Her right hand clutched the back of his neck and she guided him to her breast, which he took gladly, pulling and sucking as she rode him.
When the orgasm came it was intense, and lasted far longer than he expected. She too, grunted and heaved over him, the water sloshing out of the tub at an astonishing rate. He felt her come too, her vagina clamping down hard on him and then sucking his penis as if it would never let go. And he prayed it wouldn’t
But it did and he rested, spent, in the tub that had apparently refilled itself. Phaedra smiled and slid backwards off of him. He thought that she was about to climb out of the tub, get dressed, and perhaps order them some wine. Instead, she leered at him with teeth sharp, huge and obscene, and again he was afraid of her mouth, terrified of her smile, but like a deer that was suddenly surprised by a cougar, he found he was unable to move. Her smile became something hideous, and before he could give it a second thought, she plunged down under the water.
Phaedra explored his thighs with her mouth, then his penis, and she nursed that too, and he felt himself rise again. He vaguely wondered how she could manage to hold her breath so long, and worried about her ministering to his manhood with that gaping maw of a mouth of hers; that clown like mouth that was suddenly bright red and with sharp jagged teeth that protruded out around thick blue black gums. But he was under her spell and what she was doing felt oh so good. So right. So nice. Oh yes. Oh Yes. That way, he thought. Just a little while longer... And while he came a second time that night Lee was convinced that he could follow her to the moon if she asked him to.
Orgasmic bliss turned to excruciating pain. Something sharp and terrible sliced open his lower belly, and as he bled he felt her mouth, her lovely horrible terrible mouth, sucking greedily on the open gash that she’d created. He tried to scream but his breath failed him. Within seconds, he felt himself sliding down into the tub, into the depths of the water that seemed oceanic, eternal and unfathomable.
Chapter Five
Lee woke with a start, his right hand holding his erect penis and his left exploring the rough pockmarked scar just above his pubic hair; the place where Phaedra struck with her horrid snake-like mouth. The room was dark, hot and silent. Moonlight shone down through the windows, creating white blocks of light upon the floor. Feeling captivated by its luminescence, Lee reached out toward it, his fingers inching toward the light. He found it soothing. He crawled into it, his body, pallid and drained, appeared even more ghost-like as moonbeams caressed him. He rested there for a while, yearning to weep, yet could not, aware of the shackle that was still clamped firmly on his ankle. He rattled the chain, testing it. His mind, once so dull and animal-like in its bloodlust was now clearing. Again, he touched his lower belly, just where a profusion of pubic hair grew dark brown and inched up toward his navel in what his fiancée once called his ‘happy trail.’ He explored it, finding the round indention that had somehow healed over, which puzzled him greatly. The erection he toyed with while dreaming wilted as he recalled his last moments of life with Phaedra.
Lee knew what he had done, but felt only a small prickle of remorse, which didn’t last long. Earlier, he yearned to weep, but that urge too, fell by the wayside. Before he met Phaedra, Lee was a courier for the US Calvary, and his concerns were simple: how to avoid Comanche raiders and if his fiancée Maggie was making time with the fancy lawyer who lived next door. Those concerns died when he met Phaedra, and now new thoughts entered his mind: when the next feeding time was, and how he could get to Phaedra. Phaedra who sang to him in his sleep, whose matchless beauty made him crave far more than the daily bloodlettings. And yes, Lee thought, his mind as bright and clear as the moon smiling down upon him, I will go to you, my beloved Phaedra. But not to sleep with you, but to put you back into the ground where you belong.
At some point Lee dosed. He lay on his side in a fetal position, resting in the healing moonlight that caressed him and turned his once tanned body into alabaster. He rested, half asleep, yearning for Phaedra, aching for her; not to bed her, but to drive an iron stake through her pretty little head and impale her into the cliffs painted with alien stick figures. He licked his lips, tasted dried blood, and despite his desire to kill her, his manhood rose. He reached down and soothed it.
A soft sigh came from the far corner of the room. Someone, his newborn instincts told him, had slipped into the room. It wasn’t Phaedra but someone else: someone warm and fresh and filled with hot young blood.
In an instant he was on his feet. He rushed toward the slave girl hiding in the shadows, but the chain reminded him he was being kept on a leash, and like a dog that had ventured to the limits of his chain, he too was yanked backwards. He launched himself at her again, yet she did not move. He couldn’t quite reach her, not quite, but he could touch her cheek with his fingertips. And she, being unafraid, stood her ground.
His hunger did not include her, he realized, at least not the kind of hunger that allowed him to drain four strong men in a matter of minutes. Already erect, Lee felt himself growing harder, and she, unashamed, watched. The girl pressed herself against the wall and let her eyes move upward to his. She bit down on her knuckle, her eyes lowering to gaze again upon his erection.
“You’re not scared of me,” Lee whispered, his voice raspy as if he had just recovered from Whooping Cough.
“No,” she said.
Lee ran his tongue over his lips. “You know what she did to me don’t you?”
The girl nodded.
Lee looked her up and down, appraising her. Her eyes were large and expressive, her body curvy and luscious underneath the slave’s rags she wore. Lee was certain she’d taste like fresh picked blackberries.
