Crave

by Karen E. Taylor

  I found him, sitting alone on the steps of a mausoleum, legs spread, elbows resting on his knees, arms hanging down, one hand gripping a bottle neck and the other cupping the inevitable smoke. He lifted the bottle to his mouth and when he raised his head, he saw me. A faint light seemed to glitter in his eyes. He waved and called.

  Sighing, I walked over, climbed the steps and flopped down next to him. Hyde wrapped a leather-clad arm around my neck, cigarette dangling from his fingers. He passed me the bottle and I took a large swallow, choking only slightly.

  “Jesus, Hyde, what is this stuff?”

  “Mad Dog, Lily Love, 20/20. The finest wine available for four dollars.”

  I took another drink; it wasn’t so bad the second time around. “Nothing but the best, huh, Hyde?”

  He laughed. “Drunk is drunk. And just as drunk regardless of how much you spend.”

  “Ah.”

  The tape that the others had been playing ran out with a loud click. We sat quietly for a time, the silence punctuated only by moans from some of the couples and by Hyde taking an occasional drag. He didn’t bother to unwrap his arm from my neck to do this, just pulled my head in to rest by his chest while he inhaled. Somehow I didn’t mind. When his cigarette was done, he flicked it out onto the cemetery path and we watched the embers die.

  “What’s it all about?” His voice was pitched low so as not to disturb the others around us.

  I gave a small chuckle. “Alfie?”

  “Huh?”

  “Oh, never mind. It’s an old movie, probably about thirty years old or so. I remember watching it when I was younger. It had a song, a good song as I remember.”

  “Oh.” He took another drink and tried to hand the bottle back to me.

  I shook my head. “No, you drink it, I’ve had enough.”

  He put the bottle up to his mouth, then seemed to think better of it. “It’s not all that good, anyway. And it’ll just make me sick tomorrow.” He set it down on the step next to him. “I sort of remember that song. Do you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sing it for me?”

  I laughed. “Right here?”

  “Sure, no one cares. Hell, they’re all so involved with each other they wouldn’t know it if all the dead people here got up and danced around.”

  “Okay.” I gave him a dubious glance. “Here goes nothing. But stop me when the dead start dancing, okay?”

  My voice wavered at first, then grew stronger, asking the questions the piece of sixties music raised. I felt silly singing this song here, although Hyde seemed to hang on my every note as if his life depended on it. At first I thought he was putting me on, feigning the interest, but when I got to the end, he wiped at his eyes.

  “Hey.” I reached up and stroked his cheek gently. “I’m not that bad a singer, am I?”

  “Nah, you sing good. It was just, I realized when you got halfway through that my mother used to sing me that song. When I was a baby, you know.”

  “Why that song?”

  “Alfie. It’s my name. Well, Alfred anyway. Only, Mom called me Alfie.” He glared at me as if he expected me to challenge his name.

  “Alfred is a perfectly good name. Although Hyde suits you better.”

  He grunted just a bit. “Yeah, I suppose so.”

  I got up from the steps, brushed off the back of my jeans and held out my hands to him. “Let’s go for a walk. This place depresses me.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, you know what? It does me, too. I think I’m getting too old for all this shit.”

  I gave him a glance out of the corner of my eye as he took my hand and we walked out. Hyde? Growing up? I shrugged. “Has to happen sooner or later, I guess.”

  We strolled aimlessly for a block or two, hand in hand, not speaking. Then I cleared my throat. “S-so,” I stammered, then shivered to disguise the feeling as cold. “Where do you want to go?” I was surprised to find out that I suddenly felt uncomfortable with him. I was used to Hyde the boy, the joker, the one who played games. Tonight he was different. He’d changed. It always amazed me how fast true humans could change. It’d taken me almost a century and a half to reach the ripe old age of nineteen, but they seemed to grow and age and change right before my eyes.

  “Oh, I don’t know. We could stop over at my place. We could get a pizza or something and I think I have some beer. Maybe even some more wine.”

  I chuckled. “I’ll pass on the wine, if you don’t mind. And probably the pizza. But a beer would taste good.”

