Kimonos

Notes: In Angel, S1 of BtVS, Angel says to Darla "Last time I saw you it was kimonos." Now, kimonos are only worn in Japan (I have a sinking feeling the China episodes covered the kimono comment). So I wrote this story set in early 1920s Japan. If there are inaccuracies, forgive me. At least I know where they wear kimonos. :) Also, Angel is called Angelus here not because he actually is his evil alter ego, but because I don't think he'd have been called Angel yet. He probably wasn't called anything by anybody.

Pontocho-dori was quiet. Now and then the silence was disturbed by a muffled laugh or a creaking door as the evening wore into night. It did not look like much, this little alley between the Kamogawa River and Kiyamachi-dori. It was wide enough for perhaps three people walking abreast, or a sedan chair, but little else. Since most visitors to this little street arrived in sedan chairs, that was just wide enough. Gion was just across the river, and the whole area was known for being the pleasure quarter of the old capital. Even though Kyoto had not been the Imperial Capital for over 60 years, the city still had enough in the way of business and beaurocracy to keep Gion and its surrounds very busy.

She owned an extremely exclusive teahouse on the river side of Pontocho-dori. Like every such teahouse, its exterior was unassuming to the point of anonymity. Wooden-fronted, an old wooden sliding door, and two flaps of cloth hanging over the door. The cloth was the only indication that this was not a private house. Her girls lived in a separate building at the back of the teahouse. It was an old wooden place, with a courtyard, where the girls slept late in the day, then spent the rest of the day indoors preparing for the evening. Not because they were vampires did they live by such hours, but because they were geisha. White faces, living at night, preying off men; to Darla it didn't seem that great a leap.

She sighed as her servant adjusted her wig. It was an intricate affair, black lacquered hair with beautiful wood and paper hair decorations, each one of which would have fed a peasant for a month. Soon her face would be white, her lips a rosebud of red, her eyelids also red, and not a soul would know that her hair was not her own.

Her face completed, Darla stood to dress. Her servant took an exquisite kimono which had been laid out, and placed it over the layers Darla was already wearing. It was predominantly red shot with gold, with gold and silver embroidery depicting beautiful mountain scenes around the hem. Her obi was also red, but no gold. Red as blood.

Her kimono hung low at the nape of her neck, exposing the very top of her back. White paint covered her skin, except for a tiny line around her hairline. How men would follow that line with their eyes as they spoke to her! It made Darla laugh. In Europe - well, in Europe before those dreadful middle-class revolutions - one could flaunt one's breasts, even an ankle, and no one took any notice. Here, one showed the nape of one's neck and a tiny line of unpainted skin, and men fell over themselves to have you pour their tea.

She leant close to his face, until her mouth all but touched his. She felt his breath on her lips, and used her body's memories to breathe cold breath into his mouth. He closed his eyes, and inhaled this breath devoid of life. Then she was gone into the teahouse. He stood in the courtyard under the stars, imagining what more there could be.

Darla smiled as she walked away from him, the paint on her lips intact. It was so easy, she thought, but satisfying, nevertheless. The satisfaction nearly overpowered the strange, disquieting feeling she'd had in her breast all evening, but not quite. It worried her. She knew that feeling. She wished it would go away.

Yoshida had been a gift. He had begun his career in the Kyoto palace, holding some menial position in the palace's labyrinthine beaurocracy. One night a superior invited him along with a party to visit the most exclusive teahouse in Kyoto. He couldn't believe his luck. He must have been noticed, he thought. He must have been marked for an important position. In fact, he learned later, he had been marked for death. Yoshida had been part of the price his superior had been willing to pay for an evening with the famed Darla and her girls. Darla had told him everything when she killed his superior. He had enjoyed watching her do that.

Yoshida returned to the house. He undressed in his room, and slipped on a plain cotton yukata. He slid back his paper door, and made his way down the narrow stairs and out to the bathhouse. His yukata neatly folded and placed on a wooden shelf, he washed, and slid into the bath. It was the only time of day he could be sure none of the girls would be around the bathhouse. It was fine with him. Like everyone, he bathed at night. The girls just had a later bedtime than he did. He lay against the wooden side of the bath. He rested his head back and closed his eyes. Thoughts of Darla made their way to the front of his mind, as they always did at this quiet time. Every time he thought, no, I won't do it. It wasn't right, he told himself. Still, every time, he did. This time was no different. He slid his hand under the water, and began to stroke his already erect penis.

