by Marta Acosta
“No, it’s Silas’s fault,” I said.
He touched my knee and I could feel the warmth of his hand through the denim of my jeans. “Are you sure I can’t touch you?”
I did my visualizations and controlled my breathing. Then I put my forefinger on his hand. Blood, a pulsating heart, deep purple organs blasted through my thoughts of flowers. I jerked my hand back.
I closed my eyes so that he wouldn’t see the tears.
“Milagro, we’ll find a way to get over this. Winnie and I can work on it, and there are research doctors in the family.”
“Sure, of course,” I said. “I got over the earlier contamination. I’ll get over this one.” I forced myself to smile and said, “Why don’t you take a shower? We’re having dinner at Bernie’s.”
“Take a shower with me.” He brushed his lips on the shoulder of my blouse.
“Next time,” I said, even as I wondered if there would ever be a next time.
I left the bathroom, because it would hurt too much to watch him undress and not be able to touch him.
When he had showered and dressed, he came into the bedroom, where I was trying to pay attention to the evening news. He looked around and said, “Where does Thomas sleep?”
“You’re going to hate the answer. We share the bed.”
“You just told me that you weren’t having sex with him!”
“I’m not! It’s entirely platonic.” Thinking of Gabriel’s accusation, I said, “You’re so obsessed with me, you think everyone wants to have sex with me, but they don’t. I’m not even Thomas’s type.”
“You want me to actually believe that you share the same bed and don’t do anything?”
I looked him in the eye. “Yes, because it’s true. In fact, it’s all very innocent and sweet.” I recited Thomas’s story about holding hands with the little girl and told him how we slept facing each other. “He’s so good at telling his story, I always imagine that I can smell the hot chocolate on his breath.”
Oswald’s expression changed from irate to calculating. I’d seen that look when he was trying to puzzle out a health problem with one of the animals at the ranch. “You said he looked terrible when you first met him?”
“Yes, but every day he looks better and better. It’s amazing, really, what sleep, protein drinks, and exercise can do. He’s the only one who doesn’t set off the gory visions. He’s got a mild form of anemia.”
“Amazing,” Oswald said coldly. He strode out of the bedroom to the living area, where Thomas was sprawling in a chair reading Variety.
“You sleep with her, facing her, and you don’t do anything sexually?” Oswald demanded.
“Whatever she says,” Thomas said, flipping a page.
Oswald grabbed the paper away from Thomas and smacked it down on the sofa. “What kind of anemia do you have?”
“A mild kind, not that it’s any of your business. Are we ready to go yet, Milagro?”
“Gestational anemia?”
“Yes, that’s it.”
“Only pregnant women get that.”
Thomas shrugged eloquently. “It’s got some other name, then.”
“You’re sleeping close enough to Milagro to be breathing in each other’s faces?”
“There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Oswald,” I said, “can you stop hectoring Thomas? He hasn’t tried to seduce me. He hasn’t done anything wrong.”
“You’re an incubus!” Oswald barked in Thomas’s face.
It was an insane thing to say, and I wondered if Oswald had forgotten to drink bottled water on his trip.
Thomas maintained his cool, though. “You’re one to be calling me names, you freaky vampire perv.”
Oswald’s fist swung out, but Thomas jumped up and out of range. “You’re the one who got Milagro into your sick fetish.”
Oswald let his arms hang down. He looked guilty and I said quickly, “Thomas knows we’re into the vampire Goth scene, hon. He knows we like to play-act that way.” I was still trying to process what Oswald had said. I remembered a class I’d taken in mythology at F.U. and said, “What do you mean Thomas is an incubus? There’s no such thing. The myth was generated as an explanation for night terrors and night paralysis.”
Looking defeated, Oswald said, “There’s no such thing as the mythical creature. There are, however, people with a rare genetic anomaly of their hypothalami that results in their condition as subacute hyperventilators. Do you know what hyperventilation is?”
“Yes, breathing in too much oxygen,” I answered.
