Danse Macabre Snark, ch 10
Apr. 20th, 2014 11:11 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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lkh_lashoutsBe prepared for even less happening in this story. As Linkara said, "Say what you want about Van Helsing, but at least they did stuff in that movie."
Also here's what one reader had to say: "You know what this reminds me of? Dragon ball Z. We have long flashbacks going on in the middle of the action, juvenile banter and dialogue, metaphorical dick measuring (what with power levels), and an obnoxious character that everyone else tolerates beyond reason (Vegeta = Anita). I'm going to take a wild guess and say that the sex scenes have long since become boring, un-erotic, and repetitive."
IT TOOK ABOUT an hour to get everyone separated to places where they could clean up.
It's like Spider-Man's webbing, but not with the fluid you think it is.
Claudia had sent for reinforcements,
Claudia: Requiem, get the bulldozer. This is not a drill.
so that the wrecked liv-ing room was nearly a solid wall of black-shirted guards.
And red ones for them to stand in front of them and collect any stray lasers.
Werewolves, were-cats, and werehyenas, the people we had treaties with for guard work, all Stood around while Octavius had hysterics.
Octavius: *curls up into a corner, cradling himself* No, Auggie, your moans of ecstasy don't sound like a little girl screaming. Would you please let me go back to my wife and kids now?
If he'd had more guards with him, and we'd had less, it could have gotten violent, but when you're out-numbered, outmuscled, and your master is saying,
Auggie: The author got another personal issue down on paper, we can go home now?
Let it go, well,Octavius Shad to eat it. He didn't like it, neither did Pierce, but Haven, of the Cookie-Monster-blue hair, was voting with Auggie. They both liked us just fine.
Jean-Claude and I lay back in his huge bathtub. My clothes were ruined hut I had my knife and gun on the edge of the tub. Nothing else had been Salvageable. We'd scrubbed and cleaned,
But those feelings of shame remained.
and now were just soaking in the hot water. Auggie had probably already finished in the showers down the hall, but Requiem and Asher were in charge of seeing that our guests didn't do anything unfortunate.
If you saw the number of people they had to wrestle from the tops of buildings and bridges, you'd be surprised how they got back before daylight.
They were both master vampires over four hun-dred years old, they could handle it. We'd handled everything I wanted to handle for one night.
Jean-Claude lay back against the edge of the tub, and I lay in his arms, the back of my body cradled against the front of his. He trailed his hand down my arm, and hugged me tighter against him. His body was quiet, pressed against my body. I think we'd both had all we could handle for one night.
Let me go! I want to throw this toaster in there.
His voice came lazy, with that edge that sleep can give it. "What are you thinking about, ma petite}"
Anita: The tears shed by the series original fans.
"If you hadn't shut the marks down so tight, you might not have to ask." I snuggled my head into the hollow of his shoulder and chest. "You shut them down as soon as we were finished with Auggie. Why?"
His body tensed against me, even his arms where they were wrapped around me, not so comforting anymore. "Perhaps I was afraid of what you would find in my thoughts."
Like how much he hates you and that he's been gay the whole time and you're pretty much his beard.
His voice wasn't sleepy now, but had that bland emptiness that he used to hide behind.
"What would I have found?" I asked, but I wasn't cuddling now. Tension is contagious.
"If I had wanted you to know the answer to that question, I would not have shut the marks down."
I started to protest, but another thought stopped me.
Anita: Is licking a wall socket really that dangerous or is it just another lie by the liberal media?
With the marks that wide open, it had only been chance that I hadn't thought of the baby ques-tion. Chance and the fact that die ardeur tended to wipe out anything that wasn't pertinent to the moment. Now the fear came crawling back, tighten-ing my stomach, tensing my muscles. Please, God, don't let me be pregnant.
"What is wrong, ma petite?" he asked.
I let out a breath that shook around the edges and said, "You know, Jean-Claude, normally I'd push for honesty, but I think I've had all the revelations I can handle for one night. It's okay, whatever you thought, it's okay."
"It is okay without your ever knowing what the thought was?" he asked.
I settled back into his arms, willing the hot water and the touch of his body to take away that awful tension. "Yes," I said, "yes."
He moved me to the side, holding me in the water,
With his hands around her throat and her head underwater.
so he could see my face. "Yes, just like that?" His face showed his skepticism.
I stared up into him; his hair was wet and slicked back from his face, so that nothing took away from it.
Those eyes a blue as dark as blue could be and hold no touch of black. His lashes thick and black—it had taken me months in his bed to see his upper lashes by candlelight and realize that he had a double row of upper lashes. Him and Elizabeth Taylor. You only saw it if the light was just right, and his head turned just right.
Repetitive words and references to other repetitive word jokes is repetitive.
Until then, they were just this unbelievable lace around his eyes. I traced the lines and curves of his face, down to the grace of his lips. I let him see in my eyes what I saw, what I felt, gazing at him.
He leaned in, and laid a kiss upon my lips. Then he cuddled me back against him, as we'd been before the questions started. No more personal questions tonight, but there were other questions I wanted answered. "Why did Requiem look like someone had pounded his face into a wall?"
"Because someone had."
His name is Blade and he looks just like Wesley Snipes.
That made me turn enough to look at him. "Who?"
"Meng Die," he said, voice soft, face solemn.
"Was that the emergency?"
"Oui.
Thank you for sending the extra guards, ma petite, it was wise of you."
