Smiling, she twisted a lock of hair between her fingers. “How many of the nymphomaniacs have you talked to?”
“Three.”
Wendy tapped her foot against my ankle. “Did they try to seduce you?”
“Actually, they did.”
“At the same time? Lucky you.”
“No, it wasn’t like that.”
Wendy placed her hand on my knee. “Were any successful?”
“No. There were difficulties.”
“Man problems?” Wendy held a finger out, then curled it.
“There were no problems of that sort,” I replied and masked my irritation at the suggestion. “What’s this interest in nymphomania, anyway?”
“What’s not to find interesting?” Wendy sipped and then chuckled. “The idea of women shucking their panties and humping men-what a great image. It’s hysterical.”
“Wasn’t funny to the nymphos.”
“The ones you interviewed, they didn’t enjoy themselves?”
“I didn’t say that.”
Wendy’s cheeks dimpled. “So they did have fun?”
“At a price, yes.”
Wendy brought her face to mine. “And what would the price be for me?”
The price would be a good screwing. My desire percolated into lust. We kissed. I grasped her shoulders and pushed so that she rolled onto her back.
Wendy resisted. “Wait.”
She unbuttoned my shirt and exposed my translucent vampire skin. “Felix”-she ran her mouth across my neck and collarbone-“can vampires get hickeys?”
I didn’t answer because I didn’t know. We’d find out. Closing my eyes for a moment, I focused on the touch of her lips.
Wendy sat back and reached for the pitcher on the coffee table. She moistened the towel and dabbed my nose to remove the makeup and sunblock.
“It doesn’t look right for your face and hands to not match the rest of your body.”
The damp towel caressed me like a cool tongue. She held up my right hand and admired the veins pulsating within the sheath of my pale skin. My aura rippled where her fingers traced along my flesh.
Wendy released my hand. She pulled the flower stems from the glass vase on the table. When she turned the vase around, I saw that it wasn’t a vase but a bong. She retrieved a butane lighter and a small plastic bag from a drawer in the coffee table. When she opened the bag, the pungent odor of marijuana leaked out. Wendy crammed a wad of the pot into the small metal bowl of the bong.
I tugged the tails of my shirt from my trousers. “Is this a way of connecting to your forest nature?”
“Not really. It’s about getting high and horny. You’ve been downing that ewe’s blood cocktail and I wanted to catch up. Haven’t you heard about the aphrodisiacal powers of ganja?”
“I have. Aren’t you afraid of a drug test at the hospital?”
“I’m a dryad. I could drink vinegar and pee chardonnay if I wanted to.”
I glanced at my wine.
“Don’t worry. That came from the liquor store.” Wendy aimed the blue flame of the lighter into the bowl. She sucked on the barrel of the bong and gurgled the water. The burning weed glowed orange. She held her breath and passed the bong to me.
I took a big hit and immediately coughed.
She exhaled a puff of smoke and giggled. “What the hell was that? Weren’t you in the army?”
“I haven’t gotten toasted since I’ve been a vampire.” I tried again, taking shallow breaths.
Wendy took the bong and inhaled several more hits. Her aura took on a creamy haze. It changed from green to yellow, then orange and finally red, like a human’s.
I blinked to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating. “What was that?”
“Marijuana, like a lot of other drugs, causes your spiritual center to shift from chakra to chakra.”
My own aura darkened from orange to red. My center of gravity sank from my chest to my groin, as if it were an elevator, going down. My head became light and a warm sensation swelled into my crotch.
Wendy watched and nodded. “I like what’s happening to you.”
And so did I. “But the yellow aura. The only time I’ve seen that before was when I questioned the nymphos under hypnosis.”
Wendy closed her eyes. Tendrils of smoke drifted from the corners of her smile. “Perhaps the nymphomania is rooted in spiritual displacement.”
My center of gravity floated upward into my torso. I set my hand on the floor to steady myself. My aura turned orange again. “Maybe there’s a level of psychic awareness between the planes that vampires and dryads occupy. A different type of supernatural. Not with an orange or a green aura, but yellow.”
Wendy grinned, her eyes remaining closed. “Hmmm. What could that be?”
She blew smoke rings and relaxed against a big cushion. Her aura changed again, like a liquid jewel turning different hues. Tiny rosebuds in all colors sprouted among the curls of her hair.
Was there no limit to her surprises? A euphoric numbness muted my senses. My heart matched the tempo of the music seeping through me. The sexual tension grew into a thirst I had to quench with her body.
Her hooded eyes pulled with a magnetic power. I set my arms alongside her head and lowered my face to kiss her. My orange aura curled through the air, like a flame.
The scent of a thousand blossoms swirled around us. Her warm lips found mine. I pushed away to reposition my hands so I could unbutton her blouse. The roses in her hair had grown into a crown. Wendy plucked a red blossom and fed it to me.
The petals disintegrated between my teeth, leaving a taste I could only describe as a mood. Passion. “If this is what grew from your head, I’m wondering what’s waiting between your legs.”
She nipped my chin. “You’ll have to pluck that one yourself.”
Wendy peeled off her blouse and revealed small, enticing breasts. She wrapped her arms around me and whispered. “Did you bring protection?”
The question broke the mood as it always does. “You’re supernatural, why would you need protection?”
Wendy relaxed against the cushion and propped up on an elbow. “Because there’s lots of nasty bugs that even I can’t defend myself against. No offense to you. The only souvenirs I want from this afternoon are good memories.” She pointed to an end table. “There’s protection in there.”
Awkwardly, trying to act both nonchalant and romantic about looking for condoms, I opened the drawer, looked inside, and hesitated. “Don’t take this wrong, but there might be a problem.”
Wendy shimmied out of her jeans and red bikini panties. “Aren’t there any?”
I lifted a packet. “Oh, there’s plenty. Problem is, they’re all supermagnum triple-extra-large.”
Wendy raised an eyebrow. “And the problem?”
“There’s no problem for me but I don’t mean to disappoint…”
“Oh,” Wendy gasped, “I get what you mean. Those were from an old boyfriend. He was big down there, really big. Whew.” She held her hands apart as if she were describing a trophy catch. “The guy belonged in a zoo.”
“Thanks for sharing.” Nothing like the mention of an old flame and his humongous wanger to cool my ardor, even if I am a vampire. “Was he a supernatural, too?”
Wendy took the condom and dropped it back into the drawer. “No, human. He was an intern from the hospital. It was purely physical.”
Physical. Like that was supposed to make me feel better. I was a vampire, a notorious king of seduction. How the hell was I being upstaged by a mortal?
Wendy rummaged in the drawer and found a regular-sized condom. “After a while the novelty wore off, and we called it quits. No big deal. Except for that, I mean. A penis that size was quite a find. Made for some great visuals in the mirror.”
Oh, trample my ego some more. My orange aura sizzled with jealousy at the image of Wendy gleefully impaling herself on that meat missile.