SERIOUSLY, ALWAYS YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL by Randall Morgan -- CHAPTER TWO
Continuing on, the icon is by Jen R. The same warning about not reading unless you are over eighteen also applies. Let me know what you think of it. Thanks.
SERIOUSLY, ALWAYS YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL
TWO: Eric’s POV
I’m bored. I look out at the collection of fangbangers and vampires gathered in my club, Fangtasia, and become even more bored. Same faces, same fangs. I separate myself from them by sitting on my unapproachable throne, where I can see everything going on, but no one is allowed to come near me without permission. Pam leans on the back of my throne, watching with me. Pam is my daughter in vampire terms, although she may seem a bit older. In fact, I am centuries older than she, and I am her maker, which gives us an unshakeable bond that is stronger than love, stronger than sex, stronger than traditional parenthood, but containing an element of each.
She reaches out to straighten a stray lock of my long, blond hair. I bat her hand away. She is allowed to touch my hair only when I say so. No one touches my hair without an invitation. No one touches me without an invitation. I don’t like to be touched, generally speaking.
“You’re bitchier than usual tonight,” she says in that Southern drawl she’s picked up since we came to Louisiana. I quite like it. It’s melodic, like my native Swedish. I’m bored and bored makes me bitchy.
“When is that ad man coming?”
“Could be any time now, if his plane landed according to schedule.”
“I got up early for this. It had better be worthwhile.”
“I did my research, Eric. Their firm is highly recommended and their rates are more reasonable than the big city agencies. You wanted to look outside the region to expand. So a local advertising firm was just too redneck and parochial.”
“I still don’t know if I agree with this whole expansion idea of yours, Pam. I’m already spread thin with the local clubs and acting as sheriff for our community in this region. How am I supposed to manage clubs a great distance from here?”
“You said you wanted to make more money, Eric, and franchising is the smart way to do it. There are plenty of us looking for good work in other areas. You hire them and manage them from a home base. If you weren’t such a control freak, you’d see the benefits more clearly.”
“I’m a control freak because I’ve been fucked over by our kind more than once when I’ve been involved in a business venture with vampires. We are, as you know, a ruthless bunch.”
“Let’s just see what he has to say. He’s here on his own dime. Nothing to lose.”
“Except time.”
“Of which you have an endless supply.”
I glance at her and smile. She’s so practical sometimes. She learned about business while running the most exclusive brothel in San Francisco at the beginning of the last century. That was when I made her what she is today. My own basic skills are warrior based. Such talents are less marketable in today’s world, but they serve me well in my duties as sheriff. Keeping peace among a bunch of rogue vampires in this region is not a simple task. They fear me because they know very well what havoc I can create single handedly if necessary. I dread this meeting. I dread anything to do with business. But here we are.
When he walks into the club, I immediately identify him because he’s wearing a suit rather than the ludicrous fangbanger crap most humans wear when they come here. I am pleasantly surprised by his appearance. He’s tall, slim, with eyes that are a muddy greenish brown, an intriguing color, along with a classic Greek profile. You don’t see that often anymore. Humans have become so mongrelized. He’s wearing a deliciously red shirt and tie, and I appreciate his humor, if it was a knowing choice. He looks at me and I give him a two fingered come hither gesture.
“Well, well,” Pam says as he approaches. “Come to mama.”
But his gaze is locked on me, not my flashy and beautiful daughter, and I suspect this is one who isn’t drawn to her gender. Interesting. I motion for him to sit in one of the chairs sharing the platform with my throne and he gives me a nervous smile. I must be his first vampire. I can smell it in his pheromones. Fear mixed with curiosity mixed with sexual attraction, a lovely combination. He extends his hand as he says, “I’m Brian Kinney.” He wears an unexpected bracelet made of shells. I find whimsy interesting.
I steeple my long fingers under my chin. “I don’t shake hands. Eric Northman, and this is Pam de Beaufort.”
Pam, who has little patience with humans, says “Charmed”. What a surprisingly gracious greeting coming from her. He’s clutching a briefcase like it contains a stake and a bottle of holy water. Perhaps it does. I wish him luck with that.
“Shall we go to my office?”
When I stand, I loom over him by several inches. He’s tall, but not Viking tall. He seems a little surprised by that. The three of us go into my small office behind the main floor of the club and I sit at my cluttered desk and motion for him to take one of the chairs facing it. Pam takes the other. The lights are brighter in here, and I can see him admire our pale, flawless skin that becomes more vivid in the light. I pop the top off a bottle of Tru Blood and ask, “Care to try one?”
