Cursed Ever After

by A. C. James

  Do you want to die? I heard the whisper and opened my eyes to see where it came from. No one had spoken.

  “Non,” I said in a whisper.

  A fast-paced form shaped like a man moved through the crowd with such speed it blurred. The silver glint of a sword sliced through the rope binding me to the stake. I collapsed into the blur.

  A man in the crowd yelled. “Magie maléfique.” “Evil magic.”

  Chanting began to rise from the assembly. “Evil, evil, evil…” But I moved away from the voices along with the blurry figure with such speed that I felt the contents of my stomach swell. A canopy of trees from the forest at the edge of town loomed above my head. The most dangerously handsome man I had ever seen held me. He had dark curls and penetrating gray eyes. I never laid eyes on this stranger but it dimly registered that he had saved me somehow and I felt safe in his arms.

  “Do you want to live?” he asked.

  “Oui.”

  He took a knife out of his boot and sliced open his wrist.

  “Then drink.” He placed his bloody wrist to my mouth.

  I had heard rumors about the night walkers. It will be all right. I’m not going to hurt you but you need this to live. I heard his whisper but he never moved his mouth. My lips parted and I felt the metallic taste of his blood on my tongue. The last words I heard were: “À l’immortalité.”

  Cold sweat poured off of me as I woke in the safe confines of my townhouse on the North Side of Chicago. Some memories had the power to haunt you for as long as you lived. That could be a very long time when you were a vampire. I don’t think I would ever forget the first time I saw Arie. He had saved my life. I’d been keeping the promise to myself that I would never fall in love again. I would never let anyone get close enough to hurt me. And Arie made it possible for me to right all the wrongs that had been done to me. The first and last person I had ever killed as a vampire had been Henri.

  Return to

  Table of Contents

  Chained

  [Tessa]

  There would be no candlelight dinner or wine in the evening ahead. The ritzy suite reserved exclusively for my clients at the hotel on East Walton Street in downtown Chicago, I equipped almost as well as my dungeon at the Hellfire Club. Rules for the scene had already been set; “yellow” means slow down, “red” means stop that, and “Grassy Knoll” means stop everything now. Right now.

  The southern senator thought a safe word referencing Dealey Plaza would be fitting and I didn’t argue with his morbid sense of humor. Of course the senator was appalled the first time I told him that I knew exactly who he was. But after years of being my client, he knew his secret was safe with me as long as he abided by our agreement. Still he felt more comfortable if I called him John—as in John Doe—to respect his anonymity.

  And the bloke paid me enough that I indulged him to reassure his insecurities.

  My long trench coat concealed the short leather skirt and matching black corset that I wore beneath it. Only my fingerless gauntlets peaked out from beneath the sleeves but they passed for gloves. I nodded to the concierge as I walked through the luxurious lobby toward the elevators. The concierge and the owner of the hotel were on HFC payroll. That ensured no else booked my room and that the maid was well-compensated for the clean-up. My spike heels clicked across the expanse of white marble. A gray haired woman lounging in one of the plush chairs eyeballed my get-up that stood out in the polished stretch of white.

  I winked at her and she stuck her nose back in the magazine she had been reading. Taking the elevator up to the suite with my black rolling suitcase in hand, a gentleman sharing the car looked me over appraisingly. I could tell he fantasized about my naked body and wondered what I looked like without my trench coat.

  “Warm weather we’re having for this time of year,” the man said.

  “Delightful,” I purred.

  The man adjusted his collar. He seemed suddenly uncomfortable. “Are you in town for business or pleasure?”

  “Both,” I said with a grin.

  “This is me,” he said. “Enjoy your trip.” He hurried out, exiting onto the eighth floor.

  Even if I wasn’t a vampire he’d still feel uncomfortable in the close quarters of the elevator. It had been that way since my days as a famous hetaera. The elevator door slid open and I made my way down the hall to my suite. “John” always preferred the hotel. He never came to the club due to his very high profile and public life. I slid the keycard into the slot and opened the door when it clicked.

  “Hello, John.”

  I shrugged out of my trench coat and threw it over a chair.

  “Tessa you look stunning. It’s been too long since my last business trip.”

  “I agree.”

  John looked no different than the last time I had seen him—handsome, clean-cut, and smelling of cologne. The flecks of gray speckled through his hair only made him more attractive. I opened my black suitcase and took out my favorite cat o’ nine tails.

  “But you have forgotten our rules. You will answer me only with ‘Yes, my mistress’ or ‘No, my mistress’ and your first duty tonight is to kiss my foot.”

  “Yes, my mistress.” John kneeled at my feet, kissing my black spike heel reverently. He looked up at me and smiled seductively, happy to be pleasing me.

  I pulled my foot out of his grasp and brought the cat o’ nine tails across his shirted back. It would barely sting through the fabric of his dress shirt. I could hear the hissing intake of breath as desire coursed through his muscled body that strained against his business attire.

  “Get up.” When he stood I gently cupped my hand around his shaft through his taut dress slacks.

  “Now undress.”

  “Yes, my mistress.”

