“Moman, are you asking if Riley is from the emails?”
She mutters something under her breath that I don’t quite catch, even with my boosted hearing.
Riley gives me an awkward shrug and smile. I can tell it hasn’t sunk in for them yet—that if they don’t make The Choice, this will be them in a century or two, and if they do make The Choice on my account, this will be all of their family and most of their friends. Werewolves live longer than humans, but eventually, even they grow old and die.
“Rougarou,” my mother snaps again, lisping without the help of her teeth.
“Yes, Riley is a werewolf,” I say in my most patient voice. “But Riley is also really nice. They grew up on a farm, and now they work at a bank in the city.”
“Where?”
“Where does Riley work, or where did they grow up?”
“Grow.”
Riley clears their throat, tugging nervously at their shirt. “In Georgia, ma’am.”
My mother seems to like that. Rural Georgia doesn’t have the unique melting-pot culture of New Orleans, but in her eyes, it’s better than New York, the fast-paced, faraway city that took her daughter away and turned her into a vampire. “Good.”
“I like it fine,” Riley says. “Not many places to go, but you can’t beat the view of the stars.”
For a moment, my mother understands. Her mistrustful body language softens, and she gives Riley a toothless smile. Then she turns away, either distracted, tired, or suspicious once again. It’s impossible to say, really. It’s always like this when I visit my mother—she’s there one moment, gone the next.
***
After an hour, my mother reaches her limit. Her pauses become longer, and when she does vocalize, it’s the same two things over and over: pointing out that Riley is a werewolf—as if anyone could miss it—and asking about my emails. Once in a while, she just stares at me and mumbles my name. That’s when I decide to call it.
“We’re going to leave and get some dinner, Moman. We’ll be back tomorrow, okay?”
At first, she doesn’t acknowledge me, but eventually, her drooping brown eyes meet mine. My heart clenches, because I don’t recognize her in them. How long has it been since we had a real conversation? Ten years? Fifteen? Damn it. I’m only in my fifties and I’m already losing track of time.
“Tomorrow,” I repeat as she continues to stare. “We’ll be back.”
She nods, and I think she gets it. I leave my chair and give her a hug, placing a kiss on her dry and wrinkled cheek. She smells different, sterile like this room instead of the perfume she wore while I was a child. “Bye,” she says in English, which is something of a surprise. I could be reading into things, but I choose to take it as a small victory. Maybe she remembered me asking her to speak in English for Riley’s sake.
I check on Riley as I return the chair to its proper place. Riley looks a little awkward, but they’re still wearing a sweet and well-intentioned smile.
“You ready to go, baby?”
Riley shifts from foot to foot, as if trying to wake up their tingling toes. “Sure, sunshine. Bye,” they say to my mother, offering another wave. My mother doesn’t wave back, but she does dip her head in what seems to be a shaky nod.
Once we leave the room, we run into the same human nurse right outside the door. “Sorry, I was just coming to check up on things. It’s almost mealtime again.”
“It’s okay.” I put on a big smile. “We were just heading out.”
The nurse does a double take. Oops. Suddenly, I’m in Riley’s position. I forgot that fangs aren’t a common sight in this human-majority nursing home. Fortunately, the nurse gets over it quickly and wishes us a pleasant evening before slipping past us into my mother’s room.
“Seems like a pretty good place,” Riley muses as the two of us leave the building, passing by the bored looking fae at the front desk. She barely spares us a glance as we sign out in the guest log. “I mean, since your mama seems like she needs a little help.”
It’s more than a little. Come on, Izzy. Be positive. Look at the glass half full. “It’s lonely, living in a different city than her, but it’s best for both of us. If she sees too much of me, she gets cranky.” Great. That’s your version of positive today? “You might not believe this, with the way she kept shouting about how you’re a werewolf, but I think she likes you.”
Riley blinks, and then grins. “You think?”
“Mmhmm. You should’ve seen her with Natasha. My mother barely had a kind word to say to her, and she definitely didn’t ask questions like she tried to do with you.”
“I’ll take it.”
