The Mammoth Book Of Vampire Stories Written By Women

"Darling, don't. Of course I don't want you out of the way. I love you. And I love your mother. Believe me, this is as hard for me"

"Oh, sure it is. Just tell me this: why should I be the one to lose? What happens to me after you marry my mother?"

"Sweetheart, try to understand…"

"Oh, yes, I'm the one who has to understand, and Mother's the one who doesn't suspect. Just how long do you think that's going to last?"

"In time," he said, straining for patience, for the sound of wisdom in his voice, "in time I hope we the three of us can work something out. But this is very difficult. You, you're young, while people like your mother and myself are very much shackled by the old morality; you can accept relationships that are more free and in time, maybe after your mother and I are married, the three of us can" He faltered and stopped. Her expression mocked him.

"I never lied to you," he said, suddenly defensive, suddenly angrily sure that he was making a fool of himself. "You knew what you were getting into; you knew who I was when you became my mistress"

"Mistress." She said the word with loathing, and he caught the steely glint of hatred in her eyes. He tried to recoup but before he could speak she shook her head impatiently and let the towel drop.

"Well," she said. "We've still got an hour."

Debbie opened her mouth and desperately forced a yawn as the plane began to take off. As the air pressure stabilized she turned to Glenda and said approvingly, "Your stepfather is good-looking."

"Steve's not my stepfather."

"Well, whatever. They're getting married soon, aren't they?"

"July. Right after I come back from Spain." Glenda laid her cheek against the window and shut her eyes.

"He looks awfully young."

Glenda shrugged. "A couple of years younger than my mother."

Debbie bent her dark head over her copy of The Sun Also Rises when it became obvious that Glenda was in no mood for conversation. The two had played together as children and remained friends into the same college in an undemanding, almost superficial fashion.

Glenda chewed her lip. "Look what he gave me," she said suddenly, holding out her hand. "Steve, I mean." It was a silver ring, very simple, the ends bent into a curving "S" design. It had been made for her while she watched in the narrow dark handcrafts shop, clutching Steve's hand with emotion she didn't show on her calm face.

Debbie nodded. "Pretty. He's paying for this trip, isn't he?"

"He insisted. And Mother — well, she's so hung up on him that whatever he says is fine with her."

"I think it's great," Debbie said. "Your mother getting married again. And you like him so much, too."

"Oh, we're great friends."

Their room in Sevilla had two beds, a red-brick floor and a balcony from which could be seen La Giralda, the Moorish tower. Glenda stood on the balcony in the evening, the heat of the day already fading from the air, and watched the swallows dip and soar around the tower, pink-auraed from the setting sun.

Glenda had not known why, but coming to Sevilla after the noise and cars of grey Madrid had felt like coming home. She had led Debbie (plump Debbie panting a little under her backpack) through the winding streets as if guided by something, coming upon the little hotel and finding it perfect without feeling surprise. But at the same time she felt giddy, her stomach clenched with excitement, the way she always felt on those rare occasions when she was to be alone with Steve. With evening the feeling of something impending had become stronger and Glenda felt reality slipping away from her as if it were a dream.

She put a hand to her cheek and found it unnaturally hot. She turned back into the room where Debbie was putting on a skirt.

"It's nearly eight," Debbie said. "I think it's legal to go out to dinner now."

Glenda felt herself drifting as they sat at dinner, and blamed it on the wine when Debbie commented on her inattentiveness. Things were slipping away from her. Everything seemed unnaturally bright and unreal as if she watched it on a screen in a dark, muffled room.

Once back, Glenda went straight to bed while Debbie wrote a letter to her parents.

"Sure the light won't bother you?"

"I'm sure." It was an effort to say the words. The room went spinning away from her, telescoping into another world, and Glenda slept.

She woke, her mouth dry. Debbie was a dark lump in the next bed. The shutters were open and moonlight sliced into the room. Glenda felt ragingly hot. With part of her mind she noted that fact and it registered that perhaps she was sick, with a fever. Her own body began to seem as remote to her as everything else around her.

There was someone on the balcony. Now he blocked the light, now he moved and it illuminated him. There was the tightness of terror in her throat, but her mind clicked observations into her consciousness as unemotionally as a typewriter.