What Dwells Inside (Iron and Wine x The Gothic Temptress)

The drive through the Pocono Mountains took the Range Rover full of six college students through some of the most scenic of New York’s landscape. Tommy, the moody senior who’d suggested the “camping trip”, was at the wheel. He kept quiet as the other upper classmen spun ghost story after ghost story about the Frisker Manor. As the sun crept toward the hillside horizon, they were setting the stage for what awaited Gwen and the only other freshman in the car, a willowy cheerleader named Lacey who appeared especially unnerved by the stories. And the stories were unnerving, especially the ones that had the ring of truth to them.

Rebecca, a dark-haired mild-mannered senior, tempered the guys’ more embellished versions with accurate pieces of history. Built in the wake of the Civil War, the manor became the family home of the wealthy Friskers, a name synonymous with the advent of retail malls, who allegedly rose to power on the backs of slaves. During the Great Depression, the family business fell into insolvency, and the patriarch Josiah Frisker was compelled to turn the old manor house into an orphanage and treatment center for troubled girls who were wards of the state in order to pay off their debts. Many allegations and rumors circulated about what happened at the manor while it served as an orphanage. The mysterious deaths of most of the Frisker family during a flash flood only added to the dark mystique circulating about the manor. The manor remained unoccupied until an enterprising couple purchased it in the early 60’s in the hopes of renovating the Frisker Manor as a bed and breakfast; their efforts were short lived, however, after they were accused of murdering their guests. As part of the settlement, New York state claimed the home, adding it to its Historic Register, as no one else would touch the cursed property. The state was intent on turning the Frisker Manor into a halfway house and outpatient center. This too failed after the staff, suffering from a variety of mental illnesses themselves, refused to work there. It was haunted, so they said.

Frisker Manor remained desolate for the past 40 years.

Mist clung to the edges of the dirt road. The last vestige of civilization was a faded white cottage with a single light inside some fifteen miles back. As they approached the acreage with old yellow police tape clinging about the front gate, the massive manor was silhouetted by hues of deep indigo and ghoulish orange. During day time it actually had a rustic charm, with the long-since decaying stone covered in ivy, moss, and in a few cases trees actually seemed to be growing through the building. Local kids in New York county used to go there in the summer months to hang out, barbeque, and drink. Since the disappearances and the police taping it off, however, the only time to visit the Frisker Manor was at night. And that meant ghost stories.

It was early Autumn as the sun set on Long River Road. “No sign of any cops. We should be good. No getting out of it,” said Tommy, grinning back at the two freshmen girls. They’d brought a small campstove and camping chairs, setting up a tailgate party in the backyard of the manor. The pool had since been drained, but that didn’t stop them from watching the sunset, roasting sausages and making s’mores. As night set in and a chill filled the air, there were storm clouds on the horizon covering the moon so it was only a pale glow. Tommy announced it was time to go into the haunted house. Though the guys thought they were keeping it a secret, but it was hard not to hear the legends about students disappearing at Frisker Manor. Moreover, the senior Rebecca gave the two freshmen girls fair warning that there was a tradition among the school that when a younger classmate wanted to be accepted they had to go through a little initiation. However, they wouldn’t disclose more information than that.

The house was dark, so their flashlights were most definitely necessary as they climbed in through an unlocked window in the back of the house. A thin layer of dust was on everything, with many of the furnishings still there, though it was clear thieves had removed many valuables over the years. As they moved through some kind of estate dining room, Gwen would notice several individual oil portraits of members of the Frisker family, all with their eyes cut out except, presumably, Josiah Frisker. As they moved across the room, the portrait’s eyes seemed to follow Gwen, sending a chill down her spine. “Creepy right?” said Tommy. “Until the early 1900’s, the Frisker family were a huge part of life in the county; they were like some of the richest people. Then in a week they were reduced to nothing. To pay off the debt he started an orphanage for girls…”

Another one of the guys snickered, “Total pedophile.”

Brushing off the comment, Tommy shined his light toward the downstairs master bathroom. “Well, most his family was found drowned in the stream nearby during a flash flood. Nobody knows what happened to him or the girls who stayed here.”

Rebecca hyped up the story with animated expressions as she placed her flashlight under her face as if telling a ghost story around the campfire. “They say that Frisker was a real pervert, and he used to lock up young girls in his basement wearing only their underwear with only a mirror and a candle. That’s why, every year, we send one girl…” She could no longer keep a straight face and started laughing, the others chuckling with her, the sounds echoing through the long deserted house. “Wait, guys, that’s the bathroom, right? Ok, Gwen and Lacey, this is like the most epic of all bathrooms…Tommy, you want to explain how this works?”

