by Fiona Zedde
“If I asked you to kill me tonight, would you do it?”
“No.” An unexpected spasm jolted through Kylie’s chest. She could never do that.
“Why not?” Olivia jerked her eyes back to Kylie. “What have I ever done for you to drag out my suffering like this and not give me this one thing that I asked you for? It’s nothing to someone like you. I’m sure you kill all the time.”
“Yes,” Kylie muttered with a wry twist of her mouth. “I even kill in my sleep.”
“Don’t dismiss me. Don’t bullshit me.” Olivia stood in a flurry of terrycloth. The robe’s sash loosened showing the shirt she wore underneath, the long, bare legs. “God! I’m so tired of everything.”
Fear gripped Kylie’s stomach. “You don’t mean that.”
“Don’t tell me what I mean. You’re not the one dealing with cancer right now.”
“You’re right; I’m not. But that’s no reason to let it consume your life.”
“What the hell do you know about life anyway?” Olivia’s eyes became poisonous and grim. “You’re nothing but a bloodsucking parasite who forgot what life is all about.” She crept close to Kylie, bending to meet her eyes. “Aren’t you?” Her hand whipped out and smacked Kylie hard across the face. When she lifted her hand again, Kylie grabbed it and grabbed Olivia, forcing down her own anger.
“Kill me,” Olivia begged, falling into Kylie. She weighed less than nothing in Kylie’s lap, a delicate misery. “I don’t want this anymore.” Her tears finally fell, splashing on Kylie’s wrist. “Make me like you.”
“Your life is not over yet,” Kylie said. “You don’t want this.”
Olivia jerked in her grasp. “Don’t fucking tell me what I want!” She tried to twist from Kylie’s grasp, but Kylie held her bird-like frame, firmly but carefully. Olivia abruptly collapsed into her, her anger disappearing as quickly as it had come. She trembled against Kylie, trembled and sobbed.
“I’m not telling you what you want, but you can’t want this.” Kylie’s hands tightened around Olivia’s arms. “This is worse than death.”
“I’ll take anything before death.” Olivia’s breath brushed against Kylie’s throat.
Kylie closed her eyes, rubbed Olivia’s back, and made impotent soothing noises that even she didn’t believe in.
“Oh, God!” Olivia cried into her neck, her hot tears falling on Kylie’s cool skin. “I don’t want to die.”
She held Olivia for a long time, through the wild bout of tears, the hiccupping of her breath, then the calm that left her lying limply in Kylie’s arms. She raked her fingers through Olivia’s short hair, saw again the tiny coils of hair floating to defeated shoulders. Finally, Olivia sat up and drew in a deep breath. She wiped the tears from her face with the edge of the T-shirt under her robe.
The shirt, Kylie noticed, was tattered and gray and had the words “Bertram Family Reunion Smackdown” in faded block letters. Olivia twisted the hem of the shirt in her hands and sighed. She pushed away from Kylie to lean back in the couch. Her anger seemed to have passed, leaving only resignation. Wiping her eyes again, she looked down at the shirt as if it represented more than just something to wear.
“Where is your family?” Kylie asked. “Shouldn’t they be helping you through this?” She couldn’t imagine going through something as devastating as cancer on her own as a human. Kylie guessed that even Belle would have come back to Friendship if something like that happened to Kylie.
“I—I have no family.” Olivia’s hands dropped away from the T-shirt.
“That’s ridiculous. Everyone has a family.” Even me.
“Not everyone.” Olivia stood then looked aimlessly around the apartment as if she had been about to do something but forgot what it was.
Despite Olivia’s words, it didn’t seem like she was truly alone in the world. She didn’t wear that air of grief people did when death had stolen their family.
“Did they do something? Is that why you abandoned them?” Kylie asked softly.
Olivia spun to her. “How dare you assume I abandoned them? Family is forever. They were the ones who abandoned me.” She turned abruptly away, pressing her lips together.
That didn’t make any sense. “Why?” Kylie asked.
Long lashes flickered up, revealing the pain in her eyes. “They didn’t want a vampire loving dyke in their family,” Olivia said.
Vampire loving—?
“What do you mean?”
