“Oh how I wish you hadn’t heard that. Querida ...”

“Don’t querida me! You may have me, my body, my blood, but I’m not your querida!”

“Hope, you don’t understand the complexity of Lia. It’s very difficult to control her at times. She has become extremely jealous of the time I spend with you.”

“What does any of that have to do with how long I will live? You’re planning to kill me, aren’t you? It’s true, I’m gonna die.”

“No, querida. You must believe me when I promise I’ll never hurt you intentionally, and I won’t allow Lia to hurt you. It’s … complicated. This life with us can be very dangerous. The position you are in is very high risk.”

“Would you try to make some sense? Give me a straight answer. Am I gonna die soon or not? And why.” I needed to see his eyes, to see if I could detect the lie. I had lost my enchantment with Enrique’s blocked mind. I really needed to know for sure if he told the truth.

He sighed in resignation. “There are many risks associated with your condition. I have never seen a bloodslave live past a few months. The risk is that Lia or I may feed too much, too often. It’s very serious. We could kill you easily, accidentally. You could go into cardiac arrest from low blood pressure, anemia. For that reason you will require plasma and blood transfusions regularly. You also have to drink lots of fluids constantly. There are some supplements that will help you recover from anemia.”

“Why did you tell me I could live a hundred years, and now admit to something totally different? How is that not a lie?”

“You should be able to live a very long life, if we’re cautious, if we take pains to keep you healthy. There are certain … side effects of regular exposure to our venom. You will see some … changes.”

“Stop playing me. I’m not an idiot. I know when I’m getting a bullshit line. You still haven’t explained how this is possible if you’ve never seen a bloodslave live for more than a few months!”

“That has been my personal experience, but I avoid bloodslaves for that reason. You’re the first one I’ve had in over twenty years. Lia’s not accustomed to the arrangement. She has never dealt with this before, and she isn’t adapting to your presence very well.”

I stared at him, waiting not so patiently for the answer that he skirted and danced around.

“It was my own master who lived far longer than I, several hundred years longer, who told me tales of what is possible. He once had a bloodslave who lived to a hundred and thirteen. That was way before any of the modern medical miracles of today. I truly believe it’s possible for you to live a very long, happy life. But it’s not a certainty, no guarantees. I promise I will do everything in my power to keep you happy and safe.”

“Sure, I’ll be happy. All I need is for you to fuck me and bite me. I’m just a trashy whore right? I don’t need much.”

“NO! … I don’t expect you to believe me, but the truth is that I said those words to placate Lia. Our problem is that Lia suspects the truth.”

“What truth is that?”

“That I like you.”

“Of course you like me. I put out on command and I don’t wear much in the way of clothes around the house. Sex and blood every night. What’s not to like?”

I reached down to his semi-hard cock resting against my thigh and tugged on him. He quickly grew solid in my grip. I pulled and guided him in.

“Fuck me. Bite me. It’s what I’m here for. It’s what I want. You don’t have to lie or pretend it’s anything more than that.”

Enrique tensed.

I’d made him angry, which was the goal. I hoped to strip away the pretense to get to the underlying truth. No more lies. Of course, that didn’t stop him from shoving that huge thing back up into my ribcage harder and rougher than ever before. He trapped my hands above my head with one of his strong arms and the other hand held my jaw. He slammed me harder and harder, harder than I’ve ever been fucked before. I was gonna have bruises from this one. He assaulted me with his cock, glaring angry the whole time. A hardcore grudge-fuck from hell.

“Is that what you want? You want to be treated like a whore?”

He kept ramming me hard, fast, deep, painfully deep. I lifted my knees up high to rest on his chest. The perfect angle for punishing penetration. He took it all and then some, hitting home inside me over and over. It hurt, but I could take it. Even if I wouldn’t be able to walk the next day I could take it. I’m a survivor.

He went off on me, growling and pounding, his powerful hands trapping me underneath him to ride his punishing wave of fury. It was the most violent sex I’d ever had, but he didn’t hit me. He didn’t smack me or punch me or call me names. He abused me with his powerful hips and that massive piece of meat between his legs. Somewhere in the pain and pleasure flurry he reached his own peak and actually said my name.

“Esperanza!” And then he bit me really hard.

“Oh shit!”

It hurt, a lot. But then it didn’t hurt anymore. That bite of his wiped away everything else with sheer joy, and love, and wonderful euphoria. The sex hurt too much to get me off, but the bite made up for it. I wished he’d never let go, but he did, after only a few seconds.

