The Keeper Of Darkness (a gothic tale of love, desire, desperation, and music)

WARNING:
This chapter contains explicit, 'adult', and just downright weird content.
Enter of your own free will ...


The Keeper Of Darkness
Ch. 9 - 'Fourtette' (pt. 1)
Porte de Vanves, 1982

https://soundcloud.com/frostyjr2%2Ffourtette



When Petra regained consciousness, the first thing she felt was an overwhelming sensation of cold.

She was freezing.
She quickly realized at least part of the reason: she was only wearing her black lace bra and matching knickers and the thin gold chain around her neck, nothing else.

The next thing she felt was that her bladder was incredibly full.
She knew she was quite desperate and had to have a wee very soon or …

Petra squirmed a bit in the chair she was sitting on, but she found that she really couldn’t do too much in the way of moving because she was bound to it tightly and intricately with rope; her legs were spread apart, her hands were tied behind her, and her long brown hair was pulled up and attached in such a way that she could barely move her head in any direction.

The rope was even threaded up between her thighs with a few knots very strategically placed as it passed underneath her bottom. Those knots were pushing up against her privates, creating a stimulating pressure there that made itself known with even the slightest movement she made.

It was a very strange and unusual combination of pleasure and pain Petra was feeling now, and despite her peculiar plight, she found that she was actually enjoying the sensation.

She had always loved the feeling of desperation, but now there was something new added to the mix.

She couldn’t help squirming because she had to pee so badly, and she had no way of squeezing her thighs together, but every time she moved even a little bit the rope between her thighs pressed harder and pulled tighter, which excited and aroused her more and made her even more conscious of her helpless and desperate state.

She couldn’t have stopped squirming even if she had wanted to, thanks to her overly full bladder.

She didn’t want to stop though, because of how the way she was bound was making her feel …
so she continued to squirm, which got her more excited ... which made her squirm even more …
and the heady mix of humiliation, pleasure, and pain she was feeling now was almost too much for her to bear.

It was as if it had all been tailored specifically to her psyche, fine-tuned to that very specific frequency that was the realisation of her innermost dark secrets, the final revelation and admission to herself of all of the shameful things that really turned her on.

How could anyone else have known, or guessed?

She heard a soft laugh coming from the darkness in front of her.
Oh, god, that bloody American girl; Petra was really starting to hate her with a vengeance.

“Did you really have to do all of that?” Vicky asked. “She wasn’t threatening you at all.”

“Did I have to? Of course not,” the young American girl said, obviously amused.
“I just felt like having some fun with her. I never said I wouldn’t hurt her, but I haven’t.”

She laughed coldly. “In fact, it looks more like your big sister is enjoying the situation.”

“So, who’s the bitch now, bitch?”
The American spoke icily as Petra squirmed and wriggled in obvious hot distress in front of her.
“You said you wanted to talk to your little sister. Well, here’s your chance.”
She laughed yet again; her laugh was quite evil sounding, really.

It took a huge effort, but Petra managed somehow to tear her focus away from the intense sensations caused by her urgent need and her bound state.
“Vicky,” she said breathlessly, “what’s going on here, sis?”

“Let me make this simple. She’s not your sister any more, bitch.”
That cold, evil laugh again.
“She’s our sister now.”

“Who are these girls, Vicky?” Petra spoke, ignoring the other girl’s interjection.

“They’re vampires, P. … and they’ve made me into one too. I’m sorry that I got you involved.”
The sadness in Vicky’s voice was almost palpable.

“Vampires? What in hell are you on about, Vicky?”

Petra couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
This wasn’t some bloody gothic movie, this was real life and there were no such things as vampires.

“Yes, we have turned your little sister, and there is nothing you can do about that now."
The older of the two vampire girls spoke quietly again in her odd accent.
"Although she is a bit unhappy at the moment, she will have plenty of time to get used to her new situation.”

Another cold laugh, coming from behind Petra’s chair this time, accompanied by an enthusiastic, “Oh, yeah!”

It was that bloody American girl again.
Petra had never been that keen on Americans, and this one certainly wasn’t doing much to change her opinion.

“Plenty of time for her. Now you, on the other hand …”
The American girl let out that evil laugh yet again.
“Speaking of which … let me give you one!”

Petra suddenly felt an ice-cold hand against her stomach.
As it pressed hard into her lower abdomen she gasped again and her entire body shuddered uncontrollably.
Somehow Petra managed to tighten her pelvic floor muscles and resist the urge to release, but it was clear to her that she wouldn’t be able to hold out much longer.

The younger vampire girl laughed at the bound woman's predicament, giving a little mocking wiggle of her own in answer to Petra's involuntary spasm.

“Ooh, it feels so good, doesn’t it, sweetie?”
This was accompanied by yet another by-now-almost-inevitable evil laugh, of course.

No matter how badly Petra wanted to, she couldn’t deny the truth of what the American girl was saying.
She was so turned on, her nipples fully erect beneath the thin lacy fabric of her bra and her knickers already quite damp.
She was only seconds away from losing control completely, her head spinning from the sensations overwhelming her.

“Look, your sister is just about to pee her panties,” the American said to Vicky almost gleefully.
“This ought to be good …”
 
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The Keeper Of Darkness

Ch. 9 - 'Fourtette' (pt. 2)
Pte de Vanves, 1982
https://soundcloud.com/frostyjr2%2Fhyper-clarity-after-1



Despite herself, Vicky felt compelled to watch Petra’s degrading humiliation.
A strange mixture of horror and hot fascination invaded her mind as her older sister twisted and squirmed in the chair before her, perspiring despite the cold as she strained helplessly against those binding rope ties.

She could sense the arousal coming from Petra now.
It was as if visible waves of heat were radiating off of her sister's entire body, but especially centered in the warm wet place between her soft thighs, and now somehow Vicky was beginning to feel an answering heat coming from down inside of her own knickers.

“Oh, my … god, “ Vicky moaned as she suddenly realized that not only was she actually excited by the idea of what was happening to her sister, they were also empathetically linked and so she was feeling exactly what Petra was feeling now!
She didn’t want to watch, but at the same time, she couldn’t look away from the scene playing out in front of her.
It was too hot!

