“Oh, God, Lucien…”
“Please, not another fucking word,” he demanded.
Sweeping her feet from the ground, he wrapped her legs around his hips and sunk his preternatural penis into her.
Summer’s muscles clutched him as he fucked her. She bucked like an unbroken mustang to meet his thrusts.
It was all passion and frenzy - this first coupling - as two forces of nature came together to form a cataclysmic event.
They mated in the relentless rain. Summer dug her nails into Lucien’s sinewy spine. He buffeted her against the stone wall, lacerating the delicate fabric of her white blouse. The deafening boom of rolling thunder drowned out her shrieks of pleasure.
Summer cradled her face in Lucien’s neck, eyes squeezed tightly shut. She wanted to block out all of her other senses and concentrate only on her lustful organ.
The slap-slapping sound of their bodies resounded in the dark tunnel. Her orgasm rumbled in the distance, growing ever stronger, ever closer. Like an old friend, she welcomed the familiar twitching and clenching of her muscles - then a deluge, like a warm spring cloudburst, rained from her loins.
“I’m coming…oh, fuck, don’t stop… I’m coming,” she yowled.
Her hands clutched Lucien’s buttocks. She rode his prick, pounding her throbbing clit against his pubic bone until her whole body jerked and trembled once more with sweet release. Lucien shuddered and growled, slamming her against the wall; spearing her with one last violent thrust of his prick, his slippery nectar oozing hotly down her thigh.
Requiem for the Lonely
The telephone’s insistent ringing jolted Summer from her sleep.
Summer pushed her sleep mask onto her forehead, and squinted at the caller ID. The call was coming from Melody’s cell phone.
She was so drowsy it seemed like she had only been sleeping a few hours. Had she overslept?
She sat bolt upright in bed, trying to get her bearings. The phone rang on unanswered. Rubbing her eyes, she peered out the window. The sky was once more raining down upon the city, blocking out the rays of the sun. A glance at the alarm clock reassured Summer that it was still midday.
She placed the receiver to her ear and slid back down under the covers.
“Hmmm…Melody, this had better be important,” she mumbled, her eyelids fluttering towards sleep again.
“Summer, turn on the TV! Turn it to Channel 5,” Melody shrieked.
Shit, fuck, shit! What the hell is this about? Summer fumbled blindly in her bedside drawer for the remote. Where was that damn thing?
“Mel, can I call you back? I can’t find the damn remote. I need to reiterate, this had better be important. I was up very late last night.”
“This is serious, Summer! Just hurry. I’m going to hang up and watch the newscast. Call me!”
Searching for the remote, she wondered what had Melody so worked up this time. Her irritation growing with each passing second, she recalled a previous time Melody had phoned with an urgent demand to turn on the news, only to end up watching some story about a “love doll” hump bitch for un-castrated canines that Melody thought was hilarious enough to disturb her sleep.
“There you are, you elusive little electronic device.” Summer dug the remote out from where it was wedged between the headboard and the mattress. Arranging the pillows behind her back, she turned on the news report.
“Police are not yet saying if they suspect foul play.” The on-the-spot reporter, Julia Lovewell, was shivering, her anorexic frame swallowed up inside of a yellow slicker.
Her backdrop was a foggy view of the riverfront. Police, ambulances and reporters swarmed the soggy scene. The wind from the storm buffeted her microphone, and sodden ropes of blond hair lashed her face and mouth as she spoke.
“They have identified the body as one Robert Spedinski of Creve Couer.”
Tragic, Summer thought, yawning dismissively, but why the hell did Melody think it was okay to wake her from a sound sleep for it?
Reporter Lovewell placed a French-manicured nail to her ear, pressing at her earpiece, and then nodded her head.
“Right… if you are just joining us, I am Julia Lovewell reporting live for KBST, from the scene of a gruesome discovery.
“Early this morning, riverboat casino personnel spotted the body of a man floating near the riverboat with his leg tangled in rope. Witnesses described the man to be a white male, approximately five foot six, perhaps thirty-five years of age, and wearing a blue t-shirt emblazoned with ‘Only the Lonely’, a logo from a popular late night talk radio show, featuring host, Summer Solstice.”
