Violeta Noir

The burger place never happened.

By the time I left the salon, my nails were fresh and my toes were perfect.

His favorite color.

Of course.

Wounded Boy has always had a particular weakness for my feet, and I knew exactly where his mind would go when he saw them.

I didn’t need to tell him.

That would have ruined the fun.

Seduction has never been about giving instructions.

Sometimes it is simply knowing someone’s appetite well enough to place something beautiful in front of him and wait.

And Wounded Boy was already hungry.

He was on his way to my house carrying food he had cooked himself, having made his intentions for the evening perfectly clear.

By the time I stepped outside the salon, I had intentions of my own.

She had a heartbeat.

She.

The one Wounded Boy speaks about her as though she lives somewhere inside me separately.

Something alive.

Something he remembers.

Something that remembers him.

Walking toward my car, freshly polished and already thinking about the man driving toward my house, I could feel her waking.

A pulse.

A throb.

Something scratching softly from inside the walls.

Hungry.

I looked down at my freshly painted toes and smiled.

His favorite color.

A tiny act of devotion.

Or bait.

Depending on which creature you ask.

By the time Wounded Boy arrived, anticipation had already done half the work.

Maybe that was the first course.

Not touch.

Not mouths.

Not skin.

Wanting.

Knowing.

Waiting just a little longer.

The vampire loves anticipation.

It seasons everything.

Once the night began, something inside me simply refused to tire.

Wounded Boy noticed first.

The gym, apparently, has produced benefits I neglected to record.

He kept commenting on my stamina.

How long I could keep moving.

How much stronger I seemed.

How I apparently had no intention whatsoever of giving him mercy.

He began the evening entertained by this discovery.

Then impressed.

Then overwhelmed.

I bounced on top of him for more than an hour wearing a lilac lace number.

Up.

Down.

Up.

Down.

Long enough for time to stop behaving normally.

Long enough for the rhythm to become hypnotic.

Long enough that eventually there was nothing left in the room except movement, breath, and his face beneath me.

I watched him hold on for dear life with a look like holding back his creampie was painful.

That may have been my favorite part.

His hands gripping me as though I had become weather and he had made the unfortunate decision to ride out the storm.

He looked overwhelmed trying hard to focus instead of letting his eyes roll back.

I felt magnificent.

And I kept bouncing, hard.

Up.

Down.

Up.

Down.

The same relentless rhythm.

My thighs.

My hips.

All that strength I had apparently been building without realizing exactly where I intended to spend it.

He noticed.

Eventually surprise disappeared from his face altogether.

Surprise requires enough composure to observe what is happening.

Wounded Boy was running out of composure.

Then I looked at his face.

God.

That was what undid me.

I could feel his hunger before I looked directly at him. I could feel him pulsing inside of me.

Then I made the mistake of meeting his eyes.

Pleasure tore through my concentration.

I looked away.

Recovered.

Looked back.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Still I kept moving and now I couldn’t stop cumming.

I could withstand almost everything else.

His praise.

His hands.

His voice becoming less coherent as the night continued.

The way he kept telling me how delicious I was.

The way amusement slowly disappeared from his face and something considerably more primitive replaced it.

But I could not withstand his eyes.

Every time I looked down and caught him staring back at me, something inside me answered.

His desire had become physical.

A current.

I could almost taste it.

Years of wanting me concentrated into one expression.

History.

Separation.

Memory.

Scandal.

Love.

Lust.

All of it staring back.

And the vampire opened her mouth.

I let him look.

I let myself feel him looking.

And I fed. It was a huge load, a feast.

Eventually his eyes began to plead.

Then something changed.

Suddenly I was on my back and Wounded Boy had remembered exactly what color I had painted my toes.

His favorite.

Of course.

He knows the strange connection between them and the rest of me.

He knows exactly what kind of reaction he can pull from the creature when he gives them his attention.

And she responded.

Enthusiastically.

The night dissolved after that.

Heat.

Skin.

Laughter.

Praise.

Ragged breath.

Nectar.

Ruined sheets.

The sort of night that eventually loses chronology and becomes a collection of sensations instead.

And through all of it, Wounded Boy kept talking about her.

Not me.

Her.

As though somewhere beneath the lace and softness there really is another creature.

Something he has encountered often enough to recognize.

The one who pulls him closer.

The one who pulses.

The one who grips almost too tightly and won’t let him go.

The one who occasionally leaves him sounding genuinely bewildered by whatever he has discovered inside me.

Sometimes I think Wounded Boy believes he is simply being poetic about my body.

I am beginning to wonder if he has met her.

Hours disappeared.

Eventually Wounded Boy collapsed against me.

Spent.

Sticky.

The bed beneath us thoroughly defeated.

Surely that was enough.

It should have been enough.

Morning came.

Apparently morning had other plans.

Twice.

After hours the night before.

By any reasonable measure, the creature should have been sleeping.

She wasn’t.

That is what I am beginning to understand about her.

She isn’t hungry because she wasn’t fed.

She is hungry because she was.

Pleasure doesn’t quiet her.

It reminds her what she likes.

And apparently what she likes is abundance.

Eventually I got out of bed to clean myself.

Wounded Boy objected.

