Wilhelmina A Novella (12 page)

I couldn’t believe that I’d fallen for it again. When I was a young girl, I placed so much trust in Charles Abberdean that when he left me I was certain that he would come back, but he didn’t. When we ran into each other incidentally, he made such sweet promises of freedom and sovereignty over my own will, but once again he’d left me behind, in the hands of the queen of the succubae.

I slept that night with no dreams to interrupt me. No dreams, because there was no hope. There was no hope because there was no love. There was no love because there was no Charles.

I realized why it was so easy for the demon of the night, the devil with such promisingly fine intentions and pledges, to have so much sway over whether dreamed or not. Because I loved Charles Abberdean.

I loved him with what semblance of a heart I had left, all that had survived with him. When he left, I was shattered and bruised, but a sole piece of me survived with him. But when he’d left me again, I couldn’t bear the aching disappointment and all that was life to me left with him.

I knew now that there was nothing left to look forward to, nothing worth keeping my humanity.

When I awoke, the sun was just rising over the horizon and it shined into my room with golden brilliance, but somehow, today, the sun held nothing for me. It was another reminder of those far off fairytale dreams I once had as a little girl. Imaginings of a kingdom of my own, with Charles at my side.

Through the sun’s warm radiance there were streams of light moving all around the walls and ceiling, like hundreds of tiny multihued mirrors were twirling inside of my room and casting these luminous eyes along my walls. I sat up to find to the source and saw a tiny ballerina twirling around, dancing to the soft chimes of the music box beneath her dainty toe. She shimmered lustrously in the morning sunlight, resting in the hands of an angel that sat on the edge of my bed.

Charles sat there wearing only his dark pants and boots. His shirt had been cast down to the floor beside his feet, and he stared down at the ballerina that he'd kept to remember me by. I studied the contours of his lovely profile and marveled in pure admiration. His straight nose ended in an elegant point and his full lips were slightly parted in thought and reluctance as he slowly looked up at me with those fierce red eyes beneath his blonde tousled hair.

He sat the music box down beside the bed. He crawled onto the bed and stood on his knees before me, exposing his entire torso for me to see as it glistened and gleamed with fiery skin, like the most beautiful garnet in all the world. It looked as though there were flames crawling beneath his skin that lit him up like a Greek god.

He was the most beautiful jewel in my world.

‘This is all I am,’ Charles said with sorrow. In the warmth of his presence, and the splendor of his distinct curved and rigid upper body, lean muscle beneath tight and exquisite flesh, his distress was unbefitting. ‘This is all I can offer, Wilhelmina, this is all of me. What you see is all I can give to you, and what you asked of me requires more, so much more.

‘You need more than mere flesh to join with yours, more than mutual attraction. An ardent and eager slave I am, and I would do anything to please you, anything to make you happy. But for what you seek you need two hearts, and I have no heart to give.’

Charles looked as though he were crying, but there were no tears, none at all. Just gloom.

‘Everything has a heart, Charles,’ I said. I stood on my knees as well, facing his exposed flesh. I ran a curious hand down the curves of his chest and stomach, and he was just as smooth as his hands, and as hot as the warm morning sun. Both the sun and his chest warmed my cold hands, and the two sensations combined sent trills through my body.

‘You of all people have a heart. I've seen it in your words, manifested by the care you took to create a little red sparrow.’

‘I have one, yes, but it is dead. It no longer beats. What animates you, what drives you to feel, no longer animates me, no longer drives me,’ he said.

I took a deep and bold breath, and brought my hands back up from his waistline to his jaw. I looked him in his tender eyes, and no matter how red they were, or how wintry white his body was, I was not seeing a demon before me.

In my grasp, I held an angel; a beautiful and elegant angel.

Even in the night he was graceful with light, and in the day I could still see the darkness within him, but I realized that it didn’t rule him. Darkness was a part of everything in life, but the true trial of heaven was whether or not we let the shadows overpower us.

