The waves keep on crashing on me for some reason
your love keeps on coming like a thunderbolt
Come here a little closer
'Cause I wanna see you baby real close up
You got me feeling hella good
So let's just keep on dancing
You hold me like should
So I'm gonna keep on dancing...

     ... I put out a cigarette in the vinyl retro booth in the back of the Hippodrome Redux. Red lights moved over them, over me, over everyone. Crowded, sweaty, glittery, glossy. Red drinks in tall glasses. Cocaine slipping hand-to-hand beneath retro iron tables. Style circa 2002. Which, in truth, was Style circa 1955...
     I was propelled among them...
     Black silk thread suit. Scarlet silk shirt. Wide lapeled. Trousers fitted. Shoes pointed. Golden hair all over the place. Hipper than anyone around me. Hip to the fact. The Hipster Cometh...
     But then I got bored with you all. Vous avez eu rien de neuf me montrer...
     East side, West side. Punk and Posh. On the fringes of the fashionable South, I pressed my way with a smile and a lick past a line, the barrier of a velvet rope -- it may as well be lead and steel for the rest of you. A new club -- The Purple Papaya. Exclusive. Gay-Straight-Trans-Whatever. An unending mix of trance-industrial-groove hop. Floor teaming with people. Everyone dancing. Not me..,
     No... not me...
     I'm swimming in you. I'm swimming in you all...

Thunderpuss... Fuck Me Harder ...Now...

     The surrounding crowd bobs and weaves, keeping time with the beat of the overwhelming music. People mill about, drinks in hand, filling the space and senses with the energy that only the great wash of mortality can provide. Bodies lean, making way for moving singletons that are the exceptions to the rule. The mass always seems to mind when someone works in opposition, and the singleton salmon expends energy in making its deliberate way through the rushing stream.
     Coming towards you, a woman in green leather skirt cut way too high glances over at someone who greets her. A mane of wavy black hair turns to give greeting, but it does not stop her. One content to walk at her own beat. Green v-shaped halter shows her stomach and sides, and she wears no shoes.
     "I know you," she says, dark eyes seeming black. Unadorned in jewelry, she doesn't really need it. Green eyes glow eerily in the frame of mussed black hair. "You're...that singer...in Made For You." Some band of recent popularity. "Right?" she wonders, coming to a halt before you. She might have been heading elseplace, but she's now distracted. "You were on Music Box a few weeks ago. I saw you play..."

     ...I should say yes, but as I don't know their music, I would only seem like a great twat...
     ...I smile, my way is blocked, but you might be dinner. You might be. You might be an aperitif. Something to swish with my next martini. I would pierce you skin like an olive. Suck the pit, roll it on my tongue. And I would eat that, too. And you, cherie, and you. "No," but I smile, do you think I'm lying to you? If you only knew. "...I'm afraid I'm not..." The voice speaks in English, but the accent is French. If she can even hear that. And in the moving purple lights of the Purple Papaya, he gleams.
     Dieu, I am so...
     I am...
     Valan leans in, the smile winding a lie. "But if you want to pretend...If you want to ... make believe..." Then it's alright by me. It's all alright by me...
     Little rivulets of power. Little rivulets of energy like little rivers from his eyes. Gold and green. A vampire pushing through the dirt a finger at a time exploring.

     She doesn't look disappointed, actually. Instead, she smiles for her error. "Ah, well," she nods, twisting faintly. Not a silly girl, that is for sure, but one enjoying her evening and perhaps looking for companionship. "Mind...if I join you?" she calls over the din, fingers landing on the booth's table. "Unless you're expecting anyone?" A veritable shout in any other place but here.

     ...Not yet, not yet. Not expecting him yet. And I need a little drink, oh what time is it? Is it time yet, ami? For you to find me...
     A pin-prick, a tickle at the end of the spine. I know you, don't I know you? You remind me of someone, too. But who? Not Astrid. Not Now Married Off The Scene Debutante cum Aristocrat's Wife. Valan smiles, "No, I don't mind... I just got here myself... first time." He grins. There's a first time for everything.
     He hadn't picked a booth yet -- so many men! So many men dressed as women! So little time! -- but you do. "New venue..." he doesn't seem to yell but his voice sounds out clearly.
     With the backdrop of 120-beat trance-hop...
     Blonde beauty, say, haven't you always wanted one of those? I like my men like I like my wine -- dark. Personally. With god almighty grace, Montague slips into the booth, languidly taking up a corner and side of it. The Hipster holding court.
     Get used to it London...
     Gold-green eyes peer past golden locks, hipster bangs. "What's the chemical menu..."

     The dark haired woman smiles, green eyes shading with the even-more dimness of the booth. She slides in beside you, not so far away, yet not terribly close. She must be a regular, with her barefeet. "Selene," she nods, extending a lithe hand towards you for a shake. "Menu?" she shrugs. "I like Kentucky bourbon," Selene grins. The sly American in her, though her accent is London. Immigrant London. Somewhere East of Vienna, perhaps. "Maybe that means I'm boring," she laughs faintly, her lips a pleasant red. Tasteful, everything about her, on this side of club tawdry. A bit more of the hair, the makeup, the clothing, and it'd be cheap. Instead, it's just sexy and smart.

     Maybe. And he laughs. Hands reach into his black silk thread jacket -- D&G, this -- a pack of cigarettes. The pack is as red as his shirt, the label something from France. Cloves. Old habit he's not about to change. A silver glint of a silver zippo. Sterling, darling. It flickers in the lights that begin pulsing over the sexually non-specific crowd...
     "Do you mind?" he wonders of the smoke, though even if you did, would he keep from lighting it? Doubtful. "Kentucky bourbon?" Blonde eyebrows quirk up -- could it be he doesn't know? "I'm in a martini mood," his English is fluent and precise. He is fluent, but not comfortable with it. It takes work. Valan is poised to light up...
     A purple-lipped waitress with violet hair and white sparkly vinyl shorts and tank -- like a booth from a 1950s-era burger joint -- pauses with a tray of drinks. Valan leans in, black and red and gold and green of eye and smiles. She smiles back. "Red diamond," he names his martini drink of choice -- a dash of Chambord to make it interesting, "...three olives...Kentucky bourbon, straight, two doubles..." apparently he knows that much.

As they pulled you out of the oxygen tent You asked for the latest party With your silicone hump and your ten-inch stump Dressed like a priest you was Tod Browning's freak you was Crawling down the alley on your hands and knee I'm sure you're not protected For it's plain to see The diamond dogs are poachers and they hide behind trees Hunt you to the ground they will Mannequins with kill appeal

     Selene looks up at the waitress, but lets you do the work. "Thanks," she says, reaching over to the case. Oh, you did mean her, yes? "I left mine over with the friends." There's a nod for the order, but that is not really her interest.
     "What's your name?" she asks, since you didn't offer after she said her own. Leaning in, she grins with the unlit cigarette near her cheek.

     ...Trance, ethereal voice, or maybe it's Bowie's sampled...

