The Devil Tainted Us (A Gothic, Age Gap and Forbidden Romance)

Holding me by my neck, he pushes me down as I kneel in front of him. He reaches for my cape and takes it off, using it to bind my wrist together.

“What are you doing?” I whisper, a hint of fear starting to ink my tone.

“Be quiet,” he orders. He tugs on the cape making sure my hands have no room for space, before holding the end that is hanging between and pins it over against the tree. My hands are stretched up as far as possible and he has control.

Eryx looks down at me with a victorious smile before his other hand reaches down and caresses my lips with his thumb.

“That same mouth left a mark on my hand and since that day I couldn’t stop thinking how this mouth would feel around my cock.”

I gasp in shock, breathing heavily.

He snickers darkly as he unbuttons his pants and pulls down the zipper, taking out his cock which is already hard and raging with pre-come coating the top.

Dear God.

“What if I say no?” I ask.

“You won’t.”

“How can you be so sure?” I rasped.

He strokes his length, smearing the pre-come while I have this deep aching blooming within me.

“Because it is clearly written on your face how much you want this. There is no sign of fear or shame. It is filled with wanton and need.”

He lightly traces his cock along my lips, hissing under his breath. I get the lightest taste on my lips of his salty yet addictive flavor. Never in a million times have I thought something like this would excite me so much.

“You can lie to yourself but you can’t lie to me.”

This is wrong…everything about it is wrong and shouldn’t be happening. And yet, my heart yearns for it.

I want it…I need it.

Eryx provokes this unknown side of me that he himself carries too. Only difference is he acknowledges his side without shame, while I never thought it existed within me.

“Let’s see more of that beautiful skin, shall we?” he whispers, moving his hand lower to the buttons of my dress and popping them open. I try to yank against my hold, trying to pry off his touch but he doesn’t stop.

“This is absolutely unfair.”

“A deal is a deal. But I can promise you, once this starts you won’t think it’s unfair.”

He parts the lapels of my dress, bringing my breasts in view and letting the cool breeze send a chilling shiver through my skin.

“Fuck, so beautiful,” he whispers, grabbing one breast and giving it a rough squeeze while I whimper. He even rolls my nipple between his fingers before giving it a tug that I can’t help arching my back and moan. His cock twitches in response. He lands a harsh slap against my breast making me shriek in sudden surprise.

“Ah! Please.”

“Already getting greedy, I see.” He takes his cock and taps against my lips. “Now open that mouth so that I can fuck your throat until its raw and aching.”

I open my mouth feeling his cock sliding in as he throws his head back and grunts in pleasure. “Shit…so good.”

He slowly pulls out before pushing in as if letting me adjust to his size. But soon he turns rough and thrusts a bit harder, nearly hitting the back of my throat. I gag, finding it tough to breathe but Eryx guides me.

“Breath through your nose and relax your muscles.” When I do, I don’t feel discomfort anymore.

“Use your tongue, little girl.” I do, swirling it around his head, tasting more of the pre-come. He thrusts in and out a few more times before pulling back slightly with the tip against my tongue.

“Open your mouth as wide as possible because I’ll be fucking your mouth like you are my fuck toy.”

When I do, he doesn’t waste time pushing his cock in that he hits the back of my throat making me gag hard with tears pooling in my eyes while my whole-body shudders. He grabs my hair as leverage and fucks my mouth harder than before that it’s aching.

“That’s it. Take my cock like my greedy little girl. Let those tears fall.”

I give my best to keep my mouth open as he fucks me like a fuck toy…just like he promised. Every inch of my soul is burning like hell fire with desire. I can feel my inside clenching, begging for release with wetness forming between my legs.

He is ruthless for sure, but deep down I loved this. His groans and my moans mingle together along with the squelching sound of my mouth. Spit started to drool down my chin falling on to my breasts while it even coats his cock. Tears stream down my cheeks as I feel my muscles aching.

“This is beyond words,” he grunts. “I will be coming right down your throat and you will swallow my come when I tell you. Understood?”

My muffled moan is my only response as he increases his pace. His muscles are tightening as I can feel him getting closer to his release. Something possesses me as I bare my teeth, lightly scraping his skin and running my tongue faster. The motions click like a switch for him as he curses under his breath and turns still as he starts to come in my mouth.

“Fuck…” he barely whispers, keeping his cock deep inside with his body shuddering slightly. Few seconds later he pulls out with his length glistening with my spit.

Eryx let’s go off my hand as they slump on my lap before he kneels down and grabs my jaw.

“Open your mouth and show me.”

I do as told, letting him see his come resting on my tongue.

“Swallow and show me when it’s done.”

