A Bestial Passion; Part One (5000 words)

A Bestial Passion: Part One
Written by Kev Francis
*This is the first part of a 10,000 word novella. The second, concluding part can be found in my portfolio.


Blurb

Puberty, we all go through it. But perhaps none quite like Geneviève.

In an area of the French countryside known as the Gévaudan, a young and innocent girl sexually matures and after a horrific experience transforms into a creature of the night. As her predatory instincts surface and tensions between the opposite sex escalates, Geneviève finds herself changing into an erotic beast incapable of controlling her urges, leaving a trail of bloodied, failed suitors behind her.

Will she be able to soothe the primal passion that claws beneath her skin, or will she succumb to it?

And more importantly will she be able to find a man able to survive her appetite?


Prologue- Primal Orgasm


Intense.

An overwhelming feeling of ecstatic pleasure shoots from the pit of my stomach throughout my body, as though electricity were resuscitating my veins, willing me back to life. As he thrusts up against me, I can feel his chest rhythmically breathing in and out simultaneously with mine. Our bodies move as one. Whilst he passionately kisses my neck, my eyes close and focus almost entirely on keeping in the screams. My bottom lip quivers, somehow suppressing a cry of sheer ecstasy. So many intense emotions override my body. Part of me wants to give in to these primal urges, but the other part of me is scared to. I can feel the tension building beneath my skin. My body craves more. I can’t hold it in; the sensation is just too strong. My moans echo throughout the room and as the pleasure between my thighs intensifies, I go limp in his arms. Physically exhausted. Yet still my body wants more. I lose the strength to move my limbs, and like a rag doll, I submissively collapse into his chest. Encouraging him to take control and make me climax. As I lay there in paralysis, a victim of my own erotic devotion and desire, I notice that my senses have been heightened. As strange as it sounds, although my body is intimately entangled with his, I am at one with my surroundings. Whilst my body builds up to a sexual climax, my senses take over and peak at an unrivalled hypersensitivity.

Noise.

As my moans digress to nothing more than bestial snarls and growls, I can hear a floorboard in the room above ours creaking. It’s deafening. Footsteps in the room ahead echo as if an earthquake is about to bring the ceiling crashing down around our naked body’s. On the opposite side of this scantily clad apartment, there is a cockroach scuttling along the skirting board. Each of its micro-legs scrapping the white emulsion, eerily like finger nails being dragged along a chalk board, sending shivers up my spine. Adding to the build up of sexual tension. Like a dog on fireworks night, I am surrounded by terrifying amplified noise. All the while an orgasmic electricity, much like a lit firework itself, surges throughout my body.

Sight.

Although we are in complete darkness, I can make out the cracks in the wallpaper as if I were standing in broad daylight. As I focus my eyes further, even the spider webs in the corner of the room became apparent. It is as though someone has turned the light on; everything is so clear. Glancing over to the office blinds just inches away from the bed, I notice that they are drawn, yet the room appears to be full of an arousing, almost lunar, white light. I look into my man’s rhinestone eyes, which are glistening like diamonds in the desert sun, and find myself completely entranced. With each and every movement he makes, my spirit soars even higher and my moans become more erratic.

Smell.

His scent is overwhelmingly powerful. Not that it’s at all off putting, quite the opposite in fact. It’s a welcoming smell, like warm cookie dough on an autumnal day. I rub my nose against his chest, gluttonously wanting more and more of his unique smell. A minor distraction from the pulsing passion that my body still craved. As I lavished up his scent, he thrust deeper and deeper inside me. Sensing my sensual arousal, he hastily sped up, moving his pelvis faster and faster.

Taste.

My god, the taste. I can taste everything; even the dust in the air. A light smog, remnants of my exhausted cigarette, lines the inside of the room. I can taste it on my tongue, as if the embers of my roll-up were still burning. My throat is ablaze with the taste of tobacco and smoke. I place my lips on his shoulder and gently kiss the soft skin. The pleasure intensifies, beyond all boundaries of control and restraint. Overcome by primal greed and sexual euphoria, my gentle kiss becomes a savage bite and I find myself clawing at his back with my blood-red nails. It’s only when he collapses motionless onto my chest, his torso gushing with blood like a knife wound, that I realise – I have gone to far. This is not the first time, and it won’t be the last.

