Chapter VIII
TRAPPED BY OBSESSION

Inside a cottage by the sea, a father sadly watched through the fogged window his daughter come up the walkway, so weak she stumbled. He wanted to help her, but knew she would resent it. Coming through the front door, he watched her try to hide the bruise on her right cheekbone. Sam Evans didn't know what to do. How had his happened? Why? After all his daughter had been through, why? He asked himself over and over again. He didn't know what to do. Maggie was by law a consenting adult. Joe Haskell was no longer Maggie's friend, much less fiancé. He didn't bother to come around anymore. Sam didn't blame him. He didn't know how he was going to do it, but he was going to stop his daughter from ever seeing Barnabas Collins again. He was not going to sit by and watch her be destroyed.

He watched Maggie as she was coming out of the bathroom, barely able to stand.

"Would you like something to eat, honey?""

"No, Pop, I'm not hungry."

"Coffee, then? Or maybe hot tea would be better?" her father asked quietly.

"Pop, I don't want anything to eat, I just want to go to sleep," Maggie replied.

Sam could hear the fatigue in her voice.

"Why? So you can spend an hour trying to hide the bruise that Barnabas Collins gave you?" Sam queried, voice raising.

"Oh, Pop, I don't want to go over this again," Maggie replied in a tone that showed her lack of interest.

"Maggie, I absolutely forbid you to go back to that house to spend the night with Barnabas Collins. Don't you know what people are saying about you?" Sam was getting angrier by the second.

"No, and I don't" -- Maggie was saying

"That you're BARNABAS COLLINS' WHORE!" Sam was shouting.

"Pop." Maggie said, as she was starting to cry. Maggie knew it was true, but she couldn't give Barnabas up. She had tried. It had lasted one night. He wanted to see her, she ignored him, and finally the sun came up. Maggie would never forget the empty feeling. Her thoughts had been erratic that whole day. What if he doesn't ever want to see me again? I don't care. It's for the best. No, no. I love him. I can't live without him. She knew it was true, that if she had to live without him her only choice would be to follow the one she looked like.

The very likeness that had drew him to her in the first place. Maggie knew without a doubt that she would jump from Widow's Hill before she would live without Barnabas. She didn't care what people said about her, what they called her, no one understood that without Barnabas she felt dead. When she would see him it was as if the sun was shining or a light went on in a dark room. Maggie had loved Barnabas since she first saw him that night in the coffee shop, and she would never stop loving him.

Barnabas had beaten her so bad the next night, that Maggie thought she was going to die. Her screams reverberated throughout the Old House, and Julia Hoffman had come to her aid, made sure that nothing was broken or punctured, and left her in the cellar. Then Barnabas came. He looked at her with his dark smoldering eyes, and she felt desire for him rise up in her, and she knew he knew. The shame she felt was unbearable, and she tried to cover her nakedness from him.

"Don't ever cover yourself from me, do you understand me, Maggie?" Barnabas had said in the form of a question, but both knew it was a command she would not disobey.

Meekly she dropped her hands. Shivering from the cold of the cellar, and the fear mixed with desire from her tormentor, she tried to stand, only to be gathered up in the powerful arms of her lover. Security and peace covered her like a warm blanket.

Stroking her hair, Barnabas asked her, "do you still love me, darling?"

Maggie looked at him and breathlessly replied, "I will love you until the end of time."

In the deep elegant voice that Maggie had come to love, softly he whispered, "do you want me to take you right here and now, Maggie?"

He had stopped stroking her hair, and was stroking one of her breasts, and Maggie could barely contain herself, when she answered him, oh, yes, please, " in a voice with a catch in it as if sobbing. Barnabas knew she was on fire. He could smell her desire. Her heart was beating faster. Barnabas smiled at her, and before Maggie could say anything or think anything, she felt the sharp pinprick of his fangs sink into the vein at her breast. The pain was so sudden and sharp Maggie screamed. Pain was replaced by an onslaught of pleasure. Her senses were heightened, she felt she couldn't stand it anymore. Barnabas had moved over to the stairs and laid Maggie on the stairs.

Holding her tight, not disengaging his fangs, his hands slip between her thighs finding her most sensitive spot. He could tell she was losing control fast, and then he stopped right at the brink. She tried to move his hand back to manipulating her so she could finish.

Removing his fangs from her breast, Barnabas looked at Maggie, his eyes golden from desire and bloodlust, "Not so fast, my dear," Barnabas told her in a soft silky voice. "You will not finish until I say so."

He put his thumb back on her womanhood, and inserted a finger inside her, moving very slowly, thrusting harder, at the same time, stopping and starting the circular motion with his thumb.

Maggie felt him take his other hand and manipulate her nipple until she thought she was going to scream from frustration. She felt his fangs enter the other breast, and she screamed this time not from pain but intense pleasure.

"I can't take this anymore," Maggie whimpered. "Please finish."

Her pleas went unheeded. He would bring her to the brink and stop. She tried to finish with her own hand, but he took his one free hand, and grabbed her wrist, pulling his fangs out, with blood dripping from his mouth, eyes golden, told her "There will be none of that," in a very even tone, that meant business.

Barnabas then kissed Maggie, she tasting her own blood, bit his lower lip and tasted his, the pleasure was overwhelming. She thought she was going to go crazy. He wouldn't stop.

Finally, he stopped long enough to wrap her in his cape and carry her upstairs to Josette's Room. He tormented her all night long. Taking her to the brink, and stopping. At sunrise he warned her to be ready for him that night, and to wait for him when he was ready to satisfy her. If she did not, he would know through her blood, and much would be the worse than this night had brought for her disobedience. When he summoned her she was to come. Delays and not showing up was inexcusable. She belonged to him, and no one else until he tired of her.

That had been the beginning of her tempestuous and dangerous affair, no matter what the cost, with Barnabas Collins.

Now, she lived in terror that he would tire of her, and she didn't know that she could handle it.

Everyday for the last month-and-a-half she was sick. She would retch every morning until she was dry heaving. It seemed to be getting worse and worse. Only her father knew, and that was only because he could hear her.

Joe was gone. Her father was right people were talking about her, calling her Barnabas Collins' Whore. Her friends had shied away from her, till they stopped calling. Maggie was alone except for Willie Loomis, but there was nothing he could do. Maggie wouldn't let him anyway, because Barnabas Collins was her being, her very essence. Without him she would be no more. Cease to exist, she would not go on. The widows at Widow's Hill would begin their wailing until she was one of them, wailing through eternity for her lost lover.

Maggie Evans was one of the lost so entrenched was her obsession for the Vampire, and the Man Barnabas Collins. Sitting on the window seat watching the sun go down, Maggie brushed away a lone tear from her cheek, and went to prepare to be with her lover, albeit a dark, unnatural, forbidden by nature itself, union.

To be continued ...