three header
A three-header for you today. A brief good-morning kiss that turned out really strange and plot-heavy; then a tease for Heads or Tails; then an introduction to another little meal. Let me know your feelings about things if you get a moment :)
I know you said hints as footers. I was too excited to follow these threads today, so spent more space than a footer. I want to make you live this… And I want your feast to correspond extremely closely to the story…
After a morning spent firmly in your body, you spend an afternoon firmly in your mind. Meditation is key, you explained to me once. While it does not necessarily do anything by itself, nothing happens without the focus meditation provides.
In the evening, you make a deal.
I’ve cooked a rare curry. A bright, flavorful confection of cauliflower, potato, peas and sweetcorn is almost a parody of the high-protein diet I tend to offer you. Home-made chapattis steam in a little mound on a side-plate. Everything is fragrant and inviting.
I look up as you come downstairs. “I was just about to call. Make any progress?”
“Yes. I need your help.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful! How can I help?” I set down two large wine glasses and tie a tightly-rolled kitchen roll around the neck of a bottle of Malbec, a habit I picked up because I suck at pouring wine without spilling a drop.
You seem somber as you scrape back your chair. Your meals over the past two days have lent extra padding to you in the most amazing places. Your butt in particular seems to have benefited, two human lives well-spent in the pursuit of giving you thighs that squish together when you sit down.
“Looks serious?” I prompt, pouring for you. The errant drop soaks into white kitchen roll like a bloodstain in a bandage.
“I contacted an old… mentor. They could talk to me. Said they could give insight but it would cost.”
I let your ensuing silence ring out and like up ful cobi onto your plate. You’ll speak when you’re ready.
“They wanted a sacrifice. But they also said… Well, you confused them. Me keeping you around. They think it’s a sign I’m not ready.”
I serve myself a generous portion, too. Earlier today you ate a sixth of my total quantity of blood. You wouldn’t believe how many iron supplements I take. “For the record I am grateful you keep me around, of course.”
“They have fixed ideas. They’re sort of an abstract entity. So they wanted me to eat or, well, turn you.”
You smile faintly as I freeze with a torn and curry-laden bite half-way to my mouth. “Um.”
“I managed to… explain… that you were a thrall. You are bound to me, after all.” You massage your temples. “They’re not a human intelligence. They can be hard to deal with but they’re my only lead right now on how I can go home. Said something about a doormaker.”
I get all the way through a chapatti without you having taken a single mouthful. This won’t do. I dab my lips and move my chair to sit beside you. My hands busy themselves with loading up a fragment of bread for you. “So what does this mean?”
Your mouth opens automatically for the morsel. I watch you chew, the muscles of your jaws holding particular fascination, until you swallow.
“I need to either eat you, turn you, or dominate you. Or feed you to them, of course.”
You can feel my shudder next to you. “Of course. Do I get a say?”
You give me a smile that is as conflicted as it is broad. “If you’re really my thrall, then no. Your fate is my choice.” You cast a meaningful look at your plate.
I take the hint and soon there is another fragrant bundle of spice passing your lips. I know you’re not a fan of saucy foods: this is a nice, dry curry. “That… feels right. Though I will say, I spent an hour today ironing your clothes. I think that means I’m pretty dominated already.”
“Ancient vampire spirits don’t understand ironing,” you say with a smirk on your lips. “So feed me tonight. I have to meditate on this. There’s no rush except when I escape this prison. They don’t experience time like we do.”
We experience the passage of time, though, and we spend it well. Bread, wine and the curry I cooked for you are consigned with conversation and laughter to the stewing depths of your gut. As we drink I loosen up and launch into a poetic diatribe about the way your magnificent backside and redoubtable thighs have grown even more magnificent over the past couple of days. You tell me I’m biased because you have consumed portions of my soul and I agree, but insist this does not make me wrong. The evening ends in a cosy heap, you graciously allowing me to massage you from butt to feet and back again.
The soft give of your fat fills us both with pleasure. The concreteness of the physical world serves as temporary reprieve from the heavy matters that started the evening. We kiss and cuddle and comment about streamers until sleep finally takes us, wrapped in one another’s arms.
