The drumming softened to a rumble.
A female chalice followed Antoine. Stripes of paint also covered her body.
They stopped before the wall of palm fronds. She stepped around Antoine to place votive candles along the floor.
Antoine pulled a butane barbecue lighter from his waistband and crouched to light the candles. After he lit the last one, he stood, put the lighter to the end of the cigar, sucked hard, and exhaled a dense puff of smoke. The smoke rolled through the air and spread a pungent tobacco smell.
The drummers slapped their congas and started a loud Afro-Caribbean beat. The guitars, marimba, and saxophone joined in with a fast merengue.
Antoine’s aura crackled around him. He no longer looked doughy and friendly but demanding and stern. “It’s time to make music,” he boomed louder than the conga drums, “and dance to beckon the goddess of beauty and sensuality, our exalted Oshún.”
The beat reverberated inside me. I swirled my mojito and wondered about the dark sediment circling the bottom of the tumbler. Maybe what Carmen had bought in the botánica was in the drink. Something psychoactive. I hoped so.
Jolie made her entrance from the left. She wore an iridescent loincloth the size of a napkin. Her red hair was fashioned into an octopus of braids. Jolie led six painted chalices, alternating male and female, who entered in a swaying gait. The rattles on their ankles and wrists shook with the rhythm. They carried censers that trailed plumes of smoldering tobacco, sage, marijuana, and sandalwood.
Antoine stamped his feet and chanted, “Oshún.”
The other vampires and chalices in the pavilion sprang to the floor and picked up the chant. Their orange and red auras pulsed in time to the music. They shimmied and writhed as if they were Pentecostal snake handlers. Breasts and buttocks quivered like so much flesh Jell-O.
This was one party I couldn’t sit out. I downed the last of the mojito, jumped from the bench, and joined the dancing. Chalices pawed at my shirt and tossed it aside.
I swung my arms and kicked with spastic abandon, doing the Chicano version of a frog-in-the-blender dance. I wasn’t sure of the point to all this but it was a great party.
The wall of palm fronds began to shake. The music picked up speed. The chanting went faster and faster.
“Oshún. Oshún.”
With my eyes closed, I shouted, “Oshún,” over and over, enjoying myself until I realized that the music had stopped and I was the only one still chanting.
I opened my eyes.
The other dancers stood frozen in place. Their auras shimmered like a collection of neon lamps.
The wall of palm fronds before us had split apart. Carmen (who else?) glared at me from between the fronds. Her gaze burned through the eye slits of an elaborate feathered headdress.
A dozen cowrie-shell and glass-bead necklaces looped across her naked torso. Gold bells on her bracelets and anklets tinkled softly. A brightly colored loincloth dangled between her thighs.
In one upturned hand she carried a glass jar the size of a coffee cup. She swung her arm in a small circle, the torch lights refracting through the glass jar into rainbow bursts of jewellike colors.
The music started again, jumping back to the same loud tempo as a moment ago. Carmen dipped left and right in exaggerated postures, with the jar as the focal point of her movements. Her breasts trembled beneath the layers of cowrie shells and glass beads.
Vampires somersaulted in gravity-defying leaps. Chalices wailed as if speaking in tongues, threw themselves to the floor, and bounded back up.
The music became louder, the dancing more frantic, and the atmosphere more charged with hedonistic frenzy. Jolie and a couple of chalices stood hunched over, hands on their knees, and twirled their hair while ululating like Arab witches. The fragrance of pheromones was as thick as the smoke.
I didn’t know how well this shindig kept to Santeria traditions but I was having a hell of a time. And I still had my pants on.
We stamped our feet, faster and faster, and just as the beat couldn’t get any more rapid-I was ready this time-we all stomped once. The music stopped. The silence seemed as deafening as had the music. Heaving, glistening bodies surrounded me, the body paint mottled by sweat.
I found myself standing directly before Carmen.
She faced me, the glass jar raised in offering. “Felix Gomez, Her Majesty Oshún channels me to summon you.”
