Fetish

by Sherri L. King

  “Buon giorno, Signora Laggia. Buon giorno, palazzo Laggia. Is anyone home?”

  There was no answer. But a warm and languid feeling was seeping over his body, not unlike the sweet heat of desire. “Hello,” he called again, surprised that his voice could sound so faint. So far away.

  A light glinted suddenly in the window, beckoning him forward.

  It was dark inside the house. Violanti carefully placed the painting of Greco styled sculptures before the hearth. A noise behind him made him start and whip around.

  “You startled me, Signora.”

  “Did I, Signore D’Arco?” Her voice was just as husky, just as magical and arousing as he’d remembered.

  “Si. You did.”

  “Then I apologize.” The flickering light of the candelabra she held cast eerie but beautiful shadows across her face.

  For some reason he couldn’t explain, he felt cornered, trapped by her glittering gaze. And it was in no way unpleasant. He was hard as marble because of it. “I have brought your painting.”

  “And you will no doubt be wanting your fee, will you not my beautiful artista?”

  He was drowning in her eyes. Her hand, so cool and so soft, floated up to caress his whisker-roughened face.

  “So much talent in one so very, very young. Do you like this life, Violanti? Do you like being the servant to a senile old man who has not half the talent that lies dormant and sleeping inside of you?”

  Startled, uneasy, he swallowed as her mouth moved close to him. He almost lost control, almost spilled his seed then and there.

  “You have so much potential. If only you knew. If only you had the time to find it within yourself…”

  “W-what are you doing Signora?”

  “I am lonely and weary and spent. But you are full of fire and passion. I would borrow these things from you. Do you want me Violanti D’Arco, son of sorcerers, child of man, master of painters?” Her gaze burned.

  His ego swelled along with his cock, even as his mouth filled with the metallic taste of fear. He could not lie to her, could not find the will to try. “Yes.”

  “Will you share your sex with me?”

  Her hand cupped him tenderly and he fell to his knees with a moan. She followed him down with an enigmatic smile. “Y-yes.”

  “Will you share blood with me?”

  In that moment she could have asked him anything and he would have answered yes. “Yes.”

  “Will you share long years with me? Learn from me until you are strong enough to go out and taste the world on your own? A master of your own fate.”

  What was she asking him? She had somehow removed all their clothing without his notice, without his help, and was moving to straddle his pulsing, aching cock. “Yes. Yes to everything. Yes a thousand times,” he babbled as she sank down over him like a wet and burning glove.

  Signora Laggia smiled, revealing a set of wicked, sharp incisors. And then she struck.

  And Violanti’s fate was sealed. He was a living man no more, in thrall to the woman that took him and made of him an incubus. A being of blood and passion, immortal and beautiful forever. He loved every second of his death, screaming his ecstasy to the heavens, and was reborn into the long years of forever.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “So you feed on sex and on blood.”

  “Yes. And those things must be given freely or it has no lasting value.”

  “Like fast food compared to a gourmet feast, huh?”

  He smiled, leaning back against the wall as if tired after telling her his story. “Something like that.”

  “What happened to the woman who made you, Signora Laggia?”

  “She tired of me quickly, and I of her. We were both too independent to stay long with each other, too stubborn, too intent on our own pleasures.”

  “Did you love her?”

  “She was my mother. My lover. She is still my friend, though I have not heard or spoken to her in almost a century.”

  “You didn’t answer me.”

  “You sound jealous,” he teased. “Are you?”

  “Just answer the damn question.”

  “No one who could hear you now would believe that but a month ago you were timid as a mouse.”

  “Arrrrgh!” she exclaimed in exasperation.

  Violanti laughed. “Calm yourself. No. I did not love her. I do not love her. Our tie to one another is not so strong or complicated as that.”

  They fell silent for a long, long while.

  “What happened to Joseph Tayler?” She had to know, had to hear it from his own lips. She would believe him, no matter what he said.

