Bibliography (Part 2)

“Dangerous Women”

It’s the latest anthology edited by my hero, George R.R. Martin, and his buddy, Gardner Dozois. A collection of stories about … three guesses and the first two don’t count. I requested it for Christmas and am not quite halfway through the content. Some of the stories are longer than mine, and the book itself is so heavy I can’t read it in bed without risking a concussion. I don’t generally read anthologies—the last one to be acquired was “Warriors”, edited by the same pair to the same hefty result—but the subject matter is one dear to my heart, being a bit of a bad girl myself … in my dreams, at least.

There’s no set definition of what makes a woman dangerous. She doesn’t have to be a whip-cracking, gun-toting, chain-smoking dominatrix out to seize control of an industrial empire. She can be a danger to herself, as well. She can be an unstable mother, an insecure wife, a downtrodden daughter; or she can be a fledgling sorcerer without a mentor, a secret agent, a queen regent, or the unassuming cover for an infamous bounty hunter whom everyone refers to as “him” or “he”. This book is stuffed with tales that span the spectrum, though so far I have yet to happen on a heroine in the grip of PMS. After all, that’s when I am the most dangerous.

I’ve written a lot of female characters over the years. I thought Génie/Janine was the most dangerous of the herd, but then I remembered a story I wrote in 2001 so, in keeping with the theme, I’ve carved it up for serial posting starting this Saturday. Working with it again after all these years, I believe that the most dangerous woman of all is probably the one who holds a man’s heart.

The things we do for love …

“From the Inside (conclusion)”

 

 

She was getting into her car when his voice boomed like thunder, rolling into the corners of the cavernous parkade: “Janine!”

She turned. It suddenly hit him that she had lied about her name as well. She froze, one foot on the running board and one hand on the car door, waiting while he approached at a stilted jog.

He put out a hand to steady himself against the Jaguar’s rear quarter. His heart beat so fast that his breath came shallow and ragged.

“What is it, Peter?”

“We’re not finished yet.”

“I have no further need of you,” she said, coldly. “You can explain the million pounds. Blame it on poor investments. You’ll not be punished. You can go on with your tedious little life as if I had never come into it.”

“You think it’s that simple! What about me?”

“What about you?” she retorted smartly. “Are you in love with me?”

“No!”

“Then we shall trouble each other no more.” She turned her back and sank into the driver’s seat. He grabbed her arm and hauled her onto the pavement. She stumbled and recovered as quickly, wrenching from his grasp.

“Give it to me!” he demanded, blocking her escape into the car. “Give me the blood, Janine. After everything I’ve done, you owe me that much.”

Her stare was brittle. “Do you think that I care?”

“I don’t think about you at all,” he snapped. “It’s what I want that matters.”

She laughed at him, truly amused by his audacity. “I don’t think so.” She gripped his shoulder in one hand. “Get out of my way.”

The force of her strength nearly cost him his balance, but he kept his feet by clutching her sleeve. She spun to dislodge him. He lunged, driving her back against the car, taking a perverse pleasure in the wince she failed to restrain. He shoved her once more, just to watch her face contort. Her fangs flashed, lethally sharp in the brutal light—the only proof that he was not assaulting a woman as mortal as himself. “That hurt you, didn’t it?” he sneered, so pumped on adrenalin that fear was not an option. “Maybe you’re not as indestructible as you’d like me to believe.”

“And how do you intend to find out?” she growled. Her eyes fixed like a lynx’s on his own. She hated him. Loathed him. Despised him—but not because he was weak. She had not expected him to fight and was now scrambling to regain control of him. Without even realizing it, he had turned the tables on her. The revelation was as thrilling as the doubt which suddenly rattled him. Having gained the upper hand, how was he going to use it?

“Is there a problem here?”

Peter maintained his hold on her, refusing to break his lock on her gaze in favour of acknowledging the owner of the voice. She appeared equally intent, though her eyes had narrowed slightly at the intrusion. Neither of them was concerned with the scene they presented—the interruption was not a welcome one.

“Just having a discussion with my girlfriend,” Peter said, tightly.

“ ‘Girlfriend’?” There was a hilarity in the stranger’s voice that warranted a look. The voice belonged to a man about his own age, slender and handsome, who seemed more entertained than appalled by the violence he had just witnessed. His dark eyes were aimed, sparkling, at Janine. “ ‘Girlfriend’? I like that.”

“He’s exaggerating,” Janine said, acidly.

“I should certainly hope so.”

Peter could not ignore the evidence that they knew each other—and quite intimately, from the sound of it. A grave sense of foreboding began its rise to the surface. He fought it down with what he hoped was a venomous glare in the newcomer’s direction. “I’ll thank you to mind your own business, chum,” he declared with more vehemence than he had intended.

