La Luxure: Discover Your Blood Lust

by Cd Hussey

  Julia's stomach turned. Luckily, the computer went into sleep mode, because if she had to look at that image any longer, she was going to vomit. It was all one big lie. All of it. Every kiss, every touch. Everything. Armand was just some vampire wannabe; a gorgeous empty package wrapped up in a nice costume. His clothes, his hair, the way he moved, his teeth...Shit, his name probably wasn't even real.

  If everything she'd experienced in the last week was fake, had any of it been real? She touched the wounds on her neck. It'd been real enough that he'd fucking bitten her.

  The thought suddenly disgusted her. When Armand had been an actual vampire unable to resist temptation biting her, the act was fine, but knowing he was just some blood drinking weirdo sinking his teeth into her flesh made her skin crawl.

  It was her own damn fault for being so fucking gullible. She'd wanted to believe so badly that it wasn't difficult for him to seduce her into his sick, little world.

  Julia groaned out loud. God, could it all have been a ploy? There had been so many clues, so much "evidence". She sifted through memories from the last week. Even now, with the truth blaring across her computer screen, she couldn't believe he was a mere human.

  Either he was an amazing actor or she was a fucking idiot.

  She needed to go to source, to hear the truth from Armand's lips, because at this point, she couldn't separate reality from fiction.

  * * *

  By the time Julia reached the narrow isle leading to Luxure, she was furious. On the rushed walk there, every scene from the past week had played in rerun fashion over and over in her mind. And the more she dwelled on the "evidence", the more infuriated she became. It felt like Armand had woven this intricate web for her to fall into, and she'd eagerly become his victim.

  The bar was quiet when she flung open the door. All the lights were on, washing out the black walls and furniture in an artificial glow. Armand stood behind the bar, marking off an invoice attached to a clipboard. A tall, slender, tattooed girl, with black, Betty Page hair was wiping down furniture. The velvet curtains to the back room were tied back, and Julia could just make out the massive, muscled back of the angry bartender as he stacked boxes of beer against the wall.

  Armand grinned when he first saw her, flashing his artificially white teeth and fangs broadly. The smile promptly fell when he caught sight of her expression.

  "Julia?"

  "You're a fake?" The tone was shrill and accusatory as it left her mouth, and much louder than she intended, but at this point she was shaking so badly with anger she didn't care. Seeing him standing casually behind the bar, dressed in a sleek, button down black shirt, pin-stripe vest, black slacks, and black Fedora just inflamed her further. Wasn't he the perfect pin-up vampire. What a fucking crock!

  He moved from behind the bar to stand beside her. "Why don't we go somewhere private to talk?"

  "What's wrong with right here?" What, did he not want his little vampire cronies to know the truth?

  Taking her elbow, he started for the locked door where he'd taken Angel and Ash the first night Julia was there, applying enough gentle pressure to encourage her to comply.

  "Private conversations should remain private," he said.

  She wanted to resist, wanted to plant her feet and make him drag her into the room, but a quick glance at the bartender's narrowed, red glare and tensed up tree-trunk arms changed her mind. Facing a bunch of angry vampire wannabes did not sound like a fun evening, no matter how furious she was.

  When the door was securely shut and locked behind them, Armand turned to her. He looked concerned and confused. With her barging accusation, she expected him to be angry.

  He hadn't released her arm and softly stroked it. "What's going on, Julia?"

  She jerked away from his touch, betrayed by the fact that his warm fingers felt delicious against her skin. "I saw your pictures all over the internet, modeling vampire clothes. And my sister says she met you last year at some vampire convention." The phrase "vampire convention" tasted like bile as she said it.

  The pale skin of Armand's brow knitted together. "Well, I do model from time to time, and I try to attend a few conventions a year."

  His perplexed confirmation only inflamed the churning in her gut. "So you are a fake vampire?"

  "I've never claimed to be one, fake or otherwise."

  She snorted. "Please. You don't claim to be a vampire?"

