The Story of the Vampire, L (Completed | Featured )

Dasius, Part 6 - I Am Still Young, But I Have Memories

When he woke, he woke me, he said, "Why are you doing this?" in English, his voice quietened by sleep, "We were so happy," he said.

"No," I told him, very gently. "Non, c'est faux. C'est faux, vous." That's not true, you.

"But I love you," Laurent murmured, very sad, his body pressed against my back in his hotel bed. We had become twisted together in the duvet overnight, and now the sunlight filtered in a little, and the duvet looked very white to me, and bright to my eyes, and he could not see anything.

But even blind, he is knowing that it is me.

"Dasius, pity me, my face is hot. Close the curtains, I'm asking."

"Do you remember what happened?" I asked him, untangling myself from his limbs slowly to do what he asked. I set his arm aside gently, lifted his leg from my thigh and tucked it onto the mattress. His eyes were closed, but the flesh seemed raw. His hair I had washed with my own hands, and so it looked like it always looked after he had been rolling in bed.

"No," he said. "I got on a plane from Paris. I was looking for you, for my D, and I do not remember." His voice was thick, from the tightness in his throat against feeling.

Without looking out, I drew the curtains. At my office the evening previous, uncertain how to proceed, how to live a new life, I had asked Nicky what I should do, and he had told me to do what Laurent would want, because it was me who was different and not him. 

He liked clean sheets. He liked fresh flowers. He liked to sleep against my back. 

Oh what am I doing that I am crying now? I am missing him, and sorry to have caused him so much pain so close to his death. He never talked of it. I am feeling so much silence, these days, that he is not near me. I am feeling so much unsaid. And so I am writing this. I am feeling so much to tell him that I am sorry, even just so that he would not answer, and maybe cry with me so that I am not alone. He said, "Pity me, my face is hot," and I am in tears. What is it I am telling you? You do not need to know that, I feel. But I am feeling very much to say I am sorry. C'est tout.

Even just now, Marcellus was saying that what for am I doing this? He was saying that, come to bed. I fought with him, and he was saying to me, what Laurent did what he did to us, but I said to him, "If you are talking that way to me now, I will go to my office," and he said, "Go, go." I am upset with myself, that we are fighting. When we fight, everything about our house feels foreign to me. I felt compelled to go, and so I am sitting in my office now. It will be a few hours until he calls me, and says, "Come home, you're at the office so late," and I will hear that he loves me in his voice, but now I am feeling that my head is so heavy, and I wish Nicky is here. But, he is not wanting to leave the body in California, all the time, so he does not come.

You were wondering sometimes, Mini, why I am continuing to write, even though I know you cannot give me Laurent's writing. I think it's only that I need to write. You ask me, "Do you want to respond to Marcellus' tape?" and I said yes, and you were so surprised. But I miss him, that is all of it. I want to talk to you about him, because Marcellus feels against him so much venom. I can understand that, but he did little against us that he could do. You don't understand this? Even, later in life, he would sometimes come alone and visit us. I think that it is hard for Marcellus to remember that later part, because it is hard for him, too. The problem is that Laurent is his family also, but Marcellus has so much pain from early in his life. It is hard to have that much pain.

Dieu, aie piete de mon ame miserable.

Laurent's slender hand gestured for me to come back, but for a moment I didn't want to come, so he put it down again.