Enchanted Dreams (14 page)

I had no idea what effect my vampire blood would have on him. I would have to wait to find out. In a maneuver so quick I hardly knew what was happening, he threw me beneath him and took me again—solely lovemaking this time—with a wild abandon that I had not seen in him since our very first night together.

Later, while I looked on nervously, he paced the floor. He was wild with energy and excitement. Every now and again he would stop and look at me.

"Are you sure you're all right?" he'd ask.

"For the hundredth time, I feel fine," I assured him. "I'm no more affected than if I'd given blood."

"Amazing!" he reiterated again. For all my bravado, I was excited, too. If we could exist like this, feeding off each other every few days, it would negate the need to kill.

"But what about you?" I asked. "Do you think it will suffice?"

"Suffice? Suffice?" he nearly yelled. "I feel like a god!" He threw his arms out and let out a yell. Mostly, I think, he was as happy as I was at the prospect of never again having to kill.

And as it turns out, vampires fare even
better
on vampire blood than human blood.

Oh, and becoming a vampire does cure leukemia.

Seeing the result—she had known it all along, really, and feared it from the very first—so conclusively displayed in the little plastic window instantly transformed her fear into a concrete, vigorous horror so powerful that it struck her like a physical blow. The implications jarred her to the core, shattering her reserve and opening a whole new dimension of potential terror. Her life suddenly yawned out before her in a vast expanse of dread and uncertainty. She knew now that there was no stopping the terrors that awaited.

But in spite of this, there was, at least, no doubt over what to do. There was only one thing she could do. That was the principal horror, really, that what she must do was the only certainty she had at the moment. Intensifying that principal horror was all the years of striving for this end, only to have no choice in the matter now. And of course, there was the horror of not really knowing for sure (although she
knew
). And all of this was compounded by the biggest horror of all, which was the unbearable waiting. She could feel her anxiety growing as rapidly as
it
was growing. With each day that passed while she waited in secret, she felt she was losing a little more control, and this left Emilie feeling more and more helpless and afraid.

It had been only six days since the event, but Emilie felt as if she had suffered the trauma of six years.

In the meantime, her feelings for David had completely changed. A wide gulf had developed between them, in spite of the short time elapsed. It had begun with a kind of shattering fracture at the time of the incident and expanded with each and every moment Emilie spent trying to hide it from him. Her efforts to keep it hidden seemed to push David further and further away, just as his attempts at discovery increased her own need for secrecy. This was not something a person could speak about freely with anyone, but with David in particular, it was impossible! Emilie knew this because she had been just like David once. But now, the man who had up until six days ago been her soul mate, had become someone she couldn't relate to at all. He was foreign to her. The characteristics she had formerly admired in him now seemed terribly annoying.

This sense of disillusionment was magnified during intimacy. It had become torture for Emilie to endure her husband's touch. Guilt-ridden and terrified of exposure, she forced herself to go through the motions because, although they had been married for eight years, they were still in the habit of making love nearly every night. But it was exhaustive for her and extremely difficult. Worst of all, sex with David triggered memories that she spent every waking hour trying to erase, for with the memories came strange yearnings that still mortified her. Those yearnings, above all, she must rid herself of. They were disturbing and offensive—as disturbing and offensive as the overpowering taste of metal that accompanied them.

But in spite of her best efforts to forget—or perhaps because of them—the memories reemerged in Emilie's dreams. The dreams she could not control, and sleeping became a kind of torment. They were always the same, so that for all their perverse peculiarity they were inevitably becoming more and more familiar—and perhaps even a bit more acceptable—to her.

Sometimes the dreams were fleeting and distant and at other times a single detail seemed to encompass an entire night. The images in particular were vivid and moved her greatly. Her body would shudder and jerk from the force of them. All of her senses, deadened as they were throughout her stilted days, seemed to suddenly come alive once she drifted into unconsciousness, so that to simply close her eyes could sometimes cause the hairs to rise up all along her sensitive flesh, and instigate the taste buds at the back of her tongue to rise up and alert her to the pungent taste of metal.

As the dreams crept over her—or
into
her, as it seemed more like to Emilie—she would at first feel fear. But with each consecutive dream the fear would become steadily surpassed by an unwelcome yet overpowering sense of longing and expectation. It was as if the dreams were answering a call that Emilie herself had sent out. The darkness would suddenly become infused with a light so intense that Emilie could actually feel the heat of it warming her skin. Her heart would skitter wildly in response to the rush of adrenaline that flooded her system in preparation of what was to come. Soon the adrenaline had its effect and, temporarily sedated, Emilie would wait breathlessly for what was to follow. She knew that no matter how many times she relived it, each and every detail would still have the power to shock her. She could never be fully prepared for the creeping, slithering, clinging feel of them, weighty and slick as they moved sluggishly over her. The intrusiveness of their touch, so all at once eerie and repulsive, caused all of her senses to come startlingly alert. Unable to do more than to simply lie back and observe in those first frozen moments, she would be trapped in a sea of sensation that thrust her to and fro, shifting through shock, fear, agitation and arousal.

In her dreams, just as during the actual event itself, Emilie's vision was always impaired by intensely bright light. But even so, she could still make out their tall, gray shapes looming over her, and particularly the shiny, black orbs from which they appeared to observe her. She would stare up into those dark depths—into seeming nothingness—uncomprehendingly, mildly aware that something was being communicated to her but grasping little more than that it was having a paralyzing effect on her.

