Suckers

'Dora Dora get up Dora…' Someone was saying my name over and over again. I tried to pull myself up, and then the clouds rolled back and I saw that Duncan wasn't dead after all. He was prancing around like Errol Flynn, holding my biggest crucifix back to front, like a dagger. Lulu snarled, and swiped at him, trying to knock it out of his grasp, but as the metal touched her flesh there was a hissing noise like an iron on a damp shirt, and she jumped back with a howl, pawing at the steaming red mark on her hand. Duncan stepped back and held himself on guard, and glanced at the crucifix in surprise, as though he hadn't really expected it to have had such a drastic effect. Then he lunged and yelled 'Touche!' as he struck her just above the left breast. This time nothing happened — her skin was protected by the fabric of her dress — and both of them looked rather taken aback. Duncan shrugged it off and lunged again. She dodged, but the metal brushed against her chin and left it sizzling, and she squawked and lashed out with her fingernails. He stepped aside and started casually to cut and thrust at her face. He was treating it as a game, and Lulu appeared to be going along with it, as though they'd rehearsed this many times before, but her retaliatory swiping was getting wilder and he was barely having to sidestep now, and scoring more and more hits, each one followed by a gratifying amount of hissing and yelping. So entrancing was this spectacle, I almost forgot what I was watching until I heard him saying, 'Suck on this, you vampire slut,' in an eminently reasonable voice. Then he half-turned and said over his shoulder in a businesslike manner, 'Don't just sit there, Dora, go and get something.'

I tried to reply in an equally businesslike manner, but all that came out of my mouth was a feeble croak. How come I always seemed to be on the critical list when things got lively? Duncan was having all the fun again. I pushed myself up with my uninjured hand, and immediately got broken glass in that one too. I staggered as far as the kitchen, and it wasn't until I sat down to rest that I remembered what I was there for, because I found myself sitting on the wobbly chair. I tugged at the loose leg but it wouldn't come off, so I rocked the chair violently backwards and forwards until the wood split down the middle with a sharp crack, so now I had a useless three-legged chair and a useful chair-leg with an uneven point. I was tidying up the splinters with a vegetable knife when I heard someone shouting, 'Dora! What the fuck are you doing?' so I shambled back to the bathroom.

Duncan had tired of his Captain Blood routine. Now they were lying in the bath together. Lulu was gargling and kicking her legs and the water was slapping rhythmically. If I hadn't known better I might have thought they were humping. Duncan had somehow got hold of my chiffon scarf and had wound it around her head and was holding her under the water with it. I tapped him on the shoulder and handed him the chair-leg. As he loosened his grip and rocked back on his haunches, she sat up and started to scream, and he said 'Oh, for God's sake, shut up,' and jabbed her with the stick. The point sank in about half an inch and snagged on her ribcage, and they both stared at it in surprise and then looked at each other. They were still looking at each other when he tried again. This time it slid between the ribs and her eyes opened wide, and she made a sort of 'oof' sound, and fell straight back into the water like a toppled tree. He put one knee on her stomach and worked the chair-leg free. As it came out it made an obscene sucking sound, and a lot of dark blood came out with it and turned the water an even darker red. He stuck the stick into her again, several times. The chiffon scarf floated up and away, and half her face seemed to come away with it.

'It's not enough,' I said. 'We have to cut her into little pieces, before she starts singing Madame Butterfly.'

'She's not going to sing,' Duncan said, hauling himself out over the side of the bath. 'She's not like Violet.'

'They're all the same,' I said. 'They all wind up with stakes through their hearts.'

'Cut it out.'

I peered down into the bath. The water wasn't running any more; it was thick and stagnant, and there was a lot of red froth on the surface. She was under it with her hair floating like seaweed and the chair-leg sticking out of what looked like a gallon of blackcurrant jelly spread all over the middle of her chest. Her face was almost unrecognizable. Duncan took a hand towel from the rail and let it drop over her head; it floated for a moment and then the water weighed it down and it sank around what remained of her features.

I didn't want to look any more. I looked down at the floor instead, and spotted a diamante crucifix gleaming in the middle of a lot of broken glass, so I picked it up and watched the light glint off it in all kinds of crazy directions, and decided it was the prettiest thing I had ever seen.

'You OK?'

'We need black bags,' I said, trying to be practical. 'We have to dispose of all the pieces separately.'

'Honestly, I don't think that's necessary.'

'Did you get it right this time?'

He looked at me coldly and said, 'No.' I limped towards the doorway and my knees buckled and gave way. He stopped me falling. 'You're not OK at all, are you?'

'Yes,' I said. 'I mean, no. To be honest, I'm not sure.' Then I felt myself going all floppy, and told him, 'I think I banged my head.'

When I woke up I was no longer wearing the soggy pink bathrobe but wrapped in a large quilt, on the bed, surrounded by damp towels and bloodstained tissues, and my hands were stinging like crazy. Duncan had one of them wedged between his knees and was peering closely at it through his spectacles, picking the glass out with tweezers. The sensation of the steel tips foraging under the skin made my eyes water. By the time he'd finished, my palms looked as though they'd been flayed. He applied TCP and wrapped them in bandages. They didn't hurt so badly after that, so long as I kept my fingers bent.

He lay down beside me. I closed my eyes and breathed in the smell of salt and blood and perfume. The first thing I saw when I opened them again was the bite on his neck. The skin was broken in two places, and the wounds were moist and leaking. 'What about this,' I said, prodding it with a bent finger.

He winced. 'It's OK. I'm fine.'

I wasn't so sure. 'You might turn into one of them.'

He sighed and sat up and gingerly probed the wound. 'It's sore.'

'It's all puffy,' I observed.

'It'll take more than one lousy bite to turn me into a vampire.'

This was true, but there was no need to take chances. 'We should put something on it. Salt? Alcohol?'

We looked at each other. 'How about the Lord's own logo?' he suggested, and fetched a glass of brandy and dunked I my cross in it.

'Here, let me,' I said, making him lie back with his head to one side. Then I knelt over him and pressed the crucifix against the bite. There was a sizzling noise, and he tensed and said 'Ouch.' I thought of the way Lulu's skin had hissed whenever the metal had touched it, and perhaps he was thinking of it too, because I could feel him getting stiff. It was the best erection he'd had of late, so I parted my bathrobe and worked myself down on to it, trying not to use my hands, so that it reminded me of those pass-the-banana party games. Then we bounced around for a bit, trying and utterly failing to synchronize our loin movements. The throbbing behind my eyes diminished, then returned with renewed force until I thought my head was going to explode, like the man in the Kuroi commercial. But it didn't. I collapsed and tried to get my breath back.

After a while Duncan asked if I'd finished. I thought he was talking about the sex and felt vaguely insulted, but then realized he'd been referring to his neck.