The Trouble With Hairy, page 44
part #2 of West Hollywood Vampires Series
“I’ve heard so much about you!” Sylvia had said in a lilting Italian accent and clasped Burman’s right hand in both of her surprisingly cool ones. “I cannot thank you enough for your help last fall,” she continued. She looked deeply into Burman’s eyes with real concern. “I understand,” she said, “that you lost some sentimental things?”
Burman could only nod in response. The woman was unaccountably fascinating.
“Many times,” Sylvia said, shaking her head with genuine sorrow, “I have shared similar losses. Too many to number.”
Burman mentally adjusted her appraisal of the woman’s age several hundred years upwards.
“My grandmother’s china,” Burman finally said. “Some antiques that had been in the family for…well, awhile,” she finished, uncertain how ancient furniture would have to be before Sylvia would consider it old.
“So very difficult,” Sylvia commiserated. Then, her face was lit by a radiant smile.
“I know it’s not much,” she continued, “but if you will allow us…” She pressed a small item into Pamela’s hand. “As a gesture of good will and appreciation.”
Pamela looked down and blinked in awe. She was holding a small cameo bearing a likeness, unless her eyes were mistaken, of the woman who stood before her. It was laid into a gold setting edged with sparkling rubies. Burman looked at Sylvia, speechless.
“The brooch was made by the apprentice of a very dear friend I knew in my breathing days.” A small smile crossed her lips at the memory.
“As far as I know, this was his only attempt at jewelry, although he became quite well known as a painter in his later years.”
“It’s magnificent,” Burman breathed. “Who…?”
Sylvia smiled, mischievously. “I won’t spoil it by name dropping.” She examined the brooch critically and her eyes glazed with memory briefly. “Suffice it to say,” she added with a look of sad longing, “he was quite bewitched by me and I by him.” She shook away the reminiscence with a toss of her hair. “The setting once belonged to a Russian aristocrat I was acquainted with,” she told Burman. Sylvia sighed and her attractive brow wrinkled with distaste. “She was an insufferable woman, astonishingly ugly. But she had the most magnificent jewelry.”
“I can’t…” Burman stammered.
“Nonsense,” Sylvia replied, closing Burman’s hand around the trinket. “It’s the least we can do. Now,” she said, an impish grin crossing her face. “I see Hercule over there, looking absolutely miserable in that suit.”
She turned back to Burman, her expression having become positively devilish. “He’s been flirting all evening. Poor Lillian. I can’t resist the opportunity to needle.” With another quick squeeze of Burman’s hand, she was gone, gliding across the room in a sparkle of black silk and glittering diamonds.
“That,” Burman commented to Chris, “is one helluva lady!”
“If you only knew,” Chris murmured in response.
Burman shot him a keen glance, decided that she’d had quite enough cultural diversity for one evening, and retreated into the familiar rites of bullying the staff and making sure that the tables had been properly set up for the reception.
All in all, the West Hollywood Parks and Services Department had outdone themselves, setting up fifteen tables laden with food and drink, and decorating the auditorium with lavender crepe paper and balloons, lavender being the unofficial “official” city color. Even Chris’ friend, Hanna Bromberg, no slouch in the kitchen herself, was impressed by the lavish spread, clucking in awe over the prettily arranged, sumptuous feast. And those of the guests whose nature enabled them to do so ate and drank with abundant gusto. At the end of the evening, when he was presented with the bill, Chris’ eyebrows rose nearly to the top of his head; but he wrote out the check without comment.
The actual signing of the domestic partnership license was accompanied with appropriate pomp and ceremony. Pamela and Carlos had debated for weeks whether he or Shanda should be the one to appear in front of the gathered throng. Pamela had voted for Shanda, even though her participation would be the more likely to draw Ed Larsen and the rest of the gay press. But Carlos had resolved to marry Louis as himself, and despite heavy pressure from his boss, he finally managed, to the astonishment of the entire city, to get his way.
