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I stood at my easel and continued working on the art assignment we had due mid-week. It was due on Wednesday because Thursday was Thanksgiving, and the university was closed for the long weekend. On the one hand, I was looking forward to going to my parents’ house for the traditional Thanksgiving roast, but on the other hand, my painting was far from being finished and I’d have to paint through the weekend to make sure it would be.
It was almost midday, but I simply couldn’t drag myself out of bed any earlier. The night had been too long and on top of that, I had tossed and turned for hours in spite of exhaustion and my sore feet, because I couldn’t seem to turn my brain off. Each time I was just about to doze off, I would awake with a fright, as if I was falling. Emotionally, I had definitely hit rock bottom. I just couldn’t forget the disappointment on Adam’s face. Especially difficult to ignore was the memory of that second between his decision to kiss me, and my ducking away. Just one second. One that I couldn’t be sure whether I regretted or not. One for which I wanted to shake myself like the yogurt drink in my hand.
I ripped the top off and slurped my breakfast - a fruit of the forest yogurt shake which normally brought back memories from my childhood, that’s how long I’d loved it, but which today was unable to drive away the stale taste in my mouth. I drank it down half-heartedly, threw the cup in the trash and kept on painting.
The assignment was to produce an impressionistic painting. Although we could choose our own theme, it still had to be a typical impressionistic motif. So that pretty much meant a landscape. Last week Pia had commented on this with a grin: “I guess your usual vampire pictures won’t work this time.”
Nope, they wouldn’t. I scanned the pictures on my walls; countless pairs of the same eyes stared back at me. In my memories, the eyes shone silver, but my charcoal drawings only knew black and my pencil works a gleaming graphite gray. Gray like Adam’s eyes.
Adam’s expression had been similarly intense and he forced his way again and again into my consciousness, eclipsing those eyes from my past. It had been a really long time since I was so absorbed by thoughts of other eyes.
I rubbed my forehead, disgruntled. Okay, now concentrate! I dipped my brush in the paint and dabbed my impressionistic version of South Dakota State University onto the canvas. It wasn’t as if I couldn’t paint anything other than vampires. In the past few days I had done quite a few sketches and even taken a few photos, which now lay next to my easel for reference. A good thing too, because I’d hardly want to stand around outside in this weather. Besides, my memory wasn’t exactly helpful at the moment; it was busy with other flashbacks – Adam’s eyes.
Good God! I knew absolutely nothing about him. Yes, he’d been a good listener. So good in fact, he’d told me very little about himself. I couldn’t remember ever having met him before. But he must have been a student too, because he was wearing that shirt with the university crest on it. Still, I had no idea which subjects he took, nor whether he was in a fraternity. Maybe he was already in his senior year and would be graduating soon. Was he on a scholarship like Pia? Was he good at what he did? What kind of things did he even like? And above all I couldn’t stop thinking about whether he had gotten home safely, how he was doing now and what he was thinking of at this moment.
Hurry up and paint this picture, Lucy! I actually loved painting, but today I had to force myself to do it. Five hours and several steps on in the process, I decided I could afford to let the paint dry for a bit. I rinsed out my brushes and cleaned up. It seemed like a good opportunity to make up for the visit I hadn’t been able to pay Lennox at the ungodly hour I arrived home last night. Not only was it a much more decent time now, I had also finished my work quota for the day.
I grabbed my half of the cake, which had been sitting on the kitchen table untouched since yesterday, and found myself knocking on Lennox’s door only moments later. When he opened there was, of course, an Annie Lennox song playing in the background.
“Hiya, sweetie,” he greeted me, followed immediately by an alarmed “uh-oh,” when he noticed the expression on my face. “Come straight in and tell me everything.”
And I did just that. I really left nothing out – quite the contrary. I went through every detail of the encounter the day before in my head - every word I could remember; every touch; and especially the look on Adam’s face and the sound of his voice.
All the while Lennox and I were snuggled up on the couch together polishing off the rest of the cake. The calories were the least of my concern at this stage, but since I had baked the cake myself it was quite shocking to know everything that had gone into it.
“Wow, you had yourself an exciting evening,” concluded Lennox with an appreciative whistle.
“The thought that he’s out there somewhere feeling bad because of me is making me sick. I didn’t mean for that to happen.”
“I know, you just went along with things on the spur of the moment.”
I nodded and took a bite of the cake. With the gingerbread crumbs it really did taste Christmassy.
“It’s just that you’re chasing after a vision from your childhood, so you’ve become blind to real men.”
“My vampire is real too.”
Lennox sighed. “Even if he was, he’d be much older than you and it’s altogether possible he doesn’t want anything to do with you. Love isn’t a one way street. It takes two.” He laid his hand gently between my shoulder blades. “Just because you want him...”
His expression was so penetrating and resigned. I could only suppose he was head over heels for one of the guys from his computer evening, but it wasn’t reciprocated.
I patted him on the chest sympathetically. “Speaking of that, on Monday Trixy will give me a few of her pictures. I can’t wait to see what you have to say about them.” I frowned. “What was your first impression of my pictures anyway?”
Lennox eyed me silently and sighed. “If you absolutely must know: That you’re crazy about this one man. And it was obvious that other men would be better off keeping their distance.” He gave a lopsided shrug. “You really don’t give anyone a chance. Not even this Adam. And he at least looked like your drawings.”
“Only the eyes... only in the first moment. His are gray, not silver. And I couldn’t see any prominent teeth either. I mean, shouldn’t I have clearly recognized him if his was the face I had been remembering all these years?” I shook my head. “No, it was just a coincidental similarity. Like you said - with where my interests lie, it would have been wrong to kiss him.”
