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HOUSE CALL 5 (A STITCH IN TIME) Content: Skipping
about 25,000 words of preliminaries....
this part happens in
the same thread as House Calls, between (iii) and (iv) OK,
it's spring, and a young girl's fancy turns to... the vampire she's been hanging
around with for the last several months. It
was one of those times that Vachon was over at my place.
He'd run through his little ritual of investigating something in my
apartment. Tonight it was the game files on my computer-- actually, it is truly
awesome to watch someone do the huge grid of Minesweeper in three seconds flat.
But now we were just hanging around listening to music.
It was my night off, and every night is his night off, and the whole
thing just felt pleasantly languid. I
had a bright idea. An impulse, a
desire. Call it what you like.
A delusion, maybe. Anyway, I hopped up and said, "Wait a minute.. don't
move, OK?" and trotted back to my bedroom. My
hair is ultrafine and won't hold a snarl any more than it will hold a perm, but
I do have a hairbrush as well as a comb. A
good one, boar bristles. I picked
it up and bounced back into the living room, full of my happy impulse. He
flinched when the brush first touched his head.
You have to figure a fair amount of trust was involved in him just
letting me come up behind him and touch him at all, since touching is not
something we do. That I do. The
rule seems to be, he gets to touch me, my hair, with little strokes, and
everything else is hands off. "Lean
forward a little, OK?" I
swear, I truly thought this was harmless. Between
the motorcycle and flying, his hair is always so wild...
Oh hindsight. The
brush couldn't do much at first against a tangled thatch like that, but I'd made
up my mind... After a minute, I
could pull it through one section of his hair, and I just kept going.
Long, incredibly thick, heavy black hair, and now I'd given myself an
excuse to stick my fingers in it, pick apart tangles the brush tightened, smooth
it down when I'd gotten a section clear. And
who doesn't love to have their hair brushed?
The nice scratch across the scalp, the gentle pull on the muscles of the
neck... it's a caress, but not too personal, not so intimate that you're
crossing a line you can't ever go back from. He
went through stages-- nervously stiff at first, relaxing, and finally complete
pleasure-- and I got to have that black silk in my hands and play with it, and
make it even more beautiful, even softer. When
I was close to done, I started brushing it flat against his back, so the brush
was running lightly across his shirt, down his shoulders, just a little scrape
down the ends of the longest hair and teasingly just past them onto his back. I
meant to stop then, but after I'd let a few seconds go by without doing
something new with his hair, he rocked forward on the sofa, tucked a knee under
himself to get some height, and peeled his shirt off in one quick fluid motion.
All without looking around at me, without a word. And
I was looking at the length of his back, pale and muscular, almost without
blemish, the thin, strong body that had been frozen in the middle of a soldier's
youth centuries ago. He bowed his
head slightly, pulling the raw ends of the dark hair high onto the white
shoulders, still not looking around, not moving at all once he'd presented me
with this new situation. I
snorted softly, thinking, yeah, scratch your back and you'll scratch mine?
But the wisecrack would have ruined the moment, spoiled whatever it was
he was offering me. And I really,
really wanted to know where this could go. I
stroked his back with the brush so lightly he could barely have felt it, but it
was clear from the little shudder that went through him that he had.
So I scratched a little harder with the brush, following the lines of
muscles, tracing the ribs outward from the spine, dipping into the grooves where
the shoulderblades end, the place where my Dad told me the wings would grow when
I got to be an angel. And I was
stroking the back of a demon... unh-uh. I
was doing something, I didn't really know what, with Vachon. He
shivered again as I began to reach around his sides with the brushstrokes,
following the ribcage around toward the front -- ticklish?
I wanted to ask, to tease, but this mood, this place we were in together,
was as soft and delicate as eiderdown, and more fragile than smoke.
Let it alone... and I ran the brush down his arms, over the short black
hairs on his forearms, making a little silent joke of brushing them into a wave
pattern. And then there was nothing
more to do, no other part of him to brush, unless I was going to push it, reach
around him and run the bristles down his chest, into the line of black hair that
runs down his belly toward his groin... So
I stopped. No pushing this time.
Whatever's going to happen next, let him do it. And
the two of us stood there like sculptures, not speaking, him kneeling on the
sofa, me standing behind it, lined up one in front of the other like dominoes or
chessmen, for a long moment. Then
his head came up and he twisted around, still propped up on one knee, to face
me. His
eyes were pure curiosity. Just soft
and full of wonder. He was as far
into unknown territory as me-- more, maybe.
Push it or stop now? What's possible?
What do I want? And you?
