Dark Night of the Soul

by Kitty Thomas

  The queen laughed again. “Is she? She seemed quite resistant to me.”

  Gabriel took this as a challenge. “She’ll do anything I tell her to do, won’t you my little whore?”

  “Yes, Master.” Despite Amari standing there and his other subjects and slaves just yards away in the hall, I slipped into that fucked-up space with him again. The place where I was happy and relieved for him to rule me.

  He nudged me off his lap, and I knelt on the ground beside him, my head bowed. He pulled me up with him when he stood and removed the robe. Why had he bothered giving me the illusion of a return to modesty?

  “Helene, do you see the chair we were just sitting in?”

  Of course I saw it. But now that he’d called my attention to it, I observed it more studiously. It was a large, plush, regal chair that undoubtedly cost as much as my house. The seat and back were comfortable, but the arms were hard with ridges and bumps that protruded out of the intricate design.

  “You will straddle the arm and grind your cunt against it until you come. When you do, you will moan loudly enough for everyone lurking in the hall to hear.”

  The queen smirked.

  “Well?” Gabriel said.

  I mounted the hard-ridged chair arm and began to grind for him as he’d demanded.

  “Where’s the volume, pet?”

  I began to moan and whimper—exaggerated throaty sounds. But the louder I got, the more aroused I became, taken in by my own performance.

  “Arch your back more. You are putting on a show for us, after all.”

  I arched and rubbed myself against the textured surface. A moment later the queen was behind me, her hands stroking my breasts, her mouth pressing soft kisses to my throat.

  “No feeding,” Gabriel said. “There are two chair arms, Amari. You may taste her blood if you strip down for me and grind on the other one. I could keep you each in matching collars, led around on your knees everywhere by a chain. You could play together and fuck for my amusement. What do you say, Amari? Doesn’t it sound like heaven?”

  Without warning, she wasn’t touching me anymore. At first I thought she’d taken Gabriel’s offer, and a dark jealousy began to unfurl inside me. I didn’t want her here. But she wasn’t stripping or grinding.

  “Enough of this ridiculousness, Gabriel. We have important matters of state to discuss.”

  “I do love it when you talk dirty to me,” he said. “Helene!”

  My gaze snapped to his. “Y-yes, Master?”

  “Did I say you could stop?”

  “No, Master.”

  “Come for us like a good girl, and I’ll let you sit on my lap again.”

  I sensed Amari’s anger build at this distraction. I let that anger drive me on as I climbed the peak and found my release. I was loud as he requested, loud enough for anyone in the house to hear my pleasure.

  “And that is why you are of no interest to me, Amari.” Gabriel turned away from the queen.

  I felt my face flame as I came back to myself and got off the chair arm.

  “Helene? The mess? That’s quite an expensive chair you just climaxed on.”

  I don’t know what came over me, but I bent so that my ass was raised in the air, so that he and the queen could see the wetness still dripping down my thighs and the still engorged flesh between my legs. Then I slowly licked the arm of the chair clean. Gabriel moved behind me and ran his fingertips lightly over the flesh I’d put on display.

  When I finished, he sat and pulled me back onto his lap. This time, my nudity didn’t disturb me. I was only too happy to give him all the access he wanted. And I didn’t care who watched or how excited it made them.

  Amari rolled her eyes. “I intend to have a serious discussion, Gabriel. And you’d better fucking listen to me.”

  He growled a warning. “You may proceed, but watch yourself. You’re in my city.”

  He caressed me just beneath my collar. All at once my mind began to wander in an odd jumbled way as if nothing from the past twenty minutes had happened. He stroked my skin in intense repeat patterns, lulling me out of my immediate surroundings and onto a mental wheel I couldn’t get off of.

