The Garden of Evil

Chapter Three: World of their Own

Based on the Forbidden Game Trilogy

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Aniah

AniaHope@aol.com

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Yes, I know it's been over six months. I'm sorry. I wasn't inspired. Hope I'll be now so I can provide y'all with some more Julian/Jenny delightfulness.

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            Jenny awoke on a laaaarge bed…much bigger than Audrey's parent's four-poster. She stretched lazily, and snuggled deeper into the fluffy down comforter. Wait a minute, she wondered, Grandpa doesn't have a down comforter. That random realization brought her to consciousness, where she realized her surroundings. The bed was covered in velvety blacks edged in a silver ribbon. She sat up, and took a closer look at the lingerie that Julian had provided.

            It was much too transparent for her taste; though it did have the grace to leave enough to the imagination. She sat up, and pulled a sheet around her for modesty's sake. She shimmied to the edge of the massive bed, and pulled the curtains back. Julian sat on a chaise, all in black, with a slim gold hoop glinting in his right ear. His nose-length bangs were over his eyes, but he looked up from the paperback he was reading to offer a grin at her.

            "You've slept a world," he commented, putting the book (horror genre, she thought) on a small black marble end table.

            "What do you mean?" Jenny asked shyly, folding the sheet around her.

            "You know the book Around the World in Eighty Days? Let me just say that I carried you almost that far in one," her eyes widened, and she took in the high ceilings and the gothic-era architecture of the area.

            We're not in California anymore, Toto, she commented ironically to herself. "Where are we?" She asked aloud.

            "My lair, so to speak," Julian, came and put a palm around her waist. The hand was cold, she felt, even through sheets and negligee.

            "Which is where?" Jenny wanted a sense of bearing, desperately.

            "We have the most awesome view," he motioned to the wide balcony doors, and unclasped the silver hook-and-eye at his throat. "The best part is, no one can see us," he opened the door, and she gasped at the site only the foothills of the Alps in summer could invoke.

            "This is the Alps, right?" She pulled the sheet tighter, as he escorted her outside.

            "Who knows? It might be a façade," he joked, though the look in his eyes suggested that it might be the case. "We've got a castle at our disposal, and eternity at our fingertips," he looked meaningfully into her eyes, and Jenny backed into the balustrade, unreasonably afraid. Her stomach growled.

            "I'm hungry," she said matter-of-factly, surprised at how he started. I guess Shadow Men don't require food.

            "What do you want?" he asked, striding back inside, fists clenched.

            "Um; I don't know. A blueberry muffin?" She shrugged. "Something modest to wear?" He chuckled at that, and she winced behind his back at the sarcastic note of the laugh.

            "The first request's fine, but you'll have to wait on the other," a bell rang daintily, and he pulled out a small panel in the wall to a good-sized muffin, milk, orange juice, and a banana. Next to them was a cup, and a rose matching the one she had found the night before, in the Erlking's underworld.

            "You even know the food pyramid," Jenny marveled falsely, too cowed to say anything else. She poured herself some of the milk, avoiding touching the rose.

            "Here," Julian picked the bloom up, and put it behind her ear in a tender, hard gesture. "You can appreciate it freely, now."

            "No," she answered, swallowing a bit of the muffin. "Take it out."

            "What, you won't accept a gift from your betrothed?" His voice held a metallic harshness, and he ran the flower down her cheek.

            "It's not that; it was just so---" he pulled off the sheet, and Jenny blanched, covering her dark-clothed chest with her hands. The negligee might not have been there, for all Julian was looking at her.

            "So what?" he asked, drawing her to her feet and kissing her fiercely. Jenny felt as if she were terribly off balance, that she could fall any second onto the shiny wooden floor. Julian's hands wandered back to her waist, and he guided her to the bed.

            "No, please, Tom—" she gasped as he pushed her down, realizing that he wasn't being rough at all, yet his ministrations were so much more cruel-seeming than anything Tom had ever done with her.

            "What about him? You made your choice, Jenny, and you can't go back. What about Tom, Jenny?" brow furrowed in fear and pain, Jenny shook her head against the black comforter, eyes shut in pain.

            "Nothing, Julian. Nothing." She felt his icy hand caress her face.

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Amen. So I'm updated. Wahey! Please review!