The Visitor
Vampire Erotica

Table of Contents

Title Page

Amuse-Bouche Janine Ashbless

A Girl’s Got to Eat Aishling Morgan

Crystal Primula Bond

Mist Noelle Keely

Wolf in the Fold Monica Belle

Rent Angela Caperton

A Strigoi in Rome Morwenna Drake

V-Positive Teresa Noelle Roberts

Death by V Chrissie Bentley

More from Mischief

About Mischief

Copyright

About the Publisher

Amuse-Bouche
Janine Ashbless

It was a dream, a nightmare, a fairy tale.

‘Rose, wake up.’

She woke with no coherent memory of where she was, aware only that it was raining because she could hear it drumming on the car roof, and that her neck ached from dozing off at an awkward angle. A waft of cooler air carried a fresh dampness to her lungs, dispelling the warm fug of the vehicle interior.

‘Come on.’ It was the woman: that silver bobbed hair, those high and delicate cheekbones belying her age. Rose tried to marshal her memories. Amanda, wasn’t it? She’d called herself Amanda and she’d been the one driving. Now she was standing at the far door and holding it open, oblivious – it seemed – to the weather.

‘Where are we?’ Rose looked around, confused. Through the rain-blurred night she saw white-plastered walls, illuminated windows and the base of a round turret. And a lit archway, within which a dark figure flickered momentarily. Yes, there’d been a man in the back with her, hadn’t there? What was his name? Something French, she thought, though he’d sounded English. An edge of accusation crept into her voice: ‘Is this Paris? You said you’d take me to Paris.’

‘We’re a few kilometres outside Paris.’ Water dripped from Amanda’s pale hair. ‘This is a hotel.’

‘Why’ve we stopped?’ Kyle would be wondering what was keeping her – she couldn’t keep him waiting, could she?

‘For dinner. Aren’t you hungry?’

Oh, of course – Kyle wasn’t expecting her. She hadn’t told him she was coming because she wanted it to be a wonderful surprise. She hadn’t told anyone about her plan to hitch-hike across the English Channel and then all the way to Kyle’s student digs in Paris. But yes, she was hungry. She’d been living on crisps for the last twenty-four hours. Crisps and that horrible ham sandwich on the ferry, while she was hiding in the ladies’ toilet waiting for that lorry driver with the creeping hands to give up on waiting for her.

Still dizzy with sleep, Rose emerged into the rain. Cold drops licked her lips. She’d been dreaming, she remembered. Something about kissing Kyle … only, his lips had been icy.

‘I can’t,’ she said, hunching against the downpour as Amanda came round the back of the car. The white walls of the chateau loomed like a fairy-tale castle and steam rose from the exterior up-lights in miniature mist wreathes. ‘I mean, I haven’t got that sort of money.’

‘Don’t worry about that. We’ve got it covered.’ Amanda took her arm. ‘Come on.’

The night was horrible and Rose obeyed, letting herself be led towards the arched doorway.

Inside, it was a palace: panelled walls, gilt furniture carved with grapes and cherubs, huge vases of flowers, enormous portraits of ugly people in beautiful clothes. The carpet under Rose’s feet was so thick she felt like she was sinking into it. Her jaw dropped. She’d only ever seen this sort of opulence on a school trip to Windsor Castle. She’d never imagined that real people stayed in places like this, and somehow it made her feel less real herself.

The man was there, talking in French to a stout, elegant woman who wore an expression of stiff hauteur. He glanced at them as they drew near, and smiled. For a moment Rose couldn’t help thinking the smile was for her, and her heart bumped. He was really not bad-looking for an older bloke – he must be in his thirties, she guessed – and his smile lit his dark eyes. Then she realised that the pleasure must be intended for Amanda, of course. His girlfriend. Auntie. Whatever.

She blushed.

Reynauld. That was his name. She remembered now. Her mind seemed to be all over the place, like a flock of pigeons scattered by the shadow of something dark overhead.

‘The room at the top of the stairs,’ he murmured to Amanda, with a tilt of his head to indicate the direction. ‘They’ll fetch the bags.’

‘This way, Rose.’

She let herself be shepherded to the foot of a great marble staircase, and it was only a chance glimpse through a pair of double doors that made her pause. The room beyond those doors was clearly a dining area. People in fine clothes sat below glittering chandeliers while waiters hovered.

‘I thought we were going to eat?’

Amanda, one step higher by this point, laughed, the fine skin around her eyes creasing. ‘You can’t sit in those wet clothes, can you? Not in there! Come on – we’ve got the use of a room to freshen up in. And I can lend you one of my dresses. You must be soaked.’

It was true. Rose was sodden all down her back and her shoes squelched even on this luxurious carpet. She’d been walking through the rain in Calais port for some time before those two stopped to offer her a lift. The prospect of being able to dry herself and maybe comb her hair out was very appealing. So much so that she’d climbed two flights of steps before it dawned on her how odd it was that she and Amanda were both wet from the short walk from the car, but, as far as she could recall, Reynauld hadn’t looked even slightly damp.

Maybe he’d taken the only umbrella. Not much of a gentleman, then.

Amanda showed her into a room that took her breath away. Not a room: a suite, she thought, spying a second chamber opening from the first through connecting doors. They must be totally loaded. There were flowers everywhere again, and ugly expensive furniture upholstered in red-and-cream stripes. The cover of the huge bed was crimson and mounded with tasselled cushions and bolsters.

‘Warm yourself up with a nice hot shower,’ Amanda suggested. ‘I’ll wait for my bag.’

There were even flowers in the bathroom: white lilies that gave off a sweet narcotic scent. Huge fluffy towels too, and gilt taps. Rose, alone at last, shook her head and giggled, bemused by everything from the bidet to the matched range of expensive-looking toiletries on the marble sink. Guests didn’t even have to bring their own hairbrushes – there were two laid out already. There wasn’t a lock on the inside of the bathroom door though. Ugh, how French, she thought. But the chance to indulge was too tempting to resist.

