The Maestro's Apprentice (6 page)

“Shh…” he said. “Don’t get too loud. We don’t want the neighbors to get worried.

You’re going to want to save that for when it really hurts.” He brought his hand down again on the same spot with a report like pistol fire, and paused for a moment. She tried to catch her breath.
Oh God,
she thought, wanting it to stop. Wanting it to be over so she could hide in some corner somewhere and think about what had happened, and maybe touch herself a little. But now it hurt. Now the pops hit her ears and made her want to struggle away from him, especially when he began giving her quick, hard smacks, warming up one spot before moving to another. She began to squirm on his lap, reaching back to protect her bottom. He captured her wrist and held it behind her back, then continued with the spanking.

“Please…” she said, out of breath. “It hurts.”

Bill paused and rubbed her bottom with his hand, stroking the tender flesh with his fingertips. “It’s supposed to hurt, Autumn. I thought you had been spanked before. Or did you lie to me?”

He smacked her hard to accentuate that last sentence. She couldn’t help yelping.

“Someone didn’t do his job with you. I’d love to have you to myself for a few weeks. I’d teach you a few things, like how to take a real spanking.” He gave her another hard pop and another, until tears came to her eyes. Then he began teasing her slit with his fingertip.

“Let me see what a bad girl you are,” he said. “Let me see how wet you can get for me.”

He slipped in his finger. She couldn’t help but moan and move her hips around on his thigh. “Do you want me to fuck you, Autumn?”

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She could reply only by nodding her head. She was shaking all over and incapable of forming words at that point. Bill slid his finger out again, teased her opening some more, and slid it in and out while she lay across his knee and made deep noises of longing, animal noises that were in her body long before she had ever learned words. Her bottom stung wherever he brushed it with his hand or his sleeve, but it only added to the pleasure she felt as he played with her. Longing mixed with dread and made her whimper.

“I don’t hear you,” he said, still working his fingers in and out.

“Yes…” she was barely able to say.

“Beg me.”

“Please fuck me. Please…”

“That’s more like it,” he said. “Get up.”

The abrupt command stunned her for a moment, but she got off his lap and stood with shaky legs, looking for her skirt.

“No,” he said. “You can’t have it yet. Stand there just like that, in your blouse. I want you to watch me take off my belt.” As he spoke, his hands went to the buckle. The hair all over Autumn’s body stood on end. If the spanking had hurt, what was this going to feel like? She shivered, and wondered if she shouldn’t have just gone back to the hotel.

Adam and Maria would probably be waking up soon.

Autumn jumped at the swish Bill’s belt made when he took it off. She began to tremble harder as he looped it in his hand. “Turn around. Get on your knees. Bend over the couch.”

She shook her head. “I…”

“You agreed to do this,” he said. “Now do it.”

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The tone of his voice made her body hot and cold at the same time. She nodded and did as he said, burying her face in one of the pillows, trying to swallow. Her throat froze when the belt made contact with her bottom. She couldn’t breathe. It was desperation that made her take a deep breath just as the belt made contact a second time. She squeezed her eyes shut tight and balled her hands into fists as the belt came down again and again. She pictured what Bill must have looked like whipping her. It was a frightening image, and made her want to hide. It also made her very, very wet.

When it was over, he tossed the belt on the couch and grabbed her by the upper arms, maneuvering her backward into a standing position, pulling her against him, whispering into her ear. “That’s one of the things that bad girls get,” he said, before quickly tugging her blouse over her head. Then he lay her on the floor and ran a lascivious gaze over her bare body, reaching into his jacket pocket and tossing a couple of condoms onto the floor beside her. He undressed himself quickly and tossed the clothes aside.

He had an attractive body, slim and slightly muscular, with a little dusting of light brown hair on his chest and stomach. He kept his eyes on her as he ripped open the condom and rolled it onto his cock, enticing Autumn with the smell of latex.

He rubbed the lubricated head against her opening, spreading her own juices all over her pussy. She opened her legs wide for him as he settled on top of her and entered her easily. “Is this what you wanted?” he asked. “You wanted me to fuck you?”