His eyes are so dark I saw myself in them, a fairly ordinary blonde girl
standing in her living room holding a hairbrush. He reached for me, only landing his fingertips on my arms and
curling them to pull me closer, all without any expression but that powerful
curiosity, not even any desire. And
me, what was I showing him? Fear
and longing, probably. Confusion tied to a curiosity that's like his, but easier
to have, because I'm the normal one who lives in the regular world and is safe
there. I'm the one with a home and a family and a job and a life,
with an identity that isn't just some faked passport and a glib line of chatter.
And I was thinking of what he told me, no birds/no bees/no mortals, and
feeling like we might just slip through the cracks unnoticed in a moment as
suspended as this... A
kiss. Gentle, but like the pull of his fingers, it just kept
increasing until we were pressed against each other hard, kissing each other
hard, hungrily, all the pent up desire flooding out into one single kiss, so
full of need, a kiss that somehow was made entirely of taking for both of us-- His
arms spasmed around me. He lifted
me over the back of the couch, slamming me down, and his body landed on me like
a slab of rock. By the time my head hit the pillow, Vachon had clamped his teeth
into my shoulder like a bulldog, ripping into the flesh right through the
blouse, then holding. I tried to
react, but I couldn't move at all, couldn't squirm, couldn't flail an arm.
He had one hand slapped over my mouth to stop the scream that formed-- an
expert move, thumb holding the jaw all but closed so the throat couldn't open, a
finger curled inside the mouth, immobilizing the tongue. And
then nothing happened. The pain was
horrible, the fire and pull of his bite into my body, and there was a single
initial convulsion of his body-- I felt him suck, felt him swallow-- and then
nothing more. I couldn't move, and he didn't move.
There 'd been a moment of that purring snarl I heard when he killed Vudu,
and now nothing. Nothing. He was rigid, silent, and I only knew he was still conscious
by his instant and absolute response to my efforts to squirm.
I tried gnawing on the finger in my mouth, but it instantly and painfully
pressed against the roof of my mouth to force my jaws apart.
One finger, that strong. And
nothing else moved. Most of all,
there was no lessening of the terrible grip on my shoulder.
No more sucking, but no letting go. Then, as time went on, the first wave
of terror wore off and I realized what had happened, what was still happening. More
stillness. And then he made another
animal noise, something like a polar bear's chuff from way deep in his gut. He
let go, got up, grabbed his shirt, pulled it on, and moved into a corner like I
was going to attack him, all very fast. And
then he just stood there, arms crossed, eyes blank -- yellow and weird
-- practically catatonic. Attack
him? I could barely move, but I had to do something about my
shoulder. I also had to take care
of him, if it was possible. We were
stupid, and we'd made the same mistake a second time. And, scared though I was, I was also pretty sure he'd just
saved my life again. //And he's
staying...// "Vachon,
thanks." They
were the first words between us since I'd touched the brush to his head.
They didn't come out much louder than a whisper, but they didn't need to.
Then I hauled myself up to go look in the bathroom mirror to find out how
bad it was. Not
too terrible, which is to say he hadn't actually pulled out a hunk of flesh.
I peeled off my blouse, which aside from being torn had stains where he'd
sucked blood through. In the front,
all I could see was a fairly light imprint of ordinary tooth marks, but using a
hand mirror I saw the fang marks on my back. They were kind of triangular, deep punctures, still oozing
blood. I
lost it for a moment then, freaked and closed my eyes and leaned forward against
the mirror over the sink, trying hard not to scream, not to frighten the wild
animal in my living room -- and not to cause any more pain to the man who was in
there with it. I stuffed a towel in
my mouth and cried for a minute as quietly as I could, and then reason came back
and started telling me what to do. //Don't
think you can go to the ER with this one, Trace.// OK,
no, but clean it up and slap a bandage on it.
Basic first aid for bites, no matter what bit you.
Or who-- I ducked my head backward to look through the bathroom doorway
at Vachon, and said "do I need a tetanus shot?" -- jokingly.
No response. Still life of a man with yellow eyes and black hair staring
at a carpet. A man gone way deep
inside himself, back wedged into a corner. //But he hasn't run away.
He's still right here.// I
have iodine and alcohol and all kinds of good, painful stuff in the medicine
cabinet, so I pulled it out, gripped the bottles against my side and twisted the
caps off, and poured some on. It
was awkward, though, and I ducked my head back into the open doorway again.
"Think you could lend me a hand?" Nothing. I went
back to what I was doing, trying to apply a gauze bandage to my own back
one-handed. Twenty
seconds or more later, I heard him say "No." "Huh?"
Darting out to the doorway. "No,"
he repeated. Very quietly, without
inflection, but coming back to himself. He
looked up, still yellow-eyed. "I
can't get near you," he said. There was strain in his voice. "Oh,
okay, fine. I'm doing fine," I said hastily.
