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  The lit candle before her flickered and died. Silence.

  Louis smirked. If these women were really witches they would be unable to work their magic tonight, he knew. The young woman next to him seemed to stop breathing, while an octogenarian female used an altar taper to try and relight the Eastern candle. "Zaira, please move on to the South," said the meaty woman, who was high priestess.

  Holding her knife high, Zaira faced the South, and the flame on that candle immediately died. Zaira cleared her throat and spoke, while the octogenarian rushed to light the South's candle.

  "Greetings unto the Guardians of the South, Rulers of Fire. Bridgit..."

  The elderly woman had no luck in lighting the candle. She turned and shrugged in the direction of the high priestess.

  "There must be a draft in here," Heloise whispered. She gripped his hand tighter.

  "No draft," pronounced the high priestess. She shivered when she made eye contact with Louis.

  "Does this happen often?" Louis innocently asked.

  "It has never happened before," pronounced the high priestess.

  "Once," Heloise interrupted. "When Penelope's cat was in the room."

  The matronly-looking woman's back stiffened. She sniffed her indignation.

  "Perhaps you should scabbard the knife, Penelope," Louis suggested as he saw her hand tighten around the handle.

  "Zaira," Penelope answered.

  "We have magic names," Heloise explained. "I misspoke by using her mundane name. I'm Chrisyllis. Our high priestess is Bride, and then there's Amaranth," she said, nodding at the elderly woman, who continued trying to light the candle.

  "And you, my dear?" Louis asked, turning to the young girl. Her eyes were wide, and she seemed speechless.

  "She doesn't have a magic name yet. She's not initiated," said Heloise.

  "So even in this room you're still called Lora." His eyes fixed on the girl's, and he rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb. She didn't pull away, but she looked frozen and incapable of moving. Wisps of short brown hair framed Lora's face, emphasizing the arched brows, the round blue eyes, the short pert nose, and the succulently thick lips, parted just enough for him to glimpse the straight white teeth. His mouth watered, and the swelling in his loins forced him to change position. He noted that Lora’s nipples had hardened against the thin knitted cotton of her blouse.

  "Louis." Heloise rested a hand on his arm. "The candles are relit. We're going to try again." She tugged at his sleeve until he turned to face the center of the circle.

  The high priestess glared at him, and he amiably smiled back.

  Gwydion was called again and the East went dark.

  His smile grew broader as the high priestess' expression grew darker.

  She's got me pegged, he thought.

  "Why don't you call the guardians, Mr. Sade," said the high priestess.

  Louis reached out for Zaira's knife and all the candles blew out.

  "Don't give your athame to him." Zaira followed the high priestess' instructions and slid the knife back into its scabbard.

  "Children, drunks, criminals, and the insane should never be trusted with sharp instruments. You are a sage woman." He sensed that the other women were confused, and each turned in a circle, checking each of the nonburning candles.

  Finally Amaranth scurried over to the altar and took up one of the side candles.

  "It will not be necessary to light the candles."

  "But, Bride, shouldn't we try at least once more?"

  "Amaranth, give the candle to Heloise's guest. Please light the candles, Mr. Sade."

  For some reason unfathomable to Louis, the high priestess wanted a confrontation between him and the spirits. He knew she expected him to back down. Instead he took the altar candle and turned to the East.

  In the East, South, and West, each candle's wick refused the flame's kiss; however, there were no other repercussions. He would complete the charade and then shrug innocently at his audience, he thought.

  One last candle, in the North. Where the powers of the earth resided. He moved quickly in that direction, but found himself falling back a step, a heaviness building in his chest. He moved forward again and felt the suffocating weight of the earth pushing him down under its layers. He could not get within arm's length of the northern candle. Fear, an emotion that he had almost forgotten, tensed his body. He belonged under the earth, not above it. He should be decaying into the loam.

