This story is the second in a series of erotic horror tales all set in Los
Angeles and all revolving around the life of one particular mage, known to
many of his students as "Raban". At the time this tale takes place, a great
deal of things are going very badly wrong for him and his; whether or not
the increased darkness of the magickal activity in the area is indicative of
some underlying cause or merely random is not something Raban has discovered
as of yet. Although his investigations continue...
I don't know if I'll get to finish this. I don't know what I'll do with it if I can. I'm sure Gareth is aware of what I'm doing, since nothing seems to escape his notice, so I'll continue until he makes me stop. Or until...(passage crossed out)
Well, I haven't even really begun yet, have I? I can't use that old cliche, "I hardly know where to start" - I know exactly where it started. It was at Club SYN's SolsticeNightmare party almost a month and a half ago. It seems like a lifetime - another cliche. Well, I'm not really much of a writer. I was an assistant at a post-production place in West L.A., dating an aspiring director, just like everyone else in town, when I let my boyfriend drag me to what he described as "an S/M pagan fetish techno-rock kind of thing."
To be honest, he didn't really have to drag me - those magical letters S/M did the trick. We had been playing on the edge of pleasure and pain for a while, and I had been dreaming of it for even longer. I was waiting for an excuse, any excuse, to explore what I had heard was a large and ever- growing underground of doms, subs, Masters, slaves, sadists, masochists and everything on, under and in between. Tim (the proto-director) provided the perfect chance. I was too shy and too insecure about my (pretty ordinary) looks to try anything by myself, so I was glad to have someone to go with who I already knew found me at least desirable enough to take to bed.
I put on my white lace bustier, did my blond hair up in a gibson-girl topknot, added the ubiquitous black-leather-miniskirt- fishnet-stockings-and-fuck-me-heels and felt presentable - short, plump and only passably pretty, but presentable - when Tim came to pick me up at 9:30. If you've never been to a Hollywood polymorphous perversity event, you really can't imagine the scene. In the club's various rooms, floors and areas everything was available for viewing and sampling - voodoo drumming, fisting workshops, techno dancing, every imaginable drug, creepy Crowley rituals, and every kind of S/M scene, homo- hetero- and pan-sexual, leather and chains or lace and corsets, with pain and without.
The equipment was mind-boggling, the noise was deafening, and the display of semi- and fully- nude flesh overwhelmed my "escort", who promptly found the prettiest strapped-down-and-pretending-to-be-hurt girl and glued himself in optimum voyeur position. Bored rather than upset, I got a drink and moved to the edge of the sexplay space to scope out the crowd. I was excited by the possibilities before me, but really couldn't see where I fit in.
After a few minutes of adjusting and re-establishing my L.A. City Ordinance-required "cool", I started looking around, moving from scene to scene, invited to participate in a few, but either not interested or not comfortable enough to accept. In fact, I was surprisingly uncomfortable. I had been to enough weird parties and ultrahip clubs to be able to handle this, but I felt restless and wary, as if I were being watched --which was really stupid, since any woman with big tits and a white bustier in a crowd of kinky sex folk is definitely being watched.
I was standing in shadow, at the edge of the dancefloor with my back to the (kind of sticky) mirrored wall, listening to NIN on the over-loud sound system, when I saw him. He stood out, even from the other side of the room, because he was wearing not regulation black but brown leather, a plain, standard biker jacket with faded jeans. His hair provided the required touch of black - the glossy, blue-black of crow's wings. He was standing, as I was, leaning on the wall behind him. He was perfectly still. And, although the light made it hard to make out his face, he seemed to be looking past the dancers and straight at me. Startled, I looked down, then tried to recover my nonchalance by glancing back - at an empty space. It took me a minute to find him again, and when I did, I saw that he was working his way towards me, as if my casting my eyes down had been a signal. When he reached me he gracefully slouched against the wall, facing me, very close. His eyes were grey, and piercing. His nearness made me uncomfortable, but I liked it. He smelled of leather and a cool, herbal scent, with a strong undertone of musky sweat. He didn't speak, just smiled a little. Well, I thought, if he can make the first move, I can start the conversation. I'm a `90's girl.
"Hi." (How original.)
His smile got wider. "Hi." (Okay, attempt number two.)
"Nice jacket." (Always a safe comment among leatherfolk).
His expression brightened. "Like it? It's custom work. I had a friend make it for me."
I looked more closely. There was a design embossed on the sleeve, just above the elbow. It was a crescent moon and star, and looked tanned into the jacket. "I've never seen anything like this before. It looks...imprinted."
"Tattooed, actually," he replied.
