Crypt Creeper

Somehow, the scents on the breeze always seem more insistent, more vivid, at night. This evening was no exception. The air was redolent with the throat-tickling sweetness of night-blooming jasmine, and the bright tendrils of moonlight did nothing to cut the close, humid miasma surrounding us. I looked up at his sheltered gaze. Even under the black shadow-mask which the brim of his top hat provided, his eyes burned into me with bright intensity. I felt twin cinders pierce me, digging ever deeper with languid barbs into my too-willing flesh. He'd cast a spell on me, and now I was his.

Oddly enough, no wolves howled to shatter the shroudlike silence. One might expect such a thing, in our situation. And his accent: hardly Transylvanian at all – you'd almost think he was from somewhere completely innocuous (even somewhere like Wisconsin!) Except for his bearing. And his attire. And those damned seductive eyes. He was our group's guide on the "vampires and ghosts of New Orleans" tour, and somehow, I had known that my personal tour was far from over.

He took my hand, draped gently over his. I sighed. His regal bearing and gentlemanly manner worked together to drive their serpentine caduceus tendrils deep within my psyche. I was glad, now, that I had cast off my touristy persona and worn the flowing black silk chiffon dress I'd brought for a "special" night out. As he'd walked me to the carriage, he'd plucked a camellia in glorious bloom from a gracefully bowing branch. Extending his articulate hand, he'd offered it to me almost apologetically. "It does not compare… to the bloom in your cheeks… or on your lips." I think I may have tittered, or acted in an otherwise inappropriate manner. He didn't seem to mind.

As the carriage wound its funerary way along the quaintly hairpin back streets, I found myself with only a moment of concern as to the fact that I hadn't noticed the driver. 'Ah,' I thought, 'must just be that I was swept up in the heady voyage I have undertaken with this tall, dark and handsome stranger. Vostus. 'Vosh'.' I sighed again. The carriage had whispered to a stop before St. Louis #1, the oldest and supposedly most haunted of the aboveground cities of the dead which held row upon row of "ovens". ("Ovens" are the names given to the small, house-shaped tombs which populate cemeteries in areas possessed of a high water table. No, I hadn't known that before, either.)

He raised a fluid hand, and alighted me from the carriage with the grace of a dancer. I forgot to check for a driver as we strode forward into the hazy suburb of tombs. Pausing, I glanced back over my shoulder at the carriage. It was nowhere to be seen, having silently departed. A shiver laced its spectral fingers through my spine, whether from fright or arousal or both, I'm not sure.

Vosh walked ahead of me, holding my hand lightly, reverently. No, not 'walked', glided. He pointed out interesting tidbits of touristy kipple to either side, but it seemed to me he had a driving goal; a final destination in mind, and it intrigued me.

The warm, moist air slid sensuously over my skin with a lover's touch. I was glad I'd worn the spiderweb thigh-highs. A touch gothic, perhaps, but the sensation as they swished past each other inflamed my senses. He stopped, and the scent of night-blooming jasmine filled the void and eddies in the thick air behind us where we had glided through like the prow of a damned ship. "Listen," he said, slowly, "do you smell something?" I stood, one hand in his, letting my head roll back and the heady, redolent air flow over my face. He moved to stand just behind me, never releasing my hand. I caught my breath. His lips were maddeningly close to my ear.

"That scent," he whispered, "is the arousal of the city. It is the pheromone which wafts from between the Crescent's parted legs after she has been stroked and teased all day by those who move within her." I held my breath as the heat from his mouth brushed my neck. He exhaled, a fluttering moist kiss of air rolling over my neck and coming to pool in the hollow of my throat. He lifted his head. "…Or perhaps not. It may only be the night-blooming jasmine. One can never really be certain." He broke my reverie by striding ahead once again, drawing us inexorably closer to whatever final destination he had in mind.

That destination turned out to be an oven. (No, not that kind of oven. I already told you…) An eternal flame flickered its silent watch to one side as he moved slowly to the entrance. He lifted his gaze to envelop me. Suddenly, I was swimming in black pools of fascinated arousal, yearning only to follow him. I stepped forward haltingly, zombie-like in my utter absorption by his eyes.

The hand not holding mine swept the marble door open, softly. It moved almost of its own accord on silent hinges. I was too caught up in the ecstasy of Vosh to think about how odd, disturbing, and probably immoral it was to be entering this sanctum of Death. Nor, had I chosen to think about it, would I have cared.

A swirling void of blackness beckoned, then Vaseline-lensed points of candlelight swelled in the darkness. 'How posh,' I thought, 'the candle clapper'. Vosh led me like a dance partner to come to bear before him, facing him. Absorbed once again by those incredible eyes, I swam in the swirling intensity of his gaze, his Svengali stare. His nostrils flared gently as he inhaled the head I could feel rising from my blushing neck, my heaving breast. A smile touched his lips, the corner of his mouth curved into a crooked grin. "Ravishing," he murmured, "like an exotic dessert." His eyes closed as he spoke.

