One Little Kiss

“I did it for you, darling!”

Fran is pouting and trying for a look that she cannot land. She does a lot of this as far as Samuel is concerned, and right now, it is not at all endearing and neither is it alluring. Well, it might be partially alluring. Alluring to a certain extent. A disconcerting extent now that Samuel thinks about it. Those full red lips speak to him, and as for her eyes. The too large to be real eyes, that are pools he could drown in.

No!

This is what she does!

This is what she did…

“I don’t know why you did it at all!” protests Samuel.

“You were dying, my dear,” Fran says this sadly, but not quite as convincingly as she may think she is being.

“Dying!? How do you work that one out!?” wails Samuel.

“The blood…” she sighs confusingly, “…there was so much blood…”

Samuel’s mouth is working to and fro, voicing soundless words. Eventually, the sound of the words gain some traction, “it was a nose bleed!”

Fran nods gravely, “…so much blood.”

Samuel expels an exasperated breath, he puts his hands on his hips, all business, “why did you do it, Fran?”

“I told you…” she eyes Samuel and sees that he is not a happy bunny. She unfurls from the chaise lounge that she has been reclining on and stalks towards him, closing the gap between them, she cups his cheek, “don’t be angry with me, my darlink.” Some of her original accent drops into that last word and somehow it manages to send a thrill through Samuel. 

Fran has this effect on him and it’s addictive. It can also be frustratingly annoying.

Samuel glares at her and in return she smiles, “on second thoughts, do be angry with me…” she says quietly, her voice picking up a purring quality that does something pleasantly magical up and down Samuel’s back.

Before he has the opportunity to repel this sultry invasion, Fran kisses Samuel. 

A small and pathetic voice within Samuel tells him this isn’t fair. Samuel agrees with that voice for the hint of a moment, but Fran is so very good at kissing. If kissing was a sport, then Fran would be a grand master with a ridiculously successful reign at the pinnacle of the sport. He tries not to think about how long Fran would remain in that number one spot.

Samuel loses himself in Fran and he is well aware that she doesn’t lose herself in him, that she remains in control and leads this dance, like she always has.

Now that isn’t fair, this voice is louder and stronger and it will not be dismissed nor will it be ignored. Something wells up inside Samuel and although he is caught up in the swell of this inexplicable tide and thrilled by it, it also frightens him. The small voice whispers to him, this isn’t me…

But there is no stopping this. This elemental force has been unleashed and now Samuel has to ride it out. He returns Fran’s kiss with a passion hitherto unknown and later, Fran will voice her approval and her joy with one breathless word.

“Oh!”

Some while after this pleasant interlude, Samuel extricates himself from his voracious lover. For once he is not worn out by her, and he has a passing satisfaction that this time, he has given her a run for her money. He does not spot her surreptitiously opening a supposedly sleeping eye to observe him, a flicker of a smile playing across her ruby lips.

He may have missed those brief and clandestine movements, but Samuel was never dull, nor was he stupid.

“You don’t get away with it that easily,” he says to Fran’s prone form.

Fran lays there, unresponsive and deathly quiet.

“I know you’re awake,” he tells her.

“How?” she asks petulantly, opening a single eye to stare reproachfully at him.

“Well,” he says, “it’s not like you actually sleep is it?”

She sits up and growls at him, “sometimes you are no fun.”

“You say that…” he waves a hand around her, “…after.”

She smiles wistfully, then raises a hand to her neck.

“You bit me!” she says with faux-indignance. 

“That’s rich coming from you!” retorts Samuel.

She shakes her head at him as though she’s now bored of going over the same ground again, which for all intents and purposes, she is.

She indulges him all the same, “I already told you…”

“It was a nose bleed,” Samuel says.

“You were bleeding,” she says, there is accusation in her words.

“You say that like it’s my fault,” says Samuel.

“Well yes,” she laughs a trill laugh, “yes it is!”

Samuel defences crumble. He can see where she’s coming from, but he’s annoyed all the same. He tries to order his thoughts. Fran watches him as the cogs whir in his head.

“My problem is…” he begins.

“Bleeding in front of a vampire?” she asks him playfully.

“Well yeah!” he shakes his head, “I do get that that was not the best thing to ever happen in my life!”

“There you go then…” she says it like this is the end of the matter, but it is not. Not as far as Samuel is concerned. This is far from over.

“No!” Samuel snaps, “you’re acting like you did me a favour!”

“But I did!” the indignation in her words and her expression are condescending.

