“Yea, I think I do,” said Colette. “If you want us to be equals, then we have to be equal in everything.”
“OK,” I said. “I wish that you had the same ability and power to shape shift that I have.”
“That will be fun to test later,” said Colette.
“Geez,” I said. “Do you plan to sleep at all?”
“Maybe not,” said Colette. Her grin told me she had mischief on her mind. “Do you want to find someone’s
thoughts to read?”
I said, “In a minute. I want to tell you something first. You might not like it.”
“Oh,” she said as the smile vanished from her face. “What’s that?”
“I told you my inspiration for doing this was Dracula,” I said. “That’s why I made the castle and that’s why
I made you my bride. But I didn’t want just one bride.”
Colette looked down. “That’s not something a girl wants to hear,” she said as she kept her eyes fixed to the
ground. “It doesn’t make sense, either.” She looked at me again with hurt in her eyes. “You said you wanted
us to be equals. Now that you tell me this, it makes me think you were just seducing me, like you promised
you weren’t.”
“I know,” I said. “I know and…”
“Don’t go saying you’re sorry,” she said.
“Alright, I won’t,” I said. “Before you get angrier, let me tell you a few other things I have a mind to do.”
I proceeded to lay out an entire plan for her. It was what I intended to do with the castle. There were all
those rooms in the castle for a reason, I told her, so I intended to fill them with tenants, so to speak. As
she listened to my ideas it seemed that she became gradually more receptive.
I made what I thought would be a decent closing argument. “I know you told me another time when we were in
the castle, and that’s fine, but I have a feeling there’s someone out there who you’d like to get some revenge
upon,” I said. “I promise to you that whoever he is, we’ll do whatever you want to him, no matter what that
is.”
“You’re assuming that it’s a ‘he,’” she said. “And that it was just one person.”
This statement shocked me to no end. What kind of sordid past did Colette have? Or was I just being
paranoid? “What do you—“
“I said ‘another time,’ and I meant it,” she said sternly. She glared at me for several seconds. It was a
little scary.
“You’re right,” I said. “I am sorry.”
“Thank you,” she said. An awkward silence followed. I took the first few sips from my glass and found that
what Colette said about it was true. It tasted wonderful. Colette finally said, “I like your ideas, but if
you want to have two more brides, there are two conditions.”
“OK,” I said.
“First of all, we’re equals, but they won’t be,” she said. “They don’t get to have all the same powers we
do.”
“OK,” I said.
She took a deep breath. “Here’s the second condition,” she said. “I get to pick the two. You get final
approval, but I pick them. Deal?”
I didn’t have any objections. “Deal,” I said.
“This is a good place to start looking,” she said. “How about we try to read some thoughts and see if we can
find a good prospect?”
“Sounds like fun,” I said.
Before we could engage our powers, our waitress, Rose, returned to the table. “You two still doing OK here?”
she asked.
I looked at Colette who had drank more than me. “I’m fine,” she said.
“Yea, we’re OK for now,” I agreed.
“OK,” said Rose and she walked away briskly. She didn’t seem to be quite as courteous as the last time.
I decided to mention this to Colette. “Did she seem a bit less friendly to you?” I asked. I wasn’t looking
at Colette when I asked the question, so I was surprised to not get an immediate response. I glanced at
Colette and saw that she was staring intently at Rose as she tended to her other tables. “What are you—“
“Shh,” Colette cut me off. It took me a second to realize that Colette must have been reading Rose’s
thoughts. I wondered if she saw something in Rose. Personally I couldn’t see it. Rose was nice looking
enough, but she was no head-turner in the way that Colette was. She had very blonde hair which I had trouble
telling whether it was her natural color. It was also shorter as it only reached the tips of her shoulders.
To me her hair had neither the color nor the length that I would desire for a vampire bride. She was shorter
than Colette. Her figure wasn’t as shapely, her breasts not as large nor her waist as thin. She wasn’t fat
but she just didn’t have the same desirable characteristics.
“Getting anything?” I asked Colette when I decided I’d been quiet long enough.
“Yea,” she said. “Mostly that she’s having a hard time tonight. She’s getting a lot of shit from one of her
tables.”
“Oh yea?” I asked. “Which one?”
Colette replied, “I think it’s the table of…”