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Chapter 4:
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The next morning Bella had Cheerio's for breakfast and texted Victoria that she was having Cheerio's for breakfast. Victoria didn't reply.
At school she waited until she was bored in math class before texting again to say that she was bored in math class. Victoria again didn't reply. Bella then asked her for the answers to some of the equations in her textbook, thinking that a vampire's mind must be as superpowered as it's body. She didn't expect a reply to this either and she was excited when one actually came through. It said:
Leave me alone.
Bella sighed and put the phone down on her desk. The teacher noticed and cleared her throat loudly as a warning against texting in class. Bella refocused on her textbook for about ten minutes and then she took up her phone again.
So what are you doing right now? she asked in a text.
A couple minutes later came a reply. Nothing.
Where are you then?
Home.
Doing what?
Laying down.
Thinking about?
You.
Bella smiled, although she knew such thoughts were likely to be violent ones. She glanced discreetly at the teacher—who was concentrating on some papers at her desk—and back at the phone.
Sounds boring.
As boring as school?
Good point.
Bella waited for a reply but none came. Not in one minute or two or three. She looked at the clock on the wall. Next period was final period. She took up her phone again.
If you're bored, want me to come over after school?
She hesitated a second, wondering if the woman might get the wrong idea from that, and then quickly added:
To hang out?
The reply didn't come right away. The teacher rose from her desk to dismiss the class and soon everyone else rose as well to gather their books. Bella didn't check her phone again until she was out in the corridor and the reply gave her a little flutter.
If you want.
She smiled and typed:
Okay.
The final class was social studies and all Bella had to do was sit through a lecture before she was free to go. She shoved her bag and books into her locker and once again left it all there. Homework seemed like such a stupid thing to do when you might not even live to graduation.
The roads were still wet from an earlier shower but the sky had cleared. Bella drove all the way out to the Cullen house and got out of the truck with a peculiar kind of anxiety in her stomach, approaching the front door like a woman on a tightrope, knowing that each step could be her last and each step more thrilling than the one before it. She knocked on the door with the brass knocker. A bird sang in the woods. Bella looked toward the sound, toward the clear blue sky that hung over the trees, and then the door opened.
Victoria was wearing no hoody this time and her red hair was in full flame around her head. It was the first time Bella had seen her in a week and her beauty was as startling as ever. She didn't look particularly pleased to see Bella and Bella gave her a tentative smile.
"Hi," she said.
Victoria opened the door further for her to come in, watching her with her red eyes. Bella stepped in and Victoria closed the door behind her.
It was cold in the house with no heating and she kept her jacket wrapped around her tightly. She leaned and looked into the living room. "I guess this is the first time I've actually been invited here," she said. "Did you know I've snuck in before?"
"Yes."
"I guess you smelled my scent."
"Something like that."
"Bet you didn't know I could be a stalker too, huh?"
The woman grunted. Kind of like a scoff. Then she turned and started up the stairs.
Bella followed her, one hand on the banister. Victoria was several steps above her and she was wearing hipster jeans and her hips swayed left and right with each step and Bella's eyes fluttered over her back pockets before fluttering away again.
"So how long you think you can stay in this place?" she asked, looking around at everything else. Barren walls. No lights on.
"Not much longer," Victoria said. "I have no idea how much time is left on the lease, but it can't be too much more. I should already be cleaned up and moved out by now."
"How come you're not?"
"Because I can't leave you alive."
"You could if you wanted."
Again she grunted noncommittally. She had led Bella into her bedroom and the first thing Bella noticed was that the kerosene cans were gone.
Victoria had barely looked over her shoulder to see if the girl was following and now she sat on the bed and laid down with an arm over her eyes.
"So is this what you do all day?" Bella asked.
"More or less."
"You should probably get an iPod or something."
"Why are you here, Ms Swan?"
Bella shrugged, standing just within the door. "No reason. Just thought we could hang out."
"Hang out."
"Sure. Why not?"
Victoria snorted and lifted her arm from her eyes and gestured airily with the hand at the end of it. "Then by all means," she said. "Hang."
Bella looked at her for a moment. The bed had absolutely nothing on it but a mattress, a pillow, and the woman herself. Bella went over and sat on the edge of the mattress. Victoria didn't move. Bella looked at her some more and then looked around the room.
"I probably should've bought some homework or something," she said. "I'm already over a week behind. If I don't catch up, I might even fail."
"I wouldn't think that far ahead."
"Why? Because I might be dead by then?"
"You might be."
She still had her forearm over her eyes. Talking up to the ceiling as if Bella wasn't even there. It was beginning to make Bella feel annoyed and unwelcome. She snorted at the woman's last comment. "You think I'm stupid for being here, but I'm not," she said. "I know exactly how dangerous you are. It's not that I've convinced myself you won't do it, it's just that I don't care."
"You think awareness of your stupidity somehow makes it less stupid?"
"Yes. I do."
A smirk formed on Victoria's mouth. She still hadn't even looked at Bella and now Bella's face darkened.
