Orfeo (5 page)

Earl’s own self-control snapped at this. “Fuck you, Ardyce. Like Xanadu wasn’t built on the backs of niggers! I seem to remember that old Samuel Dubois, your grandfather, used to have a hankering for the Jim Crow days and didn’t mind dipping his hands in his pockets for them as would bring back the good ol’ times. Shit! Look at Papa—I may cuss him all day long, but at least he can rise up in
my
service. What’s such a man as that singer to you? A pretty toy for you to play with until you get bored.”

Ardyce’s eyes narrowed at this outburst and she stared at him with a malevolence that made his blood boil. “Get out!” she hissed. “Get out, all of you—and don’t come back!”

For a few seconds he stared at her. He could feel his
loa
becoming restless around him. There was not a living soul who dared to speak to him this way: the moment they uttered such words their days alive were numbered. His cheek began to twitch once more, creasing his bright blue eye, and the infernal itch in his left hand was almost impossible to ignore requiring all his effort to control it. This had not proceeded at all as he’d intended.

At last he crossed beside her, his large frame towering above hers. Horse and Snake moved immediately to his side and Baptiste retreated into his chair. Ardyce, however, stared up at him defiantly, her green eyes glittering and her hair shining like bronze fire.

“You will be mine. You just don’t know it, yet,” he hissed. “I’ll bring that singer to my club and make him fill the air with his pretty tunes like a bird in a cage. Anything that you want belongs to me, and you
will
be mine again.”

As he, Snake and Horse stalked out of the house, Papa was the last to rise, lifting himself from the chair in which he had sat slowly and calmly. His dark face was almost impassive but for the slight smile on his lips, a smile that did not extend to those cold, slightly rheumy eyes of his. When he looked at her, for the first time Ardyce felt a chill of fear run through her and she glanced away. The smile on his lips increased and he tipped his hat slightly in her direction before following his master from Xanadu.

She did not go to Apollo’s that night. There was no need to. Although nothing had been said, they had communicated through song, impassioned glances and finally their bodies and this night Ardyce knew that Orfeo would not be in the nightclub. Henceforth, his music was for her alone.

She lay in her bedroom, naked on the satin sheets as her fingers danced an indulgent waltz across the contours of her flesh and she watched faint clouds pass before the bright orb of the moon. Her window was open again and as the glimmering twilight once more became darkest night she heard the faint strains of a guitar beneath her window.

The music was soft and melancholy, her lover’s fingers caressing the guitar for what seemed an age until at last his deep voice rolled across the empty space between her and him.

“Ere summer’s end I have sought,

and in seeking, hope to find,

those flowers which for others wrought

a garland of the noblest kind.

Yet those flowers are not my only fruit,

for I have sown a far more subtle seed,

seed that within the heart’s warm earth will feed

when in this song and spell it takes up root.

Cultivated by kisses kind

and with my great affection wrought,

in this garland the words I find

are those which love to show I sought.”

The caress of her fingers on her flesh was matched by those of his song about her ears and Ardyce lay upon her bed, her breast heaving as her hands sought liquid pleasures to match his words, cultivating a flower that began to blossom and extend its petals below.

It was not long until Orfeo’s head appeared at the window once more and, with strong arms, he lifted himself into her room. Although she had expected him this intrusion made her laugh and she could just make out the slight frown on his dark face, picked out in silver by the moonlight.

“Oh, don’t worry,” she told him smilingly, her voice a little hoarse from her preparatory bliss as she rolled onto her side and extended one long, smooth arm toward him. “I was just thinking that you could use the door, you know.”

This made him laugh and he moved toward the bed, sitting beside her after placing his guitar by the window once more. He took her hand in his so that she was able to feel the warmth of his palms.

“I prefer to come to you like a thief in the night,” he said, “for stolen pleasures are the sweetest.”

She let him pull her toward him gently, the softness of her naked breast pressing into the fabric of his trousers as she tilted her head backwards. His kiss was indeed all the sweeter for being stolen, willingly, from her, and their tongues were hot creatures that explored each other’s mouths as he bent down to her.

“And all my treasures are yours for the taking,” she purred when they parted. She could still taste his spiced breath on her lips.

His eyes glittered as he looked down on her and a broad smile formed on his face. “Then I’ll plunder all your riches until the moon flees in shame and the sun is shocked at what he sees.”

Her own hands were iron as she grabbed hold of his waist, pulling at the cotton of his shirt, fumbling with the band of his jeans. “Then don’t let morning ever come,” she growled, “if it means you leave me. Let’s enjoy every moment of the night.”

When she woke, her heart did seem to break at the sight of the empty bed beside her, the traces of his body still caught in the luxurious folds of the sheets, the stains of their pleasure a final blossom of the nighttime flowers they had shared. Her limbs ached deliciously, however, exerted beyond any expectation, and when she moved her fingers between her thighs to her sex it tingled and stung, painful yet hungry for more.

During the day she no longer left Xanadu, and on the first day she refused all visitors, even Baptiste. Her mind was caught up in a most beautiful state of melancholy—not sadness or despair, but simply the desire to fold itself up in the glorious memories of every touch, every kiss, every loving caress of Orfeo. Today the sun was too strong for her, and in the afternoon she pulled the draperies across her window, letting a softer glimmer more like moonlight fall on her body as she moved her hands across herself, reliving each motion of her lover the night before.

She knew that she was behaving foolishly, like some lovestruck teenager who was experiencing both the bliss of newfound happiness and the gnawing stupidity of being abandoned, but she did not care. She had no desire to explain it to anyone—and the only one who would have understood did not need her to explain.

