The Shambling Guide to New York City (19 page)

He nodded to Morgen and John to come to the head of the line. He cast a suspicious eye at Zoë, but pulled the barrier aside when he saw her choker.

“New pet, Morgen?” he asked as the water sprite passed him a hell note.

“Oh yes, Howard. Isn’t she yummy?”

“I didn’t know you went for the females,” he said, looking at Zoë as if he wondered if she’d get caught in his teeth, or go down smoothly. She fought the desire to return his stare and remembered to look at the ground like a proper sub.

“I’ll try anything once,” Morgen replied breezily. “Twice, if I like it.”

“Best keep her away from the incubi. There are some hungry ones here tonight. Like this one.” He poked John in the arm in a way that was either joking or threatening, Zoë couldn’t tell. John smiled at him and passed him a hell note, and they went inside.

Zoë had thought herself liberal in sexual views and sometimes even practices. Godfrey had tied her up a couple of times, and it had been fun. But clearly that was dipping a toe into an ocean. Here, women and men danced in cages in nothing but a suggestion of an attempt to cover themselves, which was more obscene than if they’d just gone nude. A woman was chained face-first to the wall, her latex skirt raised to her waist, a man whipping her naked, red, lined backside. She made noises of pain and ecstasy as he asked her if she had been a naughty girl.

A bartender, wearing a full latex bodysuit and cheekbones so high that Zoë decided he couldn’t be human, leaned across the bar and asked Morgen, “What do you two want?” The “two” were John and Morgen.

John ordered red wine again, although he’d finished the bottle himself at the restaurant.

Morgen frowned. “Do you have any Red Sea?”

“What century?”

“Anything post-Moses, pre-pollution,” she replied.

The man put a clear bottle on the bar and motioned again to Zoë. “Does it want anything?”

“She hasn’t earned the right to alcohol yet,” Morgen replied.
She reached over and pinched Zoë’s cheek—hard—and winked at her. “We’re breaking her in slowly. Ginger ale will do nicely.”

The bartender accepted Morgen’s hell note and handed Zoë a ginger ale. He looked Zoë in the eye for the first time. “Keep her close, Morgen,” he said. “The ’buses won’t be real happy with you parading food in front of them.”

“Fuck ’em,” Morgen said, “She’s mine. I think the ’buses can get their own.”

John made a low noise, and Zoë couldn’t tell if he was protesting, or amused, or just hungry.

A heavy industrial track came blaring over the loudspeakers then, and the bartender’s response was lost. He turned his attention to some vampires who had arrived at the bar, laughing and showing elongated teeth. Morgen motioned Zoë and John over to a table near the wall.

To avoid looking at the leather-clad, masked man dancing in the cage right above their table, Zoë focused on Morgen. “So is that seawater you’re drinking?”

“Mmmm. Yeah. This stuff is intoxicating to freshwater sprites.” She took a swig of the bottle and grinned. “Eighteen hundreds. Excellent.”

Zoë shook her head. “So why does everyone tell you to be careful with me?”

“I don’t feed off of humans, and they know it. I don’t take their death energy like Gwen, nor their blood like a vampire, nor their sexual energy like a ’bus. I just like hanging around those coterie. And me parading a meal in front of them, that I’m not going to eat, but won’t let them taste, is rude.”

“Quite rude,” John agreed, staring at Zoë. “But having me here will give at least a little bit of credibility to the ruse. I can’t imagine what you thought you’d get away with, bringing her here alone, Morgen. I’m glad I came along.”

Morgen looked at him with dislike. “I bet you are. But you’re looking hungry, why don’t you go get some food?”

Zoë fought the urge to protest. His eyes never left her as he said, “No, I’m fine. Besides, she needs to do research, right? Who better to ask than me?”

He scooted closer, sitting too close to Zoë, presumably so he could talk over the music. She could feel his heat through her sweater, and her skin prickled. “Do you have any questions for me?”

“OK, what’s going on here from your point of view?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” he said. “Let’s go see the feeding rooms.”

Morgen looked as if she was about to protest. Zoë shrugged at her and said, “I do need to learn.”

Morgen sighed. “All right. Lead on, but I’m coming with you. And remember, we need to keep her safe.”

