Darker Passions: Dracula

by Kilpatrick, Nancy

  The women struggled hour after hour, their bodies glistening with sweat, for the basement was a peculiar mixture of both cool and humid. Their scents permeated the air, firing the excitement of the men. Dirt streaking their vibrating bodies darkened from the moisture. Light and dark hair flew about until they both looked like wild creatures, elementals, in a battle that would decide the fate of the world.

  And all the while John pulsed and throbbed from the danger he sat crushed between. His behind perched gingerly on the edge of the chair and twitched involuntarily from the memory of past punishments. Sweat rolled down his back and he loosened his collar with trembling fingers. His heart pounded with fear and the longing to be used and abused by these women and by either man or monster and, when he was truthful with himself, by all simultaneously.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Lucy called me "Betrayer" and used the foulest language, for example, "Bitch" and "Cunt" and other words of the gutter that I had not heard before and yet instinctively understood from their vaguely onomatopoeic quality. Yet they did not bother me. It was as though I were an entirely different person. My old inhibitions had dropped away and I no longer felt shy and fearful. I was encased in the strength of my Master, as if his own powerful nature were within me, guiding me.

  Lucy had me pinned in a manner which trapped me on my knees. She bent me back, one leg locked around my throat while she imprisoned my hands between my legs and up behind me. Helpless, I could only lay there as she tortured my titties with a diabolical wooden implement. She tweezed and plucked and pinched and twisted as if she would pull them from my body. I howled in a delicious agony and struggled to free myself. In a frenzy of pain I jerked to my side and she shoved several of her fingers into my bottom hole, hard, as far up as she was able. Now she had gone too far!

  My teeth clamped onto her upper arm and I bit down. She screamed and I felt something beneath her skin tear. I tasted blood, coppery and flowing, but with the thickness of a fruit liquor. Warm, it cooled quickly in my mouth.

  Lucy thrust me from her. The blood had somehow given me renewed energy. I grabbed her long hair and shoved her into the wire wall. I could see from the excited looks of the men that her features were distorted from being mashed against the wires. Count Dracula appeared pleased. His dark eyes shot red sparks in my direction and my energy surged.

  "From your response, Miss Westenra, I see a fortnight of paddling would suit you better!" I knew not from whence these words of wisdom sprang, yet recognized them as the statements of the illustrious Miss Whippet. "You submitted first to a woman, and submit again you shall, as is the natural order of things." Without hesitation, I banged her face into the wires repeatedly. Van Helsing jumped to his feet. About to cry out, he managed to restrain himself as I mangled Lucy's lovely features for her. He sat again and I felt triumph swirl through me.

  My actions coupled with the Professor's inappropriate response had the effect of crushing more than Lucy's nose. When I pulled her away, she looked bloodied and defeated, and I knew that most of that latter reaction was caused by Professor Van Helsing himself. I threw her on her back and jumped on top of her. I captured both her wrists above her head and my lips found hers, which were smeared with blood.

  "Humble yourself, Lucy, for you cannot best me. We have known one another far longer than we have known this inferior gender. It was Miss Whippet you first gave yourself to so freely and it is me to whom you shall submit now."

  There seemed little fight left in her. I did, however, feel a longing seep from her pores. She wanted to please me, to obey me, to endure the pain and pleasure I would grant her. I felt the strength of her desire and recognized it from my yearning for the Count himself. Secure in the knowledge that I could leave her sprawled where she was, her voluptuous body heaving, painted with dirt and blood, I scanned the row of implements Mr. Renfield had so judiciously selected.

  When I returned, I carried a length of hemp with me. I dragged Lucy to the wall facing the men and positioned her so that she directly faced Van Helsing, with Mr. Renfield at his feet, cheerfully masturbating himself. She whimpered and glanced at the Professor. His features were horror stricken, his eyes flecked with fury. Emotion had made him weak before her, before all of us. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Count Dracula gloat at this turn of events.

