I thrust the newspaper aside. Then I spyed a book of Fiendish Sudoku underneath. I hadn’t figured you for a lover of numbers, which are my most constant mates. They sway, sing and surge in multi-coloured matrixes in my mind. Just another pretty snowflake pattern of neurological difference that rainbow brightens this world.
I glanced at the blank squares in the well-ordered grid. ‘9,3,7,1’, I muttered, unthinkingly.
‘What?’ You asked, without looking round.
‘Nothing.’
Then you turned and seeing the Sudoku book in front of me, slammed it shut. You shoved it to one side, as you slipped a dinner plate under my nose instead. The plate was in blue-and-white Willow style but it’d been transformed: Oriental river scenes, bridges and pagodas on islands and birds in flight. Yet each element was isolated from the other and rearranged on the bone china to create something new.
I tapped the plate with my nail. ‘My mama had some of this. You know the story?’
You shook your nut, intent on your sodding avocado preparation.
‘Two lovers were forbidden to be together. But their love was so… Anyway, on their deaths, their Souls finally came together as these two birds.’
I stroked the pad of my thumb over the two blue birds. I wished I could believe in that humbug - our Souls finding each other after death.
What’s the point in torturing myself? I don’t. We return to the dirt. All I have are the pictures in my mind.
At last, you turned to study me uncertainly. ‘That’s wicked sad.’
‘Yeah well, it’s only a story.’ I pushed the grief down, plastering on a smile. You First Lifers aren’t the only ones, who can dissemble. I’m done with the cobblers that’s honesty. You were flicking through your iPhone – swipe, swipe, swipe – as if you couldn’t make a culinary decision without it: rainbow chard beetroot, mangoes and coconut oil. You were punishing yourself with perfect examples of grub in its raw, plant-based, sugar-free, gluten-free, life-free glory. Food as the new measuring stick for success. #avotoast! Have a good day! I nodded my chin at the screen. ‘You don’t reckon those bints really nosh that muck? It’s a diddle. Behind the snaps, I’d wager they’re guzzling any old crap. That’s the ugly behind the beauty. There’s always something beneath the surface.’ When you spun round to me, depositing half the avocado on toasted sour dough bread from your Willow dinner plate to mine – breakfast is served – I snapped. ‘That’s it - I’m cooking tomorrow. I can order ingredients online. Bloody delicious ones at that.’
You wriggled onto the stool next to me. ‘You can cook?’
‘I’m over 150 year’s old. Of course I can cook.’
You still seemed suspicious. ‘What sorta..?’
‘Meat, chocolate, beer…good old-fashioned grub.’
‘Na-ah, no alcohol.’
‘A bloke’s gotta try.’
At last, you shook your nut. I tried to mask my disappointment, but you knew me well enough by now to recognise it. ‘You do breakfast. That’s enough. Now I’m gonna be home today on account of I’ve got no tutes. You gonna be..?’
‘A good boy?’
‘I was gonna say quiet.’
‘Your wish is my command.’
You snorted. ‘Since when?’
I’d expected my usual pink Post-it stuck to the fridge. Yet today there’d been nothing.
I’d washed up the Willow plates anyway on autopilot, although I hadn’t worn Marigolds – sod it, bloody sue me. Then I wandered into the sitting room to find you.
You were perched on the edge of the scarlet leather sofa, your laptop, Blackberry and a sea of documents spread out in front of you on the glass coffee table. You were tapping away, like an angry woodpecker on your laptop – peck, peck, peck. Each keystroke an attack. Your expression was so intense, I hesitated to interrupt you.
I shouldn’t have worried.
First your iPhone chirped… What’s doing? Uh-hu? Naw, leave it; I got a whole notha…
Then the Blackberry: repeat above. But this time formal and stilted… Hello? Yah, this is… Yah, I know…that’d be… I can do that…
You get the picture.
By the time I’d got your attention, I’d been standing there twiddling my thumbs for too bloody long. Give me some credit though, I’d kept quiet.
At last, you deigned to glance up at me with a harassed frown. ‘Yah?’
‘There’s no chores list.’
