Welcome to Layman-upon-Waters. Elliot is the city’s new overseer for the Office of Municipal Integration, and his days are spent encouraging the region’s secretly inhuman denizens out of hiding and into cooperative citizenship.
Each chapter is a stand-alone event with only a subtle through-line, so there should be no issue with reading them out of order.
The young woman across from Elliot was tapping her fingers in the fold of her arm, which was not a good sign. Elliot put on a placating smile, then set down his quill.
“You’re a tailor, is that right? Over at the Dancing by Lantern?”
The client nodded, a curt up-and-down of motion. “Long as two years now.”
“I’ve seen some of the outfits Madam Lantern uses,” said Elliot. “Very impressive. You have a real gift.”
The tapping finger slowed, and a smug smile crept in at the corners of the young woman’s lips. “I know it,” she said. “Madam Lantern’s been good to me, keeps me in employment and keeps my skills sharp. Some of the shit she asks for!”
She laughed, and Elliot was happy to join her. In this first month of new life in Layman’s Low Town, he’d stopped by Madam Lantern’s raunchy tavern once or twice to make sure he was seen by the locals. He had quickly realised that the black and red dress with the swooping neckline that Lantern had used to seduce him all those weeks ago was perhaps the most sedate of her outfits. If Miss Hawthorne here was the artificer of such lewd garments, then she had talent indeed. Showing and obscuring like the shadows of twilight, hinting and teasing and suggesting…
Lantern’s lips around his cock, drawing him out of himself…
Elliot shook himself free of his lusty stupor, which earned him a blink from Hawthorne. He had to concentrate. If his client was one of Lantern’s girls, even if she wasn’t a performer, there was a good chance she was only pretending at humanity. And his curiosity for her hidden, true nature was only one reason to keep close attention.
Elliot set his sights on her again, her walnut skin and tight curls of black hair, the modest cut of her gorgeous, blue dress. Her chestnut irises caught the deep sunset through the windows magnificently. She was pretty, but in a familiar, human way. None of the onyx leather, the elongated claws, the sharp teeth of Lantern’s demonic visage. But you never could tell. Only a month in the Low Town had taught Elliot that lesson.
“So, your talent is unmistakable, and Madam Lantern clearly agrees enough to guarantee you in the city,” he said, resting his hands together over his notes. “But I would like to hear about your plans for running your own business in the merchant district.”
“What’s there to say?” asked Hawthorne with narrow eyes. “I use my savings to buy up a shop, then I make clothes and sell ‘em.”
“Do you have a property in mind? Space in the merchant district is dearly sought.”
“How am I supposed to know that if I can’t get in the gates?”
“I was hoping Madam Lantern might have shared something with you. How about your finances? Do you have a head for gold?”
“I know the worth of my product, if that’s what you mean,” said Hawthrone with a sharp grin.
“And you’re confident in setting wages for your hired help?”
“Don’t need ‘em.” Hawthorne shook her head, and her long curls danced across her shoulders. “I’ve been fine by myself this long.”
“I see. What about investments? Taxes? Do you know who to speak to about guild membership?”
“Well…”
“How about caravans? Do you know about organising trade for outside the city? My point is-…”
Hawthorne’s palm slammed onto the varnished desktop, making Elliot flinch. “Oh, I see your point!” she snapped. “You want me to think I can’t do it, right? You want me to back off and return to my Low Town cage!”
“I promise you-…”
“You Castle types are all the same! Putting your boots up on the hard work of real folk!”
“Please, I’m sorry,” said Elliot, raising his hands from the table. “You’ll have to trust me when I say I very much want you to succeed. You have my word on it.”
Hawthorne raised one brow at him, her lips tight with scepticism.
“And because I want you to succeed, I want you to be as ready as you can be. I… We don’t want you to get caught up in a fraudulent taxation scheme, or to pay more than is right for a storefront. Madam Lantern would agree with me. Please, let me make a suggestion,” he continued quickly as impatient sparks alighted in Hawthorne’s lovely eyes. “Have you spoken with a woman named Dorothy down on South Road, here in the Low Town?”
Hawthorne sat back in her seat. “The widow? Not particularly. Why?”
