Click on image to enlarge.

Category: Erotica/BDSM Erotica/Dark Fantasy
Description: The perfect blend of bondage and dark fantasy. Tales of women in bondage to creatures of the supernatural. From the bestselling author of books about women who love to submit. Who wouldn't rather be spanked by a vamprie? Jay Lawrence is a true master not just of erotica but also horror as well - and this wonderful new collection of dark erotica proves just how good Jay Lawrence can be!
eBook Publisher: Renaissance E Books/Sizzler,
eBookwise Release Date: April 2012

Available eBook Formats: OEBFF Format (IMP) [71 KB]
Words: 14276
Reading time: 40-57 min.

INCIDENT ON WARDOUR STREET

I didn't sleep well the night everything changed. It might have been an oppressive August night, the way I tossed and turned, casting off the bedcovers, a fine sheen of perspiration making my nylon nightdress stick to my flesh. In the boarding house where I rented a room, all was still, almost peculiarly quiet, as if the inhabitants were waiting, scarcely daring to breathe, all meekly lined up in their mean narrow beds in the dreary musty smelling rooms. We knew -- but what did we know? At three a.m. there was a tremendous explosion of light outside, illuminating the city skyline, turning the dark late autumn night a piercing metallic silver. My curtains were drawn, but the heavy cloth was turned to mere gauze by the bright intensity. A triangle of shimmering quicksilver appeared on my bedsit wall and I stared at it for some minutes, too afraid to leave my bed. There were two voices in my head -- reason, which suggested a fearful explosion, a towering conflagration at some local place of industry, perhaps Battersea Power Station -- and another insidious voice that whispered of Armageddon. I reached for my Bible, which lay on the bedside table, then stopped as the dazzling triangle seemed to intensify and grow. Something within me, some reckless urge or desire to conquer fear, made me slowly get out of bed and cross the room to the wall with the triangle of light. The sky outside had returned to darkness tinged with London's streetlight glow and I looked at the window coverings, trying to ascertain what chinks in the curtains could be making the triangle form on the wall. Again and again, I looked from the window to the wall, the reasonable voice in my mind telling me, in calm, measured tones, that there had to be a gap in the old brocade cloth, a space between the top of the curtain and the rod where the light (what light since the massive explosion had passed?) could insinuate itself and form a projection on the wall. But there isn't a gap. There is no way that light should be there, no way at all. I don't understand. As if in a dream, I reached out and touched the apex of the triangle, which glowed with a dense kind of light I had never witnessed before, as if it were concentrated, intense. The moment my fingertips met the wall the triangle disappeared.

I decided to take the next day off work, couldn't face the thought of another eight hours at the office, typing endless letters as my mind burned with the memory of the strange triangle of light. I hadn't slept but lay curled up in bed, with the covers pulled up over my head, like a child with night terrors. A day's window-shopping on Oxford Street, that was the thing to take my mind off the event. I washed and dressed quickly, then made myself a cup of tea. And maybe I'd go to Carnaby Street in Soho, where the trendsetters shopped and pick up some groovy ideas for my next dressmaking project. I just needed to get out of the house.

"The end of the world is nigh! Repent now or burn forever in the fires of hell!"

I flinched as I passed the bearded old man who preached hellfire and damnation near the entrance to my local Underground station. His half-crazed and bloodshot eyes glittered maniacally as he thumped his worn old Bible and accosted the passing crowds who'd heard it all before. Descending into the bowels of the earth on a creaking escalator, I felt as if I had entered the Inferno. The framed adverts on the walls showed details of "18 hour girdles" and stomach powders, reassuringly prosaic. I bought a ticket to Leicester Square. The underground station really did feel like Hades but it wasn't the first time the thought had crossed my mind. I walked briskly though the narrow, low-ceilinged passage that led to the eastbound platform. It was nothing more than a small tiled tunnel. I loathed being there in rush hour, when hordes of people pushed their way through it like rabbits in a warren. Out on the platform a warm rush of stale air announced the arrival of the next train. I pressed my back against the wall and saw the glowing triangle, clear and sharp in my mind's eye, as if it had been burned onto my brain.

It was apparent that a sense of vague unease gripped the city. The morning newspapers had printed reassuring stories of a brief freak lightning storm and the resulting power cuts caused when a strike knocked out a major transmission line. So lucky most of us were asleep, comforted the Standard. But people were talking on the journey to Tottenham Court Road, recounting tales of odd things seen and felt, always fuzzily indistinct, as if they were trying to recall the swiftly fading details of a dream. Something had changed -- but what? Everything seemed unchanged. I listened, silently, to snippets of conversation. No one mentioned a triangle of light.

At Tottenham Court Road, I realized that a young man was following me.

"Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Freak electrical storm causes chaos!"

A newspaper vendor's cry broke through my preoccupation and I bought a copy from a kiosk.

"Hardly chaos."

The man was level with me, staring at a window full of elegantly clad mannequins. I froze, my heart beginning to beat like a drum. Behind the plate glass, six plastic girls in Courreges mini-dresses smiled rather vapidly.

"Those skirts are nice and short, aren't they?"

What a wonderful day to attract a pervert! I turned away, clutching my newspaper, but the man grasped me by the arm and spoke softly and insistently in my ear.

"I know, Miss Blythe. I know everything. Don't be afraid."

His fingers brushed against my breast, whether deliberately or, not I could not be sure, but the sensation was profound, even when muffled by my sweater and coat.

"How do you know my name? I'll scream!"

"Oh, don't be melodramatic, Cathy. You have to come with me."

Suddenly angry, I turned to face the man, quite prepared to hit him with my handbag if necessary. He was around my own age, mid twenties, and had short, curly black hair. His skin was dusky and he wore heavy rimmed spectacles with tortoiseshell frames. He wore a brown corduroy suit and carried a large umbrella. There was something about his eyes, a fierce, penetrating quality that made me glance away. They were the pale grey blue of a Siamese cat.

"I know what you've seen, Cathy. You've been selected."

I began to walk away, catching sight of myself in the mirrored entrance of a jeweller's shop. I looked a little dowdy, my skirt unfashionably long, but my sleek bobbed hairstyle looked "happening". My eyes were like a fawn's, wide with indignation, thick-lashed and heavily outlined with kohl.

"You look like a suburban Cleopatra. I'm David. Have coffee with me and I'll explain."