Red Grow the Roses (35 page)

‘I need you,' he said, his jaw clenched. ‘With me.'

‘Oh. Yes. Yes – of course.'

He hugged her fiercely to him, then kissed her again, his passion swelling into arousal. ‘I need you,' he growled.

‘Yes,' she breathed, pressing up against him. No exposition was necessary; the upwelling hunger in her expression was enough. His hands took possession of her bottom, hefting her whole weight up so she could wrap her slender legs about his hips. She responded by knotting her fingers in his hair to kiss him. Turning, he crossed the room in two strides and shoved her up against the wall. I heard the rasp of his breath as he tugged her flimsy hospital gown up from where it was trapped between them. From my place on the bed I could see little of her but her limbs – knees crooked up, hands clawing at his back – and the pale blur of her hair, but I could hear the soft eager noises she was making. I didn't see him make any adjustments to his own clothes, but then there was something strange about his clothes anyway; they were shredding and dissolving under the clutch of her fingers, falling away to reveal his bare back and legs.

‘Amanda,' he groaned, his voice thick.

I knew the moment he entered her, from the push of his hips and her gasp of shock. Shameless, they were, doing that in front of me. But I didn't exist, so far as they were concerned. I was nothing.

And oh, God, his body was beautiful: long, hard muscles, golden-dark skin and black hair. Shreds of clothing, as dark and insubstantial as paper-ashes, flickered and floated and fell away from under her hands and heels.

‘Reynauld!' she whimpered, her head thumping back against the wall. The play of his muscles was terrifying: the woman had only just recovered consciousness and he took her deep and strong, not gentle at all, his pelvis thrusting between her splayed thighs and his breath coming short and hard. Her gasps and half-articulated moans – ‘Oh, yes, oh, just – go on – oh, you're – oh, my sweet god, yes oh yes oh yes' – only spurred him to greater efforts.

Judging by her cries, she was coming at the exact moment I went – out and down, into unconsciousness.

* * *

I quit my job because, when they found me the next morning, they weren't surprised. They just offered me a bonus to keep quiet. I mean – they knew.
All
the doctors. They
knew
.

The scars around my nipples are fading quickly. Last night I jabbed myself with a skewer-point just to keep them fresh. Because there should be a mark on the outside to show what's underneath.

I don't know how to express my rage.

Do you understand me? Do you understand why I quit? Why should I have to put up with that? With being used like a goddamn
ready-meal
? With what he did to me? With the way he's fucked up sex for me? – because no matter what I do it's never, ever, going to feel that good again.

Why should we put up with their sort existing at all?

In the end she'd had to go to Kyle. There wasn't any choice. It wasn't like she could concentrate on anything else – her lectures, the multi-media project for the end of term, the shallow chatter of her friends in her hall of residence. The words in her books just blew across the page, like they'd already been burnt to ashes, and nothing went into her memory even when she tried to concentrate. Everyone irritated her: Ali and her whiney griping, Jay's goofing about. None of it mattered. None of it was real, as real as what she was feeling inside. All she wanted to do was go back to her room and curl up with her phone, flicking through her photos of Kyle until it was time to ring him again at 7 p.m. And afterwards, to cry to herself until she dozed off.

It hurt. It hurt beyond anything she could have imagined, just being separated from him. It was like they were two halves of a single being that had been torn in two, and the raw patch ran right up the centre of her body from crotch to throat and refused to heal. Every time she pictured his face the pain performed an exquisite twist in her belly. She wanted him so badly that she couldn't sleep at night, or escape from her dreams during the day. She wanted to wrap her limbs around his and lick the scent of cigarettes from his smooth skin. She wanted to lie and watch him clean his teeth and play on the Xbox. She wanted to straddle his slim hips and ride his cock in front of her open dorm window, the sun on her breasts, squealing with each orgasm so everybody knew how much pleasure he gave her. She wanted sex, all the time – but just to be in the same room with him, and alone, would have been enough. Keeping him company while he worked on his French translations; making him coffee; running out on errands for him while he was busy.

She loved him. She knew she'd never love anybody as much as she loved Kyle right now. She couldn't even imagine wanting somebody else. And despite her pain she felt sorry for the rest of the world, because they didn't have what she and Kyle did.

Her own college course was insignificant in comparison, withering before the furnace-blast of her desire. And at eighteen, wasn't she old enough to know what she wanted?

So she left campus one morning and set off for Paris.

And she was old enough to look after herself. She didn't need her parents' disapproval or her friends' bitchery, so she left no note and told no one. She figured she could phone from France. Sure, the lorry-driver she'd hitched a lift with on to the cross-Channel ferry had been a bit too interested, the old creep – and he'd had greasy hair and BO too, stinking of cigarettes – but she'd known how to handle it and had given him the slip when drivers were summoned back to their vehicles. She'd disembarked and gone through passport control on foot, her knapsack over her shoulder, pleased with herself for not leaving it in his cab like he'd suggested.

She hadn't figured on her phone not working on French soil. It pissed her off. Typical of the French, she thought, wondering again what Kyle saw in them, why he wanted to study abroad when he could do it just as well at home somewhere. But he was smart. He liked to throw himself into everything he did, and do it to perfection. It was one of the reasons she loved him.