“Common misconception,” Oswald said. “It’s exhaling too much carbon dioxide. The CO2 in our systems is the main determinant of the body’s acid-base balance. If your CO2 is off, it negatively affects all of your body functions. He was restoring the balance of his CO2 by breathing in your exhalations.”
“Boring,” Thomas said. “Bernie is waiting.”
So now there were incubi, too, but they weren’t really incubi? Next I’d learn that there were zombies, who weren’t zombies but people with a biological disorder that made them eat human flesh. “You’re telling me that Thomas was using me for my carbon dioxide?”
“Yes, that’s why he always needed to face you.” Looking at Thomas, he said, “Admit to Milagro that you used her.”
Thomas exhaled a long, possibly carbon dioxide-deficient breath and said, “It’s not my fault. My father was one. There’s nothing wrong with what I did, and it helped her. She was miserable and having crying nightmares.”
Oswald glanced at me.
I nodded. “I’ve never slept so well in my life. I didn’t have any nightmares—or any dreams at all.”
“There’s a symbiotic aspect of the relationship,” Oswald said, in full medical doctor mode now. “The process helped to regulate your own breathing, provide you with additional oxygen, calm you down, and assist in your sleep.”
“See, no problem,” Thomas said.
I should have been angry with him, but I was grateful for those dreamless nights. “Thomas,” I said, “does Skip know about your condition? Is that why he wanted you here with me?”
He shook his head. “No, I told him I needed an assistant, that’s all.”
“Listen to me, Cook,” Oswald said. “That was then; this is now. She’s my girl, and you’re not sleeping with her again, do you understand?” Oswald sounded belligerent now. “You can just breathe in a paper bag and self-regulate your CO2.”
“It’s not like I need her,” Thomas said. “I could make a phone call and have a dozen just like her here in two hours.”
This time Thomas didn’t see the punch coming until it was too late. I drew my fist back and rubbed my knuckles. “Ouch,” I said. “I hope that hurt you more than it hurt me.”
Oswald couldn’t stop laughing as the actor massaged his jaw. Thomas gave me a look as if I’d been a terrible disappointment to him and said, “You know I won’t be able to give you a good reference after this.”
Before we left, Thomas called Gigi and she said she would get him a room near her suite. While he talked, I motioned Oswald into the bedroom and whispered, “Why doesn’t he set off the bloody visions?”
“I can only theorize, baby. Maybe the visions are in reaction to the respiratory gases carried by red blood cells.”
We went back to the living room as Thomas hung up the phone. “Gigi wants me to stay for some big private party next week, so I guess I’ll do that.”
The ride to Bernie’s was difficult, not only because Oswald and Thomas were annoyed with each other, but because Oswald was close to me, yet I couldn’t touch him.
Bernie was good-natured about barbecuing for us in his backyard, a barren square of dirt with a cement slab and a rickety trellis. I introduced him to Oswald and he said, “So you’re the lucky guy. Milagro always talks about you.”
“And you’re the guy who made her famous.”
“I made Maria Dos Passos famous,” Bernie said. “But I’ve got faith
that Milagro will make her own name as a writer.”
I felt a general zuzziness at the compliment.
Bernie poured beer in a glass for me and said, “I’m glad we’re still pals.”
“I am questioning my own sanity for even talking to you again.”
“Stop insulting our host, Young Lady,” Edna said as she came up behind me.
“Now you’re…” Bernie looked at Edna, then at me, trying to figure out our relationship.
“Edna is my friend and Oswald’s grandmother,” I said.
Bernie stared at Edna and grinned. “There was a devastating novelist some time back named Dena Franklin—I was crazy about an old black-and-white photo of her that I found in some newspaper archives—anyway, you resemble her. You’re much too young to be her, of course.”
“Of course.” Edna smiled and said, “Milagro told me that you have expertise with hidden cameras and recording equipment.”
“Oh, you mean that chupa story…Well, it was all in good fun.”
“I thought it was most diverting,” Edna said. “How would you like a job recording some antics at the Paragon party? It’s a private job. I just want copies for myself and my friends.”
