Chapter 243 A Spider's Thread [R18]
Harker waited for those teeth hidden behind those thick, luscious lips to start devouring him just like the mother did.
Yet instead….
Xi Hua offered her hand to him. "Come. You have just been emptied, and I like my meals to be fulfilling. Let's eat."
Harker blinked slowly a few times, that piece of film in his eyes blurring everything slowly flaking off. He sat up from the bed with his hollow body, and took her hand.
Xi Hua led him down the stairs, while Miss Lovette remained in her room, sitting with her bloated stomach. She just smiled and winked at him.
Harker could only focus on Xi Hua anyway. Even without her intoxicating scent, he was drawn to her simply by the way she moved and spoke. That unexplainable charm that just made her so…. lovable. Much more lovable than her mother.
He was then led to the dining table. There were already several meals covered in silver dome lids, that cloche, he remembered.
There was also a butler waiting for him. He was wearing the general outfit, his long black hair tied up, and his green eyes shaped like two crescent moons as he gave a reptilian smile.
It was Mr. Xi, and his chest was hollow. Harker could see the outline of his own fist that plucked out his heart from him.
Mr. Xi pulled the chairs for them, not saying a word and just smiling.
"I don't know what you preferred the most. So I just took a little bit of everything you liked." Xi Hua told him, sitting prim and proper by her side. "I'm personally not picky. Man, women….. I don't care. As long as they're delicious, they'd suffice, won't you agree?"
Mr. Xi opened the first cloche.
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇt"Bouillabaisse a la Mina. Fish was fresh from the South China sea, a true treasure to be seen." He said with a flourish.
And sure enough, inside was a soup. But it also had the head of Mina, her eyes plucked out just like her sisters'.
Harker was then gripped by that same terror he felt that swirling tongue went inside him. His head hurt just by looking at this soup with his beloved's head.
He then opened the second one.
"The Seward family's best pie. Over-medicated, yes, but its still one of the sweetest and most thoughtful you'd find out there. Possibly because its wise beyond its years."
The skin used to lattice the pie's upper crust was obviously from Joan's face. They must have been torn off, cut into strips, and placed atop whatever filling that was with those strips.
Mr. Xi moved on to the next dish. "Moving on to the men menu. Here is some Faustian cake. It's rather bland, but once you cut into him, I'm sure you'd enjoy his painful screaming."
Sure enough, there was a chiffon cake inside, nice and plump. But Harker couldn't find any semblance of Roland in there. However, the moment he made a cut, blood oozed from it and it let out a heart-wrenching scream.
"Finally, we have some tartare from the mountains of Appalachia itself. You can season it with some guilt and regret."
The last dish was just a pure mash of raw ground meat, looking like a bunch of fleshy red worms twisting themselves into each other.
Xi Hua turned to him. "So…. Which one would you like?"
Harker stood up, but Mr. Xi kept him still. This time he could trash, but it actually felt much worse as he couldn't fight him off even though he was able to move. His long hair wrapped around his arms and legs.
"Let's try them all. Waste not, want not." Xi Hua then turned to him….
And forced him to eat all of it. These bloody meals. She and her father pushed it down his gullet as much as they could. Harker wanted to vomit many times, but as soon as he tried to retch, they would just shove some more Mina soup or Roland cake in him again.
Sometimes, Xi Hua would kiss him as if she was some good lover of his. She would feed him with a spoon, wipe his mouth, and lick the mess on his cheeks and chin.
Once everything was finished, she then sat on Harker's lap.
"Now it's your turn to feed me, Harker."
She whispered in such a sweet and savory tone more delectable than any food. But Harker had long lost his appetite, and he never had any appetite for this monster.
"Fuck you!" Harker said, spitting on her face.
Xi Hua just wiped it away and grinned. "That could be arranged."
She bit Harker's ear. And unlike her mother, she exhibited no restraints. She clamped hard with her teeth and tore off the flesh, and chewed on it as if it was beef jerky.
Harker yowled in pain. Mr. Xi remained watching in his schadenfreude as his daughter went to take small bites all over her poor victim.
She bit off his index finger's tip, some flesh on his collarbone, the skin off his knees, some from his chin...
And each bite was affectionate and intimate. Harker was disgusted and wished that she would just swallow him whole. Even he wasn't this sadistic when he ate Xi Hua. He knew she could just unhinged that jaw and take all of him, yet she chose not to.
Even during the sex, she would take very small nips everywhere. Harker continued to growl in anger while trying to get her off his dick, but the hair kept his arms restrained.
He can feel Mr. Xi's breaths above his head. And eventually, the bastard snake would even say things like:
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏm"Very good, Hua-Hua… You're doing him really well."
"Yes, try to struggle more just like that, Harker."
And once Xi Hua had her fill, she would pass him again to Miss Lovette. The whole family played with him and tortured him until he was completely broken, both physically and mentally. When neither women felt like playing with him, Mr. Xi would place him inside an empty fish tank where he kept the mermaids. There was no water, and yet….
Harker felt he was in a perpetual state of drowning.
He was left bleeding. A large chunk of his stomach and some of his ribs had been eaten up, all of his toes, two fingers missing in each hand, and much of his skin had been bitten at some point. They purposefully left his handsome face for last but still injured it every now and then.
The physical damage was nothing compared to his mental state, though. By this time, Harker could barely talk or do anything. Feel anything.
He just stared off into the ceiling from his fish tank, wishing that tomorrow would be the day he died.
There was a spiral of laughter traveling into his ear drums. That laughter was unfamiliar, but he knew it meant him harm, just like everything else around him.
The colors of his world oozed and dissolved into patterns that made his head hurt even without the constant pain he was in. He just wanted it to end. He just wanted to end himself, but he wasn't allowed to. Because death would be a reward after all this suffering.
Suddenly….
He saw a spider thread.
So thin, it's almost invisible at times. But when the light hits it the right way, it's unmistakable that it's there.
It dangled from the ceiling like a rope. A life line.
But he knew that taking it would just be the same. It's all the same, it's just like a puppet picking its own master.
Harker just stared at it for a while, given the choice to reach out and be the prey of something else….. or succumb to his misery here until he was given a merciful death.