“They know I want to be turned. They know we’ve been—together. They know I’ve asked you.” Olivia watched her face, unapologetic.
For the first time in her life, Kylie’s jaw literally dropped.
“How—? I—?” Kylie broke off, not sure what to say.
She remembered Olivia mentioning once that she had known about the existence of vampires. But there had been other things going on during that conversation that Kylie had latched on to. Olivia had known about vampires before Kylie came to her balcony. And her family did too. Kylie stood and turned away from Olivia.
If Olivia’s family had abandoned her, how could they know about Kylie? She’d only been with Olivia a few days. She thought about the sensation she’d had of being watched, of Ivy’s warning.
“How does your family know about vampires? And about me?” Kylie asked. “Are they watching?”
Olivia’s lashes flickered in the lamplight as she glanced away. “The Bertrams have known about vampires for a long time.” She sat on the edge of the couch, crossing her thin arms over her chest. “My great-grandmother was seduced by a vampire. That vampire kept coming to her night after night and pulling her deeper under his spell until she ended up in a nuthouse.” Olivia’s voice was low and resonant, as if reciting events from legend or the family bible. “My great-grandfather saw them together. He gathered members of the family to track and kill the vampire, but they never caught him.”
Thank God for that!
Kylie’s mind spun. She knew some vampires had humans they regularly fed from. Even the twins had a man in the city whom they liked to share. But she never considered the families of these humans and what they would do if they found out about the vampires in their midst.
“What about me?” Kylie asked. “How do they know about me?”
“They watch my apartment and they listen.” Olivia said it matter-of-factly, like she was used to being under surveillance by her own family. “But they never talk to me.” Sadness echoed in her voice.
Kylie resisted the urge to go to Olivia and comfort her. Instead, she focused on the image her brain readily supplied, of a ragtag bunch of overambitious humans bursting into Olivia’s apartment to attack her, make her pay for the seductions of a vampire she didn’t even know. They would fail, of course, but the attempt would be annoying.
She should leave, and soon.
“Are you going to abandon me too?” Olivia read her easily, her face a cheap flyer advertising her emotions for all the world to see.
“No,” Kylie said, but that wasn’t quite true.
And Olivia seemed to see it. She sighed. “I’m tired.” She turned away from Kylie, the open robe and T-shirt swaying around her narrow form as she walked toward the stairs for her bedroom. “Let yourself out when you’re ready.”
But Kylie wasn’t ready to go. Her mind swirled with questions. And, truth be told, her body was already mildly addicted to the pleasure that Olivia so effortlessly stirred. She spent enough time running away from the difficult situations in her life, she wasn’t going to run from this one. Not when so very much depended on it.
Instead of following Olivia to her bedroom, she went to the kitchen, put on hot water for tea, and waited while the water boiled, all the while listening for the sounds Olivia made in the bedroom above. She heard the mattress sigh with the weight of her body, the whisper of sheets, her slow breaths.
Kylie finished making the tea, added the one teaspoon of brown sugar that Olivia preferred, slid two shortbread cookies on the mug’s saucer,
and walked carefully up the short flight of stairs.
Olivia was in bed, lying on her back with her robe hanging off a shoulder, T-shirt rucked up around her thighs, her body in a pose of dejection. She was facing the wall. For a moment, Kylie thought she was faking it. The look was too perfect: mouth turned down at the corners, body sprawled on top of the sheets, the large robe pooled around her small frame and making her seem even smaller, more fragile. She turned to face Kylie.
One look from her devastating eyes and Kylie dismissed the idea of pretense.
“Have some tea.” She set her offering on the bedside table and moved back to sit on the bench at the end of the bed.
“Why didn’t you leave?” Olivia’s voice was tired. Heavy.
“Because I’m not ready to.” Kylie felt separated from Olivia by too much, the stretch of sheets and landscape of pillows, their different experiences, their longings. She broached the one that was the easiest.
The mattress sank with her weight as she sat near Olivia’s feet.
“What if I want you to leave?” Olivia watched her, unblinking.
“Do you?”
Olivia sighed, turned her head away, and looked at the tea and cookies on the bedside table. Fabric whispered when she stood and left the bed. She grabbed the mug and saucer and took them back to the kitchen. Kylie waited a beat before following. She got to the kitchen in time to see her pour the tea down the drain and sail the two shortbread cookies into the silver garbage can under the sink.
