“I’ll be damned if some creep in a mask is going to ruin me, even if he killed me.”
Caroline Malveaux

Sunday night, 6 September 2015, AM

Caroline: Caroline’s heart races as her eyes linger on the partygoers’ beautiful throats, their throbbing life’s blood. It’s all she can do to resist the urge to leap on them, to claw, and especially bite.

Part of her asks what the hell is going on. Analytically it argues her chill is shock, the result of a night of trauma. Emotionally, intuitively, she knows it is something else. Neither matters right now, because what she actually wants has become an almost overwhelming need.

Her tongue catches the first time she starts to speak.

She coldly tries to join in their laughter. She reaches out, eying on the bottle in the man’s hand for a moment.

GM: “Hee hee hic shake her hand, baby,” giggles the girl, oblivious to the struggle warring behind Caroline’s eyes.

“Nishe t’ meetcha,” guffaws the young man, extending the bottle towards Caroline. He pauses, realizing after a moment that he hasn’t offered her his hand. He guffaws again before extending the proper appendage.

Caroline: Caroline takes the bottle with a smirk when he first offers it. She takes his hand as well while mischievously bringing the bottle up to her lips.

GM: The contents taste vile. Unspeakably vile. Like a dead rat that’s been soaked in bleach and stuffed underneath a dresser for all summer long. Caroline has a fraction of an instant choose whether she retches over the grass or the front of the boy’s t-shirt.

Caroline: She turns away into the grass.

GM: The nauseating concoction loudly comes back up as it dribbles down her chin.

“Hoo, party hardy, PARTY HARDY!” the girl laughs, swaying in place.

Caroline: It takes Caroline a moment to recover, but she finally does before extending the bottle back.

“Can’t end a good party without someone on the floor. Start with that stuff though and you might start the party there.”

GM: “Shtil hic shtandin’ here!” the young man declares with a grand sweep of his hand. Some of the booze sloshes over the grass. His words set his inebriated companion into another fit of laughter.

Caroline: “Aren’t we all? At least so far…” She glances at the other girl’s open shirt.

GM: The girl sways in place some more, clutching her male companion for support. Her skin is white and pricked with sweat. Caroline can hear the partygoers’ hearts beating in their chests. Hear the blood pumping through their systems. That fact seems maddening—that the human body contains such a sheer quantity of liquid. Warm liquid.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thum-thump.

Caroline: “Taking the party somewhere else?” she asks, trying to avoid focusing on their blood.

It’s difficult. She wants it. Wants them. But how to do it? She wants to reach out and latch on… but not here. Some ounce of propriety remains even as reason and logic struggle against the insanity of this. What’s going on? Is she dreaming? Has she gone insane? Renfield’s Syndrome… no. This is different, this is… real. Overwhelming.

GM: “Baby, hic I AM the party!” the boy declares with another grand sweeping motion of his arm. More alcohol spills over the thirsty grass. His female companion all but howls with laughter and dabs at moist eyes.

Caroline: “Well, where’s the party going, babe?” She wipes her mouth clean.

GM: The girl hiccups. “Where you goin’, babe?” she grins at the boy.

He proudly draws himself up and surveys the park like a pioneer surveying a grand new expanse of territory. “Where’er… hic …th’ BOOZHE ISH!”

The girl claps in inebriated delight.

Caroline: The pounding of his heart is almost unbearable. She wants to touch it, to dive into that power. No, she needs it. She wants to ride that powerful engine roaring beside her.

“I seem to have lost my party. Mind if I tag along?”

GM: The boy grins widely. “Be our… hic guesh’!”

“Be our guesh! Be our guesh! Be our guesh!” the girl sings along.

Caroline: She falls in on the other side of him. Strangely, as odd as she feels, she doesn’t feel impaired as before.

GM: The park has a stream. The duo stagger along it edge, swaying on one another for support. Though the two revelers are clearly better-acquainted with one another than with Caroline, she can’t help but feel she is excluded from their camaraderie on some deeper level.

The boy groans after a moment. “Aw fuck, I hic gotta pish!”

Caroline: Caroline tries to keep the delight out of her eyes. Opportunity… the girl alone, perhaps? She needs them. She needs their blood. The wait is killing her, driving her mad. This must be what a junkie feels like. Another rational part of her mind fights against the very idea, but that part is very quiet indeed.

GM: The young man staggers up to the waterfront, unzips his fly, and begins pissing into the stream. The girl leans against him, giggling at the act of public indecency.

“Careful, you gonna make me hic mish!” he admonishes.

“Mish wha’?”

“I’m shpellin’ m’ name!”

“hic In th’ wa’er?”

The boy pumps his fist. “IN TH’ WA’ER, BABE!”

Caroline: Caroline comes up behind the girl, leaning over the shorter woman’s shoulder to whisper in her ear.

“He looks talented.” There’s a mischievous hint to her voice. “But can he swim?”

GM: The girl, a curly-haired blonde, bursts out in laughter at Caroline’s suggestion. Her male companion guffaws too, hardly seeming to care that he isn’t in on the joke. Up this close, Caroline can feel the sweaty warmth emanating from her body like an old radiator heater. She’s so hot. So flush with life and laughter. And Caroline is so, so cold.

“Thas’ bad,” she giggles. “Thash’ soooooo bad!”

Caroline: “Is it?” she whispers again suggestively.

GM: “Sho bad… ish’ good!” the girl declares. “Like hic Rocky Horror!”

Caroline: Caroline smirks conspiratorially with the other girl, hand at the ready to help shove him in.

GM: The girl hiccups and giggles a few more times as she detaches herself from her friend. The steady trickle of piss into water continues to sound. “One…!” she exclaims, swinging her arms back and forth in the air. “Two…!”

Caroline: Caroline is ready with her to shove him in on the three count. Her strength surprises her, and the drunken unaware man has no chance. He flies into the drink before he can so much as stop pissing and chortling to himself. She falls onto the other girl, laughing, holding… coming closer… just a taste… just a bit.

GM: There’s a heavy splash before the young man’s laughter gives way to indistinct glorb-glorb-glorbs. He surfaces after a moment and yells for the girl to help him out. She remains doubled over in laughter at the sight.

Caroline: Caroline’s hand fall onto the distracted girl. She can’t wait any longer. The contact is intoxicating. One moment she’s laughing into the girl’s shoulder, the next moment… a flash of teeth, a gentle suck.

GM: Caroline lunges forward, her body no longer her own. She grabs the inebriated woman by her unbuttoned shirt, pulls her head back, and feels skin break beneath her so-sharp teeth. Maybe the woman cries or pushes her. Maybe. Everything else stops mattering as liquid bliss rushes down her throat. It’s the savory taste of fine wine and caviar. It’s the ecstasy of sexual release. It’s the high of her brother’s cocaine she flushed down the toilet. It rushes down Caroline’s throat like fire, shoots through her veins, and lights her up to each fingertip.

Caroline: It’s overpowering, addictive, overwhelming. She can’t give up. She wants it.

GM: More. More. Caroline digs her teeth deeper into the girl’s neck, ravenously sucking away. She is cold and empty and confused and hurting, and the blood inside this fucking meatsack can make her warm, can make her live, can sustain her for another night.

Caroline: Warm, comfortable… alive? She always felt alive. What’s going on? Does it matter? Drink…

GM: The thing under Caroline’s hands grows colder, its movements slow. Some part of her mind tries to whisper something to her, something important, but she is lost in the rush of blood, the rapture of feeding. The voice grows more insistent, and she pauses for a moment.

It slowly sinks in that the thing in her grasp is a human being.

Caroline: She wants to keep going, but life is creeping back into her… and with life comes awareness, comes control. She has to stop, she has to pull away… it’s the hardest thing she’s ever done, it’s a fight of will against want… but she breaks away.

GM: Caroline agonizingly tears her mouth away from her victim’s neck. The girl crumples to the ground, pale and unconscious, but breathing. Caroline stands up straight and takes in the night.

She just drank another person’s blood.

It felt like the most natural thing in all the world.

Caroline: She looks down at the girl in her arms as horror starts to sink in. A near-physician’s eye turns over her victims critically… what has she done?

GM: It’s been some time since Caroline took her last pre-med classes, but not that much time. And she got such intensive practice at the police station.

The girl’s lost blood. A lot of blood. Caroline doesn’t think it’s enough to cause anoxic brain injury like poor Sarah, but there’s no question that needs to get to a hospital. Leaving her here, drunk, unconscious, and open for Decadence’s late-night revelers to do as they will with, offers no guarantee she will make it through the night.

Caroline: Caroline swallows the taste of blood, the taste of life, that’s still so hot on her lips. There is no choice. She might have failed Sarah, even if everyone was thanking her, but she doesn’t have to fail again here. She spares a glance for the boyfriend in the water. Emergency services are no doubt overwhelmed…

GM: The man has only just managed to fish himself out, wet and sputtering. He dully glances towards the girl’s comatose form.

“W’sha… w’shap… t’her…?”

Caroline: “She fell when we pushed you, I think she’s hurt.”

GM: The man hiccups. “Shlee… shlee’ off… fuckin’ cold…”

Caroline: “Charming.”

Fortunately for the girl, she’s smaller than Caroline… and fortunately one of the best hospitals in the city is only half a mile away.

“I’m going to take her to the hospital. What’s her name?”

GM: The man hiccups again. “Larn. hic Lauren.”

Caroline: “Lauren what?” She tries to keep her eyes off his throat.

GM: “Uh.” He hiccups again. “I ’unno.”

He grins. “She got grea’ tish! Firsh thing I notished ’bout her.”

Caroline: Caroline scowls. Of course. She tries to gather up Lauren. She doesn’t even dignify the man’s comments.

GM: “She ma’ shure!” he giggles, running a hand through his wet hair. “Perky girls!” More giggles sound. “She hic sai’ she named ’em…”

Caroline: The tall blonde turns her back on him and tries to set off with Lauren gathered in her arms. Tulane Medical isn’t that far, but this is going to be a bear with the other woman. Maybe she’ll get lucky when she gets back onto the street, find a cab or something. A friend. Someone she knows from school to help. Maybe. If only she hadn’t lost her phone…

GM: Caroline’s luck doesn’t hold out with the cab. The city has been slower to allow ridesharing apps like Ryde in, so traditional cabs have remained competitive, but there’s so many people needing rides home at this hour. It almost feels like there’s an unspoken lingo she doesn’t know. The cabs just seem to stop for some people and ignore others, no matter how frantically they wave.

Still, as the minutes wear on, Caroline notices one thing. She doesn’t feel the least bit tired, even carrying something as heavy as a human body.

Caroline: The beginnings of a plan start to come around along the way. She’s known at Tulane Medical, especially after her recent visits to the Whitneys and Devillers. People are going to ask questions. Especially when a girl shows up with blood loss but no obvious wounds.

She keeps an eye out for something sharp. A shard of glass, a bottle she might be able to break, anything to sell a convincing story about a fall…

GM: Caroline has seen the movies. The tale is plain on the girl’s neck: two red puncture marks.

Part of her has to wonder if there are others like her. How they can possibly hide, leaving evidence like this.

Caroline: Questions for another time. Right now she has to cover up what she’s done. Punctures become less obvious as part of a larger wound, and no one is likely to look too closely in an ER on a night this insane…

GM: Glass bottles are easily located amongst the emptying streets of revelers. New Orleans’ open carry laws might dictate plastic cups, but that still isn’t what most booze comes in.

Caroline: Caroline acquires a piece of broken glass from one such bottle. She puts her plan into motion as she draws closer to the hospital. A cut here, a slice there, a bit of digging. Most people wouldn’t stomach it, but she’s seem enough operations, dissected enough creatures, not to mention seen the wounds on the Devillers and Whitney girls up close and personal. It’s a dangerous wound to leave in a dangerous place, but Caroline knows what she’s doing. She tears off a piece of her dress as soon as she’s finished to wrap around the jagged gash. It’s a crude bandage, and blood still flows, but she’s close to the hospital now.

GM: More blood stains Caroline’s hands as she goes about her grisly work, leaving an all-too visceral badge of her sin. It’s impossible to resist not licking it off her fingers. Waste not, want not.

Caroline thinks the newly-inflicted stab wounds look pretty convincing. With any luck, the doctors at Tulane will be too harried by too many other patients to pay much mind to any oddities.

Caroline: She carries the girl into the brick building, taking stock of the room as she enters. No doubt it’s busy.


GM: Tulane Medical Center is always busy, like any ER. Tonight it’s even more busy. The ER is packed to bursting with moaning, bleeding, bandaged, and sick-looking individuals, abject lessons against indulging too freely in the festivities—or being the subject of other revelers’ indulgences. Family members and significant others sit by some of the patients, nursing wounds and murmuring words of comfort. Others sit by themselves, alone in their own private worlds of pain. A triage nurse doesn’t even evaluate Caroline’s victim immediately.

“Take a seat and someone’ll be with you,” a receptionist with heavy bags under her eyes snaps at the Malveaux scion without glancing at her.

Caroline: Caroline knows how to get their attention despite the chaos. Some things require more attention than others…

“Neck wound! Unconscious! Hey! I’m talking to you! She needs help.” She flags a nurse down directly. “She needs help now. She lost a lot of blood.”

GM: The receptionist looks indignant as Caroline goes over her head, but the former med student’s authoritative words manage to snag the attention of an overworked-looking triage nurse. Seeing the unconscious girl’s still-bleeding neck wound, she quickly assigns Lauren level 1 priority (resuscitation/immediate life-saving intervention) and gets her hauled off for treatment by a physician. Someone else in medical attire brusquely tells Caroline to hang around, there are some questions she’ll need to answer and forms she’ll have to fill out (since Lauren obviously can’t).

Caroline: Like that’s going to happen tonight. No doubt Lauren will not be the only person dropped off amidst all of the pandemonium tonight. Caroline breaks for an exit as chaos reigns.

GM: Caroline doesn’t find it hard to vanish among the teeming press of groaning, wounded bodies and harried ER personnel. Perhaps she’ll be causing someone a headache with those forms left blank, but the new vampire has bigger problems on her plate.

She drank blood.

She has fangs.

There seems little else to call it.

Caroline: Caroline vanishes into the night. She can’t go home, not right now. She has to think. Fortunately, there are a dozen places in walking distance.

She heads back up Basin Street, towards Loius Armstrong again, but tucks into St. Louis Cemetery instead. Seems appropriately glum, and even in life the six-foot wall wasn’t really a barrier to her. There’s some drama to the choice. A vampire in a cemetery. Really, she just wants the peace of it. The stillness. Someplace she can get away. Someplace she can get lost.

GM: St. Louis Cemetery #1 itself well earns Mark Twin’s nickname: “the Cities of the Dead.” Everything about the eerily quiet cemetery’s character bolsters the illusion of days long gone by. Signs of age are everywhere: broken shells and cobblestones, dredged from Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River, form the alleys, and the crumbling, chipped above-ground crypts hold the dead. The disorderly layout of the tombs and burial plots are a labyrinth that Caroline supposes only the dead themselves could easily navigate.




The dead are a lot more at home here. They don’t have to deal with the heat, either. Caroline has visited before during the day and can attest the subtropical New Orleans sun is as skin-baking as ever. There’s virtually no shade, and the heat-absorbing oven vaults block any semblance of a cool summer breeze while doing nothing to stifle the muggy humidity.

Heat isn’t an issue after the sun goes down, though. Then it’s simply graveyard at night. The atmosphere alone gives individuals little enough cause to linger, even if the cemetery weren’t closed to the public, even if the cemeteries weren’t nexuses of crime and gang activity. Caroline doesn’t run into any, though. Maybe she’s simply lucky.

Or maybe the would-be predators realize they’re outclassed.

The signs are there, though. Besides the usual cryptic symbols adorning many of the family tombs, signs of vandalism and and too-modern urban decay are as abundant as graves themselves: cigarette butts, discarded needles, and even used condoms. Caroline can only imagine what moribund, demented souls would require such in this place.




It’s a well-known factoid the dead aren’t buried in New Orleans. They’re interred. The ground is too wet—as early colonists discovered, to their horror, when the region’s periodic rains and floods washed back up their loved ones’ decayed corpses and sailed them down the city’s muddy streets. Above-ground mausoleums keep the dead where they’re supposed to be. Even when actual burials are more feasible today, history is too ingrained. And so the dead continue to make their homes within crumbling, neighborhood-like rows of house-sized crypts in a moribund parody of suburbia, all so they might not disturb the living.

“Cities of the Dead” feels all-too apt.

