Bite Me, A.J. Cole [hardest books to read txt] 📗

I called him first! “I, um, you asked me, I mean, you gave me your card, and – wow. I sound like a blithering social pariah.”

He laughed, and what was left of her psyche completed its transition into a meaningless puddle. “No you don’t. I mean, we don’t really know each other, so it’s hard to think of something to say that doesn’t come across as stupid or whatever, yes?”

“Yes. Uh, I mean, you’re right.” She cleared her throat and lowered herself onto the lounger, which chose that moment to stop functioning as a lounger and instead became an accordion. She uttered an involuntary shriek as the thing folded up with her in it, which brought Carlina running outside in a panic.

“Oh, my god! Mel! What are you doing?”

“Getting squished by your chair, it would seem,” she managed, struggling to extricate herself, and succeeding only in making it tip over, whereupon the phone flew from her hand and into the pool. From her sideways position on the ground, she observed the tiny splash; without even trying to get up, she groaned and said, “Please shoot me.”

Carlina, meanwhile, was doubled over with laughter, part of her obviously wanting to help her friend, the other part working overtime to re-establish a pattern of breathing.

“Never mind,” Mel whimpered. “I’ll just stay like this. It’s better this way, I think…”

Several minutes later Carlina, once again in control of herself, sidled toward her stricken friend. “Um, are you going to kill me?” she asked in a small voice.

Meloria, who still hadn’t moved despite a growing ache in the shoulder that was pressed against the cement, said, “No, Car. There’s no point. My life is over anyway. But I would appreciate it if you’d give me a hand here. And then, after you honor my request to shoot me, please shoot this chair. It really doesn’t deserve to live.”

Still a bit unsure, Carlina bent down and tugged at the back of the lounger, opening it enough for her friend to pull herself free. She straightened and backed up a few feet, surprised Mel wasn’t at least yelling at her.

“Thank you,” said Mel, smoothing the front of her sweater. She walked the two steps to the side of the pool and peered down into its shimmery blue depths. Why on earth her friend had water in the pool at this time of year was beyond her – maybe she liked the smell of chlorine – but it hardly mattered. Had it been empty, the phone would have been smashed when it hit the bottom anyway. She sighed. It had been an expensive piece of technology that she’d neglected to get insured, and replacing it would be difficult.

Not wanting to startle her friend for fear she might fall in, too, Carlina cleared her throat very gently.

Mel turned. She raised an eyebrow. She rubbed her shoulder while shrugging the other.

Carlina gave her a confused look. “Are you trying to say something?”

“Do you know who I was talking to when the chair decided to eat me?”

“Uh…no?”

“Mel. I think the last thing he heard after my blood-curdling scream and before the splash, were the words, ‘squished by your chair, it would seem.’ Tell me – if you’d heard that, what would you think of the person saying it?”

Completely at a loss, Carlina shrugged both shoulders. How should she answer that without inspiring wild rage in her friend?

“Well,” said Mel, “personally, I would think that person was, a) slightly insane, b) the world’s biggest loser, or c) trying to avoid a conversation with me.”

“Or, d) was hurt and needed help.”

“I need help…yup. I’m sure he’s convinced of that.”

“Aw, come on, Mel, that isn’t what I meant. Anyhow, why don’t you call him back from my phone and let him know you’re okay. He might be worried.”

“About what? That he’d given his phone number to a whacko?” She barked out a sour laugh. “Ha! If he still agrees to see me again after this, can you imagine his reaction when he finds out that on top of being randomly uncoordinated, I’m a freaking vampire?! Oh, he’ll want to introduce me to all of his friends and family, for sure, then!”

Carlina crossed her arms and tapped one foot, beginning to look annoyed. “You really need to stop that. You had an accident, it wasn’t your fault, and you’re making him suffer? Obviously, the guy likes you – don’t delete him like that. It isn’t fair.”

Meloria walked slowly past her friend and into the house, where she threw herself – carefully – onto the sofa in the living room. When she could sense Carlina hovering over her she said, “You’re right. May I use your phone, please?”

Controlling a whoop of joy, Carlina went to fetch her phone; while she was gone, Mel closed her eyes, saw herself as she must have looked when the lounger collapsed, and burst out laughing. A video of that put up on Youtube would have netted a huge number of hits…She pulled herself together in time to take the phone from her astonished friend’s hand, took the card from her pocket, and called Mel back, hoping this time, it would go a little better.