“No. Don’t do that. I like the idea of me being inside of you all day.”

I looked back at him.

“You know what that does, though?”

He looked at me.

“That makes more men want me.”

Poor thing.

He still thinks desire behaves like a fence.

It behaves more like perfume.

The more of it I carry, the more heads turn.

Perhaps that is the fundamental misunderstanding between Wounded Boy and the vampire.

He leaves believing he has marked something.

She leaves glowing.

And I was glowing.

Sore too.

Deliciously, inconveniently aware of muscles I had apparently used with considerable enthusiasm.

The sheets went back into the laundry.

Again.

At this rate vampirism is going to require a linen budget.

But I was still hungry.

For him.

That is important.

Because this is not the hunger of deprivation.

Wounded Boy had hours with me.

Morning had given us twice more.

He had fed the creature extraordinarily well.

And still.

More.

Perhaps that is the mistake.

Thinking satisfaction and satiety are the same thing.

They aren’t.

I can be satisfied.

Thoroughly.

Completely.

Luxuriously.

And still wake up wanting another taste.

Pleasure does not sedate her.

It wakes her.

Feed her once and she opens an eye.

Feed her again and she stretches.

Give her an entire night and apparently she wakes the next morning wondering what is for dinner.

Then, this afternoon, I told Wounded Boy I wanted him again.

After everything.

Again.

His answer?

“My ravenous love.”

I stopped.

Ravenous.

Interesting choice.

Maybe Wounded Boy knows more about her than I thought.

After all, he was the one who started calling her she.

I merely started listening.

Maybe he recognizes the hunger.

Perhaps he simply misunderstands the scale.

Because while I was sitting here writing about how desperately I still wanted Wounded Boy, crooked teeth wandered into my imagination.

My Pint Sized Mechanic.

That mouth.

Those hooded eyes.

Another flavor.

The creature stirred.

Curious.

Greedy.

Alive.

Then my phone lit up.

Pint Sized Mechanic.

Of course.

He was about to get into the shower.

And apparently he was just as hungry for me as I already knew I was for him.

I stared at the screen.

Then laughed.

The Archivist believes in evidence, after all.

She also believes in documenting suspicious timing.

I am not saying I summoned the man.

That would be ridiculous.

Probably.

But I had just written his crooked teeth into the story.

And then he appeared.

Earlier, Sunday had been a maybe.

Then Monday became the plan.

Apparently Monday was too far away.

For both of us.

Tomorrow morning.

An hour or two.

I told Pint Sized Mechanic exactly what I wanted.

“I want to spend more time tasting you.”

His answer was beautifully uncomplicated.

“You do whatever you want.”

Oh.

The vampire liked that.

So much for Monday.

The Archivist makes another correction.

Appetite has become itinerary.

And apparently the itinerary is changing faster than I can document it.

Magic?

No.

This one is considerably easier to explain.

We’re both hungry.

And then there is the Stag.

Waiting somewhere in the forest with fantasies of his own.

His particular appetite fascinates me because another man’s desire doesn’t seem to repel him.

Quite the opposite.

Apparently it seasons the meal.

Interesting.

The Archivist makes another note.

Desire does not behave like a fence.

It behaves like perfume.

Wounded Boy wants to leave the scent on me.

Pint Sized Mechanic catches it from miles away.

The Stag seems to want me precisely because the forest is already full of tracks.

Three men.

Three appetites.

One creature standing in the middle of them.

And somehow the creature is still the hungry one.

Ravenous.

There.

The Archivist has entered it into the record.

Wounded Boy feeds me extraordinarily well.

Perhaps that is the problem.

I know how to make men hungry.

Wounded Boy knows how to make me hungry.

And now I am beginning to suspect that hunger itself may be contagious.

I should probably stop writing.

My phone just went off again.

Four messages.

Then a call.

The Hustler.

Oh.

Fuck.

I have a date tonight.

I forgot.

I stared at the phone and started laughing.

The Archivist has apparently lost control of the archive.

Wounded Boy fed me for hours.

Pint Sized Mechanic moved himself from Monday to tomorrow morning.

The Stag is still wandering around the forest with his peculiar appetites.

And apparently I am expected somewhere tonight.

Ravenous.

Wounded Boy may have named this entry better than I could.

I really should stop writing now.

The problem with documenting a feast while you’re still eating is that eventually someone knocks on the door.

Which brings me to you.

Still here?

Interesting.

You stayed through the hunger.

The favorite color.

The ruined sheets.

The morning after.

You watched him feed her for hours and discovered, along with me, that somehow she only became hungrier.

You watched another man appear the moment she thought about tasting him.

You followed the Stag into the forest.

And the thirsty Hustler making an appearance.

And now you’ve followed her all the way to the bottom of the page.

Never once wondering why the door kept closing behind you.

Perhaps you’re beginning to understand.

The vampire doesn’t chase.

She doesn’t have to.

Some appetites come willingly.

Some stare.

Some linger.

Some fantasize.

Some read all the way to the bottom of the page.

And all of them taste a little different.

So tell me.

Feeling a little hungry yourself?

How sweet.

Come closer.

Let me look at you.

There.

That little flicker.

I knew it.

You thought you were reading about the feast.

You were dessert.