Like any city, some residents live large and others live small. The Malveauxes are one of the rich and historied enough families to have their own massive intergenerational mausoleum. A crucifix soars from the roof, as if to proclaim its occupants’ ascension to heaven. Caroline knows many of the names. Jean Malveaux, the family’s earliest recorded priest. There has always been a Father Malveaux. Joseph Malveaux, the patriarch when the family struck it rich off the oil boom. He came into his own when he was just 30, after Leonide and his wife met that tragic boating accident off the coast of Grand Isle. Andre Malveaux, their patriarch during the War Between the States. His peers looked down on him for collaborating with the Yankee invaders, but he laid the groundwork for Leonide and Joseph to bring the modestly wealthy to its current heights of power. Benjamin Malveaux, the albino, dead in a lunatic asylum. Westley has nothing against the black sheep he was.

There aren’t as many names from after the ‘60s. Thomas would say the family forgot itself then, relocating to Baton Rouge. Caroline’s father and uncles always believed her grandfather James weakened the family and left them to pick up the pieces, starting with moving the seat back to New Orleans. The Crescent City has always been their home. Caroline’s, too, even if she wasn’t raised here.

Whatever else she may be, it’s hard not to feel at home surrounded by the dust of so many of her ancestors.

Caroline: Minutes pass into hours. Thoughts run through her mind. What is she? The night was full of horror before she became an active part of it. That poor girl. Which one? Self-pity wars with self-loathing. What the hell is she going to do? She still feels it, the hunger, the desire… she wants to get up and go back out, wants to drink and drink and drink… and leave a pile of bodies or broken people. It’s monstrous. How is she going to hide this, even if she can control herself? Fang wounds are rather obvious. And how is she going to explain this? Her life is over just as surely as if the rapist had murdered her in the alley.

The time lets her clear her head a bit, wrap her hand around everything going on. On what she is now. It staves off the worst of the fear and despair. Two things are immediately clear.

First, she’s going to have to feed again, and that means figuring out a better method. No more ambushing college students in a park. It was clumsy at best, hunger and fear and uncertainty.

Second, she’s going to have to find a place to stay. She looks around at the vaults around her. Family vaults. Too on the nose? Probably. A hotel room then, at one of the nicer hotels. Do not disturb. Will she combust under sunlight? That’s what happens in all the movies. It didn’t in Dracula, but better to play it safe.

One thing isn’t ever really in question, in spite of her self-disgust and loathing. She’s not going to give up. She’s going to figure this out or die doing so. And she’s going to find that bastard René. She may be a monster, but as the graves of her many ancestors remind her, she’s a Malveaux. A rightful ruler in this city.

And I’ll be damned if some creep in a mask is going to ruin me, even if he killed me.

She rises. Time to get to work.

Sunday night, 6 September 2015, AM

Caroline: Planning takes time. It won’t do to simply go home for the night. Caroline needs a safe place where she won’t be bothered. She needs new clothing—her dress is soiled, torn, bloodstained, and torn again. She has to go home at least once, find a hotel with an open room, leave a message for Aimee to find… assuming nothing happened to Aimee amid all the chaos…

So simple.

It’s a thought she doesn’t really have time for. The night has grown late already and she had no idea what the dawn will bring. She walks home at a brisk pace. First, pack a bag. Get her credit cards. Feed the dog. Make a few phone calls.

GM: Home in Audubon Place is about five miles away. Bereft of a wallet, and likely to make a memorable impression in her bedraggled, bloody state if she attempts to bum a ride, Caroline goes it on foot. She makes her way past the Quarter’s raucous partying, the stately manors of the Garden District where several of her family maintain residences, and the suburban sprawl of Carrollton. She arrives at her home’s literal gates around an hour and a half later. She doesn’t feel tired. She isn’t sweaty either, nor does her heart rate feel elevated.

Audubon Place is a fortress neighborhood and gated community with some of the most expensive residences in the city. It’s home to John Dyer (the owner of the Saints, richest man in the state, and the uncle of Caroline’s Aunt Vera), Edward McGregor (the president of Tulane University), Maxen Flores (her father’s successor as Senate majority leader), Ernie Marchesi (who Caroline is pretty sure is a mobster), and other business and civic leaders who don’t want to associate with “the riffraff” that is the district’s middle-class homeowners and the Tulane and Loyola student bodies… to say nothing of the elements that prey on those students after dark.





Caroline’s uncle Matt owns a house in the neighborhood, which between that fact and being only a several-minute walk from the university campus, made it the perfect place to live. Matt wasn’t using the property for much of anything else.

But by design, Caroline’s home isn’t easy to get to. High concrete walls tipped with barbed wire declare the neighborhood’s desire to divorce itself from the rest of the world. A grilled iron gate and adjacent guard house control vehicle access. Masked Blackwatch mercenaries (“security contractors”) patrol the perimeter with leashed attack dogs, bored and tense for action. Caroline has seen them laugh more than once when the snarling German shepherds snapped at frightened college students who wandered too close. Normally she only sees the dogs through her car window…



The mercenary in charge of the gate detail, an ex-Marine whose only name Caroline has ever heard is Johnson (his hard-eyed masked face appears identical to his men), initially levels his gun at the bloody-attired woman and growls at her to halt. For a moment, Caroline fears the mercenaries are going to shoot her. They’ve shot trespassers before. Some real, some posthumously declared so. Johnson relaxes after recognizing Caroline’s features, but only marginally. What the fuck happened to her? Where’s her ID? He doesn’t see any purse or bag on her.

“No ID, no entrance,” he states flatly.

“Our asses on the line if she gets raped or murdered or whatever the fuck else,” says another lean-looking merc with angry eyes and a badly scarred face.


“So call 911 and get the princess to a hospital,” snorts a tall and cocky-looking merc with blonde hair in a ponytail.


Caroline: Caroline smothers her fear. There may be savages out and about in the city tonight, but these people are professionals. Professional killers, yes, but there is something familiar here. She’s been around private security all her life. She knows the type. She also knows that she’s not getting dragged to a hospital.

What face to wear? The victim? No, these people have seen enough victims, created enough victims. They are much like their vicious dogs on a leash. They respect power and authority, wealth and influence. And no one in town has as much influence as a Malveaux.

“Sergeant, excellent. Some savage tried to shove me into an alley while one of his associates made off with my bag. I had to walk. Walk, mind you, miles, just to get home. My keys, my ID, my phone.” She rattles them off and shakes her head, blonde hair tossing against the night.

“Can you believe it? In New Orleans! This isn’t some backwater slum. My uncle was right about this ‘festival.’ Brings out the degenerates.”

That’s right, she thinks. My uncle. Fit it into place. You don’t want anything to do with this headache.

She shakes her head again, seemingly astonished by the nerve of some people, before turning back to the merc in charge. “Can you send one of your people to open my door for me? You should have an extra key at the gatehouse?”

It’s a request, but it sounds like something more. Not quite an order or demand, but it’s clear she has a set expectation.

GM: Johnson and his fellow mercenaries initially scowl, then merely grumble as the heiress’ authoritative words take hold. When the blonde corrects with a snort, “You know, we don’t actually have sergeants in-” Johnson snaps back, “Can shut your mouth for fucking once, Hall?”

He stares back at Caroline, then seems to decide what state she’s in isn’t his problem. They’re only paid to keep intruders out. He growls at her to “have some ID next time,” because they’re not breaking the rules twice. If they were “real military” she’d be stuck outside, doesn’t matter if they recognized her face. His tone would probably feel more menacing if she hadn’t just nearly killed someone.

He tells the scarred mercenary, who he calls Turner, to retrieve the key and drive Caroline to her house, “Since you won’t run your goddamn mouth doing it.” The woman does those first two things and doesn’t do the third. She wordlessly opens the door for Caroline to get into a black SUV whose side is emblazoned with the company’s black-starred logo.

It’s a short enough trip. Audubon Place has only 28 homes down along a single street. Rows of majestic oaks line each side of the wide boulevard with a manicured park in the middle separating each home from the neighbor across the street.

Caroline’s home at 18 Audubon Place is a three-story, turn-of-the-century mansion that sits on a large 100×200-foot lot with a swimming pool and private backyard oasis. The house retains many of the design details created by famed architect Emile Weil in 1913, including custom cabinetry, high ceilings, leaded-glass windows, intricate crown moulding, original millwork, grand staircases, marbled mantled fireplaces, and gloriously sunny spaces. All Audubon Place homes feature breathtaking views of the private park, but one step onto the grand veranda and the Beaux Arts mansion immediately impresses. A soaring entry, decorative trim, and softly curved staircase welcome guests and homeowners alike. The home flows gracefully from room-to-room, with natural light streaming through (at least during the day), warming up the oak and walnut inlaid hardwood floors.






The 7-bedroom and 5.5-bathroom house is valued at $5,500,000: even Caroline’s family wouldn’t have bought her a property like that. However, Matt had inherited the house from his great-aunt Clementine (she’d been well provided for as one of Joseph’s only two children), who’d died childless, and he’d never had any pressing need to sell it. He’d been renting it out for some years, and upon his niece’s acceptance to Tulane University, made it available for her use. He did insist upon rent, albeit much reduced from what the house would normally be worth, to impress “the value of money” upon Caroline. This was the first place she’d lived outside of her parents’ house.

As a move-in present, he’d had it refurbished and improved with a ceramic roof, copper gutters, plus repairs to the flooring, and plaster and paint repairs inside and out. While still faithful to Weil’s architectural style, the house had room for modern updates in the kitchen and bathrooms. The blank slate approach allowed Caroline to personalize the interior décor to her liking.

Caroline’s escort opens the car door for her, thrusts the spare key into her hands, then drives off without a word.

Caroline: The entryway gives way to a sprawling entire floor given way to entertaining. It is largely unchanged from even a few years ago when she first entertained Aimee. Open spaces, comfortable furniture, original art on the walls. It’s a comfortable but modern space paneled in rich dark wood with a full bar against one wall. Even glancing at the liquor makes Caroline a bit nauseous. One more thing taken from her in all of this. The dominating feature at the moment, however, is the rather large dog waiting to greet her.


Caesar is a relief for Caroline, a familiar furry face she has had since she first left home. A protector and friend. And now a growling snarling beast slowly giving ground as she approaches. She stares at him with concern and uncertainty. Caesar is a huge dog that easily outweighs her. If he attacks her…

But he doesn’t. Instead he just slowly gives ground, ignoring every attempt to calm him down. He refuses to approach when she sits down and tries to call him over. Even pulling a sausage out of the fridge doesn’t coax him. It isn’t until she almost pins him in a corner that his ears go down, his tail rigid—warning signs she can recognize. She backs away. The dog refuses to take his eyes off her and continues to growl. It is with great difficulty that she leaves him alone downstairs and makes for her room to pack a bag.

The upstairs is far different than the downstairs. It is her sanctum, her place away from the world. There are three bedrooms, one of which is a guest room that is supposed to host her youngest brother Gabriel in a few weeks. Her own is furthest from the stairs. It is almost spartan. Clean and functional furnishings, heavy with glass and metals rather than the rich woods of the downstairs. Nothing so tacky as Ikea brand, but similar in function. The room feels cold and clinical. The master bathroom is filled in black and offsets the white carpet starkly. Even the art is muted—mostly what looks like a few Ansel Adams pieces and a few small sculptures in silvery metals.

She barely pays the room any attention, though she does cast a longing glance at the shower. Maybe she will actually feel warm under some hot water. Instead, she mechanically drags a large rolling suitcase out of her closet and starts packing a bag. She only pauses when she is is down to a laptop to look up the numbers of several local hotels of repute. She needs to get away for a while the last thing she needs is Aimee wandering in on her. Who knows what daylight will bring?

She curses the loss of her cellphone, but is fortunate enough that she’s never had to even consider getting rid of her landline. It’s closer to dawn than the middle of the night by now, with even the most extreme parties finally winding down—but the beauty of expensive havens for the wealthy is they cater to whatever you need. She sets about calling around for a room.

GM: Caroline looks up a number of hotels.

The Windsor Court, located in the CBD, is one of the city’s two 5-star hotels. Four U.S. presidents, a U.K. prime minister, and the prince of Monaco have all been guests of the Windsor, which proclaims itself “one of the premier hotels in America, enjoying a reputation for unmatched elegance, location and guest services.” Online search results also show that business seems to have taken a turn for the worse in recent weeks. The Times-Picayune reports that several staff have gone missing amidst a police investigation. A manager has been committed to a mental institution. A homeless bag lady was allegedly seen in one of the suites.

Caroline well recalls the Hilton Riverside, which is also located in the CBD, as the site of her junior débutante ball back in 2003. Uncle Orson snubbed it for being part of a national chain: the sort of place that “new money goes.” The hotel’s website does not mention when it was built, so the date is presumably nothing to boast about. She remember it offering a lovely view of the nearby waterfront.

The merely four-star Hilton St. Charles Avenue makes its home on Canal Street, the historic thoroughfare that divides the CBD from the French Quarter. Restored in 2007, was originally built in the 1920s and was one of the first hotels in the now-internationally reputed chain. It remains famous for its Roaring Twenties ambiance.

The Roosevelt New Orleans is managed by Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts, the company that owns the eponymous hotel of the same name in New York City. The hotel was originally built by Louis Grunewald, a German immigrant, and opened in 1893 as “The Hotel Grunewald.” It was renamed the Roosevelt Hotel in honor of President Theodore Roosevelt, whose efforts building the Panama Canal had been of tremendous financial benefit to the city.

The closer one gets to the French Quarter, the older the hotels tend to get, and the more pride they seem to take in their histories. Some are recognized as historic landmarks.

Le Pavillon Hotel is one such establishment. Dating back to 1907, the hotel is included on the National Register of Historic Places. During Prohibition, it was a popular destination for discrete activities, and an underground passage stretching over a block and a half was used as a discrete exit by politicians and other well-knowns who didn’t want to be recognized. The website conspicuously advertises the fact that the hotel is located close to the French Quarter, though its actual location is in the CBD.

Hotel Monteleone has the Pavillion beat for age. Originally opened in the 1880s by Antonio Monteleone, a Sicilian immigrant, his five generations of descendants have continued to operate their namesake hotel as an independent, family-owned business to this day. In addition to being the French Quarter’s only high-rise hotel, the Monteleone has had a number of famous authors as guests, including Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, William Faulkner, and Anne Rice. The hotel even has its own Wikipedia page.

The Omni Royal Orleans beats the Monteleone and Pavillion for age, having opened all the way back in 1843. The establishment was originally built by indignant Creoles who, upon seeing upstart Yankees opening luxury hotels in the new American Quarter (now the CBD), decided to outdo them by building a “European Grand”-style “place for aristocrats to meet and do business, to eat and drink and make love, to buy slaves and sell plots of land on the banks of the Mississippi.” The City Exchange, as it was then known, was the city’s most popular auction market being destroyed by a fire in 1841. Its second incarnation, the Saint Louis Hotel, was burned down by another fire in 1914. It was finally reopened as the Omni Royal in 1960, and boasts Richard Nixon and Bettie Davis among its former guests.

Hotel Villa Convento is located on Decatur Street, near the waterfront and historic French Market. The former Creole townhouse scoffs at the age of its younger neighbors and is the oldest hotel Caroline can find in the city, dating all the way back to the 1830s. Seven generations and 185 years later, it is still owned by the Campos, a Spanish-descended family who migrated to Louisiana in the 1780s. Even the Monteleones, who take pride in being a family-owned establishment, must reluctantly accept second place next to the Campos. The language on the Convento’s website isn’t as polished as some of the others, however, and doesn’t seem as if it was written by a PR specialist. They even misspell ‘amend’ as ‘ammend.’

Last of all, though by no means the last historic hotel in the French Quarter, is the Bourbon Orleans Hotel. It boasts a location in the historic and cultural heart of New Orleans, only 2 minutes away from Jackson Square and St. Louis Cathedral. The website has little to say about a grand, centuries-old past, suggesting that like its peers in the CBD, the hotel is a recently-owned establishment.

Caroline: She decides on the Hilton. Her uncle might look down on her for it, but it’s familiar and part of a larger brand.

She’s also heard that a number of the historic hotels are supposedly haunted. She’d have scoffed at that last night, but she’d have scoffed at vampires being real too. Choosing a newer hotel seems like the safest play.

While she navigates her laptop, she opens her nightstand to reveal a small safe bolted into it. It’s not the only one in the building, or even the only one in the room, but it’s the most convenient. She withdraws several extra credit cards, a copy of her driver’s license that is technically illegal to possess (but only slightly), her passport, and several bands of cash. A small neat little 9 mm pistol comes out last, almost as an afterthought.

It is a dangerous world out there, after all.

Sunday night, 6 September 2015, AM

GM: The Hilton Riverside is a half hour drive away in the CBD. It’s an odd time of night, late enough for even the most wild parties to be winding down, but still too early for dawn to creep over the horizon. It’s less a moment of relief than embittered exhaustion, when the monsters no longer feel like playing, but have yet to fully retire to their lairs.