And now, a hint.
Your concentration is absolute. The candle light animates your face even as you hold still. Its light follows the matte stroke of your burgundy lipstick as you pick out a Cupid’s bow of Platonic symmetry. Satisfied, you press your lips together, then gaze at yourself in the half-dark mirror.
Your room behind you lies in flickering shadow, framing you sitting in a warm, golden oasis. Your long black hair forms a severe border to pale skin soft as lily petals, yet it feathers into the darkness, like the night is part of you.
This leisurely evening you have prepared yourself, each personal ritual stripping away the outside world and further refining the unshakeable sense of self you require to perform the night’s work. Shower, shave, nails, perfume, lips: each an affirmation of your beauty and, in this instance, your power.
You gaze at your own reflection. A feeling like joy bubbles up in your chest. No one could accuse you of undue modesty. You have always loved most in others what you love in yourself.
How long do you examine the curve of your jaw, the divine shape of your slightly parted lips, your dark eyes? Perhaps you hypnotise yourself. But appearance is important tonight. You have called in a favour from an acquaintance who lives in micron-thin silver.
Mirror, mirror, on the wall…
You welcome the being. Your reflection stretches, widening pleasingly like a fun-house mirror, showing you fat and radiant; and then the image dissolves into quicksilver…
And now, let us meet someone destined for one end of you…
“Okay, I’ll say it, but you can’t go, okay? And you’ve got to turn on the light when I say, okay?”
“Scaredy-cat. It’s only a haunting. Jeez!”
Gabby tries for a stern glare in the mirror, but fear pulls the corners of her lips down and the result is a look of absurd dissatisfaction. She has known this bathroom all the twelve years of her life but tonight it feels oppressive and dangerous.
Gabby’s best friend Imani is giggling by the light switch. She’s not taking this nearly seriously enough for Gabby’s liking.
“I’m serious.”
“I know! It’s okay! My sister and her friends did it and they’re fine, but she swears they caught a glimpse. And your house is older, so maybe it’ll work better?”
Gabby stares miserably into the mirror. She knows nothing will happen. Nothing will happen! So why does she have this awful feeling of foreboding? Why is her heart pounding?
“Fine, let’s get it over with.”
“It’s been nice knowing you!”
Imani flicks off the switch, leaving only Gabby’s mobile phone to up-light her terrified face. Glossy tiles pick up blue-white highlights, seeming to recede way too far into the distance. Gabby shivers.
“Bloody Mary,” she says, and her blood runs cold. She looks back at Imani. “I can’t do—”
“You can’t stop now!” Imani hisses with enough urgency to startle Gabby forwards again.
“Bloody Mary! Bloody Mary! Bloody…”
Twelve times, Gabby intones the name, her limbs feeling heavier with each repetition. Imani titters behind her. Then comes the final utterance:
“Bloody Mary!”
Nothing. The mirror contains only Gabby’s pale face, Imani grinning in the background.
Gabby looks at Imani in the mirror. “I don’t think—”
The door slams open, flooding the bathroom in hallway light. “What’s going on in here then?!”
The two girls scream earnestly and lose utter control of their limbs. Gabby knocks her phone and a container of pot pourri onto the tiles, releasing a cloud of orange scent.
Big sister Maxine doubles over with laughter, staggering aside to let the two terrified girls run past. She sits down heavily on the closed toilet, clutching her stomach. “Best believe in ghost stories!” she quotes, loud enough to be heard downstairs, where her sister and her friend have run. “Yer in one!”
Grinning in the darkness, ignoring the shouted curses being flung her way, Max gets to her feet and flicks the light switch.
Nothing happens.
There’s someone in the mirror.
Max’s mouth opens wordlessly. The woman isn’t covered in blood but there’s something wrong with the perspective. She’s too tall, too far away. She makes Maxine feel small.
“Help,” she calls out in a broken shout. The girls downstairs ignore her. They aren’t falling for anything this time.
She watches the burgundy lips twitch up into a beautiful smile that fails to reach those dark eyes. A manicured hand with perfectly painted nails grows immense as it moves towards the mirror…