ABYSSINIA

It was one of those impossibly, intolerably muggy Philly summer nights.

There’s no breeze on nights like these, but just in case the air might move the tiniest bit, she was sitting out on the battered square of a back porch, drinking a pilfered bottle of Babbo’s grappa.

She could steal his grappa because Babbo didn’t really like the stuff. He had to pretend to because it was Italian, and Babbo was as proud of being Napoletano as a person could be. At every gifting occasion, neighbors and the men from the union would proudly offer him bottles of grappa smuggled in from the Old World, and he would welcome them with cries of joyful thanks. And then later they would collect dust in the back of the liquor cabinet, while the bathtub gin and moonshine never needed wiping off.

Prohibition might be the law of the land, but dry laws never seemed to have impacted anyone she knew. No one in the neighborhood was narking to the flatfoots because everyone boozed, male and female alike. Indeed, there was a chapter of Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform that met at the Baptist church down the corner.

The first time she’d stolen a bottle, she’d thought grappa tasted like gasoline. But at least it was free gasoline. And now she even liked the harsh bite—it made you know you were drinking something. And it was even better with a cigarette, when she could afford to splurge on a pack of Luckys or was offered a loosey. It had to be offered though. She was too proud to ask.

And tonight she needed the giggle juice and a snipe. It had been a hard, damn day. And then a hard, damn night. Her hand shook a little when she picked up the bottle to take another swig.

She’d taken another gal to see Emma after work. It wasn’t an easy one. After she’d helped that poor thing home, she’d barely been able to get herself home. She didn’t like to cry where people could see. You looked like a pathetic frail, like you had no pride. She didn’t have much, but she did have plenty of pride. Babbo had taught her that. If you were born with the name Vitale, you had the Vitale pride. One of her teachers, before she’d left school to get the National Biscuit Company factory job to help out because Mamma was having another baby, had told her that her name had come down from the ancient Romans, and it meant life. “Certo!” Babbo had boomed when she’d told him, but she could tell he hadn’t thought of it before, and it made him even more proud.

“And you are vital, so full of life,” came the softest whisper from the darkness of the alley, and she almost knocked the bottle of grappa down the steps. She had to take a second to decide if she was hearing things.

“I got a knife!” she called out and reached for the switchblade in the pocket she’d sewn into her dress.

“You do not need a knife with me, sister,” came the voice, still low as if gentling a scared animal, but also low for a woman, a warm contralto.

It made her want to relax into it right away, but that feeling scared her even more, so she thumbed the little round switch. The blade sprang out.

“No, no,” the voice assured her, as the female shape, which until this moment had merely been a darker shadow, slid close enough to make out details. The shadow woman was what men would call a “butter and egg fly,” filling out a thin-pleated black dress with perfect round curves. Her skin was a rich honey bronze, and her glam pin curls were the same honey shade.

“I am impressed with your defenses,” the dusky dame promised in her low tones, “but I am no threat to you, Palmina.”

“How do you know my name?”

“Everyone in the neighborhood knows you. I simply had to ask.”

“Well, why d’ya ask then?”

“Why would I not want to get to know such an impressive woman as yourself?”

“Ahhh, stop! Why’re you saying these things to me? Nobody from here talks like you. What d’ya want? Really.”

“You are astute as well as brave. There is indeed something I want from you—”

“I knew it!”

“But now that I have met you, I want your friendship, as well.”

“That ain’t how friendship works, lady.”

“I know how friendship works, sweet girl. Give me a chance to earn your friendship, please.”

Palmina looked at the stranger. From the shadows, she was shady in every sense. But she was compelling too. The pleated dress and matching boxy jacket were probably silk, the way they glistened in the low light from the windows above the sides of the alley. The woman didn’t wear a hat or gloves, but her shoes were brand-new, black leather Cuban-heeled oxfords with a delicate pattern of perforations. She was well-to-do, but she wasn’t stuck-up fancy. A woman could tell so many things about another woman from her clothes and shoes. Makeup and hair also told stories. While the woman had perfectly waved hair, she wore almost no face paint. Her skin was so flawless that Palmina had to assume she wore foundation, but her eyebrows were not plucked Hollywood thin, nor drawn in, and she wore no eyeshadow. She must have put mascara on, but just that and perfect carmine lips. She still looked like a movie star, regardless, not like anyone she’d ever met before.

Palmina found herself wanting to hear this woman’s story, so she pushed aside what was otherwise perfectly reasonable mistrust. “I never had a friend whose name I didn’t even know.”

“Ah, a very good point. My name is Astryiah.”

“Ahh-stree-yah?”

“That is it exactly. However, most Americans do not seem able to say it. I have been telling people my name is Alyssa. They seem more capable of pronouncing that.”

“Astryiah’s beauteeful! Where’s it from?”

“Thank you, sweet one. And what a subtle way to find out about me. Your diplomacy shall be rewarded. I come from a country which in your Bible is called Judah. It is now called Palestine, and against all reason or logic, it is ruled by the British. In essence, I have no home.”

Palmina had known the woman was foreign, but this was vastly more exotic than anything she would have guessed. This Astryiah had seemed coolly unemotional, despite her stated, and obvious, desire to make friends with Palmina. But when she’d said “I have no home,” Palmina could hear the depths of emotion under the simplicity of the words.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” was all she could say, but she could also hold out the grappa bottle as a tangible form of comfort.

“This is very kind of you.” Astryiah took the bottle, and somehow in the process, Palmina found herself scrunching over to make space for her on the top step. It would have been too much to call the cramped space a porch; it was just five rickety steps up to the back door with a railing on one side that you grabbed at risk of splinters at best and complete structural failure at worst.

As the shadow lady settled so close beside Palmina that their hips were touching, she handed the bottle back. Palmina took a swig and put the cap back on before she realized the woman hadn’t bothered to take a sip. Well, that wasn’t a surprise. Many people found grappa to have a taste reminiscent of paint thinner, her Babbo included. She put the bottle down between her feet.

