Lust Ever After. Rose Fer de

Cleo was undressing. She slithered out of the sheer garment and stood naked in the flickering light from the fire.

      Frankenstein returned with a large magnifying glass and proceeded to look her over in detail, prodding her and turning her this way and that, while Pretorius looked on, smiling. Cleo seemed quite unconcerned by this intimate attention but it made Justine blush to the roots of her hair. The tiny woman did as she was directed, bending over, spreading her legs, displaying herself in a variety of positions. It almost looked as though she was enjoying herself, adding little flourishes to her movements. At Pretorius’s instruction she caressed her breasts, pressing them together to accentuate their fullness as she smiled up at both men.

      ‘You see she has no reservations about her sexuality,’ Pretorius said. ‘She is as free as you or I.’

      Frankenstein quirked an eyebrow at his friend and grinned. ‘Free?’

      ‘Well, of course not “free” in the sense that she may go anywhere she likes. She is my creation and she therefore belongs to me. Don’t you, my pet?’

      Cleo stood on tiptoe and stretched her hands up to her master. She bounced happily on her heels by way of response, like a puppy.

      ‘But she is happy. And she keeps me happy. Her arms and legs are just the right length to fit round – well, I’m sure you can picture the scene. Naturally, I cannot have her in the normal way, but I’m working on a device that will allow me to alter her size at will.’

      Frankenstein laughed, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘You were always the more decadent of the two of us.’

      ‘Yes,’ Pretorius said. He took a sip of brandy and his eyes glinted in the firelight. ‘And just imagine what we might achieve together, Victor! Your first experiment was not, after all, a complete success.’

      ‘You are too kind, old friend. A wretched failure would be more accurate.’

      ‘Whatever became of the creature?’

      ‘I never found his body. My old laboratory was completely incinerated, along with all the equipment. It has taken me years to replace everything but I’m nearly ready to begin again.’

      ‘And this time,’ Pretorius said, as though making a grand announcement, ‘you shall have my help. Together we will achieve goals undreamt of by the little minds of men who dare to call themselves scientists.’ As he spoke he swept Cleo up into his hand and slipped her into his coat pocket. Her head peeked out and she gazed contentedly up at Pretorius.

      Justine pressed her thighs together, suddenly struck by the fantasy of being small enough to fit inside a man’s pocket. She thought of the fun she could have with ordinary objects. For some reason the image of a butterfly collection came to her and she pictured herself spread and displayed behind glass, one of many tiny specimens to be admired.

      What would Ralph think if she were suddenly only six inches high? He could bathe her in a teacup and dry her with his handkerchief. And she could wrap her tiny naked arms around his cock and not be ashamed to let him peer at her charms through a magnifying glass. Her face burned as she imagined all the possibilities.

      Pretorius raised his brandy glass to make a toast and Justine decided it was a good time to slip away. She had no idea what the two men were talking about or what experiment had gone so horribly wrong for Frankenstein. It must have been before she entered his service. But what little she had understood, not to mention the extraordinary reality of Cleo, had set her mind spinning with what her master in his professional capacity would call hysteria. She knew a way to relieve it herself but she didn’t dare. If he should ring for her and she arrived looking flushed and dishevelled before them both … Well, the possibility was too embarrassing to consider.

      As she crept back down the hallway, she heard their glasses clink together. It seemed to herald the beginning of a new world.

      Chapter Four

      The Perfect Opportunity

      A few days later, Frankenstein stood in his laboratory admiring the water tank. It had taken eight men to manoeuvre it up the stairs and into the laboratory but now that it was in place it seemed as though it had always been there. A heated pipe had slowly filled it with snowmelt from the roof. Now it awaited an occupant.

       Just imagine what we might achieve together, Victor!

      Frankenstein was in no doubt about the genius of Pretorius; the tiny Cleo was proof of that. She was also a reminder that the creation of strange new life was within his grasp. But strange new life of a more appealing kind than that wretched first experiment. From the very start the monster had resented its creator, rebelling against every instruction and every attempt to civilise it. Where he had gone wrong was in using a male subject. Females were far more submissive and malleable. Not to mention physically weaker and therefore easier to control. Pretorius’s homuncula had all the qualities her creator had desired in a woman: beauty, obedience and – perhaps most importantly – a powerful sexual appetite. With his friend’s help, Frankenstein would create his own perfect woman. He could almost see her floating in the tank now, drifting like the promise of triumph.

      ‘Victor? Is anything the matter?’

      He shook himself out of his reverie, surprised for a moment to find himself in his bedroom and not the laboratory. Sylvia Leigh-Hunt stood before him in her red silk corset and petticoats, frozen in the act of undressing. The widow’s face bore a faintly wounded expression.

      ‘Forgive me, my dear,’ he said, reminding himself whose patronage he was indebted to for quite a lot of his equipment. He arranged his features into a lover’s smile and kissed her hand. ‘I have taken a strange fancy into my head and I was merely wondering whether it might shock you too terribly if I were to suggest it.’

      Sylvia’s face brightened at the prospect of a new game and Frankenstein was again struck by her beauty. The years had been kind to her, and her wealthy husband’s untimely demise had been kinder still, for mourning truly became her. An alluring woman, her face bore few signs of her fortyish years, and her black garments and crepe veil suited her surprisingly well. He supposed it was somewhat perverse of him to find her widow’s weeds erotic but then, what was his entire practice if not institutionalised perversion? Most of his lady patients were innocent of what was really going on but Sylvia was a shrewd woman who knew a good thing when she found it. It had taken Frankenstein several ‘treatment sessions’ to realise that neither was fooling the other. Now there was little pretence about why she really came to see him.