Gerlinde.”
“About what?”
“Subtlety is not her forte.” He turned towards Jeanette.
“Perhaps instruction in one of your arts, my love, l’art de plaisir.” He kissed his wife and left the room.
“Julien’s got a point,” Jeanette said to the others.
“What’s that?” Carol asked, her voice saturated with apathy.
“Well, if André wants you for a lover, why don’t you start with that?”
“Terrific idea!” Gerlinde yelled. She jumped to her feet and said, “Come on,” dragging Carol up. The redhead waved for Jeanette and Chloe to follow.
“I have something to do,” Chloe told them.
Bordeaux. “What a mess.” Gerlinde tugged at the ends of Carol’s hair. “You wash, I’ll cut,” she told Jeanette.
“You’re going to do my hair? My life’s on the line and this is your solution? A haircut?” Carol felt disappointed.
“A new ‘do’ works wonders for a gal,” Gerlinde laughed, dancing her way into the bathroom, dragging Carol behind.
While Gerlinde cut her hair, Jeanette gave her a manicure and pedicure, painting her finger and toe nails with a bright red polish.
“You two are crazy. This is the most ridiculous scheme I’ve ever heard.”
“It’s not ridiculous at all,” Jeanette said. “André’s very physically oriented. He’s like Julien in that way. In a couple of other ways too.”
“This is so typical. First you want me to ‘understand’ him and now you want me to seduce him. Women have been doing this for thousands of years.”
Carol’s hair straight down to check that the cut was even.
“But it’s so devious. And so unliberated.”
“Yeah, yeah, this probably won’t get you any votes. If you want to keep André from decapitating you, vamping him just might do the trick.”
“And it’s not devious,” Jeanette said. “I think André trusts what comes through the body because he can understand it.”
“Talk to the neurotic in his own lingo, right?” Carol smirked.
When her hair was nicely shaped to frame her face and they’d made her up to accentuate her best features, they stripped Carol and Jeanette applied a drop of Obsession between her breasts saying, “Just a touch.” She wiped most of it away with a tissue. “Our sense of smell is finely tuned.”
Carol submitted to it all but secretly thought it was a complete waste of time.
“What’s she gonna wear?” Gerlinde asked. “My stuff’s probably too small and too weird.”
“Be right back,” Jeanette said.
“Gerlinde, do you really think this will make any difference?” Carol asked.
“It might not help but it can’t hurt, as any vampire granny will tell you.”
“How reassuring.” Carol sighed.
When Jeanette returned she was carrying a lime green satin negligee. “If it was blue it would bring out your eyes. But I bought it for my eyes.” She slipped it over Carol’s head. The nightgown was far too long and hung from her like a discard at the thrift store.
Carol giggled.
“We’ll cut it,” Jeanette said. “Hand me the scissors.”
“Don’t do that, it’s too nice!” Carol told her.
“I’ve got lots more. And this is an emergency.”
Jeanette snipped the spaghetti straps and tied them into big bows. The dress was still too long so Jeanette cut the hem by several inches.
The two vampiresses stepped back to look at their handiwork. “Pretty close to perfect!” Gerlinde cried.
“Lovely,” Jeanette added.
“I don’t look bad, do I?” Carol studied herself in a full-length mirror. She hadn’t bothered about her appearance in years. “Now what?”
“Go get him.” Gerlinde gnashed her teeth.
“Just like that? Anybody have a chair and a whip?”
Jeanette turned her towards the door and Gerlinde opened it.
Carol sucked in her lower lip. “I don’t know...” They gave her a shove out and then each took an arm and led her down the steps to the kitchen, stopping at the basement door.
Gerlinde said. “Don’t talk about Friday, or the ritual. Better yet, don’t talk at all.”
“And I have something to suggest too,” Jeanette said. “I don’t know what your sexual relationship has been like up until now, but this would be a good time to let your own passion lead the way, know what I mean?”
“Not at all.”
