postcard amelie 01
The vampire is a romantic figure: creature of the night, denizen of that space between life and death, untethered from natural law yet tied to it through the lives she takes. But when you go on holiday you have to check in to a hotel, same as everyone else.
Doesn’t seem fair. Maybe you should get an Igor to handle the mundanities.
It does, however, afford other opportunities enjoyed by mortal men and women. This is a story of your holiday romance.
She must have checked in after you because you didn’t see her till day five. Your body had just about processed your beach snack and the hangover that followed. Your mind was clear but padding gently rolled all about your form.
You were sunbathing on your front by the pool when you both made eye contact. You were reading, a constant habit on holiday, and happened to be laying on a lounger with the book on the floor. She got a vision of the rolling hills of mild back-fat which broke into the twin mountains of your backside, lovingly cosseted by rich crimson bikini bottoms.
She held your gaze for a fraction of a second longer than was casual. Dressed presumably for the journey in, you only caught glimpses of her figure beneath a diaphanous long wrap-around. She was tall, though, that much was certain; and when she sashayed towards the lifts, you saw how her hips filled out the billowing garment.
Your eyes met again when she stepped inside the lift. You’d been staring. One of the unimportant friends she’d arrived with distracted her as the doors shut.
Floor 3. Same as you.
“You like cannibals?” were her first words to you at dinner. A light meal, for the hotel food was passable at best, and a vague idea of hunting coupled with a vaguer notion of politeness made you reluctant to fill your stomach with overcooked spaghetti before introducing prey to it.
“Excuse me?” you said, disconcerted by the topic.
“Your book, yesterday. Hannibal the cannibal.”
“Ah!” You’d been just finishing The Silence of the Lambs. As you scrambled for a witty rejoinder, she pressed on. Just as well: her figure was right in front of you, now, and the glimpse had not done her curves justice. It’s not often you got tongue-tied.
“Or perhaps you are more interested in Clarice?”
There’s a burr of some accent there. French, amid native English?
“I could be interested in Clarice,” you say, looking her dead in the eye. “But I prefer to be doing the eating.”
Her bronzed cheeks bore colour well, deepening with a blush and delighted dimples. And now it was her turn to fluster. “Well.”
Battle lines established, the conversation flowed smoothly. She was French/English, lived in Kent now; was holidaying for a week, overlapped entirely by your two weeks. Both of you were with friends. By omission of mention of a partner, it was made clear she was single.
“Raven,” you say, concluding formalities with a crooked smile.
The stranger extended a hand and you took it, forced yourself not to kiss the back of it just to have your lips on her flesh.
“Clarice.”
Friends, yours and some of hers, laughed. Their presence startled you: for a while there had been no one else in the whole room.
Friends had handled the next step. “We know some good places to go out. Want to join us?”
If anyone had wanted anything from either of you they were to be disappointed. In the bar you were both instantly absorbed in one another’s presence. Her attention might have been cloying at home, but here it was exhilarating. She watched everything you did like she was panning for gold. Often she mirrored your mannerisms in a way that was unconscious and unaffected, which for some reason charmed you immensely.
You joined her when she slipped out for a cigarette. Her hand brushed your face as she kept the wind from the cigarette in your lips, and her thumb traced the skin before she withdrew. Then she exhaled a breath of smoke which curled about her own features. Dark, tanned, intense; chocolate on cinnamon to your coffee on cream.
Your first kiss tasted like smoke.
You re-entered the bar to the stink of simmering resentment. The drama of the other day had re-emerged once again. Gemma, the girl at the centre of it, frowned at you sourly as you entered. Something had been said and not apologised for, or apologised for but not well enough or sincerely enough or acknowledged, and so… the details made you ill to imagine the pettiness of people.
Nathan, second-rate encourager to the drama, spoke to Gemma. “Look, if you’re not going to enjoy yourself, why not go back?”
“Maybe I will. Worth the plane ticket to get away from Emma.”
Emma opened her mouth to say something, but Gemma was pushing her way through the packed bar towards the exit. Small and squat she had leverage and momentum on her side and had little trouble.
“I just meant the hotel,” said Nathan, grinning from ear to ear.
You needed better friends, you thought to yourself.
The evening wound down. A disaster: your attention was required by your friends, who had explanations and remonstrations and the fabrication of an entire edifice of narrative to complete. Somehow you were a necessary part of this inanity. You wanted only to resume your conversation with Clarice—for that is the only name she would give you.
But her friends complained of jet lag, and to your disappointment so did she, staring mournfully into your eyes. You reached out to hold her hand and she squeezed back, smiling with her eyes. She did look tired.
The thought of her retiring to her hotel room alone made you, frankly, wet. In mouth and elsewhere.
Sometimes it’s confusing being you.
Then fucking Nathan barged in again, and when you looked back, Clarice and friends had gone.
Your hotel room. Blessed relief from the shouting and the wheedling and the ghastly laughter.
You flung open the French windows and stepped out onto your balcony. The moon and stars made you think of the padding you still wore about your middle. Perhaps you would slip balcony to balcony, peering through net curtains until you found your sleeping prize, whereupon you would discover which appetite she would—
A knock at the door. Your heart leapt in your chest. Instead, she had come to you. You bounded over to the door and opened it with as much seductive allure you could bring to bear when all you wanted to do was fling it open and grab her and do something…
Gemma, standing there, did not seem to notice your disappointment. Her face was puffy from tears.
“Raven, you’re not so close to the group. Can I talk to you and get you to see—”
There are many good reasons to frenzy. You’ve lost control through extreme hunger, anger, even sorrow. This is the first time you’ve frenzied due to contempt.
She is small, pointless, petty, and the others will think she has left. Maybe that’s why you grasp her by the throat and lift her bodily from the ground. Your sinister hand, red with fell energy, chokes off any scream she might give.
As you bear her back into your room like a prize Gemma scrabbles at your arms. She manages a kick which your gut absorbs easily. The answering growl starts low down, wet and burbling, then travels up your throat as a small air pocket. Gemma’s bulging, streaming eyes are already fixed on your wide-open mouth so not a detail is missed. She watches how the back of your tongue lowers to articulate the epiglottis, hears how the air rumbles in your larynx, even smells the forecast of her fleshy grave as your belch puffs out around her like an invisible smoke ring: .~ooOoOOrp~
Like a wrestler you throw her onto the bed and keep her down with your weight as you spin above her. Your thighs push her head into the duvet, drowning any scream, and your hands isolate her knees and calves, pointing her toes in one convenient, helpless direction.
Feet are a necessary evil. You get around them by deepthroating her calves all in one. The resulting kicking and thrashing underneath your belly excites you, makes you keener to put it inside your belly where it belongs. You wonder if Gemma is close enough to smell your excitement and wish Clarice were here.
“Raven?”
Oh God. Oh God. You didn’t close the door and your prayers were answered. What the fuck is she seeing? Fuck fuck fuck…
Gemma thrashes harder, twists her head away from the duvet, inhales audibly to scream.
The mattress depresses as another person’s weight hurriedly joins you. Clarice is forcibly holding Gemma’s face back against the duvet.
Her voice is breathy, slightly distant like one not sure if they’re dreaming. “… Raven. What are you doing?”