SPILT MILK

by Apache

Content:
Het
Vachon/Tracy
Implied or Graphic Sexual Situations
No Violence

This follows immediately after "A Watched Pot", which I posted in those innocent days of yore, before Last Knight

*~*~*Floating-- I've always liked it so much -- floating in the tub, wondering if I'd ever be tall enough to have to bend my knees to fit in, like Mom did -- in the lake, summer, Dad, Water Wings, trying to keep the inner tube under water so I could stand on it and of course you can't -- Rich won't let me use the boogie board, Mom -- and she's yelling back, don't go in so deep, Tracy, come back to shore -- way underwater here, down, down.  Wow it's dark, go up, surface, breathe, -- up --

Vachon! -- that's Vachon -- oh I'm alive, it happened -- my God he's still on top of me -- and -- omigod-- *~*~*

 My eyes blinked open --It worked! -- Vachon caught the grin from me -- his breath came out in a great happy sigh, and he mirrored it with a wide, very unVachonlike smile that narrowed his eyes and made them warm and crinkly which is how I like them best.  My god, they're brown, I wasn't even thinking -- he isn't all vampire anymore.  All those teeth in his smile are regular.  Wow.  Oh God Vachon you are so gorgeous--

I reached up to touch his face, noticing that my arm behaved like it was asleep -- touched his cheek, stroked his eyebrows, neither of us saying a word, and his face falling into a kind of watchful but happy-looking stillness after that first grin -- I couldn't believe this was possible, even though I'd always *known* it was, somehow, somewhere inside me.  Vachon --

"Javier," I whispered, and his hair came down around me.  He kissed me, lightly, kissed my mouth, cheeks, nose, forehead, eyelids, neck -- the sore place -- I could feel it.  He rose up on his elbows to look at me again, just watching, but his eyes -- they were the really old eyes, the ones that are all of him, it's weird how they look kind of like dumb-animal eyes crossed with your grandparents' -- but they are fabulous eyes, so deep and sooooo sexy, and wondering and tender.  And they also let you see the strangeness of him, the thing that is really him, a person who's been around for almost 500 years, a mix of human and something that drinks blood and lives only in the dark--

I looked back at him, wondering what happened.  I passed out, yeah, but -- oh god, how do you say this?-- "Is it over?"

He grinned, a wicked teasing one.  "No"-- and then the grin vanished and he frowned. "Unless-- you okay? If you want--"

"Oh-- no!"  And then I blushed at how hastily it came out. Another wicked grin from him.  Great, Vetter -- you're in mid corpus delecti or flagrante delicto or whatever you call it with a vampire, and -now- you're embarrassed?

Vachon's eyes followed the growth of the blush -- face, neck, shoulders, breasts -- and his head dropped down, and the kisses began again --collarbone, the bump over my sternum, the dip at the base of the throat, my breasts, lipping at their skin, sweeping his tongue over one nipple, then the other, going everywhere the blush went, then back to open his mouth over one breast wide, like a kid slurping the whole top of an ice cream cone, then drawing up to suckle at the nipple.  I was forgetting about the blush pretty fast by then.  And then he started moving inside me, the gentlest, smallest pushes with his hips, grinding a little sideways so I'd feel it outside, where his body rested on mine -- to the side and up, over and over, slowly -- rubbing the clitoris this way, my brain said, off to one side taking notes like it always does during sex, the cop or detective in me or whatever always there, always observing this -awkward- procedure, a little voice underneath all the pleasure of what he was doing to me -- the mouth that caressed my breasts, my ears, came up to kiss mine.  Oh God what a kiss, so deep, and his hips pushing him deeper into me all the while, a little harder, pulling out, and the gush of cold air on my wet breasts when he lifted away, and then his chest, only a little warmer, settling down on them-- the texture of his hairs rubbing across the nipples ever so slightly, nice abrasion as he rocks and pulls out, slides in slow and deep and stays, pressing, grinding, and all the while this kiss--

