and calves. Poe squeezed her arm muscles, liking what she saw. Deep dimples appeared on either cheek.
“Good to see all the pull-ups, sit-ups, and muscle toning worked,” she said, pleased. “Anything to avoid being a ‘big head.’”
She had become obsessed after coming across a very disturbing book about kids locked up in the attic.
They had big heads but tiny bodies. Having little exercise and no sun exposure for years, the littlest kids became deformed. The eldest brother and sister began an incestual relationship. It was quite troubling. Never want that shit to happen to me, no siree.
Letting her wet black hair fall from beneath the towel, Poe was surprised to see how long it had grown.
She usually cut it about shoulder length, but her old scissors had clunked out on her months ago, and she was too lazy to look for another pair.
What’ll I wear?
Poe spied a huge black robe hung behind the door.
No doubt it was Sainvire’s. She put it on and went outside. On the big bed lay several floral dresses, short, medium, and long.
“Yeah, right,” Poe huffed. “Over my dead body.”
She’d sworn off dresses when she was six. Her mother had to just about stomp her to get her to wear 105
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frilly little things for functions and such. The pressure had become so bad that Poe begged for a whacking on the butt rather than endure the humiliation of wearing a dress.
Poe opened Sainvire’s closet and pondered the contents. She snatched a pair of black pants, a black tshirt, and some socks.
“He won’t miss these. He’s got lots.” Like Poe, Sainvire owned twenty pairs of the same outfits.
Taking the scissors from the medical tray, Poe planted herself on Sainvire’s bed and cut away at his clothes. When the pant legs, shirt sleeves, and belt were sheared to her satisfaction, Poe finally allowed herself to think about how the vampire would react.
She shrugged her shoulders, thinking that if she was going to croak tonight, might as well go pissing off the famous master of the city – in a pair of his pants.
(((
He wasn’t pissed; he was merely amused.
The young woman didn’t bother to conceal the newly filched bedroom weapons bulging in the pockets of her – his – butchered pants. One of his belts duly shortened cinched the ridiculously large pants about her tapered waist. The fabric crotch nearly reached her knees. Hooked onto the belt was a pair of scissors and three hastily sharpened lead pencils. His partly tucked black t-shirt hung loose and long on Poe’s frame.
The ludicrous pants made him shake his head. The bottom of the slacks, accidentally cut high-water length, gave Poe a Huck Finn look, especially since she walked barefoot and one pant leg was shorter than the other. He noticed something different about her. Poe’s once unfettered bosom was bound underneath the shirt.
He smiled grimly. So the girl finally noticed them.
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Sainvire watched her go down the third set of escalators with sharp vampire eyes from where he perched on a glass walkway smack in the middle of the library. He decided to let her explore before telling her what heinous part he had played in the deaths of Sister Ann and Goss.
(((
Poe imagined several scenarios of the master vampire mauling her to death upon discovering what she’d done to his pants. But after minutes of nasty internal debate, Poe finally decided to explore and perhaps find a way out. She donned her hastily fashioned weapons onto her belt. Her Adidas were soaking wet and made squeaky, squelchy sounds, so she took them off and left them to dry in the bathroom.
“Too slippery,” Poe muttered, kicking off the vampire’s huge socks once she’d reached the puppet theater. They made her clumsy on the tile and marble floors. Sainvire’s clothes smelled like Snuggles fabric softener, the same brand her dad had used for laundry.
Such familiar scents unnerved her. She shifted her attention to the problem at hand. Banking on her hunch that Sainvire had already claimed her for his supper, she prayed that the other vampires would leave her alone.
“I’m going to reconnoiter a bit, doggy. I can’t get us out of here without proper weapons,” she whispered to the battered dog still knocked out from drugs. “I don’t know what Sainvire’s game is, but I swear to you, I will knit his intestines into a sweater with number two pencils if it’s the last thing I do.”
Once satisfied that her dog was still asleep and breathing, Poe