Chapter Text
On Boulevard Saint-Germain, situated between darkened cafés and shops, squatted a grubby little bar. Its windows were clouded with grime and a thinned white paint, which its patrons used to obscure themselves from the leering, curious stares of drunken passers by and the police, who prowled the street with their long nightsticks hanging like a spare cock on their hip. Only a dim, smog-yellow light emerged from the bar’s blurred facade and from under its heavy door. Easy enough to miss entirely, if not for the unendurable pull of the spell it cast on certain members of the Parisian population.
One such man stood behind the till of this bar, which was called La Reine Blanche. Louis de Pointe du Lac, an American for all that his name implied otherwise, obsessively counted the francs in their individual slots within the till. Singles, tens, twenties: the coins clicked together under his long, brown fingers. He checked the number in the till against the number on the slip of paper he kept on him. He counted again, slowly, exactly, and then closed the till.
La Reine Blanche was quieter than usual, though perhaps not uncommonly for a week night. Its patrons that night were mostly regulars, who generally knew better than to try and strike up conversation - or flirt - with him. A job was a job, Louis thought, and he had certainly worked in seedier establishments than this in America, but he had made it known early on that he was not interested in anyone’s advances. That he had found himself there shortly after arriving in Paris, jobless and hungry, his ear cocked to the sound of the music and the other, more mercurial music of the voices within, he attributed to his desperation for work and a steady pay check. If it hadn’t been here, it would’ve been some other bar. The boss didn’t care either way, so long as Louis didn’t scare anyone away, and anyway, there were other younger, more playful barkeeps to entertain him if Louis wasn’t game.
A little haughtiness is not a bad thing for many of these men, he had told Louis with a wink. It makes the chase more exciting.
So Louis tolerated the newcomers and out-of-towners that tried it on with him. The regulars had at first rolled their eyes, muttered Who does he think he is? but still showed up night after night, week after week, until their irritation at Louis became just another part of the background noise of their nights.
This night was like many others he had worked that summer, the air thick with the smell of sweat and cologne and liquor, which bled from the underarms and groins of the men within the bar. They shifted listlessly in their seats, here adjusting a sweaty shirt, there mopping a brow with a handkerchief. The queens wafted the air around them with folding fans as their makeup grew tacky and moveable. Louis watched one repainting his lips. There was a smudge of red lipstick on his front tooth, and the dark makeup around his eyes circled them in dark shadow like the sockets of his skull. His dress hung limply from his body in the heat. It couldn’t have been comfortable to keep on at this time of year, with all the beads and layers, but Louis sure wasn’t comfortable in his clothes either. He pulled at his collar, looking for a little relief from how his shirt clung to his shoulders at the points his thin vest didn’t cover.
The door swinging open and shut offered a breath of cooler air, and Louis closed his eyes for a moment as it blew gently over him, there and gone, before being once again replaced by the hot stink of the stagnant bar’s air. It wasn’t like the heat of New Orleans, somehow, which was undeniably hotter than in Paris. Rather, it was drier, more acrid, and lacking the familiar smells of his hometown. With his eyes shut, he could picture what it would’ve been like on a night like tonight: humidity and the swamp’s vegetal, ripe odour. He opened his eyes to see a man.
He had just come in: the bringer of the sweet reprieve of the draft, dressed neatly in a suit about thirty years out of date, some pre-war relic that looked as crisp and clean as if it had been bought the day before. Louis didn’t recognise him, and he doubted he’d forget a figure like that, stood so erect among the slouching patrons. He watched as the man’s eyes scanned the room and finally settled on him. A small smile, and Louis glanced away, embarrassed to be caught looking. He slammed the till drawer shut and picked up a glass to clean.
He was rubbing at an invisible blemish when the man took a seat before him. Louis felt his body brace with dread for the inevitable, annoying questions that would follow. Many Frenchmen ignored him entirely, but if they did see him, it was because they thought him to be some American performer, come to Paris to blow a horn. Louis forced his shoulders back as the man settled on his stool.
“Bonsoir,” Louis said.
“Ah,” the man’s smile grew. He continued in English, “An American?”
“Yes,” Louis shrugged. “But I can speak French, you know.”
