Chapter 12
Aster’s memory was shit on a good day, but if you asked her to tell you exactly what happened in the time between when they left the apartment and when Aster was suddenly sitting in Sylvia’s lap on a too-small barstool, elbows balancing on the sticky bar top, Suggesting the bartender to give them drinks they definitely wouldn’t be paying for—she would probably say something along the lines of:
“Mmmnmmnoidea.”
All she knew was that she was here now, Sylvia’s hands gripping tight around the corners of her black body con dress, her freshly painted red fingernails claw-marking Aster’s hips.
Sylvia had dressed her and styled her, which Aster only remembered in flashes—“just take the tightest dress in my closet and put it on” “we’re straightening your hair, I want it to look as silky as Jeff Bezos’s fucking pillowcase” “oh god, you look too fucking excellent, I might have to put you in a turtleneck.”
“What can I get you ladies?”
A muscular bartender looked down at them through the haze of the dim club lights.
Sylvia perched her head on Aster’s shoulder, about to open her Marilyn Monroe-red mouth and probably try and order way too many drinks when Aster cut her off.
She placed her hand on the bartender’s and smiled with her teeth.
“She’ll have an Old Fashioned,” Aster said. “I’ll have a Tequila Sunrise.”
The bartender nodded.
“Of course.”
Sylvia squeezed Aster’s middle, nuzzling into her back. “Ordering for me? No fair.” Aster couldn’t help the dumb, helpless smile on her face as she felt Sylvia’s cheek against her dress.
“You forgot to order the most important thing. Bar snacks,” Sylvia muttered like a petulant child, her hot breath falling on Aster’s spine. “I wanted mozzarella sticks.”
Aster snorted. “You’ve had enough food.”
“ ‘Have not. I’m starving. Barely even alive back here.”
To absolutely no one’s surprise—Sylvia was insatiable when stoned.
(And all other times, just with a bit more decorum about it.)
“You already made us stop for McDonalds twice on the way over here,” Aster laughed, the memory only returning to her as the words left her mouth.
The poor cashier probably got fired after filling their bags with fifty-plus unpaid chicken nuggets.
“Not to mention how you dragged us into the movie theater just to get popcorn.” Sylvia had gone behind the counter and begun filling the box herself.
“I can only Suggest so many times before the trick stops working.”
It had become an undiscussed truth between them that Aster was the one who would be Suggesting now, ever since the Tommy incident. Aster was wise enough not to broach the topic.
“Nonsense. Your charm is limitless,” Sylvia mumbled into her skin, her hands squeezing even harder around Aster’s middle. Sylvia’s nose nudged by her neck, where she’d applied a heavy amount of perfume. “God, you smell good—even under that cloud of perfume.”
If Aster wasn’t intoxicated into the next planet, that comment alone would have gotten her drunk.
The man and his muscles returned. “Here you are, ladies.” The drinks sizzled in front of them, and Aster was already desperate to wash it down her throat. “Cash or credit?”
Aster grinned, and batted her heavily mascaraed eyelashes.
“I was thinking you could put it on our tab?”
***
Sylvia’s hand was pulling her like the ocean tide toward a sea of sweaty, undulating bodies, and Aster—infamous hater of cramped spaces, body odor, and loud music—didn’t even mind.
She didn’t mind because so far, despite Sylvia’s initial very passionate pitch about this night, the only person Sylvia had looked at was…
her. Not at the leagues of pretty single girls in air-tight dresses, not at the gorgeous DJ with bright green hair extensions, not even at the bartender when Sylvia had tried to make a last ditch effort for mozzarella sticks—even then, she’d kept her eyes pinned to Aster’s face, giggling drunkenly as she slid five dollars over to the man as if she could bribe him into making her food that wasn’t on the menu.
Aster chalked it up to the weed. Sylvia was always extra needy while stoned.
Last time they got high, Aster had gone to bed early and Sylvia had broken into her room not a minute later.
The other vampire had wordlessly slithered into her bed, wrapped around Aster from behind, and whispered something in her ear that, two hundred years later, Aster could still only grin at—
“Bed is so cold without you,” Sylvia had said. “You’re like my warm little lizard.”
“You’re calling me a reptile?”
“I’m calling you mine.”
Her eyes widened. Aster’s entire body trembled at the memory—no—had Sylvia really said that?
—Aster only ever remembered teasing her for the lizard comment.
She’d dozed off after that. Vaguely remembered Sylvia whispering in her ear, but…
You’re just stoned. Creating memories. Wishful thinking. Just forget it, forget it—
They reached the middle of the dancefloor.
