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Night in Pompeii. October 2024. Photos taken by Marco Macri

Night in Pompeii. October 2024

© Marco Macri

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joshua amirthasingh

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Miami Postcard

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— Paul Guest, from “1987.”

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It's no challenge to find Louis. The doors of the house will open to guests in little more than an hour, filling it with voices, heartbeats, minds, an endless din growing louder and louder as the night wears on. Faced with such an assault on the senses, Louis will put it off for as long as he can. Their bedroom is quiet, in every sense: far from the others in the house, noise of every kind is at its faintest here. Even had Armand not had the beacon of Louis' heartbeat to follow, so much more powerful now than it used to be, he would know where to look.

He finds him surveying his surroundings with almost comical wistfulness, and it is an effort to prevent his lips from twitching. He is about to ask if the carefully chosen clothing currently languishing on Louis' bed has offended, somehow, when Louis comes to meet him, enfolding him in an embrace.

"Thank you." Armand bows his head and closes his eyes, surrendering happily to the soft touch of Louis' lips. For all that he doesn't find the duties involved in playing host to the coven quite as odious as his companion does, it is nevertheless a logistical challenge. One he is eminently qualified for, but all the same: the quiet of the bedroom seems to settle upon him the longer he stands here, and he can't deny that it is more pleasant than what's coming.

His laugh is soft and full of affection. "Don't worry, my love. We still have an hour before the siege engines arrive." His eyes which meet Louis' in the mirror are warm, teasing. He has not touched Louis' mind—but he doesn't need to. They've had these conversations enough times by now for him to know exactly which thoughts are causing that perfect furrow between dark brows.

"And everything is arranged. There's nothing more that needs doing now. Except for you to dress, of course." In truth, it hardly matters: eschewing mortal decorum is one of the privileges of the immortal, surely. But Louis is a gem, and the temptation to give any beautiful gem a worthy setting is always present. Turning in Louis' arms, carefully so as not to dislodge his lover's gentle grip, he cranes up and presses a kiss to Louis' mouth. It's unhurried and slow to end, Armand's hands resting against Louis' chest. When at last he withdraws, he quirks a brow, questioning. "Would you like me to help you?"

At its surface, the question might sound patronising: it is, on one level. But the undercurrent is rather the opposite, offering a teasing challenge, a little game. Temptation and resistance. They've both been known to enjoy delayed gratification from time to time.

@moral-cipher sent: 🎲!

Kiss Roulette 37. A kiss to the back of the neck

The sky outside still clings to the dying embers of the fuscia-colored sunset; not even an hour after dusk and already he feels that miserable stirring in the pit of his stomach. It's no secret that he has never particularly enjoyed these sort of events. Though the joy of convening with other Blood Drinkers far outweighs the discomfort of being perceived, the awkward missteps between twisted and complicated interpersonal threads, and the full-throttled invasion of this homestead they had so devotedly built together, Louis suspects such standards of coven leadership will never cease to be a daunting undertaking in his mind.

At the foot of the bed are his clothes for the evening. He tries to recall which pieces are new and which have been pulled from his closet— the suit is freshly pressed, but the cravat is his favorite charcoal colored piece. Surely Lestat will hate it. Surely he will complain, as he often does, when Louis wears such dark colors that look ghastly against his complexion. Perhaps that is why Armand had picked it out in the first place.

For a long moment, he finds himself simply staring at the costume, perhaps with the slightest hope that it might suddenly appear on his person without him having to wrestle with the cuffs, the starched collar, the neatly-folded cravat. When that does not happen, he turns his attention to the room. His room. Their room. Soon enough Sybelle's piano will bring the house to life, and the others will come, and gather around tables and in circles in the grand ballroom, and it will be loud, brilliant chaos. But this room will still be here, this small piece of home carved out for them and them alone.

He stares at his bookshelf in the corner, the magnificent paintings on the walls, the pile of movie ticket stubs on the dresser and the crumpled receipts he keeps meaning to throw away.

And just as his eyes lift to the door, as if a miracle, Armand seems to appear so suddenly and so silently it almost frightens him. Even so, despite the preternatural silence, there is an ease between them, a softness in the air as he walks toward the mirror.

Already Armand is dressed for the evening and ready to receive their guests, and it nearly aches to look at him now. He is so impossibly beautiful, Louis simply wants to stay here with him forever in the sanctuary of this room.

He glides across the room, right into Armand's orbit, gentle arms encircling his waist from behind as he presses his nose into the nest of russet curls.

"You look very handsome."

For a while he simply stays there, inhales a breath, but then finds himself moving south to press a kiss against the nape of his neck, mouthing gently at the soft baby hairs that grow there.

"Stay here a moment longer. Just a moment."

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God, please, let her feel nothing.

Even as the thought formed in his head he knew it was nonsense, sacrilegious nonsense. God was nowhere in this magic; that much he had known since he'd first become aware that his Master was not like other men. Marius may be right that they could still serve God through it, but it was not of God.

