There Is A Light That Never Goes Out

by Bright Eyes

 

This is a story with a moral.

"Know thyself"

 

I'd looked at my life, and I didn't like it. It was time to start again. I felt like I hadn't chosen to live where I lived, but I'd just kind of fallen to earth there. I felt like I hadn't chosen my job or my friends – neither of which I liked very much – but I'd just kind of fallen in with them. I felt like I hadn't chosen any of my life really. I'd just lived without thinking, taking the path of least resistance. Now I wanted to make my own choices.

I saved up the pennies from my McJob, got a place at college and moved to the city.

My little flat was cheap despite its pretty view over the rooftops because it was located in a "bad area". It didn't seem like a bad area to me. It was just the kind of neighbourhood where you could find trouble if you looked for it. Me, I kept my head down, and so far, the trouble passed me by. It was time to start again. That's what I'd chosen.

I was dreaming of my better life, looking out of the window at the roofs receding down the hill and the flocks of tens of thousands of starlings warping over the distant city suburbs when there was a knock at the door.

The flat was funny in that the window looked north-west, but the door was down a flight of steps and out onto a totally different street. A narrow street, wide enough for one car, poorly lit, and quiet.

I opened the door to a good looking girl of about twenty-five, who stepped lightly past me. She was slim, and wearing a shimmery green skirt to her knees. She looked fresh and wholesome, and I could imagine her presenting children's television. She had a black blouse undone to the fourth button, and looked as though she was expecting to go out, with light makeup and shining hair.

"Hi, is Mary about?" She pronounced it Mah-ry. Mary Baxter was the previous occupant. I had a pile of post for her.

"Sorry, no," I replied, keeping the door open. "She's left. I don't know where she's gone. I moved in about ten days ago."

"Oh." She said. She just kind of stopped there in the hallway and looked at me. I was holding the door open.

I was just about to say thanks anyway, or bye, or sorry again, when I remembered starting again, making my own choices. It was time to start again. I made a choice.

"Er, can I help you?" I tried. It sounded bad. Try again! "I've got a pile of post for her and a box of things she's left. Perhaps you could pass them on?" Phew, recovered. I didn't want to blow my first chance in a new city with the first pretty girl I met.

"Maybe you can help me!" She replied, ruffling her blond hair unselfconsciously. "Mary had a few books and CDs I'd lent her. Could I have a look in that box?"

I'd done it – I'd smoothed the situation over. I nodded with a smile. She smiled back at me, pink lips parting and her face happy to please. She was like a friendly puppy. She bounded energetically up the stairs as though she knew where she was going, and I followed after, my eyes about level with her hips. She really was a good looking girl!

 

She stopped and looked around the living room, at the top of the stairs, obviously noticing differences from Mary's décor and checking out what I'd done. Very little.

"I've just moved here from Carlton", I said, making conversation while I went to collect the box and post. "I've signed up at the university."

"Oh, I'm at the university!" she exclaimed, "What are you doing?"

My heart sank. I wasn't at the university really, but the college. Not half so fancy!

"Business." I replied rather flatly, faltering in my rhythm.

"With Dr Baskersmith?" She asked. I looked blank. "Or Maureen Rieve?" I looked blank.

We looked at each other, and I think she knew that I wasn't telling the truth. It was just like the bit in The Great Gatsby where he says he's been to Cambridge.

"So what are you studying?" I asked, to take the pressure off. Then a thought struck me, "Or do you teach?"

"No!" she laughed, her dark eyes dancing and her face lighting up as she bounced puppy-like onto the sofa, "I don't do either! I just say I'm at the university to sound impressive, and let people think what they like. I work there in the canteen. I'm the chief cheese-grater and salad tosser!"

I laughed too, and suddenly it was like friends. She seemed honest, she had an easy manner, and a likeable voice.

"I'm Sam" I said, and offered out my hand.

"Lauren" she replied, shaking it. "Are you really at the university?"

I made another choice. I explained it all truthfully while I laid the box and the mail on the coffee table.

"Coffee?" I asked after I finished talking at her, and to my surprise, she agreed. I returned from the kitchenette with two frothy cups and set them down.

"So did you know Mary well?" I asked.

"Mah-ry", she corrected me, "Yes, I did. I don't know how I could have not known about her moving. I was away for a week, then I didn't call her for a while, then there was no answer when I called her, then I popped round tonight and here's you instead of her! It can't have been a month since we were sitting in the Commie taking pictures of each other with her new camera phone, and comparing diets."

