It was night-time again. Stars twinkled, owls hooted and the normally cloudy Washington atmosphere had long-since given way to an incandescent darkness. Edward stared out of the window with a cold, determined look.
"It's getting awful late. I should get going." The chiseled vampire said, gripping the side of Bella's bedpost with his ashen hand. Even though he wasn't gifted with Alice's sixth sense, Edward could somehow predict that Bella was going to have a big, shrilly girl fit. "The neighbors are going to start wondering."
"Nooooo! You've got to stay!" Bella whined loudly, tossing her long hair over her shoulders as she pulled on his shoulder. "I'm not tired, I promise! I want more time with you, God! Are you going to leave me again like you did in November?"
A girl screaming, no matter how irritatingly so, was always an aphrodisiac for Edward. There were two things the enticed vampire could do. He could, number one, sleep over at Bella's house, providing her with all those things she demanded- of course, there was no denying that she would spaz out. The other option was to leave the defenseless, vulnerable and willing princess alone in her locked castle, where she would most certainly have fun without him. No, no- neither choice would do; forbidden fruit or going solo-
"Edward," Bella whispered seductively, swirling her hands around his chest. Edward wondered if she was trying out a new yoga position, he was standing up and Bella was sprawled out on her bed, "I'm not wearing a bra…"
Yoga. Multiplication symbols. Wolves. Naked Bella. Crap.
Edward groaned; she was making his choice so difficult- or easier, depending on how he looked at it- she smelled delicious, like a tart apple pie he used to love as a human. His eyes glazed over with desire, he could see Bella reaching under her pillow- what was she getting at? Looking at him, teasing him with batting eyelashes- she pulled out a bottle of Bear Paw Bottle honey. Edward's eyes widened with a mix of satisfaction and shock, how did she know he had loved honey back when he was a human?
Alice. That sight-seein', prom-lovin', libido-helpin', compulsive-shoppin', grizzly bear-eatin', bad influencin', makeover lovin', prophesizin' yellow-bellied damn-straight yer-darn-right traitor.
It must have been her; both girls had been acting strangely giggly earlier at school. Bella consented to go in the bathroom with his smirking sister- no wonder she brought a banana along, there was no way she was as famished as she claimed. Rosalie had even volunteered to go along; she said she needed to check up on her hair. There was no way Bella would eat in a FHS bathroom, no way Rosalie would ever doubt her looks- the signs were all there. Emmett had winked at him, making crude jokes about him and Bella finally knocking boots.
Edward would bet a large sum of money that his entire family was home together, sitting on the couch, laughing at him, talking about what might be going on since Edward never stayed this long. He imagined them all sitting together, having a laugh at his expense. Did they all plan this? Even Jasper had been acting somewhat funny in their chemistry class, blushing every time Edward passed him a vial with white liquid. Damn them all.
Bella tugged on his white blouse with an anxious look, pulling it to the point of stretching it out, then unbuttoning all of his buttons- if you what I'm sayin'. Edward shot his eyes up to the ceiling, avoiding looking at his aroused girl. Bella's eyes widened with a certain devious satisfaction, and she took an opportune moment in Edward's obliviousness. (And she really grabbed that brass ring).
"BELLA!" Edward managed to strangle out in a voice a few octaves higher then he regularly spoke with. Bella's advances were uh- welcomed, but didn't exactly help his 'I-need-to-get-outta-here-now' mantra.
"Edward!" She cried out mockingly. Bella was being unusually brash, and Edward wondered again if his darker, sweeter, littler sister was to blame. He regained his composure; she was, after all, simply Bella. Blushing, easily embarrassed, flower-smelling, chemistry-failing Bella. He suddenly remembered the white liquid-filled vials Jasper had passed him, and he stiffened. It was time to take control of his little per-dic-a-ment.
"Yes?" Edward growled, ripping the covers off of Bella's bed. He pushed himself onto her; Edward could feel all of his weight crushing the petite brunette- was he going too far? No, a good scaring was in order, he reckoned. "Bella, what did you need so bad?"