Once they found the narrow unpainted door to the first floor bathroom, Tommy dramatically pulled out an antique bronze key, unlocking the door with a loud click-clack sound. As it swung open, Gwen beheld an ornate bathroom far larger than even modern bathrooms with a long mirror in front of the faucet, an old beaten brass tub with a shower faucet in the center of the room, and a funny looking pommel horse saddle looking thing. A single high window was boarded up, so the room was very very dark. One other narrow door exited the bathroom, probably a closet.

“So, whenever a younger classmate wants to hang with the senior crew, we bring them here for a test to see…” he paused dramatically. ”if they’re brave enough for…the test. You need to go inside the bathroom and shut the door. Thing is, you have to go in just your underwear, and you can take a…shit we forgot a candle…um, I guess you can take only a flashlight. Then, you look into the mirror and repeat ’Josiah Frasier, take me’ five times… like you mean it. And you have to make it in the house alone until we call you out. Just a short while...” Rebecca rolled her eyes with a grin and some of the guys snickered.

However, before Tommy could finish, the willowy Lacie, who’d been covering her arms with her hands and looking thoroughly creeped out. ”There’s no way…I can’t…I can’t do this…” She shook her head. Though the guys gave her a hard time, and Rebecca tried to convince her, Lacie shoved passed them, ”This place is fucking creepy…and this is breaking and entering…Look, I’m sorry, I can’t do this…” Making her way back to the dining room they'd snuck in through, she scurried out the window to wait on the back porch.

After a stunned moment, Tommy capitalized on the building suspense, shining the flashlight at Gwen as he spoke dramatically. ”Already, the ghosts have driven out one of the potential classmates. It’s down to just you, Gwen. Think you can manage that?” He looked at the 19 year-old expectantly, offering her the flashlight.

All Gwen Fraser had ever wanted in her life was to be accepted.

Born in a family of overachievers, Gwen's mediocrity was greatly ridiculed every moment of her childhood. She was never as good at ballet as her sister Kelly, or as social as her brother Garret. She was average at studies and with looks that did not turn heads. In short, she was the ugly duckling of the Fraser family.

Her parents never cared enough to include her in social gatherings or parties, choosing to ask her to stay in her room like a good girl while they flaunted the beautiful Kelly and the lively Garret to everyone. Gwen did not harbor any sour feelings for her parents, blaming herself instead for being a shame to them. But she could not bring herself to actually excel at anything because she lacked the confidence to do so. She had already shelved herself as useless, so why bother wasting her time?

But during this time, she also discovered something about herself. It had started very innocently at first, a pinch here, a scratch there but soon it had escalated to something bordering on masochism.

Gwen liked to touch herself - the only self-indulgence she allowed herself to explore - but as she grew older, she found herself unable to reach that delicious peak without mixing some pain to her pleasure. She was scared. It seemed like her body was spiraling out of her control, seeking things that her mind did not even want to accept. But she was addicted. There was not a single day when she didn't have her fingers at her core, the other hand scratching down her thigh violently or pinching her nipples hard enough to make it hurt badly. She was afraid to go to bed, when she knew she could not resist the temptation to surrender to that wicked pleasure that always managed to leave bruises and marks on her body which she had to hide with layers of clothing, because God forbid that a Fraser was found resorting to self-harm. It was enough really; till it wasn't.

Her body began to beg for more than what she did to herself. So, it was yielding to this desire did Gwen lose her virginity to Jacob Gardner - a jock who was drunk enough to not know that it was the mousy Fraser girl that he was mindlessly thrusting into - at Junior Prom. It was painful, because there was no foreplay or even a kiss before he had pushed her against the stall of the girls' washroom and shoved his rather large appendage in her, but she had never came harder in her entire life. He had left the minute he was done, leaving a bleeding yet greatly satisfied Gwen in his wake.

The encounter disgusted her afterwards and she stopped pleasuring herself for a few months. To distract herself from the torture of thoughts, she immersed herself in other activities; like studying for instance. Her teachers and parents were surprised at the sudden improvement in Gwen and soon she was being called down to attend parties clad in pretty dresses while her family proudly introduced her as the 'Fraser who comes top in her class'. This acceptance gave her a sense of satisfaction, of belonging that she had been craving throughout her life; yet there was this little, vague feeling that the girl who stood there, smiling at the guests was not the real Gwen. The real Gwen was the girl who had let Jacob Gardner pound her so hard that she could not walk straight for days after but relished the pain every time she shifted in her seat. That was her. Gwen the Deviant. Not Gwen the Star Student.

