#if anything i feel lestat is going to turn out to be even worse than louis perceived him when we hear people who are not in love w him lol
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Woah, I must have missed something, why are people jumping down your throat?
From what I can gather at this point, it seems like they feel like anyone who likes Anne Rice herself and the books better than the show=automatically racist. Even if they ALSO enjoy the show and support the race change of the characters and all the racial conversation the show incorporated into its adaptation.
Personally, I think it does a disservice to the fandom to assume that the only reason one could like the books over the show is because of racist reasons. Anne's books speak to so many people in so many ways, especially those who have ever felt like outcasts or apart from mainstream society, and many fans have extremely personal connections to the books for a huge variety of reasons.
Like I said in my videos, I was excited and intrigued to see this AU version of the story (I love AUs!) but my complaints with the writing of the episodes mostly came back to when the show was trying to stick TOO MUCH to the books.... Because the show was really making its own thing with its own versions of the characters and all these new ideas, but then suddenly it would shove in a scene/dialogue straight out of the books which would contradict or make no sense with everything else the show had already worked to set up with the new direction it was taking itself.
Critiquing sloppy/weak writing does not mean I or any other fan who feels the same is doing it for racist reasons. Much of my criticism was about how the scripts changed Lestat's character to make him so much worse than he was in the books (which would be fine, it's their story, whatever--except the show runners told us over and over again that the whole reason Louis was doing a second interview was so that this time we could see the real version of Lestat and how Louis felt about him instead of the mean, insulting version he gave in the first interview). There was a lot promised by the showrunners about what their adaptation would be like that was not delivered ("closer to the books than the 1994 movie," "true to the spirit of Anne Rice" etc). The entire reason I made my videos was to evaluate how well the show measured up to those promises.
Worse than making Lestat so irredeemable, the way the first season ended in a way that made so many fans believe that Louis might have been lying about everything didn't sit well with me at all--it's a harmful stereotype to make the black man a liar, especially when it comes to abuse. I know the "the DV didn't actually happen and black Louis was lying or mind controlled by his evil non-white boyfriend" became a running fan theory, but I personally don't believe it one bit. But I can see why so many fans do--again, sloppy/weak writing on the show's part.
Like I said in my video, the only thing Louis actually lied about in ep7 (and he was lying to himself, not deliberately lying to Daniel) was the depth of his love for Lestat at the end. And that's entirely canon for Louis to deceive himself about--admitting how much he truly loves Lestat always came hard for him. I personally don't think it's going to turn out that anything Louis told us in season 1 was a lie. I think the show would have revealed that at the end of the season, not waited another season (or two or three) to reveal that. And the theme of season 2's promotional material has all been about memory, not honesty. I don't think Louis could mistakenly remember getting dropped from a mile in the sky and the months/years of recovery afterward, so I personally think all those memories were real.
The first three episodes of season 1 made Louis's struggle with race its primary focus, and the series description began with how Louis was chafing at society as a black man. But then from episode 4 on, the focus of the show shifted entirely. Obviously racism still existed in Louis's world, but the show pushed it all entirely to the background with little things, like segregation on the bus, and we saw the characters quietly taking in stride, not making any plot out of it. Suddenly all of Louis's character-driving moments weren't about that anymore and we were in a whole new story, when his battle against racism had been the entire theme of the first three episodes. This was something I noticed and pointed out in my videos--I didn't say it was a bad thing (after all, seeing people be racist to Louis on screen, while "realistic," isn't exactly fun for anyone, and we'd already seen plenty), but I did think the sudden dramatic shift in story focus weakened the show's themes and throughline.
Again this comes down to writing, and the premise/script was written by white people. I think they could have done much better with much more non-white involvement on the writing level. I think the show could have been stronger with some more care taken to create consistency and smoother transitions between episodes (like when they take Claudia out to feed in episode 4, suddenly all the race riots are gone, when everything was on fire 2 hours ago). It's common for shows to have each episode written by a different person, even though they all collaborate in a writer's room, but to me it felt like the show lacked efficient script supervision to make sure all the scripts flowed into each other without any contradictions or inconsistency.
When I talked about these things in my videos, when I said I would have liked the show to do better with the way it missed the mark sometimes in handling racial aspects (even though other parts I commended as being great), and the way I critiqued the inconsistencies and contradictions, some people took that to mean I hated the show entirely. The point of my videos was to see how well the show measured up to Rolin Jones's promises that it was so faithful and respectful to the spirit of the books and that all he wanted to do was honor Anne's work. I know the books back and forth, enjoy having a ND hyperfixation that gives me near-encyclopedic knowledge of the texts and Anne as an author. So people ask me questions about them all the time, especially in comparison to the adaptations. Who better to make videos evaluating how well the show measured up to RJ's promises and claims of faithfulness? But some people took me comparing the show to the books to mean I thought it was a bad thing that they weren't the same, and I hated the show entirely for not being the same as Anne wrote it, and therefore that meant I (and anyone else who loves the books) was racist 🤷
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I feel like many people have a fundamental misconception of what unreliable narrator means. It's simply a narrative vehicle not a character flaw or a sign that the character is a bad person. There are also many different types of unreliable narrators in fiction. Being an unreliable narrator doesn't necessarily mean that the character is 'wrong', it definitely doesn't mean that they're wrong about everything even if some aspects in their story are inaccurate, and only some unreliable narrators actively and consciously lie. Stories that have unreliable narrators also tend to deal with perception and memory and they often don't even have one objective truth, just different versions. It reflects real life where we know human memory is highly unreliable and vague and people can interpret same events very differently
#the way some people (usually lestat fans lol) talk about louis being an unreliable narrator has frustrated me#i still insist louis' unreliableness is mostly subtle (passing quickly over things he doesn't want to think about#presenting things that factually happened in a way he can build a story that makes sense to him#not knowing what lestat is thinking and feeling so interpreting him differently than lestat himself probably would)#rather than he's telling something that didn't really happen or is under armand's mind control or something#like for example i think it's been made very clear all the abuse really happened they're not gonna suddenly pull the rug from under it#if anything i feel lestat is going to turn out to be even worse than louis perceived him when we hear people who are not in love w him lol#keanu.txt
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okay so my brain apparently wants to focus solely on a shit post instead of outlining this fic, working on my novel, or finishing my substack post but here we go because my brain worms have decided to fixate on the boys playing with guns. cool.
𝖇𝖆𝖓𝖌 𝖇𝖆𝖓𝖌 𝖒𝖞 𝖇𝖆𝖇𝖞 𝖘𝖍𝖔𝖙 𝖒𝖊 𝖉𝖔𝖜𝖓
but i just keep picturing armand deciding his latest fixation is now guns. pistols, specifically, and he's got quite a lovely collection going on. he probably finds it really meditative to take them apart and restore them, the ones that are worse for wear.
and so there are just a bunch of fucking hand guns out on a table when lestat comes over. some are already restored, some are being worked on. armand has a thin sheen of blood sweat coating his forehead from sheer concentration alone--the goal is always, for him, to make the gun operable but not to damage it in any way and never accidentally strip any of the patina off, which can lower the value of the gun drastically.
they're fussing at each other. it's mostly playful and the funniest part about this whole debacle is that it's not even the worst fight they've ever had. it's not even ugly for the forms their spats take in the modern era.
but lestat, as always, is feeling cheeky and in mock offense scoops a gun off the table and aims it squarely at armand's chest--laughing at the momentary look of shocked outrage that crosses his face.
"knock it off, lestat." armand scowls, picking up one of his many small tools to resume work on the pistol currently in his hands.
"why? scared?" he's smiling but the truth is, he is the one that is scared. something happened when he picked up the pistol--his heart beginning to trip over itself. the last time he pointed a gun at something, it mattered, it meant something. he's not had much reason to point a gun at anything since his turning but some near-human part of him (or an echo of his former humanity) is screaming and thrashing like a beast inside of him.
"please." armand rolls his eyes, spitting the word out as though the thought of ever being scared of lestat is the stupidest thing he can imagine. he doesn't even have the decency to look up to mock him, just keeps running a small, soft bottle brush inside the barrel of the gun in his hand.
anger momentarily flares in lestat and he's shocked to find his finger tightening on the trigger a fraction before he eases off the pressure.
"i could, you know." lestat sniffs haughtily. "i could shoot you."
"oh, and what a tragedy that would be." armand sounds bored of him already. he's hold a gun on the little shit and he's bored. "please, sir," he mocks, voice dripping sarcasm, "don't kill me. i'm too young to die!"
they both flinch when the gun goes off in lestat's hand. and while he doesn't remember telling his brain to pull the trigger he does recall the split second decision he made to aim just over armand's shoulder--bullet colliding with something breakable behind him. lestat doesn't know what he's just atomized into a fine powder that hangs in the air but armand doesn't even seem to need to turn to figure it out, chair legs scraping loudly over the floor as he rises to his feet like a VHS skipping --and isn't that an old reference! one he doubts his son would understand. but don't worry, viktor, i'm full of outdated references that would boggle the mind--
logically he cannot work out which he's aware of first--the sound of the shot or the bullet connecting with his shoulder. do bullets travel faster than the speed of sound? modern ones certainly, but these hunks of rust?
"--my damned Yongzheng vase!" armand is saying when he tunes back into what's being screamed at him.
it ultimately doesn't matter--the shot won't kill him but it certainly hurts and so that's the only bit of the tirade he catches before his attention is squarely on his shoulder and the searing pain radiating out from it, down his bicep and into his back.
"would you rather i had hit you?" lestat hisses through his teeth. his senses are a heady mixture of hot pain, the coppery-sweet smell of his blood, and the sensation of his body starting to knit itself together.
"yes!" it's one of the most ridiculous things lestat has heard in a minute but the seriousness with which its said sets him off into a fit of laughter again--guffawing harder and the look of irritation on aramnd's face.
"fine!" he proclaims between giggles, "have this, then."
he's not truly aiming when he squeezes the trigger this time, just points it vaguely at armand's form and fires. it grazes his side, sliding between the barely-there hollow between ribs. lestat's not certain if the bullet has even had time to settle into the wall behind armand before he's being shot at again--this time the bullet connecting with his hip.
it's worse than before, his leg buckling so that he must catch himself on the table before him. the pain is bad enough but his heightened senses means he can acutely hear the bone chipping and splintering where armand's shot has caught his pelvis.
his vision is red, the roaring in his head drowning out whatever thoughts he's having. whether he thinks to shoot again is lost on even him, his brain only coming on line quick enough to watch a large red stain spread stickily over the torso of armand's shirt, hearing himself finish whatever he was saying with a resounding, "--my fucking hip!"
it happens too quickly--he thinks perhaps he's feeling that tingling under his skin that feels so much like a million ants marching to duty to weave together the fibers of his muscle, cement his bone back in place. or it is merely the sensation of blood leaking carelessly from his body, trickling over his skin. he doesn't have time to puzzle it out before the gun goes off in armand's hand again.
the last thing he feels before momentary night engulfs him is the sensation--and sound, my god the sound!--of his lower jaw cracking, the right side parting from his face entirely. the indignity of feeling his mandible swinging like a barn door in a storm, marring the perfect beauty of his face.
the next thing he knows, he's staring up into the disapproving face of marius, shoving his open wrist into the red-gape of writhing pain where lestat's mouth used to be.
#i should be doing anything else#but i wrote this instead#here#have some#armand x lestat#gun play because why not
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and so i have been thinking thoughts...
elicited from the new trailer. copy and pasted from my discord cause i do all my thinkin there n_n;;
claudia + louis
when i think back to the book and the movie claudia was obviously an extremely important turning point in louis' life but it never felt like she was... the center of it you know? despite the fact that she was that glue that kept louis tethered to anything human in him.
but the book felt like he was just telling his story to be a. Sad pathetic man thing for the sake of it. cause he had no purpose to exist alone. to exist without claudia or lestat (or armand but their dynamic is. different and dicier) but after claudia is killed something about her presence and the years she spent with louis while alive felt... shrugged off in a way? and its likely because she didn't really have much of an identity outside of him and lestat which is understandable because she was significantly more vulnerable in the book than in the show, so she lacked that autonomy to have that choice to exist outside of them.
and when madeleine was brought into the picture for her to get that autonomy it was unfortunately already too late...
~~[mild separation of thoughts because i left to take a shower]~~
theres a few things i want to mention. just thoughts in my head. claudia dies fighting HARD for her autonomy as a person and a vampire. in comparison to louis who in all honesty has (DEBATABLY) lived without a shred of having his own autonomy. with lestat, lestats love (as claudia very smartly puts it) keeps him in a box. louis is financially dependent on him as a black man in the jim crow era once he loses the azalea, hes cut off from his family, he has NO ONE.
the brief time of just him and claudia is a good moment in time for both of them , trying to discover vampiric history together(tho in the show it looks like before they get to paris its gonna be absolute dogshit in comparison to the book), but in louis' case i feel like its guided by guilt and some form of obligation, because if he didnt go with claudia–who was already set to do this traveling alone before lestat dragged her back–where WOULD he have gone? stayed in new orleans with lestat in the dump just waiting to crawl out? i think he would sooner kill himself if he was left alone like that.
with armand…………… loumand is definitely better than loustat in extremely complex ways that i cant put into words right now but simultaneously even worse because of HOW armand preys on louis. there is absolutely love between them and i wont deny it but armand is so INSANELY dependent on the love of others to give meaning to his existence that he leverages louis' weaknesses and frailities to ensure that they will spend an eternity together. like he was plotting from the second he met louis and claudia. he kills claudia and madeleine, which then makes louis kill all the other vampires of the coven, so that there is no one left, NO ONE for louis to be able to turn to for solace.
i think that him remembering what actually happened to him up until the present is so important to him because he'll finally be able to realize that he hasnt been allowed to properly exist for himself the entire duration of him being a vampire. and maybe he can decide what he wants to do, for himself.
devil's minion... (in the present)
[these thoughts are referring to a tweet that wonders if armand is going to end up alone in the end. note: i am not versed in devil's minion lore. i'm getting there but as of this post i have not reached it]
saw this [the tweet] and audibly exclaimed GOOD
i love armand but the guy is genuinely evil and has wronged every single character hes come across including lestat which i find is hard to do
I know ppl are excited for armandaniel and devils minion but Im not..going to lie ive been REALLY skeptical of it and how it would be explored in the context of the show without severely wronging louis and doing him EXTREMELY dirty.
people are allowed to like it in the bubble of the books but theres a really big shift in dynamic for the show in the fact that ... armand has definitely done... Something to daniel and louis, of what i cant say. but with the way that things are going, an ending in which daniel sides with armand after finding out exactly what armand did to louis and claudia in paris does NOT sit well with me?
and i love loumand but I am so uneasy about the inevitable breakup in regards to whats gonna happen AFTER it. I feel like daniel now is wise enough to not chase after a guy who is diabolically selfish and broken and leave louis behind to live out the vampire fantasy dreams of his youth. and in the trailer too im getting. Loudaniel vibes in terms of reconciling their past with the previous interview. And Heres my theory for Devils minion BUT ITS LOUDANIEL INSTEAD OF ARMANDANIEL (1/689)
#iwtv show#iwtv book#I usually post stuff under the impression that no one is going to gaf about anything i say but if you do I demand that you be nice to me
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Okay. So I keep reading complaints about the 1st episode and not keeping to the themes of the books. But, the show DOES keep to the themes, the causes, the whys, maybe even better than the book.
Louis feels so distraught after Paul's death, for example, that he goes to confession after his funeral. Lestat takes blatant advantage of this vulnerable moment in which Louis feels responsible for Paul dying. His mother would have rather Louis killed him than Paul killing himself. (Because he can't be buried in hallow ground now. And it's a grievous sin to commit suicide.) Then his mother just straight up rejects him. He feels like complete shit. I would want to die too. Oh, and then Lestat is fucking with him at the same time, driving Louis up the fuckin walls.
Right after Louis' been rejected and feels even more cast out, and unloved, and having lost his only other confidant (his brother), he resorts to material things. Drinking, whoring (or just talking in his case lol). Nope, can't do that because Lestat already thought of those things. The last place he can go is either home or the church.
In my personal opinion, Louis seems even more human at the moment of his being turned than the books. Y'all never felt fucked up that you'd do anything to take the pain away? Even if you knew it was bad? Even if it was offered by someone who was abusing you? Oh, it's even worse when they abuse you then later feel terrible and so shower you with love (personal experience dont ask). Talk about being confused af but still, that love feels like forgiveness and a haven.
Lestat is arguably even more fucked up in the tv show than the book. He is terrible. He presses all the right buttons. Maybe he doesn't even have complete control over his emotions and himself, he's so blinded by rage and love that he sees a vulnerable moment in Louis and pounces. He is desperate too (that does NOT justify his actions). It was his only moment.
There's like three different themes converging into one in just one episode. It's so complex and rich and I expect nothing less from IWTV
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what's your theory on modern-day loumand, the state/dynamic of their relationship? obvs we can't take the 'love of my life' thing at face value, something's off. it looks to me like armand's altering louis' mood at times, kinda mentally 'sedating' him when he gets agitated, and i buy the idea that he's altered key areas of louis' memory too, though not with bad intentions per se. I don't think louis is a prisoner or that he's being forced into the interview, but the vibe's still very off.
Hey nonny!
Ok, so... for that I need to expand on my thoughts a bit I think. Because imho it depends heavily on where we are in Modern Dubai.
So. Neither the Mayfair Witches, nor the Vampire Chronicles can do without the Talamasca (for a lot of reasons), and MF has already introduced Ciprien Grieve.
For that reason alone, and the fact that Rolin Jones has mentioned TtotBT, I think David has to be... somewhere. (In fact one of the servants was given an explicit shot and that actor would fit well with the description. Just... an idea though.)
We see Armand on the phone in the last episode, telling someone "not long now". I believe he refers to the interview, because most of what Louis may have wanted to tell is told (what Daniel now drags out of him may be a different story). Louis called the reason for the interview "truth and reconciliation" in episode 1... however that's probably only a part of it, and might not even refer to the interview itself. Season 2 will most certainly include some kind of... version (memory/reference/revival/resurrection) of the Devil's Minion (imho). And of course Paris, but there was this comment that season 2 would be a lot of "sitting and talking".