Oh, it was so good to shed her damp and frowsty clothes and step into a piping-hot shower. She was especially delighted to discover the many nozzles that sprayed her with water from multiple angles and she spent time playing with them until she got them to hit her just right – on the upper slopes of her breasts and right over her pubic mound. The naughtiness made her giggle, and the teasing insistent pressure made her wish Kyle were there, soaping her up with that expensive body-crème and running his fingers through the suds.

Soon, she promised herself, sighing and shivering with pleasure. I’m nearly there.

It was a bit of a shock to find, when she stepped out, that all her clothes had vanished off the bathroom floor. In their stead, a pale violet-grey slip and a pair of stockings had been draped over the dressing-table chair. Rose frowned. She hadn’t noticed anyone entering the bathroom; she hadn’t heard a thing. It was like a fairy tale, where things appeared by magic.

She wondered whether to march out in her towel and demand her clothes back, but decided to try the new ones on first.

The result was disconcerting. She stood before the mirror and stared at herself, in that slip that barely skimmed her thighs and the hold-ups in their matching hue. Her skin was cream-pale and the tiny gold cross Kyle had given her gleamed upon her breastbone. The lingerie made her look older; not in a bad way, but more sophisticated. Like a model, she thought. The silk clung to her breasts and hips to emphasise her slender figure. She wondered if she ought to have a matching pair of panties with those same embroidered white flowers on, or whether it was just gross to wear someone else’s knickers. Am I supposed to go down to dinner with a bare pussy then?

She was combing out her wet hair when Amanda walked in.

‘There,’ she said, coming up behind Rose in the mirror. ‘That colour suits you better than it does me. I just look so washed out these days.’ Without asking permission, she adjusted the straps at Rose’s shoulders and smoothed the slip over her waist and hips. Rose was both flattered and irritated. She thought she looked better than Amanda too. Of course I do – I’m much younger for a start. And why was the woman resting her hands on her shoulders, like she owned Rose? After that hot shower, Amanda’s fingers felt chilly.

‘You and Reynauld,’ she said, pouting her lips and looking with satisfaction at her reflection. ‘Is he your boyfriend then?’

‘My employer. And yes. We are lovers.’

Ugh. She’s got to be at least forty. What does he see in her? And what a snotty way she has of talking, like she thinks she’s the Queen or something. ‘Aren’t you, like, a bit old for him?’

Amanda didn’t answer for a moment and Rose, looking at her narrowed eyes, had time to wonder if maybe she’d been a bit rude, before the other woman said softly, ‘He’s older than he looks.’

‘Is he French?’ Rose decided not to dwell on her possible faux pas. ‘He looks French.’

‘He’s from Baghdad originally, I believe.’

‘What, he’s an Arab sheikh?’ Rose was tickled and a bit alarmed by the prospect of such exoticism and wealth.

‘Persian, not Arab. And not a sheikh.’

‘What does he do, then?’

Amanda blinked and dropped her gaze. ‘He used to work in the City. We’re … currently relocating.’

Banker, said Rose to herself: Boring. ‘Are we going to eat, then?’

‘Yes. We’re going to eat. Come on through.’

Amanda held the door and Rose preceded her into the bedroom. Half a dozen steps in, the girl realised that Reynauld was there, sitting on the bed with his hands at his sides, waiting for them. Rose stopped dead, shock rippling across her skin. Against the crimson bedspread he looked as dark as a clot of congealed blood. His black shirt was open so she could see his bare chest, and there was a look of patient anticipation on his face.

As Amanda’s hands descended on her shoulders once more, cold and implacable, Rose felt all the air leave her lungs and her brain solidify into a solid useless mass. She couldn’t stop looking at Reynauld’s torso. He had black hair etched across his chest and his flat hard stomach – not at all like Kyle, whose lithe body was smooth like polished wood, or like a girl’s. There was nothing remotely feminine about this man, and Rose found herself appalled.

‘Come here,’ he said. His voice was soft and deep, like the voice of darkness itself. But not cool like Amanda’s: warm with pleasure instead. His black eyes drank her in, as if he were sucking the light from her. Rose felt the hands at her shoulders push her forward. Her heart was rocketing with dread and with realisation: that this was what it had all been about, that this was what they had been planning since they stopped to give her a lift in Calais. And though she felt sick with fear and raw with betrayal, at exactly the same time there was a flush of wet and terrible heat between her legs, as if this was what she had been waiting for too.

‘What do you think?’ asked Amanda.

‘Very nice,’ he answered, and then dashed any thought that his approval might have been aimed at Rose herself by adding, ‘Show me her breasts.’

Deftly Amanda swept the thin straps off Rose’s shoulders and reached round to heft her breasts from the fallen silk. Rose’s nipples swelled to hard puckers of protest under the brush of her chill fingertips, and her thighs squirmed, trying to staunch the moisture welling there.

‘Please,’ she said breathlessly, lifting her hands.

Amanda batted them away and cupped her breasts, pressing into her from behind with her own body. She was surprisingly strong. Rose found herself pushed forward almost into Reynauld’s reach.

‘Small tits,’ said Amanda apologetically.

‘Beautiful,’ answered Reynauld. Lust was like a thick black tide brimming in his eyes and his voice. Rose could feel it sucking at her, and she knew that if he touched her she’d be pulled under and drowned. ‘Rose,’ he murmured, ‘thank you for this.’

In addressing her, it was as if he gave her permission to emerge from her blank white shock and find words. ‘You can’t do this,’ she said, her voice shaky. Then: ‘I’ve got a boyfriend, you know.’

It was the stupidest of excuses and she saw amusement crease the corners of his eyes. ‘Don’t worry,’ he promised. ‘It’ll be our little secret.’ He didn’t bother to hide the mockery as his lip curled and revealed an eye-tooth like a knife-point.

‘Oh, Christ,’ she moaned.

Reynauld lifted a brow as if in mild disapproval of her blasphemy. ‘Take the necklace off.’

At once Amanda released her breasts and delved under her hair at the nape of her neck.

‘That’s Kyle’s!’ said Rose, as the catch resisted at first, then broke in the woman’s hands. The chain slid down between her breasts and struck the carpet.

‘Tell me about Kyle,’ he said, his gaze enveloping hers. ‘Tell me what you like to do with him.’

