Fragments (22 page)

Although it had
been a long time since Dreyfuss had loved physically with a woman,
he had not forgotten the art of seduction. On whimsy, he excited
the young woman beneath him, pulling out from her responses she had
not known were hidden within her. He could feel her awareness, her
excitement; it was this that served to pleasure him. He stroked and
petted her, kissed and caressed, ‘til the fire that was upon her,
was upon him. Her complete physical acceptance touched him, was
pleasing to him. She was an open book, and he could read her
language with ease. There was a vulnerability that teased at him,
made him feel protective and paternalistic. He had wanted to play,
and in her trust found a game of innocence and beguilement. An odd
taste for the evening, but the palate responded well to change. He
waited until she was almost sated, when the scent of her salt and
musk flooded him: then he moved. Centring his mouth along the vein
which coiled around the base of the neck, he kissed her hard,
sucking, biting, bringing her blood up to meet him. The sharp
piercing pain as he opened her was lost in her climax, in the
sudden hot flush to his mouth. Salt and heat as he filled himself.
The first rush of pleasure over, he drew slowly; swallowing:
savouring. All ceased to exist apart from his mouth, its
convulsions, the endless stream that he drew up into himself. Her
blood was incredibly rich, loaded with the earlier meal. The
alcohol he had pushed upon her coming back up to meet him, warming
him. Soon, all that she was would be his, and it would be a fine
moment for them both. She would die in ecstasy, a rare gift in this
world, and he would live by her sacrifice, satisfied with what she
had offered. He fell into her blood and drank.

Fire exploded
all through her. There was nothing but heat and flame and the
enveloping waves that pulsed from her groin. Everything was washed
ahead in the wave of pleasure, so intense it was akin to pain,
ripping through her. She felt herself cry out, her spine
convulsing, her legs jerking, her throat tightening. There was
nothing; nothing but the long, slow flow of blood pulsing through
her. She throbbed in its wake, the heat subsiding. She longed for
rest, for safety. Everything in her wished to relax and give
herself up to that binding, to the warmth that filled her. To fall
into the sleep offered her. That sated, resting sleep. To heal
herself upon its joy. She sought the sleep, sought the rest.
Reaching out with her mind, she tried desperately to pull it down
with her, bring it with her into her dreams.

She shivered.
Shivered again. Somewhere, somehow, she was cold. She could feel
the cold. It fell upon her, swallowing her. Swallowing her heat,
eating her dreams. She fought the cold, tried to move back to that
feeling, that feeling of belonging and completion. It slipped away
from her. She moaned, muttered, moved, protested. She wanted the
feeling back, and she was not going to go until it came with
her.

Movement jolted
him, impinging upon the scent in his nostrils. Under him, the body
had tensed, was trying to throw him off. How amusing; that had been
the least expected of reactions. Remedy was swift and effective. He
felt a surge of power as he further opened the wound, her essence
flooding him, sending him flying into the night, soaring through
the darkness. He could hear her heart falter as pressure dropped,
veins beginning to slurry. There, teasing in the back of his mind,
he could sense her death, waiting for him to finish his pleasure.
He pulled her closer, eagerly awaiting her final gift. Then, from
nowhere, as the life’s flow was at its sweetest, he was without
blood: without source. His vision cleared and the dreaming fell
from him. He blinked, bringing the room back into focus. She was
standing there, pale, beside the bed. Blood flowed freely from the
gash that the leaving of him had torn across her neck. She was
shaking, not from fear, from fury.

Her eyes blazed
at him: how dare he, how dare he!

Dreyfuss sat up
and stared at the being who had defied him when he was in full
feed. He looked at the girl, her life flowing from her neck, oozing
onto the floor. She was a pale and empty little thing, not even
fully aware of her own needs. He smiled into her shaking eyes,
lifted his hand to her, inviting their reunion. She took a step
back, so fast she almost stumbled and fell. It was his turn to
stare, to wonder. It was slow to build, lost as he had been in the
feeding, but anger at her defiance entered the game. He shook his
hand again, repeating the invitation, a warning about refusal
openly given.

She stared at
him, horror growing in her eyes: she was breaking the thrall. His
eyes narrowed in annoyance. Open panic filled her features, she
turned to flee.

