"So you're waiting for marriage," he said.
I nodded. "I want you, Richard, badly, but I can't. I promised I'd never let myself get hurt like that again."
He stood up and came to stand in front of me. He stood close but didn't try to touch me. "Then marry me."
I looked up at him. "Yeah, right."
"No, I mean it." He put his hands on my shoulders, gently. "I've thought about asking before, but I was afraid. You hadn't seen what a lycanthrope could do, what we could be. I knew you needed to see that before I could ask, but I was afraid for you to see it."
"I still haven't seen you change," I said.
"Do you need to?"
"Standing here like this, I say no, but realistically, if we're serious, probably."
"Now?"
I stared up at him in the near dark and hugged him. I folded against him and shook my head, cheek sliding along his na**d chest. "No, not now."
He kissed the top of my head. "Is that a yes?"
I raised my head to look at him. "I should say no."
"Why?"
"Because life is too complicated for this."
"Life is always complicated, Anita. Say yes."
"Yes." The minute I said it, I wanted it back. I lusted after him a lot. I even loved him maybe more than a little. Did I suspect him of eating Little Red Riding Hood? Hell, he couldn't even bring himself to kill the Big Bad Wolf. Of the two of us, I was the more likely to slaughter people.
He kissed me, his hands pressing against my back. I drew back enough to breathe, and said, "No sex tonight. The rule still stands."
He lowered his mouth and spoke with our lips almost touching. "I know."
18
I was late to my first zombie appointment. Surprise, surprise. Being late to the first meeting made me late to the other two. It was 2:03 by the time I got to Edward's room.
I knocked. He opened the door and stepped to one side. "You're late."
"Yeah," I said. The room was nice but standard. A single king-sized bed, nightstand, two lamps, a desk against the far wall. The drapes were closed over the nearly wall-to-wall windows. The bathroom light was on, door open. The closet door was half-open, showing that he'd hung up his clothes. He planned to stay for a while.
The television was on, sound turned off. I was surprised. Edward didn't watch television. A VCR sat on top of the TV. That was not standard hotel issue.
"You want something from room service before we get started?"
"A Coke would be great."
He smiled. "You always did have champagne tastes, Anita." He went to the phone and ordered. He asked for a steak, rare, with a bottle of burgundy.
I took off my coat and laid it on the desk chair. "I don't drink," I said.
"I know," he said. "You want to freshen up while we wait for the food?"
I glanced up and caught a distant look at myself in the bathroom mirror. Chicken blood had dried to a sticky, brick color on my face. "I see your point."
I shut the bathroom door and looked at myself in the mirror. The lighting was that harsh, glaring white that so many hotel bathrooms seem to have. It's so unflattering that even Ms. America wouldn't look good in it.
The blood stood out like reddish chalk against my pale skin. I was wearing a white Christmas sweatshirt that had Maxine from the Shoebox Hallmark commercials on it. She was drinking coffee with a candy cane in hand, saying, "This is as jolly as I get." Bert had asked us to wear Christmasy-type things for the month. Maybe the sweatshirt wasn't exactly what he had in mind, but hey, it was better than some of the ones I had at home. There was blood on the white cloth. Figures.
I took the sweatshirt off, draping it on the bathtub. There was blood smeared over my heart. I'd even gotten a little on my silver cross. I'd put the blood there along with the stuff on my face and hands. I'd killed three chickens tonight. Raising zombies was a messy job.
I got one of the white washrags from the little towel rack. I wondered how Edward would explain the bloodstains to the maid. Not my problem, but sort of amusing anyway.
I ran water into the sink and started scrubbing. I caught a glimpse of myself with blood running down my face in watery rivulets. I stood up and stared. My face looked fresh scrubbed and sort of surprised.
Had Richard really proposed? Had I really said yes? Surely not. I had said yes. Shit. I wiped at the blood on my chest. I played with monsters all the time. So I was engaged to one. That stopped me. I sat down on the closed lid of the stool, bloody washrag gripped in my hands. I was engaged. Again.
The first time he'd been so white bread that even Judith had liked him. He'd been Mr. All-American, and I hadn't been good enough for him, according to his family. What had hurt most was that he hadn't loved me enough. Not nearly as much as I'd loved him. I'd have given up everything for him. Not a mistake to make twice.
Richard wasn't like that. I knew that. Yet there was that worm of doubt. Fear that he'd blow it. Fear he wouldn't blow it. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
I looked down and realized I was dripping bloody water on the linoleum. I knelt and wiped it up. I was scrubbed as clean as I was going to get until I showered at home. If I'd brought clean clothes, I might have done it here, but I hadn't thought of it.
Edward knocked on the door. "Food's here."
I got dressed, put the rag in the sink, and ran cold water over it. I made sure the cloth wasn't blocking the drain and opened the door. The smell of steak hit me. It smelled wonderful. I hadn't eaten for more than eight hours, and truthfully I hadn't eaten all that much then. Richard had distracted me.
"Do you think room service would shoot us if we asked for another order?"
He made a small hand motion at the room-service cart. There were two orders on the cart.
"How did you know I'd be hungry?"
"You always forget to eat," he said.
"My, aren't we being mother of the year."
"The least I can do is feed you."
I looked at him. "What's up, Edward? You're being awfully considerate."
"I know you well enough to know you won't like this. Call the meal a peace offering."
"Won't like what?"
"Let's eat, watch the movie, and all will be revealed."
He was being cagey. It wasn't like him. He'd shoot you, but he wouldn't be cute about it. "What are you up to, Edward?"
"No questions until after the movie."
"Why not?"
"Because you'll have better questions." With that inscrutable answer he sat down on the edge of the bed and poured a glass of red wine. He cut his meat, which was raw enough to bleed in the center.
"Please tell me my steak isn't bloody."
"It isn't bloody. You like your meat well dead."
"Ha, ha." But I sat down. It seemed odd sharing a meal in Edward's hotel room, like we were two business people traveling together, just a working dinner. The steak was well done. Thick house fries suitably spiced took up almost as much room as the steak. There was a side order of broccoli, which could be slid to one side and ignored.
The Coke came in a chilled wineglass, which seemed a little excessive, but it looked nice.
"The movie's going to start near the end. I don't think you'll have any trouble picking up the plot." He hit the remote control, and the TV screen flickered, jumping from a game show to a bedroom.
A woman with long brown hair lay on her back in a round bed. She was nude, or at least what I could see of her was nude. Below the waist she was hidden behind the furiously pumping bu**ocks of a dark-haired man.
"This is p**n ography." I didn't even try to keep the disbelief from my voice.
"It certainly is."
I glanced at Edward. He was cutting his steak with neat, precise hand movements. He chewed a bite of steak, sipped his wine, and watched the screen.
I glanced back at the "movie." A second man had joined the couple on the bed. He was taller than the first man, with shorter hair, but beyond that it was a little hard to tell, mainly because I was trying not to look.
I sat on the edge of Edward's bed with our nice steak dinners, and for the first time felt awkward around Edward. There had never been any sexual tension between us. We might kill each other someday, but we'd never kiss. But I was still in a man's hotel room watching a p**n o movie, and good girls just didn't do that.
"Edward, what the hell is going on?"