“I’m sure. Forgive me, it is not often I get to practice my English, and it is rarer still that I meet such a pleasant American.”
“Listen,” Louis murmured. He hoped to let the man down gently and quietly - he’d watched other men grow agitated at a rejection, both in La Reine Blanche and back in American cathouses and bars. “I’m just here to work, monsieur.”
“But of course,” the man said agreeably. “I only wish to make conversation. Here - is the kitchen open, still?”
“Yes, will be for some time.”
“Bien,” said the man. “What would you recommend?”
Louis stared for a moment. The man was leant forward, with his elbows on the bar, awaiting Louis’ reply as if it were truly interesting to him. His eyes were very bright and very blue, framed by long lashes that Louis could only see because the dim light caught them. His hair was long and blonde, and pulled away from his face. His suit was a deep navy blue; the shirt so white that it, too, seemed almost a pale blue.
“Truthfully,” said Louis. “I wouldn’t eat anything they serve here.”
The man laughed at that, as if Louis had said something remarkably funny instead of just telling the truth. “Then where would you recommend?”
“There’s a place around the corner from here that I like. I’ll write down the name for you -”
“But you must take me there!” The man smiled, openly and warmly, at Louis. The light caught his eyes, illuminating them from within and making them wink and spark. He was leaning in even closer now, and Louis took a cautious step back.
“I’m working right now. In fact, I have other customers waiting on me - can I get you anything?”
“But of course,” said the man. “Whatever you’d like. Bring two glasses - one for yourself.”
“I just said that I’m -”
“I’ve never met a barman who didn’t chase down a glass or two while working. Please, it’ll be on me.”
He extended a hand, on which several francs balanced, shining up at them both. His nails were neat but his fingertips were worn, and they were cool when they met Louis’ own hand.
Louis felt an unpleasant little chill run down his back as he placed the two glasses down, filled them, and drank his down before marching down the bar to where two men were impatiently waiting, all while the man continued to sit and watch him. The pair stood hip to hip, swaying in tandem as one of them snapped their spindly fingers at Louis, saying monsieur, monsieur!
Louis did not want to return to the blonde man, but he was sat right in front of the register, which Louis was loathe to leave unattended. He knew, all too keenly, that any missing coins or bills would be blamed on him, and so he counted each one with an almost obsessive care. To avoid looking at the man, Louis opened up the register and meticulously counted each value again, started with the highest one and working his way down. He mentally noted how much was there, and then wrote it down on the small, folded notebook he kept in his pocket.
“It’s a pity to see such diligent work go unappreciated.”
“Excuse you?” Louis looked up from his jotting. The man was watching him - had likely been watching him the whole time - and still had that damned little smile on his face. Louis noticed that he had a small, crooked scar at the corner of his mouth.
“You watch over this bar as if you were guarding all the gold in Paris.”
“Well, it’ll be me getting the sack if it’s not all here. Funnily enough, I doubt fingers will be pointed at my colleagues.”
“I take your point -”
“Just last week, an Algerian guy was fired for stealing from the register on a night he hadn’t even been working. It happened just a few streets over from here. He was lucky all they did was sack him.”
“You are, of course, correct,” the man was placating him now, his hands open and palms facing Louis. “I will not distract you, if you are busy.”
“Thanks.”
“I will, however, have another drink. Another of this, please.”
His long nail tapped the rim of the glass before making a single, languid circle about its circumference. Louis poured him another drink.
“Enjoy.”
“I’m sure I will,” the man said.
There were no other customers to serve, and so Louis was forced to stand at the register with the strange man and his open, charming face. The man drew a long cigarette from within his suit jacket’s pocket and placed it between his lips.
“Care for one?”
“Not allowed to smoke on the job.”
“A pity,” said the man again. “When is your break?”
“I don’t have one for the rest of my shift,” Louis said. “I get off in an hour or so.”
“And then you will join me for this dinner?”
Louis folded his arms. “Thought you just wanted me to show you where it was?”
“And then,” the man said slowly, as if it were obvious. “I would like you to join me for dinner. If it’s not so disagreeable to you.”
Louis had exchanged more words with this man than he had shared with anyone in a damn long time.
“We’ll see,” he told him. “I have another customer. Excuse me.”
“Bien sûr.”
