Harvest V
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"Come on Charles, you promised. How do I please a vampire?"
She is laughing, green eyes crinkling, open-mouthed, her too red lips shiny from his kisses. Fingertips flutter against his sides like butterfly wings and he guffaws, twisting first one way, then the other, his insides molten taffy when she looks at him like that, honored that it's he and not someone else play acting the vulnerability that amuses her so. His leg hooks around hers and they roll, his weight pinning her to the bed.
"Hmmm…. I'm partial to learning by trial and error," he says and buries his nose into the creamy nape of her neck, shaking his head like a dog with a bone, smiling into the shallow folds of her skin as she shrieks in delight. All's fair in love, war and tickle fights – it's her turn now. His experienced fingers leave no sensitive hollow unexplored and she writhes, giggling between gasps.
She's not a pushover, however, and while she may be out of breath, she's not brainless.
"You're avoiding the question," she says later, when her breathing has steadied. Her eyes are smiling, but twin lines of serious intent are pencilled between her brows. "Come on … "
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"… Josef. Stop avoiding and give." A sharp pinch shatters the illusion.
"Ow." He looks down, rubs at the injury zone, hoping to sound affronted enough to distract her. "I think you broke the skin."
"Wuss."
"Vampire-abuser. That sort of thing only escalates you know," he sniffs, not convincing her at all that the school-boy pique is genuine. "Sure it starts with a pinch -- next thing you know there's a stake through your heart and she's yelling you're just like your good-for-nothing sire."
His preening, his almost-ruffled demeanour is irresistible. Her blue eyes sparkle up at him, standing there, smoothing his dignity along with his suit jacket like he's someone important, only a self-made billionaire perhaps.
A gleam of mischief flares and in a suspiciously over-concerned voice she says, "Ohhh, poor Josef, you're right. I'm so sorry. That hurt, did it?" He's become far too comfortable by the centuries of respectful restraint shown him to be alerted by her tone. "Guess if I really want an answer I can always torture it out of you."
Her fingers fly over his chest and arms almost too fast for him to see, poking, prodding, pinching, and she's laughing, a high infectious giggle that for some god-forsaken reason warms him to his fingertips. He steps back, twisting, turning, hands up in a futile attempt to escape the onslaught.
That's it. It's official. She's a total menace. She's really putting a serious dent in his sober façade now. Oh, he's trying hard to shore it up, but it can't last, and it doesn't, crumbling under the blitz. They're both smiling now.
And then they're not. Not smiling. They're not even breathing.
He looks like he's praying, her hands caught between the flats of his palms like that. And he notices nothing; not the fact that there's a lone tendril of hair curling on her collarbone, or that the radiant flush on her cheeks matches the exact shade of pink of the roses he planted on his mother's grave. All he sees are the twin points of light reflected in the dark of her eyes and they're pulling at him, tugging at him, as if they're a barb and he an ill-fated fish.
The limousine has withdrawn in well-judged discretion. They're alone. And then she inhales. Her breathing sounds loud, even to her own ears. Someone has to say something. And….
.. it's ladies first.
"What time is it?"
As if the breaking dawn doesn't give it away.
He releases her hands and her head bends over her wrist for longer than it needs for her to read the hour. She takes a chance, looks up, finds that it's ok, it's just Josef again.
Always an accurate barometer of his mood, the limousine has reappeared at the kerb beside him.
"Time to get you home for your beauty rest, Blondie. You're always such a delight when you miss it."
The delicate sting in his voice is perfect. Nothing has happened, nothing at all.
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*********
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They're careful with one another, after that – please's, thankyou's, polite nods as they pass in the hallway. Beth on her best behaviour makes Josef a little nervous, like having a new kitten and never being sure where or when it's going to leap out at you from the shadows. The one consolation is that it can't possibly last.
"What the hell is this infernal racket?"
His hands are on his hips and he's really cross. He's had to interrupt an important phone call to come down here and investigate. He's had a hell of a day and there are house rules about this sort of thing. It's only just after midnight and all the lights are on in the human kitchen, along with sounds of rummaging and headache-inducing noise.
A pink pajama-ed bottom is bobbing up and down at the freezer door, wiggling in time, if he's not mistaken, with the humming coming from it's frosty depths.
