by Payne, Jenna
“You’re not from around here,” the young man said in a quiet voice, taking her in with dark and hungry eyes.
“And how could you tell?” she replied teasingly, sipping her drink and taking a long drag on her cigarette.
He shrugged, “You don’t look Cajun and you don’t look Creole.”
“Oh no?” she replied, raising one of her elegant eyebrows and looking at him questioningly.
“No ma’am,” he replied. “No one down here is as lily white as you.”
Violet didn’t have much time to ponder this statement as she heard a familiar voice behind her.
“Even lighter than me, Rivet?” Lucas Henry slid into the seat beside her, smiling broadly.
“Not even close,” the bartender called Rivet replied with a roll of his eyes as he set down a glass of bourbon on ice before the man. They conversed in what sounded like French for a moment before Lucas turned his attention to Violet.
“What a pleasant surprise to find the famous Violet Miller in my usual haunt,” he exclaimed, pulling a cigarette from the inner pocket of his summer suit. He looked exceptionally well put-together after the way she had seen him the night before. He wore a suit well.
“Yes, quite a coincidence,” Violet replied. She couldn’t help but be somewhat captivated by the man, she realized, looking into his laughing handsome face.
“It’s actually haunted, you know,” said Rivet, lingering where they sat.
“It’s true,” Lucas nodded, sipping his drink. “Rivet and I have been friends for a loooong time. And ever since we’ve known each other, we’ve known this bar to be haunted. But wouldn’t you know it? Rivet grows up and buys this place!” He let out a hearty laugh.
“Well if I hadn’t, then where would you be drinking?” Rivet shot back.
“In the gutter,” he replied smoothly, and they all laughed. Rivet mixed another Southside for Violet, and they continued to converse. As the evening wore on, one or two other patrons came into the bar. Rivet seemed to know them all.
“Ever had absinthe?” he asked her after her third Southside.
“Well yes, in Paris a couple of times,” Violet replied.
“Paris! So you’ve been to the mother country,” Lucas replied as Rivet readied two gracefully curved goblets of the green liquor. He rested an ornate silver spoon over the top of each glass, and balanced a single sugar cube atop the surface, before slowly pouring ice water over the sugar. As it filled the glass, the absinthe turned cloudy.
“Oh, I suppose I have,” Violet replied faintly, momentarily mesmerized by the pearly diffusion of the cocktail as it caught the candlelight.
“They’re all a bunch of snobs over there anyway,” Rivet said matter-of-factly as he removed the spoon and pushed their drinks to them.
“Ochan!” Lucas replied, raising his glass first to the bartender, and then to Violet. She followed suit. She had to admit that she was beginning to feel the effects of a long day in the sun and the many cocktails of that evening. A healthy glow colored her normally pale cheeks, and she felt her heart pounding in her chest. Lucas appeared to be completely sober, although he had stripped down to his shirt sleeves. He still wore white suspenders and a stiff white collar. Even through the haze of liquor, Violet could sense that he was interested in her. His eyes lingered on her, wanting.
The evening wore on, and they spoke about art and Jazz music. Lucas and Rivet regaled her with tails of haunted New Orleans. They spoke of voodoo, and other mysteries. Close to midnight, a rag-tag group of bohemian musicians came in and began to improvise next to the piano at the other end of the bar. Violet’s head was spinning in the most delightful way, full of laughter and music. There was a moment where she lost track of Lucas. His jacket was still draped over his chair, but he and Rivet were missing. Violet made her way to the powder room, still managing to comport herself with grace. She pushed open the heavy wooden door that separated the bar from the corridor where the restrooms were located. The space was lit by a single dim bulb that hung from the ceiling between the ladies and the gents. The passage was murky and smelled of malt and stale beer. As her eyes adjusted, Violet realized that she wasn’t alone. At first she thought it was one large man, but then she saw it was two men, intertwined as if in an embrace. As she crept closer she recognized them and let out a quiet gasp.