“Astryiah,” she said, the name still tasting so strange in her mouth, “I kinda wouldn’t mind knowing why you’re sitting on these steps with me. Besides being my ‘friend’.”

“It is because we are friends that I will tell you, chamuda. I am unused to telling my business to anyone...but I do desire to share with you.

“I have been in this country...some while now.” Astryiah waved an elegant hand to dismiss the value of mentioning any specific length of time. “Since I am a woman without a home, I thought it good to come to a country that thinks only of the future. This new Philadelphia is a vibrant place where a stranger can fit in to the bustle and thrum of human life.”

That was an odd way to phrase things. But then again, this woman was unlike anyone she’d met before. And she was foreign. Foreigners could be expected to say things strangely, English not being their first language and all. Why, her Nonna and Nonno could barely even speak English. Astryiah spoke it better than they did, by far. She talked better than some of the kids she’d grown up with, American-born and all.

The pause in the conversation gave Palmina a chance to enjoy the warm glow of the grappa in her mind and body, relaxing for the first time all day. She was also acutely aware of Astryiah’s hip and thigh pressing against her own. The sultry night air seemed right for this moment, despite the trickle of sweat down her back, despite the damp stickiness of her bra against her skin.

“As your friend-to-be, may I ask what has been troubling you on this hot summer night, so like the nights in the land of my birth? Summer is the time to be carefree in this country, is it not? Dances, cookouts, and…I do not know...parades?”

Palmina laughed. “Parades mostly happen during daytime. Don’t they have those things where you come from?”

“Cookouts were nothing special to my people; we cooked outdoors generally. I have been to parades, but they were always—shall we say—military in nature. I haven’t danced in...many, many years.”

“But that just ain’t right! Dancing is...I dunno...you just can’t not! Hold up!” Palmina ran into the house and started the record player. She’d had enough extra pennies last week to buy a 45 of Artie Shaw’s “Begin the Beguine.” She left the back door open and, made brave by the booze, as she ran down the wobbly steps she grabbed Astryiah’s hand and pulled her out into the alley.

“I...I do not know how to dance to this music—” Astryiah began.

Palmina just laughed, settled the one elegant bronze hand onto her shoulder, and held the other outstretched with her own. Taking the lead, she spun them through the torrid shadows.

Her unexpected visitor brought an equally unexpected new pattern to Palmina’s life, which had felt full enough already. Every day she got up painfully early for the bus ride that ended when the conductor yelled, “Pick Me Up Central! All you working men and women get out here!” with a leer on his face. It was assumed that because the National Biscuit Company employed women as well as men, that affairs between employees were inevitable. Whether it was a self-fulfilling prophecy or not, it wasn’t wrong.

Then it was a full day boxing Lorna Doones, Oreo Cookies, and Fig Newtons—and staying out of the river of drama that flowed through the factory. After all that, she had her... other job. And then when she got home from that, most evenings she’d find Astryiah waiting for her.

She took Astryiah to some jolly-ups, for her shadow lady turned out to be a natural jitterbug, a jive bomber. Palmina derived great satisfaction watching the boys who fancied themselves real cool cats trying to impress a dame who so clearly outclassed them. Astryiah treated them all with good-humored dismissal, not hostile, but clearly not welcoming to unwanted attentions. Palmina took notes, because she’d always found men far more of a hassle than Astryiah seemed to. Although after the first attempt to introduce Astryiah by her real name, she quickly fell back on “Alyssa.” No one else seemed to be able to handle it, although that could be because it was hard to really hear anything anyone said when the joint was jumpin’.

On other nights, they just stayed in, spun some platters, and talked. Astryiah was a true world traveler, although many places she had visited—“oh, quite some time ago”—with that same airy, elegantly dismissive wave of the hand. But she would still answer Palmina’s eager questions. Not all of them, but enough.

“You have never left this country, not even to go to the land of your ancestors? But no, so few people get a chance to travel, most especially not women. You would make an excellent traveler, chamuda. I would love the chance to show you around the world.”

Astryiah would often say ridiculous things like that. Palmina ignored the obviously impossible as a matter of course.

Astryiah apparently never slept. Palmina had never minded the occasional late night in the past, but as the weeks went on with her conversations with her late-night friend ending regularly sometime around sunrise, Palmina began to feel the lack of sleep taking its toll. To her surprise, she had an attack of the whips and jangles.

“Astryiah—I love our nights. But can we skip ’em for a bit?”

“If you are enjoying them, why stop?”

“Because I’m joed! Uh, that’s slang. I mean I’m just too worn out these days to handle everything I gotta handle.”

“You have talked around all the things you must handle. I know about the factory. I know about how much your family demands from you. But there is a third thing, a very big thing, and it drains you more than just staying up talking with me. Have we not grown close enough that you might share it with me…?”

“You don’t wanna hear about this. It’s not nice.”

“Chamuda… I have seen far more terrible things in this world than you can imagine. Tell me. Maybe I can help.”

“How could you help with this? You’re a stranger. I mean, you’re not from the neighborhood. The gals wouldn’t know they could trust you. They trust me because they know me.”

“I see. And this is a problem where only women can help women?”

Palmina paused. She didn’t talk about this part of her life. Not with anyone who wasn’t already involved. Would speaking of it to Astryiah be a betrayal? But Astryiah seemed to be understanding it already, so she said, “Yes.”

“Oh, my dear one. This is no new problem for women. We have always had to help ourselves with this, for men are never help.”

“You dig what I'm sayin'?”

“Of course I understand. Listen. The city I come from; in ancient times, there were whorehouses. Not like they are today, dirty and shameful. No, the women were respected as providing an important service. In times further past, they had been admired as acolytes of the Goddess, and some of that respect still was attached to their trade.

“But when women and men have pleasure together, there will be results. And these women were not desirous of raising all these results. These women did not have time to be mothers, at least not at this stage in their lives. They were what you might call “businesswomen,” and they had their careers to attend to.

