She didn’t finish her sentence. Lucia was kissing her again.
“Again,” one of them said, but Mindy wasn’t sure who. Not that it mattered. The important thing was that they were in complete agreement.
This time, two fingers.
CHAPTER 20
The sheets were tangled in a Gordian knot. One of the two pillows that Mindy needed, at a minimum, to sleep comfortably had turned into an uncategorized collection of feathers. The mattress pad was ripped. And Lucia gleamed with sweat, not her own, but what had been laved off Mindy and onto her.
As softly insistent as a cat wanting to be scratched, she had beached herself on Mindy, one arm thrown over her, head draped over the ruins of Mindy’s bra, one leg intertwined with both of Mindy’s. Mindy wasn’t quite able to move, but she wasn’t paralyzed. She could move her hand, rubbing the patch of Lucia’s back that it was next to.
She was hopeful that her recuperation would grow to include possibly smelling Lucia’s hair at a later date. It looked great, all tousled and sheeny and growing out again. Mindy thought of Lucia going to school like that. Where did you get your hair done? All her friends would ask, and Lucia would just smile and say, Oh, Mindy rocked my world, my hair’s been doing this ever since.
Shit, she probably would, though.
“Yeah, bitch, I totally womanized you. I totes womanized you.” Lucia was smug, but then, she had a right to be. Mindy lay under her, all spooned out, and thought, You big dumb. I love you, you big dumb. How could it feel like that if I didn’t love you?
Mindy felt her throat clear, the power of speech return to her. Now if she could just feel her legs… “I really think I might be gay.”
Lucia clapped her on the shoulder. “Oh, good. I was thinking you eating my pussy was a big accident.”
Mindy wasn’t Catholic, but she wondered if this was what confession felt like. Being able to tell the truth and have it come out so pure—no judgment. “Like, capital-G gay. I’ve never really been much for boys—I always thought they were sorta weird.”
“Honey, we all think that.”
“Yeah, but at a certain point girls see a dick and think ‘I want that in me.’” Mindy shrugged. “I never got that.”
“I still do.” Lucia’s brow furrowed.
Mindy could feel the little change in her skin where Lucia’s forehead was burrowed into her chest, and it felt a little like an underwire poking into her. But she relaxed quickly.
“But not at the moment…maybe I’m bisexual. All the cool people are bisexual. I can be like Megan Fox!”
Mindy lifted an arm, rotated a kink out of it, and brought it around to hold Lucia tight. To assure herself that Lucia didn’t want to go anywhere. “Hey, not to—not to rate it or anything, but was I much worse than a dude or about the same or… Don’t tell me I was amazing or anything, I’ll think you’re lying. Just, you know, hold your hand up about where I was.”
Lucia’s hand had been on Mindy for so long, it was warm when it touched her face. “Minz, you’re always amazing. Even when you’re eating me out.”
It was a silly thing to be worried about. Mindy knew it, she knew it, but still… “Yeah, but like—how does me…giving you the frick-frack compare to the D?”
“Let me put it this way,” Lucia said, kissing Mindy three times in almost the same spot, her lips moving at the speed of a glacier, but not quite as cold. They dragged over Mindy’s skin when they weren’t pursing together, sucking, bringing a smidgen of Mindy’s blood up to the surface of her skin. “I’ve been with a lot of guys and I’ve been with you. And they weren’t bad, but they weren’t special either. You were…you were really special, Mindy.”
The way Lucia said it, some defense mechanism went off in Mindy’s skull. Long years of cruel jokes and TV shows where girls like her were never the ones in love, just the ones the person in love stopped from being bullied to show how worthy they were of being in love. Mindy wasn’t worthy. She was just a joke. So she joked, “What, are you in love with me?”
She hated herself for saying it and was afraid of hating Lucia for how she answered it. Please, I know you should make fun of me for that, but not too hard? Please, not too—
“Yeah. I think I am,” Lucia said. Her voice as plain and natural and simple as the darkness all around them. If one was the absence of light, the other was just the absence of—of bullshit.
“I think I love you too.” Fear and bullshit. The only things that could keep you from being loved. Mindy thought she should write that down. It’d make a good senior essay.
