Grave New World Page 5

  1726 London

  I reached for her, but she immediately pulled away, and I could only frown in frustration. I was growing increasingly impatient at her coyness, which I determined was no more than a flimsy façade intended to drive me to carnal madness. She could sense my need for her was all-encompassing, yet she showed me no mercy. Indeed, I could not remember a moment when I desired a single woman more than I lusted for this one.

  “You must bathe first,” she instructed while taking a step backwards and pointing to the bathtub with a wide smile.

  I grumbled my reply, briefly explaining my disaffection for the bathtub; however, I concluded it was ultimately better not to argue with her. I could tell she was not the type of woman who was accustomed to losing. Hers would be a Pyrrhic victory, however. I fully intended to take all I could from her, and satiate my basest urges with her before taking my leave, never to look back again.

  “Do not make haste when removing your wardrobe,” she commanded me. She was leaning against one of the four bedposts of her canopy bed and wrapping herself around it as if she were a cat. “I wish to savor the anticipation of your nudity.”

  “Very well,” I said with a dramatic sigh. Shrugging off my velvet coat, I carefully laid it across her bed. Then I removed my shoes, which I tossed effortlessly onto the hardwood floor. The wooden stacked heels and brass buckles clanked, creating something of a racket. The cacophony could have been a metaphor for my own internal upset due to my anxiousness and eagerness to just get on with it. Next, I began unbuttoning the myriad buttons on my waistcoat before gently placing it on top of my coat.

  “Your wig next, please,” Lady Meg demanded. She eyed the object with visible disdain and contempt. “I must confess to you how much I detest the uncomely things.”

  I reached up and dislodged the white, powdery and “uncomely thing,” freeing my own hair and allowing it to fall around my face in unruly locks.

  “Your hair is black,” she exclaimed with approval. Her eyes appeared to be smoldering as she gazed at me. “Yes, of course it is,” she prattled on, addressing herself more than me. She nodded before saying, “The thick, black tresses you were endowed with at birth suit you much more than those effeminate, silly curls that comprise your wig.”

  “You act as if you have never seen one before,” I said with a nervous laugh.

  “Of course I have!” she replied with a dismissive wave, as if to say my comment was ludicrous. “I am quite familiar with London’s incompetent attempt at timeless trends.”

  “I am certain of that,” I answered honestly. “But why do you turn your nose up at the modern styles, which others consider the latest fashion?”

  “When you travel to exotic regions of the world, such as I have, you are inevitably exposed to the truly finer things in life.” She paused to study me, and I could only wonder what “exotic regions of the world” she was referring to. Traversing the English countryside by horse and carriage was not an easy, much less enjoyable, enterprise. Perhaps she was merely fabricating a story in her efforts to impress me? Regardless, I lacked any interest in continuing the conversation and failed to suggest that she clarify the dubious nature of her assertions.

  “Fascinating,” she began again as she eyed me in that alluring way of hers. “You are a rogue, and black is the color the rogue prefers to wear; thus, your black hair, your crowning glory, suits you precisely.”

  I smiled at her analogy, but assigned very little importance to whatever end she was determined to pursue. The sooner I could remove my clothing, bathe myself and then bury myself inside her feminine folds of pink flesh, the happier I would be. Not to mention the story I would have for Fielding!

  I stripped off my shirt, pulling it over my head as I watched her eyeing my chest with an expression that strangely resembled hunger. Cautiously, I reached down and removed my stockings before I began unbuttoning my breeches. Dropping them to the ground, I was completely naked. I stepped out of them as she approached me, with that same eerie, predator look in her eyes.

  “Turn around,” she demanded, and I shook my head, smiling at the absurdity of it all. I was the man and should have, by the rights of my sex, been calling the orders. However, I graciously allowed her that moment without comment or offense; I would be dominating her soon enough. I obeyed her command and turned my backside toward her.

  “Are your eyes sated from feasting on my arse at last?” I asked with a hesitant chuckle.

  “Yours is very shapely and finely toned,” she responded. “And, yes, my eyes are replete. I would like to divert them now from observing your back end. I would like to view your front again.”

