Cry Little Sister

Author's Note: This is my entry in the 2021 Nude Day Story contest.

It's also another story that makes me nervous to post and is not the usual content I write. If you like it, however, there are descriptions in the bio of my page to give an idea of any content warnings for the other stories.

As for this one, the only warning I could think of is that it is a strange incest story about insanity and is somewhat gothic in style. Since I know that's not everyone's preference (and this is my first post in this category, meaning I don't know it very well), I wanted to give a warning about it, so I do not disappoint later.

And if you're still interested, then thank you for letting me tell you a story and, as always, I hope you have fun and enjoy!

Cry Little Sister

"Cry, little sister. Come, come to your brother."

~Gerard McMahon, Cry Little Sister

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I'm afraid I can only speak for my own experiences with that event known as insanity and my case was a strange thing, when I first noticed it. For a long time, I wondered if the family's affliction even continued on the path of my own generation, but then there came a time when it was undeniable. The moments of delirium became too obvious, but they were so very odd. For most parts of the days, it's not even something truly noticeable, even now. Sometimes, maybe it will be the stray thought that something has been said that seems a bit too off to be merely eccentric.

Most often, though, it's the type of thing that could be chalked up to a thousand other factors. The aforementioned eccentricity, for instance, or a mild case of superstition. Our family was hellishly deep in the pit of that latter one, so much so that our manor ended up with twisting hidden passageways from previous fits of family members. Of course, most of them also had the family curse, as well, so maybe that's a bad example.

At any rate, to simplify, it wasn't easy at all to notice "the touch of the fae", as our Auntie Elizabeth so fondly called it in a breathy whisper.

~D. Foyle

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Lucille

Method acting. It was that thing you heard about in tandem with stories about Heath Ledger's losing himself in a madness fueled character only to overdose on sleeping pills when the night engulfed every part of his days, so completely that he couldn't see the sun anymore, and he could no longer compartmentalize one character from another in the confusion of the shadows. It was that thing to separate the merely excellent actors from the legends.

For some, it proved cathartic. For others, it proved to be a walk on too wild of a mental side.

I watched the film reel of myself from a day of acting work and had a lot of emotions that weren't compartmentalized. At what point did the character and actor become interchangeable? The truth was that my character was one of desire and it was so near to a few current aspects of my life that the method acting was... Perhaps it wasn't even method acting anymore. Perhaps the two entities were truly one creature now.

Brandon Tyler was the acclaimed actor who played Dracula, although the story was a great deal different in this version. This was heavily due to the director and the role was something I would forever be grateful for, when Dorian Foyle was the new genius on the scene of horror. Now that the old masters of horror had died out, he was the director who emerged to fill the void they left and he rose admirably to the challenge. Dorian was also a famous recluse, a man who disappeared when the cast got together or when we went over a particularly good day of filming. He hosted these moments in his mansion, the famously haunted Drexshire Manor, in an effort to encourage his actors and actresses, but the man himself proved forever elusive, as ephemeral as the carefully placed moments of erotic tension in his seductive horror, the same ones that cultivated a taste of noir and terror blended as effectively as the era of black and white had done it.

Which was all the more evident with the scene we watched. It was strange at times, seeing a raw cut, before the special effects would be added. These were the moments where it was pure acting, the cuts that an audience never saw.

The scene we were watching was also my first one of nudity. It wasn't anything too much, as any wise actress will tell you that you shouldn't bare all. Truth be told that when I had first started acting, I drew a hard line at exposure.

Dorian had persuaded me to do otherwise and he was the only one who could have done so. He was so careful about gently coaxing me into this specific scene, too, although that probably wasn't saying much. He was the kind of mysteriously brilliant bachelor that made a girl feel a little, shall we say, needy.

He had met me in our manor's library, while my heart thundered with the thoughts of being alone with him. The genius. A dark king. The master of blending terror with hot arousal.

My brother, though no one knew it.

