Coera

i

It all started when they made suicide legal.

I guess it really started before that, when that group of university scientists in Singapore set up Stephenson Lenses in the local emergency rooms. Even though it was what they intended, they were as surprised as anyone by their results: images of unexplained energy leaving the dying. Of course the scientists were largely ignored until an American TV magazine picked up the story; then they were laughed at. The AP caught wind of it, and they were heckled and shouted down at every news conference. But they were the crack in the dam.

The next year, a startup in Michigan was able to “fingerprint the unique psychic energy” of a person, even when that person was still alive. The startup’s founder called this individual pattern an echoshape and thought he could market his tech to biometrics firms, but everyone else still called it a soul and didn’t want it mapped, thanks but no thanks. The startup foundered, and their merchandise scattered on eBay. A couple of venture cinematographers got their hands on an echoshaper, took it to their local hospital, and filmed dozens of spirits leaving the dead and crossing right over into the maternity ward. Public Access saw it, Pay TV saw it, and then everyone saw it - souls and reincarnation in one neat package.

There was some uproar after that. Outcries came from some churches, ‘I told you so’s from others. Science was a devil, or it was the savior. This was just a test from God, or it maybe it was a sign from God, or it didn’t have anything to do with God.
But the uproar died, as it always will. Given a few years, people have a way of assimilating almost anything. A market grew up around reincarnation. Yoga rose in popularity. Past-life regression is now written into the exit requirements of most colleges. The abortion issue changed. Those who could afford it paid more attention to where they died. The debate over inheritance law decided most of the races in the next election cycle. And that in turn had a big impact on the economy - between the markets and the war, things were shaky for a while, at least until the Supreme Court and a Special Council from the UN ruled within weeks of each other that the legal entity was defined by the body, not the soul. I guess that let Hitler’s ghost off the hook. It let a lot of people off the hook.

Like anti-sodomy laws twenty years earlier, anti-suicide legislation was stricken from the ledgers of most municipalities. Some progressive European nations created specific provisions for suicide. The banks and credit card companies hated it. Draw up your will in the right way, and it was better than declaring bankruptcy. It turned out to be a pretty good deal for the insurance companies, though. They were able to raise the premium for accidental death (which became a much scarier prospect), and natural deaths all but disappeared. None of them list suicide in their coverage any more.

You’re probably wondering why legalizing suicide made any difference. It’s not like the suicides of the past particularly cared whether or not they were breaking the law. But the fact of the matter is this: if something is legal - drinking, shooting up, head trips, prostitution, whatever - there will be someone there ready to help you do it however you want, for a modest fee. That’s not the difference, of course; the difference is in the advertising. Now they can set up a storefront with a flashing sign that you see every morning when you drive to work. Now they can franchise. Now there’s venture capital. And the suicide business – it was big. You might not believe how much an old man would pay to die painlessly, quickly, in a familiar neighborhood, when his will-to-self was drawn as tightly as he liked, and avoid the risk of knocking off from some sudden painful heart attack on the wrong side of town where he might be reborn, unidentified, without his wealth, to a 15-year-old homeless addict.

I hear there’s a long waiting list for the suicide clinics in Beverly Hills and Manhattan - I guess there’s some kind of traffic jam in the afterlife.




ii


There is always this type of person who tries to beat the system. For whatever reason, they get it into their head that the system - the “Man”, the government, the universe - is a leech on their well-being. They are resentful, sarcastic folk who look for the shortcuts in life and smugly exploit them. The problem is, they never really try to escape the system; they just end up turning it on its head. They leech off it until they’re caught, or until they self-destruct.

I guess I’m like that, though I’m not proud of it. The system: it sucks, but it’s what we’ve got. You can’t beat it forever. You always pay for your sins, in one lifetime or the next.

That’s what I thought, anyway. That’s what I thought when I was young and in college, an idealist ready to take on the world and make it better for everyone. Science and learning would save us all – it would save our souls. But I learned better.

The classes were part of it. You study enough history, philosophy, and religion, talk to people totally different from yourself, maybe smoke a little, maybe drink a little, and your mind opens right up like a puzzle box. That’s why colleges are full of hippies.

But the regressions clinched it for me. I don’t know if it’s the same for everyone, but I didn’t remember many specifics from my past lives - events or things or places; I remembered feelings. I remembered frustration. I remembered feeling tired. I remembered planning to change the world a hundred times in a hundred different ways, and it was always too hard. Just too damn hard. Thwarted by sickness, thwarted by accidents, thwarted by some goddamned short-sighted greedy bastard. The system protects itself, is what it is.

I dropped out of college in the middle of my last semester. After all, what was the point? I had a secret, guilty thrill when I got my grades, and I’d passed two of my classes without taking the finals.




iii


When you’re smart, it’s easy to get by. You just have to manage your expectations. A low-wage job, a cheap apartment, cheap clothes - you remind yourself that you don’t really need that 20% more everyone seems to want. So I did that for awhile - paid off the college loan, even. But I felt old. I felt done. All of my ambitions were sapped away by too many memories. I remembered being ready for death before, and that’s how I felt now. Death became a bit of an obsession for me.

But what’s the point of dying if you’re doomed to come right back? Why speed the inevitable rebirth into dissatisfaction? No, what I needed was a way to get out altogether. And I don’t mean escaping into enlightened bliss. I wasn’t into the Buddhist thing. I guess some group of scientists somewhere is probably working on a study of Buddhists to see if they manage to evade reincarnation. But all of that self-denial and meditation requires a lot of work and dedication, and I didn’t have the motivation. No, by that point I was looking for those shortcuts – the ways around the system. There’s nothing beside the system, but nothing sounded just fine to me.




iv


When she came to pick me up, I wasn’t depressed. I’d been feeling down now and again, but you have to understand - overall I wasn’t depressed, I was just done. I was looking forward to death, actually. I’d taken care of my family and friends, what few I had left, and cleared up the rest of my business - closing lines of credit, canceling insurance - you know. I was a free man, and from the perspective of most of the civilized world, I was already dead.

She pulled up to the curb in a sleek black American classic with darkly tinted windows. It was big and oozed wealth and class from every mirror-polished angle. I watched her park through my apartment window, and for just a moment I wondered if I’d made the right choice.

As she got out on the far side of the car and stood, I could see that she was tall, and more fleshy and curvy than modelesque. She was dressed as a naughty schoolgirl. I think I smirked. They must have picked that from my psyche profile. Her black, curling hair was tied back in pigtails, and her pale face wasn’t caked with make-up (I could see freckles), except for some lip gloss and thick eye-liner. She wore a sheer white blouse, unbuttoned but tied in a knot and scooped open to show ample breasts squeezed into a red satin bra. The costume was completed by a pleated gray skirt, and as she came around the front of the car - a very naughty schoolgirl! - I saw that she was wearing thigh-high PVC boots over black stockings. The skirt was so short, I caught a flash of her matching red satin panties when she stepped up onto the curb.

Heels confidently clopping and with one arm draped over her large purse, she strode up the walk to the complex. She was chewing gum - that’s what had given me that second thought - but her gait reassured me. It was purposeful - single-minded, yet also casual; she swayed her hips like she was on a runway, but she didn’t appear conscious of it. She was conscious of me: She had spotted me at the window and was smirking right back at me as she approached my door. She raised her arm and waggled her fingers at me in hello.

She was polished, I decided, and I liked that about her. It wasn’t the polish of a thin veneer - she had sharpened and refined her true personality, skin to bone. Her confidence was natural and not misplaced. Again I had that pang - call it a third thought – and I hesitated. That casual sincerity, that authenticity she exuded resonated in me. It was a quality I’d been searching for, in myself and others. Maybe... maybe I could nurture that in myself, and find some satisfaction. But, no... No, I’d tried that before. Hundreds of times. The hesitation faded. It was too late for me. This me, who I was now, it was who I really was. So, this thing - this plan - it was the most authentic thing I could do.

“Hello...?” Her voice came through the door. She had already rung my doorbell, and now she was leaning over from the porch, looking in the window at me. She raised her waving hand to shade the glass, and again she smirked at me. Her nails were manicured and painted black, sleek and shiny like her car.

I shook hazy thoughts from my head and unlocked the door for her.

She smiled as the door opened for her. “Having second thoughts?” Her voice was smooth, and just a little honeyed.

“No...” I shook my head absently. “I mean, yes, but ... no.”

She laughed. “You don’t have to explain. It’s a big decision. There can be a lot to think over. We understand. You can always change your mind, whenever you’d like, up to the very end.” She stepped through the doorway, past me and into the room, and I let the door shut behind her. She stopped a few feet in, and I remained by the door, looking up at her. In her boots she was taller than me. It was only an inch, but I felt like she was towering over me. Her presence dominated my small apartment. “Of course, the longer you wait, the more it costs if you back out - for services rendered. You understand.”

I nodded.

She laughed again, then extended her hand. “I’m Jane. Plain Jane.” She held her fingers loosely and her palm turned down, so I took her hand in mine and bent to touch it lightly to my lips. Her head quirked to the side and she blinked, but she smiled graciously. She lingered a moment, then took a few steps back to look around the room. “It must be strange for you - for me to know so much about you, and you to know only what you see.” She spread her arms and angled her hips, then turned slowly.

Now don’t misunderstand me: I’ve been with women. I’ve seen pornography. I’ve been to strip joints. But there was nothing like having her there, in the flesh, only a few feet away, dressed as she was, smelling vaguely of spices, charging the room with electricity, to get my blood pumping.

“But you like what you see, it seems.” Her eyes flicked down to what I could feel to be a growing bulge. The blood went from there to my face and I tried to discretely roll my hips for a little freedom. She was grinning at my predicament, and came back toward me, stopping just inches away. One of her thighs jutted forward beneath her skirt and nestled between my legs. We were both looking down at it. “I like what I see, too, schoolboy. Maybe we can study some biology later.” She bobbed her pigtails.

Her hands came up to my chest, over my shoulders, along my neck, and under my chin, which she lifted until I looked her directly in the eye. “Now that you know my name, let me greet you properly.” She leaned against me and pressed her lips to mine. The kiss was firm, wet, yielding slightly, with a flick of cool tongue at the end. She tasted like cinnamon, probably from the gum. She didn’t step away as she smiled warmly into my eyes. “I think two people can only really know each other when they kiss. I like that you didn’t pull away, or try to take over. It makes me comfortable with you.”

Then she turned and walked further into the room, examining my things. “Sometimes we get jerks. They always change their mind before the end.” She set her purse down on one arm of the loveseat and rested her hands on her hips as she stopped in front of my media case.