Carmen pushed the jar in front of my face. “Behold the secret to our protection from the sun. Oshún has given us this wonder, the Florida chartreuse-pine spider.”
My head cleared slightly. This is what all the music and theater was about? I took the jar and held it up to the light of the tiki torches. Inside the jar scurried a small, bright green spider the size of my thumbnail. “Powerful medicine?” I fought to keep the sarcasm out of my question.
“Very powerful,” Carmen answered reverently.
“Quite a show. The last time I bought aspirin at Walgreens, they did nothing like this.” I tapped the jar. The spider reared back. “Where did you find this critter?”
“In the trash outside the kitchen,” Jolie answered.
Carmen cleared her throat. “Oshún’s blessings are everywhere.”
“Is it poisonous?” I asked.
“Of course.” Carmen removed her headdress and handed it to a chalice. “But to us vampires, the venom in its tiny fangs is magic. One bite from this spider and our flesh is made new. We get color.” Carmen lifted one side of her loincloth and flashed a sliver of pale flesh. “See, tan lines.”
It was an exciting glimpse of white skin against a brown leg. I looked with admiration at the spider. “One bite? That’s all?”
The little spider seemed to study me in return. Its tiny eyes sparkled like grains of sand.
A bite of its minuscule fangs and I could again enjoy the caress of the sun upon my naked skin. No more slathering on the sunblock? I could walk among the humans without a mask of Dermablend?
“What have I got to lose?”
Carmen gave a twinkling smile. “Good. Give me the spider and hold out your arm.”
I returned the jar and extended my left arm.
Carmen removed the lid and upturned the jar on my forearm. The spider dropped onto my skin and stretched its tiny legs. I got a creepy tickle. I kept my arm steady to refrain from giving an embarrassing shiver.
Antoine moved behind me, wrapped his strong arms around my torso, and pinned my right arm to my side. Carmen and Jolie grabbed my other arm by the wrist and pulled hard.
“What the hell?” I tried to jerk free but the other vampires held tight.
I stared in panic at the spider. “I thought this wasn’t going to hurt.”
Carmen laughed. “What gave you that impression? Actually, it’s going to hurt like a motherfucker.”
Chapter
7
Consciousness slowly returned. I felt weak and spent, like a castaway sailor surviving a storm. I opened my eyes and found myself on a bed in one of the cabins. Our concert to Oshún echoed softly in my head and faded to silence. Judging by the angle of the sunlight streaming through the window, I figured it to be early afternoon.
A chalice crowded the bed. She slept on her side, her smooth back toward me. She was naked, as was I. A bedsheet covered our legs.
Red and blue blotches from bite marks dotted her back and along her neck under the edge of her short brown hair. The bruises looked as if someone had gone at her with a ball-peen hammer. As painful as the bruises looked, in reality the chalices wore them proudly, like hickeys.
Carmen, modestly clad in a T-shirt and black shorts, her hair tied into a frizzy ponytail, came through the front door. “Felix, you’re awake. Welcome back to the land of the undead.”
I sat up and clutched my very sore abdomen. “What did you guys do while I was sick?” The words rasped from my throat. “Use my belly for kickboxing practice?”
Carmen tapped her foot against a metal wastebasket by the be
dpost. Maroon muck clung to the plastic-bag liner. “It’s from all your heaving.”
“How long have I been out?”
“Two nights.”
“No wonder I feel like I’ve crawled back from the world’s worst bender,” I muttered.
“It wasn’t a pretty sight.”
I pointed to the chalice. “And her?”
“The adaptation process makes you crazy with hunger. Chalices fight for the honor of providing sustenance.”
“What a sport.” I kissed the chalice’s shoulder.
She snored. The bedsheet slipped from her hip and exposed the back of her thighs. Bruises and puncture marks trailed between her legs. More hickeys.
I noticed rows of scratches along the sides of my back and peeled the long, narrow scabs. I also had deep bite marks on my shoulders. Apparently, the adaptation process involved a lot of jungle sex as well as fanging.
“Quite the smorgasbord we both had. Too bad I can’t remember a damn thing.”
