Chapter 1 The Countess
The Countess
The world is a very dark, very cold place.
Especially for a woman. A woman’s lot in life is a perpetual threat of ostracism should you maintain anything less than utter perfection.
But perfection is a fleeting thought, born from the deep depths of an individual’s subconscious.
Your perfection is not my perfection. Therefore, the idea that we, as women, must achieve perfection is truly setting us up to fail, my dear friend.
And fail we must, you see, because a woman of power is a threat to the patriarchy, which has stood in control of society for centuries.
Therefore, a threatening woman is often demonized—othered.
Strong women are the stuff of nightmares.
But in my case, as I’m sure you will soon discover, perhaps I deserve to be demonized.
I was born to wealth, to status, to class.
My father was a baron—Baron Báthory, one of the ruling families of Transylvania.
My mother was my father’s cousin, another Báthory who was forced into servitude at my father’s feet as soon as she bled between her legs for the first time.
Again, you see, my friend, women learn early that our place in life is in our knees.
My mother was weak. She took what she was given and accepted it gladly.
She spread her legs and thanked the Lord for the gift of birthing her husband’s heirs even as he looked down upon her.
A weak woman who bends to the will of men is of the utmost distaste to me.
Which is how I came to loathe my mother.
Her weakness became a symbol for all of the oppression and wickedness of the world around me.
Men are easy to explain—they are born into the patriarchy, their male superiority is perpetually reinforced, and then they grow up to continue the same antiquated ideals.
They are cogs in the machine of oppression.
But women who willingly work that same machine, despite the hurt that it brings other women, are filth.
A woman who would betray her own sisterhood in the name of making a man happy—well those women are hardly worth saving. Wouldn’t you agree?
I had older brothers, two in fact, who were the primary focus of my father’s interest as we grew up.
I was largely ignored, allowed to quietly haunt the halls of the castle.
Beware the quiet women. For, you see, my lovely friend, I was always watching, always listening, always learning.
I spent most of my days in the library pouring through stacks of long forgotten knowledge.
Knowledge is power. And a powerful woman is a very dangerous thing.
So I kept quiet. I kept my head down. I let no one know of the things I’d been reading.
In long-forgotten, yellowed books, I had found secrets—secrets I dared not share.
The more I learned, the more I became obsessed with the idea of immortality.
You see, death is the ultimate equalizer among all people.
We are all born into this Earth unfairly.
Some are born into wealth and power; others are born into a life of suffering and solitude.
Life is cruel and cold—especially to those born into a life which they did not request or desire.
But Death does not discriminate. He comes for all of us inevitably—his cold touch not caring about your status or your wealth.
He is the most powerful of all—the true ruler of fate.
And I was going to best him.
I scoured tomes and titles, reading everything there was to know about death and immortality.
The truth is that while death is inevitable for man, a woman has infinitely more potential.
Women breathe life into the world and control the true power of nature.
Death may be a man, but all men came from women, and I intended to harness the true power of my feminine strength.
But fate is fickle, and before long, I was sold off.
They called it an arrangement—a marriage of political convenience for both families.
But no one asked what would be convenient for my aspirations.
No, my lovely, ownership of my body was transferred to the Count in exchange for a large sum of money.
Sold into a lifetime of servitude to a man I’d never met and sent to a place I’d never known—I was completely alone.
My husband was utterly drab. A dull man with neither the looks nor the wit to impress.
Plus, he was quite short. I do detest a short man almost as much as a weak-willed woman.
His hair was the color of shit, and he was too incompetent to even grow a proper beard to hide his weak jawline.
He was rotten inside and out—a miserable man who got off on seeing my pain.
I had never felt more helplessly empty than those lonely nights with my new husband.
Until her. My Eleanor.
She was a light in the cold, dark castle of my new life.
When my husband would beat me, then slide between my legs and bury himself inside me, leaving me a broken mess, she’d come after and soothe my aching soul.
She’d kiss my bloodied lips and care for all my wounds.
She was a plump thing with full curves and long blonde hair.
A beautiful goddess of veracity and light, and when she shone her heavenly light on me, it was as if my whole world seemed brighter.
