She still tried to explain, to give him as much information as she could. She had given her word and that was pretty much the only honour she had left in her life: “When you take my …”
His finger came to rest on her lips, halting any further words. A wry smile stretched his lips. She noted that he was able to smile without letting even a glimpse of his fangs peek through.
“I do not need instruction on what to do, I am well informed there. What will happen to you?”
That was a harder question to answer, and for a moment, she almost hated him for asking it. Could he not leave her one piece of dignity? A bitter laugh escaped her lips. Dignity? She had not had any since she had turned fourteen and been recognised as an ErGer.
“My memory is a bit spotty in places but apparently I fuck everything in sight.”
Her answer was deliberately crude, her voice dripping with all the hate and disgust she felt for herself and those forcing her into this existence. He did not flinch, did not react in any way, save for a rise of his eyebrow as he stared evenly back into her blazing eyes. She could barely stand it, the even gaze, the lack of any blame or disgust in his expression. It undermined her bitterness, her repugnance, her perception. She started to squirm in his hands in order to escape her own thoughts.
“What happens?”
Kathryn could not meet his eyes anymore, her equilibrium severely threatened by his matter-of-factness. Her front teeth started to worry her lower lip and her hands started to tense, dig into the soft velvet of the arms of the chair. He did not let her escape, captured her chin and turned her face to meet his eyes. His thumb ran over her lower lip, gently teasing it free from the abuse her teeth inflicted on it. He held her there, ensuring she knew, in her bones, he would demand her compliance.
“What happens?”
Low, slow words. His voice still held no anger, not even demand - simply a calm confidence in her ultimate submission to his will, in her ultimate answer to the question. She would not escape, but as she spoke she could not look at him, had to avoid those eyes. So she let hers flicker over the room, coming to rest again and again on the clock: 10.49.
“I don’t know,” she admitted.
“What do you know?” He was relentless in his pursuit of information, she would learn this to be an essential feature of the man.
“I have only been caught once on February 14th after that first time, I …” She was lost for words, her mind too full and too blank at the same time to answer. Her breath rose, its panicky edge audible in the silent room.
His voice broke through the mounting terror: “What happens when you are alone?”
She could answer this. Holding onto that thought, the necessity to string words together, helped.
“I go find an abandoned building, preferably with a deep cellar, lock myself in and hope to hell that no one finds me before the day is over.”
She met his eyes with a challenging look of her own and that is how she saw his eyes flicker down to her wrists. Suddenly she felt deflated again, felt obliged to clarify: “No, not from those times, not from any of the cellars.”
He nodded, not pressing any further. She was almost grateful for the small amount of privacy he granted her with his lack of pursuit, for the small amount of self-respect he allowed her.
“What happened last February in Tirana?”
Her eyes became empty as she let her mind wander back, and she heard her words almost without having made the conscious thought to tell them:
“We had been in Albania only two weeks, freshly arrived from Rome, when Paul handed me over to the Lord of Albania for one million leke. It sounds so much, but it was barely over 6000 pounds.”
She sighed, lost in her own thoughts.
“ It was February 1st, thirteen days before St Valentine’s, thirteen days in which he thought he could prepare me for a bond, break my mind. By the 14th I was weak and ill and yet, at midnight, the Need rose. Apparently I screamed from arousal whilst he kept everyone away from me. Only then did he gave me to his court. He believed by the time they were done with me, their seed would have sensitised me enough to his for a bond to be inevitable. I do not know how long they had me. I don’t even know when he took over. I just know I suddenly could feel him in my mind, could feel him rape even that. But he was not particularly strong, and his concentration slipped. I don’t know what I did, exactly - it was as if, in that moment, he showed me where his mind linked to his body, and where I would have to cut. So I did. I cut that link with my mind and felt him scream and whither in my mind and body.”
Kathryn looked at him, waiting for him to judge her too dangerous, to see she was best contained now, killed now, before she could pose a threat to him personally. She waited with hope, but the blow never came.
Instead the questions continued: “How did you get away?”
“The weaker of his court were dead because they had not emancipated from him and even the older ones were disoriented for a moment. I just left, just walked out, found Paul and the children and left town.”
He nodded thoughtfully.
“Take another grape.”
He said the words as if they had not just talked about her killing a Vampire Lord in cold blood. Her eyes were drawn to the plate, but could not convince herself to reach for any of it. When he did, she tried to speak: “No.”
A frown marred the beauty of his face and she tried to qualify before it appeared as if she wanted to disobey his order: “I don’t think I can.”
