Shower Of Gold 02
T/N: if you didn't know this novel is NSFW, now you do.
Author's recommended BGM: Pit of Vipers
Herstal was silent for a moment, then revealed a fake smile at Albarino.
"Is it Titian's Danae, or Rembrandt's Danae?" Herstal asked in a low voice.
A soft, breathy sound was produced from Albarino's throat. He moved forward slightly to press his lips to the corner of Herstal's mouth; perhaps it was because he had just passed through the curtains of rain, his skin was cool.
He murmured against Herstal's skin, saying pleasantly in a low voice, "It's Klimt."
As for the blade, it remained close to his neck, stable and unshaking, but Albarino indeed really didn't care much for it – he could read a darkness so dense in the other man's eyes it could almost drown someone; it was this somber hue which showed him the way. The rain outside the window was so loud that it could almost drown out human voices and the sounds of heartbeat. Albarino flashed him a provocative smile, before once again dropping to his knees by his feet.
This scene was similar to the night Herstal had gone to meet Martin Jones, in front of the cold, beaten fence of that factory, only this time Herstal might not have been as surprised as he had been before. The blade remained against his skin as he knelt, barely wavering, the other man's hand so steady it was almost unscientific.
Albarino looked up and could see Herstal sizing him up with a judging expression, as if he was torn between stabbing him to death or sending him to a mental institution. This made Albarino want to laugh as he fluently groped up Herstal's left ankle, where there was a knife tied there just like last time.
"I hope that we both can be more honest with each other, now that we've interacted so many times." Albarino said slowly, his fingers trying to wiggle into Herstal's trousers. This time, he finally slipped his hand inside and slowly ran it up his ankle: it was a very short dagger, so it wasn't conspicuous even when hidden beneath his suit trousers.
"'Interacted'," Herstal clearly scoffed at the word, given that the interaction Albarino was referring to probably was leaving each other corpses, and using them to ridicule each other, "I don't recall asking for that kind of interaction, or is that some kind of trendy artist thing in your eyes?"
And Albarino had felt the buckle of the sheath's strap around his leg. Herstal's skin was so smooth to the touch that he wondered if he was naturally the type not to have a lot of body hair, or if his OCD-like control also included the removal of it – Albarino would not be surprised by either. Seriously, just look at the house this person lived in; he lived in a refinedly designed flat, beautiful like a designer's display room, but it lacked personality.
Some parts of these absurd ideas made Albarino want to smile. He undid the clasp with his fingers and removed the dagger and nylon strap from Herstal's leg with difficulty, lying it flat on the floor. At the same time, Herstal's knife shifted from Albarino's neck, the blade nimbly landing on Albarino's face.
Herstal slapped his cheek with the knife, "Return the favor[1]."
[1]礼尚往来, idiom, lit. proper behavior is based on reciprocity, meaning courtesy demands reciprocity.
Albarino smiled at him, slowly zipping open his jacket to show him his shoulder holster hidden beneath it.
"Is this the 'daily necessities' you went back to the Forensic Bureau to get?" Herstal asked.
"After all, I have a concealed carry permit, so why not?" Albarino asked easily in reply, seemingly unconcerned as he stripped off his shoulder holster, still dripping water, and then piling all the leather from his holster on top of it. The pile of leather, constantly dripping, would soak and deform the entire wooden floor, but neither of them seemed to really care about this.
Herstal looked down at Albarino, the other kneeling at his feet, soaking wet and undisturbed. His hair looked extremely dark after being soaked in the rain, his skin color underneath vaguely showing through his soaked shirt. He was certainly not foolish enough to think that this was a sign of weakness, and he also certainly did not think that he had the upper hand while the knife was still on the other's body.
Albarino's hand was still on his ankle. He followed along there and slowly, very erotically groped his hand up, uncertain whether his intent was as simple as his outward appearance, or whether he was searching him for any other hidden weapons: in any case, with his suit jacket off and only his shirt and vest left on him, it probably counted as an unobstructed view[2].
[2]一览无余, idiom, meaning taking in everything in a glance.
"When I first joined, I didn't know it was this kind of game." Herstal pointed out lowly.
"It wouldn't be more dangerous than hanging Bob Landon disemboweled on the wall. Besides, I thought you also found pleasure in this." Albarino looked up and said in a near innocent voice, the shiny blade resting just near his lower jaw, looking like a beam of light in the darkness.