Back to David. David is a Candomble Priest in the books, and yes, he can conjure spirits, and use spells after turning. I don't think they actually need Merrick as a character for the story.
In the book Merrick Louis wants to see Claudia's ghost. I talked about it why I think it fits so well, but this setting also pays a lot into a mixed Trinity Gate / St. Elisabeths / post Rue Royale setup.
Because after Merrick, the Talamasca make Lestat, David, Louis (and Merrick) leave Rue Royale.
Now, if you only twinge that setting just a bit, and mix it with the hideaways Armand creates with Louis while they live together for a long time... voilà. Imho.
And that, in return, says a lot about their relationship.
Louis and Armand have... settled. Lestat is somewhere in a coma. David and Louis are nice to each other, but David could never be anything Louis really needs. (I think it's David Armand is on the phone with). Louis is suffering, still, always, tortured by everything that happened. Armand is very aware that Louis is suicidal (and he addresses that, in the show), and that is why he says to David that he thinks Louis will try soon.
The time with Armand has dampened the pain somewhat, but with everything that's happened in the meantime... it just doesn't go away.
Armand tries to alleviate the burden in his own... errr special way. Better to have Louis angry at Lestat than yearning, right. Better to feel the attempt to kill him was justified than not. Better to feel that he was right to escape. Better to feel that escaping feel good, than... not. Better to make Claudia seem cruel at times, than to make it hurt even worse than it already does. Better to make Louis calm down than let the pain break out.
I think there is a lot of love between Armand and Louis in Modern Dubai. I do think that Louis has forgiven Armand most of it (though he probably harbors some dark thoughts/feelings still)... there's one of Marius' paintings on the wall, there has been some kind of reconciliation, and so Louis got to know quite a lot as well, if only through the blood. The comment re the love of his life... that was for Daniel. Because Louis is trying to reconcile Armand and Daniel, imho.
And no, I don't think Louis is a prisoner either. He is hiding away, away from the world. He is withdrawing. Dictating his will, his testament.
:)
All this to say... I think Louis and Armand really care for each other a lot. Louis tries to reconcile Armand and Daniel, because he does intend to commit suicide, as Armand has hinted at. And Armand... actually tries to protect him. And doesn't quite know how.
#asks#thank you nonny#sorry for going off the rails a bit but I think it's all connected#iwtv#interview with the vampire#louis de pointe du lac#armand#daniel molloy#david talbot#talamasca#future season speculation#ask nalyra
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Thoughts on Interview with the Vampire - Book I of The Vampire Chronicles
“First considerations: I watched the tv show and then the movie and now I’m reading the books, i tried not to read the books because I wanted to enjoy the tv show without any expectations but I really couldn’t stop myself, so here I am. A lot of my thoughts are going to be comparisons with the movie and tv show probably.
Warning: This is long.
Part I:
“There was a tragedy...(...) It was my younger brother... He died.” - So the show is more faithful here than the movie and he didn’t have a wife and kid that died?
“Evil is always possible. And goodness is eternally difficult.” - No thoughts i just love this quote.
“You see, he [Lestat] wanted Pointe du Lac, my plantation.” - Interesting that Lestat isn’t rich here.
“From then on I experienced only increasing wonder.” - Episode titile?
“He [Lestat] had human problems, a blind father who did not know his son was a vampire and must not find out.” - Oh so this Lestat is a baby if his father is still alive.
“I had seen my becoming a vampire in two lights:(...) But the other light was my wish for self-destruction. My desire to be thoroughly damned.” - A totally normal character not at all fucked up.
“I refused to look at him [Lestat], to be spellbound by the sheer beauty of his appearance.” - Is he... you know.. *limp wrist gesture*
“He [Lestat] spoke my name to me softly, laughing. As I said, he was determined to have the plantation.” - I’m sure that’s all he wants.
“Yes, that is my name,” - Not me only realizing now Louis hasn’t said his name. We knew Lestat’s name before his, and we only find Louis’ name when Lestat says it 😭. Also I didn’t think this book was going to be an interview the entire time, I kinda expected us to go into Louis’ mind at some point like in Wuthering Heights, for example.
“his [Lestat’s] movement so graceful and so personal that at once it made me think of a lover.(...) he put his right arm around me and pulled me close to his chest.(...) he pressed his right fingers against my lips” - This entire section of Louis’ being turned is so intimate.
“I remember that the movement of his lips raised the hair all over my body, sent a shock of sensation through my body that was not unlike the pleasure of passion...” - Ahem
“I checked myself because I realized that the drum was my heart, and the second drum had been his.” - Oh this is directly from the book, I love this quote.
“Lestat was being a perfect idiot.” - 😭 Lestat’s such a bad teacher.
“You’ll have to bed down with me this morning.(...) The coffin struck such a chord of terror in me I think it absorbed all the capacity for terror I had left.” - This is where he draws the line.
“All my life I’d feared closed places.” - Well, thank you for reminding me I’m claustrophobic really hadn’t thought about the logistics of sleeping in a coffin for some reason.
“I lay face-down on him, utterly confused by my absence of dread and filled with a distaste for being so close to him, handsome and intriguing though he was.” - Yes, I’m sure what you’re feeling is distaste.
“The first thing which became apparent to me,(...) was that I did not like Lestat at all.” - I feel like I watched the movie 10 years ago and not two weeks ago, because I don’t remember anything anymore, did the Louis in the movie dislike Lestat?
“In my own inexperience I still thought of them as childlike savages barely domesticated by slavery.” - Well this worse than the movie which was already bad, I’m so glad the tv show changed things this entire plot line is so uncomfortable and this going to be my last comment on it. Even present Louis’ reflection on the past are not much better, so.
“Lestat bungled it with his characteristic lack of common sense.” “Lestat, had he any native intelligence,” - Damn Louis, drag him 😭
“[Lestat was] As boring as a mortal, as trivial and unhappy as a mortal,” - Fascinating that Louis thinks he’s more in tune with his vampire side than Lestat.
“He [Lestat] must guide me through the necessary lessons, if there were any more real lessons,” - I once again don’t remember he having this curiosity about being a vampire in any of the adaptations, that he wants Lestat teach him everything he knows.
“What I’d felt as a vampire was far too powerful to be wasted(...) It is like love,” - Humm
“Just provide for them [Louis’ mom and sister] and for my [Lestat’s] father,” - It’s so interesting that Lestat in this book has a relationship with his father when in the tv show he criticized Louis for still trying to have a relationship with his family. I mean the Lestat in the show is much older, but still.
“Being a vampire for him [Lestat] meant revenge. Revenge against life itself.” - I don’t have anything to comment, it’s just an interesting observation.
“You [Babette] can rule the plantation and you can save it.” - Louis Feminist King.
“It’s all right, father. You must rest easy. I [Lestat] hold nothing against you,” - I’m sad this didn’t happen in the tv show, and if it does happen Louis won’t be present.
“‘If I held something too close...’ And when the vampire said this his face darkened for an instant. He frowned,(...) ‘If I held something too close for you to ask about it, I would not bring it up in the first place,” - Ok Mr. Unreliable Narrator.
“I was thinking at that moment, wordlessly and rather deeply, how sublime friendship between Lestat and me might have been;(...) Lestat a brilliant pupil, a lover of books that had been burned. I knew only the Lestat who sneered at my library, called it a pile of dust, ridiculed relentlessly my reading, my meditations.” - How SUBLIME. Oh 🥺. This is the most... fondness... no, longing?idk that Louis has shown towards Lestat after calling him stupid in 5 different languages.
“I hated him and wanted to leave him; yet could I leave him?” - I wanna rewatch the movie because i swear I didn’t get this impression at all, Louis in the movie was way more passive for me, even in the tv show he was more passive than the book!Louis, who wants to leave Lestat and wants to know more about being a vampire.
“But I found her [Babette] more alluring than any woman I’d know in mortal life.” - So it’s her that’s alluring, or is it more her humanity? And his lack of? idk
“Yes, die. I wanted to die before. Now I wish to die. I saw it with such sweet clarity, such dead calm.” - 🥺
“‘You’re being morbid!’ Lestat said suddenly.” - Lestat 😭
“Is my very nature that of a devil?” - Episode title spotting! Also, I wonder if when I get to part II I can try guessing possible episode titles for season 2 of the show?
“we [Louis and Lestat] fought as we’d never fought before.(...) I was down on the floor then, and he was standing over me, his eyes cold, though his chest heaved.” - Hm, I remember seeing people that read the books criticizing episode 5 because Lestat would never do that and yet here they are fighting, it might not be as bad as in the tv show but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
“You chase after the phantoms of your former self.” - Episode title spotting!
“And in your romance with mortal life, you’re dead to your vampire nature!” - Ok, so Lestat disagrees with Louis’ perspective that he is more a vampire than Lestat is. Not that I’m surprised. And I agree with Lestat here idk what my man Louis was thinking.
“My vampire nature has been for me the greatest adventure of my life;” - Ok, so when he uses this frase he’s straight up lying 📝
“‘Vampires are killers,’ he [Lestat] said now. ‘Predators, Whose all-seeing eyes were meant to give them detachment.” - Wait, isn’t Louis that says this is the tv show? So he’s repeating Lestat’s words to him?
“and if you find one or more of them [vampires] together it will be for safety only, and one will be the slave of the other, the way you are of me.” - Oh, so this Lestat isn’t even pretending lmao.
“the killing of anything less than a human being brought nothing but a vague longing,(...) I was no vampire.” - So earlier when he said he was more of a vampire than Lestat he was lying to himself, noted.
“He was going to go away. But now he’s not. Because he wants to stay and take care of you [Claudia] and make you happy.” - This entire sequence is very much how i remember from the movie, but it’s interesting that earlier in the book present day Louis says Lestat would have killed him if he tried to leave, but we see that what he actually does is create a daughter so Louis won’t leave him.
“also fierce killer now capable of the ruthless pursuit of blood with all a child’s demanding.” - Episode title spotting!
“He [Lestat] did not have to be loved, but he would not be ignored;” - When was therapy invented? Asking for a friend.
“once he even flew at her, shouting that he would slap her, and I found myself in the wretched position of fighting him as I’d done years before she’d come to us.” - Don’t mind me, just collecting some receipts.
“Then, are you [Lestat] master of us all? You didn’t teach her [Claudia] that. Was she supposed to imbibe it from my quiet subservience?” - So much resentment packed in a small line.
“I felt it for you again, a vile unsupportable hunger for your hammering heart,” - Episode title spotting!
“Something in her [Claudia] was as akin to me as anything in her could have been. That thing in Lestat was the same. We could not bear to live alone! We needed our little company!(...) ‘Locked together in hatred,’” - biting something biting something biting something biting something biting something biting something biting something biting something biting something
“You loved me [Claudia] with your vampire nature.(...) I am your vampire self more than you are.” - Obsessed with everything about this.
“And I thought of what I always felt when I heard him [Lestat] coming, a vague anxiety, a vague need.” - Need to comb through everything this man says.
“At one point, I wanted to go to her [Claudia] and tell her we must abandon everything,(...) and live as we had before.” - Why Louis, tell me why?
“‘I wish you would play the music’ I said softly, unobtrusively, but as persuasively as possible. Sometimes this worked with Lestat. If I said something just right he found himself doing what I’d said. And now he did just that: with a little snarl, as if to say, ‘You fool’,” - Everything about this imagine is making me want to chew on glass.
“Don’t come, Claudia, I was thinking, feeling; go away from it before we’re all destroyed.” - 🤐
“‘You’re [Lestat] my father,’ she [Claudia] said. ‘I want to make peace with you. I want things to be as they were.’” - Oh I can’t think about them.
“I drew nearer, the table between us.” - Louis is so.......................... I need to shake him.
“Claudia! Don’t do this thing!” - Too late!! I’m shaking him.
“The thing lay still.” - Episode tittle spotting :(
“I went deeper and deeper in with Lestat’s remains, though why, I did not know.” - This man drives me insane.
“The numbness which had protected me since the carriage let the Rue Royale threatened to lift and leave me flayed suddenly, staring, thinking: This is Lestat.(...) I felt a pull suddenly, as if some force were urging me to go down with him, to descend into the dark water and never come back.” - The fact this man spends the entire book only saying bad things about Lestat and now he’s like this???? you drive me insane Louis!!!! He only showed that he cared a bit about Lestat after Claudia was already planning his murder.
“His coffin lay there, heaped with scarves and pieces of tapestry. I had the compulsion to open it. I had the wish to see him there.” - I honestly can’t believe him.
“‘I don’t want you [Claudia] near me. Sleep in that box you bought for yourself. Don’t come near me.’
‘I told you I was going to do it. I told you...’” - On Claudia’s side here, he changed his mind too late, she even told him he never found Lestat charming and he said nothing, is she supposed to read minds? I mean, is she? I don’t think so, right?
“I am not mortal, father, but immortal and damned, like angels put in hell by God.” - Episode title spotting. And that’s all of them I think. Also the fact that Louis is the one that brutalizes a priest in the book, and because he’s grieving Lestat.. anyway.
“I should have taught her something to prevail against her desire to kill Lestat. For my own sake, I should have done that.” - Ok, so he does know it’s his fault lmao
Final thoughts: I don’t have many, I’m enjoying it so far.
#interview with the vampire#vampire chronicles#iwtv thoughts#books#my post#im already reading the vampire lestat and this is still sitting on my dreafts#drafts#this is annoyingly about the tv show and movie#so if you only care about the book don't read this#also reading this again before posting louis is so insane#i'll have more thoughts on the last part
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the way the horror of very silly iwtv is sticking with me far more than these cabinet of curiosities eps that i was looking forward to as Real Horror lol.
The moment where Antoinette is
first this person whose death is very coldly demanded as a proof of loyalty by the supposedly ~compassionate person (a nice start of showing Louis' supposed empathy is often more about his own comfort), who is then revealed alive-- which both is a blow (because lestat is lying again-- somehow worse than before, and if he's lying about that, is he going to break his promises about violence as easily?) and a relief (at least he isn't the kind of monster who kills people he cares about in some way that casually)-- a relief which is then transformed into pure horror in a few moments when we see antoinette is missing a finger.
He has taken her finger.
And her career. And her friends. Her house has been burned to the ground and everyone thinks she is dead. And she jokes about it because she doesn't believe it's anything but a charade she's onto, she thinks she's in on the joke. The scene transforms in a few moments from the slim romance of a secret affair neither party could bear to let go of into one of a woman kept as a prisoner, someone whose body has been mutilated and life stolen from her and whose pretense at being dead might become a reality the moment she stops amusing Lestat. Lured with false promises that reveal themselves as such only when she is truly invisible and powerless.
The shows lures you into seeing the continuation of the affair in some way as almost redemptive for second. while awful and unfair to louis not being a cold-blooded killer of former lovers is a relief, like oh ok well at least he cares, and if he cares to this degree that promise might be broken but the one about violence might still be kept, maybe be more likely to be kept even-- a momentary feeling that is immediately turned on its head.
She is alive and it's worse. It's not compassion but selfish enjoyment that's motivating him (again) and they're all his hostages, all of them permanently cut out of their own lives.
sorry ramble but the stomach-turning horror of the show to me isn't in things like lol severed head ventriloquist but the way it toys with this sort of thing. It's very good at what it does sometimes!
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What do you think about people thinking Armand and Louis are a much healthier relationship that Louis and Lestat? As far as the shoe goes maybe it’s because of what we’ve seen of the particular brand of domestic abuse in L&L’s relationship that makes A&L look healthy? Because in the books it’s definitely hinted that Louis was at least telepathically influenced&manipulated to some degree right? Especially considering that Armand is depicted as someone who is also morally bankrupt and certainly not above using his powers to get what he wants?
I haven't seen a lot of ship warish content content on my dash on my dash and I don't really want to start anything, but unfortunately I don't think their relationship is going to go well. Louis meets Armand at a low point in his life, Armand also becomes kind of the only option Louis has for a long time, a situation Armand creates by killing Claudia. If that is worse than what we'll see Lestat do, idk. Personally I feel like they made this Lestat so much worse than the book version, and in the books he condemns Claudia so who knows how that will play out
At the same time I do get why ppl might want Armand to not be as abusive as Lestat turned out to be. I do think in general this adaptation takes aspects of the book and makes them even more intense. This version of Louis suffers way more than book Louis, he has racism, losing his family (they die as they age and he doesn't but he didn't seem particularly close to his mom and sister and there is no emotional fallout), and domestic violence to content with in a way book boy didn't. Same for Claudia, they added the intense DV and SA to her story. So, I get wanting Louis and Claudia, as characters ppl are attached to, to catch a fucking break. But if they do, I think it'll be a while before that happens, no one is going to tune in to watch a tv show, especially a horror show, with 0 conflict
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“Shhh, they’ll hear us.”
@pastelmoongoddess | ficlet meme
STARCOURT
" Nom de dieu! " the vampire curses at her, anger boiling in lifeless veins, but sizzling up all the same as she tries to tell her to be quiet in the middle of their debate. He never is capable of silence when things get heated and it's one of the biggest differences between the two of them.
" Really? Honestly, Lestat, you needn't yell and scream at every opportunity just to seem high and mighty. Careful of your temper, too, your brat is showing, " she remarks, a displeased look about her expression. He isn't exactly being very reasonable under the circumstances.
" Do not test me, Helene, " he is still angry, huffing and by all accounts puffing his words in a last ditch effort to find some stability once more, but he is vexed. For a moment, he forgets what it was they had been fighting about in the first place and then realises his anger is misplaced.
Lestat allows his gaze to drift away from her, eyes much less of a ghost-white indicating pure wrath and settling in to being their usual bright blue. Still gorgeous, she notes, admitting to herself that even in his angry state he is very much like a marble statue, but he knows this anyway, so giving him any kind of ego boost isn't necessary.
" Or what, Lelio? What exactly are you going to do? Yell at me some more? Pull a Louis and burn the place down? " as she says this, a hint of a chuckle escapes her, but the silence that follows besides the rumble in his chest that soon makes itself known as a roared response, freezes the woman in place and she barely has time to blink.
