by R. M. Webb
I suddenly feel small and young and unprepared. But those feelings will do me no good right now, so I brush them aside and take a seat when it’s offered to me. The meeting goes by in a blur of conversation, but I can tell each question they ask me is carefully crafted to help me realize that I am, in fact, young and unprepared. They’ve sized me up and found me to be too small. A girl playing dress up, teetering around in her momma’s high heels.
The meeting ends with placating smiles and gentle handshakes. They promise to discuss it amongst themselves and get back to me, but I can tell they’ve already decided against me. I sling my bag over my shoulder and pick up the completely untouched box of cupcakes. I’m not a crier, but I can feel tears burning in my eyes and I want out before they fall.
OK. I take that back. I’m very much a crier. They’re hardwired into every negative emotion I feel and even some of the positive ones. I hate it. The tears make me look weak and I’m not weak. In this instance, they’ll only make me look like the little, unprepared girl these haughty business people in their pointy shoes and pointy suits and pointy attitudes think I am. I bite down on the inside of my lip. Hard. Focus on the pain while I swallow.
I manage to get out of the conference room and then out of the building with a silly little grin painted across my face even though that super critical bitch that lives in my head is busy pointing out all the things that went wrong today. I should have worn something more professional. I should have picked out my clothes yesterday. I should have left enough time to get my cupcakes out of the oven before getting dressed. I shouldn’t have gotten out of the cab. I shouldn’t have taken the vampire’s money and I shouldn’t have gone to the bakery he pointed out.
Whatever. It’s over now. My dreams are truly smoldering, just like the ruined things I plonked down on the stove this morning. What a bad day.
I walk the rest of the way home, wrapped up in a swirl of what-nows, the logo on the bakery box laughing at me the whole time. I’m not two feet in the door when my phone starts buzzing in my purse. I know without a doubt it’s Mia. I answer it and walk her through the whole awful day, glossing over the part where I stopped at the bakery. That was just weird. Unnervingly so.
“Oh, sweetie. I’ll be there before you have time to get into your pj’s.” Mia’s voice is as golden as her hair, as light as her smile, as welcome as anything I can think of at this point in time. We say our goodbyes and I drop the pink bakery box on my kitchen counter before I trudge up the stairs to change. Why do I still have those cupcakes? Why didn’t I throw them away as soon as I left the building? Mia’s as good as her word, stepping through my door as I pull a tank top over my head. She hasn’t had to knock for years. If it’s unlocked, she’s welcome. Hell, if it is locked, she has a key.
“I’ll be right there,” I call down to her, taking a minute to pull my hair back before I follow my voice down the stairs. She’s standing just inside the closed door, a bottle of wine in each hand and a sweet smile on her face.
“You must have been waiting at your door for me to get home.”
“Saw you through the window. It’s how I knew to call.” She leans her head against my shoulder and kind of nuzzles in. It’s the strangest little show of affection and she saves it just for me.
We curl up on the couch, her tucked into one corner and me tucked into the other, and drink too much wine too quickly. We chat about nothing. The weather. The hot guy down at the coffee shop. The obnoxious old lady with her stinky birds three doors down. I need time to digest the day before I can talk about it. Of course, Mia knows and is doing her best to avoid any topic that could lead us to what happened until I’m ready.
When we run out of subjects, silence sits between us. It’s an easy silence, a comfortable one, but Mia’s never been very good with alcohol and the few glasses of wine she’s had make her eager to offer her shoulder for me to cry on. She’s going to ask all those questions I keep asking myself. What are you going to do? Are you going to have to get a job? Are you going to keep trying for the bakery?
What now, Rachel? What now?
I’m not ready to hear those words out loud because I don’t have an answer and that terrifies me. I don’t know what now. I don’t know what I’m going to do. There’s no way I can admit that to her, watch her gentle face crumble with worry. So, as she opens her mouth, takes that tiny little hesitant breath that will become one of the dreaded questions, I blurt out the one thing I know will derail her.
