Gothicana

“You play so beautifully,” she mused out loud, in a slight daze. “Even your demons must sing.”

His eyes opened at that. “And what do your demons do, little crow?”

She looked away. “Scream.”

“Come here,” he commanded her, and she glanced towards the stairs.

“What if someone comes down? I’ve been told too many times that teachers and students ca

“I think we’re beyond the point of mingling now, don’t you think?” he spoke wryly, pressing his finger to another key. “Come here.”

On slightly shaky legs, she stood up and walked to him. The moment she reached his side, he picked her up and put her on the piano, her ass on the edge and her feet on the bench on either side of his thighs. Heart working double time, she gazed down at his searing silver eyes, taking in his masculine face and that streak of white.

“Tell me about Morning Star Institute,” he ordered her casually, as though just speaking the very name didn’t make her stomach drop.

“I... I don’t know where to begin,” she stuttered, realizing she was again trapped with him even though she was in the elevated position.

“The begi

“And you... you won’t use it against me?” she gulped, voicing one of her deepest fears.

His eyes flared. “No.”

Corvina took a deep breath in, staring down at her nails. “Can you just... not look at me while I’m speaking? It makes the nerves worse.”

Vad nodded, putting his hands on her thighs and spreading them wider, his fingers playing on her knees. “I’ll be looking at something else. And if you’re good, I’ll make you come.”

A jittery breath leaving her lips, Corvina looked up at the ceiling. “Isn’t that weird for this kind of conversation?”

His fingers moved to the edge of her stockings. “It will keep your mind from hyperventilating. Now, talk to me.”

Corvina bit her lip as his fingers traced the edge of her stockings, back and forth and back and forth, and she caved to his demand. She wanted to tell him, to trust him, and this seemed like the first step. She just hoped he didn’t disappoint her. 

“My mother is schizophrenic,” she spoke the words out loud as his fingers softly caressed the skin of her thighs. It felt bizarre talking about it to him while he touched her with such sexual intent. But it was working in calming her down and refocusing her brain.

“So was my father,” she continued, slightly breathless as his fingers caressed her skin where her stockings ended. “He was never diagnosed but during one of my mother’s sessions, she admitted that he killed himself because the voices told him to, that if he didn’t die, we would. In his own convoluted way, he was protecting us.”

“And you think you inherited it from them?” his words came against the inside of her thigh. This was so, so odd but god did it make her feel less stressed about the conversation.

“The chances with one parent are high enough, with two it’s astronomical,” she informed him as his teeth tugged her stocking down. “My mother has been hearing voices and seeing things for years. It apparently got worse after I was born. She never hurt me, but she wasn’t always present. She feared for the longest time that if I interacted with anyone except her, they would take me away.”

“So she kept you with her, homeschooled you, never let you go out,” he stated, and she lay back on the piano, keeping her gaze straight up.

“How do you even know all that? But yes,” she admitted in a whisper. “She loved me so much but she didn’t know how to love me right. It wasn’t her fault. She never had any help at all.”

“Did you get her help?”

“Don’t you already know that?”

“I told you, I want to hear it from you.”

Corvina nodded, her eyes tearing up as she remembered the day. “I already realized there was something not right when I was in my teens. She’d let me go to the post office in town once a week to send out orders. That’s where I researched more and came across the Institute. I debated for months if I should or shouldn’t. I’d be all alone if they took her away, you know?” her voice cracked on the last words.

He pressed a soft kiss to her skin. “But you did it anyway, didn’t you, you brave, beautiful girl?”

Something inside her flourished under his words. She felt a lone tear streak down the corner of her eye. “It was the day I turned eighteen. I phoned them, and they came the next day to take her away. She was so angry,” Corvina whispered.

“Is she still angry?”

Corvina huffed a humorless laugh. “Sometimes I wish she was. She barely remembers me most days now. Her dementia had grown worse. The medicines they have her on have dulled her memories. It’s a side effect.”

“And you, little crow?” he asked against her flesh. “What about you?”

She swallowed, knowing her admission might change things. “I hear voices too. Always have, one particular voice. Ironically, he’s the one who told me about my mother needing help.”

“He?” his tone was curious.

“Mo,” she told him.

“Ah,” he chuckled. “I don’t know if I’m relieved or not knowing it was a voice and not a man in your head when I was fucking you.”

Her eyes went to the beautiful metal and glass chandelier just as his fingers pulled her panties aside. “So, you hear voices.”

“I used to hear just Mo,” she corrected. “Maybe one or two other rarely. I admitted myself at the Institute when they took mama in to get myself tested. Just to know be aware, you know?”

“And?”

“And negative,” she informed him as his finger began to circle her nether lips, making her clench. “The doctors told me I didn’t have any symptoms, and basically wrote Mo off as my subconscious’ way of coping with an absent father in a lonely household. But then, I was too young to show the signs properly, so they told me to keep an eye on things.” 

“There have been other signs?” he asked, his words warm right against her core.

It took Corvina a full second to focus on his words and hold back a full-body shudder. “Since coming to Verenmore, things have escalated. I’ve started hearing more voices, seeing things,” she told him, the fear of her memory with the mirror and the pleasure of his mouth in the present fucking with her mind. “It’s never happened before.”  

“Do you think it’s your mind or this place?” he voiced the one question she’d been struggling with for months.

“I truly don’t know,” she murmured, her hands finding the edge of the piano and holding tight as his tongue flicked out over her.  “There’s a part of me that wants to believe it’s Verenmore, that the things I’ve been experiencing are something external. But I don’t know how that makes anything better, because I’m still the one hearing voices and seeing things. Whether it’s internal or external, it means I’m not okay.”

“It could very well be his place,” he spoke against her flesh. “There are too many things in this world without any rational explanation, things that happen without logic. I wouldn’t dismiss that just yet.”

Her breasts heaved as he swiped his tongue over her again with the last word. One of her hands tangled in his hair as he pulled her hips off the edge, canting it in the air and angling it as he wanted, her body his to direct in the moment as he wished. He didn’t ask her any more questions, his tongue diving deep inside her before coming back out, finding her clit, circling it with a skill she knew was both gifted and polished over time.