by Damian Serbu
So it came back to this: their relationship.
“I told you that I needed time, Thomas. I never said that my decisions were final.”
“I didn’t mean to press you,” Thomas answered softly.
“But you returned to it. I know that we live a complete contradiction. Our time together is too frequent for a common friendship, yet I pretend that’s what we have. When you talk about me, and when I think about you constantly, it’s with more than a passing interest. So these conversations inevitably drift to the impossible because you want to embrace me, but I can’t embrace you.”
Thomas stood and paced with the nervous energy that always and noticeably consumed him. “You mean that you won’t,” Thomas said.
“What’s the difference?”
“One is an actual prohibition while yours is self-denial.”
“What would you have me do? I’ve never denied my true feelings. Why can’t we discuss these things peacefully?”
“Because I love you and you deny it.”
“I never denied it,” Xavier said angrily. “Do I need to say it over and over so that the pain increases with each day? I love you. There, you have it again. I long for you. Is that better? Or do I need to admit the anguish I feel every night as I go to sleep and wish that I were in your arms, safe from the world, away from the things that plague me?” Weeping, those damnable tears meant that they would not resolve this because Thomas would soften to comfort him.
Thomas put his head in his hands and stopped in the middle of the room. He returned to Xavier’s side and looked into his eyes; Thomas, too, cried. He had lingered in the center of the room because he wiped away the evidence, yet the smudge of dirt across his cheek betrayed him. And his eyes were so red that it appeared as if blood had pooled in them.
“Then what keeps you from being happy with me?” Thomas finally asked.
“Damnation.”
“Where do you get such thoughts? You said yourself that if a parishioner came to you with this longing you’d think differently. Why is it different for you?”
“Because I pledged myself to these people and gave my soul to serving them. I can’t betray that without hypocrisy.”
“I just don’t understand,” Thomas answered. “What about Maria? You told me that she has relationships. Why is it different for her?”
“It’s not.”
Xavier recounted how Maria felt about their relationship and how she scolded him for taking these feelings outside of the church. For better or worse, he told Thomas that Maria mistrusted him because she feared the American would betray them. He finished, hoping that Thomas would better understand. Instead, Thomas seethed with anger.
“I can think of nothing more hypocritical than Maria reprimanding you while she carries on with women in the convent.”
“I know her argument is inconsistent.”
“Then why adhere to it?”
“Because I’m afraid of going to hell,” Xavier reiterated.
“Yet you don’t think that any of them will?”
“No,” Xavier cried even more, feeling absolutely miserable.
“But you’d go to hell for doing the same thing?”
“I don’t know,” he managed to shout between sobs.
Thomas’s brow furrowed and his expression darkened. “You’re not the only one who hurts,” he said. “I know that you dwell in your pity and suffering, but when you do, so do I. Your contradictions hurt more than just you. There’s a lot about me that you don’t know. I long to tell you the rest, but how can I make myself vulnerable when you refuse to do the same? So languish in your pity but know that you depress others with it.”
Neither spoke another word. Xavier struggled with embarrassment, anger, and mourning all at once. And he was in love.
“I’m going,” Thomas said. He hugged him tightly, then kissed him on the cheek. Xavier slumped against Thomas until he was pushed away and gently laid on the bed. Thomas petted his hair a few times then kissed him on the forehead and left.
Perhaps God had already sent Xavier to hell, and this was his punishment. Why would God wait until his death to discipline him for transgressions? Nothing in hell could be worse than the physical pain that ate at his heart. This was purgatory. This was Hades. This was hellfire and damnation.
But he drifted to sleep, too tired to cry more and paralyzed—he knew that more penalties, pain, grief, and torment would follow, never ending because he loved both Thomas and God.
Thomas: Vampires and Revolution
15 July 1789
AFTER THEIR ARGUMENT Thomas left Xavier at the church without speaking to avoid bitter or inappropriate words designed to hurt Xavier. Anthony’s admonitions for patience flooded his head through the entire conversation because he knew that he had crossed a line and intentionally made Xavier cry. He hated the church and what it did to Xavier so much that he failed to control himself. He regretted it, though part of him thought the argument inevitable.
After he ran out of the church he almost returned to shake Xavier by the shoulders until he released the guilt and followed his heart.
Anthony. He needed Anthony. He stormed into Anthony’s flat without knocking as blood sweat poured from his brow.
Anthony looked at him in consternation. A young soldier sat on the couch, completely naked, and Anthony, dressed in a robe, was fondling him. He had fed on the boy’s inner thigh, but the drugged youth was oblivious to his captor’s vampirism. The sight of Thomas, disheveled, enraged, and covered in blood, sent the delirious boy into hysterics. He screamed, like the howl of a dying wolf, and jumped from the couch, tripping over a rug. He landed at Thomas’s feet but crawled quickly away into Anthony’s arms. Incensed, Anthony bit into the first piece of flesh he could grab and drained the young man completely. He threw the body to the ground and turned to face Thomas.
His robe had fallen open, revealing his chiseled body. Too muscular for Thomas’s taste— he preferred Xavier’s weaker, less defined body—but who could ignore the beauty of this blond god with his long hair, smooth chest, and rippled stomach?
