Gods of Gor Chapter Seven

 

Chapter Seven: Blood Brothers

 

“I wear scarlet,” said Brinn, thumping his tightly muscled chest with the clenched fist of his right hand. “I am of the warriors – a High Caste on Gor. I do not… sneak around… like some common thief in Port Kar. Do not speak of this again, Emma.”

 

This was going to be difficult. 

 

I sighed, fearing the worst now. “They will try and kill you, Master. There will be spears raised and…”

 

“It is a misunderstanding – nothing more. But were I to slink away in the dead of night, then what would men say of my honour?”

 

“They might say you’re still alive?” suggested Tijani as he gazed out of the hut towards the river.

 

“Thank you, Master!” I said, grateful at least that Tijani was taking my side. 

 

“I am sometimes concerned you may not fully appreciate the concept of honour,” said Brinn, frowning now, to Tijani. “It is a complex principle, of course, but even so…”

 

“I’m a pirate,” said Tijani with a grin. “I reave, I pillage, and I wench. Not necessarily in that order.”

 

“Those things can be done honourably,” suggested Brinn.

 

“But not for long,” added Tijani. “Men like you always spoil things by demanding – say – one on one combat... to the death.”

What Remains of Rebecca Palmer Chapter Seven

 

London 2014:

 

I was twelve years old when I bled for the first time. 

 

“You have your moon blood, Rebecca,” said my mother, proudly, as if I had just graduated to using the toilet on my own. “Oh, my dear baby, how the years have sped by.” She reached out and hugged me with a fierce joy that left me wondering whether now was perhaps a good time to ask her for a pony? 

 

I so wanted a pony. I had been begging my mother for over a year, but she had remained steadfast in her resolve. “Where would we put it, darling? We don’t have a stable.”

 

“Mother?” I had stained the bed sheets last night and my initial reaction was one of fright. Had I injured myself? The blood was clearly coming from between my legs. But when the house maid had secretly smiled at me that morning, and nodded her head in tacit understanding, I knew I wasn’t going to be told off. 

 

Father had been lost for words. He had looked clearly uncomfortable with the idea that he might speak to me about whatever had happened.

 

“Your mother will explain things, Rebecca.” And then he headed to the safety of his study before anyone might include him in the conversation. I heard the door lock with a degree of finality which meant he wasn’t to be disturbed. When my mother did talk to me, it was with a formality I hadn’t expected. I had been told to wait for her in my bedroom.

What Remains of Rebecca Palmer Chapter Six

 

They didn’t tell me about Chastity Reach when I was arrested.

 

Or when they shot my dog.

 

They didn’t tell me about Chastity Reach when they took my parents away down a different corridor; my mother - with a leather hood over her head, buckled tightly around her throat - turning back once, already learning not to reach for me. They didn’t tell me during intake, or the first nights, or the days that blurred together in a way that made time feel like another thing they had confiscated.

 

They waited until the worst of it was over.

 

That was how I knew it mattered. By then, my body had learned the rules. How to sit. How to stand. How to answer without tone. The pain had receded into something dull and instructional. I had stopped expecting explanations. I knew how to ‘play the game’. I knew what made the difference between punishment and approval.

 

So when they moved me to a smaller room - cleaner, quieter - I felt something close to relief. There was a chair. A table. A cup of water already waiting for me.

The woman who came in wore a soft institutional grey instead of black. No insignia. Her hair was neatly arranged, her hands folded as if this were a conversation between equals.

 

“Rebecca,” she said.

 

It startled me that she used my first name.

Gods of Gor Chapter Six

 

Chapter Six: Rite of the River Whisper

 

There’s a scene in an early episode of HBO’s TV series, Rome, where an entire Roman legion is standing around in a long column, not going anywhere, and then the camera tracks over to the side of a tree where General Mark Antony (played by the always brilliant James Purefoy) is fucking a peasant girl up against the trunk, and the entire Roman army has to wait for him to finish before they can continue marching. 

 

Well, I know what’s that like now, because this was day three of us sitting around in the village while Brinn fucked around with one of their Free Women.

 

“I thought you, as a rule, never had sex with Free Women, Master?” I said to him on the third day. 