  I faced her, but suddenly felt disconcertingly uncomfortable. Somewhat uncertain as to whether I should pose while she admired me, I concluded that striking a pose constituted the action of a dandy, which I am not. Hence, I stood there in my bare nudity, unable to ignore the comparison between myself and a horse at auction.

  “I insist that your cock be hard,” she announced before sitting back upon the bed. A devilish, enigmatic smile appeared on her mouth. Glancing down at my favorite appendage, I was slightly dismayed to discover it was hanging in pseudo alertness, quite visibly uninterested. I had to agree with her, because she was correct. My manhood was less than impressive in its somewhat flaccid, unengorged state. When I looked back toward her, she gradually spread her legs. Even though she was still wearing her scanty pantaloons, the purposeful hole cut down the middle allowed me a wondrous view of her most intimate part. I instantly began swelling, as any healthy man.

  “Very good,” she purred. Sitting up, she closed her thighs, never mind my unmasked disappointment. I started to take a step toward her, but she firmly ordered me back into the bathtub, as if I were no more to her than a lowly mongrel, in need of punishment. “As comely as your exterior might be, your smell is not so,” she explained.

  “Bloody hell,” I grumbled. Facing the bathtub with a sigh, I stepped into it and sat down. I watched the tepid water cover my waist as I lay back and rested my head against the copper lip. I was startled to discover she was directly behind me. She reached down beside the tub and produced a small bowl, which she filled with water. Then, without any warning, she simply upturned the vessel and emptied it directly over my head! Launching myself forward, I could only splutter and splash in near shock before I turned around to face her.

  “I was simply playing the role of your chambermaid,” she offered with a girlish smile that did not suit her; it was far too innocent. Then she shrugged as if my near choking episode was of no great consequence to her. In fact, it did not seem to bother her in the least.

  “You are entirely too uppity. It would take much more humility for you to be convincing in the role of a maidservant,” I rebutted, rather grumpily. “Perhaps you missed your calling as a constable.”

  She laughed heartily at that before producing a bar of soap. I did not respond when she began lathering my head; not even when she unceremoniously and without warning poured another bowl of water over my head. As if to add insult to my injury, she dared to repeat her ministrations.

  “That scent,” I mused, unable to recall the strange fragrance of the soap.

  “It is coconut oil,” she answered simply. “Imported from Asia.”

  “It smells rather exotic,” I commented as she began scrubbing my neck, my arms and my chest. I lifted her wrist and held it, while fully intending to steal a kiss from her sumptuous, inviting lips, but I instantly recoiled at the coldness of her skin. “You feel as if you are frozen,” I said.

  “Yes, it gets quite drafty in this old house,” she replied, as if that were the most logical reason. She continued to wash my body, this time focusing on my back. “Stand up,” she ordered.

  I obeyed once again and was again startled by the coldness of her skin. Holding me in place with one hand, she systematically scrubbed me with the other. I felt almost as if I were a street urchin that she happened upon in one of the alleys. Standing up, she
walked around me until we were facing one another. Then she dropped to her knees before lathering my anxious cock, which was now fully alert and eager to report for duty.

  “Much better,” she said, calmly, running her hand down the length of my shaft, up and down, slowly and seductively. My breathing nearly ceased as I closed my eyes and enjoyed the soft skin of her hand. Seconds later, an unexpected shower of water rained down on my manhood, and I opened my eyes with slight alarm.

  “Am I sanitary now?” I asked rhetorically. My expression indicated she had better respond in the affirmative.

  She simply replied with a nod, which was all the encouragement I needed. I stepped out of the copper tub, without bothering to dry off my dripping body. Without another moment of hesitation, I reached out and lifted her into my arms, immediately carrying her over to deposit her on the bed. I discarded her pantaloons in a fraction of a second and gripped the top of her chemise with both of my hands before ripping it in two.

  Now the tables were turned! Now she would meet the commander of this ship! Every one of her bold comments would receive a deep, hard thrust until she accepted and realized her true place. She was about to learn what it meant to be a real woman. I had every intention of making this an evening she would never forget.

