Dead Until Dark (Sookie Stackhouse #1)(51)

He helped me down into the spa, the water frothing around our legs.

“Shall I bathe you first?” he asked.

“No,” I said breathlessly. “Give me the soap.”





Chapter 7


THE NEXT NIGHT Bill and I had an unsettling conversation. We were in his bed, his huge bed with the carved headboard and a brand-new Restonic mattress. His sheets were flowered like his wallpaper, and I remember wondering if he liked flowers printed on his possessions because he couldn’t see the real thing, at least as they were meant to be seen . . . in the daylight.

Bill was lying on his side, looking down at me. We’d been to the movies; Bill was crazy about movies with aliens, maybe having some kindred feeling for space creatures. It had been a real shoot-em-up, with almost all the aliens being ugly, creepy, bent on killing. He’d fumed about that while he’d taken me out to eat, and then back to his place. I’d been glad when he’d suggested testing the new bed.

I was the first to lie on it with him.

He was looking at me, as he liked to do, I was learning. Maybe he was listening to my heart pounding, since he could hear things I couldn’t, or maybe he was watching my pulse throb, because he could see things I couldn’t, too. Our conversation had strayed from the movie we’d seen to the nearing parish elections (Bill was going to try to register to vote, absentee ballot), and then to our childhoods. I was realizing that Bill was trying desperately to remember what it had been like to be a regular person.

“Did you ever play ‘show me yours’ with your brother?” he asked. “They now say that’s normal, but I will never forget my mother beating the tarnation out of my brother Robert after she found him in the bushes with Sarah.”

“No,” I said, trying to sound casual, but my face tightened, and I could feel the clenching of fear in my stomach.

“You’re not telling the truth.”

“Yes, I am.” I kept my eyes fixed on his chin, hoping to think of some way to change the topic. But Bill was nothing if not persistent.

“Not your brother, then. Who?”

“I don’t want to talk about this.” My hands contracted into fists, and I could feel myself begin to shut down.

But Bill hated being evaded. He was used to people telling him whatever he wanted to know because he was used to using his glamor to get his way.

“Tell me, Sookie.” His voice was coaxing, his eyes big pools of curiosity. He ran his thumbnail down my stomach, and I shivered.

“I had a . . . funny uncle,” I said, feeling the familiar tight smile stretch my lips.

He raised his dark arched brows. He hadn’t heard the phrase.

I said as distantly as I could manage, “That’s an adult male relative who molests his . . . the children in the family.”

His eyes began to burn. He swallowed; I could see his Adam’s apple move. I grinned at him. My hands were pulling my hair back from my face. I couldn’t stop it.

“And someone did this to you? How old were you?”

“Oh, it started when I was real little,” and I could feel my breathing begin to speed up, my heart beat faster, the panicky traits that always came back when I remembered. My knees drew up and pressed together. “I guess I was five,” I babbled, talking faster and faster, “I know you can tell, he never actually, ah, screwed me, but he did other stuff,” and now my hands were shaking in front of my eyes where I held them to shield them from Bill’s gaze. “And the worst thing, Bill, the worst thing,” I went on, just unable to stop, “is that every time he came to visit, I always knew what he was going to do because I could read his mind! And there wasn’t anything I could do to stop it!” I clamped my hands over my mouth to make myself shut up. I wasn’t supposed to talk about it. I rolled over onto my stomach to conceal myself, and held my body absolutely rigid.

After a long time, I felt Bill’s cool hand on my shoulder. It lay there, comforting.

“This was before your parents died?” he said in his usual calm voice. I still couldn’t look at him.

“Yes.”

“You told your mama? She did nothing?”

“No. She thought I was dirty minded, or that I’d found some book at the library that taught me something she didn’t feel I was ready to know.” I could remember her face, framed in hair about two shades darker than my medium blond. Her face pinched with distaste. She had come from a very conservative family, and any public display of affection or any mention of a subject she thought indecent was flatly discouraged.

“I wonder that she and my father seemed happy,” I told my vampire. “They were so different.” Then I saw how ludicrous my saying that was. I rolled over to my side. “As if we aren’t,” I told Bill, and tried to smile. Bill’s face was quite still, but I could see a muscle in his neck jumping.

“Did you tell your father?”

“Yes, right before he died. I was too embarrassed to talk to him about it when I was younger; and Mother didn’t believe me. But I couldn’t stand it anymore, knowing I was going to see my great-uncle Bartlett at least two weekends out of every month when he drove up to visit.”

“He still lives?”

“Uncle Bartlett? Oh, sure. He’s Gran’s brother, and Gran was my dad’s mother. My uncle lives in Shreveport. But when Jason and I went to live with Gran, after my parents died, the first time Uncle Bartlett came to her house I hid. When she found me and asked me why, I told her. And she believed me.” I felt the relief of that day all over again, the beautiful sound of my grandmother’s voice promising me I’d never have to see her brother again, that he would never never come to the house.