FIC: Kissing in the Dark (2 of 2)

[fox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Friday night at Trash City; up on stage the all girl thrash metal band,
Pavlovian Bitch, were demolishing the old Flaming Ghoulies number "I got
socks" at twice the speed of sound. Mick peered through strobe lit
smog, attempting to spot a familiar face.

He leaned against the wall where the crowd was thin enough to make
breathing less of a collective activity, and stuck a cigarette in his
mouth. The noise of the band formed a blanket that cut out any lesser
sound, such that he failed to hear his name being called. Something
tugged insistently at his elbow and as he turned, his heart skipped a
beat when he found himself staring at Her.

No, not her. all in black and studs, topped with a shock of black hair,
but several inches too short, and the hair, in fact purple, he knew from
previous experience only looked black due to the lighting was tied in a
colourful topknot. It was Julie's friend, Karol-with-a-K. Her purple
lips were moving but all he could hear was:
I'M CERTAINLY NO VIRGIN BUT I'M
HARDENED TO THE KNOCKS
I JUST WISH SOMEONE WOULD LOVE ME
'COS HE LOVES MY SOCKS
'COS I GOT SOCKS
SOCKS
YUP I GOT SOCKS
I GOT SOCKS

Her furrowed brow suggested that she was asking him a question, and not
for the first time. He tapped a finger to his ear to indicate the
obvious. A flicker of irritation crossed her face and she plucked the
cigarette from his fingers and took a long drag. Oh, she wanted a
ciggie.

Mick was feeling a little slow tonight. Could she be coming on to him?
There was definitely something predatory in her attitude. A week ago he
would have jumped at the chance to separate her from his little sister.
It was as though the term "Jail bait" had been coined specifically to
describe this little package, but tonight... It was like busses, he
thought; nothing for ages, but the moment you got interested in one girl
they were all over you. He watched her put the cigarette between
garishly tinted lips and found himself studying her with an
uncharacteristic objectivity. Hair was plastered to her forehead.
Livid makeup was streaked with sweat.

Mick shook his head. The heat and noise felt oppressive suddenly. What
was wrong with him this evening? Karol handed him back the half smoked
cigarette, her hand lingering on his while he eyed the end now ringed
with the colour of her carnivorous smile. She tried to talk again.
Abruptly she was crushed against him as a group of yobs tore past. The
feel of her body against him made Mick forget that he wasn't interested
tonight.

She pulled away, slowly enough to make it an invitation. He bent
forward to catch what she was saying now. Karol was a good seven inches
shorter than him. He could feel her breath on his cheek. As she spoke
again he turned his head to catch her words and the world froze when a
spark of reflected light caught his eye. Roxanne. Over by the exit she
stood, hands in pockets, her head nodding in time to the beat.

Whatever Karol was attempting to communicate was lost as he turned away.
Her arm was pulled from around his neck; he hadn't even noticed. He had
done some hard thinking lately, about things he'd heard, and things he'd
seen; and the only number he could get it to add up to didn't make
sense. He had to speak to Roxanne: to sort it out, even if it meant
that they never spoke again.

He had moved maybe three feet through the crush of bodies before a tug
from behind pulled him around. He just had time to glimpse Roxanne's
shock of recognition before Karol laid into him. She was cross. She
was feeling slighted. You could tell. Mick tried to indicate by sign
language that something important had come up that required his
immediate attention but it was clear that she didn't believe that
anything could be that important. Whatever it was she was saying, Mick
was glad he couldn't hear it over the din.

His pang of regret as she stomped off was forgotten as he turned back to
Roxanne. She had vanished. He scanned the immediate area for her face
but there was no sign. The only way she could have disappeared so fast
was out through the exit. He moved as fast as he could, careless of the
press of bodies. Over at the bar, Keef waved a beer mug, offering a
drink. He waved back a hasty 'No' and finally reached the door.

The exit led into a narrow alleyway back of the nightclub where distant
street lights created more shadow than illumination. Rain poured down
the bare brickwork and collected in murky puddles on the uneven ground.
Roxanne stood facing him, her black clothing making her a shadow amongst
shadows. He moved towards her with a smile but halted again when she
moved back a pace to maintain the distance between them.

The silence rang in his ears. Rain filled his hair and dripped down his
face, collecting in his glasses so that her face became a blur of white
on black.

"Roxy, I..."

She cut him off. "Can't you just leave me alone?"

"Hey, come on. I don't see that I've done anything to deserve this sort
of treatment. I was the one who picked you out of the gutter and got
you home when you were in no fit state, remember? I thought we were
friends."

The rain had started to ooze down his back now, and the chill air made
him shiver after the sweaty heat of the club.