"You know, there's no need to be such a bitch," she said.
Silence for a minute. Then the arm moved and the red eyes opened and the woman propped up on an elbow to look at Bella.
"Excuse me?"
Bella frowned at her. "I came here because I like you. Simple as that. I don't judge you for what you are or what you want to do to me. I even understand. But if you're not gonna do anything but make fun of me and call me stupid, then maybe I should just go."
She stood up and went to the door. She was half expecting the woman to call her back and apologize. But she didn't. Bella hesitated and turned back.
"Well? Do you want me to go or not?"
Victoria sighed and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She rose. There was a silky menace to her movements that made Bella tense up.
"I think you have the wrong impression of me, Ms Swan," Victoria said. "Let me help you understand."
"Okay," Bella said cautiously, and then the woman took her head and bashed it into the doorframe.
Just once. Just to make a point. Bella's skull bounced off the wood and she made no sound at all aside from the muted thud. She put a hand in her hair and shrank back from her assailant. Victoria smiled.
"Do you understand now?"
Bella didn't answer. She only glared through the hair that had fallen over her face. This made Victoria's smile widen.
"You think you can save your life by befriending me," she said. "But you can't. All you're doing is making yourself an even more desirable victim. In any case, I warned you that nothing gets me in the mood like resistance. Call me a bitch one more time and I might just have to kill you where you stand."
"Bitch," Bella spat.
The woman paused in the act of sitting on the bed. Then she straightened.
"What did you say?"
"I called you a bitch," Bella said again, clutching the lump that had already formed in her hair. "And a stupid bitch, because you're the one who doesn't understand. Get it through your head, Victoria. I don't care about dying. I want to. One way or another I'm outta here pretty soon anyway. You can kill me or you can go away and I'll kill myself, but either way, it's not me who's confused. You're the one who doesn't know what she wants. You talk about killing me, but so far you haven't done jack shit but watch me through my bedroom window like a pathetic—"
Victoria's hand shot out and grasped Bella's throat. Bella slammed back against the wall, her words choked off. The woman's eyes had gone dark red, the color of dried blood, and she glared at Bella with them.
"Is this what you want?"
Bella tried to speak but couldn't. She couldn't even breathe. The woman's hand tightened and lifted her off her feet. Bella gripped that cold wrist and kicked at the air with her boots. Her face was going blue. Victoria raised her up even higher.
"Is this what you want, Ms Swan?" she hissed softly. "Is it?"
Bella's vision was darkening around the edges. She was dying and in that moment she realized—
But then the hand loosened and she collapsed onto the floor, gagging and coughing. Victoria stepped back disdainfully, as if she was something foul there. Bella held her throat and swallowed painfully and looked up with eyes that were wet and furious.
"Bitch," she said hoarsely.
Victoria looked at her for a moment. Then she bobbed down to look at her eyelevel. She let her eyes wander over Bella's face as Bella continued to cough and suck down breaths and then she reached and took a handful of Bella's hair. Bella looked at her defiantly. Victoria returned her gaze, her eyes like smouldering red embers, and then she let go of the girl roughly and rose and turned away.
"I think it's time for you to leave, Ms Swan," she said.
Bella got up, coughing, and ran out of the room.
By the time Bella got home it was almost dark and she could see her dad's police car in the driveway. Bella pulled in behind it and held her phone in her lap while the sun sank downstreet. She stared at the screen but she couldn't think of anything to text that would smooth over how disappointed and hurt she was. She couldn't understand why the woman was so stubborn and determined to be difficult. If she had loved her mate as much as she claimed then obviously she was capable of feeling and caring about another person. Why couldn't she care about Bella?
Her dad was watching TV when she came in. It sounded like football. Bella went to say hi but he did a doubletake at her and rose from the couch.
"Jesus, Bells, what happened to your neck?"
Bella was actually confused for a moment. "What do you mean?"
"It's all bruised."
"It is?"
Bella touched it. She couldn't feel the bruises but her throat was still very sore. Her father took away her hands while the football game continued in the background.
"Let me see that," he said.
Bella let him look, worried about how she was going to explain it.
"Jesus," he whispered. "Did someone hurt you, Bella?"
"No."
"Bella, it's okay, you can tell me. These are strangulation bruises. I can see the indent of the fingers. What happened?"
Bella shrugged away from him and rubbed her throat as if to wipe away the bruises. "Nothing happened, dad. I don't even know what you're talking about."
"Where have you been all afternoon?"
"Nowhere."
"Bella—"
He was reaching to take Bella's hands away from her neck but Bella shied away and went past him and upstairs. He followed her into the bathroom while she looked at herself in the mirror. On both sides of her throat were ugly purple splotches in her pale skin.
"Bella, this is serious," he was saying. "If someone hurt you, you have to tell me. Not just as your father, but as the police chief too."
"Nothing happened, dad. Seriously, I have no idea how the bruises got there. Maybe I was just leaning on it wrong."
