by Mike Arsuaga
“Many of us believe our lives would be better if we left Earth to the humans. More and more, humanity wants to blame the problems of the last century on us. It’s easier than taking responsibility for their mistakes.”
Her hands pressed flat on the table with fingers splayed. Donatello dusted each nail with a translucent pink that matched her lipstick. Without warning, Ed covered her hands with one of his. His manner—tentative, shy, and tense—impressed her. After she smiled in acceptance of the trifling intimacy, the intense face relaxed. The surprisingly light touch reminded her of Ethan’s as well as that of…Who?
“You have lovely hands,” Ed commented. His eyes bored into her.
Her turn to feel awkward arrived and she sought to change the subject. “What about my case,” she asked. “Don’t I get equal air time?”
“Oh, yes. The solution is simple.” His hand still covered both of hers. “You don’t have ferals. It’s a group engaged in the business of harvesting and selling human organs.” Then he turned toward a sound from the kitchen, adding, “Ah, the main course has arrived.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
After the culinary excesses at Floubert’s, to her happy surprise, she hadn’t experienced the gastronomical turmoil she’d expected. There was something to be said for quality restaurants. She hoped for the same from the local recipes and cooking skills tonight.
Servers dimmed the room lights, just before bringing dessert. A ballad wafted from speakers hidden in the walls. Ed took coffee. “Try the mousse. It’s to die for.”
“And die is what might happen if I eat any more decadent food.” At the retort, he exploded into laughter—a rich, hearty laugh erupting from the core of his being. She believed he’d not laughed like this in a long time.
When they finished dinner, he waved off the waiter preparing to attend her chair, performing the duty himself. With a surprising grace, he helped her upright. Then he spun her against him. They stood face-to-face, touching from shoulders to hips.
Before he could settle in to enjoy the tactile full torso contact, she pulled back.
“May I have this dance?” he asked.
Somewhere, a member of the staff fine-tuned the ballad’s volume. Ed took her into his expansive but graceful embrace. Despite the massive table, they had plenty of floor space. Off they went, spinning and twirling and dipping their way across the marble floor. Her shoes made soft, sliding sounds, while his steps were heavier. She let herself enjoy his vibrant closeness. His breathing combined with the usual scents, proclaimed the urges were rising. Almost certainly, he sensed the same about her. More than a decade had passed since she’d had sex with another of her kind, vampire or lycan. Now she remembered how there were few secrets in the ready-for-sex department.
Each time he pressed their bodies together, he administered a teasing brush somewhere—a hip bone or her abdomen. The aperture at the apex of her thighs heated up. A volcanic fissure had opened somewhere within, allowing metaphoric lava to seep into the dark space.
“Where did you learn to dance so well?” she asked at one point.
“Mother considered a boy’s development incomplete without learning at least the basics.”
“My compliments to her.” Then she remembered Ed’s mother, a hybrid like his father, had long ago departed the mortal earth. An apology gathered inside, but he put an index finger to her lips saying, “They lived a full life, meeting death with no regrets.”
Six or eight songs later, they collapsed into their chairs. Lorna listened to the sounds of their breathing in the vast silent room, while the sheen of perspiration gathered on Ed’s face. “Here.” She offered him a handkerchief from a small makeup clutch.
There were a dozen fresh linen table napkins he could have used. Turning from them, he accepted the clean but wrinkled cloth she offered. Before dabbing himself, he pressed the thin fabric to his nose. “This has your scent,” he said, and wiped it across his forehead.
“And now, yours also.”
Holding the handkerchief in both hands, he studied the square like it could tell him something. Then, with a wink, he handed it back to her. After confirming his essence, she folded and returned it to the clutch. The humble white square ascended to become one of Lorna’s prized possessions.
A new sparkle flowed into Ed’s eyes. “How would you like a tour?” He bounded to his feet. Two large hands coaxed her upright.
“Sure. Not often a working girl cop has a chance to see where the Chairman works and lives.”