  "Kiss her goodbye, Professor," I said boldly, "for you are an impotent sort and your control deflating. Lucy is mine now, as she has always been, long before you arrived." The words coming from my lips sounded entirely unlike me, as though I were possessed. And yet this voice spoke of my own secret cravings.

  Once I'd bound the proud Miss Westenra, ankles and wrists spread and tied together where the cage met the ground, her bottom rose into the air for all to see. Her defeated face and chest were pressed deliberately into the dirt. I selected a very small whip. I do not know how I knew the impact this one would create, yet I did. I seemed to have tapped into some universal wellspring of knowledge that was far beyond my own personal understanding.

  The whip's handle was but four inches and the dozen leather strands connected thereto hung about six inches each. A pure white ladies whip, I thought, properly used on a lady's behind to renew her virtue.

  "I will whip you until you announce to whose authority you will bow. Until that moment occurs, you may express your agony in any manner you wish, as it will only evolve into pleasure when the proper answer is obtained."

  I had encased her waist with ropes, tied far up the wire wall. This had the effect of forcing her to hold her bottom high for ease of whipping. I knew the position was uncomfortable, but that made it all the more interesting.

  I stood behind her and brought the whip down hard on one cheek of her already pink buttocks. Immediately a dozen red lines appeared. I lashed the other cheek as well. More lines surfaced. Without pause I lashed each cheek in succession, carefully separating the strands after each strike by running my fingers through them. Within moments Lucy was breathless from screaming.

  The quiet whip left a loud impression. The lines created a pattern and I struggled to aim my blows so that the design on one cheek mirrored the other, like a child making ink blots.

  Her body heaved and twisted and she struggled to lower her flanks to avoid my implement of correction, but cleverly—and again I knew not from whence this knowledge came—I had bound her in the most dramatic manner and she was stuck.

  The picture I painted took on a shading of colors, from pink to purple, the dominant hue red. The lines criss-crossed and fanned out across her derriere, the darkest colors on the outside of the pattern. I altered my position so that I could achieve the fan effect from the bottom up and the sides in as well. As I whipped to my heart's content, above her pink hole I noticed the mark of the cross. Van Helsing was such a simpleton. Once my Master, Dracula, reclaimed Lucy, that mark would soon disappear under another brand. I envisioned the center bar turned into a D by the addition of a semi-circle from top right to bottom right, and to the left of the center bar a C. My Master would approve of this design, I knew.

  I paused once to insert my index finger into her anal canal and my thumb into her womanly slit, and squeezed them together hard. Lucy shrieked and begged me to cease, but the act was so pleasurable, particularly her response, that I felt inspired to do it again before I resumed whipping her.

  My arm felt surprisingly strong. I could continue this chastisement indefinitely, or so it seemed. My body spun in a rhythmic motion, twisting and turning and bringing the lash down with a force I did not know I possessed. Each stroke built a delicious tension within me and I became lost in a pleasurable maze of my own physical sensations. The whip and my hand were no longer separate but one, Lucy's bottom the foot that snuggly fit my shoe.

  "Stop it! Stop it now!" Van Helsing was on his feet, as was Count Dracula, a look of the conqueror permeating the latter's features.

  Lucy was virtually screeching, "Mistress Mina, spare me, Mistress, I am yours!"

  Wi
thin seconds the Count opened the cage and tore the ropes holding Lucy from the wires. He picked his prize up in his arms. His eyes did not connect with mine and I felt frightened by this, yet in some way I also felt assured that he approved of my victory and the manner in which it had been carried out.

  He strode from the room, I on his heels. Professor Van Helsing picked up a pistol, loaded no doubt, and aimed it at us. It was the madman Renfield who jumped to his feet and knocked against the Professor's arm, crying, "Sir, you may hit Lucy, or Mrs. Harker!"

  The bullet's discharge in the small hollow chamber was deafening. It ricocheted around the stone walls and I knew not where it struck until I heard Lucy cry out.

