Part 3 (1/2)
I nibbled absently at that spot over my eye. ”Okay, it's got to do with reproduction...”
”You mean I could get pregnant?” That possibility alarmed her.
”No, I mean you could get like me. My taking from you is one thing, but if you should take any of my blood, there's a remote chance you could be like me after you died.”
”Would it kill me?”
”No, of course not.”
”How remote a chance?”
”I don't know. As I understand it, it almost never works because nearly everyone is immune. They'd have to be or there'd be more people like me around.”
”Maybe there are and you just haven't noticed them. You don't exactly look like a vampire, you know.”
”Not the Hollywood kind, anyway.”
”I mean you don't stand out in a crowd.”
”Oh, thank you very much.”
She swatted my shoulder.
”Okay, okay, I know what you meant.”
She settled in again. ”This kind of reproduction... is that why we don't make love the usual way?”
”Yes,” I said shortly.
”Hey, don't clam up on me, I was just asking.””I know, honey.”
I tried to relax and succeeded to some extent. She'd hit a sore spot, but it wasn't an unexpected blow. I wasn't-to put it delicately-fertile in the way that men are usually fertile with women. The pleasure centers and how they operated had drastically s.h.i.+fted. Oddly enough, I did not feel deprived, physically or mentally; I just felt that I should feel deprived, or that maybe Bobbi was losing out on things.
There was no justification for it, so far our relations.h.i.+p was as mutually satisfying as anyone could wish for.
She snuggled closer under my arm. ”If you want to know, I really prefer it your way.”
”You mean that?”
She lifted my hand and pressed it against the soft, warm skin of her throat.
”When you do it this way, it just goes on and on...”
That was how it felt to me. As a breathing man, I'd had some great experiences, but they were hardly an adequate comparison to what I now enjoyed.
”Sometimes I think I'll go crazy from it,” she murmured, kissing my hand.
My lips lightly brushed her temple, the small vein pulsed beneath them. Of their own will, my hands began to undo her b.u.t.tons. ”You sure you like it this way?”
”Yes, and for another good reason: I don't have to worry about getting pregnant.”
”Hmmm.”
She sat up straight, her top open almost to the waist and her perfect red lips curled into a sleepy, roguish smile. She nodded her head once toward the bedroom.
”Come on, let's go get more comfortable.”
Bobbi made a contented growl in the back of her throat, turned on her side, and burrowed close with her back to me, out bodies fitting together like two spoons. I draped an arm over her, and if my hand happened to end up cupping her left breast, n.o.body minded. We were in a lazy post-lovemaking afterglow and life was good.
”It's funny how you can get used to things,” she said.
”I'm boring you?”
”I didn't mean it that way, and no, I'm anything but bored with you.”
”Thanks for the rea.s.surance. What is it you're used to?”
”I was remembering the time when I first noticed you didn't always breathe. It bothered me and now it doesn't. I just thought it was a funny thing to think of as normal.””For me it is normal.”
”Oh, I know that now.”
”What else are you used to?”
”Umm... the no-heartbeat thing. But if you live on blood, how does it get through your body?”
”Beats me. Charles is speculating it's some kind of osmosis.”
”What's that?”
I'd asked Escott the same question and tried to repeat his answer to her. It must have been garbled-laboratory biology and chemistry had never been my best studies-but she took in enough to understand.
”It sounds like the way a root draws water up into a plant,” she suggested.
”Maybe so, just as long as it works.”
”What about mirrors? Have you figured out why you don't show up?”
”Nope.”
”Let me know when you do, 'cause I'm not used to that, yet.”
”If it's any comfort, neither am I.”
”You mean you can't even see yourself?”
”Nope.”
”Do you know you need a haircut?”
”Hum a few bars.”