“Please don’t call me that. The purpose of the title is to keep people at a distance. I don’t want you to be at arm’s length. A part of me has been drawn to you from the moment I read your file. Sometimes, I feel we’ve known one another a long time. Does that make any sense?”
Lorna snuggled close to signal she accepted and appreciated receiving the admission, delivered with a regulation measure of shyness. The ginger haired vampire continued to appear better and better. Underneath the Chairman Ed resided an inner Ed. Shy, loyal, and caring. This version accepted a life of being eclipsed, yet somehow, she brought him out, and he seemed to enjoy stepping from the shadow of the other. But she also understood, as Cinderella learned, when the party ends, life returns to the drab world of reality in the form of the ashbin.
Not if I can help it. I like this Ed.
Ed opened the door to a room as large as her apartment, a combination office and library. A broad desk sat in the center. “Here resides the seat of an empire.”
Lorna took in the plush furniture, as well as shelves of books with the bright lettering, and smells of leather binding. A fluorescent-lit bar sat along the side wall on one side and the half-open door to a bathroom on the other. A second doorway occupied the opposite wall. Opening it revealed a flood of lights and sounds accompanied by the sight of scores of people seated in front of monitors lined up on long tables.
“Here’s the Operations Center,” Ed explained, closing the heavy door to shut out the computer-mingled-with-people sounds. “It operates twenty-four hours a day. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t run the corporation from our Orlando offices, but from here.”
“Where is here, anyway?” Lorna had pushed that question aside hours ago.
Ed laughed. He’d done a lot of it that night, Lorna observed with a sense of accomplishment. “You mean no one has told you? We’re on an island just off Costa Rica.”
Stunned, she remained silent for a moment or two while processing the revelation. “Okay, I’m a thousand miles from home. I can live with that. And I’ve been gone two days, right?”
“Yes, two days,” he confirmed, adding with a smirk, “Don’t worry, I’ll write you a note.”
“I know. I know.” Lorna surveyed the office. “Where’s your room?”
“My room? What do you mean?”
“Your room. You know. The place where you sleep?”
He chuckled. “You may see it, but I think you might be disappointed.”
“What? Is it full of young females aching for a little of the Ch…”
Her voice trailed off to nothing when the square jawed face snapped around showing an offended expression. “It’s nothing of the kind. Through here.” He led her through the functional, far-from-luxurious bathroom to a darkened room beyond. The ceiling lights automatically blinked on, bathing the room in a sterile whiteness.
The bedroom of the Chairman, CEO of Coven International, Inc., by any measure among the most powerful beings in the world, was a ten-foot-square space with a single wrought iron framed bed, a dresser of Salvation Army Thrift Store quality, and two folding chairs. A double closet with louvered folding doors that had seen better days covered most of one wall. From the ceiling hung six or eight airplane models dating from the wars of the twentieth century.
“Why?” was all Lorna thought to ask.
“Why not?”
Why not, indeed!
In that moment, Lorna understood him, in both his versions.
Histor
y had seen others like Ed—Individuals who come into possession of power. The majority have been overwhelmed by the challenge, seeking to flee or avoid dominance over others. Those who accept often do so reluctantly, promising themselves they will hold dominion temporarily. Among all who have held such influence, few understood the nature of what they possessed.
When the need passes, power acquires a kind of sentience, seducing the holder into exercising it to serve its own ends, often resulting in destruction or chaos, but there are a few who are greater than the power they wield, who view it as a tool. Ignoring the seductive call, they listen to their inner selves. These bemused individuals accept their mandate from God or Fate to harness the beast. In other times, Ed’s kind converted half a world to Christianity; or forsook a princedom to lead a people from slavery to the Promised Land; or created the Pax Romana, lasting five centuries.
Chairman Edward White, a poor, benighted cavalier working under his self-wielded lash, carried the torch on behalf of all his kind. Personal needs or desires were unimportant, even a hindrance. The task filled him because at all times, he never forgot the mandate. The Others, along with the corporation, depended on his competent stewardship. The wellbeing of the flock came before friends or love or happiness.
