THIS STORY IS NOT FOR GENERAL AUDIENCES. IT CONTAINS FOUL LANGUAGE, REFERENCES TO SEXUAL CONTACT WITH MINORS, AND VIOLENCE.
One possible Eli, still 12 (more or less) looking at monstrous 40something Oskar.
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::burp::
Man, that was good. Omigod that was reallyreallyreally REALLY good! The girl was still alive, and so BIG! I'm full! I won't even be able to eat again for at least a day!
I hate being small after waking up from a long sleep. I hate being weak and not able to do things for myself. It's really nice that Oskar brings food for me when I sleep like this.
No, that's not right. It's not nice. It's necessary. I've had problems when I slept like this before and didn't have anybody to look after me. BAD problems. People haven't changed one bit in all the time I've been alive, not really, it's just that when I was really a little boy, people believed in things like this a lot more easily. They can still believe easy enough. People who say I am so dangerous oughta try facing a mob with torches and pitchforks and hammers and screwdrivers! Get enough of them together in one spot, doesn't matter how strong or fast I am, or how good I am with my claws. I'd just be done.
Oskar saved my life when we first met just by yelling when one of the neighbours found out about me - and that was just sleeping for a single day! I did the killing, yea, but Oskar surprised that man and stopped him from putting a knife in my throat. If he knew about me, how to kill me, opening my throat would have slowed me down enough, yea, he could have killed me. Plus, all he'd have to do is take the cardboard out of the window. I'd be cooked.
It's just... well... yea, it's nice that all I have to do is crawl across a basement floor to eat when I'm like this. I don't have to worry about being caught crawling all the way across town when I can't fight back. I don't have to worry about getting strong enough fast enough to leave in a hurry because I did something stupid when I wasn't me. I do stupid enough things when I am me, all the goddam time.
But, Oskar...
If there are others like me, grownups like me, are they like me in every way? Do they also get lost when they get hungry? Do they have trouble figuring out what to do?
Do they even care? The only other one I've ever run into, I ran away from her and her "wonderful idea" because it was disgusting. She was disgusting because she liked being this way. It was a good thing to run into her, in a way, because I could honestly say there are worse things in the world than me. I can't believe she loved being this way!
Does that mean that all grownups would be like her? Is it, like, older you are when you're turned, more of a thing you turn into? Lots of people turn into pretty awful things anyway when they grow up, like maybe growing up and growing older makes you less and less alive and more and more like a machine. Maybe the beast and whatever monster that already lives in people just get together and take over, and they don't leave anything alive behind?
I don't know! I'm just a kid! I can't think like a grownup can! I don't care what people say about how so goddamn smart I am because I can solve a puzzle or what such an angel I am because I'm so good at "holding back". I feel so fucking stupid most of the time! Stupid and disgusting and NOT HUMAN!
All I know is, Oskar is turning into something awful, and I'm scared it's all my fault. Even if it's not my fault, it is.
Or is it that he's already been something awful for a long time and I just didn't want to see it?
When we first met, I liked that he made me laugh. He made me want to laugh even when I thought I never could laugh again, when I was afraid I'd forget how to laugh just like I'd forgotten what it's like to be cold. I liked that he was never trying to make me do things I didn't really want to do. He did things for me and never told me I had to do things back.
Even when we were running for our lives, both starving and him freezing his ass off, he even told me he really appreciated all the things I did for HIM, even when I don't see that I did anything at all!
He told me he loved me, and I believed him. I mean, look at me! Look at what I am! Who could love this? But when he said he loved me, he sounded and smelled like he meant it. He acted like he meant it with all the millions of things he said and and did all the time... and with all the millions of things he didn't say and didn't do. He never called me names or said I was bad because I do awful things. He only hit me once, and God how I sometimes get so sick of hearing him say he feels bad about that! Even now!
He never once tried to pull away from me when I wanted a hug, no matter how much he might say I look and smell like a rotting corpse. And if we had just ten kronor for every time he stayed up all day and all night and held me when I wasn't feeling good...
And if he was ever afraid of me, afraid I might hurt him, I don't remember it. He says he doesn't, either. I can't believe this, either. I didn't believe it then, and I don't believe it now, and I really don't believe how it makes me feel good about myself when I remember this!
This is one of the few times I think I ever really got smart about something. I knew I wanted to take him with me when I finally left that stinking town even before I knew that I knew. I knew I was staying around too long, that people were starting to notice something was wrong, and I guess my really not wanting to leave was what told me I'd have to, sooner instead of later, so I could try to make some arrangements in case I could come back and ask Oskar to run away with me. We'd have money and places to stay...