‘I cannot promise you anything.’ Charles told me. ‘You need someone who will not want to kill you during every second of making love. That’s all I will be thinking of.’

‘I never asked you to promise me anything,’ I said as I held his hands at his sides. ‘And I never will. I think… I think I finally understand. Everything, I finally understand.’

He was clearly confused by my words, but it didn’t matter. What was important was that I understood what I was saying, what I wanted. It was time to face my own darkness.

‘Are you sure?’ he asked me, calmly. I could hear the unspoken urgency laced through his words.

My answer came in the form of a soft kiss pressed to his smooth inflexible lips, and his mouth responded immediately with restraint. My kiss reshaped itself around his stone jaws as the moved against and with mine.

I slowly grabbed the sides of his body with my hands and pulled him toward me. He responded by wrapping his arm around my shoulder and laying me back, gently. He broke the kiss for a moment and curled away, hovering over me with closed eyes. He looked like he was in pain, and I gently rubbed a hand down his neck.

‘Are you alright?’ I asked, wondering if I’d done something wrong.

‘Are you
certain
?’ he pressed.

‘Yes,’ I told him. ‘Yes, yes, Charles, I want it to be you, I
want
you.’ I leaned up and kissed his still lips as he took slow, deliberate breaths. ‘I love you.’

I grabbed his ears to pull him down, and he finally pressed his own body against mine. The feeling of Charles Abberdean against me wasn’t as strange or foreign as I’d imagined it to feel. Instead, it felt like I’d done it hundreds of times before now, and it felt
right
.

His hot skin against my cool flesh was such a clash of forces that it felt as though every nerve in my body was a lit fuse, slowly whittling away inside of me until I exploded with desire in his firm embrace. Even though I was urgent and wanted more, and
more
of him around me, he was still slow and deliberate.

He buried his head in my shoulder, and I clutched his back and shoulders as our bodies ground together as smoothly and naturally as waves on water’s surface. He was an ocean, a vast sea for me to explore, and every glint and glimmer the sun cast off of his body was another treasure I was sure I would find inside of Charles.

His arms, round and strong, were careful as he hovered above me with enough weight on my body to keep me satisfied, but it was still not enough. I was starved and I yearned for him, but he still had his pants on, and he had yet to slip off my night gown.

Was it truly so difficult for him to concentrate on my body and not my blood? Not to devour my soul?

‘I can’t do this,’ he breathed, heaving in and out as his body stiffened and froze on his position. ‘I can’t…’

‘Charles,’ I whispered in his ear, holding him to me out of fear that he would run away again.

‘I just can’t, Wilhelmina, please don’t make me do this,’ he begged. My heart sank and I pulled my face away, looking up into his pained face. His face trembled, his mouth parted with his teeth partly exposed, and he stared back into my eyes with longing and refutation.

‘Is it me?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ he said through clenched teeth, still unmoving above me.

I brought my hands down his sides, roaming the rippled and tight flesh on his sides, and down the smooth curve of his back and into his pants, letting my fingers burrow beneath his waistband. As I pulled his pelvis down against mine I could feel the rest of his unexposed body, and I pressed my forehead against his, exhaling with desire.

‘So what is it about me that's holding you back, Charles?’ I asked.

‘I don’t have the strength to resist you,’ he growled huskily, and reproachfully.

‘To resist
me?’
I asked, slipping a strap off of my shoulder. ‘Or my blood?’ I slipped off the other, and peeled the silky gown down my arched body. ‘You won’t hurt me, I know you won’t.’

‘If you ask me to go any further I will, Wilhelmina, I will,’ he groaned.

‘If you do then I won’t care, will I?’ I countered. I'd be dead. ‘My body is yours, whether in love or in blood. Or both, if you want them.’

He was about to protest, but I tangled my fingers in his hair and locked our faces together. I bravely reached down and knew that I would have to move this along because he was not going to proceed on his own. I unbuttoned his pants all the while comforting and assuring him that everything would be okay with small kisses. He didn’t protest as I gripped all of his body that I could, trying to get him to grant my request.

