by Adams, Nancy
I spent the day wandering around, mostly, exploring the house and the grounds and just getting used to living in such luxury. About ten that morning, I picked up the phone and called my mom, told her I’d gotten a great job as a personal assistant to a rich foreigner, and was living in a beautiful mansion like we used to dream about. She was thrilled that I’d found a job so quickly, of course, but warned me to be careful; foreigners, she said, had some odd notions about what young women were for. I promised to be careful and not make any mistakes along those lines, and I don’t think she believed me for a second. Knowing my mother, I suspect she thought I was being more “personal” than “assistant.”
Oh, well, you can’t convince parents that you won’t make mistakes. We chatted a while, and I talked to Molly and Angie, but Daddy was out in the fields so Mom said she’d give him my love. I hung up and felt a little homesick, but it passed.
Faith’s brother George showed me the outbuildings, and I was surprised again to find that the big garage held several dozen cars. Horace hadn’t said anything about them, but here I was staring at probably fifty beautiful machines! I’m no car expert, but any girl who grew up in farm country knows the difference between an antique or classic car, a sports car and a luxury car, and some of these were obviously among one or the other of those categories. I saw a big antique limousine, and a newer one too, and some old two-seaters that looked appealing. There were a couple of pickup trucks, several motorcycles, and I saw a number of tractors with various kinds of equipment attached to them.
It was an interesting day. Nathan told me a little of the history of the place, and I was surprised to find that it was one of the oldest homes in the area. It was originally built in eighteen twenty-six, even before Beverly Hills was a town, as the home of a Spanish general. He and his troops were sent to guard the people who were settling the area, and he loved the place enough to want to remain, rather than go home to Spain one day. There was some sort of rebellion, though, about twenty years later, and the house was burned.
The only part of the original house that remained was the cellar, and a new house was built over it by one of the general’s sons. That house stood until nineteen-thirty, when it also burned during a wildfire.
Once again the house was rebuilt, into the one I was living in. It had been remodeled a couple of times, had its wiring and plumbing upgraded, things like that, but for the most part it was not much different than when it was built fifty years before. I thought it was beautiful, and told him so.
It was the general’s great-great grandson, a man named Echevarria, who had sold the house to Horace, a few years previously. Nathan had been butler there for nearly thirty years, having replaced his father who was butler before him. His grandson Jack was being groomed for the future of the job, since Albert enjoyed the grounds work so much.
We had a light lunch, ham sandwiches and soft drinks at a picnic table in the backyard, and I enjoyed just being with these people. We laughed a lot, George and Michael and Jack decided to show off their musical ability and broke out guitars, and we ended up spending the afternoon laughing and singing and dancing. I danced with each of the men, and it soon dawned on us all that young Jack, who was only seventeen, was developing a crush on me. I thought it was sweet, and danced with him several times.
At dinnertime, I complained that I hadn’t ever eaten so much, and begged off. Faith decided it was time for my bath, and I went nervously into my bathroom with her, unsure of what was coming.
It was a bath, that’s what it was! She helped me strip, put me in the tub, and washed me thoroughly, all very professionally and efficiently. When it was done, she helped me dry off with some huge towels she found in a closet, then had me lay down on my bed while she gave me a massage.
Oh, it felt good! Her hands were skilled, and she managed to get my tense muscles to relax for the first time since I had come to realize what I was. If I’d been capable of sleeping, I would have dozed off while she worked, I’m sure.
By the time we were done, it was getting close to sunset, so I reminded Angel to have trays for Horace and his friends ready outside their doors. She did, and not long after eight I heard the vampires all start breathing again, and moments later they were taking their trays in. Over the next twenty minutes or so, I heard each of their toilets flush a couple of times, and then Simone came out of her room looking for me.
“Hey, ducklin,” she said, and just hearing her voice made me smile. “You gonna go out with us tonight?”
“Um, I don’t know,” I said in a whisper. “I’ve been up all day, so I might need to stay in and pretend to sleep.”