“No one will lay a hand on her tonight,” he agreed, rising. He looked down at Zoë and brushed his finger across her cheek and she shivered. “Unless she wishes it.”

He led them through the tables and around a dance floor where bodies writhed together. Squinting into the mass of sweaty bodies, Zoë could clearly tell who the coterie were, their eyes focused as they devoured their victims’ sexual energy, driving humans to extreme sexual pleasure by only the power of a couple of well-placed hands.

“Those are the succubi and incubi who gorge—they will just grab someone, use them, then grab someone else,” John explained, his mouth close, his lips brushing her ear. “While the ones in the back rooms prefer one meal that they can linger over all night. Incidentally, that’s how I feed.” His lips were gone suddenly, and he was glaring at Morgen, who had pulled him away.

Zoë winked at Morgen.

They continued past the dance floor and into a corridor lined with smoky windows—one-way mirrors?—each of which looked into a room with a bed. Zoë’s face became hot as they paused at the first room, where a woman writhed, tied spread-eagled to a bed, as a naked man crawled over her, licking every inch. Although the man seemed to be in control, his movements were a little too eager, not hungry enough, to indicate he was an incubus. He didn’t turn her on the way John did.

She blinked. “Why would a succubus allow herself to be tied up?”

John’s mouth was at her ear again, his body close behind her. “She’s in total control. She’s giving him what he wants—the more pleasure he gets out of it, the more energy he gives her to feed on. All we want is the pleasure of our partners.” He moved her hair aside and bent to kiss her neck, a hot, lingering brand. She gasped. She opened her eyes without realizing she’d closed them and looked around frantically for Morgen. Where had she gone?

She caught sight of pink hair, bending down over a phone, hastily leaving the club to take a phone call.

Oh no.

John nibbled his way down her neck, moaning appreciatively as he tasted her. His fingers danced lightly at her waist until they found their way under her sweater and stroked her belly.

He pulled her closer, pressing her against his front, and she felt his hardness against her.

She forced herself to look away at what the man was doing to the succubus, forced herself not to wish she were having that done to her, forced herself not to realize that she could easily have that, right here, right now. She thought, instead, of the last time she had participated in said act, with Godfrey between her legs bringing her to a screaming orgasm. And then what that sexual encounter had led to.

The cold reality of Lucy and the loss of her job and the move to New York failed to squash the heat that rose in her body as John bit down lightly on her neck. She responded, gasping, and she could feel his lips curl into a smile as he bit harder.

“You like that,” he said. It was not a question. Zoë moaned.

Then he stepped away from her, the chasm between them suddenly very cold. He kept his hands on her middle, sliding around to her back, to show her another room.

Her eyes widened. A naked succubus, clad only in red thigh-high boots, whipped two men’s backs as one sobbed and the other watched the first, silently taking the lash.

A third room, with an incubus on a bed, groaning as two naked women pleasured him, licking and sucking, sometimes pushing each other away, but more often sharing, their lips and tongues meeting around him.

“It is rare we can find a woman who gets actual pleasure from that aspect of sex. My colleague there has found two.” John bit her earlobe and breathed heavily in her ear.

Zoë stared at the scene. “What happens when he’s… done?” she managed to ask.

“He won’t be done until he’s eaten his fill. So he will end up having both of them. We can live off of play, as hands groping and lips sucking and the soft sighs of a lover are definitely sustaining, but we haven’t really eaten until there’s been penetration.”

He pulled her around and kissed her again, catching her lip in his teeth and sucking on it, and ah God, it was better than before, stronger than before. Better than it had ever been with Godfrey.

I need this, I need to erase the taint of him, overwrite him. Just once, just let me have him once.

Her hands were on him now, and he was lifting her, still kissing, still taking her somewhere—to a corner, a room, a bed?—
she didn’t care. She groaned when his hand trailed over her bra, seeking a convenient place to slide inside.

She didn’t care where she was, who could see. She didn’t care what her morning would be like, what he would take from her. His hot fingers unsnapped her bra, and she was placed on a bed, her sweater torn from her torso, bra discarded.

She opened her eyes: the room had a large bed with clean silk sheets, three red walls, and one mirrored wall. He took his hands off her and stood next to the bed. He watched her, his brown eyes never leaving her face, as he unbuttoned his shirt with agonizing slowness.

