I felt his chest rumble as he laughed. The laugh was a little rusty.
"I can't hear you at all," I blathered on, my voice dreamy. "You have no idea how peaceful that is. After a lifetime of blah, blah, blah, to hear ... nothing."
"How do you manage going out with men? With men your age, their only thought is still surely how to get you into bed."
"Well, I don't. Manage. And frankly, at any age, I think their goal is get a woman in bed. I don't date. Everyone thinks I'm crazy, you know, because I can't tell them the truth; which is, that I'm driven crazy by all these thoughts, all these heads. I had a few dates when I started working at the bar, guys who hadn't heard about me. But it was the same as always. You can't concentrate on being comfortable with a guy, or getting a head of steam up, when you can hear they're wondering if you dye your hair, or thinking that your butt's not pretty, or imagining what your boobs look like."
Suddenly I felt more alert, and I realized how much of myself I was revealing to this creature.
"Excuse me," I said. "I didn't mean to burden you with my problems. Thank you for saving me from the Rats."
"It was my fault they had a chance to get you at all," he said. I could tell there was rage just under the calm surface of his voice. "If I had had the courtesy to be on time, it would not have happened. So I owed you some of my blood. I owed you the healing."
"Are they dead?" To my embarrassment, my voice sounded squeaky.
"Oh, yes."
I gulped. I couldn't regret that the world was rid of the Rats. But I had to look this straight in the face, I couldn't dodge the realization that I was sitting in the lap of a murderer. Yet I was quite happy to sit there, his arms around me.
"I should worry about this, but I'm not," I said, before I knew what I was going to say. I felt that rusty laugh again.