Petra was panting loudly now, struggling to retain control as she moved.
This was causing the knots which were pressing against her to bring her even closer to the point of climax.
Her arousal was such exquisite torture and her desire for a wee so great she had no idea which would come first or feel better, the release of the liquid she had been forced to hold for so long or the orgasm she was about to have despite her unwillingness to do so.

Meanwhile, little Victoria was feeling quite overwhelmed.
She had always had something of a psychic connection with her older siblings, but this was something else entirely.
It was a truly empathetic reaction; now she was actually feeling every single thing her sister was feeling, physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Petra’s excited state, her uncontrollable urge, her humiliation, and her rage were all mixing together to form a potent cocktail of sensation, and it was just about to come to a head.

To make things even more intense, she could feel the heat and arousal from off of the two vampire girls added to the mix, their senses feeding off of what her sister was feeling just as hers were, but now all four of them intertwined.
It was almost unbearable in its intensity, this sensation, an intricate web made of what they each were feeling combining with their empathetic ability to feel what the others were feeling also, which had now been heightened to an unimaginable level as it fed on itself.

Meanwhile, Petra had finally reached the extreme limit of what she could stand and Vicky could feel her sister’s sense of humiliation mixing with relief now as her will failed her at last.

“OHHHHH, no ...” she gasped as hot tears of shame ran down her pretty chiseled cheekbones.
She was wetting her knickers as well as the knotted rope between her thighs fully now, an answering hot stream jetting out hard and fast with a soft hissing sound and there was absolutely nothing at all she could do to prevent it from happening.

To make matters even worse, she could feel herself in the beginning throes of orgasm as the relief of finally letting go merged fully with her aroused state.

The other three girls in the room were also having their own orgasms now as well, and like a feedback loop the intense sensations fed on each other, growing even stronger as they all climaxed together, over and over again ...
because they were emo vampires and this is exactly what they fed on (besides blood, of course): incredibly strong emotions.

Petra was still peeing all the while, her knickers soaked, the chair dripping, the warm wetness pooling beneath her bare feet.
She had been so full, and held for so long.
Now she moaned, she sighed, and she gasped for air as she spent, letting out what seemed like a small but endless waterfall at the same time.

Despite the unbelievable humiliation of it all (or possibly because of it), she found herself relishing the sensations; her relief at being able to release what had been threatening to come out this whole time and the thrill of her orgasmic state.

It went on seemingly forever and she had almost totally lost track of time when at last the waves of multiple orgasms engulfing her began to slow, diminish, and finally stopped.
Completely drained now, she sagged in her bonds and collapsed.

Before she passed out again, the last thing she heard was, “Was it good for you too, sweetie?”

It was that horrid American girl’s voice again, coming from right beside her now.

Petra felt the burning sting of sharp fangs as they penetrated her, and then the darkness swallowed her whole.

-----------------

“Wow, that sister of yours is something else,” the younger vampire girl said, once she’d drank her fill.

Meanwhile, little Vicky was still leaning up against the wall, her legs wobbly and her breathing ragged; she had never felt anything that intense before in her short, thrill-seeking life.

“Is it always like this?” she asked softly.

“Pretty much,” was the reply.

“I’m yours then … just as long as you promise to leave my brother and sister alone,” Victoria said in a whisper.


(to be continued)

V----V
 
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The Keeper Of Darkness

Ch. 10: ’Round About Midnight’
Porte de Vanves, 1982


https://soundcloud.com/frostyjr2%2Fsalle-dattente-take-3


Peter had been waiting for quite some time on the steps outside the building.

In fact, it had been hours since the sun had gone down beyond the horizon, and the sky was now purple-black, moonlit, and cloudless.

This had been one of the longest and most difficult days of his life.
As a man of action, having to stand by and do nothing while both of his sisters were still inside was pure torture.

It was as if these vampire girls had created a private hell specifically for him.
He was powerless to help either Vicky or Petra, and while he knew that Petra was a very skilled fighter, the fact that there was absolutely no sound coming from the house and that neither of his sisters had emerged was causing him a great deal of concern.

He was so worried now that it was hard for him to keep his mind off of what might be happening to his sisters inside that house right this instant, and what was even more worrisome to him was this: for some reason, the normal psychic connection he shared with Petra, and to a lesser extent with Vicky, seemed to have been disrupted.

In the past, there had been many times when he had been truly embarrassed by that unusual connection to his sisters and had wished that it didn't exist, but now that it was no longer there he felt truly alone for the first time in his life.

It was a very odd feeling.
It was as if an essential part of himself was missing now, and the unfamiliar sensation was almost unbearable.

He had thought about trying to force his way back inside the house, but with there being double doors he would have given away any element of surprise even if he could have somehow managed to get them both open.
He would also have had to find an effective way to orient himself within that cold, dark room once he had gotten back inside, and then possibly have had to fight two virtually undetectable opponents of unknown size, strength, and skill in order to extract his two sisters, who might both be injured, possibly even too incapacitated to move on their own.

Even for a master tactician such as himself, the difficulty of the situation at hand seemed insurmountable, so he did the only thing he could do under these very trying circumstances: wait patiently.

He centered himself, breathed deeply, and forced his mind to empty itself of all conscious thought.

He counted very slowly to ten, thinking only of breathing in, and breathing out, over and over.

Thinking only of breathing and counting, allowing no other thoughts to intrude.

“One … two … three … four … five … six … seven ... eight ... nine ... ten.“
Counting, and breathing ...

"One ... two ... three ... four ... five ... six ... seven ... eight ... nine ... ten."
Breathing and counting ...

“One … two … three … four … five … six … seven ... eight ... nine ... ten.“
Counting, and breathing ...

-----------------------------------

"One ... two ... three ... four ... five ... six ..."

Suddenly a soft sound interrupted his meditation.

It was the click of the door latch being released.
He glanced down at his wristwatch, pressing the button that illuminated the face.
Amost midnight.
https://soundcloud.com/frostyjr2%2Fround-midnight-2023-52323-900-pm


He rose from his kneeling position, pushed the door open, and waited inside.

The second door’s latch opened with another click; Peter walked through it into the dark room.

He heard that strange rustling sound again and then the American girl spoke, her voice coming from directly behind him.

