by J S Hazzard
As for Ian and Eggplant, it was over before I could even scream, “Stop, we need to question her!” Within seconds there were pieces of Eggplant everywhere—which was much more disgusting in this context than an actual eggplant would have been.
It was a scene of bestial savagery.
Though I was furious that Ian had jumped the gun, my only clear thought was that there wasn’t enough cleanser in the world to clean up all this Eggplant. I choked out a tiny giggle and both Ian and Keanu whipped around to face me. They were right to be alarmed—this situation qualified for hysterics.
“Aurora, are you okay?” Ian took a tentative step closer and I took an involuntary step back, eyeing the floor as I answered. “You know, I don’t think I am.”
After weeks of drudgery and the accompanying camaraderie, I’d all but forgotten Keanu and Ian’s true nature. However, it was somewhat hard to ignore with the evidence oozing closer and closer to my feet.
“No, I’m not okay,” I repeated, swallowing hard. Then I proved myself right by vomiting. Mostly onto Keanu.
In my defense, I hadn’t asked Keanu to move closer and he was more than quick enough to avoid the trajectory, had he been so inclined. It wasn’t my fault he’d forgotten a vital aspect of human bodily functions.
The force of my sickness dropped me to my knees. As I pushed up from the floor, embarrassed, I was startled to see Keanu also on his knees from the sheer shock of being sprayed by human offal. I started to offer my hand in assistance, but stopped after seeing my hands.
Pretty nasty.
For that matter, none of us would win any hygiene contests in the immediate future. I may have been the best looking person in the room for once, though it was hard to get excited considering the state of my competition.
Dust from smashed plaster and concrete filled the room, and Keanu and I were covered with a chunky layer of whitish gray powder. His golden brown hair was covered and his eyebrows looked like scruffy white caterpillars. He was also splashed with blood, though nothing like Ian.
Ian dripped with blood, in the literal sense of the word. He hadn’t escaped the dust and plaster either, and the combination was smearing into a gooey and very unpleasant shade of pink. (Having had Keanu in front of me, I’d escaped the blood with only some spatter on my clothes.)
In addition to shielding me from the blood, Keanu had stood between Ian and the vomit. Being the only triple threat, Keanu won my vote for the worst of us. When he finally stood and spoke, his voice was plaintive. “Did you really throw up on me?”
Ian and I looked at one another for maybe two seconds before collapsing into laughter. After a minute, Keanu joined in and much inappropriate gaiety ensued. The two vampires were sprawled on the filthy floor, lying amongst the vomit and formerly vital bits of Eggplant, having the best laugh they’d probably had in centuries.
Every so often one of them would say something profound, like, “Look at you!” Then the other would respond with something equally brilliant, like, “No! Look at you!” and the cycle began anew.
Eventually, I picked my way through the rubble and nudged them with my foot. When that didn’t work I nudged them a bit harder, then a bit harder still. (Okay, fine. I kicked them, but a kick that doesn’t hurt is like a tree falling with no one to hear—it doesn’t count.) Unfortunately, my actions only added to the hilarity.
However, it was hardly a time for amusement with Eggplant seeping all over the living room. And we needed to discuss the ramifications of her being here.
“You.” I grabbed Ian’s wrist and tugged, my hand sliding over his slimy fingers. I tried again. My second attempt was no better, but Ian realized my goal and gamboled to his feet like a drunken puppy, stumbling under the force of his laughter.
“And you.” I attempted to snag one of Keanu’s wrists, but they were beneath him and therefore out of reach. I scowled at Ian, who obliged in an instant.
“Allow me.” He hauled Keanu up by the scruff of his neck, like a kitten, and set him on his feet. Only he didn’t stay upright. Still caught in silent paroxysms of laughter, Keanu crashed back down like a felled redwood and Ian nimbly whisked me out of the way, twirling me in an unknown dance move that did nothing for my tender stomach.
In theory, there should be nothing more revolting than dancing with a vampire who’s disemboweled another vampire in front of you, especially one still dripping. Despite this, I found myself laughing again.
