“Last Request” by Shane McAllister
* * *
We parked my now-empty van in a secluded spot across the river. Regina wanted to look at the dead steel plants—or at least their shadows, which was all we could see through the dark, wet windshield.
"They're like giant rusty corpses." Boots propped on the dash, she nodded her head to the driving beat of my Bikini Kill CD. "Must be like living next to a graveyard."
"You're not from around here?" I handed back her bottle of Jägermeister, resisting the urge to take another five gulps.
"I'm Canadian, but not that part." She gestured due north, where I guess she meant Ontario. "You can tell because I don't talk funny." She chugged the Jäger, then wiped her mouth. "Guess which province?"
"Saskatchewan."
"Yes!" She rapped her heels against the glove compartment like a giddy little girl. "How'd you know?"
"Broadcasting 101, they taught us how to erase our dialects. They used Saskatchewan as the perfect nondescript newscasting accent."
"Brilliant." Regina tossed the bottle into the back of the van. "Come claim your prize." She slipped between the seats and clambered after the bottle, almost kicking me in the face with her combat boots. I followed her.
The van's carpet was thin and dusty. I rolled her on top of me for the sake of her bones' comfort and her dress's cleanliness. She kissed me with everything, grinding against me in instant urgency. Even though we were fully clothed, it seemed like I already knew each curve and angle of her body.
I slid her hips up over my stomach, then my chest, then farther, so I could reach her with my mouth.
The wind slipped through invisible cracks, casting chill drafts across my hands and her bare thighs as I shoved up her skirt. But she didn't shiver, not until she came, and then she shuddered deep within, the vibrations meeting my tongue and lips in almost violent waves.
That should have told me she was different, but being young and stupid I thought her seismic orgasm was a result of my manly prowess.
She slipped down my body, and my head came out from under her skirt. The van's ceiling hung in shreds from where she'd clawed it. Should've been another clue, but again—guy ego.
Regina unbuttoned my shirt with shaky hands. Her fingers caught, and she tore open the shirt, ripping off the last two buttons. "Sorry," she whispered.
"Don't worry." I sat up to help her remove it. "I'm never wearing it again, anyway."
"I know." She pushed my chest to lay me flat on my back, then undid my pants. I groaned as her hand slid inside.
"Careful. Not too—" I couldn't speak.
"Shane." Regina stretched out beside me and pressed her lips to my neck. "Don't fight me. Whatever you see, whatever I do. Just don't fight, okay? Promise me."
"Okay." Right then, I would've promised her every moon in the solar system. I reached down to grasp her hand. "But you better stop before I—"
"Come," she whispered. "Now."
I did (not that I could not), too out of breath to utter more than a strangled gasp. Regina murmured against my neck, stroking me harder, upping the intensity until the pleasure verged on pain.
Then, nothing but pain. Spiking into my neck, shooting to every corner of my body, and bouncing back at double strength. My voice pitched higher, catching at the end of my breath. Her hand moved to my hip, and she held me down like she thought I'd try to escape.
But I just pulled her closer, clutching the lace of her dress. I'd spent my whole life hiding from pain, smothering it with whatever I could swallow, smoke, or shoot.
Now, it gave me what I needed most. A way away from me.
* * *
It was past midnight by the time Regina cleaned my wound and convinced me she was a vampire. I swore the retractable fangs were a trick, which pissed her off. She emptied the bottle of Jäger down her throat, then jumped out and smashed it against the pavement. Before I could stop her, she used the jagged edge to slice open her own arm. When it healed in ten seconds, I became a believer.
"So am I a vampire, too, now?" I touched the bandage on my neck.
"Of course not." Sitting in the van again, Regina tapped her cigarette into the ash tray of the seat she was leaning against. "We'd never survive if we created our own competition every time we drank." She rested her elbows on her knees and gestured with her hands back and forth. "To make you a vampire, I'd have to drink you and bring you back from the point of death by letting you drink me. It's a very dodgy procedure." She let her head fall back against the seat and stared at the ceiling. "It doesn't always take."
Her voice sounded suddenly soft and vulnerable, and the silence was more painful than her bite had been. I scrambled to change the subject.
"Next Wednesday," I told her, "I'm going to kill myself."
That got her attention. "How?"
"I bought a gun. I've tried slower methods, but I always seem to survive."
"Your body fights back."
I nodded. "Which is odd, because it's not very strong. I suck at taking care of my diabetes. I drink too much, I don't eat enough. They say I have the heart and kidneys of a fifty-year-old."
"And all that heroin is probably against doctor's orders."
I folded my arms over my bare chest, as if she hadn't already noticed the scars. "Actually, I quit last May."
"Good for you."
"No, it's not. It gave me something to live for." I rolled my eyes. "Wow, that sounds crazy."
"Not really. I used to feel the same way about this." She drew a fresh cigarette from her pack and lit it off her current one. "I became a vampire partly so I'd never have to quit smoking."
I laughed, but she didn't.
She stubbed out the old butt in the ashtray. "Is that what happened to Stephen? He offed himself?"
I blinked at her. "How do you know about him?"
"The groom and you were talking." She tugged her earlobe. "Vampire hearing."
I shook my head. "Steve's my best friend. He's in jail in Pennsylvania for dealing. He got twenty-five years, because it was his third strike, and this time some kid he sold to OD'd and died. Mark—the groom—that's Steve's big brother. I'm his pet project." My fingers twitched, and I wish she hadn't finished the Jäger. "He thinks if he can save me, it'll be like saving Steve."
