Sips of Blood (25 page)

"Something set off a wild hunger in you
today. Have you and he mated?"

"Mated?"

"Fucked."

"Thank you, Uncle, for the
clarification."

"And I receive no answer. That has to mean
you two have
made love.
You cannot possibly continue without
feeding. Animal blood is not going to be the answer. Only his warm
blood will relieve the tension inside your body." He turned toward
her.

"Your hands tremble,
ma fille.
Your
eyes are misted with the sweetness of the love play. The color of
your cheeks has deepened. And your breath reeks of fur, flesh, and
blood.
Oh non, ma fille,
don't look so worried. David could
not catch the scent, but I know it well."

"I will not take his blood."

"Will you continue making love with him? I
see by your expression that loving him is a great temptation.
Remember, though, he is not the boy you loved many years ago. His
features may be the same, but that is where the similarity stops.
He does not have Stuart's grace, nor his
naïveté.
David is a
man who has lived before he met you. I believe he has lived a full
life,
ma fille.
A full life that includes the more perverse
occupations."

"You don't know that."

"Let me say that I sense it."

"I will not kill him." She had moved close
enough to Sade that the scent of her afternoon banquet made Sade's
nose twitch.

"I am not asking you to kill him. Only I want
you to take of his blood, take of his life, and perhaps share an
eternity with him.

"Our eternity is marred by sin, Uncle."

"Sin! It is a sin to pass on a gift?"

"Being made into a vampire is not a
gift."

"Then don't make him a vampire and don't kill
him, but at least taste of him."

"I tasted his skin, his hair, and his semen.
I controlled myself through all."

"And then you rushed off to some place in the
forest and feasted. Am I not right?"

"Yes." Liliana sat down on a leather hassock.
"But I did not take his life, and I did not endanger his soul."

Sade laughed. He wanted so much to tell her
of the prostitute who serviced not only himself but David. But if
she were to hear that the woman was dead, she might run off to her
grandmother, and Sade needed the girl's youth within his reach.

"It has, moreover, been proved that horror,
nastiness, and the frightful are what give pleasure when one
fornicates. Beauty is a simple thing; ugliness is the exceptional
thing. And fiery imaginations, no doubt, always prefer the
extraordinary thing to the simple thing."

The 120 Days of Sodom

by the

Marquis de Sade

Chapter 47

Her arms dripped with a tattered
cream-colored lace from another era. The lace continued across
Marie's shoulders and swept down across her bosom, revealing a hint
of the curve of her breasts and the dusky shade of her nipples. A
silky faded blue skirt blended into the blouse. The waist was
cinched too tightly, and the hem rippled in uneven strands of
material.

Wil watched Marie move slowly, almost
cautiously, around the darkened room. Apparently searching,
looking, planning all in one wave of thought.

Her makeup looked almost casual. A faint
tinge of color highlighted her lips. He could not determine the
color. A burnt amber? A clay red? The color played tricks in the
varying shades of the room. A light dusting of face powder allowed
her pale flesh to glow. Natural eyelashes hovered over two
delicately outlined eyes. And the hair fell in soft waves around
her face. The fingernails had been recently trimmed and painted a
soft vanilla. The toenails duplicated the trimming and coloring of
the fingernails.

"I am so sorry, love. I cannot allow you into
my bedroom as yet. I know you wish the relationship to go beyond
this dreary dungeon, but there are things you must learn and
understand first."

Marie stopped in front of a wall covered with
whips, crops, and switches. The background made her look delicate.
Vulnerable.

Wil smirked.

"I see you don't believe what I say. I told
you that a death took place here..." Marie hesitated. "And somehow
my name is linked with the deceased. I know who killed him, but I
have no proof. I need your assistance in seeing that the murderer
is punished without my name again being mentioned. Therefore, I am
asking you to meet with my son-in-law, the murderer, and to try to
gain his trust. I can barely see my granddaughter due to the rage
he holds for me. However, do not tarry with Liliana, for she will
do anything to protect her uncle."