She couldn’t. As she looked into the black depths of his gaze the warm darkness in him flowed into her, and she couldn’t remember Kyle. Not his face or his voice or anything she thought about him. There was only this man, Reynauld.

‘Do you enjoy making love together?’

‘Yes.’ She knew it was true, though she could recall no loving emotion. Just the lust. There was nothing else when she looked into Reynauld’s eyes except lust – and surrender. She could feel the hot gather of her juices overflowing their cup and slicking her labia.

‘Which position, Rose?’

‘All of them.’

‘Do you like to suck his cock?’

‘Yes.’

‘What about when he eats you?’

‘Yes,’ she answered, though she knew she was only gifting him the cruellest of punchlines.

He beckoned her with a crooked finger, and as she stepped unresisting between his knees he laid his hands upon her waist, caressing the smooth lines there. His fingers were cold too, but there was a perfect certainty in them. ‘Do you like it,’ he murmured, his lips parted hungrily, ‘when Kyle sucks your breasts?’

‘Yes,’ she said, trembling in his grasp. She felt Amanda’s hands close around her wrists and draw them back – the grip was not cruel, but it was unbreakable and she knew what it meant. And with her final admission, as if she no longer had any excuse or defence, his mouth closed upon her right nipple.

Teeth punctured skin. The pain was as sharp and exquisite as orgasm and Rose arched, gasping aloud. She felt his hands slide up round her back. Then the searing pain became a pleasure just as keen, just as jagged, racing through her capillaries and flooding her senses. Her breast felt as if it were swelling beneath his ravenous kiss, red-hot against his cold tongue. He bit her over and over, lightly and almost tenderly, and then he shifted to her other breast and bestowed the same benison, tugging and sucking the swollen point.

Rose sobbed with every tug and every pulse, panting wildly. She looked down at herself. She saw his dark head and his black lashes. She saw his clothes fall away from his shoulders, disintegrating to wisps and then to nothing, as if they were only woven of smoke, so that without the least effort he was suddenly naked. She glimpsed the bright smear of crimson, and then she shut her eyes and took refuge from that sight in the sensations that coursed through her, overwhelming all other instincts – even fear.

‘Now,’ said Reynauld thickly. He shifted and turned her to face outwards, pulling her down into his lap and spreading her legs. She felt his hard chest against her back, the rasp of his legs against her silk-clad thighs, and then the nudge of his erection between them in that soft wet open cleft. With one arm he held her; with the other hand he guided his cock to its target. She thought she was so slick she should have been able to take him easily, but his girth came as a shock and she gasped as it stretched her.

‘My Amanda does not yet have her new teeth,’ he said, his voice wet, working his way into Rose with consummate, implacable care, his fingers dancing on her clit now. ‘So I must bite for her. But you will find her kisses just as sweet as mine.’

Drunk with arousal, Rose could hardly focus on what she saw before her: Amanda in her austere grey dress, her delicate face a mask of hunger; Amanda kneeling before the two of them and nuzzling up to her breasts, sucking and lapping at the runnels of blood. But Rose surely felt it – the same thrill that raced from the puncture wounds like liquid lightning, all the way to her clit and her burning core. Her arousal gathered like a thunderhead as he impaled her to the hilt.

Then Reynauld caught her head and drew it back against his shoulder. She hung between orgasm and terror. She’d seen the movies; she knew he was going to bite out her exposed throat. His cold breath swept her neck and cheek and ear.

‘Give it up to me, Rose. Give it all up. Let my beloved taste your pleasure as you surrender to me – ah, yes.’

Disobedience was never a possibility. Rose broke like a storm, and tears ran down her face as she howled.

But he didn’t bite. To her indescribable relief and disappointment, he did not touch her throat. Instead, as Amanda lifted her face to show a scarlet lip-stain that looked garish against her porcelain pallor, he took Rose’s whole limp weight in his hands and began to slide her up and down on the cock impaling her.

‘Wait,’ said Amanda. ‘I know what you want.’ Taking Rose’s hands, she drew the girl to her feet, right off Reynauld, and turned her to face him again. A push on Rose’s shoulders dropped her to her knees. ‘Suck his cock,’ Amanda ordered.

Reynauld’s expression filled with consternation, almost dismay – which Rose might have found baffling if her attention had not been fixed on other parts. His stiffly erect cock made Kyle’s look like a toy. She would hardly have believed that it had all been inside her, if it hadn’t been for the glistening evidence painted the length of its shaft.

‘Amanda, this isn’t –’ he said, his teeth bared like an attack-dog’s.

‘You want it,’ Amanda answered. She caught Rose’s hair and pushed her head to his cock. ‘Take it in your mouth.’

Overbalancing, Rose grabbed his thighs. Hair ran rough beneath her palms. Oh fuck, he’s so … she cried inside her head. There was hair on his legs, his chest and his belly, as black and glistening as lines drawn in fresh ink. He was all muscle beneath it too, his thighs hard like stone and just as cold. She’d never touched a body like it. It made her feel ignorant and tiny. She opened her lips to the bell of his cock as Amanda forced her head down upon it, and tasted her own pussy on him.

Reynauld made no more protestations.

‘Take it all in,’ Amanda commanded.

Oh, God, there was no way on earth she could get that thing in all the way to the root. She laved him with her tongue, trying to make it more slippery and manageable, but Amanda pushed her right down until he butted the back of her throat. For a long moment she couldn’t draw breath. Then with a tug Amanda brought her back up for air, just before she started to panic.

That was all that was required of her: to make her mouth welcoming. Amanda controlled the speed and rhythm. Reynauld’s hips jerked to urge his cock a little deeper every time. Her jaw began to ache from his girth, but she couldn’t stop. Her breasts burned. She longed for him to bite them again. She hurt with the need for it.

As if he heard her wish, he reached down and pinched her nipples between his fingers and thumbs. Those buds of flesh were still as hot as if they’d been stung by wasps, and his touch was icy. It was torture, and it was what she needed. She felt herself open up, every part of her: cunt and throat all at once. She felt his thigh muscles jump beneath his skin as his length surged right into her throat, and then he let loose a cold flood of semen.