“There was a bathhouse attached to their establishment. The women and their clients enjoyed the warm bath, hot bath, cold plunge, and steam room. There were masseurs and even barbers. But there was also a woman who sold certain herbs for women who found themselves...in that condition. She would give you the herbs, and then if you grew very sick from them, she would nurse you.

“And it was not just the women of this house who used her services. Women from all classes, all ranks of life—from the richest senators’ wives to the lowliest serving girls—all found their way to this woman, because there is a right time for love to turn into new life, but there are also times when it would be very bad indeed.”

Palmina sat through this outflowing of words, frozen by their unexpectedness.

Astryiah continued, “So, you see, chamuda, I understand this matter well. There has never been a time when a woman could fail to understand it. And seldom indeed have there been times when men have kept their desire for power and control—and their unwanted noses—out of this private, personal business of women.”

“Oh.” It was all Palmina could say. Why was she so shocked to hear Astryiah’s words? Of course every woman around the world had this in common. She’d never thought about women in other countries, but then she really didn’t have time to think, because she was always so busy trying to keep her gals safe.

No, it was silly to be shocked. And it would be foolish to see if Astryiah didn’t have some knowledge that would help her.

“I’m not...the woman with the herbs, like back in your old days. I just help fems who need it. They know to come to me. And I set up a time and place, and the woman who has the know-how to fix it meets us there. I hold my gals’ hands while it happens. I hold ’em while they cry. I make sure they aren’t too sick to make it home. Sometimes they doss here overnight. Sometimes they cry all night, and I stay up with ’em. I cry with ’em.”

The outpouring of words choked to a stop in Palmina’s throat. She’d never said those things out loud before. She just did them. Lived them. Got through them—and helped her gals get through them. That was the most important part. Palmina’s own needs became seemingly insignificant in the face of the constant need of these women; in the hardest, most terrible of circumstances where either choice meant a different risk of death for life, different hazards of physical pain and heartbreak.

But now, telling Astryiah these things, suddenly Palmina felt need too. A deep need for the wounds this work had inflicted on her soul to be soothed—to be heard, to be understood, to be forgiven, to be accepted. Simply, to not be alone.

She didn’t know how to ask for all that, but Astryiah seemed to know without words what Palmina needed. They were on the too-small bed with the brutally lumpy mattress that had come with this apartment, for Palmina had only one chair in the tiny kitchen that, along with the water closet you could barely turn around in, made up the three “rooms” of her lousy apartment. The only place for two people to sit down together was the back stoop or the bed.

Astryiah sighed, the deep sigh of a woman holding another woman’s pain, and folded Palmina into her arms. Palmina had been in those arms plenty of times, dancing, or tripping home from a hop, swacked, in the wee hours of the morning. But this time it was different. It was “all us gals” camaraderie before. Now it was a safe place where she could let go of all she’d been holding on to. It was a homecoming.

As her gals had cried in her arms, Palmina let go and cried in Astryiah’s arms. Out it all came in sobs and choking gasps. And a startling amount of snot, for which Astryiah silently produced a handkerchief.

At first she was drowning in the immediacy of the pain shaking loose. Then it became a floating in release, safe in warm, strong arms. For a little while, maybe she dozed off; she hadn’t been that relaxed in so long. And then with a nasty start, she came to herself, embarrassed for putting her problems on someone else like that. And, equally, for letting anyone see so deeply into her private emotions.

“I...I’m sorry! I been real punchy these days! Please—I’m so sorry—!”

“Hush, chamuda, hush. It was a gift you gave to me, your trust. And it was a gift I could give to you, some peace. It is what we friends do for each other.”

Palmina still felt the hot flush of shame on her skin, despite Astryiah’s soothing words, despite her hands softly stroking down Palmina’s back. The Vitales were stoic. Well, they were loud enough in anger, and there was no lack of public wailing for the acceptable kinds of loss. But these shameful, private emotions—weaknesses—these were not meant to be shared with anyone.

“Beseder, teraga’. It is well. Relax. Everyone needs to share their woes and receive comfort now and then. You are not made of stone.”

“I don’t mean to burden you.”

“Be quiet now. I asked for this trust; it is no burden at all.” They were silent for a minute, and then she asked, “Chamuda, I know I ask much now, but...have you ever needed this...service you provide for women?”

Palmina shuddered, and the tears nearly started again. She’d not let herself even think of that for so, so long. Briefly she fought it. But it rose unstoppably from where she had hidden it down inside.

“Ye-yeah. It’s how I found out about it. There was a moment. One of my brother’s friends. He said such nice things. We were slap-happy. It felt good. I didn’t think that just one time...could lead to...I’d always heard that nothing could happen the first time. Or if he pulled out, and I did make him pull out. But in a month, there I was. In that condition. And I didn’t want to marry Jack. He’s nice enough, but I don’t love him—”

Palmina discovered she was talking so fast that she’d forgotten to breathe. She stopped, caught her breath. Astryiah didn’t interrupt the silence.

“So. I couldn’t have—not right now. I have no money—the factory don’t pay much! And I won’t—I won’t!—move back home. So I couldn’t—I just couldn’t…!”

“No, chamuda, you could not. And I regret that you live in this time and place where you could not have had a safer, healthier experience.” Astryiah started to say something else, broke off. She pulled Palmina in, held her tight, as if now she had something she was afraid to say. Palmina had never seen Astryiah look the least bit scared of anything.

“Palmina...there is a gift I can give you. It would keep you safe from ever getting pregnant again if you want that freedom. Is that...something you would wish?”

“Not ever getting knocked up, ever? Yeah!”

“Not ever.”

“Not even if I was married and wanted kids?”

“That is the cost of the gift. You would not be able to be impregnated ever again.”

“That’s a...real large order.”

“It is not an easy decision, no.”

“But then...I’d be safe from havin’ to go through that all over again?”

“Yes. And you would be...healthier, stronger, safer from disease as well.”

“Whatcha talkin’ about? A drug? Some kind of operation?”

“No! Nothing like that! Just a...sharing. An intimate sharing.”

