A WATCHED POT

by Apache

Content:
Het
Vachon/Tracy
Implied or Graphic Sexual Situations
No Violence

This follows instantly after "Best Laid Plans"

Hoping you'll bear with me -- this story is stream-of-consciousness, Vachon talking -- I hope the story still "reads" if you just slide over the Spanish, but this is what it is:

dorada -- golden; luz --light; tal verguenza -- such a shameful thing; cojones -- balls; hijo de puta -- son of a whore (as an exclamation, not an insult); fracaso total -- complete screw-up, a total disaster; la bolsa -- literally, the purse; conejita -- literally, little rabbit; O Dios este calor -- oh God this heat;  el coraje de mi linda -- the courage of my pretty girl;  el oro de tus cabellos -- the gold of your hair; como me antoxa las perfumas tuyas -- how your scents intoxicate me, and antoxa is a very old word, from the era of Cervantes, as Vachon goes on to comment; sangre dorada, sangre de tigre -- golden blood, blood of a tiger; despues tantos anos el oro del Nuevo Mundo -- after all these years, the gold of the New World; tesoro -- treasure; pequenita -- dear little one; porque -- why/because; te quiero -- I want you, also slang for I love you; despiertete -- wake up -- querida is 'beloved'

Heartbeats.  What I don't have.  What I haven't cared about like this ever before, except when I heard my own heart quitting, dying in the dirt near the Inca, before my Master came and gave me back to myself.  Tracy's heartbeats... three, four, five... slow but solid.  Bo knows baseball?  Vampires know hearts... slow but steady, no skips, no racing, no thinly ticking uncertainty about this pulse, it's well, alive, so come on Trace, wake up, wake up, you asked for this, wake up and have it.  Eleven. Twelve.  Slow, a little too slow.  Come on, Trace.

Not happening.  Settle in, Jav, and be patient.  Heart is strong. Wait.  Tracy... Tracy gave herself to me because of what she wants.  I'm not sure if she knows what it is.  A tame vampire?  Her own black leopard, the way rich women will keep such pets?  No, she's better than that, but when she wants me-- what is it she's wanting?  Beyond my comprehension.  I have to take her word for it.  fifteen.... sixteen .... seventeen...  And now what I hear in her blood, this roaring... sift it, slow the images try to see--

Her word.  It's her body that's lying here under me.  Her body that I'm inside, her body that's inside me, that blood of hers I've been smelling so long suddenly burning its way through me -- all that she is -- wake up in the plane wreckage, burning fuel, burning plastic seats, burning mortals, a waft of apricots -- what?  and a touch, shit mortal touch get away -- yes apricots I'm smelling fruit in this carnage I'm cut but not dead, still nighttime, mortals all around have to get away -- not burned not burned get up and get away -- voice, English, two voices, "this guy's cold" right, good, go away mortals -- apricots and some flower--

Losing myself in the rush of her blood, so much to know, and so little, twenty six years, mostly confusion, mortals, so many years of their lives confusion and unformed desire, how many times have I swallowed these things, and Tracy -- with her a looking-forward, believing she will do good.  Proud of her father, even proud when they called him Dudley Do-Right, the twelve year old girl tagging to work, the Lieutenant's daughter, then the Captain's.  Going to be another one, be just like him. Then -- the change, wait, who's Tracy, is there a separate Tracy?

It all rushes by in the blood, and fades so fast.... so many women in me, women whose lives I swallowed and became and let go of, those women, who they loved, the men they took to their beds, the rapes, the childbirths, the homemade abortions in the alleys and stables.  Girls and their customers-- so often drinking from whores because they so often aren't missed, die in my arms, woman in my arms, inert -- Tracy, still here alive--

Out cold.  No.  I'm cold.  She's limp and unconscious but so warm. Okay, Tracy, time to wake up.  You wanted this, this is me, the beast that had to drink your blood, the vampire who knows you now in ways you don't even know yourself.  Look at you, so still, open mouth, slack, your arms that slid off my back, hands out, palms up, fingers slightly curled, me with my hands trapped under your back.  I don't want to move. I'll just wait for you, Tracy.  You had to have this, well here it is.  Wake up.  Strange mortal girl, wake up.   sixty five, sixty six.

