Hi, kiddos. Welcome to my world! I hope you enjoy the way this story unfolds.
Also, I do not own Eric and Pam, although that is quite a shame, because they are fabulous characters. Love always! This will most likely be rated M a little later.
Pamela was much smarter than her whores. Truly - some of them had more common sense than others, and every woman had her talents, but common sense and intelligence were eons apart. There was Florence, of course. She was young, bright eyed and bushy tailed with effervescent emerald eyes. Oh, was she a charmer, a wonderful addition to Pamela's collection of exotic jolly strumpets. Florence studied French, the fool, while in her off time. The men, of course, wanted nothing to do with oui oui's and embrasse-moi vers le bas sous's when they were too asinine to know that she was sweet talking them out of their right, wealthy minds. And in the end, Florence was just a plain old whore.
But Pamela, she was something else. An oxymoron and a pitiful parody of herself to say the least. But either way, she was not a woman of many words. Pathetic speak that did flow from her lonely lips were few and never frivolous, always careful yet sometimes callous. Playing the part of mistress, in any circumstance, as she pleased and pleased and never received pleasure. Oftentimes, she considered herself a merchant in her field - buying, selling, all the will that came in and out of her establishment paid a price, withering and dwindling with time. She knew this, they all did, didn't they? Dignity was the D-Word, X-listed from years of making money and forgetting that her expertise was selling sex servants and paying them depending on their performances.
Pam grimaced into her glass, swirling the contents around until the foam settling at the burgundy top and rested in the liquid center. Wine could not settle her uneasiness, but she might as well try and make it do just that. Her collection of women meandered in the foyer, perched on the laps of gentlemen, luring them away like cobras to the catacombs of the fancified institution. They giggled, they flirted, they showed just enough of their chest. Pamela taught the new ones what she had been taught, what she had mastered over the years.
There went the girls, leading away fine men towards the doorways gilded with bronze, graying drapes and master rooms where their dreams would come true with coins. She watched as Ruby slunk against the wall with a rotund man, spectacles fogging as the two of them disappeared down the farthest left corridor.
"Mr. Erringsworth paid top dollar for her." Florence leaned against the counter, peering at the swirling wine in Pam's glass. Green-blue robin's egg eyes trained on Pam's tapping fingers, and she looked up to her employer. "Are you jealous?"
Smirking, Pam took another hardy sip from her flute. "Don't think for a moment that Mr. Erringsworth could make me a jealous girl. We haven't taken to bed in months, and besides - no matter what he pays me, I refuse to enslave myself to his miniscule appendages." She winked, shooing the young woman away like she might shoo a kitten. "Fetch Mr. Sigma and tell him he still owes, and if he doesn't pay up front he can find somewhere else to satisfy his loveless marriage. Good girl."
She watched her walk away, shoulders frail and statuesque underneath the meager straps of her uniform. Florence was relatively quiet when it came to her employment - the loud ones were the girls Pamela wished to shove down a laundry shoot and drip water on for a few days. She kept the music loud for that reason.
Finishing her final sip, Pam wiped the remnants from her lips carefully with the back of her hand, setting the glass aside on the counter. "Nicholas," she called softly, almost too delicately for the atmosphere. The bartender buffed the spotless counter once more, nodding once and swiping her glass with a gentle "Yes ma'am." She reached over the counter and tugged free a small portion of grapes, picking one from the shriveled vine to pop into her mouth. The fruit was much less savory than she had high hopes for - mushy and warm. She set aside the useless vine and turned to overlook her girls, a vulture overseeing her young.
Effie approached, her drooping eyes trained on her employer's face. She'd been under Pam's wing for quite some time now and she'd learned the tricks of the trade, for the most part. Enslaving her body to strangers was her forte, at least that's what she said. Pam never hired out of pity, but she enjoyed go-getters, and Effie was one.
She looked incredibly tired, though. Pam never slept much either, but she didn't need it. The irregular sleep schedule was unsatisfactory for the first couple years, but she'd always taken care of herself and the others. "Got a boost for a working girl?"
