Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story Chapter 15

Part IINestingChapter 15Learning the LicksThey in any expressionk their have it off off and did it again. The second time was less urgent and they tried to motivate each other with their respective repertoires of mattress tricks. Jody was careful non to appear too experienced and Tommy pulled on perpetuallyy unconvincingg he had ever read, from Penthouse to National Geographic, listening not to appear too naive, epoch fighting the urge to sh by gm whiz with her every move. There was entirely too much thinking involved on both their parts and they sinless thinking, Well, that was pretty clear. Jodys fangs handicaped safely shrusthed behind her canines.She utter, What was that you shouted at the end?It was a Bantu love cry. I think it translates, Oh baby, polish my lip saucer. »Interesting, Jody said.They lay at that place for a while, not talking, feeling uncomfortable and a low embarrassed. any(prenominal) intimacy they shared physically was not echoed emotional ly. They were strangers.Tommy felt that he should admit something personal, something to match the outrageous trust she had move in him by coition him her secret. At the same time he was curious, and a little minute afraid. It wasnt as if she had shown him a hidden tattoo. She was a vampire. How do you match that? How do you file that? Under Adventure, he aspect. I valued adventure, and here it is.Tommy, she said, not looking at him, talking more or less to the ceiling, Ill read if you dont want to stay, but Id comparable you to.Ive neer lived with anyone before. This is all new to me. I mean, you probably keep a lot more experience than I do at this.Well, not exactly like this. Ive lived with a a couple of(prenominal) guys.A few? x, I think. But not under these circumstances.Ten? You must be ancient. No offense. I mean, I knew that you were older, but I thought it was just a few years. Not centuries.She rolled oer and looked him in the eye. Im twenty-six.Sure, you look t wenty-six. But youve probably looked this way for years. You probably generate pictures of yourself with Abraham Lincoln and stuff, right?No, Im twenty-six. Ive been twenty-six for rough six months.But how broad I mean Were you born likeIve been a vampire for tetrad days.So youre twenty-six.Thats what Ive been telling you.And youve lived with ten guys?She got out of bed and started gathering her clothes. Look, I dont use the best judgment when it comes to relationships. Okay?He bended by from her. Well, thanks a lot.I didnt mean you. I meant in the past.He sat on the knock against of the bed and hung his head. I feel so used.Used? She leaped over the bed and stood in front of him. Used? She put her finger under his chin and lifted it until he was looking at her. Ive trusted you with the puffygest secret I flummox. Ive offered to share my life with you.Oh, like thats an easy lay privilege. He pulled away from her and resumed pouting.Jody snatched a shoe off the floor and l ively to whack him with it, then remembered what she had done to Kurt and dropped it. wherefore are you being such an asshole?You drank my bloodYeah, well, Im sorry about(predicate) that.You didnt even ask.And you didnt protest, either.I thought it was a sex thing.It was.It was? He stopped pouting and looked up at her. Does that turn you on?Jody thought, Why are men never prepared for the cyanogenetic radiation of afterglow? Why cant they ride it through without becoming detached whiners or aggressive jerks? They dont embark on it, that cuddling afterward has nothing to do with warm, brumous feelings its just the most intelligent way to ride the wave of post-coital depression.Tommy, I came so hard, my toes curled. No man has ever made me feel like that before. How many times have I said that? she thought.Yeah?She nodded.He smiled, feeling proud of himself. lets do it again.No, we need to talk.Okay. But then rear on your clothes.Tommy scampered naked out of the bedroom to pou nd a new pair of jeans from his suitcase. As he dressed, the infinite possibilities of life swam through his head. that a week ago he had been staring tidy sum the lay of a life spent in a accompanimentory township of a union job, of a series of financed Fords, a mortgage, too many kids, and a wife whod go to fat. Sure, on that point was a certain grandness in being responsible and raising a family seeing that they never did without. But when his father told him on his eighteenth birthday that he needed to start planning his retirement, he felt his future tighten on him like an anaconda. His father had made it clear that the money for college wasnt there so after he went to the urban center and starved, he could come home and get a job down at the factory and get down to the hatfuliness of being an adult. But not like a shot. He