Gasping for breath, she jerked herself free, his come running out of the corners of her mouth. Reynauld stared down at her, his bulk filling her vision. Then he snatched her right up off the floor and threw her on the bed. All teeth and cock, he wrenched her thighs apart and fell upon her pussy. Wrapping his mouth over her pubis, he bit down hard.

Rose screamed. There was no distinction between terror and pain and pleasure in that cry; they were simultaneous and overwhelming. Then they too were overborne by the great supernova of her orgasm. She kept on coming as he fed, glutting himself on her ecstasy. She clutched the coverlet and bucked her hips and kicked against him – with utter lack of effect – until Amanda crawled up on to the bed to face him.

Reynauld lifted his head then, his mouth leaking crimson. Amanda went to him, licking his lips – like a puppy to a big dog, thought Rose through the fog that blurred her mind. At that instant her whole picture of them flipped inside out. He is old, she thought, not with contempt but with a kind of vertigo. He’s so much older than her. And he fed her, letting her suck from his mouth, until the two of them moved into a full kiss whose unselfconscious absorption made Rose ache with jealousy.

In her need she moaned out loud.

Reynauld remembered her then. ‘Drink,’ he told Amanda, drawing her down to the open pussy he had abandoned. Amanda shifted to straddle Rose’s supine torso, head to tail, her knees either side of the younger woman’s shoulders, her wicked three-inch heels slicing the air, her tight skirt and neat ass filling Rose’s field of view. But Rose didn’t care; she had what she wanted – a mouth on her clit once more, sucking.

She didn’t even care when Reynauld tugged that skirt right up – revealing dove-grey stockings, slim thighs and a lack of panties equivalent to her own – even though she’d never confronted another woman’s pussy before. Amanda’s sex was perfectly shaven, its lips plump and glistening. In the welter of her own ecstatic turmoil, Rose forgot to be disgusted. And the sight of Reynauld’s thighs eclipsing the light as he moved up behind his protégée and spread her cunt with his fingers made Rose come again.

There, inches above her face, he put his cock to Amanda’s slit and speared her, ramming home with a determination nearly brutal. Amanda moaned into Rose’s pussy and pushed back on to the shaft impaling her, begging for more.

‘Oh!’ Rose gasped, arching her neck and licking at Reynauld’s swinging balls. He laughed out loud then, a sound so deep and harsh that it sounded like a snarl.

She saw it all. Every slap of his dark and hairy thighs up against Amanda’s pale smooth ones. Every inch of his thick cock as it slid in and out of her split pussy, wet with her juices. Every jiggle of his ball-sac as it bounced back and forth – though soon enough it stopped swinging and tightened up to a hard knot of intent. For Rose the sight was all one with the awful, racking joy of being fed upon.

And when Reynauld came once more, his fingers biting into Amanda’s ass, his thighs a shuddering tattoo that ended in slamming blows and straining stillness, she saw that too. When Reynauld pulled out, she saw his cream spilling from Amanda’s sex in a slow wash. Then Amanda sat back on Rose’s face and the girl saw no more, not until she’d swallowed every mouthful of Reynauld’s seed and Amanda had ground out her own orgasm on Rose’s face.

She thought it would be over, after that. Her body was a trembling slick of exhaustion and pleasure. But she had to wake up when Amanda tugged her back into a sitting position.

‘Come on, Rose. On your feet.’

‘What are we doing?’ she mumbled, unable to focus her eyes.

‘Going down to dinner, like we planned,’ said Reynauld’s deep, warm voice. ‘They should have cleared the dining room of other guests by now. The food here is supposed to be excellent. Amanda still eats solids. And you will need to keep your strength up. You’ve a long night ahead of you.’

‘What?’ She blinked herself properly awake in time to see the shadows crawl out of the corners of the room and from under the furniture and creep up his limbs, arranging themselves into a reasonable facsimile of sombre clothing. Hiding his still rock-hard erection.

‘Did you think we’d finished?’ Amanda smiled as, ignoring all that, she tugged Rose’s silk slip back up into place for her, covering up her breasts though not the jut of her engorged nipples. ‘That was only an appetiser. We’re still very hungry.’

Rose had a sudden intense vision of herself laid out on a hotel table under the horrified, avid eyes of the waiters, as Reynauld and Amanda fucked her and sucked her, turn and turn about, until she died of it. At the thought her pussy tingled, moistening anew.

It would be wonderful.

She didn’t resist when Amanda took her hand and led her to the door like a child, though her legs were so shaky she had to lean on the older woman. Her breasts and pussy were heavy and aching. The touch of Reynauld’s palm on her ass only made her tremble with anticipation. But just before leaving the chamber she stopped abruptly. They were facing one of the big gilt-framed mirrors. She could see herself in it, slender and waiflike and debauched in her stockings and slip, with the bloodstains leaking into the silk over her breasts. She could see Amanda clearly too: improbably neat and pristine after their tussle. But where Reynauld should be behind her there was only a shadowy distortion in the glass.

Oh, God. It’s all real. Everything they say about them.

‘You don’t show up in the mirror,’ she blurted.

She recognised the flash of Amanda’s eyes: a swift, protective anger. She turned, expecting to see a similar rage in Reynauld and already flinching.

But he didn’t look angry. She couldn’t begin to identify his expression, only knowing that in that moment he somehow looked more human than at any point previously.

‘Only light is reflected, Rose,’ he told her, his voice low. ‘Only light.’

* * *

Rose woke alone to breakfast in bed and a taxi waiting downstairs to take her to the Sorbonne. She had no memory of how she came to be in a beautiful Michelin-starred French hotel. Or how she’d lost three days. None whatsoever.

It was just like a fairy tale.

* * *

Author’s note: Amanda and Reynauld appear in Red Grow the Roses, by Janine Ashbless

A Girl’s Got to Eat
Aishling Morgan

‘But I don’t want to feed Aunt Isabella!’ Cicely stormed.

‘Don’t pout,’ the Baroness told her. ‘It’s not ladylike.’

‘Somebody has to,’ Florence added, ‘and it is your turn, Cicely.’

‘It always seems to be my turn,’ Cicely answered, folding her arms across her chest. ‘When do I get to feed, that’s what I’d like to know?’

