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Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.
Song of Solomon 8:6
—
The smell of the room is an assault; ozone, expensive brandy, scorched tallow and the sharp, salt-tang of mingling sweat. You lie sprawled across the moth-eaten velvet of his bedspread, your lungs burning as they fight for oxygen. Above you, shadows dance in the flicker of the hearth, looking like fingers grasping at the ceiling. Victor is a heavy, frantic weight beside you. His skin is fever-hot; it always is, as if the lightning he chases has taken up permanent residence in his very marrow. You feel the frantic thrumming of his heart against your ribs, a staccato rhythm that speaks of a man who does nothing in moderation.
You settle back against him, drawing idle patterns along his bare chest and stomach. Droplets of sweat join together, leaving a wet trail along his golden skin, as drops of rain trickling down a pane of glass. Long fingers comb through your hair, his chest rising and falling harshly under your fingertips as he's still caught in the primal haze of lovemaking. His dark eyes, almost completely black in the firelight, are focused solely on you. You hum pensively.
"Mmm?" He retorts and you only hum again in response, considering something. His arm snakes around your back, pulling your body flush against his side; still tangled together, sweat-slick and breathing heavy. "Speak, my love." He murmurs, voice thick with satiation, as he rises slightly to brush his lips to your temple. "Whatever stirs in that mind of yours?" You walk your fingers along the accentuated dip of his sternum.
"I was simply wondering..." Your voice is a breathy whisper. You notice the muscles of his abdomen jumping under your gentle exploration, his arms tightening around you instinctively.
"Oh?" He prompts, eyes tracking your wandering fingers with a hungry intensity.
"What is it about you that keeps me coming back?" You ask thoughtfully. A slow, wicked smile curls at the corners of his lips. Turning your head, your eyes meet his gaze and you greedily drink him in, cupping his face in your palm and feeling the rasp of his stubble against your skin. "Is it your charm?" His larger hand covers your against his jaw, tilting his head into the contact as if starving for the touch. His gaze drops to your lips then back up, consuming. "Is it your money?" Your voice drops to a low purr, like that of a panther about to pounce. A low, husky laugh rumbles through his chest, fingers tightening around your wrist as he pulls your hand to his mouth and presses a heated kiss to your palm. "Is it your body?" You suddenly sit up and press your hands flush to his chest, mapping out his frame for the hundredth time this evening. His breath hitches as you feel the planes and valleys under your palms, under your fingers.
"Perhaps..." He drawls and you move into his lap, straddling his hips.
"Is it your very generous manhood?" You roll your hips to emphasise your point, earning yourself a low groan from his throat. Large, calloused hands grip your hips firmly, pulling you even tighter against him.
"You seem quite taken with it." He replies, rutting upward to meet your movements.
"You wound me, darling." You laugh softly, laying across him and pressing your ear to his chest. His heart drums against your ear and you can hear it throbbing beneath the delicate layers of musculature and bone. "If only I were so shallow." A hand cards through your hair.
"Then what is it, my love? What is it that holds you captive?" His other hand traces absent-minded patterns along your back, possessive and gentle all at once. You pause for a moment.
"You know, I am still uncertain." You sit up to look him in the eye. "You are like an insect or a fungus; you slithered your way inside me and now... Now I can never escape." He seems to digest your words before a dark, delighted laugh spills from his lips, eyes gleaming in the firelight.
"'Slithered inside you'." He repeats, voice thick with satisfaction. "How poetic. And how true." His fingers trail up your spine, making you shudder involuntarily. "I have infested your veins and corrupted your blood. I am your very biology now."
"Yes, you are a part of me. I could never hope to be rid of you." You dip your head, laying a path of kisses along the centre of his chest. "You are every whisper on the wind, every touch, every thought, every beat of my heart. It is infuriating." His muscles tremble under your lips. Fingertips dig into your hips almost painfully as you continue your slow, tormenting ascent. Your tongue finds the base of his throat before sliding along the side of it, tasting the salty-sweetness of his skin. "The first time I laid eyes on you, I believe you cursed me. You bestowed upon me this hunger, this...sickness." He lets his head back, exposing his neck to your tongue, and a shudder ripples through his body.
