The Nightlife: Paris (The Nightlife Series) (8 page)

Chapter 12

Collared and chained in the basement, naked and alone, he starved
me for three nights.  I was ready to start chewing on my own arm by the time he
brought someone to feed me.  I tore the poor man apart, literally shredded his
body to pieces.  Blood deprivation succeeded in making me even more monstrous
than my master.  Julian watched me closely.  I sensed his anxiety.  He feared
he had created something he couldn’t control.  He feared his beautiful slave
girl would not return once I sated my thirst.

I did return to sanity.  And I continued to serve him in all
ways, never once balking his authority.  He gradually relaxed his vigilant
watch over me.  But this marked a change in our hunting frequency.  Julian
feared the large patrols.

The sight of my beloved Paris under the Boche conquerors
angered me no end.  I ached to rend and tear their flesh.  I wanted to kill them
all, the stinking, filthy Boche ruining my country.  I could barely contain the
violent urges that constantly assailed me.  The only peace I found was on the
collar and chain where I could work off this frustration.  I poured my
aggression into service to Julian, enthusiastically submitting to his violent
perverse demands.  What he didn’t grasp was the simple truth of suffering
observed by Friedrich Nietzsche, “That which does not kill us makes us
stronger.”  Forged in the secret fires of hatred in my heart, Julian’s abuse tempered
the steel in my character.

I learned to close my mind to him.  I knew what his thoughts
and emotions were at most times, but I developed a privacy wall to keep him out
of my inner sanctum.

He worried over this.  “What are you thinking in that
devious little head of yours?”  He would knock on my skull and pull me close to
look in my eyes.  “Open your mind.”  I could never deny him, so I imagined serving
him with my mouth and filled my thoughts with deviant acts of fellatio.  After
performing to his satisfaction, he ceased worrying about me.  I was well
trained.

Shortly after the shooting incident with the German patrol,
Julian decided on a safer, more conservative approach to feeding.  Bloodslaves.

I thought him a coward, and perhaps he was.  I knew we could
take down small groups of four to five men if we were careful, more organized. 
But Julian wouldn’t have it.  His shallow patriotism couldn’t survive the
increased severity of German-Vichy rule.

He reverted to the tried and tested feeding method he’d
learned from his former master – ensnare women and then feed just enough to
hook them physically and psychologically on the addictive effects of his bite. 
I found this abhorrent and disgusting.  These starving, malnourished women who
could barely survive under the occupation became victims of Julian’s cowardice.

The first time he brought a woman home, Adele, he took off
my collar and chain for propriety.  I tried so very hard to drink only a sip,
un petit apéritif
, just
enough to stave off the thirst.  I ended up starving myself to keep her alive.

Julian laughed at me.  “They are
cattle,
Michelle. 
Feed.  Do not be concerned with their fate.”

I simply nodded.  There was little to say beyond
acquiescence to his demands.

Adele came to me repeatedly, begging me to bite her.  She
couldn’t go more than a couple hours without coming to me, offering herself. 
How can you refuse food that wishes to be consumed?

Julian was too rough with her.  He took her for his
pleasure, using her body, drinking her blood till she was sick from the anemia. 
It soon became apparent I would have to relieve her misery.  She could no longer
move.  He’d broken her pelvis when he lost control in the heat of passion.  And
yet I couldn’t bring myself to kill her.

“Michelle, take my pain.  Help me.”  She begged me
repeatedly for two nights, until I finally gave in.  She died in my arms.

Julian despised my foolish sentimentality for the
cattle
.

“Kill them if you must.  You have only forced me to find
another girl tomorrow night.  And make sure to dispose of her away from the
house.  We cannot afford suspicion.  Take her to the river.”  It seemed every
other week someone washed up dead on the shores of the Seine.  One more
emaciated woman made little difference.  His callous disregard for Adele
elevated my contempt for him to a new level.

As he promised, Adele proved the first of many.  Sometimes
Julian acquired several bloodslaves at once, allowing each to live a little
longer.  I learned to feed the tiniest amount from two or three women a night. 
The
petite apéritif
did not satisfy, but it kept me from feral madness.