High school passed in a blur of good grades and high society parties and she found herself being accepted more than ever. She no longer roamed the halls of the school alone but instead had an army of nerds at her disposal. Boys actually began to approach her for herself not for getting Kelly's number. They said she was cute. Gwen let them. They took her to extravagant dates and bought her beautiful trinkets. Gwen let them. They asked to make love to her. Gwen let them.

They were always too gentle, too inexperienced but Gwen tried her best to derive pleasure from there fumbling ministrations like normal girls were supposed to do. She failed every time. She knew they wanted nothing more than to be associated with the name Fraser, even if it meant getting in between the legs of the nerdy Gwen Fraser. But she let them. Because it was supposed to be normal. Even though she lived her life in bubble of frustration, she was normal.

But there were times when her eyes followed Jacob Gardner across the halls, wondering if would be willing to take her as roughly as he did last time. There were times when Gwen almost slipped her hand in her underwear, thinking of resorting to her previous antics but she would withdraw last moment, grabbing a textbook instead.

Soon it was time to leave for college and tearful goodbyes and expensive gifts were what followed. She had chosen to study psychology, a subject that intrigued her more than anything else. Gwen was excited to explore a new place and herself as well. Maybe she could finally find something - or someone - that would offer a closure to her...condition, as she liked to call it. But the moment she stepped into the vast halls filled with strangers who seemed to have had gained a standing in this foreign place, it was like being back to those anti-social days. Here there was no one she knew or could trust, and she felt like everybody was looking at her like she was biggest joke on the planet. She instantly became aware of one thing: Gwen Fraser was not accepted in this place. After all, she did not have Kelly's delicate beauty or Garret's sunny disposition to attract anyone.

Just when she was about to bolt back to her dorm room, she felt a light tap on her shoulder. She turned and found a very attractive guy staring her down. Is this the part where I start getting bullied? She thought nervously clutching her backpack closer to her chest.

"Freshman?" He asked in a bored drawl that somehow sounded very alluring to her. She blushed in response, looking down at her feet instead. She could feel her heart hammering in her chest, partly due to fear and partly due to being so close this...very attractive guy.

He took her silence as her agreement and chuckled lightly, triggering a darker blush. "Follow me," he said simply and started walking. Gwen hesitated for a moment but then ran after him helplessly.


And that was how she found herself here. In front this rotting, derelict yet huge mansion that loomed over her like an ominous warning. She took a step back and almost bumped into Lacey, a thin blonde, who seemed like she was having spasms but was actually shivering in fear. Gwen averted her eyes back to the doom that awaited her and gulped. The mansion was bigger than any house she had ever seen personally but the size just added to its grotesque appearance instead of making it grand. She could figure out from the broken pieces of architecture that there had been a time when the building was considered to be a fine specimen of beauty and elegance personified, a joy to behold. But now it just seemed to symbolize something sinister, something unholy that awaited to devour anyone who dared to venture inside. Gwen gulped again.

The seniors led her and Lacey inside and Gwen almost gasped. The reaction was not due to the fact that the mansion was as derelict inside as it was outside, like a fine wind could blow everything all over; or due to the fact that darkness enveloped her vision like a blanket penetrated by thin shards of moonlight, before Tommy (the very attractive guy who had dragged her into this debacle in the first place) switched on a flash light. It was because of a certain feeling that encompassed her senses.

She felt like she had been here.

As the group went further into the house, the feeling kept increasing with each step. Gwen could almost see the phantom silhouettes of past occupants moving across the floors, could hear them talking, laughing, shouting, screaming. She clenched her eyes shut to block those visions but it only amplified their noises instead. When she again opened them, she was face to face with the portrait of a regal looking man. She guessed he was Josiah Frisker. His dark eyes felt like they were burning holes into her soul, flipping through every sin, every wrong she had ever committed and then she swore she could see his lips tug into a small, mocking smile. Gwen hurried away from there but she could still feel his eyes following her form. She shivered violently.

