Dark Desire – Chapter 22
For the next couple of weeks, Katy spent a lot of time sleeping; it was if she instinctively knew that her body and mind needed the rest. She often didn't get the rest she needed because her sleep was sometimes interrupted with vivid dreams. Memories of a life she wanted to remember surfaced, but faded to near nothingness by the time she awoke. Tiny glimmers of the dream sometimes remained, but not enough to put things together. Katy often woke up more tired than when she went to bed.
When she was awake, she felt anxious. Not knowing who she was or what her life had been like was a strange feeling. She felt disconnected and ethereal, almost as if she really didn't really exist at all. She never left the bedroom. The only two people she saw were the man who called himself Eric and Dr. Ludwig. Dr. Ludwig visited her at least once every night, but she she slept in the same bed with Eric.
Sometimes Eric's almost constant presence and the familiarity that he displayed with her made her feel uncomfortable, but after a while she became used to it. She began to feel anxious and uncomfortable when he was not around. She could not remember him prior to the first time she woke up on his lap, but the tenderness and love he showed her seemed real and made her feel safe. He told her over and over that he loved her, and she believed him. Eric soon became both her safety net and her lifeline. Their three room bedroom suite became a safe haven that she never wanted to leave.
Katy was not blind to the fact that Eric was very much a male and a very much a carnal man. There were times when she saw or sensed his raw sexual need for her. She knew that Eric desperately wanted to have sex with her, but without really remembering who he was, she was not ready for that. Often when he held her on his lap, or she lay close against him in bed, she could feel how aroused he was. She moved away from him to give him space. She was relieved that he never tried to force her or touch her in a sexual way. That made her trust him even more.
A pattern began to form: if she woke up during the night, the windows were usually opened slightly. She she could feel the breeze and see the moon. She heard voices outside. She went to the window and saw men patrolling outside. They were clearly guards, and that made her feel safe.
If he was in the bedroom, Eric talked to her trying to get her to remember who she was. He always started out by asking her, "Who are you?" followed by "Who am I?" She looked at him blankly, and said, "I don't know." His beautiful blue eyes looked defeated and hopeless when she answered, and that made her feel sad.
If she woke up during the daytime, the windows were shuttered tightly and a low light was always on in the room. The only way she knew it was daytime was from the digital alarm clock on the bedside. She always found him lying next to her. Usually their bodies were tangled together so tightly, she had a hard time extricating herself to get up and go to the bathroom. He usually reached out in his sleep trying to draw her back into him; she had to be careful to avoid his reaching arms.
Sometimes, she just snuggled closer to him and laid her head on his chest. She couldn't hear his heart beat, and his body was much cooler than a normal human body. One day, Katy woke up as Eric moved restlessly on the bed. He was dreaming; his fangs were fully extended. Curious, she tested the tips of his fangs with one finger; they were very sharp.
A strange desire to have those fangs sink into her neck made her shiver a little. Eric groaned softly and had an immediate erection, but didn't wake. That night she realized that Eric was a vampire. As much as it shocked her to realize that, it shocked her even more that she didn't care. She wasn't afraid of him; something deep inside told her that he would never hurt her.
When she woke up during the day, there was usually a tray of fresh, hot food and a pot of coffee on a the table near the window in the adjoining sitting room. She sat at the table and ate her fill. That room had its own door to the hall, and Katy sometimes heard, but never saw, the person who brought the food and took the empty dishes away. An IV stand in the corner of the bedroom, and the the marks on her arm, let her know she had been fed through an IV tube for a while. Now she gratefully ate like she had never eaten before. She wondered if food had tasted so good before she lost her memory.
At least once a night, Dr. Amy Ludwig came in and examined her, sometimes bringing familiar instruments and small machines. Dr. Ludwig seemed to be pleased with the results of her prodding and probing. The small doctor was cool and professional and Katy liked her. She talked detailed medical terms with her, and Katy understood every word. "How do I know that?" she asked Amy once. "Because you are a doctor yourself, Katy," the small woman answered.
Both Eric and Dr. Ludwig kept calling her Katy, so she began to think of herself as that, but she felt no real connection to that name. "Why not call myself Katy?" she asked herself. "I have to call myself something." On the third day when asked who she was, she immediately answered, "I am Katy." Eric's face broke out in a bright smile; he looked happy; his eyes looked hopeful.
