Dare I? (2 page)

Once again, they dissolved into fits of
laughter, yet Anna was a little relieved when the topic changed
back to more solid ground—the new color Carol had chosen for her
bridesmaids’ dresses this week. And even though she continued to
participate in the discussion, a nagging idea remained at the back
of her head. Did she truly have no adventures or audacious acts to
share with her friends? She wasn’t the prude their words had hinted
she was, there had to be something she could either reveal to them
or remind them of, something that would prove them she was as
adventurous and daring as they were.

When they said goodbye in the middle of the
afternoon, Anna was still thinking about it, and she was muttering
to herself as she drove back to her apartment. They were wrong; she
knew how to have fun. Just because she didn’t have anyone with
fangs in her past didn’t mean that she couldn’t enjoy herself. And
the more she thought about it, actually, the more she became sure
that her friends’ interest in vampires was a little weird. In
truth, she was worried for them, and not at all envious.

It would have been nice if she had been able
to convince herself of that last point.

* * * *

The traffic light in front of Chase’s car
turns red and he stops, applying smooth pressure to the brakes.
Anna swallows a sigh. She wishes they were there, already, wherever
‘there’ is; impatience is killing her. Judging by the smile at the
corner of Chase’s lips, he is all too aware of it.

“So, how was your day?” she asks, both to
occupy her mind and to try and ferret clues out of him.

“I had a late hunt last night, so I slept in
pretty late. Caught up on some paperwork after that. Pretty boring
day, as they go. What about you?”

The light turns green again, and the car
starts as smoothly as it stopped. A turn on the right; could they
be going to On The Edge?

“I went out shopping with the girls.”

She keeps under wraps that the three of them
tried to figure out what special thing Chase could have planned. A
few of their guesses are already proving to be wrong as the car
continues toward the edge of town. His apartment, maybe.

“I thought you looked even more delicious
than usual.” He glances at her, and the heat of his gaze is
scorching. “The dress is new, isn’t it? And you did something to
your hair.”

She gives him a coy little smile, pleased
that he noticed. But then, he always notices.

“You did say tonight was special.”

His smile weakens a little, and he keeps his
eyes on the road as he says, “It is.”

She wants to question him more, but he parks
the car and in a flash he is out, walking around the hood to come
open her door. She was right, he brought her to his apartment. She
stomps on a hint of disappointment as she takes his hand and stands
to follow him up the staircase. They don’t stop at his floor
however, and climb three more flights of steps to the rooftop. He
proffers a key, unlocks the service door and guides her out, then
locks again behind them.

Right away, she sees it, and she has to stop
to take it all in. On top of a black plastic tarp, just a few feet
in front of her, in the center of the roof, is a large airbed. She
counts three blankets on it, one covering the bed, the second
rolled as though a pillow, the last resting, folded, at one corner.
Next to the bed on the tarp she sees Chase’s CD player. In the
center of the bed rests a tray, and as she approaches she can see
the small champagne bottle covered in water droplets, the two
glasses next to it, and a small closed container. Chase has walked
ahead of her and he kicks off his shoes before climbing on the bed.
He uncovers the container, unveiling strawberries. By the time Anna
finally reaches the bed, he has poured champagne in the two
glasses, and the ambient light of the city is just enough for her
to see the tiny bubbles in the glass he offers her. The sounds of
the street seem muted, somehow, and then completely covered by the
music rising from the player. It’s all perfect beyond anything she
can express.

“I spend so much time out at night,” he
murmurs as she sits next to him, “but I never look up to the sky
anymore. I thought maybe you could teach me to see the stars
again.”

They both take a sip from their glasses, then
lean in to share a kiss. Anna has a feeling he won’t see much of
the stars tonight either.

