Vamp Alive

The first breath she took after she had died was painful. A cold, stabbing sensation all along her throat that carefully but surely spread throughout her chest. The second became the gateway to an addiction. She never stopped breathing after that.

Scarlett, or Frida de Sirois as she was known then, had been an actress in the early 1930s. Born to a distant, rigid British aristocrat and one of her Austrian lovers, she had been pampered with culture from an early age. She had someone to watch over her and keep her away from the world outside the doors of their Kensington mansion at all times.

But fate had other plans for her.

Scarlett would never become a Duchess or a Baroness.

A chance encounter with Errol Flynn at a society event had opened her eyes to everything she was missing out on by letting her mother dictate her future. Before meeting that scandalous rogue, who had already left a string of broken hearts throughout the English upper class, she had been happy to let others decide what was right and proper and what was not. He changed all that in a conversation that lasted a heartbeat. Scarlett said goodbye to the comforts of her old life and embarked on an adventure with the Tasmanian devil. After two weeks together, he introduced her to Marc Anthony Reiss, who was already one of the most influential players in Hollywood. He promised to make her a star.

And she would have become, if it hadn't been for Brenner and his faulty Delahaye 135, or so they said. The two were arguing when he swerved to avoid that shadow that had suddenly pounced in front of the car. After the collision with something else, Scarlett passed out, seconds away from death, who already held Brenner in his grips.

“No” The shadow’s frantic voice whispered. “No, not like this, it was never meant to be like this”.

The soft, female voice repeated herself again and again, until –

“Forgive me.”

Had Scarlett been conscious, the pain of the shadow’s fangs ripping through her skin would have been intolerable.

It was as if she had died after all. Her family would not look for her after the disgrace she had threatened to bring upon their name. For all her mother knew, Scarlett was begging on the streets of Hobart after being discarded by that diseased Tasmanian, and for all she cared, the woman who was no longer her daughter could rot there. The Tasmanian had left her too and married that awful French actress. If that wasn’t a sign that she had fallen from grace, then she didn’t know what was. Even the dirty prisoner didn’t want her anymore. She was no longer virtuous, beautiful or noble. She was no longer worthy of her title.

The Hollywood people wouldn’t spend too much time looking for her either. She wasn’t a well-known face yet and other actresses were proving to be ready to take her place in the pictures. Errol would miss her, but he had his hands full, as he always did.

Scarlett put down her empty Starbucks cup. She had finished reading a long review of the latest film about her old lover. It was an “in-depth and explicit” look at the rape allegations that surrounded him. She shook her head. Errol could be persuasive and he was always very charming, but he had a heart of gold. He would have never made anyone do anything against their will, especially not something as intimate as sex. She blushed a little, remembering their time together. No, she thought. He would have never touched those girls like that.

She looked down at her vintage Cartier watch. Time to go. The show would start soon. She quickly checked her hair in the little pocket mirror she always carried around. Everything was still in place: the ends of her straight hair were curled, the red lipstick beautifully seductive on her lips, the shimmery eye shadow and black liner around her eyes playing with the contrast of her cat-like blue eyes. Not a single wrinkle in sight. Scarlett didn’t look a day over 24.

It was the 18^th of May 2014.

The Italian

"What are you thinking about?" Jane asked her. The question she had been waiting for, yet would not answer.
Her mind wandered back to those days in Rome, to the day she met Cesare.

Italians were a lot more easy going than she thought. Yes, this did meant that the level of appreciation bordering on sexual harassment she received walking down the street was higher. But what it also meant was that he had had no problem approaching her in the club, even though she was surrounded by her friends, male and female. He didn't ask whether she was with anyone, whether she was taken, he simply took her hand and introduced himself. This olive-skinned Roman with those piercing blue eyes.
His English wasn't very good and her Italian was average at best. They understood each other by gesticulating, laughing, touching, and not long after, that final first kiss.

The time she had spent in Italy had confirmed that her Nordic looks were not considered particularly beautiful or elegant there. Men would occasionally make a passing comment when she walked by, but they wouldn't stare at her for more than a few seconds. But Cesare didn't seem to notice. He gently poked her freckles and played with her heavy, reddish hair.
"Carota." Carrot, he said, twisting it around his finger.

Italians don't know how to handle rain. She smiled as she remembered teasing him about it: "You're hardly going to melt!" she laughed at him, as Cesare ran to take cover under a terrace of some elaborate political building. A few drops had fallen. In England, this would go unnoticed. In Italy, people raised their umbrellas in defence and shrieked loudly, until they found somewhere that would protect them from the rain.

