the comedy of the profession

When he'd first been offered the choice, Santiago hadn't understood. Why on earth would he choose to die just because his maker was going to? Who would choose that?

Then it started, and he understood. The pain was everywhere. In his body, like he was being drained himself, but that was hardly the worst of it. No, the worst of it was somewhere else, somewhere deeper than any tissue or blood or bone. The loss. The knowledge that he was gone. That's what had him curled up, sobbing, as the entire coven gathered and the maître watched the scene from an ancient stone throne. Remember this, his own impeccable sense of narrative whispered, even as he was wracked with sobs on the cool stone floor. Maître flicking him out of the way of a stray flame like it's nothing. This is what you must hate.

Then Santiago had picked himself up, dusted himself off, and got over it. That's what it is to be an actor, after all; you pour your heart out, night after night, give everything you have, and you just have to trust that something will fill you back up again before you need to do it again. Blood fills him up. The faint heartbeat still high in his throat in the moment before the curtains open fills him up.

And then there's Maître. The ruthless, implacable ancient who now holds the power of life and death over him.

Santiago is not all that good at reading minds. It's something his maker should have taught him, maybe would have, but he's an exsanguinated shell in a morgue box now, and his fledgling is left bumping at the edges of others' thoughts, never quite able to get a grasp on them. But he has something the other vampires don't: craft. He is an actor, a real one and not just a slack-jawed disciple of this comedy of cruelties. He has studied emotion, learned its contours and scents. Learned the way it shows on the face, the better to show it himself.

Vampires, Santiago realizes quickly, are so used to needing to guard their minds that they forget to guard anything else. And the Maître, Armand, the demonic cherub whose glowing gaze has haunted Santiago's dreams ever since he became an orphan, has a very guarded mind. But only his mind.

Being part of a theatre troupe vampire coven is not so very different from being part of a theatre troupe. In some ways, it is easier: the things that were passed over in silence among mortals are spoken aloud by vampires. What is a maître, if not an acknowledgement of a role that every gathering of souls has? Oh, out in the streets of the city there may be chatter of liberté, égalité, fraternité, but it's empty air, as unnecessary as breath itself.

To put it bluntly-- which Santiago does, always, in the confines of his own mind, you can't play something you can't identify-- it is good to have a maître, and to call them so by name, because that way you know who you need to bend over for. Or to kneel for, lie back for. To figure out. To please.

This maître is not subtle. He doesn't need to be. He could say you, my office with his mind, but instead he says it with his eyes, which are huge and beautiful and irritatingly difficult to hate. Santiago watches him do it to others, and waits his turn. He doesn't ask about him, because that would betray worry, and worry is weakness. He does try to pry, but doesn't get much. The girls have no particular feelings on him. A mediocre rape, a clockwork pantomime playing out exactly as expected. And the boys of the company feel the expected, boring mix of excitement, indignation and guilt at being sodomized or facefucked, but overall he cannot make out any telling mentalities from that quarter either.

Which presents a challenge, but not an insurmountable one. Santiago likes to be prepared, to have a chat with his scene partner before the main moment, to get to know them. All he can know about Armand is that he does not particularly care whether or not his children love him. He cares that they fear him, but only insofar as fear is obedience; he takes no special pains to instill fear beyond that point. He does what needs to be done. He is made of ice.

Santiago can figure out how to make him melt on his tongue. He must, for that is how you become the favourite. His art, and therefore his survival, depend on it.

Santiago is still in costume, laden with tucked cloth and hidden pins and shiny buckles, when it comes. He'd been trying for it, making eyes at Armand as unsubtly as he can get away with, glances that could be just a showman casting his gaze around the theatre but always lingered unaccountably on one specific box. He had been considering escalating; pressing a kiss with his fingers to Armand's lips during that silly flying-rope routine, in full view of the audience when he can do nothing about it.

But apparently he doesn't need to-- or at least, doesn't need to for this. Armand's bulb-bright amber gaze on him, his delicate chin raised in the tiniest of nods towards his office. Santiago follows.

The office is immaculate; if not exactly in tidiness, in presentation. Everything about it announces the kind of work done there, and the kind of person who must be doing it. The posters, books, souvenirs. As if this space, too, were furnished by a set designer. Armand arrives just a few moments before him, enough that by the time Santiago enters and closes the door--almost, but not entirely, opaque-- he is facing outwards, leaning a little against the desk behind him.

