“Please, I want to understand,” Astaire reiterates, putting his hand on my chest. His pale fingers lie in stark contrast upon my skin, like ice in a vast ocean, luring the truth out with tender care.
“I…” My words falter, my breath slows, and I summon my past before I can continue, “I was ruined in my youth,” I force out, muscles straining with the effort.
When his brows shoot up in concern, I realise my clumsy choice of words.
“No. Not in the manner you fear.” A frustrated rasp escapes me. “It defies explanation.”
“Could you try?” he asks.
I draw another breath, attempting to recollect the visions I had so long denied a voice. “I’m afraid my clumsy attempts will only add to your confusion.”
“It’s okay,” he says, fingers gently stroking over my chest, their movement comforting me with familiar warmth.
“There were experiences… I cannot begin to describe these bursts—instances blurred between reality and dreams, faint memories I tried to forget.” My gaze returns to the fire’s familiar glow; nonetheless, my body recoils as I try to find the precise words. “Fleeting, fevered moments of release, stolen from me before I could understand their meaning,” I sigh.
Astaire’s sincerity reaches out with a ghostly caress, awakening a part of me that urges me to nurture these newfound emotions, encourage his empathy. If I was to share my most vulnerable memories, I might?—
“My…“ His name sticks in my throat, depriving me of utterance. “My maker,” I finally continue, “he controlled me, used every means known and unknown to man to subdue my will. I was so young.” The words choke out, my body refusing to speak this confession. Astaire does not interrupt, his gentle touches urging me onward.
“I was of marriageable age,” I begin, my voice low, restrained, “when lustful thoughts become one’s foremost preoccupation. I was still mortal then, subject to the frailties of the flesh. When the first of them, another of my kind, a man, was brought to my chamber, I was overjoyed with the possibilities of companionship.” I pause.
“You must understand, I had been long estranged from humanity; my only contact with other mortals since childhood was to lure them to my maker so that they might serve as sustenance. I was kept apart, like a beast too perilous to roam freely…” I feel the words lodge in my throat like an iron rod,and I shut my eyes, as if sight itself would unfold the memories before me.
“When at last a figure approached, my soul ached with wonder. The experience is as clear as if it were only yesterday; he entered my darkened chamber at the peak of night, and without speaking a word, he grasped me in his hand. When my seed spilled, I sought to feel his skin, yearned to touch and be touched. But when I reached out, my fingers slipped through him like smoke. He was merely a spectre.”
I feel like taut vellum stretched over a disarray of bones, ancient and brittle, waiting to tear at the gentlest touch. All at once, the bedding is too coarse upon my skin, the bedstead too small, as if my limbs had unexpectedly outgrown their bounds. I sit up and rake my fingers through my unkempt hair, but the feeling does not subside. Astaire watches me calmly, fingers twitching for another touch, uncertain and careful. Confusion and concern swell within him, undeniable despite his silence.
“Next was a girl, ruddy-cheeked and eager,” I say. “With her mouth on my cock, I faded swiftly into that momentary death, just as my maker entered and, without hesitation, drew a blade across her throat. Her blood leapt forth in violent gouts, drenching my skin, hot copper dripping into my mouth. The gurgling sounds as she took her last breath…”
I press the heel of my palm to my face, but the salty taste upon my lips lodges itself even deeper within my soul.
“That very first bitter taste of blood on my tongue, an unthinkable act my still human mind could not comprehend. But there was no reprieve. He sent mortal after mortal, night after night. An unending parade of bodies, some as immaterial as phantoms, while others bore flesh as real as yours or mine. I strained to discern their existence by touch, but my maker’s spectres became so lifelike, I could no longer ascertain the deception with my human senses alone. I was ignorant until heeviscerated them before my eyes: entrails coiled round limbs, gore spilled over my skin, a sickening stench, blood gleaming under candlelight.”
I close my eyes again, my breath shuddering.
“I wished to resist my carnal desires, yet I never refused them, for I wanted gentle touch and companionship too fiercely.”
The iron rod is still firmly pressing within my chest; no manner of swallowing has the power to extricate its stifling width.
“I remember them all. The colour of their eyes, the scent of their skin, the thickness of their blood.” I do not dare look at Astaire, but even in complete silence, his shock, his horror lies thick upon my chamber. “I resolved to become stronger. With great effort, I learned to resist these schemes. These advances. For centuries, I did not yield. That is…”
Finally then, I draw my gaze upon his, though I fear what I might find in his eyes.
“Until I met you.” I let the words linger between us.
“I…I don’t know what to say.” He looks aghast. “It’s despicable…what he did to you.”
Astaire’s words are soft, but the furrow between his brows and a mouth drawn hard betrays his underlying distress. I had seen much, endured more, but the depth of his empathy, the rawness of his voice, unsettles something within me I scarcely dare name. I can only shrug, a gesture not of indifference but of endurance and resignation.
“Is that why you turned away from me when I…spilled?” he asks.
“The intensity of your release resounded within me as though it were my own.”
“I don’t understand…”
“I feel it all: desire, anger, fear. Even yours,” I confess.
“That sounds…unbearable.”
