Kit

Upon awaking there was disorientation. She was aware of being hot, sticky, the bedclothes were tangled around her, she felt stifled, she needed to get up. There was a sense of panic as she felt herself falling and then pain as she hit the floor. Suddenly she was grounded, she knew where she was.

Hotel room, London, you're on a business trip.

Lauren kicked herself free of the sheets and leaned back on one hand, using the other to wipe away the sweat on her neck and under her chin. What a dream.

She pressed herself up and got her feet beneath her. She stumbled a bit and caught herself by putting one hand on the nightstand. She was dizzy, her throat was dry and her eyes burned.

"What's the matter with me?" She shook her head and went to the bathroom, the dizziness becoming more manageable. She ran water from the tap and pulled her hair back to drink. It was cool but it didn't seem to help very much. She shut off the water and blinked, opening her eyes wide to push back the drowsiness in her eyes.

As she did so she took in her flushed face, her naked shoulders. She felt her bare feet on the cold tile. It was all so significant, so erotic to her. She went to the shower and turned on the water, making sure it was cool before she stepped in. She put her head under the stream and felt the rivulets running down her body.

What a dream...

She closed her eyes, seeking to find snippets of it still lingering in the back of her mind.

His hands were pale and the suit he wore was dark charcoal.

She leaned her head back, taking the little wrapped bar of soap and unwrapping it almost completely by touch.

He'd had a name in the dream. She remembered it whispered as he hovered over her, she gasping as his very features seemed to grow sharper as she neared her own climax. Kisses, hot, moving from her lips down her neck while hands cradled her and caressed her flesh, kneading her...

She shut off the water and slid the glass door of the shower open. She took the towel from the rack and wrapped herself in it. She took the brush out of her travel bag and went to work on her hair. She always brushed it while it was still wet.

There was a smell to him, oh, God.

She felt herself drop the brush and heard it clatter in the sink.

She had smelled him. She had felt him. He had been real.

She opened her eyes and looked at her reflection in the mirror. On some strange instinct she felt her hand move to the knot of the towel under her arm. She unwrapped herself and looked at her body in the mirror. On her left breast, her shoulder, her neck—she felt along the inside of her thigh—she backed away from the mirror, frightened.

What happened last night?

****

The weather was damp and growing damper as he rounded the corner from Pall Mall into St. James Street. The people passing by would have thought him queer had they been able to see him, his hair matted to his head, looking probably very much out of place. Anyone without a hat and umbrella in London on a day like this was a tourist or a madman.

He smiled and nodded at a few of them, pretending they could see him and acting as if he were reassuring them he wasn't insane or a tourist.

Kit liked the rain in London. It was one of the few things that stayed constant about the place.

Kit had never gotten over the changes though he had come for the most part to appreciate them. Nothing big would ever stop London from being London. No matter how big she grew, he still loved it here. Whatever improvements mingled with the monuments of old—the eye, the millennium. Every year there was something added and nothing really lost.

He shook his head. No, some things had disappeared. People lived in an age of information now, for all the good it did them. When literacy had been a luxury of the select few there hadn't been so much drivel produced. Everything was supersized now, something he couldn't quite come to terms with. Some things, when made bigger, did not, by any stretch of the imagination, become better.

The world had become more civilized too. No matter what the papers said on the subject.

Economic upheaval, indeed.

Anyone who thought they were living in the most atrocious age in 2009 hadn't seen Edward Wightman burned at the stake for heresy in 1612.

He'd seen depictions of public executions in films but they never did it justice. The crowds were never as enthusiastic as they had been in reality, nor were they as squalid. What he missed the most were hangings. Those had been the most gruesome and dismal affairs made riotous by the cheering, sneering, bloodthirsty crowds.

It was marvelous to think that the faces passing him on the street belonged to decedents of those he'd seen spitting on the corpses of John Bradshaw, and Oliver Cromwell.

He walked the streets by day, watching the people, what authors for centuries had labeled "the teeming masses" not really viewing them as people of a new "breed" or "generation" but as the same people of the same caliber that had moved through the streets and more recently the underground tunnels for a good part of his unnatural life.

