The River of Night's Dreaming Read Online Free Page B

mannish shoulders craning over her bed. Her wrists and ankles were fixed to each corner of the bed by padded leather cuffs. Dr Archer was speaking to her in a scolding tone, while her wardens were pulling up her skirt, dragging down her panties. A syringe gleamed in Dr Archer's hand, and there was a sharp stinging in her buttock.
    She was struggling again, but to no avail. Dr Archer was shouting at her, and a stout nurse was tightening the last few buckles of the straitjacket that bound her arms to her chest in a loveless hug. The straps were so tight she could hardly draw breath, and while she could not understand what Dr Archer was saying, she recognized the spurting needle that Dr Archer thrust into her.
    She was strapped tightly to the narrow bed, her eyes staring at the gray ceiling as they wheeled her through the corridors to Dr Archer's special room. Then they stopped; they were there, and Dr Archer was bending over her again. Then came the sting in her arm as they penetrated her veins, the helpless headlong rush of the drug—and Dr Archer smiles and turns to her machine, and the current blasts into her tightly strapped skull and her body arches and strains against the restraints and her scream strangles against the rubber gag clenched in her teeth.
    But the face that looks into hers now is not Dr Archer's, and the hands that shake her are not cruel.
    "Cassilda! Cassilda! Wake up! It's only a nightmare!"
    Camilla's blonde and blue face finally focused into her awakening vision.
    "Only a nightmare," Camilla reassured her. "Poor darling." The hands that held her shoulders lifted to smooth her black hair from her eyes, to cup her face. Camilla bent over her, kissed her gently on her dry lips.
    "What is it?" Mrs Castaigne, wearing her nightdress and carrying a candle, came anxiously into the room.
    "Poor Cassilda has had bad dreams," Camilla told her. "And her face feels ever so warm."
    "Dear child!" Mrs Castaigne set down her candlestick. "She must take some more tonic at once. Perhaps you should sit with her, Camilla, to see that her sleep is untroubled."
    "Certainly, madame. I'll just fetch the tonic."
    "Please, don't bother . . ." But the room became a vertiginous blur as she tried to sit up. She slumped back and closed her eyes tightly for a moment. Her body did feel feverish, her mouth dry, and the trembling when she moved her hand to take the medicine glass was so obvious that Camilla shook her head and held the glass to her lips herself. She swallowed dutifully, wondering how much of this was a reaction to the Prolixin still in her flesh. The injection would soon be wearing off, she knew, for when she smiled back at her nurses, the sharp edges of color were beginning to show once again through the haze the medication drew over her perception.
    "I'll be all right soon," she promised them.
    "Then do try to sleep, darling." Mrs Castaigne patted her arm. "You must regain your strength. Camilla will be here to watch over you.
    "Be certain that the curtains are drawn against any night vapors," she directed her maid. "Call me, if necessary."
    "Of course, madame. I'll not leave her side."
    *****
    She was dreaming again—or dreaming still.
    Darkness surrounded her like a black leather mask, and her body shook with uncontrollable spasms. Her naked flesh was slick with chill sweat, although her mouth was burning dry. She moaned and tossed—striving to awaken order from out of the damp blackness, but the blackness only embraced her with smothering tenacity.
    Cold lips were crushing her own, thrusting a cold tongue into her feverish mouth, bruising the skin of her throat. Fingers, slender and strong, caressed her breasts, held her nipples to hungry lips. Her hands thrashed about, touched smooth flesh. It came to her that her eyes were indeed wide open, that the darkness was so profound she could no more than sense the presence of other shapes close beside her.
    Her own movements were languid, dreamlike. Through the spasms