She nodded vigorously, already panting for him.

He kept himself raised on his hands as he slid in and out of her slowly. It drove her crazy. She couldn’t help but thrash around on his cock, wanting it harder, and allowed all 50

the desperation she felt to enter her eyes as he teased in and out of her. “Please,” she whispered again and again.

“Please what?” he asked, a little smile playing on his lips.

“Please…” was all she could say.

Eventually, he gave her what she wanted and began pumping into her, making her backside rub against the rough surface of the rug, which hurt her pinked flesh pleasantly.

She wanted to throw back her head and close her eyes to concentrate on the intense sensation of this strange man’s dick violating her—that was the fantasy, that he had made her come here, that she didn’t have a choice—but she also wanted to look at his face as he fucked her. She made herself watch him alternately tense his jaw and press his lips together, then slacken those lips and roll back his eyes.

His bare chest smelled of last night’s sweat. She wanted it pressed against her, but she didn’t dare move.

Finally, he stopped pumping into her and lowered himself onto his elbows to whisper in her ear. “Is this what you like? Strange men fucking you?”

Autumn nodded. He slid his arms under her shoulders and pulled her back onto his cock as he ground into her, pressing against clit and labia, bringing her close to climax.

He was everywhere—on her, in her, around her. Again, she surprised herself by speaking.

“Tell me…”

“Tell you what?” he asked before pressing his lips together. It was an expression she found very attractive on him.

“Tell me…I can’t get away…”

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He smiled. “You’re a little captive girl, huh? Well, you made the mistake of going with a strange man into his apartment and now he’s fucking you and you can’t get away.

I’m not letting you go until I’m finished with you.”

Autumn turned her head to the side so she couldn’t see him anymore. The intensity was too much, but she didn’t want it to stop. The sound of his voice made her moan.

“I can do anything to you that I want to,” he said between clenched teeth. “I can tie you down and fuck you for days, stick my dick into your pussy until you scream.”

The electric warmth between her legs exploded in a painful orgasm that made her cry out with a sound halfway between a moan and a scream. Then she lay there panting and looking at him, thinking that this was the man who had done that to her.

He smiled and kissed her. “Beautiful,” he said and pulled out, shocking her with emptiness. “Get on all fours.”

Her body shook with spent emotion as she got up and turned around for him, felt him position his cock at her opening and ease himself in. Once inside, he grabbed her hips and began pumping her hard. “Oh…oh, yeah,” he rumbled. His voice seemed even more gravelly as his pleasure heightened. Her body felt helpless as he impaled her again and again, taking his pleasure, sticking it deep. Finally, he growled and slowed his pace, pulling her hard against him once, then again, stabbing his cock into her, then shoving it all the way in and holding it there.

Autumn lowered the front half of her body down onto her elbows and took deep breaths, wondering what was happening to her, if this made her a slut. She asked herself if she cared enough not to do it, and the answer was no. She felt as though something inside her were awakening.

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Bill pulled out of her. She kept her position, more out of habit than anything else.

Claudio had always demanded she not move until he gave her permission. It took a few seconds for Autumn to remember this wasn’t Claudio, and he probably wasn’t going to punish her if she moved. So she did, sitting on her hip with her legs curled behind her, watching him unsheathe his penis from the condom. He tied the top and put it aside to move toward her on all fours and kiss her on the lips.

“Did you like it?” he asked.

Autumn gave him a shy smile and nodded, lowering her head submissively. Strands of red hair fell toward her face. She put it behind her ear. “I liked it,” she said.

“I liked it too,” he said. “If you ever want a repeat performance, just ask anyone in any Bourbon Street bar where to find me. It isn’t hard. I’m always around.”

She nodded. Then, on a whim, she moved toward Bill and kissed him, slipping her tongue into his mouth. She could tell it surprised him, but he kissed her back enthusiastically before she pulled away and smiled. “I have to go now,” she said.

“I guess you do,” he said, and got up. “Don’t go anywhere.” She watched him curiously as he opened the door and walked naked into the next room, running her eyes down his back and rear, musing that that body had just been all over her and that she probably smelled like him now. She was mostly dressed when he came back.