She knew he'd be over the moon when she turned up. She wanted it to be a wonderful surprise, the best surprise ever, so she hadn't told him she was coming. Although, to be honest, she slightly regretted that now: it would have been nice to ring him from the port here, to make sure he was in when she reached his flat. Especially now that dusk was falling, and her excitement was wearing thin and turning to loneliness. She wished she was there already, that she didn't have the overland miles to cover. Or that she knew which bus to catch. Kyle would have been able to help her with that, if she'd been able to phone him.

Still, she could hitch again, now that the lorries had all driven off. There must be plenty of people going to Paris.

Wanting to save her meagre euros from being wasted on a taxi, she was one of the few people to leave the harbour area on foot, and it had started to rain by the time she crossed the last car park and started up the exit road. The town ahead looked distinctly industrial, a bank of warehouses and swift roads. And there was no pavement here where she walked down the length of the chain-link fence. She wondered if she'd missed the proper pedestrian exit. There weren't many cars headed out this way either, and none stopped at the jerk of her thumb. Hunched under her cagoule and rucksack, she plodded toward the streetlights. She'd have better luck hitching somewhere well-lit, she thought: if they could see she was a girl they'd be more likely to take pity on her.

Bugger the rain. Her jeans were getting colder, as they grew sodden across the front of her thighs.

The daylight was really gone and the world was turning to a confusion of glimmering neon reflections in the wet asphalt, when a car pulled up at the kerb in front of her. It was a big, black, old-fashioned-looking vehicle of a make she didn't recognise, and the windows were smoked glass. She approached with due wariness, pushing back her hood from her face.

The driver's window slid down and a woman looked out. She was one of those well-preserved beauties, slightly reminiscent of Michelle Pfeiffer, or maybe that puppet from that old
Thunderbirds
DVD Kyle liked so much. Her platinum-blonde hair hung in a bob and she wore a grey dress that looked a bit like a uniform.

Despite everything, she almost laughed; it looked for all the world like Lady Penelope had decided to give her chauffeur the night off and drive the car herself.

‘
Bonsoir, mademoiselle
,' said the woman.

‘
Bonsoir
,' she answered, the word clumsy in her mouth. ‘I'm sorry – do you speak English?'

‘Oh, you're English.' The woman's eyes crinkled up. She had a lovely soft voice and an accent that sounded a bit posh and definitely English. ‘Are you looking for a lift? This isn't a good place to be walking out on your own.'

‘I'm trying to get to Paris. My boyfriend's at the university there.'

Those perfectly sculpted eyebrows lifted. ‘Well, we're driving to Paris tonight. Do you want a lift?'

The word ‘we' registered and the girl's eyes flicked to the darkened glass of the rear window. As if anticipating her question, the kerbside window rolled down and the interior light came on, a faint, pleasant scent of leather wafting from within. There was a man there, sitting towards the far door and looking out at her with interest. Like the driver, he was sort of middle-aged, but sort of hot-looking too. She wondered if she should recognise him: was he someone famous?

He opened his hand in a gesture of invitation and the door unlatched itself with a faint
thunk
.

For a fraction of a moment she hesitated. But there wasn't anything to fear, was there, with another woman in the car? Anyway, he looked nice. And ever so slightly unfocused, as if he'd just woken from a doze. He smoothed back his hair apologetically and moved up to give her plenty of space on the seat.

A trickle of rain found its way down the back of her neck and she shivered. ‘Thanks,' she said. ‘That'd be great. Really great.'

‘You probably want to sit in the back,' the woman said. ‘Front seatbelt's broken, I'm afraid. It's an old car.'

She ducked into the back and the man took her bag from her and dropped it through on to the front passenger seat.

‘Hello there,' he said with a pleasant smile. ‘My name's Reynauld.' He indicated the driver. ‘This is Amanda.'

‘Hi,' she said, settling into the leather. The upholstery seemed to embrace her. ‘I'm Rose.'

‘It's a pleasure to meet you, Rose. But you picked a dangerous place to try hitching: you never know who might stop for a young woman in this sort of area.'

‘It worked out though, didn't it?'

‘Didn't it just.' He nodded thoughtfully. ‘We'd better make sure your luck holds.'

Amanda was already watching the traffic in the side-mirror and indicating to pull out. The Bentley slipped smoothly away from the pavement, its engine sound hardly rising above a purr.

‘Are you sure it's not taking you out of your way?'

‘Not in the least,' he answered. ‘We have a hotel room booked in Paris tonight.'

She noted the singular ‘room'. A couple then. Why he should be in the back and she should be driving, she couldn't guess, but rich people did weird things. Maybe he was seasick from the ferry crossing.

‘Well, I'm really glad, you know. Thanks. This is nicer than my last ride.'

His answering glance evoked in her a warmth she was used to only feeling with Kyle, and she felt a brief twinge of confused guilt which was gone in a moment.

‘I think we can promise that.'

The drizzle on the outside of the windows seemed to belong to another world. Rose settled her shoulders back into the seat, delighted, as the car bore her away down the empty, rain-slick roads, into the night.

* * *

There is a City. There are many cities, and in each one of them there are vampires. In your city too. They go unseen, but they are there. Perhaps they have chosen to rule benignly, or perhaps to be ruthless. But make no mistake – they are there, using us as they see fit.

Fear them.

Pity them.

For them, unlike for us, there is no escape.

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