An Ever Fixéd Mark (14 page)

“Yes.”

“Why? Will you kill me?”

“No. It’s...” he flickered his eyes up,
looking confused and pained. He drew in a breath and revealed a
smile of deeper admiration. “You are brave.”

“And stupid,” she lifted up her left arm. “I
want a Twinkie when you’re done.”

He laughed and took hold of her wrist. He
stroked the inside of her arm gently. His fingers were neither warm
nor cold, but left an electric sensation along her skin. He pulled
her hand towards his mouth and kissed her palm with delicate
eagerness. He kissed the base of her palm, then her wrist. He
rested his lips there for a few moments. Lizzie resisted the urge
to clench her fist shut and forced her fingers to relax. She saw
him pull back his lips and expose his fangs before they plunged
into her skin. She shut her eyes quickly, expecting to feel pain.
She immediately opened them to see if it really happened. She felt
something move down her arm, but no pain at all.

She wasn’t sure how long he bent over her
wrist. She heard the clock ticking in the kitchen, and saw the last
ribbons of sunlight stream through the large windows. She felt her
heart beating fast like in the last leg of her runs. She was
terrified and yet calmly aware that it was real. It wasn’t a
ridiculous story he made up as an excuse. He was really a… vampire.
He was really drinking her blood.

He lifted his eyes and gently rested her
hand back on the table. His lips were closed. She couldn’t see if
there was anything dripping from his teeth… his fangs. She looked
at her wrist and saw two red marks the same distance apart as the
mysterious bug bites. She touched the marks with her right fingers.
“It doesn’t hurt.”

Ben was breathing slowly and watching her.
He wasn’t ready to speak. He looked as though he just came back
from a ten mile run. “I’m not even bleeding,” she lifted her arm
closer for inspection. “How…” she looked to Ben’s satisfied
stare.

“The chemical in our fangs cauterizes the
wound,” he said slowly.

“Magic?”

“No more magic than amino acids or
chromosomes. The body is an amazing machine.”

“But you aren’t human.”

“I’m a different genus of human.”

“Homo… vampyre?”

“
Yes.”

Lizzie perked up her ears as she heard the
front door. Neither she nor Ben spoke as someone climbed the stairs
to the foyer. Jackie looked through the doorway. “Hi Lizzie.”

Lizzie tucked her arms in her lap. “Jackie,
you remember Ben?”

“The guy who carried you home,” Jackie
smirked and then turned back into the hallway. Lizzie looked at Ben
silently until she heard the door close at the top of the
stairs.

“I can go get you a Twinkie.”

“I don’t eat Twinkies. “

“Are you okay?” Ben asked softly.

“I honestly don’t know,” she looked at her
wrist again. “I… am glad you aren’t married.”

Ben took hold of her hand. The burning look
was gone from his eyes. His cheeks had more color and his skin
looked smoother. Did she really do that to him? “I won’t ever hurt
you,” he said softly.

She wanted to believe that, but there was
still a small part of her that was scared. A much larger part of
her was mesmerized by this new Ben. He was still the old Ben, the
guy who carried her home. She didn’t want him to go away. If this
was another one of her strange dreams, she didn’t want to wake up.
Not alone. “Will you stay here tonight? Will you stay until the
morning?” she asked. “Can you?”

“Can I?”

“Will you burn up in the sun?”

“Um, no,” Ben laughed. “You’ve seen me in
daylight, Elizabeth.”

“Right,” Lizzie nodded, feeling a little
lightheaded.

“I will stay,” he squeezed her hand. It was
warm and sent a sensation up the length of her arm.

Lizzie smiled across the table. At Ben. A
vampire.

Chapter
Eleven

Lizzie opened her eyes facing the clock. The
green six formed in her groggy perception. She closed her eyes,
feeling weighted down from her habit to get out of bed. It was too
warm and soft and comfortable where she lay. She opened her eyes
again and smiled, realizing there was an arm draped around her
waist.

