Blood Slave

by Roseau, Robin

  "Yes, m'lady," the woman said.

  "Spread the word. I will hold you responsible if anyone in the household has not heard by the end of today."

  "Yes, m'lady," the woman said again.

  The vampire dragged me through further into the house then up a flight of stairs. I stumbled and would have fallen if she hadn't held me.

  "I am sorry, m'lady," I mumbled.

  "I would carry you, but I do not wish you to become ill."

  "That is very kind, m'lady."

  "No, it is not. I do not care for the unpleasant odor."

  Instead, she helped me up the stairs, and right at the top, on the landing, directly in front of me, I stopped and stared at a painting.

  "Clearly, I know who you are. Your poor luck is my fortune, for now you belong to me, only to me, and the whole world will know."

  Then she pulled on my arm, dragging me from my painting.

  I was led to a small room at the end of a long hall. There was a simple bed and a plain, wooden chair and no other furnishings. There was no window, but there was a door.

  "That room is the bathroom," the vampire said.

  She turned me to face her. "Remove that hideous article of clothing and those shoes and deposit them in the hall."

  "I'm wearing nothing underneath."

  She moved faster than I could see, her hand wrapped around the chain of my leash, yanking savagely on my lip while looming over me. She spat her words into my face from inches away, and I could see her fangs elongate with each word.

  "If I wanted your opinion, I would ask it. I had better never again be forced to tell you to do something twice."

  "I'm sorry, m'lady," I said, trembling. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." My heart was immediately pounding, the danger evident.

  She pushed me away, and I nearly fell, but then her hand was on my arm, steadying me. I didn't wait but immediately began peeling off the jumpsuit. I had to sit on the chair to finish, and then I ran past her to leave it all in the hallway, then ran back to stand in front of her.

  "You are moving faster."

  It wasn't a question, and I looked down, standing naked in front of her.

  "Kneel, slave," she ordered, and I dropped to my knees before she could punctuate the order. "Legs together, back straight, head bowed," she clarified. She nudged me further into the position she required. "Eyes down."

  I stared at the floor before me. She walked around me slowly.

  "I will give you until morning to finish recovering from the drugs. If you are still ill by morning, you will tell me, but I can tell when you lie. Do you understand, slave?"

  "Yes, m'lady," I said in a small voice.

  "When I enter this room, you will assume this position as rapidly as you are physically able. I would encourage you to learn to listen to the sound of the lock."

  "Yes, m'lady," I replied.

  "From now until the day I release you, you will wear no clothing within this house. When I take you elsewhere, you will wear what I choose, which may be nothing." She stepped up to me and used the leash to draw my face towards her. "Your past life is over, at least for the duration of your service to me. The sooner you accept that, the easier this will be for you." Then she did something, releasing the leash from the hoops in my lip, draping it around her neck. She pushed my head back down into a bow.

  "Humans have such fragile emotions," she observed. "I can smell your fear, and I know you are near tears. Your fear is dangerous to you in this household, and you will live longer if you learn to curb it. Your tears are also dangerous in this household, as I find sobbing women very wearying. I will give you a very brief period to adjust to your new life. Learn to control your emotions."

  "Yes, m'lady," I said.

  "Do you have questions?"

  "Yes. May I ask?"

  "Yes."

  "When will you kill me?"

  She paused very briefly before replying. "Are you in a hurry to die?" she asked. "Shall I plan a banquet with you as the main course?"

  "No, m'lady," I said.

  "I paid a great deal of money for you, and I have no immediate plans to kill you. If you strive very hard, you may please me, and you may survive until the end of your sentence. If you please me a great deal, it is within my power to release you any time after you have served your minimum sentence."

  She squeezed my cheeks and lifted my face towards hers again. "If you do not please me, I will be less motivated to control my urges. If you strive to displease me, you will most certainly do so, and I will either drain you dry or sell you to someone who will treat you far less kindly that I would."

  She released me, and I bowed my head.

