At least he finally sucked at something, Poe thought disagreeably.
“I want to thank you for letting me use your shower and bunker,” he said wearily.
“Oh whatever,” Poe waved his indebtedness away. “You let me sleep in your giant bed so it’s only right.” She added, “But I can only offer you that lump of futon on the floor. Sorry.”
Sainvire’s strained face eased. “It looks really comfortable, Poe.”
She didn’t know why her ears reddened at the manner he said her name because it was delivered in such a normal, non-suggestive way.
He stood up and walked around the 200-foot-by-50-foot room replete with junk, karaoke machine, and other perplexing rubbish. He read the titles of books strewn here and there.
“You like to read?”
“Sure. When I’m tired of watching movies. I can read a book a day,” she said proudly.
“Impressive. I see you read all genres.”
“Yeah. I read whatever I find.”
He perused strange-looking stuffed animals and smiled.
“I like this one. What is it?” he asked, tapping the head of the bobbing ceramic toy.
“That’s a forest ghost from Princess Mononoke.
You know, Miyazaki,” she explained. “It glows in the dark.”
“Miyazaki? Can’t say I’ve heard of him.” He put the item down.
“Oh, he’s a great animator and writer. His stuff’s better than any lousy Disney cartoons.”
Sainvire, truly fascinated, asked about the other unfamiliar toys until Poe’s tenseness wafted away, and she became a willing tour guide of her own pad. How 209
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to explain the bluish Moomin, the pear-shaped Totoro holding a leaf umbrella, or a bobbing Mr. T from the Rocky III movie for that matter?
It was tough, but she tried her best until he came upon a near-naked fourteen-inch Rei Ayanami resin doll from the Neon Genesis Evangelion series. Blue-haired Rei only had a skimpy towel covering her most embarrassing body parts. Her perkies were completely at 12:15 attention. Poe evaded his questions and referred to her guns instead, then quickly turned to her movie collection and the subject of the giant poster of Jim Kelly.
“I had to borrow a ladder from the museum to get it down,” Poe said with a sigh.
Since they were already on the topic of video stores, they pleasantly discussed Poe’s favorites, such as Harold and Maude – great soundtrack – and Croupier with Clive Owen, both films sitting in the middle of the stack. Sainvire picked up a copy of Mission Impossible: The Impaling of which the cover had a long, thick, most amorally veined weapon of destruction ever conceived. And it wasn’t Tom Cruise’s exasperating toothy grin, either.
“I don’t think I’ve seen this version before,” he commented with a raised eyebrow.
It went downhill from there. The videos and DVDs, towering high, seemed to spit out awkward titles and jacket covers. Her attempt to drag him to the comic book pile was a no go. Not even her stacks of CDs and records were incentive enough. Poe had no choice but to leave the vampire to his own exploration in the guise of checking on the sleeping dog.
Sainvire’s occasional cough, sniff, chuckle, and throat clearing nearly drove Poe to claw her way above ground for the creatures of the night to have a go at her throat. She was so damn mortified. In my own home, 210
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too! Even Sister Ann didn’t make her feel that low.
And cheap.
Poe gave Penny a heaping rubdown, complete with scratching, petting, and massage. When she couldn’t take Sainvire’s laugh at her expense any longer, Poe finally let out a defensive explanation about the amount of X-rated smut in her living quarters.
“I took whatever I could from the shop next door, okay? I told you, I didn’t know this kind wasn’t like other movies until Sister Ann told me they were bad.”
She glared at him from the bed. “Besides, I mostly put them in the player for the music!”
Sainvire smiled benignly, which pissed Poe off even more. “And how come you’re not melted or dead anyway? You’ve been shot with garlic bullets!”
The vampire put down the tape he’d been holding, walked slowly to the chair, and dragged it to face Poe.
Only when he comfortably straddled the chair, his arms leaning on the chair back, did he answer Poe’s question.
“I’ve developed immunity,” he said simply.
“Say that again?” Poe demanded with disbelief in her voice. His abilities were so damn much that he was starting to become scary. Was he indestructible?
“Perla has been using me as a guinea pig for the past fifteen years, even before the gray clouds.” He