True to his word, the man sat and quietly waited for Louis to finish his shift. Occasionally, when Louis had no other customers to serve or glasses to collect and clean, he would make some small observation about the other patrons, or ask Louis some question about himself. Louis preferred the former, not wanting to reveal too much about himself where the eager ears of La Reine Blanche’s clientele could hear. He did not like, nor particularly trust, any of them. He was not sure yet whether he trusted the blonde man either.
It took some time for the last of the customers to leave. Many were loathe to leave the semi-peace of La Reine Blanche for the streets of Paris which offered none of the bar’s secluded safety. Couples who had, minutes before, been coiled together in the half dark would be forced to walk side by side, never touching, like two pillars. It was then that Louis couldn’t help but pity these people.
These people - homosexuals - was this blonde man one of them? Louis couldn’t help but assume he was; after all, why else would he be in this bar? He then considered the next logical question: did it bother Louis, if he was?
As long as he doesn’t try anything, Louis thought resolutely.
The final of the customers finally staggered out of La Reine Blanche. Louis was alone with the man, whose finger had returned to its lazy, luxurious circling of his glass’ rim. His long nail occasionally caught the glass, with a gentle clinking noise. His nails were really quite long, and sharp looking, like he sink them into Louis’ skin and never let go.
“That’s me done,” Louis told him. The owner was descending the stairs, grumbling darkly at the sight of Louis and the final straggling customer. “Bonne nuit, monsieur,” Louis said to him.
“*Bonjour*, Louis,” he replied with some emphasis.
“I suppose it is,” Louis conceded, as politely as he could manage. “I’m leaving now, any how.”
The blonde man was gathering up his things. “Shall we?”
The two of them tumbled out into the street, whose lamplights were beginning to be guttered as the sky grew a soft, powdery blue colour. It stained the blonde man, likewise, deepening his suit to a near-black colour, and staining his blonde hair grey. He was very striking out in the growing morning light, almost frightening in his stark, symmetrical looks.
The streets were mostly empty, save for the strange crossover of workers on their way to their morning shifts, and partygoers returning home to sleep the day away. There was, Louis thought, an entire second Paris that only emerged after dark, and which slunk away as soon as the stars faded from the night sky, not to be seen except by this bleary-eyed workforce.
As they walked, the man asked Louis: “Are you hungry?”
“I suppose, a little,” said Louis.
“I must confess that I am starving,” the man said with a chuckle, as they rounded the corner onto the street Louis had been steering them towards. “I fear I will eat this place out of business.”
Clotilde was a small, unobtrusive addition to the street, with a white facade and blue lettering stamped across its face. Louis liked it for its shelves of dusty old books, it’s quiet and uninterested customers, and its long opening hours. Often he could be found there at any odd hour of the night or early morning, perhaps nursing a coffee or cognac, perhaps engrossed in a book.
It was the first time Louis had brought anyone along with him to Clotilde. The woman behind the register greeted Louis by name, and waited for him to introduce her to his new friend.
“This is, ah…” Louis turned to the man.
“Lestat,” said the blonde man. “Lestat de Lioncourt.”
Lestat did as promised and order a large breakfast. Plates of pastries and pies with hot meat fillings; a bowl of porridge with cream; sausages and warm, buttered bread; a cup of black tea as well as a cup of coffee, plus another glass of cognac. He had oysters, which he shared with Louis, and long, elegant cigarettes which he smoked continuously as he ate and drank. He praised the food whenever the madame came to clear away empty plates, and in her thanks, she snuck him extra cuts and morsels with a wink and a coy, painted smile.
Louis watched the spectacle, the eating and the flirting, with a mixture of admiration and envy. To spend so much, to eat so freely, to have the attention of the (ageing, yet admittedly handsome) woman who worked there - to take what he wanted, in excess, filled Louis with jealousy. He himself ate only oysters and a single pastry, which he picked apart with his fingers and dipped in his coffee (black, no sugar), watching Lestat eat his fill.
“Please,” Lestat told him. “Don’t be polite for my sake. Take whatever you’d like.” He offered Louis another plate.
“No, thank you. I’m all right.”
“Don’t tell me you’re concerned about your figure,” Lestat’s smile grew. “You’re far too thin as it is.”
