The doorbell rang, and Morgan being closest, answered it.
I remained sitting on the floor with Laura, looking at an assortment of parts she assembled that has a spinning propeller on one end.
"Should we put some wheels or wings on this?" I asked my genius daughter, and her expression told me I am being an idiot for not understanding what she made. Laura rarely talks, but when she does, it is full sentences.
"No, Daddy. Helicopters do not have wheels." Laura said in perfect derision.
At the door, Morgan said: "Oh. It is you. Did you not see the gate? There is a reason we put that there." Her voice was Antarctic. A far drop from her happiness at being with Laura making things. I could think of only one person who would get that reaction from her. "What do you want?"
"I was hoping to speak to Adrian?" Alexander's voice asked.
Yep. I called it.
"Adrian, it is for you. If it turns into a fight, recall if you would please that it is my turn to thrash this ass."
We traded spots. Morgan with Laura. Me at the door. Alexander healed months ago. He looked as he did when I first meet him.
"Yes?" I asked in a more polite way than Morgan, but only barely. Still Artic, before global warming.
"Can we talk, please? I am not here to start anything. I am quite clear that your wife would just as soon kill me as look at me."
Morgan called from the floor. "Maim! Not kill. Maim! Idiot. Not the same thing."
I stepped outside and closed the door because fuck him being in my house. He should not even be on my land. "What do you want, Alexander?"
"I want to rejoin Ninovan. Some Crew members found me in Clearwater and suggested it would be better for my continuing health to be here, contributing to the community and helping lift your burden as the other fertile male, than running and hiding from my shame. These two Crew members are women you know: Valeria and Luciana. Friends of yours, I believe. It seems you are plugged into the Vampire hierarchy at all levels."
"They are friends of mine, and you are lucky it was Luciana and Valeria who found you. I am not sure Denise would have been so kind." I said.
Denise's name caused a non-verbal response. Shit. She makes him shudder. I beat the living crap out of him and he comes to my house and asks for me. I need to find out what Denise did to him someday. From her.
I paused a moment to ponder the idea of Alexander being back. I would in fact like to not be the only fertile male in these parts.
"Alright, Alexander. I will talk to Simi and have her assign you a location. Far away from my house. My wife. Perhaps near the fertility clinic, where you can do the most good. How can Simi reach you?"
Alexander handed me a torn-off piece of paper, with an Austin number on it. "My current cell."
Alexander turned to go.
I repeated and expanded upon Morgan's question. "Alexander: Did you park out on the road? Hop the fence?"
Turning back, Alexander answered, "It was the only way to see you face to face."
"Why, pray tell, did you want to do that? You could have reached out to Simi. Last Vampires that came here uninvited ended up tied to chairs and Morgan did not hate them the way she does you." I asked, intrigued despite myself. This seemed really foolhardy after everything I put him through.
"I called up and talked to Tala after I talked to your rather convincing Crew friends. Tala did something she has never done before. She told me what a crappy father I am." Alexander sort of explained.
"You completely are. Kimberly mentioned that as well. She said she wished Tala had not forced you to pretend to be a father when you could obviously care less." I said, then waited. That was not a quote, but it covered the gist of what Angel's sister told me.
Alexander looked at me, miserable. I wondered how it is that Tala reached him when nothing Jessica, Morgan, or I said or did penetrated his thick skull. Then I wondered IF it did, or if this is a healthy fear of Luciana and Valeria.
"I have much to atone for. I am a lousy father. I have so many children, I cannot keep track of them all. Tala made sure I was always aware of Kimberly, and she always tried to put us in each other's lives, but I could not be bothered." Alexander admitted.
"The price of getting into Tala's bed again was remembering your own daughter. Color me not impressed." I said. "It is not only my sweet wife you do not deserve. You do not deserve that loving woman. Tala is a fool to care about you." I said.
It was not meant to provoke. Just tell it like it is. I am done being even remotely nice to this guy.
"I know." Alexander looked off. "I went by Ninovan on the way here. It is like it was never there. My house, I mean. Gone. A grassy open spot. Tala said Jessica took my house apart with a sledgehammer and used a stream of invective Tala has never heard from one woman before. Tala said it was splinters when Jessica was done, and that the Crew working on making it a grassy spot were pissed off because it would have been easier to cart off in bigger parts."
"That is utterly accurate, and it is my sincere hope to never see Jessica that enraged ever again. Morgan took pictures, and when she needs to deal with her anger at you, she looks at them, and it helps. It took Jessica a little over thirty minutes to reduce that entire place to splinters, and then the Crew erased even those that night. It was a hole in the ground the next morning, where the plumbing was. When the FBI looked at it, they never knew it was ever anything but open space. What Jessica did to the bed, and the bathroom was particularly impressive. She swung that hammer like she was aiming at your gonads."
