#lafiola armand

[lafiola]

The blood ran down your tongue like a stream of fire, with moisture soaking your throat as the nectar, bitter and uncomfortable, clung to your palate like mucous. When you stopped sucking and pushed your tongue upward, closing your eyes even tighter, with more regret stinging behind your eyelids, you stopped the rush of hot blood hitting the inside of your mouth; with nausea bursting from your stomach like a swirl, upward, occupying your nose like a metallic puff and gasping breath.

You pushed the arm away from your lips, pulling your tongue away from the cold flesh; missing the particular scent of an intoxicating musk. When you opened your eyes you found the face of Armand, with a lost look and the ghost of a smile. You did not reciprocate the gesture, affected to the core with the impact of his blood dripping from your mouth.

"How does that feel, ma chérie?"

His low voice sounded like a forbidden question, in the solitude of his office, between you and no one else. The theater slept soundly in the gloom; you were engaged in a forced process in the loneliness of a cold corner, cut off from the world.

"Why?" you whispered back, wrapped in misery. "Why did you do this to me?"

"You were asking for it all this time."

"I could never..." The question crouched at the back of your throat; the stark, raw realization hit you like another wave of nausea. "I have to go home. I have to finish my paintings and..."

"This is your home," Armand interrupted, wrapping one of his hands around your neck, "here you can do your paintings. This is your coven."

His eyes hung from one corner of the room, just for an instant. When they were on yours again you found a particular glint hanging from his gaze. His fingers pressed against the skin of your nape; his hand forced the thrust against the flesh. Your body hit the back of the chair.

"Armand," you muttered in warning.

"I am your companion," he continued. "We are companions."

"I've never accepted something like that. I don't know what it means."

"That you're mine," he smiled. "There's nothing more to understand here."

"I don't want this eternity as my destiny," you insisted in desperation. "Armand, I want to go home."

Your body began to tremble in an abrupt burst of pain; confusion clouded your senses, and you did not know when it was that your maker had let go of your neck.

"I'll get you something to eat," he said rising from his seat. "It would be helpful if you start to assume your position in this place before I get back."

"What's happening to me?"

You hugged your own body, straining your eyes in all directions until you met the piercing gaze of the one holding onto the office door; firm hands caressing the rough surface, tracing blood on the wood. Armand looked unrecognizable from the sweet man you had met on the avenue on your way to the theater.

"What's happening to me?" you sobbed, surrendered to pain and hunger. "What have you done to me; what have you transformed me into."

"You're going to get through it. Everything else I'll take care of," Armand replied. "There's not going to be anything you lack, much less anyone you need."

You thought you cried his name, choking in supplication, confused by the pain. You felt yourself falling into a constant spiral of nausea, hunger and hatred; a whisper at the back of your head driving your madness around. The voice was unmistakable.

'Only me,' as he commanded in a mantra. 'It's only me.'