Red Grow the Roses Read online

  He set his jaw and left the room.

  Naughty girl, she told herself, sitting down at the table and swirling the cool dregs of her tea in its mug. Teasing the poor vicar. The sound of the water running through pipes and the hum of a firing boiler came from overhead, and she glanced up at the ceiling, imagining Doug stripping his clothes off and soaping himself under the shower. The effect of that picture was more powerful than she’d anticipated; a flush of warmth made her shift in her hard chair. Biting the inside of her cheek she chided herself: So he really is cute – so what? He’s not allowed to fuck. Show him some respect.

  She held on while she made herself a fresh drink and explored the meagre contents of the fridge, stealing a bunch of grapes. She held on while the pipes hummed and then fell quiet. She held on while the clouds thickened outside and it began to rain. Then as the silence overhead lengthened she shook herself.

  Respect be buggered: what respect did she owe the Christian Church? What respect did they show any of the old religions? She could feel the prickle of arousal all over her skin like cat-fur standing on end. The Path of Bast was not one of sensual denial.

  She kicked off her shoes and made her way on bare feet through the shadowy house. ‘Lady Bast, clear the path for me,’ she prayed. The bathroom door was closed. Drumming her fingers on the wood in a token knock, she didn’t wait for an answer but turned the handle. It wasn’t locked. From within the room a wave of scented steam washed over her: pungent garlic and sharper, more fragrant ginger. Doug was fastening his trousers; he turned hurriedly at her entrance and stared. Shirtless, his skin glistened with oil; his hair was darkened into damp locks. His torso was neat and tight of line rather than broad or bulky. He looked horribly discomfited to see her there, and his hands bunched protectively over his groin.

  Oh, yeah, thought Cerri: not bad at all. It was a good thing she liked the smell of garlic.

  ‘Cerri – please!’

  ‘You done? I came up to see if you needed any help.’

  ‘I’m done. I managed fine.’

  ‘Every inch?’ She gave him a come-on grin. ‘Back, sack and crack?’

  He nodded, biting his lip.

  ‘Bet you didn’t manage between your shoulders. Turn around – let’s have a look.’

  He looked like he wanted to protest, but he obeyed without another word, and she glanced over the smooth taut skin of his back.

  ‘There. You did miss a bit. I’ll sort it for you.’ Silently she pulled her blouse off over her head and dropped it behind her. He’d plugged the handbasin and poured some of the oil out into that, a pool of gold in the white porcelain. Dipping one hand in, she laid it between his shoulder blades and felt him quiver as if she’d given him an electric shock, his spine arching. Her second hand joined the first and she smoothed her fingertips down his back, feeling the muscle and the frame of bone beneath. ‘That’s better.’

  ‘Oh, dear God,’ whispered Doug, which she thought not entirely appropriate for a vicar.

  ‘Doesn’t it feel nice?’ She was massaging the oil into him now, kneading the flesh, feeling him push back into her. She watched a drop of oil gather and run down the defile of his spine, and she traced it all the way down until it disappeared under the waistband of his chinos. ‘Oops,’ she murmured, following the drop with a fingertip and nearly sending him into convulsions.

  ‘Cerri, you mustn’t.’ His voice was hoarse. ‘I can’t. It’s not right.’

  ‘Why not? Your lot aren’t celibate.’

  ‘That just means I’m allowed to get married. I can’t be having it off with anyone I like, you know.’

  ‘So you like me?’ She leaned into him, not caring that she was getting her bra messy, her hands exploring their way round his waist to his stomach, tracing paths through the line of oiled hair there. He felt lean and hard and good to hold.

  ‘I … I can’t.’ But he wasn’t making any attempt to stop her. She found out why when she reached down to brush her fingers across the front of his trousers and encountered a rock-hard mass bulging against the cloth.

  ‘Oh? Why not?’ She worked the button of his fly with the other hand.

  ‘Don’t. Our bodies are not ours alone. They belong to God.’

  ‘I can go with that.’ He didn’t seem to be wearing any underwear.

  Doug sounded strained, almost ready to crack. ‘We have to treat our own bodies and each other’s as holy. I need to – oh, Christ!’ That was the moment at which she got her hand around the erect shaft of his cock. The blasphemy startled her, but she held on tight as he shuddered violently against her, stretching his spine.

