TheVampireandtheMouse (4 page)

Six months. Six months with Ben, six months with my vampire
lover, six months since my rebirth.

Outwardly, not much has changed. I go to work the same every
day, and I return home every day. Only now instead of spending my nights alone,
I meet with my nighttime lover. I sit at my desk and I smile to myself as I
think of him, of the things we’ll do later, of the things he says to me. “I can
change you, whenever you’re ready,” he says all the time. “I can change you
into a vampire and we can be together forever. We can go wherever we want and
do anything we want. Just tell me where you want to go, what you want to do,
who you want to be. I don’t care, as long as I’m with you.”

I’ve told him that I’m not ready yet, not ready to abandon
my human life for one without sunlight. He understands. He tells me it’s hard
in the beginning, but I’ll get used to the idea. But the truth is there’s
another idea I’m still getting used to. I’m an
office mouse
, still,
without question. Just look at me, as I sit at my desk, scribbling my notes or
typing on the computer, answering the phone in my timid little voice. My legs
sometimes not touching the floor if the chair is adjusted wrong. People saying,
Oh I didn’t see you there
. Scuttling from my desk to the kitchen for a
cup of tea, unnoticed by everyone. Yes, I’m still the office mouse. But now I
have a second life, an alter ego, a secret identity (but I’m no superhero!). My
lover is a vampire. How am I supposed to get used to that? He wants to change
me, but he doesn’t realize I’m already changed.

I look around the office and see all the familiar faces, all
the people I don’t really know and never will know. Legs and Panda Eyes on the
phone. The Princess sitting, straight-backed, in her desk chair, typing away at
her computer. Goggles walking by, fiddling with his glasses, always fiddling
with his glasses. Bin Breath carrying a cup of tea across the office. I wonder:
How much can they know about me? How much can I know about them?
Considering what I’ve kept secret, a murder, a vampire lover, what secrets
could they hold? Maybe Goggles is a meth-cook. Maybe Bin Breath is a
gravedigger. Maybe The Princess is a computer programmer in training. Maybe Panda
Eyes is a hit-woman or an ex-con. Maybe Legs is an online gamer. All guesses,
all absurd, and yet
my
situation is absurd. You just never know what’s
lurking behind a person’s outward face, the face they choose to show you.

I’m with you, in your office. I’m sitting across from you,
small, unassuming, but I’ve got a dark, beautiful secret. I’m a killer, my
lover is a killer, and at night we make love and we watch the stars stare down
and we imagine they’re watching us, and in the day I close my eyes and hear his
voice. “I love you,” he says.

“I love you too.”

“What?” The Princess asks, stopping her typing for a moment.

“Nothing,” I reply, smiling. “Just reading the report out loud.”

She looks down. She doesn’t know. I take another look
around. None of them knows.

Imagine if they did…

I can hear them now—

“The office mouse is fucking a vampire…”

“I heard they were in love…”

“And she
killed
a man…”

“But she’s so small…”

“I didn’t think she had it in her…”

Robin Stark is a writer of erotica and romance. He lives in
Weston-super-Mare, England, with his wife.

Robin welcomes comments from readers. You can find his
website and email addresses on his
author
bio page
at
www.ellorascave.com
.

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The Vampire and the Mouse

ISBN 9781419993770

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Vampire and the Mouse Copyright © 2015 Robin Stark

Edited by Susan Edwards

Cover design by Allyse Leodra

Cover photography by Shutterstock

Electronic book publication March 2015

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