Blood Sacrifice (6 page)

Her lackadaisical attitude about life crumbles as her heartbeat picks up, thudding. A line of sweat forms at her hairline and her muscles flex, taut.

“We don’t need any light.” Her voice comes out, hoarse from fear, a croak. She thinks for a moment and then mumbles, unconvincingly, “The electricity’s out.”

“I think we do. And I’m paying. I call the shots.” He shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “I think you’re lying about the electricity being out.”

Elise tenses. “This is my place. I…” Before she has a chance to say anything further, he is moving toward the door, where the switch for the overhead light is.

“No!” Elise shrieks and runs toward him. “No.” She takes his arm and pulls it back. “I’ve got to have the darkness. Please.”

He reaches out, and Elise tries not to flinch at the coldness when he caresses her face, long fingernails sliding across her cheek like the tender touch of a switchblade applied lovingly. She continues to meet his gaze, supplicant and pleading. She doesn’t want him to see her art. It would be more of a violation than if he fucked her up the ass.

“All right. If it’s so important to you.”

When Terence reaches into his pocket, Elise expects a gun or knife, but all he has withdrawn is a small wooden pipe. It’s burled walnut and black, a skull carved into the bowl. It’s kind of beautiful, really, and, for just a moment, Elise forgets her trepidation, forgets what’s taking place here. The craftsmanship and the old wood, burnished to a dull glow, fascinate her artist’s eye. She then notices there’s a bud in its bowl. She breathes in, taking in the aroma of the resin.

It’s been years since she’s gotten high, partying days left behind long ago. College, art school, memories of another life. But the idea doesn’t seem so bad…perhaps the smoke will obscure the experience, cloud and befuddle her brain, allow her to get through this, anesthetized.

“Go ahead.” Terence hands her the pipe and silver lighter.

Elise fires up the bowl. In the flame, the hunger in Terence’s eyes is startling: more than lust, it encompasses and embodies him. Elise draws the smoke into her lungs quickly, holding it as she returns the pipe.

What has it been? Minutes? Hours? Elise has no idea. This isn’t the way it’s supposed to go. She is supposed to save all of her feelings for her art. These men are just a means to an end. She shouldn’t be feeling any kind of pleasure—or any emotion, really—with her tricks, they who are nothing more than commerce.

Yet her legs feel weighted, glued to the floor as the chill of his lips and tongue move up and down her thighs, exposing and caressing. Somehow, she has let go and buried her hands in his thick blond hair as he kneels before her, supplicant and instrument of a pleasure so intense Elise cannot consciously describe it. Her head lolls back and, for the first time, she hears herself sighing and whimpering. It’s almost as if she has stepped outside herself and these cries of pleasure—so intense—are coming from someone else.

His tongue moves up and inside her and for now, nothing else exists. Elise closes her eyes, panting as shudders and waves of pleasure claim intellect and body. She yearns for more, yearns for him to be inside her. She would pay
him
. Please, she thinks, please, now…

Suddenly, he withdraws, and she cries out, synapses tingling, craving, yearning. Mute, she watches as he undresses, the leather and chains falling to her filthy floor in a heap, clinking and thudding, becoming a burrowing animal in the shadows. His naked body reminds her of Michelangelo’s
David
, and it reinforces her knowledge of what the sculptor was expressing, something about the perfection of the human form, about rising above the physical and approaching the ethereal. Elise reaches out, fingertips tingling, wanting to cry out, “Come to me,” but unable to form words with her thick tongue.

And then he is moving across the room.

And then the room is flooded with yellow light.

Elise closes her eyes, something from underneath a rock exposed suddenly, cruelly. All her work. “No,” she whimpers. She is unable to move, unable to do anything more than just lie there, a vessel waiting to be filled. She hates herself. But her brain is clouded, the drug and desire twisting inside her, creatures that have taken on lives of their own, overpowering her.

Jealous. His lover’s gaze is no longer on her, but on her creations, boring into them, penetrating them instead of her.

