Tiger lily: A tall garden lily, with flowers of dull orange spotted with black or purple.
**
Sleep seems wasteful nowadays. Senseless. Useless.
Why sleep?
I don't sleep.
I don't want to sleep. I don't need to sleep.
And when I sleep, I don't dream.
I define my life in sentences.
**
I define my life in sentences.
Today I got out of bed. Made breakfast. Took a shower. Went to work.
Today I worked.
End story.
Sentences are boundaries against the howling at the edge of my mind. They provide definition. If I pay attention they block out the screams.
Words should mean something when strung together. Not featureless yells or howling madness. Sentences are words that run together, meaning something. They ground me in reality, the simple here and now.
I define my world in sentences.
I live. I work.
I do not sleep.
Today I got out of bed. Took a shower. Made breakfast. Threw up breakfast. Took another shower. Went to work.
I worked.
Today I am still alive.
Tomorrow may be another story.
**
Tuesday morning: stark grey sky. The mourners file in solemnly, standing by the side of the grave.
"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust."
Handfuls of earth are flung on to the grave. Respectfully we stand for one more hymn.
It begins to rain. Umbrellas go up.
Finally it ends. People turn away, some shaking their heads, few blowing their noses, most confirming lunch appointments. Platitudes on their lips as they go to their cars.
I find myself watching Holland Manners' grave.
It is still raining through my eyes.
**
We bury Holland and stand vigil around his grave. Lilah and me, armed with stakes. Reception committee. Just in case.
(She told us we didn't have to. But who. Would. Believe her. )
(I would have. Used to. )
(Today I am alive.)
(Tomorrow may be another story.)
We bury Holland with his wife. Between the two of them, there is enough body to fit into one casket.
Together. Joined. All eternity.
Her arms. His legs.
We couldn't make out which was which.
We bury them in one casket. Nothing rises from the grave.
After a while Lilah goes home. I stay till morning. Defining sentences.
Nothing lives to rise from the grave.
She told he wouldn't. She should know.
**
Today we read Holland's will.
The execution is simple. Holland leaves behind one daughter, studying in England, a gigantic trust fund, some of which is disbursed to charity, and monogrammed cigarette cases for Lilah and me.
Lilah smokes. I don't. But then, my case is empty, while Lilah's is well stocked.
She blows out a puff of clove-scented smoke and sighs. "Hell of a thing."
"His legacy lives on."
Lilah nods. "Right."
Later, I find Holland's legacy waiting in my office.
**
Madness and her child make a pretty picture. Cassandra and Nemesis, hand in hand.
Made for each other. I do not fit in.
The madness sees this, pirouettes around me, singing.
She watches, pensive. Sitting in my chair.
Drusilla twirls, twirling up to her. Reaching out, smiling.
They kiss.
I watch.
She watches me watching her.
Watching them kiss. Slow and deep.
It doesn't hurt and she's surprised. Pleased as well. Enjoying the kiss.
After a while Drusilla pulls away.
"Watch me dance," and she does.
The madness dances and that is chaos.
I feel at that.
I am afraid.
I am afraid. I turn away. I search for sentences that define me.
I find them later in many books.
Or perhaps
They find me.
Simply spoken, they grant me clarity.
And the definition that I need.
**
Today I wake up and make breakfast. Slicing the bread, I look at the knife.
I have many knives. Sharp ones. Butter knives. Dull ones.
This one is sharp. I contemplate plunging it into my chest, and carving around my heart. Making a hole so deep and wide that perhaps my soul will rush in to fill the void.
I imagine the hole. I replace the knife.
After some consideration, I throw away the bread. My secretary will bring me coffee in my office.
*She's * in there waiting for me once I get in. Watches me not watching her, waiting for a kiss.
A shaft of sunlight and I realise I am alone.
Still she ghosts behind me, running her nails down the back of my neck.
Coffee dreams and madness. Still, I will not sleep.
**
Lilah and I have appointments with the company psychiatrist. She is a motherly soul, draped in comfortable tweed even in the middle of summer.
