Danse Macabre Snark, ch 9

[yaoihuntresse.livejournal.com]

As I mentioned in the last one, chapters 8 and 9 were merged together so this is where I guess chapter 9 would begin.

We both knew the potential of his body too intimately to ever believe such simple camouflage. Because it was a we. And because it was a we, she knew why Jean-Claude had his black curls pulled back in a ponytail.

Because he's trying to get in touch with his feminine side.

She knew why the clothes were elegant but some of his least expensive. Why he wore

Cheeto-stained fedoras.

almost no jewelry. He had planned to appear as the visiting masters had last seen him. He was going to hide what he truly was, let them wonder about his power.

And if he could sparkle more than they could.

It was a gamble that I had disagreed with. I thought it was like bait-ing them.
Look how powerless I am, try me. Jean-Claude said that he had never gotten in trouble when dealing with other masters by hiding some of his abilities. It was a strategy that had saved his life in the past.
She used me to say, "I see you Jean-Claude. All these simple games do not hide you from Belle Morte. But you were right to come humble before me, as I like my men."
I stared at him with Belle Morte's eyes, while she laughed, and laughed, and laughed on her big, empty bed. I thought, empty.
Since when did Belle sleep alone?

When she runs out of bribes.

That thought made her stumble in her mind again. A moment of hesitation, but Jean-Claude took it. He used it to put himself at my back. lb fold all the velvet and leather of his body around me, so that he and Aug-gie faced each other across me. Belle roared back through me, but in some ways, her moment had passed. Jean-Claude was sourdre de sang and I was his human servant. Touching, she could not turn me against him. But she left us with a parting gift, an evil whisper in my mind. "You are sourdre de sang. You can chase me out, but you cannot cure what Augustine has begun. When I leave her mind, the ardeur will still be there. It will spread to the three of you, and you will do things together that you have not done in centuries."

Jean-Claude: But, Belle, no one plays the harpsichord anymore.

She was in my head, so I couldn't hide that this was the first I'd heard of Auggie and Jean-Claude being more than friends. She laughed in her firelit bedroom all those miles away.

Does anyone else get images of those late night phone sex commercials every time they mention Belle's bedroom scenes?

She spoke through me, that alto purr trying to come out of my mouth. "Oh, Jean-Claude, you did not tell her that you and Augustine were lovers."
Jean-Claude was very still against my body, as if he were holding his breath. I realized he was waiting for me to react to what she'd said.

So Anita went over to Auggie and did this.

He was waiting for me to be angry and make the disaster that was about to happen even worse. But I surprised us all.
I wasn't shocked. I don't know why, but I wasn't. I'd known he hadn't come to me a virgin. I even knew that he'd had other male lovers besides Asher. Of course, knowing something in the abstract wasn't the same as hav-ing the fact kneeling in front of you, holding you in his arms. I looked up at Auggie and expected to be upset, but maybe Auggie's powers had done something to me, or maybe I was picking up Jean-Claude's emotion, or even Belle's.

Or she just discovered the pure beauty that is slash. Oh no! She's just like me. * Goes to drink anti-freeze. *

Whatever the reason, I gazed up at the man in front of me and saw the line of his face from temple to jaw like the stroke of some fine painting. The charcoal-gray eyes had lost their fire; fear and willpower had shut down some of his vampiric powers. But even empty of anything but him, the eyes were utterly compelling. It wasn't just the lace of black lashes and the drown-ing color that for the first time convinced me that gray could be as beautiful as blue, but the look in those eyes.

Auggie: I bet she'd be fairly edible with some honey mustard sauce.

He stared down at me like a drowning man. Something of pain and loss so raw that it tightened my throat. My re-action was sympathy; Belle's was not. She was glad, so terribly glad that after all these centuries the sight of her eyes could still fill him with such pain. She wanted him to hurt. Wanted him to suffer. Wanted him to feel cast out, driven from paradise by the hand of a vengeful god, or, I guess in this case, goddess.
Augustine's power meant that I watched his pain as one freshly fallen in love, in that first blinding, overwhelming rush where you'll do or say almost anything to make each other happy. I wanted to make it all better, to kiss it and make it all go away.

Wow, this really is like a bad slash fic when the author doesn't want to use bisexuality as an excuse.

