The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

‘Winter Flesh’

(mc, f/f, nc)

DISCLAIMER: This material is for adults only; it contains explicit sexual imagery and non-consensual relationships. If you are offended by this type of material or you are under legal age in your area, do NOT continue.

* * *

‘Winter Flesh’

Part Three

* * *

I stood at attention, watching the club.

I wanted to move forward, to act, to obey. I lusted for it, hungered to be doing my Mistress’ bidding; to obey, not to merely stand ready to obey. But to act before She willed me to was unthinkable and so I stood, eager but infinitely patient, Her dog, poised and ready for the hunt.

Around me, the hunters went about their preparations. I was aware of them, saw and heard them as they checked their weapons and their equipment. But all that was in the background; I had to be ready to obey at a moment’s notice, and that consumed the greatest part of my attention.

They had brought me clothes from my house, and I had put them on in the van. The interested glances from the men as I stripped and re-dressed had been as irrelevant as the cars passing on the street. The hunters were at my house, now, waiting in case Tilly arrived.

I hoped she stayed away. My Mistress had not instructed me to hate her, and she was still a girl I was very much in love with. But my love for her was moonlight on the ocean—it existed but moved nothing. My obedience to my Mistress was all, was the current and tide of my life.

It felt strange to obey the hunters; I did as they said because Mistress had so commanded me, but they were not my Mistress, and my obedience to them was artificial. I hated them, actually, in the same passive moonlight way that I loved Tilly. I hated them but would do as they told me because that was Mistress’ will.

Secretly I hoped Mistress would command me to kill them.

But, for the moment, She did not. Instead She knelt at the feet of the man with the beard, who held a strange device in his hand. It sort of looked like the thing that the guy who came to my house to take the gas readings used, thick plastic with a forest of tiny buttons, only it was silver instead of circus peanut orange.

I could not see Her face; She was crouched like a sprinter at rest, fingertips on the ground, Her nude sex inches from the ground next to the flexed toes of her left foot. She was hissing as She looked up into the face of the hunter, a sibilant sound like a snake caught in confusion.

On the back of Her shorn head was a scar, a long thin line down the center of Her skull. I wondered how it had gotten there. I wondered how it remained; surely Her nature should have healed it.

I realized that, in the center of it, was the silver glint of metal. A zipper to her brain.

Then She turned, eyes glowing, and I stiffened, ready for Her command, eager to do something, anything, that would prove my utter obedience.

She spoke from that part of Her which She had placed in my mind, the part that pulsed slick and hot in the very core of my brain, in the place where my free will used to be.

Go, She bid me.

What I Was To Do glowed in my mind. I spun and stalked out of the door of the empty storefront that the hunters had set up in. To be obeying was bliss, and it carried my feet out to the street, and then lifted them as I ran across through the nighttime traffic to the nightclub door.

It was a weekday night, so although there was a bouncer out front he wasn’t keeping anyone out. I flashed my ID at him and he nodded me in.

Even had there been a line I would have been able to get in. The hunters had brought me one of my sexy dresses, a red linen number, slit up the side, that required dry cleaning but really showed off my tits.

I hadn’t been in a club since moving to D.C.; it wasn’t my scene, really. I preferred cuddling on the couch with Casablanca to breathing the air of hundreds of sweaty dancers, all of them pounding to the beat which invariably left my ears ringing.

Of course, I had no such issues any more. I was my Mistress’ tool, without preferences or opinions of my own.

How I loved it.

After letting my eyes adjust in the cloakroom, I stepped into the interior of the club. It wasn’t large; the church-cum-nightclub on St. Marks my last girlfriend had taken me to could have easily fit ten of this place inside and come back for seconds. I looked around for vampires.

There were maybe forty people in the place. Any of them could have been vampires, but most of them probably weren’t. Heck, none of them might have been. I only had Tilly, Paolo and my Mistress to compare with, and Tilly and Paolo looked perfectly normal most of the time.

A gaggle of college students were on the floor, dancing to some techno I didn’t recognize. There was a DJ spinning, and people sitting in booths that were in two tiers around the outside of the room. I realized that I would have to walk around a bit to get the interior layout.

First, I went to the bar, for my cover. A girl poking around with a kamikaze in her hand was allowed to snoop, where a girl without a drink was just being nosy. Some guy offered to buy it for me, and I took him up on it and kissed his cheek before I walked away. He wasn’t a vampire—he’d been sweating.

I couldn’t read the bartender, a muscular black fellow in a tight t-shirt. The rest of the bar patrons seemed normal. No fang marks.

Thinking that made my neck wince in delicious pain. The dress I was in had a high collar, Chinese-style. The scabbed-over wounds on my throat were totally concealed by it. Doubtless one of the reasons it was picked for me.

I looked around. There was a kitchen, a hallway with restrooms—I checked the ladies’ room first, then surreptitiously snuck a look into the men’s room. No one and nothing interesting there.

There was a back stair going up with a ‘no admittance’ sign hung on the rope which closed it off. I mentally marked it down for later and kept circling.

Then, paydirt. The stairway up was mirrored by a stairway down underneath it—and the stairway down had guards. A man and a woman, arms crossed, unsmiling.

I put on my tipsy act and walked up to them, looking down the stairs. “What’s down there?” I asked in my best airhead voice, and took a step down.

As I had hoped, they stopped me. A hand on each shoulder.

The hands were room temperature.

“The downstairs is private, ma’am,” the woman said. I looked at her—she was tall, taller than Tilly, and her bare arms were corded muscle.

I wondered if she could tell I was a vampire thrall. I hadn’t thought about it, coming in. Did slaves such as me show outwardly to other vampires? And if we did, was the One we obeyed obvious? Would they think I belonged to Paolo?

Not that it mattered—I had my instructions, and I would obey. As I understood it, I was going to die soon anyway.

But even if she could tell what I was, she didn’t seem unduly concerned. I stepped back, and the hands slid back to cross on their owners’ chests. “Sorry,” I tittered, and walked away.