"Why are you lying to me, Bells?"
"I'm not lying."
"Just tell me what happened, sweetie. It's alright."
He put his hands on her shoulders as if she needed to be calmed. But it wasn't the bruises that alarmed her. All she was worried about was what to tell him and she knew there was no way to lie around it.
"A girl did it," she said after a while. "But it's okay, we were just playing around."
"What do you mean playing around? Did it happen at school?"
"No, it was after school. We were just hanging out and you know. She was teasing me and stuff and we got into a bit of a fight. My skin bruises easily, it's really no big deal."
"This looks like she was trying to kill you, Bella."
"She wasn't. We were just playing around."
He was frowning, either not really believing her or not liking it even if he did. "Who is she?"
"Her name's Victoria."
"Victoria who?"
Bella shook her head helplessly. She didn't know her last name and she couldn't risk her dad trying to find out about her and maybe this was the same woman who was going to come kill her soon and she was getting very upset by now.
"Dad, please just drop it, okay? You're embarrassing me. It's no big deal, alright?"
His frown loosened up a bit but it didn't go away. He looked around the bathroom and back at Bella. "Are you sure you're alright, Bella?"
"I'm fine."
"You would tell me the truth, wouldn't you?"
"Of course I would."
He looked at her for a moment. His concern obviously went a lot deeper than the bruises. Bella felt her face heat with shame. The one regret she was going to leave behind when she was gone was how much she was going to hurt her father.
"Anyway, I better get started on dinner," she said. "Don't worry about me, alright?"
Then she pushed past him and went downstairs.
She was a long time cooking and sullen through dinner and even more sullen as she brooded upstairs with her phone on the desk. She had her notebook open and the page was filled with a messy scrawl of poetry in black ink. Her throat was still sore when she swallowed. Dinner had been difficult to eat but she never said anything to her father. She kept one eye on the phone and she kept checking it for texts every few minutes. Nothing so far. She hated how this felt. Hated being so meaningless. Hated being mad at Victoria. Because being mad at her shifted the dynamic against her will and that made her uncomfortable.
Bella stared at the phone, willing it to ring. Then she picked up and held it. But if she called herself it would defeat the purpose so she put it back again.
She tried to focus on her poetry but it was too hard to concentrate. It was getting late. She kept looking at the time on the computer and the time on her phone and wondering if Victoria was busy. She didn't know if she would be able to sleep without this settled. All she wanted was a phone call. Not even to apologize. Just to let her know that Victoria wanted to call. Wanted to be friends. That Bella's feelings were important to her in some small way. That Bella wasn't insane for even having these feelings.
It was just past eleven o'clock when her father tapped on the door and looked in.
"Hey, Bells," he said. "It's getting pretty late. Shouldn't you be getting to bed?"
Bella closed the notebook even though he couldn't see anything from there. "Yeah, I was just finishing up something."
He nodded and then nodded at the notebook with a smile. "When you gonna let me read some of those things?"
Bella looked down at the notebook. There were a few of them that she was quite proud of and she would've loved to show her father if the subject of them was anything other than suicide. So instead she just shrugged away the question.
"You wouldn't like them," she said.
"I've read poetry before, you know."
"You have?"
"Sure. I did go to school, Bells."
Bella chuckled and at that moment her phone started vibrating on her desk. Her chuckles died instantly and she seized the phone to look at the screen. If it was Ange or Jess she would've been crushed, but it wasn't. It was Victoria.
Bella's head whipped up to her father.
"I'll get to bed in a minute, dad, I just have to…"
He nodded and backed out politely, closing the door partway to give her some privacy. Bella answered the phone and put it to her ear.
"What?"
Her voice had come out more brusque than she thought it would've. She didn't know what to expect from the other woman but her tone came over the phone breezy and almost haughty.
"Now, now, Ms Swan," she said. "Is that any way to greet your new bestie?"
"Bestie?"
"That's what your determined to make me, is it not?"
"Do you often choke your besties?"
"I would often like to."
Bella snorted, only somewhat bitterly. She waited to see if the other woman say more. She didn't. Bella frowned and exhaled through her nose. "Well? Are you going to apologize?"
"Not at all."
"Then you're still a bitch. And thanks for the bruises, by the way."
"What bruises?"
"On my neck. My dad completely freaked."
"Shit. What did you tell him?"
"That we were just playing around."
"Did he believe you?"
"Yeah. He was right, though. I should be more careful about you. I mean, it's pretty obvious you don't care about me the same way I care about you. When I came over, all I wanted to do was hang out and keep you company a little bit because I know how lonely you probably are. But you, all you wanted to do was piss me off till I left. I shouldn't even be talking to you right now."
"Then why are you?"
Bella didn't answer. The answer was pretty obvious anyway. She sat there with the phone at her ear and after a while she heard Victoria sigh.
"Fine," Victoria said. "I apologize for my behaviour earlier."
"You do?"
