Katie’s Touch Read online

  “Rat-a-tat! Rat-a-tat,” the Golden Girls chanted. Imogen blushed, not for her own shame but for the Girls’. The name sounded hopelessly stupid coming from their little singsong voices. But it sounded different in Cassandra’s voice.

  The chanting might have gone on for ten minutes, but it was clear that Cassandra was losing interest and that Imogen’s little torments would be short that day.

  “All right, Rat-a-tat,” she said. “No more of that Jane Austen shit. The next time you open your mouth, you better shut it pretty damn quick unless you’d like us to do it for you. And keep that down,” Cassandra barked, forcing Imogen’s head back down. The Golden Girls, still pealing with bright giggles, swept down the hallway with a chorus of clacks. Imogen didn’t hear them. She was thinking about the sensation of Cassandra’s hand on her head. She would remember the feeling for the rest of the week.

  ***

  In the waning light of spring dusk, Imogen tramped down the stretch of road that led into town, past the ugly square apartments that always looked to her like large rectangles of moldy, grey cheese. She came to Main Street, and from Main Street she continued down until she arrived at another square building that could have been mistaken for a bomb shelter were it not for its flashing name: “The Corner Shop” and its illuminated, pink and yellow graphic of a pole dancer jiving on the letter “P.”

  Imogen’s mother Helena was a veteran at the strip club. She’d worked as a dancer for years, using the money to help Imogen through St. Nocturne’s. Because her mother had always been open about her profession, Imogen respected her and did not think anything strange of dropping by, whether simply to say hello or, like tonight, to deliver a change of clothes that Helena had forgotten.

  “Just set the bag anywhere, honey,” Helena said, her gaze fixed on the studio mirror in front of her and all her attention focused on the mascara of one particularly difficult eyelash. There were a few other strippers in the changing room, all of whom waved kindly at Imogen when she came in. They’d known her since she was a baby.

  “Would you believe it?” Helena was talking in that perky, glittery tone of voice she always used in the club. “Hadn’t even started my shift yet when out of left field in comes a whole tray of vodka martinis, wha-um! straight into my boobs!”

  “I packed jeans, and this sweater that I hope will fit,” Imogen replied.

  “You’re a doll,” Helena beamed. “Without you I’d be left smelling like olives and Absolut which is positively the last thing you could possibly want after a night of performance.”

  The eyelash painted, Helena turned her attention to coloring in her lips. “So, my sweet, do you have any plans for the evening?”

  “Well, I was supposed to have a poetry meeting, but it was canceled. I think I might just find a table and read somewhere in the back until you’re done.”

  “Feel free as a bird honey-pie,” her mother chimed. “Fuel that big, beautiful brain of yours.” It was the cherry-red mouth doing all of the talking now. Imogen didn’t even see her mother anymore. Only a pair of plump lips.

  “But now that you mention read, my sweet,” the mouth said, “you might have better luck at the joint across the street. Darla was the one who made mention of it. Small, quiet, hole-in-the-wall place. Might be a better place if you’re gonna be spending the evening with Miss Jane Austen.”

  “Do you remember the name?” Imogen was intrigued.

  “Sure do. The Red Red Rose. Pretty nondescript but I think you’ll manage to find it.” The lips clicked shut with a little pop. “Let me know when you finish, honey pie.”

  ***

  The Red Red Rose hung back in the corner off of Main Street, like a prowler waiting for its prey. Imogen walked past it twice without realizing that she’d missed it. The third time, it was still difficult to make the tiny building out in the budding night. It was so intensely covered in shadow that if Imogen stared at it for thirty seconds she could see it melt back into the darkness.

  Well, thought Imogen as she ventured inside, if I get murdered at least I’ll be buried in a nice tomb.

  But inside, the Rose was lively, vibrant, and exciting in the way a place can be exciting without being obnoxious. It was something between a bar and a café. There were lounge chairs everywhere, darts, bookshelves crammed with old, frayed volumes centuries’ old, and a large fireplace. Very little of it was being enjoyed, however. There couldn’t have been more than twenty people in the place. Imogen liked it immediately.

