But the power she had over him was so strong that only the shadow of the fear touched his waking mind. The fear lay buried within him. Maybe she had drugged him. He felt almost as though he were floating above his own body, not a part of it any more, only experiencing events through it and not truly identifying with it. Or maybe it was hypnosis. Yes, that must be it. It was the power of hypnotic suggestion holding him in invisible chains that bound not only his body, but also his helpless mind, devoid of the will to resist.
It was then that he became aware of the music. He didn’t so much hear it as feel it, pulsing into his bloodstream along his arteries and veins, washing over him like a sea-borne mantra and soaking through his skin. The music, like the woman’s voice, was silky smooth and hypnotic. But it did not make him want to sleep. Quite the reverse. It lulled and soothed his mind, but it played upon the nerve-endings in his body like a cool sea-breeze, or crystal-clear mountain spring-water, over naked skin. It danced over his body and filled it with desire.
He could feel his penis beginning to stiffen, and his balls grew deliriously heavy beneath his helpless body. He wanted to cradle them in his hand – gently, lovingly, teasingly – as he always did when he was aroused and preparing to masturbate. He wanted to touch his shaft, feel it grow smooth as silk, turgid and rampant between his fingers. He wanted to measure its width in his proud hand, then measure its length in the woman’s moist and tender quim . . .
A futile longing, an unattainable vision of ecstasy. For he was lying helpless, face-down on a bed, and the woman he desired was behind him, tormenting him with her voice, the voice of sex, the voice of pitiless domination and desire. There was not a thing he could do. Only instinct convinced him that this was the same woman he had seen outside in the narrow cobbled street, the woman who had gazed into his eyes and robbed him of his will. He was utterly powerless now. He could not hurl himself upon her, take her with his potent manhood, dominate and possess her. Why, he could not even touch his own aching tool, buried beneath him and begging to be touched, caressed, released.
The swish of the cane as it cut through the air came only a fraction of a second before he felt its pitiless bite on his buttocks. He cried out and tried to wriggle away, but the invisible force held him motionless upon the bed, compelling him to offer himself up to the cruel snake-bite of the slender bamboo cane.
At first, the pain was all he could see or hear or feel. The pain was his world: he became the pain, lived inside it, heard his screams echo within it, beat invisible fists against its inner walls and begged for escape.
But when the beating had gone on for so long that he no longer quite understood where or who he was, the feelings began to change. A treacherous warmth began to spread through him, numbing away the hurt and filling the void with a deepening sense of wellbeing, excitement, desire. Hunt could barely believe it: everything he had heard was true. Pain really could be the path to an exquisite pleasure, and he was treading that path now, feeling the softness of its grass and wild flowers beneath his bare and willing feet.
And he heard his voice, moaning soft and low:
‘Take me, take me, please take me . . .’
The beating had stopped now, and he lay quivering with lingering hurt and growing desire, still helpless, unable to move or to see his tormentor.
The warm, liquid sensation on his skin was unexpected but infinitely pleasurable. A heady fragrance he could not quite recognise spread through the air, and the warm liquid oozed across his wounded flesh like the healing touch of the summer sun. It was a sacred scent: a scent redolent of temples and secret rites, a scent that reminded him of incense and temple bells and dark-haired priestesses of some ancient cult. His senses wafted him away to a new world where pain was replaced by pleasure, and when strong but gentle hands began to work the oil into his skin he could not help moaning with enjoyment, helpless though he was.
They were knowing fingers, skilled in the arts of provoking pleasure . . . and pain. From time to time, the long nails bit into his skin as the woman worked the oil in deeply, making him wince as the sharpness scored the raw flesh and the weals she had raised on his back and buttocks. But he could not move to escape her ungentle touch. She had become his nemesis, his dark fate. And he must endure.
And just as the sting of the soreness was becoming unbearable again, she would ease up and begin once again to massage gently, hardly more than stroking his fragile flesh with the flats of her palms, letting them skim his skin on a wafer-thin film of fragrant oil.
