How to Discipline Your Vampire (5 page)

CHAPTER FIVE

William

“Read ’em and weep,” Gus said, splaying his cards in front of him with pride. “Straight.”

Jack chuckled, cigar in his mouth wiggling maniacally. “Royal flush, you old fart.”

Three other men at the table folded their cards, disappointed.

“No smoking, Jack,” I lectured jokingly.

“There’s no smoke if there ain’t no fire, young man,” he grunted.

I laughed and gave him a friendly pat on the back. “There’s a concert in the all-purpose room,” I suggested. “Jazz.”

Gus huffed loudly. “When are you going to get some modern stuff in here? Jazz makes me feel eighty.”

“You
are
eighty,” Hank said.

“I’m seventy-nine in August.”

I protested. “I thought you liked jazz. Gus, you asked me to have this trio back after the last performance.”

“That’s because the redhead playing the upright bass had perky tits.”

I rolled my eyes and snickered. “Well, some of the residents like jazz. If you gentlemen would like to enjoy some music—or perky tits—I’ll be down the hall.”

I turned and began to walk, and on cue, I heard some chairs being dragged and some old men grunting as they rose from their seats.

“That’s more like it,” I said, slowing my pace so we could walk down the hall together.

“Billy-boy, my granddaughter’s coming in next week. You still single?” Hank asked, wiggling his eyebrows at me.

“I think it’s time to give up on our Billy,” Jack joked. “He keeps promising to bring in a nice girl once he meets one, and yet every time we ask him, he’s on a date with a new catch.”

I held my hands up in protest, “Guys, guys—”

“You don’t want your granddaughter with a
playboy
.”

“I’m
not
a—”

Gus slapped his hand on my shoulder and lectured. “Down, boys. Our Billy here just hasn’t met the right girl. He’ll settle down once he meets
the one
.”

“Why would he want to settle down when he could have every cute coed in the Seacoast Region?”

I had to keep the hounds at bay, so I threw them a bone. “I had a date today with a new girl I just met. Not only is she beautiful,” I teased as they leaned in, “but she’s a Leo.”

The boys laughed and taunted. “You and your zodiac, Gentry.”

“That means she’s spunky. I like the spunky girls,” Hank remarked.

I held up my hand and listed the many attractive qualities of a Leo. “They’re charismatic, driven, and loyal.”

“Like I said, spunky.”

As we entered the room, I heard a faint murmur from my compatriots about the redhead’s bustline and we made our way to some empty seats. The band had begun to play just moments before our arrival.

“Ah, Billy, you made it!” Addie creaked, flagging me down. “Sit with us girls—we need something to look at.”

“I’m nearly blind, but he smells good, so that’s fine by me,” Beatrice chimed in, adjusting her thick glasses.

“The boys are being a bit uncouth,” I confessed, “maybe I should sit with a more civilized bunch.”

“Bah,” Addie spat, “they were talking about breasts throughout the entire concert last time. Maybe since you’re here they’ll take it down a notch.”

“I don’t know about that,” I admitted, and tuned in to the show.

They are pretty good,
I noted, tapping my foot in time. Part of what made jazz great was the improvisation of it all, and watching a band that had synergy helped. It was hard to improvise if you didn’t know what your partners had in mind. But this trio, they did it right.

Improvisation was something I’d have to become good at.

And for the millionth time in the last few days, my thoughts drifted to Cerise.

While I wasn’t surprised that she turned down the offer to come and listen to the show with me, I was still disappointed. I imagined what it would be like to have her by my side, taking her into my senses while she listened to music. Especially after that scene.

I’d be memorizing the curves of her face, her natural scent mixed with the slightly rosy perfume she spritzes on, the individual cadence of her heartbeat and breaths. And she wouldn’t even know I was paying attention to her.

The thought of taking a Domme into my place of work had never occurred to me before. But Cerise was different already. She had an openness about her personality that wasn’t frightening or off-putting, like many Dommes I had met. The residents would love her because she didn’t try to hijack the conversation at every opportunity to talk about herself.

She listened, and that meant she was attentive. She asked me questions, which meant she was curious about me.

These were good signs. Signs of possible success. And God knows I need a break from failure. I managed to get through today unscathed, so I should get points for that.

Today was incredible. I barely touched her, and yet it was the most sexual experience I could imagine. I couldn’t even fathom what the days ahead could bring.

The boys weren’t wrong—I hadn’t found
the one
yet. How could you, when you’d faced the kind of rejection I had encountered? Girls that were afraid of me, women who mocked me, others who shunned my attention because of my . . . peculiarities.

But all Cerise wanted was some fantasy. She wanted a knight in shining armor one day, and something different the next.

And if I was anything, I was thorough.

I could be what she needed. And she seemed pretty pleased today.

Addie nudged me in the ribs. “The boys are making some trouble.”