He is exquisite. Vampires are, by and large, beautiful-- some law about turning them when they're young and hot that people tend to mumble through when Santiago is present because he happens to be un-living proof that it's bullshit-- but Armand is from the classic vampiric mold, in vintage if not in hue. Early thirties, perhaps, old enough to believably command authority but not quite enough to allow time to mar the perfect smoothness of his skin. Huge eyes rimmed with long lashes, thin graceful fingers that curl around the edge of the desk. A delicate chin that he raises, very slightly, as Santiago approaches. His eyes flick towards the ground at his feet.

A well-known script. Santiago drops to his knees, leaning back a little to make the movement graceful. He needn't have worried about his preparation; if a professional and his scene partner both know the play well enough, they can certainly produce a passable rendition of the action on the first try. Or, perhaps, this is more like commedia dell'arte; improvised, but true to type, each actor needing only to play his character within the bounds of personality and habit allowed to him.

That Armand knows his character, is able to play maître in this scene just as comfortably as any other, is a relief. Santiago reaches for his trousers, undoes his belt and pulls them down. He keeps them hanging just above Armand's knees, and looks up to ensure that he isn't displeased by it; it has the effect of somewhat trapping him, but avoids the indignity of having to step out of them. He looks almost indifferent, and Santiago receives no further instruction either verbally or psychically, so he continues to pull down Armand's briefs as well, revealing his adequately aroused member.

Adequate. Indifferent. Armand knows the part, knows it well enough after hundreds of years that he could play it in his sleep, and he is playing it in his sleep. And that-- a fellow artist going through the motions, doing just enough and no more, no passion, no self, all while Santiago pours everything he is into the craft-- that, he cannot abide.

An extra challenge, is all. Because it is always possible, to find the self in a fellow actor. Even once the scene has begun, there's always a way of taking it in an unexpected directed within the confines of the roles. Crack open the stone of habit and find vulnerability inside.

Santiago closes his lips over Armand's cock. It is pleasantly clean. One of Armand's hands lands on his head and stays there, not really pushing, just following the choreography. He slides forward and back slowly, leisurely, thinking.

A little analysis of the script can do wonders, sometimes. The others, the vampires who predate this coven's reconstitution as a theatre and have an attachment to the art only insofar as it provides them with a fresh meal every night, think him silly for it. Sometimes the curtains are just blue! they giggle, unaware and uninterested in understanding that the very idea of vampirism, the foundation of their condition, is as much metaphorical as it is practical. Plague metaphors, rape metaphors. Rebirth, hunger, penetration. Heavy-handed, certainly, but it does provide a certain theoretical foundation.

This maître; what is his foundation? Naïve interpretations of powerful characters assume that they were simply born that way, destined by fate to command. And yet as the tragedies show, from the Bard all the way back to the Greeks, nothing could be farther from the truth. The more power a great man commands, the more powerful the ghosts and terrors that command him. The more he wishes, secretly, ardently, to cast off the mantle of power and return to the state of simplicity of one who desires power to counteract his own powerlessness.

Santiago's hand smooths up the inside of Armand's thigh, giving him plenty of advance warning before his palm cups his scrotum. Gently, just a little added sensation, and another glance upwards to gauge the reaction. Nothing. And so; a tiny squeeze. It could be accidental, the involuntary muscle contraction that accompanies a slight gag. But it isn't.

Armand's lips, parted in the perfect facsimile of a blissful pout, part a little further. Hardly any reaction at all; but it's enough.

The window of opportunity is only open for so long. Moments pass all too quickly, onstage; an instant that was ripe for an audience's laughter or tears can die in a matter of seconds, go stale, and now the same line delivered the same way has no effect at all. Santiago seizes the moment. He squeezes harder, then lets go and delivers a small but sharp slap to the base of Armand's cock.

And there he is; a tiny intake of breath, eyes a little bit unfocused just for a second. Something real. Santiago braces. Having a reaction forced can be painful; if Armand lashes out for it he'll accept the punishment with good grace. He waits for a harsh word, a pinch, a slap. A what the hell do you think you're doing. It doesn't come.

He glances up. Armand is looking at him, expectantly. If he were saying it any clearer, it would be ringing in Santiago's mind: again.

He does it again, harder.

