Murderous Passions

There was a fog upon Norrkoping as Herman climbed the stone steps of the cathedral, but the cold air seemed to come from far away, for the chill he felt was from deep inside the marrow of his bones. It was the first time he had come to visit his beloved Ernestine since her unfortunate demise two days prior - or rather, her cruel murder at the hands of Count Oxtiern. Ah, how vividly he remembered the joy in his heart when he'd come to collect her, just recently freed from the false bonds that Oxtiern and Madame Sholtz had created from him. He had rushed to Norrkoping with wings on his heart, his soul overflowing with happiness at the thought of once gain holding his beautiful lover in his arms - only to discover her life had been brutally stolen from her, her pristine body carved to ribbons by Oxtiern's sword... After this creature, whom Herman had trusted, even admired, had had his rival cast into irons and abducted his mistress - and for what? Only to cruelly murder her, not even to keep her from Herman, but only for his own morbid amusement?

Herman shuddered and tried to push the thoughts from his mind. Every time his brain went over the details of the insidious affair he felt his heart would burst. "Ernestine, my love..." he whispered aloud as he pushed past the heavy oak doors of the chapel, gazing upon the white-shrouded body atop the black velvet pall. He crouched before the alter on his knees, his breath shaking in and out of his lungs. "Angelic child... you never deserved this... If only I could have protected you...!"

With trembling hands he drew back the sheer veil that covered Ernestine's face, revealing the expressionless white mask beneath. Her lips looked so pale... He shuddered, tears threatening to overwhelm him. Slowly he slid the cloth down, down, down until her marble-like body lay nude on the black velvet before him. She was still beautiful, so beautiful in spite of the long purple-red gashes and stab wounds all over her, stitched with thick black thread. God, even her breasts - even her perfectly-formed breasts were marred with half-inch-deep slashes that criss-crossed over one another, though, Herman could not help but notice, Oxtiern had taken care not to damage the tight pink nipples.

The tears overflowed then like a torrent, and he made no effort to stop or conceal them, letting the droplets fall openly onto Ernestine's still body where they beaded and eventually ran down the curves of her ribs to absorb into the black cushion. He ran his fingers through her raven hair, across her satiny cheek, down the delicate jawline. She still seemed so familiar, so real, not cold and lifeless as he knew in his heart she really was.

"She's beautiful, is she not?" came a voice at his back. Herman started and spun around, the flow of tears ceasing purely out of shock. His surprise twisted into bitter hatred as he saw Count Oxtiern sauntering out of the shadowy recesses of the dark choir loft. He hadn't just arrived - he could not have crossed the room without Herman seeing him. He must have been there from the beginning, watching him with those evil grey eyes, leering at Herman as he knelt beside the beautiful, angelic creature that he had so cruelly robbed of her life.

Furious and feeling profoundly violated, Herman leapt to his feet. "What are you doing here, you fiendish brute?" he demanded, his face flushing with rage and hatred.

Oxtiern ignored him and walked languorously over to the opposite side of the pall. He gazed down at Ernestine's body with a serpentine half-smile. "She's even more beautiful now than she was in life," he said, almost affectionately.

"You," Herman snarled, his heart afire with rage and grief, "You did this to her!"

"Yes," Oxtiern said calmly. "I did this to dear Ernestine. I imparted to her this morbid beauty that no living creature could ever hope to possess - and let me tell you, my friend," here he bent forward over the corpse with a malignant smile, "doing so was enough to make me squirt like a geyser for a decade, at least."

"You devil," Herman choked out, seething with rage, "You monstrous villain...!"

Oxtiern smirked, his eyes flashing with sadistic pleasure. "Don't feel so bad, love," he said with a knowing smile. "She died with your name on her lips."

"You insidious bastard!" Herman roared, his heart labouring in his chest with the pain of love. He flew to the opposite side of the alter in an instant and seized Oxtiern by the lapels of his jacket. "I'll kill you, I swear it, you hideous brute, I'll tear your black heart from your chest!"

It was at this moment that Herman felt himself jerked back by unseen hands. Oxtiern, laughing, gestured behind his rival towards the twin statues of angels that stood on opposite sides of the doorway of the chapel. "Bind him - quickly," said he to the pair of beefy lackeys that had seized Herman and were now restraining him.

"Damn you!" Herman shouted, struggling to free himself, but the men were twice his size, and soon he found himself standing spread-eagled and bound with heavy ropes by his wrists and ankles between the two granite statues. He thrashed vainly in his binds, but the ropes had no give and only burned more deeply into the bare skin of his wrists.

"Leave us," Oxtiern said curtly to the men, and the two of them exited silently through the heavy wooden doors of the church, leaving Herman and the Count alone.

"What do you plan to do, coward?" Herman growled bitterly. "Tie me and stick me in the belly, like a dog? Are you too much of a worm even to duel with me fairly?"

Oxtiern laughed deviously at this. "Ah, you have me all wrong, my friend. It's not a duel with a foolish, lovesick knave I've come looking for." He smirked and looked down at the corpse lying on the velvet cushion. "One can find much more interesting pastimes in a place such as this... don't you think?"

A spasm passed through Herman's body as he began to realize what Oxtiern was about. "No," he gasped aloud, straining at his ropes in the vain hope that he might break free.

