Undesirable: Chapter 13
TITLE: Undesirable (A vampire novel)
RATING: NC-17 (This chapter R)
GENRE: Porn with plot -- heavy on the plot. Action/adventure, some black humor, some romance.
PAIRINGS: George x everyone. Mostly Slash, some het, three and moresomes. Vampire sex.
WARNINGS: (this chapter) none.
WORD COUNT: 6015
Chapter 13
I wasn't truly alone, it just felt like it. Claudia stood across the room talking rapid fire into a walkie talkie. A minute later the cleaning crew were there: two women with rags and mops, slopping up the mess without a word. They avoided looking at me. Claudia did as well, though I knew she was keeping track of me out of the corner of her eye. It was entirely paranoid, but I had this feeling that they all put the blame on me and I resented the hell out them for that, but I couldn't call them on it, because that's squarely where I put the blame myself.
After about 15 minutes, I broke the silence.
"Will there be more of this…" I searched for the right word, horror, violence. I settled for the entirely inappropriate word Nadette had used. "Entertainment." My words seemed to echo in the huge empty room.
Claudia turned to me. "God I hope not." Her face was very pale and it was clear she was as taken aback as I was. "You just have to remember they aren't human. They are tougher, and as horrible --" Claudia suddenly gagged. "They don't have prisons. This is their way of dealing with… bad apples."
"Did she survive?" I asked, both wanting and dreading the answer. How could she have?
"I don't know," said Claudia. "She made it past the boundary of Nadette's estate. She might, if she can find someplace to lay low. Go to ground. I hope she didn't, though."
"I hope she did," I said, firmly. Claudia had given me hope. At least if Darlene survived, I wouldn't have the guilt of causing someone's murder on my conscience, and that was surprisingly important to me, even if it was a vampire. Of course, if she did make it, I'd just made myself a powerful enemy. Yeah, that's not a happy thought there. But I hadn't crossed paths with her in 12 years, even living in the same protectorate. I'd probably never see her again once I was off to … who knows where. I assumed that any Patron I ended up with would see it in his self-interest to make sure she didn't cross my path again.
"Were you close to her?" Claudia was surprisingly sympathetic.
I shook my head quickly. "No. It's just that… if I'd just let her do her job, if I hadn't thrown up on her…"
"It's not your fault," said Claudia, with the firmness of a vise snapping shut. "You can't blame yourself for this. Even if you did throw up on her -- even if you talked back or fought or were sick as a dog, she should have tasted you anyway. Or made you come back another time to have it done. It was her job to control you, if you couldn't control yourself. I can't imagine why she didn't do it."
"Nadette seems to think I have some culpability," I said. Why else make me watch that….
"No, she doesn't," said Claudia, brusquely. "You misunderstood her, if that's the impression you got. She certainly wouldn't have arranged this punishment if she thought the blame actually lay with you."
I let go of a deep breath. Goddamn it. I didn't want to be reassured by this, but I was. I'm so chickenshit, I can't even shoulder my own guilt. Yet, there wasn't a lot of point in feeling guilty, either. Done's done.
"Lady Darlene chose to mislabel you," Claudia went on. "It wasn't an accident. For some reason, she didn't want to taste you and she deliberately covered it up to save her ass. It was stupid."
"I was eleven," I said. "She's being punished for not wanting to be a pedophile!"
"Doesn't matter," said Claudia. "This wasn't some sexual thing. It wasn't about her getting off. This was about her completely mucking up the expectations of every vampire out there. Who knows how many people with similar numbers to yours were automatically labeled Black based on what she did."
I hadn't considered that.
"There were a lot of other things she could have done if the idea of tasting a preteen was so abhorrent to her. She could have protested, called in a favor, put it off until you were older, told her Master to do it himself. The only reason I can think for her to have done something as massively stupid as this is that she truly believed she'd never get caught. So you see, I'm not just being nice to you. It's truly not your fault."
Claudia walked over and patted me on the back, and for once I saw it as comfort and not condescension.
"That's the deal, George," she said, softly, as if she were talking to herself. "When it comes to Vampires, they are in control - they have the responsibility if something goes wrong. Blaming the human for this situation, to them, it would be like blaming the baby for not keeping the parent in line."
I closed my eyes, and controlled my expression. Claudia wasn't trying to be insulting. And who knows, she's probably right. Perhaps we are all just permanent children - or maybe pets. But it felt wrong. There was an argument there I was pretty sure I could make some other time when I wasn't tired and heartsick. For now, though, the words didn't come.
After a moment of silence, Claudia drifted off, content in her place. And I remained, chained, literally, in mine.
The cleaning women finished getting the last bits of blood splatter, which had traveled astonishingly far from the site of destruction, and put down a number of little caution tripods over the dampest spots. Once they were gone, Claudia let the partygoers back in. This time, instead of confining themselves to the adjacent room, they spread out to mine as well.
For the first time I faced the full brunt of human curiosity.
Listen, they weren't trying to be dicks. At least not deliberately. In fact, in their own weird way, I really got the sense that they wanted me to like them. Which, you know, makes sense if you consider that chances are, at some point, we might end up in bed together, like Tina and Ron. It's just that they just had no more clue what to make of me than I had of them.
"Did they remember to feed you?" asked one of the women, after a round of introductions that I didn't even try to keep straight. "Can I get you a plate? Glass of juice?"
"They got any beer?" I asked. Man, I craved one bad. I'd been craving one for a week now -- I hadn't gone dry this long since I turned legal. But the group just laughed like I'd said something uproariously funny. My face colored. I'd seen wine glasses - it didn't seem to me that retarded a question.
"Man I wish," said one of the guys, wistfully. Mike I think his name was, but I could be wrong. "Finding booze at one of these parties is like finding a virgin at a club."
"Now, now," said another guy. "Virgins go into clubs. Coming out though -" Laughter again.
"Yeah," I said, disappointed. "So I get that a vampire shindig is as dry as a Mormon church social."
"Drier," said someone.
A woman spoke up. "I remember when I was 18, I had the temerity of drinking a late afternoon latte before coming in to Service." Apparently this was hysterical. "I'd been up since six a.m. and I didn't want to get sleepy," she said, when she could grasp a full breath, and that sent people into guffaws again.
"I don't get it," I said. "What's so wrong about not wanting to be sleepy?"
Maybe-Mike regarded me with a wow-did-you-really-say-that look. "If a vampire doesn't want you to sleep, you don't sleep."
"Oh, that's not true." I flashed back to Jeffrey's feeding room, where I most definitely had conked out. But then, he was already done with me by that point. Even so, after all that, I think it would have been tough to keep me awake even with mind-control. The human body's got its limits.