“I’ll be at that party,” Thomas said. He angled his head. “This is my good side.”
“Are we talking about blackmail?” Bernie asked.
“We’re talking about persuasion,” Edna said with a smile. “Thomas, we don’t need any photos of you or of Gigi, so let’s keep this our secret.”
He grinned foolishly. “Whatever you want.”
My friend turned her charm back to Bernie. “Are you interested?”
“Interested? Hell, I’m captivated. How do you like your burger?”
“I like it rare. Very rare.”
“She wants it very rare,” Thomas repeated.
The evening had an odd poignancy; I felt as if I was playing the role of someone I wanted to be: an up-and-coming screen-writer with only good things in my future, fabulous friends, a fabulous boyfriend, youth, and health.
After dinner, Edna pulled Oswald to one side of the patio to fill him in on the situation with the neovamps. I stood nearby, adding the occasional fact, but letting her relay the events. When she began to describe the situation with Gabriel, I saw the sadness and concern on Oswald’s face. I felt as if I was intruding, and I left them so they could have some privacy.
Bernie offered to show me his “library.” He said the word as if he was joking, but when we went inside his ramshackle house, I saw that every wall was lined with bookcases. I held my head sideways as I read all the titles. There was a dizzying assortment of both familiar and unfamiliar names, great works and obscure collections of poetry.
“You can borrow anything you like, except first editions of American writers. What do you think?”
“I could live the rest of my life in this room,” I said. “You have so many hardbacks, too.”
“Some men gamble or take mistresses. I buy hardbacks.”
Mercedes called as we were starting in on bowls of vanilla ice cream. I went out front to talk to her in privacy. “Speak to me,” I said.
“I’ve got all the financial records and my pals are doing a little digging.” She meant her hacker buddies. “It’s the stuff we expected, a copy of the manifesto, records of payoffs to the neovamps, blackmail, and extortion, but there’s something more interesting.”
“Really? Tell me.”
“Silas Madison was once in a rock band. Sort of metal, very heavy. Drugs, booze, groupies. He was lead singer and wrote songs, too, not half bad.”
“The artistic instinct, when thwarted, often goes awry,” I mused. “Hitler, Charles Manson, Silas Madison.”
“You know,” Mercedes said, “in my experience, you can never really take the rock out of someone.”
“Nope,” I said. “Never can. Silas is still drawn to music. That’s why he has the chanteuse at the nightclub and that’s why he had the zither player. What do you have in mind?”
“Do you remember how I told you that centuries ago people thought that a zither could cast a spell? Same with the lute. The oud is a form of the lute.”
She let me make the association. I felt like the teacher’s pet when I said, “And the Dervishes have an oud in their band. But the spell casting is just a myth.”
“Sure, but the havoc those guys can cause is a proven fact, chiquita,” she said, and told me her idea.
Oswald was exhausted from all his traveling and worrying. We left the others talking in Bernie’s backyard and went back to the casita. Oswald wrapped me in a bedsheet and put his arm over me, careful not to touch my skin with his own. I wanted desperately to kiss him, to hold him.
“Oswald, do you think I’ll get better?”
“Of course you will, babe,” he said gently. But he sounded as if he was trying to convince himself.
“What about Gabriel?”
“I’ll talk to him…” he began, but sleep overwhelmed him and his eyes closed.
It was best this way. I knew that people had cybersex and alternative ways to pleasure themselves. But I needed to touch the man I loved and to be touched by him. It was better to be able to watch him sleep all night than to try to make love without our skin touching.
I still loved him madly. I loved him so much that his happiness was more important than my own. There was a moment when the sky outside was still dark but a few birds began calling out. It was then that I suddenly understood what Evelyn Grant had been asking of me.
Twenty-Two
Let’s get the Bloody Party Started
O swald had just left to find Gabriel and talk to him when Skip showed up to collect the screenplay. Even though he didn’t know the details of Silas’s evil plans for me, I really, really wanted to drag him to the pool and drown him.