The beginnings of censure on his face smoothed and he nodded, pity in his eyes. His hand returned to her waist now beginning a gentle massage of the tense muscles lining her spine. Slowly, her back relaxed bit by minute bit.
“Have you ever made love?”
She looked at him, exasperated. Had he actually asked that question? How often she had been found and caught, how often she had been raped. The foregone conversation indicated that he knew this. Had she ever had sex? Obviously.
Before she could answer, though, he tried to clarify - tried to rephrase his question:
“I do not mean how often you have been raped - I want to know if you ever have given yourself to a man without force?”
She winced, uncomfortable with the distinction, with the personal information she was requested to provide. There was no way out though, no way to escape the answer, locked in by her own promise.
“Tell me about it.”
There was not much to tell. Her eyes flickered to the clock again: 10:53. Now she had noticed the clock was there, it was impossible not to fix on the slowly moving minute hand. It was too much to hope he would not notice her preoccupation, but it still surprised her when he sighed, frowned at her. She froze, too aware of the dangers his anger could pose for her. His sigh was heartfelt.
“Get up.” His hands pushed her backwards, did not give her a choice in moving, forcing her to her feet. Kathryn stood still before him, tense and resigned. There was only an hour left, but truly she suspected her time had just run out. She expected him to rise, to move the evening to its inevitable crescendo - but instead he relaxed back into his chair with a studied nonchalance.
“Go to the chest of drawers and open the top-right drawer.”
She turned and with every step she took away from the fire, the cold of the room slipped over her skin and soul more firmly. An hour ago she should have welcomed the numbness it would have brought to her mind - but now there was no numbness, just cold, and it made her shiver.
The drawer slid open easily, almost silently - a well-made and cared for piece of furniture. Unfortunately, she could name too much of its varied contents. There were whips, restraints, dildos, nipple clamps and more leather than she could even start to identify, even had she wanted to. Finally, the numbness had returned, enveloping her in its comforting embrace. She was only one step away from slipping into true nothingness, from being able to put her body on autopilot and leave it to have done to it what would be done, and from the contents of this
drawer, the last step would come soon.
First though, his voice reached her: “Take the blindfold.”
The words whispered over her skin, chasing tremors up her spine. The voice was close, a sensual caress ,whispered only for her ears, reaching her on a wave of his power from the other side of the room. He had not moved, and she did not have to turn to see him there, still in the chair, a beautiful statue of elegance and danger.
“Bring it here.”
She saw it, a simple black satin cloth, laying on top of a bundle of other comparable items. Innocent in its current form, just a strip of fabric - and still she could not reach for it. Her hands had clamped so hard on the rim of the drawer, she was worried her nails would leave marks on it. The mere thought of reaching out, of loosening her death grip to reach into the depth of the drawer with all the implements she had been made too familiar with, with all the instruments that meant more than just simple pain, suddenly exceeded her strength. The pain she could take, the degradation was always what got her.
“There is nothing in this drawer you will get to feel tonight other than the blind-fold.”
His voice was reassuring, not a whisper of power but spoken aloud, and she might have felt better, had she not also heard his almost silent after-whisper: “Not tonight.”
In the end, it was the ominous bright bells of the clock on the mantelpiece chiming 11 which made her finally reach into the depth of the drawer. The chimes were lashes against her mind, imagined pain or remembered. It helped to push her mind into distancing itself from her body. The cold, the place to hide when her life descended into pain and humiliation, came closer, promising solace not too far removed. It made it easier, made it bearable to turn to him, to take that first step to the fireplace. The Lord followed her every movement with his eyes, watching, analysing, cataloguing - but even his intent blue gaze had no power to reach her anymore. It was almost midnight.
She handed him the black cloth and just stood there, resigned and calm. His expression, on the other hand, was considering and not even in his relaxed position could the word passive ever apply to him. She noted that he had picked up the wine again and, playing with it against his lips, met her gaze over the rim. Then he clearly came to a decision, set it down and reached for her again.
Lucian pulled her back into the kneeling position straddling him and came unresisting to his hand. She had a good view of his hands playing with the blindfold, running it through one palm, then the other. Kathryn expected him to raise it to her eyes at any moment.
“Tell me about the first time you had sex.”
This must be the most confusing man on the planet. Her eyes were fixed on the cloth slipping through his hands, its movement hypnotic, only managing to disengage her attention from that sight, as he stopped moving.
Unhurried, he waited for her to meet his eyes again before speaking: “You are entirely too fixated on the clock. When I will initiate your bonding is not your concern - it is mine. All choices, all decision are mine now. You have nothing to say, nothing to decide regarding your future. Here and now, I want your attention on me and as you seem to be unable to give me that, the blindfold is a tool to ensure your cooperation. If you are distracted again, I will take your ability to see the clock away. Now: tell me about the first time you had sex.”
