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Paris, 5 Pluviôse, Year III
I have an idea, Lestat had said.
In the flickering dim torchlight, flames and smoke licked the damp, moldy air, and Lestat looked like the God he claimed to be, a young God, the promise of modern times, a dark Jacobin, a Prometheus who swept away the crumbling coven with the promise of enlightenment.
And Armand, with no God, no Satan, no coven, no master, no children, nothing left but stale rules and the dull tedium of resignation tethering him to this vile ground, couldn’t reply anything but: “Tell me.”
After all, he had just drunk from Lestat, and it had been nothing like the perfunctory act of feeding from scared, trembling mortals, or the detached exchange of blood between coven members.
No, Armand had curled up his cold fingers around Lestat’s warm, elegant throat, his pulse a steady promise, the tilt of his head an unspoken offer; when Armand’s fangs tore at the tender skin, he was drinking from the Fountain of Life, unlived centuries and endured history pouring forth from Lestat to Armand, from Armand to Lestat, until the blood flooded Armand like rain after a long drought.
But it was over too soon, and Lestat had an idea. Of course he had. ‘Twas the century of new ideas, after all, and what could Armand, a relic of darker ages, out of place and out of time, do but follow.
Lestat laughed. An odd, too-loud laugh, a jarring echo in the crypt tunnel, heavy with the silence of death and oblivion. Or maybe Armand had forgotten the pure, unabashed sound of laughter.
“First, we must make you look suitable for a soirée at the theater,” Lestat said. A smile, too sharp to be gentle. “Master.” Words uttered to mock Armand; if they had been at the theater, the gullible audience would have laughed. Master of nothing, he was. Master of dirt and rats and ashes.
But then Lestat tugged him by the sleeve, like the demanding child he was, and Armand followed.
It was a cold winter, dirty snow piled up at the corners of the street, Lestat aptly clad in his red cloak, a bit faded but lovingly patched, walking proud, almost strutting, and Armand a few steps behind, face half hidden by his raggedy old cape, disguising himself as a nonentity, as the odd shadow on a wall, frightening mortals for a second before disappearing.
When five young girls pulling a cart full of fabric and then a gentleman getting off a carriage turned their heads to watch Lestat, Armand could witness the usual trite jumble of human feelings arising: envy, lust, petty curiosity.
He could sense Lestat, too, preening under the attention, a peacock spreading his wheel, Harlequin feeding on his audience’s laughter.
Once, Armand had been the recipient of similar glances, but that was an eternity ago, and anyway, Armand rarely preened; he bore the scrutiny like a child might bear a punishment, bravely, feigning a supreme imperturbability.
Ataraxia is a peaceful state of freedom, resulting from the lack of any worry or distress that extreme passion can cause, Amadeo dutifully repeated to his master, to prove that lessons weren’t wasted on him.
It was considered the ideal mental state for soldiers entering battle.
No such thing for Lestat: such vanity on him, such pride, such brazen confidence, such an odd attachment to earthly -- mortal -- things: the stage, the clothes, the carriages, the money. The violinist.
Such disregard for old rules and obedience.
Your meaningless rules are words, and hold no more truth than the lines I yell on the stage every night, Lestat had said defiantly, one of the many nights Armand sought him after the performance at the theater.
And now Harlequin the trickster had tricked Armand into following him -- or so Lestat believed. Maybe Armand fooled Lestat into believing he tricked Armand. Or perhaps Armand was the biggest fool of all, the Harlequin of darkness, and had fooled himself all along, for excruciatingly long centuries of misery. Satan’s fool, the sewers his dusty, crumbling stage, the coven his unhappy company. Now, perhaps, he was ready to play Lestat’s fool.
His own fool, the trickster who tricks himself.
Armand’s feet skidded on the slippery cobblestones as they traveled through narrow, foul-scented streets, flanked by dilapidated houses, facades blackened by smoke and mold, so tall that Armand reckoned vampires could walk during the day and not be hit by the sun’s rays, if they were careful enough. The new réverbère lamps cast a reddish glow on the falling evening, catching on Lestat’s hair, glittering like spun gold.
Lestat suddenly turned left, towards a row of crowded, narrow houses, a few windows shuttered and boarded up -- maybe those places belonged to enemies of the Revolution, or fallen from grace Jacobins, not that Armand ever grasped the scope of the Revolution and its downfall into tyranny.