I slid into a booth. A quick scan of the area and I was satisfied no one could hear me. I touched the ‘button’ at my throat.

“This is Kyla,” I said quietly.

“Report,” came a voice in my ear.

“The club is mostly one large room. There is a kitchen and some storage behind the bar—”

“Are there any targets?” the voice demanded.

“At least two,” I replied. “Guarding the stairs to the basement. I cannot tell about the rest of the patrons.”

I waited. Would they instruct me to kill? I had a pistol, tucked into a stocking top. Another me would have found that endearingly cliched, but the new me only wanted to use it, to kill with it as I assumed Mistress wished me to.

Would it even hurt them? I did not know. It was from the hunters, so it might, but then again I was just a distraction.

It did not matter.

Then She spoke to me from that part of my brain that was purely Hers.

Come.

I rose smoothly from the booth, leaving the majority of my drink untouched on the table, and strode to the exit. The bouncer didn’t ask any questions as I headed back into the night.

The van was running as I walked up. One of the black-clad hunters swung the door open, and I stepped inside.

My Mistress was there. My heart sung to see Her again. With Her backlit green eyes, She looked at a seat, and I placed myself in it. Her attention returned to the wall.

The van lurched into motion. I sat quietly, subdued, waiting for Her instruction.

The black woman, stood up and gripped an overhead pull. She swung over to lean in front of me.

“You might be wondering why we called you back, meat,” she sneered at me.

I had been, but not intensely. I was a creature of the moment. Plans were irrelevant. The plans of humans even more so. Only my Mistress’ immediate wishes were of any concern to me.

Anyway it was my Mistress who had called me back, not this cunt.

I hadn’t responded, but she continued anyway. “We caught your girlfriend.”

* * *

The thought of Tilly had actually distracted me for a moment; with the bulk of my mind waiting for Mistress’ command, there was little left to pay attention with.

I realized the bitch was still speaking. “—and before we use you as a distraction—a very disposable distraction, mosquito lover—we wanted you to help us interrogate her.”

I went back to thinking about Tilly.

They had her.

It hurt, but the hurt was moonlight on the water.

* * *

My house looked about the same.

I realized, with the small and passive portion of my brain that was left to me, that I had no idea what time it was. But it was still full dark.

Wondering why the hunters had opted to attack at night took brainpower that was better spent waiting for Mistress to command.

I followed them up the walkway; first the bitch, then the bearded man with my Mistress in tow. She walked at the end of his leash, seemingly uninterested in the world around Her.

I followed Her, and Her magnificent body filled my world. Would that She wish me down onto my knees, to lick every inch of Her flesh, to bury my face between Her legs and never come up. To order me to hole my heart with an icepick and be Her fountain as She drank Her fill. Nothing would be better than that.

I realized we were inside now.

Tilly was in the living room, chained to a chair. It hurt to see her, but it was more important to remain ready to obey, and I looked on her dispassionately.

Her fangs were out, and her eyes were pale blue fire. She was snarling at one of the four hunters who surrounded her, strange metallic rods in their hands. The chains wrapped and wrapped around her—there must have been several hundred pounds of them. I realized with shock that at the end of the chains wrapped around her were long spikes, driven into Tilly’s flesh. She was pierced in a half-dozen places, mostly in her arms and legs. Her blood had stained the carpet.

That was going to piss off the Swedes, a tiny part of me thought.

I forgot the thought as I fell back to feeling bad for Tilly. I was glad that physical damage didn’t hurt her.

Then Tilly saw me, and the fire went out of her eyes.

“Oh no,” she whispered.

I just looked at her. I remained ready to obey.

Tilly’s face screwed up, and she hung her head. Then she started sobbing.

Something wet blurred my vision for a moment. I blinked it away.

Then the black woman stepped between me and her, and slapped her face with a tremendous backhand blow. The chair rocked.

“Knock off the waterworks, skeeter bitch. You can’t cry anyway, and we’ve got questions for you.”

Tilly leaned to the side, tried to look around her at me. “Kyla,” she said, but the hunter hit her across the face again.

“Don’t worry about her. She’s not going to be asking the questions.”

Kyla looked up at the woman, her lips tight. “I won’t tell you anything unless you let Kyla go,” she said flatly.

“First off, you’re going to answer our questions no matter what we do. And secondly, I don’t think Kyla wants to leave, do you, Kyla?”

The woman was smirking at me. Mistress did not command, but She had told me to obey the hunters, so I answered. “No. I do not wish to leave. I belong at my Mistress’ side.”

Tilly’s eyes went wide. She seemed to see my Mistress for the first time, standing naked and quiescent at the heel of the bearded man.

Then Tilly lunged at the black woman, startling everyone as she lifted the chair and several hundred pounds worth of chains right off the floor. Her eyes glowed like suns.

“NOOO,” she screamed, as she dove at the hunter, “she didn’t DO anything! She doesn’t KNOW anything! You evil, inhuman MONSTERS!”

The guards shot her, arcs of electricity leaping from their strange devices, and the weight of the chains bore her with a crash to the floor.

The black woman kicked her in the face. “Get this skeeter bitch back up,” she said. The guards, with some effort, pulled the chair back upright.

Tilly’s head hung to her chest. She was bleeding from the corner of her mouth.

The bitch poked her chest with a foot. “That’s rich—you calling us monsters. Although, skeeter bitch, you’re at least partially right—we do have ourselves a little pet. Now, you and I both know that we can’t hurt you into helping us. But you’re just a pet, yourself, aren’t you? I’m betting that our little monster here won’t have any trouble cracking into your skeeter head and bringing you around to our point of view.”

Tilly snarled, and glared at her. “Never,” she spat. “I’ll never help animals like you. And my Master will check up on me any time now, and then He’ll know about you, and He’ll flee and you’ll never catch Him.”

“We’ll just see about that,” the hunter replied. “After all, we know where he lives now. And once you’re our happy skeeter pet like your little lezzie friend here, you’re going to lead us right on in there.”

Tilly just glared at her.

