Epiphany

by Tara Ann Stridh

rated NC-17

Darla/Lindsey

spoilers - Epiphany

feedback - DarlaAnn400@aol.com

*Characters do not belong to me:(

“I’m sorry she’ll never love you.” said Angel, kneeing Lindsey in the stomach and throwing him against the side of the truck. “I’m sorry you’re gonna have to love with that. I’m sorry I didn’t try harder to help you when you came to me. I’m sorry you made the wrong choice.”

Lindsey was on the ground - beaten. The stake was inches away from him but just out of reach. Quickly, Lindsey rolled over, the sledgehammer missing his plastic hand and hitting the pavement hard. He grabbed the stake in his good hand, jumped up despite the burning pain in his ribs and lunged the piece of sharpened wood into Angel’s heart.

“I’m not. She will love me,” Lindsey said.

Then Angel was nothing but dust and Lindsey stepped aside, making certain none of it got on him. Lindsey looked down at the fallen ash and spit.

He winced and touched his bruised and swollen face lightly. Walking back to his truck he tossed the stake and sledgehammer into the back. Then he got into his truck and drove home to her.

~&~

She was throwing things into a large black velvet carpetbag when he got home. Darla didn’t look at him as he stood in the bedroom.

“He won’t touch you again.”

She suddenly stopped and looked to him. He couldn’t help but notice how different she looked. So broken, so innocent, so sad.

“You killed him,” she said. “I felt him.”

“Did you cry?” he asked.

Darla didn’t take her eyes off him.

“No,” she said.

“You’re not leaving,” Lindsey said, his voice calm and velvet gravel soft. “You’re not leaving me.”

“Why not, Lindsey?”

“Because I don’t want you to.”

“Hm, finally, you’re biting back. I like that, but you still have so much to learn, sweetpea.

“Are you shy, Lindsey? Can you take off your clothes by yourself or do you need me to do it for you?”

“I don’t want to play games,” he said.

“I’m not playing a game.”

She walked to him and slowly pulled his jacket off his shoulders. Her violet-hazel eyes studied the bruises by his eye, her fingertips gentle against them as if she was reading their secrets.

“I don’t cry because he’s gone, because you killed him for me, for you. I cry because he told me he never loved me.”

“I cry because you don’t love me,” he said, looking into her eyes.

“I do love you,” she said. “Or you make me believe I do.”

Darla leaned forward and kissed his lips.

“Silly boy,” she whispered, “take off your clothes.”

She didn’t watch as he undressed. Instead she stood by the window, looking out at the soft rain against the glass. Only once did she allow her eyes to glance into the mirror at his reflection.

She did look different, he thought. Her hair wasn’t as bright, her skin wasn’t as alive. She was hurting. Angel had hurt her inside out and it showed, it really showed. She looked like a girl. Just a girl. No make-up. No fancy threats. She was Darla, the woman he wanted to protect and love, if only she would let him. Still, he was tempted to question her.

“What are you going to do to me?”

She smiled faintly and shrugged.

“What would you like me to do to you, Lindsey? I could claw your heart out and lick away the blood, but it would only sicken me. All that love. For me.”

“Darla, you deserve to be loved.”

“Don’t say that. Don’t say my name.”

She walked to him, her bare feet light upon the thin carpet. With one hand tightening on his shoulder she set him to his knees. Then she raised her dusty red skirt up over her bruised knees and thighs.

“Kiss me,” she said.

Lindsey’s hand fingered the bruises on her small knees. Bruises he had given her. Then his hands reached to her hips and he pulled off her pale yellow panties.

Staring at her beautiful cunt, all he could think of was how Angel had been there. How he had taken her and made her think he was coming back to her. How he had used her and didn’t apologize. There were small cuts at her elbows, too. Lindsey didn’t want to use her; he wanted to love her.

“Lindsey,” she said.

He lay his face into her soft blondeness, embracing her against him. He kissed her a hundred times, kiss upon kiss.

“Fuck me, Lindsey,” she said softly, “and lay the whore to rest.”

She began to laugh, lost and tranquil.

Lindsey stood up, grabbed her shoulders and shook her violently.

“No, Darla, you’re not a whore,” he said, his voice firm.

She was still laughing and he shook her again.

“You’re not a whore!”

“Then what am I, Lindsey!? What am I?!” She began to cry and sat at the foot of the bed. “I’ll always be a whore, Lindsey. Four hundred years doesn’t change that. I was foolish to think it did.”

Kneeling beside her Lindsey held her wrists.

She pushed him away, shoving her nails into his chest, and ran to the bathroom. Opening the medicine cabinet she took out his razor. Darla began to slash at her wrists and arms.

“Here!” she said, “Drink and take this whore’s blood out of me.”

Still cutting she went to Lindsey, grabbed his neck and pushed him down on to the bed. She pressed her free arm to his mouth, smearing her blood over his lips.

He struggled within her grip until finally she let him push her away.

She sat by the bed, blood on her skirt and beige camisole top.

“See, even you don’t want the blood of a whore.”

Lindsey licked his lips, tasting her, and sat up. He stared at Darla watching the cuts bleed.”

“It’s funny, you know,” she said, her voice chiming gently. “Blood. You take it from others for so long you forget you have it in you, too.”

“Darla, I love you.”

“Is that supposed to make everything better, Lindsey? . . . It stings.”

In the moonlight Lindsey crawled to her. She pulled away as he reached for her arms.

Darla rolled her eyes and snickered.

“I’m not human, Lindsey! It’ll heal. All in good time.”

Then she grabbed his arm, her fingers bruising his skin.

“I want to break you so bad. Tell me, am I perfect despair? Every time you touch me, look at me, fuck me, am I perfect despair? What does your heart tell you?”

“It hurts,” he said, “when I do all those things. You cut it into a dozen pieces with one look, one word, one touch and you melt it on your tongue. You’re a never-ending intangible nightmare . . . the kind with roses.”

“Red or white?”

“White.”

“With thorns,” she said.

“With little crystal teeth.”

“You like the way I bite you?” Darla said.

Lindsey nodded.

“You keep chewing at me, but you never swallow.”

“He’s gone. You killed him,” she said, tears still in her eyes.

“Yes,” Lindsey said. “He’s really gone. You’re finally free.”

“That’s something I’ll never be,” she said. “Make love to me and look deep in my eyes. It’s scary.”

Lindsey said, “It’s doesn’t have to be.”

“I’m not going to leave you,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Because you don’t want me to.”