"I had it worse," said one of the older harem, she looked to be close to Claudia's age, but still definitely had it going, in a MILFish Joan Crawford kind of way. Under other circumstances I'd have found her intimidating. Here she was just one of a hundred beautiful faces. "Imagine being a smoker when you were called up." She pantomimed a drag. "Two pack a day, even. Had to go cold turkey and, man, you did not want to know me that week. It's a good thing I had to tender my resignation, because I would have been soooo fired otherwise."
"So, no smoking, no drinking, no coffee," I said. "And no jobs. Christ. Is there anything harem are allowed to do?"
"Screw around," someone called out. "Everything," another person said. "Just not stuff that will hurt us or spoil our flavor."
"No Birth control pill, either," said the ex-smoker wistfully. "Not that that's going to be a problem for you."
I got the picture. "Yeah, yeah, so we can party like 1950s housewives. Some fun."
"How old are you?" maybe-Mike asked, truly baffled. "No offense, man, but I'd expect these questions from a high school kid being groomed… not a full grown guy whose just changing Patrons." He only stumbled a bit over the "full grown" part.
I raised my hands to ward off the implications. It was time to set things straight. "Hey, It's not my fault that I don't know any of this shit. Maybe it's common knowledge in a Harem, but I've never been Harem. I'm normal people." They looked blank. "You know, the working slobs who tithe up so you guys can have parties like this?" How the fuck these guys could be so confused about such a basic concept? Surely they knew that people existed outside of Harem. "Non-harem. Not expected to ever be harem. That was me, one week ago. And we ordinary folks don't get to know about all these little vampire tidbits. They don't tell us jack-shit about the rules you guys live under."
"You mean - are you saying, you've never Served? You are White and your last Patron didn't even use you?" Ah, so that was the problem. I could see their heads exploding, and yeah, put that way, it sounded pretty preposterous.
Before I could answer, someone else spoke up. "I heard you were a runner." Between the tracking device strapped on my right ankle and the fucking chain around the other, I honestly didn't think I could keep that a secret. Still, I was kinda hoping that no one would bring it up.
"Yeah," I admitted. So would this be a badge of honor or of shame?
"Why?" asked Mike. And that's not the response I expected.
"Why the hell wouldn't I?" I countered. "I don't get you. I don't get any of you. Why do you put up with this? Doesn't all this get to you? Do you really think that you are lesser beings than these bloodsuckers? They used to be human like us, once upon a time. Why should you have to give up cigarettes and booze and for God's sake coffee, just because they want you to? What if you liked your career? What about your friendships, relationships, I mean, this has to put a huge monkey wrench in that. Doesn't it all just piss you off a little?"
And now they were looking at me like I'd come from Mars. I felt the urge to beat my head against the back of the chair.
"Weren't you… scared?" someone asked, ignoring my outburst and going back to the running part. All eyes were on me. This was hopeless. They were too brainwashed to get my point.
I shrugged. "Yeah. Scared of being part of some Vampire's harem." I could have grown a second head and not have surprised them more.
"How did you run away?" asked Mike, looking exactly like someone being presented an impossible conundrum.
So I told them. The whole long saga of getting out of Jeffrey's feeding room, out of the building, on the bus. Hiding in the bathroom. Stan. And I told them how Claudia kept me from repeating the process.
Mike's jaw dropped. "And you think being Harem is scarier than that? Christ man, I'd consider you brave, if you weren't so completely insane. Like you'll eat scorpians, but you are terrified of steak."
Yeah, yeah, I'm insane. Everyone thinks so. No news here, except, of course, that I'm not insane. I'm probably the sanest person in the room. I tried to think of how to explain to them that Harem wasn't the cakewalk they seemed to think it was, and they were being asked to make real sacrifices. But in a moment of clarity I realized there was no point. Harem was all most of these folks had ever known, and looking at them, I saw they had that vague, wide-eyed innocence that comes from unquestioning cult-like faith. Reality was what their Patrons told them. I thought Claudia had drunk deeply of the Kool-aid, but compared to these folks, she seemed positively grounded.
I sighed and hung my head.
"Where did you think you'd go?" asked one of the women.
"Home," I said, glumly, and finally hit a chord with at least some of them.
"It's lonely to start," admitted the smoker, twitching her eyes off in a random direction. "But it gets better. You'll make new friends. I mean, we are like family in a way. We got each other. We got our patron. And I still see my real family sometimes."
I thought briefly of my parents and how much they had to be worried about me by now. Shit. When I got wherever I was going, I'd make sure to give them a long letter of apology.
"I'd have moved away anyway," asserted Mike. "I don't care where I live. And this sure the hell beats pumping gas until I'm 70. Fifteen more years and I can retire." He grinned.
"Then what?" I asked. "Try to get a job without education or work experience - when you are forty?"
"There's a stipend," said someone. "But if we get bored, our Patrons will find us something."
"Well, when I retire from this, I'm going to medical school," said a small, very dark skinned woman with a strong not-quite-English accent. "It was what I was planning on doing before I was called up." She pushed her way past a row of people in front of her and handed me a plate and a wine glass filled with what turned out to be water. "You didn't tell us if you'd been fed, so I went ahead and got you something. If you don't want it, that is fine, but I know sometimes vampires get caught up in these affairs and forget."
I took the plate and the glass, then noticed as she stepped back that she was very pregnant. She looked uncomfortably young to be a mom - If I didn't know better I'd assumed she was fifteen. She didn't hold herself like a teen though, and I'm certainly not one to assume a person has to be the age they look.
"Medical school, huh," I repeated. "You must be pretty smart. I'm George, by the way."
"Oh yes, I know" she said, she held out a hand, and I placed the plate on my lap in order to shake it. "Valentina," she introduced. "I am White, too, by the way." For a second I stupidly thought she was referring to her race, which was ridiculous, because she most definitely wasn't Caucasian. "I know how it is to almost get a normal life. I was already eighteen when my patron got around to satisfying his curiosity about my odd numbers." She smiled. "So. One week I'm applying to universities, the next I am dropping out of secondary school."
"Dropping out?"
She laughed. It was a really cute, musical titter. "Of course. I could not stay up all night long and then go to school and study all day! And then my Patron needed me so much of the time, every day at first. He was quite enamored of me, but it made me so tired. It is better since the pregnancy. He does not share me out at all anymore, and he is careful not to take very much. I do not think I taste as good right now anyway." She laughed again, with just a trace of evil pleasure in being less palatable.
I decided I liked her. Unlike the rest of these bimbos (of both genders) she seemed to have a bit of fight left in her. I noticed a sharpness to her eye, and something in her demeanor said that she didn't just baa out joys of being a Vampire's favorite. Under the laughter, I detected a thread of resentment. I liked that.
Smiling, I took a bite out of something that looked like a thin sliced bagel topped with a whipped vegetable garnish. It was heavenly. I remembered that I was famished and ate the whole thing before something about what she'd said struck me.