  There was no pretense between them now. He didn’t even bother to pretend he didn’t know who she was talking about. “Mr. Tayler was bled dry by his lover, a fledgling at the club who knew no better and had no self-control. He died as well—trapped in death with his human lover.”

  “You had nothing to do with it?”

  “I gave the order to dispose of their bodies. And instructions that Mr. Tayler was to be left with a bag of nearly half a million dollars to be shared among any surviving family or friends he might have. But I did not kill either of them.”

  A half a million dollars! She hadn’t read about that in the paper. No doubt the brother had conveniently forgotten to mention its existence to the authorities. “Wait a minute. You gave the order?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Madame Delilah, did she know about this?”

  “You are full of foolish questions tonight, my love. Yes Delilah knew about it. Yes she helped to carry out my orders.”

  “But why would she do that?”

  Violanti shot her a puzzled stare, then laughed, obviously realizing what was causing her such confusion. “Because I am the master of Fetish. Everyone who lives within the club owes their livelihoods, indeed their very lives, to me. They all do as I say, without question.”

  “You own the club?” She felt like a parrot.

  “Yes.”

  “That’s why Delilah didn’t charge me for my visits, not even that first time.”

  “You checked, did you?” His eyes twinkled. “Yes that is why. Though we do not, as a rule, charge our clients after the first visit anyway. Not in dollars. We charge the price of passion and blood. It is worth far more than money to us anyway. For you, I waived the monetary fee entirely. What I took from you was far too precious to put a price on.”

  Aerin ignored that. “What about the painting? My best friend thinks my menopausal hormones have made me crazy, because I can see a man in that painting who she insists isn’t there. Why can’t anyone see you in it but me?”

  “Because I willed it so. I mixed my blood into the pigments of the paint and in doing so placed a spell over it. That painting enabled you to remember things about me and about Fetish, but it also prevented others from seeing too clearly the secrets that must be kept from strangers. My very existence is secret; no human outside the club must recognize me or any other members of my coven. It is a necessary precaution. We are not human. If our existence were discovered, it would bring total chaos.”

  Her breathing quickened, coming in short, panicked, jerky breaths. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

  Violanti reached out to her, putting his hands gently on her shoulders. “Breathe slowly. You’re hyperventilating.”

  “I know that, you butthead!” The anger helped to calm her panic somewhat, but her lungs still shuddered with every breath she took.

  The shock in his eyes might have, under different circumstances, made her laugh.

  “No one has ever called me a butthead before,” he said the word with a hint of a sneer, as if the very feel of that word on his lips was abhorrent.

  “Well you are one. A big fat, hairy, smelly, butthead.”

  The long dark veil of his lashes twitched with his shock. He blinked several times before speaking again. “Are you feeling better yet?”

  “Yes.”

  “I love you, you
know,” he said bluntly.

  Aerin mewled, panic swamping her again. “No you don’t.”

  He merely looked at her.

  “You’re a vampire!”

  “An incubus. Wait, no, that’s not entirely accurate either. Technically I’m neither vampire nor incubus, those are merely terms thought up by humans to classify something that is beyond mere mortal comprehension. I simply am what I am.”

  “Let’s not quibble over semantics. You’ve bitten me. Drunk my blood. I know you have. That makes you a vampire, your drinking my blood.”

  His gaze burned hot and bright, crimson pinpoints in the darkness. “And it was sweeter than any I have ever tasted.”

  “I don’t love you,” she blurted out.

  “You’re a terrible liar,” he said with a wry twist of his lips.

  “I do not love you!” She punched him in the arm without even knowing she’d meant to make the move.

  He sighed. “Whether you admit to loving me or not, you now have a choice to make, sugar girl.”

  A zing of fear stung her into immobility. “Oh yeah? W-what is that?”

  “Whether you will accept me. Accept what I am. And all that it means. Or whether I wipe your memory clean of me, of Fetish and all who dwell within it, and let you die a natural death, unaware of these events.”