The hunter gestured to the man with the beard, who turned to my Mistress. He tapped some keys on his device, pointed at Tilly, and said:

“Break her.”

* * *

My Mistress inhaled and slid over to where Tilly sat, trapped in her chair.

Tilly dropped her head to her chest, but my Mistress extended Her fingers under Tilly’s chin and raised it. Tilly’s eyes were closed, her face clenched in concentration, but my Mistress simply stared at her closed eyes, and a moment later they flew open with a gasp.

Tilly was instantly caught by my Mistress’ gaze. I could see the green of Her eyes reflecting off of Tilly’s cheeks as She brought Her face close. Tilly’s own eyes sputtered, lighting and fading like a car failing to start, until they faded back to their normal dark blue. The glitter of my Mistress’ eyes was a bright reflection in them.

They stayed that way for a long time.

I could tell that the hunters were growing impatient. My capture, my conversion into a thrall, that first recon mission, and now this... surely the night was slipping away from them.

I didn’t much care. I waited for Mistress’ orders. A much smaller part of me felt sorry for Tilly.

They were locked together by their unblinking eyes, poison green pouring into deep-ocean blue. I did not root for Tilly, only watched as my Mistress claimed her. I waited for her acknowledgement of my Mistress’ rights.

But it did not come. For one brief moment, I felt proud of Tilly, but I knew that my Mistress wanted her broken and I chastised myself.

Then, a gesture. My Mistress waved Her hand.

“The chainsss,” She said. “Remove them.”

Her ownership pulsed in my head but it was not a command for me; had it been I would already have been obeying, obeying without thought like breathing. Even though had She spoken, She did not need Her voice to command Her slave.

Or her slaves...?

The guards, whom I had assumed to be hunters like the black bitch and the bearded man, were already in motion. They pulled out their keys and soon the chains fell away, the heavy locks that had secured them dropping to the floor. The bolts that stuck from Tilly’s flesh like those of St. Sebastian were unhitched from the chains and stood free.

Were the guards slaves, as I was? I hadn’t enough mind to wonder. I focused again on my readiness.

Soon enough, Tilly was tied to the chair by nothing more than my Mistress’ gaze.

Then: Slave. Come.

This time it was for me and I hastened forward. My Mistress never looked at me; She placed me where She wanted as a chess player placed her pawn, and I was precisely as likely to be elsewhere.

Her fingers were claws, and with a deft swipe between her legs She shredded Tilly’s skirt, and then drew a claw along her lower belly, leaving a thin line of red and the crotch of Tilly’s panties wholly separated from the waistband.

My Mistress slid Tilly’s legs open, and the thin piece of pink cloth flexed and then drifted gently down to the chair, revealing that trimmed sex with which I was now so familiar.

“Disssstract herrr,” my Mistress said, placing a clawed hand atop my head, and pushing me down. Her will throbbed in my mind and I raced to my knees.

I would help break Tilly to my Mistress’ will.

I would distract her so that Mistress might set up residence.

Eagerly, I set to work. I knew what Tilly liked; the long, slow strokes of the tongue, working her lips and ignoring her clit until leaping on it with alacrity; a fingertip slid into her ass.

Tilly tasted like Tilly.

The joy of obeying burned in me as I put my knowledge to work for my Mistress.

* * *

Stop, the core of my brain instructed, and I did.

I had a crick in my neck from bending it to reach pussy for so long, and unlike the deep wounds on the side the pain was not delicious. And my tongue was sore.

But my Mistress was pleased.

“Ssssshe isss mine,” She said, stepping away from Tilly. I looked up, at Tilly’s eyes, and they were wide open, staring. The open yet unawake eyes of a slave.

I realized that my own must look the same, and the thought thrilled me.

“Whooo do you sssserve?” my Mistress demanded.

“I serve only you, my Mistress,” Tilly replied, unblinking.

Mistress had broken her! My nipples tightened in glee.

“It’s about fucking time,” the hunter bitch said from behind me. “Christ.”

The man spoke up. “It’s half an hour before dawn. We don’t have time for the raid.”

“Let’s saddle up then,” the woman said. “We don’t have much time.”

Licking my lips, I wondered shallowly why it was so important we attack at night. I would have thought daylight more amenable to the task.

“No,” the bearded man said. “It’s too late. I’m going to order a daytime containment and we’ll go in first thing tonight.”

“Don’t be stupid. We go in now.”

“It’s not up for discussion, Keller.”

I was still on my knees, facing Tilly’s pussy, so I heard but didn’t see her storm out.

“Okay, Miss Milford, stand up,” the man said. I was supposed to obey the hunters, so in the absence of further instruction from my Mistress, I did. My legs complained.

The man was still addressing me. “Now, blondie here is your lover, right?”

“Yes,” I replied, glancing at her. Tilly’s eyes were wide open, staring, and so so beautiful.

“Where’s her coffin?”

“I don’t know. I would assume at the night club.”

“She doesn’t have one here?”

“No.”

“Hm. Then where does she sleep?”

“In the laundry room,” I replied.

“On the floor?”

“Yes.”

“Huh. And that’s downstairs.”

“Yes.”

“Okay, then. Everybody downstairs.” He look up my Mistress’ leash.

We filed down the stairs into the basement. The hunter went first, leading my Mistress. Tilly followed Her, passive and quiet. A flap of pink pantycloth peeked through the shredded skirt between her thighs.

I followed Tilly. Behind me came the guards, their shock rods hanging now at their belts. They were as quiet as we.

“That it?” The hunter asked, gesturing at the laundry room.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Good.”

He led my Mistress in. Tilly and I followed. The hunter pushed my Mistress to Her knees, and She stared up at him with Her green eyes smoldering like eldritch coals. He tapped the keys of his device.

Once he was satisfied, he walked past Tilly and me. “Stay here,” he said, and then closed the door behind himself.

I stood, and waited for my Mistress to command me.

Beside me, Tilly did the same.

She just looked at us.

Then, slowly, Her eyes closed, and She drooped to the floor.

Tilly swayed back against the wall, then slid down it.

A moment later, they were both dead.

