Posted on by Lydia Ink

I Never Write About Vampires

To taste wine is an art.  Never would he say to his current lover, (Anna, a nice woman, very attractive but superficial regarding the finer pleasures of life), that to taste wine is an art. She would look at him, he knew,  with those incredible violet eyes and try not to laugh.  A woman who tries not to laugh is so unattractive when holding a very expensive crystal wine glass in her delicate hand.  The very expensive red glow in the delicate crystal globe sloshes around like a well-bodied beer because of her momentary lapse of decorum; unacceptable.

A well-mannered waiter met him at the rather low door, ushering him to a small, well used, round, wooden table in a red-black lit room where other patrons whispered over well laden plates and full wine glasses.  The ancient Vermont inn had its charm and reminded him of the lady, (not his current lover, mind you) he was to meet.  He thrilled at the thought of seeing her again just so he could assure himself he was aging well.  She would not age well, her youth was her strength but now they were both well into middle age.  But what would Anna think of him, meeting another woman in a town in Northern Vermont?

He took his seat.  He was early, by her suggestion.  Her note encouraged him to try the wine.  The red she wrote, is exceptional and memorable.  She would meet him in the evening and become reacquainted.  They had parted on good terms—one of the few in his life.  He was excited to see her again, over his first passion; wine.

When he was younger, he had just enough money to live and to taste wine.  A few women would sleep with him because they found him attractive.  There were the occasional (he cringed to use the term, so crass) one-night stands for the wine he introduced them to, making him irresistible.  He tried to avoid such relationships, women needed savoring and appreciating and sipped.  Nor was he egotistic; the wine did the job, not his manners, his mind or his body so he had nothing to boast about in the knee bumping male club that so many men felt compelled to strut about in.

No, women were beautiful just like wine but attachment was out of the question.  A bottle of deep, rich, red wine that sits upon the shelf is a sin.  Wine by its very creation, artistic evolution and existence demands time, thought and undistracted taste buds.   Empty bottles are a somewhat crass end but oh, there are more discoveries.  The problem is, he did not inherit a vast fortune, and not suited to drive the chariots of the business of gain he found himself disadvantaged when wine and women are so attractive in this life.

He smiled to himself, looking out at the dingy, wet, street: “Wine and women.”, The connotation of that statement should not sum up a selfish snob or cold-blooded lover in the minds of the world—female minds in point—for he was an exception to the statement.  He did not want to decide between one or the other—he wanted both and he wanted the best of both.  So what was he to do?  The only thing he could do—both within moderation.

He had to admit that when he was in his thirties; he spent too much time alone.  He refrained from younger women—unteachable in the art of wine tasting and too fast, too virginal, too needy.  He took comfort with some older women, but they often found him comical in a way he found insulting.  But the woman he traveled to meet, in this romantic little Vermont inn, ah, he had been close to falling in love with her.  Until one night, alone and with an exquisite, dry white, he wrote a poem about what love was.

Was.

He wrote that one word on a yellow pad of paper and stared at it through the entire bottle.

“Was.”

The next day, he met her for lunch and ordered everything red.  The filet, the sauces, the wine and broke it off with her.  She didn’t cry over the time they had spent.  Knowing the time would come, she explained, she had prepared herself for the breakup.  She had no hopes their relationship would last to marriage, children, Christmases before the fireplace.  Thanking him for the time they had together, eating the dinner ordered for her she left him without looking back.

He was astounded.  He watched her walk out of the restaurant and never heard from her again.  And 20 years later he received a letter from her.  He knew beyond a doubt he must see her again.  The old photo, she enclosed, the two of them together, wineglasses in hand.  They were at some party they attended so he found himself intrigued.  She had kept a photo of them together.   He looked up the address, the town, the place she showed and assured her in a return letter he would be there.

