Here's the finale of Healing in three parts. It was all very difficult to come to terms with. I put it off until I was almost done with my first draft of the entire book. I didn't want to put them through it and didn't want to go through it myself, but I knew it was necessary. I was surprised at the result as well. I wasn't sure how she would handle this and was scared at what happened. Please leave commentary. Thanks.
Healing Part Three: Redemption
My face stung with the strikes across it by Josette's hand. The movements brought a wind that made the icy chill across my naked body even worse. I wondered how long my bride would carry on in this way. Perhaps until dawn. I would take it, though. I would endure anything for her. Yes, I already had her, but I would never take that for granted. I swore that to myself when I married this Maggie Evans, my Josette reborn. I adored her, had been horrible to her. It wasn't entirely my fault, but it was still my crime. I'd won her love and I would go on winning it through time. A marriage renewed again and again is a marriage worth having. God knows I savoured mine.
Something altered her shadowy expression as I looked up at her. Those dark eyes filled with hunger; a more delicate form of rage. I saw myself in those eyes. It was more than my reflection, it was a parcel of the insanity I'd inflicted on her all those years ago. I watched as the underside of her hand lowered down, losing focus for me. I believed she might smoothly stroke my face. The tips of fingers glided down my chin, the underside of my jaw.
Exhaling was the incorrect thing for me to do in this instance, as to pull in any breath was gone. I tried gasping for it but she pressed her right hand down onto my throat with such extreme force even the slaps and the freezing ice escaped what I was feeling! Involuntarily I choked in a moan and even this was mercy from her, but not for long. She moved her hand only to take a tighter grip with both.
Yes, this was what I had done to her and now she was giving it all back to me. My eyes were shut but I could practically see the malicious disgust on her face. As she gripped my throat so hard, suffocating my lungs her arms began to shake with convulsions that reached me further, rattling my entire frame. I began truly fearing how far she would take this.
Her voice became a whispering growl to my ear, "Do you have any idea how you've shamed us all, Barnabas Collins? Do you?"
In such a lack of air I couldn't answer but this struck a feeling to my chest harder than the slaps had been. It went to the core of all I was and wanted to be. I felt the tears come to my eyes but I kept them shut. I could not endure to see this contempt for me on her face, the sweetest beauty that ever graced the earth with her spirit, blessing us all, but tormented by all that had happened and so much being my fault.
Josette uttered in this new voice most horrible to me, so much worse than all the previous pain, "Shame..."
The tears finally left from my closed lids and poured back. I expected physical harm but this was worse. Her emotions and her words were ever present and would haunt me in throes of misery for many inevitable nightmares to come.
Perhaps she saw the tears or she had told me what she needed to, as I could now gasp in tiny breaths and then in longer ones. I blinked my eyes open, lashes damp with grief. I finally found my voice and her anger calmed, "Yes... yes, my love. I know. I will deny nothing."
Her mouth opened and suddenly she was at my throat again but this time it was to feed and drink what she could with a vengeance. No pleasure could I derive from this experienced having known so many others. The fluid poured from me in my helplessness and the pain of it was like knives. Would she know my current thoughts and feelings in this exchange?
Josette released me and stopped. She swallowed and breathed deeply, strongly, centering herself. Crouching down she picked up something nearby. Then I was surprised to feel a plush cushioning against my skin. It soaked the icy moisture away from my flesh. She was drying me now. It was Heaven.
As she towelled dry my cold aches and pains, she groped at cubes of ice that had melted down to nodules and dropped them back into the metal bucket. She tended my skin delicately with the cloth and I began to warm again. Then she leaned down and kissed me on the lips. A metal clicking sounded as I reached what I could of her face and hair, trailing all around my head, the smell of it intoxicating me in new ways.
Our lips parted and I gently asked, "Can you ever forgive me?"
Her face softened, "Can you... bring yourself forth... for me?"
I sensed a double meaning there, but she lowered her head and spread kisses upon the lower half of my torso, my hands stroking her hair as I lay there docile. I concentrated on the pleasure sweeping away the pain, her face warmed by the fire, her lips pursing their way along my frigid chest, slowly, as she stroked me below to relieve and encourage me, or dare I say inspire me? I leaned myself up to reach her as her mouth met mine.
You were a gentleman before, and I'll see to it you are one again...
Suddenly I was haunted by these words she had told me before we were even engaged again to wed in this life. I suppose she was proving it to herself in this way. The force she possessed now thrilled me again. I wanted to embrace her dearly but the chains held me so I could not reach for her. I was desperate to hold her but I knew she must have her way in this. What she was doing to me now enticed me madly as I began to desire her. Perhaps she didn't want me now. Perhaps this was a tease to my affections.
Josette continued to caress me with her silken fingers and lips. She knew I was ready, but would she have me? I had grown desperate, the blood in me had circulated quickly and her fury ignited a desire to be taken by her, a desire so strong that it surprised me. Please, I thought, let us be united in this.
Her bringing herself over me, a drape of dry bedclothes behind her, her mouth upon mine was the only reassurance. I could only attempt a small lift to incline myself toward this.
The tension flared in our kiss and I tried to pull away in shock from the pain. My arms straitening I fell back to the cushions and lost her kiss. I barely noticed the dampness of the sheets beneath us. The clamps she'd placed on me were producing sweat from my wrists and ankles.
