by Klara Raškaj
"Justine?" he said.
"Yes, darling?"
Silence.
"M-may I touch you?" he asked.
She giggled, squeezing her legs together as her loins caught fire at the sound of his sweet, innocent voice. "Yes."
Slowly, quietly, buttons were undone and fabric slid onto the floor. The warm, shallow water was agitated.
Moria took her hands and moved her over to his side to lay against him, then he turned her around and embraced her from behind, gently caressing her breasts and thighs.
She gasped quietly, arching her back and placing her arms behind his head as he continued to explore her body with his hands. "You're either a true gentleman or you're terribly scared of me," she commented.
He leaned his head against her neck, breathing a hot breath onto it as he moaned, "Justine..."
His erection grew between her legs, spreading her pussy lips apart as it grazed her slit.
Her loins ached like mad, yearning for his fat cock. "Oh God..." she gasped. "It's so big..."
He kissed her neck and caressed it with his tongue, squeezing her breasts in his palms.
"Can't you make an exception just this once, darling?" she asked with a nervous smirk. "Nobody has to find out."
But there was no reply. He just kept kissing her neck as he moved his hands off her body.
Suddenly, something poked her pussy lips and parted them, slowly gliding inside her wet slit.
She spread her legs, panting and moaning as the phallic object filled her to the brim. "Moria..."
He thrust the toy inside of her at a slow pace while he massaged her engorged nub with his free hand.
"If you didn't make me fall for you so hard, this would have been enough," she told him.
He spread her pussy lips with his fingers while he continued to thrust the toy inside her. Then he leaned his face against hers, panting and caressing her ear with his tongue.
She moaned and arched her back. "Yes..."
In response to her pleasure, he slid the thick toy in and out of her with harder and harder thrusts.
Justine experienced other men before, but none of them even came close to the way Moria made her feel even though he refused to even make love to her himself. She wanted to thank him. She wanted to please him back.
While keeping one hand behind his head, she reached over to his cock with the other and squeezed it tight.
His entire body jerked forward as he moaned through a gasp.
"I hope I'm at least allowed to touch you with my hands." She chuckled.
He didn't respond. He merely kept panting heavier.
More than even the physical pleasure itself, she loved the way he reacted to her words and touches. She wanted to listen to the sweet melody of his moans and his shallow breaths, and hear him say her name over and over again as she glided her hand up and down his shaft.
"Don't hold it in, darling," she cooed. "Nobody can hear us." She moaned as she curled her body and allowed him to slip the toy deeper inside her. "I want to hear your voice."
He thrust the toy inside of her at a faster pace and rubbed her clitoris with his other hand, breathing heavily into her ear.
She moaned as pleasure slowly surged through her limbs like an electric current. "Oh God... I'm going to--" She squeezed his cock tighter as she glided her hand faster and faster.
He curled up and hunched his shoulders, moaning into her ear louder and louder. "Justine..."
His moans alone were enough to push her over the edge as her ears rung with the sweet melodies of his voice. She gritted her teeth as a pleasure crashed into her body like a wave, her legs twitching as she moaned at the top of her lungs.
Soon after, he grunted as he shot hot cum onto her abdomen, his entire body twitching. He lay back, his chest heaving as Justine lay on it, both of them trying to catch their breaths.
The moment enough strength returned to her, she turned around and lay on Moria while facing him, caressing his toned body with her hands and showering his face with kisses.
He entwined his fingers in her hair and kissed her back as he sat up. "Justine..." he whispered, brushing his lips against her neck. He hissed and grazed his fangs against her skin.
Her body shuddered and her skin crawled.
But he pulled back in the end.
She smiled and sighed, stroking his face with her hands. "You're too sweet for this world, darling." She leaned closer and kissed his lips lightly. "I can't get enough of you."
He chuckled.
"You seem more relaxed around me than you were yesterday," she told him. "See? I'm not that scary once you get to know me."
"It scares me...the way you make me feel..." he confessed.
She chuckled. "Well, don't be scared, darling. I don't want you to be scared of anything while I'm here," she told him and ground her body against him, hissing hungrily. "Mmm... You're so adorable. I just want to look at your pretty face while I ride you."
He then hurriedly got out of the tub.
"Aw... Leaving so soon?" she moaned, pouting her lips. "Can't you stay a little longer?"
Once he put his clothes back on, he approached her, placed his palms on her cheeks, and leaned into a deep kiss. And with that, he left the room like a gust of the summer's breeze.
Justine lay back in the tub and sighed.
That boy was smarter than he looked. He knew exactly which buttons to push to make her want him more. It made her wonder whether he was doing it on purpose or not. Her heart skipped a beat every time he came into her thoughts. She truly and honestly wanted to be his. If only it weren't for his damned oath as a servant. What kind of stupid oath was that even? And if he truly liked her so much, wouldn't he have asked her if she wanted him to leave the service for her? Something didn't seem quite right. She'd heard that those kinds of servants were incredibly expensive, but most information regarding them was never really talked about in public.
She leaned her head back and moved her hair from her face with her hand.
