She and her uncle were the only ones of their kind here, except for the others, the mutated vampires that merely existed in the cemetery.
My God, what of Cecelia? They'd certainly smell the fresh body and come for her. Quickly she looked back at her uncle. Matilda leaned on his arm, dabbing tears from her eyes. Her uncle offered her his clean linen handkerchief, and she sobbed at the thoughtfulness of the gift.
Liliana reached for Sade's mind and finally knew she had captured his attention when Sade kissed Matilda's hand and encouraged her to stand nearer the priest as the final words were being said. He dropped back from the family, disappearing for several minutes until he whispered behind Liliana.
"Something disturbs you, ma chère."
Liliana moved out of the mourners' circle and walked to a distant tombstone. Not until they stood next to the headstone did she realize it belonged to Wil's mother.
"The mutants I told you about are going to smell her body. She'll be too confused to protect herself, Uncle."
"I will linger among the trees. They will not have the opportunity to suck her flesh." His fingers brushed her cheeks. He looked at his own hands, remembering something. He reached for the crested ring on his left hand and removed it from his finger. "I shall always love you, ma petite fille. Always you will be first in my life." He took Liliana's left hand and slipped the weighty ring on the middle finger. Raising her hand to his lips, he kissed the ring and turned her hand over to kiss her palm. "Cecelia quenches a hunger that merely satisfies my fantasies. But she will never have my love."
* * *
Snuggled in David's arms, she played with the fine hairs of his chest.
"That tickles." Playfully he pushed away her hand. Like the legs of a spider, her fingers started moving up the trunk of his body. "Uh-uh. Wrong direction." He drew her hand down between his legs. "That's the right spot. Can't you tell?"
"But what if I want to tease you?"
"I like where you're teasing me now."
"But this isn't teasing. This is foreplay. Next thing you know, you'll set me atop your hips, and we'll be way beyond the teasing stage."
"What sort of coquettish game do you want to play?"
Liliana slipped the peach-colored silk sheet back off their bodies and kneeled.
"I want to take turns driving each other crazy."
David took the down pillow from her side of the bed and placed it under his head along with his own pillow. "That will require thought and a filthy imagination."
She watched David's eyes scan the bedroom.
"This is so neat for a ladies' boudoir. I expected to see black lace teddies hanging off dressers, makeup scattered around the bathroom sink, dresses left out from the arduous morning selection of what to wear... but wait, if I lean over the side of this mattress, will I find nylons scattered beneath the bed?"
Liliana sighed.
"Don't look so depressed because you're not a slob." He chucked her under the chin.
"I dress in another room."
"Ah! And you take your lovers to the bedroom, but never the dressing room. Oh, Liliana, I thought I had found the perfect housewife."
"We have... We had help."
"I'm sorry about the death of the housekeeper's daughter. I didn't mean to ruin..."
She pressed two fingers to his lips.
"Let's talk about our sexy romantic fantasies."
"Who starts?"
"You seem eager. Why don't you go first?" Liliana smiled and shifted her weight to her right buttock.
"Actually, some of my fantasies I'd like to live again."
"Then these aren't just fantasies."
"Even used fantasies are new with different lovers."
Strange how the thought of other women made her stomach sink. He knew she was no virgin when they first made love. Each had had experiences with others that amplified their ability to satiate the other.
"I'd like to sweep you away." He grabbed her wrists and brought her back down on the mattress. "And I'd indulge myself in whatever manner I wanted. I could tie you down and give you orgasm after orgasm until your sleepy eyes told me you were intoxicated with the smell of our sex and the warmth of my breath on your skin."
His hot breath chilled Liliana as much as the kisses with which he liberally moistened her flesh.
"Orgasm after orgasm," she repeated.
He looked at her and smiled.
"Tempted? I know how to take you on a high beyond anything alcohol or a narcotic could give you."
"That easily?"
"Takes lots of sweat and ingenuity on my part." He released her wrists and ran his hands down her arms and across her breasts, squeezing and plucking until sexual excitement forced her to push his hands away. "I can't bring you to peak after peak..." He tapped her nose lightly with an index finger. "After peak, if you keep pushing me away."
"But my breasts are so..."
"Sensitive. That's the point, so to speak." He tweaked one of her nipples. "To have multiple orgasms you have to stay on the edge of torment and ecstasy."
His wet mouth covered hers, his tongue gliding against the roof of her mouth. He took hold of her wrists and brought her arms over her head. The cold brass and iron headboard felt refreshingly cool in contrast to David's burning flesh. Holding her wrists with one hand, David reached for something. The shifting of skin against skin increased the sexual tension between them. When he moved back onto her body, she raised her hips into him. He began to loop cloth around her wrists, tying her to one of the brass posts.
She pulled her mouth away from his.
"What the hell are you doing?"
David's soft voice hushed her.
"I want to pleasure you the way no one else has. Let me cater to your needs this time."
Her body relaxed, and David kneaded the flesh on her arms. He moved down to delicately caress the sides of her breasts, kissing each nipple and using his tongue to cause the nipple to swell. Liliana rested her head back on the mattress and allowed him to massage her thoroughly. He fingered each hidden crevice and inflamed the nerves running through her white skin. Her body drew up to his hands, wanting more and loving the control he had taken. Her moans drove away all thoughts of her uncle's actions and settled her spirit into lustful self-indulgence.
