"I'm still mad at you for lying to me," she said, folding her arms across her chest and glaring down at him where he stood on the ground in front of her booth. "I also guess I get it. Or I can work on getting it. And I want to get to know you more, too. Even if you're stupid and should have let me decide if I thought it was weird or not from the beginning instead of deciding that for me."
He winced at that last bit and looked down at his feet. "I'm sorry," he mumbled, sounding almost childish in his shame. It was adorable. In an infuriating, she-was-definitely-still-mad-at-him sort of way. "But now that you know, maybe you'd want to come over and go swimming some time."
The way he said it made it sound more like he was asking her a question than inviting her over to his house, but she understood the significance. Lyle was extremely self-conscious about his body because despite the hormone treatments he had started when he turned eighteen, he was still too feminine for his own taste. And she knew that because he had told her and oh. That's what that stupid voice in the back of her head had been trying to remind her of. That he had told her all sorts of things about himself that were seriously private, and that he was actually incredibly open with her. That maybe he had not wanted to talk about who his parents were because that wasn't who he was.
"I..." She felt suddenly as if all the moisture had been sucked out of her mouth and throat by one of those suction things she always hated at the dentist. "I would like that, I think. I mean, if you're comfortable with it. I don't want you to think you have to just to make it up to me, or something."
And then there was that smile back on his lips, not the pure joy grin that made her body do weird, potentially dangerous things, but something a little quieter and maybe a little shier too. She didn't like it nearly as much, but she felt as if that was another secret he was letting her in on. Another smile for her to catalogue in the least weird way possible.
"I want you to," he told her, leaning forward over the counter with his hands resting on it so he could get closer and speak quieter. "I want you to get to know me more and I want to get to know you more. I want to enjoy my favorite thing with you."
Annabelle was completely unsure how she wasn't yet a puddle on the floor, but somehow she wasn't. Which was probably for the best, because just then Lyle leaned forward and softly pressed his lips against hers. He didn't move more than that, just waited for her to decide if she wanted this or not. She did. She definitely did. Maybe a little too vehemently, but hey, she had been wanting to run her hands through his stupid hair for weeks and if she could help get some chap stick on his lips by way of contact with her own, well that just made her a good Samaritan really. He needed it.
And so started that. Because of course, this was just the beginning of something big. Something which maybe caused Annabelle to freak out kind of a lot, but also that had her rolling around on her bed over text messages and giggling loudly enough that her parents demanded she bring over whoever it was that was making her so crazy (they loved him of course, after grilling him about his entire life story and then judging him based on how he reacted to their cooking).
But it was good, because she didn't think she could get enough of getting to know more about Lyle. Like how he hated that he was shorter than her (she may have been eyeing a pair of hidden platform shoes online for his birthday that was coming up in October), or how he was in amazing shape under his baggy clothes from all the swimming he did. In return, it seemed like he was constantly asking her questions and cataloguing all of her freckles like he needed to memorize the constellations they formed for science reasons. He may have also developed a certain obsession with kissing them, which she had about negative thirty problems with.
So really, it didn't matter so much who his parents were (although meeting them was definitely going to remain just about the scariest thing to happen to her ever—suffice to say, they were very protective of their only child) when he was such a stupidly good person whose grins turned her into mush and whose hair was just so stupid and awful (and she loved it so freaking much, how did that even work?). Because he was weird and basically divided his time between haunting the theme park that he had to know seriously everything about by now and doing cannon balls into the pool in his back yard. And she was weird with her constant running monologue and her weird panics every time just about anything happened and they just worked.
And if when school started in the fall, Lyle made a point of buying her coffee before the two-hour math lecture she hated so much, well that was just an added bonus on top of the cheesy pick-up lines he had decided to use on her every chance he got. And... And okay, Annabelle had a lot of things she could say about him, that she maybe sort of wrote into the columns on her notebooks surrounded by hearts sometimes because she was totally allowed to enjoy this.