 

“I never said that,” said Brinn as he sat on a cot bed beside a beautiful, sleeping, black skinned woman. I had seen her walking around the village, and she was as graceful as a gazelle, with long legs and a seductive smile. I knelt, lacing up his sandals as he yawned and stretched his arms. “When did I ever say that? Is it too early for paga?”

 

“Yes it is too early for paga.” I had already hidden his bottle. “Master, this is all lovely, I’m sure, but even Tijani is getting impatient. You have four slaves. You don’t need to…” I stopped talking as I saw the Free Woman stir in her sleep. A few seconds passed by and then when I felt sure she wasn’t waking up, I continued to speak in a quiet whisper. “And the village men here think you have companioned her.”

 

Brinn laughed at that. “You have quite the imagination, Emma. Companioned her – as if I would do that.”

 

“No, Master, listen to me – I’ve been picking up some of the language, and Mina filled in some of the details last night while you were…”

 

“Wasn’t there a paga bottle by my bed?” mused Brinn as he scratched his enormous hairy balls. The shaft of his penis looked impressive even while it lay flaccid. It resembled a short hosepipe. 

 

“I think you must have drunk it all, Master. But, please, listen to me… 

What Remains of Rebecca Palmer Chapter Five

 

Chapter Five: Adjustments

 

I heard the bolt slide back before I heard the hinges creak.

 

I was sitting on the floor with my back against the wall, the blanket pulled around my shoulders, when the door opened and a man stepped inside carrying a pair of scissors. They were large, industrial-looking things, the metal dull and nicked, like they had been used for purposes other than hair. He did not look at me at first. He closed the door carefully behind him, then set a small stool in the centre of the cell. “Stand up,” he said.

 

My stomach dropped. I stayed where I was. “What is this?” I asked. My voice sounded thin, even to me. “Please. What are you doing?”

 

He glanced at me then, briefly, without interest. “Grooming adjustment,” he said. “Routine.”

 

“No.” The word came out before I could stop it. I pressed my hands to my head instinctively, fingers threading into my hair. “Please don’t. You don’t need to do this. I’ll cooperate. I have been cooperating. You know I’ve been cooperating! Please, let me talk to Michael!”

 

He sighed, as if I were being tedious. “Stand up,” he repeated.

 

When I didn’t move quickly enough, he crossed the room and took hold of me by my hair. His grip was rough and absolute as he pulled me to my feet and guided me to the stool as though positioning a piece of furniture. My knees trembled as I sat.

 

“Please,” I said again. “My hair - please. It’s all I have left.”

Gods of Gor Chapter Five

 

Chapter Five: Lady Taleisha

 

“I’m not talking to you,” I snarled under my breath as I crossed my arms and looked away from Mina. “Slut,” I added.

 

Because she was.

 

Skanky little slut. 

 

Slutty, skanky, little slut.

 

It was mid-morning, and Mina had something she wanted to say to me, but she could fuck right off.

 

“Emma, don’t be like that. I can hardly say no to Brinn, can I? I’m a slave.”

 

Brinn had told me – HE HAD FUCKING TOLD ME – that I’d be in his furs last night, and then he got drunk and Mina was all over him while I was peeling suls!

“Oh, you’re a slave, are you?” I snarled, without looking around. “Well that makes a fucking change to hear you say that!”

Gods of Gor Chapter Four

 

Chapter Four: Reflections from a Distant Past

 

We paddled eastward down the wide, sluggish river, Mina, Saffron, Chloe and I, our wooden canoe slicing through the steaming brown waters that carried us ever deeper into the equatorial jungle east of Schendi. I sat in front of Mina, our light steel ankle links clinking softly with each synchronized stroke of our paddles. Once the self-proclaimed Ubara of the Black Kingdoms – the captain of the feared pirate ship, the Larl of the Thassa - the former pirate queen now belonged to Tijani, the lean, muscled, dark-skinned warrior whose gold rings caught the fractured sunlight whenever he moved. I belonged to Brinn, whose ice-blue gaze rested on me with the calm certainty of ownership, seeing every bead of sweat, every tremble in my arms, every effort to please. The men lounged in the stern, voices low and rough with talk of coin, silk, and the kajirae prices they had seen in the markets we had left behind in Schendi, while we slaves drove the canoe forward—slow, deliberate, obedient.