“We should probably start dating then,” Lucia muttered sleepily. “I wouldn’t want people to think I’m easy.”
Fat and lazy with the blood she’d taken, Lucia shifted protectively over Mindy, gathering her up in her arms and wrapping her up in pale flesh. Lucia’s eyes were glassy, and her voice was slurred, and Mindy’s life sloshed in her belly as she held Mindy close, saying, “My girlfriend, who I love. My Mindy, Mindy mine…”
And Mindy dreamt she was Lucia holding Mindy, feeling the warmth that could only come from Mindy, since Lucia was cold. And it was like bathing in sunlight.
* * *
Mindy woke up slowly. Contentedly. Still feeling Lucia’s body on her own. It took her long moments to realize that the warmth couldn’t be Lucia. It was just her sheets, tangled up with her. She opened her eyes, and the bed was empty.
“Eat and run?” she asked the air, and a bat flew down from the ceiling. “Ahh!”
It flitted around, not panicked, just leisurely flapping around her ceiling.
“Bat! Bat!”
It alighted—lit? alit?—on her bed. “Chill out, slut. Why so tense?”
Mindy was aware of a large breath taking up residence in her lungs. “Lucia?”
“Yeah!” the bat said. “I’m a bat! Ain’t it cool?”
“It’s…batty.”
Lucia spread her wings. “Leave the lame jokes to me. I’m cute enough to get away with them.”
“You are cute,” Mindy said. As a bat, Lucia was about the size of a small kitten, with a vulpine face of big black eyes and a body that was mostly chubby fluff, and an impressive wingspan that made it look like she was asking for a hug.
Lucia assumed an indignant expression—as much as a bat was able. “No, I’m a creature of the night! I am the mistress of darkness! Fear me!” She scratched herself with a little foot.
“Aw….” Mindy oozed. “Wait, why are you a bat?”
Lucia jumped onto Mindy’s belt and climbed up her body, somewhat to Mindy’s chagrin. “I was just lying here—very well-fed, thank you—thinking how bullshit it was that I was a vampire but I couldn’t control wolves or fly or do anything cool. So I thought I’d try changing into a bat. And I’m thinking, ‘Hey, how do you turn into a bat, Lucia?’ Then I remembered how they did it in Animorphs and bam, I’m a fucking bat.”
“Wow, I read Animorphs too! Who was your favorite?”
“Rachel. You?”
“Tobias.”
Lucia’s expression, perched on Mindy’s shoulder, soured. “Second favorite?”
“Marco.”
“Me too! Twinsies!”
Mindy’s brow wrinkled again. “But where’d your clothes go?”
“Oh, they transformed with me. It’s magic.”
“So, now magic’s a real thing?”
“Well, we’re going with God and vampires, right? Magic’s not that big a deal.”
“What’s next, aliens?”
“Are you kidding? That would be so lame. I mean, did you see Indiana Jones and the… whatsit of the Crystal Skull? They had to go to another dimension to do it, but they finally found something that annoyed me more than Willie Scott.”
“Okay, turn back. I wanna…” look at your pretty face while I talk to you, “see you.”
Lucia paused. “How do they turn back in Animorphs?”
“Wait, you turned into a bat without knowing how to turn back?”
&nb
sp; “Don’t yell!” Lucia chided. “I’m definitely not going to be able to turn back if you make me tense up, you know. I think I’ll just be a bat for a while. Bats don’t have to go to high school.”
“That’s terrible reasoning.”
“Well, I learned it in high school, so another good reason not to go. C’mon, Minz, let’s just hang out.” Clutching Mindy’s blouse with her talons, Lucia hung upside down. “Ha! I’m so funny.”
“I am not going to ditch school to babysit a bat!”
“Please? I’ll let you pet me?”
* * *
Half an hour later, Mindy had faked grievous illness under Lucia’s tutelage and was in bed, laptop topping her lap, doing research. She wore a hoodie with Lucia tucked behind the zipper, watching as she browsed.
“You’re cutting class to use Tumblr?” Lucia asked.
“I know, right? I feel so alive!”
“You are the worst person I have ever ditched with. Let’s get krunk! Drag race! Smoke some weed!”
“I’m not even sure you can get a bat high?”
“Sure you can, it’s easy. I’ll just flap my wings a lot.”