  "Never have."

  "Then what the hell is all this?" She waved her hand wildly around her head.

  "I thought you understood what Luxure was about?"

  "Yeah, a bar that caters to vampires."

  "Of sorts." He sat on a stainless steel table next to an autoclave and an assortment of scalpels, sealed syringes, and small, ceramic cups. "Luxure is a blood bar. Most of the clientele that come here consider themselves Human Live Vampires, or Sanguinarians."

  "Sanguianarians?"

  "Humans that need to consume a little human blood every so often, not to live, but to be well and healthy." Armand shrugged. "Until I met Slade, my bartender, I didn't believe it either. But if you saw him before, skinny, sickly, in the hospital more often than not...Well, I no longer judge."

  "And you? Are you one of these Human Live Vampires?"

  "No. I'm just a man with a bit of a blood fetish." The words blood fetish washed over her in a fresh wave of nausea. "Luxure is a place for those with like-minded tastes to meet, regardless of the origin of that desire," Armand was saying. "La Luxure de Sang is the bar's full name."

  In her lightheaded state, her limited French was suddenly perfect. "Blood Lust."

  "We just call it Luxure for short."

  She stared at the various medical equipment neatly laid out in the spotless room. "And this room? Is this is where you perform the blood letting or something?"

  He cocked his head. "In a way, yes. I'm a licensed phlebotomist with a fairly extensive medical background, and can safely assist my clients with their needs. There are also those who don't care to get blood directly from the source. I assist with that as well."

  "You have a medical background?" Julia realized she knew nothing about him. Not a single, goddamned thing.

  "Pre-med. And I worked as a paramedic for a few years."

  Instead of becoming clearer, the situation was getting weirder and weirder. She'd known there was a vampire subculture out there, but she never imagined it was this involved. She'd always figured it wasn't much more than a group of people that shopped at Hot-Topic, hung out in cemeteries or coffee shops, and discussed the latest popular vampire book or movie, or had séances or something. This was too much. This was all too much.

  "What's the matter Julia? I don't quite understand your anger. I assumed you understood what Luxure was, what I am." He looked even more bewildered than she felt. His eyebrows were trying desperately to become one, solid unit.

  It had been such a preposterous theory, but her logic couldn't be that flawed. He'd misled her somehow. "I though - I mean - you just had me convinced." Why did his hazel eyes boring down on her make her so damned flustered?

  "Of what? My immortality?" His confusion slipped away and was replaced by what appeared to be amusement.

  "Yeah, I mean, I guess." The smirk on his face only made her angrier. She was not a stupid woman. "You're telling me you didn't try to trick me into believing you were something other than human?"

  "No, not at all. Why would you think that?"

  If it was remotely possible for her to feel dumber, the calm, cool tone of his words pushed her over the edge into idiocy. She suddenly felt compelled to explain her logic. "Just the way you look, your clothes, eyes, teeth...And the way you move, you're always so graceful and quiet."

  "Well, there is a certain image owning this type of establishment requires. Clothes are bought, and grace is practiced."

  "You practice being graceful?" She envisioned him sitting around his swank apartment, practicing vampire expressions in the mirror, and recording his barito
ne drawl to give it just the perfect edge of seduction.

  "At one time. I may not look the part, but I do come from a very old, very traditional New Orleans family. I had etiquette training in my youth, and I don't think I can count the number of debutante balls I attended."

  It couldn't be that simple. "And your teeth?" she pressed.

  He gave a small shrug. "I won't lie, those are fake. I used to wear the ones that slide into place, but in my line of work they're not practical. You can't eat with them, they're uncomfortable, and they certainly aren't functional in any sense. I had veneers put in a few years ago. There's a cosmetic dentist in town that does them." He leveled his gaze on her. "There has to be more than just my appearance to warrant your accusations."

  Her heart thumped wildly in her chest. There was more, so much more, but his quiet scrutiny was jumbling the thoughts in her brain. She stumbled over the evidence. "You move incredibly fast," she managed finally. "The night of the parade, you were across the street and then suddenly right next to me."