I pause to touch up my sunscreen with the travel-sized bottle in my purse, and then leave the building with Riley, stepping out onto the sidewalk. It runs alongside a narrow road, one that’s a little out of the way, but still close enough to some of the larger thoroughfares to have some foot traffic. I spot a harpy flapping overhead, and there’s a goblin waiting at a nearby bus stop.
“Guess New Orleans ain’t so different from New York,” Riley says. “Not sure why your mama was so surprised to see me.”
“Depends on which part of the city we’re talking about. This area’s mostly human, but you get a couple of non-human passers-by sometimes.” I nod at the retreating harpy and take Riley’s hand in mine. “How would you like to see one of the more diverse parts?”
***
“Well, sunshine, you were right about the carriage ride,” Riley says as we jostle down the cobblestone street, the fringe on our cheerful red carriage swaying in the breeze. “Just didn’t expect our horse to be a centaur instead.”
“Dat de truth?” Our carriage driver, a palomino with a glossy golden coat and off-white mane, whickers in amusement. “Don’ dey got centaurs up in de Big Apple?”
I scoot a little closer to Riley on the carriage bench. It’s not cold out by most people’s standards, but their temperature runs hot, and my blood flow is far from what it used to be. “Sure,” I tell the driver. “Lots of them. But the carriages in Central Park generally use unicorns.”
The driver snorts. “Unicorns. Coo-yon. Sho, dey pretty, but you try trainin’ dem for to carry a werewoof like your boo dere.”
“He’s got a point,” Riley concedes. “Never met a unicorn who didn’t get flighty ‘round me and mine. I heard they gotta clean the whole park of scent-marks after every full moon before they start up the carriage rides again.”
“Yeah, you rite. I done tol’ you awready, get you some centaurs,” the driver says, clicking his tongue. He comes to a stop, pausing beside the entrance to Jackson Square. “You gettin’ down here, ladies?”
Riley’s nose wrinkles at the word ‘ladies’, so I give their hand a squeeze before rummaging in my purse for my wallet, producing a generous fold of bills and passing them to the driver. “Merci.”
He tips his hat in gratitude and offers a toothy smile. “Dere ya go! Y’all take care.”
Riley hops out of the carriage, extending their arm back for me. I take it and step down to join them, and the driver swishes his cream-colored tail before clip-clopping off down the sidewalk.
“Do you know how perfect you are?” I tell Riley. They don’t seem to have a storm cloud over their head from being misgendered, but a little reassurance can’t hurt.
Riley shrugs, pulling a smile that seems genuine to me. “You’ve told me a time or two.” They tilt up their chin, sniffing the evening air. “Smells like green.”
“Probably all the trees.”
Jackson Park is cradled within a circle of stately oaks. As we walk through the gates, they open to reveal a red brick pathway cutting across a short-clipped lawn.
“…And manure,” Riley adds.
“Well, we can’t expect regular horses to be as refined as centaurs—”
“And strawberries?”
A dreamy look crosses Riley’s face. They lick their lips and, like a bloodhound on a scent, make a beeline for one of the street
vendors alongside the path. I laugh and follow them, leaving a bit of my own sad shadow behind. Not that vampires have shadows, and not that I’m great with metaphors, but that’s what it feels like. Something dark and dreary has been following me around all day, no matter how I try to shake it off.
By the time I catch up to Riley, they’ve already got a small plastic container of strawberries in one hand and their credit card in the other. I push their arm down, digging in my purse for the rest of my cash. “Don’t worry about it, mon chou. My treat.”
“You sure?” Riley asks, but I’m surprised they aren’t drooling onto their shirt already. If they had their tail, it definitely would have been wagging.
“Of course.” I pay the vendor, a bushy-bearded gnome perched on a three-legged stool. He has a felt strawberry sewn onto his pointy green cap, which I can’t help but admire. “Nice hat,” I tell him, and his thick grey eyebrows wiggle with happiness.
With our purchase made, Riley and I stroll along the sidewalk, heading toward the shadowy steeples of St. Louis Cathedral. Sunset has come at last, but there’s still a sizeable crowd wandering the park, humans and non-humans alike. A brass quartet bugles some 1920s jazz from a nearby corner, and further down the street, a wizard has turned his fingers into fire-sparklers, painting pictures in the air and collecting tips.
