Jonathan Barrett Gentleman Vampire (18 page)

“I hardly ever tell anyone. People make such a fuss over it, and there’s little enough that I want.”

“There must be something.”

“Yes, or else I wouldn’t have mentioned it. It’s not anything one may buy from a shop. It’s something only you are able to give me.”

This sounded most promising. “What, then?”

She wore a curious look as though appraising me as she had at the Bolyns’ party. There was a change in her manner, though. This time her usual cheerful confidence seemed dampened. The quiet affecting her this evening was surely connected with her birthday. Some people take no joy from them, and I was surprised that Nora might be one of that number.

I took her hand and leaned close. “What is it you want?”

A shadow, not really visible on her face, but as a subtle shifting throughout her whole body, came and went. “Nora?”

“Do you trust me?” she abruptly asked.

“Yes, of course I do.”

“Are you afraid of me?”

“Nora, really! What an absurd question.”

“Is it, I wonder.”

“Tell me what’s troubling you.”

The shadow vanished and she offered a smile in its place. She caressed my neck with her fingertips, a familiar gesture by now and one that never failed to excite me. “Nothing, darling Jonathan.”

I was inclined to be doubtful. “Are you sure?”

She gave no direct answer. “Come upstairs.”

Well . . . I’d never yet refused
that
invitation, and notwithstanding her odd mood, I was not going to begin tonight.

As always with this pursuit, we fed upon one another’s enthusiasm, seeking and gaining arousal with each touch and kiss until both of us were ultimately seized with that furious eagerness unique to love-making. We gave in to it, gladly surrendering our thoughts, our bodies to its heat. Nora laughed as she rode me, until she dropped forward and suddenly smothered the sound against my throat. I felt the light, sharp prick of her teeth, then I could have laughed, cried or shouted as though from fever when she finally pierced the skin and began to tap the life welling from it.

She’d timed herself to match my own readiness. Somehow, she always seemed to know.

A speculation drifted through my mind that this present coupling could not possibly surpass the previous one.

But once more Nora proved me wrong.

Before my body had quite exhausted itself, she hooked a leg around one of mine and rolled until I was on top. This was a change, for usually she would hold to my throat for a much longer period. Drops of blood from the tiny piercings in
my neck splashed on her breasts. She brushed at them, then licked her fingertips clean. I pressed harder into her, anticipating a furtherance of our pleasure when she resumed taking her fill from this fresh position.

“My turn,” she whispered, rocking under me, matching my rhythm. Her hand came up and one of her long nails suddenly gouged into the white flesh of her own throat until she bled. She gasped a brief plea to me, telling me what to do, but it was unnecessary. I closed my lips over the wound and for the first time drank the life from
her
body. . . .

Red fire
.

So it felt as it coursed into my mouth, gusted into my belly, and thundered to each shuddering limb. It seared my bones, ate outward through the flesh, scorched my skin until Nora and I must both be consumed by the blaze. The totality of pleasure I’d known only seconds ago now seemed like a candle’s flame against a furnace. It was too much to bear, far too much—yet I would not stop.

Nora cried out—again and again, as if in pain, but holding fast to me as I had to her that first night, urging me to take more, to take everything from her. I drew deep, abruptly aware that the strength I’d freely given moments ago was flowing back. Sweet and bitter, hot and cold, pleasure and pain, life and death, all tumbled madly together like autumn leaves caught in a spinning windstorm.

Nora cried out—arching, convulsing, this climax far more intense than any we’d ever before shared. It touched off an identical response from me; we were finally and truly
one
body, not two. Never before had we lost ourselves like this within each other.

Delirious, we spiraled into the measureless depths of a crimson vortex, into everything and nothing, ultimately whirling down, down, down to finally collapse, sated, in a wonderful, bottomless silence that had no name.

* * *

I drifted awake, sprawled comfortably on my back, light-headed, for a moment not recalling where I was, but strangely unconcerned.

Candles burned in every corner of the room. Rather wasteful, that. One, or at the most two, were enough. They seemed bright to my sleep puffed eyes, flaring to the point of hurtful dazzle whenever I blinked. I was often like this of a morning after a night of drink, but this time was spared the unsettled stomach and a twice-thickened tongue tasting of . . . .