Horace and the others came out a bit later, complimented Angel on the food and thanked everyone for letting them rest, and then announced that they were going out for the evening. I mentioned the garage full of cars, and we went out to look at them. Horace got George to show him where all the keys were kept, and the vampires all chose cars to drive.
Horace looked at me. “Amber-luv, why don’t you park that big lorry of yours in here, and drive one of these? I’m certain the insurance will cover you, and if not I’ll fire the bloody attorney and get one who can bloody well anticipate me!"
“Oh, I’m fine,” I said, but he wouldn’t be put off, so I looked over the cars that hadn’t been claimed. I nodded at a red one that I thought was kind of sexy, and George said it was a good choice.
“It’s a fine car, Miss Amber,” he said. “A nineteen fifty-seven Thunderbird!"
I climbed in and sat behind the wheel, and something about the pretty car felt right. It was a convertible, and I’d always wanted one; Horace smiled at me and told me it was mine for as long as I wanted it, then they all headed for the cars they’d picked for themselves.
Simone had been sitting in the T-bird with me; she kissed me as she left. “Don’t wait up!” she whispered in my ear, and I giggled at her.
Nathan and the staff all went out to their own apartments, and I was alone. I went to my room, stripped down to my panties, slipped on a t-shirt and resumed reading, with occasional interruptions for the bathroom.
Horace
God, it felt good to be back amongst the living! Our previous identities, back in PA, were still the subject of a massive manhunt, but with proper identification on us, we were each certain of being ignored by any policemen who might take notice of us. Wasn’t likely there were any bulletins out in California about us, anyway, so we didn’t fret much.
The area had changed considerably since we’d been living down south of there, but each of us had been there off and on in the intervening years. One of the burdens of immortality is the necessity of business, making sure your other identities are always making money and prospering, just in case you need to use them. All of us had some business interests that were tied to L.A., so we had to come in now and then. For that reason, we all had some idea of where we wanted to go that night. Rudy headed down into Hollywood, to some bars he’d been to before, and Mad and Jen drove off south together. I saw Simone following me, and pulled into a grocer’s parking lot. She swung in behind me, and pulled her little bathtub Porsche around so she was at my window.
“Is there a reason you’re on my arse?” I asked, and she chuckled at me.
“Been a long time since I been ‘round here, you know that. I dunno where to go for a sugar daddy.”
I grinned at her, then, and told her to keep following. I led her down toward Venice, and a place I’d known there for more than thirty years.
It wasn’t much to look at when we got there, but it never had been. It was one of those places that wasn’t interested in the tourist trade, because there’s too much going on in the local scene, if you know who and where and when. I knew the where and the when; it was time to find out about the who.
Simone
I followed Horace into Venice, and down to a region that seemed a bit gritty, but I knew Horace, and I never doubted he knew where he was going. When he parked his car at what looked like an
old warehouse, I parked beside him and got out.
There were other cars there, dozens of ‘em. Some were nice and new and flashy, and some were old and beat up, but I knew from bein’ around him so long that none of that would mean a thing. The cars on the outside might be just cheap ones the drivers only used for comin’ here, or they might be something fine and shiny that they could barely even afford. When you were goin’ out, cars were like clothes in Southern California; you put on the ones you wanted people to remember, not the ones you wore in your real life.
Horace was grinnin’, and that’s a sure sign he thinks he’s got ya. I wasn’t new to him, though, so I didn’t wonder what he was thinkin’ the way Amber might have. I walked right up to him and tucked my arm in his, but he laughed and pulled away.
“I said you could come with me,” he said, “but I don’t want you scaring off the ladies. If they think I’m with you, none of them will want to compete, so I won’t get anywhere. Walk alongside me, and I’ll just say you’re my niece, right?”
“Yeh,” I said. “Just don’t you be scarin’ off any dirty old men who think your niece is just their ticket!"
