The Purity of Blood: Volume I (52 page)

He’d kissed her.
 
He’d stood me up and kissed her.

I stopped for a
fraction of a second and felt the pain ebb forward again.

No.
 
Not here, not now.
 

I looked around
at the sea of bodies surrounding me.
 
The
noise of the crowd combined with the music was almost deafening.
 
It was perfect.

After
maneuvering my way to the bar, I leaned over, flagged down the bartender with
my cleavage and ordered a beer.
 
Before I
could reach around and get some cash out of my pocket, the older guy standing
next to me dropped some bills on the bar and paid for it.
 
When I smiled up at him, he leaned over to
say something in my ear, but before I could hear what he wanted to say Ben
pulled me back and yelled in my face.
 

“What the hell
are we doing here?!”
  

I think he was
angry.
 

Why?
 
I didn’t ask him to come.

“You made me
spill my beer” I yelled back at him while using my lips to soak up the beer
that had over spilled the edge.
  
Then I
took a chug from the glass and emptied half of it.
 

Ben just stood
there and stared at me in shock.
 
Eyes
blazing angrily, he yelled “I think you’ve had enough for one night, let’s
go.”
 
Then he grabbed hold of my free
arm.

“This guy
bothering you, honey?” my beer buying friend asked, looking over at Ben
suspiciously.

“He won’t be
bothering me if you ask me to dance.”
   

He smiled a wide
hopeful smile as he watched me chug the rest of my beer.
 
When I finished, he quickly grabbed my hand
and pulled me towards the crowded dance floor.
 

I could hardly
move on what passed for a dance floor, but I got the distinct impression there
was less finesse involved in this kind of dancing than the kind my friends used
to take lessons for when we were kids.
 
I’d never been fortunate enough to take those kinds of lessons.
 
My summers were filled with lessons of a far
more violent nature.

Remembering what
that guy Steve had said about just feeling the music and letting go, I
surrendered to the pounding beat emanating from the speakers behind me.
 
Throwing my arms up, I began to jump up and
down and sway with the music, giving myself over to it without reserve or hesitation.
 
I wasn’t me in that moment.
 
This wasn’t something Sara would do and most
certainly something Daniel wouldn’t approve, most especially in a place like
this and with a strange man no less.

I lost my new
friend in the crowd, but soon found another one.
 
He was older than me, probably about twenty
five or so, nice looking with an athletic build and dark blonde hair.
 
He put his body right in front of mine, and
grabbing my hands, held them above my head in his as we jumped together in
unison to the driving beat.
 
I was
vaguely aware when his hands began to move down my arms, but I was too
surrendered to the music to really notice much.
 
Well, that and the other beer someone had handed me on the dance floor
that I chugged down might have had something to do with my indifference.
 

Then I felt him
pull my body flush against his and his other hand as it moved down to roughly cup
my behind.
 
As I looked up into his face
in shock, he reached down and kissed me hard.
 
When his tongue invaded my mouth, I didn’t know how to react.
 
To be honest, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to
bother to try to fight him off or not.
 
A
few moments later, this debate still raging on inside my head, I suddenly felt
his hand leave my backside and his lips pull away.
 
When I opened my eyes I looked down to see
him on the floor in front of me.
 
Ben was
standing over him, his hand balled up in a tight fist, his face contorted in
what looked like fury.
 

Before I knew
it, Ben grabbed one of my hands and hauled me towards the exit, then down the
steps and across the street.
 
It wasn’t
for a block or so, when we were far enough away that I couldn’t hear the music
anymore, that he finally slowed down and he let loose of my hand.
 
As soon as he did, I stopped to catch my
breath, still trying to figure out what had just happened.
 
Had Ben really just punched that guy?
 
And if so, why?

Finally, he
turned to face me.
 
“What the hell was
that about?!” he demanded.
 
Hands on his
hips, he was staring down at me.
 
He was
angry, really angry.

I didn’t have an
answer for him.
 
How could I explain that
I was trying to escape from myself, from having to be plane old responsible
Sara for a while?
 

I was about to
open my mouth to see what words would come out when something across the street
moved and caught my eye.
 
It was the
tall, shadowy figure of a man with long silvery hair standing under a
tree.
 
When I looked over at him, he
swiftly started to move towards us.
 
To
say that he walked wouldn’t do him justice.
 
He glided across the road with an eerie, almost unearthly, fluidity that
was mesmerizing to watch.
 
Moving towards
us, he came under the glow of the street light.
 
That was when I was able to see the disturbing smile that adorned his
sallow face.
 
Standing out against his
stark white skin, his eyes immediately held me in his glare.
 
They were black as coal and sunken under deathly
hollow cheekbones.
 
The total effect of
him was so overwhelming, that even in my drunken stupor, his ghastly visage
chilled me to the bone.
 

Without a trace
of hesitation, he walked right up to me and leaning his head practically into
my hair, he inhaled deeply as if trying to suck the air right out of my
lungs.
 

His almost dead
expression quickly changed to one of disgust as he stared down his nose at
me.
 
In a gnarled, raspy old man voice,
he rather seductively whispered in my ear “Stupid girl.”

Ben took an
aggressive step towards him as if to protect me, but before he could get
between us, the dark figure ran off, quickly, almost instantaneously
disappearing back into the shadows on the other side of the deserted
street.
 