“Oh, this is my business,” was the mild reply.

Peter scoffed to cover his nerves. “And who might you be?”

The newcomer grinned, displaying a pair of incisors as jagged as Janine’s. “I’m the boyfriend.”

The adrenalin rush abandoned him, leaving an oily nausea in its wake. He saw now what he should have seen right away: the white skin, the thick mane frothing with a life of its own, the elastic grace that mortal dancers strove and failed to achieve. The vampire stood completely at ease, arms casually folded across his chest; absolutely, inhumanly still. Even the fringe on his leather jacket hung motionless in defiance of the parkade’s air circulation system. Peter’s knees abruptly weakened. “What in God’s name is this?” he whispered, fearing that he already knew.

Janine irritably shrugged his hands from her shoulders, but it was the male who answered. He stepped forward, gently taking Peter’s elbow and leading him a few paces from the car. “She tends to get in over her head,” he said in a conspiratorial hush. “She thought you might be trouble, so she invited me along for the finale.”

“Jolly sporting of her,” Peter remarked, tersely. There was an amiable warmth about the male; under different circumstances, he might have liked the fellow. “What do you mean, ‘the finale’?”

They had reached his BMW. The vampire cast a glance over the vehicle, assessing its value and deciding it was probably overpriced. “What’s the top speed you’ve been ticketed for?”

Perplexed and suspicious, Peter answered the question. “One-ten.”

The vampire smirked. “I’ve done one-forty in the Jag.”

“In the Sovereign?” Peter asked, momentarily astonished.

The vampire shook his head. “That belongs to Jan. I have an E-type that would blow this into the weeds. Still, if you like German engineering, I can’t argue with your choice.”

“It got good reviews in all the motoring magazines.”

“Indeed.” The vampire rested his hip against the car and folded his arms again. “I don’t want to kill you,” he said frankly, “but I will if I have to. The decision is yours.”

“You’re giving me options?” Peter asked, only half-aware of the absurd turn his life had suddenly taken.

“You have two,” the vampire said. “You have a girlfriend of your own?”

He thought briefly, regretfully, about Sandy, and nodded.

“Go back to her.”

“What’s my second option?”

“I’ll have to kill you.”

It was not much of a choice, considering the matter of the embezzled funds. He glanced back at Janine. She stood by the black Jag, watching him bargain with the devil for a life he was unsure he could reclaim. He had tossed everything on the hollow promise that she would give him eternity. It was easy to hate her.

The vampire had followed his gaze and now nodded as if reading his thoughts. “Imagine what my life has been like,” he commented, dryly.

Peter was not the least bit amused. “She promised me immortality.”

“She lied.”

“Then why doesn’t she kill me?”

“She grows too attached when she plays these games. Take my advice, Peter. Go back to your life and forget about her.”

Peter uttered a lame attempt at laughter. “That’ll be a bit tricky when Scotland Yard comes to call.”

“They won’t come.”

“What do you mean?”

The vampire pulled a wallet from his back pocket and flipped it open to extract a business card, which he handed over. “I’ll replace the funds you moved for her. By the time you ring this number in the morning, the arrangements will have been made.”

The ground wobbled beneath Peter’s feet. Gratitude was not the first emotion that surfaced. He boldly met the vampire’s brown eyes. “You sorry bastard,” he said. “Do you always wind up righting her wrongs?”

The vampire smiled. “Not always. But I’m not the sorry bastard in this instance, am I?” He gave Peter an amicable clap on the shoulder and sauntered back across the parkade, the fringe on his jacket whispering as he moved.

Peter watched Janine get behind the wheel when the male circled the car to the passenger side. They sat in conference for a few moments, then she started the motor and backed the Sovereign from its space. Neither of them bothered to grace him with a parting glance.

Death did not come for Peter Aldroyd that night. It waited a full fortnight. His secretary found him in his office, slumped over his desk with the back of his head blown out and a pistol clutched in his hand. There was no note, but the investigation revealed that a million pounds had disappeared from a number of client accounts over three months preceding his suicide. His fiancée took the news well, all things considered; she told the police that he had not been himself for months. He had recently suffered from impotence and depression—the latter, she had imagined, brought on by the former though they had never discussed the subject. Further investigation failed to turn up the whereabouts of the missing funds, and the subsequent attempt by authorities to classify the case as a homicide failed due to lack of evidence.