"So," I said looking around for something to wipe my mouth with, before deciding fuck it and using the sleeve of my tuxedo. "So your patron's cool with you starting your family even though it mucks up the flavor of your blood?" Perhaps normal life is possible….
"Of course," she said lightly. "He is the one who made me pregnant."
My jaw dropped. "I didn't think that was possible."
"No, no," she clarified in between belly laughs. "He is not the father. Ha, ha, silly. He just arranged it. He is hoping that my son will be White like me and can replace me when it is time for me to retire. That is all."
I shook my head and my stomach clenched around that bagel. "What… you mean, he's breeding you?! That's insane! Do you even like the father?"
"Do I like him?" she said, baffled. "I don't even know him. I've never met him. It is in vitro."
"Does he know he's a father?"
"I don't know. Probably. He lives in China. His numbers are not the same as mine, but they are close in range for many, and he too is White." She shrugged.
"What does your boyfriend think of this? Or husband? Is he happy raising someone else's child?"
"No boyfriend," she said sadly. "Never a boyfriend. It is too hard to be White and have a relationship like that. But I am not a single parent. I have three housekeepers, a male nanny, so that my son has a good role model, and a personal assistant just for me. So you don't need to worry about it being too much of a hardship. My patron takes care of me." There was just a trace of as he better in her voice.
"But the father… will he ever get to see his own kid?" My gut twisted in sympathy for the unknown guy. "That doesn't seem fair."
"When the baby is born, my patron will taste him to see if the match is good, and if it is, I might have another for the father and his Patron to raise."
Suddenly I didn't feel like eating anymore. I slid the plate under my chair. "That doesn't seem fair to you."
"It isn't," she replied. "I am hoping my son tastes terrible. I don't want to have a baby I can't keep." For the first time she sounded bitter. "But," she said after a moment. "That is the future, and I am happy to have this baby."
The room seemed to have closed in on me. Too tight, too stuffy, too full of clashing perfumes and colognes. I needed air. I needed to fucking get away.
"Have you ever considered running?" I asked.
"Many times," she replied quietly, fervently, and just a bit guiltily. "But where would I run to? See that is the problem you didn't consider. For us one place is like any other. My Patron is a good man and cares for me. I do not think I would do better with someone else."
That's a depressing thought.
She suddenly beamed. "Perhaps if my Patron buys you, my next child might not have to go to China. Our numbers aren't so different." There was a palpable look of longing.
Oh… Fuck.
Don't get me wrong, Valentina was beautiful. Perhaps not model pretty like many of the people here - the pregnancy had certainly put some weight on her -- but certainly prettier than any girl I ever dated before. That said, I'd have sooner chewed my own foot off than agreed to be her breeding partner. Call me a romantic, but whelping out kids in order to feed a Patron just doesn't pass the Modest Proposal standard of parenting.
"Well," she said, saddened, and maybe just a bit stung by my obvious horror. "It's not for us to decide. We should not count our eggs before they are hatched."
Oh, Valentina, Valentina -- don't give up. I might not want to breed with her, but I felt a strong protective surge rise up in me. I considered letting her in on my true plans -- to find and join Vestilar's human resistance. The more I thought of it, the more I was convinced it had to be out there somewhere, fighting in small ways that didn't make it to the news. Perhaps even in big ways, who knows. There is no doubt in my mind that the editors of every single newspaper have been thoroughly vetted by the local aristocracy. Any threat to the vampires would be hushed up - guaranteed.
What if Valentina came with me? The choice between one vampire or another might not be enough for her to brave running, but what if she could have no Patron at all? If we could find the resistance, they could protect her. Maybe give her a new identity. She could protect her child and her self.
And perhaps… perhaps she could even help me. I was trapped here, chained up and watched, but she was free to wander the compound. All I needed was a blade. A good sharp blade to slice off the strap on my homing device. I'd ask to use the restroom, and slip out, meet up with her. With all the vampires gone, that just a matter of avoiding the human guards - a much easier possibility! We could lose ourselves in the woods in no time - and from there, how far would it be to the road? We could find a phone and call Wally to meet us. The three of us could ride off to another city and go underground.
In the space of about 30 seconds, I'd spun a complete fantasy of the three of us, living in some kind of domestic bliss with a bathtub full of Molotov cocktails, and a one time pad by the phone for when our contact phoned us with our next mission. It was something like a cross between the Weathermen, and a Tom Clancy novel, ending predictably in explosions and the freeing of America from the iron grip of our monster oppressors.
I shook myself back to the current situation. Getting off of Nadette's estate would be hard enough. There were flaws in the plan and it'd be dangerous as hell. But, still, it was a whole lot better than sticking around for a tasting.
"Valentina," I said, standing closer to her and whispering. "What if I were to tell you - "
The volume in the room dropped precipitously, as if everyone had hushed to listen in on what I was about to say. I stopped mid-sentence and looked around, awash in paranoia, but thankfully I was not the center of anyone's attention. Not even Valentina's. Something had happened - a ripple in the atmosphere that permeated the room. My wariness snapped back into position and I looked from Valentina's suddenly distracted face to those of the others around. Arching my head up, I scanned the room to see what was going on, but there was nothing particularly obvious. It just seemed as if they were waiting for something.
Then Mike suddenly said, "That's my call," to the woman he was talking to. His face looked grim. He handed her his glass, with a "could you take care of this for me," and then headed quickly through the various clumps of people to the door.
He wasn't alone. A small but noticeable trickle of people were joining him. None of them looked terribly happy.
"What's going on?" I asked Valentina, fighting a primal urge to gird myself for a fight.
"Our Patron's have returned," she said. "They require us."
Well that tossed a monkey wrench into my escape plans. I didn't see a sign of the Vampires in the room, but that just meant they could be anywhere. It was just as well I hadn't spilled the beans to Valentina. If her vampire called her up, she'd have had no choice but to inform on me.
"Don't you have to go?" I asked when, after a long pause, she'd made no attempt to join the others.
Valentina shook her head. "Perhaps later, if the others are not enough to satisfy. But I doubt it. I am really only here for him to show off. He will not risk me in my condition." She shrugged, it was an awkward, jerking movement that almost covered over her shudder. "Don't worry. They will be fine. That is why there are so many of us here. To ease the burden. But I do not envy the first to calm our Patrons down. They can be very rough when they are truly hungry."
I felt a pang of concern for Mike and evidently it showed on my face because Valentina patted my arm. I looked back and noticed her face twisted with worry.
"I'm sorry," she said nervously, her voice a little high and shrill. "I misspoke! It is not scary at all. They will never harm us. Our patrons always have our best interests in mind. Do not let my ill-chosen words alarm you." She smiled in an attempt to appease.
My breath froze. A wall of distrust fell between us. Oh, goddamn it, she'd just lied to me. Badly. To make her Patron seem more acceptable.
