SerIOUSLY, ALWAYS YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL by Randall Morgan -- CHAPTER SEVEN
Okay, lunch time post! Debbie!!! I love Debbie!!!!! Let me know what you think, Randall and it's still ADULTS ONLY!
Seriously, Always Young and Beautiful
SEVEN: Debbie’s POV
I hate the graveyard shift at the diner. It’s always slow and most of the customers who show up are tweaked to their eyeballs from a night of clubbing and that makes them stupid. But I had to trade shifts with my friend, Wanda, who expects her boyfriend to propose tonight, on her birthday. Good luck with that, Wanda. She may be a transvestite, but I should look so good. Trouble is her boyfriend claims to be straight, so how does a straight man and a chick with a dick live happily ever after? Oh well, I have bigger things to worry about.
Now that vampires are out in the open, I suspect everyone who comes in late at night is one of those bloodsuckers. Do they even eat food? How would I know, I grew up with Christopher Lee and Bela Lugosi scaring the shit out of me, so I’m still terrified at the idea of vampires. I bought some garlic spray online, and I hope it works as advertised if I ever get confronted by one of those monsters.
When the bell over the door rings, I see that the customer may not be a vampire but he sure as hell looks half dead. Brian Kinney is wearing the trousers to one of his fancy suits and a dress shirt, no tie or jacket. Hardly the gear he wears out clubbing. He collapses onto a barstool at the counter, still holding on to a leather portfolio.
“What are you doing here at this hour?” he greets me and I shrug.
“Working. You?”
“Same. Now I need food.”
“When was the last time you ate? You look pale.”
“I don’t know. Can I get breakfast?”
“Twenty-four hours a day, as if you didn’t know.”
“Then I’ll have three eggs scrambled, sausage, hash browns, and a bagel. With coffee.”
“Is this really you? Since when do you eat the Paul Bunyon?”
“Since my last meal was Chinese food two days ago. Anyway, it’s not the Paul Bunyon, because I don’t want the pancakes on the side.”
“You can’t live on booze and drugs, Brian.”
“Please? Coffee?”
I fill a mug and push it over to him and he pours a wad of sugar into it. Also not like him. “Are you sick?” I turn in his order and he shrugs.
“I’m tired.”
“Michael says you’re working for vampires, is that true?”
“No, I work for the agency. We have an account that involves a vampire nightclub.”
I reach under the counter for my purse and pull out the garlic spray. It has a picture of a vampire with fangs and a black cape on the label, recoiling from a spray. “Take this.”
“What the hell is it?”
“Garlic spray. It’s like vampire mace. They fear garlic.”
He gives me that Brian Kinney smirk and says, “Thanks Deb. But I’m fine.”
“Take it just in case.”
Too tired to argue, he slips it in his pocket. “They aren’t what you think, Deb.”
“So tell me. All I know about them is what Michael tells me.”
“And all he knows is from horror comics and horror movies.”
“So tell me the facts.”
He opens his portfolio and pulls out a photograph. “I’m incorporating this into my pitch. This is Eric Northman, the vampire owner of these bars. Relying on my old standby of ‘sex sells’, I think he could sell the concept without a stretch. His associate sent me this when I requested some images.”
I look at the photograph of the tall blond man. He’s all in black with his pale hair waving in the wind like a surrender flag. I stare at it and then shake my head. “Damn, he’s gorgeous.”
“I know.”
“He can bite my neck anytime, and any other body part he wants.”
He chuckles at that. Knowing Brian, I have to ask. “Is he gay? Did you and he….?”
He raises a brow as he stares at me. “Did we what?’
“You know.”
“Vampires don’t care about the sexual orientation labels that we use. I guess you could say they’re omnisexual, according to Eric.”
“So they have sex?”
He nods. Stirs his coffee. Asks for a refill. I heat it up for him and he adds more sugar. “Why do I think you wouldn’t let one who looks like that get by you?”
