Suckers (20 page)

Dan’s nerves hummed. He licked his dry lips. As he unscrewed the cap, his hand trembled, like a junkie’s. He took two swallows before recapping it.

Moss shoved it in his bag.

“Tell Ray I’ll be out in a few,” he said before he stepped into the bathroom and pulled the door shut.

“You all right?” he asked Esmy.

Smiling, she nodded.

The tiny room smelled like blood. It got to his head—the contentedness of the bees, the satiation. He drew his gaze from the red of her mouth to the alabaster skin above her heart-shaped top, then over to her red fingernails, still pressed against the Band-Aid.

As he touched it, her fingers moved out of the way. He picked at the edge with his thumbnail, peeling it up, revealing the tiny hole and the vague purple of bruising to come.

He brushed his lips against the hole. Touched it with the tip of his tongue. Then kissed higher on her arm. Her shoulder. Her neck, flicking his tongue over her pulse.

“You’ve tasted my blood.” She turned her face, bumping his jaw. “Can I taste yours?”

He looked in her eyes. What
about
his blood? Maybe it was contaminated with whatever was forcing him to drink blood. His saliva seemed to be safe—at least Ray seemed to be unaffected, despite Dan sucking on his arm. But blood was the core of it all. If anything was infected, it was that. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

She pouted. “Just a teeny taste?”

He kissed the lower lip she’d pushed out, and her mouth stretched into a smile as he backed her against the sink. Her tongue was more brazen than his, pushing into his mouth as she clasped the back of his neck with both hands.

She pulled back after a taste of her blood on him, saying, “Rust,” as he kissed her cheek, her temple.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I should have rinsed.”

“Shh.” She tipped her face up and slipped his sunglasses off. “It’s mine anyway. You don’t look like what I was expecting.”

“Too well fed?”

She laughed. “Too tragically all-American.”

When he raised an eyebrow, she dropped the sunglasses into the sink behind her. “You look like a college guy who’s too normal to be goth and too goth to be a jock. Woe-is-me middle class.”

He decided to take ‘college guy’ as a compliment. The rest, he had no idea what she was talking about.

“But you’re cute,” she said, “and a little broody-looking, and the blood drinking is hot, so kiss me again.”

In a moment, he had her balanced on the edge of the sink, one of her platform boots pressed against the opposite wall. Silky purple panties lay between his feet.

“Shit,” he said against her neck. “Condom.”

She produced one like magic, presenting it between two fingers. No smiles now. All seriousness. She leaned back and closed her eyes as he tore the packet open.

Glancing up, he realized she was studying him through her lashes.

He guided himself inside, making her chin tilt up. She grasped his shoulders and drew her lip beneath her teeth. As he started moving, she pulled herself up and wound her arms around his neck. She whispered something against his cheekbone, then whispered it again: “Bite me.”

“Bite me,” she said.

Her fingernails dug into his back.

“Come on, vampire. Bite me.”

He turned his lips against her face and kissed her temple, her ear.

“You know you want to,” she whispered, clutching him tighter. “Bite me.” She wrapped a leg around his waist, trapping him against her—not that she needed to. He was into this, the fucking at least. Scared shitless about the biting stuff, though. He could do it, playfully…but what if he couldn’t stop at playfully?

The bees hummed as he fucked her, reacting to the closeness of her, her scent, the heat of her blood surging around his cock.

“Fucking bite me, vampire,” she said against his teeth, fucking him back as much as her position on the edge of the sink allowed.

He grabbed her ass in both hands and plunged his tongue back into her mouth, pulling her against him, thrusting as deep into her as he could get.

His mouth was on her neck. He rubbed the pulsing of blood just beneath her skin.

“Yessss, yessss…”

He fucked her and sucked her neck, his teeth buried behind his lips.

“Do it. Bite me. Fucking bite me.” She jerked at his hair.

He closed his mouth around a patch of throat, right over the pulse. Pressed his tongue against it. The beat coursing through the artery turned him on like nothing else. He could smell it. Almost taste it. He bit harder.

“Yes! Yes! Yes!”

He dug his fingers into her ass and slammed her against him, biting and licking, giving her nothing more dangerous than a hickey, but it felt good. It
smelled
good. He bit and she squealed, clamping down on his neck, trapping him with her legs wound around his. He picked her up, turned her, and fucked her against the wall, grunting, denting her with his fingers. He found her neck and bit, making her moan, making her clutch him with her fingernails and say, “Yes! Fuck, yes!”

After he came, his teeth slipped over her skin. He made himself kiss her pulse, softly. Kiss behind her ear. She loosened her grip on his thighs, letting one leg then the other drop. He kept her pinned against the wall until he’d had another kiss from her lips, another long, messy kiss. Then he eased her to the floor.

She smoothed her skirt as he slipped the condom into the toilet. She crouched to retrieve her panties, balling them in her fist.

He didn’t know what he was supposed to say, so he said, “Sorry.”

She flashed him a look—and he didn’t know what
that
was supposed to say, either.

He put his sunglasses back on. The room got darker. She seemed to shrink, as though he was looking through the wrong end of binoculars.

“Thanks,” he said. “For…you know.” He was a disappointing vampire. But the sex had been fucking good.

“Are you going to come back again? For more?” Looking in the mirror, she rubbed at her smeared lipstick with the edge of her thumb. She raised her eyes toward him.

“Uh, if you’re willing to donate again…”

She nodded. Serious about it, though.

“It’d…it wouldn’t be more often than every three weeks. You know. So you have time to replace the lost blood.”

She returned her attention to fixing herself up.

“You might want to take some supplements too. You know, if you’re interested in doing it as a regular thing.”

