Sleephouse

by

Jeremiah Swanson


 

Priscilla's eyes fell to Jared's arm. They followed the long, thick vein that extended from his wrist to his chest, and beneath that, she imagined, to his beating heart. He watched her eyes, feeling the desire in them.

He picked up the small silver razor sitting on the nightstand cut himself high up on his forearm, just beneath the joint. She watched his blood drip down the side until it was about to spill off his arm and stain the bed before she lapped up the stream, following it to the incision and sucking on it. When she had taken her fill, she took the razor, cut herself across her palm and presented the bleeding wound to Jared.
He hesitated.
"Hurry, before it heals," she said.

He noticed a spot of his blood still on her lips.

He was taking too long. She put her hand to his mouth. Once he felt the warmth emanating from the cut and the wetness of her blood touch his lips he stopped hesitating. He sucked with an enthusiasm that easily matched hers.

When he finished she pulled his mouth to hers and kissed him deeply.

"Do you want to do it?" she asked him, breathing heavily, "I think it might be time to take that last step."

He shook his head and said:

"Not yet."

She pulled him close to her.

"I love you," she said.

"I love you."

Exhausted and content, she rolled over and closed her eyes. She was asleep in less than a minute.

Jared took a cigarette out of her purse and used the flame of the last burning candle to light it. He leaned back on the pillow, exhaled a long, thin stream of blue smoke. Watching as it whirled around, expanded, and finally disappeared from sight. He looked down at Priscilla. He brushed aside a lock of hair that was obscuring part of her face. She was beautiful, he thought, and touched her lips.

"It might be time to take that last step," those lips had said.

He knew what she meant. His body was getting used to her blood. He wouldn't be able to ward off the effects of aging by ingesting it for too much longer. He had been doing it since 1917. Over the decades he had to ingest more and more and the effects were becoming less and less dramatic. Eventually he would need more blood than she could safely provide, and then what? Would he have to begin preying on vampires in the same way vampires preyed on humans? He shook his head. Best not to think about it.

"It might be time to take that last step."

The last step. Let her bite him on the neck and pass on a part of her to him. Become a creature of the night, immortal, powerful, eternally young.

He got out of bed and walked to the bathroom. He pulled the curtains aside and opened the heavily tinted windows.

"Not a cloud in the sky," he thought, looking up at the crisp blue blanket covering the heavens, "So beautiful."

Priscilla hadn't seen it in over 300 years, a voice said to him as he stared up at it. He turned his head and looked in the mirror. There were some wrinkles in the corners of his eyes. A few gray hairs were creeping onto his head. He was beginning to feel tired more than he used to, feel aches and pains where before there had been none. He had to face reality. He was 98, and he was getting old.

"It might be time to take that last step."

He could almost hear her voice echoing off the bathroom walls.

They had talked about him crossing over many times. He had asked her every conceivable question about life as a vampire. Everything from the emotional toll of preying on humans to adjusting to heightened strength and senses to hygiene habits. She had answered all of his questions to his satisfaction. Almost all. He thought of the time he had asked her about immortality.

"Aren't you curious about the after life?" he had asked, "Don't you want to know what the next step is?"

"I'm very old, Jared," she said, "I've seen much and I've done much. If there is anything I know it's this: There is no more to life and death than life and death."

He looked out again at the azure sky, wondering if she was right.

He dropped the cigarette into the toilet. There was a brief hissing sound as the water snuffed out the flame. Nothing goes quietly, he thought, and went back to bed.

He opened the top drawer to his nightstand and took out a blue pen and a notebook. He leafed past the pages of poems, passages, and numerous sketches until he found one of only two clean pages left in the book. He held the pen to it and waited. Inspiration would come. It always did. He never knew whether he would be moved to write a poem or a story, or an essay, whether he would be inspired to draw a person or animal, plant or landscape. He only knew that he would be inspired. All his life, he had only to put a pen in front of a paper and it would come.

He looked at her again.

"It might be time to take that last step."

He looked back at the paper. He could feel the inspiration coming. Almost of its own accord, the pen began moving. "Dear" it had written. Jared waited to see what would come next.



(c) Jeremiah Swanson, All Rights Reserved.
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