Sunrise.

* * *

Nothing happened all day, aside from my constantly increasing hunger.

I spent the entire day just standing there, watching over the bodies of my lover and my Mistress. My obedience did not flag, but now that She slept, I knew I would receive no instruction from Her until sundown. My mind was loosed to think about other things.

Thinking about other things hurt.

I looked at my Mistress. I recognized that the hunters were controlling Her, somehow. Now that I was at leisure to think about it, it bothered me. She was my Mistress—She should command, not obey. It was wrong that these humans should dictate to Her what She should do.

But I could do nothing about it. She gave no sign that She wanted to be free of them, and I could not act without Her instruction. And so I would continue to obey Her—a natural thing—even as She unnaturally obeyed them.

I tried not to think about it. But not thinking led me back to my unfilled stomach, so I sought other distraction.

I stroked Tilly’s hair.

I wanted to get her out of here. Wanted to... but she belonged to Mistress now. She would never go, just as I would never go. And Mistress wanted her, so I could not be unhappy that... that she...

But I remembered Tilly fighting them, and I knew that she didn’t want to be a slave. Not like I did. I looked at her beautiful face and her hand, slightly open where it had fallen onto the floor, and I was sad. I looked at her, and I loved her, and I was sorry.

I tried harder not to think at all.

* * *

I was still stroking her hair when her eyes opened. She looked at me.

“Kyla...?” she asked, quietly. And then, much more firmly, her eyes looking past me and fixing:

“Mistress.”

I felt Her flow into my mind, and stiffened as I opened myself to welcome Her back. Tilly and I rose to our feet, eyes wide, ready with every fiber of our being to obey.

We waited.

Perhaps twenty minutes later Mistress turned Her head, looking up through the floor, and then She was in our minds bidding us to follow Her. We did so, out of the room and up the stairs.

There was action in the house, humans in black combat gear once again preparing themselves. The three of us waited, standing, waiting to obey, still amidst the activity.

Then Mistress left us, walking to where the bearded man was tapping on his control device—it had to be—in the kitchen. He spoke to her. Tilly and I stood, ready to obey, waiting.

Tilly tautened and went to them. She dropped to her knees on the linoleum, and I watched but could not hear as Mistress touched her forehead lightly and began to instruct her in what she must do.

“Ready, skeeter bait?”

The hunter bitch was in front of me. I kept my focus on Mistress, and on Tilly, who was softly repeating Her commands back to Her.

A hand stroked my cheek. “It won’t be long now. Don’t you worry, cunt, now that we have your lezbo friend over there, you’re just window dressing. She’s gonna do all the heavy lifting. You’ll just be along for the ride.”

She was breathing in my ear. “Meat like you, you’re not much good for anything anyway. But just in case...” I felt her hand sliding my dress up, and she slid the pistol out of the garter which held it.

“You like that?” she asked. “Me touching you?” She checked the gun, opened it, looked at the ammo. “I just bet you do, you lezzie cunt.” She closed the gun, slid it back into my garter, pulled my dress down.

“Well, you’re good to go. We’re certainly not counting on you, but try and take a few of them down before you get snuffed, ‘kay?”

Tilly had risen from the floor, and stood staring into Mistress’ eyes. The two of them turned to face me, and their eyes were lanterns, blue and green. The core of my mind pulsed.

I went to receive my instructions.

* * *

Usefully, Tilly had left a bunch of her clothes at my house. Nothing I owned would have fit her.

Now she was in a little black dress, darting across the street towards the club. I was behind her, in an emerald green satin that I had been a little surprised to find still fit me. My clubbing days being so many years gone.

In Tilly’s hand was the strap of a long leash.

It led to my collar.

Tilly had worn the black dress when we went to a gallery showing two weeks ago. As then, it was hard now to put my gaze anywhere but on her body, the way the black cotton clung to her slightly angular hips and her athletic waist. With my mind almost fully occupied with obedience, there was practically nothing else in my head. Serve Mistress. Lust for Tilly’s hips. The leash was a good thing—on my own, I would have been hit by a car for sure.

Hit by a car... there was... memory...

But then we were on the other side of the street, and then we were entering the club. The bouncer nodded at Tilly and grinned a little at me in my collar. We didn’t stop in the cloakroom.

The collar was liberating. I was a slave and it showed, and I need not pretend to be anything else. No one in the room knew that I was slave to a vampire who crouched naked in a van across the street rather than to the elegant woman who held my lead, but that I was a slave was in no doubt.

We did not tarry in the main room. Tilly led me directly to the rear stair. The same pair who had been on guard the night before were there again.

They smiled to see Tilly, or at least the man did. “What have you brought us, Matilda?” he asked. “We’ve already had our take-away rounded up for the evening.”

“She’ll keep,” Tilly replied. I realized with a thrill that they couldn’t tell that Tilly was no longer Paolo’s creature but my Mistress’. “I’ve been working on her for weeks, and now she’s nice and soft upstairs. We can have fun any way we want.”

“Ooh,” the male replied. “Fun.”

The female vampire hadn’t spoken—hadn’t even smiled. She reached up to stroke my cheek. “Pretty,” she said, in a way that normally would have chilled me. But I was an object now, and the way she considered me as something whose pain might offer some enjoyment was not so far from the way I thought of myself.

She tilted my head to the side with the flat of her hand, looked at my neck. “Couldn’t wait, eh?”

Tilly shrugged.

The guards stepped aside—the conversation was over. Tilly led me downstairs on my leash.

At the bottom of the stairs was a steel door, open. We passed through it, and down a short hallway. There were doors on the walls, but Tilly led me past them all and to a door at the very end.

She pushed it open, and I was embraced by the smell of blood.

The room was large, and low-ceilinged. It was dimly lit, and the first thing I noticed were the glowing eyes of vampires, a dozen of them, twinned lights that turned to see who was entering their chamber. Tilly elicited no response, but they hissed to see a human.

If they expected fear from me, they were disappointed. My Mistress had instructed me to go with Tilly and the pulsing joy of obeying her was my only emotion.

