Alarmed, she glanced upwards only to see him, Gavin, in repose just now. His thick brows were drawn together, giving him a concerned expression she had never glimpsed on him when awake.
His full lips were parted, and his short eyelashes were like streaks of charcoal against his parchmentpale skin. An odd pang reverberated inside her body as she regarded his sleeping face. It scared her how normal he looked. How vulnerable.
But he isn't, she reminded herself. Not even close.
▪▫▪▫▪▫▪
When she opened her eyes again the darkness outside the window had been tempered by small rays of light on the horizon.
A hand stroked her cheek, possessively, before slipping under her chin to take her pulse. The hand was cold, and she felt gooseflesh ripple down her arms and tighten the skin around her breasts.
He was watching her, she realized suddenly, studying her with directness that would have made her feel naked if she hadn't already been so.
“You've fallen in love with me—haven't you?”
This was so far from what she was expecting, it was as if he'd hit her. She didn't have time to construct a defense; her face felt raw and exposed.
“I saw the way you were looking at me, when you thought I was sleeping. I felt you touch me.”
“No,” she said, “That's not true. I would never—” He kissed her. Easily, passionlessly, he kissed her
and she was lost. He kissed her, and it left her gasping. His breathing, on the other hand, didn't change at all. She stared at him, wide-eyed.
“You were saying?”
He leaned in again, and Val pushed him away. A thought had just occurred to her.
“This is Vance's hummer,” she said haltingly. “What did you do to Vance?”
“How little you think of me.”
This was too far from truth for her own peace of mind. She shook her head. “Did you kill him? No,” she answered her own question. “You wouldn't kill him. You're not that merciful.”
She expected him to laugh; not that it was particularly funny, but usually that seemed like the whole point. He didn't, though.
“What did you do? Dismember him?”
That brought a phantom smile to his pale lips but it was far from affable. “Dismember,” he repeated, rolling the word around in his mouth like a pearl. “An appropriate choice of words, that. Especially when one takes into account the etiology…”
It took her a moment to make the leap.
“Oh no,” she said, shaken. “You didn't—” “Oh yes,” he said. “I did.”
She choked back a sob.
“Such a tender heart.” He tapped her chest. The same hand that, equipped with a blade, had carved
into human skin as if it was sirloin. “Don't tell me you feel sorry for him.”
Val covered her mouth and turned away. “Why do you do it?” she whispered. “Why?”
“You may as well ask me why I breathe. I simply do, and that is that.” He patted her cheek. That broke the dam that had been holding back her tears all this time. She began to cry, the way only one with a broken heart can cry.
He did not love her. He never would.
She could give, and give, and give, until there was nothing left at all—and it would make no difference.
Not to him.
Epilogue
Once upon a time, there was a naïve and innocent girl who thought she could tame the beast and live happily ever after. But the beast did not want to be tamed, for he was a beast and beasts care not for such things, and the girl died along with her dreams.
From childhood's grave sprang a young woman, jaded before her years, who knew that beasts could wear the skins of men, and that evil could exist in sunlight, as well as darkness.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
▪▫▪▫▪▫▪
Val was surprised to learn that Mary still lived. Upon waking in that cavern she had not spared much thought for anyone other than herself, but she did have a passing thought that her roommate must have come to a similar end by Vance's hand. But no.
When police located Vance Benveniste on the pebbled shores of Crescent Bay, partially conscious, weak, and disoriented from blood loss, he had been in no state to play coy with information. He told the cops everything, in between his ragged gasps and pleas for help. Mary was found locked in the closet of his apartment, dazed and dehydrated, but otherwise all right. She was being kept overnight for observation in the local hospital, just in case, but her condition was stable. Vance, on the other hand, had died on his way to the emergency room.
Val found this out from Gavin. He slipped her the information in bits and pieces. Like table scraps. She didn't ask how he knew. She assumed that he had been the anonymous tip-off that had led investigators to the scene of the crime.
