The glow of neon painted her dangling breasts an alien green.
"How about it, sailor?"
She was wanton, leaning into his car. She was maybe nineteen, hair a wild tangle of blonde, breasts nearly hanging out of the tube top, seductive smile, a little silver pin in her nose.
Not at all what he was looking for.
"No," Darrell said, wincing a bit at the timidity in his voice.
"Your loss," she said, her back to him before she'd finished even that short sentence. He watched her ass, her long legs below the short cutoffs, until the light turned green. Then he moved on.
They were everywhere and of every type. Cowgirl chic. Biker chicks. Guys in drag. Madonna look-alikes, Marilyn clones. The standard party girls, like the one he'd turned down. A hundred painted lures waiting for the fish to bite.
But none of them were what he needed. Darrell's eyes darted left, then right, searching the night for the Bloofer Lady.
At the next red light, a tall kid in a long coat crossing the street slammed his palms on the hood of the Dodge. The kid leered as he saw Darrell cringe. Darrell wished he'd brought a gun.
The streets weren't safe, and he knew he lacked the skills to survive here. The night people had it – an attitude, a toughness. Darrell didn't.
He checked again to make sure that the car doors were locked.
He didn't like it here, under the green and red and purple and blue and yellow lights that promised live nude girls. Here, where long-haired leather-clad people bought powdered joy, or worse. But this is where he would find her. The Bloofer Lady.
He remembered how he'd found her here that first time. He'd been drunk, berating himself, blaming himself for a sexless marriage. Looking for something he didn't quite understand in a place he didn't begin to comprehend.
The girls had all been there, that first night. He'd talked to many, but he had passed up one after another. He wanted them, more desperately than he would have admitted, but they intimidated him. Even the Bloofer Lady had intimidated him, at first.
But she wasn't hard like the others. Nor was she so shamelessly wanton. That's what had attracted him.
They all had their gimmicks, their market niches. But where others put their breasts on display, and called out like construction workers, the Bloofer Lady took an almost regal approach.
Victorian dress, displaying her slender shape without revealing skin. Dark hair piled high on her head, accenting a beautiful, delicious neck. Dark eyes that promised mysteries, not tawdry bedroom diversions. Lips of a red rich as blood.
She didn't fit the downtown night scene at all, yet she walked through it as casually as if she owned it. She had a magic, a quiet power over the night. A power Darrell admired and craved.
Call me the Bloofer Lady, she'd said, voice soft and inviting. Lucy, if you prefer. The eyes called to him.
It was only later, after he'd left her in the hotel and awakened somewhat from her spell that he recalled the name Bloofer Lady from somewhere. Dracula, Stoker's book. The vampire's victim turned vampire herself. Children of Hampstead would disappear, then be found in the morning. Invariably, they said they'd been lured away by the "Bloofer Lady."
And they always had those tiny, ragged marks on their necks.
That memory from his childhood reading had pounced on him in the deep of that first night as he remembered her kisses, her nails, her teeth on his neck ...
Darrell remembered how he'd ran to the mirror, how his knees had shaken until he'd assured himself there were no puckered holes in his throat, no white-edged marks of the vampire.
For the next few nights after that, he'd stayed home. He tried to read, watch TV, anything, while his wife went about her life elsewhere in the house, ignoring her inadequate husband. But he kept thinking about the Bloofer Lady. Her kisses. Her strength. Her power.
He knew even then he'd seek her out again. And again.
And now here he was in this hostile zone, which he'd infiltrated so many times these last months. Anticipating her touch, her tongue, her sharp little nips at his neck ... with never a bite.
A honk behind him got him moving again. He turned left, toward a Gothic-styled bar the Bloofer Lady liked so much. He searched for her on the sidewalk. Not there. He thought about going inside, but shivered at the thought of entering that strange den without her by his side.
He decided to drive a while longer. If the night grew old, and still no sign, he told himself, he'd go inside.
As he drove, he replayed all the past night encounters with Lucy. All her alluring tales of the night world.
She spoke gaily of a London she said she'd known a hundred years before, painting vivid word pictures of foggy nights, the lapping Thames.
"It is ... was, rather, a city that cannot truly be appreciated by the merely mortal," she'd said. "A city teeming with ... life."
He wished he could throw off his accountant trappings, join her in the dark where she walked so freely. Like a queen in command of her realm.
"You could join me there," she always promised. "You could be a strong lord of the night."