He used the belts from their jeans to secure her ankles to the foot of the bed and placed one of the down pillows under her buttocks. She watched him stand back to admire her pose.
"You're beautiful, Liliana. Almost too delicate-looking, with the paleness of your skin and the sharp curve of your bones. Hell, I bet you don't save yourself just for me. Men must flatter and seduce you all the time. What's it feel like with the other men? Can they fuck for as long and hard as I do?"
He shook his head and walked over to the closet. She saw him turn back to her in surprise.
"There's no clothes in here. A couple of hangers and some fresh towels. Oh wait, there's a hair brush on the floor and a riding switch?"
"I used to ride," she answered.
"Baby, I'm going to ride you now."
He walked back over to the bed, carrying all the items that had been in the closet.
"My bedroom's better equipped, but I know how to improvise."
The air around Liliana quivered and thinned. A sweaty chill rumbled through her body.
"Don't, please, David."
He leaned over her.
"Don't you trust me, baby?"
"Liliana."
"Go with the fantasy," he whispered back to her. "I'm going to find out who gave my little slut that ring on her finger."
"My uncle gave it to me today at the cemetery."
"Your uncle didn't give you shit."
"David, I don't like this game."
She studied David's moves. He had changed. His shoulders hunched, his palms sweated, his breaths increased, his whole body moved like a predator. Even the smell of him had altered from a sexy musk to a raging sweat.
"David, I can't play out
this fantasy."
"You'll do what I tell you and you'll tell me what I want to know. First, who gave you that damn ring? Didn't you think I'd notice? I could feel the touch of metal when you caressed my cock. I know you never wore a ring before. Why now do you wear that one?"
"Please, my uncle gave me the ring. Believe me."
"Why should I fuckin' believe you?"
His voice sounded raspy and tormented.
He twisted a bath towel in his hands while he spoke. "You're going to tell me all sorts of secrets about the men you lay. How about women? You go for them too?" David swung the towel hard across her abdomen.
Choking with rage, Liliana tried to hold herself in check, tried to think of a way to convince him that she didn't want to partake in this kind of fantasy. The towel stung her abdomen again. She had stopped hearing his words. His face barked out questions, and she repressed the violence building inside her.
"I'm going to cut that damn finger off if you don't tell me everything I want to know."
His voice sounded in her head again, but somehow at a distance. The sound couldn't be part of David. The harshness and accusations had to be coming from someone else. A stranger, a demon who had stolen his body.
After several more blows, he clutched her hips in his hands and ate her out, causing her to writhe and almost snap free of the bonds, bonds that couldn't hold her except as she allowed them.
David dropped the towel on the floor. Liliana relaxed until she spied him reaching for the switch that lay by her right foot.
"Please, David. This is upsetting me." She attempted to keep her voice level. Hysteria would only drive him and herself harder. "I want to make love to you, David, but I don't want to be hurt, and I don't want to hurt you. Please."
David smiled.
"Look at you. How could you possibly hurt me?" He played the switch across his left palm. "Only way you could is by refusing to play the scene out with me. And on that you don't have much of a choice, baby."
"Liliana." If she kept repeating her own name, perhaps he would become bored and realize the game was no fun unless she cooperated.
"Baby, don't upset me. I'm on a roll now. Haven't been here in a long time, and it feels good." He hit the foot of the bed with the switch. The smack echoed in the room.
"Please, I beg you. Stop."
"Hey, now, that's better, more in keeping with the mood I'm trying to set."
His swift movement appeared to her as slow motion, with only the sting of the switch on her upper right thigh drawing her back into reality.
"What, no scream? You'll be yelling eventually, begging me to back off."
This time the switch made contact with her left thigh.
"Stuart." Her voice softly spoke the single word.
"Shit! Who the hell is this Stuart?" The switch came down hard on her thighs.
David looked like Stuart, but didn't have the softness, the gentleness, the caring of the dead man. Yes, she said to herself, Stuart is dead and will never come back to me.
The switch kept stinging her thighs.
The man in the room with her was a cruel simulacrum of the one she loved. This man knew none of the loving, soft words or actions that had made Liliana give up drinking warm human blood. She looked at David and saw perspiration forming on his forehead. The muscles of his striking arm were tense; he did not hold back on her punishment. And yet a numbness had spread through her body. He took a deep breath and struck her again and again. Her thighs burned. A spot of blood appeared on the switch. Blood, and still he struck.
"Bitch, I'll show you what I think of women who fuck around on me."
David reversed the switch and drove the handle into her vagina. Excruciating pain lit her body. Her wrist sprang forward, breaking the bonds, allowing her to spring at David, wrapping her hands around his throat and dragging him down onto the mattress.
"What the fuck..."
The belts around her ankles snapped free from the foot of the bed, giving her enough leverage to set herself on top of David. Her powerful legs held David in place while he sputtered and fought. Her hands held him fast, and she bit into his neck, drawing blood from his carotid.