  "I strongly encourage your every thought be to of pleasing me. You may succeed."

  "Yes, m'lady."

  "Ask your other questions."

  "May I-"

  "Ask!"

  "May I have some books?"

  She walked around me. "You are a blood slave now. As such, you have absolutely no rights. You do not even have the right to your own blood. Everything you are now belongs to me."

  I didn't say anything.

  "However, you may earn privileges. Books would be a privilege. Pencils and paper would be another privilege. Paints and canvas would be a great privilege." She paused, stopping in front of me. "I do not encourage you to act as if I owe you these privileges. I do not. I will give them to you if it pleases me to do so."

  "Yes, m'lady. I believe I have only one more question."

  "Ask."

  "What are my duties?"

  "Tonight you will remain in this room. Do what you must to become and remain healthy. Your life as a blood slave will be spent directly attending to me, seeing to your physical fitness, or spent in this room." She walked around me again, her fingers running along my skin. I tried not to shudder under her touch.

  "You answer to me, and only to me, but I may relay orders to you through the other members of this household. You follow only my orders."

  "How will I know they are your orders and not those of someone else."

  "No one else would dare," she said simply.

  "Yes, m'lady."

  "Very good. Are you going to be ill?"

  "I believe that risk has passed, m'lady."

  "Good. Then you may begin earning your first privileges." She was standing behind me when she said it. Suddenly her arm was around my chest, and she was dragging me backwards. I clasped at her strong arm and felt myself dragged onto the bed and into her lap. She forced my head back, and then I saw a flash of her fangs as her mouth descended to my throat in a savage strike.

  In the old fiction, the bite of a vampire is often described as sexual or intoxicating. They vampire clouds his victim's mind with his own, and she becomes desperate for his bite, soon becoming addicted to the vampire magic.

  In reality, that's not how it was at all. It hurt, it hurt a great deal as her fangs tore into my flesh. She pierced my vein, and immediately I felt my life force exiting through the wound. She sucked on me, drawing hard, pulling the blood from my body.

  I moaned and struggled against her, but she was so strong, and I was not. She held me firmly against her, her mouth wrapped around my neck, and she drank.

  She didn't drink long, perhaps not even a minute, and then I felt her tongue licking against my throat. I could feel myself healing as she laved my wound, her saliva a healing salve, and long after the wound was closed, she licked me.

  And I knew where the myths of the old fiction were from.

  Finally she stopped, and I lay in her arms, panting, my heart slowly calming down. She had bitten me savagely, but I lived.

  If she did that daily, however, I wouldn't be alive for long.

  But then she did something very surprising. She lifted her own wrist to her mouth and bit into it with her fangs, then clamped the wound over my mouth, holding it there.

  "Drink," she ordered. "Drink or I will kill you here and now, and I will do it as painfully as I am able."
/>   My heart began pounding with her threat, but I sucked on her wound, helpless but to obey, and as the acrid taste filled my mouth, I moaned. It was acrid, but it was amazing. In moments, I found myself clutching at her wrist, pressing it against my mouth, sucking greedily. She laughed in my ear.

  "Yes, Melissa," she said. "Drink."

  I sucked, and I sucked, and she didn't stop me, she didn't even slow me down, but soon there was no more blood filling my mouth, and I whimpered.

  "More," I said. "There's no more!"

  "You have had enough," she said. She laughed again. "I wasn't sure if I was going to do that. My blood is in your body, and you will absorb if faster than any human drug. My blood will run in your veins, and you are now bound to me. I will now know where you are. If you thought to escape me, it is now futile."

  She climbed out from underneath me, leaving me in the bed.

  "I drank heavily," she said. "You will be weak. You will eat the food provided. It will keep you strong."

  I looked up at her, wondering if I was supposed to kneel, but I was so weak and tired, I didn't want to move, and she hadn't ordered me to do so.

  "Unless you displease me, I shall not drink so heavily from you again. I do not intend to kill you, slave. I will sample from you daily, for you taste divine, but it shall only be a taste, an aperitif perhaps."

