Predictable lines:
“You’re going home?”
I smile inside. “Nope.”
“Where are you going?”
“Brixton.” Well, it’s only ten minutes from my home in Camberwell. I’m flatsitting this month. That’s how I love my life. Half of it (no more) all over the place. I’ll be catsitting in Kennington after. I make sure Janis knows when I’m there, so I can invite her around to watch videos. X-Files is my weak point. Not the weakest. But anyway, Janis is a fan of Agent Scully, too.
As payment for our dinner, I produce a voucher. I won it on a radio show. About time I use it: the expiration date is tomorrow.
11 pm. I walk Janis to the bus stop. I love this woman. I wanna spend every possible second with her. I wait with her. We talk under the dark rainy sky. About ex-girlfriends. Hers has been giving her a hard time since they split up, about two years ago. I bumped into mine at the latest Gay Pride. Oh, what a cliché. But I didn’t hide behind a tree, as there were no trees around.
“She was her usual self.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s a spoiled brat. Her father’s got money she likes to spend.” After a short silence I add: “When I met her, she was having an anarchist phase.” Does it explain anything? I still wonder: how was I fooled? It feels like a long time ago. Fear creeps in my veins. Like ice.
Does Janis smile twenty-four hours a day? One day, I’ll have to ask her.
Her bus is growing bigger and redder on the horizon. Time for good-byes. Where do kisses land today? Earlier, when my friend Val hugged me, her kiss landed on my neck. Now, when I hug Janis Kitto, a wave of her curly blonde hair brushes my cheek and her kiss lands on the corner of my mouth. I decide hypothesizing on it would be nonsensical. However, she is the best hugger in town.
She says: “Thanks for inviting me!” and her smile lights up the whole street.
I manage: “My pleasure!” and my knees are ready to give way.
I turn around while she gets on the bus and pays for her fare. I can’t resist a last look behind me. The bus is disappearing in the night, taking her back to Shoreditch where she will be reunited with her faithful bicycle.
CHAPTER TEN
While Sid works on a novel she's been thinking about for years, a novel that shouldn't feature any vampires but lots of wonderful and weird people in a parallel world ─Tiger People (all male), Cat People (all female), and of course the ubiquitous People already featured in at least one short story─, Joy scouts the streets of London, the music venues and alternative clubs of the underground city.
While Sid knows that, despite her best intentions, there will probably be some vampires wandering about this parallel world on an on-and-off basis, as this is the way her mind works, Joy reconnects with dingy pubs, sleazy squats, long-forgotten venues, and draws one blank after another.
While Sid keeps on writing, increasingly aware of the word MUSIC flashing louder and louder at the back of her mind, Joy gets to the conclusions that Toni's favored kind of territory, like hers, has evolved.
When will Sid answer the call of her guitar and get back to the roots of her life, the very thing that has kept her alive throughout time, her equivalent of Jo Davenport's pancakes?
What venues would Toni now elect to feed and express her contradictions and cruelty? Where was Joy when Toni chose to breathe down her neck? Vampires do not breathe. At last, it occurs to the vampire with the gypsy eyes that the scarecrow with the innocent looks was not feeding that night, she was trailing the younger vampire……. A deliberate trailing.
Sid realizes that even if she is totally off anti-depressants, she can still feel the chemical influence in her brain: she is still writing. She remembers: beyond music, there is Death. At the time, of course, she didn't exactly mean Death as the entity she met in the back garden of a pub, but death as in the end, the end of life. Music has to come back to the forefront of her mind, in fact, it is on its way, and it is just a matter of crossing paths with Sid. What will she do then? Will she pick up her guitar, and her voice, where they left off? Alternatively, will she pick up, further back in time, the piano studies she had abandoned because she did not own a piano, not even an electric one.
So, Joy thinks in the illuminated London night, Toni's proclivities have gone more sophisticated. If Toni had been at the West End lesbian club to breathe down Joy's neck, where would she go in order to feed. What other places had Joy not checked out yet? Goth, maybe? Joy smiles. Toni used to be such a perfect rock chick. While herself, she had been perfect for the part of the rich little girl looking for a bit of rough. There is nothing more gothic than a vampire. In literature.
