Tell Him
~Tell him. Tell him that the sun and moon rise in his eyes. Reach out too him....~
Groggily, AJ fumbled with her keys and with some effort, unlocked the door to her apartment. The words to the song the Ladies had duted invaded her thoughts, making it difficult to do just about anything. She stopped, for a moment in front of the hall door. The mirror there cast her reflection back in start black and white and red and AJ found herself very glad she hadn't turned on the light.
"Mom? 's 'at you?" A sleep southern draw drifted from the living room and AJ quickly turned her back to the sound. Miles, her 16 year old son, had waited up for her.
"I told you not to stay up so late waiting for me."
"Ah know. But Ah waz worried about you." Slowly the tall gangly teen drifted into the hall. "You been cryin'?" He asked, not because he could see tears, but because she had her back to him.
"No."
"All'ight. Well, 'm going ta bed. Get some sleep mom." AJ nodded as the figure of her son shuffled off to bed, ruffling his own hair as he went. It wasn't a matter of pride that she didn't let him see her cry, it was because blood dripping from her eyes was sure to raise some questions.
She drifted then, lights still out to her office. Door shut behind her, the blank screen of her computer seemed to mock her. Reminding her how little she'd written in the past few months. She sat with a particularly human sigh at her desk chair.
'Damnit AJ!' Her editor had said lovingly. 'Start drinking, or get a good old fashion drug addiction. Or for Christ sake fall in love again, because if you don't start sending me books, people are going to start asking questions up here. Your too young to burn out.'
Right. Too young. I'll have the rest of eternity to stare a blank word processor screen. She sagged and put her face on the keyboard. It wasn't that she hadn't written anything, she just hadn't written anything she could submit.
AJ sat frozen in the finely decorated sitting area of hotel. She realized with cold fear, that Lorenzo was grilling herself and Billy. Part of her wanted to shout 'Look, leave her out of this. I made the call, she was just doing what I advice.' But, she could see with the keen look in Lorenzo's eyes, that would only be more fodder.
This is what she hated about vampires. The cruel civility. The fact that with some manners, you could get away with ripping someone apart just because you felt like it. Lorenzo, AJ decided, was an asshole.
"I'm only asking these things, because I'm not going to be in Steel Valley my whole life, and if I go back to Europe, I might find I am in similar position and I'd like to know what you thought I did wrong.
A bold face lie, AJ discovered. When she politely explained herself, that it wasn't a personal decision, that she had put her faith in Ivy and agreed with what Ivy had to say, he all but called her spineless. AJ was a lot of things, spineless was not one of them. If she's been a women capable of that kind of anger, she would have told the prissy model just what she thought of him.
However, instead, she offered him what advice she could. "A spider sits in his web, he can feel the tremble of each strand of silk.... Perhaps in future, you should be aware of who else..."
And she was cut off before she could finish her analogy.
"Well," Lorenzo announced. "Perhaps the trembles in the web are the complaints of the other members of the clan, and since no one opened their mouth.."
"But Lorenzo..."
And he told her to be quiet! Can you believe the audacity! He actually told her "Be Quiet." Hell, he practically yelled it at her. It was all she had not to politely get up and walk away. As far as she was concerned, that right there was the end of her conversation with Lorenzo.
"I hate being a vampire." The empty air of the office offered no comfort or advice to the statement. Here, like Huston, vampires seemed to enjoy being what they were. Revel in it. For God Sake, she's sat there for a conversation between Lorenzo and that Euro-trash German while the discussed faking their own death. Horrible... Just... Horrible.
Curious, so curious. She watched the prince through his glass windows, pacing and gesturing to the other men within. She liked Baxter. Never mind anytime anyone called out his name, she could hear the meo-mix song in her head. She was glad he was the one protecting them. She was doubly glad when they asked Henry to help them out. Deputy. From what her sire had told her, Deputy was the thankless job. She'd have to remember to thank Henry for taking it, later. Now, she watched the prince.
Ivy said he spent all his time locked up his library. Her mind summoned up images of vast isles and rows of books. Walls of books far enough to seemingly fade in the distance. She trembles a little. What kind of man would lock themselves up and spend all their free time there. A learned man, to be sure. Perhaps a shy man... But most importantly, a lonely man. Two weeks before, AJ had decided she was going to ask him out for coffee... Or what ever it is vampires do together. She'd chickened out. Lost the nerve. When she and Henry had talked about it, he'd said he doubted very much she'd find what she was looking for with the prince.