Tilly tugged on the lead, and led me into the room. It was furnished with low tables, and sofas, and divans, all in black or red or chestnut brown. Lining the walls were coffins, chained shut, and I was startled to see one of them rocking.

The vampires in the room were in one place, surrounding a table near the back. On it a young man lay, naked, his erect cock softening and falling to the side as the creatures sucked on his body. He was moaning, cum spattering his legs and lower belly and the table beneath him. As I watched his cock jerked again, spitting out nothing, coming for the dozenth or the hundredth time even as his erection failed for lack of blood.

The vampires were of many sorts, but most of them were caucasian and almost all of them were female. As Tilly led me through the room, closer to them, I focused again on her body. There was too much to think about and too little mind to think with.

This is where Tilly lived.

Some of the vampires came to us as we neared the dying young man. There was blood on their chins and they stepped lightly around me, their breathing a sibilant sound.

“More for usss, Ma-til-da?”

“Give her to usss. The boy iss almosst done.”

“Ssshee’ss pretty. Sssharre herrr...”

“No,” Tilly replied. “I may share her with you, but only if Master commands it. He sees her first.”

There was a soft chorus then, “Massster” and “As He commandsss,” and we passed by the young man, coming again although his flesh was now bedsheet white and his cock lay limp on his thigh.

At the back of the room was a curtain. None of the vampires followed as we passed through it.

* * *

He was there.

He sat in a chair that I recognized with a little surprise as a La-Z-Boy. His feet were up, and he was reading a newspaper as he sipped sticky redness from a glass.

We walked toward him, and stopped, and waited.

A moment later, and he lowered the paper to look at us.

“By my lights, Miss Milford. Why did you bring her here?”

“I tired of her, Master, and since she both knows of us and has little family to ask for her, I felt that she would provide a fine amusement.”

Paolo put the paper aside, pushed the lever on his chair, and stood up. His dark eyes settled on me.

“Thoughtful,” he observed, as he closed the distance between us in a few steps. His hands came lightly down atop my breasts, and he slid them down my sides. His touch tingled. His face was thoughtful. “I shall enjoy her, both carnally and as my sustenance. But this is very unlike you, my Matilda—”

Time jerked to a halt.

Behind him, Tilly had drawn a gun, a large one, and she was bringing it to bear

And Mistress had told Tilly to kill him, Mistress wanted him dead

But something large and important flared up in my mind and said PROTECT PAOLO MORELLO DE GARZA

And Mistress had not told me to do anything, so I was free to obey the words that suddenly shone like dark eyes in my brain

So I grabbed Paolo’s shoulders and yanked and screamed “Paolo look out!”

Time started up again.

The shot was a thunderclap in the small room; my hands which had only just begun to wrench at Paolo’s unmoving frame were suddenly clutching nothing. I think I felt a finger break.

And the gun was spinning through the air, slapped from Tilly’s hand, and Paolo had her by the throat and his eyes were darkling fire.

“HOW DARE YOU!?” he demanded, and Tilly screamed as he tore into her mind like a cannonball through a line of police tape.

Then there were gunshots from upstairs, a lot of them, and screaming, and Paolo looked up and his eyes were too powerful for me to look at. He snarled, threw Tilly to the floor, and raced from the room.

Tilly just lay there. I was supposed to, supposed to... I was supposed to kill vampires, I remembered. The hunters had told me to. So I hiked up my skirt and pulled out the pistol, and waited for one to come in through the curtain.

There were more shots, and from upstairs a great deal of screaming. I could hear the battle as it moved to the stairs, and then down the stairs.

No vampires came into the little room.

Tilly moaned, and I looked down at her. Her eyes were wide open, and just barely illuminated, sky blue but lit by a candle. I knelt to touch her and she twitched, her hand coming up to hold my wrist, but her eyes were wide and empty and I could tell that they saw nothing.

The gunplay had stopped.

The curtain whipped aside, and I pointed the gun.

The hunter bitch kicked it aside.

* * *

“You fuckups!” she snarled. She grabbed me by the hair and pulled me into the other room.

There were vampire bodies on the floor, but not so many as I had expected. The room was filled with black-clad hunters, two dozen or so, searching. One placed the tip of his shotgun against one of the wall coffins, and fired. There was a screech which tapered off. He fired again.

“You were supposed to kill him,” the bitch snarled at me. “Why the fuck didn’t you? His death would have left these idiots rolling on the floor and we could have swept them up like yesterday’s ashes. Instead we have a major fucking gunplay incident and Santiago is going to be pissed and your fucking De Garza has gotten himself into his fucking safe room—”

She stopped, apoplectic, and then kicked me hard in the groin. I bent double, and she knocked me to the ground, and then kicked me again in the ribs.

“Knock it off,” came the voice of the bearded man. I looked up through my pain to see him approach, leading Mistress by her leash. “He can’t escape. It’s just a matter of getting the explosives set up, and then this little coven is history.”

The bitch kicked me again, but Mistress was here and everything would be the way it should be. I waited for Her to command.

“Well, let’s finish cleaning up and we can get to damage control,” the bearded man said.

The bitch still glared at me, furious, but then she smiled an evil smile.

“Get up,” she said, and I complied.

“Here,” and she handed me her pistol. “Come over here.”

I followed her into the alcove where we had found Paolo.

She pointed at Tilly.

“Kill her.”

* * *

I raised the gun, and sighted...

Tilly just lay there. She shifted a little, but her eyes had no focus.

“Kill her!” the bitch snapped.

My arm started to shake.

“For fuck’s sake... Hendrik! Bring the monster in here!”

The man with the beard came in, leading my Mistress.

“What is it?”

“Have it, make her,” she pointed at me, “kill that.”

The man frowned. “You’re one cold bitch, Keller.”

“Fuck you. All the skeeters are supposed to be killed.”

He shrugged. “Whatever.” He tapped on his control device, and Mistress’ head swung to face him.

“Wait—have it wake that one up, first.”

The man rolled his eyes, but did not reply.