He tasted the wine the waiter brought; a taste all of its own, a raw, exciting taste, that made him tense and feel within him an urge to pace.  He felt himself immerse in a pleasure that made him edgy and… (could it be possible?) feel just a little mean, just a little rough.  She was no doubt still beautiful in a homely faded sort of way. Probably married.  Who but married people live in Vermont?  Perhaps she and her husband had an upscale bed-and-breakfast.  If she had children, perhaps they were off to college, getting a degree in hotel management.

No, he had to stop.  He took another sip of wine and felt again that edge that good hurt of taste he never experienced before.  He wanted to capture that actual taste upon his tongue and not the overwhelming afterglow of emotion the wine brought for him.  A sweet grape, an almost euphoric floral start at the tip of his tongue that chilled to an ash, an almost wonton woman taste that shimmered down his throat and warmed his belly.  He felt as if her hand (was he confusing the wine’s taste with the woman already? That amused his more clinical mind) was just above his belt, flat, warm and steady.

“Hello Roger,”  The voice was as he remembered it, soft but now with an edge of worldly knowledge about it.  He started and looked up.  She wore a tight fitting dress, a deep burgundy.  Her skin was a soft glowing cream and her hair, now long, was glossy down her back.  She had not aged at all, the beauty of her youth had not abandoned her as he thought it would.  He felt himself stammer, stopped himself, stood, and proffered her a chair.

“Always the gentleman.”

His astonishment at her beauty kept him in silence.  Could it be the same woman?  She sat, looked up at him; without a doubt, she was the same woman.

“How are you, Roger?”

“Good, I’m good.”

“Do you like the wine?”

“Yes, I’ve tasted nothing like it.”

“Nor will you again.”

He remembered little—except that he cannot face the light of day and is driven to drink rather than savor the taste of his desires.

Posted on by Lydia Ink

No Such Soul Should Suffer

He knew immediately the moment he looked at her.  He also knew she was unaware.  His regret was tangible, a piercing ache encased his heart because he knew of her kindness, her sense of decorum, and no such soul should suffer.

Such an old word, decorum.  He felt ancient using it and scoffed at himself inwardly because when he was young he would only use that word in an exaggerated sense.  “Let’s try some decorum, please,” if one of his frat brothers burst forth in an over dramatic way or in an uncouth manner when their then young, male bodies would sound in gastric relief after a night of debauchery.

His nights wasted in such matters were over, just as definitely as were all his frat brothers.
A movement caught his eye; her.  She moved up the aisle toward him and their brief eye contact forgotten by her almost instantly.  He stood stock-still and only let her pass him with difficulty.  Only when her genuine though weary smile changed to a look of frowning hurt did he step back with an apology.  He stepped back into the shelves, his elbows knocking down can goods and the noise brought drowsy looking stock clerks to their vicinity.

He watched her take over.  “It was an accident, no harm done.”  He had enough sense to kneel with her and make a grab for the rolling canned peas and lima beans.

“I’m sorry.  So sorry.”  His voice was hoarse and raspy.  He hated the sound of his own voice.  He kept silent as much as possible, remembering that once upon a time he would sing to crowds of fawning young girls in intimately dark venues where music was as scrutinized and savored as that of the body of a lover.

No longer.

She reached forward, her slender wrist exposed from beneath her coat only for a moment.  She busied herself with placing the can goods back upon the shelf.  The memory of her steady pulse just beneath her skin caused him to shudder, fighting attraction.  He expanded his large hands grasped the rolling can goods and held them in a steady grip, then shoved the cans upon the shelf without looking at what he was doing.  She smelled of lavender soap and a day’s work.  Her fingers were ringless and her makeup smudged.  He watched as she shivered and glanced nervously at him.  He wanted to expand before her, levitate and lift her into his embrace.  Instead he backed away, “I’m sorry,” he said again.

She frowned and shook her head slightly.  “You worry too much. It was an accident.”  Her voice was soft but firm.  She turned without another look at him and continued to shop.  He glanced out the store window, the snow floated down in large lacey white flakes against the black hazy night sky.  A veil of white lace for her lovely hair and face.  A fitting night.  Cold and harsh the winters in this land, the winds so merciless.  What was this beautiful woman doing here?