“It’s called seduction,” Gerlinde said. “You used to be an actress, you can figure it out.”
“But you can’t fake it,” Jeanette warned. “It’s got to come from the heart.”
“Well, maybe an organ a bit lower down,” Gerlinde grinned.
Carol made her way nervously down to André’s room. When she entered it was pitch dark. She turned on the little light over the bed. André sat in the same chair by the fireplace as he had the previous night, only this time there was no fire. The room was cold, dismal. He did not turn around.
Carol chewed on her lower lip, tasting lipstick. He’s instigated all the sex we’ve ever had, she thought. This is so new to me. I’m not sure what to do.
She closed her eyes and took in long slow breaths, imagining air traveling down past her lungs, into her stomach and lower, swelling her genitals. She tried to relax and get some energy circulating there so she could find an erotic wellspring from which to draw. The theater exercise made her think back to years ago, to the plays she’d been in back at college and then at the amateur theater in Philadelphia. She had never been cast as a lead. The roles she’d usually auditioned for and gotten were bland, secondary parts like Cathleen in Long Day’s Journey into Night. But once, in acting class, she’d played out the first scene in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The class had been amazed by her performance. She always thought she could have played out the sultry Maggie, all the way.
When she opened her eyes, she felt a little clearer and a little horny. Her nipples pressed against the smooth cool satin. An electric current zipped through her body, one she remembered from a few occasions on stage when things clicked and she and the character had melded.
Without looking at André, she went to the fireplace and knelt down. First she arranged sticks and paper and lit them. She watched until they caught fire, trying to keep her mind concentrated on what she was doing. As the fire got going, she added a couple of branches then two logs, propped against each other. Soon warmth and the sweet scent of red cedar enveloped her.
She turned slowly, sensuously. André was watching her. He looked haunted, his face torn by worry and doubt. His legs were stretched out on the footstool and one elbow rested on a chair arm, propping up his head. Carol made her way to his chair and knelt by the side of it. She had never seen him so unconfident, so forlorn. In some ways she found it appealing.
“Where’d you get this?” he asked, flipping one of the bows with his finger.
“Jeanette.”
His hand went back to holding his head up and he sighed.
“They suggested you try to seduce me?”
Carol said nothing.
“It won’t help. Nothing will help.”
She moved to the front of the chair, he watching her all the while. Don’t get sucked into this negativity, she told herself. Rather than pay much attention to him, she focused on her breathing, taking the air in as deeply as she could, letting this wanton seductress energy fill her. A tingle spread through her labia.
Her hands moved of their own accord. She unzipped his pants and held his penis. It was flaccid but she rubbed it from side to side then up and down and it firmed a little. Touching him aroused her.
“It’s too late,” he said. “Tomorrow night, then Friday and that’s it.”
Don’t get into it, she told herself—stay in character. She smiled. “Well, since we’ve only got two nights, we’d better make the most of it.”
She untied one of the str
aps on her nightgown and the fabric fell away from her right breast. His eyes travelled there. Carol straddled his knees and rubbed herself against them, all the while breathing, undulating, working herself up. She let the other strap fall from her shoulder. Then she pulled his shoes, socks and pants off. He removed his own shirt.
When he was naked and firm enough, Carol sat on top of him, bringing him into her warmth. She moved up and down and at the same time rocked back and forth with her eyes closed, feeling him in her. André’s hands began to caress her body and he brought his lips to one of her nipples. The direct link between her breast and vagina stunned her; she couldn’t stop moaning.
Her head snapped back, her body quivered and a deep throaty sound welled out as the sensations overwhelmed her.
Carol felt moist, dreamy, filled with passion. She pulled his lips to hers and kissed him hard and sloppily. And then she looked him in the eye. “Take me to bed!”
The next night André whispered to her in the dark, “Wait here for me. I won’t be long.”
