The Keeper Of Darkness Ch. 2 (cont'd)
Sitting at my vanity I gathered my hair up above my head and sprayed a musky perfume on both sides of my neck, behind my ears, under my arms and between my small breasts before letting it fall loosely onto my shoulders again. Then I sprayed it onto both of my wrists, and in the crook of my elbows.
Opium by Yves Saint Laurent, my favorite scent; dark, rich, and spicy.
Just as an aside … putting on makeup sucks when you can’t use a mirror.
Having no reflection makes it kind of pointless to even try, but being the vain creature that i am I still want to look my best when I go out so I always do try anyway.
I still remember Hannah’s amused reaction the first time i tried and then asked, “How bad is it?”
“Well, if you’e going for ‘circus clown’ then I’d say you nailed it, sweetie.”
I could tell that she was trying really hard not to laugh out loud now.
“Otherwise you might want to think about practicing a bit more before you venture outside the house.”
Thanks, Hannah.
Well, at least i’m pretty sure it was the truth.
Even so, you do get used to it, and after fifty years or so of trying, you get much better at it. That’s one of the benefits of an undead existence; you have plenty of time to get better at anything and everything.
I laughed once more as I thought that. I was cracking myself up tonight, really.
What a shame it was that nobody else was around to appreciate my jokes; then again, most people wouldn’t have found them very funny. They were too weird, too morbid, too dark.
Just like me, I thought, and laughed to myself yet again.
I tried to imagine what I looked like as I applied a rich red gloss to my lips.
Almost the color of blood, I thought, looking at it shining on the tip of my index finger. I rimmed my green eyes with black kohl eyeliner and teased my lashes out with liquid mascara, making them into long curled boy traps, then applied just a little bit of pale foundation, not enough to cover my sparse freckles.
Hannah always told me my freckles were cute, and i was definitely after ‘cute’ tonight.
Looking cute, innocent, and helpless always brings out the would-be predators; then, much to their surprise and dismay, their ‘prey’ turns the tables on them,
Soon enough, i said to myself as i put on the rest of the outfit, making sure that every item was perfectly in place just as if i were getting ready for the morning inspection back at boarding school where the slightest infraction against the uniform code was cause for a session of discipline with the Head Governess.
By now I was getting very hungry but that early training, instilled as it was by the years of daily repetition and reinforced whenever you fell short by six of the best from a rattan cane on your bottom, guaranteed that i wasn’t going to rush this stage of prep.
After all, presentation matters, and i do have enough time to get everything just right; i have all eternity, in fact.
Finally, fully dressed, seams straight, bow ends even, hair gathered into perfectly symmetrical bunches on either side of my head, and shoes polished to a mirror-like shine, i was ready. Now it was time to go find some unlucky boy to satisfy my appetite and make me very happy; well, for a short time anyhow.
As the LP ended, I walked over to the stereo. I lifted the tone arm up and moved it to its cradle, then carefully put the record back into its sleeve and then into the teak cabinet that held my personal LP collection.
I shut the amplifier off, watching the glowing tubes dim and fade as they powered down.
Tesla's latest sound system was cool. The speaker cabinets and amplifier were much more compact than the ones i’d first seen fifty-six years ago but had lost none of their fidelity whatsoever, and the thick cables were long gone; he'd been designing functional wireless systems way before the mainstream had caught up to that.
He still preferred the rich sound of monoblock tube amplifiers though, and my ears agreed with him.
Vinyl LPs and tube amps; old school was still the best school for listening to jazz music as far as i was concerned.
The loft was in complete darkness now but my night vision allowed me to see everything just as clearly as if it were broad daylight.
Daylight, yeah, sure ... I hadn't seen daylight in over half a century. I probably didn't even really remember what it looked like.
I threw on my long black leather duster, grabbed my keys and another pack of vanilla clove cigarettes, and stuffed them into my pockets before heading out the door, slamming it shut behind me.
“Watch out, party people,” I thought to myself, “something’s coming to get you.”
I laughed again as I took another cigarette from my open pack, stuck it between my blood-red lips and lit it.
Inhaling deeply, I savoured the sweet smoke again as it filled my lungs.
Dressed to kill, made up, and perfumed to attract, I was ready to hunt.
I left the loft and began to walk at a leisurely pace uptown towards the club on Little West 12th Street, my silent footsteps illuminated by the silvery sliver of a new moon.
(to be continued)