In a jazz club across town, the owner finished reading the article and laid the newspaper on top of the bar. His grey-eyed lover was flirting with the patrons as usual, casting her spell over those who had no ward against her magic. She caught his eye and came toward him. When she reached the bar, he silently turned the paper around so that she could see the headline. She gave it a cursory glance before uttering a disdainful snort. “You should have killed him,” she said.

“And finish the job you started?”

“He was corroding when I met him,” she declared. “Rotting from the inside out, bored to death by his job and his woman. I gave him his fantasy in the flesh. It’s not my fault he couldn’t handle it.” She pushed the paper back across the bar. “Let it go, lover. You did all you could.” She flashed him a dazzling smile and flounced back into the crowd, resplendent in violet velvet.

The vampire read the article once more, slowly. “You sorry bastard,” he murmured. Then he folded the newspaper and tucked it into the garbage can beneath the bar.

 

THE END 

written May 9, 1999

revised October 6, 2013

“From the Inside (Part I)”

He hated what he was doing though a deeper, darker part of him knew he would never stop doing it. He rebelled against this knowledge anyway, desperately searching his soul even as he began to doubt that he still owned a soul to search. It was a thought more frightening than the evidence of his weakness.

Yet he was tense with a mixture of dread and anticipation as he tightened his grip on the steering wheel. Eight days had passed since his last acceptable excuse to work late and the wait was killing him. Pretending to be normal in a crowd was proving more and more difficult, demanding energy he could not spare. Sandy was pressuring him with wedding details; trivial things like colours and where to have the reception. She would be devastated when the marriage did not take place, but she would survive. She was a strong person, strong enough to have got through law school and the deaths of her parents. She would certainly get through a broken engagement. He felt a pang of conscience thinking about her, but he would not let it deter him. He could fool himself into believing her better off without him. The truth was that she was no longer enough for him. He had discovered a driving need for so much more.

The tower where he worked loomed in the hazy distance, jewel-bright against the rainy night sky. He used his key card to gain entry to the underground parkade and stopped his BMW in its reserved space near the elevators. His racing heart did a crazed backflip when he saw the black Jaguar Sovereign sitting in a shadowed corner of the lot.

She was here.

He rode the lift to the thirtieth floor, determined to conceal his excitement. His long raincoat offered some assistance: he was dizzy because most of his blood had gone straight to his groin. But he did not need a sexual purging. There was a greater, more intense form of release that only she could provide.

It was late. The janitors began work at the top of the tower; his office would have been straightened an hour ago. When the lift doors opened, the corridor was dark. He did not bother with the lights; his office was three doors down on the left. He walked toward it in a daze.

The outer office was dark as well. His secretary’s printer hummed quietly in one corner, otherwise all was silent. A soft glow shimmered beneath the door to his private domain. Taking a long breath to steady himself, he reached for the polished brass knob.

Her shape was barely visible beyond the reach of his desk lamp. She sat in the executive chair behind the desk, facing him though her features were lost in the faint light. He saw the gleam of ruby silk and the dazzle of a diamond earring; smelled her vanilla musk perfume, sweetly seductive though there was nothing remotely sweet about the woman herself. She did not stir as he approached, but the circle of light widened with the lessening of distance. He saw her glossy tumble of ebony hair, thickly curling over her shoulders. The ruby silk became a loose shirt that hinted at the curves beneath it. His gaze fastened on the outline of her breasts, heavy and full, ripe for his feverish attention. He felt her eyes on him though he could not see them. Her stare was a physical thing, cold and hard, a glittering, feline grey. She spoke in a smoky alto that wound sensuously around him, caressing his aching erection by way of his ear.

“I was not certain that you would come.”

He wanted to laugh. She was in complete control; she was the boss. As much as he despised himself for it, he knew it was true. And even if he had known how to do it, he doubted he would have turned the tables on her. “Don’t patronize me,” he growled. He stopped in front of the desk and glared down at her. “You knew I would be here.”

“Oh, but I didn’t,” she countered in a deliciously subtle French accent. “Much time has passed.”

“Every day has been torment,” he snapped in a ragged whisper. He threw off his coat, let it fall to the floor. “Give it to me.”

“Oh no, mon amour. Money first, then candy.”

“Get out of my chair!”

She rose and stepped fluidly out from behind the desk. The arteries feeding his crotch constricted when he saw tight leather trousers and knee-high boots with stiletto heels. She was not tall, but her legs were long and shapely. It took a strength of will he had imagined lost to walk calmly away from her. He moved around to take his chair and boot the computer. “How much do you want this time?”

“Fifty thousand should suffice,” she replied.

He did laugh then, shaking his head. “I can’t do fifty thousand. There’s no way. Not all at once.”

“Of course you can,” she said. “With a client base as broad as yours, you could do twice as much and still go unsuspected.” She leaned forward suddenly, fixing him with those deadly cat’s eyes. “Or am I not worth it?”