"Have you told her that he killed
someone?"

"It would not shock her. The concept of
making him pay for the death would certainly escape her."

Wil attempted to reposition his body, but it
proved impossible because of the bindings that held him to the
table. Marie had tied the ropes too tight. She no longer worried
about leaving wounds or scars. She owned him. The only person she
need answer to was herself.

"The man died in this room, didn't he?"

Marie pointed to a bench across the room.

"Louis killed him before my eyes. And I could
not stop him."

"How did he kill him?"

"Drained him of all desire to live. Broke the
man's spirit into pieces and left them for me to puzzle together. I
could not, you see."

"The man lay beyond medical help."

"Almost beyond God's help."

"Why did he kill the man?"

"To get even with me." Marie's eyes turned to
look at Wil. "I was obsessed and careless. Obsessed with you and
too lenient with my clients. I disappointed one client in
particular."

"He turned to your son-in-law for
punishment."

"Yes. The man had a family, children. I think
he may have been jealous of you."

"Did I ever meet him?"

"No, but he met you in my eyes, and he
watched you in the slide show of my mind."

"What is your son-in-law's name?"

"Louis Sade."

Wil laughed.

"This is a game, isn't it? Am I supposed to
be petrified that you may bring
Sade
here to beat me?"

Marie's features hardened; the soft matron
had disappeared. In her place stood a crazed witch contemplating
how to cook her prey.

"Don't fear him." Her voice turned low.
"Destroy him."

"I can't kill a man."

"He's already dead. Dead to virtue, to
sanity, to love, and to contriteness. Most of all, he's dead to
me."

"Kill him yourself."

"I am weak in comparison to him. He would
sense my hovering about him. He'd destroy me the next time."

"You've already had a confrontation with
him."

Marie's fingers kneaded the silk skirt.

"I no longer know why he allows me to
exist."

"Perhaps he, too, is afraid of what Liliana
would think."

"No. He is egocentric enough to believe that
she would forgive him. And I believe that too."

"I think you are wrong about your
granddaughter."

Marie shook her head.

"You must see them together. Yes, they argue,
but there's a magnetism between them from which neither can
withdraw. He needs her youth. She is a kind of mojo for him. A
good-luck charm that he keeps near."

"And what is he to her?"

"Her father..."

"Then he's not her uncle?"

"He's uncle, father. They share a deeper
bonding of blood than you can understand
now."

"She's your blood relation also."

The worrying of the material of her dress
intensified.

"No, we both share his blood. It gives him a
power over us. I do not even know whether I could destroy him."
Marie raised her hand. "I touch his body and I feel the hardness of
gold. The softness of down. He protects and punishes. His smell is
sometimes with me even when he is not present. His voice wakes me
from my sleep.

"I don't know how to free myself from him. I
need your help, Wil." Marie moved closer to the table on which Wil
lay. "He has no hold over you." Marie reached out her hands and
touched Wil's body.
"He
has no hold over you." Her hands
followed the curves of his pectorals, smoothed over his abdomen,
and gently touched his penis, gliding her palm up and down the
tender skin.

Wil's breathing increased. The muscles in his
thighs twitched, calming only for a moment. Her lips kissed the tip
of his penis as her fingers played the flesh.

"You'll help me, Wil, won't you?" Her tongue
rounded the tip of his organ before she took him fully into her
mouth.

His abdominal muscles pumped. He caught his
breath in fragments, gulping down the air that had been sucked into
his mouth.

Her right hand stretched across his body,
fingers grabbing at the jewelry piercing his nipples.

When the throbbing started, she freed him
from her mouth and nipped at his thigh, finally taking a bite,
sucking the open wound.

Chapter 48

Daisies sprinkled the front lawn of Sade's
house, daisies and some pretty yellow weeds that Cecelia couldn't
name. She remembered loving their colorful show every year since
she had been a child of five. Before Sade, another family had lived
in the house. A big family, she recalled, one with many pets and
several rather wild children. Cecelia's mother had worked for that
family, and when they sold the house, they recommended her mother
to Sade as a housekeeper.

