Suzie and the Monsters

by Francis Franklin

  For a couple of hours, while the shops close and the sun drops, disappearing shortly after seven, we just walk along the river, hand in hand, kissing, Cleo full of questions.

  ‘Have you met anyone famous?’ she asks me.

  I’ve met lots of famous people, of course. Elizabeth Bathory I’ve already told her about, although it’s a place to start. ‘I met Delphine Seyrig at a party in the seventies.’ Cleo looks at me blankly. ‘Actress and director. She was Countess Bathory in the film Daughters of Darkness, possibly the best vampire film I’ve ever seen, although, if you ask me, her character is reminiscent more of Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla than Elizabeth Bathory.’

  ‘Anyone else?’ asks Cleo impatiently.

  ‘I have a clear memory of travelling to Istanbul on the Orient Express, and spending almost the whole journey making love to Vita Sackville-West, amazing woman. Her husband was sleeping with another gentleman that we were travelling with, I forget his name.’ In fact, my memories of the early twentieth century are a fractured mess. I remember that journey, but not when it was, or anything about arrival in Istanbul, or anything about returning. It’s like a jigsaw, mixed up and with most of the pieces missing. Cleo’s looking blank again. ‘She was the inspiration for Virginia Woolf’s Orlando,’ I explain.

  ‘Is that the one with Tilda Swinton?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘My mum likes that. What about Shakespeare?’

  ‘No, but I knew Aphra Behn. You must have heard of her.’ Cleo shakes her head. I sigh. ‘Sarah Fielding?’ Another shake. ‘Byron?’

  ‘Cool! What was he like?’

  Bloody typical! How is it that women get lost in history? What do they teach kids in school these days? ‘I wanted to kill him,’ I reply. Cleo laughs. ‘Do we have to talk about this?’ I ask, feeling depressed.

  ‘Sorry, Suzie,’ she says, and pulls me close so that she can kiss me again with her hungry lips.

  *

  Late in the evening, must be ten, eleven, Cleo and I end up right back where we began, where we first met. Partly it’s a romantic amusement, but mainly it’s a nice club for blending in and dancing. It’s also a good place for picking up horny, open-minded students for a bit of fun and feeding. It’s a shame the music’s so loud, if it can be called that.

  There’s an agitation to the way Cleo is watching people, as if she is distressed by her own imaginings, and I suspect she’s getting hungry. My attempts to distract her from thoughts of blood have diminishing effect.

  At some point I find myself watching a familiar pair of thighs, naked from the high hem of the short glittery red dress down to an even more familiar pair of shoes, black sandals with knitting-needle heels and satin ribbons around the ankles. A glance up at the natural blonde mane, untamed today, confirms that this is Jenny, returned to the scene of my crime. How astonishing that she should dare to return! I must confess that I am impressed by her courage. But those shoes — how can she wear them! They’re so symbolic of her willingness to sell herself. I would have destroyed them rather than wear them. Mind you, I would never have sold myself the way she did. It’s almost as though she’s wearing them as a badge of pride, which would make a kind of twisted sense, I suppose, if she could be sure not to meet me. Unless...

  She’s not alone tonight, I realise, watching her follow —

  ‘Oh, God!’ Cleo shouts in my ear over the deafening music. ‘It’s my brother and his girlfriend!’

  Yes, that makes sense. Lisa and David. I really don’t care about them. I thread my way through the press of bodies and step out in front of Jenny, so close, and so quickly, that my arms are about her, my right hand holding her head so that I can kiss her firmly, my left insinuating itself round and between her thighs to feel the thin layer of cotton that shields her lips. The last time I touched her there she was very wet.

  She pushes me away from her and glares at me, anger laced with fear.

  ‘Hi Jenny!’ I yell, and give her an impish wink.

  She doesn’t scream for help. She doesn’t even try to escape. A storm of emotions echoes in her eyes, her muscles vibrate with tension, and she stands poised to turn and flee, and I wait calmly to see how her crisis resolves. It’s clear to me now that my presence is not wholly unanticipated, that there is a message in her heels that only she and I can read. She chose to walk a cliff tonight, excited by the danger of falling into the crashing surf far below, while believing herself safe from consequence. I need to correct that. She should have run.