My bride became still, watching me with concern and petting my face kindly. It helped me to notice that the pain of her blows to my cheeks was drifting away. I blinked, and a memory came back when long ago I had whispered, "Maggie... are you sure about... me?"
I closed my eyes in the sensation of her surrounding me again. The damage to my throat, the biting and strangling faded as the knowledge of her fed back through me. Dare I touch her? Dare I coil my fingers around her lovely parts? I could barely reach her, of course. She increased her position, her knees moving up on either side of me and pushing down and away, we both inhaled sharply as she halted, aware of nothing but where we were as matrimonial consorts, as lovers, as friends.
She moved over me so I could finally touch her. My hands went up, chains rattling from my manacled wrists, sweeping across her bosom to her shoulders and she came down to touch my lips with hers, her arms finding their way around me once more and I moved with her again, within her again.
Then the memory of what I'd asked her long ago came back
Was she sure? She hadn't spoken.
Actions do speak louder than words but then her answer came out, "I've never been surer of anything... in all of my lives. It took me this long to reach you, my dearest."
I came back to the present with this understanding. She was sure.
Then she leaned over me to grab something, of which I do not know and a gentler clinking sound occurred. She separated us and in that renewed loss of bliss I worried more pain would come. "Just welcome it," I told myself, but she'd made me want her so horribly...
One ankle was free of restraint, and then the other as she unlocked the braces at my legs and moved them away. Then she reached for the manacles at my wrists and I was free, but even in my relief I was afraid to move.
I could hear the ropes of metal clink and fall into piles of their own on all four corners of our bed. ... Yes... I was willing to claim this place as ours now. Perhaps I may not always say so, but tonight I felt I had earned to share this room with her.
"Yes, you have," Josette answered, a true woman in charge, "you've been very good, my dear. Very, very good."
I meant to thank her but she climbed on top of me again and this time it was her that looked to be in pain. Her head leaned back. She pressed her hands on my chest to support herself and I saw a tightness inside her I was unfamiliar with. This experience had increased our devotion, but already?
My arms were released but I was afraid to lift them up to her. She finally began to move above me and breathe with excitement. I reached for her hands on my chest and turned hers to embrace them, moving with so much passion I feared I'd let myself go at any moment if either of us weren't careful. Josette's torment to Kitty's sacrifice to Maggie's pain had finally evolved for me a vengeance, and I was positive she could complete it for herself.
The minutes passed as she gripped my hands, taking complete control as she needed to compel me with. I needed this as well. She opened her mouth terrifying me with her fangs. Would she drink everything and leave me a withered husk this time? Perhaps allowing me to suffer for days without nourishment... The grip of our hands became tighter upon my sternum. Then a warm moisture splashed to my hands.
No-o-o... No, not now, she was so close. She can't break down now, but she had. Her sobs were echoing in the stillness of our unity.
"W-h-y?" she asked, her voice melting with the tears that dripped down her cheeks.
I released my hands from hers to take her by the arms and we moved to face each other side by side. I kept the bedclothes wrapped over us. Perhaps that would help. I stroked the top of her head and down her silken hair.
"Margaret Josette Dupres? What harms you now? Please, do whatever you want to me, whatever helps."
She continued to cry, shaking, exhaling and then inhaling to gulp down the tears, "Why... did... all of these things... happen to us?"
Here was a question no one could answer. The realm of all existence lay on this inquiry. The depths of our persona were created in all of these horrible actions and how we dealt with their results. Her question, especially as Josette Dupres, struggling through new lives to reach me, was the necessary person beyond any other to seek these answers. But the power of her anger to seek vengeance on me wielded itself into the power of her grief to the necessity of doing so.
"Don't be sorry, my dearest," I consoled her as we lay side by side. I placed her palm along the left portion of my chest, "feel my heart. Just feel it. And cry or scream, harm me or love me, call me your demon. Do what you will... as long as we belong to each other... That's all that matters to me."
Her tears cleared as she stared at her hand over my heart. She sniffed and looked up at me, eyes flitting back and forth in a smile that crept up. How I adored those eyes. I always knew it was her when they moved like that. And she was right. Third time is the charm and Maggie Evans had guided her lives to this, along with the rest of us. If only I'd known how to uncover that when I first saw her, shorter of skirt, startled at first, but willing to keep me company over a cup of no fancy brew. (Strong as it could be.) Always as giving as my Josette was and as, my Josette, she still is.
I looked into her eyes and thought of that night. There we were again in that bed but sharing that memory at the table she waited on. Sitting side by side once more in total ignorance that we'd met again. We thought of that together as we lay there, the dampness beneath me on the sheets, the dampness on my thumb as it slid across her cheek. All the turmoil we'd suffered and here we were, our passion having been so strong, now our love was made that much stronger by what we'd overcome.
"Barnabas... hold me," she wept softly.
I did, and she returned my embrace. All of the strength of her violence becoming the strength in her love.
"No more," she uttered, a quaver in my ear, and then a whisper, "No more."
"Yes," I whispered toward her ear in return, "no more."
Our heads pulled away so that we faced each other again, "No more violence, my darling."
"No more pain?" she asked.
We kissed and she held my jaw in a fair gesture, fingers beaded around to my neck.
"No. No more pain," I said, "Only Dark Shadows... and Light."