As he slowly got up from atop my bruised thighs he cursed.

“Shit! God damn it, Hope! Is this what you wanted?”

I didn’t want to see what I already knew was true. I looked away. I’m kinda squeamish about blood.

“No, it’s not what I want … but I don’t want to live a lie. And I don’t want to die. You can do what you want with me, I’m your whore, your bloodslave. Please don’t kill me, don’t let Lia come near me. She wants to kill me. If she had her way I’d have died last night.”

Crying, again. God I hate crying.

He sighed. “Hope, I have made you my promise. I can’t help it if you don’t believe me, and I don’t blame you. I am sorry for those harsh words. I truly did not mean them.”

“She wants me dead Enrique. She wants to tear my body to little pieces and bathe in my blood. I’ll take a grudge-fuck over death anytime. My body is yours. You own me, just please don’t let her near me.”

“I understand how you feel. We’re not getting anywhere with this conversation. Tempers are too high. You’re not listening to me. I said I wouldn’t hurt you and neither will Lia. A promise is a promise, and I keep my word.”

He looked down between my legs, shook his head and left the bed.

“We will talk about this again tomorrow.”

He slipped into his robe and headed for the door. As he left me in bed, bruised and sore, he had missed the big picture. It was too late to promise, he’d already hurt me.

* * * *

Chapter 8

I had ample time to think about last night’s revelations when I awoke at four-thirty in the afternoon, three whole hours before Enrique would arrive to visit me in my gilded cage. It’s so maddening that all I’ve ever wanted was to be free of the chains of fate by which I’ve been bound all my life. Here I am, seemingly free of Colombia and all its influence, but I have no freedom at all. I’m bound worse than ever.

It started early in my teens. My path had been predetermined by my mother. She worked in the floral farms. I loathed the idea of working my fingers raw in the floral farms and coming home to smell like her. I still hate the smell of most flowers to this day.

The floral farms of Colombia are massive corporate greenhouse operations employing over a hundred thousand people, mostly women, and more underage than the world would care to know about. The savannah bordering the Andean mountains on the fringe of Bogota supports one of the world’s largest cut-flower export industries. My mother served twenty years of her life in those places, from the age of thirteen till she died at thirty-three. All my mother’s friends were floral workers, all her cousins, virtually everyone she knew. The crappy little cinderblock house we lived in was part of the sprawling housing tracts paid for by floral farms. It was a forgone conclusion my destiny would be that of a floral laborer, cutting, stacking, and arranging flowers for eight-ten-twelve hours a day till I died.

I begged my father not to make me do it, but he did. At the age of twelve, a job like that seems like the seventh circle of hell. My budding floral career was cut short by an incident with a supervisor.

A sweaty little man in his late twenties, I still remember how bad my supervisor smelled. He had his eye on me, and I caught his thoughts as he stood by admiring me. I smiled nervously. Such a thing is so easily misinterpreted by depraved men. He advanced on me with a head full of raunchy sexual imaginings, things I never knew men could do to little girls. I screeched, dropped everything, and ran like the Devil himself chased me.

I escaped the creep easily enough, but I made the mistake of telling another girl at work. Women gossip, the news spread at the speed of a viral YouTube video. The resulting scandal led to immediate termination of my employment. They demoted him to a laborer. My father beat my butt raw. The man was an acquaintance of his.

That was the first time I made accusations against a man who technically hadn’t done anything. I avoided the horrendous fate of a flower laborer by the dumb luck of my peculiarity. I pestered my father endlessly not to send me back to the farms. He agreed it was perhaps unwise.

The second incident, two years later when I caught my priest checking me out, was the last straw. My father decided I had reached womanhood and it was time for a change. In my father’s mind, I could see how he considered Rubin an attractive man, a good prospect for me. They had met at a bar. My father bragged me up and showed off a picture to Rubin.

In Colombia, many a young girl fantasized of being swept away in the arms of a wealthy adventurous Traqueto, like something in one of the novellas – soap operas. These men were actually respected in the community. Meeting a handsome man who had seemingly taken an interest in me didn’t seem horrible at the time. I’d only begun to know what it meant to be a girl, little perky breasts popping up out of nowhere, boys staring at me more often. I agreed to meet Rubin based on the idea that he actually wanted to marry me, would provide for me without putting me to work in the floral farms.