  He obeyed, rapidly piling his clothes on the floor, eager for my ruthless administrations. I enjoyed watching him undress the lean but muscled body that screamed sex beneath the restrained façade of a politician.

  “Your body is so beautiful. It’s almost a pity I must treat it so harshly. But that is your desire and who am I to deny it? This is what you want?”

  His eyes darkened. “Yes, my mistress.”

  “Good.” I led him to the foot of the bed where shackles hung from the top of the canopy bed and the bottom posts. I had requested this from the concierge when I called earlier. In moments I had him bound, arms and legs spread wide standing there chained to the bed. “Now there’s a sight. I wonder what your wife would think if she saw you like this. Do you think she would enjoy seeing you in chains?”

  “No, my mistress.”

  “I think you’re wrong on that count but I suppose we’ll never know.”

  I tied a blindfold over his eyes with a soft silk cloth. His breathing deepened as he tensed in the bonds, waiting.

  “I have to prepare my toys for you, and I want the suspense to heighten your other senses.” The cat o’ nine tails swished roughly across his bare nipples hardening them to pebbles. “Hot, cold, soft, hard, rough, smooth—so many sensations for you to experience. Hmmm… What shall I choose for my slutty senator tonight?”

  As I went through the toys waiting in my suitcase, I listened to his breathing, unsteady and quick. I started with nipple clamps, applying light pressure at first. I lightly flicked my tongue across one nipple, and then squeezed it before I placed the clamp on his erect nipple. I repeated the process with his other nipple. He winced and gasped at the pressure, at the surprise he couldn’t see coming through the black silk of his blindfold.

  A sudden slap on the ass and a guttural cry released from his throat. “Such a gorgeous ass.” I slapped him again and again. The fourth slap left a red handprint across his rock-hard butt cheek. “What would your wife say if she saw you being spanked? Would she spank you
for being here with me? Tell me how she would punish you.”

  “Eleanor would have me sleep in the guest bedroom.”

  “Ah, yes. I imagine divorce isn’t good for public image. Perhaps I should punish you for her. Would you like me to punish you?”

  “Yes, my mistress.”

  This was all part of a scene we’d enacted many times before. John always got off on imagining his wife found him chained up and then imagining she punished him the way that I did. The concierge had left one of the special candles stocked in the room burning on the dresser as instructed. These soft candles blended with mineral oil were my own creations. I took the candle from the dresser, looking at all the warm wax that had melted in the holder.

  Leaning toward him, I whispered into his ear. “Don’t move.”

  “Yes, my mistress.” He gulped.

  The best part about blindfolds was the element of surprise. I put my thumbnail behind his ear and began to press hard in the fold where it joined his skin, pinching and pulling as my nail dug in and scratched. It was a hidden spot, one of my favorites, where I could slash and scratch and no one would be the wiser. I used it on clients that couldn’t be marked. He winced and groaned. I kissed his eye lids through the silk fabric of the blindfold and flicked my tongue across the seam of his closed lips.

  I held the candle over the back of my hand to judge the temperature and the distance. Hot but not too hot. I tilted the candle gently over his shoulder and let it drip. He cried out in a mixture of pleasure-pain and I could sense the warmth and wetness of my own melting, not unlike the liquefaction of the wax beneath the flame. I tilted the candle again and wax dripped down his sensitive stomach. The other two candles on the dresser emitted a warm glow across his muscles that tensed and shifted in arousal. His cock stood erect and waiting. I returned the candle to the jewel tone glass holder and placed it back on the dresser.

  “Did you like that John? How did that feel?”

  “Yes, my mistress. It felt hot my mistress.”

  The door to the suite clicked as the key card granted access to Eleanor who entered. She wore a long gray skirt and a sheer cream colored blouse—the top two buttons undone. Eleanor had him followed by a private investigator and found out about her husband’s kinky fantasies and transgressions three years ago. But instead of confronting him she had come to me instead. Eventually, she planned on telling him but for now this was her game, one that she had devised. And I highly approved.

  “Who’s there?” asked John when he heard the clicking sound of the keycard accessing the hotel room door.

  I laughed and grinned at Eleanor who smirked back at me. “You always ask that and I always tell you the same thing—that it’s only your wife.” But he never believed me. He always told me afterwards that my “assistant” had the most amazing mouth, thinking that when I told him that it was Eleanor, that it was all part of his fantasy and our scene.

  Taking the restraints down from the top support of the mirrored iron canopy bed, I released his arms from the shackles and reattached them lower on the posts.

  “Turn around.”

  He obeyed my command wordlessly. I reattached the shackles to his wrists, forcing him to bend over the footboard. I slid a pillow under his stomach to relieve the pressure from the iron wrung beneath him. Slapping his ass, a resounding smack echoed through the suite. Eleanor placed her lips on his quivering ass to kiss the sting away. Then Eleanor grabbed the candle from the dresser. With a wicked smile, she held the candle over his ass and let a small drop fall across his sensitive skin.

  John gasped loudly. “Yellow.”

