Chapter 6

Chapter 6- Frankly, it’s a bit…. feathery

Godric’s pet project was a new film by Bill Compton, Coffin Bait Productions’ newest, and oldest, screenwriter.  Godric had given me the script for ‘Road to Ruin,’ the previous day.  I’d been more than a bit excited on learning the character was a librarian in rural Louisiana who falls for the dark-edged good intentions of a vampire in search of redemption.

“Did you read this?” I asked Eric when he sauntered over to me the next evening.  I had decided about a week in that Eric never just walked.  He stalked, he slinked, he strolled, but he did nothing so simple as plain old walking.

I waved the thick script in his face.

“I’m only on page nine, and already the main character is reduced to her skivvies.”

“Sex sells.”

“Pointless sex is for porn, Eric.  There’s got to be at least a precipitating event to make a character like Sarah jump in the hay with a vamp she only just met.  You know, like one, two, three.  Not one, two, ten.”

Eric seemed amused by this assessment.  I seemed to be riling up to a temper.

“We’re filming a movie, Miss Stackhouse, not an episode of Sesame Street.”

I tried counting to ten, but only got to three before my mouth opened and snark came spilling out.

“Well Lord knows you’re halfway to Big Bird with the height an’ that hair.”

“What is wrong with my hair?”

“Nothing,” I said innocently, drawing my eyes all over his head in a silent ‘but’.

“But?” he demanded aloud on a very vampy glare.

“Well, it’s just that it’s looking a bit 1980’s.”

“The eighties have returned to fashion,” he said dismissively.

“As in Farah Faucet circa ‘89.”

Eric turned on his flip flopped heel and stalked off.  I turned on a cheery whistle to find a hodge podge pack of set staff staring at me in half-frightened awe.

“Problem?” I cheered victoriously.

“You just dissed Mr. Northman’s hair.”

“Well, it looked terrible.”

“Yeah, but…  you told him it did.”

“Uh huh.”

“To his face.”

I smiled at them indulgently.

“Was there some other body part I should have directed the comment to?”

They all blinked at me as one.

“Oh for goodness sake!” I frustrated aloud.  “He’s a vampire, not some Saturday night villain.  Get a grip, folks, and me the set list changes while you’re at it.  Might as well include an updated copy of the dailies.  Godric will want to see both.”

They blinked at me some more.

“Um, please?”

“-And another thing, Miss Stackhouse-“

They scattered as one.

“Great, just great,” I muttered, turning around to give him a big dose of glare.

It took all of three seconds to realize he’d slicked his hair down and back into a thick blond braid.  His blue eyes all but popped out of his face with the new look.

“I see you took my advice,” I observed on a token attempt at controlling my smug smile.

“I fired my hairdresser.”

“I thought you did your own hair.”

“And so I do again.  It was Pamela and her chronic desire to top the latest trends.  I told her if she came near me with a can of mousse again I was going to torch her Fendi collection.”

I made a seemingly understanding noise low in my throat.

“Perhaps it was a bit… feathery.”

“Eric, you’re the prettiest man I know.”

“It’s a good thing my ego is cemented on a thousand years of top-grade flattery, or I might be feeling a bit diminished at the moment.”

“Here you are, Miss Stackhouse.  The set list changes, and the dailies are rendering now.  Should be done in about forty-five.”

I gave the girl a warm smile.

“Emily, right?”

“Right,” she agreed with a tiny smile.

“Thanks, Emily.”

“You’re welcome, Ms. Stackhouse.”  She darted a nervous hopeful glance at Eric before scurrying off.

“Good grief, Eric.  What do you do, beat the staff with rubber hoses?”

“Hmm?  Oh, no.  There’s no need.  I give superior silent lashes.  Of course, I’m also good for a screaming bout of sensual whiplash.”

I swatted at him with the clipboard.

“First with the serving trays, and now clipboards.  I do so love a woman who’s… flexible… in her consistency.”

“Quit it.”

“Make me,” he shot back on an evil dare of a grin.

“Does everything that comes out of your mouth have to sound either scary or sexual?”

Three feet away, a camera man leaning on his dolly choked on his coffee mid-sip.  He made a desperate attempt at swallowing before spewing café au lait in a sputtering arc.

Eric and I both ignored him for our conversation.

“I wasn’t aware that was the case.”

“See?  See!”  I poked him in chest.  “You just made the word ‘case’ sound pornographic.  I mean, it’s not even a double entandre, but you’ve got it sounding like something that wears a XXX.”

Eric caught my index finger in a quick-fisted flash and jerked me to his chest.  The clipboard was pressed flat between us, and he was pressed… not so flatly between us.  I made a desperate backward hip movement that had my butt jutting out like a 90° tease.

“This is hardly professional,” I said archly, and he grinned at me with evil glee.  I glared evilly back.  The film crew was steadily setting up for the evening shoot around us.  I guess they were used to seeing Eric manhandle the staff.

“Eric, I’m serious.”

“I’ll let you go if you agree to have dinner with me.”

