The Cemetery Man and Other Darkside Tales

Angelique

She comes to me in the night, naked in the night.

The first time I believed her to be a dream image, a figment born of my passionate worship. I had dreamed of her often before then, more than once as she looked in the erotic nude scenes in her films, but not once had I imagined her there with me in my bed. My desire for her was intense, yet I never allowed it to become more than the wishful, respectful, unattainable kind one feels for a goddess.

On that first night when I heard the rustle of the sheets, smelled the alluring scent of her perfume, felt the velvety perfection of her body against mine, I thought: Don’t wake up, not yet! But I was already awake. When I was sure of it, I reached out to turn on the bedside lamp. I cannot describe the awe, the rapture I felt when I saw her there naked beside me.

“You can’t be real,” I said to her. “You can’t be Angelique.”

“Oh, but I am,” she said.

“How? Why? You don’t know me.”

“But I do know you. I know that you want me, I know that I want you.”

“A woman like you, a man like me? It isn’t possible.”

“I came because you love me. Anything is possible when love and need are strong enough.”

“I’m imagining this. You can’t be real...”

She took my hand. “Touch me here... is this real? And here. Ah, and here. Is all of it real?”

“Yes. Oh, yes.”

“And this?” she said as she lifted her body onto mine, as the soft wetness of her engulfed me like a fire that did not burn. “Is this real?”

“Yes!”

“Say my name.”

“Angelique.”

“Say it again.”

“Angelique. Angelique. Angelique.”

I am neither a handsome nor a successful man. Small, mild, nondescript, with a mundane job to match. No family left, no close friends. Lonely, yes, yet the real world often frightens and bewilders me. And so by design and inclination, as a form of self-defense, I’ve become an escapist.

I have always loved films of all types. A great deal of my free time is spent in darkened movie theaters, in front of television and computer screens in my modest apartment. By a conservative estimate I watch perhaps one hundred films new and old each month, and I have the capacity to lose myself in every one, to become part of whatever story is being told no matter how good or bad. In that respect, and this too I freely admit, I am an emotional sponge.

But I am not given to Walter Mitty-like flights of fancy. I do not see people who aren’t there. I have no fantasy life beyond my involvement in the films I watch. I have not masturbated in thirty-three years, since the age of fourteen.

I did not and do not imagine that Angelique comes to me in the night, naked in the night, and mounts me, and gives me the greatest sexual pleasure I have ever known. She is not a dream or a figment. Not an astral projection or anything of that fantastic nature. She is real, flesh and blood real, and for some strange and wondrous reason which she refuses to divulge, she chose me, Harold Brenner, out of all her millions of admirers, to be her new lover. I did not doubt it that first night, I did not doubt it in the cold light of morning after she was gone, I do not doubt it now. I simply accept it on faith.

And I feel blessed.

Angelique has always been my favorite actress. And not just mine — the favorite of countless others world-wide. She is the brightest star in the firmament of Hollywood stars, as Venus at dusk is the brightest in the heavens. No matter what role she plays, her talent shines so much more radiantly than that of anyone around her. Even Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman pale into insignificance alongside Angelique. Her luminous eyes, the golden fall of her hair, the sweetness of her smile and the grace of her movements are unparalleled. The critics might not agree with this assessment, but what do critics know?

I have seen all forty-two of her films at least a dozen times each, and I never tire of watching her perform. I could watch each one five hundred times and I would never tire of her. Perhaps the extent and magnitude of my adoration is the reason why she chose me.

Angelique came again two nights later, and the second night after that, and the next after that. Our bodies joined and rejoined... again, again, again. And each time the level of my ecstasy intensified until it became nearly unbearable and I cried her name, cried out my love for her. Not once did she speak my name, nor tell me how much she loved me, but I don’t fault her for this. She comes to me, she’s real, she’s mine for as long as she’ll have me. That is all that matters.

Now she comes every night, and stays until just before dawn. Three, four, six, as many as eight times we merge and writhe and achieve simultaneous release. I think I can’t possibly accommodate her so often, I am a middle-aged man with so little sexual experience, but no matter how many times we have made love, she has only to touch me, lightly, and again I become like stone.

Once, in our second week together, I said to her, “You’re wearing me out, Angelique. Taking all my precious bodily fluids.”

“Yes. Isn’t it wonderful?”

She seemed not to have understood the small joke I’d made. Was it possible she was not as well versed as I in Hollywood film lore? “Precious bodily fluids,” I said again. “General Jack D. Ripper’s phrase in Dr. Strangelove. He felt it necessary to deny women his essence in order to remain pure.”

Angelique bathed me in the glow of her smile. “But you’ll never deny me yours.”

“No. Never.”

Again she touched me and again I was stone.

Every night, all night long, we revel in each other. That is all we do; she prefers not to talk about herself, me, anything at all. Again and again, again and again, with only short periods of rest between each coupling. Neither of us slept much in the beginning; now we hardly sleep at all. I am so tired each morning after she leaves that I can barely drag myself out of bed.

As much as I love and desire her, I must have a respite now and then — a night off to recharge my batteries, as it were. Tonight when she comes I’ll ask her to grant me this small favor, for both our benefits.

Her answer was no. A sweet and gentle no.

“I can’t get enough of you,” she said. “Don’t you feel the same about me anymore?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then don’t deny me. If you deny me, I might not come to you again.”

“Don’t say that! I couldn’t bear it.”

She gathers me to her again. And once more I drown in her warm soft wetness.

So tired now. Weak. I need sleep desperately, but even in the daytime I can’t seem to do more than doze for a few minutes. Can’t seem to eat anything, either; I have no appetite. My body looks and feels shrunken, shriveled, like that of a very old man.

I could not get out of bed at all yesterday or this morning. I can only lie here wide awake and wait for the night.

All day I found myself hoping Angelique would not come. But of course she does. And it seems not to matter to her that when she slips naked into my bed, she finds herself clutching a desiccated shell of a man.

“Not tonight,” I say to her in a voice that croaks like a frog’s, “please, not again tonight,” but she only laughs and reaches out her hand to touch me. I try to will myself not to respond, but I have no resistance. Her seductive powers are amazing. In an instant I am as ready for her as I was the first night.

When she joins her body to mine she laughs again, but this time the laughter is neither soft nor throaty with passion. It’s strange, shrill, a kind of hideous triumphant sound that fills me with ice instead of heat, terror instead of love. And I realize that I am not blessed but cursed.

“Lie still,” she says. “I’m almost done.”

I have no choice — I lie still.

“Now turn on the lamp. I want you to see me this last time.”

I have just enough strength left to turn on the lamp. In its pale glow as she writhes above me, the flawless beauty of her face shimmers, fragments, falls away like a crumbling mask, and when I see what lies beneath I scream... I scream... I scream... but my screams have no voice.

Quickly, hungrily, the thing that is not and never was Angelique finishes draining me dry.