Blood Banked by Tanya Huff

Author:Tanya Huff [Huff, Tanya]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-625675-38-5
Publisher: Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
Published: 2021-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

Author’s Note

Wow. I thought the lack of cell phones was the one thing that aged these stories, but I’d forgotten that Henry sends a fax. I’d also forgotten about Lilah. I think Lilah may need a story of her own…

SOMEONE TO SHARE THE NIGHT

You write for a living, Henry reminded himself, staring at the form on the monitor. A hundred and fifty thousand publishable words a year. How hard can this be? Red-gold brows drawn in, he began to type.

“Single white male seeks… no…” The cursor danced back. “Single white male, mid-twenties, seeks…” That wasn’t exactly his age, but he rather suspected that personal ads were like taxes, everybody lied. “Seeks…”

He paused, fingers frozen over the keyboard. Seeks what? he wondered staring at the five words that, so far, made up the entire fax. Then he sighed, and removed a word. He had no real interest in spending time with those who used race as a criterion for friendship. Life was too short. Even his.

“Single male, mid-twenties, seeks…” He glanced down at the tabloid page spread out on his desk seeking inspiration. Unfortunately, he found wishful thinking, macho posturing, and, reading between the lines, a quiet desperation that made the hair rise off the back of his neck.

“What am I doing?” Rolling his eyes, he shoved his chair away from the desk. “I could walk out that door and have anyone I wanted.”

Which was true.

But it wouldn’t be what he wanted.

This is not an act of desperation, he reminded himself. Impatient, perhaps. Desperate, no.

“Single male, mid-twenties, not into the bar scene…” The phrase meat market was singularly apt in his case. “…seeks…”

What he’d had.

But Vicki was three thousand miles odd miles away with a man who loved her in spite of changes.

And Tony, freed from a life of mere survival on the streets, had defined himself and moved on.

They’d left a surprising hole in his life. Surprising and painful. Surprisingly painful. He found himself unwilling to wait for time and fate to fill it.

“Single male, mid-twenties, not into the bar scene, out of the habit of being alone, seeks someone strong, intelligent and adaptable.”

Frowning, he added, “Must be able to laugh at life.” Then he sent the fax before he could change his mind. The paper would add the electronic mailbox number when they ran it on Thursday.

*

Late Thursday or early Friday depending how the remaining hours of darkness were to be defined, Henry picked a copy of the paper out of a box on Davie Street and checked his ad. In spite of the horror stories he’d heard to the contrary, they’d not only gotten it right, but placed it at the bottom of the first column of Alternative Lifestyles where it had significantly more punch than if it had been buried higher up on the page.

Deadlines kept him from checking the mailbox until Sunday evening.

There were thirty-two messages. Thirty-two.

He felt flattered until he actually listened to them and then, even though no one else knew, he felt embarrassed about feeling flattered.

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