He can barely restrain a gag. “No thanks. I gave it up for Lent.”
“Lent’s over.”
“I observe Lent year round,” he smiles at me and I nod, take a long draw from the bottle of barely tolerable manufactured blood and ask,
“What can you do for us?”
He opens his briefcase. No stake, no holy water. Instead he pulls out a slick portfolio containing all the facts that sell his agency. I nod for him to hand it to Pam, who takes it and pages through it with feigned interest. “I’ve already researched your agency, Mr. Kinney,” she says. “So let’s not yank each other, shall we?”
She manages a smile, not easy for Pam, but he’s not flustered. “We can help you generate interest in your new franchise, promote the new locations to the local communities you choose, make Fangtasia the one club in town where people line up to get in. I need to know a little more about your vision for the club, and your demographic, before I can put together an appropriate campaign.”
“That’s simple enough,” I tell him. “Fangtasia is for vampires and for humans who want to fuck vampires.” He stares at me, not giving any ground.
“I guess I thought vampires substituted biting necks for sex, or maybe that was their form of sex.”
Pam and I both smile. “You have a lot to learn about vampires, honey,” she drawls as I shake my head.
“You must learn about vampires if you plan to build an advertising campaign for our business. You have to put aside all the ridiculous conventions of your books and movies and understand what we really are.”
“Are you going to tell me you’re just humans with fangs and a nutrition variation? You don’t even have fangs, none that I can see.”
I lean across the desk in his direction, smile and snap my fangs in place by putting a slight pressure to the roof of my mouth with the tip of my tongue. He stares at them and withdraws a little, his first sign of fear. I snap them back in hiding and wait for him to speak. Finally he says, “I get it. Okay.”
“We were once human, each of us, but no longer consider ourselves part of your species. We’ve evolved beyond human. So don’t attribute your human nature to us. We have vampire nature. It’s quite different. You need to understand this in order to sell our clubs.”
“I understand vampires, anyone really, wanting to have a place to hang with their own kind. I’m not sure I understand the humans who go to these bars. Are they groupies? What are they? Dinner?”
“Thrill seekers, groupies, as you put it, those who get a tingle out of being bitten or fucked by a vampire, and the few hopeless souls who think they may score immortality. But they don’t. Being bitten by a vampire isn’t necessarily the same as being killed. It’s not about death. There’s an excitement to it on both sides of the bite. No one has to die, no one becomes a vampire afterwards. Anyway, immortality is a pointless quest. No one is immortal. Not even us.”
“What’s the age demographic you’re going for?”
“Age is transient for us. The bars are open to anyone old enough to drink.”
“Gay? Straight? Both?”
“Again, we have no interest in your gender barriers. We’re flexible. As I said, all are welcome.”
“That’s good. You obviously serve alcohol, what about food? Bar food?”
“You are the bar food,” Pam says and I chuckle at that.
“No food.”
“Do you do promotional nights, you know, like Dracula night or something?”
“Are you having fun at my expense now?”
“No, it’s commonplace. Bars have promo nights to pull crowds. Drag shows, mud wrestling, cowboy night, underwear night…”
Pam rolls her eyes. “Oh hell, you’re a cocksucker.”
He tenses and I shake my head at her. “Don’t be rude. Mr. Kinney,”
“Brian,” he interrupts.
“Brian, we have a unique clientele. We don’t see much competition. We just need to decide where to open a club and how to get the word out that it opened. The clientele will come.”
“Do you have problems getting a liquor license?”
“I’ve found the best way to clear those hurdles is to liberally distribute bribes to the right people, so no.” I shift my attention to Pam. “I think you should go watch the club now that we’ve covered the basics.”
He says, ”I should be going too. This has been helpful. I…”
“Mr. Kinney, Brian, sit down.” I pull his attention to my face. When I feel his gaze lock onto mine, I glamour him. “You don’t want to go.”
He nods as the hypnosis begins. I continue. “You want to stay and amuse me.”
“Christ on a Ritz, Eric!” Pam intervenes. “Seriously?”
“Go watch the club,” I repeat and she leaves in a prissy huff and closes the door. I return to my glamouring of Brian Kinney. “You are staying.” He nods in that short-lived stupor that follows the glamour. I leave my chair to stand in front of him, leaning back against the edge of the desk, my palms resting on its surface. “Amuse me,” I command of him, waiting for the night games to begin.