“I think the guy I ran into was a vampire.”
The wine has slowed down her thought process and I get to watch her emotions happen in real time as they parade across her face. First there’s frustration at having been interrupted. Then there’s confusion as she processes what I’ve said. Understanding gives way almost immediately to horror. Fear dances with concern and morphs into some strange form of indignation.
“Rachel!” Her eyes are wide. Her mouth open. Her free hand flutters up to rest against her collarbone. “Why didn’t you tell me? Are you OK? What did he look like?” Each question seems to want out of her mouth at the same time. I can’t help but smile and Mia pauses, caught off guard by my reaction. “Wait. Are you joking with me?”
Maybe I should tell her I was joking and be done with it because having this conversation with her might just be as painful as having the other conversation with her. Just the tiniest of what-nows flits through my mind, reminding me that the vampire conversation is, in fact, hundreds of times easier than the ‘what am I going to do with my life’ conversation.
“No. I’m not joking. I really think he was a vampire.”
Mia explodes off the couch and starts pacing the length of my apartment, from the door through the living area, into the dining area. It’s all just one big box with one little wall separating the kitchen from the rest of the place. I set my wine glass down on the coffee table as I stand to catch her by the shoulders.
“Mia.” I look straight into her eyes. “I’m ok. It’s ok. Relax.” Good advice. I’ll use it on myself the next time I start to wonder about the rest of my life.
“I just knew this would happen!” Mia is trembling like a new leaf in late winter snowstorm.
“Sweetie, nothing happened.” Using a gentle grip on her shoulders, I guide her back to the couch and tuck her into her corner. She clutches a pillow to her lap and rather than folding myself back into my end of the couch, I perch on the cushion next to her and search her eyes. I know my Mia is hiding somewhere in this terrified girl in front of me. “I’m ok. What’s got you so upset?”
Apparently, that was the wrong question. “What’s got me so upset? Rachel! There are vampires … running loose ... in the city!” She emphasizes every few words, pausing between them as if she thinks I’m an idiot and she’s sure I’m not quite catching her drift. “Vampires that will kill us! Vampires that want to eat us! We’re just weak little nothings to them …” Her voice catches and she trails off. I had no idea her fear ran this deep.
“Mia.” Somehow I feel like if I just keep saying her name, she’ll come back to me. I don’t know this terrified version of my friend. I want the golden haired, sweet little thing to come back. The only thing I can think to say is the same thing I always say. “We’ve lived twenty-one years with vampires running loose in the city and we’ve never had trouble yet.”
The familiarity of the statement does seem to settle Mia down just a touch. “But this might be the beginning of the trouble.” Her physical reaction reveals just how deeply her fear runs. The blood’s drained from her face. Her knuckles have gone white from being balled into tight little fists against the pillow. Even though she’s stilled, she still looks like she’s vibrating with energy, her entire form trembling where she sits.
“What has you so afraid?”
She doesn’t have a good answer to my question. She fears their superiority. She fears being the prey. She fears having been hunted all her life and never having known. She fears being alone, without a single o
ther person in her life to come to her rescue if she needs it. Mia’s an island. Abandoned by family through death and distance.
“But you’ve got me,” I remind her when her voice hitches.
She smiles, relief evident in the way the corners of her eyes crinkle. “I know.” Her cheeks flush with color again and her hands unclench around the pillow. “I wish I was strong like you. I feel so weak. So out of control. I hate it.” If only she’d seen the tears burning my eyes as I left my meeting, she wouldn’t think me strong or in control. But that moment was mine and mine alone and I wouldn’t admit it if she begged me.
