Suzie and the Monsters

by Francis Franklin

  ‘I... I thought... you were a goddess.’ He flushes red, and stares at the carpet.

  ‘I am a goddess, Danny.’

  ‘No you’re not,’ he mutters.

  ‘Vampires are real,’ I say.

  ‘No they’re not.’

  ‘Yes they are,’ Adam says, feeling his neck and glaring at me with renewed anger. ‘I didn’t dream that, did I?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  ‘Look, boys. Here’s how it is. You’ve got about a fifty-fifty chance of surviving, and that’s if you don’t piss me off. In a week or so, I’m getting on a plane to Argentina, or maybe Russia. You’ll escape eventually, but I’ll be long gone by that time.’ I don’t think either of them really believes my lies, but I don’t really care. ‘Now, I want you both to go have a shower, because you stink of sweat, and then if you’re hungry there are biscuits and juice in the kitchen, or I can order a takeaway if you want.’

  They both look too depressed to do anything. ‘Come on, guys!’ I shout like a football coach. ‘Now! Into the shower! Let’s go! Or do I need to go get the taser?’ It gets them going, shuffling awkwardly along the heavy chain, neither of them looking entirely stable. As they pass me, I whisper in Danny’s ear. ‘Would you like me to get on my knees and suck your cock?’ He doesn’t answer, but his cock starts twitching, and he’s powerless to stop it getting hard as I tickle his right nipple. He dares to push me away. I laugh and smack him on the bum.

  I return to the sofa and my wine, listening to the men arguing quietly, the roar of the shower masking their words. I start making a new shopping list: towels, toilet paper, sponges, bin bags. Condoms. A television. Thank God for all-night supermarkets. I grab my car keys and head out.

  *

  Adam and Danny are sitting on the sofa when I get back. They’ve wrapped themselves in clean sheets and are sharing biscuits and studying fliers for the various local takeaways. I hand them a towel each, putting the rest of the new towels, a mixture of colours, on the window sill in the bathroom, and put the spare toilet rolls in the cabinet under the sink. They decide on pizza, and after phoning in the order I drag in the box with the new television, an LED flatscreen that looked small in the supermarket but looks huge in the bungalow. ‘Here you go, boys,’ I say, and they set to work unpacking it with real enthusiasm.

  I intercept the delivery boy in the driveway and take the pizzas inside, and pour wine for us all. They munch their way through their pizzas while watching the highlights of the AC Milan — Barcelona match, not that there were any. They’re also slightly distracted by the single condom, still in its metallic wrapper, that twirls between my finger tips. Whenever they do look at me, a glance now and then, occasionally a glare, their anger with me is clear, Adam’s tinged with fear, hatred, rebellion, Danny’s with desire, confusion, a sense of betrayal.

  As soon as Danny has finished his pizza, I strip out of my jeans and T-shirt, and straddle him, pushing the towel and still-damp sheet away so that I can caress his chest and squeeze his nipples.

  ‘Do you want to kiss my breasts, Danny? Say “Yes, Goddess.”’

  ‘Yes, Goddess,’ he responds automatically, and I push a nipple between his parted lips.

  ‘Kiss it, Danny,’ I order. ‘Lick it.’ God I love this. ‘Bite it — gently!’ I can feel his hard, hungry cock pressing against my belly, and reach down to stroke it while he sucks my nipples, first one, then the other, with an increasingly rough brutality. Beside us, Adam stares furiously at the television, but it’s obvious that he is also hard, the sheet tenting above his groin.

  I gasp as Danny almost breaks the skin, and I pull back so that I can roll the condom along his length. ‘You have a beautiful cock, Danny.’

  He pulls me impatiently towards him, and although I try to control the speed of entry, he is determined to push hard, and again I feel that familiar sharp pain and cry out with the shock of it. How many times I have felt my hymen tear, and that pain is always fresh.

  He pulls me onto him hard with each quick thrust, penetrating deep inside me with his impressive length. This is violent angry sex, his vengeance for what I have done to him, but I don’t care. I am loving it. We even come together, the pulsing of his weapon and his orgasmic roar triggering my own crashing release.

  I climb off him and stagger through to the bathroom for a shower.