Of course, they fought like animals. She had never dreamt of becoming one of those women that shouts at her lover in the streets, only to then push him against a wall, slapping and kissing him. The deep, unflinching British social etiquette would never have allowed it. Here, it was a demonstration of mad passion. They fought and loved and desired each other from Piazza Navona to Via Veneto, from the Colosseum to the Castel Sant'Angelo.

She couldn't pronounce half the food they ate together and he tickled her when she called him "pet".

"So are you looking forward to the next time you end up in the Eternal City?" Jane asked her friend.
She smiled.
"Oh yes."

Just After The Invitation With Love From Fate

David wandered into the club as if in a trance. He didn't understand the music, he didn't understand what he was seeing and he didn't know where he was. All he knew, was that he had to see this through.
The bouncer at the door had taken no convincing at all, which shocked and thrilled David. He was never the type to persuade bouncers with his walk or, even less, with a "don't you know who I am" look.
He sat down at the long, L-shaped glass bar and turned his back on the dance floor and the winding staircases that took you God knows where.
David took out the card and studied it quietly, moving it back and forth to the rhythm of the Kalkbrenner brothers. His throat itched in anticipation, a fizz ran through him, causing his senses to be on high alert.
The barman, an elderly-looking ex chain smoker, noticed him and grumpily dragged his feet to the other end where David was sitting. But when his eyes fell onto the elegant card in this common man's hands, something in his eyes changed. David didn't notice the fear. He was too preoccupied with himself and this mysterious invitation. It had turned into a promise he had made himself, to live a little. To do something he wouldn't normally do. A sudden flicker of life in his otherwise dull existence.
"Scotch, on the rocks", he bellowed as he finally looked up at the barman. He had never drunken Scotch before. Could it even be "on the rocks"?
"Coming right up." The other man hesitated. "The man you're looking for is not here yet. He-", he stopped dead in his tracks. Another man had slumped into one of the empty chairs next to David. He reeked of sweat, booze and an exotic stink that made David want to gag. The barman, feeling the rising pressure in his throat, mumbled something and practically jumped away to serve a group of conveniently placed girls at the other end of the bar. They all looked like pale and worthless imitations of a young Winona Ryder.
The man's eyes were bloodshot. His eyelids were betraying them and slowly closing, embracing them with forgiving darkness and calm. He cleared his throat and rubbed his nose, picking at it to make sure that there were no white reminders of the beginning of his night left. The only reminder that would stay with him was the money he no longer had, after paying that prostitute to do his dirty work. He took one look at David, what he was holding in his hand and sighed, murdering the air around him.
"The one you need is standing in the back area. He's the one dressed like a cunt."
David felt himself gag again. He nodded and jumped up, desperately searching for the toilet signs.
He found them near the entrance he had come through, in a short corridor below the ground floor.
David took three steps at once and reached the right door just in time.

Feeling a little better, he let the door close behind him. There were four other doors in the corridor and the largest one, presumably leading to another corridor, caught his attention. He could hear something coming from behind the not so heavy door. Something that wasn't the chatter or the ever-changing music.
There were noises, a few words and then more noises. Glass broke. He slowly pushed the door open, revealing a man holding a woman up against the wall, her arms and legs wrapped around him. Her closed eyes were heavy with black eyeliner and her parted lips were pink and puffy. The man's face was buried between the woman's pale neck and the tumbles of the woman's long, dark auburn hair. David never saw his face. They didn't notice him quietly slipping away, leaving them to themselves.

"The back area" had simply meant the more exclusive part of the warehouse-turned-club. The men gathered around there looked like they knew what a razor was and the women wore heels and lipstick. A shallow, plain indication of faint upper social standing. While the other people in the club, sweating on the dancefloor and getting elbowed in the ribs at the bar, had normal, perhaps even happy faces, the people here were the personification of gothic. There were no smiles, no direct eye-contact, only fast gestures and tension rising. David slowly walked over, taking everything in.
What did the exotic stink man say again? "He's the one dressed like a..."?
David shook his head. He took the card in his hands again and held it against his chest. Maybe someone would-
"ACHILLES! HE'S HERE!", a voice shouted in his ear, deafening him for several seconds. An arm of muscle that felt like iron steered David towards one of the better lit tables. A man had turned his head at the mention of the Greek hero's name. But this man was not Greek. Even David, who had never taken an interest in different European looks, could figure that out. The man, because above anything he was a man, was tall and sported the broadest shoulders David had ever seen. He didn't have a body builder physique and yet he carried himself with grace and presence, and above anything else, control. Yes, he looked like a man in control.

