Chastity Flame (9 page)

She felt all the tension and
irritation of her morning with Monitor slip away. Her whole body
relaxed and he was only on the left foot so far. Chastity began to
wonder if she might just melt into a pool of drool from her relaxed
state. She crossed her hands behind her head and hummed an old
tune, one that welled up out of the past, one she couldn't quite
name but knew in her bones.

"You're humming," Damien said, as he
continued to work his fingertips into her ankle and heel. "I don't
recognize the song."

Chastity tried to bring her thoughts
up from the pleasant fluffy clouds of oblivion that threatened to
fill her brain. "It's an old Castilian song," she said at last.
"Although it may really be a gypsy song. I'm not entirely sure. I
don't even think I can remember the words, but the tune is there in
my memory."

"Other foot," Damien said at last, as
Chastity continued to hum the refrain. Obediently, she switched
feet and reclined once more into indolence. "Relaxing?" he asked
needlessly. Chastity nodded, or thought she did, because she was
drifting off, if not into sleep then into something resembling it.
Reverie—this is a reverie, she thought. The gentle pressure of
Damien's fingers up and down her foot eased every bit of stress
right out of her body and let her mind float gently above all
cares. She wondered, is this what life is like for normal
people?

The reverie didn't last for long.
Damien decided to augment the massage with a little tasting,
nibbling on her instep before he stuck her big toe in his mouth to
suck it gently, then with increasing strength. Chastity wriggled
with pleasure but still gave into indolence, allowing him to
continue to make all the effort. Damien slurped her toes, each in
turn and gave her a tingly delightful feeling. It traveled like an
electric shock up her leg and she sighed happily. "Yummy yum yum
yummy yum yom yom," she muttered.

Damien took this as encouragement and
began to make progress up her leg. Combining nips and tonguing
kisses, he worked up to Chastity's knee and lingered, tickling her
behind the bend and making her squirm even more. Pausing for a
moment, he rested his other hand on her other knee, stroking her
calves as he grinned up at her half-closed eyes.
"Yummy."

She knew what was coming next, but the
slowness of his approach made the whole process even more
delicious. Damien ran his fingers along her thighs, as if testing
the resilience of the flesh. He gently pushed her legs apart.
Compliant after his ministrations, Chastity let him do as he
wished. As he reached up to grasp the roots of her curly hair, he
also sunk his teeth into the skin more firmly. It felt as if a low
hum were being turned up to a higher pitch.

Damien brushed his face against her
lips, barely touching, but making her clit throb all the more. His
two hands pushed her thighs apart and his tongue reached out to
stroke the tender skin between. Chastity moaned. He drew his tongue
between the furrow of her lips and circled the inflamed bud, making
her buck beneath his hands, but he only gripped her even tighter.
Chastity could feel the honey drip down, but he wasn't ready to
satisfy her with either tongue or fingers, but continued to tease
her until she was ready to scream. She began to sit up, but he
growled at her and she collapsed weakly with a smile.

Her body was so electric that it could
practically sing. He slipped one hand up to circle his palm across
her belly, which seemed to cool the fires ever so slightly and to
take some of the edge off her growing frustration. Of course, the
moment she had begun to relax, he jammed two fingers into the
welcoming wetness of her cunt and she arched up in surprise and
delight while he sucked away at her straining clit.

Damien made his hand move with
agonizing slowness, patiently pulling the fingers out, swirling
them around the opening, just barely inside, then plunging them
back inside. She felt him curve his fingers up, searching for her
g-spot while his thumb continued to stroke her clit and
lips.

Chastity could feel the orgasm
beginning in her toes, still wet from his sucking, cool to the
air's caress. Her breath quickened. Her back arched and she felt it
coming. Of course he chose that moment to stop, to laugh and to
hold her thighs back down to the bed. "Not yet, missy!"

"Oh, you bastard!" She laughed, but
she was ready to kill him. Damien stood up and took off the rest of
his clothes, then turned and tugged hers off, too. Chastity had
gotten used to the feeling of having her skirt scrunched up around
her waist, but it was better to be without the encumbrances. "Now
what?" she asked him, as he admired her body while rolling on
another condom.

"Lie down on your side," he said at
last, as if he had considered all the possibilities. She did so and
he pulled her to the edge of the bed so he could remain standing as
he entered her. "Do I have to tell you how marvelous you feel?" he
asked as he slipped slowly inside her, groaning with
enjoyment.

"It would be nice," she said through
gritted teeth, trying not to let herself come at once, although the
sensation was incredible.

"You feel like a reward. Like silk,
like hot pudding."

Chastity laughed. They groaned
together. He pressed down on her legs, making her tighter than
before, and grunted with the exertion of pushing inside her. "I
can't hold off much longer," she said, biting her lip.

In response, Damien grabbed her leg
and turned her so she could wrap both of them around him. After
smiling down at her, resting just the tip of his prick inside her,
he grabbed her hips and began to drive into her as if a wild
madness possessed him. Chastity was coming with loud sobbing moans
at once, but he continued to thrust away until at last he began to
come, too, shouting his excitement loudly until he crumpled over
her, sweaty and breathless.

When he got his breath back, he began
to kiss her breasts with great relish. His fingers held them up for
inspection and he moved his lips back and forth as if he couldn't
decide between the two of them. Damien looked up at her face and an
expression of surprise took over his eyes. "What is it?"

Chastity blanched. "What?"

"You had the strangest look on your
face," he said, eyes still on her as his mouth continued to circle
her nipples with determination.

"I don't know what you mean," Chastity
said, almost certain that she was blushing somehow. "Must have been
heartburn," she said quickly. "I think I need a glass of
water."

