He looked over at his adjoining study and smiled again. That had been wholly thoughtful of her to provide him. Walking past its entry to his closet, he chose a casual outfit, khaki pants and a tailored navy blue sport coat along with a swirly blue-and-gold tie and a light blue silk dress shirt. Yes, that was Arthur's idea of casual, at least in Melisande's very formal home, he would dress in jeans and t-shirt for meeting the high school students he tutored or in tennis shorts and shirt for summer sports, but he had observed Melisande, and understood what manner of dress she would prefer. Though, he supposed, he could perhaps do better to change into those clothes after a shower just before sundown. Then lab coat over it and to work. He decided this, putting the clothes on the bed neatly for later, and dressed in a looser outfit of royal blue sweater and grey slacks.
Arthur picked up the key ring Melisande had given him; he'd been careful not to touch her hand when he took it, the effort had recalled to his mind strongly that moment of touching her, though, and been very distracting. It hadn't been till she'd shown some slight annoyance at his questions that he had been able to stop thinking about it, and then only because other thoughts had taken its place.
He turned his mind by force of will to thoughts of her experiments, each of which he'd read through the previous night. As he learned more of her studies he admired her mind more and more. Each experiment was a small gem, perfectly conceived to obtain the most accurate results for the least effort, sparing no expense. He had already learned much of experimental-design technique from that night alone, as much as he'd learned in six months previous.
Even more, the experiments whispered to his intuitive mind of a convergence; it seemed clear to him that Melisande's interests were hop-scotching across so many multifarious disciplines because she, although even she might not realize this, was pursuing some deep goal of knowledge, some vast important discovery that would leap forth from the tiny gems of her experiments like a mosaic from glittering shards of glazed pottery. Not enough of the pieces were in place for him to see what the final results would be; he found himself glad he would live long enough to know.
Her mind fascinated him; so did other things about her, her reticence, her disturbing eyes, her ashen hair. She flowed through every moment of his thoughts since he awoke. As he passed the final security gantlet into the garage, and walked over to the silver Lotus that she had loaned him to drive, he thought how perfect it was, the car, and when he touched its wheel he could not help thinking of touching her, the silver machine and the silver woman blending in his thoughts.
He knew it was rather a hopeless gesture to feel attraction to a vampire; despite the counter-example of Marie, he had found they were largely a passionless bunch. Except for the Kiss... he wondered if he would be able to get her to bite him, to drink his blood. He hoped so, the thought alone made his blood pound in his ears. He noticed he was going faster, and let up on the accelerator as he drove the long way back to the city. He felt isolated from human contact; for too long he'd been in the Tremere chantry and then at Melisande's beautiful but empty home. He needed people. He parked the Lotus at a Starbuck's on the outskirts of Dallas, between a student's twelve year old Chevy with a UT bumper sticker and a soccer mom's Chrysler minivan with infant and toddler carseats in the back. It looked rather odd there, out of place, and he locked it carefully before he went inside.
After placing his order for a vanilla cappucino, Arthur looked around the coffee bar, hoping to spot someone who looked as if they wanted company. Luck seemed with him; a pair of young women were at a nearby table, the redhead sitting comfortably with an uneaten croissant and tall latte, her dark-haired friend walking back and forth patting a crying infant. "I'm sorry, Erica, I have to take Kelsey home and put her down for a nap. I'll try to catch you on Monday though?" The young mother walked on out, leaving Erica staring after her bemusedly, then down at her food with a slight moue of frustration. Arthur paid for his cappucino, then carried it over to Erica's table, standing over her but not quite in her personal space.
"Do you mind if I join you?" he asked. She waved her hand in a join-me gesture, saying, "Not at all, please sit down." He sat, placing his oversized cup carefully in front of him. "It's so good to finally get out," Arthur said. Erica nodded. "You've been cooped up for a while then?" she asked. "Yes," Arthur told her, "every other week I am on call twenty-four hours. I can't go anywhere. So, even though I work the regular hours this week, it's like time off for me." "That sounds like a tough schedule, I've been there, you'll get burned out going that way," Erica warned. She took a bite of her croissant. Arthur grinned at her, very friendly, and sipped his own coffee. "Mmmm, nectar of the gods," he said. The coffee from Melisande's gorgeous kitchen - far, far too much for one solitary human being - was quite a bit better than Starbucks, actually; it was the human contact, the ordinary chitchat, that was the true refreshment Arthur was needing here.
He and Erica talked for over an hour, until she had to leave, heading back to her next shift - she was a nurse at the nearby hospital. They exchanged phone numbers, though Erica warned him she had a boyfriend. "I'm not looking for romance," Arthur had told her, "I'm living with someone," he said, lying with the literal truth. She had nodded, and they'd agreed it was nice to have someone to talk to over coffee once in a while.
Arthur left, feeling re-energized in an inexplicable way, and returned to the silver Lotus. Erica saw him drive off in the expensive car and wondered - he'd subtly distracted her from this when he'd been present - what it was he did for a living, that let him afford such an absurdly expensive automobile. He drove first to the University library, returning a book and picking up another he'd reserved through inter-library loan, then back to the gates of Melisande's house.
Arthur opened the gates and drove inside, then parked the car just inside the gates, and got out, walking in the afternoon sunlight around the gorgeously landscaped gardens. Plants of every hue and scent abounded, but none overwhelmed, everything was done perfectly. He'd expect to see a legion of groundskeepers to maintain such meticulous beauty, but there were none to be seen at this moment; perhaps they were elsewhere on the grounds at the moment. He enjoyed the solitude and beauty almost as much as he'd enjoyed the earlier glimpse of social contact. Returning to the car, he drove it back into the garage, then returned to his room and napped for an hour, before waking in the hour before sunset to shower and change into his dressier clothes before Melisande should waken.