The Story of the Vampire, L (Completed | Featured )

Part 3 - Two Halves of a Body

"We're going, monster," I whispered into Faya's ear.

He lifted his head from his cool pillow. For a moment his parted lips and sleepy eyes made him look confused, as if he wasn't sure of where he was. I sighed because he seemed from another time, and reached for his dark hair. He closed his eyes again while I gathered it in my fist. "Am I going, too?" he asked, voice not quite certain.

"Not this time."

"Will you come back soon?" he asked.

"I will. If I bring blood for you, will you drink it?" 

"Maybe I will."

"I am sorry to leave you alone," I said.

"I'm not alone," he whispered.

It hadn't seemed anymore strange to me for him to say that than a lot of things he said. I barely thought twice about it at the time. I laid the back of my hand against his cheek and he gazed at me.

Ever since I had known him, from the first, he had been saying things to me that didn't quite make sense to my ear. He would say things to me like, "There is a star in your eye," or, "Do not turn your head, there is a shadow there," or wonder aloud, "Oh what will I do when I say twenty and he says twenty-five?" Some of which I would come to understand, and others which I would never. 

I remember the very first thing he said to me. It had been a busy night for me, and I had only found a moment to breathe, tendons and joints aching. I had thought that I might undress, and share a mirror to tie up my hair for bed. In those days it was rare to have such good work, and it was only because the festival of Hercules was coming on, and there were some down from Rome who had time away from their wives. These were aging men who had known me in better years, and liked to whisper to me that I was the only one, though I knew there were whores, and cheaper, in Rome as well. Old men like that would really say anything to you, hoping you would tell them you felt the same. For them, it was only a moment a year. What is the value of an old whore's love? It's only in his knowledge of one's former glory. I cultivated a memory for faces and affinities. 

And it was a nice change to be largely well-treated. A very nice week eating well and recounting old war stories, top to bottom, and full of company both for myself and for the others. There were always new little ones brought in for that week, some to stay on. And they were always coming to me, because I liked company to bed. Little boys would come to me sore and crying, dark around their eyes, unable to speak well, and sleep beside me. If they liked it, I would throw my leg over them and use them as a pillow, and if it made them laugh so much the better. I am not inured to the feeling of their soft skin against mine, and the hitching of their tears, how a small child cries with his entire body, his stomach a lung. By the end, I had been a used slipper seven years, too old for advertising, and suffering from a badly healed ear that began to hurt more and more in bad weather. The pain of it gave me migraines, and subsistence on bread and water, good enough for an animal of little work and little use, had made me even worse than useless. I worried secretly for my health, having always been susceptible to waking up on the floor and dead faints, and the more so on a bad diet. I had a special talent for bruising like a peach. But the little ones were not afraid of my drowned paleness, or the bruises on my face from rough use, and slept against me as one who liked to coo at them and listen to their stories. Sometimes they brought food with them, and I ate it. Old and diseased, my master kept me on as a bad habit and for the little profit I brought for special work.

My greatest trick, in those times, was like this. A young man would come in, maybe even as young as me, and he would say something like, "Let us share a meal together", so I would know what sort of game it was. If I was younger than he was, I should pretend to be older. It is not difficult for me to talk about. I played this game many times. It is only about what the living are really like, and their appetites. They will eat anything that tastes good, and what tasted very good for these men was to bring in whatever sounded delicious to them and could be sourced locally, myself included. They would have brought in many plates, and wait for me to appear to forget my role and try to take something. This I could measure. How long would it take this man to get up the nerve to hit me? Because that is what he wanted, sometimes secretly, sometimes constantly. How long would it take him to be able to slap me for touching his oysters, or fine wine, or cockles, or pheasant? How long should I sit, playing shocked, before I should get up and flee so that he could chase me? What, most importantly, was the way to play it so that he would be satisfied before he killed me? Before he felt he had done enough to damage me that killing me by accident was unnecessary? Often these encounters ended with sex. Many times, the fantasy did not require it. I felt luckier with the former. The former had a clear ending.