Date: Thu, 4 Aug 1994 12:20:28 EST
Subject: Fluff: The Joshua Chronicles, part 1
Dear Kindred:
I hope you will pardon the audacity of a breather introducing himself to
your august company! I am Joshua Trevallion, some of you may know me as
Baron Redoak's lover. The Baron felt that I should convey to you the
tale of how I set out on a simple buying trip and ran into so many of
the CotN that it began to resemble a party So, please, sit back with a
glass of your favourite beverage, and enjoy the first installment of
what promises to be an exciting story.
Joshua.
__________________
Warning: mildly erotic content, with same-gender sex.
___________________
Gideon woke up to a sight he had never quite reconciled himself to --
Joshua's suitcase lying open on the end of the antique king-sized
bed and his tall, sandy-haired lover neatly folding up clothes for packing.
"Another client?" the baron asked softly.
Joshua turned and smiled at the sight of Gideon as few had seen him --
sitting up against the carved wooden headboard in rumpled blue silk
pajamas with his dark hair in disorderly cowlicks. He looked quite
enchanting.
"I'm afraid so," Josh replied, hesistating between the gray shirt or the
light blue one. "A very rich, important one. She wants unusual things
for her new condo." He choose the blue one, folding it carefully.
"Unusual in what way?"
"Things with a history," Joshua replied, adding clean pajamas and a
white, rather fluffy robe to the contents of his suitcase.
"Everything has a history," Gideon said.
"Not the way Mrs. Sims-Jones means it."
"Oh, her." Gideon nodded, recalling what Joshua had told him previously
about the eccentric client. "Is she after objects that great artists
used to own, again?"
"No, that was for her beach house. This is a bit more macabre.
Frankly I don't think I'm going to be able to find her anything. She
wants genuninely haunted antiques, or something associated with the
supernatural."
Gideon chuckled.
"What?" Joshua looked at him, ready to share the joke.
"You've got me," the baron said, "I could be considered a genuine
antique associated with the supernatural."
Laughing, Joshua took his suitcase off the antique quilt, with its
log-cabin pattern of reds, golds, greens and browns, and sat down on the
vacated spot. "I wonder what the going price on the market is for
Jacobean vampires," he mused.
"Would Mrs. Sims-Jones want me framed and hung on her wall, or would she
tuck me away in her bank vault as an investment?"
"I'd have to do some restoration work on you first," said Josh, reaching
out to smooth down one stubborn lock of that dark hair. "Besides, I
understand that the present custodian of this particular antique is
unwilling to part with his treasure at any price."
"He must be very fond of this Jacobean vampire," Gideon murmured
thoughtfully. He touched Joshua's hand as it strayed down the length of
his face.
"I'd go so far as to say he _loves_ this Jacobean vampire," Josh smiled,
slowly unbuttoning his shirt and loosening his trousers. He had to step
away from the bed to do so, leaning against the night table as he kicked
off his shoes. He took the opportunity to reach behind him into the
drawer of the table to remove a small jar.
"How nice to know," said Gideon, a slow smile lifting the corners of his
mouth, "that someone still cherishes something that old."
Joshua chuckled and slid his trousers the rest of the way off, then
turned to see his lover still clad in pajamas.
"Are you going to take those off, or am I going to tear them off you?"
he demanded, grabbing a fistful of silk and buttons.
"I thought that was the vampire's perogative," Gideon answered, eyes
gleaming.
"Where do you think I learned it?" Joshua asked, his fingers working the
buttons open and his lips moving over the consequently exposed flesh.
The next little while was dedicated to some fairly intense lovemaking
and little conversation. Later, Gideon emerged from the bathroom,
looking much less rumpled, and began dressing while Joshua finished packing.
"By the way," the baron observed as he pulled on a shirt without
bothering with a tie. Joshua smiled at this sign of how well he was
training his lover to relax. "You didn't tell me where you were going."
"Because I don't know myself," Joshua replied. "I thought I'd visit
some of the stranger, out-of-the way shops... maybe some owned by the
CotN."
"Azhriaz," Gideon guessed easily, glancing at a beautiful picture frame
that encased an Old Master on the bedroom wall.
The frame was oak, darkened by the years, and had carvings of oak leaves
in the corners. It graced a beautiful British landscape by Constable. It
sat well on the modernized Morris wallpaper that looked like dark red
leather with gold tooling. The room, on a whole, was dark and quiet, with the
glowing wallpaper offset by a complimentary green rug with red and gold
random patterns. The furniture was all massive antiques in mahogany,
the other paintings landscapes or animal portraits. There were no mirrors,
and no chance for the sun to come in by accident, as there were no windows.
It was a vampire's room, but Joshua felt comfortable here as well.
"She'll be one of the first," Joshua agreed.
"Well, be careful. Not all of the CotN are as friendly as she is."
"Don't fuss, Gideon, please."
"Where after San Francisco?" Gideon asked, smiling to himself when he said
"San Francisco", for a couple of reasons. One was his own visit to that
city with Evan, last century, resulting in the bringing home of a
large stuffed grizzly bear. The bear, mounted on a skateboard, had been
used to amuse the co-hosts of the Yule Party during the clean-up
efforts. Its presence in the house had actually been forgotten until a
few mischievious young Nameless Ones, with Evan's son Owen as the
ringleader, had found it in the attic. Gideon stifled a smile as he
remembered his friend Tremayne casting spells of warding against a bear
that had been dead for century.