His hand snaked
out instinctively, grabbing her by the hair, yanking her back to
the bed, back to his embrace. She whirled round and slapped him
across the face. The tide of his own anger lit out from him, fast
and bright. Releasing her hair he pulled back his arm, the blow
sending her away, to land heavily against the wall. She crumpled
and lay still. To defy him, at the moment of their shared ecstasy?
To raise a hand to him? She would die in pain for reward.

Catching her
up, he fastened again on her throat, intent on sucking her dry. His
hands held her fast, fingers dug deeply into flesh too spent to
bruise. The torn throat gave him easy purchase and he set to devour
all she had, all she had ever been. Even then, almost dead, wrung
like a cloth, she groaned, moving against him. He felt the
bitterness of her rebellion on his tongue. He pulled back, spoiled
for her. He reached for her neck, a quick snap and she would be
gone forever. His hands enclosed her, seeking to find the right
spot, where vertebrae would be easiest pushed apart from vertebrae.
Still she protested, fought his actions. Her hand had risen to
weakly push him off, fight him away. He grasped it and pulled it
away, back under her own body. What strength was left in her was
used to arch her back, giving off her message: fight, no matter how
trapped you are; fight. He smiled and leaned down to kiss her.
Somewhere, in the haze of her dying, she noticed him, and whispered
up to him.

“Fuck you.”

The words
barely made it out of her mouth such was her weakness. My, he
thought, such language from an innocent! He let her loose, grinning
at her stubbornness. Some things were eternal, after all. Spirit
such as this was rarely found, never mind uncovered so
surprisingly. A part of him was pleased to have found a little
savage in a cheap white dress. Without much thought for it he
picked her up and tossed her back on the bed, the action more to do
with an innate sense of tidiness than anything else. In the roots
of his mouth an ache was building. He had been roused by her, his
instincts kindled. Nothing would substitute for a full life, not
now. The thirst was upon him, and he would quench it. He changed
quickly, abandoning her gore for cleaner clothing. She would
probably bleed to death before he returned.

The catching
was easy, there were many who walked the streets in search of love,
or death. When he raised his head he realised that her anger was
still upon him. There was no throat left to the boy who had courted
him, thinking only to find food for the night. Well food was what
had been found, if not to his precise liking. He dropped the empty
flesh onto the rails of Earl’s Court tube station. Another suicide,
or fumbling mishap. London was used to that.

He returned
home on foot, enjoying the night air and sense of freedom. The
scents from the park beguiled him as he slipped past the shadow of
the Albert Hall, disappearing out of the streets as effortlessly as
he had emerged. After washing he retired, falling into a deep and
dreamless sleep. When he rose in the middle afternoon he felt
surprisingly rested. Light and alert. Active. As the coffee
percolated, he went to check on his guest. To his surprise, she was
still alive. The bruising on her jaw was minimal as there had been
little blood within her to damage. She and the bed were splattered
with dark brown splodges of dead blood; a shocking waste. What to
do with her? Strangely, he had no instinct on the matter. Dreyfuss
was mostly instinct. To survive as he survived, he had to be. He
mused upon his own lack of immediate direction: a Dreyfuss without
purpose was a strange and curious thing. He returned to his own
bedroom and studied the matter.

As he showered,
it occurred to him that the decision may be taken out of his hands.
Returning to her room, which was a curious way for his mind to put
it given how many had occupied it before her, he checked her pulse
and blood pressure. A choice had to be made. To let her die, and
end the matter, or allow her life? That was a nonsense, for she was
meat as he looked at her. Dead was dead. The issue was when, not
if. But something about that stubbornness had surprised him.
Surprise in a life such as his was precious: unexpected bounty.
Perhaps he’d kill her tomorrow? Regardless, she would die when he
said so, not before.

He made a quick
phone call. An hour later a courier delivered ten units of basic
saline, plasma and sterile equipment. He set a drip, inserting the
valve into the back of her hand quickly and cleanly. He refrained
from polluting her with any drugs: if she’d been going to go under
it would have happened before now. Wary of leaving her unconscious
with a needle in her arm, he phoned his apologies through to the
golf club; someone else would have to deliver the after dinner
speech. Thinking that through, he contacted his second in command:
things would have to run without him for a few days. He’d attend to
any urgent mail that came into his study but apart from that, he
was not to be disturbed. Well used to this, Gerald signed off in
eager anticipation of a week in which he could call the shots.

