- 2 -
The Vaught Plantation - August 5th, 1952 - 10:17pm

The shame set in sooner than normal. Elizabeth didn’t even get the fun part of her illicit pastime. Perhaps that’s why, she thought. The feeling of prickle legged spiders walking down her arms and legs made her shift uncomfortably in the backseat as they drove through the night. Timothy’s scent still clung to her skin, that candy-like cologne turning noxious as it lingered. Elizabeth relived his hands on her thighs and his warm lips pressing hard against hers. The ache remained as well, but it had changed. In the play room, she felt like a kiln burning with existential, primordial heat. In the dark, scurrying away from her encounter, it was like she had thrown a torch inside a paper wasp nest. The emptiness inside her was all lit for the world to see as the flames licked their way through the thin husk of her body. She needed a bath and fresh underwear. And to have Timothy and that girl black bagged and dosed if they ever utter a fucking word about me to anyone.

The car wound through dark woods until Vaught Plantation suddenly popped into view. The old manor loomed out of the night as though it were physically holding back the creep of trees. Or maybe it was the other way around, the trees standing against the oppressive structure and trying to contain it. Elizabeth looked out at the house as they drove up the long, meandering driveway. She wondered for the thousandth time what the place would look like if it were filled with life and light. For her whole life, it had been a glowering shade watching the world around it with contempt. When they were children, her younger sister invented horrid stories about the place. Stories about bones in the foundation, about ghosts in the old garden where the slave quarters once stood, and about an old woman who wandered the east fields with a scythe ready to lop off the heads of little girls who didn’t share their dolls. Elizabeth was never surprised that her sister found a way to bully her in adulthood since Abigail learned at a young age how to keep the upper hand.

The driver pulled the car to a stop, and Elizabeth waited for the door to open. She liked her driver. He was discrete and rarely spoke more than a dozen words any time she saw him. His uneasy glance did nothing to soothe the worries knitting together in her stomach as she stepped out of the car. She told him good night while trying to infuse her words with enough emotion to convey her sense of dread. She could have told him if she wanted. She could have spilled out all her secrets from the past weeks, everything about Alice and all her anger and hate toward Benjamin. The driver would have listened, said nothing, and that would have been the end of it. It might have made her feel better.. She lingered on the top step as the car pulled away.

The emptiness of the land sucked down the air into a claustrophobic nightmare of darkness and dread. The workforce had dwindled to nearly nothing because of the war. The government strong-armed them into planting food crops instead of more profitable things like tobacco. It had been another bad turn for already bad circumstances. Land wasn’t cheap to maintain and fields of potatoes cost more than fallow ones. Naturally, the government came up short when it was time to pay back the Vaught’s forced generosity, all the tax dollars suddenly pulled into funding a new war altogether. They were at least cut loose from planting worthless crops, but, in the madness of it all, somehow people were smoking less. Milktec again, undoubtedly. Something in their milk caused people to take an aversion to tobacco altogether.

Elizabeth scoffed at the darkness around her and went inside.

The interior of the house smelled strange. She attributed this to the massive bouquet of flowers waiting for her in the foyer. Most women would have been excited to find such a prize waiting for them. After receiving a cryptic call, Elizabeth knew the gift could be nothing other than a threat. She spotted a small card sticking up from the middle of the array of flowers and plucked it out. The paper crinkled in her hands as she opened it and read. Biting, dry cold settled in her throat as her eyes scanned across the short message. Her fingertips went numb in her gloves. She looked around, expecting to see some kind of explanation for the card. She wanted the lights to come up and for everything to make sense again.

The house was silent. No, not silent. She heard a muted clinking sound from nearby. Where were the servants? Why had no one come to greet her and take her things? She’d been too preoccupied with her own thoughts to realize. Clutching the card to her chest, she backed toward the door. The shadows from the hall and the stairwell grew longer, filled with murderers and thieves ready to descend upon her. The clinking sound was the only disturbance to her storm of fears. A sense of what the sound was gripped her, bloomed curiosity in her mind, and forced her to walk to the study and confirm her suspicion.