‘You’ve been doing very well for yourself,’ the Baroness said, ‘at least to judge by your embonpoint.’

‘We must share what bounty we are given,’ Florence stated, ‘for the good of all, and not only are you better equipped to provide than either of us, but your name is at the head of the rota.’

Cicely didn’t trouble to answer, sparing only a brief downward glance for the way her chest bulged from the top of her corset before turning to stare out across the moonlit lawn. The cedars and the turrets and chimneys of the house created oddly shaped shadows on the grass, while a faint breeze was making the leaves of the beeches clack and their branches creak, all of which would have been very pleasant were it not for the intransigence of her companions. The Baroness was bad enough, with her superior airs and malicious humour, but Florence was worse by far, with her firm but reasonable tone and irrefutable arguments.

None of the three spoke for some time, each thinking her own thoughts and listening to the sounds of the night. The Baroness, as always, had dressed for the evening and in garments she felt correct for her age and status: a long, high-necked gown of black silk, black boots with a sharp heel, gloves and a tall hat from which depended a veil, all black save for a spray of feathers that showed a hint of dark, iridescent green. Florence, in a sense, was no less formal, in the flowing white shroud she’d been buried in a hundred and forty years previously. Cicely had dressed for town, in a corset of brilliant-green satin, voluminous split-seam drawers, stockings and smart brown shoes decorated with brass buckles.

‘I should go,’ she said. ‘It’s fully dark, and the traffic will have died down a little.’

‘Not until you’ve fed Aunt Isabella,’ the Baroness insisted. ‘And, besides, you can’t go out like that. You’re in danger of popping out, and your hair is a bird’s nest!’

‘It’s the fashion,’ Cicely explained, ‘and, besides, I need a man, or a woman, maybe, some nice, plump, baby vamp who’ll let me lick –’

The Baroness drew herself up. ‘Manners, Cicely! In my day –’

‘In your day,’ Cicely interrupted, ‘I could have bought myself a prostitute for less than a shilling and done as I pleased with her, but I don’t suppose you ever did that?’

‘One does not remark on such things,’ the Baroness answered in her most glacial tones.

‘What about that nice Rococo boy?’ Florence put in hastily. ‘Aren’t you seeing him any more?’

‘Goth,’ Cicely corrected. ‘Marco is a Goth, and no I’m not. He was getting too weird.’

‘Too weird?’ the Baroness queried. ‘Strange, coming from you.’

‘He wanted us to sleep in a coffin,’ Cicely explained, ‘half full of earth.’

‘I can’t understand why people do that,’ Florence said. ‘It’s desperately uncomfortable, and, besides, the whole idea of a coffin is to keep the earth out.’

‘I used to have a beautiful coffin,’ the Baroness mused. ‘It was padded throughout the interior, even on the underside of the lid, in crimson velvet, with my coat of arms worked in gold leaf. Wretched peasants!’

‘You have to see their point of view,’ Cicely retorted.

‘I am only too well acquainted with their point of view,’ the Baroness snapped back. ‘Now go and feed Aunt Isabella. I don’t want to have to tell you again.’

‘Yes, do, Cicely, darling,’ Florence added. ‘It is your turn.’

‘I don’t want to! You know what she’s like!’

‘A little eccentric, I grant you, but you normally rather like that sort of thing.’

‘Not before she’s fed! Look, I’ll do it when I get back.’

‘Now,’ the Baroness insisted. ‘You are beginning to try my patience, Cicely St Cyr.’

‘Don’t start that again, please,’ Cicely answered. ‘I am more than one hundred and ten years old, and –’

‘Do as you are told,’ the Baroness said firmly, ‘or you will have to be spanked.’

‘Isn’t it really about time you stopped doing that sort of thing?’ Cicely demanded. ‘This is the twenty-first century.’

‘So it is, my dear,’ the Baroness answered, ‘but you and I belong to the nineteenth, and I see no reason to change our behaviour.’

‘I do!’ Cicely exclaimed, but it was already too late.

A pale, bony hand had shot out, to grab hold of her arm. She was quickly drawn in, her squalling protests ignored as she was hauled into place across the Baroness’ knee, her skirts turned up, her drawers pulled open and her rounded, milk-white bottom soundly spanked in tune to her howls of pain and indignation. When she was finally allowed up she stood rubbing at her rear cheeks, her face set in a resentful scowl.

‘And if you continue to pout you’ll get more,’ the Baroness warned her, ‘with my hairbrush. Now go and feed Aunt Isabella.’

Cicely made a face and continued to rub at her bottom, still defiant.

Florence had watched the spanking with a curious mixture of sympathy and approval, in silence, but now gave a sad shake of her head and spoke up. ‘Run along, Cicely, or it will be the cane.’

Not deigning to answer, Cicely gave an angry toss of her unruly curls and stamped indoors, but Florence’s argument had been persuasive. Being spanked across the knee was something she could cope with, but the cane was another matter entirely, although having given in didn’t make the task in front of her any easier. She climbed the stairs slowly, twice stopping as some new argument occurred to her, but both grounded on the fact that if she employed them she was more than likely to end up touching her toes with her bare bottom sticking out of her drawers as she was given six of the best.

She hesitated again when she reached the landing. Aunt Isabella’s door was closed and there was absolute silence, which was only to be expected. Plucking up her courage, she went in, taking a moment for her eyes to adapt to the dull orange light of the single candle that illuminated the room. In front of her was a great four-poster bed, the canopy half-concealing the occupant, who lay with the bed sheets pulled back, her body limp and naked, the skin stretched taut and yellow over angular bones, the eyes sunk deep in their sockets, the mass of ghost-pale hair oddly incongruous.

‘Aunt Isabella?’ Cicely queried, suddenly worried that the woman on the bed might actually be dead.

A voice like cobweb answered her. ‘Cicely? Come close, my dear.’

Cicely obeyed, seating herself on the bed and extending one cautious hand to touch the desiccated chest. Aunt Isabella’s flesh felt cold and oddly waxy, while one withered nipple had already begun to crack, yet the bony hand which had settled across Cicely’s shoulders was pulling her in with considerable strength.

