He studied her, the trembling girl who caused him to take such foolish risks. She was tense as a piano string. His silence was a powerful tool for her fear, he noted. The crop had yielded half a dozen beautiful welts across her skin, red and raised. Her sex glistened like a dewy fruit, exposed and vulnerable. The blindfold made slaves less self-conscious, or she would probably have the urge to cover herself as she lay so prone.
Demetrius leaned over her, bringing his face close to hers. She tensed again. She could feel him nearby, feel his body hovering close to her. He was dangerously close to her lips, so close he could smell her sweat.
“You’re learning so quickly, slave,” he said.
The clarity of his voice, clear of the hollow din of the mask, shocked him nearly as much as it shocked her. Her lips parted in a silent gasp, and in a moment the pink blush had drained from her face. Demetrius shivered. Oh, her fear was thick enough to taste. He slid his lower lip against hers, barely a touch, letting the two metal studs beneath it brush along her lips. She gasped again, her breasts shivering despite her struggle to stay still. She uttered the sweetest, most piteous little moan, her breath hot on his mouth. Demetrius moaned himself, his low growl a crisp alien sound outside of the mask. His body thrummed with the thrill of it all, his heart a thick meaty throb in his ears. He tore himself away from her lips before he lost control. He could not kiss her again. He would not let her make him fall that far. She had been the first person he had kissed since that wonderful and terrible moment with Dia so many years ago. Both had been dangerous. He didn’t know why he had done it; only that she was irresistible soaked with rain, eyes wild with rage and defiance.
But if he thought about that again, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself. Even now he was planning to do something he had not done since he started wearing masks, a task left exclusively to the twins or some talented attendants.
Demetrius moved down the length of Twenty-One’s body, the crop discarded. He grazed the raised welts with his nails. She jumped, twitching against her bonds. Her reactions, always so strong, seemed amplified with the blindfold. He knelt between her legs, stroking her thighs to keep himself grounded in reality. She lay before him, waiting. After one final hesitation, Demetrius licked a long line down the length of her sex.
All it took was Twenty-One’s breathless “Oh,” to throw Demetrius into a frantic fever. He explored her with his tongue and lips in a way he hadn’t explored a woman in years, caressing the silken folds and circling the tiny kernel of her apex until she writhed and made helpless and imploring little noises. He kissed and lapped and nibbled lightly, though he wanted to sink his teeth into the sweet, tender flesh. The taste of her was intoxicating, sweet and hot and heady, like the air of New Orleans. Her rocking hips became more urgent, her moans louder. He backed away from her sex, licking his lips. Twenty-One uttered an animal-like groan, straining against her bonds to get closer to him. Demetrius laughed outright. She was well on her way to being a perfect slave, but her protests had the edge of anger to them. Despite his teachings to the contrary, she still felt that her pleasure was owed to her. He continued to laugh, running his fingers over the curve of her hipbones, her inner thighs, anywhere but that greedy little sex of hers.
“I have no one to blame but myself for spoiling you,” he said. “But never forget this.”
He dug his nails into her thighs with brutal strength, and growled over her screams.
“This is not a relationship, ma bichette. I am not your boyfriend. Any pleasure of yours is a privilege from me. I am not obligated to give you release.”
Her cries inflamed him. He squeezed her thighs so hard that he felt her skin give beneath his nails.
“Now, what is your purpose, slave?” he hissed.
Twenty-One’s response was half a scream. “To please my Master!”
“Is it my purpose to please you?”
“No, Master! Please, please-“
“Ah, ah, ah,” he said, but he relinquished his grip a little. “Don’t beg, little one, not when you’ve been doing so well. I’ll do what I want to you.”
He released her thighs, leaving little half-moon nail marks welling with blood. His breath caught at the sight. He licked his fingers and tasted the blood under his nails. Oh, yes. Almost as delicious as her sex. The hot coppery bouquet sent jolts through his veins. Twenty-One whimpered softly, almost as if she didn’t want him to hear. He smiled down at the blindfolded slave.
