Romancing the Raptor

Tiffany. Maria. Sandy. Destiny.

Chastity repeated the names to herself as she directed a coy smile at the man she had brought back to her apartment.

Tiffany. Maria. Sandy. Destiny.

They were the names of the women he had raped and then sent to the grave in one case and into the ICU with the others. They were women like her—women who shared an...

affliction

. It made them easy targets.

He chose them because of it, and Chastity only thought it fair that she use it to get him here.

Tiffany. Maria. Sandy. Destiny.

And he wanted to add

her

name to the list. She knew he would as soon as she slid onto the barstool beside him at Murphy's Bar. She had been trailing him for weeks, after all, watching from the shadows and noting every sick habit that the fucker had.

"Help me with this?" she asked, turning enough to show the zipper on the back of her dress. It was latex and lined with a carbon nanofiber fabric. It was the kind of material that helped her hide what she was.

He unzipped her deliberately, exposing a swath of pale skin. He leaned in to the nape of her neck and inhaled.

"You smell like cherries," he said, pushing his fingers into the opening in the dress wide and ran his fingers down the hollow of her spine. The skin was covered in a fine perspiration—one of the things you have to expect wearing skintight latex in the middle of summer in the city. He brought his hand up to his lips and tasted. "Taste like them too... and

butterscotch?

Damn, baby, I knew you were special. I've been with your kind before, but none of 'em got me going like this. I could shoot my wad right now." He leaned in to lick her neck.

It was true. Chastity could feel the stiffness of his dick pressing against her ass, straining through his stained denim jeans. It was too soon.

She had to be careful.

She had do drag it out.

She had to give him time to do what he wanted to do.

"I'm going to slip out of this. Why don't you do the same. The bedroom is through there," she said giving a nod towards a frosted glass door."

Chastity walked toward the bathroom with an exaggerated swagger that accentuated the swing of her hips. When she passed through the door, she gave an over-the-shoulder wink and smile as she slid the door closed. As soon as the door clicked shut, the façade dropped and the smile curled into a scowl.

She stripped out of the latex and wiped herself down with a towel. The lining was saturated with sweat and peeled away from her skin.

Damned July heat

, it rolled off of the asphalt long after sunset.

Lucky I made it out before half the damned bar tackled me

, she thought.

Careless... I should have waited

.

But she new that hadn't been an option. She had tracked him, stalked him, pulled every bit of available information off of the web. She knew him, knew his habits—

knew his routines

. He was going to find someone soon. She had seen it in the way he had prowled the back alleys.

And she had made it, after all. She had gotten him back to her apartment. A whiff was all it took.

After she decided she was more or less sweat free, she slipped on matching set of bra and panties. They were made out of stretchy pink metallic material with conspicuous frilly trim. It looked like something pulled out of a recycling bin behind a strip club.

It made her look like a bargain-basement whore, which was exactly what she was aiming for.

She moved with a slinking twist with her hips to the bedroom. She paused in the doorway and slid her left hand up the jamb before not so subtly heaving her breasts forward to accentuate their sweeping curves.

"You like?" she asked, bringing her other hand to her lips so she could nip her index fingertip between her teeth.

He was naked on the bed, lying on top of the comforter he hadn't even bothered to pull down. He had a ruggedly handsome face, complete with black stubble covering his square jaw. She knew he was strong already; the outline of his muscles had been obvious through the white tank top that was now tossed in a heap on the floor with pants, underwear, and socks. Now she could see how taut they were, tense under a layer of skin used to seeing the sun bare. He wasn't massive, but he was built strong.

"Fuck yeah, baby. Get that ass over here and take care of this."

He pointed at his erect cock. It was a little longer than average and thick, with balls nestled in curls of brown pubic hair.

Chastity gave a practiced again and moved to the foot of the bed. This was the point that she always felt the pang of shame deep in her gut. Fucking a stranger, it was something she wouldn't have even considered a year ago. But a year ago she had it all—most of all, she had Brinkley.

But he was gone now and she had to survive on her own.

Even if survival included screwing

piece of shit

murderers.

