by Jessie Olson
“The chemical in our fangs cauterizes the wound,” he said slowly.
“Magic?”
“No more magic than amino acids or chromosomes. The body is an amazing machine.”
“But you aren’t human.”
“I’m a different genus of human.”
“Homo… vampyre?”
“Yes.”
Lizzie perked up her ears as she heard the front door. Neither she nor Ben spoke as someone climbed the stairs to the foyer. Jackie looked through the doorway. “Hi Lizzie.”
Lizzie tucked her arms in her lap. “Jackie, you remember Ben?”
“The guy who carried you home,” Jackie smirked and then turned back into the hallway. Lizzie looked at Ben silently until she heard the door close at the top of the stairs.
“I can go get you a Twinkie.”
“I don’t eat Twinkies. “
“Are you okay?” Ben asked softly.
“I honestly don’t know,” she looked at her wrist again. “I… am glad you aren’t married.”
Ben took hold of her hand. The burning look was gone from his eyes. His cheeks had more color and his skin looked smoother. Did she really do that to him? “I won’t ever hurt you,” he said softly.
She wanted to believe that, but there was still a small part of her that was scared. A much larger part of her was mesmerized by this new Ben. He was still the old Ben, the guy who carried her home. She didn’t want him to go away. If this was another one of her strange dreams, she didn’t want to wake up. Not alone. “Will you stay here tonight? Will you stay until the morning?” she asked. “Can you?”
“Can I?”
“Will you burn up in the sun?”
“Um, no,” Ben laughed. “You’ve seen me in daylight, Elizabeth.”
“Right,” Lizzie nodded, feeling a little lightheaded.
“I will stay,” he squeezed her hand. It was warm and sent a sensation up the length of her arm.
Lizzie smiled across the table. At Ben. A vampire.
Chapter Eleven
Lizzie opened her eyes facing the clock. The green six formed in her groggy perception. She closed her eyes, feeling weighted down from her habit to get out of bed. It was too warm and soft and comfortable where she lay. She opened her eyes again and smiled, realizing there was an arm draped around her waist.
She kept her eyes open, staring at the clock but not paying attention to the time. She didn’t want to move, still warm and comfortable inside the half embrace of Ben behind her. She never felt that comfort before. She never wanted to feel it and never let herself trust it to make it real. The reality was still settling into her mind. A reality that was so easy to disbelieve. It could all be a dream. She was waking up on Saturday and the two days of lonely misery were just part of the nightmare. But she could see the red marks on her left wrist.
She couldn’t remember if there was a moment when she suddenly decided she wasn’t Catholic any more. It sort of wore away slowly after she went to college. She slept in on Sunday mornings and didn’t feel guilt for skipping mass. She studied history and read about the Crusades and all the horrible things the church did to preserve their reality… and eventually decided that reality was not hers. It didn’t change so abruptly.
This new reality was sudden and swift and altered the color of everything. She didn’t mourn the loss of her previous perception. She didn’t curse herself for naiveté or begrudge her ignorance. She didn’t fear more of the unknown. She simply started to accept this was the way the world really was… and that it meant that she could curl up under Ben’s arm.
There was still a part of her that questioned her eagerness to so easily accept what he was. She was a little crazy for offering up her wrist like that… and yet… it was harmless. It showed how ridiculous the myths and legends were. She was more tired than anything when they left the dining room. Too tired to do much more than throw her jeans back on the floor and fall against her pillow. She didn’t even remember Ben falling with her. He was still there in the morning light. He was true to his word. He stayed.
She felt him stir and allowed herself to turn around to face him. She liked the way the morning sun fell across his freckles. She liked the smile that broadened across his cheeks even more. She felt so many sentences start to form on her tongue, but couldn’t resolve how to begin. She leaned to kiss him and felt the exhilaration of his touch she was too exhausted to allow the night before. He slid one of his hands under her paint-stained t-shirt, alarming her spine with the warmth of his fingers. She pulled herself back, remembering it was Monday and the fact she had to get to the shower before Jackie and Meg.
“I actually have to go to work today,” she laughed as he tried to kiss her again.
“No you don’t,” he lifted up her t-shirt and started kissing her exposed skin.
“I do,” she argued. “I don’t own my own company. I need to get paid.”
“You can call in,” he lifted her shirt completely over her head.
“I have a lot of time,” Lizzie looked at the ceiling trying to make an honest decision.
Ben touched a few fingers across her forehead. “I think you should call in. I think you aren’t feeling well and should take a few days off.”
“A few days?”
“Let’s go somewhere. We can take a drive anywhere you want to go,” he kissed her forehead where his fingers had just warmed her.
Lizzie was silent. She was both elated and apprehensive of his suggestion.
“If you are worried about what your boss might say, I can give you a doctor’s note.”
“You can?”
“I was a doctor once,” he started kissing her neck.
Lizzie pushed him away and sat herself up. She retrieved her t-shirt and put it back over her head. “When were you a doctor?” Lizzie felt all the excitement drain from her as another part of this new reality began to take shape.
