Parachutist 2 – Our New World
Chapter 4 Blushing red
A/N Hi everybody, I am back from sunny (too sunny, sizzling, in fact) Uzbekistan and posting again. While I was there I was reached by the stunning news that The Parachutist won second place in The Shimmer Awards as "Outstanding story".
Previously
Shit, he was speaking the truth. No secrets in this family.
Edward
Bella is sleeping late and of course I let her. I put on pants and shirt and go downstairs. Esme is in the kitchen with Alice. Alice who Saw me in my birthday suit, as first my mother and then Damon made me.
"Your wife will awaken in twenty minutes," the pixie announces, "time to prepare her breakfast." Her mind is full of something in an obscure language; she is deflecting me.
"What would she like?" Esme asks.
"Italians do not have a big breakfast," I answer. "Coffee with milk and toasts with butter and jam would be fine, I suppose."
When I go upstairs with Bella's tray, she is indeed awake and has taken care of her human moments. She eats with gusto.
"How was your evening with the ladies?" I am curious.
"Embarrassing," she says, "Alice ran a bath for me, and was thinking of staying in and chat, while I bathed. Thank God that Esme told her to give me space. Then she insisted on painting my nails, and that I had to accept, just restricting it to my feet.
"See." Her little foot pops up from under the sheets. Indeed her nails are painted ruby red. I did not notice last night, having more interesting things to do. I catch the foot before she can retreat it and lower my mouth to it.
"Edward?"
"Mm… delicious…" I am kissing the foot now… licking… sucking the toe… aroused already and not really paying attention, but Bella insists:
"They wanted to know everything… what we do in bed…"
Oops.
"Wait, who was asking?"
"Well, Alice mainly, but Rosalie had the worst questions, and Esme didn't say anything, but did not stop the girls either."
Oh my God. But, in a sense, I understand. If Carlisle was floored when he first knew of it, that it was possible for a vampire to make love to a human and not to kill her, and then was curious, albeit in a scientific way… well, female - emphasis on female - vampires are probably curious as well.
"So, what did you say to them?" I enquire.
"As little as I could, but then they asked me to just answer yes and no… and I did… it was mostly yes, though."
Bella is tomato red by now.
At vampire speed I remove the tray she had been eating from and fall on the bed, having disposed of all my clothes. I have a hunch about how to manage this situation before it becomes too stressful. Her nightgown, that she has put on again, has also to go, and fast. It is light yellow and one I don't recognize. Last night I was distracted indeed.
"Pretty. New?" I ask.
"Sì, pretty, Sangallo lace. Alice has put a few things in my drawers and in the closet, and now she wants to go shopping with me… She says we'll travel to some city when Carlisle comes back… Oh," she gasps, because the nightgown is gone and I have her lying prone.
"Did you tell them about this?" I ask, sliding two cushions under her stomach, "and this?" I am caressing her pert little bottom, a naughty finger wandering between her nether cheeks, until I feel her excitement, body surging towards me, legs opening slightly… the scent of her desire addling my brain a little.
"Or this?" I am inside her, in my favorite position. Thrusting, thrusting, slowly at first, then faster, as fast as I can and still keep her safe. She screams her orgasm, I follow her. Bliss. I always purr afterwards, when we do it like this, animal that I am.
And now for the second part of my plan.
"Even if you did not tell them about this," I say, turning her in my arms, so that we are facing each other, "they know, now."
"What?" She gasps. I have whispered my words, hoping that they are undetected. I continue whispering:
"Alice probably has Seen it in advance – she Saw me bare assed before we went hunting, and gave her husband a change of pants for me - then Jasper must have felt lust and pleasure coming from us, and, well, you were not exactly silent, my love. Me neither. We have to live with it, though, or go away, because I don't think we would like to abstain. Or could, at that. Jasper told me yesterday this is a 'family with no secrets'. In fact, while you were sleeping, I heard him and Alice going at it like rabbits. And I barely avoided seeing in their minds what they were doing. So, what do you want to do?"
Bella has hidden her face on my chest, her blush practically covering all her upper body.
Personally, I don't want to go away. I know it. Despite the embarrassment of not having any privacy, I am very happy to be with Carlisle's family, and I long for his return. And I am not ashamed of my love life. If anything, I am rather proud of it, delight aside. But, what will Bella decide?
She is now looking into space; I can't read her but I almost see a thousand little wheels turning in her brain…
"I know you want to stay," she finally says, just mouthing her words. I can hear her, though.
"And I want it too, I think. They are very nice people, all considered. And, surely, they are the only company we can keep and be ourselves. So…"
"So?" I encourage her.
"So, I'll try not to think about it, and, fortunately, I can't hear them, for now. You know, apart from the fact that you can melt me till I am a happy puddle, I am so proud of you. If there were awards for a perfect, non-killing, vampire lover, I would see that you get it. We have nothing to be ashamed of."
Wonderful Bella.
"But, let's leave occasionally, where we can be alone for a while. And, maybe, we could have a radio in our room. Covering noises." She concludes.
After that, we dress and go downstairs to brave the audience.
Jasper
Table tennis match with my new brother. Well, vampire table tennis, five balls and two paddles, one for each hand. He is puzzled at the beginning, then gets the hang of it. Bella says she can't see anything, too fast, and goes back to the main house. The human girl is calm, self possessed and smells too good, so I am not unhappy to see her go. Edward looks at me, but projects just a modest concern, nothing much.
