Seas of Snow Read online

  In the photograph, they were stepping into a clearing in the trees. One of the places they went to play – well, whatever it was they used to play.

  These days they didn’t play so much, but they talked in hushed tones, telling each other stories, she supposed, sharing secrets and being there for each other. And they would make each other laugh! How they would make each other laugh …

  She mused on this now, comparing the dwindling silhouette of the two in the distance with the two in the frame.

  How innocence so easily morphs into experience, she thought to herself. You blink and suddenly your little girl is growing up. Your turn your head and she is becoming a woman. You go out for a drive with … with … well, the man you adore … and your little girl changes, forever.

  Rosebuds

  Gracie looked at him and realised she had no choice. She waited, momentarily, to see if God would do another miracle for her, like he did when she was locked in the cupboard all those years ago.

  She searched her mind for an explanation. The regular anxious refrain tormented her. Was it a test? Or had she done something wrong? Had she hurt someone by accident? Had she forgotten some of her chores? Was she a bad person, but just didn’t know it?

  So many questions and not a single answer. And all the while standing there in her nix, as she called them. She was horribly, painfully aware of her body under his fierce gaze.

  She wasn’t sure what exactly he was looking at, but she could hear his breath intensifying. A slow smile seeped over his face, and his tar-like eyes glinted. She thought of that beady eye in the leaves all those years back. It was the same intent. She was under no illusion this time either, he wanted to devour her. Hurt her, tear her apart.

  ‘Get them off,’ he commanded, in a low whisper.

  *

  He knew she was just teasing him, look at her, the little slut. She was always prancing about in her thin cotton dresses, taunting him with the silhouette of her shape and the tawniness of her legs. Her eyes were wide and dark, pupils dilated with desire for him. He knew it. He could sense the magical combination she was feeling of fear and trepidation mixed with an acknowledgement of the submission that was to come.

  He felt the slow pulsing of blood coursing into hardness in his trousers. He luxuriated in the familiar hotness, the pain-­pleasure urgency that was building there. Aching inside, aching for her, aching for those deer-like eyes to give up their fight, to relent, to submit to their desire.

  He slowly let his gaze wander over her skin. God, he could breathe in her almond milkiness from her. Soft, pale shoulders crowned in a froth of yellow hair. Those budding nipples, straining in aching need for his touch. God, they were just about the prettiest things he had ever seen.

  They were the dusky colour of rosebuds about to open on a spring morning. Perfect little circles of lusciousness, waiting to be licked and sucked and bitten. They were raised into little points in the centre. God, it was fucking good to see them. They had been tantalising him beneath her dresses for months, and now they were his.

  He looked at them, letting their rosebud pinkness tempt him. He could tell they were softly fleshy around the outside and hard as fuck in the middle. He was going to get his teeth around those. Jesus.

  He was aware of his own hardness intensifying to a glorious sting of need. He felt it pressing against the fabric, fiercely.

  He looked down at her small stomach. Flat as a boy’s with a cute, yes, he chuckled to himself, cute little belly button which just cried out to be tasted.

  And those legs were something else. She had sprouted up several inches in the last few years and her long limbs were elegant, beautifully shaped, perfect. There was a downy softness to them as little hairs caught the light that was wafting in from the window.

  He saw she was still wearing her underwear and issued the command.

  Slowly, she began to remove them.

  Aha, this one likes a striptease, does she? He chuckled to himself, watching her bend over in front of him. Now that was a view he liked, he chuckled some more. We’ll be having some of that later.

  He stared at her awkward frame and ordered her to get into the bath.

  The water was about halfway up and the bubbles were landscaped into snowy peaks across the surface.

  The girl cowered in front of him. This he liked very, very much. That exquisite communion of fear and submission. She was going to do everything he wanted, everything. He felt the excitement mount in his trousers and let himself groan in pleasure of the anticipation.

  For Joe, it was always the waiting and the watching. The more he waited, and the more he watched, the more devastatingly fucking powerful his release would be.

  He had learned to watch and wait for hours. God, it wasn’t easy. Like anyone else, when he was on the point of being ready, his body naturally wanted to give in to that wave of pleasure spasms. But he’d learned with practice that he could intensify his own climax beyond the hopes of any man by lingering in an almost pleasure-pain for as long as possible. Then, my friend, the impact of that wave of spasms would be blow-your-­fucking-mind extreme.

  Of course, he’d learned this self-awareness over time, and over time took the liberty of practising with many, many victims. He didn’t like to think of them as victims, naturally, he would think of them merely as accomplices to his own will. After all, they always submitted in the end, when that desire-­relent moment hovered between them, like a bubble waiting to be burst.

  Finnegan was the first of many. Joe had realised that day that violence towards people did something more exquisite for him than torturing creatures.

  Shame, in a way, because he’d always got a lot of thrills from thinking up new and exciting ways to taunt and execute God’s furry, spiky, slimy, pathetic little friends.

  Ha! So the Lord God made them all, did he. Well he would show Him! If the Lord God made them all, it was down to Joe to, well, kill them all.