“Stooop,” Mindy protested.
“If all else fails, you can go to the top of a really tall building…”
“Noooooo!”
“And throw me off!”
“You’re the worst at telling jokes,” Mindy complained. “You tell jokes like the American economy. It seems like you’re trying to be funny, but you just aren’t.”
“That was way harsh, Minz.”
Mindy ignored her, clicking through the vast repository of Google’s bat pictures. “Oh my God, Google, I want pictures of bats, not someone’s shitty drawings of Sonic characters screwing—alright, here we go.” She clicked an image that looked close to Lucia’s form, though Lucia insisted it wasn’t as cute as her. “Hunh. That’s funny.”
“Must not be me then,” Lucia griped, digging her head into Mindy’s zipper.
“You’d think that you would be a vampire bat, but you’re not. You’re just a cute little fruit bat.”
“You really gotta bring the gayness into everything, don’t you?”
“An Egyptian fruit bat, to be precise.” Mindy loved playing the Willow to Lucia’s Buffy. “Native to Transylvania, actually.”
“How does this help our situation?”
“A little knowledge never hurt anyone.”
“There’s knowledge and then there’s finding out your idol and personal hero is a vampire.”
“When did I say any—”
“I thought you’d be running for a cross by now. Telling everyone how the evil vampire tricked you into letting yourself be bit…”
“I’m not the kind to run for the hills.”
“I am. If I could, I’d run like hell. But I can’t. Run from this… I’m glad you’re okay, Minz. Most of all, I’m glad you’re okay.”
Mindy just petted Lucia, running her finger along her back, its soft downy fur. “Of course I’m okay. It’s just—it’s just blood, you know? Listen, you’re not…what happened to you. You’re you. What you do doesn’t have to be what happened. It can be…it can be everything you are. You know?”
“Yeah—hold on, I’m gonna try being human again.” Lucia flapped off Mindy, landing beside her on the bed. She held out her wings, beady little eyes fixed in concentration. “Human—human,” she chanted. “I had the cutest, flattest little belly, arms harder than Vin Diesel, boobs… You remember, right, Mindy, I had great boobs…”
“They were not bad,” Mindy said blankly.
“Hey, maybe it works on frog prince specs. I have to get a kiss from a princess to turn back.”
“Hold on, I’ve got the Queen’s number somewhere,” Mindy joked.
“You could always try.”
“Not sure I want to be on first base with anything that can’t drive a car.”
In a rush, Lucia was sitting beside her. All homo sapiens again. She clasped her breasts and laughed uproariously. “Ha! I Beauty and the Beast-ed that bitch! Don’t let anyone else call you a beast, though.”
“Pet names already…”
“Already,” Lucia confirmed. Then she hurried to the window, working at the stiff locks. “When are your ’rents getting back anyway? I don’t think they’d believe there’s such a thing as a clothing-optional sleepover. And once every leap year my mom checks up on me, so I should be all tucked in for that.”
“Alright. I’ll see you tomorrow? We’ll work on, you know, the thing?”
“Your vagina?” Lucia asked hopefully. Some of her old humor sneaking in. She always bounced back so quick. Maybe she was just getting better at hiding it from Mindy.
“Finding our vampire sonuvabitch who needs a bad case of heartburn,” Mindy corrected her.
Lucia nodded absently. The window gave. She slipped past it, though her head stayed inside the room for a moment. “Actually…” Lucia elongated the word, her insinuating voice pulling Mindy to join her on the windowsill, leaning on her end while Lucia crouched on hers. “I was thinking that if you’ve had enough of vampires that aren’t me for the foreseeable future, maybe we could do certain girlfriend-girlfriend things.”
“Yeah?” Mindy asked, taking Lucia’s hands, the sudden chill of her grip a welcome relief in the Texas afternoon. She poked at the inside of her cheek with her tongue, loving the way Lucia’s eyes ran over the little gesture, as thrilling as her fingertips on Mindy’s wrists—ice cubes on her skin.
“I want you to go to the school dance with me Friday after next.”
Mindy stood straighter, Lucia’s fingers tensing on her waist, wanting to hold her in place but letting her break away. “Seriously?”
