The weather service website had been grinding its way onto the screen for a long time, and the printer was almost finished. I scribbled a note to call the provider then remembered what I was planning while I watched the ink dry. The note was silly. Everything which might come after tonight was silly. I crumpled the note and threw it away.
The printer stopped. The website hadn’t appeared. I pulled the paper off the printer and read my letter. It looked right. I signed it and stuffed it in an envelope. I almost stamped it then I realized it didn’t need one.
The site finished. Cool but not too bad. The blue sweater from that sale last fall would work. According to the site, the sun should have already set, and when I looked out the window, I noticed that the color of the sky was fading. It was that blue that makes me think of stillness, when everything gets quiet right before dark.
I signed the outside of the envelope and shut off the computer.
I’d packed everything, but I couldn’t resist checking it again. I hauled it all back out and laid it on the kitchen table. There wasn’t much. I slid the handcuff over one wrist and latched it shut.
The woman at the store had suggested something with padding in the lining. I’d said those were too flimsy, and she’d replied with a knowing smile. I’d smiled back.
I tugged at it pretty hard, and it didn’t move. I tried gathering my fingers and sliding it off, but there was no give. I unlocked it and put it back.
I inhaled the scent from the sage bundle and put it back too. I slid the other stuff back into the bag. I was wasting time. I do that when I get scared.
My phone rang. Cindy.
“Yes, he’s very handsome.”, I said.
“…my blue sweater. Hard to say. He might be.”
“No, not on the first date. We’re just getting to know each other.”
“We’re still friends, Cindy. I like him very much. He was very nice to me.”
“Yes, in that way too. He was very nice. Very nice.”
“Listen, sweetie, I’m going to be late. I’ll call you every couple hours or so. I’m meeting him at the entrance to the park.”
“No, not on the first date.”
“Ok. Thank you, sweetheart….. Yes, I’ll give you all the details after.”
I flipped the phone shut.
Gary
Even when I told him that I couldn’t see him anymore, he’d been very nice. He’d asked me why, and I explained that there were things going on in my life that I needed to work out. He’d been hurt, and I felt guilty. He didn’t deserve to be hurt. He’d done nothing wrong.
He still called from time to time, and I’d gone to the movies with him without making myself up. I’d laid my head against his shoulder. He was warm and smelled like soap, real soap, no perfumes or moisturizer. He smelled like clean. I liked it. He’d kissed me on the cheek after walking me to the door and thanked me for a nice time. I said that I hoped he’d call me again.
When we’d dated, sex had been nice. He learned all the spots, like the back of my knee and the crux of my elbow. Feeling his weight on me could quiet my head, especially when he looked me in the eyes while he did it. I melted in the bed and watched him, and he always held me afterwards, his heavy arms pressing mine against my chest until he fell asleep. He always fell asleep before I did, and I felt all the thoughts come back; the thoughts always came back, and I was thinking of work or errands as I fell asleep. It made me want to cry.
I did a slow lap around the house, tapping the note against my thigh. I’d made the bed which I don’t normally do. Everything else was neat and organized. I thought of trashing things before I left, but it didn’t seem right.
I left the note on the kitchen table. It would be the first thing someone found.
I gathered everything up, stepped outside, locked the door, and despite my desire to look back, I didn’t.
I went to the quiet Italian place near my apartment for supper. It went there when I didn’t want to cook, didn’t want the phone to interrupt, didn’t want to have to worry with my own messes. Josh and Angeline said hello, took my order then left me alone. They must’ve thought I was a sad case with no friends because I’d kept this place all to myself; I never brought dates or friends with me.
The patio was empty since it was a little chilly, and they delivered pizza more than ran a restaurant during the week. So, I watched the stars appear and watched the haze of orange security lights. I checked my watch. He would be coming out soon.
I tried to imagine how his days began. A crypt, a fancy apartment? He was always clean, his clothes neat. Did he think of what he wanted? A woman, man, animal?
I’d seen the end once. He’d held the woman pinned against the wall, and if I’d not known, I would’ve thought it was a kiss.
When, I got there, the woman clutched him. The muscles in her hands stood out, and her forearms flexed. I didn’t realize how hard she’d gripped him until I saw the tear in his shirt afterwards.