“You sound like my mother,” Louis told him, although it wasn’t true. Mama Du Lac was a judgemental matriarch, who watched to make sure her children never took seconds when they visited guests.
“I must insist, take something!”
Louis reached for another pastry, this one shiny with its egg wash and full of soft, warm, baked fruit. Lestat watched him eat it slowly, between drags of his cigarette and sips of his coffee.
“Fine,” Lestat grinned, “Be that way.”
“I’m really just not very hungry,” Louis said, and surprised himself by smiling as he said it. There was something undeniably charming about Lestat, who praised the chefs and the good hosting and the excellent food, and who looked him in the eye when he spoke, and asked him more questions about himself.
“You came here from America, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Why leave the New World and all its glowing possibilities?”
“It’s… complicated,” Louis said delicately.
“A story for another time, perhaps,” Lestat smiled.
“Yes. Another time.”
“I look forward to hearing it.”
Lestat continued to eat, and Louis watched on with some amazement. Upon further inspection, Louis realised that Lestat had to have some years on himself - it barely showed, but Louis noticed a delicate web of lines beside Lestat’s bright eyes, and ones which deepened beside his mouth when he smiled. Perhaps he was the sort who enjoyed the company of younger people, to feel younger himself.
“What do you do?” Louis asked Lestat, for the man wore his wealth discreetly, but still visibly for those who knew to look. There was a detail and weight to the fabric of his suit, a gleam to the rings he wore, a tidiness in his grooming that was evident to Louis, a man who grew up in New Orleans sugar-and-sex-spun splendour.
“Well,” Lestat leaned in then, as if to share some delightful secret he simply couldn’t keep to himself any longer. “I suppose I’ll just have to show you.”
He rose in a single, graceful motion, and fanned out a number of francs for the madame on the table. Louis stood too, carried along by - curiosity, maybe, or admiration, or perhaps simply a desire to remain in the only friendly company he had found in months. They talked in the same way they walked, meandering and relaxed. Louis learned that Lestat was an avid fan of the opera, and had not missed a single season at the Palais Garnier since the end of the war.
“I do not understand the desire to write operas in English,” Lestat was saying. “It’s a most unmusical language, is it not?”
“I wouldn’t know, I’ve never been to an opera.”
“Never?” The idea seemed to shock Lestat.
“Well, opera houses in the States didn’t exactly welcome men of my color.”
“We shall go, some day,” said Lestat. “In fact, there’s a production soon that I am most eager to see…”
Morning had truly arrived by the time they arrived at a tall, white townhouse. Its front gardens were neatly manicured and gravelled with small, white stones. The bushes rose upwards like slim fingers, reaching for the morning sky. White columns framed the black front door, which was unlocked by a large, metal key on a ring that Lestat pulled from within his suit jacket. Inside, shafts of light spilled across the wooden floor from the windows; slats of white against deep blue shadow. Their own shadows danced between these bars of light as Lestat led Louis deeper into the bowels of his home, and their shoes were the only sound inside. All was still and quiet within like a mausoleum, with no puttering or chattering of wife or child.
“My staff will be arriving soon,” Lestat told him. “Please don’t be alarmed if you hear them entering through the back.”
Following Lestat up the stairs, Louis watched his fingers as they skated along the wooden banister, dancing along its surface like it was an instrument, playing music for only his ears. On the landing, he opened a white door, unobtrusive where it stood in the white wall. Inside, a spiraling flight of stairs rose into darkness above.
“My private studio,” Lestat explained.
“Are you a painter?”
Lestat smiled. “A good guess, but not quite. Come along, Louis.”
Still half-believing himself to be dreaming, Louis followed him into the soft dark, rising up the stairs blindly and clinging to the metal railing as he went. He could hear Lestat’s footsteps ahead of him, the click of his heeled shoes on the wooden steps. A beat of sweat had formed on Louis’ back and was trailing its way between his shoulder blades, cold with anticipation and fear; his heart thundered in his own ears as his mind imagined any number of possibilities - an artist’s studio, a madman’s butchery, a den of depravity - yet he did not, indeed could not, stop himself from following.
