Sandra nodded, glancing down to one side before she reached out for Hildr. In the form of a stoat, a short tailed weasel, her familiar hopped up to her hand and climbed up to her shoulders, clawed toes pricking her bare skin there. She could see Auntie raise a hand, ready to adjust her posture and with fingernails, and quickly resumed the ‘perfect’ posture, now with her familiar draped over one shoulder.
Her aunt paused, verified that Sandra had found the appropriate position, and lowered her hand.
“There’s only so much I can do. Give you a proper first impression,” her aunt said.
“Yes Auntie.”
There was a noise on the other side of the double doors. Three heads turned.
No, he wasn’t coming through. The connections weren’t there.
“Can I ask?” Sandra murmured.
“About?” her auntie responded.
“Him.”
“What about him? We’ve told you who he is.”
“A hermit?” Sandra said.
“Inaccurate. A hermit doesn’t live in the big city, with a coterie close at hand.”
“He doesn’t have any human contact with the outside world.”
“Nonetheless. Try to think of him in a better light.”
“Why him?”
“It’s a gamble, Sandra dear. A gamble.”
The three of them turned their heads as the connection strengthened. This time, there was clarity, direction, a thrust to it. Motive.
They were ready as the door opened. Sandra smiled.
He arrived, but he didn’t arrive alone.
The bottle was the first thing to catch her eye. His clothes were the second. Rumpled, a gray flannel shirt over another shirt, jeans with the bottoms of the pant legs in tatters, over brown boots with gray dirt layered over the badly scuffed toe. His dark hair was unwashed and long, his face unshaven, and not unshaven in a calculated way. His neck was hairy.
His contingent followed. Men and women, all appearing roughly ten years younger than him. She might have described them as hippies, but there was nothing peaceful or hopeful about them. Many were tattooed, dressed in blacks, browns and grays, with only a splash of color here and there. Three women to every man, most attractive, but not always in a conventional way.
Not in the Duchamp’s way.
Under the artificial lights, the trickeries and shaping slipped, here and there. A hairpin appeared to be a leaf in the false light, before the woman stepped into the light that beamed in through the uncovered window. A curl of brown hair at the forehead showed itself to be a curved horn. A woman paused, while one of her female companions caught up to her, leaping up to throw an arm around her shoulders, and Sandra could see eyes with red irises, clawed fingers, and a mouth filled with jagged teeth, dark red stains in the flesh around the woman’s mouth.
They collectively smelled like sex. Not that Sandra knew from experience, but she had little doubt, and she could infer from context. There was a thicker, skunky smell that she couldn’t pin down or infer from context. They also smelled like warm hay, wine, fur, grass after a rain, and faintly, lingering in the background, they smelled like blood.
They were here, in so many senses. Assaulting the senses, even. The smells were so thick and varied she could taste them on the back of her tongue. There was the view of them, their languid movements, the occasional flicker of their real forms that she could see in certain lights, if she was using the Sight. There were the sounds they made, whispering and giggling amongst one another.
He was backed by his people, a contingent, very much alive and active. Almost defined by activity. They moved from one side of the group to the other, jostled one another, touched, surreptitiously groped. Their every action and reaction amongst one another was an invitation or a response to an invitation.
Her auntie had gone to so much effort to present her body just so, but what did it matter? He clearly didn’t care for appearances. Why would he care for a nice set of breasts, modestly and carefully presented, when he clearly had all he could ask for?
“Dominus Autem Ebrius,” Auntie said, smiling “Forgive me. I’d say it in Greek, but my pronunciation is atrocious.”
“Your Latin pronunciation is atrocious too,” he said. “But I’ll forgive you your failings.”
There wasn’t a smile on his face. Even as his group leered and smirked, offered sly smiles and teasing glances, he was stone-faced, very still.
“Very gracious of you,” Auntie said. Her smile, Sandra noted, managed to stay in place, but the note of warmth was gone from her voice.
“I won’t pretend to be gracious,” he said. “I’m not that guy. But holding grudges and holding things over people isn’t worth my time.”
“I see,” Auntie responded. “A wise way of looking at things.”
“Not many people who’d call me wise,” he said.
Auntie composed herself. “I’m Nicole Duchamp. This is Sandra and Missy Duchamp.”
“Jeremy Meath. My friends call me Jerry, you can call me Jeremy.”
“I… yes. Thank you for agreeing to the meeting.”
“Welcome,” he said, almost automatically. “Only one of them I’m interested in looking at, isn’t there? Waste of time to bring two, unless you’re not that confident in what you’re selling.”
“I’m confident she’ll do.”
“I’m not putting any stock in that confidence. You’ll have to tell me which one am I’m looking at, by the by, unless we’re just going to stand here dicking about.”
Auntie used her hand to point to Sandra. Apparently she’d decided to stop speaking, given how intent he seemed on arguing every point.
Jeremy looked at Sandra. Nothing held back, no reticence. His eye looked over everything from head to toe, taking his time.
A man in the crowd stepped forward a bit, with shaggy dark curls and a broad aquiline nose. “She looks-”
“Shh,” Jeremy’s rebuke was quiet.
The other man stopped. His eyes, however, didn’t leave Sandra.
When Jeremy met her eyes, Sandra smiled, just as she’d been instructed.
“Young,” he said.
“Nineteen,” Auntie said.
“Not really my type,” he said. “Either of them.”
“If it’s about appearance, appearances can change. The Faerie give us donations of glamour as payment for our services as ambassadors. There would be more than enough, if you’d prefer a different body type, hair color, bone structure…”
Sandra felt her heart beat a little faster at that.
It was scary in a way that the red-eyed women with the sharp teeth weren’t.
“That’s not the kind of ‘type’ I meant,” he said.
“Is it a matter of style? She’s adaptable, knows a little something about everything, she’s capable of holding her own in any situation, smart, and well learned.”
Jeremy tilted his head to one side, then the other, as if trying to see her in a different light. “Yet you’re offering her to me?”
“We’re introducing the two of you. The family will discuss it with Sandra later, but if you take a liking to each other, or if you don’t actively dislike each other, we could arrange something.”
“There aren’t many people I dislike,” he said.