Jack be Nimble: Dessert

"But what's puzzling you is the nature of my game." –Rolling Stones

* * * * *

All good things come to an end.

And so, like the sacking of Atlanta, there's really nothing more we can do here, gentle reader. The bill has arrived, the chairs need to be put up, and the lights are dimming. Dinner is done.

Ah, but wait, we are forgetting one of the rules of dining etiquette: end your meal the way you want to remember it. A lovely appetizer is nice, the entrée of course, crucial, but for a meal to end well, dessert must not disappoint.

And so, with any luck, this last taste before we bid adieu to our dining experience will wrap all things up with a flourish.

Bon Appetite

J

* * * * *

1997- Dessert

Now that was delicious. I laugh to myself, which is drowned out by the screeching of the subway training roaring past me. I'm a comfortable distance away from my little dining locale near the Commons. It's getting late now and the trains will stop running soon: good. The bars will turn out their doors and that friendly and oh so sympathetic bartender who was all ears and support while the drinks and tips flowed will turn out the disconsolate crowds into the warm hungry night.

And right into me.

A trash woman is digging through the garbage near me. The scent coming off of her is unbelievable, all the worse for those of us whose noses work for something more than a fun place to cram a finger. The smell is enough to put me off my feed so to speak. One does not chug dirty lard to cleanse the palate, hence the purpose of dessert.

Unfortunately, some people just can't take a hint.

"Hey mister, spare a dollar?" She more demands then asks. What happened to a little humility from a beggar?

"Sorry, not tonight," I reply as calmly as I am able. I should point out that when one has just committed felony sexual assault and a homicide, one's nerves are wound a little tightly. "C'mon mister, how 'bout it, one dollar?" She persists. Didn't this used to be 'Brother can you spare a dime?' The stink coming off of her is unbelievable; she is ugly through and through, a troglodyte.

"I'm sorry, not tonight!" I repeat with a little more fire in my voice. The stinking cow gets the point and begins to beat a hasty retreat. I settle back against the subway wall.

"Fucking prick," I hear her mutter.

That tears it.

"Excuse me," I say calmly. She whips around, her fat filthy face now wide in terror, good. I perk my ears; I can hear the vibrations of the oncoming train as it races down the tunnel towards the station. I peer around the station, nearly abandoned save for a pile of garbage at the far end. Perfect.

I lock my eyes with her, not a hard thing to do as she is staring in fear at me.

"Life is no longer worth living. It has become a burden you can no longer stand. So when the train comes, you are going to jump in front of it." I slash and tear at her mind with my own and it's pitifully easy to convince this wretched creature to end her own life. Depression, drug addiction, the bottle, dementia, despair, all these things have formed a thick black sludge within her addled mind and the notion of suicide sinks smoothly and easily within it.

She blinks a few times and for just a second, an instant, I see a human emotion in those dull cow eyes. A tiny spark of who she used to be, the little girl on the bicycle, the tenth birthday party, the person who believed in possibilities limitless, in God's mercy and in herself. I see a flicker of regret, of sadness and for a second I idly wonder if she will muster enough will to live to cast off my mental commands.

She does not. The spark fades, the dull pain returns to her face. Mumbling to herself, she positions herself at the side of the tracks. The train comes rattling through, a loud and hungry metal beast that is about to be fed. With not even a sound she leaps, for a moment it seems she is hanging there, suspended before the blinding lights of the train, everything freezes for just a second. Then time catches up, and the train goes careening down the tunnel taking her with it. It doesn't take long for the driver to realize what has happened and the sound of panicked screeching brakes covers the quiet, rueful chuckle coming from me.

"You killed her," a voice says off to my right, I spin round, for a moment concerned. The noise from the train has made it very hard to hear anything else and let's face it; I was focused on something else.

The pile of garbage, it seems, was concealing an occupant. Five foot six, emaciated, dirty black hair, dark brown eyes. She looks up at me with such a look, strange. No fear which is pretty unusual for someone who thinks they just saw a homicide.

"You're mistaken. She jumped. Excuse me," I turn to go.

"You made her jump. You took control of her mind and made her kill herself," she spits out. She has that semi-whiny tone that tells me she's a young one indeed, kind of like a serious younger sister scolding her older irresponsible sibling.

