Give Me That Body (Oneshots)

Old Creature in the Garden (Cuca, April 15, 2013)

"Find my monster," Leechtin's lover said, having accosted me in the dark second floor hallway. "I can't find him."

I backed away.

"You will find him, yes," he said.

"OK. Can I go?"

"Why are you nervous? I am not scary. I am very handsome and gentle. Why so scared? What did I do?" he said, wandering off, talking to himself.

I knew where his monster was already. He'd been in the same place all morning. I went down into the kitchen and into the pantry for biltong, soft jerky gentle on my new bridgework, and then outside into the garden, where for a week, the flowers had been blooming. On the far acre, among the tall tulips, I found Leechtin, dozing with his eyes open in the sun.

He was wearing an untucked chambray button-up and gray skinny capris, feet bare, hair knotted low. I thought he must have been wearing his lover's clothes. He seemed so much smaller without his silks and gold jewelry. I sat beside him in the warm sunlight and ate awhile, looking down the long lawn. In the distance, it was just possible to hear the ocean from there.

I tried to imagine for a moment what he had looked like when he was alive, though he has told me he was made at an age older than mine now, in his fifties and waning. I know that he has lived in India, and Egypt, and maybe Rome, but I don't know where he came from. I wondered what must be like to be older than the written word, and fall asleep listening to the ocean in lover's clothes. When he woke, I was sitting quietly, chewing, thinking of my own dead lover.

"Sad?" he asked, not moving from his position, eyes wandering the sky.

"Don't worry about it. How are you?"

He made some soft sound of worry and flicked his eyes away. I realized then what day it was, the anniversary of Laurent's death, and touched him. He deflected my hand gently and made the same sound again.

"I'm sorry, precious," I said.

"It has been long, these ten years. Time has drawn slow," he said, and I felt the sound came from beneath the tulips, from the earth.

"Your lover is looking for you."

"I don't want to be near him. I would not like sympathy. Stay, sweet one. I will keep you close. As Escha was, you are my child."

"Escha?" I asked, stroking his hair.

"They called him Laurent but that is not his name. It is not his name. It is not."

I recognized his chattiness as deeply felt agitation and distress. "OK. That's OK. Don't worry," I whispered.

"Oh leave me, Saumana. I would be alone with the earth. Forgive me."

So I left him lying among the tulips, and passing the mausoleum saw a tall one striding away, all blond hair and the highest high heels, and said, "Leis! Leis, hold up a moment."

He stopped and waited for me to catch up. "What," he said.

"What are those, Pigalle Platos? Louboutin? What, 140s?"

In his heels he towered over me.

"I don't know," he said, looking down. "Excuse me, please, please, why am I speaking with the living?" His voice was soft, gently aloof, unoffensive.

"I have an Hermes scarf of yours. You left it last time you were here."

He folded his hands behind himself. "What scarf. Scarf? Hermes?"

"Yes it's a chain pattern one."

"Give it me. Please give it to me. It was his." He stepped out of his heels, dropping seven inches, and handed the pair to me to hold. "Yes, come."

"OK it's in my room." I held out my hand and he waved it off, flushing at the cheeks. "I've never seen a vampire blush before."

He waved his hand again and followed me into the cool, dark house, and he held onto the screen door so that it wouldn't slam, closing it softly.

In my room he held the scarf awhile, as if I weren't there, eyes closed. When he opened them again, I held out his heels. He met my eyes with his narrow blue ones. He has a sleepy look, bedroom eyes, heavy-lidded. I tried not to let my eyes linger on the shape of his legs in his jeans, or at his lips, which looked soft. He put the scarf around his neck and smoothed it over his white V-neck, smiling tenderly. "Thank you, dear," he said, very quietly. "You will excuse my emotion. It is like he is here. I tremble."

"You're welcome."

"To thank you, please hide yourself, beautiful boy. There are others come for this day. I shall not harm you, but it is not my like here arriving."

When he left my room, I locked the door up fast and tight.