a very long trance. I have entered this state before when you broke my spirit with your rejection. When I reenter the world, it has inevitably changed.”
“I do not think I can sleep. I will lie awake thinking of you and of all that you have told me,” I said. There was no use in lying to him.
“Then I will put you to sleep myself,” he said.
Before I could object, he swooped me into his arms, carrying me out of the library and down the stairs to my quarters, kissing me lightly on the face and lips along the way. I wrapped my arms around his neck, wishing for the journey to never end, relishing the strange and electric touch of his lips, and marveling at their power to ignite all the small cells of my body.
He opened the door to my cabin. The mysterious staff that had unpacked my things had been inside, lighting low lamps and laying out a satin nightdress. He put me down, standing me in front of the mirror, and he stood behind me. As I watched our reflections, he reached around, unbuttoning the front of my dress and slipping it off my shoulders. He ran his lips along one side of my neck. “The scent of you is as familiar to me as my own.”
I shivered, which I know he felt. Nibbling my ear, he slowly pulled the pearl pins out of my hair until he removed the last of them, and the tresses tumbled down upon my shoulders. He grasped my hair in his hand, tugging so that I could not move my head. “I once told you long ago that you were like a wild horse that I would control by its mane.” I pictured him as he was in my dream, pulling my hair as he bit into my neck. I held my breath, hoping that he would do it again, right now, and resurrect that strange ecstasy.
“You are not strong enough for that, Mina,” he said, reading me. He released my hair, and it fell down my back.
He unlaced my corset and pulled it apart, loosening it, and letting it fall to the floor. I stepped out of the clothes, and he knelt in front of me, sliding his hands up my legs and rolling down my garters. He sat me on the bed while he unlaced my shoes and removed them. Then, one at a time, he slowly glided my stockings down my legs, making all the hair on my body bristle with excitement. With his fingers, he caressed the bottoms of my feet, and then sank his lips into one of the arches, and then the other, and I moaned.
“You have always loved your pleasure, Mina. It is no different this time, despite the armor you have put around yourself.”
Holding my hands, he pulled me up, putting the nightdress over my head and then smoothing it along my body until it fell fluttering at my feet. He swooped me up in his arms again and laid me on the bed.
“There is another way to taste you,” he said. He pulled my gown up and slid his hand up my thigh, parting my legs as it reached my private place. With one fingertip, he separated the lips. “How often have I worshipped at this altar.”
I closed my eyes to enjoy the pleasure, slipping into dreamy arousal.
I opened my eyes again, and he locked them to his. When he looked at me this way, I had no will.
“I do,” I said. I was his to do with whatever he wished.
I did as he said, and his hands pushed them far apart, while his mouth sucked and tasted me. I wanted to scream with pleasure, but my voice was choked inside me and I could not breathe. My mouth was locked open and my head thrown back as I reached for something I could not name. His tongue snaked its way into me, and it seemed to expand there, electrifying my insides, and then he pulled it out and carpeted the whole of my opening. I felt his lips lock onto my flesh, and he took as much of me as he could inside his mouth, sucking there as I had earlier sucked his tongue. I started to rock with pleasure, just as the sea rocked beneath us, but he grabbed my thighs in his viselike grip so that I could not move at all. I was on the threshold of some kind of ecstasy but afraid that he would bite into me in that most vulnerable of places. I wanted him to do whatever he pleased, for I anticipated that anything he did would bring unimaginable thrills. But I also held the memory of his wolf dog blood- drenched fangs, and it was impossible to know if he would tire of giving pleasure and choose evisceration.
I waited for the shock and pain of his wound, but instead, he pulled away, leaving me panting and desiring him to resume. As much as I was afraid of what he would do to me, I was more afraid for him to stop. The inside of me throbbed with violent contractions, searching for something to hold in its grip.
“Though it would please me to do it, I am not going to taste your blood,” he said. “But I will give you what you want. What do you want?”
He knew exactly what I wanted.
“Yes, but I want to hear the melody of the words as you say it aloud,” he said.
“I want you to fill me up, as you did in my dream,” I said, surprised to hear this request come from my mouth. “I want to feel the whole of you inside me.”
He wasn’t even touching me now. Suddenly, it felt as if he had left the room. Had he disappeared? I looked around. All was dark but for a bluish orb of moonlight coming through the porthole.
“Where are you? Please don’t go away. Please don’t leave me,” I shouted.
“No, not ever,” I said. I could feel him in the room again, even if I could not see him. I was so relieved that he had not left me, but I needed to see him again, to believe that he was real to me and that all this was not a dream.
I waited. I took a deep breath, but before I could completely exhale, I felt a mad rush of heat, and he was between my legs again, and like some kind of eel or lamprey, he had sucked me into his mouth as if he was consuming all of me. I felt completely electrified, though I recognized that he was not moving but letting me feel the power of his being, the force of his vibration, for that is the only way I can describe it. He was flooding me with some sort of furious energy, like the gods of old who created storms by their whispers. He sent this power straight into the dark cavity of my sex, where it swirled and expanded, and then shot up my spine and into my head. At that moment, both ends of me exploded with staggering pleasure, as if my body had been ripped in half and my skull cracked wide-open, letting in the heavens. For a long moment, I felt nothing but elation.
I heard the strum of the rain as it began to fall again on the sea. He pulled the covers over me, and I sailed on the rhythm of the waves into my dreams.
I awakened alone the next morning to dark skies, a turbulent sea, and a chilly cabin. I tried to get out of bed, but the churning waters tossed me right back. I sat up and looked out the porthole when a wave came crashing against the glass with enough velocity to send me on my back again.
I managed to stand up. A mysterious valet had been in my cabin and picked up last night’s discarded clothing and replaced it with a fresh dress, undergarments, stockings, and shoes, which I put on despite the efforts of the sea to knock me off my feet. In a box on the vanity, I found a bracelet made of ten black onyx snakes in figure-eight patterns, inlaid with ivory and diamonds and outlined in gold. The centerpiece was an exquisite angel’s face, which covered a watch face. The time was noon. I put the dial to my ear, listening to the precision of its ticking and imagining my heart beating at the same steady rate.
As soon as I heard his voice, I saw in my mind’s eye the lounge where he sat. I was able to walk directly to it by following some internal navigation that I understood now would always lead me to him. It was a small room with a fire burning. Breakfast and tea were laid out and waiting for me. He stood as I walked into the room. His very presence almost knocked the wind out of me. Light entered the room from small etched-glass windows, emphasizing his effulgent skin and his chiseled face, and last night’s pleasures rushed back to me.
Suddenly, a blinding ray of light shot through the glass, creating strange prisms in the room. In that instant, I saw him, not as he was or as he had been last night, but as a different man in strange surroundings. He was younger, fiercer, and less ethereal, with a thick, dark beard and dress from another time and another place-an ermine-trimmed scarlet cape, a bright white tunic, a red cross slashed across the chest, a low-slung belt of gold. His eyes were a brighter blue, and they stared at me from a face desperate with either rage or love or desire or all those things. Feeling faint, I grabbed onto the doorframe for support, and I closed my eyes. When I opened them
