The Nightlife: New York (The Nightlife Series) (13 page)

CHAPTER 15

In the taxi on the way home, Aaron contemplated the wonder
of his new life.  To live without need for the trappings of civilization, food,
and drink.  To be free of the disease of greed driving every moment and
motivation.  To have power over all you encounter, both physical superiority
and the power to live without want.  The only need that could not be ignored
was that of the blood, easily remedied in an instant.

Money, houses, cars, consumerism, what need did he have for
any of these things?  People gave him anything he asked for.  Anything he
needed or desired was his for the taking.  What did he really need?  Shelter,
clothing, blood, nothing more and nothing he could not take or borrow at any
moment.  What did he desire?  Blood and the sensual contact that naturally
followed.  It was his right, his due, and it could not be withheld.

Was existence free of hardship and privation any way to
live?  Where was the need for things and money that had once propelled him out the
door to work every day?  The need for approval and love driving him to chase
Delia so fruitlessly?  What was life without need?  Could it be said that he
really lived at all without the burden of these afflictions?  These discomforts
experienced by the less fortunate?

In truth, his existence wasn’t entirely carefree.  His
autonomy ended where Michelle’s began.  Being her slave, her servant, was the
great misfortune that defined his life, giving distinct flavor to all his
moments of freedom and triumph.  Yet he wasn’t bitter.  He loved her for all
that she was, mistakes and attitudes included.  All things considered, being
Michelle’s slave was the most fulfilling and enjoyable life he’d ever known.

Aaron entered the apartment bouncing with anticipation, his
mind filled with fantasies of what Michelle might have in store for him.  He
felt comfortable and secure knowing this was his home and he shared it with a
magnificent woman whom he loved deeply.

Michelle didn’t carry the same pleasant
home-coming
mindset.  Something was very wrong.  Her mind had closed off and he read only an
icy-cold, blank wall from her.  It was the first time in days she had closed
down like this.

“You look very happy tonight.  Very satisfied.  I hope you
didn’t ruin your appetite.  I have something special for you, my special boy.” 
Michelle patted him on the cheek with a gleam in her eye and a tightlipped
grin.

He grinned back at her sheepishly, thinking of the energy he’d
expended during those gratuitous moments with Rosalie.  He thought he was spry
enough to handle whatever she had in store for him.  His appetite for Michelle
held strong as ever.  Michelle watched him closely.  He thought he saw
something in her eyes, a burning ember sparking into flame.

She turned and marched into the bedroom speaking over her
shoulder, “Come take off your clothes.  Sunrise in two hours!”  This was not a
request.  It was an order.

They came to bed nude, sliding under the covers side by
side.  A remote coldness permeated Michelle’s every move.  Even her skin seemed
cooler to the touch.  Their connection was devoid of any warmth or mutual
affection.  His hackles rose.  What should have been sensual and arousing now
seemed menacing.  She gave him a feeling of wariness, as though she’d pounce at
any moment.

“Is there something wrong?  Are you angry with me?”

She slid her hands over his chest and reached down between
his legs to feel him.  Her hand came up.  She ran her fingers under her nose,
catching the scent.

“What have you done to anger me?”  Michelle had a strange look
on her face.

“Well … I did have a little bit of fun with my date …”

He braced himself for the onslaught, expecting her to tear
into him with a scathing lecture.  Instead she asked calmly, “Just a little
fun?”

He nodded his head, thoroughly confused.  Michelle flashed
her eyes, a brief glimpse of animosity bleeding through her privacy wall, but
she quickly clamped down her iron control.

In a cold, quiet voice barely above a whisper, she asked-compelled,
“Did you hurt the woman?”

He tried to issue a straightforward denial, but what came
out of his mouth was, “Maybe a little bit …”

As soon as he spoke, two vivid images flashed to his mind’s
eye, transmitted directly to Michelle.  The first was of his hard cock in his
hand as he stood in the shower cleaning up after his date.  A pinkish-red taint
of blood rinsed down the drain from his groin.  He had made Rosalie bleed from
her womb.  The second image was of Rosalie lying on her back quivering and
moaning, distinct hand-grip marks visible on both her thighs.  He hadn’t really
been cognizant of the damage he did to Rosalie until Michelle forcibly
extracted the truth from the recesses of his mind.