This kiss is flavored with my blood; it's there in his mouth, the savor of iron you notice when you bite your tongue, there are bits of it left on his teeth, the flavor of him is blood and now it's partly mine -- it dissolved fast in my saliva, that taste, there wasn't much of it, and his mouth is pretty dry, but-- there it was, the drink he had of me, the thing that really was the sex for him, he's a vampire -- my mind was rioting with the thought and still the hips and mouth were moving on me, in me, such gorgeous feelings, the nicest sex, just smooth deep, and my desire for him was rising, he's taking it so slow, gentle, and then this pressure, his cool body, hips working against mine....

My hands tangled in his hair and clenched and he did again what he'd just done, harder, and again, then easing off and one of his hands slipped down between us to touch me and I thought 'I don't like that, not while he's also inside me, too much too weird' but couldn't say it, never have -- how can I tell him more of the soft deep--' -- but I didn't have to, he went back to it, I put my hands on his back and curled into him please in, in, his hips rocking against mine and my hips curving up to his, yes please...

His arms slid down my sides now and his hands curled around my waist and lifted -- all of sudden we were upright, him on his knees, sitting back on his heels, and me on him, facing each other in the glow of the candles.  I wrapped my legs around his back , sinking onto him like I was actually melting, and leaned against him with my whole body, my warmth against his coolness, shivering in the cold air of the church and yet hot inside -- he rocked off his heels a bit, which set the bed swaying and creaking and I tried to match his motion.  I seemed to see it almost as a drawing, lines and shapes, how he could shift his hips, his back, how he would move in part of a circle, then an angle, pull away, press himself back into me a sudden quick thrust that made me gasp and slide away sideways while I was still reaching to feel what happened before.  I looked at him but his eyes were closed, and his face looked concentrated, like all he was thinking or feeling was which muscles to use, how to lift me, how I was moving against him.  I almost forgot myself then, almost fell all the way into it with him, the moving, the fascination of his coolness inside me and how I could bring different bits of myself to touch his skin, get that cool soft sliding to fill me again, how he would arc or angle his hips to find me or let me find him, this dance of giving and taking away, all inside the most incredible intimacy -- he ran a hand down my breastbone and I tilted back, letting his arm at my waist take all the weight, and he rose higher off his heels, letting me fall almost horizontal, my hair brushing back against the bed, his hand running down the middle of my body, between the wings of the ribcage, over the navel, the back of his hand rubbing at my pubic hair just above where we joined then turning over to tangle his fingers into it, and I was dangling in the universe, in this hot/cold ocean of pleasure, almost limp --

And my brain fired off:  yeah, limp like a dead girl, and it all collided in my mind, his coldness, the taste of blood, what he is.  It brought me back to myself and I pulled myself back upright, looking down into his face with the hair fallen away down his back, seeing him still lost in it, eyes closed, mouth open, lips parted around normal human teeth. I touched one of his shoulders; it was a little wet with sweat, blood, and I stuck my fingers in my mouth to try it.  His eyes opened and they were a stranger's eyes, watching as I tasted him.  I leaned into him for a kiss and he obliged, and then I did what he does, dropped small kisses on his face, on his furry eyebrows and the scratch of his cheeks, back along the jaw to the ear, lapping at it, finding blood-flavor again, running my mouth down his neck-- and he groaned, the only sound he'd really made this whole time, tilting his neck to the side, cocking it to offer it to me as if I were what he is and could bite.  I kissed him where the bite should be and he rose up on his knees with his arms holding me like clamps, the desire in him rising--

