La Luxure: Discover Your Blood Lust

by Cd Hussey

  In the eight years following her mother's death, she'd barely spoken to her father twice, and had never even met her new siblings or stepmother. So, like Marguerite, Julia understood what it was like to have her world come crashing to an abrupt halt.

  And like Marguerite, Julia had never been to New Orleans.

  She glanced up from her daydream. It had suddenly gotten very quiet. The antique shops, galleries, and other tourists were gone, and she was alone at the intersection. The street sign read, "Ursulines Ave".

  Julia unfolded her map. Oops, she'd gone too far.

  Doubling back, Julia studied the map. If she took a left on the next street and then a right on Chartres, she should pass right in front of the cathedral. Surely she couldn't miss it then.

  She'd crossed Royal and was heading down the connecting street when a striking couple made her pause. Dressed in elegant Goth fashion, the woman wore an ankle length, red velvet dress with corset lacing, and her sleek, black hair glistened in the flickering gas lamps that illuminated most of the French Quarter. The man was dressed all in black, with a satin button up shirt and fitted trousers. His midnight hair was short and arranged in rigid spikes.

  Julia slowed her stride enough to stay a safe distance behind, but not enough that it was obvious she was following them. When the couple disappeared through a brick archway, Julia sped back up to see where they'd gone. A tiny sign with red cursive writing hung at the peak of the arch.

  La Luxure.

  Leaning cautiously against the edge of the archway, she peered into the darkness. A narrow alley stretched before her, opening into what looked like a small courtyard. She could just make out another doorway at the end, and beyond that she could faintly hear music.

  "Are you going inside, O negative, or do you plan on lingering out here all night?"

  Her skin and body nearly separated. Laughing nervously instead of screaming, she turned to the tall, lean man who'd so efficiently snuck up on her. He had waist length, multicolored dreads, pale skin with hollow cheeks, a hook nose, and the craziest white-blue eyes she'd ever seen. His clothes were more Steampunk than traditional Goth, with a fitted waistcoat, pocket watch, and motorcycle goggles perched on his head.

  Not that Julia had ever worn either style. But it was something Clare was into, and Julia had spent hours listening to her sister gush about this corset dress, or that fabulous bustle, or this mini top hat, to at least recognize the difference between the fashions.

  Her voice escaped in a rush. "Oh! It's a bar?"

  "In a manner of speaking." His burgundy painted lips separated, revealing sparkling, white teeth. "There's no need to be shy. You're welcome to come in and have a drink."

  As curious as Julia might be about the inside of La Luxure, she really didn't care to go in based on some strange guy's invitation. He had the most lust filled expression on his angular face, and it was more than just sexual.

  "Maybe later. I'm expected somewhere else." She hoped to make him think people were waiting for her. Ditching the body of someone with friends was harder than ditching a loner no one would miss.

  "Too bad," he said, sliding past her and into the dim alley. "You're definitely my type." He grinned one last time at her before disappearing through a door at the far end.

  What the hell did that mean? He didn't seem the kind to prefer the "girl next door", and he'd emphasized his last word enough to make her wonder at its innuendo.

  Hadn't he called her O negative?

  That was her blood type.

  Goosebumps covered her body, and chills danced up her spine. Julia didn't linger any longer, but hastened away as quickly as she could without actually running. She felt like the little girl she'd once been, who scampered up the basement stairs convinced there were monsters underneath waiting to grab her ankles.

  Planes and elevators might send morbid images into her head, now she had another scene to add. This one revolved around a tall, pale man sucking her dry in a dark, arched alleyway.

  It was scary and somehow sexy at the same time.

  Chapter Two

  Minutes later, Julia stumbled onto Jackson Square. The cathedral was beautiful even in the twilight hours. Its gray spires reached well above the building rooftops and she wondered how she'd missed it the first time.

  Except for a few artists packing up their wares and some lingering fortune tellers, the Square was empty. The temperature had dropped even more, or maybe Julia was still chilled from the creepy encounter at Luxure, but she wished she'd brought a jacket.

