The Daughters of Warring: Part 5

“Can I have more paper?”

The guard frowned at Isabel, knitting his eyebrows together. She rarely asked for anything, but wasn’t sure that would help her cause. He went out and spoke with one of his cohorts, and emerged with a fresh stack of paper in his hands.

“Why are you writing so much?”

“I have a lot of sins to confess. It can’t fit on one page.”

“Or ten, by the look of it.”

With a harsh laugh he put her tray down on the floor and left. The lock clicked loudly into place, setting her teeth on edge.

Isabel looked at her food–water, a dry crust of bread, and some lumpy stew that was already growing cold. If she let it sit there for too long, the rats would come after it.

Isabel picked up her plate and had a few bites. The longer time went on the more she missed home cooked food. The thought of roast was enough to bring tears to her eyes.

When she was done with her meal, she turned her attention back to the paper. She began to write, paying attention to her words. Suddenly, she was back there, at the warm day when she realized that Stephen fancied her.

***

Stephen Astley rarely spoke to me. Sometimes, I had the uncomfortable feeling that he was watching me.

He was always around– at the church, at my family’s house. I could not avoid him. I learned to grow comfortable around him, or at least pretend that I was.

He sat with Suzette at church one Sunday. That quickly became the talk around town. I thought nothing of it, until I saw the two of them walking, holding hands.

I was not jealous. Stephen was planning to have a life much like my Father’s, and that was not something I wanted. Despite what anyone may tell you, being the wife of a minister is not an easy burden. I saw my mother go through it. Times when she would have spoken, she was afraid to move out of her proper place. It was hard having a husband whose time and energy was expected to be given freely to the entire community, with little or no benefit for him or his family.

If Suzette wanted that, good for her.

The weather was unseasonably warm. Indian summer, they called it. I went down to the lake one afternoon. It was getting late, though it was still hot. I sat with my legs dangling in the water, daydreaming. I didn’t know he was there until he sat beside me.

“What are you doing down here?” he said.

“Trying to cool myself,” I said.  I got up, pulled my dress as far down my legs as it would cover. I knew he’d seen my legs, and my bare feet.

“You’re going already?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He stood and gripped my arm.

“You try really hard to avoid me. Why?”

“You’re with my sister, aren’t you?” I said . “The gossips say you’ll be betrothed, if not married by this time next year.”

“Really? And you believe them? That’s the talk of idle busybodies. What do they know?”

“I see how Suzette looks at you.”

He paused. “Suzette is a dear girl. But she demands the attention of everyone near her. Haven’t you noticed? I try to be kind.”

“And that is all?”

“Yes, it is.”

I thought about that. Suzette was a girl who felt the need to be looked upon as special. She craved the admiring looks of men more than anything.

“Well,” I said carefully. “That has nothing to do with me, one way or another.”

I looked at my arm then, realizing he hadn’t let go of me. He released me then and stepped back, looking at me with a sparkle in his eyes.

“I do hope that is not what is keeping us from being friends.”

I shook my head. “What do you mean?”

“You’re not courting anyone, Isabel.”

“So?”

He smiled. “You’re innocent yet.”

He touched my cheek. I should have moved away, but I stood, rooted to the spot.

Stephen leaned over and kissed me.

Things started between us that simply. Without talk, or planning, or assumption on my part of what the future would be. One kiss fueled a week’s worth of dreams. My spare moments were spent imagining what our next meeting would be like. Stephen and I schemed, passing notes back and forth.

There were places we’d go to meet in the woods. An abandoned house near the lake provided us privacy when we needed it. Our meetings were brief, but I lived for them. Each time, I pushed across an unspoken threshold towards him. His touch, his breath on my skin were pleasurable forms of torture. I’d never known what it was like to crave a man before.

One afternoon, we lay on a narrow bed together. I remember how he kissed me, how his touch changed. His hands moved up my thigh. I felt my heart beating fast, my stomach trembling. I stared at him, a little afraid of what I saw in his eyes. He whispered things to me, loving words. It was too late, but I realized then. This wasn’t like the times before. We weren’t going to stop.

I could not force myself up. And if I had tried, he would not have let me.

Later, he slept in my arms. Fear rose inside me.

I got up to dress, shivering. I thought he was still asleep, until I heard his voice behind me.

“That was lovely,” he said. “I shall have you again sometime.”

***

Evening was coming on fast. Isabel looked towards the window. She could hear the wind picking up outside. She would have to hurry, write what she could while there was still enough light to see by.

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©2010 Lori Titus

Lori Titus’ western horror story, Lazarus, is available on Amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble. Her second novella, Hailey’s Shadow, is scheduled for release in January 2011. You can keep up with this author’s latest mischief on her blog : http://loribeth215.wordpress.com/ or on Twitter, where her name is Loribeth215.