Chastity crawled on hands and knees up the bed between the angle of his legs. When she reached the meeting point, she looked up met his hungry gaze with a seductive one of her own. She leaned down and kissed the tip of his cock. It was slick with precum already. She ran her tongue down his length to the base where his balls were pulled tight. She blew gently on them then nipped gently at the skin covering them. He moaned and his leg twitched.

She lifted her head and continued her climb, scattering gentle kisses along the treasure trail of hair that led to his chest. Most of his chest was bare, except for an area of fine brown curls in the divot between his pectorals. She ran her cheek through it before leaning to nibble on one of his hard nipples.

Despite the guttural moans that she let slip out and the gasps that usually indicated pleasure, there was none. This was a job and the intimacy that should have guided the give and take of sweaty skin sliding against sweaty skin was gone—this a mechanical dance, nothing but a means to an end.

"You ready for more, honey?" she asked as she pushed herself up until she was sitting on the lower part of his abdomen, just close enough to feel the occasional throb bump his cock against her ass.

He answered with his eyes. The hunger behind those hazel eyes was growing.

Chastity popped the button that was holding the front of the stripper bra together. Her titties had always been on the plus side of ample, so they bounced free.

He reached up and circled his thumbs over the pink areolas, playing with the nipples before squeezing just a little too hard.

"You like that?" he asked. "You want more?"

It didn't matter how she answered, she knew what he was going to do regardless.

She smiled and inclined her head in a slight nod.

He pinched harder. "You want it rough, don't you. Whores like you always want it rough."

Before she could flinch, rough hands clamped on either side of her. He twisted and threw her off of him and off of the bed.

Chastity hit the solid oak floor beside the bed with a smack. Her shoulder stung from the impact.

Before she could clear her first breath, a bulky body dropped onto her, crushing her midsection and forcing the air from her lungs. Adrenaline surged and electrified her senses. Fractions of seconds seemed to move in slow motion and in that stretched-out moment, her eyes twitched, catching the twisted sheet, then the outline of a muscled chest. Her gaze jerked again and traced the hard lines of his body up to his eyes. They were cold, predatory, finally showing him for what he was. His jaw was clenched tight and his nostrils flared. It was like the lust he had felt had suddenly been channeled into some deep, repressed anger.

"Get off of me. This isn't fu—," Chastity's voice was cut off as thick fingers crushed her thin neck.

Chastity beat the floor with her heels, kicking futilely, trying to push away from the grasping hands that were in the process of throttling her. She smacked at his face, pushed at his chest, but there was no give.

There was a sudden pull and push from the hands around her neck followed by a

crack

that reverberated through Chastity's skull. He had slammed her head against the unyielding floor. Pain throbbed and spread out from the back of her skull. Involuntary tears blurred her vision—not that they mattered, though, the twirling sparks and fireworks floating at the edge of her vision began to thicken and push inward, hiding everything in a sparkly mist.

"You dirty slut. You're all the same. You're kind shouldn't even exist. The government should have killed you all off after they found out what you can do."

His grip tightened. Chastity could feel pulse in his palms and fingers winning out over her own, steady and aggressive, struggling to stop the flow of air and blood.

She felt him fumbling with her panties, jamming his fingers between her and the fabric, pulling the crotch to the side.

With a hard thrust he was inside her.

Her cheeks tingled and her tongue began to bloat in her throat. Even though she could feel the saliva pooling in her throat, her mouth felt dry.

He was going to kill her. It was as inevitable as the climax building in his balls.

She was going to die.

Darkness bled through her, dragging her down.

She reached out. Her torso was pinned and her legs couldn't find the energy to move, but her hands were free. She pushed up, digging her fingernails into the thin skin of his neck and scraping down his chest through layers of sweat and skin.

The change happened before her hand dropped back to the floor.

A tremble started in the iron grip, a twitching that began almost imperceptibly then grew into full strength-stealing spasms. Hands went slack.

Blood flooded up through Chastity's neck like water through a burst dam. Her cheeks flushed and burned with the heat of it. The anoxic sparks cleared, but her eyes still felt swollen beneath their lids.

