Sips of Blood (8 page)

"Dad's jealous. He'd like some color on his
legs other than the bulging purple knots of his veins."

Marie placed the basket on the tattered
pillow of the porch rocking chair. She took a deep breath and
turned to face Keith.

"I apologize if I frightened you. And really,
I didn't mean to hurt you. I see the bruise is practically gone."
She reached out a hand, and Keith pulled back. She joined her hands
and steepled her fingers to her lips. "Dinner. This Saturday
evening at, say, eight o'clock. I'll invite my granddaughter. She
always manages to keep me in line." She smiled. "I do owe it to you
both. Lord only knows what your son thinks of me."

"Whatever he thinks would be right," Keith
said.

"I think you're a lovely, stylish woman. My
father and I accept your gracious offer."

Keith groaned.

As long as Wil showed up, she didn't care
what the old man did. Already she had projected her strong desire
for Wil onto a client. A client who was too willing to accommodate
her lust and blood hunger.

Marie descended the steps.

"I look forward to seeing you both." She
started for the door of her car. "And oh! Do dress casually. Shorts
are fine." She winked at Wil and then entered her car.

* * *

"I'll wear my oldest boxers. Just see how
much casual she can stand."

"Dad, calm down."

"Maybe you don't mind that she wants to jump
your bones, but... well, you'd sleep with anything."

"You're jealous."

"Huh?"

Wil pulled out a kitchen chair, swept it
between his legs, and sat.

"I think you've got a crush on your
neighbor."

"Shit, I don't need that kind of woman
hanging around me." Keith moved to the stove. "Damnit, the soup's
boiling away. It'll take another half-hour for it to cool. It's her
fault."

"Because you happened to be heating up soup
when she knocked on the door? Or because you were too attracted to
her to remember the soup?"

"Wilbur, I've got a single bed, just big
enough for me. I don't have any room for a woman."

"That wasn't true when I was a kid."

Keith looked at his son.

"I may have had a lady stay over once in
awhile."

"Whole weekends you'd be romping around in
your bedroom. That's when I learned to do for myself. You and your
whores would swat me out of the way when you came out for air."

"They were ladies. I never had to pay for it.
Paying for sex is a sin."

"If you had gone to church on Sunday, you
would have learned that sex without the blessing of marriage is a
sin."

"You certainly didn't learn anything on
Sundays."

"I learned lots, Dad, without having to leave
my own home."

"You didn't learn to be a fag in this house."
Spit sprayed the air in front of Keith.

"I'm bisexual."

"The only kind of woman chasing you is a
perverted old lady." Keith grabbed a bowl off the Welsh dresser and
brought it over to the stove to pour his soup. "Besides, if your
mother hadn't died, there wouldn't have been any other women in
this house." He slowly poured the soup into the bowl.

"God, it would have meant sleazing around
cheap motels." Wil shook his head in sympathy.

Keith slammed the pot down on the stove.

"I loved your mother. I wasn't about to get
married again and go through the loss of another good woman just
because her maternal instinct kicked in." He placed the bowl of
soup on the table and sat on one of the vinyl-covered chrome
kitchen chairs.

Wil listened to his father slurp down the
soup. The jiggling of his father's false teeth fascinated him.
Dad's too cheap to even pay for a decent set of teeth.

"What?" Grasping his soup spoon just above
the bowl, Keith looked at his son.

"When's the last time you got laid?"

Keith dropped the spoon back into the bowl,
causing a light splatter of tomato soup.

"That's why you're so grumpy, Dad. Let me
treat you."

"What the hell are you talking about?"
Keith's eyebrows seemed to crouch down over his eyelids.

"You still wouldn't be paying for it. I
would. You're all clogged up. Let me call my favorite Roto-Rooter
girl."

"Disgusting. You made me lose my appetite."
Keith stood and walked to the sink with the bowl in his hand. After
dumping the soup down the drain, he pulled open the dishwasher and
shoved the bowl inside the machine. "You and the Wicked Witch of
Rathbone deserve each other." Keith started to exit the room.