  Caveat Emptor (Thursday)

  Cleo’s fever finally breaks about three o’clock in the morning. It’s very dark and quiet, no street lights, no traffic, the men have been asleep for the past hour. There’s only Cleo and me, dark shadows in a dark nest. I’m wrapped around her, keeping her warm.

  ‘Is it over?’ she whispers.

  ‘No,’ I whisper back. ‘There are buckets by the bed if you need throw up.’

  ‘I don’t want to... oh, God. Why did you have to say that.’ She leans over the edge of the bed as best she can with her wrists cuffed and chained, breathing heavily. Suddenly she convulses, and vomits into the bucket. The bedroom is filled with a vile stench, and I rush to open the windows.

  Cleo groans, but it’s not over. For the next couple of hours she’s hanging her head over the bucket, swearing and crying from the pain and general awfulness of it. At some point the diarrhoea and menstrual bleeding kick in as well, and I’m glad I put polythene over the mattress. It’s a mess in here. By five o’clock it seems to be mostly over, however, Cleo wiped out by exhaustion. Leaving a clean bucket by the bed, I take the other buckets out into the garden and bury the black, soupy contents under a thick layer of earth. I pull the soiled sheets from Cleo, put them in a black bag and throw them in the wheelie bin outside.

  I clean a bucket and fill it with warm soapy water and spend time cleaning Cleo and the polythene. I have to freshen the soapy water several times before I’m satisfied, and with the sickening smell of excrement and vomit finally gone I close the windows. With dawn approaching I can see how desperately pale and thin she is. I work a clean sheet between Cleo and the polythene, and cover her with the duvet again to keep her warm.

  I find my knife and a box of plasters, and take a glass from the kitchen through to the men’s bedroom. They’re both still fast asleep. I wake up Danny carefully and quickly put him into a trance. ‘I’m going to take some blood,’ I tell him. ‘Don’t fight. It won’t hurt.’

  I pierce his wrist with the tip of my knife, and let the blood trickle into the glass. When it is nearly full, I put a plaster over the cut and send Danny back to sleep. At some point Adam has woken up and is watching me, but doesn’t say anything, and neither do I. I just carry the knife and glass away with me.

  Cleo wakes up instantly when I enter her room, her eyes following the glass as if it holds the most precious thing in the world, which it does. Tied to the bed like she is, it wouldn’t be easy for her to drink, so I’ve brought the key to unlock her wrists. Sitting up quickly, she takes the glass and pours the contents down her throat, and is soon licking the blood from the sides.

  ‘More,’ she says.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I want more!’ she screams at me, her eyes blazing suddenly, tearing at my thoughts like fishermen’s hooks, and I have to look away.

  ‘You really don’t, Cleo.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ she groans. ‘Oh, fuck.’ She leans over the side of the bed and vomits blood into the bucket.

  I fill the glass with water. Cleo looks at me like I’m trying to poison her, so I drink some to show her it’s safe. ‘You’ll probably throw up again,’ I explain. ‘But you’ll do that whatever you drink.’

  Cleo laughs weakly. ‘What kind of a vampire am I, throwing up blood and drinking water...’

  ‘It’s almost complete now. You’re lucky, in a way. I was feverish for days. Maybe because I drank so much of your blood before you drank mine. Or maybe it’s just that you’re a lot healthier than I was. This is all a bit of a mystery to me.’

  Cleo drinks the water, and almost immediately throws up into the bucke
t again. ‘Just for a moment there,’ she says, ‘that felt really good.’

  ‘Keep trying, I think. Your body is trying to clean itself. There are all these bits of humanity washing around inside you still.’

  ‘In a minute,’ she says, then laughs. ‘My mum’s going to kill me.’ She thinks about that for a minute. ‘I can’t go back, can I?’

  ‘Not really. Maybe you can visit briefly, but she’s not going to understand or accept what you’ve become.’

  ‘I need to phone her, tell her... something.’

  ‘When you’re fully changed we’ll arrange a meeting.’

  ‘Okay,’ she says. ‘I miss her.’

  ‘I know.’ I give Cleo a hug, which she returns. Then she lifts my T-shirt, exposing my breasts, but runs her fingers over my heart, finding not even the faintest scar where she plunged the knife into me only a day ago. She pulls my shirt down again. ‘I’m sorry, Suzie,’ she says, unable to meet my eyes.

