Back again thanks to that cruel man TW. This isn't over.
The existence of vampires may seem like magic, but it's not. There's no such thing as magic. Energy is never created or destroyed, but it can be passed from place to place, body to body. Sometimes we can't explain how it happens, but that doesn't make it magic or unnatural. We're here, aren't we?
Jenna gets in the front seat. Herrick hasn't returned yet. Her eyes are a little glassy but she's clearly in a good mood, and turns around to prop her elbows against the front seat and look back at me and Stephanie.
"It's great!" she says, "Your mate is making all the arrangements, and I didn't have to suck Freddy's cock. What could be better? When he gets back, we'll go home and celebrate! What've you two been up to?"
"Nothing much," says Stephanie, "just chatting, really."
To ease my discomfort, I look away and light a cigarette. My face is probably smeared with lipstick. Sitting in the car feels like we're inside a mouth. I'm trying to ignore the sensation that the seat is moving slowly up and down under us like a jaw chewing. I feel each of their heartbeats vibrating into the surroundings.
A vague understanding creeps across Jenna's face. Her eyebrows arch knowingly and she smiles and slowly shakes her head. "Thought we had the two of you sussed, John, guess we were wrong."
So that's all sorted. Still makes me laugh a little. "I have no idea what do you mean," I say, elbowing Stephanie playfully and giving her a meaningful look.
I pin her to the backseat by the shoulder and give her a slow, extravangant kiss. In spite of her shakes and sweats, I'm getting hungry and turned on. Herrick isn't back yet and we're in no hurry. I taste the skin of her neck where the vein is closest to the surface. The pulse is tempting me. Tug and shudder of anticipation. Shouldn't open my eyes now, so I pull away from her and hunch forward on the seat, elbows on knees, face in hands.
"What's wrong John?"
"Nothing, I'm fine, just a little dizzy. Think I need some air."
As I get out of the car I see Herrick emerging from a building. He scans quickly in one direction then the other, then strolls casually toward me. He gives a little smile when he gets close enough to see my face.
"Oh, Mitchell, you needn't have waited. We're all finished here."
"But you said-"
"You can have this back now." Into my hand, he puts the money I'd given him earlier. Then he starts cleaning something from under his nails. His color is high. I see how it is.
"Oh, come on! We drove all this way and now we're just going to turn round and head home? What about the girls in the car?"
He gives me his "thoughtful" look.
"Mmmm. Good point."
Jenna has rolled down the window and leans out. "William, thank you soooo much for dealing with Freddy. He can be so difficult."
"Was no trouble at all, love. It was a pleasure to be of assistance. A very satisfactory deal." There's that smile that shows all his teeth.
He gets back into the driver's seat. "Where to now, my dear?"
We pull up beside a big brick building. "You lot, hop out, I'll go park the car and meet you back here."
The two girls and I get out and Herrick drives away. Their flat is up two flights of stairs. It's clear they haven't lived here for very long: it's not very homey. The rooms are decorated with cheap art prints and batik throw pillows, and there aren't enough places to sit.
Stephanie can't wait to get inside.
She disappears into the bathroom. When she emerges five minutes later, her red and yellow zigzags are gone, transformed into gentle waves of peach and violet. Her twitchiness has calmed, and the blackness drifting just above her skin is transparent, as if it's been diluted.
"Oh, that is so much better," she says. "Come sit and have a drink and talk awhile."
I'm still standing in the narrow kitchen with my hands jammed into my pockets and my shoulders tensed. The light is a bit too bright and my head is spinning. I can't escape anywhere because Herrick's taken the car. I know he most likely wants me to kill these girls, but screw him. I'm enjoying the company.
The night before I ship out, we meet in the park and sit on the ground, our backs propped against the wall. Our hands squeeze together so tightly her fingernails break the skin of my palm. There have been hundreds of thousands of nights like this; a young man says goodbye to his girl and neither of them know if he'll ever return. Maybe he sets her free, maybe he begs her to wait for him.
Her blonde hair has come unpinned and is backlit by the moon. I lean to kiss her but she touches my face and holds it still. She traces a line down my forehead, down my nose, across my lips. I kiss her fingers, then - I can't help it - I drop my head and shut my eyes tightly but fail to hold back tears.
She raises an eyebrow the way she does whenever she thinks I'm being too serious and says, "Johnny, how will you charm all the French whores with a face like that!" And her eyes are brimming too, as she gently wipes my damp cheeks with her hands, and pulls me to her.
I cry, and hold her, and we need to be as close as our bodies can be, this last time. I devour her like I'm starving, my hands in her hair, on her back, I want my skin to touch hers, more, deeper, falling, rising. Moon angling into her cheekbone and casting a shadow that hollows her face. I rest my head in the place where her neck meets her shoulder and breathe her faint flowery perfume.
After, we lie in one another's arms and weep. Our clothes are damp from the grass. As she pulls her jacket back on I see chafed pink skin below the collarbone where I'd mashed my face against her as if trying to burrow beneath the surface. Her neck has a small purple mark to remember me by, at least for a little while.
"I can't promise I'll come back," I say. "I'll do my best. Don't forget me, please." I'm miserable and frightened and desolate.
After I was turned one of the first things I did was tear up her picture.