  And so he did. Scores of them. Foxes, badgers, snakes. Cats and dogs, after a while. Nothing was too much of a challenge.

  But people were something else. There was something about the emotion you could see in the beating heart of another human being, the expression in their eyes, the thrill you would feel when they reached that sweet point when they knew there was no way out.

  God’s creatures were great and all – but nothing compared to the fleshly humanness of his own kind.

  After Finnegan, there was that hiatus in his progress. Being locked up for a few months did two things. First, it forced him to rethink how to carry out his business more discreetly. Second, it meant his Ma and his sister were told what he’d done. He’d need to win them round again and explain it was self-defence. He knew he could do it.

  After he’d been released, he allowed himself less than a day before striking again. That feeling of wretched, gut-tearing, ball-breaking pleasure-pain had so overwhelmed him, so exhilarated him, that he needed to find out whether he could replicate it.

  So at dusk the following day, he went out for a walk. His Ma’s voice ringing in his ears ‘If you’re not back in half an hour, we’re not waiting and your tea will go in the bin’.

  He knew she was lying. There was no way Ma would actually discard food. They were too poor for that. It would be neatly wrapped up, or kept hot for him, or put somewhere to cool, depending on what it was. He was always his Ma’s favourite, despite everything. Despite even Finnegan. She’d bought the story about Finnegan attacking him and Joe needing to defend himself. She had to believe in him, she had to. She needed to. He was convinced he was still her favourite. Well, why wouldn’t he be? Those beautiful, leaf-green eyes, the black eyelashes fronding them, a strong jaw and one of those noses a Roman emperor would have had. Powerful, beautiful.

  He tanned at the slightest hint of the sun so was walnut brown throughout the year. And he was blessed with genes which made him strong and muscular with very little effort. He had a defined stomach and arm muscles before he was out of juni
or school.

  And as he entered his teens, he had that gorgeous muscle line only very well-toned men develop, at the base of the abdominals and leading down …

  His thighs were toned and strong but not thickset like some boys get. He was lithe and muscular, dark and dashing, with the flashing whites of his eyes contrasting glintingly with the dark-green pools of his irises.

  All the girls admired his physique, and unquestionably his own mother believed her son to be utterly lovely. His beauty helped him disguise the ugliness of his nature. Even after the Finnegan incident, people struggled to pin the blame of tortured animals, broken wings, drowned cats, on Joe.

  It was one of the reasons he had had to react the way he did when Finnegan stepped in and tried to stop him. For the first time in his life, someone had witnessed that wicked sneer, that evil glint, that full-body, muscular grip of power. So he had to do something about it. Even if it led to consequences for him, too.

  It was true that even in the throes of his violence, there was something warrior-like, attractive even, about him. Finnegan saw it that day. A strength and a sense of knowing that would make grown men nervous. Even in the depths of his evil, Joe had the looks of a storybook hero.

  His sister hadn’t been so lucky in the genes department. She had a quiet, placid face … somewhat pale and uninteresting to look at.

  But still, her bird-like fragility fascinated him, and he pledged himself that at some point he would taste her moment of submission, too.

  Now, before him, a young girl was clambering into the bath. He watched as the foam snows caressed her form. He smelt the air, smelt her skin, became aware of the lemony sweetness engulfing the room.

  Her knees were raised slightly, because of the smallness of the bath. She was eyeing him in trepidation. The desire she had for him was wallowing in those eyes, peering out from under her lashes with the look of an Old Testament temptress.

  He looked at her parted knees and followed the line of her thighs down as far as he could see.

  White, fluffy soap suds gathered across her navel and between her legs.

  It took him straight back to that first time, when he had had that first tantalising glimpse of the gap between her legs.

  Not that he could see anything then, and not that he could see anything now.

  But he knew what was there. And his body groaned and strained for it, wanted to see it, wanted to touch it.

  Watch and wait, Joe. Watch and wait …

  He felt the hardness swell between his own legs. Slowly, exquisitely.

  Her rosy sweetness, softly sheening in the water now as the hotness flushed her, begged to be touched.

  Her shoulders had white bubbles glinting on them, and her perfect little nipples were hazed in whiteness.

  His attention was caught again by the gap between her legs.

  He groped inside his trousers for one, hard, torturous squeeze. God, that felt good …

  And he watched the bubbles sparkle and play, prickling against each other.

  He pulled his hand out and hovered it above her, above that private place only her Ma and Billy had ever seen before.

  He imagined its taste. Sweet, young, juicy. He imagined the feeling he would have when he touched it. He knew how soft and yielding it would be.

  Even now, he could sense how desperate she was for him to do it.

  But I’ll make you wait, you little bitch, he thought, like you’ve made me wait all this time.

  And his thoughts drifted back to what it would feel like to touch it, to part the soft folds, pinkly warm because of the water. He could imagine the small, perfect roundness of her pleasure point and felt – urgently – that he needed to see it, now.

  But he watched, and he waited.