“Would you like something to drink? I mean... if you..?”

She smirked as she turned back to me. “I didn’t think you’d be so shy. Well, maybe I could have guessed, but your writing is more confident. That’s cute. But, yes, I’d like something to drink. Something hot, but not microwaved. Maybe tea with milk, or cocoa. Or if your cupboard is empty, clear water is fine.

In the kitchen, I pulled open the cupboard door and raised my brows. I hadn’t even thought to clean out the shelves, or the refrigerator. I suppose it really didn’t matter. I didn’t have anything in the crisper anyway and the rest would keep for someone else. I clicked on the flame beneath the kettle. “Earl Grey?” I asked the other room.

“Perfect,” she called back, from my bedroom.

Several minutes later she called again from my room: “Your will is coming to us?”

The tea was done, so I followed her into the bedroom. Steam wafted from the mug as I handed it to her. “I’ve given a few things to family and old friends, but everything that’s left is yours. Should I have packed it up?”

She took the mug and sipped, smiling thanks. “No. Someone is coming by later. But I’d like to keep these for myself.” She held out two old paperbacks - copies of Siddhartha and Stranger in a Strange Land. “I still prefer paper to the screen. Old habits.” She set down the books on one of my old jackets, which now lay folded on the edge of my bed. I had left it hanging in the closet. There were a few other trinkets on the bed, and what looked like an old CD. It was, in fact – a Refinery album. An odd choice.

“Those are my favorites,” I answered, nodding toward the books. “But, I mean, you're welcome to them. I grew up on the screen, but paper is definitely the best. You feel like you’ve really read something.”

She set down her cup and twined a finger around the thong hanging from my neck, untucking the charm from my shirt. It was an ‘ohm’ etched artfully into the inside curve of a broken piece of cowry shell. “I’d like to keep this, too, but only when you’re done with it.”

“Yes. I...'d be honored.” That was lame.

Twisting the rest of her fingers around the thong, she pulled me to her and kissed me again, this time more gently. I closed my eyes and my knees nearly melted. For that moment, I forgot how she was dressed, forgot about how I must look: pulled up against her, limp like a doll. All I felt was something, something original and honest and immediate - her soul maybe - touching mine between her lips.

“Are you comfortable with me?” she asked.

“Yes!” It was a breathless whisper, and my eyes were still closed.

I opened them, and again she had that smile for me. “You taste like lemon.” She motioned to the duffel bag waiting on my bed. “Are you ready to go, then?”

I nodded.

“You are ready to leave this place behind. You will never see it again.”

The finality in her words hit my chest like a fist, but I was ready for it. “Yes. I’m certain.” I picked up the duffel I had waiting by the bedroom door and slung it over my shoulder.

“Then follow me.”

After locking the door and the deadbolt I handed her my keys, which disappeared into her purse beneath the things from my room. I walked behind her to her car. Outside, under the hard light of the sun and the watchful eyes of neighbors around the courtyard, I became conscious of how we looked together, how obvious we were. The thighs of her boots rubbed together and chirped when she walked, and just a hint of breeze was enough to lift the pleats of her skirt. Her confidence kept her head up and her shoulders back, so her breasts bounced beneath her shirt with each step. Back on the door, her calling card was wedged in the door frame, stating her profession and claiming my possessions against looters.

I shot a glance over my shoulder, toward the building gossip’s flat. Her blinds were split, and her shadow lurked just behind. The blinds snapped shut and she disappeared.

Down at the street, after my bag was in her trunk and I was settling into a plushy leather bucket seat, I remarked, “You make quite an impression.” She pulled her heavy door shut and stretched out her seat belt, then leaned over to look past me. There were half a dozen blank faces at the top the stairs, watching us from the shade of the trees. To them we were now shadows behind the darkly tinted glass.

She grinned at me. “I have to advertise, don’t I? How else do you expect us to find more good customers like you? Hey, do you want to roll down the window, so they can watch us drive off with my hand in your lap? It’s your last opportunity to show them something of yourself.” She slipped her hand between my thighs and squeezed, but I left the window up.




v


We didn’t go straight there - wherever there was. She asked me to show her around the town - the places I’d worked, the spots I’d hung out. There wasn’t much to show, since I hadn’t done much after the university. I didn’t really hang out. I didn’t even move more than a few blocks away from the dorm.
She said she was dressed for school anyway, so we spent most of our time driving slowly down the campus roads while I pointed out some of the departments I’d studied in, talked about classes I’d had, papers I’d written, books I’d read. She didn’t have to keep asking questions after the first hour – I just kept talking. I realized I was probably boring her when she started to twirl her pigtail around her finger, but she only shook her head and smiled when I mentioned it.

I didn’t take her by any of the jobs I’d had recently. I didn’t want to see any of those people again, not like this. We did, however, stop at the drive-through of the old burger joint I worked my freshman year. She ordered a single chocolate malt - something for us to share. The look on the face of the cashier as Jane leaned out the car window and took the cup was priceless. She must have said something to him - I didn’t hear it, but his face turned red and she was grinning again when she settled back into her seat.

It was late afternoon when she finally told me we were heading into the city. “It’s about an hour and a half home from here, and now that I don’t have to worry about embarrassing you around someone you know anymore, I’ve got to get out of these things.” She stopped the car at an empty yellow light and pulled on the parking brake. “I like what bras do for my figure, but I don’t think I’ll ever get used to wearing panties.” She kicked a heel up onto the dash, then shifted in her seat as she rolled the panties off her cheeks and stretched them over the cuffs of her boots. She tucked her legs back under the steering wheel and slid the panties the rest of the way to her heels. By the time the light turned green, she had her eyes back on the road and was placing the panties in my hand.

“Should I put them in your purse?”

“No.. you can keep them. For the rest of your life.”

She meant it as a joke, but I didn’t feel like a chuckle. I leaned against the door and watched the road streak by out the dark window as we sped onto the highway. The song on the radio ended, and the new tune was blaringly inappropriate, but neither of us changed the channel. The air was thick, and the car, big as it was, felt cramped.

“It would turn me on if you tasted them.”

I raised a brow at her, and she laughed away the heaviness between us. “Don’t be so shy! It’s cute, but at only at first.”

I settled back into the seat, glanced over to look at her, then looked down at the panties in my hand.

“We’ll have to cure you of that shyness, and soon. It’s worth getting past, you know. Even if it is just for a short time. You’ll never be comfortable with yourself as long as you see yourself from the outside in. You’ll never know what you really want. I, on the other hand, know just what I want - I want you to suck on my panties.” She grinned at me. “Go on.”

I folded the stirrup into a ball and stuck it in my mouth. They were still cool, damp, and salty, but they also had the bitter-flat tang of sex.

Her head turned toward me, but her eyes flicked between my mouth and the road. Her lips parted as she watched me, and her tongue rubbed beneath her teeth. “You got me juicy back in town, when you were telling me about your classes at the University. I was never good at classes. I was a daydreamer. But it turned me on to see you so passionate about something. Even remembering it turns me on. See?” She grabbed my hand and placed it beneath her skirt, clinching my wrist with her thighs. I didn’t think I was that passionate about school, but I also didn’t think it was the time to argue. We weren’t really much of strangers any more, so I cupped her, and my middle finger slipped inside easily. “Good.” She squirmed in her seat to give me an easier angle, and opened her legs to me.

I had always been good with my hands, I thought, and she was moaning and cooing within a few moments. “You know,” she managed, between biting her lip and squeezing her legs shut again, trapping me comfortably inside. “You know, I’m psychic.”

“What do you mean ... you can see the future? Or you can tell what I’m thinking.” My words came out unevenly. I was concentrating on other things after all.

“Both... I can tell what you’re going to be thinking.” She flicked the turn signal and drifted toward an off ramp several miles outside of town. “You’re going to be thinking about how wet I am, and how much you want to taste me - not just my panties. You’re going to be thinking about what a schoolgirl like me might do to a smart boy like you for help with her homework. You're going to be thinking about me stopping my car and dropping your seat back, climbing up on your face until I'm moaning, and just maybe turning around and giving you the best blowjob you’ve ever had while I grind your head into the headrest. Especially once you know that I scouted out this little dark turnoff up ahead, and that one of the best features of this car is how comfortable that seat is when it’s laid back flat.” She watched me from the corner of her eyes and bit her lip to hide a grin. She knew she was right.




vi


When we got back on the freeway, the sun had set and the line of dark was moving west, chasing the oranges and purples toward the horizon. Jane had fished a moist towelette out of her purse and I had wiped down my face. Though the road was empty, she slid over to the fast lane and turned on the cruise control.

She rested her hand at the bottom of the wheel and began putting her makeup back in her purse. She was a professional now, not a schoolgirl, and she’d already remade her face before we got up to speed. "You're awfully quiet."

I was watching the lane lines flash by, running my thumb around the rim of the empty malt cup. It had been crushed by her boot during a scene of passionate re-leveraging.

"I would have thought you'd be grins and giggles after that." She shifted in her seat. "I enjoyed it, anyway."

I glanced over to see her smirk, and watched her for a moment.

"What is it?" she asked, quirking a brow. "Go ahead and ask."

"Do you always...” I furrowed my brows and retacked. “Was that just your job?" I winced. That came out even worse. I shouldn’t have said anything.

She chuckled. "Don't worry. I know what you mean.” She pushed her purse back behind the seat and squeezed my knee. “And relax, please!” She took her hand back and rested it in her lap, between her thighs. “To answer your question: Yes, but not ‘just’. It’s a job I love; that's why I do it. I don’t do anything I don’t want to."
The road was straight, so she stared at me for a long moment. I couldn't meet her gaze, so I made a study of the geography of creases in the cup. "But that's not what you meant, is it? It's normal to have feelings for me - I'd be hurt if you didn't. But don't forget why you're here, where you’re going with me. I want you to enjoy yourself, but don't go forming attachments."

I made an effort to relax, and the next thing I knew she was nudging me awake. We were deep into the city, in the old downtown. We were off the freeway and gliding along the twisting downtown streets. The ghostly blue of the streetlights flashed over the car like a slow-motion strobe. This wasn’t a classic neighborhood so there wasn’t any neon, and I could easily see the illuminated shapes of the skyline. Jane was pointing to a pre-war tiered sandstone-block building nestled between several glass towers. It looked out of place there; a piece of the past that refused to move on with the rest of the neighborhood. “That's us,” she said. “It used to be the Old Continental. We bought it a few years back and renovated. Wait until you see the inside.”