He tried to stare her down and failed. “All right,” he spat. “Fifty thousand it is. But it’s going to take some time.”

She straightened, folding her arms. “I can wait.”

He couldn’t. He was too strongly aroused to concentrate properly and bungled his password twice before he was able to access the files. Silently cursing his trembling fingers, he focused intently on the computer screen and proceeded to transfer numbers from one client’s account to hers, then another and another. Perspiration broke on his brow and upper lip, but he ignored it as he tried to ignore her pacing to and fro before his desk. He saw her in the corner of his eye, hovering like a malevolent spirit, awaiting the surrender of his soul.

What soul? he asked himself angrily, stabbing fingers at the keyboard. She’s got your soul, you stupid bastard; you handed it over with your reputation, your dignity and your self-respect. If you thought that you loved her or that she loved you, it might be worth it, but you don’t and she doesn’t. You stupid, pathetic sonofabitch … “Done!” he declared, striking the final key with a flourish and swivelling in his chair.

She was behind him, so close that he almost hit her with his knees. As suddenly as they had constricted forty minutes earlier, the arteries feeding his crotch opened up, flooding and filling the erection that had waned with the stress of his work. Paralyzed, he watched her bend forward, bracing her hands on the arms of his chair. Her skin was carved ivory in the soft light, taut over classically sculpted bones—a perfect foil for the tousled mane of rich black hair. She eased astride him, pressing her thighs along his. She wasn’t warm. She was cool, even through the leather of her trousers and the wool of his. She slid forward in his lap, nudging his erection. “Poor fool,” she murmured, leaning close to his face. She plucked off his steel-rimmed spectacles and tossed them onto the desk, then took his head between her hands and covered his mouth with hers.

He moaned helplessly into her, feeling the tips of her nails pricking his scalp. His hands rose to grip her ruby silk shirt, heedless of the expense as he pulled it open. The studs popped in a domino effect, then his hands were inside, scooping her breasts from the black lace brassiere and squeezing them until the nipples stiffened against his clammy palms. She loosened his tie but did not remove it; unbuttoned his collar to bare his neck though she never stopped kissing him. He surrendered to the hunger in her, aware of little more than her cool flesh against his and his pumping need to possess her.

She arched her neck and pulled his head forward between her breasts. They were balm to his flushed face, the flesh like marble despite the softness of the skin. He buried his face in the blissful darkness, inhaling the earthy scent of her perfume. Her agile fingers deftly unbuckled his belt, jerking it from his trousers with a swift, savage motion, then her hand plunged inside to pull his erection free.

He almost sobbed; almost came as she began tugging on it, keeping her grip painfully firm. She knew precisely how to play him, pulling and stroking while he writhed and gasped beneath her. But he was not here for a hand job. He didn’t even do more than think briefly of stripping her naked and fucking her in the conventional fashion. What he wanted, what only she could give him, was the bite.

He understood from their past encounters that his prolonged arousal fuelled her passion. She was turned on by the rise of his temperature and the flush of blood to his skin. She liked toying with him because she found his engorged penis amusing, considering it a weakness though he knew it fascinated her. Right now there was more blood in his groin than in the rest of his body and she would be responsive to that.

Sure enough, her icy fingers squeezed hard and he groaned aloud, throwing himself back in his chair. She loomed above him, her face as pale as the moon in the shadowy corona of her hair. There was triumph in her light grey eyes: triumph, lust, and the focus of a predator closing on the kill. He stared into her face, too desperate for the climax to know fear. God, she was beautiful. Dangerously beautiful. And she alone could relieve his pounding anguish. “Do it,” he rasped, daring her with his eyes. “Suck me.”

Her upper lip drew back. Light glanced off the razor-sharp point of her fangs. His heart froze in mid-beat then began to hammer as she drove toward his throat.

He released a choked cry when her teeth pierced his skin and sank deep into the base of his neck. At the same time, he climaxed in her hand, thrusting upward then falling back.

Suddenly there was peace; peace like he had never known. He relaxed and let his hands fall away from her. She shifted closer, securing him between her thighs, and drew hard on his neck. He felt the blood being sucked from him; heard her wet, languorous swallowing in time with the beat of his heart. He closed his eyes, lost in the scent of her luxurious hair. When she brought a hand to his mouth, he took her fingers under his tongue, sucking as she sucked, tasting smoke and salt as she did. A soaring ecstasy swooped down on him. He longed to follow it, to fly free on the bliss of infinite euphoria, as she did, until the end of time. He would have given his life for it.