Cecelia followed her mother to the front door
of Sade's house. The door was made of wormy wood on which hung a
green-tinged brass knocker in the shape of a large bird. She had
never been able to guess what kind of bird, but as she drew closer,
the detail of the bill, the brassy feathers ruffling the head, and
the spread of the wings hinted that perhaps it was not just one
species of bird, but a composite of several.

She sniffed the air. Something had died
recently; not a large animal, perhaps a bird or maybe a baby
rabbit. Cecelia looked over her shoulder at the expanse of green,
white, and yellow lawn and saw a speck of brownish-grey at the foot
of an old tree. Sniffing the air, she knew that speck caused the
stink. From where she stood next to her mother, the speck seemed to
be a baby bird, one that a nasty sibling had displaced. Cecelia had
no siblings and had never wanted any, else she too might have had
to find a way to eject the intruder from their home.

Her mother fingered the ring of keys she
carried, searching for the correct key to open Sade's door. The
tinkle of the keys hitting each other hurt Cecelia's ears, and the
mélange of odors emitted from the keys made her wriggle her nose.
Mingled with the keys own metallic odor were the smell of soiled
diapers, lasagna, bleach, newsprint, and her mother's own sweaty
palms; all swam through the air. But above all was the odor of clay
and dirt--the unusual odors that emanated from Sade. The closer she
became to him, the more she noticed the odors. Soil never marred
his fingernails or stained his white skin, but the suffocating
stink of the earth encased his body. She had never asked why, even
though she knew he did not work the soil as a laborer or a
hobbyist.

The click of the lock pulled Cecelia away
from her thoughts. Her mother opened the door wide and preceded her
daughter into the house. As Cecelia crossed the threshold, she
noted Sade's earthy perfume, but it was faint, left from earlier in
the day. The air didn't quiver in excitement; instead a calm
shimmered lackadaisically in the air, taking advantage of the pause
Sade's absence allowed.

Just as well he isn't here,
she
thought. He hadn't wanted her to come to the house anymore,
probably because he feared that anyone seeing them together would
immediately suspect the relationship. But she secretly liked being
back, even though she had whined all the way here. Today her mother
needed her help washing the rugs. She had been happy to comply, but
didn't want Sade to know, so she grumbled at her mother and
insisted that she'd rather be with Joey. Ugh! Joey! A child, a
clumsy child smelling of licorice and soda. A vision of Joey
chewing like a cow on one of his licorice sticks made her
sneer.

"Try to put on a better face. You wouldn't
want Liliana to be offended, child," her mother warned.

Sade's niece offended Cecelia. The closeness
Liliana shared with her uncle, the measured spans of time Liliana
spent in her uncle's presence. Most irritating of all was the
secret uncle and niece kept. Cecelia didn't know the secret yet,
but hoped that she would someday. Confidently Cecelia believed that
she could replace Liliana. Someday in a crowd he would step aside
with Cecelia and whisper and speak in covert language as he now did
with Liliana.

"Cecelia, I'm so glad you're back," said
Liliana.

"Answer her," Matilda softly urged.

"Where's your uncle?"

"What kind of a question is that? I'm sorry,
Ms. Plissay. Cecelia has been acting rather strange for the past
month. She needs to spend more time at home and less running around
with her friends."

"At Cecelia's age friends are very
important." Liliana smiled as she excused Cecelia's behavior.

"Certainly not more important than spending
time with her family," Matilda said. "Come, we'll start with the
rug in the living room."

"Oh, no. Please don't lift that. We can have
a professional clean it," Liliana pleaded.

"Been doing rugs for years. I can assure you
I'll do a better job than some stranger."

"Besides, Louis doesn't like having strangers
in the house," Cecelia interrupted.

"How dare you get so personal, young lady?
That's Mr. Sade. Do you understand?"