Five

Maria was dragged by two of Sylvia’s servants, crying convulsively and half-hysterical, down a corridor to a large bedroom. She was thrown in and fell in a heap on the floor. She heard the door close behind her and lay sobbing, distraught not just at the insanity of what had happened to her, but at her own, inexplicable reaction to Mark. After a moment his voice came to her, low and soft.

“You should have a bath, and put on some clothes. You’ll feel better.”

She stilled her sobbing and lay for a moment in silence. Then she turned and looked at him. He was by the door, putting on a black satin robe, tying it at his waist. After a moment she said, “I’m not going to ask you again, because it’s gone beyond being insane. You’re sick monsters…”

He shrugged and spread his hands. “Monsters, by your reckoning certainly. Sick? Certainly not. We are a damn site more healthy than you.” He smiled, and the expression was oddly kind and gentle. It was incongruous. “Look at yourself, Maria. Which one of us is a sobbing wreck on the floor, and which one of us is vibrant with health, and feeling good? Now tell me, which one of us is sick?”

She pushed herself into a sitting position. Her expression was resentful.

“Which one? The one who just savaged and murdered an innocent young girl. And the woman who urged him to do it.”

“That would be my mother and my brother.”

“And the one who buys human beings and holds them as slaves!”

He looked at her for a long moment. When he finally spoke he said, “You should bathe. There are clothes for you in the wardrobe.”

He crossed the room to an en suite bathroom and after a moment she heard the shower. She looked around the room. There was a huge, four poster bed with black satin sheets. The rest of the furnishings were opulent, beyond luxurious. She struggled to her feet and went to stand in the bathroom door. To the left there was a large, sunken bath raised on a black marble dais. To her right she could see Mark through the steamed up glass of the shower cubicle, lathering his body with soap under the powerful jets of water. She felt again the stirrings of lust and hungered to have him inside her again.

She shook her head. “I have to get out of here, and back to the real world.”

She looked at the bath a moment, then shrugged and went to turn on the gold taps. There was an array of oils and salts. She threw them all in without looking at the labels. As she was climbing into the hot water, Mark stepped out of the shower and started toweling himself dry. Then he stood naked in front of the mirror lathering his face with shaving soap.

Maria sank back and watched him a moment, then burst out laughing. It was a strange, almost manic laugh. He smiled at her and raised an eyebrow. “Share?”

“You, shaving… You have to admit.”

“It has it’s funny side.”

She became serious.

“Why didn’t you kill me?”

“I like you.”

“You’ve never killed anyone.”

“How do you know?”

“What your mother said.”

He scraped at his face with an old fashioned razor. She waited but he didn’t answer. She said, “You don’t like it, do you?” He shrugged. She went on, “There is compassion in you. I can sense it. I’ve seen it.”

He rinsed his razor and wiped the lather from his face, watching her in the bath.

“Be careful, Maria. We call it the howling. When rage or excitement reaches a peak in us, we change, and what we become is completely out of control. Don’t trust that compassion holds me back. I haven’t killed yet, but I have no doubt that animal I become will, eventually. That is just something I have to accept. Whether I like it or not.”

“So you might kill me?”

“I hope not.”

“You hope not.”

He came and sat on the edge of the bath. For a moment there was sadness in his eyes. She wondered if it was fake or phony, but realized immediately that in fact Mark was probably the most honest person she had ever met. He was what he was and didn’t pretend to be anything else. So the sadness she saw was real. It was there.

“I do like you, Maria, a lot. You’re not like anyone I have met before. I feel a real rapport with you. I wish…” he made an eloquent gesture and spread his hands. “But I am what I am. I have this monster inside me, and what I turn into is beyond my control.”

She pointed at him.

“But this person here, this person is not beyond your control. This person has goodness, compassion and humanity. And this person can let me go.”

“You are asking me to defy my clan, my heritage, my ancestry…”

She nodded. “Yes. I am asking you to grow and go beyond your animal limitations, and do something good and honorable.”

He stared at her for a long moment. Then he stood and went into the bedroom and she heard him dressing. Shortly after that the door opened and closed, and she heard the key turn in the lock.

There was her answer.

She must have dozed off. She awoke to the sound of the bedroom door being unlocked and opening. Then closing and being locked again. She called out, half ironic, “Did you rethink what I said?”

There was no reply, but after a moment she heard a footfall on the tiled floor behind her. A couple more steps and Cún was standing on the first step leading up to the bath. Her heart jolted.

“What are you doing here?”

“What gives you the idea you can question me about what I do? You are a slave in my house.”

“What do you want?”

He was astonishingly beautiful. His arrogance was palpable and somehow added to his beuty. He smiled and spoke softly. “Mind your own fucking business. Whatever I want, I’ll take.”

She was suddenly acutely and intensely aware of the danger she was in. She said, “Please don’t hurt me.”

There was an evil to his smile that was fascinating, almost intoxicating.

“But I like to hurt women. And in my experience, women like to be hurt. There is a point you know, Maria, where pain and pleasure become indistinguishable, except that pain is much more intense.” He took another step up towards her. “Do you know what it’s like, can you begin to imagine, holding a woman in your arms as she orgasms in the throws of death?”

Her breath was trembling. A wild thought passed through her mind that she wanted to experience that, to have him hold her and bite deep into her throat as he penetrated her. But even as she thought it, even as the warm pleasure palpitated inside her, she knew it was not real. It was a suggestion that he was somehow placing in her mind.

He said, “Stand up.”

She stood and the suds slid down her body. He stepped close to her and his eyes roved her nakedness, then came to rest on her eyes. His breathing had become heavy. He reached out and touched her skin on her chest with the fingers of his left hand. She gasped. He slowly raced a line to her right nipple. A thrill of please made her shudder.

“You cannot lie to me, bitch. I can see it in your face, I can hear it in your breath and I can smell it on you. You are enjoying it.”

“Please don’t do this.”

He pinched her nipple and she cried out. The pain stabbed at her, but she gasped as she felt the hunger well in her belly. Their eyes locked. A madness inside her cried out for more. He did not release her. He reached out with his right hand and traced his finger from her ear, down her throat towards her left nipple. He stroked it and held it between forefinger and thumb. She was whimpering.

He said, “Get on your knees.”

She shook her head. “No…”

She knew what he was going to do and longed for it. He snarled and pinched savagely on both nipples. She cried out with ecstasy and went down on her knees. She held his eye, letting out small, whimpering cries. His smile was like a razor.

“Undo my belt, you worthless piece of trash…”

Whether she did or not, she knew he was going to kill her, but a wild madness in her head, a burning lust in her belly and her loins, hungered for the experience he had described. She wanted him in her mouth, she wanted his teeth sunk deep in her throat, she craved the quivering spasm of the orgasm as he sucked on her neck and drank her blood.

She sobbed and shook her head, not knowing whether she did so because she was fighting to preserve some shred of dignity, or whether she was praying he would punish her and subjugate her further. She looked up at him, saw his shoulder hunching, his lip curling. She heard the growl in his throat, and knew she was going to die.