  Eleanor moved the candle a little higher, toward the base of his spine, tilting it until another drop fell across his skin. He didn’t flinch this time. Eleanor drizzled more wax that splashed onto his ass, making little patterns across the shapely curve. She held it closer and sometimes further away, to vary the sensations. John winced sharply but didn’t use his safe word. I released the nipple clamps simultaneously and John cried out from the surge of blood rushing back to the restricted areas.

  “Red. Fucking red!”

  We both gave him a moment to recover as his labored breathing slowly returned to normal. Eleanor stepped between his shackled legs spread wide as he bent over the footboard. Reaching around him, she grasped his cock and began to move her hand up and down its length. He pushed his ass back against her, and she gave it a slap.

  “Did I tell you that you could move?” I asked.

  “No, my mistress.”

  In my suitcase were vibrators. I picked out a medium sized one and the lube. I drizzled a bit into his crack and handed the vibrator to Eleanor. She slipped the vibe into his ass while he wriggled a bit to allow her to push it inside before switching it on.

  “You’re such a slut, such a hedonist. Do you like that? Is that what you wanted?”

  He groaned. “Yes, my mistress.”

  She slid the vibrator in and out as pre-cum glistened on the tip of his cock. I put my hand over Eleanor’s and took control of the vibrator. She pulled her hand out from under mine. Positioning herself between her husband and the footboard, she brushed up against him as she lowered herself to the floor. She licked the salty wetness from the head of his cock before taking him in her mouth. Hollowing her cheeks, she took him to the root and he pulled against the chains.

  “Good god, Eleanor,” he moaned.

  I laughed. If only he knew how true his fantasy really was. I angled the vibrator until it hit just the right spot. His moans, the vibrations, culminated in a chain rattling climax as she swallowed every bit of his cum. It left them both gasping for breath with sweat dripping as I shut off the vibrator and gently pulled out. I released his bonds, leading him blindfolded to the bed. Eleanor kissed his face, his lips, as he lay back into the pillows completely spent.

  “Hey, what’s your name? God, you can give one hell of a blow job.”

  I couldn’t help but grin.

  Eleanor laughed. “I’d think you’d know my name after twenty years of marriage.”

  He pulled off the blindfold and propped himself up on his elbows. “Christ, Eleanor.”

  “It’s me. It’s always been me. There was never an assistant.”

  “How long have you known?”

  Eleanor shrugged. “I figured it out eventually.”

  “And this doesn’t bother you?”

  “It did at first. I felt hurt that you thought that you had to hide who you really were from me. When I came to Tessa it was because I wanted to confront you in the act but then it turned me on. I loved watching you and it changed our sex life. Haven’t you noticed how hot we’ve been together?”

  He raked a hand through his hair. “All this time and I should have just told you. I’m sorry Eleanor. I never meant to hurt you.”

  “I forgave you a long time ago otherwise I wouldn’t be standing here. Tessa is the best thing that could have happened to us. I was starting to think that you didn’t want me anymore but really I just didn’t know what you wanted or how to give it to you.”

  He brushed his hand across her cheek as if seeing his wife for the first time. “You’re so amazing. I didn’t think you’d understand. I thought you’d leave me if you ever found out.”

  I stood back watching the two of them fall in love with one another all over again and feeling overwhelmed that I was the one to resurrect their marriage.

  “Never again—don’t ever lie to me ever again. I love you. I always will but we don’t have anything if we don’t have trust. Honesty is everything.”

  He pulled her toward him and wrapped his arms around her, kissing the top of her head. “I promise. I’ll never lie to you again. I’m a lucky man, Eleanor.”

  “Damn right you are!”

  I coughed.
>
  “Oh. I’m sorry Tessa,” said Eleanor, her cheeks a rosy pink. “Would you excuse me for one moment?” She grabbed her purse where she had placed it on a chair when she came in and pulled out a toothbrush, heading for the bathroom.

  The senator pulled on his socks, followed by his slacks. I handed him the button down shirt from where it had been tossed carelessly on the floor.

  “Thanks and not just for handing me my shirt. You probably saved my marriage. I owe you everything.”

  “Not everything,” I said with a grin. “Just one thing.”

  “Name it.”

  I could hear the water running in the bathroom.

  “There’s something I’d like you to look into for me.”

  “What do you want me to look into?”

  I pulled a manila file folder from my suitcase and handed it to him. “I want you to find out everything you can about this woman. Arie, an associate of mine, has taken an uncanny interest in the girl and I swear she’s the spitting image of someone we both used to know.”

  The file folder contained an array of photographs of a young woman, maybe mid-twenties, and extremely pretty in an unconventional sort of way. She carried an army satchel about her slender form and her long chestnut curls were piled high, held in place with two pencils. In the photograph she was entering a coffee shop on the South Side of Chicago where she worked.

  “I’ll see what I can dig up,” said the senator.

  “Please see that you do.”

  “Is she in some sort of trouble?”

  I sighed. “It’s not that. I can’t find out much about her because her records have been sealed. I need to know as much as I can. She could be trouble for someone I care about.”

  I trusted the senator with this because he was more than a client. He was a friend. And Eleanor was a strong woman who I had grown close to over the past three years. Helping strengthen their marriage pulled at my heartstrings.