Vampires Don't Wait Tables

"Sorry," I tell her after they go inside. "I didn't know they were going to do that."

"You didn't?" She starts to laugh, then takes another look at me. Her eyebrows climb. "You really didn't, did you?"

"They didn't make such a fuss when my sister started bringing guys home."

"You're their grandson," she says, as if that makes all the difference. I guess it does. My grandparents can be pretty old-fashioned.

"Well, I hope they didn't scare you off."

"No, Jemmy." Hong gives me an odd look. "Of course not. They're lovely people and you're lucky to have them. I had a great time. Thank you for having me over."

She's standing very close to me again, looking up at me with a faint, expectant smile. I edge a little closer and her smile widens.

Then her eyes flick to the side. "They're watching us," she whispers.

I jump away from her. "Well, I hope you come back, then. We can, um, go up to my room next time."

Her smile is wry. "I suppose I'll have to."

The next time she comes, I have a plan. I bring her in the back and whisk her up straight up to the attic.

"I don't get to see your family tonight?"

"Not if I can help it!" I usher her up the creaky old ladder.

"Cozy," she says, stroking my hammock. "I like the rug."

"Yeah, it's nice." I reach for her.

She steps back. "Is that for tea?" she asks. She points at the electric kettle on the table, her eyes glinting.

"Oh, sorry. Would you like some?" I fill the kettle from the gallon jug on the table and start it. I do have two mugs up here, but they've both been used. I peer into them, waffling. I know I should give her a clean cup, though. Stifling a groan, I tell her I'll be right back.

She's sitting cross-legged in my hammock when I get back, her guest slippers on the floor underneath. "You sleep in this every night?"

"Yeah. There's a trick to it. If you lie diagonally, you don't get bent like a banana."

She gives me her tea back and lies down experimentally, squirming until she's comfortable. "Hmm. Learn something new every day."

"Really?" I swell with pride. It seems like she knows everything.

"Really, what?"

"Nothing. Want your tea?" I hand it to her, then stand awkwardly slurping my own tea. There's no other seating up here. I'll have to do something about that before I have her over again.

She looks up at me from inside the hammock with half-lidded eyes and a cat-like smile. "Where will you sit?" she asks.

I hesitate. What I would give to climb into the hammock with her! But I chicken out.

"Oh, um, the floor is fine." I sit cross-legged under her. After a moment, she sits up in the hammock so she can look down at me. I cast about for something to talk about. "How's the new guy?"

She scoffs. "New."

We talk shop for a while, until she tips her mug up and drains the last of her tea. I set my own cup aside immediately. "So..."

"Oh, you can start your tea from inside the hammock, can't you?" She rolls over and starts the kettle again with new water. "Very cozy."

"Oh, yeah. It's nice in the mornings." I settle down again and we talk about the hammock.

I got into them for practical reasons: if you have a sewing machine you can make one for fifteen dollars' worth of fabric. That doesn't even cover shipping on a mattress.

We talk about why you need a quilt below as well as above, how cool they feel in the summer, how nice it is to be rocked to sleep. It's not unpleasant. I always enjoy talking to her. But I have the distinct feeling that she's laughing up her sleeve at me the whole time.

After a couple more false starts, I demand, "Hong, are you teasing me?"

"Yes, you idiot!" She bursts into laughter. Then, in an entirely different sort of voice, she asks, "What are you going to do about it?"

Even I understand that. I step forward, grab her, and press my lips to hers. They're surprisingly warm, and I can taste the smokiness of the lapsang souchong in her mouth. She kisses me back, leaning into it until the hammock starts swinging the other way.

"By the way, when I asked where you would sit?"

I groan. "Was that an invitation?"

She chuckles. "Yes. Though not one I thought through. How much can this hammock hold?"

"At least four hundred pounds."

"Oh, yeah, better cuddle on the floor." I watch in confusion as she climbs down. I'm not two hundred pounds and she's definitely not heavier than I am. She arches an eyebrow at me. "Coming?"

Whatever. I sit down and we kiss again. Gently, I tip her over. She makes a contented noise as she stretches out on the floor. I follow her down. Her body is solid beneath mine, though still soft in all the right places. My cock swells. I writhe on top of her. The pressure of her thigh on my aching groin is the sweetest mixture of pain and pleasure. I moan into her mouth.