* * * *

By the time night fell, Anna’s annoyance had
turned into resolve. She would show them. The thought kept echoing
through her mind as she dug through her closet for that cocktail
dress she had buried in there months earlier when moving in the
small apartment. She would show them they were wrong, and that she
knew how to have a good time. They had made it sound as though she
had never had fun in her life. It was ridiculous. She had been to
dozens of parties in college. She had been out just about every
night, and had only stopped when she had started working and needed
to be up early every day. Then she had met Tim at Jessie’s wedding,
and since he had never been one for dancing they hadn’t gone out
much. She had missed going to clubs a lot, and…

The truth hit Anna abruptly and knocked the
breath out of her. Clutching in her hands whatever dress she had
been pushing aside, she took two steps back and sat on the edge of
her bed, her legs practically giving out under her.

As much as she had tried to convince herself
she had, she had not missed going to clubs, not one little bit. The
excuses had rolled off her tongue with ease for years now, first
her job, then Tim, but if she stopped for a moment and actually
examined what she had felt when declining invitations, the regret
she expected was not there. Instead, all she could find was
relief.

She had been relieved not to have to go out
and dance; relieved not to have to pretend she enjoyed it, as she
had done throughout four years of college to blend in with her dorm
mates. It had taken her a long time to feel comfortable with her
body, and while she now trusted she looked good, even with curves
that some might have called superfluous, she had once dreaded to
feel eyes on her, and parties had sometimes been torture because of
it.

Were her friends right, after all? Was she
truly unable to have a good time?

During their last argument before their
break-up, Tim had thrown to her face that she was the most tedious
and boring person he had ever dated. She had rejected the
accusation as just one more jab destined to hurt her, but maybe Tim
had been right too, maybe she was boring.

Her blood boiled at the thought that her ex
may have been right about anything. She could accept that her
friends saw her need to let out some steam, but she refused to give
credit to any of Tim’s opinions for even a minute. She would go to
that club, have fun, seduce a vampire or two, and show
everyone—show herself—that she was not that bland, boring image
that others sometimes mistook for her personality.

Standing up again, she looked at the garment
in her hands. It wasn’t the one she had been looking for, but it
would do. She had bought it on impulse two or three years earlier,
loving both the color and feel of it on her skin, but she had never
dared wear it in public, not even for Tim. She quickly slipped out
of her bathrobe and slid on her most daring underwear, a black,
see-through thong and its matching bra, before putting the dress
on. She struggled a little to pull the zipper on the side all the
way up, but when she stood in front of the full-length mirror, she
was satisfied by what she saw.

The red dress was tight, made of a soft,
stretch material that hugged her body and left very little to the
imagination. It stopped halfway down her thighs, and made her legs
seem endless. The top revealed her cleavage without being trashy,
and the wide straps rested far enough on her shoulders to leave her
neck completely exposed. She considered putting on a necklace, but
quickly gave up on the notion. She wanted the vampire she would
choose to have an open access to her throat. There would be no
hiding of marks on the inside of her wrist with jewelry, for her.
When she was bitten, she would show off her scars to the world, and
prove her point.

She had let down her auburn hair from its
usual tight bun and she thought about letting it free on her
shoulders, but again the desire to show off her neck and throat
made up her mind and she wove it in a loose braid. Dangling
earrings, dark red lipstick, dark eyeliner and mascara to
accentuate her brown eyes, a touch of blush on her cheeks, black
high-heeled shoes and a small black handbag completed her
preparations.

It was a little past ten o’clock when she
climbed into the cab and gave the driver the name of the club;
usually, she was slipping into bed with a good book at this hour.
To be out and on her way to the city’s vampire club made her feel
like a teenager slipping out of the house after curfew. She
relished the way her heart beat just a little faster, and her skin
flushed in anticipation. But most of all, she enjoyed how easy, how
freeing it was. She didn’t feel uncomfortable, as she had expected
she would. This wasn’t at all like the party experiences of her
younger years, and that simple difference was, already,
exhilarating.

At last the cab stopped across the street
from a brightly illuminated building. As she paid her fare, Anna
was barely conscious of the driver’s gentle admonishment to be
safe. Her attention was already fully on the club, on the red neon
letters above the entrance that bled the words ‘On The Edge’ in the
night, on the muffled music she could already hear as she crossed
the road toward the entrance, on the people walking in or out,
alone or in couples. Already, she was wondering which of them were
humans and which were not. To know that there were vampires close
by sent a shiver down her spine as she stepped in, but she
dismissed the feeling of fear that was trying to creep up. She
refused to be scared. She was here to have fun, to be daring, and
she would do just that. It had been a long time since she had
flirted with anyone or been held by a man. Much too long.

