Holding Darkness Within
Sollipsist
1.
Caitlin had some difficulty finding the house; the landlord’s directions were fine, but the layout of the streets in the neighborhood was confusing and well off the beaten path, though still within a reasonable distance from the campus. The street she was looking for turned out to be a sort of diagonal connection between two other streets, one at the top of a small wooded hill and the other at the bottom. From there, it was easy; it was the only house on that particular half-street, but even while turning on to the driveway the house was still mostly hidden from view by dense clusters of leaves.
She saw that her future housemates had already arrived; Min’s tiny hatchback was parked next to Terri’s faded blue Volkswagen bus, and there was also a rust-eaten old El Dorado that Caitlin assumed belonged to the landlord. The driveway made a tight circle around the side of the house, and as Caitlin shut off her engine she realized that she’d either have to let everyone else leave first or try to back out of the narrow, tree-blinded driveway when the tour was over. She climbed out of the driver’s seat and tried to get a good look at the house.
Though the thick foliage concealed much of the exterior, the house was definitely big, old, and somewhat eccentric of shape. There were two stories that she could see, and smaller windows indicated both a sizable attic and a half-buried basement. Although Caitlin’s grasp of historical architecture was limited, the overall style seemed to be an uncomfortable mix of Queen Anne and Tudor elements. There was some crumbling gingerbread trim framing a small windowed tower outcropping, and some faded half-timbering below a gabled peak. Caitlin saw long years of casual neglect as well as a tantalizing sense of history; if nothing else, the passage of time conferred a sad dignity on a house that was probably somewhat tacky in its youth.
A happy yelp drew her out of her musing and she turned to see Min running down the steps of the semi-enclosed porch towards her. The small girl practically jumped into her arms with a breathlessly joyful hug. “Wow, isn’t it cool? What took you so long? Shh, the landlord is kinda creepy. This place is huge! Let’s go check it out.”
Caitlin smiled and allowed Min to grab her by the hand and drag her into the house. In the sudden musty dusk of the front vestibule, she saw the rest of her future roommates talking to the landlord. He was a bent, desiccated man who nevertheless seemed to be no older than middle-age; there was something the tiniest bit repellant about the furtive, darting look he gave Caitlin as she and Min came inside. Heather was leaning towards him defiantly with crossed arms, playing the tough cop role, while the untamed head of strawberry curls that was Terri bobbled back and forth, gaping, taking in the view around the room.
“Hey, Cait,” she drawled, her eyes still wandering. “Check this out! It’s so cool in here, I’m gonna be painting this place all year.”
“No painting,” muttered the landlord. “No alterations.”
“Oh, no, I mean painting pictures of the house,” she replied slowly, running a pale finger along the dark wood of the hip-high wainscoting. She raised the finger to her eyes, inspecting the dark grey smudge of dust with detached amusement. “I wouldn’t change a thing here.”
“She’s an artist,” Min offered helpfully. “She’s really good too!”
The landlord grunted, either in understanding or as a dismissal of art as a whole. Undaunted, Min grabbed Caitlin’s hand once more and began hopping impatiently. “Come on, let’s see the rest of the house!” she demanded.
“Is everything this dusty?” quizzed Heather critically.
“No tenants for six months,” said the landlord as he led them out of the entry into a short but wide hallway. “But I’ll make sure it gets cleaned up before August.”
“You’re not renting it for the summer?” asked Caitlin. The landlord turned slightly.
“Would if I could,” he answered, and then added, “This place is a ghost town when you kids go home.”
He gestured as they passed a doorway to the left. “Parlor. Last group kept their bikes there. Other side’s the stairs, obviously.” There was a dark stairwell that disappeared around a corner as it ascended. “We’ll go up there in a bit. End of the hall is a living room, and next to it’s the dining room.”
The dining room was actually set up as a living room, with a threadbare sagging sofa and loveseat that didn’t match either each other or the house. Or any house, thought Caitlin as she studied the almost-disappeared fabric pattern. Terri was staring awestruck at the huge brick fireplace, which dominated most of the east wall. There were doorways on either side, and Min and Terri made a quick lap; there was a fireplace on the other side as well, in the smaller but still spacious living room. Terri would have spent several minutes gazing at every detail, but between Min’s excitement and the landlord’s dull impatience, the artist was unwillingly hurried back to the group.
