Lucia nodded desperately. “I don’t want you to! You just never ask for anything!”
“I know. That’s what has to change.”
“What do you want, Minz? Anything. I’ll get you anything. I can get other things. How about a scooter?”
Mindy’s hands felt like they’d fallen asleep, hanging down beside her hips. They didn’t belong there. She wanted to hold Lucia, touch her in some way, not have her hands down at her sides like some useless things. But she kept them there. Still and small and as little a threat as she could make herself.
“I need you to drink my blood.”
Lucia looked like she’d been punched in the gut. She fell on her bed, slack as a puppet with no strings, and now Mindy let herself go to her. She slid up behind her, covered Lucia in her arms, was big for her. “I know it’s hard for you,” she said to the back of Lucia’s head, giving her the privacy of not looking her in the eye. “But whatever it is, you have to tell me. Tell me what would be so wrong with you doing to me what you’ve done to half the people in town? And I’ll understand. Just tell me.”
Lucia reached back, found Mindy’s hand waiting for her. She kept looking away, out the window. The sky was an unhealthy blue, the color of someone drowned.
“He bit me. I don’t even know who he is, but he bit me.” Lucia’s thumb stroked over Mindy’s hand, constantly telling her it was still there. “And he killed me, and other things—I can’t even remember how he hurt me. I’ll never know what happened. I don’t want that for you. As long as you don’t have bite marks, you’ll always know that you can trust me.”
All throughout it, Mindy just held Lucia. Afterward, she kept holding her. She could feel Lucia shaking at her core, holding something in, and she helped Lucia clamp down on it until it went still. Then she put her fingers on Lucia’s chin—felt her flinch, like when you petted a dog that been kicked too many times. She pulled her hand back, but Lucia turned her head anyway. Looked Mindy in the eye and nodded. She could say what she had to say.
“I’ll always trust you,” Mindy said. “And if you drained your venom, I’d remember the bite. I’d know… you.”
“And what if I bit you again when it came back? I could tell you to forget. I could tell you to do all sorts of things and you’d never know. You’d just think I had bitten you the one time, without venom—”
“You wouldn’t do that.”
“How do you know? How do you know I even have a soul?”
“Because you’re my friend. You’re my Lucia. Bite me. Let me be what you need. I know you’d never take advantage of me. If you think you can’t trust yourself, trust me. Trust us.”
Lucia’s head shook like a broken clock. “It’ll hurt…”
Mindy put her hand on Lucia’s cheek, bringing her still. “Some people are worth getting hurt for. C’mon, El. Find out what I taste like.”
Lucia’s eyes gleamed so bright they could’ve had stars in them. “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”
“You’re my best friend too.”
“No, it’s not the same thing. I’ve had a lot of best friends. I’ve only had one you. You change into an old shirt, I’ll—take care of the venom.”
“Do you want to do it now?” Mindy asked, still hugging her tight. “Or in a little while?”
“A little later,” Lucia said. “I’ll be ready soon.”
CHAPTER 18
The blinds were drawn in Mindy’s room. The lights were out. The room was dark and that felt better, more right, than doing this with the lights on. This was their secret. It was huge and horrible and terrifying, but it was also theirs. They owned it. It belonged to them.
Mindy wouldn’t let herself be nervous. She would be brave for Lucia’s sake. She wanted this. She wanted Lucia to know she wasn’t a freak. She wanted…a lot of things.
After an eternity in the bathroom, Lucia came out. The light from the bathroom’s tiny bulb dipped into the room. Lucia left it on, only partly closing the door behind her, so it was like a nightlight. She held an old Winnie the Pooh jam jar half-full of her venom. She set it down on Mindy’s dresser, then hid her hands in her pockets.
“That’s all my venom, I think. I tried to get more out, but nothing came, and I started hearing this nasally sound… I think that’s all of it,” she repeated.
Mindy nodded. She had taken off her bra and changed into a faded pink shirt with the Superman logo on it. It was an old shirt, and had stopped fitting after her last growth spurt, now showing a little of her pudge at the belly. It also had a big hole at the left armpit and a gravy stain on the back—Mindy wasn’t sure how it had gotten there.
“What’s that?” Lucia asked, indicating the shirt.