“She’s another of our guarantors,” said Elliot. “Just last week, she was coaching an apprentice glassblower in starting a business within the city walls. I think that glassblower is moving into Layman for good in the next few days. I know Madam Lantern is your guarantor, but could I suggest at least speaking with Dorothy before you commit? If not letting her guarantee your tailor shop instead? She has a lot of wisdom to share, and I’d like to see you well equipped before sending you on your way.”
The young tailor chewed her lip. Her eyes moved back and forth along the desk as if reading from a script Elliot couldn’t see. “And… you won’t send for my certificate until I do?”
“If you’re really sure, I’ll submit your request today. But there isn’t any reason to rush.” He smiled, touching at his mahogany hair with a brush of his fingertips. “Layman isn’t going anywhere.”
Not long later, Hawthorne was departing the Office of Municipal Integration with a nod and a wave. Not a smile, but Elliot was confident she would return with one in due course. And with that, his little office was empty. Elliot stretched his arms over his head with a wince, then rolled his shoulders free of their stiffness.
It had been another long day in a long run of long days. Madam Lantern seemed hellbent on sending him every citizen of the Low Town, even and especially the strange cases. Miss Hawthorne’s business plan was sensible compared to some of the requests he’d received. A man who wanted to enter the city because of a dream he’d had that he would meet his true love in the noble district. An elderly woman who wanted permission to march up to the castellan and ‘give him a piece of her mind.’ And plenty with no plan at all, who just wanted to see what all the fuss was about.
No more for today, at least. Elliot moved to the windows of the office and peered into the gloom. The sun had just set, and the streets of the Low Town were burning off the last residues of natural light. As he watched, an elderly lamplighter hobbled down the street with his long pole high and ready. The fellow somehow spotted Elliot through the warped surface of the window and his own bushy brow, and he sent him a cheery wave. Elliot responded in kind, then closed the curtains.
Elliot stood alone in the centre of his kingdom of parchment and ink, and he let the silence wash over him. Castellan Thaddeus had instructed him to find administrators to fill the other desks and take some of his work, but where was the time? Elliot barely had enough hours in the day to see all the Low Town residents asking for a certificate of aegis. His stomach was rumbling; had he even eaten dinner?
And yet, Elliot realised he was smiling. These were long days, lonely days in a strange sort of way. He spent all his time speaking with other people, but the conversations were only ever in service of Layman’s new procedure for entry. Other than a short visit from the castellan, the occasional hour or so with Madam Lantern here or at her tavern, he was left to his own devices.
Even so, he smiled. For the first time in his life, Elliot knew he was making a difference. He was widening the populace of Layman-upon-Waters to include people historically maligned, either by the rich dwellers of the Castle or by humanity at large. It was more good than he had ever achieved applying over and over for a seat in the scrivener’s hall.
But he was hungry. Elliot moved through the empty office towards the stone kitchen at the back of the building. His boots made a series of pleasing, resonant thunks on the wood as he passed, and he liked the way his green and gold coat of office flowed at the hem as he walked. The kitchen wasn’t as stocked as the communal eatery in the Castle, but Elliot knew there was some ham and bread left over from a kind donation given to him last week. A sandwich would really hit the spot, perhaps with a cup of tea from his reserves? Elliot was humming as he lifted the kettle and placed it on the iron stove.
As such, he almost missed the sound of rapping fingers on the office door. He paused his work, frowning over his shoulder. There it was again, a shy and hesitant sound. At any other hour, it would have been lost under the ambient rabble of the bustling Low Town. It would have to be a client, and the reluctance to make a noise must have been because this was after hours. The office was closed for the night.
Elliot returned to the entrance and hesitantly opened the door. The night air was a chill flurry against his skin, accompanied by a mournful whoosh of wind. The street was bare, the old lamplighter moved on into the dark. There should have been distant music on the air, the sounds of revelry. The silence was disconcerting.
And the sight of the girl made his heart shudder. She was young, perhaps two or three years younger than him. Her hair was long and jet-black like Miss Hawthorne’s, but sleek and smooth where the tailor’s had been curled. It hung disobediently in front of her eyes and obscured her features. The girl was slim, and her skin was alabaster pale, highlighting the rings of shadow under her narrow, blue eyes. Her lips were dry, and she was hugging her arms tight in defence of the chill. And that was no surprise. Elliot took in the black dress and recognised thin, fine silk, prettily embroidered at the neck and skirt. It was short enough to reveal the girl’s white legs almost up to her knees. A dancer’s dress, suitable for a ball and wholly unsuitable for this cold night. The ragged, leather overcoat and battered boots completing her outfit were uncanny, out of place on the graceful girl’s noble frame.
