Beauty is The Beast

1

Walking to school over the snow-muffled cobbles, Starr had no sinister premonitions about the day. It seemed just like another Friday, innocent but for its essential, not to mention that it was December. It was cold, and it was dark - in the dead of winter the sun didn't rise until seven - but it was also lovely. The falling snow and the early hour conspired her to paint Athens ghostly, like a tintype photograph, all silver and haze.

On the riverfront thoroughfare, trams and buses roared past, grounding the day in the twenty-first century. But on the quieter lanes, the wintry peace might have hailed from another time. With snow set on the stone, Starr's own footsteps and the feather of steam from her coffee cup, made her feel as if she was alone and adrift in mundane thoughts; school and what errands she needed to run. The occasional cheek-chew of bitterness when a pang of heartache intruded with it's own will, but she pushed them aside, ready to done with all that.

She held her coffee cup in one hand and clutched her portfolio closer, since it was slung over her shoulder. Her hair- loose, long, and black cherry- was gathering a lace of snowflakes.

It felt just like another day, but then; she heard a snarl with rushing footfall. She was seized from behind and pulled hard against a man's broad chest. His hands yanked her scarf askew and she felt a warm breath against her neck.

Her attacker was sizing her up. Lingering his breath to her neck.

Annoyed, she tried to shake him off without spilling her coffee, but some sloshed out of the cup anyways, into the dirty snow.

"Jesus, Arch, get off." she snapped, spinning to face her ex-boyfriend. The lamplight was soft on his beautiful face. Stupid beauty, she thought, shoving him away. Stupid man.. stupid face.

"How did you know it was me?" he asked.

"It's always you. And it never works."

Archer made his living jumping out from behind things, and it frustrated him that he could never get even the slightest rise out of Starr.

"You're impossible to scare." he complained, giving her the pout he thought was irresistible. Until recently, she wouldn't have resisted it. She would have risen on tiptoe and kissed his pout-puckered lower lip, before taking it between her teeth and teased it. The same type of kiss that made her melt against him like sun-warmed honey.

Those days were absolutely over.

"Maybe you're just not scary." she said, and walked on.

Arch caught up and strolled at her side, hands in his pockets. "I am scary, though. The snarl? The lingering breath? Anyone normal would have a heart attack. Just not you, your heart is frozen."

When she ignored him, he added, "Maverick and I are starting a new tour. Vampire Tours. The tourists will eat it up."

They would. thought Starr. People paid good money for Arch's 'tours', which consisted of being herded through the streets of Athens in the dark, pausing at sites of supposed murders so 'monsters' could leap out of doorways and make them shriek. She has played a 'monster' herself on several occasions, had held aloft a bloody head of a victim and moaned while the tourists' screams gave her a good laugh. It had been fun.

Arch had been fun. Not anymore. "Good luck with that." she said, staring ahead, her voice being colorless.

"We could use you." Arch said.

"No."

"You could play a sexy vampire vixen-"

"No."

"Lure in the men-"

"No."

"You could wear your cape-"

Starr stiffened.

Softly, Arch coaxed, "You still have it, don't you, baby? Most beautiful thing I've ever seen, you with that black silk against your butter-cream skin-"

"Shut up." She hissed, coming to a halt in the middle of Howard Park. God, she thought. How stupid could I have been to fall for this pathetic street actor, dressing up for him and giving him memories like that? Exquisitely stupid.

Lonely stupid.

Arch lifted his hand to brush a snowflake from her eyelashes. She said, "Touch me and you'll get this coffee in your face."

He lowered his hand. "My beautiful Starr, when will you stop fighting me? I said I was sorry."

"Be sorry, then. Just be sorry somewhere else."

He sighed, irritated that Starr was still resisting his apologies. This wasn't in his script. "Come on," he coaxed. His voice soft at the same time, like a silk mixed into a singers' voice. "We're meant to be together, you and me."

Meant. Starr sincerely hoped that if she were "meant" for anyone, it wasn't Arch. She looked at him, beautiful Archer whose smile used to charm her like a summons, compelling her to his side. And that had seemed a glorious place to be, as if colors were brighter there, sensations more profound. It has also become a popular place, other girls occupying that small space when she did not.

"Get Sage to be your vampire vixen," she said. "She's got the vixen part down."

He looked pain. "I don't want Sage. I want you."

"Alas, I am not an option."

"Don't say that." He said, reaching for her hand.

She pulled back, a pang of heartache surging in spite of all her efforts at aloofness. Not worth it, She told herself. Not even close. "This is considered to be the definition of stalking, you realize."

"Oh but, I'm not stalking you. I happen to be going this way."

"Right." said Starr. They were just a few doors from her school now. The Ohio University College of Fine Arts was a part of a massive University housed in Athens, Ohio. Now students milled around the city, few block parties held here and there. But Arch wasn't even a student, he was actually several years older than Starr- and she had never known him to be out of bed before noon. "Why are you even awake?"

"I have a new job," he said. "It starts early."

"What, you're doing morning vampire tours?"

"Not that. Something else. An.. unveiling of sorts." He was grinning now, seemingly gloating. He wanted her to ask what his new job was.

She wouldn't ask. With perfect disinterest she said, "Well, have fun with that." and walked away.

Arch called after he, "Don't you want to know what it is?" The grin was still there. She could hear it looming in his voice.

"Don't care." She called back, and went through the door.

She really should have asked.