The Devil's Playthings (11 page)

He chose black tight jeans, a black t
-
shirt under a white long sleeve t
-
shirt cut into a v
neck
, and a black suede blazer. He looked young and fresh, and he felt it too. Even though he knew almost everything, had felt almost everything, he finally felt really alive.

Rosa dressed Emma in a daring strapless mini-dress that matched her skin tone perfectly, with a bla
ck lace
overlay, which looked like she didn’t have much on. They topped the daring dress with sheer black hose and black peep toed shoes, and a heavy black fur coat. She wasn’t sure if it was real or faux, but it was so soft and warm it didn’t really matter.

Rosa swept her long hair into a chignon, caught up with several small clips with wispy tendrils framing her face. She looked both mature and youthful at the same time. The look was finished with very light pink makeup.

She wanted to make an entrance
to impress him
, so Rosa carried the coat behind her, and she st
rode down the staircase
proudly. When Luc caught sight of her
reflected in the glass his chest ached. And when he turned to face her his eyes were fire red again. “We can’t go out in public if you keep doing that,” she whispered when he bent to kiss her forehead.

“Oh we will go out.
I want everyone to see you.” Every head turned at the theater, the pair was so striking most
people
actually gawked at them. He didn’t seem to mind. And from their box seat, with the opera glasses he purchased for her, she could see everything. She watched the Nutcracker, and he watched her. Her enjoyment far outweighed anything that he might have seen on the stage. And when she stood to
cheer at the end, he stood too. As they left the theater, a beautiful woman turned to look at Luc.

“
Lee?
” she called out, but when she walked toward him she shook her head, whispered “Pardon,” and walked away.

She noticed his brow furrow, but when he turned back to Emma his smile was brighter than ever. “I like your hair like that,” Emma quipped when they were seated in the town car. He leaned over to quickly kiss her cheek. After the ballet they dined at a French restaurant, where he ordered in perfect French for both of them.

“That was amazing,” she whispered over her glass of wine.

“Don’t be amazed, I know everything,” he countered.

“What’s my birthday,” she chimed.

“January 15,
you’re a Capricorn,” he responded.

“What’s my mom’s birthday,” she smiled.

“June 27,” he stated. Although she tried to sound light, he seemed bored.

“What’s my mom’s, mom’s, mom’s, mom’s birthday,” she challenged.

“November 12
,” he stated blandly. “Her name was Sylvia
Van Der Witte, she was Dutch. You look like her,” he offered. “Ahhhh, dinner,” he said when the food arrived. “Bon Appetite!”

She ate silently, this new information just as shocking as anything else she’d learned. Because this to her seemed fun and exciting.
Knowing everything, for a young woman who was uneducated, seemed like the highest achievement possible.
But he seemed uninterested, so she decided not to pursue the subject.

“She was very beautiful, Sylvia. She had fair hair and bright blue eyes. Her father married her off to a wealthy yet older man for a dowry. It was not common at the time, but it happened on occasion. She
had an affair with a younger, attractive man and became pregnant. The older man was so excited to have a baby, as his looks had caused him to have no luck with women, and he’d never married only worked as a solicitor and became wealthier. His wife killed him slowly with poison. And when he was dead, she married her younger suitor, who spent all the money her husband left her on women and gambling.”

He told the story as she ate, with only her expressions as response. “He spoiled your mom’s mom’s mom horribly while he was alive. He called her Mooie which means beautiful in Dutch. Her name was Lisabe
th. And she was beautiful too.

“Sylvia felt so ashamed, so horrifie
d that she could kill a man who
loved her and her daughter so much for someone who was
attractive and young but
didn’t really care for them at all. He only cared about himself and the older man’s money. When the money started to run out, he started to drink and beat his wife and his daughter. He had no excuse for his own failure, so he blamed it on women, and took it out on Sylvia and Lisabeth.

“
When Lisabeth was old enough, she ran away to Germany with only a few coins in her pocket. She later came to America as a stowaway, and was raped by several of the crew men. She became pregnant. She met a wonderful man at a church in America who loved her fiercely. He was not beautiful like her, but he was a good man, and strong and a good worker. He wasn’t sure he believed her lie that she had lost her husband in Germany to illness, but he didn’t care. To him, she was the most precious thing in the world. And so was her daughter. Your mom’s mom.”

“My grandmother
Jessica,” she whispered. Her eyes lit up when she thought about her. “
She was so sweet, and caring
.
She was the world to me. And she was so pretty.
”

“And so are you,” he finished
his story
as she finished her meal. He laid a card on the table, and the waiter immediately came to carry it away. “Emma, sometimes it’s better not to know everything,” he stated the moral of the story as he helped her on with her coat. She simply nodded.