His tapping stopped, and Mistress turned. She knelt by Tilly, reaching for her, and Tilly suddenly gasped and her eyes focused again. The fire went out of them.

Mistress stood up.

“Okay, cunt, now shoot her,” the hunter bitch demanded.

I looked at Tilly over the barrel of the gun.

She looked back at me.

She made a sad little smile.

“Fucking shoot her! Goddamn you, mosquito bitch, make her shoot her!”

Mistress looked at me and my mind spoke.

Kill.

I...

I...

I swiveled and shot my Mistress in the head.

I felt my own head explode, felt the wet hot detonation in my mind and then I was falling. It took a long time, and I was curiously detached. My Mistress was falling, too, Her ruined head arcing away from me, Her blood making long slow ribbons as it arced into the air.

There was shouting, but I didn’t know from whom.

Things were getting darker—I hadn’t hit the floor yet, and I didn’t know why it was taking so long, but I could tell that my mind was terribly damaged. It was funny, but as I fell I found myself thinking about one thing.

The moon.

The moon...

And how the moon can move the sea.

* * *

Hi. Tilly here.

Kyla missed most of the next bit, so I’m going to fill in for her. Don’t worry, she’ll be back.

None of us moved as Kyla shot that poor lady vamp. I don’t think any of us had even considered it could be done.

But when we had a moment to react, well, I reacted first. Being undead has some advantages.

The black bitch didn’t have her gun—it was in Kyla’s hands—so I gutted the guy with the beard first. The bitch was just starting to shout when I ripped her head clean off; I sort of had a mad on, and although most times I’m not all that strong, well, I had it in for these guys.

Not that I expected to win—I knew how many of them there were. But I’d at least gotten these two fucks, and I would take as many of the others down with me as I could.

But as I leapt into the feast chamber, I was startled to see the hunters rolling on the ground. Later I realized that they, too, had been enthralled by the lady vamp, and what Kyla had done to her had hit them at least in the heads just as much as it had hit her.

It would have hit me, too, but my Master had ripped out the strings that she’d placed in my head entirely, and although she’d brought me back from the place He’d put me afterward she hadn’t stuck them back in.

I should have grabbed one of the fallen shotguns, grabbed a gun and gone around the room blowing heads in. But... but I didn’t know who these people were. Maybe they hadn’t wanted to be here either, maybe they were victims like Kyla-

Kyla!

I spun back into my Master’s room. The bearded fuck lay on the floor, twitching; that ice-hearted bitch’s head stared at me in surprise from a corner. The slave vamp was crumpled in a heap.

Kyla lay on the floor, and for a terrible moment I thought she was dead, too. But she wasn’t—I found her pulse, and she was breathing, fast and shallow, like a frightened rabbit. I’d never been a paramedic—I didn’t know what to do.

Yes I did. I had to get her out of here, get her to a paramedic. The Hell with the consequences. It wasn’t like Master didn’t have to move already.

I carried her through the feast chamber. Pearl and June were dead underfoot, but I didn’t see most of my fellow wives. They were probably in the safe room with Master. I wanted to get Kyla out of here before they realized the shooting had stopped.

Too late.

The door to the safe room slammed open into the corridor just ahead of me. I had to stop.

The girls slid out, hissing, saw me, and recognized that I was no threat. They had no idea what I’d tried to... tried to... the memory wouldn’t come. I knew that I’d done something, something bad, but what it was was walled off in my mind.

The girls flowed around me, back into the feast chamber, and found the hunters there, still convulsing with the mind blast that had hit them.

I listened to the cries of hunger and vengeance and the wet tearing sounds.

Juliette stepped out of the safe room. She was missing an arm, but since she had been guarding the stairs I was both surprised and pleased to see her still around. She was the oldest of us, aside from Master, and she had always been kind to me. She looked at me, looked at Kyla limp in my arms, and then she headed the other way, to secure the stairs and see what waited beyond them.

And then He stepped out.

He was angry. His eyes were novae.

Drop that He lashed at me, and Kyla hit the floor as gently as I could drop her.

He Moved, and then His hand was crushing my jaw and I dangled in front of Him.

“You fuckup,” He hissed, “you vaca estupida. How could you lead them to me? Now I must move again, and I do not like to run. And how weak,” He sneered, “you are to have been enslaved like that. To have been turned against your master so easily. I have been soft on you far too long, Miss Matilda Green. I hope you will enjoy your stay in a box these next hundred years.”

I could only whimper. My life was His.

He tossed me aside.

“And this bitch,” He said, looking down at Kyla. “She’s the cause of it all. If you hadn’t fallen for her like some lovesick dog... pfah.” He raised his hand, and his fingertips became claws.

He struck down-

-and my hands were on his wrist.

“Please, Master, no,” I pleaded. “It was my fault. I am the stupid one. Kyla did nothing.”

He turned those dark suns on me, his face a rictus of fury. “You DARE?!” he shouted in anger and amazement. “What she did or did not do matters nothing! She has aggrieved me and I say she dies! Now—” Let go!

He struck again-

-and stared in disbelief at my hands.

I was too distraught to realize. “Please Master please,” I begged, “Please don’t kill her. Please.”

He looked at me, and the fury was suddenly gone from his eyes. “You defy me?” He asked in a quiet and deadly voice.

Then, I realized. I stared at my hands, and back at him.

“Your life is my will,” he said. “There is no part of you that lives otherwise. How can it be, that you defy me?”

I shook my head, my mouth forming explanations my mind could not create.

We stared at each other.

He withdrew his hand.

“Go,” he said.

I did not understand, and stood rooted to the spot.

“GO!” he shouted. “Take your human and go! Get out! Do not come back!”

I was still for an eyeblink longer. Then I snatched up Kyla’s body and ran past him and up the stairs.

* * *

I woke up in a hospital.

My first thought was of Mistress. I cast around for Her, wondering where She was, needing to be ready to obey.

Then I remembered.

The club. Paolo. Tilly. The battle.

And then...

Mistress.

I had shot Her.

I had killed Her.

I had done it for Tilly.