"No," Belle said, "no, they lied to you. You should feel betrayed. Heart-broken."
"Sorry to disappoint you," I said, but she knew I didn't mean it.
"So calm, Anita. See through my eyes and your lovely calm will not survive."
I knew I still knelt, held between Jean-Claude and Augustine, but I was trapped in Belle's memories, so that we sat on a throne in a huge dark, torch-lit room. Augustine was tied to a metal framework, the naked line of his body exposed to all. He had come begging Belle to take him back. She had re-fused, but offered one more taste of the ardeur.
These weren't thoughts; I was in her head so deeply that I shared her memories. She meant to humil-iate him. He had made her love him, and that she could not forgive.
Jean-Claude and Asher appeared before the throne. They were dressed in long cloaks that hid all but their faces. Asher's face had the flawless beauty that had once been his. So this memory was from a time before he and Jean-Claude left Belle to save Julianna,

Who thankfully doesn't look like Anita.

the woman they both loved, from Belle's jealousy.
Jean-Claude and Asher were still her perfect pair. Her matched beauties that did all we asked. I knew they were naked under the cloaks. I knew what she meant them to do. Augustine's voice, next to my ear, startled me, but did not break Belle's memory. It was like a voice from on high. "You are her master, Jean-Claude. Do not let Belle show this to Anita."
It was as if his voice helped call me back, because the person talking was not the person tied there. The Jean-Claude he spoke to was not the servant who stood before this throne. This had happened long, long ago. It wasn't real anymore.
"It happened, Anita, just as I will show it to you."
"Ma petite"

Ok, who brought the 90's cartoon version of Gambit in?

Jean-Claude said, "can you hear me?"
I blinked up at them, saw their faces looming over me, but Belle's power roared through my head. "No, Anita, you will see the reality of it." I was back in that torch-lit room. I could feel their hands on me, but all I could see was what Belle showed me.

Anita: Belle, what are all these dead Smurfs doing here?

"Touch her bare skin," Auggie said.
Asher and Jean-Claude began to glide around the bound man. It was al-most a dance, the swaying of cloaks, the grace of their movements. Hands glided over my bare arms. The moment his bare skin touched me, the memory began to grow dark. It was as if the lights were dimming, hid-ing what was happening.
"No!" Belle shouted, and she pulled me back into that dark hall, all those centuries ago.

You were supposed to look in the mirror across the room, see the Nostalgia Critic's reflection looking back and curl up in a ball, sobbing.

The cloaks were gone, and their bodies were pale and perfect. I heard Au-gustine protest. "You promised me the ardeur."
"I keep all my promises, Augustine."
Jean-Claude glowed like some dark star, laying only his hand on the naked back of the other man.
Augustine said, "Ah, now I understand." He lifted his face at an awkward angle to look back along his body at Jean-Claude.
Jean-Claude knelt in front of him, so he didn't have to strain. He cupped Augustine's chin in his hand, and spoke, so low that Belle could have not heard it.

Are they still in the past or are they all doing this in front of the guests at the party?

"I have given you but a taste. If you find my touch repulsive, then I can stop." He put his face next to Augustine's mouth, as if he were kissing the other man's neck. He gave Augustine a chance to breathe his an-swer, "You have such fine control over the ardeur, so soon."
"Out."
"If this is but a taste, and all she will allow me, then I want it."

You know, there a slim chance you could still cut your loses and leave, Auggie.

Jean-Claude pulled back enough to see the other man's face. He cupped Augustine's face in his hands. I realized that I was seeing Jean-Claude's face through Augustine's eyes. I watched Augustine see the uncertainty in the other man's eyes. "Would you risk her anger to save me?"
"I do not enjoy force."
Asher knelt beside Jean-Claude, and there was a look I'd never seen on his face. Arrogance, fierceness, something predatory, and something else. Something dangerous, and unpleasant.
Asher's voice fell into the memory. "Jean-Claude, do not let Anita see me like this."

Asher: I should be acting like I'm pretty much interchangeable like Micah and Nathaniel.