“We’re leaving now, and we’re taking our new sister with us. You can have the other one back; we’re done with her.”
She laughed that cold laugh once again.
“Walk forward about twelve steps, and you’ll find her. Well, what’s left of her, anyhow …”

The rustling sound grew louder.
Suddenly, there was a feeling of cold air right next to him and Peter heard Vicky’s voice.

“It’s better if you forget about me, Peter."

The woman with the odd accent said, "Don’t try to follow us, don’t try to find us.”

The strange rustling sound became louder still, and there was a rush of freezing air moving rapidly past him towards the open antechamber.
Then, there was only silence.

“Petra?” Peter called softly, but there was no answer.

Fearing the worst, he walked forward twelve paces as he had been instructed to do.
He stopped suddenly, having bumped into something; a shadowy figure bound in a chair in front of him.

It was his twin sister.
Peter knelt down on the floor in front of her, feeling something wet soaking into his trouser legs as he did.
There was a rather large puddle there, and an unmistakable odour when he touched it and raised that hand to his face.

"Oh, sis," Peter said, "What have they done to you?"

He gently felt around the seated figure, finding the ropes that held her captive.

Peter pulled out a small knife from an inner pocket of his jacket and carefully sliced through the thin rope binding her hair, then did the same to free her arms and legs.

Petra was unconscious, but Peter could feel a weak pulse at her throat; at least they had let her live.


(to be continued)

V----V
 
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THE KEEPER OF DARKNESS

Ch. 11 - ‘DUALITY’
Fillmore East, NYC, Summer 1970


https://soundcloud.com/frostyjr2%2Fa-difference-of-opinion


The sun rises in the east and it sets in the west.

Some things never change, and even if you haven’t seen a sunrise for many long years you can still depend on it rising in the east every morning whether you are there to witness it or not.

Can people change, though?

That’s a question worth pondering, and vampires are still people; unusual people for sure, sometimes even quite remarkable people, but still people in the end, and there’s certainly at least a whole lot of opportunity for change in even one single lifetime, so can you imagine the possibilities when your existence is measured in centuries?

————————

Sivad Selim was a court musician back in the time of the Pharoahs, and Hannah was a Jewish slave in the Pharoah’s house in charge of the night kitchen shift.

They knew each other only as casual acquaintances at first until they realized that they had something very unusual in common: they were both vampires, and so neither of them would ever age normally or die a natural death.

In the culture of ancient Egypt, where preparation for the afterlife was everything, to be unable to die was perhaps the worst fate of all.

Sivad had already lived many lifetimes and had eventually become resigned to his continued existence, although it had made him first angry, then bitter.
Hannah had been undead for a much shorter time, but she was already quite comfortable with who and what she was, although not with feeding on beings weaker than herself.

In contrast, Sivad Selim took great pleasure in hunting and feasting on his prey.
If they were strong enough to survive that they became his ‘little ones’ and served him, at least until he eventually tired of them and cast them out.
If not, they would pass into the Great Beyond without him ever giving them a second thought.

“I did them a favour by getting them there faster.”
That’s how he put it.

When their work was done, long into the day which was their night Sivad and Hannah would debate the issue, each presenting their philosophical musings, not on the meaning of life but rather on what it means to be undead.

Hannah’s belief was that the challenge of an undead existence was to be what one was without causing harm to others while to Sivad, this was to deny one’s fundamental nature.

“Be yourself, be true to yourself,” he always said.

“Yes, but I define who I am, not my appetites,” she would always reply.

To which Sivad would always respond by simply letting out an evil laugh and then extending his sharp fangs fully before teleporting off to some dark alleyway where he would gleefully snack on his next victim.

Yet somehow despite their difference of opinion on this fundamental matter they came to care for each other and to become good friends.

And time passed.

Through the centuries Sivad would reinvent his music and his playing to match the current fashion, ever-changing and yet somehow always remaining himself.
His clothing changed, his name changed, the members of his band changed, even the horn changed a bit, but he was always exactly who he was, and he always sounded only like himself.

Never imitating others, always striving to be a true original; to him, that was what music was about: the long search to find his own sound, and then to develop it fully.

Time was not his enemy in his quest, for he had plenty of it to spare, and so time for him became elastic, stretching and compressing like a rubber band to suit his whim, the beat going from straight time to swing time to no time and back again seamlessly now.

Form was elastic also; he had played everything from the simplest folk melodies to the most complex and intricate classical pieces, navigated the trickiest harmonies of jazz standards, and shouted the gutbucket 12 bar blues … now he was able to play whatever he wished, whenever he wished.

“I’ll play it, and I’ll tell you what it is later,” he said in that raspy voice of his at one recording session.

Another time, the engineer had asked him the title of an improvised piece.

“Call it anything,” he responded offhandedly.

And that’s what they wrote down on the track sheet: 'Call It Anything'.

Hannah’s personal preference had been his Baroque period.
His technical mastery of the trumpet had been at its apogee then; his playing was fast, it was clean, and it was powerful, but eventually he had grown bored … both with reading the dots on the paper in front of him, and with the pursuit of technique for its own sake.

As the centuries passed he gradually pared away everything superfluous from his music; he played fewer notes, but now each one meant more.

Every single detail was weighed and measured now: the way the note was shaped in his lungs, his throat, and his mouth, the pressure of his full lips on the mouthpiece, and then how it was articulated, sustained, and bent; now he chased only pure sound, tone, and nuanced phrasing.

Hannah asked him about it once.

“I just figure that all the technique in the world is worthless if you have nothing to say for yourself,” Miles laughed.
"It's like a writer with good penmanship but no ideas. And why use a hundred notes when just a single one played right will do?"

--------------

Tonight we were at the Fillmore East checking out his latest persona: no longer a ‘jazz musician’, but something else instead; maybe not quite a rock star, but close enough.

Gone were the handmade Italian suits, the crisply starched white button-down shirts and the silk neckties, replaced by a tank top, a long scarf, tight leather trousers, and high heeled boots, and the dark sunglasses he always wore were now oversized, which was perfect for hiding the blood-red eyes of a constantly hungry, angry vampire.