“Skip, first we have to take care of some business. Our contract.” I handed him a few pages. “I talked to Thomas’s agent and she drew this up for me. You’ll see that it’s all standard.”
“I can’t believe you don’t trust me.” Skip let out an annoyed huff and flicked through the pages.
“It’s not about trust. It’s about business.”
“It looks fine,” he said. “You know, now you’re gonna have to give your agent a fifteen percent cut. Your loss.” He pulled a slick silver pen out of his pocket and signed the copies, then handed the pen to me.
I signed the papers and then fetched “Teeth of Sharpness.”
“I think it’s good. I hope you like it.”
“Gotta be better than anything a USB guy would do, right?” he asked with a grin.
“Right,” I answered.
Later, Oswald returned with upsetting news. Gabriel was determined to remain part of the Project for a New Vampire Century.
“We can abduct him,” I said. “We’ll tie him to a chair, play techno and old-school disco music, and force him to look at International Male catalogs. Did you meet Brittany? She’s Putrid in Pink.”
Oswald smiled wearily. “I met her, but she’s a symptom of the disease, not the disease itself. We have to go to the source.”
When Gabriel refused to set up a meeting with Silas, Oswald went through Charlie. In the evening, we were summoned to meet with Silas at his suite.
I had nothing that would pass as a cocktail dress, so I followed Thomas’s fashion tips and put on one of the gorgeous shirts he had left behind. I belted it with a long scarf and wore khaki shorts. I smoothed Paragon’s Nourishing Agave Emollient Lotion on my legs and put on espadrilles and jewelry.
Oswald took one look at me and said, “What happened to all the clothes I gave you?”
“There’re at the ranch. Are you staring at my legs?”
“Yes.”
“Then this outfit is fine. Let’s go.”
When Charles met us in the lobby, I noticed many guests were checking out. He led us to Silas’s suite.
One of the neovamp flunkies opened the door to Silas’s suit
e. The bar was set up with a small carafe of blood, bottles of still water, and those delicious fish-shaped cheese crackers. I tried not to stare at the blood, but I’d been rationing my last few teaspoons of chicken liver blood, which was beginning to taste a bit funky.
Silas’s bandages had been removed and he was out of the wheelchair, standing by the window. When he turned to us, I saw that all the hair on his face was gone and his skin was glossy pink, like my scar. His pale blue eyes stood out eerily against his new skin. “Dr. Grant, Misss De Loss Santoss,” he said. “Do come in.” He nodded to his flunkie, who went to the bar and began mixing blood cocktails.
“Good to see you again,” said Oswald, stepping forward to shake Silas’s hand. “Do call me Oswald.”
Silas stared at me and said, “The lasst time we met, you left quite precipitoussly.”
I smiled and let him wait for my reply. “I was as disappointed as you. I regret to tell you that Cuthbertson…” I stopped for a moment as if I was considering how much to reveal. “He was very stoned and very crude, but that doesn’t excuse what he tried to do to me. I acted in self-defense, although that liquor may have caused me to overreact a little.”
Silas was taken aback. “I had thought that Xavier might have…He is not the most reliable young man, and in fact has gone missing.”
“Zave always treated me with the utmost respect.” Glancing at Oswald, I said, “I wasn’t going to let the doorman at Silas’s club abuse me.”
The chemically castrated Silas might not have believed me, but the steroids seemed to be having an effect, because Silas now gazed up and down at me and said, “Misss De Loss Santoss, I am very ssorry. Cuthbertson indulged too carelessly, but he told uss a different story.”
“He would, wouldn’t he?”
Oswald said sternly, “Silas, I don’t hold you responsible for your employee’s assault on my girlfriend, but I insist that you hold him responsible.”
Silas nodded. “I shall ssee to it today. You have my word on it.”
“Good.” Oswald sat on the sofa and I sat beside him. The flunkie brought the drinks to us. The fresh mineral tang of the blood tasted wonderful.