I chuckled.“Aye.But mayhap you’ll forget about me now that I’m your husband and not your saucy red-haired seed bucket.”
“You’re still my saucy red-haired seed-bucket and you always shall be.We’re not even truly married, you know.”He turned to me with a devilish look.“What we do together is illegal and immoral and a disgrace to the king,” he said, emphasizing each word with a poke to my nipple.
“Ow,” I said, moving to protect the tender bud.
“Oh, no,” he said, moving my hand aside and bending to lick the skin that pebbled under his touch.Then he took my nipple in his teeth and gazed up at me with pretend malevolence.At least, I thought the malice was pretend.
“Don’t do that unless you want another go.You’re getting me worked up again.”
He sighed but drew back.“I wish I had the energy, but you’ve worn me out.Call the dog.I suppose she wants to sleep with us.”
I turned to her and whistled, patting the bed.
She sprang up like she’d been waiting for this moment and leapt onto the bed, landing half between and half on top of us, wiggling with pleasure.
“Ow, that’s my bollocks!”Dinesh complained whilst I laughed and praised her.
“Ooh, good girl.He probably deserved that.”
We fell asleep tangled together in the sheets.
***
Thehorriblecreaturecameto me again in my dreams.
Tentacles like strings of solid muscle, wrapping around me, squeezing.I thrashed to break free but the monster was too strong, too determined to hold me.
Simon…Simon White…Simon Bartholomew White,” it whispered.“You are your mother’s son…and I have you…Iwillhave you…and I willkeepyou…down here where you belong…”
I couldn’t breathe and it was pulling me under, under.Its mouth stretched open as if to swallow me whole.
I woke with a start and a cry of terror.
The dog was laid out at the foot of the bed and hadn’t woken up.I focused on her familiar presence and that of Dinesh who blinked awake, the whites of his eyes glistening in the moonlight.
“Rooster?”
He reached for me in the darkness.
“Aye,” I whispered, trying to forget the gaping maw of the dream creature.I took his hand and let him pull me towards him.
I trembled with the horror of what I’d felt and how real the experience had been.Ghost seaweed brushed against me, but it was simply the captain trying to soothe me.I opened my eyes, blinking at a very worried-looking Dinesh.
“A nightmare?”
I nodded.“Worse than before.But,” I realized something.“No song this time.”
Dinesh paled.“The same…beast?”
“Aye.And it…it mentioned my mother.”
I gazed at him with distress as the tears formed in my eyes.
“Oh Simon,” he said, with so much sweetness that the tears snaked down my cheeks and I began to cry softly.
Dinesh held me close and soothed me with whispered words of comfort.
Pearl lifted her head to peer at me in the darkness, her tail slapped the bedclothes a few times; then she lay her head down again.The fact that she was so calm did reassure me.Animals were believed to be able to sense supernatural forces.Perhaps the haunting was only a very persistent and repetitive nightmare, prompted by something in my memories or emotions.
