Futile Flame Read online

  I felt a cool breeze on my bare legs. The illusion was so vivid, I imagined him opening my bodice, laying bare my breasts as his mouth found my nipple until I groaned louder. Then the pressure was gone, the touch had left me.

  I woke and found Caesare stripping away his clothing as he stood over me. I was naked; my clothing lay in a neat pile beside me. I felt stunned as the remains of his clothes fell next to mine and he lay beside me. His lips and tongue trailed across my breasts and I floated back into the dream state, captivated by the pleasure of it.

  He gasped against my bare nipple. ‘So beautiful.’

  I was awake this time and aware of what was happening, but desire drove me. I wanted that feeling again, wanted my orgasm against his mouth.

  ‘Oh my God,’ I groaned.

  I couldn’t stop him now, even if I had wanted, and I didn’t want. I needed him. Blood rushed to my face, my nails dug into his buttocks. I whimpered softly at first, but my cries grew louder as we approached the moment of fulfilment. As I came with him I knew we should never do this again, but wondered how I could ever resist him.

  ‘I love you Luci,’ he gasped, his head against my breast as he poured inside me.

  His words terrified me, but not as much as the pained obsessive expression that filled his eyes as he gazed down into my face.

  I turned my head away and glanced at the empty bottles of champagne. What had I done? What was going to become of us? I stroked his hair as he wrapped his arms around me and cried. I knew then, he was more afraid than I was. The act had excited me in a different way; it made me feel strong. It was as though his desire for me gave me a power over my brother. I think this is why I allowed our relationship to continue.

  Chapter 6 – Present

  Lover Revealed

  I remain silent as Lucrezia stops speaking. She stands and stretches like a cat. She looks out of the window onto the street as a passing Mercedes slows and turns into the drive next door. I realise how difficult this story is for her to tell, but I find even harder the revelation that she encouraged her brother; that she wanted him to make love to her; that she willingly entered into an incestuous relationship with him.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I ask.

  She sighs deeply, running her hand across her forehead. ‘I need to stop for a while.’

  ‘Of course. Can I get you anything?’

  It is ironic how our roles are reversed. I see that this is not lost on her as she gives me an amused smile.

  ‘I’ve never voiced this,’ she says, wrapping her arms around her body.

  ‘Yes,’ I agree. ‘But maybe you needed to?’

  She nods.

  ‘My life was very different then, as you can see. But I shan’t attempt to justify my actions, merely express the facts.’

  ‘We have both lived many lives; I’m not here to make any judgement.’

  My mobile phone rings suddenly in my pocket. It is a quirky tune, Black And Gold by a singer called Sam Sparro. Lilly put it on my phone because she loved the song. We’d danced to it one night in a hotel room in Rome, as the video played on MTV.

  ‘And now we are back in the present.’ Lucrezia laughs, breaking my momentary reverie.

  I smile at her while retrieving my phone from my pocket. It’s Lilly. She’ll be wondering where I am. We have barely been apart in over a year. I lied to her about where I was going. I stare at the screen as it rings.

  ‘Aren’t you going to answer?’

  I shake my head, unsure what to do. It stops ringing as I am about to press receive. I stare blankly at the missed call message.

  ‘Mmmm,’ Lucrezia smiles. ‘She’ll be wondering what you’re doing.’

  I stand and walk to the door. ‘Maybe I should come back later?’

  ‘Why not bring her?’ Lucrezia looks at me sincerely. ‘I’ve known about her all along, since her re-birth. I felt it.’

  I open my mouth to speak but cannot find words. Lilly is my secret, my lover, my companion. How do I discuss that with someone who amounts to my ex-lover, however briefly?

  ‘She doesn’t know about you,’ I say finally.

  ‘Ah.’

  I flounder, wondering what to do and my phone rings again, shaking me from my confusion. I answer quickly this time.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Hi,’ she answers uncertainly. ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘No, my darling. I just missed your call, that’s all.’

  She doesn’t believe me. ‘Oh?’

  ‘Have you checked in for us yet?’ I ask, wondering if I sound too perky.

  ‘Yes. There now. Waiting for you.’ Her tone drops, and I respond immediately to the sexual urgency in her voice. ‘Have you dealt with the “business” you had to attend to yet? Only, like I said, I’m waiting.’ She hangs up, leaving me dangling, and I ache for her as always.