"Won't you consider it, Mina? Not a lot, just the tease. I've always hated the sad ending of Dracula. I'm begging you to let me remake it, won't you? It's the scene where he forces Mina to his chest after he's shed his blood for her to drink and it has to have the right flavor to make it work. I think it's too romantic, but people don't see the world like I do and I know that, so the ambience has to be done correctly. He'll draw you to the blood and the white dress you wear will fall in a kind of side effect. It's not so much to expose."

He was right, on all of it. He always did have the vision to bring these things into a kind of impossible blend and he could always tell when he had to doctor a scene to make it work for an audience. The world really didn't see things the way he did, but he knew how to spin the horror and corruption of his pure characters into something with just the right hint of sexuality, just enough. The end result was to make one feel both disturbed and aroused, to give his audience a conflict. His favorite thing to say was, "I always hated a sad ending." But he knew that what he considered a sad ending was not what other people did.

I've always hated the sad ending of Dracula.

I watched the cut in the film reel, toying nervously with a lock of hair, wondering again. How much of me was me at the moment and how much was Mina? Mina had craved for the edge and the forbidden and even in the original story, she would have succumbed to desire if not for Helsing and Jonathan.

In the reel, I wore a white night gown style dress, already sheer and teasing by nature. The background was of "my" private rooms, although some of the details and background were incomplete. Brandon was dressed in what we called the Prince Dracul version of Dracula, his black hair styled back and his features sharp as fitting the regality of the status his character once held. My eyes in the shot were purely hypnotized, lost in his perfect seduction, his sexual enticement. His prince's attire was askew and his black button up shirt was undone to his chest, revealing down to where his heart would be.

He "clawed" one carefully done fingernail down his chest, and in the final reel his blood would create a perfectly edited red line that would flow forth for me to fixate on, purely lost to its scent and in my desire to fall to the forbidden font. As it was, we had used makeup and I still remembered the way my pussy had throbbed with the knowledge of what was about to happen, what I had agreed to do. I was the lovely Mina and in the original story I was supposed to be the pure character that was barely saved and Lucy was supposed to die. But Dorian hated that ending. Dorian wanted true horror with no redemption, wanted to see Mina lost to the gray, mist filled realm of eternal, damned desire, forever taken over with the whirlwind of lust from Dante's second circle of hell, forever thirsty for living blood.

"I always hated a sad ending." I could still hear his soft voice in my ear, from that day in the manor's library. He'd held me from behind, his hand stroking up to almost cup one breast while my heart thundered in my throat. "Mina, dearest little sister. You're the most beautiful of method actresses, even more wonderful than the males of that style. You're the only one who can create that ambience, the only one. I know the terror of not being respected as an actress, but trust me, Mina? Please, if you shoot the scene, I'll let you see every second of editing to ensure that I do my job right. And I swear to you that I will make sure that you earn more respect from the scene, rather than lose any of it that you've worked so hard for."

I had doubted him, but his hand too high on my chest had made me fall for just a moment and I had been lost in the desire of his version of Mina, the one that wouldn't come with a "sad ending" for him. I had made a low sound in his arms, one that should have embarrassed me, but the manor's library was something magical and I knew the secret of why people thought it was haunted. For a moment, I was lost to Dracula, his hand so close to weighing my breast in his palm, his breath like a touch of the forbidden seduction that I would fall to as Mina and I couldn't tell anymore which character was real, who I was. Dorian had always been destined for the legendary artistic styles. But he was more than that. He was my mentor, my protector. He taught me everything I knew, right down to how he wanted my hair done as his Mina. I was a creature to rival a 50's pinup model icon, my dark hair curled into a Russian doll's beauty.

"I'll try it, but only if you promise to cut it if I can't handle it, please."

"Of course, Mina. If I can't do my job well enough to make you want the scene, then it doesn't deserve to make the final cut. This is all I'll show of you."

I had to bite my lip to keep from moaning when he finally weighed my right breast, his palm filled with the softness of an artist, even while it held his own form of strange darkness, of dangerous enticement. "This is wrong," I whispered.

"What is?" His voice was low in my ear, with a faint touch of devilish amusement, while I wondered what was real and what wasn't. I stood in two worlds for a strange second, where I couldn't remember my name, my character. Dorian's little sister, Lucy, had always felt like an incomplete person, someone too shy when she loved acting, someone too insecure when everyone thought she was a gorgeous goddess of high end horror acting, the highest.

