Nina knew her dog was home by the smell of blood. Before she even heard her apartment door unlock and open, the coppery scent hit her nose. Then, the sound of heavy flesh dragged against the floor by nothing but the pull of a suit jacket.
“Mistress,” he said. “I’ve brought him to you.”
Serge’s French accent was velvet to Nina’s ears, and made her insides tingle. She was standing by the windows in her living room. Floor to ceiling, with a perfect view of the city.
“No witnesses?” she said.
“No, mistress,” he said. “I finished it at the warehouse. Quick and efficient.”
Nina smirked. Her dog was well-trained. It had been a long time since he’d given her any trouble on the job.
She turned on her heels to face him. Serge looked about as well as a man who just committed a hit could be. His dark clothes were stained with dark red, bruises and cuts from whatever scuffles brought the target down.
And there on the floor was the body, in a black bag, dragged by the scruff of its neck. It left a long, grimy trail from the door to the living room.
Nina approached Serge and brushed her manicured nails down the back of his head. Deep in his throat she heard a small, suppressed purr.
“Good puppy,” she cooed in his ear.
Serge dipped his face down to the crook of her neck. This close, he could smell her perfume—roses and jasmine. He wanted to nuzzle his face there, maybe plant a kiss on her shoulder. But he resisted. He knew what happened to anyone who tried to touch his mistress without her permission.
Nina seemed to sense his thoughts, because she smirked and scratched the back of his head some more.
“Does my good boy want a treat for his good work?”
Serge’s heart lurched and he nodded.
“Yes, mistress,” he said.
Nina smirked.
“Then kneel.”
Serge did as he was instructed. He lowered himself down until his knees hit the cold, steely floor. He kept his head angled down, but his eyes flicked up to Nina. She sauntered over to a tall cabinet, her high heels clicking against the floor. He was breathless just looking at her. Little Nina’s cruelty was matched only by her beauty. She had elegant features like a swan. But it masked the woman she really was. A woman who cut cock with rusty scissors and listened to men’s screams like they were violins.
She opened the cabinet and pulled out a leather bag. Like a Pavlov’s response, Serge hardened at the sight of it. He watched her set it down on a table and pull out her supplies, one by one. A leash. A wire cage muzzle. A leather harness with a nine-inch cock attached to the front.
Nina hovered her fingers over each item, as if trying to decide which to start with. She settled on the leash. Its silver chain rattled as she gathered it in her hands, then walked back over to Serge.
“Up,” she said.
In an instant, Serge was on his feet. Nina slipped her finger in the neckline of Serge’s shirt. Under the fabric, she curled her fingers into the ring of firm leather around his neck. She gave it a tug, and Serge grunted.
“Say it,” she whispered.
Serge was stiff as a board and taut as a thread pulled tight.
“I’m yours,” he said.
Nina grinned, then found the ring on the front of his collar and attached the leash. Serge immediately felt a wave of serenity fall over him. The life of a mafia killer was never a peaceful one, so he craved the moments of blissful powerlessness he felt when Nina collared him. He yearned for it, chased it, like an addict searching for his next high.
After the leash, came the muzzle. It was cold when Nina pressed it to Serge’s face and locked it around his head. This was the part where Serge felt the man in him slip away, replaced by some more primal part of him. A part of him that itched to crawl on all fours and growl.
Once Serge was ready, Nina gave his chain a sharp tug. He dropped down to the floor on his hands and knees.
“You follow me,” she said.
Nina guided Serge across the floor, pulling his leash along the way. Serge didn’t look at her, only stared at the red bottoms of her black high heels while she walked. It was hypnotic, and every time he found himself slowing, Nina pulled his chain to quicken his pace.
She brought him into the bedroom. From here, Serge knew what to do. He was her dog, and dogs were mounted and bred. He bent over the edge of the bed, legs spread far apart. He glanced over his shoulder to Nina as she approached her dress. She opened the bottom drawer and pulled it out: A harness of black leather with glinting metal hooks. On the front, a thick, girthy cock with silicone veins. Serge’s asshole puckered at the sight of it.