Julian abused them worse to spite me.  One girl, only
seventeen, he broke her neck.  She lived on for hours, crying and begging for
my help.  “
Aidez-moi, je vous
prie!
”  I gave her a merciful end, but I hated it, and I hated Julian
more each time I donned the mantle of death.

Then Julian brought me Lucas.  He was a street urchin
begging on the boulevard, barely thirteen or fourteen.  He didn’t know his own
birthdate.  He’d been born in the backroom of a brothel, raised by whores who
would not claim him.  Lucas made the mistake of grabbing Julian’s attention the
wrong way.  It’s not wise to pickpocket a vampire.

I became physically sick to my stomach when he presented me with
this teenage boy.  I recognized the hungry, predatory gleam in Julian’s eyes. 
“I’ve brought you a friend to play with.  Lucas, meet your new mistress, Madam
Michelle.  She will take good care of you.”

The bright colors of love and devotion swirled into Lucas’s
aura the moment he set eyes on me.  The boy was infatuated with me, and I knew
instant terror.

I begged Julian, “
S’il
vous plait
Maître
!
 
Take him back.”  As if he was livestock sold at auction.

I didn’t wait for Julian’s permission.  I grabbed the boy by
the arm and hauled him to the door.  “You must go now.  You must leave this
place and never return!”

To my dismay, Lucas opened his fool mouth and sealed his
fate.  “I would love to serve Madam Michelle.  I will do anything you ask of
me.  I am your humble servant.”  He bowed low, a filthy, charming boy pretending
to play servant.  “If you ever need anything, say the word and I will find a
way to get it for you.”

Horror froze me in place.  Julian smiled, pleased.  “See,
Michelle, he is yours.  Make sure to take good care of him.”

I wanted to kill him.  Julian.  I thought of it many times
before, but it never seemed possible.  I wondered if there was a way to kill
him.

The boy distracted me from my thoughts of murderous
rebellion.  “I am very good.  I will help ease your pain.”  He offered to rub my
back and feet.  He did this for the girls at the brothel.  I had to admit, he gave
a decent back rub.

I couldn’t help but fall in love with the boy over time. 
His cheeks were ever smudged with dirt.  His mangy pile of reddish-brown curls
needed a cut badly.  And his hazel eyes worshipped me.  Everywhere I went in
the house, he was there.

He quickly adapted to my schedule, running out into the
streets to beg during daylight hours, returning to the townhouse at night.  He
stole flowers and perfumed soaps from the brothel to bring to me and the
bloodslave women.

“Why thank you, Lucas.  That’s so sweet.”  He hugged me
close.  The boy was enraptured, obsessed.  He preferred to sit next to me,
almost in my lap.  Offering anything he could think I might want or need.  I was
deathly afraid of what might happen to him.

Julian soon revealed his game.  A week after he brought me
Lucas, he made his demand.  “You’ll not feed from a single person until you
feed from Lucas first.”

I couldn’t speak.  I couldn’t breathe to speak.  I contemplated
suicide to save the boy’s life.  If I couldn’t kill Julian, surely I could find
a way to kill myself?

I begged shamelessly.  “I will do anything you ask,
anything.  Please do not ask me to hurt the boy.  I beg you,
s’il vous plait,
Maître
!
”  I was down on my
knees at his feet.  I stripped my clothes and bent down face to the floor,
offering myself.

He took my offering, repeatedly.  He refused to bite me or
allow me to bite him.  He made sure it hurt, slamming me hard and fast, hitting
me.  This was a new lesson.  He didn’t like the way I catered to the
bloodslaves.  He determined to strip my soul of every last vestige of humanity.

In the midst of it, I saw him.  Lucas watched my humiliation
from a crack in the doorway.  Nothing to do but endure, as I had always
endured.

When he finished with me, my nose broken and bloodied,
Julian repeated his edict.  “You’ll not feed from a single person until you
feed from Lucas first.”  I wished I could kill him.

Lucas rushed in the moment Julian left.  He cleaned the
blood from my face with a washrag, apologizing profusely.  The poor boy thought
he’d done something wrong.  He had no embarrassment around my nudity.  I
imagined he’d seen it all at the brothel.

He spoke candidly.  “I know what you are, Madam.  I am not
afraid.  You can bite me if you like.  I trust you.  I’d rather you bite me
than watch him hurt you.”  The fool didn’t know what he was saying.