“St’awberreh?” Riley asks, offering me the container. Both of their cheeks are stuffed full of fruit, and a thin trickle of juice runs from the corner of their mouth down their chin.
Although I can’t enjoy human food the same way I used to, I pluck a strawberry from the bushel and nibble on it as we stroll past the bronze statue of Andrew Jackson on his rearing horse. My mood takes another dive, and I flick the leftover green strawberry stem at the horse’s hooves. Other monuments of slaveholders hailed as heroes have finally been taken down—I made it a point to go and gloat at some empty pedestals during my last visit—but this one’s still up, for now.
I don’t get it. I don’t think I ever will. I’ll never be able to reconcile those two words, ‘slaveholder’ and ‘hero’, in my brain. Sometimes, I wonder if I would have survived as a Black vampire in that era, or any era before I was born. On good days, I tell myself I might have been resourceful enough to thrive. Maybe I would have even left my mark on history. On bad days, I doubt it. And there’s no guarantee the future will always be bright or just, either. No guarantee you won’t be alone for most of it, either.
I glance over at Riley. They’ve stopped stuffing their face with strawberries, and a wrinkle of concern forms in their brow when they notice me staring at them. “Hmm?”
“It’s nothing.” I loop my elbow through Riley’s, leading them away from the statue and toward the church. “Just wondering how a wolf like you got such a sweet tooth.”
“Well, excuse us werewolves for not bein’ obligate carnivores like y’all.” Riley peeks back over their shoulder at the statue, rolling their eyes. “I can chuck some strawberries at him, if that’d cheer you up.”
I heave a sigh. “Don’t waste your strawberries on that stupid statue. It’s not even what’s bothering me. I just…”
“Your mama?” Riley’s voice softens with sympathy. “That visit must’ve been rough on you, with her not bein’ fully aware.”
“Sort of.”
“Then what else?”
I chew my lip. It’s difficult to figure out how much I should say. After some hesitation, I lead Riley over to one of the benches by the cathedral. Its curlicue iron armrests cut through the middle of the bench as well, to prevent anyone from lying down sideways. (Sadly, some of the touristy parts of New Orleans are hostile to homeless people as well as nonwhite and nonhuman people.)
Riley tosses the empty strawberry container in a nearby trash can, and then we both sit. Instead of leaning back, they rest their elbows on their knees. “So, what’s got you down in the dumps?”
“I guess staring down eternity in my mid-fifties is getting to me. When I first looked into becoming a vampire, I felt really positive about it. I had Natasha, or at least I thought I did, so I assumed that even if my future had some speed bumps, things would never be that bad. At the very least, I wouldn’t be lonely.”
A worried shadow crosses Riley’s face. “Izzy, if this is about that night in the truck, I shouldn’t’ve—”
“No. At least, it’s not only that.” With the sun all but gone, I untie my headscarf so I can enjoy the night air a little more, but just end up twisting it around in my lap. “I’m not afraid of the idea of…maybe someday, if things go well, making a…well, a very long-term commitment to you.”
Riley reaches over the armrest to still my hands. “You sure about that? ‘Cuz I wouldn’t blame you if you were afraid. I know you got burned bad last time.”
“Fair enough. I feel like I’m staring down a sharp wooden stake.” I look at Riley’s fingers where they’re twined with mine, resting on top of my scarf. “It’s got nothing to do with who you are. You’re sweet and funny and kind, and I know you aren’t anything like Natasha. It’s just…how do you see this ending for us? Because even if we stay together for your lifetime, that’s what, maybe two hundred years tops? Then you’ll be the one in assisted living, not sure who I am.”
“Maybe not,” Riley says.
“Or,” I continue, speaking faster as anxiety bubbles up in my stomach, “you make The Choice to be with me, and realize after a decade or so that we aren’t right for each other. Or maybe you realize that we are right for each other, but immortality isn’t as great as you thought. You’ll have to watch your parents die, and your brothers, and the other members of your family. The world will change around you until you barely recognize it anymore, like some of my students. And when it happens…how do I know you’ll be able to look at me and see somebody you love, instead of somebody you resent for putting you through all that?”