  I suddenly wanted to ask how many cities there were and how big the world we lived in was. All I’d known was that this city and the outskirts melded into a dark forest which seemed to stretch to the end of everything. I’d imagined we were the only people, that our city was the only light when night fell, and that beyond it only lay gnarled tangles of branches and prickling vines—things that could survive the long blanket of black sky or had learned to hibernate through it. I imagined wild animals that might rip us to shreds if we ventured there, particularly once food began to grow scarce.

  It was only starting to become clear to me that we were a resource kept to feed these creatures. Some of us might live our entire lives ignorant that we were a reserve food supply. Others would come to these houses and feed them at night. So what happened when the other humans here went home? Some of them came back—Gabriel said…waiting outside the door like a lost puppy begging to be let in. Could they all keep a secret? Were they threatened? Were their minds altered so they only remembered to come back after dark and nothing more? But if that were true, how could it be that they wanted to be here? Hadn’t they only been conditioned to want it? But what if everything was conditioned? What if no thought was ever truly free?

  Manicured and polished fingers were in front of my face, snapping. The clipped sound brought me back to the present. “She is a dull one, isn’t she? But then I’ve seen her other charms.” Amari’s smile was icy and didn’t reach her eyes, which still held that sharp cutting quality that made me touch my skin to be sure it wasn’t broken.

  I looked over to find Gabriel annoyed, and I didn’t know if it was with me or the queen.

  She spoke again, this time looking at me. “The king really has picked a sad little bird this time, hasn’t he?”

  “Don’t ever call me that,” Gabriel said.

  “So you are comfortable with the power and the rule but not the labels?”

  “I don’t like how every time you say it, you imply we belong together as a ruling pair like the fairy stories the humans used to tell.”

  What were fairy stories?

  “Well, don’t we belong together?” she pressed as if Gabriel hadn’t just made clear that they didn’t.

  “You would never rule with me, Amari. If you were mine, you would be mine. You would wear this collar. You’d be stripped of your crown. You’d live on your knees at my feet as my grateful and obedient slave. The version of this you want exists nowhere but inside your pretty head.”

  My gaze went between them as they volleyed words. Despite Gabriel’s strong denial, I knew the threat the queen could pose if she’d lose her pride and kneel at his feet.

  That threat wrapped tightly around me. The breathing that had grown effortless and pushed to the background down in the cell returned to the way it had been before, and I wondered if anything would ever feel easy again. Couldn’t I have just one brief moment where life hummed along and felt like something worth being here for?

  I slipped backward—sinking, falling into that deep, dark sludge in the murkiest corners of my mind. But the queen’s words snapped me back again.

  “The humans are going to revolt. An uprising is being organized as we speak. There are too many of them and too few of us. Even with our powers…”

  I turned to Gabriel, gauging his response. Did she mean all humans? The ones in our city, too? Or just hers? Did this put Simone in more danger?

  He sighed. “I warned you your methods wouldn’t work. Letting the humans know about us, telling them outright that they’re slaves to obey and feed us for their protection would only end in a war. They may not be strong, but they have numbers.”

  “But I gave them everything in return for their obedience. I made their lives happy. Easy.”

  Easy. That word echoed and lilted along the electric pathways in my
brain. The lure almost pulled me away again, but I snapped myself out of it and focused. Gabriel stroked my throat, then moved on to caress my shoulder and back.

  He was doing this, making my mind wander all over the place so I couldn’t pay attention to what they were saying. I wasn’t sure the extent of his powers or the reaches of his control. Surely if his kind were this powerful, then the threat of an uprising would only be amusing.

  But maybe they weren’t all this powerful. Maybe it was only Gabriel and the others of the ruling class. How many were there? There couldn’t be many could there? How many cities? How many isolated worlds filled with humans unaware of all the others? Were all the cities the same size? All of these pointless, numbing questions assaulted my brain at once, so I had to push through the fog and noise to stay in the present moment.

  The queen’s fangs peered out from between her lips as Gabriel’s fingers played over my breasts. She wanted to taste me.