The point is... well, the point is that things were good. Lyle and Annabelle continued to be huge dorks and Annabelle was totally okay with it, and she was pretty certain—like ninety eight and a half percent certain—that Lyle was okay with that too.
SINGLE VAMPIRE SEEKS CONSORT
Cassandra Pierce
"Okay, so this is the main area, where the regular staff members work and make copies and so forth." The middle-aged bearded guy who'd introduced himself as David motioned Brandon through the makeshift newsroom. Once a stately Victorian home, the building had been converted into the headquarters of the Rainbow Rag, a free gay weekly paper distributed at local bars. "You'll probably spend most of your time back here, though, in the mailroom." Brandon tried not to show his disappointment as they headed for a dingy little area at the rear.
Not that he had much right to complain. He'd answered the ad for a minimum-wage mail clerk, and he'd been both grateful and relieved when they'd awarded him the job. It wasn't exactly the career in journalism he'd hoped for, but it was a start, and no better offers were forthcoming.
"One of your duties will be sorting out the Classifieds," David went on. "That means you'll be working with Everett, who manages the ad department. He's off today, but you'll meet him soon." He pointed to a row of pigeon-hole message boxes on the opposite wall. A teller's window, like one might find at a bank or a post office, opened onto a small lobby that faced the back parking lot. "The personals are the reason most guys read our paper. They can either rent an email address or pick up their replies here. They come up to the window and give their box number. If there are any letters in the box, you can hand them over. If there aren't… well, you can check out the guy and decide the reason for yourself." He laughed.
"Personals? You mean like lonely-hearts ads?" Brandon asked, incredulous. "I thought people used email and phones for that kind of thing nowadays."
"You'd think so, but not everyone is into Internet dating, especially the older guys. They're afraid of scams, or maybe they just like getting real letters."
"Maybe." Brandon tried to remember the last time he'd gotten a letter on paper and couldn't, outside of bills and certain documents related to his college loans. He found it kind of sweet that men of whatever age might be able to connect romantically through the written word. He imagined curling letters formed with fountain pens on fancy stationery, though the reality was no doubt less charming.
"We make most of our money on ads, and to be honest, there isn't much left over after we put out each issue," David told him, as though he had suddenly realized just how dingy the small mail room was. "So you won't get rich here, but you'll have fun at the Rainbow Rag. I can assure you of that." He winked. "Plus you get first crack at the personal ads if any promising prospects roll in."
"Thanks. I'll do my best."
"I'm only kidding, of course. Better not to mix business and pleasure, if you know what I mean. Everett has a lot of tedious rules he'll spend hours filling you in on. Just smile and nod and agree with whatever he says. It's easier in the long run."
"No problem, but I didn't take this job in order to find love. That's something I really don't have time for just now."
"You say that, but you'll be tempted, I guarantee," another voice broke in. Brandon looked around to see a guy standing in the doorway to the mailroom. He was an earnest-looking man about thirty years old, with short blond hair and thick glasses. He seemed cute in a nerdy way, Brandon had to admit. "As far as letters go, I know I'd like to see if a guy had decent writing skills and grammar. If he does, I'm a goner. But of course, I'm a writer, so I guess it stands to reason. I'm Chuck, by the way." He stuck out his hand.
"Nice to meet you. I'm Brandon Flynn." Brandon grasped Chuck's sturdy fingers
"Chuck is our staff reporter," David explained. "We use a lot of freelancers, but we depend on Chuck for the big stories."
"Such as they are in a little bar throwaway like ours," Chuck said with a shrug. Brandon detected a touch of bitterness in the pronouncement.
"I'll leave you to get started, then." David pointed at a huge mountain of letters, flyers, and bills that someone had tossed in a cardboard box and left on the workbench. "Sad to say, no one's been through that stuff for a couple of weeks, when the last guy quit. For now, just open the envelopes and put the sheets in piles depending on whom it's meant for. Once that's done, we'll give you some other tasks. Any questions, just holler for Chuck. Everett will want to talk to you when he comes back tomorrow, too."