Minutes later we were following the ramp down into the garage beneath the old hotel. The lights here were orangish, and flickered oddly now and again. We passed rows and rows of vehicles, all immaculately clean, and all in a price range around that of my education. Jane pulled us smoothly into a numbered spot between a convertible Jag and some oversized SUV. As a classic, her car was fairly wide as well, but the lines were painted far enough apart that I could push the long car door all the way open. By the time I was standing and shutting the door, Jane was already bending over behind the popped trunk and slinging the strap of my bag over her shoulder. "Hey…" I began to protest, and I reached for the bag.

She smiled and slammed the trunk closed. The sound echoed through the garage. "From here on, you're my guest. You get to take it easy, and I get to run the show. Now come with me." I joined in beside her and she led me through the garage, toward the golden light oozing out of the doors in a far corner. Her heels clopped along the way, and the tops of her boots still chirped when she walked. The night air in the city was chill - I could feel the hairs on my arm standing up. Jane draped her free arm over my shoulder as we reached the edge of the garage, then let it slip down my back. She grabbed my ass just before the wide brass doors slid open for us.

A rush of warm air pushed past us as we stepped inside and into a long hallway. Like the doors, the accents in the hallway were brass; the rest, except for the checkered marble floor, was painted an antiqued white. Alternating standing desks and heavy picture frames reflected the length of the hall from the black floor tiles. The hall itself was very long, as least a couple hundred feet, and without any doors along the way. The pictures grabbed my attention as we began to pass them. They were paintings actually - though they were nearly photo-realistic - of women in various states of undress. They reminded me of Olivia's cheesecake. Some of the costumes, too, ran toward the fantastic or the fetishistic. "Do you see anyone you like?" Jane asked in my ear.

Then I saw we were passing a painting of her reclining on a leather armchair, nude beneath a speckled fur coat thrown wide open. She held a cigar in one gloved hand, and a glass of red wine in the other. Her expression was clearly an invitation. "They're all beautiful, but one catches my eye." I earned a chuckle.

We continued to the end of the hallway, where an elevator was open and waiting for us. The ceiling of the elevator was mirrored, and the lettering on the "Stop" button was nearly worn away. Beneath it was a placard reading, "Please be considerate."

The ride to the lobby was brief, punctuated with a kiss and an explanation. "There's just a little more paperwork," she said, "then it's up to my room."

I started as the door opened - I was shocked out of a stupor. Right up to her room, and then that's it?

She led me out through the doors and into the lobby. It was distractingly enormous. It must have taken up most of the first and second floors of the whole building. The same black and white checkered marble expanded out across the floor, broken by islands of sandstone planters and columns that rose into a rosicruse vaulted ceiling. Elevator doors like the one we'd just exited appeared in nooks and corners around the room, but none of them were marked. Grand marble stair conveyors loomed against the far wall, curving out into the lobby, and the old hotel's front desk sat between them. That's where Jane was leading me. Behind the counter, a pair of older gentlemen in black suits calmly tabbed through hidden keypads. The sounds of a string quartet playing a muzak'd pop classic filtered between the titters and whispers of a dozen elegant women scattered around the room in singles and pairs, leading conversations with clusters of civilians and women each jockeying to impress their hosts for the pleasure of a laugh or caress or perhaps just a glance of cleavage.

Despite the evening gowns and tuxedos around us, neither Jane’s attire nor my own poverty-casual fashion statement attracted any attention. That was fine with me; I turned my eyes back to Jane before I drew a glance, and let my view wander down to her ass. After the car I didn’t think I had to worry about my impolite leer, and the skirt did roll nicely over her cheeks as she walked.

One of the clerks looked up before we reached him. "Good Evening, Jane." They exchanged pleasantries while I took in more details from the lobby, and she gave him my name. Then he was asking for my attention. He was gesturing to a copper plaque he had slid up onto the countertop. "Sir, you will find that the agreement printed here is much like the one forwarded to you last week. You need only press both thumbs into the circle at the bottom to ratify it. If, at any time before the contract is completed, you wish to cancel the agreement, you may do so by returning here and placing both thumbs in the revoke circle, there. Any cancellation of the contract will be subject to fees in accordance with the scale you signed to last week. Is this clear? Please say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’."

I said yes, and he advised me to read the agreement carefully before thumbprinting, but I was already picking through it. Old habits only die with you, they say.

The first four clauses were fairly standard for a check-out hotel, and the last indicated that I'd waived the fee schedule and agreed to leave all of my non-sanctified holdings to the company. I pressed both thumbs to the circle, and the ionizing wave tingled as it trapped a few skin cells against the surface.

The man flashed a gracious smile as he pressed a sterile pad to the thumbcircle and slid the contract off the desk. "I hope you enjoy your stay, Sir. Jane, there are messages for you. Will you take them now, or shall I send them up?"

"I'll call for them later," she said over her shoulder as she was leading me to the stair conveyor. In silence we ascended to the grand balcony and the bank of elevators there. From this height I could see the whole lobby. One of the groups was breaking up - the hostess had selected a suit and a skirt from the other three and was leading them to a dark corner. The remainders casually attempted to insinuate themselves into nearby groups without appearing rejected. Behind me, an elevator chimed, but we let it go so as not to share it with a group of businessmen. I appreciated the privacy.

Once they were gone I leaned toward Jane. "Is tonight it?" I asked in a low voice. "I mean, is it up to your room, and then it's over with?"

"Are you anxious?" she asked back, looking at me uncertainly for the first time. "I could arrange it, if that's what you want, but I'll need to call back to the desk."

"No, no... That’s not what I meant. I just didn't know what was typical.” I continued after a moment. “I don't think I'm ready quite yet... I don't think I'm in the mood, if that makes sense."

She smiled, and another elevator chimed. A buxom Latina walked out with a rather pale but broadly smiling older woman. They didn't mind us as we filled the car behind them, closing the doors so no one else would try to catch the ride. "Two to three days is probably normal, but it's your party. Escrow usually takes two days to clear, but if you'd like to hurry, we can convert you to fee. But that's just business. You strike me as someone who needs some attention, and I'm the kind of girl who enjoys a little anticipation and expectation. I'm guessing three nights, at least, for you. If you don't have a strong preference, maybe I'll just surprise you. I think you've already had to do enough planning and worrying.” She looked me square in the eye. “If you will just give yourself over to me entirely, if you let me be your fate, you can trust me."

I nodded. Her confidence was infectious. For the first time in a long time, I think I really relaxed.

She took my bag and I up to her room - her schedule was free through the night, she said, and my room wasn't ready. It was a long ride in the elevator. I wasn't sure how many floors we ascended, since only the door controls were labeled and the level indicator was dark. When the elevator finally glided to a stop and the doors slid noiselessly apart behind us, a wide but short hallway appeared. There were only three sets of double doors leading from it; we crossed to the middle set.

I held my bag while she confirmed her ID at the doorpad and walked into the dark room beyond. I heard her set her purse down. Beyond her, far beyond her into the room, stretched a swath of city lights. The windows on that wall – the windows practically were the wall – extended at least two score feet. Jane turned a knob by the door, and the overhead lights slowly rose. The room was huge. It was divided by bench-walls, furniture, and a sunken area, and each section had its own style. The main stretch of the room was clothed in white marble, and simple, modern furniture provided places for sitting, eating, and webbing. To the right, a tall hearth loomed out of a brick wall; two rich wood and fur-patterned chairs suitable for recounting safari stories sat in front of it. Beyond, dark wooden doors discretely hinted at another room. On the far side of the room, fitted into a curve of the window wall, three steps led down into a wide, sunken circle. A dark frame draped with crimson and satin hung above. In the center, dominating the reverse dais, was a huge four-posted bed. It was also swathed in heavy, sensuous materials. It was clearly a "fucking bed".

She came back and took my duffel from me, then deposited it just inside the door. Taking me by the hand she led me into the room, and the door slid shut behind us. She took me toward the left wall, toward a disguised white marble door that opened with a gentle press and a click. A hidden room appeared, revealing a large glass shower in the center of an unusual bathroom. The room was focused on the round shower like an eye on its pupil. The shower itself was large enough for two, or three at the most. The sink was an afterthought on the wall, and the small door on the other side probably led to a toilet. A pair of wooden benches sat to either side of the door; towels and toiletries were stacked beneath them. To one side, the side with the best viewing angle, lounged a comfortable-looking white leather chair.

Jane chatted as she turned knobs on the wall outside the shower, and showerheads a dozen feet above began pouring a steady, pattering stream. Once steam began to rise in the shower, she sank down into the leather chair and crossed her legs. "Go ahead."

I hesitated.

“There’s no room for shyness in there, and you need to clean up. Unless you want to get dirty again, schoolboy.” She uncrossed her legs and spread her knees. Her brows arched suggestively. I was reminded that her panties were in my pocket.

I stepped toward her, but she lifted a boot and crossed her legs again, smoothing her short skirt over her upper thigh with a smirking chortle. “I’m such a tease. Now go ahead and take off your clothes. Shirt first, please. And don’t rush it.”

I was still uncertain, but I pushed myself to pull my shirt off over my head. There was no reason to hold on to modesty now, but, like I said, old habits don’t die by themselves. I leaned against the glass wall of the shower to pull off my shoes and socks, and watched her closely beneath my brows. She was watching me, too, but not my eyes - her gaze was roving over my body. It wasn’t ogling. It was measuring. I imagined she was counting my imperfections. She stretched out beckoning hands once my shoes were on the bench, and I crossed back to her so she could slide out my belt, then slip off my jeans and shorts with an unsubtle grope. She waved me back, and said with a wink, "Put your shoulders back and turn for me. I'd like to know what I'm having for dinner."

I was no spectacle of manhood, I knew. I was average, with a small post-college belly and thinning hair. But I performed a slow turn before her, and she squeezed my ass and my inner thigh as I came around, like she was a grocer checking for freshness. As I came back to face her, she nodded appreciatively.

"I thought so. The jerks are always musclebound, or try to flex so I'll think they are. They have something to prove - even to me. But you’re just right. Not a jock. A spectacle of manhood."

I blinked, and gave her a funny look.

She gave it right back.

She chatted with me while I showered - telling me how and where and when to wash while sharing short anecdotes that didn't really give away anything too personal but painted a picture of a carefree, adventuresome, mysterious life. She was an active girl who had often worked several jobs a night when she first started. She was more discriminating now, and she only picked up enders – check-out types like myself – every so often, when one caught her attention. She liked to give them her attention, her full attention. She would, after all, be the only one to know their whole life story. Though she spoke with conviction and confidence, I could tell she'd said the same thing dozens of times before. It was a speech designed to make me feel special, to relax me, to lower my guard. It worked, too.

