“You see!” He smiled. “Not only have you heard my voice within but you answered there as well. So we begin.”
“It’s not your voice that I want within me,” she said softly, trailing her finger down his chest, lingering on the first button.
Nicolai laughed. “Ah, but I am one of many who seek your pleasures.”
“But I think it is your wealth that will expand my purse.” She stroked his groin, pleased to discover his excitement was whole.
“Go upstairs to your room, Scarlet. Get dressed for me.” He nudged her towards the staircase.
”
My
room?”
“You will know it when you get there.”
Soundlessly, she crept up the stairs. Exhilaration mingled with the arousal. She would prepare for her client. Dress in a manner pleasing to him. The voices behind her snuffed out as she reached the landing. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw every head turned to watch her. A silent expectation. An intoxicating assurance.
She blew Nicolai a kiss and padded down the dimly lit hallway.
Each door was closed. All the chambers were occupied. She paused at one, bending her ear at the door to listen for the sounds of pleasuring. Only music and that was very faint. She rapped on the door and called out. “Time.”
Her deed bemused her. How did she know to act on such an impulse, except that perhaps her clairvoyance demanded it? A rustling behind the door confirmed she had been correct. Another client would soon be entering the room.
Scarlet went to the end of the hall. Her room was there. She reached out, turning the glass doorknob and stepped into her boudoir.
The possessions were familiar. A bureau heaped with ornamental jewellery, scarves, and lacy white shawls. Draped over the chair was her beaded gown. Next to it knee high satin boots. Hanging over the bed’s edge was a corset, thin white stockings, a garter belt and loose crotchless panties. Black roses hung from the bedposts and a garland of ivy adorned the headboard, a cloaked bat carved into the wood, one drop of painted blood hung from its fang.
Her sex twitched. Arousal invaded her every movement.
She slipped from her clothes and dressed. Her whole body was covered in satin, lace, and silk—all white. A long string of beads wound tightly round her neck. Her hair was covered with a fringed cap, gloves went to her elbows, rings on every finger, and earrings dangled to her shoulder. The corset pushed up her breasts, exposing her nipples, yet her midriff was covered. So too were her legs, thighs and hips, except the laced slit in the panties to give easy access.
Scarlet found her lipstick, running it tenderly over her top lip and then the bottom, a stark contrast to the white veiling her body. She spread the slit in her panties and painted those lips as well. She laughed. “Nicolai, dress me as your favourite doll and I will be your harlot forever.”
Forever.
She crawled over the bed, tensed her lithe body, and fell onto the cushions. She spread her legs to watch the door.
“Are you ready?”
She answered inside her head, where the question emanated.
“Yes.”
A shadow flitted, not from the door but the balcony. Long curtains twitched in the breeze. A flash of white light bathed the night sky but no thunder rumbled.
Scarlet stretched her gloved arms over her head, gripping the latticed headboard. She arched, pushing her exposed nipples up. She spread her legs as far as humanly possible. The shadow crawled over the bottom of the bed. Hot breath was instantly on her sex. A finger was thrust into the silken wet while he savagely gnawed her painted lips, his face buried in her groin. She felt the smooth edge of teeth. The pinch of pain was sudden but dulled quickly, surrendering to what was the hot, wet luxury of his mouth. He suckled. The stockings pulled, the garter strained and she arched higher, twitching into the relentlessly vicious mouth.
Her arousal thickened. She reached her gloved fingers to touch his head, feel his hair, loosened, feathering her thighs. He moaned fiercely when she made contact. The vibrations reverberated into her clit. Heat upon heat gushed through her. Her body felt drenched, from the inside out, so fierce was the storm that broke.
“Scarlet,” he muttered. “My Scarlet wife has returned.”
Through the drunken haze that was her dulled senses she opened her arms to him.
“And you will never leave me.” Lace-veined eyes peered up at her as his tongue trailed a crooked path over the braided front of her corset. He bit one nipple then the other. Lips curled back, revealing his porcelain fangs. Fear couldn’t strike at her. Sexual vehemence was far too severe. She pushed one breast to him, a sacrifice, an offering to his unearthly craving.
