Macho Sluts, page 35
A grin matched the skull on Kerry’s cap. “Ah, but people do run from me, screaming.”
“When you are partially unveiled, yes. During the epiphany, then they scream and escape if they can.”
“But you have not screamed. Or tried to run. You came after me, Iduna.”
Her own name spoken in Kerry’s cold voice made her shiver. “Perhaps it’s because, despite all my circumstantial evidence, I’m still not sure just who or what you are. And there is only one way for me to be sure, isn’t there?” She put her hands to her bodice and touched the ruby skull. “This dress has a built-in corset, a very old-fashioned one, of a seventeenth-century pattern,” she said. “The jacket covers the laces so most people don’t notice. It has a busk in the front. That was the earliest form of stay, you know. Only my busk is rather special.” From between her breasts she pulled a very slim blade. The grinning jewel was its pommel.
Before it was fully exposed, Kerry had a knife in her hand, poised for use. Iduna ignored this, put the thin steel between her teeth, and removed her black jacket. The long sleeves were quite tight, and she had to turn the damn thing inside out to get it off.
“Have you ever noticed my veins? Probably not. You haven’t been watching me the way I’ve been watching you, and anyway, I don’t expose a lot of skin in the clubs. I like to show cleavage and nothing else, not even my forearms or my calves.” Kerry was staring at her décolletage. Iduna knew that her breasts were very prominent and was always amused by men and women who were so attracted to them that they talked to her tits rather than to her face. It was appropriate, in a way, because breasts were symbolic of nurturing. ‘But the nourishment I provide,’ she thought, ‘is not milk, but a different humor.’
She continued her pedantic, distracting speech. “My skin is very pale, almost transparent. It looks fragile, but I heal very quickly. My veins are close to the surface, easy to get to. See how thick and blue they are? I never have any trouble giving blood. The needle just pops right in, and out it spurts. Easy as sin.”
She was picking at her wrist with the point of the blade, then caressing the inside of her elbow. “All it would take is a little more pressure, and we’d have a fountain here. A scarlet fountain, pouring onto the dirty ground, completely wasted, unless … unless someone had a use for it. Unless someone caught it in their mouth before it hit the ground. Caught it and drank it, took life from it, rolled it around their tongue and palate and described the vintage to me, swallowed and swallowed as if they would never get enough. Look, my pulse is beating right here.”
The arm was held out steady, not shaking. A glinting edge pressed against old scars along the vein, hard enough to make an indentation but not to break the skin. The sight made Kerry’s leather-clad hips jerk, just once, but Iduna saw it and was immediately excited. How interesting, to see a reflexive response there, in the crotch, instead of just the jaws and hands. What possibilities it opened up … but the words the leatherwoman spoke next shattered her erotic fantasies.
“You will bleed to death if you cut yourself there, that way,” said she. It might have been a report on the temperature and time of day.
“Don’t you want it? Need it? Wouldn’t you like to smell it, falling through the air? The wind is behind me. It would bring the scent to you at once, fresh and abundant.”
The other shook her head. “No.”
“No?”
“No. Why are you surprised? Even if this mad story you’ve concocted is true, you yourself said I’ve already gone without it for months.”
Iduna made the mistake of arguing. “Then the need must be intense right now. You must be hungry. I don’t think you’ll die without blood, but it must make you feel a little sick to be deprived. A little less powerful than usual, a little less energetic. Distracted. Frustrated. Off.”
Iduna had never had someone pay so much attention to her with such a look of utter indifference on their face. She had not anticipated this much resistance. This was even more difficult than locating her quarry in the first place. Clearly, the offer of her wrist was not enough. Perhaps scars annoyed them. She thought they had a heat-seeking sense, like rattlesnakes. She imagined that scars would be like cold streaks in the hot aura that radiated through the skin, making the marked person less appealing than someone with a smooth body. Perhaps this one was just fastidious about unzipping an old scar, thought of it as drinking from a glass someone else had already used.