She watches, mute and paralyzed, as he takes in her drawings and paintings, one by one, opening them with his eyes, seeing everything Elise has said in the last few years with her dark vision. She tries to get up, but slumps back down, wishing for once she could gather up all of her art and destroy it. She would trade it all for just a few moments in his arms, their bodies joined like one organism.

His cock is stiff, jerking as he absorbs the art. Elise crumples to the floor. What he has paid her is not enough. In the midst of her lust-filled delirium are the stirrings of rage and betrayal. No matter if she didn’t feel ready to share her art with the world, it was still
her
, her essence, maybe even her soul. How dare he?

“You’re a genius.” The words filter down as if played at slow speed, heard through a tunnel. What need has she for praise? Angrily, she watches him devour her art, stealing it. He touches the paper upon which she has drawn with reverence, touching himself with the other hand.

“You see. You really see,” he whispers, and turns to gaze down at her.

And then he is gone. Wind rushes in through the open door, lifting her drawings, the paper rattling in the breeze. And Elise lies alone, naked and betrayed on the floor, where a cockroach, sensing her heat, skitters across her thigh.

*

Terence blazes through the night, Harley roaring between his legs, wind whipping his hair behind him. His teeth are clenched as he tries to sort out the emotions caroming through him, crashing like cymbals. Is it rage he feels? He grips the throttle so tightly it’s as if his knuckles will burst through the skin. The world whizzing by is a blur, incomprehensible.

All he can see is Midnight’s art. He remembers leaning against her peeling, colorless walls, finishing the pipe, letting the THC do its work: sharpening his focus, bringing her art to life. What horrifying vision. Terence swears the art has let him see the woman’s soul, dark, her own, no way to possess it. The bleak drawings, black and gray, layers of shadows, speak of the void in which she lives: the animal lusts, the chains confining her, earthbound…her need for survival. The woman speaks with a knowledge he had thought no human possessed.

And the woman herself: reddish-brown hair, fright in her eyes as he stood above her, blood heat pulsing through her veins. He remembers it all, even in the lightless void of her apartment. The temptation to devour it then was nearly unbearable, filling every fiber of his being with need so intense it virtually erased his reality. By devouring it—literally—teeth gnashing, saliva making of the paper upon which she has drawn her visions nothing more than graying pulp, he might perhaps begin to touch what she can do in her humanity, with feelings that have long since become alien to him, to all three of them, to the entire race of beings he calls brothers and sisters. By ingesting her art, perhaps he could begin to feel what makes her human, in a way similar to the manner in which he feels things as blood from his victims pumps down his throat and fills his veins and brain with their memories and experiences, with core images of what makes them alive. The temptation was a fierce, burning desire.

But he stopped.

He could not destroy her, not the vision she had splattered or drawn with precise detail on paper, on canvas.

And yet the red aura surrounding her called to him with the voice of a siren. Calls still with a fire so intense it could destroy him. The flames are a peripheral orange blur, caught by dangling threads of consciousness. But if he took this woman’s lifeblood, he would take also her abilities to create things he could now only dream of fashioning himself. For once, Terence, purveyor of pleasure and pain, the greediest of his little three-pronged family, has shown some restraint, demonstrated respect for talent and sensitivity that would forever be beyond his reach.

But the hunger remains. And he is so lost in his thoughts that he almost misses its solution, almost loses out on a prime opportunity.

Terence stops the bike, looks back.

And there it is—the answer to his needs.

Smoke rises from a black metal trash can, its sides rusted. Back from it, in the entryway of a warehouse, silent this late at night, sleeps a man. Black. Nappy hair poking out of a coat wrapped around him like a cocoon. Terence feels the heat of his blood and the thudding of his heart. Music. He considers the coat wrapped around him so tightly for only a second: why so cold on this hot night?

