Cherry Bomb_ A Siobhan Quinn Novel - Caitlin R. Kiernan Page 0,26
I fed from Selwyn for the first time. Then came the three deliveries, KGB, and Selwyn’s revelations on the fifth. Tuesday. The next two days were more or less unremarkable. Lots of sex. I fed from her again Thursday evening. Those two days, we didn’t talk about her business, she didn’t have any transactions to attend to, just some phone calls, and none of Mr. Snow’s goons showed up. We watched movies, and she told me stories about her father’s work in places like Egypt and Iran. I read. There you have it. That cliché calm before the storm.
Never let your guard down.
By Thursday night, mine was slipping. All that time in Brooklyn with Barbara O’Bryan I’d been pretty sloppy, I will admit. Spent less time looking over my shoulder than I should have. Selwyn knowing what I was, that should have been more of a wake-up call than it was. But that Thursday—well, after midnight, so it was more like the dark hours of Friday morning—I wasn’t thinking about much of anything but the taste of her.
I’d noticed the first time that her blood had a faintly musky edge. I didn’t think too much of it. Different people taste different. But some people taste more different than others. Now that I’d gotten the lowdown on her family line, I was pretty damn sure I was tasting just a dash of ghoul. I’d never sampled one before, and, frankly, I’d planned to go the rest of my life without doing so. I mean, ew. Anyone who’s ever seen one of the bastards, they can tell you last thing you’ll have on your mind thereafter is wrapping your lips around any part of a ghoul’s anatomy.
The strange edge to Selwyn’s blood, it tasted a little like fried chicken livers. I’ve never come up with a better analogy.
That morning, I took less than I’d taken from her the first time, just enough I wasn’t hungry anymore. I had just enough more self-control to manage that trick. And I managed not to make too much of a mess. Afterward we fucked. She had a pretty spectacular strap-on, one of those double-ended, silicone jobs salvaged from the effects of the CPA. That night, Selwyn was on top.
A few seconds after I came, which was a few seconds after she came, Selwyn slapped me. Hard. I wouldn’t have guessed she could hit that hard. I’ve mentioned her being a sadist. Well, that was a turn-on. But the slap took me by surprise. I suppose it was meant to, right? She raised her hand for another strike, but I grabbed hold of her wrist and just stared at her. Whatever she saw in my eyes, it wasn’t meant to make her smile, but it did. She smiled, and she said, “Goddamn, I wish I had teeth like those.”
The sudden wave of anger that had washed over me was fading almost as quickly as it had arrived. But it left me jangling and on edge. That part of me that wasn’t human, it didn’t quite understand when being struck only meant your girl got off seeing her girlfriend in pain.
“Don’t do that again,” I whispered as she withdrew and lay down beside me. She didn’t immediately take off the dildo, and the phallus, wet with me, drooped slightly towards the bed, cause gravity sucks and all.
“Oh, Quinn, c’mon. I hardly—”
“Just don’t,” I said.
She shrugged and slipped her right hand around the shaft of that pretend cock, lazily stroking it. Not sure if that was supposed to be for my benefit or not. I didn’t ask. She had a mischievous expression.
“So, what? Now you’re pissed at me?” she asked.
“No. I’m not pissed at you. But maybe we need some ground rules.”
“That lady of yours in Brooklyn, she never hit you?”
“No, she didn’t. But hurting people wasn’t her thing.”
“I’ve never understood that one-sided mentality,” Selwyn sighed. “Making it all give and no take, or all take and no give. You’re missing half the fun either way. Anyway, from a political standpoint, it seems more egalitarian, less like—”
“Come off it, Selwyn. You do not give a shit about being a politically correct pervert.”
She shrugged again, tugged roughly on the dildo before letting it go. It flopped over sideways.
“Can you take that ridiculous thing off?”
“Sure,” she said and began loosening the straps on the leather harness. “You didn’t seem to think it was so ridiculous a few minutes ago.”