Rivet was pushed against the wall. His shirt was unbuttoned and pulled off one of his shoulders. Lucas was bending over his bare neck, teeth bared. They looked strangely fang-like in the half-light. With a low growl, he forced his body against the bartender’s and sank his teeth into his smooth black skin. Rivet let out a moan that Violet could not distinguish as pain or pleasure. Lucas remained attached to his neck. He seemed to be sucking at him with unbridled hunger. She watched as his unoccupied pale hand wandered over Rivet’s chest, down his stomach to the front of his trousers. Rivet moaned again, arching his back and pressing against the other man’s touch. Violet felt a rush of heat between her own loins as she watched the forbidden act. She let out another gasp, louder this time.
Lucas paused, looking up at her over Rivet’s shoulder. He released the man’s neck. His eyes seemed to be shining red, and blood colored his lips crimson. Violet screamed and threw open the door to the bathroom. She locked it behind her, and leant against it, her heart pounding. Her head was spinning as she tried to process what she had seen. Perhaps it was the “green fairy” making her see things after all those stories Lucas and Rivet had told her. She sat on the toilet and put her face in her hands, attempting to collect her thoughts. After a few minutes, she had calmed, supposing that the vicious look on her new acquaintance’s face had been a mere trick of the light, and decided to venture back out to the bar. She slowly opened the door of the bathroom and found that the corridor was now deserted. She walked with apprehension towards door, moving slowly from the quiet of the corridor into a cloud of jazz music and cigarette smoke. She found Lucas at the bar, nonchalantly sipping another bourbon. She glanced at Rivet, her heart suddenly pounding. He looked just as he had before—no sign of blood staining his white shirt. It must have been her imagination.
“I don’t suppose you’d be so kind as to pour Ms. Violet here a tall glass of water?” Lucas said calmly.
“That sounds like just the thing,” Violet offered him a small smile.
“Well we noticed you’d been gone to the ladies for a while, you know,” he teased.
Violet rolled her eyes. When Rivet set the water down before her, she lifted it, and drank it all down before condensation had a chance to form on the outside of the cold glass. She felt better. The effects of the shocking hallucination melted away, and she relaxed once more. She had never experienced such vivid effects from absinthe in the past, but she supposed every part of the world had its own recipe.
“I should have warned you about the absinthe,” Rivet said kindly, “I make it myself.”
“And you know,” Lucas interrupted, “he is a voodoo man.”
The men laughed heartily as Violet’s eyes widened. She was so tired and tipsy by now that she couldn’t distinguish whether the men were joking or not.
Lucas, perhaps sensing her fatigue, cleared his throat and settled the bill with Rivet. “I’ll escort you home then, shall I?”
“Well if you wouldn’t mind, I’d be delighted.” Violet replied, hopping off of her bar stool and waiting by the door as he pulled on his white linen jacket and fetched his hat.
They stepped out into the evening together. The air was thick and muggy. The moon hung huge and almost full, barely visible through the hazy clouds. A mosquito landed on Violet’s arm and settled in for a long bite before flying off, drunk and sated. When they reached her house, Violet paused for a moment, and then invited the man inside. Caroline was long gone, and house was dark but for a single light burning in the front entryway.
“Since you walked me all the way home, can I offer you a drink?” Violet asked, throwing her cloche onto the table and leading the way into
the sitting room. Lucas followed her, admiring the décor of the house as he went.
“I’ll have whatever you’re having,” he replied, standing by the mantelpiece and peering at the collection of photographs there. As in the rest of the house, they were mostly portraits of Mr. Astor and his wife on their various travels around the globe. Violet poured a glass of sherry for herself and her guest. He watched her in the reflection of the French doors. The soft fabric of her dress clung enticingly to her hips as she shifted from side to side. She glided across the room, passing him his glass as she made her way to the phonograph. She put on a record of slow jazz and raised her glass with a half-smile.
“To New Orleans,” she toasted.
“To beautiful women,” he replied.
She laughed, “Come on, I’ll show you the house…If you’re a painter, I think there’s one room you might appreciate.” She led the way from the drawing room up the stairs to the studio. She flipped on the light and turned to him.