He was resplendent in a flawless white tuxedo. Although Larsen and company searched for the hint of a diamond earring or bracelet, or better yet, the glimpse of a high heel or nylon stocking, they searched in vain. Carlos was dressed entirely as a man, not tempted a bit to indulge Shanda for a second. Louis wore a similar outfit in charcoal gray. Burman beamed with pride as she escorted Carlos down the center aisle of folding chairs toward the stage, a tear in her eye as she relinquished him into Louis’ keeping.
Clive Anderson had passed the intervening two weeks with barely controlled eagerness, hinting that he would not be adverse to being the werewolf’s best man. At the ceremony, he looked even better, if possible, than the marital couple, dazzlingly handsome in dove grey trousers and matching jacket. In fact, Louis had first asked Troy to be best man, but Chris had roundly and stubbornly vetoed the idea to Troy’s great disappointment, insisting that Clive’s feelings would be hurt should Troy oust him. The two of them sat, with Becky between them, Chris looking embarrassed while the other two sobbed loudly into their hankies.
Once Louis and Carlos had taken their vows and the reception had gotten underway, Chris’ reticence at having Troy involved in the ceremony was explained, quietly and privately, with only Burman, Becky and Clive in attendance. As Troy was cruising the crowd, and before he could get as drunk as he could in the shortest possible time, Chris grabbed his arm and hauled him out into the courtyard off the Great Hall where the other three were waiting.
“What’s wrong?” Troy asked as Chris thrust him through the doorway out into the warm evening air.
“Nothing, monkey. Just bear with me.”
Troy meekly complied, his confusion deepening when he saw the captain, the coroner and the city manager waiting by a folding table, barely suppressing secret smiles. Becky, Chris was pleased to notice, was balancing two plates of wedding cake in one hand, holding a fork in the other, and had a small smidgeon of white icing on the tip of her nose. The vampire smiled in satisfaction, at the sight of the food knowing that, thanks to him, the emotional wounds she’d so recently suffered had already healed completely.
As Chris dragged Troy over to the table and planted him firmly in front of it, he pondered at the fragility of the normals. True, he thought, without wounds, one could not scar. And, without healing, it was difficult to grow. But there was some growth that was malignant. At least, Chris thought, I’ve spared her that. Had he done wrong, he wondered. But then he looked at his friend, happily devouring her cake and remembered the look of hopeless despair on her face when she had told him, “It doesn’t matter. Nothing does,” and he supposed he had managed to turn something horrible into something good after all.
Rape, she had called it. Chris still felt guilty at that. But, perhaps, her happiness could make up for the guilt he would feel for the rest of his nights. He’d lived with guilt about many things for more than two centuries; he could certainly endure a little more.
But, tonight, he could atone. For some of it at least. He had unknowingly hurt the one person who meant more to him than any other creature who walked the face of the earth. Tonight, he could make amends. If his own happiness increased as a result, so much the better.
Pamela Burman stepped forward with a smile.
“Troy Raleigh,” she began. “By the power vested in me by the City of West Hollywood, the Lesbian and Gay Advisory Council, the West Hollywood City Council, the Chamber of Commerce and every other goddamned group in the city, I hereby present you with the Rainbow Flag Award.”
She thrust forward a small box. Troy opened it and gaped in wonder at the small, sequined rainbow flag within.
“That’s the highest honor in the city, Troy,” she added.
Becky used Troy’s momentary absorption with his treasure to sidle up to Burman and whisper, “The Rainbow what? I never…”
“Shhh,” Burman hissed at her, moving aside to prevent the coroner from getting wedding cake on the navy blue trim of her chartreuse and burnt orange dress. “I had to come up with something. Just keep quiet.”
Troy looked up in delight, having missed the interplay between the other two. “Wow!” he said, as close to speechless as it was within his nature to be.
“There’s more, monkey,” Chris said tenderly.
With a flourish, Burman produced an impressively bordered sheet of paper and placed it down on the table.
“Do you, Christopher Driscoll, take Troy Raleigh as your destined mate?” she asked. “To love and honor, to keep and hold, until true death do you part?”
“I do,” Chris said firmly.
Burman turned to Troy. “Do you, Troy Raleigh…” But Troy cut her off.
He turned to Chris, with an expression of happy shock. “You’re marrying me?” he asked in disbelief.
