Hunger by Karen E. Taylor Page B

I have never been able to sustain a lasting relationship with anyone before; I care too much about you to give you less than you deserve. It’s better to end things right now.”
    I studied his profile in the moonlight, trying to etch it into my memory as I considered his words. The proposal I had rehearsed night after night would not come; I was too proud, too unsure of him. I could take him by force, change him as I had been changed, perhaps, but I wanted a willing partner, someone who could move gracefully into my existence. That partner would not be him. My perception of him as eternal companion began to fade, replaced by the vision of his face in twenty or thirty years, aging and grayed. Max would become one with all the others, those whom I touched and those who had touched me, only to be claimed by their final lover—death—while I lived on. With that thought, I let go of him, reluctantly, yet completely, condemning him to his fate and me to mine.
    â€œHell, Max,” I said quietly and tenderly, “in the whole scheme of eternity, it can hardly matter.”
    â€œAh, eternity,” he said, giving a low laugh. “What must eternity be like?”
    â€œTerrible,” I said as our eyes met, “yet beautiful when filled with times like this.”
    We turned to each other then and made love in the cool night air. It seemed a bitter union, desperate and futile. Mentally we had both accepted the inevitable separation; physically we clung to each other in a desperate attempt to postpone the parting. We were joined in an animal mating; instinct took over, leaving no room for intellect or emotion. We were merely two bodies, taking from each other, insatiable yet dispassionate. In the final moments when our lovemaking grew frantic, our peak very near, I realized that I had been crying for some time, a silent outpouring of blood-tinged tears, flowing down my face, soaking my hair and the dark earth beneath me.
    When it was over, we drove in silence back to my trailer. Max came in for the first and last time, and lay down on my narrow bed as I prepared for sleep. I drew the drapes, slowly undressed and crawled in beside him.
    â€œMax,” I said and could say no more.
    â€œHush, my little love, sleep now.” He crooned and rocked me; I relaxed and slept in his arms like a child.
    When I awoke the next evening, he was gone. He left a printed card on the pillow with his address. Almost as an afterthought, the words “Love, Max” were scrawled in red ink.
    I could not cry, all my tears had been shed during our lovemaking. I dressed and returned to the life I led before we met.
    We had kept in touch over the years, Christmas cards from him and change of address notices from me. When my luck ran out in a small southern town, where a persistent sheriff had grown too curious about my nocturnal activities, Max had answered my distress call with a plane ticket, a new life and a new identity. After I arrived in Manhattan, I had offered him no explanations and he had asked no questions.
    I broke down one night about three years later and confessed to him the horrors of my life. Max needed little convincing, he had already observed some of my more telling habits: that I never went out into full sunlight, never consumed solid food, how weekly I would choose a man from the dance floor of the Ballroom and return from the encounter revitalized and strengthened. He was curious, not frightened, and his only stipulation to belief was that I allow him to observe a feeding. When this had been done, he laughingly admitted that I either was a vampire or gave an amazingly convincing imitation of one. It was at this point that he began screening potential victims and directing them my way. I accepted his assistance out of the love I still felt for him. But even with my confession, or perhaps because of it, our relationship never progressed further than friendship. It was almost as if that one night of