by Heidi Lowe
"How long have you been there?"
"A minute or so. I obviously got here just in time for the good stuff."
"You can join in if you want," one woman offered.
Before I could protest, could tell the stupid bitch to shut her mouth and mind her own business, Jean got up with a smile.
"You know, that doesn't sound like a bad idea." And before I knew it, she was kicking off her shoes and shrugging off her blazer.
Horrified, I watched her climb onto the bed. Her eyes were on me the whole time.
"Which one do I get?" Still looking at me, through the corner of my eye I saw her reach out and stroke the face of one woman. Then she turned to face her, and slowly pulled the strap of the woman's bra down.
Inside, the rage was bubbling and boiling so much that I thought I would explode at any moment. Like a volcano set to erupt and cover a whole village in molten lava. Rage and jealousy are the deadliest cocktail.
"Nice," she said of the exposed breast that now lay outside its cup.
That was it. The thing that finally pushed me over the edge.
"Get out!" I screamed. "Both of you, out. Now!"
As the women scurried off the bed and out of the room, Jean's victorious smirk bore into me.
"That's how it feels, Lissa," she said. And then her face became serious. "It's horrible, isn't it?"
Steaming, my glower murderous, I tried to get my breathing under control. But the images of her touching the woman remained in my head. She was wrong: it wasn't merely horrible, it was excruciating, soul-destroying. I didn't think anything could hurt so much.
She got off the bed, stood over me with a pained expression. "Five nights, that's all it took for you to crawl into bed with another woman. Well, two other women. How many have there been? Tell me."
"Five. Ten. Who knows?" I said, standing up to face her. "I lost count, there were that many. I've just been fucking all week long, and I haven't thought about you once."
"You and I both know that's not true."
What made her so sure? Her certainty angered me further.
"Do you think I can't replace you? There are women here every night, more than I could ever need. Sex, blood, it's all here. And you know what isn't here?" I pushed my face in hers. "Lying, manipulative bitches and their distrusting, naive, abusive mothers. That's who."
"Don't call me abusive," she said. That seemed to be the only insult that bothered her. "That was an accident and you know it."
"Do I?"
"How could you ask me that? You think I actually meant to push you? To hurt you?"
"You always seem to hurt me, so what else should I believe?"
I watched how her dark eyes grew watery, how her expression went from furious to sad, how the life seemed to leave her body.
"I would never intentionally hurt you. If you really think that I would, we have a bigger problem than I thought."
She slunk back, collapsed into the chair, eyes to the floor.
"You didn't believe me," I said, calmer now. "You think I made it up."
"I never said that."
"It was implied." I sat on the edge of the bed. She didn't look at me, I didn't look at her. "You took her side."
"I didn't take anyone's side. I thought you were upset and maybe took some of her words in a humor they weren't intended. That's all."
I let out a sarcastic laugh. "How else would you take the words, 'your relationship gets more sordid by the minute'?"
Now she looked at me, mouth agape. "She said that to you?"
"Yeah. And more. But instead of supporting me, hearing me out, you made it sound like I'm fucking crazy!" The rage had returned. "So go back to your daughter, go live happily ever after. Heck, move to France with her. I don't care."
I did care, though I wished I didn't.
"Why would I move to France when you're here?"
"Because now that you have your real daughter back, you don't need the stand-in. The replacement."
She screwed up her face in confusion. "What are you talking about?"
"Don't pretend that's not what I am to you. Clara was right about one thing: our relationship is creepy. Everyone but us sees it. You give up your daughter, then poor, orphaned Lissa comes along."
"Lissa, that's sick!" She looked like she wanted to throw up. "How could you think that? I've never seen you as my daughter. Is that how you've seen me, as a mother?"
I never had, though I loved feeling protected and nurtured by her. But wasn't that how straight women felt with men? Why couldn't I have the same thing with her?