A smirk played at the edge of Pamela's lips but she shrugged indifferently, slipping aside the secret compartment in her pearl ring, holding it out like a prince awaiting his damsel's encroaching marriage acceptance. Effie sniffed once, like a dog who was trained to do ridiculous vaudeville tricks in return for a treat. Relief clouded the girl's eyes almost immediately - most of he drugs that came through were contraband in small quantity, and half the time they were placebos anyway, nothing but powdered sugar or a pinch of mild salt. Of course, occasionally they were legitimate. Pam was no invalid.
She wiped below Effie's nose with her slender pinky finger, raising her eyebrows to take a sip from her replenished glass. "Mr. Danton is prowling, he asked for Claire. Have you seen her?"
"She's in number three." The stoic charm to her words was almost threatening - she's in number three, as if "number three" might have been a theater box office or a church pew. "Almost an hour now."
Claire was relatively fast. The quickest and cleanest of the girls, for the most part. No tricks, no games - although she was quite the woman in bed. Pam sighed and straightened herself, abandoning her wine on the counter to wipe her hands. "Entertain Mr. Danton for a while longer. I'll make sure she's finished in the next five minutes."
The doors were numbered like hotel rooms, embellished to create the gilded city atmosphere. One, two, three. Pam pressed her ear to the door daintily, touching the door knob then thinking better of it. She knocked, four times. One, two, three, four. "Claire?" It was much gentler than she would have liked. In anger it was harpy-like and only became more decrepit with age, but it was velvety and mature all the same. There was no reply on the other side, so she grasped the doorknob and braced her body against it. It squeaked on its hinges and she gasped.
Blood, blood everywhere. It dripped from Claire's appendages through double cobra gash marks, a single red droplet forming at her dead gaped mouth. Pam clutched her chest with one hand and braced against the doorway with the other, feeling a lump forming in her throat. She hadn't much feeling for Claire, she was a dimwit with good intentions, but she was the second to be drained. "God damn them." She cried, hypothetically throwing herself at Claire's naked bedside.
Pam gave a final sniff and straightened herself, wiping the tears from underneath her eyes. Tears smeared the painting, and her face was a masterpiece. She was a stranger to whatever thing had done this, but their inhuman activities were ruining her business. Afraid? She supposed she was afraid, not so much of the vampires themselves, but she feared for the girls most of all. Her merchandise.
Of course, there were the men who seemed just as bad as vampires in every way. Rotten swines who sucked on girls, draining like they drained bottles of whiskey with much more gumption and expertise. But then again, she knew so much more about men than vampires - about vampires, she knew virtually nothing aside from their rigorous drive and apparent need to maim her employees. But a vampire was not a man, nor woman. She knew this.
That's right. God damn them.
Pamela knelt beside the body of the girl, reaching tentatively for her hand. Cold, cold like them. The room radiated warmth, the coals left over from the fire, smoldering as deeply as Pam's discontentedness as she searched for a pulse. Gone, it was all gone. The only blood left inside were the few drops leaking from the double puncture wounds, a last facade. Tears glimmered in her own eyes as she rose quickly, leaving the scene. She would not be emotional. She would take care of herself - this was not within her control.
Nicholas took care of the body quietly. Pam didn't care how he did it, but she knew he took her in the night and cut Claire's body into smaller, more manageable pieces. Pieces that could inconspicuously rot in silence. Pamela buried her face in her hands in her bed chamber, surfacing only to the face of a dead girl, merely a child. Her profession hadn't been full of vanity but she was just only starting out in the world. For this, Pam gripped the fire poker, scalding her hands as she doused the burning coals leftover in her own fire.
God damn them.
Honestly, she was more upset over losing her business. There would always be men, crawling as beggars out of the gutters to give their only coins for sex. But suspicions turned those who had been drained over in their sleep - no one knew of vampires. Claire had disappeared. Run off with a stranger passing through. Pamela was a smart girl - she'd covered up more than once. Vampires weren't the only killers. The scariest and most demeaning things were humans themselves.
