Scentless Chamomile

Her name was Daisy.

She was a carhop. Bleached blonde hair like Marilyn Monroe. Much prettier than Marilyn, though, sweet little daisy, even done up like an overblown rose.

She came gliding around the corner, skating out of the light, and she jumped a bit when she caught sight of him leaning on the stuccoed back wall of the drive-in. Almost lost her balance for a moment, and rattled a garbage can loudly in the process of righting herself.

He straightened up and turned to look at her. "Didn't mean to scare you," he said. "What you doing back here?"

She swayed on her wheels, idling at the periphery of safety, and eyed him with suspicion. In response he just stood straight and lit another cigarette and let her look. Let her see. That he was young, and clean, and white, and wore the sort of jacket that James Dean might. And by indirect streetlight and ambient neon he looked more or less as alive and well as anyone else around here.

He just stood there and smiled at her. A bit apologetic, maybe. Mostly amused. Until eventually, like kind of a slow mirror, she smiled back.

He won.

She was just taking her coffee-break, she told him. Away from the cars, away from the—from the cars.

"Lot of cars," he agreed. "Where's your coffee, then, Daisy?"

She smiled again. Said she didn't care for coffee. She did like Coke, mind you, which was kind of the same thing, black and bad for you. Mind you she didn't have a Coke, either, did she? So maybe she ought to just call it a plain old break.

He laughed.

Wouldn't say no to a cigarette, though, she said.

He offered her one. Of course she had to roll forward to take it from him. So that now she was completely in the shadow of the diner, and she hadn't even noticed. See, that's fucking skill.

Thanks, she said.

He stepped back again as he took out his lighter. "Come over here," he told her. "Out of the wind."

And he wore a jacket like James Dean might, if James Dean weren't quite so dead; and a smile like live bait on a sharp hook. She wore roller skates, and a funny little hat, and a bright white shirt that said Daisy on the pocket in red.

All red, now. Stuck to her skin with wasted red running down from the holes in her throat. Clinging red to the stiff nowhere-near-Marilyn-sized cups of her brassiere. And he felt full, and hard, and, ah, sweet little daisy, all red now. All soft and stoned on the loss of blood but her eyes still awake and aware.

He reached round and undid the clasp and the zipper of her pleated skirt, and it fell down around her feet. And he looked down, and he ran his hand down her girdle, down the back of her thigh, and then around, over the grey-yellow suspenders biting into the tops of her stockings, and then up again in front, to rip her baggy old yellow-grey cotton panties off, and she was screaming no no into his other hand, clamped over her mouth, the palm all slick with spit and the back of it with snot and mascara and tears. And he leaned in close, and whispered in her ear, comforting, as if he were the most gracious of lovers, "You're gonna die anyhow, Daisy, what does it matter?"

And he buried his smooth human face in the warmth of her neck as he thrust up into her, lifting her roller-skates right up off the ground. And, fuck, she really was beautiful. He bit at her earlobe, and her Marilyn hair tickled him. He kissed her wet cheek and her flexing jaw, and sucked at the wound in her throat, and her bones broke as he pounded her against the stuccoed wall, murmuring, "She loves me, she loves me not," because, you know, it had to be done. Until eventually there was no more screaming. No more breathing.

He took his hand off her mouth, and her head fell forward onto his shoulder. And he grabbed hold of her hair and pulled her back, and kissed her open mouth as he came.

Those were the days, my friend. Those were the fucking days.

***

This girl's hair was long and blonde and straight and her skirt was short and tight. Her legs were short, too, and her stockings were black and opaque and reflected the yellow streetlights. And god he was hungry.

He didn't know her name. Just that she was obviously drunk, though just as obviously underage, and that she was meandering home unescorted. Weaving toward him on thick ridiculous heels meant to lengthen the leg.

He felt with his fingers to be sure that his face was still in place—a fly-check kind of reflex these days. These fucking days. The look was essential to this whole mugging gig, but even so it just didn't like to stay. Cowardly subconscious didn't care for the increased likelihood of pain.

She stopped to try and light a cigarette. Dropped the lighter. Stooped to pick it up.

Sometimes it amused him to imagine that the next vampire these little idiots encountered after him, they'd think they could buy off with money. Confusion and consternation all around.

Other times, the notion made him sick with jealousy.

He jumped out at the girl when, at long last, she was as near as she was ever going to get. She had finally managed to get the cigarette going, and taken a deep inexperienced drag, and all of a sudden there the fuck he was. She screamed. And then, to his great delight, she fainted. A rare treat, fainting, since corsets went out of style. The back of her head hit the wall as she fell, and the smell of blood rose up.

He straightaway forgot about her wallet.

He picked her up under the arms and carried her into the alley, out of sight of possible passers-by, and braced her against the brick wall there. Held her upright with his body, and put one hand on her back to keep her straight, and ran the other through her pretty golden hair to where the blood was flowing out, and coated his fingers with it. Licked it all off.

It was just so good. He dabbed at the wound again, sucked his fingers clean. Sucked them hard. So fucking good. He had an erection already. That one part of his body suddenly painfully full, though the rest of it felt just as empty as always. These days. He pressed his chest harder against her breasts and ground himself against her belly and his hand on her back slid up under her shirt. The skin there was hot, and she squirmed a bit at the touch, but then went limp again. He ran his tongue up the side of her neck, following the blood beneath her skin. Baring his teeth, pantomiming the kill, though his face had long since gone smooth.