  "You made me drink from you."

  "Yes, and you enjoyed it a great deal. You will also grow to enjoy when I feed from you. Your body will recognize the healing caress of my tongue afterwards, and you will grow to tremble with desire at the sight of my fangs." She smiled.

  "I drank from you. Will I become a vampire now?"

  "Oh, no, it takes far more of my blood than that." She paused. "If you please me more than any blood slave has in the past, I may offer to turn you. It is unlikely, of course. You are lovely for your art, and if I turn you, you will lose that. But I promise you this. If you ever, ever even hint you wish to be turned, I will kill you immediately."

  "Yes, m'lady."

  "Your body is weak. I require you to bathe before you sleep." She pointed. "Now."

  "Yes, m'lady." I climbed from the bed as quickly as I could, but then sat on the edge, combating the dizzy spell. She didn't hurry me, which I decided was a moment of kindness, and then I stood and entered the bathroom.

  I didn't hear her leave. I didn't hear the lock engage. But when I tried it later, it was firmly latched.

  Defiance

  I slept, for how long I didn't know. I woke to someone shaking me. I thought at first it had all been a dream, and I muttered, "Go away."

  "Kneel in front of me, blood slave!" a woman's voice said firmly.

  Oh god, it wasn't a dream. I burst from the bed and was halfway to the floor before I realized it was the maid shaking me awake and not the vampire. I stopped and stared at her.

  "I do not answer to you," I told her clearly, standing up. "She was clear to you and to me that I belong only to her. Did she order me to kneel to you?"

  The woman smiled. "No, but you will do what I say, or I will make sure your short life here is as miserable as I can make it, and I can make it very miserable. Furthermore, if you tattle on me to Lady Dunn, she will punish me, but I will make your life miserable in ways you won't even know and can't imagine. You are a blood slave, and you have no rights. Kneel to me. Now!"

  I didn't know if I had a choice. I was sure she could do exactly what she threatened to do. Slowly I dropped to my knees in front of her, lowering my eyes.

  "Bend down and kiss my feet. Continue to kiss them until I give you permission to stop."

  I flushed with humiliation but bent over, moved slightly closer, and began kissing the tops of her feet.

  "Keep kissing," she said. "You will call me Miss Penny. When I enter this room, if I am alone, you will immediately kneel in front of me and kiss my feet. Do I make myself clear?"

  "Yes, Miss Penny," I said, and then I returned to kissing her feet, one foot then the other, each kiss lingering.

  "That's enough," she said, stepping away. "You will keep your room clean. I will not make your bed or change your sheets. I will not scrub your toilet or wash your shower. Do I make myself clear?"

  "Yes, Miss Penny," I replied.

  "Do not anger me, and I will do nothing to make your stay here more difficult. But I have m'lady's ear, and if I decide you are to die, I will poison her towards you, and she will kill you, probably slowly, and I will get to watch." She paused. "Your food is on the tray by the door. You must eat all of it. Those are m'lady's orders. Leave the tray by the door when you are done. I will collect it in the morning."

  "Yes, Miss Penny."

  A moment later, I heard the door close and lock from outside. I climbed from my place of humiliation on the floor and moved slowly to the tray, sitting on the floor next to the door. I picked it up and carried it to the bed.

  The amounts were modest. I remembered there was a glass in the bathroom, so I retrieved it, filling it with water from the sink, then set the chair near the bed and used it as a nightstand for the water.

  I ate slowly, being very careful to avoid leaving crumbs, and I licked the plates absolutely clean when done.

  I cleaned myself up, climbed back into bed, and cried myself to sleep.

  * * * *

  I slept poorly but was awake when the lock to my room turned, and I was out of bed and kneeling by the time Penny stepped into my room. She closed the distance to me, and I immediately bent over and kissed her feet.

  From above me, she said, "Good slave. Perhaps you're trainable."

