Suzie and the Monsters (21 page)

I tap quietly on the back door when Cleo returns again to the kitchen. She runs to the door, unlocking and opening it with haste, and practically flings herself into my arms, holding me so tight I can hardly breathe, her body convulsing against mine as she sobs into my shoulder. Her mother must have heard the door open, or felt the cool air, because she rushes into the kitchen only seconds later, clearly in a panic. But instead of shouting for help, or reaching for the telephone, she just stands there watching us for a minute, then suddenly deflates as if all the strength has left her.

I separate myself from Cleo and ask her, ‘Are you ready to go?’ She nods. ‘Anything you want to bring with you? Photos? Other memories?’ She thinks for a bit, then nods again. ‘Then go pack. Wear trainers if you have any. Bring your passport.’ I’m not entirely sure about the passport, but it could be useful. She nods again, then heads upstairs.

To Cleo’s mother I say, simply, ‘Sorry.’ Sorry for turning your daughter into a vampire. Sorry for taking her away now for a second time. Sorry for all the lies and deception.

‘I was so happy to have her home again,’ she says, ‘but she wasn’t. Home again, that is. She’s like a caged animal.’

‘She can’t stay. You’ll lose her if you try to keep her here. But if you let her go, I’m sure she’ll visit from time to time.’

‘What have you done to her? She’s like a different person.’

‘She’s still Cleo, just something else as well. Perhaps I was wrong to do what I did, but she chose this.’

‘Chose what?’ She’s angry now.

‘I chose Suzie,’ Cleo says, reappearing with a backpack. The tears are gone, and she has rediscovered her new self. She is not Cleo the teenager, but Cleo the adventurer, the vampire, the goddess. ‘I’m sorry, Mum.’

Mrs Lane stares at the stranger in shock for a minute, but then I think it gradually dawns on her that her daughter hasn’t been crushed and abused, that she isn’t a victim, but has in some way matured. Strong, independent, even glamourous. ‘Goodbye, Cleo,’ she says sadly.

‘Bye, Mum,’ Cleo replies, hugging her mother briefly.

And then we’re gone, into the night, Mrs Lane watching us from the open doorway.

Honeymoon (Saturday)

We sleep late on Saturday. Well, not sleep, exactly, although for the first time in years I did manage to sleep for more than three hours without waking, heart pounding, in a tangle of suffocating sheets. In Cleo I have discovered a new peace, and a new terror. She is my lover, my wife, my child. My salvation and damnation. My responsibility. How has it happened that she has penetrated my heart, so swiftly, so surely, Aphrodite’s arrow fired from the bow of Artemis. In the temple of the Dark Goddess, I hear Lilith laughing and entreating me to explode Cleo’s awareness of her own divinity, casting all caution and consideration aside in a quest for ecstasy.

But at last we venture out from our nest, hair still damp from the shower, barely able to walk ten paces without giggling or stopping to kiss. There seems to be an unspoken agreement not to mention the darkness, the evil, of the past few days, and more no doubt to come. How else can we face eternity?

By the time we reach Sacred we’ve calmed down a little, content to keep fingers entwined while we sit and drink. It’s Saturday, lunch time in the human world, and Carnaby Street is crowded. When we finish our tea, we cross to the Apple Store where I buy a MacBook Air and iPod Nano, and Cleo gets an iPhone 4S on contract. Packaging discarded, it’s next over to New Bond Street so I can get myself a new pair of Tributes, black non-patent, and from there we make our way from shop to shop, killing time, working generally in the direction of Covent Garden, exploring the sex shops in Soho for a laugh, relaxing at the Cork and Bottle in Leicester Square. In Geox on Oxford Street, Cleo buys the high-heeled Egizia in Supergirl colours, finally discarding her trusty pink Truffles.

For a couple of hours, while the shops close and the sun drops, disappearing shortly after seven, we just walk along the river, hand in hand, kissing, Cleo full of questions.

‘Have you met anyone famous?’ she asks me.

I’ve met lots of famous people, of course. Elizabeth Bathory I’ve already told her about, although it’s a place to start. ‘I met Delphine Seyrig at a party in the seventies.’ Cleo looks at me blankly. ‘Actress and director. She was Countess Bathory in the film Daughters of Darkness, possibly the best vampire film I’ve ever seen, although, if you ask me, her character is reminiscent more of Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla than Elizabeth Bathory.’

‘Anyone else?’ asks Cleo impatiently.