" That's in very poor taste, " he scolds her, talking through his teeth as he is almost showing them in his fury, fangs protruding whilst he looms over her shorter form. " I don't think even a sorry will remedy that one, Helene. "
Her eyes soften some when she realises what she had said and how, such a joke was cruel, given that it had been an attempt on putting him to sleep indefinitely and she knew it was wrong to use it as humour. It had been a long time since that day, but the wounds were fresh.
" Lestat, I'm sorry.. forgive me, that was too far even for me. I wish that had never happened to you, " she's upset by her own error in trying to fend off his anger which in turn just made things that much worse and he seemed to grow even more angry the more she spoke.
" Apology not accepted, " he hisses, closing in a little more and trapping her against a wall with one arm, his eyes digging down into the depths of her soul as he did nothing but stare her down for a few moments. " You should learn to hold your tongue. I should teach you a lesson or two about that. My kind aren't all forgiving. "
Her breath hitches in her throat as he says this, fearful, uncertain of what he means and putting every possible worse case scenario together in her head, looking up at him expecting the absolute worst to follow, but he does not even make a move, nor say another word.
" Lestat.. " she breathes, his name soft-sounding as she tries to smooth things over and get out of whatever trouble she had gotten herself into. She hadn't though, but he was making damn sure she believed as much.
" Be quiet, Helene. Enough talking.. they'll hear us, remember? " his tone was playful, yet also a warning that should she try his patience again, there would be some form of consequence meeting it halfway.
" But, I.. " she squeaks out, staring up into his eyes that were once more turning lighter, more pale and ghostly in appearance; his annoyance returning. " Why are you angry again? You're like a child, " she tells him, frowning in distaste of his childish behaviour.
Lestat chose not to dignify that with an answer, rather, his thumb came to rest against the side of her neck until she felt the coolness of both his hand, and the ring that he wore there, which prompted a panicked shiver. It was sharp, but she knew that already, which made her fear that much worse and her breathing became unstable.
" You enjoy riling me? Why, Helene? " he is genuinely curious with that one, finding her responses to him thus far to be the sort of thing most would say when looking for a fight, and he didn't like her tone, either.
" I don't, at all. You're just very touchy and you take even the tiniest bit of a jab to heart. You know that about yourself, I don't know why you need me to reaffirm it for you. If you were anything other than a big baby we would not have started fighting in the first place, " she tells him, worry over her words hidden in her tone and yet she knew she was only telling him the truth.
" Careful— I might just have to give you a warning, " his eyes dance with fury but his touch remains gentle, even if the cold metal against her neck is making her heart beat a mile a minute. He hears that, too, and smiles down at her with that same knowing look about him.
" Go ahead, " she offers, an open response to both his warning invitation and the fact that being able to hear her heart pumping so rapidly is increasing his hunger. She is in a roundabout way telling him he can, if he needs to.
" Non, Helene. You know I never will. Never press me to, " his jaw tightens because while that is true and he would never bite or drink from anyone undeserving of pain or even death, the sound of blood travelling so quickly, so loudly through her veins does entice him momentarily, but he draws back away from her instantly. " Non.. "
" Here, " the brunette simply outstretches her forearm to him instead, aware he is capable of feeding without the inevitable death following when he has full control. " You need to feed, at least a few drops, Lestat, you're not in any danger of killing me. I trust you, " she nods as if to confirm those words for him and herself.
Lestat looks down at her face, then her arm, as if to say, he has never known anyone to so freely offer themselves up as a meal before. However, this is quite different. This was not sacrifice, this was along the lines of one good deed in favour of another, an I owe you sort of deal. He would definitely owe her, after this.
" Helene, " he almost purrs her name in his hungry state and takes her offered arm, turning it, holding her hand and her arm to keep it steady before taking a bite. A soft gasp leaves her at the contact, the feeling of sharp and quite painful teeth pushing through her skin.
His eyes briefly glance up at her face as he feeds, a whole lot of adoration the only emotion he finds then, as she had so fearlessly given herself like that. He stops after a few mouthfuls, catching a stray drop on his bottom lip with the tip of his thumb and glancing at her again.
" Merci, " he says, voice low and content, giving her a smile, that one she knows so well. " J'ai besoin de toi, " he adds, with a large smile, allowing her then to rest against his body should she feel faint, even in the slightest.
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Gp Gp gp
I wasn’t going to pre-share this on tumblr bc it really should be in context but it’s just taking me so fucking long to finish this and I want GP readers to know what’s up.
Anyway, tw for rape trauma; gulfport scene
He slid his fingers under my pajama bottoms, against my skin. “You’re so beautiful,” he said. “So very beautiful. I love you, you know.”
“Don’t tell me, show me!”
He kissed me again, messy and deep, and rolled me on top of him. His hands felt me all over, excitedly, under my shirt, over my ass again. He both fondled and held tight and there was something so very sweet about that, that he hid himself beneath me, as if he were sheltering, nesting. He buried his nose in my collarbone and inhaled. I gripped his body back and ran my hands along it.
He wriggled down and pulled my pants down with him, kissing and caressing me as he did, then easing my thighs apart to nestle his face between them. I giggled and he spread my legs a little wider. He kissed there. He sunk his teeth into the very top of my thigh.
It hurt. It hurt a lot and I gasped and felt my skin prickle and come alive and I waited for the delight of it to take me over. But it didn’t. Instead it burned so much that it was if my spirit pulled back from it and I jolted out of myself and sailed away.
It was such a shock that my stomach lurched up into my mouth. With it came the memory of human acid burning there, when I’d had a real body, and fear came too. It was dark all around me and a smell rose and smothered me and I caught glimpses of tattered gold hair.
I whimpered. “Louis,” I said. My heart beat hard. I thought it was my heart. “Louis?”
“Hmm?” he said.
“I’m not sure I can.”
“Can what?”
“I don’t think I can have sex, I don’t want to have sex. Please stop.”
When I said it aloud I was sure I’d throw up in earnest and I had to turn my face to the side in case I did. How could I have done something so stupid? I’d said that when I could have endured it. It would have been momentary! And he’d insist on knowing and I didn’t want anyone to know!
I couldn’t even resolve my face. I wasn’t inside it. I couldn’t make it sit spitefully to protect myself, I didn’t know how it read to him. His movements seemed small and unconcerned and painfully out of step with my apocalypse. He smiled somehow and he shifted himself out from between my legs and wiped his mouth and after a moment he leaned up and kissed my cheek. I could feel my thigh hemorrhaging open and pulling me down with it and I knew I would bleed to death now, bleed to human death as I had already done, but this time I would wake up even more monstrous than before, and he kissed my cheek!
I could hear myself making a sound. I tried to stop. I had to be healing, surely. I had to be.
“Too tired after all?” Louis said, in a normal, impossible voice. He lay down next to me and pulled the covers up.
My voice sounded stupid. “You’re not mad?”
“No?”
“Well, I mean, I… I mean, I started things.”
Louis frowned. “I did too, but it doesn’t matter.”
“You really don’t mind?”
“I don’t mind,” he said. “What’s the matter? Are you alright?”
“Yes, I’m fine, I’m…”
He was making his concerned face. The one I knew so well, with his brows together and his lips in a neat little line. Predictable. I tried to anchor myself to the familiarity of that face, my annoyance with that face, to tell myself that it was really him, only Louis, and that I knew how to deal with him. But then he reached out and stroked my hair back from my face and the touch was so gentle that I felt it like a blow. “I want to throw up,” I blurted.
Louis blinked. “Oh,” he said. “I’m sorry?”
“I want to yell at you,” I said desperately. “I’m not yelling at you!”
“Thank you?”
“I’m going to… I don’t know that I can… Louis!”
“It’s alright,” he was saying. “It’s alright. Can you tell me what’s happening?”
He absolutely was angry with me. I wanted to shove him away from me and slice him open and tell him how dare he feel anything about me at all. His eyes blazed but he spoke so gently. So gently! It made me furious! It felt like a trap. Like he was trying to worm his way into me.
“I didn’t want to say that but I didn’t know what else to do and now it feels bad!” I said, uselessly, desperately. My voice was so high.
“Didn’t want to say to stop?” Louis said.
“Yes!” I said, and now my voice was even worse. It was ragged and too loud and I prayed my mother wasn’t awake or nearby enough to hear it.
“But it’s alright,” he said. “I don’t mind at all if you want to stop, everything’s alright.”
He wouldn’t trap me with that either. I’d tear his face off before any trap snapped shut, see if I didn’t. The muscles in my hand were ready to do it. They would do it! He’d be sorry! “I didn’t have a good reason!” I yelled. “I just! I got in my head and… listen, it’s fine now, it’s fine, you can start again.”
“No, I…”
“Do it!” I said. “Stop looking at me! Do it!”
“Lestat,” Louis said. He swallowed. His eyes seemed to shimmer for a second or two. Then he blinked. “Lestat, I don’t want to do that and I’m not going to.”
“Then don’t be mad!”
“I’m not… Lestat, you are allowed… you wanted to stop.”
“And I said you could start it again, just get down there!”
“No, I don’t…”
“Stop being angry with me, then! I said you could do it!”
“I’m not angry at all, or if I am it’s only that…”
“Don’t make me wait for it! Whatever punishment you have for me just hurt me now! Otherwise get down and do it!”
He moved his body up. Suddenly. One fluid motion and then he was covering me. I bucked against it and I would have pushed him off, but he cleared his throat and it made him wheeze and that forced a whining sound out of my own throat because paradoxically as much as I wanted to kill him I also didn’t want him to suffer any hurt at all. It stopped me as surely as if my back had been broken in place, and I couldn’t speak.
“Mon petit Monsieur,” Louis said. The closest he’d ever gotten to a pet name. “I’m so very sorry. If I’m… I’m very… of course I’m not angry with you.”
I felt myself choking again. His eyes were red-rimmed for some reason, like he was trying not to cry. I felt the smell of that blood in my throat, the real promise of real violence, but he was speaking still and I had to listen. It hurt to do so. “Louis!” I said.
“Please, please understand,” he said. “You have done nothing wrong. I am not angry with you, not at all.”
“But how are you…” I said but I didn’t know what I was asking. “Louis! How are you…”
“I’m…” Louis said. “Oh mon petit, come here.”
For a moment the impulse to break him open at the throat overwhelmed me. But then he moved his hands up to my hair and I buried my face against his body and he folded himself around me all the way. I dug my fingernails into his skin, but he didn’t seem to notice. I couldn’t even be angry now. All I could do was press my face into his naked chest like an animal.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, from somewhere out in the world where I couldn’t see him. “Mon dieu, I’m so sorry. I’m…”
“Nothing’s wrong,” I said.
“Nothing’s wrong now, and you have done nothing wrong. I’m… oh, I’m…”
“It’s alright, Louis,” I said. “You didn’t do anything either.”
“No,” he said. “No it isn’t that at all, I’m...”
“Louis,” I said. I tried to say it firmly but I couldn’t make it sound firm and it didn’t stop him.
“Lestat,” Louis said. “Please. You do not have to do this if you don’t want to. I’m so sorry you don’t seem to know that.”
“I know it, Louis!” I said, and as panicked and plaintive as my voice was, it could have been so much worse and I have no idea how I managed to restrain it. My mind raced in utter desperation and the speed of it had made me violently sick again. My voice seemed to say all of that, though it was also hard to say anything. “I just got confused. Don’t go on about it.”
“Mon petit monsieur,” Louis said, “please, it’s perfectly alright.
I didn’t know what to say to that. “Don’t call me that,” I said.
“You don’t like it?”
I love it with all my heart. “No, I hate it.”
“Then I won’t say it. But please, I must... you don’t owe that to me, or to anyone, and I’m so…”
I wrenched myself up out of his arms. I looked him dead in the eyes. “You don’t have to do any of this,” I said. “It’s fine.”
Louis gave me a skeptical look. I glared at him. It should have destabilized him but it didn’t. He just put his hands to the side of my face and sighed.
I let him have his hands there and I tolerated the sigh, as difficult as that was – they were concessions, concessions to the greater goal – but I wouldn’t have him doubt me. “It’s fine, Louis,” I said. “Stop fussing.”
“It is not fine at all.”
“It’s fine! I just… I tripped myself up. I did it because I’m an idiot. There’s no more to it than that.”
“And it has nothing to do with what we discussed yesterday, or with the fact that your mother is here?”
That hit me in the chest like a cannon. I don’t know how I didn’t gag. Perhaps I did. I jerked away from his hands at any rate. I sat up. “Shut up!” I said. “It’s got nothing to do with anything.”
Louis frowned again. “I’m not going to press it now,” he said. “I’m not equipped for that. We figured that out, I think. I’ve got the subtlety of dynamite on this matter, and I apologize.”
“But you do have an opinion.”
“Yes.”
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to laugh in his face or punch him in it. Both options felt equally hysterical. “Suppose you just tell me your opinion, Louis.”
“You know what it is.”
“Say it,” I demanded. “Say whatever stupid thing it is you think.”
Louis cleared his throat. Then he cleared it again. His hands had followed my body when I’d moved, but he’d taken them away now to cough into them. How insulting.
“Louis,” I said.
“No, I…”
“Louis,” I said, and my tone, I hope, conveyed how exactly how little I wished to fuck around.
It did, evidently. He met my eyes, and his expression was not, I thought, altogether kind. “There is…” Louis said. “You must know this. There is a relationship between your assumption of desert on certain traumatic issues, and your desire to have people love you by any means necessary. And it is culminating in... in this behavior.”
“What traumatic issues?” I said, furiously, but we both knew I knew exactly what he meant. The fury was more desperate ritual than it was actual accusation, but I hoped it would protect me anyway. I drew it around myself like a magic cloak. I suspect Louis observed that, because he spared me and didn’t answer my question. At least not directly.
Still, what he did say was almost worse. “You must listen to me,” he said, reaching out his hand again. I slapped it away but he went on. “Please. Please listen. You do not need to… there is no requirement for you to have sex you do not wish to have.”
“I know that!”
“You don’t know it,” he said. “You are demonstrating that you don’t. And you must know… that I don’t… surely if nothing else, everything that’s past must make you understand. I’ve loved you even when I couldn’t stand you. You are so dear to me, don’t you understand that?”
“Oh sure,” I said, my chest heaving against the bile. “You know, you don’t always have to mention that you couldn’t stand me.”
Louis ignored that. “You don’t have to do anything to secure this. You don’t have to favor me.”
“I’m not favoring you!” I said. “I like fucking! I don’t know what happened just then!”
“Yes,” he said. “You do.”
“Shut up, Louis!” I said. My intestines would crawl out from between my teeth if he didn’t stop. “I know all of that! I just confused myself. It’s not important like you’re making it. Shut up.”
“I am sorry,” Louis said.
“Stop being sorry!” I said. “It’s my own fault!”
“How could that possibly be?”
“Because I shouldn’t have said anything,” I snapped.
Louis’ face collapsed. “And I wouldn’t have known,” he said, and just like that I wanted to weep.
It’s actually strange to me, upon reflection, that I didn’t. I suppose it was too great a feeling for mere tears. Tears would have required some clarity or some human feeling and I had none. My chest had filled with one impossible sob but I could not and did not release it. Maybe, I thought, he might actually not have known.
“I can’t tolerate that,” Louis said. “I don’t want that. Please. I must tell you that… please know that my love for you is not conditional upon… that you are not required to… you don’t deserve to have to... I know you think you… please…”
He had nothing to say. He’d already run himself aground. How typical of him. How feeble and uninteresting and pointlessly intellectual. My mouth was sour and I wanted to leave, but some part of me was compelled to stay and make the point. “No,” I said. “I would have wanted to again soon enough.”
Louis frowned again. He wrinkled his nose up. He opened his mouth but then he shut it again.
“I would have,” I insisted.
“That’s… well…” Louis said. “Ah. That, I think, is a problem.”
“That’s not a problem!”
“Shh,” Louis said. “Shh, it’s alright.”
“Stop trying to make me calm down, Louis! I’m perfectly calm! It’s not a problem! I know my own mind and I’m telling you, it’s fine!”
Louis took another pause. He seemed to gather himself. “If that is how you feel,” he said, “then we’ll stop and start again when you do wish to. There’s no reason you must… play through…”
Did he play golf? For some reason that question was stupidly pressing and I wanted to ask it. I think he does sometimes actually. But it wasn’t relevant here. “Why are you trying to make this some big and stupid deal, Louis!” I said. “I just got a little in my own head! I shouldn’t have said anything. I regret saying anything! Because now you’re making it into an event and it just isn’t one!”
“Is there perhaps a little truth in what I’ve said?” Louis asked me, in the softest voice I’d ever heard. It twisted my guts into knots again just to hear it and I turned my face away.
“No,” I said.
Louis’ tone didn’t change. “Will you please consider,” he said, “just consider, that’s all I’m asking, that some of your instincts on this matter are a little wrong?”
“No!” I said, furiously. “I absolutely will not. Because they are not.”
“But don’t you…”
“Shut up, Louis!” I snapped. “You’re so full of bullshit. If you’re weak and stupid enough to beg for love you cannot be fussy about the way people give it to you!”
Louis looked straight at me, but he didn’t need to. The moment I said it I knew what a fucking idiot I’d been. What an absolute buffoon. With that one pathetic statement, I’d managed to say something so imbecilic and so revealing that he’d won against me with in this patronizing, aggravating, nauseating argument without even having to do it himself. I bit down on my lip, hard, and tried to roll away. Even my own blood made me feel sick.
Louis wouldn’t let me get away. He caught me by my waist and turned me back around until I was facing him. I fought him every inch of the way. My hands were in fists and I had opened my mouth to bite him like an animal, but I didn’t. Because then I was facing him and his expression arrested me. He didn’t look like somebody who had won. He didn’t even look like someone who disapproved of me for being this much of an idiot, though I was one and he might reasonably have disapproved. “Lestat,” he said, his eyes huge and bright and imploring, “Lestat. Please let me tell you this. You did not deserve it. You never could have.”
The sob in my chest was still stuck there. Aching and with no noise and I did not weep. I thought it would choke me not to weep. And then all I could think of were the worst of his implications.
“Louis,” I said. “Louis is this… yesterday were you… was this… did you cry because you didn’t want to and you didn’t know how to make it stop?”