“That don’t jive. Sharing what?”

“Ach. This is the hard part. Let me first ask an unspoken question…”

Palmina was going to ask her what she meant, but Astryiah slowly leaned her face closer, and then closer, and then their lips met. Palmina closed her eyes from habit, and without the distraction of vision, she suddenly was not aware of anything except how incredibly soft those lips were, how good they felt against her own. She put all of her surprised self into returning the kiss, and that led to Astryiah wrapping her oddly strong, lithely feminine arms around Palmina and pulling her close for a deeper kiss.

When they finally broke apart, Palmina felt faint. “I never kissed a girl before,” she confessed breathlessly to Astryiah.

Her shadow lady smiled. “How did it compare?”

“Oh! You can’t compare it! Apples and oranges!”

Astryiah chuckled. “I myself might call it pomegranates. Did you like the new fruit?”

“Yes. Yes, I did. But—what's that gor to do with keepin’ rabbits from dyin’? I mean, obviously you can’t knock me up. But you don’t just mean only makin’ whoopee with minnows. I have a feelin’ it’s real nice, but I don’t think it would scratch all my itches.”

“No, indeed. And men can certainly be useful for those vexatious itches. What I am offering...is part of the, eh, process for making you safe from the negative side effects of scratching that particular itch. It is very hard to describe this process. I do it infrequently, and when I do, I do not need to explain anything...but with you I want to be very clear and candid. I want you to understand and consent—or not, and we go no further.

“My blood has special properties. If I drink blood from you, and you drink from me, that will share those powerful qualities with you. I believe if we do this twice, you will be protected for the rest of your life. For certain, if we did this thrice, you would always be protected...but twice might be enough.”

Palmina looked at Astryiah, who looked steadily back, deadly serious. After a few minutes of this, Palmina got up, snagged the grappa bottle, took a deep swig, offered it to Astryiah. When the latter shook her head, Palmina said, “Right, you don’t like this stuff. Not many people do, to be honest.”

“It is not that. It is that I drink only blood. You have noticed that I eat nothing and drink nothing—you’ve just been too polite to ask why. I am now telling you why: I am what is called an ‘am’r,’ and we drink only blood.”

“Oh! Like Dracula with Bela Lugosi! I loved it! Are you...like that?”

“It was a terrible motion picture. The am’r are nothing like that. Except that, yes, we drink blood.”

“I thought Bela Lugosi was a pip!”

“Dracula is nothing like him.”

“Dracula is real?”

“That is a long story. For another time. We have gotten off the point, which is: I am offering you some of the protection of am’r blood. I am offering you a most intimate gift. It is a complex decision to make.”

“Seems like the only decision that matters is if I wanna get in the family way, ever.”

“You are not afraid of me drinking your blood? Or of drinking mine?”

“That’s all you eat, right?” Astryiah nodded, so Palmina continued, “So I figure it can’t be that bad, and you gotta be pretty good at it.”

“Oh, chamuda, I am very good at it indeed.” Astryiah purred this with such assurance that Palmina felt both turned on...but also unnerved. Well, this whole talk was so cockeyed that no wonder she felt unsettled.

“What...what’ll it do, besides preventing eating for two?”

“Ah, you will like the other side effects. Your skin and hair will be so fine. You will feel strong, and you will not get sick as easily. I can promise those things, and if you drink only twice, I think they will last you many years until you are old enough that bearing children is no longer a concern.”

“You think?”

“Well, I have not really, ahhh, experimented. With all who have shared blood with me, we have carried it through to all three times. After that, things are...more certain. But also, ah, there are more consequences.”

“What kinda consequences?”

“If we share blood three times, then once you die you will arise back to life, but a life like mine. You will live in the nighttime hours because the sun will be too strong for you. And you will require to feed upon blood as I do. There are many wonderful things, like becoming stronger than mortal humans—we call them “kee”—but those are mere details, which I will tell you about when you want to know more.”

Palmina thought for a while. Astryiah let her do so, in her perpetually calm, unbothered manner. Except Palmina thought maybe she was not perfectly serene underneath it. “So, if we only do the blood thing twice, I just get starlet looks and no fella can knock me up? But it might not last? But if we do the blood thing three times, then I become Dracula?”

“Dracula is already Dracula; you would not become him. You would become am’r, like me. Eventually. Also, if we exchange blood three times, well, it would be a bit like getting married. It would be a commitment. I do not believe you are ready for this. But I do believe if we share blood only two times, I could give you some protection. I would like to give you that gift.”

“Could I, uh, have time to think about this? It’s kinda big.”

“B’hechlet. Certainly. I will return here tomorrow after sunset.”

“Uh, later than that. In fact, not tomorrow. I gotta bring a gal to Emma. It might take a while, and maybe she’ll sack out here. So, uh, Friday?”

“Very well, chamuda. Friday.”

“Abyssinia!”

“What? What does the land of Egypt have to do with this?”

“Egypt? Huh? Nah, it’s slang. It’s ‘I’ll-be-seein’-ya’ all smushed into one word.”

“I see. Well then, Abyssinia, dear Palmina, Abyssinia.”

Palmina didn’t sleep much that night. She could’ve awfully used the sleep. The next day at the factory dragged interminably, and she could barely force herself to joke around with the gals.

After work, Betty was waiting for her, looking pale but determined. Palmina took her to a diner on the far side of town, following Emma’s instructions never to go to her place directly from work or home. Betty couldn’t bring herself to eat, but Palmina made her drink a cup of hot coffee with a generous nip of some moonshine she kept in a flask for these purposes.

Emma got the job done, as always. Palmina held Betty’s hand through it and held her after as she cried. The cramping and bleeding were bad this time. Betty hadn’t figured things out real soon, and it was always so much easier on the girls if they did. The later you left it, the worse it was. But Betty was married and didn’t want to spend the night at Palmina’s. “Frank won’t like it,” she kept saying and insisted on getting up as soon as she could stand. Palmina saw Betty home and gave Frank the excuse that Betty had felt sick at work and gone to rest at her house after, as it was closer to the factory. It was an excuse that had worked with many a husband or father. Mothers could be better—or worse. She waved good night to Betty, who looked haggard enough to support the excuse of feeling poorly.

