In a room as dark as his thoughts, Jesse Casselberger sat in bed, studying his sleeping husband. Walter slept on his back and his breathing was as innocent as ever: his lips pursed, then parted with a soft “poooo” as he breathed out.

Jesse had let Walter hold him like always when they went to bed. Thank God Walter hadn’t been amorous because he couldn’t have let Walter into his body. If he’d said he was too tired, which he’d never done before, Walter would have known something was wrong. He’d waited until Walter slept, then wriggled out of his arms and sat up.

He had been sitting, hollow and exhausted, for hours.

Twice now he thought he’d lost Walter. Ten years ago, just before they made a monogamous commitment, Walter left for two weeks to have sex with old flames, strangers in bars and probably even prostitutes while Jesse tortured himself with graphic, grainy details. He had never known such desolation of spirit. “It’s just a final fling before he settles down,” he’d repeated, like a mantra, but he hadn’t really believed it.

Then Walter did come back, full of remorse and tenderness, ready to commit. Jesse didn’t consider wayside things like self-respect or sexually transmitted diseases. If Walter hadn’t volunteered to be tested, Jesse would never have insisted.

It was safer to think about that time than about Walter’s second two-week disappearance five years ago, just after he became a vampire.

Or about the moment at the door. Jesse had heard Jeremy’s story from Malcolm Donald but until he saw Jeremy’s face and Walter’s horror he never it together with other things. Now he remembered Walter’s furtiveness at the plaza and how Walter, normally so eager to help, had pressured him to insist that Walter not do any public demonstrations. And many other little things.

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Maybe if didn’t look too closely an innocent explanation would pop up.

Just ask him, Jesse told himself. Just wake him up and ask him. That’s what Sally would do.

But Sally was gone, without explanations. Had she guessed?

Somebody was moving in the house.

Jesse froze. Heavy feet: Charla going to the bathroom? Or a white-faced Jeremy with hollow eyes, stake in hand?

But the bathroom door creaked open. It had to be Charla.

If went out into the hall, he could talk to her. But she was a hard person to talk to in the best of times.

He put his face in his hands and bent nearly horizontal with anguish. What should he do? What should he do?

Beside him Walter breathed steadily. “Pooooo.” And again, “Pooooooooooo.”

♦

Lavinia stirred in Sally’s arms.

Sally came instantly awake, as she had trained herself to do, ready to say out loud a dozen things. You’re Lavinia Starr, your grandparents were named Stryjewski, they kept the name at Ellis Island but Americanized it after five years with the double stigma of a Polish name and the word “Jew” right in the middle of it; your mother lives in Florida and she’d love me if she ever met me; you’ve never been monogamous in your life until now, you use to go to women-only sex parties and you hated the taste of dental dams…

Lavinia’s eyes opened with no disorientation. She looked directly at Sally in the dim glow of a streetlamp not quite filtered out by the camper’s stiff curtains.

“I think you get to stand down, tiger,” she said with sleepy triumph. “Just now, when I felt that call, I called on you instead.” She smiled and held out her arms. “Wasn’t even close enough to be exciting.”

Sally floated into Lavinia’s arms with tears in her eyes, cherishing the strong hands on her back.

If Lavinia didn’t need a human Sally Yan to call her back, there was nothing to stop Sally from joining her after they faced whatever they were to face. If I don’t screw it up by ordering her out while I’m still human and she’s a vampire. If whatever we’re about to face doesn’t destroy us.

And how do I deal with Walter being Jeremy’s monster vampire?

“Shhh,” Lavinia said, though Sally hadn’t made a sound. “There’s only us here, there’s only now. All there is here is love. Fuck the world outside.”

Sally pushed everything else away and obeyed hungrily.