It's a tone I'm not used to.

Slowly, very slowly, I turn around to look at her, letting my human countenance slip, just a little, leaking out menace. Remarkably, she stands her ground and I realize that it is not bravery, but indifference. This child simply does not care whether she lives or dies.

"What's your name?" I ask, debating to myself whether or not I should kill her.

"Why do you care? You're just going to kill me," she replies again with that tone and I pick up a faint accent. Canadian, but without the French accent; B.C. then, probably Vancouver.

"Yes, but your cooperativeness here determines exactly how long it will take you to die," I explain calmly. The two of us regard each other, this human is...interesting.

"Rebecca," she replies and gives me a look. Vaguely goth I suppose, looking up at me, glaring up at me through her mangy black hair with those burning brown eyes.

"Rebecca. Splendid. I'm Jack. Now that introductions are made, tell me, have you given any thoughts to your afterlife?"

She ignores my question entirely and peers up at me, advancing on me. She looks me over and takes me in. It's a queer feeling, like I'm under glass or on display.

"You're pale, but you look like a person," she observes and then digs under her shirt and yanks out a cross brandishing it at me. I snort,

"And what is that supposed to do, exactly?" I sneer. She puts it away.

"So you are a vampire."

"What makes you say that?"

"Nothing else would have looked so, like, amused by it," she informs me. Curiouser and curiouser.

"Fair enough. So you know what I am, then you must know what I'm capable of doing to you, street urchin," I chuckle darkly.

"If you're going to kill me, then kill me, but don't like just talk about it and do nothing," she snaps back. I see, so the child has a death wish. Well, all right then.

"Where's the fun in that?" I ask, "How about a game of you? Tag..." I casually grab her face and push her away. My blood rushes into my arm and lends fairly impressive amounts of liquid momentum to my already inhuman muscular ability (think rigor mortis on steroids). She flies across the station and skids across the tile floor. She gets up on her hands and knees, nose blood and looks back at me, eyes wide.

"...you're it." I finish and then advance. She takes the hint and runs and I am not far behind. I draw the darkness around myself and cloak myself, still following her. She flees in blind panic up the stairs back into the night.

And straight into the arms of a burly older man, also dressed in the latest in street vagrant style. I sigh to myself, the Good Samaritan to the rescue,

"Bitch! I told you to stay the fuck out of my tunnel!" He slaps her hard, she drops.

Hmmm... maybe not.

"I didn't have anywhere else to go," she replies getting to her feet, eyeing him with a malice that I find quite refreshing. He grabs a handful of her ratty dark hair; she twists in his grip like some kind of animal.

"Bitch that ain't my problem, now you gotta pay," he snarls, spittle flying from his flabby face to land on her cheeks. He shoves her to the ground and unbuckles his pants, pulling at her clothes.

I can't stand to see an amateur fuck things up.

"Excuse me," I say plainly, allowing the darkness that concealed me to fall away. Rebecca gasps when she sees me just...appear. Romeo on the other hand whirls around and is attempting to whip out a knife whilst simultaneously yanking up his pants.

"Take a walk buddy, this ain't your problem," he snarls. I sigh; the smell coming from this guy is unbelievable.

"I know but the thing is, you really are an embarrassment, I mean, look at yourself, if you're going to rape her then for fuck's sake at least get her out of sight, I mean come on, there's a right way and a wrong way to do these things," I point out. "Fuck you man!" he roars, (a rather unimaginative battle cry) and plunges the knife into my chest.

Now here's what happens in a vampires body. Little known fact is that each cell in the human body contains all the genetic information of said human being: bones, blood, flesh, teeth, the works. The same is relatively true for vampires. Yes, I am a dead thing and so I don't bleed all that well and my flesh is quite resistant to wear and tear (again, thank the "vigor" mortis) however, when injured, blood rushes to the wound and then changes itself from blood cells to skin cells, tissue, fat, muscle, whatever needs to be repaired. Then it's just a simple matter of replacing the blood lost. This of course is largely an unconscious reflex and happens at roughly the speed of thought.

Of course what they see is someone taking a six inch blade in the torso followed by blood seeping up to the surface and then the wound healing over in roughly a half a second. "Fuck me!" the man swears.

