by R. M. Webb
But I don’t want to tell. This is my secret and mine alone.
I wander back into the living room. There’s a big bloodstain soaking into the carpet. So much for my security deposit.
I throw my head back and laugh and the sound twinkles in the corners of the room, falling to the floor like glitter. Oh, yes. I’ll remember this night. I fill a bucket with soapy water and smile a lunatic’s smile as I study the rainbow captured by the bubbles that congregate on the water’s surface. The stain fades from a deep maroon to a faint pink as I scrub and scrub, filling bucket upon bucket as the water goes from clear to red when I wring out my rags.
Meanwhile, I’m aware that I never got his name. When I think of him, when I remember his voice and his eyes and his hair and the way his strong body pushed against mine and made me feel both vulnerable and protected at the same time, I can only use the word him or vampire. I don’t have a name to let echo through my mind, to attach to my lips and whisper when I’m alone.
I replay the way the city lights shone in his hair earlier this evening. The way his shoulders sought to shield my hand from the rest of the world as he bent to kiss it before sending me on my way to the bakery down the street. And again, just now, the way his lips felt both cold and surprisingly soft - something that cold should be hard. Not supple. Unyielding. Not pliant.
Will I see you again?
I smile, remembering the way my voice sounded wrapped up in those words and lose myself in daydreams of the next time his hand is on mine. The next time I press my body to his. I’ll ask him his name and why I hear the mountains in his voice and taste it in his blood.
I freeze. My hands pause over the bucket, pink drops of water falling from the rag. Little plinks of sound echoing up at me as they hit the water in the bucket, causing tiny ripples to undulate out away from the point of impact. I take all this in while I realize that I may never see him again.
I asked and he didn’t answer.
He simply kissed my hand and left, admonishing me never to tell anyone about him. Well that just proves how much he has to learn about me. I’ll be quiet. I won’t tell a soul about what happened tonight. But I won’t accept never getting to see him again. Never getting a name to whisper to myself at night. Never getting a chance to feel like this again, alive for the first time, outside all that’s normal and expected.
I’ll find him. There’s no doubt in my mind that I’ll find him. Surely, his mind is as wrapped around me as mine is wrapped around him. He’ll be back. But if he isn’t, I’ll seek him out.
The pink spot on the carpet isn’t getting any lighter, but the sky is. There’s the faint glow of breaking dawn shining through the slats of my blinds. I feel amazing. Rested. Not like someone whose dreams were crushed just yesterday, someone who spent the entire night awake.
My budget is scattered all over the table. Those papers are filled with desperation and heartache. No bakery for me. Just a lifetime of temp jobs and corporate work stretching out in front of me. I’ve known it my whole life, I’m just not made for that kind of stuff. The day to day grind, the worry and the stress of making ends meet. An idea starts to form and I can’t quite look at it yet. But it makes me smile in the same way owning my own bakery makes me smile. It’s an idea that speaks of freedom. Rising above the tedium of everyday life so I can experience it to the fullest, the way we’re supposed to live, outside of all the bullshit of being a cog in a wheel.
The clock on my microwave tells me it’s seven in the morning. If the temp agency has a job for me, they’ll be calling soon. Something tells me they won’t be calling today. That’ll make a whole week without an income. My heart does that funny little stutter it always does when I think about being a college graduate without a job in sight and I dismiss the worries that follow close, pushing their way into my head. I’ve been given a gift and I’m going to take advantage of it. What did he say last night? I’ll feel different for a few days? Well if I only have a few days of feeling this amazing, then I’m going to take capitalize on each and every day I have left.
And if my vampire doesn’t materialize on my front doorstep again, then I’m going to hunt him down myself. And when I find him I’m going to ask him to make me a vampire, too.
Chapter 4
When I slide all the papers I’d worked on last night into a tidy stack on my table, giving them a light tap to help line them up, it’s like I can feel all the worry I poured into them. There’s like a prickly gray aura of discomfort that surrounds them.
It’s really not like me to step out into the wide world without a plan, but that’s what I fully intend to do, at least for the next couple days. The budget can wait. Nothing’s going to change drastically if I don’t sit down right now and hammer out my what-nows. I still won’t have my dream job. Money will still be tight. My bills will still hang like a heavy rock on my back. Besides, if I can find that vampire and somehow manage to talk him into … what’s the word? Turning me? Well, after that, I won’t even need to worry about that kind of stuff. The thought of a vampire holding down a day job is just plain ridiculous. Right?
It’s eight o’clock and the temp agency hasn’t called. Despite my ever shrinking bank accounts, I’m kind of relieved - not super sure I could handle myself at all today. Every little thing distracts me. Even the cheap wood of my table captures my attention as I chase down a pattern in the painted grain.
My tummy rumbles, reminding me that regardless of the life changing events of last night, I’m still quite human and have had nothing but some wine, coffee, and a red velvet cupcake in the last fourteen hours or so. I step into my disaster of a kitchen, the remains of yesterday’s baked goods explosion still coating just about every imaginable surface, and lose myself in the process of cooking breakfast.