She hits Oxford Street, her mood a mixture of anticipation and dread. The pub is one of a chain across London. Her delicious meal is a very talkative middle-aged woman, who works by day as an accountant for a very boring firm, and relishes nightlife as an Ethergoth with no lisp but a definite sense of humour that definitely defeats melancholy. By morning, the sated vampire falls into slumber between black silk sheets, knowing the next hunting range, a gothic venue with extra appeal.
* * * * * * *
"Looking for me, Little One?" There is irony in the voice, as always, and Joy does not bother answering or even turning around. She is playing a dangerous game: you never turn your back to potential danger, you always sit facing the doorway. She is establishing her power, showing Toni that she is not afraid. Toni walks around the table, ignoring the colourful patrons, and sits across from her. The soundtrack of the moment is Nightwish's "End of all Hope". They stare at each other in the soon-to-be-crowded Black Behemoth. The tone of their cheeks shows they have already fed. Joy's facial expression is serious; Toni's is amused. "You look cute in your gothic outfit. Dressed up for me?"
Joy feels the old attraction tugging at her. Oh yes, Toni is still a beautiful scarecrow, even without the holes and safety pins. She could so easily pass for a young man in her elegantly cut, black suit. "Still looking for Dee-Dee?"
The smile fades away. "Now, now. No need to be nasty." She keeps the flare of anger in check, but the blow certainly stings. She pushes up the corners of her mouth, with hidden effort. "I see you are still in London. Or did you leave and return especially to welcome me back?"
Joy wonders what to say. The background song morphs into "Can't Get You out of my Head" by Inkubus Sukkubus.
"Listen, they're playing my song!" Toni exclaims sardonically. She knows so much about Joy's feelings, she thinks it is so easy to play her.
"How long have you been back?"
"Not long. I stopped in the West End on the very next night. To say hi."
"Hi back. Is Dee-Dee in London, too?" Silence takes a dark green shape in Toni's eyes. Something Joy is able to read. "You can talk to me. Who else would you talk to?"
"What makes you think vampires need to talk? What makes you think I need to talk?" With heavy emphasis on the "I". The staring match is still on.
"We were friends, once."
Toni laughs, her beautiful and seductive laugh, one Joy used to relish so much, once upon a time. "Vampires have no friends. You know my rules. Stick to them, and we'll be fine." The older vampire gets up in one swift motion and walks out of Joy's field of vision, through the parting throng of young people looking more gothic than any vampire, and out of the pub.
Joy feels sadness. She considers sex to lift up her mind. Oh no, I'd be bound to fantasize it is with this arrogant scarecrow…….
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It is a typical day for the British weather: clouded sky with a threatening hint of rain, while the sun is also trying to break out in fingers of bright light. Sid is riding her beloved Eliminator and is about to turn right into Coldharbour Lane, anonymous and invisible under her crash helmet. A fight is happening across the street, just outside the cab office, attracts her attention, and every passer-by's.
A black man has been violently pushed down to his knees by a white man. They both look in their th
irties. A twenty-something, white woman rushes to them. To break the fight, thinks Sid innocently. No one else is reacting; this is such a typical Brixton scene nowadays. But the woman is not trying to break the fight, she is siding with the white man, and holding the quarry down, too, she shouts at him: "Open your mouth! Open your mouth!" The man eventually spits something out, Sid cannot see what. The woman picks up whatever it is. The white man pulls out a pair of handcuffs. The woman gets out a small walkie-talkie and radios for back up. On cue, police sirens slalom down the street. She flags the police car down.
The show is over. Sid has just witnessed a drug bust. Sid feels unsafe, insecure. She does not trust the police, undercover or in uniform. She cannot condone violence in any circumstances. What stops the police to do that to anyone, herself or any passer-by? The tarantula is still smarting on her neck. Her state of mind is ripe for a sharp implement, but her body feels already so violated. She zooms past the unwanted scene, through the green lights and down the lane.
