Taste and sensation screamed through my mouth.

It was like he was something warm, something impossibly alive—he something that was beating and glittering so brightly that I feared I would turn to dust just from touching him. A hand wrapped around my head, anchoring me to reality; his lips melded with mine and his tongue danced in the coldness of my mouth.

His power roared through me.

Warmth rushed down my spine, like I was drinking the hottest honey and milk. I tasted things... things that I had not tasted in over seven hundred years—things I thought I would never taste again.

His kiss was everything that was alive and warm and bright.

I drowned and I died, but I did not pull away.

Power rippled over me, pulling at my carefully constructed visage and preparations, stripping me naked and vulnerable; it pulled a small, whimpering scream from my throat that he swallowed.

I felt drunk, heady and full of thoughts and emotions; it was like nothing I had ever felt before.

It was like that when two Dominus bit each other, but this was a kiss.

My own power flailed in the current of Aubrey’s life-force; it was a dark seething mass that was pushed deep inside me, even as the well of life and joy flooded me.

He kissed me and the world burst around him.

Colours and light, the feel of the fabric of his shirt, the warm swell of his sex beneath me, the scent of his skin, the feel of his hand in my hair—it was too much. The sensations were too exposed and too raw for me to take. I was drowning in it.

Tears formed in my eyes—hot, salty and bloody.

I pulled back from Aubrey with an anguished scream. My knees were trembling and my skin was glowing like it was on fire; my power roared inside me.

I hit the wall, not realizing that I had backed away—not realizing I was standing until I was cuddling myself and attempting to scramble as far from him as I could get.

My skin was stretched too thin, too tight to fit; I felt like I would simply shed it and run free of flesh and blood. The power roaring through me was all light and air.

I was drunk on Aubrey—on his essence. Just a kiss and I could not think straight; no wonder the Spider had wandered lost for weeks.

I felt alive again; I felt awash with power and energy, like I could do anything.

It was a horrid feeling for a vampire, because I was not alive; I was dead. I had been dead for seven hundred years and this me—this person who made all the right moves, who said all the right things—this good little girl in a clown’s costume was nothing more than the faded afterimage of what she had once been. His kiss was the God-awful reminder of this for me—of the joy I had lost.

Tears poured down my cheeks. I wiped at them hurriedly, but the tears continued to flow. I realized I was snuffling, which was stupid because I did not need to breathe; I could not snuffle or sneeze unless I wanted to.

“You’re crying blood,” He did not move, did not stand-—just watched me from the floor.

His hair had lifted within a halo of violet, his eyes— drowning pools of dark blue, lavender and sapphire—held alien thoughts and emotions. They were thoughts and emotions that would batter at my senses if I let them. His mouth was swollen, and his lips parted sensually—I felt a shudder of desire threading through me. I wanted to throw myself into his arms and suck on those lips, to fall into the nothingness that his embrace would bring my mind—a relief, a respite from my torture.

I could not think; the pain of the raw feeling, the pleasure of it—my head was spinning.

I needed to compose; I needed to get the mask on.

I ran.

You must understand; what I tasted in his kiss was the curse of immortality for the undead—sunshine, rainbows and fucking lollipops.

His kiss tasted of freshly cooked bread, cake and cream, strong liquor and freshly-cut grass—it was the essence of lazy afternoons and the things that make life cosy and joyous.

It was the closest thing to a moment of pure release that I had experienced in five-hundred years—it was too raw, too much; my head felt fuzzy and my heart pulsed erratically. It felt too good; it felt too wonderful and incredible—so good it hurt.

It hurt, and I wanted more. I wanted to drown in the sensation, to fall adrift in the tides of thought and emotion and to drown. And I was worried that I would not stop myself before I did something stupid.

If a simple kiss was that good, how was the rest of him?

I ran, panicked and stupid like I was a fifteen year old girl—like a boy had touched something for the first time that felt good and I was afraid to go any further. I had tasted the forbidden fruit and now I was running—because there was a catch; there was always a catch.

I ran so fast that I became a blur. I ran until my legs ached, my breathing hitched and I was so lost that I had to slow to catch my bearings.

Gone were the rich houses and lush, upper-class lawns; gone were the streets I had run down—the blur of static building and pale, lonely streetlight.

Even for a vampire, I was very fit. I ran for almost half an hour and I ran as hard as I could.

I was in a closed shopping arcade now—apparently the thoroughfare had not been locked and I had slipped in.

I noticed my reflection in a shop window; my wig had slipped, I was covered in bloody tears and my makeup was smeared with bits of pastry and cake. My white jacket was ruined, and my face showed a young, scared vampire. My skin was too pale—my eyes too wide.

I was panting, shaking, full of nerves and emotions that were almost too painful to comprehend.

So much for never letting my emotions gets the better of me! I had been caught off-guard and I had panicked and fled. It was hard for me to imagine myself in such a state; scared of a man’s kiss.

I rubbed my eyes, meeting my own gaze beyond the mannequins and display handbags. I did not know what I saw in my eyes.

I had been denying this for a long time—the truth that, while I performed my comedy of the ages, I had slowly been slipping myself. While I had pulled others back from the brink of suicide, I moved toward it ever faster, ever happier on my own self-imposed loathing.

I was a fucking cliché—a sad clown.

I pulled off the white wig, shrugged out of the jacket and ruined pants. I dumped them in a bin and straightened with an air of control.

I could not stand to look at myself right now.

I did not know what I should do; it was the first time that I realized I was in over my head.

My stomach fluttered full of butterflies. I knew I should go back and apologize to the fairies for leaving so uncordially, but I did not know if I could trust myself not to jump on Aubrey’s lap and beg for more.

It was shameful, and I would put up with a lot of shame.

But I was no slave to emotion.

I did not even know why he had kissed me in the first place—well, that was not true. He had seen something in my face, a truth that I had tried to bury a long time ago.

When had this week become so goddamn complicated?

I had gotten the fairy to laugh; I had pulled out emotion from his weakening shell, but had I done enough? I had no idea.

Did I care? I had become so attached to my role, to the Jester persona, that sometimes I felt it was all I was anymore.

There was no Avery False; she was the mask, and the Jester was the creature underneath.

Aubrey had seen something—that truth, that nakedness when I stared at his glowing form. Did I weep for what I had lost, or what I had let myself become?

My phone rang in my pocket and I jumped.

I had been standing absently over the garbage can, thinking about nothing and everything.

What should I do? What would I do?

“Hello?”

“Avery, where are you?” Dante’s voice sounded strange, thick with an emotion I was not familiar with.

“That’s a bit of a complicated question right now...”

“What do you mean?”

I looked around, “I’m in a deserted shopping arcade; hold on. I’ll see if I can make out a street sign— “

“Don’t worry about it—just get in a taxi and come here.”

“’Here’? Where is here?” I did not ask why; it was not my place to know why he wanted me somewhere.

When the Spider called, the young vampire came.

“My mansion. You sound strange; are you all right, Avery?”

I looked down at my trembling fingers, willing them to still.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I’ll be there shortly.”

I found my way back to a populated street in a few minutes and managed to hail a taxi.

I pulled out my wallet and gave the driver a fifty to get me there pronto.