You bustled into the sitting room but stopped stark still, when you caught sight of me. Again the silent staring contest. I was getting the better of it, now that I had on some clothes.
You pointed at me. “Have you been...?”
“All evening. Not budged a muscle. I’ve been good as gold, God’s honest truth.”
You simply stared at me again, before dropping your tote to the floor with a clatter. You should watch that, I bet the bag cost a bomb. You sighed. “Go to bed.”
Bollocks.
I stiffened, before trudging past you back to my cell. I’d only wanted to play the good boy but I’d still screwed that up, hadn’t I?
Would you punish me now?
You waited until the following morning, however, to start on the torture.
“Get up,” you growled.
Christ in heaven, make up your mind.
“What…?” Groggy, I squinted out of the covers. You were standing with your hands on your hips, glaring down at me. I groaned and burrowed back into my nest. The magic blue ivy was dimmed to nothing on the blind: sun up. “It’s morning. Creature of the night here. Sleep time.” The duvet was unceremoniously hauled back. “Oi, undressed bloke alert.”
“I said, get up.”
I only just had time to drag on my jeans and t-shirt, running my fingers through my hair, before you dragged me into the kitchen. Grumpily, I sat straddling the stool, resting my head in my hands.
Take note: if you want your toy to look smart? Brylcreem.
You’d already shown me the computerized blinds, which you’d had fitted throughout the apartment to keep the sun out, with a kid’s glee.
I slumped there, bleary-eyed, whilst you were all chirpy, blitzing yourself — bzzzzzz — a blueberry and banana smoothie. You poured the swill into a glass and took deep gulps. Your neck looked so long and ivory. Bloody inviting…
Look, Blood Lifer here.
“Coffee — black. Two sugars please, darling.”
You slowly lifted the glass from your lips, licking a smoothie mustache away. “You can drink coffee?”
“Well, yeah. How else do you expect me to stay awake at this time of the bloody day?”
You snorted. “It’s not early. It’s nearly—”
“I’m nocturnal.”
Your eyes narrowed. “Not anymore.”
“Come again?”
You shrugged your slim shoulder. “It’s not working out. I need my sleep.”
“Me too. And I need it when that thing, which can boil me down to melted goo (called the sun), is in the sky.”
Your eyes were as hard as I’ve ever seen in a First Lifer. “Not happening. You’ll just have to…adapt. Can’t you do that?”
“More than you know, sweetheart.” I gritted my teeth together not to say more.
Your smile was one of cool triumph. “Mint. Now I just need to think of things to keep you busy whilst I’m out, so you don’t…you know. I’ve got a gym; you can work out in there for two hours each morning.” Your face lit with sudden enthusiasm. “I’ll set you a fitness program from Instagram.”
I grimaced. “Then I’ll need that coffee.”
You banged through cupboards in search of what must be sodding poison by your sour expression. As a last-ditch attempt, you swung open the fridge, which was stuffed with long-stemmed globe artichokes, strawberry punnets, asparagus spears, waxy lemons, aubergines and loquats.
Seeing all that food, I wasn’t able to hide my glazed-eyed salivation.
You snatched up one of my bottles. “You want some blood?”
“That’ll only take off the edge,” I panted.
“You mean,” I could see the cogs turning (thank Christ), “you need real food too? Like a…” You’d been about to say human, but I reckon that would’ve been a step too far. “She told me that slaves…I mean…Blood Lifers….didn’t need…”
“That right?” Again, I wondered who this she was. The same she, who’d advised you that we drank from bottles, like baby animals on a farm.
Uncomfortable, you slammed shut the fridge. “Why?”
“There aren’t enough calories in blood. Without other food, we’re in a permanent state of starvation. Plus, I like the taste, the same as you.”
“But I haven’t fed you since…” You hurled the bottle at the far wall with a holler of sheer frustration.
The teat bounced off and cold, glutinous blood splattered across the brocade.
I jumped up. Shuddering, I forced myself not to dive on the blood and lick up every delicious, dripping globule of red life.
