DESIGNS III

By Succubus

It was the flies that woke her up. Somewhere through her dreams, they crawled on her. Their tiny feet moved all over her body, across her face. They crawled over her lips. She screamed and twisted, but wasn't moving at all in her dream. She was frozen in place, screaming in horror as flies crawled inside of her mouth. She sucked air into her lungs for another scream, then coughed and spluttered as a fly lodged its squirming little body into her throat. As she gagged on the insect, her eyes flew open to be greeted with the truth: the flies were real.

There were hundreds of them, swarming around her, crawling across her body. She coughed, spitting flies out from between her lips, and stared open-mouthed as their legs kicked futilely, their bodies wet with her spit, stuck to the yellowed sheet.

The comparison between their fate and her own was not lost on Leigh.

Frantically she shook her head, trying to get the flies off her. Panic filled her and her body shook, desperate to stop the horrible crawling all over her. She pulled against the cuffs, jerking her hands, making the cuffs cut into the skin on her wrists. She yanked and pulled on her hands, not caring if she broke every bone in them to free herself. Her mind was no longer functioning. Her body flailed about uselessly.

A loud sob came from Leigh, then she lay limply back on the bed. A single tear welled up in her eye. She fought hard not to cry.

Slowly, consciously, she looked around the room, forcing herself to stay calm, to breath deeply, to not lose it entirely. If she could keep her head about her, she might have a chance. If she gave in to the tears, to the horror and despair that threatened to snap her mind, then she would never escape.

The first thing she noticed was that she seemed to be alone. The man was nowhere in sight. Her eyes were pulled to the corner of the room; again she looked, knowing what she would see. But she was gone. Whoever the dead girl had been, however she had died, she was gone now. Was she soon to take the corpse's place?

Leigh shuddered, remembering the way the girl's body had been carved up, decorated with lacerations. She swallowed hard, forcing the panic back down inside of her.

Flies were landing on her face again. She shook her head hard, flinging her hair about to shoo the flies away. She felt some crawling between her thighs. She kicked her legs and wiggled her hips about. All this worked, and the flies lit into the air--only to land again when she had gone still.

Another tear slipped past the first and Leigh tasted it as it ran down her cheek and onto her lip. Tasting her own tears, she remembered that night--was it last night? --When he'd licked the tears off her face. She remembered how that had made her feel special, cherished. Another sob wracked through her and self-hatred welled up in her. She was sickened by her own responses to him, sickened by her own stupidity.

What a fool she was, thinking she had found this magical man straight out of her dreams. Crying harder, Leigh couldn't get the images of their lovemaking--yes, lovemaking, for strangers or not, that's what it had felt like--out of her head.

Each time her eyes opened, they were faced with her own body covered with flies, with the dingy little room she lay trapped in, with the memory of the girl's face staring at her. Each time she closed her eyes, she saw the stranger's body hovering over her, saw his smiling face and remembered her own pleasure. She could feel his mouth against her, could feel his heat inside her.

Leigh groaned, closing her eyes tight, and curled her body up as much as she could. She turned her head, burying it into the foul smelling sheets, and then broke down crying, the sobs tearing through her.

Leigh shook and sobbed, lost in the confusion of her mind, as the light faded from the sky, dimming the world around her.