That night he joined her in her bed again. He refused
to allow himself to change, to become the demon
. He refused
to link in to the thoughts of man, he refused t
o be anything but human. And
when he brushed her hair out of her face in the middle of the night, he willed his skin to stay cool. He even rolled into her body, spooning her, and wrapped his arm around her. He closed his eyes, and his mind went black.

When his
black
eyes popped open she laid beside him reading Romeo and Juliet.

“What was that?” He asked her.

“You were asleep?” She shrugged her answer.

“I don’t sleep,” he replied, and stre
tched. He felt wonderful though, full of energy.

“You did last night. You even snored,” she giggled.

“Impossible,” he yawned, and threw his hand up to cover his eyes.
“What time is it?”

“I don’t know
, you have no clocks in this apartment
,” she chided as she turned the page.

“Oh, that’s right, we’ll have to rectify that.” He rolled over and toyed with her nightgown. “Why are you reading that?”

“Its homework,” she reminded him. “I enjoy it. I’ve never read it before.”

He stared blankly at her for a moment, and began to recite what she was reading word for word.
He
recited Shakespeare as he moved his hands toward her body. He traced up her legs to her feminine core, and laid his head on shoulder as he observed her reactions. Her pleasure was his fuel as he brought her to another orgasm.

“I don’t know why everyone loves Romeo and Juliet. It’s so dark, they both die in the end. All of Shakespeare’s plays are so dark. I think humans are more obsessed with evil than they are with good.”

She was still trying to catch her breath from the orgasm,
and wasn’t thinking straight. “Did you influence Shakespeare?” She wondered aloud.

“Shush beautiful girl,” he said as he moved his mouth down her body, over her gown, and to the place where his fingers had been. He did things
to her
that pushed her over the edge of sanity
, and he enjoyed every wonderful moment of it. At the point she could take no more, and begged him to stop he did, and she fe
l
l into a blissful sleep.

She awoke to find him carrying a tray to her bed. It held waffles,
fruit
, whipped cream, milk, juice, and a bouquet of
white
roses. It was the first flowers she’d seen inside the apartment.

“You need to eat, you need your strength,” he ordered, almost like Rosa. “Then you need to shower and dress.”

“Are we going out again?” She yawned the words as he plumped the pillows behind her, and he placed the tray on her lap as she sat back against them.

“Yes, beautiful,” he nodded. “Now hurry, we don’
t want to miss the sunlight
.” He’
d already dressed in faded jeans and a dark grey sweater that zipped up the front with a soft grey shirt under it. Whatever they were doing, they must be doing it outside, she thought, and excited she hurried through her brunch.

Dressed in warm clothes, a puffy coat, a hat, scarf, and mittens all in varying shades of aqua, she was so excited until they pulled up to Central Park. She had horrible memories of her past life; buying drugs with her body and passing out on a bench.
She couldn’t count how many times she did it. It was a vicious cycle that she repeated over and over.

They walked through the park, hand in hand,
and
she
noticed everywhere they walked the pigeons flew away squawking. Dogs growled when they walked past, barking and pulling on their chains. He ignored it, only looking forward. And when they came to the ice skating rink he stopped.

“We’re here,” he said. They played on the ice for hours, and when she thought she was cold and could no longer stand being outside he grabbed her and held her and warmed her.
Even humans unknowingly gave him a wide berth. She watched as they skated away from him, even falling in their haste.

They stopped to buy hot chocolate before they left, and she thought about buying popcorn to feed the birds but she knew they wouldn’t come anywhere near them. On the way back to the apartment they stopped for hamburgers.

“Do you need to shop for… anything while we’re out?” He asked her almost cryptically.

“I think I have everything,” she shrugged.

“You’re sure there’s nothing you need?” He asked as they walked toward the town car.

“No, nothing,” she shook her head. “You give me everything I need.”

“No feminine needs,” he asked as politely as he possibly could.

“I haven’t had one of those since I was 17,” she replied cool
l
y.
The memory was painful enough she didn’t want to say it out loud.
“I thought you knew everything.”
It was the angriest tone she could manage. Coming out of her pretty mouth it almost made him laugh.

“Well, I do know everything,” he responded. “I know that tomorrow you will need those feminine things.”

“How?” She glared at him
. “They had to remove something when I had the last…” She couldn’t even finish the sentence.

“I have such power,” he assured her. “Power you can’t imagine.”

They stopped at a pharmacy and he
led her inside. She honestly didn’t know what to buy it had been so long. She had to look them all over. And he waited patiently as she did just that. She reached for a package of tampons and he shook his head.

“What?” She whispered.

“I don’t want anything inside you but me,” he whispered back, then kissed her ear. It was so sexy to hear him say that, and she remembered that he had not had sex with her
.
H
e had not penetrated her at all.

“Your virginity is well intact,” he added. She shook her head in shock, but he simply shrugged
.
He picked out
the feminine napkins then carried them to the counter. The clerk looked up at him as he paid, and gave him an awkward smile.
He grabbed several candy bars at the counter. “You might want these.”