Claudia D. Christian

Estimated reading time: 3 – 4 minutes

Dirtiness spilled out on the floor, marring the pristine, sterile environment of death.

“Oh, I didn’t think you’d drunk that much tonight, Narcissus. Did you need liquid courage to face me?”

“I never let anyone rape Lisette. Ever.”

“No, of course not.” Her pensive stare morphed into lazy, cat-like attention. “No one forced themselves on Lisette. Your orgies were so civilized after all. No, the title lords, occasional ladies, and courtesans who tasted sweet Lisette had to pay a pretty crown to have her, didn’t they? You didn’t let Lisette get raped. You simply pimped her out and by doing so you made sure she couldn’t know rape. Whores can’t get raped, right?”

“Lisette knew pleasure. I know she did.”

“Pleasure has a way of becoming pain. Pain has a way of becoming heartbreak. Heartbreak…well, so on and so on.” Sophie dug fingertips deep into her mortal throat.

Narcissus steadied himself against the table. “When did it change for her, Chessie?”

“Not Chessie.”

“Then Sophie! When did it change for Lisette, Sophie? I need to know.”

Sophie pulled out her fingers and regarded them with clinical intensity. “There’s still blood. Why?”

“Because you haven’t been drained yet.”

“Ah. So the body can still cry.”

“Answer me.”

“I just did.”

Narcissus closed his eyes. He prayed for patience against his own hallucinations. “The first time.”

“Yes. It changed the first time she lay beneath Lord Hervey and saw you stroking yourself at her expense.”

“Why didn’t she tell me? Why did she go on pretending?”

“Would you have listened? And she didn’t pretend.”

“Yes! I would’ve listened to Lisette. I loved her!”

“You didn’t listen that night.”

Narcissus pushed away from both Sophies with a snarl. “Lisette didn’t pretend. Do I have the right of it?”

“Yes.” She drawled the word, devilish and without remorse.

“So where did we…disconnect?”

“You disconnected the moment it became about you and not about her.” Sophie sat up, bare legs hanging over the table’s edge and drumming to a beat of her own making. “Lisette constructed a fantasy—your fantasy—to please you. For that fantasy to work she had to believe in it. And she did so beautifully. She never faked coming. She never faked enjoying the feeling of mouth on her pussy or a cock inside it.”

“Sophie.” He murmured her name in reproach.

“Ah, forgive me. You can do it but you can’t talk about it. That’s right. That’s also why you lost her. She couldn’t find the courage to speak of it but when she finally did…” Sophie lifted her arm up. Long and straight it mimicked a noose. Her lolling tongue did much to complete the ugly picture.

Narcissus stalked back to the specter. He dug his fingers into her shoulders. “Stop it!”

Sophie’s mouth slit in spite. “You stop it. You stop trying to figure out something you should’ve realized centuries ago. You pitiful, useless man. Don’t grow a conscience now.” She vanished.

“Damn you! Come back!” Narcissus legs jellied into numbness. He couldn’t hear her. He couldn’t see her. He couldn’t feel her. All he had left was the empty shell of a broken incarnation.