Michelle had that gleam, a wild look, like she was about to
take a chunk out of his hide.  She didn’t.  She reached between his legs to
grab ahold of his cock.

“I will be on top this time, lie back and enjoy the ride!” 
She spoke in a virtual hiss.

His instincts screamed of impending danger, stripping him of
any arousal.  He was completely flaccid.

“Give me your full erection now!”  Michelle growled as
though ordering soldiers to stand at attention.  This was a first.  He knew a
threshold had been crossed.  She had never used her authority to impose her
will in their intimacy.  Michelle was rewriting the boundaries of their
relationship and he was sure to be on the losing side of the fence.  Upon her
spoken command, his penis reacted of its own accord, growing to full tilt
readiness without any sexual arousal whatsoever.  Fear, shame, and a desire to
run created a sickening boil in his gut.

This must be what it feels like to be raped
.

Michelle gradually worked him, first licking and sucking
slowly, sensually.  Then she sped up her ministrations until the intensity
reached super-human speed and force.  She shifted position, straddling his face
with her thighs to place her most intimate flesh in his face, and began
grinding herself back and forth across his lips and teeth.  His natural
reaction of arousal spiraled up.  The wonderful sensations of Michelle’s highly
skilled attentions could not be denied.  All his fears erased in the heat of
the moment.

At the point he reached his peak and could no longer resist
his climax, Michelle struck like a viper, driving her mouth down to seal
against the base of his engorged sex to the ultimate deep throat position. 
With this move she buried her razor sharp fangs deep into his pubic flesh,
sinking in
to the bone
, sucking down his blood and climax all together.

Aaron’s peak, pain, shock, and venom-saturated loins,
brought the most excruciatingly intense orgasm he’d ever known.  Without
conscious thought, his vampiric instincts reacted.  He sunk his fangs into
Michelle’s intimate folds, digging down through inner and outer labia to hit
home at her pelvic bone.  He gave as good as he got, blasting Michelle with the
same intensity of climax twisted by pain, shock and the amplified sexual effects
of his venom flooding through her tender, vaginal flesh.

Both Aaron and Michelle’s psychic barriers of privacy shattered
in the storm of sensations and pain.  Mind-altering waves of ecstasy, agony,
and multiple orgasms assaulted them.  Each experienced the other’s
rollercoaster of peaks simultaneously with their own.  The cycle of climax,
crash, and repeated climax continued over and over again.  The lovers remained
locked together, spasming and grinding, consuming each other’s blood and sex
until their physical limits of endurance were reached and surpassed.  Sometime
near sunrise they passed into oblivion, still locked in each other’s parasitic embrace.

Both awoke at sunset, faces buried in each other’s groins. 
Michelle arose first and silently prepared a scorching hot bath.  They looked
like hell––their faces and thighs encrusted in blood and sex, their expressions
identically haunted, somber.  Aaron sat in the oversized Jacuzzi across from
Michelle.  They soaked in silence, avoiding eye contact.  He didn’t know what
had happened.  His world traversed from one extreme of happiness to the other
extreme of pain, humiliation, and depravity.

When he finished bathing and moved to leave the tub,
Michelle broke the silence.  “What did you do to that woman last night?  I know
you had sex with her and I know you hurt her.”  Her face had twisted in a
murderous snarl.  Her mind was blocked up solid.

He answered her simply, “Yes … I had sex with Rosalie.”

Michelle reached out lightning fast with a whip-snap move to
grab hold of his scrotum, her claws piercing through flesh, drawing blood in
demonstration of her severity.

“Show me your memories of what you did to her!”

The door to his mental vault dissolved.  Their connection
opened wide to access his memories, or anything else she might want to know.  His
mind instantly replayed the entire date with Rosalie leading up to his return
home, and then followed by the bizarre sexual encounter with Michelle,
transmitting all of it to her via their psychic bond.  Michelle experienced all
his thoughts, feelings, emotions, and sensations as though she lived through
these moments inside his body along with him.

“Enough! I don’t need to see anymore!”  She turned away from
him as if trying to avert her eyes from what she’d witnessed.  She released her
painful grip on his genitals and his blood turned the bath water pink.  Her
face looked stricken.

He leaned towards her and whispered, “You’re fuckin’ nuts.”