The florid brunette stared at him, her brown eyes wide with a slight fear. Edward hid a smirk as he climbed on top of her. He hated to be cruel, but Bella needed to learn a lesson. What would freak her out the most?
The vampire closed in on his willing prey- so the lamb would lay with the lion tonight, huh? Edward could live with that, despite how wrong it was. He began to lightly touch Bella's side, her curvatures, and listened to her sigh in appeasement.
Second base, third base, a tongue bath…
"Oh m'God, Edward!" Bella cried out from underneath him, scandalized. "Did you just lick me?"
There was his shy, innocent Bella. Edward rolled off of Bella- he could see that she was hyperventilating, which was good. His thoughts were confirmed, Alice had pressured her into something she didn't want to do.
"I thought you were rarin' to go," Edward teased lightly. "You know, all ready for new horizons."
"Shut up, you-" Bella began to rant, but Edward cut her off. "I can't believe you would even-"
"If I had let you finish- If I had let myself finish, it would've been because of Alice telling you stuff she's seen about our sex life. No, Bella, I- need our first time to be special." Edward spoke with earnest, and Bella felt completely ashamed of herself.
"Of course, Edward. I completely understand." Bella felt like stepping into a beyond-boiling temperature hot shower, washing herself completely of all of the shame she felt. Was she really that big of a slut? She felt like Rosalie, only worse, because she wasn't as pretty. "Oh, God- I must've seemed like retarded-"
"Bella," Edward said her name with the same determination as before, but somehow delivered it a bit gentler. "Don't talk; Alice will pay in her blood. Go to sleep, I'll spend the night with you. I'm a bit worried about what my homecoming will be like at my house."
Bella snuggled up against him, completely enamored. He kissed her forehead goodnight, and spent almost all of the night with Bella.
Almost. Around three in the morning, Edward began to sense a certain scent coming from his darlin's lower drawers. Could it be…?
Edward prayed to every God in the sky that it was not that- that- time of the month. It was bad enough when the wolf reached hi s height of the menstruation cycle, now Bella?
Blood stained all around Bella's sheets, Edward pushed his hand against his nose frantically to block out the smell. Alice was dead. He couldn't block out the smell. Alice would be killed twice through the means of revival, a bus station, and fire.
Fuck.
Bella woke up sticky.
Tomato juice was seeping through her Victoria Secret silk boy shorts- she bought them after Edward called the grey sweatpants that she usually slept in monotonous- and they wouldn't be dry-cleanable. Even if they were, how would she be able to explain a dry cleaning bill for lingerie to Charlie?
She had been having a horribly scary, no-good, rotten, bad-to-the-bone, wet-your-pants terrifying, The Blob-type nightmare. She was stuck inside a tomato, which is a bad thing. She was all wet from the tomato juice. No matter which way she tossed or turned, she hit a vegetable wall that was as hard as Mike's pants on a wrestling day in PE (and the wall, come to think of it, was just as syrupy. Was that how she got so viscid?)
"Bella," the tomato wall had whispered urgently, wiggling her. Was she in JELL-O? "Bella, wake up. Please. It's incredibly important that we get you cleaned up."
'Well, duh, tomato wall.' Bella had thought to herself. She was covered in a yucky, veggie-salsa dip. Or Jell-O. This was going to stain, she just knew it.
"God, please, I will buy you the most expensive diamond necklace available in all of the world now-" The voice had gotten louder, shaking her more roughly. Maybe it could buy her some new boy shorts, because hers were ruined. She'd ask it for fifty-dollar, super lacy, catalogue-order only lingerie instead, actually.
Bella had opened her eyes in slow motion, the tomato's red skin morphed into a white (salmonella? Ugh, she was so not eating the tomato when she got free), then her eyes were totally open. She could see hazily. A foggy vampire was sitting on her bed, her visual sight sharpened; it was Edward, who seemed worried sick.
This is when she had woken up fully. Bella understood two things.
1) She was glueyer then that Bear Paw honey.
2) She was not in a tomato.