Gavin would do that. Play both sides, and then watch the ensuing chaos from the sidelines. Whatever furthered his own interests or amused him was ample motivation. The lowest common denominator of human morality was always self-interest.
(You've fallen in love with me, haven't you?)
Pain lanced through her chest as if a large needle were sewing her ribs together, cinching them far too tight. Emotions snarled like brightly colored threads, some standing out in sharp contrast. Aubergine guilt. Carmine lust. Scarlet anger. Pain, virgin white because nothing was purer than the original aversive stimulus. Fear in cowering, vulnerable pink. Emerald regret. Sorrow, veiled in midnight blue.
She woke late in the afternoon and was startled to feel a heavy depression in the mattress beside her. One of his denim-clad legs was bent at the knee and he had his sketchpad propped up against his thigh. His hair was mussed. Charcoal stained his hands, and his face where he had touched his lower lip in silent contemplation as he was doing now.
Val sat up, leaning over to see what he was drawing. A rose, she saw. Dead, the petals worn ragged with age and thin as parchment. His shading was exquisite, and she half-wanted to reach out and touch the edges to reassure herself it wasn't real.
He glanced at her, then let the sketchbook fall open to another page. It was her—in bed, asleep. Her first thought was that he had done it this morning, as she slumbered, but then she looked at the date at the bottom, and noticed several other details that contested this. Shorter hair, a bruise long since faded.
“I drew that on the first night you came to me.”
The tiger lily, tangled in her hair. Crumpled basil leaves trapped beneath the cage of her fingers on the sheets. Rose petals and star-shaped jasmine.
He had employed the use of water colors to highlight the vibrancy of the flowers. Her lips were tinted a coral pink, as well as the tips of her breasts. Everything else, he had left in black and white.
Images from freshman year, partially forgotten, flooded back in horrific detail. Naked flesh, draped in furs and silks and beads. Sexuality so overt that it seemed almost bestial. She said, “That's sick.”
“What is art, if not an excuse to be adventurous?”
A lobotomy of the senses , she thought. Perceptions culled and cut and displayed in cross-sections in a futile attempt to portray the gestalt.
A cage wrought from artistic license—and lead.
▪▫▪▫▪▫▪
Mary had filed for a roommate transfer. Her family would soon be coming for her things. The three sisters, most likely. Angel, Cherry, and Flo.
How long ago that dinner seemed. There had still been hope then. Distant, but gleaming. But not now. Hope was dead now, buried with the other casualties of this cruel and terrible game.
Everything we touch, we destroy.
“That's not art.”
“Oh no?”
“No!” She lunged for the sketchbook, then, filled with the irrepressible urge to shred the pages like a child tearing the wings from a butterfly.
She understood the reason for Mary's withdrawal, but that did nothing to ease the slight.
Understanding did not provide solace or m
ake the pain go away; in many ways, understanding was just more salt in the emotional wound. Understanding inspired empathy, which led to guilt, as well as suffering.
She looked up at Gavin, supine, unconcerned, contented, and thought that perhaps there was something to being a sociopath. If you didn't have a heart, it couldn't be broken.
He returned her gaze, brazenly. “What is art?”
“Not that.” Jerking her head at his sketchbook. “That's filth.”
“I disagree. One need only look at you,” he said, “to see that you, my dear, are my greatest work. Your body is my canvas, your mind my palette.”
“I'm not your work.”
“Oh, but you are. I created you. I made you into what you are now—it's stunning. You are stunning.” He pushed her back, leaning over her. “Such a fascinating blend of emotions. I repulse you. I captivate you. And your very being captures the essence of that struggle so beautifully. Yes, you are a work of art.”
“When does it end?”
His smile was thin and knife-sharp. “When I grow bored.” He paused and added deliberately, “Or when you fall out of love with me. Neither seems very likely to happen anytime soon, though, hmm?”
“I hate you.”
He laughed.
“No. I mean it. I hate you.”
He pushed her hand aside.