Will they come...I'll keep a friend serene Will they come...Oh baby come unto me Will they come...Well she's come been and gone

     "Montague," he says, he takes a clove and he doesn't mind that you take one. He'll let it seem like an offer. He smiles. "Selene... not a pop idol I'm afraid..." The eyes fix upon you and they would reel you in. Only the line is new. It's not as strong as it will be. Will be. One day. One day if he lives. The distance is closed casually. Not "come-on" slow but more a drawing in to hear, and to be heard.
     I want to swim in you...
     And I want to fuck him...
     Him, who? You might ask. Him. The dark-haired man in my mind. The same one who went out earlier on business. The same business I am not yet suited for. But I'm loaded.
     And I don't just mean metaphorically, cher. Or monetarily...
     Valan smiles, eyes lifting only now and then to look at the environs -- and the view -- of the Purple Papaya. But they return to you. He seems interested. He smells of high-priced cologne, subtle. And now of clove as he lights up, then offers the zippo to you. "No relation to Those Montagues," meaning Romeo and Juliet. Is she that literate?

     "Montague," Selene nods. If she is, she makes no comment about it. "Nice to meet you," she says, bending to get a flicker from the zippo. A nod and Selene rises again, closing her lips to draw in a taste. "Nice," she says quickly after a flash of an instant, lowering the cigarette to a less-intrusive position.
     "Not everyone can be an idol," she explains, letting the smoke float from her parted lips. Upwards the smoke travels, to disappear into the haze that hovers above clubgoing heads. "Looks like you're well on your way though," she compliments. "Been at it long?" she wonders, grinning at the tease. Legs cross and she leaves arm with smoke along table's edge.

     "At being Me?" he laughs, eyebrows lifting in gossamer fashion, hand bringing his cigarette to his mouth. A pull of clove and blue-brown smoke leaves his lips a moment later. "Merci... All my life," comes the vague reply. "But... I do not have any aspirations to pop idol-dom. It seems it would be a dreadful bore. I like being..." Valan tips back his head, pulling another drag, giving it some thought, "...dead, flash center of the fringe."
     He looks at you, still close for talking's convenience. And three drinks appear. A double Kentucky bourbon, straight. For you and one for him. And a wide-bowled martini glass, filled with electric red liquid and three olives transpierced with a blown-glass rod, a swirl of red and orange.
     "And you," Valan grins smoke, "... you seem to know pop stars, and those who only seem like pop stars..."

     "I know telly," Selene admits, "...not categories," she clears up with a smile. A pause ensues as she lifts up again, opening the space between you. She looks at the drink, pulling it closer to herself. "Me?" she exhales, picking up the drink in the same hand as her cigarette, "I'm no pop star," she chuckles softly, as if faintly repulsed by the notion. "I come dance, have a drink, talk with friends, yanno. Brilliant fun for a while. Everyone needs that -- a way to have a break. Cheers," Selene finally says, having a good swallow of her bourbon. It's quickly followed up by the cigarette at her lips again.
     "You're not reg here, huh, boyo? I mean, I saw you when you came in. As much," Selene laughs, "...as this place has regulars yet. It's getting there." Like herself.

     "I am not a regular anywhere." Yet, says the smile. And maybe that night will never come. Maybe he will bounce from club to club and thing to thing. One thing's certain -- he's not sitting home alone anymore. The gun in his jacket is like his training wheels...
     Brujah training wheels...
     Valan lifts the red concoction for a drink. A sip and with a curl of his arm he lowers it. Graceful. Remembering to be slow. But energy is bounding from his eyes. He will have to dance soon. Or something...
     He interchanges drink with cigarette. A slow, building rhythm, matching the cadence of his speech. "It seemed interesting... pulsing purple light, I guess it drew me in." Was it designed to do this. "Trance mix... is this a typical night?" Business wise? It is crowded. Heartbeats.
     Valan is sympathetic to the throbbing need. His body begins to move slightly, subtle motions of a body built for dancing, fucking, maybe for fighting.
     Edward... where are you...
     "Cheers," he says belatedly, lifting his drink for another sip, cigarette held balanced in fingers at the glass' edge...
     ...If you were here now, I would be assaulting you. Slipping on my knees beneath the surface of the table...
     "You and your friends are regulars," he wonders, "... what is the scene like? Interesting people... refugees from the Phantasmagoria?"

     "Yeah, started with a massive bang!" Selene says, letting her hands rise in mock explosion. "It's like this often," she nods, looking around. Cigarette almost done, she sets it down in the ashtray. Now, just the drink to complete. "It's closed Sunday through Tuesday. Guess they don't need the money..." Selene lets trail off.
     A taste of her drink and she returns attention to you. "The scene's good. All types here, and yeah," she grins, "...many from Phantasmagoria. You know it, eh?" Pity, she seems to sigh. "Used to be excellent, now, it's filled with rich boy wanker pretenders..."

     "Hardcore seemed to go to Betty's Boobs," play on Betty Boop, post World War I, leather crowd, doubles as a music venue, "... and the unmarked warehouses," Valan grins and winks. "Dance set seems spread out. Here..." a look to the dancefloor, "...there and everywhere. I liked the Gory," using a London slang term for it, sounds funny in French, "... maybe it's the naked men in cages..."
     He swings that way...
     You return attention to him and he leans in, an arm on the back of the booth, elbow bend, hand his temple, propping up his head. His other hand holds his glass. A tendril of smoke rises near his head, indicating the cigarette. He leans back to take a drag, but he sits in otherwise. "I will have to come on the occasional Friday night then," he smiles, then finally sits back, a long drag and then he stamps it out. "As I like all types..." Another wink. And he takes another drink...
     His body is moving, fitting in time with the current thread of trance, recognizing it. Perhaps. Or feeling it... even before others hear it. He anticipates the rhythm, as much as he reacts to it. Another drink and there's an energy about him...
     ...I need to move...
     ...Before I explode...
     "Do you like to dance? Barefeet and all?"

     The crowd sways, but then another strong-willed salmon emerges, coming from the side. Dressed in black, he seems much more like staff or some security, than a regular patron. He makes a beeline for the table, from behind where Selene sits.

     "I do," Selene nods, nodding at your assessment of what's happened to the Phantasmagoria crowd. "And I would," she adds, rising. Indeed, the black mane falls far down her back, in contrast to the green she wears. It would be terribly 80s, if it were not more punked for this age. Designed to be mussed, but in truth, carefully controlled.
     Selene takes a last, fast swallow of the drink, leaving glass there. She moves out of the booth, hands smoothing the green leather at her hips. Only then does she notice the approaching man, twisting from her wait upon you to see him.

     The 'red diamond' is lifted, catches the light as it's sipped, and he rises, eyes first on the drink as he sets it aside. And then Valan looks up, green-gold eyes past golden hair, combed mussed Mod -- somewhere between 1965 and 2005.
     The purple and lavender lights of the dancefloor pulse, a new strain of trance started -- trance-hop this time -- when Valan pivots, looking to Selene.
     Taking sudden note of the man making a bee-line over to them. Purposeful. Valan tilts his head, then starts to turn and head onto the dancefloor...

     "It's time," the man says sharply. He gives you a pointed look, Valan, but then looks back to Selene. He makes little attempt to keep his voice low; it appears more important that she hears him.

     Selene exhales, and heads to follow you to the dance floor. The man doesn't seem distressed by her ignoring air. He simply turns and heads off in some other direction. Her smile returns, and with quick steps, Selene is soon behind you, working into the crowd. No worries on barefeet, apparently.