 

The jungle pressed in on both sides, a green wall so thick it seemed to lean toward us, hungry and ever watchful. Towering trees strangled by vines as thick as a man’s arm arched overhead, their canopy filtering the sun into shifting bars of gold and deep shadow that played across my bare skin like fingers. Broad leaves dripped moisture onto my shoulders; heavy-scented orchids and crimson blossoms exhaled perfume that coated my throat, sweet enough to make me dizzy. The air was wet heat, clinging, making the thin cotton of my brief skirt slide and cling with every stroke, every breath. I felt Brinn’s eyes on the small of my back, tracking the way the fabric moulded to my hips, and my belly tightened in that familiar, helpless flutter.

Gods of Gor Chapter Three

 

Chapter Three: Mimi ni mtumwa

 

We sheltered under some canvas tarpaulin as the rain continued to fall sporadically where we camped. It was like someone was turning a hose pipe on and off repeatedly. I snuggled close to Brinn as he fed me pieces of cooked fish. It was warm, despite the rain, and I felt good that evening. We had taken the first nervous steps into the Gorean terra incognita and found it not quite as daunting as I had feared. As long as we followed the river itself it was nigh on impossible to get lost, though I would not fancy entering the dark veldt of the rain forest without a native guide to hand. Mina and Saffron’s collars were chained together with a long length of chain, designed of course to keep Mina secure. From time to time I saw her gaze wistfully into the depths of the darkening jungle, wondering perhaps how difficult it might be to escape in the days to come. The men, sensibly, weren’t taking chances with her. She had grown up in the jungle after all, and although this was an unknown area to her, she knew instinctively how to survive in this kind of terrain. 

 

I gasped suddenly as I felt Brinn’s hand stray between my legs. He was touching me there, feeling my sexual warmth and I nuzzled him in response. I could do little else but moan and sigh as he aroused me slowly, feeding the slave fires within my body. 

 

“Slave,” said Brinn.

 

I simply squirmed and kissed him with renewed passion. 

 

“Do you remember when you were my enemy, Emma?”

 

“I was never your enemy.”

 

“You were an agent of the Kurii. Had you been a man, I would have killed you. Instead, I promised to put you in a collar.”

Gods of Gor Chapter Two

 

Chapter Two: The Emerald Forest

 

Fuck. Our collar chain got caught on a branch again. “Mina! Hang on just a moment.” She felt the tug on the chain at the same time I spoke. Mina stood still in the rain forest canopy as I carefully freed the links of the chain from where it had hooked against some vegetation. The chain was only ten feet in length and connected the ring on Mina's collar to the ring on mine. This was because Chloe still considered Mina to be a flight risk and wasn't going to let her loose in the jungle perimeter without securing her to another girl she could trust not to run away. It did make things awkward for us though as we strolled between the canopy of trees.  

 

I could hardly move without a plant touching my skin, so dense was the foliage this close to the river bank. There's probably more life here per square metre than anywhere else on the planet and the noise alone is incredible: so many insects, birds and mammals chirping and chittering away like some natural history symphony. The rain falls thickly in drops as large as ramberries, yet it's so warm the wet isn't as big of a problem as it is in the Sardar when it falls in sheets from the mountain air. But as we tread through the bracken I'm so alert for the deadly bugs and snakes I can't relax at all.

   

“You walk too slowly, Emma,” said Mina.

 

“No, you're walking too quickly. We need to watch out for snakes.” I was petrified that I might step barefoot on a venomous snake as we pushed through the low vegetation. Snakes were everywhere! I knew they were! They were sniggering in hiding as they saw me coming. I knew that just like I knew we should never venture near a riverbank for fear of a river tharlarion lying in wait under the water to rise up and snap us in two between its powerful jaws.

What Remains of Rebecca Palmer Chapter Four

 

Chapter Four: Kindness

 

As the next couple of days passed I began to fear the sound of the opening of my door – the grinding of its hinges, following the sliding of a steel bolt on the other side.

