Third time I watched Interview With The Vampire
I had already undergone the change, and this time when I watched the film
I took note of the scene at the finale of the Theatre of the Vampires.
Watched as a woman was taunted, tormented by the narrator, saw her helpless
expression, as always, but this time realizing something strangely alluring
by her experience. She was not really the victim, it seemed.
She was approached and consoled with their lips and touch, the narrator
asking her boldly:
"How does it feel to be loved by death?"
The first two times I had written it off as just another a ridiculous phrase.
Everyone has the same college experience, mine was
rarely different. Liberal Arts. Late to classes. Long
night term paper and study sessions. The occasional outing (but never
called a date). A random night on the town, wandering into a foreign
club, 21 and over.
Jimmy and Jack lived down the hall. One of
them had heard from some guy in Gothic Studies that this place was the
place to meet "interesting women", as he put it. With dimmed
red lighting and the facade of hard-core Rave music played at only background
level, the place purred with black corners and low ceilings. Our
trio found a secluded table and proceeded to watch and murmur for the next
two hours, ordering only one round of drinks and never once getting the
nerve to invite a mysterious woman to dance with one of us.
She later told me she had watched me the entire time.
It was the library of all places. My paper
on Milton was due in three days and my bibliography was six books short.
I was bumbing about on the reference computer when she silently sat down
beside me. She placed a collection of Sylvia Plath's poems down next
to my backpack and dug around in her purse for some sort of note.
I hunted away for more experts' opinions books, watching her occasionally
with nervous glances.
When she finished her search, she turned to look
at me, waiting patiently for me to address her. When I did, it was
casual. I smiled politely,
"Yes?"
"You're a student here, right?"
Her voice was dark and slow, with a touch of haze
-- a comfortable slurring of the words so they flowed out like a foreign
language. It took me a few seconds to answer her.
"Um, yes."
She returned my smile, "Would you check this book
out for me?" Slowly, she nudged the collection in front of my keyboard.
"Well, I ... I need to check out a few for myself
-- I have to do a report."
She nodded once, "That's fine, take this with you.
I'll be outside waiting."
And she left.
I watched her leave. There wasn't much else I could do.
To see her was like nothing I can quite describe:
dark brown hair flowing in a curtain around her head and resting back,
behind her shoulders; deep azure eyes that glowed even when her face was
hidden by shadows; light cheekbones above the elegant curve of her chin;
dark red lips; and a figure that was only hinted at beneath the curves
of her silken top or the flow of her light, blue skirt. She offered
to buy me coffee, taking none for herself, and asked me questions about
the place I'd grown up, the friends I'd left behind, the women I'd once
loved.
Tucking a book beneath her arm she offered me a
cool hand, an interested smile, and her name: Helen . When I started
to give mine she stopped me, placing a finger over my lips.
"I'd prefer to call you Paris."
I didn't ask as I puckered my lips to kiss at her finger.
My roommate had already left for classes when I returned at 8:30 the next morning. I had been tired before, but not like this. My evening's experience now seemed a haze of intimacy and hunger, even a shower was too much effort. I took off what clothing I could and dropped to my bed, nearly unconscious.
I called professors after missing three days, faking the flu.
In the cafeteria I rushed to finish the final notes
for my paper, now late. James was annoying me, saying how Susan saw
me at the coffee shop a few days back with an older woman. He put
it together with the story my roommate had told him, priding himself on
expert detective work.
"So, was she good?"
"Is it any of your business?"
James sat back in his chair, pausing for a moment
to consider a new plan of attack.
"If I met this gorgeous older woman in a coffee
shop and I scored, I'd tell you about it. You'd be the first one
I'd tell, Don."
"Met her in the library."
"So the fuck what? Just talk to me, man. Start
from the beginning. Give me the goods."
"I have to finish this paper, James. Prof gave me
'till five this afternoon to get it in."
James asked for her name and I told him, realizing immediately after that I was lying.
One night about a week later I had gone to a late
film alone. Sitting down into a folding chair I felt a cool hand
reach over and rest on my shoulder. Turning around I saw her slouching
in a seat in the row behind me, alone. I jumped over and into her
row and sat down beside her. She was watching the movie trivia questions
that flashed on the screen and muttering the answers to herself.
