Fabien

by Lynch, Sarah Michelle

  Louis’s mother Natalie had been a single mum forever, since she’d had Louis in fact. Boyfriends had come and gone but she’d never settled down. Louis’s father had gotten Natalie pregnant in a nightclub toilet and when she told him the news, she never saw him again. Louis had some issues, unresolved. He’d tried to find his father when he turned eighteen but the man, Jason, had wanted nothing to do with his son. I knew that Louis found it difficult some days, the reminder of feeling unwanted for so many years still there. Part of me worried about what kind of parents we would be, given our own had all split up. My mum and dad barely spoke anymore and the day I married Louis, that was the first time they had seen each other in more than a decade. The wedding reception did not go well when my father gave a speech and my drunken mother shouted, “Taking credit are ya? And where were you while I was slaving away?”

  My mother was very fond of playing the martyr and had pushed so many people away, including me and my sister, which is why we spent Christmas Day with Dad while Mum spent it with Grandma and Granddad, no doubt stewing over the fact we’d ‘abandoned her’ as she so often put it.

  We just preferred Dad’s place because we always received a warm welcome and were looked after. We didn’t get interrogated or receive the Third Degree like at Mum’s. I loved Dad’s country house, we always knew we could stay there, just to relax and chill out. It was a terrible thing but Mum really wasn’t nice company.

  “The dogs need walking,” Fiona said to my father as the end credits of Doctor Who rolled up.

  “No way can I move, your dinner was too good,” he complained.

  “Ditto,” Jodie said, wearing her pyjamas and robe already, plus fluffy slippers. This was the one day of the year she gave herself off. Though she didn’t like to admit it, she and I were very similar in some ways.

  We all looked across at Natalie, who was already asleep in a recliner chair in the corner, drunk on too much Chablis.

  “I would but I don’t feel well,” Louis complained.

  My head in his lap, I looked up and he did look green. Perhaps our shag session had finally caught up with him. He’d seemed full of energy all day whilst I had suffered between my legs and with tired limbs.

  “Want me to put you in bed?” I asked with concern, checking his forehead, which was clammy and cool to the touch.

  “Think that might be best. Reckon I got a bit too drunk last night,” he moaned, and the others sniggered as they watched me walk my husband upstairs and put him in bed.

  With all the others still lounging around when I came back down, I decided I fancied a walk and threw my coat, hat and gloves on.

  “I’ll take them. Can I borrow your boots though Fiona? The snow looks like it is finally settling!”

  “Course you can chicken, go for it. Thanks babe!”

  Everyone got back to cogitating and I rallied the two Labradors, lounging in the kitchen, sleeping off their own fill of turkey and stuffing.

  “Walkies, walkies!” I shouted, and they lifted their bodies lethargically, their eyes hooded. So it was a walk and pee, then back again if their demeanour was anything to go by! Normally those two were dancing on the ceiling in anticipation of being taken out.

  Man, but my father’s wife knew how to feed people and dogs!

  I pulled on Fiona’s walking boots at the door, lacing them loosely because I didn’t think we would go far. The dogs on their leads, I made sure I had my phone then we headed outside.

  My dad’s place was protected by a ring of trees so most traffic passing by on the country lane that ran alongside the property didn’t know it was even there. Perhaps if the poplar trees had been trimmed then maybe, but I loved this seclusion. Some days, living in York, it felt draining to be plodding the cold streets and breathing the air of tourism and takeaway foods, old pubs and the markets that never left. I needed peace sometimes and always knew I could find it at Dad’s, where the moon shone brightly above the open fields and miles of deserted country lanes just like the one I was walking the dogs down.

  “Buggles… Barney… come on! You naughty dogs,” I complained, pulling on their leads, their fat bellies making them so uncharacteristically lazy.

  I enjoyed the crunch of snow beneath my feet and found myself enjoying the fresh air so much we ended up walking right into the village.