"Look. I just don't want to see you anymore, okay? Just forget you
ever met me."

"What's the big deal? My company's not that bad is it? Am I using the
wrong deodorant or something?"

She hugged her arms across her chest. Spikes of wet hair stuck out at
odd angles and dripped water on her face, but she made no move to brush
it out of her eyes. Mick tried desperately to bridge the gaping silence
between them.

"I do know where you live," he began, preparing to continue with some
banality about walking her home so they could talk somewhere out of the
rain, but the words died unspoken when he saw the sudden fear in her
eyes. She was obviously terrified of something. Not him, surely?

"Hey, look, I'm sorry, Roxy. I didn't mean...

"You know you can trust me. If there's any trouble. Anything I can
do..."

"You can leave me alone!" She screamed suddenly, pushing past him with
such force that he was thrown stumbling over a dustbin into the wall.

A few steps away she halted. Over her shoulder she said, "God, I'm
sorry Mick. It's hardly your fault."

She opened her mouth to say something more, but closed it again,
thoughts unspoken. Then she turned and fled into the night.

For a brief microsecond Mick considered forgetting the whole thing, then
he shook his head and pelted after her.

She led him through darkened streets, lights diffused in the driving
rain. An old man, out walking his dog, started at the sound of rushing
feet. He stopped and stared as the two figures tore past.

The chase ended more because she gave up rather than with him catching
her. For several seconds they were both bent over and panting with the
effort. Filling his lungs, Mick straightened up and looked over to her.
He was surprised to realize that she was crying.

She leaned against a wall, her face turned away from him. She offered
little resistance as he gently turned her around and took her head in
his hands.

"What IS it? What's wrong?" he asked quietly, aghast at the reaction
he had provoked.

She stopped sobbing and pulled away from him, setting her shoulders
rigidly. For a moment Mick thought that she was going to take flight
once more but she did not move.

"I'm... different. I'm just not like normal people."

"Hey, I'm not exactly mister average myself, y'know." he responded
lightly, as his guts turned to ice.

She shook her head sadly and took him by the arm, steering him a couple
of yards down the street.

"Look," she said, her eyes gesturing downward.

He looked. The brightly lit window of the Co-op across the road
illuminated his reflection clearly in a puddle at his feet. He looked
up, puzzled. Roxanne moved to stand beside him.

"Now look." 

Where it had reflected like a mirror before, the puddle seemed to have
muddied up or something, though not the merest ripple stirred the
mirrored surface. He couldn't quite make anything out. Then abruptly,
the puddle cleared, like a camera coming into focus. He went cold all
over. Roxanne had stepped back a pace.

Her head came up and she looked him in the eye with an iron directness.
In a voice brittle as glass she said, "All those stories about me...
It's all a front. I know it sounds crazy, it was supposed to, but I...
I really am a vampire."

Stillness settled over them as they stood motionless in the dark,
heedless of the fact that it had stopped raining minutes before. A dog
barked. Somewhere in the distance the sewing machine whine of a
Kawasaki two-stroke split the air.

Mick suppressed a nervous urge to laugh. All the pieces did fit
together; this was no time to complain that he didn't like the picture
they made. It was the point of no return: believe the impossible and
throw himself into a potentially very dangerous unknown, or laugh in her
face and lose her forever.

"Oh, is that all," he said finally, as he calmly wiped a tear from her
cheek. "I thought you were going to tell me you had a jealous boyfriend
or something."

Caught off balance by this calm acceptance, Roxanne searched his face
for any sign of mockery. After a long second she crumpled into his
arms, her face buried in his shoulder. She wept now with relief. Mick
found himself stroking her hair and making meaningless soothing noises
while she let it all out.

Some time later he felt rather than heard the tears ebb. She sniffed.
A muffled voice said ruefully, "I've cried all over your jacket."

"That's okay, it was wet anyway," he said mildly.

For the first time in five years, Roxanne laughed.

The crescent moon looked out from behind a cloud and deciding to call it
a night, headed for the horizon. In Roxanne's kitchen, Mick Poured
himself a cup of black coffee. He could hardly expect her to keep milk
in, under the circumstances. Maybe he should get some dried.

"You knew, didn't you?" Her voice cracked the silence.

"I didn't. Well not for sure. Not until you told me. I'm not sure I
believe it now. Maybe we're both crazy."

She silently sipped a glass of diet coke and waited for him to continue.

"It was little things, I suppose. Do you remember..? No, you wouldn't.
That night I brought you home when you were pissed, I was going to find
a cafe and get some food down you to try and sober you up. You said
something about not being able to metabolize it. At the time I just
thought you meant you were going to throw up, but it stuck in my mind.
How come you were so drunk anyway?"

