Women of the Dark Streets

by Radclyffe

  Every station they passed thronged with people, each with his or her own story. What was it like to live in the shadow of the Alps, to be sure of one’s identity and allegiance?

  As darkness closed in, she could gradually see nothing but her own reflection in the window. She’d pulled on a lightweight turtleneck to cover her scars, which were disappearing. What had happened to her last night? Would her memory of it fade along with the scars?

  As she studied herself in the train window she thought about how self-absorbed she’d always been. Maybe her life resembled this window. She couldn’t see out of it now, but when the sun shone or they passed a lighted station, she could. God knows she hadn’t had much light around her so far. Was that why she couldn’t see outside herself?

  Her strange dreams mystified her. Last night she’d obviously hallucinated from too much wine, but the bloody bodies she saw this afternoon seemed even more real, and more unexplainable—like a vision—a gory one she could do without. And everything seemed red lately, ever since she’d bought her red scarf in Paris.

  Her mother loved red, and she’d such a lightning, and lightening, effect when she visited every year at Christmas. She blew in like the north wind and made Angelique’s world so bright she wanted to go out and play with the other children in her south Louisiana neighborhood. She loved everyone for the few days her mother stayed in town.

  Her mother’s excitement at seeing her on Christmas Eve, her lavish hugs and kisses and gifts, her tales of life in Vegas raised Angelique so high she felt like she could fly. But her mother always left after only two days, and Angelique always crashed to earth and everything turned black and unfriendly.

  She’d spent her childhood looking forward to and dreaming of those two days. When Angelique was sixteen, she finally rebelled against her mother’s behavior, so she staged the quarrel that kept her mother completely away and left herself in the dark.

  Her recent stay in Paris had illuminated her world so totally that a bit of the brightness still lingered. At times now she could almost see in the dark, and the women who’d visited her last night, whether real or imagined, vampires or angels, had left their mark and helped her see even more clearly. They’d penetrated her darkness, and now she longed to connect with a woman on a deeper level than she’d ever known possible.

  But she wanted someone gentler, more dependable than the women she usually picked up or the illusory women from last night.

  Did she have the courage to follow these vague longings into unknown territory, or was she supposed to always stay in single rooms and eat solitary meals? Wouldn’t it be more enjoyable to travel with someone? To have someone to look at instead of always staring at herself?

  She finished her main course of roast chicken, potatoes, turnips, and carrots. Maybe she’d find such a woman in Vienna.

  Eris

  Winter Pennington

  “Please, please, please.” Khloe chanted the words like a mantra, her voice wrought with the urgency of her need. Her hips pressed forward in a vain effort to try to grind her lower body against the post to which she was bound. Zaphara stood just inside the dungeon. Her long black hair was pulled back tight, revealing the high cheekbones and narrow chin that marked her as one of the Daione Maithe, a faerie woman of the Sidhe.

  “How long do you intend to keep this up? Until her voice is raw from pleading?” The amethyst eyes beneath her darkly arched brows contained what appeared to be a well of disinterest and boredom.

  “As long as it takes,” I replied, finishing the task of working the saddle-soap paste into a leather bullwhip. I rose, draping the whip in a loose coil to dry on a nearby hook and rinsing my hands in a basin. “If it takes so long that her voice and groin grow raw from the begging, so be it.”

  I had taken Khloe as a patron some weeks ago, for very good reason. She was an escapist and lacking in a great many things, such as the ability to think before acting, but most of all, she lacked patience and discipline. Khloe was rash and self-absorbed, a hedonist who sought pleasure by any means. Careful observation had taught me that more often than not, she used drugs and alcohol to find that pleasure. She had sought me out at the Countess’s little establishment for one reason alone: sexual gratification.

  She’d stalked and begged and pleaded with me to play with her. Little did she know, as I bid her kneel on the rough stone floor of my dungeon, she would never come to my bed.