  Peering through the metal slats of the park's perimeter fence, she could barely make out the statue of Andrew Jackson. She'd come back when it was light out, but right now, with the lack of safe sunlight and dwindling number of people, Julia decided it was best to retire to her hotel room and immerse herself in a more interesting New Orleans adventure.

  "I must read your cards," a short, smarmy looking man said, drawing her attention away from the park landscaping. He wore a black leather jacket and matching moustache from 1989.

  "No thanks, I'm good."

  "I have to. I was packing up, but something told me I had to read you." His black eyes sparkled when he smiled. "Let a real Rom tell your future. Half price."

  Wasn't this the spontaneity she was craving? What else did she have to do? She shrugged. "Sure."

  "It's not often I really feel the need to read someone," he told her as he led her over to a card table covered with one of those cotton blankets sold in head shops: the kind with astrological signs, lots of stars, and often an Indian God or two. "Been doing this for 20 years. You're only the third person that called to me."

  Oh, it was probably his normal shtick, but it was harmless enough to buy into it. Besides, she'd always wanted to have a tarot reading.

  "Really? Well, I hope you've got something good for me." She followed his lead and sat across from him in a plastic, foldable chair.

  "So what question do you have for the cards?" he asked as he shuffled the large deck once, twice, a third time, and then, after hesitating and pressing his ear against the cards as though he was listening to them, a fourth time.

  "Um, nothing particular. Just tell me about the future, I guess," she said, too embarrassed to ask the real question she'd like an answer to. Would she ever meet a man that made her feel something more than ho-hum?

  With rapid, practiced movements, he placed the cards on the points of the yellow star centered on the blanket covering the table. Starting with the center, then moving to the upper point, the lower right point, the left point, and continuing until all the cards were gone. Next time she was bored at work, she'd have to look up the significance of the pattern on the Net. Or ask Clare. That girl knew the most bizarre trivia.

  He flipped a few cards over, studied them a moment, and then said, "I see you as lost. Not really unhappy, but not quite satisfied, like the niche you've carved in your life isn't quite the right fit and you're searching for something to fill in the missing pieces." He glanced at her. "You're single, right?"

  Whoa. "Um, yeah."

  "Shame for such a pretty girl." The Roma smiled, flipping over more cards. "Well, it isn't for lack of trying, or lack of offers. All the men you meet, like your life, are just off. Nothing is really wrong. They're just never the right fit." He studied the exposed cards. Julia tried to follow what he might be seeing, but she couldn't make heads or tails out of any of it. All she saw were random pictures.

  "You're a practical person, pretty low key and down to earth, but there's more to you than what's obvious. Under that good girl façade, there's a wild streak that simmers just beneath the surface. I don't mean Bourbon St., flashing people from balconies wild. This is a darker, dirtier wild streak." He tossed a wink at her and she felt like a 13-year-old girl whose dad had to buy her tampons. She looked over the cards again. How the hell did he decipher all that from a few nonsensical images?

  He flipped over a few more cards and immediately raised an eyebrow. "Well, well." He
grinned at her, a big, fat, canary eating grin. "It looks like you're going to meet the man you've been looking for in the next three days."

  "What? Here? In New Orleans?"

  The Rom nodded. "And it's going to bring about the change you've been seeking. But it'll be more than just new love, or lust, there's something about this man that will answer the questions in your soul and awaken the woman that's been locked away for so long."

  That was quite a tall order for one man to fill. Based on the books she read, Julia might be a romantic, but she was a realist too. She certainly wasn't expecting Mr. Right to fulfill every need she could conceive.

  The fortune teller revealed some more cards. His unibrow knitted even tighter together until it was a solid black line across his olive forehead. "This can't be right," he muttered.

  "What?"

  He shook his head. "There's darkness here. Evil and...blood."

  "What does that mean?"