As usual, she took a mere pint—as much as the blood bank—then withdrew. Disappointed, he opened his eyes. “Is that all?”

“For tonight,” she replied. She licked a trickle of blood from the wound which he knew was already healing, then she stood up.

“When do I drink from you?”

She was wiping semen from her leather pants with the handkerchief she had taken from his coat pocket. “When I say so,” she said absently.

Which meant never. He would never be given the chance to possess her. He was hers until she was finished with him. They both knew it. He felt suddenly ridiculous, slumped in his chair with his penis lolling like a dog’s tongue from the mouth of his open fly. She was making a fool of him and he was letting her.

She finished with the handkerchief and dropped it on the desk. He watched her straighten her brassiere and refasten her shirt. He wondered what it would be like to penetrate her the only way he knew how. Would she be as cold on the inside as she was on the surface?

“When do we meet again?”

She had picked up a black suede jacket and was slipping into it. “Later this week, perhaps,” she said, pulling her hair free of the jacket’s collar. A ruby stickpin sparkled darkly on one lapel.

“What happens when you get all you need?” he asked, suspicious that he already knew.

She smiled without much warmth. “Then you may drink from me.”

Anger flared so quickly that it made him dizzy. “You lying bitch. You’ll kill me first.”

The smile did not falter. “Good night, Peter.” She walked to the door, then she was gone.

He sat still for what seemed a long while after she left. He was aching and exhausted and sick. For the first time he realized how awful he felt—had felt for weeks. She had turned him into an addict, hooking him on the rapture and making him steal from his clients to support his habit. If she did not kill him, his life was ruined and he might as well be dead.

In a sudden blaze of fury, he swung back and fired up the computer again. He was too late. The funds he had placed in her account had already been transferred out from another source; all of them, a million pounds over the past twelve weeks, gone without a trace.

He’d been had.

He shot out of his chair, grabbing his glasses and his raincoat, remembering at the last minute to zip up his fly. He didn’t know what he would do when he caught her, but he would catch her.

He rode the lift in a lather of excitement, clear-headed for the first time in months. She had used him, lured him with the promise of exquisite sex, appealing to his all-too-human senses; and when that had failed to persuade him, she had revealed herself and seduced him with the bite. The bite, the blood, the rapture. What a fool he had been! And how many other fools had preceded him? Men whose lives were their work; whose affinity for machines and figures eclipsed their personal skills and made them uncomfortable in crowds; men whose women were plain and sensible and merely tolerant of intercourse. To have a stunning, sensuous woman appear in a darkened corner of a well-ordered existence and introduce one to the wildest, most abandoned pleasures of the flesh, of the blood … He wanted to slam his head into the wall of the lift. She wasn’t even a woman. She was a vampire—and still he had allowed himself to fall under her spell.

But the spell was broken, dissolved in the glare of revelation. She was finished with him. If he didn’t catch her tonight, he would never see her again. 

To be continued …

“From the Inside” – Preface

Once in a while, I hear a song that won’t let me go. I get an image or a feeling so strong that I am compelled to explore it further, and sometimes, magic happens. Dark magic, in the case of “From the Inside”, a story inspired by the song of the same name. Written by Leppard King Joe Elliott, the lyric reflects the subject of addiction from the drug’s point of view. It’s featured on Def Leppard’s Retro Active album, and while the rest of the album figured prominently in the birth of my fantasy world of Castasia, “From the Inside” prompted something different. I was urged to write a story about an ordinary man in an ordinary life who winds up grappling with an extraordinary hunger. It’s his story, though a pair of familiar characters figure significantly in the telling.

Part I goes up tomorrow. It was written in 1999, so it’s rough by my current standard. Then again, the subject warrants a certain brutality. Addiction isn’t pretty, though it often starts that way …

“Into the Dark”

see May 27, 2013

     When Julian opened his eyes, he was dead. He knew because the woman sitting in the garden through the door at the end of the corridor was his mother. Her back was turned, but he recognized the rose-gold gown and thick honey blonde hair. He had brushed that hair as a child, standing on a chair behind her while she sat still as a statue no matter how hard he had tugged. His own hair was brown, thick like hers but dark like his father’s.

Sunlight blazed on the crown of her head, nearly blinding in its brilliance. The corridor was shadowed and cool, like the interior of a great old house. He could smell the sun, smell the flowers. The closer he came to the doorway, the more he could smell: lilacs and wisteria, the summer scents of grass and new leaves. His mother was reading, something she had loved but had little time to do in life. It was different, here. Time was endless. He did not wonder where his father was. He did not expect to see him. But Rob should have been nearby. Did a soldier killed in battle not earn a rightful place in Heaven?