Pamela had heard stories, many of them - superstitions, wives tales, legends. Dracula and belfries and long-fanged creatures with black widows peaks, horridly splendid sounding fairy tales from her distorted childhood. The shit her family, her dared-to-be-called-family, told to scare her into submission. Once she was a galant girl of the upper class with the perks of being beautiful little Pamela, and then she grew into a horrible woman with, God forbid, desires.
She met a vampire - a small woman in the face of silver moonlight. Caught her feeding against the cobbled shadows, regret and submission across her face. Fright. Pam hadn't been afraid, although the vampire woman seemed terrified of her, what she was. Soft-faced with the curvature of a woman of another century, thin and evenly proportioned. Alone on the streets at night, the predators lurked. But this vampire was not a predator. The beautiful woman let her prey go, speaking soft words of encouragement, a gentle coo to forget the pain and to forget his name, if she so desired it.
Vampires had no power over her. Oh yes, she was afraid, but not of being attacked, of the ability of such a creature to so ruthlessly take her life away, and in the presence of one, it wouldn't. It ran. Like a bullet in the night, leaving her be. Running from her.
Yes, they were so powerful, which was so terrifying, and at the same time she was jealous. Jealous of their power and supposed immortality. How dare they?
XXX
"Miss De Beufort?" Nicholas shook her shoulder gently, tugging her from her reverie. Pam's head revolved as she failed to hide the shock in her eyes as she stood, brushing herself off. The place was empty, completely void of visitors. Nicholas wore his bowler cap sideways, askew on his head, and his overcoat was draped over his arm. "It is closing time, madam. Shall I walk you home?"
"No." She demanded, shrugging away from him. He was such a gentleman - gentlemen sickened her. They had alterior motives, always. "I'll walk myself."
"Goodnight." A girl brushed past her, out the big cherrywood door, gilded in a blade-like bronze piece, one that had been clinging to the door for centuries before this place became what it was. Some of the girls had already gone, as they always did, but a few stragglers were tidying, finishing late-like floozies. Pam nodded to them as they exited, leaving her and Nicholas alone until he tipped his hat and exited.
As they were at this time of night, the streets were deserted. In the night, the only sound was her heels, almost deafeningly loud as they clicked against the cobbled streets, burgundy red dress bunched in her fingers at the ankles to keep the hems from brushing the inevitable puddles.
A single ghost buggy passed, black horse clopping along in the streetlights. A coroner, hidden in the shield of shadows against his perch. He was on his way to retrieve a body, somewhere. And when it was gone, she was alone on the streets that did not frighten her in the least. She'd walked home on her own plenty of times.
She mounted some cobbled steps, clutching her purse against her matching red coat. As if she could sense a change in the air, in the minute sounds of the city night, Pam knew a man was following her. It may have been the steady clomping of his shoes, ghosting against the street. She let him follow her for a few paces, giving him the benefit of the doubt to fucking turn around and go, but he continued.
Pamela wheeled around, gritting her teeth in the way she often did. "May I help you?"
He tipped his hat politely. Yes, he was good looking, she supposed, in the faded street lights. He wore a dented bowler hat and a suit as he stood below her in the street. "Beg pardon." He paused, enjoying the sight of her. Pam glared. "You are... Quite lovely."
It was nothing she hadn't heard before - men wanted one thing, a good fuck, and they'd say anything sweet and demure to get a girl to sit in their lap. Pam heard these words every day from them. With an internal growl, she pursed her doll-like lips.
"I'm off the clock. Come by tomorrow. We open at eight." She turned to go with a snarky smirk, red coat swinging at her wrists as she prepared to leave him stranded and starving for sex in the street. Fuck you.
The man, so elequent and chivalrous a moment ago, grabbed her by the throat and involuntarily she screamed, struggling against his leather gloves. Suddenly helpless under his hands, putty, she screamed again, as if anyone would hear her at the hour.
