Dead to the World

“Pull ’em off,” I said, knowing they’d just get wet if I soaked his feet while he was dressed.
    With not a hint of a leer or any other indication that he was enjoying this development, Eric shimmied out of the jeans. I tossed them onto the back porch to wash in the morning, trying not to gape at my guest, who was now clad in underwear that was definitely over-the-top, a bright red bikini style whose stretchy quality was definitely being tested. Okay, another big surprise. I’d seen Eric’s underwear only once before—which was once more than I ought to have—and he’d been a silk boxers guy. Did men change styles like that?
    Without preening, and without comment, the vampire rewrapped his white body in the afghan. Hmmm. I was now convinced he wasn’t himself, as no other evidence could have convinced me. Eric was way over six feet of pure magnificence (if a marble white magnificence), and he well knew it.
    I pointed to one of the straight-back chairs at the kitchen table. Obediently, he pulled it out and sat. I crouched to put the pan on the floor, and I gently guided his big feet into the water. Eric groaned as the warmth touched his skin. I guess that even a vampire could feel the contrast. I got a clean rag from under the sink and some liquid soap, and I washed his feet. I took my time, because I was trying to think what to do next.
    “You were out in the night,” he observed, in a tentative sort of way.
    “I was coming home from work, as you can see from my clothes.” I was wearing our winter uniform, a long-sleeved white boat-neck T-shirt with “Merlotte’s Bar” embroidered over the left breast and worn tucked into black slacks.
    “Women shouldn’t be out alone this late at night,” he said disapprovingly.
    “Tell me about it.”
    “Well, women are more liable to be overwhelmed by an attack than men, so they should be more protected—”
    “No, I didn’t mean literally. I meant, I agree. You’re preaching to the choir. I didn’t want to be working this late at night.”
    “Then why were you out?”
    “I need the money,” I said, wiping my hand and pulling the roll of bills out of my pocket and dropping it on the table while I was thinking about it. “I got this house to maintain, my car is old, and I have taxes and insurance to pay. Like everyone else,” I added, in case he thought I was complaining unduly. I hated to poor-mouth, but he’d asked.
    “Is there no man in your family?”
    Every now and then, their ages do show. “I have a brother. I can’t remember if you’ve ever met Jason.” A cut on his left foot looked especially bad. I put some more hot water into the basin to warm the remainder. Then I tried to get all the dirt out. He winced as I gently rubbed the washcloth over the margins of the wound. The smaller cuts and bruises seemed to be fading even as I watched. The hot water heater came on behind me, the familiar sound somehow reassuring.
    “Your brother permits you to do this working?”
    I tried to imagine Jason’s face when I told him that I expected him to support me for the rest of my life because I was a woman and shouldn’t work outside the home. “Oh, for goodness sake, Eric.” I looked up at him, scowling. “Jason’s got his own problems.” Like being chronically selfish and a true tomcat.
    I eased the pan of water to the side and patted Eric dry with a dishtowel. This vampire now had clean feet. Rather stiffly, I stood. My back hurt. My feet hurt. “Listen, I think what I better do is call Pam. She’ll probably know what’s going on with you.”
    “Pam?”
    It was like being around a particularly irritating two-year-old.
    “Your second-in-command.”
    He was going to ask another question, I could just tell. I held up a hand. “Just hold on. Let me call her and find out what’s happening.”
    “But what if she has turned against me?”
    “Then we need to know that, too. The sooner the better.”
    I put my hand on the old phone that hung on the kitchen wall right by the end of the counter. A high stool sat below it. My grandmother had always sat on the stool to conduct her lengthy phone conversations, with a pad and pencil handy. I missed her every day. But at the moment I had no room in my emotional palette for grief, or even nostalgia. I looked in my little address book for the number of Fangtasia, the vampire bar in Shreveport that provided Eric’s principal income and served as the base of his operations, which I understood