Nina stepped her nylon legs inside. Serge wished he could put it on for her. Pull the leather up her lovely legs, pull the straps through the hooks to tighten it, squeezing against the meat of her thighs. But Serge never touched Nina. Only she touched him.
Nina slathered the dildo with a bottle of lube from the bottom of the drawer. None left for Serge’s poor hole. His mistress wanted to make sure it hurt a little.
Nina stood directly behind Serge. She hooked both her hands into the waistband of his pants, under his underwear, then pulled everything down. Serge shivered as a cold breeze brushed against his bare ass and stiff cock. Nina took his hips in her hands, her nails piercing into his tender flesh.
“Time to whine, little puppy,” she purred.
With that, she promptly shoved her length inside of him. Serge let out a mangled groan as his mistress began viciously fucking him up the ass. Little Nina was not a gentle lover. She fucked like she killed, with biting ruthlessness. The bed springs sang under their combined weight as she fucked Serge deeper into the bed.
Serge moaned and whimpered with each violent thrust. The cock moved rough enough to hurt him, but it sent a wave of pleasure through him that was euphoric. She pushed deeper up inside him, forcing his hole to expand to accommodate the silicone girth.
“Fuck…” Serge whimpered. “Mistres, I…
Nina clamped a hand over Serge’s mouth as she bucked her hips deeper into him.
“Dogs don’t speak,” she hissed.
He did as she commanded. He grew crosseyed with pleasure as she fucked him untill his cock started to leak. She released his hair and clawed her long nails down his back, sending sparks of pain over his scars.
Then, Nina snatched her hand into Serge’s hair and pulled his head back. Serge croaked, his back arching as pain seared over his head.
“I should fuck you until you’re dead,” Nina whispered in her ear. Her tone was uncannily sweet. “As dead as that dealer I asked you to kill.”
A weak smile crept onto Serge’s mouth.
“Yes,” he breathed. “Except I’m helpless…no knife to defend me…”
Without even seeing her face, Serge could feel the smirk leave Nina’s face.
“A knife?” she said. “You didn’t come back with a knife.”
She paused her movements but stayed inside him. Serge’s cock twitched, so close to relief, if only Nina just moved her hips one last time.
“No, I…” Serge gritted his teeth and pursed his lips. “I dropped it.”
As soon as he said the words, the temperature in the room starkly dropped. Nina clasped a hand on Serge’s throat from behind.
“Dropped where?” she hissed.
Serge swallowed, as best as he could with her hand on his throat. He couldn’t lie to her. She could smell lies on him like the blood on his clothes.
“As I was leaving the warehouse,” he said. “I heard someone once the fucker was dead…and I needed to get away fast…”
“Why?”
“Because…” Serge winced as she tightened her grip on his wine pipe. “I heard someone outside. Voice and footsteps outside the warehouse walls.”
The air itself felt poisonous. Nina’s icy breath was right at his ear, and Serge became hyperaware of the sharp teeth behind her dark lipstick.
“You said no witnesses…” she said, in a voice that could freeze lava.
“No one saw the kill itself,” Serge said. “The guy was dead in the bag. I got away before they could see my face.”
“And you dropped your weapon in the process.”
Serge squeezed his eyes shut, unable to look at her. Shame filled his stomach and dread coated his body.
“I’m sorry, mistress…” he said. “It was all I could do in the moment. I promise, I had on gloves, the knife won’t have fingerprints. I swear it—”
Suddenly, a hot, sharp pierce of pain met Serge’s shoulder. He released a throaty cry as his whole body shook against the pain. It wasn’t sharp like a blade. No, it was fiery. Serge looked over his shoulder. Nina had a lit cigarette in her hand, a box of them in the other. She took a drag, then pressed it right on his spine.
Serge cried out, tears welling in his eyes. Nina watched with cold, quiet disdain as he squirmed beneath her. One by one, she lit each cigarette in the box, took a drag, then pressed it to Serge’s back. Each time he cried in pain until he was weeping. His back was spotted with burn marks. All the way, she kept her cock inside of him, refusing to move, refusing him any relief.
When she was down to just two cigarettes, Nina heard Serge’s voice crawl from his throat in something other than a cry.