  He shook his head again. When he turned over the next card, he jumped to his feet, nearly knocking the table over in the process. "Reading's over," he said, bundling the tarot cards in the blanket and shoving them into a plastic tub. This had to be part of the shtick. "No charge, just forget you met me." Yanking the table back, he folded the legs with hasty, jerky movements. When he came for her chair, she rose unsurely.

  "Um..."

  "Just go. Reading's over." Folding up both chairs, he tucked them, the table, and the plastic tub under his arm and lumbered away awkwardly. Julia watched after him astounded.

  What just happened?

  A brisk breeze blew up from the Mississippi, tossing her hair in all different directions and chilling her even more. Okay, she'd had enough weird encounters for one night. No more stops until she was back at the hotel. She didn't even check her map to make sure she was heading in the right direction. A quick check to make sure the downtown skyline was in front of her was enough. She was ready to be somewhere with a lock.

  Luckily, the walk back to her hotel was uneventful. Skipping the elevator, she took the stairs two at a time and made sure she flipped the security bolt on her room door.

  Not that she was particularly superstitious, nor was she a true believer of psychics and the supernatural. But if engineering school had taught her anything, it was that there is an awful lot about the world people don't yet understand, and some of the stuff people think they "know" is only a good guess. She wasn't arrogant enough to write something off simply because it didn't fit into her image of the world.

  Humans were just animals after all. If cattle could sense pending earthquakes and dogs could predict seizures, it wasn't that far of a stretch to think that, if developed, human senses could expand beyond the common five.

  Even if Julia didn't put a ton of faith in the fortune teller's predictions, they were still disturbing. And intriguing. Blood? Death? A true love?

  But what had the Rom seen that finally sent him running?

  Thunderstruck, Julia shook her head. Falling onto the chair, she scooped up her book. If this crazy first night in New Orleans was an indicator, what could she expect from the next five?

  * * *

  It was difficult paying attention to the various speakers that churned through Power Point after Power Point presentation during her seminar the next day. She diligently scribbled notes on the provided handouts, trying to catch the key points, but couldn't seem to keep her mind from wandering.

  It wasn't just the crazy tarot reading that spun through her mind. For some reason she kept thinking of La Luxure. She couldn't help but wonder if it was like the Goth-type bars described in books she'd read, where heavy industrial techno pounded through the speakers and sexy bodies writhed on the dance floor and fetish acts were performed live in cages. She wondered about the dreadlock guy and his weird reference to her blood type. Was he a regular patron of the bar? Was it merely a drinking establishment or something more?

  More than once she tried to force the thoughts from her head and concentrate on whichever current speaker was at the podium. And every time she failed. She wondered what it would be like to actually walk down that narrow alley and go inside. What type of people might she meet?

  The thoughts were nothing more than mere fantasies. She probably couldn't even find the place again, let alone drum up the courage to go inside.

  Lunch was a welcome escape from the monotony of droning speakers. The caterers wheeled in Cajun favorites: gumbo, crawfish, jambalaya, red beans and rice, and po'boys. There weren't any oysters, but Julia wasn't complaining. A Bloody Mary was all she needed to complete the meal.

  Oh, they had those too.

  Welcome to New Orleans.

  "They've really thought of everything, huh?" the guy standing behind her in line said.

  "I don't know how they think we're going to be able to concentrate this afternoon after a Bloody Mary or two," she replied, turning to greet him. He was around her age, late 20's or early 30's, with sandy brown hair and a decent physique hiding under his blue polo. He was cute and Julia was reminded of her tarot reading. It was within three days...

  "Maybe there's a siesta scheduled next."

  "That'd be nice," she laughed. "But there might be one anyway, scheduled or not." She held out her hand. "Julia."

  He shook it firmly, which she liked. She had no use for men who wouldn't shake a woman's hand the same way they shook a man's. "Dave." Their nametags announced who they were, but it was nice to declare it formally. "So, Alton?" he wondered, reading the rest of her nametag. "That's outside of St. Louis right?"