The sliding double doors had not been fully closed, leaving an inch wide crack through which the odd scent poured alongside a narrow glow of light. Elizabeth thought it silly to try and be discrete, so she threw open the doors as brazenly as she could. A wall of smoke billowed out. Cigar smoke, she knew. She recognized it instantly from years of having her father puffing away while she tried to talk to him. Mingled inside the fumes was the smell of strong liquor, bourbon or whiskey. Beneath them both, the other scent, pungent and somehow alluring. Her eyes adjusted to the low light. The walls held their outdated tomes of agricultural knowledge, the carpets remained over trod and bare, and the four chairs sat facing the center of the room where a globe sat on a round, knee high table. Beyond, a shaded lamp provided the only real light. The other glimmer came from the lit end of a cigar glowing in the blackness.

“Liz,” said a voice. “I’ve been waiting.”

Disgust and revulsion crawled up her back. A thousand different outrages leapt to the front of her mind. The only reason they didn’t burst forth immediately was a chilling question of why he was waiting for her. The phone call and the card. She warned Alice to leave Gregory out of it. Clearly her last lesson to the girl hadn’t done any good. All of Elizabeth’s effort to address this one issue alone had come to naught. “Gregory,” she hissed through clenched teeth. Don’t let him see a weakness. Don’t give him the satisfaction. “I need to get a man in about the pests around the house.”

Gregory laughed, a rolling boom in the silent house. “I’ll add it to your fucking bill.”

Her temper flared. He dares to bring up money. He stalks here in the dead of night to mock me. What has Alice told him? Did she find the woman’s name? “I’ve had a long evening, and I’m not in the mood to listen to your low speech, but since you’ve engaged already, first, I’ve told you to never call me ‘Liz’. Second, you can take my ‘bill’ and shove it up your fucking ass. And third, get the fuck out of my house.”

The cigar glowed. She couldn’t see him. Even his voice sounded off. Half of him was in the light, an arm and leg in a well tailored suit. That looked wrong, too, though. His hands seemed bigger than they should have been. The clinking sound was coming from the glass in his hand, ice rattling from one side to the other. He didn’t answer right away. He let her stand in the doorway, rigid and irritated. It was an old practice of his, to let the people in the conversation squirm with uncomfortable silence. It didn’t work on Elizabeth. She knew to fill the gap with her silent rage about every detestable thing her brother-in-law had brought on their good family name. Stirring up her hate faltered when he spoke, “You stink.”

“What?” she asked, breathlessly.

“You stink of men. I suppose it’s meant to be sweet smelling, but it comes off as sickly. And I smell you, too, of course. You’re thick with it. Creamed yourself while he worked up the nerve to fuck you, did ya?”

“You disgust me,” she said. She turned to leave and managed one step before he spoke again.

“Stop.” The word thudded into her like a punch. Her body locked up and warmth flooded through her. For a single second, the ache she’d felt pressed against the wall at the club returned. “Turn around,” Gregory purred. She did as he told her. The willingness to obey him forced its way into her thoughts, making her want to do as he said and then doing so. The desire to please him faded as quickly as it took hold leaving behind a sickly hatred for his presence. “We’ve gotten off on the wrong foot. Tonight is about starting fresh. All the old grudges between us can finally be put to rest. So, if you want me to call you Elizabeth, I will. But, out of respect, I think you should call me Greg. Cause that’s my fucking name. Gregory is some nonsense you made up to make me sound better to those prim bitches at your precious society luncheons. You’ve been thriving off of pretense for far too long. All of that is going away tonight.”

It took great effort to work her jaw back into motion, “What have you done?”

His shadowy form shifted, but did not enter the light. He held out the glass of melting ice. “Freshen up the bourbon, and we’ll chat.” Elizabeth felt the jerk to comply, but stood her ground. He grunted after she didn’t move. “Still spirited, I see. Come on then, meet me half way on this.”

