Length: 1009 words
Genre/theme: Comic horror
Comment: Written in November 2003 for a Rooineck competition with a 'ghost story' theme.
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Dearest Cathy
I have failed in my most important task, to teach you how to be happy.
All I can do now is leave you an item that has given me much pleasure over the years.
Please display it on your dressing table next to mummy’s picture, if only for a few nights.
And remember, mummy will always be with you.
“I picked it up from the executors. It’s bloody heavy.” Geoff kissed Cathy’s cheek, his lips hardly touching her skin, his eyes not meeting hers. “I’ll be in the study.”
She sighed. So it would be another lonely night while he pretended to work. Since deciding to start a family four months ago, they had not made love.
The parcel was wrapped in layers of brown paper and secured with reams of tape and string. Inside, carved from heavy black wood and painted with grey-black resin, lay the figure her mother had left her. Faded reds and browns enhanced its rough features. An earthy, tarry smell began to permeate the room.
Cathy gasped. The carving was of a misshapen, hairy little man squatting on oversized testicles, his left hand gripping his knee, his right holding a mobile phone to his ear. His bearded chin rested on an enormous penis, which jutted up between his legs like a tree trunk. His woolly head was narrow, his nose stubby and his lips full and sensual. Sticking out from his half-open mouth was a large, red tongue, a pebble resting on its tip.
Cathy stroked his curved back and knotted limbs, which were ribbed and hard. She touched the giant penis, which was thick and gnarled and seemed to throb with warmth. The figure grinned at her lewdly.
“Mother,” she smiled. “You funny thing.”
She turned the figure over. Burned into the wood were the words ‘Tokol, by Gili’.
Something had woken her. A beam of moonlight illuminated the grinning figure on her dressing table. Behind it, her mother looked at her through large, black eyes. Geoff still had not come to bed. Then Cathy realised that the phone was ringing downstairs. Geoff will get it, she thought, but then heard the answering machine come on.
Again she awoke, sensations rolling through her like waves. Elated, she understood. “Oh Geoff,” she sighed. “I’m so glad.”
“Hush”, he breathed, his face hot between her legs.
The tarry smell was overpowering. She glanced at her dressing table. The figure was gone and so was her mother’s picture.
His tongue maintained a steady rhythm while his soft fingers massaged her gently. Why has he never done this before? she wondered, but then something wonderfully supple penetrated her outer layers, beginning an insistent kneading action. She stopped thinking.
Moaning loudly, her head flung back, she brought her hands to her nipples and squeezed. Deep within her she heard a rustling sound and it was as if a dormant river rumbled inside her core, ready to erupt. Crying out, she arched her back wildly and then the wave burst from her and she began to buck, grabbing his hair and steering his face to where the torrent gushed at its fiercest.
Then he was deep inside her, moving slowly, his mouth on her neck. “It has been so long, mistress,” he whispered.
She gripped his shoulders, her hands brushing over his bony back. He has lost weight, she thought. And I haven’t even noticed. “Oh my darling Geoff. How I have missed you!” Hungrily, her mouth sought his.
“You were parched,” he growled, his teeth biting her tenderly. “Like the earth before the rainy season.”
“Yes,” she moaned, beginning to thrust faster, gripping his taut left buttock, clenching and unclenching.
“But now the clouds have gathered,” he grunted, his rhythm rising, “and I have come for you.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” she screamed as once again the flood burst forth, sweeping all before it. Her hand flailed at his other buttock, seeking purchase. It wasn’t there. Where his right buttock should have been, only absence yawned.
“Let there be love!” he roared.” Let there be life!”
When she regained consciousness, he was gone. The ache between her legs told her it had not been a dream. Can one tell when one has fallen pregnant? she wondered.
Head spinning, she swung her legs onto the floor. On the dressing table, bathed in moonlight, the figure grinned at her; behind it, smiling, her mother’s face. The smell of resin was very faint.
“Geoff?” she called, walking onto the landing. There wasn’t a sound.
Downstairs the answering machine blinked red. On the parquet next to it lay a broken saucer in a puddle of milk. On unsteady feet, naked, she walked down the stairs. A glob of fluid slid from her and made its spidery way down her thigh.
She reached for the phone, suddenly uneasy. Two messages, the display indicated. She lifted the receiver and pressed the button.
“Cathy,” Geoff said softly. He sounded drowsy and seemed a great distance away. Her heart began to beat madly and her scalp tingled.
“Cathy,” Geoff’s voice, infinitely weary, was getting fainter. “Cathy, where am I?” The line went dead.
“Message erased,” the machine said. “Next message.”
“Hello dear, this is mummy,” her mother said. “Was tonight good for you?”
“Mother?” Shivers running through her naked body, Cathy sank to the cold floor.
“We will make good use of this body,” her mother whispered. Cathy felt the blood draining from her. Her ears began to roar.
“Tokol has found a way,” her mother breathed into her ear; and Cathy felt the hot breath penetrate and seep deeply into her being. As the phone slipped from her fingers she felt a familiar presence take root within her.
“How can you do this to me?” she cried, mustering all her fading strength.
“Happiness is a duty,” she heard her own mouth speak with her mother’s voice. “To life itself. And yours is forfeit. Goodbye dear. I shall be so happy for you.”
And with that, Cathy slipped away into darkness forever.
THE END
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