He realised that her fingers were moving down the muscular curve of his torso, stroking his flanks and teasing the sensitive flesh where back becomes belly. He longed for her to ease her hands round underneath him and make contact with the wild electric eel thrashing about furiously in its dark prison against his belly.
But she was merciless. Moving away from his waist, she began to slide her hands downwards over his hips and thighs, massaging the firm flesh and teasing the dark hairs foresting his olive skin. He shuddered with pleasure as she let her fingers glide between his thighs, and he was surprised to feel his legs move apart, though he had no power over them. It was exactly as if she had command of his every muscle, like a puppet-master manipulating the strings of a marionette.
Her fingers were teasing the hypersensitive skin of his inner thighs, and Hunt was in seventh heaven. It was the most delicious agony imaginable. He wanted her to move her fingers further up and in, to take hold of his balls – and yet he also wanted this marvellous suspense to continue: the wonderful moment of anticipation which you want to go on for ever. For the anticipation of extreme pleasure is almost better than the fulfilment of that pleasure itself.
He was so aroused, he almost felt he could ejaculate without so much as the merest touch on his erect shaft. He needed only to imagine her fingers on his hardened prick and it twitched convulsively beneath him, craving warm, wet places in which to hide its purple, glistening head.
And then it happened. She slid her fingers further inside his thighs and made contact with his balls. Immediately they tensed, and Hunt was convinced that they would contract and spew out their heavy load of pent-up spunk. But, to his amazement, although he seemed to rise towards new plateaux of exquisite enjoyment, he did not ejaculate. And with a start, he realised that this woman really was in complete control of him. She was able even to command his orgasm: to summon it forth or restrain its impetuosity simply by the force of her Titanic will.
The knowledge of this ought to have disturbed him, he knew that; but the woman Viviane had befuddled his brain and robbed him of the critical judgement Hunt so prided himself on. She had captured him whole and was playing with him as a big cat plays with its prey, just before it settles down to devour it . . . But Hunt was swimming sightlessly in an ocean of indescribable pleasure, in which only his prick existed, and in which the intensity of his desire, his need to reach orgasm, forced him to relax and surrender himself to the faceless one who could bring him joy or agony with just one touch of her slender fingers.
All at once, he felt the strangest thing happening to him. It was impossible, of course, but it was happening anyway. His body was rising slightly off the bed. Levitation? But surely that was impossible! People don’t just rise into the air and float there. That was hocus-pocus, and Hunt didn’t believe in that sort of thing . . . but it was happening, whether he chose to believe it or not.
Floating helpless and immobile in mid-air, Hunt looked down and saw the bed about a foot or so beneath him. He had no sense of danger, or fear of falling. The warm, knowing hands were still stroking his inner thighs, teasing the taut sac encasing his balls, but they were not supporting his body. They were resting gently on his flesh, and he could feel the incredible heat soaking into him and filling him with unbearable desire.
It was a wonderful feeling of being detached from space and time, reborn into a world of pure sensation. Although he could not move of his own free will, his body felt free and disconnected from the b
ase earth of daily life.
Viviane now lay down upon the bed, her feet at his head and her face underneath his groin. He could not see her face. She had slender, graceful legs surmounted by a bright chestnut pubic bush which testified that she was a natural redhead. He yearned for her to touch him.
And now he felt her lips upon him, soothing and tormenting him into granite hardness. Surely he must come to orgasm . . . He was riding on a tide of uncontrollable passion, felt like a surfer about to ride the crest of that one last, mountainous wave, tumbling down into the foaming water, laughing and crying and breathless. But no. She kept him there, a microsecond away from the great pinnacle of pleasure; refusing to push him off the diving-board into the welcoming, sun-kissed ocean.
Her tongue worked its way around the base of his glans: probing, exploring, insisting. It wriggled its shameless tip into the moist eye at the very tip of his penis, licking up the tears which had gathered there and making him shudder with the velvet intimacy of it all.
Half-swooning with pleasure, he felt his eyes closing, and the room began to spin, faster and faster, making his head swim and robbing him of the little rational thought he had left.
