Red

chapter 2

My very first thought was someone was pounding on my head, the second was I was inside an oven. My whole body was drenched in sweat, covered with heavy blanket which felt like were heating themselves up. I opened my eyes slowly, groaning when my head started to swim at the slightest movement, moved all those blankets gathered on top of me and looked around.  Holy s**t. What is this place? The room I was lying in was most probably a living room, except it looked like a library turned into a devil’s harem. The wall paper was solid black with a silky texture, creepers with blood red roses, so perfect in details they looked real, seemed to grow right out of the walls. There was a huge fireplace right in front of what felt like a makeshift bed, the one where I was lying. The sofas were big, covered in red velvet, curtains of red satin hanging high in front of the ceiling height windows, red cushions matching the patterns of that of the curtains, a small coffee table of redwood, even the rug under the table was red. The whole black and red ( who knew there were so many shades of red) theme of the room with occasional splashes of white and grey was enough to make it look like a devil’s personal salon, except for the books. One whole wall was covered by a ceiling high bookcase on the opposite wall of the ceiling high windows, filled with nothing but books. The only source of any color other than red was those books and they weren’t limited to only books written in English or Italian.  Going up there, I spied books of five different languages. Most of them to be seemed story books or novels, but there were also books on topics like human psychology (mostly abnormal psychology, I knew them from the titles sported at my best friend Daniel’s study, who had a double major in computer science and psychology), culture and customs, astronomy (not the heavy kind with formulas and theories but the fun kinds with a lot of pictures and fun facts), dinosaurs (seriously?), programming, architecture, even cooking. Okay, I thought, seems fitting, those variety of titles, with the weird decorations.  My head was still dizzy a bit so I took my time to look around. On second looks, the furniture all seemed to be quite old, but well kept. The perfect order in the room made me think maybe the owner was one of those prim and proper perfectionists, except the color scheme obviously said otherwise. The owner most probably was a perfectionist, but nowhere near prim and proper, not with the brothel style decorations. Speaking of brothels, it seemed that my eccentric little rescuer had managed to get me half naked, cutting off my pinstriped slack from mid thigh, my torso completely bare.

I got out of the living room slowly, emerging into what was probably the foyer. It was decorated in the same style, blood red wallpapers, and black color creepers with black rose, an umbrella and coat stand, sporting a lone black and red geometrical patterned umbrella and several long coats on the cloak stand, all of them in dark shades of gray, navy, brown and black. The only difference in the decorations was the inverse scheme and the series of paintings hanging on the wall beside the staircase leading upstairs. They were hung in mosaic style, a number of painting all depicting starry nights and galaxies and nebulas arranged in a circle. Instead of books, these paintings were the only source of color in this room and from the signature in them (a rose) it was eminent that they were all done by one artist. It seemed the owner had an obsession with roses and black n red. Suddenly there were voices in the house somewhere. I followed it to the outside of kitchen where I could hear a blank voice talking in the bluntest of tones into most probably their phone.

“I will marry,” the blunt unemotional voice said, in French

“Right,” this came from the phone on loud speaker, if the obvious static was any indication, also in French. “You have to get out and socialize if you want that ever to happen, and not just for work.”

“No, I don’t. I shall marry an old man with hoards of money who will be pleased just at the sight of his fifty years younger wife and leave me tons of wealth by dying within ten years of my marriage,” the bland voice replied in the same quite unemotional way, without a trace of humor in their voice.

The voice on the other side of the phone sighed, “You can’t be serious, Rose.”

The unemotional voice which apparently belonged to a woman called Rose didn’t reply.

“What about children. You need to have children.”

“You people can have the children. I don’t want any. “

“Darling, you have to have children. You are the first Corleone in three generations to have the red gene, and first in centuries to be a black blood.”

At this point of the conversation I started to question my sanity and the whole oddball situation. Did I by any chance get stuck at some witch’s house or something? Or am I dreaming the whole thing. The last thing I remember before blacking out from cold and numbness was ringing the bell and asking for shelter through an intercom of a two storied modest sized cottage practically hidden in between trees in where that it was in the middle of nowhere street. I know I don’t really make any sense but then I wasn’t in the frame of mind to question anything apart from practically begging for shelter.

“There’s 75 percent chance that you will be the one to breed the next Red not to mention Black blood and that won’t happen if you don’t have children.”

The women named Rose didn’t reply for a moment. ”Someone’s at the door, Andre. I’ll talk to you later.”

“You know you’re not fooling anyo-, “Rose ended the call before he could finish the sentence. There was a faint sound of something sizzling, probably chicken from the smell of it and a quite sigh? Otherwise the whole house was completely silent, even the outside which was probably calm after the storm last night. Wait last night? Or was it this evening?  God, please don’t let it be last night. I had two important meetings with clients, I didn’t have any wish to miss them or have half the city looking for me, missing for a whole night and next day.

A muffled thud came from the inside of the kitchen and then suddenly six feet of sheer perfection was standing in front of me, a slightly startled look on her face.

“You are awake,” she said in her bland, unemotional and matter of fact way, without a hint of the startled look that was present on her face a moment ago, reflected in her voice.