  ‘Shush, lover,’ she whispered, pressing her breasts against him, sliding her grip up and down his substantial length. She was more than prepared to respect his body when it was this big and hard. Hey – for a slim-looking guy he was a surprising handful. He’d oiled it too, as promised, and it slipped and slithered under her palm with luxurious ease, every ridge and contour a delight to her. Cerri pulled his trousers down over his hips, letting them slide to his calves, and laid her free hand on his ass-cheek, feeling the clench of his muscle. She licked at his shoulder and tasted the aromatic oil. ‘How long since you had a good lay, Doug? The truth now.’

  He rolled his head back, panting. ‘Nearly – ah – not since Uni.’

  ‘Do you jerk off?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Do you masturbate, Doug? Do you make yourself come?’

  ‘Yes. Oh, God … I try … not to do it too much.’

  ‘Why not, lover?’ Her hand was moving up and down in a slick inexorable dance.

  ‘It’s disrespectful … to those I’m thinking about.’

  Without letting go of his erect cock she slithered round in front of him, looking up into his flushed, stricken face. ‘Don’t you respect me, Doug?’ she asked with a gentle smile, her hand never ceasing its work but moving slower now, firmer. She was worried that he would explode far too fast if she let him. His stomach muscles were tight, his shoulders tense. He looked down into the depths of her cleavage as if into an abyss.

  ‘Cerri …’

  ‘Take my bra off.’

  His hands shook as he smoothed down the emerald straps from her shoulders and released her breasts from their confines. Her nipples were big to match the generous orbs and they pointed at him, beading visibly in accusation. She wondered if she would be able to get him to suck them. She wanted him to suck them. She wanted him to lick her pussy: she had a feeling he’d be very good at that. She wanted him to suck her clit while she straddled him and gobbled his cock.

  ‘Oh, you’re beautiful,’ he said, like something inside him had broken, and she smiled.

  ‘It’s OK. It’s fine. You can think about me every time you come. I’d like that.’

  Without warning he caught her face up in his hands and kissed her. It was clumsy but that hardly mattered; it was also hungry and desperate and staggeringly sweet. It was as if he were trying to breathe her in. Cerri felt a quite unexpected rush of warmth flash between them.

  ‘Whoa,’ she said, her eyes shining, as they drew apart.

  ‘Cerri, please …’ His eyes were losing focus.

  She liked being in charge, at least most of the time. She always had done; that was why Reynauld had been no more than a passing phase for her. Gently but firmly she pushed Doug back against the bathroom sink, and he grabbed the ceramic with both hands. ‘Spread your legs,’ she murmured, kissing him, and as he did so she cupped his oiled balls in her other hand.

  His head went back straightaway, his mouth and eyes round. She played with his scrotal sac, rolling the balls within and tickling his perineum. That made him gasp. His cock, already massively solid, seemed to swell in her hand. He was going to come real soon, she could tell; he was going to erupt all over her wicked fingers. She stopped looking up at his face and focused on his crotch, noting each tightening muscle, each subliminal quiver. And the more she played between his thighs, the closer he seemed to get.
There were beads of sweat springing out through the sheen of oil now.

  Is this what you like, lover?

  Without a by-your-leave she slid her fingers right along his oiled crease and found the pucker of his asshole. Panic flared in Doug’s eyes: for a second she thought he was going to throw her off. But his cry was ‘Please! Oh, please!’ and then, as she worked his cock with one hand and slid the invading finger of the other into him, he came with a shocking series of spurts, gush after gush of semen crossing the gap between them. She felt its soft rain fall on her breasts and her belly, and the last few pulses slopped over her wrist.

  When he stopped shaking Doug slid forward from the hand basin and slumped to his knees on the bathroom rug. Biting her lip, Cerri knelt before him, rather cautiously. This was the moment when it could all go wrong, of course. This was when he might decide it was all her fault and he hadn’t wanted it at all, not him. She wanted to ask him how he was feeling, but she held her tongue.

  Then he reached out. There was a slop of semen melting on the warm slope of her breast, she realised, easing slowly down toward her nipple. He touched the gluey ooze with his fingers, watching as if hypnotised by the glisten as he rubbed it into her skin, massaging it in circles about her areola, making Cerri catch her breath as unsatisfied desire roiled inside her.