I sidestep the issue. “If I tell you about him, will that make you more afraid?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice is drenched in uncertainty, but her eyes sparkle with curiosity. I tell her how strikingly good looking he was. I talk about his white hair and his white skin and his gray eyes. “He’s like an ice sculpture,” I say as I think about how he reminded me of a statue deserving a pedestal in a museum for people to study and appreciate. I tell her about the kiss on my hand and his insistence that I buy more cupcakes, his honest desire to make amends for ruining the ones I carried.
“What a gentleman,” she breathes, her fear forgotten as she wraps herself up in the romance of the encounter. The romance I’m being extra sure to highlight. I very carefully omit the fact that I didn’t go to the bakery out of choice, that it felt like, in fact, I had no choice but to obey his order. Her fear is just now subsiding, I don’t want to fan its flames.
I finish my story and Mia is completely calm. We chat a bit longer, our wine forgotten, both of us artfully dodging conversational landmines. She avoids all the ‘what now’ questions and I avoid any more talk about vampires. It’s one in the morning when she gets up, covering up a yawn with the back of her hand, and after a big hug, walks the few feet across the courtyard that takes her home.
I spring into action as soon as the door is closed and the chain is drawn, brewing a pot of coffee and sitting down at the table with a pen and paper. Now that I’m alone, it’s finally time to consider all the what-nows - all the things that I couldn’t bring myself to talk about with Mia. She’s got enough to worry about without adding my uncertain future to her list. I’m in the middle of scrawling notes on my budget - picking through the remains of the red velvet cupcake - when two precise knocks sound on my front door. I jump and cry out, my pen streaking across the paper. A quick scan of the apartment shows me the wine bottles Mia brought still out on the coffee table. Why would she have come back for those?
Just in case it isn’t Mia, I leave the chain on the door and pull it open just a crack, just enough to see who’s on the other side. I swear my heart stops. Twenty-one years without running into a vampire, without running into trouble. And now one’s standing on my doorstep.
Maybe Mia was right. Maybe this was just the beginning of trouble.
Chapter 3
“How did you find me?” He mouths the words right along with me, his lips moving in time with mine. Suddenly, Mia’s fear doesn’t seem so out of place. My heart is skidding around in my chest, which is heaving with breath I can’t quite seem to catch. The vampire - there’s no doubt that’s what he is - breaths in, his nostril flaring, almost as if he’s scenting the air. Maybe he’s scenting me. I think of all those awful clichés from all those silly books, the lion and the lamb, the predator and the prey, the hawk circling the mouse. Suddenly, those analogies don’t feel so trite anymore.
That little cloud of confusion that ended up with me wasting time in someone else’s bakery worms its way into my thoughts again. “Please open the door and let me in.” His voice is stone and snow and the most important thing in the world.
I close the door and without a moment of hesitation, undo the chain and let the vampire into my home. That little flare of fear is gone and I’m fascinated by him. The perfect planes of his face. His long fingers. The strong straight shoulders that had hunched protectively over my hand while he pressed a kiss to my skin with his cold lips earlier this evening. I step closer.
He doesn’t wait for permission. He doesn’t even say a word. He sweeps me into his arms and I think, for just the tiniest fraction of a second, that he’s going to kiss me. I lean into him, molding my soft body against his hard, muscular one. I tilt my lips to meet his.
But he doesn’t kiss me. His mouth zooms past mine, his lips pulling back away from his teeth. His long, very white, very sharp teeth. And then he bites down into the soft flesh just below my jaw line. The pain is pointed and for some reason I think of that woman I met today, with her pointy shoes and pointy words. And then the vampire begins to drink. He sucks on my neck, drawing the blood out of me and I don’t have room left in my head to think about such trivial things as meetings and money and what-nows.
What are you going to do with your life, Rachel?
I don’t know. I think I won’t have to worry about that anymore.
My body goes cold and still and the room spins crazily around me. Tiny flashes of light careen through my vision only to give way to an ever darkening mist through which I view my world now. Strong arms hold me tight, anchoring me to my body even though I think it might feel so good to leave it all behind.
