Heartbeat 1

The first thing I notice as I step outside is the city's heartbeat.

It was early to leave the party, but late to walk home alone. The little noises of the city at night, usually comforting in their presence and familiarity, all sound forced to me. Like the struggles and whimpering of a lover caught in a nightmare, and the sheets. Every movement furtive. Every noise around me sudden and plucking at my nerves.

Why am I feeling like this? It's not the safest part of town, but I've made my way home by myself before. The homeless look, but stay, and the really bad sorts are in a much seedier part of town.

Who is that? Across the street? The goth?

A shadow.

Why am I so tense, damn it?

The goth, that's why. That guy scared me. Not like guys packing a gun or fucked on drugs. That's always trouble at parties. No, there was something much weirder about him. Nice, straight cut, almost minimalist, black expensive looking clothes, but wearing a cape. White skin to make a porcelain doll proud. Black hair. It's a look, and there's all types at the parties I go to, but no one I've met ever pulled it off quite like that. He didn't look like he was just wearing it for Halloween either.

I'm hardly scared by goths though. But his eyes ... he pinned me down, held me with a look, and as those dark-of-night eyes looked into my mind I stood transfixed -- and terrified.

That's when I left, and I guess going out into the city scared was my big mistake. Predators sense fear, and the prey know it.

I'm seeing him everywhere now. In the shadows, down alleys, up ahead. It's always as if he was just standing there, looking at me. Until I notice him -- and then he becomes just a shadow again. I'm tired and scared and my fear is toying with me, and I wish it would stop.

A hand reaches out from a doorway and bars my path. Long white fingers. No figment this, surely.

"You left the party."

He steps out and faces me. Those eyes. Now I feel guilty, like a scolded child.

This is ridiculous! I'm a grown woman who can come and go as she pleases.

But right now I'm only a terrified little girl in big trouble.

He turns away, and his black hair and cape blend into the shadows so that he appears to disappear. Except that now I can see the wall where he was. Was he even here? Am I still caught up in my world of fear, made even more vivid through giving it so much attention?

And now the city too has become dead still. No cars, no fights, no humming clicking talking comfortable lives from behind the walls or around the streets.

Just my heartbeat ... and my breath ... and his.

He's behind me!

I spin around to see him standing silently, a little smile playing over his lips.

He steps up closer to me, holding me again with his eyes. But that intense searching is gone now, and in its' place is only hunger and certainty.

Damn but he looks and smells good. So strong. I can feel his breath on my face, he's so close now.

And then I'm looking down an empty street again.

I breathe out.

Aaa my neck. Pain. He's behind me! The cape ... I can't ... see

[Darkness]

The first thing I notice as I come to is my heartbeat.

I can hear it, feel it, taste it, see it behind my closed eyes. Then I notice the softness and warmth, and the smells.

Opening my eyes I'm taken aback by the luxury, the opulence. Dark reds, earthy tones, wood, the flickering glow of candle light to illuminate ... and to cast shadows that have lives of their own. I can smell incense and the candles and, underneath it all, his smell. Or maybe scent would be the better word to use. It's primal.

I'm lying on a bed, satin sheets, down pillows. Bound with scarves to the posts, as I suddenly realise, and stripped down to my lingerie. Silk and satin and skin, but I'm warm.

My senses are overwhelmed by the rush of hyper-reality and my head spins.

Closing my eyes all I can see are his, all I can feel is his touch. His name rings in my head like a bell. It flows through me as if it was written on every red blood cell. Raphael. Raphael. Ra. Pha. El. I hadn't even known it before, and now it is all I know.

The memory of touch rises again out of the maelstrom of emotion. I can imagine his hands running over my skin. His fingertips brushing against me gently, his nails scraping, his lips wet and hot on my neck, my chest.

No imagination this: He's here!

My eyes spring open and I'm staring into his, only a hand's breadth away from my face. How did he climb onto the bed, onto me, without my noticing?