Chris nodded. “You’re a pain in the ass, monkey. Totally helpless, infinitely irritating and a terrible flirt.” He paused and smiled. “There’s no one else I’d rather spend the rest of my life with.”
“Goddamnit,” Burman said irritably. “Don’t interrupt me. Do you, Troy Raleigh…”
“I do!” Troy cried, “I do! I do! I do!” He flung himself into Chris’ arms, planting his lips firmly against the vampire’s.
“Oh, screw it,” Burman said in disgust. “Just sign here.”
She pushed the paper forward and Troy grabbed the pen from her hand and scribbled his signature as quickly as possible, thrusting the pen out toward Chris when he was finished. Smiling, Chris took it from him and signed his own name, much more sedately. He was about to hand the pen back to Burman, but Troy grabbed it from his hand.
“Hey!” Burman cried. “That’s my good Mount Blanc!”
“I want to keep it,” Troy said simply, gazing adoringly up at Chris.
“Oh, have the frigging thing bronzed if you want, for Christ’s sake,” said Burman. “I’m going back in to the party.” She turned on her heel and prepared to stalk back in to terrorize the assembled guests.
“Bronzed, Pamela?” Becky asked mischievously. “Or silver plated?”
Burman shot her a deadly glare. “Very funny,” she snapped. “Now, if you all don’t mind, I’ve got another pair of newlyweds to see off. I’m sending them to Hawaii for two weeks. I’m told Maui has a frigging mongoose problem of all things, so at least they’ll both be well fed. But, God help them if they miss the flight. They’re non-refundable tickets.” She vanished back into the auditorium in a cloud of chartreuse, orange and blue silk.
“Well,” said Clive, “vampires, werewolves, what next?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Becky, her mouth full of wedding cake. “Ghouls, demons, Frankenstein’s monster, maybe.”
Clive looked at her askance, unable to determine whether or not she was serious. As a bit of icing smudged her chin, he pulled out a grey silk handkerchief and wiped it off.
“Becky,” he said, “please don’t do this to me.” A wicked grin was her only response.
“Speaking of honeymoons,” Troy said, eyeing Chris with undisguised lust, “don’t you think it’s time we toddled off, dear?”
“Where?” said Chris, feigning ignorance.
“If you don’t know after fifty-some years…” Troy said, a gleam in his eye. And, so saying, he grabbed Chris’ arm, and as Becky and Clive waved goodbye, the two lovers vanished into the night.
THE END
Also by Hal Bodner from Crossroad Press
BITE CLUB
Welcome to West Hollywood. The Creative City. Liberal and welcoming. Free from discrimination and hatred. A safe place to live if you’re gay.
But West Hollywood isn’t safe anymore…
Someone in town has a macabre passion for beautiful young men. Healthy, gym-toned male bodies keep turning up, tortured, drained of blood, missing parts and quite, quite dead. Someone is using the Creative City as a canvas of gruesome, sadistic creativity. Someone is using West Hollywood as a warped psychotic playground. Someone… or some thing.
WeHo City Coroner Becky O’Brien is helpless to stop the accumulation of gym-toned corpses. At the end of her investigative rope, Becky calls upon the aid of an old college friend, Christopher Driscoll, who is an expert on serial killers. Rushing to her aid, Chris arrives in WeHo with his quirky boyfriend Troy in tow. Prowling the dark alleys and cruisy bars of WeHo in search of the psychotic fiend, the trio soon realizes that something possibly not human has taken up residence in Boys' Town—something with an insatiable hunger for the flesh and blood of hot young men.
Following the trail of mangled corpses, Becky has another realization — nothing is what it seems. Even her old friend Chris has secrets…dark secrets.
Accompanied by the compulsively orderly Sheriff’s Captain, Clive Anderson, and West Hollywood’s irritable and outrageous octogenarian City Manager, Pamela Burman, Becky soon discovers the ominous truth behind the creature stalking West Hollywood’s pristine streets.
Sexy, scary, and very, very funny, Bite Club is a macabre black comedy that'll have you screaming bloody murder.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
Hal Bodner, The Trouble With Hairy