"You know what," I whispered. His hand felt hot over my t-shirt, so hot. In the original story, Mina got away and her soul was saved, but my older brother had always viewed the world with stranger eyes.

"I want to hear you say it." He stroked a finger higher up my breast, squeezing lightly. "Tell me, Mina."

"This!" I tugged away from him, but his touch lingered in my mind, like an imprint on my body. He was smiling when I turned to face him, desperately clinging to sanity. His hair was dark like mine, but cut short. His eyes were the exact same shade of brilliant green as mine, a color that was almost ethereal in appearance, brilliant and fae like. His lips were curved in the exact crooked way that my own lips curved in my smiles, except his had something more wicked in intent. "This is what's wrong." I looked at the floor. "I'll do the scene, Dorian, but I... I want to see it first." I couldn't quite look at him and, somehow, couldn't quite resist looking at him either.

Dorian was always something strange to see. He had a slight figure, like mine, and staring into his eyes sometimes felt like seeing my twin, even if we weren't that. What was most disconcerting was the handsome baby faced appearance he had, even while his eyes sparked with a wicked form of temptation. It seemed like a cruel trick of some kind that he should look so sweet, cute even, when he created the works of mad brilliance and horrifying desire that he did. His return smile had been quite kind, soft, as if he was completely unaffected by my reaction to the unaddressed tension between us, that demon that I was far too afraid of.

It was a demon I was already agreeing to indulge, one I was already giving into, one that I fed with stolen kisses going back to when we were in college together. We both knew that if any other director asked me for this, I would have never agreed to it.

Except... I swallowed when I watched the reel, the end result. Brandon drew my head to the line of red and at first I resisted the pull, making a soft whimper until he cooed over me in a low, hypnotic sound, calming me like I was a small animal, ever so slowly drawing me to him until I quit fighting the compulsion. When he pressed my nose to the blood in one last forceful tug was when one of his monstrous claws snipped through a strap of my night shift.

It truly was something flawlessly shot and done, the way the strap fell and revealed my breast right as I licked up the line of blood, compelled to drink, helpless and unable to resist that magical line of red. The emotion of frenzied desire was still there while watching the scene, something that lingered in my blood stream and my mind, and I couldn't even tell where it stemmed from anymore. Was it the method acting fueling me with his version of Mina? Was it the secret thrill of being exposed in such a scene?

It scared me when I considered it, when I didn't think it was either of those things. If I closed my eyes, I didn't think the image in my mind would be of my drinking the blood in the scene.

I stood in those two worlds again, one where I wanted that to be the image, but knowing the real image that drew me. It was him, holding me, his hand cupping one breast in such a gentle way, a teasing touch that promised ecstasy if I gave over to the demon and quit resisting.

Brandon broke my reverie, turning to me when the scene was over. For a moment, he seemed lost in the atmosphere still, but then that was understandable. It was something dangerously easy to lose yourself in another character like that. It was intoxicating actually, the most thorough form of escape a man could achieve. He laughed a little. "Jesus, he's such a fucking good director. Like... I don't even understand how he creates the atmosphere sometimes because it's not just the cinematography and all that. I mean it is, but he sets up even the sets to make sure we all get as lost in it as we can."

I had to smile, thinking that was more true than he ever wanted to know for me. "It truly is something special. I worked with a few others before him, but he just... He weaves magic."

Brandon grinned. "So, you keeping the scene?"

I looked away. Dorian hadn't even stayed around to watch me see the end result of this. He'd merely given me the shots to watch and walked away with this smile. Because he'd known how good he was. He'd always known that I'd see it.

And that I'd consent. It was the kind of moment that rarely happened in an acting career but he was practically giving it to me. For a female, there was a rule that you never revealed everything, but it made you edgy if you revealed... just a little. Just enough. Dorian had made the perfect reveal shot and he'd done it in a movie that was going to reach prestigious levels of horror. There was no denying it either. He was a director who adored Hollywood's golden era and original horror filming and I was already an actress who was reaching acclaim.