Of course, vampires were scary. I'd just fucking witnessed them being scary. I'd seen the bloodlust on their faces. I'd seen Jeffrey's worry about the possibility they'd fight over Wally. I'd seen them out of control. That was what Mike was going to face when he met up with whoever the hell his Patron was.
And even Valentina didn't believe what she was saying. Which left the really good question of why she would say it at all. What the hell kind of pressure was she and the others under? How genuine were their words? Were they primed with the idea of buttering me up in hopes of making me placid and accepting? Were they under orders to befriend me, make me feel like I was wanted in their little clique? Whitewash the situation until I could be programmed to be another vacant, mindless sheep?
Could Valentina be a shill.
Part of me didn't want to believe it. I'd seen real rebellion in her eyes. Real spirit. But what if all the bitterness and anger I'd seen in her was really only a projection of my own need to have someone understand me. Was there anything in what she actually said to lead me to believe she wasn't as much in the can for the vampires as Mike and Claudia and all the rest?
"I'm sorry," said Valentina, realizing her error, but seeing no solution other than digging the hole of distrust deeper. "Disregard what I said, I was being insensitive to your situation. This is not the way it usually is. Harem life treats me well, and I am happy and privileged to be part of it."
Sheep words. Nothing but sheep words.
To think, I'd come so very close to spilling the beans about my plans. I'd even started speaking about it. I could see now that Valentina would have ratted me out. No doubt about that.
I'd dodged a bullet by half a sentence.
Although the humans tried to engage me in talk, I was done with this goddamn party. I just wanted to be left alone. Valentina eventually gave up apologizing for an error she didn't even recognize and drifted off. Fifteen minutes after the first call out, the volume dipped again. Another trickle of people said their hurried good-byes and left. Half an hour after that there was a third wave.
I kept a vigil, isolated on my chair, waiting for those called away to return. Some did, greeted with a hurrah by their fellow harem, but it was a modest number compared to those who left. The room was thinning out. I spotted one young man deep in discussion a few feet away. At one point he pulled up the sleeve of his tuxedo and I saw an angry red swelling on his wrist. His eyes happened to flash my direction and he quickly pulled his sleeve down and turned his back to me. After that I searched the room more closely for Mike, but I never saw him.
Distracting me through all of this was a round after round of people trying to make my acquaintance in the most awkward and irritating manner possible. I did my best put them off, politely but firmly, by keeping my responses down to one syllable, no matter what question was asked. A few feet away, I noticed Claudia rolling her eyes. But after about an hour of this she walked over and put an end to it for me.
"I think George is tired. Why don't we give him a little time to adjust." She lifted her arms to suggest this final group move away. Although I wasn't thrilled about her fighting my battles, I was nonetheless relieved. I was in my cave. Not in the mood. All I wanted was people to fuck off and leave me alone.
Just as I wanted, from that point on, no one approached me. I felt a thrill of triumph that lasted, oh, about five minutes.
And that's when the flaw to my cunning plan made itself painfully obvious. I had nothing to fucking do and I wasn't going anywhere. Time slowed to an interminable level I hadn't experienced since I was six and my parents forced me to attend an excruciatingly long city planning meeting about changing some street name. Boredom can be physically painful.
Though I was more nauseated than hungry, I fetched the plate Valentina had prepared me out from under my chair, and slowly worked my way through everything left on it. When the last crumb was gone, I tried to hone my ears on what small talk was going on in the nearest groups. It was largely an exercise in futility as the general din was loud enough to run over all but the loudest talkers. Even when I did make out the words, it was nothing really worth hearing. TV shows, fashion, work out bragging. Nothing about their patrons, or their personal lives. Nothing that gave me any reassurance or confirmed any of my fears.
I had too much pride to break my wallflower status and try to reach out and engage anyone in conversation again. Let's cut to the chase already, I found myself bleakly thinking. Let's just get the damn tasting over with. Even molestation seemed better than this.
Not long after that, the vampires returned to the party. It was eerily as if several magnets had been dropped into a pile of metal shavings. The clumps of humans broke apart, almost in midsentence, and gathered around their Patrons. It seemed so absurdly choreographed, like a flash mob, that for a moment I just gaped in wonder. Distracted by what was going on in the room, I didn't notice at first that I'd developed a small group of my own.
There was a tug on my left leg and I looked down to see Claudia kneeling at my feet, unchaining me from the chair. Looking up, I noticed Nadette and Amy from the limo standing a foot or two away, whispering to each other like a couple gossips.
"It's time to go," said Nadette. And just like that, my string was pulled. I stood, more or less resigned to my fate.
We passed through the party crowds, who parted politely for us, back through the front doors and from there across the dew damp grass. The air had a moist, fresh smell to it and the lights around the buildings sported a misty aurora. The quiet was so intense after the constant din of the party that it came as some relief. Too soon the dormitory loomed up ahead of us. Many of the windows were now lit, and I could see shadows moving behind the sheer curtains. The door opened to Claudia's key and we moved up the stairs to my room with brisk efficiency past a number of open doors and I got glimpses of humans in various states of dress speaking softly to each other. Doing things to each other. I thought I could smell semen.
My skin crawled.
I didn't have time to digest any of these scenes, before I was pulled along to my own familiar room. There, I breathed a sigh of relief, savoring a moment of safeness, until reality set in. Nadette didn't go for large opulent feeding rooms - this tiny bedroom was where they would taste me.
It didn't seem that there would be enough room. One or two people fit fine enough in the place, five was getting uncomfortably crowded. Twelve was too much. The bed was a standard "full" - roomy for one, tight for two - and an orgy just wasn't going to happen. How was this going to work?
"Get him cleaned up," said Nadette and walked out of the room.
"I don't need help taking a shower," I said, preemptively, knowing with that gut sense that they wouldn't be taking that for granted.
Amy pressed her lips shut on what looked suspiciously like titter, but Claudia kept professional. "I left instructions in the bathroom," she said. "You have fifteen minutes, which I know is rushed, but unless you want me to help, I'd suggest you keep to that time table."
I swallowed. Now you know you are in trouble when someone has to leave you instructions for how to take a shower. Something told me it would be more than just lather rinse, repeat. Sure enough there was a store bought enema kit waiting for me on the commode, under it, helpfully was a step by step list of exactly how I was supposed to clean my cock and balls with that chastity sleeve on. Any hope I had that the vampires were just going to taste me neutral was laid to rest.
I took twenty minutes. Screw you. To my relief no one came in to help me finish up, but the knock at the door was enough of a warning that I didn't push it further. I came out, hair towel dried, dressed in nothing but a deep plush terry robe, as specified by the note. "I followed your list," I said to the room, "Satisfied, Claudia?"
But Claudia wasn't there. In her place was Amy, Nadette, and Gregory.
"So I get to be the first," said Gregory, grinning widely. "I knew you loved me, Nadette."
I swallowed. Shit.
