Sips of Blood Part 16

Wil turned toward Marie, arching an eyebrow and at last smiling.

"Didn't know I'd run into you, or I would have taken my cane with me."

"To drive me away."

He moved close to her, his body reeking of testosterone and heat. Her cold body reacted instantly, as if a flame had been set to her clothes. The stinging nerves sharpened her senses.

"You must use canes once in a while," he whispered.

"On you it would be a pleasure."

"No role reversal yet, my dear." He turned his back on her.

"You're not dismissed."

"s.h.i.+t, woman, you've really got the patter down." He looked over his right shoulder at her. "Now you need a lesson in humility."

Wil returned to loading the car.

"I have no reason to humble myself, Wil."

"If you want me, you do." He threw the last of the bags into the car, slammed the trunk closed, and smiled at her. "Think about it. Dream on it. Or do you already? Are you trying to come to terms with your l.u.s.t? Do so soon, because I'm thinking about heading back to the city."

"When?" She didn't mean to seem eager, but she also didn't plan on letting him slip away.

"Haven't decided. But I don't have any reason to hang around. Dad doesn't want me here, you've bulldozed your granddaughter into staying away from me, and verbal sparring is simply foreplay. I want the real thing."

"Give me a ride home?" she asked.

Wil looked around.

"How did you get here?"

"Doesn't matter."

He laughed and gleefully spoke.

"I've got eggs and milk in the car, can't afford to dawdle today. Besides, you're not contrite yet."

"Contrite!" she screamed.

"Beg for it, baby. You know how. The same way you make your clients grovel."

"I already know you 'grovel' from the marks that I first saw on your chest."

"Yeah, but I've got something you want real bad." He slowly drew his hand up his thigh.

He's right, she thought.

He drew his wounded thumb across her lips and her tongue automatically flicked out to taste it. He pushed his thumb between her lips and allowed her to suck. She knew he would be startled by the coolness of her mouth and attempt to pull away, but she caught his hand and held it until his own warmth heated her mouth.

The sucking motion caused the cut to reopen and the sweet metallic taste of blood raked across her bloated taste buds, seeping slowly down her throat. The eternal chill inside her body softened but did not disappear.

"I've got something that tastes even better," he said.

Better, she thought. The only thing better would be to be saturated in his body's blood.

Wil slowly withdrew his thumb and looked down at it. Blood dribbled up out of the cut.

"Kinky."

Marie lowered her mouth onto the cut and let her tongue sweep away the bubble of blood. The odor of his rich burgundy blood drove her forward into his arms. Her breathing came in gasps, and the thrill hazed out her sight.

"Maybe if you're a good girl," he whispered.

Her hand reached into his crotch, evidently awakening Wil's awareness, since he immediately pulled away from her.

"Slow down, baby. Remember we're in a parking lot in a respectable small town. Not everyone will understand our lack of inhibitions."

"Come over to my place tonight," she said, feeling blood dry tightly across her top lip.

"When I do decide to come, so to speak, you'd better be willing, because you only get one more chance." He got into the driver's seat of his father's car.

"Tonight?" she asked.

"Naw. Dad and I watch sports games tonight."

His brown eyes sizzled with the glow of satisfaction. He shoved the car into gear and didn't bother to say goodbye.

Marie stood watching the car leave the parking lot. Her hunger needed to be sated. She looked around. Too public, she thought.

She walked to her car and vowed that she would return home and not feed. Not allow Will to win.

Chapter 28.

Upon arriving home, Marie caught sight of Garrett's car parked in her driveway. The chauffeur had his hat pulled low over his eyes, and his head rested comfortably against the leather headrest.

I told him to stay away. I warned him.

She shut off the motor and got out of her car. As she pa.s.sed the Lincoln, she checked the back seat. Empty.

d.a.m.n him!

A powerful wave of hunger drew her to the house. Once inside, she sensed a strong scent of blood tinged by the sourness of sweat. The odor came from farther back in the house. The sour sweet smell led her to the dungeon door. But she kept the door locked, as it was now. How could Garrett gain entrance? Only Sade-- Marie struck out wildly with her right forearm and the wooden door splintered. On the second blow the door caved in completely.

"Sade!" she shrieked.

The odor of blood and sweat exhilarated her. She lunged down the stairs.

"Sade, how dare you!"

A relaxed Sade stood s.h.i.+rtless before her. His left hand grasped the handle of the bullwhip. Just beyond him, stretched tautly across the Eton Bench, was Garrett. Naked. The skin on his b.u.t.tocks split with raw gashes, sweat forming a sheen over his entire body.

"Ma Marie, don't get so upset. You weren't here, and I thought I could fill in for you. Votre client was in need of service. As a favor..."

"You beat him with the bullwhip."

Sade looked down at the glistening braided leather of the whip.

"Should I have started with something plus doux?" Sade walked to the wall of the dungeon and selected another whip. "A signal whip, perhaps?"

"Don't ever touch my slaves." She put out her right hand palm upward. "The key."

Sade stooped a bit to look up the staircase.

"Mais you don't have a door to lock."

"Never. Never will you be permitted to use the dungeon again. Is that understood?" Her body trembled from anger and hunger, a hunger that kept growing stronger the longer she remained with the bleeding Garrett.

"Marie, we have been too long together to argue over a mere..." Sade looked over at Garrett. "Meal."

"Too long we've tolerated each other."

"Ah! But you got what you wanted, Marie. You are immortal. A blood-sucking immortal who stands gasping from the smell of her next meal."

"Out!" she screamed.

Sade walked over to Garrett and ran his right index finger across a wound. His finger came back drenched in a bright red. He used his tongue to lap at his finger several times until the red had disappeared. He frowned.

