Rising to darkness

by Lucia Guglielminetti

  "You want me to reply as a normal girl or as a prostitute?"

  "I can read minds, you can't lie to me. I always prefer the truth."

  "I don't like physical pain, okay? I am not one of those lunatics who get horny by being beaten or worse, like Alexis in the other room. It's a hard enough job even without that shit. So if you think you can't restrain yourself, I'm sorry but you'll have to choose another girl. It would be a shame, though, because I like you a lot, but this is my rule, my one and only. As for the rest, you can do whatever you want."

  "I think I can refrain without difficulty, I already had dinner. Moreover, I don't want to choose another girl. It is rare that I'm put so at my ease. I would even go further to say that it's the first time that it has happened to me."

  "Well, that’s what I'm here for..."

  She straddled me and asked me to unfasten her bodice. When her breasts were free, she took my hands and used them to massage them, arching her back.

  “Does it bother you? The cold, I mean." I asked.

  "I'm hot enough for the both of us!" she replied and she let herself be savored.

  I got to know Isabelle on a night Monique was sick, according to Madame Lescaut. I was about to leave, disappointed for not finding my favorite girl, but the maîtres insisted, assuring me I'd be just as satisfied. I doubted it, plus I didn't feel like recreating the initial stages of the meeting, so I went to her room rather hostile and upset. I changed my mind as soon as Isabelle made her entrance into the room. There was not the slightest resemblance between the two at all, not in their appearance nor in their mannerism. She was blond and ethereal as much as Monique was brunette and genuine. She did not hop. She glided. In addition, she wasn't short since without heels only a few inches separated us. She wore a light blue dress, same color of her eyes, and her skin was as diaphanous as mine.

  I was impressed in spite of myself but the desire to avoid all the initial subterfuge remained, so I took off my shades, told her what I was, even showing her my fangs to dispel any doubts, and asked her whether she had any problems with it.

  She smiled for the first time, her eyes twinkling. "You're Raistan, Monique's demon! She always talks about you to us, about how kind you are! I was looking forward to meeting you, you know?"

  To show me how much she was looking forward to our encounter, she took her clothes off at a rate almost supernatural. She would have been a wonderful vampire...

  On that night I felt myself... savored. Unlike Monique, who allowed me to lead the game, Isabelle exploited me for her pleasure as well as for mine, enjoying the new sensations from the intercourse with someone like me gave her. I found a welcome alternative, then, depending on my state of mind when I visited the House.

  The first night I went back to her, Monique didn't seem as enthused about my betrayal, but when I managed to persuade her that the differences between them were so large that it was impossible to make a comparison and have a preference, she reverted back as before.

  Occasionally, I brought them some little gifts which they accepted with joy, hiding them in their dress as the House rules forbade it. I presumed I was a special client and I knew no one'd have anything to complain about, at least not openly. Too risky, though, isn't it?

  I think they liked chatting too, especially Monique who was more open and expansive. Isabelle's dream was to find someone to fall in love with, have that person reciprocate her feelings and take her away from that kind of life. After some time, she insinuated that she'd have wished that that someone was me; but, instead of flattering me, it bothered me and made me want to avoid her company for a while. I knew I would hurt her, but I was there to forget my troubles, not to take up those of others. Yes, I know, you dirty fucking male chauvinist pig, exploiter, etc., etc. But can we go on now?

  The one thing I remembered is the fact that I learned French thanks to them. In the beginning, my pronunciation and my limited vocabulary were really awful, but after a few months, I started to improve, although it was not uncommon for Monique to burst out laughing at my Anglo-French-Dutch bundlers. They took the matter at hand very seriously and they never tired of giving me the names of the things I pointed out to them or that I drew so that I could understand. Another detail that came to mind were the portraits which they had posed for me. They were greatly flattered and very happy with the result. I gave them their most beautiful painting in exchange for the language lessons.

  After several months of this routine, I realized I was starting to get into trouble when I had to choose between them. I was no longer free to pursue my fleeting desires, but rather I was forced to have them take turns so as not to make either one jealous. So, on one of the following nights when I went to the House, I ignored them both and asked for the infamous Alexis whose strange inclinations had always intrigued me. Thunder and bolts of lightning darted from their eyes for this unbelievable insult. They both stood up and left the room where they gathered to be chosen by the customers, setting me on fire with their glare, slamming the door. With Alexis, it was... spicy. I'll just say that unlike the other two girls she had no issues about being bitten; in fact, she let me pierce her like a pincushion and taste her blood several times, allowing me to externalize my less human side. With Monique and Isabelle, holding back was a bit frustrating because my genuine persona was never satisfied. On the other hand, Alexis lacked that warmth and naturalness that I appreciated so much in the other two: her distorted personality which made her seek for pain in all its manifestations, both in giving and in receiving, never really captivated me.

  The two girls had no intention of letting me get away with my betrayal, which had carried on for several weeks, with no repercussions.

  When I finally showed up again and asked for Monique, Isabelle stepped forward and told me that I had to take them both or I'd have to get by with someone else, word for word. How could I have refused? The other girls giggled, knowing what was awaiting me; I followed them upstairs, intrigued and amused at the thought of the evening that was expecting me.