  ‘Are you OK?’ she asked.

  ‘The summer after my first year at university,’ he said as if he hadn’t heard her, ‘I had a job in my Aunt Maria’s shop. My Uncle Dave had married out in Italy and brought her back, and they had these big plans for starting an import business and a chain of Italian delis. They brought me in to help in the shop for the summer because she was having her first baby. I had to clean the place and stock the shelves and unload the van; that sort of stuff. And serve behind the counter.’

  Cerri put her hand on his leg and squeezed gently, not sure where all this was coming from.

  ‘They kept funny hours. We were open really really late at night, and because I was family and I was staying with them I was expected to work late too. There was a private club on the opposite side of the road – I think it had a casino – and the odd person would come in late and want a sandwich made up or something. Most of them were Italian, they knew my aunt and would ask after her. I was fairly pissed off: I was nineteen and had much better things to do than hang round selling cheese and stuff. But, you know … it was a student job. Then one night Aunt Maria was taken into hospital because there were signs there was something up with the baby, I don’t know what, but they left me to look after the deli on my own. So I had to stay up well past midnight. And I was wondering if they’d forgotten me, because nobody rang to say what was going on or whether I could lock up. I didn’t know what to do with the till so I was sort of nervous.

  ‘About 1 a.m. this man came in. I assumed he was one of the Italian crowd. He had that sort of look, the fancy suit and everything. Slicked-back hair. Very … handsome. The sort of person even I knew you didn’t ask questions about. He was interested in buying some olive oil. This was before it was really easy to get in supermarkets, you understand; we had big tins of different varieties and I had to draw off a saucerful of each and let him taste them. Well, not all of them. He wasn’t interested in the garlic-infused one.’

  Doug smiled, a twisted smile.

  ‘I see,’ said Cerri.

  ‘You don’t see.’ Doug swallowed and cleared his throat. ‘You got to understand, I’d had plenty of girlfriends at university. I’d never even thought about another guy like that. But when this man looked at me … it was like he reached down through my body and grabbed me by the cock. I was … shaking. I watching him dip his finger in the oils and suck the tip, and all I could think about was … oh, God. And when he’d finally chosen the oil he wanted, he picked up a bottle and pointed through into the back room and said, “Shall we?” and I took him in there. There was a big table where we unpacked all the boxes. He just looked at me and I took my clothes off there and then, and he put me face down over the table and he poured the oil on me. All down my spine and my backside and between my legs, so it ran off my balls down on to the sawdust on the floor. Then he used the oil … on his fingers. To get them inside me. Then his penis. He took plenty of time, because I wasn’t used to that sort of thing at all. He had sex with me. It was … so scary, and … extraordinarily pleasurable. I mean, physically. I came all over the floor under the table, and he came in my ass. Then he did it again. I think I sort of blacked out – it seemed to go on for ever, and I was woozy as hell. Hours, it must have been.’

  Cerri put both her hands over her mouth, wide-eyed. Understanding all sorts of things.

  ‘I know that because by the time he finished it was getting light. It was the middle of summer, so maybe three in the morning or whatever. He opened the door and looked out and he went … he went grey – really sick looking. He said, “Have you got a cellar?” and he made me take him down into the basement where they kept the wine. And all the time he was looking more and more sick, like he was dying. He said, “You tell nobody that I’m here. You let nobody in. You say nothing until Monday.” It was a Saturday night, see … well, Sunday morning really. Then he died. I mean it. Hanging on to my shoulder in the cellar. I put him down on the floor and he was just a cold grey corpse except for these … his lips were all drawn back and he had these, uh … teeth.’ He grimaced. ‘I ran upstairs and threw up in the sink.’

  ‘Oh, shit,’ Cerri whispered.

  ‘I didn’t tell anyone. It was a Sunday, and we didn’t open on Sundays, so I locked the shop and ran away. I went back to Aunt Maria’s but she was in hospital and Uncle Dave was with her, so I spent the day on my own. I was … bricking it, as we used to say in those days. But I thought I knew better than to tell the police or anyone. I didn’t know what to do, and everything seemed so mixed up in my head I didn’t even know whether it was real or I’d dreamed it or what. But I thought I had to be sure before Uncle Dave came in to open up on Monday morning and found a body. I had to clean up, I thought … the oil and stuff. So I went back that night. Just after it got dark. I walked past the shop front and it looked normal. I walked back … and he was coming out. The man. Straightening his shirt cuffs.

