I think again about my mom and the bakery and I start crying.
“What is it?” His voice isn’t quite cold, but it’s not warm either. I’m not sure if he cares at all. Probably not. It seems more an affectation of humanity that he’s learned in order to blend in and stalk prey better.
“This will destroy my mother. She’ll think I’m dead.” I look up, my eyes imploring him to comprehend a single human emotion just this once. “Don’t you understand? It’s not just me. You’re making others suffer, too.”
“Perhaps I should kill them, then? Far be it from me to let anybody be sad.”
I’m not going to respond to the bait. He wants me to lash out so he can do another lesson of here’s why I’m almighty and you are property.
The chemise has stayed on through all of this, my panties pulled aside for his convenience. It makes me feel dirtier than if I’d been naked. I hate him. I hate him with a depth that scares me almost as much as the emotions I felt only a few moments before in his arms. But hate and anger are normal in this situation. More comfortable. Hate I can deal with. The desire I felt with him... the pleasure I felt with him... I cannot.
He crosses to my closet where all my new clothes are now hanging. The space is immense and deep. Even though we bought a lot last night, the closet still looks empty. He paws through the clothing and tosses some black boots, black leather pants, and a red halter top at me. He’s dressing me up like a slutty superhero. But I don’t say anything. I just take the clothes and begin to put them on.
“No.”
I stop at his voice, rooted to the spot in a way that would have been comical if I were a cartoon character.
He points to the bathroom. “Shower first.”
This embarrasses me. I haven’t showered since getting here. That’s been over a day. I’ve been too scared to think about mundane things like hygiene, but it’s embarrassing because I know how good his sense of smell is. He must think I’m dirty.
As if he can still read my thoughts he says, “Don’t worry. You just smell like food and sex to me. You need to shower because where we’re going, you’ll need to be extra clean. It’ll be safer.”
What the hell does that mean? I don’t question him or say anything, feeling silence is safer than speech. I imagine at his age, too much talking is tiresome. I don’t want to do anything to flip his crazy trigger, and I need the privacy of my own thoughts right now anyway.
I scurry off to the bathroom. The shower head is one of those massaging shower heads that women often buy for reasons other than cleanliness. There are several scented bath gels to choose from. I pick a coconut and lime scent because it reminds me of the beach. I’m not sure I’m ever going to see the beach again.
I push back the tears because I don’t have time to break down over stupid shit. I need to prepare myself mentally. I need to think. I have no idea what he means about needing to be clean, but I take him very seriously and wash my hair and scrub all over with a loofah twice.
More than sad and scared, right now I’m disgusted. Why didn’t the idea of showering cross my mind before he ordered it? Sure, I’m scared, but isn’t the normal response to unwanted sexual contact, a strong desire to shower, to scrub yourself until you bleed to get the stain off your soul? Maybe I didn’t have that reaction because the contact wasn’t unwanted. This is the hardest thing to admit to myself because my consent didn’t matter to him. It’s just a coincidence—a blessing of fate—that my body wanted him in such a primal way.
I’m scared for my life and of the pain he will deliver. It’s not even a question of if he’ll deliver it. I’ve seen the way his eyes light with pleasure when he does something that hurts me. I’ve seen the way he sucks up my fear as if it’s an appetizer to my blood. I have no illusions that a decent man lurks inside, just waiting for true love and my goodness to activate him. This isn’t a fairy-tale.
But beyond my fear of pain and death, my body screams for his in every way possible. I crave him like he craves my blood. I want his hands and mouth on me. I want to feel that transcendent merging again. I worry that what I felt with him won’t happen the next time, that the feeling will be like sand slipping through my fingers.
This small mental admission has me scrubbing a third time, and this time I do penetrate skin. I let out a shriek at the way the loofah tears off a thin layer of flesh, causing everything to burn. I feel blood pooling. My senses are so acute right now. I’m still not convinced his blood won’t make me a vampire, trapping me in an inferior immortality on a far from perfect plane.
