Desire at Dawn

by Fiona Zedde

  “I’ll always have a choice.”

  Someone’s phone rang. Ivy’s. Kylie shamelessly eavesdropped.

  “Yes?”

  “Leave her.” The words from the other end of the line surprised everyone on the balcony. “If she wants to stay with the human, let her stay. We don’t imprison people here. At least not very much.” A hint of a smile appeared in Silvija’s voice. “Keep an eye on whoever is watching, but let her stay with the human if that’s what she wants. There’s nothing happening here in New York. Leave Violet and come home.”

  Ivy didn’t argue. “Of course.” She looked at her watch. Probably checking to see if she had the time to catch the last New York flight. “I’ll be back before sunrise.” She hung up the cell phone.

  “Okay.” She raised an eyebrow at Kylie. “You heard Silvija.” She gave a brief and pointed nod at Violet. “Enjoy your time away from home.”

  Then she turned and leapt off the balcony. Seconds later, she was on the ground and melting into the mass of humanity walking through the neighborhood. Kylie bit the inside of her lower lip, frowning. She felt Violet’s unhappy eyes on her. She didn’t like the idea of being away from her twin. As much as they often fought, they hated to be separated. And now, because of Kylie, she wouldn’t be able to see her brother for who knew how many nights.

  “You don’t have to stay,” Kylie said.

  “I don’t?” Violet looked briefly toward the interior of the apartment where Olivia slept. “Little bit, you haven’t been paying attention to how we live if you believe that.” She shook her head, the sadness taking over her face, darkening the usually merry eyes. “I’m not going to throw Silvija’s orders back in her face. You’re so much more like your mother than you even realize.”

  But Kylie refused to discuss her mother, how she did not know her, despite the handful of years they had spent together in this gilded cage. She unhooked her teeth from her raw bottom lip and ran her tongue across the flesh as it healed nearly instantly.

  “There’s no trouble here with the woman. You can just go back to New York and tell Silvija that.”

  Violet only sighed, flicking her gaze impatiently over the humans wandering the streets. She was getting hungry. “There’s a little hotel about a mile from here.” She took a card from her hip pocket and held it out to Kylie. “I’m staying there for the day, maybe longer if Silvija says so. Come when it’s time to sleep.” She ran a hand over her shiny head and found a smile that even Kylie could see was forced. “I’m heading out for a nibble. Wish me luck.”

  Kylie clenched her jaw, hating that she was the cause of Violet’s separation from her brother. “Okay.” She took the card and shoved it in her jeans pocket.

  Violet waved then jumped over the railing, following the same route that Ivy had taken.

  Kylie watched her for a moment before turning her attention to the rest of the street, the tumble of activity. Humans going about their evening. Her fingers clenched briefly in the red brick of the balcony, scraping into the stone. Was that all she had to worry about? If not, who would want to trouble her, and why?

  Chapter Six

  Olivia was crying. This was no ordinary bout of tears. It was wrenching sobs. Gasping tears that jerked her body, phlegm running from her nose, her slight frame rocking back and forth on the floor. Her thick orange robe sagged around her narrow shoulders. She pounded her fists against her thighs as her face curled in on itself, lips trembling, thick lashes damp and heavy with her tears. Her eyes were animal, swollen and red.

  Her sadness filled the room, bloating the space with its nauseating heaviness.

  Kylie stood in the shadows. She watched, not knowing what to do.

  She had just come in from an evening’s hunt with Violet and was well fed and ready for more details of Olivia’s life, determined to ignore the improbable threat that the mysterious, lurking humans posed. But instead of another field trip into the heart of Olivia, she found a wreck in the living room. Olivia, collapsed into a pool of sorrow on the floor, her laptop in front of her showing photo after photo from an Internet search she had just done. On the screen, photos of women with their breasts cut off. Single mastectomies. Double mastectomies. During the surgery, after the surgery, endless photographs. Bloody tissue. Flat, scarred chests. Clear, fluid-filled tubes that fed away the dripping waste from beneath hacked flesh.

  It was obvious that Olivia couldn’t look at the pictures anymore. She was a ruin. She screamed and cried. She touched her breasts, dug her fingers into them as she stared past the computer screen, inconsolable.