And I could feel it it rising in me-- please, like a wave, like bodysurfing, you know there's a moment that's perfect, a place high on the wave as it breaks when you can catch it, slide all the way -- please -- he reached up to pull my mouth off his neck and held my head as he lowered us both down on the bed again.  Two or three times he pulled himself almost entirely out of me and pushed back in, slow, deep, and pulling upward to grind against me hard -- I gasped, he'd changed angles, it was something else now, but still the strangeness because his body is so cold, his organ so cold, it seemed to have lost the heat it got from me when he pulled out into the air, and now I could feel it so clearly -- the way you feel medical instruments, not the same as other men - - could feel exactly where and how it was touching me, reaching inside me, and he made me gasp again, rising off me, rising to the full height of his arms, elbows locked, pushing into me.  I opened my eyes, found him looking at me but in a glazed kind of way, sort of not with me so much as way inside himself, men look that way, so far away, when-- and he settled on me again, sliding his arms under me to clutch me so tight with his cold hands, fingers coming up to grip over my shoulders, his back arching, digging into me hard and I could feel his need rising, feel the tension in his muscles, felt myself feeling the wave slip by-- I pulled his head down to mine for a hard kiss, mouths bruising each other, tongues fluttering and lapping against each other and his body drumming against mine-- suddenly so hard, just a few slams that made me cry out in pain and pleasure, but mostly pain, not an orgasm, a feeling of being hit deep inside but he -- Vachon reared off me again and hammered into me utterly deep and hard, threw his head up and screamed--

It snapped my eyes open again, that sound, and I saw him in the candle light, the yellow light making his skin with its little smears of red sweat tawny, and his eyes tawny, and his fangs fully bared, his head arched all the way back, making this incredible noise, a wild animal's roar, like a lion with a black mane falling back from its head--

I yelled too but it was because he was about to break my back-- grabbed his hips and tried to hold them still, tried to clamp with my knees, feet, anything to stop him, it felt like he would slam right through my skin, flatten the bones to a pulp-- it could only have lasted a second, but for that second I knew I might die as surely as when he put his teeth in my throat, and this was NOT something I thought to anticipate-- I was yelling "Vachon" but he was past hearing anything--

He stopped suddenly, and looked down so fast I saw the fangs recede -- 'wow, there's a sight,' said the detective part of my brain, even as the rest of me was flooding with relief.  'He's come to himself, I'm going to live,' I was thinking, 'it's going to be okay after all.' I felt him come-- the spurt of semen itself weirdly hot/cold, the feeling like a vaginal injection I had years ago, anesthesia while they checked for polyps -- cold tingle, flush of heat--

In the next second I started feeling waves of pain -- he saw it in my face and was off me in an instant -- the pulling out released more pain as my insides collapsed into the hollow area and I grimaced and made a little noise, just a little 'nnh' sound but I couldn't stop it.  He was beside me, cradling me, whispering "Tracy Tracy," clearly frightened -- sticking a hand down between my legs, probably to feel for a hemorrhage but it just made me flinch and think 'haven't you done enough,' which he probably also saw in my face, so out loud I said, "it's okay, really," and touched his face, his eyebrows that were pulled together.  He cuddled me even closer, pulling my face into his shoulder, peppering my hair and neck with kisses, saying words I didn't understand -- Spanish, mostly, but some of it sounded even more foreign than that -- his whispers so tender and passionate it was thrilling even though I didn't understand a word of it.  I could hear a nervous quality, too, and pulled away:  "I'm OKAY, Vachon," I said, then tried "Javier" and a smile.

He stroked my face, looking at me with concern and his lips parted.  It was obvious he was about to say "did I hurt you?" or whatever the vampire version of that phrase is, so I put a hand on his mouth and said softly, "Javier, really, I'm fine, it was fine --- see?"  I wiggled my toes against his feet.  "All parts in good working order, captain."  It was a lie, really -- I hurt like hell, but I felt broken or sad or something, and all I could think was that I wanted to be alone to check myself out, and rest -- I didn't want him there, not right then, wanted to be in my own bed, figuring out if I needed an icepack or a hot soak, but alone--

He smiled with relief and caught my chin, and leaned forward to kiss me and -- wow, I don't know, suddenly I was there again, WITH him, not afraid after all, not needing to hide the pain after all; it was just one of the all-time great kisses, a long, serious, cherishing kiss.  And it came in parts with interludes, visits to my eyelids, my earlobes, my neck, my chin, my nose -- and more whispering, sweet, tender sounds, a few of them repeated enough that I was trying to remember so I could look them up, care-ee-the, that one most of all.  And I realized I was hearing my full name, Teresa, but not Ta-reese-uh or even T'reesa, like Toronto natives say it, but Teh-reh-sah, the Spanish way, I guess.

