Page 17 of The Nephilim's Finesse

Two climaxes. Was it so easy to get answers out of him, then? And I wasted my two questions with those stupid queries? I was angry at myself for letting him play me, but that wouldn't happen again.

I focused on him, reading nothing from his face, and walked away to the bed, letting the box go untouched on the coffee table.

“I already cleaned all of them. They are ready to use. See you tomorrow,” he said and turned, walking to the exit.

I twirled around, surprised that he was already leaving me. He abandoned me after five minutes, not the hour-long staring contest we used to have. I noticed that I didn’t want him to leave; I didn’t want to be alone so soon. He was my keeper; therefore, I hated him, but he was the nicest one so far. He didn’t hurt me once or scream at me like the others did; he was just there, and I perceived that I was looking forward to seeing him every day. Why would that be? What was wrong with me? Was it because he was the sole diversion on a monotone day? Yes, that was the only logical explanation for my feeling of loneliness. But I’d felt lonely before. I'd endure this and think nothing of this fleeting emotion.

The following day, he came holding some DVDs in his hand. Raph walked up to me with a confident stride and stopped just short of arm's reach.

“Two questions,” he said, his voice low and steady, like a rolling tide waiting to sweep me away.

I had thought long and hard about what I was going to ask him for the past twenty-four hours. With a nod of my head, I signalled that I was prepared and eager to hear what he had to say. The tension in the air was palpable as we both waited anxiously for the question and answer session to begin.

“What are the conditions that you’ll release me?”

He thought about his answer for a while, which gave me hope because it meant that there were conditions at all and not that they would hold me here forever or kill me when they were done.

“It relies on various factors. First, I need answers to my questions. Second, depending on the answers, we have to do a risk assessment. If we find that you’ll be no substantial risk in the future, we'll let you go if the third, the outer circumstances, allow it.”

I wanted to ask the circumstances, but I held my tongue. There was a more important question.

“Who is leading the vampires now?”

“That we don’t know. We had hoped you would enlighten us here.” His answer came without hesitation; I believed he told the truth.

As my questions were answered, he waited for me to continue the conversation.

“Zero questions for you.”

He just nodded as if he expected that remark from me.

“Here.” He held up the DVDs. “I guessed you didn’t know how to use the equipment I brought you yesterday, so here is some guidance.”

“I don’t have a telly here.”

He took a remote out of his pocket and pressed a button. A wall panel slid open, revealing a TV and a DVD player. It was old tech, but it worked without the internet, which I supposed he didn’t want to give me access to. He placed the DVDs on the table and left me without another word. I should have been relieved that he left me alone, but somehow I wasn’t. I bit my tongue so as not to ask him if he could stay a little longer.

I took a look at the DVDs. Three were porn movies, as I could tell from the cover. The fourth was a period drama. I let them fall back on the table and sat down in the chair again.

It was tiresome here. I had nothing to read or do. I only had my thoughts, and he’d piqued my curiosity. Again, I was wondering why he suggested such a deal. Was he really that attracted to me that he forgot his hate? Or did he notice that I wasn’t as immune to him as I would like to be?

After three hours of staring at the wall, I sighed, put the first DVD into the player, and pressed play. A young white woman lay on a bed, took a vibrator, and licked it. I raised my eyebrows in question about such behaviour. The woman then placed a transparent gel on the tip of the instrument, and the camera zoomed out. She was naked and spread her thighs, exposing her core to everybody! Shock and disgust overwhelmed me. What ‌respectable woman would do such a thing? Only a harlot was that revealing.

A sudden memory flashed through my mind.

As I passed through the dingy streets of Paris, I cast fearful glances over my shoulder. It had been mere days since I had escaped my sire’s oppressively opulent home, and yet I felt as though he were ever present, searching for me. Panting in fear of what would transpire if he found me, I stumbled on ahead. Having taken the opportunity to flee during one of my assignments on a hag, I had nothing but the clothes that I wore beneath my ragged cloak, no money, no lodgings or sustenance—save for the human blood with which I could sate myself. But an even greater dilemma highlighted itself before me—where could I take shelter from the blazing sun? Money was the answer. But how to get that?

Heart pounding in my chest, my feet guided me to a dismal district where taverns and brothels eked out their tawdry livelihoods from the men who sought them out. Whores clad in ill-fitting dresses leant against house walls. Their visages, painted thickly, made them look like figures from some malevolent dream. Men strode past, offering lewd remarks towards them, whilst some stilled to engage in conversation with these ladies of the night before leading them away too hastily by the hand. As I passed another house, one man stopped to talk to a harlot. She took his hand and guided it over her ample breasts, under her skirts, and between her thighs. Aghast at such licentiousness, I hastened my steps down the street until I turned into a dark alleyway and heard a woman’s scream. Hurrying towards the scene, I quickly spied a man atop a woman with her skirts hiked up, thrusting into her body. The woman’s face held nought but a calm acceptance as she looked directly at me—eyes glimmering—while she moaned and screamed, pretending that he gave her pleasure. Paralysed with fear and disgust, I could only stand as an observer to this horrid event; how could they commit such acts in plain view with not a care who could see them?

A man neared me, and I could smell that he had not washed since the Christmas before.

"Come now," he said with a sinister grin, "I can give you that, too. I will pay you handsomely."

My strength seemed lost in his grasp, and I wondered why he thought I was a harlot. Yet, I needed money. Nothing he would do to me could be worse than what my husband had done. I let him guide me into an obscure corner. With a sickening sense of dread, I watched as he undid his breeches and gathered my skirt up my legs. Just as panic began to rise within me, I summoned every ounce of strength, pushed him away from me with all my might, and he flew against the wall of the opposite house, twenty feet away. Then I remembered: I was no ordinary woman; rather, I was a vampire with strength beyond imagination. Approaching him cautiously, I felt terror grip my chest when I saw that the man before me lay motionless and dead, an exclamation of surprise upon his lips that his prey had turned hunter.

Taking advantage of the situation, I searched his person for money, yet all I found were some coins enough only to buy a meagre meal. A laugh escaped my mouth as bitterness settled in my heart—he had gotten exactly what he deserved. And as it did happen, I had stumbled upon a plan—luring unsuspecting men into quiet corners and taking their money was to become my new profession. It was up to them if they wanted to survive or not.

Shaking out of the memory, I looked at the video again. The woman had turned on the vibrator and moved it around her intimate space, moaning. This was too much. I turned off the TV, mortified. Raph wasn’t expecting me to do such a thing? I had never seen how a woman looked down there. This was something only for your husband to see. A woman had to please her husband; this was her duty. Wait, were those my thoughts or the ones my mother had indoctrinated into me?

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