Page 121 of Never Invite a Vampire to Dinner

After I eat and he watches me, we do the dishes. There are four of them.

“You wash,” I say.

“I always wash.”

“Because I dried once, in October, and I have never recovered.”

“You have mentioned it.”

“I’ll mention it at the funeral.”

His hands freeze in the water for about half a second. Then they carry on. I have said something enormous by accident, the way I do. I let it go past, because taking it back would be worse.

Afterwards, I take his hand and lead him up the stairs and he doesn’t hesitate. He undresses with his usual neatness, and I sit in the bed and watch him do it.

This is what I would be giving up, I think. No. This is what I’d be taking with me. Then I stop, because both of those are unbearable in different directions.

He gets under the covers, but he doesn’t put his arm around me the way he usually does. I turn over and find him flat on his back looking at the ceiling like a man at his own wake. He does this. I’ve seen it twice, and both times he answered things in the dark that he would not have answered with the lights on. But tonight I don’t want to ask questions.

“Julian.”

“Yes.”

“Come here.”

He comes here. His mouth is cool on my lips and at my collarbone. His hands are certain and unhurried and so, so thorough. He takes his time in a way that is not restraint. At some point I realize he is memorizing me.

Don’t, I think. Don’t do that. That’s what you do before you go.

“Look at me,” I say instead, and he does. He is extremely good at doing what I ask as long as I know what to ask.

“Say my name.”

“Penny.”

“Again.”

“Penny.”

I put my hands on his chest and push him over, and he goes without hesitating. And then I kiss him. I kiss his lips and his jaw and when I press an open-mouthed kiss to his neck, his fingers close hard on my hips. The red flares in his eyes, and suddenly I’m on my back again with his body covering mine. He catches one of my hands and guides it behind my head, to the metal rail of the headboard.

“Hold on,” he says, and I wrap both hands around the rail.

His mouth on my throat makes me gasp. He keeps kissing and licking and nibbling until I’m shaking beneath him. Only then does he slide inside of me, cool and hard and perfect. He pushes in until I’m completely full, then stops. His head is bent over my neck, but he’s not touching it.

“Move,” I gasp.

He moves. Slowly at first, then harder and deeper, his hand gripping my hip and holding me still while I hold onto the rail with everything I have. He watches my face the whole time, and when I start to come, he closes his mouth on my throat. Not hard, just enough to pin me in place while my orgasm washes over me. He follows right behind me, groaning into my skin, and the weight of his body is the only thing keeping me from flying apart.

Afterwards, he puts his arm around me and kisses the side of my head. I listen to his heart not beating, and think about him making himself into a guest again. But I don’t say anything, and eventually I fall asleep.

Sometime during the night I wake up because the bed is wrong. I find him sitting on the edge of the bed with his back to me, not doing anything, and it looks as if he’s been like that for a while. Down the lane a truck goes past too fast, the way they always do in the middle of the night.

I don’t say his name.

I put my hand flat between his shoulder blades instead. He goes rigid for a second, which tells me he genuinely didn’t know I was awake, which tells me how far away he went. Then he covers my hand with his own and holds it there.

Neither of us says anything for a long time. His back is cool under my palm. It doesn’t warm except in the exact shape of my hand—which is, apparently, the thing about him I will be thinking about on my deathbed. He turns his head, but not far enough to see me.