I gulp and open again, showing him there is no drop left.

“Good girl,” he whispers, lightly brushing back my hair, kissing my cheek light as he unveils his gentle side. “You did so good. And even now you look more beautiful. Your eyes are hazy like you are still high on desire, and your spit drooling down on your body is the most alluring sight I’ve ever seen.”

Cupping my face he kisses my lips lightly, feathering light touches with his thumb. “I promised to show you pleasures you’ve never imagined and I always fulfill my promises, little girl. This is just the beginning.”

* * *

I wash the dishes at the cafeteria along with five other women against a long, stone table with sinks for each of us to use. Agnes is acting like the guard like always, walking back and forth behind us.

The window in front of us gives the side view of the forest with nothing but trees and dead plants everywhere. It looks dark and lifeless, but I have been getting used to it.

I set the clean plate on the right side of the sink where a stack of other plates rested. I look up and freeze when I see a figure standing nearby one of the trees.

It isn’t anyone from the Magdalene but it’s a person I know.

My sister.

The plate slips through my grasp, clanking with the others. My eyes stay fixated on her as I forget to breathe for several seconds. My heart is pounding so fast like I might have a heart attack.

I don’t even blink feeling fearful she might disappear if I do. She is wearing a night dress almost similar to mine. Her raven hair was wet with sand bits dusting her strands. Her porcelain skin looks white as snow like she has no blood warming her skin. Her eyes even from far away look empty…lifeless.

She nearly looks like a living corpse but yet she is alive. She is here.

Without thinking, I dash out of the room and open the door that leads outside.

“Agatha! Where on earth are you going? Get back right now!” I hear Sister Agnes spewing orders but I don’t care. Not even once as I rushed out to get to my sister whom I thought I’d lost.

To hold her…to say how much I love her.

She is still beside the trees but when I get closer, she starts to run too but away from me, into the deep woods.

“No! Helena! Come back!” I scream, rushing after her, watching her dress swaying with the wind.

“Please, Helena. Don’t leave me,” I beg through my ragged breathing. But she doesn’t stop no matter how many times I call for her.

My throat is getting dry with my lungs burning.

She is getting closer to the bridge that I crossed last night but she is heading towards the gap.

“No, stop! Helena! Don’t go there!” I warn her, watching her getting closer to the hole of death. Again.

No. No. No. No.

I can’t lose her again. Never.

“Helena!?” I yell at the top of my lungs and she finally halts at the very edge.

I’m a few steps away from her and try to get closer. “Please…Helena.”

She gradually turns, looking over her shoulder with her hair curtaining her side. Her eyes filled with tears of blood and emptiness.

“Don’t do this. I will help you,” I beg her, slowly approaching her. But she shakes her head with the tears streaming down.

“You can’t…you never did,” her voice was broken with no sign of emotions in her tone.

“Agatha!” I hear the familiar voice of Eryx, calling me out. I look over my shoulder watching him and Father Geryon finding me. Distress paints his face with his eyes widening in shock, while Geryon offers me a death glare mixed with a hint of tension.

“What are you doing? You will fall, get back right away!” Eryx orders me.

I vigorously shake my head, begging him silently to listen to me. “No. I have to save her. I can’t lose her again.”

“Who?”

“Helena. I have to save her,” my voice turning shrill as I’m falling on the verge of crying. “Please, I have to do this. She needs me.”

“You don’t have to, Agatha. Listen to me, please.”

“I-I…I can’t. She will fall if I don’t save her.”

“She is already dead, Agatha. Don’t be a fool,” Geryon retorts.

“No! She is alive! She is alive!” I turn to face my sister, to prove them wrong but I see her taking a step further as I feel my own soul leaving my body.

“Helena! No!” I instantly go after her to catch her.

“Agatha! Stop, no!” Eryx screams but I ignore him and go after my sister, watching her fall off. If she dies, I die too, and at this moment I will embrace my death with open arms.

I witness her fall down and I jump along with her. But the only difference she and I have is that she died again while I got saved by Eryx pulling me back. Grasping my hand as I live another day to drown in guilt.

I thrash against his hold, continuously hitting his chest as I sob in misery. “No! No! Let me go!”

“That’s enough, Agatha!” Eryx snaps.

But I resume hitting him, channeling my pain on him.

“She just died again…I killed her,” I cry out loud, feeling my body slacking against his hold in defeat as I kneel down.

“S-she…she…s-she is dead,” I choke out my words, my body shivering from so much emotions coursing through me.

I sense him picking me up and carrying me away. I don’t hear Geryon anymore, assuming he must have left earlier when he saw I was saved.

But I shouldn’t have been saved. I should have died.

