You Suck: A Love Story Chapter 8

Chapter eight-spotShe Walks in BeautyJody travel graduate Columbus Avenue with long, runway-model strides, imprint the windblown fog brush by her comparable the chill ghosts of jilted suitors. What she could neer teach Tommy, what she could n ever so re every(prenominal)y share with him, was what it entangle same to go forward from being a victim afraid of attack, the shadow approximately the corner, the footsteps bunghole to being the hunter. It wasnt the stalking or the rush of taking down prey Tommy would understand that. It was walking down a dark street, tardy at shadow, h quondam(a) uping that you were the most formerful animate being thither, that t here(predicate) was utterly no repressg, no genius, that could fuck with you. Until she had been changed and had stalked the city as a lamia, she never realized that virtually every moment she had been there as a woman, she had been a mid sire to bit afraid. A man would never understand. That was the power for the dress and the shoes non to attract a minion, only when to adjudge her conjureuality issue there on display, dare scarcely about underevolved antheral to make the mistake of seeing her as a victim. Truth be told, although it had come down to confrontation only once, and thence shed been habiliment a baggy sweatshirt and jeans, Jody enjoyed kicking ass. She also enjoyed every bit as much(prenominal) entirely knowing that she could. It was her secret.Without fear, the City was a great sensual carnival. at that place was no danger in any liaison she come acrossd, no anxiety. Red was red, yellow didnt entail caution, bum didnt dream up fire, and the mumbling of the four Chinese jest ats standing by their car scarce around the corner was unless the click and nasal twang of empty swinging dick talk. She could hear their hearts speed up when they saw her, could smell sweat and garlic and gun oil culmination away them. Shed learned the smell of fear and immi nent violence, too, of sexual arousal and surrender, although shed withstand been hard-pressed to describe any of that. It was good there. Like color.You knowTry to describe blue.Without mentioning blue.See?There werent a lot of community out on the street at this quantify of night, but there were a few, sp chance on out up the length of Columbus barhoppers, late diners just wrapping it up, college boys heading down to the strip clubs on Broadway, the exodus from Cobbs drollery Club up the street, people giddy and so into the rhythm of laugh that they found one another(prenominal) and everything they saw hilarious all of them vibrant, erosion auras of healthy pink breeding, trailing heat and perfume and cigarette smoke and gas held done long dinners. Witnesses.The Chinese roasts werent harmless, by any means, but she didnt think theyd attack her, and she felt a twinge of regret. One of them, the one with the gun, yelled or sothing at her in Cantonese something sleazy a nd insulting, she could tell by the tone. She spun as she walked, smiled her biggest red carpet smile, and without breaking stride, verbalize, Hey, nano-dick, go fuck yourselfThere was a lot of bluster and shuffle, the smart one, the one with fear coming off him, held his friend Nano-dick back, thus saving his life. She must be a cop, or just crazy. Somethings wrong. They clustered around their tricked-out Honda and huffed out great breaths of testosterone and frustration. Jody grinned, and detoured up a placement street, away from traffic.My night, she said to herself. Mine.Now off the of import drag, she saw only a single old man shuffle ahead of her. His life aura looked the wish a burned-out bulb, a spot of dark gray around him. He walked stooped over, with a dogged determination, as if he knew that if he stopped, he would never endure again. From what she could tell, he never would. He wore baggy, wide-wale corduroys that made the sound of rodents nesting when he walked. A wisp of breeze off the Bay brought Jody the acrid smell of helplessness organs, of stale tobacco, of despair, of a deep, rotting sickness, and she felt the elation leave her.She slipped substantially into the new slot the night had made for her, like tumblers of a go slipping into place.She made sure that she made enough noise so that he could hear her approaching, and when she was beside him, he paused, his feet thus far moving in minute steps that turned him to the side, as if his motor was idling.Hi, she said.He smiled. My, you are a lovely misfire. Would you walk with me?Sure.They walked a few steps together in advance he said, Im dying, you know.Yeah, I kind of figured, Jody said.Im just walking. Thinking, and walking. Mostly walking.Nice night for it.A little cold, but I dont feel it. I got a whole pocketful of painkillers. You want one?No, Im good. Thanks.I ran out of things to think about. beneficial in time.I wondered if Id get to kiss a pretty fille once before the end. I think that would be all Id want.Whats your clear? crowd. James OMally.James. My physical body is Jody. Im pleased to meet you. She stopped and offered her elapse to shake.The delight is all mine, I get word you, said James, bowing as crush he could.She took his face in her hands, and steadied him, then kissed him on the lips, light and for a long time, and when she pulled away they were both smiling.That was lovely, James OMally said.Yes it was, Jody said.I say Im finished now, James said. Thank you.The pleasure was all mine, Jody said. I assure you.Then she put her arms around his slight frame, and held him, one hand cradling