Dissatisfied, I push the severed corpse onto the floor grab my coat and leave.

Chapter One – New Beginnings


Email sent from Geneviè[e-mail], to [e-mail] on the 11th March 2001

Hey Sara,
Just thought I would drop you an email to say that we arrived today. Took us hours to get here though, Dad insisted on taking the ‘Scenic route’ but I reckon he just got lost. As for the place itself, it’s a far cry from the streets of Paris. I’m surrounded by trees and fields, and the air smells like cow droppings. Can’t say I’m overly impressed, but you know Dad “Paris is no place for a girl to grow up” so it’s not like I even have a choice. Haven’t really had a chance to explore the Gévaudan yet though, but it looks awful quiet, like a scene from a horror movie.

The house seems nice though; it’s a cottage, you know like the ones you see on old people’s biscuit tins, with snow white walls covered in ivy and colourful rose bushes in the garden. Pity it’s not just me and Dad though. The house belongs to a woman called Joan, she seems really nice... but you know when people act ‘too nice’ you can’t help but think they are up to something. Apparently, I have to sleep in on the floor for the first few weeks, talk about shock horror! Although there are two bedrooms, Joan’s two sons share the other one. I think they are about our age, but Dad hasn’t let me meet them properly yet, I don’t even know their names. Worst thing is, they have a spare bed in their room, but dad says it’s ‘safer’ for me to sleep on the floor, but I can have their room to myself when they go to boarding school in September. So hopefully you can come and stay over for a weekend seeming I will have a spare bed.

Thanks for the birthday party yesterday, I will remember it always. You only turn eleven once, and I have a feeling my birthdays in the Gévaudan just won’t be the same.

Write me back.

Hugs and Kisses xoxox

Geneviève

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Email sent from Geneviè[e-mail], to [e-mail] on the 3rd October 2001

Hey Sara,
How are things back in civilisation? Personally I couldn’t be more bored if I was alone on a desert island. Now the boys have gone to boarding school, the house is as quiet as the woods outside which isn’t a good thing. It’s driving me mad. The people are just so.... simple. Simple people with simple pleasures, I think that’s the best way to describe them. Joan for example will spend all day watching a cake bake in the oven, and it makes her genuinely happy. It’s just weird; there are no shops, cinemas, swimming pools... nothing not for miles and miles. It’s the most boring place on earth.

Oh yeah, I’ve been at secondary school for a few weeks now. That is even weirder than everything else. There is only one classroom in the whole school, so 11 year olds are in the same class as 18 year olds. I really don’t know how they expect me to learn anything, at the moment they are teaching algebra in maths – It took me 3 weeks to learn how to spell it, yet alone do the sums. I would say I’m close to giving up with school altogether, but to be honest it’s the only thing to distract me from this empty village I have to call home.

Hope everything is well with you, write me back.

Hugs and Kisses xoxox

Geneviève

Chapter Two- Changing Beneath a Sickle Moon


Silver moonbeams, bright and brilliant, illuminate the red stain upon Geneviève’s silk-covered bed. She sits up, mortified at what has come out of her. Her face is of a porcelain-white, much like a Russian Babushka doll. It is the face of a girl who has entered her first menstrual cycle Like Alice, when she first fell down the rabbit hole and discovered wonderland, Geneviève is terribly confused and afraid.
She sits on the edge of the mattress, quivering with shock. Her heart pounds furiously. At school, in whispers, Geneviève’s friends had spoken about ‘it’ before. About the blood. About the pain. Some of them had already claimed to have experienced what she now did. But Geneviève had always thought that they were lying. After all, who could experience something like this and want to share it? She felt as if she was dying, and her insides had fallen out of her stomach.
Looking around the room, she feels a sense of shame, but also a sense of empowerment. Somehow her pink wallpaper and rows of fluffy teddy-bears have lost their appeal in the space of a single night. At the same time she feels a sense of embarrassment that her stuffed toy audience had just witness something horrific that, had they been alive, would have scarred them for life. She was no longer an innocent friend to them anymore; she was a bloodied stranger with a dirty secret. The eerie glow from the moon outside her window is more appealing, though even the slightest glance at the light hurts her eyes. This virgin super-sensitivity sends an excruciating headache thumping across her brain. To avoid the painful glare of the moon, Geneviève hides under her pillow, burying herself against the moonlight in a makeshift castle of blankets.
But even in the dark fortress her head pulses, as if invisible fingers press themselves upon her temples. The padded walls of her castle are of no defence, and fail to protect her from the beast within. The pain is a constant, tightening ache.
Her transformation from girl to woman is excruciating. Perhaps every girl goes through this exact same thing, but that was of no comfort to Geneviève. Her thoughts gave rise to an uncomfortable itchiness, like insects crawling over her body, spreading across her skin, migrating from the pit of her stomach as if it were a disturbed ant nest. There is also another feeling, one she hadn’t heard her friends whisper about. A thumping motion that drones on and on, as if drums are calling that feral-something inside her, enticing it to come out. Whilst it claws beneath her skin eager to escape.
Dawn is not far off, she tells herself. It will all be better come the morning… Hoping to wake up and find that it had all been a horrible nightmare.
Humming a gentle lullaby, the pink wallpaper and teddy bears again seeming comforting and valued, Geneviève wraps herself in blankets and begins to rock herself to sleep, trying desperately to ignore the puddle of blood at the foot of her bed. She is unsuccessful.
The thing inside her, you see, waiting just beneath the skin, does not feel like sleeping.
It is wide awake, and it won’t be ignored.