Lorna eyed the pallet of a bed. Spartan, yes, but the linens smelled and appeared fresh. Someone made them regularly, although Ed probably didn’t notice. A coin could bounce on the tautness of the gray wool blanket.
Looking at the model airplanes dangling from the ceiling, she raised a curious eyebrow.
“They belonged to my father from his boyhood. For some reason, they most remind me of what was best about him.”
A broad grin erupted on her face. “The world of Edward White; I love it.”
He wore a scent, but she explored what lay beneath. His strength. His sacrifice. The smell was not unlike the leather-bound books in his office, calling to her with wordless invitation. For a moment, they sat side-by-side on the bed before he gently coaxed her to him. His kiss brushed warmly on her lips. Then, after a hesitation, he pressed their lips more tightly together, sliding his tongue into her mouth. She involuntarily gasped, but recovered and reciprocated. He reached for the vest of her outfit.
“No, let me,” she said, shedding everything but the panty hose.
“You come to one who offers only a sparse pallet.” His voice seemed detached as well as oddly archaic.
“I’d come to you on a hot waffle griddle,” Lorna answered throatily.
With sparkling eyes and bright teeth, he beamed at her while removing his clothes. “Please be patient,” he requested with shyness suggestive of anything but the Chairman and CEO of CI. “I’m a little out of practice.”
Lorna pictured him spending several years, perhaps decades, remaining faithful to an aging wife. Sex could not have been one of their top activities. After she died, guiding The Others’ Ship of State had become his passion. Lorna understood the concern his family held for him, along with the intimate staff like Donatello, and why. CI might have a firm guiding hand, but at the cost of balance in the life of its leader.
Am I the key to setting Ed’s personal rudder right?
“Think of tonight as the first day of the rest of your life,” she said.
“Yes. The first day of the rest of our lives,” he echoed.
They were naked, standing in the sparse little room, staring at each other. “You’re beautiful,” he said. “The police department photograph comes nowhere near to doing you justice.”
Surprised by the statement because she considered the picture quite flattering, Lorna accepted the compliment and made silent thanks to Fairy Godmother Donatello before saying, “You should close your mouth, Ed.”
“Yes, of course.”
Having removed himself from having an active sex life for a while, he didn’t take long to get back into the swing of it. His eyes washed over her lithe, tanned body. She stood before him, legs apart, challenging his next move. Without further hesitation, he swept her in his arms, depositing the giggling bundle on his laconic single bed. Rubbing her thighs together, she felt a warm glow, accompanied by wetness at the apex.
“Oh, no! Where did he come from?” she asked in mock surprise, holding his throbbing manhood between them, a blood-engorged, purple shaft. Settling back on top of the blanket, she pressed her full weight into the little mattress.
After tonight, they’ll have to change the sheets, for sure.
“Oh Lorna, it’s been so long.” The worry in his statement concerned her, but she was ready.
“Don’t worry. Sex is like riding a two wheeler. Once you get the hang of it, you never forget.”
That seemed to break the tension. He closed in on her wet feminine core. The scent seemed to heighten his ardor.
“No, let me do the honors,” she uttered huskily, taking him gently, lovingly.
As she dawdled the head of his cock in the vicinity of her entrance, he probed the slippery pink of her drenched center with an ardent finger.
He remembers how!
A throaty gasp filled the room when he touched her clitoris.
“Is this right for you?”
“Is it ever!” she murmured with a hot exhale, inserting his member. The contour of his narrow hips flowed against the roundness of her open pelvis. They fit together like two halves of a broken plate.
His thrusts curved upward, scraping the front wall of her cavity. The grasping muscles of her vagina flexed to caress and milk him. His abrupt, rattling breaths foretold an impending orgasm.
Grasping a buttocks cheek, like hard putty, in each of his massive hands, he adjusted her pelvis for maximum entry, the preference of female lycans. Responding, she wrapped arms and legs tightly around the beautiful heaving, sweat-slick torso. Her nails dimpled but did not tear the flesh below his shoulder blades.