The sound of her name jolted Summer from half-sleep to full attention. What the fuck? Those tees were brand new - brought out for the first time yesterday. She had given out so many of them…dozens! She frantically searched her memory. What did they say that man’s name was? Roger? No, Robert! She sat upright in her bed, her mind reeling.
Transfixed upon the television with her mouth agape, she felt the remote slip limply from her hand. The words were penetrating her ears, but her brain did not believe what she hearing.
“Julia,” The cameras switched to split screen; Julia Lovewell and the riverfront spectacle on the right, and news anchor, Bryan McMannish, to the left. “Do you know if anyone has contacted Ms. Solstice?”
Contacted Ms. Solstice? What the fuck? Panicking, she turned off her telephone. What in the hell do they think I know about this?
“Bryan, no one here has mentioned if anyone has contacted Ms. Solstice yet.”
“Julia, we are going to break away from the scene for a moment, because we have, in our studio, someone who says that they knew the deceased, and they have some very curious personal details about Robert Spedinski to relate.”
A close-up of a pickle-puss woman in her late sixties replaced Julia Lovewell’s image. Her haughty posture exposed her sense of self-importance.
“We have with us in the studio, the victim’s neighbor, Joanne Buttner. What can you tell us about Robert, Ms. Buttner?”
“Mrs., it is Mrs. Buttner - well, Bob - everyone called him Bob…”
“Oh no,” Summer croaked to the empty room. She suddenly felt very cold. Wrapping the blankets tightly around her, she silently prayed; Please, oh please; don’t let it be that Bob!
The pinched-faced woman pursed her lips and continued, “Bob was a strange man. He kept to himself, mostly. I’m not sure what kinds of things he was into, exactly, but once I stopped by his apartment because I had locked myself out and needed to use his phone…” Mrs. Buttner took control of the microphone from the anchor’s hand, looking straight into the camera and pausing for dramatic effect.
“God, everyone has to have their fifteen minutes of fame. Get on with it, you old bag,” Summer bellowed at the TV.
“And, mind you, he had all of this disturbing vampire stuff; posters, books, newspaper clippings. I have to tell you, I made my phone call and got the heck out of there. It was creepy. I think that he might have been one of them devil worshipers.”
Oh, my God! It is the same Bob! Summer’s eyes burned as she blinked back tears of shock. Cold, creeping fear chilled her body. It invaded her stomach and pressed on her chest. The icy terror clawed at her throat, strangling her as she tried to dam back the lump forming in her windpipe.
Patting the nightstand with her hand, her eyes glued to the television, she picked up a pack of cigarettes. Damn. Empty. Swinging her feet to floor, she walked into her kitchen to retrieve a fresh pack, and turned on the gas burner to light a cigarette. Taking a deep breath, she opened the drapes and looked out upon the city. From her vantage point, she could make out flashing lights and figures in slickers working the scene. She turned on the living room television. The talking heads of KBST continued to report, as she watched the rain plummeting to earth.
“Did Mr. Spedinski have any enemies that you know of?” Bryan probed.
“Enemies? That man didn’t even have any friends! I can’t imagine h
ow he would have had any enemies.” Joanne Buttner stuck her nose in the air, striking a superior pose. “If you ask me, I think he just up and killed himself. I’ve never seen a man so isolated.” Her pudgy fingers reached for control of the microphone again, but McMannish swung it out of her reach in the nick of time. “Sometimes I’d hear his radio on past three in the morning!” “You have brought up another topic. They found Mr. Spedinski wearing a blue t-shirt advertising KJZM’s Only the Lonely talk show. Mrs. Buttner, did he ever mention this radio show to you, or are familiar with it at all?”
“Bryan, I do not waste my time listening to such trash. That host, Summer Solstice – why, the things that come out her mouth!”
Summer dragged on her cigarette, flicking the ash smartly into a nearby ashtray. “How the hell do you know what comes out of my mouth if you never listen to me,” she barked sarcastically at the image on the television.
