Deadlock

[TT] A fairy has invited a vampire over for tea. The vampire has control over those who invite them, but the fair has dominion over those who aren't a good guest. Either the fairy kicks the vampire out, or the vampire tricks the fairy into becoming a meal. A cold war of hospitality has begun.

*****

“Delicious,” I said. The blood from my steak had pooled onto the cool white porcelain, turning my plate into an artist’s impression of mars.

“Another glass of wine?” the fairy asked. What she meant was: aren’t you tempted to lick up every last drop of delicious blood?

I smiled glibly. My fangs, not yet retracted, leaned over my lips. ”Yes. Thank you.”

She refreshed our glasses and we both took long swigs. I had to admit, the fairy had good taste in wine. Me, I don’t know the first thing about it — it’s not a substitute for blood, nor is it a substitute for whiskey. But this stuff — Italian, ’88 — for a wine, it was decent.

”I’ll get desert,” she said, collecting the plates. The fairy was only as big as my hand. Her chair sat on the table, in front of another, much smaller table. Like furniture from a doll’s house. Still, she didn’t have any problems levitating wine bottles or plates. Or knocking back full sized glasses of wine.

The fairy left the room and I leaned back in my chair.

We met once a month like this — had done for almost a year — and always at her place. Truth was, she’d invited me the first time out of spite. I’d drained the blood of someone she knew. And this fairy was protective — can’t fault someone for that. Her friend hadn’t died. I’d not taken enough blood to kill her before this fairy found me gorging.

The first invite came a month later.

She’d served the rarest steak possible. Worn a top that exposed her neck so I could see her carotid artery pulsing like an earthworm in the rain. Cut her finger accidentally on her knife — although Freud would have a lot to say about an accident like that.

Anyway, I didn’t bite.

I’ve never been called smart, but I’m not stupid. Attack a fairy after they invite you for dinner? Like I said, I’m not stupid.

She returned with a bottle of pudding wine and an Eton Mess for us each. Meringue covered in thick syrup from strawberries and raspberries — cuckoo went my internal clock; out came my fangs again.

I poured us each a glass of the pudding wine each and we ate in silence. It wasn’t what my fangs had wanted but my tastebuds loved it.

”Got to say,” I said, “you’re a heck of a cook.”

”Thanks,” she said. “Made the meringue myself. No magic involved.”

”No kidding?”

I considered this as I drank. Why would she go to such much effort for our dinner — after all, she only wanted to taunt me. I tried to puzzle it out. Maybe she just liked good food and it had nothing to do with me at all.

”It’s our year anniversary today,” she said.

“No kidding?” I said again. I raised my glass. “Then here’s to a great year had, and another great one to come.”

Her glass levitated and dinked into mine, our wine spilling like red tears over the side.

She put down her glass. “Why do you keep coming here? Accepting my invites.”

I figured the answer was simple. I was even more spiteful than she was. The fairy had wanted to piss me off — fine, okay. So I said to myself: let’s fight fire with fire. I’ll keep coming to your little honeytraps and you’ll never see even a second of bad manners.

What I said was, ”Why do you keep inviting me?”

She smiled. “Sometimes you have good stories.“

“If only you knew,” I said. “If you could hear the darker stories. Now they’re something worth telling! I had this friend, another vampire, and he’s digging—“ I stopped. A story like that would be bad manners.

”I liked the one about the vampire who got up and went outside during an eclipse,” she said.

I laughed. “Right. Thought it was night. Should have checked the time before he left the castle.”

I finished the Eton Mess and offered to do the washing up.

She shook her head. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot, recently.”

“About that vampire?”

”About why I keep inviting you. And why you keep coming.”

“It’s not for my stories?”

”You want to hear something sad?” she asked.

I shrugged.

”You’re probably my closest friend. You’re the only one who actually accepts my invites, at any rate. No one else wants to be on their best behaviour every time they come over. Worrying that I’ll banish them to some other world if they so much as sneeze. Not that I would — but that’s still a worry for them.”

The night fell suddenly colder. I looked around for an open window but couldn’t see one. Guess the draft was coming from under a door.

She stared down at her empty bowl. I felt like I had to say something.

”I guess I can understand them not wanting to come,” I said. “It’s not easy, you know? To always watch your step.”

She looked up at me. “But you keep coming.”

Spite. I wanted to tell her it was due to spite. Stubbornness.

But as I stared into her green eyes, as I thought about her saying I was her closest friend, I realized that I wasn’t here tonight because of spite. Maybe I never had been. And it wasn’t anything as corny as love, either. Although there was certainly affection between us.

”Why do you keep coming here?” she pressed.

“I’m lonely,” I said, only then realising that was the truth. “I’m lonely. I don’t think I’ve had a friend since I became what I am. Who would want to be friends with someone who might devour them, you know?”

She nodded. “I know.”

“So no one wants to accept your invites, except me,” I said. “You’d have to be terribly lonely to accept them. So much so, that knowing you might die if you put a foot wrong, it still feels worth it.”

We were silent for a while. The clock on the wall beat like a shared heartbeat.

”You come because you’re lonely. I invite you because I‘m lonely. What a pair.”

”What a pair,” I said. My fangs were fully back in their gum-casing now. “Except,” I added, “I don’t think that’s true. At least, not of me.”

”What do you mean?”

”I mean, I think I used to accept your invites because I was lonely. But that’s not the case any longer. These days I look forward to the invites. God knows what I’d do if I didn’t get a letter through the mail. I spend hours picking out what to wear. You can tell, right?“

She laughed.

“I mean it though. I accept because I want to be here.”

She fluttered over to my hand. Placed her tiny palm on mine. “I look forward to these nights, too,“ she said, very softly.

We sat in that warm glow of companionable silence for a long time. The wall-clock‘s heartbeat still ticking.

Then we went on sharing good wine, stories, and company late into the night.

*****

THE END.