Fan Fiction ❯ Daughter of Venus - the Vampire Rosaline ❯ I will share with you ( Chapter 9 )

9

Have you ever felt that you are living out a movie? Ever realised you had seen your actions all before, but on a big screen, not realistic at all? Even prior to when I realised how kawaii fangs had the potential to be something about what was happening seemed familiar. Maybe it was the reckless escape, or the fierce car chase. Maybe it was the suppressed passion or the open declarations. Or maybe it was what I was doing now, waking in an unfamiliar bed, unsure but deceptively calm, led on by the amicable aura.

Whilst my imagination was on an inspiration overload I had no desire to connect with reality, unfortunately I had a staggering urge to rise. Maybe it was Armand, he wanted me, he desired my assistance and I had to follow his summons. He was like a god to me. He needed not say a word yet mortals would bend to meet his every aspiration. Armand needed not to touch what he coveted for it to come to him likewise he needed not speak to me to heed his call…or it could have been the one other dominant source in my life - hunger.

I sat up.

"Ah!"

I do not quite know how I had expected Armand's locality to look but it was never like this. The Victoria and Albert could not have done a better presentation of a collage of historical fashion. The bed that I lay upon was completely millennia, maybe even new that week as the double-mattress was still hard and the sheets remained like lilies. The blankets and cushions were a patchwork of multitudinous lives, centuries collected in wool and cloth but were dimmed to insignificance as I looked upon the vivid William Morris wallpaper. Exquisite crimson roses wove through verdant thorns in a gold-laced garden as columns stretched across the wall. As I slipped my bare feet onto the soft maroon carpet I felt the fluff that had risen from centuries of now-and-then tread and the firm weaves beneath it.

Despite the room being the living-quarters of an incubus I felt the warm glow of bathing light. Turning to my right to meet with the radiance I saw a broad window covered completely by a vast Roman-blind. Smothering all the danger daylight might threaten to Armand the remainder immersed the bed in magnolia but left the rest of the room in a constant eclipse. I stared mesmerised at the bright dullness as it enveloped me with hair that had been untied, ringed by an invisible halo around my head and as golden wings branched from my back.

Silently I felt a shallow air whisper beyond me and was broken from my Renaissance daydream. I turned to greet my own angel but instead was met by the shut, panelled, whitewashed door.

My eyes searched and I said with bland sarcasm, "Okay…" as I tried to suppress a fear.

I had finally `woken' woken-up. Faery-tales from an obedient childhood flooded my head of fierce, terrifying creatures that crept into innocent children's bedrooms devouring their souls. I remembered warnings my mother issued about dirty men who invited girls into their cars enticing the young women with luscious whispers and giving in return not even sweet charity. She had always made me promise never to go off with one…hugging her I had always said, "I promise."

"Armand?"

I stepped back and glanced into the shadows, it was times like this I wished I had listened to `Mumma'. I shuffled and noticed a faded, green, 18th century screen by the door. Highly embroiled and framed in bleeding mahogany it cried for recognition but stood solitary in the shaded corner, however owning a forbidden aura that beckoned me to take a closer inspection.

Nervously my nose twitched and I asserted myself that I could not stand in the centre of the room the entire day.

Sneaking up quietly I pressed my hands onto the cold wooden frame.

I took a deep breath as my heart thudded with intimidation.

Then…

"I wouldn't bother looking behind there."

"WAW! Armand!" I screamed, swinging myself around to meet the scoundrel now standing behind me.

Infuriated I asked madly, "Why must you do that?"

He laughed keeping his hands tight behind his back.

Finally Armand answered with a look of exhilaration on his face; "It's so easy!"

Excruciatingly miffed at his rather non-amusing prank I uttered sarcastically, "Oh, is it?"

Attempting to appear less pleased with the outcome of his little jaunt Armand inhaled and added, "If you were asleep I didn't want to wake you."

Not satisfied that he was being entirely sincere I replied, "Well that was nice of you."

There was now a stale, silent period in which I could not decide whether to look up at aged, smoky plaster or down at silhouettes scattered across the floor. I decided to do both.

As I pondered the aspects of a shadow I realised I was met with quite an exciting doubt.

I addressed him drawing out his name questioningly, "Arrrrmand?"

"Yeeees," he echoed playfully using the same tone of voice I had done, "what is it?"

"It's daylight," I stated.

"Very observant," Armand added dryly.

Becoming rather cynical at the whole situation I continued, "Well don't `vampires'" - I wiggled my fingers mockingly - "turn to dust in sunlight?"

He rolled his eyes.

I groaned, "well anyway…wouldn't you?"

Armand reached out to pat me but stopped as he realised how patronising it would seem, "Who said I was outside?"

"But…" all of a sudden I realised I had no quarrel with him apart from for my own delight.