Mrs. Buttner pursed her lips tightly, looking as if she had been sucking on a lemon. “Downright lewd and perverted language from a lady, and the seductive way that she talks to her callers; well, I can imagine that it works some people into a downright frenzy.”
“So, you have listened to the show, then?” McMannish clearly reveled in his ah-ha moment.
“Once or twice, I might have accidentally tuned to it while I was searching for my gospel station…”
McMannish pressed a finger to his ear and nodded.
“We need to go back to Julia, whom, I am told, has some breaking news in this case. Julia, what’s going on at the scene?”
“Bryan, a man just informed us that someone claiming to have been present when the body was pulled from the water told him that, not only was the deceased wearing a T-shirt advertising Only the Lonely, the T-shirt had been autographed by Summer Solstice herself.
“This case just becomes more baffling, Bryan; vampires, sexy talk show hosts, and a mysterious death - high drama on the riverfront today!”
The reporter turned her attention to the flashing lights behind her.
“It appears that they are loading the body into the ambulance and moving it to the morgue for autopsy.” The reporter looked back over her shoulder. A figure draped in white sheeting was loaded into an ambulance.
“Again, the police are saying that they are withholding any comments regarding suspicion of foul play until the autopsy is complete.”
“We have to break from this shocking story for a moment,” interjected Bryan. “We’ll be back with more details as they happen; on KSBT, your source for news that matters.”
Summer retrieved her phone - seventeen missed calls! Summer dialed Melody’s number.
“What in the hell are we going to do?” Melody barked.
“How in the fuck should I know, Melody? This is some messed up shit. Yesterday was the first day that we distributed those T-shirts. Do you know what this means? I’ll tell you what it means. It means that you and I may have been the last people to have seen Bob alive!”
“I think the poor guy up and did himself in. Let’s face it, he seemed like a pretty high strung individual,” Melody reasoned.
“Maybe. In a weird way, I hope that you’re right. But Bob was a Perceiver, just like I am, remember?”
“Oh, right. I remember him saying something about that cute French guy being a …wait a minute, there’s something that you’re not telling me.”
Summer could almost hear the gears clicking into place as Melody attempted to unlock the clues. Shit.
“I’m coming to your place right now. We need to talk - face to face - and I’m not leaving until you spill what I know you are hiding.”
***
A buzzer sounded near the elevator.
“Ms. Stone,” the doorman’s voice implored.
“Yes, Ed, what is it?” Summer sang into the speaker.
“There’s a Miss Melody Forthright down here to see you. She says to tell you to let her in right now, and to get her…um…the fuck away from this mob of reporters that are gathering outside of the building. I’ve been trying to tell everyone that you aren’t home, but they just won’t go away, Ms. Stone.”
“It’s okay Ed, let her up - but no one, and I mean no one, else!”
“Alright Ms. Stone, I’ll do my best, but they sure are persistent.”
Son-of-a-bitch…reporters at her front door! Summer wasn’t as terrified of them as she was of Melody. That girl was like the Gestapo when she caught a whiff of a lie. What to reveal to Melody and what not to reveal to Melody was the unanswerable question dogging her mind.
The elevator opened, spewing Melody into the living room. Her magenta-streaked hair lay dripping and plastered to her head like a wet spider. Flopping down on the sofa, she produced a beer from her jacket pocket and popped the cap, offering a second bottle to Summer.
“Get to ditchin’it, girl,” she said, taking a long pull on the amber brew.
“Melody, seriously, I don’t know what you’re getting at. There is nothing to tell.” Summer evaded.
“If there is nothing to tell, Summer, then do you mind explaining this?” Melody reached into one of the countless zippers on her camouflage pants, and dangled a silver lighter engraved with Summer’s initials.
“Where did you find that? I have been looking all over for it!” She snatched at the lighter, but Melody held it tauntingly just out of reach.
“Take a guess. I found it in the alley under the streetlamp where you and some guy almost did the bone dance on Friday night. It must have fallen from your pocket while your skirt was hiked up over your ears. Don’t get me wrong, Summer; I am not judging you, and you know that I don’t give a rat’s ass who pokes whom; but a man is dead, and you have been sending out some weird vibe that I haven’t until just now put together.”