“I know it’s unconventional, but it is a Sadie Hawkins Dance. Girls are supposed to ask their dates there.”
Mindy laughed—thinking you dork, you big dork, you’re my big goddamn dork. “I’d love to go with you.”
Lucia smiled back at her. Not one of her coy, elusive smiles. One that was like watching the sun coming up. “Okay, then. Okay. Cool.”
Mindy held up her hand, wanting to live in Lucia’s innocent glee. “Let’s rock this school dance!”
Lucia interlocked their fingers, her hand already starting to warm with Mindy’s borrowed heat.
“I was just going for a high-five, you big gay.”
CHAPTER 21
Finally, it was the weekend. They crossed Tate’s Creek Bridge on the way to the mall. Lucia leaned over and kissed Mindy’s cheek.
“What was that for?” Mindy asked.
“We had our first kiss here,” Lucia reminded her. “Have to keep the tradition alive.”
They rolled on, thousands of sleeping bats hanging underneath them. Rain ghosted down in a little drizzle, offering a respite from the drought but no relief. Mindy enjoyed it anyway. Like many, she loved the big thick gales of rain, the storms that came down, and it was like the clouds were physically touching you—as long as she wasn’t wearing her glasses.
The drizzles were more annoying, but for Lucia it was an excuse for them to cry out in roller-coaster horror, hide themselves under a magazine cover, make a dash from the Taurus, and grab a cuddle under the awnings that lined the mall entrance. Lucia pressed her to an empty window and mouthed her pulse point, first lips, then teeth, the blunt ivory grinding down on Mindy’s skin like she was testing it.
“No biting in public,” Mindy said, giving her a little push away.
Lucia let herself be moved. Teased Mindy by chomping her teeth behind Mindy’s neck when she started for the door. Mindy turned, walking backward as she gave Lucia a good-natured middle finger, pulled it back when Lucia chomped at that too. Then they were through the automatic doors, in the reverse oasis of the mall. The drizzle steadily tapped at the ceiling, the skylights, politely asking to be let in.
They weren’t the first ones inside. The early morning exodus of mall security and wage slaves setting up shop had tracked dirty
footprints across the first stretch of tiling, like kindergarten fingerpainting, and for a patch after that, it sparkled with moisture. But Mindy and Lucia didn’t slip, didn’t fall down. The mall was deserted except for old people getting in exercise, and Lucia treated them like an obstacle course, darting around them with Mindy’s hand locked in hers. They lifted their joined arms like a drawbridge to get over a doddering ’Nam vet with a cane.
Mindy knew she was a hell of a dork, but shopping with Lucia felt like being on a quest. Only instead of getting the Amulet of Triforce from the wizard, or the Bracelet of Hephaestus off a Minotaur, they were retrieving a Bonsoir Samira clutch or a pair of dangling crystal Cobblestone earrings. Finally, Lucia was dragging her into a vintage store, slipping right between an old couple like the Millennium Falcon between asteroids.
Damn, I am such a dork. “You’ll love wearing a dress, Minz. It’s the only socially acceptable way of not wearing pants in public,” Lucia said, her voice so excited, she might as well have been cheerleading. If she started shouting letters, Mindy was out.
“I’m not sure,” Mindy replied, but Lucia was already zipping through the store, going so fast that she might as well have been doing her Wally West thing. She held dresses under Mindy’s chin again, again, again, like a hacker in a movie running through every password a computer might have.
“You can’t wear blue. I’m wearing blue—couples that go all matchy-matchy are so lame—black, too funeral. Orange, with your complexion, I don’t think so—pink… Do you like pink?”
Mindy jumped out of her own head as she realized she was being consulted. “I’m okay with pink.”
Lucia ripped the dress away from Mindy’s body. “No, don’t think so.” Another dress flapped against Mindy, so fast it was like Lucia was trying to fan her for heatstroke. “You don’t want to be too slutty—that’s my job—Wait. Wait! I saw it, last month, they might still have it…” She disappeared into the back of the store, Mindy following after she didn’t immediately rush back. She found Lucia digging through rack after rack of dresses, a Viking raider set on loot. Until finally, she came up with what had to be the Holy Grail of dresses from the way she clutched it. “This is it! This is your dress!”
Ex-Wives of Dracula Page 28