You Cains have spirit. It makes you prime candidates for election to Blood Life.
I inched towards you, before tentatively patting your stiff shoulder. “It’s alright.”
“Naw, it’s not. I told you, I’ve never even looked after a dog before.”
I smirked. “I guess you’ve got the collar though?”
For a moment, you were smiling the first genuine smile that I’d yet seen. Then you shoved the remnants of your smoothie into my hands. “Drink that. I’ll get you some more blood. You can have anything you want when I’m out today; there are sweet potato brownies at the back of the cupboard.”
“I’ll be sure to look out for them.” I rolled my eyes as I watched you over the rim of the glass; I tried to take measured sips, rather than down it in one go.
You busied around, pouring fresh blood into a cup, before transferring it to the microwave. Then you eyed the coagulating mess on the far wall. “I had to fire the cleaner because of you. Do you know how hard it is to find a good cleaner in London?”
I shrugged.
Somehow both the tantrum hurling of the blood and the firing of the cleaner had become my fault. But with a slave’s instincts, I knew better than to argue the point.
“That’s going to stain unless…you sort it.” You studied me speculatively. “After all, you’re the one with all the free time. Anyway, I don’t want you getting bored. I’ll leave you a list of chores.”
“Is there an apron to go with that?” I snarled.
“Do you want one? Or how about a pretty French Maid’s outfit?”
Humiliated, I shifted uneasily.
I finished the smoothie, banging down the glass. It wasn’t the strongest rebuttal, but it was all I had.
You tossed pink Marigolds at me and didn’t take no for an answer, until I was wearing them like a right pillock. I knelt on the kitchen floor by a soapy bucket, washing up the blood from the marble tiles and scrubbing it from the wallpaper.
It still left the ghost of a stain.
When you bustled out of the apartment, I shook myself awake like a mutt. Then I got down to some serious press ups in the sitting room so that I wouldn’t have to explore your gym.
It got out my energy: if it’d been night-time and I hadn’t been about ready to curl back to sleep on the cold floor.
When I padded into the kitchen, I discovered that — true to your word — you’d left a chores list for me on a pink Post-it note.
It was neatly numbered too.
I started with the dishwasher.
DISHWASHER: DINNER PLATES, FRONT LEFT. SIDE PLATES, FRONT RIGHT. BREAKFAST BOWLS, BACK LEFT.
I stared at that pink Post-it note, which was a pink bloody rag to bull. My fingers itched. You’ll be living on the wild side from now on with your dishwasher arrangements. I slipped a dinner plate to the back.
Next up: laundry. I nosed into the utility. There were already these smart hampers, which were marked light and dark, as if even our dirty clothes needed dividing.
LAUNDRY: WHITE WASH (WHITE ITEMS ONLY). DARK WASH (DARK ITEMS ONLY).
Sometimes I wonder how you reckon I’ve lived for the last one hundred and fifty years. And it’s not by merrily mixing colors. But your washing machine of torture with matching drier? Flashing lights and twenty plus bloody settings?
Sod that.
It’s cotton, delicates, or quick wash — that’ll do me.
Pleased with how well I was getting through the list, I decided to have a snoop around. I pushed into your bedroom. The first thing that hit me was a montage of photos, which covered an entire wall. In each one, you were laughing or smiling.
It was as if you were a different woman.
Some of the photos were faded. They showed an older woman, elegant but with the same gray eyes as you. She was in Florence; I never forget a place that I’ve been.
Most often, however, it was you in the photos with this dark-haired bloke. He was a stud (in an alpha geek way), with his checked shirt buttoned up to the neck. I had the sudden urge to rip off the wanker’s arms because they were draped over you. I don’t know why.
You were posed in front of an imposing, white colonial mansion, with an American flag caught just in frame, sprawled on the grass under shady elms or leant on oaks, in front of redbrick and ivy-hugged buildings. You pulled goofy faces and cuddled, or dived into cool blue pools.
It was confusing and overwhelming. A slice of life lost, except on these walls.