Armand sighed, "I thought you would be hungry and so I went out to get you something…"

He moved over and switched on a lamp, "as you can see there is not enough room in this little hovel I call `a flat' for a refrigerator let alone a kitchen. There is a human living next door and so I took what I could without getting noticed…" he paused, "for you."

I wanted to cry I had been so mean but then I caught a whiff of a familiar smell…it was so sweet it tingled at my nose with a candy floss feather and titillated me with a junk-food rush.

He smiled coyly, obviously hiding the delicacy behind his back, "Toasted banana sandwich?"

Toasted banana sandwich - yum - just what I had been hoping for! Yes weird for a breakfast you might say but then I am only sixteen and my gut is of iron.

I frowned playfully, "Is that what you think us teenagers eat?"

"Well…" He grinned, "…it is what you want isn't it?"

I contemplated as he pulled from behind his back the object of my desire.

"Yeah…I wish you'd stop doing that mind reading thing though," I salivated as I lifted from him his burden.

However the sandwich was what a connoisseur might call `well done' as it took a burnt-umber form with crumbling black corners.

I hazarded an observation; "You haven't cooked for a long time have you?"

He shrugged as I realised how stupid such a question must have appeared…of course not.

"Maybe later we should get take-out," I suggested.

"Um…" He contemplated, "I haven't had a good Chinese in a long time."

After demolishing the slightly cremated treat I was ordered to go back to bed.

"You're going to sleep now?" I asked, questioning every instruction.

"Why of course," Armand laughed overcome with an action that at this time seemed quite obvious to him; "It's day time!"

I looked about frantically noticing there was only the double bed and turned for the door; "Well I'll leave you to it."

"Oh no you don't," he put a hand on my shoulder pulling back towards him, "London's streets are not lined with gold, it is a dangerous place, even in daylight. You will stay with me and then we will go out together…anyway," he looked me up and down, "where will you be going looking like that?"

I blushed and felt my knees crumble slightly…all I was wearing was a red night-dress, however Armand noticed that I was not happy being dictated to in such a manor, "Promise me you will not leave this room without me."

I would have felt terrible if I did not agree so said bitterly, "I promise."

"Well then…" he looked at me and then the bed.

Deciding I needed an incentive he said, "Tonight we will go and get you some clothes."

I twitched.

Armand added, "the best there are…Gucci, Armani…"

A warm retail therapy anticipation filled my body, "Y-you can afford that?"

"I can afford anything for my Venus, I will make her a timeless beauty if - if she sleeps now."

I sauntered up to the bed, settled and then bounced hyperactively, "How do you expect me to sleep after you have just filled me with sugar?"

Armand was beginning to get an idea of where this conversation was going, "If you don't sleep now you will be too tired to do anything later."

I pouted but he continued to list off a catalogue of rules, "If you truly cannot sleep wake me and I'll be able to help you. Do not open the door or draw the blinds, unless you want your host to be a pile ashes later."

"Right," I repeated excitedly, "doors and blinds are a no go."

Now realising my argument had been stripped down to the bare bones of the root problem I tried a final attempt to tiptoe around my insecurity; "Ah…so where's your coffin?"

"Coffin?" he smiled, "sure I have one but this is a temporary residences, do you really expect me to take it everywhere I go? Wouldn't that be a little conspicuous?"

I curled a lock of hair around my finger; "You sleep on a bed?"

"You think it is so strange?"

I looked up at him with wide eyes and said with faltering voice, "No."

Armand's smile faded and he bowed his head.

Broken Armand sighed, "I see."

"Oh no! Don't take it the wrong way," I cried realising that thoughts of not wanting to share a double bed with him had grieved Armand once he had finally stumbled upon them.

"No," he paused and turned away from me, "you are my guest, I don't want you to do anything that makes you feel uncomfortable."

Armand looked back but only saw me sighing with relief. He once again focused and put a hand upon the dusty back of a musty, old rocking chair that had been turned to face the window, "Tonight I will rest in the rocker."

It was true what I had predicted and all that day I could not sleep. I had tried to imagine what a shopping expedition with Armand would be like and where we would go to calm me down but instead made myself highly strung. In delirium of nightmarish lime-green skirts speckled with Barbie pink spots I would turn every five minutes to look upon my Armand.

I had once even risen to tell him as he had issued that I could not sleep but seeing his angelic face, finally free from all the worries one could accumulate over five hundred years and the added burden of me, it was not in my capacity to do so. I realised I had made him face his only true enemy by making him sit in that chair. I was worried about sharing a bed with someone who had proven on numerous occasions to be a yielding gentleman who would have acted, if wanted to long before this time. I had forced him to oppose the Sun, with the only objects separating the strangers being thin slices of canvas. He had done this for me.

With tears streaming down my face I wept for joy and bent over him, not expecting a second in return.

Beaming I kissed his forehead, "I will share with you this."