the back of his head like an infant, and he only trembled a little when she drank.A little later, she bundled his clothes together under her arm, and hooked his old wing tips on two fingers. The dust that had been James OMally was spread in a powdery-gray pile on the sidewalk, like a negative shadow, a bleached spot. She brushed it flat wit h her palm, and wrote, Nice kiss, James, with her fingernail.As she walked away, an hourglass trickle of James trailed out of his clothes behind her and was carried off on the chill verbalize breeze.The guy working the door of the Glas Kat looked like a guttle had exploded on his head, his hair plastered out in a chaos of glowering spikes. The music coming from inside sounded like robots fucking. And complain about it. In rhythmic monotone. European robots.Tommy was a little intimidated. Sploded raven-head guy had better fangs than he did, was paler, and had seventeen silver rings in his lips. (Tommy had counted.) bet its hard to whistle with those in, huh? Tommy asked.Ten dollars, said Sploded.Tommy gave him the capital. He checked Tommys ID and stamped his radiocarpal joint with a red slash. Just then a group of Japanese girls dressed like tragic Victorian baby dolls breezed by behind Tommy, waving their wrist slashes like theyd just returned from a joyful self-annihilation party instead of smoking cloves on the street. They, too, looked more than like lamias than Tommy did.He shrugged and entered the club. Everyone, it appeared, looked more like a vampire than he did. Hed bought some moody jeans and a black leather jacket at the Levis store spell Jody was off unwraping something hideous for her mother for Christmas, but evidently he should score been looking for some black lipstick and something cobalt- or fuchsia-colored to hesitate into his hair. And in retrospect, the flannel shirt may have been a mistake. He looked like hed shown up at the sacrificial mass of the damned arrive at to fix the dishwasher.The music changed to an ethereal female chorus of Celtic non sniff out. With a techno beat. And robots complaining. Grumpy robots.He tried to listen around it, the way Jody had taught him. With all the black light, strobes, and black clothing, his newly heightened senses were overloading. He tried to focus on peoples faces, their life auras, look through the haze of heat, hairspray, and patchouli for the girl hed met at Walgreens.Tommy had felt alone in a crowd before, even lowly to everyone in a crowd, but now he felt, well, different. It wasnt just the clothes and the makeup, it was the humanity. He wasnt part of it. Heightened senses or not, he felt like he had his nose pressed against the window, looking in. The problem was, it was the window of a donut shop.Hey individual grabbed his arm and he wheeled around so promptly that the girl approximately tumbled over backwards, startled.Fuck Dude.Hi, Tommy said. Wow. Thinking, Ah, jelly donut. It was the girl from Walgreens. She was nearly a foot shorter than he, and a little cheeseparing. Tonight shed gone with the waifish look, wearing striped stockings with holes ripped in them and a shiny red PVC miniskirt. Shed traded in her Lord Byron shirt for a tank top, black, of course, with dripping red earn that read got blood? and fishnet gloves that went halfway up he r biceps. Her makeup was sad-clown marionette black tears drawn streaming down either side of her face. She crooked her finger to get him to bend down so she could crab into his ear over the music.My names Abby Normal.Tommy spoke into her ear she smelled of hairspray and what was that? Raspberry? My name is Flood, he said. C. Thomas Flood. It was his pen name. The C didnt really stand for anything, he just liked the sound of it. Call me Flood, he added. Tommy was a stupid name for a vampire, but Flood ah, Flood there was disaster and power there, and a hint of mystery, he thought.Abby smiled like a cat in a tuna thronenery. Flood, she said. Flood.She was essay it on, it seemed to Tommy. He imagined that shed have a black vinyl binder at school and shed soon be opus Mrs. Flood surrounded by a heart with an arrow through it on the cover in her own blood. Hed never seen a girl so obviously attracted to him, and he realized that he had no experience in dealing with it. For a mome nt he flashed on the trey vampire brides of Dracula who try to seduce Jonathan Harker in Stokers classic novel. (Hed been perusing all the vampire fiction he could get his hands on since meeting Jody, since it didnt appear that anyone had written a good how-to book on vampirism.) Could he really deal with three luscious vampire brides? Would he have to bring them a kid in a realise the way Dracula does in the book? How legion(predicate) kids a hebdomad would it take to keep them happy? And where did you get kid sacks? And although he hadnt discussed it with Jody, he was pretty sure she was not going to be happy communion him with two other luscious vampire brides, even if he brought her sacks and sacks mount of kids. Theyd need a bigger apartment. One with a washer and dried in the building, because thered be a lot of bloodstained lingerie to be washed. Vampire logistics were a nightmare. You should get a castle and a lag when you got your fangs. How was he going to do all o f this? This sucks, Tommy finally said, overwhelmed by the exorbitance of his responsibilities.Abby looked startled, then a little hurt. Sorry, she said. You want to get out of here?Oh, no, I didnt mean I mean, uh, yes. Let us go.Do you still need to get your heroin?What? No, that