Chapter 6: Survival

"It is not death, but dying, which is terrible." – Henry Fielding

I dreamt. Everyday, sleeping in the cool dark with Angela to hold me, I was dead. And yet I dreamed. And that my dreams were bad I had little doubt, but I could never remember them. They were small snippets and fragments, all jumbled together in one confused memory. And even that much was quickly forgotten as well.

But just knowing that I had them troubled me greatly. I thought there must be some meaning there, as Angela had divined me from her own dreams. She'd sought and found me, guided by the subconscious yearnings of her heart. Couldn't mine be just as profound?

"You should forget them," Angela told me.

We were in Portland, hunting, and it was early, a mere hour after sunset, and we walked near the river as it moved through the heart of the city.

"I want to remember them," I said, holding her hand as we moved through a small park.

"It's your constant worrying that brings them," Angela told me gently.

"Maybe," I shrugged. "I'm going to go up that way."

I looked up a street, knowing it led to an older part of town, a cheap and small red light district of sorts, with strip clubs and porn arcades. It was where I felt most comfortable and Angela understood that. We only rarely hunted together now. She preferred men when it came to killing, but I liked to prey on the same women who were preying on me.

"I'll find you." She kissed me on the lips, brushing some of my blonde hair from my eyes. "I love you, Lisa."

"I know." I smiled, just for her, but I wanted her to understand me, how I needed to know what it was I saw in my sleep.

I'd dressed like a tomboy, which seemed natural for me. It was me all over. My scuffed boots, frayed jeans and the small t-shirt I wore, with a faded Dickie's logo over my smallish breasts. I had Audrey's jacket, the suede one with tassels on the sleeves, and that was all. My blonde hair was loose and it had grown uneven beneath my shoulders. I had a little makeup, but not much, although I'd gotten pretty good at fixing myself without a mirror. It wasn't terribly hard once you got used to it, just annoying.

I didn't feel particularly hungry, mostly I felt ... Bored, I guess. It was sort of boring being a vampire. I mean, the hunting was fun, I enjoyed it a lot. And Audrey was still alive, a month after I'd found her. I didn't even keep her locked up anymore, but only because she was broken. She was like a dog that's been whipped too long too often, so that all she knew how to do was suffer for me.

Audrey cried a lot. Even when we made love, the woman wept and I wondered what I'd done wrong.

I pushed her out of my mind, walking the street aimlessly, seeing people I recognized. Not by face or name, but by type. The addicts and pushers and old whores and faggots cruising. I knew them all and I had an urge to fix, to score some heroine and jack myself up, but it wouldn't do anything. I was immune to that stuff now. More proof of how boring being a vampire could be. I couldn't even get high.

There was a bar and I knew immediately it was gay, a lesbian bar. I could close my eyes and smell those girls, smell their ripe cunts through the door every time it opened. I could hear the desperate voices in their heads, like a flock of birds fighting over scraps of dead meat. I walked across the street, giggling as a car almost hit me, would have hit me if I weren't so quick, so agile. I could have leaped over it if I'd wanted, or maybe let it hit me and bounced thirty feet, only to get up and dust myself off. I hadn't tried that yet, but I was stronger now, and getting stronger all the time, learning what I could do and what I couldn't.

I was growing, but I was just fifteen too. I'd always be just fifteen, always a little girl, even when I was a hundred or a thousand years old. I didn't know if I should be happy or sad about that and my opinion changed with my mood.

"Where do you think you're going?" a woman stopped me, dark and heavy, sitting by the door and collecting the cover.

"Inside," I smiled at her, looking into her eyes. I didn't even need to touch her and I was getting very good with that particular trick. "It's okay."

"Okay," she nodded with me and smiled, turning her head to look down as I walked away, into the bar.

"May the force be with you," I said softly, giggling a little. My mood lightened considerable as soon as I was inside. I always felt better in places like that, around people like me, which they were.

I was a lesbian, broke and lonely and just looking for attention, for just an hour, or a night or whatever I could get. And all these people were the same, desperate and longing. It was the part of town where people drank beer from bottles, and dropped quarters on a pool table, and gave head to each other in the bathrooms. Survival of the fittest and this was it for me. I was home.

"Hey, sweetie." An old dyke, in her fifties maybe, smiled at me and I just walked by.

I saw the woman I wanted, just as a dozen had probably decided they wanted me, maybe more than that because it was crowded and I was so young. They hit on me and I shook my head or walked away, or gave them a quick look before saying no. And I watched the one I wanted.

She looked maybe twenty-eight at the most and she reminded me of Angela, with her soft brown hair and tight, compressed smile. She was playing pool with her girlfriend, or her wanna-be girlfriend anyway, who was touching her hip, and caressing her shoulder. My girl was wearing a men's dress shirt, one of those button down collar kind that belong under a suit, blue pinstripes and the cuffs rolled up neatly. It hung around her smooth hips and the bell bottom jeans she wore, tight in the thighs and loose around her feet.

She was beautiful to me, like Angela, if Angela had been alive. It was that part of her I found so attractive, the life in her eyes, her smile and the way she moved, like dancing back and forth around the table. In and out of her girlfriend's reach, teasing the woman. It made me smile too and I walked around the bar, just watching her. I felt content with that for the moment and it was a real pleasure, my first in many days. Watching someone live.

"Cath..." a woman grabbed my arm, turning me. "Oh, you're not Cathy," she giggled a little drunkenly. "You're better than Cathy. Can I buy you a drink?"

She was tall and blonde, with nice tits in a low cut sweater, and they were pleading for a nibble. Maybe twenty-one, barely old enough to get in probably, and she had her own eyes following her because she was so precious and pretty.