Louis looked surprised. “Excuse me?”
“Louis, was it?”
He smiled, in a strange, incredulous way. “No, that was much worse,” he said, dryly. “It doesn’t matter. Let’s think about you at the moment.”
He said it like he was joking. I think he did it to comfort me. But it didn’t sit right with me. It wasn’t the time to joke. “Louis, please,” I said.
“That’s not relevant now.”
“It is! Because if it wasn’t that then what was it?”
“It’s not necessary to explain.”
“Please try. Please. I have to know. I can’t… I can’t bear it, Louis. Please.”
“Well, perhaps it’s similar.”
“Oh darling!” I said. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!”
“Shh,” Louis said. “Be calm.” He brushed my hair back again and I let him. He stroked my face and I let him do that as well. How strange it was to have him pet me like this, how strong it made him seem. I couldn’t have bitten him now if I’d wanted to, I was that spellbound, and how afraid and how safe that made me feel.
And how panicked that combination made me. “Louis!” I said.
“Shh, it doesn’t matter.”
“Louis, please…”
“Look,” he said. “Do you really want to know about that? Is that what you really want to talk about now? Wouldn’t you rather just try to rest?”
“No.”
“It’s morning.”
“Louis,” I said. “No.”
He thinned his lips, but I kept staring at him. I might have even made my own eyes wider, sweeter, on purpose. In fact I think I did do that because it made him frown in that particular way he does when he is annoyed by me but too sympathetic to say it. I didn’t relent though. I kept at it until finally, he said., “would it really ease your mind to hear about it?”
“Yes.”
“Alright,” he said. He sighed.
“And?”
Louis moved and shuffled down so he was lying beside me. Even this momentary absence hurt me and I reached out my hand for his. Thankfully he took it. He held it over his heart and I shuffled down too. “Alright,” he said. “Look.”
I looked. I waited.
“I am sympathetic to this concept of… reciprocal desert, I suppose,” Louis said.
“Louis,” I said. “You are correct that it is morning. And that I’m very tired. Please pontificate less and explain more.”
He gave a desperate little snort at that. It was painfully adorable and I felt a stab of real affection at it. It was the first thing I’d felt in some time that wasn’t fear or nausea and I clung to it. I squeezed his hand. “I’m listening, chéri.”
Louis closed his eyes. He took a breath through his nose before he opened them again. “Look,” he said, once again. “I’m not sure you understand how… little sustained sexual experience I had before you and I became acquainted… how little sustained experience I had with sex I even enjoyed.”
That both surprised me and didn’t. It wasn’t news, but it also wasn’t true enough for him to say in this candid situation. When I’d met him he’d been depraved. “What about all your sex workers?”
“My what?”
“Your whores, Louis. It’s the term people use now. It’s polite.”
Louis appeared to take that in. “Look,” he said, “the fact that I enjoyed… enjoyed… liked, ah… that I… I enjoyed… ahem… Jesus fucking Christ, I beg your pardon. I…”
I waited for as long as I could, but it seemed that he wasn’t going to make it. “Louis?” I prompted.
“… that I enjoyed the, ah, culmination.”
“Oh, you liked getting off. You liked when you came. Sure.”
“Yes,” Louis said, sharply. He flushed, but then he pushed it back and forced himself onward. “Yes. Obviously. I had a human body, as base as it was. But the fact that I liked… that aspect of… ah… look. It did not negate that I could seldom bring myself to be… present… during the act itself. And there were some… brief exceptions in my youth but as I had aged that had become… increasingly difficult.”
“Then why keep doing it at all?” I said, probably stupidly. “Why didn’t you just jerk off?”
It was stupidly. Louis looked at me in exactly the way I deserved for speaking so stupidly. But he went on. “Because I didn’t… look. It isn’t that I didn’t want to… have… look.”
“I’m looking, Louis,” I said. And please, dear God, won’t you finally tell me what I’m supposed to be looking at.
He cleared his throat again. “When I fell in love with you,” he said (and I loved hearing him say that, because no matter the circumstances I always will), “when I decided to follow you as I did, you were so new to me, you were like nothing I’d ever felt. I told myself that it was entirely because you were my first vampire. That you were spellbinding to me only because of that. I knew that this was not true, but it is what I told myself.”
“But what do you mean?” I said. “I mean, thank you, because… well, I mean, just thank you, it’s nice to know that I’m actually somehow unique to you instead of just, you know… your symbolic supernatural end, but I mean… that doesn’t seem to warrant all of this anxiety, it’s just nice to know but…”
“Alright,” Louis said, again, cutting me off. “Some of the reason I decided to go with you, that what I felt for you was so remarkable to me is that…”
“I’m delightful.”
“You are but...”
“But what? I’m delightful.”
“You are,” Louis said. “You are also another man.”
It was not something I had expected him to say. I hadn’t known what to expect, certainly, but this absolutely wasn’t it and I found I had to calibrate myself to hear it properly. To do so felt like threading myself through time, as if my body were in multiple places at once, and it was already so difficult to stay inside it. Because it hadn’t even occurred to me, but it felt so uniquely strange and so very deliberate that it had not.
I doubted he could hear any of that when I spoke, however. “You didn’t like women you mean? Is that what you mean or are you still talking about that choir boy thing where you’re not allowed to like any of it?”
“I’ll never know,” Louis said. “Was it about the people I did it with or only about myself? Original sin or very specific? I don’t know. I’ll never know. The man I was no longer exists.”
“Well then why does it matter?” I said. “I’m not trying to be hard, I just don’t… I want to understand.”
“Because this intimacy I have with you now,” Louis said, “it makes it difficult to read things against how they used to be. Particularly… some sexual things.”
“What?” I said.
I knew I was out of sync with myself but this did seem genuinely confusing. Louis frowned again. He flushed again too, but that just seemed to make him angry with himself. He looked down, away from me, and he bit his lip. “When you would… when you’d push me. And dominate. And demand. When it would be a part of a fight or part of some despairing series of events. When it hurt me. I think it gave me permission. To do something I had always wanted to do.”
“You mean…” I said. “You mean you’re allowed because you’re not wanting to, you’re letting me.”
“Yes,” Louis said, looking up. “That’s what I mean.”
I sucked in a breath. Part of me knew how wrong it was of me to press my advantage like this, to use his sympathy to draw these confessions out of him, but another part knew I’d never hear this any other way. As painfully and embarrassingly candid as he’d been in the therapist’s office, this, I knew, was too personal even for that. This was about him, not us. And I’d known, I wanted to say. I’d known I’d played this part in your self-flagellation all along, but never known how to ask it.
“But isn’t this just…” I said. “Aren’t you just arguing that you asked for what I did to you? Because I don’t agree with that, I don’t think that’s right, the logic doesn’t hold. If I “didn’t deserve it” then you didn’t either and I’m not going to accept that you did. There aren’t different rules.”
“No,” Louis said. “I’m parsing something quite complicated here, and it is not the same. I have made conditions. There are certain things I will not permit you to do. Certain ways you are not to speak to me, impositions, including sexual impositions, that I will not let you make. That problem of mine, it does not… it does not permit all else.”
That was enormous. It was patently unfair that he said it in this moment because it was so enormous and I was already so weak. But it was also necessary that he said it, because it was true. I swallowed hard but I did not let myself react. “Yes,” I said. “Yes, I know.”
“I will not accept things as they used to be,” Louis said. “I was about to say that I cannot, but that is not the truth, and that is the crux of what I am saying here. The truth is that I will not. I have learned, I think, to consider that I might value the fact that I do not want to. But I also hesitate because I fear it’s… Bartleby the Scrivener in a very particular setting. Because if I’d prefer not to, I’m not sure I can prefer anything. Does that make sense to you?”
I was too tired to figure out what that meant, or which part of this I was most upset by. All of it, certainly, but also by each part of it individually at the same time. My heart clenched and unclenched around each particular and it made it hard to look at him. But I made myself do that anyway. Because it didn’t matter how I felt. What did matter was finally hearing what he had to say, because this would be the only chance I would get to hear it.
And I loved him, of course. I know you think that I don’t, but I do, and I loved him then, more than I ever had, loved him in the marrow of my bones, and if it hurt him then it hurt me too, and I wanted to know. “No, Louis,” I said. “It’s good to have wants. They don’t automatically lead you to complete existential failure.”
“However,” Louis said.
“However what?”
“However,” he said, “There were elements of that dynamic that I suspect… produced… something I… possibly enjoyed. Sexually speaking.”
I held my tongue. That was difficult to do, since I had two equally weighted thoughts, and one was a delighted “really!” and the other was “no fucking shit, Sherlock” in a sarcastic manner. Neither would have been appropriate.
Louis went on. “I don’t like the relationship it was part of. And that’s not a criticism of you, or not only of you. But… but.”
“I understand,” I said. “I’m with you.”
“Are you? Do you?”
“Perhaps not, but I’m following the line you’re drawing. Can you… do you mean you want me to… what do you mean?”
“I mean I’m not sure I know how to do it without the penance built in,” Louis said. “I’m not sure I know how to enjoy sex at all without some elaborate punishing construction I’ve built myself to make it acceptable. Some Kafka’s penal colony of my own making. And so part of me sincerely wonders if, by insisting upon this different relationship – and I do insist – I haven’t spoiled sex for myself forever.”
“Louis,” I said. “That’s absolutely fucking certifiable.”
“Is it?”
“How is it that I am the crazy one if you’re the one who thinks these things?”
“Well, you’re not…”
“That’s absurd. You’re insane.”
“Are you sure?” Louis said. “Are you really sure that the concepts are not mutually unintelligible?”
“No, I’m not letting you do this,” I said, before I caught myself. “I hear it. Shut up. I’m not letting you make some intellectual mess of an argument you think I’m too stupid to understand. Well, I do understand, and it’s your argument that is stupid, not me.”
“I don’t think that…”
“You’re absolutely fucking filthy, you depraved slutty idiot. You’re the horniest person I’ve ever met. Nobody and nothing on this earth could have stopped you from liking sex. These past few months should have proven that. You’re just a little bit anxious about it at the moment, and that’s absolutely alright, but I assure you it will just be temporary.”
“I beg your pardon,” Louis said. He was clearly affronted, and I knew I’d gone too far, but I wasn’t about to let him derail things.
“Nobody is punishing you!” I said. “There aren’t all these traps you imagine! It’s alright to like sex. It’s alright to like sex with a man! You’re allowed to… you’re allowed to be alive and to like to fuck and it doesn’t excuse anything! You haven’t done anything wrong, Louis!”
Louis stared at me. “You put it so… you’re so certain.”
I knew what he meant. I knew how much he wanted to say something arch about having told me so. But I wouldn’t talk about that now. I wouldn’t! “Don’t you dare get bogged down in if we’re allowed to be alive as we are,” I said. “I am too tired and I love you too much to entertain that. You are allowed, because I say so.”
“I wish it were that easy,” Louis said.
“It is that easy,” I said. “I love you with the whole of my ugly little heart, Louis. And so you are right to be on this Earth, if only for my happiness.”
“Yes, but then that begs the question of whether you… whether any of us…”
“Shut up,” I said. “If you’re going to argue that I am not right to be here, I will weep. I am too fragile for that this morning, so don’t... If you’re going to make me discuss… if you’re going to make me… if you’re going to bring up… if you do love me at all, then please grant me the kindness of saying that you’re at least glad I’m alive.”
He held more firmly on my hand against his chest. “You will never know how glad,” he said. “But that…”
“Then shut up,” I said. “I’m almost already crying. Shut up.”
I meant it. I’d fought so hard not to cry all evening, but it felt so close to me now that I even felt myself sniffling, like a sad little child. It is possible that a tear or two did fall, actually, but I certainly didn’t acknowledge them. Even then I refused to let myself be that pathetic.
But “please don’t,” Louis said, so tenderly. He had let go of my hand, but both of his were upon my face again, softly. He kissed my cheek, high up on the bone, like he’d done to the girl at the bar. “Please don’t cry, monsieur,” he was saying. “Everything is alright.”
“Then don’t do this,” I insisted. “Just… we are here, Louis. We’re here, and I want to be here with you, and I want you to want to be too.”
“I do want to be here. Very much.”
“Good then,” I said. “That’s enough. Please let it be enough.”
He didn’t answer that. He did stoke me though. Softly, feather light. I still felt like crying. I shut my eyes, though I found I had to open them again to implore him.
“We can do better,” I said. “We can do those things when we want to do them, we can talk about them and manage it like adults. I’ll fuck you exactly like you want me to and if it’s awkward for a while then, well, it will just be a little awkward for a while. We can tolerate that, can’t we? We have the language.”
Let’s do it now, I almost said. But thankfully, I didn’t.
“I don’t…” Louis said. “I don’t find that easy. Discussing such… fleshy concerns. As you know. It’s not my forte, I’d say if I were you.”
What a way to say it. “I know, chéri,” I said. “I know you don’t. But some things are worth doing, even if they are hard. Haven’t you said that? Aren’t you saying that to me?”
“I wish I didn’t feel this way. It’s hypocritical of me, really, to let my own shame restrict what I communicate and what I do not, when I say what I say to you about yours.”
“Yes, well. It’s always easier to dictate than to do.”
He winced. “I am sorry,” he said, and he looked like he meant it. But I wasn’t going to let that be the end of it that.
“Why are you still ashamed?” I said. It felt so strange to ask him that. A bedtime confessional, mirrored throughout time. Lovers like us and like I had been, stretching back centuries asking the same questions. “Is it all because it’s lust or because it’s your vampire life? Or is it because… is all of this also because we’re both men?”
“I think some of it is,” Louis said. “I know what you’re going to say about that, that it’s a stupid, mortal hang-up that I shouldn’t have, and you’re right of course, but there it is just the same. A stupid human anxiety that I have always felt and that somehow still dominates my un-life.”
“You don’t really believe you’ll go to Hell for it,” I said. “Not you.”
“I never think anything so specific. This… sense of punishment is far more global than that. The sense of having made disorder in the world. Of being at odds with it. Of being so fundamentally incorrect that I have brought all of this upon myself. I don’t know.”
“Oh Louis,” I said. I moved up on my pillow so I could kiss him. He did let me. There was an edge of reluctance to it, or of despair perhaps. But he did let me.
“Oh Louis,” I said, again, stroking his cheek with my thumb. “Oh my love. You make everything so dramatic and symbolic when sometimes it’s just small and sad.”
He pressed his lips together in a resigned way. “Perhaps that’s so.”
It was polite of him not to point out my hypocrisy. Though it’s also possible he was too caught up in himself to notice it. “We’re still consumers,” I said, following him there. “And you’re still a Catholic.”
“I am not. You are, I’m not.”
“You absolutely are,” I said. “Don’t be stupid. You know you are. Don’t you know that?”
Louis didn’t answer me. He seemed far away, contemplative. But then he turned his face back to me, set his sparkling eyes upon me, and for some strange reason, I held my breath. “In San Francisco, I did try,” he said. “It was the writing, and the music, and that it was entirely new to me, but also it was… I wanted to go where I could love men. Where it would not be entirely out of place to do so. A lot of things were beautiful there, and I was so past caring about any of it. It was easy to be convinced. I tried to let myself be convinced. And sometimes I succeeded.”
“I know that,” I said. “You met Daniel in a bar. It was 1976, Louis. You talked to him in a bar in the fashionable part of San Francisco in 1976. Do you think I don’t know what kind of bar it was? That I don’t know what you went there to do?”
“I went there to kill someone,” he said. “To murder someone in order to sustain my own cowardly life.”
“That’s not all,” I said. “And you know it isn’t and you just admitted it too. You went there to kiss boys. And you think it’s the same thing, but it isn’t. Because it’s alright to kiss boys, Louis. God doesn’t think like you think about it. That’s a mistake. We were taught something that is not true.”
“Perhaps,” Louis said. And he looked strange and embarrassed, but then he smiled. He looked at me and he smiled. “You’re not afraid of anything, are you?”
His gaze was one of admiration, and ordinarily I would have liked it. Ordinarily when he looked at me that way, awed and trusting like that, I felt pleased with myself and pleased about the world. But it seemed wrong now. It seemed not truthful.
“You think I never…” I said. “I made up my mind not to care, don’t you see? I wasn’t going to let something so stupid as people’s opinions stop me if I was in love. It’s not because I never… of course I was afraid.”
I’d expected that confession to have more impact than it did. It made a lot of impact upon me to say. But Louis spoke as if he hadn’t heard me. “It’s just that you always seemed fearless. As if you were daring people to try something. As if you thought it would be funny if they did.”
“People died for it, Louis,” I said. “Even in Paris. Let alone in the country.”
“Of course I know that, but…”
“And my father… said… he told me… when I…”
I couldn’t finish that. But it seemed I didn’t have to. I suppose Louis had heard me at last, because he curled his hand into mine and squeezed it. I squeezed back. His fingers felt warm to me, and I didn’t know why they did. His eyes were so wide when he looked at me. Quietly. Waiting. I felt the need to be soft with him, and I felt, again, the need to tell the truth.
“So I understand you,” I said. “I’ll admit that I do. I’m not going to say what you think I’m going to say this time. Not anymore. I’ll admit it instead.”
Louis kissed me this time. He moved forward to do it and I held my breath again, it was that sweet. “It’s you,” he said. “You. You were not fearless, but instead very brave.”
“No, I was just in love. There was nothing brave about it. It wasn’t a choice to be in love.”
“Of course there was something brave about it,” Louis said. “Isn’t that what we’re doing here together, discovering just that? Doesn’t everything we’ve talked about tonight tell you? To love another person, to commit to loving them truly and honestly is an act of such bravery, just because to be in love is to accept that you not only want to be alive, but that you have designs on how you want to live?”
“You really think so, don’t you?” I said. It made me grin. No doubt incredulously, though I would have tried to temper that, just a little. Nobody else could have made it that dramatic, but that wasn’t his fault. “You really think it’s brave just to be in love.”
“Yes,” he said, seriously.
“You really think that?”
“You’re brave to be here with me,” he said.
“Oh, stop.”
“You’ve been brave all your life,” he said. “And I want to be brave as well.”
