Darkness falls across the land, settling like black snow on the sun-starved city. Shadows dance like twisted apparitions, and icy fingers pinch and tug at every exposed extremity. So don’t be shy, come crowd around the fireside, and listen to a torrid tale from Mistress Alice.

It is midnight. Of course. And the witching hour is upon us. 12 piercing chimes sing out before his bedroom sinks into perfect silence.

A creak.

A whisper.

A vision in black.

What the actual fuck. There’s a woman in my bedroom. She’s got a whip. And she has the most entrancing eyes and mesmerising smile I’ve ever seen.

‘You want me to kiss what? Your feet? Come on, this can’t be real.

‘And why are you laughing? Oh, my Superman pyjamas. Well I like them, and I wasn’t expecting company at this hour.

‘Oh go on then, surely one little kiss can’t hurt.’

Like a mindless puppet collapsing suddenly on its strings, he sunk to his knees obediently. But with each kiss came a compulsive urge for another, an insatiable hunger welling inside him.

‘Now kneel before you? Surely you aren’t serious? Well you are rather sexy, and I usually dream about all my clothes falling off on the bus, so I guess it could be worse.’

The chilling temptress ran her red talons along his cheek, staring into his soul and sucking out the very essence of his subservience. He couldn’t help but look up, spellbound and helpless as he surrendered into sleepy submission.

‘Now bend over?

‘Really, this is all too much. Kissing your feet is one thing, but baring myself for…god knows what, well that’s a whole other matter.

‘How the hell did you get in here anyway? Breaking and entering is a criminal offence you know?’

She whispered something into his ear, almost inaudible but compelling all the same.

‘Oh go on then,’ he obliged. ‘It’s just a dream after all, and I’ve got to be up for work in 6 hours.’

The sensual delights of her sweet perfume mingled with her demonic laughter and suddenly both gave way to the bite of her whip, slithering like the devil’s tail snarling against his back.

He convulsed and shuddered with every stroke. She showed no flicker of mercy and his cries soon became one long primal moan as surges of pain merged with unfathomable pleasure and ecstasy.

And then….

Well such ghoulish stories usually end with a death or indeed a rude awakening, tugging feverishly at your mortality.  And I really must do justice to such narrative conventions. We are all a slave to something after all.

You see, just as something stirred that chilling night, something also perished. Where once our man was content with vanilla pastimes, no longer would such conventional titillations suffice. He lusted, and longed for the return of his midnight Mistress. He ached and craved, pined and preyed for this cruel apparition to return and take him to task once again. To break him. To punish him. To satiate his new desires. To make him hers.

…And hopefully to compliment him on his brand new pyjamas too.

Happy Halloween, and sweet, sadistic dreams slaves.