“You’re the girl from the kitchen,” he recalled.
She nodded, never taking her eyes from him.
“What’s your name little girl?” he asked.
“Livvy.”
“And sweet Livvy of the blackberries,” he said, his tone seductive, “are you sure you’re not scared of me?”
Livvy shook her head.
Lee placed one hand on the wall near her head, and traced the curve of her ample breast with the tip of his finger. He leaned forward as close as the chain allowed. Livvy did not move. “I’m the big bad wolf,” he whispered, “and pretty little girls shouldn’t come into the wolf’s lair unless there’s’ something they want. Tell me, pretty Livvy, what could you possibly want with a big bad wolf?”
She opened her mouth to speak and the door slammed open. The spell was broken. Bruce the bartender grabbed Livvy by the arm and hauled her out the door. Seconds later, a man was shoved through. He hit the floor at Lee’s feet.
The door slammed shut, and Lee heard the distinct sound of the door bolt engaging the hasp. His mind riveted to the sound of scuffing boots and the scent of raw meat and blood. Lee watched his prey the way a snake regards a rat.
The man scrambled to his feet, his face flushed, his eyes wide with fear. The man sweated like an overridden horse and to Lee’s surprise it smelled good. Really good, the same kind of good that came from smelling roasted meat cooking over an open spit.
The cowboy crouched, his arms wide, giving Lee that one last act of defiance look that came from men who knew their time was up but wasn’t giving up without a fight. He lunged toward Lee, swinging a meaty fist at his jaw. With speed that shocked even Lee, he ducked the blow, grabbed the man by the throat and tossed him onto the floor.
The man fought, but there was little he could do. Lee’s blood thirst kicked in and he sated it to full measure.
****
I’m going to kill her, Lee decided with the same finality as he would give purchasing a horse. He rested with his back against the wall, his mind clear as he listened to Phaedra’s siren call, which was loud and strong now. His body longed to rip free from the shackles that bound him, to rush up into the mountains and spend heated nights with the red siren that unmade him. But the spark of soul that was left behind after she had taken everything a
way from him burned like an ember in his mind. He watched as the living came into his room and extracted the dead.
“What is she?” he asked the day riders. “What am I?”
The men ignored him.
At some point he dozed again, and again he could hear Phaedra’s song. His body yearned for her, ached in a way that he never had for any woman before. He loved her. He worshiped at her altar. And when the time was right, he was going to bury her.
****
He woke with a start, aware that someone else was in the room. Livvy, the slave girl, had returned. She crouched just before him and so close that he could grab her and drain her in an instant. Yet he did not. He craved other things from her, but not her blood.
“I see you’re back, pretty Livvy.”
She was silent for the span of several heartbeats. “Father Miguel told me once it’s a sin to make a deal with the devil,” she said, her voice soft and clear, “but I think I done my time with him.” She cast a hated glance at the door. Her hand was curled over something that she was hiding in her lap. “That old fat pig of a bartender has been rutting around on me since he bought me from Old man McKenna last spring. Massa weren’t worth a hoot in hell, as he beat me every chance he got, but at least he didn’t do what Massa Bruce did.” She cocked her head, studying him. “I figure the worst thing you can do is suck me dry like you did those mens back there, and after what I done been through that’s not such a bad thing.”
“What do you want?” Lee heard himself ask.
“They’s some things about this town you need to know. And some things about Phaedra you need to know too, since you’re studying on going up there on her mountain and killing her.”
“How did you know about that?” Lee asked. “I ain’t said anything about killing anyone.”
“Yes, you have. In your sleep.” Livvy’s teeth glistened as she smiled. The whites of her eyes caught the fading moonlight, giving her a Cheshire cat appearance. “You talk a lot in your sleep.”
“How long have I been here?” he asked.
“Nearly a month. Massa Bruce and Preacher Hopkins, they’s the ones who are making sure you’re kept fed and still. You’re their pet now, so they say. They say you brought it on your own self, for not leaving when you were told.” She paused and cast an ugly glance at the manacle and chain. “Any time someone breaks the law—whether it be men’s law or God’s law--they send them up here to you for judgment.”
“Maybe I should feel remorseful, but I don’t, strangely enough,” Lee said.
“They’s bad men, everyone in Casey is bad. You ain’t doing no sin in feeding off of them as far as I can tell.”
“What do you mean?”
Livvy moved closer to him. “That she devil Phaedra showed up two years ago, and not in the usual way. But in a covered wagon filled with folks that’s done died of cholera. All of them was dead but she weren’t. She told the white folk she could keep the town safe from Comanches if she was allowed to feed off anyone who comes along, but if they didn’t agree, then she’d feed off whoever she pleased in the town.” Livvy offered a half-hearted laugh. “And when they said no, she did. She killed every first born chile in town.”
“What does this have to do with me?”
Livvy settled back on her heels. “Well, I looks at it this way. These good white folk knew what they were getting into. They let Phaedra turn you into one of her kind. And then afterwards chained you up here and turned you into the town’s pet. Now, I know a lot about being a slave, since I’ve been one since I was a baby, and I know it’s a hard cross to bear. But they’re doing to you the same as me. And I figure if we work together we could both be free.”
