I burned my bedding.

It happened a week ago. I didn’t want to admit it, but I must.

I wanted to feel the touch of a woman again. Since I was subjected to the debauchery of the Prawn Hub, I have felt myself longing for company. Ergo is fine, yes, but he isn’t one for conversation. He’s good for hanging clothes on and he’s incredible when it comes to staring contests (our longest was three weeks), but alas, I desire something more.

A female.

Usually, I don’t fraternize with cattle. They are for eating and playing with; However, it has been a while.

When Ergo came back from the charity collection, I asked how to best find an unmarried female that I could spend the night with. For a zombie, he is surprisingly well versed in the subject.

“Tinder,” he said in a vacant yawn. Personally, I don’t see how firewood can help to attract a possible mate. But then again, times have changed.

I opened up the eyepad and I must tell you, my cold blood began to get hot under my cravat.

So much cattle for the picking. Young, old. Blue eyes, green eyes. Black, white, and everything in between. It was like a catalogue for the eyes. A buffet for lusting, like picking which slice of steak you wished to have at the village butcher.

So many unmarried women on show just waiting to have their flowers taken. More impressively, the paintings which they had of their faces were so lifelike! I must find what artists they have. I asked Ergo if Michelangelo was still available as he owes me a favour. Who do you think kept the Guardia away whilst he painted the Sistine Chapel?

“Dead,” Ergo said, amidst mid sweeping of the basement. Damn, I thought. He still owes me a sack of barley.

My spirits were deflated. How was I to attract a mate if I didn’t have someone to paint my picture to display on the market? I instructed Ergo at once to paint me. To my surprise, Ergo told me to wait whilst he went to check the storage cupboard in the next room.

Four hours later, he returned. A camera. A huge brown box-looking thing that if dropped could kill a small child. I wondered why I had ever forgotten about it?

My spirits reignited, we lit all of the candles and I posed in my finest garments on the staircase. I let my hair down and stood proudly with my cane. The same look that made Queen Mary Tudor swoon in 1554. Ergo took the photos and to my dismay, they came out blank. Of course, I thought to myself remembering why I had put the blasted thing away. I don’t have a damn reflection.

I decided to use a photo of an aristocrat instead. It seemed fitting, however, I looked better.

Then, it was time to fill in my biography. Thankfully, I was quite the scribe back in my youth -

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Dearest lover,

I hope this message finds you well. I wish to fornicate with you and dance with you in my castle grounds under the stars as we speak of tales of old whilst drinking the finest red wine and grapes fresh from the vineyard.

I wish to make you mine, less you are already betrothed then I shall send a goat to your husband for the misunderstanding.

I crossed that part out. I ate the last goat two nights ago.

I shall send your husband a parcel of fine cheese.

That should do it. All I had to do was sit back and wait for the virgins to come to me.

Three nights passed before I got a message. I was sleeping inverted, hanging from the castle walls. Ergo came to find me holding the eyepad. He told me the news and I rushed to him, snatching the device from his hand and vanished like a gust of wind up to my chamber, slamming the door with a terrible rattle.

“Raven,” I mouthed. “Raven wishes to meet me.”

I was overcome with joy. I replied at once, and we were set to meet the following night.

I ordered Ergo to clean the dining room and to prepare us a fine meal. I lit all of the candles and I prepared my bedchamber with wine, grapes, and cheese. I was so nervous. It really had been a while. Ergo fixed my gown and I had him wear his burial garments from 1804. A little dusty, but they would do just fine.

A rapping of knuckles on the door and my mouth turned dry. She entered, and I was struck with Cupid’s arrow. She was tall with pitch-black hair and lipstick to match. She had metal sticking out of her face and the word ‘SINNER,’ inked along her throat.

I welcomed her in and was surprised when she didn’t curtsy. Still, I let go of my old beliefs.

I doffed her coat and placed her at the table where we ate fresh lamb and drank wine. She didn’t speak much, just eyed me curiously.

“So,” I said. “No husband?” She placed the cutlery down.

“I don’t like marriage.” I nearly choked on my food. “Nice house,” she said, eyeing the decor.

“I’ve been here for three hundred years.”

“You’re old.” I didn’t let the comment vex me. I imagine if this young lady hasn’t ever been touched by a man before, given the absence of a wedding ring, I imagine her courtship is as virgin as her.

After the meal, we went to the study where I recited her Shakespeare’s King Lear in its entirety. In the final act, she moved to me and kissed me. Well, dear reader, my appetite for flesh became ravenous.

At once, I picked her up in my arms and carried her up the four flights of stairs to my chamber. Ergo had taken her bag and placed it by the bed. Undressing her, she had metal stapled into her nipples and dare I say not a single hair on her body below her eyebrows. It was all rather bizarre, but I didn’t care, and given how friendly she was being to me, I could only presume she didn’t care either.

She grabbed her bag and went to the bathroom. I sat splayed over the Persian bed sheets in my naked form and awaited her return eagerly.

She returned, and I began to wonder what I had gotten myself into.

She was clad head to toe in leather and underwear pulled so high she must be able to taste it. In her hand, she had what I can only describe as a cat of nine tails. She turned and bent over and I cannot dare say what she had inserted in herself. But it glittered.

She moved to the bed and witnessed my slack jaw expression. She laughed and removed the instrument and tossed it on my chest. I jolted, and the silver glittery horn lay discarded on my pillow.

She descended on me, and I can only describe what happened next as savagery.

I have been burned at the stake. I have been tied to the rack. I have been hung, stabbed, dragged along city streets tied by my legs to galloping horses, and nothing can compare to the unholy insubordination that I was subjected to. When she had taken everything I had to give, she took one of my candles and inserted it in herself, and then did the same to me.

She left just before dawn, and I lay there staring at the ceiling of my four-poster bed. I have never been a fan of holy water, but I feel I need to bathe in it.

I burned the candles and the horn that same night. Along with my bedsheets.

I think I’m in love.

* R.W