At the top of the stairs there was another door, which opened and swung open silently under Lestat’s hand. Louis peered within, and gasped aloud - in the dim light allowed by a single, slim gap in the curtains, several white torsos loomed. They - curved breasts and hips, headless and bloodless - stood silently as statues, locked away and waiting like the brides of Bluebeard.
“Jesus,” Louis whispered. Then, the lights came on.
Lestat laugh pealed like bells. “I’m sorry, my friend. I didn’t mean to give you a fright!”
Dress forms, nothing more. Louis felt his knees weaken as the leftover fear fled him.
“Christ, Lestat.”
Lestat took his shoulder. “Perhaps you should sit for a moment.”
Louis sank into an armchair in the corner of the room, where a woollen blanket was draped over his lap.
“I’m not going to swoon,” Louis said, embarrassed now. “I’m all right.”
Lestat was knelt before him. “You’re sweating, Louis.”
“I’m really all right.” Irritation was growing in his voice. “Lestat, really.”
“Okay,” Lestat gave him that same pacifying gesture, and stood again. Louis watched as he opened the curtains and cracked the window open, allowing the sounds of the morning to drift in - birdsong, the distant rumble of vehicles and cart wheels. In the light, the room grew in size and seemed to glow as its every nook and corner were unveiled from their shadows. The white dress forms stood out like pearls against a throat, strung across the dark wood of the room. A large, square table was covered in deep, red fabric and glass weights, which glinted in the sunlight. In the opposite corner to him stood a full-length mirror, in which Louis could see himself, wide-eyed and amazed.
“You’re a dressmaker,” he said.
“Yes,” Lestat smiled. “A designer, really. I have seamstresses to make the dresses.”
Sure enough, Louis heard the sound of a door quietly closing downstairs, followed by heels making their way up the main staircase.
“They won’t come up here. The main workspace is downstairs. At some point, I shall have to go down and speak to them, but there’s no hurry. Come,” Lestat said, reaching out a hand. “You’ve inspired me.”
Louis stood and the blanket pooled around his feet. He went to Lestat, moving as if under a spell, as he pulled out a low wooden box.
“I need to take your measurements,” Lestat told him. “You’ll have to remove some of your layers, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t wear dresses,” Louis told him, feeling uncomfortable. He remembered, then, the queen sweating in his frock at La Reine Blanche. “I’m not… one of those sorts -”
“It’s not a dress,” Lestat told him. “I may be a designer of women’s clothes now, but I cut my teeth making suits for a tailor.”
Louis nodded, and, after a moment, slipped his suit jacket off of his shoulders. Lestat watched him with a hungry curiosity as Louis removed his cufflinks, and then paused.
“Um,” he said. Lestat laughed again.
“You need not strip entirely, just to your underclothes. I’ll give you a moment.”
And then Lestat’s gaze was averted to his worktable, on which rested a small book bound in a deep brown leather. Louis quickly unlaced his shoes and dropped his trousers, before removing his tie and unbuttoning, then folding, his white shirt. He stood, then, in nothing but his socks and underthings, warmed by the light of the morning sun and folding his arms across his chest.
Lestat turned, and paused a moment. He looked Louis slowly, from the crown of his head to his feet, and smiled.
“Like the finest statues in the Louvre,” he murmured. Louis’ face grew hot. His blood was pounding in his ears again and he stared at one of the bare dress forms, naked and womanly, since he couldn’t bear to meet Lestat’s gaze.
“You’ll have to stand on the box,” Lestat said, his voice at its normal volume again. He approached with a coiled measuring tape, and tucked a pencil behind his ear. “Actually, you’re rather a bit taller than my usual clients. The floor will do.”
Louis stood as still and quietly as he could as Lestat uncoiled the tape, which unfurled without a sound between his fingers. He circled behind Louis, and held the tape across Louis’ shoulder blades. The sweat that had beaded there now pooled at the base of Louis’ back, and he feared Lestat would feel it through his vest as he pressed the tape along the length of his spine.
Everywhere Lestat’s fingers touched betrayed the coolness in them, and Louis felt the occasional pinch of his long nails where Lestat held the tape measure against his skin - along the softness of his inner arms, between his collar bones and down the centre of his chest, at the backs of his bare calves. Between each measurement, Lestat made a note of the numbers in that little notebook of his, painting a picture of Louis’ entire body in figures. As he measured the width and length of Louis’ torso, Louis did not dare even breathe, as it would’ve stirred the long, blonde hair fanning around Lestat’s face. Lestat’s own breath, cool and smelling faintly of cognac, made Louis’ skin pebble.
