Fiend, page 5
part #3 of Voice of Blood Series
The inky darkness of the hall led to a steep and narrow staircase that spiraled up to a first floor and continued on, spinning up into murky obscurity. The flutter and pipe of other doves floated through the air to my ears, but I could see none of the birds anywhere. Maria turned at the first landing and walked into a brighter hallway, nearly the twin of the one below it, but much shorter, and hung with gauze drapes, the air sweetened with bunches of roses suspended from strings on the moldings. Most of the roses were wilted, and many of them were reduced to dried brown tissue crisps. The edges of the carpet were piled high with fallen petals. “Ah, this is the floor with the balcony which I saw from the street,” I recalled, feeling that I should make conversation. “These must be handsome rooms.”
“Quite” was her only response. She opened the first door on the right.
How dark the room was, and yet how perfectly I could see.
She was not as lovely as Maria, but—oh! Can one compare the wind-torn clouds of the night sky with the sea?
Stretched out on a low couch thickly clustered with embroidered pillows, an extraordinary young woman, as long and slim as a willow twig, stroked her loose black waves of hair with one hand, while the other caressed her inner thigh, edging up the hem of her ivory lace gown. I had hardly ever seen so much bare female leg in my life, and my eyes all but started out of my head. Indeed, the only thighs I had ever beheld were my sister’s, and I immediately recalled the sound of Elena’s voice, huskily whispering against my ear—
“Mie lepri magre piccole . . .” I tasted once more that sweet pang of my first orgasm, pressed between Elena’s thighs.
“This is the Lady Georgina,” Maria said, her words seeming to emanate from the room itself. Vaguely, I perceived faint moans coming from my throat. “You are hers for the night. Obey her; she is nobility, and my very most prized possession.” I spun on my heel to look askance at Maria, but I caught only the tail of her smile as she disappeared, as silent as vapor, through the closing door.
Semen seeped into my borrowed trousers, but I was too transfixed even to feel embarrassment. My attention snapped back to the woman touching herself on the sofa.
“Don’t be afraid,” said the Lady Georgina. She drew herself into a sitting position, flinging her hair over one shoulder so that it flowed down her back. “Come and sit by me.”
I approached, as surely as if I were drawn on a leash. I thought to myself that Maria had taken leave of her senses; no one could possess such a creature, with such smoldering eyes, tender lips, and fierce, knowing expression. Georgina belonged only to herself. “I am called Orfeo,” I said.
“Yes,” she said, “Orfeo Giuseppe Vittorio Ricari.” Her pronunciation of my name was eroticized by her odd accent, though it brutalized the mellow Neapolitan vowels.
“How did you know that?” I sat beside her on the couch, sinking into her eyes, deeper and deeper, drowning in them. I struggled for one last moment to breathe the air, then let myself be overwhelmed.
“Don’t ask questions, Orfeo. We have so little time. Do as you most want to do. Let go. No one is looking, and I won’t mind.”
My exalted heart leaping with joy, I bent over her and laid my head on her bare inner thigh, tilting my nose toward her body and drinking in the air near her sex. I smelled only the essence of roses that perfumed the room. Too eager to be disappointed at being robbed of one of my favorite sensual experiences, I touched her flesh with my bare hand; her skin felt champagne-effervescent, vibrating on the same frequency as the air in the room, cool, and softer than velvet. Her eyes and lips glistened in the firelight, and I sat up to take a closer, deeper look, cupping her long, slender neck with my hand. “I do speak Greek,” I said. In French, literally, I have the Greek tongue. I found myself blushing, even as her smile widened with delight.
She laughed, a real laugh, in opposition to Maria’s tightly restrained amusement. “You shall speak Polish by daybreak,” she declared, moving my hand to her breast, and kissed me, devouringly, on the mouth. I pulled her into my lap, opened her legs across my loins, and tore open my damp trousers. She laughed again, coquettishly this time; she wore nothing under the dress but her God-given ruff of black lace-fleece. She was ready, wet and yielding, as though she’d been waiting all day. More swiftly than I thought possible, we were joined, and moving in a perfectly coordinated series of waves, like a matched pair of horses on a carousel. I had never been inside a woman—inside anyone—before; it was everything that I had imagined, everything that I had desired, and more.