The only difference between people in London in 2009 and people in London in 1066 was that the people in 2009 had less time on their hands and different distractions.

Whereas children used to play by feeding dead rats to tabby cats, today they had hand-held computer games and little multicolored bits of plastic and wire, inexplicably dubbed iPods.

In thinking of the years, it struck him. Another 57 years and that was a solid millennium for the crown. He smiled, shaking his head.

Well, good for you William! Aye, me, from such humble beginnings...

He checked his Rolex and smiled. He rounded the corner to find himself in front of the Ritz. Tossing his copy of the Times into a bin, he turned up the collar of his overcoat against the drizzle. It was a typical day of mist giving way to rain in the slow appalling manner that had everyone carrying umbrellas. He disliked umbrellas—made it difficult to follow anyone. Taking a spot against a pillar he put his hands in his pockets and patiently watched the man at the hansom stand.

He smiled as he saw her come out wearing a tan camel-hair overcoat that was quite flattering. The man at the stand hailed a hansom and he watched as she sped off down Piccadilly.

***

Lauren took her glasses from her nose and let them drop unceremoniously onto the desk top. She rubbed her eyes, blinking them. The computer screen had made the headache she'd had all day exponentially worse, as had the constant interruptions—people coming in asking her if they could be of any help.

She leaned back in the chair, turning around to look out the window at the view of the city at night, which struck her as impressive though alien. She missed San Francisco. The rain wasn't nearly as depressing in San Francisco, or the people quite so measured. For the fiftieth time she closed her eyes, knitting her brow trying to remember the night before.

Late arrival, cab from the airport, check in, bed.

She seemed to remember bumping into someone and saying "excuse me" somewhere in there but that was all.

It had to have been a dream.

She'd not gone into the bar, nor out for a walk. She'd spoken to no one except the cab driver, the concierge, and the man she'd bumped into on her way into the hotel from the cab. She hadn't even ordered room service though she'd been hungry when she went to bed.

It must have been a dream, Lauren. You couldn't have been with anyone last night. You didn't have time to meet anyone last night.

She'd worn a scarf around it all day and now pulled it off. Running her fingers over her neck she was puzzled, and slightly disappointed, that the skin seemed smooth to her touch. After her strange dream she, somehow, expected to find something--but she wasn't quite sure what. She stood, grabbing her coat and bag from the rack by the door and walked out of the corner office, turning off the light. She noted that the main office was deserted, only a few lights left on here and there. She checked her watch and sighed. It was later than she'd imagined.

She moved down a row of cubicles to the women's loo.

Loo. What a weird word.

The lighting was automatic and she moved to the mirror running her fingers over her neck. Her skin was smooth and pale as it had ever been. She undid a few buttons of her blouse and unhooked her bra. The space above her left nipple was smooth and unblemished as well.

She ran her fingers over the skin, letting the tip of her right middle finger rub the nipple slightly. She admired herself in the mirror, feeling a bit naughty.

What if someone walked in right now? Some late office worker or a janitor...

She smiled, rehooking her bra and buttoning her blouse. She put on her coat and took her lipstick out of her bag, touching it up in the mirror. She blew a small kiss at herself before capping the lipstick, dropping it back into her purse and walking to the door. She pushed it open and he was there, tall and looking down into her eyes.

She froze as he stepped through the door and then she stepped back.

"I was beginning to worry," he said, walking past her into the ladies' room to lean against the counter.

"Who... What are you?"

"Your agenda said you only had to work through four o'clock. I was waiting downstairs for you to come out but then you didn't come." He turned and looked the large mirror. Lauren's scalp tingled at the realization that he cast no reflection there. "I thought you might want to take in a show, but now it's late and all the shows have started. What we're to do now I don't really..."

"I asked a question." She'd found resolution somewhere and that emotion had come out in the question. She was forceful, angry.

He turned, shrugged. "After last night—I would have hoped at least you would remember, Lauren."

She blinked, shaking her head. "Last night?"

"Don't play coy. Even if your conscious mind won't let you remember, your instincts know." He took a step toward her and she backed away. "You see, even now they're telling you to run. But you're not running."