While we play, I think of this morning, when he went back to his room with Bella's breakfast. At first they were speaking normally and I could easily follow from my second floor room. Bella complained about the grilling she received from the women on the intimate aspects of their marriage and Edward reaction was… to provide further information for us all, barring Emmett and Rosalie, who were in the garage.
We normally try to distract ourselves from each other's antics, yet I have to admit to curiosity. Erotic passion flowed from them, but, additionally, I felt something different coming from Edward. It was… the desire to protect. It was like he was restraining himself with a cage of love, lest the full strength of his lust-dominated vampiric body be unleashed on his human bride. Even more surprisingly, I did not detect any frustration about his restraint. When they were spent I only felt their deep satisfaction. So this is what happens between them, how amazing…
He stops moving his paddles, the five little balls falling from the table, to regard me with a little smirk.
"I see you have your answer," he says, having read in my mind what I was remembering. Shit, this is something to which I must become accustomed to. No secrets with a vengeance… and there is nothing to it but to be completely frank, so that words and thoughts are the same. That is, until I learn to deflect.
"Alice is quite good at doing that already," he laughs.
"Well, since you know what I am thinking, I am sure you are seeing more questions that would be terribly impolite to ask… why don't you kindly answer them?
"Think away!"
This guy has a refreshing sense of humor. But I prefer to speak aloud, so that my thoughts don't wander too far.
"I still struggle with bloodlust, though it's been more than 20 years since I have… mm…let us say, reformed. I'm always tempted to get a fix of the real thing. You were brought to this life a little more than a year ago, as I understand it. How do you manage?"
"Frankly, I don't know." Edward answers, "It is not that I did not think about it, only, I have confusing and contradictory answers.
"When I was human I had a strong physical aversion to spilling blood. Literally. Which, for a paratrooper trained in hand to hand combat was rather funny, you'll admit. When I was turned the aversion seemed to disappear, but I wonder if it remained buried somewhere and eventually resurfaced, helping me.
"As a newborn I was enraged. My sire and his comrade wanted me for my mind reading gift. I was meant to be brought to Aro in Volterra. However, I hated what I had become, so I rebelled and destroyed them."
I look at him, surprised, remembering the long string of newborns I had created, trained and eventually killed, when I was under Maria's orders. Not one of them had been able to prevail over me, despite trying, as my scars prove.
"Beginner's luck," Edward smirks, reacting to my thought. "Nobody had told me that a newborn isn't supposed to win a fight against mature vampires, so I fought them and won. They were not together when I turned against them and I surprised the first one. With the second, I used my gift. I could see his moves when he thought about them, so he never managed to catch me. When he made a mistake, I had him.
"In any case, very soon after that, I found Carlisle and discovered that I had choices. Unfortunately, I made the wrong one and, albeit I was so blessed that I could control my thirst and limit myself to animals from almost the beginning. I could have followed Carlisle's example immediately, but I did not do it. I told myself that I could be a vampire and an American officer, continuing my war and drinking from the enemies I had been sent in Italy to kill. It was a delusion, obviously. What I did had little strategic value and was not justified. It was greed. Human blood tasted better, it was as simple as that."
A strong emotion is coming from him now. It is guilt. I am enthralled by this conversation. We don't often speak of such things in our family, apart the occasional conversation with Carlisle, which is a little like speaking with a priest. Alice loves me, supports me and encourages me, but she is probably afraid that to discuss bloodlust would not be healthy, would maybe trigger something.
"Yeah, it tastes better," Edward repeats, "but killing for it leaves a bitter aftertaste… So, to continue, my gift was a horrible burden, when I was hunting men. Though it was a pleasure to kill some Nazis – I have a very fond memory of a certain SS Sturmbannführer Otto Schulz – in many other cases it was not so. Their thoughts disturbed me. So I killed without listening, most of the time. I rendered my victims unconscious and I drank…"
He is going exactly where I too am going in my mind. I remember the horror of being drowned by the emotions of my victims, innocent victims at that, or newborns, whom I destroyed when no longer useful. Doing it year after year, until I could stand it no more and left Maria. And of trying, alone and desperate, to resist my thirst and always succumbing… until Alice saved me.
This time Edward's smile is gentle.
"A German soldier saved me. His name was Egon. I discovered that he was honest and good, a potential hero in fact, only after I had drained him dry. It was an unfinished letter I found in his wallet that opened my eyes. And I swore over his corpse that I would not kill another man for his blood, ever." He shows me his right hand. "This is his ring, that I'll wear forever, to keep true to my promise. It is very thin, but it keeps me chained."
After that, there is not much more to say. Edward proposes that we go for a run, just to stretch our legs, and I follow him outside. I feel he is quite relaxed and hunky-dory now, and I have the same feelings. I think that what we shared today will stay with us. I know that my new brother is exactly that, a brother, who is not shy of confiding and in whom I know I will be able to confide.
Endnotes
I hope I did justice to Jasper in this chapter. What do you think?
In case you don't know or remember, Damon was Edward's sire.
Otto Schulz: See The Parachutist, Chapter 15.
Egon: See The Parachutist, Chapter 17.