Temple of the Winds

As he watched her replace the little packet of her past into her trunk, he wondered at her father, wondered if he knew where she was, or if perhaps he had sent her away in revulsion, his rose wilted in his heart. He imagined an angry scene. He wondered at her mother-if her mother understood her choice in life, or cried at a daughter lost. Now he, too, was playing a part in who she was, in her life.

"May I call you Rosa?" he asked, as she closed the lid of her trunk. "It's such a lovely name."

She looked back over her shoulder. Her eyes watched his fingers working her underpants into a tight ball.

She returned to him, smiling as she came. "You're my special man, now. I've never told another man my true name. It would give me pleasure to hear my given name on your lips."

His heart pounded, and he swayed on his feet with his need. "Thank you, Rosa," he whispered, and he truly meant it. "I want so much to please you." "Your hands are trembling."

They always did, until he started. Then, they were rock steady. Once he started, he would be steady. It was just the anticipation. "I'm sorry."

A throaty, lusty laugh came from deep in her throat. "Don't be. It excites me that you would be nervous."

He wasn't nervous, not in the least, but he was excited. Her hands found that he was. "I want to taste you." She licked his ear. "I have no one else tonight. We have all the time we want to enjoy this." "I know," he whispered back. "That's why I wanted to be last." "Yes," she teased, "I want it to last, too. Can you make it last, darling?" "I can, and I will," he promised. "A long time."

She let out a purr of satisfaction at his promise, and turned in his arms, pressing her bottom against him. She arched her back and rocked her head against his chest as she moaned again. He kept the smirk from his face as he looked down into her sky-blue eyes. Yes, she was a talented whore.

He slid his hand down her lower spine, counting her vertebrae, fingering the spaces between them. She moaned urgently at his touch. Because of the way she swayed her bottom, he missed the spot he wanted. She staggered.

The second time he slammed the knife into her lower back, he hit the right spot, between the vertebrae, severing her spinal cord.

He swept an arm around her middle to hold her up. The shocked, grunting moan was real, this time. Anyone in the other rooms wouldn't think it any different from the sounds she regularly made for men. Others didn't notice such details. He did, and savored the difference.

As her mouth widened to scream, he stuffed it full with the wadded ball of her dirty underpants. He timed it just right, so only the cry of the gasp sounded, before the pitch rose. He yanked the silk tie from her robe on the peg beside him and whirled it around her head four times to hold the gag in her mouth. With one hand, and the aid of his teeth, he drew it tight and knotted it.

He would have liked to have listened to her heartfelt screams, but that would bring a premature end to their pleasure. He loved the screams, the cries. They were always sincere.

He pressed his mouth against the side of her head. He could smell the sweat of men in her hair.

"Oh, Rosa, you are going to please me so. You are going to give me more pleasure than you've ever given any man before. I want you to enjoy it, too. I know this is what you always wanted. I'm the man you've been waiting for. I've come at last."

He let her slip to the floor. Her legs were useless, now. She wasn't going anywhere.

She tried to punch him between his legs. He caught her dainty little fist in his hand. He watched her wide, sky-blue eyes as he pressed open her fist. He held her palm between his thumb and a finger, and bent it down until the bones in her wrist snapped.

He used the arms of her robe to bind her hands, so that she couldn't pull the gag from her mouth. His heart hammered as he listened to her muffled wails. He couldn't understand the words against the gag, but they heightened his excitement because he could feel their pain.

A storm of emotion rampaged through his mind. At least the voices were silent, for now, leaving him to his lust. He wasn't sure what the voices were, but he was sure that he was only able to hear them because of his singular intellect; he was able to seine such evanescent messages from the ethers because of his incomparable perception, and because he minded the details.

Tears flooded down her face. Her perfectly plucked brows bunched together, lifting in the middle, furrowing the skin on her forehead into neat rows. He counted them, because he was special.

With wide, anguished, sky-blue eyes, she watched as he removed his clothes and set them aside. It wouldn't do to have them soaked in blood.

The knife was rock steady in his hand now. He stood above her, naked and erect, to show her what a good job she was doing for him, so far. And then he began.

CHAPTER 25