‘I’m sorry we left you so long,’ Cicely said quietly, as she allowed herself to be drawn in against Aunt Isabella’s mouth.

A sharp cry of pain escaped Cicely lips as the fangs punctured her neck, and Aunt Isabella had begun to feed. Cicely stayed still, trembling badly, her breathing growing deeper and more urgent as the blood flowed from her neck and into the mouth of the creature suckling from her. The one bony hand had stayed on her back and the other now moved up, slowly, to scrabble at the front of Cicely’s corset.

‘Please, not yet,’ she sighed.

She was ignored, her corset tugged down to spill out her breasts, while fingers like claws scraped across the soft flesh. A rasping groan escaped Aunt Isabella’s throat as she continued to feed, with Cicely now sobbing in her grip. She’d shut her eyes tight, unable to watch, for all that she knew exactly what was happening, and no longer able to escape had she wanted to, with her body held tight in a bony embrace and Aunt Isabella’s long, curved fangs pushed deep into her neck.

Even when the emaciated hand released her breasts to move lower, Cicely stayed as she was, whimpering faintly into Aunt Isabella’s abundant hair as long, thin fingers pushed in at the slit of her drawers. She cried out as what felt like gristle touched her cunt, but her thighs had come wide, seemingly of their own accord, to allow one slender digit inside her. Now penetrated, her sobs grew deeper, more urgent, and still the blood flowed.

Cicely gave in, letting her thighs open wider still and throwing her head back, her neck fully exposed as Aunt Isabella climbed on to her. Pinned down on the bed, with the fangs locked into her flesh as now strong fingers worked in her cunt, Cicely found herself helpless, unable to resist either mentally or physically as she gave strength to her aunt. Her heart was pumping fast, her breath coming in urgent, ragged gasps that broke to an involuntary cry of ecstasy as she came to orgasm under the now firm and pliant fingers.

A moment later Aunt Isabella pulled back, and for a long while the two women lay together in silence.

Only when the gashes in Cicely’s neck had fully healed did she voice her feelings. ‘I do wish you wouldn’t masturbate me while you feed. It’s most unsettling.’

‘It makes your heart beat faster and improves the flow of blood,’ Aunt Isabella replied. ‘As I believe I have explained before. And, besides, you whimper so nicely.’

Cicely made a face but didn’t reply. Aunt Isabella was now propped up in her bed, her round, pale limbs still naked, but smooth and supple, her breasts full and firm, her belly a gentle womanly curve. She had fed well, rather better than usual, which had left Cicely feeling weak and a little dizzy.

‘I see you’re dressed for town,’ Aunt Isabella said after a while. ‘New blood?’

‘I hope so,’ Cicely replied. ‘There’s a club I want to try, full of boys who think they’re vampires, girls too.’

Aunt Isabella gave a wistful sigh, then spoke again. ‘You couldn’t bring one back this time, could you? A girl, of course.’

‘You know I can’t, Auntie,’ Cicely replied. ‘That sort of thing gets noticed nowadays, and we couldn’t very well let her go afterwards, not with the way Florence looks, and … and you.’

‘But I’m beautiful,’ Aunt Isabella protested.

She had risen from the bed, her naked milk-white flesh glimmering in the candlelight, her hair a cascade of pure silver, her eyes flickering with reflections of vivid red. Her mouth was now full, her lips a delicate blushing mauve, the fangs that rose both up and down from her jaws long and sharp.

‘Beautiful,’ Cicely agreed, ‘and very obviously a vampire, a real vampire.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Aunt Isabella replied, ‘only the other day you were saying how good the make-up is these days, and that film, Van Helsing, was most convincing, I thought.’

‘It’s called CGI, Auntie,’ Cicely said patiently. ‘Computer-generated imagery. It’s not real.’

Aunt Isabella was making a critical inspection of one heavy white breast and didn’t reply immediately.

‘I must go,’ Cicely stated.

‘Flawless,’ Aunt Isabella remarked, ‘the colour and texture of cream as one sweet boy once remarked.’

‘Did he live?’

‘No.’

‘They don’t often, do they? Not with you.’

‘I can’t help it if I have a passionate nature.’

‘Maybe not, but that is another very good reason for you not to come out with me tonight.’

‘Oh very well, give your auntie a kiss then, and you’d better run along.’

Cicely stood to kiss her aunt, their lips meeting in a faint caress, only to open in passion, their mouths wide together, tongues entwined, with no sound but the faint chink of their fangs.

‘Little and pointy in the mouth, and such big boobies,’ Aunt Isabella remarked as she finally pulled away. ‘You’re a lucky girl, Cicely.’

Cicely smiled and kissed her aunt once more before scampering from the room, only to slow as she reached the top of the stairs. She’d let Aunt Isabella take more blood than usual, while it had been a long time since she’d fed herself. Her need was now urgent, but she found herself obliged to support herself on the banister as she descended the stairs and she tripped on the last step as she came back out into the moonlit garden.

‘Are you all right, my dear?’ Florence asked.

‘She was a little greedy,’ Cicely answered.

‘You really must learn to assert yourself,’ the Baroness advised. ‘Don’t put up with her nonsense.’

‘I just need to sit down for a moment,’ Cicely said. ‘Then I’d better go.’

‘You’re weak,’ the Baroness stated. ‘I shall come with you.’

‘Come with me?’ Cicely said in surprise. ‘But, Baroness, you haven’t left the grounds in years. Decades in fact.’

‘Since 1952, to be precise,’ the Baroness responded.

‘Really, my dear,’ Florence put in. ‘I’m not at all sure that it’s a good idea.’

‘Nonsense,’ the Baroness answered her. ‘It will do me good.’

‘Things have changed,’ Cicely said.

‘I have seen change across very nearly two hundred years, Cicely St Cyr,’ the Baroness pointed out. ‘And now I am of a mind to see some more. Besides, you are so weak you can barely stand.’

‘I can manage, thank you.’

‘Not another word, Cicely. Let us go to the carriage.’

‘The car, Baroness,’ Cicely pointed out. ‘I drive a car.’

‘A most vulgar abbreviation, and a most vulgar vehicle. Blood-red paintwork indeed. Sometimes your sense of humour is positively grotesque.’