“Good girl,” he whispered. “You look so sweet in those cuffs, ma chère. You were born for this.”
He gathered a trembling droplet of her blood on his fingertip from the front of the wound and painted a thin red line from her belly button to the mound of her sex. He leaned over her, his breath warming her navel, and took in the sweet, salty scent of her.
“You were born to belong to me,” he whispered.
He traced the red line with his tongue, taking her blood into him, and tasted her sex once more. He felt Twenty-One tense, fighting to keep still, but her hips seemed to have a will of their own. He loved her wriggling, even her lingering sense of entitlement, but he needed to reinforce the lesson. He held her hips and gave her a warning squeeze. She took a deep breath and fought harder to be still. As he worked her, his hands slid down her thighs, exploring the marks he had made. He pressed into them, a light pressure, and the sound she made was not of pain. He circled her apex with the tip of his tongue, flicking and teasing the hard little nodule, and pressed his fingers hard into her wounds. Twenty-One moaned, her breath coming in rough gasps. Demetrius groaned against her flesh. Oh, he would fuck her again tonight. Protocol be damned. Everything be damned. All that mattered was her writhing under his touch, the marks he made in her flesh, the taste of her and the sensation of being inside of her.
“Master,” Twenty-One’s voice was distant, urgent.
Demetrius pulled back a moment, licking her sweetness from his lips. “You may speak.”
“Please…please, Master, may I-”
Demetrius just barely heard the beeping of someone punching in the code for the door. Panic struck him like a blow to the chest. He stood bolt upright as the door opened, snatching his mask from his neck and scrambling to cover his face as the twins walked in. Charity’s mouth was open as if frozen in mid-word when he was able to turn to face them. Faith’s black eyes were wide, and she inched a little closer to her sister.
“What?” he snapped, his panic sparked to rage. “What is it?”
He ripped deductions from their faces and bodies. Shock, yes, fear, but not enough for them to have actually seen his face. They had seen that he had pulled the mask to his face, however, and they had probably guessed what he had been doing.
Faith recovered first. “We’re sorry but we had to interrupt-”
She flinched when he took a few threatening steps toward her. He forced himself to calm. If he behaved like nothing unusual had happened, they would follow suit. He tossed his shoulders, folding her arms across his chest.
“You will make up for it later,” he said. “Now, what is it?”
The twins exchanged a look, but Charity answered him.
“Konri’s here.”
Demetrius’ pulse jumped. He fought not to look back at Twenty-One.
“He’s early,” he muttered. “I’ll be down in a moment.”
The twins headed for the door a little too quickly. Twenty-One’s breath grew shaky. He finally allowed himself to look at her. She lay as he’d left her, glistening with sweat, her knees twitching slightly, as if she wanted to close her legs. He sighed softly.
“Tonight, you will remain unsatisfied,” he said, summoning a commanding tone. “Konri will examine you. Answer all of his questions, ma chère, and do not lie to him. Do you understand me?”
Twenty-One’s voice was thick and rough and near tears. “Yes, Master.”
He took one last look at his slave, bound and vulnerable, her white skin raked with nail marks. He stared until her image had bu
rned into his eyelids when he closed them. It took a great deal of effort to leave the room.
Chapter 23
July 24, 2004
The bar was packed tighter than Demetrius would have thought possible, heavy with the chatter of a thousand pointless conversations. Demetrius did not want to be out tonight. Tonight the alcohol on his lips was true poison; no matter what he drank, the warm haze of intoxication would not take him. Rather, he seemed to skip right to the hangover; a relentless aching beat behind his eyes.
Dia flourished in this sticky hole on Bourbon Street, unashamedly drunk and grinning at the harried bartenders who always managed to keep her glass full. Demetrius smiled to himself. Whomever believed that the old Creole elitism was dead in New Orleans must have had their eyes sewn shut. He looked at his glass, empty of whiskey for nearly thirty minutes now. It was for the best. One more sip of the stuff and he’d start looking for a fight. A little blood always eased headaches like this.