Heavy lids lifted again as he faced me, lifted his free hand, and removed the top hat. No shadow obscured his burning-ember gaze as he spoke again: "May I taste you, to see if your skin yields the flavour which your delightful scent suggests?" Speechless, I could only nod. He bent, slightly, and kissed just below the line of my jaw, where my neck's soft hollows throbbed. His kiss was like the full, slow sliding of lips over a bite of ripe peach; sliding sensuously to catch every heady drop of nectar. He lifted his head slightly and sighed. "Ah, your flavour is exquisite. You must taste it." I looked up at him, quizzically. He leaned forward, almost imperceptibly, and covered my eager lips with his lush, full mouth.

I sank into his embrace. His kiss was gentle, almost hesitant, at first. My lips parted, and our tongues ventured forth into the unexplored. My knees gave way as the pleasure of his touch overwhelmed my already over-stimulated senses. His strong, graceful arms swept me up and lifted me atop the marble catafalque in the center of the crypt. A drape covered it, by touch I believe it to have been velvet. I have no idea as to its colour, nor do I give a damn, thanks.

I tasted myself on his tongue, but I found myself wanting to taste him as well. Reluctantly, hesitantly, I drew back from the impassioned kiss which lingered on his lips, almost as a pout. I reached up from the velvet bier and laced my fingers into his silken black curls. I drew his throat insistently down to my lips, and tasted of his heady spices. His sweat burned my lips like the lightning fire of Turkish coffee – sweet and stimulating. I could almost taste cardamom…

He drew in a breath, seeming for the first time to lose just perhaps an iota of the control which until now had been his, effortlessly, as had I. His composure sagged, and the breath became a low moan. He joined me atop the bier, sitting beside me with his cheek to mine. He kissed my throat, my collarbones, down the verdant valley between my breasts. The dress corralled his progress. I reached up to slide one strap down, he grazed my other shoulder with his teeth and drew the strap down with his lips.

His kisses continued in the hollow between my breasts, up one lush curve to the blushing cherry-stone of my nipple. This he savored, pulling at the tingling flesh with gentle but insistent lips. He moved to the other point of pleasure, rolling it under his tongue as though sampling its taste, its shape, its response. Big response. The air around us was heavy and warm, yet my nipples belied a snowy surrounding. His kisses continued down, as did the path of the dress. His tongue darted into my navel, and my abdomen tightened with the sheer ecstasy of it.

I lifted my hips, and the dress slid obediently from me. His mouth continued its tender ministration downward from my navel. I felt lace tear, slowly, as he ripped the erotic lace barrier from me with his teeth. I arched my back as his breath stirred the moist flesh, now exposed to his eager mouth. He sipped the nectar from my lotus, stroking its silken petals with his tongue, his lips, his fingers. I sank back into the languid waves of fire his touch afforded me, moving with his movements, sighing with his sighs. A flood of emotion and rapture washed over me, and slicked his full mouth with the evanescent sheen of pleasure.

He slid back up to my throat, planting kisses and seeds of promises on points between. He kissed me, hard. I could taste my pleasure on his tongue, and I reveled in it. My hands lifted to the collar of his white silk shirt. He continued to kiss me, to make love to my mouth with his tongue as I slid buttons from their confining holes and bared his chest to my touch.

I moved so that we were side by side on the bier, and slid his shirt from his shoulders, letting it whisper soundlessly to the floor. His nipples were erect, the hollow of his throat throbbed with his excitement. 'What else,' I mused, 'could be throbbing in synch with his throat?' I slid my mouth from his kiss to graze his nipples with my teeth, then my tongue. He gasped, sharply, and his fingers dug into my thigh. I smiled inwardly. I enjoyed watching him lose control.

The scent of my sex filled the tomb. I kissed my way down his taut abdomen to the top button of his leather pants. I undid the button with my teeth, slipping my tongue out to flick against the skin, lizardlike. The flesh beneath my lips tightened involuntarily as the tiny hairs there raised with the electricity I was drawing from him. I drew back, slightly, and slid the leather down over his hips. The hollows beneath his hipbones were sharp, almost chiseled from marble themselves. I stroked at one idly with red-slicked fingernails.

Together we worked the warm leather down, and the pants slid to the floor to embrace my shift. Beneath them, he wore nothing; they were lined with silk. Gathering up as much authority as I could in such a situation, I lifted my hand from his hipbone to push firmly against his chest, laying him back against the sepulchral velvet. His torso slid slowly back through the still air like hot honey slipping through butter.