Albarino's fingers looked like white larvae breaking out of their shells from the darkness. His fingers moved gently, his fingertips rustling against the fabric as they slowly crawled across Herstal's legs. Then, slowly, he moved his fingers towards the bulge between Herstal's legs, squeezing the heated fabric with the heel of his palm.
"A sadist, slaughtering others in revelry... right? That's what those profilers at the FBI would say." Albarino said briskly, "I don't know how you got started, but evidently, it's come to the point where you couldn't stop anymore even if you wanted to. You are driven by a passion which, to me, is unfamiliar and uncontrollable. From this perspective, you are more likely to make a false move compared with me."
His fingers were slowly unbuckling Herstal's belt, pulling the whole thing out. Herstal looked at Albarino, the reflected light from the blade illuminating the patch of skin right next to the corner of his lips, and let out an incredulous sneer.
"I'm afraid that the average person wouldn't assess the both of us this way, since all of what we're facing now was initiated by you," Herstal replied. This he said whole-heartedly: Albarino Bacchus' passion had emerged turbulently and quickly. Just think about it; it was only last month when he realized that Herstal was possibly the Westland Pianist, and then they have already developed to this step now.
Albarino smiled leniently. "But I know how to stop."
(Olga Molozer once said, "the Sunday Gardener is perfectly capable of stopping his crimes, but he just doesn't want to do so. He just doesn't care. You can imagine that, right?")
"By killing me to stop all this?" Herstal said mockingly. He didn't think that the things they were doing now – no matter what it was, he couldn't figure out what was going on in Albarino's utterly insane brain – could end in a peaceful way; what he was doing could never end peacefully.
Except Albarino was right: he, indeed, really couldn't stop.
Albarino also put his belt on the floor, holding the position which would make his legs numb, holding Herstal's hip bone.
"There are many ways – every way you can think of. Have some imagination," Albarino said slowly, inconspicuously[3] running the tip of his tongue across his lower lip, his mint green eyes filled with something dark and very invasive. "Ok, Mr. Armalight, if you put down this knife, I can lick your cock just like how I licked your fingers."
[3]欲盖弥彰, idiom, meaning the more one tries to hide, the more one tries to hide it the more one is exposed.
His word choice was far more obscene than Herstal's imagination – the mob lawyer had certainly seen many foul-mouthed people in his line of work, every one of them far more rude than Albarino – but he really didn't expect Albarino to phrase it like this so easily.
"With all your recent behavior – especially the provocation, which has been so intense, I've begun to suspect you of having a histrionic personality disorder, Albarino." Herstal said, seemingly with no intention of hiding the huskiness in his voice either.
"Don't act as if you don't want it by condemning me." Albarino smiled at him in return. "We all know the fact that the Westland Pianist has never sexually assaulted his victims, but that doesn't make him any less of a sadist, nor does it make him have any less paraphilic. That's a very clear, logical line of thought, isn't it?"
Albarino leaned forward and pressed his lips slowly against his crotch, moving in a debauched way to press his chin against the hard, hot bulge of Herstal's crotch – Herstal let out a short gasp warningly, mostly because he didn't realize that Albarino was going to make such a move in that moment. The blade of the knife hit Albarino's throat, leaving a small scratch on it.
It was a long, silent second as Albarino's lips circled the fabric of his suit trousers very suggestively, and began to lick the dark fabric wet with the tip of his tongue. As for Herstal, he gazed at the tip of the knife, which was still pressed tightly into the skin, a hint of blood slowly trickling down the blade.
"Think of that coyote, Herstal." Albarino's voice was buried in between the fabric, but Herstal still detected the cheerful amusement within. "In comparison, burying your hand in Bob Landon's chest is more sexually arousing to you, isn't it?"
He paused for a moment. The next words blew out between his lips like a whisper: "Or, you're saying that you would feel more pleasure when you stab that knife into my throat?"
In that instant, two things happened almost simultaneously –
The knife in Herstal's hand fell to the floor with a clattering sound, his hands tangling in Albarino's wet brown hair; at the same time, Albarino, with that provocative smile, gripped Herstal around his waist and unzipped Herstal's trousers with his teeth.
This was inevitably reminiscent of the night Herstal went to pay ransom to the kidnapper, when Albarino kneeled on the ground and asked, "Would you be a little more surprised if I unzipped your pant zippers with my teeth right now?"