Chapter Three – The Sin Stain


Geneviève awoke to the sounds of birds fighting just outside her bedroom window. Whilst it was a more musical alarm than the police sirens and looters that populate Paris, she still missed home.
Shrugging off the last shadows of sleep, she sat up. Her head was pounding like it had a heartbeat of its own, but the pain was nothing compared to last night. She checked her blankets. The stain was still there, red and blotchy and accusing.
So it hadn’t been a dream after all…
“Geneviève?” rang a soft and gentle voice from the hallway. It was Joan, her father’s partner. She was plump and friendly, with large chubby cheeks, which reminded Geneviève of a bullfrog, and a small button nose. Geneviève had tried to hate her when they had first met, had tried to blame her for dragging her father- and consequently, her- away from the city. But the truth of it was the Joan was too nice, too simple of a person to hate; however hard one tried. “Geneviève, you have to leave for school shortly,” she called out again, and there were several soft knocks on the door. “Are you awake yet Geneviève?”
She made a desperate scramble to hide the blankets, bunching them up in an attempt to hide the stain. But it was too late. The door crept open and Joan’s round, smiling face- not unlike a moon itself- peered through.
“Oh…. Geneviève” Joan moaned sympathetically seeing the blood on the bed.
“Have you not heard of knocking?” Geneviève shouted, in embarrassment. In an attempt to intimidate Joan, she threw the bundle of blankets at the door aggressively, desperately trying to stop her from entering the room.
“I think its time we had a talk, from one woman to another… don’t you?” Joan said, her soft angelic voice whispered welcomingly. In shock, Geneviève watched Joan come and sit on the edge of the bed, picking up the blankets and folding them into a neat, creased square.
“My dear, it’s perfectly normal for a girl of your age to go through changes.” As friendly as the pleasant woman seemed, Geneviève couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable, and shows it by twisting her long blonde hair in her fingers. Confirming the whispers that Geneviève overheard in the playground, Joan told her all about puberty and female maturity. She told her about the changes her body was going to go through in order for her to become a woman, and that it would one day allow her to mother children.