The idea of making him a drink returned like a gentle caress against her thoughts. Before she could resist it, she had crossed the room. She thought standing next to him would reveal his face, but the light was positioned to keep him hidden. She didn’t know why, and any effort to crash the lamp into his skull was subverted by an insidious need to make him the bourbon. She went to the wet bar and found a bucket of ice. It had barely melted, which meant he’d not been in the room too long. Long enough to have his first drink and nothing more. Three ice cubes clinked into the glass. She rallied herself to throw the bourbon at him, but didn’t. It was too expensive, and dramatics wouldn’t help anyway. Returning to him, she held out the glass. His hand moved to take it, but instead clasped on her forearm. His rough touch caused a blaze of heat to travel up her body. A desire to throw herself on him seized her, and she even buckled slightly before his other hand lifted the glass away from her. The one holding her arm tossed her aside as if she were a spoiled fish. She pulled her arm to her chest, appalled and furious both at him and her own body’s intermittent betrayal. “Stay there for a moment,” he ordered. She listened to him take a long, slurping sip of the booze. “I want to look at you like you are now.”

A deep seed of pride caused Elizabeth to straighten up. If he wanted to see her, then he would see her in all her glory. Age had refined her beauty, not diminished it. She had the twins at twenty-one, and her body had bounced back quickly because she refused to be one of those women who let motherhood dominate her physique. Exercises, stretching, and lotions put her back in top form long before the advent of Milktec’s milk. It helped, though, whether she liked to admit it or not. She’d seen it in all the women of her social circles. The tightening of wrinkles, the smoothing of blemishes, and the slight swelling of bosoms all coincided with the sudden ubiquity of Milktec’s product. The serum was simply a more direct form.

She was taller than most men. It was why a young man like Timothy appealed to her. She longed for the embrace of men where her head would naturally rest on his chest rather than on the top of his head. Men never seemed to have that concern once they’d wormed their way close enough to be embraced by her at all. Having a giantess nuzzle close to them while they shoved their faces between her tits was probably a large selling point. She knew her own husband had taken some joy in it when they still fucked. Her breasts had always been a point of pride. Her mother, before her death, told Elizabeth that a pair of heavy breasts was as big a bargaining chip in marriage as the whole of Vaught’s estate. Elizabeth lorded that over her substantially less endowed sister for years. As of late, it seemed she had a less unique place in the world.

Her slim figure had few secrets in the single spot of light in the room. She knew Greg had lusted after her from the first time he laid eyes on her. Abigail outright told her once, another cruel mind game. Elizabeth felt his eyes on her every time they shared a room in the years since, but now she wondered if he was even bothering to look at her. She wanted to smash the light and put them both out of the painful moment of looking over her body. His hand emerged from the shadow again and his fingers twirled at the end of the arm rest. Turn, the gesture said, and she did. Her dress was cream colored. At the start of the evening, it had been smooth as silk, cinched at the waist to drape over her ass and thighs with refined elegance. After Timothy, it bore the creases of his greedy hands as much as it held the sweet scent of him. Elizabeth resisted the urge to smooth out one wrinkle on her left ass cheek.

One revolution later, she stared into the darkness behind the light, hoping her eyes would somehow overcome the glare to see the man leering at her from behind his screen of smoke. She wondered how her hair looked. Again, the moments with the serum fueled man forced their way to the front of her mind. Timothy’s hands had moved up her breasts and around her neck. Had they stroked through her hair? Was it a mess of tangles? She held off on the need to brush her own hands through it. Give him nothing, she told herself. It was a bitter sentiment. She’d given him so much already that the only things which remained were things he hadn’t chosen to take. And still, as she faced the light, she worried her lipstick was smeared or that her golden hair wasn’t catching the light.

“You still think it, don’t you? That you’re the pretty one?”

“Ridiculous,” she lied. “Abigail has her warm qualities.”

“Abby is as much a goddess as you are a hypocrite. Go sit.” His hand waved and disappeared back into the shadow.

Once again the unseen force gripped her thoughts. At his command, she rebelled and wanted to tell him to fuck off. Instead, the thoughts soothed into a warm compliance as she drifted gracefully across the room and sat. She crossed her ankles and folded her hands in her lap as she’d been taught, even if she heard a small huff of laughter from Greg. Her mouth went dry as the wave of compulsion passed. “What are you doing to me? How?”

“Everything will be explained,” he said. “But I’m not doing anything to you. You’re simply responding to my voice and maybe my scent.”

That strange smell. It’s him? God. And I thought it almost smelled pleasant. “Very well, if you won’t tell me what you’re doing, at least tell me why you’re doing it. Have you sent home the other servants? Where’s Abigail? She normally holds your leash when you come sniffing around the main house.”