“Good evening,” she croaked, then coughed. She leaned her inconsiderable weight on the doorframe with a tight knot of a brow. “I have heard I need… your assistance.”
“Goodness…” Elliot’s heart keened with sympathy. He sighed. He opened the door wider and took half a step towards the frail girl. “Are you well?”
The girl waved one hand. The sleeves of her overcoat hung over her wrists, and they flopped about with her dismissive gesture. “Well enough to talk,” she said, “and that is all I need from you, Sir…”
“E-Elliot.”
“Sir Elliot.” She smiled bravely though her fatigue and her veil of hair. “For you are the custodian of the papers needed to access the city, is that so?”
“The certificate of aegis? That’s right.”
“Good, good.” Perhaps it was the croaking of her frail voice, but Elliot was reminded of the venerable Thaddeus in the girl’s speech. Something about the words she was choosing. She pushed herself up to a stand, then cast him a wry smirk. “Are you not going to invite me in?”
“P-Please.” Elliot opened the door wide. “Come on in.”
“Thank you.” She stumbled over the threshold at once. Elliot reached to support her, but she pushed him away with both hands. “Let us be done with this,” she said.
The pale girl took a heavy seat in front of the closest desk, just where Hawthorne had sat not ten minutes ago. Elliot moved his previous client’s paperwork back to the shelves, then drew a new sheet and placed it on the table. He adjusted his clothing, then took his place. He wet his quill with ink. The girl watched on, a curious smile on her cracked lips.
“Now, may I have your name?” he began.
“Penelope,” she replied with a sigh. “Penelope von Schutzwald.”
Elliot’s quill stammered on the parchment. He chuckled to hide his fluster. “You’re nobility?”
“For all that means a thing in this age,” said Penelope with a shrug of her slender shoulders. When the gesture didn’t meet her standards, she wriggled out of her heavy, leather coat, leaving her in just her filmy gown. She ran her hands through her long locks and smoothed them into order over her shoulders with a wince of effort, revealing her weary face from between the curtains.
“You say that…” said Elliot. “But I hope you don’t mind my asking – why do you need a certificate of aegis? Can’t your family pay for an Accord writ of travel for you?”
“My family is dead.”
“O-Oh.” Elliot cast his eyes to the paper. “My apologies.”
“‘Tis old news. I am grieved of it no more. But unfortunately, the von Schutzwald coffers are barren. None now exist to purchase for me a pass for the city. I am-…” She paused to cough into her sleeve. “…f-forced to throw myself on your generosity, Sir Elliot. Next question.”
“Of course. What is your purpose in visiting the city of Layman?”
Penelope laughed, the sound of a rusted door swinging in the wind. “I cannot maintain my privacy?”
“In broad terms,” he replied with a smile. “Business, or to visit someone?”
“The latter. Several of them.”
“And these someones know you are coming?”
“Oh, no.” A flash of pearl-white drew Elliot’s attention from the page, his reptilian brain shouting an alarm. But when he looked, he just saw the girl, smiling serenely. “No, they have no clue of my arrival. I mean it to be a surprise.”
“So, you can’t tell me their names?”
Penelope shook her head.
“And you can’t gain access through them?”
Another shake of the head.
“Then who is your guarantor?”
Penelope blinked. In the lantern’s light, her ice-blue eyes looked unnaturally pale. A splotch of red in her sclera that was surely a trick of the illumination. “My what?”
“The person sponsoring you for your entry? The one we can go to if you run into trouble?”
“I am not going to run into trouble, Sir Elliot,” she replied, a scowl set across her pretty brow. “I can take care of myself.”
Elliot suppressed his sigh. Another one of these. “I’m afraid a certificate of aegis requires a guarantor, Lady von Schutzwald.”
“Penelope, I beg. And are you quite serious?” The girl leant her elbows on the desk. Her shoulders drooped with the effort of staying upright. “You are the first person I have spoken to since coming to this city. I have no oath of guarantee to my name.”