I had almost forgotten what is entailed in making love—not just making love to a woman, but making love at all. I realized, my face buried in Georgina’s breasts while she arched her body over mine, purring and cooing wordlessly, that I had never made love with Lorenzo; that he only took advantage of my childish attachment to him, and satisfied himself without a thought to my own pleasure. He lured me, held me down, and took me, and my ecstasy was purely incidental to him. If I was transported with joy, so much the better to keep me affixed to his side, a happy slave.
With Georgina, bucking my hips from the couch to lend emphasis to her thrusting, I felt every longing satisfied, every hour of erotically charged solitude fulfilled, every sting of guilt from every stolen orgasm cleansed from me like a stain from a bedsheet. For the second time since I had crossed the threshold of this house, I wept tears of bliss.
When we paused, Georgina, her temples damp from exertion, traced the contour of my ear with her wickedly long, polished fingernail. Her eyes examined my face. “You will be no one’s slave here,” she said to me.
“And yet my life was purchased,” I replied. “Am I not to be your servant? I would gladly be your servant. I would gladly be the Lady Maria’s servant as well. I will do anything you ask.”
The corner of her mouth quirked. “Yes? Well, lie still.”
She pressed her lips against the side of my neck, and I felt a minute pinch as her teeth nipped me. I stroked the bones of her spine with my fingertips for a moment before I lost all will and ability to move, unable to do more than emit a deep sigh. I hovered at the edge of orgasm, though my sex was spent; this orgasm swept my entire body, from the follicles of my hair to the innermost organs of my belly, my bones wrapped in a lattice of shimmering gold filament. I must have cried out; I could not have contained myself, but this is one thing that I do not remember. I heard nothing but the sweet low throbbing of blood against my eardrums.
“What have you done,” I whispered, my voice too slight to make a question.
“I saved you,” she said. She kissed me, pushing the taste of my own blood into my mouth. How delicious it was, ripe with cognac and the mild, milky taste of her genitals! “You will never again be alone, my sweet boy,” she whispered with a kiss.
Of course, I believed her. And she spoke truth indeed. But I did not yet know the face of the murderous desire that would become my constant companion, did not feel the velvet noose that would strangle me, nor hear the lover’s whisper of the guillotine that would sever me from my soul.
And the darkness consumed me.
I did not leave that night, or the next, or the next. I did not even leave Georgina’s bedchamber for that time. It seemed to me that Georgina never left, either, but that each time I fell asleep, she would be there next to me when I awoke, wearing a different dressing gown, or holding a cup of jellied ox-broth or wine, tickling me with stray feathers we had pounded out of the pillows.
I accepted instantly the fact that this supernatural being could read my mind, and that I could communicate to her without speaking. She was an angel, or a succubus; I cared not which. We still spoke aloud, though, both of us enchanted with the sounds of our own voices and those of each other. I accepted the fact that I translated nothing, and performed no more gainful action than giving in to my most lustful desires. I did ask her, though, about her teeth.
“Why have you got fangs, like a tiger?”
“The better to seize you with, my tasty little rabbit. The better to devour you with!”
This is how she was.
“You bleed me too much; I have no strength left,” I complained.
She massaged my penis, which, despite its previous exertions, eagerly swelled back to life. I could not suppress a groan. “At least this has strength,” she mused, flipping her hair across my thighs. “You may rest; I will do the work. And there is much work to be done.”
We poured truth into one another, by osmosis, through the skin, through my blood, through her honey, my seed passing into her body and spreading back to me.
She was Jadzia Vilma Kopernik. Maria did not like the Polish name—to the Frenchwoman, it lacked femininity—so she became Georgina. She was, or had been, and thus remained, twenty-two years old. She came from Cracow, where her father was a professor of mathematics. She was not royalty, despite what Maria would gladly claim; she was just a teacher’s daughter, unmarried, and had come to Paris, to the Sorbonne, ten years ago, to find a suitable husband. She had found Maria instead.