She told me that there was a plan, a technique that most of the girls would use with an ender, especially if they didn’t want to be tied up long after escrow cleared. The night the ender arrived, he’d be lavished with attention - public attention, if he would take it. He'd be taken downtown, shown off in a couple of name-brand clubs, have his neck nibbled on at the bar by the girl and a couple of her friends, maybe even fucked on the table in the back corner where they would be seen by just the right people. This was advertising, and the girl would make sure everyone saw what a good time their ender was having. They'd get drunk, but definitely not high, and they'd stay up late, all night. A few hours past midnight, the girl would start withdrawing, just a little bit at a time, leaving the ender alone while she just had to talk to (or kiss, or eat) someone else, and she might forget to come back for half an hour. Or two. The ender, if played properly, would become uncomfortable, but not demanding - he'd beg for attention like a dog, and feel somehow at fault as it was increasingly denied to him. In his drunken solitude, he’d remember all of the reasons that drove him to his decision. Later, after his girl disappeared altogether, probably to an hourly job, one of the hotel’s cars would come by to pick him, and he'd be taken back to his cell of a room for a gourmet but stale breakfast delivered by another girl, but eaten alone. His own girl would come by to look in on him, and if he wasn't asleep, she might give him a quickie before promising to meet him right after lunch. Whatever kept him on the hook. But she'd leave him in his room or an upstairs hotel lobby until evening, when he was despairing, and then, in grand gesture of benevolence, she'd call him to her suite and swoop down to finish him off, ending his misery for good.

The point of all this was, of course, to weed out the jerks who were too narcissistic to follow through, and to keep any of the real enders unsettled enough that they wouldn't flake out and cause a whole mess of paperwork. It was risk management. The details varied from girl to girl to whim to mood, but the results were pretty much the same, and they were reliable.

Jane was toweling me off with a terry-cloth robe as she told me that this was not at all like her plan for me. She had already decided I wasn't a jerk or a flake, and she'd agreed to take me because she thought I'd be interesting to know. She had nearly cleared her schedule, and we were going to be spending time together. We could do whatever I wanted - as long as she liked it, too. There would be no bowling or miniature golf, and no card games unless it was strip poker. No going out again to advertise, unless she'd gravely misread me and I had an exhibitionist streak. And since my own room wouldn't be ready until tomorrow morning, I'd be sleeping here with her tonight, and every night I wished.

I let her know that I had put myself completely in her hands, and I would be happy to do whatever she thought would be fun. Her mischievous grin told me clearly that I had given the right answer.

She handed me a pair of slippers and led me out over the marble floor, past the fucking bed, to the squared leather couch facing the windows and overlooking the city. I lay on my stomach as I was directed and folded my arms under my chin. A moment later there was a jack-and-coke on the end table by my head. (That was no psychic act - it was on my questionnaire.)

After I'd had a few sips and she’d finished whatever she was doing, I heard the clop-clop of her boots as she came around into my view. She crossed her arms beneath her breasts and leaned up against the window. "So, schoolboy. Now I've got you alone in my room, and just a little tipsy. What should we do? I don't really feel like homework - I'm not the studying type tonight. I'm not the cheer type, either, but I can show you my kicks." She set her booted heel on the end-table and knocked my drink to the side. I looked up to a magnificent view while she peered down with satisfaction. "Or we can sit and 'talk'. I might be able to teach you a few things."

"That sounds good."

"I thought it might." She dropped her boot and circled the couch, coming to stand at the other end. "Roll onto your back." As I complied, keeping the robe around me, she crawled up over the arm of the couch and straddled my hips. She rolled her thighs and ass to settle in, and I went hard beneath her. "There, that's comfortable. Now what are we going to talk about?"

I shrugged. I wasn't very good at these types of games.

"Oh, you're still much too tense. We'll never have a good conversation until you relax." She pulled open the chest of the robe, then reached over the couch for a little bottle. Hot oil dribbled over my shoulders, neck, and the top of my stomach, and a moment later she was rubbing it in with the palms of her hands.

She started by asking me about movies. I was too busy watching her, feeling her, to give good answers, but only at first. She kept asking, kept laughing, kept massaging, and I began to speak more freely. She flirted with her fingers and her questions. She pinched my nipples and tickled under my arms. She listened to my answers, then teasingly described how she would turn my favorite movies into porn and what part she'd have me play. She was feeling me out. Her questions became less frequent but more probing as my conversation began to flow.

We had graduated from movies into books and philosophy, but strangely we were no less aroused. My arms were crossed behind my head and my eyes were drifting over the ceiling as I described Atlas Shrugged with no small words. I was feeling comfortably arrogant. She was only half-focused on the massage now; she'd been silent for some time and had taken to kissing my neck and chin as I spoke.

When I came to a break in thought, she sat up and put a hand over my mouth. "Close your eyes, schoolboy. I've got a surprise for you." I obeyed, and her thighs squeezed over my hips while she turned to the side. A moment later a nipple was pressed into my mouth, and she cupped a hand behind my head to hold me in place. Then she began talking. She had thoughts of her own on my subject. She delivered this critical opinion on Objectivism, and Ayn Rand in general, barely pausing mid-sentence to move my head to the other breast once I’d teased her perky and warm. Though I was understandably distracted, I listened. I was surprised – surprised and impressed. She was right - I'd never heard it said that way before, but she was spot on. And I’d done a thesis on Rand. She pushed up from me, and I opened my eyes to see her staring into them.

At that moment it was easy for me to look right back into her eyes; in fact, it would have been difficult to turn away. That struck me as peculiar later. I'd never been able to look someone in the eyes like that for more than a few seconds before self-evaluation got the better of me.

She kissed me hard, then pulled herself away. I thought she might slip open my robe and slide me inside her, but instead she ran her hands through her hair and let the pigtails drop out. "I could fuck the life out of you right now if I wasn’t careful. But I have some other ideas for tonight. You need an intermission, and I need a costume change. I'm done with the naughty schoolgirl for today. Or at least with the schoolgirl part." She slid off me and stood, patting the bulge beneath my robe. "Wait for me here." She winked, then turned a knob on the remote behind the couch. One of the window panes darkened just a shade, hiding the city lights to show a dim display screen - just so I'd know it was there.

I sighed, and listen to her clop off to her dark double doors in the corner. I left the display as she did - for the moment I preferred my own thoughts to public entertainment.




vii


I was still mulling myself over when the lights in the room dropped almost to a candle flame. There was rustling by the fucking bed, but I barely heard it, and didn’t turn to look. I didn't turn to look yet, not until the screen flicked back to a tinted window and I heard a low, hissing voice far behind me: "Ahh... Dinnertime has come at last... Come here, my plump little argent. Fly to the flame."

I sat up on the couch. Only the lights at the far edge of the room were lit, and just barely at that. The fucking bed was a silhouette against the orange glow. A semi-sheer canopy had descended from the frame above the bed, and swags of drapery drooped around the posts and up to the walls and fell to wispy heaps on the floor. It felt like a den, or a nest. A dark figure swayed in the center - she was obscured in the folds of the curtains, but her hand slipped out, and a hooked finger beckoned. "Come closer." I left the robe and the slippers by the couch, and descended the stairs of the reverse dais, slow to feel each step in the dark. As I reached the bed, I realized that the drapery was patterned with heavy spiderwebs.

A gloved hand caught my wrist and pulled me through the curtain. I was immediately pinned face down on the bed and wrapped tightly between sheets and thighs, fingers and pillows, and the not-infrequent nibbling kiss. A blindfold was slipped over my eyes. Over the next several minutes, while the wraps continuously tightened around me, I was rolled onto my back and each of my limbs was drawn free from the bundling and very firmly pulled straight, only to be tied to a cornerpost of the bed. I didn't struggle, but I don't think it would have mattered - she was surprisingly strong and quick with her hands. Each time she moved, it was brief and deliberate and ended in a pin that kept me pressed, immobile, to the mattress. At last I was spread-eagled, though my body was still swaddled. I could tell she was satisfied - I felt her strum each of my bonds and cluck her tongue.

Then she sat back on my hips and pulled off the blindfold. My eyes had adjusted, so even in the low light I could now see her clearly. Her lips were full and painted a bright, bloody red. They twisted into a closed, satisfied smile. Her eyes were heavily shadowed, and her black lids drooped dangerously. Her hair was hidden in a tight knot behind her head. She wore a black stocking catsuit that clung to her curves and wrinkled at just the right places; her belly was covered by a satin hourglass, red as her lips. Her elbow-length gloves ended in hard curved points at the fingertips - like claws - which she now used to loosen and peel back my wrappings and tease my chest. Her smile parted, and she bared a pair of sharp fangs. Her tongue flicked against them as she spoke, giving her a slight lisp.

"Such a present for me to unwrap! And now that I’ve caught you in my web, my argent, you know your doom is near. But before I have my way with you, I’ll tell you a truth: all spiders bite. Lucky for you, the bites themselves are rarely deadly. It’s what we do afterward that matters." She licked her lips. The lights of the room disappeared as her shadow fell over me.




viii


I woke the next morning to a brightly sunlit room. A pale yellow glow flowed in from the wall of windows, painting a faded, impressionistic image of the web-draped bed against the far wall.

I propped myself up and saw that my wrists and ankles were still tightly bound in last night’s silk ties. The ties themselves, however, dangled loosely, and were only restrained by their overnight twisting in the sheets.

There was a solid-sounding click from the corner of the room. I sat up to see Jane had just emerged from the dark wooden doors. She wore grey sweats, a loose t-shirt, and fuzzy slippers, and she walked with her head cocked over her shoulder while she wrapped a towel around her hair.

"Oh-" She spotted me then, and turned toward me. She tucked the towel up into a makeshift turban as she descended to the bed and sat beside me. "I didn't think you'd be up so early - not after last night."

Last night: It was... It was a swirl of images now, and I remembered we... We did everything, or rather she did everything, and I was her toy - her very pleased, satisfied toy. It was all part of her story, her game, where she was the spider and I her midnight snack, but I don’t think even the black widow’s mate gets the treatment I got before he is devoured.

No one memory would stick in my mind long enough to relive. They kept fading and blurring, but the whole experience was steeped in a feeling, a sort of golden, overwhelming bliss, like it was the first time I'd been laid. I looked at her now, without any make up, dressed like a stay-at-home, and saw that she was beautiful. She had a very pretty face - wide, knowing eyes with dark lashes, lips just full enough to frown, smile, or pout, and naturally arched brows. Her body - well, a modeling agency would probably ask her to shed a few pounds, but there were no folds or sags in her curves, and she knew how to work them. But it was that quality, the same confidence I saw yesterday, which could exhibit calm coolness, light a fire behind her eyes, and invite acknowledgement of her alpha status all at the same time. That was what defined her.

