B007XKEWAE EBOK (27 page)

Fulton dropped into the two-seater settee and hooked his legs over one arm. He scooped up the  remote control and turned on the stolen television set. He had had to go without T.V when he was living feral on the streets and searching for Francesca, since they had come here Fulton had been bitten by the bug again. The new digital service gave him access
to more channels than he had had access to before. Fair enough most of the stuff they put on was rubbish but with so many channels there was nearly always something he could enjoy on one of them, his parents had never gotten around to getting satellite. Not that his standards were the highest when it came to what he wanted to watch. Clicking over to some comedy film-quiz he settled back to watch.

Soon into the program the noise upstairs stopped and shortly after he heard soft footsteps padding down the stairs. Francesca stepped through the door to the living room pulling closed her short dressing gown, made of some thin almost transparent material, and tying the belt around her waist which gathered the bottom hem of her gown up even higher.

Francesca sauntered into the room her body shimmering with a thin layer of sweat and she crossed in front of the T.V. blocking Fulton's view. He made no noise of complaint and she swung a leg up onto the settee over his legs and she sat atop him.

He looked up at her in that dominant position and she gave a sly smile. Leaning forwards, letting her gown fall open, she untucked his shirt and raked her nails over his chest.

With her mouth next to his ear she whispered, "Tonight I'm going to sort out this intolerable financial situation. There'll be no more of us having to do it on this tatty furniture.

"You remember that party I took you to? The high class affair that made you feel out of place."

Fulton nodded. "I remember."

"There were many wealthy gentlemen at that party. Gentlemen who know about we vampires. Gentlemen who pay handsomely for the opportunity to get intimate with a vampire princess."

"You told them you were a princess," Fulton laughed and then the meaning of what she had just said filtered into his brain. "You prostitute yourself to them?" he said incredulously.

"I manipulate them," Francesca retorted with blazing eyes. "I get pleasure and money from them. They get to use my body for a few minutes, that's all. I don't need to explain myself to you."

Fulton tried to change the subject away from his disbelief at her profession lest he incur more of her wrath. "They like it when you wear fantasy costumes,
that's why you had on the medieval underwear that night."

Francesca nodded. "They watch too much television, like others I could mention. All their impressions of what we are are based on the images that come out of that damn box." She let her face reveal her vampire nature. "They like to be dominated by me when I appear like this. They get off on the whole queen of the damned thing." As if to accentuate her point she ground her hips, wriggling on top of him and making his body react to her.

"That was a quick promotion from a princess to a queen," Fulton said enjoying her activity.

Francesca ignored him. She shifted her face back and stopped grinding while she thought. "We will hunt early tonight,
just after it gets dark. You and Gabriella will return here while I go and earn some money. A little bit of sex and blackmail ought to get us the money we need to tide us over until we have a more reliable base of income."

She indicated the television; "Now turn the volume down on that thing I have people to call, arrangements to make."

Francesca placed her weight on her feet on the floor so that she could lift her body from on top of his. Fulton reached up and grabbed her hips, pulling her back down on top of him.

"Later."

Francesca regarded him, still slightly resisting his downward pressure. "You are still very presumptuous."

Fulton just stared back at her and waited for her to give in. He knew she wanted this as much as he did.

"One day I will have to teach you your place," she said, but she settled down on top of him.

"For now I think I know exactly where you want me."

They had hunted early as Francesca had said they would and, after a brief argument from Gabriella, the two younger vampires had returned back to the house together alone. They weren't to expect Francesca back for four days while she gathered her finances. The two vampires walked back to the house in silence and each made their way immediately to their respective room.

Fulton closed his bedroom door behind him and threw his jacket onto the bed before flopping down beside it. He lay there for a few minutes before deciding he wasn't going to shut himself away just because Francesca was going to be away for a while. Why should he lock himself away in his room and be bored? Francesca wasn't around to relieve his boredom which left the
television to do it. He changed into something more comfortable and headed down the stairs.

Standing outside the door to the living room he could hear the quiet, slightly tinny, sounds of the T.V. set and a louder girlish giggle that had to be coming from Gabriella. He opened the door silently and peeked inside.

Gabriella was lounging on the settee much as he did, although being shorter than he was her legs weren't hooked over the arm instead her legs rested on it just below the calf. He couldn't see the screen from this position but whatever was on it was certainly entertaining her. Gabriella giggled and this time it burst into a full-blown peal of good-natured laughter.

Fulton let her mirth subside before he pushed the door open fully, intentionally making noise, and entered the room. Gabriella shifted instantly into a less comfortable more upright position, straightening her clothes as she did so. She barely acknowledged him with a shallow nod.

Fulton nodded back and dropped sideways into a chair, his legs hooked so far over the arm that his feet could have touched the floor at a stretch. He focused his attention on the T.V. and saw a program he recognised. Shifting slightly as if that would make him see it any better he said, "I remember this. I used to love this show."

He started watching it with genuine interest and looked over at Gabriella. "Don't you think this is just the funniest?"

She shrugged. "It's okay, I suppose," she said feigning disinterest.

"Don't be like that," Fulton said. "I watched you just a minute ago and you were loving it."

Gabriella jumped up. "You were spying on me?"