She was no longer human; indeed, she was closer to the angel or demon I imagined, and yet neither of these.
“Now I live on blood. Maria and I. She made me. I gave my life to her. And I would do it all again in a heartbeat. She transformed me, molding my human flesh as though it were raw clay. And indeed it was as dull as clay, compared to the light that animates me now! The blood gives me life; it gives me power beyond your capacity to imagine. It brought you to me. I wanted you, and you appeared. Our kind is sometimes known as wampir. I think that is a dreadful name for something so beautiful.”
This fact did not alarm me in the slightest. I had heard the legends of damned creatures who rose from the dead and stole children to drink their blood, but she bore no resemblance to the image of the pasty half-skeletons of my imaginations, their shredded winding cloths dripping with mud and their eyes full of lightning and damnation. Georgina was a living, breathing, lusty girl; if she bit me and sucked at the blood, it only served to send me into the greatest of ecstasies.
Georgina’s kisses were more intoxicating than the strongest liquor, and her only apparent savagery lay in her ravenous sexual appetite and her steadfast refusal to be too serious. If I was not exhausted from lovemaking, my sides ached from laughter.
I was more at ease than I had ever been. We made love as though we were created for each other, comfortably and joyously, giggling like mad children, or curling up to rest like puppies in a basket. I did not tell her about my past, about Lorenzo; she already knew all she needed to know, gently caressing my bottom with the side of her hand, tutting softly to herself. “He was cruel to you,” she murmured. “Your sweet mouth deserves a gentler lover; but perhaps that is not what you want?”
“What I want is more of you. Always—more of you, my lovely.”
The entry points to my bloodstream made by her teeth were deliciously sensitive but gave me no pain. “Now you know how it feels for me,” she said. By morning of the third day, I was covered in pockmarks of love, set in rosettes of bruising. I offered all to her— prick, neck, thighs, wrists—and she would accept, enclosing me with her mouth and lapping gently at the welling dots of blood raised by the keen points of her teeth.
Each bite washed my memories away. I remembered my previous life only dimly, like recalling a fable read in childhood; I would not clearly recall it again for a hundred years. Good-bye, Mamma, Father, Mira, Veni; good-bye, Anna and Elena, good-bye to the slaughterhouse and the olive press. Good-bye to the vicious Alps and the cold, rushing Volturno. I had made it to Paris and the arms of a beautiful woman. I did not know that I was being made to forget; or perhaps I did understand, secretly. The memories were too painful. They still are, though I have been given the Final Rites and laid in my grave.
“You are so beautiful,” she told me. “You have such sadness in your eyes—and yet such defiance.”
“I am Orfeo Ricari,” I maintained, though it came out slurred through numb lips. I had not recovered absolutely from the lung fever, and I had been worn out with the kind of sexual congress usually reserved for gods. “That can’t be taken from me, or beaten out of me, or starved out of me. I am Orfeo Ricari.”
“What are you going to do about him?”
I opened my eyes reluctantly and beheld Maria standing over the couch, her round, firm body encased in a pale gray dress with a bodice embroidered in blue thread, and her hair undressed. She was so stunning that I did not realize for some time that her expression was very displeased. She held a speckled dove—perhaps the same one, perhaps not—against her thigh, in a pocket made of her gathered skirts.
Georgina, naked beside me, frowned impatiently. “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. Are you finished with him? You’ve had plenty of time to amuse yourself,” Maria claimed starkly.
I tried, in vain, to clear my head. The light that emanated from Maria blinded me.
Georgina stood up. “What of it? Can you not leave us alone for a moment more?”
She towered over Maria by at least six inches, probably more. The contrast could hardly have been more stark; my eyes roved wonderingly between the wild-haired, naked Amazon and the modest, elegant lady. “Not for a moment more” was Maria’s crisp reply. Then her eyes bore down on me, and my mind cleared very suddenly, but very specifically. I could not look away, and I could not generate any thoughts besides those necessary to answer her. I lay paralyzed, vulnerable, and half naked among the pillows. “Do you know where you have come?” she demanded. “Do you understand what we are?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Do you understand that this woman is mine, and that you are a stranger here?”
