“How is she?”

“The same, Mr. Anguera.”

“Emma’s head isn’t covered any more.”

“No. She pulled the covers off after sunset.”

“But she was still unconscious?”

“Yes.”

“It’s been three days and two nights. What is the longest you’ve seen someone sleep?”

“People can be in comas for years and come out alive.”

“But my daughter isn’t in a coma. The brain-scan guy was very clear about that. How long can she stay asleep naturally?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen a case like this.”

“Jesus Christ, what happened to her?”

Miguel Anguera shed a solitary tear, looking down at his daughter. Her long, dirty blonde hair was starting to look in need of a wash. Emma was dressed in a hospital gown and her body was covered by a sheet. Her already petite frame had shrunk a little, having been fed intravenously for forty-eight hours. She was pale. A half-full urine bag hung by her bedside. But she was breathing naturally. She seemed, to all intents and purposes, to be, simply, asleep.

“Is there any change in Pep?”

“No.”

Miguel looked over at the neighbouring bed, where the boy lay out cold. His catheter bag had recently been emptied. As well as his other injuries, the poor boy’s tongue had been half bitten off.

“Have they been together long?” the doctor asked.

“No, they’re friends. In some ways, I’d be happy if they were an item. He’s about the politest lad I’ve ever met. Very sweet-natured guy. But they’re totally platonic, as far as I know.”

There was a moment’s silence. The doctor recalled the initial examination of the catatonic pair when they had been brought in by the ambulance.

The individual who had given it to Emma in her ass was far from polite, he thought to himself.

“If they were drugged, how long could that last?”

“Nothing that keeps you unconscious, but doesn’t kill you, stays in your bloodstream this long. Sometimes, a hospital induces a coma to prevent brain damage, but the medicine must be constantly drip-fed into the patient. And we have done brain scans. She is definitely not in a coma. All we can do is watch, and wait.”

*

Detective Barruz spent the afternoon examining the two phones. Emma and Pep had been together the whole evening. They’d started at her house. Both the location and the selfies told him they’d been putting on costumes. They’d gone to a party together at the student bar. Again, there were photos with various friends. At about one o’clock, the satellite location software tracked them out of the party and to an address that was not home to either of them.

Barruz scribbled down,

“After party? Drug dealer? Sex?”

The parents were adamant; Emma and Pep were not a couple. But the girl had engaged in anal sex, the examination proved that. And if they were doing it in secret, they could just have gone back to their University dorms together. Why go to this strange address?

So, they had hooked up with two other people, presumably. Or, one of them had pulled and the other had been invited for drinks? Could Pep have been cucked, and followed Emma like a lovesick puppy as she was led to bed by another guy? But why would she permit that?

Barruz tried googling the address, to find out who lived there. It was unregistered. She decided to go and check it out for herself.

The doctor stood over Emma as her body twitched on the bed. She was thrashing around, though she had not awoken or made any sign of consciousness. The doctor could only assume she was dreaming.

In the deepest recesses of Emma’s mind, the scene was replaying itself. She’d been swiftly won over by the tall, handsome young man on the dancefloor. He was well dressed for the occasion, rocking an expensive shirt and trousers, a long cape and his hair was slicked back.

Vlad’s hands had gripped her hips as they bumped together. During the next track, he’d kissed her.

“Life is short,” he said, his mouth close to her ear against the music, “Come home with me tonight.”

She’d made him wait half an hour to decide once and for all, but she’d agreed. She’d texted Pep to let him know he shouldn’t worry about her but, to her surprise, Josep emerged from the club at the same time with a girl on his arm. Emma remembered feeling awkward at meeting Pep on the way to do the deed, but she’d decided she wanted sex now, so she just nodded politely to him. Shyly, he nodded back.

“I see my sister has a companion of her own,” laughed Vlad, “Nastya, I’m bringing Emma back to my room. You’ll have to tone down the screaming tonight!”

Emma saw a grin spread over the girl’s face, and Pep’s eyes widened.

There were no pleasantries at the apartment. Both couples disappeared swiftly into the adjacent bedrooms. Vlad had a large double-poster bed. When Emma sat on it, she realised it was a waterbed, and the sheets were of pure, red silk.

Emma watched Vlad shed his cloak and his expensive, tailored white shirt. His torso was full, muscular and quite hairless. His leggings came down and, though he still had underwear on, the bulge in his trousers left her in no doubt that he was well-endowed. Emma felt his eyes on her as she pulled her dress up over her shoulders.

She unhooked her bra and rolled onto her side but, to her surprise, he did not get into bed with her. Instead, he walked around to the other side of the bed. She felt him climb on, and they spooned. Vlad’s right arm was placed under her neck, and he put his hand on it, his touch light. His left hand caressed her breast gently. Emma felt him brush her hair aside, then his lips pressed to the back of her neck.