"Don't forget to mark Saturday down on your
calendar. If her granddaughter's cute, we might be able to have a
foursome.

Chapter 16

He had the face of a young man. Liliana
guessed him to be in his mid-twenties. His features, while coarse,
still had some fine detail through the mouth and in the shape of
the nose. His slicked-back hair gave only the faintest hint of red,
while his brows and beard stubble glistened with the color. The
frame of his body indicated that he had been a dedicated athlete. A
dusting of reddish-brown hair covered his chest.

Young. Too young to be lying on the stainless
steel table.

She poured kerosene into the knife wound on
the lower abdomen. The maggots shriveled and died. While sponging
down the body with a disinfectant, she wondered about this man's
life. So short, unlike hers, which was never-ending. Would death be
preferable to her existence?

Stomach fluid bubbled between his lips.
Quickly she rolled over the body to drain the purge from the
corpse's mouth. Later she would have to remember to tie off the
trachea and esophagus before exposing the arteries of the neck for
embalming. Her fingers left tracks on his discolored back. After
returning him to the supine position, she swabbed out his mouth and
nose.

When she grasped the palm of his hand, she
felt the rough calluses marring his flesh. Gradually she flexed the
arm several times, then continued on to the other arm. After
bending his legs to relieve the
rigor mortis,
she started to
massage the thick thighs as a lover would, allowing her fingers to
sink deep into his crotch, pushing aside his balls. The erection
caused by the settling blood stood useless; she touched it softly
with the tips of her fingers. It had been so long since she had
tasted the smooth tip and ridge of a male organ. Closing her eyes,
she remembered the salty chlorine flavor of seminal fluid. Her hand
circled the erection and moved up and down.

The sound of a moan pulled Liliana back into
the reality of the embalming room. She checked his gaping mouth,
but no sound had been emitted from there. A shiver and a smile
acknowledged her own senseless fear. It had probably been her
fantasy that had caused her to moan with forgotten pleasure.

She extended his legs and arms over the
gutter circling the table. While elevating the head, she rubbed the
back of her hand across his stubble. The beautician would shave him
later, but for now he had the look of a sleeping lover.

Visually she sought his left and right
carotids for the arterial embalming she was about to perform. No
beat existed to assist her search; experience and the leanness of
his body made it easier. His odor and the coolness of his flesh
were familiar to her. Her own body carried the same chill, and
often she awakened in her coffin to the scent of her own reposal
decay. Her body healed fast, so that by the time she stepped from
the casket her flesh had sweetened to the reality of life. The same
could not be said of her clients, who stretched out into eternal
decay.

After closing off the trachea and esophagus,
she exposed the carotids and inserted hollow metal tubes in order
to inject the formaldehyde and methyl alcohol mix. Before using the
solution, she cut a major vein to drain the blood.

The commingling odors of the embalming fluid
and the blood always made her feel light-headed. Her mouth watered
at the sight of the blood dripping into the surrounding gutter. The
temptation to drain the body with her own lips passed quickly. Once
she had tried, and the rancidness of dead tissue had roiled her
stomach. Uncle Donatien was right. They were meant to feed from the
living. Vampires were not scavengers, they were game hunters. Not
vultures picking at the remnants of nature.

Her fingers massaged the young man's cold
flesh, helping to spread the embalming fluid that would firm up
muscles that never would be used again.

Often she felt intrusive, preventing the body
from taking on its final state, saving the body shell to satisfy
the whims of the living. A final prep. A final farewell. The final
façade with which each man must face friends, relatives, and
sometimes enemies.

Intently she watched his face and hands,
waiting for evidence that the fluid was entering the visible areas.
And she continued to massage, feeling the ribs and hip bone dig
into her palms.

"Freedom from the bonds of humanity will
come. I promise," she whispered, knowing that her own blood bond
was too addictive to vanquish.

When the hands showed evidence of the
embalming fluid she quickly moved to apply Superglue to conjoin his
fingers. The nails were ragged, and some were split. The fingers
were short, the knuckles knobby with the indication of early
arthritis. A white scar circled his right thumb. His palm had a
congestion of lines. She kissed the palm and brushed it against her
cheek.