Tilly! Where was she?

I tried to rise from the bed, and doing so set a small alarm to beeping. There was an IV in my arm, which I pulled out, and as I was hanging it up—because I’m a neat freak, yes—the nurse came in and saw me disentangling myself.

“Oh, Miss Milford, you shouldn’t do that!” she said.

“Where am I?” I demanded.

“You’re in Sibley Memorial Hospital,” she replied.

“What time is it?”

“About eleven in the morning.”

“What day?”

“The fourteenth.”

I blinked. The fourteenth. I had been snatched on the, let’s see... the ninth. That meant I was... that I met... that they got Kyla on the tenth, and we had gone to the club the night of the tenth.. Shit, I’d been in the hospital three and a half days!

And I was fucking starving.

It wasn’t worth trying to bolt out of here. Tilly wouldn’t be alive anyway—no, wouldn’t be awake, please God let her still be alive—and it seemed that I was being looked after. Or at least, not in some hunter containment cell somewhere. I sat back down on the bed.

“Can I get some food?” I asked. “I’m really hungry.”

“Sure thing,” the nurse replied. “Actually, why don’t you just come with me, and I’ll take you to the cafeteria. You’ve got some sweatclothes right over there.”

I dressed. They were my clothes—someone had brought them for me.

I really, really hoped it wasn’t the bitch and her friends.

It seemed unlikely. They wouldn’t have put me in hospital.

The hallway outside was subdued in the way that hospitals usually were. “So,” I asked the nurse, “Sibley. Nice place. Who’s paying for this?”

She gave me a placating smile and shrugged. Nurses never talk about money. I just sighed and followed her to the cafeteria.

* * *

There was a policeman at my home.

He was standing on the front step, watching me approach. I’d taken the bus from the hospital; although I’d checked out at five, it was a little after seven before I reached my street. Someone had left the porch light on. I wondered tiredly who.

I honestly didn’t know what to expect. My optimistic mind hoped that I’d find Tilly waiting, but somehow I knew I wouldn’t. My pessimistic mind expected to be nabbed by the hunters again as soon as I came in sight.

My slave mind prayed that Mistress would be alive, and waiting there for me.

A whole lot of me wanted that.

None of me expected a single uniformed beat cop. Particularly not the same cop who had come by the house that day a month ago when Tilly lay mangled in my basement. He was something out of a world that seemed more dream-like than real. A normality that belonged to a different Kyla, a Kyla now long gone.

“Miss Milford?”

Here we go again, I thought, as I walked up the path.

“Hello, officer. I’m sorry, I forget your name. What can I do for you?”

“Well, there have been lots of reports of suspicious activity about the club that burned down, and since you were there, I was hoping to ask you a few questions.”

“It burned down?”

“You didn’t know?”

I shook my head. “I just got out of the hospital. I’ve been unconscious for days.”

He frowned. “I’m sorry to hear that. Should I come back later? I can stop by tomorrow.”

“I am pretty tired,” I admitted.

Then, a female voice at my shoulder. “Hey, stranger.”

Tilly.

I didn’t believe it was her. I couldn’t breathe.

I turned around slowly. It was her, her white skin a soft glow in the porch light.

We stared at each other.

“Um,” the policeman said. “I’ll just come back later, then.”

“Thank you,” my mouth said, as I unlocked the door. I pushed it open.

Tilly brushed past me and the air of her passing was electric.

I shut the door behind me; Tilly turned, opening her mouth to say something but then I covered it with mine. I was crying and kissing and holding her so tight I worried about hurting her, and then I realized how dumb that was and I was laughing and we both sat down on the floor together.

* * *

She filled me in, telling me about killing the hunters and the effect that shooting Mistress had had and about what happened after, with Paolo.

I touched her, now and then, to be sure she was real.

“And I got back from the hospital to find the place already on fire.”

“That was Paolo?”

She nodded. “He did it, to hide things. He has dozens of backup lairs, all over the world. There’s nothing he can’t replace.”

“So, um. How- how did you do it? Defy him? I thought his will kept you alive?”

Tilly shook her head. “I don’t know. I just—I couldn’t let him hurt you. I would rather have been dead.” She shrugged. “Maybe that was it. Maybe, because I found something-someone—that was more important to me than my life, I was able to defy his will. Or maybe it was whatever that hunter vampire did to me, and when he yanked out her control, he didn’t replace it. I just don’t know.”

“I wonder how they were controlling her.”

“Me too. I feel sorry for her.”

I didn’t. I longed for Her to walk in the door and make me obey. So I moved the conversation along.

“So are you a master vampire now, or what?”

Tilly gave me an embarrassed smile. “I don’t know. I mean, I think, maybe, yes. But I’m not... I am more powerful. I can do stuff... stuff only Paolo could do. Not all of it. But some.”

“Really? Show me something.”

Tilly raised an eyebrow, and then she started to disappear; she faded away, Cheshire-cat-like, until there was just a faint Tilly-outline where she had been sitting next to me on the sofa.

Then she was suddenly there again.

“Cool. Stupid vampire tricks.”

She laughed, and I kissed her.

“So if the club’s burned down, where have you been staying?”

“Storm drain.”

I made a face. “Oooh, Tilly the big Master Vampire, sleeping with the possums.”

“Yeah, well. I didn’t exactly inherit a castle. Oh hey, speaking of, is there still blood in your refrigerator? I’m fucking starving.”

I didn’t know, so we went to check. Sure enough, there was some there, in the bags in the back. Tilly had three glasses. I had a frozen burrito.

I worked up my nerve as we ate, and when we finished, I pulled Tilly back to the sofa and sat her down again.

I took her hands in mine. “Tilly,” I said, “I’m glad you’re free. I know you hated being a slave. I watched you fight it so hard...” I blinked away the water in my eyes. “But... but I’m not. Not free. What She did to me... it’s not gone, just because She’s dead. What She did to my mind, it’s still there. And it’s so big. It’s like a hole, a hole at the core of me, and all that’s left of me is just this little ring around that hole. The place where She was. I feel... I feel empty. Purposeless. I need...”