“There’s only one thing I want from you right now, and it’s sure as hell not tea and cookies!” Olivia slammed the saucer into the sink. The red ceramic cracked as it met the mug, shattering into pieces.
She cried out and jumped back from the sink. “Shit!”
“Stop acting so spoiled,” Kylie shouted, suddenly tired of it all. “I’m not going to kill you, so it doesn’t matter what else you break in this damn kitchen.”
“Doesn’t it?” She growled the question at Kylie.
The robe drooped off her shoulder, fully revealing the T-shirt that came almost to her knees. Bertram Family Reunion Smackdown
“How about me?” Olivia stepped closer to her. “Do you want to break me?”
Her breath brushed against Kylie’s face. She grabbed the front of Kylie’s shirt, fingers grazing her skin. She tried to shake Kylie but wasn’t strong enough. Kylie grasped her arms.
“You’re going to hurt yourself,” she hissed. “Stop it!”
“You can stop this,” she moaned. “You can stop everything that’s wrong right now.”
The pain of Olivia’s words gushed from her mouth and washed over them both until Kylie felt like she was drowning in it. Olivia’s body was overheated against hers, strangely wrong and right at the same time. The familiar desire crawled from between her thighs. Heat licked over Kylie’s skin from Olivia’s touch, sinking its claws into her skin, shredding her self-control. She didn’t have enough strength in her to fight it.
Kylie kissed Olivia.
Olivia gasped and tried to pull back, but Kylie didn’t let her. She held her close, held her tighter in the tender prison of her arms, not hurting her, but definitely not letting her go. She sucked Olivia’s pain into her open mouth, drawing it in, licking the wounds she could find with her tongue. Olivia pressed her hands against Kylie’s chest, at first like she was going to shove her away, but her fingers curled in Kylie’s shirt. Then they were kissing each other, sharing the sweetness and pain on each other’s tongues.
Olivia grunted when her back slammed against the wall. Kylie muttered against her mouth in apology, but that didn’t stop her hands from touching Olivia’s breasts tentatively, then more firmly, seeking the tight nipples through the shirt. Olivia shoved off Kylie’s jacket, fumbled for her zipper, but Kylie pushed her hand away and yanked up Olivia’s long shirt. She moaned deep in her throat when she found that Olivia wasn’t wearing anything underneath it. And she was wet. Astonishingly swimmingly wet, her pussy slick and hot to the touch.
She gasped. Olivia felt so warm. So vibrantly alive that Kylie wanted to dive inside her body and never leave it.
Kylie dropped to her knees, shoving Olivia back even more against the wall.
She was ravenous, and Olivia had everything between her thighs that she ever needed. Kylie jerked the shirt out of the way, tipped her head into the steaming pussy, and died all over again. The heat. The wetness. Olivia’s gasp from the coolness of her mouth. Delicate fingers digging into her scalp. A brief second of pain, then she forgot everything but the salty sweet on her tongue, the moans above her head, the relief, the agitation in her belly. She licked Olivia’s pussy, swirling her tongue around the clit that grew larger and thicker with each swipe of her tongue.
“Kylie….” The word trailed off into low moans as Kylie made her inexperienced way around her pussy, light licks, deep swirls of her tongue, not worrying about Olivia’s satisfaction but sating her own hunger. There was no blood between her thighs, but the liquid dripping down her chin was just as good to her, nourishing her in ways she never imagined.
She gripped Olivia’s thighs, shoving them apart, diving between them. The shirt floated down around her head, shrouding her in darkness, but it didn’t matter. She could make her way around this miraculous pussy in the dark, blind and with no sense but taste.
Kylie wanted to connect with Olivia, tell her with her tongue and touch alone that she wouldn’t abandon her, that she would never leave her. She wanted to take her pain away. Olivia bucked against Kylie’s mouth and Kylie gasped, careful with her teeth that throbbed in her mouth, aching to burst out, suckle from her thigh, drink up the heat of her blood. But she held herself back, gorging instead on the swimming, hot pussy. On the noises Olivia made. Olivia’s fingers sank into Kylie’s hair, her thighs pressing back and widening even more against the wall.