Everything made him hungry. He sat back into the darkness of the little nook where he was hiding. He heard Yoshida empty the bath, then leave the bathhouse to return to his rooms. Angelus could only laugh. The boy obviously had no idea what Darla really was. He probably knew she was a vampire, but, like most humans, until he had witnessed the ferocity of a vampire, he could have no idea what that meant. Angelus smiled bitterly. A hundred and fifty years witnessing and participating in the most brutal acts of cruelty, and here he was crawling back. Again. How could he blame the boy?

He sat back to wait. He could hear her voice. He heard male voices, slurring as they drank more and more sake. He heard the clear tones of a shamisen, played delicately by one of the painted things he had seen cross the courtyard earlier. Then, after hours of simply listening, Angelus saw a dark figure stumble into the courtyard. He looked lost. He peered around, trying to make out shapes in the murky darkness. As he turned, he saw a white face appear in the shadows. Angelus could hear the man's heartbeat speed up at the sight, though, at this distance, whether it was from fear or excitement, he could not tell. He could hear the conversation easily.

The men had just departed, taking Darla's four girls with them to an izakaya nearby. They would return at dawn, having spent the night drinking beer and mingling with rich men and a few prominent performers from Kabukicho. Until then, the teahouse would be left to Darla and her servants. And Yoshida sleeping in the house behind.

"But you're not nothing to me." With these words she rushed to him, enclosing him in her arms. He collapsed against her. He buried his head in her neck, sobbing, holding her as if he could never let her go. She stroked his back, soothing him, purring to him. Soon she felt it, as she knew she would. Two points against her neck, a low growl. She pushed against him, giving permission.

He sank his fangs into her neck, the fresh blood in her veins an elixir. He pulled slowly, drawing it out of her body without the strength of a heartbeat to help him. He relished every pull. Sire's blood. Every time, it made him feel both immensely powerful and immensely vulnerable. It brought him back to his fledge days in Galway, brought him forward to an eternity with her. His everything. He could feel her nuzzle his neck as she refrained from biting him. He needed all the blood he could get. He moaned in response, holding her closer to him as he drank her in. He just tried to forget the body outside.

All too soon she pushed him away. She looked at his face, and laughed. Angelus bridled, wondering what trick she had dragged him into. Then he realized. He saw the side of her face, the paint all smeared. It must be on his face, too. He laughed with her, his eyes lighting for the first time in two decades. Darla saw that newness.

She began to undress him. She pushed his grimy frock coat over his shoulders, exposing a waistcoat and a white shirt at least twenty years out of date. She shook her head and laughed as she ripped off the waistcoat and began to unbutton his shirt. The collars had lost their starch a long time ago. She walked around him, slipping the shirt off, running her fingers over his tattoo. She paused as she looked at it.

He ripped her obi from her waist. Her kimono followed, the beautiful garment flung unceremoniously on the stone floor of the bathhouse. He pulled at the layers still wrapping her, frustrated by their complexity. Laughing, she tugged open a knot, and they fell away. He ripped off her wig and brought her blonde hair round her face. He roughly pulled her against him and kissed her, raiding her mouth with his tongue, devouring her taste, and shivering when he felt her respond in kind. He felt her skin against his, her familiar curves against his body. She deftly opened his trousers and pushed them down. He kicked them away. He knelt, and brought her down till she straddled him, then he pulled his mouth away from hers. He saw her eyes bright and thrilled at the thought that he had made them so.

"Close your eyes," he whispered gently, as he began to pour the water over her face, rubbing away the paint with his fingertips. He cleaned it from her face, her neck and her back, white streams of water, tinged with red, running down her body as the paint came away. She put her hands under the flow, first washing the white off her fingers, then cleaning the smeared paint from his face. He filled the basin again, and rinsed the last of the whitened water away.

He gazed at her, smiling, intoxicated, then stepped into the bath. The stone base of the bath was hot against his feet, a low fire under the floor keeping the water warm. He sat in the water, leaning his head back, feeling warmth creep into his cold body. He could hear her as she fetched something from the shelves. She came back and sat on a low bamboo stool behind him. His eyes found hers as he looked up at her from the bath. Then she grinned and held up a scissors.