  “My, my,” said a voice. “Is that a stranger I spy?”

  The lilting voice startled Imogen. It seemed to come from nowhere and yet it was as intimate a whisper. She might have even felt the breath in her ear.

  “Where—” she began, but before she could finish the owner of the voice materialized in front of Imogen, as clear as day. Imogen’s breath caught. The girl was stunning. Drop dead gorgeous. Her hair was a sleek and long, her jeans sealed tightly around her perfect legs, and her face was carved to perfection, like a marble statue at one of the world’s great museums. But so pale! Imogen thought. Even in the half-light Imogen could see how bare and white the face was, as though it’d never seen daylight. It filled Imogen with a strange fascination.

  “My pet,” the other girl frowned, “you look lost. I don’t like people being lost in my club.”

  “Are you the owner?” Imogen blurted out. She realized she sounded stupid but it had been the first thing that came to mind.

  “Owner and patron,” the other girl laughed again. The laugh made Imogen edgy and yet she smiled. It was too pretty a face not to smile at. The deep, chestnut-colored eyes and their rosy tint stared back at Imogen with wonder and a kind of awe. They made her skin tingle.

  The girl continued, “And you’re a newbie I take it.”

  “I just came in to read,” said Imogen. “My mom is working and I have to wait on her to drive us back to our house further down the road and well, she said this might be a good place to check out.”

  “You’ve come to the right joint then. The best place and the best people,” the girl smiled again. “But I was being quite honest when I said I don’t like strangers. What’s your name?”

  “Imogen,” she said hurriedly and put out a hand. The other girl stared at it and laughed again.

  “Imogen,” she ignored the hand, running the name over her mouth, letting her tongue fork out on the last consonant.

  “Imogen,” she said again, and kissed her on both cheeks, like a European.

  Imogen could not believe how soft the lips were. And how cold.

  “Okay, Imogen. I’m Cerise. And now that we’re acquainted, it’s my duty to inform you that I don’t like people loitering around looking as uncomfortable as you.”

  “Oh, sorry!”

  “Yes,” Cerise nodded seriously. “Be sorry. And after you’re done being sorry, let me make you more comfortable. Is that okay?”

  Imogen nodded and suppressed a giggle. Cerise’s strange talk made her feel a little confused and light-headed.

  “Good. So we’ve established that you’re going to make yourself comfortable. If you’ll follow me, I’ll do my best to help the both of us out. Oh, and bring Jane Austen, too. She’ll be the life of the party.”

  Imogen laughed again and hugged Northanger Abbey to her chest as she followed Cerise through the maze of plush lounge chairs and tables, into private back rooms where there other guests lingered, drinking out of glasses filled with a night-dark red wine. They passed into a small, circular room with a knee-high divan surrounding a table. A heavy Indian curtain partitioned off the room from the hall.

  Imogen took a seat on the luscious couch and set her book on the table. Cerise told her to wait for her and flew out through the curtain, reemerging a moment later with two glasses of wine.

  “You’re awfully friendly,” Imogen said, taking a dainty sip.

  “Old-world hospitality,” clarified Cerise. “Thing about it is that I don’t run a club or bar. This is a
meet-and-greet. Every guest is an occasion.”

  “And are all the guests ‘shes’?” Imogen said. She’d observed as Cerise led her to the isolated room that everyone they’d passed had been female. And not just female, she thought now that she was reflecting on it. Female, like Cerise. Gorgeous. Intelligent-looking. And pale.

  “Mostly,” Cerise said. “Put in a couple of brutish males and what do you get? Another sleazy hook-up joint. Put a male and a female in the same room and you can bet that they won’t be talking about Jane Austin in thirty minutes. With just us girls it’s as near to a paradise as we can get.”

  “But girls are even worse! They’re passive-aggressive, and haughty and stuck-up and cruel.”

  “Pet, you haven’t met my girls yet,” Cerise laughed. “You’re still a little rosebud on the great breast of the new world. What are you? Nineteen? Twenty?”

  “Twenty-one in October.” Imogen took three successive sips of the wine. She was nervous.