“Or dead right,” Lennox said. “Maybe his kiss would have woken you from your dream. Even if there are vampires, that doesn’t mean you need one. He saved you. What was he like other than that? You know nothing about him. You’re filling all the gaps in your memory with wishful thinking. Reality will never compare to that. Even if the guy who fished you out of the water back then did come to you, there’s no way in hell he could live up to the image of him you’ve created in your mind.”
Later that evening I pondered what Lennox had said. Could I really have gotten so lost in my dreams that in the end not even my real vampire would be good enough for me?
When at 2am I still couldn’t sleep, I got up and painted like a fiend. I didn’t put the final brushstroke on until morning. My work was extremely impressionistic. In my half asleep state, I had allowed myself like never before to open up to a picture that was half dream, half reality. It was unmistakably the university I visited almost daily, but at the same time it was no more real than the Hobbit’s Shire from Tolkien.
The second time I tried to finally get some sleep, instead of distressing questions the only things dancing through my head were spots. Impressionistic spots, that splotched up my mind and sent me into a wild dream. In my dream, I sometimes saw the vampire from back then, and sometimes Adam. Instead of a fuzzy outline, paint splotches circled them and in the end I could hardly tell who was who. I could only make out that the usually stiff look in the eyes of my pictures had turned into a blaze.
I felt lips on my mouth, a soft nibble on my neck and I dreamed that a man, whose face I couldn’t see, lay naked on top of me and moved between my legs. When I thought he was about to bite me, I tore my eyes open. I was all alone in my room and my heart thumped like crazy. I had wrapped my legs around my comforter, as if it were my lover, and the pointy zip of my pillow dug into my neck like a fang.
I threw the pillow off me and kicked the comforter away. I sat up panting and rubbed my neck where I could feel the mark the metal zip had left. My whole body trembled with lust, because in my dream I had been just about to come. Damn, how I missed sex. I just had to find my vampire. He was the man for me. My head and my libido told me so.
Luckily I was meeting with a few friends today who understood. But first, my cellphone rang. Quickly I brushed my disheveled hair away from my face and answered it. I felt completely exhausted but psyched at the same time, which was probably due to my nocturnal artistic endeavors.
“Hey, Pia.” I got up and padded barefoot over to the easel to inspect my new painting. It was without a doubt my best work in ages.
“Sweetie,” she said, “a little birdy told me you disappeared early yesterday morning with Adam.”
I cleared my throat and went to make myself a coffee. “He just saw me home.”
“When are you seeing him again?” She sounded beside herself with excitement and a guilty conscience gripped my chest.
“No idea. Do you know him then?”
“Me? Why would I know him? No.”
I put the capsule in and turned the coffee maker on. “Because I don’t even know his full name, let alone anything else about him.”
“Oh well, there’s plenty of time for that on the second date. You guys were dancing so spectacularly, I thought I’d flirt with Ethan a bit. He doesn’t waste any time.”
“You didn’t...?”
“Heavens, no! If you let boys play with all the toys too soon, they look for a new sandbox.” The way she put it, you could even discuss it at a kid’s birthday party. She was probably well practiced in that, since she was one of seven kids and also had a whole heap of cousins. There were always little kids running around somewhere. “When are you meeting Adam again?”
“We didn’t make plans.”
“What?” She sounded shocked. “But why not?”
“He tried to kiss me,” I admitted quietly.
“That’s great!”
“I ducked away.” The coffee aroma spread through the room and I sucked it in like an addict. I closed my eyes and leaned on the counter because I was getting dizzy. I was just way too tired and probably hypoglycemic.
“Why’d ya do that?” Pia sounded horrified.
“Well, because I... oh, you know.” Carefully I picked up the cup, added loads of sugar and sat down.
“Oh, no! Adam was perfect with a capital P. Who cares if he’s not into a blood-rich diet?” Then she groaned. “You didn’t say it to him like that, did you?”
I stirred my coffee and drank it slowly. Really I needed it intravenously.
“No, I’m not stupid. I just told him there was something in the pipeline with another guy...”
“But you don’t even know that for sure!” she interrupted me, furious. “Anyway it’s all just nonsense, Lucy. Please, would you wake up finally and accept that there’s no such thing as vampires? Look, I like Twilight as much as the next guy, but I know it’s just books and films.”
“It isn’t nonsense,” I whispered so quietly she couldn’t hear me. It hurt that she took me for a lunatic. I let the phone drop and stared at the wall. I thought Adam was charming too. In fact, he had gotten way too far under my skin and was even messing with my dreams. The man I’d had sex with in my imagination wasn’t necessarily my vampire. But I hadn’t taken the decision to find precisely that guy lightly. The idea had preoccupied me for weeks; it had gotten stronger and stronger inside me, until I knew and felt that it was the only right thing to do. And now a kiss that didn’t even happen was turning so insanely against me that I felt helpless.
I took a deep breath and put the phone to my ear again.
Pia was saying: “...meeting again today?”
“What sorry? I had something in my eye.”
“I asked if you were meeting with the girls from your ghost-chasers group again today.”
When neither Pia nor my family had understood my need to find my vampire, I had looked around for kindred spirits and founded a support group for girls who were also looking for unusual men. There were only four of us, but it was good to compare notes, and the other women were just as serious about it as I was. I never felt like a weird outcast when I was around them. Now we met on the second to last Sunday of every month, which happened to be today. But before that, I’d need to bathe in coffee.
“Yeah, I’m driving over later. But you know, only one of us is looking for a ghost. I want my vampire.”
The silence on the line spoke volumes. “Whatever you say,” she said finally. “I’ll ask around, see if I can find anything out about Adam.”
“Pia...”
“You’ll thank me one day,” she said. “Have fun this afternoon.”