Chuck waited until David had returned to his corner office and closed the door. "Did you come on board because you want to be a journalist? You know, work your way up from the bottom?"
Brandon blushed, hesitant to admit that had been his initial thought upon joining the paper. However, it now seemed clear to him, given the small scale of the operation, that such a hope was a fantasy at best. Turning away, he busied himself with shuffling through the avalanche of mail on the counter. From what he could see, many were bills and ads, and a lot of them were indeed for the personals column. The numbers on the envelopes were a giveaway, though they also reminded him of letters meant for prison inmates. Brandon put those in a separate pile to deal with later, after the mysterious Everett arrived.
"Nah," he fibbed, since Chuck was waiting for an answer. "I did major in journalism, but you know how it is after you first graduate from college. Any job, even in a related field, will do when you've got loans to pay back."
"Well, it'll take a while, I'm afraid. The newspaper business is a dying one in these days of the Internet and cable, my friend. Pursue marketing instead. That's where the future of our capitalist society lies."
"I don't know. Working on a progressive paper seems like fun. I can get more involved in the community and actually be paid for it."
"Ah, an idealist. I had such dreams once upon a time. Anyway, don't let my cynicism discourage you. I hope you'll be happy here. The last guy took off without an explanation. We weren't what he was looking for, I guess."
"I wouldn't do that. I'd at least give proper notice."
Chuck laughed and went back to his computer.
The hours passed quickly. Brandon learned all about sorting the mail, though in fairness it wasn't exactly difficult. Outside the windows of the lobby, which he glanced up at now and again, the parking lot grew dark and gloomy as another crisp fall afternoon slowly came to an end.
Just before quitting time, he heard tires rumble into the gravel lot. Looking up, he saw a silhouetted figure get out of a black sports car and walk toward the lobby entrance. A moment later, he stepped up to the window.
Instinctively, Brandon glanced into the newsroom to ask if he should deal with the late customer himself or if David or Chuck wanted to do it, but both of them seemed to have disappeared. When Brandon looked back at the service window, he was glad they had.
To say the guy standing there was attractive would have been the understatement of the decade. Dark-haired and dark-eyed, he wore a black leather coat and gloves with silver snaps at the wrists. After tapping once, he rested his long fingers on the glass while he waited for Brandon to walk over.
"I've come to place an ad," he said. While Brandon watched, he reached inside his coat, withdrew a sheet of paper neatly folded into thirds, and slid it through a slot in the partition. When Brandon unfolded it, he found a quantity of cash tucked inside. "That should cover the first issue. If my initial foray proves unsuccessful, I will return and renew it."
"Most people mail this kind of stuff in," Brandon said, placing the cash on the counter and scanning the contents of the ad. As he'd suspected, it was for the personals column. What he couldn't have predicted was the content. He gaped, open-mouthed, while his customer waited patiently for him to look up again.
"I don't trust the mail," he continued when Brandon raised his head. "I tried to submit the same ad once before, but it apparently got lost before it could actually be published. Do you know what I mean?"
Was he implying someone at the paper had deliberately lost it? Still, maybe there was a reason for that. Glancing down, Brandon perused the text again to be sure he hadn't been hallucinating.
No—no mistake. Single Vampire Seeks Consort, he read. Must be comfortable with vampire lore and lifestyle and willing to indulge in safe, consensual bloodletting sessions.
Brandon cleared his throat. "Well, to be honest, I don't know if…" he began, but he never had to finish his sentence. When he looked up at the window, the guy was gone. The cash and the ad remained, which was a good thing, or else he would have begun to question his sanity. He could almost hear creepy soundtrack music ringing inside his head.
Fortunately, Chuck and David chose that moment to stroll out of David's office with their coats over their arms.