He was staying, that was the main thing...
I poured some more iodine over the slope of my shoulder, yelped as some
of it actually reached the bite marks, and threw a towel over it, scuttling off
to my bedroom for a sweatshirt I wouldn't mind staining. And
he was still there... I went back
to the sofa and sat down. I was so far in shock, I think, that I was behaving
normally. The bells weren't
starting to ring in my head yet, the moment hadn't come when I'd seriously lose
it and flip out and bounce off the walls. //You
first, Vachon,// I thought. //'Cause
you're still here.// "Is
this too close?" He was about
eight feet away, I figured. Arms wrapped around himself like something would
fall out if he was jostled. No
answer. I noticed I was sitting next to the pillow with my blood on
it, still very red and fresh. //That's
not helping,// I thought, and turned it over.
No, on second thought... I lobbed it into the bathroom, hoping out of
sight was out of mind. "We
need to talk," I said. TV
dialogue-- but what do you say? The
yellow eyes blinked, but the voice was familiar.
Softspoken. "It's
pretty simple. I just bit
you." "Do
I taste good?" //What are you
-saying-, Trace?// But
it was the right thing. So
unexpected it shocked him out of his stillness.
The yellow faded into brown-black, and he was looking at me with the same
affectless curiosity we started with. Then
his eyes crinkled a little. "Wonderful,"
he said, very softly. "Good."
This made me grin; everyone likes a compliment -- even a demented vampire
one. "Come sit down."
He didn't move, so I went and got him.
He shivered when I touched him, tried to shrink a little further into the
corner, but his eyes stayed dark and human, which was more than I hoped for.
"C'mon, Vachon," I said, and pulled at his arm.
He let me do it, push him down on the sofa and sit a foot or so away, but
he wouldn't meet my eyes. "It's
pretty simple," I said, mimicing his tone.
"We want to have something here.
We have to figure out how before something terrible happens." "You're
talking about your death," he said. His
gaze flickered to mine for a split second, then went back to the floor.
"That's all that can happen, unless you come across." "I
don't believe it," I said. "You're
not gonna kill me. You keep
inventing new ways not to kill me, no matter how hard I try... "
Now his eyes were fixed on me, curious, but harder-looking than before.
I gave him look for look. "Trust
me on this, Vachon. You just won't
do it." "Trust
you." The irony was back. "Yeah,"
I said. I felt crazy and cocky,
sure of myself. Sure I was right
about him. "Vachon--" and
then my nerve failed. We
let a long minute go by in silence, but it wasn't awful. "I've
been told it's possible," he said finally, very quietly, not his humorous
self at all. His eyebrows went up
at my seeming incomprehension. "Exactly
what you're thinking, Tracy," he said.
"Sex. Fucking.
Lovemaking. Without coming
across." He sighed. I must
have made some kind of sound, because two or three expressions crossed his face
that said, don't turn coy now. And
you were never stupid. And other
things I didn't understand. I nodded. "Or
we could just never see each other again," I said.
Now my eyes were glued to the carpet.
A long minute passed. "You
said 'thanks,'" he said softly. I
looked up, surprised, and found him looking at me with one of those small smiles
that come out when he's happy about something, enjoying something. "Well,
I would have screamed, but you didn't let me." Another
smile. "Tracy..."
It trailed off. He was looking at me from a pretty far distance. "It
may be inevitable," I said. I
gave him a smile that turned into one of those twisted, rueful expressions.
"Why don't we try to make a plan before somebody gets hurt?"
//Me, actually.// "Bad
idea, Trace," he said, smiling slightly.
"It really is." But
then he slid down the sofa and pulled me toward him, ignoring my
"ouch," and stroking my hair. He
sighed, and spoke very softly into the air over my head.
"On the other hand, bad ideas are kind of a specialty with me." I
twisted my head and leaned back to rest it on his chest, and his arms slid
around me. It was an actual hug, just me tilted onto his chest, my head tucked
under his chin, and him wrapping his arms around me, like an actual couple
sitting on a sofa. Then his muscles
tightened for a moment and I heard him take one quick, deep breath,
involuntarily. I froze, and waited.
It happened: he relaxed, I felt his
body unclench. It made me smile.
It'll work, it's destiny. Or
something. "So...
good, huh?" How else could I
tell him? I
felt his head tilt to the side, like it does when he's deep in confusion, and
some of those freshly-brushed soft black locks spilled down in front of my eyes. "The
best," he murmured into my hair. ~ Return to "Forever Knight" ~ ~ Return to Apache's Archive ~
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