11

A hand rushes up to Lil's chest – her own – as if to steady her own rising pulse, acutely felt like the panic and awe one feels under the leering gaze of a grizzly bear. His Venetian mask glimmers as the fires do. If you peer deeply enough, you might make out the green of his eyes. How they dilate over her.

They remain still, locked in a perpetual gaze that only intensifies as Vincent approaches the lady, who has his entire being helpless with the singular desire of pressing his body upon hers, and feeling more.. much more than merely just the touch of her naked skin upon his – with her lips promising all the sweetness of a ripe plum upon your mouth.

For Vincent, the mask he wears offers him a solace in anonymity, bringing out a raw, animalistic urge in him (arousal). Even so, he tries to muster the will to look back at the door, and just walk out before things get messy.

But another step forth wouldn't hurt him.. it wouldn't hurt Lil either. Maybe she doesn't need to know..

Lil has been reading the man's movements; she gets surprised when he stops in his tracks. What gives?

Is he pausing to admire her? Or to collect himself?

When she starts breathing again, she recalls that she's supposed to play the role of a seducer, so.. might as well enjoy it. (She'll ask her Vincent for forgiveness later, during an opportune time.)

"What's the matter, Vince?" she asks him, playfully leaning forth. "Cat got your tongue?" It's not much of an icebreaker – especially not during a sexually tense moment, but it's the least Lil could say in the standoff.

"My- what?"

Vincent is taken aback; he hasn't expected the albino-haired Odeile to turn so coquettish, when she'd been so demure just earlier. His surprise leaves her laughing all of a sudden, as she finds it funny how fast he'd gone from arousal into confusion.

"Miaou?" she goes, doing her best cat impression and wiggling out her tongue for him to see - Vincent grins, bursting out into giggles over her antics.

"'Miaou?' You're sure in a frisky mood," he says. "Woof-woof."

Lil feels her cheeks gushing with warmth - it's comforting to know he can really laugh; otherwise she'd enjoy the prospect of blue-balling him (until he wails). She looks up at his face, her thoughts titillated by who she'll find under the mask. Well, Vincent is a fairly common name among people, right?

"Why don't you take that silly-looking thing off," she says, as she gets up from the couch, doing a little pirouette.

"Silly-looking thing?"

"Your mask, I mean. So I can get to know you better.."

His fingers waver briefly over the ceramic facade. "I'm a little self-conscious," he goes. "Let me leave it on.. forgive me."

"Fair enough."

She comes up to him and without further ado, she lets her hands go - caressing the naked, revealed part of his face.. then his neck.. and then his shoulders, and his chest.. all the while adoring how solid he's built as a man, as she runs her hands around towards his back.

Up close, Vincent inhales her scent: a nasal landscape dotted by oranges and lilies, underscored by the faint musk of her own arousal. The shuddering of his belly swells – his breaths trembling uncontrollably with each passing second of her touch, as he lets her go over him in a willing surrender.

(so vivid)

Soon, it gets too much for him to endure. He lets out a moan – a sound from his lips, a noise that is as spontaneous as it is honest.. and yet as deep as his maddening hunger – over her.

"Are you good?" Lil says, despite wishing how she could have asked him: "Do you like it when I make you feel good?" She feels tingling from her scalp, a sensation which gradually progresses down her back in a series of electrifying euphoria.

When he opens his eyes, he is enamoured by her fingernails.. how glisteningly white they seem. Like a fresh stratum of snow in a moonless night. He looks up at her – a face full of artifice and an innate beauty which is melting him to the core. "Y-you have.. no idea.." he croaks, entwining his trembling fingers with hers. How soft they are to the touch.. and so warm too.

In a slow dance that's shared between the two by way of sensual adoration and longing, they hold each other in the night's veil.