  “Take me inside your mouth,” I ordered before I climbed on top of her, positioning myself accordingly.

  The lustful wench did not object, which confounded me, after hearing some of her headstrong notions. Saying nothing, she dutifully opened her mouth wide, which was all the encouragement I required. Impaling her beautiful mouth, I closed my eyes and rammed my weapon down her throat. I was slightly repelled by the icy coldness of her lips as well as the interior of her mouth and tongue, but I did not lose sight of my mission. Pumping my sword deep inside her mouth, I barely allowed her to breathe as I thrust deeper with each successive stroke. Her hands grasped onto my thighs, and I opened my eyes to watch her swallowing my relentless cock. Smiling up at me, I briefly thought I could see two small fangs protruding from either side of her lips.

  “Your teeth,” I began to remark, but she only responded by smiling even more broadly, and revealing her eyeteeth, which were rapidly lengthening right before my gaze! Suddenly under a wave of revulsion, I attempted to pull away from her, but the viselike grip which she maintained on my thighs prevented me from any sort of movement. I pulled against her again, but it was impossible to release myself! She was too strong, superhumanly so. And those teeth …

  “You are a demon!” I screamed in an abrupt frightened rage. I suddenly recalled the whispers and rumors that were recently circulating regarding reanimated corpses that fed on the living. Having discounted all of them as myths and folklore perpetuated by the idiotic and the poor, here I was! A victim of the undead at this very moment!

  “I am not a demon,” she replied coolly with a patronizing laugh.

  “I know what you are, foul temptress!” I railed back at her as I attempted to make the sign of the cross using my fingers. I could not banish the sense of dread preoccupying my thoughts as I feared this night could be my last. “You must have been very sinful in your previous life, before you died. Or else you were buried in unconsecrated ground, which precludes your soul from entering heaven!” I stopped to take a breath because I was growing increasingly dizzy. “The Heavenly Father forbids you! You have been castigated and doomed to walk the earth forever, without rest or respite, gaining your sustenance exclusively by feeding off the living!”

  She laughed as she watched me struggle, trying to free myself from her manacle hold, but I was miserably unsuccessful. Condemned to sit on her upper chest with my cock still buried deep inside her mouth, I watched her lick me from the base to the head. I did not fail to notice her pearly fangs that glistened in the low light.

  “Do you intend to kill me?” I asked, my voice shaking with trepidation.

  She temporarily stopped licking my shaft and those green, demonic eyes of hers studied me intently. Her face was contrastingly too beautiful to belong to a corpse. “That depends on you,” she replied, which only further puzzled me.

  “I … I do not understand,” I admitted, ashamed and downright stunned to see that my rigid cock was still fully erect. The disloyal traitor!

  “If you continue to whine and fret like a child, I will dispatch you as soon as I finish draining all the blood from you,” she announced. Any former sense of compassion or warmth was now absent in her tone. She started licking my cock again with exaggerated interest as I struggled to restrain my tears.

  “And if I do not carry on as a child?” I inquired, suddenly a bit more hopeful. “What are my options then?”

  “Why, you become as I am, of course!”

  “I become dead!” I exclaimed as I shook my head in disbelief. “I become a rotting corpse! A thief of life? A roaming specter that only brings death and misfortune to the living?” Tears overflowed from my eyelids whilst I bemoaned the bad luck I suddenly found at my door. Oh, why had I failed to heed the whispers and rumors that warned me of the undead gathering victims from the streets of London? Why had I foolishly accepted this demon’s offer to join her for a ride in her carriage? If only I had chosen to remain at my home this evening, I would have been safe! Why had I insisted upon meeting Fielding? Fielding … Damn that Fielding to hell! This was all his fault! I should never have begun keeping company with someone of such ignoble heritage!

  “You will not die,” the sinister creature corrected me. “You simply become vampire.”

  “Vampire!” I repeated, sounding nowhere near as pitiful as I felt.

  “I grow tired of these histrionics,” the demon stated as she wrapped her ice cold, iron grip around my cock again. I immediately stopped my puerile sniffling and gasped as she opened her mouth to swallow it again.