She probed again, looking for the weak spot, the turning point, the breaking point. “Do you prefer men, is that it? Is it because women are weaker, smaller, and too quickly drained? But then, I’ve never heard of you leaving anyone bloodless and dead. So why should it matter? I know most of you don’t need as much blood as the stories say you do. Too many of those legends are about stupid and greedy ones, the ones so unrelentingly selfish they got caught. Or the ones who unfortunately can’t live on anything other than human blood. Why are you denying yourself this much pleasure?” She dared to allow compassion to creep into her voice. “You must have had to develop an enormous amount of self-control and get awfully good at living in a constant state of deprivation. Is that why you stopped going after James, to prove that you could do without it if you had to? But it’s not necessary now. I want you to have me.”
The stony face of the other said, “Don’t try to cozen me. In a thousand years, you could never understand what I am, where I have been, what living has done to me.”
Iduna despaired. Her head drooped, and Kerry almost felt sorry for her. Then inspiration struck. “Or could it be that you would rather drink your life from a woman, hold her in your arms, slit her throat with your teeth, then eagerly gulp down what wells up around your mouth—yet you refuse to let yourself have me because you would enjoy it too much and then want it and need it again? Are you afraid you would lose control if you got what you really want?”
There was no change in the other’s fighting stance and icy expression. The air between them simply became busier, hummed like a high-voltage wire, stank of ozone, seemed to turn an even darker shade of midnight blue.
Now or never. It was the moment that would decide the outcome of the hunt. Iduna stared into Kerry’s eyes, covered with the reflecting aviators, and used the tiny portrait in them to guide her hand while she made two slashes at the place where her breasts came together, a little ‘v’ that fit into her cleavage. The blood immediately started to rill, and she cupped her hands under her breasts to help her corset push them close enough together to gather it and keep it in a pool.
She knew that she was as beautiful then as she ever would be— her head tossed back, her mass of curly, blonde hair being rearranged by a breeze, her white throat, shoulders, and breasts exposed, and the red color of the thread of blood just barely distinguishable from the ebony of her dress in the darkness.
She thought for a moment that her adversary had disappeared, because she suddenly was not where she had been. But then muscular hands dug into her back, claws bent and held her. There was a tongue lapping between her breasts, but what was there was quickly consumed, and there were sharp teeth biting, and warm, soft, strong lips pressing around them, sucking. The pain disappeared as soon as her blood mingled with the fluids in the other’s mouth. Of course there’s no pain while they’re feeding, she thought sleepily. It’s their adaptive trait, evolutionarily speaking … The hands moved to her breasts and began to knead them, like nursing kittens, and she writhed from the sudden pleasure it brought her. Apparently she moved too much, because one of the hands left her breast and took her by the hair. Steel fingers kept her bent back in a perfect bow, the bleeding part of her uppermost, taut, an available feast.
She could smell her own blood. It was sickening and yet very satisfying, familiar, comforting. The scent of fresh blood was nicer than menstrual fluid, though it was always pleasant to bleed. The body over her moved convulsively, paying heed only to what it was drawing in from her, taking care only that she would not escape until she had given satisfaction, satiation, quieted all hunger. She was painfully aware of her heart beating in her left bosom, and realized that was the breast that the brutal hand kept milking and bruising, as if to keep the heart pumping, as if to squeeze its contents directly into the waiting mouth full of razors.
Iduna slipped on the gravel, and immediately the hand left her breast and a strong arm was wedged between her legs, the hand clasping the small of the back, holding her the way a mother holds an infant. She realized by the mushy feel of her panties against Kerry’s leather sleeve that she was wet down there, as wet as the mouth that fed on her. Her assailant realized it too, because she ripped at her panties, literally clawed them to pieces, and then she was being crammed full, opened terribly, spread far too wide, almost lifted off her feet by the force of the fucking, and it hurt so much for so long that she came, came even as the canines sank another notch into her cuts and drank fresh blood from the deepened wound. Which penetration made her come? She did not know.