Damien stood up with a sigh. "Stay
there. I'll get you a glass."

Chastity sat up and hugged her knees,
suddenly feeling out of sorts. She decided to get under the covers,
the better to feel less naked. When Damien returned, he noted her
changed position, but said nothing as he handed her the glass. She
smiled and took it, drinking down the water as if she had just
finished a marathon, but mostly so she didn't have to meet his
glance yet.

The truth was she was
scared.

Chastity realized that she had begun
to care about Damien, that she wanted to keep seeing him, that she
didn't already see that day when she would discard him. That had
never happened before. As soon as she slept with someone, she knew
whether she ever wanted to again (often not the case) and if she
would, just about how long it would last. It wasn't until that
moment, having experienced again an amazing chain of orgasms,
enjoying—even reveling—in his post-coital attentions, that Chastity
became aware of the fact that she had not even begun the
countdown.

Panic gave her that funny look, the
one that even now Damien was probably contemplating. He slipped his
palm across the small of her back gently. It was a move far more
tentative than any he had used before. She adored the way he moved
confidently, matching her own swagger. Clearly he was trying to
avoid upsetting her and it infuriated her. Chastity was not used to
being weak—sure, she could seem so when it helped someone else
underestimate her. That always filled her with smug
contempt.

But this was different. She would have
to bluff her way through it. It was simply not possible to think
about it, especially with him beside her. The mask must go up.
"Thanks for the water. Must be all the travel back and forth.
Fatigued." Chastity gave him a half smile that suggested
tiredness.

"Maybe you should rest," Damien said,
leaning back against the pillows as he crossed his arms behind his
head. "How much time have you got before you have to
go?"

Chastity looked over at his clock
radio. Plenty of time, she reasoned. "I've got a couple hours, but
I ought to go home and change. It's a swanky do."

Damien reached over to stroke her arm.
"Sleep an hour. You'll feel better."

Chastity sighed. "I don't know,
maybe."

"Go on then. I’ll set the alarm."
Damien reached over to set the alarm and suddenly Chastity felt
very odd indeed. Her brow furrowed as she tried to puzzle out the
sensation. Lights were flashing in her right eye. What had been a
speck she thought to blink away, had become a sort of arcing light,
as if there were a mini-rainbow in her eye, but it was only in
black and white.

She looked over at Damien. Her first
thought was poison. Damien was staring at her, however, with what
seemed to be genuine worry. "Are you all right?" he said at last,
his hand on her arm again. As his fingers touched her, Chastity
felt an immediate sensation of déjà vu.

The room swam away and she saw her
father leaning down, his hand on her arm, asking the same question.
"Are you all right?" Then she was crying and falling to the ground,
covering her eyes with her hands, terrified at what was happening.
She looked over at Damien who looked panicked now, too. "Helen,
what is it?"

"I don't know, that is—" she paused.
The memory was vivid but strangely unfamiliar, as if buried too
long from her consciousness. Why couldn't she sort it out? Then
another picture flashed through her mind as the light show
expanded, occluding her vision completely.

She saw the hacker, madcap, running
down a street. He kept looking over his shoulder, but no one seemed
to be pursuing him. There was a wild look in his eye. Chastity
could feel his desperation in palpable waves. She tried to figure
out where he was. Nothing on the street looked familiar. She saw
something in the distance. She couldn’t figure out why, but all at
once it was clear: he was in Aalborg. He was near the railway
station.

Then her eyes and brain were full of
the flashing lights and Damien was calling her again. "Get my
phone," she blurted at last. "Dial 999. On my phone. They'll know
how to find me. GPS," she added hastily. Chastity thought perhaps
she'd feel weak as the light show continued but, as the visions
parted, the light show continued, colorful and fluctuating, but not
really any worse. Her head was beginning to ache and that's when
she remembered.

They had been living in America. Some
Midwestern town where all you could see for miles and miles was the
miles and miles. There was nothing on the horizon but flat earth.
Chastity had been walking along with her father on yet another
campus, some kind of athletic field, it seemed, when she had been
overcome by these flashing lights in her eye. Funny that—only the
one eye seemed to be affected. It had not perhaps been as strong as
today's light show, but it had alarmed her then, as it had her
father.

The most affecting thing, however, was
the vision that day: her nana. As the lights swept across her
eyeball, she saw a vision of her grandmother in the house in Devon.
She had fallen on the floor before the fireplace in the sitting
room. Chastity cried out, which her father mistook for her own
pain. She knew even though she was young—what? Twelve, even
eleven?—that her beloved nana was in real pain and
dying.

It had taken some convincing to get
her father to phone (transatlantic phone calls being more of a
bother then), but he had been relieved to hear that the others flew
to her rescue, phoning up the paramedics who arrived in time to
revive her and get her to the hospital in Tavistock. Chastity had
been relieved and proud.

Her mother, on the other hand, was
horrified. She was the one to assess the illness—"ophthalmic
migraine!"—and made sure that Chastity got extra magnesium which
Monitor's staff had found to be the best treatment for the
condition. She had never had another episode.

Until now: and once again a
vision.

"They're here," Damien said, breaking
into her thoughts. "I'll let them in." He threw on his pants and
raced down the steps, while Chastity wondered what she should do.
It was all too much.

Chapter
Seven

The paramedics looked as if they were
the usual sort of workers, taking her vitals and preparing to put
her on a stretcher, but Chastity knew they were from Monitor. She
didn't necessarily want to go now. "I think I'm feeling better,"
she said tentatively.

It was true. The lights flashing
across her eyeball had begun to recede. A dull throb was left in
its wake, but it was nothing like the usual tales she heard of
migraines, so she knew she had been lucky.