Palmina got to bed at a decent hour for once.

The next morning at work, all the ladies were whispering. Ethel, who worked beside her on the line, rushed over, pulling on her work smock. “Didja hear ’bout Betty?”

Palmina felt a cold stillness descend over her. “No. What—?”

“She’s dead. Kicked off in the night. Her man, that Frank, says he has no idea why, that she was right as rain, and then, boom! Gone!”

Linda, on her other side, tutted knowingly. “Betty got herself in a fix. Clear as day.”

Palmina made herself reply—didn’t know what she said. The gossip moved in a susurration up and down the production line, flowing over her. She did her job automatically, numb to thought or feeling.

Lunch break was a dreaded pause. This was often the time when women who’d gotten themselves in a bad way would sidle up to her and ask about Emma: how to contact her, what the procedure was like, was it really safe? Today nobody came to her for that. Ethel, who was practical and older, unlikely to ever require Emma’s services, sat down deliberately beside her.

“So, ya think Betty died from having it done?”

Palmina didn’t ask how Ethel knew. She wasn’t dumb. “I-I dunno. No one’s died from it. Not that I know of. Emma’s technique’s real safe. It’s from Europe. Actual docs even refer women to her on the Q.T.”

“Still. It’s a risky thing, something like that. And Betty was never healthy as a horse, was she?”

Palmina thought about how many times Betty had worked through the day hunched over in pain or exhaustion. It was incredible she’d managed to find the time and energy for an affair, given how often she was ill and with Frank demanding his dinner as soon as he got home.

Should she have urged Betty not to get the procedure, knowing that her health wasn’t great? But she and Emma had both told Betty the risks. And Betty knew well enough the other risks, the complications from pregnancy and birth and the complications of an angry husband. Betty was a grown woman who had made her choices and weighed the stakes. Palmina was not at fault for this death.

But thinking that didn’t help her feel any less to blame.

When Astryiah let herself in the back door, as she’d become accustomed to, Palmina raised herself up from where she was crying on her bed with a start. She’d forgotten all about her shadow lady.

“Chamuda! What is wrong?”

Astryiah normally hesitated before touching her, Palmina had noticed. A slight, subtle pause before any sort of physical contact. And she never touched anyone else; more than that, Palmina had noticed that strangers, even drunk ones, maintained a respectful distance from her. But now Palmina found herself being cradled in those sturdy arms without a second’s pause. After the first question, Astryiah asked no more, and Palmina sank into the quiet peacefulness of the other woman.

Not just “woman.” An “am’r,” whatever that really was. Really a vampire, like in the pictures, was it possible?

Astryiah was like Dracula, now that she thought about it. Never eating or drinking, arriving only at night, and powerful in the most unexpected ways.

Powerful. And safe. Safe from illness, Astryiah had promised her, and from pregnancy.

If she did that blood thing with Astryiah, it would be like Astryiah’s arms were around her all the time. She would be protected. And strong. Strong on her own, as Astryiah was, moving through the world as effortlessly as a man, free from the fears and weaknesses of being a frail.

In that moment it was all she wanted: strength and freedom. If drinking blood was how she could achieve it, well, she drank grappa, didn’t she? Blood couldn’t be worse. Maybe it was an acquired taste as well. Although she only had to do it two times.

“Astryiah.” Her voice was muffled by speaking into a silk-clad shoulder, but the quiet reply was instant.

“Yes, chamuda?”

“I’m ready. I wanna do the blood thing.”

Astryiah laughed softly. She squeezed Palmina tightly, too tightly for an instant, but just as quickly relaxed, and with a wordless motion in her shoulder, suggested Palmina raise her head.

“I am so glad.” Astryiah spoke so low it was almost a whisper. It perfectly captured the intensity of her words.

That was only the start of the intensity. It took quite a while for Astryiah to get to biting Palmina and for Palmina to find out if drinking blood was worse than drinking grappa. Along the way, she found that what she had thought of as “sex” was just a sad approximation of the sensations she could—she should—have been feeling. Again and again she was plunged into sensuality beyond anything she had ever expected. By the time Astryiah sank her fangs into Palmina’s neck, it held no shock for her, and even the immediate pain got lost in continuing pleasure. By the time Astryiah ripped open her wrist for Palmina to tentatively sip from, she was not truly surprised to discover that that brought its own new, deeper blisses.

Drinking blood left grappa, bathtub gin, moonshine, even that bottle of champagne she once had, in the dust. Even giggle smoke was nothing compared to it.

Afterward, she lay in Astryiah’s arms, just as strong as any man’s, and luxuriated in how good she felt. She had not felt so healthy—so full of joy yet also at peace—in so long she couldn’t remember. Perhaps ever since she’d stopped being a kid.

“Is drinking blood always like this?”

“Oh no. Not always. This is a special kind of blood exchange; my people call it “vhoon-vayon.” For the am’r, this is the best kind. But as with kee—that’s normal people, to you—with kee sex, it is not always this loving or this beautiful.”

“You shred it, wheat! Beauteeful is the word! I never felt anything like this!” Palmina paused, afraid to say something wrong in the intensity of the bliss that filled her. “Uh, thank you...for all’a this.”

“Oh, chamuda, it was my pleasure—you cannot know how much pleasure you have given me. But sleep now. You may feel very well indeed, but you need rest after this. And make sure to look in the mirror tomorrow morning. No, I will not tell you why—no more talking! Sleep!”

When Palmina woke up, she could not for a moment remember why she felt so swell. She’d had such a hard day and then a very late night with Astryiah—Oh! She had done that thing. And it had not been in any way what she’d expected, and the results were equally nothing like she’d expected. Every movement she made proved this as she bounced off the lumpy old mattress with energy, ease in all her limbs, and a rush of delight in the birdsong outside the window.