Did she really become so obsessed with him? Even after she got her fill of pleasure, it still didn't feel like it was enough. She didn't just want his touch. She wanted it all. All of him. Everything. She got out of the bathtub and turned on the lights, hissing at how much her eyes burned from it after having spent the last hour or so in complete darkness. Once her eyes adjusted, she opened them completely.
A small flower lay on the dark counter, along with his bat-wing hat.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Room Thirty-Three
THE ENTIRE RIVER was covered in a dark haze with the only thing thicker than it being the silence. The moonlight's gleam barely reached the surface of the calm waters as a lonely gondola strode through it.
A hooded gondolier in black robes stood in the back, while Justine sat in the middle wearing a red trench coat, a large black hat with white silk wrapped around it, and white strappy heels.
The closer she got to her destination, the easier it was to see the colossal stone fortress towering overhead. A long, wooden balcony faced the river and creaked even when no one was there. The windows were either barred or boarded shut.
The gondola passed beneath a wooden bridge as water dripped down from it.
A dark-skinned man in black hooded robes stood at the end of a small dock near the entrance to the fortress. He took his hood off, revealing his bald head as the gondola approached, and helped Justine off it. "We certainly weren't expecting you here," he said with a smile, his black eyes with red irises opening wider, "Miss Dietrich."
"Oh! You've heard of me! I'm really flattered, darling," she replied, smiling back. She then reached out to him with her hand. "Nice to meet you!"
He glanced down at her hand. "The pleasure's all mine. Might I say that...you look even lovelier in person," he told her, shaking her hand. "Claude R'lyeh. I'm the brotherhood's head overseer."
"You're a fan of my movies?" she asked.
"We don't permit those kinds of leisure activities
here," he replied. "I only know what I've heard from Moria. 'The blossoms...they keep staring. I can feel them...burning a hole inside my chest. She sees me. She sees me... Justine... Oh, Justine...' Those were his words, I believe."
"I found out he wrote a letter of resignation to Raphael and left this morning. He said this was the only place he could think of where he might have gone," Justine explained. "Would you please be so kind as to get him for me?"
"I'm afraid that's not possible," said Claude. "He doesn't want to see you."
Justine cocked her head back and raised an eyebrow. She chuckled. "Excuse me?"
"You've made quite a stir in his mind, Miss Dietrich," Claude told her with a smirk. "He came back here because he felt he could no longer control his impure thoughts on his own. You may tell his master that Moria will return to serve him after he's recovered."
"With all due respect, darling...I don't believe a word you've just said," she added. "I want to hear him say it, and I'm not leaving until I do."
He sighed while still keeping on his smile and eyes focused on her. "I suppose it would be the fastest way to get rid of you." He turned towards the fortress and headed towards it. "Follow me, then."
They entered through a wooden door and walked into a small, confined room with a large dresser on one side and a counter on the other.
"Before I allow you to go any further, I must insist you wear this," he said as he took out a long, flowing purple dress and a giant spiked collar from the dresser.
Justine tilted her head in utter confusion. "Don't you think that's a bit much, darling?" she asked with a chuckle.
"It's not for your protection," he explained. "It's for theirs."
"All right, all right," she said and proceeded to undress in front of him.
"Everything, but your shoes," he commented.
She paused for a moment to contemplate, but ultimately decided to give in to his stupid demands and took off her underwear along with the rest of her clothes. She flashed him an impish smirk. "What about your protection, though?"
He continued to smile. "You needn't worry about me, Miss Dietrich," he replied. "I'm not an animal."
Once she took off her clothes, she put on the purple dress that left her shoulders completely bare.
Claude then approached her with the metal collar. "May I?"
Justine held up her hair for him as he placed the collar around her neck, snapping it into place. He opened the door for her and allowed her to move further inside the fortress.
They walked down a dark, narrow hallway with only a few lightbulbs illuminating it from above, passing by doors with numbers etched into wooden plaques overhead.
"Would it be all right if I asked you a few questions, darling?" Justine inquired as she walked behind Claude. "I'm afraid I'm not too familiar with the Brotherhood as much as I probably should be. All I know is that you turn young orphaned boys into vampires, train them to become servants for the wealthy, and don't allow them to have any fun."
"Simply put, yes," said Claude with a chuckle. "We free them from the shackles of nature's great plan and allow them to live a carefree life."
"Oh. I didn't know nature had a plan," Justine added.
"Yes, very much so," Claude continued. "You see, nature will do everything in its power to keep the cycle moving. The cycle begins at the conception of a child and ends with its inevitable demise. Ever since we have evolved into creatures of the night, we have conquered the latter."
"And you strictly forbid procreation," Justine added with a smirk.
"Correct," he said. "But calling a fruit forbidden only draws more attention to it. To truly discourage one from partaking in pleasures of the flesh, one must deal with the very mechanism nature has built into us to drive us to do her bidding. Desire."
She glanced up at the oncoming plaque with the number twelve on it. "Sounds rather vague."