I remembered her questions and I shrugged dumbly; "'I wake with the Sun'".

I think she caught the quote from the lyric – it was from a song on that Refinery album she took - because she gave me a funny sort of smile and watched me a moment. "Well, feel free to lie in, if you'd like, and I will bring you breakfast. Or you can get up and take a bath, and then we'll go for breakfast. But either way, you're having a solid breakfast. I've got to keep you well-fed if you're going to last the three days. Last night was barely foreplay." She grinned wickedly.

I stood, and I remembered the bindings as they came with me. Even though the knots were carefully tied not to cut the circulation to my fingers, they were not so loose that I could slip free. I started picking at the knot, but soon realized that it was so tight it would have to be cut. "Leave it," she said, loosely taking the free end of the silk. "I like you with handles. I'll cut them down after your shower so you don't trip." She gave me a loud slap on the ass, starting me off at a quickly-suppressed gallop toward the shower.




ix


True to her word, after I was dried off she cut each leash down to about six inches and wrapped up the loose ends. She'd changed into a flower print sundress - nothing naughty, just pleasant and comfortable. She'd also found a change of clothes for me, but not from my bag, which was still sitting just inside the door. I now wore pressed khaki jeans, sandals, and a white linen shirt with the hotel's monogram. She produced my ohm and hung it around my neck, then tucked the pendent beneath the shirt.

We went up in the elevator, I think - the unnumbered, unlit button was far from the one she'd hit last night, but we seemed to go only a few floors - and walked a short hall to what smelled like a bakery. Inside were scattered clusters of equally mismatched and luxurious chairs and loveseats facing short, round tables. Many were empty, and none of them seemed to have an ender in them - certainly no-one was dressed like me. Everyone there was female, and each was enjoying her own style of luxury. Jane led me to the other side of the room by way of each group; as we went, she introduced me to the girls by name and polite details, and gave them only my name in return. I got the sense that she was friendly with most of them but in none of their cliques, which had drawn them together like soap bubbles on dishwater. None of the girls appeared surprised to see me, and they feigned varying amounts of interest in me personally, but none of them went back to their previous conversations until we were out of earshot. Jane settled us in a loveseat in the back corner of the room from which we could see the others but not be overheard ourselves. She told me a few embarrassing details about some of them.

We settled into talking, mostly about what we'd do today. I let my eyes wander around the room. All of the girls seemed to be drinking tea. Occasionally a tray of food would arrive for one of them, but they didn't eat from it; instead they took their leave and carried it out of the room. Within a few minutes I had a tray of my own laden with breakfast foods - eggs, sausages, a sweetroll - enough to fill me but not to stuff. Jane was now sipping from a cup of hot, pungent tea herself. The cup was clear, and in the bottom was a large flower blossom rooted to a smooth stone; the petals seemed flush with life despite the steam rising from the water. Jane was listing off things we could do today, but I didn't have any lingering desire to fly or scuba or do anything really risky. I wanted a couple of hours to think and write, perhaps. I was still open to suggestions, by which I secretly meant I hoped for more of last night. But if nothing else seemed better, I told her I’d like her to show me around the hotel. It seemed an interesting place.

She gave me that same sort of funny smile, but nodded.

She was done with her tea when I was done with my food. She had picked a few petals from the flower to munch on, but it seemed little the worse for wear. She set a copper plaque down in front of me – it was a smaller version of the one from the evening before. "By law, I will ask you to renew the contract every day. I'm doing it this morning because if you decline to continue now, you're liable only for one night's stay. Just say 'Yes' or 'No' to the agreement printed there and press both thumbs into the appropriate circle."

I quickly re-read the agreement - there were no surprises - and affirmed the contract with a word, thumbprints, and DNA. "I'm very set on this, Jane." I mustered all of my sincerity when I said so, mostly to remind myself.

"I know." She returned the plaque to her purse. "I could see your determination as soon as I walked in your door. Here, give me your arm a moment." I complied, stretching my arm out as she retrieved a small black leather box from the bag and flipped it open. "This will hurt just a bit." Inside the box was what looked like an accounting stamp, but when she held my wrist and pressed it down into the underside of my arm, it did hurt, like a bite or a cut. She returned the stamp to the box, and I turned my arm to see a fine-dot matrix tattoo inked into my flesh. There, now permanently in my arm, was a neat row of strange symbols. The tattoo began to ooze blood, but she only took my arm back and pressed a cloth napkin against it for a minute. "It identifies you as a suicide - my suicide, actually. You could say your body is now my property, at least as far as the rest of the girls are concerned. Of course, it won't prevent you from declining the contract at any time if you change your mind, but then you'll have a nice souvenir to take away with you."




x


The tattoo seemed to be a hall pass, too.

Jane took me first to a floor with long halls stretching off in both directions, lined by tightly-packed doors on either side. The doors were numbered, and we strolled down the left hall until we found number 276. She produced a small fob and waved it in front of the door; a green light blinked overhead and the door clicked. She pushed it open. Beyond was a small, simply furnished room. It had a bed, a desk, a table, a chair, a restroom, a window, and a computer tablet resting on a stand - just what you'd expect to find in a hotel room, but with better quality and less decoration.

"This is your room. You can stay here whenever you want, and it's a good place for you to rest or think or write later on today. But don’t forget what I told you - you are mine, and I won't treat you like another girl might. I'd like you to spend your time with me. I won’t lock you in here, either. Here's your key - you'll need it to get out as well as in. If you do leave the room, I only ask you to send for me first so you don't get lost. Oh, and there's a spyhole beneath the numberplate - see right here? So, if you do want to spend any time in here, I'll give you a little piece of tape to cover it."

We left my room - my cell, really - as it was. Now that I knew about the spyhole, we flipped up the numberplate on several of the other doors along the hall. Most of them were empty, or too dark for me to see anything. I could just make out someone sleeping in a few of them. Jane motioned me over to one nearer the elevator. There were two or three shapes inside crouching over the bed, rocking and arching and slumping. "I think that's Vanessa's ender in there - it looks like they're getting ready to check her out." She dropped the numberplate and confided, "Vanessa doesn't like to get her own rooms too messy. Do you want to watch on the monitor?"

I shook my head.

She took me throughout the hotel, in no particular order, apparently - sometimes we went up in the elevator, sometimes down. She took me to the pool on the roof, through the parking garage again, into several kitchens, and around the two floors of the private casino. We saw the "recreation rooms" - conference halls converted to stages for fantasies more elaborate than Jane's spiderweb. A couple of them were in use, and we watched from the control room as a panty-less chorus line performed the Can-Can for a small audience of well-dressed business-types. Across the hallway, workers were tightening up the rigging on what appeared to be the inside of a one-ring Big Top, complete with wild beast cages and straw and peanut shells on the floor. One of the rooms was now a series of indoor pools, decorated like the bottom of the ocean. With a wink Jane told me that if I wanted to meet a mermaid, it could be arranged.

She took me through the back hallways where I saw the girls in various stages of make-up and dress. Whenever they noticed me, I was met with either an angry glare or worried furt, until their eyes flicked down to the tattoo on my arm and back to Jane. She showed me the security room, though only through the glass door, and pointed out the rows of solid-state drives archiving video and audio feeds from every room in use. Each year, she told me, the government sampled the archives to verify certain standards were met. She took me to the investor’s office - her hotel wasn’t publicly traded, but it was a very profitable business. There was an elaborate cutaway model of a cruise ship the hotel was planning to acquire. She even took me to the morgue and crematory, and showed me how the smoke was reclaimed before it left the building to eliminate the odor, which did nothing for business.

We ended the tour in the diner on the ground floor, where we sat on the same side of a booth, squeezed onto the red vinyl bench so we could both watch the same people. I was still satisfied from breakfast, but she ordered a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup for me, saying I may not remember to get dinner tonight. As I ate, she silently pored over a small tablet from her purse. Then, while my mouth was full, she asked, "Molly or Claire?"

I looked at her for explanation, but there was none, so I swallowed my mouthful and asked, "What do you mean?"

"Choose one - Claire or Molly? First reaction."

For no reason, I said, "Claire."

She seemed pleased, so I finished lunch. She had a taste of my tomato soup while it was still hot, but nothing beside.




xi


Later in the evening, we were back in my cell. Rather, I was in my cell and she was in the doorway, leaning up against the frame. I had written a bit in my journal - a final entry - and set it to expire, so it would delete if no-one stumbled across it and read it in the next few weeks. I'd taken a nap, too. Naps were a pleasure I would miss, but they weren’t worth living for. Then I was back at my desk and proof-reading the journal on the computer. If you're going to leave a legacy online, even something as trite and common as a personal journal, it should be well-written.

And now Jane stood there silently, watching me, but not hurrying me. She had changed costume again - she was wearing a black patent minidress, boots, fishnets, and gloves. I thought there might have been a riding crop slipped into one of the boots.

"I have some business tonight," she said, without warning. "It was already scheduled, and with a regular customer - not an ender, obviously. I may not be back in and fresh until after midnight."

I looked up at her with a lump in my chest. My room was fine, but only when I knew she was a phone call away. Suddenly the hotel seemed very large and lonely, and my cell foreign and unwelcoming.

"I told you I wouldn't leave you alone or lock you in your room, though, and I meant it. Claire's a good girl. I think you'll like her - she's a costume player, like me. If you're ready, I'll take you to her room."

I stood, and without speaking I turned off the computer and slid the chair under the desk. In the elevator, Jane seemed to sense my unease when she threw her arm over my shoulder. She was taller than me again. "I truly am sorry we aren't able to spend the whole night together, Duckie, but Claire will take good care of you - I've made sure of that. I've told her a lot about you, too, so I know you'll have a good time. And don't forget: I know what I’m talking about. I'm psychic."

She kissed me behind the ear and lingered as the elevator stopped and the door opened. Then she turned me toward a trio of doors so much like her floor that the center door could have been hers.

"Claire is on the left. She's already inside, and she’s expecting you, so just go right in. I'll come find you after midnight. You're going to have fun!"

Then she squeezed my ass and trotted me off the elevator. The door closed behind me and I could hear all that I knew of my present situation whirring away.