"Yes. But at the same time I don't want you to have any illusions about me, Ms Swan. I'm not a good person and I'm certainly not your friend. I'm your predator. Do you understand that?"
"Yes, I do. Fine. And I don't want you to have any illusions about me either. So you be my predator and I'll be your victim. I'll even let you choke me again if you want. You don't even have to let go next time. I just don't want you to be a bitch about it, that's all."
Victoria was silent. Bella waited a minute and said:
"Okay?"
Victoria heaved another sigh on the other end of the phone. "Well, I suppose you are more than simply a meal," she said. "More like a fine dessert. Perhaps you deserve a sort of deference. I've certainly savoured you long enough."
Bella closed her eyes for a moment and nodded her head. The repair of the relationship came as a great relief to her. "Thank you," she said.
"Do you really want to be a nice and docile victim, Ms Swan?"
"Sure."
"Then leave your bedroom window unlocked from now on. I tire of creeping through the bushes."
Then she hung up.
Bella smiled at the phone, the most peculiar feeling in her chest. The she rose from the desk and opened the window. She leaned out to look over the backyard but there was nothing there. The dark shape of the toolshed. Dead grass. A swingset from her childhood. The cold moved over her body and made her shiver and she leaned back into her room and closed the window. It was an old house and the window had an old lock, just a small brass latch in the chipped paint of the window frame. Edward had always wanted her to leave it open too so that he could fill the night hours by watching her sleep. Is that what Victoria wanted to do as well? Bella left it unlocked and went to the bathroom.
She lay awake a long time that night, listening for any sound that might be the window opening. There was no wind outside and her father was already in bed. She listened, but there was nothing in her room but darkness and dead silence. She figured maybe the woman was waiting for her to go to sleep and after a while she slept and shortly after she woke again. She thought she had heard something. She was facing the wall and now she rolled to the other side and blinked sleepily into the blackness. Was Victoria there? Standing over her bed? Watching her? Bella was tempted to get up and turn the light on to see but she was too tired and in the end she just fell back asleep.
Over the next few days Bella drove to Victoria's house every afternoon. She could never stay long since she had to get back to make dinner but she was at the point where some part of her just needed to see her. To look at her wild orange hair. Her pale face. To hear her voice. Her sardonic teasing and menacing flirting. They would sit in Victoria's room upstairs and they would chat about things. Bella would tell her about school or about her dad. About her mom back in Phoenix and now in Florida. About Edward. In talking about him she seemed to come to a new understanding of her feelings for him and she began to realize that maybe she had never truly loved him at all but had only been forcing herself to love him in order to be a part of his life. Vampire life. Victoria would sit against the headboard with a knee propped up and offer a dry commentary like a sarcastic psychiatrist. She rarely spoke about herself and she kept a small distance from the other girl. As if she were constantly under a temptation to lash out on her. She watched her with her slanted feline eyes and occasionally their eyes would catch. The redness of them would cause Bella's heart to skip a beat and Bella would quickly look away.
Then it was the weekend and she didn't see her. First on Saturday, then on Sunday. Her dad was home most of the time. The bruises on her neck had faded to yellow smudges but he still eyed them with disapproval. Bella texted Victoria often but things were still somewhat strained between them, neither wholly clear on what they wanted from the other. Bella had thought she only wanted to be friends but she wasn't so sure anymore. Her feelings had become very intense. It didn't feel like friendship. It felt like she wanted to be with her. Like romantically. But she was positive she wasn't a lesbian so she tried not to think about it.
On Monday she again drove to Victoria's house after school. Victoria met her outside and they spent some time in the garden. Walking. Chatting. It was a bleak afternoon and no sun and Bella kept glancing at Victoria's face and wondering how beautiful she would be if the sun did come out. Eventually Bella drove home and went to bed and the next day she seemed to sit through school for the sole purpose of going to see Victoria afterward. Victoria again was waiting outside for her and Bella smiled as she got out the truck.
"Hey," she said.
It was a windy day and Victoria was about to reply when a gust of wind came along and blew Bella's hair over her shoulder and carried a gust of her scent to Victoria's nose. Bella fixed her hair and tucked it behind her ears and when she looked up she saw that Victoria's eyes had darkened.
"You okay?" she asked.
Victoria stared at her darkly and came over. Bella shrank back against the truck. Victoria put a hand on the roof of the cab, as if to corner the girl in, and stared directly down at her with those near black eyes. Another gust of wind came and rustled their hair, both of them, Victoria's orange locks flaring like flames, Bella's darker tresses trembling like a shadow. Bella's heart was throbbing and she was afraid the other woman would kiss her or worse but all Victoria did was lean to her neck and inhale and step back again.
"Come on," she said. "We'd better go inside."
Bella gulped the lump in her throat. Then she followed Victoria into the house.