Their silent communication was not the only influence with which they were capable of subduing her. They also, in their slow, pervasive way, steadily enveloped her within their tentacles—so many tentacles—all of them contracting and pulsing as they enclosed themselves around her limbs in an effort to hold her. The tentacles, which appeared to be shapeless masses at first, were actually powerful and vigorous instruments beneath their oily surface, able to hold and subdue her with the same unyielding force of a boa constrictor. And just as with the boa, any movement at all would cause the tentacle to constrict. Emilie could not keep herself from shuddering in response when the tentacles tightened around her, even though she knew it would cause them to tighten even more. A kind of panic would build up in her—not born of fear but of frustration—and at last she would attempt to grasp hold of them. She felt that they were closing in on her but she couldn't actually reach them. When the frustration became too much for her, she would begin to struggle and thrash about in her effort to hold them. But in her panic she would feel herself getting farther and farther away from them. Even the light seemed to slowly get dimmer. Then she would cry out for them to come back. She would scream and struggle and grasp at them until she jerked herself right out of her dream and beyond their reach. She would awaken with a jolt, and in the next instant find David close beside her, shushing her and pulling her close in an attempt to comfort her. Trembling violently, Emilie would shrink away from his touch with revulsion. His warmth, his caress, his soothing voice—even the comfort he offered—to Emilie, seemed
alien.

The memories of her dreams made her afraid. But ignoring them left her emotionally destitute. What did anything matter?

During her waking hours, Emilie began brooding continually over what she had to do, even as she continued to do nothing. She worried over the right time to act. It seemed to her that whatever it was inside her was growing at an unusually rapid pace. There were times when she believed she could actually feel it getting larger. What if the right time, by human standards, was too late?

Terrifying thoughts and images troubled her day and night. But she was reluctant to contact a doctor. What if he discovered the truth about what was inside her? What would happen to her then?

The days ticked by slowly in a haze of mortification and dread. Emilie continued to withdraw into herself in an attempt to avoid confrontation. At all costs, she must hide the fact that anything was amiss. But in spite of her efforts, she had the sense that she was standing out like a sore thumb. Her silence seemed stilted and awkward. Her attempts at conversation seemed forced and contrived. She felt that action and inaction alike came out like a scream for help.

"What the hell's going on with you?" Ironically, it was her mother, the person she had always been the most distant from—the person who Emilie always felt knew her the least—who first noticed that something was wrong.

"What do you mean?" Emilie asked, feeling a disconcerting mixture of alarm and hope. In that instant, the thought of someone sharing her secret seemed all at once comforting and terrifying.

But then, in the next instant, the hope dissolved and there was only alarm. She knew she could never let her mother know about this. And yet, she wondered what it was the woman perceived.

"You're like a vampire lately," her mother went on. "Even more than usual. All secretive and spooky. You never were the most forthcoming of my children, but lately it's like you're hiding a deep, dark secret. Is he abusing you?"

"Mother…no! God, why do you always jump to conclusions like that? You know perfectly well that David doesn't abuse me." Emilie was immediately annoyed—which was a relief in her present state of mind. She realized then that she would rather almost anyone discover her secret other than her mother, who would never listen to reason because she preferred to make the most ridiculous assumptions.

"Well, that's a matter of opinion," her mother continued, undaunted. "Ever since you married him you've become more and more introverted and withdrawn. You've been living like hermits! And now, since you got back from the cruise, you've been like a different person altogether. Each time he gets you all to himself, it seems like he destroys another little piece of you."

"I live how I want, Mother. I wish you would give that a rest!" An old resentment flared up in her and Emilie suddenly had the urge to defend David. She imagined, just for kicks, blurting out the truth to her mother, if only to prove her wrong for once. That would set her back for a few minutes.

"Well, what is it, then? Even your sisters have noticed that something's not right with you."

So! Her sisters had discussed her with their mother! It must be obvious that something was wrong with Emilie for them to have gone to their mother. She felt the panic attack welling up inside her.

"I have to go, Mother." Emilie hung up the phone without waiting for her to reply.

Emilie suddenly felt as if she were encased in a glass tomb, visible to the world around her but unbearably isolated from it. She longed for support but was terrified of exposure. Anyway, she knew that support would not be forthcoming in her case. To begin with, she would never be believed. The truth about what happened would be neither heard nor comprehended. People were not inclined toward the truth because they were adverse to listening. Anything that startled, frightened or disgusted was rejected almost immediately and substituted with conclusions—scathing, condescending, ostracizing conclusions that built a wall around the source of truth in an effort to protect others from what they feared most. Emilie would get little opportunity to explain anything before everyone would be lost to their conclusions about
her
, without a thought for what actually had happened.

But in the meantime, her situation was getting worse. There was something she couldn't explain growing inside her! She was suddenly in a full panic. She swallowed two of her little blue pills and then concentrated on her breathing while she waited for them to take effect.

Talking to her mother caused her thoughts to turn to David. Everyone had come to the conclusion that he was controlling, simply because Emilie had become more reclusive since she met him. What nobody seemed to realize was that Emilie was the one who had instigated that isolation. She simply hadn't wanted to be with anyone but David since falling in love with him. She had needed only him. He was like an extension of herself, they were so much alike. They understood each other perfectly. No matter how many hours they had spent together, it was never too much. Indeed, it didn't seem long enough. They could talk for hours on end without ever running out of things to say. It was a delight to find someone so much like her and to feel so understood. She used to believe she could tell David anything. But since the cruise, he seemed different, changed. Yet she knew that she was the one who had changed. But what did it matter? She could no longer relate to him in the same way she had before. How could she? There was this huge thing between them now that they could never talk about. David would never be able to sympathize with her in this. She knew this because she would not have been able to sympathize with him if the situation were reversed.