  I continued to kiss her feet, one, then the other, slowly. Her feet were not bare; she was wearing thin slippers, but much of her foot was bare, and I aimed my kisses for the bare skin. Finally she said, "That's enough. Get up."

  I stood slowly, and she handed me the tray she was carrying. "You will eat every bite. Lady Dunn will retrieve you herself in an hour. Your room will be neat, your bed made, and your bathroom clean."

  "I do not have cleaning tools."

  "Under the sink," she directed. "Twice a weak I will bring cleaning chemicals and watch while you clean more carefully. Once a week, I will bring fresh bedding. If you're here that long."

  "Yes, Miss Penny."

  "Remember, if you tell Lady Dunn, she will punish me, but I will punish you far worse. Make sure the room is clean and you are freshly bathed before she arrives."

  "Yes, Miss Penny."

  She collected last night's tray on our way out the door, locking it behind her.

  I set the food aside and made the bed first. Then I ate quickly, again licking the plates absolutely clean. I was going to get fat if I wasn't allowed to exercise and was forced to eat as much food as they were giving me. Then I cleaned the bathroom before showering. I had been provided no means of drying my hair beyond a towel, and so it would hang wet.

  I moved to the bed, sitting cross-legged on it and growing quickly morose at my situation. I had tried to help Mrs. Benchley, and in doing so, I ended up here, blood slave to a vampire and subject to the whims of the household staff. I anticipated a great deal of humiliation and degradation, and only had a glimmer of hope of survival.

  The more I thought about it, the angrier I became. I had not been responsible for the accident, and if the delivery truck had not hit me, I would have completed my errand with absolutely no one being hurt. The amount of wine I'd consumed had been minimal, and I certainly had run much of it off when I took Livingston out.

  I stared at my hands and tried to envision a way, any way out of my situation.

  But I believed the vampire. I was convinced she could track me by the blood she'd made me drink. And she had no heart; none of them did. They were animals, worse than animals, and we were nothing but food and servants for them. Our lives meant nothing.

  Right then and there, if I'd had a stake, I would have used it on her, the consequences to me be damned. My short life would end, but so would her long one, and n
o one else would be forced to suffer at her hands. Maybe it was only one vampire, but it would be more than my share. If everyone did her best to kill one vampire, soon there would be no more vampires left to enslave us.

  That was my mood when I heard the lock turn. And while I would have killed her if I had a stake, I had no stake, and I was sure if I did, I wouldn't be fast enough or strong enough to use it.

  I dashed from the bed and was kneeling before the door was fully open, exactly the way she had ordered me.

  She stopped in the doorway, staring.

  "You learn quickly," said the vampire. I didn't look up, and I didn't respond. It hadn't been a question.

  She entered the room, stopping in front of me. She stood with her hands at her sides, presumably watching me. I didn't know what she wanted, so I stayed as still as I could, my head bowed.

  But inside, I boiled. She had no right to treat me this way, but I was helpless to prevent it. I knew defying her would lead to my horrible death, and I wasn't so low I sought to die.

  I wasn't sure how long that would last. Would I beg her to end my life? I thought it likely.

  "Have you contemplated your fall from grace?"

  I considered the question. "Yes, m'lady, although I didn't think of it in those terms."

  "Have you thought of the unfairness of the situation?"

  "Yes, m'lady."

  "Have you envisioned what you would do with a stake if you had one?"

  I didn't answer.

  "That was not a rhetorical question!" she thundered at me.

  "Yes, m'lady, I did."

  "Your life would end horribly."

  It wasn't a question.

  "You would trade your life for mine?"

  "I am going to die anyway," I said. "I will suffer your humiliation and degradation in the meantime. I have never hurt anyone in my life. I have devoted my life to producing beauty. You display my art in a prestigious location in your own home. But you have taken that beauty and defiled it, making it a mark of shame. You and all your kind are evil to treat us the way you have."

  She didn't answer immediately but simply stood there. But she didn't lash out, either.