"How are you, Lindsey?" as if she genuinely wants to know.
I sketch her a calm smile and define my day in sentences.
I think she likes me. She says it's all right to grieve.
I tell her I do. And I think that I do.
But after all. It's not like Holland. Was anything.
Special.
Was he?
Wasn't he.
Just a man. A human man.
Who thought he could play immortal games.
He taught me well. I thought he did.
"We buried him on Tuesday."
Apparently she knows.
**
There are books in the stacks that can define me. Psychological texts and medical histories. They are not what I am looking for.
There are scrolls and parchments that can hold me. I find myself in one of these.
She ghosts behind me, smiling still. The weight of her laughter an exquisite pressure at the nape.
"Come to me," trailing fingers down my spine. "Lindsey..."
My name. Defined in syllables that drop from her lips.
A breeze, a kiss and she is gone.
Moonlight and mad dreams. Still I cannot sleep.
I make photocopies. Cross-references. Remembering examinations and private lessons.
He was good at what he did. But ultimately a man.
Perhaps I could mourn for him. But if I did, I'd have to sleep.
Better to study this. I think he would have wanted me to.
And if not, well. Fuck. Who cares?
I care. I did.
I read the words and sentences defining me in the books.
They aren't that hard to find.
**
He isn't hard to find.
"And they call me the bloodsucker," eyebrows quirking as he takes a sniff of brandy.
(Oh. It's not.)
(Had me fooled.)
"A shirt and a window, wasn't it?" he waves the free hand vaguely. "Money's in the drawer."
"I've come to collect," let my voice trail into silence.
He sits there, thinking. Drinks from his glass, then looks at me.
His voice is clear. His face is too. Expressionless, clean. A mask like mine. That is good.
Perhaps we can understand each other. Perhaps not.
"Why." A single word.
I stand loose, legs apart, limbs relaxed, as non-threatening as I can manage. He takes it in and moves fractionally.
I know he can smell her. She ghosts behind me constantly now.
He glances up and down my body, nods a bit, then crooks his finger.
"Come here."
I do.
I make my own definitions.
**
When he stands he is the taller one. His breath is clean, but copper toned.
I feel my heart strike a single note.
He bends down slightly, moving in closer. I stand my ground.
Inches away, he sniffs.
His breath is just air at the temperature of the room. Still, it is powerful. It chases her away.
But she returns to me, mocking, dancing lightly. He nods again, satisfied, and cups the air a minute distance from my face.
"She touched you."
"Yes."
It isn't a claim, but it could be, he knows. And by coming here I've made a choice.
Why, he asked me, but he already knows.
Letting him in levels the playing field.
In the end I make my own sentences. In the end I will define myself.
He grins suddenly, flash of brilliant teeth.
"So if she wants you, she's got to go through me."
"If you want me, so have you."
He understands. I think he does.
I think I can see respect, or some such shadow in his eyes.
He'll do it, I think. We both can use this.
His hands relax and touch my shoulders. Butterfly soft, yet real as this life.
He doesn't ask me if I'm sure. But his hands move inside my shirt collar, skimming the surfaces I want him to know.
I close my eyes, and feel her laughing.
I think she might already know.
**
"Do you have a name?" he asks, fingers lightly massaging the skin where my neck joins my shoulders.
He knows my name. I know he knows this.
"She doesn't," he whispers, pressing the secret to my skin, tongue lightly flicking out to taste me there. "It's not her name."
I breathe. I knew this. And his teeth are hovering, descending, just enough to touch the skin.
I arch. He bites.
We fall together, but he holds us and we end up on the couch, me on top and him below, teeth closed and lips nuzzling.
"I could give you a new name," he says, wanting me to know this. But I knew this already, and took my chances.
He won't take me. I'm too valuable as a pawn.
So my hands are steady as they unbutton my shirt.