  “I don’t understand. Why can’t I just promise not to tell anyone? And what do you mean by a natural death, will you kill me otherwise?”

  “If you choose to turn away from me I will take the memory of me and mine from you, I will not jeopardize my coven out of love, not even for you. But if you should take me, accepting all of me, then I shall take your mortal death from you and make you my wife. Something I have never attempted with another in all my years, never thought to. You will be the first and only for me. My child of the blood. I will give you everlasting life, and stay by your side forever.”

  Aerin flew from the bed, but Violanti was too quick for her, moving faster than her sight could follow, grabbing her to him. He brought her back against him, his mouth pressing a fevered kiss to her neck. She moaned, whether in fear or desire she wasn’t sure. If she were honest with herself she would have to admit that it was a potent mixture of both. His hand cupped her breast firmly. He let her feel the dangerous scrape of his teeth over her pulse.

  “You don’t fear me, sugar girl. You fear yourself and what your own passions will make you do,” he growled.

  “Let go of me.”

  “Don’t fear me. I would never willingly hurt you. You know that. Why continue this fight?”

  “Because I’m confused! Because less than a month ago I was a fat, middle-aged virgin who cowered at the very idea of changing any of those things. Now look at me. Just look at me! Look at what you’ve done to me,” she spun in his arms and he let her, railing at him in anger and desperation.

  “You are beautiful. As you have always been beautiful. Whatever magic was mine to give, I gave freely to you in our nights spent together, so that you could find in your body the beauty to match that which was already there, but that you never could see. The beauty I have always seen and desired in you.”

  “I was never beautiful. I am now but this isn’t me, this body isn’t mine.”

  “But it is. It is the blooming of your confidence, of your sensuality, your womanly power that you see now in the mirror when you care to look. My magic only gave you the knowledge of those tools needed to bring about such change. My power did not give you the tools themselves. They were always there, inside of you.”

  “I don’t know if I love you or hate you, damn it.”

  “I will give you until Saturday to think on it, since you don’t know your own mind. Be at Fetish Saturday night with your decision.” At last a trace of anger stained his tone, but his face remained impassive.

  “That’s not long enough.”

  “It will have to be, sugar girl. Like it or not, until Saturday is as long as I can give you. Think about it. You can have an eternity with me, or you can lose about four weeks worth of your memory. It’s your choice.”

  He seemed to vanish before her eyes and it was only the slam of her front door that convinced her he didn’t have the power to appear and disappear at whim. He didn’t have to. He moved that fast.

  “Damn you, you…vampire! Arrrgh.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Saturday came and went, and Aerin let it go with hardly a qualm. She didn’t go to Fetish. She didn’t leave her house. She wanted to see just what Violanti would do if she failed to show up at the club as he’d so arrogantly commanded her to do.

  She was surprised when he didn’t do anything.

  There were no phone calls, no visits, nothing. Just an endless, foreboding silence. It made her uneasy. But it also relieved her a little. She’d needed more time to think things through.

  Taking the week off of work was easy. Even Heather had encouraged the decision, still believing her friend to be overworked and overstressed after the debacle of the painting. Aerin wondered if things would ever be the same between them. She wondered if it even mattered. If Violanti had his way she’d either be with him forever or lose a chunk of her memory, and either scenario didn’t allow much room for Heather’s friendship in her life, no matter how much she might have wanted it otherwise.

  Things were rapidly spiraling out of control and there was nothing Aerin could do to prevent that.

  Her emotions were so convoluted and confused, she didn’t know up from down. For days she paced the rooms of her house, thinking about everything and nothing, wondering when, and if, Violanti would come. She wondered if she wanted him to come. With something like horror, she realized that she did, more than anything. That realization scared the living daylights out of her.

  She was in love with the vampire.

