Antecedent

by Susan Stumpf

Now, Cosmo magazine says that if a guy gets up and leaves right after sex, you're to kick him to the curb immediately! No exceptions! I don't think they accounted for vampires, though. Maybe he was just hungry. He certainly exerted himself enough to work up an appetite. But what about telling me to 'go on home'? Why didn't he want me to stay? True, I did have a busy day planned. Was he trying to get rid of me, or?.Agh! Stop it, Em! I wasn't going to over analyze it. I was going to drive myself crazy. But I couldn't help feeling used as I drove home from Bo's that night. He'd taken a pill to avoid biting me because he knew I didn't like it. That meant he must care about me to consider my feelings, right? Even Wu said Bo cared about me a great deal and would never hurt me?but did he mean just physically? I was reading too much into this. I'm just feeling emotional; I'm going to stop thinking about it!

  The next morning there was a flower lying on my kitchen table with a note. I admit my heart swooned a little bit. The note just told me not to forget to drop off the rugs, but still the flower was sweet. I had to pick up some really old rugs from the shop and take them to a professional antique rug cleaner. The whole idea seemed ridiculous to me, but I did what I was told. I had tons of errands to run that day, and by the time I was done I was totally pooped. It was going to be a Lean Cuisine and an early bedtime kind of night. I had just put on my sweats and was nearly finished eating my dinner when I got the knock and enter you get from only people who know you well. It was Brian.

  He looked at me sitting there in my sweats with my frozen dinner.

  "You forgot didn't you?" he said.

  "Forgot what??"

  "What day is it Em?"

  I grabbed my phone and looked at the date. It was Valentine's Day. Brian and I had a ritual; since we were almost always single, we had a tradition of going to the Miniplex, a small, rickety theater the next town over, and watching a scary movie. They only played two movies at a time, but it was cheap and they always had the old horror movies we both loved.

  "I didn't forget?I just didn't realize it was today."

  I scarfed down the rest of my dinner and ran upstairs to change. I kept it simple, jeans, t-shirt, and a jacket. I never felt the urge to impress Brian. I pulled my hair back in a ponytail and was ready to go in ten minutes.

  When I walked downstairs, Brian was sitting on the living room chair with something in his hands.

  "Emina Marigold, who have you been getting freaky with?" he asked.

  "Why are you middle naming me? I don't go around Brian Nelson-ing you?and what are you talking about?"

  He stood up and held up my purple sweater and black skirt that Bo had ripped off himself after being stranded in the closet.

  "Where did you find that?" I asked shocked.

  "On the chair behind the pillow, he answered. "Who's been ripping your clothes off, Em?" he asked jokingly. "Hmmmm?"

  "Nobody, shut up!" I couldn't fight the blush that was coming to my cheeks.

  "Oh, I knew it! You and Jet Li are getting it oooooon."

  "No, we're not, it wasn't him, and it's not what you think anyway. Are we going to the movies or not?" I snapped.

  Brian dropped it, he knew when to quit and I was glad.

  We took Brian's car to the Miniplex. He was hoping for a zombie movie; those were his favorite. I preferred the ax murderer, thriller type movies. We were both a little disappointed that the current showing was one about a vampire hunter. But given a choice between that and the romantic comedy, vampire hunting it was. I couldn't help but scoff when the characters broke out their wooden stakes and silver bullets. The UV guns, I wasn't sure about. I wondered if they worked? I'd have to ask Bo. I had a little trouble staying awake through the whole movie. I was really tired. I tried to hide it from Brian the best I could. I didn't want to hurt his feelings that I'd forgotten about our plans then was falling asleep the whole time we were out.

  It was only 9 o'clock but it felt like 2 a.m. as we walked outside. We were walking to the car when a man stepped out from behind one of the cars.

  "Hand over your purse, sweetheart," he ordered.

  Brian stepped in front of me and pushed me behind him.

  "I don't think so punk," Brian said then told him to buzz off. Well actually his words were a little harsher than that, but I leave the cursing to other people. Aunt Eileen had always told me that curse words were for the small-minded who weren't intelligent enough or had a broad enough vocabulary to find words that better suited the situation. Not that I thought Brian was small-minded, but I made a habit of almost never cursing in fear that someone might think I wasn't very smart. We were about to step past the guy when he pulled a gun from his jacket pocket.

  "Hand over your wallet too, hero."

  I handed him my purse and Brian had just reached in his back pocket to retrieve his wallet when suddenly I was pushed to the side and Brian was knocked to the ground. Oh Crap, there were two of them! No, there weren't two of them, it was Bo. Bo pushed me aside and hit Brian then grabbed the guy with the gun?'my hero' the voice of Olive-Oyl sounded in my head. Oh no, then I could see my hero chomped down on the guy's throat while he dragged him away. The guy flailed and gurgled as blood spurt from his mouth. Well, that wasn't exactly picturesque. Not a 'riding up on a white horse' kind of moment. That was morbid and horrifying to see. Then I realized why he'd pushed Brian to the ground, so he wouldn't see. Bo was gone in just seconds, and I was glad. I knelt down to check on Brian.

  "Are you ok?" I asked.

  "Yeah, I'm fine." He stood up looking around. "What happened? Where'd that guy go?"

  "I'm not sure," I answered. I leaned down and picked my purse up off the ground. There were a few drops of blood next to it, and I slid my foot across the gravel to cover it before Brian could see.

  "Maybe somebody came walking this way and scared the guy away," I suggested.

  "Should we call the cops?" Brian asked wiping the blood from his lip where he'd hit the gravel.

  "And tell them what? That some guy was going to rob us then didn't?"

  "True," he said. "That guy was whack yo!"

  "Yeah, maybe he was just crazy and ran off," I suggested.

  "Thanks for pushing me down, but next time some lunatic is pointing a gun at us, maybe you don't push me quite so hard," he said wiping the blood from his lip again.

  Huh? Oh?he thought I pushed him down because of the gun. Ok, we can go with that story. That made more sense than my vampire lover saving us.

  "Sorry, I guess it was just a gut reaction and the adrenaline. I'll try to remember that the next time there's a lunatic pointing a gun at us." I laughed.

  "I need a drink, how 'bout you?" He asked.

  "Definitely!" I answered.

  Brian really hated the club scene and he knew I hated the country bars so he drove us to a steakhouse where we sat at the bar since all the tables and booths were filled with happy couples on their Valentine dates. He ordered a basket of fries and we both ordered drinks. He started talking about what happened tonight, but I quickly changed the subject to the movie. Brian thought the concept of vampires was absurd, and I rebutted of course. I didn't see how a man could believe that zombies were entirely possible but not vampires. He went on to tell me his theory on the possibility of zombies for the one-hundredth time. We didn't stay long. I was completely exhausted! I wasn't sure how I would sleep tonight though because every time I closed my eyes I saw that man gurgling blood and Bo sinking his teeth into him while dragging him away. A year ago I would have thought tonight was completely traumatic, but I had worse nights here recently that made this one look not so bad actually. I sat thinking about this as Brian drove back to my house.