‘I have a clear memory of travelling to Istanbul on the Orient Express, and spending almost the whole journey making love to Vita Sackville-West, amazing woman. Her husband was sleeping with another gentleman that we were travelling with, I forget his name.’ In fact, my memories of the early twentieth century are a fractured mess. I remember that journey, but not when it was, or anything about arrival in Istanbul, or anything about returning. It’s like a jigsaw, mixed up and with most of the pieces missing. Cleo’s looking blank again. ‘She was the inspiration for Virginia Woolf’s Orlando,’ I explain.

‘Is that the one with Tilda Swinton?’

‘Yes.’

‘My mum likes that. What about Shakespeare?’

‘No, but I knew Aphra Behn. You must have heard of her.’ Cleo shakes her head. I sigh. ‘Sarah Fielding?’ Another shake. ‘Byron?’

‘Cool! What was he like?’

Bloody typical! How is it that women get lost in history? What do they teach kids in school these days? ‘I wanted to kill him,’ I reply. Cleo laughs. ‘Do we have to talk about this?’ I ask, feeling depressed.

‘Sorry, Suzie,’ she says, and pulls me close so that she can kiss me again with her hungry lips.

*

Late in the evening, must be ten, eleven, Cleo and I end up right back where we began, where we first met. Partly it’s a romantic amusement, but mainly it’s a nice club for blending in and dancing. It’s also a good place for picking up horny, open-minded students for a bit of fun and feeding. It’s a shame the music’s so loud, if it can be called that.

There’s an agitation to the way Cleo is watching people, as if she is distressed by her own imaginings, and I suspect she’s getting hungry. My attempts to distract her from thoughts of blood have diminishing effect.

At some point I find myself watching a familiar pair of thighs, naked from the high hem of the short glittery red dress down to an even more familiar pair of shoes, black sandals with knitting-needle heels and satin ribbons around the ankles. A glance up at the natural blonde mane, untamed today, confirms that this is Jenny, returned to the scene of my crime. How astonishing that she should dare to return! I must confess that I am impressed by her courage. But those shoes — how can she wear them! They’re so symbolic of her willingness to sell herself. I would have destroyed them rather than wear them. Mind you, I would never have sold myself the way she did. It’s almost as though she’s wearing them as a badge of pride, which would make a kind of twisted sense, I suppose, if she could be sure not to meet me. Unless...

She’s not alone tonight, I realise, watching her follow —

‘Oh, God!’ Cleo shouts in my ear over the deafening music. ‘It’s my brother and his girlfriend!’

Yes, that makes sense. Lisa and David. I really don’t care about them. I thread my way through the press of bodies and step out in front of Jenny, so close, and so quickly, that my arms are about her, my right hand holding her head so that I can kiss her firmly, my left insinuating itself round and between her thighs to feel the thin layer of cotton that shields her lips. The last time I touched her there she was very wet.

She pushes me away from her and glares at me, anger laced with fear.

‘Hi Jenny!’ I yell, and give her an impish wink.

She doesn’t scream for help. She doesn’t even try to escape. A storm of emotions echoes in her eyes, her muscles vibrate with tension, and she stands poised to turn and flee, and I wait calmly to see how her crisis resolves. It’s clear to me now that my presence is not wholly unanticipated, that there is a message in her heels that only she and I can read. She chose to walk a cliff tonight, excited by the danger of falling into the crashing surf far below, while believing herself safe from consequence. I need to correct that. She should have run.

Her eyes drop suddenly to examine my feet. I burst out laughing, and she flushes with shame. I grab her hand and pull her after me. Perched as she is on those impractical Lorenzis, she is forced to follow, but her resistance is token at best. The fear in her eyes is still there, but the anger has dissipated, replaced by curiosity, and hunger. Passing by the table where Cleo sits, her eyes puzzled and suspicious, I beckon her to follow us, and the three of us wind our way around the dance floor and along the corridor to the Ladies’.

We’re not alone, but at least we can talk normally. Ignoring the three girls chattering at the mirror, I press Jenny’s hand to the crotch of my jeans, then capture her free hand and hold it to my breasts. She struggles against my grip, until she realises I’m actually enjoying the movement. She relaxes, scowling at me.

Cleo is frowning at me. ‘You remember Jenny,’ I say to her.

