Naked Came the Vampire (Hypernaturals 1)

Pickup

We saw the Tahoe coming a long way off. We dressed and dashed down the hill to stand by the road. We threw the parachutes into the back of the truck and climbed in, Jessica up front with Helen.

Helen looked at the two of us, caught our scents. "Really. In the middle of the desert?"

"Numerous times. Oh, so very amazing times." affirmed Jessica. She paused, then added "Yummy. I want to do it again. Let me know when you are ready back there!" Even I thought she sounded chirpy. It gave me a happy feeling to hear her sound that way.

Helen looked alarmed at Jessica's happy bubbliness. She looked at her lover and friend closely. "Uh oh... no... really?"

Jessica smiled even more broadly "Oh yes. Back there, soon as he can make it so. Don't look, Mom!" She looked back at me "Would some water help?" then at Helen "You brought water. Right?"

Helen's blonde mane shook left and right. "You never sound like that. You figured it out? Finally?"

Jessica looked a little confused and sounded less chirpy "Figured out what?"

"Don't be silly, love." She thumbed in my direction. "Who he is... to you."

Now Jessica looked at Helen closely "Are you trying to say you knew before I knew?"

"Phfffht. The only two that didn't know? You and him. Him because he dared not hope you felt the same way about him as he did about you. You, because you needed to work through it."

Jessica crossed her arms and looked ever so slightly petulant. "OK... and when did you figure it out, smartypants? Smarty-skirt. Whatever you are wearing now."

"I was pretty sure the night you called me about having turned him. There was a little something in your voice. A happiness I never heard there before in all the years I have known you. I hoped I to be wrong of course. Not about you being happy, but about the cause. About why you were happy. When I saw you together in Boulder, there in the foyer of Becky's church, before we went in for the meeting. One glance is all it took. Everything about you said you were gone."

"Gone?" Jessica asked, even more puzzled.

"Not gone from a place, my sweet. Gone from me. From any chance of love I might have built with you." Helen laid an open hand over her heart.

Jessica protested "Helen... you know how I feel about you. About Us. If I could be with a woman in a long term kind of way, it would be you. You know that. Also, I have been trying to talk him into a threesome but he is being loyal and stodgy about it. Still: You KNOW I love you. Right?"

Helen ignored the threesome thing. Answered the other part. "I do. As I love you. We talked about this all those years ago. Remember?... I predicted 'Someday a man will come along and you will fall in love'."

Jessica blustered back to the calm "Oh for Christ's personal sake. That was ages ago! You told me that would happen. I did not believe you."

Helen looked out into the night as she drove. Did a finger roll on the steering wheel. "The funny thing about living a long time is that sooner or later, anything that can happen will happen. It was inevitable you would fall in love with a man someday, no matter how you had been treated by that bastard you married, or how much you held yourself and your heart back since. Sooner or later a man was going to get under that armor. I could see it and fear it as clearly as you sitting there. I thought it would be a human man of course. The chances that it would be a male Vampire are, let's face it, incredibly long. I really lost out. At least a human would grow old and die eventually, and I could wait."

Female Vampires sometimes have a tendency to talk like no one else is around if the person that is around is a male Vampire. I said nothing. I did not like hearing this. I did not want to hurt Helen. Not like this.