“Are you cold?” Lestat asked him, his voice hushed even in the empty room.
“No,” Louis said.
“You’re trembling,” Lestat pointed out.
“Maybe I am, a little.”
“Perhaps,” Lestat said. “Or…”
“Or?” Asked Louis, but Lestat shook his head and smiled.
“I’ll shut the window.” And then Lestat was gone, striding across the room to close the window. The sounds - the birds, the cars, the murmuring of voices - was gone, leaving only the sound of Louis’ own heart trembling in its cage, and his breath, which rose and fell rapidly like a small animal’s.
Lestat didn’t immediately return to him, instead grabbing a handful of squares of fabric. He sifted through them, occasionally glancing over at Louis as he rubbed a square between his fingertips, considering, evaluating, feeling the fabric, before considering the next swatch. Eventually, he decided on two - a soft burgundy, and a warm, light brown, the colour of the Grecian urns Louis had seen in a museum, once - and approached.
Lestat draped one, then the other, on Louis’ shoulder blades, holding them in place with a single finger. His head cocked one way, then the other, his eyes narrowing in a feline way.
“Which do you prefer?” Lestat asked him.
“You’re the professional,” Louis murmured. Lestat was stood so close now. Louis watched his throat bob as he swallowed once, hungrily, and his tongue darted across his bottom lip.
“The suit is for you,” Lestat whispered. “I would have it be in the colour that you prefer.”
Louis’ hand came up and touched the red. “This one.”
“Good choice,” Lestat’s breath was on Louis’ face, then, and Louis could see his straight, white teeth.
He wants to eat me, Louis suddenly thought, alarmed, but in the next moment Lestat was gone once again, tucking the swatch away with Louis’ measurements.
“I’ll have to make a toile mock up,” Lestat told him. “And you’ll have to return so I can make adjustments. Is that all right?”
When Louis didn’t reply, Lestat turned. They watched each other for a long moment.
“Have I made some, ah…” Lestat searched for the right word. “Miscalculation, here?”
He crossed the room and picked up Louis’ shirt, brushing off some piece of dust or lint, and handed it to Louis. “I do apologise if I’ve made you uncomfortable.”
The shirt fell from Louis’ fingers and landed, quiet as falling snow, on the floor of Lestat’s studio. In the next moment they were in each other’s arms. Louis’ heart jackrabbited like it was caught in a snare as he gripped the front of Lestat’s shirt in his hands, so tight he could see the bones of his knuckles under the thin skin. Lestat’s own hands had settled lightly on Louis’ biceps, neither pushing nor pulling yet.
“What have you done to me?” Louis whispered. “I don’t… do these things - not with -”
“Not with men?” Lestat finished for him. “Fear not, dear Louis. You need not deny your nature to me.”
Louis felt himself on a precipice, teetering and leaning in, about to tumble down, down like his brother Paul; down into the jaws of Hell and damnation.
He closed his eyes, and let himself fall.
Lestat’s mouth was gentle but sure against his own, and Louis felt something within himself give way at once, the argument he had held with himself for decades was now crumbling into the sea of desire that rose, all at once, within him. His lips parted and Lestat took the invitation, his tongue tasting Louis’ own as a pleased, greedy noise escaped him. Louis gripped onto him still, but now it was to moor himself, lest he be pulled under his own need. He couldn’t resist the feeling of Lestat’s clothes against his own bare skin, the rub of them as they slid against him and as Lestat wrapped his strong arms around Louis’ shoulders. They were so close that Louis was certain they would merge together; no longer two separate beings but one, writhing thing.
“Wait,” Louis whispered, gasping. “The women… your seamstresses. They’ll hear.”
“They are not paid to listen to what I do in my private life,” Lestat said dismissively. His hands had begun to slide down Louis’ back and worked their way under Louis’ vest, feeling up his skin underneath.
“Lestat, seriously,” Louis said, and he turned his face away from Lestat’s next kiss.