Then Lil hovers her hands upon his belly; she unbuttons his vest – peeling away his overcoat and simply letting them crumple next to his feet on the glossy ceramic tile. And likewise with the remaining layers of his outfit, her motions possess the eagerness of a young girl, just dying to know what is hiding under all that wrapping. Inch by inch, she pushes herself closer to that line that straddles what she's yet to experience.. and her wildest desires.

Their breathing grows fervent.

Vincent struggles with her black bra. In an accident, he fudges the piece of underwear down, leaving one of her breasts protruding out in the open. Her rosy areola is exposed – her nipple is revealingly erect -

"Oh.." Lil has just come down to his undies, when she pauses – realising what he's just done. Did you really just..? Her areola is starting to chafe from the room's chill, when she realises just how vulnerable she's about to be, for this stranger's sake.

Unwilling to restrain himself any longer, Vincent lunges and violently kisses her by the nape of her neck, as if his lips are in a desperate search for her carotid artery, carrying her throbbing pulse. It's difficult to put into words what he's able to discern, tasting her, but all he knows for certain is that she is beyond anything he could have ever dreamed of.

Whatever sense of composure Lil has left, it's slipping away, and her legs begin to quiver as she's helpless in his vampiric enthrall. The moans which escape her mouth are so frantic, screaming a desperation that she's never before out of herself; it actually frightens her.

At the same time, a reluctance to just give in..

"S-stop," she goes, tapping him on the shoulder amidst her panting. "Vince – stop, please..!"

He doesn't seem to hear her, apparently deaf to her pleading. While he caresses the back of her head, his other hand has already gone for her breasts.. oh, it's so soft in his palm, and the way her nipple rubs along his carpal..

"Unnngh- get OFF me!"

It takes him all his strength just to obey her, even while she shoves him off.

Lil gets on the couch, her knees curling up as she seems to stare out into blank space. Trying to sift through all her turbulent emotion. But it's too much.

She cries. She isn't ready for this.

"I'm sorry.." Vincent tells the lady. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

"It's not you. I just can't.. I have another man. I love him.. more than you could ever know. Just give me a minute – I'm so, so sorry, Vince. I don't mean to turn you off like this."

Lil's breaths come out like wheezes, as she still shakes. Something in him just hates seeing her like this -

He looks around the room, wanting to comfort her in any way he can. There's a cabinet by the pond, full of various liquor bottles. Aaugh, putain de merde they're all alcoholic; definitely not what anyone needs. But there's nothing here that's even close to a sobering drink..

Vincent settles for the minty green bottle - absinthe green (Jacques Senaux). Despite drinking on the occasion, he's never actually tried absinthe in particular, though a friend told him that it's what the high-class artists and bohemians take, bringing themselves into a jovial mood, ripe for any act of creativity. He grabs two glasses of it, already smelling the rustic spices of the drink as he pours it straight with ice and marshmallows.

As he sits beside Odeile, he daintily covers her with the bathrobe that he's taken off just moments ago, in what had been a salvaje lovemaking session he's already ashamed of. She eyeballs the absinthe-filled glass for a little bit. All the marshmellows have smiley faces on them, as they dissolve into efferescence.

She tries a sip, and it's – way too strong -

"Ppppufffttt—"

The table is all covered with her spittle, and Vincent recoils, flush with embarassment. He catches her flashing him a dirty look, as it only just occurs to him that perhaps he ought to dilute it first. How was he supposed to know? (Read the back label.) "I'm not a bartender," he goes. "As you might tell.. hehe.."

"My tongue's burning!" Lil goes. "You fucker-!"

Vincent nervously takes the glass from her. The night is all but completely ruined.. then she guffaws out loud over how ridiculous everything's gotten.

"But you only wanted to make me feel better.." Lil mutters (more to herself), looking up at him – his partially glistened body - she realises she's also covered some of his chest and legs with the spat-out drink. "You're.. kind and gentle, and yet.. somewhat wild. Well, thank you anyway for the effort, Vince. I'm so sorry about the mess. Here-"

Lil carefully wipes away the spittle from his skin with her sleeve – a part of her is inexplicably hung over the way his underwear is stained. She has a faint inkling of how much his boxers had just struggled to contain his arousal.. the mere thought of it alone has her pulse surging again in her throat, almost to the point of intoxication, which she gingerly tries to ignore.