I dressed quickly, uncomfortable with this boy staring at my
body like a man.  “You do not understand, Lucas.  I cannot hurt you.  I love
you.”  I held his wonderful warm face in my hands.  All his adoration shone
from eyes brimming with tears.

He held me tight.  It felt so wonderful to just hold someone
who loved me unconditionally.  I could cuddle with that boy for hours on end,
and he let me.

“I do not deserve your love.  The things I have done.  I am
a killer.”  I whispered confessions to him, as if he was a priest giving my
last rites.

“I trust you, Michelle.  I have seen when you bite the
ladies.  It’s not so bad.  I think they like it.”  The little sneak had been
watching everything at the house.  He was excited at the prospect of being
bitten.

“You have not seen what happens to the women.  They die,
Lucas.  I could not stand to lose you.”  I enfolded the boy in my arms, praying
to God I could be strong enough to save him from myself.

I fell asleep with his warm body huddled close.  I knew he
worshipped me, his own personal goddess.  It was wrong, insane.  Too late.  I
needed his love so badly.  Julian gave him to me.  He was mine.

I held out almost three whole nights without feeding.  Lucas
came to me each night, trying to comfort me, offering himself.  I ordered him
away repeatedly, but he wouldn’t listen.  The little bastard came to me in the
early morning, hand hidden behind his back, but I could smell the enticing
aroma of life in the air.  He had cut the tip of his finger.

“Here, Michelle, you can have it.  It’s okay.  I want you to
have it.”

Something flipped in my mind, a switch I didn’t know existed. 
All rational thought wiped away in a second.  I lived for the blood, solely for
the blood.  Nothing else mattered.  I took his offer and latched tightly onto
his thin, little neck.

He squirmed and cried out in my squeezing embrace, and then
stilled as my venom worked its magic.  I had just enough presence of mind to
let go before I killed him.  But it was one of the hardest things I had ever done. 
I wanted to suck his body dry and shred his flesh to clean the last drops.  I
wanted to, but I didn’t.

“
Je t’aime,
Michelle.”  He proclaimed his love for me over and over and over.  I had
drugged the boy to the point he couldn’t even stand.  I carried him to bed.

I lamented the life I had stolen from him.  I had hooked him
in one prolonged bite.  My very own bloodslave.  I cradled his body close as he
slept with a happy little boy smile.  I brushed his grimy hair off his
forehead, committing his face to memory.  I loved that boy.

I began feeding from him intermittently, but never enough to
satisfy his need for me.  The boy harassed me constantly.  “One more bite,
Michelle.  Just for a few seconds.  A small bite, Michelle.  I need one more.”

It was a never-ending demand.  I feared hurting him.  He
weighed nothing, malnourished, thin and pale.  But he kept begging.  I began
biting him without feeding, just holding him with my teeth in his skin.  I fought
every instinct I had to avoid taking too much of his precious blood.

The boy became a permanent fixture at my side, holding my
hand, sitting in my lap, hugging me, brushing my hair, rubbing my feet and
shoulders.  He started sleeping in my embrace through most of the day to stay
awake with me through the night.  The only time Lucas left my side was those
moments when Julian demanded I attend him.  And then Lucas returned
immediately, always washing my wounds with a wet cloth.  He understood I healed
without a scar in a matter of hours, but he always cried when Julian hurt me.

“Why do you let him?  Do you like it?”

I didn’t like this question.  I didn’t like the answer that
came to mind.  In some ways I enjoyed Julian’s attentions.  I found Julian’s
raw power and domination exhilarating, and the wondrous joy of synchronous
bites could not be denied.

“Do not concern yourself.  Julian is the
Maître
, always.”

After two months, Lucas noticed the women who came and went
from the house.  Few of them survived more than a few weeks.  I could see the
fear in his eyes.  He didn’t want to die.  But he refused to leave.  I truly
owned him, heart and soul.  He would do anything I asked, but he would not
leave.

His need for me became progressively worse.  It hurt him
terribly to wait for me to wake up.  I awoke to his pleas, shaking me, begging
to be bitten.  I accommodated him immediately, but I didn’t know what to do for
him while I slept.  Then one night I woke to his bloody wrist in my mouth.  He
had cut himself and shoved his hand in my mouth.