Remembering Astryiah’s cryptic (even for Astryiah) comment, she rushed to the bathroom. The dark undereye circles that had only been getting darker were gone. Her skin, which had been looking dull from continuous exhaustion, was glowing.

Murder! That blood thing really was something.

“You look very well indeed. How have you felt today, chamuda?” is what Astryiah said when she came in the back door that evening. She took Palmina’s face between her hands and examined her minutely.

“Ring a ding ding! I been aces all day long! Feel like a kid again! All the gals were asking me what new makeup I was using! I can’t believe just knocking back a bit of blood could do all that!” Palmina overcame a kind of shyness she’d never had with boys and pushed her face forward through Astryiah’s hands to give her a smack on the lips.

Astryiah smiled with such warmth that it transformed her habitually distant expression until she almost seemed a different person. She kissed Palmina back, deep and thorough, a real honey cooler.

“I am pleased that you have taken to it so naturally. But my vhoon, my blood, is not the same as if you had just drunk from any mortal person, any kee. You understand that, ken?”

“Uh, guess so. I mean, you’ve told it to me, but I can’t really dig it.”

“But you are comfortable with it?”

“Well, I feel real killer-diller! That’s comfortable enough!”

“Are you ready to do vhoon-vayon with me again?”

“Have all that fun again? Sure thing!”

“It is fun. But it is more than that. This time we will make you so you cannot be impregnated by a man, not ever. I must remind you of this, chamuda.”

“That’s one of the perks. After what happened to Betty...I don’t want that to happen to me, not ever!”

“No, I do not want that either. But I feel I must repeat—must remind you that a child could someday be a thing you wanted as well. My vhoon does not just prevent unwanted pregnancies, but any pregnancy…”

Palmina shook her head. “Even when you want a baby, if something goes wrong, you’ll be pushing up daisies. This sets me free from all that.”

“Lo, it does. I have seen so many women die from complications in pregnancy, during childbirth, or be crippled by inept delivery. It is a thing undertaken so lightly, but often at such cost. Well, you shall pay another cost then. Come to bed. Let me set you free.”

As the blood she’d gulped from Astryiah’s wrist made its way into her body, she felt truly freed. For a moment she felt like she had become a bird and she could use brand-new muscles to take off into the air, nothing holding her down ever again.

After she had soared through sensation for a while, suddenly it seemed very silly to her, and she muttered, “Fluttering dickey-birds,” one of her favorite swears, and then she was laughing at all of it, and Astryiah was holding her and laughing with her, kissing her with sharp nips of teeth, and she wished the joy of it would never end.

The next morning, she felt as if energy ran through her instead of blood, which would have been a funny ol’ thing. Her skin seemed poreless and perfect. Her eyes were bright with health, and the world seemed to sparkle. She sang along with the birds. The night before was still inside her, an echo of euphoria.

It was the weekend. She went shopping for groceries, and on the way stopped in the record store and treated herself to a 45 of Ellington’s “Mood Indigo.” She should have stopped in to see Babbo and Mamma...but they might have noticed something different about her, and she wasn’t ready to answer their questions. She didn’t even know how to answer her own questions, the ones that bubbled in the back of her mind, waiting to be considered when the exhilaration wore off.

She was starving; she couldn’t get enough food to eat. She made up a huge batch of pasta fazool, which normally she’d share with friends whom she felt didn’t get enough hot meals. Today she ate almost the whole pot, one bowl after another. She didn’t get indigestion, but did eventually find relief from the intense hunger.

There was a hop that night, and she dragged Astryiah to it, and they danced to every song. Palmina felt the same endless energy moving through her that she’d seen in Astryiah. The hot jazz pumped through her like an external, communal heart.

As Astryiah saw her home, with the sky softening to a lighter purply-blue where the sun was going to rise, she was still feeling the rhythms moving her muscles, and she took Astryiah’s hand and spun them along the empty street. Astryiah laughed with her and didn’t let go of her hand.

“Why didn’t ya share your, uh, vhoon, with me before this? I coulda been feelin’ this sweet all this time!”

“I am so very pleased you are happy with your choice, chamuda. But it is a very intimate and intense thing. It is a risk I take, to reveal that aspect of myself to you. Many kee could not handle such information. They would want to kill me for being a monster. As in your Dracula film.”

“Risk? But you’re not scared of anything! And you’re nothing like Dracula! This, what I feel, this is nothing like that. You’re not a monster. You—you’re a lifesaver! I feel so full of life. Dracula was all about death.”

Astryiah stopped. She took Palmina’s other hand and looked down at her, more seriously than Palmina had ever seen that solemn face. “I’m afraid I have failed to convey to you what gift you have accepted from me.” She looked around and led Palmina to a small park between buildings, just a few benches and some grass and trees. With no streetlight, the shadows made it a space of enveloping privacy. Palmina realized she’d normally never have felt safe in an unlit part of the city, until she’d walked at night with Astryiah.

Astryiah sat them down on a bench and started speaking with low urgency. “Chamuda, I do not know if you are just giddy with my vhoon—it does take some kee like that—but I fear that your lack of understanding may bring you pain or worse hurt.

“I bring death, like your Dracula. That is what you said you wanted. With only two sharings of blood, I have rendered your body unable to bring forth life in the normal, kee way. This strength you feel rushing through you is not the strength of life, not in the way you know, but a strength that doesn’t meet its full potential until your own kee death. You have drunk of death, neshama sheli—my soul, and I have not saved you. You are right that there is strength from sheol, and we may harness it to make our time in this world, however long, a more loving and powerful life.

“By going only this far with me, I think I prevent you from finding the disadvantages of my existence; you get only a small taste of the advantages. But do not doubt that the changes you feel within you are from brushing too close to death, not from some bright flame of life.”