     "Who was that?" he wonders in your ear, and then the arms and fingers, hips and bodies of those around you and him begin to press in. It's like being swallowed...
     It's like being born...
     He remains behind you, arms lifting. He dances with you... he also dances with all those around you. Even the drag queen in the platform vinyl puss-n-boots (pink at that), who, with their addition, stands nearly seven feet tall.

     "My chariot, midnight's come," Selene says as if not worried by the situation, despite her evaluation. Her arms lift and she sways, green halter rising her already-exposed form. You are horribly attractive, and soon Selene turns around to face you, arms coming to rest at your shoulders. Somehow, her energy stays local -- she's not driven by the others around. Green eyes close to the world a moment, and her head tilts back to face the reeling lights from above.

     He is young. He receives from all around him. Empathetic. Sensitive. Like new skin -- feeling everything. Even women. But then, he danced with Astrid too. Never fucked her -- never cared to -- though she offered on more than one occasion.

To become aware of my own sensuality I first become fully aware of my own tactile sense... In dim light I close my eyes and remove my clothes... Do I lose his respect for being so wild? Hardly...

     "Cinderella," Valan laughs in your ear. And what does that make me? Mouth at your neck as you tilt back. It makes me hungry. And the crowd writhes. I part my mouth at the crook of your neck. Body moving with you, on its own. Slipping between the beats. Upbeat. Downbeat. Like a pulse...
     ...I think of bending beneath Edward's tongue. Back curving, curling, hips lifting to receive him. Splay, open, revealed, surrendered, taken. My tongue flicks at your skin, mouth suckles, and...
     ...No, not yet...

     At your hips, Valan, is a set of fingers. Strong and confident. Male. They pull at you slowly, reaching from the confusion of bodies with care. No need to jostle or rush.
     Fingers become palms that curl and insist on holding you firmly...
     I am here. And there you are...

     It is a swing...
     A dancing pivot preternatural and instinctual. Between the beats. Probably only half-disguised by the music, by the pulsing light.
     ...Pulse...(violet)...
     Valan turns...
     ...Pulse... (lavender)....
     A hand frees itself from the woman...
     ...Pulse ...(purple)...
     Hands on the hips. Perhaps they are even better poised now, him turning into them as soon as he felt them. Just another dancer? Is it the drag queen? Lola... never grab me from behind...

     Just a man, really, emerging from the last push of people between you. Familiar hands and arms lead to a downturned face that watches where his hands land.
     He seems to have hit his mark.
     "Sorry I am late," Edward says lowly, understanding the tender relationship between sound and vampiric hearing. Words said only at a whisper. He likes how you are dressed (so says the smile at his lips), and hands continue to decrease the space between you. Edward glances left and right, pushing himself so that he's flush with you and out of some dancing pair. Christ.
     Was someone else there? Edward's eyes never moved past you, once you were visible and in his control. And instead of continuing the conversation, his eyes close and lips part, already seeking the night's first kiss.

     Arms that had been at your shoulder fall away at your half-turn...

     I think of you, and you materialize...
     In the turning, in the pulling, his hand lifts, fingers disappearing in short dark locks. And the smile was seen in violet hue only a half moment before the kiss began. The smile was formed at the corners of your own mouth, even as he gave himself to it.
     Deep. Familiar. Intimate. Personal. Revealing.
     There is no contest here, between the young woman who was dancing with him, sharing his time and his space, who nearly became an aperitif, and the man who is behind him now.
     Valan parts from the kiss, smile smooth, edged with evil thoughts. "I was just thinking of your tongue following the curve of my back, and look... here you are," Valan says. He has been drinking, Dieu yes, and smoking cloves. His breath is sweet with expensive martinis, olives and clove.
     He cuts a most Mod and handsome figure in that D&G getup. Your hipster. Even as you first saw him, yes? The hair, the smoke, the wicked smile. The bedroom eyes. And then he remembers...
     Valan turns his head to see if Selene is still around...

     Edward's brow furrows as you turn from him. Where to. His eyes follow your glance about, and he blinks as he stands there, watching you watch nothingness. "I should be glad that you think of me," Edward pipes up in the open instant. He pulls at you again to get your attention. "Come here," he asks, seeking to kiss you again. But now, instead of fingers and hands, arms curl around you to keep you close as possible.

     "You say this as if you do not know better," Valan murmurs. The rest is lost in laughter at the pull. He comes around. A wave to the woman, the companion of a handful of minutes. But he cannot stay. And there will be no introductions.
     Commanding. Do you know how much I like it when you are thus? Commanding. You do not ask, you tell. You hold me secure, there is no escape. There is no escape that is wished for.
     Not on the first night...
     Not now...
     Valan curls back against you, arm lifting again, hand curling in your hair, mouth at your mouth. Brushing. Pulling. Kissing. Surrendering. And he dances. Against you, with you -- body in motion, tongue curling around your own in time.
     How can there be any doubt but he thinks of you. He is thinking of you now, backing into you, pressing as you and the music hold him in a grip.

     You are a drink for a man dying of thirst. Shade for a man toiling in the open Sahara. Sweet grass for a weary traveller. Dressed in black, Edward seems but shadow around you, hiding you from the world. His mouth is eager to know yours, and he sways with his hands pressing at the hem of your sportcoat, massaging you beneath.
     Too much clothing, really. Edward pulls from the kiss, allowing his tongue to brush at your lips. Brows arch in open contentment. "So," he looks around, "...what's this place?" Not sure if he likes the crowd. Skepticism flashes across his face as he glances up, then around to see who's nearby. "And why were you waving?" he wonders, looking over where you looked before. Nothing's still there. "Where'd you find this place?" Edward grumps, getting information in order to pass Edwardian judgement.

     You feel the weight of the gun, inside left pocket. Lightweight, but you know it's there...
     "This woman thought I was a pop idol," he says about the wave, turning, arms surrounding your neck. He drapes himself on you, fingers slipping in your hair and he smiles lazily. "I was at the Odeon, the Hippo Redux, S.O.D... heard about this there, actually." S.O.D., Mod, glossy hipster club/restaurant, minimalist decor, lime green walls, green lights, deep blue ceiling. Cutest waiters in town. Predominantly gay clientele. "I like it alright... drinks are better at SOD," it's worth noting.
     Valan smiles at your mouth, tip of his tongue tracing the soft flesh there. "I kept wondering when I was going to run into you," Valan whispers...
      ...How many fights I would have gotten into along the way. How many fights you might have had along the way. But I only drank and smoked tonight. No bloodied nose...
     The whisper folds into another kiss, his body folding easily against your own. You feel the press of him past the silk. "Want to drive somewhere," he whispers. Home. Or wherever. "I need you..."

     The man in black likes the last idea. It causes his lips to pull at an angle almost instinctively. "Anywhere," Edward whispers suggestively into your mouth. "You name it, that's where we go..."
     He hates to move, to leave where you stand, but he can't help himself. Answering his own comment, Edward lowers his arms and grasps your hand to depart. It doesn't matter, in truth, just that leaving now is required. Demanded somehow. There is no Let's go or Come here. Edward angles and makes a path directly aimed at the entrance.