  Dracula turned, a sneer on his lips. "You can neither win nor lose graciously, Professor. Lucy is mine now, won fairly by your so civilized rules. I will save her from the death you intended for her. I suggest you learn from your errors. For should I see you again, I will not be so gentle. Next time it is you who will be carried off in my arms!"

  I struggled up the narrow stairs behind him, Dracula taking four at a time, I barely keeping up. Outside the wind wailed furiously as if commanded by his approach. Trees with new buds snapped wildly about and it felt as though a violent storm brewed. Although dawn was near, dark clouds enshrouded the sky making it seem closer to midnight.

  "Master, shall we return to your homeland now?"

  Dracula deposited Lucy, who swooned, into the back of a waiting black coach with four enormous plumbed black horses. He turned as if remembering me after having forgotten I was there. Firmly he cupped my chin in his hand and turned my head so that my neck and the wounds he had honored me with were visible. "If time permitted," he said with regret, the tips of his incisors glinting in what little light the sky offered. My body burned to be penetrated by him.

  "You will remain in England."

  "But Master," I cried, "I cannot bear existence without you. Why must I stay?"

  What blurted from my mouth produced a look of censure on his face, as if I had no business questioning him. Immediately I shrank back, but he grabbed the back of my neck and pulled me close; his breath cooled my cheek.

  "You will stay because I command it. Await the return of your husband. If you cannot satisfy his longings, at least learn to satisfy your own. For then you will be prepared for me, and only then will you hear my call and come to me."

  Knowing that I would not be sated this night, knowing that he was leaving, abandoning me to these incompetent mortals filled me with despair.

  As my Lord of Darker Passions raced off into the night, cracking the whip over the heads of the wild-eyes horses, something within me shattered. A fragile bond had been nearly severed. And why? Suddenly I knew the reason: Jonathan. Dismal fate had mated me to him, else I would be with my true Master now.

  The rain fell, chilling my bones, washing the mud from my body as well as what lingered of his touch. The quantity of the downpour barely exceeded that of my tears.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  "It is finished," Arthur said. "Lucy is dead."

  "No," John cried. "The bullet entered her shoulder. I do not think she will die."

  "Not that," Arthur said, "but dead because she is with Dracula."

  "She's still among the living," Quincey reminded him.

  "Lucy is dead to me," Arthur said firmly.

  "Silence!" Van Helsing looked enraged. He paced like a caged carnivore waiting for an opening so that once again the beast could roam free in the world.

  As the Professor paced, John realized he had never felt such a magnitude of emotion coming from the man. Emotion that had done him in. It had been more Van Helsing's display that weakened Lucy than anything Mina did, or the bizarre and cryptic messages she whispered. Lucy's very foundation of strength had eroded. Van Helsing had failed her.

  Many things could be said of this Count Dracula, but the control he exercised on his passions had subjugated what had been the greatest Master John knew. The loss made him sad and also frightened, for his world view had forcibly altered.

  Suddenly Van Helsing stopped cold. He looked at the others one by one, a hard kernel of something unshakable blazing in his eyes. John felt galvanized and knew that Arthur and Quincey experienced the same thing.

  "Gentlemen," the Professor said calmly, "pack your valises immediately. Tonight we leave for Transylvania!"

  Part 6 - Reunion

  Chapter Thirty

  I arrived back in England on a crisp morning and took the train to Whitby. Mina was still staying with Lucy, as far as I knew, and I expected to find her there. What I did not expect was to find her alone. And in a state.

  The door of the manor was opened by a tall slim fellow who identified himself as Hodge, the butler, a sober-looking chap. I found my wife in the parlor, seated tensely on a sofa staring out at the fields behind the house that lead to a wooded area.

  "Mina," I said.

  She turned, a startled look crossing her face. Almost immediately it shifted to anger, which she made a feeble attempt to disguise.

  "Jonathan," she said, as though she'd seen me just yesterday. She looked pale, under duress, her features streaked with bitterness and disappointment. I wondered how I'd ever found her attractive.