She got up, headed toward me, her eyes grave. "Lissa, answer me. Is that how you've seen me? Not as a girlfriend but as a mother?"
"No!" I admitted. "But that's not the point. It's still weird."
"There's nothing weird about the way I love you, the way we love each other. Okay, I admit it, I had reservations about us before we got together. But that was because I'd watched you grow up. Never because I saw you as some sort of replacement child."
"Whatever. It doesn't matter now."
She knelt in front of me, waited until I looked at her before she spoke again. "What do you mean by that? Why wouldn't it matter now?"
"Because I don't fit into your world anymore."
"Why would you say such a thing? There's space for both of you in my life, and my heart."
When she went to touch my hand, I drew it back. Too late, though, the tears had already begun to fall. Sadly, right onto Oliver's sheets.
"I hate her!" I blurted out. "She's mean, she's smart, she makes you laugh, she speaks that stupid language with you, she's a chef just like you wanted to be. She gave you grandchildren, for God's sake!" It was all coming out now. Finally.
"Lissa," she said in that gentle way she did whenever I cried.
"I hate that you have each other. It makes me a terrible person, I know, but it's not fair. She gets to have her mother after all these years; she gets two. And I don't even have one. But what I hate most of all is that..." I choked up here, snot dripping down my face, blood-tears pouring out of my eyes, "she has a connection with you that I can never have."
I covered my face with my hands and bawled into them. The bang-banging of the death metal music subsided.
"Oh, my darling," she said. I didn't stop her when she sat on the bed and put her arms around me. "What goes on in that head of yours?"
She rubbed my back as I cried into her shoulder. Her black blouse soaked up the red tears, hid them.
When I'd calmed down a bit, she looked at me, wiped all the moisture from my face with the back of her sleeve. "I had no idea you were feeling this way. What did I tell you about talking to me?"
"How could I tell you this when you were so happy? It's selfish."
"Lissa, listen very carefully to me." She took my face in her soft hands. "Your troubles are mine. When you're unhappy, I'm unhappy." She kissed me slowly and gently on the lips, and it was as though with that one kiss all my troubles were vanquished.
I wasn't unhappy anymore, but I was extremely horny. With her on the bed, feeling her touch, breathing in her sweet scent, tasting her kiss... We needed to make love, the Earth's natural solution to any problem. I needed her to make me whole again.
Luckily, she had a knack for timing, for reading my body, knowing instinctively what it desired. She didn't take her eyes off mine as she removed my T-shirt, as I unbuttoned her blouse. In the beginning, we exercised restraint, taking our time to get out of our clothes, but once the first piece of flesh showed, that was it. Soon it became a race to rid ourselves of everything, tossing bits of clothing all over the room, carelessly.
Now that we were both naked, she took me onto her lap, I sat facing her with my arms around her neck. Her kisses were long, passionate, her tongue relentless in its pursuit to tackle mine.
"You're so wrong about us not being connected," she breathed, speaking against my lips. "You and I are connected in a way no two people could ever be, Lissa. You're a
part of me, and I'm a part of you. We're one body, one soul." As she entered me with her fingers, I truly believed it. "And my love for you is unconditional, undying. Never forget that."
I wouldn't; I couldn't.
THIRTY-SEVEN
It felt wrong to let her go, however temporarily. Like a sacrilegious act no right-thinking person would ever commit. I watched her dress, concealing her nakedness, robbing me of a view I coveted more than any other. The room smelled of hot, steamy sex.
She smiled as she buttoned her blouse. "Are you sure you won't come home with me now? We can get the whole thing straightened out tonight; you don't have to wait until tomorrow to come back."
"No. Yes!" I said, indecisively. "Stop trying to tempt me! We already decided that you would talk to her without me there."
She laughed. "All right. But I hate leaving you here...with that boy."
I crawled across the bed to her and leaned over for a kiss, which she happily planted on my lips. And because one was never enough, I stole another, prompting her to chuckle.
