Arcadia Resurgence, Vague Vermillion [best book club books for discussion .TXT] 📗

he caught himself fixating on the sight of it as it swayed away from him.

Then Christy was beside him, swatting his arm. "Come on," she hissed. He followed her. 

She stopped just outside the elevator that would take them down to the cantina. She was tugging the hem of her tunic down around her hips, over her buttocks. Eiri followed the motion of her hands, saw her trying to pull the clinging leggings away from herself, out of the crevice between her legs where they'd ridden up. 

"Are you alright?" he asked.

"Yes. No..." She slapped the panel to call the elevator with her open palm, readjusted the front of her tunic, dragged the hem downward again over her crotch, squirming. "Forget it. Fuck, how long were you two standing there?"

"Couldn't have been long - I didn't know she was behind me," Eiri said. "I don't even know who she is."

"Director Ipomoea," Christy said. "Hall told me she's going to be overseeing the project. I don't know why - vampires don't make coffee." She shivered. "I hate them - they're creepy. And always staring. You can feel it even when they're not looking at you."

Eiri thought of the quiet dark, the feeling of eyes on him. He felt it again, stepping onto the elevator with Christy. But when he turned, he didn't see anyone standing there. 

...

"Bring the Director a cup, Eiri." 

Now was the moment Hall would retaliate, Eiri thought. They'd been fighting ever since he interrupted the elf groping Christy. From that moment on, Hall said Eiri's designs were sloppy, his uniform wasn't clean enough, he was late badging in, he was early badging out. Snide little insults after every presentation. None of it bothered Eiri - it wasn't his first job, nor his first passive aggressive manager. But here, in front of the vampires with ultimate control over Fulbright, he knew the elf would work hard to humiliate him. 

Eiri ground the beans fine, remembering Fulbright's flavor came through best in an espresso texture, no sugar to dull the tang. The porcelain tinkled merrily as he set the cup on its saucer, two-thirds full with the bitter aromatic liquid. He glanced at Hall as he turned to bring the cup to the vampire, expecting to find the angry blue gaze fixed on him, but the elf was turned toward Christy beside him. She had her head down, her cheeks blazing red, the slightest tremble of her shoulders suggesting movement further down her body. He was touching her beneath the table, Eiri thought. 

If anyone noticed, they did not care. Three other vampires stared at him from across the table - like dogs watching a butcher. Jaymin and Alan were messaging each other from their tablets, and Tim the intern was relegated to standing along the wall with two administrative assistants. No one looked at Hall, no one looked at Christy. 

Bring the Director her cup, Eiri told himself. He approached, noting that the vampire wasn't looking at him. She played with her phone, idly scrolling through Hall's presentation Eiri stayed up late the night before to complete. She was, once again, well-dressed - dark suit tailored within a quarter inch of where her white leather heels met the ground, a flared cuff over her milky white wrists. 

Eiri still couldn't get over the sight of her. The symmetry, the careful balance as she walked. That ass swaying on silent steps. Sheepishly, he thought of it while showering the night before, had felt his cock pulse with the basic human desire he fought to obliterate while working for elves. He prayed it wouldn't happen now. Not now, while Hall was already out to shame him in front of the beautiful creature to whom he was supposed to bring coffee. 

When Eiri was close enough to set the cup in front of her, Hall sprang his trap. Though Eiri had never seen Hall do it, he'd seen other Starbucks elven employees manipulate wood - melding their hands into the panels along walls or floors to access hidden controls for water, temperature, and even hidden snack compartments where some hid sacrilegious beef jerky and sugary elemental candy.

Hall revealed his natural talents, now, manipulating the wood of the floorboards beneath Eiri, rocking one just enough to cause him to lose his balance. The cup rattled in the saucer, sloshing the steaming coffee within over the delicate brim of the cup hard enough to land on Eiri's hand, stinging his thumb. 

Even before the first painful drops landed, Hall was snapping, "Careful! Humans - so clumsy..." 

Petty motherfucker, Eiri thought.

The vampire looked at him. Her eyes weren't black, but bistre, the rich color of Turkish Dark. It was only seeing them against the cream of her pale skin that made them seem soulless and empty as he thought before. 

"Uh, Eiri," Hall said. "You spilled. Get our guest a new cup."

"That won't be necessary," said the Director. 

Somehow, he was still looking into her eyes. She reached up and took the saucer from him, steadying the cup with imperceptible adjustments of her elegant fingers. Placing it on the table, she lifted her hand again and took hold of his wrist, pulling Eiri toward her. A flash of white against pink as she opened her mouth, and then his seared knuckle was plunged into the soothing warmth of her mouth. 

Would he feel it then, the sharp fangs pressing into him? They eat humans, you know! His mother warned him once when they saw a vampire in the street. 

Eiri felt pressure against his skin. But it was not the sting of teeth. She was sucking the coffee from his finger.

"I'd hate to waste even a drop," the Director said. She let go of him. But held him with her eyes. 

...

The elves observed a Julian calendar to humor their human allies, observing New Years celebrations as part of company policy. 