  Daffodils

  Sun dappled through the trees and speckled onto the school lawn. She didn’t know it yet, but today was going to be one of the most important days of her life.

  It had begun ordinarily enough. Pulled on her grey pinafore, popped on her beret and yanked up her scratchy grey socks, tying them up with those garters that left horrid red marks around her legs. Forced down her spoonful of malt and cod liver oil – revolting – the daily ritual her Ma imposed on her which was supposed to keep her fit and healthy.

  Skipped down the road to school, contemplating the day ahead and looking forward in particular to the times tables test as she had learned them all off by heart now and was feeling rather pleased with herself.

  Tish and Jo could be as mean as they liked. They couldn’t take away the happy feelings she got at doing well at something.

  As expected, times tables went well and it wasn’t long until before lunchtime. Gracie sneaked into her favourite haunt, the library, picked out a storybook from the shelves and settled herself down.

  Yellow sunshine streamed in through the windows and cast its glow in columns of fairy twinkles, each dust particle brightly kinetic with energy and light. She started humming to herself, quietly.

  The door opened behind her and she realised Mr Hall had come into the room. Lost in thought, he tapped on the spines of several books in a corner section of the library Gracie hadn’t investigated much and landed on a dark blue cloth-bound book with beautiful gold embossing down the edge.

  Still standing, he opened its leaves and looked intently at the pages. Gracie wasn’t sure whether she should make her presence known or not. She didn’t want to be spying or anything. So she did a little cough.

  Mr Hall looked up and smiled broadly.

  ‘Hello Gracie, how are you today?’

  ‘Very well thank you, Mr Hall. How are you?’

  Mr Hall wandered over, the blue book still clasped in his hands.

  ‘What are you reading today, Gracie?’

  ‘Oh, it’s a lovely story about a young boy who travels through space and meets an airline pilot and a whole series of other grown-ups. He’s a very lonely boy and he loves a rose that he discovered growing on his planet. But he feels upset because of some things the rose did and said, so he leaves her. But then he starts missing her, and he realises he loves her. And he meets all these people and ends up feeling he doesn’t really understand grown-ups.’

  ‘The Little Prince?’ asked Mr Hall.

  ‘Yes!’ Gracie gulped, delighted he knew the story.

  ‘What is it you like about the story?’

  ‘Well, in a funny kind of way what I like about it is that I want to be the Little Prince’s friend, and cheer him up and make him see things will be alright. I feel sorry for him and I think I understand some of the feelings he has.’

  ‘So you’re experiencing what we might call “empathy”. It’s when something we hear about resonates with us and we feel completely in tune with a feeling or a thought. If you’re feeling sorry for him, it’s possible it might be reminding you of times you have also been sad, or treated badly by people.’

  Gracie listened intently.

  ‘The wonderful thing about literature is that it helps bring us closer to our own emotions, and helps us process and understand what we are going through ourselves. If something is written beautifully, it can spark something special in us, make us feel a little bit more alive.’

  At this, Gracie was a little surprised, but thought about it and mentally ticked off a number of stories that had made her laugh or cry, or feel sorry for someone or feel angry at someone. She realised he was probably right.

  ‘Do you mean, like if I read something that makes me sad, that I am feeling something really powerfully because it reminds me of something myself?’

  ‘Yes, that’s the sort of thing I mean. When you’re older I’ll teach you about transference and counter-transference but that’s something for another day. For now, let’s just think about how literature can help you feel closer to your own emotions. Closer to your own imagination.’

  Gracie thought about the Little Prince and how brave he was, setting out on his own. And also how lonely he was. And how what the grown-ups said real
ly didn’t make sense sometimes …

  ‘How much poetry have you read, Gracie?’ Mr Hall suddenly asked.

  ‘Not loads, sir, mostly stories really. Oh, and hymns. “All Things Bright and Beautiful” is a poem, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right, Gracie. Lots of songs are poems, not just hymns.’

  He paused a moment.

  ‘I think you’re exactly the kind of girl who might like poems. You are thoughtful and patient and you take your time to enjoy words.’

  And then he said it. That one little phrase that had stuck with her ever since.

  ‘Poetry is the most marvellous Secret Key to escaping real life and disappearing into a world of your own. It’s your very own Castle of Make-Believe.’

  ‘I’m not sure I understand, sir …’

  ‘Well, Gracie, the clever thing about poetry is that each and every person will read a poem in their own way, bringing with them their own experiences and perceptions and opinions and prejudices. Each and every person will see different things in different ways. An interpretation of understanding here, a shade of emotion there. And the layers! You would be amazed all the hidden layers there are in poetry – but unlike in maths, there’s no “right” or “wrong” answer. All that matters is how it makes you feel, and what it makes you think.

  ‘There are word patterns and sounds; clever loops and references and what we call sonic echoes, where the sounds words and syllables make reflect each other and echo each other. Some people will spot some things, other people will spot others. Some people will hear things, some people won’t. That’s the beauty of it, Gracie.’

  Gracie was thinking it sounded very confusing.