He laughed again, louder this time. “Not much chance o’ that here,” he said. “Your biggest problem will be choosing which one you want for dinner!"
He opened a door and we went into a long, dim hallway. At the other end was another door, and he knocked on it. We waited a few seconds, then a little slot opened up in the door, and a gorilla looked out at us.
Okay, yeh, it wasn’t really a gorilla, it was a mask on some big guy who was probably even uglier when he took it off! He said, “Yeah?” real mean-like, and Horace said, “Horace St. John, last visit May of nineteen seventy-eight. My password is sanguinity.”
The slot closed, and another minute passed before the door opened. A man without a mask welcomed us in, and Horace led me through another hallway to a barroom, and all of a sudden I understood why he was grinnin’ so big! There was probably a hundred people in that room when we walked in, but only about sixty of ‘em was livin’!
The rest was vampires, like us, and we all knew each other by the smell, o’ course, but I just glanced over ‘em. I was lookin’ for blood, same as they were; vampires don’t get real social-like with each other much. We all got our own little bunches, like us with Horace, but we don’t much make friends with other ones.
Horace smiled, cause he saw he’d got me. He’d told us about vampire bars before, but I never seen any. Didn’t know if they was real or not, to be true, so this was like a new thing for me. I knew the rules, cause Horace told us all, in case we ever saw one. Like how we couldn’t ever kill anyone we met there, or ever follow ‘em home or bother ‘em, and we couldn’t take someone away from another vampire. All easy, for us, but some of them that came there prob’ly didn’t dodge the killin’ like we did. For them, it might be a gripe, but the rules was the rules.
Horace went up to the bar, but there wasn’t no v-girls there, so I walked around for a minute before I sat down at an empty table. A bar girl came over and asked what I wanted, and I said a screwdriver while I looked around. There was some men there, all right, and several of ‘em were lookin’ me over. It was kind of exciting, y’know? Isn’t often I get smiled at by men who knows what I really want. These guys would like to diddle me, yeh, but they knew right up front what it was gonna cost ‘em. Made me feel good, it did, almost like—almost like they really kinda liked me. Been a long time since I felt anything like that, it had.
The girl brought my screwdriver, and I sipped it while I let ‘em look. I had on a short little skirt, and a skimpy top, and I kept turnin’ this way and that way, flashin’ some thigh and lettin’ ‘em see that there wasn’t nothin’ under there.
They looked, and they saw, and then one of ‘em, a chubby older guy who looked like he was prob’ly pretty rich, he winked at me, and when I smiled at him, he raised his hand and dangled a shiny little bracelet at me. I give him my “What’s this?” look, y’know, with the eyebrows? And he smiled and motioned like he wanted to give it to me, so I crooked a finger to tell him to come over.
He sat down in the other chair, and said, “Do you like to play games?”
I said I did, sometimes, and he told me he’d give me that bracelet, with its twenty-six pretty little diamonds, if I’d play a game he liked to play, so I asked him what kind of game it might be. He leaned over and whispered in my ear.
I giggled when he told me, and when I looked at him again, I said, “Ooooh, that sounds like a lot of fun—Daddy.”
Chapter Twenty-four
Amber
It was an uneventful night. I read a couple of books, which was enjoyable, and watched some TV (there was a nice one in my room, a big color console set with a remote!). The house had cable, and there were about eighty channels to choose from, so it wasn’t easy to decide, but I found one that was running old episodes of I Love Lucy. I’d always loved that show, so I watched several of them.
Simone came in about three, and joined me. I asked how her hunting had gone, and she giggled. “Sometimes,” she said, “I gets noticed by men who like ‘em even younger than me, younger than I look, I mean, and they offers me things to pretend.” She held up her hand to show me a beautiful diamond tennis bracelet. It wasn’t one of those that are worth a small fortune, but I bet it wasn’t cheap, either. “Met one o’ them tonight, and he gave me this to play along. It’s fun, and when he’s gettin’ all excited, I get to nip him and he don’t mind at all.”