‘It’s inconspicuous. Speaking of which, at the very least you will have to change.’

‘Certainly not!’

The Baroness had risen and stalked into the house. Cicely made to follow, but Florence spoke up. ‘Shall I come too, my dear?’

Cicely turned to make a brief inspection of the corpse-white face, the ragged grave shroud that only partially concealed the emaciated body, the inch-long fangs projecting over bloodless lips. ‘I’m not sure it would be your thing,’ she said.

‘Perhaps not,’ Florence agreed.

Cicely followed the Baroness through the house, throwing on a coat as she went, then out to the stable yard, where a double row of vacant stalls faced each other across time-worn flagstones. Her car stood to one side, the colour just evident under the brilliant moon.

‘And why so small?’ the Baroness demanded, picking up the conversation more or less where she’d left off. ‘A carriage should reflect a lady’s status. I had a beautiful black and gold landau once, drawn by a team of six greys …’

The Baroness continued her reminiscences, as Cicely started the car and drove out from the stable block and down the long curving avenue of intertwined beeches that hid the house from any curious gaze. Another mile and she was on the motorway, with her companion now silent as she watched the passing scenery and speaking only when they had stopped near to the old warehouse in which the club was being held. A sign in glaring red-orange neon above the doors proclaimed the name of the premises ‘Suzi’s’, while a painted board advertised the fetish vamp night that had drawn Cicely’s attention.

‘Rather common, is it not?’ the Baroness remarked as she climbed from the car. ‘But you’re sensible, of course. Nobody notices the occasional missing peasant, after all, but take somebody from even a moderately notable family and, oh, the fuss!’

‘I think it might be better if you didn’t refer to them as peasants,’ Cicely suggested.

‘But they are peasants,’ the Baroness pointed out as she made a disdainful inspection of a group of girls in nothing but fishnet tights and brightly coloured underwear, ‘although in my day –’

‘Oh shut up!’ Cicely said.

The Baroness gave her a haughty look but made no move towards reprisal. Neither drew comment at the door, where Cicely paid for two tickets, admitting them to a great square of open space, flickering with coloured lights and loud with music. The floor was already crowded, with dancers sporting a vast variety of styles: dour or flamboyant Goths in their black finery, role players and cosplayers, dominants and submissives, fetishists of every description.

‘Extraordinary!’ the Baroness remarked, her voice raised above the music. ‘Although I recall a ball at Chantilly, given by the last Condé …’

Cicely was not listening, but concentrating on the hunt. Some three hundred people were visible, one of whom would be giving up his, or her, blood, maybe more than one, especially if the Baroness chose to join the chase. It was never an easy choice, but always a thrilling one, while the occasional rejection only added to her hunger. The victim had to be pretty, fey and sufficiently dedicated to the vampire cult to allow Cicely to feed as they made love, something the presence of the Baroness made rather awkward.

‘Do you think, perhaps –’ she began, only to break off as she turned to discover that her companion was no longer with her. ‘Bother!’

Irritated, Cicely went in search of the Baroness, a task made harder by the jumping shadows and because well over half the guests at the club were dressed entirely in black. Climbing to a balcony, she scanned the throng in the main room over and again before moving on to the bar, then into a series of smaller rooms set aside for more intimate encounters. She found the Baroness in the very last, the darkest, the deepest within the labyrinthine warehouse, and what she saw made her gape in astonishment.

The room had been fitted out as if it were a medieval dungeon, with walls painted to resemble dripping grey-green stone and a single high window set with rusting iron bars. Against the far wall was a tall cross of heavy beams fitted with chains and leather straps, while other pieces of furniture intended to aid in restraint and punishment stood to the sides. A man was strapped to the cross, naked, his burly back and heavy buttocks criss-crossed with scarlet welts, while three others knelt on the floor, their faces pressed to the dirty concrete. Between them stood the Baroness, her thin lips set in a pleased smile as she employed a long single-tail whip with practised efficiency.

‘Ah, there you are, my dear,’ the Baroness said when she finally noticed Cicely. ‘I must say, this is tremendous fun! I had no idea modern people knew their place so well.’

‘They –’ Cicely began and thought better of it, breaking off as one of the men on the floor spoke up, addressing the Baroness.

‘Mistress, please, I beg you, just one kiss of your boots. I’ll do anything you want, anything you say!’

‘I want to please you, Mistress,’ another said, looking up with an expression of awe. ‘Make me your slave, Mistress, I beg you. I have no limits. You can do anything to me, anything!’

‘You see,’ the Baroness remarked to Cicely, ‘positively servile! Is it usually like this?’

‘Not for me,’ Cicely admitted, as the Baroness extended one booted foot from beneath her skirts to allow the man who’d asked the favour to plant a single kiss on the toe.

‘They recognise nobility, of course,’ the Baroness said as she began to flick her whip at the man on the cross, aiming between his legs to snap at the dangling testicles, ‘but, really, I haven’t had so much fun in years. You, peasant, you bleed well. My friend is a vampire. Let her feed.’

The man she’d addressed looked up doubtfully, his eyes moving first to the Baroness and then to Cicely, or, more precisely, to her chest. ‘Er …’ he began. ‘That’s not really my thing.’

‘Um …’ Cicely put in, but the man clearly assumed she was a role player.

‘You said you wished to serve me, did you not?’ the Baroness stated. ‘You said you would do anything to please me. Look on it as a test of your devotion.’

‘Yes, Mistress, but –’ the man began, only to be interrupted by another.

‘Your slut may feed from me, Mistress. I would be honoured.’

‘Slut?’ Cicely queried, but the man had already been sent in her direction with a well-aimed kick of the Baroness’ boot.

He stayed down, his head hung to the floor, exposing his neck, a sight too enticing to allow Cicely to hold back. She would have preferred a girl, or a younger, more virile man, but the victim she had been offered was well fed and sleek, which promised rich, nourishing blood, while it was impossible to deny that his craven submission had fired her lust. Sinking down, she took a firm hold across his back, pressed her open mouth to his neck and sank her fangs deep into his resilient flesh.