"That would have been terrifying to see." Alexander said.
I thought Alexander about to leave again, so I said "You know Alexander, you have bragging rights now. You can tell everyone you fucked the woman that is the heart of this family, and the family that is considered the 'First Family' of all North American Vampiredom. You could say that, and it would be true."
"Yes. I could. Jessica is one of the most impressive Vampiresses I have ever met in ALL my centuries. You know lots of really scary women in our world and even married that one..." Alexander tossed a blond head at my house. Morgan. He has never met Helen.
Alexander went on. "The thing is: I do not know why Jessica took me to bed to have sex if she was going to say she hated it so much. I am not that bad. I just didn't know what she wanted to do."
"That is exactly where you screwed up. You should have been able to tell she did not want to be there at all. No matter what she said earlier. I could tell. Morgan could tell. You should have been a gentleman and said 'you know what? Maybe some other time, when you are more in the mood.'. That simple consideration would have increased your chances of a subsequent pleasing encounter with that singular woman. Instead, you ignored her obvious discomfort, you decided that because she is so amazing, you had to have her, damn the consequences. It is only afterward you realized Jessica not only did not succumb to your clumsy lovemaking, she actively hated it. You tried to get her back into your bed to try again. To see if you could fix it. You only made it worse. You did not do what you should have when she told you to leave her alone. To let her be. To let her wash her shame off in peace. That is how she viewed it. You only thought about you and what you wanted. You wanted to rip off a piece of glory and defile it. You succeeded. These are the consequences. You do ANYTHING to piss Morgan off, and she is going to disassemble you. You hurt her wife. Morgan did not get to take it out on you, as I did. She did not get to sledge the location of pain from existence, as Jessica did. You remember how I took you apart? Morgan will do worse if you give her the slightest reason. I am living in fear of her exploding every day."
"If I may ask, you are not even a decade old as a Vampire, and not four decades in total: Correct?"
"Yes." I said, wondering why that is the question.
"I should have been able to beat you easily, but I never even laid a finger on you. I assume Morgan, even though she has been Vampire for even less time, is like that too?"
"Oh yes." I understood the question now. "The difference is that Morgan felt like I should have torn your dick off and fed it to you. Jessica stopped me from pounding your cheekbones into radar dishes, but I was not going to do that. Morgan will. However long it took you to heal from what I did to you? It will be four times that after Morgan is done with you."
I said it like it is a fact, and Alexander believed me.
"Also: There will be no consequences if she does it. Just so you know. The Crew is on her side with this." I added.
"I understand. I know how I should have reacted. Jessica was stiff as a board. I should have stopped. Asked what is wrong. I could not believe my luck, and I got lost in it." Alexander said.
"And now, if you go around saying you got Jessica into your bed, she has made no secret to anyone how great that wasn't for her. Your bragging rights are that you are the singularly worst lay she has had since she was human, married to a man that hated her, and beat her until she miscarried. That is where you are in her pantheon of sex partners. Right next to the baby killer."
"I know. I am the laughing stock of Ninovan, and I am hearing from Tala that my chances with any of the mothers of my children are about zero now. I just don't understand why. It was her idea." Alexander returned to it being Jessica's idea again. His ego protection mechanisms are strong.
"The 'why' is not important. She changed her mind. All you need to know. She felt obligated because she offered, but you should have said 'Later'. She would have responded to that kindness. Instead, you plowed her and crowed at your luck for having her unresponsive body underneath you."
I almost added that her responsive self is infinitely better, but decided Alexander did not need that image.
Morgan came out of the house and over to us. "I have heard every word out here, and I want to tell you, Alexander, that I think that while you were forced back here by our friends and you were told what you did wrong, repeatedly, that I do not think you understand. You are not here out of duty or obligation to Ninovan, but out of fear of Valeria and Luciana. That is a healthy fear and rightly so. I fought in a war with them and they are quite deadly. Valeria and Luciana are not any happier about your callous and cruel treatment of my wife and my love than I am."
Morgan paused for a reset in tone. "Jessica is a grown-ass woman who does not need my protection. As deadly a Vampire woman as has ever been. See your former abode for details."
Morgan held up her phone, with a picture of Alexander's former bed in ruins. "She did this to where you fucked her. I use the word 'fucked' in its negative sense, as Angel says."
Alexander's eyebrows went up.
"Your entire house looked like this when Jessica was done with it." Morgan flicked to a new picture. "I am angry, at least in part, because I had to watch you and her together, and I had to feel her pain at what she was doing. I had to let her make her mistake instead of pulling your ass off her. I should have pulled you off. Helen would have. Hell: Helen would never have let it get to there."