“It’s not a crime; this is not England, or America. You do not need to be afraid.”
True as that was, it didn’t take a fool to realise that legality did not necessarily equate to acceptance. The thought of the women downstairs hearing anything, or seeing his lips, undoubtedly swollen and slick now, made him feel sick with fear. Louis still did not turn his face back to Lestat, and after a moment he stepped away, leaving Louis alone again.
“I will not push you,” Lestat told him. “If you don’t wish to do this. We can walk away right now.”
“It’s not - I just can’t. Not here.”
“But someplace else?” Lestat’s brows rose. He glanced down, just once, and he smiled. “Yes, I see.”
Louis turned away and grabbed his trousers, desperate to cover where his arousal was making itself known. “It’s not funny, Lestat.”
“I’m not laughing at you. Listen, you want to go someplace else? We’ll go someplace else.”
“We can’t go to my place,” Louis said. “There - there are parks, where men do… this.”
Lestat was quiet as Louis quickly dressed, buttoning himself up with trembling fingers.
“I have a home just an hour’s drive from the city,” Lestat told him. “It will be empty just now, as I told the staff I would not be there for some weeks.”
“Lets go there, then. I’ll have to be back tonight though, for work.”
Louis finally turned around to find Lestat beaming at him. “All right, Louis.”
Louis chose to wait in Lestat’s car while Lestat spoke to his seamstresses - his *petite mains,* he called them. It gave Louis a minute alone, which he spent picking at his fingernails and wondering if he had gone crazy. What am I doing? He asked himself. I need to get away, I need to run…
Yet he waited for Lestat to emerge from the townhouse and start the car, which rumbled and purred to life. Lestat peeled out of the driveway at a frightening speed, but which only made them both laugh, giddy and nervous with excitement. They zipped down Parisian streets, past children leaving for school and folks sat outside cafés, reading newspapers or squabbling amongst themselves. The whole city seemed to Louis, in that moment, beautiful and alive, brimming with life and colour: the red flowers’ first bloom of the year in the window baskets, the skirts which blew out in excess around women’s calves after years of rationing and slacks, storefronts’ glass windows winking like jewels in the sun as they sped past.
Lestat’s hand touched Louis’ knee moments before he stepped on the accelerator. Louis covered Lestat’s hand with his own, keeping it on his knee for a moment longer before allowing it to creep slowly, exploratory, up Louis’ thigh. Then, he batted it away.
“Tease,” Lestat groaned. Louis laughed, feeling light as bubbles rising in a glass of champagne.
I’m living in a dream, Louis thought. I’ll wake up any second now and none of this will be real.
They drove out of the city proper, through the banlieues, and away from Paris entirely. Lestat’s driving only grew faster and more confident as they found themselves on the winding, country roads outside the city, and Lestat began to tell him of how he came to own his business.
“My mentor,” he told Louis. “Left it all to me. The townhouse, all his client lists, and my home here in the country.”
“He must’ve had a lot of faith in you,” Louis said.
“Ah, something like that.”
“Did he teach you to sew?”
“Not at first,” Lestat said. “My mother was the first to teach me, much to the disapproval of my father and brothers. I made her funeral dress.”
“Oh,” breathed Louis. “I’m sorry.”
“It was many years ago, now,” Lestat shrugged, but he said nothing more on the subject. A quiet descended upon them, and Louis resisted the urge to bite his nails.
“Have you ever sewn?” Lestat finally asked him.
“No, never. My mother would send for our clothes to be repaired, growing up. She wouldn’t even sew a button on.”
“Maybe I’ll show you how, some time.” Lestat smiled. “It’s a very useful skill.”
“Sure,” said Louis. “I’d like that.”
The car finally pulled into a long driveway, which peeled away in a curling, winding fashion from the main road, unspooling before them with high, flowering trees on either side, whose branches reached up and met together overhead. The tunnel they made allowed only dappled light to fall on the dusty road ahead of them. Even within the car, Louis could smell the perfume of the flowers on the branches, which waved gently in the breeze to him, beckoning him further and further down the driveway until it spilled out into a courtyard.
“Well,” Lestat smiled as he killed the engine. “Here we are, Louis.”