  Bride now chanted in a Celtic tongue. He could not absorb the words; they seemed purposefully to rush by him. To whom is that exécrable femme calling? No one else said a word. The flame of the altar candle flickered. Hot wax fell onto the knuckles of his right hand. He gripped the candle too close to the flame. His hand was colder than it had ever been. The dripping wax caused practically no pain, since the hand was almost numb from frost. But he knew the room was warm. There was no chill, only the iciness of his death, which was coming for him again to recapture his condemned soul. Something hit the outside of the window, and the curtains behind the Northern candle shivered.

  The smell of burning incense turned his stomach, but soon the fragrance was overcome by the odors of moss and clay. The earth wanted him back.

  "No!" He tossed the altar candle at the window. "You can't have me!"

  Bride was still chanting. He turned and saw that the other women were stunned. Amaranth suddenly reached out a hand. He followed the direction in which she pointed and turned to see the bottom of the velvet curtains smoldering. Jagged swirls of smoke ascended, followed by the lick of flames. But no one else moved.

  Louis reached out and pulled the curtain from its rod. The window pane shattered, allowing a fireball to enter and light the North's candle.

  Screams were rising behind him, but he stood his ground as a ribbon of fire circled the room.

  "You imbécile!" he yelled at the high priestess.

  And still she chanted in the Celtic tongue while the other women clustered together in the center of the room.

  The black smoke from the carpet emanated a foul odor, a sickly, deathly odor of rotted souls sizzling in the depths of hell.

  He would never succumb. He would survive and replicate as he always had done. The fire had cut off the exit. Black smoke clouded his vision. But he knew where the door was and rushed through the sooty fog.

  "All universal moral principles are idle fantasies."

  The 120 Days of Sodom

  by the

  Marquis de Sade

  Chapter 2

  Sour, salty sweat dripped from the tip of his nose onto his protruding lips. His tongue licked the chapped and swollen flesh. The handcuffs scrapped his wrists as his body jerked in fear. She brought the flat end of the straight-edge razor down his erect penis. The dribble of his semen frightened him. His Maîtresse had forbade him to have an orgasm. But the cold steel of the blade caused a shiver of pleasure. La Maîtresse used the flat side of the blade to swat the tip of his organ. A warning!

  He wanted to close his legs, protect his privates, but the bar separating his manacled ankles prevented that. Maîtresse la Présidente smoothed on more soapy suds across his loin and continued to shave his pubic hair. The delicate slide of the blade across his skin made his breath quicken.

  The mirror to the right of him revealed the slow movements of his Maîtresse's hands. Her small white hand would set the edge of the blade against his organ and then glide the blade downward, removing foam and hair. The black votive candles burning on either side of the reflection gave the scene a surreal look. Was that Garrett Winter's penis bobbing and waving to the rhythm of La Présidente's hand? Garrett Norwell Winter III, power-hungry entrepreneur, feared by the titans of industry?

  La Présidente reached for one of the black candles. She smiled up at him as she brought the candle closer to his penis. His loin, now naked of hair, looked vulnerable in the mirror. Even more so when she rubbed the side of the candle against his penis. She lifted his organ and poised the bottom
of the candle atop its tip. Involuntarily he cried out as he watched the hot wax slide down the side of the candle. The wax stung the sides of his cock. The skin was unbearably stretched to the point of aching.

  "Please, Maîtresse, may I now come?"

  Her brown eyes glared into his own eyes, and she shook her head, denying him his release.

  The safe word.

  "Hyacinth," he shouted. La Présidente freed his cock and his semen spurted out, hitting the tops of her high leather boots. He would be made to lick the boots clean before he left the dungeon.

  Chapter 3

  The Celtic chant droned on for several minutes before silence replaced Bride's voice. And along with the chant the fire died.

  Louis moved back to the doorway of the room. Smoke was settling its ash on the bodies of the five women. Bride lay before the altar, arms outstretched. The others had fallen in a pile on the center of the carpet. The searing stench of the synthetic carpet had used up the oxygen in the room, replacing it with an acrid gas. He had no doubt that the women were unconscious and perhaps close to death owing to the carpet's poisonous fumes. He should really drag each from the room and attempt to get help.