With nothing else to do, I passed down the short hallway to the left and tapped at the door. It was ajar and dark behind. The door slid open as I touched the panel. It would have seemed ominous if it had creaked, but doors don’t do much creaking anymore. I stepped through and called out, "Hello?"

From the other side of the room, a lively voice replied, "Oh, come on in, Honey. And shut the door behind you!"

I touched the door closed, and heard a mechanism inside snikt into place – another touch on the panel confirmed that it had locked itself. I was in the room for good, now, so I sunk into the deep couch just inside the door. At least the lights had brightened.

Claire's room had the same basic features as Jane's - several sitting areas, a kitchenette, a wall of windows looking out over the city, and a large sunken circle framing an enormous bed. The colors and feel were very different, though - the furniture was some lightly varnished wood or painted an antiqued creamy color, and red brick accented the walls, steps, and windowsills. The room was warm, and everything was decorated to match, but it was too large and uncluttered to be cozy. Like Jane's room, a pair of heavy wooden doors hid in the back corner, but these were open, and light and preening noises drifted from them.

"I'm just taking a moment to touch up; I only got back from a show just now, so I haven't had time to change. Take off your shoes and come sit at the foot of the bed."

I stood again, slipped off the sandals, and walked down to the bed. Jane's was a huge four-poster with intricately cast head- and foot-boards; Claire’s was equally large, but lower to the ground, with tiered mattresses and a cushioned bench perimeter. A white fur rug, far too big to be the real skin of any one animal, stretched out in each direction from the bed. This was a bed designed for rolling off of. I perched on the edge of the bed and watched the doors.

A moment later, she emerged. Flinging the doors wide, she threw her arms out to each side, crossed one leg over the other, and said, "Ta-da!" She was... I wasn't sure.

She wore a tall red top hat with a sequin band and a matching swallow-tailed tuxedo coat. Beneath the coat was a deep-necked tuxedo halter-top, a shiny red cummerbund, and black satin briefs. Stockings, tall showgirl heels, and a bowtie choker completed the look. She clutched a bullwhip in her white-gloved hands. As for herself, she was a beauty of the exotic type, with skin the color of caramel, short black hair in loose curls, very dark eyes, and very red lips.

She completed her pose and began strutting toward me, one foot in front of the other like a model. She tapped the loops of her whip in the palm of her free hand. "Tut, tut, my dear, you're rather eager to get started. I didn't tell you to get on the bed yet - I told you to sit at the foot."

My face must have flushed the color of her hat. Wordlessly, I slipped from the edge of the bed, down the several terraces, to sit cross-legged in the thick rug on the floor. I tried to lean back against the bed for support, but the bottom step of the bed, even padded as it was, hit in an odd spot in the small of my back and left me awkward.

"Much better.” She caught the bullwhip and rolled the leather between a gloved thumb and finger. “I read your file, you know, before Jane did. I had pulled it, actually, but she has seniority. Pity." She took the steps down the reverse dais slowly, using the opportunity to display the length of her legs and the curve her heels gave her. "Do you know what I read in all of your answers?" Her heels stopped and tapped together right in front of me. She locked her knees and bent over, thrusting out her rear in a cheesecake pose, and lifted my chin with the whip. She didn't raise my head quite far enough to meet her eyes, just the scooped cleavage that hovered before me. "I read that you're eager to please, Honey. She straightened again, and my head stayed angled up. “‘Eager’ is good. I don't want to have to use this." She shook the whip, then tossed it over my head to the other side of the bed.

She stepped back from the rug so we could get a better look at each other, and rested her hands on her cocked hips. "See, I'm rather frustrated at the moment. I just got back from running our circus for a group of tourists, and let me tell you, I can put on quite a show." She wiggled her hips and ran her hands down her thighs. "I get the crowd all horny and excited, and I keep them there when the ring changes, but at the end of the night, they always want to leave with the girls in the acts." She began to pace in front of me as she worked toward her climax. "The lionesses and tigresses - they get their prey, the ponygirls get their riders, the clowns their prats, and even the acrobats leave with some balls and pins to juggle, if you follow. All I want is my … one … mark." She had stepped right up to me, a heel on either side of my legs sunk into the fur rug, and she thrust her satin-covered mons up against my face. "Someone to take advantage of." Her thighs squeezed over my cheeks and chin and she grabbed the back of my head for leverage as she slid down to my chest and up again, like I was a dancer’s pole. "Come on, baby, give me something. I need some friction."

My hands found their way up the back of her legs to cup her ass, and after a few minutes of grinding, groaning, and gasping - of her leg hooked over my shoulder and around my neck to hold me in place - of nearly precarious balancing acts stabilized by a quick grab of her gloved hands, pressing my head ever harder into her, we both found our way back up onto the edge of the bed. My fingers had discovered a hidden snap conveniently placed at the bottom seam of her briefs, and my lips and tongue found no further resistance - instead a rather pressing invitation - behind.

Despite her show of force, she rolled under me after her first orgasm, and I undressed us both over the next fifteen minutes. Only her stockings and one glove managed to stay on through it all, until I lay beside her, panting heavily, and I wore only what I came with to the world. She stared into my eyes for a long moment, then kissed me on the lips for the first time, holding my face between her fingertips as she rose-budded my nose, my chin, the shape of my lips, tasting herself on me.

She pulled back again to study my face and judge me. "Jane made me promise to take special care of you. I was not to leave you alone, but she didn't want me to get attached, either. So, I think I'll just keep you so busy that you won't even know when she's here and it's time to leave." She lifted herself to her hands and knees and crouched over me. "Now, I don't think you'll be ready to go again for another couple of hours, but I don't have that problem.” She pulled off the remaining glove, one finger at a time. “I wasn't kidding when I said I had a lot of frustration to work out, you know. And Honey, I've got a lot of body that’s gonna need attention."




xii


I certainly wasn't watching the time, but her frustrations seemed to be gone after about an hour of my carefully-directed ministrations. She smoked afterward. I didn’t, though I didn’t mind the smell. I was still building my strength, she told me, so she left me re-clothed and seated at her bar by the kitchenette with a glass of juice and a heated meat pastry. Meanwhile she had disappeared back through her double doors.

She was going to be gone for some time, so after I'd finished and cleaned up, I followed her instructions and used the lighter in the drawer to start oil lamps scattered all over the room. I replaced the lighter, turned the master light switch to off, then found my way to a settee in what was now a moody, darkened corner. I sat on the floor, on a cushion at the foot of the settee. I was a quick student.

She came in her own time, and with no small amount of drama. A very fine mist gradually filled the air, cooling it to a chill, creating flickering halos around the lamp flames, and causing the moon to cast long, eerie beams through the room. I didn't see her doors open or close, but in one moment she stood there, a faint outline of moonlight. Her shape was long and flowing and gave the impression that she glided as she crossed the glowing wooden floor. She stopped several yards away, still hidden in shadow, and bid me stand with a wave of her fingers. She then slid forward deliberately, and the moon caught her full.

She wore a long, filmy gown of blacks and reds, with Elizabethan sleeves and a square bust line. Draping from her fingerless gloves was a bat-winged shawl or cape. I expected to see a high peaked collar as well, but her shoulders and neck were decorated only with a ponderous jeweled pendant and locks of long, curling hair which hadn't been hers an hour ago. Her skin was paler, or seemed it in the moonlight, and her red lips were now a deep crimson. Long polished nails on each finger glistened as she reached out toward me.

She traced a ring under my jaw and around my neck with several of those nails as she circled me, and her gown trailed around my legs. She stopped behind one shoulder and slid the open neck of my shirt down over my upper arm, popping a button open. She leaned closer, and I could feel her breath behind my ear, along my neck as she breathed me in, just an inch away. I heard her tongue slackering behind her teeth. My skin tingled with expectancy.

Then she continued her way around me and took my hand, pulling me toward her as she draped herself on the settee. "Come and sit with me." Her voice was low and thick, and laced with a believable accent. She sat me by her lap, and I reclined against her, so my head lay between her arm and bosom. She stroked my cheek with the backs of her fingers and the tips of her nails, and parted her lips so I could see her long, wicked fangs.

"What are we doing?" There was just the right amount of timidity in my voice.

"Making you wait. Making you wonder, anticipate when I'll bite into your warm, soft flesh." She nuzzled up beside my neck and took my earlobe between her lips, rolling it between her fangs, pinching it just until it stung. "Feeling your heart beat beneath my breast, and imagining the rich, salty blood just beneath your skin. Letting you hear my mouth water and my tongue drip, whispering to you about what else is wet as well." She slid her leg between mine and back out again.

A part of my mind, that small part which always watched me from the outside, bobbed above the waves of immediacy and sensation. I was amazed by her skill in the drama even as I shivered each time she let her nails or lips brush the tender parts of my neck. She whispered dirty things in my ear, and did dirty things without ever moving from behind me, just out of view over my shoulder. Though we were both still clothed, our bodies were twined, and I could feel her skin warming and mine cooling as we mingled. Her voice was constant, sultry, teasing. I listened in stunned awe as her lips murmured threats and promises I won’t repeat. The sense of self became saturated in my fascination with her - my captivation by her - and sunk into the bottom of my mind. I didn't even realize she'd slipped a hand into my pants until she held me firmly in her grasp. With a mischievous smirk, she withdrew and ran her nails up my chest.

She caught the underside of my arm and extended it out. Jane's silk binding dangled from my wrist. "The Spider had you in her web last night, did she? What name did she call you, my dear? Who did she have for her dinner?"

My throat was surprisingly dry, and my voice cracked as I spoke. "Argent. Her favorite. ...She said."

"Mmm." She chuckled. "Her favorite, indeed. She must have thought you rather delicious. Sthenopis Argenteomaculatus."

I tingled as the words rolled slowly in accent from her tongue, past her teeth, through her lips. She flirted with the syllables. It was a mouthful I didn’t try to repeat. "What?"

"A beautifully marked moth. A particularly plump and juicy moth. A Ghost Moth, it’s called. I think she likes you.” She let the binding fall free, and our arms came back to the settee together. “But tonight, you’re in my arms." She suddenly pulled me tight, and her lips closed on my neck before I could flinch. The kiss was strong, yet her fangs and tongue only played on the surface. She pulled away leaving what was certain to be a prominent hickey the next morning.

She shifted from behind me and I slipped back flat on the settee. Now leaning over me, she caught my nipple between her teeth and flicked it with her tongue.

I shivered and drew in a sharp breath.