It was mesmerizing, almost, but it had to fight with the waves of soreness that were bouncing off every part of my body -- but especially the southerly parts.  Everything from my belly button to my thighs felt pretty much as if it had been stomped by an elephant.  But -- it was worth it already.  Just living through it was worth it.  And that kiss when he was sure I was okay -- that's worth ANYTHING.

So we lay there for a long time, almost nose to nose, hardly moving -- I didn't want to, because there was new information about soreness waiting for me with every little shift -- and our minds wandered away separately-- funny how that's true, that just when you've been closest to someone physically your mind goes out into space by itself.  Eventually I came back to what had happened, kind of cataloguing the experience almost the way I try to go over a crime scene in my mind, and I remembered that strange, rushing fall into darkness --

"Vachon?"

"Mmm?"  Just a little sound, but his eyes suddenly on me with laserlike attention.

"Um... what was that?"

His eyebrows flew up, his eyes opened to their widest, and it made him laugh. I giggled and gave him a little shove.  "You know, right when-- I passed out? I seemed to see you, sort of--?"

He nuzzled me and kissed my jaw, but his eyes fell away from mine and he took a long time to answer, which puzzled me-- he's going to play hide and seek with the Vampire Facts of Life *now*?  In the early months he'd always go all smug when he told me some vampire thing, but lately he's just been giving it to me matter of factly-- though about a couple things, questions that were specific to him, he was kind of evasive.  Finally he said, "It's part of the feeding-- it's the rush."  His hand came up and swept over my cheek.  "It doesn't last long, but it's... beautiful.  And it's how we -- feel life most intensely."  His eyes came back to me.

"Right, you told me -- about the connoisseurs?"  I guess it happened for him with me, maybe that's why he's so hesitant to answer-- it made me feel naked, and then that thought made me laugh at myself -- yeah, Trace, you're pretty naked here -- but the idea of Vachon running around loose in my mind....  "But what about with me?"

"It doesn't often go both ways with mortals, even if we don't, uh, finish the kill."  He seemed simultaneously embarrassed and pleased -- and there's always that little awkward moment while I adjust, especially where words like "the kill" are involved.  "But it sounds like that's what happened.  What did you see?"

I concentrated.  "Just-- light."  His eyebrows climbed again.  Well, yeah, he's a vampire, why'd I see light?  I closed my eyes and tried to remember.  "A field, like a grainfield in sunshine.  And then -- something suffocating, like wood all around me, a room that's only about four feet high and lots of men shouting?  And -- flying, I saw lights underneath me -- not city lights, like bonfires maybe? -- that's all."  I opened my eyes.  "Does that sound right?"

He let out a breath, a small, cool draft against my face.  "Those sound like early memories.  In my life, I mean."  His eyes fuzzed out, maybe pulling out the rest of those memories, maybe wondering why I saw those things. "The little wooden room with men shouting -- it sounds like belowdecks on a ship -- where I met Screed for the first time."  He smiled.  His fingers reached out and played with my bangs, but his eyes were looking way inward, remembering Screed. He didn't tell me what the other things were.

And I hadn't told him all of it.  I understood another part of my vision now -- I'd seen women dying.  It was all from his perspective, the beautiful hair on the beautiful neck, his fingers gathering the hair back -- the beautiful, exposed neck --just flashes, but they were bites.  I wondered if any of them had lived -- that hadn't been as important to him, it hadn't been part of the memory either way.

