Setting the scalpel on my night table, I flipped her onto her side and grabbed at her tits as I licked the incision. I felt like an animal. Her blood made me wild. As I sucked the blood, my throbbing clit drove me to trib on anything close by—and that anything ended up being her smoothly-shaven leg. I suckled her side. She nourished me. Her blood ran hot through my body, and I knew if I didn’t get to feel her wet pussy on mine I would lose my mind.
In one motion, I tore off Cat’s ruffled boy shorts and pressed them against the bleeding line in her side. Her legs were long but her body easy to manipulate. When I tucked my body neatly between her legs, she sighed, “Oh, Mari, Mari, Mari,” and my lungs just about exploded. Her voice contained all the passion of the willingly seduced.
Cat threw her leg over my shoulder. I kissed it, leaving a path of red blood as I sunk into the V of her thighs. She pressed her wet pussy against mine, and I pressed back against her moist folds. Together, we were juice. We were one big pool of pussy juice lapping like waves against distant shores. The pressure of her wet lips on mine drove me wild. My body burned with her blood.
Neighbors be damned. I cried out in an ecstasy of blood and sweat as my soul blazed. Cat was shouting too, incomprehensible niceties as she circled her hips to press against me. We were stuck, pussy to pussy, bound together in a writhing mass that seemed more than the two we were. As I lay face up on my bed with a strange girl between my legs, I felt a sense of invigoration attached to my postcoital exhaustion.
“I can’t believe I licked your blood,” I said, in amazement. It occurred to me I should clean her wound with something more than my tongue, but when I lifted her little cotton shorts from her side there was nothing there but a clean cut in her flesh. No blood. I stared in disbelief. “I cut you. You bled. Why aren’t you bleeding now?”
Cuddling her head on my pillow, she giggled. “I told you your tongue would seal it up.” Her eyes seemed to melt from sky blue to sea-foam green as she held my gaze. “How did it taste?”
“Good,” I said. I could still taste the metallic sweetness of her blood on my lips. When I licked them, all her strength surged through me. “It tastes incredible, actually.” So incredible I began to crave not only its taste but also the surge of fiery power that coursed through my body with every lick. Each night I carved a new line and sucked the blood from her fresh wound. She gave herself over to me. When I looked at her back, I didn’t see a bathroom wall anymore. I saw generosity of spirit. Cat was the most benevolent creature I’d ever known.
It would take twenty-three nights, I estimated, to spell out MARJANE all in capital letters.
“What are you?” I asked on that final evening. Only the last line of my E remained to be carved. As I sketched her, I could only think how normal she looked. She couldn’t be human, could she? Was I? At one time yes, but not anymore. I could feel the change in my body and my cravings.
“I told you when we met,” she said with a smile. “I told you who I am.”
My pencil scratched against the paper as I shaded her inner thighs. That night, she wore a satin slip that barely covered her hips when she lay on her side. I licked my lips. Sex and blood were becoming one in my mind. Cat had everything I wanted. “I don’t remember,” I confessed. I hoped she wouldn’t be upset.
With a chuckle, she said, “I’m the Catalyst. You wanted to switch your days to nights. You wanted to give your life over to art. I am the way. I’m the means to that end.”
I didn’t understand, and that’s what I told her, though I suspected if I’d concentrated more on the conversation and less on my art I might have figured it out on my own. As much as I wanted to put down my pencil, I couldn’t do it until I’d finished her portrait. It was the only way for me to keep her, in any sense.
“Haven’t you ever heard that art is life?” she giggled. I couldn’t get over how coy she was, even though she was living in my bed.
“Sure,” I said, still putting pencil to paper. “It’s carved into your back—Art is Life.”
“You want to be a true artist,” she replied, tracing her big toe up the back of the opposite calf. “Where do you suppose all that life force comes from? If it came from you, your art would eat you alive. You’d be dead in a day. If you want to create like the masters, you have to live like them.” Taking the scalpel from my night table, she held it up like an instrument of worship. “I’ve given you a taste. Now you have the blood lust. I’ve been your mother and suckled you with my life, but after tonight you’ll be on your own to procure your meals. Do you think you can handle that?”
My pencil fell from my hand. “No,” I said. My head seemed to be shaking. I couldn’t stop it, even as I dropped my sketch and ran to join her on my bed. “You’re my source, Cat. If you leave me, I’ll die of thirst.”
She ran her fingers through my hair and planted a sweet kiss on my forehead. “You can fly, baby bird,” she assured me. “I know you’ll figure it out.”
“No, I really won’t.” I was starting to panic, but her smile reassured me.
“Where’s your confidence gone?” she asked. “You’re more innovative than you know, so don’t go asking me where your next meal is coming from. I can only tell you where to get your last supper.” She cocked her eyebrow as she handed me the scalpel. “Finish the E.”
The instrument had never felt so heavy in my hand. I suppose I must have known all along my ginger Cat was initiating me into another realm of existence, but I hadn’t counted on her leaving until I was ready to let her go. Now the end was drawing near.
She sighed into my pillow as I traced the knife through her flesh. The sensation of cutting deep into her skin was familiar to me now, but no less invigorating. After a brief moment of molecular shock, small drops of red rose to the surface. My legs quivered even though I was sitting. My heart seemed to beat in double time. I licked my lips.
Tossing the scalpel to the night table, I threw my face at her side and savored the taste. Her blood ran through me as I sucked it from her body. Its sweetness filled my cheeks and its warmth burned inside me. She sighed at the sensation, but I knew how nice she’d feel if I pressed my palm against her pussy.
Cat seized up, tossing her head back on my pillow. As I squeezed her pussy lips together, she moaned my name, Marjane, and pressed her thighs tight around my hand. I stroked her gorgeous slit. Her juice soaked my bare fingers while her blood drenched my lips. When she reached under my top and grabbed my tits, I sucked her side with renewed vigor. Her soft hands felt incredible. Why does she have to leave? She squeezed my breasts as I lapped her blood in ecstasy. Why can’t she stay with me? Nourish me? Feed me?
My hand went wild on her slippery clit and she threw her head to the side, pinching my nipple hard. Her sweet blood coated my lips when she came loud as ever. She was pain and she was joy. Her scream was the cry of an infant entering this world with the wisdom of the ages. She gave me all.
How can I describe Cat but to say she was my creator and my creation? She was the Catalyst who sparked my blood lust. She was my artist’s enabler. Without her, what would I be? Normal? What artist could live that way? Normality, mediocrity—artists cringe at these words.