  ‘He looked fine. He’d been dead, and now he wasn’t. And he’d opened a door I knew I’d locked. He just looked at me, and nodded, and walked away.’ He fell silent.

  ‘Well,’ said Cerri, ‘no wonder Reynauld asked me to help you out.’

  ‘Reynauld?’ Doug blinked. ‘Your …?’

  ‘Tall, dark and handsome,’ she said dryly. ‘Fangs. Nice suit. Might pass for Italian. That was him.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Did he bite you?’

  ‘No. I guess my aunt had been feeding me too much garlic. He just … fucked me.’ Doug scrubbed his fingers across his oily scalp, spiking his hair. ‘He messed me up, Cerri. He messed me up so bad. I got buggered by a dead man! I didn’t know how to deal with that.’

  ‘Oh, Doug. Is that how you ended up in the Church?’

  ‘I thought that if anyone knew about these things, if anyone had the answers, it had to be them.’

  Unable to comfort him, she leaned in and kissed his lips softly. She was surprised and gratified when he took her hand and guided it to his groin, back to his erect cock.

  ‘Cerri,’ he mumbled, kissing her deeper. His hard-on jumped under her fingers, giving no sign of flagging, no sign that he’d already emptied all chambers. Uneasiness stirred in the back of her mind even as she ached to pull him into her. He’d stayed stiff as a pole all the way through his story.

  The nasty suspicion, once formed, grew to monstrous proportions. Cerri pushed him back and bent for a closer look. And there it was: yes. On the underside of his cock, near the base: two dints in the flesh, one a little higher than the other. Puncture-marks. ‘Fuck,’ she said hoarsely. ‘You’ve been bitten.’

  ‘What? No, I –’

  ‘You’ve been bitten already.’ She
stared into Doug’s uncomprehending eyes, her voice rising. ‘He’s already had a piece of you!’

  ‘But I haven’t – I don’t – when?’

  ‘This afternoon,’ said a silky voice behind them. ‘Funnily enough, I don’t usually feel hungry during the day, but you were just so fucking sweet and irresistible. And the look on your face …’ Cerri scrambled round and saw the speaker, the vampire Naylor: beautiful, glittering and jagged as razor-wire. He was nested in the angle of the landing ceiling, arms spread like a blasphemous crucifix, clinging to the plaster by a network of dark tendrils that emerged from his flesh like cobweb, melding him with the shadows. ‘Rather like that look now,’ he finished with a ghastly smirk.

  She knew she hadn’t seen him until that moment. She knew they’d been through every room of the house and if he’d been there he couldn’t have remained hidden. Not if he were human, anyway. ‘You were in the house all the time,’ she said, feeling sick. ‘We didn’t seal you out. You were already here.’

  ‘Uh-huh. I’ve been here since last night. Not as clever as you think, are you, girly?’ He slithered down from his impossible perch and landed on the carpet lightly, the shadow-tendrils hissing as they dissolved. Doug scrambled to his feet, yanked up his trousers and held them with one hand. The other one sketched a cross in the air.

  ‘In Jesus’ name –’

  ‘Didn’t work last time, won’t work this. You’ve too many doubts, little God-botherer. Plus,’ he added acidly, ‘I think the fact you’ve just hosed your scuzz all over your witch girlfriend’s tits might count against you. Pretty impressive, by the way – the spunk-show, I mean. And,’ he admitted with a long hard glance at Cerri, ‘the tits. I’d like to bite them off.’

  ‘Don’t you touch her!’ Doug barked. Cerri came up behind him and put her hand on the small of his back.

  ‘You should go, Naylor. You’ll only be making trouble for yourself.’

  He tilted his head, an odd smile dancing in his eyes. ‘I should be angry with you, witch-bitch. You get in my way. You’ve gone and spoiled my dinner.’ His eyes, green as poison, narrowed as they flicked back to Doug. ‘But you know what? I’m not angry. You two just went and told me a lovely story. The most interesting story I’ve heard in years. And that’s why I’m going to play Mr Nice.’