Elliot put down his quill. “I’m afraid that’s a problem. We can’t give you entry permission without someone to look after you. It would be irresponsible of us.”
“Are there many that would provide this oath?”
“In the Low Town, certainly. We have a list…”
“Good. Put down one of those names, and let us continue.”
Elliot narrowed his eyes. “Without consulting them?”
“I shan’t cause them any trouble, you have my word.” Penelope rested her chin on one hand and pursed her lips. “I shall be the model of good citizenship during my stay. Go ahead.”
“I couldn’t possibly do that.”
There was that primal alarm again, ringing in his ears. Elliot quickly acknowledged the office exit behind his client, then shot his attention back to Penelope’s piercing eyes. The blue shine took his heart in a cold grip and refused to let go.
“Sir Elliot,” hissed Penelope. “Put down a random name from your list.”
His fingers twitched on the wet quill without looking away. The desire to help this stray noble was overpowering. He felt sorry for her. And of course, he wanted to do good in the city of Layman. To deny her would be cruel, even if helping her meant bending the rules. He slowly lifted the quill from the desk.
Penelope was glowering. Her brow was a trembling line above her eyes, and her teeth were gritted behind her dry lips. Her hands were white claws on the tabletop. She simmered silently for a moment as Elliot readied his quill. Then, she gasped out a breath of air. All the tension fled her slender body, and she rested her face onto the table with a growling sigh.
And Elliot realised that he knew better than to abuse his station, barely one month into his new position. He put down his quill again.
“Perhaps if we went over to the Dancing by Lantern now, we could ask someone there,” he said to the top of Penelope’s head. “Madam Lantern will be working for many hours yet, and she is generous with her guarantees. If we-…”
“Lantern, you said?” Penelope blearily regarded him, her chin resting on the desk. “I know a Lantern. Is she a big woman, by chance? Loud and gregarious?”
“I suppose that’s right,” said Elliot.
Penelope grinned. “Has a certain, otherworldly hunger?”
He licked his lips. “You know her?”
“Lantern and I go back. Yes, you put her name down. On my word, she will vouch for me.”
Elliot regarded the girl with new trepidation. What manner of relationship would an eighteen-year-old have with a grown woman like Madam Lantern? They ‘go back,’ do they? Penelope was too young to go back very far with anyone.
Unless, of course, she wasn’t young at all. Unless she was only pretending.
“We should go and find her,” Elliot insisted. When he realised he was tapping his foot, he put a hand on his knee to still it. “Let us be certain.”
“Fine.” Penelope was scowling, and for all her lethargy, Elliot found the sharp countenance quite intimidating.
“Then we can come back here and finish the paperwork,” he said, rising and adjusting his coat on his shoulders. “I can have your application sent with the others when I travel to the Castle tomorrow morning, and then I can have your certificate delivered to Madam Lantern. It should only take two or three of the Castle’s business days. And then-…”
“Hold.”
Penelope had pushed herself up on her hands. Her shoulders were hunched like a vulture, and her eyes were burning.
“Hold, Sir Elliot. Am I to take from your words just now that I cannot enter the city tonight?”
Elliot, dizzy under her attention, put a hand on the back of his chair. “Tonight? That is quite impossible.”
She snarled, and her canine teeth shone in the firelight. “I must… enter the city… tonight,” she said. “Not in two or three business days. Tonight!”
Some of her long hair fell across her face, and Elliot was taken aback by the wildness of her growling. Her posture, her bared teeth, made her look ready to pounce on him. But then she slipped, her chin thudding against the wood and jarring her sharp teeth.
“Shit,” she spluttered, and she did not rise again. She murmured a protest, though her voice was warped by the press of her cheek on the tabletop. “Shit… Elliot, please. I am not asking for my sake. I am asking for these people, these good people like your Madam Lantern. I do not want to be around them when I… when I lose myself. Let me be around the rich folk of the city instead. Please.”
Her eyes fluttered closed. She could have been sleeping. Elliot’s heart slowed in his chest.
“I was about to put on some tea,” he said. “Would you like something to drink?”
Penelope chuckled. “Tea? No.”
“Water, then? You ought to have something. Let me fetch you a drink.”