To live on for centuries, unable to pass into the Great Beyond, chasing sound, chasing a dream, attaining technical mastery and yet still being unsatisfied … now he pursued simplicity, the simplicity of snowflakes. All alike in their basic nature, yet they contained infinite complexity, each one being unique, each one different, like the solos he would play over the same vamp on different nights.

Trane was long gone too, and Shorter had left to form his own electric ensemble.
Although Miles still had a sax in the group, he had become fascinated with the sound of a certain electric guitarist from Seattle who played left handed and loud and did things with a guitar that shouldn’t have been possible by pushing his wall of Marshall amplifiers hard and making that distortion a part of his entire sound instead of simply using them to make what was already coming out of the guitar louder.

They were kindred spirits, both of them sonic explorers and pioneers, but before they would ever have a chance to collaborate Jimi would unexpectedly pass into the Great Beyond, gone far too soon.
This was even more fuel for his bitterness and anger, since everyone Miles had ever cared about had been taken from him sooner or later as they moved on to the Afterlife without him.

Everyone … except for Hannah.

They had never been lovers, for Miles took and discarded lovers as casually as he might pick a flower, sniff it, and then toss it away.
This relationship was far too precious and even if he had desired her Hannah was not attracted to men in any case.

Still, there was something that drew them to each other besides their shared undead state; despite their differing philosophies as to how a vampire should comport him or herself they too were kindred spirits of a sort, for both of them sought the deeper meaning to who and what they were.

All existence must serve a purpose, of this they were both certain.
Their main difference of opinion came in the interpretation of what that purpose might be.

Miles (being both self-centered and a hedonist by nature) believed that to "do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law”, while Hannah believed that it was what we did for others that made our existence meaningful, rather than what we did for ourselves.

Over the many long years they had debated back and forth, neither one able to convince the other to change, and finally they had simply agreed to disagree.
Friends were hard enough to come by in the vampire world.

The predators were all naturally in competition for the same food, and those who chose not to hunt humans generally didn't associate with those who did; it was just easier that way.

And of course, to be friends or, god forbid, lovers with a human, well ... that was a sure ticket to heartbreak for they all lived such short lives, and having to watch someone you really love die got pretty old after the first few times.

And so Miles and Hannah remained friends, knowing that at least they had each other no matter who else might come and go.

--------
 
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TKoD
Ch. 11- 'Duality' (cont'd)

https://soundcloud.com/frostyjr2%2Fsirius-b


Now, to understand who and what you are, you have to understand where you come from.

The ancient Egyptians believed that during Zep Tepi, The First Time, the time of the gods, there was a direct link between Heaven and Earth.

In The First Time, the heavenly Milky Way was reflected in the path of the Nile River on Earth and the Pyramids on the Giza plateau were in perfect alignment with the stars of Orion’s Belt, and so the gods were able to travel along the Milky Way from the Duat (or Celestial Kingdom as it has also been called) to here on Earth.

The First Time was a Golden Age, “before rage or clamour or strife or uproar had come about”, to quote the Egyptologist Rundle Clark (whose own premature death in January of 1970 had come before he had had the chance to get very far along in his intended magnum opus, a monograph on the god Osiris).

“No death, disease, or disaster occurred in this blissful epoch, known variously as ‘The Time of Re’, ‘The Time of Osiris’, or ‘The Time of Horus’,“ he had written, but he had not explained why.

Indeed, why was there no death or disease?

The reason was this: these ‘gods’, as the local inhabitants of the Giza plateau had referred to them, were in fact star voyagers who traveled along the Milky Way in the form of pure energy, and although they were able to retain their normal great longevity once they had again manifested in physical form at this end of the celestial river, in order to survive here on Earth in that form they had to find a new source of sustenance.

The blood is the life; they became blood drinkers, and as such they were immune to death, decay, and disease.

----------

The legend was that, wanting to rule both Upper and Lower Egypt, the god Set had killed his brother Osiris and dismembered his body, cutting it into pieces and scattering them around the world, and by that act of violence putting an end to the Golden Age.

Isis, the wife of Osiris, using her magic, had gathered up the far-flung scattered pieces and brought him back from the dead just long enough in order to receive his seed.

The result of this union was the birth in due course of the ‘god’ Horus, the falcon-headed Sky God, the god of war and of hunting.
He who became Father of all the Undead.

So to Miles, all vampires were descendants of the original hunter god and were therefore entitled to feed on what he saw as lesser beings than himself.

Hannah, having been born a slave, tended to sympathise with the exploited and oppressed but even if her own station in life hadn’t been lowly, her sympathies and moral centre would have been in the same place. That was just who she was, and even being undead didn’t change that; if anything, it heightened her sense of compassion even more.

--------


Of course, i wasn’t thinking too much about any of this as Hannah and i listened to the band play on Saturday night at the end of a four day stint at the Fillmore East, the air thick with smoke.

The house was totally packed, long-haired hippies tripping on acid standing right alongside some of the more progressive jazz fans who had followed Miles on this new trip of his, unsure of where he was leading them but willing to travel.

Miles on the trumpet of course, doing his own thing, as always.
Chick Corea on the Fender Rhodes electric piano, and Keith Jarrett on an electronic organ, not the usual jazzer's Hammond B3.
Dave Holland from the UK doubling acoustic and electric bass, another new element coming from the rock world.
Jack DeJohnette on drums and the Brazilian Airto Moreira handling percussion and his native cuica.

And finally, there was Steve Grossman on tenor and soprano sax, the same ones Trane played. Although he didn’t sound anything like Coltrane to me, it was also pretty clear that he wasn’t trying to.

In fact, all of them were deliberately not referencing any jazz music that had come before this point whatsoever.

“Just be yourself; be true to yourself. That’s the only thing that really matters,” Miles had told them.
“In the end, it’s all you have.”


END OF PART ONE
 
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The Keeper of Darkness Part 2

Ch. 12 - The Evil Ones

Cannes,1996
https://soundcloud.com/frostyjr2%2Fthe-evil-ones-cannes-film

We were in town for the film festival.

With so many activities taking place at night and in cold, dark theatres, it was an annual pilgrimage for many vampires.

In fact, the whole entertainment industry was a haven for vampires, at least on the creative side of things.

Ironically, the management end was almost entirely run by humans.
We often got a laugh out of hearing this agent or that manager referred to as a ‘bloodsucker’, especially considering who and what most of their clients were in all likelihood.