  Still, I opened my arms and dutifully she entered them, her body rigid. On her throat I saw two raw wounds, the mark of the vampire. She pecked me on the cheek as though the job was distasteful.

  I found this a far cry from the luxuriously decadent experiences of which I had so recently partaken. After an absence of several months, it seemed to me that a more extravagant greeting was in order. I felt annoyed with her, which colored my words. "Mina, I take it you were expecting me."

  "Not at all," she said, breaking off the embrace to return to her seat by the window. She looked across the field as if pining for someone who had just left by that route. "Not having heard from you in two months, I expected nothing."

  "Of course you've heard from me," I reminded her. "I received the funds I requested, and your letter about Lucy's condition. You must have received mine."

  She gave me a peculiar look. "I don't know what you're talking about with regards to a letter from you, as I've received none. Of course I wrote. A wife writes to her husband. You simply did not answer."

  I sighed and went to sit next to her. She moved away as if I were a stranger making unwanted advances. Either she was playing some sort of silly game with me or else she had not sent the money. But then how did I get her letter? It could have been forwarded from the castle, but no one there knew I was at the Sanctuary. Or did they? And there was the possibility the letter had been intercepted.

  I looked at Mina's profile. There seemed no reason for her to lie, but she was acting strangely.

  "Well, we can sort this out later," I said. "For now it's enough I've returned and we are together again." But if truth be told, I felt unhappy at the idea. It suddenly occurred to me that I had made a serious mistake marrying this girl. What had I seen in her? Any potential had dried up over the last months. But, of course, I was no longer the same man who had left her in London to sell real estate to Count Dracula.

  "And what of Lucy?" I said, hoping a more innocuous subject might alter her mood. "How is she?"

  "Gone."

  "Gone? You don't mean she's dead."

  "Of course not!" Mina snapped. "Nothing so hopeful."

  I'd never heard such hostility in her voice.

  "She's gone to Transylvania, with the Count. Her lovers have followed her there, as well as Professor Van Helsing, a specialist called in to treat her so-called 'condition'."

  "I see," I said, although I did not really see much, other than that Lucy was in the hands of the Count. A small smile slid over my face at the image of the petite, petulant Miss Westenra, so dominant that at times she was overbearing, submitting to the Lord of the Undead. And I had no doubt that she was submitting to him, on all counts.

  Mina noticed my smile and challenged me. "What'
s so funny,

  Jonathan?"

  "A simple thought, Mina, about Lucy," I said, trying to placate her as I had done in the past and yet I felt my own impatience rising.

  "Lucy!" she cried. "Must everyone always be concerned with Lucy? What about me?"

  Before I could stop her, she ran to the fireplace and grabbed up a handful of birch branches. I hurried to her, trying to calm her, but she turned on me, whipping my face with the switches.

  She seemed possessed. I was stunned. Like a madwoman hell-bent on cutting me to shreds, she tore my jacket from me and stripped my shirt to the waist, then lashed me mercilessly with the hard switches.

  The branches cut the skin on my chest, arms and stomach, leaving red lines that bubbled with blood. She was a slim woman, but fury lent her power. All the while she beat me, I watched her, coolly analyzing what was before me.

  Mina lashed out wildly. Her eyes looked deranged. Her body twisted in a frenzy of violent emotion. The switches splintered and broke apart and still she whipped me with their remains, as though I personified all that frustrated her. And indeed, she was permeated with frustration.

  The pain streaking across my flesh paled in comparison to the pain pulsing from her body. The more anger she felt, the harder she whipped, the harder she struck, the more volatile her feelings. And yet this exorbitant emotional display showed no sign of abating.

  She worked herself up into a state of hysteria, screaming, frothing at the mouth, her eyes roving wildly. The moment I realized this was leading nowhere, I became afraid for her. I grabbed her wrists. "Enough!"

  Mina threw her head back and let out a howl that sounded like a doomed animal. I could hardly believe my ears.