The following is an excerpt taken with permission from A Long Time Dead by Samara Breger.

They stepped into Carmen’s room, the door closing behind them with a gentle snick.

Everything was perfectly undamaged, save for a tattered tapestry that hung on the far wall.

“My mother made that.” Carmen came up behind her, skating her hands along the soft fabric of Poppy’s dressing gown.

“Your mum did all that?”

“Not alone, of course. In a workshop.”

Poppy peered at the faded stitches. “Is that a unicorn?”

“It is.”

“They’re not . . .” Poppy bit her lip, the pressure of Carmen’s fingers shifting the silk, teasingly soft. “Not real?”

“Are they?”

“I’ve never seen one, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.” Carmen parted the dressing gown over Poppy’s sex, stroking her curls with the back of her hand. “Is that all right?”

Poppy groaned, leaning back against Carmen’s warm chest.

“Poppy,” Carmen chided, moving her hand away. “I’d like to hear words.”

“I think unicorns are real.”

“Not—Poppy, was touching you like that all right?”

“Yes. Good. Go back to doing that. Please.”

Carmen chuckled against her hair. “Well done. But before we begin, there are a few things I would like to say.” She grabbed Poppy by the shoulders and spun her around so they were facing. “I have a cock.”

Poppy grinned at the arousal tenting the elegant silk of Carmen’s robe. “So I see.”

“I am a woman. It’s a woman’s cock. So if you use any words to imply that you are f***ing a man, this whole thing will end very abruptly. Do you understand?”

Poppy dragged her eyes up to Carmen’s face. Her mouth was set and a furrow had appeared between her brows.

“Yes,” she said, gathering her scattered focus. “I understand.”

“I won’t f*** you with it. Not in your cunt or your arse. You can suck it, if you ask nicely.”

She made to sink down to her knees, but Carmen shot a hand out, grabbing her by the chin. Her clean nails pressed into Poppy’s face. “You know, you’re already in a far better state than when I found you downstairs.”

“You were right about all that Greek business.” She forced her words past her cheeks, squished together between Carmen’s strong fingers. “Stork. Philomena. Eric. Erm . . .” She thought hard. “Zebra. All them loves.”

“Well done,” Carmen drawled. “Model student. Now, tell me what I need to know about you.”

“Me? My name’s Poppy and I’d love to suck your cock.”

“Poppy.” Carmen squeezed harder, then let go. “You ought to tell me if you have any limitations, or any particular desires. We’re here to enjoy one another. I want this experience to be as enjoyable as possible.”

“I’ll let you know.” Poppy tugged lightly on the tie of Carmen’s dressing gown. A request. “I promise to let you know.”

“Good.” Carmen stepped back. In one fluid movement, she slipped off her dressing gown, exposing her body to the dim light. She was slender, her thighs softly curved. Her long, dark hair spilled across her shoulders, kissing her clavicles and framing her elegant neck. She crawled onto the bed, laid her head against a plump pillow, and brazenly spread her legs, knees bent, feet planted on the counterpane. “Now, I believe there was something you meant to ask me?”

“Carmen.” Poppy undid the knot at her waist, letting her robe drop to the floor. She felt Carmen’s hot gaze trail up and down her body. “May I please suck you?”

Carmen lifted a lazy, acquiescing hand. In this grand bed, with her regal bearing, she never looked more the queen.

“Proceed.”

Poppy hurried over to the bed and positioned herself between Carmen’s slim legs. Her skin was smooth and clear, welcomingly soft. At the center of the valley, she strained from a bed of dark curls, long and elegant as a wax taper. Poppy’s teeth dropped in welcome pressure, the sharp tips caressing her lower lip. She dragged them across the perfect expanse of Carmen’s creamy thigh, drawing up pink lines. Carmen gasped above her, arching slender hips off the bed.

There was a chair in the corner of the room with dark blue upholstery and spindly wooden legs. In it, a specter crossed her legs and raised her gaze.

Poppy squeezed her eyes shut, tethering herself to the earth in the feel of Carmen’s skin, hot on her lips. The warm, musky smell of the room. The baubles of the worked counterpane pressing against her knees. The taste, when she lowered her mouth to lick Carmen’s crown, bitter and familiar and strange all at once. The spread of her lips to receive her gift. The pressure at the back of her throat. The water in her eyes from the blessed choking danger. From fullness, and from giving. Only giving. No more tears to spare for what was taken from her.

Carmen shuddered above her, tangling her fingers in Poppy’s hair. Pulling for guidance, and for a little pain. A welcome, generous pain that rooted her to the bed and sent brightness across her scalp and down her shoulders. Poppy skated her fingers lower, across pebbled skin, and below, to a tight, waiting entrance. Some noise above her, then something smacked into her head. She lifted off with an unceremonious pop, somewhat dazed.

“Oil.” Carmen gestured to the little bottle that had ricocheted off of Poppy’s head. “I trust you know what it’s for.”

