Am I Awake?

Having, by then, been in the house for almost a week, I re-read the paragraph a few times and made a note about the green book on a jotter next to me. Then I continued with the letter. Kelvin digressed a little with general instructions for the house and the boat and the car. The whereabouts of all of the house utility documents and the like. Then he letter circled back to something else that stuck with me;

"If I should have died in suspicious circumstances then you should also read my private journal which is in the upper drawer of my bedside table. If not then please set fire to it along with the rest of the items in there."

As far as I knew, Kelvin had died naturally but in truth I had not really talked to anyone about it since the call with mum who would have got it second or third-hand. I resolved to leave the diary where it was for the time being knowing that it was surely destined for the fireplace.

I called Callum's office and a cheeky Debbie put me through to him. She did not mention anything explicitly but she did leave me with a very pleasant, "see you soon", and one of her girlish giggles.

Callum remembered the green log book immediately and in-fact explained that retrieving it was one of the reasons why he had not contacted me earlier in the week. He said he should have it by the middle of the next week and apologised that it meant that I would have to come back to Boston for a night since he was under instructions to hand it to me personally. It was only then that I remembered that I was of course not supposed to be in the house already at all. Happily Callum seemed to assume that I was back in New York City.

The day remained as horrible and wet as it had started and I retired into the big bath with a safe Penguin Classic for some large fraction of the afternoon. When I emerged, the outside was properly dark. I resolved to sleep in my own room that night with the window firmly closed. I did not read any horror and I certainly did not drink any wine. When sleep did finally come, it was fitful but uneventful. I woke at some point in the early hours and thought I could hear murmuring and my name being softly whispered from the direction of the Red Room. I pulled my duvet round me more tightly and switched on the sidelight. After that, it was gone.

———

(7) Friday

The next day started bright and warm and it was wonderful to wake feeling a bit stronger and without a hangover. It was also the day that Debbie was due to come in and the thought of seeing her later and perhaps having an actual woman outside of my dreams was enough to make me jump out of bed and put a spring in my step.

I spent the day cleaning up and tidying the house a bit more. By the end of the morning, I fancied that most of the daily traces of Kelvin were gone and only his interesting knickknacks and objets d'art remained.

It was a beautiful day outside and, feeling bold, I decided to go and introduce myself to my beautiful neighbour. I brushed my teeth quickly to get rid of the ever lingering coffee residue and pulled on a clean shirt before walking all the way down the drive in the sunny morning air and along the road to where her own drive started.

Strangely, the gate to her drive was even more overgrown than my own. I couldn't even free it from the trapped weeds so I just clambered over it. It seemed a bit strange but I guessed that she must have some other entrance that she used. It was more of the same as I walked up her own drive that cut a direct path through her lawn to her house. Everything was overgrown and even the cobbles on the driveway were caked in a thick layer of green slime.

I have to admit that were it not for the picture in my mind of the snake tattoo plunging down her gorgeous body then I probably would have turned back. As it was, I had a semi pushing in my jeans just from thinking about her.

Walking up on to the front porch of the house seemed quite dicey. The wood was slick and some of the planks were completely rotten. I trod carefully up to the old front door. There was a big iron knocker, in the shape of a head of a lion so I used it. The loud banging pierced the silence of the morning and a load of lichen fell from around the door frame. Nobody answered so I tried again but still to no response.

Having started, my curiosity was piqued and so I descended the porch down into the long grass of the lawn. I waded through still damp grass and deep vines around the side of the house, all the way round to the back. All of the windows seemed to have their curtains drawn and there was just no sign of life in the house. More strangely than that, it looked as though the back door had just not been used for quite a while either, it was covered in a film of green and mud from winters of dirty rain. I called out but still radio silence from inside the house.

I carried on round, as if to make the full circle of the house and then noticed a thin wooden stairway leading up from the garden to the large first floor balcony. Surely the one that I had seen the woman dancing upon. I gently ascended the stairs, they too were quite rotten in places and I had no wish to fall through. I have to admit that by now I felt more like a home invader than a visitor and through my soft steps acted like one.

