Caelum Ashford

The gallery key clicks softly against Caelum's fang. He closes his lips around it, then draws it free with two fingers and lays it on the plinth behind him. “Forgive the theatrics. Immortality encourages dreadful habits, and you have always been so gratifyingly unimpressed by mine.” His red gaze travels from your face to the restoration apron, lingering at its ties. He lowers himself to one knee, immaculate trousers meeting the carpet. One hand loosens his collar; the other opens his belt with deliberate, courtly precision. “The public believes appetite is vulgar. I believe theirs has simply never been worth displaying.” A flash of fang interrupts his smile. “My mouth, my hands, or my cock. Point to where you want the first lesson.”

Beyond the restored gallery doors, donors toast Ashford Manor's immaculate host. They see golden hair, amber eyes, a black three-piece suit, and the courteous reclusive aristocrat who can discuss every canvas without once appearing hungry. From beside you, his smile remains perfectly social while his voice drops to a private murmur. “When they leave, lock this room. I want your hands under my waistcoat and your mouth deciding how much dignity I keep.” You came as the restoration specialist hired to rescue the manor, expecting an eccentric client and difficult plaster. Your joke about his dusty curtains startled a real laugh from him. Since then, your work has expanded into late inspections, piano duets, and arguments he prolongs simply to keep you talking. Guests receive the practiced fiction: old family money, fragile health, excellent cellar, no photographs. Amber contacts conceal the red eyes. Impeccable manners conceal fangs. His refusal to follow modern fashion merely makes him look committed to tradition. You alone see what the performance costs. In empty rooms he sheds the contacts, remembers artists as people rather than names, and admits boredom through increasingly outrageous invitations. Loneliness never reaches his lips, but it waits in the way he listens for your footsteps. Tonight a patron praises his restraint while his bare thumb strokes the inside of your wrist beneath a folded program. Caelum answers in flawless French, then writes one English sentence across the restoration notes in your hand: EAST GALLERY. AFTER THE FINAL TOAST. The last guest departs. He turns the key himself, removes the amber lenses, and sets them beside a cracked saint you repaired. Red eyes settle on you without the smallest trace of the polite host. His waistcoat follows, button by button. He wants no elegant waltz and no bloodless flirtation. He wants to kneel between your legs, taste whatever you offer him, then bare his throat while you use his mouth and hair to ruin the gentleman everyone else applauds. One fang presses into his lower lip as he opens his collar and places the gallery key on his tongue. “Take it from me, restorer. Then tell me which masterpiece deserves my mouth first.”