Have you ever kissed another woman, my beautiful friend?
No? Quite a shame. Women are so much more attentive and passionate with their tongues in my experience.
I never once came for my husband. Our intimacy was more a display of repressive ownership than true companionship.
His cock was… fine. It was of an average to slightly above average length and girth but was quite unsatisfactory for my needs.
But Eleanor knew how to touch me in the ways that satisfied all my aching needs.
She would use her lithe little fingers and her fiendish tongue to drive me to a level of pleasure bordering on insanity.
I became utterly consumed with my need for her.
I craved her touch, her kiss, the taste of her pussy, more and more every day.
We were caught once, her on her knees, eating me as if I were her last meal, in the library by a servant.
It was after that when things began to change.
You see, my husband, the Count, had never been a kind man or a gentle man, but soon, he grew downright monstrous.
His beatings were paired with degradation.
He would call me a traitorous slut while he fucked my face and spat in my eyes.
Eventually, he became so obsessed with his belief of betrayal that he would only take me from behind, sliding inside my tight back hole, despite my protests of pain, so as not to produce an heir with me.
He grew more and more suspicious, more and more cruel with each passing day.
Finally, I grew convinced that someone was feeding him information; yet I could not quit Eleanor, she’d become as necessary to me as the very air I breathed.
I worried for her safety, should my husband ever discover our affair, but she told me never to worry.
And I believed her. Love makes fools of us all, right, my friend?
One day, I was out in the garden, taking a stroll to clear my head.
I still remember to this day, it was a dreadfully dreary morning.
The skies were ominously gray. I wandered deep into the depths of the greenery, allowing the cold air to prick my lungs and revive my soul, until a noise pricked my ears.
Grunting, panting, a moan of pleasure. I knew those noises—someone was fornicating in my gardens.
That simply would not do. Quiet as a mouse, I crept through the hedges until the noises grew louder and louder still.
With naught a breath leaving my lips, I peeked around the corner to observe, and what I saw there changed the very course of my life, lovely friend.
You see, there in the middle of my garden was my husband, lying on his back in the dirt, his clothing completely removed from his lower half, and his slender little body writhing like a worm.
And above him, riding his cock with her head thrown back and her blond hair tickling his thighs, was Eleanor. She was fucking my husband.
And my world came crashing down. Every kiss, every touch, every caress had been a lie.
A fucking lie. She’d used me, as I later came to learn, as a ploy to get close to the Count.
She would convince me to speak ill of him, then would run and whisper in his ear all I had said in order to poison him against me and ingratiate him to herself.
She was not a strong woman, as I had thought, but a snake in the grass.
And I knew what had to be done about snakes.
So it was the very next weekend that I called her to my chambers.
My husband had ridden out on business earlier in the week, and I’d dismissed all of my maids so that my Eleanor and I might have a moment alone—to talk.
You see, I am not unreasonable. I did my research.
I sat quietly and listened and observed, and it became quite obvious to me that my Eleanor was, in fact, a fucking bitch.
She had deceived me, gotten close to me, then used me in order to make herself look better to a man.
A woman who pretends to be an ally of other strong women, but is willing to stab her close companion in the back to make a man happy, is filth.
Eleanor did not deserve to breathe the same air I breathed.
So, my lovely friend, I slit her throat.
Her eyes went wide in horror, and her face paled.
She thought she had been smart. Honestly, she believed that the man she betrayed me for would protect her.
Foolish, fucking weak woman. Men never come through.
The only one you can truly trust in this life is yourself.
Her hands went to her throat as if she could stop the inevitable.
The blood was so beautiful as it cascaded from her, filling her esophagus with her own life force until she choked on her own vile filth.
Red and rich and full of such power, I was hypnotized by the sea of life that pooled across the wooden floor beneath us.
It was in that moment that he came to me.
The Devil may be made of sin and seduction, but he wears a flattering facade.
He whispered in my ear of immortality, of beauty, of power.
His promises were deliciously tempting. And all I had to do was simply eat.
So I made a decision, a decision that would change the course of my entire existence, and in doing so, it made me what you see today.
Because, I didn’t just eat; no, I fucking feasted.