Vampire.  This naked man next to me is not a man.  He's got my blood in him right now while we're lying here.  And somehow I can live with that -- even now that I glimpsed a bit of it, I still can.  What does that make me?

All the time we were talking, he was playing with my hair, running a finger down my jaw, down my arm, my leg -- I had one leg slid way forward to ease the pressure on my gut and his eyes kept darting down to it -- I realized he was trying not to be obvious, but checking for blood.

It annoyed me.  "I need to get going... I'm getting really cold, plus you said..."  What he said was, I can't be there when he wakes up again.  Vachon says a vampire who wakes up next to a mortal has breakfast in bed -- nothing personal; it just happens.  I moved away, turned over and started reaching for my clothes.

"In a minute..."  He rolled over, then hung over the edge of the bed, pulling at something.

I couldn't believe it.  He had one of those styrofoam coolers you take to the beach.  And inside was orange juice on ice.  I mean, I've been carrying sixpacks of soda over to his place for a while now, but he doesn't have a fridge, so I just drink them warm.

He even produced an actual glass from somewhere, and poured the orange juice into it.  "Room service," he said cheerfully.

"That's not what's wrong with me.  I mean, there's nothing wrong with me, but even if there were...."

"Drink it anyway.  Like the Red Cross-- all part of our friendly service," he said comfortably.  For himself, there was a bottle, not cold. "Cheers," he said, clinking the spout against my glass.

 I rolled my eyes, and giggled.  "Cheers."  The cold juice went down into my stomach with a jolt and I shivered.  And it brought back that feeling-- all of a sudden I wanted to be home really bad --

~ ~ ~

Driving home, I got caught in rush hour traffic.  For most of the world, the day was just starting.  Looking into the other cars I'd see people with their hair still a little wet from the shower, their clothes freshly pressed; or a mother trying to comb her hair, put on lipstick, and settle some argument her kids were having in the backseat, all in the space of one red light; or a carpool of guys in nearly identical grey suits; or a fancy red sportscar designed to do 120 doing about 10 and inside it a lawyer on a cellular phone--

None of it was my world anymore.  And it was all between me and home.  I turned the sound on the radio up loud to make my ears hurt -- one of the few parts of me not currently hurting -- but couldn't put it up high enough to shut off the anger, the frustration -- couldn't all those stupid people just get the hell out of my WAY, just once?  I hurt, I was sticky with Vachon's bloodsweat, I was as emotionally confused as I've ever been in my life, and I wanted to be *home*-- I wound up crying in traffic, and then I felt even stupider.

I was so happy to make it into my apartment.  And I actually put the latch on the door, as well as the deadbolt.

//Right, Trace, like you could actually keep the vampire out?//  Vachon has this magic way of getting past locks -- I've never really understood it, but he basically can go where he wants.  It would take a motion detector to keep him from coming in when he feels like it -- and actually, I wonder if he moves fast enough to defeat even that?--

Why am I thinking these thoughts?  Do I feel like he's coming after me?  No way, no chance -- even if he weren't stuck in his own place by the sun, he has *never* pursued me.  He barely even showed signs of actually wanting to know me-- it was more like he went along with my fascination with him.  Except, if I blew him off, then he'd sort of show up and make nice.  And there was the plumbing thing-- showers and laundry. He kept showing up, sort of, and we learned how to watch TV together, and talk a little bit-- stuff on the news, movies, music, my cases-- but everything he's really told me about himself over the months wouldn't fill one typewritten Metro Homicide incident report.  And yet something fits.  And we both know it.  I think.

I'd scheduled our big romantic moment for the morning of my off day, so I was free to collapse on my bed-- which I didn't do. I took a two minute shower just to rinse everything off, then I lay down verrrry carefully and stared at the ceiling.