Tommy opened a door which led to an extravagant yet broken bathroom which was larger than her living room back home. She presumed that the task was to take place here. She swallowed down vomit when she took in the boarded window and the huge, vintage styled mirror that loomed above the faucet. The glass had somehow managed to survive years of abuse that the house had gone through for it bore no cracks, just a fine layering of dust. She was about to bring that observation to the notice of others when suddenly, Tommy shined the flashlight upon her. Gwen's hand went up to her face to shield the extreme light and she heard him say:

”Already, the ghosts have driven out one of the potential classmates. It’s down to just you, Gwen. Think you can manage that?”

It was then did Gwen notice that Lacey was missing from attendance. She cursed the blonde vehemently in her mind and looked at the flashlight in his hand. She could refuse of course. She was already feeling quite unnerved from the feelings that had erupted within her the moment she had stepped inside and she knew that this place was haunted without a doubt. But...There always was this huge, annoying but. She did not want to be termed as the coward who chickened out of some stupid initiation task. It would make her the freak of the college. It would lead her to be ignored, to be ridiculed, to be...pushed back to what she once had been. And if she did complete this task...Then she would be known as the girl who braved the creepy Frisker Mansion, she would be able to hang out with the senior crew, she would be....accepted. The closed doors of her room, the lonely walks in the school halls, the ignorance, the insults, the days of being the ugly duckling flashed in front of her eyes in a second and she clenched her fists, shoving her nerves to the back of her mind. She had been ignored once in her life and that was enough for her lifetime. She already had had a taste of what it felt like to be adored, to have attention showered upon you, to be accepted; and she was not willing to give that up now. She would not be the ugly duckling again ever.

With that thought, Gwen seized the flashlight from Tommy and smiled at him, albeit a bit nervously and said: "Sure thing. I am not scared of such petty stuff." Her declaration was received with hoots and cheers and the seniors left, already impressed with her bravery. Tommy was the last one to leave and he shot her a smile as he did. "All the best," she heard him say as the door shut and was locked up, leaving her alone in the bathroom with only a flashlight.

Gwen breathed out shakily and placed the light source on the rim of the tub. With shaky fingers she unbuttoned her shirt and shimmied out of her jeans, leaving them folded along with her shoes next to the light. A strong shiver passed down her petite figure as she stood in the dark bathroom in nothing but her white, cotton underwear. Grabbing the flashlight tightly she approached the elusive mirror and brushed her palm across the dusty surface, clearing it so that she could see herself clearly. Beneath the dirt, the mirror was as good as new.

Taking a deep breath Gwen dropped her hand to her side and shut her eyes before speaking out what was needed of her:

"Josiah Frisker, take me."

She spoke quietly, trying to divert her mind from the visual of dark eyes that she instantly associated with the name.

"Josiah Frisker, take me."

She suddenly began to feel a small tug at the lower half of her abdomen and her skin prickled up. She felt warm yet cold at the same time.

"Josiah Frisker, take me."

Her mind suddenly filled with a vision of the pale face with dark, penetrating eyes as he savagely thrust on top of her, lips curled into that mocking smile as his fingers choked her. She could feel that tug intensify as a certain dampness made its appearance in her underwear at her taboo fantasy.

"Josiah Frisker, take me."

Her senses were assaulted with visions of violent sex and she knew her panties were ruined by now. Her fingers gripped the flashlight more tightly as her whole body began to ache and crave to be assaulted, used and provided that sweet relief she had been seeking since years. She was appalled at the thought but she knew she really meant it and wanted it and burned for it as she let her eyes open up and gaze into her flushed face and she muttered for the last time in a voice that practically was a moan:

"Josiah Frisker, take me."

And the door, the door she had clearly heard being locked firmly, flew open.

Gradually the wise-cracking voices faded down the hallway outside the dark bathroom,Tommy’s voice echoing in the mischievous tone that came so easily to him. A penetrating silence followed, only interrupted by the wind rattling the window and Gwen’s own heartbeat. No one was waiting to jump out at her. No one was peeping through the keyhole. Alone. The way the walls swallowed sound made that distance from the bathroom to wherever the others went seem like a hundred miles. The wind died down to a wraithly whisper as she undressed and approached the mirror. Beneath the dust, there were other smudges on its pristine surface, most likely marks from others who were hazed by the seniors. Yet, the dust gave the impression no one had touched the mirror for years. It was a silent witness to the words she now uttered, and by the second time Gwen said it, the mirror almost seemed to be listening.

