by Jenna Payne
“I should have warned you about the absinthe,” Rivet said kindly, “I make it myself.”
“And you know,” Lucas interrupted, “he is a voodoo man.”
The men laughed heartily as Violet’s eyes widened. She was so tired and tipsy by now that she couldn’t distinguish whether the men were joking or not.
Lucas, perhaps sensing her fatigue, cleared his throat and settled the bill with Rivet. “I’ll escort you home then, shall I?”
“Well if you wouldn’t mind, I’d be delighted.” Violet replied, hopping off of her bar stool and waiting by the door as he pulled on his white linen jacket and fetched his hat.
They stepped out into the evening together. The air was thick and muggy. The moon hung huge and almost full, barely visible through the hazy clouds. A mosquito landed on Violet’s arm and settled in for a long bite before flying off, drunk and sated. When they reached her house, Violet paused for a moment, and then invited the man inside. Caroline was long gone, and house was dark but for a single light burning in the front entryway.
“Since you walked me all the way home, can I offer you a drink?” Violet asked, throwing her cloche onto the table and leading the way into the sitting room. Lucas followed her, admiring the décor of the house as he went.
“I’ll have whatever you’re having,” he replied, standing by the mantelpiece and peering at the collection of photographs there. As in the rest of the house, they were mostly portraits of Mr. Astor and his wife on their various travels around the globe. Violet poured a glass of sherry for herself and her guest. He watched her in the reflection of the French doors. The soft fabric of her dress clung enticingly to her hips as she shifted from side to side. She glided across the room, passing him his glass as she made her way to the phonograph. She put on a record of slow jazz and raised her glass with a half-smile.
“To New Orleans,” she toasted.
“To beautiful women,” he replied.
She laughed, “Come on, I’ll show you the house…If you’re a painter, I think there’s one room you might appreciate.” She led the way from the drawing room up the stairs to the studio. She flipped on the light and turned to him.
“Well this is something,” Lucas purred, taking in the white room with the relish of a painter looking at a Fresh canvas. He sauntered over to the shelves, picking up tubes of color and admiring the sable brushes. “I would love to paint you,” he said, almost to himself. He turned, sherry glass in one hand, brush in the other, and fixed his gaze on Violet.
“Take your dress off.”
There was something about the way he said it that caused Violet to shiver. He wasn’t asking, he was telling her what she was going to do. And for some reason, staring into the dark of his eyes, she set her glass down on the floor, reached back, and pulled the long zipper of her dress down. Blue fabric fell over her feet, and she stood before him, exposed under the lights of the room.
“You see? I knew you’d be wearing something interesting underneath.” Lucas walked towards her with the air of a man commenting on the weather. He caressed the line of her jaw with the soft bristles of his paintbrush, tracing the curve over her neck and the sharp angles of her clavicles. He stopped just short of where the curve of her breasts began beneath the blue lace of her teddy.
Violet was completely disarmed. The feeling of the cool brush on her flushed skin filled her with a strange excitement. Although she had posed for many paintings, no man had ever looked at her with such hunger. Her legs quivered. She yearned for him to touch her. As if in answer to her thought, Lucas placed a hand on her thigh, ever so lightly. She leaned into it, and he took hold of her garter and snapped it against her skin with a chuckle as he withdrew.
“You’re dreadful!” she exclaimed, attempting to disguise the shakiness that had overcome her legs as she leaned down to retrieve her glass of sherry.
“I just want to paint you,” the man replied with a laugh like a bark. He fetched an easel, and set it up with the deftness of an experienced painter. “Will you stand there?” He motioned for her to move to the wall opposite the easel, and then threw a piece of board onto it. Conjuring a pencil seemingly from nowhere, he began to sketch.