“This is actually all the cash I have in the house,” he said, handing her a stack of twenties. “It’s five hundred.”

She looked at it, then shook her head. “I…I can’t…”

“Don’t think of it like that,” he said. “Think of it as us helping each other out. If I see you again, by the way, I’m not paying for it. In fact,
you’ll
owe
me
dinner.”

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She looked at him. His expression was earnest.

“For your friends,” he said. “To help get you far away from that guy.”

“Thanks,” she said. “But really. I can’t. I know we talked about it at the bar, but…I just…it’s not me.”

“Yes,” he said. “You can.”

She stood there for a moment, holding the stacks of cash. It was an awful lot of money for someone in her position. She and the others needed all they could get at this point. Promising herself that this would be the only time, she nodded, accepted his hug, grabbed her little pack and ambled out the door.

Downstairs, Autumn stood blinking in the afternoon light. He had let her go. The only reason she was standing outside at that moment was that he had decided to let her go. He could just as easily have decided to make her stay, and that thought made her too weak to stand on her own. She leaned against the building and closed her eyes.

At some point, unsure how long she had been there, Autumn decided to start walking.

It was two in the afternoon, and she figured the biscuits and cheese had probably melted into an unidentifiable goo by now, as she headed back to the hotel. She had been too excited today to feel hungry and her stomach was only now starting to twinge.

She wondered if part of that twinge wasn’t because she felt really odd about having just sold her body.

Then she forgot about it again in favor of wondering if Tina would brag to her friends about meeting a vampire, and if they would believe her. There were so many things to feel anxious about today. Either way, Autumn reasoned, it was probably best for them to leave and find a safe place. There had to be some refuges for vampires who were out on 54

their own, she thought. And she could probably Google them. The Internet café Tina had pointed out to them the night before wasn’t far away.

A well-dressed man walked behind her with the unhurried assurance of a master predator.

The Internet café was an oddly shabby place full of old computers, but Autumn was only planning to be there for a moment. She paid a young guy with a long, wispy forelock and lip piercings for an hour and sat down, then looked around to make sure no one was standing nearby. In a room of about fifteen computers facing two bright yellow paint-peeled walls, there were only about six people, including herself and a chubby girl who had pulled up a chair near a pot-bellied, middle-aged man Autumn assumed was her father.

Autumn had butterflies and her heart was pounding harder than it had back at Bill’s.

At least, that was the way it seemed. Each new thing felt more interesting, exciting and worrisome than the last.

Finally, she typed in, “Where is a safe place for vampires in New Orleans?” in the Google search bar and waited. The first thing she saw was New Orleans Spirit Tours, then New Orleans Vampire and guides to New Orleans.

She didn’t find what she was looking for until the second page.

The site was called Biali’s: Vampire Restaurant and Resort. The blurb read, “Network with your own kind and enjoy a meal away from the hassles of living with the Others…”

Autumn clicked on it, and was surprised to find a black page with purple writing that simply asked: “When can a vampire make another vampire?” Below that was a bright white reply box. Autumn stared at it for a moment, then looked around, fearful that 55

someone might be looking over her shoulder, but the one person she could see clearly from her spot, a pretty woman who looked to be in her early thirties, wearing jeans and her hair pinned atop her head, seemed hypnotized by her own computer screen. Autumn began to type gingerly, “When he or she is in phase.”

She hit enter and waited. “One moment please…” came the reply, before a plain white page with black writing appeared. “For the welfare of all vampires and those who associate with them, the management asks that you share this page with no one who is not in the community. We are a haven for those in need of assistance, and an oasis for those in need of companionship. If you have never visited our establishment before, please give us a call at the number below and tell us your situation.”

Autumn took down the number and went to one of the three wall phones near the snack machine. She supposed the phones were for guests who didn’t want to put certain types of calls on their cells. Her heart beat madly as she dialed. She backed into the corner made by the wall and the large black machine, enjoying the sensation of cool metal against her arm, and firm sheetrock against her back, hoping for at least a little privacy.