“I want to see you!” Olivia gasped.
Kylie felt her reach for the shirt, try to pull it up. Kylie shoved the shirt up, but when it fell back over her head, she gripped it in her fists and ripped it in two, and reached up to shove it and the robe from Olivia’s shoulders. Olivia grunted and sighed under Kylie’s mouth.
Even after last night, she didn’t quite know what she was doing, but she knew what she wanted. Olivia’s pain gone. Her need to satisfy satisfied. Kylie closed her eyes and licked her, sucked the seductively salty juices from the soft and hot pussy. Kylie groaned and dropped a hand between her own legs. She yanked down the zipper on her jeans and shoved her hand into her panties.
“Fuck!”
She was nearly shocked at her own wetness, the flood between her legs, her hips bucking as she touched her own clit, rubbed it, and slid fingers into her cunt to fill the aching emptiness. Slick and cool. Wet and slippery. Their moans rose in the kitchen together, a chorus of sex and joy.
“Kylie!”
Olivia’s fingers clawed the back of her neck. She screamed out her cum, shuddering, caught between the wall and Kylie’s mouth. Her pussy danced against Kylie’s mouth, squeezing out the last sensations. Kylie sighed with satisfaction, although she was far from satisfied herself. She blinked and stood up, yanking the robe and pieces of the torn T-shirt from Olivia’s shoulders. She dropped the superfluous cloth to the floor.
Olivia looked stunned, lips red and wet, eyes glazed over with lust. Kylie grabbed her and lifted her slight weight to sit on the kitchen counter, thighs sprawled open. She dove back into the pussy.
“No!” Olivia gasped, trying to slam her thighs together. “I can’t. It’s too soon….”
Kylie shoved her thighs wider, her tongue already spearing apart the swollen and salty lips to dip into the slippery cunt and drink her up. Olivia grunted, hips sliding back away from Kylie who grabbed her, held her captive to the coolness of her mouth, still mindful of her grip and trying not to hurt her. She slid a hand between them, fingers on Olivia’s clit, circling, pressing. A hiccup of sound. Olivia’s hips pressed toward Kylie’s mouth, her
palms flat against the counter, shoving her pussy into Kylie’s mouth.
“Fuck!” she cried out. “Your mouth….” she panted, hips moving faster, her clit getting bigger under Kylie’s fingers. “It feels…it feels….” Then her coherence fell away, leaving just her breath and her gasps and the wet sounds of Kylie’s mouth licking her dripping pussy.
Kylie deepened her cunt kisses, her hand working between her own legs, bringing herself closer and closer as Olivia rose toward the peak with her, Olivia’s voice singing out above her head, a beautiful solo of impending fulfillment.
Olivia wailed and jerked against Kylie’s face, shoving her pussy hard against Kylie’s mouth, screaming out, hips tipping off the counter, bare heels thumping the wooden floors as she fell. Kylie caught the twitching pussy with her mouth, hands gripping the trembling thighs around her face, shoving Olivia back against the counter. Olivia screamed as the cum rushed through her.
Kylie didn’t stop. She slid her fingers deep into the weeping pussy and latched her tongue to the fat clit.
Olivia pushed at her head. Frantic. “No! No! I’m too—ah!”
Despite Olivia’s protest, her pussy greedily swallowed Kylie’s fingers, sucking them deep. The sensation of the slick cunt around her fingers made Kylie’s pussy twitch and throb, the lust easily reawakening and rushing through her. The blushing wetness of Olivia’s pussy was an aphrodisiac that made her want to endlessly eat her up, fuck her, drink her, take her to the point of fulfillment and beyond.
Kylie felt Olivia’s thighs trembling, threatening to buckle. She held her up with one hand while the other steadily fucked her, curving her fingers up the way she’d seen a woman do once, the pads of her fingers touching a soft sponginess. Olivia cried out, her fingernails shredding the back of Kylie’s neck and her shoulders. She sucked her clit, stroked her deeply, fingers curling and stroking, relentless, tireless. A hot fluid gushed from Olivia’s pussy, splashing Kylie’s face, rushing over her hand, down to her wrist, down her chin, gushing over the kitchen floor.