At first his eyes reflect the intelligence and intensity I felt at the party. He looks into me and when he sees that I'm aware, alive, he looks inside himself and changes into an animal.

No physical warping or Hollywood special effects, but a look on his face. He looked inside himself and saw his desire, and then he submitted to his lust like a diver jumping of the high board. One moment he was human, the next he is a black panther stalking me with sinuous, lithe movements of pure sex.

I should be mad with fear, but instead I'm filled with heat. As his eyes drink in my curves my breath becomes more laboured, shorter, harder.

He resumes his exploration of touch ... fingertips, nails, lips ... and his tongue drawing lines over my body, tracing out muscles and veins, following my blood as it pumps away from my heart. My blood sings out to him, my skin is flushed, my breasts are full.

He reaches over the edge of the bed, out of my sight, and his hand returns holding a knife. He runs the cold steel over my body, sending shivers through me. He slides the blade under my bra and slices it up with only the softest of touches. Exposing my breasts, he toys with them with the knife, pressing the flat of the blade against them, teasing my nipples with the point until a single drop of blood wells up. Leaning down, his tongue flicks out and licks it off. I'm on fire.

His tongue is replaced by his whole mouth, suckling on my tit, his teeth biting down to hold my nipple. He moves back, pulling on my breast, until finally it slides out from between his teeth. Tracing a line from the other nipple to this one, he follows it back with gentle kisses from his beautiful lips.

I love the set of his shoulders, his subtle movements, swaying to an internal music of passion, lust and hunger for me. I love the feel of his hands on my body, his kisses and licks and bites on my skin.

Slowly he makes his way down lower, where my sense of touch is concentrated, to the spring from which wells the heat that burns me. His fingers rubbing my pussy lips as his mouth kisses my thighs, my mound of Venus. His tongue starts to explore my pussy, sliding along it's length, between the lips, licking at my wetness, up to my clit hard underneath the hood. Sucking it in, his tongue flicking over it, swirling around it, I lose what control I had.

A slow moan escapes my lips and I regain the ability to talk.

"Fuck me. Please."

He looks up at my request and his eyes glint with victory. He has been invited...

"I'm yours."

He already knows.

He kisses his way to my face, reaching up to release the bonds that are no longer needed, licking down my face to my lips, over them, sliding along them until they open. His lips cover mine, and his tongue pushes forward, slowly at first, only just pushing past my lips, and then he enters my mouth as his cock enters my pussy. Sudden. Hard. Completely.

I melt under him, my hips grinding against his in a rhythm of sex and lust and abandon. I've submitted to him as he submitted to his lusting passionate animal self and the sex is more than I can stand. I want to cum at the first few thrusts, but he is not ready to let me go so soon. He slows, teases, and then fucks harder. His cock sliding easily in and out of my wet pussy, tightening around his dick, holding on to it, massaging it, pulsing with him as he throbs and twitches inside of me.

Although I've no strength or wish to escape, he reaches over and pins my arms down once more. I see his thirst to dominate in his eyes. I give him what he wants, struggle in his arms, let him fuck me harder and ask him to let go. He does, but not of me, of himself. Where he was a panther earlier, an animal of pure lust, now he becomes something darker, something that can only lurk in the hearts of men.

He fucks me. He fills me. He dominates and owns me.

I was hunted and captured, and now he takes me, as is his right.

And together we cum. I would faint, but his touch calls me back. Still cuming, wave after wave washing over me, and he doesn't stop. My energy drains from me as I cum. We're connected and I can feel it flow through that touch, into him, nourishing him as he feeds off my orgasm and my release.

A feeling of Universal Peace flows over me and through me, and takes me with it, down into myself, into ...

[Darkness]

The first thing I notice as I wake up is his heartbeat.

Lying next to me in my bed, I flush at the memory he evokes of last night. My seduction by the handsome stranger at the party, the walk home with him dancing around me, and the world of fantasy he took me to as he whispered into my ear while we fucked in the dark.