I glanced over and Gus was making groping gestures. I whistled through my teeth and his head snapped around. I frowned at him and he put his hands in his lap and folded them politely.

The music played on, changing from a jaunty tune to a more sultry one.

And again, I pictured her.

Her dimples when she smiled, making her look far more innocent than she was.

The way she tucked her hair behind her ear when my stare became too intense.

The way she licked her lips when I drove her over the edge.

And her body. That body. I knew once I got home I had to paint. I needed to get my fixation out of my system before I scened with her again tomorrow.

Tomorrow.

The fact that I got to see her again made my body hum with excitement.

I had to get this right, just like today. She was picky, so it had to be perfect. I wrung my hands, searching for answers. She wanted authenticity and fantasy.

At this point, I had begun to lose interest in the show. While the performance wasn’t lacking, it simply couldn’t hold up to the fantasies that were scrolling through my mind.

“Not up your alley today, William?” Beatrice asked as the show came to a close.

“How’d you know?”

“You stopped tapping your feet after the first song.”

I bent down and gave her a pat on the shoulder. “You’ve got my number, Beatrice.”

She chuckled. “All the girls here want your number.”

“You know what I mean,” I said, and began saying my good-byes to the residents.

The process typically took a half hour, no matter how short my visit was. I chuckled at their perpetual chattiness. I finished my visit, as I always did, in the medical wing with the terminal residents, a large box of IVs in my arms. Fifty, sixty bags. The temporary wing, where they never last more than a month, and they never remember my name when I visit.

Thankfully.

When I got home, Breanna had one of my canvases under her arm.

“Where are you going with that?” I asked.

She stopped midway through the kitchen. “You’ve had your easel in the breakfast nook for two days and haven’t painted a thing. I was doing you a favor.”

“I was mixing colors,” I explained. “I couldn’t get the proper hue.”

She looked at the palette. “Jesus, how long does it take to find the right green?”

“I think I can manage now,” I said. “In fact, the color is pretty much ingrained in my mind.”

Breanna pursed her lips. “So you saw
her
again?”

Busted
. “How do you know?”

“Because you have fifteen greens on this palette, and you made it a point to mention yesterday how
green
her eyes were. You have no subtlety.”

I walked up to her and grabbed the canvas out of her hands. “I did see her again.”

“A traditional date, or . . .”

“Well, we met at a park yesterday.”

Breanna wrinkled her brow. “Public flogging?”

“Forget it—” I started.

“Hey,” she interrupted, “I’m teasing. Remember, I’m entitled to tease you. Everyone has a pervy uncle, right?”

I growled at her and she feigned fear. “I’m just self-conscious.”

“I just don’t think I like these kinds of girls for you.”

“Here we go again.”

She helped me put my canvas back on my easel. “No, really. They’re mean-spirited.”

“You don’t understand.”

“I do,” she replied. “I know they have an inclination to beat up guys. And, to me, that just sounds like trouble.”

I began mixing the correct green on the palette I had covered in plastic wrap earlier in the day. “I can take care of myself.”

“Oh really? Then why are you holed up like a hermit every time you meet with one?”

I looked over my shoulder suspiciously. “Is Steven home yet?”

“He’s on his way. And I don’t mind saying this in front of him.”

“
I
mind. Your husband is more conservative with his opinions.”

She rolled her eyes. “He doesn’t
mind.
He just doesn’t get it.”

I sneered. “He doesn’t have to. It’s
my
life.”

“Look,” she said, heading up the stairs, “just be cautious. I want to see you happy.”

I called up after her. “Cerise is different. I can feel it.”

I heard a muffled “Uh-huh” from the top stair.

Just feeling her name on my tongue had an effect on me.

Cerise.

I swirled the paintbrush between several of yesterday’s failures. I could never hope to reproduce that green, I had thought, but now that I’d looked into her eyes again, I knew nothing was impossible.

Not even the absurd notion of someone like her accepting me. I stroked the canvas with my brush a few times, satisfied with the proper hue. Although I had seen her glorious body in its entirety, it was her eyes that had me rapt. Clear, pale green. The color of apples before they ripen.

Wrong fruit,
I chuckled to myself, and began mixing reds.

For her cherry lips.

CHAPTER SIX

Cerise

May 14, 1955

Dear Journal,

I saw her again today at school. Georgia was smoking behind the gym, alone. I thought about approaching her, but lost my nerve.

I do not have a crush. A crush is cute and wholesome. A crush typically denotes wanting to get to know someone better.

I just wanted her to hurt me.

I had heard from some boys in the locker room that Georgia was kinky. That she was into things like handcuffs and leather. I had never paid her much mind before this. In fact, I had never crossed paths with her at school. I hated this place, this prison my parents forced me into. They wanted me to have a normal life, with friends and birthday parties and girlfriends.

