Why Are You Calling Me Madame?

Bastien, thanks to future Agnes, has seen some improvement in his pathetic situation. Though of course, he hasn't made it to the upper class. That wouldn't fit the role he's supposed to play. Long story short: I'm Bastien, and I now live in Faubourg Saint-Germain. The streets here smell less like piss and more like cheap perfume. The neighbors speak in low voices and wear powdered wigs, though some of them already look like nests for dead pigeons.

My new house has big windows, red curtains, and a fireplace. It's a respectable place—or so they say. All I know is the mattress doesn't scrape my back anymore, and the wine no longer comes in wooden buckets. Well, I know it no longer comes in wooden buckets. I have that information. But that's about it. Because I don't drink it anymore. Agnes has forbidden it. And if Agnes says something, I do it. Because, yeah, I'm scared shitless. I'm terrified of future Agnes. Though I don't know she's from the future. I just know she's "the Madame". She hasn't even told me her name. I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know what she wants from me, exactly.

Yes, Agnes has forbidden me to drink. And she didn't make me follow any twelve-step crap or anything like that. It was just over. Period. Something that, at first, made me tremble and sweat like a bastard thanks to withdrawal. I used to think I wasn't falling into alcoholism. But I've realized I was pretty damn close. Or maybe I was already deep in. Either way, Agnes says alcohol would've ruined my beauty.

"Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. How dare you put beauty in second place? The only damn currency you've got in this world, and you go devaluing it with sips of cheap wine. You're a starving rat and you deserve to be one. You sell your ass for a few coins and then drink those coins. You're a poor devil with a pretty face, and you waste it in a tavern. Do you really think your problems get solved by tipping the mug until there's not a single drop of red left? Please. You seriously think success and happiness are hiding in the domains of Bacchus? How vulgar. You're trash. But, lucky for you, photogenic trash."

"What's 'photogenic trash', Madame?"

"Don't speak. Shut your filthy mouth."

And after saying all that, she just stared at me. She made me bleed from the nose, from the ears, even from the eyes. Then she burst out laughing. She told me she'd felt like detonating my head like a melon, but she'd held back because, according to her, I'm too relevant to the story. And if she says I'm relevant, then it must be true. Because in her world, truth is whatever she wants it to be. Well, I think so.

"Could you tell me what that story is—the one where I'm so relevant, Madame?" I asked.

"No."

"And why do I have to look so good, so clean, so decent, so handsome?"

"Because. Because you have to be appetizing."

"For women?"

"For one in particular. Though calling her a woman is to reduce her to a category that only works for humans."

"And what are you, Madame?"

"I already told you. I'm a vampire."

"Yes, you did. But I don't know what that means."

"Ah, right. Vampires aren't popular in these times."

"In these times? What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that if you don't stop asking questions, I'm going to rip your testicles clean off."

"You said you wouldn't hurt me, Madame."

"Yes, I did say that. But now that I think about it, ripping your balls off wouldn't change anything. You'd still serve my purpose. And hell, it would be fun to do."

"Please, Madame. No."

"For God's sake, why are you so cowardly? Looking at you now, I realize I couldn't rip your balls off—because you don't have any."

(Pause.)

"So… do you want to know what a vampire is?"

"I don't know, Madame. Only if you want me to."

"Get out, Bastien. Lock yourself in your room, you filthy human dog. I'm not in the mood to explain anything."

I stood up to go to my room and, suddenly, I couldn't control my body anymore. Madame made me float. Then, like I was strapped into a roller coaster, she launched me through the air at a speed my body had never experienced before. I flew down the hallway, entered the room, hit the wall, and landed face down on the bed. I started crying. I was scared. I was really, really scared.

Fuck me, that Bastien really is pure shit. If I were Agnes, I'd treat him the same. In fact, I don't even know if I'd be able to hold back the urge to torture him to death—even if that meant breaking the timeline or whatever. Don't ask me what would happen, because I have no fucking clue. What I do know is this: I enjoy watching him suffer. He cries like a little girl. And yeah, I know that sorry bastard is me. But come on, it's a version of me that has nothing to do with who I am now. I guess it's the same thing people feel when they used to be broke and now they've got money pouring out of their pockets. When they used to be fat teenagers with acne and now they've got the body of a Greek statue, slick charm, the kind of smirk that makes people laugh with just one raised eyebrow, and access to any girl they want for a five-star fuckfest. Yeah, that's how I feel. That's how I see it. I've got nothing to do with Bastien.

