The Last Girl (12 page)

He’s silent for a long while then he says, “You are special to me. I hold you in higher regard than any other human, though that isn’t saying much. I don’t wish harm to come to you, but I know it will. The longer you’re with me, the higher the odds rise in that direction. I don’t think the capability to love is still with me, but I hold out hope I won’t destroy you. Even so, your pain still gives me pleasure, more than the pain of anyone else because you are you. I waited for you so long, got to know you well before I took you. I think it has made some difference. I’m just not sure if the difference is enough or if it puts you in more danger. Already I can feel the need to take you to the dungeon. There are so many things I fantasize about doing to you, things which will hurt. So, even if I did love you, it doesn’t make you safer with me. The only thing you’re safe from is everyone and everything else. I can protect you from literally anything but myself. Pray that I don’t love you, Juliette. I’m scared of what will happen to you if I do.”

My breath has gone still and I have to concentrate to get it going again. A single tear slips down my cheek, and I don’t notice it until it drifts into the corner of my mouth and I taste the salt.

He pulls me closer and strokes my hair. “Don’t cry, pet. I’m only being honest with you. You asked.”

Can he be honest? Is he capable of honesty? If he’s lying, would he even know or is he too well-practiced in the art?

A part of me is elated he might feel something real for me, that I’m not just a toy he amuses himself with, but there was a warning in his tone. It makes me wonder if I should try to be less appealing and less acquiescent, anything to minimize the affection he seems to have developed. Obsession masquerading as love. If he loved me, he couldn’t, wouldn’t harm me.

“I don’t think it’s love,” I finally say.

“I know you don’t. And I didn’t say it was, either. But remember, just because I want to hurt you more doesn’t mean you know my mind more than I do. You don’t. Our natures are different. How would you know what love looks like on a vampire when all you’ve got is a human measuring stick?”

I don’t respond to that because it feels like we’re getting into dangerous territory, skirting around the truth of his nature and how it repulses me on a soul-deep level. His temper might erupt. I’ve managed to keep it at bay since that first day when I thought I would die next to the white phone. I still don’t know if that phone is just for show or if it has a real dial tone that leads out into the real world, or if there is a real world anymore.

“Don’t worry,” he says, “I want you alive more than I’ve ever wanted the same with regard to any other pet. No matter how much pain I cause you, I’m highly motivated to keep you breathing. That might work in your favor if I manage the self-control.”

***

Another week passes. Routine has set in. I’ve gotten comfortable. That is my first mistake. We go nightly to the club and occasionally to his other properties in the district. I’m no more fond of Nadine, but at least I don’t feel like she’ll eat me when Christian isn’t looking. His other friends haven’t been back, and other vampires in general seem to give me a wide birth. They know who I am and who I’m with. It makes them think twice. Except at
the other club
, where I still don’t know who touches me.

I would be lying if I said I didn’t get a charge out of that, that all these powerful vampires surrounding me at all hours of the night will never lay a finger on me or disrupt a hair on my head without permission because Christian would unleash his fury.

Tonight, things feel different. I’ve gotten used to sensory deprivation here as part of the routine. Taking the hypnotic music away from me, taking everything away from me and forcing me to just surrender and feel has deepened my connection to Christian in ways I can’t properly express. It has increased my reliance on him more than I thought possible and heightened every feeling of devotion I have toward him.

I no longer question my loyalty or my willingness to please him. The club is pure sensation. No thinking or rationalizing. No fighting or fear. When the fear starts, Christian puts a hand on me to steady me, that same feeling from that night so long ago in my kitchen, only the grown-up version.

I’m surprised when he doesn’t strap me to the bench he normally straps me to. Instead he leads me to a different kind of bench with stirrups. He doesn’t want me on my stomach, he wants me on my back with my legs spread wide. The blindfold hasn’t come out yet, but the erotic pull of the music makes me compliant.

Christian straps me down and then walks around me a few times, stroking his chin, deep in thought. He points to someone in the gathered crowd, a pretty blonde girl. I think she’s human for a moment, but as she moves closer, her eyes flash. It’s clear by this point he doesn’t intend to use the gag, blindfold, or earplugs.