Violet lounged against the wall. This was where she was in her element, as the center of attention—the focus of an artist’s gaze. She knew she must look wanton, leaning there with nothing but her underthings on. The gauzy blue fabric of her teddy and garters barely covered what lay beneath. She wondered if Lucas liked it, or if he was one of those men—and she had met quite a few—who wasn’t interested in women at all. There was something in the intensity of his gaze that made her think otherwise, as she lolled against the cool surface of the wall. There was something about him she found electrifying. His exterior gave off an impression of calm, and yet he seemed to be bursting with energy. She had never met a man with eyes so dark. As she watched him watch her, he stripped off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. She thought back to the night they had met. His marble white skin dripping in the evening light. The outline of his manhood in his sodden underthings. Violet’s mouth watered, and she determined that she would have him.
At that moment, a sudden clap of thunder shook the house. The lights flickered, then were extinguished. Violet let out a soft yelp of surprise. She had been so lost in the moment that the outside world had melted away. Now rain fell in great torrents, and the wind rattled the shutters against the house. She was blind in the sudden darkness, and all she could hear was the storm.
“Lucas?” she called into the blackness. There was no response. “Oh come now!” she exclaimed, feeling mildly annoyed as she clung to the wall for reassurance.
And then he was on top of her. He had moved across the room without a sound, and now he had pressed his body against hers, grabbed her wrists and forced her against the wall.
“You called?” he growled in her ear before kissing her passionately. He pressed his body against hers, forcing her left leg up as he thrust his arousal against her. She let out an involuntary moan. He released her hands and she reached for the buttons of his trousers as he pulled her teddy down, revealing her breasts. They were just a palm full each. Her kitten heels slipped on the hardwood floor and she fell, but Lucas caught her, lifting her against the wall effortlessly as he ravaged her neck. Violet let out a gasp as she felt him tear away the fabric between her legs. And then he was inside her, reveling in the sweet heat of her loins as he took her for his own.
Pleasure and pain combined as Violet felt his teeth graze her neck as he pushed against her sweet spot again and again. Through the haze of passion she thought they felt sharper somehow, but the thought was soon pushed out of her mind as he pulled her to the floor. She took control now, forcing him to roll over. This was her revenge for the bite. She straddled his hips and slowed their pace, teasing him, watching wild desire flash in the depths of his dark eyes. He let her have her way with him, writhing beneath her as she looked down at him with a mixture of superiority and ecstasy. She slapped his cheek playfully, and he growled as if he enjoyed it.
“You like when a lady’s on top, don’t you,” she purred, running her hands over his face, and his neck. She noticed that he had many scars, some newer, some mere white lines in his porcelain skin. “Tell me you like it,” she commanded.
“I like the view,” Lucas purred as he pushed his hips against hers. She was beautiful like this—hair disheveled, her cheeks flushed pink. He could see a trickle of blood running down her delicate shoulder from where he had bitten her neck, and it made him nearly mad with lust. Deprivation from what he wanted most: to take Violet and drink her dry, to make her like him, combined with her domination of him, filled him with an unimaginable erotic tension.
“I knew you did,” Violet replied. “You little pervert.” She slapped him again, harder this time, and then rested her hand against his throat as if she were about to choke him.
The slap sent shockwaves of pleasure through Lucas’s body, and he thrust up against
her, reaching for her thighs as he felt his climax approaching.
Seeing that he was close, Violet felt herself come to her crisis, grabbing onto his neck and choking him with her elegant hands as she rode the waves of intense pleasure, moaning his name over and over again.
As he felt her hands close around his throat, Lucas’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he came inside of her with a low growl.
When Violet awoke the next afternoon, it took her a few minutes to remember where she was. She was bundled tightly in the soft white sheets of her bed. A warm breeze was blowing through the open windows of her room. She yawned and stretched luxuriously, disentangling herself from her bedclothes and feeling the soreness of her muscles. Her head ached, but her hangover was mild.
“Well you’re awake I see,” Caroline said, bustling into the room. “I just came up to open your windows—it’s a glorious day outside!” She smiled and bustled out of the room. Violet wasn’t sure if it was her imagination, but she detected a disapproving air about her this morning.