She takes the glass off his hand -

"Wait.." Vincent says, almost pleading to her. "Before you go.. won't you tell me about the one you love? I'd.. I would like to hear about him."

Lil pauses. Considers the masked stranger, who she's left in this state of near-nudity. "I'm not going, silly."

..

She's poured the both of them a real drink, this time around. It's just some bourbon – but it's what she enjoys in those cloudy days when there seemingly isn't anything to do. It always leaves her stomach feeling warm, unknotting it and loosening up her usual tension. She hopes it'll do the same for him also.

"He's kind of shy," Lil goes, lounging by the pond – letting her toes dip just so into the water. "Nervous. Wimpy too. I had to pull him out of trouble, like he's a little lost puppy to look out for. At the same time.. my heart just goes out to him. He'll do anything and just give it his all, if it means my well-being. You know, you really reminded me of him when you brought the absinthe.."

"Mmhmm, he's a surefire keeper." Vincent is beside her, sitting the other direction. "What else can I say? What are you doing out here though, with someone like me?"

The koi fish scatter wherever her toes break the surface, and the little ripples jet out, with webs of refracted light, dancing and wavering from some otherworldly plane of existence. It's like those swimming pools in a summer's afternoon that has always piqued a feeling of tranquility in her..

"I have no choice," she goes. "They're holding him hostage.. and I dunno where." She lays the bourbon aside, sighing to herself as she curls her fingers into a ball – she wasn't even strong enough to wrestle off Antonioni, that old mob boss. "On top of it all, now I'm attracted to you, Vince.. I know it's wrong.. I honestly wish I wasn't. It would make it so much easier for me to breeze past this night, just – please believe me when I tell you this is far out of my control."

Vincent is at a loss for words. He's not sure how to take her show of honesty, as he sips a little mouthful of her bourbon. She's in the same spot as him, as he inwardly quivers over the thought of Lil, poor Lil, hanging at the terrible mercy of Antonioni's gangbangers.. what can he do for her?

"Odeile.. I believe you," he says. "Look at me, please. I need you to look at me.."

Lil has to peel her eyes away from the koi pool, to realise that the stranger's eyes, behind the Venetian mask, are a pale shade of green.

The same as her Vincent's.

A wave of relief washes over her. It can't be him.. can it? It's so far-fetched.. how is it even possible? She shuts her eyes momentarily, just finding it difficult to reconcile the two separate people as the same. Why, that feral, savage energy -

"None of this is your fault," the stranger goes, with his voice a notably lower timbre than her Vincent. "Your being attracted to me, you being here, or anything. As a matter of fact, I'm.. supposed to be killing a mob boss right now, hehe, only.. I hadn't expected to be put together with you in the same private bedroom. Even now, I'd be lying to myself if I tried to deny how you wind me up, oh, so very much inside.. from the moment I've first laid my eyes on you.."

An unexpected welling emotion surges out in Lil, as her lips flutter, her vision of him blurring into a thousand bokeh circles –-

"Vince.. why are you so.. good.." she goes – her chest is starting to heave.

"You're oh, so incredible, Odeile." Holding her in his arms, Vincent wipes away the dripping tears from her face with a gentle kiss. "I would give anything in the world, just to be that special someone who's ended up in your heart. But right now, I'm not.. and to be honest, I probably never will. So, I'll just try to live with that .."

Lil breaks, burying her face in his shoulders. It's so painfully beautiful, knowing she shouldn't have him. She grabs onto his arm, holding it and holding it like a person about to drown from a deep, tumultuous ocean, and she just cries and cries her heart out, while Vincent cradles her.