She flicked a finger at me. "Adrian is quite correct to be worried about my anger and how I feel, and I am trying to find healthy ways to release it. One of them is that I am training hard, in case you ever give me a reason to hurt you. If I rip off your little pecker, it grows back. See how that works? I can do it over and over until I am not angry anymore. You run to avoid me, the Crew finds you."
"I don't know how to make this right." Alexander said. "I heard Tala. I am here."
"A tiny start. Even a brave one, coming foolishly here, to our house. You, however, have to change. All the way down. I am a Hypersensitive, and Angel is the most gifted Astral in a generation, I am told. We will know if you are different, or if you are just afraid of the consequences. You will keep having consequences as long as you are the way you are now."
"I.. It doesn't count that she asked me at all?" Alexander asked. It was not a whine exactly. I sensed confusion, but it missed the damn point and was the wrong thing to say to Morgan in this frame of mind.
Morgan put him on the ground in a blur. I know she cannot exceed the laws of physics any more than I can, but she was trying to.
Now some rage surfaced, as she placed a foot on his neck, and bent over to look down at him. "Say that again. Tell me she asked for it. Please. I swear I will kill you."
I am trying to decide if I need to be in the role Jessica had been with me here when he was down and I was clobbering his face.
"Go ON. Say it! Tell me that she asked you again. You insensitive fucker. It does not matter that she asked you. She did NOT want to be there, and it was OBVIOUS she did not want to be there. If she had wanted to be there, you would have known. I would have known. She hated herself for asking you that, and you should have let her off her commitment not held her to it, and her down under you. So come on. Please tell me she asked. Please. I want to get this pain out of me, and this is how I want to do it."
This is not Morgan playing a part, as she and I so often do. This is what Helen feared.
Alexander went very still, his hands in the surrender position on either side of her calf.
I said, as lightly as possible so as not to provoke her. "Morgan, my love? Come back, please. I do not think Alexander will say it again while you have him pinned like that. He seems unable to comprehend the idea of someone changing their mind, my Morgan. You will most likely get a chance. Not now. Not in our driveway. Wait for it to be perfect. Wait until he says it at a picnic in front of everyone or something. Then you and I can race to be the first to kill him. My money is on you."
Morgan reached down and one-handedly grabbed Alexander's shirtfront and with no apparent effort put him on his feet. I saw Jessica do that before, but it showed me the level of Morgan's rage. She has berserker strength right now.
Morgan was incandescent. "Say that ever again where I can hear it Alexander, and you are asking for a quick and final end to your worthless life. I promise you that there will be no consequences for me to do it, but even if there are, I will still end you. I cannot make you change or learn anything from this. Tala says you are not irredeemable, but I think Tala is wrong. I think Tala wants you to be the father to Kimberly that she wanted you to be, not that you ARE. My wife made an unwilling gift to you of her body, and you took your damn trophy. That trophy is now your worst nightmare. You SHOULD HAVE STOPPED!"
Morgan pointed up the drive. "Get the hell out of here before my wife comes home. She need not see your smarmy face. Oh. One more thing, Mr. Happy Dick. Angel and Vera are off-limits. You are back in Ninovan, but the rules are different. You are not the cock of the walk anymore. I am watching you." Morgan stabbed my way with her index finger. "He is watching you. Jessica will be watching you. We are going to make sure that anyone that gets into your bed wants to be there, and it will never be Angel or Vera. You leave my family alone. Do we understand each other, Alexander?!"
"Very clear." Alexander conceded, oddly not frightened or depressed. It is like knowing his limits made him feel better?
Alexander split. Quickly.
Morgan and I waited in silence until we heard a car out on the road start and drive away. I could feel the heat come off Morgan like it is a physical thing.
"Where's Laura?" I asked. Morgan would not have left her unattended.
"Mom and Dad's. Went out the back way. Now I have you all to myself, and I am feeling like I need a loving workout."
"Your bed or mine?" I asked
"Since they are the same, mine." Morgan said. "You really as worried as you told him? About me, I mean?"
"Oh, hell yes. Aren't you? I just saw you in a fury as I have never seen."
"I guess. I will do exactly what I told him, for sure, but I think I have it under control. I did NOT kill him just then, for example" Morgan pointed out.
"That is what worries me. I let out my inner hatred on his face, and I felt how out of control I was. In control and out of control. Enjoying his pain. It was a relief. I want you to take it out on him, not me, next time I do something stupid. You know I will do something stupid.."
"Then don't be stupid now and make love with me." Morgan said.