– As matters stand now, he could answer: he wouldn't.
Herstal didn't feel very surprised. He wasn't sure if it was his subconscious telling him that if you mess with a psychopath like Albarino, things like this would always happen; or if something else had pushed the emotion of surprise out of his mind: mostly referring to Albarino's lips.
Albarino was suspiciously skilled at unzipping people's trousers, but, well, many people had said to Herstal that the man had a "rich nightlife". There was no telling how many times he'd done it before.
"Where's the HIV test you promised?" Herstal squeezed a sarcastic gasp from his throat. He was always able to have a contemptuous disregard in everything he did.
At the same moment, Albarino was loosening his grip so that Herstal's suit trousers fell naturally to his knees. He tutted, "Sarah didn't have AIDS, the autopsy report would have said so if she did – besides, last time I also said 'three dates' or something along the lines of that, and you just caught the AIDS line?"
Okay, so evidently the two of them were the type to talk about AIDS and Albarino's dead ex-girlfriend before having a hot and spicy blowjob. Albarino wanted to laugh as he busily reached out to unclip Herstal's shirt stays: god, there were three on each side, with the lower strap fastened on his thigh's black nylon rings. The contrast between the white skin and the black cloth was dizzying.
He unclasped them and let those straps continue to hang loose, swaying around Herstal's legs, his fingers pinching his legs testingly. The man must have been quite muscular, or he wouldn't have been able to pierce a man the size of Richard Norman onto a stake, but the flesh at the top of his thigh was still soft.
He didn't hide his obscene, toying attitude. Herstal's fingers entangled with his hair, slightly tugging on it, making him feel a sting of pain. Herstal's voice still sounded cold, as if his erect penis wasn't poking proudly at someone's nose through the fabric as he said, "You've already eaten far more than three meals with me long ago."
Albarino heard a bit of urgency in his voice, something Herstal would certainly not do normally, but apparently for a sadistic serial killer, a night of hunting like this was very... thrilling. He could even imagine the fanatical color in the other's blue eyes as he disemboweled his victim, so he smiled and clutched the other man's leg hard – hard enough to leave a bruise – and in between the other man's painful inhale, he pulled Herstal's member free from the bindings of the fabric.
Albarino looked up at the other again as Herstal tugged at his hair, his thumbs slowly raking across his cheekbones. The dark color in the Pianist's eyes was worth engraving in his memory, absolutely entrancing. Albarino removed the types of flowers in his mind, adding new entries in his notes; there weren't any suitable choices to fit this pair of eyes.
Then he took the tip into his mouth, slowly sucking it inside.
Albarino tasted the slight flavor of sweet and salty body fluids; there wasn't much flavor from the other's skin. He could tell from the arrangement Herstal's apartment and his office that this guy either had mysophia or OCD.
What enveloped him more was the smell of blood, emanating from Herstal's hands gripping his hair, emanating from the blood-covered cufflinks of his shirt. Pale white self-harm scars were enveloped beneath those fabrics, with also a teeth-shaped scar on this man's throat; the three piece suit's cautious form buried his secret – not every mentally-ill serial killer was like that at the beginning; Albarino knew this well.
Now, he tried to swallow it, carefully relaxing himself and retracting his teeth so as not to scrape the delicate skin on his shaft. This never felt very pleasant, especially during the process of fighting the gag reflex. It wasn't even a rational way to get close to a person's core.
But he could still see a passing trace of cracks across Herstal's mask of steel. In such deathly stillness, in this private moment, he finally allowed himself to release his natural instinct from his eyes: the monster which lay deep beneath his coat of human skin.
As he gazed down at Albarino's movements, the look in his eyes was shadowy but fanatical. It was the kind of expression aman who attacked, tortured and finally strangled his victim with a piano string would wear, like thunder and lightning and a river of dense blood.
The small, obscure watery sounds were all drowned out by the rain and the occasional muffled thunder outside. Albarino provoked the other with his gaze amidst the noise (but it was also eerily quiet at the same time); he wanted to see what would come out beneath that mask's cracks.
Herstal satisfied his curiosity somehow: the other pulled him by the hair, pushed his head forward hard and roughly fucked into his mouth. Albarino unrestrainedly pressed his nails into Herstal's skin, feeling the saliva slowly trickling down his lower jaw. Amidst the illusion of retching, he still took the other in his mouth deeply, the muscles of his throat tremblingly evolving the penis.