  What can I say, dear reader? It was like ending up under a steamroller! In the blink of an eye, I was stripped bare, pushed on the bed, and my hands and feet bound. What they wanted was to completely physically destroy me with all the weapons at their disposal. Every time I almost reached orgasm, thanks to their skills, the game would stop only just to start again with renewed vigor and imagination. I got to the point of begging them to end my torment. They even allowed me to bite them both and said that those marks would represent their bond to me and to no one else, even though they couldn't refuse meetings with other clients.

  "And you are ours, ours alone. Say it, or you won't come out alive from this room.”

  I would have said anything to put an end to my agony, but I had to wait until they were both satisfied, which took a while.

  After almost three hours and such a violent orgasm that made me scream, they set me free and left the room with a grin, giving me an appointment for the following week. There will be trouble if they got mad at me again because I would crawl out of that room if I had to, assuming I got out at all. I put my clothes on with unsteady legs and was grateful that I had my loyal Coal outside waiting for me as I was unable to walk home. Madame Lescaut greeted me warmly with an expression of someone who knew what was going on. The other girls didn't see me depart and I was grateful for it because that night my elegant vampire gallantries had taken a vacation.

  Several years had passed and just now, as I'm writing, I realize how important that aspect of my life had become to me, my peculiar way of interacting with the rest of the world. But, as it is often said, nothing lasts forever: in one winter evening in 1715, as I went to the House, I found Madame Lescaut and the girls in tears in the common room, all of them except for my Monique. In their confused thoughts emblazoned only one word: death. Isabelle came to me, taking refuge in my arms, her face red and streaked with tears.

  "What happened?" I asked, already knowing the answer, but still hoping f
or an alternative explanation and that Monique's absence in the room meant something else.

  "Monique is dead, Raistan. She has been killed..."

  I felt a cold fury rising from my chest, so much that I could barely speak.

  "Who was it? When?"

  "Last night. A client... a new one... She didn't want to go with him, she said he scared her, but Alexis was already taken and so he chose Monique..."

  "How could it have happened?! You were all here, there were security guards! How the fuck was it possible that no one noticed anything?"

  I was shouting without even realizing it, too shocked to worry about terrorizing the girls to death.

  "He bound and gagged her. Then, after he had his way with her, he beat and strangled her. We became aware of the situation only after he had already left, we couldn't stop him..."

  "Where is she? I want to see her."

  "We placed her in the adjoining room. Tomorrow will be her burial. Come, I'll take you."

  I followed Isabelle in the next room nestled in shadows; on the bed, wearing a simple dress and with her hair neatly combed, laid my little Monique. Her face was covered with bruises and abrasions as well as her throat, where you could clearly detect imprints of fingers. I let out a kind of muffled growl and took a fist to my mouth, unconsciously piercing it while Isabelle held my other hand and resumed to sob.

  "I'd like to be alone with her for a moment, dear," I said and she left the room without saying a word. I sat down on the bed beside Monique and caressed her face and her hair. Then, I bent over her and kissed her forehead like I was wishing her goodnight.

  “I'm going to find him, baby, even if it will be the last thing I’ll do. And when I find him, he'll regret having laid even just one finger on you. I’m sorry, my baby girl... I'd have bought you the shop, you know: just some signatures and your dream would have come true... I'm sorry baby, I am really sorry. Sleep well now, I promise someone will pay for your death." I kissed her once more on her swollen lips, warm to me, and I left the room, reaching her companions in the next room.

  "I need to know everything about this man, every single detail. Madame, you see everyone who comes in. What did he look like?"

  Madame Lescaut wiped her tears again with her handkerchief and replied in a nasal voice: "He was tall, almost like you, monsieur, very rugged, with a really dreadful scar on his face that ran through the top of one cheek top to the bottom; his hair was shaven and his eyes... those eyes, monsieur... They were yellow, yellow and sunken into his skull like two candles in a funeral headstone."

  Upon hearing that, a feral fury came upon me.

  I grabbed a chair and threw it across the room as if it was a twig. A lycan. Another damn lycan had dared to slaughter my little baby. And there was yet another aspect to consider...

  "What about you, Madame?” I uttered her title so that it sounded more like an insult, “You had thought it wise to send the kindest of your slaves with a guy like that, knowing that Monique hated violent encounters? And you didn't even think to place one of your henchmen in front of her door so he could make sure that there were no problems?"

  I dashed towards her at full speed, placing my face distorted by rage just a few inches from her, making her scream and move back.

  "Monsieur, I told you that Alexis was taken. Maybe she could have been able to keep him at bay... He chose her and she could not refuse..."

  "Of course. Due to the stupid rules that you have imposed!"

  "They are common rules in our profession, monsieur. We cannot afford to be conservative with our clients. We can have our preferences and I know Monique and Isabelle were very fond of you; but if another client asked for them first, they had to go with that client. So it has always been and will always be so. I am sorry, I loved Monique too. To me, they are like my daughters. Every single one of them."