She straightens, spooning a high-rise sized portion of Cookie's'n'Cream into her mouth, the earphones of her iPod plugged so firmly into her ears she doesn't notice him at first. She's playing, inventing funky dance moves that forge new routes from container to mouth and back again. She twirls, eyes widening at his grim-faced presence in the doorway.
"Want some?" she says with an unladylike full mouth, lifting the spoon in salute and licking it.
"What I want. In my own home. Is some respect." It's the tone he uses when he's about to fire someone, Josef-style, and she should be very, very worried. He should know by now, she pays as much attention to his warning signs as she does to other people's locked doors.
"Good choice," she nods approvingly and throws back her head. "What you want, baby I got it. What you nee-ee-eed, you know I got…"
Dear God she was shimmying his way. He pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers.
"All I'm asking for-hor…"
She had the sense to stop at his raised palm. It's almost impossible to maintain his rage when she's as brazenly cheerful as this, but he's trying, infusing as much sarcasm as he can into his next words.
"Wild guess. Good day?"
"Another criminal kingpin off the sultry streets of L.A. for the rest of his miserable lifetime," she beamed, "thanks to the keenly honed investigative skills and outright cunning of one Bethany Frances Turner. Oh yeah, uh huh.."
He doesn't show it, but he's amused against his will by the gleeful little jig, and he rolls his eyes, feeling his temper dissolve like early morning fog in direct sunlight. He normally doesn't give a hoot about human affairs unless they affect him directly, but her good humour appears to be precisely the tonic he needs after his own shitty day.
In the long run, it won't to him any good to let her off lightly though. He brandishes a warning finger in her face. "If you sing – or dance – again, I'll have you stiffed."
"Snuffed."
"Whatever. But if you're a good little girl and come along quietly with Uncle Josef you can have something much, much better to celebrate with than ice-cream."
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******************
The something much much better is in an old-fashioned wooden packing crate that gives up without a great fight, bleeding yellow packing straw onto his hair, the desk, the floor of his normally pristine private study. His sleeves are rolled up, his arms buried to the elbows in its innards, a vampire veterinarian giving birth to –
" - Chateau Mouton-Rothschild '86." He cradled the newborn reverently between his palms, blew the dust off its label like he was bestowing a blessing. "That's eighteen-eighty six to you, Short-Timer."
She's sitting cross-legged on his sofa; a pink mohair wrapped mini-Buddha whose hair echoes the same discipline as the French packing straw surrounding her.
He pulls the cork, pours a glass, passes it to her.
"Hold it in your palm, the warmth helps to release it's aromas. Now swirl."
He's leaning against his desk, glass in hand, long legs pointed in her direction. Her eyes follow him, mimicking every action to the millimetre.
"Breathe in. What can you smell?"
"Umm… it's soft, a little earthy.. rose petals and jam."
Not bad.
"Now taste a little. Hold it in your open mouth and allow the air to wash over it."
She does, closing her eyes. "Mmmm….. tastes like dessert. Blackforest cake. … rasperries and chocolate." It's an outlandish thing to say and her eyes crash open, expecting ridicule.
"That surely can't be from out of the mouth of the Beth-barbarian I've been housing, can it?" She's been spot on and not afraid to speak her mind. He's impressed.
Her body warms in the sunshine of his approval and she beams right back at him, holds out her glass.
"Please sir," she says in a cheeky Cockney accent, "can I have some more?"
When they're three-quarters through that bottle he unlocks the door to his private cellar and brings up several more, seminal reds from Spain, Australia, their own Napa Valley. She's an apt pupil. He's impressed by her intelligent questions about grape varieties, wine-making techniques and terroir.
The half finished open bottles are worth several thousand dollars and will be ruined, but educating her palate has helped relax and make him forget his losses on the market today so completely he figures he's getting an ok deal.
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***************
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It's late. They're at either ends of the sofa now, his legs crossed at the ankles on the Persian carpet before him, hers barefoot along the sofa, her toes mere flexing distance from his outstretched thighs. It's a companionable silence and he knows she's a little tight when she taps his thigh with her big toe and expresses an opinion.