My grin fell right off me. That declaration had pierced my heart and I couldn’t be anything but serious. I must have stared at him. I must have gazed in utter wonder. I could never love somebody as much as this, I thought. Nobody could ever be so gentle and so earnest or sway me so fundamentally as he did without even trying to. Certainly, nobody else could have made me admit any of these soft and vulnerable things. Nobody else could have made me want to admit them.
“But you’re already brave, mon cher,” I said. “Everything you’ve told me is brave. I’m more proud of you than you’ll ever know. And I want to fuck you like you want to be fucked. I don’t want you to regret any of this, what you’ve said to me.”
“Well,” he said, and he then grinned himself, suddenly, and it startled me. I’d forgotten he could do that. I’d forgotten his face could even move. “Perhaps we can negotiate.”
“Negotiate what, Louis? I told you what I’d do.”
“Because you like it as well, don’t you?” he said. “Being put in your place, during sex.”
I felt like I could blush. My heart felt hot enough to make me. It’s even possible I was blushing, though perhaps not very likely. I certainly spoke like the sort of person who blushed, however. “Louis!” I said. “Louis!”
“Oh, isn’t it true?”
“No,” I said.
“Not true at all?”
“Shut up!”
“What a sweet little discovery that was,” he said. “What a sweet little thing you are.”
“Just you shut up right now.”
He smiled so indulgently. “As you wish.”
I scowled, but I didn’t really mean it. “Well maybe you make me feel like I could be sweet,” I said. “Like maybe I’m not all over evil after all.”
“And you make me feel that I could be interested for all eternity,” he said. “Even if nothing else was interesting, I could always be discovering more about you. You can change, you know. I once thought you couldn’t, but you can.”
I didn’t even have the wherewithal to be embarrassed at him saying that. Obviously, telling you about it now I am so embarrassed by it I have earnestly considered not telling you, and the fact that I am telling you has begun to make me wish I still had the capacity to make earnest suicide attempts with the possibility of success. But I wasn’t embarrassed then, not at all. This is all so saccharine and I so very soft that it seems that it could barely have happened. And it did happen. Worse was about to happen. But somehow, in that time I was not ashamed of anything. I just stared at him, stunned and in love until he kissed me.
I kissed him back. We pressed our bodies together and entangled each other in our arms and kissed and kissed and kissed. I gasped from it. When we broke apart, his face was pink and warm and his arms were still around me and I wanted to stay there forever. I felt as if I had already half bled into him, but I wasn’t afraid. It made me honest in a way that hurt. “Louis,” I said. “I do like it but it… it makes me…”
“I know,” Louis said. “I know.”
“I didn’t even say what it was!”
“You’re so…” Louis said. “You’re just so… I want to be… more careful with you.”
“You’re careful already.”
“No,” Louis said. “Listen to me. I will. I will be careful with you. You’re so dear to me.”
I couldn’t say anything to that. I think my face must have done something dramatic, because Louis smiled at me sympathetically and touched me and told me it was alright. “Be calm,” he said. “It’s alright.”
“I know it is,” I said. Snapped, really. But he didn’t react to that.
“It was brave of you to stop,” he said. “I know it was hard for you. I’m glad you did.”
Oh, but I had no chance coming out of this alive. My heart had cracked and the liquid of it lit my chest up from the inside and my eyes welled and I had to blink my tears away again. “Louis…”
“I know,” he said.
“No, but Louis…”
“I do know, monsieur.”
“Your petit monsieur.”
“Mon petit monsieur.”
I buried into him. I pushed my nose into the crook of his shoulder. “Is it really brave just to be in love?”
Louis seemed to hold all of his breath inside his body for a moment. “Yes it is,” he said when he let it out. His arms were around me, strong.
“Are we really in love then?” I asked him.
“Yes,” Louis said. “We are really very much in love.”
So you can say what you will about our thoughts and prayers. Don’t you see it? Don’t you understand? Between us, we earnestly believed we could clean up the gulf.
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time to subject myself to Dracula: The Dark Prince, aka another bad movie starring another dude from black sails. this time with 100% less horny on main because my only real motivation for watching it is it truly looks to be a whole new caliber of horrible and I have to see it.
witness my standards for incomprehensibly bad movies being raised prohibitively high in every way imaginable under the cut
I seriously doubt that.
this was made in 2013 by the way, not 1994 as the graphic design of that logo might suggest
oh good, once again we’re opening with an exposition narrator. except this time it’s a woman and she has less vocal inflection and emotional investment than an amazon echo.
I feel like she’s gonna tell me to turn left in 800ft
it feels like a dragon age epilogue, but just. worse.
WE ARE WATCHING A TRULY HIGH QUALITY MOVIE TONIGHT MY FRIENDS
I can’t even describe how bad this is, you really need the sound. that’s where the true lack of quality shines through. siri’s depressed sister is talking about pre-vampire dracula’s epic feats in battle to more weird sepia dioramas and the dying soldiers sound like they hired muppets to voice them
HOLY WIG BATMAN
also this dude is obnoxiously jovial considering he’s supposed to be dracula, even if this is pre-vampire
oh no dracula’s advisors, who all wear black hooded robes and scowl ominously, have betrayed him and killed his wife, how unexpected
someone drew these, looked at them, and thought “yeah that’s good enough to go in the final movie”
the characters are speaking both english and what I assume is... romanian or something? transylvanian? it’s not spanish or welsh I can tell you that much. anyway there are no subtitles and also no rhyme or reason to which they’re speaking at any given time so I hope I’m not missing anything important. probably not.
so like... they killed his wife, yes. and he went on a murderfest in what appears to be a church in revenge, makes sense. now a dude who... I think maybe he’s supposed to be a priest or something? but he wasn’t speaking english so I can’t be sure, then a voice over said “I have killed for god, the hand that fought for him will now be turned against him” but I’m unclear on who was speaking. this movie is an absolute clusterfuck and we aren’t even five minutes in yet. this is still the prologue.
now zombie alexa claims dracula was cursed with immortality “in punishment for his defiance” but I’m still not sure... what defiance. he killed the dudes who murdered his wife and that’s somehow not okay despite his apparent status as a war hero, a designation that implies a LOT of killing has already happened?
fucking finally, the title screen. usually a prologue clarifies what a movie is about but I went in thinking I knew and now have absolutely no idea what I’m watching.
a carriage drawn by friesians is rolling through a misty forest with wolf howling sound bites playing at random in the background to vaguely urgent music, now this is what I’m here to see.
nevermind the carriage is too slow so they’re leaving it because that’s a thing people do (?????)
“Lady Arwen, we cannot delay”
seriously though everyone’s mumbling so much I can’t understand them much better than when they were speaking whatever the other language was
BOOTLEG XENA RIDES AGAIN
but this time she’s accompanied by esme. we don’t know who esme is yet either.
there she goes
and now the knights are being attacked by hilarious squeaky goblin things? who I guess are led by this power rangers villain with, again, an unintentionally hilarious voice. it’s like a bad batman impression.
with every minute that passes I become less certain of what I’m actually watching.
they’re looking for the “light bringer” and telepathically overseen by the world’s most halfassed lestat dracula
they’ve also got some random prisoners in a cage wagon
okay the prisoners are being taken to dracula’s castle and I’m sorry for such an image-heavy post but I NEED you to understand the community theater level of set design/quality we’re dealing with here
“what is that?” cardboard and mod podge is my guess
so far the only thing esme has done is fall off her horse and be knocked unconscious, and now a Roving Band of Misogynists has appeared to harass Bootleg Xena 3.0 in the most generic way possible (the words “what ‘ave we got ‘ere” accompanied by a chorus of malicious cackling and some whistles have been spoken)
oooh no the ringleader of the Roving Misogynists has been given a name, and it’s ~Lucien~. I have a horrible feeling that I’m about to bear witness to the worst romantic subplot in the history of cinema.
oh for... I thought at least bootleg xena 3.0 would be a Strong Female Character and fight them off, but she just rapped lucien on the head with her sword and then they stole her very important box and left as obnoxiously as they came
OH NO SHE’S ASKING TO GO WITH THEM, SOMEHOW THAT’S HER PLAN I THINK I’M RIGHT SHE’S GONNA HOOK UP WITH LUCIEN AND IT’S GOING TO BE HORRIBLE.
“trust me” she says to esme, who, wisely, obviously does not.
I appreciate the timely thunderclap every single time the castle comes on screen
who the fuck are you, did you wander onto the wrong movie set
nope okay they’re not gonna explain that shot at all we’re just moving on to a shot of a weird angel shadow doing slow flamenco moves on the ceiling while ominously gurgling, and the prisoners being led into the throne room
“what’s happening to us?” I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW THE SAME THING, PRISONER #3
oh never mind that guy from before wasn’t a priest, he is remfield, chancellor of this kingdom, which means the last scene he was in makes even less sense
AKSLDGHJFGAKDLFJGHKAJGHFDKLFDS;GJokay so. remfield introduced himself then said “I will see that your needs are tended to.” then dracula in his new white contacts gets up from his shadowy throne, circumnavigates the cluster of prisoners, sniffs them dramatically, and walks back to his throne. remfield then says, “come, I will see that your needs are tended to” because proofreading is for COWARDS
now remfield is... literally giving the prisoners a tour of the castle and going on the “oh you’re our guests and many pleasures and adventures await you” speech and somehow the prisoners are accepting this despite the fact that they were just carted in on a barred wagon in shackles and got sniffed by a bad alucard cosplayer. they have a fucking harpist.
seriously, who the fuck are you
she’s just been twirling around in the background of this entire scene for no discernible reason no matter what rooms they go into
what the hell am I watching
yeah they’re just going for that incredibly suspicious food and also seem weirdly okay with the ambient clusters of scantily clad lesbians no one will explain okay they deserve whatever happens to them
WHOA TITS apparently this movie is a different rating than I thought
remfield: the newcomers have settled in
dracula: I d o n ‘ t l i k e s t r a n g e r s
then why pray tell have you brought them directly into your home in chains. I cannot stress enough how avoidable this situation was for you my dude
“just think sire, once the light bringer is in your possession no one need die again” “except those who defy me” [ominous chime as the angel shadow on the ceiling continues its sensuous flamenco dance]
meanwhile in the misty blue filter forest of eternal night, some guy in a tricorn finds a gold amulet that I think bootleg xena 3.0 dropped, and the power ranger villain rides menacingly in a random direction for a few seconds
I’m still waiting on whether this masterful display of cinematic calvinball has any cohesive story to it.
ah joy and we’re back to The Non-Adventures of Xena 3.0, Esme, and the Roving Misogynists
as an aside, I’m not calling her that just to be dumb, I’m calling her that because they still haven’t given her a name even though her sidekick got one in the first five minutes
they’ve opened the box and revealed... the light bringer, which is a wooden staff. because it is not shiny gold, the roving misogynists regard it with confounded disgrunglement and scoff at xena 3.0′s insistence that it can defeat dracula
these guys sound like what an eleven year old thinks gangs of ne’er-do-wells sound like. like cartoon weasels, if the weasels were also mediocre pirates who have heard of women, conceptually, but never seen one. like goblins in a pre-written D&D campaign run by a slightly overwhelmed first time DM.
HUR DUR WALKING STICK NOT TREASURE, WOMAN DUMB
it’s what cain used to slay abel, apparently. given that zombie alexa mentioned that dracula is the descendent of abel, this leaves us with the terrifying implication that someone did put at least some vestige of effort into writing this movie.
oh good she’s finally gonna fight lucien
no she failed again. please someone just punch the shit out of lucien so he’ll stop.
NO WHY ARE YOU MAKING OUT STOP IT GOD HAVE SOME STANDARDS WOMAN. STOP PLAYING FLOATY ROMANTIC MUSIC IN THE BACKGROUND THEY ARE LITERALLY STILL STANDING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ENTIRE BAND OF ROVING MISOGYNISTS
I thought it might at least be a trick but no she is actually, genuinely starstruck over this profoundly mediocre olde-timey frat boy who called her “sweetheart” while she was trying to explain to him why the ancient dracula-defeating relic was important.
this guy.
we did it boys, we found a worse love story than twilight
also I just. I wish I could convey with words the way the roving misogynists react to every single thing lucien and sometimes xena 3.0 says like the world’s worst greek chorus in a literally neverending stream
lucien (post makeout and xena 3.0 explaining again that the relic is ancient and powerful and they’ve searched for ages to find it): well we may not be knights but we can respect that
[cacophony of rowdy but understated agreement]
lucien: what do you think boys, should we give it back?
[assorted grumbles of assent]
xena 3.0: hm, a thief with a conscience
[gruff mercenary-esque chuckling]
lucien: maybe even a heart
[chorus of “ooooooOOOooh”s and some whistles]
it just goes on like that in every scene they happen to be physically adjacent to, they never shut up but also never actually contribute or say anything meaningful
ah, the mysterious leonardo has appeared. I think he was the one they were trying to take the light bringer to so that’s handy
“what is happening here? what is this flirtation?? is this the people to share your sacred secrets with???” - leonardo, the only remotely rational person in the entire movie
oh he is schooling these idiots, finally someone with sense. it’s bouncing right off of lucien, but at least he’s saying it.
“the scourge” - leonardo
“scourge!” “scourge!?” “scourge?” “hrgghhg??” “hrrm...” - the roving misogynists
power ranger villain and his squeaking goblins vs leonardo, the most useless female leads of all time, and the roving misogynists. who will win.
not the people watching this movie, I can tell you that much.
oh no, the lightbringer isn’t working. this will do nothing to convince the roving misogynists that it isn’t a walking stick
oop, wilhelm scream
oh no lucien has picked up the light bringer
goddamn it he’s the chosen one isn’t he
yep he activated the stick and now we all have to suffer
oh xena 3.0′s coming for power ranger villain maybe she’ll actually do something
nope she bounced off him and now he’s grabbed her and hauled her onto his horse
“you’re coming with me” he says in his weird batman voice, to make sure the audience can tell that he is in fact taking her with him
and esme has yelled “no” to make sure we remember that she’s in the movie
wait what the. did lucien just yell “xena” is that her actual name what the fuck. what the fuck. I had to have misheard that. okay I can’t tell what he’s saying for sure but someone’s bound to say her name again at some point in the movie so I’ll revisit that.
and on that note, I think I’ll end here, because there ended up being a LOT more to unpack in this movie than I expected, it’s after midnight, and I’m tired.
tomorrow, we follow lucien as he presumably goes to save some lady he wildly disrespected and then made out with one time whose name may or may not actually be xena, and hopefully figure out what the hell is even going on with dracula, remfield, and their castle full of artfully strewn half naked harpist lesbians and dancing ceiling shadows. because right now I really don’t have time to unpack all that, and I have a feeling it will only get worse.
#this is#a masterpiece#no description of mine can hope to do it justice#hypnotically incomprehensible#tearless liveblogs
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I was tagged by @adaline-hiero, thank you sweetie.
1. Who was the last person you held hands with? My mother.
2. Are you outgoing or shy? I used to be very shy at school and university era, even as a young adult. I wouldn't say I'm outgoing now. But not shy anymore. Right in the middle.
3. Who are you looking forward to seeing? My mother and my brother because they are all the family I have left. My dog because he's my baby.
4. Are you easy to get along with? Yes
5. If you were drunk would the person you like take care of you? I've never ever been drunk in my life. No interest.
6. What kind of people are you attracted to? The ones who could not be attracted to me. The Hiddleston and Cumberbatch kind (funny, smart, artist, educated, gentleman, caring, giving, handsome but doesn't act like he God knows it, heartful, sensitive...)
7. Do you think you’ll be in a relationship two months from now? Nah.
8. Who from the opposite gender is on your mind? My dash shows me a lot of Brie Larson content these days (due to Marvel) and I envy her silhouette, mainly her boobs.
9. Does talking about sex make you uncomfortable? Online ? Nah. Face to face, depends.
10. Who was the last person you had a deep conversation with? My dog. "How not to pee in the kitchen when mom is in the bedroom".
11. What does the most recent text that you sent say? “Damned Quasimodo !” to my brother (Notre Dame de Paris burning).
12. What are your 5 favorite songs right now? I don't listen to the radio, so I barely listen to "new" songs.
13. Do you like it when people play with your hair? Kids, no. Lover, yes.
14. Do you believe in luck and miracles? As much as I believe in Nessy.
15. What good thing happened this summer? I went to the Provence.
16. Would you kiss the last person you kissed again? No.
17. Do you think there is life on other planets? That's not even a question. Just logic. Yes there is life on other planets and I hope it is nothing like humans.
18. Do you still talk to your first crush? No.
19. Do you like bubble baths? I prefer showers.
20. Do you like your neighbors? Two look like serial killers, one is 110 years old, one obviously doesn't know what a shower is for, two other kill my nose sensitivity everytime they open their door, one loves to play music until 4 in the morning. Noooope.
21. What are you bad habits? I try to do 10 things at once. Worse is that I do succeed.
22. Where would you like to travel? London.
23. Do you have trust issues? If I understand the question right, ooooh yes.
24. Favorite part of your daily routine? Going back home in the evening.
25. What part of your body are you most uncomfortable with? My thumbs because I've got brachydactyly.
26. What do you do when you wake up? I rub my eyes and I complain about me not sleeping enough.
27. Do you wish your skin was lighter or darker? My skin is as white as Olaf and I love it. It never gets tanned, it's fascinating. I turn red and then all white again.
28. Who are you most comfortable around? My mum.
29. Have any of your ex’s told you they regret breaking up? No.
30. Do you ever want to get married? Not really.
31. If your hair long enough for a pony tail? Yes.
32. Which celebrities would you have a threesome with? Tom and Benedict and meeeee.
33. Spell your name with your chin. I have no dea what that one means.
34. Do you play sports? What sports? Yes, shopping and I've very good at it.
35. Would you rather live without TV or music? Depends. Sometimes I listen to music for hours everyday and sometimes I don't listen to a single tune. Same for TV.