  We traipsed around for a bit and then both dogs did their business, growling from the relief of relieving themselves. Pity I had to pick it all up! Eww!

  I dumped their muck in a bin and spotted a bench beneath an old streetlamp, bathed in yellow light. The dogs needed a rest and a breather, I decided. I stared around at the empty streets and soaked up the peace.

  Always there was so much emphasis put on this one day, but what really made it more special than any other? Everything seemed normal to me, that night, except it was quieter. Yet still the odd car rushed past on the way to a party… or maybe some were parents driving their children home to bed, the grandparents having worn everyone out! I had to chuckle to myself. That was something I hadn’t thought of: I could one day make my dad a grandfather. Wow. I hadn’t thought of it like that! I knew he would love that and suddenly I saw a different slant on the whole question of parenthood.

  I’d never been brought up on religion, though I had a certain belief in life on the other side of the divide, perhaps something beyond us. I was superstitious I suppose and knew there were forces in the world to be mistrustful of. I somehow knew those forces were out of our control and having a child was dangerous because once you had them, that was it. Look how it had turned out for my mum and Louis’s. You just never knew what lay ahead…

  Chastising myself for getting all philosophical about life, I stood and forced the dogs to their feet, then began pulling them back home. It was only a mile or so back to the house but I knew it was going to be a slow meander for the dogs.

  About halfway down the country lane leading back to Dad’s place, I saw an odd shape in the grass verge and blinked several times to see if my eyes were deceiving me. I held my phone in my hand just in case this was what I thought it was and I crept ever closer to the human-sized shape.

  When I got there, the dogs started sniffing around and then began licking the man who was laid there beside the hedgerow, possibly passed out or homeless… I didn’t know.

  “Umm, excuse me, are you okay? Do you need me to call for help?”

  Part of me was thinking about pressing 999 on my phone, another was calling to mind the little manoeuvres Jodie had taught me from her self-defence classes. She said I was an idiot not to do them too but why, when I had her to show me how? I just hated the thought of people looking at me while I was in spandex and trainers. God I hated trainers!

  The man (well I assumed it was a man from the size of his body) groaned but didn’t reply. When I pulled on his shoulder and touched his cheek, he felt freezing to the touch. Not just cold, but kind of lifeless too.

  “Urrggh,” he groaned, “I got lost. I was at the pub and then—”

  He stood at his full height and I stared, dumbstruck. He was very tall. He spoke in a vaguely French accent and wore a thin, flimsy shirt with laces fastening the collar, reminding me of a Regency party costume or something. Accompanying the shirt was a dark, floor-length coat with a large upturned collar. For a moment I thought, maybe I was imagining it and this was some character direct from my imagination or something!

  “You don’t look well, do you need a lift… only, I am probably too over the limit to drive you…”

  His skin was so white, it was bloodless. I could only see his face because of the moonlight and he kept looking away from me so I couldn’t determine the colour of his eyes.

  “No, I am fine, really. Just a little lost. Should I walk you to your house?” he asked with a slight bow that made me feel self-conscious.

  “No, the dogs will keep me company,” I said with a little laugh. They had plopped themselves on the ground, happy to sit down for a moment’s rest!

&
nbsp; “Huh, they seem drunk too,” the man offered, and for a split second our eyes connected. I thought his flared a tiny bit red. He was looking at my throat but then took his eyes back to the dogs. It was my mind playing tricks on me in the dark, it had to be. Down that lane there was no light but the sky and the village lamps in the distance. I couldn’t even see my father’s house because it was trapped behind those thick, protective trees.

  “I’ll be going then,” I said awkwardly, but the man cupped my elbow and remarked, “Haven’t we met somewhere before?”