Over the next few days she became less positive that she wasn't a lesbian. It even made a strange kind of sense. Edward had been the only boy she had ever been attracted to and she wasn't sure how genuine that attraction had been anymore. She had always been more breathtaken by Rosalie and Alice, but even that had been nothing compared to what she felt for Victoria. With Victoria she felt things she had never felt before. Intense didn't even describe it. It was an attraction she felt in her bones, as if her marrow itself were magnetized to the other woman. And not just a woman. A vampire. An evil one. Who fed from humans and wanted to feed from her as well. It was wrong in every way imaginable, unnatural even. And yet entirely irresistible.
That night she had another dream in which the woman came to her naked and in the morning her body felt strange in the shower. The next night she called the images back willingly, picturing those breasts and buttocks behind her closed eyelids, that pure white skin, imagining it all in her arms. The night after that she touched herself briefly before forcing herself to stop. It was wrong and it made her queasy in her stomach to feel this way. In the darkness she would listen for any sound of the window opening but so far she hadn't heard it open even once since she had left it unlocked. She was growing frustrated by the other woman's reticence. So many times she simply wanted Victoria to just grab her and take her and do whatever she wanted to her. It would make everything so much simpler.
The weather had been clearing up for a while and by the next week the sun came out. It was a Thursday afternoon, and luckily very windless, and Bella was able to persuade Victoria to take a stroll with her in the woods outside the house. There was a trail that led to an overlook and it was a route she had often taken with Edward just to see him sparkle. But Edward sparkled nothing like Victoria did. Bella couldn't take her eyes off her. They were hiking along the trail, passing through sunlight and shadows of tress, and every time those sunrays glinted off Victoria's supernatural skin Bella would glance and glance again.
Eventually they came out onto the overlook where there were no trees and no shadows. There was a wooden fence at the edge of the bluff and beyond that was an endless blue sky over the forest below. Bella paused and Victoria went on a few steps before turning back. The sun beamed down onto her left side and the cheek there was shimmering with a brightness that was almost too brilliant to look at. Her orange hair was bright like fire and her eyes were pale red, almost pink, and there was something of a smirk on her lips at the wonder in the other girl's expression. She was wearing a heavy navyblue coat and she had it wrapped around her and fastened with a belt. Bella eyes wandered over her face and a half chuckle came out of her.
"Wow," she whispered. "You look incredible."
Victoria nodded, as if she entirely agreed, and gave a prim toss of her hair. "Yes, although I must admit, the novelty does wear off eventually. It can be rather frustrating to cover up so much when one needs to go out during the day. Would you like to see the rest?"
"The rest of what?"
"Me."
"What do you mean?"
Bella honestly had no idea. Victoria smirked and undid the belt on her coat. Then she took the coat off and let it fall to the grass. Underneath she was wearing jeans and a shirt and now she lifted the shirt over her head and dropped that also.
Bella realized what she was doing and began to panic all over. Already the other woman was almost topless. Her torso was covered by nothing but a crimson colored bra and the sun was sparkling off her shoulders and off the pale hills of her cleavage.
"W-what are you doing?" Bella stuttered.
"Relax, Ms Swan," Victoria said with a smirk as she unbuttoned her jeans. "We're both girls here, aren't we?"
Bella didn't know what that meant. Yes, they were both girls, but…
Victoria's smirk widened at how the girl's mouth dropped open and now she unzipped her jeans while kicking off her boots. She then took the jeans off and her socks, exposing her long white legs to the glorious rays of the sun, before reaching behind her back for her bra. Bella didn't believe she was actually going to do it but she did. The bra came loose, her breasts bounced free. They were huge and white and even more perfect then in her dreams. The left one shimmered like a mirage in the full brunt of the sunlight and the right one sparkled with an extra twinkle on the nipple as if the nipple were made of diamond. Bella's throat had closed over and now Victoria was lowering her panties. They were red as well, crimson red, and she kicked them away before smiling and sighing and fluffing out her hair as if to relax. She then turned and posed for the sunlight to shimmer across her back and her buttocks and the backs of her legs before turning again and tilting a hip and planting a hand on it, smirking at the paralysed girl there with all the confidence and sexiness of Venus herself.
"Well?" she said. "Are you impressed?"
Bella stared at her. Her breathing had gone shallow and her body was going wild and she was desperately trying to hide it. She could feel herself throbbing and after a while she swallowed.
"Wow," she said.
Victoria examined her reaction, not in the least uneasy herself, and then she smiled. "In certain ancient mythologies, it was sightings of vampires that inspired the creation of gods," she said. "Unfortunately, I'm much too young to have inspired any myself."
"You look like a goddess to me."
"Why, thank you."
Bella chuckled awkwardly, trying to be casual. She was even trying to look away but she couldn't do it. Her eyes roamed all up and down that lustrous form, from her legs to her midriff to the peaks of her breasts, until her eyes came up and met Victoria's. Victoria smiled and made a twirling motion with her finger.
"Turn around," she said.
"Why?"
"So I can get changed again."
Bella nodded and tore her eyes away and turned around. Behind her Victoria stepped into her panties and then into her jeans. She smirked at the back of Bella's head. Bella stared out into the trees with no thoughts in her head at all and when she turned back Victoria was fully dressed again.