  I close my phone and turn to Lucrezia.

  ‘You have to go,’ she says.

  ‘Yes. But I need to know more. We have barely touched the surface of your story.’

  ‘True.’ She shivers. ‘But, it will be long in the telling, I feel.’

  I glance at my phone again, feeling the urge to turn it off, and sit again waiting patiently for her story to unfold.

  ‘But it can wait,’ Lucrezia continues. ‘Lovers often don’t like to.’

  I sit, making the decision. ‘I’m not ready to go yet. It will all be fine if I take my time. I’m not so insecure to think that she will leave me if I’m a few hours late.’

  Lucrezia laughs, then sits opposite me. ‘Send her a text to say you’ll be delayed then. That’s what they do in this century and it seems so acceptable, doesn’t it?’

  I smile. We understand each other so well and our mutual contempt for the manners of the modern world is just one small thing we share. We have a history together, after all. I suppose more than that, we are history. I switch off my phone.

  ‘I will stay a little longer if you feel you can continue.’

  ‘Good. But now it’s your turn. I would like to know about your life. I want to know about her.’

  ‘Lilly,’ I state.

  ‘A beautiful name,’ Lucrezia says and I meet her eyes. Eyes that are so like my lover’s that it makes my heart ache.

  ‘She is a lot like you.’

  ‘Will I meet her?’ Lucrezia asks.

  ‘Soon.’

  Chapter 7 – Present

  Loving Lilly

  ‘Luxury is just too easy to get used to.’

  I lean back into the comfortable leather passenger seat of Lilly’s shiny black Aston Martin convertible. The hardtop roof is slicked back into the boot. Lilly’s hair writhes around the headrest of the driver’s seat in the wind. She likes the car despite her aversion to ostentation. I smile briefly at the irony and at the change in her.

  ‘Yes. It is.’ I reach a hand over to her lovely slender leg, stroke down the cream coloured skirt until I find the bare flesh I’m seeking.

  ‘Behave. Unless you want me to crash?’ Lilly laughs, throwing back her honey hair.

  She’s had it straightened, cut shorter, part of the change of image for our new existence. We are Mr and Mrs Gabriele Caccini. After years of hiding it, I felt it might be interesting to use my original name. My sources at the passport offices, the birth and marriage registrars, various bank clerks who are well paid to move money electronically for me, don’t care. They would never even assume that this was my real identity. My money buys real documents, real identities and real loyalty.

  Technology is an amazing thing. It has become easier, not harder, to be who I wish. All I need to do is to create records of movements, credit history, bogus trips through customs. So straightforward. So easy when you have the money, because in any century that is all that most people care about.

  My hand slips farther up her thigh, finds the soft folds beneath. She rarely wears underwear, but something silky greets my fingertips. She squirms, a smile playing across her face.

  ‘Please...�
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  I pull my hand away, taking pity on the other road users. A crash will not kill us, but it may harm others and draw unnecessary attention to us. My fingers tingle from touching her skin and I raise them slowly to my lips, licking her essence from the tips.

  ‘You’re outrageous,’ she says, but her eyes are on fire with mutual lust for me.

  ‘I know.’

  She brushes her skirt back in place taking a deep gulping breath. ‘I’m still not used to it.’

  ‘I don’t know, you seem to have a lot of skill.’ I smile.

  Her look quells me. ‘You know what I mean. Your touch is electric.’

  ‘Yours is to me.’

  ‘It feels different then? To when you have been with others?’

  I raise an eyebrow, surprised. Is my darling jealous? I like the thought.

  ‘There are no other women that could compare to you, Lilly.’

  A slight smile fights to spread from the corners of her mouth. It’s the expression she has when she doesn’t want me to know she’s pleased with me. We’ve been together for a year now, and I’ve never been happier. I’ve lived a hundred lives; changed my name, my hair, my age, my religion, all to suit the style and conventions of the time. Now I find I have a future with a beautiful woman who loves me. This is a new experience. This is all I have ever wanted.

  Lilly steers the car around a sharp bend. I watch her face as she concentrates. Even her serious expressions are compellingly addictive. She is the biggest rush I have ever had.