  His smile was small. "As I recall, you were drinking Absinthe that night. I don't think you were in full control of your senses. I did jog across the street to join you, but hardly anything spectacular."

  "What about in the cemetery? You winced when the sun came out."

  "It was in my face."

  "Then you deliberately sought out shade. And this afternoon you looked like your were going to burst into flames."

  "Owning a bar has made me even more of a night owl than I naturally am. The sun and I rarely see each other any more. And when we do meet, I'm usually fully protected with a hat or sunglasses, unlike this afternoon."

  She was not this dumb. She was not this dumb.

  "You never eat. And when we were at that café, you said you were hungry, but that there was nothing on the menu you could eat."

  "That's because I'm a vegetarian."

  She nearly strangled on the word. "Vegetarian?"

  "A choice I made in college because I didn't agree with industrial farming. Back then, there weren't as many organic or free range options, especially not here in New Orleans. At this point, I've simply lost my taste for meat."

  "But you drink blood!"

  "Rarely. But no one dies, nor is any pollution dumped into the environment because of my quirks."

  Could there really be a simple explanation to everything? "What about Darus? At The Cell, you lifted him up like it was nothing."

  "I'm 6'2" and 220lbs. I work out 6 days a week and have bounced at my own bar for over 10 years. Darus is what, 5'11" and maybe 170? Even without the anger and adrenaline feeding me, I'm pretty sure I could toss him around without much effort."

  "What about Eve?" she stumbled on. There had to be something more to the evidence she'd compiled than mere misunderstandings.

  "What happened to Eve was an unfortunate, appalling, and completely unnecessary side effect of this lifestyle. I should have done more that night; I should have admitted her at the hospital. But I hardly think my lack of judgment is evidence that I tried to make you believe I am an actual vampire."

  Oh God. It was that simple. Armand was just a guy who liked to drink blood and owned a bar that catered to other people that liked to drink blood. And she was just a fool. She slumped against the wall. "But you bit me," she said, defeated.

  "And you liked it." Armand shook his head. The pleasant smirk on his face had dropped. Whatever amusement he'd initially found in Julia's exasperation was gone. "I'm not seeing the issue here, Julia. Enlighten me."

  The words were so hard to find, especially with him staring at her. She struggled to find the right ones, but instead ended up blurting out the drivel that danced at the front of her brain. "It's just - Jesus, you live in this fantasy world, behind a façade of fake teeth and fake names, running around pretending to be a vampire in your black clothes. How the fuck is that not an issue? I'm not one of those girls. I have a real job and want a real life, not some pretend one."

  "I see," he said quietly as he slowly rose from the table. "So my life is somehow less real than yours?"

  "You have a fake name!"

  "No." The word came out painfully slow. "Armand is my middle name. William Armand Laroque. I am named after my grandfather. I'm told there's a striking resemblance."

  "The picture in the museum," she groaned. Was she really this gullible? Obviously, if she wanted to believe something badly enough she was. So much for being a smart, logical engineer.

  "Part of a collection I donated when my parents died," he said quietly. "Tell me, Julia, what difference would it make if Armand was a pseudonym? What if my real name was actually Jack, or John, or Billy?"

  She didn't have an answer to that. "I just want something real."

  "You keep tossing out words like 'real' and 'fake'. I run a legitimate business based on an alternative lifestyle. There might be a little more...pretense in what I do, but I started this business because of my interest in this community, and a desire to provide a safe environment for those involved. This is who I am. Perhaps a bit embellished at times, but really, I don't see any difference between this," he tugged gently at the tailored waistcoat, "and Joe Football who likes to wear a Saints jersey." He leaned close to her and her treasonous heart did a little pitter-patter of excitement. "Except maybe when you're fucking Joe Football, you never get confused and think you're actually fucking a Saints player."

  It was all she could do to force anger to replace the attraction. "So you are just playing a role."