SERIOUSLY, ALWAYS YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL
TWO: Eric’s POV
I’m bored. I look out at the collection of fangbangers and vampires gathered in my club, Fangtasia, and become even more bored. Same faces, same fangs. I separate myself from them by sitting on my unapproachable throne, where I can see everything going on, but no one is allowed to come near me without permission. Pam leans on the back of my throne, watching with me. Pam is my daughter in vampire terms, although she may seem a bit older. In fact, I am centuries older than she, and I am her maker, which gives us an unshakeable bond that is stronger than love, stronger than sex, stronger than traditional parenthood, but containing an element of each.
She reaches out to straighten a stray lock of my long, blond hair. I bat her hand away. She is allowed to touch my hair only when I say so. No one touches my hair without an invitation. No one touches me without an invitation. I don’t like to be touched, generally speaking.
“You’re bitchier than usual tonight,” she says in that Southern drawl she’s picked up since we came to Louisiana. I quite like it. It’s melodic, like my native Swedish. I’m bored and bored makes me bitchy.
“When is that ad man coming?”
“Could be any time now, if his plane landed according to schedule.”
“I got up early for this. It had better be worthwhile.”
“I did my research, Eric. Their firm is highly recommended and their rates are more reasonable than the big city agencies. You wanted to look outside the region to expand. So a local advertising firm was just too redneck and parochial.”
“I still don’t know if I agree with this whole expansion idea of yours, Pam. I’m already spread thin with the local clubs and acting as sheriff for our community in this region. How am I supposed to manage clubs a great distance from here?”
“You said you wanted to make more money, Eric, and franchising is the smart way to do it. There are plenty of us looking for good work in other areas. You hire them and manage them from a home base. If you weren’t such a control freak, you’d see the benefits more clearly.”
“I’m a control freak because I’ve been fucked over by our kind more than once when I’ve been involved in a business venture with vampires. We are, as you know, a ruthless bunch.”
“Let’s just see what he has to say. He’s here on his own dime. Nothing to lose.”
“Except time.”
“Of which you have an endless supply.”
I glance at her and smile. She’s so practical sometimes. She learned about business while running the most exclusive brothel in San Francisco at the beginning of the last century. That was when I made her what she is today. My own basic skills are warrior based. Such talents are less marketable in today’s world, but they serve me well in my duties as sheriff. Keeping peace among a bunch of rogue vampires in this region is not a simple task. They fear me because they know very well what havoc I can create single handedly if necessary. I dread this meeting. I dread anything to do with business. But here we are.
When he walks into the club, I immediately identify him because he’s wearing a suit rather than the ludicrous fangbanger crap most humans wear when they come here. I am pleasantly surprised by his appearance. He’s tall, slim, with eyes that are a muddy greenish brown, an intriguing color, along with a classic Greek profile. You don’t see that often anymore. Humans have become so mongrelized. He’s wearing a deliciously red shirt and tie, and I appreciate his humor, if it was a knowing choice. He looks at me and I give him a two fingered come hither gesture.
“Well, well,” Pam says as he approaches. “Come to mama.”
But his gaze is locked on me, not my flashy and beautiful daughter, and I suspect this is one who isn’t drawn to her gender. Interesting. I motion for him to sit in one of the chairs sharing the platform with my throne and he gives me a nervous smile. I must be his first vampire. I can smell it in his pheromones. Fear mixed with curiosity mixed with sexual attraction, a lovely combination. He extends his hand as he says, “I’m Brian Kinney.” He wears an unexpected bracelet made of shells. I find whimsy interesting.
I steeple my long fingers under my chin. “I don’t shake hands. Eric Northman, and this is Pam de Beaufort.”
Pam, who has little patience with humans, says “Charmed”. What a surprisingly gracious greeting coming from her. He’s clutching a briefcase like it contains a stake and a bottle of holy water. Perhaps it does. I wish him luck with that.
“Shall we go to my office?”
When I stand, I loom over him by several inches. He’s tall, but not Viking tall. He seems a little surprised by that. The three of us go into my small office behind the main floor of the club and I sit at my cluttered desk and motion for him to take one of the chairs facing it. Pam takes the other. The lights are brighter in here, and I can see him admire our pale, flawless skin that becomes more vivid in the light. I pop the top off a bottle of Tru Blood and ask, “Care to try one?”