Nonetheless, Caroline soon returned with a tray, bringing Violet a tall glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice and a fried breakfast. She ate gratefully. The buttery eggs and toast quieted her stomach, and the juice refreshed her almost instantly. After she ate, she climbed out of bed and made her way to the wash room. She felt a bath was in order to wash away the previous night’s exertions. The tile floor was cool and soothing under her bare feet. She started the water in the tub, and then caught sight of herself in the mirror and was shocked to see that she was covered in blemishes. Her legs and back were marred with small scrapes and bruises. Her lips were puffy and red, but most alarming was a cut on her neck. She moved towards the mirror to scrutinize herself more closely. Dried blood clung to her skin, which was bruised a shade of purple around what she now saw clearly to be a bite mark. She ran her fingers over the wound, wincing slightly.
The mirror began to fog up with steam, and Violet turned to the bath. She scattered chamomile flowers over the surface of the water, and then climbed in, sighing deeply as the hot water washed over her body. The mark on her neck was troubling to her. Lying there in the deep water she pictured it, ugly and purple against her usually flawless skin. And then with a start she remembered something.
She recalled the sight of Lucas and Rivet in an embrace, hidden in the half dark of the washroom corridor. She had dismissed it as a hallucination brought on by too much absinthe, but now she was flooded with apprehension and doubt. She thought of Lucas’s pale skin, marred with strange scars. The impenetrable darkness of his eyes, and his penchant for pain. Violet had heard stories about vampires in New York—men who lived in the subway tunnels who would walk through the city at night, preying on vulnerable young men and women. But somehow the mystery and darkness that enveloped New Orleans made the existence of such creatures of the night seem possible. Violet ran her fingers over the bite, feeling the rough edges of her skin. It worried her, the idea that she had gone to bed with such a dangerous creature, or real-life lunatic. Beneath her worries, however, lingered the memory of unparalleled pleasures. It was a good thing that summer scarves were in vogue.
Though her bath rejuvenated her somewhat, Violet spent the afternoon at home, nursing her sore muscles with a tincture of laudanum and lemonade as she glided through the house. She stopped in the studio, and observed Lucas’s sketches. To her surprise, they were rather remarkable. Gestural, but somehow he captured her expression with the accuracy of a photograph. She wondered if he would ever really paint her.
Early evening found her dozing in the drawing room, a copy of Eliot’s The Waste Land open on her chest. As the evening drove the sun towards the horizon, a golden light filtered into the room, rousing her at last from her opium-induced siesta. The tendrils of euphoria still clinging to her, Violet decided to stay in for the evening. She went to her room and collapsed into bed, sleeping the rest of the night.
For the next week, she explored the city alone, hearing and seeing nothing of the vampire who called himself Lucas. She supposed that she would never see him again.
After a week of daytime wanderings and early nights, Violet was determined to go out and paint the town. She dressed in a clingy but simple black dress that fell just below her knee, and wrapped a black scarf around her hair, arranging it so that the ends of it fell just-so over her neck, covering the scar that still lingered where Lucas had bitten her. She outlined her eyes in kohl, so that they shone out bright blue, and colored her lips crimson red.
It was a Friday night, and the streets were alive with men and women. Jazz music and laughter could be heard from the open doors and windows of restaurants and homes alike. Violet stepped down from her front porch and made her way down Bourbon Street, admiring the local ladies in their evening wear. She arrived at Arnaud’s, a restaurant that Mr. Astor had recommended. It was a marvelous brick building, with three stories of cast-iron balconies that wrapped around the entire structure. Bright flowers and women’s shawls flowed over the balconies as the patrons smoked cigarettes and drank champagne in the evening. The air smelled sweet and spicy. She walked inside and was greeted by a maître d’ who, to her surprise, already seemed to know her.
“Right this way, Ms. Miller,” said the short man with a slight bow as he led her through the dining room to a private table next to a window. It was set for one. She supposed Mr. Astor had a permanent reservation. Soon a waiter came to her table and poured her a glass of champagne. “Shall I bring you a menu, Ms. Miller?”