I don’t notice when Christian enters the room in his typical blurring fashion, so I jump when the shower door opens and the water shuts off.
“What the hell are you doing in here?”
“Showering. Like you asked.”
He surveys my raw and torn skin, then he pulls me close. I shudder in his arms as his tongue runs over me. I feel wounds closing, so it’s not only his blood that heals. Maybe his blood is just quicker or more effective. It seems all vampiric bodily fluids have the power to heal, which makes little sense to me. This sends my mind somewhere I don’t want to go as I mentally catalog all the common bodily fluids.
He pulls back and stares at me a long time. He looks blurry to me because my eyes are welling with unshed tears.
“Perhaps I was wrong about you. Maybe you aren’t as strong as I thought, not strong enough for me.”
If I thought that would make him release me instead of kill me, I’d try to manipulate him into freeing me. But I don’t believe that, and I’m beyond offended. Like he’s given me some gift by taking my life away from me and imprisoning me in this gothic Hallmark nightmare? I’m not worthy of him? Please. He’s the monster here. He doesn’t get to make that call.
From the look in his eyes, I’m relieved he can’t read my thoughts. I can’t imagine what he’d do to me just for thinking something like this. But I do think it, and I will continue to think it because it’s the only freedom I have—to continue to dictate how I think and what I think about without his interference.
Christian doesn’t say anything else, and I’ve wisely chosen to leave my rebuttals in my head. He leads me back into the bedroom.
“Get dressed.”
I’m fighting tears, as hurt as I am offended by his words.
“And stop crying.”
I wipe my face with the back of my hands, trying to obey him. A wave of despair washes over me, and for a moment my survival instinct and fear of death leaves me. I decide to use the window while it’s open.
“Please just kill me. You’re going to anyway at some point. You’re right, I’m not strong enough for you. It’s appalling you’d even say that, but what can I expect? You’re not even human.”
He flinches but quickly recovers. “Humans can be just as evil.”
I shrug. “I don’t want to have a species comparison on morality. I just want you to end it now, while I’ve still got the courage to ask.”
I’m still not dressed. I’m stupidly standing frozen and nude, waiting for his blood lust and lack of self-control to take over. If he can exist, then there must be an afterlife. With that certainty, what is there to fear? It has to be worse here than wherever I’d go instead. Either way, my old life is gone, and moving forward is the only feasible option.
He advances, his body language smooth and lethal. Despite my request, I find myself backing away, instincts to save myself reawakening. He wraps a hand around my throat, pressing me against the wall. The wall is textured, and I feel the old Victorian-style pattern imprinting on my back. He squeezes my throat, and I have to push back the urge to fight him or beg to be spared.
“Really, Juliette? You really want to go? Maybe you’re stronger than I thought. Once the fear of death is gone, you can know real freedom.”
I know he speaks the truth. Even if we weren’t in this situation, that would largely be an accurate statement. It bothers me something so depraved can speak so much truth. What’s his ang
le?
He releases my throat, and I take a few deep breaths.
“Maybe you are my match after all. I haven’t decided yet.” His eyes rake over my naked form, followed by trailing fingers that stroke and caress in all the places I shouldn’t want them to, but I do. I arch my back, pushing away from the wall and into his hands.
He chuckles. “The way you respond to me. You’re poetry in motion.”
I move toward him on my toes, my arms threading around his neck, my mouth seeking his. He allows me to kiss and explore, then pulls away, breaking the kiss he’s indulged me with. “Get dressed. Don’t make me ask twice.”
***
I sit quietly in the car. Christian drives. I don’t know what came over me back at the house. Why did I kiss him voluntarily like a lover? Like we had some sort of history. I guess, in a sense, we do have a history; he’s familiar in an odd sort of way.