     ... No need to name it. We will find it. Create it...
     The crowd moves, rippling from the motion. One or two glancing back in the wake of being moved. It's demanded. By the way you move. By the way you look. By the way you are together. Famous? Infamous? What's wrong with a little bit of both?
     His fingers clasp at your own, one teasing the center of your palm, and as you pull him out of the club and into the night air, there is a soft laugh. Sensory explosions, with light and different sounds, a rush of cool air.
     ...It's like being born...
     And he is reveling in it, Edward. This life. Night life. Your life. Valan turns as the two of you exit, his body flush with yours. His smile flushed with you. Blood called to the surface. Yours. All of it.
     I want you to swim in me...
     Valan leans in, warm mouth covering and pulling at your own. Speaking your name there in a breath only you can hear. A lilt of his tongue, and he grins, the flirt. Pulling out of your hold just slightly, to walk ahead, eyes turning to find a familiar car...

     The music is still moving in his ears. The world and darkness folds when he leaves the club, pushing out with you into inhabited shadows, his mouth pulling unspoken secrets from your lips.
     Will it be a wall or...
     The car ... or...
     Here... or...
     There...
     Hands are still entwined, fingers making time against one another, clasping in a way that mouths and groins shall endeavor to copy. Everything's a clever forgery of the first touch. Do mouths clasp all that differently, truly, from fingers?
     Valan turns, a hand smoothening on your cheek, gold green eyes bright in the surrounding darkness, backlit only by the club's own existence. There's a line of people waiting to get in. Swank, wot? Velvet ropes. A hand on your face, the breath of your name again. As intimate as if you two were in bed. Or on the sofa. Sweet. Valan grins then, lazy summer day, and turns his head toward the alley.
     He expects to see the Cobra there. Maybe Sauber. Maybe something new. He never knows with you. Sleek. Expensive. Exclusive. Boys Plaything. He lowers his hand and hooks a finger in your waistband...
     "Mon ami," he murmurs, "... first... we go to the car... then..." Valan looks over his shoulder, eyebrows lifting. "We will see how far we will get." He laughs smooth sweet fire.

     "We'll get far," Edward retorts, leaving you to look at the gathered crowd with narrowing gaze. He glances at the bouncers and coolers, dressed nicely at the door. Eyes move across the people at the door and those down the steps and waiting along the wall. How tiring that habit must be...to see danger in every face, in every corner.
     But you hook a finger in at his waistband, and Edward smiles at you again, walking away from the line, down the street. Garish light begins to fade and Night fills the growing spaces.
     "You had a nice evening," Edward assumes, mostly starting a conversation. His black shoes are nearly invisible against the broken asphalt still damp with rain from earlier in the day. You and he are dressed too well for the alley, where large bins wait for the morning's pickups. Cars line here and there, early parkers smart to find spaces nearby. "It's..." he glances at his watch, "....only one." Hand slips around your waist, in order to keep you at his side. Edward smiles and looks ahead into the dimming side street.

     Such exteriors. The peeling paint of modern fashion. One edifice up, three more on their way down. The lighting plays upon them, garish pastel, too pretty. It's a dark perfection. It's paying a price. And he. He was in there. Exacting payment. More beautiful than anyone around him, not for this or that feature, this or that garment. Simply a matter of life and death. More alive than they are. More dead than they are.
     You smile, and when you do, he feels a flutter on his blood. It's not romanticism. The flutter travels like electricity from golden eyes to golden groin to Milanese shoes. He is flush against you, his fingers dancing over your side, your back. He knows where you keep your gun. Well, one of them. "Too early to go home..." he posits at your ear, his fingers slipping between skin and waistband. "I think..." he breathes the English with heavy Loire accent. Tours spread out all over it. "...you should take me out on the town... dance with me... hmmm... Valan wants to be educated," such a mouth on him, such a smile, "... best drinks, best music, best view. Take me...?"
     He has to ask?

     "I had every plan," Edward smiles, still looking ahead. Not at you, Valan. "However, you're being followed," he says softly, grin still upon his features. "You were in the club as well." Edward holds you tighter, turning to exhale a nuzzle at your ear. Were you always so tall?
     Ahead, the Spyder comes into view, about four cars down on the left wall. Past another industrial bin.
     "I don't know," he whispers into your ear as when he calls, in bed, for his savior, "...if they plan on just watching or..." doing something else. Like I had planned. Like I still want to. But I can't think of that just now. Too distracting.
     "But," his mouth suggesting everything but the pertinent conversation at hand, "...I'll let them make their move when we stop at the car. And I don't think they're...you know." Like us. Like undead. They're too obvious tonight. He'd pegged them in a room stock full of beings.

     He hadn't realized. (Even if he had, one might well wonder if he would have cared.) "Followed..." he says. His voice isn't surprised. It isn't so shocking. It simply had not occurred to him. And Valan turns his head, turns into the nuzzle, uses the embrace to take a moment and look around.
     And he smiles...
     How exciting...
     A finger slips against the flat of your stomach, where strong torso meets groin, and Valan turns his head the other way, mouth taking its turn to graze your ear. "I'm loaded... and I know you are..." A devil's grin. "Let's go... I'm ready..." Valan curls the lobe of your ear with his tongue. "Ready..."
     Maybe I am a pop idol...
     He laughs quietly and turns with you to the car. Follow this...

     If you could see his expression, it'd be a flash of a frown before a return to blase normalcy. He doesn't get you these nights, but Edward hasn't hurried to ask questions. And now isn't the time either.
     The car fully in view, Edward's arm leaves you to encourage you ahead. Passenger side faces the street, and taking a spot behind you, he steers you both to the rear of the Spyder and out of the moonlight cast upon the middle of the alley.
     "Here," Edward mumbles lowly, deciding now is the time for a kiss against the unyielding metal of the Spyder. Eyes glance up and around, but his hands soon find your hips again, attempting to separate just enough jacket hem from shirt from waistband...

     In the music of your second home, there is an element of sweetness and an element of danger in everything. The sun. The songs. The dance. Matador. Dance king. Guitarist. Poet. Politician. In the land itself. In sand and stone. And since Spain he has embodied the best, and the worst, of it. Passionate. Easily ignitable. Prone to violence. Prone to dance...
     Pulled. In motion at the encouragement of something unseen. And pain only eggs him on. What has become of the dreams of the Brujah scholar?
     "Are we in trouble, ami?" he breathes, he moves against the car, liquid flesh against its liquid metal. And against you. His eyes are on you. Your expression. Your body language. Valan lids his eyes as he feels you tugging at his clothing. Oh yes. Yes. Here. The kiss is electric.
     A hand comes up to your face. A moment of tenderness. His mouth parts at your mouth, but only teases, brushing. Murmuring there. "I did not see them... I am sorry, Eduard..."
     And his hand slips from your face, along your body, then his hands go to his own. Fingers slip against his clothing, the pretense of unbuttoning. The smooth glide toward a pocket.
     That's where the gun was...

