I stood agape as I looked around my home. The place looked cleaner, brighter, and the furniture had been nicely rearranged. There was a hominess about...the place that I had never been able to achieve.Pat came out of the bathroom wearing rubber gloves, shorts, a t-shirt, flip-flops and carrying a bucket of cleaning paraphernalia, “Oh, hi, Robert. Welcome home. I was just freshening up the bathrooms.”“What have you been doing while I have been gone? The place looks...”“I hope you’re not mad, but I. Look! We are just leaving this tiny little village of four or five houses and there is a sign pointing to another village, stating it is 0.2 KM ahead.Yep. There it is. Two hundred yards down the long winding road, there are three more houses. There must be a story there, but we will never know it.When will we stop for lunch?I’m trying to make it to Little Dick.Little Dick? There’s a town named Little Dick?Loosely translated, yes. The official name is La Petite-Pierre. It is a beautiful little. Another tried to fight me. I dodged his advances with his knife, finding away around him and then dug my teeth deep into his neck, drawing his blood for my own needs. The remaining men turned tail and ran. I hesitated a moment to consider the thought to let them run free.Before I returned to Grace who sat by a short, brick wall, I wiped my chin. blood lust was not something I wanted to frighten her with. Not just yet. She had been scared witless already. I did not want to compound her. It fucks with my head. She fucks with my head. With friends like her, who needs drugs.Dannie fingers a cigarette out from Thomas’s cigarette case, lights it, and inhales some smoke. She turns towards me and breathes the smoke into my mouth. It takes all my concentration to – I don’t know – to something. Maybe it’s the alcohol and the drugs, and maybe it’s the sleep deprivation of sophomore year but Dannie is magical. My own naughty little pixie. She takes another drag off the cigarette. .