"Vampire sex must be incredible."
"Nothing out of the ordinary," he lied.
"Oh come on, Josef." The ball of her foot pressed against his leg for emphasis. "I've heard the girls talking. I saw Simone with you and Mick in his apartment."
"Ok. It has its moments."
Both feet are kneading his thigh now, like a kitten bedding down for the night. "Tell me everything," she says.
Her blue eyes are wide open and challenging; he must be crazy to contemplate going down this road with her, but after seven blood-tinged shirazes, maybe she's not the only one who's a little tight. He lifts her foot in absent-minded affection, circling her ankle with his thumb, clockwise, counter-clockwise, her skin as smooth as satin.
"What do you want to know?"
"Do vampires ever have erectile dysfunction?"
"Jesus, Beth," he sputtered. "And here I was worried I might have to go out of my way in this conversation to protect your delicate human sensibilities. Let me know in advance, will you?" He waggled his half empty glass. "I'm going to need another drink if the vampire/domestic farm animal question is coming up anytime soon."
"I'll take that as an embarrassed and very personal 'yes', will I?" she taunted, pressing her foot even more firmly into the palm of his hand.
"You will not, impertinent human. Vampires are paragons of physical perfection. We have no problem getting hard." He squeezed her ankle on the very last syllable to make sure she knew just exactly how hard.
"Never?"
"Never."
Something was swimming beneath her eyes then, something he should have, would have picked up on had he been completely sober.
He should understand but doesn't even when her face colors and she asks in a low, urgent voice, "What does a woman have to do to make you hard? Turn you on? Make you so crazy you'll do anything just to have her?"
His eyes are bright and he feels an icy flush in the vicinity of his groin. Is she making an advance or is she asking about vampires in general?
"Any of your kind, that is," she says, still regarding him with owlish intensity, her other foot massaging his upper leg. But her clarification comes a couple of beats too late to convince him that was all she meant.
Somehow his hand has found it's way under the end of her pyjama leg and is massaging her lower calf. "That depends, Beth. On the individual vampire."
She's watching him over the rim of her near-empty glass, he can't take his eyes off the fingers trailing up and down the sensitive skin of her inner wrist.
"Some vampires like to play cat and mouse. Some vampires like to dominate. Some vampires like a little pain with their pleasure." His fingernails scrape all the way down her Achilles tendon.
Her heartbeat is accelerating, an aroma rising from her skin in smoky circles. There's no doubting what's going on here, and the line is so very close to being crossed, but it won't be by him. He pulls back, his thumb resuming its friendly circumnavigation of her ankle bone.
It seems that she has too. "Look," the glass is waving at him in not quite coordinated inquiry, "I'm all out."
"Ok doll-face, but after this I'm cutting you off."
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*******************
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He's ordered her to bed the second time he sees her eyelids droop, but stops her as she stumbles against the sofa. She's more intoxicated than he's realised.
"Come on you little Lush, I'll help you up the stairs."
He only meant her to drape an arm over his shoulder, but she holds her arm out to him like a small child and there is nothing for it but to bend low and allow her to lock her arms around his neck. His hands slide under the back of her thighs, and he straightens, cinching her tight until he is certain of his grip. The cold tip of her nose presses against the place his jugular used to pulse and she wriggles a little, settling into the security of his arms. The sigh is a sound of such pure satisfaction it reverberates right down to his kneecaps.
"Josef," she said sleepily, "Can I ask a question?"
A question. More deadly in her hands than an M-16.
"Fire away, Blondie."
"You smell nice."
Nope, nothing else is coming. "That's not a question."
"It isn't?"
"Not unless they changed the basic rules of English grammar when I wasn't looking, Cookie."
"Oh."
Her body sways against his as they ascend the stairs.
A few moments later, "Josef?"
"Yes, Beth."
"Do you like me?"
The pause was so slight she didn't notice.
"You're a royal pain in my vampire ass, Buzzwire, you know that."
"Sure," she waved a dismissive, uncoordinated hand, "But do you like me?"
She wondered why they'd stopped, raised her head from his shoulder. His face needs to lower only a fraction for his mouth to graze against her upturned lips.
They're standing at her sealed bedroom door.
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