“It’s my Supergirl shirt.”
“No, Supergirl wears the same logo as Superman. I think that’s a gay Superman shirt.”
“It’s not a gay Superman shirt.”
“Superman after he’s been exposed to pink Kryptonite.” Lucia laughed.
Mindy laughed with her.
“It’s a nice shirt. Really. Don’t know why you’d want to get blood on it…”
“We’ve been over this…”
Lucia advanced on her. There was something in the way she looked at Mindy—Mindy got that feeling again where she was in the presence of a big cat. It might eat her, it might ignore her, it might play with her a little bit. She was afraid and she hated herself for that. “I’ve been through this. I just can’t understand why you want it.”
“I don’t want it,” Mindy said. “I want you. I’m saying yes to you. And—the fact is, I’m an accomplice. I am helping you feed on these people, and I think I’m gonna have a hard time living with that. So, if I’m going to be a part of this, I need to know what it is you’re doing.”
“What I am,” Lucia echoed listlessly. “Okay then. Your phone have an alarm clock?”
“Yeah.”
“Set it for seven minutes.” Lucia’s voice was confident, experienced, and despite how horrifying that was, Mindy took comfort in it. “I’m going to take a pint of your blood… four hundred and fifty milliliters. I drink about one milliliter a second. Seven minutes, four hundred and twenty milliliters, a little under ten percent of your blood.”
“Wow,” Mindy said, setting her phone rather than looking at Lucia. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what Lucia’s face looked like when she was saying all that. “You’ve thought this through.”
“If there’s one person I can’t afford to hurt…and hey, I’m not that bad at math.” Lucia smiled weakly.
It was meant to be reassuring, but it was as nervy as Mindy felt—and that was okay. They were both anxious about that, and Mindy felt like she’d been given permission to be afraid. Of course she was afraid. A vampire was about to drink her blood. But she was also confident. She believed in Lucia. And she believed in them. Whoever else Lucia might hurt, she wouldn’t hurt her.
“Where do you want to do this?” Lucia asked. “On the bed or…standing up?”
Lying down seemed too intimate. Too much like…something else. Mindy took a step back, from it and Lucia. “Standing up, please.”
Lucia nodded. “One sec.” She blurred, and the door opened and closed like it was caught in a hurricane. In five seconds, Lucia was back. She spread the house’s firewood tarp atop Mindy’s bed. “In case you change your mind.” And she set the first aid kit from Mindy’s car on her nightstand. “I’m gonna patch you up as soon as we’re done.”
“Okay. So, you’re gonna bite me on the neck?”
“Yeah. Where else would I bite you?”
Mindy squeezed her legs together. She felt raw. Like gasoline under a lit match. “And I should just—stand—here?”
“Wherever’s fine.” Lucia was looking at her now, eyes clouding with black. It was disconcerting, seeing the nervousness once there now draining away. Turning into something more like need.
Mindy backed away again. She hit the wall. Lucia stopped. Mindy felt like lau
ghing. A dance. That’s what they were doing. She raised her hand and beckoned with her fingers. Lucia came closer. Closer. She knew her eyes were dark, right? Black like a shark’s eyes. Mindy could see herself in them.
“Part of me wishes you would run away,” Lucia confessed.
Mindy slid sideways. Into the corner. “Nowhere to run.” Reaching out, she took hold of a dresser on one side of her, the windowsill on the other. Bracing herself. “You want this?”
Lucia nodded.
“I want this. So what’s the big deal? It’s just blood. The same as if I were at a blood drive.”
“So why don’t we get a syringe?”
Mindy’s lips were dry, her palms sweaty, but she didn’t dare let go to wipe them. “Because that’s not what we want.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I don’t want you to think there’s something wrong with—wanting what you want. From me. So c’mon. Do it. We’ve said everything there is to say.”
Lucia’s eyes were obsidian pools, but they were set in a face that was all warmth and concern. She looked away. “Have you set the alarm yet?”
Mindy set her phone on the dresser. “Just need to start it.”
“Okay. Don’t do it yet. I’m going to lick you a couple times first.”
Mindy’s eyebrows perked up.