Samuel draws in a deep breath, ready to go again and push his point home. Fran has been opportunistic. She didn’t do it for him. She did it for her. He takes another look at her and understands that reasoning with her on this point will backfire and most likely backfire spectacularly. He’d push her away when he needed her more than he’d ever needed another person in his life. At least she wasn’t leveraging this fact. Maybe Fran was not quite as catlike in her world view as Samuel had thought. Or maybe she saw him differently now she’d overstepped the mark and done something she’d promised him she’d never do.

He sighs and decides he won’t push it. He won’t question her motives any further, because now he realises that he wants her to love him as much as he loves her and he shouldn’t push her to declare her feelings. In the end, he will know how she feels. He has time. Now he has more time than he could begin to wrap his head around.

“So what now?” Samuel asks instead.

Fran grins and pats the bed.

“You’re insatiable!” he says, laughter in his voice.

“Don’t be naughty, you fool!” she giggles, “come sit with me a while.”

Samuel does as he is told, there is a light reluctance in his complying to her command. He remains wary of his compliance. Fran is far too compelling and Samuel has always sought to be his own man, only he’s now no longer a man. He’s changed and he’s frustrated with the myriad inconveniences Fran has put him to.

“I can’t go to work,” Samuel says forlornly.

“You don’t need to,” says Fran, “I have plenty of money.”

“That’s not the point,” sighs Samuel.

“You can still do that job you know,” she tells him.

“I’m police!” moans Samuel, “how am I going to…” he makes a keening noise, “do any of it!”

“Adapt,” she says blithely, “you go out at night and you fight crime. If that’s what you want to do.”

“And what? Dress up like a vampire bat?” he says facetiously.

But Fran misses that tone of his, or she ignores it, Samuel can never tell which it is, “now that is a very good idea…” she smiles wickedly, “I can come with you.”

“And dress like a cat?” Samuel says.

Fran eyes him curiously, “now why would you say a thing like that?”

Samuel does not want to tell her that she has always reminded him of a cat and more than once he has felt like the mouse that she is playing with until she tires of the game and ends his life, instead he shrugs, “I think an outfit like that would suit you.” It’s not exactly a lie.

“We’re talking leather?” asks Fran.

Samuel smiles, “it seems we are, yes.”

“You are so naughty!” Fran giggles.

Samuel smiles, but the smile is short lived, it dies and slips from his face, “you could have warned me, you know.”

Fran looks into his eyes for a long time. The way she looks at him and the way they are together is different. But then everything is different now. Nothing will ever be the same, yet she is here and he is too and somehow, that is all that matters. 

“I did do you a favour,” she says this seriously and this time, Samuel does not baulk at this assertion of hers, “you were dying. I saw it every day and it pained me to see it. To know that each and every day we had together could have been our last. The fact of your mortal condition wounded me more deeply with each passing hour.” She paused, never taking her eyes from his, “you didn’t see things the same way as I did. You might never have said yes to me. You might never have asked for The Gift. Your kind do so much pretending. You deny your reality. I couldn’t go on like that.”

“So you made the choice for me?” there is no malice in Samuel’s words.

Fran’s frowns, “no, in the end, I had the choice made for me.”

“The blood?” ventures Samuel.

Fran nods, “it spoke to me.”

Samuel refrains from asking her the obvious question, what did it say?

“I was playing with fire, wasn’t I?” he sighs.

Fran nods and smiles a sad smile, “you knew what you were getting into from the very beginning.”

“You promised…” Samuel says this quietly and churlishly, and as he does, he feels a gentle wave of grief for the person he once was. A precursor to feelings he knows he will have to deal with over a long expanse of time. Somehow he knows that the grief he will experience for the Samuel who once was will be at times unendurable.

Fran nods, “I did.”

Samuel eyes her suspiciously, “you don’t think you broke your promise to me?”

Fran shakes her head, almost casually.

“How so?” he asks her.

“I didn’t end you,” she states.

Samuel’s mouth falls open, “that’s not…” 

“That was my promise to you, honey. I told you that I would not end you,” she smiles a coy smile and Samuel shakes his head incredulously.

He shakes his head some more and then he laughs. He laughs and laughs until he is wiping at tears of blood. He looks down at the red smears on his fingertips and marvels at this twist in his fate. This wasn’t what he signed up for. He is frustrated and annoyed. But he is also fascinated by what awaits him, and he is fascinated by Fran in way that he wasn’t before now.

He looks at the beautiful woman at his side. He did not choose this, but he did choose her, so maybe this was always the choice he made.

She smiles at him and pulls him back down onto the bed, rolling over him, she looks deeply into his eyes, “at least you’ll have no more nose bleeds,” she grins before kissing him.