooden snake. As I did so, the woman looked up and in a snarl bared her deadly teeth, my cock trapped between her incisors. I came, bucking and writhing as she bit down but I only felt pure sexual bliss, no slicing bite.

I sat bolt upright, a scared half cry finally escaping my lips. Below me, where I had lain, the cushions were wet with sweat as was my back. The windows were open but there was no sign of any visitor. My cock stood to a painful attention, covered in a bit of a sticky mess. It had been a really long time since I had had a wet dream and that alone was a bit of a shock. There was a hot pain in my forearm and I stumbled, still in a semi-drunken stupor over to the light switch to flick it on. There was one small prick and one quite deep cut on my forearm, it was deep enough that blood was running down over my hand, making red rain drops that plopped heavily onto the wooden floor.

I was still shaking as I padded back over to the sofa to pick up and pull on my clothes and then I went down to the kitchen to clean myself up. I left all of the lights in the red room and on the landing and stairs on as I did, still terrified that some slithering animal might be lurking in the dark shadows.

It took me a while to go back to sleep in my own room and this time, it was deep and apparently without dreams.

——

(6) Thursday.

I woke up late the next day but I still felt tired and hungover. The weather couldn't have been more different to the preceding few days. The wind howled and the rain lashed down sideways. There was no sun to be seen, just a dark grey gloom. I did my best to just roll over with my eyes closed and wrap myself in the sheets until the need to pee and get a coffee forced me out sometime around the middle of the day.

Over a double shot and a bowl of sugary cereal hoops, I examined my wound from the night before. It was a deep puncture to my forearm, however it looked to have closed over inside the dressing and so I just cleaned and re-wrapped it. I was relieved to see that despite what had happened in my dream, there were no other injuries. I cursed myself for drinking and dreaming such a confused scenario which led me getting so wound up that I had ended up with an injury. I resolved to find a bunch of corks to put over the various spikes and fangs around the house, starting with the two metal tipped ones belonging to the snake on the back of the sofa in the Red Room.

It was my last day alone before Debbie was flying in so I busied myself booking a restaurant, washing sheets and generally trying to spruce the place up a bit. My housework took me back into Kelvin's bedroom, a place that I had been avoiding since I had arrived. I wasn't quite ready to deal with the mundane, everyday possessions that littered the house but were especially abundant in there. Things like shoes, his cell phone phone on the bedside table and all his toiletries around the ensuite. The room itself was also very much a bespoke Kelvin space. Oak beams framed the door and deep oak panels adorned the walls. All were littered with the same nonsensical carved symbols as were to be seen all over the boat. I guess it was just Kelvin's style. At some point I would get back to Kelvin's room but that just wasn't the day. In fact, I added a few of his things that had been sitting around the kitchen to a little pile in the middle of the bedroom and closed the door.

One thing that had completely slipped my mind and that Kelvin's room did remind me of was the letter from him that the lawyer had given me. I settled down at the kitchen high-top with my second coffee of the morning and removed it from the bottom of my back pack where it had sat for a few days.

I won't put down the whole letter here but it started in typical Kelvin style;

"If you are reading this particular version of this letter then I am dead and it was unexpected (by me)."

There then followed two lines containing only the word "fuck".

He continued, "Chris, by now you will know by now that I have left you all of my possessions, including the house, the boat and the car."

He ambled on about a few other things, how he entrusted me to clean the house and clear out the dirtier bits of his porn collection before throwing any sort fo a family wake but then the punch line hit me;

"I have left a green log book with Callum Murphy. He is under strict instructions not to turn over his set of keys to the house to you before you have read it. It is for this reason that I have instructed him to separate the delivery of the book and the keys by at least twenty-four hours. To reiterate, you absolutely must not enter the house before you have read the book."