  Her eyes drop suddenly to examine my feet. I burst out laughing, and she flushes with shame. I grab her hand and pull her after me. Perched as she is on those impractical Lorenzis, she is forced to follow, but her resistance is token at best. The fear in her eyes is still there, but the anger has dissipated, replaced by curiosity, and hunger. Passing by the table where Cleo sits, her eyes puzzled and suspicious, I beckon her to follow us, and the three of us wind our way around the dance floor and along the corridor to the Ladies’.

  We’re not alone, but at least we can talk normally. Ignoring the three girls chattering at the mirror, I press Jenny’s hand to the crotch of my jeans, then capture her free hand and hold it to my breasts. She struggles against my grip, until she realises I’m actually enjoying the movement. She relaxes, scowling at me.

  Cleo is frowning at me. ‘You remember Jenny,’ I say to her.

  It takes her a few seconds, but then her eyes go wide with surprise and delight, and her face turns predatory as she studies the trapped girl. Startled by this new threat, Jenny whimpers and starts struggling more earnestly. I release her hands before she starts to panic, and instead hold her neck so that I can whisper in her ear. ‘Burberry. Woven leather. Yours if you satisfy my girlfriend the way you satisfied me.’

  I step back so that I can see her eyes, and because I want this to be a free decision, but I realise suddenly that this is exactly what Jenny wants. I’m playing into some fantasy she has, and that’s why she’s here tonight, dressed the way she is.

  ‘I’m not giving you my sandals,’ she tells me, as if she thinks she’s in control here.

  ‘You can keep them,’ I concede graciously. ‘Tell me, Jenny. How many times have you made yourself come, fantasising about your mouth on my pussy?’ Her only answer is a bright red flush of embarrassment. I push her backwards into a cubicle. ‘All yours,’ I tell Cleo, who grins and follows swiftly after Jenny, locking the door behind her.

  The three girls at the mirror are all staring at me. ‘Who wants to do me?’ I ask them sweetly, and within a minute they’ve packed up their make-up and fled, not daring to look at me again.

  Leaving Cleo and Jenny to their pleasure, I return to the dance floor and the table with our stuff, and try to relax. The last time I left a hungry Cleo alone, there was a bloodbath. It is with some relief, therefore, that I see them appear, a half-hour or so later, Cleo with her relaxed post-orgasmic glow, Jenny looking somehow both fulfilled and tense with need.

  I take my Burberry sandals off and dangle them just out of her reach. ‘Give me your knickers!’ I order. I feel like a highway robber, shouting that. Stand and deliver! Your knickers or your life!

  Cleo collapses into laughter. Jenny’s eyes are wide with shock. This isn’t part of her fantasy. Her desire for the shoes wars with what remains of her dignity. ‘Okay,’ she says at last, too quietly to be heard, and turns to go back to the Ladies’, I guess, to strip unseen.

  ‘No! Here!’ I yell at her, pointing to where she stands, and for the first time tonight I see real pain and horror in her expression.

  She shakes her head, refusing.

  I just shrug, and slip my feet back into the sandals. ‘Come on, honey,’ I shout to Cleo, holding out my hand to her. ‘Let’s go.’

  Cleo grins as we stand up, and we walk only two, three paces before Jenny screams ‘Okay!’ and starts wriggling furiously out of her knickers while trying to keep her privates concealed. It’s an absolutely delicious scene and attracts quite
an audience. Even David and Lisa, though I don’t think Jenny or Cleo have spotted them. I have a feeling she will never be embarrassed again in her life.

  We do a simultaneous exchange, sandals for knickers. I’m not surprised to discover they’re soaked, and I hold them to my nose to breathe in her scent. Cleo just laughs when I offer them to her, so I put them in my backpack and extract my new Tributes.

  ‘Can we take her back to the hotel to play with?’ Cleo shouts in my ear. I can tell from the slight dazzle in her eyes that it’s not entirely Jenny’s pleasure that she has in mind.

  I look at Jenny, who’s still not quite able to tear herself away from us, and suddenly I understand something of the puzzle that is Jenny. The shoes are just a pretext — a trophy, perhaps. Whatever the need is that binds Jenny to me, it won’t be satisfied, truly satisfied, until I have taken her to the end of her fantasy. It was the fear that we would leave without her, not lust for new shoes, that broke her final resistance. I could dismiss her now, send her away, but that would be far more cruel than anything else I would do to her.