"The Commie?" I asked, although I guessed she meant the Commercial Inn, a pub two streets away.

"The Commercial Inn," she replied, "On Moor Road. It's just round the corner. I wonder where she's gone, the minx!" Her innocent face split into a playful smile.

"Hmm," I agreed, opening the box. I contained all of the things I'd found in the flat that looked like they might be missed. There were two books, CDs and a brown padded envelope. Lauren took a few discs and a diet book.

"Dieting!" I exclaimed. I knew I wasn't clever or sharp, but I'd always been able to say what I think, and I wanted to talk more. "I can never understand why people diet. It's like hurting yourself for fun!"

I was only teasing, but she put her head onto one side, her wavy curls tickling her shoulders, and looked thoughtful.

"No," she said, "It isn't. Or maybe it is. But there's a clear benefit to it as well. Like exercise. That can hurt, but you wouldn't say that was pointless, would you?"

This wasn't what I expected. Light-hearted banter had been my aim, not an actual discussion.

"Well I'm not even sure about that," I flustered, "I think maybe it is like hurting yourself for fun. I was only joking."

"I know," she replied. "But I've thought the same thing loads of times. I guess just sometimes people put themselves in precarious positions or they surrender some control of their situation for other reasons. Like to a diet book."

"Wow," I gasped. "Are you sure you don't teach them a thing or two at the university? Where did you get those words?"

"Now you're just teasing!" she laughed, standing up. "Thanks for the things."

"No problem," I responded. "These aren't yours are they?" I picked up the remaining books and the brown envelope. I t was not sealed, and a photograph fell out, face down on the swirly 70s patterned carpet.

"No, just what I've already got." She said, picking up the photograph and looking at it.

"OK," I said, tipping up the envelope so that nothing else would fall out, and then holding it out to her to replace the picture. She was gazing at it, and did not move.

"What is it," I asked, "Holiday snap?" and moved round next to her to see.

If it was a holiday snap, it wasn't the kind of holiday that I'd ever been on. In the picture was an attractive, lithely voluptuous woman in sexy black underwear, stockings and high heels, lounging on a one-armed sofa, smirking at the camera. Her eyes looked kind of funny, like they'd been doctored with a photo doing-things-to computer program. Or it could just have been all the makeup she was wearing.

"Or not a holiday snap." I concluded.

When she still said nothing, I held the bag out again. She didn't move.

"Er, Lauren, are you OK?" I asked.

No reply.

"Lauren?" I touched her forearm nervously. I'd only met her about twenty minutes ago. It seemed a bit soon for forearm touching. Maybe shoulder?

"Mmpf, yes?" she suddenly said, as if I'd woken her. "I'm OK." Her eyes were sort of glassy and she sat down on the settee again.

I held the envelope back out. "Is that Mary?" I asked, pronouncing it correctly. Again she didn't reply but just kept gazing at the photo. I knelt down and touched her shoulder again. "Lauren, is that Mary?"

"What?" she asked, blinking. Her eyes still seemed sheened over, or dilated, or something. She looked at me and she looked different.

"Is that Mary?" I asked for a third time.

"Mary? No. No, it's not Mary. I don't know who it is."

I was still holding out the envelope, and her eyes refocused on it. She took it from me slowly, and reached inside. Slowly and with what looked like slightly trembling fingers, she withdrew another envelope, slightly smaller and white. She seemed disappointed and put both of them back on the coffee table, placing the photograph on top of them, facing up.

I glanced again at the photo where it lay. It didn't seem shocking to me, just like a bit of soft stuff someone had shot. I guessed that she really did know who it was but just wasn't telling me. We didn't know each other after all.

Suddenly Lauren stretched and yawned, arching her back sexily.

"Hey Sam," she purred, looking up at me through her eyelashes, "You're new here – why don't I show you around? Let's go to the Commie!"

"OK!" I said, a little too quickly. She seemed like a nice straightforward girl, and not at all bad looking! And she asked me out!

"I'll just be a moment then," she said, bouncing off the settee and heading into the bathroom. She scooped up her bag which she'd put down by the armrest as she went.

I put the cups back in the kitchen area and fished out my best looking coat from the wardrobe. An old deep purple velvet jacket that looked better for being worn out rather than worse. Very Pulp. Very 90s, I suddenly realized.

Just as I was checking myself out in the mirror, Lauren flounced back out from the bathroom. She had obviously done her makeup while she was in there. Her lips now shone like cherries ripe, ripe, ripe, and her eyes were all smouldery sultry dark glances and fluttery eyelashes. "Let's go!" she whispered in a voice redolent of chocolate, or of fur, as she took me by the arm.

