Modern Speakeasy

Favourite thermal dark blue night pants? Check.

Favourite shirt of Javier's that smells just like him, his cigar smoke, his post-lecture sweat? Check.

Carton of pre-pitted Deglet Noor Dates and a bowl of honey? Check.

Laptop with The Man from U.N.C.L.E. loaded and ready? Check.

Perfect recipe for a night in.

That is, until there came a soft knock at the door.

It's Javier and he's not in the flannels and T-shirt that mark grading time. No, tonight, it's a perfectly tailored blue blazer, chambray shirt, and polished brown wingtips. He's actually touched his hair and shaved.

"What's the occasion?"

"I'm bored. Let's go out."

"I'm totally not fit for anything other than like a Wally run," I gesture ineptly at myself.

"Come on. It'll be fun. I want to show you what I do for fun."

"Ughhhhhhhh. Fine."

"Here," he says, taking a long stride to my vanity and picking up my iPod. "I'll inspire you."

He flips though and settles on Lana's West Coast remix. With that devil's smile and an exaggerated bow, he closes the door and leaves me to my privacy.

Looks like I'm going out tonight after all.

I shuck off all my clothes and hop in a steaming hot shower, lathering up with jasmine and vanilla soap, knowing what it does to his enhanced senses. I don't wash my hair, though. I'd already done it once tonight and though my natural red won't fade, I need it to be a little oily to cooperate with the hot rollers. If his look is anything to go by, I'm thinking "vintage bombshell".

First things first once I'm out. Lotion up everything all freshly shaved. Though I know he's downstairs in his office, the iPod skips a few tracks and settles on Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic. I get the stupid hot rollers in and begin shuffling through my underwear. I'm careful to layer the garter and hose under the black mesh-and-lace panties he hasn't seen yet just in case. I wait until my face is done to figure out which bra I need because I don't even know what I'm wearing yet.

Vintage bombshell. Hmm. I know I must have something.

I settled on a black pencil dress with red kick pleats and Mary Janes low enough to walk in. Once the rollers are out, I pin up the front of my hair with a little black rose clip and let the fat waves roll down my shoulders. Once look in the mirror and something is just not quite right with the ensemble. Ah! Got it! I run back to the bathroom and smooth on cherry red lipstick with Forever Glaze on top. There. Now I look like an old time movie star. It's perfect.

A few minutes later I hear his steps down the hall. When he opens the door, Trap Queen comes on the stereo a little too loud. It's a good thing the other chantry-dwellers are away or out for the night, else they'd probably be up here complaining. It never ceases to amaze me what than man can do with his mind, especially when his control slips. I turn it off and do what I think is a dramatic turn.

"Oh my god," he sighs. "Flawless. As always. Ready?"

"Yeah, let me get my bag."

He comes up behind me and tucks a red and black jewel-encrusted full flask in in.

"Now it's perfect."

He opens the door and helps me into the tall black Escalade out front. We take off down the mostly-deserted Dickson Street, passing the Walton Arts Center, not yet fully constructed. It makes me sad for a second, but when I think of the amazing productions they can put on in the new building, I'm pleased again. Maybe we'll get Hamilton?

"It'll be done before you know it," he says. "I can get us into whatever they open with, if you want."

"Hey, what have we said about listening when I haven't said it's okay?"

"Sorry. It was still turned up and I forget. Back of the mind, you know."

"Give a girl some privacy sometime please?"

"As you wish."

A few minutes of some really old classical music piece plays until he presses a button on the dash. It's replaced with Lorde. I smile. Even when he's not actively reading minds, I think he still knows. He drapes a wrist over the steering wheel and the glint of his watch reflects on the streetlights. God, it's only my second year living here and I see what he meant by living in two cities at once. In the summer, with all the students gone, it's a completely different feel. The carnival atmosphere of Dickson is dampened, and especially so from tonight's rain.

"So where are we going?"

"Not far. Just to Block Street."

"Nothing's open this time of night, especially in summer. Maxine's might still be open, but..."

"But nothing, sweetheart," he said. "I might be old, but I know where it's at."

He was right. We turned right onto Block Street and after some awkward finagling into a parking place on the street, I saw where "it" was. "It" was an Antebellum manor, complete with columns and a wraparound porch and porch swings. There were lights and a dull throb of noise issuing from the house. A few people were on the swings, smoking and laughing. He returned to my side of the car and helped me out again.