The 29-story concrete and steel monolith looms territorially over the Mississippi. Lacking the proud history of its rivals in the French Quarter, the hotel embraces the cold monotony of mass-produced luxury with an air that’s at once sullen and haughty. Silent, weary-eyed valets and bellhops efficiently take care of Caroline’s car and luggage.



The lobby is as empty as its employees’ spirits. Several stony-faced men, their expressions as blank as their suits are black, stare at Caroline with the silent intensity of jungle cats surveying rival predators. The hotel’s receptionist, a young woman whose makeup and professional attire cannot conceal the weariness in her eyes, offers Caroline a smile with all the sincerity of a minimum wage service worker pulling graveyard shift as she regales the newly-turned vampire with details about the hotel’s many amenities, from the fitness room to the pool to the sightseeing tours, as she signs the Hilton’s newest guest in.

“…and how long will you be staying with us, ma’am?”

Caroline: Now isn’t that a question? Caroline considers for a moment before realizing that it doesn’t really matter.

“A week.” The Platinum AMEX card has little concern for what the total is.

GM: The receptionist types something into her computer. In short order, Caroline has a keycard.

“Here you are, ma’am. Have a pleasant evening,” the woman replies with another $7-an-hour smile.

Caroline: Caroline replies in kind while she waits for a bellhop to show up for her bag and lead her to the room. The crisp hundred dollar bill is excessive even for her, but she can’t be bothered to make change.

GM: The receptionist’s baggy eyes widen at the generous tip. She thanks Caroline profusely while the bellhop takes the luggage of the hotel’s newest guest. The desperate yet hopeful look in his eyes says she’s going to get the very best service.

As the elevator doors close, Caroline observes the stone-faced men walking out the lobby, each one grasping the end of a sagging sheet with something heavy-looking inside.

Caroline: There’s a new coldness to Caroline’s eyes as they track the sagging sheet and the hard men as they work. Well, isn’t that interesting. Not interesting enough to pull her away tonight though. Not given the late hour.

She eyes the bellhop. “Let’s go.”



GM: The elevator hums its way up to Caroline’s executive suite on the 27th floor. Her amenities include a spacious live area with a work desk, separate bedroom with a king-sized bed, wet bar with refrigerator and 37-inch LCD TV, complimentary WiFi, Executive Lounge access, Health Club by Hilton access, and a stunning view of the Mississippi River. A spread of cheeses, crackers, meats, fruits, and other evening hors d’oeuvres reclines on one of the tables. It takes only one whiff of the food to know she won’t be able to stomach it.

Caroline: The poor bellhop gets his own crisp bill and is sent on his way. Anything to make him leave and take that pulsing vein in his throat away.

GM: The bellhop’s eyes don’t widen like the receptionist’s did, but probably only because he’s expecting a tip that big. “Have a pleasant stay, ma’am. Let us know if there’s anything more we can do,” he states as he leaves. His tone is cordial if not downright servile, but tinged with the bitterness of one who routinely stares luxury in the face while being spurned from its lap.

Caroline: For Caroline it has nothing to do with kindness or affection. Good tips generate a reputation and promote good service. Something too many with wealth forget. The money means nothing to her, but the world to these overworked souls. For an inch they’ll pull her a mile.

She draws the shades, flips the ‘do not disturb’ sign on the door, and collapses on the bed. The night has already been a whirlwind. Who knows what tomorrow will hold. If there even is a tomorrow. Who’s to say she doesn’t have to sleep in a coffin? Too many questions and unknowns. She eyes the closet. Demeaning… but she has too many questions, and the night is coming to a close.

GM: Caroline observes the room’s windows are quite wide, though they have drapes. If she does not wish to close those, the closet or the bathroom both might offer sanctuary from the dawn.

Caroline: The drapes are closed, but Caroline eventually retreats into the closet with what clothing she unpacks as well. Darkness closing in? Or is it light? Only tomorrow will tell.

It’s been a hell of a night.

Previous, by Narrative: Story Three, Louis IV
Next, by Narrative: Story Three, Emmett IV

Previous, by Character: Story Three, Caroline I
Next, by Character: Story Three, Caroline III

“Smart people seem to have caused me most of my problems.”
“Then maybe you should get smarter yourself.”
Emmett Delacroix to Christina Roberts

Friday morning, 4 September 2015

GM: Too late.

Clouds rumble overheard as the church bells toll midnight. A costumed young man dances among the ballroom’s throngs, laughing as chandelier-light glints off his mask.

Too late.


The crowds sweep him up, drape an ermine mantle about his shoulders, and place a crown upon his brow. He laughs as they carry him before a throne, then snatches a second crown from the sitting gold-robed figure; he is to be king of both courts. The crowd roars at his audacity. The queen swoons. He takes her gloved hand in his, grinning as he prepares to sweep her off her feet, but his mask is so heavy.

Too late.

He ignores the rain’s warning patter as he lifts the weight from his head, just for a moment. The queen screams and pulls away. He holds her hand fast and tries to console her, but when he stares into the jewels around her neck, no face stares back.

Too late.

Thunder rumbles. Lightning flashes. The crowd screams as the floodwaters rise, and a young man gasps to wakefulness in his bed, his phone’s alarm clock buzzing.

Too late?

Emmett: He stiffens, briefly, then suddenly relaxes. Dreams don’t come to him often, or at least tend not to stay around for the morning after. A lesser man might wonder what it meant. But Emmett Delacroix blinks and breathes shallowly. He strokes the sweat-soaked sheets and stares at the ceiling.

Em doesn’t have anyplace to be, but he’s as much a morning person as he is a night owl. So he listens to the monotone screeching, and lays alone in an empty apartment, and for a second, Em is nobody and enjoys it.

Then it passes, and he tells Siri to shut her stupid trap, which she does. He paces barefoot through the French Quarter apartment. He should be hungover, but nobody seems to have told his head so. The apartment is more set than home. Tasteful furniture, tasteless dinners in the fridge.

Shower. Brush. There’s bills, letters on the table. His gaze lingers on the pink envelope that arrived two weeks ago. The one with the looping, cursive Mom. He thinks of masks and crowns and for a second, he wonders if he should…

No. He’s not too late.

Em smiles a snake’s smile as he steps outside with a smoke.

He has all the time in the world.

GM: At about a grand a month, excluding utilities, the Saint Louis Street Apartments don’t offer private balconies, but they do offer a communal one. The humid morning air is warm against Em’s bare chest, but one benefit to being a late riser is that it probably won’t get too much warmer into the day.


Beyond his shared balcony, which overlooks the building’s courtyard, Em can hear the sounds of the Vieux Carré ‘rising’ to greet the Friday morning, if such a term can honestly be said apply this close to the crack of noon. Lazy jazz from buskers playing for enjoyment as much as crowds at this hour. The clop-clop-clop of horses’ hooves. Occasional groans and slurps of coffee from nearby apartment units. The French Quarter collectively grouses off its Thursday night hangover in anticipation of the always-harder Friday hammering.

Emmett: That smile gets wider as Em adds the hiss of butane and crackle of tobacco to the air.

Friday noon, 4 September 2015

Emmett: “Madeline, Madeline. What am I eating today?” Em smiles sunshine up at the waitress.

GM: “I don’t know, Em, whatever you order?” the wavy-haired waitress answers with a roll of her eyes, though she can’t stop herself from smiling back at the perennial charmer either.


She pours the smooth-talker a glass of ice water and hands him a menu. Past noon, breakfast is off, and it’s lunch and dinner items to break Em’s fast.

Café Soulé is a modestly-priced restaurant literally next door to Em’s apartment building. It’s still a bit more expensive than making his own breakfast, but the convenience can’t be beat. The surroundings reflect the price tag. There’s round, slightly scuffed wooden tables and functional chairs, spruced up with flower vases and Belle Époque-era paintings of ballet dancers and suited gentlemen meeting at, fittingly enough, a café. French flags and cast iron lamp lights give the place an Old World ambiance. At the far side of the room, there’s a modestly well-stocked bar and chalk blackboard that spells out the day’s specials, as well as drinks for a happy hour that’s still a ways off.



It’s a few minutes after Em places his order that his point of contact arrives. Christina Roberts is a handsome, 40-something woman who people her age would describe as wearing it well, and people around Em’s would just call a MILF. The former attorney has long brown hair that falls to her upper back, matching eyes, and faint lines around her mouth that give her face a slightly sad, or at least contemplative expression. She wears a dark suit, skirt, and black stilettos.


Christina assumes a seat opposite of Em’s and pulls one of the paper menus off its holder, briefly glancing it over. “Hello, Emmett.”

Emmett: Em’s costume change is sudden but seamless, discarding one mask for another in between sips of ice water and the clicking of Roberts’ heels as she makes her way to his table. The cocky twenty-something dressed for a lunch date is gone, and a young entrepreneur is sitting in his seat.

Act one.

He smiles at her as she sits. “Ms.—” emphasis, “—Roberts. You really didn’t need to dress up for me.”

GM: “I didn’t. I have somewhere else to be after this,” Christina answers as she glances across the menu, then up at the approaching waitress. “I’ll have the eggs benedict and a coffee, please. Sugar and no cream.”

Emmett: “Of course.” His smile remains. “They don’t make breakfast after noon, I’m afraid. Hurts if you’re a late riser who hates to cook. But the shrimp and eggplant pierre’s delicious.” He tilts his head. “Although maybe you’re more of a crabcakes woman.”

GM: The waitress looks as if she was about to similarly remark on the absence of breakfast items. Christina turns the menu over. “Hmm, that’s early. Make it the onion soup instead.”

The waitress writes down her order and replies she’ll be back soon.

The former attorney doesn’t look amused by the much younger man’s remark as she takes a sip of her water. “Let’s make this a strictly business lunch, Emmett. What do you have for me?”

Emmett: A sense of humor, if you wanted it. He spins her the pieces of information she wants to hear, the secrets coaxed from drunk businessman, the interesting bits that come out in bed when people think they’ve already shared the most important parts of themselves. What he overheard from his local cocaine dealer (Westley Malveaux’s off the wagon and the wagon’s on fire). He’s tempted to make it a yarn, force her to sift through the watery anecdotes for the gold, but he’s stayed on her good side—or, her less hostile side—this long, and he’s already pushing her with that crack. So he gives it to her straight and boring, just the way she likes it.

“Worth your while?” he asks when he’s finished. He knows it is, but is curious if she’ll admit it. It’ll make the next part easier if she does.

GM: Whether Christina Roberts enjoys all things in her life straight and boring, Emmett cannot say, though like many professional women she does appear uninterested in trading sexual innuendos with a boy young enough to be her son. She interjects with the occasional follow-up question or request for clarification as Em relays what he’s picked up, and halfway through, the pair’s food arrives.

The onions in Christina’s soup are carmelized to a rich orange-brown hue, though some of that might be from the apple cider and dash of cognac. A fat slice of french bread coated with melted fontina and gruyere cheese lazily floats in the center of the bowl, half-submerged by the chicken broth and beef consomme it’s soaked up. Scattered green chives provide a finishing touch and dash of contrasting color to the dish.


She finally nods in satisfaction once he’s finished, then cuts off a section of the moist bread with her spoon. “Yes, those are some useful tidbits. I suppose that makes it my turn now. What are you curious over?”

Emmett: He leans forward, curious to see her reaction. “Prince Talal al-Faisal al-Saud.”

GM: Christina’s face doesn’t let much slip, but Em’s pretty sure he sees some amount of recalcitrance, or maybe simple wariness, there. “All right. What’s your interest in him?”

Emmett: “I think I might want to make friends. I’m sure he’s employed some of your, ah, services over these last few months?”

GM: “I don’t discuss my employees’ clients, Emmett.”

Emmett: Oh, I’m sure you do. For the right reasons.

“I can respect that. But I don’t need to talk about your professional relationship. I’m simply interested in what any acquaintance of his might know.”

He quiets as Madeline lays the nutella-and-banana crepe in front of him. Probably not the best choice, given Roberts’ view of him, but he can deal with being called a child.

“You don’t object to gossip, surely?”

GM: Christina takes another sip of her still-steaming soup. “I’d be a hypocrite if I said I did, after how we’ve spent the rest of this lunch. If you want to talk about al-Saud, that’s fine. Anything that could hurt my business is off-limits.”

Emmett: Em nods and gets to it, taking bites of the powdered-sugar-and-chocolate explosion on his plate between questions. He asks general questions first—what’s prince Talal like? Does he speak good English?— and then slowly works deeper. He fishes for as much as he can get of Saud’s personal business and hobbies as he can, keeping the tone as casual as the setting.

GM: Explosion is right. The crepes have been pan-fried to a buttery gold-brown and are folded in half, not unlike tacos. Slices of banana and liberal latherings of nutella and whipped cream ooze out from the corners. A gentle snowfall of powdered sugar tops off the sweet confection.


“You want some lunch with that dessert too?” Madeline asks wryly.

Christina, meanwhile, is fairly noncommittal where prince Talal is concerned. Em honestly can’t say whether she’s acquainted with him personally. She does explain to the college-uneducated young man, though, that she would be surprised if Talal doesn’t speak fluent English. It’s the first language of the countries whose oil purchases make up nearly half of the Saudi GDP, after all. Many young Saudi elites study abroad at Western universities and have to learn English. Plus, Talal has more or less set up a life for himself in America—not being able to speak the language would make that pretty hard for him.

Emmett: He smiles through the lecture, nodding even as he grits his teeth inwardly.

GM: As for Talal’s hobbies, it’s fairly common gossip that the Saudi prince loves to dance and party his nights away in the French Quarter. Beyond that (if carousing can be called a hobby), Christina has also picked up that he enjoys boating, water-skiing, betting on horses at the fairgrounds, and eating out at fine restaurants like Antoine’s and Commander’s Palace.

Emmett: Not a complete waste of his time. Just mostly one. He savors the crepe and keeps up friendly appearances, but the games are over, for now. As the conversation lulls to the clink of steel on china, and he reaches for the check, Em hears himself asking without thinking, “How’s Sam?”

GM: “Sam?” Christina raises a questioning eyebrow. “Oh, you mean Sami. She’s doing very well for herself. She’s attending, or it might have been throwing, another gallery exhibition in a few days. Money agrees with her.”

Emmett: “Always did,” he says wryly. More than I did, anyways.

GM: Samantha’s former employer seems to consider the young man for a few minutes. “Smart people in her line of work learn to keep business and personal separate, Emmett. Don’t take it too harshly.”

Emmett: “Smart people,” he mutters, “seem to have caused me most of my problems.”

GM: “Then maybe you should get smarter yourself.”

Emmett: “We’ll see. It’s a rigged game, I find.”

GM: It probably wouldn’t be too hard either, part of Em can’t help but observe. His parents are still professors at Tulane, last he heard. They could maybe get him into the college. He’s not that much older than the student body.

Emmett: He could also probably get a job starring in porno. At least that way he wouldn’t have to listen to Professor Mom and Dr. Dad.

No.

He made his choice a long time ago, and now it’s…

Too late.

“You should probably get going,” he says. “I think we both have better things to do.”

GM: “I was about to say that very thing.”

Christina calls for the bill and hands their waitress a credit card, stating to charge her for the soup and coffee. After Madeline returns with her card, she stands and shoulders her purse.

“One final word of advice, if you’re serious about making ‘friends’. The Sauds are big money. And royalty. They don’t make a habit of rubbing shoulders with plebs like me, much less you.”

Emmett: Em shrugs. “They just haven’t met me yet.”

GM: “In any case, I’m off. Give my number a call if there’s any other gossip you want to trade.”

Emmett: Em smiles and waves her to the door, then takes off himself. He pauses to leave a twenty for Madeline before he goes.

His good mood is melted with the ice in his water.

Friday noon, 4 September 2015

GM: It’s a several-block and eight-minute walk from Café Soulé to the Ritz-Carlston New Orleans, the hotel where prince Talal is known to be staying.

The elegant, fourteen-story, five-star hotel is located just off Canal Street, the historic divide between the French Quarter and Central Business District. Its web site boasts 527 rooms, 35,000 square feet of meeting space, a 25,000 square foot day spa and fitness center, one restaurant and one lounge, all within walking distance of the French Quarter’s world-famous landmarks and attractions.


The lobby is a suitably impressive affair. Glittering chandeliers, richly upholstered furniture, tasteful Neo-Classical statues and portraits. Expansive, multi-tiered windows allow natural lighting to pleasantly illuminate the white marble floors. Past a wide set of glass-paned double doors, an indoor courtyard and garden invitingly beckons.


It doesn’t look unlike the one at Em’s apartment. But much larger. Much classier. Much more expensive. The same can well be said for the hotel’s people. A few well-suited guests recline on chairs, reading newspapers (the ones who are old enough to still do that), tabbing through their iPhones (not Em’s much cheaper Android), or engaged in quiet conversation with one another. All eye the comparatively shabbily-dressed young man suspiciously.