  Louis sniffed. The fumes had no effect on him. He sniffed again and remembered the shattered window. Fresh air would eventually replace the repugnant odor. As he sniffed he caught the odor of something else. Coppery, ruby, young. Lora's body caught his eye. Heloise's dagger had slipped from its scabbard and Lora had, "unfortunately," fallen on it. Her wound was not deep, merely a slender cut on her right forearm. Next to her Heloise lay, slivers of glass from the windowpane embedded in her face. Blood trickled in slender rivulets down her cheeks. Louis licked his lips.

  Perhaps they were already dead. Not Bride, he thought, when he heard a moan come from her corner of the room. And not Lora, whose plump breasts rose and fell in a weak but steady breath.

  Could he now reenter the room without bringing down the wrath of the northern guardians upon himself? He sniffed again. Lora's blood was rich, healthy, inviting; it was worth the chance. Louis crossed the threshold and nothing happened. The oppressive suffocating feeling was gone. He reached to his right and turned on the ceiling light. His eyesight was good in the dark, but he hadn't noticed the wall hangings: a unicorn, naked lovers entwined in each others arms, a needlepoint pentacle surrounded by intricate needlepoints of various herbs.

  Standing at least three feet high was a golden statue of Puck, looking very impish and singed. The velvet drapes lay on the floor, no longer red. Arterial red, he recalled. No. Now instead the drapes were blackened and tattered.

  His blood hunger spiked and his fear withering, Louis moved closer to the cluster of women. The elderly Amaranth was still. Very still. Either she had died quickly from the fumes, or she may have suffered a heart attack in all the excitement, he thought. He felt Heloise's pulse at the neck. Her heart still pounded, and so did Zaira's. But Zaira probably had bitter blood, and Heloise's would lack the sensual thrill.

  Ah! But Lora... Louis raised Lora's right forearm to his lips. His tongue drew a trail upward across her wound. Heady, slightly sweet, but not too. The taste full-bodied with the freshness of youth. However, in his experience he had found that the little bite of blood could vary from one part of the body to another.

  Louis gently rested her arm across her abdomen. Using his hands, he worked her knit top up over her breasts. No bra. The impétuosité and frivolité of youth. The round, bulging mounds reminded him of the casks that had been kept in the cellars of his friend, Joseph de Fumel, the propriétaire of Chateau Haut-Brion. The wine had been beyond heavenly, even if it did need a long time in bottle to further its heavenly scent, he thought as he closed his eyes, savoring the memory and anticipating the delight he held in his hands. He leaned forward and with his tongue ringed her breasts with his spit. Finally he settled his lips on the hard nipple of her right breast and bit down. The blood flowed out in rivulets. Each suck brought a new stream. The smell of her flesh added to the delectable flavor of her blood. But the unhurried fluid motion didn't satisfy. He wanted more.

  Louis raised his head and peered at Lora's face, tracing her features with two of his fingers. "Quelle belle femme!" His fingers roamed down her neck, then paused. A smile shaped his lips, and he bent forward. Again he smelled the odor of her flesh mixed with her blood, and it increased the closer he came to her artery. Quickly he took her, the gush of her blood causing his own breath to momentarily halt. His cock ached for fulfillment; adroitly he satisfied that urge, easing himself smoothly into her body.

  By the time he left, Lora and Heloise had been drained dry. Dear Heloise, who had tried earnestly to satisfy his curiosities and who happened to be the only woman in the room able to identify and locate him.

  Chapter 4

  Marie stood in front of her Federalist-era stone house. It wasn't the kind of home she was used to, but she did find it charming, and she appreciated the isolation it afforded. The nearest house was two miles away and inhabited by a disgruntled old man who left her alone as long as she did the same for him. Once she had made the mistake of knocking on his door. After several seconds, a flabby man of about seventy-five had opened the door.

  What little white hair he had on his head stood straight up like stalagmites. What he lacked on his head was abundant on his eyebrows. Murky grayish-green eyes squinted at her. His nose was bulbous and pocked, the lips thin and heavily lined. But what shocked her was the fact that he had answered the door in a yellowish-white T-shirt and blue boxers that retained a water spot near his genitals.