His hand moved from her clitoris to her face. Feminine nectar dripped from his fingers as she licked them clean. When she finished, he caressed a fevered cheek with a light, disciplined touch that contrasted with the frantic motion below. “You are beautiful, my love,” he said between labored breaths.
Did he say “my love”?
Ed’s frictionless strokes probed the remote depths of her carnality, evoking tandem orgasms the likes of which she hadn’t experienced in years. They came in waves, compressing her inner muscles against the strained shaft within, sending waves of neural thrill throughout her body.
“Oh Ed, don’t stop!”
A quickening of the pace told her his orgasm fast approached. His head pressed between her breasts, covering them with hot moisture from sharp, desperate breaths.
Right before climax, he grew larger, causing her to have a last collapse into a whole-body thrill. A spasmodic flushing of fluid coursed into her. Every muscle in his body tensed. He took and held a deep breath while hot seed spurted into the darkness of her sheath.
In the middle of the shared orgasm, she cried out, “Aliff, I love you Aliff!”
Aliff. Who the hell is Aliff? Lorna wondered, slipping into post-coital afterglow.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The second their vital signs settled down, Ed’s lips caressed her nipples. A new erection rested on her thigh, hot and sticky from their last encounter. If he’d heard her outburst, he gave no indication.
One thing she’d forgotten about vampire lovers was their stamina. Humans usually burned out before she was satisfied.
Happily, she lost count around two am.
With the arrival of dawn, Lorna saw light gathering behind a set of drapes at the far wall of the room. They’d dozed for an hour or so after their last try. Being close to him gave her a warm feeling of intimacy she hadn’t felt in decades, maybe since the early days with Mike. Lorna plumbed the depths of the covers, finding his swelling shaft. A drowsy, satiated grin crossed his face.
“On your back, big boy,” she said in her cop-in-charge tone.
With a languid shift of weight in the small bed,
she mounted him. Her thighs gripped the fleshy undercarriage between ribs and hips. Enough of the growing daylight entered to make out shapes, along with shades of black and gray, but not color. The blanket lay in a pile on the floor. His great chest spread before her, dark against the sheets.
“Will you ride me like a draft animal?” he asked playfully.
As she impaled her sex on his member, her mind became awash in hormonal chaos born of sexual desire, and drifted into unexplored levels of consciousness. While there, a single realization hovered, barely understandable in the convoluted darkness in her head.
Aliff said the same thing.
That name again.
Not about to spoil a good orgasm, she postponed further contemplation of the matter. Afterward, they fell exhausted into each other’s arms, sleeping until a soft knock on the door woke them.
“Mr. White, it’s Ulbert.” A soft, elderly voice came from the other side of the door. “It’s past nine.”
“Come in,” Ed’s voice boomed out in an automatic response. Then he gasped, no doubt remembering he was not alone, but before he could say another word an ancient, spry, little hybrid dressed in a dark suit with matching tie entered, carrying a tray with coffee, in addition to a morning snack. Lorna pulled the covers over her head, trying to become as small as possible.
“Lorna.” Ed addressed the disheveled lump of bedding beside him. “I want you to meet Ulbert, my manservant. Before me, he served Father for fifteen years.”
“Pleased to meet you, ma’am.” A British accent spoke from beyond Lorna’s dark sanctuary. Understanding the awkwardness of the situation, the owner added, “I’ll leave these here. May I get something for you, ma’am?”
Lorna’s head surfaced from the covers. “A beef bagel sounds lovely, if you have one.”
“Right away. And, sir, I’ll tell Housekeeping to wait until…shall we say ten-thirty…before coming to the room?”
“That will be satisfactory,” said the voice of the Chairman.
Not fazed by his employer’s abrupt assumption of the detached CEO persona, the little man turned warm eyes to Ed. “If I may say, sir, it is good to see you entertaining again.” Before Ed could react Ulbert departed.