After watching, with more than a hint of dark amusement, Lestat’s pitiful attempts at forcing the front door open without ripping it from its hinges but without attracting any attention from the passers-by, Armand simply willed it unlocked with his mind gift.
He was rewarded by a long, wide-eyed look, Lestat observing him as they crossed the threshold: maybe it was envy, maybe awe, maybe even desire.
Perhaps both vampires and humans were, at their core, slaves to the same simple cravings. Is it possible to learn how to harness such power? Could you teach me?
Armand didn’t answer, his mind a locked vault. The secret part of him that had always longed to be wanted and not merely needed ached with the dull, long-suffered pain of centuries of solitude and misery; he denied himself and was denied so much that he would have licked whatever crumb Lestat was thoughtlessly dropping off the ground.
Lestat quickly climbed the stairs up to the top floor, under the roof; something dormant roused in Armand at seeing Lestat, who beguiled hundreds of people every night, observing him with childlike wonder when he saw Armand floating mid-air.
I could show you, perhaps.
The apartment they entered had three rooms: one completely empty and bare except for a stone tub, the limestone walls stained, cobwebs draped at the corners, another one with a brick fireplace with a huge pot dangling over it, but no wood to light a fire, and the last one furnished with a chest of drawers and a wooden bedstead, a pallet, white linens, and folded clothes placed upon a gray blanket.
Lestat twirled around, spreading his hands as if to show Armand how pleased he was with this house, but Armand stood still, out of place.
He could never live there, long windows overlooking the Seine, spires and domes and crosses and narrow streets and carriages and the cacophony of human life rumbling all around. Three rooms, a waste of space. The stone tub, a vanity. The view, a world of light he didn’t belong to.
Silk sheets, like a caress on his back, blades of light seeping through latticed windows, the placid canal glimmering outside.
Gorging on food so rich it made Amadeo sick, at first: sardines cooked with onion and vinegar, mutton soup, fried crabmeat.
Staring upwards, tired and achy, strange gods lovingly painted on frescoed ceilings, strangers’ hands all over him.
Amadeo died swathed in luxury, back then, and Armand was born, out of fire and destruction and punishment.
But by now the sewers and the crypts and the abandoned catacombs were the kingdom of no one, so where could a creature like Armand go. Beneath the dirty ground, would be the answer, or into the fire.
And yet here he was, a powerful being with unwashed hair and grimy fingernails and filthy clothes. Master of ghosts and pain.
“I bought this place recently from Monsieur Nimot,” Lestat explained, blissfully unaware, with a satisfied smile, boots thudding on the wooden floor.
He was made to be an owner: of fine things, of people’s hearts. “We met at a Bal de Victimes…” A calculated pause, because Lestat, of course, knew well enough that Armand didn’t have the faintest idea of what kind of ball that was.
Armand wondered if he had rehearsed this little speech, or if performing for whatever audience and basking in their adoration was just part of Lestat’s nature. “A very exclusive gathering, since to be admitted one has to be a near relative of someone who had been guillotined during Robespierre’s rule… quite the event, if you ask me.”
Armand didn’t ask, but Lestat went on anyway, clearly enamored with the sound of his own voice. No wonder he had half of Paris eating out of his hand every night; Armand couldn’t tear his eyes off him if he wanted. “Scanty dresses, no shoes, hair up to bare the neck, reflecting the haircut given the victims by the executioner, red ribbons around throats at the point of a guillotine blade's impact… and celebrations of… orgiastic nature, if you understand me.”
Armand understood. He understood all too well. He kept his expression still as a statue, his mind locked as a tomb.
If it was meant to be a seduction, it was an ill-suited one, an unnecessary one, too. Lestat had already taken everything from Armand; he could take more, all he wanted.
“Anyway, it’s mine, now, and you can stay here, unless you prefer to live like a rat, squeaking in the shadows. Speaking of, I have clothes made for you, suitable for the theater tonight.”
Lestat twirled again, and with a flourish pointed to the other room, the one with the bed and the folded clothes. And then his smile turned soft and sharp at the same time, eyelashes long in the blue unlight of dusk. “Clothes suitable for your…” A long, traveling gaze burning on Armand, up and down, a silent chuckle. “Figure. But first, you need a bath. If you’d like…” He pointed to a dark fireplace, with a giant hanging pot full of water, an expectant look in his bright eyes, half coy, half insulting, half curious.