  Lenorre, Countess vampire of Oklahoma, had forbidden it. Though I am a Prime and a force to be reckoned with, Lenorre is my Countess, and as a Domina employed by her, her word is my law.

  It did not trouble me. The rules were in place for a reason. One of those reasons was to protect my patrons.

  I do not sleep with them. Ever. Though my particular abilities lie in the heat of desire, both projecting and receiving, they do not come to my bed. I am an Eros vampire. I crave sex like blood.

  If, for some reason, a scene was to get out of hand, Zaphara played not only the dark and gorgeous threat, but guardswoman. She would step in if I needed her assistance, either with a patron or by giving me space to regain my own bearings.

  Khloe was eating out of the palm of my hand. Not so difficult to do, considering it was merely a matter of recognizing her desire and impatience and turning it against her.

  Zaphara did not understand, not truly. She found great pleasure in being present during a scene, but it was the pain and defiance she relished.

  I found my pleasure in their longing, their craving, the kiss of lust and desire, in finding the terrible secrets and shadowy places within their hearts and in turning them inward to face it.

  I did not teach them to submit. I taught them to conquer their own inner demons, to rise like the phoenix from the flames of their own perdition.

  I bent them, drove them, rode them, until they were slack and weak but whole, until every facet shone, the diamond pulled from the rough.

  My diamonds, some more deeply hidden than others.

  I had not yet stripped Khloe of the armor of her ego, of her childish self, but I would.

  Consider me a therapist of sorts…one that wields a different set of skills and tools.

  Khloe had followed my orders, remaining abstinent and free of intoxicants for nearly two weeks. I had ridden her hard that first week, harder than I’ve ridden most patrons in the beginning. But Khloe had not come to me for a gentle swing; the beast of self-destruction propelled her more fiercely than that.

  Deep within her, she craved to be remade beneath the lash, baptized in desire.

  I buried a hand in her brown hair, jerking her head back, exposing the long line of her pale neck. Her arms stretched high above her head, pulling tight on the small hook secured at the top of the wooden post. The drum beneath her skin tempted me with its sweet honeyed promise.

  I would not be lured.

  “Shall I allow you to destroy yourself or shall I destroy you, Khloe?”

  Khloe, lost in sub-space, whimpered her response. The marks on her back from the whip earlier were still red like angry mouths. I kissed the milky skin of her neck and she flinched, then whispered, “Please,” again.

  I laughed, her body responding as if I’d touched her more intimately, though I had not. The energy between us crackled, though she was human and would not understand it. My belly grew warm. The blood in my veins began singing a soft tune.

  “Not yet,” I whispered, releasing the clutch of her hair. “You’re too rash, darling.”

  “Please,” she said, “I want you to bite me.”

  I traced the line of her naked spine, trailing the tips of my fingers to the edge of the creamy lace undergarments she wore.

  “I’m very aware of your desires, Khloe.”

  “I’ve been coming here for two weeks. I’m clean. I haven’t touched anything, not a drink, not a drug, not a person. Please!”

  I pressed the line of my body against hers, letting her feel the vinyl of my attire against her naked backside. I bent close, w
hispering into the curve of her shoulder, “You’ve yet to learn a measure of patience, my dear. The simple fact that you’re still begging me signals as much.”

  Khloe shuddered again, the heat from her skin leaping a notch, the scent of her arousal permeating my senses. My lips did not touch her, but even so, I could taste her, sweet and salty on my tongue.

  I stepped away, ignoring her whimper of protest. Zaphara stood statuesque, watching the scene while feigning her boredom.

  I went to the toy chest, retrieving a metal-tipped flogger. Khloe had, at long last, fallen silent.

  Blindfolded, she did not see me. Mortal or no, I knew she could feel my presence behind her. She turned her head as much as her bound position would allow. The muscles in her back jumped with anticipation.

  I waited, waited until the tension no longer strung her body tight, waited until she rested her cheek against the wooden post.

  And then I whipped her, until her throat was raw from the screaming, until her skin broke under my lash, crying crimson tears.