“Through here’s the kitchen,” he continued, ignoring the minor expressions of distaste from the girls. “Stove works, it’s gas, I’ll show you what to do when the pilot light goes out.”
“No problem,” said Heather. “I grew up with a gas stove. I can handle that.”
He shrugged. “Through here is the pantry and this door of course goes to the back yard.” He opened the door to show them the small porch (not porch- piazza, Caitlin thought) that led to the big dark overgrown yard, enclosed with dense trees. Caitlin glimpsed a tumbledown gazebo of some sort and Terri had to be restrained from dashing out into the pungent damp green wilderness.
“There’s stairs here, too,” continued the landlord, opening a small door in one corner of the kitchen. “Goes upstairs and down to the basement. You probably won’t need to go down there, unless you want to store stuff. Even then, it’s damp, so I don’t recommend it.” Min and Terri shot each other a look that said that the basement was going to be explored as soon as possible.
The landlord led them up the twisting, narrow stairway to the second floor.
“Five bedrooms up here, find another roommate and you can split the rent up even more. I don’t care, it all adds up the same to me,” he muttered. They found themselves in a very long carpeted hallway. “Straight across, big closet. All the other rooms are bedrooms.” He went quickly to each door and opened them in turn. “Always a fight over the south room ‘cause it’s got the tower and all them windows...but the west room is the warmest cause the chimney goes through on the inside wall. The north bedroom has the chimney from the kitchen, too. None of the bedrooms are small, you see.”
Caitlin looked up in the middle of the hall and saw a pull string hanging from a trapdoor, but tucked into the handle so it was well out of reach. She found herself alone with the landlord as the girls wandered from room to room. He seemed unwilling to look her in the eyes.
“How old is the house?” she asked him.
“Oh, uh...it was put up around the turn of the century, maybe earlier. There’s a stone in the basement that says 1890...” he trailed off.
“Bet it gets real cold in the winter,” said Heather, who had returned.
“Aye,” he answered. The girls waited for him to add something but he didn’t. Min bounced back to join them.
“All of these rooms look huge to me,” she squeaked. “Any of ‘em will be fine. I’m not picky.”
Heather struck a cautioning pose. “Hey, we haven’t even said we’d take it yet...”
“That’s true,” Caitlin spoke up. “Mind if we talk about it a minute, Mister...oh, I’m so sorry, I forgot your name.”
“Blaith,” he grunted. “Go ahead, take a minute. I gotta be out of here soon but I need to check something in the basement anyway. Call me when you’re ready.” He scuttled off, back down the rear stairwell.
“Where’s the damn hippie?” Heather said, looking around. Terri, in answer, popped her head out of the south doorway and looked back at them with a dreamy smile.
“We’re gonna take it, right?” she asked. “This place rules. I can almost feel all the history.”
“It’s really big and old,” sighed Min. “Let’s do it. The rent is super-cheap, like half what we’d be paying at the dorms.”
“Not quite that low,” smiled Caitlin. “But it is pretty cheap.”
“Should I try to jew him down?” asked Heather conspiratorially. “I can bitch about the mustiness and that the heating probably sucks.”
“That’s not a very nice thing to say,” admonished Terri.
“Come on, an old house like this? When it starts snowing you’ll be bitching too.”
“No, I mean the jew thing.”
“Hey, my dad was Jewish.”
“Yeah, sure he was. Wasn’t he Italian last time?”
“Shut up, hippie.”
“Stop it!” Min stamped her feet. “Are we taking it or not?”
The girls quietly glanced around at each other.
“Yeah, let’s do it,” said Heather. “We’re not gonna find anything this cheap unless we go a lot farther from campus. And I’m not depending on you guys for rides all the time.”
“Caitlin?” begged Min. “Come on, say yes...”