  “So you haven’t had time to see that things have changed. You will when you meet my girls. We’re the new Bohemians, pet. The most interesting girls in the world. I bet you couldn’t find a single person in the Rose who hasn’t put out an album or a play or a poem.”

  “There aren’t that many people,” Imogen laughed into her glass. The wine was strong and she was already feeling its effects.

  “And fewer by the day,” said Cerise with a touch of melancholy. “But I’m optimistic. You can’t live as long as I have without being optimistic.”

  “About what?”

  “That we’ve got all the right people in the right place. And if you stick around a little while, you’ll see what I mean.”

  Imogen bit her bottom lip to suppress a smile as Cerise moved closer to her, touching legs. She felt the coldness of the skin through the jeans and it sent a shiver up her spine, followed by a throbbing ache in her skin. She was in a strange place late at night and she did not even know this girl—but she felt herself aching for the pleasure of getting closer.

  As though sensing Imogen’s desire, Cerise moved even closer, kissing her playfully on the cheek with her cold, cold lips. She retreated, and then came back slower and kissed Imogen delicately on her closed mouth.

  Cerise’s cold lips started Imogen, like water thrown over her as she slept.

  “What—what are you doing?” she cried.

  Cerise laughed. “My pet, if you didn’t want it then why do you wear your desires so much on your sleeve?”

  “I don’t desire it!” Imogen said, working herself into anger. “You just came at me!”

  “Because I knew I’d have to wait ages for you to make the first move yourself.” Cerise crawled closer to Imogen, moving her face just inches away. She pressed her lips against Imogen’s again, this time slipping in her tongue, like it was a kind of secret.

  Despite the coldness of the kiss, Imogen let it linger a few seconds more before breaking away.

  “You’re cute when you put up a struggle.”

  “I don’t want this. This isn’t right,” moaned Imogen, but even as she did she knew that this other girl could see through the lie.

  “Don’t worry, pet,” Cerise stroked Imogen’s hair. “This has nothing to do with you. This is for me. This is all about me. And I want to make you comfortable.”

  “Comfortable,” Imogen said. She felt the touch of the other girl’s skin. It was making her wet with pleasure. She didn’t mind how cold Cerise was.

  “Comfortable,” Cerise whispered. “Do you consent?”

  “Yes.” Imogen turned and covered Cerise’s mouth with her own, slipping her tongue into the wet crevice and closing her eyes until she was sure that tears would spring out of them. A moment later, Imogen’s back was on the divan and Cerise leaned above her, tonguing her fiercely with her cold mouth, staring steadily into Imogen’s eyes with the fire of her own.

  Cerise’s lips trailed slowly down Imogen’s body, lingering on her chest. The cold, wet little blotches of the lips dug achingly into Imogen’s chest, and continued to trail down, further and further. Cerise’s tongue slipped beneath the beltline of Imogen’s jeans.

  “I’ve never,” Imogen gasped, unable to finish the sentence.

  “Never what?” Cerise smiled, baring her enamel-white teeth.

  It was the first time Imogen had seen Cerise smile. Her heart leapt. She was paralyzed with dread. Because even in the half-light of the little sealed-off room, Imogen could see that Cerise’s teeth were not normal, blunted teeth. Two of the top incisors were daintily curved and sharp in a way that made Imogen think of icicles dangling from a roof above her.

  “Never what, my pet?” There was a word caught in Imogen’s mouth. Somehow she could not find the strength to say it and though she tried, Cerise’s playing tongue only made her breath catch more. Before she knew it her jeans were stripped off and Cerise was running a long, lacquered fingernail over Imogen’s incredibly moist crotch.

  “What—?” Imogen managed to fight out. But then her body betrayed her, and she moaned.

  Cerise licked Imogen’s warm crotch slowly. Imogen’s body was going mad with pleasure and her mind was leaving her. Her focus was concentrated on her wet slit where Cerise kissed the area tantalizingly, spreading lick after delicious, soft lick.

  “What do you want to know?” Cerise whispered as she gently pulled down Imogen’s panties. The wet folds of Imogen’s sex were so desirous of this other girl it was as though they were vibrating, aching to get closer to the cool mouth.