Georgia was decidedly not the kind of girl you took home, not even to parents like mine.

I didn’t really think she’d be my type, but once I heard the rumors, I began to follow her discreetly. Yesterday I heard her talking to one of my classmates between periods. He was staring at her high heels, and Georgia warned him that she’d punish him with those points if he didn’t man up and take her behind the bleachers.

I stayed in the shadows as he took her, and she punished him anyway. I had seen some sex in my life, but this was different.

She bossed him around. She rode him and called all the shots. She hurt him, taunted him, and she loved it.

Like I said, it isn’t a crush.

I think it’s the beginning of a fetish.

Confused . . . again,

William

Was this his way of recounting his sexual history to me? Was this somehow his preview for tomorrow’s scene? These volumes, sixty-five in total, were filled to the brim with entries—how could he expect me to find a hint about a scene that had nothing to do with vampires? So far, I had read about a half dozen of the journals, cover to cover.

Truthfully, I had no idea where he got them. There was no way, even if he stayed up all night, that he could get all this done. I shook my head and considered giving in for the night. It was midnight, and I had a pain-in-the-ass class first period: Italian.
Ugh
.

Substituting really isn’t as bad as most people make it out to be. I get to be the hero every day. Kids see me instead of their teacher and cheer; I make their day. Fuck getting a full-time job, one where I actually had to discipline and nag—I just want to be the fun sub who the kids love. No ties, no responsibilities. Subbing for Italian just sucks because it is the kids who flunked out of French and Spanish in middle school. Most of the time is spent just disciplining kids for texting in class, or for taking fifteen-minute bathroom trips and then having to call the nurse to verify their excuses about having bladder issues.

But I needed to know what happened with Georgia, so I had to either finish them tonight or bring the journals in to read in school. I couldn’t just leave the story where I stopped. He said he has faced nothing but rejection, but was she his first?

I began fingering through pages for references to her name. Most entries were about painting and drawing as outlets to feel less anxious. After about fifteen pages—two weeks—I found what I was looking for.

May 28, 1955

Dear Journal,

I decided that I must act in regards to my growing fixation. There was a sock hop on Friday, and originally I was thinking about asking her to it, but then I realized that kind of event was too squeaky clean for her. Too boring. Plus, she’s a senior, and an older one at that. I bet she’s almost twenty from the looks of her. She’s probably flunked a lot.

So, I’m going to follow her to a local juke joint. I know where she goes on weekends—I’ve driven by and watched her lean against the pool tables and smoke. I want her to torture me with a pool cue, or let me fuck her right on the table and dig her pointy heels into my back. I was hoping it would make me feel—something.

I just want to feel something.

I asked my classmate Nathan if I could wear his leather jacket, and I’m going to put some grease in my hair like the older guys use. It sort of makes me look like Elvis, so maybe she’ll be intrigued.

Wish me luck,

William

My mouth hung open. This seemed so . . . real. The voice was consistent and authentic—it truly sounded like a person and not a character. I kept having to suspend my disbelief that I was reading props for a scene and not truly the journals of a lonely and tortured vampire. Vampires typically didn’t age, so how could he have been in high school? That helped me center myself, so I skipped quickly to Friday night. Bizzy asked me to get my vibrator ready, but I had a feeling it wasn’t going to end in something sexy.

May 30, 1955

Dear Journal,

Well, I can safely say I felt something, and I’m still not sure how to register it.

I greased my hair, put on the leather bomber, and headed to Abe’s, the juke joint in Allentown. There she was, looking like Bettie Page herself. Long black hair, short bangs, darkly arched eyebrows, and a high-waisted pencil skirt that begged to be hiked up around her hips.

I never actually fantasized about her—just what she’d do to me. I wouldn’t even say she’s my type. I’m not entirely sure I have a type. Her face could be anyone’s, but what dragged me toward her was what was suggested in her commanding voice.

She smiled as I held out a lighter, igniting her cigarette.

“I’ve been wanting to introduce myself to you,” I said slowly. She feigned inattention, but she definitely took a good long look at me. I smiled inwardly, confident she was checking me out. Still, she didn’t speak.

“My name is William, and I have to say I’m curious about you.”

That got her attention. She pulled the cigarette from her mouth, leaving a red ring of lipstick on the brown paper. “Oh yeah?” she asked simply, hand on her hip.

“I heard girls like you are good for guys like me,” I said, not really knowing how to broach the subject, and she frowned. She must have thought I meant that she was loose, so I immediately clarified.

“Guys who like to . . . submit,” I said quietly, using the buzzword I learned.

Her brows flicked up.
“Follow me,” she said, and I walked next to her.

“Behind me,” she barked. I complied happily.

She took me out by the Dumpster and asked me to remove my pants. I nearly gasped. I was a virgin, and my first time was about to be behind a dirty juke joint either on or against a Dumpster.