But i digress …

Hannah and i were sitting at a sidewalk café table, the both of us dressed in very fashionable clothes.
We were going Euro style too, wearing matching outfits: gold lamé tops, black leather miniskirts, and gold high heeled stiletto pumps.

As we sipped our drinks, we watched the famous and the near-famous passing by on their way to or from some venue.
Hannah was having a pastis and i was drinking a creme de menthe; even after so many years, i still really didn’t enjoy the taste of alcohol; it brought back too many unpleasant memories of my last night alive.

Tobacco, on the other hand … I pulled out a Gitane from the thin blue pack on the table and lit it with my brass Zippo, inhaled deeply and then held the acrid smoke in my lungs for a while, savouring the sensation.

Totally relaxed now, i leaned back in the wicker café chair and stretched my legs out in front of me, then pulled them back quickly under the small round marble-topped table when i remembered that i was wearing a miniskirt, and a very short one too.
I pulled on the hem of it, tugging it back into place with some effort.
I certainly wasn’t used to this; us wearing these outfits was all Hannah’s idea.
A black leather miniskirt, and high heels; really high heeled stiletto pumps.

Jeez.

This was so NOT me, really.

At the moment, i was glad to be sitting down; as awkward and exposed as i felt sitting down in this skirt, it was better than the torture of trying to walk in these darn shoes.

It wasn’t even the pain so much, although putting thumb tacks in my sneakers would probably have been much more comfortable; i hadn’t worn high heels in so long, i’d forgotten how difficult walking in them was for me and we had walked around quite a bit as Hannah was catching up with some old acquaintances while i dutifully tagged along.

Clomping around clumsily two steps behind her in these pumps of pain, i must have looked a bit like some poor Old Southern sharecropper girl stepping over rows of cotton while Hannah glided effortlessly along in her own heels as if she was floating over the pavement in a skirt that seemed to be even shorter and tighter than mine.

That was probably an illusion due to her long, toned legs and her curvy figure, i reckoned, but either way it didn’t slow her down even a little bit.

And oh, my goodness … that perfect bottom of hers.
Gosh, but i did love that view; it kind of made it all worthwhile.

Still, i was really happy that i had finally been able to convince her to stop for a drink.

We were sitting at a table in this crowded café now and the novelty of it all was so refreshing to me.
The sights, the sounds, and the smells of humans and vampires combining together wasn’t a very common thing, since usually when vampires and humans mingled it didn’t end well for the humans.

Still, there were always certain events that were exceptions to the rule and this was one of them.
There was an unwritten agreement that we vamps wouldn’t feed during the film festival; we didn’t want to draw any undue attention to ourselves, especially with all of the paparazzi photogs and mega publicity that always came with the event.

As a result, we were all hungry. Starving, in fact.
It was like being at a banquet with your mouth sewn shut, so we were all hoping for even the slightest opportunity to have a little snack on the downlow.

All of a sudden, both Hannah and i looked up from our drinks to witness the most pitiable sight i think i had ever seen.

Two girls were leading a third one around as if on an invisible leash.
They were all vampires; the lack of any heartbeats was a dead giveaway, so to speak.
The first two looked quite healthy and well-fed though, and at first i couldn’t figure out why.

Then i looked more closely at the third girl.
She was pale and thin, her light brown hair was dull and a bit dirty, and she seemed to be miserable.

In fact, i had never seen anyone look so unhappy in my entire existence, alive or undead.
Suddenly i realized why; i was horrified, and i could tell that Hannah was incensed.

These two vamps were actually feeding on their own sister in order to sustain themselves!

A small exchange of blood was required when you became part of a family and a single feed and exchange was necessary in order to turn a human, but what these two were doing contravened all the laws of our kind.

A vampire would feed on human blood, or animal blood if they were squeamish about feeding on humans.
Rival clans would fight and even exterminate each other gleefully, but even the most hateful would never consider feeding on another vampire consistently an option.
It just wasn’t done.

The three of them walked past us as we sat there, never once even glancing in our direction.
Cannes was full of vampires at the moment, and we were just two more taking in the night air.

Well, not anymore we weren’t.

Hannah dropped a couple of bills on the table for the waiter and said sharply, “Come on, Erica. We need to go now!”

Whenever i heard that tone of voice, i knew that there was a storm brewing.

As i rose up from the table, i pulled my skirt down towards my knees once again, somewhat unsuccessfully.
Neither of us was really dressed for fighting but i was definitely ready and willing to back her up no matter what might happen.
As for Hannah, well … she was a vampire enforcer and in this situation she wasn’t going to wait for orders before she acted because by then it might be too late for this girl.
https://soundcloud.com/frostyjr2%2Fa-brisk-walk-through-cannes-at

The three of them were already halfway down the long block as we began to follow them.
The smallest vampire stumbled on a bit of uneven pavement and almost fell before she was able to right herself in time.

The tall woman with wavy dark brown hair turned and said, “Hurry up, Victoria! We have places to be, and you are slowing us down.”
Her tone was harsh, and her accent was strange; i couldn’t place it at all.

"Kris, make sure she keeps up with us."

“I’m walking as fast as I can,” the small girl moaned, her soft voice plaintive.
“I’m weak, I’m starving, and I can’t do any better than this.”

The third vampire, the one the other had called Kris, laughed at that.
Her laugh sounded quite cold and evil to me.

She was another small girl, just about my height, with reddish straight hair almost the same colour as mine.
In fact, we were enough alike that we could have been sisters but for one thing:
both this girl and the taller one exuded an almost palpable aura of evil; only their poor victim seemed to be free of it.

---------------
 
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TKoD Part 2
Ch. 12 (cont'd)


I suppose most people would see all vampires as evil creatures, but most of us really weren’t evil at all.
We had an affliction (or an addiction, as some of us preferred to think of it), and we all dealt with it in different ways.

Only the worst of us fed indiscriminately, and many had chosen a more moderate lifestyle, hunting only wild animals.
Some had even eschewed hunting altogether, if there was another blood supply available.
There was a large black market in medical blood packs; and this was a popular option for those who made that choice (and who could afford it, of course).