Chapter Four – The Blonde and the Beast


She was a girl never interested in boys, not really. Not like her friends back in Paris were. Whilst they were getting boyfriends and gradually experiencing the things that girls and boys do in the city, Geneviève spent most of her time imprisoned in Joan’s house deep in the remote wilderness known as the Gévaudan. She stayed at home most of the time revising for exams or watching television. Simply because there was no kids her age, everyone at her school was a few years older. Talk in the playground with these older kids soon changed from ‘periods’ to kissing, and eventually with increasing regularity, to sex. Geneviève flitted on the edges of these conversations, listening to the other girl’s experiences. Whilst the rare few girls spoke, in the crudest of tones, about contact above and beyond a kiss – it wasn’t this that Geneviève cared about, although she often wondered what sex would feel like; she was attracted much more to the idea of tender romance and motherhood. Talks of walks in the woods whilst holding hands, eating picnics as the sun set made Geneviève naively go all warm inside.
The more she heard, the more she wanted to feel it for herself. As more and more of her friends became sexually active, it became something of greater prominence in Geneviève’s mind so much so that it became all she thought about. Being kissed. Falling in love. Having sex. Being a mother. It was her dream, and before long it became an obsession. All she would think about was being with a boy – and if sex was collateral of getting romance, and a necessity for motherhood it couldn’t be that bad could it?
Could it really be as horrifically painful as the girls in the playground said?
It was at the age of sixteen that Geneviève first truly acknowledged the beast within. One evening, overcome by a combination of curiosity and hormones, she found herself putting her hand under her nightgown whilst she lay in bed. She started innocently stroking her neck and collarbone in much the same way she would imagine a boy stroking her, eyes closed to add to the illusion. Geneviève slowly worked her way down, sliding over her breasts and stomach. It wasn’t long before she was aroused, and after softly stroking her inside thigh she began poking at her virginity with a quivering index finger. It was a strange sensation, a warm feeling spread across her body on the inside, like a fiery flood moving throughout her veins and arteries – but it was pleasurable not painful. Her legs went numb. The room went spinning. At first she was softly moaning with pleasure, and then eventually growling like a savage beast. It was just then as she heard herself, Geneviève was scared. What was she becoming? What had she done to herself? Ashamed, she vowed never to do that again, no matter how good it felt.
Deep down It disgusted her.



Chapter Five – Teenage Kicks


Email sent from Geneviè[e-mail], to [e-mail] on the 17th July 2003

Hey Sara,
It feels like a life time ago I last saw you, I bet you have changed so much. I know I have. I hardly even recognise myself anymore. Feels like I’ve aged ten years. How are you? How’s Paris?

Hugs and Kisses xoxox

Geneviève

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Email sent from Geneviè[e-mail], to [e-mail] on the 27th February 2005

Hey Sara,
I am feeling really low today. It’s the anniversary of mum’s death. Can’t say it’s because of her, I mean I hardly even knew her, and even then it’s only from pictures. Dad just acts weird this time of year, he always has ever since I can remember – The great Gilles Garner turns into a depressed ball of self-pity every February. He’s like the Grinch at Christmas. It’s just so hard, I mean he’s at work all year anyway, and when he is here it feels like all he does is cry. I just wish he would take some more time off in the summer or something, rather than mourn the whole of February.

I am really missing you...

Geneviève

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Email sent from Geneviè[e-mail], to [e-mail] on the 7th November 2006

Hey Sara,
Something amazing has just happened, I met someone. Well, I’ve seen someone I really like a few times, and I think he likes me. His name is Leon, he’s so lovely. He brought me flowers the other day, and wrote me a poem. He really is nice, you would love him. He has the cutest fringe that covers his eyes, all emo style. He’s so hot. I will let you know how it goes. Have you found yourself that special guy yet?

Write me back.

Hugs and Kisses xoxox

Geneviève


Chapter Six – The Beast Unleashed


Less than a woman, but more than a girl she ran. With blood trickling down her leg, she ran. Her hands were stained the colour of a crimson cherry and her face was a petrified white. Geneviève was bundling through the forest aimlessly like a wounded animal fleeing a chasing predator. Battered and bruised, she dared not slow, even though she was certain she was not being followed. Not anymore. As the sunset, and darkness shrouded her through dense vegetation, muddy bogs and serrated stones she continued, like a drunkard stumbling on home, undeterred by all around her. As tree branches snapped against her thighs and jagged rocks grated against the soles of her exposed feet, she continued sprinting into the inner sanctuary of the forest. She was numb to the tickling pain, and felt none of the elements that were battering her body so. Nothing could compare to the hell she had just experienced.

The smell of stale lager lingered on the boy’s breath. Geneviève at first backed away from it, but then gave in. As he kissed her, the rough stubble that shadowed his chin scraped across her cheek like sandpaper.

She ran, with an icy autumn breeze nipping at her ears, desperate to leave the world behind her. Passing tree, after tree deep into the wood she ran, until everything became a blur. Yet still all she could think about was ‘Him.’ Leon’s face kept flashing before her eyes.

“But you weren’t ready last week, or the week before… I'm tired of waiting” Leon moaned.
“Sorry but I’m not ready, I just don’t want it yet”

Leon’s once bright blue eyes were now ravaged with a red haze. In rage, he picked up the wicker picnic basket and threw it across the field; angered by Geneviève’s rejection.