Achilles had been worried about the new arrival. The last one had been an almost immediate disappointment, flinching at every deep look Achilles had given him. That one would have shat himself at the sole mention of a Kalashnikov. But this one was better. He wasn't overly muscular, but he looked like he could hold his own. He didn't smile, but held out his hand instead.

David worried about having made the biggest mistake of his life. Who were these people? Why was he offering them his hand? They were going to cut it off, he knew it, they were going to break it into a thousand pieces and feed it to the-

Achilles' hand enclosed around David's. He almost crushed it, but David didn't bat an eyelid.
"Good", Achilles thought. "Better".
Out loud he said: "We've been expecting you. I'm Achilles. I assume Miroslav told you what you are needed for?"
David nodded curtly. "Miroslav". Who the hell was Miroslav? Then he changed his mind.
"He didn't say much, as usual".
The man with the iron arm sniggered.
Achilles half-smiled. David relaxed internally. Must have said something right.
"Typical", Achilles raised an eyebrow in contempt. He was offered a Cuban cigar by a cute girl with short blonde hair and an ample bosom. He took it without looking at her and lit it. Blowing out the smoke, he sized David up, man to man.
"You'll be reporting to me. But before we get to the business, let me introduce you."
He had a slight accent, but David couldn't place it. No one said "the business". It was just "business".
Achilles glanced at David, a small part of him interested in the new recruit.
"What do we call you?", he asked.
David's world collapsed and found itself again. He felt a push of fate drive him to make the next snap decision.
"Kip".


To be continued..

Kitten

They had barely taken two steps from under the train station shelter when it began to rain. It wasn't a romantic, delicate whisper of drops, but a heavy, relentless shower of chilly autumn tears. Thunder roared angrily at the people running away from the street, searching for a safe haven wherever they could.
But not these two.
Their time together had been brief, but it had been real. Alive. And she loved the rain more than anything, something she shouted at him, laughing manically as he pushed her into a puddle. Luckily for him, she was wearing Doc Martens and not her favourite and very fragile black boots. She gasped for air between her manic bolts of laughter, almost collapsing on the cold, wet ground. But he didn't have time to be worried, for she ran to him and jumped. They almost fell, tangled in lust and love, swinging together in their own throws of clothed passion. Water was streaming down both their faces, gluing her long hair to her face, making them both squint at each other. The kiss they shared was accompanied by lighting, like their relationship had been.
A car honked at them, irritated at these two fools kissing in the middle of the road.
They took no notice and kissed again, and again, and again. This night would never end. The rain would never end, it would wash away the past, the present, the future, the entire world. They would be alone in the universe, the galaxy at their feet, overwhelmed by them, being together.
She broke away, for the first time in always and forever.
"You make me feel like a kitten", she whispered breathlessly, holding onto his broad, German shoulders, trying to steady herself. He had picked her up off the ground, as if she was a little weightless kitten after all.
He smiled and kissed her again, without letting her feet touch the ground. Knowing that he wouldn't drop her, she wrapped her legs around him instead. Their kiss lasted an eternity and a half. And still, the rain would not stop. Cologne would be drowned in it.

I've Made You Common

The location they had chosen to meet in was inappropriate. The people who were gathering around the terrace wore hats and drank German beer instead of cocktails. Inside, the music was pumping away happily, creating an up-and-coming and very hip atmosphere. You wanted to feel young, to feel modern again? You dressed like these people and drank beer outside.
He knew that she still loved him, with a passion, like she used to. There was no reason to consider the far away possibility of a change in her.
But when he saw her again, sitting at one of the tables across from the coloured bar, something was different. But what?
They greeted each other with a sense of honouring their memories together, but there was a distinct coldness to her touch, her words, spoken as if they were formed of boredom.
She interrupted him and spat her words out with a calm collection. She was together, as the words that could have destroyed a man fell from her lips.
"I lied to myself when I told you that no one had kissed me like you did. I lied to myself and then to you. Many before you have kissed me like that and many after you will. When I drew you as unique in my mind, I was hallucinating. You are as common as the rest of them, like all the ones I've had before you and the ones that will come once you're gone. The only thing that I can still remember as exclusively yours and mine, is our beginning. The way it made me feel to be with you, to hear you and feel you. But then that was broken and I became used to it, as did you. It was beautiful and it remained so until this ended. Until we killed it."
He opened his mouth to speak, his eyes glazed over with the harshness of her tongue.
She continued without hesitation, cutting through him and his forming thoughts.
"But I can make you common. I have made you as common as they come, like all the others. I took what was ours, what we shared and had the same with others. I recreated our stolen moments and shared them without wasting another thought towards you. So now they're not you and me, they'll never be you and me again. You are just one of the people with whom I had moments, experiences like these. And for that, I won't even be grateful. Why should I, since you are just one of many and not the one and only?
You are no longer unique and singular to me.
I've dragged you from your throne of memories in my head and I've dragged you through the mud. I've made you common."