He snatched at the strings of beads she wore, yanking them. The tiny orbs scattered across the bed and floor. The string tightened around her neck. Her heart hammered, the vessels pulsating beneath his readied snarl. His naked body draped fully over her, every muscle tight, a solid mass of steel. As he penetrated her with his engorged cock, he bit into the soft flesh of her breast.
The unyielding grip sent sweet fire flashing through her whole body. One arm had her securely pinned, his weight pressed down on her hips. There was no room for movement of any kind. The bed beneath seemed to evaporate, yet he had her, mercilessly trapped, a slave to whatever perverse desire he cared to initiate.
She sensed the loss of blood from her breast to his mouth. It was as soothing as the steady rhythmic twitch of his pulsating organ, pumping against the walls of her womb. Her blood was giving him the energy to keep his cock engorged, and the very thought of it threw her into convulsions of pleasure. His grip tightened as she flexed beneath him. Breath exhaled but she could barely inhale.
For a few seconds, she stared in sadistic delight as his lips suckled the slash in her breast. He pumped the flesh, his fingers shaking the nipple, pinching it as though by doing this he could speed the flow of sustenance to his mouth. His razor teeth slashed another incision and blood bubbled past his lips. He lifted his face then lunged again, licking every drop, lapping the crimson fluid, growling. The white corset was stained with her blood, the few precious droplets that had escaped his feeding.
Between passion and death.
Her elongated scream accompanied an eddying tide of bliss. She shifted, even though he still had her fiercely pinned within an unfaltering entrapment.
“Nicolai,” she oozed, the voice that escaped her strangled vocal cords unfamiliar.
And she ran her swollen tongue behind her teeth. Two were extended.
His smeared mouth curled to a grin as he delved in to kiss her, the taste of blood all over his face. Its scent threw her into a fury and she clawed his flesh, tearing deep cuts down his bare back.
“Hungry, harlot?” he snickered, pulling his face out of her reach so she couldn’t nibble his lips for the flavour.
“Yes,” she spat, folding forward to bite at him, enjoying their play.
He still flaunted his masculinity, jerking his hips, keeping her locked in his steely penetration. Blood trickled down the side of her breast. Her nostrils flared at the scent. She bucked her hips, and he sucked a steady stream of air.
“Oh,” he moaned. “The pleasures of the night’s sweetest whore.”
He rose up, kneeling, dragging her body, her hips straddling his lap. He kept his cock buried deep inside her, flinching it, watching her expressions. She hissed with anger and it pleased him. He smiled. “Your energy soothes me, harlot,” he droned. “Our union is astounding.”
Nicolai thrust his thumb along her slit, his black eyes raking over her attire. “Lovely to be a scarlet woman of the night, isn’t it my darling?” He grabbed her wounded breast, shook it mightily, and groaned. Then he snatched her throat and squeezed. She gasped, clutched his wrist and shivered.
“Tell me you’re mine—that my claim on you is complete,” he seethed. “Tell me. Now!”
She threw her chin in the air, snarled for breath, and cracked out a curse. “Yes,” she shrieked. “I am yours.”
He let go. And smoothed her matted hair. “Lovely. So lovely.”
Then he yanked her head up with a fistful of hair. “Watch me. Watch me as I finish this.”
She lowered her gaze, watching his slick cock pulling back, then straining forward, her lips puffing to each stroke. Suddenly he let go of her hair, lifting his fists into the air, and with a shuddering howl, he exploded, the sting of his burning fluid flooding her womb. He lurched. And clawed the air. A ripple streaked down his thick chest.
She prepared for him to lie down with her, to rest, or wait for the urges to overwhelm him again, whichever might surface first. But he got up, stood at the bottom of the bed, his cock still extended, swollen.
Rain tapped on the windowpane. He moved towards the flowing curtain to let the air cool his flesh. Lightning stole his silhouette for a few seconds, then all that remained was shadow.
“Your first client is waiting at your door,” Nicolai said. “He has asked for you and has the money to prove his lusts are perverse.”
A severe sense of fury wracked her breast causing her heart to thrash. “How dare you make such a suggestion,” she said, her voice low, scratchy. “Your claims on me are passionless, nothing more than cruel mockery? You accept my promise as worthless and hollow?”
His eyes froze on her. A slight smirk twisted the corner of his mouth.