While he was gone, Carol made herself breakfast and chatted with Michael in the kitchen. Afterwards she showered, fixed her hair and applied makeup then got back into bed and waited. She had no idea if this would make any difference, but she felt wonderful. She had never experienced her body as so fully alive; she lived in each cell and each cell called out, wanting. And for once she didn’t feel weak.
When André returned, he undressed quickly and joined her in bed, easing up her body, entering her slowing, making love to her passionately again and again, like a condemned man, desperate to savor his last meals.
Well after midnight he started to talk.
Completely out of the blue, without any prompting, he said, “You’re different than the others.” His head rested in her lap. She ran her fingers through his hair, remembering Gerlinde’s advice. Carol let him talk.
“I knew Anne-Marie when we were children. We grew up together. And then she became my paramour. She was so beautiful. Blue eyes, dark hair that curled around her face when we made love. She had the warmest smile. Sweet. Vulnerable. Shy. Alluring. After I changed I told her, of course. She begged me to change her. I wanted her, more than I’d ever wanted anyone. But she had become afraid of me, afraid of what I’d turned into, and I didn’t see it in time. When I tried to take her blood she struggled. And then she begged me not to kill her. She looked at me as if I was a monster, something she not only feared but despised. I became angry. I’ve been over it and over it in my mind. I don’t know what happened. I lost control.”
Carol massaged his face with her finger tips. The muscles were tense. She hung on every word, trying to understand.
“Sylvie I met in 1946. Karl, David—a friend of ours, like us—and I lived in New York then. Sylvie was visiting from France, visiting relatives. She was pretty, earthy, her feet more on the ground than Anne-Marie’s. But she had the same dark hair and light eyes, eyes that I could see my soul in. Nearly twenty years had passed. I’d grieved over Anne-Marie. I wanted to love again. She said she understood what I was. But when it came to the blood the same thing happened. She pulled back, became hysterical. I was a monster and she tried to escape. It enraged me. And it wasn’t just her words. I could feel her resisting me. I started seeing her as my prey instead of my lover. And when she begged for her life, just like before, I lost myself. I lost her. I swore I’d never try it again; I’d never let myself get that close. It’s all so long ago but it’s like yesterday to me.” He sighed.
“The blood’s hard to give up. We resent giving it up. It’s painful physically, but I can cope with that. But I should have been able to do it. Others have. I don’t know. Maybe I’m kidding myself. Maybe it runs in the family.”
She wanted to ask him what he meant but was afraid he might shut down. Instead, Carol bent and kissed him on the lips. He pulled her down until she was on top of him then he flipped them both over and penetrated her.
Later, before morning, he told her about his parents. “I know I loved them, but I don’t really remember them,” he said. They had been face to face but he turned onto his back and lay an arm across his eyes. The corners of his mouth angled down and she had the feeling that each word was a struggle. Michel’s age I was used to being parentless. They were gone, and only three of my brothers were still living. Chloe took my father. She was his sister.”
Carol was shocked.
“The way it works with us is that it’s a chain—we’re linked, one to the next, so it’s as if we’re all related. Chloe was formed by someone she didn’t know and hasn’t seen since, a chance encounter one night. We think he’s the same one who changed Karl and our friend, David. But it doesn’t matter because we feel each other. When one of our kind dies, each of us experiences the death, even if we’re not present.
“My father insisted Chloe change him. It was just after my fifth birthday. I remember the cake my mother baked for me. It was the last one. Anyway, my father talked Chloe into it—he was handsome, beguiling, and because he was the youngest, as I was, he had always been like a baby to her and she loved to indulge him. He contracted tuberculosis and knew he was going to die soon.
“Chloe says women found him charming. But he loved only my mother and once he had altered, naturally he tried to change her. From what Chloe tells me, my mother reacted the same way as Anne-Marie and Sylvie. To make a long story short, he failed. After he destroyed my mother he destroyed himself.”
“How?” Carol managed to ask.