I tailed off, and Tilly just looked at me.

“Please fill it,” I whispered. “Please be my Mistress.”

I was so afraid she’d say no, that she’d tell me I’d get better, that I could be normal again. That she loved me too much to do it.

But she nodded.

“I’m so sorry, Kyla,” she whispered, and her hand was cool on my forehead. Her eyes bloomed into light.

“Look into my eyes...”

* * *

The room was white, and the floor was marble.

I was nude, comfortable, waiting.

Then She was there, my Mistress, standing on a circular dais that had always been in the center of the room.

She was in black, all black, a midnight confection with a huge high two-pointed collar, with draping sleeves and a silver belt from which hung ornaments twisted and beautiful. She was facing away from me, but the dais was turning, slowly, and there was a dark radiance which waxed as Her face approached.

I fell to my hands and knees, and crawled to Her, and as I came closer I fell further, to my belly, and I mashed my breasts into the cold marble as I writhed my way towards Her feet.

And I was wearing a collar, a thick leather collar, and She knelt now to attach Her lead to it, and She was so beautiful I could not look upon her.

But Her hands took hold of my collar, and lifted me up, until I inhaled Her breath and She bade me to look-

And it was Tilly, my beloved Tilly, and she pulled me to Her breast and She stroked my hair and She told me that She would always keep me safe.

And together we rode the dais upward into the light.

* * *

I blinked.

Tilly was looking at me, her eyes normal and touched with worry.

“Kyla?”

I felt...

I felt...

“Full,” I whispered.

Tilly stared at me.

“Full of you,” I breathed, and reached for her.

She was in my arms and she was in my mind, not the dazzling and will-killing brilliance of my former mistress but a warm glow, a presence that was with me and that I loved without reservation, not because it demanded my love but because it merited my love.

Tilly was now the core of me.

I kissed her hungrily and pushed her backwards on the sofa, and she tried to say something but my tongue stifled it. I pulled on her clothes as I sucked on her mouth, until we broke our kiss and tore off everything we wore.

She had not fully healed, and the holes from the spikes the hunters had driven into her were puckered white circles on her arms and legs. I kissed one and she shivered, but then I moved to her torso, sucking on her breasts while my hands roamed below, then licking my way up her neck.

“Roll over,” I whispered into her ear, and she did, and I tasted my way down her spine until I slid my tongue down the crack of her ass. I had never—but Tilly was a vampire, and there was nothing but the feel of her cool flesh and that faint taste that was Tilly as I rimmed her ass and then slid lower, licking her slit as I buried my face in her ass.

And then she backed onto me, pushing me back until I kicked my legs out and lay on my back, and her breath tingled on my own pussy and then her lips found me and my own lips came off her slit with a gasp.

We made love right there on the carpet for hours.

* * *

At some point, we had found our way into the bedroom. I lay curled in her arms, the voluptuous victim cuddled up with her muscular new owner.

The thought gave me a frisson of present lust and remembered terror, and I shivered deliciously.

“So,” I asked, looking at the ceiling, “Do I call you Mistress now?”

“Mmm. Only when I tell you to.”

I became serious. “I love you, Tilly. Without having to.”

“I know, Kyla. I love you as well.”

I snuggled into her, enjoyed her cool flesh.

“I have to leave,” she said. “The hunters will come back, and soon. They never give up.”

“I understand.”

“I’ll try to keep in touch.”

“No.”

“No?”

I rolled over, wrapped my legs around hers. “No,” I said. “I’m going with you. Wherever it is you are going.”

“But your job... your life...?”

I kissed her nose. “You are my happiness, Mistress. Before I met you, I wanted to be a doctor. Now that I know you, I only want to be yours.”

She kissed me then, so hard my lips caught on her teeth and bled. Startled, eyes blazing, she stopped. We stared into each other.

Then we kissed again.

* * *

San Francisco might be the heart of the Golden State, but it’s fucking freezing in the summer. I pulled my arms tight against my body.

Surprisingly close to the geographic center of the city are a pair of high hills called Twin Peaks. They are capped by some vast radio towers, but just beneath those is a parking area with one of the absolute best views of the city, and a perspective that people who have only seen San Francisco on postcards never get; San Francisco from behind, the city at your feet stretching into the bay and across to Oakland, north across the Golden Gate and south down the Peninsula. It’s a hangout for locals, not on most tourist agendas.

I sat on the hood of the Volvo and watched the sun go down. Or rather, I watched the world grow dark, as the Pacific Ocean is actually behind the hills and not visible from the parking lot.

The back of the station wagon opened, and Tilly slid out, yawning and stretching. I rolled my eyes at her and she grinned at me as she walked around the car.

“Good evening,” she said.

“Hi,” I replied, and then she was with me and we shared a long kiss.

Tilly slid onto the hood of the wagon next to me. “Nice view from up here.”

“Yeah,” I replied, watching the lights of the city come on beneath us. “Breathtaking.”

“Paolo’s in Dallas,” Tilly said. “I can feel him.”

“’You can feel him’ or ‘You can feel Him’?” I asked.

“Just ‘him’,” she said, smiling softly. “It’s not a leash any more, just a thread.”

“Just checking. You know, I liked your hair better blonde.”

“Ah, well. I think you’re quite fetching with those raven tresses you picked.”

“It was this or red.”

“That would have been nice, too.”

She kissed me, and then slid down to suck on my neck. The old wounds tingled, although nowhere near as powerfully as my pussy.

“Let’s go somewhere and fuck,” I whispered.

Tilly smiled wickedly at me. “How about here?” she asked.

My nipples tightened. I looked around—we were far from the only people in the parking lot. A middle aged woman emerged from her car three spots down and went over to the opposite railing to look at the Bay.

I looked at Tilly, whose hands had moved to my breasts and whose fanged grin was predatory and oh so sexual. I pushed my tits hard into her hands.

Whatever you desire, my Mistress, I told her.

She grinned.

* * *

END ‘Winter Flesh’

* * *