Meanwhile, minimum-wage bellboys cart around bags of luggage, while politely smiling receptionists at the front desk see to the needs of the well-to-do clientèle. Em can still feel a pronounced iciness, but it’s diminished, not so much through any sense of commonality as the pressing immediacy of their jobs’ tasks.

Emmett: He knows better than to try to talk his way through them, at least for the moment. He effects an expression of dumb awe as he takes in his surroundings, and then forces a blush onto his face as he leaves, attempting to look appropriately intimidated.

GM: The well-heeled guests watch with little-concealed smugness as he slinks away. The suited security guards do not look so overtly pleased, but neither do they make any attempt to follow him.

Emmett: He gets to the other side of the road, gags a bit, and then promptly fishes out his crap Android and calls the number he pulled off the hotel site on the walk over.

GM: “Good afternoon, thank you for calling the Ritz-Carlton New Orleans. This is Sandy speaking. How may I assist you?” greets a receptionist.

Emmett: He sounds like he’s choking on happiness. “Hello! I’m calling for my boss. Do you have a guest there by the name of, um…”

He lets the silence drag on a second too long to be comfortable. “A… Tal-al al-Faisal Saudi?” He’s found people are less threatened by idiots.

GM: There’s a slight pause from the receptionist. “May I ask who you are calling on behalf of, sir?” The ‘sir’ sounds all-too forced.

Emmett: Here goes. “Christina Roberts.”

GM: There’s another brief pause and sound of keyboard typing. “Yes, Talal al-Faisal al-Saud is one of our registered guests,” the receptionist confirms.

Emmett: “Can you see if he’s in at the moment?”

GM: “Certainly, sir, just one moment.”

There’s a longer pause.

Then, “I’m afraid he’s asked not to be disturbed before 2 PM. Can I pass along a message for you?”

Emmett: “I’m sorry, I was told to only speak to Mr., um, Saud. It’s a pain, I know, but I just started working here…”

Milk the embarrassment.

“Maybe I can call back in a little?”

GM: The receptionist assures Em that it is before wishing him a pleasant afternoon and exchanging goodbyes.

Emmett: He rings again two hours later, after a few vocal exercises.

GM: Em is greeted by another receptionist named Susan.

Emmett: He plays the same game. “Christina Roberts for Mr. al-Saud.”

GM: There’s a brief wait as he’s transferred before a so-slightly accented male voice asks, “Hello, zis is Ms. Roberts?”

Emmett: Em hangs up and heads down the street. He glances at the glass castle over his shoulder, at the peak where al-Saud would clearly sleep.

“A pleb,” he says. “My ass.”

Friday afternoon, 4 September 2015

GM: Em has a nagging feeling in his gut as he hangs up. Several minutes later, his phone is ringing.

Emmett: He lets it go to voicemail.

GM: The phone rings and rings. Finally, it a middle-aged-sounding woman states over the voicemail, “I advise you to pick that phone up, Emmett, if you don’t want al-Saud to know about your interest in him.”

Emmett: Click.

“Ms. Roberts! I’m afraid I’m still full from our last meeting, but I might be able to make lunch tomorrow.”

GM: “I just got off the phone with Mr. Al-Fawaz, one of al-Saud’s assistants. He said he spoke to one of my employees, but the line died. The employee was a young-sounding man.”

Emmett: “That is odd.”

GM: “Yes, especially after a young man with no apparent concept of client confidentiality was prying into my relationship with al-Saud.”

Emmett: “As I recall, I agreed not to ask you about your clients. Not the other way around.”

GM: “Last chance, Emmett. I’m in no mood to play games.”

Emmett: Em rolls his eyes and hopes she hears it.

“Last chance for what, exactly? You called me. Do you want an apology? Some kind of repayment?”

GM: “Let’s start with what your real interest is in al-Saud, and why you would try to impersonate one of my employees.”

Emmett: Em replies promptly, “I’ve found money may agree with me too, Christina. He has a lot of it. I plan to take most of it.” He strides into an alley. “As for the impersonation, I just wanted to see if he was a client of yours or not. I’m still gathering intel.”

GM: “Oh, isn’t that reassuring. You’re willing to throw my business under a bus for your own convenience.”

Emmett: “Hardly. If your business could be undone by a confused phone call, it wouldn’t have lasted this long. You didn’t tell Mr. Fawaz that the man who called him was a thief who you shared information with, I assume?”

GM: “Don’t tell me what is and isn’t good for my business, Emmett, when you don’t have a clue how it runs. You’ve put me in a difficult position with al-Saud, too. Can you imagine how, or are you just making this all up as you go along?”

Emmett: “Both, actually. This level of improvisation takes a large amount of imagination.” He grins into the phone line. “I imagine there was some manner of arrangement between you two of which I was unaware, that I violated?”

GM: “Try there being too many ways a grifter’s ill-considered ‘get rich quick’ scheme could go south and too many links between him and me.”

Emmett: “Not quick,” he corrects. “I’m observing, learning. First contact is a ways off. Samantha waited three years for hers to pay off, yes? Mine may take longer, although I probably won’t have the option of sucking his cock to speed things up.” He pinches his nose. “What do you want to get out of this, Christina? We beat around the bush plenty at lunch.”

GM: “How thoughtful of you to ask, Emmett. What I want is complete uninvolvement in any illegal activity that could balloon into a diplomatic incident—if your scheme even works. I’m weighing my options. It would be safest, and simplest, just to tell Talal everything I know.”

Emmett: “But you aren’t doing that because you’re talking to me.”

GM: “I’m not doing that because I’m waiting to hear if there’s a better one. Which seems unlikely at this point, but it costs nothing besides a few minutes on my phone plan.”

Emmett: Em closes his eyes. He sighs.

“If you fuck me on this, you take damage too. Maybe, maybe, Talal will forgive you enough to live and let live. That’s a thing in Saudi culture, right?” He lets a moment of silence elapse before continuing. “But he sure as hell won’t be your customer anymore. And judging from what I’ve heard about the bastard’s appetites, that’s a lot of Café Soulé lunches you’re flushing down the toilet. Not to mention what’ll happen to your business if word gets out about how you sold information to a hustler about one of your clients.”

“Granted, as you’ve rightfully pointed out, I don’t know anything about how your business runs. Just your name. And Samantha’s name. And two or three of your other girls’. I actually don’t relish screwing my allies just for convenience, Christina, but as you just noted, I am quite petty. Petty enough to screw over my enemies as I go down for them. Are you ready to hear what I have to offer, or should I start typing up my confession for NOPD?”

His heart hasn’t thumped this loudly in years.

GM: Emmett’s heart beats and beats in his chest with a steady thump-thump. It’s loud enough, in fact, that he barely hears the ‘click’ on the other end of the line. His phone screen spells it out for him, though:

Call ended.

Emmett: “Huh.”

Then he starts running.

Previous, by Narrative: Story Three, Caroline I
Next, by Narrative: Story Three, Louis II

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Next, by Character: Story Three, Emmett II

“Are you lost, little lamb?”
René Baristheaut

Tuesday evening, 1 September 2015

GM: “You should forget about everything for a while. Just have some fun,” Aimee had said.

The last two days have been rough. Law school has started back up. Nothing else has let up.

Caroline’s mother called her for the first time in months to berate her for how she’s “squandering the goodwill” she earned with the Whitneys and Devillers. Hasn’t she at least invited them to one of her father’s fundraisers? It’s all well and good if they think she’s a hero, but that means “absolutely nothing” if she’s not actually using it to advance their family’s interests. There’s so much she could be doing. Luke and her mother have been doing those things instead.

Christina Roberts, like any lawyer, only wants to stick to the letter of her agreement. She’s kept hounding Caroline over various ‘allowed’ things they can still do to mitigate Amelie’s sentence. The Devillers, who seem equally un-thrilled by that same sentence (they really wanted a felony on Amelie’s criminal record), consider the topic closed and are completely uninterested in revisiting it. They just want Yvonne to get better—and for Richard Gettis, who remains at large, to be brought in. Caroline may find some small comfort in how the media hurricane is mostly fixed on the murderous ex-detective.

Her publicity-hungry family doesn’t. Claire wanted Caroline to do a TV interview. She’s had to make do with having her daughter, together with Luke, speak to reporters from a number of media outlets. They acted sympathetic, but they hounded Caroline for as many gory details about the event as they could. Jackson Kibbe, the family’s designated media hitman, was especially relentless. He even asked if she “had any regrets” or “would’ve done anything differently.”

The Whitneys are doing terrible. Sarah remains stable in a medically induced coma, but it’s anyone’s guess how much is going to be left of the probably brain-damaged teenager’s mind when the doctors wake her up. The family’s affect towards Caroline has been a discomfiting combination of deeply mournful and profusely grateful. Lyman, when he isn’t fixatedly staring at his watch, has been talking out loud to his decade-dead daughter Rebecca. Carson may have said this was all Gettis’ fault, but that haunting question of whether Caroline could have done more still remains. Maybe Sarah would be okay if Caroline had worked her first. Yvonne was the less injured of the two.

Law school’s attendance requirements, meanwhile, mean Caroline can’t skip class and stay enrolled, even if she maintains good grades. Carson has offered to put in a word with her professors that she’s going through some rough times. Gabriel has dared ask the unthinkable question of whether she should take the semester off.

Amidst it all, her dad hasn’t called.

Too busy.

Like always.

Aimee had observed Caroline seemed to be “sleeping really badly” before presenting her with a solution: Southern Decadence, the so-called gay Mardi Gras. But there is no Ash Wednesday following its revels for the multitude of penitents to pray, fast, and repent their sins. They will simply head home, perhaps poorer, certainly exhausted, some with stories to share, and some with secrets to keep forever.

For now, those stories are still being written. Alcohol flows like water past a breached levee. Women shriek with laughter as they flash their breasts. Beads fly from floats and galleries like plastic snowflakes. Rainbow flags fly everywhere. Throngs of bulging crotches, leering painted faces, garish feathers, exposed butt-cheeks, and tight leather go on forever. Caroline’s read a couple news articles about Decadence, and has heard about in passing from friends and acquaintances, but her family wouldn’t have even countenanced that she experience the festivities for herself. Uncle Orson has condemned the festival for “celebrating unwholesome lifestyles” and sponsored multiple initiatives over the years to shut it down. He might as well have tried to reinstate Prohibition for all the success he met. The city likes to party.

Caroline: It’s taken weeks, months of working on her by her best friend, though perhaps that wouldn’t have mattered after the shooting. Caroline’s resolve was already crumbling, already worn down, but that night brought down too many walls. Between it and the backlash from it, the pressure from the family, the arrangement with Roberts, the never-ending headache of juggling school, and work, and responsibilities to the family… it’s just too much. It never stops. She needs to get away. Away from who she is. From what she’s seen. Needs to block out the memory of blood weakly pumping out between her fingers and the nightmares where teenage girls are screaming, are dying, and she feels so helpless.

Carson keeps calling, keeps telling her they should talk. He wants to talk about the shooting, wants her to talk about it, but it’s the last thing Caroline wants. She doesn’t need to talk through her feelings. Doesn’t need to explain (again) how much it all scared her. She just needs to forget it, to get away from it, to stop getting reminded of it every day and night. She’s told him she’s fine. That she’s busy. That she’ll find time later. She’s lied.

It’s been years since she went out on a non-official event, just to have fun. Years since she broke the unwritten rules of the family. Maybe it’s what she needs—a break from her life. An opportunity to have no concerns, no worries, and no responsibilities. And if it isn’t… well, maybe the drinks will succeed where all else fails. They did last night. “You’ll stick close?” she asked Aimee.

That was hours ago, and now she’s half lost in the crowd, just another blonde at the city-wide party. She’s not a Malveaux here. Wouldn’t be wanted as a Malveaux. There’s no pressure. No expectations. New Orleans is a party and for once she can simply enjoy it.

Her drink is in a glowing cup—a gimmick off Bourbon Street. Spirits? Something off reality TV. She’s not really paying attention to the taste, just the effect. To the blur that takes the edge off, that lets the tension out between her shoulders. That lets her laugh out of its cage.

GM: Aimee nods. Caroline’s future chief of staff is attired for the occasion in a bright pink, circa 1860 Southern belle dress, complete with coiffed hair, wide-brimmed hat, and parasol to spin around. She’s ditched the hoop skirt, though, for something that’s still ruffled but only knee length. Like all festivals, Decadence can get pretty out of control. Sometimes it’s safer for a woman to have her legs free. Aimee carries an open red plastic cup of something alcoholic. Only in this city.

“I’ll keep my phone on. Just shoot me a text if we get separated.”

Caroline: Caroline is more conservative. Black dress, tailored but not overly tight, and sleeveless. The darkness seems to drink in her pale skin and hair. That hair is pinned up and neatly arranged. She looks out of place, insomuch as anything can look out of place in such a chaotic sea of humanity. Too perfect, too proper, too disciplined. She admits the clutch bag was a poor choice. She looks more like she’s going to the opera than out into the city-wide celebration of deviance.

She gives a haughty smile that’s skewed just a bit. She started drinking early, before they went out. How much? Not even Aimee is completely sure. Caroline is good at holding her liquor… to a point.

But she’s had a lot of cause to drink.

“Then lead on.”

GM: Aimee leads on.









Thursday at midnight is the big dick contest. Men scream, bellow, slap their rear ends, and strut their junk amidst roaring crowds and flashing blue lights. The crowd’s chosen winner, a beefy guy wearing a gold chain necklace, receives a gift basket from an outrageously attired drag queen who comments what a shame it is that public decency laws prevent the contestants from being inspected “up close and personal.” The drag queen still loudly volunteers to “inspect” the winner once the show’s over, much to the crowd’s laughter.

Caroline: In spite of herself, Caroline is in the swing of the party by the time the show rolls around, enjoying every absurdity of it. Every excess. She laughs hard and loud. She wants to laugh. Wants those traumatic memories of the shooting, all those ‘what ifs’, to briefly slip away, along with years of control. Not enough to leap into it, but certainly enough to laugh and observe. She floats through the shows, an observer, a part yet apart.

GM: The booze flows, and Caroline’s inhibitions with it. A few partygoers rib her for being dressed like she’s “going to the opera” or “attending a funeral,” but by and large, Decadence just seems to be an outrageously campy, over-the-top festival where everyone can have a “gay old time.” Caroline hears that pun at least a dozen times. Uncle Orson made the festival sound like it would despoil good Catholic girls and irrevocably ruin their lives.

Friday comes the float parade:





Caroline: Caroline has swapped out for more comfortable garb by by Friday. It sets her apart once more in its own way. White on her pale skin cuts through the crowd visually, but more people may suspect this is some statement rather than a faux pas. Innocence in a crowd of debauchery, perhaps? She doesn’t drink like an innocent as the party rolls through days.

GM: Following the float parade are the boys on parade: rows and rows of shirtless, pants-less men in tight thongs and garish feathers. Most of them are probably gay, but they’re no less incredible to oggle. More than a few whistle or make humorous catcalls about what a “choir girl” like her is doing at an event like this. All the while, the drinks continue to flow. New Orleans has very loose open container laws: so long as it isn’t made of glass, people can drink as much as they want in the streets.

Caroline: Caroline seems to enjoy the attention, or at least certainly wants to, her inhibitions loosened by the drink and day before. That longing for comfort is sliding towards carelessness.

GM: Saturday features the outdoor music concert and and the hot ass contest. More easily quantifiable than the big dick contest, dozens of participants drop their pants and submit to public paddlings to determine whose cheeks are the tightest and firmest. Men (and women) periodically grab Caroline’s ass and shout racy comments. People didn’t touch her like that earlier, but with each passing day the city seems to get more and more inebriated. A couple women in the crowd look upset, but their friends laugh off that “tons of guys here are gay anyway.”

Caroline: Caroline is conservative, but not a prude. She takes the gropings in stride as part of the writhing mass of humanity. Every pinch keeps her mind off the last few days. Besides, she asked for it a bit…


The dress is far tighter tighter than what she’s worn on previous outings and amply shows off her athletic figure… and that lays aside the infamy of the garb in the first place. It might be a poor choice for this evening, but then Caroline couldn’t have known it was going to be a day obsessed with posteriors… could she?

GM: Whether Caroline was ignorant or all-too aware of her chosen outfit’s likely effect, her ass smarts something fierce by the time she stumbles into bed. Aimee doesn’t dress as provocatively, but submits to the public paddling. She calls it quits after several slaps reduce her to a half-guffawing, half-shrieking drunken mess. She doesn’t press Caroline to join in, likely realizing that her friend is already stepping outside her comfort zone to wear an outfit like that on a day like this.

Saturday comes the walking parade.







