Flash lit: Battle Scars

His skin was covered in old scars and bright tattoos, and he reclined languidly on the cushions as I cleaned him up. The history of his skin made no sense: The colors and lines of the tattoos were vivid and sharp, like they'd been done last week. But the scars that defaced them looked decades old: cruel and terrible, but faded with time. I couldn't figure out how and old scar could deface a new tattoo. In the warm lamplight, he looked like the vandalized portrait a saint. Vandalized first by a brilliant graffiti artist who liked trolls and turtles and runes and fire. And then again by some sick flayer with the dark art of hurtling wounds deep into your past. 

If the scars still pained him, he showed no sign of it. Spent and drained, he looked beautiful through my bloodcrush eyes. No doubt when his blood wore off he'd be all dopey grins and stooped posture and middle age again. No doubt he still was all that; I just didn't have to notice it for a while, not with his blood so fresh inside me. I was regretting making him pay a quarter of my price in gold. The coins, still sitting on the sill in front of the two Hekatomb party masks, looked so paltry and dull. 

The Roostnook loft was quiet in the afterglow of our session. It was my favorite room in the Velvet Den, a leftover piece of fortress from the Margavian Colonial castle that once stood here. The old crossbow slit looked out over what is now the music lounge. The entire octagonal floor was a mattress, with only one hole in the center where a ladder provided access. It was late, and the raucous Hekatomb party songs had given way to solo ballads and quiet lute instrumentals. The shiny, button-tufted leather ceiling was low enough that you couldn't stand upright. 

He gently brushed my hair aside to get a better view of my face as I finished licking him clean. He was grinning the same grin as when he first saw me. His long hair looked like it had been black a decade ago. I remember he called himself Kyle, and he had said it as if I might recognize who he was. But I didn't. 

"You look so beautiful doing that," he said. 

I suppose the same lamplight bathing him was working on me as well. The other girls tell me I'm beautiful. Even the Mistress has said it. And I remember myself that way. But I haven't seen a mirror in years, and I hope I never do again. I can't explain the terror of that emptiness where my reflection should be. Please don't ask me to.

"I'll have to take your word for it," I said, giving him a wink. The man clearly knew his way around a vampire, so I'm sure he knew that I couldn't check for myself. Simple compliments like "You look beautiful" mean so much more now. Of all the changes since my nightbirth, this has been the hardest to get used to. I started putting my underthings back on. 

"You don't have to," he said. 

"Are you going to give me more of that blood?" I asked. I wasn't going to spend time with him for free, bloodcrush or no. This is a business, after all, and the Mistress looks poorly on those who let such things affect their judgment. I was pretty sure his answer would be no. I can tell when the ardor has gone out of a man. 

"No," he said, "I meant you don't have to take my word for how beautiful you are. I could show you."

[I sent this from my iPhone, so please excuse any excessive brevity or typographical errors.]

--Zachary Drake