He walked up to the front desk as he normally would approach the management of any place. He felt confident, and he radiated the golden appeal that drew women to him. He was Adonis, beautiful and carnal.
The manager smiled more benevolently at him than she would at most. He said, 'One,' and she said, 'What kind?'
'Small, preferably. Brunette, if you can.'
She directed him to the Red Room.
How appropriate, he thought wryly. Red for passion and love. Although love used to come first.
The décor of the Red Room was entirely crimson. The carpet was red, as were the towels hanging on red hooks. The lamps were tinted red, casting a scarlet light over the place and making everything seem redder, fuller even, than before. The very water of the in-floor bath seemed to him as red as blood, and he wondered if simply from the waves they could stain the satin sheets of the bed. Then he reminded himself that they, too, must be red.
The whore entered, petite as Christine was, but in the bloody glow he could not rightly tell if she was blonde. She was dressed, predictably, in fashion with the room. Her clothing was similar to the scanty Hannibal costume he had once admired on Christine's lithe body. It was little more than a strapless ruby-coloured tunic that began too late and ended too soon, leaving very little to the imagination.
The Red Room was dim already, but the whore drew the red drapes when she came in. The light that came from the red red lamp was redder than ever, and the room readily affected the bloody bloody mood of the sin he was about to commit. He was wearing only a shirt and trousers, having already shucked his dress coat, and suddenly felt very exposed, as the whore could see his obvious erection from across the room.
The whore approached. 'What is my name tonight?'
He uttered the name without hesitation. 'Christine.'
Even though it was dark, he could see her smile. 'And who are you, monsieur?'
'It doesn't matter.'
'Would you like some wine, monsieur?' There were glasses in the centre of the bedside table, elegantly curved, and a bottle of unsurprisingly red wine. A trickling noise as she poured. The liquid sloshed around the glass in his hand, leaving faint red marks on the inside surface. He drank deeply, feeling out-of-place and hoping the alcohol would calm his nerves.
The false Christine matched him drink for drink.
He didn't know who initiated the kiss, only that it tasted better than the wine and came after the first drink but before the fourth. He carefully put down the glass on the little table and concentrated his lips on hers, her tongue on hers, his teeth on her earlobe. He played through instinct, never having experienced anything that gave him such a powerful rush. Though she had more experience than him, he led her in the dance and she submitted, pressing her small body hard against his arousal. She broke away to trail her lips down the strong column of his neck as she deftly unbuttoned his shirt.
She placed her delicate hands on his chest, hands he thought he recognized in the darkness.
But the revelation left him as her hands wandered lightly over his torso to his lower regions. Closing his eyes in satisfaction, he disposed of his trousers and let her work. She bent her head over him, sucking, nibbling, and entrancing the nether regions in ways he hadn't known existed or were, indeed, possible. Her hands moved with a certainty born of practice; she wound them in the forest of golden-brown that guarded his manhood and took him in her mouth.
He gave her wine to rinse her mouth, then drained the bottle.
He felt alive in the strangest sense, and though his mind was fuzzy his senses were possessed with a clarity that made him feel animal. The cool water of the bath splashed over him, and his stiffness shrank slightly. He found himself with the whore-that-he-thought-he-knew on his lap, kissing her fiercely in the tub. His feet hit the bottom, followed by the rest of him. They danced underwater, and flowed with the rhythm of the waves. He thought he would drown for not wanting to come up for air (though he eventually did, gasping for more than one reason), and drown in her as their foreplay had to lead where it would surely lead. It was an organized entanglement of lust. All he could think of was tasting every inch of this whore, taking her, exciting her, moulding their bodies.
He wanted to map every bit of this very familiar someone, and explore her geography every minute that he breathed.
He straddled her in preparation, with passion for his only provision. He mounted the round round hills first, climbed to the crest, and melted the hard, icy tops with his tongue. He sucked the mountains dry, yet they were still wet with the blood-like water. He lapped up each individual drop, and she replaced them with sweat. His tongue paved through the valley between. He moved south, kissing and caressing, stroking her thighs almost absentmindedly. She was cradling his golden head and encouraging him with moans. He silenced her momentarily with a searing kiss, before moving his golden lips ever lower. He licked her black forest, until he found her caverns.
They had crashed onto the bed, entwined more intimately than ivy, though neither could recall when they had ever moved except to consult the hot hot map.
He awoke with his mouth at her pert nipples. They were lying across one another, and he was deflated (though quickly growing once more). He recalled the rush of the night before, the intense highs and the screams of pleasure that he had thought his voice incapable of producing. He was hung over from this whore's beautiful body (muscular and swan-like as only a ballerina's could be), pale from the light in a crack from the curtains. He knew there was another bottle of red wine on the table that hadn't been there the night before, but he also knew neither of them needed to be drunk to engage again.
Although there was a slight ache in Raoul's body, he felt sated and fulfilled in a way he could never have felt with Christine.
Raoul shifted slightly to kiss the whore's elbow and kiss the rest of her. Feeling hard, he ran his tongue over her ear, flitting in and out like a hummingbird. He had been inexperienced the night before, but they had soon settled into a rhythm, a driving beat, that he felt was the first of its kind. He had dominated her, and the noises she had made had only made him feeling stronger. But just now she sighed into his mouth and opened her red red lips to him as consciousness returned to her. The waking was not as awkward with him as with previous customers; rather, it was warm going on heated. Raoul breathed the morning and the waking into her, until the morning was afternoon and the waking was raw.
She had taught him, but now he taught her.
He taught her to map the body and capture every movement. He taught her to inflict pain as well as pleasure—he gave her the pain he had felt when Christine didn't choose him, he was rough and harsh and she bled, but she never cried out with pain. When the time came for him to once again enter the caves, he drove his army into her and commandeered her moans. Raoul was her general, her captain, her lieutenant. She dug her nails into his bare shining back as he rode her, screaming his name. They met and melded and mapped harder and faster than before, and he was flying in and out of her, filling every corner of her. She was tight around him, and just the feeling of his largeness in her small space made him shout her name in a drawn-out, desperate need:
'Meg!'
Their mouths were joined as they simultaneously came. Panting but quenched, they lay next to one another, quite still and quite hot. Raoul kissed his whore tenderly and poured them wine. He drank deeply, and she kneaded his back with her porcelain hands, sucking his neck as she did so. He could feel her wetness on his back as she straddled him. He initiated the dance, leading her gently.
He took her to his home, and they bared their souls in a whirl of gold and white and red.