  Chapter Seven

  “I know you’re there.” The voice, soft but sure, came from the figure huddled in the bed. Her eyes searched blindly in the darkness. Kylie watched her, the flitting eyes, the small and getting smaller body under the sheet.

  No, you don’t, Kylie thought as the eyes calmed when no answer came from any corner of the apartment. Olivia relaxed into the sheets. The pulse stopped rapping at her throat. Despite her half knowledge that she was being watched, Olivia’s breathing regulated, then slowed. She fell into sleep.

  *

  Every night, Kylie woke up pressed against Violet, their scents mingling as they lay in bed and talked, Violet sharing with her how much she missed her brother, Kylie feeling badly enough that she couldn’t stay and listen to the sadness for long. She left to go find Olivia as soon as she could.

  Most evenings, Olivia wasn’t at home. Kylie crept in and waited for her. Resting in the friendly shadows of the apartment, nosing through Olivia’s things until Olivia appeared, often with fresh food for dinner, most times with a look of exhaustion and even deeper sadness on her face.

  Once Olivia appeared, Kylie watched her go about the activities of her simple yet strangely elegant life. Knowing she was on the cusp of death, Olivia did everything deliberately.

  Whatever job she had before, she’d left it. Despite the chill in the fall air, she spent many of her days in a pool. Probably one indoors. Kylie could smell the chlorine on Olivia like a harsh perfume every time she came home. On days when she didn’t make time for the pool, she came home with groceries, just a small collection of things. Sometimes, it was only one thing. A bag of red grapes. Freshly ground coffee in a white paper bag. A loaf of olive bread.

  And Olivia, Kylie was coming to learn, was forgetful.

  Sometimes, she would pull the door shut behind her but leave her keys dangling from the lock. Or she would forget her wet umbrella in the hallway, neglecting to bring it in to rest in the umbrella stand just inside the door. Once, she rushed off to meet someone but left half the lights on. Kylie had come into the apartment that was as bright as a Sunday afternoon.

  Kylie put these small things away for her. Turned off her lights. Picked up an umbrella that had fallen across the threshold so Olivia wouldn’t trip when she came home. Even though Olivia didn’t notice, it pleased Kylie to do these small things and made her feel truly a part of Olivia’s life.

  On most evenings, Olivia looked through an album of photos, pausing on each page, touching the photos through the plastic. Her face was at its most contemplative in those moments. Not sad. Not happy. She simply looked as if she were looking at her past through a fogged lens. Removed.

  The humans in the album were ordinary looking enough. Attractive in their own way, many of them shared features in common with Olivia. They ran the gamut from milk white to deepest ebony, looking fierce and fearless in the photographs rather than happy. There were a lot of them, at least a dozen reappearing in multiple photos, and they loved to wear some type of camouflage.

  An older woman often appeared next to Olivia in the photos, usually wearing camo like the rest but never smiling. In one photo that Kylie stared at most often, the older woman sat at a picnic table between Olivia and a man who looked like a pale version of them both. Olivia was small and delicate in her white blouse as she said something to the woman, her hand raised in mid-gesture. The man in the photo frowned at the two wome
n, looking as if he wanted to be anyplace other than where he was.

  On nights when she couldn’t sleep, Olivia sat on the balcony, carefully watching the sky, waiting for the sunrise, her slight form still and attentive. Sometimes she took a book out there to read; other times she had her journal where she wrote her thoughts, a line of observation, a remembered line of poetry.

  Kylie liked to read the journal afterward and pretend they’d had a conversation, pretend that what Olivia wrote was to her and all she had to do was decipher the words and whisper her replies in Olivia’s ear while she slept.

  Although she was floundering in the open sea of unfamiliar and frightening emotions, desperately looking for something steady to hold on to, Kylie couldn’t justify watching Olivia. Couldn’t justify keeping Violet away from her brother and the rest of the clan. But she didn’t want to stop. She couldn’t.