Until that moment I hadn't known Asher was somewhere in the room, waiting for us to win, or lose, this battle. And he was seeing what Belle was forcing me to see. How was she doing this?
"You are all blood of my blood, Anita. I can do many things to that which is mine."
Hands on me, cloth tearing, my body jerking with the force of it. The coolness of air on my back. Jean-Claude's chest and stomach pressed against my back, the lace of his white shirt only a frame for our flesh. But the mo-ment that much of his skin touched mine, the memory turned black and Belle was back on the edge of her big bed in the flickering light of candles. Her anger filled her eyes with dark honey flame. She had never known that Jean-Claude gave Auggie a choice, all these long years ago.

Oh, so it is in the past? Ok, time to go back to not paying attention again.

Jean-Claude's bare arms wrapped around my nearly naked upper body. He wrapped his arms around me, cradled me as close to his body as the gun and knife at my back would allow.

You know what would be funny? Is if the gun were to accidentally go off. You know what else is funny? Anything else!

Augustine's hands were still in mine, as if he couldn't, or wouldn't, let me go. But it was Jean-Claude's body that chased her back. That shut down the memory.
"Your body can stop me, but I leave you two parting gifts, Jean-Claude and Augustine. The first is the ardeur that will claim the three of you, and if I push hard enough will spread through the room to all that are left. I feel Asher and . . ." She closed her eyes, licked her lips. "Mmm, Requiem is there, as well. They will try to hold it back when it happens. Perhaps they will succeed, perhaps not." Then she looked directly at us, and it was as if she could see us, truly see us. Such concentration in those eyes. "My second is a question to you and a gift for Anita. Have you realized one of her tal-ents, Jean-Claude, that she can borrow the abilities that are used against her?

So a little like Synch from Generation X, but without any of the likability, charm or skin pigmentation?

My ability to make living memories, I give to her now, just this once. I want her to have it to use, and I will not fight her magic's ability to take it. I will let her take this power to her mind, and I leave her with this question: Do you really believe that Augustine and Jean-Claude only had sex this one time, or were there more?"
Cloth tore, and more of Jean-Claude pressed against me. "I close this door to you, Belle, for she is mine, not yours."
"I'm going, I'm going, enjoy my gifts." But I was still tied close enough to her mind to know that she had no choice. She pretended she did, but Jean-Claude had chased her out. The last thing I felt from her was regret. Regret for the men she left me with, that I had them and she did not.

Just like Bunny, Ronnie and that Girl Scout who she caught talking with Nathaniel last week.

I came up gasping as if I'd been underwater. I was down to nothing but bra and panties, the skirt suit ripped away. My gun with its holster had van-ished with the skirt. Jean-Claude's clothes were mostly gone, as well.
"Is there anything your bloodline does that doesn't involve getting naked?"

When it comes to crank calling the president, they're allowed to keep their pants on.

He laughed, that wonderful, touchable laugh. And I wasn't the only one who reacted to it. Auggie shivered as he gripped my hands. He was still in his expensive suit, even his tie tight in place. He'd behaved himself ad-mirably.
I looked around the room and found it empty except for Asher on the side near the outer door and Requiem on the side near the hallway that led far-ther into the underground. Asher with his golden hair that hid the scars the Church had given him when they tried to burn the devil out of him with holy water.
Requiem tall and pale, with hair almost as dark as mine and Jean-Claude's. His face was graced by a mustache and a small trimmed beard.

He has facial hair so I guess I can give her a bit of credit for deviating from the norm here.

Though tonight he looked like something big had hit him on the side of the face.

I was going to make a Zsa-Zsa Gabour joke, but that would be too dated.

They both held their arms up and out from their bodies. I could feel power radiating from them. I realized they'd thrown up the vampiric equiv-alent of a power circle to try to hold in the ardeur, and the memories. To stop it from spreading.
I relaxed in Jean-Claude's arms, squeezed Augustine's hands. There was a whisper in my mind, "Were there other times?"

Yeah, but it involved three hours of crying afterwards.

Was it my thought, or hers? I didn't know, and it didn't matter, because the question came, and the thought was enough. I was thrown into the middle of a memory that had me clawing for air. Auggie on top, pressing Jean-Claude's body into a bed.
Non, ma petite, non." His body pressed against me, all that lovely naked-ness, but it wasn't enough.
This wasn't Belle's power imposed on me. She'd figured out what I'd only discovered recently myself, that I could borrow powers from vamps if they used those powers on me first. Some powers were more permanent than others, some didn't take at all, but this one was taking. This one was taking, and I couldn't stop it.