The other reason was that San Francisco was where Rene lived. Although
they had met in New Orleans, on a magical night, Gideon had never
forgotten Rene's invitation to come to San Francisco. The night in New
Orleans had healed Gideon, and enabled him to fall in love with
Joshua... but he did not know if he ought to tell Joshua about Rene.
Josh was not jealous of Jonathan, who'd been dead for over a century and
a half, but he might be resentful that Gideon had a former lover who was
still "alive".
"That I am not so sure of," Joshua interupted this train of thought,
"I may go over to England, I know a couple of dealers there who might
have something in that line."
"Where is Mrs. Sims-Jones' new condominium?" Gideon asked as they walked
downstairs.
"New York, dahling, of course. Anywhere else would be so declasse."
Joshua mocked the affected drawl that many pretentious people used.
"What's so great about New York?" Mitch asked, emerging from the kitchen
with Warg at his heels.
"Why, dahling," Joshua grinned at the lanky, shaggy-haired werewolf, and
stopped to scratch the accompanying timber wolf's ears, "it's _the_ place to
be."
The young man scowled. "Here suits me just fine," he said.
"It suits me just fine, too," Josh assured him. "But Mrs. Sims-Jones
would be very unhappy in Fletcherville. There's not one designer
boutique in the village."
"There's this," Mitch laughed, holding up the latest L.L. Bean
catalogue.
* * *
When Joshua stood in the empty condo, he had a hard time keeping a
straight face as he pictured Mrs. Sims-Jones, dressed in chinos and a
windbreaker, furnishing her apartment in Modern Maine Cottage.
"...so you can see my problem, Mr. Trevallion," his client was winding
down a long speech Joshua had barely listened to. "This is a lovely
location, just precisely the right address, but it is so..." she flapped
her hand, looking for the right words.
'Hideously ugly,' Joshua supplied silently, looking around at the condo.
It was still empty, the smell of new paint and freshly hung wallpaper
tickling his nose. Devoid of any personality, the apartment waited for
furniture to scuff its immaculate parquet floors and mark the expensive
but tasteless wallpaper.
He moved to the high, wide window, inwardly wincing at how much drapes
were going to cost for it. The view was all that was going for the
place, and that only if you liked looking out the thirtieth floor at a
lot of other buildings. Another apartment-condo was right across the
way from here, and Joshua could look right into those windows that
weren't tightly curtained. A tiny little girl, her face pressed up
against the glass at one window, saw him looking and waved. He waggled
his fingers at her, and saw her face light up.
Another window offered him a sleepy cat curled up amongst spider plants,
or a bird's-eye view of a couple making love on their bed. He blushed
and turned his head, as he believed that what happened in the bedroom
was private. Even if that couple hadn't seemed to believe it -- their
curtains had been wide open.
He looked down at the traffic, like a toy town in motion from this
height. Joshua was used to looking out the window and seeing only ocean
and cliff, since the nearest neighbour to Oakwoods was five miles up the
Cliff Road. He found himself longing for that view instead of New
York's teeming streets.
There, if he stood sideways, and peered around that other building, he
could just catch a glimpse of Central Park. He knew that this "Park
View" had cost Mrs. Sims-Jones a few extra thousand. He'd once
been envious of this high-priced lifestyle, until he'd moved
among the very rich long enough to know they weren't any happier than he
was. It hadn't been Gideon's money that had attracted him.
"That's why I want you to find me pieces with some _history_ behind
them," Mrs. Sims-Jones said, and Joshua forced himself to pay attention
to her. "This apartment lacks _atmosphere_, don't you think, Mr.
Trevallion?"
"It needs something, perhaps," Joshua agreed cautiously, "To give it a
personality. But I've told you before, Mrs. Sims-Jones, I'm not an
interior decorator."
"I trust your taste over any ten decorators I know," she said bluntly.
"They'd do this lovely room in southwestern and put cacti and cow skulls
everywhere. I want antiques, I want genuine, and you can find them for
me. I don't care if I have to pay your expenses for Timbuctoo or the
moon."
This was the real advantage to working for wealthy clients who wanted
him to buy for them, as opposed to museums who merely wanted him to
authenticate a piece ... he received lavish expenses, paid with no
quibbles as long as he produced results. It wasn't quite his field, but
simply authenticating antiques didn't pay very well, and he'd never
really wanted to own a shop.
"I don't know if I'm going to be able to find you precisely what you
want, Mrs. Sims-Jones," Joshua had to warn her.
"I have faith in you, Mr. Trevallion. You've never let me down before.
I must say, it's quite novel to always be able to find you when I need
you. You've been living at the same address for ... what? Three years
now?"
"Three and a half," Joshua smiled, his warm brown eyes dancing. "I find
it a bit novel, myself. And I hope the novelty never wears off."
"Good for you." She wrote him out a cheque. "This should cover your
initial expenses. If you need more, just telephone and I'll wire it to
you." For a moment, unexpected mischief twinkled in her sunken eyes.
"And if you spot a nice present somewhere that you want to bring back
for your lover, I won't quibble." She chuckled at his expression.
"Come now, Mr. Trevallion, when a man your age who's always been
footloose finally settles down at one address, it's not because it's the
fashionable place to live."
"You caught me, Mrs. Sims-Jones," Joshua admitted, although he was
secretly a little annoyed. He always kept his professional life
seperate from his personal one. Mrs. Sims-Jones was one of a very few
of his clients who knew he was gay, and he relied on her not to speak of
it. He knew she meant well, but he didn't appreciate the invasion.
"Well, if there's nothing else," he changed the subject, " I'll be off
to Christie's. There's a sale tonight that I should have a look at."
"Good hunting," she wished him.
* * *
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