  But was she ready to give up her life for him? To spend forever with him? He’d promised her forever. She believed he’d keep that promise. And while an eternity spent in the arms of her true love might seem magical and right on the surface, she feared the current that flowed underneath it all.

  If she chose to stay with him, she would become like him. She would have to drink blood. She would have to feed on pleasure—what had Violanti called it, that golden energy that spilled out from humans when they shared sex? Life force. She would have to take the life force from humans in order to live. But could she actually, in good conscience, do something like that?

  Round and round her thoughts raced. She couldn’t eat, could hardly sleep—too many dreams—all she could do was think.

  And stare at Violanti’s painting.

  For hours on end she would sit in her living room, staring at that canvas with a dreamy smile on her face. Sometimes she could swear that Violanti’s eyes were really looking out at her from it, that he could see her sitting there from wherever he may be. Aerin supposed it wasn’t impossible. She’d seen and learned so many amazing things ever since meeting Violanti, she wouldn’t have put this bit of magic past him even for a second.

  All this thinking and wondering was doing her no good, though she’d hoped for the time in which to indulge her convoluted thoughts. She kept coming back to the realization that perhaps there really wasn’t a choice for her at all, perhaps there never had been, not from the first moment she’d locked gazes with the master of Fetish.

  It was Thursday night before she heard anything. And it wasn’t Violanti who sought her out. It was Madame Delilah.

  Aerin was shocked to see the woman waiting patiently for her to open the door and admit her inside. She would have expected anyone but her.

  “May I come in?”

  Wordlessly, Aerin nodded.

  The Madame chuckled. “It doesn’t work that way. You have to say it out loud. Or you have to take something of mine, but I’m afraid I have nothing to give you.”

  “Come in.”

  With elegant grace the taller woman stepped across the threshold and moved deeper into Aerin’s house, project
ing a serene calmness that somehow managed to set Aerin at ease. “You have a lovely home,” the Madame said after looking carefully about the room. “I haven’t been in the dwelling of a human since the 1940’s, when I was a human myself.”

  Aerin started. “That long?”

  Delilah smiled, “Oh yes.”

  “How,” Aerin swallowed, “how did you become…what you are?”

  “My lover. He fell in love with me and I with him. We could not bear to be parted. And so he made me what he was, so that I might live with him forever.”

  “Where is he now?” Surely here would be the answer that would sway her decision one way or another. In so many books the vampire easily tired of his lover, and eternity was a very long time to share with any one person.

  “He lives at Fetish, helping me keep the house accounts, as in love with me as I am with him. Our passions and our hearts have never weakened for one another.” Delilah laughed. “You look surprised at that. Don’t you think we immortals have any staying power in our hearts? Are you worried that Violanti will tire of you, is that it?”

  The woman could undoubtedly read minds. “I am,” Aerin admitted, sitting down hard on her sofa.

  The Madame joined her, graceful in every move she made. “Don’t be. Violanti is one of those rare beings among us who can only give his heart once. It’s why he’s never brought another human into the blood, he can’t give immortality without giving himself in the bargain. He’s waited a long time for you. Too long,” her eyes held censure, no doubt because Aerin was dragging her feet over the whole affair.

  “I can’t eat people. I just can’t.”

  “You don’t eat anything, stupid.” The insult sounded so strange and yet so easy on the woman’s elegantly painted lips. “Human’s are not cattle to us, no matter what popular literature has led you to believe. They are sensual creatures, sacred and sweet. We do feed on them, or rather on their more than ample life force, on their sex, and on their blood. There is nothing shameful or wrong in it. They are willing or we do not bother.”

  “But they are not aware. It’s the same as stealing.”

  “You know nothing of which you speak. You merely assume. We do not force anyone to come to Fetish. They come of their own free will. And whatever we take from them is returned tenfold. We give sex and we give pleasure, and in cases like yours, when you first came to us, we give hope. You cannot lie to me and say you haven’t benefited from knowing us.”