He puts the photo back in his briefcase. “I didn’t.”
“And?”
“You want details, Deb? Jesus.”
“No, but…you’d better be careful, Brian. You may be the stud on Liberty Avenue, but this is territory where suddenly you’re the lamb.”
He winces and when the bell rings to tell me his order is ready, I put the plates in front of him on the counter. He digs into it, for once not complaining about the quality of the food. “I’m not kidding about being careful.”
He just nods and I reach out and raise his chin on my fingertips so he has to meet my eyes. As big a jackass as Brian can be, I love him like a son, and it’s a good thing since his own mother is such a cold bitch. “I don’t want to lose you to some night crawler with a blood addiction.”
He pulls back and takes another bite of eggs. “I hear you, Debbie, don’t worry about it. I’m fine.”
“I wonder. You may have met your match or your better at last, Brian. Don’t let your cockiness get you in over your head.”
“What did you say about cock?” He’s back to his usual snark, so I hit him with a dishtowel and go over to the customers in the booth to see if they want dessert. Brian leaves money on the counter to pay his bill along with a fat tip, as always.
“I’ll be gone a few days, Deb,” he says as he heads towards the door. “Tell Michael I’ll call him.”
“Brian, be careful!” I yell after him, but he just waves me away and disappears into the night.
PAM’S POV:
I love Eric to death. Seriously. He is my maker, my sometimes but not frequent lover, my boss and my best friend. But right now he is making me batshit crazy. He’s doing that thing where he stalks around the office flinging those long arms around to emphasize a point and knocking stuff over as he goes. Sometimes he speaks in English. Sometimes he speaks in Swedish. Sometimes he combines the two into a patois I can barely translate. “Are you even listening to me?” He suddenly tosses a barb in my direction. I look from my newly applied crimson nail polish called Bad Blood to his glowering expression. I’ve taken refuge behind his desk and my platform spikes are crossed on the edge of it.
“I hear you, Eric. Just not sure what you expect me to do about it.”
He moves vampire fast to hover over me, one hand on each arm of the chair, his face mere inches from mine, his fangs gleaming in the light. He is a fierce creature, that’s no lie, but he doesn’t scare me because I know he would never harm me. That puts me in a class of maybe two or three. Everyone else is on their own.
“Ban him. And if that doesn’t work, kill him. True death.”
I blink my false eyelashes at him and say, “Are you out of your fucking mind? I have no authority to put the true death on a vampire, and neither do you. Especially when his ‘crime’ is fanging a customer at the club.” I may, however, kill the stupid fanger who turned this errant customer in to Eric instead of telling me. He thought he would curry favor with my maker by being a snitch but he doesn’t understand Eric at all. All he succeeded in doing was creating a problem for me, and labeling himself a weasel in Eric’s estimation.
“Are you defying me?”
I reach out and touch one of his beautiful fangs. “Let’s just say I’m saving your ass from trouble with the vampire authorities.”
He leans back and snaps his fangs out of sight as he combs his long fingers through his long hair. “You’re right, you’re right, what’s wrong with me?”
“How long do I have?”
He gives me a cold glance over his shoulder and I smile. “Eric, let me just put this out there for discussion. You’re horny for that ad man. And you know he’ll be here soon and it’s just boiling your blood. Am I close?”
He starts to protest, but gives up and slumps in a chair facing the desk. “As usual, you know me too well.”
I nod. Sex and blood lust is so closely related in vampires that they are almost indistinguishable. That’s why so many humans die when the vampire intended nothing more than a sexual romp. The blood gets heated and the boundaries disappear, especially with a warrior like Eric. “Yeah, that’s my cross to bear. What is up with you and this guy? Not sure it’s healthy.”
“I don’t know. He’s just been on my mind. As I’ve been on his.”
“Maybe you’ve just stayed out of the Boy’s Room too long. Time for a change.”
“Maybe. Will you handle it with the vampire we were discussing? Number one rule of the club, no drinking from human customers. They all know that.”