"If only I were brave enough to join
you."

Gently she placed the hand over his
chest.

Chapter 17

From his bedroom window Louis watched Cecelia
helping her mother in the garden. He had not bothered to tell
Matilda that it didn't matter whether the vegetables were organic
or loaded with insecticides. But he did notice a difference in
flavor. So maybe organic was better, even if the ugly vegetables
had to be inspected for infestations. Louis still enjoyed an
occasional meal of vegetables, meat, and fruit, although his
life-long hemorrhoid problem dictated temperance.

Cecelia wore denim cut-offs cut off as high
as she could go without revealing a completely bare bottom. For
hours the girl would kneel on the fertile earth, leaning over
frequently to plant, trim, fertilize, or weed with her glorious ass
saluting his window. He thought he noticed a slight pinkish sunburn
creeping up each cheek. Not as pink as he could make them if that
emmerdeuse
mother would disappear.

"Ah!" he sighed as the girl jerked the spade
back and forth into the ground.

He could stand here all day
regardant
fixement la jeune fille.
However, he had a project to complete,
and it must be done soon or his own dear
jolie fille
would
continue to waste away.

Louis blew a kiss to Cecelia and crossed the
room to his
bonheur-du-jour
and sat down to write out his
shortened list. He had looked up the name of David Petry in every
reference he could obtain. He believed he did know something very
important about
Monsieur
Petry. The young man had said that
his niece needed a psychiatrist more than an accountant. Therefore,
Louis had narrowed the list of David Petry's down to three
listings. One lived in Fort Lee, New Jersey, a possibility since
they had met on the Jersey side of the Hudson. Another lived in
Astoria, Queens, and the least promising lived on the God-forsaken
tip of upper Manhattan. Since the first two had not answered their
home phones, it was the third with whom he had the evening
appointment. As it turned out, the individual answering the
telephone was an accountant.

* * *

At seven-thirty Louis climbed a staircase to
the neighborhood called Park Terrace, which sat upon a hill
overlooking the drudgery of working-class life. He had driven
around the middle-class enclave for fifteen minutes before giving
up and finding a parking space at the bottom of the hill. Dinner
time on a weekday was the worst time to park in a New York City
residential neighborhood. He had noticed an obvious difference in
the age and brand of the cars he had viewed. On top of the hill
cars seemed to be less rusted, newer; more cars retained their
hubcaps. At the bottom of the hill he had parked between an orange
Pinto and a dented Chevette. He doubted that his feminine-voiced
alarm calling for help would attract anyone, but he made sure it
was turned on. Besides, the frail voice crying out his name, asking
him to "Please stop the rogue," turned
him
on.

At the top of the steps an elderly woman
tugged a miniature mutt out of his way. The dog gnashed his teeth
and yanked hard on his collar.

"Bad dog," the woman kept repeating without
much enthusiasm.

One of the dog's back legs seemed paralyzed,
and Louis wished he could put the animal out of its misery. Despite
the warmth of the evening, the woman wore a knit hat and black
raincoat. He hoped flashing was not one of her sports. Her brittle
stick-like figure waved him on. Annoyance added additional lines to
her already well-creased face.

"Move on, for heaven's sake. I can't be
walking Ginger all night. She can't shit while strangers are
watching. Move on. Hurry!"

Louis halted. The dog's gray muzzle shivered
around its yellow teeth, and the gravelly growl inspired little
fear.

"Perhaps your dog needs a purgative."

"She needs privacy while she takes a good
shit. That's what she needs."

He noticed that the woman's eyes were a
cloudy gray-blue. Her nose was long, thin, and pointed, while the
lips caved into her mouth. He had seen many of these kinds of women
huddled around the guillotines of the French Revolution. Matter of
fact, this particular woman had an uncanny resemblance to a
Madame
Charlotte Chénier, who sold fruits and vegetables to
the voyeuristic crowds.