Of course Armand hadn’t been brought here only to be fucked and dressed up like a doll, he was here to demonstrate the full extent of his powers. Another one might have felt slighted, but not Armand; he was always brought someplace to demonstrate some skill.
Armand blinked, flames crackling, red and high, higher than the pot, even, and Lestat stumbled behind, the fire reflected in his blue eyes. A dark glee seized Armand as he realized Lestat suddenly seemed not so confident, all alone with an infinitely more powerful vampire.
Armand blinked again, flames subsiding to embers and then quickly dying, a slight stink of smoke the only sign there was ever a fire.
“I prefer cold water,” Armand said. Truth was, he had forgotten the comfort of a hot bath, used to wash, once in a while, in the dark, polluted waters of the Seine, at night, after some furtive kill.
He stripped quickly, efficiently, no seduction, no shyness. Demonstrating his powers wasn’t the only reason Lestat had brought him here; Armand had known since Lestat, earlier, in the dimly lit crypt, had brought Armand’s wrist to his mouth and kissed it, a delicate, incongruous gesture. Perhaps this was all a foolish ruse, a pathetic attempt to elicit the violinist’s jealousy, not that Armand cared.
The water Lestat poured into the stone basin was cold, but nothing Armand couldn’t bear.
Lestat sank on the floor, cloak folded neatly beside him, legs crossed, sleeves rolled up, eyes on Armand -- all of Armand -- with such unconcealed attention that anyone else, mortal or not, would have wilted under that heated scrutiny.
But not Armand. Armand didn’t wilt, didn’t smile bashfully, his hands holding the cloth didn't falter. Cold water burned his eyes, filled his nostrils. Armand pretended to be an abandoned vessel, drifting in open waters. An empty shell, stranded on the shoreline.
“You’re a strange one,” Lestat said. “Let me.” Surprisingly gentle hands ran through Armand’s wet hair, deft fingers untangling his curls.
No one had touched him with such tenderness in centuries, but Armand remembered well what tender hands could turn into. He could choose to allow it. Part of him longed to allow it. For a long time Armand had wanted to forget how it felt like to be touched, but now he tried to remember.
Amadeo knew the art of love.
To love is to surrender.
Underwater, Lestat’s handsome face was all blurred, like a ruined oil painting, water pressing against Armand’s closed mouth and nose and ears. If there were tears in his burning eyes, Lestat would never know.
Then he was up, dripping water on the floorboards, naked and barefoot, so fast that Lestat, for a moment, still cross-legged on the floor, was startled, blinking, heart-shaped mouth parted in surprise. But he recovered quickly, warm hands stroking Armand’s cold shoulders, eyes bright.
“Much better,” he said, with the right amount of condescension to sound quite annoying. And then, unsubtly peering downwards, he added, with a hushed voice: “Isn’t pleasure forbidden in religious congregations such as yours?”
Sometimes Amadeo tried to convince himself: my body is only a body, my soul can go elsewhere.
But the soul is a prisoner of the body.
A line so terrible that the silly dialogues of the theater’s comedies seemed witty, in comparison. But Armand didn’t scoff, or smile, or blink, or breathe because he had no need of it, he just stared at Lestat, swimming inside the deep dark well that was his mind, rummaging through the pain etched into the abyss, through all the love Lestat held within, threatening to overflow.
“Isn’t your beloved violinist going to suffer if you desire another? Suffer even more than he already is-”
Watch it, resounded loud and harsh in Armand’s mind, an empty warning but a proud one, and here he was.
Nicolas, as Lestat saw him: worshiped friend, talented violinist, unwilling vampire, a beautiful boy with melancholic eyes. A boiling rage simmered there, at the center of Lestat’s more secret, intimate thoughts, and guilt, desperation, resentment, but most of all burned a blinding, flame-hot love, and devotion, and lust.
Lestat might have had Armand here, naked and willing and all-powerful and filled with secret knowledge, but it was Nicolas, ungrateful, fragile, contrary Nicolas, that Lestat craved to hold in his arms and press against the clean sheets and cover with kisses and whisper sweet promises to.
Oh, to be loved like this, Armand thought, and, immediately afterward, this is the bruise to press if one ever wanted Lestat to suffer and snap.