It would be a cold walk to her car.  Why was she so late, looking for vulgar food in tins and dusty shelves?  Why wasn’t she home, in her bed, asleep with her cat at her feet, both purring with contentment?  Why wasn’t she with a husband; a candlelit supper waiting on her?  Shouldn’t she be in the shelter of strong and warm arms to protect her or next to him safe and sound?

He could hear her hum a tune in the next aisle, no doubt a song of comfort, trying to push away unwarranted fears.  He felt strengthened; he felt as if he could breathe in and pull all the contents of the store toward him, including her.  He felt as if he could walk through the aisle that separated them and capture her in his arms, rise above everything and whirl her about the ceiling with no effort at all.  He could hear the rhythm of her breath.  He could feel her heartbeat, steady and serene.  He could taste…

Darkness is easy to find when the living endeavor so hard to light the night. No one noticed the blur of darkness he became as he took her into his arms, nor noticed her brief struggle.
It’s not beautiful the sound that indicates his search for her life force; the growl, the frigid feel of his lips upon her soft, warm and exposed neck.  The agony for him was that moment of ecstasy every woman offers in opening herself up to a need, even as diabolical as his.  Her shudder, her pity as fleeting and erratic as the flight of a butterfly and for a moment he wonders if this is the one he should keep, if this is the one who would… but no, her terror is too complete and he finishes his hunt in the deepest, darkest part of the night.

Posted on by Lydia Ink

My Name Is Aletta

Contentment did not attract me, in my youth it frightened me. I received in satisfaction in knowing that love, matrimonial love with that most attractive man was within my reach, but I wanted more. At that point in my life I was under the false impression devotion was an everyday occurrence.  When I met other women on my life’s journey, they were on the same road I traversed as an escapee: I pitied, some I disdained.  My goal was to write and to show the world and perhaps even the future the reality of my world and time. I felt it was up to me to preserve the moment in which I lived.  

I will not allow pride to alter my story. My parents were rich and my father doting.  I disappointed my mother with my decision to pursue a career, but she had two other daughters with whom she could plan weddings and parties and thank God they allowed her that pleasure.  I was told of the festivities later, when thoughts of me were of a wishful memory to my family.  Distance, time and the lack or rather the inability to communicate had left them the inevitable conclusion that I had died in my endeavors. 

Wish to God I had. 

I grew in a mountainous region full of cliff hanging farms and tiny strict God-fearing churches.  Isolation was the underscoring theme of my country.  Unless, like me, you had land owning parents who also had obscure little titles, one would live one’s life in the region and believe that the world was similar.  My first trip to Paris exploded all my notions of devote Catholicism and I imbibed deeply of that wine, knowledge and… what shall I call it… not freedom, no not that but happy defiance.  I felt among the living. 

Depravity was never my goal.  In that first year I wrote, kept tight control of my funds, and did not squander.  I found however that my style of writing my commentary was not what publishers wanted.  None the less until the day I met him I kept a sense that my fellow human beings were indeed the image of God and that I must treat each with respect. There were those who earned a higher esteem than the man or woman whom I passed on the street, but again I tried to respect all. 

Who was ‘him’?  A grand passion?  A conquest? No.  I refer to Vilmos as ‘him,’ because he was once a man. 

As I pen these words, I strive for honesty because it is all that is left to me.  Existence is soon over, and they will not allow me out of this cell.  There are no bars, no locks, but behind that door, courteously shut by my guards, is an image that subdues me and keeps me here until my execution. 

Honesty.  Yes, I must proceed.  I had left my native Hungary and traveled to Paris by train.  The Great War had just ended, and the lights and the parties were many.  I was at first intrigued and then bored.  The poets were self-gratifying and blamed their ill tempers on the memory of war.  My suggestion of fresh air and aid in repairing the damage met with disdain.  I shrugged off the fickle friends and left them to their deep red wine and constant allegorically charged regurgitation. 

