Welcome, new readers! Please be advised that this first chapter of the Compulsion series is not continuous with the rest of the story. It was published much earlier, and essentially it's a non-canonical exploratory short from which evolved the broader narrative that begins properly in chapter two.
I considered taking this part down, but ultimately decided to preserve it for posterity and because people seemed to like it for what it was: a simple vignette featuring nascent versions of the vampire and her willing victim. If you are looking for a more polished, novel-like experience with overarching story and character development, you may feel free to skip this part and start with the second chapter instead.
Hope you enjoy the show.
-MSL
*
Ten months into our arrangement, and I still couldn't help but hesitate before I let myself into Adrian's study. I checked my phone, touched up my makeup, and straightened the hem of my skirt; I reached for the doorknob, and then ran my fingers across the tangle of scars at my throat instead. I'd healed since last time, but they were still sensitive. That light brush alone was enough to send a shock through my veins and jolt me out of my vacillation. Portfolio clutched firmly under my arm, I opened the door.
My gaze went straight to her. It always did. In the dim lighting, reclining on a chaise longue with her usual languor, she reminded me of a woman in a Renaissance painting. Except Titian wouldn't have painted her so thin or so pale. That would've been his mistake, I reflected. The chiaroscuro was striking on the harsh angles of her features.
Titian also probably wouldn't have painted her in jeans and Ray-Bans, of course.
Portrait of the immortal in the 21st century,
I titled her in my head.
She was speaking to Lana, her personal assistant, who was typing dutifully away. "Can we move that flight forward? Either that or move the next one back. Celine just told me her launch party is that weekend, and I'd like to be in town. Come in, Grace," Adrian greeted me, without skipping a beat, although my heart definitely did. Her voice was like a fishhook in my mind. I took an involuntary step forward and tripped over the edge of the rug, dropping my portfolio.
"Sorry," she said, rather insincerely. "Didn't mean to do that. Just one moment." She continued narrating to Lana. I snatched up my portfolio, placed it and my purse on the coffee table, and planted myself in a plush chair. Safer than standing.
Lana typed a few last notes. "Good evening, Grace," she said as she closed her laptop and turned to face me. The desk lamp behind her, the only source of light in the room, turned her steely-grey hair to silver and cast into bas-relief the gentle creases of her features. She was human, like all of Adrian's staff, though a bit older and more masculine-of-center than the average model. "You're early."
"Sorry. If I'm interrupting, I can come back in five...?"
"Oh, no. She owes me a break anyway." She stood and brushed the imaginary wrinkles out of her crisp white button-up. "It's just that if someone—" she shot a look at Adrian—"had told me that you were outside, I'd have let you in."
"I was in the middle of a thought." Adrian's low, dry voice took on a note of amusement. "And Grace is perfectly capable of letting herself in."
"Of course I am." The words tumbled from my lips unbidden. Adrian grinned and adjusted her sunglasses. Lana rolled her eyes.
"Well, I'll go get started on the new schedule." Lana made her way to the door. "The last one was finally starting to fall into place, too..."
Adrian sat bolt upright. "Oh, that reminds me—could you give Sasha a call and get her back on the roster? She cancelled last time because of—"
"The whole thing in Italy, yeah, yeah, I remember. Add that to my list."
"And if you think of it, could you get in touch with that Toronto gallery about—"
"Adrian." Lana tapped a wing-tipped toe impatiently against the rug. "It can wait."
Adrian leant back into the chaise longue. "Mm. Give me an hour?"
Lana smiled wryly. "Double or nothing."
Adrian's laugh was as captivating as her voice; a sympathetic giggle slipped from me before I could stop it. "Fine," she said. "You drive a hard bargain, you know?"
"That's what you pay me for." Lana let herself out of the study. The door clicked shut behind her, and Adrian and I were alone. A shiver ran up my spine and my scars twinged faintly.
"Sorry about all that, Grace. It's been mayhem," Adrian said, sitting up properly. When she raked her back her short, dark hair and leant forward over the portfolio on the coffee table, there was a nobility about her profile that reminded me of Roman statuary. "But mayhem can wait, as Lana says. May I?"
She turned to me and I could feel the stifling weight of her gaze, even from behind the dark lenses. But she couldn't exert her compulsion when she was asking rather than telling. It was up to me to grant her request. To invite her in.
"Of course. I brought them for you," I said, although my heart pounded as she lifted the cover of the portfolio to reveal my drawings. Her hands on my work... there was always something uniquely nerve-racking about it. As she leafed through the selection, drinking in the images and brushing her fingers down the edges of the paper, it was as if it was me she was holding, appraising, drinking. I shifted in my overstuffed seat. It wasn't that I didn't want her to. I just didn't want her to find me lacking.
"Grace," she said, startling me out of my musing. "These are wonderful. Really, really good." Her voice was energized, as though just looking at my work had renewed her. I flushed at the praise.
"I'm so relieved you like them. I know they're different. I've been trying to take my gestures in a new direction—"
"Yes," she cut me off absent-mindedly, flipping back through the portfolio to my sketches. "Yes, they're less art nouveau, more art deco. Stylized, streamlined, but with a liveliness to them..." A long, pale finger traced the limbs of a half-inked ballet dancer. "Lovely. I can't wait to see her finished." Her smile widened, revealing the points of her long canines. I squeezed the arms of my chair and my breath hitched, just a tiny bit, but of course it didn't escape her notice. Her hearing was even sharper than her teeth.
I forged ahead, pretending I wasn't acutely aware of my pulse beating under my scars. "I think I'll be ready to show by April, if nothing else comes up."
"Hm." She leaned into the chaise again. "I'm sure I can make that work." Back into her reclining position, hands behind her head, deep in thought. "Grace. Come sit with me."
Fishhooks again. I was on my feet before I'd even had a chance to register her words. Tall as she was, she took up the whole length of the chaise, which left me with no choice but to sit on her lap. Her hands were all over my legs as she adjusted me so that I was straddling her; my skirt rode up just enough to accommodate the position. She pulled her knees up a bit so that I could lean back against her thighs, and that also meant that the seam of her jeans bunched up and rubbed against me in a very sensitive place. I suppressed a gasp.
Adrian let out a whisper of a laugh, and I echoed it. I leaned forward, rocking against the point of pressure, and traced the edge of her jaw with my hand. We were a study in contrasts, I thought with a thrill, even moreso than the dark and pale of her own hair and skin. There was a sweeter juxtaposition between the chalky whiteness of her and the rosy flush of me; the softness of my thighs and the sharpness of her hipbones; the hot wetness between my legs and the chill of her breath against my wrist. She leaned into my hand like an affectionate cat, and I shuddered as the feathery touch of her lips became the pricking of fangs. I closed my eyes and squeezed my legs around her, still rocking back and forth, holding my breath as I waited for the breaking of skin.
Instead, she intertwined her fingers with mine and held my hand against her cheek. "You're so warm," she sighed. "And the scent of you.... You do know how you tempt me, Grace."
"I do," I breathed, grinding against her as I leaned in. Her lips were only inches from mine. Our breaths mingled—a hot front meeting a cold one.