While her body tensed, her face had been slack, not slack really, placid. She looked calm, empty. Her mouth was soft and closed. Her eyes were shut, just shut, not clenched or pained or desperate. Her lips did part once, but I was too far away to hear any sound. It looked like a sigh, a gentle sigh; just like the one I’d made for her.
I realized afterwards that I’d lost track of time. I think it only took a minute, but I don’t know. I watched to see his face, but it hid behind her neck on the far side. The muscles in his throat undulated as he swallowed, but I did not see the eyes or the face that made her look the way she did. So, I watched her.
The flex in her body softened like a sunset. She started as though she was wracked with intense pain. Tendons and muscles rose from her forearms and hands. Her back was pressed against the wall at the shoulders, and her body arched away from it like a bow, but it ebbed bit by bit until she didn’t hold him anymore. Her arms laid over his shoulders then slid off. Her head had pressed into him, as though she was embracing him with her head and neck. The muscles in her neck softened too, and she rested against him. She looked peaceful and asleep. Then she was limp, and he held her.
He’d cradled her neck and laid her down. He brushed his lips over hers then glanced up the alley towards me.
When I was little, I used to sit on the front seat of the bus on the way to school. When it warmed in the spring, the bus driver had this little fan which oscillated back and forth, and at the far edge of its swing, I would get a puff of warm air from it. I would ride home thinking I was special because I stole some of the fan from the bus driver.
When the vampire looked at me, I felt the puff of it. I knew why she’d held him that way. He scanned the alley once more, and I got to feel it again. It was diminishing.
He went up the alley away from me and was gone.
I went up and knelt beside her body. I wished she could tell me if that puff I felt was true. I didn’t want it to be a lie.
Before now, I’d dreamed of the moment she’d experienced. I’d been with people who promised so much of it, but time and experience had revealed that the emotions all came from me. I’d not found the mirror of what I wanted.
It’s insane to envy her, but I do. If that puff wasn’t a lie, I’m willing to be insane.
I didn’t tell the police that I envied her when they arrived.
I thanked Josh and Angeline when I’d finished, and they told me about some special fish or something that was coming in this weekend and that I should try it. I said I would, paid and left.
My cell rang while I was on the way to the car. It was quarter after. Dang.
“Hello Cindy, I’m sorry.”
“I can’t talk right now.”
“Yes, sure. Ok.”
“Stop! I can’t talk right now. Yes, fine. No, I already told you.”
“Ok, thanks for calling.”
The second time I saw him, I’d come prepared. The area around the park has been revitalized or gentrified or whatever the term is now. New shops dotted the street facing the park, and since the streets in this part of town had been laid out when horses made up traffic jams, there wasn’t much parking. So, on warm, weekend nights, there was a pleasant flow of people on the sidewalks with that calm murmur that seems to go along with crowds when they wander after supper.
Fewer people crowded the park side of the street, and I’d stayed there, watching them from benches or just wandering myself. I’d kept my hand around the vial in my pocket to keep it warm.
I didn’t see anything unusual. Couples holding hands drifted past, small groups of women stopped at the shop windows, younger guys disappeared into the comic book shop on the corner.
I don’t know what I expected him to do, but I felt anticipation of something. I returned to the alley where I’d seen it happen, and I leaned against the wall just as I had the night it’d happened. I still could see her even though there was only a metal sign which had fallen from the wall above.
I walked up to the spot, and there was nothing to mark it. No blood, nothing. I reached into my pocket and pulled the rubber stopper out of the vial. I knelt down and dripped a couple drops of my blood onto the asphalt. It glistened against the concrete. Nothing changed. I walked back down the alley.
I returned to the park side of the street and sat on a bench. The crowd continued to wander past. There were fewer people, but there was that same sense of motion in the crowd then I noticed a change.
In front of a wall where people didn’t stop, I noticed that someone did then changed direction back the way he’d come. I continued to scan, and when I returned to the alley, I noticed he’d stopped at the corner of the alley entrance. I stood, checked the traffic and crossed over.
He’d disappeared up the alley when I crossed, and I edged towards it. He walked up to the spot of my blood and squatted down. He looked at it then looked up the length of the alley in both directions. To me, he looked confused before he stood and walked back towards me. I didn’t move.
He saw me when he got to the sidewalk, and he smiled. I returned it, and I imagined a moment of something where he hesitated. He looked ordinary, normal. I might go as far as cute. Then he brushed past and continued up the street. I crossed back to the other side.