 

My fear wasn’t centred around the door itself, but rather the split seconds of uncertainty as to who would walk through the door into my cell.

 

Would it be Him… or Her.

 

The man was kind. He had given me a blanket. He had seemed shocked that I had been doused in ice water. That had been overstepping the bounds of decency, he had said. I had been Inner Party, after all. That had to mean something, he said. The next time he visited – perhaps twelve hours later - he had brought a thermos flask of hot tea and two scratched plastic cups.

 

“This must be such an ordeal,” he said as he sat down opposite me and placed the thermos flask on the table. “Now, I don’t know whether you take sugar or milk?”

What Remains of Rebecca Palmer Chapter Three

 

Chapter Three: Acquiescence

 

They had taken my shoes.

 

Spoken aloud, it sounded trivial. But when they ordered me to unbuckle them and hand them over, I began to cry with all the shock I had not yet been allowed to feel.

 

I stood in a windowless room somewhere underground that was bleak and cold, where the air had the weight of dead, buried things. It smelled of cold cement, disinfectant, and something faintly metallic, like old water sitting too long in pipes.

 

Harsh strip lights ran the length of the ceiling, humming faintly, casting a flat white glare that left nowhere for shadows to hide. The light was merciless. It drained colour from everything it touched, including me. The walls were bare concrete, painted a tired institutional grey that had been scuffed and repainted so many times it had lost any claim to smoothness. In places the paint had bubbled and cracked, revealing darker patches beneath, as if the building itself were bruised.

 

The floor was unfinished cement, cold through the stocking-clad soles of my feet. Every sound echoed slightly - footsteps, breathing, the soft scrape of a chair being dragged back into place - giving the impression that the room was larger than it really was, or emptier, or both. There were no windows. No clocks. No indication of time passing at all.

 

A single metal table stood in the centre, bolted to the floor, with two chairs on either side. One was lighter, clearly meant to be moved. The other – mine - was fixed, its edges worn smooth by countless previous occupants. I became acutely aware of how many people must have sat there before me, waiting, just as I was.

 

She was already in the room when I entered.

What Remains of Rebecca Palmer Chapter Two

 

Chapter Two: Rendition

 

The van’s engine cut with a low, grinding halt, leaving a hush over the driveway. For a moment, the estate seemed suspended in the late summer air. I felt Marcus stiffen beside me, tail lowered, ears swivelling toward the sound of shifting tires. The dog’s unease made my own pulse quicken, though I could not yet name why.

 

The doors of the van opened slowly, each one releasing a measured, deliberate hiss. Then they emerged. One by one, men in black sweaters and worn jeans, dressed alike enough to be mistaken for one another at a distance, stepped onto the gravel, moving with a precision that seemed almost rehearsed. Their faces were sharp, severe, and unreadable, as if sculpted for the sole purpose of intimidation.

 

I froze, my stomach twisting. Who were they? Government inspectors? Police? Something worse? The air thickened around me, and even the warm sunlight felt wrong, too bright, too exposing.

What Remains of Rebecca Palmer Chapter One

INTRODUCTION: At the conclusion of the novel, 'Steel World Inc', Karl Magnus, the Ubar of London, executed Willard Frick with a gunshot to the head, against the express orders of the Steel Worlds Council of America.   

Retribution was soon to come, not just to Karl Magnus, but to those London Families (The ‘Inner Party’ of the Court of the Steel Worlds in Great Britain) who were seen to be loyal to Karl Magnus. One by one the great American families took them out.

 

One such family was the Palmers – loyal to the Steel Worlds for generations, dating back to the Golden Age of the British Empire.

 

This then is the tragedy that befell their privileged daughter, Rebecca. 

 

What remains of Rebecca Palmer when the Steel Worlds clenches its iron fist?

The Shadow in the Dark Chapter Thirty Five - Final Chapter!

 

I was led - guided, really - through a sequence of archways and narrow corridors until the space opened into something more intimate than the grand halls I had first woken in. This inner chamber felt like the heart of the villa: tall but enclosed, the walls covered in frescoes of gods and nymphs frozen in moments of motion, their painted eyes following me no matter where I stood. Sunlight filtered down through a high, latticed opening, turning the dust in the air into drifting gold.

