Chapter 16
XVI
ABA?
Atorrent of sensations descends upon me: entangled limbs, tension mounting to an inevitable release.
I endeavour to resist, to quell the fervour before it can take hold of my senses, yet such efforts are in vain.
My being shatters into infinitesimal fragments, only to be put together again and again by Astaire’s slender hands—a cycle of annihilation and resurrection longer than the sum of my years, yet contained within a single breath.
I strain against the drowning current, desperate to preserve the last thread of life.
I attempt to remain above the waves, but the pull from the depths is too strong.
And if, in that descent to darkness, I was welcomed by Astaire’s open arms, then let the deepest pits of hell claim me as their own, for in his embrace, even damnation finds reprieve.
It is not my own rapture that I perceive most keenly, but his. Astaire’s pleasure courses through me more vividly than my own, and for an instant in this shared sensation. I forget the solitude, the torment burrowed deep within my spirit.
Yet of what strange nature were my passions? Domination and surrender blurred into one, so that I knew not whether it was mastery or submission I sought more fervently.
With every command and every chastisement, another wound loosened under Astaire’s tender fingers. Centuries of misery untangled when my flesh at last melted into his. Seed spilt upon my skin, as the sensation I once believed utterly absent clutched me in its relentless claws.
My heart palpitates with abandon, exhales twisting from my core.
I try to hide my shame, seeking the concealment of the pillow’s down, yet Astaire does not turn away in revulsion. Like Madonna della Pietà, he gathers me into his lap, fingers entangled between my loosened curls, until all that remains is a dull thrumming in my skull.
“I’m sorry,” I breathe into Astaire’s skin, the words barely formed, as if ashamed to leave my mouth.
“What? No,” he begins, then his voice softens as he gathers me tightly in his arms. “I’m sorry.”
“Why should you be sorry?” I leave the evidence of my sorrow on the linen, sit up, and gaze upon his face.
“I hurt you.” The shame of his guilt tugs my power with insistence, terribly sincere.
“You have done me no harm,” I attempt to reassure him.
“Why are you upset?” he asks.
With these words, my gaze falters, I do not trust myself to speak plainly.
“Please,” he says gently, “I want to understand.” His intent is undeniable within those words. My lungs constrict; never have I faced such earnest care. I feel utterly disarmed in the presence of such empathy.
“You released something in me today,” I say at last, “a part I had confined to silence so long ago, I scarcely remembered its voice.
“What does that mean?”
“I have forbidden myself…fadings,” I answer, but his brow remains drawn in confusion. “La petite mort,” I explain. “It has been…centuries.”
“Centuries?” His eyes widen, not in fear but in awe. “How old are you?” He asks, but I hear no judgment in his voice, only curiosity.
“Old,” I reply, attempting deflection, though I know it will not suffice.
He raises a brow, commanding an honesty I would rather not offer. I wish I did not know, hadn’t counted every miserable year.
“One thousand and seventy-three,” I reply, resigned.
A quiet “oh” escapes his lips. The knowledge settles within his eyes, but then, he continues, “You mean forbidden yourself to orgasm? That’s what ‘the little death’ means, right? Is that like a vampire thing?”
I hesitate before I can respond, unsure if I possess the words or the courage.
“Please, I want to understand,” Astaire reiterates, putting his hand on my chest. His pale fingers lie in stark contrast upon my skin, like ice in a vast ocean, luring the truth out with tender care.
“I…” My words falter, my breath slows, and I summon my past before I can continue, “I was ruined in my youth,” I force out, muscles straining with the effort.
When his brows shoot up in concern, I realise my clumsy choice of words.
“No. Not in the manner you fear.” A frustrated rasp escapes me. “It defies explanation.”
“Could you try?” he asks.
I draw another breath, attempting to recollect the visions I had so long denied a voice. “I’m afraid my clumsy attempts will only add to your confusion.”
“It’s okay,” he says, fingers gently stroking over my chest, their movement comforting me with familiar warmth.