I waited for another hour, and I saw nothing except the crowd thinning. The young guys going in and out of the comic book shop still came and went, but everyone else seemed to be heading home. I decided to be one of them.
I pulled the stopper on the vial and poured out the remainder near the entrance to the park. It soaked into the ground on one of the transitions where the grass had been trampled down to bare earth. I headed towards my car.
I felt that brush when I was about halfway. I turned back, and I saw him again. He was standing where I’d poured the vial. He was scanning the crowd. I reached for my keys and walked backwards.
Something in his posture changed when he saw me. He stood taller, and he strode towards me. It was as though he had forgotten himself.
I saw myself pinned against a tree. He was close, almost touching, and there was nothing cute or friendly about him. My throat prickled, and I reached up to wipe away the sensation.
His features had hardened. Every muscle in his face was taut. It sharpened the line of his jaw, pursed his lips so they were soft, and deepened the shadows under his cheeks. I felt the tree against my back and the pricks of the bark in my hair and scalp.
He hadn’t touched me yet, but I couldn’t move. It was the eyes. I don’t remember the color before; they were black now, a glistening black, like a lake at night. The emptiness was there. If I looked, everything would go away; there wouldn’t be work or friends or money. I would be the girl pinned against the brick wall embracing him and wanting even that to disappear.
Then I realized that I’d dropped my keys, and I was standing on the sidewalk with him striding towards me.
His movements seemed automatic, repetitive. The only thing about him which seemed to have something human as a part of it was his face.
I moved faster.
That brush got stronger as he approached, and I held my hand to my throat. I began to see myself on the grass, against walls, sleeping bound to a wall. I turned and began to trot. My face flushed, and my legs seemed to soften. I wanted to stop and wait for him. I reached my car and got inside.
I started it and watched him before putting the car into gear. He’d stopped. My hand came up and pinched a nipple so hard that I winced. I began to knead my breast. He smiled. I smiled back. Then he turned and walked away.
I masturbated for a long time that night, and I fell asleep before any thoughts entered my head.
Since it was a weeknight, there were fewer people about. I’d called Cindy. So, I had about two hours. I left the key to the handcuffs in the car.
A short distance into the park, the lights from the shop fronts were overtaken by the islands of light cast by the scattered lamps along the walking paths.
I made no effort to hide. If he found me now, I wouldn’t resist. I felt ready for it.
I walked like this for about a half hour. I saw no one else. I got no sense of him either.
I went to the far side where I’d found the lamppost with the bulb burned out. I looked up through the trees and could see stars, and looking back across the park, the lights from the street shone through in an indistinct haze. I removed the sage and the abalone shell from the bag, and I latched the handcuffs over one wrist.
I’m a coward. I know that now. I edged up to this moment for weeks, and I pretended that I didn’t. I didn’t think through the fact that every day I take steps where there’s no going back, but I was afraid of this one. So, I lit the sage before I walked back towards the street.
I stopped about half way and leaned against a tree trunk. I slid down and pulled the needle. I grimaced as I did it, but I managed to coax a few drops of blood from my fingertips. There wasn’t much, but it was warm and sticky against my hand.
He appeared on the path a few minutes later. He walked towards me, and I stood. When I could see the blackness of his eyes, he stopped. I sensed nothing from him. I held up my fingertips.
His eyes flicked to my fingertips then back to mine. There was a moment of indecision; he took a step then went still.
Keeping his distance, he moved around me in a circle. He knees bent, and he held his arms down. He was scanning to see if I was alone. His eyes never left mine for more than a few seconds, and that wave was growing. I could see glimpses of myself in him.
I saw myself laid on the grass, looking up at him with empty eyes. My arms were draped over his neck. My face was blank, placid. I was perfectly pale with a faint blue cast over white skin. He was still at my neck. My mind was blank; it felt like a dream. It felt like one of my dreams.
I was seeing myself through his eyes. This is what he wanted. My eyes got heavy, and I felt the fire between my legs. I leaned against the tree.
He smiled.
His arc was closer now, but he continued to scan. I took a step towards the darkened lamp post, and he took a quick step towards me, his entire body tense.