  Oh god, I thought. Oh no. Another one. This wasn’t the first time this had happened. My sister dated a lot of men and often never told them her real name, didn’t even give them her number. She left them pining and sometimes, they’d come into Pat Val’s, assuming I was her. They hardly ever believed I was her twin. They thought I was being callous. I even showed them my rings and the birthmark I had on my left arm which she didn’t share. They always thought the whole ‘twin thing’ was an excuse to get myself free of recrimination. All I knew was that whatever Jodie did with these men, she must have driven them crazy with it, because why else would they accuse an innocent woman like me of something I wasn’t even guilty of?

  In simple answer, I smiled and said genuinely, “I really don’t think we have met before. In fact I am sure we haven’t.”

  “Hmm.” He held his chin and scratched the black stubble that looked the colour of mercury against his pallid complexion. “Well, I feel like we have met before. In fact I am usually really good at reading people, but you are so… unreachable.”

  I nodded, because I agreed with him. “Lots of people say that, don’t worry. I am unreadable, unreachable… even. My husband often doesn’t thank me for it. I just prefer to keep my mystery, I suppose.”

  “Doesn’t every woman?” He smiled with a twinkle in his eye.

  I didn’t like how uncomfortable it was all becoming, this random stranger appearing in my path like this, so I made another, this time swift move to leave.

  Except he barred my way with an arm and before I could protest, he pulled me into his arms and placed a strange but soul-wrenching kiss on my lips. It wasn’t even that I was attracted to him, no. It wasn’t that his kiss even came close to the kind of kisses I shared with Louis. No.

  It was that his kiss brought to mind strange sexual images of him devouring my secret places and sampling me in ways not even Louis had yet. Also, even though his skin remained cold, his kiss was warm and as he held my cheeks in his hands, I didn’t—simply couldn’t—put up a fight of any sort.

  I put my hands in his hair and it was so soft. As he kissed me much more deeply, his tongue expertly swirled around mine. I tasted something I had never tasted before, yet I couldn’t describe it. There was no taste like it. A few seconds later, I felt my whole body come alive with an aggressive arousal and I pulled away shaking and shocked.

  “I love my husband,” I yelled, pulling the dogs with me in haste.

  He didn’t follow me, not in body at least.

  FABIEN

  SHE RAN AWAY and I let her go because I was confused, too. Somehow I knew Jaimie was not the soul of my love reincarnated. No. From her foreign kiss, I knew—this Jaimie really did belong to someone else: that man, Louis. I watched as she chased away and I smirked because I had dribbled some of my venom during that kiss. It was having the required physical effect on her clearly! I heard her panting all the way to her father’s house. She wouldn’t forget me in a hurry and might imagine her body’s reaction was due to attraction and not the aphrodisiac bestowed from my fangs.

  Hey, I stuck to the rules. No biting. I had learned how to control the release of venom without the usual bite in the mix of things.

  I transformed back into my winged self and began flying back to the city to find my nightly sot to feed from.

  I would find her again, no doubt. During our conversation she didn’t notice me slip my hand into her pocket, search her phone, and read everything on there. Humans didn’t notice a lot of the things we did because we were too fast. I would visit this Pat Val’s she worked at, whatever that was, and I would discover what it was that made it impossible for me to read her mind like I usually could with every other human being. There was a block to some information, clearly, and it made me all the more intrigued.

  Twenty-seven years ago I had been drawn to the ancient city of York and all I knew was that this woman, Jaimie, was most certainly of an age approaching those years. I reasoned this must be fate. Destiny. She had to have the answers, I knew it. There was time yet. Only a true love could have influenced me to sequester myself in such a cold, hard city such as this.

  JAIMIE

  I WALKED BACK into my father’s house feeling out of sorts to say the least. My cheeks were roasting hot and other parts of my body, too. Even though I’d been gone almost an hour, nobody looked up and asked where I had been. Their drinks had all been replenished by my stepmother Fiona but apart from that, it hardly looked like anyone had moved.

  I made sure the dogs had plenty of water in the kitchen and they grumbled as they got back into their cold beds, annoyed by that but not at all by the encounter I’d shared with that odd man. I already knew I wasn’t going to tell Louis about the kiss. Anyway I didn’t think I would ever see the guy again.