Riley brings my hands to their lips, kissing the tops of my knuckles one at a time. It takes a few of my very slow heartbeats before their eyes meet mine, but I don’t see any negative emotions only a tender expanse of blue.
“I can’t promise I’ll never regret it,” they murmur, running their thumbs over the kiss spots, which are still tingling and warm. “But when I look inside my heart, I don’t think I will. I think what I’ll gain is more important than what I might lose.”
I open my mouth, but no words come out. I don’t know what to say.
“S’okay,” Riley says, leaning over the armrest to place their forehead against mine. “I didn’t ask a question, and you don’t gotta answer. I just wanna let you know that I don’t regret us, and I ain’t expecting my feelings to change.”
When I kiss them, they still taste like strawberries. Their mouth is addictively hot, and I press my tongue forward without meaning to, sweeping it over their bottom lip. Riley makes a quiet sound of pleasure, with a hint of a low whimper wrapped up inside.
Part of me is scared, but a larger part of me is hopeful, and this time, I’m not forcing it. The feeling swells up inside me, growing too big for me to overlook even if I wanted to. I don’t want to.
The only reason I eventually pull back is so Riley can catch their breath. Their short, fluffy golden hair catches some of the sunset’s fading light, and I run my nails through it, teasing the soft strands. I don’t know what the future holds, but tonight, I feel like having an adventure. I want to do something a bit risky, maybe even stupid. And I know exactly which stupid, risky thing I’m in the mood for.
“Do you trust me, Riley?”
Riley’s smile is as loving and open as their eyes. “‘Course I do.”
“There isn’t really a delicate way to put it, but…how do you feel about public sex?”
***
It takes the two of us about an hour to pop back to our hotel room, grab what we need, and arrive at our destination—St. Louis Cemetery #1, eight blocks away from Jackson Square.
“Your idea of public sex is, uh, kinda different than
I pictured, sunshine,” Riley mumbles as we approach the entrance.
The maze of eighteenth and nineteenth century mausoleums isn’t exactly public, not for the past four years, since the Catholic Archdiocese closed it to foot traffic, and certainly not at this time of night. The moon has had enough time to rise in the sky, a mere sliver of Cheshire-cat smile that smirks down at us as if it knows.
“Outdoor sex, then.”
I take Riley’s sweaty hand in mine and pull them toward the flaking iron gate. It’s enclosed on either side by a thick white wall, with uneven cracks along its stuccoed surface. From the outside, the wall looks normal, but inside are the cemetery’s famous wall vaults, housing hundreds of the dead stacked on top of each other. To the left is a tiny guard station. A faint light shines within the window, a head and shoulders sized square cut out from what appears to be the only door.
“I’m just sayin’…” Riley pauses, glancing nervously over their shoulder as if someone might have followed us. “A cemetery? You gotta admit, it’s strange. And a little creepy.”
“I promise I’ll explain, but let’s get inside first.”
“That’s what she said,” Riley says, and I know for sure that, although they might be a little nervous, they aren’t unhappy about this. Cautious, maybe. Curious, definitely. Their inquisitive head-tilt and bright eyes give them away.
I let go of Riley’s hand, but before I leave, I reach between our bodies, palming the bulge at the front of their jeans. They’re wearing the toy I gave them, the one that transmits sensation and lets them come inside me. That was part of my request. What I have in mind won’t be gentle. Although I appreciate Riley’s tenderness more than I can say, it’s not what I need right now. It’s not what I need to continue feeling alive in my undeath.
Riley stiffens as soon as I squeeze them. They choke a little, making a strangled noise of surprise, but I feel an approving throb through their pants. I’m even more convinced that they’re okay with this when their embarrassed squeak becomes a growl. Riley grips my ass in both hands, kneading firmly and causing the hem of my skirt to ride up along the backs of my thighs. Suddenly, they’re the needy and impatient one.
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