The apartment was nowhere near as horrific as Shane had lead to believe. Though the walls could have used a coat or two of fresh paint since the early seventies (no place looked nice in lime green and mauve), there were at least four of them spaced far enough apart that Shane felt a pang of jealousy. Living in the center of town on top of a used bookstore had its perks for her, but it also mean Roselyn and Shane were constrained to the original dimensions of the building. Eliot's apartment had the potential to turn into a home with a woman's touch and an industrial sander. It was obvious that the apartment had once been a farmhouse, given that all of the surrounding buildings still were. Plus, the back yard was largely overgrown with produce that would otherwise have ended up on someone's plate rather than, as Eliot assured Shane would happen, thrown off the roof by Clive.
"He does seem like a wild one," Shane agreed, looking for evidence of another human being among the debris of Eliot's move. "When will I have the pleasure of meeting him?"
"Sarcasm noted. He'll be here next week."
"After school starts?"
"As you said, he's a wild one."
Shane tripped over a box with Clive's name on it, half filled with scalpels and what she guessed were fake body parts. "Art major?"
"Or a serial killer of mannequins. I figured we both needed one to keep our lives interesting."
She kissed him, leaning over a soft latex foot. "I can do with a perfectly ordinary life from here on out, okay?"
"What is that supposed to mean?"
She tossed the foot up at him and, to her slight disappointment, he caught it before it could hit him. Still, the distraction proved enough.
"It just means that I want to spend the rest of my boring life with you."
He smirked, holding the rubber foot out to her. "That sounds like a proposal. You got a ring to put on my dainty toes?"
"One step at a time, my sole mate."
He grimaced and pulled the foot back. "Ouch, puns. I take back every nice thing I said about you."
She propped her arms against the clothing covered futon in a way she hoped to be alluring. "And I was about to point out that we are quite alone here, in the middle of cow country. But if you are taking back nice things, maybe I should as well…"
He crawled next to her and, despite a metal hanger seeking to make intimate contact with him, managed to begin kissing her neck in earnest. "I'm sure I can think of a slew of nicer things to replace those I was going to take back," he said into her neck so it came out as "M'm mhrmm ah thfh v smm a nmm," but she got the gist anyway.
This private session reached nowhere near fruition before Shane grew flustered and asked to return to Red Hook proper just as dusk fell. It wasn't that she didn't want to lose her virginity to him or that she could even imagine it happening with someone else. It simply that she wasn't ready. Last year, holding his ghostly form against her after suffering almost total blood loss, she still couldn't allow herself to give that part of herself. Then, it had been that she had so little of herself to spare, but the feeling lingered even now. Also, she had the pragmatic concern that her unique condition in this world meant that she would lose her physical virginity after every sex act and she was far from keen to have to explain this to Eliot. She hated that even in this most intimate of ways, her body betrayed her as something other that totally human.
Eliot drove her as her back as he always had and would. While a very male part of him thought of her as something of a tease, he did his best to remain understanding. She was amazing in ever other room but the bedroom -- and despite her chastity, was no slouch there -- and he felt honored to call this mysterious creature his girlfriend. He would make due.
She got out of his car after a lingering kiss goodbye. He turned the engine as she unbuckled her seatbelt.
"Where are you going?" she asked before he could release the brakes.
"Home?" He stared at her as if this were the obvious answer.
"Why?"
He waited for the punchline. "Because I drove you home, so now you are home…"
"Do you want to come up?"
He blinked. "Shane, don't get me wrong, but what was the point in driving you home when we had been in the middle of taking advantage of a rare moment privacy without roommates if you were only going to ask me upstairs? Couldn't we have just stayed here?"
"We could have done a lot of things that we didn't do," she pointed out simply. "And I am still without roommate." She motioned up to the darkened windows on the second floor.
"No, Shane, you are without lights. I've met Roselyn, don't forget. I doubt she needs lighting to make full use of a bed."
Shane blinked slowly, scanning the apartment for her roommate and coming up empty. The only thinking being was about the size of a rat terrier, though entirely the wrong shape. She could feel his thoughts pulsing, though mentioned none of this. "Just come up."
He was already swayed by this lack of logic, since the only other activity he had planned for the evening entailed finishing a report comparing The Bell Jar to Girl, Interrupted due the first day of classes. If he had to spend the evening with utterly mad women, he would prefer at least one of them be willing to let him grope her and so could do worse than Shane and, eventually, Roselyn. Still, he couldn't give into her that easily, much as he wanted. "Convince me," he said.
"I'll let you grope me."
He laughed, taking his key out of the ignition and turning off his headlights. "You read my mind."
After she had made good on her price for the better part of forty-five minutes without turning the lights on, making fair use of her bed without them, the other occupant of the apartment made his annoyance known in a cawed complaint.
"You know, other girls have cats," Eliot politely informed her from under her checked bed sheets.
Shane whistled and the black bird alighted on her dresser. "Other girls are too boring for you, El. Hugin could beat up their kittens." As though he understood, Hugin warbled deep in his throat and jutted out his black beak.