When he opened his eyes again, he realised that he was lying on the bed, now on his back but just as helpless as before. He looked up and saw Viviane towering above him, clad only in a miniscule outfit of black zippered leather, thigh-high shiny boots and a studded collar. She looked sinister, threatening, capable of exerting great violence, and yet he was not afraid. He looked at her and all he felt was desire.
The red-haired Valkyrie stood silent and imposing beside him, running her scarlet-nailed fingers down his expectant body. Hunt could see she was enjoying the power, knowing she was inflicting discomfort but that her victim could do nothing to stop her. He tried to speak but the words froze in his throat, intercepted by that soul-deep, steely gaze from those cold blue eyes.
She climbed on to him, leather-booted thighs encasing the sudden vulnerability of his body. And she drove down upon his penis with such a force that he wanted to cry out with pain and pleasure. He was utterly helpless. After two or three powerful strokes, she stopped moving and Hunt thought he would die of unsatisfied lust. She seemed to have entered a trance, and was chanting softly to herself as she sat there with his erect penis deep within her womanhood.
Time passed. Time as Hunt had never before experienced it. It was as though each individual second was chiselled out of crystal and had many coloured facets which glittered elusively in the candleglow. Each second was an eternity, a test, something to be endured. For – although this too seemed impossible – with each second that passed as they lay coupled on the bed, his desire and pleasure grew. He knew now that he was not moving towards an ordinary orgasm. The orgasm – when she chose to let him achieve it – would be something beyond the experience of ordinary mortals, something of another, more mystical world of which he had always been profoundly sceptical.
He lay there, utterly helpless, and enjoyed the sensations which surrounded and engulfed him. The velvet rings of her cunt enclosed his manhood like a close-fitting glove, opening and closing slightly like the mysterious mouth of some rare sea-urchin. He gazed up into her eyes and saw . . .
Eyes like flaming coals, eating into his soul. A cruel twist of the mouth, contorted into a parody of a smile. Teeth as sharp as needles. And, as he realised that his orgasm was almost upon him, he also realised that this terrifying vision was more than a vision. It was a woman, a terrible, evil, predatory woman, and she was lunging at him, lunging for his throat with those wickedly sharp teeth . . .
And the force of his terror, or maybe some superhuman effort of will, at last broke through the spell and unlocked his gaze from hers. He did not know how he had succeeded in doing it, but all at once the realisation hit him: he was free, and he was in mortal danger.
The power of sound and movement flooded back into him and he howled with terror:
‘No, no, keep away!’
But she was fast and she was relentless. He caught hold of her wrist as it came down to hold him fast, and gripped it for dear life. She spat and writhed in his grasp, no longer the sensual seductress but the destroyer-goddess, come to kill him and eat up his soul.
Dim recollections of his army training lent him speed and he rolled swiftly sideways, pulling her on to the floor with him. They clawed at each other’s faces and bodies, raising red welts and in some places breaking the skin. As the blood began to trickle down his face, he heard a weird, unearthly moaning and realised that it was coming from Viviane. Her face was contorted with an expression which fascinated and disgusted him. An expression of lust, desire, greed, hunger.
She was hungry for his blood.
For a moment he lost control and could only lie and stare up at her, mesmerised, as she opened wide her scarlet lips to reveal wickedly sharp, pointed canine teeth. She was smiling – a horrible, carnivorous smile. The smile not of a soft and sensual woman, but of a ghoul from the chill, dark, outer wastes of Hell.
She lunged at him, but he parried, suddenly realising what she was doing, what she wanted. She was going for his throat . . .
What was she? Some kind of vampire?
He would have laughed out loud if he had not feared for his life, his sanity. His strength returned to him and he cursed himself for a weakling and a coward. With a roar of anger and triumph, he took hold of her mane of red hair and pulled her head back, until it was a safe distance away from his bare throat. He held her fast and marvelled at her animal viciousness, her wild snarling and spitting as she writhed and scratched in frustrated fury. It was then that he tore off her jewelled necklet and saw the marks.
The two tiny scars, like the faded traces of teeth-marks, on her throat.