Caitlin smiled and took another look around the dusty hall. “You know, I could get one more roommate if you wanted to split it five ways. Terri and I know someone who’s looking—”
“Nuh-uh. No way,” Heather said. “You’re talking about that other smelly hippie, right? A, he’s a guy and he’ll be hitting on us non-stop. B, he’s a druggie and would probably flake out on us anyway.”
Terri bristled. “A, he’s not a hippie and neither am I. B, you think everybody hits on you because you’re a slutty bimbo.”
“Pot-head.”
“Peroxide-head.”
“You...” Heather began to retort and started laughing. “So what, I bleach. At least I don’t smell like patchouli all the time.” She gave Terri a quick hug. “You stupid hippie,” she added.
The girls rumbled down the rear stairs to the kitchen, calling down to the basement for the landlord. After a few moments, he appeared out of the stairwell, a dusty cobweb stuck to his thinning grey-red hair. “So?” he asked, without much interest.
“We’ll take it,” Caitlin said.
“But remember to get it cleaned up a little,” Heather quickly added.
They each came up with the down payment and he handed over a tarnished key to each of the girls in turn. “Like I said, nobody’s gonna be in here all summer so you can start moving in early as you want. Call me first, though, to make sure I’ve got it ready...and don’t bother before the middle of August.”
“So anytime, as long as it’s after like August 15th, huh?” said Min, her eyes twinkling in subtle amusement.
“Right,” he grunted, oblivious to her mirth.
“Well guys, it’s ours,” Min said as they returned to the cars and watched the landlord drive off. “This is so cool! I have never, ever, lived in a place like this before. Which room are you gonna take? I don’t mind, any of them are fine. Did you see the chandelier? I bet it looks like jewels when it’s lit up. I wonder why he didn’t turn it on. Are we gonna have a fire in the fireplace? When it gets cold, I mean. Be silly to have one in the summer!”
“Whoa, killer,” Heather laughed. “Let me catch up.”
“If it’s cool, I wouldn’t mind the north bedroom,” Terri said. “It looks out on the backyard and those trees are so beautiful.”
“That’s cool with me,” Heather answered. “I don’t really give a shit what room I’m in.”
“As long as it has a sturdy bed...” Terri said under her breath.
“Shut up!”
Caitlin was touched when they allowed her to claim the big south bedroom with the tower protrusion. “Aww, thanks guys. It will be sweet to do my writing in there, looking out those windows.”
“Awww, now we all gotta hug, right?” mocked Heather, but they did.
“I can’t wait until fall now,” Min said, as they climbed into their cars and drove off.
Heather, the only one of the girls without a car, rode with Terri. Despite their obvious differences and constant bickering, the two girls had been thrown together as roommates at the start of freshman year and became good friends. Heather was secretly envious of Terri’s artistic and open-minded nature, so different from her own. Heather sometimes felt like her own background paled in comparison to that of her friends; brought up in a dreary working-class town, hanging out with Camaro-driving metalheads at the bowling alley, all this seemed prosaic at best and somewhat sordid compared to Terri’s psychedelic artsiness, Caitlin’s New England preppie world, or Min’s...well, Min was not only Asian and therefore exotic, but also seemingly infinitely energetic, innocent and overjoyed. Heather sighed. Then, waiting for a reaction from Terri, she sighed a little louder. Still nothing. She shot a glance at the redhead, who was staring blankly out the windshield as she drove the noisy little bus down the tree-lined streets.
“Hey, granola,” Heather called. “You spacing out, or what?”
“Hmm?” Terri mumbled, and slowly turned to her.
“Hey girl, pay attention to the road,” Heather laughed. “What’s up?”
“Oh, nothing,” Terri said with a lazy smile. “I’m just thinking about the house.”
“I know,” said Heather. “Kind of a wreck, but it’ll be okay.”
“No way,” she responded. “It’s gorgeous. Every little corner has its own secret. I could spend a lifetime painting every inch of that place, and I still wouldn’t do it justice.”
“Are you serious?” Heather asked, incredulously. “I mean, it’s big and old and all. There’s a shitload of houses like it all over the island, though.”