C'est fini.

A Further Invitation, With Love From Fate (Who is Kip?)

"The shipment is landing in less than an hour," Achilles murmured. Kip looked at him, faking understanding and concern. "Do you want me to go?" he eventually asked, looking at the floor. Say no.
"No. They get spooked by people they don't know. They'll put you in a cobra cage before you even explain what's happened, who you are and why you're there in my stead." Achilles shook his head.
What on earth was a cobra cage?
Before Kip could ask, Achilles swore quietly under his breath.
"I can't leave her. But I can't let anyone else go to the airport either. Fuck. FUCK."
Kip shifted from one foot to the next. Achilles' shoulders slumped and he let himself slide to the floor of the dark corridor. The only source of light was coming from the slight opening to the bathroom.
"I told Lara I'd stay with her."
Kip ran a hand through his hair, before remembering that it has gone. His buzz cut didn't agree with his hands. But it made him feel like part of the group. He swallowed hard, then..
"I can do it."
Achilles looked up.
"I can look after her."
Achilles didn't reply.
"I've done this sort of work before you know." Kip lied, but Achilles wasn't paying attention. His eyes had wandered to the bathroom door.
"You can trust me."
And there it was.
Achilles stood up, straightened his dinner jacket and gave Kip a quick nod. He gestured to the door and wasted one more quick look in the other man's direction.
They walked those five steps to the door as if they were going to their hanging. Kip could feel how sickened Achilles was by the idea of leaving Lara in the care of someone else, especially after what she had tried to do. And he was always the one who stayed with her during her cleansing bath, the one who would gently exfoliate her shoulders and make sure her hair didn't get wet. He wasn't the only one to have seen her in all her naked glory, but he had known Alice and Arthur for years. Kip was new.
But was he trustworthy? Achilles wondered. He's wrong for this.
Achilles had no time to elaborate on the thought. The seed of doubt was always going to be there.
Lara had her back to the door. She didn't move when the two men walked in, Kip respectfully staying behind Achilles who ducked down close to her, to give a brief explanation of where he was going and why. She didn't look at him once.
Achilles stood up and sighed. He turned to walk out, but stopped when he was shoulder to shoulder with Kip.
"Let some more hot water in the tub in about ten, fifteen minutes. Make sure she isn't cold. You have to know when, she certainly isn't going to tell you. Pour some more of that Moroccan oil on her shoulders when she turns around." He seemed to become increasingly uncomfortable. "When she wants out, you hold the towel open for her and look the other way. I find out you -" He stopped and composed himself. "That you saw her, and I'll put you in a cobra cage myself." And with one long, wistful look at Lara's soapy, naked back, he walked away.
Lara turned around. Her chest was covered in bath foam, so there was no risk of Kip seeing any part of her she didn't want him to see. That's the problem, he thought. He edged closer to her, grabbed a sponge and knelt before her. He tried to not look into her eyes while he gently dabbed around them to get the layers of dark eye shadow off her cheeks. She lingered, her lips slightly parting when the sponge moved from one side of her face to the other.
She caught his gaze. Kip froze. Her eyes had all the sorrow in the world mixed in a pool of icy blue.
"I need you" they said, pleading with him.
But before he said "fuck it" and hurled himself into the cobra cage, Lara pulled away. In one swift and practised, sudden and unexpected movement, the possibility of having her right then and there was gone, ripped from his world. He fell on his backside and crawled to the wall opposite the bathtub. He turned towards her but kept his eyes on the foam.
She didn't notice and she didn't care.
He was out of her cruel mind already.

An Invitation, With Love From Fate

The streets of London were bustling with tired co-workers making their way to the nearest pub to drown their sorrows, groups of tourists that had preferred the late afternoon tours through the capital and teenagers shouting abuse at each other. The young man taking in the last drag of his Camel cigarette was leaning against a shop window and shaking his head at the world in front of him. Would London always be like this, he wondered as a red-faced Swiss couple with a shrieking toddler moved past him. Is that what I’m going to become in ten, fifteen years’ time?

He chucked the cigarette stub in the air, missing the nearby bin by a mere centimetre. He huffed, walked over and picked it up from the ground. Something caught his eye. He disposed of the finished cigarette in one smooth movement and shifted closer to the small black, green and golden ticket poking out from underneath a dirty cardboard box.