  ‘All is forgiven,’ I reply, kissing her forehead. ‘All you did was give me an excuse to do what I wanted to do.’

  She looks up at me with profound relief, then throws her arms around me and starts sobbing. I hold her and try to soothe her.

  ‘I was so scared you would leave me,’ she whispers.

  ‘Well, forever is a very long time. I hope that you will forgive me too.’

  She looks at me with a frown. ‘For what?’

  ‘For not leaving you when I could.’

  She starts to argue, but I silence her with a kiss, and it’s wonderful to think that for the very first time I am in a real relationship, two young women facing the future together.

  Then she starts crying again. ‘I’m so hungry!’ she yells at me, eyes impossibly bright with need. It’s quite terrifying to behold. Almost as if it’s not Cleo sitting there any more.

  ‘Okay! Okay!’ I tear myself away from her, dizzy, a lightning pain splitting my skull. ‘Okay. I’ll bring you food, but you have to let me tie your hands again.’

  She doesn’t respond immediately, but even in the state she’s in she’s able to understand that I’m trying to help her.

  ‘Okay,’ she says at last, and lies back with her hands above her. She watches me with her fierce eyes while I fasten the cuffs to her wrists.

  Adam and Danny are still in bed, but awake now and very nervous. ‘Who was that shouting?’ Danny asks.

  ‘I’ve got a girl locked up in the other bedroom. She’s a bit hysterical. Maybe you two can calm her down.’ First taking the precaution of tying Adam’s free wrist to one of the wall rings, I unlock Danny’s ankle cuff and pass it over the heavy chain, fastening it to Danny’s ankle again. The heavy chain doesn’t stretch to Cleo’s room. ‘Come on,’ I tell them after releasing Adam’s wrist from the wall, and direct them across the house. ‘In you go,’ I encourage as they hesitate outside her room, and they open it cautiously.

  As soon as they see her eyes, they are trapped. Even Adam who resisted my more subtle attempt to captivate. In her current state, her eyes are undeniable. ‘Come here!’ she orders them, in no doubt of her power. They lurch forwards into the room as if she has pulled on a chain connecting them to her. I follow them in and guide Danny’s cuffed wrist to her mouth. Cleo launches herself at it, fangs slicing into the blood vessels, lips fastening tightly to the flesh. I watch her throat muscles swallowing the rich flow, and when I judge that she’s had about a litre I pull Danny’s arm out of her reach. I don’t want him going into hypovolaemic shock.

  Cleo screams with frantic rage, but I quickly give her Adam’s wrist. I sense that he’s trying to fight, but Cleo is too strong for him. There are tears on his cheeks as her fangs plunge into his arm. I quickly tie a bandage around Danny’s abused wrist. Then I pull Adam’s wrist away from Cleo; she’s only had a mouthful or two, but she doesn’t complain this time. After taking care of Adam’s wrist, I drag the poor men back to their bedroom, attach them to the heavy chain again. Danny is barely conscious, and they’re both looking pale and weak now. I cover them with sheets and towels to keep them warm and leave them to sleep.

  Cleo is writhing on her bed, and I don’t understand at first. But then it hits me. I slide onto the bed next to her, and use my fingers to bring her to orgasm, not just once but again and again until she collapses into a deep sleep.

  They’re all asleep except for me. I make myself a coffee and lie on the sofa watching BBC Breakfast.

  *

  Cleo wakes up around midday and I hear her calling my name. She looks a thousand times better, still a little pale, though, and her hair is a tangled mess.

  ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘Still hungry, but in a normal way, not a for-fuck’s-sake-feed-me way.’

  ‘Okay,’ I say, laughing. I unlock her wrists and ankles. ‘You need a shower.’

  ‘I know.’

  Her legs are shaky when she stands, and I let her lean on me as I walk her through the house. She’s fascinated by the chain, wants to see where it leads, insists on following it to its end. The men are half-awake when we enter, but scramble out of bed in fright at the sight of Cleo.

  ‘Relax, boys,’ I say.

  Cleo looks embarrassed. ‘Who are they?’

  ‘The tall one is Adam. The other one is Danny. He has a beautiful cock and knows how to use it.’

  Cleo frowns at me in confusion. I give her a look of exaggerated innocence, and after a moment she bursts out laughing. ‘I should be angry,’ she says, ‘but what I want is to find out for myself what you mean.’