A more bizarre hour I have never spent. Over our two drinks she had stroked herself, licked her lips, constantly touched my arm and my knee, and told me and told me and told me about the delights of wearing high heels and sexy clothes. For the first fifteen minutes I thought I was in for a good night, but my attentions were constantly slapped off, I started to get the idea that maybe she had just come round to take Mary out for a girly night, and I was getting it instead. By half way down my second beer, I was just listening politely. After all, my life had been thorny enough, and I was right behind Coleridge on constancy. And on youth.

"Can I get a coffee?" she asked me outside the flat. "Although I'm afraid I mean coffee, and nothing more interesting!"

"Sure," I agreed, perplexed by the peculiar creature before me. Again, she bounded up the stairs before me as I shut the door, and I followed, my eyes again drinking in her hips as she swished them up each ascender.

By the time I got to the top of the stairs and into the living room area, she was already sitting down and twitching on the settee. Her eyes kept flicking to the picture on the coffee table.

"Coffee, then?" I asked, and she nodded eagerly. I caught from the corner of my eye, as I turned to go to the kitchen area, her leaning over to look at the photo again.

When I returned with the steaming mugs, she was still holding the picture, but her eyes seemed heavy-lidded and deep, with a deep twinkle – or sparkle – or something in them, rather than the glassy blank they had been before.

"What are you doing tomorrow?" she asked, just like that, right out of the blue.

"Nothing." I replied truthfully. There were two days left before my course started.

"Then shall I come round at about ten?"

"Sure."

She leapt up, not touching the coffee, and slipped the photo back into the envelope.

"I'll bring you a present!" she added, with her eyes shining. There seemed to be some kind of dark light in her. Her hair shone, her red lips glistened and her eyes were pools of dark and inviting light. I was gazing into them, wondering what she wanted from me, and what I would have that I could say to her tomorrow. As I gazed, I started to think about all that she'd said in the pub, about high heels. Then she spun round and skipped down the stairs, calling out bye, see you tomorrow etc as she went. I looked at the coffee, but decided against it. I'd already drunk plenty tonight.

Pouring both cups away and leaving the living room the way it was, I went straight to bed where I slept fitfully, and dreamt strange, but pleasant, broken dreams of a woman in stockings and high heels.

I hadn't been up for long when there was an expected knock at the door, twenty minute early. I still had ten or more things to do. I guessed the tidying would have to wait. I was washed, dressed, and looking pretty smooth as I thundered downstairs two at a time. Shaved extra-careful, hair brushed and just unruly enough to look casual.

But I was the crow by the rose when I opened the door. It was Lauren again, with an incongruous sports backpack and holding a box tied up in ribbon – or was it her evil sexy twin?

She had her hair up in a smooth curl, blond catching sun from the east, and her neck bare and free. She wore Audrey Hepburn style dark glasses, which brought out the bright red gloss of her lips, sleek and smiling. She was wearing what looked to be a casual cocktail dress that clung to her curves and plunged deep, showing cleavage that woke me up with a start under her cotton jacket.

The dress stopped well short of her knees, and she coyly bent one in front of the other, her thin black nylons swishing together as she did so. I realised she knew I was checking her out, but I somehow couldn't seem to stop myself from gawking openly at her shoes. She strutted past me on black stilettos that must have been about four inches in high shining patent leather.

I'd never paid much attention to women's shoes before. It struck me that maybe that was because I had just never seen a pair quite so beautiful.

She sashayed up the stairs in front of me and I followed mesmerised, watching the light play on her heels as she took each step. No puppy-bouncing now. She was a cat, sleek and sure, on the prowl and beautiful.

She reclined herself onto the settee, placing the present onto the coffee table next to the box that I hadn't tidied.

"Did you look at the picture?" she murmured, removing her dark glasses in a fluid movement, simultaneously crossing her legs slowly and looking up at me. Again I was struck by the depth of her eyes, the colour and… something.

"No…" I found voice to croak, swirling in coffee and caramel moonlit seas as I fell deeper into her gaze.

"Are you going to open your present?" she asked, batting lashes long with mascara and glancing down to it. I snapped back, and sat down on the old brownish battered chair opposite.

"Sure. Thanks. What is it?"

"Open it and see." But I was already undoing the ribbon, tearing the paper. Inside was what looked to be a shoe box. As I opened it, I already seemed to know what it contained. Shoes. And high heeled shoes at that.

