by Kitty Thomas
I’m sure the dream is a memory. “Pray I don’t love you, Juliette.” The voice calls out to me from the void, like God. I turn it over in my head. What does it mean? What the hell happened to me?
Each night a new piece comes in the puzzle, but I can’t seem to link them in any meaningful way. They’re all a jumble, each night offering a contrast in terror and bliss.
Wednesday morning I wake with a piece: strange music. The music makes me inexplicably horny even though there is nothing in the nature of it that would suggest sex. I masturbate three times trying to tamp down the feeling.
Thursday morning another piece falls into place: A strangely illuminated room with urns. Names. Dates. A black book. One hundred women. That fact shines out the brightest. I have no idea what it means.
Friday morning I see a club, only most of the patrons aren’t normal. They have glowing red eyes and fangs. I’m frightened by the images, but beginning to doubt any of these things are memories. They can’t be. Music that makes you horny? A strange lover I can’t remember? Fangs? I don’t believe in vampires. No one who isn’t a permanent resident of a mental ward believes in vampires.
Saturday morning rolls around and I’m beginning to long for the void dreams. This time I see a prostitute murdered brutally in front of me, but I can’t see her killer. The last thing I see before I wake up is her body kicked out of a limousine into a gutter. I’m cracking up. I’ve gone crazy. I must have. None of this makes sense. I can’t imagine a situation in which any of this can be real.
Sunday morning as I sleep, burning pain sears my back as a knife slices through it. The pain is followed by the certain feeling I’m going to die. Upon awakening I’m afraid to ever sleep again. I get up and rush to the mirror. Even though doctors said I had no marks or scars, I know something like that would scar. It felt too deep. It happened over and over. I lift my shirt and look in the mirror, but there is nothing there but my back, smooth and free of scars just like the doctors said.
My gaze darts to the window. I’m unsettled by the sudden impression of someone watching me. I know it’s insane and paranoid, but I can’t get rid of the creepy feeling. I shut the blinds and call mom at the bakery to tell her I can’t come in. I can’t go out there. A few days pass without incident. I think the dreams are gone, though I still have trouble making myself go to work before the sun has risen.
I can’t explain why I feel as if nothing can touch me in the sunlight, but the strange feeling persists, giving rise to fear as I go to work, and calmness at most other times when the sun is shining.
Wednesday morning changes everything. This time in the dream I see him. A glimpse of his face triggers everything. “Christian.”
Memories come flooding back, reassembling into their proper order as if nothing was ever taken from my mind.
He must have been outside my window the night I looked at my back. I felt him through the connection I’d forgotten. Does he know I remember? Will he try to make me forget again? He can’t if I don’t let him. Seeing how impossible it is to move on with my life, with or without clear memory of him, it’s not something I’m prepared to let him do again.
I keep my blinds shut and don’t venture out at night anymore. I ask my mother for a different job, one where I don’t have to get up so early. She finally agrees, worrying that perhaps something bad did happen to me, and I’m justifiably afraid of being out in the middle of the night.
I don’t want to risk running into Christian. He’ll try to convince me to let him try again, and I just can’t let him. I know it pains him, but it can’t be helped. Time can’t be rewound carefully back onto its spool as if nothing ever happened.
I feel as if I’m stuck in the worst of all worlds. I can’t go back to Christian even though I know where his home is. I could show up on his doorstep, but I’m sure it won’t do any good. He was so determined to get rid of me. Everyone I know except my parents keep their distance because they think I’m a liar. I don’t have any scars as proof of my captivity. I have no battle wounds I can point to that will make them feel pity and pat me on the arm to reassure me time will heal.
Time heals nothing. I can’t live like this. I become increasingly despondent and detached. I know what I’m about to do is beyond selfish. I know it will hurt Christian, but he’s immortal. He’ll find some way to move past it, but I can’t. I’m only human, and I can’t be expected to carry this anymore.
I’m also angry at him. I’m angry he’s thrown me away, that he took me to begin with, that we’ve had to play out this tragedy on the world’s stage. I’m determined to play my role, ensuring a satisfying tragedy rather than a mildly sad tale.
I go through several variations of a suicide note. One for my family. One for Christian. The one for my family is surprisingly easy. Guilt rips at me for leaving them, for leaving all of them, both my family and Christian, but I can’t live without him. And I can’t live with him. So I simply can’t live. Christian knows deep down. He has to. He’ll understand some day.
The note for Christian takes forever. I go through so many note cards, I fear I’ll have to stop off at the stationery store again, but finally, I end up with the right message. The only message. I seal the envelope and drive to his house.
I don’t worry about being caught because it’s still daylight and he can’t come out. He can’t stop me. If I time things right, he won’t be able to stop me once the sun sets because I’ll already be on another plane of existence, out of his reach. And anyway, he won’t be able to come inside. I never invited him in.
I drop the square cream-colored envelope through the mail slot in his front door. I hear the paper hit the floor. I know now that some of my senses have become permanently heightened over time, the result of so much of his blood inside me. It’s why I heard the doctor’s whispered words that night at the hospital.
When I arrive at my apartment, I lock the door and run bath water. I stare for a long time at the straight-edge razor sitting on the edge of the tub, then I slide it across my wrist, trying not to think too hard about what I’ve just done.
~ CHRISTIAN ~
It has required every ounce of my self-control not to take Juliette again. I can’t stay away from her. I hover outside her window each night as she gets ready for work. I tell myself I’m ensuring she arrives safely, that another predator doesn’t get her, but I’m stalking prey. It’s only a matter of time before I take her again. I should have abandoned my home and moved to Tampa to put much-needed distance between us.