  “Yeah. And we’ll have it all to ourselves. Ron’s still over at the cemetery.”

  “Ah.” I shivered again and he put his arm around me.

  “It’s okay if you don’t want to make love, Lily. I won’t pressure you.”

  “It’s not that, Hyde. It really isn’t. I think I might want to make love anyway.” I put an arm around his waist and pulled him close to me. “I’ve just been in a strange sort of mood since we were all at the bar.”

  He laughed and kissed the top of my head. “I like your strange moods. Good thing, too, ’cause as far as I can tell, you’re always in one.”

  “I have a strange life.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “I’m not sure I can.” Or that you’d believe me if I did.

  “Whatever.” He bumped his hip over into mine repeatedly until I started giggling and pushed him away playfully. “We don’t have to talk, you know.”

  We didn’t talk much at first. When we got to his apartment he didn’t even turn on the lights, but stood behind me, putting his hands on my shoulders, walking me back to his bedroom. He put something on the stereo, lit a few votive candles and sat down next to me on the bed. Once again he ran his finger over the rose tattooed on my shoulder.

  “Why a rose, Lily?” he asked softly. “Shouldn’t it be a lily? And a white lily to match the owner?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. It was an impulse decision. It seemed right at the time.” I thought about it for a little bit. “Still does, as a matter of fact.”

  “Well, then maybe I should call you Rose.”

  I snorted. “If you do, I’ll call you Alfred.”

  He pushed me back against the bed, held my shoulders down and moved his legs over to straddle me. “You wouldn’t dare,” he said.

  “Oh.” I smiled up at him. “You think not?”

  “Actually,” he said as he ran his hands down from my shoulders, caressing my breasts through the thin T-shirt, teasing my nipples into erectness, “I don’t much care what you call me. I’m just glad you’re here.”

  “Oddly enough, Hyde, so am I.”

  Afterward, I realized that he had changed. The first time we’d made love, he’d been awkward, unsure of himself, unsure of what to do with my body and his. This time, he had been smooth and flawless, from the time he stripped me bare to the last few little shudders we both gave when I raked my nails over his shoulders and back. He rolled from me with a sigh, leaned over to deposit a light kiss on my shoulder and stretched out on the bed next to me, his naked body barely grazing mine.

  I felt like I was glowing down to my toes. “Why don’t we do this more often?” I asked, resting on one elbow and brushing his hair away from his face. “It was wonderful.”

  “That’s a question I’ve asked myself many times, Lily Love. You tell me.”

  I giggled. “Because I kept saying no?”

  He tilted his head to one side and smiled. “Yep, that’d be it. Now, how about that pizza and beer?”

  I managed to eat one piece of the pizza, and did better than that with the beer. I could eat solid food, but generally preferred a liquid diet. Once I’d recognized the fact that I was different from other people, somewhere around the biological age of seven or so, I’d tried to force myself to grow. Gorging on everything I could find, I only succeeded in making myself deathly ill for a week. I never tried the experiment again.

  Hyde didn’t seem to suffer from anything worse than a healthy appe
tite, and he didn’t seem to mind that I ate very little. “More for me,” he mumbled around a mouthful when I refused a second piece. “Although it wouldn’t hurt for you to have just a little more meat on your bones.”

  “I noticed you weren’t complaining about that a little bit ago.”

  “Probably not. Why would I? You’re a beautiful woman, Lily. Perfect just the way you are. As skinny as an alley cat and twice as horny.”

  I rolled up my napkin and tossed it at him, hitting him square on the forehead. “Thanks a lot, Hyde. Although, at least you have the good sense to call me a woman and not a girl.”

  He finished the last slice of pizza and wiped his mouth on the napkin I’d thrown. “I think, somehow, it’s been a long, long time since you were a girl.”

  “Really.” My tone of voice was evasive. I avoided his eyes and got up, picking up the empty pizza box and carrying it to the kitchen. When I came back he was sitting on the couch, still regarding me with a faintly puzzled look.