  I went to her when I was done, thirty lashes, no more, no less. I did not think she could handle any more. Tears stained her cheeks, soaking into the material of the blindfold, smelling of salt water and the perfume of her flesh.

  My groin throbbed with need. The double-edged sword of my power cut us both. I discarded the flogger and knelt. Khloe was petite and her stature made it no trouble sliding my hands up the sides of her body. I kissed the backs of her thighs, shuddering, clawing her lightly.

  Khloe groaned, arching her rear in an offering I would not take.

  I pressed my mouth against her skin, catching the droplet of her blood on my tongue, shutting my eyes and salving her wounds.

  I cleaned the blood from her back and rose, that vermillion gift coating my mouth like velvet.

  “Zaphara, take her down and escort her out.”

  Before I stepped into the room in the back, a quiet place for me to regain my bearings, I witnessed Khloe’s body go slack when Zaphara took her down. Khloe’s head swung forward, too weak to protest.

  *

  The door to the small sitting room opened quietly. “You need to feed,” Zaphara said. I reclined on the couch, watching as she shut the door behind her.

  Fortunately, Lenorre had seen to it that nearly all of the rooms within the club were soundproof, most especially the dungeon. It was not solely a measure to keep from alarming guests if I had a screaming patron, but to give the younger vampires a place where they could regain their bearings if the smell of sex, sweat, and pumping blood became too overwhelming.

  The last place a hungry young vampire needed to be was in the middle of hot grinding bodies, thrusting and thrumming with life.

  “I’ll be well in a moment, Zaphara.”

  “You pushed yourself too far, Eris.”

  “I decide when and when I have not pushed myself too far, Zaphara.”

  “Why don’t you just enchant her to stop and obey?”

  I could have, of course. I could have reached into her mind and bent her to my will, but Zaphara did not understand my process.

  “Enchanting Khloe would be no better than drugging her, Zaphara. She has to do this on her own. I’m merely helping her to find the tools within herself to do it.”

  Zaphara’s expression turned disbelieving. “And you hope to accomplish that by driving her mad with desire?”

  “I hope to accomplish that by teaching her to resist her desire.”

  The Daione Maithe tilted her head like a crow. “Still,” she said, “your energy is low. Why did you not feed off her lust?”

  “She is too weak, still. Surely,” I said, “if you can read my energy so well, you can read that of the humans. She’s abused her body with years of drug use and promiscuity. I’ll tear greater holes in her auric field.”

  “Then,” she said, “I’ll fetch Davina.”

  I shook my head. “No, Zaphara. Davina is working the counter,” I said, remembering the bandage she’d nigh been flaunting behind the collar of her shirt when I’d come in for the night. “She’s a junkie, I’ve no interest to add my marks to the ones she’s already collecting.”

  Zaphara considered me. “I was not aware that you were not feeding from one of the employee donors.”

  “Not unless I must. I am a prime, Zaphara. Most of us do not sully ourselves with the likes of bite-junkies.”

  “You’re being stubborn, Eris.”

  I smiled, knowing it was not entirely friendly. “A Domina’s prerogative.”

  Zaphara stepped forward, and the threat in her body language encouraged me to raise my brows.

  “Tread lightly, Zaphara. Just because you are the Countess’s pet does not mean you have any sway over me.”

  “And if I told you, you have sway over me?”

  I was slightly surprised by her words. My heart slowed to a murmur in reaction before quieting completely. I hadn’t meant to trigger such a response, but at times, it was uncontrollable. Every vampire has the ability to stop the beating of their heart, to stop the need for breath, it is a predatory instinct, but in that moment, it was a reaction bred from years of serving a Countess who perceived any emotional response as weakness.

  I drew in a breath, forcing my heart to beat again.