It seems like forever before she manages to recover any semblance of self-control; she looks upon him - rests her hand upon his, brushing his wrist, her fingers stroking upward and leaving in their wake a trail of goosebumps and aroused body hair.

"You know.. we can still do it. The two of us.."

"We don't have to.."

".. I want to," Lil whispers. She slides his palm – underneath her bra where he tore it away, hoping somehow that he'll feel just how her pulse is flaring up, pounding in her chest. "I really want to. Let me be.. your special someone, Vince. Just for tonight.. At the very least, I could say.. I did my job."

Her voice has grown fraught with steam, while her eyes beckon him, a steady pull of his eros into her waiting thrall. Vincent's mind tries to come up with a reason.. any reason to resist her at the last moment. But his thoughts only jumble up, always veering rapidly into an unanswerable blank. The only thing left, finally, is the warmth that has flooded his stomach.. the insatiable pauses between breaths, and just a mere taste of (that sweet oh sweet surrender) her lips..

"Alright," he goes.

..

And for the first time in her life, Lil finds herself kissing a man in the mouth. It seems to her like pressing her face upon a mirror giving back her own image, and that her tongue is excavating the inside of a statue's granite head. Yet this being an act of hunger - of a culpable hunger – she knows she is committing adultery.

The bed is a wide open canvas for their bodies. The masked Vincent lays his head on the bedrest, while Lil has clambered atop of him - he's like a mythological figure seemingly possessing the body of an Olympian, and the face of a jester hailing from some bygone court.

Thankfully, the mask doesn't impede Lil meeting his lips – meeting in gentle, prolonged little touches. Allowing him to savour her bliss. Allowing herself to directly taste his moans. She pulls away from him, opening her eyes so she could gauge hi-s reaction.

So far, he is just adoring every second.

Lil crawls directly atop of him in a more comfortable spot (so she doesn't have to prop herself up with her arms), and she reaches for him – kissing him, while she's free to hold his neck, his head to her hands' content. It's fascinating to her, really; how multilayered his mouth is for her to explore.. besides the way she lets his tongue dance with hers in that little claustrophobic intimacy, or the way his saliva melts away with hers, she's struck by how the taste of him just unfurls (like an exquisite, artisianal perfume) as they go on kissing.

She ignores how his penis, stuck underneath his underwear, is pressing against her belly button. There is just the kisses so far, and that's okay. It already means the whole world to her.

It's not like fruit or chocolate or anything, where there's a definite taste. No, it's the indefiniteness of another person, who unlike an inanimate piece of food, has emotions, moods.. ever changing, ever growing..

When she hears- no, feels him start to gurgle and choke on their combined spit, Lil draws back again, this time getting her own tongue stuck amidst his teeth, owhh-!

Vincent is coughing out, dripping some wetness down the contours of his mask. In normal circumstances, it'd be gross, but when it comes to it, it's another reason to be aroused. "Sorry.." he musters; for an instant, Lil catches a bubble of spit in his mouth..

She licks her tongue, and then smiles; the pain is nothing to her, just a small blemish on the joy she shares with the stranger. "It's alright.." she huskily breathes, licking the spit off his mask, and stroking him on the cheek for what he's given her so far. "You're doing good."

They kiss some more, when Vincent starts to fondle her. Her gorgeous breasts, so modestly sized, and yet – perfect. They are delicately soft, and yet radiating bodily heat by the spades, like he's holding a part of her that is very vulnerable and tender and only expects gentleness in return.

It feels so good.. but just one thing bugs her.

"Here," Lil goes, "hold them from under-" as she rotates Vincent's hands around, so that his fingers probe her more sensitive underside. Guiding his hands still, she mimes his palms rubbing around in a little circular motion, feeling the intense pleasure derived from the sensation of her nipples, being stimulated this way. So now, it's up to her standards..

"Like that?"

She doesn't answer him, getting carried away by his touch.

"Odeile..?"

"Yes.. just like that. Whatever you do, don't you ever think about stopping.."