“There were experiences… I cannot begin to describe these bursts—instances blurred between reality and dreams, faint memories I tried to forget.” My gaze returns to the fire’s familiar glow; nonetheless, my body recoils as I try to find the precise words.
“Fleeting, fevered moments of release, stolen from me before I could understand their meaning,” I sigh.
Astaire’s sincerity reaches out with a ghostly caress, awakening a part of me that urges me to nurture these newfound emotions, encourage his empathy. If I was to share my most vulnerable memories, I might—
“My…“ His name sticks in my throat, depriving me of utterance.
“My maker,” I finally continue, “he controlled me, used every means known and unknown to man to subdue my will. I was so young.” The words choke out, my body refusing to speak this confession.
Astaire does not interrupt, his gentle touches urging me onward.
“I was of marriageable age,” I begin, my voice low, restrained, “when lustful thoughts become one’s foremost preoccupation.
I was still mortal then, subject to the frailties of the flesh.
When the first of them, another of my kind, a man, was brought to my chamber, I was overjoyed with the possibilities of companionship. ” I pause.
“You must understand, I had been long estranged from humanity; my only contact with other mortals since childhood was to lure them to my maker so that they might serve as sustenance. I was kept apart, like a beast too perilous to roam freely…” I feel the words lodge in my throat like an iron rod, and I shut my eyes, as if sight itself would unfold the memories before me.
“When at last a figure approached, my soul ached with wonder. The experience is as clear as if it were only yesterday; he entered my darkened chamber at the peak of night, and without speaking a word, he grasped me in his hand. When my seed spilled, I sought to feel his skin, yearned to touch and be touched. But when I reached out, my fingers slipped through him like smoke. He was merely a spectre.”
I feel like taut vellum stretched over a disarray of bones, ancient and brittle, waiting to tear at the gentlest touch.
All at once, the bedding is too coarse upon my skin, the bedstead too small, as if my limbs had unexpectedly outgrown their bounds.
I sit up and rake my fingers through my unkempt hair, but the feeling does not subside.
Astaire watches me calmly, fingers twitching for another touch, uncertain and careful.
Confusion and concern swell within him, undeniable despite his silence.
“Next was a girl, ruddy-cheeked and eager,” I say.
“With her mouth on my cock, I faded swiftly into that momentary death, just as my maker entered and, without hesitation, drew a blade across her throat. Her blood leapt forth in violent gouts, drenching my skin, hot copper dripping into my mouth. The gurgling sounds as she took her last breath…”
I press the heel of my palm to my face, but the salty taste upon my lips lodges itself even deeper within my soul.
“That very first bitter taste of blood on my tongue, an unthinkable act my still human mind could not comprehend. But there was no reprieve. He sent mortal after mortal, night after night. An unending parade of bodies, some as immaterial as phantoms, while others bore flesh as real as yours or mine. I strained to discern their existence by touch, but my maker’s spectres became so lifelike, I could no longer ascertain the deception with my human senses alone.
I was ignorant until he eviscerated them before my eyes: entrails coiled round limbs, gore spilled over my skin, a sickening stench, blood gleaming under candlelight. ”
I close my eyes again, my breath shuddering.
“I wished to resist my carnal desires, yet I never refused them, for I wanted gentle touch and companionship too fiercely.”
The iron rod is still firmly pressing within my chest; no manner of swallowing has the power to extricate its stifling width.
“I remember them all. The colour of their eyes, the scent of their skin, the thickness of their blood.” I do not dare look at Astaire, but even in complete silence, his shock, his horror lies thick upon my chamber.
“I resolved to become stronger. With great effort, I learned to resist these schemes. These advances. For centuries, I did not yield. That is…”
Finally then, I draw my gaze upon his, though I fear what I might find in his eyes.
“Until I met you.” I let the words linger between us.
“I…I don’t know what to say.” He looks aghast. “It’s despicable…what he did to you.”
Astaire’s words are soft, but the furrow between his brows and a mouth drawn hard betrays his underlying distress.
I had seen much, endured more, but the depth of his empathy, the rawness of his voice, unsettles something within me I scarcely dare name.