* * * * * * *
The bottom of Coldharbour Lane is an animated shopping area and Camberwell Green. Somewhere on the left hand-side she turns and finds a cash-converter's shop, one crowded not just with music CD's and movie DVD's, but also computers, saxophones, guitars, and keyboards. After safely parking her motorbike out of the way and unfastening her helmet, Sid walks into the shop, blatantly ignoring the Gretsch guitar ─a collector's item─ winking at her from the shop window. She walks in and panoramically contemplates the various items, before zeroing in on the objects of her quest.
What does she want exactly? She does not really know. She only knows that she'll "know" it when she'll see it. Casio? Yamaha? Roland? Panasonic? She's never been keen on Casio equipment and overlooks the first keyboard. She is barely aware of some music in the background. A young man, as unkempt as he is skillful, is trying out a Yamaha acoustic guitar. Sid zooms in on the Panasonic SX-something keyboard and caresses the silent keys. It looks in good condition. The menu printed on it reveals the expected sounds, including a full drum kit and a few fanciful combinations. Speakers integrated. She checks the back of the instrument and finds every standard socket, including midi ─she could not care less for midi. She grabs at the price tag and reads: £80. The price makes sense to her: she's got just about that in a box at the back of her bedroom closet. She wonders if the stand comes with it. Damn, now she's gonna have to talk.
She knows she should talk to a sales clerk, ask for the keyboard to be plugged and play a few tunes, to make sure she likes its sound, to make sure it works…… but she hasn't got the time. Ok, that's her excuse. She could make the time, of course. She just dislikes the crowd of people milling about shops; they make her feel self-conscious, uncomfortable. Give her a stage, give her a real audience, and she will be an international superstar. An elderly man bumps into her, breaking her bubble, and barely apologizes. She scowls. Reality. She sighs and decides to join the queue leading to the counter.
* * * * * * *
Second stop on her way to another part of London to visit friends: the psychiatric hospital. Still sitting on her black and shiny Eliminator, Sid extracts her head from the helmet. A black bandana knotted around her neck hides the bitten tarantula tattoo. She looks absentmindedly at the other motorbikes lined up on the side of the street, but even if her eyes can see the details of their engines, her brain doesn't really register or react, her mind is elsewhere, she is wondering, again and again, for the zillionth time: where is Joy?
Oh, sure, Joy will show up eventually, but where is she when Sid needs to talk to her? Where is she when Sid cannot talk to anyone else? Of course, the writer is crazy. Everyone is, to a certain degree. However, Sid knows better that telling a psychiatric: "I've been bitten by a vampire", even if she's got the bite to prove it. "And this other vampire I know, is not around at the mo." Yeah, sure. Sid is not interested in being sectioned.
Showing her chewed-up tarantula to her friends? Forget it. These two are probably already stoned out of their heads. Once again, Sid has no one to talk to, no one to tell about the reality of vampires she is learning night after night. No one to tell that, even if she is not scared out of her wits, she is feeling rather unsettled.
Once upon a time, vampires were terrifying, the stuff of nightmare. Without any warning, at 12, the world of television introduced Sid to Dracula himself. A demon praying on your soul, identity, safety, integrity, a monster who could invade your every thought, as deep as your kidneys, turn you into a mindless puppet against your will, touch you and violate you, physically, as much as emotionally, psychologically and psychically. A cruel and unethical being who could rape you ─mind, body and soul─ and force you into enjoying it. The word "repulsive" as a describer is a total euphemism.
She spent years struggling with the celluloid fiend, fighting the recurring nightmares haunting her nights, afraid of being still awake at midnight, ─not just still awake, but aware of the midnight hour─, waking up drenched with fear. Eventually, with time, she learned to deliberately wake up in order to escape from her nightmares. She learned to get out of a dream to go into another one. She learned to manipulate the events in a dream. She taught herself lucid dreaming. She gave herself means and weapons to fight off the vampires. Until at last, after thirteen years of a seemingly endless war, Sid won. She destroyed the vampires with the silver arrowheads given by a woman from another planet. ─Ok, it might sound like cheating there, but bear in mind that, in psycho-analytic terms, this woman from another planet was actually a part of Sid's psyche, thus, technically it was not cheating. Since that extraordinary victory, the occasional vampires turning up in her dreams have always been friendly. Friendly.