As the music continues to pound relentlessly on, I feel myself growing wetter. The blonde vampire is kneeling between my legs now, licking my clit. All I can do is writhe and go along with it. I’m not really into girls, but the music insists I’m into everything, so I accept the pleasure she delivers without complaint or struggle.

After my second orgasm she turns to Christian and says, “Please, Sir, may I drink?”

He nods and a second later her fangs are in my femoral artery. I grip the arm rests and cry out at the pain, but it fades into the drugged feeling. In another set of circumstances, I know I’d feel betrayed, that this is something only Christian and I should share together, but all I can do is watch him. The satisfied look on his face erases even my hypothetical sense of betrayal.

“That’s enough,” he says.

The blonde gets up and retreats back into the crowd. Christian is beside me now, his bleeding wrist at my mouth. “Drink, pet.”

When I’ve had my fill, he pulls his wrist away. He turns and takes a glass dildo off a cart and shoves it inside me. Tears spring to my eyes at the intrusion. Losing my virginity each night never hurts less. If anything, it hurts more because I’m anticipating it, and I’m tense. Even with the music, I can’t let go for that one moment to ease it.

He snaps a finger and someone rushes up with a high-backed chair, which he places between my spread legs.

“Change the music to disc three,” he says as he sits.

The music stops for a second and I feel extreme shame being exposed like this in front of so many. Christian strokes my thigh. “It’s all right, pet. We just need stronger music so we don’t hurt you.”

I feel a moment of panic, knowing that if we need
stronger music
, it’s because something extreme is about to happen to me, but the panic is followed by relief that he doesn’t want what he’s planned to hurt. He continues to comfort me, then the music changes. It still has an electronica feel, but it’s slower, deeper, the pulsing closer to that of a human heartbeat.

It pulls me under and everything inside me relaxes. The only equivalent feeling I can express is that it’s like a drug, similar to the feeling of being fed on, but slightly different and infinitely more powerful. My mind is filled with thoughts of compliance. I’ll happily let him do anything. The music is so intense that this private admission doesn’t even frighten me.

He removes the glass toy and begins to work a finger inside me, then two, then three. As each additional finger is added, I easily and willingly accommodate him.

“You’re going to be a good girl for me and take my whole fist inside you, aren’t you, pet?”

“Yes, Master.” Not even a moment’s hesitation. My voice comes out a breathy sigh as I give him my verbal acquiescence. The idea sounds great to me. I’m not sure if it shouldn’t.

“So you will relax and accept me, yes pet?”

“Yes, Master.”

His verbal command is needless. The music has taken me so far under that I’m riding it like a wave, flowing with it, interweaving, becoming one thing. The music is me and I am the music. Every muscle inside me relaxes. I’m vaguely aware that the most difficult part of this is relaxation, a job Christian has done for me by simply changing the music.

I imagine a thousand vampires at once staring into my eyes, ordering me to relax and accept. My body can do nothing but follow that command. There is too much power to resist.

A fourth finger finds its way into me, stretching me impossibly wider.

“This will be easy with you so relaxed, pet. Don’t think about it, just let me inside you.”

I feel a cold wetness as lubricant is liberally added. Some dark corner of my mind thinks this should hurt, but even if I tried, I don’t think I could manage to physically tense up. I’m completely open and vulnerable.

“Does anything burn or hurt, pet?”

“No, Master.”

“Good girl. If it does, tell me. It shouldn’t with you so relaxed.”

There is a quiet kind of reverence among those who are watching. Some are engaged in their own sexual activities and are paying no heed to us, but many are riveted by the intimate act we’re engaged in.

He presses the rest of his palm inside me, and then his thumb. I feel his hand close into a fist and I gasp at the sensation and the shock that he’s really managed this feat. In my mind, all the relaxation, hypnotism, and lube in the world shouldn’t make this possible.

His fist works inside me, drawing a whimper and then a low moan.

“That’s it, pet. Come for me. You filthy little slut. You love this, don’t you?”