What was that? A taint of iron and salt in my mouth.

What had. . .?

Oh.

I remembered. With a little shock.

At the time, caught up in the frenzy, it had been the right thing to do, but now I was faintly scandalized by the drives of my own lust. Thinking over the experience with a cooler mind, it seemed . . . perverse.

Which was a very illogical judgment considering that Nora had been drinking my blood for months without protest from me. To the contrary, I adored the act, at times positively craved it.

Certainly Nora had wholly desired for me to partake from her. There was no doubt in my heart that I had well-pleased her in the extreme. That was good, very good indeed, but I wasn’t sure if I could repeat this night. The idea wanted some getting used to, but after that . . . I thought I could manage.

Not
too
soon again, though; it was exhausting. If we did that
every
time we made love . . . by God, I’d be an old man in a week.

Nora lay next to me, one arm on my chest, her fingers spread wide as though her last deed had been to caress the hair there. I covered her hand with my own and slothfully considered whether or not it was worth the effort to rise and put out the candles. Some of them had begun to gutter, and their flickering, uneven light was a mild annoyance to the contented, thoroughly satisfied state of my mind and body.

There was a clock on the table across the room. It was well past two. Nora and I had slept for hours. I was strangely wakeful. And hungry. The table, except for the clock, was bare. That was sufficient to decide me. I’d take care of the candles on my way down to the kitchen.

Turning gently so as to disturb Nora as little as possible, I noticed her eyes were slightly open.

I smiled into them. “You are truly astonishing,” I said softly, bending to kiss her.

She did not respond. Her eyes remained open and unblinking. “Nora?”

I gently shook her. Her body was inert under my hands.

She’s asleep, she’s only asleep
. I shook her until her head lolled from side to side. Her eyes did not change, were as blank as sooty glass.

No . . .

I reached across for the silver bell by the bedside and rang it, roaring for help. Eternities crawled by before the bedroom door opened and a sleepy Mrs. Poole looked in. She correctly read from my agonized face that something was wrong and hurried to Nora’s side of the bed. She put a hand to her niece’s brow. I was in agony.

“Ah,” she said, smiling. “Nothing to worry about, young man.”

“Nothing to—”

She cut me off and pointed to the mark on Nora’s throat, then to my own. “Taken from each other, haven’t you?”

“I—”

“That’s all it is. It only puts her into a heavy sleep until she recovers.”

The woman must have been blind or mad. “She’s not
breathing
, Mrs. Poole!”

“No, she’s not, but I tell you there’s nothing to worry about. It’s like catalepsy. It’ll wear off in a few hours and she’ll wake none the worse. Bless your soul, but she should have warned you this would happen.”

I could not bring myself to believe her. Nora was so utterly, damnably
still
.

Mrs. Poole patted my shoulder in a kindly way. I suddenly realized I was naked with only the sheets to cover me; Nora was equally exposed. However, Mrs. Poole was unperturbed, her concern centered solely upon my agitation. “There now, I can see you’ll only listen to
her
word on it. Wait here and I’ll fix things right up.” She toddled away, her slippers scraping and scuffling as she went along the hall and down the stairs.

Nora remained as she was, eyes open and blind, lips parted, heart—I pressed an ear to her breast—as silent as stone. I backed hastily from her, from my fear. Had I killed her? She often said she was careful not take too much for me, lest I weaken and fall ill, but what if, in my inexperience, I’d gone too far?

I clawed haphazardly for my clothes, pulling them on against the chill that invaded me. I was nearly dressed when Mrs. Poole returned, carrying a cup of what I first took to be red wine.

“This will do it for certain,” she promised, throwing another smile my way. She hovered over Nora, dipped a small spoon in the cup and wet the girl’s lips. “Just a few drops of the life-magic . . . ”

“What is that?” I found myself asking.

“Beef blood,” she replied. “We had a fresh joint today and this is what drained off. Cook was saving it for something else, but—”

“Beef blood?” I echoed.