They walked back to the house and reached the truck just as the sun was beginning to set. Bella was going to be late home but she didn't really care. Victoria said goodbye to her that afternoon with a wink and a particularly flirty demeanor and then stood in the driveway until the truck was out of sight. Bella took a deep breath behind the wheel and tried to focus on driving straight. Her hands were trembly and her foot was weak on the pedal. Her mouth was dry and she was having a hard time swallowing. Her limbs were weird. Nothing seemed right. She glanced at the rearview and bit her lip. Then she took another deep breath and focused on the road.
By the time she got home she had decided that she was, in fact, a lesbian. Or at the very least she was completely lezzy for Victoria. She couldn't deny it anymore. It was just too powerful. Yet even after she went to bed that night her hand was only in her panties for less than a minute before she fought it all back with a small sound of frustration. Whatever these feelings were, she just wasn't ready to give in to them. She listened again that night for any sound of the window and while she was listening she began to fantasize in her mind of Victoria crawling through it and crawling into the bed and kissing her and touching her down there between her legs. Her hand had snuck into her panties again but she took it out and forced herself to go to sleep.
The next day was Friday and there was still some sun. Victoria didn't take her clothes off again but they did spend the afternoon outside. They went around the back and startled a small group of birds off the lawn that rose into the sky and disappeared into the sun. Bella watched them, shielding her eyes with a hand, and then looked at Victoria. She had been watching them as well and her face was lifted into the sun and shimmering like something so beautiful it struggled to maintain a physical form. Bella's heart clenched and she looked away.
The next day was Saturday and they decided to go shopping together. Bella was thrilled at how close they had become over these last two weeks and she was even more thrilled at how it was Victoria who suggested the shopping trip. Victoria was almost out of clean clothes again and Bella needed a few things herself. They browsed one of the stores in town and Victoria was very efficient in her purchases. Bella's own funds weren't quite so unlimited and so she took her time. Taking a top from the discount rack and holding it to her chest. They were the only two people in the store. Bella was talking about the top and how much she liked it and Victoria tapped her foot impatiently. Then Bella put it back and Victoria groaned. Bella chuckled at her.
"Sheesh," she said, browsing the rack all over again. "You're worse than shopping with a guy."
"Hmph."
"But you gotta admit, it's better than stalking me from a distance, right?"
"Yes, although far more annoying."
Bella giggled. It was a habit she'd only picked up lately.
"Are you going to buy anything or not?" Victoria asked.
"What's the matter, you don't like shopping?"
"Not particularly."
"Why not?"
"Fashion changes too often to bother keeping up with. I'm not concerned much with such superficialities."
"I love shopping. I've always…"
Bella trailed off. She had her hands in the rack of tops and a puzzled frown came over her face before she resumed browsing.
"Actually, I've always hated shopping too," she said. "Back in Phoenix I always got my mom to buy my clothes. Dunno why I'm having so much fun now. Maybe it's just because I'm with you."
A subtle signal. Or perhaps not so subtle. Bella glanced at her to get her reaction but Victoria only grunted. Yet there was something in her eyes. Something hard and almost awkward. Bella took three tops off the rack, all of them black, and looked toward the rear of the store. Then she grabbed a pair of jeans as well.
"I'm gonna go try these on," she said. Then she turned back to Victoria. She knew what she was about to say and her heart started racing before she even said it. She drifted backwards a couple steps, toward the change rooms, and said: "You coming? Can't stalk me properly from out here, can you?"
Bella continued walking backwards, almost cockily, and she had only taken two steps before Victoria fell in beside her.
The change rooms were in the back of the store, three little cubicles with only curtains as doors. All three were empty and Bella entered the one at the end and Victoria closed the curtain for them. The cubicle contained nothing but a chair and a mirror. Bella put the tops on the chairs. It wasn't uncommon to try on clothes with a friend but very rarely was that friend a ravenous redheaded vampire. Victoria stood aside, watching her with her arms folded. Bella began to undress shyly. First her top. Pulling it up over her head and gathering up her hair for it all to cascade down again. She was facing the mirror and she could see Victoria behind her and she could almost feel those red eyes burning across her back. She was kicking off her boots and now she lowered her pants and kicked them off too. She was wearing nothing but her socks and underwear and her body had begun to throb all over. Victoria's eyes lifted in the mirror until she met Bella's. Bella was so frozen by them that she didn't even reach for any of the clothes to try on. Instead she turned around and let those hot red eyes roam over her front as well. Over her plain white bra and plain white panties. Her bare legs. She swallowed and tried to chuckle and she said:
"I guess my body is nothing compared to yours, huh?"
Victoria lifted her eyes. They were a dark scarlet color.
"No," she said. "But it has other valuable qualities."
"Like what?"
"Softness. Breakability."