Quietly, with stealth perfected through years of practice, Terence dismounts and moves the bike to a wall, hiding it in the shadows. He walks with purpose toward the sleeping man, a silent force, a whisper of black against black. Invisible.

He stands above the man, looking down. There’s no beauty here. No sexual rush. Yet, the throbbing of his life force is hypnotic and Terence wants to savor the moment, letting the desire and hunger build. It’s so much better that way: slow, steady, delayed gratification. Like the most perfect sex.

Terence knows he can bring a chill this slumbering man has never dreamed of. He descends, gliding, so quiet the man does not murmur or awaken. Gently, like a mother unwrapping her baby from its blankets, Terence opens the coat. The smell is putrid, body odor rising up, sweat and defecation. But underneath it, the sweet note of blood, warm, with a tang of copper, awaits. Terence squats down as the man’s eyelids flutter and for just a second, their gazes lock. He lifts the man like a lover, like the mother in a pieta, and lowers his head to his throat. The man cannot even struggle or scream as razor-sharp fangs pierce the dark flesh.

And then the blood is spurting in steady jets into Terence’s mouth. It is delirious. It is delicious.

And the man is emptied as quickly of his life force as he earlier had emptied a bottle of cheap fortified wine.

When he roars off on his Harley, there is nothing left of the homeless black man but a pile of ragged clothing, bones, hair, and pieces of flesh too tough for Terence to digest.

Chapter Four

1954

When Edward awakened, milky gray light streamed in through the open airshaft window. Borne on a cold breeze was the smell of the apartment below, something greasy and fried. Edward stirred and even the simple movement of turning away from the window set his head to pounding.

God, how much did I drink last night?
Edward put a hand to his forehead, where pain bloomed behind his eyes, expanding and insinuating itself into his entire face, making it feel like a throbbing messenger of hurt. He fell back against his pillow and closed his eyes; nausea began to roil in his stomach.

This was no ordinary hangover. He would get no painting done today. This was why, in states of despair and after nights like the previous one (
what had happened?
), he often promised himself he would stay away from The Tiger’s Eye and drink no more, or no more than, say, a glass of wine with dinner, when he could afford it. The cost was just too high; not only did it empty what little cash he had in his pockets (dollars that could be invested more wisely in luxuries like food and rent), but also it exacted a larger—and more painful—toll in time. And time was a resource he could never renew, like money. Poor as he was, there was always the chance to make more money. Somehow. But time, once spent, was gone for good.

He would pay for whatever happened the night before with this entire day. It bothered him that he couldn’t remember anything from last night.
How did I get home? What happened once I got here?
Edward wondered and tried to retrieve the memories, but it was as if they were never there, as if most of last night, after leaving The Tiger’s Eye, was a void. Blacking out was a line he had yet to cross and the thought of it made him even queasier. He didn’t want to become one of those drunken has-been painters, regaling others in a bar about what could have been to cadge a free drink before he even had his first gallery show.

Even though it felt like the almost palpable pain behind his eyes would push them out, Edward managed to get up on his hands and knees and crawl to the little sink in the corner of the room. He was glad, for once, that there wasn’t much in his stomach.

He turned the spigot on and lapped at the cold water like a dog, not bothering with glass or even cupped hands. The water helped calm the queasiness, and its chill was a balm to his aching head. Did he have what people in polite circles referred to as a “drinking problem”? Had he crossed a line from social drinker to alcoholic? Would he begin to lose weekends?

After drinking what seemed like gallons, Edward squatted and splashed water on his face, letting it dribble down his naked body. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, keeping his mind blank by concentrating on the cool water. He opened his eyes.

Looking down as the cold rivulets ran through matted chest hair, making their way south to a pitiful looking penis, shriveled and tiny, bereft of almost any blood (that was mostly in his brain, causing him the most delirious pain as a reminder to keep away from the booze), he noticed something wrong.

There were several small, vertical scabs on his inner thighs. Three or four on each. Precise lines, their slightly irregular appearance due only to the crustings of blood. They looked deliberate.