So it's like Rouge when she absorbed Ms Marvel's powers or that issue of "What If..." where she permanently gained Thor's powers and godhood. That was actually a pretty good story and...yeah, yeah, I'm know I'm stalling. But can you blame me?

I screamed, and Auggie's arms were bare under my hands. But it didn't help. It didn't help.
"Then have all the memory, Anita," Auggie said, "see it all."
We were in a room, small but elegant. Auggie sat in a chair. Jean-Claude was down on one knee before him, hat in hand, head bowed. This Auggie's yellow hair was down to his shoulders. He wore blue and silver gray with too much lace for my taste.
"So the rumors are true—you have left her voluntarily."
Jean-Claude nodded, and looked up. "I have."
Auggie laughed. "You leave heaven voluntarily when I cry in hell for one last glimpse of it." He shook his head, sighed, the humor vanishing from his face. "But if you are strong enough to leave heaven I will get you to the coast. I know a ship and a captain that I trust."

Auggie: His name is Gilligan and he's sails this cute little ship called, the S.S. Minnow.

"What is the destination of the ship?"
"The English colonies. The United States of America, they are called now. But honestly, Jean-Claude, does it matter where it goes as long as you are off the continent, and far from her?"
Jean-Claude bowed his head again as if whatever was in his eyes, he didn't wish to share. "I cannot pay you, Augustine, I have left with nothing."
"It is a gift in honor of your bravery at leaving paradise, not once, but twice. Twice, when I would give everything I have to go back."
Jean-Claude raised his face, beautiful and empty, his face when he was hiding what he was thinking. "Is it Belle you miss, or the ardeur?"

It had more to do with those tasty souffles she made. He never could get them to raise properly on his own.

"Both."
"I cannot give you Belle, but the ardeur is mine to share."

Jean-Claude: So sit back and watch as I had it over to some annoying human who practically has "bitch" written on her forehead.

Such eagerness on Augustine's face for an instant. A need so raw it filled his eyes with fire like lightning's glow behind gray clouds. Then his face stilled, all that hunger hiding away, but we had seen it. For in that instant, I was no longer seeing the room like some floating phantom. I was inside Jean-Claude's head

Anita: You like Justin Bieber? Eww.

as I had been inside him and Belle in the earlier memory.
Augustine's voice was as empty as his face when he said, "It is a gift, Jean-Claude. I would be your friend. Friends do not count the costs of favors."
We were surprised, and had been too long with Belle Morte to trust it. "I would have bargained my body to gain what you offer so freely, Augustine."
"And that is why I offer it freely. Yes, I long to be with her again. I will love her until the end of the world, but I did not always like her, or what she forced us to do." His face darkened with memories, but he waved them away, and smiled. "I would have stayed with her forever, doing her bidding, her willing slave, even though I knew her to be evil. I was too"—he seemed to search for a word—"immersed in her to ever wish to save myself, or save all those she wished me to enslave for her. If she had not cast me out, I would never have been strong enough to go."

So in a way, Belle just did you a favor.

"You refused direct orders from her. Some at her court still speak of it."
He nodded. "Even someone as weak as I am has things he will not do." Such sorrow on his face, such loss.

Because no matter how much she cried or begged, Auggie would not put on that banana costume and sing, "Peanut Butter Jelly Time."

We laid our cheek against his hand where it lay on the chair arm. We rolled our eyes upward, so we could watch his face. His hand was very still under our cheek, as if he'd stopped breathing. "Let me share the one gift I have with my only friend."
He fought to keep the eagerness off his face, but only half succeeded. "You do not have to do this, Jean-Claude. I meant what I said. It is my gift to you." There was a tension in his hand where it lay, as if his body fought to be still but his hand betrayed him.
"I know your preference is for women."
"As is yours," Auggie said.
"Yes, but Belle does not share her personal men with other women."

Why do I have the feeling that Belle is what Anita will become (only more obnoxious) in a few decades if that rumor of Anita getting immortality becomes true?