Eliot was initially uneasy around the raven. In first encountering the bird on the windowsill of Shane's dorm room when she first started dating, he had tried to shoo him away and called him a "big stupid crow." This was the only time Hugin had tried to nip him, but Eliot only needed one reminder like that to remain apprehensive about the raven. Sure, he looked nice and cuddly as he lay upon his wings so Shane could scratch his belly, but Eliot couldn't help imagining the chunk that beak could take out of his hand. On the other hand, he hadn't so much as seen a scratch on Shane from playing with the bird and he had done exhaustive searches more than once. He regarded Hugin as only slightly more dangerous than most pets, in that he understood why people had pets but harbored the concern that they would one day eat their owners. It kept him from even having a pet larger than his fist, but it also kept him from being kibble.
"He really would be a better pet for Roselyn, don't you think?" Eliot asked, hoping to pull her back into several more kisses before company inevitably returned.
"How so?"
"He's black."
Shane scoffed. "So it's a racial thing?"
"I meant the wardrobe, not the skin tone. He'd be a perfect accessory for her."
Hugin nipped at Shane playfully, licking the tip of her finger. "I think he is a better accessory for me. Classic black does go with everything." In fact, Hugin had been a gift from Girl before she left, though a gift that had chosen her months before and which was at least partly to credit with her current state. Whatever became of her, it was tied up in this black winged familiar. Likewise, this bird occupied her hands so that no part of Eliot could despite his fondest wishes.
Roselyn returned, though without Dryden on her arm or any other appendage. She cast a suspicious glance at Eliot before launching into her latest tirade as to her feckless and invidious lover. It was nothing Eliot hadn't heard before, almost in as many words, but he bore them patiently. Roselyn was no one with whom he could ever imagine anything sexual, though he was aware that she was attractive. She simply wasn't to him. Aside from his pallid Shane, his tastes had always ranged more for the cerebral and bookish sorts. His romantic history at Annandale may have suggested differently, particularly his sporadic dalliances with Ashlei, but it was an ideal he kept in mind.
Despite his disinclination to share a bed with her (though, very technically, both couples had made surreptitious use of the other's space in fits of pique means he had), he actually respected her. She was confident and definitely intelligent. She was spiritual in a way that did not invite anxiety in others. Best of all, she seemed genuinely devoted to Shane in a way bordering on familial. Anyone he could count on to keep Shane safe and happy was welcome in his book. That she overtly approved of him even knowing what he thought of Dryden spoke even better of her as far as Eliot was concerned. The only fault he took in her was that she kept returning to a man who was so obviously wrong for her. Not only was he seven years her senior when those years most counted, but Eliot seemed to be the only male in Roselyn's social strata that didn't provoke Dryden's outright jealousy. This, he was sure, was only because Eliot had made it utterly clear that his attention began and ended with Shane.
Once she had spent the topic, Roselyn pulled Shane into the other room to interrogate her. He could not hear Roselyn's almost whispered questions, but he had no trouble extrapolating from Shane's answers what her responses meant.
"No!" (Eliot and I didn't do what you are thinking, despite his presence in my bed.
"No thanks." (I appreciate your sexual advice, but I will kindly demur at this juncture.)
"Really?" (Your boyfriend commits acts upon you that border on illegality)
"Roselyn, no." Eliot wasn't sure what this meant, actually. The tone of response was all wrong for something sexual or romantic, yet Shane was so insistent.
"Because I don't want to. It's not right." Still Eliot was baffled and strained to listen more closely. Hugin, too, walked to the edge of the desk.
"I can't, I won't, find another way." This had an air of finality that Eliot hadn't heard from her before. Shane was final about so little, leaving open the possibility for almost anything at some future date. It was one of the many things he found endlessly charming about her.
Both girls returned behaving as though no conversation had occurred outside of his earshot. "Girl talk," Shane excused. Sliding her hand from atop the dresser and into her pocket, Roselyn echoed the phrase.
"So, where is your immortal beloved?" Eliot asked as kindly as he could. He found Dryden ridiculous, but he wouldn't truly mock him before Roselyn.
"Wandering, I'm sure. I think he went to the cemetery. Maybe he figured he would have better luck with a girl who wouldn't look at anyone else."
"Ever again," Shane added with a giggle.
"I could go for a tall cold one myself," Eliot added.
Roselyn looked disgusted, not at the necrophilia jokes but the cutesiness of a happy couple. "Eros, you two were made for one another!" she proclaimed, slamming Shane's bedroom door behind her so the contagion of happiness could not spread to her. She had a spell to do.
Red Hook is a serialized novel being written by Xen, also known as Thomm Quackenbush. It didn't happen to you, your best friend, or his cousin. Why? Because it didn't happen. All persons, living, dead, undead, or unliving are purely coincidental. Any real persons are used fictiously. What you are about to read is not a news broadcast. No portion of this book may be distributed without the expressed written consent of Xen. Feel free to rope your friends into reading it, though. Do it or I start shooting PuppyOrphans.
He is published by Cave Drawing Ink and syndicated throughout the internet.