Your frown cleared. I could’ve imagined it but I think your features gentled. ‘I reckoned you could have the day off. If you wanna.’
You’d barely made the offer, before I’d thrown myself down on the Sponge chair, bouncing once or twice on the springy foam and hiding my smirk at your flinch. ‘I’d bite your arm off.’ You looked horrified. Paled. A sizzling shiver of pride tugged at me: I still had it. Then, reluctantly, I reassured you, ‘It just means I wouldn’t say no.’
‘Whatever. But I need to--’
‘Quiet, I get it. Still…if this is your day off--’
‘I didn’t say--’
‘But you’re home? So what happens when your mates come over? Here, you must try the Chablis…and don’t mind the sex slave kneeling in the corner--’
‘When do you kneel?’
‘…I’ll just tell him to sod off to his cell, since his existence is challenging your worldview.’
You took a couple of deep breaths, before firmly clicking the laptop closed. I guess I’m not good at keeping quiet after all. ‘It’s not a cell,’ I hadn’t expected you to speak so gently, ‘and it’s not gonna be a problem.’
‘Why?’ The idea I’d conjured of you outside this apartment - with friendships and freedom – suddenly bit deep against my own captivity. ‘’Cos you’ll already have me locked away? A dirty little secret? Gagged and hogtied?’
‘On account of I don’t have any mates in London. Do you always indulge in melodramatic fantasies?’
I shrugged, avoiding your gaze.
‘Maybe,’ you leant closer (and I didn’t miss the way you licked your lips), ‘it’s you, who are into these…kinks. I mean, if you wanna..?’
That’s when I was saved by the bloody bell.
When you answered your mobile, I shot out of the chair and dove to the fireplace. I’d have legged it to my cell (and yeah, it is a bleeding cell), but that would’ve been a total retreat.
‘’Sup Fernando? It’s early for you over there. I must be on your mind… The OEB? That’s wicked pissa! Hey, you deserve it… Skype me soon and don’t work too hard. I miss you, Prof.’ My ears pricked up. Fernando? Prof? I had the flashshot memory of the wall of photos in your bedroom and a certain dark-haired Alpha Geek, who had his arms all over you, as if he was staking claim to a piece of bloody land. I don’t know why that made my hackles rise, like a rabid cur. When you ended the call, there was a sudden silence. I glanced at you from underneath my eyelashes. You shifted. ‘Look, Light, I was only--’
‘I reckon your ringtone’s tattooed on the inside of my skull. Don’t you have an office to go to?’
‘I don’t need one; we’re in the twenty-first century now.’
‘So I’m behind the times because I died a Victorian?’
Your cool gaze seemed to be sussing me out. ‘You don’t look Victorian.’
‘Didn’t exactly stay dead.’ I pushed away from the fireplace, jumping up to sit on the arm of the leather sofa. I scrutinized your serious features and those intent grey peepers. ‘You really don’t know anything about us Blood Lifers, do you? How we evolved or--’
‘I know enough.’
Surprised, I drew back. ‘As in, only good Blood Lifer’s a dead Blood Lifer?’
You shot me a sharp look. ‘You wouldn’t be here, if that’s what I thought.’
‘Alright then, as in, only good Blood Lifer’s one in shackles?’
Your mouth tightened into a thin line. ‘And what about humans? Do we come in small, medium or large?’
‘In America you can supersize.’ I grinned
, but you didn’t return it: some birds have no sense of humour. Of course, Ruby would’ve clocked me for that comment. And so would… Christ in heaven that reminded me of what I’d been desperate since I’d woken this morning, fretting about yesterday’s entry, to tell you. It’s not as if you’d even believe me. Why would you after what I’d written? After the porkies your family have spun to justify our enslavement? To you I’m no different to a serial killer, am I? ‘Look, that’s not who I am now. I’ve been on blood abstention for fifty years.’
Your voice was so cold it could’ve given frost bite. ‘Good for you.’
‘Not asking for a medal, sweetheart. I just wanted you to know I don’t… Not First Lifers. Not for a long time.’
‘Makes no difference to me.’
‘It does to me. You’ve no idea how much.’
‘OK.’ You turned back to your laptop, opening it with an air of indifference. Then there was that blasted clack clacking.