I worry she’s remembering. As I watched her look at her back in the full-length mirror in her room, I tried to convince myself she was inspecting a mosquito bite, but when she looked in my direction and then closed her blinds, I knew.
I knew her mind was too strong, that no amount of suggestion would hold her for long.
I doubt she saw me, but she must sense me. I can’t read her thoughts anymore, of course, but I can still sense her emotions if I’m near enough. Thankfully, I can’t feel her from my house.
Soon after that night, she stopped going to work and though I’ve hovered outside, she hasn’t come out again. I could go inside. She wouldn’t be able to stop me. A blood bond like ours revokes the traditional rules to gain entrance. I’m inside her and she’s inside me. We are far beyond the formality of an invitation.
But I remain in the darkness because if I cross her threshold, I will take her back. To hell with the consequences. I don’t want her dead, but I can’t maintain this self-control forever. No other human is my Juliette. I’ve tasted thousands and fucked just as many. It’s all empty and meaningless. I miss her so much.
I get dressed, determined to go to the club and find some willing fuck toy to distract me when I notice the envelope on the rug in the foyer. The outside is blank, but I know it’s from her. I can smell her scent all over it. I slit it open with the letter opener on the desk and pull out the crisp, thick card.
A single sentiment glares back at me in blood red ink.
“101”.
My blood runs cold. I’m irrationally angry. How dare she take matters into her own hands and kill herself? How DARE she take herself out of my reach? My love for her fades into the background, and the only thing I feel is raw possession.
Whatever human emotions have sublimated my animal nature, they are gone now, replaced by the certainty of my continued ownership of her. She is MINE. She will be mine until I say otherwise. She will be mine until I kill her. No one and nothing but me will take her out, including her own hand.
I’m out the door, blurring toward her apartment. I don’t bother with a car because this way is faster. Underneath my rage, pain and fear clamp down on my heart. What if she’s gone? What if it’s too late to save her?
I don’t know what I’ll do with her if I save her. I may just turn around and kill her again if I can’t keep the angry beast in his cage.
I smell her blood now. The deadbolt doesn’t stop me. I kick the door in and it splinters. Her blood pulls me down the hallway, and I have to push away the blood lust to remember why I’m here: to save her, so I can punish her for daring to leave the world I gifted her with.
Seeing her in the tub, lifeless, the water turned dark by her blood, stops me. The anger drains out, replaced by anguish.
“Juliette, no.” My whisper feels loud enough to draw neighbors. I haven’t stopped to consider what I’ll do when someone shows up to find her front door in a hundred pieces. Right now I don’t care how much carnage I leave for others to find. She’s gone.
I pull her out of the water, cradling her in my arms. I don’t care about my Armani. She’s not breathing. Her heart isn’t beating. I don’t know how long she’s been dead, but it’s too late. It doesn’t matter; I have to try. I sink my fangs in her throat and drink.
The blood still tastes fresh. I try not to let myself hope this means anything. Just because it’s fresh doesn’t mean I made it soon enough. I’m angry again. I want to snap her in two for this, but if she’s dead, there’s no point in such a display.
She hasn’t left much blood for me, most of it is in the tub, too diluted to drink. I rip into my wrist and pry her mouth open, forcing the blood down her throat. I heal too fast, and I have to re-open the wound multiple times. Minutes pass, and I know this is pointless. I was stupid to release her. She was going to die anyway, so it should have been in my arms. Not like this. Not alone in a tub meant to numb out the experience. It should have been me.
I begin to pull my wrist away, but I freeze, barely breathing. Her throat just moved.
“Yes, pet. Come back. Drink.”
A few moments pass and her mouth latches on, actively drawing the blood out. I stroke her hair as she drinks, my anger gone. I allow her to drink for what seems like forever. I want to make sure she has enough for her change. The more blood she has, the less pain she’ll experience when she crosses over, and the stronger our connection will be.
She’s had all she can drink. She’ll sleep in a limbo while her body changes. I survey the apartment, trying to determine how to handle things. I turn over all the options. I could erase her parents’ memory of her and make it appear to everyone else that she’s moved away, but there is still the matter of the front door and the damage control for any witnesses.
In the end, it’s too much trouble to do anything at all. I take her home, leaving a mystery no one can ever solve because they can’t let their mind conceive of the possible truth. There is no going back for Juliette now, but either way, her family would have lost her, by her hand or my intercession.
I’m not sure why the idea of her family suffering bothers me, perhaps because she’s become an extension of me. Her pain is my pain and I know losing them forever will hurt her.
I keep her in my bed, comfortable until the change completes.
Finally, the day of her rising is here. My emotions have swung between two points while I’ve waited—gratitude she’s here, and anger that she forced my hand and in the process almost left for good.
Her eyes flutter open.
I want to beg forgiveness for losing control at her expense. The unspoken words taste like ashes in my mouth. For the moment we can only ride the drugged-out high of being in each other’s presence, the crisp possibility of eternity stretched before us.
“Welcome to Hell, little one.”
Despite my cruel taunt, a peace drifts over her face and she smiles up at me. She knows she’s won. It doesn’t matter how hard things are or how bad they may be tomorrow or the next day. Looking into my eyes, she knows.
We’re forever.
If you enjoyed The Last Girl, you might also enjoy other titles by Kitty Thomas, but especially: Comfort Food and The Auction.
About the Author
Kitty Thomas writes dark literary erotica. Her stories explore the psychology of ownership. This work is fiction and meant for an adult audience. The author does not endorse or condone any of the behavior carried out by characters in her stories.
Inspiration for Kitty’s work comes from many sources including Story of O, Nine and a Half Weeks, and the work of Claudia D. Christian.
For updates on new releases, please subscribe to Kitty's newsletter via the contact form at her site: www.kittythomas.com