The Story of the Vampire, L (Completed | Featured )

Part 5 - Parasite

One evening I woke, and found myself completely alone. I folded my hands behind my back and mounted to the stairs to the second floor. Because of the large windows, even in the deepness of evening the upper level remained light enough to see in, and I pushed the window out and open. 

For many days, I had often come upon Leis on the first floor, looking out the window facing the road. After an hour or so, he would retreat back to the yellow room and shut the door softly. He walked so quietly that he often startled me at my work, hearing him only as a vibration on the air. But his focus was uncanny, and he never noticed me at my roll-top secretary on the other side of the room, or my slipping into the scullery in order so that he might be left to himself. He seemed a very solitary figure to me, and possessed of a gentle peace.

I am loathe to say that small snatches of his countenance lingered in my mind long after he closed his door, and that I still longed to look upon him fully. I thought, where did they go to? I thought they should not go anywhere to the familiar haunts of the city, places where I might go for blood or company. I thought especially that they should not go to the salons or fetes that L had been playing for so long. I thought that it was very dangerous to take him there, that he could easily upset the balance we had been knowing for those decades. I thought that, perhaps already my balance had been upset, and my mind wandered, while I watched for them in the street. In what condition would they return? Would there be some awful mischief? I held onto myself, with my arms crossed over my ribs.

In the small light of morning, they came quietly up the avenue. Laurent bore the full weight of Leis's arm, who was by far the taller. I stayed in the window and watched them approach. They did not seem to be speaking to each other, at all, and even as they entered the house, and wailing began to arise from below, I stayed there. 

At the break of dawn, I shut the window and drew the curtain. All had been a peace for some time, and downstairs, there was only good dark, and good shadows. I felt of my body a real tension and stiffness which cried for my coverlet, and close to sleep, startled backward from my bed at the touch of a heated body there. His naked skin was soft beneath my hand, and my surprised fingers lingered there, even as I willed them to stop touching him. For a moment, I closed my eyes, ruled by my body and quiet in my mind.

His heat stilled me. My hand rested upon the taut flesh of his bared shoulder. His body was leaner than I had expected, less well-muscled yet stronger-seeming than his delicateness made him seem. The thought of his pushing me away dizzied me, to be forced apart from him by his strong arms. Shyly, I looked upon his face, his straight brow, and the parted rosy lips which had lustily drunk of blood. A soft breath escaped me, slowly, between my own lips, which had betrayed me by parting to speak a word. What word?

 No sooner had I thought of moving my hand than I felt an arm fold around my waist. Laurent had been watching me from the doorway.

"Laurent, please," I whispered. What aim? What was I thinking then? 

"Come, darling," he said, softly, in my ear.

"Let me alone awhile," I begged him.

"He will never forgive you. Do not cry, darling. You know it is ill considered to touch him."

My hands trembled. What thought had come into my mind? His rough breath, his slow breathing, to place my hand at that struggling throat. Before I could make a sound, there was Laurent's hand at my screaming mouth, dragging me out of the room. I felt his filed fingernails at my cheeks, my wide eyes brimming with visions I could not stop. My maker's arms were like a vise, squeezing my air from my lungs so that I could not make enough noise to wake his sleeping beauty, and then we were away, and the door closed, and familiar hand at the new, sensitive flesh at my throat, caressing me.