     "It's alright, ami," Edward shifts to your shared tongue. "It's alright," he whispers again, kissing your hand. A turn of his ear, that, listening to the world beyond you two. "Nevermind," Edward sinks, his voice trailing off. If there was danger, he has forgotten it for an instant. Pretense falls away, Edward's hands eagerly disappearing inside your jacket -- a cover for all sorts of sins. Fingers slip lower, stopping only when they knead flesh beneath layers of clothes. He should leave you both vulnerable now, for his attention rests at your skin and what is secreted between you. Edward's head dips to rest at your shoulder, his mouth already at your throat.
     The alley is silent, save the sounds generated by the two of you. Shoes on broken concrete, clothing rustling against bodies. An elbow landing on metal. Those watching are very good, blending into the cover of night and the quiet of mundanity. No red finder alights upon Edward's exposed back, nor is there the sound of a hammer lifted or a barrel pulled. All there is Edward's breathing and moving against you, French words insisting his love and need for you. A scant murmur in the mix of traffic further away.
     Edward licks his lips before kissing your ear again. Fingers curl around a fencer's form that they know so well. Hips are abandoned for darker places, and Edward's hands possess and cajole, as if nothing else mattered.
     The dampness in the air releases a gift (well, at least it thinks it is), an overnight rain shower that begins softly.
     Down the street a block or three? Patrons of the club begin to scatter.

     Yes...
     ...Yes...
     Clothing all but dissolves, leaving only his skin. Something flashes at his stomach. Green. Silver. Chains and gemstones. Evidence of your first two holiday seasons together. You reach in. He opens himself to you. His shirt undone, creamy-honey pale skin revealed. Musculature. Dipping into trousers. Your hand encircles him, and he circles into it.
     Yes...
     Yes...
     Yes...
     And it begins to rain. It cools his skin. But not the blood beneath his skin. Someone's watching? Hell of a show, mate. In the darkness, against the hood of the car, there is a curling and uncurling. The curling, too, of a smile. Valan turns his head, he whispers: Take me here...
     Let the world watch if it wants to watch. It is worth watching...
     Valan turns his head and his mouth plays upon your own, his hands finding their way to your waistband again. And with a smile, his hips curl back from your grasp and he slides along the body of the Spyder. Gliding slowly but smoothly, particularly on the rain slicked car...
     To his knees...

     The spilling patrons scatter and voices once far away now sound louder. Footsteps are obvious, heading in your general direction. A bit of laughter and complaining combines with bleeding makeup and translucent clothing.

     Edward's attention surfaces as you pull from him. He looks hungry, your Edward does, and he obediently follows up the curve of the Spyder. There is a slight tap as his foot comes to rest on the bumper, but he stretches and leans forward, hands leaving you long enough to pull at the the panels of his slacks to send the zipper careening downward. His fitted black shirt sticks to his skin, coloring translucent where it does.
     Once done, Edward's fingers ride along the chain that encircles you. A guiding line of latitude that will take him where he wishes to go. Edward isn't interested in undressing you -- not out here -- but instead smiles at what his mind imagines beneath the mussed fashion.
     With your jacket beneath you both now, a set of well-toned canines presses at the soft skin of your throat. You have his weight, Valan, the bear of his writhing now against you. Hands wrestle awkwardly between you, seeking to feel you in their caressing grasp again.

     There's so much happening, Valan. The world reels with the onslaught of it. Girls running in your direction, heels and boots slapping against the soaking asphalt. They smell of smoke and flowers, hands together as skin smacks. Streets over, traffic passes in gentler tones, a constant sound now in your young ears. It's there. Thunder sounds overhead, suggesting more will come than the gentle shower you enjoy now. Someone, perhaps on the club-side of the industrial bins, starts a car against the wall.
     And if anyone watches, they stir not. There is but silence save those identifiable pieces. Silence and the man who groans above you, saying your name with each caress of his fingers, encouraging you onward with the agreeing murmur of Oui that matches yours. He loves you madly, the once-stranger, now lover, and soon will ask you to turn over, so that you both may face the hood of his Spyder in rising unison.

     I heard that, did you?
     Voices...
     Inane conversations...
     Complaints about the rain...
     Running...
     Running...Chasing?
     Valan stills his slide downward, back against the Spyder. His mouth was on its way down, traversing a slow line, in a slow, sleek glide, to your descending zipper. "Edward," he breathes against your black shirt, your skin right beneath. Edward, do you hear that? "... Shh," Valan grins, and holds still. Maybe they will pass by without seeing us.
     Gilt-green eyes cut a look to the side, to the movement, to the footsteps. Are these the ones who were following me?
     He holds still, his eyes moving upward to your face. And all the sounds hit him. Suddenly. Traffic. The city is alive. We are not, and yet more alive than they shall ever know.
     "We should finish this in the car...or under the booth of the Odeon..." he breathes. Or maybe home. Where you can fuck me as loudly as you want, and as I want you.
     His thighs the fulcrum that holds him in place. Your stomach and chest is his sky at the moment. He turns his head against the body of the Spyder, toward the sound of running girls. Perfume.
     "Let's go," he murmurs.

     What?
     Edward's hands were seeking an anchor on the Spyder as you slipped below his horizon. Sable eyes open, framed in a matte of sleek, black hair. Droplets roll down Edward's cheeks, and his once-black shirt shows his chest and stomach beneath. His hips are wet as well, now that his pants rest open.
     A deep inhale and Edward tries to compose himself. A slow blink clears the water and the desirous haze away.
     Let's go, you said.
     Edward comes to a stand, hand coming to rest at the flat of his groin. Stilling the fire there, he inhales and exhales again before giving you his other hand to stand. He seems slightly dazed, and blinks again to clear more clouds.

     The girls do approach, running quickly. But the figures in the shadows startle the three of them, two in heels and one in boots. They stumble somewhere parallel to the Spyder's door, but on the other side of the alley.
     Now what a sight is that? All three blink and one begins to chuckle, almost in apologetic tones. The other two laugh more sinisterly, and the three run off in the direction they were going. As they run, there is broken comments and laughs on Two guys and One was very cute ...

     Yes, but which one? Girls! Girls! Come back! Or the debate will last forever...
     And between the two of us, it could, could it not, ami?
     Soft, there is sudden laughter, and the rain is hard. His D&G is perhaps ruined. You are... incredibly gorgeous, soaking wet. Valan looks up the long line of you, open trousers, torso, chest, face, dark eyes. I want to lie down right here. But... for the thunder, the rain, the pinpricks now to my mind of something... Something. There is something else.
     "You drive," Valan murmurs, taking your hand. He pulls himself up, smiling, grin parting at your chin. A nibble. "I'll lick." Where we go isn't important. Park. Palace. Penthouse. Home.
     Standing, his mouth still a moment from yours, his hands slipping in the folds of your trousers, Valan turns his head. Golden eyes on the shadows of the alley. "Allons, ami," Valan whispers, and he smiles to you, eyes on you, a hand lifted once more to your face. "Let's go home and fuck in peace."

     Edward smiles at the idea, nodding deliberately. He runs his hand through his hair, sending spools of water down the back of his neck. It trails down his shoulders, allowing Edward to wipe his eyes.
     "That's the second-best idea you've had tonight," Edward confirms, pulling at his pants. He won't button them, but they are zipped up enough to make it around the car.
     Moving to the passenger's side, he presses the button in his pocket, unlocking it. Edward opens the door and stands aside, letting you get inside.

     There is a grin. Broad. Warm. Full of delightful evil. Valan Montague captures your mouth once more in broad public evening. The kiss is an open-mouthed roll of his tongue, a lilt around your own. Your tongue briefly captured, briefly suckled, released with a grin and only as he sinks wetly into the Spyder's bucket seat.
     Golden eyes sparkle in a wink.
     Reflected in the glass...
     The peeling off of a jacket... the shirt left on and open. The crooking of his finger. You can hear his laughter. Smooth and dancing like flame. Calling...
     Venez...
     Venez a moi...
     He settles in the seat. He becomes one with the sleek car you drive. He scoots the seat back, to allow for his legs. To allow for the space he will need to bend over your lap...