It read “K. Midnight” on one side and had an address scribbled by hand on the other. The elaborate design around the writing in the middle suggested that it was some sort of invitation or reminder for an elite party, some place the young man would never dream of going. He gently lifted the box, pulling out the card and without thinking twice, putting it in his pocket. It had been the most dangerous thing he had done all day.

The journey home was taking longer than expected, but Alice and Arthur didn’t mind. The gentle rocking of the train was casting a delicate bubble of calm over both of them. Everything had been organised to welcome the new arrival at midnight the next day. It would be at their usual place, the hidden warehouse off the motorway, a place so desolate no one would ever dream of coming to look for any of them there.

Arthur’s head dropped slightly. He had fallen asleep. Alice tilted him towards her so that he wouldn’t rest against anyone else. They wouldn’t thank him for it.

Everything had been prepared. Everything was going to be fine. More than fine, it would be perfect.

Lara turned in Achilles’ arms. The absinthe had long lost its power of joy over her and she had sunken into a deep sleep on one of the sofas in the warehouse. The fact that she hadn’t left with anyone by that time meant that for once, she wanted to spend the night at home. Achilles paid the cab driver, grabbed the black crocodile bag and heaved her out of the car. They were alone on the quiet street once the taxi had disappeared into the night. Achilles turned towards the old Georgian house and began walking towards its long, pointy gate. He opened it with a firm push of his body weight and slipped through. Walking swiftly through the garden, he noticed that the watch dogs had been fed recently, which to him made no sense. It must have been just after three. Clearly no one was expecting intruders tonight.

As Achilles stopped on the porch, Lara’s head rolled back, tilting away from him. Her pale face was illuminated by the candles burning from inside the house, shadows playing a game of fire on her. He sighed as he began looking for her keys.

At Night, In the Dark

(Inspired by Edward Hopper's Nighthawks)

The coffee stings my tongue. It's four in the morning and the city has deserted me.
Can you feel me, thinking of you?
The old man looks to me, questioning what I'm doing here, in my elegant evening gown. My hair is still made up, my make up is heavy and has not faded yet. I look like I did when saw him for the last time, when I saw you for the last time. You wore that uniform so very proudly.
The drunk man sitting opposite me burps. He smiles to his ghosts, but not at me. Do I hate him for it? Perhaps I should. I'm the only woman here, and this bastard has not deigned to look at me once.
In swans a man with a crooked nose. He's too relaxed, too sure of himself. He comes and stands behind me. I can hear him lighting a cigarette. He does not offer me one when he takes the seat next to mine. I do not gaze at him like I should.
I need you, my eyes should say.
Take me away, my lips should say.
I look at my nails. Someone is playing some part or other of Chopin's Nocturnes.
The man leans in closer, but still does not speak. He rests his hand on my thigh. I do not look at him. Can I encourage him with stillness, hatred even? How dare he touch me. And you're not here.
He is the only man alive for miles and miles. The only man who has so much as looked at me in months. I'm powerless.
The old and the drunk exchange a few murmurs, then a few sniggers. They make me sick to the stomach and I want to leave. I do not. I sit there with my unwanted companion, waiting.
He seems to have all the time in the world. If I let him love me tonight, will you come back to me after all? Or will you be disgusted and distracted and die in some horrible way because your mind was elsewhere, on me?
On how we were together?
This man's nose intimidates me. He wears it with pride. Maybe it was you who punched it until it was broken. Maybe you knew that I would not last long in this brutal and cruel world, not without you. My protector and knight in shining armour.
But where are you now?
Is it many miles away or are you hiding somewhere near?
Will I see you if I turn around?
The man speaks. He tells me about desire, his desire for me. He tells me things I used to hear you say. He tells me that we'll all be gone tomorrow and that this is the last night on earth. I wanna be yours, he whispers. I can hear the words, but I hear nothing else. It is as if there was no humanity left in him. He too had loved and lost. And perhaps his love is spying on us now, plotting to kill us after we have given in to each other.
How and when will I know where you are?
He strokes the velvet on my dress and compliments it.
The other man has gone silent. He stares into the darkness of the diner, at his hands. Has he murdered, I wonder.
My hand moves closer to this man with the crooked nose. He sees it, but does not move. He thinks this is a game of want and wanting, of prolonged desire.
Poor fool.
No more nights like these, I beg you. We will never go out at night, not in the cold and not in the warm.
We'll stay together, in our little bubble, as if there was no tomorrow.
No yesterday, no today and no tomorrow.