With shaking hands, I start to fumble at her clothes. She's wearing so many of them. A puffy vest. A big sweater. A long-sleeved shirt, tucked into her pants, with tiny buttons that slip out of my hands. A tank top underneath. I'm three layers in and I still haven't touched her skin.

She stops kissing me to laugh at me, exactly what every teenage boy wants to hear the first time he tries to undress a woman. "You're so frustrated!"

"I didn't think it would be this hard!"

"That's what she said!"

"Hong!" I whine, grinding against her.

"Slow down," she scolds me. "Do you want to be done in five minutes? We can be done in five minutes. Or we can take our time, get to know each other's bodies."

Five minutes is longer than I usually need, but it's clear which one she prefers. "No, of course you're right."

"Why don't you get that blanket down for me?" she asks.

Of course. She's always cold. And I was going to undress her on a rug? I'm not thinking. I get both the top quilt and the underquilt and pull them both over us.

We cuddle under two layers of quilts, reaching out only for more tea. She smells of sandalwood and something else, a sharp herbal smell. I press my nose into her hair and inhale deeply.

"I'm not ready to have sex with you tonight," she says eventually.

"Oh." I'm crushed, but I try to do the right thing. "Of course. I didn't mean to assume."

"You're a good boy, Jemmy. I want your first time to be special."

"You're special," I blurt out, before I realize how it must sound. "I mean, not that I'm trying to talk you into it or anything."

"I know what you meant." She plays with my hair, musing, "So sweet. What will I do with you?"

Anything she wants. Absolutely anything!

I have just enough self-awareness to keep that to myself. She's a classy, experienced woman. She doesn't need a horny teenager panting after her.

We cuddle for hours, murmuring softly to each other under the covers. She warms up after a while and lets me take off her sweater. I cup her breasts through only two layers of fabric and her bra, marveling at how soft they are.

My cock is hard against her, but neither of us mention it.

Eventually, she has to go to work. She puts her clothes back on and I walk her out. We use the front door this time. My aunt sees us but only smiles and waves.

I go back upstairs afterward and jack off, but honestly my heart isn't in it. I've held the real thing in my hands. Looking at pictures on my laptop's dim screen feels like a distinctly second-class experience now. I clean myself up and lie in my hammock, remembering how she felt, how she smelled, how she burrowed into my embrace. Eventually I fall asleep.

Hong soon becomes a regular at my house. She insists on cooking for us. "I'm here almost every other day. We can't just hide in your room the whole time."

I don't see why not, but I've learned that good things come when I listen to her. So I show her where everything is.

She wasn't kidding about knowing how to cook. I've seen her handle a knife. I haven't seen her plan a menu before, or work a stove. "I've had a long time to practice," she says modestly.

One day, I come home to find her already there. She's cooking and helping my nephews with their homework.

"I picked them up from school," she says. "It's a long walk for your grandparents."

"She wore so many clothes!" one of my nephews said. "Like a snowman!"

"She says she has a disease!" the other one added.

I look at her quizzically. She's never mentioned anything like that to me, although now that I think about it, there's definitely something wrong with her circulation. Her hands are always ice cold, even in the summer.

"I told them I have to cover every inch of skin because I'm very sensitive to the sun. I can sunburn in just a few seconds even in the winter, even indoors if it's not the right kind of glass."

"You didn't know? Dude, she's your girlfriend!"

"Yeah, dude!"

"She told me she was a vampire." I don't know why I said that. I meant to pass it off like a joke but it doesn't work at all. My nephews look at me in open disdain.

"And you believed her?"

"Of course he did. He thinks vampires are real."

"You're such a dork, dude!"

"Yeah, dude!"

"That's enough." Hong gives them a sharp look and they settle down instantly, obedient to her as they never have been to me. "I think it was very sweet of Jemmy to play along with my little joke."

She leans in and whispers, so only I can hear, "Maybe I'll suck your, ahem, blood later." She winks and turns away, leaving me wide-eyed and flushed.

I hurry after her. "Seriously?" I hiss.

She smiles creamily at me. "Why not? You've been very patient, for a nineteen-year-old."

I want to pump my fist. I want to whoop and run through the house with my hands raised in victory.

Instead I sit quietly through dinner and say absolutely nothing about it, not even when my aunt asks, "What's got you in such a good mood, Jemmy?"

"Nothing!" I tell her breezily, though I can't stop myself from grinning ear-to-ear.

After dinner, Hong asks if she can take a bath in our tub. My aunt tells her she is more than welcome. "I have a robe you can borrow, if you want. You can use the upstairs bathroom. It's closest to the attic."