I shrugged, and turned so that I was sitting across his legs, my hands against his chest, his arms around me still, but I could see his face now. "How did it get so out of hand?"
They thought standing there and doing nothing was a good idea.
"I was called in rather late, ma petite. In truth, I do not know exactly how Requiem and Meng Die allowed their spat to get so terribly out of hand, and so terribly public.
Because they were hoping for their own reality show.
Asher, as manager of the Circus, came down to stop it, or takeit to a backstage area. That should have been theend of it." His face was closing down, hiding what he thought of the fight, and the aftermath.
"Why wasn't that the end of it?"
"Because Meng Die decided to fight them both."
Why weren't we allowed to read about this instead?
I sat up in his lap. "Why fight Asher? She's never been his lover."
"But he is your lover."
Great, I know where this is going.
I frowned at him. "So what?"
"I believe that if a master vampire had appeared who wasn't in your bed, had never been in your bed, the fight might have calmed instead of escalating."
"I'm totally lost here, Jean-Claude."
He looked directly at me, but his face was empty enough that it gave me nothing.
"You have not asked the right question yet, ma petite."
Anita: Why must everything be about the magnificent, wonderful...I mean, plain, little mixed-race mouse that I am?
"What is the right question?"
"What the fight was about."
I frowned harder, and said, "Okay, I give, what was the fight about?"
"You."
Now I was really lost. "What?"
"They were arguing about you."
"What about me?"
"Meng Die thinks you have stolen Requiem from her."
I pushed back enough in the water so I was kneeling, and not cuddled.
The water was deep enough that it came to my shoulders. "Requiem isn't my lover. I've worked really hard to make sure he isn't my lover."
"But you have fed the ardeur from him."
Here's a factoid: The men that work at Guilty Pleasures have to wear color-coded shirts so Anita can tell who is meant to be food or not. The red-shirts are emergency feedings. (I'm not making this up.)
"In an emergency, yes. It was to feed, or I was about to suck Damian's life away. I had to feed, but we didn't have intercourse, we didn't even take our clothes off."
You can still do that even with clothes.
I thought about it, and added, "Not all of our clothes. I mean, Requiem was fully clothed." I started blushing and couldn't prevent it. I had to stop explaining before it sounded worse and worse.
"He has offered to feed you more completely."
"I know."
"Why have you refused him?"
Because having any kind of sexual contact that isn't because of some kind of drastic situation means you're a skank like Ronnie and Bunny.
I looked at Jean-Claude, trying to see behind that perfect mask of a face. I think I was under the impression that I'm having sex with enough men."
His lips twitched. He was fighting not to smile.
"This isn't funny."
He let himself smile. "Ma petite, there have been women over the cen-turies who traded lands, titles, their honor, everything, for one more night in Requiem's bed.
I just can't help thinking of Nermal the World's Cutest Kitten from the 80's Garfield cartoons when it comes to stuff like that. Just hearing that voice talking about how wonderful and amazing Anita is through this.
His master in London used him much as Belle Morte used Asher and me. Though because Requiem only did women, he wasn't as flex-ible as we."
I let that last part go. I still wasn't completely sure how I felt about Jean-Claude doing Auggie. At the time I hadn't minded—in fact, I'd liked it. I'd liked us both doing him at the same time. We'd fucked him in every way pos-sible, physically and metaphysically, and it had felt a-fucking-mazing.
Also it seems like she's the happiest when she got domination or ownership over others. As much as she tries to admit how happy her relationships are, she mainly sees them as objects.
That last part was probably going to bug me the most. But one disaster at a time.
"Are you saying you're surprised I turned him down?"
"No, it is typical of you to turn a man down at first."
"At first?" I said, and sounded a little outraged.
He laughed, and it was that touchable sound, as if it were the sound of pure sex, and it went through my head and all the way down my body. "Stop that," I said.
He smiled, face lit with suppressed laughter, but he stopped. "To my knowledge, the only man you have never said no to is your Nimir-Raj, Micah. But the ardeur was newly woken, and so I do not think we can count that one completely. It was your exception, not your rule."
"Fine, but I'm still lost. I have avoided Requiem. Graham made some re-mark that Requiem was refusing Meng Die's bed and somehow that was my fault."
Well, you are the Sue.
"Apparently, Requiem told Meng Die that he would not be her lover any longer, because you do not share your men with other women. He seemed to believe that his being in her bed was what kept you from accepting his offer to be your new pomme de sang."
I shook my head. "He shouldn't have assumed that."
He nodded. "Because that isn't why you refused him, is it?"
I shook my head hard enough to move the water around my body. "No. And if Requiem had asked me why I was saying no, I would have told him it wasn't because he was screwing Meng Die."
"Then why?"
"What does it matter?"
"Because he has left his lover's bed in the hope that you will take him to your bed. He is third in rank among my vampires, and second, or perhaps third, in power. Meng Die is powerful enough to be my second-in-command, but her temperament is not suited to it. As she demonstrated today. You have set two of my most powerful vampires at each other's throats, ma petite. I need to know why."
By being herself.
"I did not start that fight," I said.
"No, but you were the cause of it, and if you are to convince Requiem that you will not take him as your pomme de sang,
You can still string him along like crazy.
then you must give him a rea-son that does not include his being Meng Die's lover. His reasoning was sound, ma petite. You have refused all the pomme de sangcandidates who have a female lover."
"Graham, Clay, and Requiem are all Meng Die's lovers," I said.