“It was the profession I had the longest. I graduated from medical school in 1922… and was a doctor until the early 80’s,” he tried to kiss her neck again.
Lizzie turned her head away from his. It was a difficult thought to process - that while she was playing Barbie, he was an adult with a career. “How many professions have you had?’
Ben took in a deep breath and decided to sit up as well. “I’d say six or seven.”
Lizzie expected a much larger number. Truth was, she hadn’t stayed in any job for more than five years. She was pretty close to his tally and she was only 33. “You’ve lived many lives,” she spoke her thought out loud.
“Yes,” he said simply. It was simpler than she hoped.
“How does that work?”
“Let me take you away somewhere. Call in. Then we can go and talk about all these things.”
“Why do you have to take me some place else to do that?”
“Isn’t that what couples do? Go and spend time away so they can learn more about one another?”
“Some just have dinner or a cup of coffee.”
“Do you think you can ask me all your questions at Starbucks? Or a restaurant where there will be a waitress interrupting every ten minutes?” he looked at Lizzie. She couldn’t argue against him. “Even here, you have two roommates who could walk in on us.”
Lizzie thought of Meg and wondered what she would think of this. Her vampire fantasies would require some serious redefinition if she overheard Lizzie asking Ben about his last two centuries. Then again, Meg would be there if anything happened…
“I’m not going to take you into the woods and eat you, Elizabeth,” he touched her arm softly. She felt a charge excite her arm.
“Not until Saturday anyway.”
“Nope. Not for another 55 days. Just like the Red Cross, I have to wait two months for your red blood cells to reform,” he explained, tempting Lizzie with so many more questions. She didn’t know how she could possibly work with so many thoughts in her head. She didn’t think any number of Google searches would satisfy the ques
tions. She couldn’t see herself having these discussions with Ben on Facebook chat.
“Where will we go?”
“That’s up to you.”
“You will answer all my questions?”
“As best as I can,” he paused. “I can’t promise that I know and understand everything.”
She hesitated and looked at the gray green eyes. “Okay,” Lizzie reached beside the clock and picked up her cell phone.
*****
Lizzie hadn’t made a decision three hours later when she packed a bag and was seated beside Ben in his car. She felt the silent hum of his Prius and didn’t say anything as he decided to go west on the Pike. He went through the tollbooth and turned to face her. “You tell me where to get off,” he smiled.
“Why couldn’t we just go to your place? You don’t have roommates?”
“I don’t,” he focused on the merge into traffic. “I thought we could go somewhere more neutral. Not to mention someplace more interesting than my condo.”
“I want to see where you live.”
“You will,” he said as if there was no question about that. He paused and looked at her. “If that’s what you really want, I’ll take you there.”
“No,” Lizzie shook her head. “You live in Central Square. That’s not very far from Mt. Elm. With my luck, I’d see Richard and he would know I’m playing hooky.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“Let’s just drive,” Lizzie leaned her head back and watched him turn his focus back to the highway. Had he really not aged for two hundred years? How could that be possible? She thought of the amount of gray that interspersed with her brown hair. His hair was still the rusty brown it had been eighteen years ago when she first met him. Apparently he was the same age then as he was sitting next to her. Physically. Emotionally and intellectually… he was old enough to be… even creepier than Alec was with Meg. Then again… it wasn’t creepy. Lizzie thought of all the historical periods she studied in college and tried to imagine herself living. Ben must have witnessed so many amazing moments and lived through several changes in humanity.
The questions filled her mind rapidly. So many things she wanted to know, but didn’t know how to begin asking. She let the quiet hum of the engine fill the space until she saw a sign for Rte. 91, when she decided to tell him to go to Vermont. She resolved not to ask any questions until they reached a destination and made small talk about work and the gossip from Coldbrook.
“So why did you end up with the drummer?” Ben asked suddenly after they left the gas station in Brattleboro.
“Um,” Lizzie looked at his expression to see if there was any hint of jealousy. She didn’t expect the mention of Coldbrook to remind him of their conversation on Friday. Lizzie couldn’t remember if Ben was paying attention to Mike that night. She was too busy worrying if he was going to stay through until morning. “The first time it was just alcohol. The second time it was because alcohol couldn’t distract me.” She felt his eyes shift away from the road and look at her. “I was trying to not think about you.”
“It happened more than once?”
“He wasn’t with Amy the first time… I don’t think he was. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I won’t do it again. I don’t want to.”
“You said there was someone you wanted to marry.”
“I was at a point in my life when I believed I should get married and have kids like everyone else. There was this guy – Will. He was a musician who made me delirious with his mere presence. I thought we were soul mates.”
“What happened?”
“Hardly anything. Will and I had some fantastic conversations and a few tense moments, but that was as far as it got.”
“Did he know you felt that way?” Ben made Lizzie squirm. It sounded like something Nora would ask.
“No. I didn’t think much of myself then. I knew he was attracted to another girl who came to the parties. They always are… but then he ended up falling for someone outside of our circle entirely and married her. I think they are having a kid now. It doesn’t matter… I mean it does. It had to end that way because I WAS devastated and so angry with myself for not being someone he could love that I put my whole heart and soul into running and relearning how to eat,” Lizzie breathed out. “The strange thing is I realized I didn’t like the person I was when I had that crazy infatuation.”