"I did curse you." He admits freely, one hand drifting to your hair and tangling tightly in the sweat-damp strands. "Willingly, greedily, without remorse." His pulse throbs against your lips. "I wanted you undone. I wanted you mine alone." You find a tendon in his neck, raised and taut. Your voice is a hoarse whisper in his ear.
"I want to flay the skin from your bones and bathe in your blood; consume you as you have consumed me." A harsh, primal sound rips through him, his hips bucking upward beneath you.
"Do it." He dares. "Take your teeth and your rage. Devour me." That throws fuel on the fire that crackles under your skin and you snarl against his skin.
"I hate you, you bastard, you demon, you devil."
"Good." He hisses in reply, teeth catching on your earlobe and closing around it. "Hate me with every beat of your stolen heart and, even then, I will find a way to be loved by you."
With strength you never would have expected from a man so spent, Victor takes hold of your wrists and pins you beneath him, his hips fitting snuggly between your thighs. He is thickening again now, blood rushing southward.
"Oh, how I love you. It is painful. And wonderful."
"Is it?" He growls, caging you beneath him. His mouth meets yours in a brutal kiss, more teeth and tongue than tenderness. He bites at your lips and licks the inside of your teeth, probing your mouth with the same thoroughness with which he would a corpse upon the slab, with hands and scalpel. "We are monsters for each other." He huffs against your open mouth, capturing your bottom lip between his teeth and biting down until he tastes the sweet tang of blood upon his tongue. The pain makes you purr and keen under him, grasping his shoulder blades before raking your nails upon the skin.
"Yes, darling..." It makes him hiss and arch, pressing you into the mattress, swallowing down your moans and mewls.
"Tell me again." He demands, fingers gripping at the linens with white-knuckled force. "That you hate me. Tell me again that you want me dead." Your voice softens ever so slightly.
"God, Victor, I could never kill you if I tried. I love you so." You murmur and his fingers twist into your hair, pulling your head back to expose the long, smooth line of your throat.
"Pathetic." He whispers harshly, nuzzling into the curve of your neck. "You are pathetic. In love with a creature like me." His lips seal around your pulse point and he draws the skin forcefully into his mouth making deep impressions of his teeth into your skin. Your spine arches off the bed and you whine like a wounded dog.
"Victor!" In retaliation, you drag your nails along his ribs, though it does not stop his assault.
"Pathetic." He repeats finally, releasing your neck to leave a path of biting kisses along your clavicle. "So in love with a man who would never love you in return. Who would never give you the gentle, tender love you so crave." His teeth sink into your shoulder, leaving bruises blossoming in the flesh.
"Liar." You grab ahold of his shoulders and push him onto his back, settling your weight back upon his hips to keep him pinned as you claw deep grooves into his chest. "You would suffocate without me." He gasps, sating something base and bestial within you.
"Without you." He manages through gritted teeth as your nails leave angry, red welts in their wake. His hands once again find your hips, blunt nails leaving crescents in the soft, plush flesh. "Without you, I would be free."
You pause, eyes wide, palms flat against his heaving chest. And you suddenly soften, leaning down to grace the softest kiss to his brow.
"And you would die. Without me, you would weep and wither, like a sycamore in the clutches of autumn." The words are barely a whisper on his skin. His breath catches in his throat.
"And you would dance upon my grave." His hands ease their grip on your hips. "You would smile as I rot beneath the earth." Your brows knit in pain and you shake your head in denial. You descend ever further to brush your lips to his, a kiss soft as the scent of lavender on a light June breeze.
"Never. I would cease to be." You tell him simply.
"You would mourn me." He corrects you, lifting his head to kiss you back with the same tenderness. "You would cry and scream and curse my existence to the heavens. You would wish you had never laid your eyes on me." Fingers brush through your hair but he does not pull or tug, merely stroke, savour. "You would hate me, even in death."
"And I would crucify this world to bring you back." You tuck your face against the slope of his neck, breathing in the scent of him. "A hundred times over."
"You would burn cities to the ground." He breathes, arms wrapping tightly around your frame, as if shielding you. "You would drown continents, shatter the moon; anything to have me back for even a moment." His lips brush your temple as he breathes a soft, almost rueful, chuckle. "You are utterly, hopelessly insane." A fond smile curves at his lips.
