Red Grow the Roses

by Janine Ashbless

  * * *

  Cerri woke in Doug’s bed, on torn sheets, as the line of sunlight crawling across the wall reached the pillows. She squirmed against the unfamiliar mass of Doug’s arm, then blinked herself awake. Doug, flat on his back, didn’t move, even when Cerri raised herself up from prone and slid out of the bed. She was muzzy-headed with dehydration, almost as if she had a hangover. The bedroom refused to come into focus. Naked, she stumbled slowly downstairs into the kitchen, sought the refrigerator and found, to her relief, a litre bottle of fruit-flavoured water.

  Only when she’d quenched her parched throat did she remember what had brought her to the house and think to check the line of salt across the windowsill. It looked undisturbed.

  ‘Hmm,’ she grunted, wiping the sleep from her eyes. Then she padded back up the stairs to the bedroom, the plastic bottle in her hand.

  Doug lay much as she had left him, breathing slowly and only half-covered by the sheet, which had managed to get pushed down to his hips. Cerri climbed on to the bed, expecting him to stir, but he only took a deeper breath and slumbered on.

  Damn, but the man was a heavy sleeper, she thought, smiling to herself. He looked pretty cute too, half-naked like that. The sparse hairs on his chest gleamed gold in the sunlight and his nipples were flat dimples that invited the brush of a tongue-tip. Oh, how she liked the sweet vulnerability of a sleeping man. And under that sheet – well, it looked like he had a morning hard-on, a ridge of solidity beneath the rucked cotton.

  She found that just irresistible.

  Stealing a hand out, she ran her palm over the hidden shaft, finding warmth beneath the cool cloth and a confirmation of her suspicions. He was thick and full and more than half-hard already. The brush of her hand, soft and slow, completed the job in moments. A thrill tickled down through her nerves all the way to her sex, which clenched unexpectedly, greedy for that good stiff length. Cerri shaped an O with her lips, slightly surprised but not at all displeased to find herself feeling so horny even after a night of hot action. ‘Come on, my beautiful boy,’ she breathed, her fingertips measuring his cock and caressing its hardness.

  Doug’s eyes opened suddenly. ‘You’re still here,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t all a dream.’

  Cerri withdrew her hand a few inches. ‘Hello, lover. Sleep well?’

  ‘I …’ He stopped abruptly and then looked all round the room, eyes wide. ‘Ah. Ah … I guess it worked. He didn’t show.’

  ‘Yes.’ Cerri frowned. Memories of the previous night were finally coming back to her, and she searched them carefully. She found no sign of any vampire. Sure, some of the scenes were a bit vague, but wasn’t that the way with sex the first time with a new bloke? The high of arousal tended to smudge the details. And good grief, there had been a lot of it to commit to memory. They’d been at it half the night. ‘It worked,’ she agreed, glancing over at the windowsill where the salt lay like a miniature levee against a flood. ‘That’s good.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Doug then looked abashed. ‘I mean, for helping. And …’

  She grinned fondly. ‘That’s all right. My pleasure.’ She watched him blush and look away. ‘Want some water?’

  ‘Oh, yes, please.’ He hitched himself up to sit back against the headboard, pulling the sheet up with him to preserve his modesty. But as he took his first swig from the bottle and his attention lapsed, Cerri seized her moment. Twitching the sheet away, she wrapped her fingers firmly about his erect member.

  Doug nearly choked. The bottle lurched in his hand, splashing fruit-scented water over his bare chest. His wide eyes met hers.

  ‘Is this for me?’ she asked, grinning.

  ‘It’s – it’s just because I’ve woken up, you know, Cerri? It’s not a real, uh …’

  ‘It feels pretty real to me.’ She threw one knee over his hips, straddling him. Pushing the swollen head of his cock into her wet slit, she slid it up and down and fed it to the mouth of the slick passage within. ‘Does this feel real to you?’

  ‘Oh, fuck,’ he groaned. He dropped the open bottle over the side of the bed and clutched the sheets beneath him. His hips kicked beneath her, pushing his cock inside. Cerri felt the jolt of pleasure as she was stretched open. She began to work herself down over his shaft, biting her lips in concentration, sliding one hand up to cup her left breast and tug at the nipple.

