The Cold -- PG-13 Challenge #124
Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2010 8:04 am
Title: The Cold
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Still not mine.
A/N: Written for Champagne Challenge #124: Conditions: The word 'cold' in the title; the words 'blanket', 'shiver', 'smoke' in the body.
Summary: Beth asks Simone a question only a freshie would know the answer to.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Cold
“Do you ever get used to it?”
Their eyes met in the mirror.
“Hunh?”, said Simone, her lower lip bowed beneath the tube of YSL Red Muse.
“The cold,” Beth said, pouting at herself, then running her fingers through the ends of her hair. “I keep half expecting that his lips will eventually warm up.”
Simone felt a wisp of pity for the girl. “How long has it been?,” she asked gently.
“I didn’t even notice it at first.” The flush of memory on her cheeks made Beth’s face glow. “But it… it started to bother me about six months ago. We couldn’t seem to kiss for as long as we used to before I’d begin to shiver.” She smiled, “We made a joke of it, you know - Mick getting a blanket for us to shelter under and making a pretend fire, me flapping the ends about and coughing from all the pretend smoke.” She paused, “And - ”
She left the last sentence hanging, playing another pretending game as her eyes lowered, her hands rummaging in her purse for something she never did put her finger on.
Simone said nothing, her heart breaking for the both of them.
This wasn’t the first time she’d heard a story like this and, face it, very few of the stories on the scene ever ended well. Outcomes for girls like them, even girls like Simone herself, tended to fall into one of six categories: death, mostly accidental these days, though sadly sometimes not; a lifetime of futile, obsessive love after the inevitable rejection; or a big house in the suburbs married to a human business associate who never made you come. Turnings were so rare they almost didn’t rate a category, and as for happy, long term human/vampire marriages, well, if Hans Christian Anderson were alive today, that story would be right there next to the one about the vampire raising a foundling baby whose love eventually makes him human again.
Oh, once a decade, somewhere in the world, a freshie would rise above the dysphoria inherent in the condition, save her money and open her own donor agency or something akin to that. Usually they were girls like Beth; those brimming over with so much vitality that their systems could never truly accept the touch of death. Those rare girls only coped with the cold for so long and they always left their vampires in the end. Every girl at every agency and every club that arranged for introductions whispered their names in awe.
“Mick doesn’t bite you,” Simone said.
Some girls started off like Beth but, once bitten, became so addicted to the bite, that they lived with their body’s rejection of the cold, constantly craving the fang, but without the pain of the bite ever fully being dulled and never quite reaching the orgasmic highs the other girls did. It was a terrible fate for a girl.
“No,” Beth confirmed, turning in puzzlement to gaze at her friend in the flesh.
Simone’s already high estimation of Josef’s friend rose another few notches. Mick knew. Of course he did. He’d seen it all before, just as she had. The very first moment Beth had drawn away a second too early, he would have known. Oh the pain he must have felt; the torment of staying, of loving her, knowing what he knew. Just once, he only had to bite her properly just once for the seed of the addiction to take hold and make her his forever, no matter how her body felt beneath the bite.
That it hadn’t been done already meant it never would.
Beth put an arm around the other girl. “Why are you crying?” she asked.
“It’s the cold,” Simone said, “All of us feel a little of the cold.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Still not mine.
A/N: Written for Champagne Challenge #124: Conditions: The word 'cold' in the title; the words 'blanket', 'shiver', 'smoke' in the body.
Summary: Beth asks Simone a question only a freshie would know the answer to.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Cold
“Do you ever get used to it?”
Their eyes met in the mirror.
“Hunh?”, said Simone, her lower lip bowed beneath the tube of YSL Red Muse.
“The cold,” Beth said, pouting at herself, then running her fingers through the ends of her hair. “I keep half expecting that his lips will eventually warm up.”
Simone felt a wisp of pity for the girl. “How long has it been?,” she asked gently.
“I didn’t even notice it at first.” The flush of memory on her cheeks made Beth’s face glow. “But it… it started to bother me about six months ago. We couldn’t seem to kiss for as long as we used to before I’d begin to shiver.” She smiled, “We made a joke of it, you know - Mick getting a blanket for us to shelter under and making a pretend fire, me flapping the ends about and coughing from all the pretend smoke.” She paused, “And - ”
She left the last sentence hanging, playing another pretending game as her eyes lowered, her hands rummaging in her purse for something she never did put her finger on.
Simone said nothing, her heart breaking for the both of them.
This wasn’t the first time she’d heard a story like this and, face it, very few of the stories on the scene ever ended well. Outcomes for girls like them, even girls like Simone herself, tended to fall into one of six categories: death, mostly accidental these days, though sadly sometimes not; a lifetime of futile, obsessive love after the inevitable rejection; or a big house in the suburbs married to a human business associate who never made you come. Turnings were so rare they almost didn’t rate a category, and as for happy, long term human/vampire marriages, well, if Hans Christian Anderson were alive today, that story would be right there next to the one about the vampire raising a foundling baby whose love eventually makes him human again.
Oh, once a decade, somewhere in the world, a freshie would rise above the dysphoria inherent in the condition, save her money and open her own donor agency or something akin to that. Usually they were girls like Beth; those brimming over with so much vitality that their systems could never truly accept the touch of death. Those rare girls only coped with the cold for so long and they always left their vampires in the end. Every girl at every agency and every club that arranged for introductions whispered their names in awe.
“Mick doesn’t bite you,” Simone said.
Some girls started off like Beth but, once bitten, became so addicted to the bite, that they lived with their body’s rejection of the cold, constantly craving the fang, but without the pain of the bite ever fully being dulled and never quite reaching the orgasmic highs the other girls did. It was a terrible fate for a girl.
“No,” Beth confirmed, turning in puzzlement to gaze at her friend in the flesh.
Simone’s already high estimation of Josef’s friend rose another few notches. Mick knew. Of course he did. He’d seen it all before, just as she had. The very first moment Beth had drawn away a second too early, he would have known. Oh the pain he must have felt; the torment of staying, of loving her, knowing what he knew. Just once, he only had to bite her properly just once for the seed of the addiction to take hold and make her his forever, no matter how her body felt beneath the bite.
That it hadn’t been done already meant it never would.
Beth put an arm around the other girl. “Why are you crying?” she asked.
“It’s the cold,” Simone said, “All of us feel a little of the cold.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~