What had he done to himself?

Edward grabbed a bath towel from the floor and dried the cold water from his face and body. He didn’t need anything to make him feel more chilled than he already did. He trembled slightly.

These were cuts. Thin and almost elegant, they probably had to have been made with a razor.

What had he done? What had been done to him?

He looked around his apartment. The dull, midday light revealed a few spots of blood on the floor, a smear of it near the door: crimson fingerprints on the wall, turning black. His own blood.

He felt bile rising up and scampered on his ass backwards, collapsing on his damp mattress, rolling himself into the loose sheets and shivering. Did he really not remember what had happened?

Or did he just not want to?

He lay back, trying to breathe slowly, deeply, to quell the quaking that seemed to be veering close to seizure. There was a wall in his mind, one he had erected, and he was afraid to peer over it. Yet flashes assailed him.

Terence looking up at him from beneath Edward’s spread thighs, his face smeared with blood.

He is smiling
.

Edward turned and—as he did when he was a child and afraid of the monsters hiding in his bedroom closet—pulled the sheets over his head. But the sheets were not thick enough to keep out the memories, flooding in, quicker now that he had opened the gates.

“
It’s sharp enough that it won’t even hurt. You have nothing to be afraid of.” The glint of stainless steel, a straight razor. Glimmering, even in the dull light.

Edward turned over, face down in the pillow, and whimpered. “No, I don’t need to remember.”

And his superego responded: “Yes, you do, so that history won’t repeat itself.”

And his id chimed in: “Yes, you do, so that you can do it again. It was good. So good, remember?”

Edward swallowed; his tongue felt dry and rough, like a cat’s. But he didn’t think he had the energy just now for a cross-room trek to the sink for more water. He tried to summon saliva from somewhere deep inside, like someone in a desert digging deep for ground water.

He saw Terence again.

He was naked, and his body was perfect, which made Edward wonder once more if he was heading down the right path with the expressionism of his art; if he shouldn’t be perfecting realistic strokes so he could capture the beauty of what was before him. To capture beauty like what was in front of him, Edward had thought, would be real achievement. He could record and memorialize something outstanding.

“God, you’re gorgeous. How did you get so pretty?” He had reached out a hand to touch Terence’s flat stomach, to feel the cobblestones beneath. He imagined putting tongue to the white, silky flesh stretched taut over pectoral muscles.

But Terence had held up a warning hand. “You can’t touch.”

“Why not? Isn’t that what we came here for?” He was so hungry for this man, he felt near tears.

“We came here to get to know one another better. I like you. I like your work. But you must know: I’m not a queer.” The dark irises flashed. “At least not in the sense of the word you’re probably thinking of.” He snickered.

Edward had felt a momentary flash of shame. “But I don’t understand.”

“Can’t I want to be close to you without wanting to stick my cock inside you? Can’t I be your friend? Can’t we be intimate in other ways?” Terence brought his face close to Edward’s.

Edward was drunk, emboldened by spirits. “But I want to be close to you in all ways. And right now, I want to be close in the physical sense.” He remembered a voice that became pleading. “Listen, you don’t even have to do anything. Just lie back and let me suck you. You can close your eyes and pretend it’s a woman down there.” A nervous giggle had escaped him. “A mouth knows no gender.” He had hated himself for begging, for putting himself in the position of being the one who wanted and not at all being the one who was wanted.

“That’s not true.”

Had he spoken aloud? He didn’t think so.

“I want you very much.” Terence had turned, exposing the turgid flesh between his thighs; at the same time, exposing Edward’s thoughts. How had he known? “I just think there’s a better way for the two of us to commune other than the pedestrian fumbling most people pass off as real intercourse.”

Edward felt coarse, crude; he wanted to chastise himself. But he couldn’t draw his gaze away from the rigid column of flesh rising up from the thatch of silky blond hair. He wanted to touch it; everything else was blotted out by this desire. It was almost all-consuming.