The press of humanity is tighter than ever. The city feels drunker than ever. Caroline can smell the musk of sweaty, alcohol-saturated bodies. An endless sea of laughing mouths, bulging crotches, and exposed flesh surrounds her on all sides. The sun’s final rays stretch out from the horizon, covering the city in a haze of gold and red, illuminating the party-goers, marking the second to last day of celebrations. And then the light is gone, and only wan twilight remains. A chill creeps over Caroline, as though something other than the time of day has changed—and she notices Aimee is gone.

Caroline: It takes her a moment to realize that she’s alone, but at first it doesn’t seem to faze Caroline as she slides through the tightly packed crowd. She’s been drinking again—this week is a blur of liquor, color, and sweaty bodies—and her buzz distracts her from the concern that should be gnawing for several minutes. The party is winding down as much as it is nearing a climax, and only a very small part of her doesn’t want it to end. It’s been something to lose herself in. Still, as moments turn to minutes and beyond she begins to grow concerned. She reaches for the phone she’s tucked in the corner of her bra.

GM: Caroline shoots off a text. She waits. And waits. Something bumps against her. Her phone drops from her hand. “Watch where you’re going, slut!” leers a voice. Caroline turns to confront it, but sees no one. The crowd just keeps moving. She is alone among the throngs. Looking about, the other people present seem alien and distant, their cheers and shouts mangled into a language she has no recollection of, their masked faces twisted by the twilight into grotesquerie.

Caroline: She blinks, trying to clear her vision. It’s the heavy drinking. What time is it? She has no idea. How many drinks has she had? Ten? Twenty? She looks back down, fighting building dread. Her phone has of course vanished in the mass of feet. Stolen, smashed, or simply kicked away. Another glance at the masked faces convinces her not to look for it. She tries to push away instead, to break out of the crowd into a building. She suddenly feels sick.

GM: Rough hands grope at her breasts. Taunting fingers snap her bra straps against her skin. Laughter rings in her ears. She even feels a wet tongue slurp against her hair. Everyone around her seems to be laughing. The freaks and the deviants. Leashed collars, mohawks, muzzles, spikes. SS uniforms. Nipple clamps. Masks of devils and grinning skulls. Leaking blood. Stitched-shut lips. Every face that isn’t concealed wears a sneer or lecherous grin.








Caroline: Malveauxes don’t panic. They don’t flee. But nor do they attend debauched festivals, hide from their responsibilities, and polish off bottles of Jeffersons every night for a week. Her father insisted on martial arts. Discipline, self-defense. She’s neither disciplined nor capable of self-defense right now. Not against anyone, much less a crowd. She tries to push away from the freaks, from this sudden horror show. Bile burns at the back of her throat, but she fights it down. Just get away. What was she doing here in the first place?

GM: Caroline fights against the crowd. Fights against the rising panic. She pushes and shoves, but it’s like trying to swim through molasses. Mocking laughter rings in her ears. Something wet and pungent-smelling drenches her face. The empty plastic cup hits the ground with a light plunk before being crushed by onrushing feet. Just as abruptly, she feels a metal chain loop snap her neck and pull tight, cutting off her air.

Too-strong arms yank her face to face with her attacker. He is a big man, and completely naked save for black leather boots, crisscrossing straps of the same material, and steel nipple rings. His face is hidden behind a black executioner’s hood. It’s spattered with red that she can only pray is paint. His manhood is almost mockingly concealed underneath a tight black latex sheath—tight enough she can see the individual veins bulging along his shaft. Pointed, hungry steel spikes jut from its length.

Caroline: Fight. Flight. Warring impulses come to a stop as she is stopped short. Panic takes over, her hands fighting at the chain. There’s something she should be doing, some move, some technique… Alone, sober, prepared she might have a chance against the bigger man. Drunk—no, hammered—and confused, it’s all she can do to fight for her life against the chain, rather than against the man.

GM: Black-gloved hands with what look like miniature knives built into each finger dextrously tug the chain around Caroline’s neck, yanking her through the press of bodies. She might wonder how this is even happening. Why no one is doing anything. Why no one is stopping this freak. Why the laughter in her ears rings even louder.

Something hard slams against her back. The chain burns her neck like fire. She chokes and hacks, lungs gasping for air. She can’t tell where she is. She’s had so much to drink. It’s getting dark, but even that shouldn’t be making block spots blossom across her vision.

Caroline: At last, but too late, she fights back. Blind and weak kicks and punches. She’s so slow, but everything else is slowing down too… she wants to scream. She would, if she had air.

GM: A deep, heavy voice pants in Caroline’s ear:

“I’m gonna fuck your eyes out.”

The man’s spike-tipped, latex-ensconced, bulging member looms too close to her field of vision.

Caroline: The words barely process. Her brain shuts down as darkness takes her. At least he had the decency to kill her first.

At least she won’t disappoint anyone again.

GM: Sight recedes. Pain recedes. Blackness embraces her.

Then.

A heavy, animal grunt.

A deep-throated, hair-raising screech. Almost more animal than human.

A hard thud.

The fire around her neck recedes. There’s great big choking gasps of air that hurt to take. Her head pounds and swims.

Caroline: She wants to vomit, but can barely breathe. Wants to run, but can’t move. Wants to think, but everything is fuzzy.

GM: “Poor little lost lamb.” She feels a hand against her shoulder.

Caroline: Her vision is starting to clear, and near-death has a remarkable sobering effect. Play weak, draw them closer. The beginnings of a plan, perhaps. Trauma comes later. For now, training is coming back. Rationality is asserting itself.

GM: Sight hazily swims back into focus. Her ‘rescuer’ is no angel. He’s quite the opposite.


He wears a blood-red vest, black leather pants, and knee-high boots of the same make. A red cape drapes from his shoulders. A horned half-mask of the same color conceals his upper face. His lips are quirked into a slight smirk.

The devil-costumed figure extends a hand to help her up.

Caroline: It takes her a moment to take her gaze off of him and examine her surroundings. She lets his hand hang for a moment while she does, but at last she takes it. At least he’s not trying to rape and murder her.

GM: Caroline registers after a moment that they are sandwiched between two buildings in a dark alleyway. The parade of costumed revelers and sounds of their merriment continue unabated mere feet away.

“This doesn’t look like your kind of party,” the costumed man remarks.

There’s another soft smirk.

“Are you lost, little lamb?”

Caroline: Her breathing is still ragged, her voice weak. “I… yes. Thank… thank you.”

GM: The man brushes a stray hair from Caroline’s face with a crimson-gloved hand.

“Why, you’re welcome.”

Caroline: She shakes her head. “I don’t know what happened. One minute…” Her shaking head stops as his hands touch her.

GM: “Mmm. One of the late-night crowd. I’m surprised you ran into him this early,” the man remarks.

“But then, parties in this city are rather like angler fish. Dangling their glowing lures of fun and booze. Then snapping the partygoers right up. Poor lost little lambs. You know that there are more missing persons reports filed in New Orleans during Mardi Gras and Southern Decadence than any other time of year?”

Caroline: She looks at him questioningly and nods. “Makes sense. Parties attract all kinds, people lower their guards. Lots of easy vic… tims.”

The trauma still hasn’t really set in. She remains wary and alert.

GM: “The parties had their little lambs, their fleece as white as snow. And everywhere the lambs went, the monsters were sure to go.”

Caroline: Caroline swallows uncomfortably, that dread returning. “You’ve been watching me.”

GM: The devil-masked man chuckles. “Oh, I’m sorry. That really isn’t the best thing to say to a woman in your position, I suppose.”

He glances over his shoulder.

Caroline: A chill.

“What position.”

It’s as much statement as question. A challenge, maybe?

GM: Another soft chuckle. “A morsel nearly gobbled up by the angler fish, my dear. In any case. I’d advise getting off the streets. The party’s only going to get wilder from here.”

Caroline: “I was trying, when he grabbed me. Speaking of… where did he, they, go?”

GM: The man shrugs. “Where do wolves go when lambs leave the pasture? Somewhere, out there, where he’ll wait for his next chance to strike.”

Caroline: She swallows. “Against me?”

GM: Another shrug. “Maybe. Some wolves like to finish their meals. Others will take whatever falls into their jaws.”

Caroline: “And what are you? Some kind of sheep dog?” It’s an analogy she’s heard many times before.

GM: The man throws back his head and laughs. His diabolical mask glints with dull light from a distant street lamp.

“A sheep dog. Well, why not.”

Caroline: Bizarre, freak, weirdo. Some damaged soul, maybe. He could be former military, hiding from some trauma? Thoughts begin to organize themselves in her mind.

Still, if he’s dangerous, he doesn’t seem dangerous towards her. No more dangerous than whatever else might be lurking out there.

“Would you be willing to walk me home then, Mr. Sheep Dog?”

GM: A smile touches the corners of the devil’s mask. Caroline starts to pick up details as her mind comes together. He’s lean. Slightly taller than average for a man. Around the same height as her in tall shoes. Not exceptionally muscled. No excess body fat though. Lean and languid.

“I’d be honored, Miss Lamb.”

Caroline: Her mind fits those pieces into a matrix. Special forces, maybe. He fits the build. She moves out towards the street with him.

“Do you have a real name, Mr. Sheep Dog?”

GM: “You can call me René. I can keep calling you Lamb, unless there’s another name you’d prefer.” He extends a lean arm for her to take, if she desires.

Caroline: She takes the arm. “Caroline.” Her voice is still weak.

GM: “Caroline.” René smiles as she links her limb through his. “The original meaning is ‘song of happiness’, isn’t it?”

Caroline: She nods. “And René is ‘reborn.’ You’re an educated man, René. Mostly people don’t immediately go that direction.”

In spite of the casual talk, her hand has the slightest tremor against his arm.

GM: Another chuckle sounds as René leads them away. “Not to sound boastful, but I hope that I’ve helped your song to be… preserved, to bring happiness to a great many. Reborn, in its own way.”

Caroline: “Reborn is one way to put it… he’d have killed me, left my body in the alley. You saved my life.” The tremor in her hand is more noticeable as she talks about it.

GM: The pair emerge from the alleyway. The city isn’t just sloshed at this point. It’s having an orgy—and committing rape.

Revelers who’ve had too much to drink, or perhaps too much else, openly wretch onto the ground. Masked, sweaty couples fornicate against walls behind the flimsiest pretensions of cover.

Some of the screams sound pleasurable, or at least wantful. Others are raw and pained. Some people don’t make any sounds at all. Their eyes are dead, or they just look too out of it to even comprehend what is happening to them, but they are nevertheless the subject of multiple partners’ hungry affections. The smell of sweat, piss, and booze is thick in Caroline’s nostrils. Revelers drunkenly stagger through the streets, spilling drink as often as they swig it, as if they might share the liquid sin with the earth itself. As if they might cause the very city to join in their revelry, swallow them up, and never let the party end.

Caroline: Caroline looks away, horrified. Her uncle was right, this is a blight on the city at best. An affront to God. She focuses on René, trying to ignore what is going on around them.

“I had no idea…”

GM: “Don’t blame it on the gays,” René remarks idly.

A shirtless young man screams as three masked revelers smash a glass bottle over his head, laughing, and drag him by his feet into an alleyway.

“Mardi Gras sees at least as much excess.”

Caroline: “As this?”

GM: “As this,” her companion echoes. “If not more. It gets more attendees, after all.”

Caroline: “But this is… violent. Bloody. Deviant… It’s horrifying.”

GM: The sound of a woman’s retching assaults Caroline’s ears. The stink of vomit wafts up her nostrils.

“Oh, this is just what they can get away with in public,” René continues. “You should see the private parties. Sin is refined into an art form.”

Caroline: The smell is too much. Caroline pauses, doubling over. She dives for the side of the street and vomits into a gutter.

GM: René waits silently. Caroline can see two unconscious figures lying face-down in their own waste not far from her, spilled cups by their sides. Two teenage boys in skull masks pass by, laugh, drop their flies, and begin urinating on the unconscious pair.

Caroline: The sight brings on another bout of vomiting. She dry heaves until she has nothing left. She looks away from the scene when she stands and moves back towards René.

“I… how does this go on?”

GM: Caroline can see a woman huddled by a bar’s entrance. She’s crying, black mascara tears running down her cheeks, and clutching her stomach. A glaring, muscled bouncer rams his foot into her back and literally kicks her to the curb. She’s barely smashed face-first into ground when a giggling masked reveler snatches her purse and takes off running. Whether the theft is motivated out of greed, drunken amusement, or some other incomprehensible reason, Caroline cannot say. Dozens more scenes of equal cruelty and Dionysian excess repeat themselves around her. The city drinks up their misery like a bourbon-tossing alcoholic promised a night of free drinks.

René shrugs. “How does the world go on?”

Caroline: “I don’t know,” Caroline asks, assaulted by all this horror.

GM: “Maybe I should call you Rapunzel instead.”

Caroline: “You’ve freed me from my cage?”

GM: “Perhaps shown you the world at the foot of your high tower. The drink and the atmosphere makes these people less mindful of the consequences of their actions, but it doesn’t change who they are. Not really.”

Caroline: She wants to deny it, but can’t.

GM: “It just lets their true selves out.”

Caroline: “A tower I appreciate much more.”

GM: “I’ve heard the Catholic Church, among other groups, has been trying to get Decadence banned, but that’s simply cutting off one of the hydra’s heads. People are what they are.” René gestures about them. “And this is what they are.”

Caroline: “You’re quite a student of human nature.”

GM: “Humans are fascinating creatures. Their emotions are so… real.”

Caroline: “You’re not quite what I expected out of a man that ran off a dozen others.”

GM: René chuckles. “One other. The remainder were still enjoying themselves, but only through watching. Sloth often wins out over the other six sins.”

Caroline: “One then. Still, it’s a brave man to step in. If there’s something I can do to repay you…”

GM: René raises an intrigued eyebrow at the suggestion. “And how would you propose to repay me, Caroline?”

Caroline: “My family is powerful, if it’s money, or some favor…”

GM: “I don’t have much use for money, to be quite honest. As the song goes, it can’t buy you love.”

Caroline: The tremor. “What is it you want then?”

GM: “I might even be doing you a disfavor, come to think. How would your family feel knowing you were out here amidst all… this?” René gestures towards the distance. Caroline can see a masked man—masked in a black’s executioner’s hood—brutalizing some victim a wall. For a moment, she fears it’s her assailant, only to notice another man garbed in the same executioner’s hood laughingly kicking a motionless body. After a moment, she spots a third hood. Evil seems as common and unremarkable as weeds.

Caroline: “Not well. But they don’t need to know.”

GM: “Show me someone without secrets and I’ll show you a liar.”

Caroline: She nods in agreement. “But you’ll keep mine, won’t you?”

GM: “I don’t even know your last name, Caroline. How could I give it away?”

Caroline: “Malveaux.”

GM: Her rescuer’s eyebrows raise under his diabolic mask. “Ah. Malveaux. An old family. Your… uncle, if I’m not missing my guess, is the archbishop.”

Caroline: She nods. “You’re Catholic then?”

GM: A low chuckle. “I suppose one could say.”

Caroline: Lapsed. It happens. “I thought you should know, since you saved my life.”

GM: “Tell me, Caroline Malveaux, daughter of the church, do you believe that people are inherently evil?”

Caroline: “Sinful, but not evil.”

GM: “Well, I think they are. I think we live in a hideous, twisted world so bogged down by the weight of our sins, the only reason God hasn’t cleansed it with a second Great Flood is that he’s given up on the potential of intelligent life to be anything but evil,” René declares blithely.

“If he isn’t evil himself. Maybe all creation is simply a joke he’s telling for his own twisted amusement.”

Caroline: If she’d been sober the talk might have shocked Caroline. As it is…

“I can see why you would think that, if this is what you see.”

GM: “Isn’t this what I see?” Her rescuer’s voice is suddenly sharp. “Do you see something different, pray tell? Are there diamonds I am overlooking among the rough?”

Caroline: “Free will, the capacity for good and evil, is implicit in God’s promise to us. You yourself are the surest example I could provide. Would an evil man rush to the defense of someone he didn’t know? Risk his life?”

GM: René chuckles darkly. “Maybe I took no risk. Maybe I wasn’t saving you. I could have just bee absconding with this little lost lamb for myself.”

Caroline: “You could have done that in the alley.”

GM: “Maybe the alley wasn’t the opportune time.” René’s devil-mask glows like hellfire under the Quarter’s jeering lights. He smirks as he strokes Caroline’s cheek and whispers, “I can show you evil, Caroline Malveaux.”

Caroline: “Just because you’ve done evil does not mean you are evil.”

GM: “I can show you evil that makes these… festivities seem like a children’s tea party.”

Caroline: “I’m sure you saw it overseas.”