"Where do you take a cow to get tattooed in L.A.?" I asked.
He laughed. "There's a place on Sunset."
"Of course. There's everything on Sunset."
He was quiet for a moment, solemn, watching. His face was almost eerily blank. Then he seemed to come back to himself. "There's a tattoo artist upstairs, I think. Would you like to go watch drunk white kids from the Valley suffer for aboriginal designs they'll probably never understand?"
Decision time. Well, he speaks, I thought. And in words of more than one syllable. He's gorgeous, so god only knows why he's wasting time on me...ah, hell. It's an invite to go upstairs, not move in with him. What's the harm? "Wow, the social event of the season. How could I pass that up?" And I followed him towards the stairs.
The narrow stairs were packed with our fellow revelers, most of whom had had quite enough to drink, or shoot, or snort, or whatever. In the crush, I lost my black-haired friend. When I gained the top of the stairs, I looked for him, but didn't see him, so I headed down the hall toward the room with the tattooing booth. Maybe he thought better of being seen with a dumpy, timid little mouse like me, I thought, morosely. Suddenly, as I passed a black drape that I thought covered a blank wall, a hand shot out from behind it, grabbed me and yanked me into a narrow hall behind the curtain. I squeaked, too startled to muster a real protest. I was firmly pressed back against the wall and two brown leather-clad arms bracketed me. I looked up (way up, it seemed) into amused grey eyes.
That cool look pissed me off. "Hey, you don't have any right to handle me like that! `Yes, I'll go upstairs' does not mean `Yes, I'll let you'"--I was cut off by his lips descending on mine. I squeaked again, seemingly stripped of any real protest by this unknown man.
The kiss was quick and passionate. He lifted his head, and as if reading my mind said "Gareth. I'm Gareth." I barely had time to get out "Catherine" before his mouth descended again.
His kisses were more sure and forceful than any I'd ever had. There was nothing sloppy or soft about them. He didn't ask, he took, forcing my mouth open for his tongue, one hand coming up to move my head to the angle he preferred and hold it there. After a moment of indecision, my fuddled mind finally presented me with one coherent thought--you may never get a chance like this again. Take it. This was just an acknowledgment of what my body had already decided, though. If I knew then what I know now - perhaps I would have resisted. Maybe I would have screamed, fought, fled. And maybe not. Most certainly, if I could have said no then, the time for choice was passing quickly. It didn't take long before nothing and no one could have dragged me from his embrace.
He sensed the change in me, as my body went from rigid to yielding. Suddenly his kiss changed from passionate to savage. His lips crushed mine, his tongue forced deeper into my throat. He growled low in his throat and began to bite at my mouth, harder and harder. As the pain began to overwhelm my desire for him, I pushed against him and whimpered. Soon I was frantically straining against his grasp and crying out, my shrieks muffled in his mouth. I still wanted him, was becoming wet with my need, but I could not make myself surrender to such a brutal assault. At last he pulled back, staring with over-bright eyes at me. At last, I thought, he understands how scared I am, and he'll stop. He looked at my mouth, and said, "I've cut you." Then, smiling, he bent his head and slowly, delicately, licked the blood from my lower lip and chin. And then, groaning, he forced my head back and continued raping my mouth. Oh god, I realized, he likes how scared I am, he's relishing it, and that thought aroused me so much that I began moaning, rubbing my body against his growing erection, offering my mouth for more abuse.
While one hand held my head restrained, he lowered the other to the hem of my skirt and yanked, pulling it up around my waist. I knew I was exposed to the gaze of anyone who stumbled upon us, and I didn't care. He used one booted foot to kick my feet apart, almost knocking me over, then used his knee to widen my stance. With no pause for my writhing body to adjust to the new position, he brought his hand up between my bare thighs, roughly ripped aside my panties, and crudely shoved two fingers into my cunt, while his thumb ruthlessly clawed at my clit. I could feel my juices running down my legs, and he had no difficulty in penetrating me. Savagely he plunged his fingers in again and again, his rough, long nails ripping into me at each thrust. And I came, helplessly, on his hand, moaning his name into his brutal mouth.
He lifted his head, leaving his hand in my cunt and my skirt up above my ass. For a moment, his eyes looked almost yellow in the dim lighting. Then he closed them for a moment, took a deep breath and opened them again, and the odd illusion was gone. When he spoke, he sounded calm and well- pleased. "That was lovely. You make such pretty noises." I could barely breathe, much less speak. I just stared at him, slowly realizing that whether or not he chose to accept the role, I had cast him as my...my Master. He smiled, seemingly knowing my thoughts. He pulled his hand from my cunt, pulled my skirt down, and wiped his wet fingers on my bare upper breasts. "Shall we go for a drive?" he said.