I ran. I made a couple steps before I heard him start after me. I didn’t have far to go, but he was so much faster than me. I believe I saw him from the corner of my eye before I reached the post. I smelled the sage and knew why he’d fallen back. I reached the post and cuffed my wrists together around the post and held on to it. I buried my eyes into my arms and wanted him to fly onto me. I wanted to feel his teeth, but I was afraid to see it. Instead, I heard him hiss.
I peeked, and he was standing just beyond the smoldering sage. He stayed away from the tendrils of smoke as though they were blades. I let myself look at him.
He was no longer gentle or friendly or hard. He was rage. I saw his teeth as he hissed at me, and I saw the eyes unmasked into black, tinged with red. I was terrified. I was just that emotion while he held me. I could not look away. There were tears streaking my face afterwards. I did not feel them.
I saw him coming across and shredding into my neck and feeling the sticky blood run down my shoulder. I wanted him to do it. I might’ve begged him, but I don’t remember. I remember the sense of cold from the post, my naked neck, the size of him compared to me, and how I wanted him to do it.
He stopped pacing and looked at me, and I felt him reach inside of me. I heard the location of the handcuff key, where I’d learned about sage, how I’d dreamed of him, masturbated thinking of him, where I lived, where I worked. He slammed them all away. I closed my eyes at the force of it.
I was whispering when he disappeared. I begged him. He disappeared, and I slumped down to the ground. I was blank. I was alone without him.
My cell phone rang sometime later. I jumped. It rang several times then stopped. A few minutes later, it began to ring again. I twisted around and pulled it from my sweater.
“Hello?”
“Can you come get me?”
“I’m ok. I promise. Nothing happened.”
“Yes, please don’t ask. I’ll tell you if you promise to help me. I promise I’ll tell you when I’m ready.”
“Ok.”
I told her where I was, and she said she was on her way.
My hands started to shake after she hung up. My wrists were raw, and I could feel bruises beginning to form. I dropped the phone and had trouble gathering it in my hands.
Nothing happened, I kept saying to myself. Nothing happened. Nothing happened.
***
Cindy was nice to me. She freed me, and I saw her face react to the state of the skin on my wrists. She held my hands as though they would shatter if she let them go. They were still shaking, and my eyes were still hot from the tears. I leaned on her all the way back to her car.
I noticed that my wrists hurt when we were about halfway home, and I’d stopped shaking. An empty hollow feeling stayed in my muscles, and I had to think of moving them before they would stir in my lap.
I did nothing to stir the calm emptiness in my head. I was floating in the passenger seat. I felt every bump, heard the wind outside the window, and saw the blur of lights. I’d never felt so well. I drifted in a ball where the world moved around its edges, and inside those edges there was only me.
It had cooled outside, and Cindy had the heater running. The warm air breathed onto my feet, and the warmth spread up my legs and over the rest of me. I closed my eyes and turned my face away from Cindy and into the headrest. The fabric had the faintest remnant of new car smell and the scent of her perfume.
I was smiling, and I’d almost fallen asleep when the car stopped.
“Let’s get you inside.”, Cindy said.
I didn’t open my eyes.
“No, I can make it from here.”, I said.
“Honey, I’m really scared. Promise me that you’re ok.”
“I’m ok.”, I breathed, “I just did something stupid.”
And it worked out better than I could have hoped.
“You keep so many secrets. Promise to tell me about this one.”, she said.
“I will. You’re such a good friend.”
I opened the door and stepped outside of the car. My legs felt light, and I drifted to the front door and into my place. I didn’t turn on the lights. I went past my note on the table and into the bedroom. The comforter was soft and cool. I slid off my clothes and slipped under the covers.
My nipples were already hard, and the heat from my crotch had been with me since I’d put on the handcuffs. I started to rub and make slow circles. I may have finished, but I don’t remember whether I fell asleep first or not.
Cindy took me to get my car, and I’d distracted her with gossip from work. It got her talking about things in her own life. She may have noticed how I’d changed the subject after we separated at my car, but she didn’t while we were together.
I made sure that it was well before dark when we got there, and I didn’t linger. I did glance into the park, but even in the day, I couldn’t see the lamppost.
For the next week, the memory of what had happened stayed fresh in my mind. I could remember everything so that I went to sleep every night with the same bliss, without the shaking and tears, as the first night. I’d not slept better since I was a teenager, but after about a week, the edge of the memory had dulled, and I began to fidget.
I stepped out the door on the way to my Italian place when I felt him. I even felt the anger before his hand closed around my throat and slammed me back through my own door.
