8FOLD/HCC/ACRA: Weird Romance # 3, "The Ache"

[Tom Russell]

Eightfold Romance Group presents

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HCC 43             "The Ache" by Tom Russell

She was not asleep, but now she is waking. The fire wakes her. She
hears its crackle and its crisp, sharp snap.
   She's lying on a sofa, one hand tucked beneath her head, the
fingers prickling. Her eyes were not closed, but she opens them. The
room is dark, the fireplace behind her, dimly casting shadows across
the room. To her left is a large and open window; the moon pours in.
   There's a man. At least Sophie thinks he is a man. She can't see
all of him, only his moonlit crescent cheek. He brings a wine glass to
his lips, held like a goblet, the stem between two fingers and the
glass against his palm. He sips it thinly and watches her.
   Sophie doesn't know who he is. She doesn't know where she is,
either. Suddenly her stomach tenses up, but just as suddenly a calm
washes over her body. The man is staring at her. She stares back.
   He smiles; he must like a woman who stares back. "Vampire."
   "Vampire?"
   He nods without moving his head. "Do you believe me?"
   "...Maybe."
   "Maybe. Maybe's good, I think." He sips. "My name is Card."
   "I'm..."
   "You're Sophie," he says.
   Her stomach tenses again.
   "We danced," he says, as if reminding her, and slowly, like twine
unspooling, she begins if only dimly to recall it. "We danced, and
then you were tired, and so I brought you here." His voice is deep and
his pronunciation precise; nothing is said quickly.
   "And you're a vampire."
   "Yes."
   "And so vampires are real?"
   "Vampires... Vampires were real, yes. I still am. But I'm the last one."
   "What happened?"
   "They were wicked; dangerous."
   "But you're not," says Sophie.
   "Wicked? Not especially. But dangerous? Yes. Yes, of course I am. I
am foul and damned. And I must feed."
   "That's why I'm here, isn't it?" she says. She sits up, suddenly
agitated. "Then why talk to me at all? Why toy with me?"
   Then he speaks again, and it is as if his voice is touching every
part of her at once. A sigh is smuggled past her lips. "You're here
because we danced, and you were tired. I would like to feed, yes; your
throat is lush and lovely. And I could, in the space of a breath, be
upon you. My brethren had no qualms. Thus I could not suffer them to
live. I suffer my own existence to continue because I will not take
unless it is freely given."
   "And so you're asking me."
   "I will ask you, yes," he says. "But first I must tell you what it
is that you give."
   "It won't kill me?"
   "No."
   "Will I... 'turn'? Is 'turn' the word?"
   "You will not turn," he says. "I am the last, and will always be
the last. If you will allow me, I will tell you the price."
   His hazel eyes now gleam a pale and beautiful red. So beautiful
that Sophie cannot bare to look into them. She is standing before the
window now, her back to the vampire; when did she get up from the
couch? It's raining now, too, the moonlight shimmering through. She
doesn't remember hearing the rain before, but for a moment, it's the
only thing she can hear. Then he speaks again, and her skin blushes
hot crimson at the sound.
   "If you give me your blood, I will only take a little; only what I
need. It will not cause you pain. It will-- and know, Sophie, that I
only tell you things that are true-- it will be the most sublime
pleasure you have ever felt, and will ever feel. But you shall never
feel its like again."
   "And that's the price?" she whispers.
   Whisper is answered with whisper, and she can hear him deep and
clear, though he still sits and sips his wine on the other side of the
room. "That is the terrible price. For you will forget this. This
conversation. This meeting. Me. Or rather, you will remember it only
in your dreams. And in the ache. For once you have felt the kiss of
the vampire upon your neck, you will always want it. Always need it.
You will never know what it is that you are searching for, but you
will search for it. For me. The ache will consume you, and for the
rest of your days, there will always be this part of you that is
missing, desperately and impossibly missing. And it will make you
melancholy and wanton."
   "That's a great sales pitch you have there," she says.
   "I only tell you things that are true. You cannot give if you do
not know. I will not take if you cannot give."
   "Do most women... give?"
   "No. That is why my brethren preyed upon your kind like savage beasts."
   "But you're not like most vampires."
   "No."
   Her dress slips from her body; the rain-streaked moonlight bathes
her soft pink breasts. "I'm not like most women."

Mother's Day.
   Barry kisses her good morning. "Hello, hot mommy."
   Sophie smiles thinly. "Are you making me breakfast?"
   "No," he says. "James and Sarah are."
   "Don't you think you better supervise?"
   He kisses her again. "No," he says. "They're old enough now."
   There's a clatter from the kitchen that sounds an awful lot like
her good dishes breaking. Barry smirks and rushes off to put out any
fires, figurative or literal.
   Sophie sits up in bed, hugging her knees. She loves them, Barry and
their kids. But not as much as they love her. She fills up their
lives. She had expected they would do the same. That she would be
whole once she had gotten married. Once she had had children.
   It's not fair to them. She demands so much of them, and they give
it, eager to be loved back. Oh, how they give it. They give and give,
and she takes and takes, giving them almost nothing back in return,
demanding more, sucking the life out of all of them like some kind of
vampire. They give and she takes, but it's never enough. Why isn't it
enough?
   Her shrink doesn't know. Every medication has failed. She tried to
find it, that missing thing, not just as home, but at work, and in the
beds of others. But she cannot find it.
   Except, perhaps, in her dreams. Some mornings she wakes from a
dream that she is desperate but unable to recall. A dream that does
not actually fill the missing part of her, but rather makes her feel
its terrible ache more acutely. She wakes from it restless and soaking
wet. The ache and the melancholy are a thousand times more unbearable
for those few minutes than at any other time, and yet it is those
moments that she likes best, when she catches a fleeting glimpse of
moonlight and rain.


COPYRIGHT (C) 2014 TOM RUSSELL