I looked up, confused. She just smiled at me. High heels? Court shoes? Was this my present? I wasn't quite sure if she was making some joke. I picked one up and had a look at it. It seemed to hold my gaze as Lauren's shoes had done when she had walked in. My confusion seeped away, replaced by a detached fascination. I was kind of thinking about the heel, and considering idly how it must be really uncomfortable to wear them – but how sexy! They were in my size too. Uncanny. I wonder what it really is like to wear them… when Lauren spoke again. I was strangely only half worried to realise I had just been considering wearing stilettos.

"Have a look at the picture."

And do you know, I'd been dying to have a look at that picture. I don't know why I hadn't looked already. Maybe because I'd been busy going to bed, then getting ready in the morning, or perhaps because it felt kind of wrong to look at someone else's things. But if Lauren was telling me to, and Lauren was Mary's friend, it kind of absolved me of responsibility.

I should have realised that an absolution of responsibility necessarily implies a relinquishing of control – just what I'd been confused by the day before.

I took the envelope and looked inside it. I reached in and felt for the photo. As I pulled it out, it felt warm to my touch. My heart seemed to beat a waltz – but that was probably because I was a bit excited by Lauren gently caressing her own nyloned thigh with her scarlet nails, exposed when her short dress had ridden up when she sat down, opposite me – or was it because I was confused and a little aroused by the inexplicable present of a pair of high heels – or maybe because of the picture itself – the woman in the picture- her eyes.

Her eyes were like – they were like – I can't describe it. When I looked at the picture, when I felt the picture warm and smooth in my hand, when I looked at the eyes – her eyes – they were like –

I just can't describe it.

I was as if the swirling images of Lauren's gaze had been merely the shadows cast on the wall of my cave. I had now stepped out into the world. But this was a world of enveloping mists, shifting, twisting, somehow warm and comforting – yet with a purpose. I felt like Barney, following Stig desperately through the fog that that disappears when you get to it. But I was lost in the fog now, with no guide. The mists closed on my mind, and I could feel myself being changed. Changed, but I didn't know how. I just could feel the decadence slowly and inexorably seeping into me. I could feel my will beautifully decaying away as I was gently ensnared.

I could see her eyes. Nothing but her eyes, heavily made up and framed by black lashes. She was wearing far too much mascara, but it looked quite good. The heavy, smudged and blended dusks of her eyeshadow pulled me deeper into the picture. She looked sexy. She looked like she was confident, in control. I want to be in control, I thought, to make my own choices. I want to be like her, like her eyes. That's how I want my eyes to be. That's how I want my eyes to look. That's how I'll do my makeup, and I'll look confident and sexy.

Alarm bells rang in my mind! I am not going to wear any eyeshadow! That is not what normal men do!

But I was lost, floating in the asphodel fogs of her eyes. Somehow my mind was being changed, being altered. I knew now that I did want to wear makeup. Not just eyeshadow, but far too much mascara, just like her. I wanted to wear full makeup before I set foot outside the flat, my brows plucked into fine arches, and lipstick shining slick to stop traffic. The mists seemed to thin.

Actually, no. It wasn't really like mists. I think it was more tactile than that, more like touching. I think I actually felt myself being moulded, being taken and shaped. I think I just couldn't tell how, or what I could do to stop it.

Then it was scary. I was scared. I was being taken and altered by something, or someone, beyond my power to act against it. I was terrified.

Was it like fingers in my head? No. Wires in my brain? No.

It was lovely! My fear melted as again I gave myself to the floating feeling of absolute compliance. It was the most relaxing feeling I'd experienced. Maybe it was like honey pouring into my mind. It was as though I was mired in sweet golden honey, and all around, disappearing like the rainbow's end, some enchanting agent subtly reworking my mind from the inside. I span in slow ecstatic motion, my dilated eyes flashing with images of feminine beauty. Silk. Black bra, white skin. Long legs, long hair.

I felt new desires rising within me, entwining my own. When I had looked at Lauren's legs on the stairs, it had been just plain old ordinary male desire. Now that desire became encircled and entrapped by a strange, new, and overwhelmingly compelling desire. I could feel myself beginning to want my own legs to look just like that. Just like the woman in the photo. Smooth, shaved, slipped in stockings and sexy to the touch. How I longed to rub one satin leg against the other and feel the swish of nylon stockings!

I began to crumble. Fear overwhelmed me again. What was happening? I had never felt like this before! I could somehow feel that these changes were permanent, and I knew I had to try to stop them before I was changed more. Before I was corrupted.

