Vie shrugged. “Perhaps, but this is better. Besides, I’ve lived a long time. I don’t require food, and the only reason I own physical buildings is to store the things I’ve collected over the years and as investments.” He gestured down at his black pants and hoodie. “My wardrobe isn’t expensive. What else am I going to spend money on?”
“I guess,” I said, still feeling skeptical.
He gave me a pleased look. “For the first time, I’m enjoying having wealth. It pleases me to spend this money on you. Would you deny me this joy?”
Put like that, I couldn’t refuse. “I want to bring you all the joy!”
He chuckled. “Where to next?”
“I know it’s not flattering, but I’m hungry again,” I admitted with a little frown. “Which is weird because I ate way too much at breakfast. Maybe it was all the exercise last night.”
“I hope we can work out again tonight,” Vie said with a straight face. “So you should take us to wherever you’d like to eat.”
I laughed. Even though I should be spending my day off doing laundry and other chores, I put them off. Having Vie in my life meant I deserved a day off! Besides, this car was begging to be driven around.
“Let’s head up the coast and eat at a place I know in Oceanside,” I said, pressing the on button to start the new car. “We’ll put some miles on this beast!”
I’d never driven something so nice, and I was a little too tentative for Southern California traffic. I got cut off and honked at a lot. Vie was very upset, and I think he was close to goinghunting for some of the other drivers. When I laughed and waved at one of the angry drivers, Vie’s foul mood vanished.
“You’re unbothered,” he said, watching a truck swerve around us and flip me off. I waved again.
“I had to commute for four hours a day for about a year,” I explained. “When you do that much driving in heavy traffic, you either learn to be Zen about it or you start hating life.”
He scowled at the cars around us. “I still don’t like how so many of these drivers are acting.”
I snorted. “I like that you’ve lived this long, and you're only now realizing that humans are dicks when they’re gathered in large groups. I bet there was road rage back in ancient Rome.”
Vie grunted and glared at another car rushing past us. I worked on speeding up a little. I pressed down on the gas, amazed at the car’s lack of jittering or buzzing. I’d never driven anything so quiet or smooth.
I decided to use distraction to keep Vie from disappearing to eat some driver.
“You were amazing last night,” I said, then teased him. “You said no wraith has ever done anything with a human before. Did you read some naughty books to learn so much?”
Vie’s angry expression disappeared, replaced with consternation. “After I embarrassed myself during our kiss, I went to my brother, Sorrow, for guidance. He took me to a woman named Inola who educated me about human sexuality.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. “Educated?”
“Yes. She works at a place that sells sexual items, and there was a room in the back where you could watch films. She showed us one of her and her girlfriend having sex. Then she answered my questions and gave me advice. I think Sorrow was interested also because he hopes to find someone like you.”
He made the interaction with Inola sound wholesome. It was the kind of sex ed all guys should get. Judging by how good Viewas last night, Inola should start her own business doing only that.
“Sorrow wants to find someone like me?” I asked. “He’s another wraith, right?”
“Yes. He’d rather I called him Teo, but it’s hard to remember when my brothers change their names every century or so.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, having only 100 years to remember a new name is hard.”
He huffed. “I’ll try harder if it would make you happy.”
“I think it would make us all happy if you stopped dead-naming your brothers,” I said. “Now, back to why Teo’s so interested in your sex life.”
“You must understand that what I experienced with you has never happened to another wraith,” he said. “We don’t feel passion or love like humans do.”
“Until now,” I murmured. Knowing that not only was I Vie’s first, but I was the first for any wraith ever was heavy knowledge.
“Until now,” he agreed. “Now I feel a different kind of hunger. I still want to feast on humans who stink of violence, but I also want to feast on your body. I want to fill the room with your whimpers, gasps, and cries of pleasure. Nothing tastes as good as your climax.”
His words almost made me swerve into the next lane to exit the freeway and head back to his place.