"I'm not looking for anything with him, Henry. Maybe friendship, maybe a little platonic romance... Who knows."
"I dunna think it's possible lass."
"Why not?"
"Because only people like you believe in platonic romance."
Ivy seemed in favor of it though. Ivy seemed to think it was a great idea, and hounded AJ a bit about it after the clan meeting. Fine then, as she sat and watched the prince through the glass. Just after the Elysium... I'll stay and help him clean up, and I'll ask him to join me to a play or something. What harm could it do?
Best laid plans.... She sat up, feeling the welling of tears threaten again. Of course, because fate has a wicked sense of humor, tonight would be the night the Prince would leave. Tonight would be the night she'd lose that shot. It went like this, in lovely little cycles since she'd become a vampire. Meet what might be a nice guy, miss her shot before she gets a chance to find out. End up with a monster. And since her last monster had tried to kill her... AJ could only wonder what Steel Valley had to top that.
"The women here have the choice to turn their backs." Someone said and AJ riled.
"Would you want your wife to see you commit this kind of brutality?"
But, the rage in the mans eyes answered her question before he could answer it. That was all he had left, rage. Part of her heart broke at that. That it didn't take vampricy alone to turn men into monsters. She wanted to hold her arms out, and hold this stranger. To rock him in her arms and tell him it would be okay. That someday he'd find his wife again, somehow. That all of this bloodshed needed to end. That he didn't need to spend the rest of forever empty inside.
Instead, she went back to where she was sitting, with her back turned, mostly, so no one could see her cry. A veritable stranger, and his emptiness rang out in her mind. If she closed her eyes to blink the tears away, the blackness would surrounded her and all she could feel was... Nothing.
At some point, and she wasn't sure when, she was standing in a different hall way. Ivy had handed her book back and was rubbing her back slowly.
"Are you alright?"
"No." So AJ explained, as best she could. "I will go home tonight, and I will cry for that man. And I don't know how many nights from now I will cry myself to sleep for the emptiness in that mans heart."
Sorona and Ivy both had points. That of course emptiness was better then the pain he'd surely felt for 50 years now. But.... AJ couldn't get past the brutality.
"You have a son, AJ. If he was killed, wouldn't you want to take justice. Honesty now."
She hesitated to answer the harpy. How to make her understand. It wasn't about forgiveness. The young writter wanted to believe that she could forgive anyone anything, but she knew that no one else would believe her if she said that. She wasn't entirely sure, when it came to Miles, she could believe that herself.
"It isn't for me to decided. I would want him brought to justice... But I certainly wouldn't want to assault him in front of a crowd full of people."
"That man killed his wife and his son AJ.
"
"I do not believe that justice and brutality are hand in hand..... I can't believe that."
Some vampire you're going to be. What was it Euro-Trash said? 'You run around eating people to stay alive.' She could cover it in all the erotica, and flowery words she wanted too... But when you got right down to it, vampires are brutality.
Except her. She couldn't ,and wouldn't be a part of that. Surely, with thousands of years of wisdom before and behind her, she could find something better to do. She could find something to fill her soul with besides violence and rage.. Surely there would always be some kind of beauty. Somehow, their always had to be love... Right?
At first, she found the idea a little tasteless. An exposition after what had just happened seemed so.. Shallow. However, somewhere into 'All that Jazz', she wanted to find that Alexanders and kiss him right on his warty lips.
It was so easy, so damn easy to slid into it. To forget herself in the movements, the words. Perhaps, the first dance was a little racy. Perhaps the gangrel and her corset seemed a little much for AJ to watch but... But yet, every measure she wished would last forever. Every line of King Lear came like trickles of water to a parched tongue. Just enough to keep her from dehydrating, just enough to keep her yearning for more. She clung to the quickly passing moments and prayed them to stay just a little longer. The ecstasy of the experience, of losing herself to the craft of another. And as the last notes of the duet danced away from her ears to be lost forever, she had to clap harder to keep from crying. The blessed release from everything..... Gone.
She was crying now. Staining another skirt as she wept softly into her own lap. As she settled, she rose from the chair, slid her skirt off to drop into a bathroom sink. She'd wash it tomorrow. For now, entered her bedroom and slid into her big empty bed and pulled a pillow to body. She gripped it hard agents her.
And cried herself to sleep.
Written by me, Philomena 2001. Lots of thanks to the other Larp charcters who role played so beautifuly with me.
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