... and a new "daddy". Something inside me already knew that I met Oskar when it was almost too late, when he was starting to grow up and get to be more dead inside. It wasn't just the first time when he was pretending that tree was one of the other kids, it was all those times when he could be so quiet when he got hurt. People who aren't like me can't be quiet like that, not for very long. They go crazy. That same something inside me knew that if I asked him to do what I needed daddies for, it would kill off the rest of him.
When I stayed too long and almost got killed, did it hurt Oskar that I didn't tell him what I'd been planning, that I needed to go away and find places to stay where I can hunt easily and find men to buy, that I needed him to think I'd really gone away for real to see if the whole thing I thought we had wasn't just a short but really nice dream I could never come back to?
It's a really good thing it didn't take long, not like it would have today. The laws were different, and people weren't so afraid of little girls getting really friendly with older men. Good thing, too! I almost didn't come back in time. I thought I was just going to come back and watch him for a while. I didn't know there were going to be kids really trying to kill him. Afterwards, Oskar said "thank you for saving my life" to me so goddamn many times I almost told him to shut the fuck up. I never had the nerve to tell him I didn't do that for him, that I did it for myself because I was so mad. OOoOOooo, was I ever so goddamn MAD!
(Calm down, take a breath, it was a long time ago now, and Oskar's OK and there's nothing to be mad about anymore...)
Does Oskar still think he owes me his life? He did for the longest time, and I remember being scared that's the only reason he stayed with me, but he knew what I was even before I left by myself that first time, and when I kissed him goodbye with blood all over my mouth like that, he kissed me back like he meant it. It wasn't a kiss like when those men kiss me. He wasn't kissing my body. He was kissing ME. I'll never forget that kiss, and I'll never forget all the times he put his arms around me and just... held me. All those times after the train, all those times even after we burned down that house with people still inside it...
(I didn't burn that house down, did I? He did, and it tore him up inside, was already tearing him up when he threw down the match, but he did it anyway because he thought it was the only way to keep people from finding out about me and hunting me down... Oskar, if you really think you owe me your life, how many times do you have to save mine before you'll think we're even? How many people would you kill? How much of yourself would you let die?)
I tried to make it easier. I really did. I bought a man that very first night I was gone so he wouldn't have to do anything if I took a long sleep. I've bought other men since then, as often as I could, sometimes with money, sometimes with other things, and tried to keep them away from him so he wouldn't have to see too much of what my life is really like. It even worked for a little while, when Oskar didn't really know about what men want, especially when it's what they want when I want something from them they would never do otherwise. I got us the kinds of places where we lived in one place and the men taking care of me were like next door or something.
There was a lot I didn't know, and lots of things I wouldn't have thought about even if I did know. I knew Oskar was a boy, and something inside me said Oskar would be a man pretty soon, but I didn't listen to that. I didn't want to. I'm never around kids, how was I supposed to know they grow up so goddamn fast!? Oskar started growing up, and he started changing. In some ways, he started getting to be more dead inside, but in other ways, he started getting to be a lot more alive.
Sometimes it was wonderful! Who'd have thought a Ferris wheel could be so much fun?! Who could have ever explained to me just with words how much slipping and sliding around on a frozen lake could make you laugh, or sliding on the snow down the side of a mountain with a pair of planks tied to your feet could make you feel so goddamn ALIVE!? God, I'll never forget those days if I live to be five thousand years old!
Sometimes, it was just fucking awful. I knew Oskar was getting to be a man, and I knew what men wanted. I was OK with that. It was nothing new. At least, I thought I was OK with it. I guess maybe kids growing up have their own animals to fight with, just that theirs don't kill people. What I didn't understand was why Oskar sometimes acted so hurt when he thought I wasn't OK with it, and I really didn't understand it when he turned me away when I tried to give him what he needed when he reeked with that smell men get. I thought he didn't love me anymore!
I didn't understand at all when he tried to get me to see that doing those kinds of things when I don't really want to hurts me somehow, even when it doesn't hurt. He said it makes me think about myself like I'm less human.
Honestly? I'm not sure I understand it, not even now, and I've had a long time to think about it. I guess I'll just have to take his word for it. Oskar showed me stories of kids who got used that way, and how it twisted them up inside and it destroyed their lives. He never once made me feel like I had to let him do these things, and I don't understand this, but it makes the world and the people in it look different to me. Better, somehow. Safer and more comfortable.
I tried to make him understand that I wasn't trying to buy him (well, I wasn't, was I?) I wasn't trying to make sure he stayed bought (was I?). I might never feel the things he feels, but it didn't hurt me to let him do things, it didn't hurt me to do things to him. Yea, when those other men said I had to ("or else!"), it wasn't a lot of fun, and yea, sometimes it even hurt a little, but with Oskar, it wasn't any different from hugging or hiding out in corner somewhere with our arms around eachother just letting time go by and being together. Seriously, sometimes, when he started breathing faster and holding on to me tighter, and he forgot to be afraid of hurting me, it felt really good.