How we got from the club to his car is a blur. I remember that we didn't talk at all, and that I could think of nothing but him and what he would do to me - Tim, my job, my well-ordered life, my safety all were not so much ignored as never even considered. I was his, now. That was enough. When we reached his black Range Rover, he threw me the keys. "You drive," he said. "I hate these city streets." He told me to get on Sunset and head toward the ocean. The December night was chilly for L.A., but he lowered his window all the way down and cranked the stereo all the way up. Thrill Kill Kult blasted from the speakers and the wind filled the cab as I negotiated the winding road down to PCH.
The act of driving as usual calmed and focused me. He sat in silence for a while, seemingly transfixed by the rushing eucalyptus-scented breeze, then turned to me, expressionless, and said in a tone low enough to make me strain to hear him, "Pull up your skirt." I obeyed, one-handed, lifting my ass off the seat to bring the skirt up around my waist. I settled back on the cold burgundy-colored leather, feeling exposed and vulnerable. He rested a hand high on my thigh, above the top of my stocking, his fingernails grazing my pubic hair. Even this simple touch started me getting wet again. For the rest of the trip, he gazed out his open window, turning toward me only to tell me which way to turn, and his hand never moved from its intimate resting spot. I wondered if he was even aware of it, and of what it was doing to me. I wasn't sure which was worse, the thought that he knew how ready I was becoming for him, or that my body's arousal wasn't important enough to notice.
After heading north on PCH, we drove a long way until we drove off the main road into the Santa Monica mountains. Several more turns took us further and further into the hills. I quickly lost track of the way we had come; his directions were just a barked "left" or "right" just before the turn-off, so I never even knew most of the roads' names. Very quickly they ceased being roads and became dirt tracks, then little more than trails. The last house light we had seen was miles back, and there were no other cars. Finally, when it seemed that there couldn't be any deeper wilderness this close to L.A., he told me to pull off into a small clearing and stop. He took the keys from the ignition and told me to get out. He came around to me and yanked my skirt down impatiently, leaving me humiliated that I had forgotten. Being exposed like that had become natural in the little time I had known him. He started off walking in what seemed like a random direction through the scrub. I followed as best I could in high heels, shivering in the damp, cold air.
Eventually I stumbled once too often, and he slung me over his shoulder without comment, as if I were a side of beef. He carried me easily the rest of the way. The cabin we eventually reached, which I now know so well, was just a blur to me that first night. He kicked the door open, carried me through a darkened room into another one, and threw me on a fur-covered bed. After bending to stoke a banked fire in the fireplace, he turned to me in the flickering light and stripped off his clothes. His body was well-muscled, lean and tan. His jutting cock was enormous, both long and thick. He stood next to the bed, surveying me with hooded eyes. I gazed back up at him, feeling both more terrified and more aroused than I had ever been in my life.
Finally he spoke in low, guttural tones. "Lovely, you're just lovely. Such a tasty little thing. You just need one thing to make it perfect." He reached for something on the table by the bed. I saw that it was a collar, of the same natural leather as his jacket, with an iridescent ring set into it, a ring with a purple bead attached. He knelt next to me and fastened it around my neck. "There, perfect, like it was made for you, love. And you were made for it, weren't you? Little pet. My pet." He shoved one finger deep into my mouth. I took it all, forcing myself not to gag when his nail scratched the back of my throat. He fucked my face with his finger for a while, making purring noises as he watched my expression. I was lost in the pleasure of having him touch me, use me, and I was praying that he would replace his finger with his cock.
When he pulled his finger out, my head followed it, attempting to get it back into me, and he laughed. "Later, love. Plenty of time for that. Right now the smell of your wet cunt is driving me mad. You're like a bitch in heat, aren't you? You've just got to be fucked, have a cock shoved into your wet hole. And I can't wait anymore. Gods, the things I want to do to you - this is just the first" - and he moved over me, kneed my legs roughly apart, ripped off my soaked underpants, and shoved himself viciously into me in one thrust. Even as wet as I was, he nearly ripped me open, and I screamed with both the pain and the exquisite pleasure of finally being filled. He fucked me violently, as I wrapped my legs around his flanks. He grabbed my wrists and wrenched my arms up over my head, then bent his mouth to my neck.