"Who am I?" he asked. A ghost of a memory tried to surface, but didn't quite break through. "I don't know," she answered miserably as tears filled her eyes. She felt a curious twinge in her heart at the pain in his eyes.
He silently handed her the picture from the nightstand. It was a wedding picture of her and him standing under a silk banner that proclaimed, Mr. and Mrs. Eric Northman. Her wedding dress was an off the shoulder, ivory silk creation that hugged her slim waist and flared into a full skirt; she thought it was beautiful. She was wearing a stunning diamond necklace with matching earrings, Her hair was pinned up off her long graceful neck in a simple french twist. The twist was held in place by at least five diamond hair pins
She looked at Eric in the picture for a long time. She was fascinated by him; he looked so gorgeous dressed in a dove gray tuxedo with a cumberbund that not only matched the deep blue of his eyes, but the spray of flowers she held in her hand. His blonde hair was swept back and cut shorter at the nape of his neck. They were facing each other. He was smiling down at her up-tilted face with love evident in his eyes. The two of them looked so happy and so in love, it made her want to cry.
Suddenly, she saw herself trying the wedding dress on in an expensive designer showroom while a small, dark haired, beautiful woman sat nearby and smiled at her. She walked out of the fitting room and turned slowly around, modeling the gown for the woman. In a soft, melodious southern drawl, the woman said, "Oh, Katy, that's the one!"
"I think you are right, Judith," she replied. "I'll take it," she said to the sales woman. The memory made her smile, but it flickered briefly and then was gone.
Katy desperately wanted to remember more. She took the picture out of the frame and ran her fingers back and forth over it as if she could cull other memories just by touching the paper. She tried hard, but nothing happened. She had no independent memory of the wedding, or of him.
Every night, Eric peppered her with questions about their life together. She wanted to remember for herself, but she also wanted to remember for him. His eyes were so hopeful and earnest that she wanted to please him just to make him smile. She loved his smiles, and her heart ached for him when she saw his frustrated look when she she failed.
She tried so hard to recall the events and people he spoke about. Sometimes just when she thought a ghost of a memory was slipping through through, her mind would grab for it, only to have it slip away. It frustrated her so much, she became tense and angry and she yelled at Eric. The harder she tried, the more her head ached until she usually became nauseous and begged him to stop.
One week later, she awoke to overhear Dr. Ludwig and Eric quarreling in the sitting room. "Stop pushing her so hard, Eric. She will remember in her own time. You have to give her a chance to do it on her own." Dr. Ludwig's unmistakable deep voice told him.
Eric's voice was clearly angry. He accused Dr. Ludwig of being incompetent and threatened to bring in another doctor. "I can't stand this, Amy! I want her back! She should be able to remember by now. Why can't she?" he raged at her.
Dr. Ludwig answered coolly, "Eric, I have told you this before, but if you don't believe me, bring in another doctor. He will only tell you the same thing. There is no physical reason for Katy's memory loss now. Because of the blood you gave her those first few days, her body is completely healed; her brain is no longer swollen. All the tests I have taken these past few days show that she has not suffered any permanent brain damage. Believe me that is truly a miracle."
"But..., and I must emphasize this, what she went through that night was so traumatic, her mind is blocking it out to protect her. Those two tried to kill her in an awful way, and she must have been terrified. She will get her memory back when she can handle it, and not a moment before. It may come back all at once, or it bits and pieces; we just don't know enough about the human mind to say. Eric, please understand that the more you push her, and the more pressure you put on her, the more you delay that moment." Dr. Ludwig's voice was firm when she told him that.
Katy heard a door slam hard as Eric left the room, then Dr. Ludwig came into the bedroom for her nightly visit. Later, after Dr. Ludwig left, Eric questioned her again, but he stopped after only a few questions when he saw the frustration in her eyes. He went into the bathroom while Katy sat on the bed hugging her knees close to her chest. She moved her legs into the lotus position and took a few deep cleansing breaths to try to calm her aching brain.