He gave that wonderful Gallic shrug that meant everything and nothing. "So. Is it that you will not take Meng Die's seconds?"
You read my mind, Jean-Claude. Here's a Scooby-Snack.
I shook my head. "No, that's not it.
You know why not Graham; he might do for a meal, but he'd be a disaster as a permanent member of the house-hold."
"Agreed," he said.
"Clay is in love with Meng Die, she's just about broken his heart, but he wants her, and I say more power to him."
"And Requiem?"
He'd beat-up the others for spare change.
I leaned back against the side of the tub, out of reach. The bath had stopped being comforting. "Did we have to do this tonight?"
"Meng Die threw both Requiem and Asher around like dolls in front of humans. We will be lucky if yourpolice do not come calling and asking questions.
Just tell them it's part of the act.
She tried to kill Requiem, ma petite, not wound him. She did not care that there was an audience, but Requiem and Asher did not want to kill her in front of an audience.
It would break the Masquerade and...opps, wrong series.
I had the same problem when I arrived on the Scene." He was angry now, the first thread of it filling his eyes with light. "She is even now locked in a cross-wrapped coffin. But it is a temporary measure. I must let her out tomorrow night, or kill her. She will see one night as a fit punishment, but beyond that it will be an insult, and she is too powerful to eat such an insult."
Oh Ming Die, one day you'll learn that you actually need chew your food first.
He fixed those brilliant eyes on me. "So, I »sk again, what will you tell Requiem when he tells you that he is free of iMeng Die? What excuse will you give?"
Anita: I have no interest in you so please respect my decision.
Jean-Claude: Idiot...
* "I'm dating three men, living with two more, and having occasional sex with two others. That's seven men. I'm like a pornographic Snow White.
Where all seven of the dwarves are named, Dopey.
I think seven is plenty."
"But it is not, ma petite. Emotionally it may be too many, but metaphysi-cally, and for the sake of our power base, seven is not enough.
Jean-Claude: I'd say about half the town's male population and you're set.
You must add a lover who is not metaphysically connected to you, and you must pick a new Pomme de sang now that Nathaniel is your animal to call."
"I thought this was optional—you're making it sound like it's almost an emergency. And wait, did you say add a lover and a pomme de sang} I thought I was adding just one, if I added anybody."
"I tasted vour oower tonieht. ma betite:
Jean-Claude, are you drunk?
it needs to be fed and fed well. You are like one of those dieting women that thinks she can survive on lettuce leaves and water. It may feel like food, but your body dies anyway."
"I'm not dying," I said.
Anita: I'm just very gradually wasting away.
"No, but your power is seeking a new pomme de sang. Don't you under-stand what is happening, ma petite} The ardeur is seeking for you."
"Okay, I'm confused now."
Jean-Claude: * sigh * Your creator needs more men to make her...I mean you feel better about yourself. Since any we can't waste time building a relationship, we need the ardeur as an excuse.
"It is not like Augustine to lose control. He is over two thousand years old, ma petite; one of the first vampires Belle made. You do not thrive for so long if you make such mistakes as he did this night."
"Belle messed with him, and widi me."
He shook his head. "He raised your ardeur first, before she appeared, did he not?"
"Yeah, he said now he could do what he'd wanted to do all along, and no one could be mad at him."
Jean-Claude laughed, and it was just humor this time. He could control his laugh if he worked at it. "He doesn't know you very well yet. But when I said Augustine is my friend,
He was lieing through his teeth.
I meant it. He would not have overstepped his bounds as my guest, not without something being wrong."
"And what's wrong?"
"The ardeur needs more food, ma petite, and like any predator it is seek-ing prey."
"It's just a metaphysical ability, Jean-Claude, not its own entity."
He gave me a look, and it was eloquent. "You know exactly what the ardeur is, ma petite.
Would he stop saying "ma petite" every other sentence? We get it, you're French!
You know that it has a mind of its own, similar to the beasts you carry. But I believe that the ardeur can do something your beasts cannot.
Destroy even more of the plot?
It is, I believe, putting out the welcome mat."
"Welcome mat?"
He sighed, and slid down in the water until his chin touched it. "You may not like Meng Die, but she is . .. proficient in bed. I find it inexplicable that Requiem would leave her body, on only the chance that he might be your lover. As I find it inexplicable that Augustine would purposefully insult me by raising the ardeur in you. He, in effect, attacked you, and through you, me."
For an author who claims how pro-feminist she is, the women seemed to be judged soley on their sexual experience and talents. And on a rather shallow basis as well (if you're not Anita and sexually experienced, you're looked down on and deserve to lose your men.)
"He told me to feed from him, because then I'd win the fight, and once you got into the room he said you'd lose."
Jean-Claude sat up so abruptly that he sloshed water in my face.
Jean-Claude: Oh poo, and I thought witches melted on the contact of water.
I brushed my eyes clear, while he said, "He said that?"
I blinked at him, still trying to keep water out of my eyes. "Yes."
"Then it is as I have feared. The ardeur is seeking what it needs."
The return of McCarthyism?
"Are you saying that the ardeur is putting out, what, pheromones?"
"I do not know this word."
"Pheromones, it's a chemical or hormone that some animals give out. The scent attracts mates. I think it was first discovered in moths."
"Yes, pheromones then, yes."
"I'm not agreeing with you, but say it is true; why does it only seem to work on certain people? I mean, it doesn't work on Clay, and I think Gra-ham just wants to fuck. Why Requiem and Auggie?"