"It's not as bad as you think here. And Oliver's, well, Oliver."
As if he'd been standing outside the room, waiting for his name to be mentioned, a shirtless Oliver burst in, and shot us both looks of exaggerated disapproval.
"Well, this is just grand!" he said sardonically. "I bring you two new pieces of prime meat, and what do you do? You toss them out in favor of this stale, English trash."
I heard Jean take a breath. But she aimed her comment at me. "Still want to stay here with him?"
I laughed, kissed her again, garnering a loud tut from Oliver.
"Honestly, I don't get the attraction," he mumbled, then left again.
We held hands like brand new lovers as I walked her to her car. Beneath the twilight, we kissed like two people who would never see each other again, holding on to every kiss as though it might be the last.
"I'll come and pick you up tomorrow night, okay?" she said before she drove off. "I love you."
"I love you, too."
"Your friends are still here, by the way," Oliver said, on my return to the house. The music had stopped, but the chatter of excited women had taken its place. We stood in the foyer, him shirtless, me still covered in the sweat and scent of my lover. I wanted to sleep that way, without showering, just to keep her on me.
"You mean those two women?"
His grin was salacious. "Yes, although they have been defiled since you last saw them. Still, they're good for another couple of rounds."
"You're such a pig," I said. "And no, I'm not interested."
"I didn't send your "life partner" upstairs so you could kiss and make up," he said irritably. "I let her in so she would catch you doing naughty things to those women. You disappoint me."
My astonishment only lasted a short time. Nothing Oliver did surprised me; that was just the type of mean-spirited thing he would do. He resented monogamy with a passion, thought it unnatural and counterproductive – his words. "If we were supposed to be with just one person, why on earth would there be so many people in the world?" He'd said that to me once, early on in our acquaintanceship (not friendship).
"Nice try, but Jean and I are stronger than that," I said with confidence.
Waking from the long sleep in a home that wasn't mine, in a box that belonged to someone else, was always disconcerting. A moment of imbalance and disorientation passed, and I didn't know where or who I was.
Oliver's face came into view as I peered over at his mounted box – an expensive-looking steel fabrication on a type of altar. Mine was wooden, mahogany, and less fancy, more coffin-like. It wasn't very comfortable, either, but it got the job done. His lair was far less inviting than ours; no decorations, no shower room, nothing in the way of entertainment. An underground den chiefly for the long sleep, nothing else. A stark contrast to the rest of the house.
"I hope this is the last time I wake up beside you," I said with a laugh, as he stretched loudly. "No offense."
"It won't be," he said. "You'll be back. The way you two fight, I'll have to set up a permanent place for you, and start charging rent."
"Yeah, right." Well, his words held some truth. Jean and I did fight a lot, and I was usually the main instigator. No one in the history of relationships had ever been given as many chances as me. But that would change now. I would be civil, play nice with Clara for the remainder of her stay. And even if she moved here, Jean had promised to buy them their own place so they wouldn't have to live with us.
I dressed and packed up what little I had into a small duffel bag. I wanted to be ready when Jean got here. Oliver sent one of his housemaids in to feed me. This would be my last time drinking from the source, I reasoned, as I sank my teeth into warm, soft flesh. After surviving on source blood alone for six nights straight, I did dread going back to the bagged stuff.
My intention was to relax by the pool, using one of the language learning apps I'd downloaded on the phone I'd borrowed from Oliver, to teach myself French, and wait until Jean got here. Despite my dislike of the language, mainly because Clara spoke it, I was determined to learn enough so that I didn't feel left out around them.
Just as I sat down in the lounger, I heard the bell ring, followed moments later by several voices all talking excitedly at once. Seven women flooded out to the pool area, all in skimpy, slutty clothing, all ready to party.
Their hellos were flirtatious, their smiles alluring. Nevertheless I sighed.
