The Maestro's Butterfly (6 page)

The thought of him made her heart pound so hard, she actually considered spending the day in Claudio’s room. But what about the next day, and the next? She wondered what her life was to be like here for the next month, and if he really would let her go at the end. Again, she thought of the man in the pinstriped suit, and had to flee the room, ripped dress or no ripped dress.

In the light of day the basement looked different. She could see the faded colors of old costumes, and painted designs on trunks. Holding the dress together, she explored the piles, placing her bare feet with the care of a tightrope walker, hoping a rat didn’t scurry out over her toes and make her hurt herself. She jumped when she heard a soft clucking sound, then whirled around to find Chloe standing against the wall with her arms crossed, dressed in last night’s clothing. Her long hair was mussed.

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“You look terrible,” she said. “Your dress is ruined.”

Looking down, Miranda felt a pang of regret. She had liked this dress very much.

“Come on,” Chloe said. “I’ll let you borrow something.” When Miranda hesitated, Chloe grinned. “I won’t bite. At least not until
le Maestro
tells me I can.”

“
Le Maestro?
” Miranda said doubtfully, following Chloe into her tiny bedroom.

The delicate blond boy from the night before lay sleeping nude in the bed, head thrown back on the pillow, exposing bite marks. “Oh God, not you too.”

Chloe only smiled.

“Anyway I thought it was
Monsieur,
” Miranda said, looking around. “What everyone calls Claudio.” Large enough only for a double bed, a dresser and a small wardrobe, the room wasn’t what Miranda would have expected, for either a vampire or a cellist. It was littered with clothing, the walls decorated with beige-and-green wallpaper,, grapevines winding around latticework, peeling in the corners.

“
Monsieur, Maestro.
Whatever. He will make us call him Great Lord and Master if it enters his head. Your breasts are smaller than mine.”

Again, Miranda looked down automatically, and cursed herself for being so open to suggestion. She felt like a young kid at the mercy of the big kids on the playground, with no adults around to save her, especially since the French girl was a few inches taller. “Thanks,” she said. “I don’t feel self-conscious enough yet.”

“Hmph,” Chloe said, pawing through a drawer of tops like the one she wore.

Noticing Miranda’s fascination with the boy, she said. “He was my dinner. I didn’t want anything we had here.”

“Oh. Okay,” Miranda said, as though it made sense. She stood near the doorway.

“Here,” Chloe said and handed her a red Betty Boop T-shirt. “It’s too big but it will keep you from embarrassment. Claudio has probably found endless ways of humiliating you already.” Not quite sure what etiquette called for at this point, she stood holding it as Chloe opened another drawer and found a pair of jeans, but didn’t know 40

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how to take them without letting go of the dress and exposing herself.

Chloe rolled her eyes and pulled Miranda’s hands away from the ripped fabric.

Miranda looked at her incredulously. “Modesty won’t get you very far here,” Chloe said.

“Apparently not.” Miranda gave up and shrugged out of the dress to pull on the shirt and jeans. She had to roll up the pant cuffs several times, and the seam felt uncomfortable between her legs with no panties on.

Chloe leaned against the dresser and watched. “I have sneakers under my bed,”

she said. “You’re welcome to try some.”

Miranda nodded and said thanks, but Chloe didn’t move. “I’m not going to get them for you,” she said. Miranda blushed and hesitated, then started pawing under the bed with her butt sticking in the air.
But
, she thought,
Chloe was right: The morning
had already been one humiliation after another. How bad could one more be?

She felt something on the left cheek of her rear and realized it was Chloe’s bare foot.
Two more humiliations, then,
Miranda thought. “Nice,” Chloe said. “Claudio knows how to pick girls. And boys too.”

Miranda sat up, clutching a pair of black sneakers, hair in her face. “What do you mean, boys too?”

Chloe shrugged. “It’s Claudio. He has appetites.”

Without another word, Miranda sat on the floor and tugged the shoes angrily on her feet. They were a little too big but would have to do. “So is that a musician thing or a vampire thing? Or a French thing, or a—?” She sighed and stood up.

“There is always a period of adjustment,” Chloe said, and sat on the bed, leaning on one palm and letting her shoulder jut out at a weird angle. The boy snuffled as he rolled over, exposing a hairless chest and flat tummy. “You are so pretty,” Chloe murmured to him.