Turning his back on her, Elliot strode to the kitchen. Penelope’s ominous words echoed in his skull, matching the rhythm of his boots. When she lost herself? Whatever did that mean? He made sure the kettle was full enough for two, then returned it on the stove. He bent to retrieve some wood for the ailing fire.
“I have just noticed your coat.”
Her voice was close. Elliot rose from his search of the cabinet and tossed some fuel into the burning stove, eyes on the kitchen window that looked out onto the courtyard. The night outside blanketed the exterior, and the window instead revealed a reflection of the office. And something caught his eye. Or rather, a lack of something.
“You live here in the Low Town, and you have set yourself to helping these good people. But you aren’t one of them,” said Penelope, sounding near but invisible in the reflection. “You are an interloper, Elliot. A pretender. Am I wrong?”
Her hands on his shoulders, making him jump with fright. Her hissing voice, right beside his ear. How had she gotten so tall?
“I am done with waiting. You will have to do.”
Then, pain. Elliot’s lips broke open with a shout of alarm, but the piercing of his neck winded him and rendered him mute. He stumbled against the kitchen basin with a willowy weight on his back and a chill pressure on his skin.
Penelope was biting him. Elliot’s blood was draining onto her tongue. She held herself against him with a tight grip, but she wasn’t heavy. Light as air, in fact.
Scared beyond his wits, Elliot thrashed. He spun about on his boots in a bid to dislodge the girl on his back. But a savage growl rippled along his skin as she reasserted herself, and she remained upon him. Elliot reversed his spin, and the toe of one boot caught the shin of the other. He slipped. He fell.
As Elliot hit the stone floor with his shoulder, wincing and grunting, Penelope released him. Her steps were chill slaps of flesh, not the thud of leather. Holding his dripping neck with one hand, Elliot rolled onto his back.
Penelope was a slender wraith above him. She had tipped back her head to face the ceiling with a peaceful, beatific sigh of satisfaction. Elliot recalled that expression from his encounter with Lantern. But instead of his come in her throat, Penelope had red on her lips.
“Oh… yes!” Her whispering voice was the sound of the wind across the Castle battlements, the promise of winter’s chill. “Yes… That’s it! That’s the taste of a rich man that I so craved!”
She stood tall on bare feet, having left her boots by the desk. Penelope raised a hand to her lips and wiped Elliot’s blood onto her thumb, then stuck the digit into her mouth. Her moan was sensual. Any protest Elliot thought to utter did not make it to his tongue.
“You taste of butter and sugar, rich boy,” Penelope chuckled. “You taste of fat bread and old wine. You wouldn’t have found such treasures here in the Low Town, would you? Those would be the meals you take in the noble quarter. Such a privilege! How you must turn your nose up at the state of living down here in the muck! But now…”
Penelope opened her eyes. Her blue gaze was icy across his skin, and her smile was the sharp, victorious grimace of a ghoul.
“Now, I shall reap of your hedonism!”
She fell atop him. Elliot pushed against her slim shoulders and wriggled between the pin of her chill thighs, but Penelope handled him with a powerful shove and a mocking giggle. So strong! The girl leaned in and licked his cheek like a hound, then nipped at his ear with her teeth. The sound of a sigh, the gasp of a mausoleum’s opening, and she bit down on his neck once more.
Elliot shivered. His hands on her shoulders were impotent, as if pushing against the roots of a stone tor. All he could do was writhe beneath his aggressor and try to force air into his throat.
“P-Please!” he croaked. “Please! I-I’m not-…!”
“Shh…” Penelope whispered against his wound. She ran one finger down his nose and over his lips. “Shh, my rich prey. Let me drink in peace.”
“I don’t live… in… the Castle!” he managed. “N-Not anymore!”
“No?”
“I live… here now! In the Low Town!”
She kissed his skin, and it was a delicate flutter on his sensitive flesh. “You moved out of your life of luxury and came here?”
He nodded. Much as he wished to protest that his upbringing in Castle Layman had been far from what he’d consider luxury, he knew the argument would not avail him. The apprentice bunks had been smelly, the meals basic, the hours gruelling. But he’d enjoyed the castellan’s chambers as his home in his youth. And even his worst of days had been safe, secure and satiated compared to some of the folk in the Low Town. His bedroom walls had been solid and insulated, and his meals had arrived when requested with no charge required. Compared to his new neighbours, he’d had it awfully easy.