Auggie smiled, and the smile was friendly but nothing more; it didn't match the growing tension in the hand that lay under our cheek. His voice was mild as he said, "Unless it is a woman she wished for us to seduce."
We smiled, too. "For money, or land, or politics, oui."
We shared a smile made up of centuries in her bed, pawns in her great plans. "I am the only one of her line to have inherited the full power of the ardeur,

The rest just got the power to spit in three different colors.

Augustine, and there are none of our blood in this new America."
"So my last opportunity to taste the ardeur and yours to be with another master of Belle Morte's line is tonight."
We nodded, our face rubbing along his hand.
He took his hand, gently, out from under us. "You are frightened," he Said, and his face was soft with

All the times I took this baseball bat to it.

wonder.
"I am."
"Then why leave her?"
"Because I could not stay, not and be hated by them both."
"Both?"
We could not hide the tears, except by turning our faces away. Augustine came down on the floor with us. He held us while we cried.

I'm really starting to miss the Auggie that had no problem pimping out his employees and taking the auduer by force not too long ago.

"It is not Belle that has broken your heart, it is Asher."
We wept for the first time in months. Wept into his arms, and he kissed our tears away and we sought comfort in the only arms that we trusted. Our only friend.
The earlier memory returned of them in the sheets. But it wasn't shock-ing this time. I was ready for it, knew what to expect. And I knew that this Jean-Claude had been the one who spent over twenty years as a happy cou-ple with Asher and Julianna. This Jean-Claude had lost Julianna, and Asher—Julianna burned as a witch, and Asher consumed by hatred at Jean-Claude for not getting there in time to save her.

Asher: I was brooding in a corner, smoking pot the whole time. That should count for something!

This Jean-Claude still blamed himself. Jean-Claude had taken the wounded Asher back to Belle Morte's court to save his life, and the bargain for that salvation was that Jean-Claude was her whipping boy for a hundred years. The Jean-Claude in Au-gustine's bed had lost everything and everyone he'd ever loved. He took the only comfort he could find, and I couldn't begrudge him that.
The memory faded round the edges, because it wasn't the sex that was important to me, or Jean-Claude, or even Augustine. It was the emotion of it.I came back gasping, pulse in my throat. "If that's a memory, then why does it almost hurt to come out of it?"
"I do not know, ma petite, but we have not much time. I could not stop the memory, but I was able to direct it. I wanted you to understand what hap-pened between us, because I cannot stop what is about to happen.

Jean-Claude: I'm going to sit in room and cry some more.

We have fought her to give me time to soften the blow."
"We?" I looked up at Augustine, and his eyes held sorrow the way Jean-Claude's could hold lust.
"We'll hold it as long as we can, Jean-Claude, but hurry, whatever you are going to do, hurry." Asher's voice, but it held sorrow to match Auggie's eyes. I looked at Asher, and found his face traced with the faintly reddish lines of vampire tears. I realized then that everyone in the room had shared the memory.
"I am sorry, Anita," Auggie said, and he looked across me at Jean-Claude. "Sorry to you both."
"Sorry about what exactly?" I asked.

That this is going to get NSFW real soon.

"This," he said, softly, and it was as if they'd both been holding their breaths, and suddenly they let go.
They dropped their shields, their wills broke together, and the ardeur was suddenly there, smothering us all.
I thought I heard laughter, dim and echoing, Belle's laughter somewhere deep inside my head. THE ARDEUR CAME and the clothes went.

Because screw that noise, those lacy shirts were leaving with their dignity in tact.

NOTE: This entire part is NSFW.

The custom-made leather knife sheath ripped away with all the rest. We fell to the carpet naked, all hands and mouths.

I know I'm ripping this off from another person who sporked this book, but this image she made of what that line is too good not to share.


The heavy metal and glass coffee table got shoved to one side as if it weighed nothing.
I pressed Auggie's muscled body onto the carpet,

Which left a big, greasy stain that would never come out.

lay on top of him naked, feeling that he was already hard and ready, but I wanted to start at the other (Bid. We kissed, and his lips were as full and ripe as they'd looked. He kissed delicately, though I knew the ardeur rode him and what he wanted to do was anything but delicate. I licked and kissed along his neck, his upper chest. I came to his nipples, pale and hard in the muscled swell of his chest. I'd never Jieen with anyone who was such a serious weight lifter. It was as if his skin fit tighter over all those muscles, so that it was harder to get a grip with my teeth, but worth the effort.