  I wink at Danny and drag Cleo out of the bedroom and into the bathroom.

  ‘It’s strange,’ Cleo says from the shower. ‘I keep thinking it’s such a mean thing you’ve done, imprisoning these men like this, drinking their blood, fucking them. And then I remember it’s all for me, and instead of being horrified I’m really quite touched. Thank you for taking such good care of me, Suzie.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  ‘And these men. I feel sorry for them, but I don’t want to let them go.’

  ‘Do you feel like they belong to you?’

  There’s a pause, then, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you feel superior to them?’

  ‘Yes.’ An immediate answer.

  ‘Are you superior to them?’

  There’s no answer this time.

  It’s one of those human things really. They think animals are terribly cute, or loyal companions, or wildly beautiful, and indeed they are all of these things, but they’re also food. Adam and Danny are food. They’re tuna. Alia may be equally edible, but she’s a dolphin, revered and protected, even loved. ‘We’re not evil just because we’re vampires,’ I tell Cleo. ‘We’re capable of love, compassion, loyalty. But ultimately we need to feed, and for us there is no vegetarian option.’

  I strip off and climb into the shower with Cleo, where we kiss, and explore and massage each other with soapy hands.

  ‘But we don’t need to kill to feed,’ Cleo says as she gets out of the shower and starts drying herself.

  ‘No, but if you’re not careful you’ll have people hunting you, whether it’s police, scientists, or teenagers looking for the ultimate thrill.’

  Then I realise she’s dressing herself in my jeans and T-shirt. ‘Hey!’

  Cleo laughs. ‘Get your own, bitch,’ she says with a grin and walks out, leaving me to wander round the house wrapped in a wet towel. I desperately need to go clothes shopping. I had been planning to go on a spree in Paris, but that will have to wait. Cleo has now nicked the only pair of trousers I have — well, okay, I did steal the jeans back from her — and the only dress I have is the velvet one I wear at the strip club. There’s also the Dolce and Gabbana skirt, but I have no intention of wearing that. For now, that stays in the suitcase with the black corset and Dior sandals.

  Sighing, I dress up in my stripper gear, black rubber and red velvet. The men have dared to leave the dubious safety of their room and are on the sofa wrapped in sheets and cra
dling cups of tea, watching TV without enthusiasm. Cleo is on the sofa with them, playing with Danny, but he’s too scared of her to react as she wants. Adam looks just as unhappy. I ask them what they want for lunch and snacks and make a shopping list. It will add a bit of spice to be dressed like this as I push the trolley around.

  On the way out I whisper in Cleo’s ear. ‘Be careful! No feeding!’

  *

  I return to a scene from a horror film. Cleo, naked, streaked with red, bouncing up and down Danny’s erect length, no condom. Danny’s clearly in a trance, and has blood stains on his face and neck and chest, but no obvious bite marks. Beside them is the pale corpse of Adam, a gaping wound in his neck, more blood stains on his chest and the sofa around him.

  Oh, fuck. This is exactly what I was trying to avoid.

  I grab Cleo around the neck, yank her backwards off Danny, and haul her, off-balance, back to her room. She screams and struggles, but I’m stronger and faster and eventually I manage to lock her into her restraints again. She starts whining and crying, and rubs herself against the sheets in a desperate need for release. I leave her there, unsatisfied and miserable.

  Danny is still in a trance, still erect. ‘You can relax now,’ I tell him. ‘I want you to forget everything. I want you to forget everything that has happened today. When I wake you, the chains and cuffs and the blood stains you see will seem quite ordinary and natural. There’s no need to worry about them.’

  I remove the cuffs from Adam, attaching them to Danny instead so that he’s still constrained to the heavy chain, and drag Adam out into the back garden. When I wake Danny, he looks round in confusion. ‘Where am I?’ he asks, and a hundred other questions start bubbling to the surface. There’s also a rippling agitation to his movements that makes me suspect that between Cleo and myself we’ve damaged his mind to the point of breaking.

  ‘Shh,’ I tell him, radiating peace and happiness, giving him my sweetest smile, and he calms a little. ‘Go have a nice long shower, and I’ll explain everything later.’

  After a moment, he nods, and shuffles off along the clinking chain and into the bathroom.