Arnold was impressed as he looked at the plethora of black velvets, lace, fishnets and leather, tightly laced corsets, and gloves. Adrienne certainly was passionate about her chosen lifestyle. He called over to the Goth, who had pulled a large make-up box from the bottom drawer of her dressing table.
“I hope you’ve got some colours that aren’t black.”
Adrienne laughed.
“Don’t worry. I do amateur dramatics and I double up as a make-up artist. I’m not going to turn you into a Goth Zombie. Although that’d be pretty cool.”
She pulled out a chair that matched the purple dressing table.
“Sit here, Arnie, and I’ll sort you out.”
She truly was a magician with a make-up brush, deftly mixing and applying tints of white, cream, pink, and shadow to the zombie’s face until he almost looked alive. She stood back from her client and looked in the dressing table mirror to get the full effect of the transformation.
“What do you think, Arnie? Will it do?”
Arnold was astounded. In less than half an hour she’d brought him back to life – metaphorically speaking. But there was one thing that let down the final result. Arnold’s smile turned to one tinged with sadness.
“What about my eye? It’s a dead giveaway that I’m a zombie.”
Adrienne rummaged in a dressing table drawer and resurfaced with a ping-pong ball. Arnold looked at her.
“You’re not seriously thinking of putting that in my eye socket, are you?”
Adrienne beamed at him.
“Not as it is, of course not. I’ll draw an eye on it first.”
Taking several small bottles of nail varnish of varying colours and shades from another drawer, she set to work customizing the table tennis ball. She leaned over and stared at Arnold’s remaining eye.
“Better make the colours match. We don’t want you to look odd.”
After a couple of minutes, it was ready. She hadn’t done a bad job at all and was quite the artist. Was there any limit to her talents?
Arnold was intrigued to see what he looked like with two eyes again, but he had to wait until the nail polish had dried.
Adrienne placed the ping-pong ball against the eye socket and gently applied enough pressure to force the ball into position without bursting it in the process. Truth be known, it was a little too large but that would probably help hold it in place.
“Take a look in the mirror, Arnie. What do you think?”
If he were to be honest, he’d have to say that the difference in size between the two eyes was noticeable, but Adrienne had taken so much trouble to help him he didn’t want to appear ungrateful.
“It’s good. It’ll take a bit of getting used to, of course, but I think it’ll do the trick for the moment. Thank you.”
Adrienne let out a squeal of delight that belied her Gothic appearance.
“Come on, Arnie. Let’s go downstairs and show the others.”
12
Arnold was enjoying his newfound freedom, even though it was limited. He started taking walks in the park and enjoying the fresh air. He took care to keep his distance from the other people in the park – just to be on the safe side – but at least he wasn’t trapped in the house by embarrassment about his appearance any longer. Adrienne had done a marvellous job. Trevor and Tracey were great hosts, but they needed some alone time together now and again, so he was glad that he could now give it to them. Of course, he could only go out if there was no hint of rain in the forecast – he didn’t want his make-up to run and create panic among the living – but the winter was quite mild that year and allowed him to leave the house more often than not.
Adrienne would visit every other day to touch up his make-up. He really enjoyed her company and it was good to have a normal human friend, but they could never be more than just friends – his heart still belonged to Gillian.
He found himself actually looking forward to his next thirst. Now that he knew that he wouldn’t hurt her, he wondered if it would be ok for Adrienne to donate exclusively to him. He decided to talk to Trevor about it.
“Trevor?”
“Yes, mate.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“You know how we need to satiate the thirst every two weeks?”
“Yep.”
“Does the donor have to be a different person each time or can it be the same person?”
“It should be a different person, really, but that’s for vampires – vampires that aren’t zombies too. You’re different, so I don’t know. Maybe it’s different for you.”
“It’s just that I was thinking…”
“You were thinking that perhaps Adrienne could be a regular donor for you? We can see you have the hots for her.”
If he could have, Arnold would have blushed.
“Yes, I do like her. I like her a lot.”
“It’s not normal procedure, but we can ask her, I suppose. But we don’t want to risk her life – these friends of ours are donors, not prey.”
As sure as the sun rises and sets, the next thirst arrived right on cue. This time, the trio went to Tom and Edna Clancy’s house, in Poplar Grove. Tom and Edna had recently retired from the local health service where they had met, fallen in love, and worked until retirement. They were also Trevor and Tracey’s currently longest-serving donors, having commenced donating in their late teens, over forty-five years earlier. Tom was a cardiologist and Edna was a senior theatre nurse, and their expertise as ex-medical professionals would be critical for this particular donation session.
Adrienne was up for the idea – she’d taken quite a shine to Arnold herself – but she understood that she’d be venturing into unchartered territory. That was where Tom and Edna came in. With their combined experience, they would hopefully be able to anticipate any health problems that might affect Adrienne and deal with them appropriately.
Obviously it would have been better for the feed to have taken place at a hospital, but that wasn’t an option, so the retirees had epinephrine injectors at the ready in case of an allergic reaction or a need to improve breathing, stimulate Adrienne’s heart, or raise her blood pressure if it dropped dangerously. A defibrillator was also on hand in case of heart failure. All possible contingencies were accounted for but, in a worst-case scenario, Trevor would call in the paramedics. It was decided that Trevor would feed first, followed by Arnold, and Tracey would only feed when she was sure that Adrienne was in no danger.
Trevor’s feed went without a hitch. Forty-five years of donorship brings with it a sense of security and Tom continued doing his crossword puzzle as if nothing unusual was happening. Once Trevor was satisfied, it was Arnold’s turn.
Adrienne knelt down on the floor and placed Arnold’s hands on her buttocks. Once again, Arnold found this a little strange but assumed that this somewhat intimate physical contact was just part of her ritual.
No longer a feeding virgin, he began to draw the blood from Adrienne’s neck whilst she, in turn, was rewarded with yet another strong orgasm. As before, the intensity caused her to faint, but Tom checked her vitals and found nothing untoward. In fact, when she came round, she looked even healthier than the first time she’d donated to Arnold.
The session over, Trevor, Tracey, and Arnold were almost ready to leave when Adrienne announced that she had a gift for the zombie.
“Arnie, I’ve only just met you but I know you’ve had to go through some severely crappy shit since you died. You deserve something nice to happen to you. So, I bought you a little present.”
Arnold was speechless. This was totally out of the blue.