"I had a terrible hallucination last night," Bella said groggily, sitting up. The silk on her Victoria Secret boy shorts stuck to her upper thigh, she was all wet down there with tomato sauce- what the fuck? She was bleeding. Bella's eyes snapped open, she saw a disgruntled vampire tipping his head back and holding his nose. "Edward! Did you fucking bite me? Sorry for making you mad, but that's going kind of far. Carlisle is going to scold you like crazy. And why does it smell like Thai food?"
Edward was so traumatized he accidentally fell down on the floor. Well, he was tipping his head back awful far. Bella giggled at seeing the normally balanced vampire freaking out on her oak-wood floor.
Edward sat up quickly, rubbed his head, and glared at Bella. Why was she making jokes? She had to realize how hard this was for him. He gulped. Back when he was a human, Thai food was another one of his favorite things to eat.
"No, I didn't bite you. It must be your time of the month." Edward told her, momentarily stunned by how stupid she was acting. What was she, five?
"My time of the month?" Bella asked, utterly befuddled. "What the hell is that?"
"Uh- your period?" Edward questioned rather than responding, distressed. Did- she- not- know- what- that- was? Thoughts sporadically shot out at him, feelings pressed by every syllable. Could it be that, after all those years of switching schools based on Renee's decision to change states each month, Bella never learned about the birds and the bees?
"My period?" Bella asked again, still bewildered. Then she began to squeal happily. "Is that a vampire thing? Ohmigawd, Edward! Are you going to change me? Thank you! My birthday's next month, I was worried I was going to turn eighteen and be older than you. Is there a ceremony? Alice can even doll me up, I don't care about feminism. I'm going to become a vampire."
"Stop joking around, this isn't funny! We need to get you into a tampon, stat!"
The brunette stared at him blankly, perplexed.
"What is a tampon?"
Bella drove to school in her old truck awkwardly. Edward was sitting next to her, eyes black and breathing hard.
"Maybe I should take a trip to Alaska for a week," Edward muttered to himself, like a crazy homeless man. "Yeah, that'll do the trick. They're all going to laugh at me when they find out, except Jasper, because he'll come with me."
Bella slammed her hands against the steering wheel, and began to speak in a hard, chopped voice.
"Edward. You announced to me earlier, between your other explanations as to what happened, that you experience this intense smelling daily. Our school has lots of girls, all who get their crimson tides. What makes me so different?"
"You know you're different," Edward mangled out, smothering his face with his buttery , suede leather jacket. "Even if I can't read your mind, I can still sense heightened emotions- about well, you know- what I explained to you."
"You mean sex?" Bella grinned, a huge smile breaking across her face. She swerved the clunkery truck out of excitement. Whatever, it wasn't like anyone in Forks, Washington actually had a car. Questions exploded out of her, quick as gunshots. "I'm now like really attractive to you in bed? You want to plow my snowfield like a no-gas, no-oil Toro?"
"Bella, stop with the crudeness! And yes. I do want to pack you like Betty Crocker's fudge," Edward admitted, shame covering his face along with his jacket. Bella couldn't see because he was protected and she was watching the road, but his face was bright red.
"Edward! I'm really not the one being rough and ready here!" Bella responded as she pulled into the school parking lot. She felt humiliated enough already. When they stopped at CVS to pick up tampons, she had no idea how to work one. So Edward had to show her how to put one in.
"Sorry for not being a gentleman, but I've got a full house of cards, and it's hard not to tell you that I'll be Jack-King off soon."
"Listen, Edward," Bella twisted around in her seat to face the vamp. She snapped off her seatbelt. "You still haven't explained to me why there is Hawaiian punch flowing out of my luau. Do you want me to go to the school nurse, or to go ask Alice?"
Edward muffled his face in his jacket once more, inhaling the coppery leather. Then he opened the car door, and began running to the front door as quickly as he could. Students stopped in the parking lot to stare. Bella rolled her eyes, and turned off the car engine.
Bella stood in the cafeteria lunch line, with Alice in tow. She stared at the various options- fruit, pizza, Toberlone bars- blankly. How could anyone think of food in a crisis like this? She felt bloated, more cramped than a New York subway station, and- in dire need of chocolate. Toberlone time.