 

I stood alone in the middle of it, barefoot on warm stone, my red silk tunic whispering against my thighs every time I shifted. The fabric was scandalously thin and cut far lower than anything I would ever have chosen for myself, exposing a deep V of skin that made me acutely aware of how vulnerable I was. The steel collar sat at my throat like a brand, cool and unyielding, a constant reminder that whatever this place was, I was not free in it.

 

My heart thudded painfully as I waited. I didn’t know what I was waiting for, only that something was coming.

 

Then music burst into the room, accompanied by a swirl of disco ballroom lights.

 

Dance, Boogie Wonderland, hey, hey

Dance, Boogie Wonderland

 

Not flutes. Not lyres. Not anything that belonged to this ancient, marble-and-mosaic world.

Beginning Tomorrow: ‘What Remains of Rebecca Palmer’

 

I had doubts as to where we're going

But you gotta hand it to the guys upstairs

I've been put on a whole new program

Don't have to handle my own affairs

Everything I want is on my printout

I don't need anything anymore

I'm not confused by useless knowledge

 

I don't even know if it's 1984 

for sure

 

Rules rule Ok, ask no questions

Welcome to the age of consent

Fasten seat belts, drive with caution

Don't take shots at the president

Robot man's a wonderful creation

Automatically obeys the law

Laws of nature, man and physics

I don't even know if it's 1984 

for sure (1984?)

 

(Oh)

 

The only thing you need to know

Big Brother is watching you

You'll love him

1984

The Shadow in the Dark Chapter Thirty Four

 

The woman with the whip stepped forward, her presence suddenly overwhelming in the chamber. With a flick of her wrist, the coil of the whip unravelled, until the end trailed across the floor. I felt a shiver travel down my spine as her shadow fell across me. Her dark eyes appraised me coolly, and I understood, instinctively, that what she said next was not a request.

 

“Kneel,” she commanded. “Nadu. Let us see how your muscle memory is.” I sank to my knees on the polished mosaic floor, the red silk tunic sliding slightly against my bare legs, the steel collar pressing uncomfortably at my throat. My hands rested lightly on my thighs, though every instinct in me bristled against the submission I was being forced into. To my surprise my posture seemed instinctive, as if I had knelt like this many times before. I felt my knees close tightly together as I was in the vicinity of a woman. A curious thought at the back of my mind made me think the posture might be very different if I knelt before a man.

 

“It’s strangely instinctive, isn’t it, Ashlee? The way your body understands a word you couldn’t define to me.”

 

I suddenly realised I didn’t know what nadu meant – though there was a vague sensation I’d come across the word before - but I was kneeling instinctively on my heels, my back straight, hands on my thighs, my head up, and my knees pressed tightly together. 

 

She circled me slowly, heels clicking softly against the stone, the whip trailing loosely from her right hand. Her gaze was meticulous, taking in every detail - the way I held myself, the curve of my shoulders, the line of my neck, even the nervous tremor of my hands.

 

“You are a curvaceous thing,” she said finally, almost to herself, as though cataloguing me in her mind. “Eyes alert, hair full, skin soft… posture promising.” Her voice was cold, clinical, as though she were appraising an object rather than a person. “No wonder he lusts after you. You filthy little slut.”

The Shadow in the Dark Chapter Thirty Three

 

The gravel crunched under the tires as Martin pulled into the small lay-by, the car settling with a soft rock as it came to rest. We were deep in the woods now. Tall pines and bare-limbed maples crowded close to the road, their trunks dark with last night’s rain, their leaves turning the ground into a thick, copper-coloured carpet. The air smelled of wet bark and moss and something faintly sweet, like rot beginning to turn back into soil.

 

Martin switched off the engine and stretched, rolling his shoulders. “God, that feels better. My back was starting to complain.”

 

I opened my door more slowly, careful of the dress and of what was hidden beneath it. The petticoat whispered softly as I stepped out. The Glock tugged slightly at the tape on my thigh, a small, constant reminder that this moment was not just another stop on a road trip.

 

“Nice spot,” Martin said, glancing around. “Kind of peaceful, right? You’d never know Dunwich was just a few miles back.”

 

I nodded. “It’s… quiet.”