“I don’t know,” Terri responded dreamily. “I don’t think there’s another house like that anywhere. You know, while I was walking around I could almost feel the people who used to live there. It’s so deep, you know? Like when you look at a forest and you just know there’s places that only the animals and trees have been to...”
“Yeah, sure,” answered Heather dismissively. The redhead’s words did strike a chord with her, though, and she was a little irritated that the other girl could feel things like that so easily and immediately. “You’re just stoned.”
“Nope,” Terri said, and then laughed. “Well, maybe just a little, from before. But seriously, you don’t find that house fascinating?”
“I guess,” she answered, looking out the window. “Hey, drop me off at the 7-11 by the school. I wanna get some smokes.”
“And you get on my case about weed,” Terri jabbed. “Don’t you know that the tobacco companies put all sorts of additives in there to get you strung out on that shit?”
“Whatever. Hippie.”
After Heather got out, Terri was about to pilot the bus back to her dorm but after a block or two made a sudden u-turn. “I’ll just go back real quick, smoke up a little, and maybe sketch some of the outside,” she thought. “All my finals are done; all I have to do is pack and load this bus up for the trip home tomorrow. I can stay up late, or just do it tomorrow. Mom’s not really gonna give a shit whether I get back tomorrow anyway.”
She drove the noisy little van back the same way she came, and once again her thoughts drifted away in recollections of the all-too-brief glimpses she’d had of the house. She was not exaggerating when she’d said she could paint every inch; as soon as her gaze had settled on any given section of the walls, or the tarnished brass of the doorknobs, or the curling curves of the molding, she’d had a tremendous feeling of transport. The longer she looked at anything connected with the house, the more she could almost see colorful, pulsing layers of rich depth. It reminded her of the paintings of the wilder impressionists; Van Gogh with his halos around everything and odd combinations of color that were not realistic, but somehow deeper than reality and more evocative. Terri had felt the compelling drive of inspiration before, but never this intensely, or with such seemingly infinite varieties.
The afternoon was beginning to fade into dim evening, and the tentative spring warmth was giving way to a chilly dampness when she finally parked the bus in the little circular driveway and got out. She went around to the side of the vehicle and braced her slender frame to tug the raspy sliding door open with a grunt of effort. She found her big pad and selected some charcoal pencils, then dug a small stone pipe out of the glove compartment and peered into the bowl. “Still a hit or two,” she reassured herself, and lit it up. Holding the hit in her lungs, she looked around at the misty twilight settling into the unkempt greenery of the front yard. Except for the chirping of a cricket or two, it was quite still; no sound could be heard from the road and only very far off in the distance she could hear the subtle indistinct hum of cars. Everything was a blurry green veined with black, lengthening shadows. It was very like a dream, especially as the weed began to kick in.
She took the second (and unfortunately smaller and obviously final) hit and held it in, and then turned quickly as a sudden sound startled her to stillness. Peering in the perceived direction, she thought she saw a shutter moving slightly on a second story window. “But there’s no wind at all,” she half-thought, but was distracted by the complex details of the house once more. Putting away the pipe, she tucked her pad under one arm and walked toward the house.
“I’m just gonna go up to the porch, and maybe sketch the front entry,” she thought, but almost guiltily remembered the tarnished key she’d been given. Her fingers slid a little nervously into the pocket of her tight jeans, and felt how the key had warmed from being so close to her body.
“It is ours, after all,” she rationalized. “He didn’t say we couldn’t come back just to look at it.” She played with the tiny jagged points on the key for a minute, weighing the pros and cons. Her fingers seemed extra sensitive, almost conductive when they touched the metal.
“I’ll just go in, make a few quick studies, and leave,” she decided, although she knew there was little enough light outside to work with, and inside would be even darker. As if rushing so that she wouldn’t change her mind, she pulled the key out and fumbled, dropping it to the stone floor of the porch. As it bounced, the clanking seemed like a thunderclap in the green hush and she winced. “Okay, maybe not...” she thought sheepishly, and had just about decided to abandon the whole project when the front door very slowly drifted open in front of her.
