Mary swept out of the kitchen door letting a burst of lively conversation out with her. Her skirts swished as she walked. She smiled shyly looking down into a large wooden bowl that steamed as she carried it. She sat the bowl down in front of me along with a large spoon. I immediately picked up the spoon and began to slurp the stew up. It scalded my tongue and broth ran down into my beard, but I didn’t care. Mary stood in front of me nervously clutching her skirts, her face exhibiting embarrassment and amusement. I stopped and told her that the food was excellent as I tried to catch my breath.
She looked down as if embarrassed and said, “Oh I just help.” I didn’t respond except to eat the stew. Her bright blue eyes stared at me for a moment and then she said, “You should shave your beard.”
I grunted and slurped down another spoonful. “Everyone does it here. We have razors. Your brother was one of the first to shave. He says it sets us apart from every other stinking human that scrabbles across the earth.” I sat the spoon down and looked up at her. I must have looked gruff because her expression changed to slight fear as if she’d offended me.
“Sometimes I’m impressed that Benjamin knows which end of the razor to shave with.” I said and she looked shocked. I took a couple more bites of the stew. “Well sit down if you’re going to stay,” I said. She sat down across from me gracefully folding her skirts up underneath her.
“He’s quite handsome though.” She said quietly. I suppressed a snort as I noticed a slight blush creeping up into her rounded cheeks. She’d let down her blond hair since she’d been working in the kitchen and she tucked it behind her ears now like a young girl. Her hands were under the table, but I could tell that they were fidgeting. “You look alike,” she said. I took a bite of stew and then her words hit me. I blushed then and stared at the stew. Chunks of meat, potatoes and carrot floated in a thick brown broth with the occasional pea all of it cast with a smoky flavor and odor. When I looked up, she was smiling broadly, her eyes bright and wide. A rosy tint shone through her tan skin. I grinned back at her not knowing what to say.
I had never known many women, but I had heard plenty of stories of men whose downfall had been the lure of females. Often a tale would arise spreading as such gossip did, eagerly related at run-ins with other humans and eagerly heard by all. No confirmation was necessary or expected but one of the persistent myths, along with a city free of vampires and unknown by their kind, was that of a settlement, camp, tribe, or traveling group of women. Most often they were traveling without male companionship but sometimes they simply didn’t have male protectors in sufficient numbers. Whether or not those rumors had been planted by vampires was unknown and not important. Solitary men, groups of men and even families were said to have been lost searching for these mythical mates, presumably drained or turned as they wandered. My brother, as sulky and uncongenial as he had been, had been tempted by one particularly ludicrous tale of a tribe of blonde women that had wandered the forest for years without ever even seeing a man, despite the fact that it was a man who told us that he’d heard from another man that they were somewhere just over the bluff. In the end he’d been unwilling to strike out on his own, though he’d complained about it as usual. Families stay together he said and then they become tribes, yet we remain just us three.
Yet now he was surrounded by women, like the one who sat in front of me playing with a strand of her hair, who obviously desired him, and he didn’t seem to care. She smiled widely as if her mouth could just contain all her perfect but broad teeth between luscious lips, just slightly reddened. In her yellow dress stained and coated down the front with a light dusting of flour she seemed almost fragile but her hands looked almost as big as her wrists could support and they were calloused, wrinkled and dirty. I smiled back at her but with my lips pulled together painfully aware of the teeth I’d lost and the way my ragged beard and clothing must look. Sitting across from her I imagined her delight if she saw me shaved, looking even more like my