In the deep shadow of the park, Palmina could not see Astryiah’s face, not well. She could see the outline of her head and a little light catching on nose and cheek, a low gleam from the shiny honey-colored marcel waves, perfectly styled as always. Palmina wondered if she could see a little better in the dark than before, but it wasn’t enough to read her dusky dame’s face; only the tone of voice and the pressing of Astryiah’s urgent fingers against hers gave her the true impression of how serious this was.

“You’re right; I don’t dig it, not all the way. I know I feel just aces. I know how safe I feel around you and how safe I feel with your vhoon inside me now. But how can I really understand it? I don’t hardly know anything about you, about your life. I don’t even know why you’re here in Philly. You could be anywhere in the world. Whatcha doin’ here?”

“I am here with you. For now, I am your lover and protector.”

Palmina shook her head in frustration. “No—what for didja come here, before you met me?”

“I was traveling around the States. It is a very young place with many problems, but in some ways reminds me of my home—a very old place, but with problems which are ever renewing.”

“OK, but what for were ya in the alley behind my place that first night?”

“Ehhhh. Well.” Astryiah paused. A long pause. Palmina bit her tongue to keep from asking any other questions, thereby giving Astryiah a way out of answering.

“Well, I had heard of Emma. And that you were the best connection to her. I found you first.”

Palmina’s head spun.

“What could you ’ve possibly wanted from Emma? You can’t get in that kinda trouble.”

“Ehhhh. Lo. Well, in a different way than I have helped you, I could help Emma, and you, and all of Emma’s clients.”

“‘Help’.” Palmina’s voice was flat.

“Ken, ken!” Astryiah sounded almost-nervous for the second time Palmina had ever heard. “I could be of great help! But then I met you, and I did not know how to make the offer without perhaps causing offense. And then...I did not want to risk offense even further and losing you from my life. This time with you...has been a rare delight for me.”

Palmina pushed the compliment away with a wave of her hand. “How do you think you can help?”

“Ehhhh. Well...if I drink from a woman who is pregnant and who does not want to be, and if I give her just one small mouthful of my vhoon, her body will abort. It is much safer for the women, even than Emma’s modern methods. I wanted to offer that medically safer option.”

“But. You didn’t. You just did a different thing with me.”

“Well, I developed feelings for you, a connection with you. It made it harder.”

“Harder to help other women?”

“Lo…! Just. Clouded. Complicated.”

Palmina felt a surge of anger, brighter than any anger she’d felt before. Everything was so much more intense now. She fought to keep her voice level; even in this rush of emotion, she could tell that Astryiah wouldn’t put up with any beef.

“Please. Square up why your plans changed when ya met me.”

“I cannot explain. Please accept this. It is about emotion, and it is hard for me to talk about. I believe I have made it quite plain how I feel about you. I was...concerned that I might...scare you away...if I made my original offer to you, once our friendship had begun.”

Palmina pushed down the cascade of emotions that threatened to come out at top volume. Her family dealt with emotions loudly and at length. She was comfortable with that. She really wanted to blow her wig right now. But—and here was a voice inside her that she tried to ignore—while being around Astryiah made her feel safe from others, a part of her was intensely aware that Astryiah was dangerous like a gun, like fire: something that could protect you but wasn’t guaranteed to be something that wouldn’t hurt you. Kill you, even.

“Well. Now I know. So what’s this offer, exactly?”

Astryiah could not miss the lack of emotion in her voice or the way she held herself so still and distant. She felt Astryiah’s body echo hers, pulling away from her on the bench. She almost reached out after her, but then she heard Astryiah’s voice, so cold it hurt to hear, replying, “It is a simple offer. Instead of bringing the women who need help to Emma for the procedure she uses, they could be brought to a nice warm hotel room where I would be. Or someone’s back bedroom. Not the dangerous spaces you have found for the procedure. They would be given just enough information to consent: that they would lose some blood and drink a small amount of ‘medicine,’ and then they would not have any danger, just a heavy period, some cramping. I am very far from being in a kee body, so I do not remember anymore what all is involved, only that it would never cause injury and never create a situation like poor Betty. They would just need a good hot meal, and then they could go back to their lives unharmed. Well, except for what emotions they must endure from the loss.”

Palmina thought for a long while. Astryiah waited like a statue.

“I’m not sure I’d’a believed you or what you’d’ve had to do to get me to believe you if you’d talked to me about alla this that first night. I think I dig why you did whatcha did... but I still don’t like it. Makes me feel like you were using me.”

“This is unfortunate. I was trying to keep you from assuming I was only interested in you for vhoon; that is why I changed my plans.”

They sat in the silent shadows, neither sure where to go from there.

“Maybe you oughta—” Palmina started as Astryiah began, “Perhaps I had best­—” Both came to a screeching verbal halt. Astryiah eventually finished her sentence. “Perhaps I had best go away for a while to give you time to think.”

She didn’t want that, but she made herself say, “Yeah...maybe you better.”

And then she was alone in the dark.

When Astryiah left, she took joy with her, more joy than Palmina had realized was in her life. She’d been so exhausted and worn down for so long she hadn’t realized how Astryiah’s wry observances of life had bolstered her up. Even before the vhoon-vayon, she’d come to count on that fixed presence in her nights, the intimacy in words long before intimacy of bodies.

Words, words spoken in the dark where they could safely be said.

Bodies, bodies intertwining in the dark where fingers and teeth could break through barriers which would have been too impermeable in daylight.

As soon as Astryiah had left the painful void in her wake, Palmina was able to entirely understand and excuse her actions. Once it was too late to take back her words.

Maybe she’ll come back? She said, “Go away for a while.” That means she’ll come back someday,

Life went on. At least it did for everyone else. At the factory, the biscuits went along the production line, as did the intrigues and gossip. Palmina smiled, but it did not touch her; it did not feel as real as anything Astryiah had brought into her life. At the dances, the jazz was hot, but the music did not touch her pulse. The girls would say she’d “run out of gas,” and it sure felt like that, all right.

As life went on, the problems of life continued as well. It was not a week after Astryiah had left only terrible emptiness in her wake that a gal whispered to her at the end of the lunch break, “I need to see Emma. Please.”