"You deserve something richer, ma Marie. This man has been bled too often. A favorite, perhaps." Sade smiled. "One that needs to be given a rest, or his life should be ended this day." With full force Sade used the signal whip to break open another wound.

Marie shrieked as she ran at Sade. Her fingers tightened around his throat. Sade flung the whip aside and grabbed her hands, pulling them slowly from his neck, and with each movement Marie could hear the bones in her hands crack and break.

"You will never be as strong as I, garce. I would be pleased to rip your body apart for all the trials you have put me and my Renee through. But there is one who would miss you." Her hands seemed to shrivel in his grasp. "Liliana. She would blame me even if she was not sure that I had rid my life of you. Liliana begs me to protect dear grand-mere. You tyrannical vieille bique."

Sade forced Marie onto her knees. The cement floor was cold and hard, but that didn't matter, for the excruciating pain in her hands had taken her to a level of pain that brought numbness, and she felt that he could not take her beyond that pain. Suddenly Sade released her hands and back-handed her across her right cheek. The sound of smas.h.i.+ng bone loudly sounded inside her head. The pain echoed throughout her skull as she fell sideways onto the floor.

"This is not the late eighteenth century. There are no authorities to back your p.r.o.nouncements. Now you exist at my whim, not the other way around. Do not speak rudely to me. Do not forbid me anything. Do not attempt to set limits on my behavior. Plus jamais ca!"

Sade lifted the signal whip from the floor and lashed Garrett three more times before flinging it across the room. Sade stared down at Marie and tsked.

"You look malade, ma pute." The last word he spat at Marie. She closed her eyes as the wetness of his saliva hit her face. "Voici your medicine," Sade said, indicating Garrett. "Voici your medicine."

Sade fetched the white silk poet's s.h.i.+rt that he had neatly folded and placed on the unused rack. He walked past Garrett and Marie as if they didn't exist in his world. Marie knew that he perceived them as too lowly to exist on his plane.

With a straight back and an easygoing gait he climbed the steps.

"b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" Marie's throat burned, but he never turned back.

"Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness. The reasoning man who scorns the prejudices of simpletons necessarily becomes the enemy of simpletons; he must expect as much, and laugh at the inevitable."

The Marquis de Sade, in a letter to his wife.

Chapter 29.

The confused Garrett had heard the fight. He had heard the breaking of bones, but had not viewed the scene. He knew, though, that La Maitresse whimpered now, and he could not go to her.

His armpits ached from the taut way in which he had been tied to the Eton bench. His legs he could barely feel. His stomach ached from the pressure of the bench. His b.u.t.tocks stung. And he needed water to help bring back the saliva to his mouth.

Until Maitresse had interrupted them, he had been flying on a wave of elation, spinning in a heaven of euphoria. This man, Sade or whoever he was, knew how to mete out pain. Satisfied his slave before thinking of himself, unlike Letcher. Briefly from a corner of his eye he had seen the man licking a bloodied finger. To whom had the blood belonged? Garrett hoped it had been his own, for he had wanted a very personal bond to be formed with the man.

He heard no movement, only the soft whimpers of a woman crying. Of La Maitresse crying. Crying over spilled blood. Garrett heard the humor in the phrase but could not smile. He tried to form words. I wanted this. I enjoyed this. The words came out only as incomprehensible guttural sounds. The words defied his Maitresse and brought shame to his soul.

Marie's fingers throbbed as she tried to move them. She used the back of one hand to feel the broken cheekbone. Sunken in. The touch sparked a flame of outrageous pain. Her fingers hung limp and useless. She could not even untie Garrett. Did she want to untie Garrett?

The smell of his blood sent the top of her body reeling in a circular motion. Sade had tasted of this one's blood in front of her. Had Sade taken blood from Garrett earlier? Had she interrupted Sade before he could?

Marie got to her knees and slowly crawled to where Garrett waited on the Bench. When she drew closer, she saw among Garrett's new wounds the yellow tinge of week-old bruises. She had not caused them.

Voici your medicine. Sade's words held truth. There is her medicine. Her cure for the bones broken and the bruises caused by Sade's wrath. Garrett's blood would hasten the healing of her body. Garrett's blood would make her stronger.

"Voici", she whispered, stretching out her neck to bring her lips closer to Garrett's flesh. Closer but not within reach.

The cure or the bane? she wondered.

Long ago she had forced Sade to give her this... not life, but a strange compromise with death. She had starved him of blood in prisons and would have let him die at the hands of the French peasants. How magnificent it would have been to watch his head bounce into the basket of the guillotine. She, of course, would have had to be in disguise amidst the mob; still, he would have been dead. She would have stolen his head and gouged his eyes out, racked at his brains, and then set the mess afire. But he had offered her the same immortality he had if she would free him. Yes, she saved him from the mob, but no, she could not bring herself to turn the monster free to go back to her daughter and grandchildren. She forced the animal into an insane asylum, where he learned of his true strength and eventually feigned his death.

Thank G.o.d her daughter, Renee, had died in a convent before he could reach her.

Garrett's gurgling noises distracted her, and she moved to where his flushed face could be seen. Could he even see her? There is nothing you can offer him, Marie, she thought to herself. He smelled of blood, sweat, s.e.m.e.n, and feces. Odors that mingled, and yet the scent of blood seemed singled out by her senses. She knew the taste of this blood. It had always been clean, healthy blood, blood she could dream of during her long respites. However, now it seemed tinged by a budding germ, not a simple cold. No, something heavier, muskier. Something possibly terminal. Something Sade had given him? No, vampires did not carry germs. Diseases could not survive in a vampire's dead body. Bereft of nutrition, the disease died shortly after entering the vampire's body. Sade could not pa.s.s on anything living to Garrett. And the disease flourished in Garrett's blood.