  “Hyde, you said your mother called you Alfie. What does she call you now?”

  “She doesn’t call me anything anymore.”

  “You don’t speak to her?”

  He gave me a funny lopsided grin. “I guess I could, but it wouldn’t do much good. She’s dead. Been dead for about three years now.”

  “Oh,” I said, wishing that I hadn’t steered the subject in this direction. I could hear the sadness in his voice. “I’m really sorry to hear that. She must have been young. And it must have been a shock. For you, I mean.”

  “Nah, it’s okay. It wasn’t too bad, as these things go, I guess. She had cancer, but she didn’t linger. And she didn’t even seem to suffer too much.”

  We sat silent for a while. He stared at me, cleared his throat and looked away. “So,” he said, glancing back at me, this time catching and holding my attention, “what about you? I got the feeling from the story you told that you don’t get along with your mother. She still around?”

  “My mother?”

  “Yeah.”

  “My mother?” My voice rose a little hysterically. “How the hell would I know? I never knew the bitch, but I assume she’s still around. And I doubt she’ll ever do me the favor and die.”

  “Hey, Lily, calm down. I was only asking.”

  “Yeah, I know, I’m sorry. I’m not angry with you, Hyde. It’s just not a good situation.”

  Hyde shrugged. “Like me and my dad. Yeah, I know how it is. But everyone dies sometime, Lily. You’re just saying all of this because you feel like you’re inferior or something, because you weren’t important enough to her. Obviously, she abandoned you when you were just a baby. I could recognize the truth under that goofy story from the bar.”

  “No, Hyde, I’m saying it because it’s true. It’s all true. I woke up in the grave, the premature grave she consigned me to. She gave birth to me and then she walked away and let them bury me. She didn’t even stop to see if I was breathing, didn’t even stop long enough to see if I was alive. That’s how fucking important I am to her. I bet she doesn’t even remember having me.”

  “Of course she remembers having you, Lily.” He reached up and pulled me down so that I was sitting on his lap. “You’re hurt and upset and that’s perfectly understandable. You don’t need to embellish your story to impress me. I like you anyway.”

  If his words were supposed to be calming, they had the opposite effect. I pushed away from him and stood in front of the couch, glaring down at him. “It’s not a story, Hyde. How many times do I have to say that?”

  “It’s okay, Lily. Say it as often as you need to. I don’t mind.”

  I gave a little exasperated scream. “It’s not a question of need. It’s the truth. My bitch of a mother left me for dead. And what’s worse? She may never die. Ever. You see, she’s a vampire.”

  Chapter 3

  Hyde’s mouth dropped open and he stared at me in shock for a second, before he shook himself and smiled. “Yeah, I understand. You mean she’s like a vampire, you know, figuratively?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t even know why we were having this conversation. It didn’t change anything. But I laughed unpleasantly and continued. “No, I meant what I said. She is a vampire. Period. Not just that she acts like one, although”—and my mouth twisted in a wry smile—“I guess she must act like one on occasion. She’d have to, wouldn’t she? But other than that, she is really and truly a vampire.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You don’t believe me.” It was not a question. “I might’ve thought that you would at least hold out a semblance of belief. Ever since I’ve known you, you and the others have been playing at life and death, playing vampire. You talk incessantly about taking and drinking blood; you stay up all night and avoid the sunlight. I guess it never occurred to any of you that you might be imitating something more real than pulp novels and cheap movies.” I sat back down on the couch and he put his arm around me.

  “Well,” he said, giving me a weak grin, “I know how you are, Lily. I know you can spin a story and have even the smartest of us believing it. So when you ask me if I believe that your mother is a vampire, I have to say no. And if you were to ask if I believed in vampires in general?” He shook his head. “In a word? No.”

  “Ah. Okay then.” I gave it up; there was no use in trying to convince him. “But I had you going for a while, didn’t I?”

  Hyde leaned over and kissed my forehead. “Do you really want to know?”

  I nodded.

  “It’s a hell of a good story, Lily, but once again the answer is no.”

