"It's probably nothing more than measles or something similar." It was still a shock to me that measles could be a nothing disease, easily repelled by a vaccination in childhood. If a grown woman came into contact with the contagion, it manifested nothing more deadly than temporary nausea and the need for bed rest.
When I was a lad, it had been nothing short of a death sentence.
"Are you sure?"
"Of course I'm sure. If it was anything serious, it'd taste different."
"And you wouldn't lie to me?"
"No," I lied.
"Not even to save my feelings?"
"Alyssa." I rolled my eyes, displaying a lot more exasperation than I truly felt. Unsettled, my nerve endings tingled with something akin to fear, but which I refused to name such. Vampires don't feel fear.
Sergeant Nathan Stephenson doesn't feel fear.
In the end, it wasn't measles. Chicken pox was beginning to show itself by the time Alyssa got an appointment with her doctor, who was amazed that she had known something was up during the incubation period.
"I'm friends with a vampire."
"Ah." (I'm told the doctor's face paled at the news.) "I see. Well, that makes all the difference. Your sire?"
"No." Alyssa set him straight on matters, despite the spinning sensation in her head which she later told me about. "No. I'm one hundred percent human. He drinks sometimes. He tasted it on me."
In a strange sort of way, doctors and my kind are mortal---immortal?---enemies.
The Hippocratic Oath states their duty is to "First, do no harm." Not something vampires are famous for.
After that, they're morally bound "to preserve life." Me, on the other hand? Yes, I've killed. Less frequently since I died. I discovered how it felt to take a life during the Second World War---then had my own life taken and everything changed. I became a killer of a different type. Not trained by His Majesty's Armed Forces. Forced into it by something or some one darker still.
Alyssa's consultation ended with her assuring Doctor Simmons that she was a friend to a vampire, that was all. She voluntarily gave blood from time to time, and I never pressured her into turning. My role in the matter was nothing more than drinking and detecting something not quite right in her type-O veins. I'm no doctor, have not the discernment to drink from a willing human and diagnose, "Hmm, tastes like mumps." All I know is when something doesn't feel right.
Alyssa lives on her own, but her mother visits frequently, especially during her illness. We've crossed paths on a number of occasions, and she's made her dislike obvious. I often wonder if she'd dislike me more or less if she knew her daughter isn't my type. Is a gay vampire better or worse than one whom she suspects of keeping her daughter in sexual thrall, a hypnotic, submissive trance?
"I've told her several times." Alyssa's words break into my thoughts, and I plant myself firmly back in the room, back in the present day. There's no point thinking of things that happened decades before, of those actions which led me here, to this so-called life.
"But she still doesn't like vampires," I deadpan, and oh how that word makes me want to laugh. How ironic. Dead pan indeed.
"No."
"And this bothers you."
"Of course it does." She looks up, holding my gaze for once, upset making her emphatic.
"Because you want to defend your friend, or because you agree with her?"
"God." Her shoulders definitely slump this time, and she shakes her head slowly. "Nathan."
"I'm sorry, but you told me about your mother's blame, and you must have done so for a reason."
"I don't know. I just..." Alyssa rolls her neck, as if to rid it of a crick, but I guess she just feels uncomfortable. Scrutinised. I have no meal with which to occupy myself and observant other diners look our way occasionally. Yes, my skin is pale. Yes, there are some mortals who are good at recognising the undead if they cross paths with one of us in a public place. I don't think I advertise my vampiric state, though. Nevertheless, there occurs some pointing, some whispering, some cupped hands against companions' ears and, no doubt, plenty of speculation about my true nature.
And about the true nature of my relationship with Alyssa.
The bottom line is, she just isn't my type. Oh, her blood type suits me, and if I were going to turn, it would be for her, but no. I like men too much. A man. Liked one man in particular, but I turned my life upside-down for him and ended up losing it.
Anyway. I shrug myself back into the present, wondering why the hell tonight of all nights, it's all too easy for me to lose myself in the past.
Mind you, there's plenty of it in which to lose myself.
"I'm tired," Alyssa sighs.
"Oh. Okay. Let me pick up the bill, and we can go---"
"No. I mean tired. Of this."
If I had a heartbeat, it would race now.
"This?" I lower my voice, lean closer to her, and hiss, "Us?"
"No." Alyssa frowns, appearing shocked that I made that allegation. "No."
I nod. This was how it goes. A special human with whom I formed an intimate companionship, beginning to feel less comfortable than usual with our arrangement. That discomfort eventually expands into a need to call a halt to things. It's like being "dumped," to use modern parlance. Like that, but somehow worse. She'll be depriving me of a regular, freely-surrendered blood supply, but there are other losses to be considered too. In life, I was never a fan of the "we can still be friends" philosophy of post-relationship conduct. Likewise with humans from whom I regularly drink; I don't believe it's possible to remain friends after the breach of such intimacy. Perhaps it's a mistake to have one human friend at a time. Putting all my emotional eggs in one basket.
With Alyssa, all that post-relationship nonsense will be too...too...
I don't know what. But I spend enough