"Let's dance," I said, looking up slightly, because she was just a few inches taller than me.

"Sure," the girl smiled, putting her mostly empty drink on someone else's table, and we danced along with twenty other people, crowded and sweating on the small bit of hardwood floor in the middle of the place.

There wasn't any band, just a jukebox, and so we were moving at the mercy of someone else's dime, but that was okay. Some Chili Peppers were playing, and then some old hard Nirvana, so we jumped and laughed, did a little slamming in the pit that opened up. I took an elbow to my jaw, but I barely noticed; it was fun. I hadn't danced like that in forever and finally a slow song played, some old Pumpkins, Adore, and I felt Blondie's hands on me.

We moved together and I rubbed her ass while she held my shoulders. She was seriously femme, a little girl in disguise, and I was a dyke who looked like a little girl. We might have been perfect for each other in a different life, but I had my eyes on my darling by the pool table. She was making out, just a little with her daddy, and I felt myself growing warm watching the two girls kiss.

"What's your name?" The blonde had her mouth on my ear and her breasts pressed against mine as we moved together.

"Lisa."

"I'm Hillary." She licked my ear with the tip of her tongue. "You're pretty hot. I haven't seen you here before."

"I just got into town." I slipped my hands down to the hem of her skirt, a tight black one, like fake leather, and I stroked the back of Hillary's thighs, lifting it with my fingers.

"You go to school?" She started rubbing my back and I had her skirt up to her ass practically, feeling the soft creases in Hillary's flesh, at the places where her ass and thighs met. I was exposing the girl for anyone who cared to look and a lot of women did.

"Not anymore," I laughed softly and turned my face so she could kiss me. She was hot for it now, ready and wanting. Hillary didn't even care what I was doing with her skirt, if anything she liked it as much as I did. We liked breaking hearts, I thought.

"You want to go to my place?" Hillary asked, her lips against mine, speaking into my open mouth as I played my tongue along her teeth.

"I have a girlfriend." I reached Hillary's ass, finding the firm round globes with my hands and squeezing her, pulling her against me.

"Is she here?" Hillary was breathing harder.

"Yeah." I slipped a finger into the crack of her ass, feeling the tight, thin back of her thong as it ran over her anus and up.

"I don't care." Hillary kissed me hard as if to prove it, pressing her tongue into my waiting mouth while I fingered her exposed ass, keeping her skirt high around her waist as we danced slowly.

"Hey get a room or something," a waitress said, carrying a tray full of empties. "Can't do that stuff in here."

"Yeah," I licked my lips, looking back over my shoulder at the girl I really wanted, laughing with her lover across the bar. "Fuck her. Let's go."

Hillary's place wasn't far at all, just around the corner and a few blocks up, a cheap hostel and the front desk was empty, so it wasn't any big deal getting me upstairs. Not that it would have been anyway.

"I'm just staying here til I find my own place, you know?" Hillary liked to talk. "I go to art school, graphic design. I do a lot of logos and stuff, you know, just to make money. I do watercolors too though..."

I was just quiet, following her ass up the narrow stairs, undecided if I was going kill the girl, or just fuck her. Hillary fumbled with her key for a second and I rubbed her sides, playing with her while she giggled, telling me how nice that felt.

Hillary hit the light switch, turning on an old yellowish ceiling light, and inside her room was small, with little more than a narrow bed and a half-sized dresser for furnishings. She had some bags piled up in a corner, some art stuff there, a cheap leather case, like artists carry their paint and brushes and stuff in. A little laptop computer. It was all ordinary and boring and we were just there for each other anyway.

As soon as we were inside, I threw my jacket on the bed, and after Hillary closed the door, we were kissing. She was good at it and I brought my hands to Hillary's body, kneading her firm full tits as I sucked her tongue. I pulled her top off and she was undoing my jeans at the same time, watching my face, smiling at me. Then we switched, I unzipped her skirt while she pulled my t-shirt over my head, so she was in her black thong and I was in my little pink panties.

"Jesus," Hillary giggled, looking at my body in the dim light. "How old are you?"

"Fifteen," I smiled at her. "That okay for you?" I pushed my narrow hips out, my flat stomach and the soft round swell of my pussy under my panties.

"Yeah," she nodded slowly. "I like fifteen."

"Take off my panties," I told her. "No, down on your knees ... do it nice."

I wasn't playing any tricks on her, no magic. I didn't need it with this woman, Hillary wanted a girl in charge and my tomboy looks were what she liked and now she'd like my dyke attitude as well. Taking orders from a girl, a kid like me, that would be fine with her, I could sense it.

"Okay," Hillary nodded. "Should I take off my..."

"No. I like it." I stood there waiting and when she was on the floor, I put my hands in her soft blonde hair, pulling her mouth to my cunt as she edged my panties down slowly.

"Mmmm ... Yeah, suck my cunt now. You like it don't you? Little cunt sucker..." I whispered as I felt my temperature rising.

"Yesss..." Hillary breathed, working her mouth over my little clit, licking at my slit, kissing the soft thin patch of hair at the top.

"Fuck me ... Use your tongue, Hill ... Fuck my pussy, you little slut..." I was bending my knees, arching my back and when the woman stiffened her tongue and pushed between my puffy lips, I sighed with pleasure.

She really worked my pussy nicely. Hillary, the art school girl, holding onto my thighs with her warm hands, squeezing me as she licked my little hole. Down on her knees for me like she belonged there, a little submissive slut, the way I used to be for soccer moms and closet dykes with limp dick husbands. She's what I might have been in a few years, after a few breaks. Maybe.

"I'm going to piss..." I told her, holding her mouth to my cunt and she tried to pull away.

"No, I'm not into..." Hillary started protesting.