My aunt doesn't look at me, but my face burns anyway. I thought I'd been so subtle.

Hong soaks for half an hour. I spend a few minutes on my phone trying to figure out what disease Hong has. There are several that cause extreme sensitivity to sunlight. I'm rooting for UV Sensitivity Syndrome, which apparently allows normal life expectancy. The others...don't. It makes for some grim reading.

Putting my phone away, I busy myself in the kitchen. I don't want to think about the possibility that my girlfriend has something like xeroderma pigmentosum. It's easier to pack lunches and wash dishes and nag my cousins about their worksheets.

We have them in extra prep classes. We're hoping they can get into one of the selective high schools, maybe even Stuyvesant. So I check in on them every now and then to make sure they're doing their work.

At last, my phone beeps. I wipe my hands and read Hong's message. "You almost done down there?"

"Almost!" I type, then go back and delete the exclamation point. As if this were an ordinary night. As if we were going to do nothing more than cuddle for a few minutes before she went to work.

"Hurry up," she replies. "I'm getting cold again."

Her stupid circulation problems. There's something wrong with that, too, but who can afford a doctor? I hastily slop food into the last few containers, hardly paying attention to what I'm giving whom, and put it all in the refrigerator.

I take the stairs two at a time, even the rickety fold-down stairs up to the attic. The quilts are mounded up on the rug underneath my hammock. Hong is somewhere in there, not even her head showing. I always feel smothered when my face is covered, but she doesn't mind.

She squeals when I lift the corner and pulls it firmly back down. "Cold! Take your clothes off first!"

"My clothes?"

Her voice emerges from the quilts. "You'll let drafts in if you undress in here. Take them off before you get in."

Oh, yeah, tonight was going to be different. All thoughts of her disease vanish from my mind. I'm naked in seconds.

There's not much light underneath. I grope blindly for her. With a chuckle, she pulls me to her. Her hand slips down to my eager cock. "Someone's excited. What does he think is going to happen tonight, hmm?"

I don't say anything. I can't. Her hand is soft and for once warm. Her fingers skim along my shaft. She teases the sensitive spot underneath the head. I groan.

"Why are you so excited? I said I wanted to suck your blood." She nips at my neck, then kisses my ear. First the lobe, then the hollow behind the lobe, then the angle of my jaw.

For a moment, it's as if I'm paralyzed. The sensations are overwhelming. I've never experienced anything like this. Her skin is incredibly soft. Her breasts press against my back. One of her legs pushes between mine. Her scent fills my nose.

"Say something, Jemmy. I like my food live." She tweaks one of my nipples.

It doesn't hurt much, but it jolts me out of my stupor. I turn in her arms. I fasten my mouth to hers. Her lips part. I roll over onto her. She giggles. My cock is squashed between us, hot and aching with need. I imagine I can feel it throbbing with my roaring pulse.

Then I stop dead.

"What?" she asks.

I groan in frustration. "I don't have a condom. I didn't think..."

"You didn't think we were going to...?"

"No, I did." I laugh shakily, burning with embarrassment. "You have no idea how much I've thought about that. But I didn't think far enough ahead to get condoms."

"Jemmy," she says disapprovingly.

"I'm sorry! I've never done this before!" It pops out before I can stop myself. "Maybe I could pull out?"

"Jemmy!"

I cringe. "I'm sorry. That's stupid. I wouldn't do that to you."

"No, you certainly won't." She rolls me off her.

"Maybe we could just cuddle some more?" I suggest hopefully.

"So because you can't stick your dick in me, we're not going to do anything?"

"What else can we do?"

"Have you heard of oral?" she asks incredulously.

For a split second, I think she means for me, but she reaches for her own waistband. She's wearing plain cotton panties, not a thong like you see in videos. When she shucks those, I see that she has hair down there too. Maybe it's trimmed a little but that's all.

I glory in the sight before me. It's the first time I've seen a naked woman in person. Even in the dim twilight beneath the quilts, she's beautiful.

"You have no idea what to do, do you?" she asks.

I wince and shake my head. I understand now what she means by oral, but I have no idea how to do it. "I'm sorry. You could, um, teach me?"

That makes her smile. It's tender and affectionate. "Well, at least your attitude doesn't need any work. Why don't you start by kissing me here?"