(I don't break very easy, Oskar, and you damn well know that! You've always known that, but you were always so goddamn afraid because I look like a little girl, but a really big bear hug, a really really TIGHT one, that's the best thing in the whole world! I wish you'd do that more often! Hold on to me and never let me go! Make me FEEL that hug!)
It's a good thing I can only come out at night, and that most people don't. We were OK while he was still a kid, and people seeing us together like that when he was 14 or 15 didn't pay any more attention to us than when he was still 12. But he got to be 16 or so, and people started looking. People started pointing and whispering. Oskar started saying we needed to be more like brother and sister who don't really like eachother very much if we didn't want busybodies nosing around asking if I was OK and if he was making me do things.
He was right, we didn't need police crashing in and finding blood everywhere, but sometimes it hurt. It hurt worse when he started being like that when even when we were alone, and nobody else was around anywhere. It actually even hurt when he stopped wanting to do those things with me when he started really being a man. He said it just felt wrong doing those things to a kid, even if he knew I wasn't really a kid. He said it made him feel like a monster like those men who don't care about what they do to other kids' lives.
I don't understand that, and yea, it was kinda nice when I didn't have to do those things anymore, but it was also a lot like he didn't love me anymore, or that maybe he loved me in a different way that I couldn't understand. What good is a love you can't understand?
He wanted girls, though. You could smell it. He never stopped wanting them. He got them, too. You could smell that, too. He wanted them, but not me? He used to come home smelling and tasting of girl so strongly I'm surprised it didn't kill flying insects. He acted like he did something wrong, and when he noticed I knew, he even said he was sorry. Why? And why did he spend nearly all his time with me when he didn't have to, if he wanted them so much?
I guess I'll just never understand when real people say their "blood is boiling".
He never was very comfortable with the men I bought, and when he found out how I often buy them, he got mad. Real mad. He said it wasn't that I did those things with other men. He said he wasn't innocent, either. He could understand me being with other people if that's what I wanted. He just didn't understand when I let myself be "used".
I had to stop him from killing the man, and it's always made me nervous ever since when I have to bring a new man over. Well, sometimes I brought women, but not very often because women are a lot harder to buy, and for some reason Oskar didn't get as upset about them doing things with me, but men? Ugh. I remember being confused about Oskar being afraid I'd get pregnant and he'd wind up raising somebody else's kid, but that wasn't it (I mean, HAH!). He said they were unreliable (that's true), dangerous because they might forget they'd been bought and decide to do the Right Thing and because they were a lot more destructive than I am (which I seriously doubt).
I think he got mad when he was a kid because he couldn't do the things these daddies did for me, too, because he was too small and weak and slow. I think he thought he wasn't man enough for me. God, would I never make him see the truth!?
He did wind up killing a couple of my bought daddies. I'm not real sure why. He said I picked them up too fast because I was in a hurry, and they were "real sickos". One thing I've learned about Oskar, he's not stupid, and he's sometimes very sensitive. He can hear things in people's voices that I can't. I don't think he felt very badly about it, either. He never talks about it.
(Not like killing the people in that house, anyway...)
When he started getting me food when I didn't have anybody else and was too small to get it for myself, why did he do it? I told him not to! I meant it! I didn't want him to. Whatever it is he's got that makes him Oskar and makes the other men something else because they don't have it or because it died, I didn't want Oskar to lose it. I didn't want my Oskar to change inside.
I'm an idiot to think I could tell him not to worry about me when I'm small, though. Sometimes, his smell made me sick when he worried about me. First time it happened, I think he was twenty? Twenty-five? I didn't know a Big Sleep was coming, and didn't have a man. All I know is, I woke up under a bed with a man tied up beside me. I ate him, of course, but when I asked Oskar where the man came from, he just looked out the window and didn't say anything.
His not saying anything was just like the times when he was a kid and wouldn't say anything. It was the worst kind of quiet there is. Ever. Even his mind was silent.
Did I really really mean it when I told him not to do that? I swear, I bought daddies every chance I got, even if it bothered Oskar so goddamn much, and yea, I think maybe he was right and I picked some of them up a lot faster than what's smart, but I was right, too. My food dies, but so do little pieces of Oskar when he has to bring it.