For some unknown reason, at this point our cleanup efforts deteriorated into the world’s most disturbingly decorated dance party. While Ian and Keanu pranced around scraping up chunks of Eggplant, I skipped into the guest kitchen in search of trash bags. As I rooted through the cupboards, I had the tentative feeling I’d forgotten something, but dismissed it as Keanu shouted that the bags were in the laundry room.
Once I found them, I stripped off my reeking outer layers before they made me vomit again. After a millisecond’s glance at the washing machine, I crammed my jeans and sweatshirt into a garbage bag. Even if vampire blood washed out with cold water, I never wanted to see these clothes again. (Besides, the washer was still full of the wet laundry I’d put in earlier.)
I considered finding a new outfit, but decided there was no point in ruining my good clothes. Instead, I grabbed a threadbare tank top of Keanu’s that came to mid-thigh—neither vintage nor irreplaceable, just a crappy undershirt full of holes—and decided it would suffice.
Upon my return with the bags, both Ian and Keanu’s filthy, sun-scorched rags joined mine in the trash. This not only provided me with a hilarious view of the two men in their rubber sun-proof undergarments, it also gave me a laugh when Keanu hollered, “What’s the matter, Ian, don’t they make sun-derwear in blue?”
Ian stopped fiddling with the wall stereo long enough to shoot him a dirty look.
The music Ian had programmed was a collection purporting to be the best of the 1980’s—not that I’d have known the best from the worst. None of it was familiar, but Ian and Keanu knew every word and Ian called out their names as each one began.
I don’t know if he’d chosen the songs for their ironic titles, but I couldn’t stop laughing as they sang along. We gathered Eggplant’s remains (Love is a Battlefield), wiped down the walls (Fight for Your Right to Party), tore up the remaining carpet (Girls Just Want to Have Fun), and crammed everything into our black ‘Hefty’ bags (Everybody Have Fun Tonight).
As vile as the room was, two hyper vampires made for a speedy clean up. Soon we had a mound of bags beside the door and Ian and Keanu took turns carting them out. I didn’t know where they went, but either it was nearby or the guys were in rare whooshing form tonight. The current song was something about Bangkok and the men came and left six times before it ended, leaving the room spotless and us even filthier.
Okay, I’d grown filthier. The guys had reached maximum filth capacity before cleanup even began.
With Ian unwilling to let us traipse through his rooms, we showered in our undergarments in the guest bathroom. I couldn’t imagine the multiple showerheads had been intended for this scenario, but they worked exceptionally well.
Even with dozens of nozzles, it took time to get clean—partly because of our goofy antics, but mainly because we were repulsive. By the time we were done the guys were playing imaginary guitars and shrieking about welcoming me to the jungle—which was what the steamy bathroom felt like.
Breathless from the humidity and needing to sit, I filled the hot tub while the guys argued about ‘slash’ and ‘air guitar’—whatever the hell that meant. After agreeing to disagree, Ian reprogrammed the music and Keanu procured champagne, declaring that a job well done demanded celebration.
“Do we really need three bottles worth of celebration?” I wondered as Keanu uncorked them all. “Isn’t that a tad excessive?”
I received my answer when Keanu filled each glass from a different bottle. My own champagne was a beautiful gold, but the others had a suspiciously pink hue.
> “There’s blood in yours, then?” I was surprised at how little this bothered me. Then again, considering what I’d just stuffed into garbage bags, perhaps I was momentarily beyond revulsion.
“Of course.” Ian took a sip as Keanu slipped into the water on my other side and lifted his beverage. I sipped my champagne as I mulled it over. Thoughts of blood aside, I’d never tasted anything so delicious. Between the bubbles and the icy coldness, it felt like drinking liquid energy.
“I don’t mean to be rude and this might just be me,” I mused, “but somehow the idea of blood in champagne sounds even stranger than drinking straight blood.”