"Not at all," he added. "Desire is the cause of all our misfortunes. All sorrow in the world stems from it. When we cannot obtain what we desire, we fall prey to despair. But if we had no desires to speak of, we would never have to worry about such emotions plaguing us ever again. Ergo, the ones without desire are the only free men in this world. Free from even the very force that brought them into this world. I ask you...could there be a more superior freedom?"
"Perhaps...the freedom to choose whether you'd want to live this kind of life?" Justine answered.
Claude chuckled. "Though it might be hard to believe, we're not slave drivers. Anyone of our trainees is free to leave the brotherhood at any moment. All they need to do is ask. And they all know this. They simply choose to stay because they've grown to understand that we are merely trying to help them. There are many children in this world, both young and old. What is the duty of adults if not to teach the children what is wrong and what is right?"
"I don't know, darling," she added with a cynical frown. "This doesn't look like a very learning-friendly environment. How exactly do you teach all these values?"
Suddenly, a painful shriek sounded from behind one of the doors, and lights flashed through the bars of the narrow eye-level hole in it.
Justine's body shook as she jumped back slightly, staring at the door in disbelief while Claude only turned his head and smiled, unflinching.
"That depends," said Claude as he continued walking.
Justine followed him swiftly as another scream sounded, and electricity buzzed through her ears. Her heart was thumping all the way up to her throat. What kind of place was this?
"It's easier when we receive them young," Claude explained. "It's the older ones that may become difficult. When their minds have already set up rules and beliefs of their own, it takes a certain amount of force to...break them."
Lashes of whips rung through Justine's ears from one of the other rooms as her eyes were filling with dread.
"Unfortunately, it would seem that we've made a poor judgment with Moria. And he showed so much promise..." Claude added as they passed another door behind which screams of men echoed. "I can't help but wonder if I'd made a mistake at some point in time."
Justine's walking paced slowed down, though her heart only beat faster as she glanced up at the next plaque. Twenty-nine.
"He was supposed to be my greatest achievement yet, but instead...he turned out to be my greatest failure," said Claude. "He... We failed at breaking his chains, and now they grow ever tighter."
Thirty.
"His desire became a need like hunger and thirst and will hurt just as much once left unsated for too long. Perhaps even worse."
Thirty-one.
"I thought he was pure, but it would seem temptation got the better of him. 'Just a taste,' they say. But a single taste is all it takes...to start one's descent into madness."
Thirty-two.
Claude sighed. "Sometimes I wonder if he could have been made perfect had I only known the truth behind his behavior." He stopped before the door numbered thirty-three and turned to it as he took a step back. "But sometimes I wonder whether I could have done anything. Perhaps...what we thought to have been a deity...was a monster."
Justine stared at the door to room thirty-three, slowly inching towards it as her hands trembled. "Moria?" she called out softly.
Nothing. Quiet.
Her heart pounded against her ribcage and her eyes widened as she stared into the blackness behind the bars of the narrow hole on the upper part of the heavy metal door.
Then...suddenly...a quiet sobbing came from inside.
"M-Moria?" she called out once again, taking a step closer. "It's me, darling. Justine."
There was nothing to be seen. The blackness swallowed every last spec of light. There were only the sobs and weeps...and slowly...very slowly...they seemed to have been turning into laughter.
Two lavender eyes glowed, and a big, wide smile with flesh-piercing fangs stretched out in the dark.
She took a step back, as fear consumed her, though she couldn't look away.
&n
bsp; "Justine?" he asked.
She panted for breath, and forced herself to move a bit closer again. "Y-yes, darling," she told him with an anxious smile. "I came to take you back."
His piercing gaze and his wide smile remained focused on her. "Uncle said you're not really here. That I'm just seeing things."
"I'm here now," she told him and knocked on the door. "See? I'm real."
He titled his head to the side. "I can...smell you..."
"Moria, tell them you want to leave," she added. "I'll take you home, darling. I'll help you get better. I'll give you anything you want."
"Justine?"
"Yes, darling?"
He approached the door while maintaining eye contact. He placed his hands on the bars as his grin turned into a coy smile and he glanced down before looking back into her eyes like a little, shy lamb. "M-may I have your heart?" he asked.
She looked down with a worried gaze, burying herself in deep thought. She truly did have strong feelings for him, but mating for life was a serious decision to make. She couldn't just make such a huge decision on the spot.
"No." He shook his head. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't ask that of you."
She titled her head back up. "I-if you could just give me more time--"
"Take as long as you need," he told her, smiling at her.
"W-what?"
Claude approached her. "He feels he wouldn't be able to stop himself from mating with you by force if he were to be released. Do you understand now?"
She stepped closer to the door. "Moria, I--"
Two clawed hands suddenly reached out to her through the bars, scratching her face just as she jumped back.
Moria let out a maniacal laugh as he continued to claw at her with his hands even after she was out of reach. "No, no, no, no, no! Come back! I just wanted to hold you!"
She took another step back, staring at the door like hypnotized.
"Please!" he screeched. "Let me hold you!" His voice trembled. "Let me...taste you!"
"I agreed to letting you see him. You've seen him," he answered. "Now, if you don't wish to let him mate with you at this time, I must ask you to leave so that we may continue with his rehabilitation."
