A/N: I was really sleepy last night when I posted this, and darned if I didn't post the WRONG version! Please read again...this one is greatly improved by Allegrita's suggestions, and even includes some other material.
--LuckyDifficult, Dangerous, and Complicated
Valentine’s Day Champagne Challenge #112
Beth waited until the waiter had taken their lunch orders, before she smiled nervously and started getting to the point. “I guess you were probably surprised to hear from me.”
“Well, yes,” Lucky admitted. “I wasn’t of the opinion we really hit it off, last time.”
Beth sighed. “Uh, yeah. I really am sorry about that. I’m not usually so…” Her voice trailed off.
Lucky waved a hand in the air, as if to brush away the past. “Forget about it. It was ages ago.”
Beth blinked and her smile became more genuine. “You really are very gracious. I can see why Josef—” she stumbled a little, “why Josef likes you so much.”
“Thanks.” Lucky busied herself for a few moments with unrolling the napkin around her flatware, and positioning the cloth on her lap.
Always uncomfortable with silence, Beth tried to find something to compliment. “You do that so nicely,” she said, and Lucky laughed a little.
“What, put my napkin in my lap?”
Beth nodded. “Not just that, but yeah. The way you drape your napkin is so…I don’t know… elegant.”
“Want to know a secret?” Lucky asked.
“Sure.”
“I practiced.”
“No! Practiced with the napkin?”
Lucky nodded. “I know, sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? But—I guess it paid off.”
“Can you show me? Mick has such perfect manners; I always feel like a total klutz around him.”
“I’m certain he doesn’t think you’re a klutz, Beth. But sure, no problem.”
They spent some time practicing, and Lucky started feeling a little more at ease. Beth was a natural mimic, and the successful lesson broke the ice nicely, until the waiter returned to set a salad in front of Lucky, and a juicy burger for Beth.
They talked about nothing much, at first, until Beth peered around to make sure none of the neighboring tables were occupied. Making a wry face, she said, “Josef ought to be here. He’d enjoy this.”
“Oh?”
“I heard him say once he loves ‘awkward.’ And this is gonna qualify, big time.”
“I feel like I should be bracing myself.”
Beth took a deep breath. “Look, I know this is totally none of my business, but I need some advice, and I really don’t know anyone else to talk to. Can I ask you a very personal question?”
“Uh, yeah, I guess so.” Lucky’s crooked smile, Beth thought, was a pretty good unconscious imitation of Josef’s. “I don’t promise to answer.”
“Fair enough.” Beth took another deep breath. “So—oh, God, this is embarrassing—you and Josef have been—” she glanced around again— “you know, intimate?”
Lucky ducked her head, feeling the blood rush to her face, knowing that Josef would be laughing his fangs off at her discomfiture. “Beth, I’m a freshie. And Josef has rules about getting involved—that way—with freshies.”
That made the reporter instinct across the table kick in. “Hey, I understand if you don’t want to talk about it, but I’ve seen you two together. And I know an evasion when I hear one.”
Lucky put her hands in her lap, twisting her napkin. Then she looked Beth straight in the eyes. “Fine. All right, yes, Josef and I have been—intimate. Beyond feeding.”
“Look, I’m only asking because—”
“You need advice. You said. I get that.”
Beth plunged ahead. “Okay. When you and he—you know—does he, does he—” she lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper and leaned forward, “bite?”
The slow smile that suffused Lucky’s face was positively beatific. Beth thought with a pang that it would have done credit to the Mona Lisa. The pale redhead nodded. “Oh, yeah,” she breathed. “He bites.”
“Oh.” Beth looked at her plate for a moment, and then picked up her hamburger. Lucky watched her, wondering what to say. They took a few more bites of lunch, not speaking.
“You know,” Lucky said finally, “you’ve been with Mick for awhile now, right? You may know as much—I mean, I guess what I’m trying to say is, Josef and I haven’t—haven’t slept together that many times.”
“Oh, okay.” Beth took a sip of water to cover her confusion. “I guess you can’t, uh, donate too often.”
Lucky bit back a sharp reply. Beth probably didn’t realize she was being insulting. “Feeding doesn’t usually involve sex, you know. And biting during sex isn’t exactly… feeding. It enhances the connection between us.” She sighed. “It’s not a simple relationship, what Josef and I share.”
Beth’s smile was a little wry. “Difficult, dangerous, and complicated. That’s what Mick says.”
“Sounds like something Josef would say.” Lucky chuckled. “Only he’d say it like it was a good thing.” She paused. “So why the sudden urge to get the how-to speech?”
“This is going to sound incredibly lame, but Valentine’s Day is coming up. I wanted to see if there was something, I don’t know, that might help Mick have—have a better experience.”
Lucky traced a finger around the rim of her own water goblet, seeming to concentrate on the beads of condensation covering the glass. “Yeah, I can understand that,” she said. “I’m just not sure what I can tell you. Has he bitten you—during?”