“I want… to help…”
Penelope eased herself up. Her long, sleek locks trailed across his face and tickled his nose. Beneath, a pensive pout on her stained, youthful lips.
“How… very noble.” There was that smile again, the predator’s smile. The hunter’s smile. “You want to help me, Sir Elliot?”
“I do,” he whispered.
“Then… feed me.” She sank against his neck once again with a lascivious purr. She kissed his wound and licked the blood. “I shall not kill you. So be quiet. Let me drink…”
“A-Ahh!” The moan left his lips unbidden. As Penelope sucked on his neck, her hands holding him down on the stone, his own grip a futile pressure against her shoulders, Elliot shuddered. “Ah…”
But now that the pain had subsided, he realised that being consumed by Penelope was not an uncomfortable sensation. The mortal terror of having his blood drained did not worry him. After all, with Penelope’s lips a tight seal on his skin, it was easier to think of the two of them as one body, one system, joined by blood. His lifeforce wasn’t going anywhere. It was simply moving to where it was needed more.
His dazed mind dreamed from his place on the kitchen floor. Elliot and Penelope. Layman and Low Town. A single city, internally reliant. Bound inextricably together. How sweet.
“Ahh…” Elliot touched Penelope’s black, silken hair with his fingers. He stroked his hand down her back, feeling the worn embroidery of her dress. And where his hips were pinned by the cotton underwear beneath her skirt, he thrust. “Ah…!”
Penelope giggled against his skin, then detached from him with a wet, puckered kiss. “It is well that you submit, dear prey,” she whispered. “You see now how supplication suits you. How fun it is for you. It is fun for me too.”
She lay herself atop him, and Elliot felt the girl’s heartbeat through the soft pressure of her chest. Their shared blood drew a shared rhythm from their twin organs. They breathed as one.
Enamoured by this realisation, Elliot turned his head and kissed her cheek. He tangled his fingers in her hair. And she was warm. She was warm and vital against his skin. When she breathed a sigh into his neck, it was thick with moisture and hot as a kettle’s steam.
“Let me share a little of myself with you,” she said as he caressed her. “In recompense for the gift of your blood. My kind… are cursed to die. Our bodies ever revert to a state of death. Cold, stagnant… It is only through the blood of others that we can temporarily return to life.”
Pressing down on his chest, Penelope rolled her hips from the base of his stomach down and over his crotch. So warm! Penelope’s eyelids fluttered, and Elliot gasped as a thrill of pleasure suffused him.
“O-Oh, you have made me live!” Penelope purred, grinding against him. “Your blood has bid my body live, my prey! And my body… My body hungers…”
With a desirous hiss, she assailed his neck. She sucked and kissed him. And holding to his shirt with one claw-like grip, she slipped her other down his chest and tugged open his breeches.
“A new satisfaction, one you are well equipped to supply!” she groaned as she kissed him. “I can feel your readiness in this pressure against my loins! Fear not, prey, I shall not drain you of all your blood!”
She freed him. Penelope’s grip on his cock was fierce and possessive. Practiced. Warm. She squeezed him, tugging him stiff with demanding pulls of her fingers. Elliot saw stars. Blinking lights assailed his vision. But Penelope’s sharp lips on his neck and tight grip on his skin kept him rooted in consciousness. And before long, he was hard as stone.
Penelope sat up. His blood decorated her lips like lady’s paint. The glow in her rosy cheeks was radiant. And her blue eyes sparkled and shimmered with moisture and vitality. The ice had melted; the waters ran. But when she smiled, her teeth were still sharp. And her strength, holding him down with her thighs, was tremendous.
“I am going to ride you now,” she declared with a gleaming grin. “I do hope that suits you.”
He smiled a weak, dazed smile in return. “I… would like-…”
A hand in his hair, pushing his head against the floor. “I was not asking!” snarled Penelope.
Without ceremony, she tore open the leg of her underwear, fed him inside and sat herself down. Penelope’s voice cracked with innocent, youthful joy, and for a moment, Elliot saw her in the truth of her body. A young woman freshly stepped over the threshold of adulthood. A maiden exploring the desires of her feminine form.
She was wet, and she was warm. Elliot’s erection penetrated her deep. She squeezed him with the living pressure of her sex.