"That's every night this week, Oliver," I said, when he came out in nothing but his robe. He looked like one of those sleazy characters from the Playboy Mansion. "Doesn't the constant partying get old?"
"Does being surrounded by beautiful women get old? Is that what you're asking?" He chuckled, slapped one woman on the butt, and laughed harder as I scowled at him and stormed inside.
Abandoning my pool plans, I decided to go for a walk. A walk that, five minutes in, turned into a run.
My life before the transformation had been virtually running (and most other types of exercise) free. Now that I could keep going without tiring quickly, I enjoyed it so much more.
Only when my legs carried me off the street and into an area of woodland a couple of miles away from Oliver's house did it occur to me that this run was different to the others. I had somewhere to be, I could feel it in my bones. Like nature's call, drawing me ever closer to my destination.
Though I slowed down, I pressed on deeper and deeper into the woods, feeling at home among the dark, ominous boskage. This was where I was supposed to be.
The sound of traffic died away as I drifted farther into the woods, as isolation crept in. My body knew its purpose for being here, but my mind did not.
Why had I come? What had drawn me here?
Mumbled voices in the distance made me stop and hold my breath. Beneath my feet, a twig broke. The voices stopped.
Deathly silence followed while both parties waited for the other to make the next move. Maybe a minute passed before the conversation started up again. I snuck closer until their words became comprehensible.
"Moon day is tomorrow. We'll stay till then, and move on. It isn't safe here."
"If we head north, we can join with the pack in Wisconsin. Claim some land there. Get our numbers up again."
I slapped a hand over my mouth just as a gasp escaped. Werewolves!
"We shouldn't have come back here. It was a risk."
"It was the right thing to do...for the others."
This time, my gasp escaped before I could muffle it. This time, they heard me.
Anyone else would have run. But the urge to flee wasn't there. Not now that I'd heard that voice; her voice.
The four people stared in horror as I crept out from behind the trees, into the clearing, where a bonfire burned. Three men and one girl... Dallas.
The men were older, by a generation at least, and they all had that signature blonde hair of their race, of their bloodline. Were they the fathers and uncles of th
e slain werewolves? I wanted to believe that; if she had more family, I could rest easier at night.
"You," she said, eyes wide and bewildered. She approached me slowly, unblinkingly.
I expected her eyes to change, for her to start growling the way she had with Jean; I expected my fangs to burst forth, for my blood to reach boiling point as I came face to face with a Were. But none of those things happened.
"W–what is she?" one of the men said, hanging back. His body language suggested he was afraid, though intrigued.
"I don't know," Dallas said. That look of bewilderment never went away. "I don't understand."
"Why I'm still alive?" I said, finishing her sentence. "You wanted me dead to teach Jean a lesson. But she saved me."
She frowned. The men frowned.
"Do you know this girl, Dallas?"
"I did." She turned back to me, regarded me with morbid curiosity. "This is impossible. You're not one of us, but–"
I rolled my eyes. "Of course I'm not one of you. I'm a vampire, thanks to you."
"What is she talking about?" The men's confusion had made them visibly agitated. "Girl, if you were a vampire, don't you think we would have struck you down already? We would have smelled you half a mile away."
It was my turn to frown.
"I am a vampire. I've been this way for months. Since she tried to kill me." I pointed an accusatory finger in Dallas's face. Any minute now my natural werewolf repellent would kick in and I'd attack them, I mused.
"I didn't try to kill you, Lissa," she said, giving me an appraising look, as though trying to figure me out.
"No? So I guess the bite was to show me how much you loved me?" I let out a humorless laugh.
"That bite wasn't supposed to kill you...it was supposed to turn you."
"What?"
Then, without warning, she burst into laughter, as though she'd just heard the funniest one-liner ever told. "This is more delicious than I could have hoped for. And I thought it was just a myth."
"What are you talking about?" I was still stuck on the revelation that she'd tried to turn me. Obviously the process had failed, which was why Jean had stepped in to save my life.