“My saliva has a numbing agent, like a mosquito’s. It’s not cuz I like the way you taste. Not that there’s anything wrong with the way you taste, I’m sure you taste fine—” Aware she was babbling, Lucia leaned in and quickly lapped at Mindy’s neck, accidentally tugging a few hairs in the process.
Realizing they were starting, Mindy tilted her head to the side and held her hair out of the way. Lucia licked her again, longer and fuller.
Her tongue was cool and slick, almost metallic. Soothing in a way. It was like pressing an ice-cold can of Coke to your sweaty skin on a hot day, only a second after the contact, the chill turned to a bloom of heat—a little tingle across Mindy’s nerves. Lucia felt it too, Mindy knew she did.
“Wow, your skin is really clean,” Lucia said. “Do you use body wash?”
“No. Just soap. I have a loofah, though.”
“Oh. I should try that.” Lucia’s eyes slid over the curve of Mindy’s throat offered up to her. Now she licked it from the collar of her shirt almost to Mindy’s ear. Mindy could’ve moaned. The heat set into her skin like a glowing tan. It didn’t feel numb. It felt—good. “Tell me to stop and I’ll stop.”
“I’m not telling you to stop.”
Uttering a little, helpless moan, Lucia dragged her tongue over the blush of heat that was now spreading down into Mindy’s chest. Mindy thought she tasted good. That Lucia liked her taste.
Lucia barely pulled her tongue in before she came to Mindy’s ear. She held herself there—would’ve been panting if she still breathed, but instead, Mindy felt the intent behind panting. The intensity vibrating out of Lucia. The hunger Lucia was slowly letting out.
“I think I can make it feel good for you,” Lucia said. “I mean… If I get you ready first… if I take it slow… I don’t think it has to hurt.” She pressed a sharp kiss to Mindy’s cheek. When her lips came away, they were peaked with fangs. “Start the clock.”
Mindy pressed the button on the smartphone. The display lit up, the glow sizzling into them, cheap and tawdry. In the dark, the room was vast and expansive. It had room to hide them.
Soon, the screen darkened again. Light came from the cracked bathroom door, the shuttered windows, under the door to the hallway. It touched them with its fingertips, but didn’t hold them.
Lucia lowered her mouth to Mindy’s neck. Her lips parted wetly. Mindy took a deep breath and thought, When I am exhaling, Lucia will have bitten me. She felt Lucia’s fangs for the first time—her skin pinched between incisors. Not broken, though. Just pulled taut. It didn’t hurt. It…buzzed.
But Lucia wouldn’t—couldn’t—bite down. She was shaking, trembling, and though Mindy thought her hands were dead-bolted to her supports, she found them on Lucia’s waist. Lucia wasn’t sweating. She was. Her mind misfiring, malfunctioning. She thought, Lucia can’t sweat, I have to sweat for her, and for some reason she was petting Lucia’s back, the sides of her body.
And the more she did it, the more her own racing heart slowed. Stilled. Until she thought the next beat would never come—then it did—and that the one after that wouldn’t come. It did. And she wasn’t nervous anymore. She was aware of her fear, her quite rational fear, but it was a star a galaxy away, the light reaching her ten thousand years after its source had burnt and died. And now all that was left was the adrenaline. She was exhilarated. She was calm. She was ready.
“It’s okay. It’s okay, El. I want this. I want—”
She thought she would’ve said ‘you’ if Lucia hadn’t bit down. Mindy’s hands tightened on Lucia’s body, hard enough to hurt her if Lucia still felt pain. She hadn’t had time to brace for it. It was a sudden rush, the downward plunge on a roller coaster she hadn’t known had been climbing.
She could feel everything. The black silk of Lucia’s hair brushing her cheek was a whisper. The pain was a song, an orchestra playing in both ears—it hurt. Like nothing Mindy had ever experienced. She’d never been stung by a bee, never stepped on a nail, never been shot, never stabbed. This was real pain. Real hurt. It left scars.