  But perhaps I can satisfy both girls tonight. Standing, backpack strapped to my shoulders, I take hold of Jenny’s left hand. Cleo takes Jenny’s tiny handbag and her new shoes and puts them in my backpack, then takes hold of her right hand, and I lead them out into the night. Jenny’s eyes, whenever I glance back, are both fearful and triumphant. We keep hold of her hands for the whole of the long walk to the hotel, and with our free hands we lose no opportunity to caress, to pinch, to smack, to explore, to expose, to excite. Jenny is barely aware of where she is, lost in a world of ecstasy and humiliation.

  She’s already pretty exhausted by the time we reach the hotel. The receptionist, a young man, polite but bored, can’t keep his eyes off us as we cross the lobby to the lifts, Jenny leaning on me for support, Cleo none too subtly pausing for a moment to caress the girl’s hard nipples through the glittery fabric. As soon as the lift doors close, we strip Jenny of her dress, her bra having joined her knickers long ago; we ignore the security camera peeking down at us in the lift, and when the doors open again she follows us down the corridor, gorgeously naked except for the Lorenzi heels.

  Once inside the room, I have to restrain Cleo briefly until she can control the urge to jump ahead to the climax of the evening, to go, as the song says, Straight To... Number One. ‘Soon, honey,’ I whisper. ‘Very soon.’

  I push Jenny onto the bed and kneel between her legs to return the favour that she has given both of us now. Cleo sits in the chair for a few minutes, looking grumpy and irritated, before stripping off and joining us on the bed to resume her erotic torture. In the relative privacy of the hotel room, Jenny is at last able to yield fully to her orgasms. I wouldn’t be surprised if she has woken up our neighbours with her cries of pleasure.

  As soon as I sense that she’s reached the precipice of sleep, I kneel over her and wake her just enough that my eyes can place her in a trance. ‘I’m going to give you a little love bite now, just a little one, no one will see it,’ I tell her. ‘It won’t hurt. It will give you pleasure. Whenever you touch the mark you will remember the pleasure of my lips on your sex.’

  To Cleo I say quietly, ‘Get a towel and a roll of toilet paper.’ When she returns with these, I lay the towel under Jenny’s thigh, and cover the towel near the leg with several layers of paper. Cleo paces round the bed impatiently, eyes glittering hungrily.

  I bite carefully into the vein, until I can taste the rich, sacred fluid, and allow myself the luxury of a mouthful of that dark wine, before ceding my place to Cleo who dives down to slake her terrible thirst. I am unable to resist playing with Cleo’s breasts which hang so seductively as she kneels beside me, throat muscles working as she devours Jenny’s blood.

  I ease Cleo away when I judge she’s had enough. She complains a little, but then lies back on the bed, staring at the ceiling and laughing quietly, while I take my turn, lapping at the trickle of blood until the twin wounds seal themselves. After cleaning her skin, I tidy away the towel and paper and kneel beside her. ‘Thank you, Jenny. You’re a good girl.’ Caressing the bite mark with my finger tips, I say, ‘Don’t tell anyone about this love bite. Don’t let anyone see it. Let it be a secret reminder of the pleasure I have given you.’

  Feeling suddenly mischievous, I add, ‘Don’t wear knickers, Jenny, not unless you’re menstruating. They’re itchy and suffocating. And no tights either. They’re not hygienic. Wear stockings or hold-ups. They’re much sexier, and you will feel like a real woman, confident and powerful, when you wear them.’

  Finally, after leaving a trigger so that I can return her to the trance later if necessary, I let her sleep and cover her. Climbing over to be with Cleo, we kiss, and lick the bloodstains from each other’s lips, and make love tenderly before falling asleep with me sandwiched in the middle.

  Ghosts (Sunday)

  At half past three in the morning I’m wide awake, having been playing with my new laptop for the past hour or so, transferring songs and stuff from my external hard drive. Stephen Hough is playing Rachmaninov at high volume in my ears, a fantastic performance of a fantastic piece, and my fingers are dancing across an imaginary keyboard. Perhaps it’s the enthusiastic hammering of my fingers during the finale that wakes Jenny from her troubled slumber. Frail, pale, she struggles out of bed, and staggers through to the bathroom, hands against the wall for support. She’s still wearing the Lorenzis, naked otherwise, which makes this an even more difficult journey, but she manages to reach the toilet without stumbling.