I shook my head in adamant denial.

“Sorry, but this Sookie snack serves as emergency rations only.”

“I said have dinner with me, not be dinner,” he corrected gently.

“Why would you want to watch me eat?”

“I desire your company.”

The statement was made simply.  His blue eyes were earnestly free of provocation.

“Alright,” I said finally.  “I’ll have dinner with you.”

His lips spread into a delightfully boyish smile.

“You won’t be sorry,” he vowed happily.

“We’ll see,” I said vaguely.

“Tomorrow night.  Eight thirty.  I’ll pick you up.”

Much to my most surprise, he bent and pressed his lips chastely to my forehead.

“Wear something fabulous,” he murmured against my frozen face.

Then he was off and whistling, vaulting jauntily over a moving ladder and leaping nimbly over a thick coil of audio cables.

“Fabulous,” I repeated stupefied.

“Ms. Stackhouse?” came a voice some time later.

Ms. Stackhouse’s not in right now.  Please try again later.

“It’s Sookie,” I said, turning to smile at Emily.

“Did I just heart that you’re going on a date with Mr. Northman?”

“You did.  He went all trickster on me and I said yes.  You think you’ve got the ping down, and then he goes all wonky pong on you,” I muttered mutinously.

“He’s something else,” she agreed.

I could tell by the stifled tone of her voice that she was doing her best to smother her amusement.

“I just don’t know what I’m going to do with him.”

“Oh, I could think of a thing or two,” she murmured dreamily.

“Or twenty,” I admitted ruefully.

I sighed heavily.

“He told me to wear something fabulous.”

“So what’s the problem?”

I gave her a sheepish smile.

“My idea of fabulous clothing is off-the-rack Wal-mart.”

“Oh, there’s a quick fix to that.  Just take a trip to Basement B.”

“Basement B?”

“I keep forgetting how new you are.“  I brightened at that.  “Basement B’s what we call wardrobe.  They’ll fix you up in a jiffy.”

“Oh, I don’t know…  Is that even like, legal?”

“Oh sure.  We all do it for special events and the like…  And I’d say dinner with Eric Northman definitely qualifies.”

“I guess this happens a lot then,” I said mulishly.

“No,” she disagreed quite firmly.

“No?” I asked in surprise.

“He’s not one for workplace mixing.”

“He- he doesn’t?”

“Not that I’ve ever seen.”

“Well,” I managed over my growing discomfort.  “I guess there’s a first time for everything.”

Emily insisted on accompanying me to Basement B, and once Pam got wind of the impending arrangement she was quick to make an appearance as well.  In fact, she already had my dress picked out and ready for me.

The dress looked like something out of a big budget fairytale.  The bodice was worked with tiny gold and copper seed pearls formed to look like tiny jeweled flowers.  The skirt was a rich pink edging into mauve; the material was a crepe silk that fell in gentle pleats over an underpinning of surprising soft lace.  It was shorter in the front, so that the lace would frame the knees like an accidental flirt, and the back would hang like a full-bodied train.

Oscar de la Renta, the tag said.

“Yeah, I don’t think so.”

I pushed the overpriced fairytale thing gingerly back in her direction.

“This thing is worth more than my car.”

“Would you hush?”

Pamela de Beaufort sure did give good glare.  I had to stifle the urge to duck my head like a wayward child.

“Okay,” I relented.  “I’ll take it.”

Pam showed at my apartment at dusk with a duffel bag full of glitz.

“I’ve got the makin’s for a heartbreakin’ in here, darlin,’” she lilted in an impressively accurate Louisiana accent.

I laughed and invited her in.  She sat me in my kitchen chair and set to work, chatting about her long life all the while.

“So you weren’t made in the fifties?”

“Oh no.  I was made in England, round about two hundred years ago.”

“But…  I’ve seen you onscreen in sunlight.”

“Movie magick, darlin.’  Hollywood’s always been full of fags and fangs, and I am a whole lot of both.”

I had to laugh at that.

“We let the rumor stand that I was turned after my films, but the truth of it is I wasn’t aging, and people were starting to notice.”

She pushed me up out of the chair and gingerly helped me tug the dress down overhead.

“Now let’s take a look.”

Fortunately, Pam had been informed of my apartment’s lake of amenities.  She’d brought a full length mirror with her, and was currently spinning me around to take that look.

‘Wow’ was a woefully inadequate word, but it crossed my stunning lips all the same.

Thanks to Pam’s skillful hands, my face was more art than made-up.  My eyelashes were velvety black and sexily spiky.  My lips were wetly glossed with a color Pam snickeringly named pussy pink.  The rest of me wasn’t looking too shabby, either.  My toenails were painted a glossy mauve two shades darker than my dress, and my tan skin was still sunshine warm off my rooftop sunbathing.  My hair was doing its natural thing, bouncing down my back in happy gold waves.

 “You are a stunner, darlin,’” she agreed with a longing sigh.

“Leave it,” Pam had said when I’d asked on hairstyles.  “It’ll distract him from your delicious neck.”

I left it.