Payback: Chapter 10
Sookie
For the next few days, Eric stayed home and didn’t go into work at Fangtasia. We spent our nights together. I spent my days mostly with Tara, trying to be there for her, but not really knowing what to do.
Eric treated me with kid gloves. We still had not discussed our fight in L.A. and avoided the subject of the scene in the barn. He held me and kissed me and told me he loved me, but we had not made love. I certainly never initiated it. I knew that he would read the words on my body and in spite of his efforts to explain to me that he would not be repulsed, I could not help but feel that he was avoiding sex because of it. I felt so unattractive and wondered if that would ever change.
Eric
For the next few days, I stayed home to be with Sookie. I checked in with Stan Davis and Clancy by phone from home and gave them the report of the group’s demise in the barn. I left out Sookie’s involvement and made it seem that Pam had discovered the meeting and called Bubba in for assistance. We knew that while it seemed that those responsible for the attack on the Mina had been taken out, we really had no way of knowing whether or not all of the perpetrators had been found. And, of course, there were still plenty of vampire haters in the world where those came from.
I was fairly satisfied with the outcome both in L.A. and in that barn near Bon Temps, and was ready to put the investigation behind me and focus on Sookie’s recovery. It was very difficult, of course, but I refrained from initiating sex with her because I suspected that she may have been raped. I wanted to give her time, and would wait until she felt ready to share intimacy with me again. I hoped that she would want to talk with me about it as well, but again, I held back so that she could move forward at her own pace. We still hadn’t addressed her flight home from L.A. and the fight that led to that. I knew we had a lot to talk about, but I am a patient man if nothing else, and so I waited.
Then finally one night she was waiting on my bed as I woke and said, “I think we need to talk.”
I rolled onto my side to face her and took her hand in mine and waited.
“About what happened in L.A., I owe you an apology.”
“For leaving the way you did?”
“Well, yes, for that. But also for how I treated you in the bar. I was upset and jealous…”
“You have nothing to feel jealous for, lover. I would never be unfaithful to you. Yes, I drank the blood of my enemies, but that is entirely different from drinking blood in intimacy. You understand the difference, don’t you?”
“I’m starting to.”
“Good.”
“I shouldn’t have left. That was childish. And I also should have given you a chance to explain what happened.”
Then I told her about our discovery of the ritual in which Daniel Ito was about to be staked. I explained that I felt that I owed him because of his kindness to me and to Pam and was compelled to intervene.
“You should have intervened even if you didn’t owe him. I couldn’t have just watched someone be staked without doing something either, Eric.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“I learned something about myself and about violence in the barn.” I waited, held still for her to continue. “This is hard for me to say out loud. I’ve been having internal conversations with myself, but I think I should explain it to you as well. Because I’ve been unfair to you.”
“What is it, lover?”
“I enjoyed killing that guy, Mack.”
“I see.”
“I mean I got a visceral pleasure out of killing him. I didn’t just stab him. I bit off his finger and twisted the knife into the wound and I enjoyed making him scream. I enjoyed it.” Her voice began to quiver and her eyes teared.
“I understand.” She actually laughed through her tears.
“Well, of course you do. You enjoy killing all the time.”
“No, I mean I understand because of what he did to you. It’s natural to feel such hatred for your attacker. It’s perfectly normal to feel so strongly.”
“I don’t know about that Eric. I’ve certainly been attacked before. I’ve even killed people. But I’ve never experienced this.”
“Sookie, considering the vicious nature of his attack, I would say that your response was certainly a reasonable one. Plus you were protecting Pam.”
“For the first time, I understood how you must feel when you’re in battle and kill your enemies. And now I feel bad for trying to make you something you’re not. I should have accepted you for …well…for being a vampire. I married you for who you are and I shouldn’t try and change you.”
“No, lover. You should tell me when my nature disturbs you. That’s okay. I have lived as a vampire for so long that I do need an occasional reminder that my behavior needs to be kept in check. We are living among humans now and it’s a whole new world. I need to adapt, and having a human wife has helped me in that regard.”
“Really?”
“Of course. This has been a huge adjustment for both of us. Marriage by it’s very nature is always a huge adjustment, but our circumstances have warranted even greater adjustments than usual. We should expect some bumps along the way. Those are fine as long as we can work past them and remain on the path together.” She started to say something and then began to cry and buried her face in my chest. “What is it, love?”
“Do you think we’ll ever get past this? Will you want me again?”
I hugged her to me. “What do you mean? I always want you.” I pulled her face from my chest and wiped the tears away and looked into her eyes. “I love you, Sookie. My desire for you will never fade.”
“But the words…you know…on my body. Isn’t that why you haven’t…well…you know.”
“Of course not. I wanted to wait until you felt comfortable. Lover, you don’t have to tell me what happened if you don’t want to. But I will wait. My desire will not wane, I assure you.”
“I don’t understand.”
Maybe it was better to just say it. “Were you raped?”
“No. No, honey. Is that what you thought? No. I would have been if Bubba and Pam hadn’t gotten there when they did. But no. Actually, I would have been raped by more than one of them, which I can’t even imagine. Is that why we haven’t…?”
“Yes.”
“So it’s not the words then? You know, on my body?”
“Of course not, love.” I held her to me and stroked her hair. “I have an idea.” She looked at me expectantly. “As I told you, your eyes cannot see the marks that mine can. Your body is covered with my fangmarks, and I love to see them as symbols of our union. It gives me pleasure to see that I have marked you as mine.”
“Really? You never told me that.”
“Well, I wasn’t certain how you would respond. My marks are here…” I touched her breasts over her shirt. “And here…” I touched her inner thighs. “They enhance your beauty to me.” She started to smile. “If you’d like, I can bite you where the words are and eventually my marks will cover the letters, making them unreadable. Then to any vampire, your body will simply have the allure of vampire ownership. It probably sounds strange to a human, but seeing fangmarks on a human makes that human more appealing to other vampires. Being claimed in such a way is considered a sign of beauty. Would you like me to do that?”
“Yes. It would be kind of like when people get a tattoo to cover up a scar.”
“Yes. Something like that.”
“I like that idea.”
And then I kissed her, first tenderly, then passionately. I wanted to show her that I wanted her. I didn’t hold back. I wasn’t careful. I was lustful and so was she.
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