A voice stopped his progress toward the light. “Drink,” it said.

He shook his head, refusing. His eyes were fixed on his mother’s back. He wanted her to turn around, but he could not speak.

“Drink, my love.”

Was it his mother’s voice? Her wish, perhaps, heard unspoken in this magical place? If speech was unnecessary, why did she not hear him asking her to turn? See me, Mam; turn and see me.

He swallowed. The air stirred behind him, pulling him back a step. He tried to fight it, tried to brace himself with a hand on either wall, but the shadow had no substance. There was no wall to touch. His fingers clawed at nothing. The wind gusted, threatening to spin him on his heel. He fought that, too, locking his gaze on the garden through the door. Panic rose within him the way the wind had risen at his back. Mam, see me! Turn and see me!

She lifted her head as if she sensed his fear, then she turned to look over her shoulder. The same dark eyes she had passed to him went wide and he knew he was unexpected. That really frightened him. He tried again to call out, but his voice was dead in his throat. The wind howled, buffeting his ears, whipping his hair across his face. He saw but did not hear her call his name. He forced a scream that made no sound. The last thing he saw was his mother running toward him, hands outstretched, her face taut with terror as the wind sucked him beyond her reach.

Then he was falling fast, tumbling head over heels through a whistling void. Every nerve in his body, every vein, every vessel was scorched as if by lightning. He screamed his throat raw and heard nothing but the rush of speed. The pain spread beneath him, caught him and embraced him, closed over him like a blistering sheet of flame. His lungs burned with every breath. An impossible truth dawned. He was dead and he was going to Hell.

He drew a last, desperate gasp and drove the scalding air from his chest in a crying plea for mercy. Please, God, don’t let me die!

His body gave a violent jerk and all was suddenly still. There was no sound, no pain, no motion. He lay in opaque blackness, detached from flesh and fear. Lost. Waiting. Someone would come for him, surely. But who? Not his mother; he had seen her for the last time. He would carry the memory of her face for the rest of his—life? Death? Where was he?

Somebody help me. Rob. Father. Somebody. Help.

A kiss roused him; the pressure of lips soft on his, a tentative lick from the tip of a tongue. His mouth opened on a sob of relief. It was Génie.

 

copyright 2013 Ruth R. Greig

* * *

Today is Julian’s “other” birthday – the immortal one. This scene was the beginning of his transformation, so it seemed appropriate to post for the occasion though it’s not something he enjoys remembering. It would be foolish to ask him why. Birth is a traumatic experience and vampires have the luxury – or the curse – of remembering theirs in minute detail. Still, I cannot let the day pass without a nod to it; Julian is, after all, my immortal beloved, and if Génie hadn’t taken it on herself to turn him, my life would have been less … how do I put it … creative? Dramatic? Frustrating? Pleasurable? All of the above?

 

He was reborn on September 3, 1666. Google the date and you may find the historic occurrence that coincided with his transformation. Or don’t Google it and wait for the continuation of this piece because I may put it up here when “Four Legs and a Tale” is done.

 

In the meantime, May 27 may have been a champagne salute to him, but this date definitely requires something red in the goblet.

Happy immortal birthday, Jules. I love you.

"All Men Are Kings"

I went to him for two reasons: I had been summoned, and I wanted to go.

He welcomed me with open arms, greeting me with a kiss before leading me to his bed. It was a king’s bed—draped in velvet, piled high with pillows. He left the candles lit; he said that he wanted to see me. I do not think that he liked darkness. So much of his life had been lived in it. I did not greatly care for it, either, and for the same reason.

He was a good lover. Sensual men often are, and he was more learned than most. More practiced. I was not so experienced, but I was inventive and this he appreciated. I did my best to please him and was rewarded with a moment’s peace in the haven of his embrace.

Everyone loved him—even his enemies, once they came to know him. He was difficult to offend and disinclined to cruelty himself. And he loved me, for a while.

I loved him, too.

I was surprised to discover this. I had believed it impossible to love any man as much as I had loved Lucien, but I was wrong. I fell in love with the King of England.

Was it his kindness that swayed me? His low voice, his easy laugh, his lazy wit—they were all attractive traits, but not unique. He wasn’t even particularly handsome, though his black hair and dark eyes reminded me of my beloved Lucien. Perhaps his kindness reminded me as well, and this was how I came to feel more than mere gratitude for the sanctuary he offered. He treated me like gold. When we were alone together, I was all that mattered. His desire fed on mine, and so he took pains to satisfy us both.