Lestat leaned in and kissed him, hot lips, sweet tongue, grabbed Armand by his wet hair, big hands, strong arms.
Armand’s mind had scarcely had time to marvel at being kissed and touched and playfully but firmly pushed on the bed before his body remembered and seized control.
A mortal’s brain would crumble and scatter under the weight of almost three centuries of memories and misery and pain
The mind of a monster can endure
And the body remembers
Lestat covered Armand’s bare body, the woolen fabric of his waistcoat and breeches rough against Armand’s skin, and when he pulled back, eyes wide and bright, Armand dutifully helped him remove his clothes, waistcoat, shirt, boots, breeches, all carelessly dropped on the floor.
Lestat surely must have been aware of how alluring he was, this golden young man cruelly cut short and reborn in darkness, but filled with such radiant fire, almost too much brightness for a dead creature of the night, so much that Armand had to close his eyes for a moment.
His eyes remember being burned by the sun once: long blonde hair, a benevolent smile, broad shoulders, cold hands
Armand acted as he remembered: sighs and moans and writhing on sheets, legs wrapped around Lestat’s back, sloppy kisses, all tongue and no finesse. Sometimes Lestat looked at him a tad too sweetly, lost in the moment; Armand’s dead heart was still a heart, after all.
After spending inside him, Lestat kissed all over Armand, lips, cheeks, neck, collarbone, rib cage, navel, thighs, calves, and then the places where Armand had not often been kissed -- the soft, hidden flesh under his pits, the back of his bent knees, the soles of his feet -- not like this anyway, wet, open-mouthed kisses, as if Armand was an idol and Lestat a worshipper, when in truth, Armand was the zealot and Lestat a capricious god.
When Lestat finally licked the inside of his thighs, Armand’s legs were trembling, blood-tinged sweat pooling on his hairline, empty fists closing on air.
“Bite me,” Armand begged, almost recoiling at the sound of his own voice, broken and raspy.
Elemosini attenzioni sì tanto soavemente, Amadeo, you beg so prettily
Lestat blinked up at him, golden hair spilling out of his ribbon, pink lips, sharp fangs, strong hands clutching Armand’s bent knees, and then a rapturous sting of pain, a wet, guttural sigh, a broken gasp. Sharp fangs in Armand’s flesh, hot blood in Lestat’s mouth, Lestat’s hand on Armand’s hardness, then his red-stained mouth, the bite marks on Armand’s skin already healing.
“Graffiami,” Armand rasped. Scratch me.
To his credit, Lestat, after a moment of wavering, didn’t hold back: he palmed Armand’s thighs with his clever hands, sharp nails digging into the skin, and then scratched, hard enough to draw red brushstrokes on brown skin, like dripping lines of paint.
“Più forte,” Armand prayed. Harder.
When is pain too much? When is desire too strong? When is love too deep?
Lestat clawed at Armand’s skin, a lion tearing at the most docile, willing prey, and then Armand was flying, soaring over domed churches and narrow canals and labyrinthian alleys and unfurled sails, flying up, up towards a sun he had not gazed upon for centuries.
Love must hurt painfully enough, in order to truly feel it.
After, Armand blindly grabbed Lestat by his long hair, hauled him up like a toy until Lestat’s body was on his, not a place where they weren’t touching, and then Armand bared his fangs and Lestat trembled in his arms. A long, terrible drink from his throat; tonight on the stage, clad in his Harlequin costume, paint on his handsome face, basking in his confident, triumphant glory, Lestat would remember that, even if he deemed himself a god, a creature strong enough to take his head off his body with bare hands -- or maybe only with the power of his mind -- sat in the audience.
The bed, the house, were a stage no less than the Theatre Renaud: a beast of prey will remain a beast of prey, no matter how much he attempted to disguise as a dove, an abandoned lover will always be longing, in his heart of hearts, for the fleeting memory of his first love, a young fledgling will stay a feather-pecked bird for a long time.
Lestat might have amused himself with showing off his wealth and pride, and dressing Armand like he was a character of one of the comedies he played: a dark red frock coat, its wool softer than anything Armand had worn in centuries, a matching silk shirt, a black cravat, even a hair ribbon.
Creatures of darkness, perfectly disguised as creatures of life.
But
a scared boy is a scared boy
a monster is a monster
And
the most painful punishment
is eternity