“Now… you listen to me you bitch...” he snarled, waving his pointed finger at her. Geneviève was scared, never before had anyone, not even her father spoke to her with so much aggression. Completely taken back by his change it attitude, Geneviève just lay there in frozen with disbelief on the chequered blanket, that the pair had just 10 minutes earlier romantically rolled out on the grass floor. He walked over to her, his eyes alight with a flame of evil determination.
“You no longer have a choice.” He eventually continued.

The words were now engraved forever in her mind. Geneviève ran until her body physically refused to move any more, before she eventually stopped dead in her tracks like a rabbit caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. She was in complete solitude frozen with fear, only unlike the rabbit Geneviève had already experienced and survived the encroaching doom. She ran so far into the woods that she had no idea where she now was. Just this morning she was an innocent girl, comfortable amongst her familiar surroundings, but now she’s an alien in an unfamiliar landscape.

“Now, angel I’m tired of your mind games…” Leon said sadistically, stroking his index finger across her face, a poor attempt at seduction.
“No, I’m not ready” she protested, brushing his hand away.
“You asked for this Geneviève, you consented. For weeks you have teased me with your revealing clothes. You even dared to kiss me, and now you say no? You drove me to this” Leon barked, before grappling with Geneviève. Whilst she resisted as best she could, he easily overpowered her.
“It didn’t have to be this way” he said pushing all of his weight on top of her. He grabbed her hands, and tightly gripped them around the wrists. He suspended her hands firmly above her head; leaving her helplessly struggling under his enforced weight.

Silence was carried by the nightly wind. Even the leaves that just seconds ago crunched under her feet were now still and silent. There was no sign of life except Geneviève’s heart beating frantically in her chest, fast and heavy as if was trying to burst out; partly out of exhaustion, partly out of terror. It was as if it was rejecting her body, disgusted to be a part of it. Her body didn’t feel the same anymore; it didn’t feel like it was hers.

“Oh but you do want it… you just don’t realise it yet” …. Leon jeered.
“No!” Geneviève screamed, desperately trying to push him off. His chest flopped against hers like an anchor, pinning her to the floor. As she struggled, Leon forced his left hand up her white blouse, and savagely groped her breasts.
“Stop…” she screamed, almost crying
“Come on baby,” he leered, his hands winding down toward her thighs.
“No!” she screamed again, only louder than before.
“No!!!” she wailed again, like a banshee…
“I don’t want it! No!!!” Leon lifted up her skirt with his one free hand, and ripped of her underwear in a brutal act of defiance.
“I don’t like being teased, and you teased me Geneviève”
“Please don’t… Please…” she pleaded; her aggressive screams had now changed to teary pleading. This really isn’t how she imagined it, and this really wasn’t what she wanted. If only she had known that the boy was such a monster, she would have never entertained him. The sound of his belt clanged sorrowfully, like church bells during a funeral, as he undid it.
“Shhh...” he said, moving his hand up from his belt to her mouth, muffling her screams “You only have yourself to blame.”

Geneviève did not want to lose her virginity like that, but she had. She let it happen. As the reality of her situation sinks in, Geneviève is overcome with a sense of unparalleled shame and lets out an almighty scream that echoes throughout the empty wood. Only the scream was not feminine, it was bestial and sounded more like the piercing howl of a lone wolf. Howling in misery at the desolate moon.