The very shape of Bianca's hand resting above his heart was so clear even through three layers of linen and velvet and wool. He reached up and took it carefully in his own, bowing his head to press another kiss to her fingers.

Her easy willingness to give any of her guests the boot, no matter how important, merely to please him, made him want to laugh, and so he did, but quietly, lest his very voice somehow betray him. Only a month ago such a statement would have made him feel cocky to the point of hubris. Strange to think of it now, finding it intolerably childish and longing for it at the same time. He'd felt such a kinship with Bianca: with her youth, and her beauty, and her secrets, and the hardness which he sometimes saw in her eyes. How brave and wicked and safe he'd thought them both.

"No thoughts I would have you trouble yourself with," he tried. From the look on Bianca's face, it was evident he would have to do better. How could he stand under her roof, holding her hand, and lie to her? And yet, how could he not? He closed his eyes, feeling suddenly exhausted and fearing she might see tears in his eyes. "I don't know," he finally said. He looked at her again, wretched. "The world has been given to me. And yet at times I think I'm too old to receive it, that it's too late for me. Sometimes I think the loneliness is unbearable, but when I see my brothers, I don't know what to say to them. I came here because I missed you most of all, but I was afraid if I spoke to you, I might cry. I'm not good company; I apologise."

[  CHEEK  ] for the kiss meme!

Nearly a kiss

[ CHEEK ] : sender and receiver are leaning in to kiss each other, but at the last moment sender dodges their lips and kisses their cheek instead.

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Dosso Dossi Details

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Armand nodded along half-absently, eyes still on the pages, through Nicolas' plans for the pool, but Nicolas' comment about Artemis caused him to look up at him sharply. "You're right," he said curtly. "I don't." Nicolas was well aware that he did not: that while he was resigned to living in and helping to manage this shrine to common trickery, he wanted no part in it for himself. But it was a point of contention between them, and he had yet to find a point of contention Nicolas was able to let lie. "Eleni will do it well."

"You might consider casting one of the troupe, or the same actress, as Lyssa. The personification of animal rage, if my memory serves?" It did. Memory never did anything else. But the benefits of his classical education was not something Armand yearned to discuss with Nicolas. He conceded willingly enough to the plans for masks and costumes, then went utterly still as Nicolas finally reached what Armand now realised had been the point all along. His gaze on Nicolas' became fixed, cold and dark.

"Absolutely not. You can have blood, if you must—human or otherwise, I don't care. But you will not put a mortal on that stage. I won't have it. Nor will Eleni, mark my words." Armand's eyes travelled over Nicolas' face and form with renewed attention, gauging his mood. Agitation emanated from him in gentle telepathic waves which required no concerted effort to listen on Armand's part. But this was nothing new, where Nicolas was concerned. "Besides which," he continued, an ironic edge slipping into his voice. "You will need your brute to act at the beginning of the play, will you not? He needs to watch the goddess; he needs to cry out for his hounds. How exactly were you planning to accomplish that? Mind control?"

Nicolas ignored the comment about his handwriting. He also neatly sidestepped the question about the titular role. "I want the pool to be red- the fountain of youth is blood, after all. Gods living on human sacrifice. We can get the effect with ribbons or cloth. I will admit I was imagining you as Artemis when I wrote it. But if you'd rather not be in the floodlights, I think Eugenie could do it well. One or two nymphs, Eleni, perhaps. And I want them singing. Nothing glass-breaking, but ethereal, haunting."

"The rest as hounds, of course. We can do half-masks, leaving the lower face free for the performance. Ears on the top, with an extended snout out from the nose, like the Il Capitano mask. If we had the time we could even give them distinct spots or markings, borrowing from Ovid's list of names."

Nicolas had been gesturing with his arms as he spoke, envisioning the scene around him. But he stilled and focused on Armand now, returning the older vampire's gaze. "As for Actaeon...pick whichever victim you'd like from the streets. Though I recommend some thug- musclebound enough to play a hunter, not to be missed. They're drunk half the time already and wouldn't need much mystifying. With nymphs on one side and hounds at all others, he'd be surrounded. And the more he fights, the more the audience will applaud his performance."

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“How can I celebrate love, now that I know what it does?”

— Gregory Orr, Introduction to Orpheus & Eurydice

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“you’re so hot” ok but am i unsettling? do i seem eerie to you? give you a bit of the heebie jeebies? when i walk into a room do you feel a chill down your spine?

sometimes i think that beauty is all that matters to you people smh

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// the reviews are in !!

general consensus seems to be: creepy, not wet

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Study for the Head of the Gorgon (detail), 1895

by Giulio Aristide Sartorio

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No other options bc no

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// switches on boops here briefly just so i can evil boop people

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Blade Runner (1982)

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Herman Hesse, Demian (tr. Damion Searls)