Nanowrimo - 3

I can feel the black winter wind pushing against the glass, rattling the window panes in their frame. There’s no hope of light creeping over the horizon for hours, I may as well lay my body down and do what passes for sleep until dawn. I know as soon as I shut my eyes the dream will come back, washing over me with all of its pungent memory. It is the memory of my first feed, presenting itself with force into my memory.

It wasn’t messy or gory at all. By the time my handsome subject caught sight of the funny glow in my eyes he was unable to resist that sudden strength I possessed. At that point, I, too, was surprised by the form this phenomenon was taking. It felt like coals burning their way down to my center, sending a hot, steaming fire upwards through my lungs and throat, into my brain. In an instant I felt free of myself. I felt free of being just the woman, just a wife, as if my skin had melted off and my bones had exploded rendering me wild and loose. The fire had its own dictates, hungrily searching for fuel. That man, William I think was his name, was at first flattered by my unusual passion. He must have realized the shape events were taking. I have a vague impression of a young man with fine features and dark hair whose face in an instant expresses a blissful pleasure at once shattered in horror. Before he can make a sound, before he can threaten what must transpire, I follow an ancient urge to strike. Ahh, it never got as good as that first time.

Upon completion of the job, I felt the slightest twinges of guilt, suspecting perhaps I had damned his soul to hell, thinking perhaps that I was the spawn of the devil. But then I look around a gathering of our country’s gentlemen and see their fingers glistening with the fat of a boar whose meat they stuff into their faces. I see the flow of nature’s bountiful goods into the ungrateful bellies of men, and I’m not sorry.

My jaw hurt afterward. I checked myself in the glass – not a sign of the slightest curfuffle. My cheeks looked a bit flushed. I look at the body of my unsuspecting lover, white and drained on the floor. I should feel fear, but my head is still spinning and light. I feel alive like I’ve never done before, as if pure gunpowder flowed through my veins. I search my lover’s body and find the usual dagger in his boot. It does the job of obscuring the wound and sits nicely in his hand as the suicidal instrument. I hurry back toward the noise of the gathering. My husband, what was his name? Fitz-something. Fitzpatrick? Fitzwilliam? Fitzgerald? Immediately insists that I reattach myself to his arm.

Seeing my sudden flush and changed sensibility he comments “You have had entirely too much to drink, I must take you home at once before you do something shameful!”

“I’m terribly sorry, you’re right, I have been drinking!” but just what you’d never suspect. I feel as if my brain is in a cloud riding over the top of my body, watching it move to and fro. My senses blend together and the music of the orchestra flows around me in a colorful soup. As people talk I watch the words fly out of their mouths in chunks of light. At different times it seems as if there are no bodies in the room, just floating eggs of brighter air. I’d like to dance but I’m afraid I’d find myself without feet. I consent to go home.

In the carriage home the typically pinched and disgusted expression of Fitz’s face seems suddenly quite comic.

“I think you quite enjoy being angry with me.”

The rocking motion of the carriage lends his return expression some additional sarcasm. “I’d be a great deal more pleased if you could control yourself in situations such as this. There’s certainly enough talk about your inability to be a proper wife without such carrying on. I do believe I have managed to spirit us away from a certain social disaster brought on by your over consumption!’ He spits the words out in anger. Ahhh but he doesn’t see just how small his anger is. I see it now, he’s not angry with me. He’s afraid about himself. How could I have missed that all along?

“I do believe you are quite happy to leave the fete early.”

“What ever do you mean?”

“You never like those parties and once the orchestra strikes up you are an absolute bore. You’re happy that I have come along quite light-headed from drink to provide you an easy means of exodus.”

He just stares at me, jaw open. “Woman! You are quite forgetting yourself! I would caution you to be silent!”

“You are grateful that I am the sot so that you might burnish your image as the wronged, virtuous husband!” He does not like the ironic grin on my face at all. But I can see his countenance grow crimson with something that is not anger. “Don’t fret yourself, DEAR husband!” I cross over to his side of the carriage and seat myself upon his lap. “You may well like me a lot more when I’ve been drinking!” And at this I begin showing him some of that affection that he believes is his due even if he’s never understood it or voiced the need. He tries resisting me, pushing me off, out of propriety or confusion who knows. But he’s no match for my strength, not now. Like a pile of twigs held together by flesh, Fitz was never a large, strapping man. But for now, he’d do. The urge seems to have taken over. The odd physical stamina bestowed by the drinking has come with a mind of its’ own. And right now, it wants sex. By morning I’m ready to release my hostage and for the first time experience hours of solid, restful sleep.

