Halloween Gothic

The following was inspired by Vlad Potemkin's story, "The Painting." I sent a copy to Vlad; he liked it and encouraged me to post it.

*

Charlotte Renfield was shopping. The 36-year-old associate professor of history at the University of Chicago had decided to spend the last full day of her latest trip to London by venturing off the beaten path a bit and looking for something "significant" as a souvenir. So she found herself shopping, in Islington -- not on Saturday, when hordes swarmed round -- but in mid-week, and in the rain.

The untidy little gallery was deserted when she wandered in, except for the 40-ish Romany woman who was obviously the owner. Actually, it was much more a "curiosity shop" than an art gallery and displayed a variety of wares: a case of campaign medals, a plaster bust of George IV, shelves of elderly books and East European crafts, an elephant's foot, a painted cast iron figurine of Sary Gamp, a Turkish scimitar, a few paintings -- amateur watercolors, mainly, but then there was...THE painting.

It was a smallish, weird oil, showing a dim, garret room strewn with books and papers and other scholarly debris. There was a lancet window, through which a bit of Notre Dame could be just seen against an overcast sky. A tenuous shaft of light from the window illuminated the central figure: a naked blonde woman, 20s, hanging by chains, her mouth wedged open in a soundless moan by some sort of ring-gag. Tentacles of darkness seemed to reach out for her sweating, straining body, and, in the background, barely visible, there was the shadowy figure of a large man, a brute. As Charlotte concentrated on the blur, more details appeared to her. He was big and dark and foreign (Asian or Semitic, maybe). Hulking, with a heavy body, massive shoulders, and long muscular arms; short, strong bow legs; big, thick, dark c-c...um...um...v-very virile.... Sneering lips, crooked yellow teeth, flat nose, flaring nostrils, small feral eyes. He's crude, but also very intelligent and very demanding. He's the master there, forcing captive women to do...th-things...humiliating things...made to m-masturbate while people watch and not being allowed to cum, or having to cum over and over and over...being naked and d-disciplined...and...and...oh, god....

Charlotte looked away, conscious of sweating and breathing hard...and getting wet....

"Fascinating, no?" said the shop owner, hovering at Charlotte's elbow. "It comes from estate sale in France. Swedish girl, studying in Paree.... They say she had the break-down and ran off. Present whereabouts? Pfah!" She shrugged. "Not so surprising, really. Swedes, you know...most of 'em on the edge, anyway. All those long, black nights...."

The woman's accent seemed to be a weird mixture of Eastern Europe and Birmingham. Like her speech, her appearance might have been improved with a little effort.

"Who's the artist?" Charlotte squinted at the signature. "Packman? Pittman?"

"Pickman," the woman murmured.

Charlotte shrugged. She knew that she had to have this -- after all, she did love the bizarre, and Halloween was her favorite holiday -- but she wanted to establish a pose of indifference as a basis for haggling over the price.

In the event, she proved only second best at haggling, and she left the shop lighter by more cash than she liked to think about, but with the receipt and provenance in her purse and the picture securely wrapped in brown paper and plastic against the weather. (An hour later, she'd bought a stout and stylish carrying case for it in Regent Street.)

She resisted the impulse to unwrap it that night. Instead, she went to bed not long after dinner, knowing that she'd have to rise early for her flight home. But her sleep that night was not untroubled. She dreamed dreams, from which she would awaken, sweating and horny, but unable to remember even a shred of them.

She was tired the next morning, but she got to Victoria Station and thence to Gatwick and thence, after a numbingly uncomfortable flight, back to Chicago. Even teeming O'Hare looked good to her at that point.

A few hours later, she was back in her Hyde Park flat (a term she preferred to "apartment"), a few blocks from the heart of the campus. She stripped, showered, made herself a vodka-tonic, and then, energized and still naked, unwrapped the painting.

As she tore away the last of the brown paper, she already trying to visualize the best place to hang it. She flipped it over...and froze. She blinked...and looked again. "FUCK-ING-HELL!"

It was not the same picture. The technique was the same, but the picture was not. To begin with, the girl was gone; the chains still hung there, but unoccupied. There were other differences, too: the window was now squarish and showed the dome of St. Paul's. The dim, miscellaneous contents of the room were gone; it looked empty...or unfinished. The brute in the background was farther forward now, but still as indistinct as before...maybe more so. In fact, though the paint was dry (it might be acrylic, instead of oil), it seemed almost like a painting in progress.... "That gypsy bitch switched paintings," Charlotte muttered. "But how? I watched her wrap it, and it was never out of my possession afterwards. Crap! Some damn gypsy trick...." Outraged, she got out the receipt and reached for her phone. "Okay, 'Argos Gallery...Sofia Tedescu...Phone....'" She'd punched in 01144-207- before she realized, "Shit! It's after midnight there, now. Fuck it!" Then, after she'd cooled, slightly, she wondered, "So what's she going to say? 'Ima so sssorry Ia cheet you, Meez Rrrrenn-veeldt. Ima sendin' zee mo-ney back, you betcha!'"

She dropped the picture behind the couch, in disgust, stared out the casement window at the gathering night, reached for the tantalus, and proceeded to get drunk.