I found Vilmos in a dark alley in Paris killing a young prostitute, draining her.  He threw her down and turned on me, his hearing acute.  Here at last I felt that my occupation as writer and journalist would begin.  I thought I had come upon life in its most base form, and it terrified me.  Murder! If I survived, I would write. 

He stood before me, tall, gaunt and handsome in a gruesome, powerful way.  I felt the invisible charge of his adrenaline as it cracked through the air between us.  I believe now my life would have been instantly forfeit if not for my reversion back to my native Hungarian language.

“Kannibal.  Istenem

Vilmos stopped, for he had lunged toward me.  “Honnan szarmazol?”  His voice was deep and surprisingly soft.

I was terrified and remained so, though I tried to speak in an attempt to save my life.  At that moment I did not know what manner of man stood before me, but I understood murder had just transpired.

“Ne felj!”  His slender body arched inward; shoulders stooped as if he were trying to make himself less frightful.  Impossible!  My teeth chattered in response to his hushed question and attempted assurance.  The blood that smeared across his lips and chin, the body of the young girl between us now emitting a thin mist as if her soul were rising from her cooling body.  “Meggyilkoltad azt a lanyt.”  I croaked out at last.  But even in my fear my mind churned to remember the lighting, the smell, the shadow of the place in which I felt certain my life was finally beginning and soon to end.

Vilmos stood erect and smiled.  I sickened and fought faintness.  “Run, silly girl,” he said in English.  I squared my shoulders and screamed, but he stifled me in a moment.  I looked into his ice-blue eyes and saw the triumph of a hunter.

“For a little while little country woman I will have you.  We will do well together and then I will send you to the priests for disposal.  They know what to do with girls like you.”

His crypt in Paris is well hidden.  Nothing opulent and I have told the priests.

Cruel?  Yes.  He relished in the pain of my conversion.  I begged for my life, for my soul, and he smiled.  There were moments he questioned me about my hopes and ambitions.  I awoke once within his crypt and my writing materials were beside me.  I wept as I held the pen and ink that were a gift from my father.  But within that small box of journals, pen and ink was a smaller box of hairpins and comb.  The lock to the crypt was heavy, and I wept in frustration at every failure, but at last the lock sprang.

I left the stone enclosure screaming.  The tunnel was narrow and winding.  I ran, tripped on the rags of my clothes, and felt he was just behind me, closing in and furious.  I imagined his powerful grip, the victory in his eyes when I, like so many of his victims I watched die, finally succumbed myself.

Perhaps he was just behind, perhaps I was only seconds away from his grasp, but I heard voices, shouts ahead of me.  Later the priests told me it terrified them that someone had been buried alive or had wandered too far into the ancient Paris catacombs.  They knew immediately however when they saw the marks on my neck and my terror of their crucifix.

I could still stand the light of day and they took me into the country.  They tried to feed me and nurse me, but neither light nor food enticed me.  The young priest, so somber in his black cassock.  “Is there anyone you wish to write or communicate with?”

“What will happen to my soul?”

“You will be with God.  I promise.”

“Why has this happened?  I wanted to write.  I wanted to write and tell the world about life.”

The young priest turned and looked out the window.  I could see the pulse of his heart in his neck.  I forced myself to stillness and waited.  Yes, I could hear, at first faintly and then with more profound sound, the beat of his heart.  I felt a strength in my hands I had not felt before.  He was young, supple.  The old priest who stood by the door cleared his throat.

“Come Father, she’s had enough for today.”

I know that they will be as kind as possible.  I sleep profoundly during the day and they have my patterns of rest and wakefulness known.  They will lay me to rest in Hungary and in sacred ground, as they have promised. 

My name is Aletta and I tell myself this as the sunsets.