She kept her eyes open, staring at the clock
but not paying attention to the time. She didn’t want to move,
still warm and comfortable inside the half embrace of Ben behind
her. She never felt that comfort before. She never wanted to feel
it and never let herself trust it to make it real. The reality was
still settling into her mind. A reality that was so easy to
disbelieve. It could all be a dream. She was waking up on Saturday
and the two days of lonely misery were just part of the nightmare.
But she could see the red marks on her left wrist.

She couldn’t remember if there was a moment
when she suddenly decided she wasn’t Catholic any more. It sort of
wore away slowly after she went to college. She slept in on Sunday
mornings and didn’t feel guilt for skipping mass. She studied
history and read about the Crusades and all the horrible things the
church did to preserve their reality… and eventually decided that
reality was not hers. It didn’t change so abruptly.

This new reality was sudden and swift and
altered the color of everything. She didn’t mourn the loss of her
previous perception. She didn’t curse herself for naiveté or
begrudge her ignorance. She didn’t fear more of the unknown. She
simply started to accept this was the way the world really was… and
that it meant that she could curl up under Ben’s arm.

There was still a part of her that
questioned her eagerness to so easily accept what he was. She was a
little crazy for offering up her wrist like that… and yet… it was
harmless. It showed how ridiculous the myths and legends were. She
was more tired than anything when they left the dining room. Too
tired to do much more than throw her jeans back on the floor and
fall against her pillow. She didn’t even remember Ben falling with
her. He was still there in the morning light. He was true to his
word. He stayed.

She felt him stir and allowed herself to
turn around to face him. She liked the way the morning sun fell
across his freckles. She liked the smile that broadened across his
cheeks even more. She felt so many sentences start to form on her
tongue, but couldn’t resolve how to begin. She leaned to kiss him
and felt the exhilaration of his touch she was too exhausted to
allow the night before. He slid one of his hands under her
paint-stained t-shirt, alarming her spine with the warmth of his
fingers. She pulled herself back, remembering it was Monday and the
fact she had to get to the shower before Jackie and Meg.

“I actually have to go to work today,” she
laughed as he tried to kiss her again.

“No you don’t,” he lifted up her t-shirt and
started kissing her exposed skin.

“I do,” she argued. “I don’t own my own
company. I need to get paid.”

“You can call in,” he lifted her shirt
completely over her head.

“I have a lot of time,” Lizzie looked at the
ceiling trying to make an honest decision.

Ben touched a few fingers across her
forehead. “I think you should call in. I think you aren’t feeling
well and should take a few days off.”

“A few days?”

“Let’s go somewhere. We can take a drive
anywhere you want to go,” he kissed her forehead where his fingers
had just warmed her.

Lizzie was silent. She was both elated and
apprehensive of his suggestion.

“If you are worried about what your boss
might say, I can give you a doctor’s note.”

“You can?”

“I was a doctor once,” he started kissing
her neck.

Lizzie pushed him away and sat herself up.
She retrieved her t-shirt and put it back over her head. “When were
you a doctor?” Lizzie felt all the excitement drain from her as
another part of this new reality began to take shape.

“It was the profession I had the longest. I
graduated from medical school in 1922… and was a doctor until the
early 80’s,” he tried to kiss her neck again.

Lizzie turned her head away from his. It was
a difficult thought to process - that while she was playing Barbie,
he was an adult with a career. “How many professions have you
had?’

Ben took in a deep breath and decided to sit
up as well. “I’d say six or seven.”

Lizzie expected a much larger number. Truth
was, she hadn’t stayed in any job for more than five years. She was
pretty close to his tally and she was only 33. “You’ve lived many
lives,” she spoke her thought out loud.

“Yes,” he said simply. It was simpler than
she hoped.

“How does that work?”

“
Let me take you away
somewhere. Call in. Then we can go and talk about all these
things.”

“Why do you have to take me some place else
to do that?”

“Isn’t that what couples do? Go and spend
time away so they can learn more about one another?”

“Some just have dinner or a cup of
coffee.”