“Wonderful!” she moaned. “Just wonderful! How rare a treat this is!”
Penelope breathed in, and the maiden vanished. The predator returned. She loomed over Elliot and held him steady with her hands.
“Such a treat!” she snarled.
In short order, she was assailing him. Penelope was a raging dervish on Elliot’s cock. She pummelled him with greedy, possessive slaps of her body, and her growling breaths were bestial and angry.
“Ah! Ahh! Good!” Her teasing words were bursts of hot air against Elliot’s sweating face. “Good! Feed me, prey! Feed me!”
Elliot ached. His body was squashed over and over against the stone floor. Her hand in his hair was tight. His neck tingled as his flesh battled to reseal itself. And Penelope was furious, violent and terrifying above him.
It was a wonder, then, that he was having the time of his life. Elliot gazed up at his undead lover and revelled in the aggressive treatment of his cock. He drank in the way the girl’s mask of savagery slipped with each bounce of her hips, revealing lustful distraction beneath. And she did feel tremendous. Though his pleasure wasn’t entering into the wraith’s considerations, he felt it all the same. The tight, wet massage of her vagina was excellent. Sweet flames burned his skin and sank into his beating heart.
Elliot moaned a celebration into the air. He reached up from the floor and laid his hands on the cream skin of Penelope’s exposed thighs. He slid his touch up her slender waist and pressed his palms against the soft mounds of her breasts. He squeezed her.
“A-Ahh!” he cried. “Yes! God, yes!”
“No!” Penelope, her eyes shining, took his wrists and pinned him back down with a sharp thud. Her grimace was manic as she leaned over Elliot’s face. “No, prey! Do not think of your own pleasure! And cease your words, that one name especially!”
Penelope slapped a hand against his cheek and fed her thumb into Elliot’s mouth. She pressed down on his tongue. All the while, her vigorous lovemaking did not let up.
“Think only on me!” she snarled. “Focus only on me! And when I am done… and if you… if you have been good…!”
Once again, her mask slipped. Penelope’s eyes rolled and her lips tightened, even as she bounced. “If you… a-are good… then… A-Ah! Then I shall permit you… a measure of… this pleasure!”
Her hunger had taken her away entirely. Elliot felt waves of amore for the bloodsucker girl, so thoroughly distracted by her desire for him. Drunk on his blood and his cock. It was easy to feel proud. He wanted to kiss her, but her thumb in his mouth was making that impossible. Instead, he pressed his lips shut around her digit, and he sucked.
And Penelope was pushed over the edge. With a bounce of her hips that threatened to crack the stone beneath them, she sheathed Elliot inside herself. Her grip grew tight, and her lips parted in a great gasp of release. She rode Elliot through the long, long moments of her climax, shivering across her whole body.
“Y-Yes…!” she hissed. “Oh, yes! Oh, yes…”
Penelope slipped her thumb of out of his mouth and placed her hands on his shoulders. She leaned in and once more lapped at his neck. When she found no blood on her tongue, Elliot’s wound having healed over during their lovemaking, she kissed his skin instead. Her breaths were short and sharp. Elliot remained obediently still, even deep inside her as he was. The urge to thrust was intense. But Penelope had demanded he not think about his own pleasure, so he held himself back.
Penelope pattered his neck, his cheek, his nose with kisses. She brushed his lips with her own, but she did not meet them. When her blue eyes stared into his, Elliot saw saccharine, sapphire afterglow radiating from within.
“That was… good,” Penelope whispered. “I am much restored.”
A handful of breaths, and then she was smiling. Giggling with youthful mirth, she sat up straight and grinned down at him.
“As promised, I shall now permit you to enjoy yourself,” she said. “You may come, my prey.”
Elliot thrust himself into her, and Penelope acquiesced, rolling herself up and down in gentle rhythm on his throbbing, aching rod. He moaned as he pleasured himself inside his partner.
“I said, you may come!” The girl’s smile turned sharp. “Come, prey!”
“O-Oh, Penelope!” he groaned.
“Prey, you had better come right this instant!” She grabbed his wrists and planted both his palms on the curve of her breasts. “I am feeling patient for now, but I have my limits. If you do not come, then I swear…”
A flash of sharp teeth in the lamplight. “I shall have to punish you!”