“Yes.”
“Do you understand that you are in grave danger?”
All my muscles tensed, gathering to spring into action. And yet I did not feel any fear, only intense fascination. I felt that I could gaze at the still, porcelain curves of her face forever, that she could eviscerate me, slap me, imprison me, and that I could nourish myself for eternity on the memory of her face.
“Leave now, boy,” said Maria.
At once the paralysis ended, and I jerked violently as sensation returned to my limbs. I tumbled off the couch and picked myself up from the floor. “Yes, madame,” I said.
“Stay,” said Georgina, her eyes still on Maria.
I sat back on the edge of the couch and ran my fingers through my hair. I felt very sick suddenly, and I wondered if I had genuinely lost too much blood, and I wanted nothing more than to crawl back into Georgina’s arms.
The two women stared at each other, neither moving a muscle, while I crouched on the edge of the couch, clutching my churning belly and shutting my eyes against a kaleidoscope of broken images and dark blots of unconsciousness. I was able to gasp out, “Stop it . . . please . . . whatever you are doing . . .”
Their concentration broke, and they both stared at me. Relief came so abruptly, it almost brought on nausea by itself, and, with effort, I raised my head. “I know,” I said. “I know about both of you. I know of your love for one another, and I do not wish to change or disrupt that. Now, I do not know everything, but I do not really need to know everything. You must understand—my life as I knew it is over.” I looked from one to the other, watching their expressions soften. “I wish to stay. I gave my word; I will do as I am asked. And yet I am no one’s possession. I belong only to the Heavenly Father, and it is to Him that I answer. I am not afraid. Show me a new life, or put me to death, whatever you ask. A life in your service is not something I fear. It is better than living as a vagabond—as a piece of drifting trash.”
Maria and Georgina looked at each other, then Georgina looked away and closed her eyes. A concession. Then Maria brought out the dove from within her skirts, murmuring while she stared at it, “Your French has certainly improved, young monsieur. The Lady Georgina is a fine instructor.” Her white fingers sunk deeply into the speckled feathers, and I heard the sounds of hollow little bones crunching.
She brought the hapless creature to her mouth and bit into its breast, piercing it. Her fangs were longer and more pointed than Georgina’s, glistening in the faint light from the candle. Blood ran out of the struggling bird and over her chin, but not very much blood. Most of it was absorbed into her sucking, savage mouth.
Georgina put her arm around my shoulders, took my hand, and held me tightly, and her warm touch dissipated my shudderings of horror and shock.
“Is it indeed nothing to fear?” Maria asked, dove’s down mixed with gore befouling her chin and her breast.
But I had seen the slaughter of the most helpless and adorable of lambs for the succulence in their hindquarters; this was not so bad in comparison, though unseemly for such a beautiful woman in such a delicate gown. “It is no more than I have witnessed,” I said.
“We love him, Maria,” said Georgina earnestly. “We must retain him.” She kissed our joined hands.
Maria gave me a good look then, seemed to come to a decision, and relaxed. She dropped the dead dove on the floor, and her face assumed a thoughtful expression as she wiped blood from the corner of her mouth with her pinky finger. “You are welcome to stay,” she acquiesced, “under the terms of our original agreement.”
“I will do so gladly,” I said, lifting my chin. “My French has indeed improved remarkably in the last few days, and I shall be happy to perform any and all secretarial duties.”
Georgina kissed the side of my face. “Isn’t he the very sweetest boy?” she said.
Maria’s eyes, immaculately sharp razors, cut me, painlessly and swiftly. Only later came the sting. “He needs a bath,” she replied. “And you need to get dressed.”
Maria presented the house while the housemaid, Liliane, drew a bath. Georgina followed at a slight distance behind, singing softly to herself and occasionally giving a happy skip, kicking out the full skirt of her unfastened dress. I felt entirely at my ease, despite the discomfort of the borrowed clothes ravaging skin that had not, for days, touched anything coarser than velvet, or silken flesh.