Chapter Seven – From Wolf to Wraith


The iron gate squeaked on its rusty hinges as a girl, of a similar disposition, pushed it open. The garden path, like the roads and paths leading to it, was desolate and empty. Although had anyone been there, they would have struggled identifying the vagrant girl shambling along the path to be the same Geneviève. The sweet and innocent girl that was usually so happy was now grave and mournful – something to be pitied, walking with a staggered shuffle, chin resting on her chest, her eyes focused firmly on the ground. This vagrant girl was covered in blood, her exposed arms, legs and feet were covered in all kinds of grazes and scratches. The cold had made her lips glow blue. She was a wraith. A sad, starved wraith.
The last ribbons of her dress trailing behind her in the faint, whistling wind, the girl stumbled on like a reanimated, soulless corpse. The usual expression of innocent joy that framed her face had been wiped clean, replaced with an emotionless, cold stare. Dried blood covered her thin lips from one corner of her mouth to the other; the warped lipstick giving a clown its twisted smile.
She might have wandered forever, that girl, had her step-mother not called for her.
“Geneviève!” the word echoed in the night as Joan came bounding down the path like a fat Hare. “What happened!?’ she screamed, holding the girl’s head in her hands. ‘What happened!?” she repeated with a frightened urgency.
The girl didn’t answer. She was still numb.
“Geneviève! Answer me”
“Where’s Leon?” The mention of the boy who had raped her momentarily snapped Geneviève back into the world of the living.
“Dead” she replied coolly. ‘He’s dead.’
“Dead? What do you mean dead? Was there an accident? A car crash? My god!’ she pawed at the wounds on Geneviève’s head and shoulders, like a chimpanzee looking for fleas. Geneviève did not reply. She was like a mindless corpse barely flinching in the cold.
“Thank God you’re alive.” Joan moaned with relief, embracing Geneviève in a cuddle that could melt the thickest of glaciers.
“Let’s get you inside, where it’s safe and warm” Joan beckoned, eager to hide her step-daughter from any would-be prying eyes. With her arm wrapped around Geneviève, Joan slowly coaxed her into the house.
Under the security of the house, Geneviève snapped back into reality, and almost as soon as her feet crossed the threshold she collapsed onto the floor and burst into tears. Completely traumatised by what had happened to her. In her silky, soft voice Joan, keen to discover the truth of what had happened, began questioning the grief-stricken girl.
“Geneviève, what happened to you?”
“I did it,” Geneviève croaked.
“You did what Geneviève? Did you do this to yourself?”
“It’s all my fault,” she cried.
“Geneviève darling, what’s your fault?”
“Everything,” Geneviève moaned simply.
“Where’s Leon?” Joan asked again, hoping to get a different answer than before.
“Dead.” Geneviève sobbed
“And how did he die Geneviève?”
“I... killed... him” Geneviève murmured emotionally in between teary blubbering.

The news shocked Joan, but at the same time she reframed from acting on it. She merely embraced her step-daughter, and comforted her almost understandingly.
“Its ok… everything’s going to be ok” Joan said reassuringly. Whilst the simple woman must have had a thousand questions on the tip of her tongue, she restrained from uttering a single one and simply said.
“I’ll sort it out.”
Joan carried the sobbing Geneviève up to the bathroom, and began running the bath. As she undressed the girl, she was shocked to see the state of her body. Whilst it was no longer purple from the cold, her body was covered in a combination of blue bruises and red blood stains; and looked like a patchwork quilt of pain. Large bruises from the boy’s arms lined her shoulders and breasts. Hand prints could still be seen around her neck – the faint red finger marks suggesting she had been strangled. Her legs and arms were covered in pale scratches and grazes from running through the woods. Her inner thighs were stained dark scarlet the last token of her blemished virginity. As Geneviève got into the bath, she looked up at Joan, her eyes thick with the heaviest tears.
“He raped me. He raped me. He raped me!” Geneviève cried. With that, Joan grabbed a sponge and helped Geneviève scrub away all traces of that boy.

Chapter Eight – An Inspector Calls


Report taken from La Soleil Masion, dated 14th May 2007


POLICE HUNT ROGUE BEAST

The body of local boy, Leon du Biouse, has been found savagely mauled in a field just east of the Gévaudan. His fatal injuries suggest that he was attacked by an animal slightly larger than a domestic dog. The teenager’s body was discovered at approximately 5.30 by an unnamed man who was walking his dog – police have refused to comment any further on the situation. Town Mayor, Jacque Diarra had this to say
“This isn’t the first time that there have been attacks. The Beast of the Gévaudan! Remember the Beast of the Gévaudan? We dealt with it then and we will deal with it now” Whilst this mysterious death will certainly fan the flames of the legend of that fabled beast that stalked this same woodland back in 1764, the most logical answer is perhaps the culprit is an escaped pet from a private collection of exotic animals, or a large jungle cat that has been living in our French countryside. Expert zoologists have been called in from Paris to study exactly what animal caused this. Local gamekeeper Jean-Claude commented on the situation
“Beast of the Gévaudan, bah! Might as well blame the Witch in Hansel and Gretel or the Troll that lives under the bridge. Just a load of old nonsense to scare children, if you ask me it was simply someone’s pet dog. I can assure you my woods are safe, there is no ‘lions and tigers and bears’ in there, and hasn’t been for hundreds if not thousands of years.”