  ‘You,’ said Doug in a thick voice, ‘are really bad at taking no for an answer.’

  ‘Am I?’ She felt shivery all over, as horny as a nun who’d just discovered a dirty magazine. ‘Are you saying, “No”, Doug?’ She lifted herself up, her thighs tense, until she held only the tip of his glans within her; threatening to withdraw the hot embrace of her sex from the stiff cock between her legs. ‘Are you?’

  ‘Oh, God.’

  ‘I don’t think you should be saying that, Doug.’ She licked her lips, sliding down on him once more, then up again. ‘You’re a vicar. I. Am. Fucking. A. Vicar.’

  He didn’t answer that, except with another groan. He just grabbed her hips with his hands, his thumbs sinking into her pubic mound, and jammed her down right to the hilt on his cock. The shock knocked the breath out of her. Then, setting his heels in the mattress, he slammed rapidly into her, over and over, lifting her right up on his pelvis and making her breasts bounce wildly. Cerri cried out, her voice vibrating. By the time he paused they were both gasping. She looked down at his tense face with its parted lips and its half-grin. Even now, he looked incredulous. He was still finding it hard to believe this was happening to him, she thought. And feeling guilty.

  Well, bollocks to his stupid guilt.

  ‘Tell you what,’ she smirked, shaking out her braids. ‘I’ll make it easy for you, shall I?’ She pushed his hands away and slid off him, sideways. ‘Just say, “No”, Doug. You can do that, can’t you? I’ll even turn my back.’ She rolled away on to hands and knees, presenting her curvy ass-cheeks and open split to him with a wiggle, and looked back over her shoulder to wink broadly. ‘You can say, “No”, hey, Doug?’

  She barely had time to get the words out before he was on her from behind, grasping her hips and ramming his cock deep inside her. She barely had time to wonder what had gotten into them both, making them act like a couple of crazed teenagers, before he knocked all philosophising out of her with a thrusting action that sent shocks all the way up her spine to the deepest darkest pleasure centres of her brain and took her breath away.

  ‘Doesn’t look like it,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘Oh. Yes.’

  Yes, she thought: yes yes yes. Very soon after that there was no thought in her head at all but the sensation of his riding her, no words on her lips but only her escalating groans and squeals of excitement. She dropped her shoulder and cheek to the bedclothes and thrust her hand back between her spread thighs. She could feel the heavy pouch of his balls slapping against her with every thrust. She brushed it with her fingertips, then found the wetness leaking from about his pistoning shaft and used it to slick her clit.

  That was when Doug chose to wet his thumbs in his mouth – first the right one, then the left one – and work them one after another into the whorl of her asshole. That was way too much for her to bear. She had to bury her face in the sheets to muffle her screams as she came, loud and long. She was still coming as Doug pounded to his own climax and unloaded deep inside her.

  Then he fell forward over her, his sweating chest pressed to her back. ‘Oh, Cerri,’ he groaned, nuzzling his lips against her lips and ear. ‘Are you OK?’

  A giggle bubbled up in her breast. He was just too sweet. ‘I’m good, lover.’ She slid her knees down the bed, relaxing beneath him. He eased carefully to the side so as not to crush her.

  ‘You’re beautiful. So beautiful.’

  ‘You think?’ She hitched round to plant an appreciative kiss on his lips, and smiled at him. For a moment they looked into each other’s eyes, and then he rolled away on to his back and stared at the ceiling.

  Funny, she thought
, sobering. That moment just before she’d come – when he stuck his digits into her ass – she’d had the sudden sensation that she was about to remember something. Something important. Then her climax had overwhelmed everything else, and now she had no idea what that memory could be. It was gone from her head without leaving so much as a footprint.

  Hey, it couldn’t be that important then. She reached out and stroked the softening length of his cock fondly, and Doug sighed.

  ‘The tabloid headlines would have been right then,’ he murmured, scratching at his chest. ‘“Vicar In Pagan Sex Romp With Witch Shock”.’

  ‘“Romp”?’ she wondered. ‘It was more like a Rut, I reckon. You were impressively enthusiastic.’

