The Caffeinated Lifestyle
6. The Dark Room
The most sensitive part of a vampire is the neck. After all, they've bitten enough necks to feel rather protective about their own.
So she shivered when she felt him touch the sensitive skin of her throat, brush her jugular with concealed fangs, kiss her on the nape of the neck. And she thought about the words that had broke the world.
"The regiment's going back to Borogravia. I'm leaving tomorrow morning."
The dark room, the cellar, was their secret hollow, the clandestine heart of their time together. There was dark, and there was light. Here the iconographs dried like newborns fresh from birthing, to grow cool and smooth and glossy in the dim, still air. The dark room kept their words, frozen like iconographs, buried in the nooks and crannies of the old stone.
They stood still, holding hands, and savoured the passage of time through the darkness.
Later, when she was gone, Otto went out and bought a cup of coffee from the Klatchian stall round the corner. He took it down to the dark room, and sat there with his head in his hands and his nose just above the rim of the cup. The bittersweet caffeinated aroma of the coffee reminded him of Maladicta.
Nearing the evening, the trapdoor opened, silhouetting Sacharissa. "Er, Otto? William and I are going out for dinner……you don't want to join us? Oh. Okay."
The trapdoor shut.
Otto stayed in the same position for the rest of the night, until the coffee turned stone cold and he fell asleep.