  Reluctantly pausing the music, which is racing for the climax, I take off the headphones and phone Room Service to order tea, for three in case Cleo wakes up also. Jenny is very quiet in the bathroom, and after waiting patiently for a few minutes I check on her. She’s sitting on the loo, folded over, her long blonde hair falling in a tangled cascade about her bowed head. She looks like she’s fallen asleep, but after a moment, without looking up, she says, ‘I feel like shit.’

  ‘Come and sit with me. Have a cup of tea.’

  She nods, still not looking at me, and reaches down to untie the black satin ribbons and free her feet from the sandals.

  A knock at the door announces the arrival of tea, a sleepy maid with a tray stacked with pots and cups, which she places on the table next to the computer. She makes a point of not looking over at the bed where my sexy sweetheart’s secrets are all on display at the moment, but her attention is certainly arrested by the unexpected sight of Jenny in the bathroom. She blushes when she sees me watching her watch Jenny. ‘Men are overrated,’ I tell her, and she escapes the room quickly.

  Jenny emerges gingerly from the bathroom, shivering a little despite the room’s warmth. Her nipples are hard, and bruised, the flesh around them flushed red. I don’t think Cleo has done any permanent damage, but Jenny’s going to be feeling that for a long time. I wrap the unused duvet around her before letting her sit, then pour the tea.

  ‘You don’t like Cleo, do you?’

  ‘Is that her name?’

  ‘Yes. It’s okay, Jenny. You can be open with me. I promise not to take offence.’

  She studies me for a minute, then nods, but looks over at Cleo first to check she’s still asleep. ‘She scares me.’

  ‘And I don’t?’

  ‘Well, yes — but I’m more afraid of what I’ll let you make me do.’ Her voice is growing very faint. ‘I’m just a toy to her, something to use, and abuse.’ She sips her tea, meditating, eyes closed, and I’m content to watch her for a while.

  When she’s finished her tea, I ask, ‘What about me?’

  ‘I’ve spent the last two weeks hating you,’ she says eventually. I can hear echoes of that hatred now in the sudden tension in her voice, and in the ferocity of her smouldering gaze. ‘I’ve hated you for raping me. I’ve hated you for making me into a whore. I’ve hated myself for enjoying it. What kind of sick pervert enjoys that. I lie in bed at night, unable to sleep, thinking about y
ou. But you were wrong, you know. In my fantasies it’s you kneeling on the dirty floor forced to pleasure me.’ She falters, the passion giving way to fear.

  I take her hands in mine, and wait calmly for her to relax again. ‘You have a lot of courage, Jenny, and I admire that. I’d love for you to write down these fantasies. Who knows, maybe you’ll get a chance to act them out.’

  She smiles a little slyly at this. ‘It doesn’t mean anything if you consent to it. Anyway, that’s not what I want any more.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she whispers. ‘I went to the club on Friday to look for you. I wanted to confront you, to hurt you somehow, and yes, part of me wanted to do exactly what you did to me, or worse. You’re so bloody perfect. The idea of turning you into a cheap, filthy whore... well, you weren’t there, and I just felt stupid, and miserable, and at some point I realised I didn’t care about revenge, not really, I just wanted to see you again.’

  ‘Why?’

  She shrugs. ‘I’m still struggling to understand it myself. I’ve never felt this way about a woman before. There’s just something about you, like you’re royalty, or something. You seem so certain of yourself, so in command. I want to hate you, but I also want to be you.’

  ‘I see.’ I think for a minute. ‘I want you to give me the shoes back.’ She frowns in confusion. ‘And don’t just hand them to me, I want you to throw them at me, hard, yell at me, call me names, as horrible as you like, tell me that you’d rather walk home in bare feet than be my whore.’

  She stares at me for a while, not really believing what I’ve asked her to do, but then she starts trembling and suddenly her face contorts with fury. ‘Fine,’ she says. She looks around, and finding the Burberry heels in easy reach she grabs them and flings them at my face. ‘Take them, bitch.’ She goes in search of the Lorenzi heels, and throws them at me too. ‘Evil fucking bitch!’ she screams. Cleo wakes up in a panic, but I hold up my hand to keep her calm. Jenny is still raging. ‘Evil! Fucking! Bitch!’ For good measure she snatches up my Tributes and hurls them at me, and for once her aim is true.