Midnight Cocktail

Midnight Cocktail - Chapter 9

Dieter McNeal is not a vampire.

"He's so much worse than that," I had told Cherry while we were planning the trip.

"Really?"

Her eyes were wide, excited, keen to hear about this new monstrosity she would be meeting.

"Oh yes," I said. "He is one of the most despised and abhorrent creatures that ever lived. He's a music agent."

Cherry had laughed at that, after thinking about it for a few seconds, her large breasts enthusiastically jostling each other in her woefully inadequate half cup bra. The sight made me wonder how I was going to diplomatically distract Dieter from attempting to stick his cock between them, because the guy has a thing for big boobs, as spectacularly evidenced by the gravity defying natural rack on his current wife.

And she is a vampire.

I wouldn't want to waste my breath explaining my views on mixed species relationships and the inevitable grief when one lives pretty much forever and the other doesn't, because Dieter McNeal goes through wives like a great white goes through baby seals. Only without the big teeth and blood everywhere. Although, looking at the fangs on the current Mrs McNeal...

"I love London," Cherry said.

We were sitting together in the back seat of the black Jag that Dieter had sent to the airfield to pick us up and take us to the city.

Cherry was looking out of the window at the lights and the shops as we drove along King's Road through Chelsea. I didn't think she had seen enough of the city to form much of an opinion, let alone to fall in love with it, but her naiveté only made me smile and remember the time, albeit several centuries past, when I had anything remotely resembling that level of childlike innocence.

The Jaguar driver dropped us off near Sloane Square. I thanked him and gave him a tip that was so disproportionate to the service rendered that I had to obstinately convince him that I did genuinely understand British currency before he very gratefully accepted it.

After he had driven away, Cherry and I looked at each other for a few seconds, standing together in another country, surrounded by brightly lit storefronts and hustling passersby.

Then we went absolutely batshit shopping crazy.

Shoes, tops, skirts, handbags, purses. More shoes.

I thought I was a walking cash haemorrhage, but Cherry was even worse than me. I loved watching her shop, loved the pure, honest joy every time she spotted something cool and just had to try it on. And I loved watching her trying things on.

We bought our outfits for the Friday night rock show from a store that specialises in selling new clothes that look old and worn to pretentious posers with way more money than sense. And vampires who have a healthy sense of irony. Cherry went for a pair of distressed skinny jeans, a faded black Harley Davidson T-shirt and a retro/ancient pink leather biker jacket. She looked so damn cute we almost didn't make it out of the shop.

I held back on my own wardrobe, just slightly, because I wanted her to enjoy being the centre of attention. I picked up a black leather mini skirt and a short, overdyed red denim jacket. I already had a StakeHart T-shirt from their last tour, and it was stashed in my luggage, so I was done. The luggage was still in the back of the Jag, on its way to Dieter's apartment in Maida Vale.

I'm fairly sure Cherry could have shopped for another few centuries, but we were meeting the McNeals at a restaurant I had asked Dieter to book for 8pm. We arrived ten minutes late, which is perfectly acceptable, particularly when you've recently been on a plane for eight hours and you've also lost another five somewhere over the Atlantic.