//Something fits, yeah... like little round teeth into a big round neck.// Then I caught myself:  //Gawd, Tra-cee...  another bizarre thought.// Is it because of all those glimpsed necks?  They came in every color, every age... Is it because I didn't wind up being the star of my own fairytale of Beauty and the Beast?  Did I really expect this was going to be the ultimate romantic encounter of my whole life?  I mean, I didn't think I had, but if not, why did I feel so... out of kilter?  Was it just hypoglycemia from the missing blood?  Or had I really believed, somewhere deep inside where I wouldn't even acknowledge it, that this was going to be the ultimate magic sex with the ultimate magic orgasm? -- In the fairytale, it doesn't say the Beast leaves Beauty feeling like she was on the wrong end of a jackhammer...

I slept all through most of the daylight, with the windows open to let the sun in, to enjoy the orange light through my eyelids while I drowsed, but only on and off -- I kept waking up out of dreams of being chased--

Every time I woke up or shifted position, it felt just as bad as I thought it would.

What this reminds me of, actually, is the first time I ever rode a horse.  It ran away with me but I didn't fall off. Instead, I hung on grimly, bouncing up and down in the saddle until it went back to the stable, where my Dad of course was in the middle of a major rage and about to call in the Mounties.  I could barely move for days.  This is definitely.... similar.  Except maybe times ten.  Or twenty.  But I'm not a little kid anymore, either, and there's no one to make me stay in bed for my own good. I forced myself get up and move around, a little stiffly, about five p.m.

Moving wound up consisting of a trip to the kitchen for juice, a long hot soak, which helped, and climbing right back into bed.  I read maybe a whole thirty pages of a lushly romantic novel, disputing and correcting its facts on every page.  Eventually I fell back to sleep.

I woke up again late at night, not remembering any dreams.  This time I put bubble bath in the tub and lay there enjoying its silly perfume as the bubbles slowly popped.  I was thinking about how I left it with Vachon, how awkward it suddenly had all been.  I mean, leaving a guy's place after the first time you've had sex -- there's always some awkwardness -- you're thinking, so now what?  Do we break up or do it again?  Did we like each other?  And never mind him, am *I* happy?  Plus, I don't know, it's always sort of creepy watching the clothes go back on...

In the bath, I started touching myself, trying to find out exactly where and exactly how sore... even that made me self-conscious-- privacy of my own place, my own bathtub, the fact that it's just checking, notwithstanding -- and yet it made me think of Vachon touching me, his absolute unselfconsciousness about even the vampire parts of sex-- *killing* he gets a little shy about, but not fucking-- oh jeez, I hate that word--

Okay, so I always knew I wasn't cut out for a life as a sex object.  First of all, life did not make me a Major Babe.  I'm almost as tall as the CN Tower, and that can be an issue for the guy, if he's shorter, or not much taller -- the last guy shorter than me who didn't seem bothered by it was Jerry, aka Vudu the Mass Bomber who was planning to kill me all along.  Plus, I'm almost as skinny as the CN Tower. Plus I had a father who insisted on prior approval of everything up to my prom dress.

And then... I mean, I just don't *do* sexy.  Something about overtly hanging it out has always given me the jitters... Daddy's girl, I guess.  Hookers... I look at them and I can't begin to imagine what their lives are, except even what I do know as a cop gives me the shakes -- rim job, straight sex, 'round the world, sharps, hawks, golden showers....  I don't like busting them, either, because I think the laws about prostitution are sexist bullshit.  But when it comes to *me* in the bedroom... I mean, I could *never* wear that Frederick's of Hollywood stuff with a straight face... and I suppose I concentrate too hard or something to really--

Anyway, I thought all of that had been kind of irrelevant with Vachon; it had all been a question of do I live through this?

And afterward, as I was pulling my clothes on, all I could think of was that I was freezing, not that he might be watching exactly how I got my bra on, whether I slid it around or arched my back to hook it blind, all that stuff-- I knew he wanted to check, that he was afraid he'd hurt me, that he had to know I was bruised and rattled as well as short a pint-- I couldn't let him on any of that.  I just wanted to be home.