PTSD? Seems likely. Haunted by the wars, perhaps. Not uncommon. She’s seen enough haunted eyes on hardened men. Her father is a Republican senator, after all.

GM: “I can show such evil to you less than five minutes from here,” René continues. His blue eyes are cold, hungry, and… longing. So very longing.

“You see, I do not possess free will like you do. I have forever forfeited that, along with what was left of my soul.” His tone is deadly serious.

“I don’t have a soul, Caroline,” he exclaims, his eyes widening as his voice rises in pitch. “I can remember when I did, but remembering isn’t the same as having.”

Caroline: A chill runs through her.

“There’s always room for all of God’s children, there is always forgiveness. No matter what you’ve done.”

Perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea to give him her name…

GM: René’s fist sharply cuffs Caroline across the jaw. Her heads snaps back from the impact as she tastes blood in her mouth. Black pinpricks blossom across her vision.

“It’s not what I’ve done, you stupid bitch,” he hisses.

“It’s what I am.”

Day ? Month ? Year?

GM: Caroline’s surroundings blur into focus. She’s lying on a green field, the grass damp against her back. Weeping willows’ boughs droop over her comatose form. The multicolored lights of the French Quarter blurrily swim and shimmer in the distance. She can make out sounds of revelry. New Orleans never stops partying. That’s just who she is. The sounds are distant, though; Caroline might not be in the Quarter. The late summer night is warm, and she feels a breeze flow over her from the north. It should cool her, but she does not feel any perspiration.

Caroline: She tries to rise.

GM: Caroline shakily ambles to her feet. The light from the street lamps seems distant and hollow, and her clothes feel cold and rough against her skin. A grassy expanse of trees intersected by a snaking river unfolds before her.

Caroline: She was just on Bourbon Street, or somewhere in the Quarter. Walking with René when he… hit her. Hard.

The images come forth, but she pushes them away. He must have left her here. She’s been in the city for years, and visited all her life. She looks around and starts to walk. She’ll certainly see a landmark somewhere.

GM: She soon spots a suited man with a trombone. She recognizes that statue even before reading the plaque underneath. She is in Louis Armstrong Park, just a short ways away from the French Quarter.


Her ears perk. People are approaching. Two of them. She can tell by their slurred mumbles and by the way their footsteps fall that they are drunk.

Caroline: She slides towards a shadow.

GM: Caroline is still groggy from whatever happened to her, and moves too slowly. The footsteps catch up. The two people, one man and one woman, are obviously college students. Neither of them looks older than 21, and both are clearly drunk, leaning on each other for support and as they stumble through the dark. The man clutches a whiskey bottle with a few swallows left in it, and the woman’s shirt is partially unbuttoned. The partygoers look at Caroline and begin giggling as only inebriated people having fun can. Their jugular veins throb in the lamplight, their chests heaving up and down as they breathe. She feels the warmth of their bodies, and it only reminds her of how cold the night feels.

That’s when the hunger blazes to life in her chest like a roaring bonfire. Her teeth feel so large in her mouth, and oh so sharp. Caroline doesn’t know what it is about the pair. She doesn’t know what happened to her. But she knows one thing:

She is a predator, and these people are her prey.

Previous, by Narrative: Story Three, Louis I
Next, by Narrative: Story Three, Emmett I

Previous, by Character: Story Two, Caroline Epilogue
Next, by Character: Story Three, Caroline II

Caroline: Caroline’s next stop takes her to the intensive care unit and another, equally unpleasantly necessary conversation over the troublesome dyke and her aunt. As before, she coaches it in terms of blame—suggesting that Kane might even have been in league with or inspired Gettis—and ease for Sarah on her road to recovery.

GM: The two Whitneys, especially Lyman, are wholly consumed with grief and worry for their (grand)daughter. They still don’t know if she’s going to wake up as herself or as an invalid with no future and the mental faculties of a toddler. Their only concern besides her recovery is apprehending the man responsible for doing this to her.

Neither man evinces any great interest in Amelie Savard. They have even less in Emil Kane. They agree to support the latter’s removal from NOPD because Caroline has asked.

Caroline: Caroline’s final conversation with Uncle Carson at his home after dinner follows a similar route. She skips out on the emotion gets straight to the point with him: deflecting blame puts another person in the pocket of the family, removes a potential future problem in the form of Kane, and keeps the boat from rocking too hard.

GM: Carson and his wife are empty nesters (their children have long since left home) and seem pleased to have Caroline’s company. They serve a pleasant dinner of steak, mashed potatoes, collard greens and peach pie. Carson agrees with Caroline’s logic of minimizing the fuss on all those counts.

The Devillers, after several phone calls over several days, seem willing to let things go with Amelie facing expulsion and conviction for the misdemeanors. The largest fly in the ointment is Christina Roberts.

Christina doesn’t fight Amelie’s removal from McGehee, but wants to withdraw her rather than have her formally expelled. The school is firm that it will expel any student facing criminal charges. Christina wants to fight that. Caroline has to convince her that it’s outside the Malveaux or Devillers families’ direct control—or at least that there’s no way they would leverage influence on Amelie’s behalf.

Caroline: There are limits to even Caroline’s influence in her family. Spending as much as she has on Amelie is already a questionable proposition. Made palatable only by her existing relationship with Roberts.

GM: Christina also wants to squeak by on as few charges as possible, with as lenient a sentencing as possible. She brings up a deferred sentence program and community service instead of jail time. Her attitude is combative from the start, and Caroline also has to be careful not to make the Devillers feel like they are re-entering an argument they consider finished.

Carson agrees to drop the drug charges that could land Amelie in federal prison (he says the LSD pills in police evidence will be “taken care of”), which limits them to just two with any real real basis: criminal damage to property and being a minor in possession of alcohol. Christina seems like she wants to fight that charge too, but blaming the other girls is off the table and there’s no good explanation for why Emil would have brought a bottle of chartreuse to the scene. Damaging the LaLaurie House, on the other hand, is something that Amelie actually is guilty of. Additional municipal ordinances make the sentence especially stiff due to the building’s status as a historic property. Between those charges and how willing inspectors are to overstate (or downplay) damage to the house, Amelie could still face multiple years in prison.

Caroline: Caroline is forced to play mediator between the two parties with utterly opposing goals, and it’s as enjoyable as walking a greased tightrope. Roberts continues to push for less and less for Amelie, arguing with the methodical arguments of the lawyer she once was. The Devillers are still out for blood. The Whitneys are brief spectators amid their much deeper grief for their stricken grand/child.

In the end, Caroline is forced to acknowledge that neither party is likely to be entirely satisfied. She settles on a middle ground. Multiple charges will stick, as will some jail time, but Caroline builds back doors into the sentencing to undercut the impact, especially as she learns more of Amelie’s physical condition.

The girl is likely to face a significant recovery time, and it’s in that ambiguity that Caroline finds her thread to pull on, aided by the knowledge, and promise, that she can probably milk more medical time than is typical with a bit of influence on the medical staff and how they evaluate her condition. Neither side comes out thrilled, but both are going to come out heavily in debt to her. She’s willing to sacrifice a little bit of goodwill to keep both in play.

Certainly her conscience never enters into it. The guilt that someone might feel over summarily ruining Amelie’s life in the first place is not the kind of thing that the heiress to a family like the Malveauxes can entertain… is it?

If it does, she never lets it on to the parties involved, save perhaps her demand of Christina. She never makes mention of it as part of any of her arguments. What thoughts go on behind her emerald eyes are hers alone. To everyone else they are as cold and empty as those same precious stones. She is Caroline Malveaux. Heiress to the Malveaux family. Daughter of Senator Nathaniel Malveaux.

And to the world she is above such petty things as right and wrong in the pursuit of power.

Previous, by Narrative: Story Two, George IX
Next, by Narrative: Story Two, Emil IV

Previous, by Character: Story Two, Caroline V
Next, by Character: Story Three, Caroline I

“That dream you had that you don’t want anyone to know about? I make those come true.”
Victoria Wolf

Friday morning, 23 October 2015

GM: The next day, Anna calls the superintendent’s office and asks to schedule a meeting with the man. Sylvia listens over speaker mode.

The woman she speaks to, the superintendent’s secretary, tells Anna to pound sand. Her contract is through the year. They don’t care her life was threatened. Go back to work.

Victoria: When they’re told to fuck off, Sylvia has Anna claim irrecoverable, emotional damage, and educates her on playing the part.

GM: The woman tells Anna to pound sand. Again.

They have all the power and don’t care about her plight.

“I guess why would they,” Anna glumly remarks after hanging up. “It’s a hassle to replace a teacher midway through the year…”

Victoria: Sylvia pulls out her laptop, leaving Anna’s quip unanswered. She types in the public school district’s website, looking for information on the superintendent.

GM: She finds the address for his office easily enough. It’s in the

The superintendent, Leonard Weiss, has a photo and biography posted. It’s essentially a puff piece lauding his “extensive administrative experience,” “long-term strategic planning,” and “crucial leadership” that “raised the bar for classroom teaching and evaluation, resulting in significant performance gains among low-income students.” It reads like he’s the best thing to happen to New Orleans public schools since sliced bread.

Anna remarks it’s interesting how the piece never says he taught in a classroom.

Victoria: Sylvia calls Weiss’ secretary back. She is polite, to start. She’s kind to the woman, stating the urgency of Ms. Perry’s departure from the school district.

GM: The annoyed secretary tells her to pound sand too.

NOLA’s public charter system, Sylvia is keenly reminded, is a for-profit business enterprise. Its goal is to make money. Anna’s resignation and replacement will cost them money. They don’t care if they squeeze the life out of her to save a few bucks.

It’s all about the bottom line.

Victoria: Sylvia reminds them that their inability to provide a safe environment will cost them a bottom line if they take them to court.

Or, they could just let Anna go.

GM: Anna is paid shit, says Weiss’ secretary.

They’d like to see her file a lawsuit.

Victoria: Sylvia is not paid shit, and will see them burnt to the ground and nailed to a cross before Anna steps foot in that school again.

GM: The woman grudgingly says she’ll schedule Sylvia for a meeting with the superintendent. Anna doesn’t have to go in to work until then.

Victoria: Sylvia wishes her a blessed day and thanks her for her time. She’s never sounded more poisonously sweet.

Friday afternoon, 23 October 2015

GM: The NOPD, at least, is much faster getting results. Derek texts her, then meets her to pick up the cash. He says the boys have been arrested, including for the charge of assaulting a public officer, and are awaiting their arraignment and sentencing “somewhere that’s not much fun.” He expects a judge to be unsympathetic and to drive a harsh plea bargain.

Victoria: She meets the man, bringing the requisite amount plus $250 “for his hard work”. It never hurts having an officer on your good side, and that little sum paid forward might warm him to future prospects—or to going easy if she finds herself on the opposite side.

GM: Derek grins, shakes her hand, and says it’s been a real pleasure doing business. Call him anytime.

Saturday afternoon, 24 October 2015

GM: Like everyone, he fills out her online form.

His Location is New Orleans/Local.

His Duration is One Hour.

He describes himself as a “a police officer.” His spelling and grammar are riddled with errors. His language is simplistic and unimaginative, like a middle schooler’s book report.

His Time of Day Preference is Flexible.

His Day of Week Preference is Weekends.

Under Interests, he says wants her to be a “mommy domme” and strict with him, but “nice” when he does well. He also likes spanking and getting hit.

He doesn’t specify much else. He seems like a very poor writer, if his form submission is anything to go by.

He specifies no hard limits.

He provides a Facemash profile link. He has no references in the BDSM community.

But it’s been a slower week, and cash is cash.

Victoria: It feels like every week is a slow week, but the more she works, the more she builds rapport with clients, the faster the slow weeks quicken.

Still, this is a slow week. It’s allowed her more time to spend with Anna, but she still needs an income to eat.

So she accepts. Ordinarily, she prefers to go for the smarter applicants—often discernible by proper typing and wording indicative of as much—but money is money, and marketing is marketing.

And power is power. Knowing a police officer is helpful.

At the appointed time, Sylvia—Victoria—waits upon a sofa by the door to her humble working dungeon, a simple home converted to the darker plush aesthetic of gothic blacks and sanguines, dressed in one of several outfits she owns or the occasion.

As the number and variety of clients she’s taken have increased, she’s needed to acquire a proportional variety of outfits to suit the tastes. Today: leather pants, a corset, and heeled boots whose click heralds her danger as much as being stepped on.

GM: The smarter ones are more fun, too. They usually the more elaborate fantasies and detailed instructions.

Then again, sometimes it’s fun to have a free hand.

Per her instructions, at least, the doorbell rings.

Let it not be said the police officer can’t follow instructions.

Victoria: Victoria Wolf opens the door, gesturing the man inside.

“Hey there. Jordan?”

GM: Jordan Ratcliff is a long-limbed and lanky man with short dark hair and unremarkable facial features. His face isn’t an ugly one, but he’s got residual acne scarring and a five o’ clock that’s several hours short of five. It’s the sort of face that looks handsome after drinks. He’s casually dressed in jeans and a t-shirt.

He takes in Victora’s leather-clad and booted form.

His eyes take a minute to leave her breasts, pushed forward as they are by the corset.

“Yeah. That’s me,” he says lamely.

Image

He holds out the money.

Her site says to discretely leave tributes by the door.

But at least he’s actually brought the money.

Victoria: Her words are laced with feather-soft pride, supportive and soothing, while her eyes glimmer with warmth. She brings him inside, shutting the door behind him. The moment that click sounds, it’s on.

“I’m so glad you’re home. It’s a special day for you, isn’t it? You know what we do on special days, riiiiight?”

A hand rests on his lower back, rubbing.

GM: “Good things?” smiles Jordan. His eyes move up to her face again at her words and tone. So soft and understanding. He’s already starting to look relieved.

“Can I touch you?”

Her site does say no sex. Even if that’s not always the reality.

Victoria: “Mmmnnn…” she hums, a dramatic flare to her thinking. Her thumb comes to rest on the cleft of his chin, her index finger curled beneath.

“Lots of good things! Touching me?… That depends.”

Not yes. Not no.

Work for it.

She leads him down a hall, into a smaller room painted baby blue, a white sofa large enough for two—or three, squished—against one wall. A paneled closet door is closed adjacent.

“You’re going to pick your favorite outfit, and if you get changed and clean up well, then maybe. Cookie?”

GM: “Yes please,” says Jordan.

He looks like he really wants to touch her. His eyes go to her corset again.

But he opens up the closet.

Victoria: She beams.

“You used your nice words. Good boy.”

She disappears out into the hall, her heels clicking away.

GM: “Thank you… mistress? Should I call you that?”

When she gets back, she finds Jordan dressed in schoolboy uniform. High socks, shorts, white shirt with goofy tie, jacket. All a little short on him, and intentionally so. To make him feel smaller and emphasize he’s not put together and in control like she is.

Thinking back to Anna, the outfit is certainly topical.

Victoria: When she returns, it’s with a plate full of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. Her expression, however, crumbles from the beaming well of pride that she held from the moment he entered her home to a more restrained, statuesque irritation.

She clicks her tongue, setting the cookies down.

“Is this how you’ve been taught to dress?”

Her words are just shy of a snap, laced with all the disappointment of a mother who’s told him time and time again.

“Tie crooked. Belt too tight. Socks uneven.”

She makes no comment on the goofy state of the outfit as a whole. He’s a child, after all. No, her comments are focused entirely on every tiny, minuscule fuckup he made in putting it on.

“And your shoes! Make the puppy ears, and wrap them together. The loops should be even.”

The tips of her fingers hit his cheek, not quite a full slap, but certainly a physical outlet of her frustration.

GM: Jordan flinches at the not-quite slap. His face is crestfallen, though Victoria can see he’s getting hard against his parts.

“I’ll do better… mistress? Should I call you that?” he repeats.

He adjusts his tie. Loosens his belt. Raises one sock. Re-ties his shoes.

“Is this better?”

Victoria: “Would a mistress dress you like this? I’m your mommy. You want to make mommy happy, don’t you?”

She doesn’t yet comment on his adjustments.

GM: “Yes, Mommy. I do want to make you happy.”

His face turns a bit red.

Victoria: The same hand comes to rest on his face, patting his cheek. This time, it’s gentle.

“Good boy. That’s much better.”

Her hand traces the line of his jaw, over his throat, and the flat of her palm presses to his chest. She pushes him backward, no more force than a nudge.

When he sits on the sofa behind him, she climbs into his lap, straddling him.

GM: He smiles at the praise.

He falls backwards at the push.

He looks up at her longingly.

He looks like he wants to do nothing more than run his hands along her sides.

Victoria: Her hands clasp around the back of his neck, her forehead pressed to his. Her lips are so close to his that he can smell the cool scent of mint with every word.

“You’ll be good from now on, won’t you?”

She dons an air of concern.