  "No more than you are. The conservative City Engineer, with your trendy jeans and sensible pumps, living a vanilla life. That's not the woman I had in my bed last night, the woman who eagerly took my blood and orgasm'd while doing it." Julia felt her cheeks flush and her core moisten at the memory. "We all assume roles in our lives, Julia. Some are more traditional than others, and some are more fun."

  His words made her blood boil, and that final burst of anger helped sharpen her thoughts. She was not an idiot, nor was she completely at fault here.

  "Must be a nice challenge for you," she said snidely. "Seduce the naïve tourist and expand her narrow little world, give her some great memories to take back to her vanilla life. I especially like the line in front on my hotel the other night, where you were afraid of 'losing control'. It really added to the whole danger aspect." Julia rolled her eyes. "I bet you love the power, love being able to kink up a normal girl. How many other women have you lured into your twisted web? "

  Armand gave a disgusted, mirthless chuckle. "You've completely misjudged me. I'm pretty selective about who I fuck. I'm even more selective about who I drink from and who I let drink from me. It's a hell of a lot easier to slap on a condom and much less intimate. But then, I thought you understood that." He shook his head. "I guess I'm not the only one who was misjudged. You're obviously not who I thought you were either." He opened the door for her. "Have a safe flight home, Julia."

  His dismissal slapped her sharply across the face. Swallowing against the tears stinging her eyes, she set her jaw, pushing past him and out of the bar as quickly as her legs would carry her. She'd barely made it out of the front courtyard when her defenses gave out and tears sprang from her eyes like escaping prisoners.

  * * *

  In disgusted shock, Armand stared at the open door Julia had just stormed out of.

  What the fuck just happened?

  As of this afternoon, everything had been going so well. No, not just well, perfect. Less than three measly hours had passed since she'd left his apartment, what could have possibly changed in that short amount of time?

  Closing his eyes, Armand fell against the wall. He didn't want to believe it, didn't want to accept it. It couldn't be over. It had just begun. All the potential, the promise of bliss, the intense way she stirred him...gone, just like that. His chest felt heavy and empty at the same time, and ached like he'd broken a few ribs. What had started off as one of the most enjoyable days of his life had turned to shit in tw
o heartbeats.

  Maybe he'd kicked her out prematurely. The argument had escalated so fast, he was tempted to chase after her and demand more of an explanation. Maybe he could argue with her until she turned back into the woman he'd had in his bed.

  Her accusations rang in his ears, and pride kept his feet planted.

  He was not some blood drinking freak seducing innocent vampire groupies into his bed as she charged. The feelings he'd had for her were real, or so he thought.

  Obviously, everything that passed between them had been nothing more than misguided lust. It wasn't often that he was such a horrible judge of character, but he'd fucking missed the boat on this one.

  Building deep in his gut, he could feel the fury rising. He welcomed it, savored it. Any emotion was better than the hollowness she'd left him with.

  Slade's head popped in the doorway. "Everything okay in here? Your vanilla princess nearly shook down the walls when she stormed out."

  "Don't fucking start with me," Armand snapped, shoving past the bartender as he leaned on the doorjamb. "Get back to work. All of you," he barked at his employees. "Show's fucking over. We have work to do."

  It was going to be a long night. If he was going to survive it, he needed to keep busy. If he didn't contain the rage that was quickly consuming him, he was going to be in a dangerous state. Anyone who happened to cross him tonight was likely to lose their head, or balls, or both. A large piece of him hoped some drunk, dumbshit wandered off Bourbon and into his bar so he had an excuse to kick some ass.

  Chapter Twenty

  By the time Julia fell onto Royal, her tears were falling so hard she was choking on them. Gasping for breath and clutching her stomach, she forced her legs to move as quickly as her lead-filled shoes would allow.

  At times she didn't think she would make it back to the hotel. The tears were attempting to strangle her, and the pain in her stomach was so severe, she wanted to curl up on the sidewalk and cry herself into a puddle of numbness.