Victoria lifted a hand and brushed the backs of her knuckles against Bella's bare shoulder. Bella shivered visibly. The knuckles were like icecubes on her hot skin.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
Victoria opened her hand and caressed the shoulder in her palm. It was exactly what Bella wanted but Bella panicked and shrugged away.
"I said you could watch me, not touch me," she said, chuckling nervously.
Victoria smirked and looked at the girl trembling there in her underwear. "Do you honestly think I require your permission for anything I want to do to you?"
"Yes."
"Think again."
"Well, what are you going to do? Rape me?"
The taunt was perhaps too much. The woman moved in a flash and suddenly her hand was buried in Bella's hair. All Bella had seen was a blur of red. She might've screamed from the pain but Victoria shoved her forehead into Bella's to press them together. The blow was like a headbutt. It almost knocked her unconscious. She went dizzy and she might've collapsed if not for the hand in her hair. When her eyes opened, they were looking directly into Victoria's—burning pools of reddish-black hunger.
"You have no idea how you torment me," she hissed.
Bella blinked at her stupidly. Her lips were really close and in her daze all she wanted to do was kiss her. Victoria growled and then she threw the girl down and spun around and burst out through the curtain.
Bella was sitting in the floor. It had all happened so fast. She touched her head. There was already a little lump forming but luckily it was above the hairline where her dad wouldn't notice. She dropped her hand into her lap and sat there, blinking. There was dampness in her panties and a deep throb in her chest like a drum. After a while she struggled to her feet. She was still a little dizzy and she didn't bother trying anything on. She found her phone as she was putting her pants back on and she texted Victoria to ask if she was okay. There wasn't an immediate reply and then she got dressed and went home.
She didn't hear back till after dinner when she was sitting in the livingroom with her father. She was curled up on the couch with a book in her hands and the phone in her lap and when the phone vibrated it vibrated close enough to her oversensitive lowerarea to make her jump.
It was a text from Victoria and only one word:
Sorry.
Bella smiled at it. A warm feeling came into her chest. The football game was droning in the background and her father looked at her curiously but she ignored him to reply.
You okay?
Yes.
Where are you?
There was a long pause before the reply. Then the phone said:
Outside your house. Under your window.
Bella stared at the screen. It was the first time Victoria had ever admitted to being at Bella's house. Bella turned and looked behind the couch, as if she might be right there in the livingroom. Her father smiled at her.
"It's nice to see you on the phone more often lately," he said.
Bella looked at him in confusion. "Aren't parents supposed to hate it when their kids are on the phone all the time?"
"Well, maybe. But you've been pretty withdrawn these last few months. It's good to see you spending more time with your friends."
Bella held the phone and smiled. But it was a smile tinged with rue because there was nothing good about the friend she had been spending time with and she couldn't even imagine her father's reaction if he knew she was hanging out with a murderer, a stalker, and a potential lesbian love interest.
Bella rose from the couch. Her father looked up.
"I'll be back in a minute," she said. "I just have to…"
A touchdown was scored in the game and Bella used the distraction to slip away.
She went outside through the screendoor in the kitchen and wrapped her robe around herself in the cold. She tiptoed in her socks around to the side of the house to where her bedroom was and she looked up at her window and looked down at the flower bed below. Victoria was sitting there in the dirt. No hoody. Her hair dark red in the dim light from the porch. Sitting in that twisted bramble of dead flower bushes like a witch in a swamp.
"Hey," Bella whispered. "You okay?"
Victoria didn't reply. It was too dark to see her eyes but somehow Bella could tell she was on a knife-edge of restraint. Something had snapped inside her this afternoon in the change room. Something that made her more dangerous—and attractive—than ever.
Bella looked toward the house and turned back to that dark shape under her window.
"You don't have to stay out here all night," she said. "My bedroom window is unlocked. You don't have to wait till I'm asleep. You can go up now and wait for me if you want. Maybe we should talk. There's probably some things we need to talk about. What do you think?"
No answer. She hadn't moved an inch since Bella had laid eyes on her.
"Victoria," Bella whispered. "Are you alright?"
A cold breeze blew. It came from behind Bella and moved through her robe and went on to wash up against Victoria. Bella tightened her robe. Victoria lowered her head. Bella could see her shaking in the darkness, almost as if she were cold.
"I have to get back inside," Bella said. "Will you wait for me in my room?"
Still no answer. Bella was pained but she didn't want to continue bothering her so she hurried back inside.
She went back to the livingroom for a few minutes so her dad wouldn't get suspicious and then she went upstairs to her room. Victoria wasn't there but Bella hadn't expected her to be. She went to the window but she didn't open it. It was up to Victoria if she wanted to come in or not. Bella hoped she would. They really did need to talk. Every time she thought she was comfortable with this relationship something changed. What she really needed to know was what Victoria wanted. Then she would be able to decide how she felt.
It got late and still no one appeared in the window. Bella went to say goodnight to her dad and then went to the bathroom and brushed her teeth. She took her time, hoping when she came back to her room the woman would be there. She wasn't.