‘Please, Charles,’ I begged.

He pulled away, looking long and hard into my eyes, and I stared back, trying to convey just how much I wanted him, needed him. I was stroking every inch of him, how could he not understand how much he meant to me?

‘Okay,’ he finally agreed. He cupped my face with his hands, resting his weight on his elbows, and he kissed me once again before removing the rest of his clothing.

‘Remember,’ I made sure to tell him this while I had his full attention, before the sensation of my hot body around his feverish flesh flared his desire with bursts of sensations. ‘I love you, Charles. I love you.’

‘I love you, Wilhelmina.’ He smiled, and my heart melted at the sight of this rare glimpse into a side of Charles that I hadn’t seen since my window sill. It was the sight of his happiness, his completely uninhibited happiness.

Only the first few  moments with Charles’ smooth body inside of me were uncomfortable. Not quite
painful
, but it felt a bit like stretching my mouth with my fingers as far as they would go, and then stretching them a bit further. But that was the last thing on my mind as I couldn’t believe what was happening.

We were one. And he was heaving and moaning because of
me
, and I was doing the same because of
him
. We were mutually afraid but equally content as the gratification rose and satisfaction overtook our senses.

I hadn’t even noticed how loud he was getting, or how erratic, as I clung to his body with every ounce of strength I could muster. But his vigor increased, and his grip grew tighter.

‘Charles,’ I gasped, partly out of pleasure and partly out of alarm as he thrust harder and more frequently. I yelped when my head hit the headboard and he grew rougher. A beastly growl tore through his teeth and his eyes were wild.

I shrieked as his hand scratched the headboard, leaving deep scratches.

His eyes snapped shut and he whimpered, gripping the sheets and letting go of me. He pressed his burning forehead against my chest, and I gripped his hair, my heart racing in my chest.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said as he took deep breaths and struggled to steady his tremulous shoulders. ‘I was losing control.’

‘It’s okay,’ I assured him, rubbing his smooth back and holding his heaving head to my chest. ‘It’s all right, Charles.’

‘No, Wilhelmina,’ He growled in self-disgust. ‘I have to leave. We cannot finish this. If I keep going...’

‘No!’ I said as he pulled away from me and slipped his pants up to his waist. ‘Please, Charles, don’t!’

‘You got what you wanted, it’s done,’ he said hastily, angrily, and I shrugged back into my sheets. ‘I beg of you, let that be enough. Please, ask no more of me, because I do not have the strength to bear it, but I don’t have the heart to deny you.’

‘Charles, please,’ I pleaded, but my voice was weak. I wanted to satisfy him, too, not just accomplish my own goals. I wanted to be the one to grant him satisfaction that no other could, to be the reason that he achieved the highest level of fulfillment and pleasure.

Charles opened his mouth to speak, but he snapped it shut with that same pained and sorrowed look back in his eyes. He slipped his shirt around his shoulders and then wrapped his coat around his body, and he was gone in a blur.

I reflected on what had just happened as I lied back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. I was conflicted, as I had achieved what I wanted in assuring that I would never be denied the pleasure of Charles in any capacity once I was turned, but I felt unsatisfied with the anti-climax. But Charles had left me alive, and that left a wide smile on my lips.

Even though he wanted my blood, he wanted my love even more, and that’s why I was still breathing. I found myself giddy and giggling, even after the nature of our departure.

Charles loved me.

7. The Seventh Day

I ate breakfast with a newfound sense of pep - and coyness. Every time I glanced Thomasine's way she would give me this
look
- as if she knew things that I didn't want her to... And if she didn't before, she would once she saw my scarlet blush. I wasn’t sure if she’d heard anything from this morning's episode, and Charles wasn’t exactly being bashful while in the throes of passion. I wasn’t even sure if I’d been quiet myself, before the screams of confusion, that is.