Love and Whiskers

by Olivia Myers

  Imogen groaned with pleasure. With her own hand she massaged her clitoris gently, each movement bringing a riot of pleasure. She was burning now. Although the vampire was as cold as death, her presence was like a fire on top of Imogen. And the fire was only heating up. Cerise’s finger came in faster and faster, stoking Imogen into life.

  And Imogen felt the burn with greed. She was filling up with the vampire. Not in the way that Cassandra had filled her when she’d penetrated her with the dildo, but in a way even closer, as though it was Imogen’s own soul that Cerise was entering.

  “Faster, faster,” Imogen moaned. Cerise curled her fingers upwards inside Imogen and stroked the spongy area gently. Imogen thought she would die of pleasure. She felt her mind leave her body, she was nothing but sensation. She was Cerise’s toy to be played however she wished.

  “Oh, Cerise!” Imogen cried as she felt herself orgasm. It was too much to bear. How could she handle it? How could her body handle so much intensity?

  “Come for me, my pet,” Cerise whispered, dabbing at the wet folds with her tongue. “I want you to come for me.”

  Spasms ricocheted through her body. Imogen’s body thrashed about. She cupped her head in her hands and let loose a cry of pleasure. But the sensation persisted, as though her body were caught in a penetrating and awesome brightness that would not abate.

  On and on it continued. Imogen couldn’t know. She was outside time. Only her body remained, locked to the vampire above her.

  When at last the feelings had subsided into dullness, when at last her mind returned to her body, Imogen was aware of a deep and penetrating exhaustion, like she had run ten miles. She was so focused on her exhaustion and on Cerise that she didn’t even know if the girls were still in the other room. She didn’t think about Cassandra. She didn’t know if there was anyone in the world apart from her and Cerise.

  “My pet,” the vampire said, her voice full of tenderness. “Tell me a story, my pet.”

  It was an odd request but for Imogen it was the most natural thing in the world. It was the continuation of the dream she felt herself to be in, the dream that went beyond the walls of St. Nocturne’s, the dream that existed only in the heart of the Rose. Only in the darkness, where Imogen felt free.

  “Tell me one of your poems, my pet.”

  And the words came pouring into Imogen’s mind. Words as familiar as the body, now laying aside her that had transported her into a place of so much pleasure.

  “A poem?” The world was made of poems for Imogen now. Everywhere she looked she saw the words materializing. But they were words that seemed to emanate for Cerise alone, as though they were the callings of her innermost soul. And it was these words that Imogen began to whisper:

  In sundry, bright and cheerful days:

  The poet to her lover said:

  “My heart ‘pon your heart sweetly lays

  Fair roses sweet, fair roses red…”

  THE END

  Licked by a Vampire II

  Imogen sat back, blew steam from her coffee and, after taking a sip and neatly folding her hands in her lap, prepared to talk about the sublime.

  “I just think he’s being, well, cheeky,” Agatha pronounced in that rough voice of hers—a little dry, a little salty. “Because after all, the man spends five stanzas exulting his lover to the status of a goddess only to turn right back around to say essentially the most ugly leaf of the most withered tree has a bigger claim to his love than she.”

  And then with that slightly mannish voice of hers she began to read the stanza in question:

  My love, all life I see here on the moors:

  An accident of faith and purest chance,

  Unbinds my heart, setting adrift to shores

  Unknown my fleeting bark, that whence my glance…

  “I don’t call that romantic.” Agatha steepled the book spine-up on the table.

  “You’re not Henry Cowper,” Imogen said with a trace of mirth.

  “I don’t want to be Henry Cowper. A two-bit pre-romanticist with a couple nice ideas. If he lived fifty years later he’d be something, but he came before the times. He’s a flip-flopper, too stuffy to be romantic but too romantic to be anything else. Which means that now he’s just— ”

  “Now he’s just some guy we found in the library,” Alice finished quietly, from her place between the two girls. She was notoriously shy and this was the most she’d spoken all afternoon. The comment caused Imogen and Agatha to look at her with surprise.