I was never really satisfied until after he had spent his seed. Then I could lie in his arms and know absolute bliss until the moment when I had to leave him. I did not even want his blood. All I wanted was the security of his presence. No one dared interrupt us; no one dared harm him, or me, for as long as he wanted me. Most women bedded the King for the power they felt he could give them. I bedded him for solace.

One night, I got up and began snuffing the candles. “Weary of looking at me, my dear?” he drawled, teasing.

“Nay, sire. I would have you to myself and will not share you with the light a moment longer.”

He was too jaded to be bought with flattery. “Come now,” he said as I rejoined him between the sheets, “this is odd behaviour. Why the cover of darkness?”

I lay down with him. His arms enfolded me, sheltering me like an eagle’s wings. He was strong and lean, possessed of remarkable vitality. He might not favour the shadows, but his mind was already working to make appropriate use of them. I cuddled closer, pressing my cheek to his chest. “Sometimes,” I whispered, “the light frightens me.”

He made no reply. He kissed the top of my head, perhaps understanding my fear but unwilling to admit it. I slid my arms around him and closed my eyes. I was afraid, though not of the light. Not of him. Not even of de Gras, who would surely beat me if I returned before the crack of dawn. I was afraid of myself, afraid of having confessed fear to this man, to this king who was a mere mortal; who could not, when considered in the full light of day, protect me from my fate.

“Is it your husband?” he murmured.

Husband. My face clenched around the sudden threat of tears. “No,” I said harshly. “He does not frighten me.”

“Oddsfish, the fellow frightens me,” he declared.

His wry tone surprised me into laughter, turning melancholia to ardour in the space of a heartbeat. We made love again, then he slept; and for a few hours, I let myself dream that I was not the King of England’s mistress, but the blacksmith’s wife once more.

He was very much like Lucien without being like him at all. He was as beloved, as tolerant, as easygoing and amusing as Lucien had been, but he was not a man to be trusted with a woman’s heart. He was willing to give so much and nothing more, he disliked contention and was quick to move on if his current fancy became too demanding. He had few illusions concerning the nature of female affection, and the females to whom he was most attracted tended to prove his point. And the wife of a troublesome husband was to be avoided at all cost.

I was beautiful, but my keeper (I would not call him “husband”) was violent enough by reputation to make me a bad risk for the average courtier. Charles Stuart was not an average courtier. I knew at first sight that I wanted him and I knew exactly why. Kings must be left to the fate of mortals. De Gras was helpless to act on his jealousy by harming Charles, and his threat of harming me was no deterrent. Though I had no hope of escaping it entirely, if I could be guaranteed a few hours’ respite from the misery of my existence, nothing would stop me from pursuing it. There was no safer place than the King’s bed.

I believe that he felt as safe with me. I made no demands. I displayed no temper. I did not try to direct him in matters of ruling. I even refused the tokens he would have given me, for he was generous with his women and liked presenting little gifts of gold or jewels. He insisted at first, stating that I must have something of value should I bear his child. When I told him that I was barren, he stared for a moment, then said: “Oddsfish, you would make a fine Queen.” We both laughed, though he seemed somewhat disappointed. He loved his children even after his affection for their mothers had dissipated, but he was genuinely fond of me and might have liked us to have a child together.

I would have liked it too. But of course it was impossible.

What French he spoke was not fluent, so I taught him bits and pieces. He enjoyed learning the bawdier terms and we spent many hours laughing together over his lessons. He named le petit mort as his favourite phrase, argued that it was also a verb and, when I argued against him, set about convincing me to his cause.

He was a deeply sensual man. He could not help but inspire similar feelings in me. I loved to be with him; loved his sinewy strength and the rasp of his beard on my skin. I did not care for the perfume that lingered from his clothes, but I adored the warm, earthy scent of his flesh and the taste of salt on my tongue. My body loved him, hungered for him; and in the torrid throes of passion, the fever swelled in my throat to tempt me with his blood. I was reminded at such moments that to most he might be a king, but to me he was just a man. Just a mortal as vulnerable to my appetite as countless women were to his.

We began to talk as our relationship progressed. I doubt that he meant to keep me for so long; his interest tended to wane upon the heels of conquest. He said that I was different, that he could not tire of me because I did not make him weary. Then he asked me to accept a choker set with diamonds that he said matched my eyes. I refused.

“Then what can I give you?” he asked, exasperated. “Surely you must want something of me.”

“I have it, sire,” I replied. “Each time I see you, I have what I want.”

He eyed me mistrustfully, certain that I was lying. Or hoping that I was. He made a point of staying out of his mistresses’ personal lives. He wanted nothing to do with husbands or brothers who might disrupt his pleasure, but he looked hard at me and found himself caring more than he had intended.

“This man of yours, this de Gras,” he said slowly, “how did you come upon him?”