He climbed out of the bath and dressed without once looking
or speaking to Michelle.  He ignored the tears of blood silently running down
her face.

She had stripped him of all protections, absolute zero
privacy.  To him it felt like standing naked out in Times Square, all his dirty
little secrets laid bare.  Psychic rape.

It was the most demeaning thing she could’ve done, apart
from ordering him to kill himself.  He settled into heavy depression. He meant
nothing to Michelle.  Nothing more than a possession––a servant to be punished
when he misbehaved.

Shattered, smashed, damaged beyond recognition––Michelle
demolished all hope that her affections were genuine.  He was nothing but her
slave, her property, who had disobeyed and needed to be reprimanded.  He felt
like a dog pissing on the floor, forced to have his nose rubbed in it to learn
a lesson.

“Come, we must feed.”  Michelle spoke in terse tones.  She
wouldn’t look him in the eyes.  Her face was tight-lipped and severe as he
followed her out the door.

“Yes, Master.”  He wasn’t teasing or smiling.

Cruising through the night streets in the taxi, his
depression began to take on a new color of resentment.  Why should he be treated
like this?  Was this all because he disobeyed her directive or was there
something else?  Is this how it would be with her for years to come?  Being
punished for virtually nothing?  He deeply resented her abuse of power.

He began to hate Michelle for turning an act of affectionate
lovemaking into a sadistic punishment.  The kindness and mutual care that once
permeated their relationship disappeared.  Michelle reached out to hold his
hand as she had so many times before, but the gesture no longer felt like the loving
caress he’d imagined it to be.  It felt like a leash.

* * * *

CHAPTER 16

He arose without a word to Michelle.  He had slept on the
floor in silent protest.  She remained in bed.  She didn’t say a word when he
left, exiting via the fire escape.

He had to get out.  Just go, walk, somewhere, anywhere away
from her.  Every second of every minute, every waking moment she was there.  In
his thoughts, in his face, the smell of her saturated every corner of the
apartment.  He couldn’t get rid of her scent.  It was on his clothes, on his
skin, in his blood. 
You are blood of my blood
.  She owned him.  He was
marked.  He couldn’t go anywhere or do anything without her
being there
,
holding his fucking hand
.

He marched down the alley way, hoping to burn off some steam,
put a little distance between them.  His temper flared to the point that he
burned to lash out in violence.  Every word and gesture from her the night
before seemed to have a double meaning mocking him and his subservience to her.

This need for violence and confrontation was something
wholly new to him.  He’d never before felt such fury and frustration.  It was a
raging passionate fire threatening to overtake all reason.  He had to get some
distance and cool off before he ended up going after Michelle.  He had no
illusions about how that would turn out.  She’d kill him.

He began jogging down the alley moving through the back
streets.  He stayed to the dark recesses of the city, purposely avoiding
people
. 
Oblivious, he passed into one of the seedier areas of New York.  This was a
place he would never normally walk, especially not in the darkness of night. 
The new and improved Aaron was unconcerned.  He felt absolutely no fear of
anyone––apart from Michelle.  She’d been telling the truth when she spoke in her
condescending tone,
they are like cattle.

He tried to stop dwelling on the negative, but his mind
continued to find things to make him angry, worsening his mood.  His problem
stemmed from one inescapable source:  Michelle.  No matter how far he walked
she was still there at the edge of his mind, connected, waiting, judging him
unjustly.

After some introspection he recognized what the true problem
was.  Her power over him governed not only his physical body, but his soul as
well.  No matter that she treated him like a dog to be punished, he still loved
her.  His heart wouldn’t listen to reason.  He needed to be near her like he
needed air to breathe.

Deep in his soul search, meandering aimlessly through the
night, he landed himself in the middle of a group of thugs.  They were big,
black, tattooed, and not the least bit happy to see him in their neighborhood. 
A quick scan of their minds revealed they were looking forward to some
entertainment at his expense.

By the time he came to his senses, he was surrounded by five
black gang members who looked like they spent more time in jail than out. 
Their pants hung low at the waist, boxer shorts exposed in the classic ‘sag’ of
the urban gangster.  He could read their immediate interest in him.  They
assumed he was easy prey with cash, credit cards, or something else of value.

