Chapter 13

The air around Jake's face felt too cool. He kept his eyes closed, not wanting to wake Béla as she slept next to him. The piercing cry of a faraway hunting bird snapped his mind awake.

Then he remembered that he was alone, cast out of his house by Béla and camping on the desert mesa where she had revealed her vampiric secrets to him a century earlier. He moaned, almost under his breath, not wanting to get up and face a day without her.

A sigh from close by caused Jake to open his eyes. They focused on Béla, sitting quietly in the tent with him. She'd been watching him sleep. He looked closer. She'd been crying.

"Hi, babe," Jake said quietly. "I'm sorry. Can you forgive me?" He could see she was upset. Plus, she didn't answer him. 'Wow! She's really ticked off at me this time!'

While neither Béla nor Jake had paid much attention to the idea that two people could be sexually faithful to each other for centuries at a time, this was the first time that he had ever asked her if he could move someone in with them. He'd thought of using Beth as a defense, since Beth and Béla had been lovers. But he'd fucked Beth, too. And, from what he understood, they were stepsisters or something, so that made her 'family.' And besides, using Béla's sister as an excuse seemed rather unfair, now that she was dead.

"Listen, um," Jake began. "If you don't want to let Foxy move in..."

Béla held up her hand, stopping him. She shook her head sadly; her eyes beginning to tear again.

"Oh, no," Jake murmured, realizing what Béla didn't want to tell him.

Foxy was dead.

After a moment, Jake looked up at Béla, questions in his eyes. She didn't wait for him to ask.

"They arrested her ... boyfriend ... a couple of hours ago," she told him quietly. "But he may not be prosecuted. It isn't illegal to murder someone who agrees to be killed."

Jake slumped. "She's been waiting for someone to kill her for a long time, I guess. I just didn't see it."

"Wish her better luck next time," Béla said quietly, gazing at the tent wall, her eyes not focusing on anything.

"What?" Jake asked, confused.

"Never mind. It isn't important," she said. 'Not to Foxy ... Not anymore... '

They sat quietly in the tent for a time. Then Jake spoke. "Who's watching Lisa?" he asked.

"Alicia," Béla said simply.

Jake frowned, not particularly caring to have Alicia in the same house as Béla, or his daughter. Béla picked up his thought and decided to comment on it, rather than reach in, yet again, and fix the way his mind didn't quite work right. She was tired of always fixing him.

"The only reason you don't like Alicia is because she had children from you before I did." Béla said, sounding cold and distant. 'There! It's out in the open! Let him stew on that for a while!'

Jake looked at her, not believing what she just said. He felt his anger start to rise. "I hated Alicia because she was alive when you were dead!" Jake declared. "I wanted her! But she didn't measure up to you. Nobody ever measured up to you! Even dead, you ruined any possibility that I could be happy with anyone else!

"And there were several that tried!"

Then Béla was in his arms, crying into the top of the sleeping bag that had bunched up on his shoulder when she'd reached for him.

'I'm sorry! I'm sorry!' she thought anxiously into his head. 'Please forgive me! I love you so much that I just don't think straight when it comes to you!'

Jake smiled to himself and hugged her tightly, enjoying how good it felt to have her in his arms, again.

After a moment, she sat up. "I would give you anything, if I could, even Foxy, if she was who you wanted."

"Instead of you, you mean?" Jake asked, wiping a wet streak off her face. "I'm not really looking to replace you, you know." He kissed her gently. They lay quietly in each other's arms for several minutes. The hunting bird cried out again. It seemed closer. Béla sighed.

"What is it?" Jake asked.

"I was just thinking," she admitted. "I'd like to fly."

"But you can fly," Jake replied, not understanding.

"No, goof ball," Béla said. Then she clarified what she meant. "I'd like to fly – now!"

"Oh!" replied Jake. They started to untangle themselves from each other and get up. Then Jake stopped. "Can I undress you?" he asked.

"What?" Béla asked, caught off guard. "Why?"

"Well, 'cause I like to take your clothes off," he answered, the grin feeling strange on his face after their upset.

"I usually just teleport out of them, for flying," she told him.

He just looked at her.

"Oh, alright!" Béla conceded, giving in to his wishes. She rolled her eyes away from him, pretending she didn't care if he touched her or not as he began unbuttoning her blouse.

Two minutes later, they were rolling on top of his sleeping bag and she wasn't pretending anymore. Her little nipples were hard as erasers from his tender mauling and his teeth. They took turns shoving their tongues into each other's mouths, first Jake, then Béla, then Jake again.

She unbuttoned his shirt, one button at a time with her left hand. Then she trailed her fingers down his chest and stomach. He was wearing a tight pair of jeans. She tried, without looking down, to unfasten them with one hand. As it became increasingly frustrating, she had to stop kissing him to see what she was doing wrong.

"Relax, girl," Jake admonished her. "I have to go piss anyway." He started to get up. Béla's hand on his stomach stopped him.

"What now?" he asked. He looked at her face. She seemed uncertain about something. Then she moved her hand and let him get up.

"I'll come with you," she suggested, starting to get up with him.

"What? Don't be silly!" Jake said, chastising her. Then he stopped dead in his tracks, realizing what she wanted. "No! Absolutely not!" he declared. He turned to leave the tent.

Béla grabbed his arm. "I don't want to drink it! I just want to ... know ... what it feels like." She swallowed nervously. "Inside me."

"Inside you?" Jake asked, not believing her.

Béla nodded, still feeling nervous about even asking. She couldn't quite meet his eyes as he stared at her, trying to figure her out, yet again.

"No!" Jake said, turning away from her.

"Why not?" she pleaded. "You've done everything else to me! What not that?"

"Because!" Jake offered angrily. He walked away from her again, then undid the front of his jeans. Béla caught up and stood in front of him, then dropped to her knees. He glared down at her, thinking that perhaps he should just cut loose on her as she knelt there in front of him.

Béla gazed up at him. "You've beat me, you've chained me up. You've stabbed me and shot me. You've fucked me in the ass, then stuck your shit-covered dick in my mouth. And I loved it all! Why do you think I won't love this?"

Jake turned away, deciding to pee in another direction.

"You did it to her!" Béla cried out in anguish. "Why won't you do it to me?"

"What?" Jake asked, disbelieving her again. "Is that what this is about? Foxy's dead! Don't let her come between us anymore. I love you! I'd never do that to anyone I loved ... I've never done that to anyone before. I don't even know anyone who's even had it done to them."

"Tanya has," Béla said, betraying her friend's confidence in her desperate need.

"Tanya?" Jake asked incredulously. "I don't believe it!"

Then Béla played the images in his mind – Tanya with her wrists tied to a bed and a man fucking her. Then he pissed inside her when he came. Tanya hated him for doing that to her, and she'd killed him for it. But she had loved how it felt.

"I want you to do that to me," Béla said, determined to get her way. "I wouldn't ask just anyone to do this." She knew she could simply take over his mind and make him do it, but it was important to her that he did this of his own free will.

"You're sick," Jake said, feeling disgusted.

"But you'll do it?" Béla asked, daring to hope.

"If you want it this badly, you get the whole show!" he said, sounding more cold and withdrawn than before.