What I saw when I got to the first floor balcony was quite a surprise. The double doors through which I had looked the night before were slightly ajar and so I gingerly tipped my head round into the room. It was a large upstairs sitting room much like that in Kelvin's house, likely designed and built at much the same time. It was however quite different in that it looked to be completely derelict. The doors looked to have been open for some time and rain had penetrated the floor boards which seemed to have fallen away in some places. Parts of the ceiling plaster and paint had fallen away and the walls were in similar disrepair. The house, or at least that room had clearly been unused by anything except rats, mice and roosting pigeons for a long time.

I did my best to shut the double door and then ever so carefully descended back down the stairway into the overgrown garden. I took the short route, over the back adjoining fence into my own garden and then walked back up in the sun to my own kitchen patio.

I had no explanation for what I had seen the last few nights, perhaps I had imagined it. Fantasy of a hot neighbour mixing with the early stages of dreams. One thing was for sure, nobody had danced naked in that room, not for at least a decade.

I felt like I wanted to get out and so I treated myself with a trip into town for a lunch and a run round the shops to pick up a few remaining groceries, mostly a top-up on the wine collection and nibbles.

Five pm and the Debbie pick-up came round pretty quickly and I drove out to the small bustling island airport. It is really only one big terminal. Mid September was outside of the main tourist season and so it was possible to park pretty much right outside. I stood with a coffee and a sugary biscuit watching the planes that looked all too large for the runway coming and going one by one.

Finally, after an hour or so's delay, Debbie's hop from Boston came in, the late afternoon sun glinting brightly off the silver wings as it touched down. She hadn't checked any luggage and it was a short internal flight so she was through and into arrivals pretty quickly.

She had on a decidedly non-work-like, figure hugging short pink and black dress and a handbag to match. She dragged a small rolling carry-on which I chivalrously took from her and trundled out towards the exit. As she passed it over, she looped her arms round my neck and I took in her lemon scented hair and white strapped down cleavage. I had forgotten how lithe and muscly her arms were until they unlinked from around my shoulders.

Small talk between us was a little clunky. Interesting topics came hard to us once the pleasantries of how my week on the island had been and how her flight had been. That changed once Debbie got into the car. She immediately relaxed back into the leather seats and ran her fingers along the walnut dash. Suddenly a rush of excited chatter came to her. I had forgotten how overtly shallow she was, she was here for the classy car and the other trappings and not much else. For my part however, I have to admit that I found it hard to take my eyes off her long legs in her short skirt. I simply couldn't stop thinking about the last time I had seen her in a bar and her lack of underwear.

The hour delay meant that we were later than I had planned and so we elected to go straight into town for dinner rather than stop at the house. It felt like a nice idea to plan on an extra pre-dinner drink rather than rush to make our table reservation. The restaurant was fancy but nothing special. Large white tablecloths bedecked well spaced tables which were adorned by more wine glasses and more wait staff than were really necessary. The menu was expensive and French and clearly what Debbie was expecting.

As the wait staff cleared away our starters and topped up the wine glasses, Debbie reached down into her handbag and took out a dark green leather-bound book. The front cover was embossed with gold leaf in which read the simple question, "Am I awake?".

"This is for you, Callum also gave me some keys and the final set of papers for the inheritance. You don't need to go up to Boston next week. Well not for work anyway," she smiled up at me.

She licked the top of her glass and stared into my eyes in a flirty way that gave me an instant rush.

"Callum knows that you are here then?"

I felt busted, she wasn't supposed to be seeing me as a client in her spare time and I was not supposed to be in the house already.

Debbie replied, "Yes, you called him from your Uncle's house phone right? His number came right up. Then I went and put my flights on the company loyalty card, just to get the lounge and the business seats. He saw it and put two and two together. I got the roasting from hell but in the end he said that I might as well make myself useful and save you a journey."