The one on his right in a NY Jets hat yelled loudly to his
companions, “Dis mousy ass bitch must be lost.”  He turned to Aaron up in his
face, pointing at him.  “Hey powder, don’t you know where da fuck you at?”

The inner city ghetto, one of those places he’d artfully
avoided all his life.  
Shit
.  There were heaps of trash on the ground,
buildings with broken and boarded up windows, and isolated pockets of gangsters
hanging out in the shadowy corners.  Liquor stores lined either side of the
street.  Not a white person in sight. 
The Projects
.

“Fuck!”  Aaron cursed under his breath as they closed in
around him, cutting off all paths to escape.

The guy directly in front of him wore a black hoodie and was
the biggest of the lot, three hundred fifty pounds of muscle and bad attitude. 
He stepped towards Aaron with a wicked scowl that left no doubt of his
intentions.  The gorilla growled down on him from his six foot six height, “What
you got in your pockets, bitch?”  Aaron suspected the guy had never been denied
such a request before.  He had the air of one who always took what he wanted,
when he wanted, from whoever he wanted.

Aaron stepped back.  “Hey, I don’t want any problems.”

The guy to the left in a NY Giants coat grabbed Aaron by his
arm.  “You are the problem.”

Aaron reacted instinctively, snapping his arm out to break
the hold.  He connected hard against the man’s chest, a crack-crunch sound.  The
man’s entire body flew backwards several feet, and he landed on his butt,
wheezing in pain.  The excessive force of Aaron’s whip-like reaction surprised
him as much as it did the guy he hit.

“Git dat mothafucka!” yelled the guy with French-braided
hair.  Aaron’s aggressive response triggered a free-for-all.

The call to attack punched an adrenaline surge through Aaron.
 A wildly exhilarating sense of power filled him, a limitless strength and
energy.  He easily evaded several blows, his movements much faster than theirs
by magnitudes.  He now understood what Michelle meant when she had stated so
eloquently,
they will be turtles, moving in slow motion
.

As they closed in on him, he had no space left to dodge
their strikes, and two of them grabbed at his arms.  His frustration mounted as
he was struck in the head from behind.  His desire to lash out and smash these
frail meatsacks caught hold, and he roared in rage whipping in a full circle. 
He momentarily broke their holds which pulled two of them completely off
balance.  They flew through the air, then scraped and tumbled across the
ground.

Cool
.  He took a moment to watch their bodies roll to
a complete stop.

He instinctively sensed the others coming back at him from all
directions.  He spun again and lashed out with his fists in wild haymaker
swings, connecting with three of them in a split second.  His blows seemed to
have an exaggerated effect.  Each thug was sent tumbling away, one flipping end
over end through the air.  They were rag dolls, and he tossed them around with
no real effort.

The two remaining thugs who had escaped his spin move came
in from the front and right simultaneously.  The man to his right reached him first. 
With an open-handed shove, Aaron sent him flying back through the air.  The man
landed sprawled on his back, his skull cracked on the asphalt beneath him. 
He
isn’t getting up any time soon
.

Aaron stared in fascination at the powerful effect of a
simple one-handed push.  As he gawked, the man in front of him dropped low and
hit Aaron squarely in a wrestler’s tackle.  His attention snapped into focus.  He
instinctively twisted with his legs splayed out wide for balance.  Then he
flung the attacker out to his side with an instantaneous pivot and shoved hard
with both hands.

His maneuver spun them around completely, his attacker’s
momentum flowing past and out the other direction.  The thug went flying
through the air to land on the pavement face first with a crunchy thud.  Aaron
stood solidly on his feet, facing the opposite direction.  The graceful
redirect had turned him around a hundred eighty degrees.

All five men were down on the pavement hurting.  He
instinctively wanted to fight to the death, to crush and slice their feeble
bodies to pieces as he drank them dry.  He tasted the scents of their blood,
fear, and adrenaline.  They smelled like food.

He shook his head in attempt to break the powerful bloodlust
desire surging through his body.  His fangs extended fully, mouth wet with
venom, ready to feast upon their flesh.  He could kill them right now.  Drain
them of liters of blood in mere seconds.  He’d be gone before one of the
punk-ass thugs at the liquor store across the street could finish calling 911. 
It was
so
tempting.  And it would be
so
easy.  No one would ever
know it was him.  No one could identify him in this dark setting.  The
bystanders were too far away to see anything but a white guy dressed in jeans
and dark shirt.  They couldn’t even see his face.  The perfect moment for a
couple quick kills.