Oxtiern placed himself at the foot of the pall and ran his hand slowly up the cadaver's leg. He spread apart Ernestine's thighs and gazed with satisfaction upon her Venus mound, once as pink as a Spring rosebud, now a dusky blue-grey. He slipped his hand between her legs, fingering her dark pubic hair with a hint of a smirk. Fixing his eyes to Herman, Oxtiern squeezed Ernestine's breast, tweaking and pulling at the nipple, gliding his hand all along her ribs and belly while the other explored between her legs.

"Stop it," Herman gasped, his throat growing parched and tight. "Stop it, I say...!"

Oxtiern just laughed softly and moved to unbutton his trousers. With one hand still groping at Ernestine, he reached the other into his breeches and pulled forth his inflamed cock, as pale and smooth as an ivory sceptre.

"By God, you iniquitous beast," Herman raged, half-delirious, "if you touch her I swear I'll rip you limb from nefarious limb!"

But Oxtiern only smiled wickedly and climbed atop the platform between Ernestine's thighs, taking her unceremoniously by the hips and thrusting his prick into her cold and lifeless cunt.

The sensation of her cold body all around him sent a shudder of pleasure through Oxtiern's bones, and a simultaneous spasm of revolt through Herman, who was struggling not to wretch. His tears were flowing freely now but silently, and though he was appalled and sickened he could not tear his eyes away from the horrible sight.

As he began to rock his hips against the half-stiff corpse, Oxtiern fisted his fingers in Ernestine's thick black hair and pulled her body up thus wise so as to lewdly kiss her bluish lips, his tongue plunging deep into the clammy dankness of her mouth, devouring the taste of death.

"Vile creature!" Herman cried in a mixture of revulsion, hatred, and grief. But Oxtiern paid him no mind. His hands found the cadaver's bouncing breasts and he mauled them mercilessly, bucking his hips into Ernestine's body now with violent intensity. He raked his fingertips up and down the mangled dead flesh, as if seeking to feel every inch of that bloodless skin against himself. Now he glued his mouth to one of the deep gashes just above Ernestine's right breast, sucking the taste of old blood from the wound and pulling at the black stitches with his teeth.

Herman looked on in horror, bile pressing at the back of his throat but refusing to spill forth. More than anything he wanted to banish the hideous image from his brain forever, but still he could not bring himself to turn away. Had it been anyone else he would not have watched - but this was Ernestine, and there was no-one on Earth that he loved more than her... and using her, debasing her, defiling her was Oxtiern, that monstrous Oxtiern, and there was no-one who Herman more despised.

Oxtiern was well aware of this point. It was hard to say which pleased him more: the act itself, or the fact that Herman was being forced to witness it.

A faint gasp escaped the Count's lips as his ecstasy began to mount... The force with which he was now plundering Ernestine's most-mortem cunt caused her whole body to shake and flop luridly. Oxtiern's blood was boiling, his skin like fire, but all beneath him Ernestine's statue-esque corpse felt so cold, so unearthly cold. His long fingers encircled her pale throat and clamped shut, lightly at first but with fast-increasing violence, spreading dark purplish bruises through the white flesh almost immediately.

Herman watched the scene in a state of all-consuming abomination, his mind on the verge of coming unhinged. Oxtiern, nearly in a frenzy by now, gave his rival a sideways glance, smirking cruelly. "She fucks better now than she ever did when she was alive," he breathed, and then, with a strangled cry, and dragging Ernestine's ravaged body closer to himself, he squirted his wicked semen deep into the cold cavity between the cadaver's slashed thighs.

The final thread of sanity in Herman's mind seemed to snap then. Seeing Oxtiern, that vile dog, thrashing against Ernestine's dead body in the throes of ecstasy, spilling his filthy fuck inside her lifeless womb, was too much for him to cope with. He felt to shout, to tear at his restraints until the ropes or his limbs broke, but all he could do was stare wide-eyed at the scene, shivering, unblinking.

Oxtiern draped himself over the body as the orgasm ebbed off, panting with his chin hooked behind Ernestine's shoulder. After a moment he lifted his head to give Herman a self-satisfied smirk. "Well," said he," his voice pregnant with contempt, "how does it feel, dear boy? Twice over I've accomplished what you could not. She was a fine screw when she was alive... You would have enjoyed her... I might have kept her alive longer if I had not anticipated the allure the touch of death would add to the little whore." He laughed and separated himself from the corpse, leaving it dishevelled and bruised on the granite platform, his cum dripping between Ernestine's legs onto the black velvet.

Herman shook, shook uncontrollably, but not a single syllable would consent to pass his lips. Oxtiern, refastening his trousers, took up the veil that had covered the body in his fingers and walked over to where Herman was tied. "Go on, virtuous little snotface, dry your tears," he mocked, swiping at Herman's face with the silken cloth. "You know as well as I do you would have done the same thing... if you'd only had the guts."

Herman's lips trembled; finally he seemed to find his voice, though it emerged as a mere croak. "You're a monster."

Oxtiern smiled, not in the least perturbed. "Perhaps," he sighed, tilting his head. "...But no-one need ever know." And with that he drew forth his pistol and, taking aim between Herman's damp eyes, promptly blew his brains out.

The report of the shot echoed off the cavernous cathedral walls, drowning out the wet explosion of blood that splattered magnificently across Oxtiern's face. The Count drew a deep breath, rapturous, his cock already stirring again. "I know no pleasure greater than this," said he, licking Herman's blood from his lips.