  I popped my head into the living room and asked, “Louis made any noise?”

  “No love,” Fiona said. “Thanks for that, dogs okay? They looked rather fat earlier.”

  “Yeah they complained but I enjoyed my walk so much we went right up the hill and into the village.”

  “Oh, that’s nice love,” my dad added.

  Natalie was still asleep on the sofa and my sister looked like she wasn’t far behind.

  “I’m going to check on him,” I warned, and all I got in response was a nod from my dad. I think everyone was in a stupor and glued to EastEnders, even though it was the same old same.

  I chased upstairs and found Louis peacefully asleep in the guest room we usually stayed in. He was no longer clammy or pale and this reassured me. I kissed his cheek and took myself to the bathroom down the hall, carrying my pocket vibrator with me as I walked.

  Ever since that kiss with the stranger, my clit had been burning like a bad sprain and I needed to relieve myself—badly. It was a feeling so sharp, it actually hurt.

  In the bathroom, I stripped to nothing and climbed in the shower.

  Almost as soon as I used the vibrator on myself, I came, gushing fluid down the insides of my thighs. Light-headed, I gasped with relief but only wanted more. My nipples were so hard my entire breasts actually pointed higher and I was still super aware of my bald cooch and all the delights that being hairless had provided us with last night, during all that screwing that had almost made me forget there was ever anything wrong with us.

  Anyway before I left the shower, I enjoyed several orgasms, all without much help at all really. I was aware of every inch of my body and I knew without doubt, I loved my husband more than life and all our silly arguments were just that.

  I dried off, sated and exhausted, and sloped off to bed without saying a word to anybody downstairs. Naked, I crawled under my husband’s arms and we slept entwined. A feeling of pure contentment was the last thing I knew as I shut my eyes.

  ◊◊◊

  BOXING Day went pretty much as planned except Louis was still so tired and groggy, he stayed in bed at Dad’s whilst I drove over to Mum’s with Jodie. We had a lunch of leftovers from Grandma’s famous Christmas dinner and when Jodie got fed up, she left, walking from Mum’s house on Tadcaster Road back to her place on Holgate.

  When Mum and I were alone and loading the dishwasher, I said to her, “Louis wants to have a baby.”

  “Hmm. Yeah?” She smiled, but her eyes were suspicious.

  I gave her an innocent smile. “I didn’t warm to the idea at first but I’m thinking about it now.”

  “Hmm. I see. So you’re giving up completely on yo
ur dreams, then?”

  “No!” I shouted, angered she would say such a thing. “Babies aren’t the end of the world.”

  “Nope, but if you haven’t found what you want already, it’ll be even harder when you’re saddled with a kid. Who knows… you could be saddled with two like I was!”

  It was something I had considered… twins I mean… seeing as though they seemed to run in the family.

  “You know when I had the first scan they said it was one baby, but on the second scan, I had two. They reckoned one of you were hiding behind the other… it happens apparently! Rare, though.”

  “Really?” I asked, soothed by my mother’s contentment to talk more personably for a change.

  “Yep. Weird, eh?” She nodded while her tongue found stray bits of food from between her teeth.

  “Yeah, you must have been shocked?” I folded my arms, wondering what point she was going to make. Surely there would be one.

  She nodded and passed me a rag to dry off some glasses with. “I was so scared! I admit. Two babies was something I never thought I could cope with. Yet I did, with your grandmother’s help… and in the beginning your father’s, too. He was there, in the beginning,” she said in a winsome voice.

  I never knew why they split up. I knew it wasn’t amicable. I knew they never talked about it. I didn’t think I really wanted to know, actually. It might have made me hate my dad, perhaps make me feel sorrier for my mum, or even make me feel less sympathy for her than I already did. She was such a good-looking woman and could have made another life for herself, if she had wanted to.

  I steered the conversation away. “It is crazy how different she and I are, hey?”