He fought with himself, an internal battle of wills against
an urge so powerful he could barely contain it.  He growled and snarled,
looking back and forth at these slug-like, slow moving
cattle
, struggling
with the compulsion to rend and tear flesh.  He finally made the snap
decision.  He redirected his energy into flight, racing back down the alley he
had emerged from earlier.  In his hurry to escape before he killed someone, he
knocked down the man in his path who’d just regained his feet.  As he bowled the
man over, he heard the crackle-snap of bones breaking.  The thug was nothing
more than limp flesh against Aaron’s charging force.  Five of them had been no
match for him.  The outcome was determined before the confrontation ever began.

He sped down the streets, heading in the direction of home. 
His powerful bloodlust burned, calling him to smash, tear and rend flesh.  He
began seeking out new prey.  Several heartbeats thumped nearby, ripe for
tapping.  He sensed all that wonderful juicy goodness just begging to be
slurped down.  Reason reasserted in his mind, and he realized what he was doing
as he snuck up on a man and woman crouched in the alley with their smoking
crack pipe.  He barely stopped himself at the last moment, running off down the
alley in the other direction.

Though he wanted to go home, get off the streets for a few
minutes, away from the
food
stench of people, he couldn’t return to
Michelle with all this tension singing through his body.  He stopped in the
alley two blocks from home seeking a target for his aggression.  The only thing
available that wouldn’t result in death and mutilation was a steel dumpster
sitting against the concrete wall of the alley.

He glanced around to verify there were no witnesses.  Having
finally found an outlet for his aggression, he funneled it all into that ugly,
squatting steel dumpster.  He hit it full bore, holding nothing back.  He
smashed it over and over with his fists, screaming in rage, frustration, and
unfulfilled hunger.  Each strike left behind a crumpled mess of indentations. 
As he collapsed the front side of the dumpster, he moved to the left, smashing
inward with a barrage of hook punches on each side of the ninety degree corner
until it was so misshapen it no longer resembled a rectangle.  The lid popped
up at a twisted angle, never again to fit down on the mangled receptacle.  The
front and side of the poor thing had caved inward like a crushed beer can.  The
irreparable condition of the dumpster testified to the intensity of his
frustration.  The green-painted steel had absorbed Aaron’s crushing force far
better than those unfortunate gang members.

Knuckles abraded and raw, sliced open, he watched the damage
knit back together right before his eyes.  He stared in creeped-out fascination
as his knuckles healed up to little pink welts in a matter of minutes.  A few
minutes and the flesh had completely rejoined over the cuts, leaving only a
slight raw spot as evidence of his tantrum.  The miracle of vampiric
regeneration captured his attention long enough to calm him down.  He regained
some badly needed serenity.  Finally, he could go home and spend another night
beneath the yoke of his master.

The dumpster workout session had mostly satisfied his desire
to lash out at something.  He no longer felt the overwhelming need for
violence.  The incident proved a nice little distraction.  His new concern was
that Michelle might learn of his misadventures in the street, causing another
point of contention between them.  He focused on slowing down his breathing and
closed his mind securely within the vault prior to entering the apartment.

He knew she sensed his tension, but wasn’t aware of the new
source for it.  She attempted to make an opening.  “Are you ready to talk about
this
problème
?
”

He clammed up, not wanting to betray his actions to her
inadvertently, but a sliver of irritation slipped through the vault door. 
Bullshit,
she knew exactly what was wrong
…
her
.  Despite this spike of
emotion he answered coldly, “I’m fine.  Eerything is fine … Are we going to
feed soon?”

He was hungry for blood.  The sooner they fed the better.

He monitored her thoughts closely as Michelle considered
pressuring him to draw out the unspoken issues between them.  He read her
concern, she worried he was a little too edgy, volatile.  She let it go, for
now.  “
Oui
, another
night club.  You need more practice with
control
.  Get dressed.  I will
be ready soon.”

He didn’t respond.  He changed quickly and stood at the door
waiting unobtrusively.  Beyond the need to feed, he had no excitement or anticipation
for their outing.  Another evening of nightlife, tethered to his master.

* * * *