‘Jesus shit!’ he squealed, and tried to rise, but too late.

Cicely had him in her grip, too strong for any mere mortal to break, with her fangs sunk in deep and the blood already flowing into her mouth. As she’d hoped, it was thick and rich, sending her dizzy with pleasure as she swallowed and swallowed again, breaking off only with an effort. The man rolled back as she released her grip, to stare up at her, wide-eyed with horror, his gaze fixed to her open, bloody mouth as she wiped away a trickle of blood.

‘You fucking weirdo!’ he swore, and he scrabbled to his feet and fled the room.

‘He’ll report us,’ Cicely said.

‘You were only playing,’ the Baroness said blithely, ‘and, if we can whip them, why can’t we bite them? Tell me that, Miss Cicely St Cyr?’

‘True,’ Cicely admitted, ‘but please could you let me choose the next one? There’s a knack to this.’

‘Make me your next victim, I beg you, Mistress,’ a voice sounded at Cicely’s shoulder. ‘I am worthy, Mistress.’

She hadn’t looked back since entering the room, and was surprised to find a knot of male faces peering in from the gloom beyond the door. The man who’d spoken was the largest of them, tall and well built, his great barrel chest and tree-trunk legs naked, his crotch concealed only by a straining pouch of thin black rubber.

‘Do you mean that?’ she asked, opening her mouth to show her fangs and the bloody interior. ‘I bite.’

‘Please, yes,’ he begged, his voice weak with need, although others in the audience were more critical, one giving his opinion that Cicely’s fangs were obviously fake and another suggesting that her image would be more effective if both her breasts hadn’t popped free of her corset as she fed.

Cicely ignored them as she beckoned her victim closer. The situation was ideal, a fine, big young man to feed on and a disbelieving audience, which would allow both her and the Baroness to gorge themselves to satiation. He was as good as his promise too, coming into the room to wait patiently as Cicely released the man on the cross. Both the other men had fled, allowing them to work uninterrupted save for the occasional comment from the door.

Whichever of the men had originally owned the whip had lacked the courage to retrieve it, allowing the Baroness to liven up their new victim with a few smart cuts to his legs and chest, while Cicely fixed his ankle cuffs into place. He seemed already in ecstasy, moaning as the leather smacked down across his flesh, and as the Baroness stepped close the look he gave her showed no fear, only adoration.

‘Let us see then,’ she said gently. ‘Are you truly worthy?’

He gave a low whimper in response as her lips brushed his neck, then a sharp cry of pain as her fangs went home. Her eyes closed in bliss as she began to drink, while Cicely looked on with a quiet smile to see her friend and mentor indulging herself for the first time in so very long. For a while she simply watched as the Baroness fed, her own belly already round with blood, but with Florence and Aunt Isabella to feed as well she had soon moved close, only not to the man’s neck, but to his crotch.

It was a rare treat, one she hadn’t allowed herself in a while, and she smacked her lips in anticipation as she pulled their victim’s rubber pants low to free a large, heavily hooded cock straight into her mouth. He groaned as Cicely began to suck, as helpless to the pleasure of being in her mouth as had he not been restrained, while even the crowd at the door had gone silent. Another tug at his pants and his balls were free, allowing her to lick at the salty flesh before taking his now stiff cock into her mouth once more. Her hands went to her breasts, stroking herself as she sucked, now dizzy with reaction to the long thick cock shaft in her mouth. He began to push, fucking her lips, and she slid a hand into the slit of her drawers, masturbating shamelessly for the sheer joy of sucking his cock, and brought herself to climax at the exact instant he gave her what she wanted most of all, a warm, sticky mouthful of come.

Cicely swallowed and rocked back on her heels, smiling happily for what she’d done. Above her, the Baroness was still feeding, with a long trickle of blood running down over the man’s shoulder and across his chest. Cicely came up a little, to lap at the deep-red trail, cleaning up the spillage before gently detaching the Baroness from the man’s neck.

‘Enough, darling. That must be enough.’

Both the man and the Baroness nodded and behind them the watchers broke into applause. The Baroness responded with a carefully measured nod, while Cicely curtsied before setting to work to release the man from his cuffs.

‘Thank you, Mistress,’ he sighed, ‘and you too, Cicely. May I buy you both a drink, because I think I need one. I’m Dave, by the way.’

‘Blanche Ēlodie Marie-Sabine d’Annecy, Baroness de Brouilly, charmed. A cut of champagne would be pleasant.’

* * *

Four hours later Cicely and the Baroness left the club. It had been a good evening, by any standards. The story of their performance in the dungeon had quickly circulated, leaving the Baroness the object of adoring male attention from all sides, while Cicely had been able to feed three more times, to leave her belly swollen with blood and her breasts engorged to the point at which fluid had begun to seep from her nipples.

‘I do hope Florence is hungry,’ she said as she drew away into the now empty streets.

‘Yes,’ the Baroness replied vaguely, her mind clearly on other things. ‘Ah, what a night! I am not certain I recall a better, and I really had no idea that modern men had such an instinctive ability to recognise their betters.’

Cicely didn’t answer, more concerned with her aching breasts and straining belly.

‘It is only natural, of course,’ the Baroness continued, ‘that the lower orders …’

Bright headlight beams illuminated the interior of the car from behind them, making it difficult for Cicely to see, while she was more than familiar with the Baroness’ personal philosophy in any case. Concentrating on her driving and her ever more urgent need to feed one of her friends, she had quickly put everything else from her mind. Only when she was almost at the gates of the house and the car behind them was still close did she wonder if it was following them. She turned on to the drive and the lights swung around behind her.

‘Whoever could that be?’ the Baroness asked.

‘I suspect I know,’ Cicely answered her.

She got out of the car, to find Dave already standing by his own, with a hang-dog expression on his face.

‘I – I thought … my Mistress.’

‘Go home,’ Cicely urged. ‘You can’t come here, this is where we live.’

‘I live only to serve my Mistress,’ he replied.

‘We could do with a houseboy,’ the Baroness spoke from behind.

‘No we could not,’ Cicely answered firmly.

‘I don’t see why not,’ the Baroness went on. ‘It would certainly be a help to have somebody around during the day.’