Back to Chapter 12
On to Chapter 14
RATING: NC-17 (This chapter R)
GENRE: Porn with plot -- heavy on the plot. Action/adventure, some black humor, some romance.
PAIRINGS: George x everyone. Mostly Slash, some het, three and moresomes. Vampire sex.
WARNINGS: (this chapter) none.
WORD COUNT: 6015
Chapter 13
I wasn't truly alone, it just felt like it. Claudia stood across the room talking rapid fire into a walkie talkie. A minute later the cleaning crew were there: two women with rags and mops, slopping up the mess without a word. They avoided looking at me. Claudia did as well, though I knew she was keeping track of me out of the corner of her eye. It was entirely paranoid, but I had this feeling that they all put the blame on me and I resented the hell out them for that, but I couldn't call them on it, because that's squarely where I put the blame myself.
After about 15 minutes, I broke the silence.
"Will there be more of this…" I searched for the right word, horror, violence. I settled for the entirely inappropriate word Nadette had used. "Entertainment." My words seemed to echo in the huge empty room.
Claudia turned to me. "God I hope not." Her face was very pale and it was clear she was as taken aback as I was. "You just have to remember they aren't human. They are tougher, and as horrible --" Claudia suddenly gagged. "They don't have prisons. This is their way of dealing with… bad apples."
"Did she survive?" I asked, both wanting and dreading the answer. How could she have?
"I don't know," said Claudia. "She made it past the boundary of Nadette's estate. She might, if she can find someplace to lay low. Go to ground. I hope she didn't, though."
"I hope she did," I said, firmly. Claudia had given me hope. At least if Darlene survived, I wouldn't have the guilt of causing someone's murder on my conscience, and that was surprisingly important to me, even if it was a vampire. Of course, if she did make it, I'd just made myself a powerful enemy. Yeah, that's not a happy thought there. But I hadn't crossed paths with her in 12 years, even living in the same protectorate. I'd probably never see her again once I was off to … who knows where. I assumed that any Patron I ended up with would see it in his self-interest to make sure she didn't cross my path again.
"Were you close to her?" Claudia was surprisingly sympathetic.
I shook my head quickly. "No. It's just that… if I'd just let her do her job, if I hadn't thrown up on her…"
"It's not your fault," said Claudia, with the firmness of a vise snapping shut. "You can't blame yourself for this. Even if you did throw up on her -- even if you talked back or fought or were sick as a dog, she should have tasted you anyway. Or made you come back another time to have it done. It was her job to control you, if you couldn't control yourself. I can't imagine why she didn't do it."
"Nadette seems to think I have some culpability," I said. Why else make me watch that….
"No, she doesn't," said Claudia, brusquely. "You misunderstood her, if that's the impression you got. She certainly wouldn't have arranged this punishment if she thought the blame actually lay with you."
I let go of a deep breath. Goddamn it. I didn't want to be reassured by this, but I was. I'm so chickenshit, I can't even shoulder my own guilt. Yet, there wasn't a lot of point in feeling guilty, either. Done's done.
"Lady Darlene chose to mislabel you," Claudia went on. "It wasn't an accident. For some reason, she didn't want to taste you and she deliberately covered it up to save her ass. It was stupid."
"I was eleven," I said. "She's being punished for not wanting to be a pedophile!"
"Doesn't matter," said Claudia. "This wasn't some sexual thing. It wasn't about her getting off. This was about her completely mucking up the expectations of every vampire out there. Who knows how many people with similar numbers to yours were automatically labeled Black based on what she did."
I hadn't considered that.
"There were a lot of other things she could have done if the idea of tasting a preteen was so abhorrent to her. She could have protested, called in a favor, put it off until you were older, told her Master to do it himself. The only reason I can think for her to have done something as massively stupid as this is that she truly believed she'd never get caught. So you see, I'm not just being nice to you. It's truly not your fault."
Claudia walked over and patted me on the back, and for once I saw it as comfort and not condescension.
"That's the deal, George," she said, softly, as if she were talking to herself. "When it comes to Vampires, they are in control - they have the responsibility if something goes wrong. Blaming the human for this situation, to them, it would be like blaming the baby for not keeping the parent in line."
I closed my eyes, and controlled my expression. Claudia wasn't trying to be insulting. And who knows, she's probably right. Perhaps we are all just permanent children - or maybe pets. But it felt wrong. There was an argument there I was pretty sure I could make some other time when I wasn't tired and heartsick. For now, though, the words didn't come.
After a moment of silence, Claudia drifted off, content in her place. And I remained, chained, literally, in mine.
The cleaning women finished getting the last bits of blood splatter, which had traveled astonishingly far from the site of destruction, and put down a number of little caution tripods over the dampest spots. Once they were gone, Claudia let the partygoers back in. This time, instead of confining themselves to the adjacent room, they spread out to mine as well.
For the first time I faced the full brunt of human curiosity.
Listen, they weren't trying to be dicks. At least not deliberately. In fact, in their own weird way, I really got the sense that they wanted me to like them. Which, you know, makes sense if you consider that chances are, at some point, we might end up in bed together, like Tina and Ron. It's just that they just had no more clue what to make of me than I had of them.
"Did they remember to feed you?" asked one of the women, after a round of introductions that I didn't even try to keep straight. "Can I get you a plate? Glass of juice?"
"They got any beer?" I asked. Man, I craved one bad. I'd been craving one for a week now -- I hadn't gone dry this long since I turned legal. But the group just laughed like I'd said something uproariously funny. My face colored. I'd seen wine glasses - it didn't seem to me that retarded a question.
"Man I wish," said one of the guys, wistfully. Mike I think his name was, but I could be wrong. "Finding booze at one of these parties is like finding a virgin at a club."
"Now, now," said another guy. "Virgins go into clubs. Coming out though -" Laughter again.
"Yeah," I said, disappointed. "So I get that a vampire shindig is as dry as a Mormon church social."
"Drier," said someone.
A woman spoke up. "I remember when I was 18, I had the temerity of drinking a late afternoon latte before coming in to Service." Apparently this was hysterical. "I'd been up since six a.m. and I didn't want to get sleepy," she said, when she could grasp a full breath, and that sent people into guffaws again.
"I don't get it," I said. "What's so wrong about not wanting to be sleepy?"
Maybe-Mike regarded me with a wow-did-you-really-say-that look. "If a vampire doesn't want you to sleep, you don't sleep."
"Oh, that's not true." I flashed back to Jeffrey's feeding room, where I most definitely had conked out. But then, he was already done with me by that point. Even so, after all that, I think it would have been tough to keep me awake even with mind-control. The human body's got its limits.