He is the cornerstone of a defining life moment for me, and part of a secret I always kept from my family. I don’t know how or why no one saw signs of a break in. I was thirteen and too young to think in those terms after being so scared. He’s haunted my dreams almost every time I’ve closed my eyes. His mercy and the unexpected safety I found in him that night, and the fear... no... knowledge, that this wasn’t over have followed me everywhere. It has been the impossibly long shadow that has hovered over me.
Now that he’s here, he’s completed this cycle, this thing I was waiting for without knowing it. And so in some dark corner of my heart, everything is as it should be, and everything feels calm inside me again. Finally I can stop waiting for him to jump out of the shadows and snatch me away.
I recognize this as the primal shadow side of me I would never acknowledge before I was forced to. It’s not the part of me that loves my family and friends and has ambition and dreams. It’s the hedonistic and animal side that craves pleasure, even if the cost is pain and fear.
Christian’s hand drifts to my knee, the heavy weight of his palm the same as it was on my shoulder that night six years ago. That feeling was and still is so comforting in the most fucked-up way. Somehow it feels like everything in my life has led me to this moment, even before the first time I met him.
My emotions run hot and cold, from desire to terror, from the desperate need to survive at any cost to the urge to end it now before it gets too scary. I feel as if I’m in a dream; I could wake at any moment, which gives me the courage to go down the dark path and explore to find out what’s at the end.
This sense of unreality has attached itself to me at various points in my life, but right now it’s the strongest it’s ever been. I’m convinced this is all a dream, that I’ll wake up. It’s the thing that makes me spread my legs a little, inviting him in. Christian smirks, and his hand travels up my thigh. Even through the tight leather pants, I feel that spark, the way he makes me light up. I wonder if it was like this for every woman he’s taken. I wonder if Christian feels the spark, too, or if this power only flows one way.
“Undo your pants.” The command is deep and throaty, almost a snarl. I will never forget what he is, not if I live a thousand years. His eyes don’t glow and his fangs don’t come out, but I can feel the demonic energy pouring off him.
I fumble with the buttons, five of them in all. He smiles and slides his hand down the front, caressing my bare clit.
“Mmmmm did we forget panties?”
My face heats. Yes, I did. I know we just bought a ton of lingerie, but when he tossed the clothes at me, he didn’t toss undergarments, and I was too out of sorts to think that far ahead.
“I appreciate the gesture.”
A little moan slips past by lips as his fingers start to explore, pressing inside me. Then I’m arching up toward him, that strange feeling he creates in me far more potent now that we’re skin to skin. I will let him think I didn’t put on underwear strictly for his benefit. Anything to keep his favor.
The car rolls to a stop as I’m reaching my third orgasm.
I look up, a little dazed. We’re in the warehouse district in Tampa again. Every ounce of pleasure and relaxation leeches out of me, replaced by tension so acute I feel as if I’ll snap. He doesn’t need to be inside my mind to know I’m scared he’ll pick up another prostitute that he’ll force me to watch him fuck and kill.
Watching that again might break me. I’ll be jealous of the former and feel like an accomplice for the latter, something my human soul can’t handle.
We go back to the same building and he turns off the car. I think we’re going back to that store from last night. I’m not super keen on hanging out with Nadine again. I have the sense she’d eat me and then drop my body down an elevator shaft if she thought Christian wouldn’t be irritated by it.
But we walk past that door—in fact, past that building—to the building next to it. This building has the same horrible conditions inside and that patented ghost town feel. But there are too many cars nearby, and I know it’s not really deserted. We walk over threadbare carpet past scurrying mice to an elevator that I know only goes down.
Below, I hear the thundering pound of music as it pulses through my chest before the elevator doors open. The music envelops me like a primal scream as we step into manufactured fog. Christian ushers me through the dark, smokey environment. Electronica music pumps through me; it’s harsh and industrial and dead inside. Brightly colored laser lights in pink and blue zip back and forth across writhing, dancing bodies.
