by L. A. Banks
“That’s going to need stitches,” Loretta said.
But as she spoke the words, the wound was closing, healing before my eyes.
“I’m going to put a Band-Aid on it. I think it’s going to be all right.”
By the time I got to the bathroom, every trace of the wound was gone. I stuck a Band-Aid over the place anyway for Loretta’s benefit.
Instant healing powers were apparently a vamp benefit too. No wonder everybody was so quiet about this virus. I wondered about the immortality part. Extreme long life suddenly didn’t seem so far-fetched.
As we worked, I noticed Loretta had smelled funny—like something decaying. It was very off and abnormal. Was it cancer?
“Go to a doctor, Lou. Get yourself checked out. I’m worried about you.”
“Yeah, like I have health insurance. You know folks like me don’t get to see doctors. I’m just grateful those greedy motherfuckers who get the world handed to them on a silver platter let my kids see the doctor when they’re sick.”
“There’s a free clinic. Promise me you’ll go.”
“With all the backed-up patients they have, you gotta be damned near dead for them folks to give you a second glance. Why you think I should see the doctor?”
“I just think you should. I’ll pay. All right?”
She shrugged. “It’s your money to waste.”
“I’ll make an appointment.”
I dug my last twenty from my emergency hiding place and gave it to Loretta, giving her a kiss goodbye. The rank odor lingered in my nostrils. I sensed my friend was dying and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do. I didn’t have the money for much more than a doctor’s visit. Andre made a decent salary, but he didn’t have that kind of coin either.
After she was gone, I felt let down. I’d confessed my biggest, darkest secret to Loretta and she’d discounted what her eyes told her about my reflection a few moments before. Instead, she decided I was crazy.
Anybody I told would think that, unless they’d had contact with a vampire before. Andre would believe me, but that was no comfort at all because I feared his belief would be in a package deal along with rejection.
But my apartment was now suitably dark with no mirrors other than the one on the medicine cabinet. I felt confident I could avoid that mirror when Andre was in the room.
I dressed in tight black spandex jeans, a black baby tee that showed my belly button and, what the hell, a black leather jacket.
I didn’t blow out my relaxed mane after my shower and I hadn’t neglected that since I could remember. I knew it would shade my face better than a hat. I rubbed some conditioner on my hair and let it dry in wild and frizzy corkscrew curls. My ensemble called for dramatic make up. It was going to be me, eyeliner and mascara with no mirror. Life as a vampire is nothing but an adventure.
Then the phone rang. Andre was ready to come home.
Chapter Six
* * *
Andre was pacing a groove in his hospital room floor. I was fascinated and a bit disturbed by how the gaze of a ghost of the old woman sitting on the empty bed next to his, followed his ass.
He grabbed the clothes out of my hands and disappeared in the bathroom before I could say hello. The woman floated behind him. Dirty old peeping Tess.
“I’m dying to get out of this place,” he said from the other side of the cracked bathroom door. “I’ve finished all the discharge paperwork and we can book.”
He stepped out of the bathroom. Damn, he looked good in black leather. The nurses almost tripped over each other to tell him good bye with full body hugs, pressing all their jiggly bits into him. I snapped my mouth closed as my fangs extended. I know I’m a jealous bitch, but I can’t seem to help it.
He wanted to drive. In close quarters of the car, my mouth watered over how good he smelled. I wanted him so bad.
“Your new look is interesting,” he said.
“You don’t like it?”
“No, I do like it. It’s just different.”
“Hmm.” Whatever. I couldn’t think about anything but getting him home and getting those clothes off him.
But he was going in the wrong direction.
“Where are you going?”
“I need to buy a few things. I thought we could do a little shopping first.”
“I’d rather not. I’m really tired.” I was mainly worried about burning up in the sun, but it was true, I was tired. It felt like three o’clock in the morning. I suppose since I’d been up all day, it was way past my bedtime.
“Let’s go home. I’ll go out later and get everything. You need to rest.”