Carmen motioned that I get up. I swung my legs off the bed and stood. I felt woozy. She gave my nude body the once-over.
I said, “Sorry, but at the moment I can only get my flag to fly at half-mast.” Normally anemic and translucent, my skin was an opaque hue of mestizo beige. The spider bite on my forearm was a fading blemish. “How did you find out about the pine spider?”
“From Antoine,” Carmen replied. “It’s a Seminole vampire legend. At least, they claim it was a legend.”
I poked at the bite, a pale spot the size of a dime, and expected the flesh to give easily, but it remained firm. “I feel like a defrosted turkey.”
“Then it’s time to bake.” Carmen took my hand and led me to the bright rectangle of light framed by the front door.
Carefully, on stiff legs, I shuffled beside her. The anticipation of feeling the sun’s warmth made my breath shorten. My kundalini noir coiled, nervous and uncertain.
“Any surprises, Carmen? The last time I tried one of your tricks I got sick as…”
“A motherfucker,” she said. “Not this time.”
I pulled my hand from her grip. “Don’t lie.”
“I didn’t lie. It’s not my fault you didn’t ask the right questions.” Carmen continued outside through the doorway. The sunlight washed over her.
I paused in the threshold of the shadow and slowly extended my hand toward the sun. Conditioned by years as a vampire, I tensed to recoil at the lash of searing pain. Instead I got a warm, gentle caress. I put both hands out and enjoyed the sensation. I tried to scoop the sunlight. I cupped the palms of my warmed hands against my face. No more Dermablend. No more makeup. No more stares at my vampire complexion.
Freedom.
I wanted more sunlight and leaned away from the shadow. The warm beam pressed against my skin. I blinked uncomfortably. Carmen handed me a pair of sunglasses and I put them on.
My skin soaked up the heat. “Do we sunburn?”
“No one has yet,” Carmen replied. “Seems our rejuvenation powers counteract it.”
“Is this permanent?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Carmen replied. “Might last a few months or a few weeks. Depends on the vampire.”
“And then what?”
“You get another bite from our little friend, the spider.”
I turned to let the sun kiss more of my body. At the present, putting up with the agony of another bite seemed worth it. “Does the Araneum know about this?”
“There are a lot of things the Araneum doesn’t know,” Carmen said. “I’ll tell them when I’m ready.”
“You’re the head of the Denver nidus. You have responsibilities.”
“I head the nidus. I’m not a hall monitor.”
I twirled my arms and laughed like a giddy child. “If the Araneum learns about this and that you’ve kept it from them, they’ll have a fit.” I, in turn, had secrets from the Araneum that I couldn’t reveal to Carmen. But at this moment I didn’t care. I only wanted to revel in my nakedness and share the exhilaration. I ran between the cabins. “Look at me.”
No one appeared. I barged into a cabin. Nothing. I ran into another cabin. Again nothing. The resort was deserted.
Disappointed, I trotted back to Carmen. Streaking time was over. I found a pair of beach trunks slung over a clothesline and slipped them on. I asked her, “Where is everyone?”
“Antoine’s leading an Iyengar Yoga class on the other side of the island. Jolie’s teaching a kung-fu samba workshop.” Carmen flicked her hand to the dense brush. “The rest are here and there.”
She waved that I follow her to another cabin. She opened a nylon briefcase on a table and pulled out a thick sheaf of paper bound with a rubber band. She handed the papers to me. “You asked about The Undead Kama Sutra? Here it is.”
Chapter
8
I hefted the manuscript. Finally, The Undead Kama Sutra? “Is it true what I’ve read about this?”
“What’s true?”
“The psychic-healing part.”
Carmen opened her mouth in an exaggerated “ah,” and nodded. She put on a sly smile. “I’m convinced that it is but I’m not sure how it works. I’m still doing field studies. The original work is centuries old. The last complete manuscript, in the Western world anyway, was destroyed when the library in Alexandria, Egypt, was burned. There’s rumor of a partial manuscript in the Vatican’s collection of forbidden texts.”
