The Nightlife: Paris (The Nightlife Series) (6 page)

Chapter 8

Heart racing, my palms sweaty with unease, I tried to slide
away.

He followed.  “I, too, cannot leave the city.  It seems we
are trapped together.”

“What of your lady-friend?  I have her dresses ready.”

“Ah
ma chérie
,
a very sad thing.  She is gone.”

He did not look sad.  His eyes held a deep hunger, a need.  I
knew what the rabbit felt like in the jaws of the wolf.  His fingertips stroked
across my cheek delicately.

“I would have liked to know you.  I do love your eyes.  Such
a wonderful color.”  His thumb rubbed over the edge of my brow.

“
Excusez-moi
Monsieur, I will return your deposit, one moment.”  I shied away
from all the aggression I sensed just under the surface of his seemingly gentle
manner.  I had never been afraid of a man, not the way I feared this man.  My fingers
shook as I tried to pull his hand away from my face.

The mechanical clang-rumble of a motorized tank thundered
past from the street below.  Julian watched the framed black and white picture
of Père vibrate on the kitchen wall.

“We have no more time for pleasantries.”  He turned to me, his
hand fisting my hair until I whimpered in pain. 

Dropping all pretense of civility, he gripped me tight as
his teeth latched onto my neck in a snake-like strike.  The banding of his arms
encased me like the squeeze of an iron cage.

I yanked his hair to try to pull him away from me.  It only
hurt more, like he would tear my throat out rather than release his wicked deep
bite.  I fought valiantly, hitting, thrashing and flailing, but my efforts were
like the beating of a butterfly’s wings against his immense strength.  I fought
until my arms grew heavy and vision faded to black.

Awareness of cold in an unaccustomed place roused me to
wakefulness. 
Naked! I am naked!
 The rough wooden surface of the
kitchen table flattened my breasts painfully, the edge of the table cut into my
thighs.  Kicking, twisting, screaming, I tried to escape the iron clasp of Julian’s
cold hands pinning me down.  I tried to get up, to kick, twist, turn,
something, anything, but his grip tightened, pressing me cruelly against the
table.  Searing agony made me scream when he rammed his cock into me, heedless
of my struggles, cries, and pain.  He growled like an animal, a rabid beast in
a frenzy of lust.

As I fought for my life, he twisted my arm back hard.  My
shoulder tore, an excruciating pop-snap sound.  In my desperation I seized on a
kitchen knife with my free hand.  I twisted back around, further straining my
torn shoulder to stab at his throat.  Missing my target, the tip of the knife
carved a two inch gash across his jawline.

With a roar, his sledgehammer fist smashed into the side of
my head.

I awoke on my back.  His weight ground me into the floor as
a horrid pain dug between my legs.  He was ripping me apart from the inside
out.  I could not breathe.  My fingers clawed at his back, raking any exposed
skin.  My teeth sank into his arm until my front teeth met.  It mattered not.  He
seemed to like it more.  He bit my neck on both sides, then my breasts,
shoulders, everywhere he could reach while he impaled me over and over.  I
clawed his eye.  I never saw the blow that returned me to oblivion.

I woke again to the pounding punishment of his hard flesh
inside me.  Hazy fog clouded my vision.  Icy cold wrapped my world.  My body
lurched up and down with his grunting thrusts, but pain and sensation drifted
away into welcome numbness.

Death had cast its grey pallor over my world.  Finally.

I ceased struggling and waited for death to take me far away
from this hellish torment.  My bloody, broken lips smiled at the thought my
death would rob him of further pleasure.

He stilled.  “
Non!
 
You cannot die!  Stay with me!”

I drifted down into unconsciousness.

I opened my eyes to find him over me, shouting.  “I won’t
let you die.  I demand you stay with me.”  He bored into me with that unnervingly
intense gaze.  His wicked eyes compelled me.  I could not deny him.

I felt myself nodding
yes.
 But I knew I would die.

“Here, drink this.”

I choked on the salty-sweet coppery tang of the dark liquid
dribbling into my mouth.  “You must drink.”  He forced me to swallow, to drink
more and more.

He stroked my hair away from my face, soft and affectionate. 
How could someone so monstrous be so gentle?
 
He stayed with me, talking
quietly as I drifted off, expecting to be released from the burdens of this
life.