“You could just have turned the clock over.” She just could not help blurting out inconsequentialities, even at the danger of angering him. She could have kicked herself.
“I could have - but it would be so much less enjoyable,” and with a lightening-quick move he played the soft fabric over her stomach.
It sent an electrifying shock through her, the smooth silk strangely cool against her heated skin. It made her gasp.
“Tell me!” His voice had turned a lot less patient, each word enunciated precisely and a demand in its own right. This first sign of temper, first sign of anything but the maddening calm he had displayed until now, was comforting. Kathryn knew about anger, about demands - it was the lack thereof which kept her so off balance this evening.
It truly was not a big deal to answer; it was not as if she had a reputation worth protecting. “We were on the street, one of the girls, Heroise I think, was sick, really sick. It must have been Berlin. I cannot remember where Paul was. I had found a spot in a corner of a parking garage and scrounged some cardboard and blankets for warmth. This man in a suit saw us and offered me 200 Euros for sex with one of the twins.”
For a moment she was back there, back in the dirty structure, the rattling breathing of the sick child a terrifying soundtrack. Kathryn had listened with fearful horror, with foreboding, to each cough, her mind scrambling madly for a means to find medication, food, for the children. She had been glad of that man in the suit, had been glad when he had approached them.
“I told him no. So he offered me 100 Euros for use of my body.” Kathryn shrugged, wincing, when his hands, which had returned to her waist before she started speaking, were clamping ever tighter around her waist, tight enough it hurt. She guessed Paul had not told him about that part of her life. That was surprising - he told everyone else wherever they went. It was astonishing with what depths of depravity she could surprise people. She faced him squarely.
“I am a whore.”
He did not flinch as he had wanted him to. “Yes,” and then he added “as have I been, at times.”
It surprised her so much, she did not even react to his hands softly starting to massage her waist with gentle, soothing circles.
“Have you ever had sex just because you wanted to?”
The topic was clearly not over yet, no matter how much she wished it to be. She had no idea where this conversation was leading, so she nodded carefully. He just waited for her to elaborate, so she continued tentatively.
“Two or three years back, I was working as a waitress in a little café close to the University of Strathclyde. He was another waiter, a student, and I decided that I wanted to try it once on my own. He was nice, younger than me and really nervous. He had made dinner, and there were flowers.”
She had to smile, and looking down, found an answering smile on those enigmatic lips, mirrored in those blue eyes.
“Did you like it?” His voice was a mere whisper as he held her gaze.
She just shrugged. “It was nice.” His tongue wet his lips, a quick movement that left them with a sheen of moisture in the flickering firelight, and unaccountably she had the desire to do the same.
“Did you orgasm?”
She shook her head slowly but added in a dreamy voice: “I didn’t matter. It wasn’t really about that.”
“Just the closeness.” His voice was as soft as hers. She nodded again and they shared a moment of perfect understanding. His hands were stroking up and down her back in slow sensual strokes; at each upstroke he applied a little pressure, moving her mouth a little closer to his with every touch. But he had still not finished his questions.
“Have you ever had an orgasm?”
“Once, I think.”
This qualification made his lips twitch, a quick spasm so close to hers. She was now close enough that it was hard to concentrate, hard to focus her eyes.
“You think?”
She felt his breath on her lips, tasted it. “One of Paul’s friends. He let us crash with him… in exchange. After a while he took his time - I think he even read a book - and it was not bad. It made me feel strange though.”
“Did you like it?” She was now close enough to feel the movement of his lips against hers.
“Not sure.”
She was uncertain if she managed to say the words before his mouth covered hers, and then decided it did not matter. His soft lips stroked over hers, sensitising her lips to the touch, the taste of him, before she felt his tongue gently painting the seam of her mouth, playfully caressing the corners. Unexpectedly, her own lips parted, allowing him access without her conscious decision to do so. She waited for the invasion, for the rough stabs of his tongu
e to overwhelm hers, for the sense of suffocation almost inevitably followed by the need to suppress the gag reflex. But he continued to just play over her lips, barely penetrating, soft licks to taunt and entice. The very softness of his lips devastated her more than brutality would have. It left her confused, unable to so anything, unable to react and with his touch warmth seemed to intrude where there had only ever been cold. She angled her head, chased that warmth. When he moved back, her lips were wet and swollen, her breath short, her eyes huge.
“Did you like that?”
By My Choice...: A Valentine's Day Story (Valentine's Day Stories) Page 9