  “Exactly,” Agatha nodded. “Imogen, I suggest that we move onto something else. We could do Pope or John Dryden, or even something modern. There’s no point in stuff like this.”

  “A little bad poetry never hurt anyone,” Imogen said, but she too was frowning. Last week, the members of the poetry club had spent three days ransacking the spacious library in their school, the prestigious all girls’ college in the mountains, Saint Nocturne’s. Their search for a new poet to study for the month had yielded finds, but they were artists who’d spent their careers outside the limelight of the more popular poets of the day. Most of them were like Cowper—men with a few poetic gifts but neither the capacity of mind nor the technical skill to make them great.

  Only six months ago, there would have been no problem trying to find a particular author in the school’s library. But things had changed since then. The girls of Saint Nocturne’s had discovered the Red Red Rose, a hip artists’ club where cosmopolitan vampires and humans mixed equally, sharing stories, drinks, each other’s bodies. Poetry was beloved of vampires, and now every human girl who aspired to become chic or fashionable or cultured was leaping at books she’d scorned in her literary classes.

  Of course, the girls of the poetry club were bewildered and excited by the sudden change, but they could not pretend that they weren’t also a little chagrined. The words we were here first formed on their lips every time the sight of a Nocturne’s student—rhinestone-studded short skirt bobbing, heels clacking, a tattered edition of the collected poems of Wallace Stevens tucked neatly between breast and forearm where months ago, a Michael Kors handbag would have rested—flashed past in the hallway.

  The club was beginning to miss the days of anonymity.

  “But we shouldn’t have to read bad poetry,” Agatha said. “What do these girls know about what they’re reading? It’s all just a few pretty words for them. It’s all just—”

  Before she could get further in her argument, a burst of laughter rang out from behind their table. It was the third such burst that had occurred in the last half hour. The girls had tried not to pay any attention to the distraction, but now all three whirled around in their seats.

  “Duds,” Agatha said, lowering her voice so that only Alice and Imogen could hear. “I hate those girls!”

  ‘Duds’ was the term that had been applied to the girls who’d recently appeared in the village. The name was an adaption from the word ‘dread’ from ‘dreadlocks,’ which adorned the heads of a number of the new girls. The hair was greasy and thick and hung like enormous rats’ tails, often from beneath a patterned bandana or a straw panama hat. The hair was the easiest means of identifying a Dud but there were many others, from the flannel shirts and baggy jeans to the cannonball laughter that erupted like firecrackers, complete with the smoke of the girls’ cigarillos. Grouped together, the Duds were a striking and even threatening sight.

  “I want to say something to them.”

  “It’s not going to get us anywhere,” Imogen said, trying to be diplomatic. “It’s an open café. They’re allowed to make as much noise as they want.”

  “But it’s not right,” Agatha said, standing. “These bitches are guests in our town! Someone needs to let them know when they’ve overstepped their boundaries.”

  And without another word, she was out of her chair and making her way to the Duds. It took Imogen roughly twenty seconds of watching Agatha go pale to see that things would not end well unless someone jumped to the rescue
. She was at the table a moment later.

  “Hi,” she said briskly, putting on her most neutral smile. The Duds, fixed blankly on Agatha, slowly turned to regard Imogen. There were three of them, two of which could have been twins. The third, sitting with her legs sprawled in a position of comfortable dominance, had both a burlier frame and more elegant face than the other two. Imogen recognized her instantly as the leader.

  “There’s no problem here, is there?”

  The burly girl shrugged.

  “I don’t know,” she said, her voice hot and intense. Imogen felt a shiver quiver upwards inside her. The girl motioned to Agatha, who was doing her best to slide away from the table.

  “This your friend?”

  “Yes.”

  “This one? The one who’s telling us to be quiet?”

  “Yes,” Imogen planted her hand on her hip.

  The girl snickered when she saw Imogen take her stance. “Okay, okay big girl,” she smiled. Her teeth glimmered like enamel. “Y’all are cute when you’re mad.”

  The other two Duds barked laughter. This wasn’t at all what Imogen had been expecting and the comment threw her for a loop. Her mouth went dry. All the impudent remarks she’d been prepared to make ran back up her throat.

