LA FLEUR'S FANTASIES
CHAPTER ONE
PRESS RELEASE—La Sange, Louisiana—Home of the Fantasy Club, La Fleur. Come take a ride to a place where your wildest fantasy is fulfilled. Mistress Claudine, your hostess, invites you to indulge in your most decadent pleasures. Beware. Once night falls, everything imaginable is never beyond your reach.
The rhythmic thrumming of fingernails on the wooden desktop filled the silent room. The twinkling illumination came from the crystal chandelier descending a few feet from the plaster rosette in the center of the high ceiling. The heavy velvet draperies covered the only window, shutting out any light from setting sun. Soon, the full moon would cast its glow and bathe the landscape with a soft white luminosity. Claudine La Fleur scrutinized the press release. Everything had to be perfect. No mistakes this time.
No errors, no oversights, no missteps, no fuck-ups. She couldn’t risk what happened in New York a year ago, again. There wouldn’t have been a problem if the incoming mayor hadn’t taken her suggestion for his fantasy. Was it her fault the damn female vampire was a closet dominatrix bent on beating the shit out of the client? Didn’t help that further investigation revealed she was a serial killer when she’d been a human. One minor point the vampiress neglected to disclose on her resume and Claudine’s background investigations only went back two hundred years. Any further back and she’d only be relying on here say anyway.
Damn! Normally, she thoroughly vetted the paranormal clients in search of love to the fullest extent possible. In the paranormal world, most immortal types didn’t like to disclose their real ages, or past indiscretions. In today’s modern times, technology had become her best friend. She verified the information they provided, comparing it with Claude’s, the private investigator, report, along with her usually reliable gut feeling. This time the instincts failed. For the first time ever, she’d screwed up royally.
Am I losing my magic touch? She shoved the press release across the desktop. Leaning back in the hi-back velvet chair, she stared up at the crystal prisms. Claudine reflected on how no amount of incentives or money could’ve made things right with Mayor Marion Thompson. He was a real asshole about the role-playing snafu. Packing up her lucrative business of providing fantasies to humans, paranormals, and souls lost through time, coupled with moving to another location had been a huge pain in the ass. Unfortunately, the transfer was necessary if she wished to keep her identity as well as the otherworldly fellow clients and friends of her kind safe.
How many moves does this make over the past thousand years?
The decision to select a new locale had been easy. Plaquemines Parish in Southern Louisiana held promise. After visiting New Orleans for Mardi Gras last year, when the necessity of moving arose, The Crescent City called to Claudine in ways she hadn’t felt since leaving her favorite home in Paris, France during World War One. Wars were not conducive to her enterprise. She provided a service for escapism for humans and all mythical creatures she encountered from her travels around the world. The belief everyone needed affection no matter who or what they were reigned foremost in her practice’s mission. Love was love, and she wanted to facilitate everyone having it in their lives. Claudine excelled at matchmaking. She’d spent hundreds and hundreds of years perfecting her technique.
When the turmoil escalated, the carnage of the battle torn world in Europe certainly would have had her skills put to the test for anyone desiring to escape the horrors, but she’d seen enough during the French Revolution to last a lifetime. She packed up and moved to New York City in the summer of 1914 after the Germans declared war on France. Surely, she thought at the time, the United States would be neutral and the war was a European conflict. How wrong she was.
She sighed. “So, long ago, but now I’ll have a fresh new start here. La Sange, Louisiana. My new home.”
The rhythmic thrumming of fingernails on the wooden desktop filled the silent room. The twinkling illumination came from the crystal chandelier descending a few feet from the plaster rosette in the center of the high ceiling. The heavy velvet draperies covered the only window, shutting out any light from setting sun. Soon, the full moon would cast its glow and bathe the landscape with a soft white luminosity. Claudine La Fleur scrutinized the press release. Everything had to be perfect. No mistakes this time.
No errors, no oversights, no missteps, no fuck-ups. She couldn’t risk what happened in New York a year ago, again. There wouldn’t have been a problem if the incoming mayor hadn’t taken her suggestion for his fantasy. Was it her fault the damn female vampire was a closet dominatrix bent on beating the shit out of the client? Didn’t help that further investigation revealed she was a serial killer when she’d been a human. One minor point the vampiress neglected to disclose on her resume and Claudine’s background investigations only went back two hundred years. Any further back and she’d only be relying on here say anyway.
Damn! Normally, she thoroughly vetted the paranormal clients in search of love to the fullest extent possible. In the paranormal world, most immortal types didn’t like to disclose their real ages, or past indiscretions. In today’s modern times, technology had become her best friend. She verified the information they provided, comparing it with Claude’s, the private investigator, report, along with her usually reliable gut feeling. This time the instincts failed. For the first time ever, she’d screwed up royally.
Am I losing my magic touch? She shoved the press release across the desktop. Leaning back in the hi-back velvet chair, she stared up at the crystal prisms. Claudine reflected on how no amount of incentives or money could’ve made things right with Mayor Marion Thompson. He was a real asshole about the role-playing snafu. Packing up her lucrative business of providing fantasies to humans, paranormals, and souls lost through time, coupled with moving to another location had been a huge pain in the ass. Unfortunately, the transfer was necessary if she wished to keep her identity as well as the otherworldly fellow clients and friends of her kind safe.
How many moves does this make over the past thousand years?
The decision to select a new locale had been easy. Plaquemines Parish in Southern Louisiana held promise. After visiting New Orleans for Mardi Gras last year, when the necessity of moving arose, The Crescent City called to Claudine in ways she hadn’t felt since leaving her favorite home in Paris, France during World War One. Wars were not conducive to her enterprise. She provided a service for escapism for humans and all mythical creatures she encountered from her travels around the world. The belief everyone needed affection no matter who or what they were reigned foremost in her practice’s mission. Love was love, and she wanted to facilitate everyone having it in their lives. Claudine excelled at matchmaking. She’d spent hundreds and hundreds of years perfecting her technique.
When the turmoil escalated, the carnage of the battle torn world in Europe certainly would have had her skills put to the test for anyone desiring to escape the horrors, but she’d seen enough during the French Revolution to last a lifetime. She packed up and moved to New York City in the summer of 1914 after the Germans declared war on France. Surely, she thought at the time, the United States would be neutral and the war was a European conflict. How wrong she was.
She sighed. “So, long ago, but now I’ll have a fresh new start here. La Sange, Louisiana. My new home.”
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