Again he came that evening, when the moon was high in the sky, her thief and dark flower of the night. And for the three following days he would steal into her room and take her in the bed. They barely spoke after the first few moments of each assignation, but their grunts, cries and howls were like the noises of wild beasts, so loud in fact that Ardyce’s maids couldn’t hide their sniggers in the morning when they brought her food, nudging each other and exchanging whispers when they thought she wasn’t looking.

But still she didn’t care, nor did she have any desire to see anyone but Orfeo. She had turned aside Earl’s men brusquely, as well as a few former companions of her previous life who had come to scavenge out tidbits of gossip regarding the disappearance of the auburn beauty. On the final day, however, she felt a little guilty at joining Baptiste in with this crew or reprobates and so this time went to see him in the morning room when he called for her, as he did every day.

He was dressed impeccably in a light gray suit and waistcoat, the cooler temperature of this room suiting him better than the hot and humid air of the orangery. For her part, Ardyce felt little need for clothing and had pulled a silk kimono negligently across her naked body, a gift from an admirer: the man had long been forgotten, but she still adored the way the fabric felt on her skin and let it hang from her shoulders, a band tied casually around her waist. The effect was to expose as much of her body as it hid from view and Baptiste raised one eyebrow as she sat down across from him.

“Well, I had been worried you might be wasting away locked up in here, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you more lovely,” he told her, sipping the lemonade that had been brought to him. “I presume we have the young singer to thank for that.”

“Oh yes,” she replied, smiling as her eyes clouded over for a moment. The memory of his muscular, taut body on top of her flooded her sensations so that for a few seconds the day became night, Orfeo holding her down as he filled her completely, his gasps in her ear as she bit his shoulders. Unconsciously, she pressed one hand to her sex through the fabric of her gown, easing her luscious anxieties for the briefest instant in a flash of bliss. Returning to the living world, she blushed and said: “I’ve become something of a vampire, I’m afraid. Daytime doesn’t quite... do it for me anymore.”

Baptiste laughed and shook his head as Ardyce called for one of her maids and asked for a lemonade to match her friend’s. This made him pause. “Not one of your specials?” he asked, teasingly.

“No.” Ardyce gave a grimace. “That... that doesn’t seem so necessary anymore. I won’t lie—I get all sorts of aches from time to time, but the remedy for most of those won’t come out of a bottle.”

He frowned momentarily. “Well, be careful. You don’t want to make yourself sick.”

Looking at him, her smile became warmer at his concern. “I won’t. Don’t worry.”

“And will I get to see this mysterious singer up close? I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him since that night I passed him your letter.” Baptiste lifted his head and looked out through to the hallway.

Suddenly feeling self-conscious in her stupidity, Ardyce began to explain. “You won’t,” she told him. “He... he doesn’t stay here.”

Again her friend couldn’t resist a raised brow and opened his mouth, no doubt to pass some casually cruel quip about other lovers. A warning glance of fire in Ardyce’s green eyes, however, reminded him that such barbs would not be easily forgiven and he held his peace. After a moment’s awkward silence he observed instead: “News of your disappearance has only been matched by that of Orfeo. He hasn’t been seen in Apollo’s for almost a week now—nor anywhere else in the city, for that matter. That’s why I thought he might be here.”

It was Ardyce’s turn to frown at this. Her nimble fingers played with a single thread of silk that had splayed itself from the kimono and her lips worked silently for a moment. “I... I don’t know where he goes,” she said at last. “I don’t even know where he comes from.”

Holding his glass in his fingers, Baptiste was thoughtful for a while. “You could be playing a dangerous game here, Ardyce.” He raised one hand as she began to protest. “I’m only speaking out of concern for you. I’m glad to see you this... fulfilled. Really I am. But you don’t know anything about this young man. In any case, there may be other things to worry about.”

Ardyce glanced sharply at him. “What do you mean?”

Baptiste shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I’m not the only one drawing a connection between the isolation of Ardyce Dubois and the sudden disappearance of a young singer. Earl has his
loa
out looking for your Orfeo.”

At this, Ardyce hissed and slapped her hand down on the seat. “Why the hell doesn’t that bastard leave me
alone
?” she snarled. Baptiste was shocked by her transformation: her red hair was glistening and bronzed, her eyes bright with fury. She had never looked so wild, he thought—nor so beautiful.

She calmed almost immediately, however, waving her hand dismissively when he mentioned Earl’s name again. Instead she passed a pleasant afternoon gossiping with him about the tittle-tattle of the city, the warnings of coming storms in the approaching hurricane season, distant politics although what happened in Washington bored her more than the acquaintances of her father’s who ran New Orleans.

They had a late lunch together and, when he had left, she ordered the maids to bring her more food. When it was laid before her, however, she realized her hunger was for a stronger meat. Instead she returned once more to her bedroom, pleasuring herself in the half-light of her chamber and waiting for the night to fall.

Darkness was transforming into the dusk of twilight when Orfeo awoke from his light doze. Ardyce lay next to him, one pale arm thrown across the black chocolate of his muscular chest, her face on the pillow, resting close to his head.

He drank her in as she slept, adoring every portion of her face in the gray half-light. Her eyelids were closed peacefully, while the natural, soft ruby of her lips was a tinge reflected in the gentler blush of her cheeks, her mouth parted slightly so that he could just make out a glint of pearl.

Carefully and slowly, he lifted up her arm and placed it alongside her body. The sheet covered her lower half but the pale skin of her shoulder seemed to glow slightly, an unearthly, spectral glow as she slept in exhaustion.

He was exhausted himself. How long had he dozed? Less than an hour, he was sure. She had been wild—rampant—riding him astride his loins, driving herself down on him while she rained down blows on his chest as orgasm after orgasm surged through her.