But it was clean too. A clean hurt, a cleansing flame. It burned away all the itches, all the soreness, the pangs of hunger and the crud in her eyes, the tiredness, the dirtiness, everything that afflicted her body was suddenly behind this vast new thing she was feeling—this country of sensation. She balled her fist, put it in her mouth, all she could do to stop herself from crying out, but then it was over. The pain had been wrung out of her body and all that was left—all that was left…
She was short of breath. Floating like her whole body had fallen asleep. The little sting, the little embers of Lucia’s fangs were keeping her grounded, but she was still floating. Lucia was sucking on her wound now—her bite. Her bite. And Lucia was right up against her, the only thing Mindy could feel, the only other thing in her universe. Making these sated little noises, satisfied and ravenous at the same time. Like Mindy tasted so good, but each new bit tasted even better.
Lucia bit down harder—her fangs becoming a part of Mindy. What Mindy felt of her knees went weak. She wasn’t tensing up because the pain wasn’t hurting her, it was relieving her. She slipped, and Lucia moved in seamless instinct, bearing her down onto the bed. On top of her now. Drinking from her like a river.
Her hands were still on Mindy, cradling her head and lower back. Their bounce onto the bed allowed a little blood to escape Lucia’s hunger. It spilled down her shoulder, a hot little shower. Mindy thought it was no wonder that Lucia enjoyed this, if it tasted as good as it felt…
Lucia’s breathless wanting had become deep, ecstatic gurgling—a howl deep in her belly—an orgasmic moan. One hand was on Mindy’s back—behind her heart—the other stroked Mindy’s body lovingly. It traveled over all of her, not avoiding her breast any more than her flank or thigh, but there was nothing sexual in the touch. Or, all of Mindy’s body felt so sexual that it didn’t matter where Lucia touched her.
She still wasn’t where Mindy needed her. Not between her legs, where her clit was so hard it was begging for release. Mindy managed to move—managed to get one leg scissored around Lucia’s body. Clinging to her like a life preserver, even as her phone blared distantly. An echo of an echo.
Lucia’s fangs left Mindy empty, alone, all her body’s little complaints now audible again, if as distant as her phone. Her clothes were chafing her, warm with the heat of her old body—not the new, pleasurable one that Lucia had gifted her with. She wanted to be naked: the release of cool air. But Lucia was pulling away, not undressing her, and Mindy was too weak to move.
“That’s all,” Lucia breathed. “I stopped. I didn’t think I could, but I stopped… Minz, yo
u okay?”
Mindy just stared at her. Just as her hurts were coming back, so were her feelings too. All the ones that weren’t warmth. She hadn’t wanted Lucia to stop. She would’ve almost rather died than stopped. She couldn’t even feel the bite—what she felt most of all was lead in her belly. It grew heavier and heavier.
Lucia was quick to bandage her—it hurt like a brand, making Mindy wince for the first time. She soon had Mindy bundled up, and only then did Mindy notice Lucia’s fingers had become wet with blood. Lucia stared at them, then dropped them to her sides. She didn’t wipe them off. Mindy knew she’d lick them clean later. When Mindy wasn’t looking.
Lucia whooped a laugh. Seeing Mindy unharmed by the ordeal, unafraid, seemed like a dose of the strongest drug to her. “Thank you so much, Mindy, so much for doing this. I… You’re the best, Minz. Just the best.”
Her kiss was quick and chaste and tasted of blood, copper and crimson. And it was on Mindy’s lips. Even that was more than Mindy could take.
Maybe it was that Lucia’s body, once so cold, was warm with borrowed blood—the softness of her lips finally matching their rosy warmth. Maybe it was the bitter taste. Maybe it was the sight of Lucia licking her lips, cleansing them of blood and of Mindy—knowing that if Mindy kissed her again, the taste would just be her.
She did. She was. She was kissing her. She didn’t know what had come over her, felt like a different person, a brave person. She rolled around to get on top of Lucia, who immediately snaked around to be on top of her—their roll landing them on the floor. Mindy didn’t even care. The fall had brought her sex to Lucia’s thigh.
It felt amazing: the touch, the contact, some alchemy Mindy didn’t understand but that had everything to do with it being Lucia touching her, her touching Lucia. She felt heaven between her legs, on her sex, up and down her spine. She bore down on it. Tried to catch it between her thighs. As they kissed, every movement of Lucia’s tongue was a whip-spur urging her on. She made a mortar and pestle of their bodies, mashing Lucia’s heaven into her flesh. A few precious seconds transported her by leaps and bounds. She was close. She was close. And then, she was there.
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