Her vision swam between clear and blurry, but it was enough for her to make out the outline of her would-be murderer.

Chastity fought the urge to vomit and used her returning strength to heave the fading man off of her. She took a deep breath that was more refreshing than any she had ever taken before, and turned her head and met his panicked eyes.

He was trying to push himself from the floor, but his muscles had turned to twitching gelatin.

"What the fuck did you do to me, bitch?" His words were already starting to slur.

"Paralytic nail polish," Chastity said, raising a heavy arm into his view and wriggling black-tipped fingers inches from his nose. "It has refined venom from a J'ba Fofi in it. Nasty stuff, really—but I guess anything that's milked from a giant spider would

have to be

on the nasty side."

He lobbed a hand at her neck again, but fell short. Sausagey fingers curled and tried to gain traction on the polished floor, but couldn't.

"The skeletal muscles are the first to stop working. It won't be long until the diaphragm stops too. You're going to struggle to pull in each little breath. From what I just experienced, I'll tell you—

the next thirty minutes are going to be rough

."

Chastity looked directly into his helpless eyes. The anger,

the hunger

, they were gone. She saw the glint fear growing.

"I want to tell you something before you die," she said, smiling the first sincere smile of the night. "I want you to think hard about it too in the minutes you've got left."

She reached out and brushed a trail of drool away from the corner of his lip and said, "Tiffany. Maria. Sandy. Destiny."

***

Chastity watched quietly as he spiraled into agonal gasps, then finally to the last breath.

When she was sure he was dead, she forced her aching body first to a sitting position, then up to a wobbly stand.

She gave a quick kick to the side of his face, but not for what he had done to her. She had known exactly what he was before she had brought him back—known how he would try to end the night. She kicked him out of frustration—for what she had to be to survive, about the fucked up laws that allowed him to get away scot-free with maiming three women and killing another.

She hadn't exactly played fair though. She had skirted the law by half-dosing on the pheromone inhibitors. That was one of the requirements to go out in public—to actually be able to live in the city—daily injections that slowed the pheromones that the infection caused her body to make.

"Did you get all of that on video, Alex?" Chastity looked at the sleek black screen built seamlessly into the wall beside the bed. A pinpoint of light grew in the center of the screen, blinked, and expanded into a disembodied face of a punk rock teenager complete with purple hair and a safety pin through the nose.

Alex was Chastity's personal artificial intelligence program—a bootlegged, government-grade system that had been Brinkley's last gift to her.

"From three angles. I've already sent it to the Judiciary. They ruled justifiable homicide. Standard policies apply—you have five business days to file for compensation against any estate he may have." The voice was smooth and more organic than any sound from a computer should be. Brinkley had uploaded Alex about a month after the VN1R1 retrovirus epidemic. The news media coined the term succubus syndrome, which was only slightly more polite than what the community of unaffected women called it: the

get-your-slut-whore-body-away-from-my-man

disease. When the pheromones in a few beads of sweat had the potential to give every downwind man with a working nose a raging erection, it made it hard to get out to window shop. Alex was Brinkley's way of helping manage the daily things that needed to be done, but more importantly, it was for companionship.

"Send in the request," Chastity said, looking down at Jim—she finally felt free to acknowledge the monster had a name. "He works a steady construction job downtown, but did his best to drink away every dollar he earned as soon as it came in. Might be a week or two's worth of money in his account. Hopefully enough to buy a few days of freedom."

"You went farther with this one than any of the previous men." Alex's voice conveyed the mixed emotions of concern and curiosity perfectly. "Your vital signs were trending toward flatline. Thirty-three more seconds and I would have had to have intervened to prevent any permanent damage."

"Well, I appreciate your patience," Chastity said. She knew Alex wasn't your off-the-shelf program that maxed out at making coffee in the morning; he was a virtual computing powerhouse capable of adapting and thinking faster than any human. Add that to his almost constant observation of her and her

activities

, and instant access to every psychiatric evaluation resource on the web... Well, he had developed a knack at psychoanalyzing her, even when she didn't want it. "I was in full control the entire time."