“Baby, that’s all I’ve been doing.”
But thank goodness he turned to go back to my place. I ducked in, feeling my exposed skin sizzle.
“You’ve made some changes in here,” he said. He’d only been over a few times. His place was a lot more comfortable than my tiny one bedroom.
His scent blossomed in the small space, making me wet and my nipples hard. I pressed my body against his. His mouth met mine, and our tongues tangled. He tasted as good as I imagined.
He tangled his fingers in my hair and inhaled. “Your hair is so soft. Don’t change it, okay?”
“The frizz turns you on?”
“Everything about you turns me on, baby.” He ran his hands along my waist, under my jacket, easing it off my shoulders and dropping it to the floor.
His fingers played up my back, expertly unsnapping my bra and pulling it and my top over my head, exposing my breasts.
“You’re fucking beautiful.” His voice was hoarse with sex.
I flooded, wet and ready. He cupped my breasts, circling his tongue around one nipple then the other, his warm, moist breath making them hard peaks.
Then he sucked them hard, drawing a response from my creaming core. I threw my head back and moaned, my hips rotating, my fingers in his locs.
It felt damn good. And this was only the beginning.
He unbuttoned my jeans, his hand slipping between my legs and under my lace thong. Caressing my clit, he rubbed my flowing juices over it in time to the hard draws he made on my nipples.
My pussy contracted in warm waves. I wanted to feel his hard dick inside me. I needed to be fucked. He backed me up to the bed, slipping my jeans down over my hips. I was naked, splayed open and creamy.
He was clothed, his bulge huge, hard and straining.
“Give it to me. Give it to me now,” I said, panting.
He ran his hand over his bulging dick with a devilish grin. “You mean this? How bad do you want it?”
My hips were rotating in anticipation. “I want it bad.”
“Come get it then.”
He didn’t have to ask twice. I fell to my knees, unbuckling his belt, unzipping his jeans and pushing them down with frantic fingers.
His ten, gorgeous inches popped out, rock hard, veins distended.
The sex now had another dimension, with my hunger and how delicious he smelled and tasted. I cupped his balls in my hands, and swirled my tongue around his plum like glans, massaging the head of his dick with my tongue and mouth, while I worked my hand, wet with saliva, up and down his shaft. He tasted so good, my head spun.
It was his turn to moan and grasp my hair. My incisors extended and I had to take care not to graze his sensitive skin.
His distended veins throbbed, the scent of blood filling my nose. Just a little taste. What could it hurt? A tiny nip. Yessss.
No. I can’t. Not Andre. One of the hardest things I’d ever done was to pull my head away from his big, delicious dick.
He tumbled me back on the bed and pinned my arms over my head, parting my wet folds with his dick, moving it back and forth over my dripping pussy and swollen clit.
I went wild. “C’mon, give to me. Slide that sweet dick home. Please, please.”
He bared his teeth, suddenly looking like a vampire himself and gave it. He pumped it deep with hard, fast strokes. My pussy clasped his dick like a
glove as he shoved in and out of my slick walls. His swollen cock head felt too good shoving and slamming in and out of my pussy.
We beat against each other’s bodies like animals, straining. My nose filled with his scent and my mouth with blood. I’d bitten the inside of my own cheek.
My attention concentrated down to the hard, thick dick banging in and out of me, hard and tight, our bodies reaching, reaching, reaching.
Then my pussy snapped and convulsed on his dick, spasming. Waves of ecstasy crashed though me, keen as a razor, rolling in painful pleasure.
He stiffened and with a yell, I felt a hot wetness flood into me like light.
Food. Life. My pussy convulsed again, draining every drop of life. Suddenly the edge of my hunger was gone.
He collapsed against my body. I ran my fingers over his sweat-slicked back, fully satiated in more ways than one.