Miranda tried to run a hand through her hair, but it became caught in the tangles.

“I’m not going through a period of adjustment, because I’m not staying,” Miranda said.

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Chloe looked at her with an expression of mild curiosity. “Then why are you here?”

“He asked me out. I said yes. He bet me I’d want to stay forever if I stayed for a month. So I’m staying a month to show him up. Then I’m leaving. You’re all much too messed up for my taste.”

Chloe narrowed her eyes unexpectedly. Her face darkened. “You bet him? Why would you do that? Are you completely stupid?”

“What are you talking about?”

“How old are you, twenty-five?”

“Twenty-seven. Why?”

Chloe shook her head. “Even at this young age, you should know. A man like Claudio would never make a bet he thought he could lose. He is much too old for mistakes.”

“How old is he?”

“He is near two hundred and sixty—older or younger, I don’t remember. He was forty-four when he was changed. I was there.”

Miranda’s jaw dropped. “That means you’re—”

“Older than your grandmother’s grandmother, so I know some things. Don’t be too confident here. This isn’t the place. This is a place for surrender. If you don’t realize this, you will be hurt.”

Miranda nodded. “You’re all vampires?”

“Me, Claudio, Seth and Adam. The rest are the people who feed us, and do the work that needs to be done. They are our servants. You will be also, when this honeymoon is over.”

Miranda shook her head. “No, that’s not—that’s not the plan.”
And by the way,
who is the man in the pinstriped suit?
It was on the tip of her tongue, but Chloe spoke first and distracted her.

“You were a virgin before Claudio.” She nodded toward Miranda’s neck, then 42

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found a brush on the dresser and began brushing her hair.

Miranda jerked up her head. “A virgin? No, I wasn’t a virgin.”

“To the vampire
bite,
” Chloe said, emphasizing the last word and shaking her head at Miranda. “You must realize, after last night, that whatever you were having before wasn’t sex after all, but only the suggestion of it. A shadow. Sex with a vampire is much more complete. But you know that now.”

“I don’t know anything,” Miranda said, pressing her palm against her bite. It felt sore and itchy. She nodded toward Chloe’s bed. “Is he a servant?”

“Him? He is a—how do you call—pit stop. We can’t exactly go to McDonald’s for a quick meal, if you know what I mean. So we have feeders out there who have their own lives. They will serve us if we want a meal while we’re out. Or a fuck. Or both.”

Miranda nodded. “And Claudio is with other women?” Her voice cracked. The strength of her jealousy surprised her.

Chloe threw her head back and laughed. Miranda noticed her fangs were the same size as her other teeth, though pointed. “Women. Boys. Me. He and I have been together for over two hundred years. I am the closest thing he has to a wife. Surely you are able to tell his nature just by looking at him.”

“Oh,” Miranda said, feeling a bit dizzy. She leaned against the bedpost. Jealous nausea swept over her, but she didn’t have time to indulge it. The boy opened his eyes and saw her. A look of confusion passed over his face. Chloe pet his hair out of his eyes. He looked at her, stretched and smiled.

“Hey pretty thing,” Chloe cooed. “How do you feel?”

He looked down at his penis, which was quickly filling out and hardening.

“Horny,” he said, and reached for Chloe’s hand. She climbed on top of him, still in her jeans. “You’re welcome to join us,” she offered over her shoulder.

“No, that’s. . .”
Weird,
she wanted to say.

Chloe leaned forward to kiss the boy on the lips as he unsnapped her jeans, letting her hair fall in a well-brushed curtain along the side of her face, shielding them.

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Feeling like a fifth wheel, Miranda inched toward the door.

“I’ll just. . .” she began, receiving only the wet sound of enthusiastic kisses in reply. “Bye,” she said and left. Outside, she leaned against the basement wall next to an antique floor lamp and forced herself to breathe deeply. “Oh, my God,” she whispered to herself. The bite on the side of her neck throbbed. Wondering how her body was going to change filled her with renewed anxiety. She decided to go find someone to explain it all to her. Maybe that Gena woman from last night. She looked like she had some answers.

Like who the heck that weird pinstriped suit guy was,
whispered a nagging little voice in the back of her head. She had more immediate things to worry about, she decided, and pushed the voice down into the darkness.