“Aren’t you afraid I’m gonna eat you up, little girl?”
“I ain’t afraid of death,” Livvy said lifting her chin. “And I ain’t afraid of you, either.”
“Alright, smart girl, what have you got in mind?”
“I figure if I turned you loose, you’d be free to feed on anyone you like. Like, maybe Massa Bruce the bartender. And probably that evil old preacher too, since keeping you chained up in here was his idea.”
“And how do you think that’s going to happen?” Lee asked.
Livvy smiled again, the failing moonlight etching the line of her cheek. She opened her hands, revealing a ring of keys. “If I turn you loose, will you do as I ask? Will you make me a free woman?”
“I promise.”
“I don’t know, white man’s word don’t mean much to me,” Livvy said, and for an awful moment, Lee thought she was about to change her mind. Or was she teasing him? It wouldn’t take much to wrest the key from her, break her scrawny neck and then set out to do as he pleased. He looked into her eyes, so young, so earnest. There was a fluttering of hope in them. She wasn’t going to go back on her word. She was afraid he was going to go back on his.
“I’m not a white man,” Lee said. “I’m a dead man.”
Livvy handed him the key.
Chapter Five
Lee took the key like a starving man accepts a slice of bread. With trembling hands he unlocked the manacle and slid it quietly aside. “My clothes,” he said to Livvy who watched him free himself from the shackles. She had a hungry look on her face as he did it, the way Lee had seen men who were about to turn hunting dogs loose on their prey. She rose slowly, not quite turning her back to him, which he appreciated because Lee himself wasn’t sure he could be trusted. She walked around a musty old feather bed and opened an armoire. From there she extracted his jeans and shirt. She tossed them over the bed and they landed in a heap at his feet. “Boots,” he commanded as he pulled on his jeans. She reached down and picked up his pair of scuffed boots that still had the red dust from the street on them. He smiled like a grateful dog at her as he pulled them on, then he stood, stretching to his full height. He rushed to her then, and she gasped, astonished at his swiftness. She was in his arms in a matter of seconds; his arms closing close around her, his lips pressing hard against hers. He pulled away then, seemingly embarrassed at following such an impulse. Livvy, however, didn’t seem to mind. He stepped back and she said, “You can’t go downstairs just yet. You gots to listen to me or you’ll end up back up in here with the sunlight scalding your back. I know how to kill Phaedra and her mens. But you gotta do as I say.”
“How do you know that?” Lee asked as he tucked in his shirt.
“Because I’m a slave. White folks pay no attention to me unless they want something.”
Lee nodded, understanding her meaning, then sat down on the edge of the bed. “Okay, pretty Livvy, tell me what you know.”
“I know that right after Phaedra came here, the statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe started crying real tears. At first Father Miguel thought that maybe there was a leak on the roof or something and maybe water was falling on the Virgin, but the roof was sound. I know this ‘cause he sent ‘Lijah up to check. So he started collecting her tears every night after midnight mass. Padre got quite good sized jug full too before they came and got him.”
“Who were they?”
“The good white folks of Casey, of course. They liked the arrangement they made with that she devil and didn’t want no uppity Mexican priest getting in the way.”
“And how are Guadalupe’s tears going to kill Phaedra and her men?”
“Well, I figure,” Livvy said as she sat down beside him, “that them tears have healing powers. I seen father Miguel use ‘em to cure folks. So I asks myself, what’s the sickest critter in town? And that’d be Phaedra and her mens.” She leaned forward, her expressive eyes large and round, “So I figure that if someone were to dip some bullets in those blessed tears and shot one of her followers, that may not cure him ‘cause he already be dead, but, it could make him unravel like an old rope.”
“I think you may have something there,” Lee agreed. “How do we get to your Father Miguel?”
“You don’t, ‘cause he be dead.” Livvy said. “The townsfolk figured it out t
oo. They may be afraid of the she devil and her mens, but they still have that bargain. And Phaedra do keeps the Indians off of us. They never come down here no more.”
Lee thought it over, and then asked, “Do you know where he kept the jug of tears?”
“Massa Bruce and the preacher found it and busted it up.”
“And the statue?” Lee asked, half afraid that the virgin, too, had met a similar fate.
“Father Miguel hid it before they came after him.”
“Where did he hide it?”
“I’ll show you, but you got to do something for me first.”
“And what would that be?”
“Massa Bruce is still asleep in his room downstairs. He don’t drag his lazy ass out of bed till about noon. He keeps his two boys chained to the stairway just in case they try to slit his throat at night.” She offered a half-hearted laugh and added, “And they’d do it too.”
“And what about you?”
“He don’t think I can do nothing except run away and he thinks I’d be afraid I’d get caught by the Indians.” She lowered her eyes and stared down at her hands. The wrists were scarred and raw. Lee felt a flush of rage stirring deep inside him. “I sleeps in the kitchen but sometimes he comes and...” Her voice trailed off. She swallowed a lump in her throat then looked up at him, her eyes glistening, and filled with hatred, rage and resolve.
Guadalupe's Tears Page 3
