short fic: Rock Bottom
Rock Bottom
Summary: Remember badly dressed vamp? And Darla acting like an obsequious ninny? What's UP with that?
“Am I doing it right?” He looks up from between her perfectly shaped, creamy white thighs with a ridged face.
“Gah, no!” She scissors her legs and throws him off the bed. “I said, ‘hurt me’. Not fumble around and get on my last nerve!”
Darla steps over the body of the bed’s previous owner, a thinly mustached car salesman who styled himself a “swinger”. His polyester slacks are still bunched around his knees. Hardly a snack, that. But his wife…
In the corner, the woman sits bound and terrified. Her fear perfumes the air. Darla glides across the shag carpet to her, a dreamy expression on her face as she rubs away the mascara tracks down the woman’s cheeks.
“Hey, baby!” he calls from the floor where he landed. “I thought we were having a good time! Hey, you’re not gonna eat her, are you? You said I could have her.” Darla shuts her eyes briefly, trying to block out the grating whining of this week’s companion.
She hates America. The earthy stench, the urban sprawl, the vulgarity of the nouveau-vamped, the prevalence of polyester blends; all these things remind her nightly of what she’s lost. Most of all, she hates the utterly humorless, moon-faced homogeny of the people and their puritanical hypocrisy. Over three hundred and sixty years and they haven’t changed one bit.
In her mind, she calls up an image of a beautifully made man with gloriously evil eyes and a smile to melt in. His shoulders above her block out the candle light, his blood soaked mouth presses against hers and sometime in the night her cries rival their victim’s. Her gut wrenches with agony at the perfection of the memory, but she doesn’t stop, keeping the vision before her as she opens her eyes.
“What a gift I could have made of you,” she whispers. “My dear boy would have played with you for days, even weeks and never tire.”
It’s an old refrain, and it doesn’t take long for Darla to weary of another night wasted in the pursuit of past pleasures. She gluts on blood and makes a new companion every week. Tells herself that it doesn’t matter; this boy or that one, they’re all the same really. She kills them almost as fast as she makes them, disgusted with them. With herself.
It’s a lie. Even as she looks, Darla knows she’ll never find him. He was lost in a moment of splintering bamboo, the tattered shreds of his filthy soul trailing behind him like the echoing wails of the babe.
In an alley behind a redneck bar in Oklahoma Luke finds her, playing Good Prostitute, Bad Pimp with her latest abomination. Her meal tastes like cigarette ashes and bourbon.
“So this is what the Master’s favorite has been reduced to.” Luke’s contempt oozes out his mouth with his horrible, thick-necked drawl.
“I see the Master is still sending out his faithful dog to wag a disapproving finger.” She isn’t surprised to see him. Darla and Luke both ignore the ridiculous posturing of the new vamp at her side.
“The Harvest is coming,” he says. “We are making our way there, to glory in his resurrection.”
Memory overtakes her as it does these days, unbidden, hollow and sour. She can feel the whalebone corset digging into her breasts as she pressed against him, both trembling; he with laughter, she with terrified excitement. She would leave everything for him, perfect chaos, dear boy. Eventually, everything would leave her. Him, their family, her dignity; once he was gone it all fell apart in a matter of decades and yes, she was reduced. Darla feels very, very small and she hates it.
Luke is a pompous vampire conservative, but in his outstretched hand is the promise of refuge from memory. It will be okay.
They travel by night only, in the traditional way, hunting in bus stations and seedy hotels. Darla and her companion scout ahead, bright lures for unwary prey to follow back into darkness. It’s a good system, everybody eats and Darla doesn’t have to think.
They pull into Sunnydale with time to spare before dawn.
The new vampire from Oklahoma looks around skeptically. “It’s not much, is it?”
Luke’s voice resonates with somber reverence. “It hides a precious heart, beneath humanity’s trappings.” Darla wishes he’d shut up.
Instead, he intones, “Welcome to the Hellmouth.”