Louis was, suddenly and overwhelmingly, nervous. Here he was, in a strange man’s home, away from the city, where he could be killed or worse and no one would know where he had gone, no one would be there to open La Reine Blanche, or develop his roll of film still nestled in its camera, or make sure the landlady’s cat wasn’t killing the pigeons.
Lestat took Louis’ hand in his own and brought it to his lips. He kissed Louis’ knuckles one by one, and then brought Louis’ hand to his throat, letting him feel the excited, leaping pulse under the pale skin.
“You are bewitching,” Lestat told him. “And you have nothing to fear here. We are alone.”
Louis’ free hand, the one not clasping Lestat’s neck, reached out and opened his door. It swung open to let the warm air in, wide like a snake’s jaw unhinging.
“Take me to bed,” he whispered. Lestat squeezed his wrist once before opening his own door.
The journey to Lestat’s room was a blur in Louis’ memory. He did not remember entering the house or stumbling ahead of Lestat up the stairs, already pulling at his tie and collar, or how Lestat kissed his neck as he opened the door to his bedroom, how his teeth toyed at the skin there. It all seemed, to Louis, to pass in the blink of an eye, and then he was stood above Lestat, who was reclining on the mattress, his shirt open somehow and a pink nipple on show as he tossed his unbound hair out of his face.
“Come to me, Louis.”
They came together on the bed, undressing each other and tasting each other’s mouths. Lestat pushed Louis’ shirt off his shoulders and let it fall.
“Let me see you,” he gasped. “All of you. Please, Louis.”
Louis was already dragging his vest up and over his head, and had not even had time to throw it away before Lestat was surging up and kissing along his chest like a man starved, biting at a pec with his teeth as his fingers counted Louis’ ribs.
“Beautiful,” he told Louis. “The moment I saw you there in La Reine Blanche, I thought you the most beautiful man in the world. Yet you seemed so lonely, like an island in the ocean. So far out of anybody’s reach.”
He paused to suck a hickey into Louis’ flushed chest, just shy of his nipple. Louis groaned, low and needy.
“You need not be lonely any longer,” Lestat told him. “Be my companion, Louis.”
Louis clung to Lestat as his hands began to work at Louis’ underwear. It sounded so good - he had slept alone for so long, tangled in his thin sheets that did little to keep out the chill of his awful little rooms. To be taken by someone who asked nothing of him but to be there with him was the sweetest siren song Louis had ever heard.
“Yes,” Louis breathed, need ringing in his hollow chest like a church’s bell. “Yes.”
Sleeping with Lestat for the first time wasn’t like a dream at all, he realised. It was as if he had awoken from a long and terrible nightmare, in which he had walked through an abandoned city, going from place to place, alone, alone, alone, and had awoken to find himself in a pair of warm and loving arms. He needed Lestat, needed to feel a warm, masculine body, and he needed Lestat to see him; to prove he was real.
Lestat had him on his back, and laughed with pleasure as he finally, finally lined their cocks up between their bellies. Louis’ legs wrapped around Lestat's hips, holding him close as Lestat chanted his name, beckoning him closer and closer.
“I’ll make you the finest wardrobe in Paris,” Lestat moaned as he began to fuck their groins together, grinding against him while Louis' heel found the small of his back, clinging onto him. “Everyone will know that you are the most adored muse in the whole city.”
“Fuck,” Louis gasped. “Lestat, I need - I need -”
“I know,” Lestat said, and pulled Louis up into a kiss. He bit Louis’ bottom lip, tugging it as Louis moaned out loud, letting the sound bounce off the walls.
“That’s it,” Lestat told him. “Take it. Take everything that you’ve denied yourself.”
“Lestat,” Louis said, again, and came over his own belly, over Lestat’s. His whole body trembled like a flame about to go out, and Lestat rolled them both until Louis lay on his chest.
“Louis, sweet Louis,” he whispered. His hands smoothed up and down Louis’ back as he gasped into Lestat’s warm neck. His face felt wet and he realised, with horror, that he was crying.
“It’s okay, Louis,” Lestat whispered. “It’s all right.”
“Lestat.” It was the only thing he seemed to be able to say.
“I know.” Lestat kissed his temple, and Louis knew he must be able to feel his heartbeat there. “I know.”