With a croaking gasp, Elliot came. His semen spilled into her waiting vagina and coated her insides. He convulsed as jolts of pleasure shook him from the tips of his hair down to his toes. After the shock and the bruising and the ache of Penelope’s sex, the shivers of climax were sweet indeed.
“Good!” sighed Penelope. As he caught his breath, the girl stroked the backs of his palms with a beaming smile. “How wonderful for you, my prey. A fair trade, do you not agree?”
Elliot grinned, awash in afterglow. He tried to say something, but his lips were tingling and disobedient. He muttered something that even he didn’t understand, and Penelope blinked.
“Prey?” she asked. Then, staring down into his eyes, “Elliot?”
But the room was darkening, and Elliot’s senses were departing. In the distance, the hissing song of a kettle brought to boil. He felt his hands slipping from Penelope’s chest and slapping against the stone. And just before he lost consciousness, the anxious whisper of his partner.
“Oh, shit!”
* * *
When Elliot awoke, he was in his bed on the upper storey of the Office of Municipal Integration. His whole body was stiff as wood and full of splinters. The back of his head especially. Grunting with effort, he pulled back the covers and touched at the pain in his skull. It felt badly bruised.
The curtains of his bedroom were closed, but fresh sunlight spilled through the cracks. Elliot could hear the shouting of storekeepers in the Low Town market, making this a little later than his usual waking hour. A momentary flash of panic, then calm as he remembered that this was the Sun’s Day, and he wouldn’t be expected to open the office. Instead, he was planning on taking all the forms from the week up to the Castle for processing, perhaps stopping in to see Castellan Thaddeus. Perhaps swinging by the Lantern afterwards.
And then, the memories returned. Penelope, frail and fragile. Penelope, vicious and possessive. Elliot recognised the idle warmth of satisfaction in his nethers, and it was sweet indeed. A sweet encounter, even if he was suffering for it this morning.
Rolling onto one side, Elliot took in his clothing, folded in a pile beside the wardrobe. The door to the bedroom was slightly ajar, and no sound emerged from elsewhere in the building. But on the little table beside his bed, a curiosity. A piece of paper, held down by an empty mug from the kitchen. Squinting his dry eyes, Elliot grabbed the letter and read the gorgeous, curled lettering.
Sir Elliot,
Please allow me to apologise for my conduct last night. I confess that I allowed my affliction to overcome me. I do not usually go so long without feeding, but my journey to Layman-upon-Waters was a long one, and my code of honour forbids that I take of the working class. I cannot even dream of it, not after the generations of systemic torment that the von Schutzwalds poured on the heads of those in their custody.
I heard what you said, that you came to Low Town to help cursed and charmed folk like myself. And yet, I ignored you to satisfy the base, carnal desires of my aberrant flesh. I do hope I did not harm you too severely. You certainly treated me very well. Not all men are strong enough to allow such vulnerability in their lovemaking.
I took the liberty of tearing up my application for a certificate of passage. With my body restored, I am more than capable of flying over the walls or catching the guards in a placating mesmer. If you hear of attacks on Layman’s rich and powerful in the coming nights, I invite you to think on me.
I would value the opportunity to meet again, if I am passing through. I would especially like to ask after the curious taste of your bloo
Until then,
– P
Elliot sighed. In the end, he had helped Penelope with her predicament, just not in the manner that he had envisaged. And in doing so, he had likely brought danger to the noble quarter of his city. A danger sharp and sweet like citrus. Elliot was beset by scandalous jealousy. Perhaps if he was to take an evening off to walk the high streets himself…?
Noticing writing on the reverse of the letter, he turned it over.
Also, you may decide to research my curse and learn that I am capable to sharing my affliction with others. Fear not, I have done no such thing to you. I do not know you well enough.
Also also, I apologise for banging your head on the staircase lintel. My strength made lifting you a trifle as I carried you to bed, but I did not account for your awkward height when turning that last corner. Forgive me.
He chuckled. He was stiff and dehydrated, aching and dizzy. But a stirring walk in the Sun’s Day sunshine would wash all of that away. Elliot threw off his covers and rose naked to his feet. He took a deep breath of morning air.
Then the stars assailed him, and he toppled over again.
laymenstory
Ewan Stone 
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