I floated through hazy visions of rapid flight through the
night, down dark, cobblestoned alleys and creepy basements, seeking something,
someone.  I searched the gloomy recesses of Paris and often found what I sought,
food
.  I dreamt of the heavenly flavor of blood as it pumped and pulsed
into my mouth from the neck of my prey.  I exalted in the fantastic speed and
strength of my limbs, racing through the darkness of night.

* * * *

I awoke in a strange bed, wrapped in white linens on a
comfortable mattress.  I sat in sheer darkness, a total absence of light.  Yet
I could see the only window was completely obscured by heavy black wool.  Outside,
the telltale sounds of chirping crickets spoke of the night.  How strange.  I
lay in the darkness, but it seemed the room was dimly lit.  The aftertaste of
those shadowy dark dreams hovered on the edge of recollection. 
Am I still
dreaming?

Is there a day and night in heaven?  Or crickets to make
such delightful chatter?  Had I arrived in purgatory, the space between heaven
and hell?  There were no heavenly hosts to greet me.  Must be purgatory.  I couldn’t
possibly have survived Julian’s brutality.  The thought sent a shiver through
my body.  No one could survive the horrors he did to me.

I assumed I had some iniquities to atone for, perhaps those
times I lied to Agnes or Père.  I recalled lusting over a comely young man, all
those impure thoughts.

The stark truth of my situation walked into the room bearing
a smile so wicked he left absolutely no doubt what kind of life was in store
for me under his command.  It took a few seconds for the shock to settle in. 
I’m alive?  I survived?  How?  Is it all a dream?  Surely this isn’t real.

Julian Gautier’s face morphed from a wicked smile to a
familiar hungry look.  A prowling predatory awareness glowed in his eyes.  He
snatched the sheets and covers off the bed, exposing my nudity.  I gasped, the
shocking reality slapping me in the face.

I felt him then, thoughts and emotions that were not my
own.  He stood assessing me as I tried to cover my breasts, and I knew my fear
aroused him.  I could feel his cock growing hard in his pants.  He ached to be
buried in me.

“I have been waiting three nights to have you again.  And
now you are mine.  Forever.”

A vision flooded my mind, of his erection covered in blood,
tearing into me over and over.  He was going to do it again.

“
Je
vais te bousiller!
”  I will kill you!

Screaming like a banshee, I launched through the air
straight at him.  With a primal rage I had never known, I slammed into his
chest.  We flew back and smashed into the cement wall together.  His head connected
with a sickening crack and we crumpled to the floor.

“
Peigne-cul!
”
Asshole
.  I shoved him off and regained my feet, but he lay still as
death.  A trickle of blood ran out across the cement from the back of his head.

Something about the blood grabbed my attention.  I reached
down tentatively to inspect him and turned his head sideways.  The slice on his
scalp showed pink, meaty, skull bone and bled copiously all over the floor.

The strangest sense of hunger and longing assaulted my
senses.  My mouth watered from the pungent scent of blood and my throat burned
with a wicked thirst.  I had a near irresistible urge to lap his blood off the
floor like a dog in the street drinking from a puddle.  I barely stopped myself
as I dropped to my hands and knees, shaking my head to break the disturbing
spell.

Down on all fours like an animal, sniffing over his prone
body, I considered killing him.  I envisioned my teeth sinking into his throat,
shredding the flesh.  It would be so juicy, wonderful, tasty, and the revenge
would be so sweet.  The idea shocked me.  A foreigner with a taste for malice
and savagery had taken residence and rearranged all the furniture of my mind
into unfamiliar configurations.  I backed away from him slowly, regretting my
action with every second.

I found a simple dress in a cabinet, clothing a maid would
wear.  It fit well enough.  I raced up the basement stairs to emerge in what I
guessed to be Julian’s townhouse.  I flew out into the street barefoot.  I moved
so quickly, a rush of urgency driving me faster than I had ever run before.  The
pungent scents of the Parisian sewers assaulted me as I sprinted through the
streets.  Just like those dark creepy dreams of running through back alleyways,
a powerful hunter seeking prey.

I tore through the deserted city, seeking a landmark.  I didn’t
understand how I could run so fast.  I loved the glorious freedom, the breeze
in my hair.  The further my distance from Julian, the better I felt.

The whole city was eerily quiet.  All the restaurants and night-time
hotspots normally filled with people were closed and vacant.  With no one in
the street to obstruct my flight I quickly made my way home.