I leaned in, "I had a wonderful time with you last
week. I would have called but you didn't give me a number."
She nodded, watching the screen and muttering the
answer to the current trivia question,
"The General. An old Buster Keaton piece."
Turning to me she added, "Ever seen a silent film before?"
I shrugged and looked up at the screen. She reached
over with her hand and rested it on my thigh.
"I love movies, just haven't seen a lot of old ones."
"I just love tragedies. So much more realistic."
I don't recall much after the previews ended and she started kissing me.
"Read this. Out loud."
I had expected my trip back to her place to be something
more than this. She stood pacing the floor while I sat with a collection
of Byron's poems.
"What is worst of woes that wait on age?"
I read. "What stamps the wrinkle deeper in the brow? To view each
loved one blotted from life's page, to be alone on earth as I am now."
"What do you want to do after college, Paris?"
The name was still unfamiliar but I answered, anyway.
"Do grad school, I suppose. Teach. Not
much you can do with a liberal arts degree."
That night we talked, until nearly morning. She seemed unwilling to let me go, yet kissed only my lips before ushering me out the door.
We sat together in the club she had originally spotted
me in. She had ordered several drinks for me but none for herself,
and I was complaining about my literature class.
"I mean it's fiction. The whole damned
book is fiction. What Milton is saying about the creation of sin
and the fall of Satan has very little scriptural basis. This girl
in my class just couldn't get it."
She was looking through the smoky haze of the club,
almost as if she was looking for something. She spoke up softly,
"Pick someone. Anyone. Male or female."
I glanced out at the club, then looked back at her,
"Why?"
"I want to see who catches your attention."
I shrugged and pointed at the bar. "Frat boy.
You see him over there? The one trying to pick up on the under-agers
at the bar. I hate guys like that."
"Perfect," she grinned then pulled some money out
of her purse. "Take this to the register for the bill. Meet
me outside."
From the register I saw her whisper to him, then nibble at his ear.
Outside she was leaning against the wall of the club and he was standing close to her, resting his hand against the wall, just above her shoulder. He was going to give her a ride back to her place. She insisted I come along and I agreed, not realizing he would be coming inside.
On the way there U2's "Hold Me. Thrill Me. Kiss Me. Kill Me" played on the radio, lightening my mood.
I threw the glass of water into her sink, shattering
it. Cursing some more, I paced back and forth, trying to ignore the sounds
coming from her bedroom. Earlier I had run the garbage disposal to
drown it out. I opened the refrigerator again to find nothing in
it, and stood in front of it, closing the door behind me so it pressed
against my back, the thick air from inside drifting out and settling around
me.
When she arrived she was wearing only a long shirt.
She found me sitting on the counter top, banging my feet against the bottom
cupboard. She held out a hand to me.
"Come. I need to show you something."
"Fuck off," I growled. "Fucking whore!"
She walked calmly over to me, talking my hand and
sliding me off the counter. I wouldn't look at her.
"You have to see what I've done."
"Take me back. I don't give a damn about you
anymore!"
Instead she slipped her warm arms around me and kissed me, the bitter taste of blood in her mouth.
We took his body out to the forest in his car and
left it laying across the front seat. She gave me a towel to rub
off any fingerprints, then she vacuumed the seats and floor with a Dust
Devil. I walked away from the car in a daze, pausing suddenly at
the edge of a river. The forest stirred softly with sound.
From above, only bits of the faint starlight broke through the branches.
There was one completely peaceful moment before I felt her arms slide around
me from behind. I shivered, then slowly crossed my arms over hers.
I knew what I wanted to say, but I couldn't bring myself to say it.
"Your name's not really Helen, right?"
"Of course not," she smiled.
In my room I was feeling weak again. My roommate sat in silence at his computer, acting oblivious to my presence. I gathered some books together and wandered off to the student center. I was too far behind in my studies and staying away from my room was the best way to avoid phone calls from the guys.
