by Adams, Nancy
I moved and got up out of the booth, and Simone slid past me and grabbed my hand. She dragged me out to the dance floor, just as the band started in with “Let It Ride.”
Okay, I could dance to this—and though I’d never been more than an average dancer, I suddenly felt like I could move, and the more I listened to the music, the stronger that feeling got! We made our way to the middle of the floor, and Simone spun me around once, and began laughing when I faced off with her.
The beat was great, especially for two girls who were out to attract attention, and we quickly got into some fairly synchronized moves—which meant that Simone would show me what to do, and I did it! We bumped our butts together, spun around each other, and when she turned her back and snuggled right into me, I almost turned red, but I put my hands on her shoulders, and we ground into each other.
Suddenly I was enjoying it, and not just because of the music; Simone was an adorable little thing, and beautiful in a sexy-innocent sort of way, and it didn’t take me long to realize that she knew a thing or two about coming on to another woman—because she was doing it to me! Her hips were finding just the right ways to touch me, to gyrate into me, to set up a vibration that reached right down to my—yeah, there!
She leaned her head back and turned it so I could see her face, and the look in her eyes said, “I dare you...” as she puckered up her lips at me—
So I kissed her, and not a little peck like she’d given me earlier—I mean a kiss, and we got about a thousand wolf-calls within the next few seconds. I gave in, then, and blushed bright red, but not before I felt a soft, sweet thrill hit me.
Suddenly we were the center of a pretty big knot of guys. Simone peeled off me and began dancing with one of them, a man I’d guess to be in his early forties, and I was about to go back to the booth when another man grabbed my hand and asked me to dance. He was cute, and I was pretty turned on, so I smiled and nodded, and about then the band went into a slow song, Air Supply’s “I Go Crazy.” I thought the guy would back off, but he smiled even bigger and pulled me close, and we began to dance. I glanced over and saw that Simone was doing the same with her new partner, and she caught me looking, so she put her arms around the fellow a little tighter, rubbing herself right into him—then she gave me that look again.
Well, fine! Two can play, right? I looked at my partner and smiled as sexily as I could manage, and pulled him closer to me, letting him know by the way I molded my body to his that I was having a good time, and inviting him to enjoy it, too.
“I’m Jim,” he said, “Jim Wright.”
I gave him my “you gotta be kidding” look. “Mr. Wright? Does that line work often?” I asked him with a smile.
He laughed. “No,” he said, “and even worse than that, it’s true. It’s my real name. What’s yours?”
I almost blew it, then, because I was about to say, “Amber,” when Simone was suddenly beside me. “Katherine,” she said, “are ya havin’ fun?” She gave me a wink, and then danced away again with her older man.
“I’m Katherine,” I said, and wondered how Simone had known—but then it hit me that she could hear my entire conversation, even over the music. Jim had just told me his name, so naturally he was going to ask for mine. “Katherine Miller. I’m from St. Louis, came down to visit my cousin, there.”
Jim grinned, and we danced through that song and a couple more, chatting a little. I got him to do most of the talking, and learned a valuable lesson—let a man think you’re listening to him, and he’ll tell you everything about himself; but even better than that, he’ll forget that you aren’t telling him squat, and he’ll still think you’re a brilliant conversationalist! That knowledge has been good for me ever since. Thanks, Jim.
He was only twenty-four, and worked in the oil field up at Benton. Lived up there, too, and I almost got nervous; Benton was only a stone’s throw from Corlin, and it was a safe bet that if we started comparing acquaintances, we’d find more than one we both knew. Luckily, that applied to Amber Fair, not Katherine Miller, so I just smiled and let him talk.
Simone came over to introduce me to her “guy for the night,” whose name was Mark Lee, and we all ended up sitting back at our booth, me and Jim on one side, and Simone and Mark on the other. I had another rum and Coke, and Simone asked for a drink called an orgasm, which made all of us giggle.