"Am I scaring you?" she asked, as she nibbled her way up to my collarbone and hesitated impatiently beneath my chin. "You should be scared. You should be terrified. You’re just my type." She flicked her hand, and around the room all of the lamps died. The city lights were hidden behind the settee back, and she was a black shadow over me - a shadow with a cold breath and tongue on my neck. Her gown draped heavily on me as she kissed and bit and licked; her legs spread and a deft hand pulled up the layers of her skirts until she was naked on top of me. Her skin was so smooth and supple, but still cool. With a movement of her hips, she took me inside of her.




xiii


Later, when we were still on the couch and I was laying on my back while she sat between my feet – when I was thinking I might like that cigarette after all - she was idly stroking my thigh with her nails as if to excite me back to action again, and she said (now without the accent), "Jane knows how to pick the good ones." I looked up at her and she smiled sweetly. "I'm opening up to you, Honey. I like you. I like that even when I say that, I can tell you're not one of the bastards who wants to back out of the deal and try to make me his girlfriend. You're determined to go through with it, but you're not angsty or dripping with some immortal sadness that everyone around you has to wade through. You're peaceful. That's so yummy." She licked my ankle to prove it.

I smiled and sighed.

She went back to coursing her still-long nails through my leg hair. "You seem to be enjoying yourself so far."

"Yes... "

"Is there a 'but' I’m hearing in there?"

"No... No ‘but’ at all. It's just ... unusual."

"What? The costumes?"

"No, they’re fun. And I can understand why it might be good for you, too... I think. I'm just surprised at how often both you and Jane want to sit on my face. It's not that I mind it - I like it. Actually, it's kind of my favorite. Is that something in my profile?"

Claire laughed. "No, Honey, it's in your eyes. Actually, it's just a good position so I can do my thing without you - whoever I'm with, not you in particular - talking too much or trying to direct me. Unless you express a preference or you're an hourly, I'd probably end up there anyway, but you really seemed to enjoy it. If I hadn't promised Jane I’d give you back in one piece, I'd probably still be there. It's my favorite, too."
We smirked at each other.

She lay down beside me and pulled me to her breast. "So are you excited … being fucked to death?"

I suckled her nipple - that's what she wanted - and didn't answer until she let me go. It gave me enough time to come up with an honest response. "Don't take this the wrong way - I wouldn’t want to change a thing. But the fucking is more of a fringe benefit for me."

She held me back from her so she could study my face. "But you willed everything to us, so you’re not just a turnaround. There was nothing unusual in your background..." Her eyes hardened. "Are you some kind of fetishist?"

It was my turn to laugh for once. "No."

"No... I didn't think you were. Beside, Jane can pick out a fetishist right away. Well, I give up - I'll bite. What are you looking for in a death by vampire?"




xiv


I probably should have explained something, but most people know it already. By this time, the majority of prostitution around the world was run by vampires. There were normal nickel and dime girls out there, but the business was a vampire business. A lot of cathouses also doubled as chophouses, and vice versa.

It’s not like it happened overnight. The girls performed both services, I imagine, long before they came out to the public. I think they had pornography, too, but that’s harder to tell. It was something about them being girls – vampires are almost exclusively female - and their ability to maintain or even slightly change their appearance by intent alone. Of course, it helped that they didn't get or pass diseases, beside that one main one. They certainly didn’t have any religious hang-ups. And I'm sure it worked out nicely that they could find clientele who would give up a pint or two of the red stuff for a discounted night in bed and wouldn’t blab about it afterward.

But then they were discovered, or made themselves public, or some combination of the two, right about when the Stephenson Lens was invented. I've heard that the Stephenson Lens was what uncovered them, and I’ve heard that the vampires themselves made the Lens. Either way, they were public. There was uproar for a few months. Some people thought they should be kicked out of the country, but they had their fingers in too many businesses. Some people thought there should be a war, and in a few countries there have been. There were killings on both sides around here.

But one of the greatest features of our country has always been the capacity to absorb any kind of newcomer. Vampires had adapted to living sociably with people long ago, and they already had a pretty strong lobby. They managed to legalize prostitution in every state, and my guess is that they were behind the social acceptance of suicide as well. They had a neat little package - a niche in society that even the uptight moralites could wink at. After all, vampires weren't really human any more anyway – they didn’t reincarnate like the rest of us. God wouldn’t be interested in their souls.




xv


I picked over my words before I answered Claire, choosing the most vague but accurate response. "I’m just done," I told her.

She smiled, and played with the folds of my ear between her fingers. "It's certainly not a bad way to go. And the maternity wards in this neighborhood are first rate. We make substantial donations to keep them that way."

She hadn’t caught it. "No... I'm really done, for good. I've done some reading, and not the kind of books you find in the library. I know. About the blood. Or I guess the flesh for some of you. That's not really what you feed on. It's just the vehicle. The soul’s not as immortal as everyone thinks."

She was no longer smiling - she was sitting straight up and had unwrapped herself from me.

"I'm looking for extinction, Claire."

She stood, and she was cold and distant. A shadow passed over her eyes.

I sighed. I had expected I might get a reaction like this, and that’s why I had meant to keep it a secret for as long as possible - from Jane and the others - that I knew about them. But then Claire had started opening up. I had gotten relaxed and sloppy.




xvi


You see, vampires had managed to gain their social acceptance, where they had managed to gain it, because the living citizens of those communities were thoroughly convinced that their soul was eternal.

Before the Lens changed their paradigm, their blood and their flesh - their life - was all they really had. Even the afterlife churches were suspiciously greedy with their mortal coils. But after the Lens, blood and flesh were merely temporary possessions, commodities, to be bartered away if one wished. After the legality of the will-to-self was ratified, blood and flesh were the most temporary possessions one had. But if those same people understood that their soul was at risk... If they knew that when a vampire drank blood, they sipped from the grail of the spirit, and could even consume them entirely... Well, the public life of the vampire would be short-lived.

Of course, I didn't actually know all of this. Reading the journals of the Refinery frontman turned East-Asian Xenophobe Militant wasn't quite like reading a scientific journal or hearing it from the fanged mouth itself. There was a lot of guessing, a lot of piecing things together, a lot of trusting untrustworthy sources. It was a long shot, but I didn’t have much to lose. But now - now I had Claire's reaction.




xvii


Claire's eyes were still locked to me as she now stood far away, by the door, whispering urgently into the receiver. I dropped back to the settee and closed my eyes. Shit. So much for discretion.

I heard her door open and shut, and I knew she had locked me in. There was nothing to do but wait. I wasn't worried. What could they do to me, anyway, that I wasn't already paying for? But it was a good time wasted. It was nice to be wanted, even if it was just as a rare steak.

I felt a strange presence hovering over me.

My eyes snapped open and I started to my elbows. Standing over the couch was a specter, or the closest to one I had ever seen. She was all in white - loose, gauzy white, and her skin and hair were nearly as blanched. Her eyes, like so many of the girls, were hooded in dark shadow. She nibbled heavy, glossy pink lips, and dry-washed her hands as she peered down at me.

"Shhh..." She laid a finger over my mouth.

I didn't say anything, but I didn't settle down again, either. It was difficult to distinguish her features in the mask of white, but I thought her unpretty, perhaps haughty in her features.

"My poor dear..."

She kneeled on the edge of the settee, then draped herself over me like a death shroud. After a moment of resistance, I fell back to the cushions.

"Left alone, in this large, dark room... It’s dangerous here, you know."

She stroked my cheek and the top of my head, and sidled and shifted and settled until she was snuggled up tightly against me.

"My poor dear..."




xviii


My eyelids popped to the clack-clack of heels on the wooden floor. I had no idea how much time had passed - it could have been minutes or hours. I had a headache. My throat burned and weighed heavy. The specter was on me, clutching my shoulders and head, her fangs nestled into the same bite Claire had made earlier in the soft part of my neck. Her tongue pumped against my flesh while her teeth held the pressure, producing a steady ooze of blood into her mouth.

"Get out!" Jane's voice was angry, loud and commanding, and the specter flinched and shriveled away from me. Without a sound she backed away from the settee, then fled for the door.

Jane stood over me with her arms crossed, still in the black leather, but her hair was loose and falling over her shoulders. "Such a mess."

Claire stood in almost the same pose at the door, once she had shut it behind the flown leech.

I truly was a mess - I was limp in the settee, unable or unwilling to move. Blood was pooling in the divot of my breastbone and beginning to drip to the cushion, as, in her haste, the specter was unable to close the wound. Jane crouched beside me and held the bite with her fingers while she used my shirt to mop up the excess, then closed her mouth over the wound until the reagents in her saliva stopped the flow and the bite had swollen shut.

Then she was helping me to my feet and supporting me as we crossed the long, long room toward the door.

"You should not have let her in," Jane was saying. Claire had some protest, but Jane silenced her. "You should have kept this quiet. I’ll send for you later. In his cell. We'll talk."




xix


I remember feeling feverish. My throat hurt in a way none of Jane or Claire’s bites had. I was weak – even the sheets thrown over me were too heavy to lift.

I remember Jane undressing me in the dark and putting me to bed. I remember waking when she let other people into the room. Once it was the old man from the desk that first night. Once it was Claire, and she stayed for awhile. Jane had some strong words for her, but they dropped to a whisper when they saw my eyes open. Another time it was a woman I didn't recognize, and she wasn't saying anything. A few times I woke and only Jane was there, sitting at the desk, staring intently at the tablet.

I remember being propped up for a drink from a warm cup that soothed my throat and let me feel my fingers and toes again.

Then it was light outside. A bright sun bled through the edges of the heavy curtains. The tablet was turned off and back on its stand, and Jane was watching me. She had changed again at some point into regulars - a black t-shirt, black shorts, and thick black tights. She sat cross-legged and sideways in the chair. She looked comfortable, and not at all tired. "Do you think you could eat?"
I wasn't sure, but Jane had food for me in a few minutes anyway - pasta with red sauce. She made sure I kept putting food in my mouth until I finally pushed it away.
"Not enough time." She frowned.

I couldn't sleep with the sunlight, so I lay in the bed and we talked. I talked mostly - as my throat permitted and between sips from that warm cup - and she asked me questions. They weren't the leading questions that would get us aroused or give her insight into what fantasy to fulfill next, but serious questions about my life, like a date interview. She asked about my parents and my brother - not details, but impressions about my relationships, what I liked and disliked about them. We went through all of the women I dated (a longer list than I remembered at first) and all of those I had been with (that list was much shorter – in fact it had doubled in the last two days). She tried to get me to name the things about myself that irritated other people, but I know nothing I gave her would've topped anyone’s list. There wasn't much I was really proud of, but not too much to regret, either. It wasn't that I hadn't thought about it before.

She asked me about the things I'd written, and I told her about my journal.