"That's right, whore!" He laughed, but Pamela wasn't quite sure why, because yes, he was right, she was a whore. Some sick, masochistic glint was in his eye as he opened his pocket knife with a quiet chink, holding it against her neck. Immediately she quieted for her life. "I like it when you struggle!"
Pam shut up, accepting the inevitable as she stared into her attacker's eyes. He stared at her as well, no doubt imagining what he was going to do to her, what he was going to make her do. Shit.
The only noise breaking the silence of the big was the gentle, masculine whoosh of coat tails and the flick of the knife, and Pam's unannounced scream. The attacker choked on the ground. He held his throat, falling into a heap, and Pamela suddenly realized that he'd been sliced across the throat by his own switch blade. At the feet of his killer, murderer seemed too kind of a word for such vermin, he slumped until he died.
The man, if he was a man, held his giant hand up as if he were thinking "oh, indeed, this is my hand", studying the blood coating his fingers in a thick maroon syrup. Without lowering her eyes to her, he moved his thumb to his mouth, sucking the remnants from the pad slowly. When he let up on his thumb, the tip was clean and he made a soft smacking noise in the quiet of the street.
Pamela was gasping for air, mostly because her attacker had been choking her, but the vampire lowered his eyes to her finally after watching the man drown in his own blood at his worthy feet. His were of deep blue, almost shockingly so, oh so ageless and holding the qualities of every century.
"You are not afraid." His voice was rich, almost as black as his top hat. Almost whimsical, in a dark sort of way.
"I'm no stranger to dead bodies."
The vampire started removing a white handkerchief from the inside pocket of his long coat, coat tails fluttering in the chilled wind. Pamela shivered but he minded little. "The streets can be dangerous at this hour." It was almost matter-of-fact, condescending. She stared at him as he began cleaning the blood from his hands. Some was spilled on the street, but it had been a relatively clean and fast death. He buffed at his hand. "A lady should really be more careful."
Pam scoffed. Right. "If I meet a lady, I'll let her know."
This amused him, as evidence by the tug of his pale lips against his strange mouth. The vampire man glanced at her sideways for a moment before he deftly stepped over the body, coming to her aid. Oh, he was so tall. Pamela had been reprimanded for being a tall woman, although it never stopped her from wearing heels, but he was nearly gangly. Everything about him was giant, larger than life - immortal. He couldn't be human.
The vampire was too - too fantastic to be anything close to human. Perhaps it was the blonde of his hair contrasting with the fabric of his hat, the hunter's glint across his stance. Nothing about him seemed mortal, and even if Pam hadn't a clue as to the existence of vampires able to maim and kill, she would have known in that second.
He peered down at her, adjusting his white cravat with his clean hand. "Well that is a... Lovely dress." Purred the vampire, looking into her eyes, not her chest. "I'm sorry about all the blood."
She stuttered at his gaze - the way he looked at her was surprising. How could such a predator look at her without as much malice as the human being who had every intention of raping her? "It's o... It's fine." Was all she managed. Lashes fluttering against her round cheeks, she felt the need to grasp at him, to ensure he was something more than a phantom. She wanted to tell him that the blood splattered on her racy dress and coat was almost the same color, but he was retrieving something from his pocket.
"This should cover it." His husky voice thralled, dropping a few golden coins into her hand and letting it descend slowly, teasing her body that was impossibly close. She studied the blood stains on his hand as he did so, the coating he had not been able to remove. Pam never turned down money, no matter how fortunate or unfortunate, but her voice suddenly stuttered.
"Thank you... Mister?" Close to tears at his proximity, she looked up into his eyes once again.
The vampire merely smiled. Smiled, a smirking simper, and with the wind, he was gone. Gasping at the loss of his presence so suddenly, more sudden than any human could imagine, she sobbed, staring at the spot he had been standing. Empty cool air, a forgotten silhouette of the creature who, as much as she hated to admit it, had saved her life and dignity.
Sorry for a slow start! Review?!