**
It's the way he looks at me, at my chest defined in the moonlight, the back of his palm running lightly above the skin. I feel - tight, and suddenly I can see the boundaries lifting, lifting away and the collapse inwards is imminent.
But I am strong. I hold.
And he gives in, smiling, undoing the first button of his shirt as a prize.
I touch him, revealed.
Skin and not skin. It isn't cold, but it isn't warm. Not like the touch of my own hand, not like the touch of a lover's. Somewhat dry, somewhat strange, but completely real.
His skin is his mask I realise, and look for a moment for a matching wound where his heart might be.
He captures my hand and puts it on his shoulder. Matter of fact, not roughly. Adjusting me, so we are aligned. Looking at each other.
He does not kiss me.
We look at each other and I feel my gaze drift into unreality.
Then he sighs and *then * he moves.
**
He kisses me.
Vampires have oral fixations. Of course they do. Who else?
He likes my neck, or is afraid to move lower. Just nuzzling, occasionally tasting, his nose and lips alternating as he learns the contours of my shoulder.
He moves higher and I don't freeze. In reward, he licks the jugular and moves on to my face.
Strange, almost asexual, the way he maps my face. Touches his forehead to my own, our features aligned and out of alignment. Brushes his lips across mine, side by side, not teasing but comforting, relaxing me, getting me acquainted with him.
I wonder at him not kissing me there. Then understand.
That part. She claimed.
I move my hand off his shoulder and down the side of his torso. It isn't meant to be a caress. Somehow it turns into one.
He stills, our faces pressed together, as flying blind I move south and encounter the waistband of his jeans.
Whispering, I tell him, "Yes." Add to that a finger hooked into his belt.
He lets me push him back onto the couch, hands still on my shoulder, anchoring him. When he's lying down fully, I lean back and see his eyes are closed.
I lick my lips and steel myself.
Perhaps he hears that. His eyes fly open, half-questioning.
Searching my face, he finds the answer. And takes my hands, guiding them.
We undo the clasp of his belt, sliding it out from under his hips. Toss it away and prepare for the button fly.
There is solidity beneath our hands, not warmth, but solidity, some strange heaviness that is not half as unnerving as his hands on mine, guiding me towards pleasuring him.
Suddenly it is all too much.
My hands slow down, heat travelling out from them and into him. He grips my palms tightly, then shoves them aside, grabbing at me. Pulling me down, and finally, yes finally, finally we kiss.
Kissing.
God.
His mouth open in a snarl that grabs my bottom lip, pulling me open, thrusting inside with tongue and breath - dead air, copper toned, that warms with my body heat and warms me further. Dead air, stale with the remnants of a thousand dead animals, ten thousand humans, and it doesn't really matter because the soul void is deep and hungry and suddenly my chest is open with that gaping hole and his death rushes in to fill it
And I hear the voices and the screams and see him walk away leaving me, leaving Holland to the tender mercies of the other vampires
And then I find it in me to bite back.
He likes that.
Teeth, my teeth duelling with his tongue, our mouths in some frantic war, laying siege to each other. Somewhere, somehow my hands and his hands have meshed, entwined and clumsily laid us open to each other. Warm and hard and hard and solid and thrusts become jerks, silent, sped by my sweat and his - his skin is warmed by mine and I
I come first, and his thrusts become harder, at last, finally, coming over me, the aftershocks of his body rubbing the scent deep, deep within, into each pore until I am saturated.
Saturated with him.
Saturated, but alone. Quiet and hollow, the scent and tastes of his dead mouth against mine, his dead semen against my skin becoming new barriers to hold away the madness, but gates to let others through.
He holds me as I breathe, filling air into the empty spaces. His hands not gripping, just lightly holding, and I realise what I always knew, that in the end of it all, regardless,
I am as alone as he is and will always be so.
But now, I think, we are even.
Behind me, something laughs.
**
She stands naked in front of my mirror, hands cupping her breasts un-self consciously, turning this way and that to pout over her reflection.
I watch her, lying in bed, watch her watching me, through the glass that
Shows nothing
Or should show
"I'm dreaming," I say finally, and she inclines her head gravely.