Even vampires who fed on humans usually only picked on low-life evildoers, the sort of people the world was probably better off without in any case.
They justified, or maybe it would be better to say 'rationalized', their behavior by telling themelves that their victims deserved their fate and wouldn’t really be missed by anyone ...
but to feed on a fellow vampire, over and over again?
What kind of lowlife scum were we dealing with here?

These were the thoughts running through my head as we followed this odd trio at a discreet distance.

We had left the main part of town behind by now and the streets were much less crowded, but we still weren’t about to start any sort of ruckus that might disturb the fragile truce that was in effect not only between humans and vampires but also between rival vampire clans.

As we walked along behind them, i turned to Hannah and asked, “So, what are you thinking?”

She replied quietly, “We free the girl. No one deserves what she’s going through.”

“And what about the other two?”

“Well, that depends on what they do, really. It would be better if they were willing to let her go without a fight, but somehow I don’t see that happening.”

I saw her clench her fists tightly as she said that.
A storm of trouble was definitely brewing, no doubt.

Meanwhile, i could feel the extreme desperation welling up in the third vampire as she stumbled along while the other two strolled nonchalantly in front of her, too oblivious or too uncaring to take notice of the poor girl’s struggle.

By now we had been walking for some time, and we had left the crowded part of town far behind us and come to a residential district, with small private houses lining either side of the narrow streets.
Hannah and i slowed our pace so as not to be too obvious but there weren’t very many other people around.

Luckily, the three vampires ahead of us seemed to be lost in their own little world and totally oblivious to our presence for the moment.

They finally stopped in front of a small, rather nondescript house on a tree-lined side street and the tall woman with the wavy brown hair rang the doorbell.
After a short interval, the door was opened by a tall, gaunt man with very pale skin.

“Good evening, ladies, and welcome!” he intoned.
His voice was quite deep and sonorous, in contrast to his somewhat unprepossessing physical appearance.
“And what have you brought us tonight, Judith?”

“Good evening, Cestus,” the tall woman replied. “I brought dessert.”
She smiled, exposing her parchment colored fangs.

The man moved aside to let the three of them pass, and as he did i could hear noises inside that led me to believe there was some kind of party going on.
There were at least a dozen vampires there, judging by the sound of it, in addition to the man Cestus and these three newcomers.
The heavy door closed behind them after they entered inside, and as it did the street fell silent again.

I turned to Hannah. Her mouth was set into a hard line now, her fists still balled up tightly at her sides.

“Maybe we should scope things out before we just rush in there," i said.
"It looks as if we’re going to be seriously outnumbered,”

She smiled grimly as she extended her own fangs before replying.
“Don’t you worry girl, I’m not about to do anything hasty. I just want to see what’s going on here.”

Hannah took my hand firmly in her own as she walked up to the door and rang the bell.

The door opened once more, and the man called Cestus looked us over quite closely, then opened the door to let us in, greeting us with another, “Good evening, ladies, and welcome!”


V-----V

(to be continued)
 
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The Keeper of Darkness (pt. 2)
Chapter 13: Stage Fright

Au Petit Theatre, Cannes, 1996
https://soundcloud.com/frostyjr2%2Fin-the-dark

“Welcome, wilkommen, bienvenue, Mesdames et Messieurs, au Petit Bal des Vampires,” he said, his deep voice resonant in the small space.

The man spread his arms expansively, the spotlight focused entirely on him.
It was otherwise totally dark in this room, but our vampire night vision was more than adequate to the task of taking in the scene around us.

Once Hannah and i entered the house, we looked around for any sign of the three who had entered just before us, but they had vanished.
The room we were in wasn’t large, and although it was full to capacity, it was only with the dozen or so people i had estimated while we were still outside.

There wasn’t a single heartbeat among them.

They were all vampires and every one of them looked both predatory and hungry; as i passed through the room, i could feel their eyes on me, and i didn’t need an empathetic connection to read the thoughts going around inside their heads:
“I wonder what she tastes like?”

It sent chills up my spine.

These weren’t the ‘nice’ sort of vampires, not in the slightest, not a one.

I pressed closer to Hannah, holding her hand tightly as if i were a frightened little girl clinging to her mommy as we walked towards the back of the room, which had once been a salon or living room but had now been converted into a small theatre, complete with a stage and blood-red velvet upholstered seats for the audience.

On the left side of that low stage, the man they had called Cestus stood in front of a matching blood-red velvet curtain.
As he gestured towards it, he continued on.

“Tonight, we have for your delectation and amusement, a special morsel provided for us by Judith and Kris. They never fail to bring us the very best, and I’m sure that tonight will be no exception.”
He grinned, exposing his yellowed fangs as he did.
“And so, without further delay, I give you … VICTORIA!”

Cestus moved aside and the curtains parted, revealing quite a bizarre spectacle.

The small girl we had seen earlier was now stripped to her underwear, intricately tied up with black and red nylon rope, and suspended from another black nylon rope running through a heavy metal ring fixed to the ceiling and connected to another set of rings in mid-air.

She was bound in a complicated pose: hands behind her back, legs crossed at the knees, feet pointed to the outside, and she was doubled over with her head down so that her face was hidden at first.

I could only imagine her feeling of humiliation, but the severe desperation of her urgent physical need, that was as clear to me as if it were my own.

Standing next to her was the red-headed vampire girl Kris; she was just finishing up the last of the knots.

I was amazed that she had managed to execute such a complicated bit of rope work in such a short time, although she appeared to be less than pleased at the result herself.
Devotees of shibari don’t like being rushed, and it was obvious that Kris was was quite an expert at it because this sort of suspension was difficult to achieve even with much more time than she had had available.

Even taking into account any vampire’s extraordinarily high threshold, the position was clearly intended to cause pain; the joints at the girl’s shoulders, elbows, hips, and knees were all undergoing extreme stress.

At first i was surprised that she wasn’t moaning in agony, but when Kris passed in front of her and raised her face up towards the audience the reason for that was clear: a ball gag had been inserted in her mouth and buckled behind her head so she couldn’t make a sound from behind it other than a soft whimpering noise.