Horace
Simone was always the one who drew the attention. I used to worry about her, at first, but by the time she’d been with me a year I knew she was like a cat, and would always land on her feet. Leaving Amber with her had been a calculated move, but I figured the girl needed to learn to loosen up bit, and if anyone could get her to shake off the prudes, it would be Simone.
Besides, it was pretty obvious that Simone had a crush on her.
When I’d found Simone, she’d been with a vampire named Gilbert, a rogue who’d come over on one of the early slaver ships. I’m sure he must have hidden in the holds, because there’s no way he could have managed not to kill the whole crew if he’d not been feeding on the slaves down below. Slaves died regularly on the ships, their bodies tossed overboard into the sea. A vampire feeding carefully on the weak and sick and elderly wouldn’t make much of a difference, and the losses in human cargo wouldn’t be notable.
No matter; Gilbert was a monster even when he’d been a man. I’d known of him in England back before the colonies began, a man who sought power at any cost. He’d been a barrister, and got turned by a vampire who wanted a pet. The two of them terrorized London for years, until someone got lucky and put a silver-tipped bolt through the older one. Gilbert knew the vampire hunters were onto him, and slipped onto a ship headed for Jamestown with a load of slaves who had been brought up the past winter.
He’d found Simone when he went after some of the people in her village, and he’d thought her cute. He turned her so that he’d have her as a sex toy, and she did as he bid for four years, but he was a killer. I made it over here by coming with a score of colonists whose passages I’d paid. They knew the bargain they’d made, that I would need a small amount of blood each night from one of them, and I’d not drink from the same one twice in one fortnight. Even then, I nearly killed a few of them before we landed in the New World. I’m amazed none of them decided to toss me overboard during the day, as I slept.
I was trying to keep our existence a secret in this new land, though, and this Gilbert was making a mockery of my efforts. He enjoyed the killing, and when I confronted him he merely called me a coward and laughed.
“They’re our cattle, man!” he said to me. “Nothing more. Should men try to eat only a small part of a cow each day, so the poor creature can go on grazing, limping around the pasture?”
I was not amused by his attitude, and after trying for a week, I challenged him to a duel. He laughed, thinking himself my superior at swordplay, but I surprised him. My silver-inlaid blade found his heart, and Gilbert was dead.
Simone went a little wild, then, and I was afraid I’d have to kill her as well, but when I found her and told her it was possible to live without killing, she begged me to show her how. I only had Rudy and Madeline, then, and Mad saw Simone as her own sort of plaything. She taught her the ways of women, and they’d been sort of together, off and on, for a long time.
But Madeline had gone in another direction in recent years, and all I needed to do was look into Simone’s eyes when she was staring at Amber to know who that little heart belonged to once Amber came along.
Chapter Twelve
Amber
We’d no sooner than gotten our drinks when Simone grabbed Mark and pulled him into a wild kiss, and I was almost shocked when I saw his hands roaming all over her! They came up for air, but didn’t let go of each other, and I chewed my lip and wondered if Jim was expecting me to be just as wild as my “cousin”—and realized that I just wasn’t ready for that.
How silly could I be, right? I was already a murderer and a man-eater, but I drew the line at be
ing a tramp!
Jim was a decent guy, though, because after he got an eyeful of their wild lip-dance, he leaned over to me and whispered, “Do we need to break that up? Is your cousin gonna be safe with him, if this keeps up?”
I’m sure I must have been blushing, but I gave him a weak smile. “Oh, she’s safe enough. Uncle Horace is around here, and he keeps a close eye on her.” He looked kind of doubtful, so I whispered, “Oh, relax—that’s her boyfriend, and they play this game where he pretends to pick her up in a bar, and they get wild. She’s okay, really, but don’t let on that I told you.”
He looked over at them again, and Simone—who had heard my little fib and figured out why I’d said it—caught his eye and winked, then went back to giving Mark a fantasy or three. Jim looked down at the table, and I could tell he was suppressing a laugh. I leaned close and said, “Hey—you wanna dance again?”