"I give up," she said, a mock-weary tone I her voice. She took out the scissors and started snipping. Angelus could feel a weight lift from his head as she cut away the tangles. He tried to think of the last time he had even thought of his hair, but he couldn't remember. Now it was all he could think of, because that was where her hands were.

Again he invaded her mouth with his tongue, as she invaded his with hers. He could feel her purr into his mouth as she ran her hands over his chest. He gently kneaded her breast with his hand, while he held her close to him with the other. Then he let his hand run down, over her soft belly, and between her legs, where he found her centre.

Soon the boy appeared, rubbing sleep from his eyes and attempting to smooth his tousled hair. He saw her standing in the glow of the paper lanterns, wet and naked. He stopped, staring. She could almost hear his thoughts. She moved to one side, as if by accident, allowing him to see Angelus in the bath. His face fell.

When he opened his eyes the body was gone. Darla smiled at him, knowing, luscious. He took her hand as she stepped into the water once more, feeling her new warmth. When he kissed her he could taste the blood. The coppery tang filled his mouth and he crushed her against him, needing that taste. She straddled him in the water, feeling his cock against her belly, straining for her. He ran his hand again between her legs and found her slick and ready for him. She positioned herself over him, and took him in to the hilt. She gasped as he filled her, their bodies fitting together again as they had always done. He began to move inside her and moaned as her inner muscles tightened around him. He turned, so her back was against the side of the bath, and began to thrust as violently as he could in the water. Darla screamed in delight as she wrapped her legs around his hips. He cradled her head and brought his mouth to hers, doubly penetrating her with the voracity of his !

Cocooned as he was in the old wooden house on the river side of the courtyard, he could still hear the sounds of life around him. There were the four girls who had rooms in this rambling old place. If he woke during the day he could hear their gentle breathing, and if he concentrated he could hear the steady thumping of their hearts. During the night, when the girls were gone, there were the sleeping day people. Angelus would sit in the dark courtyard, listening to the sounds from the teahouse as Darla entertained, and feel the sleeping humans near him, only one lapse in control away from violent and bloody death.

He watched her, as he always did, in the gloom of the courtyard. Her angelically bland face became monstrous under the paint. He sensed the victim's excitement, fear, and finally resignation, before she dropped the lifeless body to the ground. Then, as usual, she came to him, held out a warm hand, and they retired to the bathhouse.

He was thinking about this one time at a soirée in Paris. He couldn't remember when exactly, though he remembered Darla's hair piled up, with ringlets falling on her neck, and held with tiny pearl pins that shone when she moved. Her silk gown was daringly décolleté. He remembered that too. It must have been before the Revolution. She had charmed all the men with her exquisite grace and elegance and tinkling laugh. He had charmed the women with his appreciative eye and roguish manners. They had asked a select group to a dinner party the next evening. It had been quite a feast.

She straightened his tie, the usual ritual when a couple is going out in evening dress. She had at first found it difficult to imagine him in tails, but of course he wore them perfectly, with the easy grace of someone who had always loved the show of dress clothing. How many phases in fashion had come and gone in the last two centuries? And Angelus wore them all with the assurance of a panther.

For the first time, she had dressed alone that evening. It was so easy now. She wore a midnight blue slip dress covered in a net of sparkling glass beads. Her hair was parted at the side, and gathered at the base of her skull. Beaded earrings brushed against her neck when she moved. She felt strange, as if she was not dressed properly because she had not spent enough time at it.

They decided to walk. It wasn't very far, and Darla wanted to show Angelus the old city. They walked onto Kiyamachi-dori and then south onto Shijo-dori. Despite their proximity, these wider, gaslit streets were quite different from Pontocho-dori. They were lined with ryokans, izakayas, all manner of hostelries, some notably not as exclusive as Darla's hidden establishment. Their denizens occasionally took to the streets, singing some threatening war song or other.

They reached the Palmer residence in fashionable time. The house immediately stood out from its neighbours. Though it was wooden, it was not built in any Japanese style. It was an attempt at a Californian villa squeezed ungraciously into Japanese surroundings. The open door allowed the sounds of the party within to drift out onto the otherwise silent residential street.