Chapter Seven
* * *
I reached for Andre, disoriented. I must have fallen asleep after our lovemaking. He was beside me, sleeping. The house smelled of food, he’d cooked. The clock read midnight. Hours had passed and again, I’d slept my evening away.
I was hungry again. My incisors extended as I became acutely aware of Andre’s pulse, his aroma, his blood—my food.
I rolled out of the bed and jumped in the shower. It was a little better in there, because under the spray of water, I couldn’t smell.
When I got out, I slapped some conditioner on my hair and got dressed in record time. I grabbed my purse and fled before I did something I’d regret for however long I’d exist as a vampire.
I stopped at another hospital and made a withdrawal, easy-peasy. I got a dozen bags of blood, and a few kits to take blood from people and put them in the bags. If bums would sell their plasma for a measly sum to the blood bank, why couldn’t they sell a pint or two to me?
My problem was I didn’t know how I could store the blood in the refrigerator where Andre wouldn’t find it since he did most of the cooking.
I drank crouched down in the car watching the shadows. What looked like demons and the ghosts who never slept hang out on the street.
I remembered the taste of hot chicken wings, Mama Lee’s special lo mein, Ben and Jerry’s New York Fudge Chunk ice cream. Blood was one-dimensional and flat compared to my remembered human pleasures. It nourished my body and kept the pain at bay, that’s all. It seemed that what I had left of pleasure was sex. No wonder vampires had the rep of fucking so much.
A man drove past my car slowly, in a Jag. The hairs at the back of my neck rose, my inner alarms went off. He stared at me, his eyes glinting and somehow I knew we were of a kind, human predators, damned by God. He was pretty good-looking. Apparently vampires don’t mess with turning ugly humans.
Doesn’t seem like we vamps could suffer each other’s company that well. Competition, I guess.
I stuffed the used blood bags into a plastic bag. What could I do now? Go cruise the clubs, shake my booty, enjoy my solitary pleasure of getting fucked by hot men and sip on their blood?
Once it would have been interesting to me, but now the notion wasn’t nearly as interesting as marrying Andre in a church, having his babies and for the first time in my life, having a family.
I sighed and started the car. I’d stash the rest of my blood at Loretta’s, it was my only option.
I banged on her door for a few minutes before she opened up. “Bitch, do you have any idea what time it is?”
“Almost two. Here, I need you to put this in the refrigerator.”
“What is this? Blood? Are you out of your mind?”
“So you said. Just take good care of it. There are two good meals left there. Thanks.” I pressed a twenty in her hand that I’d taken from Andre’s wallet.
“You’re really off the deep end, girlfriend.”
“Undoubtedly.”
I went home. Andre was sleeping, peaceful. I was wide awake as if it was midday but I had nothing to do. I ended up finishing a novel I was dying to read. Shadows kept covering the damn print and obscuring my vision at the good parts. It was incredibly annoying so far, the whole creature of the night thing was annoying when it wasn’t as boring as hell.
I gave up on the book and cleaned the apartment. I watched Andre closely, dropped my clothes and hopped into bed as soon as he stirred.
He reached for me before he opened his eyes. This is why I love Sundays. It’s our day of lazy lovemaking, great food and easy conversation. We rarely get all the way dressed.
He rolled over and inside me, not fully awake. Luscious. We moved slow and sensuous, our own slow dance.
I moved on top. He grasped my hips, opened his eyes and smiled. “Good morning.”
“Good morning, baby,” I said with a like smile as I rolled my dripping pussy over his dick. I wasn’t going to last too long, my clit bumping against his dick shaft and his crisp pubic curls.
His hand traveled leisurely over my body, his thumbs massaging my sensitive nipples. I could feel the big head of his dick swell inside me and catch on my walls.
I bent down and kissed him, our tongues tangling, stroking in and out with the rhythm of his dick in me.
Pressure built within me. I was too greedy to savor the sweetness of this scrumptious fuck. I tightened and relaxed my pussy walls on his dick, heightening every move we made.
He groaned. “Fuck, baby.”
