by Kaia Bennett
Jesse released my neck with a roar and his tongue finished what his teeth started. He licked my neck, the sweat between my shoulder blades, while his rough palms mauled my breasts and hips.
Even your sweat tastes sweet.
I felt minuscule under him, his huge hands. His hair clung to my face, my shoulders, my breasts. With my body no longer my own, my heart broke I had no safe place to call mine now. Even my mind belonged to him. I’d twisted him, turned him inside out, but this was his game. I didn't know the rules. I’d lose. I already felt lost. I already feared I’d become his.
The world swayed to the rhythm of Jesse’s thrusts and my vision flashed like strobe lights.
Darkness.
The girl.
Darkness.
A thick cock buried down her throat, her body shaking with multiple orgasms.
Now, I want you to come. I want that sweet cream, witch. Give it to me.
Vaughn roared, pumping fast enough, gripping her hips hard enough, that her legs bent at an unnatural angle, shoved too close to her ribs.
Broken.
The girl convulsed. Her fingers slid from Vaughn’s forearms and she sagged against the floor. Vaughn flooded her body with his release, his face covered in blood, his blue eyes invisible behind the vampiric bloom of his pupils. Vaughn pulled out, shaking off his dick while he and Liam switched places. Vaughn punctured her wrist and sucked, while Liam shoved his cock into the girl’s weak body. I couldn’t see the girl’s face, but I saw her body wracked by another orgasm, Liam trapping her clit under the press of his thumb.
The sheets clung to the bloody half-moons my nails cut into my palms. I came again. And again. Each orgasm an insult, an injury. A proclamation.
You’re not like her. You’re like us. You see?
I had seen. Somehow I’d known, but I hadn’t wanted to admit the truth.
Vaughn stroked his wilting cock off and laughed as he lit a post-coital cigarette. Liam pulled out, straddled the girl’s face and shoved balls-deep into her mouth. He shot his load with a riotous shout, then pulled his cock from the frothy mixture of blood and semen. Liam grinned at Jesse and me. Everyone had been thoroughly satiated, his smile seemed to say. Liam had done his job well and vibrated with pride and orgasmic bliss.
But the girl had one foot out of this world. Bleeding, her hips wracked into a torturous parody of an erector set my brother had owned as a child. She rolled her head to stare in my direction. Her eyes glazed over as she faded.
I sobbed. I prayed for death. I begged all the powers that ever were, and ever would be, to halt the rising tide inside me. I begged Jesse in my mind to stop. Please don’t make me, not like this, with her frosted eyes staring through me.
I wasn’t offered a choice. I came again, because Jesse pulled the strings, because his desire rode my body as surely as he did. Because guilt wasn’t strong enough to douse my need for release. He rubbed my clit relentlessly and fucked me until nothing else existed in the world but the pounding drum between my thighs. I proved I’d become a monster when I climaxed with a shout, the hardest one yet. Pounding sensation rocked me to my core and made me feel faint.
“Good girl.” He moaned in my ear, his orgasm galloping within him.
You’re not like her. We’re not human.
I wasn’t a good girl. I wasn’t a girl who deserved to live.
Their dying victim had seemed like a sweet girl with a gentle voice. I should’ve been lying on the ground instead of her. With all our similarities, I could’ve been her. She had warm skin that glowed golden brown against Vaughn’s translucent body. Her legs were longer, thinner, but her hips flared like mine, her navel soft and adorned with a teardrop belly button, full of blood. Her breasts were tipped with the same dusky peaks as mine, smeared with congealing crimson where Vaughn bit her. Her neck bore the marks of Liam’s lust, her full lips smeared with blood and semen. Her flat nose bore a slender bridge and her hair, curled with sweat at the roots and sprawled about her head in springy coils, could’ve been mine.
Yet, by some twisted luck of the cosmic draw, I wasn’t her.
Jesse’s voice in my head spoke the truth. I knew I would wake again and the girl wouldn’t. She’d breathed her last breath while I panted like a bitch in heat, and I would never forgive myself. Never.