“Yeah, that’s just you,” Keanu said, refilling his glass before replenishing the others from their proper bottles. I thanked him and took a single sip in the time it took Ian to drain his glass.
“Can you taste anything guzzling like that?” I wondered.
“Yes, it’s exciting to do it fast. Invigorating,” Ian explained. “Adding blood to alcohol makes the alcohol somewhat absorbable. Nothing like the way humans experience it, of course, but the combination is…”
“Festive!” Keanu tossed out, beaming as he filled Ian’s glass again.
Curious, I took Ian’s glass from Keanu and sniffed. Then I smelled my own for comparison purposes. Two perfectly shaped vampire eyebrows arched in unison and I looked back and forth between them, their reactions putting me on the defensive.
“I wondered if they smelled different, so what?” I felt myself flush, not that I could get redder in this heat. “Stop staring!”
“And?” Ian was still staring. Meanwhile, Keanu had progressed to wiggling both eyebrows. Good grief.
“And nothing.” It took effort not to sound exasperated. “There’s a tiny metallic hint mine lacks. I don’t see what the big deal is. I can’t be the first human to wonder what it tastes like.”
Keanu sucked in a breath and his eyebrows came to a standstill at the same time Ian’s eyebrow rose again. I mimicked their faces, but no one laughed.
“What?” I was starting to wonder what I’d stepped in. “What’s the big deal?” I looked back and forth a few more times, amused. After the past two months it was impossible to feel intimidated by a beverage. “Whatever. For being ancient and wise, you guys can be morons, you know that?”
With that, I raised Ian’s glass and tilted it to my lips.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN
IF I’d expected a taste revelation—which I hadn’t—I’d have been disappointed. It tasted like I’d cut my lip before sipping champagne, only champagne would probably sting in a cut and that wasn’t the case here. In fact, my tongue had been slightly numb for the past few minutes.
Either way, it was a wholly unexciting non-event for me.
The baboons appeared to think otherwise.
“What?” I looked back and forth between them again. They’d both frozen.
Keanu spoke first and his voice was hoarse. “Holy shit, that was hot. That was incredibly hot. Do it again, Rory!”
I burst out laughing at the unexpected reaction and turned toward Ian, expecting his response to mirror mine, but he wasn’t laughing. His normally cool eyes burned hot, and his breathing was shaky though his respiratory needs were nothing like my own. And then he kissed me.
In an instant I was swept, if one can be ‘swept’ through water, from my marble seat to his lap. He had one hand tangled in my wet hair and the other around my waist, holding me close. I could taste the bloody champagne on Ian’s agile tongue and it was a heady thing, vastly more appealing than the sip I’d had from his glass.
I randomly wondered how Ian had sealed his champagne bottle after adding my blood, as he couldn’t have purchased champagne with it already there. And then I told my inner monologue to shut the hell up, because I was wasting a phenomenal kiss on minutia.
I’m not sure what it says about me that I could kiss someone so consumingly in the presence of someone else but nothing positive came to mind. I’d all but forgotten Keanu at that point, but he had no intention of remaining ignored.
I don’t know whether it took a few minutes or a few seconds, but at some point Keanu slid over to occupy my now vacant seat in the hot tub. My judgment had slid down a drain somewhere, but I could still count—at least to four.
Unless Ian had grown additional hands, the hands on my stomach and right shoulder were Keanu’s. And the mouth traveling along the left side of my neck was definitely Keanu’s—I could see his gilded hair from the corner of my eye. It was damn convenient to have three different hair colors present in this scenario. It helped me figure out who was where in the steamy bathroom.
Then I found myself turned and kissing Keanu, which was a different experience altogether. My remaining functional brain cells—all seven of them—concluded the two men kissed like their ages.
When Ian kissed me, it was the most unhurried thing in the world, like he could spend the next decade doing nothing else because he had nothing but time. Not to imply a lack of intensity on his part because believe me, it was intense. On a scale of one to ten I’d have rated him somewhere in the mid-twenties.