Angelus was momentarily taken aback by what he saw. How things had changed since he had last noticed people! Women's dresses twinkled and flowed, showing a lot more leg than any female garment had for most of his hundred and seventy years. Cigarettes floated at the end of holders, smoke exhaled by male and female alike. Men wore tails, no longer the frock coat. All mingled with careless ease. Gone were the formalities he had known for most of his existence; the decadence of his youth had returned to the prosperous world.

They floated through the rooms, watching the people. Even those who might have recognized Darla did not. They had never seen her face unpainted before. Angelus scooped two cocktails from the salver of a passing waiter and handed one to Darla. They picked up snippets of conversation as they passed various groups.

But the women, these women like gems in their brilliance. Everywhere they moved or lounged at their ease, in all the colours of a peacock. She had missed the ritual of dressing that evening, her usual space for ordering her thoughts gone. But looking around the room, she decided she very much liked these new, loose-fitting dresses. Corsets, she mused, always made them faint too soon.

He looked around the room. It was big. It must have stretched under the teahouse and right under the courtyard, he reckoned. One end was sectioned off with screens made of intricate lacquered latticework. He tried to move the screens, but he could not. He tried to break them down, but, again, he could not. They were reinforced, probably with steel wire. What was the point anyway? There would just be another wall and another thick locked door. If she wanted to watch, let her.

The rest of the room was furnished expensively, a four poster bed dominating the floor. It was not a pure Japanese room, though it was full of Europeanized Japanese detail. The light curtains on the bed were a delicate white silk, and the wood dark and slim, and there were piles of brilliantly coloured cushions piled on the bed and on other incidental furniture in the room. The overall effect was quite breathtaking. A small space screened off to allow a human occupant privacy. She had not ignored detail. There were bookshelves, too, full of expensive books.

He had chosen her not only because of her beauty, but also because of her brazen confidence. Her jaw jutted forward as she smoked and laughed. She conversed easily in English with the men who strutted around her, daring each other to make the first move. It was Angelus who took up the challenge. His voice mellowed for the occasion, hints of his fast-fading Irish brogue coming once more to the fore. Darla stood to the side, watching her boy again.

Finally. Only in sleep would she stop being afraid, and he could stop smelling that endlessly alluring tang. It brought back too much. How often he had reveled in that smell, loved it, felt it penetrate his body and bring him to such heights of delight. And the taste... he could taste it in the blood. Such a heady thing, fear! He had thrived on it almost as much as he had on the blood itself. Sometimes more, when the kill was not for food. He had filled Europe with fear. Now one room was pungent with it, and he was brought low in longing, need, denial, pain.

He woke when he heard a sharp noise. A sliding shutter in the door slamming shut. Food. For Ai. He could smell miso soup. Water, too, to wash with. She was gone. Not Ai, she was still there. Wrapped in her yukata, her glittering dress now thrown in a tired pile on a chair. She took the tray of food from the floor, brought it down the stairs and put it on a low table in front of the chaise longue.

He watched her. He could not remember how that felt. Solid food. The last time he had solid food was a long time ago. Maybe a dinner party that ended in a bloodbath, maybe supper after the opera, more drama in the parlour than had been on the stage. Maybe gore, a chunk of flesh from a ripped throat, a torn thigh. It felt like nothing. Nothing like blood.

Not so to her, obviously. She glanced at him now and again, but ate ravenously, unselfconsciously. Finished, she laid her chopsticks carefully across the empty rice bowl. Then she stood and brought the ewer of water and the basin behind the folding screen. He heard water pouring, splashing. He heard her breath, her heart.

She read most of the day. He didn't know what to say. He could feel the daylight outside, but she had to trust the slamming shutter in the door. Had to trust lunch in the middle of the day, dinner in the evening, supper before bed. Had to trust him. He lay on the couch, barely moving. His muscles were not about to atrophy. He could lie there as long as she wanted.

Hungry. He heard her sleep. Darla was back. Try to forget her. He allowed his face to change, slowly, then he sank his fangs into his arm. White skin on the inside of the wrist. Nothing special – no – hardly anything at all. But enough to stave off the bloodlust for a while. He closed his eyes. Tried not to acknowledge that the thin blood in his veins would soothe him for no more than a couple of hours. Tops.