“Consider him banned.”
“I’m going over to Brian’s hotel. I’ll be waiting when he arrives. Make sure the driver knows to bring him there. We can meet on his advertising campaign later.”
“Eric, don’t get too carried away. You’ll end up draining him in a fever of excitement and then you’ll be pissed at yourself and we’ll have to cover it up.”
“I can control myself, Pam.”
“You’re not selling me on that right now.”
He grabs his leather jacket and leaves the room, leaving me to handle a rogue vampire caught draining a customer on premise, along with whatever else the night brings. First, I call the driver and make sure he takes the ad man to the hotel. Then I have one of the bouncers bring the thirsty vampire to me. He scans the room and when he doesn’t see Eric, he thinks he can get cocky with me. Wrong. I was bouncing troublemakers out of my bordello before his grandmother was born. Even before I met Eric.
“What’s the number one rule of Fangtasia?” I ask him and he shrugs.
“Don’t sit on the throne?”
“That’s a given. The number one rule of Fangtasia is you do not bite customers inside the bar or on the premises. Our liquor license could be lifted because of such things.”
“She wanted it.”
“Listen, peckerwood, I don’t care if she crawled on her belly like a snake, begging you for it, you take the bitch out of the club and off the premises and then it’s up to you what you do to her.”
“That’s a pussy rule.”
I cross the desk at vampire speed and clamp a hand around his throat. He struggles, but soon gives up. “You listen to me. When you open your own club, you can do whatever you want. At this club, there is no biting humans. You’re banned and if I ever see you come around here again, the next one you’ll be having a conversation with is Eric Northman. Does that penetrate your pea-sized brain?”
His eyes widen with terror. Very few vampires can inspire terror the way Eric can. They lack his longevity, his strength and his warrior spirit. “Give me a sign that I’m getting through to you, pencil dick.”
He nods. I release him and his chair slides back to hit the wall. “Get out and don’t look back,” I say as he hurries out the door. Just another night at Fangtasia, I say to myself, visually confirming this encounter did not chip a nail.
Seriously, Always Young and Beautiful
SEVEN: Debbie’s POV
I hate the graveyard shift at the diner. It’s always slow and most of the customers who show up are tweaked to their eyeballs from a night of clubbing and that makes them stupid. But I had to trade shifts with my friend, Wanda, who expects her boyfriend to propose tonight, on her birthday. Good luck with that, Wanda. She may be a transvestite, but I should look so good. Trouble is her boyfriend claims to be straight, so how does a straight man and a chick with a dick live happily ever after? Oh well, I have bigger things to worry about.
Now that vampires are out in the open, I suspect everyone who comes in late at night is one of those bloodsuckers. Do they even eat food? How would I know, I grew up with Christopher Lee and Bela Lugosi scaring the shit out of me, so I’m still terrified at the idea of vampires. I bought some garlic spray online, and I hope it works as advertised if I ever get confronted by one of those monsters.
When the bell over the door rings, I see that the customer may not be a vampire but he sure as hell looks half dead. Brian Kinney is wearing the trousers to one of his fancy suits and a dress shirt, no tie or jacket. Hardly the gear he wears out clubbing. He collapses onto a barstool at the counter, still holding on to a leather portfolio.
“What are you doing here at this hour?” he greets me and I shrug.
“Working. You?”
“Same. Now I need food.”
“When was the last time you ate? You look pale.”
“I don’t know. Can I get breakfast?”
“Twenty-four hours a day, as if you didn’t know.”
“Then I’ll have three eggs scrambled, sausage, hash browns, and a bagel. With coffee.”
“Is this really you? Since when do you eat the Paul Bunyon?”
“Since my last meal was Chinese food two days ago. Anyway, it’s not the Paul Bunyon, because I don’t want the pancakes on the side.”
“You can’t live on booze and drugs, Brian.”
“Please? Coffee?”