Friendly is certainly not an apt adjective to describe the blond vampire that has bitten Sid at the Breakdown.
So, where is Joy? Sure, Joy will never be interested in impersonating psychotherapists, but she could explain the discrepancy between her previous claim ─one vampire per territory─ and Sid's sore neck.
CHAPTER TWELVE
"Flesh. And blood. Flesh. And blood." (Girlschool)
Something is off, and not just the light in Sid's bedroom. Whatever it is sculpts an angry frown in Joy's raven eyebrows. She just wants a quiet night in, for once. She's already fed, so all she wants now is uncomplicated sex with Sid, something to take her mind off these other vampires' shenanigans around the world, with someone who never seems to have a problem with her requests, nor the timing of her presence.
It is still early in the night and the writer is already asleep. She is not bleeding but she has bled recently. Not menstrual blood.
Swiftly, the vampire lets the black curtain fall back to the open window and reaches the edge of the low bed. Her silent fingers pull down the soft velvety quilt, her vampiric eyes spot the telltale marks obliterating the arachnean tattoo, and her tongue licks the four-night-old bite. Licks and tastes and identifies. She moves her head and in the complete darkness of the room, her eyes meet Sid's. Joy senses something different about the brown irises. The pull is stronger and hungrier. She closes her eyes in an attempt to escape but she can still feel the tug reaching out to her essence. She kisses Sid's lips, and the more Sid responds, the more their tongues reach out for each other, the more the tentacle of power withdraws.
* * * * * * *
Joy is a powerful vampire, she doesn't owe anything to anyone, she takes as she pleases and cares only for herself. Then, why does she feel that she owes this mortal writer an explanation? It is a very strange and uncomfortable feeling, as odd as abandoning herself in someone's arms. Honestly, attaching myself to some human is a bad idea. Nevertheless, she does not move, she does not reject the arm relaxed around her. Sid has not said a word yet; she seems to be waiting. If vampires breathed, Joy would choose this very moment to sigh extremely deeply.
"What did she say?"
"What? Who?"
Sometimes, Sid is almost irritating. She expects something from Joy, but when Joy gives it, she
doesn't recognise what it is.
"The other vampire you encountered recently?"
"Oh! She basically said to tell you she was in town."
Joy's silence mingles with the darkness of the bedroom. Until Sid prods:
"Who is she?"
"Her name is Dee-Dee." Joy's voice is so quiet that she is barely audible to a human ear. "She was an anarchist musician in the early 90's. I believe she is a very angry vampire. Enraged. Maybe deranged." Maybe every vampire is deranged.
"Who made her?"
"Toni. Toni is the most powerful vampire I've met besides the one who turned me." Joy can not say sire, she has a visceral hatred for the word. "I have no idea how old Toni is. She's never been much into sharing her past. She could easily be a few centuries old. It depends on how powerful the guy who made her was. It also depends how many ancient vampires gave her their blood. She can fly."
It is Sid's silence's turn to mingle with the darkness of the bedroom. Joy feels a sudden tension in the writer's body and surprise misses her when the writer eventually speaks:
"Why would a vampire like Dee-Dee gives me a message for you? Why would she bite me if she were younger than you? Isn't she supposed to respect you or be scared of you? Or is she totally mental? Has she got a death wish? Because, I could imagine that vampires, too, can suffer from insanity, be it schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, psychosis, whatever! Has she got a score to settle with you? What's her deal? And while you're at it, could you explain to me why she asked me WHAT I was? Because if you've altered me in any way, I'd like to know, just, you know, to know where I'm at. But, what could it be, if this vampire needed to ask?"
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