And then he recoiled, scrambling back just slightly, away from Terence, desire beginning to ebb as it combined with repulsion. It was such a tiny thing, yet seemed so out of place.

A drop of blood stood poised at the tip of Terence’s penis. It dribbled down the shaft, to be replaced quickly by another. “You, you, you’re bleeding,” Edward whimpered, gesturing with an unsteady hand.

Terence looked down at himself, then up at Edward. He was grinning. He put his finger to the blood, then put it in his mouth. Scooped some blood from the shaft of his penis and held it out for Edward to lick. “Take this all of you and drink it, for this is my blood. The blood of the new and everlasting covenant.” He snickered. “Go on.” He edged his finger close enough to Edward’s face that Edward could smell the metallic aroma. “Taste.”

Edward moved back a little more. “I don’t want any.” He longed to feel the queasy delirium of being drunk, but suddenly, his mind was clear, and he was afraid. He didn’t understand what was going on. This was turning into a nightmare.

“What? Do you want to lick it from the tap, so to speak? Sorry, fella, I don’t do that.” He leaned in close. “But I will do something, something physical that will make me very happy. And I can tell you’re more the type that likes to make his partner happy. From giving pleasure, you derive it yourself. Tell me, Edward, am I wrong about that?”

In spite of the fear that had cleared his head, Edward was intrigued. Part of him wanted Terence to leave. What scared him even more was the thought of trying to get rid of him, of the inevitable conflict, and who would win. Another part of him wanted this man to stay with him, that part was willing to take whatever Terence was willing to give him, which is why he asked, “What do you mean?”

Terence slid close. Close enough so if Edward reached down, he could touch his sex, just encircle it with his hand, hold it. But he had a quick vision of a hand swinging out so fast the arm was a blur, a vision of himself flying across the room to land—hard—against the wall, his spine snapping and seeing himself collapse, like a marionette, to the floor, barely breathing. So, he simply stayed still, like an animal in the clutches of something much more powerful, frozen and submissive because there was no other option.

Terence breathed in, then met Edward’s gaze full on. “There is something, a little ritual if you will, that can bring us closer together. I would only want you to do it if you really wanted to…”

“What is it?” Edward whispered. He could barely speak, terror and lust warring within him.

“I’d like to drink your blood.”

Edward stared back, lips parted.
Get up and run, you idiot!
he thought, but stayed rooted to the floor. He suddenly realized he could barely move, and that all of his movements, since he had taken a few tokes from Terence’s pipe, were cloaked in a kind of nightmare slowness, as if he were moving in something heavy and viscous. Like clotting blood, perhaps. “You’re not serious.”

“Oh yes. Very serious.” He cocked his head. “Are you worried that I’ll hurt you? Worried maybe that I’ll kill you?”

“I don’t know what I’m worried about.”

“I won’t do either.” Terence’s eyelids were getting heavier, the hooded look that came with lust. And seeing the lust in his face gave Edward a feeling of power, making him forget completely the possibility he was being seduced, being manipulated.

It was then Terence brought out the straight razor. “Just a taste. All right?”

Edward said nothing. He didn’t move.

Terence must have interpreted Edward’s silence as acquiescence. He brought the blade close, paused with it just above his thigh. “It’s sharp enough that it won’t even hurt. You have nothing to be afraid of.”

And Edward, trembling, had lain back, spreading his legs a little further. Terence was right: it didn’t hurt. There was a slight chill as the metal made contact with his flesh, replaced by a warm, crawling sensation as the skin broke and the blood, freed, began to trickle down his thigh.

But not for long. Terence’s mouth was on him, sucking and moaning.

Edward turned and felt sick. The memories scattered as he struggled to bring something up. But there was only a little yellow bile he swallowed back down, bitter and acid.

I won’t do it again,
he thought. And even as he thought it, he was wondering how he would find Terence again. Wondering if he would appear once more in the Eye of the Tiger.