Bella sighed and turned off the light and got into bed. Maybe now that her light was off Victoria would come. Bella lay there for a very long time. She could hear the TV downstairs. Then the TV turned off. A little while later she heard her father go to bed. It would be past midnight by now. The wind outside was mostly silent. Every now and then she could hear a soft rustle. Sometimes she thought it was the window but it was the only the tree outside. She was determined to wait until Victoria appeared this time and in order to keep herself awake she began to fantasize about her. Eyes closed with her face half buried in her pillow. Thinking back to what happened in the change room and imagining a different scenario. A scenario where Victoria ripped the bra directly off Bella's chest. Just ripped it. And then groped her chest while forcing kisses on her. Bella breathed in the darkness and let one of her hands slither inside her top. She touched one of her nipples. It was sensitive and it grew hard very quickly. In the fantasy that same breast was engulfed in Victoria's hand and Bella wasn't resisting at all. She took the other woman's tongue in her mouth and—
Click.
Bella froze. Was that the window?
She had been distracted and she wasn't sure. She tried to stop breathing and then she could hear it. A quiet scraping sound. Like the window slowly sliding upward in the window frame. Bella was facing the wall and she didn't dare turn around. She had wanted to talk but now she was paralysed. Was that really the window? Was that really Victoria? Bella continued to listen and a cold draft passed over her. As if from an open window. Then it stopped. Her heart was pounding in her ears and her eyes were wide open. She could see nothing but blackness. She waited a little more but there was only silence. Was Victoria in the room? Was she going to say anything?
Bella still had a hand up her top. Slowly she retracted it. Then she rolled over and looked into the blackness of her room. She could see nothing.
"Victoria?" she whispered.
No answer. Bella was disappointed. Either Victoria wasn't there or she was ignoring her. Bella frowned in the darkness. Fine then. She would give her something she couldn't ignore.
Bella had been fighting against it for so long and now she decided to just give up. She rolled onto her back and opened her legs under the covers. She knew vampires could see in the dark and she didn't care. She put her hand in her shorts and rubbed herself. Even just that one caress gave her shivers of sheer pleasure. She breathed in and rubbed again. More. She tossed a glance into the blackness, excited by the thought that perhaps she was being watched, and then she flung back the covers of the bed to expose herself.
She was wearing nothing but a tanktop and sleep shorts. No socks. Her hand was in her shorts, rubbing gently, and now she let her other hand creep up her top to tease one of her nipples. She moaned softly and let her body stretch, opening her legs even wider. She had her eyes closed and now she opened them and levelled a look into the darkness at her bedside. As if to invite anything unknown there to join her. She then lifted her top over her breasts and began to massage one of them and grip it in her fingers. By now she had become very wet and her shorts were getting in the way. She responded to this frustration by lifting her hips and pushing her shorts and panties down her legs until they were completely off. After that she was entirely naked and she spread her legs again.
It was cold in the room but her skin felt like it was on fire. Her clit had become hard and swollen and she was toying with it between her fingers while her other hand clutched at one of her breasts. Her body was heaving and she was breathing heavily into the darkness. She could feel the orgasm approaching and she only hoped Victoria could see it. She wanted Victoria to see everything. To see how weak she was and how desirable and how easy to take and claim and make hers. She had her eyes closed, smiling, and her scent was filling the room. She could only imagine what it was doing to Victoria if Victoria was there. She stretched her legs wider and moaned and she could feel it coming and—
A hand clamped down over her mouth.
A cold hand, roughly smothering down her lips. Her eyes flew open in the darkness and she tried to scream but it was muffled almost to silence in that frozen palm. Her body twisted and her legs kicked out reflexively and—
Two fingers impaled her vagina.
The sudden penetration caused her entire body to buck off the mattress and she screamed again into the hand. It came out as little more than a squeak. She began to thrash her naked body but something growled in the darkness and held her down and then those fingers stabbed in again, over and over, deeper and deeper. Bella screamed and cried and began to climax spastically. Her eyeballs rolled up in her head and her body twisted in a hysteria of helplessness and the hand over her mouth held her down and muffled her shrieks of pain and terror and ecstasy while that other hand attacked her virginity into a savage series of orgasms that seemed to kill her and kill her and kill her again.
When it was over she was nothing but quivering heap of sweat and nakedness. The hand remained at her mouth until her sobs tapered to whimpers and then it went away. Bella looked up into that pitiless black, shivering, her arms clutched to her chest. Her eyes were crying but there was no fear in them. Only a silent supplication to the darkness above to take her away with it and keep her forever but the darkness did not respond.
She lay there for a long time, shivering in the cold, and then she got up and turned on the light. The room was empty. The window was closed. Bella rubbed her arms for a while, naked, and then she fetched up her clothes and got dressed. It hurt between her legs to move but there was no blood or damage. She sniffed a couple times to herself but she didn't know what these emotions were. She didn't know if they were even emotions at all. She took one last look at the room and then she turned off the light and went back to bed.
—