 

“Exactly,” he said. “Sometimes I think I could just live somewhere like this. Away from everything. No noise, no crowds.” He smiled at me. “Just you, me, and a lot of trees.”

 

I forced a faint smile, then gestured vaguely into the woods. “I’ll just go a bit further in. You know. Privacy.”

The Shadow in the Dark Chapter Thirty Two

 

I sat in the chair by the motel window with the lights turned off, my knees drawn up beneath the spread of my dress, the rain ticking softly against the glass like fingertips. The room smelled faintly of damp carpet and cheap soap. The neon sign outside bled a dull red glow through the curtains, painting slow-moving shadows across the walls.

Martin slept in the bed.

 

He lay on his back, one arm flung out over the pillow, his chest rising and falling in an easy, untroubled rhythm. He looked peaceful, almost boyish in sleep. As if nothing in the world could trouble him. As if he had not been the centre of something dark and carefully constructed.

 

The car keys were back where they had been, on the small table near the door. I had put them there with shaking fingers, arranging them exactly as I had found them, like returning a piece of a crime scene so no one would know it had been disturbed.

 

Beneath the powder‑blue dress and its soft bow, beneath the ridiculous, rustling layers of my petticoat, the Glock was taped flat against my outside right thigh with black gaffer tape. It pulled slightly when I shifted, a tight, grounding pressure that reminded me it was there. The petticoat was bulky enough to blur its outline completely, the fabric falling in forgiving folds that hid the hard geometry of the weapon. From the outside I probably looked like nothing more than a nervous girl sitting in a chair.

But I was armed.

 

The knowledge made my skin prickle.

 

I wondered if he would notice the keys had been moved.

 

I wondered if he already knew.

 

Has he always been part of it?

The Shadow in the Dark Chapter Thirty One

 

The classic movie line, “Now I have a machine gun, ho-ho-ho,” came to mind as I glanced to my left and right, checking that the streets of Dunwich were still empty, which they were. The weight of the Glock 19M in my hands steadied me in a way nothing else had all night. Rain tapped softly against the roof of the car as I drew the weapon into the pool of the interior light, my fingers moving with a confidence that felt older than memory. I didn’t have to think about what I was doing. My hands simply knew. I went through the motions I had repeated a thousand times before — the ritual of safety, of certainty — checking, confirming, rechecking. I felt the familiar resistance, the mechanical precision, the subtle click and tension that told me the gun was exactly what it appeared to be. Solid. Real. Not a prop. Not a trick.

 

The magazine came free into my palm, heavy with weight. Too heavy. I tilted it slightly and saw the brass glinting back at me in the harsh white light — a full load. Fifteen rounds, just as it should be. My throat tightened.

 

This wasn’t just my model.

 

This was my configuration.

 

I slid the magazine back into place and continued the inspection, running my fingers along the frame, the slide, the grip. Everything felt familiar, intimate in a way that made my skin prickle. This gun had been an extension of me. It had lived at my side. I could feel that in my bones even now.

 

I checked the safety systems, the mechanisms that prevented accidents and misfires, the things drilled into every agent until they were instinct rather than thought. Everything was intact. Everything was correct.

 

Everything was wrong.

The Shadow in the Dark Chapter Thirty

 

Rain woke me, though I hadn’t really been asleep.

 

It tapped at the motel window in a steady, patient rhythm, the sound soft but insistent, as if it were trying to remind me that the world outside was still moving even though I felt suspended somewhere between moments. I lay on my back, staring into the darkness, listening. Beside me, Martin slept, his breathing slow and even, one arm flung loosely across the bed but not touching me.

 

I had thought I would feel different.

 

That was the strange part. I had almost crossed a line I had guarded for so long - one I had imagined as monumental, irreversible - and yet at the brink of the point of no return I had screamed for Martin to stop. And Martin had stopped. I remembered the uncomfortable sucking motion as he withdrew the head of his penis from inside of me. My body had seemed to protest, to try and retain him somehow. What I felt now was not clarity or release, but a thick, uneasy confusion. The experience itself had been gentle, careful, almost reverent. Martin had been kind. He had done everything right, at least according to the version of events I had rehearsed in my head for years.