  Chapter Eight

  Kylie was eager to see Olivia. The sun had barely set before she slipped out of her guilt-ridden hotel bed to find her way to Olivia. She was so eager that she almost knocked over a human, a tall male, who had insisted on standing in her way. He had pale skin, broad shoulders, and the hard eyes of a soldier. But she didn’t want to waste time proving to him that she was the harder one, so she let him have the sidewalk and hurried on to her destination.

  On Olivia’s balcony, she paused. Inside the apartment, she heard Olivia. Her quiet breathing, the rustle of bedclothes, a delicate sound of agitation.

  Was she all right?

  She slipped inside the apartment. But even as she moved beyond the curtains and across the cool floors in concern, part of her recognized what it was. Hitched breath, hands on flesh, a warm body moving on top of cotton sheets. Olivia was masturbating.

  Kylie gasped in recognition, a silent sound that was lost in the soft moan and sigh, the hiccup of breath, Olivia’s bare thighs sweeping across the sheets. Lifting. The delicate place between her legs exhaling a musky and womanly scent as it swallowed the black phallus Olivia was using on herself. Kylie licked her lips. She slipped up to the lofted bedroom, keeping herself in shadows, watching.

  Olivia had started a long time ago, possibly before sunset, and definitely alone. She was naked on the bed, her slender body writhing beautifully in the sheets. There was something both lovely and primal about her movements. This was a moment Kylie had not allowed herself to dream about, but as she watched, she realized it was a dream come true.

  Her body was slight and thin, with one breast scarred and nearly half the size of the other. She had wide nipples and a flat belly that glistened with sweat and dipped and clenched with her efforts. She gripped a black dildo in her fist, moving it with distracting ease in and out of her lushly wet pussy. Kylie licked her mouth watching the swollen lips flutter around the dildo, the soft pink heart, the pussy lips, and mound like fresh nutmeg shavings.

  “Ah!”

  Olivia threw her head back into the pillow, her neck arched and stretched, the small breasts heaving. The nipples were puckered and hard. Kylie imagined them wet from her mouth and unconsciously circled her hips on the floor. One pillow tumbled from the bed. The sheets rustled with Olivia’s movements; the springs in the mattress sighed as she fucked herself hard with the black dick, hips flying up to meet her own thrusts. Her body was painted wet with sweat.

  Kylie’s eyes latched on to Olivia’s pussy where her hands worked furiously, one ramming the dick into her soaked cunt while the fingers of her other hand made tight and hard circles around her clitoris. Her body dripped its juices on the sheets. Soft, needy noises spilled from her lips.

  Kylie felt rooted to the spot, unable to move. Olivia fucked herself with a desperation and passion that she’d only seen with women and their lovers. But Olivia was her own lover, and she made love to herself with a lush fervor that made Kylie jealous. Goose bumps floated over Olivia’s skin. The scent between her legs grew stronger. Her hands on her clit and on the dildo moved faster. She gasped and moaned and writhed on the bed, her body a symphony of erotic beauty.

  Kylie tried hard to ignore the blossoming interest between her own thighs. But it was hard when her panties were soaking wet, and she found herself pressing down into the floor, searching for relief for the ache, wanting to touch the source of that sweet discomfort but not knowing quite where to begin. As pleasurable as it looked, it also seemed painful, a loss of control, an undoing.

  Olivia’s toes curled against the mattress, her thighs pressed wide open. The dildo clenched in her fist dipped in and out of her with a wet, carnal sound.

  “Ah! God!” Olivia cried out then flung a hand across her mouth, her hips still making hungry circles in the bed, the dildo still fucking her pussy. She jerked in the bed as if struck by a live wire, calling out again under her clenched hand.

  Kylie could hear Olivia’s heart racing, her pulse. The breath shivering in her throat as she slowly came down from her orgasm. Her bare body was a feast for Kylie’s hungry eyes.

  Watching her, Kylie was agitated. Between her thighs was a soaked forest, aching for things she’d only seen but never experienced. Olivia rolled over in the bed, away from Kylie, curling up on top of the sheets with fingers curled under her nose, smelling herself. Kylie sat watching her for a long time, before she slid quietly from the apartment and went to kill something.