Just as I reached the loft apartment, a gut-wrenching
command seized ahold of my body.  It hit so hard I couldn’t move.  I heard
Julian’s voice bellowing in my mind in a fit of rage, “
Reviens!  Dépêchez!
” 
Return
to me!  Hurry!

The intensity of his rancor washing over me drenched my soul
in dread.  His words echoed through me in an undeniable compulsion, an irresistible
force.  I acted involuntarily, my feet taking on a life all their own.  Without
pause, I turned and raced back out into the streets, every screaming fiber of
my body committed to my flight back to the monster.  Back to Julian.

* * * *

Chapter 9

I burst straight through Julian’s front door, shards and
wood fiber flying everywhere.

“If you touch me I will kill you.”  I spoke through gritted
teeth, fighting a losing battle against his compulsive will.

He held a rag and ice on his head.  His face wore a terrifying
mask of murderous intent and I would have run right back out the door if I could
move.  But his will held me prisoner, a toy soldier standing at attention.  His
very own personal plaything.

He smiled at my threat, a mirthless twist of his lips, a
smile of carrion eaters contemplating a dying man.  I hated him in a way I had
never hated before.  I hated him with an irrational, obsessive hate so powerful
it obliterated all reason. 
If he rapes me again, I will kill him
.  I felt
a strange certainty my hands were very capable of dealing death.

“You will know ten times the pain you have given me.”

In the blink of an eye he smashed his fist into my face. 
Blinding explosive pain blotted out my world.  He hit me again and again, his fists
moving with preternatural strength and speed, bone-crushing blows.  I fought
back, clawing at him, flailing at his arms.  My wicked sharp nails carved
bloody gouges across his forearms and face as he fought me.

He drew back in surprise.  “What is this?”

Broken and bloodied, I still had some fight left.  I leaped
off the floor to come at him but his command froze me in place.  “
Arretez!
” 
Stop!

I couldn’t move.  My powerful new body obeyed his commands
above my own wishes.  I was his to do with as he pleased.  And he did exactly
what he pleased.

I surfaced from unconsciousness to a world of pain, naked
and bloodied on the floor of his basement. 
Why can’t I die?  I just want to
die.  Please, God, let me die
.

He came down the steps to stand and stare at me with that
look, the reaper’s smile.  He planned more enjoyment at my expense.  I could do
nothing to stop him or escape.  I knew what he wanted before he said it. 
Somehow I was connected to his mind, tethered to his will.

“On your hands and knees, like a dog.”

I moved immediately.  My broken fingers screamed in agony
from the weight of my own body on my hands.  He moved behind me and slowly
removed his clothes, taking care to arrange them neatly on the other side of
the room.

Sliding in from behind, he took me hard and fast.  I wanted
nothing more than to crawl away and hide from the monstrous implement of
torture protruding from between his legs, but his will locked me in place.  When
I screamed from the burning agony of his thrusts, he pushed harder.  My pain
spurred him on.

He impaled me repeatedly, resting for a few moments here and
there, his hands roaming my body in a mockery of affection.  He wanted to humiliate
and degrade me.

He growled as he stuck me.  “You are my property.  You will
submit to me or pay the price of pain.”  He smashed me in the back of my head. 
Lights out
.

I awoke to Julian’s gloating smile.  Sensing his intent to
hurt me, I begged.  “I will never hurt you again, I promise.  Give me a chance
to prove it!” 

Though my head pounded and it hurt to move, I kneeled before
him in supplication.  I knew what he wanted.  His monstrous cock in my mouth.  He
wanted me to service him with every part of my body.  
Better than the
alternative
.  He had hurt me so badly I probably couldn’t walk.

“I will do it!  You don’t have to hit me!”

My broken, bloodied fingers struggled to undo his pants.  I
swallowed him whole, choking at his length and size.  He did not need to
command me, I did it voluntarily.  He grabbed my hair, pulled me in tight, and
buried himself in my throat.  All that meat in my mouth invoked a strange
hunger.  I could taste it there just beneath the surface of his skin, a lovely
beating pulse.  My mouth filled with teeth, long sharp teeth aching to be
buried in his flesh.  I wanted it
sooo
badly.  I bit down hard and the
most wonderful rich flavor of syrupy sweet goodness rewarded me.

