Christopher Moore - Bite Me

“Does she like basic black?” said the girl, noticing all the black denim peeking out of the Levi’s bag.

“Red,” Okata heard himself saying. “She likes red, like rose petals.”

“I’ll wrap these up for you,” she said. “Will this be cash or charge?”

“Cash, please.” He handed her two hundred dollars.

He waited on the settee, willing away his whereabouts, the smell and the music, the women moving, and thought about kendo exercises, training, and how tired-how really exhausted-he felt. By the time the girl returned to press the pink bag and his change into his hand, he was able to stand without embarrassment. He thanked her.

“Come again,” she said.

He started to leave, and then looked at the burned-up girl’s map and saw the pictures of the pig, cow, and fish, and realized that it was going to be an ordeal to explain to a butcher what he needed, so he called to the salesgirl.

“Excuse me. Could you do me a favor, please?”

On a fresh piece of pink stationery with red and silver hearts on it, she wrote in English: 4 quarts, cow, pig, or fish blood. It would be much easier dealing with a new butcher with an order slip to hand them. He thanked her again, bowed, and left the store.

It was no small irony that when he finally found a butcher who could sell him blood, it was a Mexican in the Mission who had to have Okata’s one-item shopping list translated into Spanish. Of course, he had blood. What self-respecting Mexican butcher didn’t save the blood for Spanish blood sausage? Okata didn’t understand any of that. He only understood that after walking half the City carrying jeans, sneakers, and a pink bag of underwear, he finally had a gallon of fresh blood for his burned-up gaijin girl. After he left the shop the butcher went to the phone and dialed the number on the card the police inspector had left for him.

Okata went against his normal discipline and took the F car instead of walking. He rode the antique streetcar all the way down Market Street, past the Ferry Building, and a few blocks up the Embarcadero, where he got off and took a moment looking at the extraordinary black sailing ship that was docked at Pier Nine, before dragging his gallon of pig’s blood home.

He was sitting beside the futon with a big grin and a tea cup full of pig’s blood when she awoke.

“Hello,” he said, with a great grin.

“Hello,” said the burned-up girl, her fangs showing when she smiled. Her hair had grown through the day, and now hung down to her chest, but it was dry and crispy.

Okata handed her the cup and steadied her hand while she gulped the blood. When she finished he gave her a paper napkin and refilled the tea cup, then sat down and drank tea from his own cup while she sipped the blood. He watched the color move over her skin like there was a pink light moving there, and she began to fill out, the flesh coming up on her bones as if she was being inflated.

“Did you eat?” she said. She made the motion of chop-sticks scooping rice and pointed to him. No, he hadn’t eaten. He’d forgotten to eat.

“No,” he said. “Sorry.”

“You need to eat. Eat.” She made the motion and he nodded.

While she drank her third cup of blood he retrieved a rice ball from his little refrigerator and nibbled it. She smiled at him and toasted his tea cup with her cup of blood.

“There you go. Mazel tov!”

“Mazel tov!” said Okata.

They toasted and he ate and she drank blood, and he watched as her smile became full and her eyes bright. He showed her what he had found for her at the Levi’s store and the Nike store, and at Victoria ’s Secret, although he looked away and tried to hide a little-boy grin when he showed her the red satin bra and panties. She praised him and held the clothes up to her body, then laughed when they looked too big and took a big gulp of the blood, spilling it down the sides of her mouth and on the kimono.

And she saw his new shoes, too, and pointed and winked. “Sexy,” she said. He felt himself blush and then grinned and did a little dance step, a universal Snoopy dance of ecstasy to show just how comfortable the shoes were. She laughed and ran her hand over them while rolling her eyes.

After he had drank a whole pot of tea and she almost a whole gallon of blood, she sat up on the edge of the futon and threw her thick red hair back over her shoulders. She was no longer a charred skeleton, a burned-up wraith, a desiccated marble crone, but a voluptuous young woman, as pale as snow, as cool as the room, but as vibrant and alive as anyone he had ever seen.

Her kimono fell open when she stretched and he looked away.

“Okata,” she said. And he looked at her feet. “It’s okay.” She closed her robe, then ran her hand over his cheek. Her palm was cool and smooth and he pressed into it.

“I need a shower,” she said. “A shower?” She mimed washing, falling rain.

“Yes,” he said. He brought her a towel and a bar of soap, then presented the shower, which stood open to the room next to a pedestal sink. The toilet was in a little closet on the other side.

“Thank you,” she said. She stood and let the kimono slide off her shoulders, laid it carefully on the futon, then took the towel and soap and walked to the shower, throwing a smile over her shoulder at him as she stepped into the tray.

Okata sat, dropped really, onto the little stool by the futon, and watched as she washed the last bit of ash from her skin, then let the water stream over her until the whole apartment was full of steam, weariness, and wonder.

He picked up his sketch pad from the floor and began to draw.

He watched her move like a spirit in the steam, drying herself and then combing her hair out with her fingers. She came out of the steam, dropped the towel on the floor by his workbench. He looked away as she approached and she knelt and raised his chin with her finger until he had to look at her. Her eyes were as green as a jade plant.

“Okata,” she said. “Thank you.”

Then she kissed him on the forehead, then on the lips, and ever so gently, she took away his sketch pad, and dropped it to the floor, then pushed him back on the futon and kissed him again as she unbuttoned his shirt.

“Okay,” he said.

Much like the guy in Herman Hesse’s novel Steppenwolf (which everyone knows means, “wolf going up the steps”) who runs into the ENTRANCE NOT FOR EVERYBODY sign outside of the Magic Theater, when it comes to romance, I am definitely not on the list. Loneliness is my “plus one.” Bitterness is my boo.

Oh, it was sweet waking up at sundown, nearly in the arms of my Dark Lord, snuggled up in our utility shed on the roof. I probably shouldn’t have snatched that pigeon out from under the eave and sort of sucked its little throat, but in my defense, breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and I swore off anything with feathers because they are nasty. Still, I think Lord Flood would have forgiven me spitting bloody feathers on his linen trousers if my tail hadn’t harshed our search plan.

There, now everyone knows. I have a tail. Which is kinda the reason we had to return to the love lair instead of continuing our search for the Countess. Foo called just before sunup to say that all the rats had died.

So I’m like, “Non sequitur much, Foo? If you miss me, you can just apologize and grovel a little and we’ll move on.”

And he’s like, “No, Abby, you don’t understand. There’s something in their DNA, they just sort of expire after a week or so of being a vampyre.”

And I’m like, “My poor, sad Foo Dog, are you sure that your mantenna isn’t just using dead rats to send an S.O.S. for a return to tuna town? Hmmmm?”