She doesn't need to hold his hands anymore, as he very easily gets the idea, and goes on pleasing her out of his own volition. It's different when you let someone else play with your body, an added dimension of unforetold excitement, as it's left up to their devices – their playful, personal touches in what would otherwise be a familiar masturbation. The soothing tingling spreads outward from her chest, to the rest of her nerves.. rupturing out into a spike of euphoria that takes Lil by total surprise: "Ougnnhh-"

Vincent, seeing how her breasts are almost right there in front of his face, and how rosy they've turned, just leans forward and buries his face right into her.. oh god, how he could die a thousand times over! He puts his mouth over her breasts, wrapping his lips around and he kisses them, nibbles them.. sucks on them.

Tenderly. Contentedly. Urgently.. Feverishly.. Violently..

He sucks them, and he's in heaven. A contented sputtle escapes his mouth, and Lil

(don't stop)

Lil cries out from the insane jolts of her nervous system, coming out of her like a whimpering scream, clutching the stranger's hair as she realises something is starting to come out, like a relief. Gosh, it really tingles..

As if in a sudden emergency, she yanks him off her, and already, even before seeing it, she knows what has just happened.

It's milk. A drop of it is still budding out of her tender nipple.

She reaches for it and rubs the droplet in-between her fingers, feeling the somewhat creamy texture of it.. examining how it spreads over the tips of her middle finger and thumb, while Vincent watches on in a sort of awestruck bewilderment. Lil's innate curiosity gets the better of her; she licks her finger, as if wanting to find out what it is that has driven him into such a frenzy.

It tastes vaguely reminiscent of vanilla.

Vincent snags her fingers and he runs his mouth over them also. All he has to say for Lil to laugh her ass off is "I want some too!"

..

Lil's quite familiar with the male anatomy, having seen those steamy erotic videos and reading some mmm, what a lot of people would call tasteless literature – but not in the sense of really getting personal and hands-on with a man. Not yet, at least. For starters, she's always found it weird how a man could urinate and ejaculate out of that same pinprick hole. Or how someone like Vincent deals with getting hard.. when it's an inopportune time. Maybe he tucks it under his belt when nobody's peeking?

She pours over his underwear's bulge, inspecting that makeshift tent. There's a moist stain where the tip of his erection is – analogous to her own wetness.

Her face is hovering close. She inhales..

It's musky, yet not at all what she'd imagined it to smell like. Almost.. it's almost like flowers. There's just something very pleasant about it that leaves her craving after him. It looks uncomfortable though, the way the cotton on the verge of tearing at the seams, like a snake in desperate need of sloughing off its old, worn skin.

Frowning, Lil reaches under the waistband and hastily fits him through the fly – Vincent groaning from her bursts of movement.

It's almost like what she had pictured him to be. His dick (yes, she could call it his penis, but honestly, that word is straight out of a medical textbook; it's such a boring and clinically formal term), which vaguely bears resemblance to an arcade joystick – the way it elegantly curves – and..

With her two fingers, Lil straddles his dick – lightly stroking over the length of his shaft, caressing with the webspace in-between.

Down..

Then up..

Then down again..

Her gaze is clinical, almost like she's finding out for herself what it is like to hold one in her hands, feeling his shaft noticeably flush with warmth. Unknownst to her, Vincent finds her soft touches like torture. Why? Because she's teasing him with a feather. It really aches, and his belly dry-heaves just out of the seemingly innocent touches she's giving him. Lil looks upon his eyes, he is whimpering..

"More?" she goes.

There is grunting from Vincent when she twists it, and squirming when she rubs her thumb around the top (gosh, it's so wet there). It's an uneven effort though, with frequent shifts in her motions and the amount of pressure applied, as Lil's palms grow heavy with sweat.

The animal in him is emerging..

"I- I want.." Vincent musters, with a look behind his mask that is redolent of a werewolf's terrible lust.

"Eh?"