was a City guy now, part of the world he was involved with a vampire, and the peril of living a normal, boring life had passed complet ely. He knew he should be afraid, but he was too elated to think about it.He slid into his jeans and ran back to the bedroom, where Jody was getting dressed. Im hungry, he said. Lets go out and get something to eat.I cant eat, she said.Not at all?Not as far as I be intimate. I cant even keep a glass of water down.Wow. Do you have to have blood every day?I dont think so.Does it have to be I mean, can you use animals, or does it have to be people?Jody thought about the moth she had eaten and felt as if shed just downed a cocktail mixed of two parts shame and cardinal parts disgust, with a twist of nausea. I dont recognise, Tommy. I didnt exactly get an instruction book.He was bouncing around the room like a hyperactive child. How did it happen? Did you sell your soul to Satan? Am I dismission to turn into a vampire? Are you in a coven or something?She wheeled on him. Look, I dont know. I dont know anything. Let me get dressed and well go get something for you to eat. Ill expla in then, okay?Well, you dont have to bite my head off.Maybe I do, she snarled, surprised at the acidulous in her voice.Tommy backed away from her, his eyes wide with fear. She felt horrible. Why did I say that? This was happening too often, this loss of control display her burned hand to the bum on the bus, knocking Kurt out, eating the moth, and now threatening Tommy none of it seemed to be by choice. It was as if vampirism carried with it a crampless case of rattlesnake PMS.Im sorry, Tommy. This has been hard.Its okay. He picked up the jeans she had destroyed and began emptying the pockets. I venture these are done for. He pulled out the business card that the motel omnibus had given him. Hey, I forgot to tell you. This cop wants to talk to you.Jody stopped in the middle of tying her shoes. Cop?Yeah, an old lady was killed at the motel coda night. There were a zillion cops around when I got there this morning. They wanted to talk to everyone that was staying in the motel.H ow was she killed, Tommy? Do you know?Somebody broke her sleep with and He stopped and stared at her, backing away again toward the bathroom.What? she demanded. Her roll in the hay was broken and what?Shed lost a lot of blood, he whispered. But there werent any wounds. He bolted into the bathroom and shut the door. Jody could hear him throw the lock. I didnt kill her, Tommy.Thats fine, he said.Open the door. Please.I cant, Im peeing. He turned on the water.Tommy, come out, Im not going to hurt you. Lets go get you something to eat and Ill explain.You go ahead, he said. Ill catch up to you. Wow, I really had to go. essential have been all that coffee I drank today.Tommy, I swear I didnt know anything about this until you told me.Look at this, he said through the door, I found that crucifix I lost last week. And whats this? My well-fixed vial of holy water.Tommy, stop it. Im not going to hurt you. I dont want to hurt anybody.Oh, my garlic wreath. I wondered where Id put that. Jody grabbed the door honcho and yanked. The doorjamb splintered and the door came away in her hand. Tommy dived into the tub and peeked over the edge at her.She said, Lets go get you something to eat. We need to talk. He pulled himself up slowly, assemble to dive down the drain if she made a move. She backed away.He looked at the ruined doorjamb. Were going to lose our deposit now you know that, right? Jody threw the door aside and offered her hand to help him out of the tub. displace I buy you some fries? Id really like to image you eat some French fries.Thats weird, Jody.Compared to what?They walked to Market Street where, even at ten oclock, the sidewalks were crowded with bums and hustlers and teams of podiatrists who had escaped the Moscone Convention Center to seek out burgers, pizzas, and beer in the heart of the City. Jody watched the heat ghosts trailing the street people while Tommy handed out coins like a meter-maid angel trying to rue for a lifetime of giving chickensh it tickets.He dropped a quarter into the thread of a half-fingered glove worn by a woman who was pretension to be a robot, but who looked more like a automaton newly shaped from gutter filth. Jody noticed a black atmospheric state around the woman, as she had seen around the old man on the bus she could smell disease and the rawness of open lesions and she almost pulled Tommy away.A few step away she said, You dont have to give them all money just because they ask, you know.I know, but if I give them money I dont see their faces when Im about to fall asleep.It doesnt really help. Shell just spend it on booze or drugs.If I was her, so would I.Good point, Jody said. She took his arm and led him into a burger mutual named No Guilt orange Formica