Chapter 3: Andrei
We were the last two guests on the yacht. Andrei had really outdone himself. His parties usually had the best of everything, but the appearance of two Hollywood stars had made this night special. I saw my tender approaching, so I turned to Andrei and thanked him for a great night. I pointed to a girl that had fallen asleep on the sofa and asked if he knew her.
‘That’s Daphne,’ he said. ‘She is very annoying and drinks too much. She stays with some people on the Coral Reef.’
‘Well I don’t mind dropping her off on the Coral Reef if you give me a hand getting her in my launch.’ I said.
Daphne moaned as we both grabbed an arm. She was very thin, probably surviving on a champagne diet. It didn’t take us long to get her in the back of the tender which my crew member Roberto had brought round to collect me. Of course, I could easily have picked her up by myself, but I find it best to be as human as possible. We set off towards Juan les Pins where the Coral Reef was moored. As I was holding Daphne up with one arm firmly around her shoulders, I used the other to wave Andrei goodbye. I do love girls that get wasted on champagne; it gives their blood just a hint of a fizz. I pulled away from her neck after about two glasses. She would have an almighty hangover the next day but nothing more.
‘Oh darn. Roberto, did you remember to bring the plasters?’ I shouted over the noise of the tender as I held my fingers over the two bleeding punctures on her neck. Roberto cut the engine and started looking in one of the hatches. Soon he came over with a large plaster and I covered the two small holes. By the late morning they would look like two scratched open mosquito bites.
We carried on until we reached the Coral Reef. She was an attractive modern yacht of about 70 meters and quite a bit larger than my own. One of the crew helped us carry Daphne up on deck and down to her cabin. She moaned again as I laid her out on her bed and tore off the plaster. The puncture marks had stopped bleeding and didn’t look too bad. I got back in the tender and headed back in the direction of Cannes.
‘A most excellent start to the 2011 film festival Roberto,’ I said as we sailed towards The Count Dracula, my pride and joy. Not the biggest or the most modern yacht in the bay of Juan, but she was mine. I had bought the 2003 Azimut Carat 80 foot yacht about four years before for about 1.5 million euros after we’d rescued Roberto and his father paid the reward. It was expensive to run, but I was doing ok with my hostage rescue business and the odd burglary. I climbed on board and went below decks to settle in for the day.
George, my captain, came and saw me in my office, I had blocked up the windows so I could spend the day there in complete comfort and safety. He handed me some DVDs of The Twilight Saga. I hadn’t seen the movies yet as I found cinemas just too dangerous to be in – all those warm bodies packed together... just too tempting! The only cinema visits I could be bothered to muster up enough self-restraint for were at the Cannes film festival with its added glitz and glamour.
‘Why can’t you just jump up into trees too?’ he asked me, leaning nonchalantly against the wall and sipping his coffee.
‘I must have missed that bit in vampire school.’
‘You never have any fights with werewolves either,’ George went on.
‘Get me a werewolf and I’ll give it a try. Mind you I don’t think I fancy my chances. They have teeth, claws and everything.’
‘Sometimes I think you’re just a freakishly strong weirdo with pointy teeth,’ he said, laughing.
‘Pointy teeth that go in and out... and I have a daylight allergy... and don’t forget I don’t eat or drink.’
‘I bet you stuff your face with doughnuts as soon as my back’s turned,’ he mocked.
‘Right, George. Fuck off, then and let me get to my doughnuts.’
I was eager to watch the DVDs, as the chatrooms had been buzzing with the whole Twilight thing for a while and it was the bible for many a teenage vampire wannabe. I curled up on the sofa and put the first disk in, but I got bored and couldn’t bring myself to watch the other disk. Maybe I was getting too old, but I just didn’t get what all the fuss was all about. I had a few things in common with the main character, but I was much more fun.