“Hatred is about possession. It is all-consuming, cruel, and vainglorious. When love is allowed to fester, it becomes twisted and corrupt; it settles deep in the heart—” he drew the fabric back from her shoulders “—and metastasizes, sending its dark roots through the body to raze all that stands in its way. Love is chaste and pure. Love is banal. No, hatred has infinitely more possibilities.”
His mouth moved down the line of skin now bared from neck to navel, and Val sucked in a breath, her arms over her head, grasping, searching, reaching desperately for something only just out of reach.
“This is how I kill you—capture—possession— enjoying your beauty even as you begin to die inside so very slowly.” His hands, at her hips, kneaded the flesh. “And when you cease to amuse me—when your leaves begin to wilt and your colors begin to fade—I may very well decide to prune you, the way one might deadhead a drooping rose.”
“You mean, you'll kill me.”
“Val.” Her skirt was sliding up her thighs. “Each time you lie with me, I make you die a little death.”
She arched, bringing him up by the chin to kiss him. He obliged her. Just another game. One game in a long line of many, to be played in accordance with his capricious whims. He will be the death of me.
“ La petite mort.”
He smiled against her mouth. “If you insist.”
He will be the death of me. Unless—unless I am the death of him. Her fingers slipped beneath the pillow, and he lowered his mouth to her breast. Val gasped, fingers closing and convulsing around the smooth plastic. When he shifted his weight, pausing to draw breath, she said, urgently, “Gavin—”
He lifted his head, and she saw his pale eyes open wide as she plunged the knife into his throat, into the curled edges of the scar she had left over a year ago.
The effect was instantaneous, dramatic. A fountain of scarlet, crimson ribbons. Spatters of liquid warmth at her face and breast. Each attempt to draw breath resulted in a gargling sound and frothy bubbles of blood. His hand at his neck, slipping, smearing red down his bare chest like war paint.
She expected fear. Fear was more instinctual than emotive; she had thought the prevailing fear of death would override the scrambling cipher he possessed in lieu of empathy.
Nothing.
The sketchbook had fallen back open to the rose he had sketched only minutes before. The petals were now dappled with and smeared by streaks and spatters of blood.
Hatred. Slavish devotion .
Art.
Or madness.
She could taste the blood in his mouth, see the light fading from his eyes as she kissed him for the last time. His body convulsed. She felt cold metal between her ribs. He had managed to grasp the knife with the hand not holding onto her throat.
I will destroy us both.
He died, and as he fell, carved a gash that pointed, arrow like, to her belly.
She waited until his lips were cold.
Then she got dressed and picked up the phone.
The end.
Forward
This erotic short story takes place in the same world as my Horrorscape trilogy. Some people were curious about Gavin's father, who is not really mentioned in great detail in the storyline, and his mother, who largely remains an enigma.
(I like enigmas! They don't require explanations! Yes, I am lazy. I am a writer, after all. Just kidding— but not really.)
There actually is a reason for that vagueness, though, and if I ever get around to writing my spinoff standalone about Gavin's mum and dad, you will see why. But just in case I don't—THIS.
I wrote this short for a small, private writingthemed group I was involved with for a while. It has since disbanded but the friends I made through it have not. There were several “hazing” rituals, and one of them was an erotica writing challenge. Ex(xx)members of this group may well recognize this story and giggle that they were the first to read my—well— first public attempt at writing erotica.
Or, as they call it, porn.
Or, as I call it, my shamefest.
I hope you enjoy it. I'll be over in the corner. You know. Cringing in embarrassment.
J'adoube
The scent of roses hung heavy in the air, though no blossoms were to be seen in the dark loft. His apartment loomed over the streets of Palma like some large bird of prey, appropriately giving him a bird's eye view of the neighborhood. Spain's major port city was beautiful by night, the way the oceans reflected the moon and the stars, but Anna Mecozzi could not see them from Damían Álvarez's window. It mattered not. Neither of them cared for such things.