*Gets mental image of Anita's teeth picking him up by a patch of skin and then shaking him while going, "gurrrrr". *

Sucking on his nipple raised his upper body off the floor, tore a yell from jhim. His eyes were wide, surprised, his hands reaching for something to hold on to. Someone grabbed one of those reaching hands, and I knew who it was,

Ronnie?

before Auggie drew him into my line of sight. Auggie drew Jean-Claude in to him, drew him down, as he lay back against the floor, and I Worked lower on his body. I licked and bit along his stomach,

Does that mean he's now in line to get all her strains of lycanthropy?

as he drew Jean-Claude down for a kiss. Something I did raised Auggie up off the ground as their mouths touched, so that I had a good view of it. I had never seen two men kiss, not like that. Not with lips, and tongue. In the months that Asher had been in our bed they had moved toward each other a time or two, but stopped. I had never asked whose sensibilities they were saving, mine or theirs. Now, watching Jean-Claude cradling Auggie in his arms and kissing him so thoroughly ... it tightened my body so hard and fast that it was like a mini-orgasm. I'd been told by a very smart friend that

Was invisible and told her set things on fire.

to keep say-ing that I didn't like to be in bed with two men at once was a little silly. A case of the lady protesting too much. My body reacted for me; the sight of them kissing just flat did it for me. I've been told that it's how a lot of men feel about seeing two women kiss. Why should I be any different?

Oh my God, that last two lines actually made some sense here.

I worked my way down Auggie's body, eyes rolled upward so I could watch them. I came to the long, hard, curve of Auggie's body. Not straight, but truly curved, so that the grace of that hard flesh curled in against his own body. He was hard enough that the head was naked above the silky foreskin. I rolled my mouth over that head, then shoved as much of him into my mouth as I could, as fast and hard as I could.

As in all two inches.

It made me come up choking, but it also tore him away from Jean-Claude's mouth. Made Aug-gie stare down at me with wild eyes.I went down on him again, slower, lin-gering over the feel of him in my mouth, so ripe, so thick, and how the hard line of that curve felt going down my throat. I watched them both watch me as I did it. Auggie's eyes wild with sensation; Jean-Claude's face full of pleasure, yes, but also pride. His own vampire marks were open enough for me to know that he was thinking how long and how hard he had worked to get to this point. He started to close the marks as much as the ardeur would let him,

Jean Claude: * pulls out staple gun and gets to work * Stop popping out, damnit!

but I rose up from Auggie's body and said, "Don't, don't close down. Let's do this. Do it all. He
started this fight, not us, let's finish it."
"Do you know what you are asking,

For the L33t Street Boys to audition on America's Got Talent and get ripped apart by judges while the audience boos them like crazy?

ma petite}"
I nodded, then shook my head, my hand still wrapped around the base of Auggie's body. "I don't know, but I won't blame you later."
"Please," Auggie said, his voice full of such pleading, "please, don't stop. God, don't stop."

Auggie: Keep talking, it'll delay the inevitable.

Jean-Claude and I looked at each other. We had a moment where he weighed me with his eyes. Then he gave a small nod, and said, "As you like, ma petite. For you are correct, he overstepped the bounds of hospitality." He looked down at Auggie. "Bad Augustine, to force the ardeur on ma petite.'"

Now they're going to be no better and force it on him.

Auggie nodded, his hand gripping Jean-Claude's arm. "It's been so long, Jean-Claude, so long, and there is no going back to her."
"We must feed on you, Augustine, in such a way that no other visiting master will dare this."

Which makes me wonder, if this is a gathering of masters, how come only two were mentioned? You'd think any others would be trying to stop the crap that was going on.

He nodded, though I wasn't certain he really understood what Jean-Claude had meant. Jean-Claude was holding the ardeur back, just enough. Enough so we could think, a little. When he let it go, it would sweep us away, and there would be no second-chance decisions.
"He has to be our message to the other visitors,

But they already know this party sucks and they're totally wasting their time.