I tilted my head back to bare my throat for him, and he licked it in long, rough strokes. His moaning deepened, became rougher, and he began to bite savagely at my neck and shoulder, grinding his teeth into my flesh. My shrieks mingled with his groans. Finally, he tore through my skin and drew blood. Almost out of control now, he fucked me harder, harder, and his cock seemed almost to lengthen inside me, battering my womb. His fingernails clawed at my wrists, and his teeth savaged my neck. His groans were now deep growls. Suddenly, he threw himself off me. For an instant I saw that the eerie illusion of yellow eyes was back, then he threw me over on my stomach and mounted me from behind, my ass in the air, my face pressed to the fur coverlet.
He plunged back into my cunt, painfully, ruthlessly, and I gasped his name, unable to spare the breath to scream. He threw himself full-length on me, driving me flat against the bed, and resumed his attentions on my throat, which I pressed to his teeth, offering myself to him. His bites were more sharp, more vicious, and I felt blood run down my neck and into the fur beneath me. His noises were inhuman now, deep growls and moans and barely coherent utterances. "Pet, my pet, mine, mine forever - ahhhng" -
All I could do was moan his name, and tell him "Yes, I'm yours, Gareth" -
After I had come, screaming, he pulled out of me, leaving me empty, so empty, and desperate to be filled again. I felt the probing of the tip of his cock, and tried to wriggle into position, to raise my ass so he would slip back in and complete me again. Instead, he moved higher, pressing against me, and I realized that he wanted his cock in my ass. At that point, I didn't care that no one had ever fucked me there before, or that he would probably rip me open. I needed to be filled, was moaning and writhing for his cock, and as he kicked my legs so wide apart I thought I would split, I braced myself for his thrust.
He was so wet with my juices that the tip of his cock slid easily into my asshole. I screamed low in my throat, tears streaming down my face at the blessed pain. He held himself still, quivering with the strain, and growled "Open it, bitch, open for me, let me in." He fisted one hand in my hair and forced my head down, grinding my face against the bloodstained fur. The smell of my own blood and the bestiality of his voice, his hands, his body ripping at me were too much, and he was able to ram himself home to the hilt in my ass, tearing me open. My shrieks of pain and sobs were muffled by the plush as he roared his triumph. I was filled again, but differently, my ass welcoming the pressure, my cunt feeling wet, gaping, neglected. I wished he could take me in both holes at once. I pushed against him, helping him batter up into me. He worked his other hand underneath my body and used his fingers to manipulate my clit. His nails felt like claws against my sensitive flesh. The ecstatic pleasure and agonizing pain combined to push me over the edge into a searing climax as I felt him shoot hot into my ass.
He collapsed on top of me, both of us dripping with sweat, blood, come. His panting breaths gradually returned to normal. Eventually, he slid to my side on the furs and turned me to face him. His grey eyes stared into mine, as he gently touched the worst of my bites and scratches. "We'd better get these cleaned up. I've got to take care of you," he murmured, almost to himself. He left the room and returned with a wet cloth, towels, bandages and hydrogen peroxide. Meticulously he cleaned and dressed my wounds, even wiping away the mingled blood and come from my ass and legs, as I watched him in the firelight.
Later, lying under the furs as the fire dimmed, we talked a little. He asked about me, discovering how little attached I was to my life back in the city, and how little experience I had with violent sex. He told me a little about himself, that he worked from home on a hi-tech computer setup, that his last girlfriend had introduced him to the S/M world but that she hadn't stuck around long enough for him to explore the possibilities, and that he had decided he wanted "a more long term relationship" than he'd ever had before. Then, quietly and almost formally, he asked me to confirm what I was sure he already knew. "Catherine, are you willing to be my pet? To stay with me here and give me what I need? Will you give yourself to me?"
I wanted to tell him how much I was already his, to describe the transformation he had worked in me from timid nonentity in a sea of nonentities to passionate, desired slave of a bestial God. I said, "I will."
Everything that followed that moment, up to a week ago, was foreshadowed by that first night. Gareth truly made me his pet. The collar around my neck, which often has had leashes or chains attached to it by its iridescent ring, was my constant companion. Sometimes he chained me at his feet while he worked and petted or tormented me at his leisure. He used me in nearly every way conceivable, and my throat, cunt and ass were always sore. He beat me only seldom, and then always with the strap of my own collar, but his bite marks and scratches covered my skin, and I have, I am sure, permanent scars. The marks pleased him, and he stroked them softly in idle moments, murmuring his delight. Often he made me eat and drink from dog bowls placed on the floor. Once, instead of water, my bowl was filled with his piss.