I did not want to discuss the matter and reached down to distract him, but he caught my wrist and held me fast, forcing me to meet his gaze.

“Tell me,” he said.

My vision glazed almost immediately. I hoped that he would be dissuaded by the prospect of my weeping, but I was wrong. He raised my captured hand to his lips and gently kissed it. I swallowed tears, determined to be brave. “I did not come upon him,” I said quietly. “He came upon me.”

“An arranged match?” he inquired.

I shook my head. “I was already married. De Gras … stole me from my husband.”

“You were kidnapped?”

“I suppose so.”

He studied me for a long, silent moment. He had seen many things in his life and had learned to read faces for the truth. Though my story had the makings of a whopping good fiction, I had no reason to lie and Charles saw this. All traces of his usual good humour had vanished. “I did wonder why a Frenchman with no apparent wealth would come to England,” he remarked.

“There was no cause to stay in France,” I said.

“Do you not mean that there was greater cause to leave?”

I smiled weakly. “Not the cause you might think, sire. My husband is dead. I have nothing there anymore.”

“Oh, my dear,” he sighed, genuinely sympathetic. His nature was compassionate enough to allow him the freedom of embracing me here, in the privacy of his bed, and this he did, gathering me close to his chest and stroking my hair with a gentle hand.

I did not cry. I did not fall upon him and lament my circumstance in a fury of tears. I lay very still and very silent, biting back rage. If I loosed it, if I shouted that he had betrayed me, I would be forever banished from this haven where love and tranquility were guaranteed.

But they were guaranteed no longer. He had made me speak of Lucien. He had made me recall the beginning of this nightmare when all I asked of him was comfort. He knew more than I wanted him to know. I had depended on his own rule against interfering and he had broken it.

“What can I do?” he mused, moved beyond his established limits and pragmatic enough to accept the fact. “What can I do for you, little Janie?”

“Do not speak of it again,” I rasped. “I will not have you speak of it again!”

“But there must be something,” he insisted. “I will write to my sister in France—”

“Don’t!” I cried, pulling away from him. I felt my soul detaching as well, ripping a little as it broke free. “There is nothing you can do, and if there was I would not have you do it!”

My indignation seemed to amuse him. “Sweetheart, you forget. I am the King of England.”

“You are the king of nothing,” I retorted hotly. I thrashed my way out of bed and turned on him. “You are a man; a frail mortal with power over nothing! How could you do this? How could you? I come to you for peace and pleasure, things so easily given, things you yourself seek from every woman you bed! You give me comfort simply by being, yet you would destroy that comfort by forcing me to speak of things you would rather not know. Do not help me. I am beyond help. All I wanted was sanctuary, and now even that promise is worthless.”

He was thoroughly baffled by my outburst, no doubt thinking it odd that a woman would refuse any gesture he was willing to make that might better her situation. Typically, he attempted to make light of it, but he did not understand. He could not. It was impossible.

“Come to bed, love,” he purred, growling deep in his chest. “I’ll speak of it no more, if that is your wish, but come back to bed.”

I stood alone, arms clamped tight across my middle, trembling with cold and unshed tears. I saw then that I was dreaming, that all he had given me was the illusion of peace. I was bound by the same law that spared him from de Gras. I could not make him immortal. I could not lie safe within the circle of his arms forever. He was just a man.

He beckoned to me from the shelter of the bed. “Come, my dear,” he said, coaxing.

Swallowing the grief which had risen in my throat, I went forward. I took his hand and let him draw me beneath the quilts; let him embrace and kiss me; let him make love to me as he had done a dozen times before. I let my body love him for the last time and then, just as he reached out to grasp son petit mort, my fangs found the swell of his jugular and pierced it.

He groaned in prolonged ecstasy. My limbs clamped tight around him and his blood flowed thick and dusky over my tongue. So this was how a king’s blood tasted. It was not like ordinary blood at all. It matched the difference between water and wine. It was dark and rich and powerful. I could not have drained him without making myself ill, so I took only a little; just a token to carry with me for as long as it lasted.

It has lasted to this day.

No book has been written about Charles II that I have not added to my library. It is too vast a collection to take everywhere; the bulk of it resides on the shelves of my estate in Surrey. But I have a few favourites that travel with me wherever I go. Julian believes that my affection for Restoration England stems from the fact that I met and made him in the months following my affair with the King. He can be so sweetly arrogant at times. So naive to think himself the only one to have touched my aching, eternal heart. I cannot be bothered to tell him otherwise. He would not believe me anyway.

But now you know. Are you surprised?

 

September 21, 1999

Revised March 9, 2012

copyright by Ruth R. Greig