He smiled, and said he’d love to, so we slid out of the booth and went back out on the floor. We danced to a few more songs, and went back to the booth (Simone and Mark were gone) where we had a couple more drinks, but by then it was nearly two in the morning, so I told him I was tired and wanted to go home. He asked for my number, and I said I never gave it out on the first meeting, but I’d love to come back to Harley’s next Saturday night—and he kissed me goodnight, right there in the booth, and let me walk out.
I almost went back in and asked him to get us a room. For all the times I almost went all the way with Vince, this guy made me want to in ways I’d never felt before. Later I understood that it was his gentlemanly manner that turned me on—but right then, I just thought it was the fact that he was a great kisser.
Oh, well—maybe it was some of both!
It was after three when I got home, and I managed to slip in quietly. No one woke up, and I went to my room to wait for morning.
Simone
I took Mark out back behind the parking lot, and we had us some fun on the ground under the stars. He didn’t even look surprised when I bit and started suckin’, and held me close while I got all I needed. Kept tellin’ me how pretty I was, and how sexy I was, and I made sure he had a really good time.
When we was done, he wanted to cuddle me, and I let him. We was still lyin’ there, lookin’ up at the stars, and he was touchin’ me and gettin’ all sexy again, when I saw Amber come out and get in her car. I started to get up and run after her, but she had to go home and get all set for the trip to California, so I just went back to Mark and let him hold me. It was nice, it was.
Chapter Thirteen
Amber
Farm families wake up early, so I didn’t have to wait long before I heard Mom moving around. I gathered some clothes and went to take a nice, hot shower—and noticed that I still had some blood on me, little splotches around my waist and thighs—so I was glad I’d decided not to get overly frisky with Jim, after all. The little bits of pink-stained water went down the drain, and I washed my hair and body thoroughly, just to be sure.
I’d been to the bathroom several times at the club, and a couple times since I’d gotten home, so my belly was back to being flat and firm. I toweled off and got dressed, and went down to the kitchen to find Mom making omelets. I poured myself some coffee, asked for Swiss cheese and mushrooms in my omelet, and she grinned at me.
“So what time did you come in?” she asked.
“About three. I went over to Carbondale,” I lied, “hung out at one of the coffee houses. They had a guitar player, and I got to just sit and do some thinking.”
She raised an eyebrow at me. “Oh? Any big decisions?”
I smiled. “Well, I didn’t change my mind about moving, if that’s what you’re asking. More like just thinking over what I want out of life. You know, do I want to go into movies, or maybe TV—I wouldn’t mind being on a good TV show, but I don’t think soap operas are my style. Not that I’d turn one down; I mean, money and fame are money and fame, right?
“Right,” she agreed with a grin. “So—what’s on your agenda today? Sleeping?”
“Probably later. I’m not all that tired, really, so I thought I’d go to town and look at trading my car in.” I’d already explained my logic about wanting a van, that it would make carrying all my things easier, and if things got really bad I could always sleep in it. Neither Mom nor Dad thought that was funny, but they didn’t argue.
Dad came in a few minutes later, and the girls showed up right after him. We had breakfast together, and chatted like we always did. I sat and drank a second cup of coffee with Dad after I was done eating, and then got up to head into town.
I’d bought my car at the Ford dealer in town, but they’d changed hands not long before and I didn’t know the new owners. Instead, I went to Russell’s Used Cars, a lot that my dad had bought a couple of his pickups from. Dad thought that the new trucks were too “pretty” to be used for farm work, so he always bought used ones, and Denny Russell had treated him right on the last two. I pulled in and got out of the car, and Denny came out of the little office building.
“Amber, how are you, Honey?” he asked. Of course, since Corlin’s a small town, everyone knew about what had happened to me. I smiled sadly.