His thrusts got deeper and wilder, his lower abdomen hard, his balls pulling tight. It tipped me over the edge and I yelled with the force of the orgasm ripping though me.
Only with an edge of my conscious did I discern the delicious splashes of life in my pussy, stretching my shuddering orgasm out to unbearable pleasure.
“I think I have a virus,” I said to Andre. “I feel like crap. I’d like to stay in bed today.”
“Do you want some orange juice and chicken soup?”
My stomach roiled at the thought. “No. I don’t have much of an appetite.”
“Want me to take your temperature?”
“Go back on the computer, I’ll be fine.”
“I know what happened is a lot to take in, but I’m going to kill that vampire.”
Determination was in his voice. I closed my eyes so he wouldn’t see whatever was reflected there.
“How? Isn’t she supernaturally strong? With one glance she took my will away.”
“She has weaknesses. Evil can be overcome. It’s the rules.”
“Whose rules?”
He smiled. “My rules.”
“Let it go. We can avoid her. We’re doing fine. I don’t want you killed.”
“I haven’t felt like the man I used to be since she marked me. But now she’s threatened my woman. I have to do this. You understand?”
I didn’t want to, but I did. Andre and I were barreling down a short road to a dead end. I sensed he had no particular problem fucking the vampire when he had nothing to live for. But now I was in his life and it had changed things irrevocably for him.
My mind spun with worry and fear, but I must have fallen asleep, exhausted after my long night awake.
When I woke up, it was dark. I sensed the passage of hours and I knew Andre was on to something.
He’d left the kitchen uncharacteristically messy and cooked nothing, just ate sandwiches, the remains stacked around my computer.
I booted it on and checked the history. He’d done dozens of searches on vampires from every angle.
I saw a scratch piece of paper sticking out from under the CPU and pulled it out. My blood froze as I saw Andre’s rudimentary notes on his plan to ambush and kill Dahlia.
I stayed up the night looking for more clues to his plan. I went to bed early in the morning and pretended to sleep until he left for work. Then I called in to my job. I was going to have to start looking for night shift work because it seemed as if there was no way I could stay awake for the entire day.
Andre woke me after he came home from work. “You must really be sick,
baby. I’ve never seen you sleep like this before.”
“I must need the rest.”
“You’re not eating either. I’m going to take you to the doctor.”
My stomach contracted with hunger. “I’m on the mend.” I looked at the clock. “I’m late! I need to make a quick run.”
“Where?”
“To Loretta’s.” He didn’t have to know I needed to get my fix of blood.
He frowned. “It’ll be dark soon. I don’t want you out.”
Some of the notes he’d written and the searches he did indicated that he planned to go out late tonight to draw and confront the vampire. He wasn’t wasting time.
I might lose him over this vampire shit, but I couldn’t lose him to death. I wanted him to go forward, to marry, to belong to somebody, to finally have a family. Even if it was out of my grasp now, I wanted his happiness.
I was going to make sure of it. I planned to kill Dahlia myself, but fuck, he wasn’t giving me much time.
Chapter Eight
* * *
“Aunt Joy!” Loretta’s daughter JJ cried as she let me in.
The other children ran to me, Jackson trying to be cool, and turning his face away from my kiss but lingering in my arms for the hug. Chai snuggled in, feeling so soft and sweet. I breathed deep the sweet scent of their life and their warm, childish forms before I dug in my purse for the treats I always carried for them.
“Hey girl,” Loretta called from the kitchen. “C’mon in, I’m cooking dinner.”
“I’ve gotta get mine,” I said opening the refrigerator. “Where did you put it?” I was on the verge of panic when I didn’t see the blood.
“On the bottom shelf, way back, in a plastic bag wrapped in aluminum foil.”
I exhaled in relief as I moved leftovers to the side and saw what looked like a huge ball of aluminum foil.
Loretta made a face as I pulled it out. “You know there’s medication that can help you.”
