A Woman's Place [...is in the Resistance]

As it did every so often, Laura's mind drifted towards poor, ill-fated Bertha.

Under the harsh light of day, a crushing sun ray's glare, she thought of a lost would-be companion, a friend she almost met, a kindred soul she had longed to embrace.

In the refuge of the night, sitting restless by the window, not quite yearning for the moonlit wilderness —still reluctant to embrace the open air—, Laura's thoughts took an impermissible turn.

She thought of Bertha with Carmilla —Millarca, Mircalla, Countess; endless mingled and mangled names for a perpetual masquerade. Laura pictured them together with an imagination ever pushing against the limits of her knowledge and rapidly decaying naïveté.

Had Bertha's infatuation mirrored Laura's own innocence, a trait she shared by all accounts? Or perhaps was the General living under delusions, stubbornly clinging to a half-imagined angelic pretense?

In Laura's imaginings, Bertha looked much like herself; she was a daring, forthright, openhearted reflection of Laura's fumbling ignorance and hesitant demeanor. The Bertha she constructed in her head returned Carmilla's fanciful outbursts of improper longing and affection with declarations of her own. She met touch with touch, laugh with laugh, gaze with gaze; desperation matching wildness.

That Bertha didn't make Carmilla wait until she fell asleep: she sneaked out of her own room under the General's heedless nose and penetrated Carmilla's domains. She initiated, she brought her new friend pleasure with shameless joy and childish eagerness.

Their encounter was one of appetite meeting appetite. Carmilla didn't have to coax her prey, the most seductive tools in her arsenal rendered redundant. Theirs wasn't a game of cat and mouse —she had become a carnivorous plant, motionless and static as the fly ever so willingly plunged into her trap.

Perchance, that's why Carmilla grew bored of her with such swiftness.

It was in some of those nights, spread in between longer periods of abnegation forced by the humilliation brought by her debasement —when exhaustion wore her down just enough to stumble towards the bed, under the welcome weight of the sheets— that Laura discarded Bertha, her shield, and thought only of Carmilla.

Half-dozing, she pictured them lying together under the tree. They were protected by its shadow, the sounds of nature all around them drowning their words, Madame Perrodon and Mademoiselle De Lafontaine just far enough, but present. She remembered Carmilla's wandering hands, the careless patterns they often drew, and awarded them more direction. The layers of Laura's dress hid them from the absent-minded eyes of their chaperones; when they touched Laura's bare skin they did it with intent, with purpose. They brought her warmth —at firs tepid and sluggish, then in ardent escalation; once localized, then all over, never quite reaching satisfaction. All through it, Carmilla's head rested in Laura's shoulder, face hidden in her neck, playacting exhaustion as only lips and tongue, never teeth, touched Laura's skin.

The teeth were for their nights. The bite marks didn't remain in her breast, but travelled lower, much lower. Eventually, Carmilla would drink her in dry, hands and lips and tongue and teeth; at first Laura would press the pillow down to her face to drown the sounds escaping her mouth; then she would grow too languid, too empty, for discretion to remain a matter of concern.

Laura's skin would transform. Pale, and cold. Still, as a statue. Her corpse would be found in the morning; a disrobed, exquisite vision, hard and stiff where once it had been frail and malleable, pliant. Laura's blood would stain the sheets red, a crimson flower adorning the mount between her legs —her stolen maidenhead.

The punishment for those nights, as she woke up soaked in shame, still laid in bed, was to force herself to think of the aftermath.

Laura told —reminded— herself that she was merely one more young, foolish girl in a long line of reticent victims. She stomped the notion that their distant consanguinity might've been as important to Carmilla as she pretended, and she insisted on imagining what would occur to the next companion.

Sometimes that girl took Laura's shape, but she was quick to suffocate those daydreams. For a while, she appropriated the likeness of a girl she met in a rare outing to the market, plump, bright-eyed, on the young side.

More recently, she pictured the new kitchen aide, with her fiery red hair, her strong arms, the unrefined manners and the bold, nonchalant stare she had for Laura.

Perhaps Carmilla would've been invited to stay to mourn her friend, remaining in the house long enough to meet her, to become enamoured by the shade of her wild mane, the freckles in her sun-kissed skin. Perhaps whatever lurked between her stoic conduct would've enticed Carmilla to seek a true companion, where she had discarded Laura, but it was doubtful.

Highborn, like Laura herself, Carmilla wouldn't need bother with pretenses, with tricks, with glamour. They could order a girl such as her to come to any room at night, to disrobe; to open herself to a predator's embrace.

Unwilling as she might be, resigned, she would see no choice but to capitulate to one of her betters. And she oughtn't be unwilling for long, pleasure impelled onto her in the form of a caress, a shove, a bite.

She would succumb to it, hopeless and wretched, tears crowding the corners of her eyes —tears that Laura would kiss away.