Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers

He advanced toward the problem in their midst, still grinning, and the young man’s eyes widened. Bailey was not an enthusiast of brawls, as a rule, but he had a pretty good sense that this would be more like stamping your foot to scare a yapping Peke, and at this moment, boy did that concept hold appeal.

The puppy in question ducked suddenly beyond the doorway and came back with a packed suitcase—evidently he had not had great expectations for this encounter. He made a dash for the kitchen door and was through it in about three seconds, the exit only marred by the fact that in his nervousness working the lock he’d dropped the suitcase inside. Bailey helpfully threw it after him. He turned to Lilith.

“Well, that felt nice. Thank you.”

A pleased chuckle, as if they’d been talking about theater tickets. “It was the least I could do.”

Before he could reply there was the sound of a car pulling up in the gravel driveway outside, and more voices. The play wasn’t over, then. A second later the kitchen door was flung open and another young man appeared, rather breathless and slightly embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Lilith; he said he’d be gone, and then I got stuck at the bank—The apologetic look was replaced with a blinding grin. “Bailey!”

Bailey’s sense of proper melodrama suggested that a wealthy vampire ought to have a retainer who was elderly and European, wearing a butler’s uniform, and preferably with a name like Maximilian; not a sandy-haired kid in a Hard Rock T-shirt who seemed so genuinely happy to see you it was impossible not to take his hand, grin back, and say, “Hiya, Teej.”

TJ had been nineteen the first time Bailey met him; now he must be twenty-two. Bailey wasn’t sure just what the relationship was between him and Lilith, but it obviously wasn’t sexual—the fact the kid was still here, and alive, pretty much made that clear.

“Shoot, I wanted to get the room ready before you got here. Don’t go in there, Bailey, it’s a mess and the sheets smell like bad pot.”

Bailey gathered from the tone that the Peke hadn’t been popular with Teej.

“Don’t worry, I’m not keeping score.” And I probably won’t be sleeping in there tonight anyway. “You’re looking good.”

There was that wide Teej-smile. Given the kid’s natural good humor, the Peke must have worked hard to irritate him. “I’ve been trying free weights. You look tired.”

“Gee, thanks.”

Teej laughed. “Man, it’s good to see you. You had dinner? It’s nearly five, and I brought fried chicken back with me. Spicy enough to take the roof off your mouth.”

They ate, or at least Teej and Bailey did, while Lilith sat with them, talking about San Cristobel and the last elections in Washington and whether the London cast of the new production of Tom Jones would come to New York. This was custom too, this delicate avoidance of anything personal, like the first steps of a dance. Teej had developed some opinions, Bailey saw, since they’d last spoken; opinions on drama, mostly—he’d fallen into George Bernard Shaw’s plays, apparently, with the naive joy of someone who’d never heard of them before, and a dozen library books later he was frighteningly and narrowly well-informed.

It was almost funny when you thought of what he’d been like when Bailey had first met him, scarfing down a bag of McDonalds in Lilith’s living room. Teej hadn’t been especially promising, back in those days, with a dislike of personal questions, no visible means of support and a tendency to sleep around with older men. He’d come on to Bailey almost immediately. Bailey hadn’t mentioned it to Lilith, but the next day Teej had apologized a little sheepishly. It was a tribute to the kid’s natural personality—which had been a little squashed, granted, by the life he’d been living—that he’d managed to be so damned likable underneath the bullshit.

After dinner, they carried the dishes into the kitchen and put them in the washer, still talking. Teej made coffee in thin china cups and they sat in the living room as the darkness of the black vista of ocean surrounded them, beyond the open shutters. Eventually Teej excused himself, with one last pleased smile at Bailey, and vanished into his room.

Lilith sat on the white sofa, legs curled up beside her. Bailey was in a club chair on the other side of the unused fireplace. The sound of crickets and cicadas came from outside. To Bailey, who had often imagined variations of this, it was dreamlike; he felt his own blood pulse in time to the rhythm of natural sounds, his own desire, but it held no urgency. It was going to happen now. There was no point in any further effort or anticipation on his part; it wasn’t necessary. This was more like daylight coming up in the morning.

After half an hour Lilith rose, took his hand, and led him to the bedroom.