  “And by the way, that stuff you’re reading over there,” the girl pointed over to the table, where shy Alice blushed like a cherry and tried to sink into the ground. “Cowper, right? Real poets’ poetry,” she grinned lewdly. “That shit makes me wet.”

  This was the final straw for Agatha. “Oh my God,” she said, revolted, and grabbed Imogen’s arm. “Let’s get out of here. We don’t need to sit next to this trash,” she spat. “We’ve got the Rose.”

  Imogen let herself be hurried out of the café, shy Alice following on her heels. She turned back once before they exited the building and saw the girl blow her a kiss while her friends laughed uproariously. “Lucille,” the girl shouted. The other guests lifted their heads from their conversation and looked at Lucille in disgust. She paid no attention to them. “Just so you know who to ask for when you come looking for me!”

  “My pet,” a voice purred behind Imogen shortly after she and her friends had taken their seats in front of the comfortable hearth inside the Red Red Rose. Imogen did not even need to look at the speaker to recognize her girlfriend, Cerise.

  Immaculate as usual in an ankle-length pencil skirt, silver-buckle heels and thin sweater, from which her breasts protruded like two perfect, black moons, Cerise dangled her fingers along Imogen’s backside, causing her to shiver and giggle. The movement ended in a caress and Cerise bent low, kissing Imogen fully on her delicate, pouting lower lip. The kiss struck Imogen like a lightning bolt, but she savored it.

  “You’re bothered,” Cerise frowned, pulling away. “You and the other pets,” she said, seeming just now to realize that Imogen wasn’t alone. Alice and Agatha were sitting across from the couple, eyes averted politely. Cerise giggled to see them so demure.

  “Oh, it’s nothing but a bit of love, darlings,” she continued to giggle. “Why, you don’t blush to hear your fubgy poets describe their lovers’ lips or lovers’ cli—”

  “Okay,” Imogen laughed. Cerise smiled, revealing her brilliant, sharp teeth, and circuited the large-backed chair where Imogen was sitting, planting herself in her girlfriend’s lap.

  “Now,” she said, and ceased her caressing. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  A moment of silence passed, and then Agatha blurted out: “The Duds are everywhere.”

  “Duds?”

  “Those butch, dreadlocked girls who started showing up a few weeks ago,” Imogen clarified. “We can’t stand them: they’re so loud and obnoxious, and they’re always in groups. Like a bigger and more dangerous version of the Golden Girls,” she said, referencing the prima donnas who had tormented her last semester in Saint Nocturne’s. “Of course,” she went on, “it’s probably different in the Rose. I don’t even know if they come here. They stick mainly to the cafes outside.”

  “Miss Charles has even mentioned that some of them might be starting class with us next week!” Agatha said. “I couldn’t even imagine! St. Nocturne’s isn’t for rude bitches like that. Girls without class. Without taste.”

  “Your school,” Cerise said, “nestled between Mother Nature’s beautiful breasts, separate from all the hardships of the world: your school, founded by someone clearly trying to get away from the world, is for precisely these kinds of girls who have nowhere else to go, my pet.”

  “But it’s ours!” Agatha said. “It’s our home!”

  “Your home because you happened upon it,” Cerise said coolly. “All of you artistic darlings are refugees in some sense of the word. You’ve all come here because you didn’t belong anywhere else. As a fellow outcast,” she bared her fangs to emphasize the fact, “and one who has been traveling the world much longer than you, I feel qualified to speak on the subject.”

  “Refugees?” Imogen said. “How much do you know about the Duds, Cerise?”

  “Those brash, little wolverines?” The vampire lit a cigarette and let the smoke curl out of her delicate nose. “As much as anyone else in the Rose, I suppose.”

  “Wolverines?” Agatha leaned closer, clearly interested. Even Alice was wide-eyed. “You don’t mean to say…”

  “Of course I mean to say,” Cerise’s charming laugh rang out. “I don’t understand how these girls have been here for so long and you little darlings have failed to make the connection. Why, with those bushy brows and that ropey hair and those flaring nostrils, and the fact you mentioned that they’re always in packs.”