I climbed atop him, almost childlike in my movements. The spiderwebs rasped against his thighs as I slid my knees up to touch his hips. I raised myself up to my full kneeling height and gazed down at him, brushing a lock of long auburn hair back from my face as I did so. His eyes burned into mine with the intensity of his desire. I slid my knees out to the sides, farther and farther apart, with a tortuous slowness which was delicious all the way along its leisurely length. As the heat of my sex slid inexorably closer to the straining vascular bundle which stood at full attention, saluting me, beads of sweat began to trickle over his previously un-furrowed brow. I loved seeing the struggle of restraint play over his perfect features. His dark curls spilled frenetically out from his head, damp with the effort of waiting for the inevitable. Not a hair had been out of place, before. I rolled my head back and laughed, a childlike bell-tone spilling from my parted lips.

As I arched my back and swung my gaze back to the twin embers which smoldered beneath his shadowy brows, I slid my body down the remaining inches to envelop his throbbing member. His back arched, and a guttural sound escaped his throat, almost more primordially animal than human. I laughed again, this time the throaty growl of a chain-smoking torch singer filled the close, warm sepulcher. Taking in the need which emanated from his aching eyes, I raised one slender, pale wrist. With a swift motion of a well-manicured red nail, I opened an angry gash. Sanguine tendrils ebbed and flowed down my forearm as I lowered my wrist to his mouth. I bucked my hips and smiled crookedly at the sharp intake of breath my action provoked. "Drink." I commanded. It was not an offer.

He lifted his head to cover the bloody rent in my wrist with his mouth. He sucked at it eagerly. As I felt the humours forsake my veins for the heat of his mouth, I threw my head back and moaned with pleasure. His eyes, which had closed with the pleasure of drinking, flew open at my sound. I could not see him, yet I knew that he was staring at my wanton display of erotic ecstasy. His lips fastened more firmly to my wrist, his teeth razed the delicate skin as he drank.

I rode him, slowly, oscillating my hips like an evil belly dancer. I ground into him with a deliberate slowness, the faint hesitation a jazz musician employs when proceeding to the next note of his art. Suddenly, I drew back my wrist from his mouth with enough force to knock his head back. From the hunger in his eyes, I knew he was not yet sated. I pulled my wrist to my breast, drawing a red slash across the pale flesh until it came to rest across both breasts.

He stared at me like a man starving to death in a cage above a bustling kitchen. I pointed to his wrist with my unblemished hand. The hunger in his eyes was replaced with a question I had seen many times before. I nodded. It was not a request. He pressed a sharp thumbnail to his wrist and opened the throbbing hollow there. My head dropped as his wrist rose, my lips met the oozing breach as he arched his back. I began to slide my body faster over his, back and forth, as I drank deeply of his fiery essence.

The moan which escaped his lips was not human. I had suspected as much. My hips moved with frenzied alacrity as the slickness between us heated to the flashpoint. I snapped my head back from his wrist as twin howls escaped us, ricocheting about the tomb, piercing our flesh and our ears with the sweet desperation of orgasm. My nails found his chest and dug into the raised sinew of his pectorals as he raked sharp fingers down my back. His hands came to rest on my hips, and my fingers relaxed their hold on his skin. I withdrew my talons, presently, as the rocking of my hips slowed and I lowered my body to rest atop his. He circled an arm about me, almost protectively, as his other hand found the folds of the velvet drape and kneaded them like a kitten at its mother.

As our heaving breaths shallowed to a more normal pace, I lifted my head, slightly. "Could you be any more obvious with this "Vampire Tour" schtick?" He grinned. "Sometimes the most secure hiding place is the most obvious one." I laid my head back against him. "I wasn't sure, you know. You could have just been a really pathetic wannabe who pulled it off really convincingly." The laugh which escaped his belly shook me slightly as his diaphragm moved beneath me. "Would you rather I affect a Transylvanian accent? Or call myself 'Vlad'?" I laughed. "No, but I am glad I didn't have to kill you. Remember, I wasn't totally sure…" He lifted his other arm to encircle me completely. "Well, I'm glad you didn't have to kill me. And I'm glad I didn't have to kill you, either. I wasn't sure if you were just a Goth, a necrophile, or a wannabe, yourself. I'm glad you're the real McCoy."

I sank into him and listened as our breathing slowed further, til our chests moved as one. The fire of his essence in my belly belied the great power which he possessed, and I could only assume that he felt the true weight of my age burning at his insides.

"Welcome home, my dear," he murmured, "I hope you like the décor. I'd like to tell you I picked it out myself, but I didn't really have much to do with it at the time." I smiled into his chest. I was going to enjoy sharing this crypt with him, it had been a long time since I had stayed anywhere for more than a one-night stand. I could tell that this was going to be for a good long time, and considering our unlife expectancy, that could be an eternity.