  I was little better than Khloe when Lenorre and I had met, but it was not drugs that I had been addicted to—it was power, the sharp-tipped steel of an Eros’s power. For years, I lived blindly, believing that Anastasia, my maker, was the only one who could slake my hunger. To this day, I do not know how Lenorre managed to sweet-talk Anastasia into releasing me. Lenorre brought me with her when she came to claim territory in Oklahoma City. I had always had great control, something Anastasia liked about me. It made it all the sweeter for her to break me and force me to lose control.

  Though an Eros vampire is a creature of lust and desire, Ana had taught me the darker shades of my abilities.

  Leaving her was like waking from a long nightmare. Given my sins of the past, one might my think chosen profession strange. Silly as it may sound, using my talents for the better has become a repentance of sorts. When I approached Lenorre and explained my predicament to her, that I must feed off sexual energy and that this was the way I wanted to do it, she had not questioned, only told me to prove myself and she would allow it.

  I am no fool now; as I sought to aid my clients, so Lenorre had sought to aid me, to give me a better existence.

  “Eris?”

  “Yes, Zaphara?”

  “You haven’t been listening to me, have you?”

  I met her amethyst gaze, finding a dark amusement in it. “No. I stopped listening when you mocked me.”

  “I am not mocking you, lady.”

  “Zaphara, please, I know mockery when I hear it.”

  “Stop listening with your ears and looking with your eyes, vampire.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Look at me.” She spread her arms out away from her body. “Listen to me. If you don’t, I swear by the Gods, I’ll never make this offer again.”

  “What exactly are you offering?”

  She unbuttoned her trench, letting it fall neglected to the floor. “To give you what you need.”

  I didn’t reach out to her with power, I flung it at her like a lash, sharp, pricking, stinging…

  I knew intimately how it felt to be on the receiving end of that lash. Anastasia had also been an Eros.

  Zaphara flinched, but gave no further indication that she had felt it.

  “You’ve been playing too long with your toys, Eris,” she said, her voice dark and sultry. “When was the last time you truly bedded someone? When was the last time you felt skin and sex through more than a lash?”

  I laughed. “If you’re trying to seduce me, Zaphara, it takes more than honeyed words and the promise of your sweet faerie flesh.”

  She reached out, catching my wrists. “Stop taunting me with your power and look through its lens.”r />
  The moment her skin touched mine, I felt her, sensed her, her desires mingling with mine like waves turning together, nearly overwhelming in their immensity. It took a great effort to break their hold, to separate her wants from mine.

  My voice was breathy. “How long have you been celibate, Zaphara?”

  “Years,” she said.

  “Lenorre,” I said, trying to articulate my thoughts past the metaphysical weight of her unspoken yearning.

  “I am loyal to Lenorre,” she said, “but I am not her lover. Besides, you know as well as I she has her sights on another.”

  “The preternatural investigator,” I said, remembering. Zaphara had been spying on the wolf-woman for weeks. Even those of us close to Lenorre were not certain what she wanted with her. “I suspect she’ll request her aid in finding Rosalin’s brother, if she hasn’t staged the entire thing as a ploy to get close to…?” For the death of me, I couldn’t remember the young woman’s name.

  “Kassandra,” Zaphara said. “The werewolf’s name is Kassandra. It is an opportunity, not a ploy. Lenorre seems to see something in her, aside from the mark she bears.”

  “Mmm, either that or she has something in mind that she wants to put in her,” I mused.

  “Lenorre is not as shallow as that.”

  “Too true,” I said. “What about you, Zaphara? Why choose me to break your fast? I’d pegged you as a dominant, not a submissive, and you know I don’t bed full-blown dominants.”

  “I like the challenge,” she said, lowering her head as if to kiss me. “You thrill me.”

  “You’ll not dominate me, Zaphara.”

  She released me. “I am relying on that.”

  I rose and she moved with me, like night and shadow. I pushed her back against the wall and pinned her with the line of my body.

  “You’d be a positive feast, my dear, having fasted so long,” I whispered against her neck, finding myself surprised by my own desire. She was warm, so warm, more full of life than any human I’d ever met. Her energy was like a well, so deep. How long would it take for the stone of my power to hit the bottom?