xii
Her frustrations seemed to be gone after about an hour of my carefully-supervised ministrations, not that I was watching the clock. She smoked an old-fashioned paper cigarette afterward. I didn’t smoke, though I didn’t mind the smell and wasn’t too worried about my lungs at this point. I was still building my strength, she told me, so she left me re-clothed and seated in the kitchenette with a glass of juice and a heated meat pastry. Meanwhile, she had disappeared back through her double doors.
She was going to be gone for some time, so after I’d finished and cleaned up, I followed her instructions and used the lighter in the drawer to start oil lamps scattered all over the room. With the overheads switched off, the room was dark and moody in filtered bluish moonlight, and I barely found my way to the settee in the corner. I sat on the floor, on a cushion at the foot of the settee. I was a quick student.
*
She came in her own time, and with no small amount of drama. A very fine mist gradually filled the air, cooling it to a chill, creating flickering halos around the lamps, and causing the moon to cast long, eerie beams through the room. I didn’t hear her doors open or close, but one moment she was simply there, a faint outline of moonlight. Her shape was long and flowing and gave the impression that she glided as she crossed the glowing wooden floor toward me. She stopped several yards away, still hidden in shadow, and bid me stand with a wave of her fingers. She then slid forward purposefully, and the moon caught her full.
She wore a long, filmy gown of blacks and reds with Elizabethan sleeves and a square bust line. Draping from the arms of her fingerless glove-sleeves was a bat-winged shawl or cape. I expected to see the caricatured high-peaked collar as well, but her shoulders and neck were decorated only with a ponderous jeweled pendant and locks of long, curling hair (which she seemed to have grown in the last hour). Her skin was paler, or it seemed so in the moonlight, and her red lips were now a deep crimson. Long, polished nails on each finger glistened as she reached out toward me.
She traced a ring under my jaw and around my neck with several of those nails as she circled me, and her gown trailed around my legs. She stopped behind one shoulder and tugged the open neck of my shirt down over the top of my arm; a button popped off and rolled across the wooden floor. She leaned closer, and I could feel her breath behind my ear, along my neck as she breathed me in, just an inch away. I heard her tongue slackering with saliva behind her teeth. My skin tingled with expectancy.
Then she continued her way around me and took my hand, pulling me toward her as she draped herself on the settee. “Come and sit with me.” Her voice was low and rich and laced with a believable European accent. She sat me by her lap, and I reclined against her so my head lay in the niche between her arm and bosom. She stroked my cheek with the backs of her fingers and the tips of her nails, and parted her lips to brandish her long, pointed fangs.
“What are we doing?” There was just the right amount of timidity in my voice.
“Making you wait, precious. Making you wonder, anticipate when I’ll bite into your warm, soft flesh. Making you imagine my teeth piercing your tender skin, imagine the consummation of it. Making you realize that there’s nothing you want more.” Her tongue moistened her lips before she nuzzled up beside my neck and took my earlobe between her teeth, rolling it between her fangs, pinching it just until it stung. “Feeling your heart beat beneath my breast, and imagining the rich, salty blood just beneath your skin. Letting you hear my mouth water and my tongue drip, whispering to you about what else is wet as well.” She slipped her leg around mine and squeezed.
A part of my mind – that small part which always watched from outside – bobbed above the ocean of immediacy and sensation. I was amazed by her dramatic skill even as I shivered each time she let her nails or lips brush the tender parts of my neck. She whispered dirty things in my ear, and did dirty things without ever moving from behind me, just out of view over my shoulder. Though we were both still clothed, our bodies were twined, and I could feel her skin warming and mine cooling as we mingled. Her voice was constant, sultry, teasing. I listened in stunned awe as her lips murmured threats and promises I can’t repeat. My sense of self became saturated in my fascination with her – my captivation by her – and sunk into the bottom of my mind. I existed only in the second person, as the sum of the expectations she created. I didn’t even realize she’d slipped a hand into my pants until she held me firm and thick in her grasp. With a mischievous leer, she withdrew and ran her nails up my chest.
Her fingers wandered up the underside of my arm and extended it out. Jane’s silk binding still dangled from my wrist. “The Spider had you in her web last night, did she? What name did she call you, my dear? Who did she have for her dinner?”
My throat was surprisingly dry, and my voice cracked as I spoke. “Argent. Her favorite …she said.”
“Mmm.” She chuckled. “Her favorite, indeed. She must have thought you rather delicious. Sthenopis argenteomaculatus.”
I tingled as the words rolled slowly in accent from her tongue, past her teeth, through her lips. She flirted with the syllables. It was a mouthful I didn’t try to repeat. “What?”
“A beautifully-marked moth. A particularly plump and juicy moth. A Ghost Moth, it’s called. You know, dear, I think she likes you.” She let the binding fall free, and our arms came back to the settee together. “But tonight, you’re mine.” She suddenly pulled me tight, and her lips closed on my neck before I could flinch. The kiss was strong, yet her fangs and tongue only teased my skin. She pulled away, leaving what was certain to be a conspicuous hickey the next morning.
Then she shifted from behind me and I slipped back flat on the settee. She reappeared atop me, now looming over me, and dove swiftly to catch my nipple between her teeth and flick it with her tongue.
I shivered and drew in a sharp breath.
“Am I scaring you?” she asked, as she nibbled her way up to my collarbone and hesitated impatiently beneath my chin. “You should be scared. You should be terrified. You’re just my type.” She flicked her hand, and every lamp in the room died. The moon was hidden behind the settee back, and she was a black shadow over me – a shadow with a cold breath and tongue on my neck. Her gown draped heavily on me as she kissed and bit and licked; her legs spread and a deft hand pulled up the layers of her skirts until she was naked against me. Her skin was deliciously smooth and supple, but still cool. With a movement of her hips, she took me inside of her.