Even with her blood in me, I don't -- see it.  Thought I would, but no. See why she had to have this.  Not love, something braver and less sure of itself.  Beginning of love, maybe, but so much certainty in the meantime.  Wake up, Tracy.  Be all right.  Your neck will hurt, but not so much -- I closed your wound with my blood.  You'll never know, but it marks you, like a dog marks a tree.  It will tell the others I'm drinking from you.  No other vampire will touch you - Knight will come for my cojones tomorrow for doing this, but -- one little bit of safety for you, Trace.  Golden Trace, who puts herself in harm's way for a living.

A face, such sick eyes -- there he is, the one Natalie told me of, the collector who wanted your head and hands. You felt so cold, so cramped, tied up -- and your thought:  "the round in the pipe, he forgot the one up the pipe" -- the chambered bullet, you were right, Trace, he took the clip but left the one already in the gun.  Good girl.  I should have followed you.  Should have gone with Knight.  And he crashed in hijo de puta not an instant to spare, raging, one of us -- How'd you miss seeing it, Trace -- right there in front of you, growling -- how'd you miss seeing him?  So many signs you don't pick up-- because of me? Because I tell you not to?  Seventy eight, nine, eighty... wake up.  Be all right.

A nuzzle, a little kiss, come on Sleeping Beauty.... no.  Just what there is of her inside me so alive now -- A child who died that came to haunt her -- a month ago, two months?  She didn't tell me. -- Her mother, doggedly pretending not to see so much, unfaithful father.  Doesn't your mother have brothers?  Your stupid society, Tracy; in my time, if a husband did that to a man's sister he'd pay.  Horsewhipped in the street and kicked to the priest to confess, how many times did I see that?  And instead, tal verguenza, your sad mother drinks and runs away alone?  What world is this?...  Police academy... a man you thought you loved-- so this is it?  no-- no not what I am to you, not the same, this was what you thought then, love to you, what it was years ago -- now? This inrushing river your sweet blood settling in me becoming part of me apricot savor and this life of yours--

Her sorority -- oh God the beautiful silliness of mortal girls, trying on each other's dresses -- the sensation of walking in spike heels -- her first sex.  Oh Tracy it was awful pobrecita, such groping, the smell of beer, what you read in books and this boy with thick fingers and the pushing cock he didn't know anything either did you understand what I can see, he didn't want to hurt you tried to break it quick and clean but the pushing and for him the explosion easy to have, all over in a minute or two, no knowing what you were what kind of girl under that cool sorority skin, the fear, how much you wanted love, even from that vulgar boy and he wanting his great release, his big hands like catcher's mitts on your breasts his tongue filling your mouth the poor stupid boy Tracy he might have loved you and not known how to say it, the groping might have been all he had to come to you with, his need and awe all swallowed into clumsy silence when you let him touch this long white body let him have it, be first, the first man, wanted him to give you -- something, love, a dream, something, and he may have been trying but you couldn't know --

Can you know me, Tracy Vetter? what do you want in the arms of a dead man who needed to drink your blood first, can think of your pleasure even less than a drunken teenage football jock before his need my need your blood in me Tracy with these pictures, how he grunted over you like a pig -- was I so ignorant and selfish as a mortal boy?  Yes of course -- well, I paid for it... and I gave you less than a grunt, just a moment of looking impaled you on my dead cock that freshest feeling I have from you how cold I am to you icicle in your womb icicle knife cutting for your heart and then the vampire bites and there is the yielding of blood will he take my life?  hit the wrong vein, is he going to kill me?  Vachon Vachon Javier can't talk cold dying Vachon -- wake up Tracy I didn't I swear not dead wake up give you what I can you asked for this why? why? because it's there because it's in the way of whatever's next no limit to your courage golden please wake up hundred twelve, hundred thirteen, is this too long? Patience, vampire, patience is what you are.... get a grip, Javito, she's just one life, it's a gamble, she chose it Tracy Vetter Tracy Vetter fracaso total leave Toronto, no she's okay wake up Tracy--

This smell of you -- the scent I was going to die with, here in this bed, so glad I hadn't killed you in the Hunger, so glad you had gotten out and your body wasn't lying on the floor, and me weak and sick to death and not able to destroy it like a good and tidy vampire -- and then you came back again bringing me blood, human lifeblood Trace from your hand that I couldn't drink, and stayed and kissed me and that smell again, the apricots and lilies, even in my dying sleep, smell of you around me.  Tracy wake up.