“Well this is something,” Lucas purred, taking in the white room with the relish of a painter looking at a Fresh canvas. He sauntered over to the shelves, picking up tubes of color and admiring the sable brushes. “I would love to paint you,” he said, almost to himself. He turned, sherry glass in one hand, brush in the other, and fixed his gaze on Violet.
“Take your dress off.”
There was something about the way he said it that caused Violet to shiver. He wasn’t asking, he was telling her what she was going to do. And for some reason, staring into the dark of his eyes, she set her glass down on the floor, reached back, and pulled the long zipper of her dress down. Blue fabric fell over her feet, and she stood before him, exposed under the lights of the room.
“You see? I knew you’d be wearing something interesting underneath.” Lucas walked towards her with the air of a man commenting on the weather. He caressed the line of her jaw with the soft bristles of his paintbrush, tracing the curve over her neck and the sharp angles of her clavicles. He stopped just short of where the curve of her breasts began beneath the blue lace of her teddy.
Violet was completely disarmed. The feeling of the cool brush on her flushed skin filled her with a strange excitement. Although she had posed for many paintings, no man had ever looked at her with such hunger. Her legs quivered. She yearned for him to touch her. As if in answer to her thought, Lucas placed a hand on her thigh, ever so lightly. She leaned into it, and he took hold of her garter and snapped it against her skin with a chuckle as he withdrew.
“You’re dreadful!” she exclaimed, attempting to disguise the shakiness that had overcome her legs as she leaned down to retrieve her glass of sherry.
“I just want to paint you,” the man replied with a laugh like a bark. He fetched an easel, and set it up with the deftness of an experienced painter. “Will you stand there?” He motioned for her to move to the wall opposite the easel, and then threw a piece of board onto it. Conjuring a pencil seemingly from nowhere, he began to sketch.
Violet lounged against the wall. This was where she was in her element, as the center of attention—the focus of an artist’s gaze. She knew she must look wanton, leaning there with nothing but her underthings on. The gauzy blue fabric of her teddy and garters barely covered what lay beneath. She wondered if Lucas liked it, or if he was one of those men—and she had met quite a few—who wasn’t interested in women at all. There was something in the intensity of his gaze that made her think otherwise, as she lolled against the cool surface of the wall. There was something about him she found electrifying. His exterior gave off an impression of calm, and yet he seemed to be bursting with energy. She had never met a man with eyes so dark. As she watched him watch her, he stripped off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. She thought back to the night they had met. His marble white skin dripping in the evening light. The outline of his manhood in his sodden underthings. Violet’s mouth watered, and she determined that she would have him.
At that moment, a sudden clap of thunder shook the house. The lights flickered, then were extinguished. Violet let out a soft yelp of surprise. She had been so lost in the moment that the outside world had melted away. Now rain fell in great torrents, and the wind rattled the shutters against the house. She was blind in the sudden darkness, and all she could hear was the storm.
“Lucas?” she called into the blackness. There was no response. “Oh come now!” she exclaimed, feeling mildly annoyed as she clung to the wall for reassurance.
And then he was on top of her. He had moved across the room without a sound, and now he had pressed his body against hers, grabbed her wrists and forced her against the wall.
“You called?” he growled in her ear before kissing her passionately. He pressed his body against hers, forcing her left leg up as he thrust his arousal against her. She let out an involuntary moan. He released her hands and she reached for the buttons of his trousers as he pulled her teddy down, revealing her breasts. They were just a palm full each. Her kitten heels slipped on the hardwood floor and she fell, but Lucas caught her, lifting her against the wall effortlessly as he ravaged her neck. Violet let out a gasp as she felt him tear away the fabric between her legs. And then he was inside her, reveling in the sweet heat of her loins as he took her for his own.