  Chapter Nine

  After a mostly unsatisfying hunt, Kylie made her way back to Olivia’s apartment. She stood in the middle of Olivia’s darkened apartment smelling herself. Maybe she should have gone back to the hotel to shower. It was not so much her own scent that she could detect but the stink of the other human woman she’d taken. The woman had been slender and strong, reminding her of Olivia. Kylie had left her alive.

  From the bedroom, she heard Olivia stir. Heard her take a deep breath then emerge from sleep, heart immediately beginning to race.

  “I smell you,” Olivia said.

  Kylie bit her lip and stood absolutely still. Then she opened her mouth to confess, to apologize. Ready to fly back off the sixth floor balcony.

  “You smell nice.”

  The voice was muffled by the pillow, but Kylie heard Olivia as clearly as if she had shouted through a megaphone. Olivia took another breath. She pulled a pillow close to her chest, sighed into it, and fell back asleep.

  Chapter Ten

  Kylie thought she was being subtle. Clever even. But apparently, not enough.

  “Is it strange that I talk to you when I’m not even sure you’re here?” Olivia turned slightly toward the darkened corner of her kitchen as if to watch Kylie, who was wrapped in shadows and lying on the floor of the bedroom above. “Probably,” she said after a thoughtful silence. “Whether you’re here or not. Sometimes it hardly matters. You listen. You don’t judge. You make room for me. When I’ve always doubted I deserve that space.”

  Olivia turned down the blue flame under her small pot of soup. The now familiar combination of smells—miso paste, scallions, soba noodles she made every other day—pulled Kylie, inexplicably, into a sense of comfort and ease. She crouched on the lofted bedroom floor with its clear view of the kitchen below and watched Olivia pour the steaming mixture into a bowl.

  “It’s the small things now,” she said with her eyes still closed. Olivia held the bowl balanced in palms protected from the heat with a black cloth napkin. Tears slid from her closed eyes. She drank the soup and tears flowed while Kylie watched, the carpet pressing against her belly, scratching at her cheek.

  This was the first time Olivia had talked to her since telling Kylie she smelled nice. It disconcerted her, but tripped a strange sort of happiness in her chest as well. She wasn’t as unwelcome as she’d first thought; maybe Olivia even enjoyed her illicit company and the vague comfort of that discomfort. If there was any such thing.

  Kylie worried her lip between her teeth again as she watched Olivia and felt the weight of the room where she lay, the rug pressing into her through her clothes. It was odd, but she felt more
welcome in Olivia’s small set of rooms than she ever had at the clan’s massive penthouse apartment in New York.

  Maybe because here, you are not fighting for attention that will never be yours, a low voice at the back of her mind said. She shook it away and refocused on Olivia. But seconds into her contemplation, a scratching sound came from the balcony. Kylie lifted her head.

  “Come out,” a lower than a whisper voice called out for her ears only.

  It was then that she realized there was a new scent nearby, a scent that did not belong on the balcony or even in Atlanta. Salt air and sea grapes. Her mother.

  She barely gave herself time to feel startled before she flew up from her prone position on Olivia’s rug and crept down the stairs, feeling like a parody of a cat burglar as she used both her vampiric speed and quietness to flit quickly past Olivia in the kitchen that only had the stove light on, leaving everything else in darkness.

  The doors to the balcony squeaked open, but she ignored the sound, hoping that Olivia was too caught up in her misery to notice it. The linen curtains billowed in the slight breeze and brushed at her back. She stepped outside.

  Belle. Standing in a red and white polka dot dress and high heels, her thick hair parted down the middle and pulled back from her face in two neat waves at the back of her neck, she looked like a 50s pinup model. Her lips were bright red, so were her short nails. She spared Kylie a single glance before balancing a hand on the edge of the balcony and leaping off. Her dress billowed up, then she was on the ground and looking up at Kylie, waiting.

  After a brief look back at Olivia who didn’t seem to notice a thing, she followed her mother out into the darkness.

  At eight o’ clock, the neighborhood was already lively with the evening crowd. Slow-moving traffic with bright headlights illuminated the long street and shops on either side. An unending stream of humans flooded the sidewalks.