The Surrogate
by Alex Severin
Bram Stoker Award Nominee 2000

The wind carried us into the churchyard like a gentle ushering hand, the hard rain attempting to cool the passion that sizzled on our skins beneath its icy veil.

The cemetery we walked hand in hand through was so old; it was as dead and decayed as the corpses that lay beneath its earth and I could smell the death of the very soil itself as well as the humanity it sheltered.

The tomb was is a state of disrepair, the ornate padlock on its wrought iron gate crumbling and rusted. It fell to dust on the ground as I clasped it in my hand; the gate swung open as if in invitation, welcoming us inside, beckoning us to enter.

The coffin lay on a stone table; the wood had long since began to rot away and it splintered beneath me as he laid me down on top of it; I could feel the bones of its resident, dry beneath my rain-soaked flesh.

He undressed me slowly, teasing me, tantalising me. He picked up fistfulls of the remains beneath me and rubbed them into my naked breasts. I could feel the bone fragments scratching at my nipples like the thorns of a rose, piercing my skin and leaving the scarlet stain of my blood there.

He tormented my nipples with his tongue, tasting the dust of what was once a man, a man who pulsed with passion and desire as we did now. I lay down on the remnants of the coffin and parted my legs for him. He kissed his way down my body much too slowly; I took his long blonde curls in my hands and forced his head between my thighs, placing one leg over his shoulder and caressing his back with my calf.

His exquisite tongue made me moan and gasp his name as he delivered fast then slow licks over my engorged clit. I arched my back in appreciation as he hungrily licked and gently bit at my dripping sex.

I pulled him onto me, pulled him up by his hair, making him cry out in pain. I was selfish, I didn't care that I hurt him, I just wanted to feel the hardness of his cock filling me up inside, pulsing in my sex, impaling me, driving hard into me.

As he entered me, hard and fast, making me cry out now, teaching me a lesson, I felt the grit and dust of the remains I lay on being pushed inside me with the force of his thrusting. I could feel it on my ass and between my slick thighs, I could feel it working it's way up inside me, searching for the soft bloody walls of my womb.

I fancied that the remains of this old man would bury themselves into the safe and warm of the lining inside my womb, nestle there, grow there, mature, and wait to be reborn to this world again.

I imagined what it would look like when I gave birth to it, this thing that I was sure, at that very moment we made love in his tomb, was forming inside me. No ordinary child. No, it would be an old man, it would be aged and wizened and would talk to me the second I gave it birth; it would laugh at me and call me 'mommy' and taunt me, I was sure.

As I came, I screamed, partly from the explosive climax that ripped through me and partly from the horror of what was in my thoughts, the thoughts of the putrid old child that would grow and grow in my womb.

I was certain that I would go mad as the months passed and I watched the swelling in my belly and dreaded the day when I would have to give this thing life. I would lose all sense the day it would claw its way out of me, tearing at my flesh with long dirty nails, punching my insides with scrawny, sharp, twisted fingers, fingers like the knotted limbs of the trees in the graveyard. I would go insane if I heard the rasping painful laughter from its fluid filled lungs echoing from inside my cunt.

I don't know how long I screamed for but I came to my senses to find my lover slapping me senseless, trying to dislodge the hysteria that had a firm grip on me.

Of course, when I told him what I had been thinking as we made love in the old man's vault, his face was a confused mixture of his love for me, concern that I may be losing my mind and utter revulsion.

We often make love in cemeteries, we enjoy it, it excites us, turns us on. But lately, I feel different when we do it. There is something beautiful now about the cemetery we visit most frequently, the one with the old man's vault in it. It's strange, it makes me feel at home and uneasy at the same time. It makes me feel scared and safe all at once.

I feel as if I am home when we visit this place. I feel like I have been here forever when I step through these rusted old gates. I feel that I belong here, that I am meant to be here in this decrepit old bone yard.

The gnarling of the tree branches is beautiful to me. The stench of the foetid earth is divine to me. The aroma of the death that is all around us here is tantalising, appealing to me.

I know that I belong here now. I know that this is where I am meant to be. I know that some day I will lie in the earth of this place. I pray that some consciousness remains after death so that I can feel my skin decay and my flesh putrify, the organs inside me turn into a meaty liquid and the bones beneath crumble away till there is nothing left of me but dust.

And I have no fear anymore of the life that grows within the heart of my womanhood. It is a life my body has helped to create, a life that will spring forth from my loins and into this world, be born once again and have a chance to live once more.

I am proud that he chose me to be his mother. I am proud to be the first woman on earth ever to be the resurrector of a life deceased. I am proud to be a surrogate to the dead.

©2000 Alex Severin