“Trying to speak, you useless shit?” she said.
“Vin…cashal…” Serge whimpered.
Nina tossed the box of cigarettes aside, grabbed the leash, and yanked it back until Serge’s burned back was arched again.
“What?” she hissed.
“Vincent Cassel,” he warbled out. Then again, louder. “Vincent Cassel!”
Nina gritted her teeth, and yanked herself out of him. Serge was left trembling on the bed, his cock still painfully hard, and his body aching all over. He wanted to rub the painful burn spots from his back, but he couldn’t reach. Nina dropped the harness from her hips, too angry to even look at him.
“Up, now,” she commanded.
Serge whimpered off the bed and slipped his clothes back on. It was awkward to move with his erection still stiff and he struggled to button and belt his pants back on.
“You will return to that warehouse,” she said. “You will clean up every drop of evidence you left behind. You will find that man in the window, and you will kill him and anyone he may have told. Then, you will clean him up too.”
“Mistress…” Serge whimpered.
“And if you come before then, I will hang you from a hook and slit open your throat like a little piggy. And you’re a dog, not a pig, right?”
Serge trembled all over. He could barely think, let alone carry out a task. But he knew Nina enough that the line between hyperbole and real threat was a thin one. Evidence meant they could get caught, and Nina took care of anyone who was useless to her with deadly efficiency.
“No…mistress…” he whimpered. “I’m a good dog…”
Nina approached the table where her black bag stood. She rummaged around inside, and pulled out two objects that made Serge’s eyes widened. One, a black butt plug. The other, a wall metal cage.
“No…” Serge begged. “No, no, no, please, no—”
Nina swiped Serge’s chain off the floor and gave it a harsh yank. He whimpered against the pain tugging him closer to her feet, and his face fell to the floor right at her shoe.
“Bad doggies get put in cages,” she told him. “You’ve always known this to be true, right?”
Serge whimpered at her foot. His cock was leaking inside of his jeans. Fear and arousal swirled like a toxic cocktail inside of him.
“Yes, mistress…” he said.
“Do you want to be a good doggy? Show your mistress that you’re not completely useless?”
“Yes, mistress. I do.”
Nina pointed to the door.
“Then get off your knees and finish the job I told you to,” she said.
Serge rose to his feet on shaking legs. Even in dark denim jeans, his cock tented the front of his pants, a wet stain on the front that made it look like he’d pissed himself. He walked out the door and saw himself out.
~
Serge was gone for several hours. In that time, Nina ate dinner then settled on the couch with a glass of wine. Sometime close to midnight, she heard footsteps outside her door.
The door bumped open and Serge stumbled inside. He looked even worse than he did the first time he came back, albeit cleaner.
“Is it all done?” Nina asked.
Serge trembled like a kicked dog, and his voice did too.
“Yes…mistress…” he said.
“All potential witnesses taken care of? All evidence scrubbed from the floors?”
“Yes, mistress. All of it. I…I promise.”
On another day, Nina would have thought the shake in his voice was a sign he was lying. But she knew it was because his cock was hard to the point of arching pain and the metal on it wasn’t helping. She smiled and tapped her long nails against her wine glass.
“Good boy,” she said. “Now that you’ve properly done your job, I suppose you get your little treat now.”
She crooked a finger to beckon him closer. Serge lowered himself down to his hands and knees and crawled towards her. He kneeled at her feet and lifted those soft, dark eyes to her. Nina set her wine glass aside.
“Pull your pants down,” she said.
Serge was already unbuttoning his jeans before she could finish her command. He reached his pants and underwear down in one pull, shivering as a cold breeze met his caged cock. Nina chuckled at the sight of it. It was bright red and pulsing against the steel bars of the cage.
“Thank god no one cut your dick off while you were gone,” she said. “You’d have no blood left in your body.”
Serge would’ve blushed if he had any red left for his face. Her laughter was cruel velvet in his ears. He held still as Nina removed the necklace from her neck and used the key to unlock it. Serge gasped as his cock was finally free. The thing immediately started leaking aggressively onto the floor.”