Jesse crested with a yell of triumph. The world returned, vivid and strange. The music roared and my sticky, used body became my own again. But I didn’t want my body anymore. Inside lurked a stranger, still quaking with the aftershocks of the most powerful orgasms of her life.
The last glimmer of light faded from the girl’s eyes.
I’m a monster.
My pussy paid no heed to the truth. It wrung every drop of Jesse’s come from him and we shuddered together.
The only reason I’m still alive is because I’m not human.
Jesse pulled out of me and I collapsed. Spent. Broken.
Disgusting.
I stared at the wall for a long time, Jesse’s words buzzing in my head, while he and his gang laughed and joked about the lives they’d shattered.
We’re not human. We’re not human.
I’m not human.
7
The roar of grunge rock died down. The lingering scent of sex, blood, and fresh death hung in the air like a cloud. I hadn’t moved from the spot Jesse left me in because I’d finally gone numb. No more aching muscles, no more feeling the slippery trail of Jesse’s possession leaking out of my pussy. No more tears soaking the bed and no more sweat dripping off my body to join them.
The world spun as the vampires reveled in the afterglow of their meal. I lay still as a corpse, locking eyes with the girl on the floor. I breathed. I blinked. I’d abandoned the realization of who and what I’d become for a blessed moment. But I couldn’t abandon the truth staring at me. The girl didn’t blink. The girl didn’t breathe and I couldn’t look away.
I had no idea how long I’d been in shock. The passage of time felt like a few short minutes, but by the time I broke free of my trance, the girl had taken on the waxy look of fresh death. The kind that couldn’t be mistaken for sleep or a creepy staring contest.
Swirls of cigarette smoke and an order from Jesse to Liam brought me back to the world of the living. I squeezed my thighs together as Jesse’s baritone cut through the fog. Even shock couldn’t release me from the sound of his voice in my ear, keeping me tethered to life and the truth.
I’m not human.
“Make the call, Liam. The body’s gonna empty soon.”
Liam sprang from his perch on the bed beside Vaughn, picked up the receiver, and pressed a red button on the phone’s number pad. I shivered, realizing we lay naked as sin. Had the room been freezing the entire time, or had I just gone cold as the dead?
Like I would have noticed anyway. I was in heat. One encounter with Jesse and I’m a bona fide slut who can’t even gauge temperature.
A tear trailed down the bridge of my nose, dangling with irritating fortitude, but I didn’t swipe the drop away. I deserved every bit of discomfort I had coming to me, every itch, every sting, every bruise and cut. Until I could close my eyes and not see murder fanning the flames of desire within me, I didn’t deserve to cry.
“Room service. Table for one.” Liam paused and looked at the girl crumpled up on the floor. “Small meal. Thanks.” Liam hung up the phone.
Vaughn huffed and turned to Jesse, who lay behind me, propped up against the headboard.
“Thought it was gonna be table for two,” Vaughn said. His voice vibrated with rage. “I saved my second wind for the witch, Jesse.”
I slid my gaze across the room to him. I didn’t bother to move. I did close my eyes with a shudder, though, when Vaughn wrung his hand up to the tip of his hardening cock, and then licked the juices off his palm, pinning me with his glare the entire time.
“She’s not strong enough for that yet,” Jesse murmured. He wrapped a possessive hand around my ankle and slid his massive palm up m
y calf. “Couple more feedings, though, and we can fuck her sun up to sun down. I bet she comes every time, like a good little empath.”
Jesse’s hand sped up my thigh. I lay with my chest against the mattress and my legs tucked up to my side, a crumpled mass. Still, his domination hadn’t been victory enough. He forced my thighs apart and rubbed my vibrating pussy, stroking the evidence of his conquest. I winced, but my body produced a weak sliver of lubrication. The healing properties of Jesse’s blood were sluggish this time, if not completely gone.
“I hate and love how fragile humans are. Fuck!” Vaughn plopped back onto the mattress.
I’m not human. I’m something else, something horrible.
A knock sounded at the door, but none of the vampires startled like I did.
“Room service!”
A woman’s voice tolled from outside the room. I bolted upright, watching Liam stride to the door, stepping over the girl’s body in the process.