There’s the sizzle of sausage and cracking and tearing of releasing eggs from their shell. There’s the whisk against a bowl, a rhythmic tsk, tsk, tsk as I stir the pancake batter. There’s the clink and clatter of utensils mixing with the song I hum and the pad of my bare feet against the floor. Light streams through my windows, leaving long bright spots on the carpet of my living room. If yesterday was hurried and stressed and filled with everything that could possibly be wrong, then today is the polar opposite. I’m happy. Fulfilled in the simple pleasure of preparing food and watching the sun illuminate the world.
When I’m done, I realize there’s no way I can work my way through the feast in front of me, no matter how hungry I think I am. I cooked enough for at least three of me. I think Mia’s off today. She works awful shifts at the hospital. Impossibly long hours followed by a handful of days off. Pausing only to wrap a scarf around my throat, I dart through my door and across the courtyard in my pj’s and bare feet. The grass tickles my ankles and the sun tangles in my hair, warming my shoulders despite my breath hovering in front of my face in frozen puffs.
Mia opens her door, wiping sleep from her tired face, squinting out into the bright morning. “What are you doing?” Her sweet voice is gravelly from having just woken. Her eyes focus and she takes in my pj’s and bare feet, the scarf wound tight as if it made up for my bare shoulders. “For real,” she says with more concern than before. “What are you doing?”
“Come with me.” I grab her arm and pull her out the door.
She resists, calling my name, asking me to stop. “What’s wrong with you?” Concern has taken root in her voice. I stop pulling and smile brightly.
“I made us breakfast.”
Goosebumps are showing up on my arms and I shiver. It feels amazing. Mia scrunches up her face, clearly not sure if I’ve come unhinged or not. “Come on,” I say. “It’s getting cold.”
“The breakfast or your feet?” she asks as she slips on a pair of shoes and slides a robe over her shoulders.
My smile widens. “Both.”
We fly across the courtyard, hair and scarf and bathrobe streaming behind us. We’re like children at a slumber party, pretending to be super heroes. I feel the eyes o
f the crazy bird lady on us and am tempted to wave but resist the urge. She’ll have enough gossip ammunition with the current state of things without me adding to it.
My apartment smells amazing and Mia perks up as she downs her breakfast, little moans of appreciation all the compliment I need. “This is way better than the cold cereal I was gonna have.”
“Good. I’m glad.”
We chat about little things again, avoiding the big topics. I know Mia’s seen the stack of papers on the corner of the table and she has to know that I’m trying to work things out. Sorting through all the what-nows and coming up with that’s-whats.
“You know,” she says after we’ve cleaned up my kitchen and moved to the living room to work on our coffee. “I was thinking about you last night.”
She can’t make eye contact with me and I’m suddenly terrified of whatever is going to come out of her mouth next. “Oh ya?”
She kind of half laughs half coughs and I know for sure I’m not going to like what she says. “Ya. I was thinking,” her eyes bounce to mine and take in my wary expression. She sighs. “I was thinking that maybe you should call Max.”
“Mia!” I sigh heavily and plonk my mug onto the coffee table. “I’ve moved on from him. So should you.”
“But Rachel. He was good for you. He took good care of you. And he loved you. You know he did. He asked you to marry him …” My look is scathing enough to make Mia stop talking.
“And that’s the problem. I don’t want to get married.”
“You didn’t have to leave him completely over it. You could have told him no or not now or maybe. He’d have waited for you.”
That’s the thing. The thing Mia will never understand. I don’t believe in love. Not a love that lasts all the way til death do us part. Inevitably, the love is unequal or someone falls out of love and there’s nothing but a whole lot of hurt waiting at the end. I’m better off on my own, relying only on myself.
“You know I’m not into the whole white picket fence, two kids and a dog kind of thing.” She’s heard me say it before, but she doesn’t believe it and I don’t think she ever will.
“What’s so wrong with that?” She’s pleading with me. Wrapped up in her own desire for the very thing I won’t touch with a ten foot pole.
“It’s a mirage. An illusion. Trusting someone is only going to end up with me getting hurt. Or me hurting them. It’s just messy. I’m better on my own.” I sigh. Doesn’t matter what I say, she and I will always disagree on this topic.
It’s like she reads my mind. “I’m never going to understand this part of you.”
“Probably not.”
She knows I’m never going to agree with her, but her plan has spent the whole night in her head and I couldn’t stop her from telling me about it if I tried. “Thing is, with your bakery idea out the window,” my face must look stricken because she hurries on. “At least for now. I know you’ll find a way to make things work.” Mia smiles and hunches over her coffee. “But right now, things are looking a little … uncertain for you.”
“And just how does Max fit into this?”
“He loves you. He’ll take care of you. He’ll make all the things that are uncertain … certain. You’ll be safe.” There’s something hiding in her eyes. She’s leaving something left unsaid.
“What you’re saying is that you want me to use him, to take advantage of his love for me, so that I don’t have to worry about how I’m going to pay my bills.”
Her eyes widen in horror. “No! That’s not at all what I meant …” She trails off again and there’s that same look in her eyes. That look that means she’s not saying everything. “Although I guess now that I say it out loud, it does kind of sound like that.”
“It really does.”