Slow steps took her further inside, and she
frowned a little, puzzled. In the center of the club, a bar was
open on four sides, two bartenders serving drinks. Around the bar,
round tables hosted couples and small groups chatting over the
semi-loud music. In the very back of the room, curtained alcoves
seemed to be offering a more private space to patrons. But despite
the music, no one was dancing that she could see.

Wondering whether she was at the wrong
establishment, she walked over to the bar and ordered a cocktail
from a man with the most gorgeous smile—the rest of him wasn’t bad
either, from what she could see through a partially unbuttoned
shirt and very tight jeans. It was while she was waiting for her
change that she noticed people coming up and down staircases on the
side of the room. Her glass in hand, she went to investigate. She
only needed to descend one flight of stairs to see that she was
indeed in a dancing club. Through the metal railing of staircases
and suspended bridges, she could make out a dancing floor on the
lower level, which seemed darker and louder than the bar area. She
stepped down one more staircase and stopped on a catwalk to look at
the crowd beneath her. The music was fast, faster than she liked
it, but she could see the attraction of such a beat in a place like
this one. The air thrummed with energy, and it wasn’t all due to
the music. There was something about the dancers, a feeling of raw
life and sexuality that Anna had never encountered before.

She took a sip of her fruity cocktail and
pulled out her cell phone from her slim purse. If she was going to
do this—and at this point there was no doubt in her mind that she
would—she wanted Carol to know. Her friend would probably call
Jessie afterwards, and the two of them would gossip and wonder
about what Anna was up to. Tomorrow, if they asked nicely, she
would tell them. And brag about going farther than either of
them.

The tone rang twice before Carol picked
up.

“Guess where I am,” Anna said loudly to make
herself heard over the music.

Carol was silent for only a second or two
before she practically shrieked: “You didn’t!”

Anna laughed. “I did! I’m looking for a
victim right now. Nice specimens on the dance floor. Isn’t that
what you called them?”

“You wouldn’t!” Carol’s shock was clearly
audible, even though her words were hard to make out with the still
loud but slowing down music. “You’re not!”

“And yet I am! Call me tomorrow afternoon and
maybe I’ll tell you about it!”

She had time to hear Carol laugh before she
shut off the phone and put it away. The thin shoulder strap was
long enough that her purse rested at her waist, leaving her free to
move or dance as she pleased without worrying about it.

Focusing her attention again on the dance
floor, she let her eyes run over the crowd, trying to guess, as
Jessie had described, who down there was a vampire. After a moment,
she started noticing something. Most people were dancing with a
partner, but there were also small groups, with a man or woman
surrounded by a few others fighting for their interest. These
centers of attention all seemed to share the same way of moving,
the same graceful movements, but also the same intensity in each
gesture, and Anna was forcibly reminded of big cats on the hunt.
They had to be vampires, she realized. That was why others were
dancing around them. What she needed was to find someone who gave
off the same aura but hadn’t attracted too many hopeful victims
quite yet.

Her eyes lingered for a moment on a dark
skinned man in the center of the dance floor. The way he moved had
her breath catching in her throat. But when she brought her
cocktail glass back to her lips to finish it in one long gulp, a
woman joined him, and Anna could only watch, a little disappointed,
as the two of them embraced and started dancing together. For a few
instants, she felt as a voyeur; they were so close, their hands all
over each other’s bodies, that they might as well have been alone
in a bedroom rather than in a crowded dance club. Anna regretted
suddenly having finished her drink. These two were hot, and she
wanted exactly what they had, this carelessness and disregard for
where they were and who could possibly be watching. But more than
that, she wanted a mouth at the crook of her neck and to look as
thoroughly delighted as the woman she was watching.