As if on cue, Dia reached over and clasped his hands, her touch cool and luscious. Her cheeks and the bridge of her nose were bright pink.
“Come on, Demetrius, talk to me!” she said with an exaggerated pout. “Don’t be the brooding big brother right now. Be fun!”
Demetrius smiled at her beneath his muslin mask, but it was strained, and she knew it. She shook his shoulders playfully.
“Be fun, be fun, be fun!” she chanted, swaying a little too violently and knocking into a man behind her. She tilted her head back, still clinging to Demetrius. “Sorry about that!”
The man, rough cut and unremarkable, flashed Dia a smile that Demetrius had seen on a thousand men in a thousand seedy bars.
“Oh, don’t you worry about it, darlin’,” he crooned.
Demetrius’ blood began to simmer. He pulled Dia’s stool a little closer to him. Dia slumped into his chest with a giggle. His heart jumpstarted. He hesitated a moment, then gently urged her to sit up straight.
“I think you’re done for the night, ma chère,” he said, brushing a brown wave of hair from her eyes. “I’ll bet you’re seeing double by now.”
Dia grinned, “Two Demetriuses. Moi, je suis chanceux!”
She slumped into his chest again and caught him in her arms. Demetrius relented, pulling her close to him. He caught a faint hint of her jasmine perfume through the muslin over his nose. A flame bloomed in his chest, a flame that had crept into his interactions with Dia too often lately. He had spent the past year keeping as much distance between them as he dared, with Mama Dede’s warnings cutting into him nearly every night they spoke. He had stopped touching her as much as he had, stopped pulling her into embraces when she stood alone in the kitchen or on the porch, stopped stroking her hair whenever she was within reach. He returned her affection when she wrapped her arms around him or held his hand or sat in his lap, but he restrained himself as much as he could. Though even these small steps were excruciating for him, it was vital for him to step back. In the past year, as Dede’s strength and frame faded with every bone-rattling cough, his “demons,” as Dede liked to call them, had grown worse. He indulged in his urges often twice a night now, leaving a far bloodier scene behind him, yet the flame grew. It burned brightest after Dia’s eighteenth birthday, as if that had been some sort of barrier holding it back. Though touching her still soothed him, now the sickening desire came with it, unbidden and unwanted. He found himself fixating on her soft, delicate skin, wondering if it broke easily, wondering if her cries of pain were as loud and sporadic as her laughter. Those thoughts threatened to drive him mad, they threatened Dia’s safety, yet he couldn’t cut himself out of her life completely. He wasn’t strong enough to live without the sweet girl.
He let himself hold her for one more moment before pulling back.
“We should get out of here,” he said. “It’s too crowded.”
Dia laughed, tossing her hair back and catching the eye of more than a handful of male patrons. “Too crowded? You sound so old. You’d never leave Mama’s house if I didn’t drag you out, old man.”
Demetrius wanted to smile, but he couldn’t. He felt eyes on Dia, lecherous and longing. A dark voice inside of him whispered, “she’d be safer with any of them than with you.” He clenched his jaw.
His new cell phone’s vibrations thrummed along his thigh, startling him out of his anger. He flipped it open with a little struggle. Dede had just gotten it for him a couple of months ago and he rarely got a call. The damndable thing answered the call the moment he flipped the phone open.
“Shit,” he muttered, bringing the phone to his ear. “Hello?”
The voice on the other end was barely audible in the din of the bar, “Mr. Heart?...nurse…Hospital.”
Demetrius’ stomach dropped.
“Hold on, I need to step outside,” he said into the phone. He looked at Dia, half-slumped over the bar, a delicious little smile on her lips. “I’ll be right back,” he said, tilting her chin up with the tips of his fingers. “Don’t move from this spot, all right?”
Dia nodded and turned back to the bar. Demetrius’ chest felt tight. He didn’t want to leave her alone, but if this call was about what he thought, he didn’t want her hearing it, either. He signaled to the bartender.
“Watch her,” he shouted over the din of the bar. The bartender gave him a nod and went back to his job. Demetrius hurried out of the bar, pressing the phone to his ear the moment the sticky summer air touched his skin.