I forced myself to turn away from your private memories. Yet as I did, I only just had time to notice the vast white bed, when instinct booted me in the bollocks.
Blood.
A dark pool at the foot of the bed.
I threw myself to my knees. My phantom fangs ached with their attempt to descend (the shameful reminder of my impotence), whilst I lapped at the blood.
Wrong — taste and smell — chemical wrongness.
Spluttering, I pulled back, wiping my arm across my mouth in disgust. I prodded the solid pool with my nail.
A fake.
A mock massacre, masquerading as a rug. Nothing but a ghoulish decoration. I ran my hands carefully over the rug’s outline: one body fully drained, if you guzzled it all.
I pushed myself away, sickened and ashamed by my reaction.
You reckon you know me? Who I am. What I am. A killer?
For many years now, however, I’ve lived as something different. Even when I was new to Blood Life, I killed to live. It was survival. At least, that’s what I reckoned. A quirk of evolution had elevated me above the moral quagmire.
But then I met someone who changed me.
Still, it’s you First Lifers who are obsessed with death. We need blood to live but First Lifers create fake baubles, which obsess on death for the sake of art, narrative, or because it matches the décor.
Death fascinates you. You spend your short lives dancing towards it — sod it, inviting it.
You shouldn’t be surprised that there exist in the shadows those who are ready to welcome you.
That evening, when I’d finished the chores, I settled in the sitting room in a brown relax chair, which was lopsided like a baseball glove, with my arms linked behind my head, for a little sleep.
Suddenly, I sensed someone watching me. Tensing, I bit my lip and slowly opened my eyes.
You were standing over me with your hair plastered to your head. It was raining again then.
“Comfortable?” Your voice was dangerously low.
I wriggled my arse further down into the seat. “Yeah, not bad. It’s better than the rest of your tat.”
Your eyebrows rose. After a day running around after the Nazi of the Post-it world, which was now (and with exultant joy), torn into tiny pieces and tossed into the rubbish, it was a treat to see. “Tat?”
“You can’t tell me that you’ve ever actually sat on that tree trunk thingy?” You chucked your tote against the fireplace — bang. I flinched. Something definitely broke that time. “And what’s with that…on the floor in your bedroom?”
You paled; your gaze became vulnerable, before it hardened again. “Why were you in my bedroom?”
“Why do you have a grisly murder as a rug?”
You frowned. “It’s art. It means—”
“It means that you First Lifers are nothing but blood bags.” I leant forward, meeting your gaze. “You’ll get no arguments from me. Who knows, maybe these bigwig artists of yours are Blood Lifers themselves? We’re everywhere you know: in business, the music scene, nightclubs, and entertainment… The world’s 24/7 now, and that suits us just fine. If you reckon that we’re only slaves, then you’ve got it dead confused.”
You flushed, turning away. Were you shaking? “Where’s the chores list?”
I sprang up. Now I was the one shaking but with rage. “Why? Checking up, are we?”
Now you’d composed yourself to your mask of deadly cool again. “I just figure that I can’t have set you enough to do on account of you having time to lounge around on my tat…”
I blinked. “Now hold on a minute; you do realize daytime is sleep time for Blood Lifers? Bit of credit here.”
You, however, only tiredly shook your head.
There are more ways to control, punish, and torture than through pain: you take away choice and you replace it with humiliation.
All right, I’m a daft pillock.
There were longer and more detailed pink bloody Post-it notes after that. Also, an increase in prescribed exercise to three hours a day.
I always make sure I look the good slave when you come back through the door now to mollify you: wearing Marigolds and cleaning, whilst on my knees.
This evening, I’d been ordered to dust the dining room: my Freedom Room.
You were out…as always.
The dining room’s high-ceilinged, with a fireplace at one end, with inlaid colored marble. Every wall — floor to ceiling — is frescoed, with a pastoral scene of gentle rivers, oak trees, and rolling hills.
