Die, My Love (Dark Creature)

DML: Chapter One: Lee, He Is Unfamiliar

Everything I’ve been brought to believe battles an immediate and overwhelming need to speak to him.

Don’t talk to strangers? Well, I figure he will always be a stranger unless I speak to him. Where is the logic in such a rule?

The ten o-clock news and my mother want me to believe the man I’ve been dying to speak to for the last two nights would hurt me most grievously should I let myself be alone with him, but a small part of me whispers that is what makes him special. The danger. Or the fear of the unknown.

Am I an exception to that rule? Don’t talk to strangers?

He just cannot be that scary.

How calm he sits there, watching Ms Hepburn try to commit suicide by inhaling exhaust pipe fumes.

She looks so pretty on the big screen. Doe eyes sparkling in her elfin face, and a sassy hairstyle I can only dream would make me look adorable instead of mannish. She is a traditional beauty that time cannot diminish.

That’s why I come here. Here, being this poky old cinema with dusty seats and carpet so worn you can see concrete underneath. I love old films. Monroe, Taylor, O’Hara, Garland. All of them lure me to this off the beaten track in a corner of London where they play late night re-runs of classics featuring these silver screen sirens.

See how enraptured he is?

Oh, I’ve already come to the insane conclusion that he is something ... else.

All the other women in the screening are ignoring him, almost as if he does not exist. Why they ignore him is confusing me. Intimidated? Phallophobia? Hmmm. I’m intimidated too, but that does not stop me staring. I almost did. Stop, that is, when I realized he is not human on that first night when I noticed him. See how calmly I think this? I’ve a pretty good idea of what that elusive non human “else” is too.

What is he…?

I cannot not say it out loud or even think it! I’m … hesitant because I’ve never met a non human before.

Where does it come from? This knowledge?

Common sense? That I have in abundance. And let’s be honest there is never smoke without fire, and there have been rumors blood drinkers are real for years. That and my friend Bethany is special. She knows things, and holds to the belief I will not always be as I am, and that I’m marked for something else … that a man will change me. Ominous, right? She can never explain more than that. It was frustrating as hell, because, how did I know my future did not evolve a repellent elephant man mutation from that lover of mine? We (Bethany and I) had been smashed in some dive down in Soho, but surely, that still counts as a prediction of my future? I mean, she has a gift, and look, her prediction is coming true.

I cannot tell you how relieved I was when I saw Him. It was like a light bulb went off, and my body started counting down. It’s still counting, just waiting.

Oh god. Am I getting ahead of myself?

No, I do not think so. Some call it love at first sight. I think it’s like that, only deeper, and more fundamental. Imprinting? Possibly, though I roll my eyes at myself when I think it.

Sitting in my bucket seat, popcorn on lap, and Pepsi in hand, I blush and bite my lip. I want him so badly I feel sick about it. Is this natural for a first love? Ah, I need to cross my legs, see what naughty thoughts can do to you?

He stiffens and ever so slowly turns around in his seat to stare straight at me.

Holy crap!

My hand spasms and the paper cup Pepsi slips through my fingers. My heart jumps a little. It is unexpected, and it feels like I might be having a heart attack. No wait … I’m over excited, that’s all. There is sticky fizzy liquid running down my left leg, and ice crunching under my sneakers.