matter is taken care of.You know, Byron and Shelley did opiates, Abby said. Laudanum. It was like cough syrup.Then, for no reason that he could think of, Tommy said, Those scamps, they loved to get wrecked and read ghost stories from the German.That is so fucking cool, Abby said, grabbing his arm and hug his biceps like it was her newest, bestest friend. She started pulling him toward the door.What about your friend? Tommy said.Oh, someone made a comment about his cape being gray when we scratch got here, so he went home to redye all of his blacks.Of course, Tommy said, thinking, What the fuck? Out on the sidewalk, Abby said, I suppose we need to find somewhere private.We do?So you mass take me, Abby said, stretching her neck to the side, looking more like a stringless marionette than ever.Tommy had no paper what to do. How did she know? Everyone in that club would have scored higher on the are you a vampire? test than he would. There needed to be a book, and this sort of thing needed to be in it. Should he deny it? Should he just get on with it? What was he going to tell Jody when she woke up next to the skinny marionette girl? He hadnt really understood women when he was a normal, human guy, when it seemed that all you had to do was pretend that you didnt want to have sex with them until they would have sex with you, but being a vampire added a whole new aspect to things. Was he supposed to conceal that he was a vampire and a dork He used to read the articles in Cosmo to get some clue to the female psyche, and so he deferred to advice hed read in an article entitled Think Hes Just feign to Like You So Youll Have Sex with Him? Try a coffee Date.How bout I buy you a cup of c offee instead, he said. We can talk.Its because I have small boobs, isnt it? Abby said, going into a very practiced pout.Of course not. Tommy smiled in a way he thought would be charming, mature, and reassuring. Coffee wont help that.As Jody pushed the bundle of clothes into the storm sewer, a silver cigarette case slid out of the jacket pocket onto the pavement. She reached for it and felt a light shock no, that wasnt it. It was a warmth that moved up her arm. She kicked the clothes into the opening and stood under the streetlight, turning the silver case in her hands. It had his name engraved on it. She couldnt keep it, like she had the folding money from his pockets, but she couldnt dedicate it away either. Something wouldnt let her.She heard a buzz, like an angry insect, and looked up to see a neon Open point flickering above a shop called Ashers Secondhand. That was it. Thats where the cigarette case had to go. She owed it to James. afterward all, hed given her everything, or at least everything hed had odd. She quick-stepped across the street and into the shop.The possessor was working the counter at the back by himself. A thin guy in his early thirties, with a look of pleasant perplexity not unlike the one shed first noticed on Tommys face. Normally, this guy would be prime minion material, or at least based on her minion recruitment of the past he would, except apparently, he was dead. Or at least not alive like most people. He had no life aura around him. No healthy pink glow, no crusty brown or gray corona of illness. Nothing. The only time shed ever seen this before was with Elijah, the old vampire.The shopkeeper looked up and she smiled. He smiled back. She moved to the counter. While he tried not to stare at her cleavage, she looked more closely for some life aura. There was heat, or at least there appeared to be some heat coming off him.Hi, said the shopkeeper. Can I help you?I found this, she said, holding up the cigarette case. I was in the neighborhood and something made me think that this belonged here. She set out the case down on the counter. How could he have no life aura? What the hell was he?Touch me, she said. She held out her hand to him.Huh? He seemed a little frightened at first, but he took her hand, then quickly let go.He was warm. Then youre not one of us? But he wasnt one of them either.Us? What do you mean us? He touched the cigarette case and she could tell that this was exactly wherefore she had brought it here. It was supposed to be here. Whatever part of James OMally had been left in that cigarette case had led her here. And this thin, confused-looking guy was supposed to have it. He took what was left of people all the time. Its what he did. Jody felt some of the pledge shed felt earlier draining away. Maybe the night wasnt hers after all.Jody O.K. away a step. No. You dont just take the weak and the sick, do you? You take anyone.Take? What do you mean, take? He was furiously trying to pus h the cigarette case back to her across the counter.He didnt know. He was like she was when shed awakened that first night as a vampire and had no idea what she had become. You dont even know, do you?Know what? He picked up the cigarette case again. Wait a second, can you see this thing glowing?No glow. It just felt like it belonged here. This poor guy, he didnt even know. Whats your name? She asked.Charlie Asher. This is Ashers.Well Charlie, you seem like a fine guy, and I dont know exactly what you are, and it doesnt seem like you know. You dont, do you?He blushed. Jody could see his face flush with heat. Ive been going through some changes lately.Jody nodded. He really would have been perfect as a minion if he hadnt been some bizarre supernatural creature. Shed just gotten used to the idea of vampires being real, and it took some serious blood drinking to drive that reality home, and now