Struggling up early the next morning, she breakfasted on English muffins and Earl Grey tea and, at 9:00, rang the gypsy's shop. No answer. Crap! She went back to bed.

******************

The next couple of weeks were occupied with getting ready for the Fall Quarter -- updating lecture notes and reading lists, preparing for a new inter-disciplinary Victorian course, meeting with her graduate assistant, and (of course) attending the cocktail parties welcoming new faculty. Then, once the quarter began, there was a period of adjustment of almost a month.

It was therefore late October -- and she'd already rather half-heartedly decorated her flat for Halloween -- before she hauled "that damned picture" from behind the couch and picked up the phone, intending to try calling the gypsy again.

But, one glance at the picture, and she very quietly returned the phone to its cradle.

The picture had changed again.

A naked woman again hung in the chains -- this time with black, curly hair and swarthy, sweat-slick skin. The murky background now dimly showed a variety of things: a dusty glass case, a bust of somebody, shelves of books and small objets, and...oh, god...an elephant's foot....

Sofia Tedescu wouldn't be taking any phone calls, now.

Charlotte sat, paralyzed with dread, her familiar surroundings growing vague and indistinct and her consciousness centering on "that damned picture." The captive woman -- call her "Sofia" -- seemed to be looking for help from someone, from anyone, from Charlotte...as the fantasy brute closed in. And there were other...entities...in the shadows, also lusting after the terrified gypsy.

Racked by an icy shudder that broke the hypnotic trance, or enchantment, or whatever it was, Charlotte staggered up, dazed and trembling, groped her way to the fireplace, and clumsily built a fire. When it was well alight, she flung the ghastly painting into the flames. It burnt, but not easily, and produced quite a volume of evil smoke, some of which curled out into the sitting room. Coughing and half delirious, she stumbled out of the twilit flat and into the watery sunlight.

The temperature was crisp, and she had come out without a coat, but that actually helped restore her to herself. She wandered, admiring the autumn foliage, and lingered a while by the heroic sculpture at the end of the Midway. To avoid thinking about "that damned picture," she thought about her life. Academically, she'd been successful -- though that had grown stale, these last few years. But, socially.... Well, she had a failed marriage to a fellow dilettante who just couldn't seem to give her whatever it was she needed. There were also a few fly-by-night lovers (even a fling with a butch domme), a scattered and dysfunctional family, no real friends, no kids, no pets. She sighed. But she did have her bibelots, her "stuff," the things that made life worth living.... Sure, she might not be happy, but she was content...more or less.

Eventually, her mind clearer and her spirit quieter, she stopped by her office, collected a jacket, and went out for an early dinner: a Waldorf salad, thick porterhouse, baked potato, and strawberry tart -- all washed down by a great deal of ale.

******************

It was late in the day, and darkness was already closing in, when she got back to the flat. But she was well-fed, slightly tipsy, and pretty much at peace. There was some reason to hurry, though; it was "Beggers' Night," and she still had to set out the "treats" so they'd be handy....

The smoke had dissipated, and so had the fire's heat. Inside the flat, it was chill, with a hint of sulfur in the air. But Charlotte didn't mind; it all added to the Halloween ambiance.

It was perfectly quiet, and that suited her, too.

She strolled unsteadily into the sitting room and checked the fireplace. Nothing but ashes. Perfect! Then her gaze strayed to the area above the mantle, and suddenly she was stone sober.

The "damned picture" was hanging there. And it was changed. Again.

Breathless, she leaned toward it, afraid to look, but more afraid not to. The furnishings in the new scene were shadowy, still, but they were so precious to her that they were easy to make out: built-in shelves crammed with books, a Second Empire desk with an art nouveau lamp, a tantalus and a bust of Danton on a Renaissance Revival table.... The familiar, gothic bulk of Rockefeller Chapel now showed through the casement window. The chains once again hung empty against a black wall of living darkness. The brute was much nearer now and appearing very much as she had imagined him. He was looking at her, his lips twisted into an evil smile, his erection large and deformed.

She whirled round and saw the chains hanging, waiting, glimmering there, in front of the wall that was now engulfed in blackness. And, as she opened her mouth to scream or plead or pray, the darkness reached out and took her.

Blackness, silence, nothingness. And then she felt cold fingers seize her, ripping off her clothes, stringing her up, naked, then teasing her.... Oh, god...first the fingers, and then there were TONGUES!

"This can't be happening," she told herself, her scholar's logic striving to beat down her rising hysteria. "It's some drunken illusion. If I deny it, it can't hurt me."

But it could hurt; it did hurt. And it aroused her, despite herself. It fondled and caressed her, probing her private places, insinuating itself deep, for it was long and thick and misshapen and insatiable. Despite her resistance, it went on...and on...and on.... And the more aroused she got, and the more desperate to cum, the farther off her orgasm fluttered, seeming to recede, infinitely delayed...oh, god...INFINITELY DELAYED!

Then, as she seemed about to surrender to madness, she experienced a moment of clarity, and, unlike Sofia and the Swede and countless others, she no longer struggled against the inevitable -- but embraced it.

Joyfully.

Finally, she was getting exactly what she needed.