Andrew Fox - Fat White Vampire Blues

“So may I sit down?” she asked again. So patiently, so unpetulantly (so unlike Maureen, who would’ve bitten his head off by now).

“Uh, you wanna sit withme?”

“Yes,” she smiled.

“Buh-be my guest,” he said, catapulting himself out of his seat in an effort to pull out a chair for her.

“That’s very gallant.” He noticed her voice had a sweet trace of a hill-country twang. Gracefully, she settled herself down, smoothing the folds of her emerald silk pantsuit to avoid wrinkling. Beneath her jacket she wore a daringly low-cut T-shirt, which showcased her mountainous cleavage. Jules’s dream girl turned appreciatively toward the stage, closing her eyes and nodding gently in time with the music. No matter how sublime Chop’s solos were, Jules might as well’ve been stone deaf. His complete attention was glued to the rise and fall of her magnificent chest.

When the band slid into the closing bars of “St. James Infirmary,” she sighed with pleasure. “Isn’t the music simplywonderful?”

“Some of the best in the city,” said Jules, trying hard to sound authoritative. “That means some of the best in the whole world.”

“You sound like someone who knows his music.”

“Sure! I been around music and musicians my whole life.”

Her eyes flashed with interest. “How fascinating!” She laughed and patted his arm affectionately. “I promised to introduce myself, didn’t I? My name’s Veronika, with ak. I’m visiting from New York. I know this’ll soundhorribly immodest, but I’m a model-a plus-sized model-and I’m in New Orleans working on a series of shoots for various magazines. Most of my photos are for women’s clothing magazines, and the others-well, let’s just say I doubt a gentleman such as yourself would’ve seen them.”

“My loss,” Jules said with a poker face.

“I think your city is simplymagical. I’ve been hoping to meet someone who could help me see it with a native’s eyes. When I saw you at that little trolley car diner, you seemed so friendly andinteresting, and I wanted to meet you, or at least say hello, but at the last second I was too shy. Then you were gone. So seeing you again tonight, in this place, with this wonderful music, I just know that we were meant to be friends.”

Jules felt suspended in a warm velvet fog. Every honey-coated word she spoke sizzled a path from his ears straight to his groin. He caught sight of his empty outfit in a mirrored post. Why did this woman have to meet him on a night when he was dressed in Maureen’s harlequin costume?

“I, uh, I’m comin‘ back from some kids’ party. Crippled kids, actually. All stuck in wheelchairs. Charity work, y’know. I do this sorta thing all the time.”

“That’s sonoble of you.” She grasped his paw tightly between her two soft hands and stared into his eyes. They listened to the remainder of the set in silence.When the band finished their final number the house lights came up like a sudden dawn. The forty or so patrons gathered their coats and purses and began shuffling toward the doors.

Veronika turned to Jules and smiled warmly. “Oh, that was simplyexquisite. Thank you for sharing such a fabulous evening with me.” She leaned across the table and lightly stroked his forearm with her fingertips. “Would you mind escorting me back to my hotel? I’d feelso much safer.”

“I-” Maureen’s face flashed on the mildewed movie screen of Jules’s mind. Hadn’t she put her arm over him the night before, just as she’d fallen asleep? What wouldshe think? Oh, she’d be fine with it if he intended to fang the woman… butfanging was not the verb Jules had in mind. He thought hard and furiously about the nature of luck. Until today, his recent luck had beenshit luck. What would happen if, now that his luck had turned amazingly, fabulouslygood, he ungratefully turned his back on it? Would it go and dry up into a desiccated turd again?

“I, uh-I’d behonored to walk you to your hotel.”

Veronika’s hotel was a Spanish Colonial-style mansion on Barracks Street that had been converted into time-share condominiums. She opened the front door, recently renovated to show off its intricate moldings. The air in the foyer was chilled to a crisp sixty-five degrees, a nearly twenty-degree drop from the temperature outside.

Veronika removed a handkerchief from her purse and delicately dabbed her forehead and neck. “Please excuse me… I’m simply not used to this humidity anymore.” She looked at her companion, who was arid as a white desert. “How do you manage to stay so dry in all this dampness? A big husky man like you?”

Jules leaned against the gilded back of a French Restoration side chair. “Oh, y’know, when you’ve been livin‘ in New Orleans as long as I have, you kinda get used to a bit a stickiness.”

She took his hand and led him to a stairway at the rear of the foyer. “Come. I’m up on the third floor.” She laughed, sounding more like a schoolgirl than a (very) grown woman. “The only fault I can find with this place is it doesn’t have an elevator.”

“That’s okay. I can handle two flights easy enough.” Heck, with her holding his hand, her perfume tantalizing him, he’d climb to the top of One Shell Square, fifty stories up.

To Doc Landrieu’s credit, Jules made it to the third floor without even breathing hard. Veronika fumbled with her room key; her excitement buzzed his skin like static electricity. Jules was excited, too. But he was also nervous as hell. His nerves accomplished what the nighttime humidity hadn’t; sweat poured out of the pinched glands beneath his arms. He half expected that when Veronika finally got the door open, Maureen would be standing on the other side, vengefully clutching a stake pointed at his (cheatin‘) heart.

After what felt like a sizable chunk of eternity, Veronika got the key to work. The door opened. No ten-foot-tall Maureen made a jealous grab for his testicles. He took a deep breath and followed Veronika inside. The room was sumptuous. It was dominated by a startlingly large whirlpool bath, which managed to overpower even the red-velvet-covered king-sized bed.

“Would you like a drink?” she asked him as she stepped quickly to the mini bar. “My employers are very generous. Anything I want, I just put it on their tab.”

“I’ll skip it, thanks,” he stammered, fingering the velvet bedspread.

“Well, I’m going to make myself something. I’mthirsty!”

Jules watched her pour Sprite, cranapple juice, cherry concentrate, and vodka into a tumbler. She mixed it with her pinkie and gulped it down quickly, not even pausing to add ice cubes. She set the glass down on the dresser by the bed. Then, before he could brace himself, she was all over him.

Her lips engulfed his mouth. He tasted cherry on her tongue, and a hint of vodka. He felt himself losing his balance as their bodies collided. He tumbled backward onto the bed, and Veronika followed. Their stomachs, like air bags, cushioned their impact, but her top front teeth banged into his as their combined weight mashed the bedsprings to full compression. She rolled off him, laughing uproariously as he struggled to regain the air that had been squeezed out of his rib cage.

“Ah-ha-ha-ha,”she laughed, turning red as she tried catching her breath. “Oh, I think I busted a tooth! Ouch! Are you all right? Oh, that’s not what I meant to do at all! Let’s try that again, okay?”

“Just give-just give me-a second to catch my breath, baby-”

“Sure, sweetie. Ha-heh. Sure.” They both lay there a minute, side by side, each half on and half off the bed. She reached over and tentatively, but amorously, caressed his arm. “Tell you what. I’m so hot and sticky from the walk back from that jazz club. How about we relax together in that big tub?”