"Why would I run? You're just a man in the ladies' room."

He smiled. "You're not running because you want to remember, Lauren. Don't try to act superior, it doesn't work when you're scared."

"I'm not scared."

He brought his hand up and touched the side of her face. She shuddered. The hand was pale and cool to the touch. "You remember."

She tore her gaze away from his eyes and backed away from him, looking down at the tiles on the floor. "This isn't happening. I'm dreaming this whole thing."

He smiled. "Well," he walked over to the heavy bathroom door and opened it.

Lauren looked out, down the row of cubicles to the open door of the corner office. There was a woman asleep in the chair at her desk, her glasses askew on top of her head. Lauren's eyes widened as the man let the door close.

"Now, you can either take solace in the fact that this is all a dream, Lauren. Or," and he walked up, putting his hands on her shoulders and leaning in to kiss along the line of her jaw, "you can realize that even in your dreams you're not entirely safe from certain things."

A hand moved from her shoulder to the front of her blouse and she felt the popping of the buttons as he undid them. She exhaled gently, not daring to move as she felt his cool fingers moving over her skin and the satin fabric over her bra.

"So you're going to hurt me, then?" She did her best to sound in control of herself.

She felt his lips on her neck curving into a smile. "Only if you want me to."

"I don't understand," she pulled away slightly so that he had to look up and meet her gaze.

"Whatever pleases you," he said. "Fear isn't food for my kind. That let-in fear or terror has a bitter taste." He grabbed her bra and pulled her to him firmly, without being forceful. "Describe a fantasy, Lauren."

"What?"

"The last time you were with a man was seven years ago." She felt his other hand move down to caress her backside through the material of her black slacks. "He was your college boyfriend. Since then you've been working non-stop and only letting yourself free in fantasies."

The fingers of the hand gathered the material of her skirt up, pulling the hem higher. "You think you can go that long dreaming such dreams, before someone like me comes along?"

"Someone like you?" She sighed, feeling her back pressed against the cold tile wall, his hardness pressing against her, his whispers breathed passionately into her ear.

"Or something." He sucked on her earlobe as the hand on her ass moved lower, underneath her, finding the moist patch in her panties.

She gasped, her eyes widening as she watched his face. She could feel the pressure of his fingers against the fabric, the fabric restraining him from pressing inside her. The anticipation had her ready to scream out in ecstasy and she could see the features of his face becoming more pronounced in a way that made him more beautiful and more horrifying all at once.

"St-Stop..." she muttered.

There was a break in the flow of her frenzy and, as he backed away, she felt something inside her shift. There was a sudden sadness, a loss. She looked at him, the beauty in his face fading, his eyes becoming duller as he cast his gaze away from her to the floor.

"You..." she pulled her skirt down and tried to compose herself. "You actually stopped."

He shrank away from her, as though wounded and not wanting her to see. "I must not go where I am not welcome."

She took a step toward him, holding up a hand but it was too late. The lights in the bathroom seemed to flicker and then...

***

Lauren awoke with a start, feeling the world go sideways and then experiencing for the second time in a day, the sense of hitting the floor in disoriented confusion. She cursed and kicked the office chair aside, putting her stocking feet under her and standing up in the darkened office.

"I didn't mean..." she began to say to herself. But then she stopped, realizing it had and hadn't been a dream. She rushed out of the corner office and down the row of cubicles to the loo. She burst through the door and the lights flickered on for her automatically. "Hello?" She went to the stalls and knocked back door after door until she'd checked them all. "I didn't mean it. I..." But it was no use, she knew she was alone. She could feel it inside of herself.

She collapsed onto the floor, feeling an overwhelming sadness sprout up inside her. She wiped a tear away and sniffled.

"Come back," she whispered to herself, hoping not only she could hear. "Come back tomorrow night, please."

***

Kit sat forlornly looking at the swirling brownish green water of the Thames. The first person to acknowledge him in years and he'd blown it. He was glad the water of the Thames was so murky. He couldn't bear the thought of seeing himself not reflected there.