Horror lent him a final surge of strength, and Hunt flung her away from him, hoping only for a second or two’s respite to allow him to make a run for the door. But as she stumbled backwards she clutched at an iron poker propped up by the mantelpiece, and began to swing it wildly at him. He ducked and backed away, but still she came, cold-eyed and relentless. The realisation left him numb, too shocked for fear.
She was going to kill him. Unless he killed her first.
Hunt was no killer, and he knew it. And certainly no killer of women. He knew that if it came to it, he couldn’t do it. For an instant, he imagined his strong hands around that milk-white throat and a flash of insight let him experience what it would feel like to squeeze the life out of that comely body. And then the thought struck him: was she really alive? Was she a living woman?
He was going mad. She must have drugged him. He was losing his mind. She lunged for him with the poker but he dodged her and she fell forward, stumbling and – it seemed almost in slow motion – struck her head against the mantelpiece.
It was a very slight blow. Scarcely enough to stun. But she fell to the ground as though struck by lightning. For an instant, Hunt could have sworn he heard the sound of faraway laughter, echoing somewhere deep inside his brain.
Maybe she was pretending. But no. He touched her. She was cold – unearthly, deathly cold, and so still . . . so very still. He felt for a pulse. Nothing. Not dead, surely? Not dead . . .
And as he watched, something impossible happened. He blinked, wondering if his eyes were failing him, if the shock had blurred his vision. But there was nothing wrong with his sight. He gaped, incredulous, as Viviane’s white skin became luminous, waxy, translucent. It was like looking into a milky, swirling mist. He reached out to touch her again – and touched empty air. He tried again, but his hand passed straight through her.
Viviane was melting away, fading like a cloud of smoke, on the night air, dispersing as though she had never existed.
Hunt covered his eyes in disbelief, shook his head. Maybe it was all a dream. Maybe when next he opened his eyes, he would find himself back in his hotel bed, or the red-haired woman would be laughing at him and congratulating herself on the excellent joke she had played o
n him.
He opened his eyes. She had gone. And nothing remained to remind him of her, save a tiny, sparkling crystal, glittering defiantly up at him from the faded blue carpet.
He ran and ran and ran, away into the night. He did not look behind him.
7: Victims
Hunt was beginning to wish he had never heard of Sir Anthony Cheviot, and Whitby was starting to give him the creeps.
The episode with Viviane chilled him to the marrow every time he thought about it. He’d tried to convince himself that the whole thing had just been an unpleasant dream, to put it all down to a couple of bad pints and an iffy pork pie, but how do you explain waking up in your hotel room at four a.m. wearing nothing but your raincoat and Doc Martens? He couldn’t remember a thing about how he’d got back to the hotel. What if somebody had spotted him? And there was the camera, too. His editor wasn’t going to like it when he told him he’d lost the Leica and the telefoto lens. Of course, he could always go back to Miller’s Yard and ask Viviane for it . . . And then again, maybe not.
He shivered, and splashed his haggard face with cold water. Come on, Hunt, he told himself. Make the most of yourself, you lazy git. At least try to look the part. We’ve got important fish to fry today.
Today was the day of the annual charity fete – quite a glitzy event by local standards, and Cheviot was sure to be present as he had been asked to open the proceedings and give a little speech. Hunt intended to take the opportunity to ask him one or two pertinent questions. Maybe Cheviot thought he could play silly games. Maybe he’d thought his little secrets were safe for good. If so, he’d underestimated Hunt’s sheer bloody-minded determination. Like the Mounties, Andreas Hunt always got his man.
Mara felt tired and confused. Her psychic energies seemed to be draining out of her, directed against her will towards something – or someone – her whole being told her to resist, wanted to resist: but could not. She tried to keep busy – after all, she had to earn her living – but in the middle of a reading she would be overwhelmed by a type of psychic ‘interference’: an astral ‘static’, blocking the pure waves of thought and the pure visions of truth, and filling her mind with insistent and obscene messages, only half-heard, only half-perceived. She couldn’t get those words out of her mind:
Kiss of Death (Modern Erotic Classics) Page 9