  ‘Are you going to explain?’ she asks.

  I don’t reply.

  ‘You’ve been dragging me all over Europe for the last few months. It’s clear that we are supposed to be looking for something... or someone. Then you disappear for hours and don’t tell me where you are. I could be very suspicious and suspect there is another woman.’

  I keep my eyes on the road ahead, but feel her looking at me. I don’t flush with guilt. A lifetime of experience hiding my emotions pays its dividends at that moment. We join the long line of traffic that takes us around Piccadilly towards our hotel. Lilly navigates the road perfectly and I relax again in my seat, hoping she won’t pursue her earlier questions. I’m too uncertain of everything.

  Lilly sighs. Her irritation permeates the air like a gust of invisible dust.

  ‘Okay. Don’t tell me then.’

  A black limousine swerves in front of us, almost taking off the front bumper, but Lilly negotiates the road like an experienced racing driver. Like her other instincts, her reflexes are faultless. She knows I am holding back from her. But what can I tell her when I am uncertain of the facts myself? Lucrezia has yet to finish her story and I have not yet understood why our origins are so important to the success of reproduction. Or, what diabolical creature we encountered that sucked the very energy from our bodies by its mere proximity.

  Lilly pulls up outside the hotel, jumping from her seat as she snatches the keys from the ignition and throws them to the concierge in one fluid movement. I place a fifty pound note in his hand on top of the keys.

  ‘Why is it we’re back in Manchester?’ Lilly asks again, her smile cynical. ‘You did say you wouldn’t set foot in this town after last time.’

  ‘Yes. I also recall that I added “unless I was going to finish off the flea-bitten Nate and break more than his grubby finger bones”.’

  I feel myself scowling at the thought of Nate and Steve and their meddling. On my first visit here I posed as a student at Manchester University. I had been stalking my latest fascination, Carolyn. Who was, unfortunately, dating a lout called Steve. Steve and his pierced and tattooed friend, Nate (of the unwashed variety) meddled a little too closely in my affairs. In a moment of anger I revealed my vampiric nature. This, of course, meant that Lilly and I had to leave immediately. I swore I’d return and finish the job one day.

  Lilly laughs, linking her arm in mine as the lift doors close and we begin our ascent to the top floor. I find myself grinning back at her flowing smile, before I lean in to kiss her blood-filled lips. She giggles under my mouth. She always has a way of manipulating me from my moods and her über feminine giggle makes my pulse race in a far more satisfying way than it ever has.

  This time, however, I sense something else in her laughter; an undercurrent. My old paranoia, my fear of losing her, kicks in once more and I scan her beautiful face looking for any sign that she doesn’t love me.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘You. Your elephant memory and lust for vendetta. I am a little curious though to see if Carolyn and Steve got jiggy, eventually.’ She laughs. ‘She was so annoyingly virginal.’

  ‘I remember.’ I leer and Lilly punches my arm.

  The lift jolts as it stops. We walk a short way down the dimly lit corridor until I see the room number that corresponds with the swipe key in my hand. I take Lilly’s hand in mine and smile at her.

  ‘Seriously though. Why here? Why now?’

  ‘I’ll explain everything soon, darling.’ As soon as it becomes clear in my own head.

  ‘Thought we weren’t doing secrets anymore.’

  Secrets. Now, there’s a word. For the past year we’ve travelled. A trip back to Italy taking in Venice, Rome, Florence, Turin. All cities where I could search for Lucrezia or my family line, although of course Lilly thought it was merely a tour to bring her up to speed with my past. Now she knows everything. How my uncle was Giulio Caccini, the composer and musician who invented Opera. She learned of my passionate obsession with my cousin Francesca, Giulio’s daughter. Then, as I broke down in a hotel in Verona, I revealed how I loved my children so much I gave them up for their own safety. Lilly knows my secrets – mostly. She doesn’t know that the travel was an excuse to search; search for the woman who made me into a vampire over four hundred years ago.

  ‘It’s complicated.’

  Lilly frowns as I swipe the card down the door scanner and the green light flicks on to allow us access to the room. I reach inside and flip the light switch out of habit, even though neither of us needs the light. We can see perfectly well in the dark.

