Love Bites

I was sitting on the couch in the living room, watching Batman with Adam West on IFC. Here’s something these little kiddies will never understand. They wear the Bat-sign for the logo and know nothing about what Batman’s really about. I sipped on the metallic red liquid in my wine glass as footsteps sounded overhead. “Thorne’s up”, I mused to myself, looking at the clock on the mantle. 10:35. I went back to watching television until I heard Thorne coming down. She was dressed in black jeans, a red tank top, and a black denim jacket with the sleeves rolled up just below her elbows.


“Where are you off to?”I asked curiously.


Thorne looked at me with her luminous gray eyes and shrugged. “I thought I’d go grocery shopping or something”, she replied.


“Oh, I wanna go!” I beamed. “We can get stuff to make curry. Have you ever had curry?”


“No”, Thorne mumbled, turning red. “But uh, I don’t need anyone to go with me. I’m just-“


“Well, your sister is out with the car”, I informed. “She went to the shop and dropped Nikki off somewhere.”


“Oh.”


“So I’ll take you in my car”, I said, standing up. “It’s in the carriage house.”


“Uh, why don’t you just let me go?” Thorne asked awkwardly. Her eyes kept shifting and I felt my face contort into a frown.


“You’re not going grocery shopping, are you?” I questioned, pulling myself off the couch. I focused my thoughts on her and stared her dead in the eyes. A mental barrier fell and I knew I had her hooked. Maybe using the fabled hypnotic stare was the wrong way to get her to tell the truth but I hated beating around bushes for answers.


“No”, Thorne replied. She was trying to fight me. I could feel it, that pulling feeling. She wasn’t doing a very good job though.


“Where were you off to then?” I asked. If she had to lie to me then there was only place she would be going.


“I was…going to see…Andy”, she mumbled. “He invited me out last night.”


“You saw Andrew last night and didn’t tell me?” I barked.


“He doesn’t want me hanging out with you. He says you’ll-“


“Thorne, Ballsack’s a liar!” I snapped, pushing her away from me. “He’s a bloodthirsty, ravenous killer who’s just using you to get to me!”


“Yeah and you’re using me as some kind of human shield!” she snarled. “You’re a fucking coward!”


“How dare you call me that?!” I barked, smacking her across the face. “You spend an eternity being hunted and see what it does to you! You don’t even know what I have to go through on a day to day basis.”


“I’m sure being a hedonist must be incredibly exhausting”, Thorne snapped, putting her hand on her pale cheek.


“You could be a little more thankful, you whore!” I growled, looming over her. Thorne sank into the corner but tried staring me down. The ungrateful bitch still acted like a brat even when she was cowering. “I could’ve let him eat you in the fucking cemetery the other night instead of-“


“I WISH YOU HAD!”


A heat boiled up in my stomach as I glared at her. I could feel myself partially transforming, my teeth throbbing from enlarging themselves. “THEN LET ME SHOW YOU WHAT IT’S LIKE IF YOU’RE SO EAGER TO LET HIM DO IT!” I yelled, yanking Thorne up by the hair. She came up easily, like a ragdoll. Her tiny frame fought me violently but she was nothing to me. It was like a pigeon fighting a grizzly bear. I pinned her against me with one arm, her back on my chest, as I yanked her head to the side with my free hand. Thorne screamed and thrashed and kicked at me but if her foot connected, I didn’t feel it. With years of practiced precision, I sank my teeth into her snowy skin. Instantly, the familiar red liquid hit my lips and with all the decency of a dog, I lapped it up. She kept yelling until I felt her heartbeat slowing. Eventually, Thorne stopped fighting me and just let out soft whimpers of pain until I let her go.


I shoved Thorne away from me, feeling an overwhelming wave of disgust hit me. I was disgusted with her for wanting to see Andy but now I was even more disgusted with myself. Thorne was my first friend in about four decades and I just treated her like a common piece of meat. She grabbed at her neck, clamping a hand over it tightly as she glared at me. “Andy isn’t as practiced as I am”, I growled, not letting my guard down. I couldn’t apologize to her. She had to learn. “He plays rough.”