“She’s around. She’ll join us when it’s time. First, like I told you, we’re going to dispense with all the two faced secrets and half truths that we’ve been batting back and forth for years now. I know most of what’s happened, but there’s a few blanks I need to fill in. Mostly for my own curiosity, but we also have to make sure that no loose ends go untied. When did it start?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about?”

“The reporter.” His words cut through the air and haze in Elizabeth’s thoughts. “When did you first contact her?”

She stood up. This surprised her as much as it did Greg from the way his shadow shifted in the gloom. “I want a drink,” she said. The first few steps were stiff, but she made her way back to the bar. She hoped he believed the stiffness was her body resisting a dash for the study door. Not the truth, that it was her holding back her body from throwing itself at Greg. A drink would help. It would dull her senses, suppress her anger and any other emotion, or urge. “How do you know about that?” she asked. “If we’re going to speak openly, then the street must run both ways, correct?”

Elizabeth thought the shadow twisted into something more like a smile. “She didn’t follow your advice, clearly. Credit where it’s due, you warned her didn’t you? Told her to keep her nose out of your brother-in-law’s business. Problem was you imagined that my business and your business could be separated at all.”

“My business concerned Benjamin. He’s my husband isn’t he?”

“That’s a more generous description than you normally give him.”

She took a long gulp of the liquor and relished the burn of it moving down her throat. She hoped it would sear away the scent pervading her head. Or bury the lingering shame of Timothy on her skin. “Benjamin is my responsibility. I’m not a stranger to his affairs, and I take it upon myself to ensure they don’t damage this family.”

“And they’re so different from your trysts? What was tonight’s entertainment name? Did you bother to learn it?”

She returned to her seat, resting the glass on a coaster and ignoring the urge to glug down the rest of it. Her eyes leveled off against the murk that hid Greg. “They haven’t been different, no. Not till this one, but if you know so much then you probably know that as well. Benjamin thinks he’s in love, and supposedly the girl thinks it, too.” Elizabeth waited. The sound of rattling ice filled the room again. She wondered why he didn’t show himself. He’d never hidden before, and Abigail’s absence was peculiar, not to mention the rest of Elizabeth’s household. Greg’s hand returned to the light. It shook with a tremor until he clenched it into a fist. “Are you alright?” she asked.

“Never better,” he grunted. His voice sounded slightly different. It put more of the thrill into Elizabeth’s bones. “You’re not answering my questions. Maybe I need to be more direct. Tell me when this started. What happened that made you hire a reporter to investigate your husband?”

She kept her mouth shut for a few seconds, but the words pooled at the front of her mind, begging to be spoken. “It didn’t happen all at once,” she admitted. “I’m accustomed to rarely seeing Benjamin. I don’t want to see him. But, for all his ineptitude at being a husband, he’s been a decent father to the girls. When they came back a week ago, we were meant to have a proper family dinner. Benjamin arrived late. We discussed his indiscretion and how it would affect the girls’ future if he continued. Things grew contentious.”

“Is that when you came to Abby for the serum?” Greg asked.

It stung to realize how easy things were to piece together after the fact. “Yes. I wanted to know the girl’s name, that’s all. I thought I could invite her to the club, expand her ideas of manhood a bit. Dispel the romantic ideas she’d clearly been sold by my husband. It would be as much for his own good as mistress. I assume she’s some barmaid with upstart ideas. He’s done this before, after all. Perhaps it’s his age making him crave a more permanent balm to his perpetual failures. So off he goes convincing this tart that she loves him and he loves her.” Elizabeth stopped as she felt her irritation building. “What’s your interest in it anyway? What’s this new era of honesty really about?”

The ice crunched in Greg’s mouth, and the empty glass thunked on the table beside the lamp. “You made a mess, and I’m cleaning it up. Just like all the other messes I’ve cleaned up for you. Not because I wanted to, but because your sister thinks I should. Whatever your intentions were, you poked the wrong bush on this one, Elizabeth. We knew that the day you came to get the extra serum, but let’s not pretend this wasn’t a long time coming. Hell, I think we’ve all been on this track since the day I met your sister.”