 

And yet the performance of sexual penetration had remained unresolved.

 

“Ashlee…” I could hear the frustration in his voice as his stiff penis seemed to stare at me in accusation. “You have some serious issues.”

 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…” I had wept into my pillow. 

 

Just take me! A voice had screamed inside of my head. Be a man! 

 

“I need to… do something about this…” Martin had said, touching his stiff shaft. “If you won’t.”

The Shadow in the Dark Chapter Twenty Nine

 

The door to the motel room shut behind us with a soft, hollow click that seemed louder than it should have been. The sound lingered in the air, settling into the corners of the room along with the faint smell of old detergent and something vaguely medicinal. A single lamp buzzed quietly near the window, casting a yellowish light over the furniture.

 

I took a few steps in, then stopped.

 

There was only one bed.

 

It sat in the centre of the room like the proverbial ‘elephant in the room’  - double-sized, neatly made, the patterned bedspread pulled tight and smooth. Two pillows. One lamp on each side. No couch. No armchair. No escape.

 

“Oh,” I said, far too brightly. “Well. it’s a… bed.”

 

Martin set his overnight bag down near the door and glanced around, nodding as if everything were exactly as expected. “Looks clean enough,” he said. “Which is more than I was hoping for, honestly.”

 

There’s only one bed, Martin, I thought to myself. I didn’t look directly at the bed now. Let him say something. Let him comprehend the problem.

 

Just… the one… bed.

The Shadow in the Dark Chapter Twenty Eight

Martin slowed the car to a near crawl, finally stopping in front of a small, shuttered building with a flickering neon sign that sputtered “Dunwich Diner – Open Late.” The mist curled around the tires, obscuring the edges of the road, and every cobblestone seemed coated with a thin layer of damp that reflected the headlights like faint eyes staring back.

 

I exhaled, though it felt more like a shudder than relief. “Finally,” I whispered. But the word sounded hollow in the stillness. Even the diner looked wrong - its façade leaning ever so slightly forward, the windows dark except for a faint yellow glow behind the cracks. The door was boarded on one side, the other side’s paint peeling, warped by decades of damp New England winters.

 

Martin killed the engine and leaned back in his seat, the calm he carried for hours still intact. “We’ll find gas. Maybe even a place to sleep. Don’t worry.”

 

I didn’t answer. My stomach was tight, and my fingers fidgeted in my lap. I wanted to get out of the car, to breathe, to see that this wasn’t some trap, but the longer I stared at the town, the more every line of the buildings, every crooked fence and warped sign, whispered unease. My imagination, already frayed, spun subtle horrors: the windows too dark, too opaque; shadows pooling in corners that didn’t make sense.

 

“I think this is a mistake. Call it my FBI intuition.”

 

“Come on,” Martin said, pushing the door open. “Let’s stretch our legs. It’s just a town, Ashlee. There’s nothing here but tired people and old buildings.”

The Shadow in the Dark Chapter Twenty Seven

 

“If I never see rural woodland ever again, it’ll be too soon,” I said, as I sat in the back seat of Martin’s car. I had to sit in the backseat because my petticoat flared out on each side, the moment I sat down. “Where are we exactly?” It was dark outside and I couldn’t see much through the windows – just vague glimpses of trees flashing past.

 

“I’m not sure, to be honest, Ash. My GPS doesn’t seem to be connecting. I’m trying to find some sign posts.”

 

We seemed to be driving around the countryside at random. I peered out of the side window again, as I l moved my petticoat rustled. “I hate this fucking dress.”

 

“You actually look kind of cute,” Martin said. “A bit like a grown up Alice in Wonderland. It’s sexy.”

 

“I will worry about your disturbing sexual fetishes when I’m safely home,” I said. The back seat smelled faintly of old fabric and something pine-sharp, like an air freshener that had long since given up. I sat with my knees drawn close, arms wrapped around myself, watching the headlights carve a narrow, trembling tunnel through the dark.

 

No GPS. No signal. Just the road unspooling endlessly ahead of us, pale and slick as a ribbon.

The Shadow in the Dark Chapter Twenty Six

I ran straight into Martin’s arms without a second thought. 