Sometimes he would chain me to the bed and go out, and several times he stayed out all night, returning just before dawn smelling of the wilds, his own musky sweat, and other, stranger smells I was afraid to identify. On those mornings he would sleep deeply, the sleep of the exhausted, or sated. I never asked him where he went. In fact, I spoke less and less. He loved to talk to me, to tell me what he was going to do to me, or how I looked while he was doing it, or what I was for enjoying it. Eventually just the deep sound of his voice would make me wet. Then two weeks ago, he began leaving me unrestrained when he had to go out. At first I limited myself to moving around the cabin, exploring the visible objects and books, tidying up, or perhaps going out for a few minutes to listen to the night. Then, one night when he left right after sunset and the time stretched before me, endless, I began to look through his things, opening drawers, exploring cupboards. It was in a slim, almost hidden cupboard by the stone fireplace that I found the box of videotapes.
I pulled out the long, wooden box and sat on the floor to examine the tapes. They were all labeled only with a date or set of dates and sometimes an initial. Since the one television in the cabin got no reception because of the surrounding hills, and since I had never seen Gareth use the attached VCR, I was curious. I looked through the tapes until I found the most recent, dated 10/29/94, with nothing else on it but the letter "C". Debating the wisdom of watching the tape, I justified it in the standard way - I had never been told not to, had I? I carried my prize to the television in the other room, put it in the machine, and turned everything on, then curled up on the floor to see what sort of movie Gareth would think worth saving.
The tape began with the usual jostling of a home video camera being turned on. After the first few seconds the picture steadied; it must have been tripod mounted. A dark form obscured the lens, then moved away. The scene was dim, but the camera must have been a good one, as it made the best of what was probably firelight coming from behind the camera.
I recognized the room before I became aware of the subject matter. The firelight, the rug, and the shape of the room all led me to believe I was looking at what was now the cabin's bedroom. There was no window in the far wall; had Gareth added one recently? Then the shape in the center of the frame resolved itself. I was looking at the slumped figure of a woman, to judge by the cotton skirt and long red hair, who seemed to be chained to the wall by her wrists. Her head was down and her hair obscured her features. The last girlfriend, I guessed. The manacles restraining her were no longer attached to that wall, I knew. I wondered why he had removed them. Eventually the still figure moved, and moaned, and Gareth entered the room. He stripped, and taunted his partner; all this was familiar territory, even if some of what he said was confusing. I put it down to roleplaying and continued to watch, jealous of this beautiful girl who had held his attention before me. But shortly, the jealousy turned to disbelief and then a sense of horror so deep that I cannot describe it.
Gareth changed. On camera, in color, with the lovely redhead's full reaction caught right there on tape with it. Part of me watched his form grow, and shift, and the fur cover his body, and his eyes change to yellow, and claws and teeth extend, and thought "this is not happening, cannot be happening." But worse, part of me knew - remembered what I had seen and ignored or considered my imagination, remembered how he felt against me and in me sometimes, how he sounded, the wounds he inflicted, and knew, and knew that I had always known.
That was the most horrible thing. Worse than what he was and was about to do to her, worse than the fear, the worst was opening my eyes and seeing that I already knew this. And that I hadn't cared. That was the most horrible thing. Until he shredded her shirt from her body. And I saw the firelight glint from the amethyst bead on the ring in her nipple, the ring I wore on my collar. Until he clawed off her skirt, and I saw the crescent moon and star tattoo on her thigh. Sick with dread, I realized what was to come on the tape, what had already happened and was now playing for my entertainment, and I realized what I had become. When I heard his voice from the doorway behind me, I wasn't even surprised enough to turn around.
"I see you've found Camilla. You should thank her, you know."
My voice flat, I answered. "For the collar, you mean?"
"No, pet," He said, walking up behind me and putting a hand on my hair, "for showing me that I could find someone like her, someone who would relish my attentions, and make my....affairs last more than just a day or two."
As he spoke, his voice was changing, and his hand was digging into my scalp. I knew without turning around that the monster on the screen was now mirrored in the one behind me. "So there were others like her?" I asked.
"No, none like her - or like you. You two were the first who returned my feelings, who convinced me that humans could be more than just food animals - they could be pets, too."
When he tore off my thin nightgown and forced me down on all fours, I opened my legs for him, automatically. I was well trained. He forced himself into me, into the wetness which had begun to coat my cunt and thighs even as I watched him shred the girl on the screen. As we watched her die, with him forcing my head up to see it, he came. And I did too.
I don't know if my fate will be like hers. Sometimes, most of the time, I hope I will survive, that
he will let me go or I will escape. But sometimes, as he is fucking me, or as I lie on his chest as he
sleeps, his hand tangled in my hair, I think: why has he denied me what he gave to her? Am I not
worthy of the full extent of his pleasure? Will he ever love me as much as he loved her? And I weep.
And that, surely, is the worst thing.