“Nora prefers—well, you and those other fine young gentlemen know what she prefers to have—but this does just as well.” She let another few drops ease between Nora’s parted lips. My own heart nearly stopped when those lips suddenly moved against one another. Her tongue appeared and retreated, tasting. “That’s my girl. Come awake so Jonathan knows you’re all right.”

Nora’s dead eyes closed slowly, then opened to look at me. “Jonathan?” she drowsily murmured.

Now it passed that I was the one unable to move.

“There, there,” said Mrs. Poole. “Drink this down first, my girl.” She lifted Nora’s head and held the cup until Nora took it herself. She drained it completely, giving a little shiver—of pleasure, that was clear—when it was gone.

“What is the time?” Nora whispered.

“Late, but you’ve hours to go yet. Really, Nora, you’ve been very naughty not to have spoken to him beforetime. I would suggest an apology. You’ve frightened him terribly.” As though to counteract the gentle rebuke, Mrs. Poole pulled the bedclothes up, almost tucking Nora in like a child.

Nora looked at me. The whites of her eyes were flame red. Evidently the beef blood, like my own, brought about that same strange effect. “Jonathan?”

I shook my head. And shivered. Not with pleasure.

She glanced at Mrs. Poole, who frowned. “It’s your own fault, girl. Sort it out. I’m off to my bed, if you two don’t mind. Try not to shout or you’ll alarm the neighbors.” Mrs. Poole took the cup and bade me goodnight, shutting the bedroom door softly on her way out.

“You were . . . ” But I could not finish.

She sat up against the pillows. “I know,” she said. “I should have explained to you before we started. It’s . . . difficult for me to find the right words sometimes, especially with you. Other times it seems best to say nothing at all.”

“Best for yourself?”

“Yes,” she said candidly, after a moment’s thought. “And now you’re afraid of me again.”

I could hardly deny that truth. “Perhaps you will simply ‘talk’ me out of it as you have before.”

“Or perhaps you will do that for yourself.”

I started to speak and ask her meaning and found it unnecessary. All I had to do was think of my father and remember his struggle to explain his estrangement from Mother. “`I could see myself turning into her own little dancing puppet,’ he’d said.”

Her look sharpened. “Who said?”

“Father, talking about his wife.” The room was deathly silent. I held my breath, half-expecting a response, but she made no reply “You don’t want me to be a puppet, do you?”

“No,” she finally murmured. “I never did.”

After all, her life was filled with puppets: handsome young men who gave her blood for nourishment and gifted her with money to live on, each happy with his lot, each under her careful control. This night I had truly become the sole exception to her pattern. In asking myself why, I knew the answer as well as I knew every curve of her flesh. Whatever fear I’d felt melted as though it had never been.

“I’m very glad to know that,” I said, my voice growing thick.

She must have seen the proof of that on my face. “You are. You really are . . . ”

I moved back to the bed, climbing in beside her, drawing her close, holding her, for she seemed in need of it. “No more persuasions, Nora. No more secrets. They only hurt you, don’t you see?”

“But sometimes the truth is impossible to speak.”

“It need not be. You’re a very clever girl. You can always find a way. Just trust
me
to accept. Even the impossible. Have I not done so just now?”

“More than I ever hoped for. I feared—”

“Oh, we’re all done with that. Forget it. Forget fear.”

“If I could.”

“Ah—none of that! Or I shall be very cross,” I whispered fiercely, with a mock anger that made her smile. Her body relaxed against mine, as though she had indeed shed a burden. “Haven’t you heard? “Perfect love casteth out fear.’ Now you don’t want to go arguing with St. John do you? I thought not.”

“I don’t think this was
quite
the situation he had in mind.”

“Love is love, and there’s little enough of it in the world. Let us cherish what we have and trust in its strength, not fear our weaknesses.”

“Yes. We will do that . . . .”

And eventually no more words were necessary.

My blood quickened, growing hot, insistent, and pulsing hard against the little wounds on my neck. In other places, too. The fever I’d shared with her earlier returned, flooding me head to toe with a need more overwhelming than any before it.

It mirrored her own need. So . . . we obliged one another.