  "Hi. I'm Marie Masson. I've moved into the Rathbone house just--"

  "Two miles away." His voice was gravelly, hoarse from disuse.

  "But you do seem to be my closest neighbor." She smiled. She had dressed for visiting, with her white silk blouse and navy linen suit.

  "So?"

  "Well, I thought we should meet. You know, in case of an emergency."

  "In an emergency it's every man and woman for him or herself."

  Her shoes pinched a bit, but she had not expected to be standing for long. After all, a neighbor would certainly invite her in for perhaps a cup of tea or a taste of sherry.

  "At least we should exchange names and telephone numbers, since we are quite cut off from other people."

  "Listen, you decided to move into that old Rathbone house. Now suddenly you decide it's too lonely for you. That's your problem, not mine."

  "I rather like the isolation," she indignantly replied. "But if there were any kind of emergency, it would be useful to have at least a casual acquaintanceship with--"

  "Name's Keith Bridgewater. I'm not telling you my telephone number, and I ain't listed." He slammed the door, leaving Marie furiously pissed off.

  Since then she had driven by the old man's house. Occasionally he sat on his front porch smoking a cob pipe and reading thick hardbacks. The temptation to stop was strong, but somehow his indelicate attire, which seemed to be the usual for him, put her off.

  Just as well, she thought. Wouldn't want to have an old man running after me. Marie gave her age as sixty-two, but she probably could pass for ten or fifteen years younger. In her business, age seemed to give her clients more faith in her. Her bleached spun-gold hair was cut short to emphasize her delicate features. Her brown eyes were dark and penetrating with the sense that she was always in control. And her body was in pretty good shape. Not the same as when she was in her twenties and thirties, but still more zaftig than obese. The past century-and-a-half had been good to her.

  Marie tossed her foam kneel cushion on the ground. Her Blanc Double de Coubert and Frau Dagmar Hastrup roses needed trimming, while the Hansa roses needed trimming and love. She missed the purplish-red color of her Hansas. The buds just never bloomed completely. She had made a careful examination for aphids but only found a few. During the winter she had built mounds around the bushes and laid straw atop the mounds. The white and pink roses were doing fine; the Hansas we
re being disobedient.

  "None of that," she said out loud. Marie knelt down and began her work.

  An hour later she heard a car coming up the driveway. Must be Louis, she thought, wanting to use the basement again. The car door slammed.

  "I really wish you would set up your own place. Some of the equipment is in need of replacement, and I expect you to pay half the cost."

  Silence. No rants. No raves. No hissing at her purposeful derogatory statement.

  Marie turned her head to view Louis. Only it wasn't Louis; instead Keith Bridgewater stood by the oak tree--dressed. Legs covered in old-man polyester pants. T-shirt hidden under a cotton earth-toned plaid shirt.

  She stood.

  "Mr. Bridgewater, or may I call you Keith? Certainly you should call me Marie."

  "Plain Bridgewater is fine."

  "And what will you call me?"

  "Damn if I know. There don't seem to be any man living here. At least I never saw you drive by with any man in your car. So I don't know if you're a Miss or a Mrs. I don't like Ms."

  "Oh, I'm tickled to know that you noticed me drive by your house. I kept meaning to stop, but our first encounter wasn't--"

  "That's fine, keep going. Ain't asking you to stop."

  "I wouldn't mind stopping, especially if you were wearing those trousers that you have on."

  "I dress as is most comfortable for me on my property." He seemed to stand taller.

  I could break you before you even knew I was trying, she silently said to Keith.

  "Come in. I made fresh éclairs this morning, and I have some lovely imported hot chocolate." Marie moved toward the front door of the house then stopped and looked over her shoulder. "Unless you'd prefer an expensive French cognac."

  "Don't drink hard liquor. Have a beer once in awhile."

  How sophisticated. "Out of beer, Mr. Bridgewater."