  “But refugees?” Imogen pressed.

  “Well, wolverines are hot-blooded. Think Siberia. Think Alaska. The only reason they’d be this far south is because another pack has forced them out. Either that, or else they’re planning something. Gearing up for war. Mass extermination.” Cerise laughed again, either failing to notice or else disregarding that her three companions were white in the face.

  “But you don’t really believe that,” Imogen said. “That part about war.”

  “Historically, it’s incredible to believe,” Cerise said. “Wolverines make a bit of fuss now and then but it’s not often anyone gets hurt. And if they’ve already been here a month and nothing’s happened I’m quite close to guaranteeing you that their aims are peaceful. Peaceful enough,” she said, looking at Agatha. “I know they can be rough to handle, but that’s their nature, darling. They’re really rather good-humored once you know them.”

  “You’ve been close to wolverines then?” Imogen said. With her girlfriend, every day brought more surprises than the one before, but never would she have expected the vampire to have dealings with werewolves. Something about it was unsavory. It was so unlike Cerise’s nature: the gentility, the class.

  “I’m culturally aware,” Cerise laughed. “We have run-ins every once in a while. I don’t go out of my way to see them, but I don’t shun them once we’re together. Some of them can be quite ingenious.”

  Cerise twisted and planted a kiss on Imogen’s cheek before rising daintily from her perch. “And now pets, one of us has work to do.”

  Agatha and Alice said their goodbyes while she and Imogen exchanged kisses, but something was not wholly satisfactory about what Cerise had said. There was more to her knowledge than just a few observations, and Imogen had the uncomfortable thought that she had not been told the whole truth. But why would her girlfriend keep secrets from her? What did she have to hide?

  A week passed and the Duds became more and more visible around town. Imogen and her poetry club ignored the other cafes and kept mainly to the Rose, where as of yet no wolverines had ventured. If they kept to the school and to the club, it wasn’t difficult to simply avoid them. Imogen was hopeful. They would learn to adapt.

  Then, on a Monday morning as Imogen made her way to Miss McReddy’s Classics course—her favorite subject—she was struck dumb by the sight of not one b
ut three Duds sitting in the back row of the class. One of them was Lucille.

  “What are you doing here?” she cried.

  Lucille gave her a disarmingly innocent look. “Why, has no one told you yet?”

  “Told me what?”

  “That we’re going to be sharing the semester together.” Lucille smiled to see Imogen so obviously perturbed. “I thought you knew.”

  “That can’t be true,” Imogen said, though even as she spoke she felt the words drop into her stomach like lead weights.

  “One hundred percent, baby,” Lucille grinned. “Student exchange program. Our headmaster wants to buddy-up with St. Nocturne’s—thinks it’ll make the educational system that much more rewarding. He’s a genius, our headmaster.”

  A response began to form in the back of Imogen’s throat but before she managed to get anything out, Miss McReddy bumbled into class and sternly ordered the students to take out their copies of Sir Gregory Thornwhip.

  For an hour, Imogen fought between concentration on her text and distraction from the girls behind her. Even when they weren’t talking, the Duds were as noticeable as ever. They had a cold, gamey smell that conjured in Imogen the image of sickly sweet maples, draped in snow: not wholly unpleasant, but not exactly savory. And the way they breathed, deeply through the nostrils and with powerful exhalations, caused little gusts of wind to cool the back of Imogen’s neck, making her spine tingle. Once, she whirled around in her seat intending to say something, only to discover that all three girls were deeply immersed in their books and hadn’t noticed her at all. Feeling deeply foolish, she turned back around and tried to find her place in Sir Gregory.

  Towards the end of class Miss McReddy set aside her beaded librarian’s glasses and turned her small, squinting eyes to her audience. The class had just finished a small talk on the famous dueling scene and now it was time for open discussion. Those small beady eyes, clustered with wrinkles, quickly found Imogen. Miss McReddy’s face broke into a smile. “My star pupil,” she said brightly. “Now why do you think Mr. Nigel Spindle agrees to the duel?”