“What happened?” he demanded.
“We have you as an emergency contact for Ms. Suzanne Glapion?” The voice on the phone, undoubtedly a nurse, sounded a little uncertain.
It was the first time he had heard Mama Dede’s first name, but he knew the name Glapion from bits of mail scattered around the house.
“Yes,” he said. “What happened?”
“Ms. Glapion’s neighbor brought her to the hospital after seeing her collapse on her porch. She’s stable, but she hasn’t yet regained consciousness.”
Demetrius’ blood went cold. He wasn’t ready for this.
“I’ll be right there.”
He flipped the phone shut before the nurse could reply, his mind reeling. He took a deep breath. The air smelled like rain. He had to get Dia out before the rain started or he’d be competing for a cab with a thousand wandering drunks. He shoved his way back into the bar, trying to bury the image of Dede unconscious in a hospital bed from his mind. No, no, he wasn’t ready for this.
Dia still sat at the bar, grinning and laughing, but something was wrong. A tall young man had taken Demetrius’ stool beside her, leaning close to his sweet girl. Demetrius stared at the man’s hand, at his fingers curled around her bare knee, just below the hem of her dress.
Demetrius got to the two so quickly he might have flown there. He didn’t know and he didn’t care. He saw Dede, a skeleton, surrounded by nurses, her cotton dress pooled over her bones. Demetrius grabbed the stranger by the back of the head, dug his fingers into his hair, and smashed his face against the bar counter.
Dia screamed. The bar erupted into movement as people scrambled out of the way. Demetrius heard only the man’s cries, felt him struggle against his hand as he slammed his face into the counter again. Blood spattered the bar, a sleek and soothing red stain. Demetrius let the man fall to the floor, crumpled like a crushed flower. Demetrius looked at Dia. Her eyes were wide, her arms tight around herself. He saw true fear in her eyes. The look seared him like scalding water, but the bouncers were making their way through the dumbfounded crowd, and they had to leave or he would be arrested.
Dia flinched when Demetrius reached for her hand. Her fear made him feel sick. He pulled her in close to him.
“Mama’s in the hospital,” he said into her ear. “She’s not waking up.”
In an instant, Dia’s fear of him became urgency. She gripped his hand so hard it hurt as he led her out of the bar, dodging the approaching bouncers, and slipped into the night.
Chapter 24
> November 11, 2011
Twenty-One struggled to keep her breath steady, her heart in her throat, as the twins led her down the spiral staircase into Demetrius’ study. They had said nothing to her when they untied her, talking amongst themselves as if she didn’t exist. Twenty-One preferred it that way. The twins were always frightening to her, with their strange blend of cruelty and sensuality. She followed them dutifully, her arms at the base of her neck, elbows out, stealing glances at the study while she could. She had only seen the space when she had tried to escape and when the attendants took them to the baths, so she had never been able to get a good look at it. The oak bookshelves were filled from wall to ceiling, the sort of shelves you expect to hold dusty old tomes years untouched. But the books all looked modern, with glossy paperbacks and sleeved hardcovers mashed together in no obvious order. Folders full of papers and random loose leaf pages were stuffed between the books. The shelves seemed so chaotic and disorganized, yet the gigantic corner desk at the end of the room was immaculate. Statues stood between the bookshelves, all replicas of Greek or Roman pieces, she noted. They were spotless, as if someone wiped them down daily. Order and chaos in the same space. This could be no one’s room but her Master’s.
The twins stopped in front of one of the statues that stood between the bookshelves. At first glance the armless woman looked like a reproduction of the Venus de Milo, but Twenty-One quickly realized she was different. She still had the soft, rounded figure of the Ancient Roman ideal, her arms gone just below the shoulders, the long nose and tiny bow lips. But this Venus did not have the same curved pose. She stood rigid, her chest high, her chin tilted slightly upward, her legs a little over hip width apart. Twenty-One suspected that if the statue had arms, they would be at her neck, At Attention.
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