36. Have you ever liked someone and never told them? Yes.
37. What do you say during awkward silences? I laugh.
38. Describe your dream girl/guy? The answer will sound so teenish. The two actors I feel for.
39. What are your favorite stores to shop in? Decoration stores.
40. What do you want to do after high school? I am 43, honey.
41. Do you believe everyone deserves a second chance? Some yes, others neva eva.
42. If your being extremely quiet what does it mean? I've just woken up.
43. Do you smile at strangers? If they walk their dog, yes. Though I first smile at the dog.
44. Trip to outer space or bottom of the ocean? Asgard.
45. What makes you get out of bed in the morning? An invisible force stronger than me.
46. What are you paranoid about? Losing the 2 only members of my family.
47. Have you ever been high? No and not willing to be.
48. Have you ever been drunk? No, police officer.
49. Have you done anything recently that you hope nobody finds out about? I was made for acting bad. ^^
50. What was the colour of the last hoodie you wore? I don't wear hoodies.
51. Ever wished you were someone else? Yes. Currently wishing I was Bobby Hiddleston. But I wouldn't enjoy being that furry for long.
52. One thing you wish you could change about yourself? More confident.
53. Favourite makeup brand? Revolution Beauty for cheap brand. Make Up For Ever.
54. Favourite store? Make up ? Sephora
55. Favourite blog? Some I love equaly, so no name.
56. Favourite colour? Green.
57. Favourite food? Pizza.
58. Last thing you ate? Foret noire (Bonte Divina).
59. First thing you ate this morning? Nesquik + Princes Lu.
60. Ever won a competition? Yes, if work competition are included. My boss didn't know if he should keep me or the other girl (I knew he preferd the other girl because of her short skirts), so he gave us tests. I won. Hehehe.
61. Been suspended/expelled? No comprendo.
62. Been arrested? For what? No.
63. Ever been in love? Yes.
64. Tell us the story of your first kiss? No, I won't.
65. Are you hungry right now? A bit. But on a diet for one day so I'm not gonna ruin it already !
66. Do you like your tumblr friends more than your real friends? I hate them all !!! lol
67. Facebook or Twitter? Sick of Facebook. Too unpretty for my standards and too full of boring stuff. Twitter.
68. Twitter or Tumblr? Tumblr !
69. Are you watching tv right now? Yes.
70. Names of your bestfriends? Tic and Tac.
71. Craving something? What? Another one I don't get. What is to crave ?
72. What colour are your towels? Taupe (light brown).
72. How many pillows do you sleep with? One ergonomic.
73. Do you sleep with stuffed animals? No but I wished that my real living animal would like to sleep with me, but he doesn't. Chihuahuas...
74. How many stuffed animals do you think you have? Me, none. My dog has over 20.
75. Favourite animal? Except dogs, gorillas.
76. What colour is your underwear? White.
77. Chocolate or Vanilla? Chocolate.
78. Favourite ice cream flavour? Pistachio / Mint.
79. What colour shirt are you wearing? Depends.
80. What colour pants? Depends.
81. Favourite tv show? Sherlock.
82. Favourite movie? Bram Stoker's Dracula.
83. Mean Girls or Mean Girls 2? Since I don't know what it is, I guess... none !
84. Mean Girls or 21 Jump Street? I used to watch 21 Jump Street when I was a teenie with Depp that I already didn't like... Overrated actor.
85. Favourite character from Mean Girls? Stop asking.
86. Favourite character from Finding Nemo? The mean shark. Kidding. Dory.
87. First person you talked to today? My dog asking him if he had slept well. He never answered.
88. Last person you talked to today? My dog wishing him a good night. He never replied.
89. Name a person you hate? My grandmother. Wishing her the worst on earth (loooooong story).
90. Name a person you love? My mother + my own Myscroft.
91. Is there anyone you want to punch in the face right now? My grandmother now that you brought that back.
92. In a fight with someone? No.
93. How many sweatpants do you have? None. That's a fashion no for anybody.
94. How many sweaters/hoodies do you have? No hoodie. Sweaters a bunch.
95. Last movie you watched? Crappy movies on Netflix and I have no idea how they were called...
96. Favourite actress? Sigourney Weaver.
97. Favourite actor? Benedict Cumberbatch because he blew me away too many times. Tom Hiddleston is a great contender.
98. Do you tan a lot? Not at all. But I do get red.
99. Have any pets? One chihuahua, Cookie, 9 years old. Had another chihuahua named Bobby who passed away last year. He was 11.
100. How are you feeling? Ok? I'm at home watching Notre Dame burning. I'm sad.
101. Do you type fast? Kind of.
102. Do you regret anything from your past? Sadly yes.
103. Can you spell well? Yes.
104. Do you miss anyone from your past? My father. He passed away in 2015.
105. Ever been to a bonfire party? No idea what it is.
106. Ever broken someone’s heart? Happened.
107. Have you ever been on a horse? My friend told me it was a horse and confessed it was just a big poney afterwards.
108. What should you be doing? Giffing !
109. Is something irritating you right now? I'm biting a nail and I've just ruined it.
110. Have you ever liked someone so much it hurt? Yes.
111. Do you have trust issues? You've already asked that one, parrot.
112. Who was the last person you cried in front of? My mother.
113. What was your childhood nickname? "Nini la sauce".
114. Have you ever been out of your province/state? I went to Germany to meet an actor I don't care about now. I met online buddies, visited Germany. Was great.
115. Do you play the Wii? PLAYSTATION !!!
116. Are you listening to music right now? Nope.
117. Do you like chicken noodle soup? No.
118. Do you like Chinese food? No.
119. Favourite book? The vampire Lestat, Anne Rice.
120. Are you afraid of the dark? No. Love it.
121. Are you mean? Hehehe, yesssss.
122. Is cheating ever okay? No. Never.
123. Can you keep white shoes clean? No, not with a doggie.
124. Do you believe in love at first sight? Yes.
125. Do you believe in true love? Yes.
126. Are you currently bored? A bit, that thing is too long.
127. What makes you happy? When my bank doesn't call to complain about my empty account.
128. Would you change your name? Noooo. Marilyn is a beautiful name. Merci, maman.
129. What your zodiac sign? Aquarius.
130. Do you like subway? Never used subway.
131. Your bestfriend of the opposite sex likes you, what do you do? God that silly thing happened. That was embarrassing. He was just a friend, not someone I ever felt for. That has ruined our friendship, he was kind of married.
132. Who’s the last person you had a deep conversation with? Not kidding, you have already asked the same question, right ?
133. Favourite lyrics right now? “shoo-be-doo-be-doo" by Madonna. Yeah, that's deep.
134. Can you count to one million? Happy to know I have always had better things to do.
135. Dumbest lie you ever told? "I hadn't noticed that Cookie had vomited right there, mom, promise". For the record, she cleaned. *g*
136. Do you sleep with your doors open or closed? Closed door ! I live in the french Bronx !
137. How tall are you? 162 cm. Something like... 28 cm shorter than Tom Hiddleston.
138. Curly or Straight hair? Wavy.
139. Brunette or Blonde? Brunette with one or two white hair already.
140. Summer or Winter? Summer. I hate, like really really hate winter.
141. Night or Day? Night.
142. Favourite month? July.
143. Are you a vegetarian? I'm weirdian. I don't like meat, I don't like vegetables. I am a pain in the ass when you ask me to come diner.
144. Dark, milk or white chocolate? Milk chocolate.
145. Tea or Coffee? Coffee. Benedict can keep all the tea.
146. Was today a good day? Until my country lost one of its most iconic monument, yes.
147. Mars or Snickers? Mars.
148. What’s your favourite quote? “If it bleeds, we can kill it”. ^^
149. Do you believe in ghosts? No but Zach Bagans would make me say yes.
150. Do you tag anyone else to do this? I always fear I bore my mutuals with these, so nope.
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Day 17: Coffee Shop/Flower Shop/Bookstore
For my July AU a Day Challenge
(I added the bookstore part)
Len finished the last sentence of the chapter to riveted expressions from the children watching, a few with worried, tearful faces at the fate of the main character—and with sympathy for the villain—just as Len had hoped.
He closed the little paperback with a flourish.
“And if you’d like to find out what happens next, you’ll have to convince your parents the merits of supporting your local businesses.”
Several kids groaned and whined, while most of the parents laughed. The Vampire Who Came For Christmas was hardly a title to break the bank, and he’d distracted these fine folk’s children for half an hour with a reading from near the middle of the book, where he felt they were most likely to get invested. The parents couldn’t be too upset with him for getting their kids interested in reading.
It also helped that he was dressed in a snazzy medieval outfit with plastic fangs to set the scene.
“Lenny,” Lisa stood with hands on hips after the children had started to disperse. “It isn’t Christmas or Halloween. Why that book? Just an excuse to play dress up?”
“Please, Lisa, I choose Children’s Corner based on more important timing. A little girl purchased the book recently and could not stop regaling me with how much she loved it.”
“Plus, the dress-up.”
“Well I do look good in black.” Len winked.
Rogues Corner was a shop passed down to Len from his mother with local authors and hard to find books, a little section for gifts and flowers, and a café in the back where people could grab coffee and a snack—a little bit of everything in a compact package. Len loved it, and he loved running it with his sister and best friend.
Mick handled the flowers and gifts. Lisa handled the books, though Len always read for Children’s Corner on Saturdays. And Len manned the coffee shop. They had a few additional workers to share the load, but for the most part, the place was theirs.
“Don’t look now, Lenny, but your favorite customer just walked in.” Lisa nodded over his shoulder.
Silly, unfair flutters churned in Len’s stomach before he turned around to see the young man who’d been coming in regularly for the past few months. Sometimes for a book, sometimes a gift, always for coffee and a treat, taking time to chat with Len each time. Lisa kept telling him to ask the guy out, but Len was unsure.
He was too old for the young Mr. Allen—“Call me Barry.” Oh but he was beautiful and adorable and so easy to talk to. Len just couldn’t be sure if Barry felt anything for him.
In that next moment as Lisa chuckled at his expense and headed off, he suddenly knew the answer.
Barry wasn’t interested—because he was in love with the girl he’d brought with him today.
She was a knockout. Dark skin, vibrant smile, flawless and petite figure. The way Barry looked at her was with such obvious adoration, Len stood no chance. No wonder their banter and what Lisa had insisted was flirting never went anywhere. Barry already had someone in his life.
They were headed for the flowers and gifts section, so Len bee-lined for the café. He shooed his extra cashier, Axel, to help Lisa with book sales, and hid behind the counter, wiping it down and serving the people who lined up for muffins and lattes.
He completely forgot he was still in costume from Children’s Corner until Barry and the knockout appeared out of nowhere.
“Did I see The Vampire Who Came For Christmas on display for Children’s Corner? I loved that book as a kid!” Barry exclaimed, without a single comment about Len looking like Lestat with shorn hair.
Knockout raised an eyebrow though. “You really get into your work, huh?”
“It’s for the kids!” Barry defended, then smiled at Len with a warmth that made Len’s knees week. “And the fun, right? You make fangs look cool again, Len.”
“There was a point they weren’t cool?” Then Len realized what he’d said and he, Barry, and Knockout all said at once, “Twilight.”
“Still a long road to recover from that,” Barry snickered. “Oh this is Iris. Iris, this is Len, one of the owners. He makes the best chocolate coconut mocha you have ever had.”
“You just made my order easier.” Iris smiled.
“Make it two?” Barry looked at Len hopefully. “And a cinnamon scone for me, please.”
“Coming right up.”
It was when Iris paid, waving Barry’s wallet away, that Len noticed the glittering ring on her finger.
“When’s the happy day?” Len asked, feeling his stomach sink deeper as he accepted her cash and readied her change.
“Next weekend. I’m losing my mind, so Barry is trying to keep me distracted. Best Man of Honor ever,” she said, and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I’m going to check out the gift section again. There might be something over there perfect for a bridal party gift, so you, sir, cannot come with me for a while.”
“Wouldn’t dream of peeking,” Barry gave a little salute.
Off she went with her mocha, while Barry sat at the café counter to enjoy his. He didn’t immediately look down at his scone though, but watched Iris walk away with longing.
It was worse than Len thought. He should leave things alone, he really should, but he found himself asking anyway, “So tell me, Barry…she know you’re in love with her?”
Barry startled, nearly choking on his first sip of coffee. “I… It’s that obvious? But yeah, she knows. I told her before they got engaged, but…”
“She chose the other guy.”
“We don’t want it to make things weird. She’s my oldest friend. My best friend, and she always will be.”
“Doesn’t change that you’re hung up on her.”
“Like a jerk.” Barry picked at his scone, only taking a small bite, which wasn’t like him at all. He was a hearty eater for such a slim guy. “Her fiancé, Eddie, is the best too. Like, even I love him. It’s not a case of her choosing the wrong guy, I’m just out of luck.”
Len felt for him, intimately familiar with unrequited love. “Well…” He tried to think of something comforting to say.
“Mr. Len?”
Len peered over the counter beside Barry where one of the regulars from Children’s Corner was clutching a book and some cash. He went around to crouch in front of her. “Yes, Eleanor?”
“I only got three dollars and fifty cents, but the vampire book is six. Can I bring you the rest later?”
Eleanor’s parents insisted she earn and pay for her own books, trying to teach her patience and restraint, though they gave her fifty cents here and there for easy things to give her a sense of accomplishment too. Len could see them in the distance, watching her closely.
“You most certainly can,” he said, since he appreciated a negotiator. “We’ll write an IOU.”
“A what?”
Len pulled a pen and paper from his pocket, turning to write on the empty stool beside Barry so Eleanor could see. “I,” he wrote and pointed at her, “O,” he tapped the money in her hands, “U,” he pointed at himself. “And we’ll write the amount left on your tab so we both remember. What is six minus three-fifty?”
“Um…two-fifty!”
“Good girl.” He wrote that down on the paper along with Eleanor’s name, and handed it to her. “You go give all that to Miss Lisa and say I said it was alright.”
“Thank you, Mr. Len!” Eleanor bounced on her feet before dashing away. Her parents shot him a sly look but he simply shrugged.
Then he noticed Barry smirking at him, right there above him where Len was still crouching.
He quickly stood. “What?”
“Nothing. You’re just amazing. You’re really good with kids, you know.”
“Easy to be good with them when you can give them back to their parents.”
Barry chuckled and started eating his scone with more gusto.
“Wedding, huh?” Lisa appeared just as Len got back behind the counter. She must have grilled Iris.
“Shouldn’t you be up front?” Len glared at her.
“Axel’s got it, and I took the IOU, you big softy.” She looked back to Barry for an answer.
“Oh, yeah, next weekend.”
“Do you have a date?”
“No?” Barry said more like a question.
“Going stag to bag a bridesmaid?”
“No!”
“Groomsman?”
“Lisa,” Len snapped. She did not need to ask that—or hover so close to Barry.
“Not these groomsmen,” Barry said with a glance away that said he might be interested in some groomsmen—in men as well as women, which should not have made Len feel so hopeful. “They’re all friends of mine.”
“Then you should take Lenny.”
“What?” Len’s attention whirled back to his sister.
“You get a plus one, don’t you?” Lisa grinned at Barry mischievously. “Lenny loves weddings.”
Len hated weddings.
“At least then you’d have someone to dance with and not feel awkward during the reception.”
“I couldn’t ask that.” Barry turned to face Len with that typical nice ‘no thanks’ expression. Or at least Len thought that’s what he was seeing until a swirl of hope entered Barry’s face. “Unless you…really wanted to go? Would you?”
Len resented and loved his sister so much in that moment because it didn’t seem like Barry was only being polite. “If you’re really asking…I could be available.”
“Really? Coz I think I am asking. I would love to not have to go through next weekend alone, especially if you were the one with me.” Barry seemed to realize how he’d said that and promptly blushed.
Lisa looked so damn smug, but maybe she wasn’t wrong about Barry.
“Great,” Len said. “It’s a date.”
#coldflash#au a day challenge#coffee shop au#among others#crimson's writing#damn it#I am going to have so many stories to write someday
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Your Light in the Mist - Chapter 15
I was seated at the end of a chair grouping outside gate four in terminal two of the airport, luggage screened and checked. The six AM flight had departed without me, and the one PM flight would be leaving from here so it had seemed as good a place as any to wait. It was ten-thirty AM and I was on my fourth Starbucks Caffe Vanilla Frappuccino. I never drank coffee because it made me a jittery mess, but since I was already a jittery mess I figured why the fuck not. At least I’d be a conscious jittery mess this way.
The chairs were brutally uncomfortable, and the fluorescent lighting flickered from time to time, or it appeared to. It could have been from sleep deprivation and anxiety, I supposed. But it didn’t seem to matter much. Nothing did. All I wanted to do was disappear into the void and not have to face any aspect of my reality. Too bad it was never that simple. Not for me, anyway.
I tried to take a nap when I learned there would be no seats available on the six AM flight, but every time I nodded off either Tom’s words or my mother’s face would pop uninvited into my head and jar me awake. Focusing enough to read online or off was impossible, and any song I played on my iPod upset me for some stupid reason. Walking around worked for a while, carryon in tow, moving from place to place, sucking down my Frappuccino and visiting the bathroom every half hour, until I noticed airport security watching me. That’s how I wound up here, sitting down, staring at the walls, reading the signs over and over again and not comprehending a single thing they said. The people walking by were like ghosts, each living a life completely outside of my realm. They smiled, they hugged, and they laughed while I sat waiting to board a jet that would take me somewhere I’d never wanted to be again, where I’d have to gaze upon the lifeless body of a woman I’d never wanted to see again.
And then there was…Tom. I was incredibly angry at myself for growing so attached so quickly, for letting him in. I knew better. But I did it anyway, because…there was that feeling. That this was the person. My person. It was all so fast, but it had felt right. And whether I liked it or not, I loved him. He deserved a chance to explain himself, certainly, but I wasn’t sure I was capable of giving it to him. Some of the things he’d said cut very deeply, and by my own admission forgiveness wasn’t a thing that came easily to me. Yes, he’d been drunk. But that’s the thing about words…once they’re said, you can never take them back. Your state of mind when you speak them is essentially irrelevant if they’re heard and they hurt.
Yet in spite of what had transpired, I missed him terribly already. I wanted him right next to me, warm, present, here. I felt…halved. Alone. And lonely. There had to be an underlying issue that caused him to behave in such a fashion, didn’t there? Or, perhaps the man I saw last night was the real Tom, and the one I’d spent the past two weeks with and thought I’d known was simply proof positive that he was just a better actor than anyone could have ever imagined.