I landed hard and slid against the carpet. My breath exploded out of me. My vision was blurred as he stepped through and closed the door behind him.
Gasping, I tried to squirm up towards the kitchen, but he stepped to me and knelt beside me. He looked at me again with those red-rimmed, black eyes, and I forgot about breathing.
I stared and my mind emptied. He looked at me with those eyes, and his mouth hung open enough. His fangs extended just longer than normal teeth and ended in fine points, like the edge of a razor blade. My neck tingled, and I turned my head to the right a little and looked at him.
His hand came up, and a finger found my pulse. I swallowed and felt the pressure of it and listened to my heartbeat. The finger turned into a nail, and it scraped from just under my ear around to the hollow at the base of my throat. His opened mouth hardened into a smile. He stood up.
There were no words in his commands. I just rose to my feet. That pleasant limpness from a week before was back. I tried to tell my arms to move, but they were far away. The world disappeared beyond my reach, and I could feel my body, but it wasn’t mine to control. My eyes just followed wherever he guided. He stepped close so that all I could see were those eyes. I wanted him to end it.
The dulled edge of the memory from the previous week was back, but the sense of bliss had gone. The emptiness became lonely. I wanted something to fill the emptiness.
I began to move, and I felt the passenger seat of the car underneath me then heard the door shut. The engine started, and I disappeared.
I roused, and he was there. My body turned and exited the car. It felt cool, but it was dark. He closed a cold hand over mine, and trailed him with my arm as a leash. There was a short walk, and he turned back to me. I saw those eyes then nothing.
I snapped awake. He was there, and his left hand was closed around the throat of a man wearing what looked like a security uniform. The man’s eyes were blank. The vampire gestured, and I went behind the man, never breaking from those eyes.
The vampire bent towards the man’s neck, and those black eyes went drowsy for a flicker. Then the guard sighed, and the vampire’s eyes bored into mine.
The emptiness exploded, and my knees buckled. The vampire lowered the guard down, and made me watch.
My younger sister was born five years after me, and I can remember playing with her as an infant. She would flail at whatever toy we had and giggle with that smile that I loved watching followed by the focus as she tried to swat the ball again. We had such fun, but after a time, she would grow distracted then pensive then she would begin to cry. Nothing I did would help soothe her, and I always had to find our mother.
She would pick my sister up and begin to let my sister nurse. The crying stopped, and she would get quiet. I remember how she looked. Her eyes were placid, and she would often fix on me. I remember jealousy, and I remember feeling helpless. Nothing I could do or think or say would ever satisfy her or soothe her that way.
The vampire looked at me the same way. He made me watch him feed, and I remembered offering my throat to those fangs which would pierce then let the blood flow into him. He taunted me with it. I heard his mind laugh, and I could not turn away.
I didn’t notice that guard slip from the vampire’s grasp, but I noticed that the guard was gone, and the vampire was embracing me with a line of blood at the corner of his mouth.
I went to it, and I touched it with the tip of my tongue.
Hot pleasure sizzled along the length of my tongue, and I cried out. The vampire held me from falling, and I returned the embrace. I attacked the vampire’s mouth with ferocity. I was trembling with wave upon wave.
His tongue guided mine to the tip of a fang, and I pressed into it and felt my own blood well up and mix with what was in his mouth. I went black, but he still held me when I awoke. Orgasm upon orgasm racked through me, and he held my mouth against his so I couldn’t breathe, and I passed out a second time.
I was gasping with my head lolled back when I awoke this time, and he looked like he was laughing before I attacked his mouth again, my tongue snaking inside his for any remnants of blood.
I forgot everything else, and I went black a third time.
When I awoke, I was laid against a chain link fence. The body of the guard was close, and he was cold to the touch. My hand went to my neck, but it was untouched.
The thought of what had happened made my body spasm with an orgasm, and I leaned back as my body rebelled with cramps in my legs. It took a long while before I could stand.
My car was close by, and the keys were in the ignition. I closed the door and drove home as the sun began to rise.
I waited and was ready for him to appear again the next night, and I was ready the night after that and the night after that. He did not appear.
It took several days after that before I noticed that I wanted to taste his blood again. It began with images which would appear. I would be at work, and I would see the drop of blood at the corner of his mouth, and I would gasp. That grew until I lost moments and found myself rubbing my thighs together thinking of that hot burn of blood on my tongue.