     After closing your door, Edward moves around the rear of the Spyder again, soon opening the driver's side and tossing himself within. He shakes a little, keys slipping easily into the ignition. "Jesu, where'd that weather come from?" he wonders, seemingly not worried anymore about being followed. Fingers reach over and turn on the heater, and he steps on the clutch, turning the Spyder on with a droning rumble.
     "It's cold rain too," he whispers, adjusting himself before deciding to peel out of the slot. "It's gonna be a stormer all night," he predicts, letting the clutch go as he pulls the car out, lights coming on.
     Only then does he look over at you, shaking his head. "I'd say we'd be sick tomorrow, if we could." Eyes fall to see the chain around your stomach. "Did I buy that?" he asks, laughing a little. At least I know what I like.

     Fingers trail over the pair of belly chains -- one, liquid silver... the other, a string of semi-precious stones, the same color as his eyes. They glint and ripple beneath his fingers, and Valan smiles. "You bought them both," you know you did. "You like to watch them sparkle as I move on you," that finger lifts from the belly chains to you. He leans in, the finger pressing at your mouth.
     "I never did like the rain," Valan breathes and, chuckling, he sits up, though his seat is lain back as far as it may go, and he traces your ear with the flick of his tongue. He has become so... serpentine. Tempting. Coiling. Sensualized.
     "Let me know if it will be too distracting for you to drive... hmm... did any of the little girls you used to fuck go down on you while you were driving?" He rarely asks about your Sex Life B.V. (before Valan), but he has seen your 'little black book'. He knows it was... how shall we say...
     Extensive...
     Valan smiles, tilting his head, his mouth finding your neck. And the yellow-green gems and the silver chain around his waist sparkle, little treasures on tight form.

     Edward's grin is slanted, as much blush as total confession. Of course he bought them. Of course, they drive the Vicomte any way you want him.
     He murmurs something to himself in an older French dialect. Something of Blois. Something he thinks you won't understand. Calling himself Christophe, as if chastising himself as one of his parents would have.
     "Do you really want to know?" he asks, eyes struggling to stay open. "Or are you attempting to be naughty?" Terribly English that. "Because, if you are, you're effective." Shocking to me, but effective.

     He knows it's French. But it is old. Not as ...strange as William's dialect... for you spoke the d'Oiel, did you not? Blois was of the northern courts of France, a French family. They spoke the language of the court. You are going Medieval on me. It makes Valan chuckle. Christophe he could understand...
     "Of course I want to know," his voice is at your ear, his hand is snaking its way into your lap, pulling the flaps of trousers apart again. "I can almost imagine such a thing. I can almost smell the Chanel..."
     His hand slips along the flat of your stomach, where it conjoins between hips and becomes groin. Valan smiles at your ear as his fingers find you. And coax you. "And if I am effective, then I am not attempting, mais oui, I am doing...hmmm.. tell me, I will listen while I lick. I am a child of the 20th Century. I can multi-task, mon Eduard..."

     Always of this century. He thought he understood it, but then you arrived. Edward's brow lifts at the correction and the insolent suggestion that you are far more aware and capable than your predecessor.
     A Brujah challenged by a Brujah. A clan where childer do topple their sires. Freedom means loosening the reigns of control...
     He nods, preparing to answer your question. Outside the car's windows, the world is wet and dark, punctuated by the glaring colored neon of London. "Let's say," he looks down, "...that this is not new, no. They, on the other hand, talked far less than you, ami," Edward's face stern as he looks out into the pouring rain.
     "So, then," since you wish to shock me so much, "...how are you going to make this more interesting?" If you like challenges of your skills.

     His next exhale moves against your stomach. The neon of London lost to him, and any sights past the window. Or of you, above the waist. The curl of his tongue, the tongue that trills the Rs of your common language, teases against the cleft of your crown, then the flat of it moves in a brush. "I am sure the little things climbed onto your lap as well," Valan smiles against the shaft, then covers it, swallowing, mouth seizing, squeezing, his tongue swirling deeply, then lightly as he lifts his head away. "I would hate to bore you with that. You deserve something more ...clever, ami."
     His finger circles around the crown, pleasured circles haphazard in thought, following a vein downward, then upward. "I am sure it would not interest you if I were to climb upon your lap. Hmmm... non. You have been there, and you have done that thing. Oui..." There's a thoughtful hum that follows. And surrounds you, vibrating in the sudden warmth of his mouth.
     Valan smiles at the crown of your length, a brush of full lips, a light nibble. The breath of his words caressing, "You could let me drive while you fucked me. That would be new. And I doubt you ever let your little playthings drive your car, fucked or not..."
     He SO knows you. How does he know you so well...
     "I love you, Christophe Phillipe Eduard Meurelle," Valan whispers, and he sinks on you again, his mouth squeezing, clasping, suckling, and within his mouth the constant lilting of his tongue against and around you. A grip within a grip.
     And maybe this has been done for you before, in this way and even in this car. But never by the man who loves you...

     He doesn't quite answer you -- at least not in any verbal way. Edward's body relaxes in his leather seat, one hand at the wheel. The leather creaks at his settling weight, and a rush of a sigh pushes across his lips. His thighs tighten, but the car also rolls to a stop at a light.
     Can you feel him, Valan? His hand lightly touching the gold of your hair, the barely audible intake and exhalation of air that falls in the rhythm of your motions. That is how he expresses his desire. It ripples through him, your every touch. Edward closes his eyes for a moment, letting his head fall back against the headrest. His palm, which hovered above, now comes to rest in the golden bloom of your hair.
     The rain comes down harder, tap-tapping on the taut vinyl roof of the Spyder. Traffic roars loudly here...at some intersection. A major one on the way home. Are you as far as Kensington? No, not possible, not so fast. Downtown, perhaps, city central. Glastonbury or Haymarket...
     "Valan..." Edward moans, voice throaty, almost-defeated. What was shallow, now sounds like the press of a bellows. Of course, no one drives his vehicles. No one has done what you've proposed. Of course, he wants it. Whatever it is. If you offer, he will take...a snatch before you can change your mind.

     It's quite dangerous, really. What he's proposing could get you both rather painfully injured, even killed. For there's only one way you could really manage it -- and it would take all of your vampiric agility and all of his flexibility. He would have to climb into your lap, you would have to be deep inside of him and held there. It's the motion of the shifting of the gears and the working of the accelerator, break and clutch that would drive the pleasure on.
     And amid this all, he and you would have to keep your eyes on the road...
     In the rain...
     A head or two turns at the intersection. In the lights of traffic, a nearby woman caught the sight of a bobbing head. She turned quickly away, but there's no mistaking how your evening's going. Smashingly well, she'd say...
     The warmth and the pressure, the gliding of his mouth slips away and Valan sits up, a smile upon his mouth, drifting across the blush of it there. "I have a better idea," he whispers at your ear, smiling there, green-gold eyes looking into sable from where he is.
     His hand replaces his mouth -- it's no real substitution, what could be better than his mouth? -- but he gives you no rest. The touching, constant. His fingers grasping, gliding, goading. Clasping, cupping.
     What is this in him? Blossoming darkly, this crafting of pleasure. His fingers, his mouth -- whether it moves around your member or brushes at your ear -- his eyes, even his laughter. They incite. They inspire. They encourage. And he is learning to play with it. These little ... gifts he is learning.
     His hand clasps again. "When you fill me, Eduard, there is nothing like it in the world," ah... Sympathetic Fucking. The clasp of his hand around you, the motion of it, the warmth of it, the glide of it, feels as if you are within him. "It is all I want to do. To be taken by you. To feel your strength and your power. To drink your blood. To have you drain me. To feel...you want to drain me. When I leave the house, it is only so that you will find me..."
     He likes to be hunted...the thrill of the chase...