“Oh Geneviève” Joan said after reading the report. “We need to get you far away from here right now.” Disrupting the silent tension at the breakfast table.
“I’ve spoke to Émile and Thierry, and they have already left school. They will meet you at Calais tonight, and together you can go across the channel to London. You will be safe there.”
“Why London?” Geneviève asked worryingly.
“London is just Paris in a different language darling, you will love it.” Joan whispered, putting her bowl in the sink. From the kitchen window she could see an official looking man approaching her garden path.
“And why does Émile and Thierry need to meet me?” Geneviève asked, unknown of the presence of the man walking up the path.
“Because, you’re just a girl Geneviève, and my boys will look after you. Protect you from harm.” Just as she had finished speaking, several loud knocks echoed throughout the house as the man thumped against the front door.
“I’ll answer it” Joan barked briskly, “Just act as normal Geneviève” before answering the door. Leaving Geneviève to think about the two boys that she hasn’t seen since she first moved to the Gévaudan.
“Hello, my name is detective Gérard de la Martinière and I am investigating the death of Leon du Biouse. Is Geneviève home?”
“She is. May I ask why you need her? The news has left her quite emotional, as I am sure you could imagine” Joan said softly, yet sternly.
“I believe that Geneviève may have been the last person to have been seen with Leon, therefore as a matter of routine I will need to question her as to what happened.” The detective said alluding authority. He was wearing a brown suede coat that draped just below his knee, neatly ironed black trousers and freshly polished leather shoes, and like the clothes he was wearing his face revealed no emotion or sense of individual character. He was merely a puppet filling an official role.
“Please Mr Martinière, come in. Would you like me to make you a cup of coffee?” Welcomingly asked Joan, opening the door wider.
“Thanks for the offer, but I really must speak to Geneviève” replied the detective stepping inside the house. Joan escorted him to into the kitchen; Geneviève was still sitting at the table finishing off her breakfast.
“Good morning Geneviève, I am detective Martinière and I need to ask you a few questions” he said boldly.
“Good morning detective. Please sit down” replied Geneviève statically, gesturing towards a nearby chair, which he then walked over to and hovered around, without sitting down.
“As you are aware, the death of Leon is currently being investigated by myself and several other detectives. Could you give me a recollection of what happened when you last saw Leon?” Asked Martinière directly.
“I was with Leon the other day. We went to town and brought a fresh baguette from the bakery. We were planning to have a picnic on the clearing by the woods…”
“Planning? So it never happened?” Interrupted Martinière.
“After buying the bread I decided I didn’t feel too well, the time of the month you see. So I came straight home. I left Leon on the edges of town, and have no idea where he went after that” Said Geneviève coolly, starring directly into the eyes of the detective.
“Ok Geneviève, do you have any idea who he may have gone to the picnic with instead? Is it likely he would have gone by himself?” queried Martinière, not sensing the fear, of being uncovered, in Geneviève’s eyes.
“I do not know detective, but it is possible. Like I said before, I was not with him. I feel that what I say may present a red herring to your investigation, as it would at best only be an assumption and not the truth you crave” said Geneviève.
“Thanks for your time Geneviève. I’ll be going now, if you do remember anything else please contact me” said Martinière hoping to salvage future information.

Almost as soon as detective Martinière had left, Joan helped Geneviève frantically pack a suitcase. There was only enough room for a few items of clothing. It was a manic few seconds, all that was in arms reach, clean and dirty clothes were thrown into the bag; ruffled t-shirts mostly, a handful of underwear and an odd number of socks. Surprising how, in a mere matter of seconds, Geneviève’s whole life was chucked in a bag no bigger than the bathroom sink. After a quick kiss goodbye, Geneviève left her countryside residence and travelled to Calais on the back of a chicken wagon alone. Leaving behind all traces of her childhood.

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Email sent from Geneviè[e-mail], to [e-mail] on the 14th May 2007


Hey Sara,
Something bad has happened, and I have to move to London. Don’t worry its nothing too serious, it just means that until I get settled you might not hear from me. So this is goodbye, until next time my dearest friend.

Geneviève