Eternal Ever After by A.C. James Page B

I’m going to have to fuck you. Then you’ll have something to fidget about. I can smell how turned on you are from here.-
    My mouth dropped open as his telepathy hit me, but I was too mortified to say anything. I looked away. It made sense that if their taste for food was enhanced, as Arie had hinted at during dinner, that their other senses were probably heightened as well. I stared at the pottery in front of me.
    We were seated in two oversized chairs facing her desk. The third floor was comprised of business offices, along with a few apartments for vampires who were permanent residents here or who worked for her. There were guest rooms for others that stayed on a more temporary basis. Few were ever privy to this inner sanctum. Arie had filled me in on all this while we waited, and I’d fidgeted through it all. It took deep breathing to focus on something else, and I decided to change the subject.
    “Tessa said she’s gone by many names. What did she mean by that?” I asked.
    “I’ve known Tessa a long time.”
    “How long?”
    “In the 19 th century she went by the name Theresa Berkley and earned her keep as an English dominatrix. She ran a brothel on Hallem Street in London and invented the chevalet or Berkley Horse. It’s that piece of equipment you saw that man flogged on downstairs. She’s quite imaginative, but then what else would you do with infinite time?”
    “Why change her name to Tessa?”
    “It is decreed that vampires must not live in one place longer than twenty years, and we must change our identities. That way our slowly progressing appearance, which to humans seems unchanging, doesn’t give us away. In 1836 she changed identities with the help of her medical attendant and executor. He took care of the necessary documentation and the burial of an empty coffin. She’s been going by Tessa ever since, but changes her surname frequently.”
    “Has she ever been caught?”
    Arie smiled almost to himself. Nevertheless, he answered the question in a dismissive tone. “The only one of her escapades on record made the newspapers in London during the summer of 1988. An unknown woman picked up at least six men in the Soho section. After she returned home with a victim, she slipped drugs into his drink. While he lay unconscious, she cut his wrist and sucked his blood. Or at least that’s what the papers reported. They never disclosed the bite marks. She never did get arrested. It was a really dull, hot summer and she got bored.” Arie shrugged.
    I gulped. I wasn’t sure what to say to that, but I suspected I’d have to get used to this sort of thing if I wanted to be a part of it. Be a part of Arie’s world, and maybe one day spend an eternity…
    “Besides, they were all womanizers that would have otherwise never been punished,” Tessa said from the doorway of the office. She leaned on the frame while drinking from a wine glass filled with a burgundy-colored substance. “That’s why my infractions were forgiven when I went before the Court. But you leave out all the best parts. You didn’t tell the girl who I really am.”
    I practically hit the ceiling from her abrupt appearance. She sauntered to the damask wing chair behind her desk, carelessly placing her wine glass on top of a book on its surface. Droplets spilled on the expanse of the desk as she took a seat.
    A Cheshire Cat smile curved her lips. She reached out a manicured finger to wipe up a drop, which she sucked from her finger. My mouth felt like a desert, and words failed me. Tessa propped her feet, still clad in thigh-high gauntlet boots, on the desk.
    “I used to be a famous hetaera, a courtesan, and I am one of the oldest and strongest vampires remaining. I am an Ancient, and a ruling member of the Legacy. I was born in Greece in 308 BC, but my name then was Thais,” she said.
    “So you’re older than Arie,” I said, fishing for information.
    “He’s got about two hundred years on me, don’t you Arie?”
    Arie glared