Strawberry

by Desdemona Grey

  STRAWBERRY

  By Desdemona Grey

  ABOUT THIS BOOK

  An out of work actress can find herself in some shady situations. For Kitty French, some raunchy role-playing gone wrong lands her in the clutches of an honest-to-god vampire who decides she’s the tastiest of them all. Being a blood-sucker’s ongoing meal plan is not high on her wish list, no matter how searingly sexy he is. Will she escape from his cold lips alive, and will she still want to?

  A bite sized, steamy, paranormal romance, Strawberry is a novella of 33,000 words, about a third the length of a normal novel.

  STRAWBERRY

  Chapter One

  As an out of work actor you can often find yourself in shady situations. That was how I found myself now, lying on a vintage chaise lounge under red lighting, wearing a lacy white night gown, awaiting the vampire hordes. At least it would bring in some money and wasn't quite porn. I’m not sure if that would make my mom feel any prouder if she found out about this little escapade.

  It was too late for second thoughts but I was having them anyway. Maybe it was the scantiness of the night gown, or the fact that I was beginning to wonder if there really was a porn movie in the making here despite what my agent promised me.

  I had stormed into his office earlier today, hell bent that I was not going to put up with any more of his secretary’s polite excuses. I know when I am being given the cold shoulder.

  I also knew when that secretary left for lunch every day so I waited for her to leave, lurking outside of his office just out of sight, then dashed in before anyone could stop me.

  Harvey Hall is a second rate agent to struggling actors. His one claim to fame is that he signed a few of the bigger names when they were still broke enough to hope that his representation would lead to a big role. I have no illusions about good old Harvey and I’m sure he harbors no illusions about me either. As soon as I build a resume I’m leaving his ass in the dust without a single look back. Since he had been too busy to answer my calls because he had just signed on a whole new stable of girls fresh off the bus, girls willing to work as extras and wear bikinis and be billed as Hooker Number Three, I doubt that is an unfair thing to do.

  “Ah, Kitty, how nice of you to drop in.” He managed to sound happy to see me even though it was clear he wasn’t. “What can I do for you?”

  “You can get me a part, Harvey. My rent is due, my car actually needs gas to run and while I could stand to lose a little weight, starvation is not a good thing.”

  “Calm down, little lady. You’re a keen one, aren’t you?” He steepled his sausage fat fingers together and said, “I may have something for you.”

  Relief washed through me. “What is it?”

  “It's a Live Action Role Playing event,” he said, “Not a normal acting job, but it’s still acting and it pays well. A club downtown runs these vampire nights now and then. A bunch of guys who like to pretend they are bloodsuckers and chase pretty girls around. The club brings in a few willing victims, actresses hired to take part in the game. The girl who was supposed to do it got a lucky break and landed a nice fat role on a new series. How about it, you want to play the victim?”

  “Are you kidding me? You want me to play a game?” I stared at him; his greasy moon face was filmed with sweat despite the air conditioner’s steady cooling blow.

  I could see my own reflection in the gleaming surfaces of the awards hanging on his walls: very pale oval face, slightly slanted green eyes and a mouth that is perhaps a trifle too thin by some standards. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been told I should get collagen injections. I looked scared and I did not like that at all. If I could see that fear so could Harvey and Harvey is like a dog, let him smell fear and he will move in for the kill.

  He locked me in his gaze. “High end LARP events like this are easy money. You get these rich fuck weirdos willing to spend good money to be somebody else for a little while. Sometimes we get troll guys or warlords from alternate universes or wannabe Lords of Crazyshit Manor who want to duel at dawn and win the fair maiden and so on. Lots of actors do it, not that they will ever admit it. There’s a non-disclosure agreement you have to sign and you can’t tell anyone because discretion matters to these folks. Are we clear?”

  “Come on, Harvey. I’ve been in seven movies already, two of them as the lead. I know they were B-movies but still… Surely you can do better than some weird shit game!”