She looked up. "I don't have a very high tolerance for alcohol, what
with my diet and all. I was feeling a bit sorry for myself that night
and I'd about reached my limit to start with. I needed blood. Only the
guy was an alcoholic, or a drug addict, maybe both. I didn't realise
until it was too late, and the stuff was affecting me. I couldn't
handle it."

She fixed him with a sudden stare. "I do that, you know. Drink blood.
Vampires are known for it."

"But you don't... Kill people." It was half statement, half question.
"You could lose more being a blood donor." She shrugged, "Well, nearly.
I only need a couple of pints every other day, and I'm very careful,
usually. No. I don't kill people."

"Couldn't you..."

"couldn't I what? I can't metabolize normal food. I can't eat solids
without throwing up. My body doesn't work that way anymore. I'd starve
to death."

Her voice was rising. "Don't you think I've thought about this? Don't
you think I've tried? How do you fancy giving up eating?"

"Okay, okay. Consider me suitably chastened," he said, raising his arms
in mock surrender. Then, seriously he added, "I had to ask though,
didn't I."

"I suppose," she conceded. "Sorry, I'm a bit sensitive on the subject."


She took another sip of coke. "You're changing the subject. What
else?"

"You forget, I had the run of this place while you were asleep. Very
clever, all those full cupboards," he said, gesturing lazily at shelves
stacked with packets and tins, "But it's all unopened. No half empty
packet of spaghetti, or half finished jar of marmalade. It's all for
show. And have you SEEN some of the 'Sell-by' dates? Yeuch.

"A lot of other stuff. The heavy drapes on all the windows, the fact
that you don't let anyone get near you. That could all be explained
away by your crazy act. But even loonies need to eat."

He swigged down the remains of his coffee, while she stared absently at
the bubbles rising in her glass. Neither wanted to voice implicit
thoughts, but it was obvious that she wouldn't be able to leave it
there. Dawn was not far off now. She had to know.

"What are you going to do?" she said hoarsely.

"What's to do?" He looked at her. His grin was broad, but it did not
disguise the seriousness in his eyes. "I consider you my friend,
Roxanne. I don't know about you, but I need all the friends I can get.
If that's a problem for someone, let them get their own vampire."

She smiled at that. They talked a while longer. Mick could sense the
relief it must be for her to be able to let down her guard, not to have
to watch every word for fear that someone might guess the truth. He
wanted to tell her how much he liked her, that he really didn't need her
to love him like a sister, since he already had one, and that was one
too many most of the time. But that might give her the idea that his
friendship depended on a horizontal relationship. The very idea was
repugnant. Eventually he reluctantly decided that it was time to go.
Time to leave her to sort things out for herself. Time to get some
sleep, for that matter. She showed him to the door and gave him a
fierce hug. Then they parted without a word. All the words had been
said.

* * *

Despite everything, Mick didn't get much sleep in what little remained
of the night, and he spent the next day in an exhausted haze. Even
Julie lost interest in teasing him about how late he had got in when she
had to repeat everything six times before he noticed. He found himself
staring at the walls and thinking about the bizarre relationship. Once
the initial euphoria wore off, every future seemed to be a dead end.
How could such a thing possibly work? What sort of relationship could
he have with someone who could never go out in the light of day, who
spent her nights sucking people's blood: who would probably drink his,
given half a chance. How could anyone live like that and stay sane?

It just wasn't going to work. He'd have to tell her. Break it off
before they got involved. He had been fooling himself to see it any
other way. He would tell her that he would help her if he could; he was
her friend, but there was no sense in trying to make anything more out
of it. He told himself that he didn't really fancy her, that her nose
was too big and she was a bit flat chested for his taste, but he didn't
really believe it. She probably didn't fancy him anyway. He rehearsed
over and over what he would say to her.

He returned to her flat that evening with a heavy heart, and an
exhausted body. He rang the doorbell.

After a minute or two, the door swung open. She was all dressed up in
black and silver, like a punk Cinderella ready to go to the ball. Even
her hair seemed to be carefully styled. She looked ravishing. It
reminded Mick of what a mess he must look, what with one thing and
another. He stepped forward into the hallway.

"This isn't going to work, Roxy," he said flatly.

She put her arms around him and drew him close. Lips brushed his
stubbled cheek as she whispered, "Mick, do shut up love. You talk too
much."

She was probably right, he considered. Anything he had to say could
afford to wait an hour or two. Time for a last dance.

Neither noticed as the door swung shut behind them. They embraced,
kissing in the dark.
A fragment of Night
Falls corvidly Earthwards
A star in her eye