     The release from your lips lets Edward compose himself. The light has turned green, and as he listens to you, watches you, he realizes that perhaps he should hit the accelerator.
     Well, you and the honking horns.
     "Valan..." Edward whispers, he trying to see ahead to the road before you and trying to find words, "...it..."
     He shakes his head instead. Lips part as he breathes, eyes as watery as the glass ahead of him. Edward swallows, his jaw setting and brown eyes fluttering in a clearing blink.
     Suddenly, the Spyder swerves; Edward's hands twist the wheel; and the car comes to a halt at a kerb at the side of the road.
     Beneath you both, the Spyder's engine rumbles, and the rain continues to fall in sheets.

     Clarity...
     A single drop of awareness in a great, dark, deep ocean. And yet, such a small thing as your watery eyes, causes that ocean of him to ripple. Valan blinks, and his hand frees you. Valan settles back a little, giving his shoulder to the bucket seat, half turned to you.
     "Ami," his voice is soft, but reverberates within the closed confines of the Spyder. There is concern. And he looks to you as if waking. "Something is wrong..." Was it something I said?
     With a mouth like his? Could it be? Valan tilts his head. Past golden hair, he looks to you.

     "Nothing is wrong," Edward says in your native tongue. You release him and Edward lets the car out of gear, hand remaining on the gearshifter. His other hand touches the exposed skin at his stomach. The water in his eyes is not of tears. It is from intensity. Emotion manifest. Edward's hand leaves his stomach and he looks down at it, closing his fingers into a fist.
     Edward stills, cocking his head, listening. How the world sounds. The rain. His fist opens flat, landing on his thigh.
     Only then does his sable gaze turn to you, looking wondrously. Edward looks on fascinatedly at your hair, the gems around your neck. His eyes draw slowly along you where he can see.

     His hand lands upon your hand and fingers slip between your own. Skin, sliding. Valan leans in, his other hand lifting, back of his fingers finding your cheek. The rain is falling in sheets. Let it. He stares openly.
     Boldly.
     His skin is a pale-cream. In it, his eyes are even more bright. Their citrine color unnatural, beautiful. The line of his jaw. The beauty mark now visible to the right of his mouth -- a tan once hid it from view.
     Valan lowers his hand, and with it unfastens the silk shirt. He squirms out if it, twisting out of the dark and the red. Since he has known you, he has not been able to keep his clothes on around you. You set a fire in him. And he... draws that same fire out of you...
     His silk trousers are the next to go. Unfastened, unhooked, unzipped. And his hand clasps around his own length, his pants spilling around lifting hips. And the belly chains sparkle against his skin. Citrine and silver. Valan smiles, slightly but deeply.
     All of this is yours, the expression says. The lifting of golden brows. The settling into the bucket seats, his pants around his thighs. "...When I was dancing... I tried to ...call you to me. If I thought... hard enough about you, about being moved by your hands, controlled by them, I thought you would be able to follow that desire and find me. And you did." He is not surprised. "I thought about how much I love you, how much I wanted to be around you. To hear you right beside me... like now... breathing deeply. They way you... fill a space." He half-closes his eyes, tilting his head back, rolling it against the headrest. "Ami... ami... what you make me feel.. it is so powerful..."
     Like his touch on you, yes?

     You speak, but his eyes follow your hands and body. A snake so charmed is stunned into following the tones of the flute. Edward stares at your hands and the tailored pants at your thighs.
     So unreal, all of it. My life, my dream, my reality, my...Valan. And I can do whatever I want to him. And he...he will do whatever I want him to do to me. Every inch of you is perfect. Perfect! As if God himself wished me to know the heights of a divine wish fulfilled. He must. He must. Why would he send you to me, to make me like this?
     Hands reach for yours, a sudden thrust into the moment.
     Not there!
     "...here..."
     The words are a thought that slips from Edward's mouth. He takes your wrist tightly, pulling it towards himself. Pulling you to him. Somehow, someway, the space between you must be removed.
     "Valan," he says again, this time more urgently. Do something! Do anything! Just...please...here and now...
     In the startled lunge, Edward rolls to his left, to where you are. Fingers clamp harder at your hand and wrist, and his mouth opens wildly, lewdly, onto your own.
     "You'll have me now..." Edward kisses, the grammar old and dialectic, "...now," he says again insistently, as there is no choice. You will know him and let him know you, as he needs and wishes. No languishing in self-pleasure as a passenger. Edward's hand grabs your waist, pulling there as firmly as he does your wrist.

     Now...
     Now, to a vampire, contains all the milliseconds and moments held captured in the mundane ticking of time. Now. Five motions for every one mortal heartbeat. Time and space folded into quarters...
     His mouth opens to yours, tongue swirling, capturing, his mouth suckling. Taking. Giving in. And he rolls onto you, facing you, his pants slipping around his knees. A hand to the headrest. Another hand in your hair. Your head tilted, your mouth devoured. And not a single drop of blood is spilled.
     "Now," Valan whispers, suckling at your mouth. He smiles into the kiss -- kiss? It is orgiastic. Pulling, grasping, sliding, suckling. Wild. Sensual. And in it, ecstasy...
     There is a loud groan, a groan that presses against the glass and metal and falling rain. Pressing outward past the reality of the car, past the mortal reality of a busy London street. As he sends you deep within him. As he writhes there, fitting solidly. Canines distending, you feel the edges of them pressing, teasing at your flesh, acting as kindling to the fire of the kiss that follows. "Now...here..." he breathes. "Whatever you wish..."
     Anything...
     And he will grant it...
     Even as you give it to him...
     The slope and shape of the fencer's back is both strong and lithe. It is reflected back to you against the glass of the Spyder's windows. As the vision of you disappearing into him. The rounds of his rear end. The pressure of his thighs squeezing. The motion of his hips. Curling and uncurling.
     Here...
     Now...
     In the middle of The City. At Glastobury and Haymarket...