  He laughed, embarrassed.

  ‘And an incredibly good fuck, lover,’ she added. He was going to hear it, even if he refused to listen.

  ‘Right. That’ll be a help as I start looking for a new career.’

  Ow. She looked down at her hand. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘So, anyway.’ His voice was soft. He sat up, brushing her off gently, and rubbed at his thighs with a certain awkwardness. ‘I’ve got hospital visits to make this morning.’

  ‘Uh-huh?’ He was so the wrong sort of person for her to fall for, she told herself.

  ‘So … I’d better go have a shower. I don’t smell all that fresh.’ Doug stood, and she looked up at him regretfully, wanting her last memory of his naked body to be a good one.

  ‘OK.’

  He bit his lip. ‘Want to join me?’

  Tentatively, she smiled. ‘Yeah. I’d like that.’ As he held out his hand and pulled her up into what turned into an embrace, she decided she’d like that very much.

  (Naylor)

  And this is Naylor, as sweet and cruel as a wasp hidden under a windfall plum. It’s a curious fact that of all the vampires in the City, he’s the only one that was born here; though he often leaves for protracted periods, he’s always drawn back. This is his home. Matthew Naylor – Little Matty the apothecary’s son – grew up on the banks of the Fleet River long before it was paved over, while it was still an open drain carrying the ordure and rubbish of the streets away down to the river confluence. There were a lot of dead rats in the Fleet the year he died, their bedraggled bodies so swollen by gas that it looked like they had perished from over-eating. And perhaps they had. They certainly had plenty to dine upon that year.

  It was 1665, the year of the Great Plague.

  That summer, he remembers, was unusually hot and humid – and the bonfires burning all day and night at street corners, by order of the parish, only added to the filthiness of the atmosphere. In that hothouse air strange flowers blossomed: swollen buds of livid flesh that burst to reveal red and sticky hearts, their perfume unbearable. Upon boarded doors and window-shutters the daubed crosses began to appear.

  He remembers being told that the King and all his court had fled the City for the healthier environs of Oxfordshire, and, though he’d never seen the King, it had felt like they’d been abandoned by Providence. He ran wild through the streets that summer, defying the edicts to stay indoors, to stay away from other people. Adolescent fury burned in his veins. He led a pack of youths in hunting down the dogs and cats that were blamed for spreading the Sickness, and rejoiced in every kill.

  He remembers when the men of the watch came to secure his father’s house with the whole family still inside; his father and stepmother semi-conscious in their bed upstairs, their faces swollen beyond recognition, sweating and groaning from the fever and the pain. Matthew sat in the half-dark and the suffocating heat behind the rough new boards, with his little sister Anne in his arms, watching the chinks of light. Sometimes a parcel of food would be pushed through the gap under the door, but if he didn’t get to it fast the rats would have it before he did. Anne wasn’t much interested in eating. He sang her nursery rhymes and told her stories, whispering because his throat was parched and sore. Often he’d forget where he was in the tale, but Anne didn’t notice. She just liked the sound of his voice.

  Ring a ring o’ roses …

  He remembers half waking in the middle of the night, his back and arse numb from the hard boards, and looking up to see the glimmering Lady hovering over them. She was as beautiful as an angel, as light as mist, and she held Anne in her arms, stooping to kiss her. Matthew watched, smiling in wonder at the cloudy drift of her red hair, the shimmer of her bare limbs. Even when she let Anne’s limp little body slide to the floor and advanced on him, he still smiled. She slipped her arm about his neck, tipping his head back as she straddled his thighs. He remembers that her up-tilted breasts brushed up against his chest, and against his feverish skin she felt as delicious as cool water. Tenderly her fingers sliced open the rough linen of his clothes and furled about his lobcock. He was young: even in the midst of this drifting delirium it stirred and stood. His mouth fell open as she slid his member into the cool depths of her puss. He remembers that moment of pure gratitude at the undeserved grace, as her pelvis writhed upon his and she bent to kiss his lips and nuzzle down to his throat. He remembers that her mouth did not taste as sweet as he had expected.

