||TRAPDOOR|| a dark m/m love story by Vixen Phillips

 

Table of Contents butterfly

 

The following chapters are taken from the e-book edition of the original novel, which has been available since 1999. The 10th anniversary remixed paperback edition will become available to read & purchase during 2010.

Chapters 1-12 are available to read online free of charge.
Chapters 13 & onwards are exclusive to the published novel.

Chapter I. Raven. Spiels and Confusion.

“To her he’s just a ransom note, to me he’s my angel, my saviour. Funny thing, perspectives.”

Chapter II. Pegasus. Bleeding Hearts.

“As I gently trace patterns down to the base of his spine, it strikes me as odd that this is the first time I have ever actually touched him like this.”

Chapter III. Raven. Cracks in the Ice.

“Seems that everything I say tonight has two meanings. I’m a serpent with a forked tongue. One path to the truth that I deny, fearing happiness, the other path a lie that got me into all this trouble in the first place.”

Chapter IV. Pegasus. Chasing Shadows.

“Because now that it’s finally morning, the shadows are beginning to fade, the shadows that have been covering my mind and my soul. Now that they’re gone, I can almost start to see the way, and it’s different from the one they’d convinced me was all I could have.”

Chapter V. Raven. Angelic Visions.

“I thought I could deny what I felt for you all this time—no, worse, I did deny it. But not anymore. It still matters why you came for me, because I’m in love with you, Pegasus, and I’m going to tell you, even if it kills me.
Tonight.”

Chapter VI. Pegasus. If I Should Die Before I Wake.

“When they finally found her, she was wearing only her white lace nightgown. All I’m dressed in is a white shirt and satin boxers. Both of us, so innocent in death, renouncing the filth and the rape we’d borne during our lives.”

Chapter VII. Raven. Beyond the Dawn.

“All I can hear are those lawyer’s words, buzzing about my brain, amplifying and multiplying upon themselves until there are a million and one clones in my head, all babbling about family courts and times and addresses and restraining orders and laughing wickedly as they tell me what this really means, of course, is that I’ll never be allowed to see my darling little Damien ever again.”

Chapter VIII. Pegasus. Blood Makes Noise….

“I’ve taken off my own T-shirt now, and lie against him, press against him, naked against all the blood, feeling our hearts beating together in sync as I look deeply into his eyes. “Let me do it,” I beg hoarsely. For a moment, we are silent, before he nods, barely concealing his own desperation, and hands me the razor blade from the bedside table.”

Chapter IX. Raven. The Sixth Degree of Separation.

“I cry out in the dark, reaching down toward his head, trying to pull him away, trying to warn him that this is too much, but somehow my hands just get lost in that beautiful silky mane, and I begin to breathe in violent sobs, my thoughts all collapsing in on themselves again.”

Chapter X. Pegasus. The Rapunzel Syndrome.

“Briefly I find myself wondering about my funeral. I hope they didn’t bury me in a box, beneath the ground. I wonder how I died. Did I die in my sleep? Where was Raven? Whose choice was this—his, mine, or someone else’s? Or was it simply that which we call…fate?”

Chapter XI. Raven. Sole Destruction.

“This place, this time—I’ve been here before. As a child. A child whose father put him to bed, not with peaceful stories or teddy-bears, but alcohol-stained breath and fists of apathy.”

Chapter XII. Pegasus. True Faith.

“You see? I want to tell him, looking at the beautiful blue-black hair that drapes across his wrists, hiding the scars he no longer cares to conceal. You’re the saviour of us both. You just don’t realise it yet. Come out from the shadows. I can show you.”

Chapter XIII. Raven. Little Deaths/Garden of Eden.

“It’s all here…in my mind, and my soul. This thing you speak of, faith? Is that what this is? Or is it just that which I speak of…this love?”

Chapter XIV. Pegasus. Red Letter, White Rose.

“Time changes nothing. But time, itself, can be changed, distorted, recreated, retold. Envisioned and remembered, in the exact same heartbeat.”

Chapter XV. Raven. Lost in the Darkness Before the Dawn.

“That place isn’t home anymore. Not somewhere we can return to. But it doesn’t matter. As long as I’m with you, anywhere can be home.”

Chapter XVI. Pegasus. Non Omnia Moria (Not All of Me Will Die).

“All places have auras. The one emanating from this house is so dark, it almost makes even me forget. Strange I never noticed it before. But that was when I’d always assumed this was some place you’d chosen to be.”

Chapter XVII. Raven. Twilight.

“I shake my head until the floor starts to spin before my eyes, and the wailing vanishes. The house is silent once more. All I can hear now is my heart pounding in my chest. I’m still afraid, I think. But that’s okay. Fear is anything you choose to make of it, and now, it becomes my ally.”

Chapter XVIII. Pegasus. Illumination (The Bottom of Pandora’s Box).

“The darkness draws me back into the cage of my body; that which mankind fears returns me to the bitter sanctuary. Now I feel her pain, her regret, these tears that belong to this pretty girl. Why did you do that to him? I wonder dimly. This isn’t how it’s meant to be.”

Chapter XIX. Raven. Nonsolitaire (Pandora II).

“I’d spent what remained of that night crying myself into a fitful sleep, waking to wash away my artistry with the arrival of a miserable dawn. She should have found it then, and it should have been over. But she didn’t…”

Chapter XX. Pegasus. ETA: As Destiny Prevails.

““I don’t just want…things to be about sex…like they were with her…. I love you, Pegasus…and sometimes it’s the only way I can show you, so it’s not the same, but when I think of this…this cage… I hate its desires. I hate it.””

Chapter XXI. Raven. Chosen Whispers.

“I watch his eyes turn to the sky, lightened by the clouds, gathering strength there. Your body may wish to return to its home, the ocean, the source and origin of all living creatures, but your soul… Your true self and true home lie elsewhere.”

Chapter XXII. Pegasus. Angelic Tears.

““Teach me how to fly,” Raven’s voice whispers, seemingly outside myself, right against my ear, and I gasp, opening my eyes. Damien’s staring right at me, and the song, music I recall feeling but never hearing, is over.”

Chapter XXIII. Raven. Glass Embrace.

“Time to confess my sins. And lock my love deep away, until the final rainbow comes. I will wait for you, Pegasus. One and the same. Just as you waited for me.”

Chapter XXIV. Pegasus. Juliette Smiling/Final Dawn.

“I gaze at the curtain, beyond the curtain, and out into the distant night sky. This place, she offered me: sanctuary; a place you once called home. Were you happy here? I know, about your parents, about your past. But…beyond that, were you happy?”

Chapter XXV. Raven. Now, The Last Thorn.

“When I find you again, Pegasus, I will lay you down on the soft sand by our ocean and cover your soul with my wings and kisses.
Kisses are feathers. My wings are very strong.”

Epilogue. At the End of the Rainbow.

When I find you again, I will lay you down on the soft sand by our ocean 
and cover your soul with my wings and kisses.

Kisses are feathers.

My wings are very strong.