"What do they have in common?" he asked.
They both made bombs for the Nazis.
"They're both vamps of Belle's bloodline, and they're both masters. But thanks to all our imports from London, there are a couple more vampires in town who qualify. They aren't buzzing around me."
"But they do not approach the power level of Augustine and Requiem."
"Are you saying the ardeur is shopping for powerful food?"
I hear re-fried beans will do the trick.
"I offer it as an idea."
I thought about it, but finally looked at him. "If this is what's happening, Ind I'm not saying it is, then is it only vamps from Belle's line, or any mas-ter vampire of a certain power level?"
"I do not know."
"Then we need to know before tomorrow's big party," I said. "If there is even the faintest chance that the ardeur is going to do some funky shit with every master vampire above a certain power level, then no way can I go to the party tomorrow. We're going to be neck-deep in Masters of the City. It Would be bad if they all decided they wanted to be my sweetie."
He nodded. "There is one other thing they both have in common, ma petite."
They thought generation 3.5 of My Little Pony was the best.
"And that would be?"
"They have both been with vampires who held the ardeur."
"You said vampires, plural. You don't mean just Belle, do you?"
"Requiem had a lover who meant as much to him as Julianna did to Asher and me. Her name was Ligeia."
"He told me that Belle killed her out of jealousy."
"Oui. Ligeia was the only woman of her line to acquire the ardeur. It wasn't the full ardeur that Belle, you, and I carry, but there is more: Requiem refused Belle's bed for her."
Why do I have the feeling she also was short, big-boobed, had black hair and was half-Hispanic as well?
"And she killed her for that."
"You have been inside Belle Morte's head, ma petite, how can you sound surprised?"
He had a point. "It still seems pretty petty for a vampire who's over two thousand years old," I said.
He nodded.
"Oui, but many of the old ones can be extremely petty." He held his hand out to me.
I stared at that hand for a heartbeat, then I took it. I let him draw me through the water and in against his body.
Right now, the water in that tub is feeling extra dirty right now.
Let him press me to the front of his body, wrap his arms around me. "You're afraid," I said, my cheek pressed to the firmness of his chest.
"Oui, I am afraid."
"Why?"
"There are others here who have tasted the ardeur -and are masters. We need to test our theory, ma petite, but I fear we run the risk of having you tied permanently to someone, or they to you."
So you're willing to risk the lives and free-will of innocent vampires which could lead to the enslavement of their werecreatures? That could possibly cause a war between major cities since they could take it as an attack. Real smooth, Machiavelli.
"Auggie isn't tied to me."
"He did not want to leave our side, ma petite. If he does not recover, then he will be as Belle made her victims, hungering for us forever, willing to do anything to be back between us."
"You sound sad."
"He was my friend; I did not mean to enslave him as Belle would.
Then why did you go all the way to bond him when you banged him?
I saw her victims give up everything, betray every vow, every trust, for the sake of her body." He held me tight against him. "It is not a power I ever wished to possess."
"You hold the ardeur"
"Oui, but this is a level of the ardeur that only she possesses. We all be-lieved that only Belle Morte could wield it at such a level."
Uggghhhhhhhh!
"You don't want it."
"I want to be so powerful that no one dares challenge me or our people. But I am afraid of this, and what it will mean."
His heart was beating too fast against my ear. Had it been beating all along, or had it just started?
"Mean, how?"
"There are those in Europe who already fear my growing power. Knowl-edge that I wielded the ardeur at the same level as Belle Morte might tip the scales in the council's voting.
Then don't bring Anita to the party.
They might vote to kill us all rather than risk me making a power base in America, as strong as Belle once possessed in Eu-rope. Or the other American masters might collude to kill us, for fear that we would become like the tyrants of the European council."
"How likely is all this?" I asked.
"Possible."
"How possible?" I asked, suddenly realizing that an accidental pregnancy might not be the worst disaster we could have.
"We must understand these new powers, and quickly, ma petite. We must experiment with a master we trust before I allow you to go to the party to-morrow. We must know what we are dealing with, if we can."
Does that mean they're going after the one with the three sons? (I don't care enough to look-up his name.)
Raised voices on the other side of the door. Claudia yelling, "You can't just go in there!"
Richard's voice, angry. "Watch me."
Jean-Claude sighed, and I settled lower in the water. I did not want to fight with Richard tonight. But from the feel of him through the door, we weren't going to have a choice.
Just to tell you, Richard is based off of LKH's first husband who she later divorced and now harbors bitter feelings towards. So she takes it out on the character.
Jean-Claude called, "Let him in, Claudia."
The door opened, but Claudia came first, as if she didn't trust Richard in there with us. His power rode through the door like the heat edge of a for-est fire, something that should have choked and killed anything in its path. We'd raised his power level along with ours, and we were about to find out how sorry that was going to make us.
Also here's what one reader had to say: "You know what this reminds me of? Dragon ball Z. We have long flashbacks going on in the middle of the action, juvenile banter and dialogue, metaphorical dick measuring (what with power levels), and an obnoxious character that everyone else tolerates beyond reason (Vegeta = Anita). I'm going to take a wild guess and say that the sex scenes have long since become boring, un-erotic, and repetitive."
IT TOOK ABOUT an hour to get everyone separated to places where they could clean up.
It's like Spider-Man's webbing, but not with the fluid you think it is.