“You’re making a mess,” Nina said. Her voice was an icy scowl. “This is an expensive rug, you know. It’s an antique from Moscow.”
Serge couldn’t find words to respond. He could only squirm and try not to whimper as his abused cock begged for release.
“You filthy, pathetic mutt,” Nina hissed. “Useless and stupid, staining your worthless seed all over my home.”
Serge squeezed his eyes shut. His hands gripped his thighs with pale knuckles. He needed to touch so badly, but he knew that Nina would have his head if she did.
“I’m sorry, mistress,” he whimpered.
“Don’t waste your already pointless breath with ‘sorry.’” Nina lifted her skirt and extended a leg between Serge’s thigh. Black nylon and black heels, strong but soft flesh underneath. Serge thought his mouth would start leaking like his cock. “Finish yourself, so I don’t have to look at you for the rest of the night.”
Serge swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he did. He leaned his head down until his face was nearly at the floor. Then, he pressed a chaste kiss to her foot. Then, to her ankle. He collapsed one hand under her shin and another under her knee. He kissed up her leg, slowly, savoring the feel of the nylon on his lips. Her cold flesh just under the fabric made him shiver and ache.
He pressed his cock against her leg, then gripping her with both hands, he started moving his hips. Serge released an almost pained, shuddering breath. After hours with a demonic erection and wires to contain it, the rush of pleasure up his body could have sedated him. He whimpered and grunted with each pathetic thrust against her leg.
Nina watched him with a look of cold bemusement. Her fiddled her nails on top of it his head while he debased himself at her feet.
“You should be grateful I allow you to touch me at all,” she said. “Given your lackluster performance today.”
Despite her frustrations with him, Nina couldn’t deny that begging sounded sweet on Serge’s French tongue. She had trained and conditioned him well. As obedient and broken as a dog shown love after a lifetime of kicks. So helpless that no amount of cruelty could make him turn from her.
Her dog was getting close. She caught the way his breath quickened, how his moans turned to desperate, high-pitched whimpers. Nina swore she even heard a canine whine deep in his lovely throat.
“Please…” Serge begged. “Please, mistress…please let me…”
Oh, how adorable. Even after an evening of torture, Serge refused to finish without her permission. She had trained him well and Nina felt a small beam of pride. But she wouldn’t show it on her face. Not tonight.
She spread her hand over his head, sinking her long nails into his scalp until he could feel pain.
“Cum for me, little puppy,” she said.
Her words were enough to send him over the edge. Serge viciously humped her leg until everything spilled out of him at once. The spill just missed her leg, dripping onto the floor instead. Serge pressed his face into Nina’s thigh just above her knee, eyes squeezed shut against the sharp climax of pleasure. His hips kept moving even after he was done. He didn’t want to stop. He wanted to stay at her feet forever.
Finally, Nina kicked him off her leg and stood up. She smoothed out her skirt and examined her leg. Nothing got on her nylons or shoes, but the carpet was a mess. She looked at the white dribble on the floor.
“I want you to clean that before tomorrow morning,” she said. Nina turned on her heels and started walking towards her bedroom, leaving Serge a mess on the floor with his limp cock between his legs. Nina stopped at the doorway, and glanced over at him.
“When you finish cleaning it,” she said. “You will be sleeping in here tonight. On the floor.”
She disappeared into her bedroom. Serge looked down at the mess on the carpet. Then, he saw the indent in the sofa where Nina had been sitting. He scooted closer to the leather cushion, then pressed his face into it. It was still warm from her body heat and even smelled like her.
He nuzzled his face into the warm leather, imagining her lap against his cheeks, her fingers in his hair. He whimpered into the smooth leather.
[No, you haven't missed anything -- I am once again posting out of order for reasons.]
At the top of the Blogtober hour I confessed that I sometimes have a juvenile reaction to movies that have generated too much hype, whether or not that hype is actually deserved. It is probably for the same neurotic reason that I may feel an excess of affection for movies that I discovered without anybody's help, and for which I remain the world's only champion (as far as I can tell, anyway). BANSHEE CHAPTER is one of those rare movies that feels like it's "mine," though I'm not selfish enough to keep it a secret!