“I couldn’t save her…I couldn’t save her.” I keep repeating the words like a mantra, resting my head against his firm chest, closing my eyes.

It hurts so much that I feel my soul shattering into tiny pieces. And there is nobody else but to blame myself. It’s all because of me.

I don’t know for how long Eryx carries me back, but when I feel the softness of the bed, I know we are at the Magdalene…my cage.

I’m still shivering when I feel the warmth of a blanket engulfing me. I frown and slowly open my eyes, finding Eryx coming in my view.

His expression is empty but his eyes hold the anxiousness. He caresses my hair, moving his fingers through my strands.

“Shh, it’s okay. Close your eyes,” he whispers gently.

I shake my head knowing he is lying. “Nothing is okay…it will never be.”

“It will be. You have been through a lot, Agatha. Do not let your mind and emotions punish you furthermore before you lose your own self.”

“I have been lost for years…years,” I whisper.

He frowns, not understanding the meaning that I only know of.

“Close your eyes and I promise when you wake up, everything will be okay.”

I don’t believe his words knowing well he would fail or give up on me just like my loved ones did. But deep down, a part of me trusts him for once.

I believe you, Eryx.

I believe you.

* * *

I hear muffled voices that break my slumber. My eyes slowly open, adjusting to the dimly lit room, hearing the pitter-patter sound of the rain. It’s nearly night time probably as there is a candelabra resting on my table. Except, it doesn’t look like the table in my room.

Frowning I sit back and look around, finding myself in a different room which is the complete opposite.

I’m lying on a king size bed with velvet sheets, pillows and a blanket. There is a detailed, spiral carving design on the headboard. The walls are way cleaner than the ones in my room with a gray color coating them. A vast, dark brown wardrobe is positioned on the right side with a door beside it which I’m assuming led to another room. On my left there is a giant window with crimson curtains that overlooks the forest which is drenched from the rain. An ottoman is situated beside it along with a bookshelf close to the window side.

It’s a much better room in the whole building…but whose room was it?

I get my answer when Eryx enters the room, shutting the door behind him as he stalks towards me.

“You are awake. How are you feeling?” He sits beside me and brings the candelabra closer, pulling my skin below my eyes like he did during the check-up.

“Slightly weak. My head still hurts a bit,” I respond.

He nods, leaning back. “That’s normal. You haven’t been eating properly too for a couple of days. Care to explain why?”

He passes me a glass of water from the table. I take it and take a few little sips realizing how thirsty I am and gulp down the whole thing.

“I’m still waiting for you to tell me. What happened that time?” he asks. “Sister Agnes called for both of us saying you were screaming and running off. What was so important that you saw, that you were willing to risk your life?”

I shake my hand, looking down at the glass resting on my lap. “It was nothing.”

“It wasn’t nothing and you know it. You have to tell me Agatha, otherwise I won’t be able to help you.”

“Why would you want to help me in the first place?” I retort back.

“I know I shouldn’t and just pretend it was caused by your physical weakness and lack of sleep. But I won’t do that.”

I gulp, licking my lips. “You won’t understand.”

“Then make me understand. I will believe you.”

I let out a heartless chuckle feeling my eyes watering with overwhelming emotions returning back as I start thinking of what happened. “You won’t. You will just think I’m acting like a crazy person and give me more medicine. Maybe who knows you will put me in some sort of room and lock me up in isolation for days or months.” My voice starts to raise up bit by bit.

He remains silent, watching me lose my temper. The tears I have been holding back start to stream down as I speak with a broken tone. “I have stopped hoping for people to believe me. People never want to see the truth because they are scared of it.”

His gaze never leaves my face.

“They just want to live in a mirrored world, where everyone is so used to the lies and deception that they don’t want to see the reflection of truth. And when it appears, they break it without any hesitation.”

I sense him getting closer and cupping my face. “You have to tell me who broke you, Agatha, otherwise you will fall into that false mirror and get shattered.”

“I’m already broken.”

He shakes his head, pressing his forehead against mine. “No, Agatha. Not yet. You are still strong and filled with hope. There is a chance but even that will fade away if you don’t allow me in your darkness.”

His thumb skims along my cheeks as always, like he knew his touch helps me soothe down. Every time he holds my face, my heart somersaults, wanting to be engulfed in his warmth forever.

Bending his face lower, he kisses away my tears, caressing my lips with his thumb. The rain falling harder with the thunder roaring loudly.

“You can trust me with your truth, Agatha.”

Just like you trusted my truth, you can trust me with yours. I remember telling him those words and today he was reminding me of my own saying.