Claudia had sent for reinforcements,
Claudia: Requiem, get the bulldozer. This is not a drill.
so that the wrecked liv-ing room was nearly a solid wall of black-shirted guards.
And red ones for them to stand in front of them and collect any stray lasers.
Werewolves, were-cats, and werehyenas, the people we had treaties with for guard work, all Stood around while Octavius had hysterics.
Octavius: *curls up into a corner, cradling himself* No, Auggie, your moans of ecstasy don't sound like a little girl screaming. Would you please let me go back to my wife and kids now?
If he'd had more guards with him, and we'd had less, it could have gotten violent, but when you're out-numbered, outmuscled, and your master is saying,
Auggie: The author got another personal issue down on paper, we can go home now?
Let it go, well,Octavius Shad to eat it. He didn't like it, neither did Pierce, but Haven, of the Cookie-Monster-blue hair, was voting with Auggie. They both liked us just fine.
Jean-Claude and I lay back in his huge bathtub. My clothes were ruined hut I had my knife and gun on the edge of the tub. Nothing else had been Salvageable. We'd scrubbed and cleaned,
But those feelings of shame remained.
and now were just soaking in the hot water. Auggie had probably already finished in the showers down the hall, but Requiem and Asher were in charge of seeing that our guests didn't do anything unfortunate.
If you saw the number of people they had to wrestle from the tops of buildings and bridges, you'd be surprised how they got back before daylight.
They were both master vampires over four hun-dred years old, they could handle it. We'd handled everything I wanted to handle for one night.
Jean-Claude lay back against the edge of the tub, and I lay in his arms, the back of my body cradled against the front of his. He trailed his hand down my arm, and hugged me tighter against him. His body was quiet, pressed against my body. I think we'd both had all we could handle for one night.
Let me go! I want to throw this toaster in there.
His voice came lazy, with that edge that sleep can give it. "What are you thinking about, ma petite}"
Anita: The tears shed by the series original fans.
"If you hadn't shut the marks down so tight, you might not have to ask." I snuggled my head into the hollow of his shoulder and chest. "You shut them down as soon as we were finished with Auggie. Why?"
His body tensed against me, even his arms where they were wrapped around me, not so comforting anymore. "Perhaps I was afraid of what you would find in my thoughts."
Like how much he hates you and that he's been gay the whole time and you're pretty much his beard.
His voice wasn't sleepy now, but had that bland emptiness that he used to hide behind.
"What would I have found?" I asked, but I wasn't cuddling now. Tension is contagious.
"If I had wanted you to know the answer to that question, I would not have shut the marks down."
I started to protest, but another thought stopped me.
Anita: Is licking a wall socket really that dangerous or is it just another lie by the liberal media?
With the marks that wide open, it had only been chance that I hadn't thought of the baby ques-tion. Chance and the fact that die ardeur tended to wipe out anything that wasn't pertinent to the moment. Now the fear came crawling back, tighten-ing my stomach, tensing my muscles. Please, God, don't let me be pregnant.
"What is wrong, ma petite?" he asked.
I let out a breath that shook around the edges and said, "You know, Jean-Claude, normally I'd push for honesty, but I think I've had all the revelations I can handle for one night. It's okay, whatever you thought, it's okay."
"It is okay without your ever knowing what the thought was?" he asked.
I settled back into his arms, willing the hot water and the touch of his body to take away that awful tension. "Yes," I said, "yes."
He moved me to the side, holding me in the water,
With his hands around her throat and her head underwater.
so he could see my face. "Yes, just like that?" His face showed his skepticism.
I stared up into him; his hair was wet and slicked back from his face, so that nothing took away from it.
Those eyes a blue as dark as blue could be and hold no touch of black. His lashes thick and black—it had taken me months in his bed to see his upper lashes by candlelight and realize that he had a double row of upper lashes. Him and Elizabeth Taylor. You only saw it if the light was just right, and his head turned just right.
Repetitive words and references to other repetitive word jokes is repetitive.
Until then, they were just this unbelievable lace around his eyes. I traced the lines and curves of his face, down to the grace of his lips. I let him see in my eyes what I saw, what I felt, gazing at him.
He leaned in, and laid a kiss upon my lips. Then he cuddled me back against him, as we'd been before the questions started. No more personal questions tonight, but there were other questions I wanted answered. "Why did Requiem look like someone had pounded his face into a wall?"
"Because someone had."
His name is Blade and he looks just like Wesley Snipes.
That made me turn enough to look at him. "Who?"
"Meng Die," he said, voice soft, face solemn.
"Was that the emergency?"
"Oui.
Thank you for sending the extra guards, ma petite, it was wise of you."
I shrugged, and turned so that I was sitting across his legs, my hands against his chest, his arms around me still, but I could see his face now. "How did it get so out of hand?"
They thought standing there and doing nothing was a good idea.
"I was called in rather late, ma petite. In truth, I do not know exactly how Requiem and Meng Die allowed their spat to get so terribly out of hand, and so terribly public.
Because they were hoping for their own reality show.
Asher, as manager of the Circus, came down to stop it, or takeit to a backstage area. That should have been theend of it." His face was closing down, hiding what he thought of the fight, and the aftermath.
"Why wasn't that the end of it?"
"Because Meng Die decided to fight them both."
Why weren't we allowed to read about this instead?
I sat up in his lap. "Why fight Asher? She's never been his lover."
"But he is your lover."
Great, I know where this is going.
I frowned at him. "So what?"
