She stared, dumbstruck. “You have tea?”
“I’m sure we might.”
We left the vehicle and entered the house, using the set of keys I had. An alarm sprang into action and when I looked round, I had no idea what the code was nor where someone might have written it down. Jaimie waited behind me, hands over her ears as the alarm started screeching. I looked in my wallet and on the back of the business card was a number: 09-11-17.
Today’s date. I keyed it in quickly and the sirens stopped.
Jaimie peered at me, suspicious, starting to back out of the property.
“I’m really sorry but I only just moved in and the estate agent wrote the code on the back of their card for me! So sorry. You can go if you like… but I’d like you to stay.”
She nodded subtly and we made our way through the house towards the kitchen on the first floor. I knew from once having fed from an Australian man in York that here, people lived upstairs and slept downstairs. His memories were interesting, indeed, as were most people’s. I still remembered a lot of my previous lives. Hopefully it would come in useful and not be to my detriment…
“Tea, then,” I said, and began searching cupboards, eventually finding a box of English tea.
She watched from a stool at the kitchen island, suspicious but inquisitive.
“I have people who do the little things for me,” I explained, “and I have yet to get my own way around this place!”
“Of course.” She smiled, her hands clasped together, waiting awkwardly. As a human I still wanted sex and still wanted her, but it was different this time. Without the want of feeding added, too, I felt more cautious and caring.
“Why was the date so bad?” I asked gently.
“He stared at my boobs and didn’t even get my name right.” She looked suitably pissed off, and I gave her space to tell me more. A hand against her cheek, she looked out onto the backyard and looked into the distance fondly. “Internet dating really sucks ass. It’s my tenth failed date. I think they see my profile, see I’m a single mum, and assume I’m desperate enough for a one-night stand. Maybe I should take that off my profile and see if that makes a difference?”
I sensed a change of subject was needed. “What do you do?”
She burst out laughing and put her head in her hands. “I bake wedding cakes!”
I laughed with her. “Oh!”
“I’m really good at it, too. I have a shop in Queen Victoria.”
“How did you get here?” I wondered. “To Oz, I mean.” I’d overheard some people once call it that.
“Came to get away,” she said, taking her cup of tea from me gladly. I hoped I’d followed the stewing instructions properly. I took a sip of my own and found it surprisingly warming and lovely. Sat across from her at the breakfast island, she looked faraway with her thoughts as she continued to open up. “I came with my kids and was going to stay for a holiday when I saw an advert go up for bakery assistant at the shop I now own. The former owner recently retired and let me have it. I got a visa and the rest, history. I miss home like crazy but my children are very happy here.”
“They are with someone?”
She sipped. “A sitter.”
“Oh, yes.” A watcher then of some sort? I was unfamiliar and knew this modern-human thing was going to take some getting used to. As I sat there, though, I wanted to give those voices in the in-between a kiss for bringing me back to Jaimie. She was sad and needed some company.
“What are they called?”
“Liza and Laura. They’re three, just gone.”
“Identical?”
“No, they’re not actually. Non-identical. Although, I was an identical twin.”
“Oh, strange…” I wondered if Juniper’s twin, the one who’d died in childbirth all those centuries ago, was never identical either? Maybe Jodie and Jaimie were made identical by some sort of magic, but were never meant to look exactly the same. Obviously some witchcraft had intervened there…
Which made me wonder…
“Yes. I think she’s dead but I don’t know. My twin, I mean. She got caught up with a bad crowd.” Jaimie sounded anguished at the thought of Jodie (Juniper).
“Think?”
“I think I know. An identical twin knows when her other half has left the world. We were two sides of one, you see. Dark and light, yin and yang, soft and hard.”
“Two sides of one? A split soul?” I queried, wondering at her meaning.
“I always found her difficult, yet I was incomplete without her. She was driven by ambition, by physical pursuits, whereas I was content to amuse myself, still am. It’s who I am.”
My one true love faces me, I know it. One half of her anyway.
“Jaimie, shall we dance? Then this has not been a wasted night for either of us?”
She smiled and finished her tea. “Okay.”
“Okay.”
We both stood and I gestured she join me out on the balcony.
I hummed an old French melody and held out my arms, which she walked into.
Much shorter than me, she had to raise on tiptoes to reach for my neck. I danced her around the wood of the terrace and she tired of holding me around the neck, instead looping her arms around my waist, her ear against my heart.
A little of the old me reared, feeling a woman so warm and beautiful cuddled in my arms. I slid a finger under the back of her belt loop and yanked her backside higher, pulling her into my arms, her legs immediately fastening round my waist.
Her heart pounding against me, I turned us and pushed her back against the French windows. I buried my hands in her hair and whispered, “Men are fools, angel. Men are fools.”
I kissed every inch of her immaculate face and sweetly brushed her lips with mine. I pulled back and saw her eyes still closed, shocked, soaked in surprise.
She slid from my embrace, drunk on lust.
I assured her, “Maybe you are desperate, but the right man will still wait. Now, let me call you that cab and give you my number. Soon I will show you a real date.”
