The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect (9 page)

For a brief moment she felt an irrational but wholly understandable surge of love for Fred. His life might read like a catalogue of torture, but there were certain things which he considered special, that he would not share with just anybody. His most cherished memories from the real times before the Change were of victims securely bound as Caroline was now bound, spread-eagled on their backs, their young bodies stretched and their naked bellies vulnerable as he prepared a long, memorable ending for their otherwise meaningless lives. Caroline was one of the few he trusted to be worthy of those memories, to share in the (to him) beautiful thing he had created so many hundreds of years ago, when it was still possible. It was as close to a declaration of true love as she could ever expect to get from such a psychopath. And because she respected Fred more than anyone else in Cyberspace, it made her feel appreciated and special.
It did not make her feel warm. She was, after all, helpless, and being worthy of Fred's affection meant she would be worthy of a long, subtle, and agonizing torture. Even though she had asked for it, she had room to fear what was about to happen to her.
It was always cool in Fred's house -- always Halloween, which occurs at nighttime in the autumn. But now it was chilly, too chilly to be naked. Fred the Zombie came for her, and she allowed herself a scream to please him.
His rotting fingers probed her cunt. Every touch set her on fire, partly (but not entirely) because he was using his power to control her hormones and tickle her neurotransmitters, forcing her to become sexually excited. It was a delicate process that could easily be carried too far, ruining the effect. But Fred was a very careful, if repulsive, lover.
He grinned at her -- could do nothing else, really, since hardly anything was left of his face except the skull itself. His alert eyes savored her helplessness. He leaned over the bed, over her. He gripped her head and kissed her, nearly choking her with his stink, teeth and bone against her lips. Then she felt herself gripping the finger in her cunt, gripping the bone. The throbbing spread through her body, and the shambling thing emitted an evil laugh. She heard herself screaming as the
carefuly
amplified orgasm ripped through her brain.
Fred traced the outline of her throat with the sharp tip of a finger bone. "Join me love," he said softly. Caroline was still shaking from the force of her orgasm when she felt the adrenaline being pumped into her system. Pleasure yielded to fear-heart-racing, paralyzing terror. Her muscles locked in struggle against the implacable chains, her eyes widened in helpless shock. Her heart was a jackhammer inside of her chest. She began to hyperventilate.
The finger teased her, tracing her chin and caressing her throat.
Her entire being was focused on that finger, and the impossibility of stopping it.
Caroline had no reason to fear death and no desire to fear Fred, but fear was what he wanted her to feel, and he had the power to make her feel it. After a few minutes of this supernatural fear that no mortal thankfully could ever know, he pressed deeper and gouged. She felt her throat open, felt the warm splash of her own blood as Fred bent over her and drank it, her own heart jetting it into his toothy waiting mouth.
When he finished, he was covered with blood. Her blood. She felt a curious sense of detachment, of consciousness fading away. The fear had drained from her, leaving her with only a kind of tingling numbness. But she could never fade completely away, not in Fred's world.
She was covered with her own blood. She felt the blood soaking the mattress. Then there was an improbable hardness against her belly, huge and unimaginably cold. Fred couldn't possibly have anything to violate her with. His whole body was rotten. But he slid into position, and invaded her.