So this is how I’m going to die. After twenty-one years of vampires running loose in the city, of never causing me any trouble, I’m going to die in a vampire’s arms. Poor Mia. She’ll never be the same after this. She’ll probably devote herself to that awful church with that awful leader and spend the rest of her life hiding.
There’s a breath. I think it’s mine. My final one. My eyes are closed and everything is cold and warm and peaceful and I’m scared beyond explanation. I’m everything and I’m nothing and there’s an awful sensation of dropping, of falling slowly, no choice, no control. I want the release of letting go and I want to stay. I’m caught between desires.
There’s pressure against my mouth and something decidedly warm and sticky runs down both of my cheeks and tickles as it passes my jawline and catches in my hair. It feels like liquid fire running across my cool skin. For some reason, I part my lips and the viscous stuff fills my mouth and I swallow. The taste is coppery and tangy and somehow I feel like I can taste cold wind ripping through mountains and snow as it zips through trees.
It chases away the downward spiral of death and instead of the indecision of moments ago, I’m filled with one desire. Live. Drink and live and don’t let go. My eyes fly open. I’m lying on my apartment floor with the vampire’s bleeding wrist pressed to my mouth.
Dear God, I’m drinking his blood! It’s his blood in my mouth. And in my hair. And staining my cheeks and probably the carpet beneath me. And it’s the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to me.
I don’t ever want this to stop.
My hands fly up to his wrist and press it hard against my lips in case he tries to pull it away, to remove the source of sustenance and life and light and sound. It’s like being drunk and yet my mind is clear. More clear than I think it’s ever been. If this is what life has to offer, then I’ve never truly been alive.
“What’s your name?” The vampire’s words surprise me, all wrapped up in his musical voice, strong and deep, like the sound of rock in the mountain.
“Rachel.” And if his voice was strong and deep, then mine is warm and golden. Not golden like Mia’s, like sweetness and sunshine. Mine is golden like warm brown and mahogany. It’s the color of whisky in a glass, swirled and savored.
“You’ll feel different for a few days, Rachel.” It’s like his words are glinting in the air between us. I just want to touch them. “But it will fade. If tonight scared you, forget it. If it thrilled you, remember it in detail, but never, under any circumstances, tell anyone about it, even when you dream. Understand?”
I nod my understanding, a smile starting in my heart and working its way to my face. “Will I see you again?” I just want to hear his voice again.
He untangles himself from me a
nd stands, reaching down to help to my feet. The feeling of his hands on mine is everything I hoped it would be, cold and strong and I want to run my fingers up his arms to his shoulders, to wrap myself up in him and smell the skin at his collarbones. I wonder. Would I smell the mountains, the way I heard them and tasted them? Stone and snow and sky?
He kisses my hand and there’s too much goodbye in the gesture. I want to beg him to stay with me, but before I can open my mouth to speak, I’m standing alone in my apartment. I smell the wine in my sink and the flour still on my counter in the kitchen.
My feet follow the scent almost of their own volition, my nostrils flaring as they take in flour and coffee and wine and the sickly sweet smell of frosting. The flour almost twinkles at me, each speck of the small white grain standing out vibrant and proud against the dated countertops and wood-colored laminate floor. I smear my hand through the mess, entranced.
And then there’s the tin filled with burnt cupcakes, left where they clattered onto the stove all those hours ago. If I’d believed in signs, I’d have thought it was a very bad one indeed. Isn’t that what I’d thought to myself as I pulled them all smoldering and ruined from the oven? So what does that mean about the day? About the night? About what just happened to me?
If tonight scared you, forget it.
Am I scared?
Hell no. I’m thrilled. I’m energized. I won’t forget this night for the rest of my life. My lips clench tight around the thought. I won’t tell anyone. I can’t. I couldn’t if I wanted to, somehow I know that, just like the way I bought more cupcakes even though I knew it’d be a waste of my precious time, no words would come if I decided to tell anyone about what happened to me here tonight.