“I’m okay,” I said. “But I’ve decided it’s time to get out on my own, y’know? I’m moving out west, and Daddy said I need a better set of wheels, so I thought I’d look at getting a van.”
I don’t know if you remember the early eighties, but vans were very popular among young people. Denny didn’t bat an eye at my decision, just took me by the arm and walked me over to where he had several vans sitting together. A big red one caught my eye, and he said it was a great choice, a seventy-eight model Chevy. It had been all decked out with four captain’s chairs up front, and two big bench seats in back that folded down to make a big bed. There was a nice stereo, and it was in good mechanical shape with only twenty-eight thousand miles on it.
From the vampires’ point of view, I thought it would work out okay, because there was a big, heavy curtain that could be closed between the front driver area and the rest, and it only had one small window on each side in back. Those could be easily covered over from the inside, and it would be pitch black in there all day long!
The price wasn’t bad, only thirty-one hundred, and Denny gave me fifteen for the Mustang II. I went down the street to the bank and closed out my account, then went back and paid him cash, switched my license plates over, and was done.
I stopped in at the Kewpee and said goodbye to everyone. Mr. Barton tried to talk me into staying, but I told him I’d made up my mind and was definitely going out west to try my luck in Hollywood. He gave me my last paycheck, and even threw in a hundred-dollar bonus. I thanked him, hugged everyone who worked there and a few of the regular customers, and left.
I made a quick stop at the auto parts store and got some black spray paint, and used it to black out the little side windows. With them covered, and the curtain closed, it was completely dark inside the back of the van, but I had to drive home with the back doors open and the windows down, to get rid of most of the paint smell; last thing I needed was for Mom or Daddy to think I was huffing paint.
Back at home, the girls came out and went nuts over the van. Daddy said it looked like I’d gotten a good deal, and Mom said it was pretty. I went inside and recruited Molly and Angie to help me pack my stuff, which was not as easy as it sounded, and resulted in me giving them an awful lot of things I’d taken for granted for years. We spent the rest of the day on the project, and by dinnertime, we had gotten about half my stuff packed.
I stopped, then, and spent the evening with my family. It was Friday night, and I knew I’d be leaving in less than a day and a half, so I wanted as much time with them as I could get. We sat in the living room and watched a movie, and I made popcorn for us to munch. The girls sat almost on top of me, but I didn’t mind.
They went to bed around ten-thirty, and Mom and Daddy followed them a little later. I watched a little more TV, then decid
ed I’d better be tired and went on up to my room.
If there’s anything about being this way that I truly hate, it’s the not sleeping. There is nothing in the world more boring to me than just lying in a bed for hours and hours with my eyes closed, pretending to sleep. That night, I just couldn’t manage it, and ended up lying there reading, instead. I went through a couple of old romance novels before the sun began to peek up over the horizon.
Saturday was a lot like Friday. I finished packing even before the girls got up, and spent a couple of hours hauling my stuff down to the van and packing it in. There wasn’t that much, after I’d culled all the stuff out that I was leaving behind or giving to the girls, so it all fit behind the back seats pretty neatly. It was still way more than I could have shoved into the Pony Car, though.
Some of my high school friends came by to see me in the afternoon, and we sat around the backyard and reminisced about old times. Another girl, Stephanie Petty, told me she’d been so inspired by my determination to go to Hollywood that she had decided to give it a try, herself, and for a moment I thought she was going to ask to come with me. Luckily, she wanted to finish college first. I didn’t figure I’d be seeing her in L.A., but I smiled and wished her the best.
Vince had come with them, and wanted to take me out one more time, but I told him I thought it would only make the whole thing harder. I’m pretty sure he was hoping I’d give in and let him go all the way before I left, but for some reason I didn’t want it to be him that I gave it up to. Besides, I wasn’t a hundred percent certain that there wasn’t a connection between sex and my new eating habits. The last thing I would want on my conscience was the death of a boy I had once thought I would marry.