She points to her inner thigh, down by her knee. I squirm down her body. My own legs are sticking out from under the quilts, but I manage to keep an okay seal so the draft doesn't come in.

Step by step, she guides me upward. I lick, kiss, and nibble every inch of her long, creamy thighs, drinking in her sandalwood soap and the growing musk of her arousal.

I've seen vulva before, a thicker outer pair and another, more delicate set within. I've never tasted them, though. They are a little tangy, but clean and mild. And I love how they respond to me. She shows me how to use my lips and tongue and fingers, and they open for me. They moisten and swell and part.

"Play around," she says. "Every woman's different, so you just have to try things and pay attention to how she reacts."

She stops talking after that. She lies under me, twitching a little. I hear her breath catch. She grunts, once, twice.

"Ooh, not yet!" she cries, when I find her clit. "Too much. Need...a little more warm-up first."

The second time I try, she moans approvingly. I flush with pride. I'm a quick learner, it seems.

All too soon, she is pushing me away.

"Did you come already?" I ask, confused. I was expecting more noise, maybe even some screaming and thrashing.

"I don't have to come every time. It's nice even if I don't." She draws me back up and kisses my messy face. "Mm. You taste like me." She giggles.

I love her giggles. I don't think she does it around other people, not that I've seen. Well, she giggled for the asshole, but that was completely different. I feel like she lets me see a side of her not many people do.

"So, um, not to be pushy," I say, "but could we..."

"Are you so eager to see me suck your blood?" She nips at my neck and giggles again. But then she relents. "Okay, my desperate little boy. Do you have some lube?"

There's a pump bottle of lotion on my table. I get it for her. She takes a squirt and slowly works it over my cock.

All I can do is shiver and tremble. Her warm, soft hand slides up and down. The lotion makes it nearly frictionless. Nearly. What an important difference, that one word. All the difference in the world.

She's saying something. I force myself to focus. "Eugh?" I ask.

"I said, do you have a towel or something?"

A towel? Oh. I have a roll of toilet paper on the table. I tell her so.

"And you didn't think to get it with the lotion?"

Her hand stops. My heart lurches. I've fucked this up again.

"Jemmy," she chides me, "you have to think things through. Am I supposed to wait here trying not to touch anything with my hand while you get me your toilet paper? Are you planning to come all over your quilt?"

I can't think. I can't speak. I babble something. I'm not even sure I'm speaking English anymore.

She lets go of me. "Go get the toilet paper."

"Hong," I whine.

"You brought this on yourself, Jemmy. Go get the toilet paper." Her voice is iron.

"Can we keep going after that?"

"What do you think?"

Feeling about an inch tall, I crawl out from under the quilts and get the toilet paper. She wipes her hand silently.

"I didn't know you were going to spring this on me tonight."

It might be the stupidest thing I've said all year. I certainly hope so. I regret it as soon as the words leave my mouth. Maybe I didn't know she was going to do this tonight, but I certainly hoped to do it eventually, didn't I?

Hong's lip curls. "So you don't like it when women initiate? Noted, Jemmy. Duly noted."

I don't know why she's talking like this all of a sudden. She sounds like some kind of bureaucrat. She looks like some kind of...someone used to being in charge. Even sitting naked on my rug with the quilts around her, there is a certain dignity, a certain haughtiness to her.

I should apologize. I should at least stop digging myself in deeper. Instead I lash out. "You know, you could have thought of it. Why didn't you have a condom?"

"Because you need to learn to take responsibility for yourself."

It takes a minute for the meaning of her words to sink in. "Are you saying you knew I didn't have a condom?"

"I'm saying it's not my job to know or not," she snaps. "It's your penis. You want to stick it in me, you need to provide the protection."

"No, you knew, didn't you? This was a setup." I don't know how she could have known, or how I know that she did know, but I'm convinced now. "Did it ever occur to you that sometimes I want a girlfriend, not a teacher?"

Her face crumples for just a moment before she smooths it out. Silently, she starts getting dressed.

I grab the toilet paper and wipe at my crotch, unable to meet her eyes. She lets the ladder down and leaves.

The enormity of my idiocy comes crashing down on me a few seconds later. Hong is right. More importantly, Hong is the best thing that's ever happened to me. Was I really arguing about who should provide the condoms?

Another thought follows immediately. I have to cook now, or my family will be scrambling for their dinner tomorrow. There is no way she is going to come back after that and cook for us. I'll be lucky if she takes me back at all.