"I believe that if a master vampire had appeared who wasn't in your bed, had never been in your bed, the fight might have calmed instead of escalating."
"I'm totally lost here, Jean-Claude."
He looked directly at me, but his face was empty enough that it gave me nothing.
"You have not asked the right question yet, ma petite."
Anita: Why must everything be about the magnificent, wonderful...I mean, plain, little mixed-race mouse that I am?
"What is the right question?"
"What the fight was about."
I frowned harder, and said, "Okay, I give, what was the fight about?"
"You."
Now I was really lost. "What?"
"They were arguing about you."
"What about me?"
"Meng Die thinks you have stolen Requiem from her."
I pushed back enough in the water so I was kneeling, and not cuddled.
The water was deep enough that it came to my shoulders. "Requiem isn't my lover. I've worked really hard to make sure he isn't my lover."
"But you have fed the ardeur from him."
Here's a factoid: The men that work at Guilty Pleasures have to wear color-coded shirts so Anita can tell who is meant to be food or not. The red-shirts are emergency feedings. (I'm not making this up.)
"In an emergency, yes. It was to feed, or I was about to suck Damian's life away. I had to feed, but we didn't have intercourse, we didn't even take our clothes off."
You can still do that even with clothes.
I thought about it, and added, "Not all of our clothes. I mean, Requiem was fully clothed." I started blushing and couldn't prevent it. I had to stop explaining before it sounded worse and worse.
"He has offered to feed you more completely."
"I know."
"Why have you refused him?"
Because having any kind of sexual contact that isn't because of some kind of drastic situation means you're a skank like Ronnie and Bunny.
I looked at Jean-Claude, trying to see behind that perfect mask of a face. I think I was under the impression that I'm having sex with enough men."
His lips twitched. He was fighting not to smile.
"This isn't funny."
He let himself smile. "Ma petite, there have been women over the cen-turies who traded lands, titles, their honor, everything, for one more night in Requiem's bed.
I just can't help thinking of Nermal the World's Cutest Kitten from the 80's Garfield cartoons when it comes to stuff like that. Just hearing that voice talking about how wonderful and amazing Anita is through this.
His master in London used him much as Belle Morte used Asher and me. Though because Requiem only did women, he wasn't as flex-ible as we."
I let that last part go. I still wasn't completely sure how I felt about Jean-Claude doing Auggie. At the time I hadn't minded—in fact, I'd liked it. I'd liked us both doing him at the same time. We'd fucked him in every way pos-sible, physically and metaphysically, and it had felt a-fucking-mazing.
Also it seems like she's the happiest when she got domination or ownership over others. As much as she tries to admit how happy her relationships are, she mainly sees them as objects.
That last part was probably going to bug me the most. But one disaster at a time.
"Are you saying you're surprised I turned him down?"
"No, it is typical of you to turn a man down at first."
"At first?" I said, and sounded a little outraged.
He laughed, and it was that touchable sound, as if it were the sound of pure sex, and it went through my head and all the way down my body. "Stop that," I said.
He smiled, face lit with suppressed laughter, but he stopped. "To my knowledge, the only man you have never said no to is your Nimir-Raj, Micah. But the ardeur was newly woken, and so I do not think we can count that one completely. It was your exception, not your rule."
"Fine, but I'm still lost. I have avoided Requiem. Graham made some re-mark that Requiem was refusing Meng Die's bed and somehow that was my fault."
Well, you are the Sue.
"Apparently, Requiem told Meng Die that he would not be her lover any longer, because you do not share your men with other women. He seemed to believe that his being in her bed was what kept you from accepting his offer to be your new pomme de sang."
I shook my head. "He shouldn't have assumed that."
He nodded. "Because that isn't why you refused him, is it?"
I shook my head hard enough to move the water around my body. "No. And if Requiem had asked me why I was saying no, I would have told him it wasn't because he was screwing Meng Die."
"Then why?"
"What does it matter?"
"Because he has left his lover's bed in the hope that you will take him to your bed. He is third in rank among my vampires, and second, or perhaps third, in power. Meng Die is powerful enough to be my second-in-command, but her temperament is not suited to it. As she demonstrated today. You have set two of my most powerful vampires at each other's throats, ma petite. I need to know why."
By being herself.
"I did not start that fight," I said.
"No, but you were the cause of it, and if you are to convince Requiem that you will not take him as your pomme de sang,
You can still string him along like crazy.
then you must give him a rea-son that does not include his being Meng Die's lover. His reasoning was sound, ma petite. You have refused all the pomme de sangcandidates who have a female lover."
"Graham, Clay, and Requiem are all Meng Die's lovers," I said.
He gave that wonderful Gallic shrug that meant everything and nothing. "So. Is it that you will not take Meng Die's seconds?"
You read my mind, Jean-Claude. Here's a Scooby-Snack.
I shook my head. "No, that's not it.
You know why not Graham; he might do for a meal, but he'd be a disaster as a permanent member of the house-hold."
"Agreed," he said.
"Clay is in love with Meng Die, she's just about broken his heart, but he wants her, and I say more power to him."
"And Requiem?"
He'd beat-up the others for spare change.
I leaned back against the side of the tub, out of reach. The bath had stopped being comforting. "Did we have to do this tonight?"
"Meng Die threw both Requiem and Asher around like dolls in front of humans. We will be lucky if yourpolice do not come calling and asking questions.
Just tell them it's part of the act.
She tried to kill Requiem, ma petite, not wound him. She did not care that there was an audience, but Requiem and Asher did not want to kill her in front of an audience.