“No, that’s alright,” she smiled at him. “Just bring me what you think I ought to have.” She had never dined at a Creole restaurant before, and she supposed she wouldn’t know what to order even if she had a menu. She pulled out her cigarettes and placed one in her dinner-length holder, nodding appreciatively as the waiter lit it, and then scurried away into the chaos of the kitchen. It was a lively atmosphere, and Violet, still tired from her exertions, was relieved to be sequestered at her own table next to the window.
The first course arrived as a small plate of delicately smoked fish. She tasted it, and found that it was quite delicious. She smoked and drank more champagne. She was more in the mood for booze than victuals, but she tried everything for the sake of politeness, and ate all of the strawberry baked Alaska that was brought at the end. Feeling a bit more lively, she ordered pastis and water, and smoked, and watched young lovers furtively fondle each other at the bar.
“Well hello, beautiful.”
A familiar voice interrupted her solitude and she turned to see Lucas leaning casually against the window frame. In one hand was a glass of bourbon, and the other, a cigar that smelled of vanilla and something herbal that Violet couldn’t quite place. He was dressed in a classic light blue seersucker suit and a white panama hat. She had to admit that he was quite dashing.
“Is the gentleman disturbing you?” The waiter had rushed over, and was regarding Lucas suspiciously. Lucas tipped his hat, but stayed where he was.
“No, no, he’s alright. A, uh, a friend of mine.” Violet explained. The waiter seemed mollified and withdrew.
“Ohh, he’s keeping an eye on me now,” laughed Lucas.
“He knows you’re trouble,” Violet replied, sipping her cocktail demurely. She hadn’t forgotten the mark on her neck, and the long week of silence.
Lucas feigned offense. “Me? Trouble?”
Violet blew smoke in his face in response.
“Oh, I see, you’re still mad about this…” Before she could stop him, Lucas had reached out, brushing her scarf aside as he placed a finger on the spot where he had wounded her. She shivered. His fingers were cold, but she didn’t move away. “Well I’ll tell you, Miss Violet,” he continued in a low voice, “you make a man want to give in to all kinds of madness.”
“And are you?” she replied, almost without thinking. “A man?”
Lucas looked at her long and hard, and then a smile spread across his lips, and she could see now that his eye teeth were l
ong and razor-sharp. She stared back at him, heart racing. Did this mean that he was a…vampire? But what kind of vampire wore a seersucker suit?
“Do you want to come to the country tonight?” he asked. “A friend of mine is very interested to meet you.”
There was a business-like tone to his voice that surprised Violet. She paused for a moment, sipping her drink again, and then, against her better judgement, she decided. “Yes, I’ll come…You know I’ve always wanted to see one of those old mansions…”
Lucas’s smile returned, “You won’t be disappointed,” he promised. “Meet me downstairs in a few minutes.” He withdrew from the window, leaving Violet to ponder what she had gotten herself into.
Moments later, she was descending the stairs to the street. “My god, you are a picture,” Lucas exclaimed, watching as she alighted on the pavement where he stood next to a silver Rolls Royce.
“This is your auto?” Violet asked skeptically, looking at him with raised brows.
“Mmm, I’m borrowing it,” Lucas responded with a wink that told her he had most likely stolen it.
Nonetheless, she climbed into the passenger seat. Lucas started the engine, and they drove off into the night. Violet looked out the window as they drove, passing through brightly-lit streets filled with men and women of all classes and colors. It seemed that the entire city had abandoned all responsibility in favor of the summer air and the taste of champagne. They broke out into open country, and the lights of New Orleans faded into the distance. The sound of people was replaced by a chorus of bull frogs. The moon shone down full and bright amidst a slew of stars over a foggy landscape. Tall trees cast weird shadows in the headlights. Violet felt a prickle of anxiety. They were truly alone together now. She could feel her heart humming in her chest like the motor beneath the hood of the car. Was it fear?
“So tell me,” she began, surprised to hear that her voice sounded steady and casual. “What are you?” She was looking at him, studying the side of his handsome face.