Fillings in your teeth, your whole body so slack.  Limp women in my arms, the last thing, the last thing -- not this time.  It wasn't that much, Trace.  I stopped, you were right.  Wake up.  Hundred twenty, twenty two, three... it's picking up, that's good.  Wake up.  Be OK.  You're shocky, more than most mortals-- how many years since I saw a woman faint?  You did it twice in one night -- but I took almost nothing, Trace.  The Red Cross, that's me, one little donation, a hot quick gulp... wake up.

Oh god so warm ... to lie on the length of you, settle down on your skin, put my ear to your chest, the heart, hundred thirty, this heat of you inside me, your little breasts so warm, the bones, your sweet neck, that beautiful skin under your jaw you have no idea how I care for it, Trace... oh to lie on you -- when I was a man, lying on a girl in a meadow, stealing our time, we should have been working, we were so young Tracy, your breasts under my chest, the heartbeat... so warm so warm hundred fifty, fifty one, please wake up now, your hips are so bony, Trace; your womb so hot, so lovely to be lying in it, just still, feel myself going half soft in you, can't move, can't change anything, want to make love to you Tracy, want to explore, want to look at your cunt, the orchid colors of it, the petals, the folding and unfolding, the pearl of the clitoris, tight little pearl let me give you pleasure all the bluntness of your speech and never your body possessed by a man who'd adore it how could I know from the way you talk Tracy long body under me like warm snow wake up need you to wake up need you Tracy hundred eighty four, five, feel my balls against the hot velvet of you, press a little, feel it more, go hard again just with that could fuck you in your sleep Trace, just have you want you almost that bad won't have the cheat, press oh oh god Trace so hot inside you oh the perfume of you your blood in me Trace it's like a song and all this fragrance and your heat on me wake up Trace hold me put your arms and legs on me give me your mouth wake up so great even asleep golden mortal, no fear -- no, there is fear, so much, but so much more courage Tracy no one like you ever wake up nipples so slackened and smooth, just a lick and they respond, and you don't even know it, just taste one in my mouth, hard nubbin, suckle, can't bite, she won't heal, not Urs, nipple oh on my tongue, bit of salt, sweet, little hairs around the aureoles, the dawn Tracy, they call this bit around the outside of your nipple dawn, and the other dawn below, the line of dawn that leads to this velvet I'm inside, your womb, your cunt, la bolsa, la conejita, oh dorada no name good enough for this enfolding Tracy me in you wake up can't give you a child, Tracy, can't let you give me a son, two hundred two, O Dios este calor, O Dios el coraje de mi linda, perla, O Dios el oro de tus cabellos, linda, como me antoxa las perfumas tuyas... wake up, Jav, no more antoxa, that word is four hundred years gone, don't make stupid mistakes or they'll see you, see the vampire, find you, kill you kill the vampire fire fire Tracy I'm a vampire why come to my bed? your blood doesn't tell me something I can understand, just a certainty and a courage, why, sangre dorada, sangre de tigre, tesoro del Nuevo Mundo, despues tantos anos... after all these years, the gold of the New World, my cock getting hot inside you, the hot core of living you won't give up, why not? live forever sweetheart don't die like this, don't be limp not like all the others, the dolls that broke and couldn't play anymore, the laughter stopped, a scream, they saw me saw me... Tracy you chose me why Tracy wake up pequenita te quiero te necesito, porque porque, despiertete querida, wake up two hundred nine... Trace?  that's it, open your eyes...two hundred ten.

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