On the other hand, Keanu kissed me as though the world would end within minutes and he had to make every second count. Not to imply hastiness on his part, because I was feeling damn well tended. He also shot my one to ten scale to shit.
It was a good thing it wasn’t a contest, because I was a useless judge. One annihilated with speed while the other devastated with slowness, and both experiences were utterly enjoyable.
I’d lost track of whose hands were where and it didn’t seem to matter since all the hands were engaged in such pleasant activities. I’d like to claim I gave as good as I got, but I was incapable of proactive thought. Reaction was the best I could manage and if not for the slabs of vampire supporting me on either side I might have drowned.
Both Ian and Keanu had transferred their attention to my neck and were biting at me none too gently. Neither of them broke the skin, but merely being in the vicinity excited them to no end. Someone growled—it might have been me, but I was too gone to care.
I had no idea whose hands brought me to orgasm the first time, or any time thereafter for that matter, but it was inevitable that my human body wore out first.
“Please, no more.”
By now I could barely whisper, but it was as effective as if I’d screamed bloody murder. Whatever insanity had happened was over. All four hands pulled back, only to seize me again as I sank like a stone. My current muscular state was non-existent and I was at the mercy of gravity.
After some shifting around, I was returned to my original seat. I took a deep, steadying breath. The water had gone tepid, and the steam had dissipated from the bathroom. I was somewhat startled to see our reflections; condensation had covered the mirrors to the point I’d forgotten them.
I looked—no polite way to put this—I looked worked over. Though I felt overtly sober, I looked drunk. My facial muscles had slackened and I hastened to pull them back into something resembling their normal lines.
That said, Ian’s and Keanu’s faces were carved into taut lines of shock. I was embarrassed to realize that unless I’d missed something, the entire episode of insanity had been all about me. This was awkward.
I wanted someone to say something and really hoped it wouldn’t have to be me. It was like a triangle of stare. I’d have blushed, but my face couldn’t get any brighter.
“Are you okay?” Ian recovered first.
“Maybe.” I didn’t know what I was, but at least I wasn’t going to throw up. “What about you guys?”
“We’re fine,” they said simultaneously.
“Okay, everyone’s fine.” I waited another minute before I couldn’t stand it. “Will one of you please say something?” I’d gone from brainless bliss to feeling like a jackass, and their responses made it worse.
“We’re sorry,” Ian said quietly, echoed by Keanu’s, “So very sorry, Rory.”
Ian’s face was like stone. “I take full responsibility. I didn’t realize… and I should have. Are you alright? Is there anything I can do for you?”
With less-than-steady legs, I stalked up the steps leading out of the tub. Incredibly, my underwear and bra, though askew, were still intact. How had that worked? What were these guys, blood-sucking magicians? I tossed my wet hair as I wobbled to the door.
“No, I think the two of us are done here,” I said icily, taking a few more steps before cringing. “Shit, I mean, the three of us—I mean—” My brain screamed at my mouth to shut the hell up before I made things worse, while simultaneously telling my legs to move.
In a rare but much appreciated deviation from the norm, both my mouth and my legs decided to obey my brain and I ran the rest of the way back to Ian’s bedroom in silence. Heedless of potential water damage, I scrambled up and made myself as small and insignificant as possible beneath the comforter. What the hell had I done?
Well, my brain noted, it appears you’ve engaged in inappropriate, drunken conduct with the two individuals you’re depending on to save Nicky. And that’s without considering the fact that they’re members of the blood-sucking living dead, and that you’re in the house of Ian’s long-term girlfriend—in case you’d like to feel shittier than you already do.
“Okay, that is not helpful.” I spoke the words aloud and then crushed the pillow over my face. Freaking walls had ears. And the conclusion of it all! They were freaking sorry?
An apology? Ugh. It didn’t get much more humiliating than that. Besides, if we’d all been muddled from our connection, they hadn’t taken advantage of me any more than I’d taken advantage of them. I was still trying to wrap my head around it all when the champagne finally showed mercy and I fell asleep still wearing my wet underwear.