"God, no," I reply with distaste and casually grab a hold of his face. Another cute trick is that with the correct direction of blood vampires can tighten our muscles far, far beyond what a human can.

And so, Romeo's face is coming apart as I squeeze and he's making sounds that are quite frankly, really disgusting. There's kicking and thrashing involved and I've really had enough. With a simple shove I send the gory mess flying away from my hand to impact into a car door hard enough to crumple the thing. The...remains twitch and spasm a little and then lie slack.

I offer a hand to Rebecca. She looks up at me with those smoldering brown eyes, dark on dark and reaches up to take it, which puts her head within easy reach. I casually take a handful of her hair and jerk her up to her feet. Her eyes tear but she doesn't cry out as I wipe the gory remains of Romeo's face off in her hair and scalp.

Finished, I release her. She doesn't draw away however, which is odd. Instead she fixes me with a level glare.

"I have a proposition for you," she tells me in a remarkably calm voice for someone who just saw a vampire cave someone's skull in.

"I'm listening," I say half paying attention, more working to pick out the last few pieces of skin out from underneath my fingernails.

"I'll let you do whatever you want to me, you can hurt me, beat me, you can even kill me, I'll come live wherever you live and be your bodyguard, your secretary," she looks down for a second and then back up at me, steel in her eyes, "I'll let you drink my blood too," she adds.

Now, it's not the offer that catches my attention, though it is noteworthy, but rather the tone. Its given without a trace of fear, quite the opposite in fact it's a combination of resignation along with a sort of earnestness and I can't help wondering if Faust had the same tone of voice when he asked where he was supposed to sign.

"And in exchange, you don't let anyone else but you hurt or kill me," she finishes.

"And why, praytell, would you want that? A death at my hands is never quick," I casually inform her. It is at this point that she gets this...look. A look of hatred, raw and black and evil, malice and pain and bitterness all rolled into one. If I was human I'd be taken aback by it.

"All my life the entire human fucking race has done nothing but shit on me," she spits out, "When I die, I want to be killed by something better than some prick with a hard on or a gun-crazy cop." I blink a few times; it has a certain twisted logic. In a way, the only thing she has left in her life to control is how she ends it. She doesn't want to die at the hands of the species that has made her life such a misery. I feel something stir within that could be just a hint of admiration for this black-hearted little urchin.

What the hell, could be fun.

"All right Rebecca. You have a deal," I smile down at her, she doesn't smile back and I'd be willing to bet a sense of humor is not in this girl's bag, "Just be warned that life as my plaything is going to be a nonstop procession of torture and degradation probably followed quickly by an excruciating death," I tell her, flat out. She looks up at me, those eyes burning.

"Remind me how that's any different from my life right now?" she spits out. I have to admit, I like her spirit.

"Welcome home," I call out jovially as I take the key out of the lock of my apartment door and enter my abode. She follows peering at everything with that feral animal look I've come to associate with her. She doesn't say anything as I close the door and lock it, nor does she comment on the tinfoil covered windows or the triple locks that slide home with audible clicks.

"Chatty," I comment dryly. Well, to work. I casually strip out of the clothes that I used that night, taking a bag out from under the kitchen sink and stuffing them in along with the shoes. She eyes me warily but not afraid as I hand it to her.

"Take this out and burn it," I instruct her, handing her a can of lighter fluid and a lighter. She takes the items without a word and heads back out. Obedient, which I appreciate. She returns fifteen minutes later.

"I burned it in a dumpster, made sure that everything was melted down." She tells me in that same acid flecked voice.

"Good," I tell her, getting to my feet and padding over to her. I'm dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, "Now then, let's establish a few things," I open one of the kitchen drawers and remove a knife, her eyes get a little larger at the sight of the butcher knife but she doesn't flinch or say anything.

"We need to get his out of the way so as to exorcise any delusions you may be having," I tell her plainly. I turn the knife pommel first and extend it to her. She takes it tentatively looking up at me through her dark bangs. I lift up my shirt.

"Take your best shot," I tell her. There is a moment's hesitation and then with a snarl she plunges the knife into me over and over, cutting and hacking at my skin. I'm actually a little taken aback by her ferocity, but of course, I don't show it. For a few moments she chops and stabs at me, slashing wildly, teeth bared and clenched so hard I can hear the sound of porcelain grinding.