The weeks went by. Another lady needed Emma’s services. Each was sick afterward. Nobody shared Betty’s fate. But as she escorted the shaken women to their homes, eyes red and skin drained of color, she thought about how much easier and safer it could have been for them. I denied them that. My high-hat made it harder for ’em.

Guilt was the only thing that she felt acutely through the numb ache of loss and regret. The rest of her existence seemed far away, the sound muted, her senses dulled.

Her vhoon-boosted health was so robust that she shouldn’t have been able to feel down. She got compliments—and demands for her beauty secrets—every day. Men flocked to her, and it took everything she’d learned from Astryiah to fend them off. It seemed she would not need Astryiah’s exotic birth control; she felt no desire to put up with fumbling hands on her body when she remembered her shadow woman’s skillful, intuitive fingers. She had no urge to play the flirtation game with anyone less coolly ironic or excitingly worldly.

She tried not to think about how the other women could have benefited from Astryiah’s powerful blood, even as she connected them to Emma and took them to and from their procedures.

She didn’t go to the New Year’s hop or any parties her friends were having. She went to bed early and the next day cooked several batches of spaghetti so she could give out dishes of it to various friends who were down on their luck. Her appetite had gone back to normal over the months, so cooking for others was doable again. Since it was a day off from work, she distracted herself by cooking and delivering bowls wrapped in towels to keep them warm.

With the remaining sauce simmering and the simmering water just poured off the last batch of pasta, the tiny kitchen had become too hot, so she went out to sit on the back stoop for a minute. She’d cool down real quick in a Philly January.

“Have you perhaps any grappa to share?” The voice had been too longed-for, too anxiously anticipated, for her to recognize it at first. Her head came up sharply, and there in the twilight’s purple gloom was her lady of the shadows.

“Nah. I didn’t feel like getting sauced alone today.” Her months-long blues helped her to answer coolly instead of running up and throwing her arms around Astryiah. Getting her hopes up seemed too hard, even with the woman she’d pined for standing right there in front of her.

“I could keep you company,” Astryiah offered. It was the only vulnerability she would show, Palmina knew; this one advance, this one risk of rejection. And if it was turned down, Astryiah would disappear out of her life forever.

“There’s room here for you to sit,” she answered carefully. She was afraid. Afraid to say something wrong: to try too hard or be perceived to not be trying hard enough. Astryiah could be spooked so easily, and she felt no confidence that she could stop or repair it.

“Well,” Astryiah said when she had settled down beside Palmina. Their thighs had a hairbreadth of space carefully held between them. “You needed time to think. Have I given you long enough to consider everything?”

“Yes! Yes. You did. I have.” Palmina found it hard, in the moment, to say things she’d so desperately wished she could have said before. “Look­—I’m sorry.”

“You need not apologize. The am’r world is different from the one you are used to. Different principles. Different purposes. Different focuses and importances. You are not of that world, so things I say can shock your sensibilities. I am long since departed from your kee worldview. I pushed you too far, too fast.”

“You gave me time! I know you tried to tell me. I just couldn’t hear it, not right away. But I dig it now. I do. I promise.”

“You are really come to an understanding?” Astryiah did not look hopeful, just serious.

“I am! I wantcha’ta help as many women as possible. I wanna help you help as many women as possible.”

Astryiah paused and looked dead in Palmina’s eyes. “I must clearly ask you now. I must know that you do truly accept all that that means. I will drink the blood of those women, giving them a small portion of mine in return.”

“Yeah, yeah. That jives.”

“And you and I...we cannot do vhoon-vayon again. Not unless you choose to leave your kee life and enter my am’r one, leaving your friends and family behind.”

“I...understand. At least, I believe ya, since I can’t really understand.”

“Tov! We will work together to help these women. I am very glad you want this. Very glad, chamuda.”

“Can we...uh...can we, just, you know, cuddle? Be in bed, without the blood?”

Astryiah got a complicated but not unhappy look on her face. “I do not normally ‘be in bed’ with one with whom I am not vhoon-sharing. However...I have missed how you feel in my arms, dear Palmina. You are exceptional, so I will make an exception for you.”

Palmina found herself in Astryiah’s arms, smelling the slightly musky-seawater-metallic scent of her, feeling the firmly muscled body melt around her to fit together best.

If anyone had been keeping track of such things, they would have noticed that for about a decade, few women in Philadelphia and its immediate environs died of certain “unexplained causes,” and fewer unplanned babies were thrust into an unwelcoming world.

“Nothing lasts forever—at least not the good stuff,” Palmina would reflect later, in the community for the elderly where she’d found a comfy little cottage she could maintain by herself as the aches and pains of age slowed her down. “But for a while we did some good, we did.”

She said as much to the woman who held her in her arms on the final day. She had given up eating a week ago; a graceful exit from a graceless disease like cancer. When life lost its joys, it was time to go, and she was at peace. Her friends had visited her bedside to say goodbye. She was ready, and the pain was bad enough that she was more than ready.

She told them all to leave for the night—no sense in anyone sleeping in a chair, waiting around for death with her. She could go to sleep in peace—and better if she didn’t wake up in the morning to have yet another “final day.”

But she did wake up, in the middle of the night. To find familiar arms around her, so familiar that for a confused moment she didn’t know which decade it was. “Ah—Astryiah?”

“Shhh, chamuda. I am here, here for the last night, here to take away the final pain. I missed how you felt in my arms, and I could not let you go without feeling that one more time.”

Palmina laughed with delight. “I’m like a bag of sticks now! I sure don’t feel like I usta!”

“You still feel like my dear Palmina.”

“I’m so glad you’re here. You were the only one I couldn’t say goodbye to. Didn’t wanna go without that—although I never expected to get the chance.”

“But here I am, chamuda. Feel my arms around you. Let me help you say goodbye.”

“Abyssinia…”

“Ken, ken, I remember. We said this back then, didn’t we? Abyssinia, Palmina, my love. Abyssinia.”