     The man beneath you gasps, Valan. A surprised, sharp-intake of breath, as if reacting to something that has never happened to him before. He groans too, trapped on all sides now, the ultimate restlessness overtaking him. He has to move, Edward does, to lift himself into you and feel himself plunging ever over and over, until that moment comes when he can move no longer.
     When part of himself will explode into you.
     When, for a split second, for a fraction of an instant, he is no one...
     ...no where...
     ...and everywhere at the same time.
     Edward's head falls hard against the headrest this time, both hands splayed where you both are firmly fixed. His face looks almost pained, Valan, with sharp folds between his eyebrows and tiny lines at the corners of his eyes. The vampire needs no breath, but the mortal memory that still lives, demands the yank of expanding breath.
     "Whatever...I...wish..." Edward repeats in his daze. He does not realize the blissful smile that spills across his handsome features, the grunt of relief and happiness released at the thought. His shoulders bear much of the work, hands holding his lover open as much as bearing him upward and downward, backward and forward.
     He cannot last long like this. Already, dark hair becomes darker, brown eyes gleam. Where he parts his mouth to suck you in, fangs get in the way of his swirling tongue. When stops kissing, it is only to regain himself, to bear his throat to you as his eyes close to face the Spyder's top. There, in the darkness, he begs that you and God should both free him, calling both names as a dual divinity.

     Like a drop of blood in golden oil...
     Slow and spreading, the desire within him. Coiling like dark cloud. Stark. Beautiful. And his mouth pulls against your skin, from chin to throat. And vipers, curving, long. He lets you feel them...
     I Am Here...
     Life...
     Death...
     Blood...
     And, We, together...
     There is a drawing, deep within you, a stirring that follows the languid drag of his vipers against your throat. This, in apposition to the quick rise and fall of his hips, the intense circling. He murmurs your name against your throat. He impales himself on you.
     And finally, Valan clasps you with his arms, clasps you with soft, warm-cool mouth. Clasps you with the cutting slip of vipers into your flesh.
     It is like lightning. Flashing. Valan squirms upon your lap, squeezing you, clasping and releasing. Orgasm, real and living. Climax, surreal and amazing. Like a drug.... his fangs the needles pressed to your veins. He has your blood... and yet it is... ecstasy that is injected.

     "...ah, Valan, oh, oui..."
     "...l'oui ne s'arrtent pas..."
     "...montrez-moi...montrez-moi..."
     His hands that held and directed the rise and plunge release, curling into boxer's fists at your hips. Edward's back arches, thrusting his expanded chest into your own. Only the back of his head touches the seat, and his hips vault upwards, holding the position for an instant. Like a breath, his body suddenly laxes, but not for long...almost immediately his hips vault forward again...and again.
     A thud reverberates through the Spyder's door. The back of Edward's hand slams into it once...twice...a third time with the spasm of his hips, and what was bliss now turns into pained shuddering, a fire blazing in his groin that barrels through his cock, and tensing muscles that are as inflexible as steel.
     It aches like hell.
     And Edward's never...never...known anything as spillingly fulfilling as this.
     Not war, not combat, not riding, not suffering pain to see a goal achieved. Not winning. Nothing. Nothing is like this.
     Nothing is like what you have brought to him.
     And no one is like you.
     No one compares.
     Edward groans loudly in ecstatic agony, enveloped and brilliant in the divine bliss you have drawn from him. His body is alive in sudden dampness and heat, the sweat visible suddenly at his skin. Despite your fangs deep within him, he tries to turn his head left and right, trying to breathe, trying to thrust, trying to fill the space inside of you with the fullness and hardness of himself.
     Is this what you said it would be like, Maria? When you cursed me and told me that a night would come when I would not be the victor? When I would be repaid, in kind, for my cruelty to you and to others? I did not forsake you, Maria...it was simply that I did not love you. Nothing more. Not in that way.
     And in truth, you did not love me either.
     I was a prize to show the cloistered world and the court of perfection. I do not despise this...such is the way of the world. But I did not give my heart to it. You said that I did not have one, not like the other men. I even agreed and laughed. But I gave myself to dancing, to fighting, to things that used every sinew of my body. Happiness came in perfect action, Maria. That is where I found myself.
     And now, I have found the last action in which I should find perfection. A place that God has formed for me to send my body, my heart, my mind. A place where I cannot be touched, save by one, the one he has sent to make sure that I am honest, that I am worthy to feel His presence move through me. He will make sure, that in those moments, I am not a liar, that I am true, as ever true for him as I appear.
     And only he will know me then as He knows me. As no other.
     Not even you, Maria. You will never know me like this. No one ever will.
     And he and I shall take this to our deaths, known only by and in the Divine...

     Blood spills...
     Little rivulets that become like separate tongues, blood blending with sweat. The small confines of the Spyder made smaller. Like the collapse of the universe into a single pea. And there is sudden clarity. Sudden focus. Like becoming the board and feeling the split of it even before your hand makes contact with it. To know the awesome power of lightning -- the moment of ionization itself, before the sky cracks open.
     His mouth is full of you, his vipers retract in a bloody gasp, and he is filled with you, in clouds. Blossoming. Seeping. Spreading. He has never shot heroin. But he imagines it feels something like this...
     He becomes a vessel, filled by you utterly. Where you thrust, his body opened lewdly to receive you. Your blood, seeping in every available space, occupying his molecules and atoms...
     Valan's breath washes against you, warmed by your blood. The tip of his bloodied tongue flicks outward, serpentine, capturing the drops that in his... newness... and in his intensity spilled free. A curl and coil of his tongue along your throat, leaving no evidence. The taste of You upon your own lips as he flicks his tongue in a brush against your mouth, then in a slow and swirling plunge.
     His body is an electric tremble. The very current that binds the two of you together, and perhaps Life itself. It ripples through him and over him. Its origin found where you are joined, your cock buried in him to the root.
     The kiss is slow and writhing, exploring and savoring. And then, with a last flick of the tip of his tongue, Valan lies back. A vampire's agility. In three movements, and without dislodging you, he is lying back, his back against the steering wheel, his legs on either side of your Spyder's driver's side seat, one leg resting on the console. Yes, you are going to drive home this way...
     But not yet...
     Lights and colors flicker over you both as cars and traffic pass you by. No doubt some have caught the show in passing glimpses. But now, the colors wash over you like electric paint. Valan smiles to you, a smooth curl and a warm curl, a dazed spread and pleasured. His mouth parts, but he does not speak. His hands move to his own groin, cupping himself, stroking not so much for his pleasure as for yours.
     "How will we get home," the disembodied voice whispers. The fingers move against his skin, lit red and yellow and green in the passing intervals of traffic and time.
     A fair question. At least the rain has stopped...

     He is not thinking of home. Edward's blood trickles at the back of hand as well as his chest. The world has instantly become smaller, though Edward has not fully descended from celestial heights. He licks the sweat and blood from his mouth, panting furiously. His chest expands and collapses in rapid succession, and his fingers open to grasp your hips and roll you gently upon his lap.
     "Like before," he answers beneath pants. In car, how else? But he doesn't want to explain it. Too much like work. Edward inhales deeply again, letting his stomach deflate with his chest. Fingers touch and help the gentle strokes of your hand, and Edward simply sits and breathes, his eyes still closed.

     And not soon...
     The traffic will die away into very early morning...
     The sky will go from blue-black to indigo to the first stages of azure and cobalt...
     Time will fly...
     Tempus fugit...
     ...In streams of colors, from traffic lights to dawn. The blur of humanity returning from late-night haunts. The spattering of rain. It will happen. Time will move. You will still be in him.
     ...Two fleshy blurs will shift and move through a veil of rain streaked and dotted glass. A thousand upon a thousand prisms, each droplet of rain containing this image. Torn silk. Joined bodies. Lifted legs, hooked over shoulders and bucket seat...

Posted by rowan at November 01, 2003 06:23 PM