“What’s your body count?” he whispered into her ear.

The question was so unexpected that she giggled.

“Excuse me, that’s not your business!”

Vlad took his hand from her breast, reached down and began to stroke her through her panties.

“I don’t ask to judge you. I don’t want a virgin. It turns me on, to picture a young woman at her most…alive.”

This was evident to Emma, as she could feel his cock growing hard against her panties.

“I’m sure you never looked more beautiful than when you were making love. How many men have had you?”

“How many men have…‘had me’? If you mean, how many guys have I chosen to go to bed with, the answer is four.”

Vlad was stroking her groin and layering kisses on her neck and shoulders.

“And you? What’s your…body count?” she asked.

“More than I can count,” he whispered into her ear.

This made Emma pause.

“Really?”

“Yes. And these four men. Did they…eat you?”

Vlad’s hands now gripped the elastic around Emma’s waist and pulled her panties down. She decided that he was just being playful with the Halloween double entendres.

“One of them did, yes!”

His fingers were touching her exposed flesh now, massaging her clitoris. His cock was pressing hard against her bottom. Emma wanted some kissing.

“Can I roll to my back now?”

“Not yet. One more question. Did any of your lovers take you…here?”

In a flash, his fingers were off her vagina and a finger and thumb were parting her buttocks. She felt the air around her sphincter, and then a brief tingle as he gave it a single stroke with the tip of his index finger.

“No.”

“Let me be the first. You only live once. Done properly, it is the experience of a lifetime.”

Emma chewed her lip a little. She had a friend who loved anal sex, but she’d never tried it herself.

“Maybe later.”

Vlad let her roll over. As soon as she was on her back, he went down on her. Emma felt his tongue drag up and down her pussy, punctuated with kisses to her mound and ten-second bursts of flicks from the tip of his tongue. She reached down and played with her nipples. Vlad, she had to admit, knew what he was doing down there.

Suddenly, there was a loud cry. Pep’s voice reached them through the wall.

“Oh, God!”

Emma giggled.

“Nastya is welcoming your friend to our home, it seems!” said Vlad with a chuckle.

“Well,” said Emma, as a joke popped into her mind,

“Her brother is Vlad, so she has to look elsewhere for someone to…impale ‘er.”

Vlad laughed, and his laugh was a deep, throaty laugh that, as it died down, could almost have been a cackle. He resumed licking Emma’s privates. She reached down and, with one hand, ran her fingers through Vlad’s hair. With the other, she ran her finger around her swollen clit, and Vlad’s tongue bumped against her digit, and a few minutes later, with a squeal and a shudder from her shoulders to her chest, Emma came.

Five minutes later, Emma went to the bathroom. When she returned, Vlad was sitting up in bed. He was still wearing his underwear.

“Did you think any more about my offer to relieve you of your anal virginity?”

Emma stopped short.

“Not really. I was going to offer to go down on you. You know, to return the favour.”

“A blowjob is an everyday act for ordinary people. Only the bold risk pushing boundaries to experience the most intense sensations life has to offer. In my long years of experience…,”

Emma wondered at this odd choice of phrase. Vlad was barely two years older than her.

“..., anal sex brings out the fiercest sensations in a woman’s body.”

From the next room, there came three shrill cries that could only have come from Nastya, and then Pep’s voice again,

“Fuck! Oh my fucking God!”

Emma heard them and wondered at what they were doing. But, clearly, there was a big gulf between the apparently wild sex next door and her own state, standing naked by the bed, not even having touched Vlad’s penis yet.

“Alright, but I want to use lube. And you have to stop if I don’t like it, ok?”

“Of course.”

Emma watched Vlad pull off the last of his underwear. It was only now that he was naked that she saw how pale he was, the skin across his whole body almost glowed, a pallid white. Looking at his groin, she watched his cock spring up, hardening rapidly. It was a good nine inches long, and thick.

“You’re quite…big,” she said, uncertainly.

“Yes. So you’re going to be in control. I won’t thrust. You sit on my cock and you can choose how deep it goes.”

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” Nastya shrieked from the next room, then there was a loud cry from Pep that could have been…pain. Emma listened in for a few seconds, slightly concerned. But the room had gone silent again.

“Don’t worry about them,” Vlad said with a smile, “My sister when she brings lovers home, has a habit of…loosening their tongues.”

Emma lathered generous quantities of lubricant around her asshole, and took to her feet. She squatted above Vlad’s big cock and pulled her buttocks open. She rested her sphincter on the tip of his cock and began to rub back and forth. It felt nice, she had to admit.

When she was ready, she stretched herself as far as she could and pressed down…it popped in, an inch or so deep.

“Oh!”

Vlad smiled. Emma gently lowered herself onto his shaft. Vlad’s cock inched gradually deeper. They’d made it to about five inches when he gave a hard thrust from below.