“Do you like the person you were when you were with Mike?”
Lizzie felt her cheeks burn. “Not really,” Lizzie looked down at her jeans, noticing a coffee stain on her thigh. “That wasn’t the right thing to do.”
“No,” Ben said quietly.
“There was some satisfaction in doing the wrong thing. Maybe it made me feel better about not having what I wanted. Because I didn’t deserve it,” Lizzie stared out the window and caught sight of a road sign. “Let’s go to Quechee.”
“The Quechee Gorge?”
“Have you been there?”
“A long time ago,” he said mindlessly. Lizzie sighed at the green trees outside the window. “Elizabeth…”
She turned her head back to look at him. “What?”
He met her eyes briefly. “You deserve to have what you want,” he looked back to the road, but touched her hand. “I have met so many people, Elizabeth. Many women. Generations of pretty women, intelligent women, sexy women, brave women. You are one that I can’t keep myself away from.”
Lizzie breathed in slowly and blinked her eyes a few times to fight the moisture she wasn’t quick enough to resist. “I… thank you,” Lizzie muttered awkwardly, uncertain what else to say.
“You are…” he faded as he put his focus back to the highway. “It means a great deal to me that you are here.”
“It… it means a lot to me, too,” she paused. “The whole Will thing sucked. I hated myself for being so stupid. But I think that had to happen to get me here.”
Ben smiled at the road. “Let’s go to Quechee.”
Chapter Twelve
Lizzie remembered the trail she walked a few years before with Meg. It led them down into the gorge along a road covered with pine needles and signs warning of floods from the river. “We used to take a lot of road trips. Some were planned out… some were spontaneous,” Lizzie looked about and wondered if she really recognized the trail or if it just looked like some other pine needle covered path she once hiked.
“You had a sense of adventure.”
“Meg has had a few… volatile relationships,” Lizzie shrugged. “Our travels about New England were a way of distracting her from fits of screaming and crying.”
“But you got to see a lot of different places?”
“Yes,” Lizzie smiled at him, wondering how many places he lived in never mind traveled to. “I always remember this place.”
“Why?”
“The majesty, the awe… the secret. Hardly anyone I know has ever heard of Quechee,” Lizzie walked a few paces ahead of him. “When did you come here?”
“With a few friends… I think it was before I went back to France,” Ben stopped walking and looked about as if that would prompt a more specific memory.
“You lived there?” Lizzie dared herself to start.
“I was at Verdun,” Ben resumed his pace at her side.
Lizzie got a chill. “That was more than 90 years ago,” she said more for her own benefit than his. They walked a few minutes in silence. Lizzie could hear the currents of the Connecticut River and the birds above their heads. “Ben, how long have you been … well, you know?”
“Since 1779.”
Lizzie stopped walking. The birds still continued to chirp over her head and the rush of the water echoed nearby. “You are older than the country.”
Ben laughed. “I suppose I am technically. I never thought of it that way.”
“You were here to see it happen.”
“What?”
“The United States change from colonies to… states,” she felt her history geek cloud her ability fo
r interesting conversation.
“I didn’t see it happen,” Ben shook his head and leaned against a tree. “I was a farmer. I didn’t go to Philadelphia and see those men write a bunch of sentences to sever ties with the king.”
“Did you want… did you support the Revolution?”
“I got swept up in the fever. I fought even though I had no idea what I was fighting for,” Ben narrowed his eyes. “It was very long ago, Elizabeth. I don’t remember the details.”
“Oh,” Lizzie looked down, unable to hide her disappointment.
“I don’t feel I resemble that person very much anymore,” Ben stopped leaning against the tree and reached for her hand. “I’ve lived through so many things that have matured me and made me less… well, there are things in my youth of which I am not proud and let myself forget.”
“Fair enough,” Lizzie couldn’t argue, even though she told him about Mike.
Ben squeezed her hand and started walking the trail again. Lizzie hesitated and followed his pace. “Were you a soldier at Verdun?” Lizzie backtracked to something that didn’t make him so tight-lipped.
“I was drafted, believe it or not,” he let his amusement escape the green of his eyes. “I wouldn’t have had to go. I was a medical student and had enough money to buy my way out. But it seemed the right thing to do in 1916.”
Lizzie thought of a history paper she wrote on the lack of foresight of World War I. She stopped as another thought entered her mind. “A battlefield is full of blood.”
“Elizabeth, I don’t spend all my days thinking about food.”
“I do. I really have to think hard about not eating chocolate cake sometimes.”
“Sometimes. Is that what you are thinking about right this second? Would you rather have a piece of chocolate cake than walk with me?”
“No. But if I was surrounded by it all the time…”
“If anything would make me lose my stomach for drinking blood, it would be war. In fact, it was going to war that made me realize finally that what I am is not a monster. There is a blood thirst on the battlefield that is very different from my need to survive.”