He sighed and pulled from his pocket the half loaf of stale bread he'd taken from the baker's rubbish bin and tearing off a few bits to toss into the water. A few gulls attacked the breadcrumbs and he watched them, wondering how long it would be before he'd be walking along a city street and some other woman would bump him and apologize, sending elation through him in such a way as Lauren had.

"She was pretty, you know," he said to the gulls floating in the water below, expectant and impatient. "Don't see why she's all alone, woman like that could have any man if she took the time off."

He tore off a bit more bread and tossed it to the birds. "You should have seen that agenda of hers. Nothing fun, not even a mini-break planned for the next three months."

He put the heel of the bread back into his pocket and stood up from the edge of the river walk. "Ah well, C'est la vie." He walked on, looking at the passing faces, expectantly, waiting the way he always waited, for one face to look at him and acknowledge his existence.

***

She rolled onto her side and stared at the glowing blue numbers on the digital clock. Three o'clock.

She tossed the sheets aside and went into the bathroom, turning on the light. She felt disgusted with herself.

The lingerie had cost her £190. It hugged her in all the right places, made her waist look just a touch smaller. She ran her fingers through her hair and fought the impulse to scream at her reflection in the mirror.

Why did you have to say it? Why did you have to tell him to stop!

She went to the waste can under the sink, fishing out the receipt for the outfit. Corset, knickers, black silk stockings. She wondered if they would accept a return after all the tags had been removed.

She tossed the receipt back into the trash and paced. What could she do? How could she find him?

Where the fuck do vampires hang out?

She paused, letting the idea come to her. She shook her head at it but then sighed and went out, grabbing her overcoat and throwing it on, buttoning it carefully all the way down the front so that no one would see.

She was out the door and down the hall, pressing the button for the elevator.

***

He paced, looking at the electric sign of the Ritz, mocking him. He'd gone away and come back three times, each time fighting the impulse to go inside.

She said "no," that means you leave her alone and you don't come back.

Even this late Piccadilly wasn't devoid of traffic. A few cars raced by and one or two lorries were already making deliveries.

She's already asleep, you know. Probably having a wonderful dream about shagging on a beach in Mexico.

He took a step off the curb and then turned around and stepped back up onto the curb.

Why am I doing this? I look like an idiot.

He looked back up at the doorway just in time to see it open. She came out onto the sidewalk, looking left and right, her hair billowing slightly in a soft breeze. She looked across the street and he looked back. Suddenly all of London seemed to go quiet.

"Hello," he said.

She looked both ways and crossed the street, stopping a pace from him.

"I waited," she said. "I was hoping you'd..." she stopped, and then took a step toward him. "Tell me about the first night," she said.

"You were headed inside. You'd paid the driver of the hansom and turned without looking."

"I bumped into you."

"You apologized, smiled at me, said you'd been on a plane for twelve hours."

"And then?"

"You went upstairs and fell asleep and I came to you."

"You just came?"

His hand had undone the front of her coat and he felt the laces of her corset under his fingers. "Is this for me?"

She leaned in, nuzzling his collar. He smelled faintly of licorice. "You smell different than that first night."

"You don't remember what happened, but you remember how I smelled?"

"Pumpkin pie," she said. "And yesterday in the bathroom you smelled like vanilla and fresh cut apples."

He closed his eyes, feeling her hand on his shoulder while another one ran over his abdomen. "You smell what you want to smell," he said.

"And see who I want to see?"

He nodded, looking down at her, his eyes shifting from dark blue to a luminous green, his cheekbones becoming a bit more pronounced as she felt his hand slide down to slip inside the elastic of her panties.

"Right here?" he asked, smiling. "Is that what you want?"

She felt his fingers slip inside her and she gasped, putting her arms up around his neck and lifting herself slightly. "Yes."

He bent his lips to the top of her breast, kissing gently as his fingers manipulated the flesh of her sex. A nipple had wriggled itself free to be seen in the glow of the electric streetlamp. He smiled at it as he sank his teeth into it, hearing her soft shuddering moans and feeling her warmth against his fingers.

When it was done, she let him hold her there, not caring if there were people around to see. She smiled up at him, kissing his flushed warm cheeks. "Want to come up?"