By the third time, the room became noticeably chillier, as if some cold snap descended ahead of the encroaching rainstorm. By the fourth time, the light of the flashlight seemed distorted in its reflection off the mirror, as if she was seeing the filtered diffuse light of it passing through swaying trees. The visions came unbidden, summoned up through whatever perverse desires ran through her and the words spoken into the mirror. It was just an urban legend, something to scare freshmen. It had to be. In the vision, she was pinned down, cold hands choking her neck, face down on the bathroom floor. There was no question. She was being assualted. It was so vivid. By the fifth time she uttered those words, an electric tingle infused the air of the bathroom and crawled over her skin.

The bathroom door flew open with a loud crack on its hinges. No one was there, but the sense of being watched was overwhelming. Breath became visible in the chill that permeated the space. Even though the flashlight was still in her hand, the light coming from the mirror was no longer a mere reflection; it was ghoulish, otherworldly, emanating forth like a light shone from under murky waters. There was a shape in the mirror! Quickly, the shape coalesced into a naked woman with her hands pressed against the glass as if she was looking for a way out. There was no question — it was Gwen. Her reflected doppelganger slid her hands over the other side of the mirror, banging and shouting something, but no sound came. Then her reflection was pressed up against the mirror by something behind her, a look of abject terror on her reflection’s face.

Wind rattled the window and shook the boards covering it up, but it wasn’t just wind, not anymore. The tone dropped, becoming a keening raspy man’s voice. ”Give…us…give…” Abruptly, an unseen force seized Gwen, pinning her in front of the mirror, anchoring her forearms to either side of the antique porcelain sink, forcing her legs to just over shoulder width apart. Any attempt at movement would be met with a jolt of electricity running through her limbs, like trying to fight night paralysis in that strange realm between sleep and waking. Shadows in her peripheral vision were growing long and ominous. A glance over toward the opened door would see a long shadow of a man in an overcoat and bowler hat cast into the bathroom by some unseen light source — but no man where there should be one. In the mirror, her reflection seemed to wince, seemed to be fighting back feelings, seemed to briefly struggle, pushing back against something unseen behind her, but to no avail. For a moment the reflection’s eyes met her and Gwen would recognize that look, the look of being penetrated violently. Sobbing, her reflection tried to brace against what was happening, but it only became harder and harder, shaking her petite body like a rag doll.

They’d given her a soda in the drive up. Maybe Tommy had spiked it with some kind of hallucinatory drug? Yet watching the man’s shadow in the archway, the details were so crystalline, so chillingly real. Crawling up into the three-dimensional volume of the room, the shadow seeped upward, taking the form of a shuddering shadow dressed as a gentleman from the turn of the century. He took a step toward her, and that ghostly pressure keeping her in place manifested even stronger, almost pressing on her chest through her back. ”Need…give…us…” repeated the raspy man’s voice, as if forming complete sentences was a feat it had forgotten and was only now remembering. Each step he took was disjointed with the space he covered, as if he were half floating and half walking. In the faint background was a prim and proper English woman’s voice, murmuring something like a nurse reporting to a doctor. In the mirror, her reflection shook and shuddered as it was fucked mercilessly, but by what was impossible to say, as the rest of the mirror became misty. Footfalls echoed as the shadowy man approached behind her, yet even these sounds were disjointed from when its inky black feet would meet the tile floor.

The image in the mirror slowly faded away, revealing her own reflection and the darkness of the rest of the bathroom. According to the mirror, no one was behind her. But someone, or something, certainly was. His presence made the skin crawl, made it hard to think clearly as if inducing some altered state, made breathing possible in shallow little gasps. Extending a shadow hand forward, he traced it along Gwen’s naked back, feeling like a cross between an ice cube and wrinkled hardened leather, yet in its wake her skin would react as if she’d just spread a thin layer of icy-hot to soothe tired muscles. An unseen force tore at the clasps on her bra, and when unable to unclasp them, the shadow tore the bra clear off of her, leaving little red marks where the straps dug into her skin before snapping. This was real. Fingernails honed into points like claws raked down her back without quite piercing the flesh. Her white panties were thrust down violently to mid-thigh, and her legs kicked by the invisible force so her heels flared outward and her toes pointed inward. Cold fingers dug into her ass, drawing her up. ”Tiptoes…give…us…tiptoes…” demanded the raspy haunting voice, now close to her ear. The fingers moved to squeeze her exposed tight breasts one at a time. In the mirror, Gwen would see the invisible indentations form in her flesh where the shadow touched her. An inhuman growling sound flooded her ear as the specter’s hand traced the edges of her slit like she were his possession, finding her wet, and hissing in wicked delight.