She burst out laughing and hid her face behind her hands.
“Okay, John.”
JOHN
AFTER JAIMIE CALLED a cab, she took my cell number and promised she would call. I warned her I would hunt her down if she didn’t. Once she was gone, I went into the study of my new home and found out I was a qualified scuba instructor. I had a job lined up too, it seemed. Whoever was playing my guardian angel really had arranged everything, even down to making sure I had several hours’ worth of video instructing me in safe scuba diving. So, the next day I spent several hours trying out my own set of equipment in my home pool and soon, I felt confident enough in my abilities. Some documents in my desk also told me I was a silent partner in some sort of ranch and that was why I had a second income. I wasn’t going to argue. I would accept whatever I was offered.
JAIMIE did call, after two days of keeping me waiting. Was this the usual cooling off period, I wondered?
“I’m so glad to hear your voice,” I told her.
“I’m glad you’re glad. So, about the date?”
I was desperate not to appear masterful and scare her away. “Okay. Yes, so, you want to do the dinner and dancing thing?” I sounded unsure because I was. I had no idea where everything existed in this place, beyond my house and my place of work, which I had just had an induction at because it was Monday and everything happened on Monday apparently.
“Of course. I know a few places. I mean… I sense you’re new to this part of the world, yes?”
My words rushed out of me, thankful she was being so helpful. “I’m at your beck and call. Tell me when and where. I’m there.”
“Okay. I live in the city. You can drive in and park your car outside my building. No drink driving.” She hesitated. “Or, you may stay sober and drive home, I don’t know? Obviously I am not going to tell you what to do.”
“Sober all the way. Drinking’s for wimps,” I convinced her, secretly
terrified drink might make my tongue loose. “So, we go from your place to a dance, and a feast?”
“Umm… kind of, if you like?”
I sensed my words were the wrong sort. “I trust you to pick the right setting. I’ll be happy to spend some time with you.”
“Okay. Well, how’s about Wednesday night? I’m free and it’s quiet that night and my sitter said she can look after the children. They’re not at playschool until late the next day and my shop assistant has the fort, so I’m assured.”
The logistics complex, I sensed she’d really made an effort to clear a night so she could see me again.
“I’ll be there,” I responded, “tell me your address.”
“Okay.” She sounded as giddy as could be.
◊◊◊
WE dined at a casual place, something known as an American diner, my dinner jacket definitely not the sort of thing people donned for such a venue. Jaimie liked the place and as long as she liked it, that was fine by me. Next time however, I would research a more adequate menu with a view from the restaurant window nicer than the one we currently had—looking out over a dirty alleyway. Jaimie looked ravishing in a thin, white cotton dress, but I hated how men stared at her and even though I could no longer read their thoughts, I could still imagine what they were thinking.
Meat definitely tasted different to how it used to and sugar from a milky drink gave me burps I failed to hide from her. I felt like I was on the worst induction course of my life, never mind the people I’d almost killed at sea already. I’d just about mastered the gauges at work, well, almost.
“Has anyone ever told you you’re a big, bloody goofball?” She grinned, finishing her shake (congealed cow fat, I thought).
I took my jacket off and hung it from the back of my chair. “I’ve lived a long time, always knowing I’m from a world of yesterday, you know? I don’t think this world knows what to do with me, nor I it.”
She covered my hand with hers. “You’re so lovely, John. I’m having a great time.”
We left the diner and headed into the busier clubbing district of town. I snaked my arm around her shoulder, my jacket slung over my other arm. I sheltered her from drunken bums and cars whizzing by us on the streets at dangerous speeds. It seemed a world so large, so wrong, and yet just as it was meant to be. Jaimie didn’t treat any of our night as anything extraordinary or bizarre, so neither did I.
In a nightclub pounding with loud music, I checked my coat and she went dashing for the bar.
I caught up with her, finding two alcoholic drinks in her hands.
“But I’m driving home?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Take my sofa.”
Was that her way of saying she wanted me to have her, that night? I was certainly not ready for it. I didn’t know if everything would work the same or if I was really enough, now I was this slip of a being, this human casing I now found my spirit housed in.
We sat on two stools and she noticed my drink went untouched. Throwing it back on my behalf, she shouted over the pounding beats, “Want a coca-cola, then?”
“Is that non-alcoholic?”
She retorted, “It has your favourite ingredient… sugar. I could get water for you?”
I didn’t like going up to the bar. The waiters always looked at me funny. In my day, the wench knew your brew and got you it without asking.
“Water’s fine.”
She bustled off to get herself another vodka-something-or-other and me, my water. Returning to the stools we’d commandeered as our own, she handed me my water but didn’t sit. She tossed back another drink and asked, “Wanna dance?”
“Okay.”
She led me by the hand to a pit full of writhing, sweaty, smelly bodies, all of them pumping pheromones and heat from every pore, it seemed. In my human form, I was definitely a gentleman, and I definitely didn’t appreciate the men who hadn’t shaved, ironed their shirt or tucked their pants beneath their trousers properly.