I was dimly aware of my hand grasping weakly at my chest through my t-shirt as the new feelings deepened. As my vision returned, and I could see the photo in my hand, I stared at the lacy basque constraining the woman's plentiful breasts and tight across her trim torso. How smooth her breasts were, how I wanted to touch them – but even as I thought it, my desires were being rewritten. How I wanted them. How I wanted to have them! How I wanted to hold my head high and my shoulders back, my own big breasts – no – big boobs! Thrust out proudly! I'd wear a basque for sure, and a really low top. In my mind I could almost feel it already… my left strap just slipping slightly of my shoulder… sexy. I'd let it show from under the short sleeve of my dress. Sexy!

As I became sensible again, I looked up from the picture at Lauren. She smiled knowingly, like the enchanted sellers of forbidden fruit, when Lizzie takes her first bite on Rosetti's moor. She had known what would happen when I looked at the picture, and she had made me do it anyway!

She uncrossed her beautiful stockinged legs and leant forwards, her hands on her knees, blood-red nails catching the morning light. My heart ached for stockings, black stockings, tight with suspenders, barely covered by a short and tight skirt. I pressed my thighs together at the thought and a low moan escaped my lips. And yet I was still perfectly aware, with crystal clarity, that this was wrong, that I should not be wanting this, that I had been made to want it. And I did want it. More than anything, to curl my eyelashes, to file my nails, to strut down a quiet street on thin heels.

"Why?" I asked. My voice came out a breathy thrum. "Why did you do that to me? You knew what would happen, and you made me look at it!" I could feel tears coming. "You knew it would do something to me – it has done – I'm changed now – bent! What have you done to me?"

All the time, Lauren just smiled. I raged on. "It must have happened to you yesterday, look at you! You went weird from the moment you touched that picture, and then you made me touch it! You changed, and look at you now! Look at you! You looked ordinary yesterday, and now you look… You look…" I was going to say, cheap, tarty, something, in her provocative dress and her heavy, over-done makeup, but it never came.

"You look…" She raised her delightfully shaped eyebrows.

"You look... beautiful." I sighed, hating myself and lowering my eyes. I didn't know what was going on, but I knew I had to fight harder.

"You can look beautiful," she replied. "I can help you." She leaned further and pushed the stiletto shoes she had brought over the table towards me.

At last I had another choice. On the one hand, there was nothing I wanted more than to leap up and rush into the bathroom to shave my legs, pluck my eyebrows, put on makeup and run to the shops for some sexy outfits. On the other hand, this very feeling made me recoil from myself in shame and shock. What had happened to me? What had I become? Who had I become?

"What have I become?" I muttered, glancing back at the bringer of my despair and delight, the agent of my corruption, the weaver of excruciating pleasure – the photograph.

"I think you have become just as I am," I heard Lauren saying as I was again drawn into the hypnotic whorls of the picture, "I think a violet smells to you as it does to me." I didn't really understand what she meant by this, but I was falling again anyway.

This time it was different, darker. Again the feeling of being reprogrammed, the exquisite desire to give in and comply, and again the images of feminine beauty. Six-inch stiletto knee boots danced before my eyes, sheathing fishnet legs. I could somehow see my own legs interlacing with them, and I knew that the legs were Lauren's. I felt a bond spring between us. A bond between me and my corruptor.

Red lips kissed the air in my fuddled mind, and I somehow knew that I wanted to kiss those lips with thick red lipstick of my own. Wavy curls hung over a thin necklace hanging dangerously low into smooth deep cleavage, and I knew I wanted my own breasts to rub against Lauren's as we kissed. Lauren understood. But I must not give in!

At the imagined feeling of her manicured fingers running through my long and tousled hair, I felt m resistance snap. This is something that you can actually feel. A choice was taken from me. But with the choice removed I felt again that I knew my mind. I could see that I hadn't changed fundamentally – I was still myself, but just with no hope of ever returning to my old life. Farewell hope. And without hope, farewell fear. Now, like Chilon of Sparta, I knew who I was. And that knowledge really is power.

I opened my eyes again. Lauren smiled at me. I smiled back.

Is this what I had chosen? Did I choose enslavement?

Or if I had not chosen it, did that mean it was not the best thing, the thing I wanted most in the world? For now it was. And now I didn't care about making choices. They were made for me, and my heart beat twice at the thought and the possibilities.

Lauren stood up, holding out her hands to me. What could I do? I took them. And smiling, she led me away.

  

  

  

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