The door swung open as Jesse pulled his hand away from my sex, giving me a swat on the ass before settling against the headboard again. Funny how the bed doesn’t shake when he moves, tall and built as he is.
My ruminations on the strange sturdiness and cleanliness of the motel faded away with the light.
Dawn approached. A dim glow spilled through the open door, but I squinted like high noon had infiltrated the space. I could smell the chill air outside, the scent of pine. Freedom just beyond these walls beckoned, and I stretched toward it like a flower towards the nourishing rays of the sun.
Liam followed who I guessed to be “room service” into the room. Only, she didn’t look like any room service I’d ever seen.
The woman wore a tan plastic suit from head to toe and a full face mask that revealed only her eyes. She did roll a cart in front of her, complete with a tablecloth, but I knew right away there’d be no ‘small meal’ served from the empty cart. A short, stocky man followed Liam, wearing the same hazmat suit. They looked like they’d prepared for an outbreak of some new virus instead of delivering food for the hospitality industry. When the woman peeled the table cloth off and revealed a metal box, everything clicked into place.
The hazmat duo lifted the girl off the floor and stuffed her into the box. Her dead weight banged against the walls, her limbs folding easily into place like a marionette with cut strings. She folded like a ‘v’ and disappeared into the cart. Only the tops of her toes and fingers were visible before they snapped the lid into place.
Liam gave the woman a tip and they were off again, rolling out of the room with a dead body in tow.
Room service. Motel.
It’s all a front for murder.
I stared after the man and woman for a long moment, picturing myself packaged like trash. Stuffed, dumped, and forgotten, as the door closed on natural light. I wondered who they were. What kind of monsters signed on to clean up bodies and rooms purchased for rape and murder? I wondered about the girl’s family. Would they ever find her body, or would she dissolve in some nondescript vat in a lie marked ‘motel’?
“I could get used to this shit.” Liam ran a hand through his curls and stretched his toned body with satisfaction. “Someone else cleaning up our mess. And a truck stop not far away where we can pick up snacks. Saw a few runaways and hookers, and it’s not far to the next town. We could get some more money there and extend our stay, right Jesse?”
Liam seemed hopeful, but Jesse yawned. “Maybe.” Jesse’s voice sounded non-committal and Vaughn hadn’t moved since he’d lost access to my body. He looked as if he’d fall asleep soon, his second wind petering out like the limp cock nuzzling his hip.
The lights clicked off.
How long do vampires sleep?
In a few hours they’d have to get up and get a new car, and Liam said they had to leave by noon. When would Jesse decide if they were extending their stay?
I hope he doesn’t. This place is a death trap. No way out of here, but in box or with Jesse.
“Come here, witch.” Jesse tugged my ankle. Just a flex of his wrist and he’d dragged me several inches down the bed, turning me on my side in the process. He let me go and I sat up on my hip, staring over my shoulder in the dark.
“I don’t like repeating myself.”
The warning lilt in Jesse’s voice made me shudder and the act revealed every ache. My entire body felt like one giant bruise. I could resist Jesse’s command, but fatigue settled into my bones. Too tired to fight him off, I crawled up the bed, turned away from him, and slid into the covers. The bedspread combatted the chill but did nothing to ward off the effect of Jesse’s body on mine. He slid into the covers, too, pulled me against him, and spooned me. Nothing about the act made me feel safe. His body, still sticky with dried sweat, clung to mine. His cock rested against the crack of my ass, taunting the delicate fissure with promises of future pain.
He thinks I’m his.
And why shouldn’t he?
Neither the beast nor the girl within me had energy left, so I followed their lead. We all curled up into a corner of our cage, and despite the horrors of the night, we slept.
8
I sat, bound, at the head of a long banquet table with the weight of metal on my head—a crown—and chains on my wrists.
All around me were friends, family, strangers I somehow knew I’d meet, and people I’d lost touch with. My life, sprawled out before me like a feast of memories. On the table, a feast of actual food to rival any state dinner taunted my watering mouth. Eternal plates of food. Crystal goblets of wine. Rose petals glowed like drops of blood on white cloth.