Beth shook her head. “He’s only ever bitten me once. And that was way before we ever made love.”
“Wow. He’s really holding back, then.”
“Yeah, I thought so. He treats me like I’m made of glass.” Lucky was surprised to see a film of tears in Beth’s eyes, ruthlessly blinked away. She felt a rush of sympathy for the other woman. Maybe that perfect relationship she had, wasn’t perfect after all. Maybe Beth really did want advice.
“I’m sure it’s because he’s afraid of hurting you.”
“That would be the dangerous part, I guess.” Beth sighed.
Lucky shifted a bit in her chair. “Speaking of personal questions, if you really want my advice, let me ask you something.”
“Okay.”
“Do you want him to bite you?”
Beth’s response was rapid. “No. I don’t know. Yes. I think so.”
Lucky smiled. “You need to make up your mind.”
Beth’s face softened. “Well, I think I want him to. But I don’t know…it’s hard.”
Lucky smiled. “Yeah, it is. And he’s not helping you much. Men can be so obtuse. And from what I’ve seen, being a vampire only makes it worse.”
“They are just such…guys, aren’t they?” Beth wrinkled her nose in one of those woman-to-woman grins.
“So, at the risk of sounding perverse, that time he bit you, did you like it?” Lucky knew it was a touchy subject, one of the things that another freshie would understand, but a lot of outsiders might not quite get. How many times had she heard other freshies say something to the effect of “I had no idea how damn sexy it could be, until he…” But that was neither here nor there. What mattered now was how the woman sitting across from her felt.
Beth blushed a little. “The circumstances weren’t really what you’d call romantic. He was in bad shape, and he had to have blood. I couldn’t just stand there and let him die.”
Lucky looked shocked. “Of course not. But…how did it feel? Did you like it?”
Beth took a bite of her burger and chewed it thoughtfully, considering her answer. “It hurt, at first. But then, after the first bit, it was…I’m not sure how to describe it. I could feel it, you know, all over. In a good way.” She was shifting in her seat now, remembering the sensation of his mouth on her. She touched the faint reminders of that occasion, unconsciously.
Lucky was very familiar with that gesture, and she smiled to see it, her own hand stealing to touch the little ruby heart hanging at her throat, close to some of her own scars. “He took your wrist, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he did.”
“Makes sense, if he was in bad shape. He’d have been afraid of losing control.”
“Is it so different, on the neck?”
Lucky smiled. “Yeah. It’s…it’s more intimate. Or it can be.” She paused for a long sip of water. “Look, have you told Mick that’s what you want?”
Beth looked down. “Uh, no. Not really.”
“Maybe you should. I know he’s not really comfortable with being…with that side of his nature. It’s just my opinion, but I think you need to take the lead. Let him know it’s not just okay, but something you want to try, not something you’re simply willing to put up with.”
A slow nod answered her. “I think you’re right, Lucky. He’s not going to bring up the subject himself.”
“Well, you can’t blame him. After all, from what I hear, he hasn’t had a lot of practice in controlling himself. Josef told me once that during sex is about the hardest time to keep it in bounds. And he looked pretty bleak when he mentioned it.”
“I have a hard time picturing Josef, bleak.”
Lucky shrugged. “You mostly see him around Mick. Or when he has his public face on. When we’re alone, he can be—different. I just ache for him, sometimes. He’s endured so much.”
Beth put a hand out to touch Lucky’s. “You really love him, don’t you?”
Lucky stiffened, with a small gasp. “I never,” she said, “talk in those terms.” She bit her lip and shifted her gaze off into the distance. “Besides, what does it matter? He’s in love with someone else.”
Beth rested her elbows on the table. “You know about Sarah?”
Nodding slowly, warily, Lucky said, “He told me a long time ago. I’m kind of surprised you know, though.”
“I’ve seen her, you know,” Beth said.
Lucky’s eyes went wide. “Really?” she said. “Is she beautiful? Is she perfect? What does she look like?”
“Well, I hated to stare. She’s beautiful, but—she’s like a statue. She’s—not touchable. Not…there. If you know what I mean.”
Lucky looked away and swallowed. “He still has hope…that she’ll come back to him.”
“It’s been so long, I don’t see how it’s possible.” Beth paused. “He takes good care of her, but—I think he needs someone to care for him, too, like you do.”
Lucky sighed. “The whole thing is just so complicated, sometimes.”
“Isn’t it?” Beth pushed her plate away, her appetite stilled by thoughts of Sarah Whitley. Acting on a sudden thought, she lifted her water goblet, and smiled sadly at Lucky. “How about a Valentine’s toast to our vampires?” she asked.
Lucky raised her own glass and tapped it gently against Beth’s. “Mick and Josef,” she said. “Difficult, dangerous—”
“And complicated,” Beth finished.
Thank you!