"I had it worse," said one of the older harem, she looked to be close to Claudia's age, but still definitely had it going, in a MILFish Joan Crawford kind of way. Under other circumstances I'd have found her intimidating. Here she was just one of a hundred beautiful faces. "Imagine being a smoker when you were called up." She pantomimed a drag. "Two pack a day, even. Had to go cold turkey and, man, you did not want to know me that week. It's a good thing I had to tender my resignation, because I would have been soooo fired otherwise."
"So, no smoking, no drinking, no coffee," I said. "And no jobs. Christ. Is there anything harem are allowed to do?"
"Screw around," someone called out. "Everything," another person said. "Just not stuff that will hurt us or spoil our flavor."
"No Birth control pill, either," said the ex-smoker wistfully. "Not that that's going to be a problem for you."
I got the picture. "Yeah, yeah, so we can party like 1950s housewives. Some fun."
"How old are you?" maybe-Mike asked, truly baffled. "No offense, man, but I'd expect these questions from a high school kid being groomed… not a full grown guy whose just changing Patrons." He only stumbled a bit over the "full grown" part.
I raised my hands to ward off the implications. It was time to set things straight. "Hey, It's not my fault that I don't know any of this shit. Maybe it's common knowledge in a Harem, but I've never been Harem. I'm normal people." They looked blank. "You know, the working slobs who tithe up so you guys can have parties like this?" How the fuck these guys could be so confused about such a basic concept? Surely they knew that people existed outside of Harem. "Non-harem. Not expected to ever be harem. That was me, one week ago. And we ordinary folks don't get to know about all these little vampire tidbits. They don't tell us jack-shit about the rules you guys live under."
"You mean - are you saying, you've never Served? You are White and your last Patron didn't even use you?" Ah, so that was the problem. I could see their heads exploding, and yeah, put that way, it sounded pretty preposterous.
Before I could answer, someone else spoke up. "I heard you were a runner." Between the tracking device strapped on my right ankle and the fucking chain around the other, I honestly didn't think I could keep that a secret. Still, I was kinda hoping that no one would bring it up.
"Yeah," I admitted. So would this be a badge of honor or of shame?
"Why?" asked Mike. And that's not the response I expected.
"Why the hell wouldn't I?" I countered. "I don't get you. I don't get any of you. Why do you put up with this? Doesn't all this get to you? Do you really think that you are lesser beings than these bloodsuckers? They used to be human like us, once upon a time. Why should you have to give up cigarettes and booze and for God's sake coffee, just because they want you to? What if you liked your career? What about your friendships, relationships, I mean, this has to put a huge monkey wrench in that. Doesn't it all just piss you off a little?"
And now they were looking at me like I'd come from Mars. I felt the urge to beat my head against the back of the chair.
"Weren't you… scared?" someone asked, ignoring my outburst and going back to the running part. All eyes were on me. This was hopeless. They were too brainwashed to get my point.
I shrugged. "Yeah. Scared of being part of some Vampire's harem." I could have grown a second head and not have surprised them more.
"How did you run away?" asked Mike, looking exactly like someone being presented an impossible conundrum.
So I told them. The whole long saga of getting out of Jeffrey's feeding room, out of the building, on the bus. Hiding in the bathroom. Stan. And I told them how Claudia kept me from repeating the process.
Mike's jaw dropped. "And you think being Harem is scarier than that? Christ man, I'd consider you brave, if you weren't so completely insane. Like you'll eat scorpians, but you are terrified of steak."
Yeah, yeah, I'm insane. Everyone thinks so. No news here, except, of course, that I'm not insane. I'm probably the sanest person in the room. I tried to think of how to explain to them that Harem wasn't the cakewalk they seemed to think it was, and they were being asked to make real sacrifices. But in a moment of clarity I realized there was no point. Harem was all most of these folks had ever known, and looking at them, I saw they had that vague, wide-eyed innocence that comes from unquestioning cult-like faith. Reality was what their Patrons told them. I thought Claudia had drunk deeply of the Kool-aid, but compared to these folks, she seemed positively grounded.
I sighed and hung my head.
"Where did you think you'd go?" asked one of the women.
"Home," I said, glumly, and finally hit a chord with at least some of them.
"It's lonely to start," admitted the smoker, twitching her eyes off in a random direction. "But it gets better. You'll make new friends. I mean, we are like family in a way. We got each other. We got our patron. And I still see my real family sometimes."
I thought briefly of my parents and how much they had to be worried about me by now. Shit. When I got wherever I was going, I'd make sure to give them a long letter of apology.
"I'd have moved away anyway," asserted Mike. "I don't care where I live. And this sure the hell beats pumping gas until I'm 70. Fifteen more years and I can retire." He grinned.
"Then what?" I asked. "Try to get a job without education or work experience - when you are forty?"
"There's a stipend," said someone. "But if we get bored, our Patrons will find us something."
"Well, when I retire from this, I'm going to medical school," said a small, very dark skinned woman with a strong not-quite-English accent. "It was what I was planning on doing before I was called up." She pushed her way past a row of people in front of her and handed me a plate and a wine glass filled with what turned out to be water. "You didn't tell us if you'd been fed, so I went ahead and got you something. If you don't want it, that is fine, but I know sometimes vampires get caught up in these affairs and forget."
I took the plate and the glass, then noticed as she stepped back that she was very pregnant. She looked uncomfortably young to be a mom - If I didn't know better I'd assumed she was fifteen. She didn't hold herself like a teen though, and I'm certainly not one to assume a person has to be the age they look.
"Medical school, huh," I repeated. "You must be pretty smart. I'm George, by the way."
"Oh yes, I know" she said, she held out a hand, and I placed the plate on my lap in order to shake it. "Valentina," she introduced. "I am White, too, by the way." For a second I stupidly thought she was referring to her race, which was ridiculous, because she most definitely wasn't Caucasian. "I know how it is to almost get a normal life. I was already eighteen when my patron got around to satisfying his curiosity about my odd numbers." She smiled. "So. One week I'm applying to universities, the next I am dropping out of secondary school."
"Dropping out?"
She laughed. It was a really cute, musical titter. "Of course. I could not stay up all night long and then go to school and study all day! And then my Patron needed me so much of the time, every day at first. He was quite enamored of me, but it made me so tired. It is better since the pregnancy. He does not share me out at all anymore, and he is careful not to take very much. I do not think I taste as good right now anyway." She laughed again, with just a trace of evil pleasure in being less palatable.
I decided I liked her. Unlike the rest of these bimbos (of both genders) she seemed to have a bit of fight left in her. I noticed a sharpness to her eye, and something in her demeanor said that she didn't just baa out joys of being a Vampire's favorite. Under the laughter, I detected a thread of resentment. I liked that.
Smiling, I took a bite out of something that looked like a thin sliced bagel topped with a whipped vegetable garnish. It was heavenly. I remembered that I was famished and ate the whole thing before something about what she'd said struck me.
