Pretty People Never Lie

She'd grown so much, and though she should have grown away, she came back home.

          “Look how you’ve grown,” I murmured, eyes roaming the figure as she stood before me. Such a contrast, a pure alabaster-white skin covered in soft black velvet, wisps of her black hair framing her porcelain face. Her pale pink lips didn’t move, didn’t curve up into a smile; her eyes didn’t convey feelings of any kind. Seemed she was cold as alabaster too.

 

          “It’s etched,” she said as she took a step forward, “in skin and bone.” She pulled her long sleeve back, revealing her pale arm. Against the pale of her skin the white of scars was even purer, the raised skin calling to me. My mouth watered, my teeth longed to break through the thickened flesh again. Those scars I created, the ones I gave to her, they called to me now like the dark of my tomb calls when dawn approaches.

 

          I collapsed back onto a stone bench and slumped forward, arms resting on my legs. She walked over like the angel of death and sat next to me, pulling her sleeve back down. Idly I studied her face from the corner of my eyes. It had lost the plumpness of a child’s face and was thin now, her high cheek bones giving her a skeletal look. So beautiful in her living death.

 

          Her eyes slipped half shut, seemed to disappear behind the smears of kohl around them. She reached out; I watched her stroke the petals of a near-by rose. I wanted to see her lay in them, to strip of her velvet and lay naked, bleached out in the roses. Some would call it hollow and tasteless of me, tell me I just wanted to ravish the girl I’d watched grow, but I didn’t. No, I just wanted to admire her, to study her, to contrast that perfect skin to the red of the roses, to the red of the blood I could call up from her scars.

 

          “I haven’t been here,” she said, “in what feels like ages.”

 

          “Not many people want to come where spirits make love,” I said, and she smiled.

 

          “Where pretty corpses hold their brides.” I smiled and she reached out, tracing her fingers up my arm, over the black cloth incasing my skin. Perhaps I was the pretty corpse she was referring to; perhaps she was the bride she mentioned. Her hand reached my neck, traced around to the back and sank into the layers of black hair. I sighed contently, closed my eyes. I never dreamed her fingers would grow to feel so perfect, so smooth and knowing of just how to move.

 

          “Do you know I’d never hurt you?” I whispered, slitting my eyes open and gazing at her under head lids. I felt the tips of my fangs protruding under my lip, and parted them so she could see. Though I knew she remembered they were there. It was impossible to forget.

 

          She said nothing, but I felt her move closer. She leaned in, her body pressing to my arm, her curves fitting me, and offered her wrist to me, her eyes pale. “So taste it,” she whispered. She pressed her wrist to my lips. “Taste it.”

 

          My eyes opened, and I reached up, fingers curling around her wrist. I lowered her arm away from me, pushed down the hunger that was rising.

 

          “Why?” I asked, looking at her with absinthe eyes. “Why now, when you’ve been away so long? You’ve escaped this; I haven’t had you in so long.”

 

          “I’m not whole,” she said in almost a whimper, leaning closer, “I’m missing you.” She pulled her arm free and held it out again. “So taste it, and we’ll never be alone.”

 

          I stared at her, and her pale cyan orbs stared back. She was serious, she wanted this. I hadn’t fed from her in so long, not since she was little. I’d set her free from this place so she could live the life I no longer had, and she had come back, missing me. She wanted what I thought she dreaded most in life. She wanted my teeth inside her veins.

 

          I turned to face her, wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her against my chest. Her head tilted to the side, just like I knew it would, and I smiled, nuzzling the soft skin. I could feel her heart beat, racing, pounding, the blood flowing just below the surface. My nerves tingled.

 

          “I’ll take the first bite,” I murmured, teeth grazing her skin. I always took the first bite on her, no matter what. She had always been mine, she always would be mine. She proved it now.

 

          I sank my teeth into her, felt the flesh part and the veins open. Blood welled to the surface, pooled in my mouth. I let it run over my tongue, the copper-iron flavor such a rich mix, hinted with salt. Her hands reached up and gripped my shoulders; I heard her breath escape her.

 

          “I am Ghost,” she whimpered. I heard her moan. I suck on her skin, afraid to pull away. She was enjoying this. I needed this.

 

          Finally, afraid to take another drop, I leaned back, looked up at her, my lips parted, smeared with her. “Say goodnight to you,” I whispered, reaching up and guiding her heavy lids closed. “My darling, my darling…”

 

          She slumped against me, and I held her, cradled her to my chest. She looked so peaceful, even more so in her slumber-like state. She’d awake soon, I knew, but it had been so long since I took from her, she needed to rest.

 

          I stroked her cheek, studied the way her bones were laid under her skin. I know it shouldn’t be much different from when she was young, but it seemed like a whole new world to me. I bit my lip, fighting back the tears that threatened. She was really back.

 

          Few words can ever kill me, but being told she was miserable had. Being told keeping her with me in my tomb would slowly kill her, destroy the precious glow I found in her eyes and skin killed me, stabbed me deep in my heart that only she could will to beat. I had to let her go, but she had come home! Those words in her hands had inspired.

 

          I could feel the sun against my back, ready to rise. I stood and scooped her up into my arms, walked calmly through the roses, along the stones, towards the old family mausoleum. I shouldered the door open and stepped into the darkness. Gently, I lay her down in the open coffin, stared as the red satin pulled around her. I turned and closed the door, latching it from within, and sat down on another stone bench, in the dark. The stone walls allowed no light in, but my eyes could see none the less.

 

          I remembered her awe when she was young, when I would bring her in here with me. She was so naïve, she’d cry in her little voice, “Look at these glass-shaped walls!” I never knew why she saw glass, when my home was made of stone, until much later when I stumbled upon a church with large stained-glass windows. The walls were stone just like the mausoleum. How Faith and Death make-love in the world’s eyes, yet they are blind to it.