More than anything else, I felt stupid. Stupid for thinking that love at first sight could actually happen, and even stupider for thinking it could happen to me. I was not meant for this. No matter how far I thought I’d come, I would never be more than this broken thing on the inside, a thing that couldn’t even earn the love of its own mother, no matter hard it tried.
My phone rang, and I nearly jumped out of my skin, instantly ejected from my introspection. I thumbed to unlock the screen. It was Tom. Heart pounding, disgusted with myself when I realized that I wanted nothing more than to pick it up, say hello and make everything better, I flung it down on the seat next to me as if I’d been burned.
Four minutes later, the voicemail alert chimed. Staring down at it, I began rubbing my temples and had a lengthy back and forth with myself as to whether or not I should listen to it.
“Eh, fuck it. Let’s see what he has to say. At this stage of the game, I don’t think there’s anything that could make me feel worse than I already do.”
I clicked, held the phone up to my ear and listened. His voice was several octaves higher than normal, his speech wavering between halting and rambling and filled with anxious panic, reminiscent of a child who’s just realized he’s lost and alone in a strange, unfamiliar place.
“Maude? I…it’s…I don’t know…I slept through my alarm and it’s after ten and we were supposed to be on a plane already but I woke up and you’re gone and all of your things are gone…” He choked back a sob. “And I don’t remember anything from last night after you called me…” Another sob. “I…Maude…what I said…I’m so sorry…I was just…I thought you…didn’t want to…be with me…” He was openly weeping now as he spoke, addressing himself more so than me. ���I’m not…I…how did I even get back here? I don’t know…what happened? What did…did…I do? My god, what did I do that made you leave without me?” An agonized, muffled cry, as if from behind a hand-covered mouth. “Where are you, Maude? Why aren’t you here? Please call me. Please. Please.” Another cry, gasping this time, then silence.
My stomach heaved, and this time there was no holding back. I ran for the closest restroom but only made it as far as the garbage can around the corner. I vomited up all four Frappuccinos, then continued to retch long after there was nothing left to be brought forth. I leaned on the rim, face still hovering over the can, until I heard a voice behind me. It was airport security.
“Ma’am? Ma’am? Are you okay? Do you need medical assistance?”
I wiped my mouth with my forearm as I pushed myself into a standing position, shaking like a Chihuahua and wishing I could make myself invisible.
“No, I’m fine. Thanks. Sorry about that. Coffee and I don’t get along very well, apparently. Now I remember why I switched to tea.” I tried to smile, but it just wasn’t happening. He handed me some paper towels.
“Ma’am, if you need to use the restroom I’d be happy to keep an eye on your bag for you.”
I nodded and handed him my carryon but kept my messenger bag. “Thank you so much.”
My reflection in the mirror was gaunt, the dark circles under my eyes highlighted by yesterday’s makeup, which I had forgotten to remove. I looked like I’d been out all night partying, eyeliner smeared, mascara clumped and flaking. I rested my hands on the counter and leaned in closer to my reflection.
“Well, how do you feel, you fucking dumbass? What’s that? You feel….WORSE?” I barked out a laugh, then turned on the tap and rinsed my mouth out by cupping water in my hands, then ran my index finger over my teeth in a crude attempt at brushing. There was toothpaste in my carryon, but there was no way in hell I was going back out for it right now.
Next I washed my face as best I could with the paper ‘towels’ from the dispenser. There was nothing towel-like about them, and my eyes were red as fire after I scrubbed off the makeup, contacts all askew until I blinked repeatedly to get them back where they belonged. I wet two more towels with super cold water, then held them on my eyes for a few minutes. Most of the redness had faded, and I took out my braid and put my hair in a ponytail.
“Better, Maude. Hopefully the dude won’t want to haul you in because he suspects you’re a vagrant. Or a prostitute. Or a drug dealer. Or a terrorist. Or a vagrant, drug dealing, prostituting terrorist.”
He was guarding my bag, as promised, and handed me my phone as I approached him.
“Ma’am, you dropped this. It looks like it’s fine, though.”
I managed to fake a smile this time. “Thanks again. I really appreciate it. Crazy day, you know? I’m on standby for three flights trying to get to New Orleans for my mother’s funeral. Well, two, now. The first one didn’t work out. The next one leaves from this gate…it’s okay if I wait here until I find out if I’ll be on it, right?” I pulled up my confirmations on the phone, grabbed my ID out of my messenger bag and showed them to him.
He nodded. “Sure thing, ma’am. Take care.”
“Thanks.” I sank down in the chair, crushed under the weight of my emotions, feuding with the compulsion to not only call him, but to get in a cab and rush back to the hotel so I could comfort him and alleviate his pain in spite of that which he had caused me.
My phone rang again, and I decided that if it was Tom again I’d pick up. It wasn’t. The screen flashed at me…’Lestat calling’. It was Anne. Good. I needed a healthy dose of anger to get my sad-sack ass back on track. Because bitches get shit done. I hit the answer button.
“Maude, honey, how are you doing? I figured I’d call to check…”
“I’d be doing infinitely better if you hadn’t given the hospice my phone number, that’s for fucking sure.”
She clucked her tongue at me, which made me grip the phone so tightly that my knuckles turned white. “Kiddo, there was no one else to handle all that needed to…”
“Oh, I’m aware of that NOW. Did you know she was divorced this entire time?”
She hesitated. “Maude, listen…”
“You did, you fucking DID. And you never bothered to tell me.”
A sigh escaped her. “You never wanted me to talk about her.”
“Oh, right…like that ever stopped you from going right ahead doing it anyway.”
“In hindsight, perhaps I should have mentioned it.”
“Ya think?” I inhaled deeply, aware that if I continued being so loud I’d be receiving another visit from airport security. “Are you going to tell me what happened between them or do I have to wait until I get there and be blindsided with it by a total stranger?”
“He left her. For an eighteen year old. Who was a senior in high school. They’ve since married and have three children.”
After letting it sink in for a few moments, I began chuckling softly, which quickly evolved into raucous laughter. Unable to regain my composure, I tried to speak through it. “Oh, Anne. You most certainly should have mentioned it. That’s…” I wiped a tear from my eye. “It’s…it’s…fucking hilarious.”
“Maude, please, she just passed away. And it hurt her terribly when it happened. How could you possibly think it’s amusing?”
My laughter ceased and was replaced with fury. “The same way you could have possibly thought I’d give even the remotest shit if she was alive or dead, Anne. That’s how. And because you, sanctimonious Christian Samaritan that you are, wanted to ensure that she was sent off to your fairytale afterlife properly I’m stuck being the stupid fuck who’s responsible for it all. You know the whole story, Anne. Every bit of it. You mean to tell me you can’t understand why I’d take pleasure in learning that karma finally caught up with her? Seriously? Well, at least now I get why you never told me. If you’ll excuse me, I’m kind of having a massively shitty day here and I need to go.”
As I hit the end call button, I realized my hands were shaking wildly and I felt lightheaded, and that I hadn’t eaten since dinner last night. I hefted my bags over my shoulder and looked at the airport dining map on my phone. Einstein Brothers Bagels sounded promising, and after waiting in line for a shockingly brief five minutes my food was ready. I sat at a table, sucking down a thirty-two ounce Coke while starring down my bacon, egg and cheddar sandwich. I wasn’t at all hungry, but passing out in the airport sounded like it might be a hassle so I forced myself to eat it, trying not to gag as I did so. It was almost eleven-thirty when I finally finished, and I walked back to my spot. My phone dinged. It was a text from Simon.
Are you okay? – S
I had no idea if he knew anything, and if he did, what it was. I hadn’t mentioned a thing to anyone other than Tom via email as to what was going on.
Why wouldn’t I be? – M
Tom called us. – S
Well, then you know that ‘are you okay’ is, like, a totally loaded question. – M
Are you still at the airport? – S
Yeah. First standby was a bust, should know about the second one any minute now. I may or may not have puked in a garbage can earlier and I think airport security may have flagged me as a vagrant, drug dealing, prostituting terrorist. – M
Good to see you still have your sense of humor. – S
Sarcasm is my secret coping mechanism. When the humor goes, you’ll know things are really in the shitter, my friend. How much did he tell you? – M
Too much, like he always does. I’m sorry about your mother. – S
Don’t be. I’m not. – M
Marry me, woman. – S
Seriously, though. How are you holding up? – S
I’m sort of…not? But I don’t want to talk about any of it, just so you know. I need to deal with dead mother first, then I can try to sort out the rest. – M
You know I hear that, sister. Mothers. Bring you screaming into the world, and then they do their best to make sure you keep screaming. And screaming. – S
*virtual high five* - M
If you need me, honey, any time, I’m here, K? – S
Thanks. Love you. – M
Love you too. – S
Shaking my head, I wondered how Luke was handling all this and remembered my assurance that no matter what happened between Tom and me personally, the work would continue as specified and in a professional manner. I frowned as I took my tablet out of my bag and powered it up, checking to see if Tom had done what I’d asked. Everything was posted exactly as I’d specified. The sight of his countenance made my stomach queasy again, and I leaned my head back to let it rest on the wall behind me as I stared at the ceiling and attempted to convince my breakfast to stay put. As soon as the feeling passed, I put my tablet away and texted Luke.
Everything’s still on track for me being in London on the 20th, and I’ll be working wherever I am between now and then. If you need something, have questions, whatever, let me know. – M
His response was immediate.
I don’t want you giving anything work related a moment of thought right now. Do what you need to do back home, and take your time doing it, all right? If there’s anything I can do to help in some way, let me know. – L
I sighed.
Thank you. Though I can’t help but work…I need the distraction. – M
I’m the same way. We’re here if you need us. – XO L & S
The PA system clicked on and I heard a woman’s voice say my name. “Maude Gallagher, please report to the check in desk. Maude Gallagher, please report to the check in desk. Thank you.”
Got called to check in…maybe this flight is a go. Thanks again, both of you. – XO M
As I made my way to the desk, the initial excitement at the prospect of getting the fuck out of San Diego faded and was replaced with panic as the grim reality of what was waiting for me in New Orleans began to settle in. There were three stations open, and I chose the one with two people in line ahead of me. When my turn came, I presented my ID to the clerk, a blonde woman in her late twenties, if I had to guess. Her hair was pulled back into a bun, and her makeup was perfection…just enough color to make her features stand out, but barely noticeable. And a lip color shade that wasn’t more than a decade old, too. I had the sudden urge to begin reading Vogue and Glamour again, then snickered to myself when I realized I could look up anything and everything beauty related online but had never bothered to do so.
She smiled at me, teeth blindingly white. “May I help you?”
“I was notified via the PA system to report to the check in desk…Maude Gallagher? I’m on standby for two more flights today so I assume you have news for me?”
Her eyes roamed over my ID and her face flushed. “Ms. Gallagher. Right. Follow me, please.” She stepped out from behind the counter and over to her left, into a small alcove at the start of the hallway to the security offices. The first thing I noticed was my luggage piled up against the wall.
I gently grabbed her shoulder. “Wait, why is my…”
And then I noticed that there was someone standing next to my luggage. My brain froze, my heart stopped and my arm slipped from the clerk’s shoulder and fell back to my side. He was wearing his black sweatshirt, hood up, with jeans and those filthy white Vans. Sunglasses hid his eyes from me, and I was torn between wanting to embrace him or punch him in his pretty fucking face.
Seven steps closed the distance between us, and I reminded myself that we were in public and that it was Comic-Con weekend and he was very recognizable, so I’d best try to not make a scene.
I snarled, and my voice came forth in a hiss. “Why the fuck are you here? And what are you doing with my luggage?”
He removed the shades, and his eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, tearing up as he tried to meet my gaze. “Maude…I…I know that I’m the last person you want to see right now…”
“Um, no, you aren’t the last. Second to last, probably. Either way, I sure as shit have zero desire to look at you, yet here you are.”
He swallowed and wiped away a tear that had carved out a path through the stubble on his cheek. “I’m so, so sorry. But I had to come. It couldn’t let you sit here waiting and waiting to go do what you have to do when I’ve found a way to get you where you need to be, on time.”
I rolled my eyes as I crossed my arms, subconsciously protecting myself. “Thomas, there are no flights out of here other than my two stand-bys, so unless you have a magic carpet or your own private jet…oh, fuck ME. A charter. Don’t tell me you chartered a fucking jet. Why didn’t I think of that? What a fucking moron I am…I could have been there already.” I put my hand on my forehead, looked down and gazed at a crack in the tile floor.
He reached out to touch my arm, and I yanked it away, glaring at him. His bottom lip quivered, and he inhaled sharply as he tried to rein in his emotions.
“Yes. I chartered a flight. It will depart from Landmark Aviation whenever you’re ready to leave. There’s a car waiting outside.”
As mortifying as it was, desperation easily won out over my anger, and I knew that even if I’d had to sell my soul, if I possessed such a thing, there was no way I was passing this up. The sooner I got to New Orleans, the sooner it would all be finished. Finally finished. I could close the chapter once and for all and move on, though I was now much less sure of what I’d be moving on to than I was twenty-four hours ago. I unstacked my luggage, situated the handles and prepared to head out. “Don’t think for one second that I’m letting you pay for this…I don’t need your fucking charity.”
“Maude, it’s already taken care of, and please, it’s not chari…”
“Fuck you. Email me a bill and I’ll send you a check. Where’s the car?” He tried to take the bags from me. “No. I can schlep around my own shit. I’m not fucking helpless. Speaking of, how did you get your hands on these, anyway? They told me they’d stay checked and go out on the direct flight at four PM and be waiting for me at Louis Armstrong even if I wasn’t on board.”
He put his hands in his pockets and began walking to the main doors, head down. “One of the clerks is a fan. She pulled some strings.”
I didn’t reply, instead dropping back so I could follow his lead. He held the door for me, which I permitted, and walked down to the waiting limousine. I shook my head as the driver leapt out of the car to open the door, then gathered my belongings and placed them in the trunk. As I buckled in, the door opposite me opened and Tom climbed in. My jaw clenched as I turned to him.
“What are you doing?”
“Coming with you.”
“To the airfield?”
“Yes. And then to New Orleans. Because regardless of anything that’s happened between us, you shouldn’t have to do this alone.”
My eyes narrowed. “I shouldn’t have to do this at all, and if Anne hadn’t given the hospice my number I wouldn’t be.”
He frowned and shook his head. “Why wouldn’t they already have your information? Did you not know she was ill?”
“Yes. I knew. Anne told me almost two weeks ago.”
His brow furrowed, and it was obvious to me where this was going to end up.
I sighed. “Yes, Tom. I knew she was dying. And I didn’t go see her. And guess what else? I still don’t want to fucking see her.”
His eyes widened, shocked at my statement and disgusted by my coldness. “But Maude, she’s your mother.”
I could feel my face contort into something ugly, something horrible, twisted with pain. “She may have given birth to me, but she was never my mother, and she’s already been dead to me for a very long time.”
He gasped softly, but said nothing. I stared straight ahead and remained that way for the eight minutes it took us to reach Landmark Aviation. The driver opened my door, then Tom’s, and another employee arrived with a cart for our luggage, which they whisked off to the waiting Learjet 35A. The office area was open plan, two floors with a modern design and floor to ceiling windows. I sat in the waiting area while Tom completed all the paperwork, joining him only when the clerk requested my presence so he could obtain all the required identification information. He walked us to the jet, where we were greeted by the pilot who advised it would take approximately four hours to reach New Orleans. I climbed the stairs into the cabin, which consisted of seven seats in dark brown leather. Two chairs faced each other, two were in the rear across from a bench seat, and another bench seat was up front beside the facing chairs. There was a refreshment area with a mini-fridge and microwave, as well as a bathroom. I walked all the way to the back and strapped myself into one of the bench seats, my messenger bag next to me to prevent Tom from sitting near me. I needn’t have worried, as he sat up front with his back towards me.
Our takeoff was perfection, and the pilot announced that we could unbuckle ourselves and move freely about the cabin shortly thereafter. I undid my seat belt but stayed where I was. Tom blew his nose, got up, walked back to where I was and knelt in front of me. He’d taken off his hoodie, his well-worn blue V-neck nearly see-through in the harsh interior lighting. It was obvious that he’d been crying, his eyes bloodshot and still damp.
“It was very, very wrong of me to pass judgement on you like that. Especially after…” He closed his eyes briefly. “It’s just…my mother and I are so close…but I should know better than to assume that everyone is so fortunate. If yours was ill enough to be in hospice and you didn’t want to see her then and don’t want to now, you must have good reason for feeling as you do.”
I turned away from him. He shifted so he was in my line of sight again.
“If you don’t want to be with me any longer after this…” He swallowed. “I…I’ll understand. I won’t want to accept it, but it’s my fault and I’ll do whatever you wish me to do because I love you. But please, let me help you through this. Don’t shut me out.”
I met his gaze, my heart full of ice and my head full of sorrow. “Oh, sure, right. Because letting you in has worked out so well for me.”
He broke down then, right in front of me, placing his hands over his face as he tried to stifle his sobs. He wept until he retched, then got up and went to the lavatory. I heard him vomit several times, and he finally emerged fifteen minutes later and returned to his chair at the front of the cabin. Great, puking all around today. This love stuff is the best.
As I stared at the back of his seat, it crossed my mind that he might be just as broken and lost as I was, and I needed him to know why I was. Right now, even if it was too late to make a difference. I rose and walked up front, then slowly lowered myself into the chair across from him and attempted to put it all into words.
I spoke softly, emotionless. “Tom, we fell into this so very fast, and neither of us reached the point of revealing all we’ve been through. We’re both intelligent enough to know that what happens in someone’s past affects them in the present, no matter how hard they try to deny or avoid it. If you really want to be with me through this, there are things you need to know in order to fully understand me, so you don’t think I’m a monster for not seeing my…mother…when she was dying in hospice, and to help you decide if you want to remain in this relationship.”
He looked at me, a faint smile on his lips at the mention of there still being a relationship to remain in.