  “Listen Kitty, it isn’t my fault.” Harvey went all serious, leaning across his desk so hard his puffy belly melted into the edges of it and rolled over the top. “Every casting director with a movie on their desk is looking for a cute blonde with a huge rack and a nice ass right now. Blonde is back in style and you and your goth dark chick look is played out. Not that I’m saying your rack isn’t nice.”

  I wanted to smack the sleazy grin off his face, but held my ground.

  “It isn’t just the hair color either, sweetheart. Saying your last films were B-rated is stepping them up. Three of them were so bad they died untimely deaths in the cutting room, never even made it past editing before they were canned. That is hardly a selling point in Hollywood, kiddo.”

  Ouch. I sat back in the hard chair that sat across from his desk and tried to decide whether to punch him in the face or ask for a loan to get a boob job and dye my hair. Maybe I should just take what he was offering me. But it somehow sounded shady. “I’m not a hooker, Harvey.”

  “There’s no sex. This is all high class stuff, I swear!” Harvey swiped an X across his heart with a finger. “Okay, okay, you’re going to get guys nibbling on you a bit, that’s a given, but nothing more serious than that.”

  I didn’t have anything to lose really but I still wasn’t sold all the way, “How much does it pay?”

  “Five grand. Are you in?”

  I said yes, what else could I say? I was not doing so hot to tell the truth. When you share a two bedroom apartment with six other people, all of whom want to be famous as badly as you do, it can be difficult to say the least. The money Harvey offered would let me get a place of my own and ensure I could eat something besides Ramen noodles cooked by soaking them in cold water on a hot patio.

  Above me, red lights flickered and a soundtrack of distant thunder played through hidden speakers nearby. A whisper of a shiver ran up my spine as I waited. The club, Dark Raine, surprised me when I first showed up. It was all class, with shining black marble floors and sparkling crystal chandeliers, cozy nooks for couples sharing cocktails and businessmen unwinding after work. I was directed to the second floor where the event would take place. The set was something straight out of a classic Hammer horror film. Billowing, tattered curtains, black leather furniture, huge standing candelabras with candles guttering in their grips. They looked like diseased trees and I felt a tingle of unease run down my back.

  My belly was full and that added to my discomfort. Harvey had given me a rather tidy advance on the five thousand I would be making. I ran for the Boa Steakhouse so fast I’m surprised I didn’t run down a few diners trying to get into the place.

  If I ever do get rich and famous I swear I am going to be one of those stars that the paparazzi always catches coming out of some trendy restaurant.

  I have a taste for the exotic, the sumptuous and the decadent. I love food in all of its forms and I read menus like some people read books, making lists of the places I want to eat at when I have enough money to afford them. If I didn’t want to be an actress so bad I would have been a chef. I once took a job on a catering staff just so I could have access to food I don’t normally get.

  The lights flickered again and I stared upward, my body going rigid as the first rustles started in the distance. They were coming. A deep animal instinct welled up in me une
xpectedly and it was all I could do not to run. But I’d committed to this crazy job, and I was going to be professional about it. I would run, but not until the players were ready to chase me. I swallowed hard and focused on the prize, the cute little one-bedroom place I had gone to check out earlier in the day. It was in West Hollywood, same location as the place I currently lived, but it would be just mine. I could get a cat. Finally start down the inevitable road of becoming a crazy cat lady that I felt destined for. At the rate I’m going in my social life I’m never going to get laid, much less go out on a decent date or have a real relationship. I know that’s my own fault, I work too hard on getting my career off the ground, and seem to have the worst taste in guys. I should know by now that bad boys are just that – bad.

  The rustling grew louder and I threw an arm dramatically over my forehead and feigned sleep. Then the dark deepened and a tall figure came at me from the shadows. I shrieked and it wasn’t fake. Adrenaline spurted into my bloodstream and I hurled myself off the lounge, running for the double doors to the right. My logical brain reminded me that the club had security watching in case someone went too far but terror made me panic as the man chased me around the room. Curtains swirled like caressing ghosts about me, scattering dust into my nose and eyes and I choked as I came face-to-face with the vampire.