“I saw my sister…Helena.” I wait for him to call me insane for thinking it but he doesn’t utter a single word.

“I saw her through the window and she was there looking at me. Her eyes were just empty…” I shake my head, “I hate to say it but she nearly looked like a corpse. She didn’t look like my happy and beautiful sister who would always welcome me with a bright smile and open her arms for her snuggling.”

I let out a sad chuckle, remembering the times she would even swing me around by my arms when I was a kid. How she would even have tea parties with me and my dolls whenever I asked her. How she would even save me from mommy’s scolding if I accidentally broke one of her expensive vases.

Those were the perfect times of my life before it was shattered right in front of my eyes.

“She felt so real. I didn’t think for a second and went after her. But when she was near that bridge…my heart just stopped thinking she was going to jump…and she did,” I barely whisper out my words before a sob breaks through my chest.

“I couldn’t save her, Eryx. She died again because of me.”

“Hey, look at me,” Eryx urges as I meet his intense gaze which is filled with a hint of empathy. As if he knows my pain.

“You did not kill her. She was never there in the first place, Agatha-”

“I saw her, I promise you I’m not lying.”

“It’s not about you lying or being truthful. It’s about this guilt you carry that is eating you alive and making you see things that your mind wants you to see.”

“I’m not being delusional if that’s what you are pointing at.” The rage that I buried while revealing what happened today is starting to emerge back. “She is alive…was alive.”

God, it hurts so much…it hurts so bad.

“Your sister was declared dead last year by the doctors. Her body is still in the graveyard, so it is impossible for her to be alive.”

I pull away, feeling my nerves ravaging with anger as his words gut me deeper than anything. “Then how do you explain what I saw today? Are you really saying I’m a lunatic?”

He holds my hands for reassurance but I don’t want any of it and I pull back.

“You are not a lunatic. Stop saying that. There is a difference between being a crazy person and ill. What you have is signs of bereavement hallucinations. And there is absolutely nothing wrong about it. This is a normal stage people go through when they suffer the loss of their loved one’s death.”

“What are you talking about? My sister was still alive today! I saw her.”

He runs a hand through his hair, letting out a deep breath before meeting my gaze. “I am your doctor, Agatha, so, I know what you are experiencing. I have been checking your progress and the unusual things you are experiencing. And it’s all a sign of the hallucination. Your guilt is the trigger.”

“Of course, I have guilt. I feel remorseful for Helena’s death because I caused it.”

He opens his mouth to explain more of his bullshit words but I’m not going to have any of it. So, I push my hands against his chest, even though he doesn’t budge.

“Leave me alone! Get out!” I scream, continuing to push him away. “I said fucking leave!”

He finally stands up but I keep pushing and hitting him. “Leave! And don’t you ever dare look at me like you understand my pain. A monster like you can never understand what it is like losing someone you love because you don’t have a heart that is even capable of feeling emotions. No wonder you are alone because you know that you act like one of the rulers here, but you are also a prisoner, just like me.”

I raise my hand to land another hit but he catches my wrist. When I see the cold, vengeful gaze burning in his eyes, my heart stops. Realization soon hits me, making me wish I could take back my words. But it’s too late.

Eryx is infuriated and it’s clear my words stroke him right to his soul. He nearly looks as dangerous as he did the first day he kidnapped me and threatened me with a knife against my neck.

It feels like he has been hiding that side for these past few weeks but now I triggered it back.

“I-I’m sorry…I-”

He raises his other hand, signing me to be quiet. “Not a single sound. One little word out of your mouth and I won’t hesitate to break your hand.”

Fear soon took over and I believe the promise his voice carries. “Get back to your room. I will send Agnes with your medicines. Now leave.”

“Eryx, I didn’t-”

His grip tightens around my wrist almost in a painful grasp making me wince. “I said, leave.”

I try to twist away from his hold but he lets go and I dash right out of the room, heading upstairs. I shut the door behind me and instead of crawling on the bed, my legs give out as I kneel on the floor, letting myself drown in my guilt and sins while I sob.

No matter how much I try, I end up doing the worst things possible. Even though Eryx is my captor, he is also the only person here who treats me differently every now and then.

And what did I do?

I trigger something within him that should have been locked inside the walls he builds around himself. There is nothing but rage in his eyes that he nearly wants to hurt me, but he controls that urge…for me.

But is he really telling the truth about my hallucinations? Is my guilt making me imagine my dead sister?

I know she was real; she was right there in front of my eyes, and I saw her fall to her own death. But was it real though? Or was it my mind playing tricks on me, engulfing me in darkness that I couldn’t realize what was real and what was imagination?

Oh, Helena.

I’m so lost, sister…so lost.