“Yes, Master.” And I do, at least right now while all my inhibitions are silenced and I’m just his pleasure doll. I jerk in my restraints as the orgasm pulses through me, then he very slowly eases out of me.

Someone nearby hands him a towel and he dries his hand, then he’s beside me feeding me his blood again. “We don’t want to stretch you out, do we?”

I shake my head and take the offered blood. It hasn’t escaped me that he has yet to drink from me once tonight. He unbinds me, then gathers my naked form in his arms and carries me back to the office.

Once inside, he settles me on the couch and wraps a blanket around my shoulders. Without the music to guide me, I feel bereft and too vulnerable when he leaves the room. But he returns a couple of minutes later with a cold bottled water.

He sits beside me and rubs my back as I drink the water and cry. I can’t stop crying. When the water is gone, I put the bottle on the floor and turn into him, burying my head against his chest, sobbing. He just strokes my back and lets me get it all out.

I think about what we just did and how differently it could have gone. He could have chosen less hypnotic music. He could have chosen to turn the music off, leaving me with my fear and tension. He could have ripped me open and healed me right after, but he chose to make it a pleasurable experience, to be gentle and soothing. I know the level of self-control that had to have taken.

“I want you,” he murmurs against my hair. “I want you alone, at our place.”

He stands. There is purpose in his gaze and in the way his hand is stretched out to me. He smiles at me, the smile that melts me and makes me forget what he is, but tonight something dangerous and wild lurks beneath the surface. Even after what just happened, this feels unsafe, like we’ve unleashed something he can’t keep in a cage once we’re alone in his big empty house.

I’m trembling as I take his hand. He notices. My fear seems to thrill and excite him even more. I try deep breathing exercises to calm down. Never excite a predator. Ever. It’s the number one rule. When you run, when you scream... they like it. I don’t want Christian to like it because it could mean the end of me if he loses control.

We arrive home in record time. Instead of the hour it normally takes, we’re back in forty minutes. I was counting on that hour to mentally prepare for whatever is coming next, but such preparation isn’t on Christian’s agenda.

He takes me to his room and leaves me. I don’t recall ever being left alone in his room. I pace the floor and attempt to distract myself with anything and everything. I’ve never explored his room before, and I’m afraid he’ll count it as disobedience, but every part of me needs to stay busy, moving, cataloging, thinking about stupid, mundane things.

I absently open the drawer of the night table beside the bed. It’s empty except for a very old, handmade book. The book is small, but it feels like it contains all the vast secrets of the universe. My hand shakes as I pull it out, and against my better judgment, I open it.

I was right about the age. The pages feel fragile and ancient. In the first pages it’s clear the ink is old, with little drips consistent with a quill. There is a slight unevenness to the ink flow across the page. The book is filled with lines that are numbered. A woman’s name is scrawled beside each number.

I assume this is Christian’s handwriting. Next to the name is a date. The first date is March 3, 1362. For the second name, the date is August 16, 1363. Over the pages that follow, the dates spread out more. Sometimes there are a few years in between names, sometimes decades.

The list goes for several pages and numbers to one hundred. One hundred women’s names and the cryptic date beside them. The last entry is for a woman named Marlene Simmons and the date is approximately seventy years ago.

“So, you found the list.”

I startle at Christian’s voice and drop the book. I scramble to pick it up and place it back in the drawer, afraid I’ve damaged it in some way.

“Who are these women?” I already know. It’s not hard to guess, but I have to hear him say it. I’m a masochist that way.

“My previous pets,” he says, his voice far too smooth and honeyed.

One hundred women before me, dating back over six hundred years. Christian is still dressed in the nice dark suit he wore when we went out. He loosens his tie and seems to melt into the room.

“The first century or so I didn’t keep pets. I just fucked and fed. Then I met a vampire in Italy who showed me the pleasures a pet can bring. He taught me how to keep one alive, healthy, and pleasing. In the early days, I didn’t have much control. Most pets lasted a year or less, but as I gained control, they lasted longer. One lasted twenty years; that’s the record.”