His body was a sculpture of flesh and muscle, nipples begging to be licked, back ready to be scratched to ribbons. He put his hands on his belt, and then smiled tenderly.

“No. I’m going to savor you, Zoë, for as long as you’ll let me. When you’re ready to beg for it, then I’ll give it to you.”

He got back on the bed and finished undressing her, hand trailing lazily over her breasts. She knew nothing else but being here, with him, needing him.

(Not man.)

He caressed her breasts, rolling her nipples between his fingers, scratching his nails lightly over the sensitive skin on the undersides. She gasped and grabbed his hand, dragging it southward.

“Eager,” he murmured into her ear. The bass of the club outside thumped in time to her heartbeat, and John hissed with pleasure when he felt her, felt how ready she was.

“Have you been like this all night?” he asked, sliding a finger in.

“Since you kissed me,” she said, starting to writhe.

“Glorious. I must have a taste,” he said.

(
Not a man. Incubus.
) The thought was so faint it might as well have been a memory.

He began kissing down her neck, pausing to suck on each of her nipples, spending almost too much time there, until she moaned impatiently. He was positioned between her legs, his eyes still watching her face, when there was a banging on the mirrored wall. Zoë remembered people were likely watching, and the thought only thrilled her more.

John raised his head before he took a taste. “Oh, I’m sorry, Zoë. The crowd will want something rougher. I think we may have to tie you up. Possibly blindfold you.”

He dipped his head down and licked her with a quick flick of the tongue. She cried out, nearly there.

“May I tie you up?” he asked again, then wrapped his lips around her clit and sucked.

Zoë moaned, sweat beading on her skin, gasping. She needed something, needed him to do more, to stop holding back. She needed him inside her.

“Yes, please, anything, please, fuck me, I need it,” she said, gasping and babbling so fast she didn’t know if he heard her.

He smiled at her, lips glistening with her juices, and moved to get the restraints already attached to the headboard. He nearly had her hand through a handcuff when the door opened.

“This is a rented room!” John said, whirling around.

Morgen stood there, looking shocked and uncertain as Granny Good Mae, eyes blazing, pushed past her. “You don’t get to have her,” Granny Good Mae said, pointing at John.

“I certainly do,” John said. “She’s consented.”

“Yes, yes, I consent, please, anything,” Zoë said, nearly sobbing at the interruption.

The woman walked forward, her overcoat flapping behind her, and picked up Zoë’s sweater and threw it on her.

“Get dressed.”

“What the fuck are you doing here?” John asked, clearly shocked at this woman’s audacity. “Who are—Wait, I know you. You’re that Granny lady. How did you get in? Public Works isn’t allowed in here.”

“Granny Good Mae is not here on business. And I go where I want.”

Ah God, Granny Good Mae. Her watching, seeing Zoë spread-eagled, waiting for an incubus, wasn’t hot. It was shameful. Her hand closed on Zoë’s wrist, and with the touch Zoë gained clarity. She was naked, in a bondage club, with an audience.

With a
coworker
.

“Dammit!” she said. “What am I doing? Morgen, where did you go?” She turned her head to look at John. “What do you think you’re doing?”

John deflated. “I—You wanted—You were ready.”

Zoë pulled her sweater over her head and found her pants at the foot of the bed. She stood up and began pulling them on. “Listen, asshole, when I want to fuck on a first date, I’m going to hope that there’s actually a date involved, there’s a private room, and he will preferably be human!”

“Out of all the humans in the city, you had to go for our new editor,” Morgen said. “I turned my back for one second. You’re unbelievable!”

Panting, Zoë became aware of the various club inhabitants staring at her. Granny Good Mae stood between her and John. She looked at Morgen.

The water sprite came up, took her hand, and led her from the room.

She walked, stunned, through the crowd of interested bystanders, out of the club, past the vampire bouncer nursing a broken nose with murder in his eyes, and down the street.

Once they’d turned the corner, Morgen stopped and took a deep breath. “Damn him anyway. Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Zoë said, shaking her head to clear it. “I thought I could handle him.”

“My little air bubble, you’re strong for a human, but you’re still human. Never forget that when you’re dealing with coterie. I’m sorry I let him wander off with you. I honestly thought he’d go for one of the other clubbers.”