I listened for a moment in silence. Then I couldn’t hack it any longer. ‘What does?’
‘What?’ You didn’t stop typing or look away from the screen.
‘Make a difference to you?’
You didn’t even pause. ‘The profit margin.’
My hands tightened to fists on my knees, as I battled not to spring up and do something I’d regret.
Except that’s when the nicotine craving kicked in. An unexpected, powerful burst, which made me want to punch something. Preferably my own mush. At least it’d give me something to do with my hands.
‘Bugger it, I need a ciggie,’ I mumbled.
‘Ya huh.’
I could see the crown of your nut bent over your laptop. ‘Just one fag. I’m desperate.’
A small shake of your nut.
‘Do you know how long I’ve been smoking?’ I was pacing now. Once I’d thought of holding the ciggie between my fingers and lighting it - not with my beautiful gold lighter because they’d taken that, but with the matches, which you keep for the scented candles - I couldn’t shake the image. I needed the nicotine hit. Yeah, pathetic addict here. ‘Please, you want to see a bloke beg?’
‘Hmm, tempting. You’re still not smoking.’
‘You don’t get it,’ I pointed at you with an accusing finger, ‘you’re not a smoker.’
At last, you looked at me. If ever there was a determined mug, you had it. ‘And now, neither are you.’
‘I want a sodding fag.’ Something flashed in your peepers; I was walking a dangerous bloody line. ‘You know they can’t hurt me, right?’
‘And how about me? You know what?’ You slammed shut the laptop with such force the glass table trembled. ‘I’ve about had frickin’ enough.’ I backed against the wall; the brocade wallpaper was soft under my fingers. ‘I’ve papers to write, research and accounts to go over before Marlane… Wait.’
To my surprise, you snapped the order at me, like I was your trained pup, before striding out of the sitting room. A moment later, I heard the front door bang.
Bollocks.
I didn’t move a muscle. Frozen. I could take most punishments, only you might as well throw the blinds and candle-like melt me, if you intended to take back my jacket. I hugged the leather to me protectively.
You wouldn’t return me to Abona House..?
The breath caught in my throat. I imagined Sir’s expression, as he pushed his glasses up his neb, when I was redelivered - like rejected goods - in that sodding pine crate. He’d pretend disappointment and disgust in my piss poor performance. But secretly? He’d be delighted because it’d justify doing…anything he’d ever wet dreamed to me.
I began to pant, my nails scoring the wallpaper.
Or you could’ve gone to fetch your sister..? The older daughter of Cain, with her slave books and helpful tips.
Or to contact your dad on the Estate..?
I screwed my peepers closed, willing away the waking nightmares, as the panic built. ‘It’s not real,’ I breathed, grasping onto reality by my nails, which clawed into the wall, ‘not real, not real, not…’
I didn’t even know you’d come back, until I heard your voice and by then, I wasn’t sure you were real. ‘Light, Light… What the frig are you doing?’
I struggled to focus on you. ‘I wasn’t… I’m sorry… Please don’t…’
When you thrust a blue plastic bag at me, I recoiled.
You shook the bag at me again. I took it gingerly.
I pulled out a plastic packet containing…one ciggie?
Confused, I ripped it open. Except when I was actually holding the fag, it was nothing more than an illusion: it was too long and smooth. Artificial.
Dumbfounded, I stared first at the fake fag and then at you. ‘So what might this be?’
‘Compromise,’ you offered, settling back onto the sofa and starting up your laptop. ‘It’s an e-cig. No smell or risk to me but the same…whatever, to you. What’s the problem? I thought you were good at adapting?’
You raised your eyebrow, as you met my gaze.
After the terrors I’d conjured, the fact you’d thought up a solution, as if my comfort mattered (even if only because my whinging was narking the hell out of you), wrong-footed me.
Twice in one day you’d given me back something, which had been stolen from me: my coat and now a way to calm the cravings.
I just don’t understand why.
MAY 17
My name is Light, my name is Light, my name is…
When you came home earlier in the afternoon than normal because one of your seminars had been cancelled, you discovered…
Look, all I remember was pulling on those pink Marigolds, as per instruction seven on your Post-it note: CLEAN BATH: WEAR GLOVES – I’M SERIOUS.
