I woke up in a gloomy mood tonight. There was no particular reason I could pinpoint. Sometimes I’m just like that. When Rosanna came up, I was in the living room lying on the sofa, still in black silk pajamas and with a pillow over my face. Her voice cracked as she crowed the cock-a-doodle-do thing. I ripped the pillow off my face and threw it at her. She dodged and laughed. She was wearing a hot pink negligee which showed more skin than satin. She had her phone in her hand and was headed to the front door. She showed me her phone. It was a photo of our front porch. “I got an Amazon delivery.”

  “You’re going out like that?”

  “No one can see.”

  Now that I’m writing this, I’m thinking she’s right. No one can see for the trees. Yelena’s barrier of Italian cypress trees. If that’s clever I’m never clever in the moment.

  Rosanna opened the door and went out. She came back balancing a cardboard box atop a thin wooden box she held in her hands. “You got something too, Orly. It wasn’t in the Amazon pic so it must’ve come after. It’s from a gallery.” She put her box on the floor and continued holding the wooden box. “Where do you want it?”

  “You can just leave it there.”

  “You don’t want to see what’s inside?”

  “I know what’s inside.”

  “But I wanna see. Can I open it?”

  “You sound like Kristy. Go ahead.”

  The box was screwed shut.

  “Do we have a screwdriver?”

  “Yeah. But try using your mind to unscrew them.” I rolled over on my side to watch her.

  Rosanna put the wooden box on the marble coffee table and stood over it, fixing her gaze on the screw in the top left corner. “I can’t do it,” she sighed. She lowered herself and tried pinching her fingers over the screw, to see if she could pull it out.

  “Don’t do that. You’re gonna break a nail,” I said, then mentally, I unscrewed the wood screws that ran around the perimeter of the box, all twelve of them at once until they were standing on point and fell over together. She thanked me and lifted off the panel and removed enough of the sponge packing material to remove the item protected inside.

  “It’s a painting. Of a woman.”

  She held it up and showed me. I didn’t say anything. Rosanna first looked for a way to stand it upright on the coffee table, but there was nothing suitable to lean it against that would hold its weight, so she took it back to where she had put down her cardboard box, set it atop it and leaned it against the wall. She stared at the portrait a little longer, then turned and looked at me as if waiting for an explanation.

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  I extended my arms out to her. “Come be my blanket.”

  “If it pleases you, Imparateasa,” she answered and curtsied as she approached.

  “Please don’t start with that.”

  “We need to practice,” Rosanna said and then she lay herself on top of me. Our cheeks pressed together as we stared at the painting.

  “I bought it on my gallery date with Vance. What do you think?”

  “I don’t love it. She’s beautiful, but she looks intimidating. Are you going to hang it in the house?”

  “No.”

  “I’m glad,” Rosanna said and kissed my face. She rested her cheek on mine once more. “Is she a real person? I mean, I suppose the artist used a model but…”

  “I know what you mean. She’s deceased.”

  “That makes her even more scary. Dead and still staring you down like that.”

  “Her name was Triana. She was Los Angeles de Sangre. I killed her during the war. I wish now that I hadn’t.”

  “Why?”

  “I think I might’ve liked her.”

  “Did she fight you?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Then I’m glad you killed her first. But why do you think you would’ve liked her?”

  “She just had this thing about her. She stood out from the others. And she wasn’t afraid when I killed her. She was part of a group that was hunting us. I killed all of them to make some kind of point. But even then, a small part of me wanted to leave her alive and tell her to go home and forget it all.”

  “She probably wasn’t thinking the same about you.”

  “Maybe not. But I blame Trajan, not her. You know that dress I have with the blood all over it? That’s her blood.”

  “Why do you keep it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Let’s burn them. The dress and the painting and like you said, forget it all.”

  “What’s in the box you got?”

  “A sparkly minidress with a sweetheart neckline, a burr espresso grinder, and a waterproof bunny—no, not bunny, I meant rabbit, a rabbit vibrator.”

  “Amazon really does sell everything. What color is the minidress?”

  “Silver.”

  “That’ll look good on you. You better not get the other two items mixed up.”

  I felt her face smile. “I’ll keep them in different drawers.”

  “What time are you going out tonight?”

  “I’m too comfortable to go out.”

  Hearing her voice those words, I felt loved. My eyes closed and I savored them. I inhaled her scent and reopened my eyes. I stuck my finger in my mouth and punctured my finger upon my right fang. Using my bleeding finger like lipstick, I painted Rosanna’s lips then held it there, pressed against them, until she opened her mouth. I placed my finger upon her tongue. She closed her full bloodied lips around my finger and sucked, swallowing my blood until the wound healed. I slipped my finger from between her lips then reached behind her head and pulled her face to mine. Our lips met and my own blood, still damp upon hers, was reapplied lightly upon mine. She smiled. Holding her chin between my fingers, I turned her head and kissed her cheek, leaving there a faint lip print of empress blood. I pulled my blanket tightly into me and she rested her head upon my collarbone.

  Eventually we got up. We washed the blood from our faces and got dressed. Rosanna made espresso while I made a drink. I asked if she remembered to order batteries. She replied, “It’s USB,” and we laughed. I repacked the painting, screwing the wooden box shut, and put it in a closet beneath the box containing the bloodstained dress. And now I’m on my third scotch, writing this. When I finish, which is about now, Rosanna and I are going to binge watch The Bachelorette.

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