The soles of Tabbie's feet felt like someone had spent the whole day pounding them with hammers, and her eyes were bleary and exhausted by the time she finally got on the crowded bus and grabbed for a handhold to keep herself from falling over. She almost laughed, looking at the window of the bus and seeing herself reflected back by the fluorescent light; a year ago, during the height of the pandemic, she had been unable to imagine ever getting a waitressing job again. Now she was working double shifts every day of the week. It showed, too; her vibrant topaz complexion had become wan and ashen from lack of sunlight, and her long dark hair hung lank and greasy against her scalp. "Girl, you need a vacation," she muttered softly to herself, knowing she'd never take one.
The bus stopped a few more times, adding people until Tabbie was squeezed on all sides and she could no longer see herself in the window. She didn't mind. She still wasn't a big fan of her own reflection, not with a lengthy gap in her hormone replacement therapy thanks to shitty insurance and unemployment. She'd managed to survive thanks to her girlfriend's savings, but a lot of things Tabbie once thought of as necessities had to go by the wayside. Like everyone else, she was just beginning to get her life back. It didn't take much to remind her of the bad old days right now.
The crush of people slowly eased over the next dozen stops, although not until Tabbie collected a grope or two from some asshole who kept pretending it was an accident that his hand went to her butt every time the bus took a corner. She was glad as hell when she finally managed to slip into a seat and remove his temptation while easing her sore feet at the same time. She was gladder still when he got out long before she did. The last thing she needed tonight was a fucking walk home with a stalker on top of everything else.
It was nearly midnight by the time she got to her stop, and Tabbie had caught herself nodding off three times during the long ride out to Humboldt Park. She rose to her aching feet, forcing herself to walk out the cramps in her calves, and began the four block trudge to the tiny efficiency apartment she shared with Riko. Despite her exhaustion, despite the pain, despite the gropey asshole and the table of eight that tipped five percent, she began to walk a little bit faster as she got closer to home. She was going to see her girlfriend soon. It was hard to stay mad when she had that tucked into the back of her mind.
Tabbie pulled open the broken security door, stepped around the small conversation that had spilled out of the downstairs neighbor's party, and walked up two flights of stairs to her apartment. She already knew even before she opened the door that Riko would be waiting for her; any time Tabbie came home after dark, she could expect her lover to watch for her out the window. Tabbie never looked up to check; when Riko asked about it once, Tabbie just smiled and said, "I don't need to see you to know you're looking out for me."
And sure enough, Riko was waiting just inside the doorway, her long white hair pulled back in a ponytail and a glass of thick green liquid held out in one pale hand. "Kale smoothie," she said, pressing it into Tabbie's unresisting fingers and leading her over to the couch. "With some greek yogurt in it. Drink it up and sit your ass down while I make you dinner, you look like you got under the bus instead of on it."
"Yes, Mistress." A rueful smile on her face, Tabbie kicked off her shoes and flopped down onto the worn-out old sofa. They'd talked about replacing it, but privately Tabbie was kind of glad every time something else took precedence over new furniture in their carefully-managed budget. The sagging cushions remembered every time Tabbie had snuggled up to Riko after a long hard day, and every time they'd fallen asleep there together even though the bed was barely ten feet away. It was something they shared, and it was every bit as hard for Tabbie to let go of the signifiers of her life with Riko as it was easy for her to get rid of the trappings of the time before she discovered herself.
She reached out and turned on the television, flipping channels until she came to a late-night horror movie about a small town getting overrun by vampires. "Hey honey, you're on television!" she called out to the tiny kitchenette where Riko was making her a hamburger on the stove, and Riko flipped her the bird without looking. But it was an affectionate middle finger, and they both knew it.
"I was watching it earlier," she said, sprinkling a little salt into her hands and counting each grain before tossing it into the frying pan. "Bunch of bullshit, that's what I call it. Stephen King should be fucking ashamed of himself. Like I've got the money to go buy a house in Maine? It's all the same with these movies and TV shows. They all assume that the first thing you do after rising from the grave is go out and get a fucking investment banker or something." Wincing, she grabbed the garlic powder and turned her head to the side before tapping it over the sizzling meat.
Tabbie was willing to make a lot of concessions when it came to dating a vampire, but giving up garlic wasn't one of them.
Riko sliced a bun in half and put it in the toaster, then turned to watch the movie with a scowl on her face. "See that?" she said, gesturing with a spatula at the screen where a small child floated through the window to reveal razor-sharp fangs. "That's the kind of shit I'm talking about. How am I even gonna talk with all that crap crammed inside my mouth? And I'm not even going to get into the fucking vampire king or whatever the fuck they call him. Fucking blue-ass Nosferatu wannabe motherfucker. We don't fucking look like that!"
Tabbie watched Riko watching the movie, trying hard to suppress her giggles. She knew full well that one of the most adorable things in the world was seeing Riko get onto a good-natured rant about the portrayal of 'my people' in popular culture; the five thousand year old Japanese vampire was more than used to folklore getting everything wrong about her by now, but that didn't stop her from giving a running commentary on everything from 'The Lost Boys' to Jack Palance's portrayal of Dracula.
"Good lord, he's gonna drink another one?" she said, as Barlow confronted the local priest on the antique cathode tube screen. "What a fucking glutton! Guy like that, Tabbie, a guy like that is what we used to call a greedy motherfucker back in the day. Anyone who thought they needed a whole person to get them through the night, we'd stake him ourselves and stick his head under a crossroads for the worms. The last thing we need is some asshole giving us an even worse name than we already have."
The buns popped up, and Riko snatched them out of the toaster and dropped them onto a plate before adding the patty to the burger and squeezing a dollop of ketchup on top. "You almost finished with that smoothie, pretty girl?" she asked, adding a handful of potato chips on the side. "Because dinner is served, and I know my good girl is going to drink her healthy veggies before she even thinks about having a beer, isn't she?"
Tabbie looked meekly down at the floor before taking a long swig of her kale smoothie. "Yes Mistress," she said softly, licking away the thick, bittersweet liquid from her lips. After four years together as a couple, the honorific came as naturally to Tabbie as the act of submission itself; when your lover had several millennia of life experience on you, a hypnotic gaze that could strip away your will, and the strength and speed to pick up a rhinoceros mid-charge, a certain amount of power exchange crept into the relationship pretty much automatically. And after a pre-Tabbie life she tried very hard not to think about, the young Latina woman liked being taken care of a little.