This indie mind-bender starts its life as a found footage flick that scaffolds its sci-fi premise with the realities of the CIA's drug-fueled MKUltra program...and then it gets crazy. Wannabe documentarian James Hirsch (Michael McMillian) records his own experience with DMT-19, the psychoactive substance used in the government's grim experiments, and the results shock both his cameraman AND the audience -- if you're me, at least! BANSHEE CHAPTER'S terrifying opening salvo is stunning in and of itself, but it does nothing to prepare you for the movie's sneaky breakaway from the found footage format, nor its slide into the always-dicey horror-comedy mode. This may sound frankly awful on paper, and writer-director Blair Erickson certainly takes some ill-advised swings, but the fact that BANSHEE CHAPTER remains engrossing and frightening throughout is truly impressive.
James' disturbing disappearance alarms spunky girl reporter Anne (Katia Winter), an old classmate who follows the trail of his DMT-19 dose to its surprising source: Counterculture hero Thomas Blackburn, AKA obviously Hunter S. Thompson, AKA Ted "Eat My Shit, Johnny Depp!" Levine. When Blackburn finds out the hard way that DMT-19 doesn't trigger an internal trip, but actually attracts hostile alien lifeforms, he joins Anne's mission to expose Project MKUltra as something much worse than a mind control experiment. Did I mention that this is loosely based on H.P. Lovecraft's "From Beyond"?
There's so much going on here that shouldn't work. It's tough to transition from a straight found footage format, into something you slowly realize would be impossible within the bounds of that subgenre; I don't feel sure whether this was a playful experiment on the filmmaker's part, or if he simply lost control of his movie. It's also dicey to transform your legitimately frightening mockumentary, into some sort of gonzo black comedy -- and while almost all celebrity impressions are cringe-inducing, Hunter Thompson is a particularly hard target. Ted Levine is really pretty good, though, and more importantly, Blair Erickson, DP Jeremy Obertone, and editor Jacques Gravett REALLY know how to scare you. A movie this zany has no business being as harrowing as it often is, and yet here we are!
The hardest part of the movie for me is Katia Winter's characterization of Anne, and I must admit that I cheat a little bit by imagining that I'm watching a slightly different movie. In the real story, Anne is presented as a plucky, ambitious investigator whose drive and intelligence are supposed to impress me, even though she's always making a dumb choice and she's always dressed a little too sexy to be professional. James was never more than a friend, but now that he's in trouble, she imagines a romance that could have been, which is none too compelling. So, I tell myself that this is a more knowing and sardonic movie than it actually is: In my version, James is a brilliant young man who had been friendzoned in college by Anne, an intellectually inferior vanity case (I mean, this "writer" has to have it explained to her who Hunter Thompson is??) who didn't deserve him anyway. She hasn't thought about him in years because she really didn't care, but his mysterious disappearance lends her humdrum life a sense of dramatic meaning, and it just might kickstart her non-existent journalism career. I don't think the actual script is in any way critical of Anne, but these unpleasant characteristics are on offer if you're looking for them. I constantly had the feeling that I knew this person: a shallow, untalented young woman whose only real virtue is her looks, and she might secretly know that, so she gloms onto someone else's tragedy in order to achieve a sense of personal significance, and she even imagines loving him now that there is absolutely no threat that she'll have to actually be with him. If you've seen this movie before, or if you're a first-timer and you find yourself getting frustrated with Anne as the protagonist, just watch it my way and see if it doesn't help!
Anyway, while I can't pretend that BANSHEE CHAPTER is a great work of art, I might enjoy it so much precisely because it somehow survives all of its seemingly-bad choices. It's hard to take your eyes off it since it's so unpredictable, and while you'd think that the comedic interludes would completely deflate any sense of suspense, they do not! BANSHEE CHAPTER is bizarrely frightening in spite of itself, and that makes it just-as-bizarrely charming.
When Serge was 14 years old, he dropped a glass. His father told him to kneel in the shards and not move until he said so. Little Serge did not shift an inch, not even after his father left to get drunk and pass out in the whorehouse. Oh, please, don’t cry for Serge, he likes to be told what to do.