  The room lights up. It’s a suite. We always do everything in style and despite Lilly’s aversion to luxury she has begun to come around to my way of thinking. This part of the room is a sitting area. There is a huge flat screen television facing a beige chaise longue, which is both alike and unlike the black and red ones we saw in the reception as we arrived. The hotel is a gothic dream for those of us who like it... and I do, I must admit.

  Lilly throws her handbag down on the chaise longue as I go to investigate the rest of the suite. To the right is a door that leads into a toilet, black and white, beautifully designed; I smile in approval as I look through the door. Lilly kicks off her shoes and puts her feet up on the coffee table, but I refuse to let her unladylike behaviour bait me as I head through the archway that leads to the bedroom. Here there is another television at the bottom of the bed on a rich mahogany unit with a DVD player and stereo: all the media conveniences any visitor could want. The bed is plush, covered in rich brown and cream cloth, with cushions resting on the brown velvet-covered headboard. Either side of the bed are two mahogany side tables. To my left is another mahogany unit, bigger than the one holding the television. I open it to find a fridge and safe. As I close it I spot two more doors, one leading to a full sized bathroom, again in black and white, which contains a bath as well as separate double shower cubicle. Good. We’ll make use of both...

  I see my hand luggage in the corner and lift it onto the bed. I withdraw my favoured candles to place them around the room. In the reception room, I hear Lilly turn on the television. The blare of different pieces of music and snatches of speech echoes through the wall as she flicks through the channels. I reach inside my pocket to pull out a lighter. Flicking it alight I go from one candle to the other until they are all lit. Twelve of them, all scented with vanilla.

  Lilly peeps in through the alcove as I open the mini-bar and remove
a bottle of chilled champagne. Her eyes grow round as she looks at the candlelit room.

  ‘What’s all this?’

  The champagne cork pops free with a shrug of my thumb and forefinger and the foam bursts forth faster than the tiny glass can cope with it.

  ‘A celebration. We’ve been together a year.’

  It seems absurd that we can gain so much pleasure out of the thought of drinking Champagne. It is a luxury after all. We can’t get drunk, a momentary tingle is all we will experience from the wine, but still a tiny flush appears in Lilly’s pale cheeks. It is both pleasure and vague embarrassment.

  ‘Of course I know that,’ she whispers. ‘Shocked that you do.’

  ‘Why?’ Her blush calls to me; my cock feels like it is drawn in her direction by some will of its own.

  ‘Because, I guess it just surprises me that you have such awareness of time, when you have an abundance of it.’

  She moves into the room as I had hoped she would and glides to the bed, sitting down on the edge; her cream wrap-over skirt parts and I glimpse the flesh coloured hold-up stocking top that I adore so much. She makes no move to cover her bare thigh and I fall forward, hurriedly placing the champagne bottle and glass on the bedside table. My hand is on her leg and she runs her fingers swiftly up my arm, squeezing, feeling the muscles that ripple beneath the fabric of my shirt.

  ‘Mmmm. I never tire of feeling your strength, Gabriele.’

  ‘Now can I make love to you?’ I laugh.

  As Lilly falls into a deep sleep, I slip quietly out of the room.

  ‘Doors,’ she murmurs as I leave, and I love that sometimes she talks in her sleep.

  Closing the suite door quietly behind me, I move into the night, heading once more for Lucrezia and her tales of the past.

  Chapter 8 – Lucrezia’s Story

  Affair

  Caesare took me riding often and our affair continued unchecked, unnoticed by anyone. Sometimes, he would sneak into my room at night and make love to me while everyone slept. At first, not even our father suspected that our new friendship was unseemly, was anything more than a normal brother-sister relationship. During the day we played games like children, and I suppose we were. I was only fifteen and Caesare just a few years older. I took to dressing as a boy. We’d ride out of the gates, while I was disguised as a squire, riding astride a horse. Rumours of our exploits began to be whispered in scandalised voices in the halls of the Vatican. My nosy servant girl giggled when she caught me changing from my boy’s clothing into a more appropriate evening dress of silk and lace. But it didn’t stop. I think, in some way, I was in love with Caesare, certainly infatuated. More than anything, I was enjoying the freedom that our relationship gave me.