Immortal Love

lips against my lips and his arms around my body. A stupid wish I knew I must stop at once.

I stood up. “I wish we would stop wasting time and join the party,” I said a little too loudly.

If Becquer was surprised at my sudden change of the conversation, he hid it well, for he just smiled and, already on his feet, offered me his arm. “Of course, my lady. Your wish is my command.”

I took his arm.

Chapter Seven: The Party

Becquer stopped by the wrought iron balustrade overlooking the ballroom and turned to me.

“Do you think you can take them?” he asked.

I looked down through the slits of the Venetian mask Becquer had just adjusted for me. The room was big, bigger than I had thought when I spied it from the front door, and it was crowded.

Under the wheel-shaped chandelier hanging from a central beam, men dressed in suits of bygone eras and women in long evening gowns stood in small groups, gathered around the central island getting their drinks, or sat on the sofas that hugged the walls. But for the raised platform at the back of the room that supported the piano, there was no empty space on the whole floor.

My guess was that close to one hundred people were there. More than enough to send me into a frenzy any other day. But not today. For the first time ever I didn’t feel like fleeing because I could sense their minds — I sensed their hopes, their uncertainties and their fears — as if I stood at the edge of their awareness. And thus, I knew that the crowd was not, as I had often imagined, an all-powerful beast ready to devour me, but made of individual human beings as flawed as I was. As I used to be. Because right then, high on Becquer’s immortal blood, I felt invincible.

I could take them, as Becquer had put it. Even more, I was eager to meet them, to learn their stories and even discuss with them the ones I carried, still unfinished, in my mind.

An unbidden smile came to my lips. “Yes,” I said.

Becquer bent his head toward me. “So you’re not mad at me anymore?” he whispered and, when I said I wasn’t, he took my arm again. “Let’s go, then.”

We were halfway down the wide staircase when I spotted Beatriz. I recognized her by the blue shawl that barely covered her naked shoulders. She was talking to a man with a trimmed mustache and a goatee that looked too out of style to be real. As I watched her, Beatriz raised her head and her eyes met mine. I felt the ice of her stare, almost a physical touch that halted my step.

Becquer groaned and stopped by my side. “Sorry, Carla. I was hoping to blend in unnoticed. Too late now.”

As he spoke, Beatriz detached herself from the gentleman and brazenly pushed her way toward the stairs, the brouhaha of conversation ebbed in her wake, and heads turned to follow her, until everybody in the room was staring at us in expectant silence.

Basking in his guests’ recognition and with the ease of a medieval king certain of his subjects’ loyalty, Becquer addressed the room.

“Dear friends, please help me welcome my new author, Carla Esteban.”

He waited for the applause to subside then led me downstairs.

I felt the soothing comfort that emanated from his mind, spreading like a wave over the crowd, urging them to mingle, so that by the time we reached the floor the party had resumed in earnest. But Beatriz did not move.

“Where have you been?” she asked of Becquer, her sharp voice belying the smile that curled her lips. “The guests were getting impatient.”

“You honor me, Beatriz, to suggest anybody would notice my absence.”

Ignoring Becquer’s beguiling smile, Beatriz looked up to the staircase behind us. “Where is Federico?” she asked. “He’s scheduled to play in five minutes.”

“Oh, yes! Federico. Right,” Becquer said lightly. “I’m afraid he won’t be playing tonight.”

“Really, Gustavo,” Beatriz said, and by addressing him by his given name she suggested a familiarity that excluded me. “Couldn’t you have waited to antagonize Federico until the party was over?”

She produced a cell phone as she spoke and started punching numbers.

In a flash, Becquer’s arm shot forward and the phone was in his hand.

“You can’t ask Matt to cover for him. He’s practicing now for his performance.”

There was such finality in his voice that Beatriz didn’t argue.

Still holding her phone out of her reach, Becquer scanned the crowd. Soon a playful smile lit his face. “Ask Sheryl to play for us,” he told Beatriz. “I’m sure she won’t mind.”

I followed his stare and noticed a red-haired woman holding a glass in her ringed hand while listening attentively to a middle-aged man whose crazy hair and overgrown moustache reminded me of Mark Twain.

“Sheryl is busy right now,” Beatriz said. “You can’t expect her to entertain your guests.”

“Actually you will have her eternal gratitude if you were to interrupt her, for she would like nothing better than to get away from her present partner. She is only with him because her boss asked her to do so.”

Although nothing about the perfectly made-up face of the woman betrayed her annoyance, I knew, thanks to my new awareness, that Becquer was right.

Becquer caught my eye as I looked back and winked at me. Beatriz was not pleased. “What is it with you, Becquer? Why is everything a joke to you?”

“My dear Beatriz, I assure you that is far from the case, but taking the world too seriously doesn’t make it a better place.”

With a flourish, Becquer handed Beatriz back her phone. “And now, if you’ll excuse us. I must introduce Carla to Richard. Judging by his last e-mail, he’s very much interested in her novel.”

Beatriz glanced at me, her pale blue eyes cold and dismissive. I was glad for the mask that hid my features for I was certain my dislike of her was written on my face. I could read the hate on hers, as plainly as if I had sensed it in her mind. Which I hadn’t. For, unlike my experience with the woman Sheryl, I couldn’t read her mind. Federico hadn’t either. Why? I wondered. Why was Beatriz different?

“I agree he’s interested,” Beatriz was saying to Becquer. “It’s with the subject of his interest I disagree.”

“Really, Beatriz. Who is the cynic now?”

“What is her problem?” I asked Becquer as he led me through the crowd.

She’s jealous of you, Becquer said, although he didn’t really, because at the same time he was talking with one of his guests, shaking a young man’s hand, bowing to a pretty woman with an ample bosom barely concealed by her low-cut dress, then moving past them, he complimented a tall gentleman on his attire, and kissed the gloved hand of his lady. So, really, he couldn’t be talking to me. Yet his voice was in my head explaining Beatriz was upset with him because she had noticed he liked me.

You like me? The question formed in my mind before I could stop it. Embarrassed, I turned my head away to hide my blushing.

Becquer laughed but didn’t answer for just then we had reached the back of the room where a man in his thirties was leaning against the wall, a glass in his hand.

“Richard,” Becquer said.

The man fixed his kohl-enhanced stare on Becquer. “Becquer, at last,” he said, his husky voice creating an intimacy that excluded everybody else. But Becquer, his arm still on mine, nodded to him briefly and introduced me.

Limping slightly, Mr. Malick detached himself from the wall and bowed to me. “Enchante,” he said.

“The pleasure is mine.”

“Getting into character, are we?” Becquer asked him.

The man smiled, drinking Becquer in with his stare. “Not everybody can pull Dorian Gray without make- up.”