It takes her a few seconds, but then her eyes go wide with surprise and delight, and her face turns predatory as she studies the trapped girl. Startled by this new threat, Jenny whimpers and starts struggling more earnestly. I release her hands before she starts to panic, and instead hold her neck so that I can whisper in her ear. ‘Burberry. Woven leather. Yours if you satisfy my girlfriend the way you satisfied me.’

I step back so that I can see her eyes, and because I want this to be a free decision, but I realise suddenly that this is exactly what Jenny wants. I’m playing into some fantasy she has, and that’s why she’s here tonight, dressed the way she is.

‘I’m not giving you my sandals,’ she tells me, as if she thinks she’s in control here.

‘You can keep them,’ I concede graciously. ‘Tell me, Jenny. How many times have you made yourself come, fantasising about your mouth on my pussy?’ Her only answer is a bright red flush of embarrassment. I push her backwards into a cubicle. ‘All yours,’ I tell Cleo, who grins and follows swiftly after Jenny, locking the door behind her.

The three girls at the mirror are all staring at me. ‘Who wants to do me?’ I ask them sweetly, and within a minute they’ve packed up their make-up and fled, not daring to look at me again.

Leaving Cleo and Jenny to their pleasure, I return to the dance floor and the table with our stuff, and try to relax. The last time I left a hungry Cleo alone, there was a bloodbath. It is with some relief, therefore, that I see them appear, a half-hour or so later, Cleo with her relaxed post-orgasmic glow, Jenny looking somehow both fulfilled and tense with need.

I take my Burberry sandals off and dangle them just out of her reach. ‘Give me your knickers!’ I order. I feel like a highway robber, shouting that. Stand and deliver! Your knickers or your life!

Cleo collapses into laughter. Jenny’s eyes are wide with shock. This isn’t part of her fantasy. Her desire for the shoes wars with what remains of her dignity. ‘Okay,’ she says at last, too quietly to be heard, and turns to go back to the Ladies’, I guess, to strip unseen.

‘No! Here!’ I yell at her, pointing to where she stands, and for the first time tonight I see real pain and horror in her expression.

She shakes her head, refusing.

I just shrug, and slip my feet back into the sandals. ‘Come on, honey,’ I shout to Cleo, holding out my hand to her. ‘Let’s go.’

Cleo grins as we stand up, and we walk only two, three paces before Jenny screams ‘Okay!’ and starts wriggling furiously out of her knickers while trying to keep her privates concealed. It’s an absolutely delicious scene and attracts quite an audience. Even David and Lisa, though I don’t think Jenny or Cleo have spotted them. I have a feeling she will never be embarrassed again in her life.

We do a simultaneous exchange, sandals for knickers. I’m not surprised to discover they’re soaked, and I hold them to my nose to breathe in her scent. Cleo just laughs when I offer them to her, so I put them in my backpack and extract my new Tributes.

‘Can we take her back to the hotel to play with?’ Cleo shouts in my ear. I can tell from the slight dazzle in her eyes that it’s not entirely Jenny’s pleasure that she has in mind.

I look at Jenny, who’s still not quite able to tear herself away from us, and suddenly I understand something of the puzzle that is Jenny. The shoes are just a pretext — a trophy, perhaps. Whatever the need is that binds Jenny to me, it won’t be satisfied, truly satisfied, until I have taken her to the end of her fantasy. It was the fear that we would leave without her, not lust for new shoes, that broke her final resistance. I could dismiss her now, send her away, but that would be far more cruel than anything else I would do to her.

But perhaps I can satisfy both girls tonight. Standing, backpack strapped to my shoulders, I take hold of Jenny’s left hand. Cleo takes Jenny’s tiny handbag and her new shoes and puts them in my backpack, then takes hold of her right hand, and I lead them out into the night. Jenny’s eyes, whenever I glance back, are both fearful and triumphant. We keep hold of her hands for the whole of the long walk to the hotel, and with our free hands we lose no opportunity to caress, to pinch, to smack, to explore, to expose, to excite. Jenny is barely aware of where she is, lost in a world of ecstasy and humiliation.

She’s already pretty exhausted by the time we reach the hotel. The receptionist, a young man, polite but bored, can’t keep his eyes off us as we cross the lobby to the lifts, Jenny leaning on me for support, Cleo none too subtly pausing for a moment to caress the girl’s hard nipples through the glittery fabric. As soon as the lift doors close, we strip Jenny of her dress, her bra having joined her knickers long ago; we ignore the security camera peeking down at us in the lift, and when the doors open again she follows us down the corridor, gorgeously naked except for the Lorenzi heels.