Part One
Jule walked out of the airport. Her eyes roamed the streets. She smiled and then inhaled deeply. No doubt she could already smell the thick perfume of flowers: the sweet magnolia scent that belonged to New Orleans. She pulled her hair back. It nearly shimmered in the moon's glow, giving it a white sheen. She ran her tongue over her lips and peered out into the night, amber eyes shifting from side to side beneath the lenses of her glasses. She leaned out and disappeared, walking across the street among a cluster of others. She seemed captivated, un-American, taking in the people and colors at every step: A foreigner? Did it matter?
She was mine. I would have her, meet her, love her and leave. It sounded simple enough (but then it never was), I thought, gliding behind her. Don't think too hard about it, I reminded myself. My first night out and I was thinking. Lestat taunted me, deeming me a waste, for such an act but how did he expect me to react, after what he did to me? No, whatever thoughts I would not waste them on him.
Jule stopped at the corner, waiting to cross. She held a black leather bag with and ivory handle. It made me think back to an older America or perhaps a recent Africa.
I could smell the flowers now as I took a moment to breathe. I noticed a woman brush past me and felt her thoughts linger on me. I covered my eyes with a set of sunglasses, hanging off my collar, and continued to draw and release breath.
A breeze swept by as Jule's light changed from a dim yellow to a fading red (that still managed to remain striking). I was surprised Jule hadn't noticed me yet and realized I shouldn't know her name.
Jule, short of Juliet, I presumed: I'd taken the name from her mind which I'd only accidentally glimpsed into. The damnable power Lestat had left coursing within my veins I had used to flee Merrick with but still found a nuisance. It only would draw me too close to Juliet and many others.
I followed her across the street, down the paved sidewalk. A newer part of New Orleans, a newer flat. I followed her upstairs, hid in a vacant room and waited.
Jule changed into some silk pajamas and sat down at an old typewriter. She changed the ribbon and fed it paper, beginning to type. It was an erotic novel: a love story for giggling teenagers, passion for the widowed or preoccupied middle-aged women. She'd written two pages just getting through some sudden and rough foreplay and then paused. She sat for a moment before leaving her typewriter and heading to lie on her bed. Her eyes closed. She didn't bother with covers. It was a warm night. The air was moist and I could almost feel the heat on her skin, the sweat on her brow. She was nearly asleep when I left the vacant room and entered her occupied one.
Four rooms, a lonely writer -- with no air conditioning: it was stuffy in her flat.
I silently located her bedroom after reading over her failed attempt at a fragment of novel. I glanced at her on the bed.
No glass separated our eyes now, only her closed lids. Her mouth was welcoming, asking for me to cover it. Her head was tilted to the side exposing a bare neck. Her nipples were pert, pleading to be touched and covered. She'd decided on not wearing the pants tonight and her white cotton panties hugged to her skin tightly as she slowly rolled over to face me. She was asleep now.
I kept silent, wanting to sigh at the poor lonesome woman, as I wandered over and reached out to touch her. Smooth, stone fingers traced her face, wandered down her neck, between a pair of generous breasts to rest on her stomach. Marble skin on a pale cream. My head slowly moved down for the kiss: past soft lips to her bare neck. My lips remained pressed there; ready to sink in when she woke up.
But this is not my story to tell – This story, of course, belongs to Jule and perhaps the phantom of a deranged violinist. I give this story to him also because it was not I that awoke Juliet but the distinct and sorrowful sound of his chords as his bow graced a violin's strings.