Then she was being picked up, cradled. Adults are usually not lucky enough to re-experience this infantile pleasure. Even she had not guessed just how strong Kerry really was. A face was close to hers, familiar for its wolfish features, unfamiliar for its look of peace. The teeth in that smile were stained, and the tongue was cupped. The mouth came toward hers, and she opened her mouth, and the tongue slid into her and fed her a mouthful of her own blood. They kissed around it, neither one swallowing, keeping the blood between them to taste, play with, and savor for as long as possible, until their mouths were so full of saliva they had to swallow or let it run down their chins. Then Kerry bent down and took more, and offered it to her again, and this time Iduna leaped for it, bit at it, then worried the mouth that spit blood into hers. Now there were words being spoken in between the kisses, words that said, “Be careful. Are you really sure you want some of my blood?”
Iduna almost wept with gladness. So there was love here, or at least need—a need to keep her available for another feeding. It is only when they become indifferent or vengeful that the undead make their victims like themselves, immortal predators and thus useless and untouchable. When passion returned, she was careful not to bite the other’s lips or tongue.
“Take me with you,” she whispered, and her bearer did not ask her where or when, just carried her away in a rush of black and silent wind. Oh, how she had missed being transported this way, effortlessly, in the grip of something far more powerful than herself, so powerful that is was pointless to worry about the destination or what would happen once they arrived there. The venom that had prevented her blood from clotting and closing the wound sang now in her veins, making her see colors behind her closed eyelids, making her warm inside and simultaneously relaxed and alert. No other drug could ever duplicate this ecstasy, this calm. She should know, she had had long enough to search for a substitute. Her thighs trembled, needing to be separated, and the arms around her tightened, hurt her and reassured her.
Her arms full, but under no strain, Kerry felt amazed, disgusted with herself, hopeful, but terribly afraid. She had a low tolerance for ambiguity. It slowed her down too much, made her angry. She had not succumbed to temptation, and that was a dangerous weakness. She had not kept her secret, which must mean she had been careless. If one woman could ferret it out, someone else could. Furthermore, she had not slain her discoverer. This was surely stupidity. The code had been violated beyond repair. It was time for another change, another sleep, another decade, another name.
But this blood—whose? Her name was … Iduna—Iduna’s blood had been very good. She had never had it offered this way, seductively, with persistence and determination, or felt it being given up with joy. But should the pleasure of feeding be mutual? It made her uneasy, no matter how many times she had imagined it and craved it. Now, of course, she wanted it again, and how she resented that! Would there be more nourishment, more pleasure from this source? Or would the woman wake up sweating with the fear of death and the devil, sick of what she had done, and repudiate it and try to make her terror public? What did it mean, to be offered blood by a mortal who claimed to know what she was doing? Could anyone who was not like herself really know what it meant? Had any of her kind ever felt this way, asked themselves these questions? Perhaps it would be better to allow her own veins to be opened, briefly become prey, and turn this taking heifer in a hated peer. That image brought too much shame, hostility, and desire (yes, desire) to be tolerated for long. What had she done?
She wrapped Iduna’s cloak more snugly about her to shut out the cold, transparent fingers of the wind, hugged her newly opened vessel to her breast, then took her deeper into darkness. The Eyrie was still far away. The slut moaned, twisted, exposed her throat. She wanted it again. It was going to be difficult to avoid draining her completely before dawn. What had she done?
Safe, at home in the inhuman arms, Iduna dabbled her fingers in her still-oozing wound and thought, ‘After the long hunt, the desperate search, the years of doing without, being alone and bereft, with no wings to shelter me, no sharp teeth in any of the mouths that kissed me, I have you. You are no dream, no fantasy. Finally, my treasure, my pet, my lord, I will make you my beloved. Your strength, your magic, my death and your immortality—I have it all within my reach.’