As I read I watched the news reports about him, and drank orange juice.
Sometimes I thought to myself that I understood what was going on. There were times when, in the middle of eating the cafeteria meatloaf, I would suddenly realize that I knew exactly what she was. Then there were times in the middle of a lecture that I would cloud my instinct with rational thought, assuring myself this was nothing supernatural, and bringing about the cold realization that I was an accomplice to a murder.
For some reason this didn't bother me as much as it should have.
The next night we were together again. I laying
back on her bed, she laying beside me, naked, her fingers running smooth circles
on my shoulder.
"Nietzsche once said," she purred, "He who fights
the monster might take care, lest he thereby become a monster."
"If I asked, would you tell me why you killed him?"
"I think you know why I did it."
"You won't tell me your name or what you really
are."
"I think you know that as well."
"And if I don't?"
"Say that Coleridge quote I read to you the other
night."
"Hmm?"
She frowned, "The one out of The Ancient Mariner."
I gave her an confused look, then started to fish under the
bed for the book. She groaned, jumping off the bed, still unclothed, digging around
under it, pulling out the book, and flipping quickly through the pages
as she stood back up. She turned the book around and shoved it back
at me. I blinked, looking down to where her finger marked the passage,
then slowly took the book.
"Her lips were red, her looks were free.
Her locks were yellow as gold. Her skin was white as leprosy.
The nightmare Life-In-Death was she, who thicks men's blood with cold."
She laid down on her stomach elbows against the
bed. Her head resting atop her interlaced fingers, smiling.
"Oh, please ..." I said, shaking my head.
She leaned forward, slowly clawing her way up the
bed towards me and licked her lips.
That time, when looking back, I distinctly recall her teeth clenched against my throat and the helpless ecstasy that resulted.
"What?! He's full of sh-- I mean, he's lying!"
I covered up the phone and growled a little.
"Well, he said you were staying overnight with some
strange girl."
"Mom, I ... I've been really busy and Steve wanted
to use some of my things and I told him he couldn't so now he's been really
bitter about it and been saying things like this about me."
"I don't know ... he sounded very concerned for
you, Donald."
"Like I said, he's a liar. We're not getting
along well."
"Where have you been? You told me to call
you late at night because you're always home."
"I've had this killer paper. Been in the library."
I knew she didn't believe me, but I kept lying anyway.
We stood amongst the trees outside the libary that next night. She laid her arms around me, neck tucked over
my shoulder and whispered, lips brushing against my ear. The fall
was nearly over. Finals would be here in just a few weeks.
"Do you want to try it, my love? Have a taste
of what I have?"
I looked over and into the windows of the library,
watching small people in motion inside. Looking up I stared at the
night sky, clouds obscuring the moon.
"I don't know what it's like to be like you."
Her fingers slid around to the front of my sweater,
"You know inside your heart. Deep down."
I gulped, then looked down at the cobblestones of
the commons. "So is it easy?"
"To love?"
"Easy to kill," I muttered.
"It is if they don't struggle."
She kissed at my neck for a minute or two. I closed
my eyes, leaning my head back against her shoulder.
"I could end it right now," she whispered between
kisses.
I opened my eyes, "Now?"
"If that's what you want, lover. There's no
room for regret."
"I don't want to think about it."
"You won't need to," she reassured.
I remember her laying me down on my bed, in the dorm, as she continued to kiss my neck. The warmth, the air, the life seeming to drain out of me in one intense moment of passion, the kind that is so overwhelming it stuns you into submission. My instincts were overcome by the ecstasy of the moment, and I longed to cling to her until my arms had no strength. Then, soon, it ended, and I was aware for a horribly painful instant that I was about to die. I could no longer raise my chest to breathe. She stood over me, watching for the moment, a small trickle of my blood running out of the corner of her lips. By the closet, just past where she was standing, I caught a glimpse of Steve, tied and gagged, staring with horror at the two of us. She bit her wrist, then held it over my mouth and let her blood drip down into it.
I can't remember a thing between that moment of intense hunger and the instant I felt it overcome, crouched on the floor next to Steve's mangled and pale white body.
10/95