“Exactly what are you getting at, Melody? Are you saying that I am somehow mixed up in this man’s death?”
“Maybe…perhaps…I don’t know. I was hoping that you would give me some answers. We have been friends for a long time. I don’t want to pry into your personal life, but at the same time, I can’t help being concerned. Summer, please,” Melody implored. “Please tell me what is going on. I promise I won’t breathe a word of it. I swear.” She crossed her heart with a burgundy-painted fingernail.
Her affair with Lucien had been an ever-expanding secret that had grown larger with each passing day. It would be a welcome relief to get it off her chest.
“I don’t know where to start,” surrendered Summer, lowering herself onto the chair. Breathing deeply, she began. “Do you remember that strange call I took on Friday night - Lucien from Lafayette Square?”
As Melody listened, she related the events of the past two days. When she told her about Lucien, Melody snapped her fingers and raised a hand in victory. “I knew it!” she declared.
All of the details came tumbling out...the nightclub, the absinthe, and the Vicious Ones. Melody listened with rapt attention, her eyes as wide as a landlord’s on rent day.
She trusted Melody, and wished now that she had not kept this secret from her. She realized that she didn’t deserve a friend such as Melody, and suddenly felt ashamed. When she had finished her story, she waited for Melody’s response.
Melody reclined against the back of the couch. Her fingers drummed rapidly on her knee. “Well, I never expected to hear a story like that one! Bram Stoker on ice skates, Summer, this is like a ‘Lifetime for Women’ movie! I believe you - I really do. I know you. You are normally so level-headed that this just blows my mind.”
Now that she had been thinking back, she was incredulous, too. Everything had happened so quickly that she hadn’t had time to really consider what was going down. It was as if she was caught in a whirlwind, and spinning too fast to get her bearings.
“My mind is blown too, Mel. One minute I’m Summer Solstice, wise-cracking radio host, and the next thing I know, I’m having hot animal sex with a vampire in a disgusting underpass.”
Melody leaned forward, rai
sing a pierced eyebrow. “It was pretty hot, huh,” she asked in a conspiratorial tone. Summer leaned forward, nodding her head. “Prison-sex hot!”
Melody fanned herself with her hand, a sly grin lighting up her face. “Hooooly shit,” she said softly.
“To tell you the truth, I haven’t even taken time to think about all of it until now.” Summer rose from her chair and paced the room. “It’s as if I’ve been under a spell, but I haven’t been under a spell. That’s the thing that’s so damned alarming.” She threw her hands in the air in exasperation.
“I have been aware of, and consenting to, every single moment of it. I am drawn to this guy like a bitch in heat!” Melody flicked at her shoelace with her fingertip. “Well, he is ridiculously fucking hot. I mean, who could blame you? No kidding, he should come with a warning label or something.”
Summer laughed. “Yeah, Warning: Close proximity to this individual may cause extreme horniness and a sore pussy.”
Melody laughed, doubling over, clutching her stomach and stomping her feet on the floor. “Wait…wait…wait!” she howled breathlessly. “Side effects include, but are not limited to: wet panties, throbbing clit, dick-in-mouth syndrome and some women may experience fainting orgasms that are temporary and usually diminish with continued use.”
Summer was laughing so hard she had to hold onto the counter to keep from collapsing to the floor. “Stop it, Melody,” she begged, crossing her legs tightly. “You’re gonna make me piss my pants!”
Summer rested her forehead on the countertop, laughing until the fit played itself out. Melody had slid off of the sofa and rolled on the carpet clutching at her sides.
God, it felt good to release the tension with totally inappropriate hilarity. The air was lighter in the room, as if the laughter had chased away the gloom. Melody crawled to her knees and pulled herself onto the couch.
“Ahhhh,” she sighed, indicating that she was back to normal now.
Summer sat down once more in the seat across from her. After a moment, Melody’s countenance turned serious.
Only the Lonely Page 9