"I cannot deny nor remedy this. You should know that; you made me this way." You sigh against his skin. "Half a brain, the other half replaced with calcified longing, desperation."
"I know." He says simply, voice heavy with guilt and something else; something darker. "I made you into this... This creature of obsession. This thing that cannot exist without me." He lifts a hand to trace the contours of your face with his fingers, memorising every line etched by grief and madness. "And yet, I would do it all over again. I would create you a thousand times — a million times — if it meant keeping you by my side, even if it means driving us both to destruction." The pad of his thumb brushes across your bruised lower lip and you lift your head to rest it against his own.
"I would never be without you, my creator."
"And I would never be without you, my creature." He echoes.
The room falls silent, filled only by the sounds of your ragged breaths, racing hearts and the crackling of the logs in the fireplace. You are two monsters, bound by love and lunacy, destined to destroy each other or perish alone.
"... Again." You say finally, once you have found your voice. "Ruin me again. By the fire."
He does not hesitate. In one fluid motion, Victor lifts you into his arms and carries you to the rug stretched out before the hearth. The firelight paints your skin in golden hues, bruises turned a deep wine colour on the mottled skin.
"Here?" He asks.
"Yes, yes, here. Take me here." But as he leans forward to sheathe himself inside you, you press a hand to his shoulder, making him lift his head. "But not as before, not as a beast." His expression softens at your words, hands gentling as they cradle your thighs.
"How then?"
"As if I were your spouse. As if I were...human." Something seems to break inside of him at your words. He lowers himself onto you, settling between your legs as his hands move to your face, holding it as if it were something precious, something sacred.
"I married you the moment I touched you with my scalpel." He breathes against your lips. "Every stitch was a wedding vow, my solemn oath to you."
"Then why did you imbue me with such...madness? Why did you not make me to love as people do?" You ask, voice hoarse with desperation.
"Because, if I had made you to love as humans do — softly, gently — I would have created something that could desert me, like all others before." His fingers trace the faint scars across your skin; the marks of his possession. "I needed you to be mine, without hesitation."
"You are greedy, my creator." You laugh softly.
"And you are mine." He lays a trail of tender kisses along your neck, soothing the deep bruises he left with his teeth. "Mine to ruin, mine to love, mine to destroy if need be." He pauses, dark eyes finding yours once more. "Tell me again that you hate me."
"But I do not wish to hate you. I wish to love you with the pure heart you failed to plant within me." You reply, almost pleading.
"Then love me with whatever heart you have." His lips find yours once again, kissing you deeply though not fiercely, as he did before. "I will take whatever you can give." Your arms weave around his broad shoulders.
He eases into you carefully, your bodies joining as firelight flickers throughout the room, casting dancing shadows on shelves upon shelves of ancient tomes and preserved specimens. "There." He breathes against your throat, halting to allow you to adjust. "I have you." His hips begin to move in a steady, deliberate rhythm; nothing resembling your usual desperate, primal coupling. This is tender. This is worship. This is, dare you say, love.
You gasp and tighten your hold on him. "Hush... I have you like this now; slow, gentle. As a man loves his wife, yes?" His hands find your face, thumbs brushing away tears you hadn't realised were falling. They glitter on your skin, like shattered glass on a patchwork quilt. "Is this how you wanted me?" He asks and you can only nod your head.
His movements are deliberate and unhurried; a slow, deep rhythm that has nothing to do with lust and everything to do with reverence. "I never learned how to love gently." He confesses against your ear, angling his pelvis to deepen the connection. "I destroyed all gentleness in myself long before I made you." You move together now, in tandem.
"Perhaps...you can revive that too?" You propose, breathless.
"With you, anything is possible." His forehead rests against your own as you move; bodies synchronised, breaths mingling, souls entwined. "I will learn gentleness again if it means loving you like this." And, as you mewl softly against his ear, dark curls brushing against your face, his hands slip down to your hips, lifting you slightly to change the angle. Deeper.
"I am yours, in every sense. In all sense."
"And I am yours." He replies. "Body, mind and soul; every dark corner of my being belongs to you." He captures your lips in a soft, lingering kiss. "You own me, my creature. Heart and soul."