"Stick close for the time," he said. "Things have probably changed since the last time I was here."

"Are there people like you here?"

"There's a few immortals, yes. Probably a lot. Definitely humans. There's undoubtably a few magic folk here as well. Probably none of ours, they're not cool enough." He winked. I cringed inside.

A slot on the front door opened and a pair of false lashes blinked slowly, taking us in. "Password?"

"Oh man, it's been a while. Honeypot?"

"Sorry, man."

"Passion Pit, then?"

"Wrong again."

"How about...Johanna Gatz is a good personal friend and if you run and go get her I'm sure she'll vouch for me? It's Javier plus one."

The little window snapped shut and about five minutes later the eyes appeared again.

"She says you're welcome, but the little French bitch is not."

"Different girl, I assure you."

The door opened and oh my god, it's like I stepped in a time machine into 1928.

The crystal chandeliers were swinging and glittering and the effect with a mirror ball in the middle of the ceiling was truly magical. The air was thick with smoke and laughter and all manner of scents and sounds. Glasses clinked, heels clapped on the wood floors, bare feet shuffled across the massive old carpet in the middle of the floor. In one corner, a makeshift bar was set up. Another table held a massive murky red punchbowl in a hot-water bath and another one that was pink and bubbly with ice balls floating in it. As we walked past, the red bowl had that distinct coppery stink that meant I wanted nothing to do with it.

The music shifted to a piano riff that I vaguely recognized but couldn't place. A stand microphone stood in front of a (hopefully) well-made coffee table, and a gorgeous older woman in a show-stopping brown sequined strapless gown gracefully stepped up on it and began an interesting cover of "Life on Mars" which abruptly stopped and turned into "Bitch I'm Madonna". I was mesmerized. The slit in her skirt went all the way up and the faintest ivory line could be seen in the top.

She pointed at Javier and looked at me for a minute, sizing me up the way women do. He gave a curt nod and steered me to the pink punchbowl. On the way over a gorgeous dark man in leather pants and a fringe vest offered me a silver tray with rainbow lines of what looked like differently-shaped Flintstones vitamins on it.

"Champagne, cocaine, gasoline, and most things in between. What's your poison, newcomer?"

Javier politely held a hand up to it.

"Thanks but no thanks, Xima," he said.

"It's 2016, Estevez. The lady can speak for herself. I'm a feminist, how dare you?"

"Uh, thanks, sir? But I don't really like, do drugs."

"Suit yourself. I'm around if you change your mind."

I couldn't tell if he was immortal and I didn't recognize his thick accent, but I did enjoy watching him walk away. God, everyone here was pretty.

A sharp swat to my backside brought me back.

"He's a snake. No, literally. He can turn into a snake. His spit, blood, everything in him contains a kind of venom. Came here to ply his trade."

"What's his trade?"

"Vice. Duh. Come, there's someone I want you to meet."

I poured my punch in the crystal (!) glass on the table and took his arm.

The woman in the glittering gown was on a couch lounging on a very strong-looking woman in an oxford shirt with suspenders. She was dressed more like Javier than any of the women in this place.

"Darling, how good of you to come. It's been what, twenty years since you've been to one of my little soirees?"

The woman rose and did that weird European air-kiss thing, which he mimicked.

"So happy to see you jettisoned that foul little cake of a girl. This, she is a real woman."

I reddened under her much more obvious gaze. Her eyes took in my outfit as normal, but returned to my chest and shoes with extra critique.

"Ginger, this is my old friend Jo."

She extended her hand, one fat champagne diamond set in gold making it a difficult shake.

"This is my partner, Jane. Jane-darling, come say hello to Jave and his new ladyfriend."

"Evening, miss," she said, and shook, much more businesslike.

"Shall I give you the tour?" Jo rose with a glass of what looked like a mix of the two punches.

"It's not even my house!"

There were hookahs set up in one room (provided by Marid al-Kaifi, surely you've met, he's an idiot but generous and one of ours, you know) and in another nothing but a round California King bed and dim lighting and odd shapes moving in the shadows (let's not disturb them but feel free to join them), and in a couple other rooms there were more private talk and dance venues (do watch out in the red room, the Bishop is up from New Orleans and is feeling peckish this evening). It was dizzying. So this was private nightlife in the city. To think all I'd seen were the busy bars on Dickson in the fall.