Carmen’s tan skin was flushed, her eyes dark and heavy-lidded. Her regal composure slackened, the bejeweled facade cracking.

“Listen to her,” said the specter. “Do what she asks.”

“Poppy?” Carmen’s brow creased with concern. “Are you well? We can stop if—”

“No.” She fetched the bottle, daubing her fingers with shaky hands. “I’m fine. I swear it.”

“Poppy.” Carmen eyed her carefully. “I don’t want you to be thinking of someone else when you’re f***ing me. It isn’t kind to either of us. Will you need to stop?”

Poppy helplessly stared down at her glistening fingers. “Talk to me,” she whispered.

“What shall I say?”

“Anything. Just your voice. Your words. Keep me here with you. I want to know it’s you.”

“Oh, pobrecita.” She lay back down, dark hair spilling over the pillow. “I won’t let you forget.”

She was as good as her word. Her voice was mellifluous, a bardic narrator’s voice, telling the tale of their coupling. It wasn’t praise so much as chronicling, but it was perfect. Carmen spoke as if everything Poppy gave was entirely her due, Poppy her willing supplicant. It spread Poppy across her own skin like oils, drew out the part of her that thrilled to serve. She sucked and stroked, curving and pumping her fingers until the words began to trip and tangle. A quick, cursed warning, and her mouth was filled with the tang of Carmen’s release. She swallowed, licked her lips, and grinned. Her sex ached with need, and in her chest, a prideful bloom of accomplishment spread its golden petals.

“Come here, mi amor. I want my hands on you.”

Carmen’s touch was tender until it wasn’t, firm, knowing strokes with slender fingers, kisses with painted lips, bites with drawn fangs. She was long, dark hair and strong, slender limbs. She was crystal cut cheekbones. She was pride and care.

“This is what I gave you,” said the specter. “I wanted you to have joy. It’s my gift.”

“Carmen.” Poppy panted. She throbbed. She wanted. “She’s here.”

“It’s all right.” Carmen kept her hand close, cupped over like a hug. “Let her come.”

“But you said—”

“When you were f***ing me. Now, I’m f***ing you.” She circled her fingers in demonstration. “Let her be here. Remember what I said?”

“What you . . .”

“Different love. Love for me. Love for her. All of it true. Feel all of it, Poppy. Let go.”

She closed her eyes and sank.

“You made me remember,” said the specter in that level voice with the fading hint of a lilt. “You did not clear my cobwebs. You did not light my path. You were more forceful than that. You were violent in your care for me. You ripped me from myself. I became who I used to be, with you. You changed me, and I changed you too, Poppy. Didn’t I? I did, didn’t I?”

“Yes,” Carmen cooed. “That’s it.”

Tears streamed down Poppy’s face, hot on her eyelids, cool on her cheeks. Carmen’s fingers strummed an unrelenting rhythm.

“I’m in you,” said the specter, wheedling and defiant in turns. “I’m in you. Inside you. You’re different now. Lizzy may remember you from before, but she only knows you live because I can write. I made you. And you made me. I feel everything now. I feel everything. Come for me.”

“Now, Poppy,” Carmen commanded. “Come for me.”

Sharp teeth sank into her neck and she shouted her pleasure, a scream ripped from somewhere deep, tearing through her body like cleansing fire.

Later, they lay together, Poppy’s head splayed across Carmen’s chest.

“I’m sorry,” Poppy said, tracing the exposed hint of each rib with her finger pads.

“Whatever for?”

“For not being free from her.” She kissed the hollow between Carmen’s small, graceful breasts. “She’s everywhere I am. She’s chasing me. I can’t be rid of her.”

“Pobrecita.” Carmen pushed a yellow curl from Poppy’s sweaty forehead. “You never claimed to be.”

“But you thought this would work, and—”

“Did it work for you?”

Poppy unstuck her cheek from Carmen’s warm stomach. “Well, I came.”

“I want your attention when it’s on me. When I attend to you, go where you need to, as long as I’m along for the journey. Maybe it will help you heal.”

“Maybe I’ll never move on, as long as I allow her into my head.”

“Perhaps.” Carmen dragged a fingernail down Poppy’s nose, softly poking the tip. “In my years of life—and there have been many—I never came upon a circumstance in which the best solution was to stifle an impulse.”

“Sneezing at the opera?”

“Well—”

“Passing wind in church?”

“All right, I understand—”

“Pissing in a pub?”

“Yes, Poppy, you absurdly literal creature. Some impulses are meant to be curtailed. But not love.” She tapped the area above where Poppy’s heart once beat. Poppy held back a snort. Literal, indeed. “Perhaps she’ll fade with time. Perhaps not. But I see no reason to sabotage our time together worrying about whether a feeling you cannot help but feel is appropriate. Love her, love me, take another lover, or two, or a dozen. But don’t punish yourself for having a heart, mi amor. We have years ahead of us. I would love to see you survive them.”

a long time dead victorian romance samara breger

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