He dreamt again. Galway, cobbled streets in some places, but mostly dirt. Filthy tenant farmers, their filthy children, filthy wives. Potato-fed poverty. They could be tenants on his father's land, could be tenants anywhere. Could have been thrown out of their filthy homes by some pompous British landlord and red-coated soldiers, watched their whitewashed walls char, their old thatch going up in flames as hungry as them. Did his father ever have people thrown off his land? He didn't know, didn't care. Filled the taverns with buxom young things willing to sell more than drink. Fine with Liam.

For nights, while Darla watched, he recycled the same blood. It got thinner and thinner. No taste. Bad vintage. He laughed with no sound and no humour. He felt her eyes on him, but they had stopped burning. Then he slept fitfully, dreaming of Galway, dreaming he had a heartbeat. His chest rose and fell almost all night, humanness of dreams and shallow sleep. Darla, powdered hair, dress too good for the place. Where was the alley? He had to find her. He thought it was just over there... He knew this place. He had come here since he was old enough to ride out from the estate. Where the hell was that alley? He heard her voice –

She lay on the bed, her breathing even, heartbeat a peaceful dub. Maybe – no. He moved anyway. No. But if he didn't touch the neck, she wouldn't wake up, might never even know. But no. He would never do it. He was over by the bed, gently pulling back the covers. She'd never know. He could do it painlessly, tiny scars only, and if he bit her there – she'd never know. He pushed her yukata up her thighs. She lay on her back. He gently pushed her legs further apart. He could sense the blood. Close to the surface at the top of the thigh. Her heartbeat remained steady, breathing undisturbed. He stroked her thigh softly. She did not move. A little more, circles on her flesh with his fingertips. She shifted slightly. But nowhere near consciousness. Would he do it? He leant in close and ran a rough tongue against her skin, high on her thigh, where she would not see it if – could he? He leant in again, nuzzling this time. She sighed. He froze. She did not wake. He could. Just a little. He could control himself. Control himself after he – he bit, gently, his fangs sliding into her flesh with the practice of age. He withdrew them just as gently, blood beginning to flow into his mouth. Elixir. He had just nicked her artery, a tiny cut, not big enough to cause profuse bleeding. He stayed at the crux of her thigh until the bleeding stopped, blood flowing down his throat, soaking through his system, tingling in his fingertips. Tingling everywhere. He licked her thigh clean, reluctantly drawing back. She moaned softly, and moved in her sleep.

Angelus felt intoxicated. He returned to his couch, lay down, feeling as close to peace as he had since he had come back to Darla. He could feel her there. For the first time since she had locked him in this room, he could not imagine her expression. Pride that she had made him cave? Anger that he did not finish it? He tried to forget her again.

He looked at her lying on the bed. Finally! He moved to her, dropping his clothes as he went, and kissed her, deeply, invading her pliant mouth with his tongue. He opened her yukata, her body once more fitting into his. He kissed her all over, he heard her moan, faintly, spurring him on. He entered her, and began to move, making love to her, feeling her warm against him as he had never felt her before. He thrust into her, all the while devouring her with crushing kisses. It wasn't enough, he could feel it wasn't enough. He moved to her neck, nuzzling then biting down, his body already pulsing pleasure as he came close to climax. He could feel her shuddering underneath him, her blood pouring, pumping into his veins, it tasted different after so long without, so much more full of something, full of life – He came, thrusting into her, prologing his orgasm, emptying her of blood, feeling her melt away in his arms.

He leant back, legs stretched in front of him, on a floor chair beside the kotatsu table. He was in her rooms now; somewhere Yoshida was overseeing the removal and disposal of Ai's body. He took a cigarette from a black lacquer box on the table. He lit it and inhaled deeply, the smoke mixing with the taste of blood in is mouth. He was fidgeting, new energy in his veins, picking at threads on his dishevelled tailcoat, twisting the buttons on his shirt.

Angelus stopped by the bench. Darla continued moving towards the boy, her eyes locked on his face. It was as if he knew what was coming. He watched Darla walking to him, and then looked around, smelling the air, his gaze wandering over the courtyard lit by brittle moonlight. Dark buildings, dim light glowing behind paper screens. Light spilled from the bathhouse onto the soft ground, holding his fogged breath in the air as he experienced the world for the last time.