How very female of me. 

 

“Ashlee – my God, look at you. Are you all right?”

 

I didn’t realize how cold I was until Martin’s arms closed around me. It wasn’t sudden or theatrical—just there, solid and warm, his coat rough against my cheek, his hands steady on my back as if they had always known exactly where to go. My body reacted before my mind could object. I leaned into him, hard, my fingers knotting in the fabric at his shoulders, breath hitching as something inside me finally gave way.

 

For a moment, I let myself be held. Oh, but it felt so good to be held by a man. To be subject to his strength and his protection. Isn’t that what we all truly wanted? To be owned?

 

The woods were still behind us, dark and impenetrable, but Martin stood between me and them, broad-shouldered, familiar. The smell of him - soap, road dust, his old world cologne, something faintly metallic - anchored me more effectively than any grounding technique I could remember. My shaking slowed. My heart stopped trying to tear its way out of my chest. And that, more than anything else, troubled me, because this wasn’t who I was supposed to be. I was Ashlee Ellis. FBI. Tough. Controlled. I didn’t collapse into anyone’s arms after a bad situation. I debriefed. I compartmentalized. I took command. Yet here I was, clinging to my boyfriend like a frightened girl who’d wandered too far from home.

 

I pulled back slightly, just enough to look at him.

 

Martin’s face was drawn tight with worry, eyes scanning me as if counting injuries, confirming I was real. He cupped my face gently, thumbs brushing dirt and dried tears from my cheeks, and I felt another flicker of shame at how badly I wanted that touch to continue. “I’ve been looking for you,” he said quietly. “For days.”

The Shadow in the Dark Chapter Twenty Five

 

NOW:

I didn’t move at first.

 

I stood in the narrow hallway between the kitchen and the back door, my hand hovering inches from the latch, my whole body locked in a strange, humiliating paralysis. Outside, the woods waited - dark, tangled, unknowable. Behind me, through the front windows, the private road curved out of sight like a deliberate secrecy, and at its far end two masked figures had appeared from the cabin of a flatbed truck. 

 

They were distant, still small enough to be shapes rather than men, but I could see them on the grainy security cam footage that was playing on Rosemary’s television set. Masks. Long blades catching the dull light through the trees. Their approach was unhurried, almost ceremonial.

 

I told myself to breathe.

 

I was FBI. I had been trained for this. Situational awareness, threat assessment, decision under pressure. This was the kind of moment I was supposed to handle cleanly, decisively. So why were my hands shaking?

 

The thought made me angry. Ashamed.

 

My heart was pounding so hard it hurt; a wild, panicked rhythm that didn’t belong in my chest. I pressed my palm flat against the wall, grounding myself, feeling the cool plaster beneath my skin. I waited for the fear to settle into something usable - focus, clarity, purpose.

 

It didn’t.

 

Instead, it bloomed.

New Feminism Propaganda poster

 

The Shadow in the Dark Chapter Twenty Four

 

Seven Weeks Later:

 

“I feel so violated,’ I said as I sat on the edge of the hospital trolley, wearing nothing more than a white hospital gown, tied together at my back.

 

The local anaesthetic had yet to wear off, so my left breast felt numb and doughy to the touch.

 

The discharge room was smaller than the operating room, but somehow less contained. A single chair sat against the wall. The trolley was narrow, the paper sheet crinkling beneath me with every breath, too loud in the quiet. The walls were bare except for a laminated notice about hand hygiene that I kept rereading without absorbing a word.

 

I was technically ready to leave, and that was supposed to mean I was fine. My body agreed well enough - no dizziness, no pain sharp enough to demand attention - but my mind lagged behind, slow and shaken. The local anaesthetic had worn off in patches, leaving a strange in-between sensation that made it hard to trust where I ended and the room began.

 

I kept my hands folded in my lap because I didn’t know what else to do with them. They felt restless, like they wanted to reach for something solid and familiar, but there was nothing in reach that belonged to me. The plastic bracelet around my wrist caught the light when I moved, a quiet reminder that I was still, in some small way, not entirely my own.

The Guiding Principles of New Feminism (issued by the Ministry for Moral Certainty)

 

An introduction to how you should THINK.