The dance floor isn’t crowded. There’s plenty of room to watch barely clad women grinding against each other, some with fang marks in their necks, leaving no doubt as to who they are and why they’re here. There are several dark corners and booths where human and vampire sit together engaged in feeding and fucking. It’s in this moment that my symbiotic relationship with Christian crystallizes. These vampires need these humans to fulfill their needs... sparing them from constant and tedious hunting and the inevitable pile-up of dead bodies. It allows them to settle in one place for a spell.
The human in return craves the bite and needs the healing powers their master’s blood offers. Nothing could be more entwined or deeply connected.
I’ve felt lonely in a crowded room before. I can explain that feeling even though not everyone understands, but I know I will never be alone with Christian. Our blood is co-mingled, linking us through dark magic.
Though these creatures are malicious, such deep connection with another being in a world of such disconnection and loneliness would be powerfully tempting even if I hadn’t been taken against my will. He could have seduced me had he chosen that route. It might have worked. All he would have had to do is tap into that deep well of loneliness, the one we fill with distraction.
Christian takes my hand and leads me to a booth out of the way. He orders us a couple of drinks. When they arrive, I look at him, questioning. I’m pretty sure this isn’t on my diet, unless he enjoys buzzed blood on occasion. He must because he nods at me and I down the tequila shot without even making a face.
“You’re quite a seasoned drinker for a virgin.”
I shrug. “I’m not a virgin anymore.”
He laughs. “That’s what you think.”
I look at him warily. We just had sex. I’m pretty sure I’m not a virgin. But then I remember he gave me blood when I didn’t think I needed it. Now I know why he was so insistent. I don’t want to believe that’s even possible—that his blood could take my body back to it’s pure and untouched state—but the look on his face tells me it is.
“Ah. Now she gets it.” He leans closer. “There is nothing better than licking virgin blood off a woman’s thighs. Do you think I’d only have that pleasure once if I had another option? Why do you think you never lost it before? I always made sure you got interrupted.”
It makes more sense now, why it seemed the universe was trying to keep me from losing my virginity. The moment things would start to get serious with a guy, we’d get interrupted or he’d lose interest in me and st
op returning my calls. I’d questioned over and over what was wrong with me. Why didn’t they want me? They’d appeared interested and attracted at first and then nothing.
Except it wasn’t the universe, just a vampire who wanted to keep me pure for his own personal use. I cringe as I think of the sharp burst of pain when he ripped through my hymen. I’d thought that was an isolated event I only needed to be brave and endure that one time. Not with Christian it isn’t.
Christian scans the room, on the alert for somebody. I squeeze myself into the back of the booth, trying to disappear. Already a few vampires, both male and female, have eyed me in a way that lets me know they want both my body and my blood.
One of the males who’s been watching, saunters over, not disguising his desire. He’s tall and Nordic-looking except for his dark hair. Odd combination. I feel sure it’s a dye job. “It’s been awhile since you’ve had a pet,”
Christian has gone stiff. I’m not sure whether this was who he was scanning the room for, but these two obviously know each other.
My master shrugs, trying to play it off like no big deal, but I know I didn’t imagine the change in his posture. “About seventy years, give or take.”
The other vampire slides into the booth next to me. He’s too close. He smells fantastic, and looks just as good, but something about him makes my skin crawl.
He nods toward his party of three other vampires, one other male and two females, all of whom have been burning holes into me with their retinas since we got here. “Will you be sharing her with us? You know we always love sampling your pets. You’ve got such good taste.”
Christian rolls his eyes. “They taste the way they do because of what I feed them. You’re just too lazy to properly care for your own blood dolls, or you could have the same quality in your food, instead of this fast food you subsist on.”
The other vampire leans closer, sniffing me. He lifts the hair off my shoulder to expose my neck. His gaze darts back to Christian, fast as a cobra strike. “You didn’t answer my question. Are you sharing her or not?”