His mouth was on her throat the moment the door was closed. She felt his teeth close around the diamond necklace she wore around her neck. Then he kissed her mouth, and the sharp facets and metal clasps cut almost as cruelly into her mouth as his teeth. His hands found her ass and squeezed her through the thin silk of her evening gown. “No underwear,” he growled. “Bad girl.”
She bared her teeth at him. “You have no idea.”
That made him grin, and it was no less feral than her own smile. “Why don't you show me, then?”
Anna grabbed him by his tie and shoved him back against the wall of his foyer. He tried to kiss her and she pulled her head back haughtily, giving him a saucy smile as she ground her hips against the bulge straining to break free from his pants. He tore at her gown, snapping the shoulder strap that had previously been fastened with a rather elegant swath of silk shaped to look like a flower.
“Bastard,” she said, bucking against his hips with enough force to make him gasp. “This was my debutante gown. My fiance bought this for me in Paris.” Each word was punctuated by a jerk that had him moaning lower and lower in his throat. “I'm going to kill you.”
He laughed huskily, though his black eyes were smoldering with lust. “Really?”
“Knife in your throat,” she hissed. “I'll drink your Dago blood like wine while I'm resting my feet on a rug made from your worthless Spanish hide.”
“Before or after you fuck me?”
“During.”
“Good. I love foreplay.”
Damían tackled her and the two of them fell on the floor. She scratched at him, hard enough to get fuzz from his suit jacket beneath her nails. He yanked her gown down to her waist. She ripped his shirt open, causing buttons to scatter over his hardwood floors. They went rolling into the living room, and she slammed him into a table, causing a vase to shatter.
Anna ended up on top. She straddled his waist and kissed him, unknotting the tie from around his neck and sliding the silk over the tanned skin of his throat before tossing it aside. He tilt
ed his head back and she ghosted the path the silk had taken, trailing kisses down his muscular torso.
He had an incredible body. The first time she'd seen him, he'd been in a tux. His frame was deceptively lean, and she'd heard he was a grandmaster, so Anna had automatically assumed he was one of those bookish intellectuals her parents were forever trying to marry her off with. But they had never suggested Damían Álvarez. Quite the opposite, in fact.
This had aroused her curiosity…and other things.
Oh, but she soon found out why. Because at her engagement party in Milan, he'd approached her, danced with her, sweeping her across the floor with the lightness of a summer zephyr, and as he bent in a courtly fashion to kiss her hand at the end, he'd murmured, “I have a proposition.”
“Oh?” she had said sweetly, pulling her hand out of his.
“I bet you'll be in my bed before the end of the night.”
She had tilted her head. “That's preposterous.”
“That's what they said about my using the Grob opening during the tournament in Moscow. But I won anyway. And I'll win you.”
And he'd been half-right. They hadn't done it in his bed. They hadn't made it much farther than the door before he tore her clothes off. So that was at least two dresses the son of a bitch had destroyed so far. She bit one of his nipples and heard him hiss.
Few men were capable of giving her what she wanted. Damían Álvarez was the sole exception. He was almost as fucked-up as she was. Perhaps more so. Their chemistry was explosive and caustic, poisonous to anyone else but themselves. He was perfectly willing to try anything she suggested: except submission. On that, Damían did not bend. He was ever the master, never the slave.
Or so he thought.
She leered at him, with gray eyes as cold and calm as a frozen lake, before moving lower, tugging lightly at the hairs that trailed from his navel with her teeth. She heard him inhale sharply as she prodded him with her tongue through his pants and felt him jerk against her mouth.
“Hypocrite,” she said.
“Whore,” he replied.
She clicked her tongue at him and yanked sharply at his fly with her teeth. The button popped open, and she yanked down the zipper hard enough to make him arch his back and say, “Fuck.” He was already hard, had been for quite a while, and she admired him for a few seconds, just teasing him with her breath. Then she let her tongue play over the gleaming tip, savoring the salty, musky animal scent of him, before taking him all the way into her mouth. She let her teeth scrape against his shaft, just enough to cause some mild discomfort, and felt him shudder.
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