Armand is a better scene partner than he could possibly have imagined, given that the maître never graces the stage himself. It makes Santiago momentarily wish that he would; not all actors display this kind of flexibility of intent. The tip of his cock is still in Santiago's mouth, but that is hardly the focus. He leans back against the desk, spreading his legs wider so that Santiago can get a better windup for his next hit. Santiago lets the organ slip out of his mouth before his hand makes contact, lets it bounce with the force of the slap, and Armand tilts back his head in what can only be interpreted as decadent pleasure, and makes a sound like a little close-mouthed moan, all labial consonants and forced-out air.

More hits. Squeezes, harder, with nails. Armand reacts with an enjoyment almost like relief; that he no longer has to act out the sterile motions of pleasure. It is easy to seem, when you actually are. Santiago isn't even pretending to suck any more. Just using his hands, and his mind.

Armand's cock is hard, now, not in the most perfunctory way possible that still allows orgasm, but swollen and slightly purple, leaking bloody precome from the tip with each fresh onslaught. It is that slipperiness, probably, that gives Santiago the idea; certainly it is not something that he would have thought of on his own, in the absence of that particular alchemy that characterizes a great improvisation.

He has a pin, holding his cravat in place. An old style, decently long, not excessively thin, a good big pearl set into the top. He had picked it from a body on its way to the rat box, one of his first nights in a starring role. He pulls it out now and holds it up, considering.

Armand's knee jerks. He makes a little needy sound, just in the time where Santiago momentarily stops slapping his cock around. That he is perfectly comfortable being demanding, genuinely demanding of what he wants and not just the show-you-know-your-place act, is... alluring. Santiago might even call it adorable, if he were a little less terrifying. He slaps Armand's cock again, sloppily, catching his thigh with the tail end of it, and that is good too, apparently. He holds up the pin, and says, "This in your slit. My hands on you. If it pleases you, maître."

Not exactly the most refined monologue he's ever delivered, but it plays well to its audience. Armand slides himself back even more, the desk under his bare ass now, knees spread as far as they can go with his trousers having slipped down to trap his calves. His eyes are almost closed, and he's letting out breathy little sounds with each exhale. A sigh, or a moan.

Okay, so-- now he has to actually do this, which is fine. Santiago knows it's theoretically possible, because he's the kind of person the working girls like to forget is a client and start talking to about the other johns, their strange habits and perversions, but part of him had expected not to get quite this far. One of his idols at the York Royal had liked to say, fear of success is just fear of failure at the next level. Santiago is certain that of all the coven members to have been called into this room for this ritual, he is the only one who has ever seen this particular expression on maître's face, heard these particular sounds from him.

"Get it slick," says Armand, the first words he's uttered since they'd arrived in this room, and when Santiago opens his mouth to lick it he snaps impatiently, "with your blood," like the correct method of wetting a cravat pin about to be shoved up a vampire's urethra should be obvious to any idiot.

Santiago makes a nick in his left wrist with a fang, still trying his best to keep up his swats at Armand's cock and balls and thighs with his right, the pin clasped between his pointer and middle fingers like a cigarette. He has to stop for a moment to roll the thing around in the wound, and then time becomes honey-slow as he grasps the base of Armand's cock in one hand, and begins to slide the pin in with the other.

He goes slowly, wiggling it around a little to try to find the path of least resistance, and he cannot spare a glance for Armand's face, but he can feel him, the trembling of his thighs boxing Santiago in, and he can hear the high desperate keen that lasts the entire slow slide. It is a sound approaching shock; the astounding discovery that there are entirely new sensations awaiting the body, pleasures and pains never imagined. Santiago is familiar with that kind of shock; the early stages of a vampire's unlife are full of it. Lines that you didn't know existed to be crossed, being trampled on every time the sun goes down. Armand, he suspects, has not felt it in a very long time.

It's not quite as long as it could be, Santiago thinks, if he had planned this in advance, brought something for this on purpose. Still, it seems to take a while for the pin to slide all the way in; and then, finally, it sits with the pearl perfectly balanced on the tip of Armand's cock.

"Ooh," says Santiago, not knowing quite what's going to come out of his own mouth before it does: "that's pretty." And he means it. God, he means something more than that, but he can't say it.

Searing pain in his cheek, his jaw; a slap delivered with raking nails. "The aesthetics," Armand says, "are none of your concern."

