Page 11 of Blood Secret

4

Janna

“What’ll you have?”The bartender looked me up and down with one eyebrow cocked.

The many silver rings threaded through his brow caught the light.

I wondered if it ever hurt to have that many piercings there. I’d probably roll on my face in the middle of the night and permanently embed metal in my face.

“Vodka tonic,” I ordered with a smile. But not too bright a smile. That would make me stand out.

The general mood was one of darkness. Extreme darkness. Dark, thudding music, heavy on percussion and bass. The floors, walls, ceiling, and all furnishings were black. Lack of imagination? Possibly.

I leaned more on the side of theming. Whoever decorated the club didn’t believe in subtlety, that was for sure. I guessed blood red would’ve been a little too obvious, even cartoonish.

It was busy, even for relatively early in the night.

I scanned the dance floor as I sipped my drink.

The usual mix of people in the usual clothing—black, tight, short, shiny in most cases. Leather, vinyl, latex. People who got off on pretending they were outside the norm. I wondered what had to happen to a person for them to develop that particular kink—acting like a vampire.

But God, the material.

There was so much beauty, cat-like grace. Men and women moving together, flowing like water as they reacted to the music. They didn’t say a word. Their bodies did the talking.

I wished I had my sketchpad with me. There was only so much my memory could recall after the fact. Besides, I’d never be good enough to recreate what I was looking at. Something would always be missing, some vital thing I couldn’t quite touch with my pencil or charcoal. I couldn’t even name it.

It was like that all over the place, people moving around each other, eyeing each other up. They reminded me of panthers in the jungle. Only where was the prey? Was that how they saw each other?

Or how they saw me?

No, that couldn’t be it. None of them even approached me. I was fine with that, since vampirism wasn’t my kink, and I wasn’t into black latex.

One-night stands might be fun, but I didn’t trust any of these people to not pass along some weird disease. The least I would get was a bite on the neck, and I didn’t love that idea, either. It was better to go alone, stay alone and go home alone. I wasn’t there to socialize.

Sometimes—not always, but sometimes—I asked myself what my mother would think if she knew what I did with my nights. I would save that revelation for the perfect moment. Sometime when it would really blow her mind. When she was being a Super Bitch, busting my balls for being an artist or for living in Brooklyn. Or for quitting a job where I felt threatened.

I’d wait until she was into her third or fourth martini and drop it on her. She’d fall over and crush one of those stupid, useless dogs of hers.

I smiled to myself and tossed back the rest of my drink before signaling for another.

It wasn’t lost on me that my drinks would come out of the money Mom had transferred to my bank account.

The vodka seemed to sour on my tongue. There I was, thinking about how much I’d like to give her a heart attack, but she was still taking care of me.

Oh, just one or two big sales, just one major commission… I could cut ties once and for all, forget the bullshit that was my life as her daughter, as Dad’s daughter, as Jimmy’s sister. And I could disappear. Somewhere they’d never find me, if they even bothered to look.

A single tear spilled over onto my cheek, and I reached up to wipe it away without thinking about the thick eyeliner I had put on before leaving the apartment.

“Shit,” I whispered to myself when the side of my hand came back smeared with black. Just like when I was working. Would my hands ever be clean?

I took my drink to the ladies’ room with me.

It was just as dark in there as it was out at the bar, on the dance floor.

I wondered how anybody was supposed to see a thing in there—I could smell that wonderful mix of piss, shit, and menstrual blood and wanted to stay away from it. No, probably not menstrual blood. After all, I was in a club with vampires.

I rolled my eyes at my reflection as I wiped under my eye with a wad of damp paper towels.

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