  I almost laughed. Okay, yeah I did laugh. So much for staying professional. A guy that looked like a friendly accountant peered at me. Contact lenses made his eyes a rich red and he wore gothic clothing with a long cape and stiff high collar. He bared his fangs and waggled his eyebrows at me from under a heavy coating of glitter. Oh, THAT kind of vampire. I wasn’t so scared anymore.

  He hissed and drew his ridiculously long cape over his face. I faked a swoon, and when he reached out to grab me I ran into the next room with a girly shriek. He followed slowly, enjoying the chase.

  The next room was set up to look like a Victorian banquet hall, complete with a long dining table and roaring fireplace. As I stepped in, two more men appeared out of the shadows, swooping at me. I was seized on both sides and lifted off my feet. I struggled, but the men kept a strong grip on me as they laid me on the dining table. I was supine, pinned down, at the mercy of three vampires. It’s okay. They aren’t real. Just men playing a game.

  A tongue licked across the lowest point of my neck, right where my pulse beat. A frisson of desire ran through my body, startling me.

  They crowded around the table, crawling up onto it to get better access to me. A hot mouth sucked at the flesh of my right breast where the gown left it bare. I gasped at the sensation and then screamed. I wanted to strike the man off me but kept in character. This is what I was being paid for. I knew what I was in for.

  Then the first man bit me.

  They didn’t bite hard but they weren’t exactly gentle either. That’s going to leave a mark. I was sprawled on the table, teeth nipping at me in three places. Their plaything. I could feel arousal beginning and I could not believe it. It really had been a long time since I’d had any action. My nipples were hardening as the heated hands tangled into my hair and warm tongues slid across my skin. Fake fangs pulled at the bared flesh of my cleavage, arms and neck. Little shivers stole up and down my spine, making me whimper and a delicious ache built between my thighs. I had just about decided that I really needed to get laid when an icy finger ran up my thigh, yanking me out of the delectable stupor I had tumbled into. I felt a cold nose press against my neck and breathe deeply. I heard a small grunt of desire.

  “This one is mine.”

  My eyelids, gone heavy during the biting, slammed open to see my vampires falling back, their faces gone blank. It looked like someone had just reached in and erased them from within.

  A new man stood above me, silhouetted by the dim scarlet glow of the lamp behind him.

  The primal instinct to escape invaded me again and I tried to scramble back across the table, but the dead, cold hands dragged me back and up into his arms.

  Then teeth sunk deep into my neck.

  This was no small bite. Pain went from searing hot to icy cold, both sides of it so intense I screamed in agony. The silent players stood there, vacant, and I stared up at their emptied out faces, wondering where the help I had been promised was, how this could be happening, was I going to die?

  Darkness spun up from the floor. I saw one last candle, spitting its fire in the grotesque candelabra and then everything went black.

  Chapter Two

  Death… death is… Death tastes like coconut.

  I opened my eyes and realized coconut water was being poured into my slackly open mouth by a blank faced creature with a nest of black hair, the grey face of an English schoolmarm, and a wide, wicked grin. Her lips were coated in a blood red lipstick, so badly applied it smeared up her cheeks and on her teeth. At least I hoped it was lipstick.

  The last thing I remembered… I had been bitten. Bitten by what, a real vampire? All reality and reason had fled my world.

  Thirst raged in me. I didn’t know what was happening, but if I was thirsty I couldn’t be dead. I tried to focus on the room I was in but pain sank like talons into my throat and shoulders.

  “Grrragggggg,” I got out before the woman doused me again, the juice spilling from the spoon and down my chin.