Terri was unnerved, but the door moved with a natural slowness, as if loose on its hinges, and the girl was unaccountably relieved to see that there was no one behind it. “It’s ok, we didn’t lock it or shut it properly when we left, that’s all,” she told herself. “You’re just a little high and a little jumpy.”
But she wasn’t really jumpy, was she? Terri was feeling a tingling anticipation as she peered into the darkness of the vestibule. Dimly, she realized that she probably should be a little scared- after all, it was a big old empty house and it was getting dark quickly- but her total lack of fear she wrote off with pride for her own courage. She left the dull brass key where it had fallen and took a step inside.
Terri’s eyes took some time to adjust to the sudden near-darkness. As still as the outdoors had become, the silence inside was something different, something with weight and substance; it pressed on her from all sides with a gentle but irresistible force. She felt herself drifting as if some invisible current was carrying her towards an unseen shore.
Without conscious decision, she found herself looking into the kitchen from the north end of the dining room. The windows surrounding the rear entryway allowed only the greyest of dusk illumination to enter; tiny sparkling motes of dust hung in the air. Just before the doorway to the kitchen, she saw a dim crimson glow forming the outline of a door to her right; it was past the doorway to the living room but before the corner of the kitchen began. Terri couldn’t remember a door at that spot, but the landlord had hurried the tour and many things may have been overlooked. Her hand touched the center of the area; the wainscoting had a seam on either side and the reddish emanation was definitely coming through the small cracks. She fumbled for a handle or latch in the near darkness, and pushed on the wall in case it opened inwards. Though the wood seemed to move slightly, the door failed to open.
Terri had the thought that no light of any color should be on in the house, but it was a small voice deep inside that could barely be heard above the heavy stillness in her head. She barely even registered when she bloodied the tips of her fingers struggling to get a grasp on the edge of the door. The darkness did not scare her, but it did render her artistically honed visual acuity useless, and made her expressive hands mere fumbling meat.
Her frustration was a thoughtless, instinctive, animal feeling.
“I can’t...” she whispered, and was shocked at her own voice, the tiniest disturbance of the silence. She looked desperately at the red-framed barrier, and then helplessly around the room. The silent weight on her body seemed almost communicative, as if there was a puzzle that the stillness could help her solve if only she listened hard enough.
It became clear to her that the house required something from her.
A small, but sincere expression of her respect and admiration?
Terri knelt on the dusty wood of the floor, and stretched out her hands in supplication. “Please?” she whispered.
There was a second or two of heart-stopped anticipation, and then the small door opened slightly.
She’d half-expected the reddish light to pour from the widening crack, but it was a light that failed to spill or illuminate; like a crimson phosphorescence it gilded the interior of the small room that became visible as she opened the door further. It was the size of a closet- Terri could touch the opposing walls without straightening her arms- but the walls and ceiling were covered with a soft but dense material, like old velvet; the same material was used to construct a small bench or ottoman that took up more than half of the floor space. Remembering her method of entry, Terri knelt again and pulled the door shut behind her.
It was surprisingly warm; dimly Terri tried to remember where she was in relation to the chimney. She was quite comfortable kneeling, her back pressed up against the yielding material of the walls, her hands folded together as if in prayer below her waist. She was surprised to find herself growing tired and groggy, and realized how comfortable and peaceful it felt in this red-litten enclosure.
“I changed my mind, girls,” she whispered dreamily. “I choose this room.”
It really wouldn’t be wrong to take a quick nap before she left, would it? The house was hers, technically, and the walk back to the car seemed so long and cold.
Vaguely she realized she wasn’t making sense, and tried to find the flaw in her logic. The possibility that the house might not really be hers, yet, drifted through her floating consciousness. Maybe the house didn’t belong to her. Maybe she belonged to the house?
“What am I thinking?” she thought, with a sleepy giggle. This position was really perfect- how had she not always sat like this? She had her shoulders pulled back and her head bowed. Her calves were tucked under her thighs and her slender arms rested against the soft skin of her hips and belly. Her breasts were thrust forward and she dimly realized that she’d removed her clothes a while ago. Was it the red light that was pulsing or the blood rushing through her? Her eyes had closed and her lips hung open in a surprised smile as she felt soft waves of warm pleasure wash over her.