Summary: Remember badly dressed vamp? And Darla acting like an obsequious ninny? What's UP with that?
“Am I doing it right?” He looks up from between her perfectly shaped, creamy white thighs with a ridged face.
“Gah, no!” She scissors her legs and throws him off the bed. “I said, ‘hurt me’. Not fumble around and get on my last nerve!”
Darla steps over the body of the bed’s previous owner, a thinly mustached car salesman who styled himself a “swinger”. His polyester slacks are still bunched around his knees. Hardly a snack, that. But his wife…
In the corner, the woman sits bound and terrified. Her fear perfumes the air. Darla glides across the shag carpet to her, a dreamy expression on her face as she rubs away the mascara tracks down the woman’s cheeks.
“Hey, baby!” he calls from the floor where he landed. “I thought we were having a good time! Hey, you’re not gonna eat her, are you? You said I could have her.” Darla shuts her eyes briefly, trying to block out the grating whining of this week’s companion.
She hates America. The earthy stench, the urban sprawl, the vulgarity of the nouveau-vamped, the prevalence of polyester blends; all these things remind her nightly of what she’s lost. Most of all, she hates the utterly humorless, moon-faced homogeny of the people and their puritanical hypocrisy. Over three hundred and sixty years and they haven’t changed one bit.
In her mind, she calls up an image of a beautifully made man with gloriously evil eyes and a smile to melt in. His shoulders above her block out the candle light, his blood soaked mouth presses against hers and sometime in the night her cries rival their victim’s. Her gut wrenches with agony at the perfection of the memory, but she doesn’t stop, keeping the vision before her as she opens her eyes.
“What a gift I could have made of you,” she whispers. “My dear boy would have played with you for days, even weeks and never tire.”
It’s an old refrain, and it doesn’t take long for Darla to weary of another night wasted in the pursuit of past pleasures. She gluts on blood and makes a new companion every week. Tells herself that it doesn’t matter; this boy or that one, they’re all the same really. She kills them almost as fast as she makes them, disgusted with them. With herself.
It’s a lie. Even as she looks, Darla knows she’ll never find him. He was lost in a moment of splintering bamboo, the tattered shreds of his filthy soul trailing behind him like the echoing wails of the babe.
In an alley behind a redneck bar in Oklahoma Luke finds her, playing Good Prostitute, Bad Pimp with her latest abomination. Her meal tastes like cigarette ashes and bourbon.
“So this is what the Master’s favorite has been reduced to.” Luke’s contempt oozes out his mouth with his horrible, thick-necked drawl.
“I see the Master is still sending out his faithful dog to wag a disapproving finger.” She isn’t surprised to see him. Darla and Luke both ignore the ridiculous posturing of the new vamp at her side.
“The Harvest is coming,” he says. “We are making our way there, to glory in his resurrection.”
Memory overtakes her as it does these days, unbidden, hollow and sour. She can feel the whalebone corset digging into her breasts as she pressed against him, both trembling; he with laughter, she with terrified excitement. She would leave everything for him, perfect chaos, dear boy. Eventually, everything would leave her. Him, their family, her dignity; once he was gone it all fell apart in a matter of decades and yes, she was reduced. Darla feels very, very small and she hates it.
Luke is a pompous vampire conservative, but in his outstretched hand is the promise of refuge from memory. It will be okay.
They travel by night only, in the traditional way, hunting in bus stations and seedy hotels. Darla and her companion scout ahead, bright lures for unwary prey to follow back into darkness. It’s a good system, everybody eats and Darla doesn’t have to think.
They pull into Sunnydale with time to spare before dawn.
The new vampire from Oklahoma looks around skeptically. “It’s not much, is it?”
Luke’s voice resonates with somber reverence. “It hides a precious heart, beneath humanity’s trappings.” Darla wishes he’d shut up.
Instead, he intones, “Welcome to the Hellmouth.”