Either way, Iwillgo to my Teddy.
I can barely admit this to you, but I hunger for him. For his touch, his mouth. After he had spent the evening’s meal fondling me from beneath the table, I burned to finish what we started.
When we are finished, I wish to rest my head on his chest, feel the tickle of his hair, and inhale the scent of soil and rose that the summer has stained him with. All those hours working in the gardens have adapted his hands to a careful touch.
And I want it.
I cross my legs as I write this if only to try and still the swell of myself. Maybe one day I will tell you what happens during our nights together. There is magic in our shared company. It stretches time out until it is a new concept. Hours become days when I am with him, and we fill the time perfectly.
He tells me he wishes to run away with me. Out of everything he says, that is the one thing that hurts the most. But I do not tell him otherwise. Not when he comes alive inside himself, whenever he conjures up stories of our future.
Teddy loves the coast, often fantasising about moving to Dorset or Devon, where we could live near the ocean. So close we could feel the spray of water on our faces whenever we stepped outside.
I admit, it sounds blissful.
But I must play along, feeding into the concept of a future even though I know it will never happen. I do it for Teddy, to see him smile. I let him dream.
Teddy tells me stories of how he grew up by the sea. His earliest memory is of barrelling through a sandcastle his mother had made. The sand scratched his feet, and his mother found sand in his hair for days afterwards.
I love it when he talks about her. His joy is bright and all-consuming, and his eyes always fill with a sheen of tears. How could someone be so heartbreakingly beautiful, no matter the emotion he displays?
I let him create these stories because it makes him happy. Seeing him smile is enough to make me forget the truth – that I can never leave Hanbury Manor.
PART 3
Tuesday
“OUT!”
William startled awake to feel a pressure across his legs. He tried to open his eyes, but it was as if they were glued shut. He was both awake and asleep, existing in the void between his body being motionless and his mind alert.
His first instinct was to shout, but his lips were pinched together. It was like a hand had covered his mouth, fingers digging into the soft flesh of his cheek.
Buthisarms were fixed to the bed beside him.
Panic dragged him from his dreamless sleep. A scream gargled in his throat, but he couldn’t release it.
Someone or something was holding him down.
An image of Edward flooded William’s mind. Was he on top of him? Had Edward broken down William’s walls of distrust, dampened by wine, only to pounce on him in the dead of night?
Somehow, beyond the panic and darkness, he knew that wasn’t the root of this. Edward’s hands had been warm, soft and real. This pressure was the callous. Cold. An unforgiving, deathly chill kept him forced to a bed like an insect pinned to paper.
William tried to move his legs, but he felt no sensation. Perhaps this was another dream? It would explain the strange occurrence he experienced. This nightmare would end if he could just calm himself down.
But nightmares couldn’t talk – shouldn’t talk.
“Out,” it hissed again, soft as a whisper yet sharp as a knife.
A brush of wind caressed William’s ear. The feeling was feather-soft, sending a sickening shiver across his frozen body.
William felt a single tear slide out of his left eye and track down his cheek, staining the pillow in a puddle of dampness. He still couldn’t open his eyes, but somehow, he knew if he did, he’d see something to his side. A kiss of stank breath dusted across the side of his face – the flirting tickle of a lip brushing carefully over the faint hairs that coated his ear.
“Out.”
The command was powerful the third time. William felt the single word pierce his soul and poison him from the inside out. Then it was over – gone like a whisper caught on the wind. Suddenly, his body belonged to him again.
William’s eyes opened, a scream rupturing out of his throat.