“Fuck. I love this song!” Sylvia cheered, bouncing on her heels, her hands a flurry in the air. She accidentally elbowed the man behind her, then, immediately after, his friend, but when they tried to say something, Aster shot them a glare with red eyes—and they backed away slowly.
The bass pounded, strobe lights flared on—off—on; Aster saw flickers of Sylvia’s face in the milliseconds between light and darkness.
Sylvia’s eyes fluttering closed, her smile wide and drunk, her fist pounding the air, her body sliding smoothly through the air.
Von Dutch by Charli XCX possessed the room, and possessed Sylvia’s hands—tugging Aster close to her.
Sylvia wrapped her arms around Aster’s neck and sloppily pulled her so close their foreheads were touching. Aster could see a hint of red in Sylvia’s eyes—not fully blown, but levitating around the corners, threatening to spill in.
“Sylvia, what are you—”
“Plenty of pretty girls here. Every genre you could want. Long hair, short hair, alternative, straight-laced. ” Sylvia said, dropping her voice salaciously. Aster could see a hint of a fang pop out from under her upper lip. “See anyone you’re interested in?”
Sylvia’s hand slid from her neck, down, down—
The music drilled against their eardrums, louder and louder.
“Haven’t really been looking,” Aster whispered back. Sylvia’s breath landed on her lips.
“You should really start,” Sylvia pinched Aster’s bra strap. “Unless you want to be stuck with me all night.”
Aster’s breath hitched.
“Would that be so bad?”
The music built to a crescendo, then, for a second, it stilled—teetered on the edge. Everything took on a liminal feel, like being suspended in time. Every person but them ceased to exist. The strobe lights illuminated Sylvia’s face as bright as the sun.
She looked like the center of everything.
“No, I suppose not,” Sylvia whispered, cheeks a dark pink. More red filled her eyes. Her hands progressed down to Aster’s hips, pulling them so they were pressed flush to Sylvia’s own. “I wouldn’t mind keeping you all to myself.”
And oh—Aster felt warmth pool right in her center.
“Sylvia, I—”
Then, the beat dropped. And whatever unwise words nearly pushed out of Aster’s lips died somewhere in the ocean of sound.
The bass throbbing, Sylvia slid around so she was facing the opposite direction, and pushed herself into Aster from behind, so her ass was pressed flush to Aster’s center. She grabbed Aster’s hands and slid them along her own hips, then began grinding against her.
It took everything inside Aster to remain fucking chill.
“Why are you so stiff?” Sylvia laughed meanly. “Come on, are you really so rusty you’ve forgotten how to move? I’ll never forget how you tore through those German balls in the 1600s. And I don’t mean that metaphorically. Fuck, you did well back then. Komm schon, Frau Castelmar."
Oh—fuck it.
She was way too faded to deal with any of this.
If she wants to play games, I’ll play them right back.
So as the song faded into the next one, the percussion drilling against their eardrums, Aster danced.
She slid her hands over every exposed inch of Sylvia—starting at her waist, then inching up towards her cleavage, where Sylvia’s breath hitched—serves you right—before dipping back down her stomach towards her thighs, pinching at the soft skin near the end of her dress.
“God,” Sylvia moaned. “You tease.”
But Aster kept going. She was completely lost in the moment, in the white smoke billowing from the stage, in the stench of vodka and lemon, in the feeling of Sylvia brushing up against her center again and again and again. She didn’t even notice her fangs began to dip out of her mouth.
Sylvia took her hand and thrust it behind herself, cupping Aster’s neck before threading her fingers in her hair. She pulled hard and Aster gasped. It hurt, but the possessiveness in it spurred her on even further, and she toyed with the fabric near the center of Sylvia’s thighs. It was so warm.
“Fuck,” Sylvia whined, thrusting herself the slightest bit forward into Aster’s hand.
And it drove Aster insane.
So insane that she didn’t notice the two men approaching them until they were literally two inches away. One of them was tall, muscular, like the bartender but with a buzzcut and horrible ripped jeans. The other was short and lanky, blonde with a mole above his lip.
“Hey ladies. Would you like to dance?”
Aster could have killed them both right there.
Sylvia was the first to pull away, shuddering off of Aster in a way that felt like they had been embedded together.
Aster immediately missed the sharp warmth of Sylvia’s body, the damp, humid club feeling like a wet towel over her shivering body.
She reached out for Sylvia’s hand—something to hold onto—but Sylvia didn’t take it, not quite flinching away, but pretending not to notice Aster reach for it. Aster frowned.