He screamed and jerked in my mouth as I slurped down all
that richness.  I seated my new, sharp, elongated teeth into his tender, juicy
flesh as he tried to escape.  I would gladly suck his cock all night, slurping
down his wonderful red meat. 
Délicieux,
merveilleux, magnifique!

I worried at him like a dog, his nectar flooding my mouth.  I
thought nothing could make me release my lockjaw grip.

I was wrong.

Julian finally gained his wits enough to order me to stop.  His
words held dominion over my body.  He collapsed to his knees, bleeding all over
the floor.  I sat frozen in place by his command, watching him, hungry, licking
every last drop of his savory syrup off my lips.  I moaned with need, vibrating
with an intense desire to tear through his groin for more of that wonderful
juicy red meat.

He mewled in pain, cursing me.  “
Meurs, pute!”

His hands shook as he inspected his injuries – blood
everywhere.  Oh how I wanted more, but I couldn’t move.  I couldn’t clean up
the spilled blood.  I watched his blood soak into the concrete and mourned the
waste.

He looked at me, eyes squinted up in agony.  The cold blade
of his resolve cut through my mind and I knew primal terror.  He planned
something awful.  “I will teach you the way of pain!  You will beg me for
death!”

With this promise he snatched my head in his powerful hands
and slammed me face-down on the cement floor.

* * * *

I awoke to the tingling burn of encroaching numbness in my
hands and feet.  Naked, I was bound, stretched taut, ropes cutting painfully
into my wrists and ankles.  The cool, rough wooden table under my backside had
me shivering.  I tested my bonds, pulling harder and harder.  The ropes groaned
as I growled and thrashed.  I started to loosen my right hand.  A moment more and
I would break free.  But then he opened the door to the basement.

Julian whistled a tune and smiled as he walked down the
stairs.  He watched for my reaction, that familiar hungry look in his eyes.  I
hated that look.

“Did you have fun last night?”  He smiled menacingly.

I wanted to kill him
so
badly.  I imagined tearing
through his body with my teeth and nails, bathing in his blood.  An intense
thirst floated at the edge of my mind, my throat
so
very dry.  I needed
more of his blood,
now
.

My hate spewed out of control.  “Put it in my mouth again
and I will bite it off.”  I gnashed my teeth and growled in fury.

“Tut, tut, tut.  How nasty!  Don’t you remember my promise?”

I recalled his promise with a gut-wrenching stab of fear. 
He had a set to his shoulders, the look of a man ready to do something
distasteful but necessary.

“
Oui
,
I can see you remember.”  He smiled wickedly.  A flash of his intent slipped
through our strange psychic connection.  He planned to take me over and over,
tied down on the table.

“
Brule en
enfer!
” 
Burn in hell
.  I cussed and spit in derision.  “If
you do not kill me, it will be your last mistake.”

My hate made me bold.  Foolish and bold.  I wished he would
kill me rather than endure more of his torture.

“I told you,
ma
chérie
, you will beg for death.  I regret I cannot contain this
wonderful spirit.”  He squeezed my breast, pinching my nipple painfully.  He
owned me, every inch of me.

He paused, his face in mine.  His fetid breath washed over
me.  “I will break you,” he whispered, and I knew he meant it metaphorically
and literally.  He had me shaking with dread, and he hadn’t done anything.

I could feel his enjoyment of my terror.  He liked this game
very much.  He took a heavy steel hammer from a tool box down on the floor.

“
Mon Dieu!
 
What are you doing?”

I cried out, struggling as he reached for me.  But he didn’t
hit me.  Instead he untied my left hand and pulled my arm tight to the corner
of the table.  Possessed with unbelievable strength, I broke his grip and
gouged at his face, cutting a set of red lines into his cheek.  I tried for his
eyes, but he caught my wrist and slammed my arm down hard.  A second later he
punched me in the face.  My head cracked on the back of the table from the
jarring impact.

Dazed and blinded, a ringing in my ears, I sensed his arm
rise and fall with the hammer.  For one blissful moment I felt nothing and
thought he had missed.  Then white-hot pain struck me dumb as a second blow
drove a steel spike through my palm and deep into the table.  I tried to draw
breath but intense agony blasted all thought from my mind.  Air filled my lungs
and I screamed.  He smashed the hammer once more to seat the flared head of the
steel spike into my flesh.  I cursed, cried, screamed, and called him every
foul name I ever heard uttered from the mouths of sailors and ruffians.