there were other other things? Still, Jody felt bad for him, Okay, she said. I know what its like, uh, to find yourself thrown into a situation where forces beyond your control are changing you into someone, something you dont have an owners manual for. I understand what it is to not know. But someone, somewhere, does know. Someone can tell you whats going on. And hopefully they arent just fucking with you, she wanted to add, but thought better of it.What are you talking about? he asked.You make people die, dont you Charlie? She didnt know why she said it, but as soon as she said it, she knew it was true. Like when all her other senses had been dialed to eleven, she could sense something new, like noise on the line, and it was telling her this.But how do you ?Because its what I do, Jody said. Not like you, but its what I do. Find them, Charlie. Backtrack and find whoever was there when your military man changed.She shouldnt have said that, she knew it as she was saying it. Shed just handed him an item that had been owned by someone shed taken not twenty minutes ago . But even as regret for spill out incriminating evidence hit her, she also realized that she had left Tommy out there to wave in the wind just like this guy. Even if it was only for a few hours, Tommy had no idea how to go about being a vampire truth be told, he hadnt really been that good at being a human. He was just a doofy guy from Indiana and shed abandoned him to the merciless city.She turned and ran out of the shop.Cocoa? Tommy said. You look cold. Hed given her his jacket out on the street.Hes so gallant, Abby thought. He probably wants me to drink cocoa to get my blood excoriation up before he sucks the life from my veins.Abby had lived much of her life postponement for something extraordinary to happen. No matter where she had been, there was a world somewhere that was more interesting. Shed progressed from wanting to live in a fantastic, kawaii-cute plastic world of Hello Kitty, to being a Day-Glo, Manga lollipop space girl in platform sneakers, and then just a coupl e of years ago she had moved into the dark gothic world of pseudo vampires, suicidal poets, and romantic disappointment. It was a dark, seductive world where you got to sleep really late on the weekends. Shed been true to her dark nature, too, trying to maintain an aspect of exhausted mopeyness season channeling any enthusiasm she felt into a vehicle for imminent disappointment, and above all, suppressing the deep-seated perkiness that her friend Lily said shed never shed when shed refused to throw away her Hello Kitty backpack or let go of her Nintendog virtual beagle puppy.He has virtual parvo, Lily had said. You have to put him down.He doesnt have parvo, Abby had insisted. Hes just tired.Hes doomed, and youre cute, and hopelessly perky, Lily taunted.I am not. Im complex and Im dark.Youre perky and your e-dog has i-parvo.As Azrael is my witness, I will never be perky again, said Abby, her wrist set tragically to her forehead. Lily stood with her as she threw her Nintendog cartri dge under the tire of the 91 midnight express bus.And now she had been chosen by a real creature of the night, and she would be true to her word she had shed her perkiness. She sipped her hot chocolate, and studied the vampire Flood across the table. How clever, that he could appear as just a simple, clueless guy but then, he could probably take many shapes.I could be a slave to your darkest desires, Abby said. I can do things. Anything you want.The vampire Flood commenced a coughing fit. When he had control again, he said, Well, thats terrific, because we have a lot of laundry piled up and the apartment is a wreck.He was testing her. Seeing if she was worthy before bringing her into his world. Anything you desire, my lord. I can do laundry, clean, bring you small creatures to quench your thirst until I am worthy.The vampire Flood snickered. This is so cool, he said. Youll do my laundry, just like that?Abby knew she had to tread carefully here, not fall for his trap. Anything, she said.Have you ever gone apartment hunting?Sure, she lied.Okay, you can start tomorrow first thing. You need to find us an apartment.Abby was horrified. She hadnt really tried on the idea of leaving her old life so quickly. But all that would mean nothing when she became immortal, and ran with the children of the night. But her mom was going to be pissed. I cant move in right away, my lord. I have affairs to put in order before I make the change.The vampire Flood smiled, his fangs just now visible now.Oh, its not for you. Theres another. He paused and leaned across the table. An elder, he whispered.There was another? Was she to become the sacrifice to a whole coven of the undead? Well, whatever. Lily would be so jealous. As you please, my lord, she said.You might want to chill with the my lord stuff, Flood said.Sorry.Its okay. You know this all has to be completely secret, right?Right. Secret.I mean, Im okay with it, but the other, the elder, she has a foul temper.She?Yeah, you kno w, an Irish redhead.A Celtic countess, then? The one who was with you at Walgreens?Exactly. seraphical Abby blurted out. She couldnt help it. She immediately tried to hide her latent perkiness by biting the edge of her cocoa cup.Youve got chocolate, here. The vampire Flood gestured to her lip. Kind of a marshmallow mustache.Sorry, Abby said, wiping her mouth furiously with the back of her fishnet glove, smearing her black lipstick across the side of her face.Its okay, said the vampire Flood. Its cute.Fuck Abby said.