Once she cleared her mind of all thought, Katy drifted in and out of a trance like state. A memory of Eric lying over her on a floor in some large ballroom arose in her mind's eye. The memory was as strong and intense as if she were living through it again. They were lying together partially covered by a large table amidst broken dishes, food and glassware. Part of the roof had caved in, and there was water on the floor underneath the gaping hole in the roof.
The scene was surreal; she could hear people moaning and crying. Bodies seemed to be moving all around them, but Eric seemed unconcerned about other people. He was touching her. Oh, God, how he was touching her! It made her feel hot just to think about it. She told him everything but the touching part.
"That was the night we met. Do you remember anything else from that night?" he asked hopefully
She remembered mostly the electricity of his touch. A thrilling sensation flared so intensely in her groin, her nipples hardened in response. She turned away to hide her embarrassment, but her face blushed bright red. Eric noticed it anyway.
"I remember you kept touching and kissing me. I didn't even know you, but you kept kissing me and licking blood off my face and throat. A part of me wanted to tell you to stop; the other part didn't. I liked the way you made me feel."
Eric just laughed. "I didn't even know your name that night, but I couldn't keeps my hands off you. I couldn't stop kissing you. You smelled so good. You tasted so good. I wanted to make love to you right there. I could never remember wanting a woman as badly as I wanted you that night. You bewitched me, Katy. You cast a spell on me, think," he sighed happily as if he had just won a great victory.
Following Amy Ludwig's suggestion, Eric began to back off more, not prodding her so hard. Without his insistent questioning, Katy began to relax. Slowly more memories came back. Some of them were so good, they filled her with happiness as she clung to him and told him. Others were so bad, that she curled up in a ball in the corner of the bedroom, shaking and crying, until he coaxed her to come to him; he held her while she sobbed.
Their were big gaps in her memory, but she did remember her first husband, Richard. She cringed from that memory, but she made herself face it. He had beat her severely, putting her in the hospital. She ran from him.
She she remembered discovering the pornographic pictures of her father, Richard and his dad. She wanted to kill Richard before she remembered he was dead. She remembered her life on the run in the Witness Protection Program. What she didn't remember was much of her life with Eric. That was what she wanted to remember most of all.
When Eric was not with her in the bedroom, she missed him and felt afraid. One night after almost two weeks, she decided she would try to find him, but she never made it out of the bedroom. As she reached for the door handle, a cold feeling of dread and terror came over her. The feeling was so intense that she froze; her hands shook so violently, she could not open the door.
Several days later, Dr. Ludwig told her, "You need to exercise, Katy. You need to get out of this room. You need to rejoin life. Let's go for a walk outside." Remembering the incident with the door, Katy demurred, but Dr. Ludwig insisted. Katy panicked, but both Eric and Dr. Ludwig walked beside her through the empty upstairs hallways for almost a half an hour.
When they tried to get her to walk down the front stairway, Katy panicked again; her body went rigid and she began to tremble and breathe hard. "No. Don't. I don't want to go down there," she whispered frantically. Eric put his arm around her and hugged her close until the trembling stopped. "Okay, lover. We won't go down there today. Tomorrow, maybe."
The next evening, she and Eric did make it down the backstairs. Katy gripped Eric's hand and leaned into him for strength. They passed some of the vamp guards who called out, "Good evening, Lady Kathryn; I hope you are feeling better." Katy answered them with a timid smile.
She was doing okay until they passed the empty parlor where the fangbangers used to hang out, Katy began to panic again. She tore away from Eric and ran upstairs to the bedroom. He found her curled up in a ball in the corner again, hyperventilating. It took him hours to calm her down.
Later that night, about an hour before dawn, caught in the throes of a horrible nightmare, Katy moaned and thrashed as she slept. "Help, me. Help, me please!" she begged. She dreamed that Richard was towering over her on the second floor balcony of their home. His fist had come out of nowhere and crashed into her face. She could hear the bones in her jaw crack. He was screaming profanities at her.
After a sudden sensation of falling; she found herself lying on the cold tile floor of the foyer and looking upward. Tracy Coleman, her beautiful brunette friend, stood at the top of the stairs, staring down at her with her mouth opened in a wordless scream. Through it all, Katy saw and heard everything, but felt nothing. There was no pain. It was if she were watching herself in an old black and white horror flick.
