Living Dead in Dallas

have been as much fun for me.

'Are you okay?' he mumbled.

'Except for having run into a brick wall a few times,' I said indistinctly.

We both drifted off to sleep for a little, though Bill woke first, as he always did at night. 'Sookie,' he said quietly. 'Darling. Wake up.'

'Oo,' I said, slowly coming to consciousness. For the first time in weeks, I woke with the hazy conviction that all was right with the world. With slow dismay, I realized that things were far from right. I opened my eyes. Bill's were right above me.

'We have to talk,' he said, stroking the hair back from my face.

'So talk.' I was awake now. What I was regretting was not the sex, but having to discuss the issues between us.

'I got carried away in Dallas,' he said immediately. 'Vampires do, when the chance to hunt presents itself so obviously. We were attacked. We have the right to hunt down those who want to kill us.'

'That's returning to days of lawlessness,' I said.

'But vampires hunt, Sookie. It is our nature,' he said very seriously. 'Like leopards; like wolves. We are not human. We can pretend to be, when we're trying to live with people … in your society. We can sometimes remember what it was like to be among you, one of you. But we are not the same race. We are no longer of the same clay.'

I thought this over. He'd told me this, over and over, in different words, since we'd begun seeing each other.

Or maybe, he'd been seeing me, but I hadn't been seeing him: clearly, truly. No matter how often I thought I'd made my peace with his otherness, I realized that I still expected him to react as he would if he were JB du Rone, or Jason, or my church pastor.

'I think I'm finally getting this,' I said. 'But you got to realize, sometimes I'm not going to like that difference. Sometimes I have to get away and cool down. I'm really going to try. I really love you.' Having done my best to promise to meet him halfway, I was reminded of my own grievance. I grabbed his hair and rolled him over so I was looking down at him. I looked right in his eyes.

'Now, you tell me what you're doing with Portia.'

Bill's big hands rested on my hips as he explained.

'She came to me after I got back from Dallas, the first night. She had read about what happened there, wondered if I knew anyone who'd been there that day. When I said that I had been there myself—I didn't mention you—Portia said she had information that some of the arms used in the attack had come from a place in Bon Temps, Sheridan's Sport Shop. I asked her how she had heard this; she said as a lawyer, she couldn't say. I asked her why she was so concerned, if there wasn't anything further she'd tell me about it; she said she was a good citizen and hated to see other citizens persecuted. I asked her why she came to me; she said I was the only vampire she knew.'

I believed that like I believed Portia was a secret belly dancer.

I narrowed my eyes as I worked this through. 'Portia doesn't care one damn thing about vampire rights,' I said. 'She might want to get in your pants, but she doesn't care about vampire legal issues.'

''Get in my pants?' What a turn of phrase you have.'

'Oh, you've heard that before,' I said, a little abashed.

He shook his head, amusement sparkling in his face. 'Get in my pants,' he repeated, sounding it out slowly. 'I would be in your pants, if you had any on.' He rubbed his hands up and down to demonstrate.

'Cut that out,' I said. 'I'm trying to think.'

His hands were pressing my hips, then releasing, moving me back and forth on him. I began to have difficulty forming thoughts.

'Stop, Bill,' I said. 'Listen, I think Portia wants to be seen with you so she might be asked to join that supposed sex club here in Bon Temps.'

'Sex club?' Bill said with interest, not stopping in the least.

'Yes, didn't I tell you … oh, Bill, no … Bill, I'm still worn out from last … Oh. Oh, God.' His hands had gripped me with their great strength, and moved me purposefully, right onto his stiffness. He began rocking me again, back and forth. 'Oh,' I said, lost in the moment. I began to see colors floating in front of my eyes, and then I was being rocked so fast I couldn't keep track of my motion. The end came at the same time for both of us, and we clung together panting for several minutes.

'We should never separate again,' Bill said.

'I don't know, this makes it almost worth it.'

A little aftershock rippled his body. 'No,' he said. 'This is wonderful, but I would rather just leave town for a few days, than fight with you again.' He opened his eyes wide. 'Did you really suck a bullet from Eric's shoulder?'

'Yeah, he said I had to get it out before his flesh closed over it.'

'Did he tell you he had a pocketknife in his pocket?'

I was taken aback. 'No. Did he? Why would he do that?'

Bill raised his eyebrows, as if I had said something quite ridiculous.

'Guess,' he said.

'So I would suck on his shoulder? You can't mean that.'

Bill just maintained the skeptical look.

'Oh, Bill. I fell for it. Wait a minute—he got shot! That bullet could have hit me, but instead it hit him. He was guarding me.'

'How?'

'Well, by lying on top of me …'

'I rest my case.' There was nothing old-fashioned about Bill at the moment. On the other hand, there was a pretty old-fashioned look on his face.

'But, Bill … you mean he's that devious?'

Again with the raised eyebrows.

'Lying on top of me is not such a big treat,' I protested, 'that someone should take a bullet for it. Geez. That's nuts!'

'It got some of his blood in you.'

'Only a drop or two. I spit the rest out,' I said.

'A drop or two is enough when you are as old as Eric is.'

'Enough for what?'

'He will know some things about you, now.'

'What, like my dress size?'

Bill smiled, not always a relaxing sight. 'No, like how you are feeling. Angry, horny, loving.'

I shrugged. 'Won't do him any good.'

'Probably it is not too important, but be careful from now on,' Bill warned me. He seemed quite serious.

'I still can't believe someone would put themselves in a position to take a bullet for me just in the hopes I'd ingest a drop of blood getting the bullet out. That's ridiculous. You know, it seems like to me you introduced this subject so I'd quit bugging you about Portia, but I'm not going to. I think Portia believes if she's dating you, someone will ask her to go to this sex club, since if she's willing to ball a vampire, she's willing to do anything. They think,' said hastily after looking at Bill's face. 'So Portia figures she'll go, she'll learn stuff, she'll find out who actually killed Lafayette, Andy'll be off the hook.'

'That's a complicated plot.'

'Can you refute it?' I was proud to use refute, which had been on my Word of the Day calendar.

'As a matter of fact, I can't.' He became immobile. His eyes were fixed and unblinking, and his hands relaxed. Since Bill doesn't breathe, he was absolutely still.

Finally he blinked. 'It would have been better if she had told me the truth to begin with.'

'You better not have had sex with her,' I said, finally admitting to myself that the bare possibility had made