  Cerise inserted her lacquered finger into the warm crevice. A spasm shot up Imogen’s spine. She gripped the back of the divan and opened her mouth in a gasp.

  “I want—I want to know—” but again the words caught. Cerise was at work now, covering Imogen’s wet lips in a riot of kisses as her finger gently massaged the clitoris.

  “I want to know what you are.” Imogen managed at last, between gasps of pleasure.

  “What I am.” Cerise’s voice was teasing. She let out a low moan, pulled her hair back and with renewed energy slipped her tongue into Imogen’s opening. Imogen could have cried.

  “I think you know what I am.”

  Yes, thought Imogen. Now the world was emerging into daylight, past Cerise’s expert tongue and massaging finger. Imogen knew even as she gave herself up to her pleasure, aware of her danger but knowing that in the gentle embrace of this girl, no harm would come to her. No, not just a girl. Imogen thought. Vampire.

  ***

  A few days later, Imogen sat in the break room in the basement of the castle. There, with five other girls, she talked Tennyson, Keats, Rimbaud, and anything else that came to mind, including the poetry she’d written herself. She lived for the poetry club and the poetry club lived in her. It was the only refuge she had where she could express herself truly and not feel ashamed, where the intensity that bubbled up within her whenever she was around Cassandra came gushing out, raw and beautiful. Today, a small girl named Agatha was reciting verses from a sheet of notebook paper in a low, dulcet voice:

  Willow tree, you kindly fellow!

  Why not extend an arm to me?

  That I might reach above the world’s rude bellow

  And escape to you, somber and free?

  It wasn’t very good stuff, but even if it had been, Imogen would have been too preoccupied to notice. The experience with Cerise and the pleasurable terror it filled her with was still fresh in her mind, as though it’d happened only minutes, not days, before. But Imogen was not frightened of the memory. She recalled it with a tense fascination, like a dream. The words that Cerise spoke after, gentle and free, came to her like an echo. The promise she’d made that she’d keep Imogen safe. The fierceness in her burning eyes when she’d said she’d been happy to meet a new guest, that she’d been overjoyed to make her so comfortable.

  And learn to release fierce tears like you,

  Who dangles softly, kindly vines:

  Up which I climb towards the sky�
��s warm blue,

  Whose kind face my past fears divines.

  There were a few more verses before the poem came to an end. Applause followed. The girls were appreciative critics and always made sure to offer praise. Usually the whole process lasted about seven minutes, but today it went on especially long. Miss McReddy’s announcement of the poetry and literature competition had made the girls giddy with nervous excitement and they were honing their skills in the hopes of securing a placement.

  Imogen was nervous too. She’d known about the competition for weeks and she knew the piece that she wanted to submit. She had it there with her: a little sheet of notebook paper. But she didn’t dare read it to her friends. Of course, they would have no idea of what the poem was about, or who she’d written it for. But it was too private to be shared in the tiny break room with its old walls and its smell of mildew. It wouldn’t be right.

  “Okay,” said Alice, a blonde girl who acted as leader. “Okay, I think now it’s time to talk about the subject that we’ve all been trying to avoid.”

  There was a collective groan from the girls. There was another reason to be nervous. The Golden Girls had recently put in an application for their own after-class music club, which was to meet in the break room after class, right when Imogen and the girls had their poetry meeting. Usually these circumstances would pose no problems. The poetry club had priority over any new clubs and couldn’t be so easily ousted. Except these weren’t normal circumstances. The Golden Girls had offered money for the use of the space, and Mrs. Charles, the dean, had been only too happy to accept the bribe. It was a mean, underhanded move, but its message was clear. The poetry club either found a new space to congregate or it was finished.

  “There’s nothing we can do about the situation,” said Alice sadly. “It’s already been finalized. Unless we can come up with rent like the Golden Girls have done, we’re going to be out of a space.”

  “But can’t we just find a new place to go?” blurted out soft-spoken Agatha. “I mean—I can’t just give it up! There’s got to be another place.”