“Do you think you can ask me all your
questions at Starbucks? Or a restaurant where there will be a
waitress interrupting every ten minutes?” he looked at Lizzie. She
couldn’t argue against him. “Even here, you have two roommates who
could walk in on us.”

Lizzie thought of Meg and wondered what she
would think of this. Her vampire fantasies would require some
serious redefinition if she overheard Lizzie asking Ben about his
last two centuries. Then again, Meg would be there if anything
happened…

“I’m not going to take you into the woods
and eat you, Elizabeth,” he touched her arm softly. She felt a
charge excite her arm.

“Not until Saturday anyway.”

“Nope. Not for another 55 days. Just like
the Red Cross, I have to wait two months for your red blood cells
to reform,” he explained, tempting Lizzie with so many more
questions. She didn’t know how she could possibly work with so many
thoughts in her head. She didn’t think any number of Google
searches would satisfy the questions. She couldn’t see herself
having these discussions with Ben on Facebook chat.

“Where will we go?”

“That’s up to you.”

“You will answer all my questions?”

“As best as I can,” he paused. “I can’t
promise that I know and understand everything.”

She hesitated and looked at the gray green
eyes. “Okay,” Lizzie reached beside the clock and picked up her
cell phone.

*****

Lizzie hadn’t made a decision three hours
later when she packed a bag and was seated beside Ben in his car.
She felt the silent hum of his Prius and didn’t say anything as he
decided to go west on the Pike. He went through the tollbooth and
turned to face her. “You tell me where to get off,” he smiled.

“Why couldn’t we just go to your place? You
don’t have roommates?”

“I don’t,” he focused on the merge into
traffic. “I thought we could go somewhere more neutral. Not to
mention someplace more interesting than my condo.”

“I want to see where you live.”

“You will,” he said as if there was no
question about that. He paused and looked at her. “If that’s what
you really want, I’ll take you there.”

“No,” Lizzie shook her head. “You live in
Central Square. That’s not very far from Mt. Elm. With my luck, I’d
see Richard and he would know I’m playing hooky.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“Let’s just drive,” Lizzie leaned her head
back and watched him turn his focus back to the highway. Had he
really not aged for two hundred years? How could that be possible?
She thought of the amount of gray that interspersed with her brown
hair. His hair was still the rusty brown it had been eighteen years
ago when she first met him. Apparently he was the same age then as
he was sitting next to her. Physically. Emotionally and
intellectually… he was old enough to be… even creepier than Alec
was with Meg. Then again… it wasn’t creepy. Lizzie thought of all
the historical periods she studied in college and tried to imagine
herself living. Ben must have witnessed so many amazing moments and
lived through several changes in humanity.

The questions filled her mind rapidly. So
many things she wanted to know, but didn’t know how to begin
asking. She let the quiet hum of the engine fill the space until
she saw a sign for Rte. 91, when she decided to tell him to go to
Vermont. She resolved not to ask any questions until they reached a
destination and made small talk about work and the gossip from
Coldbrook.

“So why did you end up with the drummer?”
Ben asked suddenly after they left the gas station in
Brattleboro.

“Um,” Lizzie looked at his expression to see
if there was any hint of jealousy. She didn’t expect the mention of
Coldbrook to remind him of their conversation on Friday. Lizzie
couldn’t remember if Ben was paying attention to Mike that night.
She was too busy worrying if he was going to stay through until
morning. “The first time it was just alcohol. The second time it
was because alcohol couldn’t distract me.” She felt his eyes shift
away from the road and look at her. “I was trying to not think
about you.”

“It happened more than once?”

“He wasn’t with Amy the first time… I don’t
think he was. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I won’t do it again. I
don’t want to.”

“You said there was someone you wanted to
marry.”

“I was at a point in my life when I believed
I should get married and have kids like everyone else. There was
this guy – Will. He was a musician who made me delirious with his
mere presence. I thought we were soul mates.”

“What happened?”

“Hardly anything. Will and I had some
fantastic conversations and a few tense moments, but that was as
far as it got.”

“Did he know you felt that way?” Ben made
Lizzie squirm. It sounded like something Nora would ask.