"My apologies, maître," he says, feeling unmoored, a little panicked, but it's all right; he just needs to get back to what he knows works. He starts lighter, now, slaps the delicate secret place where Armand's thighs meet his belly, works his way inwards to his balls and finally, his shaft. His erection even stiffer, now, the pearl at the tip of it bouncing around obscenely, chaotically.

It works. Anger forgotten, Armand leans back, hands braced behind him on the desk, and lets himself go. Shaking, moaning, completely present. Santiago feels brilliant. It is so good, the perfect rapport between scene partners. He has done it, become something to the maître that nobody else is. He is safe. He is loved.

Armand's motions speed up, and Santiago keeps one firm hand on his balls and reaches for the pin with the other. He means to pull it out in one go, but the shiver in Armand's thighs from the first little tug convince him to draw it out a little, and he ends up pushing it in again, and then out a little farther; fucking him with the pin as gently as he can given Armand's erratically stuttering hips. So it is almost all the way out, but not entirely, when Armand throws his head back, squeezes Santiago's sides with his calves, and comes; blood on the cravat pin, blood on Santiago's face, his shirt, his hands.

There is always this moment; a little slice out of time, reserved for nothing and nobody. The final instant between the lights coming up and the thunderous applause. The conductor's arms frozen in the air, musicians not yet daring to put down their instruments.

Santiago lays his cheek against his Maître's knee, and closes his eyes. For the first time since his maker's death, he has a bond to a vampire that goes beyond the glib camaraderie of the stage, of the hunt. That it is Armand feels right. He had killed the one who made Santiago, so of course he should--

Santiago is jostled, his face pushed out of the way, by Armand standing up. He opens his eyes, and before he can reach forward to help, Armand has pulled his briefs and trousers back up and is buckling his belt. He looks horrifyingly composed.

Santiago shuffles back a little, not quite willing to get off his knees. He hadn't expected to be allowed to come himself, of course, but he would have liked to bury his face in the space between Armand's knees a little bit longer. He had hoped, perhaps presumptuously, for a cool hand on his cheek, soothing the scratches healing there.

He has a moment of terror thinking that he'd miscalculated, that the aftermath of unexpected pleasure has left Armand embarrassed and angry. But although his mind is barred with iron gates, Santiago hardly needs more than the body right in front of him to know that's not true. Armand is pleased. He is perfectly at ease.

"Thank you, Santiago," Armand says, once his clothes are smoothed back over the shape of him, and Santiago can hear that he means it.

He just doesn't mean it differently from how he would say it to any lackey proving his loyalty on his knees.

Santiago slides the pin back into the folds of his cravat with shaking fingers. Blood and bloody come stain the fabric. It is an obvious dismissal. He should get up and leave. But when he thinks of pushing himself to his feet and slipping out, all he can feel is that he was used like a whore. And perhaps that would be all right, if it hadn't felt so very much, just for a moment, like he was wanted as something else.

He shouldn't say it. He does anyway. "Did you... enjoy yourself, maître?" he asks.

And at that something in Armand's face does gentle. "Yes," he says, "very nicely done." And that feels worse.

Santiago pushes himself to his feet slowly. As the blood in him redistributes, drains out of his neglected cock and returns to his legs and feet, the hurt begins to drain away too, and is replaced by a seed of anger. Very nicely done. There is something about that line that comes from a different script. Not quite the scene he had come here to play out, and thought he'd transcended. It's not warm. It's not even particularly dominating. It's... collegial.

Santiago turns to leave. There are no curious faces on the other side of the glass; but then, his colleagues in the theatre don't need a line of sight or hearing to be listening in. To Santiago's thoughts, at least, if not to Armand's.

Very nicely done. The professional congratulations of one whore to another.

The door to the office slams behind him, and the seed of anger takes root. He can feel it, cracking through the foundations of his reverence, where he had been planning on building the edifice of his adoration for his maître. I know what you are, he thinks, viciously. A broadcast to anyone who cares to listen. I may be one too, but I see you. Disgusting little whore.

And though he knows he should stomp it out, let the anger purify his intentions, he can't help but think: perhaps next time. Next time, I can make him love me. It would be nice to believe that the others listening cannot hear that part, his shameful infatuation.

He cleans the pin before heading out to hunt, places it back in the drawer with other such trinkets. Surely he will be called on again, for having performed so well the first time.