"So," I said looking around for something to wipe my mouth with, before deciding fuck it and using the sleeve of my tuxedo. "So your patron's cool with you starting your family even though it mucks up the flavor of your blood?" Perhaps normal life is possible….
"Of course," she said lightly. "He is the one who made me pregnant."
My jaw dropped. "I didn't think that was possible."
"No, no," she clarified in between belly laughs. "He is not the father. Ha, ha, silly. He just arranged it. He is hoping that my son will be White like me and can replace me when it is time for me to retire. That is all."
I shook my head and my stomach clenched around that bagel. "What… you mean, he's breeding you?! That's insane! Do you even like the father?"
"Do I like him?" she said, baffled. "I don't even know him. I've never met him. It is in vitro."
"Does he know he's a father?"
"I don't know. Probably. He lives in China. His numbers are not the same as mine, but they are close in range for many, and he too is White." She shrugged.
"What does your boyfriend think of this? Or husband? Is he happy raising someone else's child?"
"No boyfriend," she said sadly. "Never a boyfriend. It is too hard to be White and have a relationship like that. But I am not a single parent. I have three housekeepers, a male nanny, so that my son has a good role model, and a personal assistant just for me. So you don't need to worry about it being too much of a hardship. My patron takes care of me." There was just a trace of as he better in her voice.
"But the father… will he ever get to see his own kid?" My gut twisted in sympathy for the unknown guy. "That doesn't seem fair."
"When the baby is born, my patron will taste him to see if the match is good, and if it is, I might have another for the father and his Patron to raise."
Suddenly I didn't feel like eating anymore. I slid the plate under my chair. "That doesn't seem fair to you."
"It isn't," she replied. "I am hoping my son tastes terrible. I don't want to have a baby I can't keep." For the first time she sounded bitter. "But," she said after a moment. "That is the future, and I am happy to have this baby."
The room seemed to have closed in on me. Too tight, too stuffy, too full of clashing perfumes and colognes. I needed air. I needed to fucking get away.
"Have you ever considered running?" I asked.
"Many times," she replied quietly, fervently, and just a bit guiltily. "But where would I run to? See that is the problem you didn't consider. For us one place is like any other. My Patron is a good man and cares for me. I do not think I would do better with someone else."
That's a depressing thought.
She suddenly beamed. "Perhaps if my Patron buys you, my next child might not have to go to China. Our numbers aren't so different." There was a palpable look of longing.
Oh… Fuck.
Don't get me wrong, Valentina was beautiful. Perhaps not model pretty like many of the people here - the pregnancy had certainly put some weight on her -- but certainly prettier than any girl I ever dated before. That said, I'd have sooner chewed my own foot off than agreed to be her breeding partner. Call me a romantic, but whelping out kids in order to feed a Patron just doesn't pass the Modest Proposal standard of parenting.
"Well," she said, saddened, and maybe just a bit stung by my obvious horror. "It's not for us to decide. We should not count our eggs before they are hatched."
Oh, Valentina, Valentina -- don't give up. I might not want to breed with her, but I felt a strong protective surge rise up in me. I considered letting her in on my true plans -- to find and join Vestilar's human resistance. The more I thought of it, the more I was convinced it had to be out there somewhere, fighting in small ways that didn't make it to the news. Perhaps even in big ways, who knows. There is no doubt in my mind that the editors of every single newspaper have been thoroughly vetted by the local aristocracy. Any threat to the vampires would be hushed up - guaranteed.
What if Valentina came with me? The choice between one vampire or another might not be enough for her to brave running, but what if she could have no Patron at all? If we could find the resistance, they could protect her. Maybe give her a new identity. She could protect her child and her self.
And perhaps… perhaps she could even help me. I was trapped here, chained up and watched, but she was free to wander the compound. All I needed was a blade. A good sharp blade to slice off the strap on my homing device. I'd ask to use the restroom, and slip out, meet up with her. With all the vampires gone, that just a matter of avoiding the human guards - a much easier possibility! We could lose ourselves in the woods in no time - and from there, how far would it be to the road? We could find a phone and call Wally to meet us. The three of us could ride off to another city and go underground.
In the space of about 30 seconds, I'd spun a complete fantasy of the three of us, living in some kind of domestic bliss with a bathtub full of Molotov cocktails, and a one time pad by the phone for when our contact phoned us with our next mission. It was something like a cross between the Weathermen, and a Tom Clancy novel, ending predictably in explosions and the freeing of America from the iron grip of our monster oppressors.
I shook myself back to the current situation. Getting off of Nadette's estate would be hard enough. There were flaws in the plan and it'd be dangerous as hell. But, still, it was a whole lot better than sticking around for a tasting.
"Valentina," I said, standing closer to her and whispering. "What if I were to tell you - "
The volume in the room dropped precipitously, as if everyone had hushed to listen in on what I was about to say. I stopped mid-sentence and looked around, awash in paranoia, but thankfully I was not the center of anyone's attention. Not even Valentina's. Something had happened - a ripple in the atmosphere that permeated the room. My wariness snapped back into position and I looked from Valentina's suddenly distracted face to those of the others around. Arching my head up, I scanned the room to see what was going on, but there was nothing particularly obvious. It just seemed as if they were waiting for something.
Then Mike suddenly said, "That's my call," to the woman he was talking to. His face looked grim. He handed her his glass, with a "could you take care of this for me," and then headed quickly through the various clumps of people to the door.
He wasn't alone. A small but noticeable trickle of people were joining him. None of them looked terribly happy.
"What's going on?" I asked Valentina, fighting a primal urge to gird myself for a fight.
"Our Patron's have returned," she said. "They require us."
Well that tossed a monkey wrench into my escape plans. I didn't see a sign of the Vampires in the room, but that just meant they could be anywhere. It was just as well I hadn't spilled the beans to Valentina. If her vampire called her up, she'd have had no choice but to inform on me.
"Don't you have to go?" I asked when, after a long pause, she'd made no attempt to join the others.
Valentina shook her head. "Perhaps later, if the others are not enough to satisfy. But I doubt it. I am really only here for him to show off. He will not risk me in my condition." She shrugged, it was an awkward, jerking movement that almost covered over her shudder. "Don't worry. They will be fine. That is why there are so many of us here. To ease the burden. But I do not envy the first to calm our Patrons down. They can be very rough when they are truly hungry."
I felt a pang of concern for Mike and evidently it showed on my face because Valentina patted my arm. I looked back and noticed her face twisted with worry.
"I'm sorry," she said nervously, her voice a little high and shrill. "I misspoke! It is not scary at all. They will never harm us. Our patrons always have our best interests in mind. Do not let my ill-chosen words alarm you." She smiled in an attempt to appease.
My breath froze. A wall of distrust fell between us. Oh, goddamn it, she'd just lied to me. Badly. To make her Patron seem more acceptable.