“Don’t any of them ever think it’s—I dunno, strange, that you bite them and suck out some blood?”
She smiled. “Oh, he knew what I was. Place we went tonight is for our kind to meet with some as likes us. And even with regular men, some of ‘em figure it out,” she said, “but they prob’ly just hope they’ll get another chance to diddle me! I mean, they don’t get hurt, right? And most of the ones as like me are men as won’t admit they want the things they want, so findin’ a girl like me, what’ll give it to ‘em and not go runnin’ off to tell—yeah, they’d let me do it again. I’ve been back to a few of ‘em, but not lately. It’s not hard to do, and prob’ly I will again.”
I was lying on my bed, just relaxed, and she had climbed up beside me. She reached up and kissed my cheek, then said she wanted a shower before the sun came up. She slipped out of my room and up the stairs to her own. All the vampires had chosen rooms on the second floor, and I heard her shower start a few moments later.
I went back to my TV shows, but Horace stopped by my room just a couple of minutes later. He asked me if things were all right, I said they seemed to be, and then he went off to bed. Rudy and Jen came in together a little later. I watched TV and waited to hear Madeline come in.
Then the sun came up, and there’d been no sign of her. I wondered if this was an emergency, whether I should go and wake Horace, but I decided against it. Surely Mad was a big girl, and could take care of herself, right? This couldn’t be the first time she’d stayed out, I was sure, and I figured she was somewhere safe, out of the sunlight. I put her out of my mind, and went to take a shower so I’d be ready when Angel and the others began coming in for the day.
Breakfast was omelets, and I had one with Swiss cheese and mushrooms, just like I’d had at home a few days earlier. It was delicious, but it made me miss my Mom all over again.
There wasn’t much for me to do that morning, and I just sort of lounged around, taking it easy. I hadn’t forgotten that I had a date that night with Greg, and I was looking forward to it. A sense of normalness was exactly what I needed, and what could be more normal than going out on a date?
I mentioned it to Faith at lunch, and you would have thought I had said the sky was going to fall in! She grabbed my hand and dragged me to my room, told me to strip while she ran a bath, then almost threw me into the water. I had a brief thought that I was glad I couldn’t drown, because if I could, this was probably gonna be it!
She washed me thorou
ghly—and I do mean thoroughly—and soaked herself right through her jeans and top in the process, dried me with the big fluffy towel again, then dragged me naked into my bedroom. She went through my closet frantically, ranting about taking me shopping as soon as possible for clothes, but she found a dress that she declared “not too terrible” and laid it out on the bed. She dug out bra and panties, and stuffed me into them, then plopped me down in a chair at the dressing table that was there when I’d moved in, and demanded my makeup case.
I reached for my purse and pulled out the few items of makeup I owned, and she shrieked!
Suddenly I was being shoved back into the shorts and tank top I’d put on that morning, my sneakers were tossed at me and Faith was yelling for her brother Michael to get a car ready! Ten minutes later, we were in a limousine, headed for shopping.
Faith knew what she wanted, and didn’t bat an eye at telling me “buy this” and “pay for that”; it was almost comical, watching her choose makeup for me, toss bras and panties and pantyhose and dresses and all kinds of other stuff into carts. I knew Horace was paying me well, but I was just hoping I had enough money to cover the purchases.
When the totals got rung up, though, I was surprised to see that it wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. The one paycheck I’d already gotten was far more than enough to cover it. Poor Michael was laden with the bags and Faith hustled us all back to the car. We were back home by four, which she said would leave her with “barely enough time!"
I’ll say this much: she knew what she was doing. By the time she got done painting my face, I looked like a different person, one who really should have been in movies! I was amazed.
She’d also done something wonderful with my hair, though she insisted it was only a quick make-do. I had these big curls that framed my face, and my blond locks looked like they must have doubled in thickness! Greg was to pick me up there at the house at six, and we got done at just before five forty-five.