He satisfyingly forced a low growl from Herstal's mouth as Albarino moved a hand away from Herstal's hip bone, towards more intimate areas. He massaged his testicles and the soft muscles of his perineum, until the other uncontrollably thrusted forward, ejaculating inside his mouth.
Despite his mental preparation, he still choked on it a little. Albarino adjusted his center of gravity, sat on his numb ankles and swallowed the seed without a hitch.
He knew what he looked like now, not to mention the fact that those last few squirts had choked him so badly his tears nearly fell out. Albarino didn't mind looking at Herstal from beneath his wet lashes, nor did he mind showing the other man the curve of his neck or the movement of his Adam's apple.
He had too much provocation written into his eyes and the curve of his upturned lips, to the extent where Herstal definitely saw through him.
Herstal's legs were still shaking; he didn't even bother holding himself upright as he slid slowly down to the floor disheveled. He still had Albarino's hair in his hand and he yanked it roughly forward, the other crawling onto his legs while snorting, using this position to kiss Herstal's lips.
There was an obscene taste between their lips and the remains of the scent of blood. Herstal relaxed his fingers, running the tips of his fingers slowly through the half-dried curls of Albarino's hair. Then, he pressed hard against the back of Albarino's neck, pressing his lips onto the other's neck.
His tongue touched the shallow cut on Albarino's neck, his teeth scraping across the other's Adam apple, squeezing more droplets of blood out of the wound. A string of laughter emitted from Albarino's lips, the skin of his neck bobbing and quivering.
"Now, I'm wondering," his voice was muffled but cheerful, "if you could achieve the most earth-shattering orgasm of your life by actually shoving the knife into my throat."
"If you keep talking so much, I'll consider doing so." Herstal said dryly, his teeth biting his Adam's apple in the end as a punishment. "I think you've made things more complicated now, Dr. Bacchus."
As he said that, he separated the both of them. A large patch of red had spread on Albarino's neck; that wound seemed more terrible than before.
"Things in which aspect? Is it 'we're trying to kill each other', 'the serial killers are having a killing competition' or 'we're fucking'?" Albarino said smirking, kissing Herstal banteringly on the corner of his mouth without backing away immediately.
Herstal subconsciously held his breath.
"I'd be happy to sleep with you, Mr. Armalight." He said, lowly and cheerfully in the lawyer's ear, "but as for the Westland Pianist, he hasn't won me over yet."
Author's Notes:
1. Concealed carry permit:
In this story's setting, the state Westland City is in (I don't know which state it is), as long as you don't have a criminal record, you can legally purchase firearms. You can carry firearms around openly without a permit, but if you want to carry a concealed permit around you need additional training and tests.
Side note, open carrying firearms means that the three sides of a gun must be seen in clear view, you can't even hide a single corner.
2. In FBI's theory, multiple killings due to addiction is called "excited/spree killings" .
(Quoted from zhihu's article named A Lecture on Criminal Psychology: "Addiction Theory" Applied to the Explanation of the Addictive Killing of Serial Killers)
(T/N: Link to original article: https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/50619917. No idea what the original English is.)
3. Sexual perversion:
Herstal belongs to "sexual preference disorder" type out of sexual perversion (now called paraphilia), which basically defines as "satisfying one's sexual desire through methods normal people wouldn't use/wouldn't usually use/can't fulfil sexual desire at all".
4. The diagnosis of Histrionic Personality Disorder in DSM-IV is described as: a common pattern of being excessively emotional and attention-seeking, which arises from early adulthood in a variety of contexts, as illustrated by the following 5 aspects (or more):
Feeling uncomfortable in situations where you cannot be the center of attention;
Often having inappropriate sexual temptations or provocative behaviors when interacting with others;
Expressions of emotions changes rapidly and superficially;
Always using one's physical appearance to attract others' attention;
The style of speech is overly impressive and lacks specific details;
Shows self-dramatization, staging, and exaggeration of emotional expression;
Susceptible to suggestion, that is, easily influenced by othersor the environment;
Believe that their relationship with others is closer than it actually is.
(from Baidu Baike)
(T/N: I suggest googling for HPD on wikipedia for more info).
Now I must admit that I have played a part
In the way things have gotten out of hand
But it's escalated almost to an art