The next thing I was coming round, scrunched in the corner by the khazi. My arms were wrapped over my mug. My knees were drawn up under me. My nut hurt at the back, like I’d been smashing it against said khazi. And I was shaking, as if I had no control over my own body.
Yet here’s what gave me true pause: you were kneeling in front of me. Hugging me to your chest. There was the scent of gorse and sunlight, safe and cocooning. The beat of your heart, even if it was hammering like a steam train. You were tall enough for your arms to wrap all the way around me; strange, I’d never figured on liking that in a bird.
The unexpectedness of your sudden closeness stilled me.
Carefully, I lowered my arms from my peepers. Your hair brushed backwards and forwards against my mush, as you rocked me; I’d been right about its softness.
Reluctantly, I drew back.
‘Light? Can you..? Are you..?’ You lifted my chin, studying me with intense concern. To my shock, I realised you’d been crying.
You were still waiting for an answer. I hardly knew where I was but I gave a nod.
‘Let’s see if we can’t get you cleaned up.’ My nut was hurting worse now; I could feel the blood trickling down my neck. You helped me to my feet, before wiping the back of your hands across your peepers, blurring the mascara and leaving snail-trails across their backs. You looked so…distressed. Then your expression brightened. ‘I bought coffee. You want regular?’
I could only nod again, numbly.
When I was sunk in the leather sofa next to you, nursing my coffee, with no light in the sitting room but the sea of fig-scented candles, my slave ring was suddenly too bloody heavy.
‘What the frig was that about?’ You spoke quietly, but I still flinched.
I shrugged, taking a sip of my coffee: too much poncey cream. I hoped that by the time I glanced back over the rim, you’d have looked away.
But you hadn’t.
‘So?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘It’s like I live it but I don’t…after.’
Your gaze was cool. ‘Huh. You mean relive it?’
Embarrassed, I dropped my gaze. ‘Yeah, semantics.’
‘My name is Light, my name is Light
, my name is--’
‘Bollocks.’ I’d startled back, spilling my coffee in a boiling patch on my goolies. ‘I mean,’ I patted my hand at my crotch, as if this could draw out the heat, ‘yeah, I guess I do mean bollocks. So, what else did I..?’ It was you this time, who dropped your gaze. ‘That bad?’
‘Pretty leech,’ you answered softly. I stiffened. I’d guessed it’d been another funfair ride courtesy of Abona. You must know too because Sir had called me that when you’d been choosing me, like a new puppy in the window of a pet shop. ‘Look, it’s about your time in Bristol, huh..? When you were trained--’
‘Trained, is it?’
‘Cain Company has divisions: Acquisitions, Accounts, Marketing…and then there’s Training. At Abona or the Estate. So you’re ready for clients. I’m meant to know this. I should know this.’
‘Why? Because you’ve gotta know your product?’
‘Yah…I mean…naw, that’s not it.’ You reached over, taking my coffee mug from me, before carefully placing it on the glass table. Then you grasped my hands between yours. It felt…blinding. Unexpectedly your fingers were tracing over my silver ring – S.L.A.V.E –– as if discovering something dark beneath bright waters. Your expression tightened. ‘I’ve just spent the last… In there with you, freaking out - bawling and begging - please…please don’t…please Sir. Tell me. I have to know.’
So you want to know what that meant?
I’m not explaining tonight. I don’t care how impatient you are to learn your family’s business.
You’ve asked though, so I’ll tell.
But I don’t guarantee you’ll like what you hear about your Training Department.
If you dig deeper beneath the façade, there’s always darkness. Corruption. Exploitation. Greed for the profit margin.
Or most dangerous of all?
An apathetic indifference. It bleeds into everything. Atrocities are committed because of it, rather than some make-believe evil, which is scapegoat blamed for the world’s ills. All anyone has to do is open their peepers. Then get off their lazy arses and do something about it.
After all, you saw the lash marks lacerating my skin: was it that easy to explain them away as motivation?
Blood Shackles (Rebel Vampires Book 2) Page 6