Of course, vampires were scary. I'd just fucking witnessed them being scary. I'd seen the bloodlust on their faces. I'd seen Jeffrey's worry about the possibility they'd fight over Wally. I'd seen them out of control. That was what Mike was going to face when he met up with whoever the hell his Patron was.
And even Valentina didn't believe what she was saying. Which left the really good question of why she would say it at all. What the hell kind of pressure was she and the others under? How genuine were their words? Were they primed with the idea of buttering me up in hopes of making me placid and accepting? Were they under orders to befriend me, make me feel like I was wanted in their little clique? Whitewash the situation until I could be programmed to be another vacant, mindless sheep?
Could Valentina be a shill.
Part of me didn't want to believe it. I'd seen real rebellion in her eyes. Real spirit. But what if all the bitterness and anger I'd seen in her was really only a projection of my own need to have someone understand me. Was there anything in what she actually said to lead me to believe she wasn't as much in the can for the vampires as Mike and Claudia and all the rest?
"I'm sorry," said Valentina, realizing her error, but seeing no solution other than digging the hole of distrust deeper. "Disregard what I said, I was being insensitive to your situation. This is not the way it usually is. Harem life treats me well, and I am happy and privileged to be part of it."
Sheep words. Nothing but sheep words.
To think, I'd come so very close to spilling the beans about my plans. I'd even started speaking about it. I could see now that Valentina would have ratted me out. No doubt about that.
I'd dodged a bullet by half a sentence.
Although the humans tried to engage me in talk, I was done with this goddamn party. I just wanted to be left alone. Valentina eventually gave up apologizing for an error she didn't even recognize and drifted off. Fifteen minutes after the first call out, the volume dipped again. Another trickle of people said their hurried good-byes and left. Half an hour after that there was a third wave.
I kept a vigil, isolated on my chair, waiting for those called away to return. Some did, greeted with a hurrah by their fellow harem, but it was a modest number compared to those who left. The room was thinning out. I spotted one young man deep in discussion a few feet away. At one point he pulled up the sleeve of his tuxedo and I saw an angry red swelling on his wrist. His eyes happened to flash my direction and he quickly pulled his sleeve down and turned his back to me. After that I searched the room more closely for Mike, but I never saw him.
Distracting me through all of this was a round after round of people trying to make my acquaintance in the most awkward and irritating manner possible. I did my best put them off, politely but firmly, by keeping my responses down to one syllable, no matter what question was asked. A few feet away, I noticed Claudia rolling her eyes. But after about an hour of this she walked over and put an end to it for me.
"I think George is tired. Why don't we give him a little time to adjust." She lifted her arms to suggest this final group move away. Although I wasn't thrilled about her fighting my battles, I was nonetheless relieved. I was in my cave. Not in the mood. All I wanted was people to fuck off and leave me alone.
Just as I wanted, from that point on, no one approached me. I felt a thrill of triumph that lasted, oh, about five minutes.
And that's when the flaw to my cunning plan made itself painfully obvious. I had nothing to fucking do and I wasn't going anywhere. Time slowed to an interminable level I hadn't experienced since I was six and my parents forced me to attend an excruciatingly long city planning meeting about changing some street name. Boredom can be physically painful.
Though I was more nauseated than hungry, I fetched the plate Valentina had prepared me out from under my chair, and slowly worked my way through everything left on it. When the last crumb was gone, I tried to hone my ears on what small talk was going on in the nearest groups. It was largely an exercise in futility as the general din was loud enough to run over all but the loudest talkers. Even when I did make out the words, it was nothing really worth hearing. TV shows, fashion, work out bragging. Nothing about their patrons, or their personal lives. Nothing that gave me any reassurance or confirmed any of my fears.
I had too much pride to break my wallflower status and try to reach out and engage anyone in conversation again. Let's cut to the chase already, I found myself bleakly thinking. Let's just get the damn tasting over with. Even molestation seemed better than this.
Not long after that, the vampires returned to the party. It was eerily as if several magnets had been dropped into a pile of metal shavings. The clumps of humans broke apart, almost in midsentence, and gathered around their Patrons. It seemed so absurdly choreographed, like a flash mob, that for a moment I just gaped in wonder. Distracted by what was going on in the room, I didn't notice at first that I'd developed a small group of my own.
There was a tug on my left leg and I looked down to see Claudia kneeling at my feet, unchaining me from the chair. Looking up, I noticed Nadette and Amy from the limo standing a foot or two away, whispering to each other like a couple gossips.
"It's time to go," said Nadette. And just like that, my string was pulled. I stood, more or less resigned to my fate.
We passed through the party crowds, who parted politely for us, back through the front doors and from there across the dew damp grass. The air had a moist, fresh smell to it and the lights around the buildings sported a misty aurora. The quiet was so intense after the constant din of the party that it came as some relief. Too soon the dormitory loomed up ahead of us. Many of the windows were now lit, and I could see shadows moving behind the sheer curtains. The door opened to Claudia's key and we moved up the stairs to my room with brisk efficiency past a number of open doors and I got glimpses of humans in various states of dress speaking softly to each other. Doing things to each other. I thought I could smell semen.
My skin crawled.
I didn't have time to digest any of these scenes, before I was pulled along to my own familiar room. There, I breathed a sigh of relief, savoring a moment of safeness, until reality set in. Nadette didn't go for large opulent feeding rooms - this tiny bedroom was where they would taste me.
It didn't seem that there would be enough room. One or two people fit fine enough in the place, five was getting uncomfortably crowded. Twelve was too much. The bed was a standard "full" - roomy for one, tight for two - and an orgy just wasn't going to happen. How was this going to work?
"Get him cleaned up," said Nadette and walked out of the room.
"I don't need help taking a shower," I said, preemptively, knowing with that gut sense that they wouldn't be taking that for granted.
Amy pressed her lips shut on what looked suspiciously like titter, but Claudia kept professional. "I left instructions in the bathroom," she said. "You have fifteen minutes, which I know is rushed, but unless you want me to help, I'd suggest you keep to that time table."
I swallowed. Now you know you are in trouble when someone has to leave you instructions for how to take a shower. Something told me it would be more than just lather rinse, repeat. Sure enough there was a store bought enema kit waiting for me on the commode, under it, helpfully was a step by step list of exactly how I was supposed to clean my cock and balls with that chastity sleeve on. Any hope I had that the vampires were just going to taste me neutral was laid to rest.
I took twenty minutes. Screw you. To my relief no one came in to help me finish up, but the knock at the door was enough of a warning that I didn't push it further. I came out, hair towel dried, dressed in nothing but a deep plush terry robe, as specified by the note. "I followed your list," I said to the room, "Satisfied, Claudia?"
But Claudia wasn't there. In her place was Amy, Nadette, and Gregory.
"So I get to be the first," said Gregory, grinning widely. "I knew you loved me, Nadette."
I swallowed. Shit.
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On to Chapter 14