Huddled between other bodies, Jaimie put her hands around my neck and I rested mine at her waist, grasping her gently. As soon as our eyes connected, nothing concerned me, and the rest of the room may as well not have been there with us.
She pulled me close and I splayed my hands on her lower back, anchoring her in my hold. She stepped onto my feet, her sandals on my mirror shoes. I didn’t mind. She was short and me, very tall. She grinned and pinned her eyes on mine still, her lips so close as I swayed her, grinding into her body.
Slow, slow. You have to take this slow. Make it count, they said, and make it right. She was married to a man she thought she would be with forever. You have to know she’s not still thinking of him.
She leaned in, ready for my kiss, but I whispered at her ear, “I’m going to kiss you, but at your door. Then I’m going home, alone. I’m very smitten but I’m old-fashioned and I desire to romance you, very much.”
She tightened her arms around me for a moment, kissing my cheek. Whispering in my ear, she replied, “That’s okay. I sense you’re like me… your hurts still healing?”
I nodded and she asked no more. She turned and pushed her bottom against me, arousing me so I was almost blinded by lust. We spent the rest of the night swaying and mimicking lovemaking, her body so right for mine.
This was different. Now I had a life to lose, I feared death. I feared losing her and this feeling of falling in love, for the very first time, was terrifying.
I walked her home after we danced the night away and as we travailed the night, I could have swore we passed a vampire or two, although I couldn’t be sure. Sometimes it was hard to tell in the dark. Anyway, they didn’t recognise me which was the main thing.
At her door, she paid the sitter and beckoned, “Come in for coffee?”
I’m sure that’s something I don’t like, either, I thought.
“I’m getting home, though I really want to see you again, and again… and again,” I assured her.
I sealed her lips shut with a chaste kiss and left my imprint on her mouth, her eyes still shut as I walked away.
I was so swamped by love, I was manically terrified. Did she know who I was?
JOHN
Five Months Later
IT HAD TAKEN time, but I was getting used to being human. Since our first date, there had been many dates. In keeping with modern standards, sometimes she chose the venue, but most of the time I did. On one date, I took her to the sea and taught her how to scuba and she loved it, gradually growing confident enough to join me cave diving.
We’d enjoyed dates involving her girls, too, such as Saturday afternoon trips to the beach, picnics in the park and swimming lessons at her local pool. While Jaimie lived inner-city, I lived on the outskirts in Breakfast Point, a really beautiful borough where people wiled their hours keeping fit and healthy, enjoying their loved ones, the sun, sand and a lifestyle I never knew existed.
So it was five months hence and one, Saturday night, with the children in bed, she was preparing dinner in the kitchen. I stood behind her, watching her ass wriggle as she chopped aggressively.
“What is the problem?” I asked, my wine glass tapping my teeth.
“Nothing.”
Umm, nothing.
“Is it the girls? They are twins, they are bound to cause mischief at playschool. They are a dynamic duo?”
She giggled slightly. “It isn’t the girls; they are angels really.”
“So, what?”
She placed the knife down on the counter, something I was glad about. She turned and tapped her foot, folding her arms. “Am I not attractive? Do you not want me?”
I placed my glass down on the counter and walked to her, holding her cheek in my hand. “What?”
“It’s been five months. I’m bursting at the seams, John.”
I still wasn’t used to that name, but it was better to be called something other than Fabien or Fabron. They were strange, archaic names that wouldn’t do in this corner of the world.
“You
need a doctor? I don’t understand.” I stood back, waggling my head.
“Sex!” she exclaimed, “I want sex!”
I rubbed my chin, glaring at her. “But we’re not married. I thought we were courting?”
“What?” she gasped, shaking her head in disgust. “I’m supposed to be a freaky single mother desperate for it! How can you be so ignorant?”
She turned and started re-chopping and I warned, “Someone will lose more than their little green head if they are not careful.” It looked like a pinkie was for the chop, not just her long-stemmed broccoli.
She started laughing and put the blade down once more. I walked up behind her and asked, “So you don’t want this?”
I held a platinum-diamond ring in front of her eyes and she almost shrieked. “John, b—but… how…? I told you about what happened with my husband! Even though he’s been declared dead, how do we know he really is? Huh? What if he turns up?”
I hadn’t yet told her I was Fabien—and that I’d killed her husband. “He is probably dead and even if he isn’t, he is the living undead. Jaimie, let me give you a life, let us be together.”
I watched humorously as she tried the ring on without even giving me an answer, her eyes examining how it twinkled in the light. Her back still to me, I was desperate to see her expression. She took the ring off and turned to me, furious, her mouth frozen in an angry line.
“I won’t marry a man who won’t make love to me. I won’t.” She slapped the ring back in my hand and turned back to chopping. This time, she did cause herself an injury.
“Owwww!”
I demanded her finger and saw she had sliced half the tip of her left middle finger off.
“I warned you. Why didn’t you listen?”
“I don’t know,” she said, tears gathering in her eyes.
We found the first-aid kit in the bathroom and I taped some dissolving stitches over her wound, making sure it was clean and dry, bandaging her afterwards.
Fabien Page 20