The poor girl was already starting to shudder and convulse from pain and from her urgent need as Kris applied an icy cold fingertip to the bound girl’s rounded belly and was then rewarded by a muffled gasp, accompanied by a spurt of liquid jetting out of her victim before it splashed onto the floor beneath.
Only Hannah and i knew exactly what she was releasing, though.
It was shadow essence!

I couldn’t help imagining myself in her place and i truly did feel sorry for her, but at the moment there was nothing i could do about it except try to will her to hold on empathetically.
Without a strong family connection to her i wasn’t sure that i could even do that much but i couldn't just watch helplessly while she suffered.

To my shame, i was also getting somewhat turned on now; i couldn’t help that either, because the way the stage was lit created shadows on both the floor and walls, tripling the effect the scene made for the other spectators.

In the meantime, i could sense that Hannah was busy trying to assess the threat level of the other guests and figure out how we might be able to extract the girl safely.
Aroused though she might have been herself, she was much better at keeping those feelings in check than i was; then again, she’d had a lot more time and motivation to work on that.

Kris smiled, the evil grin spreading across her face as she raised a finger in front of Victoria’s terrified eyes.
She waved it ever so slowly back and forth in front of her, and then she moved it down towards Victoria’s midsection once again.
This time, instead of a gentle stroking touch she made a sharp stabbing motion, jabbing suddenly into Victoria’s abdomen and provoking another squirt, a longer one this time.

The audience was really enjoying the spectacle; I could hear a collective murmur of satisfaction every time the poor girl would release onto the stage floor below her.
They weren’t shadow vampires like Hannah and i; they were simply savouring her pain and humiliation and Kris was doing a very good job of ensuring that the girl’s pain and humiliation were severe and that they would last for quite some time.

The bound girl’s small body was covered with sweat, her muscles quite visibly in spasm, convulsing uncontrollably as she tried in vain to relieve the stress of her own weight while Kris pointed her finger once more and smiled that cold, evil smile yet again.

I couldn’t allow this to go on for much longer; Victoria’s pretty brown eyes were welling up with tears now.

As they trickled down her cheeks i willed her to relax and as i did she released a long stream of shadow essence from her tortured body even before the girl Kris could touch her again.
Now her distended belly was shrinking visibly as she voided, accompanied by a soft hissing sound and the splashing of it hitting the floor that was clearly audible to me even over the grumblings of the audience who were all somewhat disappointed at the premature climax to the show.

“Dammit, Vicky! What the hell is going on with you tonight?” Kris muttered.
“Normally you can take this for hours!”

I could tell that Kris was furious, having been deprived of another opportunity to prolong the suffering and humiliation of her helpless victim.
Meanwhile, i saw Cestus and Judith arguing fiercely at the side of the stage, and i smiled.

At first it seemed as if my putting a rather abrupt end to their little spectacle was going to be a problem, but then they seemed to come to some sort of agreement.

Judith walked rapidly to the stage and exchanged a few quick words with Kris, who nodded and then moved to the hook and pulley system at the rear of the stage that secured the rope holding Victoria suspended in the air.

The red-headed vampire girl unlocked the carabiner and unclipped it from the hook in the wall and then she easily lowered the bound girl down to just above the floor before securing it to the hook again.

Now Victoria’s feet could touch the ground, and i could feel a sense of relief flooding her body once the twin stresses of need and extreme suspension had been removed but she stll tried to pull against the ropes that bound her tightly as if in anticipation of some other unpleasantness yet to come.

Cestus moved to the center of the stage again, and spoke once more in his deep, resonant voice.
“Mesdames et Messieurs, I apologize for the brevity of the first part of our show. However, I am positive that you shall enjoy the next bit."

He smiled and said, "We will now auction off the right to taste the lovely Victoria to the highest bidder.’


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Ch. 13 - Stage Fright (cont'd)
https://soundcloud.com/frostyjr2%2Fanother-night-another-club

The clamor of hungry vampires as they rushed towards the stage drowned out anything else he was saying, and after a brief chaotic moment, he had to shout for order to be restored so that he might explain how the auction would work.

Materials would be distributed and anyone who wished to bid for a taste would simply write down an amount on a piece of paper along with their name and seal it in an envelope.
The envelopes would then be collected and the bids tallied up.

As the sinister Cestus moved among the audience, a number of them gestured for the materials to place their bids.

When he passed us, Hannah extended her hand as well and retrieved a shiny black and gold Mont Blanc fountain pen, a small piece of parchment paper, and a matching envelope.

She quickly wrote something down in her neat, angular cursive hand and then stuffed it into the envelope before passing it to me.
“Here, sweetie … you seal it for good luck!”, she said, smiling warmly at me.

“How much did you bid?” i asked anxiously as i gave it back after licking the envelope and pressing it closed with a sharp clawed fingertip. “Do you think it will be enough?”
I sincerely hoped it would be.

“Don’t you worry, girl. It will work out, I promise,” Hannah replied. “We’re definitely going to win.”

Cestus made another round of the room to collect all of the sealed envelopes.

Some of the vampires had smug looks on their faces as if they were already sure of winning the auction.
There were some clearly well-to-do types there, and not a few of them obviously knew each other already; as we could tell from their knowing glances back and forth, they had definitely played some variation of this little game before.

Cestus and Judith began to open the envelopes one at a time, carefully arranging them in the order of their bid amounts.
There were eight envelopes in total including ours, and once all of them had been opened and the final tally made, Cestus slowly walked back to the center of the stage, holding two small pieces of paper in one pale, bony hand.

He glanced pointedly at the name written on one of them, and then said, “The winner of the auction is …”

He paused for a few moments, allowing the suspense to build before announcing the name.

‘If nothing else, this creeper definitely has a flair for drama,’ i thought to myself.

”… HANNAH OLIVEIROS!”

I looked at Hannah, and asked quietly, “How did you know you would win?”

“It was easy,” she replied, smiling that beautiful smile i loved so much at me again.
”I just wrote ‘Take the highest bid, and double it.' ”

I laughed.
It was such a simple and effective strategy; leave it to Hannah to come up with something like that on the spur of the moment.

As Hannah walked towards the stage Cestus moved quickly to head her off.
He first bowed deeply and then stood and looked straight into her eyes.
With a theatrical flourish, he showed her the other paper with the amount she was to pay the double of on it.