  Then he felt the teeth pierce his shoulder, and the sudden jagged pain. The rush of rapture was almost instantaneous – but not so swift as his own response. Matthew Naylor, the despair of his father and the terror of the parish, the young man they’d prophesied would swing from the gallows if he didn’t mend his ways, lashed out the only way he could – twisting his neck and sinking his own teeth into that slim throat. He remembers the skin parting reluctantly under the grind of his blunt incisors, and as the ecstasy exploded in his head her blood flooded his mouth, fiery as brandy. After that he could neither let go nor fight further: he passed out in seconds as she tore his throat open.

  He remembers them throwing him into the burial pit. He lay there upon the heap of the dead with his eyes open, though withered as figs, unable to stir as the carters dropped body after body down on to the mound of cold flesh. He wanted to shout at them that he was still alive, but his mouth wouldn’t move and there was no breath in his lungs. He wanted to thrust the stinking meat aside and rise up to strike them, he wanted to hold his hands up to protect his face as they shovelled a sprinkling of slaked lime over this newest layer in the cadaver-pudding, but he couldn’t lift a finger. He wanted to call for his mother, but she couldn’t hear him. The lime burned his lips and eyeballs. The bodies piled higher, cutting out the light.

  After three days he clawed his way out through the corpses, into the free air.

  Naylor is dangerous, anyone will tell you that. Brought up in an era where empathy and compassion were stunted values, he took to the unlife of the vampire without the faintest distaste. Every warning he’d been given about death and Judgement had been exposed for a lie, and he made the most of his new freedom. He has a yen for the hunt, a taste for the adrenaline and cortisol shot in a circulation charged with terror; that effervescence of fear. Left to himself, he would kill almost every time.

  Pray you don’t run into Naylor. He is not gentle in his feeding or his fucking. If you meet him, it will most likely be the old-fashioned way – he is, after all, old, despite his looks – down a dark alley in the depths of night. He wants you to run. He wants you to try and scream, though his hand will close over your throat and stop your breath before you get the chance. Or, worse, he will stalk you in the places you cannot avoid, closing slowly, letting you know the full hopelessness of the fate that awaits you. He wants your fear and your despair. He wants your death.

  But luckily for the inhabitants of the City, Naylor is not left to make that decision on his own. After Naylor’s notorious spree among the whores in 1888, indulged shortly after he had returned from the Belgian Congo, Reynauld took it upon himself to tame him and make the parameters clear. This training involved inflicting a great deal of pain, and it took Naylor several months to regenerate certain body-parts. He got the point though, in the end.

  T
hat point being that Reynauld owned the City and was stronger than he was.

  There are no two ways about it: Naylor hates Reynauld. It’s possible to argue that he doesn’t even see the other vampires of the City, not really. Wrapped up in his own interests, Naylor’s opinion of the others is scathing, his understanding shallow. Ben is his little buddy, his satellite, his gofer. Roisin is an irrelevancy: she wrenched him into this new world without meaning to and has avoided him ever since. She’s weak: The Alzheimer’s Vampire, he calls her with that sneering grin of his. Estelle is a bit of a hard bitch, but far too young to worry about. Maybe he’ll take her down a peg or two one day; she could certainly do with it, and he’d like to shaft that fine caramel ass of hers. As for Wakefield – fuck, he’s a joke, a tofu-munching piss-take of everything a vampire should be. Naylor doesn’t hang round this city for the pleasure of their company, that’s for sure.

  He’s not without his less predatory side, though. His interest in art is genuine: he craves the new in music and sculpture and painting. Apart from blood, creativity is all he values in human beings. Their flashes of inspiration, their ephemeral and unpredictable moments of innovation, utterly fascinate him. He likes to hang out with interesting people and lead them in a dance on that vertiginous edge between vision and chaos. All too often their contact with him leads to a self-destructive spiral that ends in alcohol-induced brain damage or an overdose, but the symbiosis is genuine while it lasts. His own art is derivative, though he tries his best; he’s an extraordinary artistic mimic who can recreate almost any style with those wickedly clever hands. But he never feels satisfied by anything he makes himself. Everything he does is old, and he craves novelty.