Oh, and by the way. In case you haven't caught on: Bastien doesn't know jack shit about vampires because in 1702 nobody had a fucking clue what a vampire was. No one used the word "vampire" back in 1702. Not in Paris, not in the countryside, not in the bedtime stories they told kids. Back then, if someone drank blood and kept walking after death, it was a curse. A punishment from God. A demon in disguise. No one said "he's a vampire" because the word didn't even exist yet. And if some poor bastard dared to mention something remotely similar—a bloodsucker, a walking corpse, a talking cadaver—they'd label him insane. The real kind. The kind that ended up locked away in some rural asylum, teeth pulled out, nails filed down until they bled, strapped to a bed with rotting leather straps, surrounded by screams, dried piss, and other lunatics drooling all over the place.

And let's be honest, not every poor bastard got tossed into an asylum. Some didn't even get the chance to go mad drowning in their own filth. They could burn you—burn you until you were nice and roasted. Burn you for being a witch, for looking suspicious, for good old-fashioned heresy, or for committing an aesthetic heresy—yeah, just for having awful taste. Back then, that was almost as bad as satanism. And if they weren't in the mood for a bonfire, they'd just tie rocks to your ankles and throw you in the river to see if you floated like the saints. And if you didn't float, well, that was all the proof they needed to erase any doubt that you were a son of the devil.

That wasn't a good time to be a conspiracy nut, or a lover of the paranormal, or a freak for aliens, werewolves, or vampires. If you wanted to believe in something supernatural, it had to be God. Anything else could land you a very sad ending—at least from the point of view of someone sentimental, empathetic, and all that. From my point of view, though, a fucking great ending. The kind of ending that would make me laugh like ten hands were tickling my ribs all at once.

Anyway, that's how things were. In that world, not being normal was dangerous. Knowing too much? Worse. Seeing something weird and talking about it? Yeah, that was pretty much a death sentence.

And so, Bastien no longer drinks. He doesn't paint either. Agnes made all his paintings disappear. She mocked him. She mocked his art. Told him the painful truth: "This is nothing but shit smeared on canvas." The only thing Agnes hasn't taken from him is killing. But Bastien no longer kills peasants. He no longer leaves Paris to slit the throats of villagers. No. Bastien kills Parisians. Well-dressed people. People who matter. No, not people like him. Because if they were like him, the police wouldn't lift a finger to catch the killer. Bastien kills people with real surnames. Surnames that carry weight. People with powerful relatives and corpses that can't just quietly disappear. And that, of course, makes him nervous. He tries to talk to Agnes. Tries to warn her. To tell her she's playing with fire. That he doesn't want to end up in prison. That he doesn't want his head landing in a wicker basket. And of course, whenever Bastien says that kind of crap, Agnes makes his mouth disappear. For hours.

It's fucking hilarious to see Bastien without a mouth. I do everything I can not to burst out laughing and wake Liora, who's asleep with her head snug against my chest.

And then the day comes. Well—no. Not the day. The night comes. The night when Bastien meets Agnes from 1702. She's heard of his crimes and feels a strange curiosity. Agnes-1702 has done her research. She's been a thousand times more efficient than the police and has found the killer the papers call The Butcher of the Gilded Parlors. Because, of course, Agnes is intrigued by a human like Bastien. She wants to hear his story and then, of course, feed on him.

Future Agnes hasn't told Bastien anything. She hasn't warned him that there are two versions of her: future-Agnes and 1702-Agnes. It's all part of the game.

Agnes-1702 appears in the drawing room of Bastien's house and looks at him. He says:

"I thought you'd gone out, Madame."

Agnes-1702 frowns. She looks at him as if he'd just spoken Esperanto.

"Madame?" she says. "Why are you calling me Madame?"