He still had not come for me two weeks later when I was not able to sleep without a languid hour with my hands on my body and fantasies of him coming to me in the middle of the night to make me share my blood with him then force me to taste my blood in his mouth.
There were few other thoughts in my head when I drove to the park the next night. He was waiting for me, and I welcomed the emptiness and how he pulled me to him without any words. He closed an arm over my shoulder, and my eyes rose to the path along the river.
A young woman strolled. She stopped every so often to check her watch. The vampire made no move towards her, and I looked up to him. I could not see it, but he was warm, and I felt that I could smell the blood on him. I rose on my toes to kiss, but he pushed me back down and smiled.
We walked together towards the woman, and she smiled at us. The vampire broke away from me, and I felt hot as her face went blank. The vampire went behind her. His eyes were sharp and cold as his fangs pierced her neck. The woman’s eyes went dreamy, and she fell against him. He watched me with those same eyes, and after a moment, he released her. She slipped down, and I went to him.
She was different, softer on his tongue. I didn’t care. I pricked my own tongue on his fang and shook with the mix of sensations. His grasp was firm, but he did not support me as before. I clutched him and tasted it until I became aware of the sound far away.
He pushed me away, and I felt as though I were waking up. He was kneeling, and the woman was on the ground. She looked at me with terror in her eyes, and she held her hand to her throat. I felt dizzy.
“Please.”, she hissed.
I looked up at him, and his face mocked me. The dark quiet of his eyes was gone, and the softness of my mind vanished.
He lifted her and walked her to me, laying her against me. She was crying. The vampire stepped away.
She could still walk, but she could not maintain her balance. I held her and whispered something. I noticed the blood dribbling from her neck.
We took a number of steps before I ran a finger over the blood and put it to my tongue. The taste of her was a hundredfold more intense than in his mouth, and I tumbled onto the grass. She fell on top of me. I laid her over on her back, and I could feel her heart pounding. The after images of pleasure still echoed through my body and head, and I heard her pleading. I didn’t see anything but the blood.
She tried to roll away, and I held her back with little effort. She looked up at me, and I saw the terror in her eyes through the haze of her taste in me. Her frantic eyes softened a touch, and her body lost the barest bit of tension. I leaned over and lapped at the blood, and I felt her arms push against me then wrap around me.
The emptiness of his gaze filled with color and sound and pleasure. The world was far away again, but inside was a universe where everything touched me with the right pressure and moved with perfect grace. I felt my arms close around her in answer to hers, and I let the slow flow of blood come as it wanted without trying to draw it out of her.
This moment shattered, and I was tossed aside. The vampire fell upon her, and she was dead in a moment. I wanted to fly at him, but his eyes caught me, and I went blank. I felt him kiss me, and it was pleasant and very nice. It made me want to cry.
He disappeared, and I sprinted away without looking at the woman.
He came to my apartment a week later. I’d not been able to work for several days. Every sensation was cushioned and dead. Even the taste of my own blood had the same richness as water.
He did not mesmerize or touch my mind, and I followed him out.
We entered the park together and went to the back. I could see the shadow of the darkened lamppost, and I wondered what he was thinking.
Before I could see, he closed his arms around me and pressed me back against a tree. I cried when his fangs ripped into my throat, but everything after was bliss. I held him and clawed at him, all the sensations exploding through my body. I pressed into him with all my strength and orgasmed several times until I felt myself begin to ebb.
His arms were strong as my strength disappeared. I didn’t worry about holding him any longer, and the explosions were fading into quiet.
He pulled away, and I looked at him with drowsed eyes. He leaned down and kissed me. I tasted my blood. I tasted good, and I purred. I felt some strength return, and he broke the kiss and took my hand.
Guiding my fingertips up to my mouth, I felt the sharp prick of my fang on my fingertip. He guided my finger to all four before he pulled me up onto my feet.
I had trouble walking, but he helped me. I saw what was at the lamppost now. I found strength and walked the rest of the way on my own.
“I’ve kept many secrets from you.”, I said.
“Please.”, Cindy said.
She was calm when she saw my eyes, and I knew what she wanted. I turned her head so that the veins stood out and leaned in.
I didn’t notice the skin break. The flow started right away, and even though she was handcuffed, she grasped at me. I embraced her. She would need my support.