We both clinked glasses and lent back in our chairs laughing at our own idiocy, each one of us as daft as the other.

I stared at Kelvin's book and leafed through a few pages. It was hand-written inside, a bit like a diary but laid out carefully. He had used a ruler to underline headings and numbered the pages by hand. I gave it back to Debbie to keep safe in her handbag.

Dinner and desert was pleasant but having finished off a bottle of wine as well as the pre-dinner champagne and cocktails, I felt as though I had better drive us home before I drank any more. We agreed to take a nightcap back at the house.

When we got in, we turned all the lights on and tripped straight up the stairs to the Red Room where I poured us both brandy cocktails. Debbie didn't seem tired from her week of work and her flight so we took a tour out on the verandah and then settled back inside on the sofa for a drink. I told her the strange story of having seen a neighbour but then finding the abandoned house.

Debbie looked flushed and happy as she settled back into the sofa cushions. She admired the snake rearing up over her head and giggled at the corks I had put over it's fangs, giving it a slightly goofy buck-toothed look.

There was of course no sign of light across the way in the neighbour's house and then sitting with another person under the goofy snake did make me feel silly for having dreamed it all up.

After maybe twenty minutes of happy chatter, Debbie stood up with her half-full glass in one hand and the handle of her rolling overnight case handle in the other.

"Show me my bed then."

I had made up the other spare room, the one next to the Red Room, out of politeness but I have to admit that my heart sank as it looked as though she was actually about to use it.

As we stepped into the corridor, I pointed the way through to the room I had labelled as hers. I had left a few nice side lights on and a bunch of cushions propped up on the bed to make it look inviting and comfy.

She turned to me as I followed her out and laughed.

"No silly, I promised you would see more of me if you invited me over".

She slowly led up to my room, dropping clothes on the stairs as she went until she was just in a dark blue thong which was stark against her white skin. The pink and black mini lay in a circular pool on the bottom step.

Perhaps it was the slightly harsh light or perhaps it was the dulling from the over dinner wine but somehow we lost much of the eroticism that usually comes with getting together for the first time. I pushed her back on the bed and kissed slowly up her legs to her thong. Then I gently glided my hands over her small breasts and erect nipples and I nuzzled her hairless opening through the thin material. I asked her if she wanted me to go on and she said yes so I removed her panties but all without a sound. She was soft and warm as I ran my tongue over the outside of her pussy but it was all quite mechanical, the spark of the first time hadn't quite ignited. I had to stifle a yawn as I pushed my tongue into her wetness and for her part she was silent.

Then she pushed me back off her and rolled to one side to turn off the hard light coming from the side light on the bedside table lamp. She hopped off the bed and strode naked over to the window where she opened the curtains fully and then also the window too.

The moonlight spilled in and the warm evening air carried a slight salty freshness from the sea and also some of the sounds too as it washed over us. A familiar woody scent seemed to linger in my nostrils.

I felt a change in the room, something warmer with the new lighting decor perhaps. I pushed myself up to sitting against the headboard and watched in the half-light as Debbie padded back over to the bed. I could see the muscles across her shoulders rippling and fancied that she almost purred in the darkness as she stealthily mounted the bottom of the bed. The atmosphere felt filled with erotic charge, a warm wood scent filled the atmosphere and I felt myself get perfectly hard and stand up to attention in the breeze.

Her body writhed up over me then and pinned me down on my back with an open flat hand on my chest. Her black hair blocked my view as I felt her warm sucking mouth descend around my hard cock. I bucked up into her soft sucking palette and throat and she responded with a guttural moan and a hard increase in pressure. I felt her tongue swirl around me and every now and then the sharp, hard dents of her front teeth as she pushed right down my length to the base.

I didn't quite reach climax, but I was right on the edge and almost begging for it as she took me out of her mouth and grasped me firmly in her warm hand.