Growing up in demon-controlled China, Eiri had never been to a New Year's party - but he had seen movies, and thought it would be like Chinese New Year, with alcohol instead of the song gao his mother made. Elves didn't drink the stuff, but they allowed the humans in their employ to indulge on holiday, and even ordered champagne for the office party. Christy explained that at midnight, a luminescent ball would rise over the Broken Needle in downtown Seattle, accompanied by fireworks. And then at midnight, everyone would exchange a kiss.

"It's tradition," she insisted, passing him a champagne flute as he walked into the decorated cantina, the tables all pushed back to allow for dancing. 

Eiri took the glass she offered and abandoned it near the tray trolley. His eyes scanned the room, taking note of the elves who circulated the edge of the dance floor. Plenty of opportunities to embarrass himself, if he wasn't cautious. Alan, Jaymin, and Tim showed no such caution - smuggling a rare bottle of Yamazaki 10 from Old Japan past the badge check. They begged him to take a shot with them, and when he wouldn't - Shooting Yamazaki whiskey! The audacity! - they made him read the Japanese language alcohol warning to them, laughing at his accent. 

At least Hall wasn't there to see his team get wasted. Eiri caught sight of the elf in the company of his family - other tree-like elves with leafy hair - circulating among lesser, more human-looking elves in attendance. Sprinkled throughout, he thought he could identify the Ipomoea vampires: they wore black or white clothes and, like the elves, avoided dancing, preferring to circle the dance floor, watching. Hunting, Eiri thought.

After an hour, the humans were all drunk. And now Eiri saw younger elves and vampires drifting onto the floor alongside them, pulling at human hands and arms, testing to find the most pliant, the most willing. Hands slid over buttocks, straps were pushed down to bare shoulders, and every so often, the chasm between warm, gyrating bodies would collapse, hips and loins colliding in a puppetry of sex. Eiri thought that it was strange for a species that valued aesthetic so highly to get such a thrill from teasing sloppy drunks.

Two hours before midnight, Christy found him lingering near the edge of the floor. Her halter top was slipping down, exposing the blushing areola of one breast. 

"Eiri-chan!" she insisted on calling him. "Come-oo, and dance-oo, with me-desoo!" She grabbed him by the asymmetrical lapels of his blazer and pulled at him. He wasn't sure which offended him more - the racism or her disregard for vintage Alexander McQueen. He tried to pull her away, to guide her from the shark tank of eager hands, pinching fingers. 

Suddenly Hall was there, behind her. Eiri greeted him loudly, hoping to warn Christy - but she turned and bumped right into him. 

"Oh, it's you!" she said, drunken cheerfulness curdling to something sour. "Back for more? I thought you said I was dirty. You didn't wanna... sully your stupid sullenness with me. You said." She laughed, thought she was being funny, but even Eiri could hear the bitter fragility under it.

Hall smiled at her, indulgent. The look made Eiri sick. Demons looked at humans that way before contracting souls. Pimps looked at whores that way before exploiting them. 

The elf reached out and caught the drooping strap of Christy's dress. She stumbled a little, her unbound breasts bouncing, a nipple sliding just above the border of the cup. Hall caught it in his hand, gave the nipple a little tweak with his thumb.

"You've had too much to drink," said the elf. He hoisted the strap up, tucking her breast neatly back into the dress. "I should get you home."

"I'll take her," Eiri said, taking Christy by the shoulders and pulling her back. Elves might not think of much of abusing humans, but Eiri couldn't live with himself if he let Hall take advantage of Christy. Under the cover of the party, he thought could get away with standing up to his product manager.

"Is that wise? Two humans out at night with so many strange vampires about..." Hall said, about to sneer at their human weakness.

 

"He's right. I'll have to take you," said the Director. She appeared beside them against the wall, her voice carrying easily through the din of the music. A tall elf marked with the wood antlers of House Air stood at her side. The vampire deferred to him with an almost imperceptible curtsey and he inclined his head, granting permission. 

Hall bristled - a literal flexing of his leaves and branches in ire. He caught Eiri's eye and snapped, "Do what she tells you. Vampires are accustomed to being obeyed."

The Director looped an arm around Christy's shoulders and placed her hand at the small of Eiri's back, guiding them away from Hall and toward the entrance. Eiri could feel the pressure of her hand there, through his coat, just above the place where his back rounded into the curve of his buttocks. Like a cattle prod, it led him to the elevator, to the lobby, to the street, and to the back of a black car.

If he offers to go somewhere with you, do not go with him! His mother warned about the vampire in the streets back at home. Vampires work in the dark. 

But he was already buckling into the backseat, Christy crushed in beside him. The vampire sat across, fixing them both with her magnetic black stare. In no time at all, it intoxicated Christy even further, overwhelming her senses. She shrugged off the shoulder strap of her seatbelt, turned to him, wrapped her arms up and around his neck, pulling him down to his kiss face, again and again. 

He tried to stop her, gently pushing her arms back, pleading softly. "Get ahold of yourself. You're drunk, you're drunk, stop it..."

"I know what I'm doing," she whispered, breath hot with Yamazaki. "Touch me. Do it. She likes it. They all do -