~Four~

He’d wanted to take her to lunch. When she’d balked, using her late-night schedule as the first excuse that came to mind, he had offered dinner and a movie. That would still mean her needing to get up way too early, so she’d suggested the beach after work. Since her hours were 9:00 pm until 5:00 am, he would have to get up at 4:00 in the morning, pick her up from work and have only about two hours with her before she had to get home.

“I’m not trying to be difficult,” she told him, hearing his sigh of frustration. “See, I have…well, I have this unusual medical condition, and if I’m out after sunrise, I could go blind.” She frowned, wondering how he’d take that.

“Really? Huh. What kind of condition would do that?”

Carlina had excused herself as soon as Mel had begun talking; biting her lower lip, Mel sat straighter on the sofa and stared blankly at the large, empty room. How could she answer that without getting into the details. “What are you doing right now?”

“Getting ready to take a shower and go to bed.”

Why did he have to tell her that? Her mind, grinning wickedly, conjured up an image of him standing in nothing but his skin while water slid sensuously down his…

“Aha! I see! I mean, I don’t really see, I understand. Yeah. I’m babbling. Look, I guess what I’m trying to say here is…could you come over? Now? I really need to talk to you. There’s, er, something I have to tell you, but I refuse to discuss it over the phone.”

“Are you a felon or something?”

Meloria’s brows shot heavenward. “A what?! Oh, God, no! Nothing like that! It has to do with my medical problem.”

On the other end, Mel seemed to have stopped breathing. “Is…is it…something…contagious?” he finally asked, and she could actually hear him wincing.

“No, Mel.” She smiled, relieved to be able to say that honestly. “It’s a genetic disorder, something I inherited from my parents, and nothing you could possibly catch. In fact, it’s more of an inconvenience than anything else, and in no way life-threatening.” Unless you try to hurt me, she added silently.

“Ah. Sorry. Um, sure. What’s your address?”

As soon as she’d hung up, she’d shouted to Carlina that she had to get home, raced out to her car, and zoomed home in record time. An officer in his police cruiser saw her speed past, but he recognized her car and decided to ignore it. He was still recovering from the last time he’d pulled her over.

Since she lived so close to the convenience store and was able to use that as a point of reference, he found her apartment with no difficulty. Fortunately, she was a rather tidy individual and had little to straighten up, and a good thing, too, since she’d only beat him there by a few minutes. At the sound of his knock (there was no buzzer on the downstairs door – a security risk that had enabled her to talk the landlord into a slightly lower rent), she took a few fortifying breaths, told herself to stop reacting like a twelve-year-old at a school dance, and opened the door.

“Come in,” she said brightly, wanting very badly to touch him. Instead, she stepped back, and he went past her into the living room.

“Wow, nice,” he remarked, looking around.

“Thanks. Have a seat.”

He parked himself on one of the two chairs facing the sofa, she sat in the other one, and they turned sideways in order to face one another. She took a deep breath, knowing that the best way to deal with this was to be direct. She forced herself to stop staring at various parts of his anatomy and get serious – this might be the last time she would ever see him, but better that than get any deeper into it, only to scare him off later when it would really hurt.“I have…I’m a vampire.”

His eyes got bigger, but he said nothing, so she continued.

“Not like in the books, but there’s no other way to describe what I have because of the symptoms. See, the worst side-effect is ocular photo-toxicity. That means sunlight is toxic to my retinas, and if exposed to even normal daylight, my eyes will literally burn, and I’ll be permanently blind. I can’t go outside in the daytime unless I’m really well-protected by a thick blindfold.” She shrugged, giving him an apologetic look, but he still wasn’t reacting, so she continued. “Because I get so little exposure to sunlight, my skin has built up no stores of melanin, and I get horrible sun-poisoning – a third-degree sunburn, in other words. Once in a while, something comes up that makes it imperative that I go out during the day, but when that happens, I have to cover myself up in addition to the blindfold, and I, er, borrow my friend’s seeing-eye dog to help me get where I have to go, unless one of my few friends happens to be available to go with me. Another side-effect of this disorder is the inability to process cooked food, especially anything that isn’t protein. I eat raw meat, you see, but also need a lot of fruit to aid in its digestion. I’m really not sure how that works, but to most people, my eating habits are really gross. I can go out to dinner, but have to order either sushi, or some kind of tartare. And I spend a great deal of time in the bathroom, also gross, but I need to tell you everything. Um, I’m also told, although I’ve never seen it myself, that my eyes glow when I’m pissed off. And one last thing. When I’m angry or very frightened and go into survival mode, my fingernails grow into black talons, which I can retract once the danger is past. There. That’s it. I felt I should let you know all of this so there would be no surprises if by some miracle you still wanted to see me again - ”

Her sentence was cut short when, with