"Does he know you tried to commit suicide?"
"No one knows except my mom, and she thinks it was only once."
"Then why tell me?" She tapped her cigarette in the ashtray again. "So I could stop you?"
"No." I looked her in the eye. "So you could help me."
"Ugh." She flipped out her palms. "I am not pulling the trigger. God, what is up with the American gun fetish?"
"I don't mean for you to shoot me." I rubbed the unbitten side of my neck. "You could drain me, drink what you can. At least then, my body wouldn't be a total waste."
She gave an exasperated sigh. "You want to be useful? Shoot yourself in the woods and let the crows eat your eyes."
"Okay, forget it." I picked up my shirt.
"The flies would lay eggs in your nose and mouth." She spoke like she was describing the love scene from her favorite movie. "And then their babies would come out and dissolve you. That's what maggots are."
"I know." I tried to jam my arm in my sleeve, but it was inside out.
"You'd do them a favor by dying naked." She crawled toward me in a mock seductive pose. "Then they wouldn't have to wait for your clothes to disintegrate before they start on your juicy bits."
"I said, forget it. It was a dumb idea."
"No!"
I jerked back my head at the force of her voice.
"It's not dumb at all," she whispered, and took my face in her hands. "Who wants to die alone?"
I stared into her dark, liquid eyes. "Then you'll help me?"
"I won't help you die." She gave me a wicked smile. "But for the next three nights, I'll help you live."
* * *
She took me to every Goth and punk club in Eastern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania (who knew Erie had a scene? I didn't). It was like a trip back in time, and I felt twenty-one again. I hadn't even felt twenty-one when I actually was twenty-one.
We danced and raged, and drove home very, very fast each night, so that we could spend the last few hours before sunrise in my bed, kissing and stroking and bleeding and drinking.
The only thing we didn't do was fuck. After she explained the damage a female vampire could do to a human male's most valuable appendage, I didn't argue. (Besides, I'd grown up dating Catholic girls and therefore had lots of experience with non-sex forms of sex.)
Through it all, Regina and I talked about music, craving each other's thoughts as much as each other's touch. I found myself pondering previously foreign concepts such as "next week." When my subscription renewal notice for Spin came in the mail, I didn't throw it away.
I woke up at noon on Tuesday—alone, of course, since my apartment wasn't sunproof—and made a decision.
When Regina arrived that night, I pulled her inside my kitchen. "Before we go out, I have a surprise."
Her face lit up as she heard the music blaring from my bedroom. "You found that Dream Syndicate import!"
"Yeah, but that's not it." I placed her in front of me and covered her eyes with my hand. "This way."
I led her into the living room, where a large flat box sat on the coffee table, wrapped in silver paper. I took my hand off her face. "Behold. A small offering."
Her eyes narrowed with suspicion. "What's this for?"
"An early birthday present for you."
She frowned. "Because you won't be around next week?"
I kissed her quickly. "Open it and find out."
Regina knelt on the floor between the coffee table and the ratty old sofa. She bit her lower lip as she slowly peeled off the wrap, then folded it carefully and tucked it into her bag.
She popped the lid off the box and snatched up the heavy black material. "My favorite color! How did you know? Is it a cape? I've never had a cape." She held it up to her chest. "Wow, just like a movie vampire."
"It's not a cape." I sat next to her and showed her the stitched edges. "They're curtains."
"Um, that's sweet, but where I live there are no windows." She fluttered her fingers beside her head. "Sun, vampire, spontaneous combustion?"
"They're not for your place. They're for mine."
Regina glanced around my living room. "They certainly don't clash with the bare walls and beige carpet." Then her eyes widened and she grabbed my hand. "Shane, you're decorating! That means you plan to live."
"Thinking about it." I squeezed her hand. "Look at the tag."
She sifted through the mounds of material until she found the little white piece of cardboard. "Blackout curtains." She swallowed hard and looked up. "You're putting these up for me."
My stomach froze at the flat dread in her voice. "It'd be safer, in case you got stuck here. Or if you wanted, you could stay during the day."
"With you."
"Well, yeah." I held up a hand. "I'm not asking you to move in. But it'd be cool if you could, you know, not leave every morning."
Regina lowered her chin. We stared at her thumb traveling around the corners of the tag as she turned it in her hand, over and over and over.
"Or," I went on, though I knew I was digging my own grave, "we could move somewhere else—maybe Pittsburgh, or even Philadelphia. We could form a new DJ business. Like the song says, start again." I raised my fist in a mock Billy Idol salute.
The whole time I was speaking, she just stared at her thin white hand against the thick black polyester. It lay flat, not clutching, fingers spread.
Finally she put the lid back on the box, then placed the square of folded wrapping paper in the center. "Take them back."
"Regina—"
"I can't do this."
"—you've made me want to live."
"I can't be your girlfriend. We can't even screw."
"I don't care." I tried to put my arm around her, but she shoved it off.
"One day you'll care," she snapped. "One day the novelty of me won't be enough to live for, and you'll want to die again."
"That's not true."
"Then what if I get sick of you? If you live for me, then leaving you would be the same as killing you. I don't want that burden."
I closed my eyes and turned my head away, picturing her final goodbye. The image of her walking away cut so deep I couldn't breathe.
She was right. My time with her was just a stay of execution, not a pardon. When we ended, I would die.
Copyright © March 2009 Jeri Smith-Ready
Visit Shane’s page on WVMPradio.com.