From the back of the Broad Street bus he could see that the girl wore two daisies braided into her hair.  He had come to enjoy this part.  This must be what hunting deer feels like, he thought to himself.  Her apartment was in a large brownstone with a park view.  He had followed her for two weeks, putting off the inevitable as long as possible.  If it wasn’t for Polly he wouldn’t be doing this, following this girl.  But then if not for Polly he would still be a police detective instead of a world famous author of vampire fiction. 
 
The girl got off the bus.  He stood then sat back down, today was the day and he didn’t want to be seen getting off the same bus.  He had tried to speak to her several times.  He had spoken to them before, pled his case.  Sometimes they went willingly, like sheep led to slaughter.  At other times things became violent and he would only take a pint or four, out of respect for their will to live. 
 
A restaurant across the street served Gyros.  He sat at a table by the window and thought about Polly crying begging, that she couldn’t stand the pain any longer.  “The writing has grown stale,” he remembered telling her, stroking her hand while she lay crumbled in a ball on the floor.  He made her wait longer if she didn’t produce.  The girl’s light went off on the third floor.  He finished his gyro and smoked.  She was always asleep by ten. 
 
Two days ago he helped her elderly neighbor in with her groceries.  He repeated the code that the old woman had punched in the keypad and the door sprung open.  Crouching in the shadows he listened carefully before removing the lock pick set from his pocket.  He spent time walking through the girl’s apartment, there were no pictures of family or friends, no funny sayings or drawings posted on the refrigerator.  The girl’s cat made figure eights between his legs as he stood watching her sleep.  She was beautiful and in another time watching her sleep with nothing covering her but a sheet would have excited him.  Instead he pressed the stun gun to her calf. 
 
The girl woke in the tub, too weak to struggle.  He had already drained four pints from her body.  The small dialysis pump worked quietly, drawing out the other two.  She could only watch with half lidded eyes as her life dripped away into a plastic bag.  He told the dying girl about Polly, told her he was sorry but even she had to admit that she made a good suicide, wrists slashed in the tub with the drain open and shower on, all that blood, right down the drain.  In his years with Polly there had been car fires, suicides beyond count and even once a man caught in the inner workings of a car wash.
 
Polly was waiting when he got home.  He knew she could smell the blood as soon as he pulled into the driveway.  He checked the closed circuit monitor, glad to see that she had composed herself.  She was sitting at the desk trying to act busy.  Her hands flying across the keyboard so fast they seemed to blur.  The chains around her wrists rattled and chimed against the desk.  He sat at the table and watched her work. 
 
She was as beautiful as the day he had caught her.  His eyes saw a beauty, black hair to her waist, dark skin and long thin limbs but his mind wasn’t fooled.  The scar on her neck betrayed her.  It was what tipped him off when they met.  She mistook undercover for drunk.  He was working overtime trying to break a rash of murders that seemed to be happening within a 10 block radius of an abandoned warehouse district.  Both trying hard to act drunk, they made out in his car and when she suggested they find someplace private he pulled the car into a dark alley.  He noticed the scar on her neck in the weak light of the radio.  People with wounds like that didn’t walk away.  It didn’t even fit into the category of a gunshot.  He reached his hand into his coat pocket and felt the cold steel of his throw away piece.  

“What are you?” 

She raised her head and smiled, “What ever do you mean?” 

“No, really.  What are you?”  He thumbed back the hammer of the pistol.  The click was very loud in the confines of the car. 

“If you have to know I’m a vampire.  I lure drunks into alleys with the promise of sex and suck their blood.”  She smiled again and ran her tongue across her lower lip. 

Her hand ran down her neck line past the scar and stroked her breast.  When she leaned forward toward his neck with her long canines bared he shot her.  She writhed in pain, trying to fight but the shot had taken her through the lung.  All she could do was hiss and gasp for air.  He taped her hands and feet and rolled her struggling body into the trunk.  That was over ten years ago. 

Some people had cats, some had dogs.  He had a vampire.
 
He unlocked the door and stepped inside her reinforced concrete room.  Polly turned to greet him.  She smiled seductively and tried to hypnotize him with her eyes.  After all this time she still hopes that it will work on me, he thought to himself. 

“Did you get it?”  She asked, her voice lisping from the teeth he had pulled.

“How much have you finished.” 

“Twelve chapters.  This one is a teen romance based in the early nineteenth century.  I think people will really like it.”

“Plenty of vampires and blood I hope?  It needs to be historically accurate.  I need another best seller.”

“Of course my dear, I lived it.  Now tell me about dinner.”
 
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©2010 E.E Barnes

E.E. Barnes lives works and writes in Kentucky.  He has been published in Red Fez and the Daily Flash 2011 anthology published by Pill Hill Press.  He is currently struggling through the last revisions of his first novel when he really should be doing laundry.