I'd skyrocket with Dorian, with the emotion he fueled me with and the way he made it so very easy to lose myself in the mind of a character, to crave that fall into darkest temptation.

This is wrong.

"I'm not sure yet. It would probably be smart of me to do it, but it makes me uncomfortable." I studied the way I looked in the shot, dark, thick curls pinned up, crushed by Brandon's palm where he held me to the blood.

Brandon walked with me to sit in one of the chairs. Now that it was later, most of the rest of the cast had gone home and we were alone in the large room of the manor. I think it was originally the conservatory, maybe, but now that Dorian had inherited Drexshire, it was hard to tell the original rooms anymore. He preferred to use the manor as often as he could, being the mysterious breed of a recluse that he was, and I think a lot of the cast enjoyed that fact, with how the place was so old and gothic in nature. It fueled the atmosphere. "If you're going to do it, you'll never get a better chance than this one, that's for damn sure. Have you been okay lately, Lucy? You've seemed so tired."

I toyed with a lock of my hair for a moment before letting it go. "Yeah, I'm fine. Does it seem like something is wrong on set?"

Brandon gave an incredulous laugh at the question. "Never. Lucy, I think you're the best actress I've ever gotten to work with. You're something wild, something next level. And your range? From the serial killer story that Foyle cast you in to this? No, no, it's definitely not something noticeable on set. You're too professional for that."

"You're too kind, but the truth is I have a good teacher."

He was all I could think of lately, him and his proposition, the way he'd stroked up my torso in such a delicate touch, opening the door for more, the invitation so clear.

Brandon's voice had to break me from the thought fixation. "He is good, but at least a fair amount of it has to be you too." He touched my hand and I went still, my heart racing in my ears while I waited and wondered...

The slam of something in the high ceiling's rafters above us made Brandon yelp and I breathed out when he jumped away from me to stand up and look to the sound in that burst of jump scare panic.

I had to smile at the reaction. "There's the ghost of Drexshire," I said quietly. "Hadn't heard from it in a while."

Brandon laughed breathlessly. "It kills me that you say things like that so casually when people come over here. Like, it doesn't even phase you at all and my heart just jumped to my throat." He turned and grinned down at me, so that I smiled shyly back, feeling confused. Mina should have lived happily ever after with him. Damn it, this was probably why I looked so tired. Lucy. Mina. Lucille. I was losing myself.

There were more sounds from the rafters, fading. "I suppose it's probably from having grown up in my own family's haunted house. You get used to it."

No one knew that it was this same haunted house, Dorian's manor.

Brandon grinned. "Speak for yourself. I don't think I could ever get used to or deal with that. It's okay. I needed to go home anyway and now seems like a decent cue to do that. Just... it's an honor to get to work with you, Mina." He winked while I toyed with a strand of my hair again, laughing a little to seem normal even when I was disturbed.

"Be safe on your way home, Dracula."

"You got it." He left, glancing around right before he did, with one last laugh. It was a common enough reaction to see in people, how they would both be afraid, but couldn't seem to keep from that softest laugh of adrenaline either. "This place is so creepy."

I waved and closed my eyes, waiting until I heard him close the door, his footsteps fading as he walked himself out, leaving me alone with the strange phantom of Drexshire, that elusive spirit in the rafters. Instead of an opera, this one haunted a horror set.

"You're far too jealous for your own good sometimes," I teased to the ceiling. For the first time, I felt complete. Every other moment was gray, except for these where I felt like a complete person. Lucy. Mina. Lucille.

Did it matter? What was in a name, truly? What definition lay in a word? During these moments, I was just his.

The manor around me came more fully into being in some way as well, the mental exhaustion that plagued me fading with the rise of forbidden excitement. These moments had felt like the surreal times before, with a kind of "this can't be happening" thought behind them when he would so casually touch me in those smallest ways that were nonetheless wrong for the touch of a brother. A hand at the waistline, the fingertips skimming the bared flesh when a shirt rose up, in a gesture of comfort. A stroke down the locks of my hair in a way that would only make me stop and think of it after he was gone, after it was over.