When he began to untie my right hand I begged him and God to
stop. 
“S’il vous plaît
arrêtez!
 
Mon Dieu arrêtez!
”

My blood had splattered tiny flecks across his face.  He
licked it from his cheek and a wicked fire of anticipation burned in his eyes. 
“This.  Is.  The.  Way.  Of.  Pain.  Michelle!  This will happen every time you
hurt me!”

I fought with every ounce of strength I could muster in my right
arm.  I clawed his shirt sleeves to ribbons screaming at the top of my lungs as
I fought valiantly.

One word ended my rebellion.  “
Arretez!
” 
Stop
.

I screamed myself hoarse as he pounded a second spike
through my right hand into the table, the power of his command rendering me
helpless.  He slammed the hammer down three times to seat the wide head of the
spike firmly.

Then he moved to my feet.  My terror was like a madness.

He freed my right leg from the ropes.  I bucked my hips up
off the table and kicked with all the strength I could muster.  It was useless.
 Pointless.  After a few seconds of flailing he simply commanded me to be
still.

The spike poised atop my foot, I begged for another chance.  
“
Non!
Non, non, non!
  Please stop. 
I will do
anything you ask!  Anything!  I won’t fight you!  I swear on my mother’s grave
I will not fight you!”

He stared at me with cold eyes that did not know love or
mercy.  “I.”  Slam.  “Do.”  Slam.  “Not”  Slam.  “Believe.”  Slam.  “You.”

My foot proved much tougher than my hands.  He needed four
blows to sink the spike.  Mercifully, I passed out.  Icy water on my face awoke
me to wave upon wave of pain.  He had untied my other leg.

Shaking with cold and agony, I stammered.  “I’ll do whatever
you want! 
Prendre pitié s’il
vous plait!
” 
Please have pity!

“Let’s see if you’re telling the truth.  I want you to hold
very still for me.”

He pulled my leg over to the corner of the table and held
the spike poised for the blow, hammer cocked high.  He watched intently as my
leg quivered and shook with the force of will I exerted not to fight him.  My
every instinct screamed to kick him, to fight.  “I’m not fighting anymore!”

“I am not convinced.”

The fall of the hammer and the agonizing crunch of my bones
splitting to accommodate the spike, overwhelmed me. I blacked out.

My rest was short-lived.

He woke me thrusting between my legs, harsh and unrelenting. 
And he was right.  I begged him to kill me, repeatedly.

He only smiled.

Taking a few moments to clean my blood off, he lectured me. 
“This can continue as long as necessary.  Contrary to your wishes, you will not
die.”

I drifted into a half-asleep doze as he rummaged through his
toolbox.  His threats could not penetrate my exhaustion and thirst.  My thirst,
so horrid, I could have drained the River Seine.

I awoke to a leather whip-crack ripping across my belly and
left breast.  The noise and intense, searing agony jolted me back to life.  My
whole body reared up off the table as far as my pegged hands and feet allowed. 
He had my attention now.

As I screamed, my terror newly revived, he continued his
lecture.  “Ah,
chérie!
 Now you are learning!”

I convulsed, screamed, and sang out a symphony of pain.  I
jerked and squealed, squirming as he striped me back and forth, up and down. 
Even between my thighs.  His whip hummed through the air as I screamed hoarse
and guttural sounds.  He chanted, “
J'obéirai
à mon maître.”
 
I will obey my master.

He forced me to chant along with him.

Time became measured by the seconds between whip strikes as
he continued his regiment of searing cracks of pain and chants demanding
obedience.  It seemed to go on forever.  He baptized me in sermons of pain all
night long.  He left me a bloody wreck of raw flesh by the time he retired for
the sunrise.  I immediately drifted off into the welcome reprieve of oblivion.

I awoke the next night as he smacked my face.  Every inch of
my body radiated with pain.  Tired.  Thirsty,
so
thirsty.  Need sleep. 
My throat burned with an aching need, a deep hunger.  I fell back asleep
murmuring, “A drink, just one drink.”

He smacked me again, but I couldn’t stay awake.  He hit me a
few more times, barely waking me.  I drifted back off to sleep again.

“
Merde!
 
I did not feed her!”  I heard him cursing as I faded to black.