(This is the first chapter in a novel I’m working on featuring the great great a couple times great granddaughter of the first Marie Laveau. To say I’m fascinated by the legend of Marie Laveau is barely scraping the surface. I’ve finished two chapters of this and am rethinking some aspects of it, so in other words I’m trying to figure out where I’m going now. This is going to be a very much work in progress, who knows where this is going at the moment, I thought I did, but now not so sure. Hope you enjoy it.)
1
I woke up, naked, the cover of the bed on the floor, the sheets twisted and pulled from the bed.
My head hurt like a MF and even opening my eyes caused pain. More than one too many shots from the night before.
My right hand patted the bed beside me. I was afraid to look, because of what, or who, I might see. I felt nothing. I side-eyed and saw nothing.
At least whoever shared my night had the common decency to leave before morning.
Wednesday padded into my bedroom and stopped just inside the doorway. I’ve never seen dogs give such looks of disappointment mixed with disgust as my dog can do. Wednesday is a master at such looks and that was what she was giving me in spades right now. Wednesday is a black lab. She gave a quick shake of her head and then walked over to her bed by the closest. She turned in a circle before lowering herself to her bed with her back to me and going to sleep.
Dissed by my own familiar.
I remembered now how little decency my nighttime visitor had shown me. After a few hours of twisting the sheets and bumping heads on the headboard, he wanted to cuddle and sleep.
I don’t cuddle.
And when I sleep it’s alone.
I tried to be diplomatic at first. And anyone knowing me knows that’s rare and unusual. But I figured we had worked up a very nice sweat together and I could at least try the nice approach.
I should have known better.
He wouldn’t take no for an answer. He wanted to show he was a nice guy and was looking for more than just sex. The problem was that all I wanted was the sex part. The rest of it he can leave home with his Momma.
I ended up kicking him out of my bed. And I mean that literally. After one too many attempts at him spooning me, I turned and gave him a hard kick to the piece of his antimony that had given me so much pleasure earlier that night. He fell to the floor with a curse.
I was hoping that he got the message finally. But his head must have been as hard as that other part of his body from the night before. And just as mindless.
I would say he hopped right up after hitting the floor but it took a few minutes of him rolling around in pain and cursing me.
When he finally stood, he was pretty mad. Cuddling was the farthest thing from his mind now. I really didn’t want to have to hurt him more to get him to leave, but I was running out of options. Just my luck to hook up with a “nice guy.”
It was at this point that Wednesday came into the room. She always gives me the room when I bring someone home. She’ll sleep on the couch until morning when she comes in to give me the look of shame. She took one look at the situation and was beside the bed quicker than it took to even think that thought. Even if she doesn’t approve of my life choices she’s got my back.
Wednesday is a black lab, so she’s not the biggest dog in the world, but with her tail down, ears back, and teeth very prominent in her growl I think my man-friend was a little more worried about dandling man parts than spooning or getting revenge on me for depositing him so ungracefully on the floor. He didn’t even take the time to dress as he rushed out of the room, grabbing his clothes and never taking an eye off the dog.
Within sixty seconds I heard him heading down the stairs and then the front door opening and closing.
Wednesday gave him a dog “hmphh” and headed back to the couch. I may be easy, but my dog certainly isn’t.
Okay, Okay, Wednesday I know I should show more restraint. But after a few shots, I get horny.
I squeezed my head between my hands. I could use a spell to clean the hangover, but I would pay for it later. No spells come without some type of cost and I’d rather suffer the hangover than whatever the cost would turn out to be.
I started to get out of bed until I realized my foot was tangled in the sheet.
I tried to kick it free, but it was wrapped around my ankle like a twist on a bag of chips.
I sat u and too much rushed to my head and I gave a very serious thought to throwing up. The only problem was that then I was the one that’s going to have to clean up the mess.
Ok, so maybe Wednesday has a point. But my tongue will fall out before I admit it to my dog.
How the hell did my foot get so tangled up? I don’t know if I’m just that hungover or if my foot is that tangled up, but it takes me a good five minutes to get it free.
I thought I’d recognize the triumph by standing up but what little triumph I felt vanished pretty quickly as I sat back down on the bed as the room circled the drain of my brain.
Wednesday decided it was time to rub it in a little more. She came over and plopped down on her belly in front of me, her legs stretched out in front of her, and a doggie grin on her face.
“You’re such a bitch.” She stuck her tongue out at me and didn’t move otherwise.
I wish I could claim last night and this morning was the rarer occurrence, but lately, it’s become more the norm. And Wednesday does not care for it.
I was up finally. I walked across the bedroom to the bathroom I lived in a two-story condo looking out over the French Quarter. The whole row of buildings I live in was once apartments and some still are, but in the real estate market it was smarter to turn into condos. My upper floor was my bedroom, a bathroom, and my work area with a door leading out to a balcony that I could sit on and watch the goings on in Jackson Square. The bottom floor was the living room and kitchen area. Neither floor was that but it was more than enough for me. And it had been in my family for generations, which is how I was able to afford it.
I should explain something here. My name is Marie Laveau. I’m the 8th generation to share that name. Starting with the first and most famous, every Marie has had a daughter named Marie. It started with my 7-time Grandmother, using her daughter to help convince and more importantly con people that Marie was immortal and never aged.
Until me and I decided to put an end to the long line of Laveau. And their con game.