It would break the Masquerade and...opps, wrong series.
I had the same problem when I arrived on the Scene." He was angry now, the first thread of it filling his eyes with light. "She is even now locked in a cross-wrapped coffin. But it is a temporary measure. I must let her out tomorrow night, or kill her. She will see one night as a fit punishment, but beyond that it will be an insult, and she is too powerful to eat such an insult."
Oh Ming Die, one day you'll learn that you actually need chew your food first.
He fixed those brilliant eyes on me. "So, I »sk again, what will you tell Requiem when he tells you that he is free of iMeng Die? What excuse will you give?"
Anita: I have no interest in you so please respect my decision.
Jean-Claude: Idiot...
* "I'm dating three men, living with two more, and having occasional sex with two others. That's seven men. I'm like a pornographic Snow White.
Where all seven of the dwarves are named, Dopey.
I think seven is plenty."
"But it is not, ma petite. Emotionally it may be too many, but metaphysi-cally, and for the sake of our power base, seven is not enough.
Jean-Claude: I'd say about half the town's male population and you're set.
You must add a lover who is not metaphysically connected to you, and you must pick a new Pomme de sang now that Nathaniel is your animal to call."
"I thought this was optional—you're making it sound like it's almost an emergency. And wait, did you say add a lover and a pomme de sang} I thought I was adding just one, if I added anybody."
"I tasted vour oower tonieht. ma betite:
Jean-Claude, are you drunk?
it needs to be fed and fed well. You are like one of those dieting women that thinks she can survive on lettuce leaves and water. It may feel like food, but your body dies anyway."
"I'm not dying," I said.
Anita: I'm just very gradually wasting away.
"No, but your power is seeking a new pomme de sang. Don't you under-stand what is happening, ma petite} The ardeur is seeking for you."
"Okay, I'm confused now."
Jean-Claude: * sigh * Your creator needs more men to make her...I mean you feel better about yourself. Since any we can't waste time building a relationship, we need the ardeur as an excuse.
"It is not like Augustine to lose control. He is over two thousand years old, ma petite; one of the first vampires Belle made. You do not thrive for so long if you make such mistakes as he did this night."
"Belle messed with him, and widi me."
He shook his head. "He raised your ardeur first, before she appeared, did he not?"
"Yeah, he said now he could do what he'd wanted to do all along, and no one could be mad at him."
Jean-Claude laughed, and it was just humor this time. He could control his laugh if he worked at it. "He doesn't know you very well yet. But when I said Augustine is my friend,
He was lieing through his teeth.
I meant it. He would not have overstepped his bounds as my guest, not without something being wrong."
"And what's wrong?"
"The ardeur needs more food, ma petite, and like any predator it is seek-ing prey."
"It's just a metaphysical ability, Jean-Claude, not its own entity."
He gave me a look, and it was eloquent. "You know exactly what the ardeur is, ma petite.
Would he stop saying "ma petite" every other sentence? We get it, you're French!
You know that it has a mind of its own, similar to the beasts you carry. But I believe that the ardeur can do something your beasts cannot.
Destroy even more of the plot?
It is, I believe, putting out the welcome mat."
"Welcome mat?"
He sighed, and slid down in the water until his chin touched it. "You may not like Meng Die, but she is . .. proficient in bed. I find it inexplicable that Requiem would leave her body, on only the chance that he might be your lover. As I find it inexplicable that Augustine would purposefully insult me by raising the ardeur in you. He, in effect, attacked you, and through you, me."
For an author who claims how pro-feminist she is, the women seemed to be judged soley on their sexual experience and talents. And on a rather shallow basis as well (if you're not Anita and sexually experienced, you're looked down on and deserve to lose your men.)
"He told me to feed from him, because then I'd win the fight, and once you got into the room he said you'd lose."
Jean-Claude sat up so abruptly that he sloshed water in my face.
Jean-Claude: Oh poo, and I thought witches melted on the contact of water.
I brushed my eyes clear, while he said, "He said that?"
I blinked at him, still trying to keep water out of my eyes. "Yes."
"Then it is as I have feared. The ardeur is seeking what it needs."
The return of McCarthyism?
"Are you saying that the ardeur is putting out, what, pheromones?"
"I do not know this word."
"Pheromones, it's a chemical or hormone that some animals give out. The scent attracts mates. I think it was first discovered in moths."
"Yes, pheromones then, yes."
"I'm not agreeing with you, but say it is true; why does it only seem to work on certain people? I mean, it doesn't work on Clay, and I think Gra-ham just wants to fuck. Why Requiem and Auggie?"
"What do they have in common?" he asked.
They both made bombs for the Nazis.
"They're both vamps of Belle's bloodline, and they're both masters. But thanks to all our imports from London, there are a couple more vampires in town who qualify. They aren't buzzing around me."
"But they do not approach the power level of Augustine and Requiem."
"Are you saying the ardeur is shopping for powerful food?"
I hear re-fried beans will do the trick.
"I offer it as an idea."
I thought about it, but finally looked at him. "If this is what's happening, Ind I'm not saying it is, then is it only vamps from Belle's line, or any mas-ter vampire of a certain power level?"
"I do not know."
"Then we need to know before tomorrow's big party," I said. "If there is even the faintest chance that the ardeur is going to do some funky shit with every master vampire above a certain power level, then no way can I go to the party tomorrow. We're going to be neck-deep in Masters of the City. It Would be bad if they all decided they wanted to be my sweetie."