I was more than
a little woozy at that point and things were a bit of a blur.
 
I was trying to wrap my mind around the
strange man with the long white hair, but in my haze my ability to concentrate seemed
severely impaired.
 
I was still staring
at the dark shadow he’d run off into when Ben leaned down, only to rather
unceremoniously grab my hand, and once again began yanking me back in the
direction of campus.
 

Over his
shoulder he kept angrily saying things like

“What’s wrong
with you?”

“How could you
be so stupid?”

“What the hell was
that all about?” and

“Do you have any
idea what could have happened if I wasn’t there to drag you out of that
place?”
 

Of course, he
didn’t give me a chance to answer any of them which was just as well.
 
I’m not sure I could have offered him a
rational explanation even if I’d wanted too.

My head still
spinning, I could still hear the driving beat of the music pounding away in my
ears as if I’d never left the smoky confines of The Gryffon.
 
When we stopped at a corner to wait for a
car, I started swaying to the music in my head and only stopped when Ben
started yanking me forward once again.
 
Dragging me behind him, he kept shooting more of his dirty looks over
his shoulder at me.

Why did everyone think they were my father
all of a sudden?

When we finally
set foot back on campus he slowed up a bit, and when we got to the deserted
quad in front of the Student Union Building, he stopped and paused to look down
at me for a moment.
 
Still visibly upset,
he dropped me on a stone bench and just stared at me for a long minute in
silence.
 
Then he wordlessly began to
pace back and forth in front of me for a minute, or maybe an hour.
 
I’d lost the ability to keep track of time.
 

Sitting there in
silence, I wondered if Ben deposited me back in my room, how long it would take
for me to get back to The Gryffon.
 
My
head was spinning so I had to imagine it would take a few minutes longer than
usual.
 
Would my new friend from the dance
floor still be there?
 
I could have cared
less about him, but when he’d held me I felt nothing.
 
And that’s exactly the way I wanted to feel –
nothing.
 
Nothing was better than … well,
it was sanity.

Ben finally
dropped down on the bench beside me, but by the expression on his face I could
see he was still furious with me.

“Why are you
mad?” I asked in a whisper.

“Because –
You’re reckless, that’s why!” he shot back, I think shocked that I could even
ask such a question.
 
“You have no idea
what could have happened to you back there.
 
No idea what a guy like that will do if given half the chance.
 
Why did you let him kiss you like that?” he
demanded, staring into my eyes.
 

The way he
looked at me so intensely, it drew me in completely.

“You were worried
about me?”

“Of course I
was.”

“Why?”

Given what I
knew of myself, it seemed incomprehensible that anyone would worry about
me.
 
But I had to remember how ignorant
he was about who I really was.
 

Oh, those brown
eyes.
 
How I melted under the heat of them?

He paused and
tried to hide a smile.
 

“Well, if
something happened to you I’d be stuck doing that project all by myself.”

“Is that the
only reason?” I asked suggestively.

“Well, – maybe
not the
only
reason.”
 

A smile started
to appear at the corner of his mouth.
 
Leaning over, he straightened my hair, gently pushing a stray lock
behind my ear.
 
He was so close.
 

I inhaled
deeply.
 
He smelled really good, fresh
like the woods.

Suddenly
self-conscious, I raised my hands and felt my hair.
 
It was a mess.
 
Using my fingers, I tried to comb it into
some semblance of neatness, but gave up a few moments later.
 
It was hopeless.

“You always seem
to see me at my worst,” I said quietly as I looked up to meet his gaze.

“What happened
tonight?
 
Why did you go running off like
that?
 
It was him, wasn’t it? – Simmons.”
 
He paused as if saying his name caused him
physical pain.
 
“What did
he
do to you?”

“I don’t want to
talk about him,” I said, unable to tear my eyes away from Ben’s.

“It’s about
time,” he whispered, and leaving myself behind, I leaned forward and kissed
him.
 
I’m not sure if I took him by
surprise, but I do know he kissed me back with more than friendship on his
mind.
 
His hands came up to tenderly
cradle my face as I felt his warm breath on my cheek.
 
It lasted only a sweet, uncomplicated minute,
but long enough for me to realize Daniel was right.
 
Ben did have feelings for me, and also that I
did for him as well.
 

Before I was
ready for it to end, he backed away.
 
As
he did, he took a slow deep breath in and out.

“I need to get
you in bed,” he murmured.
 
“You’re going
to have one hell of a hangover in the morning.”

When he stood,
he looked down at me with a sadness in his eyes that seem discordant to the shy
smile he wore on his lips.
 
Then he
reached his hand down to me, and after looking at it for a moment, I placed
mine inside it.

Still holding my hand, he walked me back to my room, helped
me take off my shoes and tucked me into bed, making sure to set my alarm for me
before he shut the lights off.
 
All
snuggled up in bed, I watched as he closed the door behind him, leaving me to
wonder if I’d only imagined his soft lips on mine.
 
Lying there in my bed and remembering his kiss,
I ran my fingers across the sensitive skin of my lips and guiltily wished it
hadn’t ended.

That was the
last thing I remembered until I woke up in the morning.
 
Rolling over, I hit the snooze button on my
alarm only to see a note pinned to my backpack on the floor beside my bed.
 
It read:

I hope it wasn’t just because you were drunk
-Ben.

“What happened
to my schnapps? – And what did you do last night that warranted that?”