When I’d first scrutinized the fresco, which is original to the house, I’d discovered the black outline of stumpy tailed Manx cats hidden behind tufts of grass and snaking streams. I’d wondered whether you’d had them added. I’d traced each one, counting them. A splendid parade of numbers. They’d risen to a crescendo, when I’d spied the last one behind a holly bush.
Every time I touch the orange sun, I’m astounded that it doesn’t melt my skin. The joy is pure.
The last time that I experienced such happiness in the sun I was a kid, under the weeping willow behind our Watford house. I’d been teaching my sisters a trick of the light with silver half-crowns. That was before mama had stumbled down the steps to tell us…
Before everything had been lost for good. Childhood. The sun. My freedom.
And now it’s lost for well and good yet again.
In the dining room, however, surrounded by that fresco, I’m outside…even though I’m trapped inside.
It’s my Freedom Room.
When every day I sit cross-legged and stare at it, it’s as if I can feel the breeze. It flutters the leaves. I can smell the tangy grass. Hear the splash of the gently churning river, as the perch shift in shadowed patterns beneath the clear surface. I stare up at the indigo sky and the face of the sun…and I taste the freedom. In those moments, I fool myself at least.
It’s beautiful.
Then the front door bangs, and I startle, jumping back to my body again.
You’re home, and all I can taste is the ash of my captivity.
Tonight, when I traced the sun with the tips of my fingers, I couldn’t help my foolish grin. I tapped the first Manx that I saw, which was sheltered underneath the arms of an oak. I avoided glancing out of the windows over Regent’s Park and the sea of the city, which I could no longer touch.
Instead, I dusted the sideboard in wide arcs. The sideboard was a patchwork of scrap timbre and salvaged planks polished to a brilliant shine.
You can appreciate the precious in the worthless when it comes to objects. Yet not the worth in a sentient being, when we fall short of your black and white morality. Bloody hell, then we’re objectified. Just something else worthless to be transformed by the omnipotent Cain family (and their training process) into the newly precious.
You know, maybe I got it wrong. We are just like this poor sideboard.
I gave it a more rigorous rub with
my cloth.
The silence was getting to me more than usual. Didn’t folks in the twenty-first century have entertainment blaring every minute of the day? You had the technology, but it sat there like it was ornamental. I’d have found a way to use the Internet to free myself — if I’d had anyone to contact on the outside. That’s the problem with not playing well with others: when you go missing, there’s no one to give a sod.
Backwards, forwards, backwards, forwards…
I could see the dust, like midges, rising before settling again.
There was a pile of well-thumbed books perched on the edge of the sideboard. I trailed my finger down their spines: Mistress and Slave Relations: The Beginner’s Handbook, Mistress and Slave: The Advanced Course, Protocol Handbook for Slaves…
I pulled my hand back, as if from the flames.
I guess you’d decided to do some swotting up. Life lived through academia, not raw in tooth and claw — bloody, thrilling, and delicious.
Life’s not sanitized: the drip-feed of the Instagram generation, blended to the bland.
It’s dirty, painful, and intoxicating.
The sensation of being trapped ballooned. The dining room warped.
I was a predator. I should be on the hunt. Not defanged and playing house, whilst you bought me books on slave protocol.
I struggled to keep my hands from balling into fists as I reluctantly worked further along the sideboard to the item that I feared most in the whole bloody apartment.
It hunkered at the end of the sideboard. A fruit bowl. Except, there was no fruit in it, apart for one lone apple for artistic effect. It was nothing but display. The same as me. Like a lump of shrapnel, the bowl was a deformed nightmare of limbs and weapons melded together from hundreds of toy soldiers: innocence and horror in a handy fruit bowl.
I shuddered as I fingered the contours of one melted soldier. Only his head and right arm pushed up, as if from the fires of hell.
Boom, boom, boom…
I remembered being trapped in a hole with Ruby during the Great War, under the rotting corpses. The bright lights searing my eyes. The guns so loud that my eardrums bled…
My chest was suddenly too tight. My breathing became ragged; I couldn’t get in the air.
Rebel Vampires: The Complete Series Page 27