He nodded. "There is one other thing they both have in common, ma petite."
They thought generation 3.5 of My Little Pony was the best.
"And that would be?"
"They have both been with vampires who held the ardeur."
"You said vampires, plural. You don't mean just Belle, do you?"
"Requiem had a lover who meant as much to him as Julianna did to Asher and me. Her name was Ligeia."
"He told me that Belle killed her out of jealousy."
"Oui. Ligeia was the only woman of her line to acquire the ardeur. It wasn't the full ardeur that Belle, you, and I carry, but there is more: Requiem refused Belle's bed for her."
Why do I have the feeling she also was short, big-boobed, had black hair and was half-Hispanic as well?
"And she killed her for that."
"You have been inside Belle Morte's head, ma petite, how can you sound surprised?"
He had a point. "It still seems pretty petty for a vampire who's over two thousand years old," I said.
He nodded.
"Oui, but many of the old ones can be extremely petty." He held his hand out to me.
I stared at that hand for a heartbeat, then I took it. I let him draw me through the water and in against his body.
Right now, the water in that tub is feeling extra dirty right now.
Let him press me to the front of his body, wrap his arms around me. "You're afraid," I said, my cheek pressed to the firmness of his chest.
"Oui, I am afraid."
"Why?"
"There are others here who have tasted the ardeur -and are masters. We need to test our theory, ma petite, but I fear we run the risk of having you tied permanently to someone, or they to you."
So you're willing to risk the lives and free-will of innocent vampires which could lead to the enslavement of their werecreatures? That could possibly cause a war between major cities since they could take it as an attack. Real smooth, Machiavelli.
"Auggie isn't tied to me."
"He did not want to leave our side, ma petite. If he does not recover, then he will be as Belle made her victims, hungering for us forever, willing to do anything to be back between us."
"You sound sad."
"He was my friend; I did not mean to enslave him as Belle would.
Then why did you go all the way to bond him when you banged him?
I saw her victims give up everything, betray every vow, every trust, for the sake of her body." He held me tight against him. "It is not a power I ever wished to possess."
"You hold the ardeur"
"Oui, but this is a level of the ardeur that only she possesses. We all be-lieved that only Belle Morte could wield it at such a level."
Uggghhhhhhhh!
"You don't want it."
"I want to be so powerful that no one dares challenge me or our people. But I am afraid of this, and what it will mean."
His heart was beating too fast against my ear. Had it been beating all along, or had it just started?
"Mean, how?"
"There are those in Europe who already fear my growing power. Knowl-edge that I wielded the ardeur at the same level as Belle Morte might tip the scales in the council's voting.
Then don't bring Anita to the party.
They might vote to kill us all rather than risk me making a power base in America, as strong as Belle once possessed in Eu-rope. Or the other American masters might collude to kill us, for fear that we would become like the tyrants of the European council."
"How likely is all this?" I asked.
"Possible."
"How possible?" I asked, suddenly realizing that an accidental pregnancy might not be the worst disaster we could have.
"We must understand these new powers, and quickly, ma petite. We must experiment with a master we trust before I allow you to go to the party to-morrow. We must know what we are dealing with, if we can."
Does that mean they're going after the one with the three sons? (I don't care enough to look-up his name.)
Raised voices on the other side of the door. Claudia yelling, "You can't just go in there!"
Richard's voice, angry. "Watch me."
Jean-Claude sighed, and I settled lower in the water. I did not want to fight with Richard tonight. But from the feel of him through the door, we weren't going to have a choice.
Just to tell you, Richard is based off of LKH's first husband who she later divorced and now harbors bitter feelings towards. So she takes it out on the character.
Jean-Claude called, "Let him in, Claudia."
The door opened, but Claudia came first, as if she didn't trust Richard in there with us. His power rode through the door like the heat edge of a for-est fire, something that should have choked and killed anything in its path. We'd raised his power level along with ours, and we were about to find out how sorry that was going to make us.
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Date: 2014-04-20 06:40 pm (UTC)Sweet jimmies, I can’t even make a joke about that.
“Normally I’d push for honesty” I just can’t with this coming from ANITA ugh
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Date: 2014-04-20 08:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-20 09:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-21 02:35 pm (UTC)Poor Occy.
"it was that touchable sound, as if it were the sound of pure sex"
WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN.
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Date: 2014-04-21 06:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-21 08:07 pm (UTC)LKH has some fucked-up thinking about sex going on.
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Date: 2014-04-21 11:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-22 03:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-22 04:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-23 06:20 am (UTC)Because I just find it inappropriately hilarious.
"Doop de doop must remember to drop in to the supermarket on the way home tonight ... oh no, I am suddenly having a COMPLETELY POINTLESS ORGASM UH UH UH" *loses control, crashes*
no subject
Date: 2014-04-23 07:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-24 02:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-24 09:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-20 07:31 pm (UTC)Why you gotta insult Vegeta like that?
no subject
Date: 2014-04-20 08:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-20 08:11 pm (UTC)But she did say no, in the hardback edition, and no amount of later retrofitting of the paperback will erase that.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-20 09:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-21 01:00 am (UTC)http://lkh-lashouts.livejournal.com/222078.html?thread=5403006#t5403006 (http://lkh-lashouts.livejournal.com/222078.html?thread=5403006#t5403006)
no subject
Date: 2014-05-02 11:26 am (UTC)/grammar snob