Herrick and I are sitting on the angled sofa, one at each end. Stephanie's on the floor at my feet, her head propped on my knee. I stroke the side of her neck where the blood is close to the surface and feel it flowing, the current visible and glowing through her skin. She grasps my hand as it rests there and gives it a gentle squeeze. She's all peacefulness now, smooth under my touch like cool water. The room is spinning and shimmering and indistinct round the edges and she's a point of stillness at its center. Her calm has crept over me in gentle violet waves and settles my nerves. Her hair feels amazing, cool and warm at the same time, almost liquid.
Herrick is laying on the wild-eyed charm. Jenna's on his lap and he's telling jokes, doing his card tricks, and pulling coins from the air beside her ear. He gets up and plays deejay, announcing each song before setting the needle down, telling a story about each record, how he knows the producer, or who's stolen whose girlfriend or who got busted for which drug between recording which tracks. We hang around clubs a lot; he's made a point of getting to know those people.
Stephanie pulls out a handful of the joints that I rolled in the car and plops them on the coffee table, but Jenna says, "Why have those when you can have this?" and hauls out a big hookah. She fills it with flowery-smelling hash. We drink disgusting sweet cocktails with cherries in them. We're all shitfaced and giggling, even Herrick, who is still flushed bright pink and vibrating with energy. The whites of his eyes are showing all the way around the blue.
Time divides itself into brief, flashing, colorful moments. Stephanie's hand on my leg. Jenna, laughing at Herrick's jokes and feeding him cherries. Me, extracting a cigarette from the silver case and then fumbling to find a light and finally finding it. A drink spilling. Stephanie absently scratching her arm. Herrick, with a gleam in his goggle-eyes. "Enjoying yourself, John?"
My body feels like it's dissolving into the air. The boundary between me and my surroundings is fragile and transparent. Pieces of me are floating into separate corners of the room. I see the two of us from a distance, me sitting on the sofa, Stephanie on the floor leaning on my legs. I look down at the tops of everyone's heads. The coffee table is strewn with empty glasses, cherries, and cigarette butts. People's voices echo as if they are far away.
I curl my hands around the sides of Stephanie's neck and her slow, even pulse brings me back to myself. I must be pressing too hard, because she squirms uncomfortably and peels my fingers away. Then she looks up at me with a mischievous half-smile and a raised eyebrow, and brings my hand to her mouth. There's a delicate scrape of teeth on my skin. Her tongue explores my fingertips. Her lips are so warm. The sensation washes over me, surrounds me.
I bend to look at her and there is a haze of deep red drifting into the air from her lips where my fingers are touching them. A familiar mist clouds my vision, but this time it's shot through with ripples of violet. It doesn't force my eyes open and shove my fangs out. Instead, beginning with my hand, it wraps around me and pulls me into Stephanie's warm slick soft mouth, and I disappear into it. I am safe there. Forget horror and isolation. Forget Bristol. Forget lies and schemes. Forget blood. There is only this.
I open my eyes and she is only licking at my fingertips. She looks up. "You're not so bad," she says.
Thank you Stephanie. You have no idea what you've done for me.
Then I hear the sound of yawning and Jenna stands up and says she's ready for bed. Herrick moves as if to put his coat on and starts to say goodnight, and she touches his arm and says, "It's awfully late. Of course you two can crash here and head back to Bristol in the morning." He follows her to the bedroom. The door closes with a sharp finality that reminds me what I'm doing here.
I'm afraid I'm going to be sick.
"Are you okay?"
I want to tell her: Take Jenna and run. I need to go. You don't know what could happen.
I really don't want to go.
"I'm all right, just pretty wasted."
"Mmmmm. Me too. I'm feeling no pain." She sits beside me on the sofa and puts a hand on the back of my head, pulling me to her for a kiss. I'm not sure how much time passes. I take her hand and kiss the pulse point at the wrist, dark trails like smoke coiling from her scars. I follow them with my mouth and she shivers. The darkness tastes like violets and salt. I drink it until it stops pooling on her skin.
She looks amazed and a little frightened. "What did you just do?"
"I kissed you."
Stephanie makes up the folding bed, tucking a white sheet over the scratchy woolen blanket. She moves slowly, a serene look on her face, enjoying the task at hand. Her pupils are like pinpoints.
"This is where I sleep. But I can share." She turns off the light.
In the dark, I can't believe how gone I am. I lie there and the room spins into a black liquid spiral tapering to a thin stream and pouring itself into the center of my chest. I can't move. There's a rushing, scraping sound in my ears that couldn't possibly be the needle of the record player bumping again and again against the label of the last 45.
She slides beside me, emanating visible waves of black and violet and peach that vibrate outward in time with her heartbeat. She knows what I am, she's being reckless. No, she couldn't know. I can't tell. It doesn't matter. She's being pulled into the vortex.
I roll her onto her back. My face is on hers, it's sliding down to her breasts, near the blinding heart, I can taste the dark from it flying outward with each beat. I think there are sounds, like crying or gasping or howling. Is it me?
Her arm reaches around my waist and pulls me closer. As I start to drink from her, she strokes my hair. "Hey, don't be frightened. You're okay," she says. I pull away. My reflection is in her eyes. She sees the monster. I am wild-haired, black-eyed, fangs dripping, cheeks and chin smeared with her blood.
She really isn't feeling pain. And she reaches for me, strokes my back as I latch on to her neck and drink, and drink. I hold onto her desperately, drinking her darkness, taking it from her. Her hand slows and stops, lying limply in the small of my back.
Despite everything else, the smack in her blood makes me fall asleep almost immediately.