Nicolai moved swiftly to the side of the bed, sitting gently and bowing to kiss her breast. “Your conviction impresses me, my precious doll”
She shoved him away. Then, thinking twice, she reached forward, grabbed a handful of his hair, and pulled his face close to hers. In that moment she sensed heightened emotion. Her passion was for Nicolai alone. If he refused her, taunted her, treated her as a plaything—or as a doll—that energy would play out in seething hatred.
“I am not your doll,” she whispered. “I am your lover.” With that she leaned forward, hissing at him through gritted teeth.
His eyes widened for a second. “More than a lover. My everything. My always.” Then he lavished her snarling lip with a deep kiss. She growled acceptance. And she sighed deeply to relief. It was all so divine.
They slept face to face. For how long they slept, Scarlet had no way of knowing. There were no clocks in Nicolai’s bedroom. A thin ribbon of dull light gleamed at length from behind Nicolai’s velvet curtain. What had woken her? She jerked her head to one side, listening carefully.
She sat up. Nicolai’s arm slipped from her shoulder to the bed. He didn’t stir. She heard his heart beat, the short shallow breaths of deep sleep. His dark face was emotionless, perfect, and as she paused to admire his beauty, she thought him truly magnificent. Her moving about would not disturb him. She reached for the long velvet shawl he insisted she wear as a nobleman’s wife and swept soundlessly towards the curtains.
The day’s light was nearly spent. The back alley below was quiet. She peered each way, as far as she could. Then she closed her eyes to listen. Nothing.
“What wakened me?” she whispered.
Her stomach ached. Hunger. She folded her arms across her midriff. Nicolai would wake soon. He would help her, teach her, guide her in this, their new life together.
New life. When had she sacrificed her old life? At what point had she come to the dire conclusion that her past was worth ending? Him. Nicolai. His wisdom, his prowess, his sexuality—all derived from what was eternal. His every breath was calculated, all consuming, and she had accidentally stumbled across his path and paid for the pleasure with her soul. A pleasure that would never extinguish. She twitched—another fiery awakening—she would worship him, obey him, satisfy each and every dark desire. He was her Master. She would gladly kneel before the altar that was him.
She turned, sensing he was about to stir.
The bed was empty.
She darted quick glances into every corner. She could see easily through even the blackest shadow, but Nicolai was not there.
“Nicolai,” she cried out desperately. An eerie foreboding rose in her breast. He should not behave secretly with her. She forbade it!
Scarlet clutched her robe and dashed out into the hallway. A sour chuckle touched her ear. Then a shrill shriek. She flung open each door. And inside each room a doll. Stiff. Expressions of absolute pain frozen on their small oval faces. The clients were gone. The bordello dolls had been abandoned.
Scarlet flitted to the landing, her weight like the air that brushed across her face. She spread her robe, elegant wings, and fell gracefully to the dancehall below.
Nicolai laid on his back spread eagled in the centre of the floor. Stakes had been driven through his wrists, his thighs. The largest and ugliest protruded from his chest.
His body convulsed. Clouded eyes rolled back and forth. Foam bubbled from his swollen black lips. He lifted his head and shoulders and garbled a curse. Scarlet took a step towards him, a searing wave of panic ricocheting through her whole being.
“No!” he screamed with great effort. “Stay back!’
At the bar, calmly drinking, undisturbed by her presence, sat the young proprietor of the Tobacconist Shop. He lit a cigarette, pursed his lips and blew a perfect ring of smoke.
Her eyes fell to his feet. Kerosene. Several cans of it. He played menacingly with the lighter, flicking it on and off. The snap pained her ears.
Scarlet hissed air through gritted teeth. Her fists shook by her sides so fierce was her anger. “Leave usssss!”
He leaned over the bar and yanked up a doll by a clump of hair. It was carelessly bashed against the counter. Scarlet felt the thrust in her own body. Then he took a pin from his pocket and jabbed the doll’s breast. Instant pain slashed through Scarlet. She fell to her knees, clutching her heart, unable to breathe, to move, or speak.
“Nope. I’m not going nowhere until I finish what the old people tried to do eighty years ago. And every decade since.” The young man stood up, strolled leisurely to where Nicolai was staked to the floor, and squatted. He snickered as he scanned the wounds. “Totally paralysed. Did you know, Scarlet, that a stake through the heart doesn’t actually kill a vampire? It does however, immobilise one.”