"I deleted it." She said it matter-of-factly, and I wasn't sure how to take it. "I wouldn't have - there wasn't anything in there to worry about - but you’ve put a scare on the Veyl, and now there will be scrutiny." She came over and sat beside me. "But I read the whole thing first - your journal - every post, and I will remember it. Everything. I knew that would mean more to you, anyway."

"It was set to auto-delete," I offered.

"I know."

She let the air clear for a moment, then pulled her bag up onto her lap and produced the copper plaque. "Look; it's past morning. Actually, it's late in the afternoon. How's your resolve?" She held out the plaque to me.

"Strong. Still strong." I affirmed the plaque verbally and pressed my thumbs into the circle when she held it before me.

"Good.” She paused. “Because today is your last day.” She slipped the plaque back into her bag as she continued. “I'd rather have more time to strengthen you up so we could both have a better time of it. I really wish that. But we can't risk--"

My heart pounded in my ears. There was a tinny buzzing, and it got louder, drowning out her words. It wasn’t a bell, but it tolled for me. I could see her clearly, but she was oddly distant, like I was looking through someone else's eyes. The fever flushed back. I felt cold and hot at the same time, and sweaty. I think I was going to faint.

"I love you." I said it loudly, awkwardly. I think I said it. It brought my senses around like I had.

She stopped mid-sentance and weighed my words for a long minute. "I see you mean that." She took my hand in hers and kissed it. "I won't say I don't feel the same."

She paused again.

"But there is no rule that says you can only love one person. Or that love is eternal. Or that love is not selfish. Or that love wouldn't make me want to gobble you up all the more." She smiled.

I smiled as well, but sighed. I knew. I had said something like that to someone else before. Not about the gobbling up. Nothing is eternal, and I wouldn't be satisfied with less than eternal. I wouldn't be satisfied with myself.

"Beside," she continued more loudly, as she stood back up and stretched, "you were wrong - wrong about the soul. I know what you read, and it's just paranoid xenophobia. The soul's in the breath, not the blood. You have actually seen a Stephenson image before, haven't you?"

She paused to watch my surprise, then nodded with satisfaction.

"So, maybe in 25 years or so we can go on another date. Look me up, if you still love me. I promise I'll be younger than ever, and I'll only bite if you want me to. Or if I can get you into a dark alley."




xx


Shit. Double shit.

You can't beat the system - you always pay for your sins, in one life or the next.

I had been laying in the dark for what seemed like hours. No more light streamed at the edges of the window, but Jane had turned a knob before she left, and the louvers outside the window had locked tight. It was pitch black in the room - even now my eyes hadn't adjusted to this level of dark. I couldn't see my own fingers move before my face. There was scarcely a sound to be heard, either, though occasionally I heard the dull thumps of someone walking in the hall. The first several times I thought the footsteps might be her, but I learned not to get my hopes up.

She had left me after standing up, after bemoaning that there wasn't time for my recovery - for one final game and one more costume. She had a pair of mouse ears I’d look great in, she said, but she'd just have to save those plans for another life. She was gone now to make new arrangements, and would be back in a few minutes. I had those few minutes to sleep or think or pray or whatever I liked. Then she shut the louvers and left the room. I heard the door lock behind her. So much for my own key. The lights went out a minute later.

I had fallen asleep. I remember waking up, anyway. Time lost, but it was time of which I now had plenty, apparently.

So.

I had been wrong.

Or he had been wrong, that Xenophobe, and I’d believed him. I can never remember not to trust the shortcuts, not when it counts.

This wouldn't be the end of me. There never would be.

I felt both dread and an unbidden sense of relief. I worried that there was some part of me I wasn't aware of, some part I'd kept locked up and silent, some part I hadn't convinced that I wanted to end this. Perhaps I didn't know myself as well as I thought. Perhaps I didn't want to end this - not even this one particular life. No - there was no point in keeping this one. I wasn't sure that I could back out now, not easily, not with Jane coming back any minute. I’d just thumbed the contract. I wasn’t a jerk. In any case, I had nothing here to live for, now - I'd made sure of that. I might as well reset the board and throw the dice again.
But now, now that I wasn't getting what I really wanted, what if it hurt too much? The biting, the bleeding, the dying. As I recalled, the only people who remembered their deaths died painfully. I'd done that a few times, too, I thought.

No... I had mostly healed bitemarks all over my body now, and the only one that had hurt was from last night – and that was probably because I’d survived it. So I was still committed to it. Next life, I would dedicate myself to the project, start off earlier, plan on hard work. No shortcuts. Maybe I would have a go at Buddhism, after all. Maybe it was worth all that extra effort of mediation and self-denial, when viewed from the perspective of an infinity of disappointing lives.

Maybe I would come back and find Jane in 25 years and spend an evening with her. But just one. Mouse ears won’t be my fashion next time.

The door clicked open, and a too-bright light poured in from the short hallway leading out of the room. I squeezed my eyes shut and looked away, but when I cracked them back open, the room was completely dark again. I heard soft footpads, and several low, whispering voices. There was a casual chuckle and comment, too muted to make out, and several snickers back. At least three other voices. One of them could have been Claire’s, maybe... I couldn't make out Jane. I held my breath. I heard the feet gather around the bed, and they stopped talking. For a long moment there was nothing.

Then...

There were fingers - cool fingers. They slipped under my sheets and found my body, slithered beneath my underclothes and pulled them off. Pressure pushed down the edges of the cushion, then the corners sank as bodies climbed up on the bed with me. The bed wasn't large, and within moments they were twined around me. Their skin was so smooth against my own, and even as they crawled over me, they were gentle, and their weight was never fully on me. I felt the light scratch of nailtips, the brush of nipples, the squeeze of thighs, and of course much kissing, wet kissing, with small nips and flicking tongues. They covered my body, but never came up to my head. There were four of them - I could tell as each gravitated to a wrist or ankle. They wrapped themselves around their chosen limb and kept me securely bound, though they never stopped their attentions to the soft parts of my flesh where the blood ran close the surface.

Then there was a new weight on the bed, one that settled over me. She lowered herself onto my chest and pressed a kiss on my lips - I could tell it was Jane even before her barely-audible words. "Do you have any last requests?"

I shook my head, forgetting the dark for a moment.

"In that case, I'll give you a kiss for your trip. And a truth for your love." She kissed me again, longer than I'd ever been kissed before. It was not deep, like a movie kiss, but it was passionate. It was a kiss that told me she knew who I was, really. Finally, she pulled away, or I did as I sank back into the pillow in the paralysis of complete relaxation. She put her cheek against mine and whispered, "The truth:"
Then she spoke so softly I heard heronly inside my head, and even the other four paused in their leechcraft, as if straining to hear. What she said... In the pitch black, I saw.

She drew away slowly and sat back on my stomach. I heard her say something I couldn't understand to the others, then she turned herself around and settled over my face. It felt natural, like we fit together that way, like I was the softball her glove was broken in with. I begin to kiss her how she’d shown me that very first day, the way that made her squirm, and she rubbed in a circle until both she and my lips were wet. She lay down on my stomach and gripped my thighs. Surprisingly I wasn't yet hard, but it didn't matter anyway, since she held me out of the way and bit into my inner thigh.

It hurt – for the first time it really hurt - but she crossed her calves beneath my head, muffling my cry in her flesh. Despite myself I writhed, struggled to breath and scream, to tear my leg from her burning teeth, but she and the other four were stronger than I'd ever imagined - it was like fighting silk-wrapped steel. If anything, my efforts only invigorated them - I felt fangs in my wrist, in the flesh of my thumb, the heel of my foot, my calf, my inner elbow, the balls of my toes. I was hot and sticky everywhere. Only my face was cool, trapped between Jane's thighs; only my head didn't feel like it was being used to put out matches.

My struggles faded with my small reserve of strength, and so did the pain. I caught short breaths as Jane began grinding violently; she had chewed deep into what now felt like some else's leg; she was digging through the muscle with her claws, tunneling with her tongue into my veins; she was an animal in heat.

Inside my skin I felt withdrawn - shriveled like a popcorn in water - into my chest and head. I felt at once like an infant and a sage, free of the care of understanding.

I felt the drift of a tide - out, away, up. But I was trapped.

My breath was stifled in the heavy press of her flesh.

I couldn't exhale.

I just wanted to exhale.

I… There was a tug. Something warm and wet, soft and sharp, ravishingly hungry, had a hold of me. It pulled. My grip slipped, and it took more of me.

I couldn't hold on.

I couldn't exhale.

I was nearly inside of it.

I let go. I didn't have choice.

She swallowed.





After


I wrote this for him - his last few days and thoughts. Not online, of course - on paper. Perhaps someday someone will read this, but it wouldn't matter. Queendom come: it won't matter then. It's only a few years now, anyway.

I left his body in the room - Claire and Mickey are flesh-eaters, and I gave them their fill. The staff would come by later to pick up the remains for firing and to clean the room. I made him watch Claire pick over his meat through my eyes for a few minutes, and his reaction was cute. He burrowed deeper into me. It made me horny again, but I’m never in the mood for another job so soon after a kill. It’s such hard work to eat someone whole. I feel like a python afterward. I just want to go back to my room to masturbate and digest.

People are like a wonton in a bowl of broth.

No, they're like lotus tea, with that one big blossom at the bottom of the cup. Usually you just drink the tea. It has the flavor of the lotus, and it's warm and refreshing, and it's what you're used to. Maybe you play with the petals or nibble away a few of them if you’re feeling greedy. But you leave the flower in the cup, and it stays alive and someone puts it into a new cup until the simmering water's soaked up the flavor and you have more tea. No one's upset unless you really mangle the petals and shock the blossom. Everyone’s happy, including the flower. Mostly. Because you always want that flower, the quintessence of the flavor. You lust for it. You imagine putting the whole blossom in your mouth, rolling it over your tongue, crushing the petals between your teeth. Swallowing. And sometimes, when no one's watching, you do it.

I am a well of souls - a well to which I add but let none draw. He'll be in me forever, mine to keep even after I am also collapsed into the Queendom. There is no extinction of what is eternal. Eventually, after I've loved him and coddled him and had my way and my fill, he'll be so much a part of me there will be no difference.

What he was will lose his memory and thoughts to me, but I think he'll remember until the end what I told him there, in his last moment. As he begins to see things through my eyes, as he feels other souls settle in beside him - too far, too dark, too self-absorbed to ever contact, but irrefutably there - that truth will be his mantra. I tell them all in the end, if I love them:

I'm a liar.


Coera – Gohira - Ohida