He imagined that she was dying in his arms. Aneurism or something. Something. His fingers returned to her head wound, but it had been shallow and was already scabbing over. So they moved round to the front instead, up under the skirt, where they ran up against the rubbery gusset of her stockings—pantyhose, damn the modern world to hell—but he could, he thought, licking her neck, he would deal with that.

And then her fist came in from the side and hit him on the ear. A weak drunken dirty little punch that didn't hurt in itself so much as surprise him, but in his surprise the intent to murder rose up reckless, and then the pain filled him.

When it receded, she was gone. He was flat on his back in the garbage and glass blinking pepper-sprayed eyes. And simultaneous sensations of stickiness and relief told him he'd come in his trousers.

He lit a cigarette, and lay staring up at the glowing homogeneous sky.

***

She loves me. She loves me not.

Fucking Harmony.

Can't even pick a flower. Good one. Fucking, fucking Harmony.

Could be fucking Harmony now, if he could only find the fucking crypt. He had a fistful of daisies to give to her. To shove in her face, prove her wrong. Fistful of fucking daisies.

Or possibly those pernicious weeds that masquerade as daisies. Scentless chamomile. Yeah, there's a thing you really fucking need to know.

Maybe he could pick weeds but not flowers. Logical assumption really. Or, fuck, maybe they were already dead when he found them. He couldn't actually remember. Because he was very, very, very, in fact bordering on alarmingly, drunk.

And—unpleasant thought—there was probably a reason why.

He sniffed at the flowers. See if they were scentless. They weren't. They had a definite sort of a flowery aroma about them.

Daisy, Daisy.

He made a face and threw them away. Too late, of course. It was there now, nickel in the jukebox, selection made. Fuck.

All these years later he still hated that movie, for ruining such a beautiful memory. Daisy, fucking Daisy, jam one of those golden Academy statues head first into Stanley Kubrick's fucking pretentious eye. That stupid song, stuck in his head forever. A quick death was too good for Stanley. And where the fuck had he left the fucking crypt?

He stopped to get his bearings. Take a deep metaphorical breath. And maybe have another little drink, because, you know, there was almost certainly a very good reason to do so.

And then something grabbed him from behind, and slammed him face first into a wall he hadn't even noticed was there. Something human, his sniveling cowardly brain informed him before he could even consider trying to respond appropriately.

Then metal circled his left wrist and clicked. Hold on now he said, and the human grabbed hold of his hair and smashed his head against the wall again, harder, and snapped the other handcuff on.

Maybe her, he thought, vaguely. Something about the smell. And, you know, bondage, wishful thinking. But, seriously, no. This was someone big. Big arms reached around him, and pulled him back a bit, and the left hand braced a stake between his chest and the wall, and then moved to claw the scab off a messy bite-wound on the right forearm, before going back to hold the stake. And the bleeding arm was pressed against his mouth.

"Suck," the human said.

He did, why not, it was something to do while he pondered his next brilliant move. Which wasn't the easiest task in the world, these days, what with his mind growing ever more adept at forgetting thoughts of bloody murder as quickly as they formed. Flinching in anticipatory fear of that jack-in-the-box agony.

He sucked. The human's blood was almost as full of alcohol as his own. He could probably just drop straight down, and the human would fall forward into the wall smash his skull drive the fucking stake into his own fucking guts.

And then the human's big body started rubbing against him, erection obvious even through however many layers between them of leather and denim and who the fuck knew what all. And the point of the stake had made a hole in his shirt and was making a bruise on his skin, and the human kept humping, thrusting, and he kept sucking at the trickle of blood, because he was hungry always always so fucking hungry and it was good and he was just exactly drunk enough.

He could probably snap the chain on the handcuffs.

Or straighten his knees. Quit pushing himself away from the wall.

Ah. There you go. Drunk enough for some good old-fashioned self-pity.

Drunk enough to honestly accept for maybe the first time that they had well and truly fucked him up forever. Fucked up, fucked up, fucked up for-ever-more: sung in his head to tune of Daisy, Daisy. Sung to the beat of the human's thrusts.

"You son of a bitch," the human was muttering in his ear. Moving faster. "You. Son. Of." Hitting harder. The point of the stake had punctured the skin, and was pushing in. And the trickle of blood from the human's arm was drying up, so he had to suck harder. Well, didn't have to, but why not? Fucked up, fucked up, and now sickly sweetly self-pitying tears were rolling down onto the warm flesh pressed against his face.

The human convulsed as though from a mild shock. Stopped humping. Jerked the arm away.

He leaned forward and rested his head against the granite and stared straight down at the ground and waited, until he was tired of waiting. Come on then Finn you fucking pussy, he said. Do it. Come on soldier.

"Jesus," the human muttered. And dragged him back from the wall a bit, and the stake fell and lay on the grass at his feet. He watched it blur and double and spin for a minute or two. Then a hand on his throat tilted his head back, and a plastic vodka bottle was forced between his teeth and tipped up. "Drink. Fucking drink. Jesus, what—Jesus. Drink."

Seemed like as good a plan as any.

***

He woke up face down on the floor of his crypt.

Damage? Nothing to write home about. Couple of bruises. A silver-dollar-sized wound right square over his heart, maybe a bit too close there.

He felt better than he had last night, though, so. Maybe just close enough.

Must have been a good fight. He really wished he could remember.

Ah well. He'd make something up.