  My arms were restrained above my head. I stared upwards at the complicated contraption of heavy black chains connected to a pulley system. My toes curled and I realized that I was able to touch the floor and that my ankles were not shackled. I had the use of my feet but that hardly seemed to matter given the chains and cuffs binding my wrists.

  I looked wildly around at my surroundings: there was a slide-in electric stove and a Traulsen G-Series refrigerator that I would have envied if I had not been scared utterly shitless. The granite countertops were immaculate, the small appliances incredibly expensive. The irony was that I was in, without a doubt, my dream kitchen. Except that I was strung up from the wall instead of the fine hunk of cured Spanish pork that should have been there.

  The woman who looked like Halloween warmed over, spoon feeding my coconut juice, was also out of place. Her blank look jarred my memory. The fake vampires had worn that same look when the one with the cold hands and really sharp teeth came…

  My gaze whipped to the left and there he was.

  I half expected to see a grotesque monster. The media has shown so many types of vampire, that when presented with what I could only guess was the real thing, I didn’t know what to expect.

  Only the white, lifeless skin made him seem anything but human. He had swept back hair of a deep brown like rich, peaty earth. His eyes were fringed with lashes so thick it looked like he was wearing mascara on them. His face was built of sharp angles and high cheekbones and full lips made to be kissed. His long body was clothed in all black: silk shirt clinging to his broad shoulders and accentuating his narrow waist and black jeans that outlined his lean legs and hips.

  Under normal circumstances I would have found him desperately handsome. Even now, my body found him attractive. I could feel desire pulsing through me despite all conscious parts of my soul wanted to run from him.

  He stared hungrily at me like a chef preparing a particularly expensive cut of meat.

  “You need to stay hydrated. Drink,” he said.

  The spoon actually made it between my lips. I swallowed greedily.

  He nodded. “Good girl.”

  Not doing it for you, monster.

  I glared at him, hating that he ordered me to do the thing I wanted and needed. Hating that I found that order so sexy. I couldn’t blame my body for its natural, biological impulses, but I didn’t have to give in to them. I should be smarter than that by now. Bad boys were one thing, but to be attracted to a man who was not going to just shack up on my couch or ask for a loan or sleep with my friends but who might actually murder me was going a bit far.

  The kitchen was lit by sunlight but he stood in a small pool of shadows, his face turned
away from the windows. The hanging vertical shades allowed dusty bars of lemony yellow light in and I stared at it, trying to think past the immediate situation and to escape.

  I managed to look down at the condition of my body. My filmy night gown was stained where dried blood pooled on one of my breasts. I didn’t feel pain or signs of violation anywhere but my neck and was glad that the matching lacey g-string was still on.

  At least I will die wearing nice underwear. Be proud, Mom, be proud.

  More juice hit my cheek. “Ssnaa….” My throat was so sore I could not speak. My hand automatically tried to go there, to comfort the wound. The chains let a musical rattle of protest at the motion and the reality of my situation struck me hard.

  Terror exploded inside me. Black, blinding terror that sent me into a writhing, kicking, scratching, frenzy that was short-lived due to the fact that I could not scream nor move in any real direction and all the thrashing about accomplished was to make my arms and shoulders ache even more.

  Tears seeped from my eyes but they did not fall. I blinked them back. Better to not show weakness. I managed to scrape out a raspy, “Why?”

  It was a damn good question. I mean all I had done was try to earn a living. No way did I deserve to be chained up in the kitchen of a vampire.

  Or was he a just poser after all? Was I just thinking of him as a real monster because I couldn’t admit a real human would do this to me? My eyes went back to his ghastly pallor and the way he stood so far back from the shadows. Maybe he was just a whack job who had taken the whole thing way too seriously. Looking at the woman who was haphazardly feeding me I thought she could just be a junkie. Then again the players at the LARP scene had definitely not been junkies. Or not drug junkies anyway.

  Could he be a real vampire and the woman his human thrall? I didn’t know. I couldn’t know. I daren’t know. I wanted some other explanation, so I asked again, “Why?”