"So am I," she tosses over her shoulder, turning for one last pose before coming to stand before me.
"Was it good for you?" she asks, genuinely curious.
"Who are you?" I ask in return and she shakes her head.
"A memory. A wish. A dream."
"All of those?"
"And maybe more." She tilts her head. "Are the ghosts gone?"
I close my eyes and realise
"No."
She nods wisely. "But it was a good move you made."
"And?"
"And?" she grins.
I realise I've never seen Darla grin before. This must be a dream.
She pats my shoulder, sounding motherly. "And I think you should open your eyes, clean the stickiness off you and get off my boy's couch. Go home now. Let him brood."
She touches my lips, the lips still soft from Angel kisses and dead air. Her eyes soften. "You reminded him you were alive. I'm proud of you."
I am alive. Today.
And so were they -
"Ssh," her lips ghost gently over mine, her body shimmering and dissolving into and over me. "No regrets. No fear. You reminded him. You reclaimed yourself." I feel her smirk over my lips. "Not that *she * will think so..."
"Wait. Who - "
"Ah," her breath gusts in my ear. "Anybody. Nobody. Your conscience. The embodiment of your dearest fantasy. Wish-fulfilment in a post-orgasmic haze. I'm not the person you want me to be. Does it matter?"
I let her kiss me.
She sighs again into my mouth. "Oh my boy..."
We kiss, eyes closed, no one watching.
When I open my eyes, I am alone.
**
I do as she tells me. Get up, put on the shirt, fumble my pants closed.
There is no sign of Angel, and I didn't expect there to be.
My foot crunches against something. A white envelope left where I couldn't help but stumble over it.
Addressed to me.
I pick it up and open it.
There are bills inside - I don't count how many. And a note.
'For the shirt. For the window.'
For a moment I could rip his throat out.
Then I smile. Relax.
Everyone defines their own actions.
Whore or not, it was a nice shirt he ruined.
As I leave, behind me, I can hear the laughter of a thousand screams.
**
That night as I sleep, she comes to me in dreams.
"She will be angry once she knows," warning me.
I smile and courageously open my arms. She moves into them as I tell her, "I knew that."
"Stupid, brave idiot," she kisses me affectionately.
"And?"
"And?" She raises her head to look at me, mischief and mirth sparkling in her eyes. "And. Suggest a threesome if she brings it up to you."
She chuckles at my intake of breath. "Oh, it always used to make me mad. Try it again. It might work for you."
I hold her tightly, wanting this to be real.
"I am real," she tells me. "I'm as real as all your dreams."
All existence is after all, defined with sentences.
**
Today I woke up. Made coffee. Brushed my teeth. Looked carefully at the reflection in the mirror.
Today I am alive. Tomorrow is always another story.
Today I will try new sentences.
Today I will try to make tomorrow the same.
And perhaps I will take flowers to Holland's grave. Perhaps some tiger lilies, the bright brave flowers of death.
I smile at my reflection and feel fingers gently ghosting up my spine.
"I think Holland would have liked that,"
"I know," I tell the ghost in the mirror.
She laughs and kisses me once before leaving.
Back to the silence of the
dreams I don't dream.
~ End
**
Author's notes: Partly written to the tune of 'Tiger', by Paula Cole.
Lindsey, Darla, and Angel. Even Dru. They fascinate me. I want to tell their story in as many of the infinite variations as possible. Hope I succeeded.
I have known people to be
completely calm and focussed on the outside while the inside is a maddening
howling wilderness. No one ever recovers fully from trauma. All we can do
is cope in our own way.
If you notice a dramatic shift
in Lindsey first after he understands the claim on him, then second after
he has understood he's not the only one affected, well, you're right. Once
he has information, he can move and manipulate circumstances to get him what
he needs. It's lack of definition that cripples us always, especially since
we, being social animals, normally rely on other people to provide us with
identity.
Thank you for reading this. Let me know what you think?
**