Jean-Claude, or we won't survive this little gathering. These are your friends, and they nearly rolled us." I looked at him, and I felt the part of me that allowed me to kill, to do what was necessary. This was, in its odd way, a business decision. A political decision, a survival decision. I knew we could roll Auggie; he was more pow-erful than Jean-Claude, but I could feel it. Feel that we could feed on him in such a way that it wouldn't matter. Not kill him, but take him, make him ours in a way that I couldn't even explain in words.


And that's just putting it nicely.

Jean-Claude spoke as if he'd read my mind, which he probably had. "I feel it also,ma petite,
but. . ."
"No buts," I said, "we can take him, I can feel it."
"Perhaps Belle Morte is too much in your mind still."
It was Asher's voice, strangled with effort. It drew our eyes to him. His hands trembled in the air as if he were holding some great weight. "Hurry, Jean-Claude, hurry. We cannot hold the circle much longer."
"He began this fight," Requiem said, "let us finish it." His hands weren't shaking, but there was a thread of strain in his voice.

So they've been watching this whole thing? Creepy.

Jean-Claude looked down at Auggie. "Understand this, Augustine, we have never fed like this.

They prefer to slam their faces into their victim and go at it like a pig in a trough.

I do not entirely know what will happen. Are you content with such a gamble, for it is you who will suffer if it goes badly?"
I slid my mouth over him, playing my tongue along the foreskin. He shiv-ered, and simply said, "Yes."
uMa petite, stop that, or he will not be able to think."I went back on my knees, and stopped touching him. I put my hands in my lap and behaved. I guess it was cheating.
"Augustine, do you agree to this?"
He nodded, hands reaching for Jean-Claude. "Yes, yes, God, yes, the two of you both, yes, yes!" His grip on Jean-Claude's arm looked almost painful.

If you break his wrist, who will be in that upcoming slap-fight with that hairdresser named, Peaches?

Jean-Claude stroked his hair, soothing him. "Then we will do as you ask." He looked at me, and it was as if a door opened in my mind. Some inner guard that he must have used almost constantly to keep the marks from being in full force was gone. It staggered me for a moment, made me reach out to Auggie's thigh to steady myself. The moment I touched him, the ardeur roared back, but this time I could feel Jean-Claude at the other end of his body. I could feel the two different ardeurs like different flavors of fire,

Burny and scalding.

and Auggie was our only wood. We'd burn him up, and he wanted us to do it. I heard Jean-Claude in my mind, whispering, "I am letting go of my con-trol, ma petite, are you ready?"
I nodded. He let go, and I fell screaming into the abyss. An abyss of skin and hands and mouths, and bodies.

Now that is some H.E. Gieger shit there.

My own body was one huge throbbing need. And I didn't particularly care how that need got met.

So does that mean I get to beat you with this curtain rod until my bloodlust is sedated?

I ended up on the floor with Augustine on top of me. All that curved hardness going in and out of my body, so diat I screamed for him. Screamed my need, my pleasure, and my eagerness.

Thus, insert tab A into slot B.

He began propped on his arms so I could watch his flesh slide into mine, but then Jean-Claude joined us, and the angle had to change. We had never put anyone in the middle of us when we both fed the ardeur.
All these months with Asher, Micah, Nathaniel, Richard, and Jason, and I'd always been the one in the middle. Jean-Claude and I had fed from each other. He had fed from me while I fed at the man, or men, touching me, but never in all those nights had Jean-Claude been touched by someone other than me when we were all naked together.
With the marks roaring open between us, I knew how much that had cost Jean-Claude.

His entire third generation Garbage Pail Kids cards?

How horribly careful he had had to be in the middle of the one moment when you should be able to lose all control. So careful, so afraid of scaring me, disgusting me, making me turn away. So afraid of what the other men might say with a badly placed hand, or caress. So careful, so terribly careful, and now suddenly he didn't have to be careful.

Jean-Claude: Asher, go get the cattle prod.

I felt the horrible tension in the center of his being relax, like a long-held breath released. He explored Auggie first with fingers, and used the wetness of my body to lubricate other places that didn't normally lubricate themselves.

Must resist...being realistic with how...anal works...