If it was fine to nap here, it must be all right to masturbate, right? In any case, she was not in the mood to talk herself out of it...her tender artist’s fingers traveled down into her moist delta, gently brushing against her sensitive clitoris and dipping down to coat themselves with her own wetness. She exhaled sobbingly as the sensations deepened and small spasms traveled through her.
It was not any man’s image that came to her, nor even any woman’s; Terri was a confirmed bisexual (although more in theory than actual experience). No, the thoughts that ran through her mind were indistinct and had far deeper, more complex attractions than any human body. She thought of the firmness of stone, the softness of carpeting, the craftwork of wood. She thought of lives begun and ended under a roof, of tender quarrels and fierce lovemaking echoing down the halls. Whispered endearments in the wee hours, while the beloved sleeps- who is there to hear them but the sleeplessly supportive walls and floors? So full of timeless love, so patient amidst the recurring betrayals of lodgers moving out, so vulnerable to the elements that inexorably erode your beauty...Terri was masturbating furiously now, hearing her lover’s voice telling her dark old secrets and stimulating her expertly with lessons learned from countless bedroom nights. Her cries fell muffled within the dense fabric of the tiny space.
“I love you,” she moaned, cumming. “You’re so beautiful...” Her orgasm ripped though her, rendering her frozen in a paralyzed ecstasy. She felt herself draining into the fabric, sinking, expanding and dissipating all at once. Her sightless eyes drifted up into her sockets and she curled up, twitching, feeling the infinitely gentle touch of aged velvet.
The landlord found her that way, hours later. His lecherous eyes took in her pale skin and wild red hair, the rosebuds of her breasts, the faint mist that escaped with her shallow breathing.
“So soon,” he said. “She must be quite open.”
He grabbed her and pulled her roughly to a standing position. Her blank eyes saw nothing, but she was able to stand and even walk slowly down the stairs with him to the basement. The landlord’s flickering lantern illuminated rough stone walls, a series of half-chambers crudely wrought among the mottled grey foundation. He walked her past plumbing pipes, cables, old forgotten boxes and debris. She stumbled a bit on the uneven ground and he yanked her arm impatiently, pulling her ultimately towards a circular wooden trapdoor, like a cistern cover on the floor in one lonely corner of the web-clothed maze.
Setting the lantern down, he hefted the cover up by a round iron handle in the center. There was a rude circular stairwell, and he placed a booted foot onto he first step leading into the darkness within. “Try not to fall,” he grumbled, as he pulled Terri’s naked body after him.
After a time, they reached the bottom. The lantern illuminated only a surprisingly level floor made of dark stone; the room, or cavern, was sizable. The landlord paused, listening, and heard a rustling like hundreds of whispering voices far off beyond the circle of light. He quickly knelt and bowed his head.
“You called, I came,” he said in a low voice. “I brought her down to you.”
The whispering increased in intensity but seemed no closer; it may as well have been coming from the depths of space.
“I only live to serve you,” he said. “I beg you to reward a faithful servant.”
There were echoes of footsteps- not the sounds themselves, only the echoes.
Terri opened her eyes.
“For my faithful servant,” her mouth said. “A reward.”
Lustful glee lit the landlord’s eyes, but he remained still in his kneeling position on the ground and let her approach. Her hand fell on his thinning hair and pushed his face into her crotch. He began to stroke his erect cock with one hand while his lips, tongue, and teeth eagerly sought to taste her. Terri’s eyes flashed with contemptuous pleasure as her hands forced his head even more tightly against her pussy.
In the dead darkness of early morning, the landlord collected the fallen clothes and discarded sketchpad and threw them into Terri’s bus. Grumbling, he tied a chain between the vehicle and his own battered old Cadillac and made the familiar labored drive to his cousin’s wrecking yard. Catching sight of his reflection in the rear-view mirror, he wiped a cold, glistening trail from the stubble of his chin and prayed for a swift summer vacation.