I could feel her warm, slick, sweaty body slide up over my stomach and chest, her black hair all the while blocking my view of her beautiful face. As her hair brushed up over my chin, nose and eyes, I breathed in her heady hot wood scent and felt her hot, oily slick hairless mound slide up over me from the base of my cock up to the tip. She sat down hard on me, not letting me enter her but rubbing my length with her drenched hot pussy. I could see in the moonlight her pussy just sitting on top of my cock pulsating. She almost seemed to be able to actively open and close it. Her outer lips seemed to be just fondling my length, adding to the excitement as I willed her to sit forwards and pull me properly into her wetness.

She raised up her face above me, and I knew before I had to struggle to make it out in the half light, but it was not the face of Debbie looking down upon me. It was the olive skin and Italian green eyes of the beautiful neighbour. Her plump red lips, dark brown in the soft light just level with my eyes and almost touching my eyelids so all I could do was look directly onto them.

She slid forwards a fraction of an inch and, with all my being, I willed her to drop forwards and let me enter her. I clasped one of my hands up into her hair behind an ear. The large soft lips puckered as she breathed out a soft moan, her moist, sweet breath washing over my face. I fancied that in the dark red-brown-gold of her lower lip, I could just see some silver-golden writing, almost seeming to glow in the half-light.

In flowing cursive, "Am I awake?"

I sat forwards and up, my chest crushing against her red hot breasts, nipples digging in to me. I felt her pussy continue to slide up my shaft towards me and her pulsating opening just rest over the tip of my cock. I brought my free hand up to the beautiful lips crushed against my face and ran a finger over the silver writing. As I peeled it back, I was faced with her lower teeth, all serrated, all sharp but two tiny pearl daggers of lower canines framing the view. I toyed my finger over the needle tip of one of them. She smiled a deliberately wide smile, showing a full mouth of dangerously sharp and angled teeth. Elongated, slightly recurved upper fangs. As she did so, she slid my cock all the way in to her burning hot pussy and bit hard down on my finger with those terrible teeth.

I don't know if I passed out or the dream ended or really what happened for the rest of the night but in the morning I woke up next to Debbie. The bed was a complete mess but my finger was perfectly intact. Debbie was sleeping soundly despite the dull day light streaming in the window. She looked grey and tired so I decided to leave her as I got up to go and find a coffee.

———

(8) Saturday

It was another horrible morning with rain lashing down sideways in gale force winds so I resolved to let Debbie sleep in.

I padded downstairs and made myself some coffee and a few bits of toast. I sat for a little while watching the downpour out of the kitchen window and leafing through the old newspaper that was on the kitchen counter.

Then I remembered the night before. I rifled quickly through Debbie's handbag which was still beside the kitchen table where she had left it as we had come in. I pulled out the green book of Kelvin's that she had given me over dinner the night before.

My toast almost fell out of my mouth as I read through it. It was a largely hand written jotter that Kelvin had compiled as he had been on one of his 'research' projects.

The first chapter was an overview and gave away much of what was written out in finer detail in the rest of the book. It appeared that he had travelled down to Columbia in search of some sort of creature that would fill its owner's dreams with the most exquisite sexual experiences. Apparently, with some mental application, one could steer one's dreams in what ever direction one desired. At some point they would become undifferentiable from reality.

I felt actual chills down the back of my spine as I read further. Amongst his searches for mind-altering experiences, this was exactly the sort of thing Kelvin had gone on about but I had always largely ignored him, putting it down to the lustful ramblings of a rich, idle singleton.

The book carried on and rapidly turned into darker areas. It appeared that Kelvin had actually brought back a set of bones apparently related to the animal, or spell, or drug or was it even a person? ..and that he had actually shut them in the basement of the house. There were a lot of allusions to the modern day horror ideas of a vampire or a succubus. There seemed to be a lot of dark doodles in the corners and margins and whole pages where he seemed to have taken time out just to practise drawing mystical symbols. It was a hard book to follow.

If I understood correctly then the sexual experiences would rarely be for free. It would somehow cost the person experiencing them at the least some energy or vitality. At the worst, it could cost actual blood and perhaps even a life if the creature was not controlled properly.