Ben’s calls to Ad continued from the west coast. “Are you thinking about my offer?”
“ What, about moving out there?”
“ I own a production company. I could use someone with your talent.”
“ You’re barely acquainted with my talents.”
“ Well, I know you deep throat beautifully. I’m getting hard now just thinking about it.”
“ Still in the lust stage, I see.”
Ben laughed.
Ad found himself thinking about Ben more and more often, and that was both exhilarating and disconcerting.
Apparently, Ben felt the same way. “I want to touch you,” he said one day.
Ad tried to joke his way past it. “Once they perfect holographic Skype, you can.”
Ben’s laugh was wry. “I’d rather have a teleporter.”
“ That would be cool, but they’ll never do it. Airline lobbyists would scream bloody murder.” Ad was at work. He looked out the window. “It’s snowing.”
“ Eighty here.”
He sighed. “Too expensive.”
“ What do you want, Ad? Tell me.”
“ Peace in our time? The perfect steak? Underwear that supports without riding up the crack of my ass?”
Ben whispered it this time. “What do you want?”
Ad closed his eyes, and when that wasn’t enough, covered them with one hand. “Everything. I want… everything.”
“ I can give you that.”
Ad swallowed hard. “Attraction phase, huh?”
Two years later.
Ad and Ben were sitting on the deck of their beach house, eating dinner and watching the surf roll in.
“ You know,” Ad said reflectively, sipping imported beer, “this all goes back to that night you visited me in Chicago, when you made me look into your eyes for four minutes.”
Ben smiled. “Yup. We made it to number three.”
“ Attachment.” Ad picked up his fork, his new gold wedding band flashing in the sunlight. “Science is a wonderful thing.”
INTERNET DATING BITES
My old college friends were meeting boys on the internet, falling in love for a couple of months, swearing off it, then dating three guys at once. They finally coerced me into setting up a profile, giggling over my shoulder as I filled it out. After I finished, they edited it and made my dull life sound fun.
I’d talked to a few guys, but we never got around to making plans. Jamie was direct. He wanted to get a beer with me Monday at the bar down the street.
I stared at my clothes. The only thing I wanted to wear were my socks. Long and white, they looked very Harajuku with my black ballet flats. I needed to get some tonight. If not sex, a good old-fashioned high school groping. In the end, I opted for a tight black tank-top-more like a fancy wife-beater-and a little black skirt.
“So, generically slutty,” I said to myself, looking in the mirror. I thought about putting on jewelry, looked at the clock, and brushed my hair instead.
I hurried down the street. From a block away I could see my date waiting for me. He was leaning against the wall with all the pedestrians gawking at him.
A cocky grin declared him well aware of his beauty. His age hadn’t been specified, and coming near, he was one of those men caught between twenty and fifty. He kept his tight curly hair short. Combined with his height, flashing white smile, and 8-rock black skin, he looked like he stepped straight out of Vogue. He wore a loose white linen shirt and pants, and a finely wrought gold chain.
My first blind date was an absolute stud. To soothe my nerves I drank my first beer too quickly. Jamie dazzled me with his smile when I belched.
The man could drink, downing two for my every one. The way his beers left him unaffected made me wonder if he wasn’t an alcoholic. If he did have a drinking problem, he fell into the category of high functioning addict. He asked me about my job, my parents, my school, the normal routine. When he talked about himself, he only told funny vignettes. After the third drink, which I should have declined, he insisted on seeing me home.
We walked down the dark streets to my apartment. He smelled good, a warm amber scent with a touch of masculine sweat. I turned my head to gaze at his profile: his full lips, his broad flat nose, his high noble brow. The booze loosened my mind and I wondered what he looked like naked. I was getting wet walking beside him. His eyes glinted gold in the dark. Maybe I’d get some tonight. That would be nice.
When we started up the walk to my place, he stated, “This looks like a crack house.”
“Yeah.” The porch light never worked and one of the front windows was boarded up. Suddenly he was behind me, his scent enveloping me.
“ I had fun, Maria.” His warm breath touched my neck.
I turned around. He was so close, my breast brushed against his arm. I stood on my tiptoes to kiss him. He stooped to press his mouth to mine, and as his tongue prodded at my lips, he prodded me into the foyer.
“Mind if I come up for a minute?” he asked, taking my hand and massaging the meat between my thumb and forefinger.
“Sure.” He pinched and I jerked my hand away. I thought of him looking at my ass as I walked up the stairs in my short skirt. Turning a corner, I was disappointed to find him staring instead at the ornate banister. I unlocked the door and then fumbled with a floor lamp.
Jamie stopped my hand. “That won’t be necessary, my little gazelle.”
I snorted. “I think you've got the wrong animal.”
“Would you prefer to be a zebra, or a sleek fat rat?” he asked, and his long arms wrapped around me, pulling my back to his chest. He dipped his face to my throat and licked my neck. I fell back into him, and he worried my skin with his teeth.
I tried to pull away. I said, “Hey, I mark really easily. Can you not give me a bunch of hickeys?” He didn’t budge as I struggled, his arms a vice around my waist, his mouth nipping at my skin. “Hey, Jamie, let me go.” My voice was breathy, fear constricting my throat.
He did and I staggered forward onto my knees. “My tasty little rat, where will you go?”
In the dark, I scrabbled on the floor for something, anything, I could use as a weapon. My hands closed over a screwdriver and I held it in front of me. “What… what’re you gonna do?” My blood stopped like ice in my veins. It was useless to scream; the building might as well be a crack house.
“I’m going to drink your blood, all of it. You will die so I can live.” No emotion touched his voice. He knocked the tool from my hand, clutching me to his chest. Cold leaked from his skin.
A part of me always knew my life would end some incredibly stupid way. Killed by an internet vampire definitely fit the bill. I’d had shit luck my whole life, why should my death be any different? Fuck, all I'd wanted was for someone to touch me and for it to feel good. I sank farther into him and cried.
“Straight to begging for your life, no calling me a monster, no praying to your god?” Jamie whispered.
My heart juddered in my chest; my legs ran liquid. Still, I managed to shake my head.
“No, you won’t beg for your life?” His arms tightened. “I rather like that part.”
“That’s not why I’m crying,” I said. “Honestly, if I didn’t get eaten by a vampire, I’d just end up falling down the stairs, or getting hit by a bus, or something stupid.” I sniveled on his chest, staining his clean shirt with snot