Filling a bowl
with tepid water and antiseptic, Dreyfuss attended to her neck.
With all the gunge off, the tear was less than he had thought.
Pressing the ragged edges together long enough to stop the fresh
weeping, he carefully applied four paper stitches, sealing the mess
with his own blood. Then he cut her dress and knickers off,
sponging her down with cool water, remaking the bed around her.
Rechecking her pulse and respiration he adjusted the flow of the
drip and switched the light off as he went. He made a light snack
of steak and eggs, settling down to watch a movie in peace.

Her dry
coughing woke him from the rather pleasant slumber that he had
slipped into. He had been dreaming of Eléan; which was unusual, for
he had not dreamt of her in years. In the dream, she was calling to
him, with that wicked half grin on her sly face. The call in the
dream became the cough of his guest: he roused himself. She was
half conscious, drifting in the way of those lost in the fight to
waken. He gave her a few sips of water, checking her vital signs.
She was fine, more or less, and he took out the drip. He needed to
sleep, and she would be in the way, so he filled her veins with
sedative. He went to bed and dreamed another dream of Eléan.

Looking in on
her the next morning he was satisfied to see she had responded well
to the enforced slumber. Her fatigued body was slowly recovering
from the added stress of their encounter. Her mind wasn’t happy
with the arrangement, her twisting and turning had pulled the sheet
out from under her, but her skin tone was improved greatly. He shot
her through once more with enough sedative to keep her under for a
few more hours. His body ached from lack of activity and he felt in
need of more work out than could be achieved on his home equipment.
It wouldn’t do to have her up and around, screaming and pathetic
when he returned from the gym. Without thought of it, his hands
drifted over her body in more than a clinical assessment of injury.
He hesitated over her breasts, slowly dragging his fingers over her
left nipple. It sprung to life, reacting to his touch. He smiled,
that sense of complete possession as sweet as ever. For whimsy, he
brought the other to attention by the merest of touch of his
breath. Sensing his invasion, she pulled away, a frightened moan
escaping her lips. His smile deepened as he reached once more for
the sedative. He pushed her so far under he heard her heart slow,
her breathing hesitate, before settling into shallow swoops. He
pinched her hard, on the fold under her arm: nothing. Lifting a lid
he touched her eye: nothing. The smile that slipped from his lips
as his hands travelled down to her groin was nothing short of a
gloat: it was always so easy. The pleasure in digging his fingers
deep inside her was not the pleasure of invasion, for that was a
pleasure that palled all too quickly. It was the complete absence
of awareness in her slack face, the total surrender of her limbs
that enthralled him. She had no clue as to what was happening to
her. He dug around, pushing the dry warm flesh this way and that,
until it filled with moistness and expanded. He stabbed his rigid
fingers into her cervix: nothing. All that was in her world, now,
was his will. Even when she was unconscious, all she was, was his.
Satisfied, he cleaned his fingers on the bedding and left.

He enjoyed the
walk through the back streets to the gym he favoured for swimming.
Most of the weights and running equipment was too light-weight, but
the pool was almost perfect. He mulled the situation over as he
pushed himself endlessly through the water, length after length
ripped in two and left behind him. Which was the more sustained
pleasure, the subtle yet silent power of the invisible, or the more
immediate involvement of fear and struggle? It was an eternal
question, one that he never truly managed to answer. For as he
indulged in one, the other would entice his mind, beguiling him
with the promise of more: a longer lasting satisfaction, a sharper
and sweeter joy. It was a dilemma that shaped much of his life,
that pushed and pulled at many layers of his living. Even now, as
he changed back to the butterfly, it teased at him, took his mind
off the rhythm of his stroke. For strength, he preferred to work
out at home, where prying eyes could not react to the dead weights
he could so easily conquer. He could pile the pressure onto his
body, fighting his own limitations, testing out his mind’s strength
in complete secrecy: no awareness of watchful humans to slow his
responses and advise caution. Stamina however was always a public
sport. No pleasure there unless observed, no triumph unless the
bested stood in front of him, wheezing and shaking in their defeat.
Five of the gym’s finest had slowly watched as he turned again and
again, each length timed exactly to match the previous. In stamina
he was only slightly more than they, each turn meting out as much
punishment on him as it did them: yet he never lost. Three had
taken his silent challenge today, and two were spent and useless,
fighting for breath at the pool’s edge. He gloried in their
weakness, their lack. The one still struggling on and on with him,
ploughing a now straggly furrow in his wake, was going to drop out
soon: the switch to butterfly had seen to that.