"What happened to you?" Chuck asked, seeing Brandon's stunned expression. "Did you just see a ghost back there?"
"Pretty close," Brandon muttered. He didn't object when Chuck approached and took the unfolded sheet of paper from his hand. A smile crossed his face as he read it and then handed it to David, who laughed out loud.
"Is that… you know, is that all right to print?" Brandon asked, feeling stupid and naïve. "I mean… I've never seen anything quite like it."
"Oh, we get all kinds," David reassured him. "Nothing illegal about it. It's really up to Everett, but my opinion would be that we should go ahead and run it."
"A little controversy never hurt a paper like this one," Chuck pointed out. "If it gains us a few new readers, even outraged ones, that's all to the good."
"It's probably not that controversial in today's world," David said. "Just some lonely guy role-playing. I wouldn't worry about it. What they do in the privacy of their own bedrooms doesn't concern us as long as he pays the monthly fee."
"He left it in cash." Brandon duly handed the bills over.
"Ah. Anonymity. Probably the safest thing for a vampire," Chuck said, starting to laugh again. "You never know if some budding Van Helsing is reading the man-to-man personals on the sly."
They were still chortling as they walked out to the parking lot with Brandon and got into their cars while he climbed onto his bike. He was so absorbed in thinking about the ad—and the man who had dropped it off—that he barely felt the chilly air whipping around him as he pedaled down the dingy city streets toward his equally dingy apartment house. Of course, he'd assumed the Rainbow Rag took kinky ads, like all of them did nowadays, but guys claiming to be vampires, looking for people to donate blood for them to drink? The entire concept shocked and unnerved him, so much that he found himself glancing over his shoulder as he unlocked the front door to his house.
At the same time, he felt intrigued by the idea of surrendering his body and his blood. Giving himself utterly and completely to the man who had dropped off the ad turned him on more than he cared to admit. A bond like that, whether the guy was really a vampire or was just pretending to be one, would go way beyond any casual hookup or experimental blind date. It was like something out of a weird novel or a horror movie… and yet, on some level at least, the whole bizarre scenario was real. There really was a guy out there in the city waiting for someone to answer his a
d and offer his blood.
Brandon fell asleep thinking about just who that someone might turn out to be.
*~*~*
The following day, Brandon finally got a chance to meet the mysterious Everett, who turned out to be a thin, fifty-something man with a silver crew cut, a gold pince-nez, and a sarcastic attitude. As predicted, he gave Brandon not only complete instructions on how to organize and distribute the responses to the various personal ads that came through the mail, but a lecture on not interfering with or intercepting any of the letters.
"It's not our place to help them find romance or—heaven forbid—offer it to them ourselves," he insisted, rolling his eyes toward the ceiling at the absurdity of the very idea. "The respondents send their letters in two envelopes. I want you to do nothing more than open the outside one, read the number on the front of the inside one, and put it in the appropriate cubby. If they've paid for mail forwarding, that's what we do. If they're picking them up in person, we hand them over without comment. And under no circumstances are you to compose your own response and stick it in the pile. I'll find out if you do, and the result won't be pretty. You got that?"
"Yes, sir," Brandon said a bit morosely. He wondered if his predecessor had left so suddenly because he had dared to flout Everett's rules.
"Oh, heavens, don't call me 'sir.' You make me feel a hundred years old!" Everett pressed the back of his hand to his forehead in a theatrical gesture of despair. "Anyhow, I'm sure you don't need to comb newspaper ads to find a fellow for yourself. You probably have them lining up for dates all weekend. Off with you, then, and get back to work!"
Though Brandon was relieved to get away from Everett and his domineering manner, he returned to the mailroom in dejection. Of course, he hadn't seriously entertained the prospect of answering the vampire ad himself, but for some reason, being expressly forbidden to do so only made him more curious. How did one offer his blood to another man in writing, anyway? What would be the right tone, the right words? Would a vampire prefer humor, deference, or an attitude of fear and subservience?
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