“I don’t want to have to fix your outfit again.”

GM: Jordan’s breath is hot and flushed. His cock is very hard against her.

“Yes, Mommy. I’ll be good. You won’t have to.”

Victoria: She grinds her hips down, the stretch of leather creaking, and only that and a little fabric preventing their coupling.

“Mommy loves when you listen.”

GM: “Mommy can I please touch you,” Jordan whisper-moans. His cock desperately throbs.

Victoria: She chuckles a heady laugh. How they sit, he might be able to reach the skin of her breast if he reaches his tongue far enough.

“So hasty, baby. Don’t you want a cookie?”

She reaches over to the side table, retrieving the plate. Her hips never leave his groin.

She places it between his lips.

“Now now. Don’t. Drop. A crumb.”

GM: Jordan, she is certain, is amply aware of that fact.

“Yes, Mommy. Please,” he says. The longing in his eyes looks little abated.

“Bu-I wi’ wi’ou a play-” he tries to get out past the cookie in his mouth, eyes now wide at her commanding tone.

Victoria: “Shhhh…”

She cups a hand below his chin, giggling when crumbs dribble onto her palm.

“Careful! Don’t make a mess.”

GM: So he does his best.

He really looks like he does.

He chews and eats the cookie.

But without a plate, crumbs are inevitable.

He looks crestfallen.

Victoria: She kisses his nose.

“Precious,” she says, tipping the crumbs into his mouth. She’s strict, but she isn’t unfair.

Unless he drops the crumbs from her palm.

GM: He tries.

Again, he looks like he really does.

But some crumbs spill and get over his shirt.

“I’m sorry, Mommy…” he apologizes, plaintively.

Victoria: The look of bemusement he sees wouldn’t look out of place on a nun who caught two girls kissing.

Her hand snaps to his face, squeezing his cheeks so hard that he has difficulty speaking. The other hand snaps to his crotch.

“Do you like disappointing me?”

Both now squeeze.

“Do you not want your reward? I don’t think you do. I said, quite clearly: No. Fucking. Crumbs.”

GM: “I-’m s-ry-M-my,” Jordan tries to get out.

He looks so disappointed.

He looks just like a little boy being caught leaving a mess.

Would he cry, if she pushed?

“I-d-do-”

Victoria: She gets up off his lap, snapping her fingers.

“Clean. It. Up. Lick those crumbs up!”

GM: Jordan looks unsure, and terrified for a moment, then runs his hands along his crumb-laden shirt and licks them.

“Like this, Mommy…?”

Victoria: “Good boy.”

There’s no warmth in those words.

GM: “Thank you, Mommy.”

Victoria: Victoria shakes, seemingly with anger, and brings a hand to pinch the bridge of her nose. She breathes a centering breath, and calms herself.

“You upset me, Jordan. You upset Mommy so much. So much correction. So, so very much.”

GM: Jordan scrambles off he couch, getting to his knees before her.

“I’m sorry, Mommy. I’m so sorry. What can I do?”

Victoria: She breathes a shallow, shuddering breath. Her foot presses to his chest, pushing him back against the sofa. Oh, that heel; he can feel it digging into his ribs.

“Kiss.”

GM: He obediently leans down, kissing the tip of her boot. Some blush creeps into his cheeks.

Victoria: She pushes that boot up to his throat, firm, but not strong.

“Like you mean it. You call that an apology?”

GM: Jordan plasters his mouth to the leather, running sloppy kisses up and down its length. His redness deepens.

“I’m sow-wy, Mommy,” he gets out.

Victoria: “I don’t _believe you!”_

The toe of her boot presses to his mouth.

GM: He takes it into his mouth, sucking back and forth on that pointed toe. She’d say it’s like a cock, but to him it feels more like a breast.

“m sowwy!” he gargles out.

Victoria: Her foot settles back to the floor, her anger settling to a simmer.

Her voice is almost pensive. “You’re sure you’re sorry, Jordan? You know I don’t like when you make me discipline you, but Mommy has to make sure you grow up to be a good man.”

She sighs and shakes her head.

“So long to go.”

GM: “Please, Mommy,” Jordan begs, face crestfallen as the boot withdraws. “What do I have to do? I want to be good. I do. I want to be good.”

Victoria: “You want to be good?”

She wants to believe him. It’s in her voice, so subtle. But does hse?

GM: “Yes, Mommy,” he repeats. “Honest. Please. Let me be good. Help me be good.”

Victoria: She smiles that fond, motherly smile, tugging the boy to his feet by his collar.

“Tell you what, baby. Why doesn’t Mommy show you what you get when you’re really good? Maybe if you see that, then you’ll be everything Mommy needs you to be. Does that sound fair?”

GM: Jordan smiles widely.

“Yes, Mommy. That’s fair. That’s very fair. I’ll be everything, I will.”

He looks like he wants to touch her more than anything, but keeps his hands down.

Victoria: “Good boy.”

She guides him back to the chair, again settling into his lap, and again pressing her hips down into his groin.

This time, she reaches into a nearby coffee table, pulling out an unmarked bottle. It remains on the table for now.

“Mommy wants you to be big and strong. Don’t you?”

GM: Jordan smiles at those first words and Victoria’s warm tone.

He nods at her question.

“Yes, Mommy, I do.”

He’s in moderately good shape, she’d say.

Victoria: Her hands rest upon his chest, patting him. Then, they part for her own chest, where she unzips the front of her corset. Finally, though she still hasn’t given him permission to touch, he’s at least receiving partial nudity for his abuse.

“Is this what you want, baby?”

GM: He stares as though hypnotized.

“Yes, Mommy. A LOT.”

Victoria: She runs her fingers through the man’s hair, pulling him closer. Her lips press to his forehead, so warm and tender, then he’s pushed downward.

“Come here. Grow big and strong.”

GM: So he does.

He sucks her tits with earnest, hungry vigor, like it’s his mother’s milk he’s sucking. He’s actually not half-bad at all. Victoria can feel her nipples stiffening beneath his lapping tongue.

Victoria: She soothes him, slowing and settling him to to a more patient pace.

“That’s a good boy. Calm… calm…”

While he slobbers away, she reaches behind her back, down between his legs to unzip his fly, pulling his member free. Her fingers are soft as silk against that sensitive skin, gently tugging him what little he needs to come to life.

“Mama’s going to take care of you…”

GM: Victoria doesn’t need to tug him at all. He’s already rock hard. His cock quivers at her touch as his moans deepen, even muted as they are by his mouth around her breast.

Jordan looks like he could stay in this position forever.

Mama taking care of him.

Victoria: And Mama is only going to take care of him more. She reaches over to the table, tipping the bottle against her fingers. When they return to his shaft, it’s with a sudden warm wetness that makes him wonder if she sunk him inside her.

She kisses his hairline.

“Shhh… Just let yourself relax. Let’s get that stress out, huh baby boy?”

GM: ‘Baby boy’ moans and humps against her. Her hand. Her pussy. A fleshlight. Most men can tell what they’re filling, but Jordan seems content with something, anything, to fill. More than content. He thrusts in and out like mad, moaning as he sucks Victoria’s breasts.

She’s not sure if he’s relaxed, but he’s definitely getting that stress out.

Tears leak from his eyes as he pants,

“Mom-mm-y…!”

Victoria: Her hands are warm, the lubricant even warmer after sitting on a warming plate. Is he fucking her? Is he fucking her hand? It doesn’t matter. It’s warm, it’s wet, and—for those few minutes—he has everything he wants in the world.

She hushes him, letting him relax.

“Mommy takes care of you, doesn’t she? Relax…”

She shifts her hips, ceasing his thrusting. Where he stops, her slow, spiraling motions take over, attempting to bring that life from his balls.

GM: Jordan moans into her breasts, switching from the right to the left.

He doesn’t look like he wants to stop. But he does. There’s life aplenty in his balls, and in his quavering, precum-leaking cock.

He does what Mommy says.

Victoria: Her back arches, one of her nipples presented to his mouth.

“Close your eyes… That’s a good boy.”

Now that he’s calm, she begins to pump him with more intent.

“You have something of Mommy’s, and Mommy needs it…”

GM: “Y-ess… Momm… y….!” Jordan pants past that nipple.

She can feel his urge to thrust. To fill. But she’s said not to.

And he does so very want to be a good boy.

Victoria doesn’t have to run her hand up and down his shaft for long. He ejaculates with a messy shudder, his seed running over her fingers as he sinks forward against her breasts. Not even tonguing them now. Just resting his face against them like they’re a return, in truth, to his days as a suckling infant. Where all was right in the world, absent whatever trauma or inadequacy has driven him to seek her out.

Victoria can’t know for sure, of course. But she has enough experience to have an ear for such things, especially after he whimpers,

“I… love… you… Mommy…”

As ever, the domme provides the fantasy he’s looking for.

Another day, another dollar.

Sunday afternoon, 25 October 2015

GM: Anna asks Sylvia’s permission over where and how to spend money. She greets her, kneeling, like they discussed.

It’s on the last day of their agreement that she seemingly forgets to.

But Victoria is no stranger to this business.

She recognizes bratting when she sees it.

Anna is curious what will happen.

Victoria: Sylvia shuts the door behind her, returning her keys to her bag and setting it on a small table beside the door. She turns, catching sight of Anna.

She stares.

She waits.

She cants her head.

She waits some more.

GM: “Hey Sylvie,” she smiles, approaching her girlfriend for a hug and kiss.

Walking towards, not kneeling.

There’s an impish cast to her eyes. She definitely isn’t just forgetting.

Victoria: Sylvia runs her tongue over the sharp edge of her teeth; an idle, thinking tell, Anna knows.

She beams.

“I missed you so, so much, Anna.”

She leans in to kiss her.

GM: “You too,” Anna smiles, closing her eyes as she leans in to the kiss.

Victoria: The kiss she gives is far more heated than an expected greeting, her hands wandering lower than a hug would merit.

GM: “Hello to you too,” Anna giggles, but her hands are soon touching Sylvia’s intimate places too. Her tongue explores her girlfriend’s mouth.

Color starts to rise in her cheeks as the pair get going.

Only two days in, they really have been fucking like bunnies.

Victoria: She seizes Anna’s bottom lip between her teeth, as she knows drives her wild, hands coming to her hips. She moves the pair of them back into the room, across the hall and into the bedroom.

“Right now.”

GM: Anna doesn’t say “you don’t have to tell me twice.”

She just tugs off Sylvia’s clothes, skin flushed with the heat of desire as they trade further kisses.

Victoria: Sylvia blocks the hand that goes for the button of her shorts, pushing Anna backward with her torso, both wrists in hand. She pins them beside her head, breath hot on her throat.

“Uh… uh… uh…” she hums, as if telling a child no.

GM: “Yes… yes… yes…!” Anna giggles. She playfully struggles at first, but also leans into it, stretching her arms back and her legs forward in an exaggerated ‘come ravish me’ pose.

Victoria: She climbs onto the bed, shimmying her back up toward the headboard. Anna’s lips meet Sylvia’s, this time for a more tender kiss.

“I love you.”

GM: Anna returns it, just as softly, eyes shining up at her.

“I love you, too. With all my heart, since the day we met.”

Victoria: She bites her own lip, looking fondly down at her.

“Stay here.”

She hops off the bed, running to her closet. Anna can hear boxes shifting around, and then an “ah ha!”

Sylvia returns.

“Close your eyes.”

GM: Anna stays.

“Oooh, getting one of your _toys?”_ she smiles.

She closes her eyes.

Victoria: “Uh huh. Something like that.”

She rolls Anna onto her belly, taking one of her hands. She kisses the palm, so, so tenderly, and wraps a silk scarf around it, tying it at her wrist.

GM: “Kinky!” Anna exclaims, happily.

She wiggles her bottom.

Victoria: She climbs over her, repeating the process for the other wrist. She’s just as soft, and the other hand gets a kiss, too.

Then, she ties each of them to a bed post so her arms are just short of outstretched.

GM: “I like where this is going…” Anna says, breathily. She tugs against the bonds and spreads her legs for Sylvia.

Victoria: “Me too, Anna. Me too.”

She shifts her dress upward, planting a kiss on her of her cheeks, before slipping her panties down to her ankles.

GM: She finds Anna very wet. Her girlfriend tugs against her restraints some more.

Victoria: She parts her cheeks, her tongue tracing the lips below.

“My, my. Someone’s been dreaming of me coming home.”

GM: “A housewife has nothing to do but dream of her breadwinner to come home and ravish her,” Anna sighs.

“Mmm, ‘breadwinner.’ ‘Woman of the house?’ Or how about… ‘mistress?’”

Anna bucks and wriggles her pelvis towards Sylvia’s face.

Victoria: CLAP!

Anna’s ass turns a pleasant shade of red.

GM: “Eep!” Anna exclaims.

Victoria: Seconds later, Sylvia’s nails trace and trail over that reddened skin.

GM: “Eech!” Anna exclaims at that, with somewhat less comfort. But she doesn’t use the safe word.

Victoria: “You, my love, are so forgetful…”

Those nails feel like razors against reddened, sensitive skin.

GM: “Ahhh!” Anna squirms. “What’d I forget!”

Victoria: She spanks her again, this time on the other cheek.

GM: Anna gives another yelp. “I’m sorry I didn’t kneel!”

Victoria: Clap!

“It’s so pretty when it turns this red.”

GM: “Ack! I’m sorry I didn’t kneel! Mistress!”

Victoria: Anna feels the soft skin of her fingers rub that red mark. She doesn’t answer.

GM: Anna whimpers.

“I’m sorry I wanted to see what you’d do…!”

Victoria: She presses her lips to that new red mark, so tender, so loving.

“Mhmmm… But…”

GM: Anna sighs with relief.

“But…?”

Victoria: “But now I’m having fun.”

This time, the spank is more gentle; a spark, but not a fire.

GM: “Eep!” Anna giggles, wiggling her rear. “I’ve learned my lesson!”

Victoria: Sylvia crawls up the bed, burrowing under Anna’s arm to lay below her.

“Have you?”

GM: “Yes. Promise. I’ll be a good girl.”

Victoria: “Uh huh.”

She doesn’t believe her.

GM: “You don’t think I’m good?”

Victoria: “Oh, you’re good…”

GM: “I’m very good! The goodest!”

Anna wriggles against her bonds.

“Are you going to untie me?”

Victoria: She presses their lips together, fingers wrapping her hair about her fist to keep her in place.

“Nope…”

GM: “But you said I was good…” Anna whines.

She tries to give Sylvia a kiss.

Victoria: Anna feels a finger slip between the lips that aren’t being kissed.

“If you complain, I’ll stop and leave you here.”

GM: “…yes, mistress,” says Anna.

She gives a softer whine.

Victoria: Her touches below are soft; more explorative than carrying intent to pleasure her.

“Say it again,” she purrs.

GM: “Yes, mistress,” Anna breathes, clearly savoring that touch.

Victoria: A finger disappears inside her, curving up and in toward that special spot inside her.

“Say it again. Again. Tell me every thought in your head.”

GM: Anna gives a little gasp of pleasure.

“Mistress. Mistress. I… wanted to see what you’d do…”

“I was bad, but I’ll be good…”

Victoria: The more she talks, the more Sylvia tries to turn those subtle touches into a drive for warmth in her cheeks.

GM: She amply succeeds. Anna is very warm. She squirms against her bonds, calls her mistress all sorts of delightful things, and tries to drive herself deeper into Sylvia’s fingers. She’s soon a shuddering, needful mess on the verge of cumming.

Victoria: Every time Anna thrusts herself downward, begging more of that gratuitous touch, Sylvia retracts her fingers just as much. She keeps Anna there, pushing her forward little by little, making her fight that instinct to seek her own pleasure. No, Anna gets what she deserves; what Sylvia deigns to give her.

As she approaches that precipice, Sylvia pulls her fingers out and brings them to her own mouth. She savors each one, leaving the beast atop her starving before a plate of raw meat.

GM: It’s so frustrating.

To thrust deeper, every time she gets closer, and get rewarded with less. Maddening.

But little by little, she gets closer. Until Sylvia stops. Anna whines and pulls against her bonds. She’s red-faced, sweating, and dripping like mad between her legs.

“Please… please… let me cum… mistress…!” Anna blubbers. She looks so frustrated. Like she could cry.

Still, she doesn’t use the safe word.

Victoria: The barest touch brushes her clitoris, engorged and begging for attention.

“Mn…”

Consideration, but no answer.

GM: Anna gives a high-pitched whine.

“Plea… eeeaaase…!”

Victoria: “I could hold you here…”

A kiss to her jawline.

“Right here…”

To her chin.

“Begging…”

To her lips.

“Left in purgatory…”

GM: Anna really does look like she could cry. Her breath is hot and ragged. She’s so close. Sylvia’s touch, even the barest brush against her clit, is like lightning through her body.