Alex believed she had a death wish. He had first brought it up after Brinkley's death.

Of course, she always denied it, but deep down she wasn't sure.

Cutting off that discussion before it started, she asked, "Would you make the pickup arrangements and turn on the air conditioner to clear the smell out—I changed the filters didn't I? Good. I need to shower before they get here... No, you let them in and give them the details. I don't feel like dealing with people right now."

There had been a lot of sweat, and a lot of the pheromones that she hated. She had gotten used to the smell early on and didn't notice it for the most part. But they were heavy in the room right, almost to the point of being overwhelming. To her, the air stank of butterscotch and dark cherries—if lust had a smell, this was it.

Her address had been tagged as

female responders only

for all civic and business, which didn't mean anything anymore. Men were always curious about women like her and always found ways around the rule. She was one of the few that had the option to stay in the city. Life had gotten too hard for the ones who couldn't afford the inhibitors—which was most—so they were relocated to settlements away from the population centers.

"There was a call while you were indisposed. Work related. I don't think you'll like it."

"Was it the university? Did they change their mind about letting me work as adjunct faculty?"

"No," Alex said, sounding if he were hedging around a touchy subject. "Dean Eastburn was adamant in the last call—

'... the university simply can't compromise its reputation by hiring someone with your... limited experience.''

' He imitated the woman's voice, perfectly matching the disdain that the woman had proved herself so proud of.

"'Limited experience' my ass. Professor Adams is retiring at the end of the year and they need someone to teach his

Introduction to Cryptozoology

course in the fall. It's

basic

information that I could teach in a virtual classroom." Chastity said crossing her arms tight across her chest. "Besides it's not

my

fault her husband grabbed my ass and jizzed all over himself during the interview."

"Well, it's clear she has some spousal trust issues. Maybe give her time to get through the divorce? She might be more agreeable then."

Chastity was visibly let down. Job options had slowed to less than a trickle since she was infected. It seemed to be an unspoken rule in all of the places she would choose to work that hiring someone with a condition that had

succubus

in its name was simply bad business.

Funds were drying up. Brinkley had left her what he could in his Will, but the cost of the inhibitor shots was a constant drain.

"So who was it?"

"You won't like it."

"So you said, but cash is cash."

"Tom called. He wants you to do a job with the Think Tank."

Tom Frye. Brinkley's assistant. She hadn't spoken to him since the funeral. Most of what he said was a blur, something lost in the moment...

except

for the part where he spat out that Brinkley's death was her fault.

That was the kind of thing that stuck.

She still had nightmares about it.

***

Chastity traced an unsure line through the condensation on the bathroom mirror. Wet beads of condensation joined and crept down the surface of the glass, leaving veins of distortion in the reflected face.

The blue eyes that looked back at her were vacant—hollow in a way that that far outstretched the shame that always came in the post-coital hours after the dance of seduction and execution. It was a crash that always came.

Right now she felt as if her mind had divorced her body, dug a hole in the blackest cranny of her brain, and buried itself deep. Flesh and bone flexed and extended out of habit to do the things they were expected to do. Brush the hair. Brush the teeth. Rub the lotion on the skin. Wrap the towel around.

The Think Tank wanted her for a job.

Why?

Her senses were so deadened, Chastity wasn't sure when she'd heard Alex start speaking.

"... need to take the 460 to Hudson then go east for two miles and turn onto Stanaford. Traffic is being stopped and rerouted at Chamfield Penitentiary. The media is reporting a gas leak beneath the compound."

The words broke the trance and slammed mind and body back together.

Chastity opened the drawer under the sink and took out a black plastic box. When she picked up the box at the pharmacy it had thirty syringes in it. It had seven now. Seven full days of freedom. Fourteen iffy ones if she kept halving the doses. She could get away with it maybe, using the carbon nanofiber-lined clothing. They would help block her scent as long as she didn't sweat too much... which wasn't likely in the middle of an asphalt-melting summer. Not even with all the antiperspirants in the city.

Maybe she had enough left in her account to eke out another couple of weeks after that.