  “Please! Please! I beg you, do not bite it off!” I pled in distress.

  Glaring at me, she began stroking my erection which grew just as hard as it was seconds earlier. I was convinced that my eagerness for more carnal stimulation was owing entirely to the demon’s witchcraft and black magic. Shifting her mouth suddenly to the inside of my thigh, she held me immobile before sinking her pair of fangs into my flesh as I screamed out in pain and protest. She began to suck from me, extracting my life force from the wound with great pressure. Watching my blood as it filled her mouth, I noticed the stain it left on her lips. The burning pain I initially felt began to subside, leaving in its wake a total lack of sensation. Without realizing what was happening, I found my pelvis rocking back and forth as she stroked my erection.

  “You have a decision to make,” she breathed against me. “Will you live or do you die?”

  I did not know if I were still under her spell, or if this delirium of pleasure was brought on by my own need. I wondered if she had simply ensnared me with her web of deceit and treachery and decided it must be so.

  Withdrawing her fangs, she pulled away. I felt sick watching my blood emptying from the two bite marks on my thighs. The vast amount of blood I was losing was saturating the bed beneath us. I felt light-headed and dizzy, and my heartbeat seemed to be pounding right through my chest. The creature pushed away from me and stood up. With both of her hands on my shoulders, she began forcing me down onto the bed. She thrust her palms against my chest until I willingly reclined on the numerous pillows arranged there. Then she climbed right on top of me and my duplicitous cock virtually sought out her dark opening. Before I could take another breath, I found her sliding her hot slickness down over my shaft. Closing her eyes, she moaned loudly as she gripped my shoulders and rode me like a wild steed, grinding her flower against my stomach with a fierceness I have never seen any other woman possess.

  However, this was no woman, but an emissary from the devil. Her only purpose to drag me beside her through the fiery levels of hell for all eternity. And yet I must confess, I could not stop myself from enjoying the sensation of her tight slickness. My cock was harder than ever now, if such a
thing were possible. As she ground her devil’s blossom against my aching staff, she made infernal noises of uninhibited delight, and I was overcome with increased desire. Desire that was, no doubt, brought on by her dark arts.

  Seeking her waist with my hands, I held her in place as she bounced energetically on top of me. When she next came down, I pulled her right against me, burying my entire length so deeply inside her, I was certain she tasted it. Oh, how it pleased me to be driving my wanton stick within this she-devil, as I schooled her on the art of swordplay!

  She leaned down until I could feel the icy coldness of her breath against my neck. “What is your decision, mortal?” she asked, her fangs poised above my tender skin. “Will you become my consort? Or shall I dispatch you forthwith to an untimely death?”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Bram

  “No!” I yelled as I thrashed from side-to-side, desperately trying to extricate myself from the Lady Meg’s iron embrace. I could feel myself trembling as the adrenalin from fear coursed through my entire body, showering me in a cold sweat. “Keep away from me, you hellcat!”

  Her teeth … her fangs! It was the only thought pouring through my head. She’s a monster! A demon! If only I possessed a stake, with which I could end her life and save mine!

  Wincing under the sting of her fangs as they sunk into the side of my neck, my eyes snapped open as I bolted upright. But I was also overcome by an indescribable fragility, and I plummeted back down again. The back of my head hit something hard, but I could not feel pain. My only sense and awareness were of the darkness I saw behind my eyelids.

  “I do not choose this!” I screamed as I continued to thrash, trying to push Lady Meg away from me, but her unbelievable strength was unparalleled. I amounted to no more than a pawn in her unfair game of chess, a doomed, sacrificial lamb. At the grim realization that I could no longer combat her, I succumbed to her superiority and stopped fighting. I simply lay still, awaiting the inevitable.

  Hearing the sound of a deep laugh coming from my right side, I turned, but it sounded a bit muddled and far off, as if it were occurring under water. I could not make any sense of it. Or anything else right then, in truth. My mind seemed scrambled and the foggy delirium to which I was not accustomed refused to evaporate. An inordinate force, like a vast amount of pressure, seemed to be pushing against my chest. I felt as if I were being pressed into the very floor on which I lay.