  "Great mother, feeding her offspring to the first man that happens along for money..." I hissed.

  "It seemed to me that you were pleased with this type of arrangement, or was I wrong? I would like to remind you that we welcomed you in this House without focusing too much on … some of yours, shall we say, characteristics which would have been strongly opposed elsewhere, Monsieur Van Hoeck. You are furious, we all are, and you want to vent your anger on someone, but we are the wrong people. Why don't you try to find her murderer using your peculiar skills? You could probably prevent the same fate from happening to the other girls, don't you think?"

  "You should have prevented it from happening; I wasn't there."

  I left the room and headed for the exit, but Isabelle ran after me, grabbed my hand and stopped me: "Promise me that you will find him and make him pay, Raistan. Swear it on the love you had for Monique."

  I gave her a curt nod and vanished in the night, the desire for revenge as my only companion.

  Since that night, my only thought was to find the lycan who had killed my girl.

  I combed through all the brothels I knew, giving the description of the person I was looking for, listening to their answers as I probed their minds, and then going out again directed straight to the next one. For more than twenty days, I groped in the dark: it was as if that person had never existed. Then, when I was about to lose hope, a girl in a House in the opposite side of the city told me that she saw him several times in the hall, but she had never received him.

  "Are you sure?" I asked her, barely holding back my excitement.

  "Yes, I am. I remember that dreadful scar very well and his yellow eyes made me shudder."

  I thanked her and gave her a few francs. I don't know how much money I had already spent to get information here and there throughout my investigation. I didn't care, obviously. Using my standard method, I climbed on the roof of the house opposite the brothel and waited for the return of my man. No matter how long it would take, he was mine.

  As it often happened, the weather condition had decided not to favor me. For days, there was a downpour, making it difficult to see the road three stories below; then again, due to the bad weather, I could count on one hand the number of clients of the House and, unfortunately, they were always the wrong ones. If anyone had bothered to look up, he would have seen a ghostly figure with long hair, dripping water, with his eyes staring down, lying in wait for who knows what. Finally, the weather improved and with it the influx of clients too, rekindling my hopes. Eventually, as if by miracle, I saw him come in one night; certain that it was him as I am of myself. I noticed that he looked around warily at the entrance, as if he wanted to make sure no one had followed him; for a moment, he turned his eyes upwards too, forcing me to crouch down hastily to avoid being seen.

  I let twenty minutes pass, imagining his moves inside, then I descended rapidly down the roof and crossed the street, walking into the brothel. No time to lose. I went directly to the maîtres’ desk and asked her which room the client with the scar who had just entered had occupied. The woman, clearly terrified, squeaked the information and then ran to take refuge behind a door, locking it several times. I took my cloak off, let it drop on a chair, and climbed the stairs, reaching the top in seconds.

  The ambience was shabbier than the one I was used to. The flowered wallpaper was torn in several places, the runner was dirty and faded; everything spoke of an earlier era when luxury and wealth had dominated but now replaced by clutter and neglect.

  The room that interested me was the third from the top of the stairs. I approached it with no sound and placed my ear to the door to check what was going on inside, but I did not hear anything and this made me suspicious. Was it the wrong room? If I had found out that the maîtres lied to me, I would make her suffer too. My suspicions, nevertheless, were wiped away by the flash of a long silver blade penetrating through the wood. If it were not for my quick reflexes, I would have been pierced from side to side. Its tip, though, carved an incision on my left shoulder, burning like hell, but all things considering, it was nevertheless harmless. Soon after, the door exploded in a thousand
splinters in my direction, revealing the inside of the room.

  A terrified girl cringed in a corner and a dreadful being, half man and half wolf, towered before me, curved and snarling. We threw ourselves against each other, rolling around on the floor with our weapons drawn while clients and girls scurried out of the rooms like rats, fleeing downstairs screaming.

  I had rage and speed on my side, he had brute force and evilness on his, which allowed him to pick on a poor defenseless girl and reduce her that way. The fate of the battle remained in balance for some time: he tried to stab me with his sword, to scratch me with his free hand, and to bite me; and I did the same, but I felt his strength would endure over mine, as it often happens in these kinds of fights. There was even a time when, pressed under him with his fangs just inches from my throat, I feared that I would not come out alive from that room. We both lost our weapons, falling at the bottom of the bed where the terrified girl was still hiding behind. I was bleeding from a few scratches on my stomach, he from a wound on his neck where I had sank my teeth, but only superficially. Somehow, I managed to turn the tables. Now it was he who was underneath, fighting to keep my fangs away while I immobilized his hands on the ground to prevent him from scratching me.

  "What do you want from me, vampire?" he asked, panting. Hearing those monsters talk was horrible; it sounded like they were always mumbling, eating their words like their throat was full of mud. "Why have you been waiting for me?"

  "A few days ago, in the House on Rue de la Vallée, you killed a girl... my girl!"

  On his horrible muzzle, a grimace appeared which I interpreted as a smile: "Yes, the vampire’s whore. That's why I killed her... she wore the marks of your bites as if they were jewels... When I'm done with you, I'll do the same to the other one. Too bad I found out later..."