Sometimes, and I truly mean sometimes with every connotation that word can hold, I wish I were more capable of being a physically affectionate creature. Not just because it would please my son immensely—and oh, how it would please him—but because, when I watch others (and I do), it is a mystery that appears…enjoyable.
So many others to whom physical affections comes easily seem so pleased by it. Perhaps my biggest example is Lestat: he is affectionate without stipulation, without condition. He believes in loving openly, and doing so physically (whether or not the objects of his affection appreciate it, as both Louis and I can attest). He believes in embracing, kissing, tackling, cuddling—all those things. Sometimes I find it hard to believe he is mine, though perhaps it is because he grew up in a home with little to no affection that he hungers for it so.
If I could find a way to enjoy such a thing, I would do it.
He’d fallen asleep while they’d been watching a film—sprawled across the divan, his head in her lap, one leg throw half off the piece of furniture. Like any parent, when he slept she could see the face of babyhood still somewhere in the man he was now, her heart aching just a little as she stroked his hair absently. No, she would never deliver such affection were he awake—it cost her too much to do so—but in the safety of slumber she might treat him as she would have in the smallness of mortal babyhood.
She leaned over his face, gently pressing her lips to the tip of his nose. She loved him—unconditionally, irrevocably—this much would always be true.
We were in the thick of Summer. The hot, sticky Louisiana air hung stagnant in the air, bringing with it the putrid smells of the swamps and Plantation. Though the suffocating heat did not affect us the way it did mortals, Louis and I were not impervious to it. It made me antsy. I paced about the house restlessly, picking up objects to examine them, only to put them down immediately. Louis was in the parlour, hunched over a letter he was composing to one of his fellow bourgeois, slave-driving compatriots. He was thrumming his fingers on the tabletop as he worked. Now granted, it was a very small thing and in retrospect shouldn’t have been enough to start an argument as big as it did, but he had been doing it non-stop for hours. HOURS! It was driving me crazy.
thrump-thrump-thrump
I tried my best to ignore it.
thrump-thrump-thrump
Really, I did.
thrump-thrump-thrump
But I could only take so much.
thrump-thrump-thrump
“Mon dieu, Louis! What, are you committing your entire life’s story onto paper?!” I snarled, sticking just my head over the threshold of the parlor. Louis turned in his seat, arm draped languidly over the back of it, to give me an innocently confused look.
“Is something the matter?” He asked, eyebrows furrowed.
“Yes, yes, I’ll say something’s the matter. Stop it with that infernal racket you’re making with your fingers it’s driving me up the wall! Besides such mortal fidgeting isn’t suitable for a vampire.” I turned sharply on my heels. “Come Louis!” I called from the next room over. “Come hunt with me, I’m feeling rather peckish and heaven knows how much you need to get out of the house.” I went to fetch some appropriate attire for public audience. I returned to find him back to work on his letter still doing that thing with his fingers. Just to spite me this time, I was sure of it.
“Louis,” I said testily. “Did you not hear me?”
“Oh, I heard you,” came his response without even looking up from his paper. I leant against the doorframe, arms crossed.
“And?”
“And what if I don’t wish to hunt with you?” he asked coldly.
“Louis, stop being foolish. Put the pen down and- for godsakes STOP IT WITH YOUR FINGERS!”
Louis stopped and shot upright, knocking over his chair.
“And why should I, Lestat?’ he hissed scathingly. “Why should I hunt with you? And I can make whatever sounds I please. You don’t own me.”
I snorted. “Fine, fine. Don’t come with me, then. Go out and hunt your rats in perfect solitude. I don’t care.” Now here’s the thing: when things get started like this between Louis and I, neither of us can just let it go. We can’t just throw in the towel and let the other alone. One of us always has to come back for one last, well-placed metaphorical kick. “Your hunting habits disgust me, by the way. Have I mentioned it before? Simply vile.” And that was my kick.
“It’s my choice, Lestat. A moral choice. We all have to make one. Would you rather me act like you? Zero regard for life?” And…that was his. His voice was shaking with anger.
“Louis!” I shouted exasperatedly. “No, I don’t want you to act like me. I want you to act like you. Exactly how you are now, not when you were mortal. I want you to exist as you were meant to! Do what it is in your nature to do! I don’t want you moping around for the rest of eternity, bemoaning the loss of your precious humanity!”
I wasn’t expecting Louis to charge me. Such an overt display of anger was rare for him. I easily evaded the punches he threw at me. Christ…what’s with him tonight? “I- hate- you-you monster” he grunted in between jabs. I grew tired of this and grabbed a hold of both his wrists. Furiously, he thrashed and managed to land a kick to my stomach. I growled and twisted his arms behind his back so that we were chest-to-chest.
“What on God’s green Earth has gotten into you?” I spat. He glowered at me with piercing green eyes.
“I hate you.” And to that end, he did the single most unexpected thing I could possibly think of anyone doing after having uttered that phrase: he smashed his lips against mine, capturing me in an overwhelmingly passionate kiss. Was this happening? Kissing him…it was something I’d wanted since I first saw him. Something erupted in me. Something between us had just reached a breaking point and this was the result. I closed my eyes. I felt something very akin to mortal passion as I melted into the kiss, our lips moved together seamlessly, hungrily. After a few heated moments that felt more like hours I broke away from him.
I-want-my-IWTV 