  “I told you from the beginning, Amari. I warned you. The human animal wants to be free. You have to at least use a little finesse. Letting them know their condition outright… If there is an uprising, what happens when the sun rises?”

  Both of them looked at me, and I realized I must not have that glassy-eyed off in la la land look about me any longer. I quickly stared off into the distance, trying to recapture the look of dull idiocy the queen had remarked upon moments ago.

  The way Gabriel touched me was purposeful, hypnotic, powerful in a deep, pulsating, primal way. If I could fight through some of it, I wasn’t sure I wanted him to know that.

  “I don’t know!” she hissed, “An attack then would have unpredictable results. That’s why we need to move now! It’s why I need you to put aside whatever your issues are with me and help me. I can’t believe you burned my warning. And then to so cavalierly play with your pet downstairs for hundreds of hours while I nearly climbed out of my skin up here…all the while the people are plotting and planning and waiting. They may already be attacking. Who knows? Certainly not me!” She paced, her strides getting longer until her red-polished toes peeked from under the emerald gown.

  She rounded on Gabriel. “If we don’t contain it, they will get out, and it will spread. Then it will become your problem. Either way you’ll have to do something. Ignoring this isn’t an option.”

  It took concentrated effort to continue to stare off into space. The patterns Gabriel had been tracing along my skin were becoming broken, distracted, and with it, I was able to focus for longer periods of time on their conversation.

  “They would be foolish to attack during the day,” Gabriel said, “They underestimate what we become under those conditions.”

  “But would they? At least half of us wouldn’t be strong enough even with the adrenaline bursts.”

  “Santo!” he bellowed.

  I’d forgotten others stood outside the door, probably fighting to eavesdrop as much as I was. Santo rushed in, his gaze panning over me briefly before he wiped his face of all expression. He’d been listening as well.

  He made a quick bow. “Yes, sir?”

  “The cell Helene and I occupied?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Please escort Amari to it, and install a row of guards outside the door. You may send humans in to feed and entertain her…urges.”

  The fire in the grate snuffed out. Her eyes glowed as if she’d sucked it into herself. It was as if she’d overpowered and dominated the flame, and in response, it fled her wrath, making itself so small it became invisible to the naked eye. Her fangs slipped out…her fingernails grew longer, sharper, gnarled. I thought she’d make the full transformation.

  “A cell? I am a ROYAL,” she roared. “Nobody puts me in a cell like some frail human toy!”

  Guards rushed in. I saw a flash of liquid silver in a hypodermic needle. Then the needle was in her throat and she was out, her internal reality shrinking and blinking out like the fire only moments before. One of the guards lifted her as if she were weightless. Her features melted and softened back into her luminous human visage as she draped unconscious in his arms.

  Chapter Seven: 52 hours until day

  I sat in the back of a long stretched car with Gabriel. Santo drove. I was dressed again, wearing a black and purple corset and denim pants. And boots. It had taken some time for Santo to hunt down appropriate footwear in my size.

  With a flick of a switch and an electric whir, a glass pane came down, separating the front cab of the car from the back. In the center of the glass, glowing green numbers ticked down the seconds, minutes and hours left on the countdown clock until morning.

  Fifty-two hours, twenty-six minutes, and thirteen seconds. Twelve. Eleven. Ten. I looked out the window, away from the mocking green glow.

  “Helene?”

  I turned to him.

  Gabriel rested a hand on my knee to stop it from shaking. “We’re taking the drugs to your sister. We’ll be there soon. Don’t worry. I haven’t forgotten our deal. I keep my promises.”

  “Thank you, Master.”

  I’d been too afraid to broach the subject, too afraid to anger him. He had other things to worry about. I didn’t think he’d fulfill his promise when he was on his own deadlines to fix problems that mattered more to him. I’d reasoned that Simone might be okay. If she could just make it through two sleeps...

  I breathed slowly and tried to relax. With the worry about my sister minimized, my thoughts turned to the queen and what I’d witnessed back at Gabriel’s.