In the center lay the naked girl Vaughn and Liam had killed. She took the coveted spot where the main course presides. Her eyes remained open, her head tilted back with an apple shoved deep into her mouth. She’d become a delicacy, basted in her own screams, and still she wept, her tears having outlived her.
Guests collected the salty drops in their wine glasses and nodded their heads at the vintage. They laughed while spearing succulent portions of her flesh onto fine china.
Beside me, Jesse sat like a bronzed god of death. Naked from the waist up, espresso locks falling over his shoulders like a cloak. He slid his thumb into my mouth. I sucked, swirling my tongue around the thick pad as he thrust within my welcoming flesh. Under the table, Vaughn stalked towards me on hands and knees. He parted my legs and licked the swollen cleft between them, feasting on my juices. Liam gripped a thigh, spread me wider still, and sank his teeth into the artery there. He sucked with desperation, but no more than a trickle touched his tongue.
At the far end of the table sat Nora, a grim expression on my cousin’s face. She forced a smile when our gazes met.
So beautiful. This is how Nora would have looked had she lived. She raised a wine glass in salute. I watched the glass overflow as if an invisible hand poured her refill. The scarlet liquid ran like a river current down the table towards me, picking up speed. Wine barreled down over food and drink and rushed over my lap. I stared down as the blood red stains soaked my white dress.
When I looked up, Nora had vanished.
In her place sat my doppelgänger. Naked. Soaking wet and staring back at me with dead eyes. She’d turned the cup over completely, emptying the contents into my lap.
My dead reflection turned to a disturbance over my shoulder. I turned too, peering behind me as much as I could while still chained to my chair. A faint knock sounded, rhythmic and precise.
The real world beckoned.
When I turned back toward the head of the table, Nora again sat there with milky eyes. Dead eyes.
Wake up!
Her voice echoed in my ear, so clear, she could’ve been alive again. I did as she said. As a child I’d always done what Nora said. This moment was no exception.
I woke and opened my eyes to darkness. Blackout curtains masked the daylight I knew waited outside.
Someone pounded on the door. Three knocks, then a beat of silence. More hard pounds, then another mo
ment of silence.
“Housekeeping!” I still lay tucked against Jesse’s body like a little spoon, his arm resting on my hip and his hair all over me. Against my shoulder blade, his heart beat steady with the pace of a human’s. The knocking finally woke him, and once again, the hummingbird beat of his heart fluttered.
“Liam, get the door.” Liam met Jesse’s command with a blur of movement.
This wasn’t the same lackadaisical reception ‘room service’ had received.
Housekeeping means something else. Maybe a code word for ‘something’s wrong’? The lights switched on. Vaughn groaned.
“Which of you gentlemen is in charge?” a woman asked. She entered silent as a ghost.
She put me in mind of a Catholic school head mistress, with little striations around her pale lips and a business-like demeanor. She wore a severe black dress with a crisp collar. She didn’t have a ruler, but she did have two tall muscular men behind her. Both men dressed in nondescript black pants, button down shirts, and black dress shoes.
“You’re looking at him.” Jesse sat up and swept the covers away. He made no move to cover his nakedness or hide me, so I made no move to signal my captive status to this woman. On the other bed, Vaughn threw an arm over his eyes as though he chased more sleep.
“I work for management. On his behalf, I apologize for the short notice, sir, but you’ll have to vacate your room early. Clean up must begin at once.”
“Why the fuck would we do that?” Vaughn peeked underneath his arm, his gravelly voice thick with sleep. “We’ve got this room for a few more hours. Right?” Vaughn looked to Jesse for confirmation.
“Where is management?” Jesse asked. “I had plans to use this room to the fullest.” He groped my ass to drive home his point and I wilted inside.
“Management is busy fielding phone calls in relation to a law enforcement matter, sir. If you’d like for us to take care of your room, you’ll have to leave now. Otherwise we can provide you with a partial refund and you can clean the room yourselves.” The woman sniffed and lifted her chin. “I’d advise you leave that task to my qualified and efficient staff. Especially with the local police approaching the premises.”