“PLEEE-AAASE…!” she begs, bonds strained to their utmost.

Victoria: She whispers in her ear, her breath hot as fire.

“…I could get a toy. I could make you feel so full. I could use my tongue.”

Her touch is just a little heavier, fingers sliding to either side of that node.

“I know you love it when I suckle on it just the littlest bit until you’re close, then take it in my mouth and overwhelm you.”

She pauses, just to let her suffer.

“I think you’re already overwhelmed. Maybe we should start over.”

GM: Every breath against Anna’s hot skin seems to draw another ragged pant.

It’s Sylvia’s touch that makes her scarlet-faced, sweating, and mad-eyed lover look ready to scream.

Oh, yes. She’s suffering. Sylvia loves to see them like this. Taken right to the edge. Where all they can think about is release, every other thought purged from their mind, and they know Sylvia has the power. She is God to them, at this moment. They will say anything, do anything, agree to absolutely anything. Putty in her hands.

Anna throws back her head and screams, eyes moist from her frustration.

“PPPLEEEAASSEEE……!!!”

Victoria: Her fingers disappear. For a moment, Anna might wonder if she’s really going to keep her in that hellish state.

She climbs out from under her, resituating herself behind her lover. Using her hands, she guides Anna to lift her hips into a kneeling position, then presses her torso to the bed.

She can feel Sylvia’s breath on her lips. Only her breath.

GM: Anna obeys without thought, on purely unconscious instinct, her eyes mad with desire.

Victoria: She presses her face to her sex, pulling the skin down from her clitoris, and pulls it into her mouth. There’s not more talking. There’s not more teasing. There’s only Anna’s frenetic brain, a flood of too many hormones, and the fact that Sylvia is doing her best to cause a short circuit in her brain.

GM: It feels like Sylvia’s tongue has barely even touched Anna’s clit when her lover comes apart. Anna screams as the climax rips through her, every muscle contracting, her juices soaking Sylvia’s face. Anna shudders, twitches, and collapses. She lets out an exhausted pant-like breath.

“M… m… iss… thank… you…” she whimpers, her voice shaking like a leaf in the wind.

Victoria: The flood of fluid soaking her face is a surprise, but not an unwelcome one. She doesn’t even clean it off before she kisses Anna.

She unties the girl, pulling her into a spooning side-lay, then tosses a blanket atop them.

“Shhh…”

Sylvia doesn’t even mention reciprocation. She only holds her, rubs her arm, and hums in her ear.

GM: “Mmmm…” Anna murmurs dreamily. She curls up against Sylvia, laying a head on her side.

She doesn’t speak for several moments, just breathes and… well, recovers.

“I don’t think I’ve ever cum so hard…”

Victoria: “There’s something to be said for being restrained…” she purrs into the woman’s throat.

GM: Anna laughs faintly.

“What’s it you like… about this?”

Victoria: Her words are a dreamy song.

“Does it need… an explanation?”

GM: Anna rubs her head against Sylvia.

“No… but I’d like to hear yours anyway.”

Victoria: “I’m not sure you’ll understand, but you might appreciate it from outside the window,” she answers after a thought.

“There’s something… powerful; addictingly so. You take someone—a brilliant, kind person, full of hopes and dreams, full of life and love—and you reduce them to a quivering, begging mess. For as long as I have them, they’re not their own person anymore. They’re mine. They’re a pet. They’re reduced to the sum of their animalistic urges, no more than a hungry dog.”

She kisses behind her ear. Anna isn’t that anymore. The moment’s passed.

“And then… once all is done, they’re at the peak, and they look down and wonder at the journey that got them there. Sometimes they blush. Sometimes they grin. Sometimes they cry. Sometimes they regret it. Sometimes they deny, and cast blame seated in anger. Yet… they’re all there, and they don’t forget the experience. Neither do I.”

A pause.

“…though, I’m not quite as vulgar with my clients as with you.”

GM: Anna laughs faintly.

“Well, I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“That helps me understand, though. What you like about it. Having power.”

“I thought about using the safe word,” she says. “I was, well, you could see how close. I absolutely had to get off.”

“But I just thought… I’ll trust you, and see how this turns out.”

“And, plus, the safe word’s for if you’re being hurt. Not just denied something you want. Right?”

Victoria: “Exactly! You can’t use the safe word to make me finish you. Only to make me stop what I’m doing and let you out of restraints, and I will always let you out without question.”

GM: “I think that makes it even more exciting, that I can’t make you finish me…”

Victoria: Another kiss lands in her hair.

“On my very first interview with Chakras, they taught me a lesson that I’ve held close to my heart every day since. It applies to more than just the BDSM world. The goal of a dominatrix is to push their clients beyond their comfort; to experience new sensations, and to learn to become in touch with the creature inside them that only comes out when all sentient thought is left behind. Your safe word should always be just out of reach, held just so that your fingertips can only brush it. If you’re uncomfortable or in mild pain, you’ll stretch for it, but your fingers will only push it away. Only when it burns so sharply that you jerk your hand forward as if from a hot stove will you grasp it. That is when you should use it.”

GM: “That’s beautiful,” Anna smiles at her description. “Seriously, what a beautiful way to put it! You’re an artist with words at describing BDSM. You make it sound like so much more than just a way to get your rocks of…”

Victoria: She nudges her belly, fingers spidering as she tickles her.

“So! Let me push you!”

GM: Anna breaks off giggling under Sylvia fingers.

“Ack! Noooo!”

Victoria: “All these years and you didn’t know I have a tickling fetish!”

She’s relentless. Lucifer, watch out.

GM: “Ahhgh-ghh-ghh! Aieeep! Noooo!”

The already breathless Anna is soon doubly so under Sylvia’s relentless fingers. She sues for peace and pardon.

Victoria: The only pardon she gets is a heated Sylvia atop her, kissing her as if it is the last night they’ll both see each other alive.

GM: Anna returns those kisses with equal vigor, and soon the two are lying in one another’s arms again, breathless and warm-cheeked, seemingly content to let the moment last forever.

“This was fun,” says Anna.

“These past two days, that is. Trying things out.”

She looks at Sylvia and smiles.

“What do we do next?”

Victoria: She cants her head. She’s not going to tell her that it’s polite to return affection given, but it’s pretty plain in her expression that something is missing.

“What do you want to do?”

GM: “I’m asking for you, too,” Anna says in response to that look and cant.

“Besides make you feel as good as I just did? I want to follow your lead.”

“I like where that’s taken us.”

Victoria: “You want me to tell you what I want you to do for me…?” she asks, a dangerous glint in her eye. Uh oh.

GM: “You like being in charge, don’t you?” Anna asks innocently.

Victoria: She smiles that crooked smile.

“Go into the closet. Pick something out. My command is your partial choice. I’ll teach you how to use it, and… if you don’t perform well, well…”

GM: “Wuh-oh…”

Anna returns with a riding crop and a flogger.

“Hm, decisions…”

Victoria: Sylvia is laying back against the pillows, waiting.

“Decisions, decisions, decisions…”

GM: Anna selects the crop and lightly smacks its end against her palm.

Victoria: Sylvia actually shivers.

“That… sound…”

GM: “You’re a deviant,” smirks Anna. “And you weren’t helpful deciding. So you’re gonna get _punished.”_

There’s a louder, crisper smack.

Victoria: A larger chill rips through her, and she bites her lip.

“Oh…?”

She doesn’t move. She doesn’t reach to remove her clothing. This is all Anna.

GM: “Grrrr!” says Anna, raising the crop. She makes a face.

It could be fierce.

Or it could be cute.

Or both.

Victoria: “You are like a little cub growling at her mother,” she chides. “Come on. Prove me wrong.”

GM: Anna smacks her palm with the crop again.

“Take off your clothes, young lady. You’re in trouble now.”

Victoria: Every time that clap sounds, Anna jumps or shivers, as if she’s been trained. Pavlov’s riding crop.

She sinks her thumbs into her jeans, but before she shimmies them at all, she stops.

“Make me.”

GM: She receives an abrupt swat with the crop to her backside.

“Don’t make me repeat myself, young lady!”

It’s not the most adroitly placed, but it does leave a sting.

Victoria: Sylvia yips! Even through denim shorts, she can feel the familiar sting, though it’s more the promise of it and the memories it surfaces than the pain itself that gets her moving.

“Yes, mistress.”

She unbuttons her shorts, shifting them down with her thumb. Her underwear does little to cover her rear, but she doesn’t move to remove it.

GM: “No initiative,” Anna says critically. “This must be why your grades are so poor.”

She swats Sylvia’s hip.

“Underwear too.”

Victoria: Sylvia yelps!

The look she gives Anna is the same as if a man walked in and claimed to be Jesus, and she’s just as happy as if it was true.

Her underwear disappears.

“No teaching the teacher, huh?”

GM: Anna touches the crop to Sylvia’s chin.

“Poor grades. Repeated phone calls and emails with your parents. Placement in Learning Strategies. IEP. So many extra credit opportunities and classroom accommodations. And so many assignments not even turned in. After all that.”

The crop critically taps against her cheek several times.

“What do you have to say for yourself, young lady?”

Victoria: IE… P?

She looks lost.

“B—but… I’m sorry, Ms. Perry.”

She even looks sorry, though it only looks skin deep. Sylvia lifts her hips, offering herself to the teacher.

“It’s so boring! I don’t want to do homework!”

GM: “No, no, no,” says Anna. “You know what school is, young lady? Practice for life. And in life we have to do all sorts of things we don’t want to do. Someone who can’t buck up to that is a _child.”_

The crop delivers a hard, fast swat to Sylvia’s backside.

Victoria: She whimpers as the crop strikes her, her heart thumping inside her chest. What the hell?! What happened to Anna May Perry?!

“I—I’ll be a good girl! Promise!”

GM: The crop lightly taps against Sylvia’s swatted flesh.

“Did you know that corporal punishment is still legal in Louisiana schools?”

Victoria: “Is th-that why Louisiana has the best students?”

She relents.

“Ms. Perry, I’ve been a bad student. I understand. I need to be punished.”

GM: The crop swats Sylvia’s flank again.

“Minus five!” says Anna.

“No, that’s wrong. Louisiana has some of the worst performing students in the country. And you’re one of them!”

“I think you’re the worst performing student I’ve ever had.”

She sits down on the edge of the bed and pats her lap.

“Over my knee, young lady. Bottom up.”

Victoria: She begins to cry.

“I’m s-sorry, Ms. Perry!”

Reluctantly, she clambers to the edge of the bed, resting atop Anna’s lap chest-down.

“I’ll be a better student!”

GM: “I suppose we’ll just see,” says Anna, rubbing Sylvia’s struck bottom.

“Here’s how this is going to work. For every wrong answer, you get a spank. For every right answer, you get something nice.”

“We’ll start off easy,” she says, rubbing Sylvia’s bottom. “Now… what year was New Orleans founded?”

Victoria: The domme appears completely defeated. She hasn’t just given up. She wants to give up. What a role reversal!

“I—I…”

She swallows, nervous.

“Please don’t hit me! I… 1803!”

GM: There’s a pause.

Then: SMACK!

“That is the single WORST answer I have ever heard from a student!”

Victoria: “I’m s-s-sorry, Ms. Perry! I’m s-sorry!”

GM: “New Orleans was founded in 1718. That was such a bad answer we’re keeping your score in the negatives, now.”

“-1, young lady. You have a hole to dig your way out of.”

Victoria: “Y-yes Ms. Perry!”

Chakras has nothing on this.

GM: “Now, let’s try something else, since dates don’t seem to be your forte. New Orleans has been ruled by what three countries?”

Victoria: She swallows. Fuck, why didn’t shy pay more attention in class? Who knew it would come back to bite her—spank her—years later.

“Uh-uhm… France, and… the United States, and…”

“And…”

“…”

“…Sp… ain?”

GM: Anna rubs her bottom.

Victoria: She whimpers.

GM: “Very good. You’re at zero now.”

Victoria: “Thank you, Ms. Perry!”

GM: “Benjamin F. Butler, the Union general who oversaw New Orleans’ occupation during the Civil War, was nicknamed ‘Spoons.’ Why was this?”

Victoria: Oh, fuck. This is a hard one.

She can feel the warmth rising in that reddened skin, rushing to treat the wounds. She can feel the looming crop, hovering just above, ready to strike. She can feel Anna grinning down at her, reveling in that reversal.

“H-he…”

She swallows.

“H-he… he made his soldiers dig a trench with nothing but spoons!”

GM: There’s a sharp swat to her backside.

“Wrong!”

Victoria: She yelps!

“Fuck!”

GM: “And you know what else that wrong answer is, young lady?”

There’s a second, even sharper swat to her reddened backside.

“It’s DOUBLE wrong! You can’t dig trenches around New Orleans! It’s why we don’t have basements either!”

Victoria: Her backside is bristling against the cool air of the apartment!

She whines.

“Wh—what’s… the answer?”

GM: “Because he was accused of stealing silverware from the homes of wealthy citizens. He wasn’t a very popular man in the city.”

Anna rubs Sylvia’s reddened skin.

“Let’s try something easier. What are the three colors of Mardi Gras?”

Victoria: What the fuck? Come on, Sylvia! You can’t be so frazzled from this that you can’t remember the colors of fucking Mardi Gras!

Yet, she is.

“Red… and, uhm… green, and… yellow!”

GM: SMACK!

Victoria: “OUCH!”

She’s indistinguishable from a tomato.

GM: “I’m sorry, young lady, is your calendar wrong? Do you think it’s December to be telling me red and green?”

Victoria: “I wish Santa came at the same time as Mardi Gras!”

GM: There’s a lighter swat.

“Off-topic.”

Victoria: Sylvia snickers.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to be a distracting student.”

GM: “You’re hopeless,” sighs Anna, some of the authoritative tone slipping.

“Now. Describe, in brief, New Orleans’ involvement in the War of 1812.”

Victoria: “Wh—”

She hasn’t been asked a question like that since the long form essay of her junior year high school history exam!

Well, if Anna wants to be a brat…

“Ms. Perry,” she begins with a sudden confidence that’s indubitably telling, “we armed ourselves against the negro menace to prevent a hostile usurpation of the white man’s breeding rights. If not for those brave 1,812 souls who defended the sanctity of our bodies, why, you and I might just be plugged into a zoo somewhere carrying children of all colors of the ethnic rainbow.”

GM: Sylvia receives two very sharp smacks against her already reddened, sensitive skin for that.

Anna doesn’t need to say ‘double wrong.’

Victoria: She receives a double yelp in return.

Worth it.

“Uhm… do you still want an answer?”

GM: There’s a third sharp swat.

“How do you address me, young lady?”

Victoria: She whines.

“Ms. Perry.”

GM: “I suppose that depends. Do you still want a chance at getting off?”

“You seemed so unhappy I didn’t reciprocate.”

Victoria: Truthfully, Sylvia can be left unsatisfied right now and not complain. Anna is showing a side of her that she’s never seen before, and that she prays will be making a return.

But that won’t be fun for either of them!

“Pleeeease, Ms. Perry,” she mewls, rolling only enough to look back at her. “Would you give me just one more chance? I promise I’ll be the best student you’ve ever had!”

GM: “Okay, ONE more, for the one question you got right,” says Anna.

“1812. Real answer?”

Victoria: She draws a breath, already preparing for the inevitable swat. Sylvia is bright when it comes to her field and interests. Unfortunately, that does not overlap Anna’s specialty.

“It was… when the British came back, and they got fussy about who owns what in the United States.”

GM: “I asked what New Orleans’ involvement was,” reminds Anna.

Victoria: “U-uh…”

GM: Anna rubs Sylvia’s reddened ass cheeks.

“Oh, so sad.”

Victoria: The domme breathes a pathetic whine. In all her years at Chakras, in all the games they’d played after hours, she never fell quite this hard into her submissive side. Anna truly is a magical teacher.

“…please. Please. You can hit me all you want, just don’t leave!”

GM: “I don’t know, I’ve already hit you a lot of times,” says Anna, rubbing her tender cheeks.

“I think it’s lost its novelty.”

Victoria: She looks back at her, her internal gears turning. Anna’s never seen her this desperate.

GM: “And you’ve not been able to answer the question. I don’t think there’s much else we can do here.”

Victoria: Her face scrunches up.

“An—Ms. Perry…”

“Isn’t there anything I can do?”

GM: “I think you’ve failed out of my class, young lady. You’re getting held back if you don’t want summer school.”

Victoria: “UGH! You mean I’ll have to spend ANOTHER year with you?!”

GM: “Yep.”

Anna kisses her head.

“You’re stuck with me.”

Victoria: She rolls a little further, then hugs her.

GM: Anna laughs and hugs her back, rolling into bed with her.

“Okay,” she smiles, “now it is your turn…”