Thorne glowered as she woozily straightened herself up. “You’re sick”, she gasped. Before I could say anything, she ran back upstairs. I heard her door slam shut before I glanced at myself in the mirror above my mantle.


Sick was probably an understatement. My hair was a mess and my ears were starting to point. Match that with black eyes and a Hellishly contorted face. Even my nails had elongated and turned that gross yellow colour they do on dead people. But the worst part was my mouth. The oversized yellow fangs that had yet to shrink themselves to “normal” size, the blood smeared around my lips. “Fucking Hell, Oliver”, I muttered to myself, trying to straighten my disheveled hair. There was nothing human about a mouth of pointy teeth or a brow permanently carved into an expression of anger. There was nothing medical to explain a solid black eyeball or a back pain that was probably the result of ready-to-form wings. There was nothing attractive about needing a manicure or not wiping the blood from one’s mouth. I marched upstairs to my room, hoping to calm down and return to a normal state.


“I’m the sick one but Andy’s…” I changed my clothes, hoping that it would make me feel kind of better. After that I slipped into the bathroom and washed my face. I don’t know if the water was cold or hot. I didn’t experience feeling anymore. All the nerves in my body were dead, like myself. Why would Thorne want to throw away the privilege of feeling? “She’s the sick one”, I said to myself. “She’s the one risking her life by hanging out with him.” I took a look in my bathroom mirror. I looked alright now, maybe a bit haggard, so I walked back into my bedroom and laid down on the bed.


Even though it felt like forever, my alarm clock read 11:04. “Everything just goes by so slowly when nothing’s new”, I sighed rolling over onto my stomach. I watched the clock turn to 11:05 before I stood up. For no reason, I walked to Thorne’s room. I didn’t knock on the door though, I just walked in and found her curled up in a ball on the bed. Thorne’s eyes traced me cautiously as I sat down in an arm chair across from her. Despite wanting to I just couldn’t bring myself to apologize. I was in the wrong but I was also right. So I settled for second best.


“Do you really want to go see Andy?” I questioned.


Thorne’s eyes turned to a steel coloured hate. “Yes”, she whispered coolly. “Because so far he hasn’t hit me, harassed me, or-“


“Yeah, I know, bitten you”, I grumbled. “Just get up and fix yourself. I’ll drop you off.”


Thorne sat up slowly and watched me walk out. I marched downstairs and outside to the carriage house. The sun was particularly bright today. “Gross”, I groaned, unlocking the door. I went inside and opened up the big doors, where the car or, back when I initially bought the property, the carriage would come out. Today though, I had a 1969 Chevelle in black with dual exhaust, a customized engine, and a one of a kind thin white racing stripe down either side. What can I say? Old muscle cars are the best. Eight cylinders of raw power roared to life as I backed the car out of the carriage house. I waited quietly, listening to an Ugly Kid Joe cd when Thorne appeared on the porch. Silently she got in the car and I drove us to the shop she mentioned, blaring Everything About You.


“Well I”, crooned Whitfield Crane, “hate the rain and sunny weath-ah. And I hate the beach and mountains too, boo hoo. And I don’t like to think about the cit-ay, no no. And I, I, I haaaate the country side too! And I HATE everything about you!”


Thorne glared at me and I shrugged. I liked the song well enough and didn’t plan on changing it. She on the other hand did and found a different track on the cd. There was a thick guitar before the vocals started.


“I wanna know, why the people are everywhere. And I wanna know where to go if I get scared. And I wanna be in a place where no one cares and I-I wanna know YOU. Because ya so damn cool. Yeah you’re so damn cool.”


“Well So Damn Cool is an equally good song”, I said, trying to get her to say something as I drove. We finally reached town and Thorne gave me a final glare as she undid her seatbelt and got out of the car.


“Whatever”, she muttered. She slammed the door shut and walked into a café. A certain feeling of jealousy built up in me as I watched her hips swaying rhythmically while she walked. Andy had no clue what was in front of him. All that bastard saw was a meal and a plan.

Notes

OmiGod, I'm finally updating a story nobody's cared about since I first wrote it in 2013 when the vampire thing was still massive?! Whaaaat?!