I fill a mug and push it over to him and he pours a wad of sugar into it. Also not like him. “Are you sick?” I turn in his order and he shrugs.
“I’m tired.”
“Michael says you’re working for vampires, is that true?”
“No, I work for the agency. We have an account that involves a vampire nightclub.”
I reach under the counter for my purse and pull out the garlic spray. It has a picture of a vampire with fangs and a black cape on the label, recoiling from a spray. “Take this.”
“What the hell is it?”
“Garlic spray. It’s like vampire mace. They fear garlic.”
He gives me that Brian Kinney smirk and says, “Thanks Deb. But I’m fine.”
“Take it just in case.”
Too tired to argue, he slips it in his pocket. “They aren’t what you think, Deb.”
“So tell me. All I know about them is what Michael tells me.”
“And all he knows is from horror comics and horror movies.”
“So tell me the facts.”
He opens his portfolio and pulls out a photograph. “I’m incorporating this into my pitch. This is Eric Northman, the vampire owner of these bars. Relying on my old standby of ‘sex sells’, I think he could sell the concept without a stretch. His associate sent me this when I requested some images.”
I look at the photograph of the tall blond man. He’s all in black with his pale hair waving in the wind like a surrender flag. I stare at it and then shake my head. “Damn, he’s gorgeous.”
“I know.”
“He can bite my neck anytime, and any other body part he wants.”
He chuckles at that. Knowing Brian, I have to ask. “Is he gay? Did you and he….?”
He raises a brow as he stares at me. “Did we what?’
“You know.”
“Vampires don’t care about the sexual orientation labels that we use. I guess you could say they’re omnisexual, according to Eric.”
“So they have sex?”
He nods. Stirs his coffee. Asks for a refill. I heat it up for him and he adds more sugar. “Why do I think you wouldn’t let one who looks like that get by you?”
He puts the photo back in his briefcase. “I didn’t.”
“And?”
“You want details, Deb? Jesus.”
“No, but…you’d better be careful, Brian. You may be the stud on Liberty Avenue, but this is territory where suddenly you’re the lamb.”
He winces and when the bell rings to tell me his order is ready, I put the plates in front of him on the counter. He digs into it, for once not complaining about the quality of the food. “I’m not kidding about being careful.”
He just nods and I reach out and raise his chin on my fingertips so he has to meet my eyes. As big a jackass as Brian can be, I love him like a son, and it’s a good thing since his own mother is such a cold bitch. “I don’t want to lose you to some night crawler with a blood addiction.”
He pulls back and takes another bite of eggs. “I hear you, Debbie, don’t worry about it. I’m fine.”
“I wonder. You may have met your match or your better at last, Brian. Don’t let your cockiness get you in over your head.”
“What did you say about cock?” He’s back to his usual snark, so I hit him with a dishtowel and go over to the customers in the booth to see if they want dessert. Brian leaves money on the counter to pay his bill along with a fat tip, as always.
“I’ll be gone a few days, Deb,” he says as he heads towards the door. “Tell Michael I’ll call him.”
“Brian, be careful!” I yell after him, but he just waves me away and disappears into the night.
PAM’S POV:
I love Eric to death. Seriously. He is my maker, my sometimes but not frequent lover, my boss and my best friend. But right now he is making me batshit crazy. He’s doing that thing where he stalks around the office flinging those long arms around to emphasize a point and knocking stuff over as he goes. Sometimes he speaks in English. Sometimes he speaks in Swedish. Sometimes he combines the two into a patois I can barely translate. “Are you even listening to me?” He suddenly tosses a barb in my direction. I look from my newly applied crimson nail polish called Bad Blood to his glowering expression. I’ve taken refuge behind his desk and my platform spikes are crossed on the edge of it.
“I hear you, Eric. Just not sure what you expect me to do about it.”