In his deep voice, he intoned, “You do realise that this is quite a large amount of money, my dear Mademoiselle. I don’t mean to be indelicate, but …”
He paused. and then cleared his throat, “… ahem …”, leaving a pregnant pause.

“Monsieur, I’m sure you are familiar with the expression ‘If you have to ask …’, ”
Hannah replied, laughing softly and tossing her long shiny dark brown hair aside as she opened her small black leather clutch purse.
Removing several large bills, she placed them in the pale, bony hand that Cestus had greedily extended to receive them.
He glanced at them just long enough to verify the proper denominations before he nodded at Judith to signal that all was in order and then moved aside to give Hannah access to the stage.

Before she did however, she spoke to Cestus again.

“For such a large fee, I believe my lover and I should be entitled to not just slake our blood thirst, but also to …”
She then whispered into the tall, thin vampire’s pointed ear, causing him to smile and expose his yellowed fangs once more.

“Mademoiselle, you most certainly do have some unusual ‘appetites’,” Cestus replied unctuously.
“However, I am quite sure that this audience will enjoy seeing them gratified. Do what you will.”

At this, Hannah gestured to me to join her on the stage.

Despite my reluctance to take part in this freak show, i had no other choice but to obey but then as i did i received a telepathic message from her explaining her plan and detailing exactly what she wanted me to do.

I smiled then, extending my snow-white fangs in the process while Hannah turned towards the audience.

“You have already been introduced to Victoria. I would now like you to meet little Erica, who will also soon be performing for your amusement and delight,” she said in her most sultry voice.
“Erica is my submissive, and she will do anything I ask of her. Isn’t that so, Erica?”

“Yes, ma’am,” i said, nodding with my hands folded in front of me and my feet aligned in perfect parallel symmetry just like the parochial schoolgirl i used to be so very long ago.
With my eyes cast demurely down towards the floor, i could clearly see a pool of shadow essence under Victoria’s suspended body now.

“Well, then, why don’t you keep Victoria still for me?” Hannah said. “I’m feeling quite thirsty now!”

“Yes, ma’am. As you wish.”
I quickly sank to my knees behind the bound girl and held her tightly in my arms.
As i did i could feel the perspiration on her skin against mine and smell her sweet fragrance as i bent down towards her face.

OMG, it was so hard for me to resist the temptation to taste the shadow essence on the floor under her right then.

“Don’t worry. We don’t want to hurt you, but we’re going to have to make this convincing,” i whispered softly into her ear.
"Just go along with it, please. Everything will be alright in the end, i promise!”

Of course, just as i finished saying that Hannah bit into Victoria’s neck, sinking her fangs deeply into the small girl’s jugular vein and taking a deep draught of her blood as she writhed in my arms from the pain of it.

I held her as tightly as I could and sent her my empathetic support to help her bear it.

Although it had been a very long time since i had felt it myself, it was something i’d never forget: the extreme pain of that first bite, the searing burn as the razor sharp fangs sank into one’s neck before it became oddly pleasurable as they slaked their thirst.

The initial sting of a shadow vampire’s first bite was particularly severe due to our peculiar venom and it would be lethal unless countered.
I was lucky, having been on death’s doorstep and virtually unconscious when it happened to me.
The pain that the fully conscious Victoria was feeling now must have been easily more than a thousand times worse than what i only dimly recalled from my own experience but it had to be done this way if we wanted Hannah’s plan to succeed.

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Keeper of Darknees Pt. 2
Ch. 12 - Stage Fright (cont'd.)
https://soundcloud.com/frostyjr2%2Fshadow-essence-in-effect

The assembled guests looked on raptly, every one of them wishing they had won the right to drink from her.
They were all so busy jealously watching Hannah feed that none of them noticed as i discreetly unfastened the buckle securing the ball gag behind Victoria’s neck.

“Shhhhh,” i murmured, loosening my grip slightly and stroking her light brown hair gently with one hand to comfort her.
I knew what was coming next, and she probably wasn’t going to like it at all.

As Hannah finally retracted her fangs from Victoria’s jugular vein, i could see and feel the two perfectly round holes already beginning to close rapidly.
She was still in pain, her eyes closed, the shadow vamp venom streaking through her body like liquid fire as she writhed in agony.

Hannah gestured to me again, letting me know it was time to remove the ball gag from Victoria’s mouth.

I whispered in her ear again.
“Hannah’s going to do something now, and you’re not going to like it, but it’s absolutely necessary. You need to take what she’s about to give you.”

Hannah laughed loudly, and said, “After such a long drink, I think I need to relieve myself. Erica, would you please help me find a place to do so?”

That was my cue; i quickly removed the ball gag from Victoria’s mouth and pressed her cheeks inwards, forcing her lips open as Hannah positioned herself to let some of her shadow essence flow into Victoria’s mouth.

I was almost jealous myself but Victoria just sputtered and tried to close her mouth or turn her head away so as to not have to swallow any of Hannah’s shadow.
She wasn’t one of us yet, so Hannah’s shadow essence definitely wouldn’t taste very good to her.
All of her attempts to avoid drinking it down were useless of course; my grip on her was far too secure.

The audience murmured with delight as Hannah then ordered me to clean up after her, and i eagerly raised my fingers to my lips and licked the bit of it that had overflowed onto them, then cleared off the remaining bit of shadow essence from Victoria’s face as tenderly as i could.
Next, i surreptitiously took a tiny bite of the flesh at the heel of my hand, drawing a small amount of my blood.
Holding it in my mouth, i let it mix with some of my own shadow venom before kissing her deeply, teasing her mouth open with my tongue and spitting that mixture of my blood and shadow venom into it.

She sputtered and choked again at first, but once enough of it it went down it took effect pretty quickly.
Once it did, her eyes rolled back in her head and she moaned again, but this time it was with pure pleasure instead of pain.

The vampires in the audience all watched in hot fascination as i then began to work Victoria with all my ability, and believe me, Hannah had taught me a few things in the time i’d known her.

That was fun, definitely … but it was also more misdirection.

Thanks to that surreptitious exchange of blood and shadow essence between the three of us, Victoria, Hannah, and i were now bonded as a vampire family.

Vicky was now our sister.


\/——\/

(to be continued)
 
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