She slid the belt from my pants and took it in her hands. “Turn around,” she said.

My brow furrowed. This was not a sexual position for me, and I didn’t understand what she wanted me to do. I wasn’t even facing her when I heard the sounds.

Whack. Whack.

She brought the leather belt down on me.

Whack. Snap.

She hissed as the buckle flew off and hit her in the neck. She wound up and spanked me with her hand rather than the broken belt.

Then she howled in pain and brought her hand to her chest, cradling it.

Then she asked what the hell was wrong with me. I looked at her, eyes wide, pulling up my pants.

She shook her head and began to walk back inside. She muttered something about freaks and then was gone.

I think I know what I feel, now.

Humiliation.

While this sort of pain is close to what I was hoping to feel, it just leaves me hollow and embarrassed. But I know I can’t stop now. The feeling of that belt and the look in her eyes as she was about to control me is something that I need.

I will continue my search.

Defeated but not broken,

William

I snapped the journal shut and tried desperately to absorb the tear that was threatening to fall down my cheek. It ended up drying in the duct because I told myself this was just a story; it wasn’t real.

It was time to go to bed, so I lifted the books from the gray comforter and toted them over to my bureau. Just as I was putting the last pile down, a CD slipped from one of the journals.

FOR MISTRESS CHERRY
it read in William’s cursive script. I had become very familiar with his handwriting in the past few hours.

Oh God,
I realized,
those really
are
in his handwriting . . .

I pulled the CD out of the case and placed it in my laptop, which was sitting on my end table. I liked to record my dreams in the morning, so the first thing I usually did when I got up was type. My laptop was a Dell and had a coffee ring in the dead center. Techies would weep at my indiscretion.

Music poured out. Piano. Passion. I listened to the tune with my head in my hand, trying to place it.

It was sad, but beautiful. It was ferociously emotional and bordered on sounding obsessive, but full of longing.

I simply had to ask William about it tomorrow. The prompt for tomorrow was “piano player and his muse,” so while the CD wasn’t a huge surprise, the song was.

I checked my e-mail while the computer was still open, and found a simple note from William:
“Hope you’re enjoying listening to your hint.”

Okay, so I have a confession—I brought two things into school today that I probably shouldn’t have.

One—my headphones. I ripped William’s song and had been listening to it on loop during my free periods while I graded some multiple-choice tests the teacher had left for me.

Two—I just lied about grading. During my free periods, I read his journals.

Apparently, finally, after a complete dry spell in the 1960s, William
sort of
got a taste of what he was looking for in the early seventies. I mean, if this were really William. But it wasn’t. It couldn’t have been.

January 24, 1972

Dear Journal,

Her name rhymes with
pain
for a good reason. Today, for the first time, I truly felt the pain of submitting to a sadistic Domme.

She is like me—vampire—and her name is Laine.

I am not attracted to her. Her body was strangely pear-shaped and I didn’t like the smell of her.

Nothing that we did was sexual anyway. The only touches my body received were from sharp fingernails that broke through my skin and tore deep slices in my arms and legs. I’m healed but slightly scarred.

The vampire world is a small one. When I finally confessed to my small group of friends that I was looking for a vampire Domme, my niece Breanna called Laine, who she had met decades ago. I was humiliated, and not just because a family member knew about my shameful secret. I was “out,” and it felt very confining. People close to me looked at me differently.

But if Laine was worth it, I didn’t care.

The next day, I arrived in San Diego for my “date.”

There were no pleasantries. She simply asked me to wear a white linen robe and nothing else.

She smiled like a deranged hyena as she flayed me with her hands and bit me hard on the shoulder. She verbally abused and mocked me. She beat me and cut me and I begged for more, intrigued by this new sensation.

When she felt satisfied by her reign of terror, she walked out and I gathered myself on the cold marble floor.

This was something. I felt it. I felt pain. She dominated me like nobody else had.

And yet, it was not enough.

There was nothing arousing about it. I wasn’t turned on, and it certainly wasn’t an experience I’d use to fantasize about in the future.

No, this wasn’t what I wanted, either.

Resolved to continue my search for pleasure and pain,

William

If they got close enough to me, I wondered if these students would know that I was turned on. Like, could they see that my blush went down into my shirt or something? I felt like I had a sign that said
HORNY
around my neck.

I wasn’t sure if I could handle seeing William today. Aside from the fact that I wouldn’t be getting an e-mail, I was transfixed on his story. Yet, all day, the only thing I could think about was those journals, and I
never ever
re-created or revisited a scene.

But I wanted to. I wanted to give him exactly what he has been looking for. The idea that I was someone who could bring satisfaction to a man who has had decades of unrequited desires was absolutely captivating.

I steeled my resolve. I wouldn’t mention the scene again, but I would give him exactly what he needed.