He moves vampire fast to hover over me, one hand on each arm of the chair, his face mere inches from mine, his fangs gleaming in the light. He is a fierce creature, that’s no lie, but he doesn’t scare me because I know he would never harm me. That puts me in a class of maybe two or three. Everyone else is on their own.
“Ban him. And if that doesn’t work, kill him. True death.”
I blink my false eyelashes at him and say, “Are you out of your fucking mind? I have no authority to put the true death on a vampire, and neither do you. Especially when his ‘crime’ is fanging a customer at the club.” I may, however, kill the stupid fanger who turned this errant customer in to Eric instead of telling me. He thought he would curry favor with my maker by being a snitch but he doesn’t understand Eric at all. All he succeeded in doing was creating a problem for me, and labeling himself a weasel in Eric’s estimation.
“Are you defying me?”
I reach out and touch one of his beautiful fangs. “Let’s just say I’m saving your ass from trouble with the vampire authorities.”
He leans back and snaps his fangs out of sight as he combs his long fingers through his long hair. “You’re right, you’re right, what’s wrong with me?”
“How long do I have?”
He gives me a cold glance over his shoulder and I smile. “Eric, let me just put this out there for discussion. You’re horny for that ad man. And you know he’ll be here soon and it’s just boiling your blood. Am I close?”
He starts to protest, but gives up and slumps in a chair facing the desk. “As usual, you know me too well.”
I nod. Sex and blood lust is so closely related in vampires that they are almost indistinguishable. That’s why so many humans die when the vampire intended nothing more than a sexual romp. The blood gets heated and the boundaries disappear, especially with a warrior like Eric. “Yeah, that’s my cross to bear. What is up with you and this guy? Not sure it’s healthy.”
“I don’t know. He’s just been on my mind. As I’ve been on his.”
“Maybe you’ve just stayed out of the Boy’s Room too long. Time for a change.”
“Maybe. Will you handle it with the vampire we were discussing? Number one rule of the club, no drinking from human customers. They all know that.”
“Consider him banned.”
“I’m going over to Brian’s hotel. I’ll be waiting when he arrives. Make sure the driver knows to bring him there. We can meet on his advertising campaign later.”
“Eric, don’t get too carried away. You’ll end up draining him in a fever of excitement and then you’ll be pissed at yourself and we’ll have to cover it up.”
“I can control myself, Pam.”
“You’re not selling me on that right now.”
He grabs his leather jacket and leaves the room, leaving me to handle a rogue vampire caught draining a customer on premise, along with whatever else the night brings. First, I call the driver and make sure he takes the ad man to the hotel. Then I have one of the bouncers bring the thirsty vampire to me. He scans the room and when he doesn’t see Eric, he thinks he can get cocky with me. Wrong. I was bouncing troublemakers out of my bordello before his grandmother was born. Even before I met Eric.
“What’s the number one rule of Fangtasia?” I ask him and he shrugs.
“Don’t sit on the throne?”
“That’s a given. The number one rule of Fangtasia is you do not bite customers inside the bar or on the premises. Our liquor license could be lifted because of such things.”
“She wanted it.”
“Listen, peckerwood, I don’t care if she crawled on her belly like a snake, begging you for it, you take the bitch out of the club and off the premises and then it’s up to you what you do to her.”
“That’s a pussy rule.”
I cross the desk at vampire speed and clamp a hand around his throat. He struggles, but soon gives up. “You listen to me. When you open your own club, you can do whatever you want. At this club, there is no biting humans. You’re banned and if I ever see you come around here again, the next one you’ll be having a conversation with is Eric Northman. Does that penetrate your pea-sized brain?”
His eyes widen with terror. Very few vampires can inspire terror the way Eric can. They lack his longevity, his strength and his warrior spirit. “Give me a sign that I’m getting through to you, pencil dick.”
He nods. I release him and his chair slides back to hit the wall. “Get out and don’t look back,” I say as he hurries out the door. Just another night at Fangtasia, I say to myself, visually confirming this encounter did not chip a nail.