"And that's the tour. Miss Mabel was kind enough to lend us her estate. She and Gavin are out, but they'll be back in once they've had their fun hunting." Jo crossed back to her couch and gracelessly flumped back down on it, giving the room a full view of what was beneath her gown.

"Thanks for letting us in, Jo, it's been a while. Clearly we'll have to come out more often."

"The password these days is 'Roll Tide'."

She erupted into drunk laughter.

"The college kids will never guess it! Oh, what a riot. I do hope that Mabel comes back soon, Ginger, you simply must meet her."

I nodded. I'd love to meet whoever could pull a shindig like this off.

I decided to be my usual wallflower self. Watching could be more fun than doing, I'd learned. I'd noticed Javier drinking from both bowls and taking a few shot glasses offered to him by old friends and strangers. To be fair, I'd been draining that punch and boy, it was stout. I'd asked Jo what was in it, as it was delicious, and she'd told me. Strawberries, pink old champagne, I didn't know what kind, cake vodka, some other stuff. I was glad I'd worn the low heels. I gradually got more into the party the drunker I got. I'd never seen Javier dance before, and certainly not like this. He was actually bumping around with people, a couple of them familiar, most of them not. We cycled through fifty years of pop, even modern stuff. Every once in a while someone would get up and sing into the can. The sexy drug man from before did an interesting rendition of Don't Tell 'Em and looked my way more than once. I avoided his gaze. Somehow the thought of kissing someone who was literally poison was off-putting.

At one point, things got kinda crazy. Jo seemed like a woman who knew her mind and did what she pleased, so she didn't take too kindly when someone fiddled with the sound system as she was singing a Barbara Streisand song I recognized as one my mom blasted when she was aggressive-cleaning the house. She took a swing at the offending man, and one of her huge breasts fell right out of her top but it didn't seem to stop her. At that time, Jane intervened, hefting her right over her shoulder with unnatural strength, Jo arguing in broken English and German the entire time. Jane hauled her off down a hallway and into a room and I didn't see either of them again. The arguing stopped, though, and turned into loud sounds of a completely different nature. I continued wallflowering, though. There was plenty to watch.

Javier was definitely in the spirit of the thing. I'd never seen him so sociable before. I mean, I'd gotten used to him mostly sitting in his study grading or getting stuff ready for his class, or stretched out on the couch in the salon at the Chantry reading or playing chess with himself when we weren't having dinner (which weirdly consisted of him draining a bottle of blood from the fridge and watching me eat). But he was talking to people, taking those off-colour shots, and I guess he got tired of dancing alone, so he pulled me against him in the middle of the room in a crush of people and that's when I realized why my parents equated dancing with sex.

He'd shed his blazer a while ago, rolled up his sleeves and flicked a button down from his throat so that the gold Star of David he wore under his shirts could be seen.

"Bailamos, Cariño. Dance for me like Uma Thurman."

I wasn't real sure what that meant, so I just kind of swayed a little?

"No, no. Escuchar la percusion, it's not hard. Ayudo."

He took hold of both my hips and forced them up and down, then side to side, in better time with the music. I got it, but my dulled senses made it a little harder to concentrate. I still had that tiny ugly voice in the back of my head that made me self-conscious.

"Move the way you do when we make love," he said, right up against my ear. Now that I could understand.

He pulled me back into him and god, he was never warm but right now, with the sheer amount of humanity in there and the drinking and the movement, he was actually hot. I rolled my hips and arched back and his grip tightened. The music seamlessly faded into the next song and I let The Weeknd take control. The next time I arched back, I was sure it wasn't his wallet that I felt. Any other time, I'd have swatted him and admonished him for touching me like this in public, but the magic of the night had me. One hand roamed up my belly and one by one ticked open the buttons on my dress. He gently dragged his nails across my collarbone and god, my knees buckled under me.

The Weeknd bled into Eric Clapton into this weird smooth French rap and it was like it was just us in the room.

Eventually I turned to face him, seeing something utterly foreign to me: his cheeks flushed, pink sweat making his formerly perfect hair a hot mess, shirt stuck to his every angle, tinted pink. His neck was soaked when I reached up to stabilize myself using him. Instead of my waist, he held both sides of my pelvis, sometimes reaching farther back and squeezing my ass hard, which wasn't difficult in a pencil dress. This was the closest I'd ever been to a man with my clothes on and it was absolutely intoxicating.

"Let's go to the back," he said.