  I shrugged. “All right. Have it your way. We’ll give it a rest. It’s been a wonderful evening, Hyde. I’m sorry I spoiled it with talk. Would you walk me home?”

  “Of course,” he said. “And you didn’t spoil a thing, Lily. I love the sound of your voice. And as a matter of fact, I think I love you.”

  I blinked. “Yeah. Right. Let’s get going, Moon will be waiting for me.”

  “You told him what?” Moon was angry.

  “I told him the truth. You know I did. Same as I told the truth in the bar tonight. He didn’t believe me. They didn’t believe me. Why would they?”

  “Even so, Lily, honey, you can’t go around telling everyone your mother’s a vampire. They’ll think you crazed. Besides, no one really knows for sure what your mother was.”

  “Philomena knew. When she found me in the cemetery that night, she knew. And I listened to her when she talked about it to others. She knew.”

  Moon nodded. “Gramma Philomeen was a wise woman. So I guess if she said that’s how it was, that’s how it is.” She got up from her chair. “You want a cup of tea, Lily? My old bones got awful cold waiting for your young ones to get home.”

  I laughed. “I told you not to wait, Moon. But yes, I’ll have a cup of tea.”

  “What else do I have to do but wait, child?” she said as she walked into the small kitchen. “I don’t sleep so well these days, anyway.”

  While she was fussing in the kitchen, I went to my room and took off my clothes. On my way to the dresser to get my nightgown I paused at the mirror. My body was flawless, as white as polished marble and just as cold. I squinted at my reflection, as always, thinking she might look just like this. Then I shook my head, put on my gown and went back into the living room.

  Moon set a mug next to my chair and settled back into hers. Taking a sip from her cup, she glanced over at me. “But you had a good time with him, yes?”

  “With who?”

  “Hyde. You like him, don’t you?”

  I shrugged. “Yeah, I suppose so. He’s changed. Or changing. Anyway, I think he likes me more than I like him.”

  “Nothing wrong with that, Lily. Comes a time a girl thinks of moving away from her folks and getting on with life. And you are certainly old enough.” She laughed, then grew serious. “You’ll need someone to take care of you, once I’m gone.”

  “Gone? Where are you going?”

>   “Nowhere. Don’t pay any attention to me, girl. I’m just feeling old and cold.” She paused for a minute, shivered, then took another swallow of tea. “So, was it like the way you told it? Tonight in the bar?”

  “Yes, it was. If I close my eyes and think about it, I can remember. And, you know, I don’t want to remember.”

  “Ah. I can well understand that, honey. It’s not a pleasant thing to look back on. Still, you are here now. And I love my Lily child. You are my comfort.”

  I snorted, trying to think how I could be her comfort. I had teased her from the day she was born, to the point now that few people remembered her given name. I’d grasped at her first childish attempt to say her given name, and she had become Moon. I teased her now, even when it seemed our roles had reversed. I’d been a moody, willful child, and an angry and resentful teen, attempting to adjust my old knowledge to a body that developed painfully and slowly, chafing constantly under the restrictions placed on me by my perceived age. “I must be a cold comfort, then, Moon, and you could do better. Why did you never marry?”

  She shrugged. “Never got around to it. You were a handful; it’s not easy raising a child that takes ten years or more to grow one year. And besides”—she leaned forward and gave a girlish giggle—“the only man who ever asked me was Bowlegged ’Lo.”

  I laughed with her. “Bowlegged ’Lo? Angelo asked you to marry him? Please tell me you’re kidding.”

  “Sure as I sit here, Lily. He wasn’t a bad-looking man, really, when he was younger. But Mama would have no part of him. ‘He’s got evil eyes and bad legs, Mary Lou,’ she’d say. ‘No girl of mine is going to give herself to that bastard bokor.’”I could hear her mother’s voice as she spat the word. “Why, he even followed us around for years so he could be with me, hoping Mama would change her mind.” Moon settled back into her chair, fanning herself with her hand. “It wasn’t no use. But bad legs or not, oh, girl, how that man could kiss. I was real crazy about him for a while, but then Mama died and I got you and he quit asking.”