“Oh, stop it,” Anthony said and wrapped himself in the robe. “That’ll never work, unless you’ve decided you want my domination. I suppose that you’ve a good excuse for ruining my little game. Do you know how rare it is to find such a specimen? Someone so handsome and well groomed, yet worthy of death? And have you ever heard of knocking?”
“I needed to speak with you. There are plenty of young men to play with.”
Anthony ignored the last comment. “You look dreadful,” he said, tossing the body into a trunk. He then set to work discarding anything with blood on it. When he had finished, he lifted the trunk effortlessly and set it in the hall, then he tidied up the room and got dressed. “Now, what is it?”
“You already know.”
“Let me guess. You can’t control yourself. You and Xavier had another argument and I’m supposed to calm you down.” Anthony threw himself across a fainting couch and ran his fingers through his hair. “Am I right?”
“Yes.”
“Then my job is already done.”
“I can’t get him out of my head. There are times when keeping my patience is nearly impossible. I yelled at him tonight. I intentionally made him cry.”
“Charming.”
“Stop it. I need your help, not your wit.”
“What do you expect me to say, Thomas? That of course you’ll hurt his feelings and bring him to tears, all good men do? You need to control yourself because behaving as you do is reprehensible, but you know that. I don’t have a magic potion to cure you. That’s what I tried to tell you from the beginning. Why was tonight so different?”
“I found him at the Bastille and it terrified me. He wanders around Paris as he always did, with no thought to the increased danger. He thinks that he’s completely safe. When I warned him about it, our conversation led to an argument about our relationship again. He still refuses to accept his sexuality, and I coul
dn’t contain my fear for him and for us. You know what I’m like when my emotions take over.”
“Yes, a fool.”
“You’re an ass.”
“That wasn’t wit, that was the truth. There’s nothing else to say but that you went too far and now you regret it. This will happen time and time again until you realize that there’s a natural course that things must take.”
“How do you deal with it? Certainly I wasn’t your first lust after you lost your partner. What’s the secret that gives you this grand forbearance?”
“It’s too late for you unless you’re willing to go backward. You’re too involved in these human affairs. I told you that, too. You became close to Xavier quickly, then you got to know his family, his friends, his background, and you shared information about yourself. All of this was intimate. You never took the time to objectively assess the situation, and now you’re suffering because of it. If you had taken time, perhaps you would’ve left Xavier alone. But now you’re in the midst of this problem and you can either pull back, which you won’t, or work to get this impatient anger under control. If not, you’ll make that poor man suffer every time he sees you. Is that so hard to see?”
Of course it wasn’t. Thomas had predicted Anthony’s words, but he needed to hear them again.
“And the longer that you withhold your true nature, the worse this’ll get. I know that you’re afraid to tell him, but how can you think that this will ever work if you hide your vampirism?”
“You hid it from me.”
“For a short time and then you guessed it. You two are far from dealing with it.”
“I don’t wish to discuss this any longer.”
“Are you better again?”
“I’m fine.”
“As fine as last time, and the time before, and the time before that? As fine as each time we discuss this and then you make the same mistakes again?”
“I told you that I’m fine, and I meant it. I deal with it, bit by bit. You tell me not to expect miracles from Xavier, then don’t expect them from me. I’m doing my best.”
Without speaking and despite the tension between them, Anthony came over and hugged Thomas. “I only want to help. And you respond only to stern warnings.”
Thomas smiled at this truth but refused to admit it. His anguish had passed. “Thank you.”
“If only you listened to me.”
“Despite my relapses, I always do. Please don’t dwell on it.”
“Fine, then.” He playfully smacked Thomas lightly on the side of his head. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to finish what I started before you so rudely interrupted. I’m aching to cum and now have to find a new partner because I had to murder that lad before he alerted the whole of Paris to our presence.”
Thomas took his leave, calmed by Anthony’s words, and walked through the streets, avoiding people, which became increasingly difficult as a full-fledged revolution blossomed in the city. He wished that he could run to Xavier to apologize. Here he was while Xavier must be miserable. True, Thomas struggled with his demons, especially loneliness and anger, but at least he had Anthony to comfort him. Thomas hated himself anew for pushing Xavier too far again. He even walked by the church and saw a candle in the abbé’s room. But Thomas resisted his impatience and fidgeted with a number of things, masturbated twice while thinking of Xavier, and drifted to sleep in his coffin.
Part VI: Stagnation
Xavier: Two Years
2 July 1791
XAVIER SAT WITH Catherine in a back parlor of the Saint-Laurent home, enjoying a rare afternoon of calm in Paris and quiet within the walls of her salon. After inane talk about nothing in particular, they had fallen into reminiscing about the past two years.
“I wonder if the Americans felt this defeated after they declared independence from Great Britain?” Catherine said thoughtfully.
“What made you think about America?” he asked.
“I was actually thinking about us, about France. The National Assembly produced the Declaration of the Rights of Man almost two years ago, but so little has changed in this revolution. It’s still violent and unstable.”