  "Yeah, just to the northeast."

  Dave grinned. "I'm from Columbia." His tag read, Columbia Water & Light.

  "Oh, like Mizzou?"

  "Exactly. We're practically neighbors."

  Columbia, home to the largest university in Missouri, was roughly halfway between St. Louis and Kansas City: about a two-hour drive from Alton. They might not be the, "can I borrow a cup of sugar" type of neighbors, but it was certainly doable for a relationship. Of course, that was assuming Dave was the love the tarot reader had predicted, or that there would be a new love at all. She was really jumping the gun.

  Presumptuous or not, the prospect was exciting.

  "So, are you down here by yourself?" She nodded and Dave seemed pleased to hear that. "Well, you're welcome to join us." He gestured towards a table with a lone blond man sitting at it. "I'm here with my coworker, Mike."

  "Sure. Thanks." Subtly, she slipped her book into her purse. Blaise would have to wait until later.

  "In fact, we're heading out to Pat O'Brien's after the conference for a drink if you're interested. Mike's girlfriend Beth came down here with him, so it'd be the four of us."

  As the token vagina, men were always trying to pair her up with another of her kind. It was unnecessary. Julia worked almost exclusively with men and she was completely comfortable socializing with them. In fact, from time to time, she was known for channeling her inner construction worker. Clare was actually the only female she associated with. But the gesture was thoughtful nonetheless.

  "That sounds fun."

  She smiled at Dave. Maybe she was expecting too much, but the tarot reader's words buzzed in her ears. No matter what happened, meeting Dave and his friends at the famous New Orleans bar not only presented the perfect opportunity to cross one attraction off her tourist "to-do" list, but also had the potential to be a very interesting evening.

  * * *

  Julia understood why Pat O'Brien's was such a popular tourist destination. The courtyard was spectacular: all brick, with a large fountain, multiple bars, and enough foliage to make a person forget they were in a completely urban environment. It was a tranquil escape from the debauchery of Bourbon Street. Although pretty crowded, the energy was high but not too frat-y, and at no point was Julia worried about being clobbered by beads or flashed.

  In spite of the cool temperature, they chose a table outside. The moment they sat down a waiter in a green uniform jacket appr
oached their table. Julia stared at the drink menu. There were pages of colorful drinks displayed in an array of curvy glasses. They looked good, but were probably far too sweet for her tastes and had bad hangover written all over them. She flipped over the menu. Maybe they had a wine selection...

  Wine was usually a risky choice at a bar. Julia wasn't a wine snob by any stretch of the imagination, but she did have a few requests. She preferred the wine to come in a normal sized bottle, it had to have been opened within the last three days, and her red wine couldn't come out of the cooler or a box. Although box wines had improved in recent years...

  "Julia? Do you want something to drink?" The way Dave was looking at her, it wasn't the first time he'd asked the question. In fact, they were all looking at her.

  "Um, of course." Awkwardly, she fumbled with the drink menu. She should have made a choice by now. Something simple, a beer, gin & tonic, maybe a vodka drink...?

  "You'll want a Hurricane," Dave told her in a 'Father knows best' tone. He turned to the waiter. "She'll have a Hurricane."

  Julia felt her hackles rise. She was pretty sure she did not want a Hurricane. "Um..."

  "They're yummy," Beth said, leaning towards her and whispering across the table. Beth was classically pretty, with long, straight blond hair and deeply tanned skin.

  "Sounds good," Julia agreed with forced enthusiasm, choking down her snippy retort and blinking away the dirty look she wanted to flick at Dave. He probably didn't mean anything by it, and according to her menu, the Hurricane was created at Pat O'Brien's, so as a good tourist, she should at least try one while sitting in their courtyard. She just didn't like Dave telling her she wanted one.

  "Dude, did you see that stripper on the way here?" Mike said suddenly. "She had the biggest booty I have ever seen."