Memento Mori

[Martin Le Roux]

Martin nodded. Bella would need to learn to control her Beast. What better way to do it than at an overwrought private party? There would be expensive alchohol and more expensive drugs. Bella knew about those things as a Parisian, but not as a Kindred.

Hopefully she would loose some of her tactile high during the car ride. Martin was concerned about what she would do if she touched a member of the living. He remembered his early days too vividly. Feeding was the ultimate rush.

Martin shifted gently as the turbos attached to the motor began to whine. The waste gate made a mild wooshing noise as excess air pressure was relieved. It was on the other side of down-town, in a penthouse atop an upper-middle class apartment building. Bella's eyes flicked about everywhere, as if she was in town for the first time. The light turned yellow, and then red. The GT-R made a grumbly pop when Martin clutched in and lifted off the gas while the car coasted to a stop. Her eyes stopped. Martin saw it as well. A woman in a red shirt and a khaki skirt with nicely heeled boots. Both were filled out perfectly. She had mocha skin, dark green eyes, and jet black hair. Her hips swayed, and her reflection played out across the perfectly waxed white hood of the GT-R. Bella's hand slinked twoards the door handle.

"Non." Martin said. His voice was certain.

[Arabella Balfour]

Halfway to the handle, her hand paused. Her fingers twitched and then closed into a tight little fist, but her eyes never left the woman. Unknowingly, within her mouth, the tip of her tongue was running along her teeth as if in anticipation of a delicacy coming her way. Mouth watering and all hers for the taking.

That Martin told her no almost made her turn to him with a pout. Of course she knew she could not do as she liked at the moment, she knew... but she didn't care! She wanted! She knew it was the Hunger. She rationalized that many before her had probably screwed up in the beginning and she could learn in time...

Please, oh please..

The light turned green again and 'Bella's hand fell back into her lap, with no small amount of control... "Mon Dieu, is it always so.. demanding?"

[Martin Le Roux]

Martin shook his head. "Not always." He said, and eased the car away. Arabella stole a last glance, but her body snapped back when Martin burried the pedal. The car's weight squatted over the rear wheels, which chirped before the Skyline roared away.

"These first days are overwhelming. The sense of power, the perception, the new lusts." Martin said over the growl of the motor and wail of the turbos. He deftly threaded the car through a gap with only inches to spare. Before the driver was even aware how the car had appeared in front to honk, Martin had already gained a hundred yards. He shifted, the car belched flame with a crackle-pop. Blue and red lights lit up from a side street. Martin firmly hauled the car to a near halt and threw it to the right down the next side street, and then left, and right, and down five more thundering blocks before heading left again.

And then, with a touch of the brake pedal, it was over. The car was merely a quietly growling beast instead of Godzilla unleashed. Sirens in the distance grew a little louder, and then quieter again.

"To let our Beast run free will either be our undoing, or someone else's. Both, sometimes. We cannot allow slips of control." Martin drove normally, as if his demonstration had never happened.

[Arabella Balfour]

Her dark eyes were quite wide, an expression of excitement frozen in place like a porcelain doll. She turned to him with an arch look. "We must do that again..."

Arabella understood what Martin was saying. Really, even though she already knew of these things, experiencing them for the first time was something else. She had not been prepared for how strong she could feel things. Thing like hunger, and desire. Everything was so keen, so honed.

"I understand...", she said quietly, trying to adjust to the strange sensations.

[Martin Le Roux]

Martin nodded.

"Maybe another night." He said, and gently clicked the car into third. He occasionally passed another driver, but none of his antics would have raised an eyebrow.

For now, he was determined to help Bella catch her first prey, and not make a mess of things. Few neonates were restrained enough to feed the first time without being lethal to kine. While Martin was confident in Bella, she was taken with her gifts, and would need him to snap her out of her euphoria.

The car arrived at the parking garage for the relatively nondescript apartment building. It was recently refurbished. The glass showed no signs of bowing. The windows were modern, double pained for energy efficency. The stone had been cleaned recently. The Skyline grumbled at being driven so slowly, it's low burble eched off the walls of the underground parking garage. It shut off with glurg, an extra rotation from the motor as an act of defiance. Arabella exited first, and spent a moment studying the reflections in the clearcoat, how the light hit it. Martin smiled.

"I think the people will be more interesting than the light hitting the car." He said.

[Arabella Balfour]

Arabella hid a little girlish grin, peeking up at Martin as she moved around to take his arm. For a moment she might have argued on behalf of the near prism like quality of how the light sparkled just so.. but then she recallled how she had felt in the car as they had passed the woman on the street and she wasn't so sure.

"You are probably right. I am sure they will be most... endearing." At her own choice of words, her smiled deepened in the garage lighting.

She could not yet put into words how her newly acquired senses felt to her. She was not sure there were words descriptive enough for such sensation. Not far, she could smell the distinctive heat of warm flesh. She could feel it call to her, teasing her with the desire to hunt and claim it. It was both fascinating and a little terrifying. Being a monster was never what she wanted. It was one of the many reasons she hadn't really wanted to be embraced but now, she thought maybe she understood the old saying she'd heard so many times before.

'Monsters we are, lest monsters we become.'

She needed to learn control, and she could only do that with the watchful restraint of her sire. Learning how to hunt what she wanted, and know when she'd had enough. Taming her inner Beast that even now she could feel stirring..

"I'm a little afraid...", she admitted.

[Martin Le Roux]

"We are all a little afraid." Martin said, reassuringly. They should all be afraid of the monster that lurked in Kindred. It was a good thing. If you dissmissed it, the Beast took over.

Bella and Martin were quiet as they ascended the stairs, although she was distracted by nearly everything. She was fiending for her first feed, and the textures and colors were a welcome distraction. The elevator dinged when they reached the top floor.

"Dean, hello." Martin said warmly to a man in his mid 30s. Stock broker, fitness addict. The floor was well populated with Chicago's well-to-do. There were probably 40 people in the main room.

"Hi Martin, please come in, come in."

"Dean, this is Bella." Bella smiled. "Pleased to meet you." Her French accent came through.

"French, or Canadian?" Dean asked. He had tone deaf ears and liked terrible music. Fortunately, his boyfriend had much better taste.

"French, monsieur."

"Hah! I never can tell. John says I have the worst ears. Feel free to make yourselves comfortable."