The top of my dress was open, exposing way more than I was usually okay with, and I could feel myself stumbling a little to keep up with his long strides, but I wanted this every bit as bad as he did. I yanked my bag up from the floor and took it with me. He led me through the back areas of the house where Jo had shown us earlier. How many rooms were even in this place?

He peeked in one at the end of the long hallway and then opened the door, closing it behind us. It was lit with a cascade of paper lanterns like in the Middle Eastern bazaars, with a canopied bed and floor poufs. I sat on one and began unbuckling my shoes.

"Leave 'em on," he said, coming over and lifting me from my perch straight to the bed. He left my legs hanging off to finish taking off his shirt and throwing it on the floor. I pulled my dress over my head and cast it off too. He stroked up my leg from ankle to knee to the inside of my thigh and chuckled softly when he'd seen this part of the ensemble.

"Thinking ahead, yes?"

"Maybe. You do that to me."

"Mm. I like this. Let's keep this and lose this," he said, sliding one of my bra straps off my shoulder.

As I reached behind me to unhook, he was emptying his pants pockets and depositing the contents on the nightstand. He paused, picking up his phone and swiping around on it. I didn't even know he knew who Trey Songz was, but Slow Motion came through his speakers as he placed it back down.

"Me encanta ver, dance for me. I'll make it worth your while."

I was just drunk enough to do it. But just to make sure, I fished the flask from my bag and took a healthy swig from it. It was fruity and refreshing and there was a coppery note at the end but the warmth and raw sensuality that bloomed out from my belly cast all my cares out the window.

He took a seat on one of the poufs as I stood. I decided to keep everything on for now and make it part of the show. It took a minute to shake the nerves, but once I stopped thinking about it, I closed my eyes, threw back my head, and let the music take over again. I turned to face away from him and dropped nearly to my knees, leaning back and letting my hair brush my back. I know how much he loves my hair, and he did reach to touch it, but I rose before he had time. I'd seen a friend of mine's videos from her belly dancing class on Facebook, so I vaguely tried to imitate some of the things I saw. The beat replaced my heart as I undulated my belly and then the rest of the way up, breasts bouncing almost free. I left the straps down my arms and played with them, pretending to take them off but changing my mind the closer in front of him I got. The ridiculous wide grin wasn't something I saw often, but I liked it.

The song changed but it was the same beat. I shimmied over to take another drink, a longer one this time. I drained it all at once on impulse. Whatever was in there was damn good.

Something in me changed. I was no longer dorky Ginger, hiding in the library with the cute cardigans and jeans. I was a terrifying force of nature, a goddess to be worshipped with blood and wine and naked men as my throne and tribute.

I dropped to my knees and crawled over to him, not caring what the carpet did to my hose. One hand stroked his chin and down his chest, the other unhooked my bra. When I stood, it fell to the floor and I seriously thought he was going to have a heart attack until I remembered that his heart was already stopped.

For the first time in my life, I wasn't self-conscious about touching myself. I mimicked his stroke up my legs to my hips, to my breasts, letting them sit in my hands, then up to my neck to brush the hair from my shoulders. He stood then, lifting me by the hips back to my former position on the bed. He dropped to his knees and pulled me forward, spreading my thighs and lifting my legs to rest on his shoulders. He had to peel my underwear off, they were absolutely stuck to me with a mix of sweat and juices, but I didn't care.

I was so hot and involved in my own living, breathing fantasy come true that I didn't hear the door open.

He let the lace slip down on its own and then temporarily moved to just get it off and away. That's when I noticed the eyes on us.

"Javier?"

"Yes?"

"There's someone in here."

"Baby, there's like ten people in here."

"Oh my god, I can't—"

He held my knee and stroked it.

"You're beyond beautiful. Let them see."

I wasn't completely sure but if the rest of the night was anything to go by, I was about trying new things.

"Okay, but nobody touches me but you."

"Absolutely."

He scooted back up and ran his hands up my thighs, and it was too much. I laid back again, determined to not think about anything other than the sensation. His fingers gently slid between and I hadn't realized how wet I was until then. I felt the bed shift—people were sitting on it to get a closer look. I closed my eyes, willing away the anxiety. He mopped up some of my lubrication, coating his fingers and softly pinching my clit between his fingers. I felt his hot breath before the soft tongue and I arched all the way up off the bed. I wanted to make words, sounds, something, come out of my throat but then I remembered we had an audience, so a weird strangled thing came out.