Did I mean it honestly enough to make Oskar really believe it's OK for me to suffer a bit when I wake up, that this is nothing new, too, that it doesn't hurt me as much as he thinks? Last time I tried to order him not to get my food, he just looked at me really strange and said "Are you fucking NUTS?" These days, he won't even let me finish. He'll just talk about the time I almost got caught in the sunlight after waking up from a Big Sleep a couple of years ago, and then he just says "and that's the end of that".
I don't think he knows that I know he's started thinking of them as pigs. Is this because the kids in the town he grew up in, the kids who were trying to kill him, they called him "piggy"? Did they really start killing him inside, and it's taken this long for him to start dying? Does he ever even remember those kids anymore? I don't know, but if they did start killing him, I certainly didn't help much, did I?
I think he calls them pigs because if he can think he's just bringing home the bacon, it won't bother him as much. It's a mind trick. It has to be. That man he brought me about five years ago was one he'd bashed over the head when he caught him trying to do things to a kid. Oskar said he was sorry he brought me "bad food", but he also said it'd be "justice" if... what did he say? "It'd serve justice truly to consume a deliberate cannibal".
I think he calls them pigs because he listened to me too well when I said once I don't think about it if I can help it when I have to hunt for myself. I hate that people die when I get hungry, and I never eat people I know when I can help it because that's just too hard to live with, but I don't think of them as pigs. I meant it when I said I don't think about it at all, because if I do, I'll remember that I was one of them, once upon a time, and I'd give anything to be one of them again, even if only for a year or two. They're not pigs, they're just the one thing I want most and can never have. Maybe it's different for Oskar because he knows what it's like to live with them, and maybe it's harder for him because he didn't lose them - didn't lose himself - in one fast bite. He's losing them bit by bit.
We're still happy together. At least, that's what I really want to think. He still picks me up and puts me on his lap, and puts his arms around me, and just holds me. Sometimes we talk about things, like where we're going to go next week, or just watch the TV. I still like to sit back with my ear on his chest and listen to his heart beat. He's still a sweet man, and he still makes me feel good, about as good as I'm ever going to feel, I guess. He still makes me feel safe.
It's not the same, though. He doesn't make me laugh like he used to. We don't run around skidding on the ice anymore.
Truth be told, he sometimes gets on my nerves. I have to ask him for things now, like if it's OK to go out and fly around a bit, or if it's OK to run down to the store and pick up a new shirt. He has to think about where we'll move to next, and if he doesn't like it for some reason, we just don't go there. We don't agree on things anymore. I think he's forgotten we used to be lovers, the same age and discovering new things together. We used to be kids together. Now, he's not even my older brother. Sometimes, he's just BORING.
He gave up his life for me. He never had a wife, never had any kids of his own that anybody knows about, never had a steady job or made car payments or joined social clubs. I might just be a kid, but I understand what it's like to live in a prison without bars very well, and all the time he's spent living in my prison cell with me is time he never had to spend. He never had to live with broken bones and sickness that went on too long because he couldn't see a doctor (because they might discover me) or move every few days and never get to know anybody, but he did all these things anyway and had all these bad things happen to him because he wanted to spend all this time with me.
I still like to listen to his heart, but not as much as I used to. It's making noises now, noises that never used to be there, just like his mind is making noises that it never used to make. Oskar is getting older. It's like I just met him yesterday, and if I can't figure out a way to change things, he'll be gone tomorrow.
He's the one who taught me what spending time can be.
He was my friend and my lover.
Then, he was my brother, and my lover.
I'm a vampire. When I get hungry, people die. Sometimes, when I get mad, people die. I'd change that if I could, but since I can't, I can't live with people the same way other people do. I have to live by my own rules because people's rules would kill me.
And these days, especially during really early in the night or in the last hour or so before sunrise, and Oskar and I are in bed naked together listening to eachother's hearts beat, all I can think about is trying to find a way to fix things, to fix Oskar so that living with me won't kill him so fast.
Way back when, when I thought I was losing a friend when I puked up his candy, I thought I knew what losing meant. A few days later, I laughed at myself about that ("I didn't know anything!") on the inside when I was so sure I was losing a boyfriend because he'd found out what I was. I was thinking about going to watch a sunrise after Oskar's face disappeared from the glass in that door. I didn't know anything then, either.
Watching a sunrise would be easy. Maybe too easy. Oskar taught me this, too, that the easy way isn't always the best way. He said it's always easier to die than to live.
If he were to go away, would there be others like him? There hadn't been in two hundred years. Does this mean I'd have to wait another two hundred years or more for another Oskar to come along? Even if he did, could I go through all this again? I might just be a kid, but I'll remember all this! I'll remember it was hard!
I know what it is to lose a friend.
I know what it is to lose a brother.
I don't think I want to know what it is to live with losing a father.