The marks were wide open, so I got flashes of memory, of other men, and other times. Random images as they occurred to him, but even here he chased them away, still afraid of what I'd think. But Auggie's body was already in-side mine, and I felt his eagerness at every probe, every touch. Everything that Jean-Claude did urged him on to more with me, so that all I could tliink was how would it feel to have Auggie thrusting inside me while Jean-Claude rode him.
Jean-Claude entered him slowly, and Auggie's body stilled above mine, as he concentrated on the sensation of it. It had been a long time for Auggie. As he'd said before, he preferred girls, which meant diat even here, with both of us eager, Jean-Claude had to be careful, so careful. Nothing spoils great sex like unintentional pain.

I find it interesting that Jean-Claude is more focued on Auggie than he is with Anita at the moment.

But finally he had everything in he was getting in, and Auggie's body re-laxed above me. Relaxed into the rhythm that Jean-Claude found on top of us both. They both found a rhythm, Auggie's body pushing in and out of mine, slowly, ramming home at die end, so that I made small sounds at the height of every stroke.
The two of them found a rhythm together so that the height of one stroke was the height of the other.

Why am I not turned on by this?

So that Auggie and I cried out together, and Jean-Claude rode us both. I tried to move with them, but the combined weight pinned me to the floor, so that the best I could do was squeezing Auggie as he came and went inside me. My legs were wrapped around them both, as much as I could, so that Jean-Claude's body brushed against my foot as he moved.

Let me get my drawing manikins and see if it's possible...It is, but it can't be too comfortable for Anita. Given how the men she sleeps with are all muscular (thus wider and thicker) and if Jean-Claude is laying on top of Auggie, that's going to be a bit trickier to wrap abound both.

I felt that heavy, delicious weight begin to grow between my legs. I knew that orgasm was coming and that this one couldn't afford to be a surprise. But I didn't have to tell Jean-Claude, he knew.
He stared down at me over Augustine's shoulder, his eyes all drowning blue fire, as if a midnight sky could burn. His hair had come loose, strands of it sticking to the sweat on his face. I knew that my eyes were dark brown flame, as if I were a vampire. It had happened before. We stared at each other over Augustine's shoulder, and I felt that weight growing, growing, growing.
Augustine whispered, "Your breathing's changed."
I came screaming, and it was as if that had been the moment both men had been waiting for, as if they had fought long and hard not to go, and sud-denly they could.

Auggie: Good, she's finally done. Now let's kick this bitch out and get to the real fun.

Augustine shoved himself twice, three times as fast and hard as he could inside me. He brought me again, screaming and writhing on the floor, and only then did he go inside me. His body spasming above me, his body try-ing to dig deeper inside me, so that I cried out. Jean-Claude's head went back, eyes closed, his body bowed above us both, and we fed. We didn't just feed off Augustine, we fed off all his people in our terri-tory. I felt Haven, the werelion, spasm against the floor, where he still lay in the fallen curtains. I felt Benny, behind the wheel of a car, lose control and have to screech to the side of the highway. Pierce fell against a wall and slid to the floor, his body spasming. Octavius collapsed on the stairs, choking, clawing at the stone, breaking his nails to bloody bits to try to 'keep it from appening.

Please tell me LKH didn't want us to take that seriously.

But nothing could save them, any of them.

For the Doom-Crotch devours all.

If we'd been in Chicago we could have fed off every beast and vamp that owed allegiance to Auggie, and he would have let us. For this pleasure he would have sold what was left of his soul and the souls of everyone who worked for him.
We drank them down, all of them; we fed, and fed, and fed, and while we fed Augustine's body kept spasming, and every thrust of pleasure brought me again, which brought Jean-Claude. We fed and orgasmed until Augustine went still between us, collapsed, body twitching. Jean-Claude looked down at me over Auggie's sweating body, a fierce smile on his face.

If they sweated blood like some vampires do, this would be really gross.

He stared down at me with his eyes gone to blue fire so bright that the skin of his face glowed with it. He glowed with the power we had drunk. So much power, so very much power. I felt like a distant echo that Richard was leaning against a wall somewhere, staggered by the power we'd taken, and shared. A thought was enough. Micah and Nathaniel were sitting just outside, one against the wall, the other sitting on trie floor. Nathaniel laughed with the power rush of it all. We'd shared the power with all our people, all of them. Good, bad, indifferent, everyone with a connection to us was power drunk and glowing tonight. If there had been a metaphysical satellite up there in the sky, our territory would have glowed from orbit.

*busts up laughing* That is just too dumb for words.