Guilty Pleasures   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

Monica grabbed my arm. “You're going to love this, I promise you.”

“Yes,” Jean-Claude said. “It will be a night you will never forget.”

“Is that a threat?”

He laughed again, that warm awful sound. “This is a place of pleasure, Anita, not violence.”

Monica was pulling at my arm. “Hurry, the entertainment's about to begin.”

“Entertainment?” Catherine asked.

I had to smile. “Welcome to the world's only vampire strip club, Catherine.”

“You are joking.”

“Scout's honor. I glanced back at the door; I don't know why. Jean-Claude stood utterly still, no sense of anything, as if he were not there at all. Then he moved, one pale hand raised to his lips. He blew me a kiss across the room. The night's entertainment dad begun.



4

Our table was nearly bumping up against the stage. The room was full of liquor and laughter, and a few faked screams as the vampire waiters moved around the tables. There was an undercurrent of fear. That peculiar terror that you get on roller coasters and at horror movies. Safe terror.

The lights went out. Screams echoed through the room, high and shrill. Real fear for an instant. Jean-Claude's voice came out of the darkness. “Welcome to Guilty Pleasures. We are here to serve you. To make your most evil thought come true.”

His voice was silken whispers in the small hours of night. Damn, he was good.

“Have you ever wondered what it would be like to feel my breath upon your skin? My lips along your neck. The hard brush of teeth. The sweet, sharp pain of fangs. Your heart beating frantically against my chest. Your blood flowing into my veins. Sharing yourself. Giving me life. Knowing that I truly could not live without you, all of you.”

Perhaps it was the intimacy of darkness; whatever, I felt as if his voice was speaking just for me, to me. I was his chosen, his special one. No, that wasn't right. Every woman in the club felt the same. We were all his chosen. And perhaps there was more truth in that than in anything else.

“Our first gentleman tonight shares your fantasy. He wanted to know how the sweetest of kisses would feel. He has gone before you to tell you that it is wondrous.” He let silence fill the darkness, until my own heartbeat sounded loud. “Phillip is with us tonight.”

Monica whispered, “Phillip!” A collective gasp ran through the audience, then a soft chanting began. “Phillip, Phillip … “ The sound rose around us in the dark like a prayer.