Gaea's revenge

His eyes snapped open.

The glaring screen of his mobile informed him that it was 2.18am, and he sighed. Insomnia was getting worse; he was waking earlier and earlier. What had the dream been this time…? No matter. He heaved himself out of bed and groggily pulled on some clothes without turning the light on. Despite the clothes being black, he knew where they were; the light would have given him a headache.

He crept through the house to the back door, navigating every creaking floorboard and squeaky hinge with a skill that spoke of much practise.  Easing the door open, he slipped out without detection.

The night air chilled him briefly, but he adjusted quickly. It was nearly Summer, and the nights were much milder now. Automatically his feet turned him towards the old graveyard as he tried to remember the dream. Each time he woke it felt clearer in his head, but he could never remember the details… There had been a girl, that much he was sure of… Beyond that, only his dreams could tell.

Hands thrust into his pocket, he stopped for a moment in panic as he realised he’d left his pocket knife behind. He shrugged; did he really think he’d need it at half two in the morning? He carried on, welcoming the sight of the gravestones, pale and washed out in the light of the moon. Maybe he’d do some writing, leaning against his favourite headstone. Or maybe he’d try and climb that tree again, that one that he could never quite manage…

A flicker of movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention, and he jerked his head around sharply, trying to find it. A pale face peered out from behind a tomb, and vanished behind it again just as swiftly. He made his way over cautiously, cursing himself for forgetting his knife. Whoever the face belonged to hadn’t looked threatening, only scared, but he wasn’t about to take any chances. He edged around the tomb and caught sight of a bare foot vanishing behind another tombstone further under the spread of the great Yew tree. Under the branches the darkness was absolute; specks of moonlight appeared here and there, like stars in the earth, but no more than that. He advanced less cautiously than before; whoever this was, they were clearly far more scared of him.

He rounded the tomb to discover a young woman sat against it, pale face distressed. She was wearing a shirt and a pair of shorts, covered by the tattered remains of a trench coat. Tears had streaked through the filth on her face, and she stared up at him with terror evident in her eyes.

  “Hey, are you ok?” She flinched when he spoke and tried to crawl back away from him, but he reached out and grabbed her arm. She hissed in pain, and he released his grip, thinking he’d hurt her. Her gaze travelled to her leg, and he noticed a tangle of barbed wire was wrapped tightly around her calf. Again he swore at himself for not bringing his knife, and took his shirt off. Ripping it into strips, he wrapped two around his hands and laid the rest out to use as makeshift bandages until he could get her to a hospital.
  “I’m going to try and get that off you, ok? It might hurt, and I’m sorry if it does, but it need to come off. Understand?” She bit her lip and nodded, gripping onto a tree root so tight her knuckles shone white through the dirt on her hands. Slowly he began to unwrap the wire, pausing every time she twitched in pain, until eventually, all the wire had been removed and the blood began to flow freely. He unwrapped the cloth from around his hands and reached for his makeshift bandages, but her hand on his stopped him.
  “Thank you, Stranger.” She said, and the sound of her voice frightened him. It was like the sound of the wind knocking tree branches against your window while thunder rumbles in the distance. Beautiful but terrifying. “Iron is the only thing that can really hurt me… Now, for your reward…”

Before his mind could process this strange confession, something had gripped him around the wrists and pulled him backwards, slamming him down on top of the tomb hard enough to knock the breath out of him. He lifted his head dazedly, and it took a few seconds for his foggy brain to process that he was being held captive by tree roots. He shut his eyes, wishing he was back in bed, that he didn’t have insomnia, that he hadn’t stopped to help the girl that had looked so frightened. He opened his eyes unwillingly as he heard her speak.

  “I’ve been raped for so long,” she murmured. “I do my best to repay your kind when  have the chance. Don’t feel bad though.” She added with a vicious grin. “I really was in trouble. The iron in that barbed wire would have killed me slowly, and I can’t afford to die again.”

As he watched, her clothes fell off and a change crept up her body. He skin seemed to harden and become textured, like bark; her hair shrivelled and dried until it was so many catkins dancing in the night breeze; her eyes clouded over until they were just black pits in the centre of her face. She approached him and he struggled violently, trying to free himself from the solid grip of the roots. The Yew at the side of him creaked ominously and she smiled up into its branched fondly, before producing a long flint sickle and slicing his jeans off him. He froze; that was a sharp blade, and there was some parts of his anatomy that he’d rather not lose. He squeezed his eyes shut for a second time as he felt rough bark hands slide down his torso, leaving welts and grazes that oozed blood. He shuddered as she touched his length; he was already hard. He hadn’t noticed, but she laughed wickedly.

  “Well, fancy that. Less effort on my part.” Coarse hands gripped his face, and his eyes flew open to meet her black stare. “Tell me,” she whispered in a voice like summer rain. “Do you enjoy it?” Gasping, he could only tremble at the total lack of anything in that gaze. She grinned and released him, her teeth still very much human. “You do enjoy it! How wonderful!” She laughed again harshly. “Well pet, you won’t at first, but I promise by the end you’ll be begging for me to never stop.” She straddled him, pinning him to the stone slab underneath him more effectively than the roots at his wrists.

The sickle descended.

He lost track of how long he lay there while she straddled him, rocking against him while carving intricate patterns all over him with the point of her sickle. Sometimes she lapped up the blood, sometimes she let it run in rivulets down him to pool onto the stone underneath them. She never left him, never stopped moving him, forcing climax after climax out of him until he screamed for it to stop, he couldn’t take any more.

She never stopped.

Eventually he stopped asking for respite. He couldn’t remember where, but somewhere the word ‘rape’ was lost, and he started to move with her instead of against her. Some time during that night the definitions of ‘pleasure’ and ‘pain’ changed places… or maybe they’d just been in the wrong places all this time.

When the sun’s rays peered over the horizon, then she stopped. She stopped and climbed off, leaving him lying spent and bloody on the tombstone. He sat up, slowly not realising that the roots had withdrawn at some point during the night, and stared down at himself. His brain didn’t process what he saw as abuse; this was love, the kind of love he’d never been lucky enough to find by himself. Good job she’d found him. He looked up at her; she was the pale-skinned girl he had met last night. She tossed him his jeans and he caught them numbly, not questioning that they were whole again. Once he had climbed off the top of the tomb she also handed him the flint sickle.
  “No iron. Remember, Pet.” She warned him, and strode off through the neighbouring field. He weighed the sickle in his hand before tucking it into his belt and following her.

  “Yes, Mistress Gaea.”