Now I think I'd been prepared for all kinds of stuff to go wrong, but was clueless what to do if it worked.  In a funny way, I'd been more organized around the idea of it failing than succeeding-- all my planning was how *not* to fail, how *not* to die - - and not how to be alive and with Vachon.

It was weird, when I was actually in contact with him, when he was kissing me, I felt like everything was completely right with the world and couldn't possibly fail to be terrific -- and the second the kiss stopped, all the weird doubt would take me over, and I needed to go blasting out of there.  Like with the orange juice this morning -- a kiss, during which I curled up, letting him see me reacting to being sore, and then the minute I actually drank that orange juice, bang! I had to get out of there--

"Okay, I'm outta here," I had said, finishing up dressing.  A little haste crept into my voice and he looked at me, confused.

I wanted to be warm.  I wanted to pull up the blinds and enjoy the morning.  I wanted my boyfriend to be someone who wouldn't necessarily kill me if I was still there when he woke up.  Maybe it was the little "toast" with the bottle of blood that had set it off -- I mean, that wasn't exactly in a class with champagne and croissants, as far as Breakfast After the Big Romantic Interlude goes.  Well, who did I think I was?  Princess Di?  Snow White?

"I just mean I wanna go home," I'd said.  "Take a shower, have some tea..."

He wasn't fooled.  Well, too bad.  I felt exhausted, used up, drained dry, all those trite expressions.  He got up and pulled his jeans on, looking hurt.

"You're sure you're all right," he said.  It was just something to say, something to bridge the silence.

"Yeah, I really am.  I just need some rest."

He came over to me, reached out and stroked my hair in tentative way he often does.  I sort of shrugged and started to step away, but he decided not to let me -- instead he gathered me into a hug.  There's no equality in this; anything Vachon wants to do, he can do, so I found myself held tight with his cheek against mine, hearing as he took one of those vampire whiffs of my scent -- and then another and another, the way we would smell a flower.  I mean, it's flattering in a way, but I was wondering, what's this about?  Is he going to say he loves me?

What was this to him, after all?  Some interesting experiment with no downside for him, since I was the only one who could get hurt?  He would never have pushed for it; we'd just have gone through the years as Detective Vetter and her supernatural chum for as long as he chose to stick around and not bite me, or until I ran out of cop questions.  Instead, we'd gotten to this -- the first moment since last September when I felt like I knew as much as I wanted to about Vachon.  Too much, even.  And he wouldn't let me go.

"Tracy," he said softly.  //Yeah, right,// I thought. //'I love you' from the vampire.  In your dreams, Vetter.  In your sick, demented dreams....//

Like before, he didn't really mean anything, but I looked at him and said "what?"

"Uh.. have more orange juice?"

"I have to go take care of myself," I said, and his eyebrows flickered together.  He wanted details, and I was not in the mood.  "We can talk about... everything; later, okay?" //If I ever see you again,// I was thinking.

"Like tonight?"

No! shrieked my nerves.

I squinted my eyes, and gave him one of my cute blonde smiles -- like, I know I'm being insincere, but I want you to let me get away with it.  "Um, I'll call you?"

His eyes became guarded.  I thought of those images of beautiful, arched necks again and shook my head to make the pictures go away. Vampire, right:  talk about a way to avoid those awkward morning-afters.... I touched his face again and said, "Please."

He caught my hand against his face and held my eyes while he twisted his head to kiss my palm.  My heart did somersaults.  He let go of the hand and leaned forward to kiss me on the mouth, very softly and then harder, a kiss full of desire again, and it had reawakened mine even while every grain of sense I possessed, not to mention most of my muscles, were going 'are you crazy?'

Then his eyes turned yellow, which had been a definite clue for us both that Tracy and Javier's Excellent Adventure was over.

He'd followed me to the top of the stairs and gave my hair one last stroke as I started down.  Leaving, I passed through the sunny area in the stairwell where we'd pulled out some boards to let the eastern light in.  It was so I'd have a safe zone in case something went bad, but not so bad that I couldn't move at all.