  The injected liquid silver seemed like a mercy to spare Amari some of her dignity—if being carried off like a wilted damsel could qualify as dignity.

  When she’d awakened, Gabriel had forced her to write a letter to gain him entrance to her city. He’d dictated it so she couldn’t slip in a coded warning. He’d made her use her seal to prove it authentic.

  Gabriel slid the letter with the queen’s seal into a pocket in the door of the car.

  “Are you releasing me now?” I asked. It was so close to day. Surely I’d fulfilled my function.

  He turned sharply, his eyes flashing, and I realized what I’d forgotten.

  “M-Master,” I whispered meekly.

  “We are taking the medicine to your sister. That’s all.”

  “A-and then?”

  A possessive demonic glow lit his eyes. Whatever Gabriel’s original intentions, at some point in the isolated cell with him for so many hours and sleeps, it had stopped being a game or challenge to entertain himself.

  “You are mine until morning. I will free you when the sun returns. That was our bargain.” His words were so sharp they almost left a physical burn across my skin. I had my doubts that he planned to ever release me.

  I should be grateful he was keeping his promise for my sister.

  But even so, why should he keep me until the last possible moment? He’d accomplished his objective in the cell. He’d brought back just enough of the spark of life in me—the clinging to a personal existence—that the idea of death, rather than bringing peace, brought revulsion and low-level fear.

  I couldn’t help but feel the other version of reality was better.

  He pressed a button on the console. I thought he was lowering the glass pane again—perhaps to speak to Santo—but music played instead. A slow, sadly lilting violin filled the spaces around and between us. It sucked the oxygen out so there was scarcely enough left to breathe. I started crying within minutes.

  “Helene, don’t.”

  But I couldn’t help it. The music unlocked something in me. Maybe he could have skipped the whip altogether and just let me immerse myself in this. It was an echo of what life could be, even in its sadness and pain. It took something ugly and made it beautiful. I only knew it was a violin because we’d studied it in school. I’d heard a few clips as a part of our history lessons. I’d never had the privilege of listening to a full piece. It hadn’t been thought necessary by those who’d instructed me.

  Who were they to
tell me what was necessary for me to get by? Who were they to ration out beauty as if it were a limited resource that must be selfishly guarded?

  No one played now. I didn’t think the instruments still existed. And there had been no recordings that preserved anything of substance. All we had in the form of music was a harsh digital poppy beat and happy women singing about how wonderful the day was. There was never any music to acknowledge night. Night and all commentary on it remained utterly, chillingly silent.

  The violin filled those spaces, gave soundtrack to the night, and took away a measure of its terror. Gabriel pulled me against him and stroked my hair.

  “If Simone sees you’ve been crying, this will be harder.”

  Santo pulled into the driveway and turned off the car. He stayed behind, but Gabriel got out with me. I hadn’t been sure he’d let me see her—especially if he didn’t intend to let me go.

  I clutched the white bag with my sister’s medicine in one hand and the key box with the other. I looked at him, afraid now to unlock the door.

  “D-don’t take her. Please.” I couldn’t stand the thought of him pulling Simone into all of this. I couldn’t stand the idea that she might know something of what had happened to me since I’d been gone.

  “Open the door, Helene. We have more important things to do beyond this trivial errand.”

  I pressed the call box beside the door. I didn’t want to scare her.

  “Hello?” Simone said, a tremble in her voice.

  “It’s me.”

  “Helene!”

  I waited as if expecting her to fling the door open, but I still dumbly held the key box in my hand. I looked at Gabriel once more, trying to determine if this was a trap. Was I helping her or hurting her? It didn’t matter. We both knew he could rip the box out of my frail human fingers and do whatever he wanted. My control here was entirely illusory.

  I pressed the button in the center of the black box, and the door slid open. Gabriel walked in ahead of me, probably thinking I might try to lock him out. I’m not sure I could have done that. My feelings for him were so tangled and confused.