“My father chained himself outside in a field in such a way that he couldn’t escape the sun and he couldn’t get food. It must have been a very painful death. Chloe says it took six days of frying and starving to finish him off. But I think he wanted to suffer because of the guilt. If I’d had the guts I would have done the same thing.
“Chloe brought me up. When I was thirty seven I asked her to change me because I’d lived in her world and by then I could see the advantages. It probably blinded me; I’ve never been able to figure out why mortals can’t see the possibilities. And she was the only real family I knew. She refused at first but I talked her into it. I guess I’m like my father. In a lot of ways.”
He looked at Carol and for the first time she saw what the angry defensiveness hid. His sadness and loneliness were the heartbreakingly vulnerable face beneath the mask.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” he said. “There’s an old Indian legend—it’s common, I’m sure you’ve run across it. About the scorpion that asks the frog to take him across the river on his back. The frog refuses, afraid the scorpion will sting him to death. But the scorpion argues very convincingly, ‘Don’t be ridiculous. If I do that we’ll both drown.’ Finally he persuades the frog. Halfway across the scorpion suddenly stings the frog and they both start sinking. Naturally the frog feels betrayed and with his last dying breath wants to know why? Do you know what the scorpion tells him? ‘Because it’s my nature.’
“I don’t want to kill you but I don’t know if I can do anything else. They’re stretching this over three nights.” He laughed humorlessly. “I can’t even do it in one.”
He turned towards her. Gently he took her face in his hands and caressed her cheekbones with his thumbs. A look filled his face, a look she could finally understand because she had suffered too.
“Just don’t plead with me, Carol,” he said. “Whatever happens, don’t beg for your life. Because the only thing I know for certain is that if you see me as a monster, I won’t be able to stop myself from turning into one. I’ll tear you apart.”
Chapter Thirty-One
On Friday evening, the first night of the ritual, just after sunset André left the house to find blood. Carol walked him to the car. They kissed but didn’t speak. There really wasn’t anything more to say.
She phoned Rene. No answer. She didn’t leave a message. Either she’d be around to call again on Monday, or not.
Just as Carol hung up there was a knock at the door. She heard a voi
ce she recognized and hurried to the entrance. “My God! What are you doing here?”
“Let me in,” Rene said, shoving past Gerlinde. “Carol, I’m so relieved you’re alright. I’ve been worried about you.”
“Of course I’m alright,” Carol said as they hugged. “I told you that.”
“I had to be sure they hadn’t coerced you to phone me.”
“This, no doubt, is the therapist,” Karl said. He nodded for Gerlinde to close the door. She did and Carol noticed her slide the deadbolt into place.
“I am. Rene Curtis, and you’re Karl.” She extended a hand, which Karl ignored. A small crowd gathered in the hallway. Besides Karl and Gerlinde, Jeanette and Chloe arrived to greet this unexpected visitor and, behind them, Julien.
Rene looked around, assessing them. “So, these are the vampires.”
Carol sucked in air. “Rene, you shouldn’t be here. This is really bad timing...”
Rene turned to her. “Carol, you’re like a daughter to me, you know that. I couldn’t just forget about you, not after all we’ve been through together. Besides, I’ve wanted to meet them.”
“Now that she’s here, what should we do with her?” Gerlinde said.
“Do with me? Why you’ll invite me in, of course. I want to know exactly what’s going on with Carol, every step of the way. She needs an advocate.”
“Carol has never needed anyone to speak on her behalf,” Chloe said. Carol had never heard her voice so cold. “She’s perfectly capable of doing that herself.”
“I don’t think that’s the case at all. It seems to me she’s been more than mistreated by you people. Is people the correct term? She’s definitely vulnerable here and someone has to be on her side.”
Carol put her hands up and shook her head. “Wait. Just wait a minute. Rene, I don’t need help. I told you that.”
“Perhaps you are the one who requires aid,” Julien said, looking directly at Rene.
“And you must be Julien. The description fits.”
“God, she knows us all!” Gerlinde said.
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