Pleasure and pain combined as Violet felt his teeth graze her neck as he pushed against her sweet spot again and again. Through the haze of passion she thought they felt sharper somehow, but the thought was soon pushed out of her mind as he pulled her to the floor. She took control now, forcing him to roll over. This was her revenge for the bite. She straddled his hips and slowed their pace, teasing him, watching wild desire flash in the depths of his dark eyes. He let her have her way with him, writhing beneath her as she looked down at him with a mixture of superiority and ecstasy. She slapped his cheek playfully, and he growled as if he enjoyed it.
“You like when a lady’s on top, don’t you,” she purred, running her hands over his face, and his neck. She noticed that he had many scars, some newer, some mere white lines in his porcelain skin. “Tell me you like it,” she commanded.
“I like the view,” Lucas purred as he pushed his hips against hers. She was beautiful like this—hair disheveled, her cheeks flushed pink. He could see a trickle of blood running down her delicate shoulder from where he had bitten her neck, and it made him nearly mad with lust. Deprivation from what he wanted most: to take Violet and drink her dry, to make her like him, combined with her domination of him, filled him with an unimaginable erotic tension.
“I knew you did,” Violet replied. “You little pervert.” She slapped him again, harder this time, and then rested her hand against his throat as if she were about to choke him.
The slap sent shockwaves of pleasure through Lucas’s body, and he thrust up against her, reaching for her thighs as he felt his climax approaching.
Seeing that he was close, Violet felt herself come to her crisis, grabbing onto his neck and choking him with her elegant hands as she rode the waves of intense pleasure, moaning his name over and over again.
As he felt her hands close around his throat, Lucas’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he came inside of her with a low growl.
When Violet awoke the next afternoon, it took her a few minutes to remember where she was. She was bundled tightly in the soft white sheets of her bed. A warm breeze was blowing through the open windows of her room. She yawned and stretched luxuriously, disentangling herself from her bedclothes and feeling the soreness of her muscles. Her head ached, but her hangover was mild.
“Well you’re awake I see,” Caroline said, bustling into the room. “I just came up to open your windows—it’s a glorious day outside!” She smiled and bustled out of the room. Violet wasn’t sure if it was her imagination, but she detected a disapproving air about her this morning.
Nonetheless, Caroline soon returned with a tray, bringing Violet a tall glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice and a fried breakfast. She ate gratefully. The buttery eggs and
toast quieted her stomach, and the juice refreshed her almost instantly. After she ate, she climbed out of bed and made her way to the wash room. She felt a bath was in order to wash away the previous night’s exertions. The tile floor was cool and soothing under her bare feet. She started the water in the tub, and then caught sight of herself in the mirror and was shocked to see that she was covered in blemishes. Her legs and back were marred with small scrapes and bruises. Her lips were puffy and red, but most alarming was a cut on her neck. She moved towards the mirror to scrutinize herself more closely. Dried blood clung to her skin, which was bruised a shade of purple around what she now saw clearly to be a bite mark. She ran her fingers over the wound, wincing slightly.
The mirror began to fog up with steam, and Violet turned to the bath. She scattered chamomile flowers over the surface of the water, and then climbed in, sighing deeply as the hot water washed over her body. The mark on her neck was troubling to her. Lying there in the deep water she pictured it, ugly and purple against her usually flawless skin. And then with a start she remembered something.
She recalled the sight of Lucas and Rivet in an embrace, hidden in the half dark of the washroom corridor. She had dismissed it as a hallucination brought on by too much absinthe, but now she was flooded with apprehension and doubt. She thought of Lucas’s pale skin, marred with strange scars. The impenetrable darkness of his eyes, and his penchant for pain. Violet had heard stories about vampires in New York—men who lived in the subway tunnels who would walk through the city at night, preying on vulnerable young men and women. But somehow the mystery and darkness that enveloped New Orleans made the existence of such creatures of the night seem possible. Violet ran her fingers over the bite, feeling the rough edges of her skin. It worried her, the idea that she had gone to bed with such a dangerous creature, or real-life lunatic. Beneath her worries, however, lingered the memory of unparalleled pleasures. It was a good thing that summer scarves were in vogue.