"Not spying, I just-"

"Shut up!" Gabriella stormed past him towards the door. "I don't want to hear it." She thundered up the stairs.

Fulton watched her leave and turned back to the T.V., her footsteps stopped and came back.

"You were
spying
on me." Gabriella marched back into the living room and planted herself between Fulton and the television set with her hands on her hips. She was staring him down like he was a
naughty schoolboy brought up before a strict headmistress.

"What, you can't get your jollies with Francesca for a little while so you stoop to perving on me instead?"

Fulton spread his arms displaying his palms to her in a placating gesture. "I wasn't
perving
on you."

She cocked her head to the side and raised an eyebrow. "Then explain what you were doing watching me."

He shook his head. "I can't."

Gabriella smiled. "I'll bet you can't explain why you were watching me outside the club either."

His eyes widened in surprise and he shook his head.

"You didn't think I knew about that. Well get a good look now," she said turning slowly on the spot running her
hands down her fully clothed body. "This is as much as
you
get to see."

With that she stormed out for the second time. Fulton watched her all the way to the door, which she slammed behind herself. He continued to stare at the door as she stomped up the stars until the sound of her slamming her bedroom door snapped him out of it. He shook his head and turned back to watching television.

Fulton returned to the house just an hour before dawn. He could tell by the smell of the air when he stepped through the door that Gabriella was already back. She had already been gone when he woke up late that evening. She wasn't in
the living room so she must have already closeted herself in her bedroom.

Well if she wanted to be stubborn there was nothing he could do about it. If she insisted on cutting her pretty little nose off to spite her face he wasn't about to risk loosing some fingers by trying to stop her.

Fulton slouched into a seat and flicked the T.V. on. Gabriella could stay in her room and be bored if she felt she needed to keep away from him.

Gabriella was lying on her bed studying the ceiling when she heard Fulton arrive back at the house. She heard him close the outside door and another of the inner doors opening and closing. It was quiet for a moment and then she heard the television come on.

She lay there for several minutes shifting position as she tried to convince herself that she wasn't bored out of her skull. Eventually she could take it no longer. Why should she have to hide herself away?
He
was the one with the problem not her. Why should she punish herself for it?

Gabriella got up and walked over to her closet. She slipped into one of the sheer negligees Francesca liked her to wear, when she wanted her to wear anything, and reached up to get a heavier dressing gown to cover herself up. She let her hand fall back to her side and closed the closet door with her other hand. She was more  comfortable like this, she shouldn't feel the need to cover herself up in her own home. In fact it was
better to give Fulton an eyeful of what he couldn't have.

She allowed herself a sly smile. Yes, it was much better to torment him in this way.

Gabriella walked down the stairs and into the living room. She chose not to take the chair nearest the door, instead she sauntered across the room to the chair on the opposite side of the room. This made sure that Fulton got a good look at her. She arranged herself in the seat so that she showed plenty of flesh without actually revealing anything.

He watched her all the way across the room and only averted his eyes after she was seated and could obviously see him if he continued to stare. Gabriella made it look as though she was concentrating on the T.V. but positioned
herself so that she could just see Fulton out of the corner of her eye and she saw him keep glancing over at her. He just couldn't seem to keep his eyes off her.

Gabriella entered the living room and Fulton looked over to acknowledge her arrival, it wouldn't hurt him to make that little effort after she had swallowed her pride and come downstairs. He caught his breath when he saw her. After her little outburst about him being a pervert and her  'this is all you get to see' tirade, he would never have expected to see her dressed as she was. The flimsy negligee she wore barely classified as clothing. It was so thin it was almost transparent.

The time for any greeting had passed before Fulton knew it and
Gabriella was now arranging herself in her chair. He saw her eyes flick over to him and quickly averted his gaze, they hadn't spoken but at least they were in a room together without arguing there was no point in angering her again.

He cast his eyes back to the screen but flicked his gaze over to Gabriella every so often. It wasn't just his imagination, she was pretending to watch the television but she was staring at him out of the corner of her eyes. After her explosion about him watching her here she was unable to take her eyes off him. He was about to call her up on her hypocrisy when his parents appeared on the screen.

Fulton didn’t move. His chest barely even rose or fell. His entire world was focused in on the screen and what it
showed to him. They hadn’t forgotten about him, they were appealing for him to come back to them. He was so intent on the screen he didn’t feel the tears starting to creep down his cheeks.

Francesca emerged from the bedroom wearing this client’s new favoured costume. She had visited a few others and had threatened them with death or blackmailed them into giving her money. It seemed none of these men wanted their wives, families or most often shareholders, to know what they got up to with her. On one occasion a client had tried to have her taken care of with a beating from a pair of his security people.
After she delivered their decapitated heads to him he agreed to pay.

But all this one wanted was for her to agree to take part in his new fantasy and he would pay her a handsome sum. That was how she came to be dressed in an old fashioned night-gown that was cut to emphasise her breasts, and a hooded cloak tied at the neck. It seemed this client had been overdosing on old Hammer horror films. With their busty actresses heaving their bosom's pretending to be vampires. He had even asked her to meet him in a real graveyard to really get into it. Of course he didn't expect her to make her way there on her own.