tables over industrial- antiquated carpet, giant backlit transparencies of intellectual nourishment glistening with grease, and families gleefully clogging their arteries together. Is this okay?Perfect, Tommy said.They took a table by th e window and Jody trembled while Tommy ordered a brace of burgers and a hoop of fries.She said, Tell me about the woman who was killed.She had a dog, a little gray dog. They found them both in the dumpster at the motel. She was old. Now shell always be old.Pardon?People always stay the age that they died at. My bigger crony died of leukemia when I was six. He was eight. Now when I think of him, hes always eight, and hes even-tempered my big brother. He never changes, and the part of me that remembers him never changes. See. What about you?I dont have any brothers or sisters.No, I mean, are you going to stay the same? Will you always look like this now?I havent thought about it. I guess it could be true. I know I furbish up really unshakable since it happened.The waitress brought Tommys food. He squirted tomato ketchup on the fries and great timeed. Tell me, he said around a expressful of burger.Jody started slowly as she watched his every bite with envy, telling him prima ry about her life before the attack, of growing up in Monterey and dropping out of community college when her life didnt seem to be moving fast enough. Then of moving to San Francisco, of her jobs and her loves and the few life lessons she had learned. She told him about that night of the attack in too much detail, and in the telling she realized how little she understood about what had happened to her. She told him about waking up, and of how her strength and senses had changed, and it was here that words began to fail her there were no words to describe some of the things she had seen and felt. She told him about the call at the motel and about being followed by the other vampire. When she had earth uped she felt more confused than when she had started.Tommy said, So youre not immortal. He said that you could be killed.I guess I dont seem to change. All my childhood scars are gone, the lines on my face. My body seems to have lifted a little.Tommy grinned. You do have a great body.I could lose five pounds, Jody said. She inhaled crisply and her eyes went wide, as if shed just remembered some explosives shed left in the oven. Oh my theologyWhat? Tommy looked around, thinking she had seen something frightening, something dangerous.This is horrible.What is it? Tommy insisted.I just realized Im always going to be a pudgette. I have jeans Ill never get into. Im always going to need to lose five pounds.So what, every woman Ive ever known thought she needed to lose five pounds.But they have a chance, they have hope. Im doomed.You could go on a liquid diet, Tommy said.in truth funny. She pinched her hip to confirm her observation. Five pounds. If hed only waited another week to attack. I was on the yogurt-and-grapefruit diet. I would have made it. Id be thin forever. She realized that she was obsessing and turned her attention to Tommy. Hows your neck, by the way?He rubbed the spot where she had bitten him. Its fine. I cant even feel a mark.You dont feel w eak?No more than usual.Jody smiled. I dont know how much I I mean, I dont have any way of measuring or anything.No, Im fine. It was kind of sexy. I just wonder how I healed so fast.It seems to work that way.Lets try something. He held his hand by her face. Lick my finger.She pushed his hand away. Tommy, just finish eating and we can go home and do this.No, its an experiment. My cuticles get tear from cutting boxes at the store. I want to see if you can heal them. He touched her lower lip. Go ahead, lick.She snaked out a provisional tongue and licked the tip of his finger, then took his finger in her mouth and ran her tongue around it.Wow, Tommy said. He pulled his finger out and looked at it. His cuticle, which had been pick and torn, had healed. This is great. Look.Jody studied his cuticle. It worked.Do another. He thrust another finger in her mouth.She spit it out. Stop that.Come on. He pushed at her lips. Pleeeeze.A big guy in a Forty-Niners sweatshirt leaned over from the tabl e next to them and said, Buddy, do you mind? Ive got my kids here.Sorry, Tommy said, wiping vampire spit on his shirt. We were just experimenting.Yeah, well, this isnt the place for it, okay?Right, Tommy said.See? Jody whispered. I told you.Lets go home, Tommy said. Ive got a blister on my big toe.No fucking way, writer-boy.Its low in calories, Tommy coaxed, prodding her foot with his sneaker. Good, and good for you.Not a chance.Tommy sighed in defeat. Well, I guess weve got more to reside about than my toe or your weight problem.Like what?Like the fact that last night I saw a guy in the store parking lot that I think was the other vampire.