The Kiss

The lining of her ankle length chinchilla fur coat tickled her cheek and made her sneeze for the fifth time since leaving the restaurant. Her fast pace excited the cobblestones of the walkway into a staccato of echoing taps that bounced back and forth through the narrow alley between the four story buildings that seemed to lean ominously together, eating the faint moonlight that tried to make its way through.

The angry clacking of her heels was punctuated by intermittent sneezes and curses about being stood up for the tenth time and never agreeing to another blind date as long as she lived.

At 42 she thought she would have been over the sting of it by now, never knowing love, the feeling of someone that isn’t related to you, wrapping their arms around you in post-coital bliss. A French kiss never experienced is just two people on the T.V. locking lips and rubbing your face in it. The curse of love lies in the never giving up the search for it. Hence the tenth blind date, and tenth time being stood up. Yep, the sting is still there.

So wrapped up in her hushed ranting about the woes of love never found, her excited heels slipped on a loose cobblestone. Her silk clad legs flew wildly up over her head, heels flying, arms pin wheeling as she landed on her back with her fur coat to soften the blow. Injury added to humiliating insult, she lay for a moment trying to catch her breath.

A silhouette darker than the surrounding night hovered over her a few seconds before speaking.

“Are you all right miss’s?” The low voice with a soft lisp reached to her core and plucked nerves she didn’t even know existed until this man spoke. “That was quite the slip you took. “

“Um… I think so. I just need to catch my breath and I should be fine”, she replied hesitantly.

With a firm hand on her arm the gentleman lifted her to her feet.

“There you are now love. Safe and sound, sure you didn’t break anything in that tumble now, right?”

“No, I am fine, I assure you. All is well, and by the way I passed up miss’s about twenty years ago, but I thank you for the compliment.” She replied more confidently.

“Ah, well you’re still a babe compared to the centuries I have seen lover. So, be thankful for that.”
He mused in a rueful tone.

“What!” Shock and confusion rang from her voice.

“Michael!” a shout from the other end of the alley whipped her head around. “I swear you are such a child. Stop playing with your food already.”

“So sorry Oli!” the chivalrous man still holding her laughed. “Be right there.”

“What’s going on? Who are you?” Her soft voice sounded panicked now and Michael could hear her rapid heart beating, ripping his pretense aside.

“I am your lover ducky. Come give me a kiss.” Steel clamps binding the fur coat to her body like a second skin, Michael pulled the irritating fur away from her collar. He whispered, a ghost of breath against her mouth, “first the kiss,” and gently parted her lips with his and kissed her more thoroughly than she had ever dreamed possible. Sharp pinpricks of pain coursed across her tongue and lips as his teeth sliced her mouth to ribbons.

“Now my supper” he whispered as he pulled away from her savaged mouth and plunged his fangs into the faintly wrinkled side of her neck and ripped out her throat. “I do love you ducky, the way a man loves a perfect cut of prime rib.” Michael pulled a black handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped the blood from his lower jaw as she stared blankly up at the night sky.