The scene shifted; now Ralph Thompson was standing over her with a knife in his hand. She felt his large, heavy pointy toed shoe connect with her chest; she felt a rib give way. A familiar looking blonde knelt on the floor with a large knife in her hand too.
"What is she going to to with that?" Katy thought; then she saw the knife descending, cutting into her her, once, twice, three times, in the shoulder, the arm and the stomach.
"She cut me," Katy thought to herself incredulously. She could hear the sickening sound of the knife as it entered her body. She could see the blood on the knife and as it pouring out of her wounds. Again there was sound, but no pain. She heard the sound of her ribs cracking as Ralph kicked her again. "They're killing me. Why can't I feel it?" Her head snapped forward as she hear his foot connect with her head.
The scene kept shifting back and forth from Richard to Ralph and Tiffany until everything rolled into one long unending horror. The odd sensation that she was watching an old movie of herself being murdered, not once, but twice, was strangely curious. She was numb for a long time... and then the pain hit. It was deep, ferocious, agonizing and unending. She screamed, and screamed. Katy burst upward from a prone position to a crouch on the bed; her arms flailed about trying to defend herself, trying to stop them all.
"It's okay, Katy. I"m here. You're safe! You're safe! It's only a dream, lover. Only a dream." Eric's deep voice crooned to her. He lifted her up off the bed and sat down in the chair with her in his lap and began rocking her again. Sobbing loudly, she put her arms around him and hung on for dear life.
Katy's face and body were wet with tears and perspiration. She shook with fear as Eric held her to him. For long minutes, her heart pounded, and her breath came out in short, rapid gasps. He whispered to her softly until she began to calm. He pushed a lock of hair behind her ear and cupped her face with his big gentle hand. That hand felt good as it stroked her cheek and then her arm. With his other hand, he softly stroked her back reassuring her that everything was all right. Under his tender ministrations, the the tension left her body.
Finally she said, "They tried to kill me: Richard, then Ralph and that fangbanger, Tiffany. Why?"
"Tiffany tried to kill you because she was jealous of you. She wanted me and she wanted you out of the way. Ralph was still angry at you for rejecting him. It doesn't matter. You will never have to worry about them any more, Katy. They are both dead."
"Good," was all that Katy said.
Eric vividly remembered that night; it was one he blamed himself for. It was one would never forget. Somehow Ralph Thomson and Tiffany Coulter had found out that he and Katy planned to return to the palace after the wedding without their usual full complement of security. Some how they managed to slip through all his security measures and waited for them in the fangbanger parlor on the first floor.
When they returned from the reception, Katy had stopped to use the bathroom downstairs while he went upstairs to their bedroom to get the wedding gift he had bought her out of his closet. He had tickets to an exclusive vampire resort in the Caribbean. That's where he wanted to take her for a two week honeymoon. Tiffany and Ralph saw them enter from the back door. After he went upstairs, they followed her into the bathroom, locked the door attacked her.
Through their blood bond, Eric felt agonizing pain as the those two monsters knocked her to the floor and began to kick and stab her. He remembered feeling the ferocious kicks to the body and head delivered by Ralph. He remembered feeling the knives stabbing into her body. He remembered the sting, and the the ferocious burning pain from the poison on those knives. He flew down the stairs, wrenched open the locked bathroom door and saw Katy lying in a pull of blood as those two worked her over. With one swipe, he slammed both of them against the floor so hard they were knocked unconscious.
Eric's roar as he tore off the bathroom door summoned several vamp guards from outside. He handed Tiffany and Ralph over to his men. The couple were chained up in the torture room above the garage until he finished attending to Katy. When they regained consciousness, they screamed and begged their guards for mercy.
Later that night as Katy lay unconscious upstairs with Dr. Ludwig at her side, Eric questioned them. He found out that Tiffany was behind the the whole thing. He found out that she played on Ralph's hatred of Katy and of him. He killed them both one at a time by slowly tearing them apart. They were both wide awake when he did that; he took his time. He killed Tiffany last. He made her watch as he destroyed Ralph Thompson. He wanted to to know exactly what was going to happen to her.
Katy could feel the violent intensity of his rage at those two through their bond. She knew that Tiffany and Ralph and suffered a terrible death at his hands. She didn't feel sorry for them; she didn't care at all.
"Good. I am glad they're dead," she said again.