But the long, draining bite that would remake him – resurrect him – never came. Not when she whispered promises in his ear, not when his body shivered with release, not when she had him completely, helplessly, willingly under her spell.
Not even when he begged.
When he pressed her, she pouted prettily.
"Soon, my love. Soon. When you are ready. You must first learn to be comfortable with the night. You must learn to hunt, to do what you must to survive in my world."
Killer instinct. The very thing he'd lacked all his life.
He would learn, he'd told her.
"Not yet, my Darrell. Not yet."
So he kept coming back. Kept sneaking into this nightrealm where dangers lurked, where everyone had an edge except him.
He glanced at the package, wrapped in silver paper and red ribbon, beside him. Another present for the Bloofer Lady. He'd given her jewels, dresses, a quaint little music box that tinkled "London Bridge." He'd even thought about renting her a nice little apartment, somewhere away from this downtown night world. But he couldn't afford it. And he knew she never would leave this neighborhood anyway. It was, after all, her hunting ground.
Sometimes, when her refusals made his blood and his mind burn angrily, he wondered if she lied. If she really were what she pretended to be. But when he was with her, he felt the power under the innocent surface, felt the magic that made her part of the night. That made him want to be part of the night.
His driving had brought him around the block, back to the Goth bar. She was there, pale face framed by dark hair worn down tonight, parasol on her slender shoulder, dress revealing a tasteful amount of cleavage.
He put the package in the rear seat to make room for her and pulled over. He did not honk. She would know he was there.
She sensed him, and smiled. Unhurriedly, she strolled to the car, opened the door and climbed in, tucking her long skirt expertly. She paid no heed to the skinheads who watched her intently.
"Darrell. I sensed your presence tonight."
"I know."
He pulled the car away from the curb. As they rode in silence, he could feel her eyes shining on him, the tingle at his neck telling him her spells were at work again. She tickled the hairs at the back of his neck, then raked her nail slowly down to a spot on his throat. It circled there, teasingly, just a bit painfully. It was enticing.
"Tonight?" He asked. She knew what he meant.
"Perhaps," she whispered.
"I'm ready ... ready for the night world."
"We'll see."
"I'm ready. Ready to hunt."
***
Later, he shook with the thrill, the anticipation, as they made love. Her teeth kept biting at his lips, then at his neck. Back and forth, in time with his own thrusting, setting a slower pace than the one his body urged. When he felt release coming, knew that his exertion was leading to an uncontrollable climax, he begged her. "Now ... now ...now!"
But only his body found release this night. The release of his soul, of his night fears, was withheld once again. No bite.
He rolled off of her, covered his face with his hands. "Why? Why?" It was a whimper, and again he felt his weaknesses welling up, burying him.
"You must be patient," she said. She rolled off the bed, wrapped herself in the sheet. It trailed behind her, and in the shadows she looked like a ghost bride.
"I've waited so long ..."
She walked to the dresser, took a brush from her purse and played it slowly through her long dark hair. She held the sheet to her breasts, but her back was to him and he could see her slim body, her pale legs, her smooth back.
"You are a good man, Darrell. Decent. Sweet. The night is for hunters. You are not a hunter."
"I can be. I want to be."
"It isn't easy, Darrell. Not easy at all."
"I'm ready ..."
"No. But soon, Darrell. Soon." She put down her brush, took up the package on the dresser. She turned, her hair swirling silkily behind her.
"May I open it now?" Her eyes flashed, even in the dark. The Bloofer Lady loved presents.
"Yes," he said, eagerness returning to his voice. "Open it."
She tore at the bow, ripped at the wrapping.
"It'll show you I mean it," he said. "How committed I am. I want to be by you, to walk the night by your side."
She tossed the crumpled wrapping on the floor. She shook the cardboard box next to her lovely ear. "It doesn't sound like jewelry, or a music box."
"Open it. You'll see I'm sincere."
She looked up at him, smiling. "What is it?"
"Open it."
She lifted the lid carefully and looked into the box. Her smile faded, her eyes widened. She tried to scream, then covered her mouth as her stomach heaved.
The box landed on the carpet with a soft thud, and its moist contents rolled out.
She stared at Darrell as if seeing a monster. "No ... no ... no ..." She was trying to scream, but it came out of her in barely audible sobs.
She backed away, against the dresser. "Oh, Darrell, no ... no ... it's just a game... "
He walked toward her, bent to pick up the box. "I told you, I'm ready." He gently nudged the wet human heart back into its container, then stood and held it out to her.
"It belonged to my wife ..."