I removed the rubber band from the manuscript. I flipped through pages of 12-pt. Courier marked with sticky notes, pencil scribblings, and yellow highlighter. Obviously, a work in progress. I stopped on page 26. A paragraph described a drawing of a vampire and chalice tangled together in a pose named “Monkey Laughs at Moon.”
I didn’t know if I’d laugh having sex this way, but I would at least give a big smile.
I flipped to another page and a pose of a vampire standing with two chalices intertwined tightly against her torso. The title: “Jade Tree Ecstasy.”
I turned to another pose. This one startled me. “Feeding the Melon.”
Carmen read over my shoulder. “Whadda ya think?”
I rotated the page left and right. “Looks uncomfortable.”
“It’s an advanced pose, for sure. You got to work into it.”
“Who did your drawings?”
“I did.” Carmen displayed her hands. “These digits can do more than spank naughty bottoms.”
“Why are you writing this?”
Carmen took the manuscript from me. “I’m convinced there is a supernatural component to lovemaking. Good sex can cure a lot of ills.”
I nodded. “Of course. I’ve used that line lots of times.”
“I’m serious. Sex in the correct sequence of these poses,” Carmen tapped the manuscript, “can realign your chakras.”
“Do you know what that means? You’ve found a way for us vampires to play in the sun,” I held out my tanned arms, “and now with this Kama Sutra, it’ll be like we’re almost alive again.”
“We’re not in the Garden of Eden yet,” she replied.
“Where did your manuscript come from?”
“I pieced together fragments of ancient writings. Tibetan. Sanskrit. What’s left of the Aztec codices. Sumerian monographs. I had problems with that particular dialect.”
“How old are you?”
Carmen’s aura flashed a touch of indignation. “Since when is it okay to ask a lady her age?”
“My bad,” I said. “Are you sure you’re not using this as an excuse for marathon sex?”
“I don’t need an excuse for marathon sex. But this is beyond that. Correcting the energy flow through your chakras will reverse psychic damage and heal your mental and emotional wounds.” Carmen set the manuscript on top of the briefcase. “That’s the theory. I haven’t yet found out if and how it works.”
She turned around and leaned against the table. Her eyes gleamed seductively. “We could practice a few of the poses. As research.” She
loosened her ponytail. With a shake of her head, wild, curly locks of black hair splashed over her shoulders. She heaved and the T-shirt pulled taut across her nipples. “Anything special you’d like to try?”
I matched her seductive gaze. “Oh yeah,” I drawled.
She gave an expectant nod.
I said, “Coffee, if you got any.”
“Coffee?” Carmen’s grin faded. The glare from her eyes could’ve melted iron. She swiped at me with her open hand.
I caught her wrist.
Her lips pursed, then curved into a puzzled smile. “Goddamn you, Felix.” She tore free.
“We’re immortal. What’s the rush?” Females, human or vampire, didn’t come any lustier than Carmen. Truth was, I hadn’t had sex with a vampire yet, and I wanted my first to be someone who wouldn’t make me limp for the rest of the week.
“One day I’m not ever going to offer again,” she said. “Then you’ll have no choice but to kill yourself out of regret.”
“Carmen, are you begging?”
“Ha, don’t flatter yourself.”
“Must be nice being the center of the universe.”
“I love it just fine.” Carmen went to the next room. Bags and cartons of foodstuffs sat on a shelf beside a water cooler. She brewed coffee over a small propane stove.
I thumbed through the manuscript and counted over two hundred ways of getting it on. What a scholarly triumph. “Who came up with the names for these poses? ‘Tiger and the Wheelbarrow.’ ‘Painting the Lily.’ ‘Feast of Mangoes.’”
Carmen yelled her answer so I’d hear her from the next room. “Those are my translations. Colorful, huh?”
She came back with a couple of plastic to-go cups. “It’s a fair-trade Cuban blend. Sierra Maestra with goat’s blood.”
The coffee smelled great. I put the manuscript down.
“Hope you learned something.” She gave me one of the cups. “I would call you stud but we wouldn’t know that, would we?”
The Undead Kama Sutra fg-3 Page 4