 

          She never understood when she was little why we slept in here, why she wasn’t allowed out in the light. She used to sit up and play with paper dolls by candle light, unable to adjust to the change. I’d lie in my coffin and watch, bemused with her childishness. She never understood what the sun could do to me, until I showed her. I remember rising from my coffin and crouching down, taking a paper doll in my hand.

 

          “We’ll burn the flesh off all these paper-dolls,” I said to her wide-eyed face, “and you’ll see what the sun does to me.”

 

 

          She cried all night, even though I didn’t harm a fiber on those damn dolls. I remember her curled against me, even though I’d threatened what was precious to her. I stroked her hair and she quivered, and I though, we won’t wall, we’ll be together. Just the two of us, in this mausoleum, and that’d be fine. This child would be mine forever, I’d keep her by day and guide her by night and never again have to sleep on the cold stone alone. Even though I was sure she hated me as she hide within my coat, I thought I could get past it and keep her anyway.

 

          My mortal heart still beats inside me somewhere.

 

          “That’s hollow,” I whispered to myself as I stared down at the floor now, breathless. How could I ever think to keep her against her will, when I knew I was in love with every bit of flesh and thought that she was? I loved her from the moment I took her, and I loved her still when she returned to this place where spirits make love, even though I was sure she didn’t think too highly of me. “I’m only lost and lonely through your eyes,” I whispered, sure that was what she thought of me. She had come back because this was what she knew. She’d leave again, I was sure; when she became aware it wasn’t what she wanted.

 

          I stood up and walked over to my coffin, reached down and let my hand glide along her cheek again. “Do you know I’d never hurt you?” I asked her sleeping form again. No, I would never hurt her. Nothing I’d done had ever really hurt her. She was still in tact, in body, in mind, she was still here. I’d never break that.

 

          I walked away and pressed myself to the door. It was warming, but not yet with the full risen sun. I unlatched it quickly and stepped outside, my skin tingling. I didn’t have long.

 

          I bent down and grasped a rose in my palm, the small thorns cutting into my skin. I cut the stem with a nail and walked back inside, felling my skin tingling more and more, the air getting warmer. As I closed the door I knew the sun was rising, that I’d just escaped a nice slap on the face from its rays.

 

          I stood over the coffin and gently lay the rose against her chest, against the milky whiteness of her skin, her curves, and the velvet black of her dress. “So take this rose,” I whispered, “so take this rose…”

 

          I turned and slumped down on the ground, back pressed to the coffin, knees bent. I buried my hands into my thick hair and shook gently, weeping silently. God, she looked dead, lying there. So looked like one of us. The thought terrified me, my Ghost becoming a vampire, stalking the night with me. I couldn’t stand thinking of that light that burned deep inside her, somewhere in the depths of her chest or belly, dying out, replaced by emptiness, by a hunger that was never really satisfied. It sickened me to think of her dead like me.

 

          I dragged my nails down my wet cheeks, felt tears collect beneath them. Break this bottle of aged pills, please, I begged silently. Break this addiction to her blood. Kill me and set me free from her, so she can live.

 

          I tilted my head up and took a deep breath of the damp, decaying air, exhaled slowly. I thought of how we could sleep tonight, and all through December. Yes, the cold month I stole her away, we could sleep every moment away inside our mausoleum, our home. Yes, if I turned her, I would never be alone.

 

          “No,” I whispered, silencing the temptation. “No, never.” I pulled myself up and turned to look down at her again, my sleeping beauty, with the rose resting against her supple body. I reached out and traced her cheek, felt the warmth. Soon she’ll grow, I remember being told that when she was young. She’d grow, and I’d have to set her free or break her, or make her. There were no in betweens. “I can’t believe this is all my fault,” I whispered, absently wiping my tears away as I stroked down to her neck, along her shoulder. “I’ve caused you so much grief, my child. I set you free, you should have run. Why did you look back? Why?” I snatched the rose from her, crumpled the bud in my palm. “Why did you come back!” I was screaming now, hysterical.

 

          Soon she’ll grow. It echoed in my head. “Then she’ll kill me, and put me back together again.” I threw the petals into the dark, the stem lost in my hysterics. I walked to the other side of the tomb and pressed myself to the cold wall, just colder then me. “We will never be alone,” I whimpered, wanting to tear at my hair. I clung to the rocks instead. I’ll take the first bite, I’ll take the last bite, I’ll take every bite. I’ll ruin her; I knew it to be true. I’d let her go too late, she’d become attached, she was here. I was losing my mind with grief over what had no even come yet.

 

          I leapt over to the coffin, into it, crouched over her. She stirred a little, but her eyes didn’t open. She would sleep the day away, I knew. I would have the day all to myself, and I would belong to my voices, screaming at me in my head about how I’d ruined her. “But oh, how you’ve grown,” I whispered, gazing down at her. Yes, she was far from the little girl I set free, the small child I stole. Say goodnight the voices urged, and I knew my hysterics were being partially derived from my need for slumber.

 

          “Goodnight,” I murmured as I slipped down beside her, nestled into the coffin we’d shared so many times before. I pulled her against me so her curves fit into mine; close enough so I could smell the sweet scent of her hair. I nestled it, kissed the crook of her neck, held her tight against me. I’d never let her go, even if that meant pushing her as far away from me as possible. I’d never let her lose that light. I will not ruin her.

 

          “My darling,” I cooed quietly, closing my eyes. “My darling…”

Author's Note

Based off I Am Ghost's song, "Pretty People Never Lie, Vampires Never Really Die," lyrics are in both narrative and dialogue.

Reviews

[Matthew Kult]

Great Story. Very well done. Great read.