Finally she drops the gory blade and wipes off her face; she has been splattered with more than a few drops of vampire blood. I look down at my torso, my chest looks like the result of a failed autopsy.

"Good, you got that out of your system," I smirk as the blood oozes up to the surface of the wounds and they heal over. She's no longer surprised by it but its important for her to learn the futility of attempting to defy me.

"Well, now that I've established dominance we can-"

"What about wooden stakes?" she asks abruptly, pushing her hair out of her eyes to look up at me. This child doesn't know when to quit. I sigh and reach over to a wooden broom handle, casually snapping it in half and leaving it jagged. I hand it to her.

"If you must," I sigh. Taking the stake in both her hands she positions it a few inches too low. I clear my throat; she glares up at me and then frowns as I reposition the stake.

"Here, dear, the heart is here," I tell her. She says nothing and, gritting her teeth, leans in hard with both hands and all her body weight, pushing the stake into me.

Yes it hurts, yes I'll be forcing splinters out of my body tonight but no, it doesn't kill me. I don't keel over or burst into dust. She continues to push the stake into me (not an easy task with vampire flesh and blood lending inhuman resistance against it), finally exhausted she lets her hands drop, leaving the stake embedded in my breast.

I sigh and wrench it out, grimacing inwardly at the thought of the splinters left behind.

"My turn," I growl. I slap her across the face, not hard enough to break skin but hard enough to sting like hell, her head twists but she doesn't fall nor does she try to dodge the blow.

I spin her around and push her bent over the kitchen table. She doesn't struggle, though she does make strange gasping sounds. With a near-crushing grip on the back of her neck, I force her down and raise her ass up into the air, she groans but does not pull away. She is wearing ratty men's work pants, heavily stained with blood and grease and God knows what else. I tear off the electrical cord she's been using as a belt and push her pants down, an easy feat as they are two sizes too large for her. She's not wearing any panties, her ass is a pair of thin white globes parted by the crevasse of her anus, her thighs are likewise pale and quite thin from malnourishment. But honestly she has a great figure for being painfully underweight. Her pussy hair is quite extensive, no surprise there. What does surprise me however is that her pussy is sopping wet. I look up at her.

"You get off on pain," I exclaim, amazed. She looks back at me, those deep brown eyes filled with fire, but different kinds of fire.

"So do you," she replies.

"Yes, but I prefer to give it,"

"Yeah, and I like to receive it." She turns back and faces the wall, raising her ass and pussy up higher to me.

Oh this one is a keeper. Taking the wooden stake in my other hand, I line up the blunt pommel and cram it into her sopping pussy. She gasps long and loud and shudders violently her pussy clenches the cold wood.

"Do it. Ram me. Hurt my little pussy," she growls out. I fuck her with the broomstick driving deeper into her, she's clawing at the table, drawing in long shuddering breaths, mouth open, eyes clenched shut.

"Do it Jack, rape me Jack," she commands, "Twist it in me," I twist and thrust with the punishing wood, drilling deep into her cunt,

"Ohhhhh goooooooooooooodd," she moans, "I'm cumming! I'm cumming!" she cries out, biting down on her lip causing blood to ooze out. Sure enough, her pussy spasms, clenching at the wood in my hands, her juices running down it making it slick.

I shake my head to clear it, I was really in the moment there. I retract the broomstick from her sopping cunt. She stands up, shakily, her inner thighs glisten with cum. She moans and writhes a little, shuddering as she pulls up her pants.

"No, leave them off," I tell her. She does so, still with that dark smoldering look.

"Go bathe, we'll spend the rest of the evening discussing the remainder of the house rules," I instruct. She doesn't say anything and simply walks into the bathroom and turns on the light. She doesn't bother with the door, and strips out of her clothes.

A very emaciated girl, her hips are quite prominent, heroin chic would be the word. Small gemlike breasts topped with very pink nipples. Long legs and her whole body is white and smooth though caked in filth. She looks back at me.

"What are you looking at?" she demands.

"My property," I reply. She doesn't reply and steps out of view into the shower.

I chuckle to myself as I turn on the news, with any luck, Jane will be on the morning edition soon. A few years of hiatus and then we can do this again.