“So you wondered if Americans had the same experience?” Xavier got up and grabbed the other bottle of wine that he had brought into the room. “Ask Thomas.”
Catherine shook her head absently. “It’s just that they had no king on their soil. We dragged Louis away from Versailles as a mob and imprisoned him in les Tuileries.”
“I’d hardly call his Paris home a prison.”
“We won’t let him leave,” Catherine pointed out.
“Why do you keep saying ‘we,’ as if you participated in the mob that put him there?”
“Everyone in France must take ownership of this mess.”
“We do have a new Constitution,” Xavier added. He questioned if it would really change anything but worried that Catherine would become melancholy if he failed to find something positive to contribute. He started to say something else when Jérémie entered the room.
They greeted him and then he asked Catherine if she had located some file or another, which sent her walking briskly from the room to fetch it.
“Still here,” Xavier said. “Faithful Jérémie, doing the paperwork, organizing the guards for her, and pretending that all is well in the world.” Xavier hadn’t meant to sound flippant, just the opposite. But talking to Jérémie about Catherine and his feelings had become a delicate game Xavier never mastered.
“There aren’t many options.” Jérémie’s ears burned bright red. “She’s with Marcel and the rest of Paris is in revolution. I’m trying to survive.”
“I still think that you should talk to her.”
“After all this time, how do you think she would react? I can hear her erupting in anger, wanting to know how I could keep such a thing from her for this long. No, thank you. I accept what I created. I’ll live with it.”
Xavier almost protested but his hypocrisy hit him too hard. How could he demand something of Jérémie that he could never do for himself? How could he criticize Jérémie for sticking around in a sad monotony, when he lived that all too frequently with Thomas? Worse, he would start to wonder why Thomas never gave up on him and left for America or some other exotic location to find a man better suited to his needs. Thomas had waited for him for over two years, and Xavier still felt no closer to resolving the conflicts in their relationship.
Instead Xavier nodded his head and asked Jérémie to join them for some wine.
“Later, perhaps. As soon as she returns I need to finish this before dinner.”
Xavier decided to give it one more try. “You know that we all care deeply about you. I hardly think that she would dismiss you.”
“That wouldn’t solve the problem about Marcel,” Jérémie said, tone mixed with sadness and frustration.
“What about Marcel?” came Catherine’s voice.
Jérémie’s head whipped around in surprise and Xavier spilled a bit of wine when they heard her voice in the hall. She entered the parlor and handed Jérémie a pile of papers.
“I was just wondering if he had returned from America,” Jérémie said. “Thank you.” He held up the stack she had handed him to acknowledge her, then turned on his heels and left the room before she had time to answer.
“That’s a good question.” Xavier wiped the red wine from the seat cushion to no avail. He hoped that Catherine hadn’t noticed. “When is he returning?”
“I doubt any time soon.” Catherine sat opposite him on a fainting couch and picked up her glass. “He sent another shipment of my medication this morning, enough for several months. And he increased my dosage, saying that the remedy would otherwise wear off.”
“Don’t you find it odd that he left two years ago, without any announcement and without even coming to see you? What kind of business in America takes two years to transact? And while we’re at it, what kind of sickness could you possibly have that only Marcel can remedy wi
th this mysterious medicine?”
As with Jérémie, Xavier’s tone got the better of him. Perhaps the heat of the day had made him more irritable than he had imagined. It frustrated him that they had finally enlisted Anne’s assistance, when the fiend suddenly disappeared. Xavier wondered if that was more than coincidence. Yet Anne’s continued refusal to use black magic worried him, too. Not that he wanted such a thing or didn’t trust her judgment, because the reality of such magic’s existence terrified him and he would trust Anne with his life. But no other solution had presented itself, and now this manipulative man controlled his sister from afar.
Catherine took little time putting him in his place. “When did you decide to sound like Michel? Would you like to assert your churchly authority now, as he does with the military? Your complaints won’t change my devotion to Marcel.”
“I’m sorry. I worry about you. Forgive me?” Xavier hated placating her, but she had spoken the truth. Nothing he said would change her mind. He could only hope that Marcel returned to Paris, and that Anne or Thomas or someone could confront his menace once and for all.
“I can never stay angry with you. Let’s change the subject.”
Catherine handed him a note that she had brought with her in the files for Jérémie. Xavier quickly read the request from Maria to take over the former servants quarters near the cellar. “I thought you moved everyone out of there, including servants, because it was too dank and depressing?”
“I did.” Catherine sipped her wine. “Maria went down there the other day because we ran out of storage for medical supplies upstairs. She asked me if I would consider allowing her and the other nuns to convert the quarters into their new temporary nunnery.”
Xavier thought about how Maria and her fellow sisters had come to the Saint-Laurent home one night, frightened and carrying everything that they could. Seeing them in the street from the patio, he ran to greet them at the door. “We were attacked. The government shut us down, took over the nunnery and kicked us out with nothing. We don’t know what to do,” Maria had explained. Xavier invited them inside, and ever since they had assisted Catherine and Jérémie in the salon. In fact, it had pleased Xavier when Maria and Catherine had become friends.