“I’ll do that.” She straightened to her full height, gave him a raised eyebrow and a glance toward the door. He moved aside. Caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. So that’s what tragically all-American looked like.

He followed her out to the shop, where Moss had an elbow propped on a clothing rack, the side of his face in his hand. His eyelids were at half-mast.

Ray lifted his chin to Dan. They locked eyes. And Dan said, “Ready?”

“Turn the sign around when you go.” Esmy made a circling motion with her hand.

The foghorn sounded, and then they were walking across a rain-slick sidewalk. Moss got behind the wheel, Ray riding shotgun. Dan slouched in the back seat, his head back, eyes shut behind his sunglasses.

“How was it?” Ray asked. He half turned in his seat, the side of his chin against the headrest. An unlit cigarette jutted between two fingers.

“Fine.” He let his eyes slip closed again. He pushed his hands inside his open jacket, into his armpits, hugging himself.

“Funny how the one girl—what was her name, Moss?”

Moss didn’t say anything; Dan imagined he’d shaken his head.

“Anyway, as that Esmerelda chick got louder and louder, the girl with the red extensions—or maybe it was black extensions and her hair was red? Anyway, she just kept talking, louder and faster, like she was trying to cover up the noises.”

“You heard that, huh?” Dan kept his eyes closed.

“Vin and his little shit friend in Rhode Island heard that.”

The seat creaked as Ray turned and settled into it.

“You all right, Moss?” Ray asked.

Moss sighed. “Yeah. I’m fine. It’s starting to come down again.”

Dan glanced out the window. Raindrops smacked hard against it, sliding down the glass, blurring the lights they passed.

“Is this the street we turn on?” Moss said. “Do you remember?”

“Uh, I think so,” Ray said.

Dan was spent, but not like he could sleep. “You guys hungry?”

Ray turned around again. “I could eat.”

“I wouldn’t turn down some pie,” Moss said.

“Danny’s already had that,” Ray said. “Lucky asshole.”

Dan laughed.

“You had two chances to get some yourself. Not my fault you can’t pick up women.”

“Maybe you should have said you
were
Jack White,” Moss said.

“You, shut the fuck up.” To Dan, Ray said, “Can you believe she didn’t know who Two Tons of Dirt was?”

“She was like fourteen,” Moss said.

“You could have educated her.” Dan smiled a little.

“I wouldn’t have touched her with your dick. Fucking Dead Weather. Seriously?”

“Esmy wants us to come back. She said she’d donate again. I told her it’d have to be three weeks—”

“We can’t go back,” Moss said.

“Why not?” Ray asked.

“Let’s suppose”—Moss put his turn signal on, a Denny’s coming up on their right.—“one of those girls decides to look up that guy from Dead Weather. And let’s say while they’re at it, they Google this Two Tons of Dirt band you mentioned—twice.”

“Twice?” Dan said.

“It was a sore spot,” Ray mumbled.

“And then,” Moss continued, gliding the car into a parking space, “they see that, holy shit, you look
exactly
like that guy from Two Tons, and holy
fucking
shit, the guy who drinks blood is also in the band.”

Rain pelted the roof.

“Fuck it,” Ray said. “Nobody’s going to buy that some rock band is going around buying blood.” He shoved his door open, unlit cigarette clamped in his teeth. “I’m gonna have a smoke before I go in. Order me some coffee. Strong.” He slammed the door.

Moss shook his head and pulled the key from the ignition.

“We’ll be okay,” Dan said. He reached for the door handle.

“We can’t come back here.”

“I know.”

As they approached the restaurant, Dan told Moss to grab a table inside before he veered toward Ray, who stood with his back to the parking lot, a cigarette cupped in the curve of his hand. He was hunched into his jacket against the rain.

“I fucked up,” Ray said. He laughed that on-the-edge-of-crazy laugh of his as Dan came around him. “I just wanted to throw her off track, you know? In case she was about to say—you know.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“She’d never heard of us.”

Dan, with his hands in his pockets and the rain running rivulets through his hair, smiled cheerlessly.

“Fucking Dead Weather.” Ray sucked a quick drag off his cigarette. “I couldn’t fucking stop myself. ‘Two Tons,’ ‘Two Tons.’ Fuck.”

“Don’t sweat it. Live and learn, right? It’s not like we’re pros at this.”

“Ha.” Smoke billowed with the syllable.

Dan dragged his attention away. “Come on. Let’s get some pie.”

“Hold on.”

“Come on.” He grabbed Ray by the wet shoulder of his wet jacket.

Ray came, but not quickly, getting in two last drags before dropping the butt in a puddle and ducking through the door Dan held open.

† † †

Later that night, Dan lay on the bed in the motel room, his arms crossed behind his head, while Ray hunched beside him, typing on the laptop, little staccato beats—he hit the keys harder than he needed to, Dan thought. Moss had a book cracked open, some secondhand paperback thriller, reading while he sat on his bed in stocking feet and shorts, a paper coffee cup at his elbow.

The TV jabbered—SUV commercials, Jimmy Kimmel jokes.

Dan felt good. Relaxed. Going on the road like this was like going on the road on tour, which was where—despite how frustrating and exhausting it could be—he preferred to be, and Ray even more so, staying a step ahead of the mundaneness of sedentary life. Being on the road was mundane too, maybe more mundane, but when they were on the road they were moving at least.

When they weren’t, he worried he’d fall still and stay that way.

The tip of Ray’s tongue poked from the side of his mouth. He finished what he was typing and straightened. “I need a smoke.” He batted the laptop shut.

“Neither sleet nor rain nor dark of night…”

Smirking, Ray flipped him the bird.

After he was gone, Dan reached for the remote control. “You watching this?” he asked Moss.