Mia just wants what’s best for me and she thinks that’s Max. I don’t know how to get her to understand that just because what Max has to offer me would be best for her, that it’s not even close to being what’s best for me. But I’m really not in the mood to be mad at her. So I change the subject. “So, what do you have going on today?”
Eager to smooth things over Mia chirps away, telling me that basically, she has no plans other than heading down to the coffee shop to stare at the hot barista she’s longing for. Again, something I can’t quite read flashes through her eyes.
Is it the vampire blood that’s making me see it? Would I have noticed the subtle shift in her expression if I hadn’t been brought back to life by a vampire last night? And now it’s me trying to hide something from her as I carefully maintain a thoughtful expression as she giggles away about Mr. Sexy Coffee Man. I’m much better at hiding things than she is. Or she’s less perceptive. Maybe both. Either way, she doesn’t call me on it and I indulge myself in another little fantasy about my vampire.
Yes, mine.
He came to me. To my house. Hunted me out. And while he took something from me, stole my blood, my life force, he gave me a piece of himself in return. His blood. His life force. What was it I’d thought in the cab on the way to the meeting? Yesterday was the day that everything changes? I couldn’t have been more right.
“So, what do you think?” Mia’s looking at me expectantly. I replay her last few words in my head. She’d asked me if I wanted to go to the coffee house with her in a few hours.
“It’s not like I have anything else to do.”
Mia smiles but concern tightens the expression. “Awesome. I’m going to head home and get cleaned up.” What she really means is that she’s going to spend the rest of her morning trying to look gorgeous for Mr. Sexy Coffee Man.
“Does he have a name?” My question startles her. She pauses, confused, before she realizes that I know exactly what’s on her mind.
“No,” the word is mostly a giggle. Oh man. She’s got it bad. “He doesn’t wear a nametag and I can’t figure out how to ask.”
She’s still blushing when I close the door behind her and wander upstairs to do a little cleaning up of my own. The shower is a mix of tantalizing smells and sensations. The water slicing through my hair. The layers of coconut and vanilla in my shampoo. The soft film of suds shifting across my skin.
I realize I don’t know anything about vampires. Judging by all the propaganda, I don’t think anyone does. How much of all the folklore is real? Can they walk in the sun or will they burn up? Do they fall into a deep, death-like sleep during the day or do they wander around like the rest of us?
What I’m really trying to decipher is if there’s a chance I’ll run into my vampire today. Suddenly, I’m almost as concerned about my appearance as Mia was. The rest of my morning is devoured by hair and makeup and the creation of a plan that will help me find my vampire because, by now, I’m pretty certain that he has no intention of finding me. There was too much goodbye in his kiss, too much finality in his command:
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?
There’s absolutely nothing in those words that promises his return and everything about it says that he never intends to see me again. Well, again, he’s gonna find that he got more than he bargained for when he tracked me down. Because last night thrilled me, that’s for sure. It’s not going to be enough to remember it in detail for the rest of my life, his face haunting my dreams and making all other men come up short. I need more nights like last night. More days like today. More of his blood making me as strong as I ever wanted to be. He’s my what-now.
I take a step back from the mirror and admire my handiwork. Not bad if I do say so myself. My plan to find my vampire on the other hand, well that’s a little shaky. All I can think to do is wait for evening, when darkness begins to fall, and head down to Club Diablo.
A year ago, Club Diablo was a trendy if overpriced nightclub located in the warehouse district downtown. Now it’s abandoned. Rumor has it that the owner was a vampire and he’s gone into hiding. It’
s the only place I know to look. Like I said, it’s not the best plan, but it’s all I’ve got for now. I grab my bag and stuff a flashlight inside, just in case it’s dark when I get inside the club. I pull on a coat and wrap my scarf around my neck.
The day is magnificent. Blue skies dotted with huge fluffy clouds and the light has that warm, slanted quality that only happens during fall. I drink it in as I walk the few blocks down to the coffee shop, one part of my mind occupied with thinking about last night in all its glorious detail and the other half occupied with imagining Mia’s face when I walk her up to Mr. Sexy Coffee Man and ask his name.
I push through the doors to coffee house, a wicked smile playing across my face, ready to find Mia and drag her up to the counter. I’m not in the least bit ready to see what’s waiting for me. Those funny little looks she gave me this morning make total sense when I see who she’s got sitting with her at the table she’s picked near the window.
I consider turning around and walking out the door but she’s seen me. There’s an apology in her smile and I can tell she’s very nervous about my reaction. As she should be. I set my teeth and walk up to the table. Mia’s guest turns in his chair and I’m so not prepared to see the wash of emotions take over his face. With a sigh, I will a smile into existence and plop into the extra chair.
“Hello, Max.”
Chapter 5
Max knows me well enough to read my expression. He can tell I’m not exactly overjoyed to see him. He shoots Mia a look filled with questions and accusation before turning back to me. “Hey, Rachel.”
For once in my life, I have absolutely no idea what to say. Hey Max. How’s it going? You doing ok since you professed your undying love for me, offered me a huge ass diamond and your last name and I turned it all down? Sure. That won’t be awkward. Not one bit.