"Hmm," Alice said conversationally to her zombie-like companion. "I'm not particularly hungry, as usual, but you look flustered. It didn't rain last night, I realize, but did Edward finally hit a home run?"
"No," Bella glared at the snarky, spiky-haired seraph. She examined a red, bruised apple, which didn't look very appetizing. Bella considered herself more of a Count Chocula than a Dracula, and she picked up the chocolate. "Something is happening to my body, Alice. Apparently, I am going to bleed out of a certain orifice every month."
"No way," Alice said, taken aback. In her stupor, she accidentally piled her tray with pizza. They moved along in line. "This is the first time you're taking Carrie to the prom?"
Bella shot Alice another death look. They had reached the middle-aged, soccer-mom cashier, who was now paying attention to their conversation. Bella reached in her jacket pocket for two dollars, but was stopped by the parent volunteer.
"You don't need to pay me," The parent-volunteer smiled at the furious, embarrassed Bella. "I know how hard it is to start the very first time, but pretty soon, you'll be feeling menstu-riffic!"
Alice started laughing uncontrollably. Bella flushed, slammed two dollars on the metal countertop, and hurried to where Emmett, Jasper, and Rosalie were sitting. Her companion followed, still giggling.
Rosalie's mouth opened with a little V of glee.
"My God, Bella. I was ordering l'Omelette Rouge by the time I turned twelve," The gorgeous, Georgian-blonde said, beaming. "I mean, I thought I smelled Thai Food from where you were standing- but I assumed you and Edward had been Phu King."
Emmett howled appreciatively, and put his arm around the Aphrodite incarnate. Jasper looked down at his untouched plate of fries, his pale face uncharacteristically colored.
"I- well, I- where is Edward?" Bella frowned. Her knight in shining armor was gone, possibly hunting grizzly bears in Alaska.
"He went hunting up in the mountains," Jasper whispered, looking up at the seventeen-year old brunette. "He'll be back in two days."
"I don't know why he's so-" Bella sighed, opening her candy bar and biting in to it. Yum, chocolate. Although she was playing lead guitarist in Sergeant Zygote's Heavy Flow Metal Band, she felt adequately better. "Well, he deals with this every day. Why am I so different?"
"You're always different," Rosalie muttered darkly. She poked a hole in top of her soda can with her sharp, sharp nails. "You're forever going to have to deal with this, every month, until he changes you."
Alice kicked her sister under the table, and Rosalie stiffened.
"Rose," Alice smiled angelically, baring her sharp teeth. "Getting your period is a cause for celebration, and besides, that kind of blood doesn't normally tempt us- unless when we're in love with the person. Jasper is having a bit of trouble, but it's because he's around humans- he's dealing with no more difficulty than usual."
Emmett bawled over, raucous laughter escaping his mouth. The rest of the table stared at him.
"Love isn't the reason Edward high-tailed it to the hills," Emmett said, knocking his fists on the table in pure ecstasy. He was practically glowing in sheer delight. "You don't have to sugar-coat it, Alice. I'm sure Bella can handle the truth."
Alice opened her mouth to protest, but Rosalie stopped her by kicking her under the table. 'Retaliation, baby. Revenge is sweet.' Rosalie thought, taking her Manolo Blahnik heel and stomping on Alice's foot.
"Whenever a vampire smells a- a blood source," The carnivorous day-walker said in mock delicacy, smirking as Bella nibbled on her Toberlone bar, looking fascinated. "Upon first instinct, he desires to, well, suck the source dry. It doesn't matter what kind, actually, if he's significantly involved with that person. So you can see how difficult that would have been for Edward, because you sleep like a rock."
"Emmett," Bella gasped, more sickened at this sudden revelation than the fact that Edward wanted to commit a massacre at the Y. "Have you been in my bedroom?"
Suddenly, Emmett was very interested in his plate of uneaten food.
Aha. My metaphors are kind of insane. If you need me to explain one to you, let me know.
Have a happy period!