This rare and beautiful creature did not know how happy she was going to make her, how much she would change her life. Iduna assumed she would never know how Kerry really felt about her, if only because she was so ignorant about her own emotions. The first one, the almost-forgotten one, so needy and yet powerful, had been that way, and Kerry seemed younger, less experienced than it. But Kerry would always need her because her blood was so sweet. Evolutionarily speaking, it was an adaptive trait. And she knew how to make it interesting to take. She had been well schooled.
How old are you, Iduna wondered, and how old am I? Will you ever bother to ask me the kind of questions I’ve been asking about your kind for these countless lonely, crazy years? Is my blood, precious as it is to me, enough to pay for the wonder and contentment I feel in your presence?
She twined one arm around her captor’s neck and reached with the other hand for the leather seam that accentuated, pulled up, and divided Kerry’s genitals. The curve was like a ripe peach pushed into her hand. It rubbed insistently against her palm. Kerry made the same noise she had made to warn the man in Purgatory to keep his distance, but Iduna only smiled. Abstinence is the mother of shameless lust.
“Sex doesn’t seem to be out of the question after all, does it?” the vampire said.
The Spoiler
He slept in a pile of dirty socks and soiled jockstraps, souvenirs of the men he adored, sometimes acquired without their permission. In winter, for warmth, he pulled a leather hide over this nest and its virile odors. When he woke up, he ran three miles. His spartan breakfast was part of a careful diet supplemented with a bewildering rainbow of vitamins and minerals. Every other afternoon, he lifted weights. His body was well defined and hard, which pleased him, but not because he was narcissistic. It was the value others placed on his physique that gave him pleasure. The rest of each day, Monday through Friday, he worked diligently at his chosen profession. It brought him a comfortable income but placed no demands on his heart—or his evenings and weekends.
It was the rest of his time that was important, the time when he could prowl and sniff for the men who made him hungry, carefully laying the plans that would allow him to pounce and feast. That was when he became the spoiler.
When he went out, he always wore the same set of leathers. These carefully tailored black skins had cost him several times more than some men pay for an entire wardrobe of tanned cowhide. He wore a very tight, short-sleeved, black-leather shirt that laced up the front. This supple, buttery-soft garment clung to him, moved with him as if it were his by birth. He was fair-skinned, but very hirsute, so the black fur on his barrel chest sprang up around the laces, and the thick, curly hair on his biceps and forearms made it hard to tell where the sleeves ended and his bare arm began. He wore pants (not chaps) that fit snug across the ass, but were not tight enough in the crotch to mimic a hard-on if he was not really erect. His belt was a plain strap of leather, innocent of studs, well oiled and as flexible as a whore’s tongue, with a massive silver (not chrome, not aluminum) buckle. No keys hung from his belt. He did not wear a cock ring or a wrist watch. He had no epaulets to hang a chain from since he did not own a leather jacket.
A cute clone in Adidas and a Daddy’s Boy T-shirt who saw him leaving the bar one night asked, trying to pick him up, “Did you forget your jacket?” “No. I don’t have a jacket.” Daddy’s Boy thought, ‘Thank God, he doesn’t take all this leather drag seriously, he’s not going to get me home and do something ungodly,’ and decided to cruise in earnest. “You should. You’d look hot in one.” The spoiler gave his admirer a puzzled frown. “But I don’t own a motorcycle,” he explained.
Men in full leather are usually conspicuous. But the spoiler’s appearance was so neat, his lines so clean, his bearing so modest that he often passed through crowds of the bourgeoisie without changing the topic of their conversation. In the self-consciously masculine bars and rotting piers he frequented, other men relied on flashy, cheap metal to signal their presence in the darkness, or a heavy tread that would make their keys and other accoutrements jangle. He, on the other hand, was rarely noticed unless he chose to be. Nearly every leatherman in the city had been elbow to elbow with him in some club or alley, but few recognized him on sight.
Of the elite handful who acknowledged him with a bare nod, the kind of minimal gesture that was harder to get from them than a knighthood, one man wore only cowboy fringes, conchos, and suede; one man wore no leather at all; and one was not a man. But each of these folks have legends of their own.