“Ahhh!” Emma cried, then clamped her hand to her mouth.

Vlad grinned. Emma pushed upwards, then sank back down.

“Isn’t that extraordinary, Emma? Don’t you just feel so alive?”

That was one way of putting it, she thought, feeling his cock go deeper as she lowered herself again. He was so hard. She was so hot for this mysterious man. And yet, having a big one in her ass was painful. There were no two ways about it. But it was a different pain from, say, toothache. Emma had to admit, it also felt good, feeling her insides explored, feeling her g-spot nudged. The perfect mixture of pleasure and the best kind of pain.

“Aahhh…ahhh…oh Jesus, what are you doing?” Pep’s voice reached her again from the next bedroom.

But this time, Emma was too wrapped up in her own experience to pay much attention. Vlad was thrusting into her now, and she could feel his penis stretch her skin, it was surely stretched as far as it could go without tearing irreparably. Vlad’s cock gave another jerk upwards.

Emma didn’t want her friend to hear her scream, but she couldn’t help it. She cried out aloud three times, once from the thrust he had given her, once from pulling herself back up his shaft so he was only three or four inches in. Vlad unexpectedly sat up, wrapped his arms around her chest from behind, and pulled her torso tightly to his. She suddenly felt his breath on her neck. There was another thrust into her bottom and then, almost imperceptible, a sharp, stinging pain to her neck, like a doctor’s needle. That prompted the third cry.

“What the fuck?!” 

“Just a nibble, a harmless love-bite. I’m going to come soon.”

Emma was a bit perturbed by a stranger giving her a love bite, but the sensation in and around her anus was far too intense for her mind to stay on her neck for long.

“Me too! Give it to me!”

Vlad did just that. His hips gave a jerk and Emma felt him drive up inside her, again, and again.

“I was right,” Vlad said, panting, “The way the veins on your neck are standing out. Your breasts are swollen and firm. Your brow is sweating. This is the most erotic moment of your life, the most beautiful you’ll ever be or feel!”

She felt his cock touch her g-spot. She felt a shiver of pleasure. She took a deep breath and made three more squats on his penis…

Emma came and, as she did so, she threw her neck back and exhaled deeply. Vlad was caressing her neck. She put her hand on his and, placing her fingers through his, felt the swelling bump of the bite mark as her skin responded to the wound…

Seconds later, Vlad came when he was about four inches up into Emma. She felt the spray of semen in her bowels. 

Five minutes later, Emma walked shakily to the bathroom, clenching her buttocks together, her stretched sphincter growing numb. She had tried it, she thought to herself. She hadn’t bottled out. It had been…fantastic, but definitely not something she wanted to make a habit of. As she was reflecting on her experience, the air was filled with a blood-curdling shriek of pain…

In Emma’s dream, she saw again Nastya’s door flying open and Pep staggering out, blood pouring out of his mouth. Tears were running down his cheeks and his eyes were wide with fear.

“She b…b…bit me, Em, she…”

There was a blue flashing light. Emma hadn’t called it. Who had? She was bent over Pep, who was lying out cold on the curb outside the flat. Emma had waved the ambulance down. It was during the ride to the hospital that she had passed out herself.  

And with that, Emma’s dream ended and her consciousness sank back into impenetrable darkness.

        *

Emma’s father, Miguel, sat at her bedside. Pep was thrashing around on his bed, and nurses had set up a curtain around him. Emma was lying peacefully there as before, her chest rising and falling. In the office at the end of the ward, Detective Barruz was consulting with the doctor.

Miguel rubbed his eyes wearily. He had to keep telling himself that, at least, his daughter was alive. And while she was alive, there was hope. He heard a door open and footsteps. The doctor joined him.

“Inspector Barruz visited the address that their phones showed they had been at. It was empty. No people. No furniture. Assuming Emma and Pep were visiting people, those individuals had made a midnight flit. The police will try looking at security cameras, but finding and identifying them will be difficult.”

The doctor watched Miguel close his eyes and sigh. The man looked terribly tired and pained. 

It was time for the coup de grace.

“Sir, there was one other detail. The police didn’t see the need to share it, but…”

“Please, anything. If there’s something relevant.”

“I’m not sure if it helps,” said the doctor thoughtfully,”

“Please. I want to know it.”

“When we examined them, we found that Emma had engaged in…vigorous sexual activity that night. From behind.”

“Oh,” Miguel said, looking down at his daughter.

“From our experience, all the evidence points to her having quite, as it were…enthusiastic anal sex with what can only be described as…an extremely well-endowed man.” 

Vlad watched the man’s face. Miguel mastered himself very quickly, but Vlad saw it. Just for a second, his features were contorted into an expression of revulsion and disgust. 

“We just thought you’d like to know.”

And with that, Vlad took off his stethoscope, looked down at his sleeping victims, and turned towards the office to enjoy his breakfast.