Fitz avoids me for a few days. I have perhaps embarrassed his station with my hunger. This strikes me as more than a little bit strange as most men would rather boast of such a thing, wouldn’t they? Don’t I hear men in all social circles rave about how the women adore them? I’ve come to suspect, from some of the less successful attempts to lie with my husband and from observing his interactions with certain male servants, that he prefers the company of men. I surmise that he might prefer their company in the bedroom as well as the meeting place. But there is no help for that. Were I to voice my theory, the blame would be placed squarely back upon me for not having been a proper wife.

Over the next few weeks I notice myself in great possession of vigor and strength. Indeed, the color in my cheeks is so much noticeably rosier as to gain comments from several people.

No one but me is then surprised when it is discovered that I am breeding. My monthlies were never regular and had, of late, stopped entirely. One morning I simply found myself unable to contain my breakfast. A doctor was called upon who pronounced me to be with child. Everyone ran around overjoyed. “See, Miss? You’re not barren! The lord is blessing you with a baby!” The maid exclaimed. I could only sit there in utter surprise.

But surprise quickly found itself replaced with apprehension. What kind of a child could manage to live in a being like me? It must be another one, another vampire such as I am. That’s the only way it could find my womb hospitable. And it would have been conceived after I had done that horrid act. What if it came forth looking like the man I drank from and not the husband I knew? The growing belly filled me with terror. I had no way of knowing its nature. I contemplated ending its life, and my own in the process.

I wish now to reach back through time and reassure that girl, coach her to act differently, tell her to be a bit stronger, but she did the best she could.

My husband suddenly seemed pleased with me and managed to show it as best he could with dim smiles and inquisitions about my condition meant to yield a response but not too many details for his tender sensibilities. When the son was born, Fitz was overjoyed. The babe was still in arms whilst he hired tutors and shopped for ponies. The boy’s life as a gentlemen was underway in the planning. I began feeding him only to be forced to relinquish the crying bundle to a wet nurse. Perhaps, though, it’s best he not feed from me so as to not become what I am.

It was during this time I witnessed the execution of Judith. After the years of mistreatment and neglect at her husband’s hand, in the end the fires claimed her. I watched her clench her jaw as the tongues of flame tasted and consumed her dress, her hair, her person. She refused to cry out in pain. Not one more time, not over that man. She had defended herself as best she knew how, and she wasn’t sorry, either.

I was terribly unhappy with the stench and filth of London. I was weary of cruel public spectacles. Bearing a son had failed to prove my worth as a woman in the way I’d hoped it would. I had hoped to erase the popular doubts about me, but the whispers went on. They whisper cruel rumors and yet kind, strong women like Judith who take a stand for what is right must die?

And I was terribly unhappy that the parade of nurses and cooing of a father’s attention had rendered me useless to even my own child. I looked at him, so tiny in his crib, head ringed with dark curls and even though, when I was permitted to hold him, I could plainly see my own features in his tiny face, I knew that I could have nothing to do with this baby. His father brought in all manner of extra help as if he were afraid of what I might do with my own offspring. Already I could tell that father would see to it that son was quite cared for. Indeed Fitz, now that he had a son, appeared content in no longer having any practical use for a wife. It was then I decided to leave, as if in leaving I might be done with all unhappiness. But the thought of striking out filled me with fear. No woman could do such a thing nor take such a liberty without consequence.

I had no idea what I was doing. Whilst sitting amongst the men at various seasonal fetes I had caught wind of political chaos brewing across the channel. Chaos might just be the perfect place to escape into. France was in shambles from the years of wars and wasteful monarchy. I had only the faintest idea that it might work and no worries for myself of finding food along the way.

I swung between certainty and doubt, debating at once that perhaps I was lost in fantasy or that I was absolutely correct. I looked at the child I couldn’t really call mine, despite how his face was filling out with an uncanny resemblance. If I stay with this child I could rub off whatever was the same taint what made me into such a creature. He might have a hope of realizing a normal life. In the end I decided that the baby, whose name time has taken from me, was not being abandoned at all, but rather spared.

And so one day I put on my clothing, I put on my cape and the usual jewelry a woman of my station should wear. I took a basket, surreptitiously stuffed with some more gold jewelry and coins, and, unaccompanied, I set out from that house to never return.