He can barely restrain a gag. “No thanks. I gave it up for Lent.”
“Lent’s over.”
“I observe Lent year round,” he smiles at me and I nod, take a long draw from the bottle of barely tolerable manufactured blood and ask,
“What can you do for us?”
He opens his briefcase. No stake, no holy water. Instead he pulls out a slick portfolio containing all the facts that sell his agency. I nod for him to hand it to Pam, who takes it and pages through it with feigned interest. “I’ve already researched your agency, Mr. Kinney,” she says. “So let’s not yank each other, shall we?”
She manages a smile, not easy for Pam, but he’s not flustered. “We can help you generate interest in your new franchise, promote the new locations to the local communities you choose, make Fangtasia the one club in town where people line up to get in. I need to know a little more about your vision for the club, and your demographic, before I can put together an appropriate campaign.”
“That’s simple enough,” I tell him. “Fangtasia is for vampires and for humans who want to fuck vampires.” He stares at me, not giving any ground.
“I guess I thought vampires substituted biting necks for sex, or maybe that was their form of sex.”
Pam and I both smile. “You have a lot to learn about vampires, honey,” she drawls as I shake my head.
“You must learn about vampires if you plan to build an advertising campaign for our business. You have to put aside all the ridiculous conventions of your books and movies and understand what we really are.”
“Are you going to tell me you’re just humans with fangs and a nutrition variation? You don’t even have fangs, none that I can see.”
I lean across the desk in his direction, smile and snap my fangs in place by putting a slight pressure to the roof of my mouth with the tip of my tongue. He stares at them and withdraws a little, his first sign of fear. I snap them back in hiding and wait for him to speak. Finally he says, “I get it. Okay.”
“We were once human, each of us, but no longer consider ourselves part of your species. We’ve evolved beyond human. So don’t attribute your human nature to us. We have vampire nature. It’s quite different. You need to understand this in order to sell our clubs.”
“I understand vampires, anyone really, wanting to have a place to hang with their own kind. I’m not sure I understand the humans who go to these bars. Are they groupies? What are they? Dinner?”
“Thrill seekers, groupies, as you put it, those who get a tingle out of being bitten or fucked by a vampire, and the few hopeless souls who think they may score immortality. But they don’t. Being bitten by a vampire isn’t necessarily the same as being killed. It’s not about death. There’s an excitement to it on both sides of the bite. No one has to die, no one becomes a vampire afterwards. Anyway, immortality is a pointless quest. No one is immortal. Not even us.”
“What’s the age demographic you’re going for?”
“Age is transient for us. The bars are open to anyone old enough to drink.”
“Gay? Straight? Both?”
“Again, we have no interest in your gender barriers. We’re flexible. As I said, all are welcome.”
“That’s good. You obviously serve alcohol, what about food? Bar food?”
“You are the bar food,” Pam says and I chuckle at that.
“No food.”
“Do you do promotional nights, you know, like Dracula night or something?”
“Are you having fun at my expense now?”
“No, it’s commonplace. Bars have promo nights to pull crowds. Drag shows, mud wrestling, cowboy night, underwear night…”
Pam rolls her eyes. “Oh hell, you’re a cocksucker.”
He tenses and I shake my head at her. “Don’t be rude. Mr. Kinney,”
“Brian,” he interrupts.
“Brian, we have a unique clientele. We don’t see much competition. We just need to decide where to open a club and how to get the word out that it opened. The clientele will come.”
“Do you have problems getting a liquor license?”
“I’ve found the best way to clear those hurdles is to liberally distribute bribes to the right people, so no.” I shift my attention to Pam. “I think you should go watch the club now that we’ve covered the basics.”
He says, ”I should be going too. This has been helpful. I…”
“Mr. Kinney, Brian, sit down.” I pull his attention to my face. When I feel his gaze lock onto mine, I glamour him. “You don’t want to go.”
He nods as the hypnosis begins. I continue. “You want to stay and amuse me.”
“Christ on a Ritz, Eric!” Pam intervenes. “Seriously?”
“Go watch the club,” I repeat and she leaves in a prissy huff and closes the door. I return to my glamouring of Brian Kinney. “You are staying.” He nods in that short-lived stupor that follows the glamour. I leave my chair to stand in front of him, leaning back against the edge of the desk, my palms resting on its surface. “Amuse me,” I command of him, waiting for the night games to begin.