A finger goes over to Lil's face, adoring the tip of her nose, and down over to her lips – before he proceeds to shove his penis into her mouth. It takes her by complete surprise; a gasp briefly escapes out of her, before being eclipsed by gagging, muffled cries, and embarrassed sobbing. He fervently pushes his hips over, as he really feels the corners of her mouth – oh, just how hot the inside of her is – pushing, holding her head as he ravishes her.

"Uauangh.. aahhuhg-!"

Lil is choking, as she tries enduring that gag reflex, her cheeks growing sore, while so much of her spit threatens to enter her lungs, which sputter for oxygen..

He's so incredibly close to climaxing. His fingers are really clutching into her hair..

(fuck)

This isn't what she'd envisioned-

(how do I stop him)

(it hurts so much)

She bites down, feeling her teeth rip against his shaft, and Vincent cries out, howling as he withdraws from the courtesan – the gelatin-like drool sticking from her mouth in tendrils. Lil coughs out, her eyes stinging from tears, as her makeup has washed off, leaving streaks of glitter that's congealed on her cheek.

Amidst his desperation for more, a small, yet vital part of Vincent stops to reconsider the woman he's been with, as her makeup's costume has worn thin. His eyes widen with an undeniable recognition; it can't be.. no!

".. Lil?" he goes, with a newfound terror over himself, realising what he's done to her.

She hears her own name; the humiliation she'd just undergone – the anger she has aimed at him for having violated her so like that, it dissipates into a newfound understanding when the voice at the back of her mind that had kept hush finally gets heard. "Vincent.."

Peeling his mask off, there he is. It's Vincent. Her Vincent -

".. it is you.."

He sees her expression morph into something that grows dangerously beyond arousal. It registers on his subconscious -

"Lil, I didn't kn-"

It is far too late, already. A kiss that has lunged for him, so unapologetic and feverish and seeking to burrow down to find the taste of his essence. Her thought and sense of reason, or whatever semblances of it she's clung onto so desperately since entering this room, it's suffocated out like air bubbles..

Upon the bed, they devour each other, yearning to fill that bottomless hunger that only gnaws deeply..

(I cry)

so imperatively..

(you cry)

because no matter how much, too much is never enough

(more)

..

(more!)

Eventually, Vincent capitulates to her in one total, final outburst; they indulge in a primeval paroxysm that is as indistinguishable from sheer, beautiful agony as it is from pinnacle ecstasy – a blinding, searingly white-hot surge that stretches out long enough for Vincent to feel like he's floating in heaven, far, far above the planet with her together. The stars blaze past their eyes, while their bodies only now start to free-fall, back into the reality of the bedroom..

..

Vincent's back is left like a crude line tracing of freshly dried blood. The blood glistens under her fingernails..

Lil copes with the ear-ringing, the shuddering.. those immensely pleasurable aftershocks which arrive out of nowhere. The way Vincent still contracts within her. He looks so out of it.

"It- it," she tries saying, but it just comes out like involuntary, twitchy blubbers. "It's- alright.. it's.." She's coming off like a broken record – it's useless to talk – so the next best thing to do is to embrace Vincent in a kiss. This time around, the kiss is to soothe him, to calm him (and herself) down, while a beautiful, indescribable warmth starts to envelop the two of them, spreading out into their entwined hands, the fingers, and upward into their faces, as a blush.

Vincent.. I don't know what to say. This entire thing feels too good to be true. But I've wanted this. Since I've first laid my eyes on you, I've always wanted this. My heart has thought of nothing else but to just be by your side.. as if our souls are one.

I'm yours, Vincent. I'll stay with you as long as my heart continues to beat. Always and forever. If anyone ever tries to hurt you, to take you away from me, I swear, let me protect you with all of my strength. Because I want to save you. I want to be the light who'll drive away your loneliness and desolate confusion..

I love you.

(I'll gladly die with you)

Don't ever leave me..

A blush that she still feels, long after surrendering into a comatose sleep.

Where she hopes to find him, all over again.