No longer quite so self-conscious in Chloe’s Betty Boop T-shirt, jeans and sneakers, Miranda headed toward the stairs. From this vantage point, Claudio’s bedroom door was on the right, and faced the staircase. On the other side of the stairs, around a little corner and facing the rest of the basement, was another door. Heavy and unfinished, it looked unsavory, unlike the polished, seductive wood of Claudio’s bedroom door.

It was the open padlock and tiny, barred window, however, that stopped Miranda in her tracks.

After the shock of seeing it had worn off enough for her to realize she hadn’t been breathing, Miranda began creeping forward, unable to resist the dangerous curiosity bubbling in her brain. Reaching it, she hooked her fingers over the gritty edge of the window, between the bars, and peered inside. There was only enough light to see a cot at the left end of the room, anchored with chains to the cinderblock wall.

Quick footsteps on the stairs made her move away from the door. She whirled around to see Seth’s grinning face. He was showing off the points of his unextended canines without care, but at this point Miranda was more interested in the tousled hair over his eyes.
Did Claudio pick his vampires based on beauty?
she wondered, and 44

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quickly decided he did. She felt her cheeks flush and her nether parts awaken as Seth broadened his grin.

“Hey,” he said. “I was hoping you’d be up.” She realized it surprised her that he didn’t have tattoos.

“What is this?” Miranda asked, pointing to the room. “And why does it lock from the outside?”

Seth shrugged. “It’s our time-out room. Not to mention, Claudio’s a kinky motherfucker. You want to see it?” He opened the door. It squeaked predictably on its hinges.

In spite of her automatic retreat, the sound made her think of dark, forbidden fucking, of being kidnapped by some dark, dangerous man and kept in a dungeon, experiencing all manner of tortures and delights, and losing track of which was which.

There was just too much sexual energy around this place to avoid being in a state of permanent arousal. Even the rooms seemed lecherous.

“Relax,” Seth said. “I’m not going to lock you in there. I just thought you might like to see what it felt like.” He entered the room and left the door open. “See? I’ll be right here with you.”

Miranda nodded, wondering if he’d meant the statement as comfort. Then she shrugged and followed him in. What was the worst thing that could happen at this point? She was already a vampire’s chew toy. So what if she got locked in a cell? She couldn’t leave this place anyway. She decided she may as well make the most of it, then stepped inside and tried to survey the lines of Seth’s backside, but there wasn’t enough light.

Now I’m in a dark cell with a vampire,
she thought, wondering just how she had arrived at this moment.

It was a dank little room, with a dangling light bulb, like the one over the staircase. At the moment, though, any light that entered was from the basement. She could barely see Seth’s face when he turned to her. “Cool, huh?” he asked.

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“Weird,” she said. “So are you old enough to be my great-great grandfather?”

“Nope,” he said, stepping closer. “I’m thirty-two. I’ve been a vampire for about ten years. Not a bad gig if you can get it.”

“What’s going to happen to me?” she asked, hating the desperation in her voice, and the way her legs were backing away on their own. “I mean, physically, now that I’ve been bitten? Claudio said I should ask someone—”

He stepped closer and spoke tenderly. Moved hair out of her face, as Claudio might have done. “You’ll start making more blood. You’ll feel stronger and have more energy than you ever though possible. You won’t get sick. And you’ll age very, very slowly. Remember the woman from last night? Gena? She’s our accountant, and she’s in her seventies. Not bad, huh?”

Miranda nodded. This was simply too much to digest, and his belly felt so warm, pressed against her.

Seth slipped the fingers of one hand into her hair and began massaging her head.

It felt good, and for a moment, she wanted to relax. “Of course, it comes with a price.

You won’t be free. You’ll belong to us. You won’t have the right to refuse anything we want. Or else.”

The ominous tone of his voice sent prickles all over her scalp and down her back. “I want to get out of here,” she said, and tried to move around him, but by then he had pushed her against the cold cinderblock wall, and she could not budge him.

“It’s against the rules to refuse a vampire,” he said. She watched incredulously as his fangs extended. Something in the pit of her stomach seemed to drop. She knew she was growing wet, and resisted it. She shouldn’t get pleasure from this. She should insist on being in control of her own body.