I'd looked my watch in the light, and was shocked that only an hour and a half had gone by since I'd gotten there.  I felt like I'd been gone from the normal world for months or something.  It hit me again that it had actually happened:  it should be in the Guinness Book of Records, or Most Unforgettable Experiences, or something.

I turned around, standing in full sun, to look back up.  I could only see his silhouette, but I realized this was letting him see what I look like in daylight.  I said, "This was really remarkable, you know?"

"Yeah, Trace," he said.  I couldn't see his face but there had been a laugh in his voice.  "Remarkable."

It made me shy again.  I'd just said "see you later," and gone down the stairs.

~ ~ ~

Now I was thinking, why'd I have to shut him out so hard?  But on the other hand, how hard had he tried to get in?--- the main issue for him seemed to be whether I was going to fatally hemorrhage all over his church...  is that fair?  I mean, who knows what he was really thinking?  Did he like the sex?  The blood?  Or did he just wish he could go all the way in the vampire sense, and "finish the kill?"  //Oh jeez Tracy...//

I did a Scarlett O'Hara with that question:  I'll think about it tomorrow.  Or even day after tomorrow.

The hot soak worked its wonders again, and I got out of the tub actually able to bend at the waist, a little.  I got dressed, thinking I should stay awake until at least eight a.m., to try to get my sleep schedule back on track.  I could make a midnight ice cream run, just for the pleasure of doing something really ordinary, plus having some major comfort food.  Oh yeah, *good* plan.  And maybe I'll run a video -- I started thinking about movies to eat Sticky Chewy Chocolate ice cream by -- one of those Meg Ryan romantic things.  "Sleepless in Seattle," "When Harry Met Sally," "IQ," "French Kiss."  AKA, Meg Ryan gets together with Tom Hanks, Billy Crystal, Tim Robbins, or Kevin Kline.  Well, I like Kevin Kline best, even if he is a tich old. //Right, Vetter, straight for the jewel thief...// Or no, "The Big Easy."

Right, that terrific movie about sexual awakening and how you never know who the bad guys are.  Yeah, that one was a big fave in the Vetter household:  Dennis Quaid the crooked cop, and Ellen Barkin as the frog princess lawyer who needs the right kiss.  ...  Maybe I love it so much because my Dad and my uncles all hated it, both the cop part and the steamy sex stuff -- even though it seems to me the moral is that you can never get the teeniest bit involved with something evil, because it will swallow up your whole life, and destroy it.

Wait a minute, let's think about that for a minute... no, let's not.  Tomorrow, remember?  Or day after tomorrow.  Ice cream, think ice cream.  Think happy ending, fading out on the kiss -- ice cream.  I got my coat, my keys, my gun, my purse....

Oh my God.  The hallway right outside my door is about six inches deep in flowers.  Not flower store flowers, picked ones: wildflowers, little things like chicory and heather and fleabane and that pink thing whose name I can never remember... wow.  Buttercups and dutchman's breeches, mayapple... this is really neat.  Indian paintbrush, a couple wild roses ...it's like a living doormat--

It turned out they were in a cruddy old rusty shallow pan, the kind garages use to drain oil out of cars -- no doubt Vachon found it the same place he found the flowers, but this time it's definitely the thought that counts.  He'd laid the stems in among strips of soaked moss to keep them wet as well as upright, and put an inch of gravel and water at the bottom-- I mean, this took some work-- not to mention that these are not all in season yet, at least not this far North.

All of a sudden I felt like Beauty again.  The Beast is still a bloodsucking creature of the night who almost broke my back by accident, but it isn't like there isn't something sweet in there with it.  Well, okay-- Vachon as an enchanted prince?  Not hardly.  I mean, Vachon is more like that Chinese proverb about not trying to catch two frogs with one hand.  But -- anemones, honeysuckle, sylla, waxflower, coltsfoot... what do you do with that?

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