"It was only a game. Only a game," were the last words she heard him speak.
Chapter 54
The mourners hurried back to their cars; only the immediate family lingered by the grave. The priest attempted to give comfort, but quickly realized the mother would not be calmed by words of an afterlife. The father shook the priest's hand, and Sade thought he saw an exchange of money. Matilda whimpered, and the priest slowly paced out of the cemetery.
"Why?" seemed to be the only word Matilda knew. "Why? Why?" Matilda spied Sade leaning against a mausoleum. Sade lowered his head to avoid eye contact, but the silly woman came to him.
"You've been so generous, Mr. Sade. The coffin, even the plot... I don't know how to repay such..." A sob in her throat prevented Matilda from completing the sentence. "I'm so sorry, Mr. Sade, that I..."
"Toutes mes condoléances. It is you, madam, who suffers the greatest loss. A child starting to blossom into a woman, suddenly taken in the dead of night."
"They still do not know what killed her. The doctors, the autopsy, but all they say is she died from a loss of blood. She was menstruating. Their guess is that she hemorrhaged and didn't tell anyone. She had faded bruises on her body. They think she was into self-mutilation."
"I think that boyfriend of hers, Joey, beat her up a few times," said the father.
"Why wouldn't she tell me, Mr. Sade?" the mother pleaded.
"Because she was a frightened child, madam."
Matilda shook her head. Her husband guided her away from Sade and toward the cemetery gates. Sade followed them beyond the gates and watched as they pulled away in the chauffeured limousine he had rented for the family. The darkened windows hid Matilda's tearful face.
A Latin hymn sparked a memory, and he began singing the hymn as he walked back into the cemetery.
"Miserere mei, Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam:
Et secundum multitudinem miserationum tuarum, dele iniquitatem meam.
Amplius lava me ab iniquitate mea.
Et a peccato meo munda me.
Quoniam iniquitatem meam ego cognosco,
Et peccatum meum contra me est semper."
Magically two workmen had gathered at the grave site, ready to bury the coffin six feet deep.
"Messieurs," Sade called.
The workmen seemed startled and slunk to the side, embarrassed that they hadn't waited longer to make sure all the mourners were gone.
"Messieurs, it will not be necessary to bury the coffin."
The men looked at each other. One man, short, thin, with a moustache and a nervous twitch of his upper lip, started to speak, but his partner touched his shoulder and the man fell silent.
"Messieurs, if I allow you to bury my maiden, you will just be making work for me."
The taller of the grave diggers spoke, "Sir, are you a member of the immediate family?"
"I am now."
The taller man shuffled his boot-covered feet and sighed.
"Listen, man, we got a job to do here. If you're not the father or brother of the deceased, we have to ask you to leave so that we can finish our job."
"Ah, monsieur, but your job is fini. You may leave. Now!" Sade's voice rose in a stern demanding tone, causing the taller of the two men to stand taller still.
"Why do we get the nut jobs?" the shorter man said out loud, but seemingly to himself.
"We don't want any problems here, mister. Just get into your car and spin away."
"Des problèmes! It is not I who insist on burying a coffin that doesn't need to be buried." Sade walked to the coffin and laid a hand on the rich wood. "Leave me, messieurs. Go home to your families." Sade bowed his head.
"Rob here isn't going anywhere," said the tall man thumbing toward the shorter man.
"Uh?" Rob looked up at his partner.
/> "You stay here while I go get the police."
"Me?"
"Messieurs, you do not understand. This is a matter of saving your own lives."
"Hell, he's threatening us, Rob."
"I'll get the police," said Rob. He took a single step backward, and his partner grabbed the gray work shirt Rob was wearing.
"There's two of us, in our prime. This guy's up in age. What are you, in your fifties, sixties? You don't want to threaten us with anything."
"Maybe he just wants some time alone with the coffin, Ed."
"Did you see how arrogant this guy has been with us?" Ed turned back to Sade. "Yeah, I wanta go home, Mister. That's why we're going to bury this box now, not later."
"I will fill in the hole pour vous."
Rob nudged his partner off to the side. They mumbled for two long minutes and then they both looked at Sade.
"We're sorry about your loss, but we have a job to do. Ed and I will go off to get some coffee, then come back in about twenty minutes. Okay?"
"It is up to you, monsieurs, for she will not be here."
"Shit, man, we try to give the guy a break, and now he's talking about stealing the body," said Ed.
"Sounds better than doing bodily harm to us." Rob shrugged.
"Listen, we have a responsibility to see to it that the box is safely buried."
Sade sighed. "But she will need the... coffin," Sade corrected.
"That's right. You're getting it now. Whoever's in that box will need it for eternity."
"Well, at least for the ride over to Europe, monsieur."
"We can't have nobody stealing bodies we're responsible for. We'd lose our jobs."
"Yeah," added Rob. "If you want to dig her up later when we're not around, we don't care. We just want to complete our job."
Sade lifted his hand off the coffin and tapped his index finger on his lips. They could serve a purpose. He had expected to present her with smaller prey, but...
Sade spun around toward the grave diggers and rushed at them with both arms outstretched.
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