I can only shrug, a gesture not of indifference but of endurance and resignation.
“Is that why you turned away from me when I…spilled?” he asks.
“The intensity of your release resounded within me as though it were my own.”
“I don’t understand…”
“I feel it all: desire, anger, fear. Even yours,” I confess.
“That sounds…unbearable.”
“It is,” I whisper, turning away and gazing into the flames once more. Their familiar crackling soothes my frayed nerves.
“So you knew?” he asks after a pause.
“From the instant you stood upon my threshold and I screamed in your face and found nothing but mild irritation.”
“You don’t think there’s something wrong with me then?” he asks.
I look upon him then, noting the sincerity in his gaze. “No,” I admit. “I find it…captivating.”
“Oh,” he says, then slides beneath the covers, nestling himself along my side. “Can I ask you a question?”
“You may.”
“Do you have to kill for food?”
The question stills me. I had never contemplated the necessity of death to provide sustenance.
I, foolish, lowly as I am, should have dared challenge my maker. But what had I then? Nothing but the feeble powers of my reason. I should have—
“Hey.”
Astaire’s voice stops me from falling to the deepest pits, the touch of his hand banishing the darkness that was so swiftly encroaching upon me. I gaze at him startled, and sharply come back to myself.
“I am unsure,” I say. “My…creator…he provides for me.”
He studies me quietly. And for the first time, I find myself wondering how far the emptiness within him extends. It makes me wish to test its limits.
“Does it trouble you?” I ask. “Me being a murderer?”
He considers this with disarming ease, then shrugs with a weary laugh. “Not really,” he says shyly. “I just always wanted to know what it feels like to kill a person.”
“You wish to kill?” I ask.
He lifts his hand in playful denial. “No! I’m just curious. That’s all.”
“I cannot remember life before I was capable of suffering, before I took my first life. My memories do not precede my murderous nature.”
“Maybe just tell me what it feels like for you now,” he says gently.
I had never reflected on these thoughts, not even in the privacy of my own mind. Yet Astaire’s curiosity encourages me to the utmost sincerity.
“It is the fear I dread most,” I begin, “the moment they sense peril. As a child, none suspected me, but when I grew to my full stature, I sensed their mortal terror as soon as I was near.”
“You feel their emotions as you kill them?” His eyes furrow again, and I want to soothe them with a touch, but I restrain the urge.
“Yes. When I was human, I sensed their emotions as I hunted them. Once turned, my own emotions became entangled with their memories, indistinguishable.”
“Wait,” he says, putting a hand in the air as if he could stop these facts of life. “You can see memories?”
“Yes, well, only through consumption,” I say matter-of-fact.
A flicker of apprehension crosses his eyes. “Did you see mine?”
“I cannot help it.” I shrug. “It simply happens unbidden.”
“What did you see?”
“Your family. Your home. I saw lovers and acquaintances—people entering and leaving your life, while you remained still, only watching from afar.”
“That’s a lot.” He runs a hand over his face.
“I’m sorry,” I say, wanting to grasp his hand in mine. “I did not wish to intrude in your life.”
“I guess it was already too late when you felt what I felt,” he smirks.
A brief chuckle escapes me, the shadow that hung over us now lifted. “Here we are perfectly matched. You feel nothing, and I feel everything.”
This time, I take his hand, stroking each finger with slow, deliberate care. Beneath the counterpane, his limbs slacken, and the air about us swells with a deep sense of blissful exhaustion, as thick and comforting as the warmest summer day.
“All I feel now is tired.” A half-mumbled, half-slurred stream of words spills from his lips. “I should go.”
Before he can stir, I wrap a hand around Astaire’s waist, locking him in place.
I draw him close until we are perfectly entwined, then press my face on the nape of his neck, inhaling the creosote scent of his skin.
My leg drapes over his hips like a living cage.
His limbs are slack and heavy with exhaustion.
“You’re so heavy,” he mutters, but when I ask him if I should move, he only answers with a satisfied sigh.
And so I remain, curled around his sharp limbs, and the steady whisper of his pulse lulls me to sleep.