“Don’t take that the wrong way…I should have phrased it differently.” His face fell. “I’m not certain where we stand, because I don’t know what I want to do about what occurred last night. But, from an emotional vantage point, I’m one hundred percent certain that I’m incapable of dealing with it at the moment. What I do know is I that can’t let you be a part of this if you’re still completely unaware of everything that…happened. For now, I just want to say my piece and for you to listen. Is that all right with you?”
He nodded.
I leaned back in the chair and began, hands shaking as I tried to keep my voice evenly modulated.
“My parents met in February of 1977, in a pub in Dalkey, Ireland, my father’s hometown. His name was Sean, and he was born in Dublin but grew up in Dalkey. His family wasn’t flat broke, but they were far from what you’d consider middle class and he was bartending at the pub to make ends meet. He was nineteen. My mother, Mary Clarke, was born and raised in Manchester, England. Her father was a prominent solicitor, her mother distantly related to the royal family. Or so she claimed. Either way, they were quite wealthy and had a summer cottage in Dalkey. She was eighteen years old, engaged to an Earl who was in his last year at Oxford University, and due to be married in May of that year. Her and her girlfriends decided to take their last holiday as singles over Valentine’s weekend, staying until the following Sunday. She was Protestant, my father was Catholic, and she felt inspired to sow her wild oats with what she considered to be a ‘bad boy’. He fell madly in love with her after their week together, and she left him high and dry and went back to Manchester. Two months later, she discovered she was pregnant, which was problematic as she had yet to sleep with her fiancé. The engagement was called off, her family publicly disgraced, and her father sent her packing to Dalkey and forced her to marry my father lest she be completely disinherited. They married and immigrated to the states, my maternal grandfather having used his connections to find him a position with Exxon, working on an oil rig off the coast of New Orleans.”
I paused, and Tom reached over to the mini-fridge and handed me a bottle of water, which I cracked open and drank greedily.
“Thanks. She hated New Orleans, but her narcissistic personality disorder made her want to not only fit in, but stand out. Her father paid for the trip over and got them set up in a two bedroom apartment, but after that he cut her off completely. Even more than New Orleans itself, she hated being ‘poor’ in New Orleans. She often spent all the funds designated for bills on clothes, which meant my father was never around, because in addition to his week-long shifts he worked overtime on the weekends to make up for her expenditures. She desperately wanted to live in the Garden District, but settled for being a big fish in a little pond, working her magic to impress the women who resided near our apartment building, even adopting a southern accent so she could pretend to be native to the area. When I came early on Halloween, she was thrilled that she’d had a little girl and began habitually dressing me up and showing me off to all her new friends, but that didn’t last long. One of the first things I remember is her combing my hair roughly as she tried using some smelly product to straighten it, telling me she wished it was red like my father’s and straight like hers, instead of this dingy brown bird’s nest of unattractive curls. I couldn’t have been more than three.”
I swallowed, hard. “I wasn’t what she expected, I guess. Puberty began early for me, when I was around eight or so, and I put on some weight, as most girls do. She made fun of me in front of anyone willing to listen, called me fat, forced me to diet and exercise, and told me that she was disappointed I’d turned out to be so ugly, that I embarrassed her and made her look like a terrible mother.”
He cringed, and I saw his hand reach for me, then retract.
“By that time, my father had moved up the ladder at Exxon and was on his way to being an executive, so he was home with us most evenings and weekends instead of being out on the rigs. She’d always been a drinker, but mainly socially. His being around so much seemed to trigger something in her, and just like that, we were living with a full-blown alcoholic. Every day began with a swig from the bottle of vodka she kept on her nightstand, and I rarely saw her without a drink in her hand. She’d rage around the house at all hours, coming into my room in the middle of the night to scream at me for something I’d done that had offended her in some way, sometimes dragging me out of bed to rectify whatever mistake she thought I’d made. My father would try to reason with her, but she’d threaten to divorce him and he’d back off and leave her to her own devices. She was the love of his life, and he would have done anything to keep her. We wound up being asked to leave our apartment building because of all the complaints from the neighbors, and my father found a single family home for us to rent in an attempt to cover it all up. That’s just what people did then, I guess. Keeping up appearances, hiding the truth.”
I got up from my chair. “Sorry, need to use the bathroom.”
After peeing and washing my hands, I splashed some water on my face but refrained from looking in the mirror, afraid of what I’d see staring back at me. He was pacing when I came out, but sat down again as I did.
“In 1988, my maternal grandfather died and my mother inherited a sizable sum of money. She lost herself in the process of buying and remodeling our home in the Garden District and the drinking diminished significantly…at least until she realized that no matter how expensive her clothes were or that we had a live-in housekeeper and a French chef, the women of the neighborhood who’d been there for generations would never accept her as one of their own. When Anne met my father at a Sunday service, my mother suddenly wanted to convert to Catholicism, hoping ties with one of the area’s most famous residents would improve her standing. She changed her mind when she found out that Anne was sober and had no qualms about pushing those around her to live the same lifestyle. The drinking escalated again, and by the time I was thirteen I was spending every moment possible at the New Orleans Public Library, or at Anne’s, or wherever else I could go that wasn’t home.”
Tom offered me another water, which I accepted. I’d been trying to avoid his gaze, but his hand grazed mine as he handed me the bottle and our eyes locked. We stared at each other briefly, then quickly looked away.
“School was a blessing for me in many ways, in spite of the fact that I was teased and bullied frequently. I was smart, weird, and chubby…not exactly a winning combination. By the time I entered high school, I started to come into my own and stand up for myself amongst my peers, but at home I was still meek, always walking on eggshells. If I got a ninety-nine on a test, she wanted to know why it wasn’t a hundred. If I got an A, why wasn’t it an A+? Nothing I did was good enough. Ever. No matter how hard I tried, there was no pleasing her. I started hiding out in my room after I conned our chef into helping me put a slide bolt on the inside of the door. That was my sanctuary, where I read, I drew, I danced, and I sang. For my sixteenth birthday I asked for a computer instead of a car, and it changed my life. I tore it apart and put it back together again, learned everything about it, inside and out. It became my passion, and knowing that I could do something that not many others could was such a powerful feeling. The real turning point came at the start my senior year when I was awarded the full scholarship to NYIT. She was adamant that no daughter of hers was going to go away to school in New York City and study such a stupid subject that was meant for men. It was the first time I lost my shit on her, and the first time that my father backed me up. She refused to contribute any money, so he sold some of his Exxon stock and bought me an apartment in Manhattan so I wouldn’t have to stay in a dorm. Or, I should say, my apartment. Because I still live in it. Sometimes.”
I smiled sadly, remembering how proud he’d been of me, and so happy that he’d been able to help me on the path to making my own way in the world. “College was…amazing. I was away from my mother, spending every day learning in the company of people who were like…me. I put on my ‘freshman fifteen’ and then some, but no one cared. We were all nerds, and what was inside was far more intriguing than what was on the outside. I met Erik Lund in my Comp Sci I class, and over the course of the first semester we became very good friends, taking in all that New York had to offer when we weren’t delving into the wonder that was the World Wide Web. It was 1995, and the hacking scene was exploding…god, we had so much fun trying to crack codes and get in through back doors, even if all we wound up finding was someone’s resume. It was if a new world had been created, one that belonged solely to us. Over Christmas break, I came to the stunning realization that I’d developed feelings for him, and when class was back in session he confessed that he felt the same way. We fell in love, a little bit at a time. I invited him back to New Orleans for spring break, and he couldn’t wait to see where I’d grown up. I guess I’d pushed all thoughts of my mother out of my mind, forgetting what she was capable of. From the moment he walked into the house she began criticizing everything about him. He was stocky, his hairline already receding, and, like me, he didn’t really give a remote shit about what he wore. And I thought everything about him was…beautiful. Right in front of him, she told me that even an ugly fat girl like me could do better. We left immediately and spent the rest of the week in my apartment in the city, slept together for the first time, and he officially moved in three weeks later. I took a summer class so I wouldn’t have to go home, but I’d agreed to be a bridesmaid for a close high school friend who was getting married over Labor Day weekend, so I had to fly back for the wedding. I wanted Erik to come with me, but my mother would be in attendance and I didn’t want to subject him to her insanity again, so he went back home to upstate New York to spend time with his family instead.”
I could feel my heart starting to race, and I closed my eyes and bit my lip, trying to calm myself down.
“I got a phone call the day after the wedding from one of Erik’s friends. He’d been killed in a car accident the night before, hit by a drunk driver doing eighty miles an hour in a forty-five mile an hour zone who crossed over the middle line.”
My mind took me back to that moment, how I’d said no, that can’t be right, it must be a mistake, how I’d fallen to the floor as the truth sank in, wishing I’d died with him. And later, how my mother had smirked when I told her the news.
“I flew to New York for his funeral, and two weeks later I found out I was pregnant. My mother tried to convince me to have an abortion, but I refused. It was the last thing that remained of him, a living piece of himself he’d left behind for me. His legacy. I decided to quit school, stay in New Orleans and raise the baby on my own. A few days later, I miscarried.”
Tom sniffled, and I looked up to see tears flowing, his hands gripping the armrests as he fought to stay in his seat. I wanted him to hold me, more than anything else. But I just…couldn’t.
“My heart was broken. I felt like there was no point to anything anymore, and that’s when I started drinking. First, I snuck booze from my mother’s stash. Then I had a fake ID made and started going out to bars every night, staying past close and staggering home to sleep the day away. I wasn’t eating, so I lost a ton of weight. My mother made it a point to compliment me on how thin I’d gotten. During Mardi Gras of 1997, I met Will Bonaventura. He had long, dark curly hair, dark brown eyes…Spanish creole, going back three generations. I was drunk and singing karaoke, and after he heard me he asked me if I wanted to sing with his band. He played lead guitar, and I figured it was a great excuse to party. You know, ‘hey, I’m not a drunk, I’m an artist’. I moved into his shitty apartment and continued my binging. That’s really all we had in common…partying. That and music. One weekend we decided to drive to Las Vegas for a Battle of the Bands, and I drank so much I blacked out and woke up with a ring on my finger and a photo of us with the Elvis impersonator who’d married us. He said he remembered everything that had happened, that I said I’d loved him, but it was all…blank…for me. Once we got back to New Orleans and he met my family the abuse started. Just verbal initially, constantly belittling me, accusing me of cheating, calling me a slut, telling me he was going to find someone better. My solution was to drink more. I started when I opened my eyes and didn’t stop until they closed. Time just passed, and I…slipped away. More than a year had gone by when he finally hit me. It was early in the morning so I wasn’t totally blotto yet, and got in his face after he started his shit and told him that usually people who accuse their partners of cheating are the ones who are being unfaithful, and he punched me in the face and called me a worthless whore.”
I watched Tom’s grip tighten, and thought he was going to rip the armrest right off the chair.
“I hit him in the head with a rum bottle, and he left for a few days. He never touched me again, for any reason. A month or two later, my father came over to the apartment. He told me I needed to stop drinking, that I had my whole life ahead of me and that he didn’t want me to wind up like my mother, that I needed to get away from her and New Orleans, that I was brilliant and I had to go out and make my life mean something. He apologized for letting his love for my mother blind him for all those years as to how much she hurt me. We embraced, and he was gone as quickly as he’d come. The next morning Anne called me to tell me that he’d killed himself. My mother found him in his study. He’d shot himself in the head with a revolver.”
Tom opened his mouth and started to speak, but I held up my hand to silence him. I was almost there, almost done.
“I haven’t taken another drink since that day. After the funeral, Will was nowhere to be found. My father had left me all of his remaining Exxon stock, which of course pissed my mother off to no end, and I decided to cash it in and move back to New York a week after we buried him. I already had a place to live rent free, and I wouldn’t need to worry about money for a while. I packed up what I wanted to bring with me, which didn’t even fill an entire suitcase, and headed over to what was now my mother’s house to confront her about being such an evil cunt my entire life before I left. When I got there, the door was unlocked, so I went inside. I could hear her moaning and screaming and chanting ‘oh god yes, yes, harder, harder’ and it was like someone flipped a switch and I saw red. I ran up the marble staircase and could see that the door to their…her bedroom was open and as I got closer I yelled ‘He hasn’t even been dead for two weeks and you’re already fucking someone else you enormous piece of shit?!’. When I stepped into the room, there was Will, naked and on top of her. He rolled off, grinned at me, and she said in her stupid fucking fake southern accent ‘Actually, we’ve been fucking for months already. See, Maude, that’s the thing about women like you. Sure, y’all might manage to get yourself a man, and hell, he might even stick around for a little while, but you’ll never be able to hang on to him. They’ll always leave you the second they find someone prettier. And thinner. Always.’. That was the last thing she ever said to me. I left town, and I found out from Anne that she’d told my father she was having an affair, was in love with Will and wanted a divorce, which is why he killed himself…he’d mailed his suicide note to Anne because he knew if he left it at the house, my mother would have made it disappear. I filed for divorce immediately, and as soon as it was final two months later, in August of 1998, Will married my mother. I didn’t know it until last night, but they divorced in 2007, which is why I’m the only remaining next of kin.”
I took a deep breath. “I guess the thing that sticks out most is that I have not a single memory of her touching me, holding me, or telling me that she loved me, unless someone else was watching. I was just a pawn for her, an object, just another thing to use to get what she wanted. And when that didn’t work any longer, she focused all of her anger on me, blaming me for everything that had gone wrong in her life, and what she then wanted more than anything else was to see me fail. Over and over again.”
I raised my hands, palms up. “So, there you have it. That’s who I am, what I am. The progeny of a narcissistic alcoholic and her love blinded enabler who’s already been pregnant, married and divorced. Used goods, broken down, badly damaged, always waiting to be replaced. Reasonably acceptable for fucking, but thoroughly unsuitable for an actual relationship.”
As I stood, he leapt up from his chair and tried to embrace me. I shook my head, put my hands on his chest and pushed him away gently, then went to sit back on the bench. He sat back down, head in his hands, sobbing again. I took out my iPod, put in my earbuds, cranked up the volume and leaned my head on the window. I stared blankly out at the sky, my self-imposed isolation the only thing preventing me from losing control of myself and falling apart. Which I refused to do. Because it was the only thing I had left to hold onto.
**********************************
There was darkness, and I felt arms reach around me, hands on my lower back and below, fumbling, searching. They found what they were looking for, and I felt something slide along my back and then up around my waist. A strong scent hit my nostrils, one I recognized but couldn’t place. I inhaled again. Tom. A click from down near my belly button. I tried to open my eyes, but the lids were just too heavy. Then, the feel of something soft and warm being pulled up over me as I drifted away.
A loud voice saying ‘We’re now approaching MSY, landing in ten.’ jarred me fully awake, my eyes flying open. I was unsure of where I was for a brief span, but then everything came flooding back at once. I looked around in a panic. A pillow had been placed between my head and the window, and a blanket covered everything but my feet. I pushed it off me, then glanced to my right and saw my iPod and earbuds resting next to my messenger bag, along with a bag of Lindor truffles. Then my eyes found Tom, seated in the chair across from me. As I studied his face, his shirt, his hands, his knees, all of him, a cyclone of emotions overwhelmed me and I realized that I was no longer numb.
The left corner of his mouth turned up in a sad half-smile. “Hope you don’t mind that I took your headphones out and gave you a pillow and blanket. You fell asleep almost immediately, and I figured you needed the rest and didn’t want the music to awaken you, or for you to wind up with a stiff neck, or be cold. And I apologize for touching you without your permission when I buckled you in…the pilot announced…”
And just like that, I saw him again. Tom. He knew everything, and he still cared for me.
I shook my head, interrupting him. “It’s all fine. Thank you.” I pointed at the blanket and pillow. “For these.” Then at the truffles. “For those.” Then waved my hands and ran my gaze around the cockpit. “And this.” My eyes met his. “And for wanting to be here. And for listening.” I pointed at the truffles again. “But especially for those.”
He laughed softly, and I smiled, then bit my lower lip.
“Tom, how did you know I’d still be at the airport?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t.”
“What was your plan if I hadn’t been there?”
He leaned forward, hands on his knees. “Take the jet myself and wait for you to arrive at Louis Armstrong.”
“I might not have gotten there for another day. Or two.”
“I had no intentions of ever leaving that airport without you by my side.”
What I wanted to do, what I needed to do about last night became abundantly clear to me.
“Did you book a room yet?”
He looked down briefly, then back up at me, face red. “Yes. At the Prytania Park Hotel. I chose a double queen, in case you preferred to not sleep with…to have your own bed. They’re separate, one on the main floor and the other up a spiral staircase so you’ll have…”
I interrupted him again. “How about a car?”
“Yes. A rental. I won’t know what make and model until we get there.”
“Thanks for taking care of it all. After we land, I’d like to go directly to Passages Hospice and get…that…over with. Once we’re checked in to the hotel, there’s something I want you to do.”
His jaw twitched, then he nodded. “Anything.”
“I want you to tell me why. Why you reacted the way you did after we ran into Norman. Why you got so drunk. Why you said those things to me. And, most importantly, I want you to tell me why it is that your life became so dark.”
He paled, folded himself in half, elbows on his knees and head in his hands. After a few moments he sat up and ran his hands through his hair, then began touching his neck. He was breathing through his mouth, fear in his eyes.
“Maude. I…I..” He shook his head. “I’m afraid if I tell you, I may lose you.”
I put my hand on his knee, and he looked frantically back and forth from my hand to my face, shocked at my touch.
“Thomas, you’re definitely going to lose me if you don’t tell me.”
As the jet touched down I removed my hand. He was looking down, eyes darting to and fro. The cabin door opened, the steps lowered. I unbuckled my seat belt, put my iPod and the truffles in my messenger bag, then headed for the door. Tom followed.
As I stepped outside, the oppressive humidity and smells of the city washed over me, drowning me in memories. I proceeded down the stairs, and as my feet made contact with the tarmac it hit me that I was…back. In the place I’d vowed to never be again. The place that had taken from me so much more than anyone should ever have to give. The place where I’d lost everything. I could feel the panic rising, and as I lifted my hand to place it on my chest in an attempt to calm down, Tom took it in his. I stared straight ahead as our fingers intertwined, then stepped forward as he squeezed gently. I squeezed back, and we slowly made our way toward the gates, the pilot pulling our luggage on a cart behind us.
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